Laptop bags; conspiracy of the patriarchal overlords. Oh yes. I am a woman with hands. The average-sized hands of an average-sized woman. So things should basically fit into my hands, especially the things I need to do my work on an average day. Like my laptop bag. My longest finger (the middle one, I’m not ...
We all know that toy advertisements use a lot of gender stereotypes in their commercials. Girls get Barbies, clothes, makeup and rainbows. Boys get guns, war, action and loud noises. This is nothing new. But this website is new. A new site lets you “mash up” boys’ and girls’ toy commercials so that you can ...
One Christmas I finally got Holiday Barbie. After begging my parents for years, I could breathe a sigh of relief. The only problem was she was too pretty to play with. I couldn’t even take off her elaborate white dress. Already, I wanted to take my Lego back out of its box. What reminds me ...
Ever read lists of top things women should know or try in their lives? Schmutzie tells us why these lists are bullshit. I have a burr under my saddle today, and it is in the shape of articles whose titles contain the phrase “every woman should”, such as: –”Twitters Every Woman Should Follow” –”10 Things ...
The women of Sex and the City may love their cosmos, but it doesn’t mean that they didn’t knock back a few beers once in awhile. Despite what Molson Coors might think, some women thoroughly enjoy a nice cold one. With dwindling beer sales, the beer giant’s latest target is women. They have high hopes ...
Anytime a random product gets marketed for women, companies come up with the grossly unimaginative idea of making it pink. The latest example of that is Molson’s new pink beer, Animée. But here’s the problem: women don’t like pink. Or at least they don’t like that the colour now means that anything pink means it’s ...
At some point it was drilled into our brains that pink is for girls and blue is for boys. You would think that we’re now past the point of associating colour with gender, but an intense controversy over the new J. Crew ad says otherwise. In the ad, a mother paints her son’s toenails pink ...
We are all familiar with the image of a chick with a gun: oiled up, wearing an American flag bikini and sporting a big-ass bazooka. But for some things, bigger isn’t better. Women want guns that can fit into their handbag as a method of self-protection. And they are buying more than ever before. There ...
“Acceptance: just the way you are” was the message as a huge group of elementary and high school students wearing pink t-shirts recently took over a shopping mall in Vancouver to celebrate International Anti-Bullying Day. Bullying is wrong in all forms, but the pink shows that homophobia was their target with this number. This is an especially ...
How sweet, people coo, leaning over the baby carriage. The next question is inevitable: Is it a girl or a boy? A Swedish couple have refused to identify the sex of their baby — causing an international furor, with some accusing them of child abuse. Pop is a healthy two and a half year old ...
Dear Madame X, I have just started seeing this girl. She seems great, but she recently told me she...
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved arrived in my hands via a public library, when I was a broke teenager with...
My attention was drawn this week to an article about the reaction at a Canadian university to proposals to...
Airport security. Bloody nuisance. Also a conspiracy designed to subjugate women. Allow me to elaborate. Despite flying quite a...
The Cannes film festival has kicked off this week with controversy over the lack of films made by women...
Dear Madame X, I seem to be only attracted to men who are macho assholes. I like them at...
When A Clockwork Orange was published in 1962, the term sexualized violence wasn’t in use. The distinction between sexualized...
Skincare. Not so very long ago, a man would have been mocked mercilessly for using just the word, never...
