I hope you have a wonderful trip. Please feel free to e-mail me via the sidebar and tell me all about it. It would be great to hear how it goes.

Wishing you pleasant and easy travels,

Maya

Sorry for my delay in responding. For some reason I didn’t receive your comment by mail.

In my research for this article, it was my understanding that Ms. did indeed feature a recent article on honor killings, and if I remember from when I was a reader several years back, it was a topic on the agenda. I’m sure their website will be able to orient you on the details.

I hope that the next time I am back in the US (what with its wonderful public library system), I will have a chance to read some of your books.

Thanks for your comment and for helping us focus on the key issues at hand. We may not be our sisters’ keepers, but we should care about their health, happiness, welfare, and survival.

If you haven’t yet read it, I recommend the book Princess, as told to Jean Sasson. It’s a first hand anonymous account from one of the women of the Royal House of Saud.

Maya

Interestingly and disgustingly, their voices remain silent on this issue.

Are we not our sisters’ keepers?

Karen Tintori, author
Unto the Daughters: The Legacy of an Honor Killling in a Sicilian-American Family
http://www.karentintori.com

That sounds right on target.

Advertising is all about changing people’s understanding of your product and the AJC clearly miscalculated their audience.

Maya

It’s obvious you’re thinking a lot about this issue. I’m glad to learn from you.

You are absolutely right in saying that Ms.’ own statement as published on their website should have been stated in my article. If I had seen it, it would have been referenced front and center, but I missed it because of their website’s colors and formatting. I was sloppy and am glad to have made this mistake once in order to prevent it happening again in the future.

I agree with what you are saying about in that a publication’s advertisements should complement its content. Clearly Ms. agreed with you and the way they perceived the ad was as political.

I think where we see things differently is how we understand the advertisement itself. My impression is that you think of it as saying, “Israel is the best,” while I see it saying, “We’re on the right track.”

As Mac comments above, in the end, it doesn’t matter what we think if this is how Ms. saw it. Jillian and Miriam point out that if the AJC really wanted to talk about women in Israel, they may have been better approaching it from a less controversial angle as Israeli politics are inherently problematized.

Thanks for your great comment.

Maya

Maya

Because I write about the Israeli blogosphere, there were many bloggers writing about this who would not be Ms. readers (or even within range) anyway. You can see, for instance, that I quoted the reactions of three men, because those were the Israeli bloggers who were speaking of it. Ideally, I would have liked to include reactions from some women as well.

I do agree with Avi Green of Tel-Chai that those particular women are more likely to be found agreeable by Ms. because they are left-wing, but that assumes an intimate level of knowledge about Israeli politics that there is no reason Ms. would have.

Tell me what you think, but as an immigrant to Israel, I often find Israelis woefully misinformed about how much the world knows about Israel. Perhaps because we are used to seeing Israel’s role in the world vastly inflated and so therefore we think people in the international community know things about us in more detail than they would about other countries. Who knows, but it’s something I like to think about.

Thanks for stopping by,

Maya

Thanks so much!

Too bad this has become such a scandal. Seems like the best thing would have been for Ms. to say, sorry, this version is too political, but we’d love to see a similar version with cultural figures. Not that culture can’t be controversial as well, but it would have been an alternative.

Maya

As for Tel Chai Nation’s incredulity that the magazine wouldn’t feature left-wing politicians – that’s incredible naivety on their part. Do they really believe that the world takes the time to nitpick and differentiate between our political parties? Israeli politicians are Israeli politicians, and that is that.

Given that, I don’t think I am in a position to respond to your views after the first paragraph other than on the point about the difference between advertisements and articles… I’m sorry, but if I do, I’d just be bullshitting :P. So. The 2 points I am in a position to respond to:

1. paragraph 1 – thanks for acknowledging that you did not read the statement on MS’s website. The whole reason I made my comment was because I was quite puzzled as to what MS is all about after reading your GOV article, and so I clicked through the link in your article to MS and what do I find? A statement making what seems to be valid points to which you did not address in your post. Given that GVO is all about giving readers a balanced and diverse look at things, I thought it necessary to point out the omission.

2. ads vs articles – i don’t see what relevance the difference between the purpose of ads and that of articles has to whether MS was justified to refuse the ad in question. MS, like any other magazine, refuses ads that they see as undermining their cause, hence why health megazines won’t run things that say the population is generally healthy (whether the population is or is not generally healthy is irrelevant), and ads or articles that talk about the need for people to “have a healthy diet” and “join a gym” would be more welcome. Every publication is trying to say something, so I think they are fully justified to only publishes ads that do not detract from their cause. I think in MS’s view, not only does the ad NOT “promote women’s equality”, the ad does the contrary. I am not saying it does, MS is.

Just like a magazine advocating an end to human rights violations in Australia would not welcome an ad that says Australia is doing really well with human rights, I think the ad in question may just be the kind of ad that MS doesn’t like. Whether Israel is or is not actually doing well with women’s equality is not a relevant consideration. It is within MS’s rights to reject the ad, just like any other publicationt that has something to say, because from their view point, the ad detracts from their cause.

You said: “The Israeli government doesn’t fit these criteria (eg the ad’s content), but the American Jewish Congress (the advertiser) certainly does.”

That is precisely why I question the AJC’s use of the Israeli government in this advertisement! What agenda are they trying to further – their own (a forward-thinking social justice organization) or that of a government they support (which many Ms. readers most likely do not).

Best,
Jillian

(By the way, fantastic original post if I haven’t said so)

I can only tell you what I’ve read and that is that Ms. seems to be giving many reasons for the rejection, not just this one. Not all of them are in line with each other.

I have no background to speak to what ads they have accepted in the past, what their standard procedure is, or how much communication they have with organizations before the ads are submitted. That would give us a much fuller understanding of the debate.

In response to the quote provided: yes and no. It depends how you look at it. The Israeli government doesn’t fit these criteria (eg the ad’s content), but the American Jewish Congress (the advertiser) certainly does.

Maya