Badvertising Part II

Last I left you, I had some interesting old school ads that were quite horrendous on the 'modern woman' front. These ads are pretty new, and to me, and to a lot of those current with the feminist forefront, are just as bad. An ad with a man in a possessive/aggressive position, the woman lying supine and at his mercy advertising clothing? For who? The wife beater?

Which diet pill works for you? Why isn't a man on this ad also? Why should only women care about their bodies, dissolve into society like thin wraiths. We shouldn't take up much room, apparently.

Don't you know good women are Audrey Hepburn-esque, gamine and tiny. As a smaller person myself, I always make a point to say I 'act like a taller person' and also like to say I'm in training for the Miss Universe competition. Nah, I'm definitely not a champion bodybuilder but I think bulk/muscle training for women is a fantastic idea and I'm super proud of my bicep/shoulder definition, if only to show those determined to delegate women into the 'thin, slim teen, submissive petite' stereotype how wrong they are when faced with a woman with more than a few muscles.

With that being said, you sure don't see 'shrinking pills' for tall women if tiny is the preferred norm. Nope, 'they' don't care how tall you are, only that you are growing thinner with each bad ad.

Not everybody wants to lose weight, and diet pills are a terrible idea for the maintenance of a healthy body & mind. Not everybody relishes a pack of men standing over them, even if the men are suspiciously effeminate.

I wish I could say feminism wasn't needed anymore, but every time I read the news I think it hasn't finished yet, we haven't reached that point yet. Case in point, even personally I feel it. One time I was walking home at night from work and crossed the street to my apartment. At that same time, a bunch of young men were approaching me. They presumed that I crossed the street to avoid running into them, and yelled to me something in that manner. I didn't bother answering, but thought to myself; If you were smaller, more vulnerable at night with a gender known to attack you, would you avoid them?

I have been groped while pushing open a door at a campus pub before, in broad view of my outraged male and female friends. Trust me, it doesn't engender trust in men, ever. Until you can demonstrate your trustworthiness, feminism will never be unnecessary. Wish it weren't so, but there are a myriad of other issues that I can't even get started on; women's sports, payscales, childcare duties, doctor's assumptions that young women are brainless and too infantile to understand what you want when you say you want to be permanently sterilised...Oh, we've only just begun!

((Please excuse this awful wall of text, Blogger will not let me add paragraphs to avoid the eye-bleed. ARGHHHH)