When Law Students Attack

File Under: Get Pregnant, Lose Your Civil Liberties

Congressional Babes

Last week on my blog we had a short conversation about hyper-sexualized younger women, and why coming down on them is a little bit unfair. Now, the LA Times gives us this article about Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a Congresswoman who is, according to the paper, is being "tested on whether her reputation will be more coquette or congresswoman."

Because Lord knows the earth would shatter if she were both a female politician and a human being.

On "Balance"

[The following is an email sent out over an NYU Law listserve. It references an event sponsored by a religious organization at NYU, which featured a white, male, Mormon attorney with five children and a stay-at-home wife speaking about balancing work and family.]

Rebecca writes, "Nor does it address the fact that, whether you intend to or not, when you say that Mr. Belnap can't speak for women on the work-life balance issues, you implicitly depict the issue as mainly a woman's issue. Work-life is an issue neutral to gender and neutral to having children or 'family'. And while women can debate that the issues disparately affect us, to claim dominion over the entire debate departs from a debate about equality. Everyone has a right to talk about the issues of work-life balance, and the more they do, issues that affect women disparately in the workplace may be more equalize. "

Sexist Advertising in Legal Magazines

[The following focuses on an advertisement in Massachussets Lawyers Weekly, which featured a naked woman, covered by a man's suit coat, pulling a professionally-dressed man toward her by his tie, with the words, "A custom tailored suit is a natural aphrodisiac." Several female attorneys wrote in to complain, and a handful of "feminist" defenses of the ad followed. This is a response to some of those arguments.]

If this ad is somehow represents the idea that women can be sexual, then that idea isn't really new at all, is it? Women's bodies have been used in advertising to sell goods and services for decades. Highly sexualized images of women are nothing new -- and I don't think they're particularly empowering, given that the women in these ads are not sexual subjects (her pulling him doesn't change thousands of years of gender dynamics and decades of sexist advertising).