The folks at Inventor Spot describe this trinket as "a sexy plush cellphone charm or mouse wrist rest that looks like a maid's lower half." Because nothing's sexier than blatant objectification, am I right, ladies? [InventorSpot]

When I previously (and gleefully) wrote about the economic troubles that Abercrombie was having a few months back, I mentioned that my personal hatred for the store comes from the fact that one of the women I was in the intensive inpatient unit with during my treatment for anorexia was heavily recruited by the store just days before her hospitalization (she was incredibly underweight) because she had "the look" they wanted. Turns out that this horrific "look policy" doesn't just revolve around being stick-thin; according to Riam Dean, she was forced to work in the stockroom, as opposed to on the floor, at Abercrombie's London flagship store because her prosthetic arm didn't fit the company's attractiveness standards. You stay classy, Abercrombie!

When Riam applied to the store, they took a photograph of her and gave her a handbook that listed the company's expectations, as far as physical appearance goes. According to the Daily Mail, the handbook "stipulates that staff must represent a 'natural, classic American style' and instructs them on everything from how to wear their hair (clean and natural) to how long they should wear their nails (a quarter of an inch past the end of the finger)." Apparently, Riam's prosthetic arm wasn't "natural" or "classic" enough for the store- they made her buy a cardigan to wear in order to hide her arms while working.

The cardigan, however, wasn't enough to satisfy the Abercrombie team. As Riam recalls:

"A worker from what they call the "visual team", people who are employed to go round making sure the shop and its staff look up to scratch, came up to me and demanded I take the cardigan off. I told her, yet again, that I had been given special permission to wear it. A few minutes later my manager came over to me and said: "I can't have you on the shop floor as you are breaking the Look Policy. Go to the stockroom immediately and I'll get someone to replace you. I pride myself on being quite a confident girl but I had never experienced prejudice like that before and it made me feel utterly worthless. Afterwards I telephoned the company's head office where a member of staff asked whether I was willing to work in the stockroom until the winter uniform arrived. That was the final straw. I just couldn't go back."

She is now suing the company, which, by the way, already paid 2.2 million dollars to employees who felt that that the company was unfairly forcing them to buy Abercrombie's clothes in 2003. Oh, and did I mention they paid a 40 million dollar settlement in 2004, after being accused of discriminatory employment practices? Because they did! This is a company that continues to be called out for their sexist, racist, discriminatory practices, and by issuing half-ass apologies and paying off their accusers, they expect us to forget the nastiness at the core of this operation. Sadly, all of this only makes Riam's story as unsurprising as it is upsetting.

I Was Banished To The Stockroom [DailyMail]
Abercrombie & Fitch To Pay 40 M To Settle Bias Case [USAToday]
Employees Win Dress Code Lawsuit [CBSNews]

Earlier: Finally Teens Don't Like, Or Want To Be, Girls Who Wear Abercrombie And Fitch

The "bad" girl, with her Veruca Salt frown and crossed arms, apparently represents those "tough to handle" young ladies who aren't all sugar and spice and everything approved by mass-marketed mice. The orange juice bottle below the picture of the two girls is meant to represent the "easy to handle" notion; it is also sleek and pretty and convenient.






"Notice how easyness is communicated with symbols of femininity," Lisa writes, "The message is that girls are, ideally, accommodating and passive. Girls should be like objects, easy to "handle." Would the ad work quite the same way if the child was a boy? Do we hope/expect that our boys will be completely passive and convenient to handle?"

The ad is an epic fail on several levels; anyone with half a brain could tell you that there are obvious connotations to be made when you label any woman, at any age, as "easy." The body language of the girls is also curious: the "hard to handle" girl has her arms firmly placed across her chest in a protective nature, while the "easy to handle" girl has her back turned to the camera, with her arms held behind her, and a shy, over the shoulder smile projecting her supposed sweetness and ease. It all rings a bit gross and ill-thought out (not to mention stupid—beyond the underlying tones of sexuality, there are stereotypes being portrayed here that don't even make any sense—since when are the "princess" types less high maintenance than the tomboys?). The use of dark colors vs. light colors, in terms of being "easy" and "hard" to handle is also an interesting, and off-putting choice.

What say you, commenters?

Girls Should Be "Easy" [Sociological Images]

Anthropologists across the globe will tell you that no man has actually cleansed himself without a team of half-dressed women with sassy stares to guide him. Did you know that the Black Death killed 200 million people in the 1300s because women weren't allowed to dress in clothes from Rainbow and assist men with their daily cleansing rituals? It's true!

Apparently, in order to sell soap, shaving cream, and shampoo to men, it requires the assistance of "hot girls" who want nothing more than to help guys apply their grooming products. Because nothing turns a lady on like some dude who smells like he just walked out of the high school cafeteria. Is there such a thing as "too much cologne"? In the world of Axe, the answer is most certainly no. (The following vids, especially the last one, are slightly NSFW.)

Here we have a charming Axe ad wherein the ladies turn a perfectly normal looking guy into a heartthrob from 1983. Feathered hair that smells like deodorant, gentlemen! That's the way to get into our pants:



And here, the Axe Crisis Relief ladies crash a bachelor party to "sexily" wash someone's hair:



And finally, the ladies of "Shave Wet" help this poor befuddled gentleman shave properly...by being sexy, of course! And what do you know, after they shave him, they also sleep with him. SO REALISTIC YOU GUYS:



Can we just stop this bullshit, please? Girls are not going to throw themselves all over you because you use Axe. If anything, the sight of an Axe bottle in a dude's bathroom is a pretty clear douchebag warning device. And ladies, if you really want to do some good in your Crisis Relief mode, you might want to tell a guy that if he can't wash his own damn hair, he's probably pretty undateable to begin with. Or send him back to his Mom's house, as he's clearly not able to take care of himself without a woman forcing him to take a damn shower. Perhaps advertisers should start realizing that his kind of idiotic commercial only drives home the point that dudes who actually buy into this stuff are total assholes who smell like puberty and desperation.

At least one company has the right idea:



Three Hookers Come To A Hotel, Help Guy Shave [Ad Gabber]
[Axe Hair Crisis Relief]

Let me explain why I hate Abercrombie & Fitch so much: when I was in the hospital for anorexia 5 years ago, I shared a room with a young woman who was so sick that she needed to be tube-fed 24 hours a day. She was at least 40 pounds underweight and looked like she was going to break. The week before she was hospitalized, she told me, she went to buy clothes at Abercrombie & Fitch, and the manager pestered her the entire time, begging her to apply for a job there, because she had "the look they wanted." Classy!

Abercrombie & Fitch rose to prominence during my high school years, when bland preppy clothing somehow became all the rage. Never before or since have kids in public school taken such a shine to khaki pants and puka shell necklaces. Walking into an Abercrombie & Fitch (or a Hollister, or an American Eagle) is a bit like walking into a super lame high school party; the stench of cheap cologne is everywhere, the lights are low, the music is bad and way too loud, and there is an air of pseudo-sexuality that screams, "I want to make out with you but I'm going to be reallllly bad at it!"

Abercrombie has made headlines over the years by releasing such charming women's t-shirts with sexist slogans such as "With these, who needs brains?" and "Blondes are adored, brunettes are ignored," (the shirts were pulled after boycotts sprung up) and by promoting racist t-shirts with lines like "Two Wongs Can Make It White." Somehow, the company kept going after these disasters, as the kids kept dropping their money on overpriced terry cloth pants.

But the recession is changing everything, and the kids are moving away from the Abercrombie brand. The store is struggling, posting a 34% drop in sales since last year, a number Caitlin McDevitt of MSNBC notes is "the worst among retailers in March."

"There was a time when Abercrombie's sexy ad campaigns and half-dressed salespeople were irresistible to teens," McDevitt writes, "A time when an endless line outside the flagship Fifth Avenue store curled around the block each morning. A time when the store effortlessly convinced young people that wearing two expensive polo shirts was infinitely more stylish than wearing just one. And the teens followed like lambs. There were days when A&F stock topped $80 per share, but those days have passed. Now, shares have sunk to less than one-third of that, and it seems that the embroidered Moose logo may be losing its cachet."

Don't worry, Abercrombie. I'm sure you still have stock of your racist, sexist t-shirts to cry into. And, of course, Rich Cronin will always think you are fly:

The Big Money: Retailer A&F Loses Its Cool [MSNBC]
Abercrombie Pulls Shirts After Girls Boycott [Think MTV]

Whereas male razor commercials are all about power and speed and performance, these commercials send a cheeky little message to women everywhere: you can totally use this to shave your pubic area. But instead of just saying, "Works great on your bikini line," or some such, the folks at Schick Quattro have taken another approach, developing a sing-songy jingle that involves women dancing in front of bushes, holding hairless cats, and warbling lyrics like, "Feeling rough around the edges? It's time to trim the hedges!" Adoooorable.





A second ad shows women powering through their day as the bushes around them get smaller and smaller, because nothing says, "I'm more of a woman now, thank god" than shaving your pubes. Am I right? I mean, really.





Now listen. I understand the difficulty in marketing a product like this: you're never going to see a commercial wherein a woman says, "I use this razor to shave my pubic hair, and I love it." It's just not going to happen. And though the shrinking bushes ad is somewhat gross, it's effective, and slightly less offensive than the hideous sing-along ad, which just feeds into the notion that women are gross, bad, or weird if they don't "mow the lawn." I mean, the song begins with a woman talking about how blue she is, and that her favorite thing to do in such situations is to "mow the lawn." Give me a fucking break.

But still: why can't we just have a product for women that isn't advertised beneath a layer of happy bird singing, tulip sprouting, pastel-wearing, Stepford bullshit? Nobody gives a shit about the happiness your pube shaving gives you. Nobody wants to go to dinner with your annoying doctor friend who won't shut the fuck up about the side effects of Yaz. Nobody wants to have a happy fucking period. Nobody needs to hear about how unwomanly you feel when you have to wear your gray hoodie because you aren't using Vagisil. And nobody needs to hear that when you're "feeling untidy" you "spruce up your Aphrodite." Why can't we just be straightforward about products for women? We all use and need these things; why can't we just be as obvious about personal hygiene products as men are? "You need this because it does this and it's effective at this, the end." Is a cartoony musical really necessary? I think not.

So what say you, commenters? Offensive or effective? Or perhaps a bit of both?

Schick Quattro Helps Women Trim The Bush [AdFreak]

Degree deodorant has long positioned itself as a stress-activated product that responds to natural elevations in one's body temperature. Yet a recent advertising campaign separates said stress reactions into a big ol' pile of gender stereotypes.

Degree Clinical Protection for Men is touted as a deodorant "for men who take risks." Because nothing should hold you back, men! So what if your body naturally gives off odors when you sweat? You take risks, men! You need tough protection for your tough self!

Yet the women's version of the product has a decidedly different spin. The campaign, "Dare to Feel", is based around the idea that it's not necessarily the macho risk-taking of their male counterparts (or, you know, natural bodily functions) that causes women to sweat, but their emotions that turn them into big sweaty piles of stank. "Emotional sweat can cause body odor more than perspiration from physical activity," the website states, "In fact, we can start sweating when we're nervous, embarrassed, scared, and even when we're excited. Sweat doesn't happen only when we're hot or working out. This means you need extra odor protection to kick in when you're stressed or emotional."

There's no mention of emotional sweat on the men's site, or the concept that emotional issues may add to the excessive sweating that both clinical protection products are designed to fight. Both products supply the same information regarding how the deodorants work; but the emotional spin is only applied to women, while men, apparently, don't "feel," but "take risks."

I realize that I may be over-analyzing here, but when I recently saw the "Dare To Feel" commercials, I couldn't help but roll my eyes so hard that my emotional stank levels set off the alarms.

So what say you, commenters? Sexist? Or just savvy advertising?

[Degree Women]
[Degree Men]

Earlier: What Sweat Says About Men, Women & Marketing

Is the puzzle overtly sexual? No. But come the fuck on, people. Do we really need to model Strawberry Shortcake after Sex and the City? Is there no other cultural touchstone to base a product for elementary school girls on than Scary Sadshaws? Whatever happened to living in a cake made of strawberry? Yes, there are problems with the original, what with Strawberry Shortcake seeming to take much pleasure in sweeping her floors and doing her chores, but still, aren't there some things that are better left alone?

The PedEgg is a home pedicure system that's designed to scrape rough, dead skin from the feet. It looks a bit like a marshmallow-lamprey hybrid and costs approximately $10. You can usually find the PedEgg at any drugstore, on the shelves next to other random "As Seen On TV!" products, like that weird razor sharpener that allows you, for some reason, to keep a disposable razor sharp for infinity and beyond.

Let's just get this out of the way: the PedEgg commercial is gross. It is gross for a myriad of reasons, a major one being the aforementioned foot shavings scene, wherein our enthusiastic PedEgg users show how the product works by scraping its sharp, grated edge along their soles before opening the PedEgg to reveal the layers of dead skin they've just removed. This, I believe, is supposed to impress us, which it would, I'm sure, if we were looking at our own "OMG I can't believe all of this dead skin was on my foot" results in the privacy of our own homes. Seeing someone else's foot shavings pile while you're sitting on your couch, just trying to eat your waffles and relax on a Saturday morning, is quite different:

Still, as gross as the PedEgg may appear on television, there's no denying that it's a popular product, with over 2 million PedEggs sold. As the economy tanks and people begin to cut back on luxury spending, I wouldn't be surprised if PedEgg's sales skyrocket over the next few months: now that sandal season is over, people might think twice about getting that $30 pedicure, opting instead to scrape their dead skin away by themselves in the comfort of their own homes, with a savings of $20 tucked in their pockets. Is sitting in the bathroom, rubbing your heels with a handheld cheese grater-esque contraption as glamorous as soaking your piggies in a hot spa at a nail salon? Maybe not. But it's a lot cheaper, and right now, that's what counts.