superheroines September 4, 2012

I’m not expert in comics and/or superheroes and I know there ARE female superheroes, or better, superheroines, such as Firestar, Black Widow, Aquagirl, and Batwoman.  (A wiki list can be found here.) Where are the mainstream superheroines geared towards kids lately?  It’s not that they never existed, but they have been written out of the newest iterations of the mainstream kid shows.  My son and daughter are into the superhero scene, which has led to my 7 year old daughter being mocked for liking Spiderman.  (She seemed bemused and dismissed the mocking and the mocker pretty quickly.)  We went with a Marvel comic theme in my son’s room and it wasn’t difficult to find many superheroines in posters and such for his room.  But when it comes to current kids TV shows, kids movies, and most kids merchandise today, the superhero seen is virtually all male. For girls, as we know the toy market is virtually all pink and princesses.

This predicament did lead to a fun activity with my kids.  They made up their own superheroines, including No Weakness, Scary Girl, Tool Girl, Hide Girl, and Loud Woman.

Where have all the mainstream superheroines for kids gone and how can we bring them back?

More gendered marketing: A new take on “girl drinks” August 30, 2012

Here’s a Guardian blog post about three “feminine” lagers being marketed by Molson Coors.  Feminine lagers? Sounds like a category mistake!  The beer for women will come in three vague and predictably ethereal sounding flavors: “clear filtered”, “crisp rosé” and “zesty lemon.” The post is pretty good on why such a beer is not needed and is basically nonsense.  The post closes however with a concession that there is a need for “breaking the boundaries between women and beer.”  Are there boundaries between women and beer?  My many years as a bartender tell me otherwise.  But even if these boundaries exist, is that really a problem?  Much more concerning are the boundaries between women and their rights to bodily integrity, reproductive freedom, freedom from violence, and equal pay.

Can Pinkification Be Subversive? August 24, 2012

I found myself staring at this picture for a good solid five minutes, because I can’t fully make up my mind about it.

My rambling is after the jump.

Reviews of Bic for Her August 16, 2012

Beautiful.

Wow!! Where do I start?! I just can’t believe that I somehow managed to get by my whole life using boy-coloured pens which are made for boy hands! The BIC For Her Amber Medium Ballpoint Pen (in pink) has made such a difference to my life. Just last week I had to sign my name, but I had one of those regular boy pens, and I got all the letters muddled up and they weren’t even all on the page! LOLs! But when I tried writing my name today it was just incredible!!! All the letters were in the right order, The first letter was bigger and capitalised, they sat neatly on the line on the page, and they all fitted on the page! It took me a whole 12 minutes less too, and now I can dedicate all this spare time to cooking, hoovering, ironing, and vajazzling my noo-nah *giggles*.

Oooh a really cool thing that happened that I just must share with you all – I used to write the letter “m” all kind of jaggedy, like mountains that big strong boys climb, but now with the BIC For Her Amber Medium Ballpoint Pen (in pink), it’s more curvy, like my lady bosom. I cannot begin to tell you how relieved I am about that!

Thanks, R!

Why not vote for some feminist-friendly Lego? June 28, 2012

Back when I were a lad, Lego figures were more or less androgynous. About the only indicator of gender was the occasional (removable, transferable) haircut, and the astronauts and racing drivers could have anything under their suits. Since I were a lad, things have moved on somewhat, and Lego figures now have all sorts of gendered elements, not least an impressively extensive and detailed array of facial furniture.

Which is all well and good, but it does raise the possibility that a previously gender-neutral toy might become rather less so, and there are some indications that this is the case; see, for example, the faintly depressing spectacle of Lego’s attempt to create a product range appealing specifically to girls (though it’s only fair to note that one of these apparent simpering stereotypes in fact has a nice sideline in robot design and aspires to be ‘a scientist or an engineer‘).

Anyway, as something of a corrective to this, a reader has come up with a way to propose a rather more feminist-friendly set of figures, via Lego’s new mechanism for public suggestions. You can vote for the idea there, and if it gets lots of attention, there’s a chance that the company will end up producing female engineers, scientists, and so forth. In the meantime, there’s always magic markers.

Are all babies born to do something great? June 26, 2012

“IMBORNTO” is a March of Dimes campaign that is just over. It seems to me sad in a number of ways. In particular, what it presents in the way of a moral understanding of greatness is sorely lacking, or at least it seems so to me. We need everything we can get to advocate moral goals for the United States and other western countries.

In addition, the representations of babies practicing something they might be born to do are problematic in a ways that will be very familiar to readers of this blog.

So first, the morally impoverished video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4Z6etFO6fDI

and then the babies:

…So we don’t want girls to survive earthquakes? June 12, 2012

Scholastic has recently released two companion books: How to Survive Anything! Boys Only and How to Survive Anything! Girls Only. Of course, by “anything”, they mean shark attacks, tornadoes, quicksand and broken legs if you’re a boy, and BFF fights, breakouts and fashion disasters if you’re a girl. what are the haps breaks it down.

Excerpt:

If you ever find yourself in this situation, please oh please don’t say “THIS ONE IS FOR BOYS AND THIS IS FOR GIRLS”.  Perhaps instead say “THIS ONE HAS A BUNCH OF INTERESTING REAL-LIFE DISASTER SURVIVAL AND THIS ONE HAS A LOT OF PERSONAL HYGIENE AND INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIP STUFF IN IT, ALSO, TIPS ON GETTING YOUR CAT TO SIT DOWN, I DUNNO”.

Thanks RM.

 

 

Man candles May 22, 2012

Yes, truly. And here are their names and descriptions:

Man Town™ – Escape to the man cave with this masculine blend of spices, woods and musk.

First Down™ – This combination of orange, patchouli, vetiver and leather is as exciting as game day.

Riding Mower™ – Hot sun. Cool breeze. And the intensely summery scent of freshly cut grass.

2 x 4™ – The warm, unmistakable scent of freshly planed wood and sawdust evokes a sense of confidence and quality.

From the Yankee Candle Company.

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/05/18/man-candles-for-that-manly-riding-mower-smell/?iid=nf-article-mostpop1#ixzz1vdbHZHtl

Charles Barkley for weight watchers April 1, 2012

Deconstruction needed.

 

 

I think the idea is that a real man (muscles, chest hair, sports record) can do some girly thing without ruining his image/life.  Sigh.

The Gendered Advertising Remixer March 30, 2012

Waaay too much fun: swap audio and visual from ads targeting boys and girls. Must not spend rest of day on this.

(Thanks, Mr Jender!)