Anyway, the way we dress. In North America we spend somewhere in the vicinity of 10 billion on fashion. We collectively tell our little girls that in order to fit in, be accepted, they have to be pretty, slim, and well dressed. Just look on the covers of some of the rags out there. Elle, Cosmo., Ms., Seventeen. The women in these magazines are the girls' role models. And according to popular culture, if you aren't twenty pounds underweight, you're fat. and the proof is in these magazines. Just look at Vickie Moss. (As long as she's not standing sideways, cause then you'll never see her) And Callista Flockheart. (Although she says she's not anorexic, just slim.)
And the shoes women have to wear. And the variety of shoes that they have to own. And the crap that they have to put on their faces. And the closets of clothes that they have to update regularly. All of this contributes to pulling the sexes apart. Effectively assuring a different class of citizen. After all, men don't generally agonize over what to wear in the morning.
And we're all responsible for it. We teach our kids at an early age that boys wear blue, and like snails, and can do differential calculus, and that girls wear pink and like dolls. Like Barbie. Every girl had a Barbie. And for a while not too long ago, She was teaching our girls that "Math is hard". (Until someone stepped in and said enough is enough).
Meanwhile, we teach our boys that they have to play football and toy guns, and that the only girl worth having is one who is pretty, neat, and can cook. Intelligence doesn't seem to factor into the equation other than the fact that boys are indirectly taught that smart girls are threatening, and girls are pretty much directly taught to "Dumb down and dress up" in order to get a man.
One of the saddest things I have ever seen was an interview with a bunch of kids, somewhere in Eastern Canada back in the sixties, after the first moonshot. The interviewer asked a little girl what she thought about the achievement. She said that it was neat. The interviewer asked her if she would ever go to space, and she answered, "No, because I'm just a girl".
That little girl grew up to fly in space. Her name: Dr Roberta Bondar.
And I'm not saying that the female population is solely responsible for perpetuating the fashion industries. Au contraire, mon ami. If it wasn't for us, demanding that our women be trim, trimmed, and subservient, there wouldn't be the divorce rate that there is now. Think about it. If we were more concerned with a womans psyche, and less concerned about their boobs and their hair, then women wouldn't feel compelled to destroy their complexion, and their self worth.
And then we would be more equal.
-Skuncle