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From: ames!claris!netcom!avery@ncar.ucar.EDU (Avery Colter)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Female human aesthetics
Message-ID: <16599@netcom.UUCP>
Date: 12 Nov 90 16:59:36 GMT
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carioca@ucscb.ucsc.edu (fOoDFoOdfOoDiTYfooD!) writes:

>There are *constant* references to
>how attractive you'll be *to men* if you wear this dress or that brand
>of lipstick.  If it were really about attaining something for yourself,
>then there would be far more references to self-confidence and fewer
>about how stunning "he" will find you on "that special night."

This, again, as I answered to another a few weeks ago, makes one hell
of an assumption about what "he" likes in a woman.

All I know is, for quite a while in high school I was wondering if
there was something awry with my manhood, because the "he" portrayed
in those ads sure as hell wasn't me.

The sexism in those ads is mainly directed against women, but by
association there are a couple of bad messages in them for men who
don't fit the image of the "he" these women are supposedly striving
for.

The question becomes, for such men, "what do I have to do to become
that man they seek"?

According to the ads, unfortunately, the answer seems to be to become
the very kind of man that would make one an enemy of any feminist on
the face of the earth.

It takes two genders of images to create the trap. It takes two
genders of people to reliably get around them without having sundry
parts chopped off.

--
Avery Ray Colter    {apple|claris}!netcom!avery  {decwrl|mips|sgi}!btr!elfcat
(415) 839-4567   "Fat and steel: two mortal enemies locked in deadly combat."
                                     - "The Bending of the Bars", A. R. Colter