What women want.
* I am in love with Kerry Howley‘s book review of Paco Underhill‘s “What Women Want”—-an examination of the consumer behavior of what Underhill terms “the female of the species” of humans. Marry me, Kerry Howley’s book review:
Instead of telling us what women actually buy, Underhill considers a product and deigns to divine its male or female origins. Often, the thing he doesn’t like is the “male” thing. The product he does like he attributes to the growing and glorious power of the woman consumer. McMansions, which Underhill considers vulgar and atomizing, he deems male. For New Urbanist communities, we are told without benefit of explanation, you can thank women. And because women are in charge now, McMansions are going out of style. (“Good-bye, McMansions. And hello to a new species of home that accommodates the female of the species.”) In a typical passage, Underhill notices that pillow quality in American hotels is improving. He attributes this, on a hunch, to pillow-demanding women travelers, which sounds plausible. But might good pillows merely be a response to the taste preferences of an increasingly wealthy society? Would a world without women necessarily be a world with a smaller proportion of soft pillows?
* Who wants to go see Love Ranch with me? Alyssa Rosenberg describes the plot: “Older couple fights for the legalization of their brothel and prostitution in general while [wife] falls for a much younger, exceedingly sexy Latin American boxer.” I’m sold.
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* Via THE LINE, it’s a headline fail!:
Hmm!
* Speaking of pillows: Are dead ladies sexy, and are they sexier having expired from a girls-only pillow fight? Sociological Images points to some recent instances of sexualized violence for fashion’s sake, including “a fashion shoot in which women were depicted as having died in a pillow fight.”
* Amanda Marcotte on D.C.’s “modesty police” who shame Supreme Court nominees for leaving their legs uncrossed and First Ladies for showing just a touch of cleave:
The modesty police here or in Saudi Arabia use sex as cover to shame women for having the temerity to walk around in public while possessing lady parts. Creating a situation in which everyone is staring at your crotch or boobs in hopes of finding some transgression from arbitrary modesty standards is just a way to pick on women for being women. I’ve often been tempted to take pictures of what I was wearing when some guy on the street harassed me, just to point out that if your harasser is determined enough, a hoodie sweatshirt and a pair of jeans can be considered hoochie-mama clothes that somehow demand harassment.
Photo via Romantic Crafts, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0