[LMB] OT: marketing to women was Gender

[Anita]

On Nov 23, 2007 6:44 PM, Paula Lieberman <paal at gis.net> wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "PAT MATHEWS" <mathews55 at msn.com>
> adin
>
>
> >
> > Second serious question - if you could escape being considered socially
> > female - that is, be considered exempt from the need to wear makeup and
> > high
> > heels and to look sexy even in businesswear and to flirt and to be
> subject
>
> Eeeep, eeep, eeep....
>
> That is not ":socially female" that is "Madison Avenue marketing campaign
> promoting consumerism boxing women into chattel" !!!!
>

I agree. There are professions where that is entirely inappropriate and in
others where it wasn't true, not having those expectations would be part of
the basis of the type of working environment I would be looking for in a
workplace. I'm going into secondary (year seven to twelve) teaching and
looking sexy as a teacher is a disadvantage because there is no need to
borrow trouble in encouraging teenage boys to have a crush on you.

>
>
> > to flirting - would that be enough? I can see a culture setting aside a
>
> I think that there are a number of things going ong--Madison Avenue is
> trying to deliberately suppress women as having control over their own
> lives
> for choices as regarding clothing and such, because Madison Ave wants
> shopping addicts buying whatever CRAP and don't-let-the-consumer-have-any
> REAL control that the so-called "free market" is pushing... that is the
> manufacturers and PR types decide what the products are, what the Colors
> of
> the years and season are (that got aired on Making Light a few years back,
> there is a HUGE today about color selection for the upcoming year and its
> seasons, with the consumer getting only the choice of refusal of whatever
> colors least appeal to them....), what the characteristics of the products
> are....


This  is why  I buy very generic looking shirts new and most of the rest of
my wardrobe is second hand while I am on a student budget. I stopped paying
attention to colours of the year long before I stopped buying fashion.

>
>
> The supermarket checkout stand magazines make their money on ad revenue
> from
> companies pushing sales and the trend of the week in fashion.... they want
> volume and quanity not quality, and certainly not consumers who own their
> OWN decision making rather than follow slavishly whatever the fashion
> moneyhungry industry is pushing this week....
>
> This is why I've never read those types of magazines.

Anita