http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/07/dog.fur/index.html

http://www.hsus.org/furfree/news/raccoon_dog_fur_jackets_still_mislabeled.html

(This is to Jamie but I can’t reply)

One thing that has to be acknowledged is the fact that few stereotypes are *completely* false. I’m not saying this to be inflammatory – but there are African-American people who enjoy eating watermelons and there are Jewish people with larger-than-average noses and there are little girls who like to jump around and cheer. If a company shows off only those stereotypes, we should be offended – but if a company includes those stereotypes in a vastly varied ad campaign that also shows opposing stereotypes (men cheering, women performing traditionally masculine dance moves, etc.), then they shouldn’t be attacked for the one ad that does feature the stereotypes. If, for instance, a commercial for a watermelon company shows a montage of people eating watermelons, and includes an African-American in that montage… should we pull out a still of that image and cry racist? No. Same thing here: this particular ad features little girls jumping around and cheering and some of them are wearing pink, yes – but at the same time, not only are a lot of them wearing other colors, but they’re breaking the heteronorm of being submissive, airheaded, frilly little playthings. They’re requesting comfort over fashion – something that has been a huge part of the “feminist fashion” movement that tells women to ditch their high heels for sneakers or sandals or whatever is most comfortable.

Also, I think they’re all wearing skirts because they’re cheering, and it’s generally tough to do feminine cheering in pants (unless they’re sweats or, as are shown here, leggings).

Would it go something like this?
“These clothes won’t make you feel better, and they are pretty much the same as generic, so there’s no real logical reason to buy them. Oh and we enjoy learning about electicity, watching French New Wave movies, and thinking about solutions to global poverty. We totally don’t care about how cute these boots are, girls are not shallow vapid. So instead of buying us these clothes this Christmas, you should get us a subscription to the economist, and donate some money to OXFAM in our name. Talk to the moose.”

Yeah, pretty sure a chant like that wouldn’t sell clothes well, although it probably would raise someone’s consciousness.

I saw women’s boots that are similar and 100% synthetic on the GAP website ad a google search finds many GAP synthetic fur-like boots, but I can’t find these exact boots yet. I’ll keep looking, though, as I am curious too. It’s not impossible.

The problem is that if in real life you point this stuff out, people think you’re some kind of kill joy. Doesn’t stop me, but I get tired.

In this case, I really think you and the writers of this blog are seeing what you want to see, and taking things out of context. No, there aren’t pants, but I can think of many explanations for that if I really wanted to. Like, maybe they want to showcase more clothing, and skirts + leggings = more clothing than just pants. Regardless, if they were gendering the clothing, then why aren’t all of the women and girls in the other commercial wearing skirts? They are wearing pants and the same colors as the guys. You are framing this as though the second commercial is all guys – it’s not. There are also little girls in it. As for the dances, I don’t think that these little girls are going to do the intense, more complicated break-dance-type moves of the second commercial. Their moves seem like basic cheerleading 101 kind of dancing, but I don’t know anything about cheerleading so I could be wrong. As for the spoiled thing, I think that’s just how you look at it. I hear ‘Yes I’m a girl but that doesn’t mean I have to look like a doll (read:objectified). My comfort is more important than my looks, but you don’t have to chose between the two with these clothes.’ All cheering sounds pretty obnoxious and in your face, in my opinion. I also don’t think that the ‘talk to the moose’ thing is directed at anyone in particular, just a cute little catch phrase. Once again, I guess we should just agree to disagree. I just wish the writers of the blog would have provided the second commercial for context.