Daena Title recently drowned Barbie in her backyard pool. Along with the doll, Title was drowning the pressure to be Barbie, an “ideal woman” so unrealistic that, due to her total lack of body fat, couldn’t menstruate if she was a living person. Now Title is showcasing the drownings in a series of photographs and [...]
I loved Sailor Moon when I was a kid. I mean I really, really loved her. But is a photo of her going to prevent child abuse? Probably not. The latest campaign to go viral on Facebook asks users to change their profile picture to an image of their favorite childhood cartoon character to raise [...]
The Transportation Security Administration’s reputation has been plummeting rapidly into an abyss these last few weeks. In addition to ongoing and widespread resistance to new “enhanced” security measures imposed by the TSA, police in Atlanta began an investigation today into allegations that a TSA official kidnapped and sexually assaulted a woman passing through Hartsfield-Jackson airport. [...]
In what would appear to be bold defiance of federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of sex, the Pennsylvania-based hospitality company Hershey Entertainment and Resorts (which calls itself an “equal opportunity employer”) is seeking “males only” for a housekeeping position. According to online job postings, guests feel more comfortable when their carpets are vacuumed [...]
We talk a lot in the feminist blogosphere about fashion, its hyper-Photoshopped size 0 models and their influence on women’s negative image of, and relationship to, their own bodies. And we talk a lot with good reason. With that in mind, I would like to make a very bold suggestion: The fashion industry is in [...]
As a little girl growing up in Toronto, Canada, learning to ice skate was a non-negotiable–part and parcel of our below-freezing weather that lasted three to five months of the year. I took it one step further: Beginning at age 4, I was the only girl on a “co-ed” hockey team which practiced several times [...]
“The decline of America began in Colorado in 1967 when it became the first state in the nation to legalize abortion…” So begins the hyper-dramatized video advertisement (below) for Colorado’s “personhood” amendment–an extreme anti-choice ballot measure that would ban all abortion and restrict necessary health care for pregnant women for whom it may not be [...]
Apparently racism and sexual exploitation are chic at one of the most popular nightclubs in Las Vegas. This ad for Tao Nightclub plays on Orientalist tropes about Asian women’s sexuality, and makes light of the many underground “massage” operations that offer “happy endings” in North America. It’s certainly not a happy ending for exploited, often [...]
I get it. Sex sells. But this is just gratuitous. These images are from a calendar entitled “Renewable Girls,” advertising–get this–solar panels. Part of a tacky trend of ecosexism in advertising for “sustainable” products, this calendar comes on the heels of PETA’s infamous sexy animal rights series and Yoga Journal’s seemingly exclusive preference for young/white/thin/topless [...]
What We’re Reading
Vintage No Comment: The Perfect Present, 1994
This ad for Savane trousers from Macy’s appeared in the Nov/Dec 1994 issue of Ms. What is it about the holiday season that renews the advertising industry’s vigor for sexism? It could be the cookies, the early sunsets or all the Bing Crosby–but it sure is an odd time of year to be a woman. [...]