My First Eating Disorder

This public service advertisement has a lot of clever details. From the bride and groom wall paper, coffin shaped boxed, protruding collar bones, and copy on the box, there's something new to consider every time you look at it. I enjoy this ad because it subtlety sheds light on a multitude of negative messages and expectations we continue to broadcast to girls.

You can't have one without the other

Meaty Treats In Every Bite

Earlier I had noted the fact that Quiznos had an ad campaign that solely focused on men talking about the wonders of meat sandwiches. Now, they're giving the ladies a say.....

Woman holding steak sandwich: "It's not lacking any meat, which is what a real woman needs"

If you were in a coma throughout your adolescent years, you may think this woman is commenting on the nutritional value of food sources derived from animal flesh.

But she's not, she's really talking about penises.

In fact, if you substitute the word "penis" everytime the ad mentions "meat" not only is the commercial funnier, but it's more accurate.

Death Becomes Her

Last week the photo challenge on America's Next Top Model had a crime scene theme. While this type of photo spread is still seen as "edgey" it's been done before, and plenty of feminists have written about how this devalues women, eroticses violence, ect ect. There's an entry on Women in Media and News that has more details about the whole to do.

My big beef, especially after spending a weekend at a conference on the language used to describe sexual violence, was one of the criticisms the judges had about a particular picture.

Regarding Felicia's photo shoot Nigel said:

All the other girls managed to have some sort of spark even in this sort of morbid situation. I think I look at you in this picture, and you actually just look dead. One of the simplest things, like acting dead, can be the most challenging. The problem is that you didn't do anything. You just gave up and thought that that was being dead.

News flash Nigel, being dead is just that, dead. When you're dead the spark of life has been extinguished from your body. You're a giant piece of rotting meat no matter how in season your shoes are. Death is not glamorous.

Totally Gay Frosted Mini Wheats

I don't watch much T.V. so I tend to see the same commercials over and over again. And the really annoying ones never fail to irritate me, no matter how many times I've been subjected to them.

There were two commercials that plagued me all winter. A local ad for a snowboard shop, and a national ad for strawberry frosted mini wheats.

The low budget ad for the snowboard shop involved random clip art of butterflies, elderly people in wheelchairs, cookies, screaming children and a woman slumped over her desk in near tears with the tag line "You've got a lot on your mind, let us help you pick out the right gear"

I can assure you, my thoughts are more complicated than butterflies and playing nurse maid. Every time this ad aired I'd get so aggravated I spent the entire commercial throwing cookies and children at the T.V.

The second ad was slightly more subtle but no less insidious. Two frosted mini wheats are helping some children take a test(because they're apparently the new brain food), and the regular white frosted wheat bite hits on a pink frosted wheat bite, thinking it's a she piece of cereal, but it turns out to be another dude! Both white and pink frosted wheat bites are disturbed by the interaction. The pink bite laments that he did not "choose the uniform" and is made to feel ashamed of his pastel hue.

Oh my god! This cereal is so GAY! Don't let you're children eat it or they may come to question heteronormative gender roles.

Or they might just have improved bowel movements.

While searching for a clip of this frosted debacle, I came upon a wonderful resource, Commercial Closet. It's a site that tracks positive and negative representations of gays in advertisements.

They have an entry AND clip of the frosted mini wheat commercial. You can watch it here.

Even more interesting is that, on Thursday night I was watching T.V. and the commercial was different. Now instead of being mistaken for a girl, the pink frosted bite is confused for a different flavor.

I guess I'm not the only one who threw milk at the screen.

Hunting for Babes, Literally or Maybe Not...

Micheal Burdick came up with an idea. Micheal Burdick made some money off his idea. It is apparent Micheal Burdick is a fraud and has some issues to work through.

His concept behind Hunting for Bambi is simple: Men pay money to run around the desert trying to hit naked women with paint balls, and get a video tape of the adventure to bring home to share with their loved ones. Err something....

The women in his videos and staged "hunts" are completely naked except for a pair of shoes.

Burdick said:

"The main goal is to be as true to nature as possible. I don't go deer hunting and see a deer with a football helmet on so I don't want to see one on my girl either.

Nature...?

Sounds kind of dangerous. Good thing it's all a scam.

You can check out the 4 part story done by a local Las Vegas journalist HERE.
Then the other report by at Snopes.

But even if this all a big can of baloney the website and videos are still disturbing.

Getting My Lingustics On

There's a really cool conference happening in Boston next Saturday, March 24th that I'm really excited about.

It's called The Troubling Language of Rape: How Eroticism, Gender Myths, and Victim Blaming Affect Social and Legal Discourse.

It's free, but you have to register. You can get all the info HERE.

Hope to see you there!

All Hands On Deck

Groping breasts. The great American past time second only to sports and guns. Finally there's a product to give every woman that freshly violated feeling all day long!

The other thought that pops into my head besides "Ew" is "Why is this posted on Coolest-Gadgets?"

Lawyers Behaving Badly

If you've been over to Feministe lately you've probably seen the article about Jill's awful experience with AutoAdmit, which is a website geared towards law students and legal professionals. Lately AutoAdmit has come under scrutiny since the Washington Post recently did an expose on the site. Though the problem is now getting more attention, the damage it's done to some professional women's reputations isn't going to dissipate anytime soon.

I encourage you to read the article by the Washington Post and Jill's response. Then check out the Women's Legal History Biography Project, put together by the Standford Law School, to help remind yourself any obstacle can be over come.

Forget Feminism Ladies, Science Will Save You!

There's so much going on in this 5 minute video it's astounding. I feel like an archaeologist uncovering the tomb of an ancient British misogynist.

Some points that stuck out to me:

The idea that feminism regulates women to intellectual ghettos.

His claim that feminism was invented in the 1960's.

A disavowal of science's role in the oppression of women and other minorities. Remember a little thing called biological determinism, which was supported by "scientific" claims, and used to keep women in the kitchen? Guess not....

A poor understanding of the history of the birth control pill. Sorry Margret Sanger, you're old news.

But one of my favorites, it this dude's assertion that the mechanical miracle of WASHING MACHINES would have eventually liberated women from domestic servitude.

Don't worry ladies, after guys like him perfect Love Droids we can all sneak away. And no one will notice......

Speaking of Vaginas.....

Now you can immortalize one in chocolate! The fake rubber/latex vaginas always creeped me out a little. They remind me of impersonal glory holes in a darkened truck stop. But now you can make a cast of your own.

It's a perfect DIY stocking stuff for that hard to shop for connoisseur on your list.

The V Word

According to an article in the Journal News, three female students have been suspended for saying "vagina". The article writes:

"School administrators had warned the girls it would be inappropriate to say the word [vagina] while reading a selection from Eve Ensler's "The Vagina Monologues," but the students were willing to suffer the consequences."

If you can't call a vagina a vagina, what can you call it? It's the clinically correct term for a part of the body that at least 50% of the population has. What do they call in sex ed class at this school, a honey pot? I doubt the science teacher referrs to it as "down there". Or at least I hope they're not......

And in case you don't want to bother clicking on the news link, the passage the girls read is as follows:

"My short skirt is a liberation flag in the women's army. I declare these streets, any streets, my vagina's country."

Sounds pretty good to me. I think there's nothing wrong with reminding an auditorium of youths that wearing a short skirt isn't asking for it. I doubt re-claiming the streets as my "hooha's" country would have the same impact.

Sexist Messages AND a Bag of Chips

Sorry I've been neglectful as of late, I've been traveling for work.

But I now present quite possibly the strangest bags of chips ever marketed towards women. Pay close attention to the inspirational messages on the right hand side of the bag.

Remember girls: No ring, no thing!

Notes From A Pro-Choice Doula

Over at Feministing there's a brief essay from Miriam Zoila Pérez, who recently attended the National Advocates for Pregnant Women’s Summit.

Somewhere in the back of my mind I had erroneously assumed that pro-choice and birth advocates would be on the same page about some issues. Even though one group fights for the rights of birthing mothers, and the other fights for the rights of women who don't want to be mothers, the central focus of their efforts are on the health needs of women.

Intellectually it makes sense that there's some tension between the two groups. However, despite what pro-lifers might like you to believe, being pro-choice doesn't mean anti-child. It means putting a value on women's lives.

I'm really glad that the National Advocates for Pregnant Women’s Summit was able to bring these two groups together an create space for discussion. They each have the same goal of improving the range of medical options for women, and they both can use all the help they can get.

A Smart Blonde Joke

I was looking at some of the search results for this blog, and one of them was "blonde jokes feminist misogyny".

I don't know if this person was looking for feminist critiques of blonde jokes, or feminist jokes about dumb blondes, but either way it was interesting.

So here's a joke about a smart blonde and dumb guy:

An attorney and a blonde are sitting next to each other on a flight from Los Angeles to New York. The attorney asks if she would like to play a fun game. The blonde is tired and just wants to take a nap, so she politely declines and rolls over to the window to catch a few winks. The attorney persists. He explains how the game works..

"I ask you a question, and if you don't know the answer, you pay me, and vice-versa."
Again the blonde politely declines and tries to get some sleep. The attorney figures that since his opponent is a blonde he will easily win the match, so he makes another offer.
"If you don't know the answer, you pay me only $5.00, but if I don't know the answer, I will pay you $500."

The blonde figures there will be no end to this torment unless she plays, so she agrees.
The attorney asks, "What's the distance from the Earth to the moon?"
The blonde reaches in to her purse, pulls out a five dollar bill, and hands it to the attorney.

Then she asks the attorney, "What goes up a hill with three legs, and comes down with four?"
The attorney is puzzled. He uses his laptop to search for references. He taps into the air-phone with his modem and searches the Net and the Library of Congress.

Frustrated, he sends emails to his co-workers and friends. No luck. After an hour, he gives up.
He wakes the blonde and hands her $500.00. The blonde politely takes the $500.00 and turns away to get back to sleep.

The attorney, who is going nuts trying to figure it out, wakes the blonde and asks, "Well, so what goes up a hill with three legs and comes down with four?"

The blonde reaches into her purse, hands the attorney $5.00, and goes back to sleep.

Harlot Entices Golden Boy News At 11

Boston is buzzing with the news that star quarterback Tom Brady's ex girlfriend is three months pregnant with his child.

And it's stupid.

I'm not sure which is worse, the people accusing his ex-girlfriend of somehow "tricking" him into knocking her up, the people saying they "have" to get married, or the people who still get woozy at the thought of a child born out of wedlock.

They dated for three years, I might not be a therapist, but chances are they broke up for a reason. I thought we were passed the days of staying together for the children's sake, but I guess not.

You can view the carnage here.

Romance takes one to the head

There's an old saying that nothing sells like the death of a pretty young woman. And Hollywood knows this. Flip through the channels, rent a movie, or finger through the pages of Readers Digest and you're bound to run into a damsel (preferably white) in distress. The dramatic motif of fatal attraction with a side helping of sex and violence is nothing new. Guy wants girl, guy stalks girl because he just "loves" her so much, then tries to "convince" her through non-consensual sex that she really feels the same way about him. Or guy finds girl attractive, guy drugs girl, has non-consensual sex to punish her for leading him on. The list of ways perpetrators of violence try to explain away their transgressions as a show of some deeper affection goes on and on. And screen writers have brought just about every combination of excuses to a silver screen near you.

I though I had seen just about everything, until I happened upon a disturbing episode of Law And Order: Criminal Intent.

The killer (played by Neil Patrick Harris no less) hideously brain damages women because he's.....lonely. Harris' shy, withdrawn and overly sensitive character can't find the gentle romance he seeks. So he drugs women, kidnaps them, performs primitive home lobotomies on them by pouring a bit of boiling water over their brain (via a small whole drilled into the skull), then dotes over their helpless babbling forms. Do you have a case of the warm fuzzies yet?

This bizarre and upsetting story line is par for course in the Law and Order series, especially the Special Victims Unit spin off, but the really creepy part of the episode is the main detective's sympathy for the suspect.

Harris' character feels the only way he can have a relationship with a woman is if she's brain damaged, and totally reliant on him. He has an inability to be with a woman who's his equal. And while the detective might not whole heartily agree with Harris' methods, he feels the same discomfort about feeling vulnerable.

The detective views the killer's actions through his own fear of intimacy and tries to play down the seriousness of his crimes. Instead of wanting a comatose sex object, the killer wants a living doll he can take care of. To the detective these acts are somehow more noble than your usual assault and kill. Yes, he might be permanently brain damaging young women, and accidentally killing a few, but aww shucks, he doesn't mean it.

Instead of a crime of passion, the audience is asked to believe this is a crime of romance, not an act of animal desire, but aching love. Which is just as bad if not more dangerous. After decades we're just now starting to accept that sex and rape is more about power than physical attraction. But we still refuse to shine a light on the arcane mechanics of western heterosexual romance. If we ever did, I'm sure the diamond industry would collapse in matter of hours.

But engagements rings and make up sex aside. We all get lonely from time to time. We all have obstacles to finding compatible romantic partners. But most of us don't attempt to solve these problems by sauteing someone's head meat, or construct elaborate trial defenses around the psychological burden of datelessness.

This Valentine's Day I'm keeping a close eye on my drink, pepper spray in my pocket, and pair of brass knuckles in my bag so no one tries to say "I love you" with first degree murder.

Dead Hooker Storage

Sorry about the lack of posts folks. I've been busy getting ready to adopt a cat. But don't worry, a flurry of posts is headed your way starting with Dead Hooker Storage.

In a sea of distasteful jokes, questionable public image galleries, and ridiculous Internet handles, Dead Hooker Storage on MySpace really stands out. And they shouldn't take that as a complement.

This group goes way over the line. The concept of a storage facility that specializes in the containment of dead sex workers is kind of gross, but an interesting acknowledgement of danger this group faces on a day to day basis. It could be considered dark humor, which I'm a personal fan of. However, the blood leaking out of the storage unit, the picture of alleged street walkers with the text "Little does she know I'm behind her with a gun", and the accompanying manifesto that describes how the founders are dedicated to their "cause" of killing hookers is beyond horrible.











Sex workers, especially street prostitutes, are an extremely vulnerable population. Not only because they routinely interact with strangers, but because they as seen as disposal by the population at large. A string of missing person reports in Atlantic City went un-investigated by the local police because the people in question were hookers. The police consider sex workers a transient population whose disappearances aren't worth investigating. It wasn't until bodies starting turning up and relatives of the missing started complaining (yes hookers have families too) that they realized the city had a serial killer on its hands.

So what exactly is funny about killing hookers? And more importantly, why do these people think it's awesome to pretend to kill hookers, and encourage others to take part in such a juvenile and depraved fantasy? Is there something in the New Jersey water?

Gender in the Cereal Box

Apparently only women want/need to lose weight. Or at least that's what you might think after watching half a dozen food ads.

Food ads that try to sell products based on their health or weight loss benefits are almost exclusively geared towards women. Special K is a notable example. The ads always feature women trying to squeeze into jeans, then being delighted at their slimmer frames after eating nothing by cereal for two weeks, and often concludes with inviting viewers to take on the Special K Challenge. Since when is eating a low calorie cereal a feminine activity? I know a lot of men who should think about cutting their caloric intake. But I never see men trying to squeeze into low rise hip huggers or even their high school varsity jackets in cereal ads.

Also, I don't think I've ever seen a man eating yogurt on TV. It's all women dreaming about fitting into yellow polka dot bikinis and making orgasmic faces as they discover real fruit on the bottom. Rice cakes and cookies are other food offenders, along with light cream cheese and instant rice. Instant rice ads almost always feature busy moms and magical instant rice dishes. Though occasionally we see a bizarre combination of women, instant rice and implied sexual tension. But that's another post....

When I see men in food ads it usually has something to do with grilling, barbecue sauce, or Slim Jims. There's the somewhat infamous Burger King ad that features men dancing around with hamburgers, throwing off the manacles of mini vans and of "girlie" salads, and singing about how masculine they are. But there's also more subtle ads. Quizno's has a spot where men are asked to compare two meat sandwiches. Quizno's may not be explictitly stating that only real men know real meat with an elaborate dance number, but it's strongly implied.

These ads seem to say, "Watch out guys. The Penis Patrol may revoke your Man Membership if caught with a box of Special K Red Berries."

The labeling of "health food" as feminine is not new. But I find it irritating. Especially when we could all stand to be a little healthier, and the health benefits of food products geared for women are often weight related.

That's why two recent Kashi ads stood out to me. There's one wtih a man and one with a woman who both work for Kashi. They are regular looking people. In the ads the man surf boards, the woman mountain climbs and snow boards. The text is basically the same in each, "We like working for Kashi because we like making tasty health food that lets people have active bodies and attempt new things" then they land on their ass. It's not about losing weight, it's about being active. If you eat this cereal you will not gain magical powers or be more attractive, but you might feel better and lower your cholesterol.

The only other health foods I can think of that feature men and women equally are fiber and prune juice ads. They typically feature older heterosexual couples talking about how the wife convinced her husband to start taking health more seriously. However, these ads are still problematic because once again health/food matters are the women's purview, and it's her job as care giver to convince her mate to start eating right.

All I have to say is this: if your dude thinks vegetables are too feminine to eat, maybe he deserves to get scurvy.

Just saying.....

Invest or Die

I am not rich, but I have a financial advisor.

When I got out of college I was making peanuts, but I was well aware that how much you save is just as important as how much you make. So I squirreled away lots of pennies. And these pennies, along with some free temporary lodging from my parents, came in very handy when I had to unexpectedly quit my job and living arrangements with my boyfriend went up in smoke. Jobless and without a permanent address to call my own, I was glad I had been able to save for a rainy day.

So I continued focusing on saving. Putting money into my savings account religiously ever month.

Then one day I woke up, and realized I was only getting 1% interest on my savings! Basic inflation was kicking my hard earned money's ass, I had to do something!

Even though women are now a substantial part of the work force, are getting advanced degrees, and making more money than ever, they are generally woefully unknowledgable about money and investing.

It might be a hold over from having it drilled into our heads that men generally deal with the dirty business of finances. Or that in some cases women are more adverse to risk. Or in my case, like their money where they can see it, not in some far away mystical Roth IRA. But the fact of the matter is we have a lot of catching up to do.

There's a lot of confusing information out there. Lot's of graphs, numbers, funds, firms and scary paper work. But it's an important thing to start learning about.

Do you know what kind of interest you're paying on your credit cards, student loans, ect?
Do you know what you're credit score is?
If your company has a 401k plan are your participating? Do you know how long you need to work before you're vested?
Have you considered saving for retirement on your own? Do you know the difference between a regular IRA and a Roth IRA?
Do you know the difference between a money market account, a bond, and a mutual fund?
Do you know what a junk-bond is?

Have I made your head hurt yet?

This stuff is important ladies. No one is going to take care of us. Women typically out live men and social security isn't looking very secure. So browse the web, read a book, ask a friend, and get started!

MSN has a pretty decent column called Women in Red written by women who have (or are getting) out of some serious debt. It has some good basic money strategies and advice.

Morningstar researches and rates mutual funds. A good place to start research.

Just Googling women + investing gives you tons of results like:

Like this article from That Money Show on PBS.
This website that spells out a lot of basic investing terms and economic strategies for first time investors.

I'm not a millionaire and I will never be one. But by giving some thought to what my meager money is doing now, hopefully I won't be eating cat food in my golden years.