• family matters

    Married Women Outraged on Behalf of Single Janet Napolitano

    The other day, professional gaffe machine and Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell accidentally leaned into an open mic and said, regarding Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano's appointment to head the Department of Homeland Security, "Janet's perfect for the job, because for that job, you have to have no life. Janet has no family. Perfect. She can devote, literally, 19, 20 hours a day to it." Uh oh! Big mistake, Ed. You are guilty of singleism. Campbell Brown and Gail Collins are not happy! More »
  • femiladyism

    Palin Says Hillary's Her Feminist Sister

    As if life isn't depressing enough for Hillary Clinton right now, when everyone from the president elect on down seems to be giving her the cold shoulder, now the former Democratic presidential candidate has to contend with the warm, unfortunate embrace of Sarah Palin. Palin said in part two of Greta Van Susteren's interminable interview that Clinton broke the glass ceiling for her Republican vice presidential run. Then she remembered that Hillary lost, so she amended her statement to say Clinton just bloodied her head against the glass ceiling, apparently so a social conservative whose looks earned her outsized press attention could complain about the media's "double standard." More »
  • advertising

    Ass-vertising Campaign Just Normal In Belgium, Apparently

    Che is a Belgian men's magazine. So it's not too concerned about pleasing women, or what women think, or not royally pissing off women in general. Here's the only thing Che wants from women: their ass! Amirite bro? Gimme some! The ad pictured at left shows gals strolling around with tags on their ass that say "Please Squeeze Here." Ha, yes ma'am! High five! Whatever the Belgian equivalent of the National Organization for Women is is really asleep at the wheel. Below, three more spots from Che's meat-themed ad campaign, proving once again that Belgian sex advertising is truly a world unto itself: More »
  • videuhoh

    Crying "Sexist" One Too Many Times

    Okay, GOP. I was there the first time you lambasted the deep-rooted sexism pervading our media and culture to score political points with women. I was there the second and fourth and 59th time too! I didn't think it would work initially. Aren't Democrats the party of abortions and birth control and the Equal Rights Amendment? Yes, the Obama campaign's purported misogyny got Geraldine Ferraro steamed enough to threaten supporting John McCain, but surely that had to be an isolated case of post-menopausal hysteria! (Joke.) But then you unearthed so many disgruntled white Hillary supporters Fox News began to look like a Barnard reunion.* And the Sarah Palin nomination was brilliant! The media is still vomiting up all that bait you set. Yeah okay but, you are done for now. You just invoked the S-charge against the socialist babykilling maggots for the very last time! Because you can level it at pretty much anyone — me included yes! — but not freaking Tina Fey. More »
  • lawsuits

    Pregnant Women Increasingly Uppity At Bloomberg

    Gadzooks: at Bloomberg LP, the financial news company owned by NYC mayor Mike Bloomberg, six dozen women—"about one in seven of the roughly 500 female employees who became pregnant in the last six years"—are now suing the company for being treated unfairly. That's up from an initial plaintiff count of three. It's almost as if there's some sort of unfolding pattern here: More »
  • classic ads

    "Men grow neglectful when wives grow careless"

    There's an episode of Mad Men (I told you I must relentlessly mine this show to catch up with every other ad writer) in which Sterling Cooper has to come up with an ad campaign for a stimulating "weight loss" machine that actually owes its popularity with women to the fact that it's an undercover vibrator. Cue the euphemisms: "Rejuvenator," "youthful glow," etc. Today, of course, euphemism is dead. The agency would sell the product with "Turn it on and cum!" So it makes us wistful to look back on how they sold embarrassing things in the good old days. (With sexism!). After the jump, classic ads that gently persuaded your grandparents to choose the right brand when they were feeling... not so fresh: More »
  • how things work

    Lipstick On the Fundamental Failure of the Democratic Process

    Do you ever have one of those days where you just want to pack it in because everyone else in the world is so patently, transparently intellectually dishonest and/or un-self-aware as to defy any and all stabs at serious criticism or even derisive mockery? Do those days ever last for the entire month of September? Are you outraged over Obama's lipstick remark or outraged over the outrage over it? Either way you are part of the problem! How does this shit happen? It's very simple. More »
  • advertising

    Europe Demands End To Mr. Clean's Sexist Reign

    A brainwashed American might look at Mr. Clean and think to themselves, "A man used as an icon in cleaning product advertisement rather than the stereotypical housewife. That's the opposite of sexism!" Try turning off the television propaganda some time, Yankee imperialist! The European Parliament has taken up the burden of righting the wrongs of the advertising industry, by decrying grossly sexist images like the gender-dominant Mr. Clean: More »
  • feuds

    MSNBC Anchors At Each Other's Throats Again

    MSNBC's team at the Democratic National Convention needs to get more sleep and maybe also one of those massages that Arianna Huffington is giving out. The cable network's anchors are sniping at one another tonight, just like they did last night. About 20 minutes ago, ahead of Hillary Clinton's speech, Chris Matthews was talking about how some women feel disenfranchised within the party. It's a touchy subject for Matthews, who has been accused of sexist commentary against Clinton, and he did not appreciate a producer telling him to wrap up his ramble. He also didn't appreciate his sometime rival Keith Olbermann making one of those "talking" gestures with his hand. He, uh, let him know that. There's more real-life political drama and intrigue among MSNBC anchors than at the convention at this point. Click the icon for the video. More MSNBC internal fighting in our earlier roundup of Cable Feuds. More »