If you could alert me to racism in a sexist way, that would be fantastic!

So, CNN.com is going to get all politically correct about Victoria's Secret fashion show possibly being racist because they used some dressed some models in stereotypical Native American undies.  Okay.  That's fine with me, but I gotta be honest.  I'm having a hard time taking your righteous politically correct indignation seriously when you refer to the models, who are grown women, as GIRLS. 

Examine thyself, fuckers.

Slutty Halloween Costume of the Day: Mangina Edition

Something tells me this is as close to getting inside of a vagina as this guy has ever been.  His mom must be so proud.

One Crazy Rule to Look Younger Now

Ugh!  I hate those frickin' ads that are trying to push some miracle pill to make you look younger.  It is total bullshit.   Is the one rule to stop bein' a crack ho?  Because this shiz is looking like Faces of Meth in reverse.

Slutty Halloween Costume of the Day: Too short, too short, and still too short

Hey look, it's Goldilocks!  It turns out that my parents told me the lame-ass, g-rated version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears when I was a kid.  It was all about eating porridge, and taking a nap.  I missed the part where there was sexy time. 

I even thought the bears were actual bears. You know, like live-in-a -cave-and-catch-salmon-swimming-upstream bears.  

How wrong I was.

In any case, check out this Goldilock's costume for girls.The one on top is clearly supposed to be sexy.  This one is almost identical to the costume above, but it only comes in girl's sizes.  It's not even in juniors sizes, just girls.  Why?  Would another foot of fabric on the bottom of the skirt ruin the costume?  Would people say, "Geez, I didn't realize you were Goldilocks.  Why isn't your arse hanging out?  Where are your hooker heels? Kids these days have no respect for the classics." 

Slutty Halloween Costume of the Day: Old West Hooker Girl!

Clearly I am missing something.  Maybe I am not smart enough to figure out the vocabulary words being used to describe this Halloween costume.    The word tween means in someone who is between a child and a teenager, right?  So, I'm thinking like 10, 11 or 12 year-olds.  Am I totally off base with this?

Now, a saloon girl is an old west prostitute, isn't it?  So, the "Saloon Girl Junior Tween Costume" is by definition an outfit designed to make a girl look like an old-timey child prostitute.  If you happen to be in-between prison sentences and are in the market for something like this for the kid you keep locked in your attic, you can find one at Spirit Halloween supplies. FYI.

The Slutty Halloween Costume of the Day Game: Schoolgirl or Stripper!

Let's play a game!  I'm going to show you two costumes currently for sale online.  One is designed and sold as a stripper costume.  The other is marketed as a costume for teens or tweens.  You figure out which one is which.

ROUND ONE:  ALICE IN WONDERLAND

ROUND TWO:  LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD

Answers on the next page!

Slutty Halloween Costume of the Day: Fishnets and Cuffs

For your consideration I submit these ultra-realistic portrayals of women on the police force.   This one has all of the details of a real policewoman, from the mini-skirt, to the fishnet stockings, calf-high boots, fingerless gloves and pink lipstick. 

If that one doesn't pull your trigger, how about this fake leather option?  The boots and cuffs really set it off, I think. You can get it as small as a 2T from Oriental Trading Company.

Maybe you need to call in the heavy forces.  Here is a SWAT uniform for teen girls.  Every time I have ever seen an officer in SWAT gear it has been a skirt and fishnets.  There definitely should be no body armor or weapons or anything related to being safe or fighting bad guys.  Cute little wrist cuffs are important, though.

Slutty Halloween Costume of the Day: Sexy Maid at Your Service!

You can purchase the "Child Chamber Maid Costume" for your little tyke at through Amazon.com.  As the description reads, "At your service."   A-dor-a-ble!   Needs a turtleneck and jeans, and maybe a parka, though.

Bringing the hotness

 

LOVE HER.  This is Ms. Octavia Spencer killin' it on the cover of Elle this month.  She is plus-sized and gorgeous.  Kudos to Elle for showing us some real beauty.   Work it!

Slutty Girl's Halloween Costume of the Day: Major Flirt

As we are getting closer to Halloween, parents everywhere are trying to decide what sort of stripper outfit they are going to let their daughters wear for trick-or-treating.  I thought I would share a few of the more outstanding entries in this year's Prostitot Pageant.


This is Major Flirt.  It is sold by Spirit.   This costume is described, in part, as "...the highest ranking Drama Queen in the army!"  I'm not sure what is cuter, the trivialization of women's role in the armed forces, or the snazzy S&M dog collar accessory.

Who would wear it better?

Since we seem to be on the topic of urinals lately, I thought I would share this gown created by The Rodnik Band. 

I know I watch too much Project Runway, but I keep hearing Tim Gunn in my head asking, "Who is the girl who is wearing this dress?" 

I'm just not sure if it's Lady Gaga or Kim Kardashian.

Potty Mouth

A newly opened French restaurant in Australia has recently come under fire because their men's restroom features urinals shaped like women's mouths. Apparently some fun-hating feminsts have complained that having men pee into representations of women's mouths is somehow offensive.

Sadly, the restaurant has decided to remove these objets d'art.  Perhaps they will replace them with something far classier and less offensive.

Like this.

Just ignore the dirty old French men

Translates to: "I'm going into a meeting."  Huh.  Not the best double entendre ever.

Les Infideles (The Players) is an upcoming set of short films about men cheating on their wives.  It has caused a bit of a stir because it stars Jean Dujardin, who is nominated for a best actor Oscar, and because the posters are crass and demeaning to women.

The French government has requested that these movie posters be removed from display in Paris because they depict women as sexual objects.  The head of the Autorité de Régulation Professionnelle de la Publicité said that the ads "...depict women in a way that damages their dignity... [the ads] present a degrading image of women, because in both cases you do not see the woman's face. This is certainly presenting an image of women as objects, in this case sexual objects."


Here are two more ads from the series:

Allegedly this translates to: “Honey, I’m going to get cut off, I’m going inside a tunnel”  Again, the sex jokes could use some work.  

I get it. The ads are offensive.  I would not be happy about my kids seeing them around the city.   Yet, I don't know.  I can't quite get fired up about this one.   Sadly, they are not really that far outside of what is considered mainstream.    This has a bit of the "manufactured controversy" air about it to me, as if they came up with cheeky ads featuring their Oscar-hunk in the hopes of stirring the pot.   I dunno.  My reaction to all of this is:  "Meh.  If you pay attention to it, you'll only reinforce it."

What do you think?

Black is beautiful, right?

Here is a promotional photo for Beyonce's 2011 album, 4.  Yes, that is Beyonce.  She is barely recognizable.  As a White woman, I definitely don't feel like I fully understand the politics of skin color among Black women.  That being said, this picture makes me feel uncomfortable.   I can't help but imagine what little girls see when they see this picture.  Beyonce is in such a tremendous position of power to buck narrow, repressive ideas of what is beautiful.  She does that sometimes.  This is not one of those times.  What do you think?


As an aside, what the hell is up with that giant lump on the couch under her back?

Hairy Potter

Picture unrelated.

Daniel Radcliffe in Heat Magazine as quoted by EntertainmentWise:


"This is way too much information, but I don't like girls with nothing down there either. It freaks me out. You have to have something, otherwise it's f**king creepy."

Word.

Suck it, Fat Maggie! Eddie Shows You How It's Done.

Yesterday I made a post about a book designed to teach girls about dieting.  Let's look at it again, shall we?

 Look at how Fat Mags is staring in a mirror, holding up a dress that is too small for her.  She longs to fit into that damn dress.  What message does this send?  She wants to lose weight because of how she looks.  That's what's important for little girls, of course.  To look pretty in pink dresses.

Contrast Maggie's book with this one, called Eddie Shapes Up.  Here the protagonist is a male.  Here is the description provided by Amazon:  "...Eddie Shapes Up is the story of a boy who with the support of his friends and family decides to change his lifestyle in order to make his life happier and healthier. With a forward from President Bill Clinton and beautiful illustrations by Jonathan Hoefer, this anticipated bestseller will inspire readers of all ages to eat right, exercise regularly and to always join the fun."

What do you notice?  Eddie, our fat boy, is shaping up to be healthy and have fun.  The cover is happy and evokes play and physical activity.  On the other hand, Mags, our fat girl, is dieting so that she can look pretty.   UGH!

Wouldn't little girls respond to a book about getting healthier and active?  Why do we have to stoop to shaming them about how they look?

Are you looking for new and exciting ways to screw your kid up? Maggie Goes on a Diet can help!

Check out this book, available directly from the devil himself on Amazon.com.  It's called Maggie Goes on a Diet.  Amazon gives this description: "This book is about a 14 year old girl who goes on a diet and is transformed from being extremely overweight and insecure to a normal sized girl who becomes the school soccer star. Through time, exercise and hard work, Maggie becomes more and more confident and develops a positive self image."

Huh. Right now the average age that an American girl goes on her first diet is eight years old.  Seriously.  That is all kinds of fucked up.  At eight you should not be worried about the size of your tummy or the thickness of your thighs.  Yet, this is normal in our culture.  A survey of girls in first through third grade showed that 42% wanted to be thinner (Rader Programs).   Insane.

By the time a girl reaches high school, there is a 60% chance she is on a diet at any given time.   No matter what she weighs or how fit she is, she is likely to believe that she needs to lose weight and to express disatissfaction with her body.  Girls learn quickly that their bodies don't measure up.

The thing is that dieting is not healthy.  Kids who go on restrictive diets are at increased risk for developing eating disorders.  You don't want your kid to end up anorexic, bulimic or a compulsive over-eater?  Do not let them go on a low calorie diet!  Lots of research has been done to show that when a person goes on a diet, they become more obsessed with food.  The mere act of dieting can trigger a lifetime of disordered eating.  Don't believe me?  Check out this article about the Minnesota Starvation Experiment, one of the most famous and earliest studies showing that dieting makes you crazy in the head (They Starved So That Others Be Better Fed).

Your kid has a case of the chubbies?  Turn off the damn television.  Give that kid a piece of fruit or a vegetable, and get them outdoors.  Drag your fat ass out there, too.  For God's sake don't tell the kid that they are fat, and do not put the child on a diet.  If the kid has an active and healthy life they'll be fine.  Let them have a slice of chocolate cake once in a while.  If you tell them they are too fat for it, they are just going to want it more.  As soon as you make certain foods taboo you have opened up a Pandora's box that is going to haunt that child for life. 

Oh, I took the time to read through the reviews for the book.  Most of the comments were from rational, sane people.  Some were a bit misguided, though.   For instance, Robin said: "Wow this is a very great book! My daughter who is 14 and fighting childhood obesity just had a birthday and this book arrived at her birthday party just a couple days after her birthday. So I let her open it up and she loved it."  Can you fucking imagine opening up a present for your fourteenth birthday and getting a book about going on a diet?    Ho-ly shit that kid is going to need therapy.

Afghani man murders wife for giving birth to a daughter

Mother and Daughter by Élisabeth-Louise Vigee-Le Brun (1789)

The United Nations estimates that there are around 60 million fewer women alive on planet Earth than there should be.  The culprits are femicide, the murder of a woman or girl specifically because of gender, and the selective abortion of female fetuses.  The problem exists in many parts of the world, even in the US.

  A study done by Unicef in India in 2002 tracked the rates of abortion after an amniocentesis.  Of those fetuses aborted 99.99% were female.  You read that right.  9,999 out of 10,000 were female.  It is arguable that those may have been the lucky ones given the utter hell that can befall women for the simple crime of having a vagina in India.  It's another post for another day, but what is happening in India is disgusting, disgraceful and wrong.

India is not the only country with this problem.  Among others, Guatemala, China, Turkey, Pakistan and Afghanistan are also apparently hell-bent on eradicating anyone without a Y chromosome.  This  week, an Afghan man named Sher Mohammad strangled his wife, Estorai, to death after she had the sheer audacity to give birth to a second daughter instead of a son.  He had threatened to kill her if she had another daughter, and made good on that threat.  Apparently his mother helped him kill his wife.  Awesome.  So, girls are good enough to help you murder people...

You can read the full story here on The Blaze:  Woman murdered after having daughter

However you look is wrong: A rant

As a thought exercise, I like to tell my students to imagine that every adult women in the country wakes up tomorrow morning conforming perfectly to the beauty ideals.  We all wake up looking 25, with flawless, pale skin.  We all weigh 110 pounds, are 5'9", have huge breasts and long, shiny, straight hair.  We have lush, RuPaul-esque eyelashes and our teeth are perfectly white and straight.   What would happen next?

Chaos and recession.  That's what.  Who would buy make-up, diet pills, hair dye, tooth whitener, silicone breast implants and lipo?  Who would buy the flat-iron, hair extensions, hair products, diet shakes, diet books, and gym memberships?  What about the control top hose and the spanx and push-up bras? 

You can guess what would happen.  Suddenly, the "new sexy" would be short, and tan with curvy hips, small breasts, freckles and curly black hair.  We would all be rushing out to buy tanner, and get perms and fake freckles.  We'd buy garments to help minimize our ample busts and funny undies to make our hips shapelier.

No matter how you look, it's wrong.  The ideal female beauty doesn't look the way it does because it is the most beautiful version of female humanity possible.   It's just what is fashionable now, and it is an image that is profitable precisely because it is unattainable.   Women are required to purchase products in order to come closer to the beauty ideal.  Let's face it, even if we did all wake up looking like models tomorrow, in ten years we'd be "old" and therefore no longer meet the beauty ideal.  You can't win.  However, you are supposed to spend a lot of money trying.

Our ideas about what is beautiful have changed considerably over time.  Take a look at this:

So, the point is to make it look like you have the great pyramids on your chest?

I'd like to refer you to my colleagues Ben and Jerry, if you are still wanting to gain more. 

In the late 1800s and early 1900s the focus was on the waist, and it was en vogue to let the girls ride low.  Real low.  I mean damn. Look like she got Flopsy, Mopsy and Cotton-tail up in there.

Who would you rape?

In December, the Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternity at the University of Vermont was suspended because they had distributed a survey to members asking who they would like to rape.  The school and national office of the fraternity quickly condoned the survey and the chapter of the fraternity.  It is not clear who wrote the questionnaire or who completed it.  There are a couple of important points here.  One is that it was brothers within the fraternity who reported the offensive question to the University.    Most men understand that rape is not a joke, and they are invested in preventing it.  

However, there are undercurrents in our culture that suggest that rape is not serious, that women really want it, and that women can "ask for it" based on how they dress or behave.   If you google the word "Rape" and click the images button, these are some of the things you'll see on the FIRST PAGE of results:

It's not a big deal.

Yes, you should expect to be raped.  It's all your fault, you fence-sitting slut.

I get your point about the over-elaborate set up here, but still.  Nope.

Although most people are smart enough to realize that this kind of crap is crap, there are some people who are vulnerable to these messages.   We need to take shit like the "who would you rape" survey and these hilarious internet memes seriously.  It's not funny.