by Imran Siddiquee
Buzzfeed posted an aptly titled piece today, “20 Examples That Spencer’s Gifts Hates Women,” which lays bare a frightening attitude towards women at a major American retailer.
The images speak for themselves (see them all in their misogynistic and violent glory here), but it’s worth pointing out that Spencer’s also owns and operates Spirit Halloween – who have their own reputation for diminishing and demeaning women and girls. It’s clear that this horrifying perspective on gender – that women are merely sexual objects designed for the use of heterosexual men – is a deep-seated problem at the company and not just a one-off mistake.
Yet when we launched our #NotBuyingIt campaign against Spirit in October, it actually led to some real changes there. Which means we should definitely take a minute today to let Spencer’s know that as long as they continue to sell these kinds of products, we’re definitely not giving them any of our money:
Imran is the Communications Director at MissRepresentation.org. Follow him on Twitter @imransiddiquee
So last time we talked about one of the eternal questions: why aren’t women more receptive to casual sex? The common answer is that women approach sex differently than men do – whether it’s treating sex as a way of getting a relationship, leveraging their “superior” social status in order to screen out less-desirable males or just guarding their finite, precious eggs for someone with superior genes rather than the usual pigs that approach her.
But this has nothing to do with women’s view of casual sex. It has everything to do with the objectification of women, the idea that women ONLY exist for men’s sexual pleasure.
The thing that makes this even worse (and I thought about this while in Spirit Halloween looking for a cowboy hat) – sweatshop workers in developing nations have to make this stuff for us, the so-called “developed world.” If we are so developed, why do we still treat women and girls like objects? The irony kills me. We have a very, very long way to go.