This past week has been so difficult, both physically and emotionally. Last Friday, I spoke my mind on this blog about something that greatly troubled me. It caused a great deal of backlash. I lost friends and group members because of it. Still, I stood by what I felt and my right to speak on my feelings. But I won’t lie, it hurt to have people I love and would do anything for, turn away from me. It felt like abandonment.

Then I got sick on Sunday. Really sick. I spent the next three days in bed. I am taking antibiotics and it is helping but not much. My voice is shot and it has worn me thin.

**TMI ALERT: On Wednesday, Aunt Flo visited. Just what I needed on top of the above.

Last night, my husband decided to tell me that we are going to be moving in June. I literally feel like I’m being ripped away from a place and people I have grown to love. I’m so tired of moving. Tired of the physical move but, more than that, tired of planting roots, making friends and then tearing it all out. Maybe it stems from the loss I suffered when my dad left (I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist,) but I have a really hard time with goodbyes. I adore this house, this neighborhood, the people here. This decision just broke me.

It is all too much right now. I’m trying to focus on the social good trip that I’m heading up in June, but my mind is so full of stress and I’m emotionally wrung out. I feel like I’m running on fumes, a zombie, a shell of who I should be. I know it’s a season and that this too shall pass but man, it sucks. I’m going to take a mental health day and try to keep this quote in mind:

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.
~Carl Jung

I don’t normally post negative things on this site. I try to steer clear of brand controversy on the whole. That being said, I’m about to talk about something that may lose me friends, followers and fans. I don’t care. I have to stand up for what I believe in, especially when it pertains to women and those in the blogging/social media industry.

This morning, while checking my Facebook news feed, I came across a picture that was deeply offensive to me as a woman, a mom and a blogger.

(taken with my phone so forgive the other stuff)

This photo was taken during a blogger trip to see the premiere of Iron Man in Los Angeles. It was taken at the Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum with Disney’s Publicist, Marshall Weinbaum, and four mom bloggers. At first, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The letters WTF crossed my mind. Was it a joke? What did this photo have to do with the Iron Man premiere and why was it on Marshall’s Facebook page? More importantly, why the heck did these four women agree to pose in a truly degrading photo like this?

Let’s look at the facts:

• He is an employee of Disney. These are technically women who worked under him during this trip.
• This trip was a press trip to promote the movie Iron Man.
• Madame Tussaud’s was not a brand sponsored part of the press trip, as reported by Weinbaum. However the title of the photo reads “Mr. Disney Mom Blogger.”
• The photos we placed on Weinbaum’s FB personal FB wall because he does not have a professional page so everything goes on to the same page.
• The women in the photo are on their knees, looking up at him and tugging at his pants.
• The quote I was given earlier about a caption beneath the photo was not captured for proof so I have to treat it as non existent.

Here is why I’m angry:

• This man is a representative of Disney. Even if the photo is on his personal Facebook page, it is his profile picture and will be seen by thousands of people. It is totally unprofessional.
• It is offensive to women. Have we not fought tooth and nail over many decades for women’s equality? Posting photos like this sets us back. I’m sorry, but I kneel before no man. Not even my husband. I am beholden to nobody. I am nobody’s b*tch. This picture portrays what we fight so hard to dispel as women and as bloggers…which brings me to my next point.
• BLOGGERS. Mom Bloggers. We are already dealing with a very negatively spun article that was published by the Wall Street Journal about mom bloggers and our reasons for attending conferences. It was a poorly done piece and while it was twisted to make us look like freedom crazy, porn watching, alcoholic party people, there was some truth to it. This is the truth: Mom bloggers are their own worst enemies. I’ve said it many times. I know this because many years ago, I was one of those types of mom bloggers. I will freely admit that I got drunk at a conference, puked on the hotel floor. I was not a professional and acted like a jack ass. At the time, I didn’t aspire to be a professional. A year later I decided to stop being a part of the problem and clean up my act. Yes, there are still many of those kinds of people out there…in every industry. Mom bloggers take the brunt of the public criticism because we are all supposed to be at home, wearing aprons and knitting sweaters. Men are afraid of us becoming too powerful. They don’t like that the girls are moving up in the industry and will use every trick in the book to keep us down.And then we have the women who help them with stupid choices like posing for the picture above.This does not support advancement of women’s rights and professionalism in blogging.
• Marshall clearly supports equal rights for all. He had the equality sign as his profile picture a few weeks ago. I’m going to assume that this includes women. If so, the photo is glaring contradiction to what he supports.
• These women have daughters and sons. Is this the kind of message that they want to send to their kids? That kneeling before a powerful man is the way to succeed in life? Because that is exactly what I see when I look at the picture.
• Some people have said that the photo was a joke. That the people in the photo are good friends of Marshall. Fine. Then keep the joke between the five of you in a private place. That photo does not belong in association with a Disney sponsored event and certainly doesn’t belong as a marketing tool for this man’s use and on his public Facebook profile.
• I sent a message to Marshall, at 10:30 am today, giving him the opportunity to talk about his choice to post the photo, but got no response until 2:30 pm, when this post went live. Maybe I should have given him the whole day to call but I find it interesting that he didn’t find the time to call me until after he learned about the post.
• Nobody has the balls (pun intended) to call Marshall out on this, aside from me and Liz Henry? We may be bloggers and some of us really want to get in good with Disney, but we are women and mothers first. We should collectively shun those who treat us like dirt and want nothing to do with men who think that this kind of joking is acceptable. It’s our duty as women and as sisters in the blogging community.

Ladies, moms, bloggers, I am begging you to take a look at where you want to be in this industry and then make choices that reflect this. Your choices, however, hurt us all. We are all lumped together in this industry. The discretion of one is sadly the discretion of us all. We will never be regarded as professionals, never be respected as women or as bloggers until we earn it. It isn’t going to be handed to us on a sliver platter. It is a daily fight that we have to choose to take on. Every choice, every word, every post has to reflect our desire to be seen as more than slaves to PR…and more than that, men.  I will always stand up for women’s rights and I will not sit silently by and allow my industry to be dirtied by things like this. I care about it too much but honestly, stuff like this makes me really rethink continuing on in this space.

*I was contacted by Marshall and he asked that I take the post down. I heard him out on his reasoning. I told him why I was offended. He told me that the photo was in jest and was a spoof of the Chevy Chase National Lampoon movie poster (shown below.) He explained that the women were friends of his, not just bloggers. However:

• It was still offensive to me.
• He never once apologized for posting something so offensive, only told me that I hurt his feelings by talking badly about him.
• He made the excuse that the photo was on his own personal FB page so that I had no right to take the photos and write about them. His profile is view able to the public so even if I was not his friend on Facebook, I would still be able to see the photo that he uses as his profile photo.
• The photo was still up as of ten minutes ago. There was no accompanying story to the photo so we were left to draw our own conclusions.
•  I am entitled to write about things that anger me and affect my industry, according to my lawyer. I am a blogger. It is what I do.
• Marshall made a mistake. I get that. We all do. I’m not trying to bash him as a person. I’m only expressing my opinion on his choice and the situation as a whole. Whether or not he chooses to see it as a mistake and learn from it is up to him.
• UPDATE as of 5:06 pm PST: The content has been removed from Weinbaum’s FB page. The photos are no longer visible.