I’m sort of obsessed with the recent escalation in the standards for “good” teeth. I saw a film from the 80s the other day where Keifer Sutherland had yellow teeth. Yellow teeth! I am so well-adjusted to the new bleaching practices that I was genuinely disgusted. I’m not proud. Adding to all this bleaching are new technologies like veneers and invisible braces and whoknowswhat. As each becomes more and more common, it becomes more and more unusual to have less-than-perfect teeth and the pressure to undergo these cosmetic procedures becomes less about being extraordinary and more about being ordinary. Anyway, I found this in the New York Times (see source in image):

Any guesses as to who it is in society that is disproportionately cavity-stricken?

Or… anyone interested in critiquing the line graphs? That is a really rapid change between ’99-’02 and ’03-’04 and there are a lot of years strangely lumped together. Could it be an artifact of bundling?

This “delightful” quiz in Us magazine asks viewers, segregated by sex, to judge women’s breasts and what they do with them. Don’t miss the fact that 56% of men and 31% of women prefer Heidi Montag with breast implants.

What, exactly, a reader is supposed to do with this information is a mystery to me. But there must be a use for this in some class somewhere.

The Dodge La Femme (1955 and 1956):

Here are some pictures of some restored La Femme’s:

Pink rosebud patterned upholstery:

It even came with matching accessories!

An umbrella and raincoat:

A compact:

A coin purse:

I think showing this car would be interesting in comparison with the contemporary marketing of feminine guns (see Gwen’s post here). The guns look surprisingly like the car.

It would also be interesting, I think, to do a discussion about whether and how they market cars to women today. They do, of course, but the ideal femininity has changed and so, therefore, have the cars. Women, though, haven’t changed very much. One of the reasons that the La Femme didn’t sell was because women were, frankly, offended.

NEW (Jan. ’09)!  I found this effort to market cars to women from 1969, the “women-winning” Barracuda with “pop prints” and “gals in mind”!

NEW! (Nov. ’09): Tim McC. sent in this trailer for a Volvo concept car specifically for women. It’s really interesting to compare the marketing of a car to women in the 1950s versus today.

Notice that while beauty is still important, today there’s also an emphasis on the car being tough–but not too tough, not brutal.

Tim adds,

YCC has some fairly significant design decisions (some arguably limitations) that seems to imply certain things about the intended market. For example, the car has no hood that can be opened by the owner. Instead, the car must be taken to the shop for engine maintenance and oil changes. The tires are also run-flat, meaning that the tires will continue to work after a flat, again so that the car can be taken to a garage for the tire change. This seems to imply that the company assumes that women are too ignorant or too afraid to fix their own mechanical problems. This also implies that DIY work on engines or really any technological product is a male pursuit. Keeping women from working on engines seems to say that women shouldn’t have to even consider working with technology. It also features automated parallel parking (a feature common on luxury cars, but prominently emphasized in the materials), which may carry sexist undertones å la the “woman driver” stereotype. The drive train is hybrid-electric, which implies that environmentalism is a feminine concept.

Dehumanizing women; women as toys, useful only for fucking; women as interchangeable:

By the way, on the back it says: “Isn’t that why women have more than one hole?”

Here it is in a pillowcase:

Different take, same message:

Trivialization of rape:

Glamorization of violent sex and the priviliging of men’s sexual pleasure:

Trivialization of relationship violence:

This last one says: “I like my women like my chicken, battered.”

Power as cleaning products (note the appropriation of Rosie the Riveter):

Power as a flippy skirt and cute glasses (the text: “That flippy skirt backs up your girl power, do your glasses?”):

Power as beauty:

NEW! Nuvaring is a flexible ring that women place around their cervix once a month (image found here).  It slowly releases hormones that prevent ovulation.  “Let Freedom Ring!”

ALSO NEW! Need to compete with those men in their “power ties,” have some “power panties”:

NEW! (July ’10): Robb S. sent in another use of Rosie the Riveter by a “green” housecleaning service called Maid to Clean. No, seriously; Rose the Riveter, the icon of women’s contribution to the World War II war industry, was “maid to clean”:

Click here (and then click portfolio) for before and after photos of lots of celebrities!

This one, a pair with Gwen’s earlier contribution (here), actually takes a little decoding, and so might be useful to get discussion going in a classroom:

If parentheses = suppressed text, then these parentheses = suppressed speech and, of course, the best way to be liberated from suppression is Botox… not speaking your mind.

On Size:

On Lifespan:

From the National Center for Health Statistics; National Vital Statistics System; Dora Costa, MIT; Richard H. Steckel, Ohio State University; Center on the Economics and Demography of Aging. University of California, Berkeley.