Comments on: Feminizers without borders: Moscow edition

By: Katze mit Wut

Katze mit Wut — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 12:22:57 +0000

Feminist World News: The Third Alternative…

As you see from the picture, I was going to write about this NHS campaign that says that 1 out of 3 women who were raped (by men) were intoxicated at the time (trying to imply that alcohol made you unsafe, but really only saying that you’re twice as s…

By: wordvenus

wordvenus — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 20:46:30 +0000

I FUCKING LOVE THIS BLOG. and this entry in particular. thank you for clearly, eloquently, and amusingly rousing these complex issues with that exemplary clarity i’ve so come to love. as a post-women’s studies student i flail to find such thinking on the interwebs and elsewhere and shudder at the parade of pink surrounding my supposed consumerism. thank you, thank you, thank you!

By: Liz Henry

Liz Henry — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 20:11:14 +0000

Oh you really sum it right up with your glorious unstoppable sentences. This is beautiful… and so true.

By: Ryna

Ryna — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 13:41:23 +0000

1. I adore you and am getting that paragraph painted in big letters on my front door.

2. Consumer Society, an awesome book which I stole from a friend of a friend when I was staying at their house, has an essay about conspicuous consumption and the housewife. Essentially, the author explains that rich people have essentially hired their womenfolk to do the conspicuous consuming for them in many cases. Rich womens’ jobs are actually to buy more shit to let everybody know how rich their husband is.

This means that they are more likely to be into pointless capitalist expressions of gender, as this affords more opportunities to conspicuously consume. It also means they’re more likely to be raised to think of SAHM as an acceptable role, as this frees up their time for consumption while signalling to the world that their husband can afford to feed them.

By: Lara

Lara — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 05:54:27 +0000

Thank you MarilynJean, I was just about to say that definitions of femininity in our patriarchal white supremacist culture are based on white middle-upper class womanhood. Men of all colors today (black, white, yellow, brown) hate black women because they think black women are not feminine enough, and that they would rather go for White, Asian, and Latina women. Sexism, racism, and classism are all connected so it makes sense that women are the property of men, so they therefore have to be the representations of both class and beauty. Hence the white womanhood being the ultimate model of femininity.
And yeah that ad would probably appeal way more to straight dudes than to women. Alcoholism among men in former Soviet states is a huge problem.

By: slythwolf

slythwolf — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:02:43 +0000

It always blows my mind when they attempt to market something as “for women” and then pornify it. Surely pornifying the bottle of vodka would make it more marketable to straight dudes than to women.

By: butterflywings

butterflywings — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:22:30 +0000

A good point.
The pink-ification of well, just about everything…it’s happening. What next - women have to have pink freaking toothbrushes?!
*Sigh*.
We have “flavoured” vodkas over here in the UK, you probably have them over there too; to make manly *liquor* palatable for ladies, see, as our palates are too delicate to enjoy the taste of alcohol. There is much hysteria about women drinking at all, but dammit, if we do, we have to drink pink stuff!
That tastes sweet, so actually makes it easier to drink to unwise levels…way to combat actual binge drinking, but you know the panic is moral, about hussies drinking at all, not actual concern for women’s health.
But yeah. That bottle. Euw.

By: MarilynJean

MarilynJean — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:03:58 +0000

Of course, Twisty is right as always. This post and the comments about it reminds of the fact that femininity refers mostly to white women. Femininity is white and women of color need to adjust themselves to appear more white (European) in order to be perceived as feminine.

Also, I really appreciate the concepts of how femininity and class are connected. Great discussion.

By: I Hate Ads VI « Accismus

I Hate Ads VI « Accismus — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:20:04 +0000

[…] Incidentally, this post perfectly sums up a sentiment I’ve been trying and failing to articula… Femininity, in fact, can’t even be practiced without stuff (which is one way of debunking the argument that it is an inherited sex trait). It is simply not possible for a woman without makeup and deodorant and lingerie and kitten heels and diet pills and clothes without pockets and anti-wrinkle cream that promises “glowing skin” and self-help books explaining the best ways to suck up to men and jewelry and razors and tweezers and lemon-scented cleaning products and boxes of Lean Cuisine in the freezer — all stuff that must be bought — to be fully feminine. […]

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 15:14:34 +0000

I want to point out that the goal here is not to get Russian women to drink *this* brand of vodka instead of the manly brands. The goal is to get women drinking vodka at all. Mixed drinks are not big in Russia, and neither is the idea of women doing shots. When I was a student for a semester in the early 1990s, the only women I saw doing shots were other Westerners. Russian women drank cognac or wine. Probably part of why Russian women have a life expectancy almost 14 years longer than that of Russian men (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Population_data).