Well it's almost Valentines Day. Those of you with significant others may very well be scrambling to come up with something to give your sweetheart. I can't tell you what a Feminist wants for Valentines Day (you should probably just ask her) BUT, I thought this would be the perfect time to share something I stumbled upon recently that would not make a good Valentines gift.
I do a lot of collages so I am constantly going through old magazines to cut out pictures and the like. While flipping through an old issue of Bust magazine, something in the advertising section jumped out at me. It's called "Cuts of Meat Dress (available in many different colors). Pretty self explanatory. At first I thought that maybe I was missing something about the product that could make my initial reaction of disgust a moot point. But I wasn't and so it didn't. I logged on to Etsy to check out the sellers shop and get a better feel for the space that houses this cut of meat dress. The store/seller is called imyourpresent which I thought was fitting.
I honestly don't get why anyone would want to own this dress. I don't think it's funny or bold or that it makes a statement. At incrediblethings.com the dress is reviewed by Jenni Chasteen who says "The Creme Cuts of Meat dress lets you show off your rack and rump while making a bold (albeit funny) statement that you’re more than just the sum of your parts."
Does it? I don't see how.
One women posted this on her pinterest page under "Things I'm not too fond of."
I'm truly surprised that so many women seem to think that it's a great piece of clothing to wear. I mean- out in public. One recent buyer posted in the feedback: "I now have 3 versions of this dress. I love it so much!"
Not surprisingly the website Meat,Beer and Babes describes the dress like this- "Perfect for the guy who wants a certain piece of meat. The dress is made from light pink jersey and printed with a candy pink shade of ink."
I immediately thought of the post I wrote last Fall entitled Porno For PETA.
Take a look at a PETA campaign ad from several years back here. We can go into the horribleness that is PETA's sexist advertising more another time but think on it for a second while I make my point.
Labeling women's bodies as if they are cuts of meat is gross. It feeds into the dangerous stereotype that women are animalistic beings rather than human beings. What PETA's ad tries to do is make the viewer have an Aha! moment connecting animal meat with women's bodies- seeing how wrong it is to eat our fellow animal and thus has the viewer vowing to never eat another cheeseburger again. But does it have this effect? More likely the viewer is geared towards pairing meat/eating meat with sex and we all know how well sex sells. Diagram a mans body into cuts of meat and the effect changes.
I can't resist- to further disgust yourself with PETA's hatred of human female animals click here.
In conclusion, I have to give this dress a definite thumbs down. Women don't need help isolating and exploiting their "racks, rumps, ribs or shanks"- we already have plenty of that going on without dressing the part for it.
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