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Clothes Marketing Based on Genitals, Chromosomes

Submitted by Amophrast on Sun, 01/22/2012 - 6:15pm

Kind of relating to some of the other posts people made this week, here are some pictures from when I was in NYC for my externship. I was staying with a relative and when we were walking around the city, we stopped in a store to get out of the cold while we double-checked which direction we were walking in. The pictures are blurry, but of course you can tell what they're saying because they're "color-coded."

Image of the inside of a department store. A pink neon sign on the left says "Female" and "2nd floor" and a blue neon sign on the right says "Male" and "3rd floor"

Closer shots:

A neon pink sign in a department store that says "Female" and "2nd floor"

A neon blue sign in a department store that says "Male" and "3rd floor"

I hadn't thought of it at first, but I agree with the person in class who said that men should be at the dinner table as well. I found a blog post online via a group called Feminist Kinksters that debated whether or not (kinky) porn could be feminist: http://rageagainstthemanchine.com/2009/02/07/please-somebody-come-and-defend-kinkcom/

The blog post is many years old, and has well over a thousand comments, many made by those who identify as feminist. There was a lot of argument with thoughts such as "you can't call yourself a feminist because you don't know what feminism is" and "you can't call yourself a feminist because you are male." Posters identifying as men (note: as men, not males) who made sound, polite arguments because they refused to be incited by rudeness were discounted by certain female, feminist posters simply on the basis of them being male. Here's a quote by poster delphyne:

"I’m just skipping over the male sadists’ posts for now. They have nothing to say to me.

Men who enjoy torturing women or who enjoy seeing women tortured are the enemies of womankind and the enemies of feminism. You can see it in action here the way they try to neutralise feminism or turn it into something that supports their woman-hating activities. All they are interested in is for the torture and abuse to continue and for them to be free of any criticism or opposition. It’s not going to happen."

The men didn't get a voice in the conversation, didn't get an audience. I think to do so is dangerous because it is narrow-minded and petty. I don't believe feminism is the same as man-hating, and to emphasize this, I would like to reinforce the call for feminist men at the dinner table.

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