In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Target Women: Your Garden

Cara

Of course, “garden” doesn’t really mean garden, if you know what I mean ladies, and I think that you do! Of course, we’re talking about that feminine garden. You know — the one down there.

(Click here if you can’t view the embedded video.)

Apparently with Sarah Haskins, ask and ye shall receive. Well, okay, she didn’t take on the not-so-subtle indication that women need to be perfectly trimmed, shaved and generally hairless at all times in order to be considered feminine and attractive. But taking on the fact that if advertisers want to insist so strenuously that we need to have the hair around our genitals removed or otherwise almost unnoticeable, they really ought to just fucking say “trim/shave your pubes”? Right now, that’s enough for me.

18 thoughts on Target Women: Your Garden

  4. “Moses!” was the bit that really got me. Kinda puts a completely new spin on on that passage of the Bible! (and the “garden” metaphor appears elsewhere in the Biblical texts, too…)

    But there are so many good bits in every Sarah Haskins piece!

  8. Really not a fan of the racist overtones in that first British ad. The black woman saying “some bushes are big” and then the Asian woman saying “some are small” was unsettling and had this freakish kind of porno vibe to me.

    Perhaps I’m reading too much into it, but it felt wrong.

  10. evil_fizz, I totally agree– I kind of had that “Uh, you fer realz?!” look on my face… glad to see I’m not the only one. And I was kind of put off by the beginning of the British version of the commercial, where the woman says that when she’s feeling down her favorite thing to do is “mow the lawn”…
    I mean, when I’m feeling down, I usually grab some pizza rolls and head to the couch with Harry Potter, shaving is usually the last thing on my mind…

  11. Erh, I’ve never seen the first one…and frankly have hardly ever seen a commercial as chirpy as that in Britain. I have seen the …American one (?) I have to say, i’m a little confused, but great show once again.

  12. My roommate and I saw this commercial on Feministing. Despite its stupidity, we thought it was pretty funny. Who in their right mind would consider shaving down there a favorite past time?! We had a discussion in my feminist thought class about this topic, and my professor opened my eyes to how disgusting it actually is: shaving down there resembles what you looked like as a child, therefore, eliciting pedophilia. However, I don’t think this will stop me from cleaning up before beach season.

    P.S. Sarah Haskins is awesome.

  13. “Cleaning up”? Suggests you find pubic hair dirty?

    I agree with WHAT you’re saying – I would also trim – but object to how you are saying it.

  14. my professor opened my eyes to how disgusting it actually is: shaving down there resembles what you looked like as a child, therefore, eliciting pedophilia.

    Sigh, seriously. Because some women trim/shave for various other reasons that aren’t disgusting or pedophilia related at all…like…comfort, better oral sex (for some) and easier hygiene when menstruating.

    Nothing like an overzealous professor to make any body modification choices seem “wrong.”

  15. Thank you Kristen. I shave my labia, for many reasons, and not because my husband secretely likes little girls. The oral sex aspect, yes. But most of all, as a woman with a testosterone imbalance, I grow thick, dark hair all over my body. It’s itchy and uncomfortable, not to mention extremely visible, so I remove it. It’s my choice, I have pretty positive feelings about my body in general. I just don’t like thick, black hair carpets on me. 🙂

  16. Yeah, sure, it’s great to shave b/c you want to. I’m not above trimming my pubic hair myself. But I’m less pissed off about random women’s studies professors and more pissed off about the marketing jauggernaut that shames women who don’t shave or who don’t want to and won’t conform to retro and repressive beauty standards.

    Here’s the thing: when I see and hear overzealous ads like these, or hear the insistence that I should shave because otherwise I’m gross and unfeminine, it makes me want to grow my pubes into dreadlocks. And I’m far more likely to run into this shit than I am to run into women’s studies professors who critique shaving, FFS.

  17. No one said YOU were having thoughts of pedephilia, it’s the men who want women to look like little girls who are the pedophiles. If a man WILL NOT under any circumstances be with a woman who has ANY hair on her body, he obviously is not interested in women, is he? Afterall, women have hair, young children do not *weighs scales* it seems pretty damn obvious to me. If he is not, indded, a pedophile, then perhaps he has a phobia, or maybe he himself has a condition where he is bald all over and wants a woman who can relate, OR maybe, he is just totally ignorant, and completely based in societal stereotypes. But if not, then if you’re with a guy like that, and you plan on having kids, maybe don’t, and if you do, and it’s a girl, be afraid. (this may sound sick, but unfortuantly, it’s not out of the ordinary, I guarantee it)

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