Recently in Body Image Category

But I'm digging it, in a "it creeps me out" kinda way.

Copyranter points out this latest Wonderbra ad, one in a long line of...interesting takes on boobies and bras.

It seems that the Wonderbra will not only allow you to crack through glass walls (not painful at all, of course), but they'll also allow your girls to hold umbrellas, make train-riding a little more interesting, ensure that you don't have oh-so-horrible "pancake tits," and will even make you bodacious once you're dead.

You know, I think I'll stick with my un-Wonderbras - they may not make my breasts boobs-of-steel, but they also don't reduce me to a body part.

Tiffany Jackson and Margaret Cho

via reappropriate, the Oprah magazine interviewed four very accomplished women about body image. Some excerpts:

Margaret Cho, comedian:

My father ... one time when I was maybe 9 years old and dancing in ballet -- I loved it -- he said after a recital, "You're the fattest ballerina." It so destroyed me that I never wanted to dance again. He wanted to prepare me for a world that was not going to accept me because I think he experienced so much racism. He'd say, "You're not pretty. And you're not going to be pretty." I absolutely believed him.

Now I feel great and settled in myself and the way I look. It took a long time to get there. You need to look in the mirror and compliment yourself. I have these little rituals of being very fastidious about my skin care and drinking a lot of water, and I see the results. When we care for ourselves, these are acts of love.

And here's Tiffany Jackson, WNBA player:

I was always taller than everybody else. In the eighth grade, all the guys were shorter than me. My mom told me always walk with my head up, I'm beautiful. She gave me such positive messages when it came to my body. She'd tell me, "Walk in the room like you own the room." And then I'd complain, "People are staring at me." She'd say, "No, you're beautiful. That's why they're looking at you." I think after a while that just kind of stuck with me.

It's really fascinating to break it down and think about the handful of standout incidents or comments that have had a disproportionate impact on your body image. (This is something I thought about a lot when I was reading Courtney's book.) I'm not sure exactly what questions the Oprah magazine reporter asked these women, but each woman mentions some pretty specific memories -- both positive and negative -- that shaped her view of her body.

Like Tiffany, I had some awkward super-tall-preteen years -- marked by a memory of a boy in my junior high class who called me "chicken legs" and by an incident where I walked past some little kids playing in the park and one remarked to the other about me, "She looks like she's on stilts." (Kids are so mean!) But I learned to stand up straight and just own it. (Oh, and that boy who called me "chicken legs" is now a refrigerator-repair-school dropout. Yes, I find that kind of delightful. Sue me.)

What's the one body-image-shaping story -- negative or positive -- that stands out most for you?

So yeah, they didn't give her nearly enough air-time, but our own fabulous "Ray of Light"* Courtney Martin was on Good Morning America today discussing Keira Knightley's stand against digital makeovers. Check out the story and video here.

*A nickname recently discovered at the Feministing retreat because of C's shiny-light goodness.

The second highest paid actress in Hollywood is telling the publicists for her latest movie, The Duchess, to keep their airbrushing hands off her breasts. In previous films she was stunned to find her breasts digitally enhanced, but this time she's insisting it be different. I was asked to comment on this and related issues (body image, media etc.) on Good Morning America, which is supposed to air tomorrow morning for those of you with fancy television recording devices.

I'll probably be on screen for all of two seconds, but what I would like to say is this: Keira isn't telling young women anything they don't already know. We've watched Next Top Model. We've taken media literacy classes. What she is doing--and it's significant--is reminding us to honor what we already know: namely that the images we see every day on television, in magazines, online, are notoriously technologically-altered and unrealistic. It's not willpower that makes these women's bodies perfect--it's money, money, money, and a splash of genetic predisposition.

It's important that someone inside the system, someone that has benefited from the system, has the balls to come out and remind us of our own wisdom. Thanks Keira.

I know we generally reserve our "fuck you"s for Fridays, but this one can't wait till the end of the week. (Especially since I'm already coming late to this one!)

From Mighty Ponygirl at Feminist Gamers:

A new game about to be released for the PSN called Fat Princess is a TF2-like capture-the-flag game where the point is to feed your princess enough cake so that she grows really fat so that the opposing team can't carry her back to their castle.

...Instead of running out into the forest to find cake to fatten up the princess with, why not go out and find gold (which is a lot heavier than cake) to stuff into a treasure chest. The more gold in the chest, the heavier it would be, and the harder it would be to carry.

Oh, but that's not as "cute" as cake and fat chicks. Right.

Fuck you, "Fat Princess." And fuck you, Sony for putting out this garbage and perpetuating fat-hating. Seriously. Fuck. You. Sorry I can't be more articulate on this one, I'm just too pissed.

Holly and Melissa (who had a awful but oh-so-telling influx of trolls) has more.

via community blogger x364173.

Vintage ad uploaded by Flickr user jbcurio.

Over on the community blog, mland45 recounts an experience she had when she went to an ear, nose and throat doctor to get treated for a sinus infection:

[Receptionist]: The insurance doesn't pay for the rhinoplasty

Me: Well, I'm not interested in the rhinoplasty.

[Receptionist]: You sure? Because your nose is crooked.

Me: I know, but I'm not worried about that.

[Receptionist]: Well let me explain why I'm telling you this. It's such a good price, because you'll already be paying for the anesthesia for the other surgery. It is such a good deal.

Me: Well, since I was never considering cosmetic surgery in the first place, it's not a good deal to me. I never had a serious problem with my nose, but by the time I leave this office I will have a COMPLEX about it.

How infuriating is that? Read the rest here.

Are you sick of only wealthy women being able to afford "designer vaginas"? Well worry no more! Now hating your genitals is easy, affordable, and comes in packaging that looks like a cross between My Little Pony and White-Out!

Liquid Virgin "work to temporarily tighten the walls of the vagina." The drops also contain Potassium Alum, which according to the website (and I'm super curious as to why they felt like sharing this fact), often appears in cartoons: "The character eats some Alum and their mouth is shown to pucker up. Often seen on Tom & Jerry."

With the Tom & Jerry seal of vaginal approval, how could I say no?

Via Feministe.

I'm all for Kegels, really. But do we really need a genital gym to keep our lady parts healthy?

[N]ow comes the first medi spa in Manhattan wholly dedicated to strengthening and grooming a woman's genital area. Phit -- short for pelvic health integrated techniques -- is to open this month on East 58th Street.

Dr. Lauri Romanzi, a gynecologist who performs pelvic reconstruction surgery, said she came up with the idea for the spa one day while walking by an outlet of BriteSmile, the tooth-whitening chain. She liked that the stores cater to people with healthy teeth.

So Dr. Romanzi developed her own concept of "pelvic fitness" for healthy women. She said that Phit (www.theperfectphit.com) will help women get "in shape from the inside out."

First of all, isn't that the new tagline for Metamucil? Also, as the article points out, isn't this just another way to make women feel like they have to be pro-active about making their vaginas "acceptable?" Whether it's through convincing women that they need "rejuvenation" surgeries or that they're unkempt without Brazilian waxes - I'm sick of pathologizing our poor vaginas. Give the poor girls a break!

But Dr. Romanzi says that her spa is all about health: "If you can vote and you have a vagina, you should do these...It's the dental floss of feminine fitness." Ew.

One question: Does this mean I need to get my vagina a sweatband?

Apparently, there is a trend online of posting videos of women's breasts being slapped and punched. Cuz you know punching a woman in the breasts is so funny, har har.

(This video is very annoying to watch and probably NSFW)

Ouch. Am I the only one that doesn't think this is funny?

Thanks to Joy for the link.

Fun facts about your clitoris:

• The clitoris rivals the penis in size.
• "The vaginal wall is, in fact, the clitoris."
• "If you lift the skin off the vagina on the side walls, you get the bulbs of the clitoris - triangular, crescental masses of erectile tissue."
• [T]he clitoris is more than just its glans - the "little hill"
• "There's nothing quite like the shape of a clitoris."
• "The glans are dense with nerve endings and receptors - all the vibration and sensation is there."
• The bulk of it is shaped like a pyramid.
• Its base forms the external genitalia or vulva; its triangular "walls" are wrapped around the urine-carrying tube known as the urethra and the vagina.
• When aroused, the whole structure becomes engorged.
• "They're designed to stimulate a much larger area."

No wonder, after reading this, Andrew Sullivan claims "clitoris envy."

Click here for an extremely educational video on the clitoris (internal and external).

All I can say is, thank god they decided against it. Also, this makes me really uncomfortable.

Thanks to Joy for the link

It seems that someone thinks it's hilarious, oh excuse me - "heelarious" - to make fake high heels for infants. Yes, I know it's supposed to be funny and clever. But then why does it just make me sad?

Via The F Word and The Frisky.

Thanks to, somewhat appropriately, Mz.Stilletto for the link.

So this is kind of a nepotistic plug, but a friend of mine made and posted this short video (semi-claymation style!) and I thought it was cool enough to share here. It's called Fat Dinosity, and that's Erin (the creator and a high school classmate) staring in the video.

What do you all think?

Attention women over 35! Did you think that your days of desperately trying to fit in with unrealistic beauty standards were over? Guess again! The new TV show "She's Got the Look" gives women of all ages the chance to feel insecure and unworthy!

When will the madness stop?

Check out Hannah Seligson's piece in the Wall Street Journal today on "bodysnarking"--essentially talking shit about other people's bodies, which I would argue, is an absolute projection of self-hate. Hannah focuses on the technological and celebrity influences making girls so damn mean to one another. I've said it often on the road and I'll say it again...when you start being more generous and kind, even just in your head, about other women's bodies, you'll feel better about your own (and visa versa).

Thanks to Lauren for the link.

Facebook is on a roll today. Reader Adrienne alerted us to an ad for a crisis pregnancy center on Facebook, so I decided to do a little more research on the site’s advertisements.

Sure, there’s a range from shoe brands to social justice organizations, but pretty offensive weight loss ads are more common. And then we find the ad for “A Woman’s Concern,� a center that, according to their website, provides a variety of services including “pregnancy testing, ultrasound testing, information on abortion procedures, mentoring…� You can guess what the "information" on abortion is.

Another ad I found was a pitch to recruit egg donors. Not to say that egg donation is necessarily a bad thing, but the egg business has become one of many ethical and political questions. The Center for Genetic and Society, Choice USA and the Pro-Choice Public Education Project have been conducting research on egg donation and reproductive justice, make sure to check it out.

These should serve as a reminder that we need to pay attention to what's being marketed to young women online. In the meantime, Facebook may not strictly moderate their ads, but you can; report an ad you think is offensive. And as a first step, let’s get deceptive CPC advertising off of Facebook.

(And join our Feministing group!)

Former deputy prime minister John Prescott has confessed to suffering from bulimia for ten years before getting treatment. He told the BBC: "I want to say to the millions of people, do take advice, it can help and it can help you out of a lot of misery that you suffer in silence."

I think Prescott is incredibly brave. Too often folks only think of eating disorders as a female affliction, as he puts it "anorexic girls, models trying to keep their weight down - or women in stressful situations, like Princess Diana," but in fact 10% of those throughout the world with eating disorders are men. With the rise of lad mags like Men's Health, that are basically as body-focused and insecurity-inducing as Cosmo, men are being pressured to adhere to a body ideal as well. There's a whole cosmetic industry cropping up to profit from this insecurity--men's skin, hair, and nail products. Not exactly the equality we were looking for, huh ladies?

While Prescott is brave, The BBC article is actually pretty stupid. Even after establishing that his disease stemmed from his inability to manage stress, it ends with a focus on his weight. For the last frickin' time people, eating disorders are psychological, not physical diseases. If an inability to manage his emotions caused the disease, why not report on how he learned to do that, not his 15 stones?

Thanks to Soledad for the heads up.

We're all painfully aware of how common it is for the media to "digitally slim-down" women's (and girls') bodies. But now some magazines are apparently using Photoshop to fill out super-skinny celebrities and models. (via bits & bobbins)

Nicky Eaton, the head of press and PR at Condé Nast, which publishes Vogue, GQ, and Glamour, also confirmed that images of models were enhanced to make them appear fuller-figured.

"There have been cases where models are booked way ahead of a shoot and then they turn up two months later looking less healthy and perhaps a bit underweight. We wouldn't be happy showing them that way, so it is then that we would need that person to look a little bit fuller."

But Susan Ringwood, the chief executive of the eating disorder charity Beat, condemned the practice. "Altering models' bodies to appear fuller-figured proves that the industry acknowledges there is a serious issue with projecting images of very thin models, but [it is] missing the point," she said. "They should be using naturally healthy models in the first instance, instead of having to make them look that way."

Indeed, if you want to send the message that curvier is sexier, then hire some models who are actually curvy! I can't imagine how thin those models must have been for Conde Nast to declare them "unhealthy looking." If you're unhealthily underweight by even the fashion industry's standards, that's pretty extreme.

At its core, I don't believe this type of Photoshopping is about deflecting criticism that models and celebrities are dangerously thin. I think this is about perpetuating an even more unrealistic beauty standard than unattainable thinness (something I never thought possible): the message is that you should be super, super skinny, borderline skeletal, but without any of the things that come with the territory, like jutting hipbones or small boobs. So even the skinniest celebrities STILL require Photoshopping to meet this standard. You can be less than a size zero and still lose this game. And that's pretty frightening.

More at Feminocracy.

I have acne, my knees are round, my left breast is bigger than the right one, my abs are not flat (and never will be), but surprisingly enough, I’m OK with all of these things. Two years ago, though, I would not have been. I am a girl who has gone from being obese to weighing practically nothing. While I did not necessarily suffer from anorexia, I dangerously flirted with the disorder. I felt as though my entire body was socially inadequate, so in high school I determined that the only way to be accepted was to be skinny like all of the celebrities that were in my home state of California. In a mere year and a half I lost 70 pounds, at the end of it I looked like a skeleton and was in critical health. After years of therapy and seeing a nutritionist, I am finally at a healthy weight. Now as a college freshman in Texas, I try to promote more realistic expectations of the female form through my work with the campus Women’s Center.

At V to the 10th in New Orleans, we had the privilege of attending a panel regarding body issues that was lead by Rosario Dawson (RENT), Kerry Washington (The Last King Of Scotland), Ali Larter (Heros, Legally Blonde), and Amber Tamblyn (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants).

I'm still trying to figure out how I feel about this video that my good friend, DJ No Friends, sent my way.

It's called "Gluttonous" and it features awesomely curvy ladies singing and rapping about their healthy appetites. Seen as an effort to reclaim "hunger" and do away with a sin-infused view of femaleness and food (while being really, really funny), I'm so down. But there's something here that makes me nervous...could it be the all-or-nothing tone of the whole thing? Could it be that I fear douche bag dudes could use it for douche bag purposes? Help me understand dear Feministing crew.

It looks like the French are trying to take aim at the media-manufactured thin ideal, but seriously missing the mark. A bill, approved by the lower house of Parliament but still set to face a Senate vote, would make it illegal to “provoke a person to seek excessive weight loss by encouraging prolonged nutritional deprivation that would have the effect of exposing them to risk of death or endangering health.� See The New York Times for more.

As someone who has spent years immersed in research, reflection, and discussion on this topic, I am continually amazed at how short-sighted the government response is to body image issues. It's not website and magazine policing, or even runway banishment, that we need most. It is, first and foremost, health care systems that subsidizes treatment for eating disordered women and men. At present, most health insurance companies stateside (France is a different story) give and withhold treatment based on physical symptoms, even though eating disorders are psychological diseases--resulting in a revolving door of pain for most eating disordered patients and their families. For more on this, check out pieces I wrote awhile back for HuffPo and Women's eNews.

If government officials seriously want to deal with the culture that promotes food and fitness obsessions, self hatred, and body anxiety, they need to make sure that public schools are infused with physiological education (for example, we each have a set point within which our metabolism adjusts automatically), media literacy (airbrushing and the like), and social and emotional learning (most eating disorders stem from emotional issues that go unresolved).

For too long we have congratulated leaders when they decide to point the finger at media moguls. Sure, these schmucks play a role, but so do we as consumers, mothers, fathers, pastors, coaches, and peers. Eating disorders won't be eradicated by policing fashion magazines or pro-ana and mia websites. They'll be eradicated by a paradigm shift where we all take responsibility for our part in promoting a body-focused society.

A new children's book, My Beautiful Mommy, (being released on Mother's Day, no less) aims to explain to kids why their mom is getting plastic surgery.

It features a perky mother explaining to her child why she's having cosmetic surgery (a nose job and tummy tuck). Naturally, it has a happy ending: mommy winds up "even more" beautiful than before, and her daughter is thrilled.

Okay, I can understand the need to explain to children why a parent is getting surgery, but this...well, it's just ridiculous.

"My Beautiful Mommy" is aimed at kids ages four to seven and features a plastic surgeon named Dr. Michael (a musclebound superhero type) and a girl whose mother gets a tummy tuck, a nose job and breast implants. Before her surgery the mom explains that she is getting a smaller tummy: "You see, as I got older, my body stretched and I couldn't fit into my clothes anymore. Dr. Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better." Mom comes home looking like a slightly bruised Barbie doll with demure bandages on her nose and around her waist.

Superhero, huh? I suppose that should come as no surprise, given the book is written by a Florida-based plastic surgeon, Dr. Michael Salzhauer. Now, I'm certainly not going to sit in judgment of those who get plastic surgery - but do we really have to teach our kids that we need it to "feel better" and be "beautiful"? Ugh.

Thanks to Alexis for the link.

Apparently there's a show on WE (the network that brought you Bridezillas) called Bulging Brides, in which women buy wedding dresses two sizes too small, and rely on a drill-sergeant-like trainer to get them to lose the weight by their wedding day. It's size-shaming meets the bridal-industrial complex. Or, as Big Fat Blog asks, "There aren't enough reality shows that combine unrealistic feminine body ideals with unrealistic and heavily-marketed ideals towards heterosexual weddings?"

Here's a sample of what it's like:

Ah, a tasteful montage of close-ups of everything the bride-to-be eats during her bachelorette party, followed by an early-morning pole-dancing lesson to shed the pounds she supposedly gained the night before from all those quesadillas and mojitos. My feminist head is exploding.

Yes, there's a lot of sexist, sizist, crappy "reality" TV out there. But something about this show seems to have it all. Which is why it's worth mentioning and decrying here.

Thanks to Tomi for the tip.

As if Victoria Beckham hasn't done enough damage by catapulting anorexia-on-the-page Skinny Bitch to instant bestseller status, now she's offering women an even more degrading perspective: you're not just a sex object; you're a straight-up product.

In today's New York Times Style section, photographer for Marc Jacobs, Juergen Teller, is quoted as saying:

I told her, ‘You’re the most photographed woman in the world. And fashion nowadays is all about product — bags and shoes — and you’re kind of a product yourself, aren’t you? She was, like, ‘Uh, yeah.’

Cathy Horyn, the author of the article, titled "When Is a Fashion Ad Not a Fashion Ad," writes:

Instead of looking like a glamorous celebrity, she has been rendered as an abstraction, a living doll. In the most disquieting image, we see only her bare, high-heeled legs flopping over the side of a shopping bag Mr. Jacobs had specially made to hold her.

On the one hand, I'm almost relieved that Beckham is owning the fact that she's selling herself as a product. It's what so many of today's vacuous celebrities are doing anyway, but many of them pretend their ascent to stardom is something deeper than it is.

On the other hand, it all makes me sick. We've moved beyond "the male gaze" and objectification; now girls can grow up worshiping Victoria in her painfully tall stilettos and aspiring to be seen as a "living doll," an inhuman product. Beyond the classic advertising trope of cutting women into pieces, this ad campaign also seems to suck the real life right out of them. Please, please, please boycott Marc Jacobs. (As if most of could afford that shit anyway.)

Thanks to Kathy at the Women's Media Center for the heads up.

Queen Latifah then:

Queen Latifah now:

Okay, I get that they're trying to promote her through this "healthier" rhetoric so that it's not about beauty standards - but conflating health with size really bugs the shit out of me.

(And yes, I realize that I'm a bit late on this one - but I had to post on it anyway.)

I don't know about you, but I was obsessed with Sweet Valley High when I was a kid. (Though I was always pissed that the Jessica character was the vapid one, while Elizabeth was the cool, smart reporter type.)

Well, it seems that Random House is re-releasing the series with a new modern twist: skinnier twins.

To publicize the re-release of teen fiction series Sweet Valley High, Random House Children's Books sent a letter to journalists highlighting the changes made to the content of the 1980s paperbacks. New cover girl Leven Rambin (pictured) was not mentioned, but just to make sure preteen and teenaged girl readers are sufficiently insecure about their bodies, the publisher made the "perfect" clothing size a couple of notches more restrictive.

In a side-by-side column comapring the 1983 version of the book with the present one, publishers write that the previous characters were a "perfect size 6." Now, they're a "perfect size 4." Charming. The next SVH book? Nipping it in the Bud: Elizabeth's Designer Vagina.

This is too gross. An online game, Miss Bimbo, encourages girls (as in under 10 years old) to buy their avatars plastic surgery - face lifts, boob jobs, you name it - in order to be the "hottest, coolest, most famous bimbo in the whole world." Yeah.

Children are given a naked virtual character to look after. They compete against other players to earn "bimbo" dollars so they can dress her in sexy outfits and take her clubbing. They are given missions, including securing plastic surgery at the game's clinic to give their dolls bigger breasts, and they have to keep her at her target weight with diet pills.

Perhaps even worse than the sexist and dangerous messages being sent to young women, is the cavalier response of the Miss Bimbo creators (both men, btw).

[Chris Evans says,] "But there are lots of positive lessons that replicate messages in real life."

While feeding your bimbo too much chocolate has added virtual pounds to the animated girls' hips, feeding her fruits and vegetables will improve her health, Evans points out.

That and diet pills, apparently. Evans also claims that the game is just aiming to be realistic: "The breast operations are just one part of the game and we are not encouraging young girls to have them, just reflecting real life." You know, the kind of real life where nine year-olds get boob jobs. Charming.

The most recent entry in a personal-history subgenre I like to call "I'm not a freak, I'm an over-6-foot-tall woman!" was excerpted in yesterday's New York Times (via):

Everywhere I go people stare at me. At the grocery store children gawk at me wide-eyed, craning their necks and pointing as they tug their mothers’ shirts. When I pass people on the street, I hear them mumble comments about my appearance.

I am not deformed or handicapped, I’m not a circus attraction. I have strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. What makes me different is that I’m 6-foot-4, and I’m a woman.

Arianne Cohen, who's got a book about height coming out in July, said much the same thing in Nerve in 2006:

To begin with, to be extra-tall is to be somehow more public than the average woman. Everybody sees me. Strangers on the subway peer upward and tell me about their childhood neighbor who was tall. Fellow grocery shoppers sheepishly request my help procuring items from upper shelves. Male passers-by mutter, "That was one giant woman." Men seem particularly inclined to register one characteristic: tall.

And here's a bit from my own take on life as a tall woman:

I'd add to that: Fratty dudes in bars will chant "6 footer!" or loudly make bets with each other about how tall I am. (Well, I've actually had restaurant wait staff and fellow wedding guests make bets, too, so maybe it's unfair to pin that one on the bros alone.) People stare openly, all the time, everywhere I go. There are some days, namely those when I'm wearing whopping 1-inch heels, that I feel like I leave a ripple of height comments in my wake. Small children point and say, "Mommy! Look at the giant lady!" Women who feel insecure about their own height will often say to me, "I wish I was that tall!" No, honey, you don't. Really.

But it does have certain benefits.

That post sparked a great conversation in comments about height and gender -- and again and again women of all body types wrote about strangers walking up to them and commenting on their body. Guess that's a pretty universal female experience in this country, no matter what your height. (And yet another reason why we're feminists...)

Many of you probably remember the grossness that was Southwest Airlines last year, when they kicked a young woman off a flight for what she was wearing. Then, when you thought the drama was over, they harassed a second woman and later mocked the debacle through a press release and promotional deal where they offered flights at "mini-skirt" prices.

Now, two women on a recent flight say they were harassed and eventually kicked off the plane and detained by officers because of the way they looked. The full story is somewhat unclear from the video (if anyone has more info, please send it along), but given Southwest's history - I'm not putting anything past them.

Thanks to Matt for the link.

I love this. Hayley Atwell is starring in Woody Allen's new movie, Cassandra's Dream, but Miramax Films asked her to loose weight.

Says Atwell: "I went round to Emma's one night and she was getting very angry that I wasn't eating all the food she was giving me. I told her why and she hit the roof." The no-nonsense Thompson was so outraged that she called the producers the next day and threatened to resign from the film if they forced Atwell to lose weight. Faced with Thompson - a two-times Oscar winner - on the warpath, Miramax Films swiftly relented.

I heart her.

We've written a lot about steak or burger restaurants that employ exclusively half-naked women, using "meat" to sell meat. But is the flip side also true? Reader Lauren alerted us to the fact that there's apparently a vegan strip club in Portland, Oregon, where owner Johnny Diablo (his real name??) hopes to convert his patrons to veganism:

While it may not be the most orthodox way to win over new vegans, Diablo hopes people bring some green and eat some green at his new club.

“(It’s) vixens, not veal, and sizzle, not steak,� Diablo said. “We put the meat on the pole, not on the plate.�

There's a video segment here. Says the newscaster,

"You won't find any meat inside Casa Diablo, but you will find a whole lot of flesh."

Johnny Diablo has made sure to clarify, on his MySpace blog, "Don't be fooled by the political correctness posers out there. We aren't feminazis. We are femi-libertarians!" He signs the post, "Johnny Diablo, Lord & Master"

Wow. Just... let that all sink in.

This is definitely part of a trend -- starting with PETA ads -- in which women's bodies are used as a way of promoting veganism and vegetarianism. There's also L.A.'s Vegan Vixens, "sexy, trendy and fun loving women whose goal is to inspire men to live a longer and happier life, by making healthier decisions on what they consume." And now the vegan strip club.

One common thread here is that all of these efforts are aimed at making veganism appealing to men. The Maxim-like PETA ads, the Vegan Vixens, the strip club: All are saying it's okay to buck the stereotype of Real Men Eat Red Meat, because here are some naked ladies to reassure you that you're still a superhetero manly man! Almost as if they're saying, you won't even miss eating meat, because you'll get to look at so much of it! Or as Diablo puts it, “We put the meat on the pole, not on the plate.� It's a substitution. This trend seems to confirm much of what Carol Adams observed in the Sexual Politics of Meat -- and then turn it on its head.

I think the Skinny Bitch in the Kitch books are related to this whole thing, too. It, too, is using women's bodies to sell veganism. As Samhita put it,

But similar to what Debbie Rasmussen from BITCH says in the article, I too am all for an assault on the food industry, but I have major issues with demanding that skinny is the end all goal for being a vegan. That is not "girl power" to me. It is tacky and a dated way of selling books.

I'm not saying Skinny Bitch and Vegan Vixens are doing the exact same thing here. But both are using the "ideal" female body type -- something men want and women want to be -- as an incentive to go vegan. This is deeply fucked up, especially because there are dozens of real, compelling reasons to switch to a vegan lifestyle -- none of them based on sexist bullshit.

*Disclaimer: I am a vegetarian, and I am by no means asserting that every vegan or vegetarian supports the use of women's bodies as a way to recruit more people to their diet/lifestyle.

I spent many a college night dancing my ass of to Anything Can Happen, so it pains me to report that Wyclef Jean is, well, an asshole.

Thanks to Ashlee for the link.

UPDATE: Reader Rachel Fallon writes,

I saw Wyclef perform at the House of Blues in San Diego on Monday (the day after the Super Bowl) he dedicated about half an hour refuting the fact that he dislikes fat girls...he only allowed "bigger" girls onstage for 3 or 4 songs and danced with every single one. he seemed extremely pissed that anyone would accuse him of disrespected full bodied women.

A premium denim company, Fiorana, is has created a "Latina-cut" jean.

"The Latina body is different in waist and hip structure," says Mike Braden, Founder and President of Fiorana, Inc. "When wearing Anglo cut jeans, there is always a fit problem around the waist area. Our 'Latina Cut' collection will provide the American Hispanic woman a sexy, sophisticated premium jean that caters to their feminine curves."

'Cause all Latinas look like J-Lo? What? Laura Martinez responds,

Still, reading and re-reading the staggering conclusions of the apparel maker's internal research among Hispanics, I couldn't help but wonder: Could it be that the jean maker is simply generalizing about what a Latina body is supposed to look like? Either that or I'm going to have a serious talk with my parents, as perhaps I am really not what they told me I was, but the adopted child of a non-Latino, voluptuously challenged family clan from some far away place.

I am absolutely, 100% in favor of a wider range of denim cuts and styles (cue commentary about how hard it is for every woman to find jeans that fit well). And I don't have a problem with culturally-conscious marketing. But this is different. It implies that curvaceous is the only "authentic" Latina shape. Women like Laura Martinez, who aren't particularly curvy, don't count. I mean, is Fiorana planning on rolling out a style of jeans for every race/ethnicity? "African cut," "Asian cut," etc.? The company would *never* make a "Caucasian cut." Why? Because it's acknowledged that white women come in a variety of shapes and sizes. There's not one specific shape stereotype attached to the "white ass" (unless I'm unaware...). But, uh, last time I checked, women of all races came in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps Fiorana should stick to selling jeans by their measurements, not by ethnic stereotype.

Now I have been known to call some of my best friends skinny bitches, but usually it is a term of endearment or as a total joke. I know, totally tacky. But I have never thought of "skinny bitch" as a term of empowerment or reflective of girl power. Sure we know all about the reclamation of the word "bitch," but I have yet to see an effective reclaiming of "skinny." Of course it is OK to be skinny, it is more the pressure women face to be skinny or stay skinny or even being told they are too skinny, that frankly makes all of us, go insane. In a culture where being skinny is something held over the heads of young women and used to determine their social and cultural value, I am wary of its use in the politics of food.

So this piece struck a cord with me from last week's NYT. It is about the new book by the author of vegan best-seller, "Skinny Bitch," called "Skinny Bitch in the Kitch." It is a cookbook for politically conscious, weight conscious, vegans.

Despite its seemingly indigestible qualities, “Skinny Bitch� (Running Press) became one of the hottest-selling vegan books ever published. Now, the book’s peculiar combination of girl power, tough love and gross-out tales from the slaughterhouse has been translated to the kitchen. The authors’ new cookbook, “Skinny Bitch in the Kitch,� was published in December and reached No. 6 on the New York Times best-seller list in the paperback advice category last week.

Now it does not surprise me that this book is selling so much. There is a huge market for literature that calls women fucked up things and tells them they are stupid or fat and why they should buy this book and be svelte and will have men swooning after them. If they could just do this wonder thing that the book details. But similar to what Debbie Rasmussen from BITCH says in the article, I too am all for an assault on the food industry, but I have major issues with demanding that skinny is the end all goal for being a vegan. That is not "girl power" to me. It is tacky and a dated way of selling books.

Speaking personally, I used to be vegan and honestly, when done right and with support it can work really well. But then I started to realize one of the main reasons I was doing it was because it was keeping my weight down in a really extreme way (read: eating disorder) but I could cover it up in the guise of a political identity. So when young women tell me they are vegan, I am always inquisitive as to the method of their veganism. It is a very extreme diet that needs supplements to make sure you are not deficient in nutrients. It is frustrating, the lack of real nutritional information available to young women to teach us how to eat properly in a way that is healthy, maintains a healthy weight and keeps us happy. I certainly continue to struggle with it and I am almost 30!

Utne Reader has a great excerpt from our gal Courtney's book Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters. If you haven't bought her book yet, it's a nice glimpse of what you're missing.

Shortly after Katherine Heigl made her statement about Knocked Up saying the movie was "a little sexist," we find that an Jennifer Love Hewitt is now speaking out against social beauty standards. In response to ridicule on the internet regarding an "unflattering" picture of her in a bikini, Hewitt said:

"I've sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women's bodies are constantly scrutinized. . . To set the record straight, I'm not upset for me, but for all the girls out there that are struggling with their body image.

A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be. . . And being a size 0 doesn't make you beautiful. . . To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist. . . put on a bikini — put it on and stay strong."

While I agree with Zuzu (who has a great post on this, by the way) that she seems a wee defensive as being seen as fat, it's great that she's speaking out against this bullshit.

Thanks to Michael for the link.

After a Glamour associate editor's implication that