Discussion of gender bending and transgender children on The View:[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78ND3vqPz90[/youtube]
Data on the prevalence of cosmetic surgery is notoriously difficult to find. This is data on the five most common procedures, according to one association’s members. Pretty amazing.
Surgical and non-surgical procedures (2006):
Most popular procedures by gender:
Found here.
Text:
YOUR DAD WAS NOT A METROSEXUAL. H didn’t do pilates. Moisturize. Or drink pink cocktails. Your Dad drank whisky cocktails. Made with Canadian Club. Served in a rocks glass. They tasted good. They were effortless. DAMN RIGHT YOUR DAD DRANK IT.
Toph sent in another Canadian Club ad that makes it clear that it’s awesome if your dad was a player:
Text:
Your Mom wasn’t your Dad’s first. He went out. He got two numbers in the same night. He drank cocktails. but they were whisky cocktails. Made with Canadian Club. Served in a rocks glass. They tasted good. They were effortless.
I’m going to use this to talk about the sexual double standard–try to imagine the same ad, but saying “Your dad wasn’t your mom’s first” with pictures of her with several different men. I don’t think the impression would be the same.
Thanks, Toph!
NEW: Outdoor version of “Your Dad had a van for a reason.”
This might be a useful image for talking about the commodification of protest and “alternative” culture. It was being sold at the H&M store in Pasadena. It’s the latest in a progression of the co-opting of the punk aesthetic–first stores like Hot Topic started selling clothing with rips and safety pins and such in them, so you could go pay a lot of money for pre-packaged punk or goth looks. Now it’s gone a step further where they no longer even bother to put a real safety pin in–now you just get pictures of safety pins, meant to evoke that sense of non-conformity in the safest, most easily-marketed way possible, along with your Sum 41 (or whatever their name is) CD.
This is an image that graces the cover of a new documentary about intersex individuals called Black and White.
In general, though, I think it’s a really powerful image that refuses to accept that women who are not young, with a teenage girl’s body, and a submissive attitude are somehow offensive.
Courtesy of feministing.com and the SWS listserv.
These are pretty disturbing for a number of reasons. Maybe it is just my wish that they aren’t real, but I’ m skeptical about whether they really exist. They don’t appear to be photoshopped, but even though they’re linked all over the internet, I couldn’t find the actual place/s that sell them. And while I was searching around I found this mouse pad. Note that the size of the mini skirt is really very disturbingly small.
And I also found a lot of people who want to buy that pencil sharpener. And one person who thinks that this knife holder is “far more offensive” than the pencil sharpener.
What do you think? Oh, and the knife holder is available multiple places including here.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck14LKBI9GM[/youtube]
Make what you will of this. The sexual availability of the female…um…wildlife, all of whom are sexy and sexualized and dancing with the one male, the bottles of Orangina erupting from between the female zebras’ legs, and the female octopus squeezing Orangina out of her boobs…there’s a lot to work with.
Gah.
Christine B. sent in a link to set of Orangina ads on Flickr:
There are quite a few others, but I’m sure you get the idea.
Gwen Sharp is an associate professor of sociology at Nevada State College. You can follow her on Twitter at @gwensharpnv.
This is an interesting example of the way in which powerful media companies control what gets out there. MTV refused to show ads, made by the Media Foundation to promote Buy Nothing Day, on its station. They stated that the ad “goes further than we are willing to accept on our channels.”