It appears the fat-cats at Lynx have decided that men just can’t live without one if those fantastic clicker-thingies from the advert and so - brace yourselves - are marketing them at the masses.
Lovely.
Well, the inevitable has happened. Sick fuckers searching for disgusting pornography have come across my blog.
In the past two days I’ve recieved visits from people searching for the following terms:
I feel pretty sickened… But I hope that perhaps one of those people read my blog and it made them feel disgusted and guilty about their behaviour. Perhaps not, but we can hope.
The amount of people searching for that god damn Lynx advert is also pretty worrying…
But whoever was searching for “kittens with wool” - hooray for you not being a pervert! Sadly, you probably didn’t find anything actually about kittens with wool here, so here’s a gift… My beautiful cat Maggie looking very sleepy on my lap. Enjoy it, perverts!
I get pissed off with the majority of advertising as it is, but the latest TV advert for men’s deoderant Lynx is really getting on my nerves.
If you haven’t seen it, it comprises of “Hollywood hunk” (allegedly) Ben Affleck out and about town and keeping a record of the numbers of young women who ‘give him the eye’. At the end, he shows off his tally of female admirers to Average Nerdy Joe in an elevator, who - it turns out - actually has many more counts than Mr Affleck. Average Nerdy Joe has been using Lynx, obviously.
Now, Lynx adverts are pretty awful most of the time and so, frankly, this is just one in a long line of adverts by Lynx demeaning to women. But what really gets to me about this one is the way that female attraction is used as a game to find out who is the “biggest man”. Women are merely given the role of objects to boost the egos of men. We are offered the obligatory tits and legs shots, as the female extras are regarded simply as pieces of meat.
Some might say that the advert is just Ben Affleck mocking himself and his ’stud’ persona… BUT if that were true, then why have the Average Nerdy Joe also clicking his counter for each female who expresses interest?
I think it is the little clicky-device that really gets on my nerves with this one. The very idea that it is all a game, a competition; something that the biggest and best man will win. That a woman finding a man attractive has NOTHING to do with herself and her making herself happy, and everything to do with boosting the ego of males.
Not to mention the fact that Lynx smells bloody awful and I am yet to meet a women attracted by its odour.
Okay, I am supposed to be revising, but this caught my attention.
Yes, we live in a dangerous world and precautions have to be made, but to point at a man who works with children and automatically say “paedophile!” is grossly sexist and ridiculous.
The numbers of men working with children seemed to have dropped dramatically not because they do not want to work with children, but rather because they are too frightened to. All this produces is a generation of fear bewtween children and adult men. For example, when I started Primary School aged four, there were three male teachers out of a possible eight. By the time I left at age eleven, there were none. Add the fact that I didn’t have a dad at home, and I found that I was anxious and scared when left in the company of grown-up men.
Philip Bennison is perfectly right in stating “I felt I was being victimised for being a man”. There is no difference between this sort of prejudice and when a woman is refused a job in a traditionally male-orintated career simply due to her gender.
I’ve always secretly held the belief that however intelligent, open-minded and liberal a man may be, his ideal woman would not be one who refers to herself as a feminist:
Matt says:
and what exactly do you want me to do?
Matt says:
being a guy in an office for a search marketing company…
Ms. Violet says:
I don’t mean you have to ACTIVELY do anything. It’s just that the more people have a decent attitude to it and display it in public, the better. The only way that attitudes change is by first changing the little things. It’s like those damn women that say “I’m not a feminist, but….”. It’s like it is SHAMEFUL to actually want some degree of equality and fair representation!
Ms. Violet says:
I would love for you to be proud of the fact that your girlfriend is an intelligent feminist, but in this society it is just not going to work like that
Ms. Violet says:
as you will just always be ashamed of that part of me. Not privately, but in public.
Ms. Violet says:
It’s not your fault,
Ms. Violet says:
just how society is
Ms. Violet says:
and THAT is what I want to change
In private, perhaps he will gush over his girlfriend’s ability to form her own outspoken opinions and be proud of her, but the fear of ridicule from fellow men will still dominate when it comes to announcing his partner as a feminist. This is not generally his fault and I do sympathise. Peer pressure is a nasty thing and certainly is a prevailing force within groups of young men. Much like women, men are a very bizarre breed when they congregate. It’s almost as though the hormones bounce off one another, forming a Scary Giant Mutant Of Gender set to be frighteningly hyperbolic and (stereo)typically male/female. This is not necessarily a very bad thing, as the differences between men and women should be explored and not repressed. A boys or girls night out is just harmless fun, a vent, etc - but it is when these gangs of total and pure hormone start to gain power and influence that I begin to worry.
So, the painful truth is that however understanding and supportive a man is of his partner’s feminist stance, he will be relcutant to admit this when out drinking with the ‘guys’. But, there is always hope. If just one man in a group were stand up and proclaim his love and admiration for feminists then maybe - just MAYBE - at least one other man would admit to agreeing.
Equality needs both sides to develop and work : the fight against sexual discimation is a fight for everybody and NOT solely women.
…
I’ve generalised about men again. Apologises, but generalisations need to be made at times.
