Open letter to advertisers

This is quite funny (and apt).

Dear people in charge of commercials targeting women,

I just wanted you to know that according to your commercials, men never eat yogurt. Not once. In your world they don’t even go near the yogurt aisle. Did you put up some sort of force field? Only women buy yogurt and when they do, they eat it with grins on their faces and talk about it as if there’s an orgasm in every little 6 oz. plastic container. And really, “swapping” a slice of strawberry cheesecake for a yogurt?

No.

I’ll eat a slice of strawberry cheesecake if I want to. Why is every woman in your commercials watching their weight? They don’t need to feel guilty about eating a slice of that that cheesecake in the fridge or about ordering that large cappuccino. Chocolate is okay though, you say they can indulge in pieces of chocolate—because they deserve it.

Men also never eat chocolate. Or use Swiffers, or paper towels, do laundry or dishes, or buy peanut butter. Only moms who care about their kids buy peanut butter. I’m a crappy mom if I don’t buy the right peanut butter.

Also, did I miss something, or is there a requirement that I have to dance while I mop my floor?

Read the rest here.

We’re Shrinking Penises!

“I think it’s feminism,” he declared. “If it’s tied to the last 50 years — the average size of [a male’s] member is 10 percent smaller than 50 years — it has to be the feminazis, the chickification and everything else.”

–Rush Limbaugh

 

(Thanks, J-Bro!)

Marx and Breast-Feeding

Here’s a letter to students from David Vine recently published in Inside Higher Ed.     Vine is one of Adrienne Pine’s colleagues at American University.  Pine, you’ll recall, is the woman who chose to breastfeed her (sick) child during a class she was leading.

Americans who succeed with help: Let’s say so.

I am surprised how pleased and moved I was by the recent post of the Mayor of Minneapolis regarding Gov. Mitt Romney’s statement that 47% of voters are entitlement-expecting pseudo-victims.  But I see why Mayor Rybak’s essay is powerful.  It’s because Rybak is so specific.  He wouldn’t be where he is today without exactly the same sort of government benefit that he — and Rep. Paul Ryan — relied on for their college educations:

When Paul Ryan’s father died when Paul was 16, his widowed mother went back to college herself and used her Social Security survivor benefits to put Paul through college.

That rang very true to me, because that is exactly the same situation that my mother found herself in when my father died, when I was 10.

…Paul Ryan and I both got to go to college precisely because of the “entitlements” that my hardworking parents never expected they were entitled to.

This was powerful.  It’s one thing to say we all benefit.  It’s another to be specific.  So let’s do it.  Put it in your FaceBook status, on your blogs, heck, put it in your email signatures.  I know not all of you can actually spare the social capital of doing this in a way that alienates an employer, and times are hard.  All the more reason that those of us who can, should.  This is even more important for feminist reasons. Women are more likely to be poor, and more likely to apply for forms of aid.  Those of us with the privilege of being assumed to be successful and job-creators and whatnot have an obligation to say we have benefited, too.

I wouldn’t be here without food stamps and student loans.  I’m telling everyone.