High Holy Mass of Contradictions

It cracks me the hell up that Barbie has an RV with a hot tub. Well, it simultaneously cracks me up and weirds me out a little. Well, a lot. OK, it simultaneously weirds me the hell out and makes me a little sad. Yeah. Cracks me up, weirds me out, and makes me sad. That's about right.

Our front porch guy told a story about his 1st-grade daughter getting called an "asshole" on the playground by a little boy in her class. She told the teacher, who brought them together and talked to the boy about his use of language, and he promised not to use the word again.

A little later, they were back out playing, and sure enough, the little boy called the girl an "asshole" again. The girl went back to the teacher, who again gathered the two children up and started to admonish the boy, when the little girl contributed her advice for the boy: "You should really try not to be such a bitch."

Palm targeting women

Except, of course, in this case I'm cool with it if it means I get to have a slick new handheld in interchangeable cool colors or something fabulous like that. I mean, that's totally practical.

Am I being short-sighted not to see the point in the new women's travel center AA.com just launched? I realize there are safety implications for women traveling alone, and I realize there are planning considerations for families, yes, OK. And yes, many times the vacation planner in the family is the woman, but I bet it's pretty often the man, too, so it would probably be better (from a marketing standpoint) to target that information and those resources and promotions to parents, not women specifically.

So beyond additional "smart solo traveler" safety concerns, what else distinguishes women's travel needs from those of men?

Call me cynical, but this feels like way too heavy-handed an attempt to court the female dollar. Either that -- or possibly in addition to that -- and here's where I hint at my e-commerce geekery -- someone at AA.com just figured out how to segment their traffic and commerce data by gender, which revealed that women either spend too much or too little time or money on their site (I could speculate either way) and now they're inventing excuses to draw more women to the site, draw us there more frequently, or draw us there and keep us engaged while we're there long enough to buy a trip.

None of which are bad things -- they're just obvious. And the obviousness of it feels kind of, I don't know, patronizing or something.

Or maybe it's just me. Is it?

theogeo critiques a new magazine called Skirt! (yes, the banger is part of the title) with which she is obliquely associated:

Tell me you've got a publication for strong, successful women and I'll usually be all, "Okay, right on," thinking we've got a
political-minded, informative, thoughtful outlet on our hands. Tell me
it's called "Skirt!" and my brain will start shutting down.
Suddenly you've introduced fashion and feminine markers into the
premise. Not to mention the secondary verbal definition of "skirt,"
which means to avoid or work around. It's indirect; it's passive.

The whole premise is bewilderingly patronizing. And it's not like I don't subscribe to fashion magazines -- I do! several! -- but I subscribe to them to follow fashion and admire clothing design. I know what I'm getting into when I open a copy of InStyle, and believe me, I don't read it expecting to encounter thoughtful essays written from a feminist perspective. Those types of publications simply have no credibility with me for that sort of content. But when I want those feminist essays (Bust, perhaps, or Off Our Backs? I admit I don't subscribe to either -- blogs provide me with ample content), I don't expect to be condescended to with fashion and beauty advice. And here the credibility issue works basically in reverse: include fashion and beauty advice in your progressive women's publication, and, for me, you cease to be a progressive women's publication.

This sort of mental partitioning may be uncommon, but I sort of doubt it. That's not to say that a cross-market magazine (or even cross-cross-market, if you think fashion-feminist-local) can't work, but this appears to be the reason to undertake such a venture with extreme caution.

Quote from female coworker who stepped into my office just now:

I'm going to ask you a question, and don't get all feminist on me -- do you have a sewing kit?

Unfortunately, I didn't have one. But I would have loved to have been able to say I'm still a feminist even if I have a damn sewing kit.