Results matching “real dolls”

Now here is a Barbie that you don't see everyday. This one was done by Loanne Hizo Ostlie. She is a bad-ass artist who sells Barbies on ebay with the hair re-rooted in diverse styles that are more representative of Black women today.

I often have this image on my desktop because it's the closest image of Barbie that resembles my look and we all need a little affirmation every now and then. It's not to say that Barbie with locs is problem free. But this work is an important contribution and it should be acknowledged.

I don't know if I am on a hair kick because I am still reeling from Chris Rock's Good Hair shenanigans, but I can't help thinking about this image in the wake of the disappointment regarding these new black Barbies that were released this month.

Here are just some of the notable quotables about the hair texture of these new Barbies:

A 'So In Style' hairstyling set that allows girls to straighten their dolls' hair completely has alarmed observers, who say it will fuel the "beauty issues" that many black girls have .

"Black mothers who want their girls to love their natural hair have an uphill battle and these dolls could make it harder," said Sheri Parks, an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Maryland.

Barbie's skinny figure has long come under fire for promoting an unrealistic body image. But Kumea Shorter-Gooden, author of Shifting The Double Lives of Black Women in America, said the diminutive, primarily Caucasian frame of Barbie dolls had a more negative impact on black girls.

"They are already struggling with messages that 'black skin isn't pretty and our hair is too kinky and short'," she said.

Mattel needs to employ Loanne as a consultant if they truly want to create a doll that represents black women.

Photograph credit: "Excessive," from the amazing Sara Heart Bacon.

Christian Louboutin is set to release Barbies made over with his stylings over the coming months, but the luxury shoe designer "reshaped the dolls' figures," as he didn't find their existing shapes appealing.

A Louboutin spokesperson said, "He found her ankles were too fat."

Charming.

Via RH Reality Check.

Several years ago, I wrote a post about how I thought Barbie hadn't been bad for me. Sure, I said, I agree with criticism of the dolls' creepy blonde, blue-eyed, big-boobed uniformity. But, I wrote, for me the alternative gendered toy was baby-dolls. And at least Barbie was an adult who allowed me to play-act future roles for myself beyond motherhood.

Suffice to say, I would not write it this way if I were to set out to blog about Barbie today. (For better or worse, that's the nature of blogging. Your snap-shot opinions live on forever.) Even thought I didn't endorse Barbie in that post, and I said I understood that this toy is a truly destructive thing for most women, I didn't stop to fully consider -- or didn't really grasp -- the ways in which the "Barbie look" affected other young girls. (I told myself, this is a post about my personal experience. For me personally, Barbie wasn't so bad.)

I haven't thought about the post much since I published it. That is, until I clicked a link from JJP to this post Danielle Belton wrote at her blog, The Black Snob:

Along time ago at a kitchen table in an all-black, middle/working class neighborhood in St. Louis, Mo.'s North County a young Danielle Belton, age five, loved to draw and color more than anything in the world. My older sister, aka "Big Sis, bka Denise, didn't like to color, so I inherited all the coloring books she never used.

I could draw for hours and color for hours, but all I drew and colored were white people.

GO read her entire post. Her experience -- not mine -- is the baseline by which Barbie dolls (and their ilk) should be judged. And she provides a really powerful lens into a lot of the discussion around Sasha and Malia Obama.

Also, if you haven't already, go watch A Girl Like Me.

UPDATE: Veronica also has a good post on this subject.

From the moderator: Even looking for panelists was hard, because some people I reached out to, who I thought would be masculine or butch identified, and then they weren't.

This panel was made up of reflections from 6 butch identified women. Notes from their remarks are below the jump. I really appreciated that there were two Latina butch-identified woman on this panel. I think race plays a big role in the formation of these identities and I appreciated seeing that reflected.

Lisbeth Melendez-Rivera--
Being Puerto Rican is a big part of my journey into butchness. The first time that I was called masculine, I was four years old and my mother told me I had "blue balls." In Latin America, the idea of female masculinity is an immediate isolating factor. The main word for gay men in PR is "pato" (duck). A person who is seen as male identified is called "pata" (female duck). As a child, you look at that and ask do I want to be the point of ridicule? Because of all of those questions I left PR and landed in Boston, where I lived for 16 years. Don't believe the hype, it's not a liberal place. To be lesbian and to be of color, the good jobs came very hard. You were held to a different standard. For 16 years I struggled to survive. It has impacted where I went to work. I still know that I will never be the executive director (maybe a gay org, but definitely not a straight one). You struggle with what it means to be a masculine identified dyke. I live in a level of comfort with my body as a woman that our trans brothers don't feel and I respect that. I would also ask that our trans brothers respect my relationship with my femininity as well. The fact that I have longer hair again, it does not mean that my masculinity is changing. My wife tells me that I am her big rainbow sign. We honor the invisibility of our femme sisters. "How I live is comfortable, how you live is brave."

More from Lisbeth Melendez-Rivera here.

Carmen Vasquez--
I've been talking and writing about this for a very long time. I am butch, as I am lesbian, as I am Puertorican. Dress me up or dress me down I am still the captain of the rocketship. The emergence of a more public butch identity happened at a time when the intersections between class, race, gender became more clear to me. These things are about autonomy. It's when I understood that I could no longer address racism in white communities, or homophobia is straight communities of color, or classism without embracing my butchness. I was a butch at 6 when I threw my dolls out. I had to defend that identity in a white led feminist movement that saw that identity as sexist. It is NOT sexist. I'm not a boy anymore, at 60, Sir is more appropriate. I was never a stone butch but I was definitely someone very afraid of the vulnerability that comes with surrender. This butch has been flipped by a beautiful femme top whom I've learned to trust. What I've learned is that part of pleasing your partner is allowing for the full range of her desire and expression of it. A really difficult two years have taught me to learn to cry, within this very male identity. I think butch is always redefined, by race, class, age, cultural change. Every generation's expression of female masculinity changes. But butch remains.

More writings by Carmen here.

What a week! Obama does away with the Global Gag Rule and announces plans to do the same for Gitmo. Isn't winning elections fun??

Roe v. Wade was decided 36 years ago. Jamelle writes, "I'm not terribly interested in living in a world where women die for the "crime" of trying to control their own futures." earlgreyrooibos asks Obama to make contraception and sex education more accessible. Cara on how abortion intersects with the issue of sexual violence. Over at her place, Shark-Fu writes, "The existence of Roe v Wade doesn't automatically make pro-choice activists out of everyone. It does, however, give those of us who do give a damn something to fight for...to build on...and to defend." PLUS, Our Bodies, Our Blog has a link roundup, and Broadsheet has Obama's statement.

MADRE has a 12 month plan "to address massive medical and humanitarian crisis left by invasion."

Sybil at BitchPhD asks why we gender-segregate film awards. (Also see the Friday Feminist Fuck You I did on this topic...) via PostBourgie. Plus, Tammy Oler at Bitch on the Academy Award nominations.

On women entrepreneurs in Rwanda. (video)

Will Michelle Obama, in her role as first lady, push for a new national work/family policy?

Renee has some data on the issue priorities of LGBT folks, and writes, "just like any other social grouping in the GLBT community, whiteness seeks to lead and make its issues primarily the focus for organizing."

The latest Carnival Against Sexual Violence is up at abyss2hope.

Yes, domestic violence is a human-rights violation.

Sasha and Malia Obama are already being commodified. (More at Sociological Images and What Tami Said.)

On the awful new ABC show, Homeland Security, USA.

Sarah Haskins takes on Ann Curry.

Tami is worried about what Chris Rock is going to say about hair.

Hall of Fame women's basketball coach Kay Yow has died.

Muslimah Media Watch on single mothers in Morocco.

Kay Steiger infiltrated an anti-choice "personhood" conference.

Carlin Ross asks, "Is it possible that one legacy of this recession is that women become a majority of the work force for the first time in American history?"

Take it from the abstinence-only clown: sex is just as dangerous as juggling machetes.

Watch "I Am Sean Bell: black boys speak."

Get Involved

We've got a new events calendar! So I'll no longer be listing upcoming events in this space. However, I'll continue to post online actions, calls for submissions, etc.

The Break the Silence project is looking for your creative submissions (art/music/writing) on silence and sexual violence. Submission deadline is March 15.

Submit to the new Tell It WOC Speak blog carnival, started by Renee of Womanist Musings. Click here to submit a link!

First up, a few Mothers Day links:

An index of the best and worst places in the world to be a mother.

Mothers in prison celebrate the holiday.

Juarez mothers demand justice for their daughters.

The former vice mayor of San Jose discusses her experiences with gender discrimination in politics.

Thomas on why food is a feminist issue.

Female Impersonator has an update on the Johnny Vegas sexual assault .

A Catholic law school tells students they can't get credit if they do pro-bono work for a pro-choice organization.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a series of articles by reporter Joanna Connors, who writes, for the first time in 20 years, about being raped by a felon on parole and the fallout from that violent act. Her story "is about rape. It is about race and class. And it is about our community -- our line-in-the-sand combativeness over these issues, and our stubborn and fearful reluctance to talk about them."

There's been some debate lately as to whether those Dove Real Beauty ads were photoshopped. Photographer Annie Leibowitz and a professional photo-retoucher say they weren't.

All Africa profiles a woman who has climbed the political ladder in Ghana.

We mourned Mildred Loving's passing this week. Racialicious has two great posts on interracial relationships. And Rick Perlstein republishes Loving's call for marriage equality for same-sex couples.

More links after the jump...

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.

Barbara Seaman, born September 11, 1935; died February 27, 2008
Contributed by Jennifer Baumgardner

I came to New York City in 1993, age 22, to take an internship at Ms. magazine. Within a few months, I was asked to fact-check a profile of Barbara Seaman, a pioneer in the women’s health movement on the 25th anniversary of the publication of her classic The Doctors Case Against the Pill. I called her and three hours later got off the phone a changed person. She had answered my fact-checking queries, but then peppered me with friendly questions: Who was I? What was my background? Was I interested in health? Was I on the Pill? Did I know Mary Howell? No, I really must meet her. Was I working on a book? I was clearly smart, she could tell by our conversation. Did I want to attend a gathering with her at Erica Jong’s house? I really must meet Erica.

The questions and opportunities went on and on. I was flummoxed by her interest and offers—didn’t she know that I was just a lowly assistant (by that time) at Ms.? Did she have me confused with someone else? I had ambitions, sure, but I was far away from admitting I wanted to write a book—I just wanted the cool Ms. editors to learn my name.

Barbara continued to fax and call me at Ms., providing me with endless history, important contacts, and insightful analysis. She goaded me to get to know the feminists who she felt were being forgotten by history—women like Cindy Cisler (perhaps the most significant philosopher in the push to legalize abortion) or Dr. Mary Howell (the first woman to become a Dean at Harvard Medical School). She organized intergenerational gatherings in 1994 where I first met Leora Tanenbaum and Jennifer Gonnerman, who were my same age and who also began to think (with more than a little nudging from Barbara, I presume) that they would write books. (Leora went on to write Slut, Catfight, and Taking Back God; Jen wrote Life On the Outside.) Barbara asked me to introduce her at a party for her held in a gorgeous penthouse, saying, “I’d love it if you said a few words, Jen. Then Katie Couric will probably say a few things.� She did introduce me to Erica Jong–and Alix Kates Shulman, Margot Adler, Shere Hite, and countless others who adored Barbara.

This one has got to be on our next Disturbing Product Poll, despite the fact that it's a little more, um, complicated than your typical sexist toy. Move over Real Dolls, "re-born" babies are becoming a trend in the US and UK. And it absolutely terrifies me.

Thanks to MAC for this disturbing shit. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go buy a stroller for my new fake baby.

My distaste for Real Dolls is no secret. But this kind of goes above and beyond.

Someone has thought of the genius idea of "renting out" their Real Doll. Here's the language that accompanies the picture of the doll (which looks kinda like Britney Spears):

Imagine love making for as long as you want and only in the ways that you want. I am Tracy and I will make your wishes come true. With me everything is at your pace. I never say “no� and it is super easy to rent some time with me. (Emphasis mine)

I'm not anti-sex toy. I am anti-treating plastic dolls as if they were real women and wishing real women were like plastic dolls. And pimping out your doll seems creepy to me in how similar it is to pimping out an actual woman. Also, sharing sex toys is just ick.

Via the Principles of Pleasure.

January
We saw Nancy Pelosi sworn in as the first female Speaker of the House, and watched Hillary Rodham Clinton announce her candidacy for president. Predictably, rampant sexism ensued.

We learned about Purity Balls for dudes, where -- surprise! -- they don't tell boys their self-worth depends on virginity.

Rush Limbaugh and Tony Snow went all feminist police on our asses.

February
Drew Gilpin Faust was named the first woman president of Harvard.

After Camel introduced cigarettes marketed toward women, we wondered: Will the cancer be pink, too?

The Bush administration threatened to axe the budget of the Office on Violence Against Women.

A DePauw University sorority dismissed 23 sisters for being "socially awkward" -- aka overweight, black, Korean, or Vietnamese. Classy. (The sorority was ousted from campus shortly thereafter.)

A Florida town was so embarrassed by the actual name for the female anatomy that it performed the "Hoohah Monologues."

Texas Governor Rick Perry made HPV vaccination mandatory.

March
Bush appointed crazy anti-choicer "Dr." resigned.

We marked the gray rape".

The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that businesses don't have to cover your pills.

We were disgusted by America's Next Top Dead Model. And Dolce and Gabbana pulled its offensive "fantasy rape" ads.

We reminded everyone that it's not ok to make death threats toward feminist bloggers.

The Brooklyn Museum opened a wing dedicated to feminist art.

Texas officially put a price on motherhood: $500.

April
We noted that guys doing housework should be standard practice, not something dubbed "porn for women."

We watched the Duke rape case wind down.

Girls Gone Wild douchebag Joe Francis was ordered to do jail time.

Don Imus made his infamous "nappy-headed hos" comment about the Rutgers women's basketball team.

The Supreme Court upheld the federal law said it all. Leslee Unruh reveled in the shopping-spree-like ecstasy.

Jessica's Full Frontal Feminism hit bookstore shelves! So did Courtney Martin's Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters.

We were honored by Choice USA!

We created a feminist "gang sign."

The Supreme Court said it's totally cool with gender discrimination at work.

May
We tackled patriarchy, violence, and honor killings.

We gently reminded the mainstream media that feminism is not to blame for girls "going wild."

We gently reminded the mainstream media that feminism is not to blame for girls "going wild."

Fashion mags found yet another body part for you to feel insecure about. And we decried the latest in "designer genitalia."

June
We got another reminder that street harassment and catcalls are in fact a big deal.

Jessica rocked the Colbert Report.

Israel partnered with Maxim to "improve" its image by publishing photos of half-naked former Israeli Defense Forces soldiers.

July
We were once again grossed out by Real Dolls, this time by a documentary. Even Ryan Gosling couldn't really take the creepy out of this trend.

Courtney launched her Not Oprah's Book Club feature.

We called out the modesty movement's appropriation of feminism.

Jane magazine went belly up. Luckily, Jezebel was there to take its place.

We pointed out that that dancing girls in bikinis do not equal compelling political discourse.

We noted how race and culture factor into the wedding-industrial complex.

Birth control prices kept going up and up and up.

August

Ohio told women they may have to ask the father's permission to have an abortion.

We recoiled in horror at the concept of "Christian Domestic Discipline."

New York City considered banning the word "bitch."

The Air Force charged a woman with her own rape.

We found out Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary offers a bachelor's degree in ladylike submission.

We celebrated the first anniversary of prescription-free Plan B.

Julia Serano railed against the sexualization of transpeople's motives.

September
We debunked the bullshit concept of a "reverse glass ceiling."

We posted (belatedly) on the Jena 6.

Security guards at a school in upstate New York pulled girls from class to ask if they're menstruating.

Southwest becomes the official airline of Dawn Eden and Wendy Shalit.

Lactivists in 30 states held protests at Applebee's restaurants.

We fought for the new Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora, Ill.

October
A teenage girl was beaten, expelled and arrested for dropping a piece of cake in the school lunchroom.

We laughed at the idea of hymens as bling.

November
We noted that 30 years of the Hyde Amendment is way, way too many.

We stopped avoiding the issue of porn.

We asked people to use grown-up terms for the female anatomy, not words like "vajayjay."

We demanded that male politicians stop playing the gender card.

Don Imus returned to the airwaves.

The Employment Non-Discrimination Act passed Congress -- without gender identity protections.

We defended our logo

Jessica gave us a sneak peek of her second book.

Anti-choicers attempted to define a fertilized egg as a person.

We won a Bloggers' Choice Award for Best Political Blog!

December
Wal-Mart tells girls their honey pot is their money pot -- but later stops selling the offensive panties!

R.I.P.
We mourned the deaths of activist Yolanda King, writer Molly Ivins, Pakistani minister Zil-e-Huma Usman, Jamaican diplomat Angela King, author Madeleine L'Engle, The Body Shop founder Anita Roddick, civil rights hero Irene Morgan Kirkaldy, feminist health pioneer Lorraine Rothman, former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Offensive Quotes of the Year
“She got what she wanted. She’s an overtly sexual person.�
-- Defense attorney Al Stokke, whose client, a cop from Irvine, CA, ejaculated on a woman (who happened to work as a stripper) during a routine traffic stop.

"You don't get there when you're young," he said. "There's a considerable amount of lag time."
--Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, after being asked why the Court has just one female justice.

"By getting married, the woman has consented to sex, and I don't think you can call it rape."
--Anti-feminist Phyllis Shlafly

"I like lesbians, but they shouldn't be allowed to run for king."
-- Erich Logan, 18, on the first transgender high school student to run for prom king.

"I think 'rape and incest' is a buzzword."
-- South Dakota state Rep. Joel Dykstra

"If we took away women’s right to vote, we’d never have to worry about another Democrat president. It’s kind of a pipe dream, it’s a personal fantasy of mine, but I don’t think it’s going to happen."
-- Right-wing hack Ann Coulter

"If you believe abortion, if you believe that doesn't affect you... I contend it affects you in immigration. If we had those 40 million children that were killed over the last 40 years, we wouldn't need the illegal immigrants to fill the jobs that they are doing today. Think about it."
-- Disgraced former Rep. Tom DeLay, speaking to college Republicans.

"I'm not, like, a crazy feminist. I think women definitely need men. Like, I couldn't imagine having a girlfriend!"
-- Hilary Duff

"Do you find it difficult to debate a woman?"
-- MSNBC's Chris Matthews, to Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd

"I love when my laundry gets so clean/ Taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream!"
-- The Rose Petal Cottage advertising jingle

I'm getting pretty sick and tired of antiquated notions of chastity and purity being touted as "revolutionary." I'm sorry, folks--there's nothing cutting edge about believing that girls' moral compass resides somewhere in between her legs.

In a recent Chicago Tribune piece on purity balls, reporter Dahleen Glanton refers to girls promising their virginities to their dads and dressing "modestly" as "controversial," a "movement" and "counterculture."

If girls and women really want to rebel against the sexified pop culture that breeds Britney Spears and The Pussycat Dolls, purity balls aren't the way. In fact, they're just more of the same. Pop culture tells women that their bodies are public property and that they have to be sexual in order to be desirable and loved. Purity balls and the like tell women that their bodies are private property (though not our own of course--our bodies belong to our fathers, husbands, and the men in our life) and that they have to be virginal in order to be desirable and loved. In either case women's sexuality belongs to everyone but women. There's nothing counter-cultural or cutting edge about that.

Glanton puts a couple of feminist quotes in her article, but seems to really buy into the notion that purity balls are revolutionary. Hell, she doesn't even seem to question that all of this moral tsk-tsking is directed only at women.

"Girls are going into marriage with 12 sexual relationships. That brings so much baggage and regret that it breaks down the marriage," said Janet Hellige, a volunteer who organizes the biannual Father-Daughter Purity Ball sponsored by The Christian Center in Peoria. "Girls have a wonderful gift to give, and we don't want them to give all of themselves away. What we want them to do is present themselves as a rose to their husband with no blemishes."

Now if that sentiment doesn't make you want to start a revolution, I don't know what will! (Ugh.)

Interestingly, it seems that the purity ball folks are starting to recognize how, well...creepy people are finding these events.

A reality show about six year old beauty pageant queens. And their pictures look SO weird, like dolls, not even real children.

Dear VH1, please stop propagating this nonsense.

Thanks to Jenny for the link.

There are many, many reasons I don't like Real Dolls. There are also many reasons I don't like Charlie Sheen (Men at Work, however, is not one of them). Now, that Sheen-Real Doll dislike comes together in a truly disturbing way.

Sheen, who owned a Real Doll, supposedly destroyed and "disposed" of the doll after he was laughed at for suggesting a group romp with said doll and some real women.

“They couldn't stop laughing at him,� the source told the Daily News. “Charlie got so mad that he ran the girls out of his house. Then he took a meat cleaver and chopped one of the doll's hands off. He and his bodyguard tried to dispose of it, like it was a real body. They wrapped it in a blanket and drove around in the middle of the night till they found a dumpster.�

I'm ready for this week to be over. Seriously.

Oh dear. It seems Barbie has come up with yet another way to mess up little girls.

Fashion Fever Shopping Boutique, the correctly named Barbie toy, features a built-in credit card swiper and a life-size credit card for young children to use when buying outfits for their dolls. According to the Amazon website, "Once the balance hits zero, it will reset so you can continue to shop."

You know, just like in real life! The commercial, which you can watch a low-quality version of here, features a little girl saying "And you never run out of money!" Sigh.

Via Jezebel.

Feoshia Henderson is a former reporter for The Cincinnati Enquirer. Before the Enquirer she covered the Kentucky Legislature and Kentucky politics for The Kentucky Post and The Kentucky Gazette.

She is currently a freelance journalist and blogs about social issues on her Myspace page. Feoshia describes her blog, Femblog, and her blog identity, Femblogger, as:

“I’m a frustrated political reporter looking for people who care about themselves and the world and are looking for a place to talk about it. I blog every day and you’ll find stories here that you usually won’t hear about anywhere else. I’m working to create an e-community of people who vote, who pay attention and who have something to say to politicians. Come by MySpace anytime! If you like it, then friend me. Here you’ll read about politics, social trends, technology, free speech, mass media, women’s health, sex, gender issues, relationships and more!�

Here’s Feoshia…

Remember the guys who have "relationships" with their Real Dolls? Well there's a movie (kinda) about that, Lars and the Real Girl. And it looks really good. (Though my mad crush on Ryan Gosling probably doesn't make me very objective.)

It's not news that child beauty pageant culture is more than a little screwed up. And that photoshop "enhancing" is all over the place. So I know I shouldn't be shocked by this site (via Broadsheet) where parents can send photos of their infants and young daughters to be cosmetically retouched. Apparently some parents are not content to let their daughters wait until puberty to start hating their bodies. A sample:

These photos are incredibly creepy -- not only photoshopping out stray hairs and shadows, but "correcting" facial features, adding makeup, and "removing drool." One of their "enhancements" is actually called "doll eyes."

Somehow more than the Katie Couric visual slimfast incident, the assorted before-and-after photos from magazine covers, and other digitally perfect images of women's bodies we're assaulted with every day, these pictures are notably more disturbing. Part of me wants to say, fine, "fix" Faith Hill's wrinkles, but leave the poor kids alone!

It's not surprising that there's yet another in the series of "babe chain restaurants," which typically sell meaty entrees delivered to your table by nearly-naked women. This one, Hawaiian Tropic Zone, brings you both broiled meats and waitresses resembling the broiled beauties from suntan ads. It's owned and operated by Dennis Riese, a total feminist -- in the Pussycat Dolls sense, that is.

Nor is Hawaiian Tropic Zone a strip club. “No nipples,� Riese said. “You’re never, ever going to see a girl nude.� He continued, “I’m such a feminist. I love women and believe in them. And I’m not being P.C. by saying that men and women like to look at the woman’s form—it’s been going on since Michelangelo, you know, since they were doing statues of Venus de Milo. So I really believed that I was creating a restaurant that was going to appeal to men and women. I used colors that are very feminine in this place.� He gestured toward a tropical mosaic and toward a pair of soft-orange overhead lights shaped—as are the salt and pepper shakers—like breasts.

I mean, what's not feminist about boob-shaped salt and pepper shakers? They're the must-have gift for every graduating women's studies major.

Riese called for a menu. “We have a section that says ‘simply grilled,’ because women don’t like to eat sauces the way men do,� he said. “They’re watching their weight more often.� He pointed at the menu. “Also, see, it says ‘sharing encouraged,’ no extra charge. Well, women have smaller stomachs. And maybe two young single girls have a smaller pocketbook, and the idea of encouraging two girls to come in—nobody’s going to put a spotlight on you, make you feel uncomfortable because you’re sharing a dish, or that you want something just simply grilled.� (Riese says that women make up about a third of the restaurant’s customers.) “Women like sexy. Talk about empowerment and feminism! There’s nowhere offering women sexy in the way they would like it to be—classy sexy!�

The mind reels.

via Gawker.

Maribel Ortega is a fashion designer whose about to open up her first shop featuring her clothing line, LANENA, in Madrid, Spain. Right now you can get her T-shirts online.

LANENA comes from a nickname her family and friends call her—"La Nena"—meaning "Little Girl" in Spanish. Here's Maribel...