Subverting and reappropriating versus the same old sexist shit

The Feministing logo has drummed up its share of controversy. Our mudflap gal was designed to be giving the finger, but has been misinterpreted all over the place — by everyone from well-meaning fellow feminists to men’s rights types. (We’ve blogged about the mudflap girl — and mudflap boy — in all sorts of other contexts.) So we realize that, like calling your magazine “Bitch,” making your blog’s logo a pissed-off sexist symbol is not going to be immediately understood by everyone. We’ve made our peace with that, and we still love the logo.
Reader Emily, who works as a shelver at a public library in Wyoming, sent us a link to this graphic, which is part of a marketing effort by Wyoming Public Libraries. Being a lover of libraries and subverting sexist symbols, I was initially excited. I naively thought maybe Wyoming was hoping to convey, “Reading is sexy!” or “Ladies with intellect are really hot!” Which, in my opinion, might be a defensible appropriation of the mudflap girl.
Of course, I was wrong. Here’s the explanation of what they were going for:

Also in the second segment of the campaign is mudflap girl. This campaign’s only purpose is to market the ChiltonLibrary auto repair database. Mudflap girl stickers meant to be put on vehicles, were sent to auto repair stores across the state advertising the Chilton database.

Did you catch that? This is about getting people (primarily dudes, of course) who are interested in car repair to come to the library to use a computer database. In other words, not a whiff of subversion or reappropriation. It’s just plain ol’ tired sexism. Marketing the mudflap girl, without any irony or anger, to her traditional audience: men who like cars and babes.
Writes Emily, whose library has chosen not to adopt the mudflap campaign:

It’s one thing to appropriate an icon with the intention of subverting it (exempli gratia being Feministing itself), but I’m pretty sure they’re doing that wrong. In the “Equality State,” too (don’t get me started on that one). I just…ech. Makes me feel a little squicky.

Me, too. And she’s exactly right here. It’s why I roll my eyes at this campaign, but sport a tote bag with the Feministing logo. It’s why I rail against people who call powerful women “bitch,” but subscribe to a magazine of the same name. It’s why I am totally appalled to hear someone utter the word “cunt” as an epithet, but picked up Inga Muscio’s book. The same image (or word) in different contexts can flip pretty quickly from subversion/reappropriation to just flat-out sexism.