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Writing this blog everyday, I sure as hell do! And this cracked me up.

If like me, you’re fed up with stupid sexist commercials, check out a few getting some feminist skewering:

I want to see more of Sarah Haskins. And I also might have to start watching InfoMania. It kind of looks like VH1’s Best Week Ever . . . but with jokes that are funny.

h/t Feministing

Popularity: 2% [?]

If you saw someone wearing any of these disgusting shirts, would you:

1. Hit him where it hurts (your choice of body part)
2. Go into an uncontrollable screaming rage
3. Run in the other direction
4. Burst into tears in mourning for your very last ounce of hope in humanity

For me, it depends. I would always be tempted by #1, but refrain (violence is wrong, I’m a wimp, and the last guy I want to initiate violence with is the one wearing a rape shirt). I would probably do #2 if around enough people I know, and could therefore feel relatively safe yelling at someone who is a rapist or rapist-in-training. Otherwise, I’d have to go with #3, followed very quickly by #4. Actually, #4 could probably be guaranteed.

Leave your answers in the comments.

UPDATE: Numerous people in the comments have left remarks questioning whether or not Cafe Press should sell such material and whether or not people are allowed to sell such material on Cafe Press. I looked into it, and as it turns out . . . I’m pretty sure that they can’t.

General Guidelines for Prohibited Content

• Content that may infringe on the rights of a third a party.
• Items that make inappropriate use of Nazi symbols and glamorize the actions of Hitler.
• Use of marks that signify hate towards another group of people.
• Hate and/or racist terms.
• Inappropriate content or nudity that is not artistic in nature.
• Content that exploits images or the likeness of minors.
• Obscene and vulgar comments and offensive remarks that harass, threaten, defame or abuse others such as F*** (Ethnic Group).
• Content that depicts violence, is obscene, abusive, fraudulent or threatening such as an image of a murder victim, morgue shots, promotion of suicide, etc.
• Content that glamorizes the use of “hard core” illegal substance and drugs such as a person injecting a vial of a substance in their body.
• Material that is generally offensive or in bad taste, as determined by CafePress.com.

The list outlined above should NOT be construed as an exhaustive list of offensive material but rather as a general guideline for you to follow.

I think that these shirts pretty much have to fall under at least one of these guidelines. Cafe Press says that if something breaks the usage policy to email them at cup@cafepress.com. So, below the jump, I’ve compiled a bunch of links for the shirts I found, roughly though hardly scientifically in order of most to least offensive. I suggest sending off an email with these URLs and an explanation as to why they violate the content policy. Trigger warning: all of these shirts are very disturbing and offensive.

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Popularity: 20% [?]

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here’s this article from Newsweek about how drugstores are now starting to sell “sexual aids” right out there in the open with the non-sinful products:

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Popularity: 17% [?]

I don’t know where Melissa keep finding these things, and I probably don’t want to know. Yesterday, it was this pencil sharpener.

And I was naively convinced that when it comes to “joke toys” that promote rape, a headless woman bent over with her hands and feet nailed to the floor while having phallic items shoved in at least one orifice is about as bad as it gets.

But, sadly, it’s not. Because today (and this makes it a sad, sad day), I learned about Lusty Linda.

Now, at first glance, Lusty Linda doesn’t look any worse than the pencil sharpener. But that’s because you don’t know that she talks, yet. From the one of the sites selling it:

Let Lusty Linda the pen holder sun-bath on your desk. When you stick in a pen, she will moan, groan or say any of 10 different things. A switch on the bottom lets you set Linda’s mood, from good or bad. (too bad all women did not have such a switch).

Lusty Linda The Pen Holder Says 10 Different Things including:

* ooow (ouch)!
* Get out you, you dirty old man!
* What are you looking at?
* Help! Help!
* Oh ooh (excited)

That’s right. This “toy” is a plastic object that looks like a woman with a gaping hole in her crotch that symbolizes her vagina, and you’re supposed to shove pens into said hole while she screams for help or moans in pain. But hey, that’s only when she’s in a “bad mood.” When she’s not being a massive bitch, she totally loves it. Like all women, of course. Except that — haha — you can’t turn most of the stupid whores on and off at your leisure for your fucking/raping pleasure.

I want to make it explicitly clear right now: this post is a part of my 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence series.

And I want to make something else, clear, too, and it’s something that could be highly unpopular:

This promotes rape.

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Popularity: 44% [?]

[cross-posted from Femniste]

About a month ago, I wrote a post about Guitar Hero III. The main gist was that as a big-time previous fan of the series, I was thoroughly unimpressed with the the changes that have been made to the game, which are quite misogynist, exploitative of women and completely insensitive to the fact that the game has a female audience. To my great surprise, the post became a big hit (and troll target) and was linked to in all kinds of forums and blogs that would normally never give me a second glance. This was also to my slight dismay, because I didn’t spend much time on that post, and frankly, I don’t think that it’s very good. Anyway, lesson learned.

The point is that I now feel compelled if not required to say a few words about Rock Band.

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Popularity: 19% [?]

Here’s something you probably haven’t heard much about in a while: the female condom. Why talk about it now? Because finally, someone has had the sense to redesign it.

Some history:

The female condom has never caught on in the United States. But in the third world, where it was introduced in the late 1990s, public health workers hoped it would overthrow the politics of the bedroom, empower women and stop the AIDS epidemic in its tracks.

It did not. Female condoms never really caught on there, either.

Only about 12 million female condoms are delivered each year in poor countries, compared with about 6 billion male condoms. Couples complained that the female version was awkward, unsightly, noisy and slippery — or, as Mitchell Warren, who was one of its earliest champions, now says, “the yuck factor was a problem.” Many women tried it, but in the end, it was adopted mainly by prostitutes.

Actually, I hadn’t heard before that the female condom was popular among sex workers. Does anyone know if this is true? In any case, I’m not nuts about the tone of the statement, which seems to imply that it’s a useless victory. Of course we want any contraceptive to have a wider market, but I’d say that if sex workers are using it as a way to protect themselves, that’s a win.

Anyway, I digress. The point is, as almost everyone agrees, the original sucked and was weird. I’ve never tried one; in fact, I don’t know anyone who has ever admitted using one to me. If you have, let us know about it (you’re more than welcome to leave your comment anonymously). So there’s a lot of room for improvement, to say the least, and the new design certainly sounds interesting:

The redesigned female condom is made of softer, thinner polyurethane to better transmit warmth. It is easier to insert; one end is bunched up as small as a tampon, an improvement on the old design, which resembled the stiff rubber ring of a diaphragm and had to be folded into a figure 8 for insertion.

During sex, the new female condom also moves more like a vagina than the old design did, according to couples in Seattle, Thailand, Mexico and South Africa who tested a series of prototypes, said Joanie Robertson, project manager for the condom at PATH. The old design hung passively from the rubber ring, which could shift around and sometimes hurt; the new design has dots of adhesive foam that adhere to the vaginal walls, expanding with them during arousal.

According to PATH, more than 90 percent of the couples were satisfied with the ease of use and comfort of the new condom, and 98 percent found the sensation of sex to be “O.K. to very satisfactory.”

You can also check out a drawing of the new design in the article itself.

. . .

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Popularity: 21% [?]

Salon has an article up today on a slightly unusual topic: makeup for men. I remember a few years ago, some companies tried this out. And it was ruthlessly mocked pretty much everywhere that there was a platform from which to do the mocking. But apparently, the idea is making a comeback. Sort of.

It’s no secret that actors have been prone to powder their noses, but a growing number of high-profile guys are drawing notice for rocking suspiciously ruddy glows offstage. Alongside Efron, a bevy of pretty boys have been cited recently for egregious makeup application: John Mayer, Jesse McCartney, Ryan Seacrest. Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, the world’s most approachable hipster and patron saint of “guyliner,” even gave a sober demonstration on applying eyeliner in People magazine a few months ago that would have made the late Tammy Faye Bakker proud.

So are we ready to embrace makeup on men? After all, the Beatles’ long-ish hair was once considered an affront to modest ’60s sensibilities. Or will men’s makeup go the route of the men’s skirt trend circa 2003 that never quite took off?

If foreign markets are any indication, we may be slathering on foundation soon enough. The U.K. drugstore giant Boots has started carrying a men’s makeup line, and H&M in London stocks mascara in its men’s section. In Asia, Japan’s Gatsby line of men’s makeup and South Korea’s Man Holding Flower line by Somang featuring “Color Lotion” are doing brisk business.

But the culture that gave birth to the rugged masculine ideal of the Marlboro Man may not be ready to reach for the blush brush just yet. A GQ survey in 2005 reported that “92 percent of men would not wear makeup even if it guaranteed them a more fulfilling sex life.” U.S. sales figures seem to confirm the ongoing resistance to men’s makeup. Tres Wilson, executive director of Clinique Global Treatment Marketing, said, “Clinique’s Skin Supplies for Men M Cover [a concealer that debuted earlier this year] and Non-Streak Bronzer products sell very well in Europe, much more so than in the U.S.”

Interesting.

You know, I think that the first liberal inclination might be to embrace a culture that accepts makeup on men. It would show a blurring of gender roles, an increased acceptance of varying genders and sexualities and a lack of concern about whether one might be called “gay.” These are good points, but I do have a slightly different take.

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Popularity: 23% [?]

I don’t think anyone would ever make the mistake of calling me a gamer. I’ve never been very good at them, and with the exception of puzzle-type games like Tetris and Mahjong, they just don’t interest me. It’s not my thing.

But I love Guitar Hero. My husband got me hooked on it a couple of years ago, when the first game came out. Since then, we’ve bought all the sequels since on their release date, even the shitty 80s expansion pack. I’m pretty good; I can complete hard with little effort, and get five stars on most songs with a bit of work. I will, in fact, get obsessed with it.

As any good rock geek should know, Guitar Hero III was released yesterday. We bought it. We got it home. We were excited. Then we turned it on and I came to the very fast realization that I just paid $50 for a game that was going to blatantly and guiltlessly insult me.

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Popularity: 90% [?]

So this is interesting: with all of the recent hate crimes involving nooses, some Halloween decorations are gaining increased scrutiny. All over the country, displays that include corpses hanging from nooses — very similar to the one at the left — have caused furor and distress over their racial connotations.

In a dozen incidents during the weeks before Halloween this year, black and white Americans around the country faced a kind of Rorschach test of the national psyche: Is that a funny Halloween ghoul in a noose hanging from your neighbor’s tree? Or is that a racist symbol of lynching hiding in the Halloween tableau?

The question has frayed nerves in New Jersey, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Tennessee and Georgia. It has prompted protests from the N.A.A.C.P. and from black leaders who have raised questions about possible links between the displays and a rash of what have been considered race-baiting incidents involving nooses, from Jena, La., to Teachers College at Columbia University.

Unlike those incidents, though, the mock hangings — considered relatively new to the panoply of Halloween mock-menace — have been displayed openly. And they are defended vigorously by people like Jennifer Cervero of Stratford, Conn., who this week removed the figure of a man hanging from a noose in her tree, after protests, but still finds the complaints of racial insensitivity she received “completely overblown and ridiculous.” . . .

The Rev. Johnny Gamble, pastor of the Friendship Baptist Church in Stratford, heard complaints from parishioners and went to see it for himself.

“At first, I couldn’t believe my eyes. But there it was. A mannequin of a black man, hanging from the neck,” said Mr. Gamble, who is black.

When he knocked at the door, Joyce Mounajed, Miss Cervero’s mother, told him the figure was not meant to be a black man, but was dark-hued to convey the idea of decaying flesh. It was “just a decoration,” he said she told him.

“I told her, ‘We don’t decorate like that. That is a symbol of lynching,’” Mr. Gamble said. “What if my great-grandfather was lynched? There are no two ways of looking at this; that thing is extremely offensive.”

I think that this is going to be one of those situations where lines get drawn between stubborn white people and the people of color that they think are “overly-sensitive.” It also makes me think about my own history of Halloween directions.

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Popularity: 19% [?]

Happy Love Your Body Day!

The annual Love Your Body Day by NOW is a celebration of female bodies in all their natural forms, an opportunity to raise awareness about harmful media images and a day to fight back.

To the left is my all-time favorite winner of the Love Your Body poster contest. You can check out this and previous year’s winners here — I’m partial to the 2007 Category 2 winner, myself.

You can also send an e-card to the women in your life, telling them about the day and how great their bodies are. And check out the ways to celebrate. Enjoy!

Popularity: 14% [?]

So lipstick not only tastes like a bizarre combination of paint, paste and chalk, costs way too much money and dries out your lips, according to a new study it might also be dangerous to your health. Maybe all of that lead makes it last longer? Or makes the color prettier?

Lipsticks tested by a U.S. consumer rights group found that more than half contained lead and some popular brands including Cover Girl, L’Oreal and Christian Dior had more lead than others, the group said on Thursday.

The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics said tests on 33 brand-name red lipsticks by the Bodycote Testing Group in Santa Fe Spring, California, found that 61 percent had detectable lead levels of 0.03 to 0.65 parts per million (ppm).

Lipstick, like candy, is ingested. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, a coalition of public health, environmental and women’s groups, said the FDA has not set a limit for lead in lipstick.

One-third of the lipsticks tested contained an amount of lead that exceeded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s 0.1 ppm limit for lead in candy — a standard established to protect children from ingesting lead, the group said. Thirty-nine percent of the lipsticks tested had no discernible lead, it said.

“It’s critical that manufacturers reformulate their product,” said Stacy Malkan, a co-founder of the coalition. “It’s possible to make lipsticks without lead, and all companies should be doing that.”

Lead can cause learning, language and behavioral problems such as reduced school performance and increased aggression. Pregnant women and young children are particularly vulnerable to lead exposure, the group said in its statement. Lead has also been linked to infertility and miscarriage, it said. (emphasis mine)

This is one of those days when I’m glad that I found feminism in college and stopped wearing almost all makeup instead of, like many women, started wearing more. I say that not to judge women who do wear makeup or say that makeup-wearers are not feminists, but because, well, I am really glad.

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Popularity: 12% [?]

vs. I found this tidbit from an AlterNet article about the new Bionic Woman show and the history of fembots to be interesting. It’s about those Heineken ads that featured a female robot dancing for its male audience while serving out beer.

I’m not about to argue that fembots are a positive trend in advertising. Though Garfield might have been overreading the Heineken ads when he suggested they were serving beer out their uterus, they still disturb.

But as mute robots, are they really more subservient and here for your pleasure than the soft-flesh porn lite usually served between games? As far as the argument that female cyborgs embody sexist body ideals, are they that much worse than the standard 34-24-36 Budweiser model? If anything, the impossibility of their parts would seem to dissuade emulation.

Plus, while the SVEDKA_GRL cashes in on the idea of making it with a big-breasted piece of metal, the ad’s not all retrograde. “Thank you for making the gay man’s fashion gene available over-the-counter in 2033,” reads one of its New York billboards. “Madame President and her first lady serve Svedka at all official state functions,” pushes another. It’s more sensational than it is political but at least she/it boasts a point of view.

Let’s just get it out of the way and say that the “gay man’s fashion gene” statement, though probably in the pursuit of gay acceptance, as so often happens, is actually pretty offensive. The one about the female president is pretty good, fair enough. But do statements promoting gender equality give you a free license to be otherwise sexist? Last time I checked, the answer was no. So I find the point to be fairly moot.

On to the ads themselves.

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Popularity: 23% [?]

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