Still keeping women in their place

I made the mistake of watching a few of the ads for the fall TV lineup.  It was a big mistake.

We have the Playboy Club, Pan Am and Charlie’s Angels somewhere.  I don’t even know what nights or stations.  The ads were enough of a turnoff for me.   There are so many things I could say about these shows but I won’t.  I don’t need to.  These shows don’t add value, lift people up, or tell a good story.

Nope, they won’t do any of that.  What they will do is remind us of where women once were. And suggest in nuanced ways that just perhaps we might have been a teeny, weeny better off in support roles.  How fortunate we are to be here now.  It’s a privilege really, that we have been “allowed” to progress.

This paternalistic horseshit makes me gag.  Really.

There were some t-shirts being sold at JC Penney and while taken off the shelf, I just have to wonder how they got there.  The shirts (for young women) said, “I am too pretty to do homework so my brother does it for me.”  I didn’t believe it until I saw their apology online.

I really loathe this.  Because it ends up in the workplace.  Some people can’t separate fiction from reality and I can imagine the conversations that will end up in places – around the water cooler (if they even exist), in the lunch room, at the gym – lamenting the good old days when women “knew” their place.

And they aren’t talking about the boardroom, the executive committee, or the CEO job. 

There is no chance that a woman would say that wearing a bunny outfit with a cotton tail taped to her ass was anything less than demoralizing.  That getting hired by her looks and her weight took advantage of the grey matter between her ears.  That being rescued by a voice-on-the-phone is what every woman wants. 

I don’t want to have to fight this stereotype. We are better than this.  Smarter than this.  We don’t need to be saved, rescued, dressed up like bunnies, or wound up like dolls.  Enough.  Really.  Enough already. 

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