MAN products, or “doing yoga will damage my incredibly fragile masculinity”

“Broga: Yoga for men” | http://www.brogayoga.com/

“Strong, energetic,and challenging, Broga combines the best core-strengthening, muscle-toning, cardio-working, stress-reducing, clarity-enhancing yoga postures with functional fitness exercises for an amazing workout.  You’ll get that pumped-up feeling you get from working out and a deep flexibility and relaxation feeling from “working in.””

It’s like…yoga, except for yoga’s for women! This is for men. Men like you.  Note the powerful man words.  “A cardio-working, pumped up feeling.” That’s how you know it’s broga and not something for women like “yoga.”

“Adagio Man Cave Series” | http://www.adagio.com/gifts/manly_series.html

“A collection of three teas that were formulated with Dad in mind. Sugar Daddy is bursting with the energy of life-affirming ginseng green tea. Man Cave has the earthy whiff of leather and beer nuts. Lounge Chair Lapsang is a cup filled with the aroma of Dad’s favorite pipe or a contraband stogy. Dad is sure to savor all.”

This tea appears to be aimed at dads, but it just gives off this intensely no-homo vibe.  “No guys it’s okay, I’m drinking man-cave tea.” Slammin’ some tea with the bros.

“Powerful Yogurt” | http://powerful.yt/

“We team with trainers, sports nutritionists, top athletes and food scientists to bring you delicious products that will keep your energy high and help your body perform – whether you’re preparing for the Olympics, a pickup game with the neighbors, or your first foray into an active lifestyle.”

In a fascinating and unsurprising look at the nutrition facts, Men’s Fitness tells us that:

powerful yogurt is basically the same as other greek yogurts, except there’s more of it.

“Bounce For Men: Pure Sport” | http://www.bouncefresh.com/dryer-sheets/bounce-for-men-pure-sport

“Even if you can’t whittle a kayak out of a redwood with a penknife, you can smell like the sort of guy who would. Bounce for Men Pure Sport, our first ever laundry product for men, adds softness and fights lint, it infuses clothes with a clean, fresh, sporty scent.”

my only comment is summed up by this tumblr post

I, like many others, heard about the shooting of Mike Brown via social media.  I read about it on Tumblr soon (hours?) after it happened, and I don’t think I heard about it in any other sort of news source until days later.  In fact, I’m fairly certain the first words in real life that I heard about the shooting were in the kitchen of my living group.  Someone read off their phone, incredulously: “It has been 4 days since the police shooting of an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, Missouri?”

Now it’s been 5 weeks, and I think a lot of people have sort of put the shooting out of their mind– there has been a lot less media coverage, for example, and whereas three weeks ago I was unable to go a day without reading something new on the internet about how the Ferguson police had pushed out Amnesty Internation, now most of the Ferguson-related topics seem to be “DON’T FORGET.”

That’s totally understandable in some ways– definitely it would be hard to live in constant outrage for five straight weeks unless this is a thing that directly affects you.  For a lot of people it does directly affect them– the people of Ferguson, certainly, and most black americans as well.  I remember seeing a post on Tumblr that collected information about all of the white police officer-on-innocent black person shootings.  There were at least five recently– that is, within the past 6 months, and this post ended with the assertion: America is not for Black people. And while I think that’s a pretty sensationalized title, it does stick in the mind and it is memorable, which means all of the shootings associated with the posts are also memorable, and that can’t be a bad idea.

Another interesting facet of the coverage of Ferguson is the prevalence of tweets.  Tweeting is really common when things are happening– news breaks first on twitter, after all– but now I’m seeing a lot of tweets of outrage, even after most of the conflict has died down.

Two of the most common threads seem to be: arrest Darren Wilson, and the fact that conflict is still happening.  These could reasonably be misrepresentations, but if true, they draw to light an unpleasant fact of the media– if the news is old, no one will care.  People know about Ferguson now, but since it’s been happening for five weeks, no one wants to hear about the conflict, since it’s old news.  People know that Darren Wilson shot Mike Brown, but it’s old news.

Knowing this, how do we bring more attention to ongoing problems? How can there be justice?

I found the documentary “Miss Representation” to be interesting and a fairly well-made film.  I’m not sure that I learned much new from it, but I’d also say that I’m a little more informed about women’s representation than the average viewer.  I thought it was particularly effective in its use of dynamic text during the non-narrated statistics: for example, “35 women have served as US governors compared to 2,319 men.” and the accompanying dynamic text. 

In particular, these effects brought to mind this infographic, which I found fairly memorable when I came across it randomly in social media (tumblr? or facebook? maybe reddit?):

source: blog.leeandlow.com

Many of the statistics in “Miss Representation” are even lower than the 12% women vs. 88% men of this infographic– for example, the governor statistic.  I think the usage of visual representation really serves to drive the point home.

I also particulary appreciated the comparisons to other countries, because I feel that frequently criticisms of gender and race are very limited in their scope, talking only about the United States, without really recognizing that other countries exist.  However, “Miss Representation” did cite that in the U.S., there is no maternity leave, and this is a problem that is mostly a U.S. problem, as many European countries do have maternity leave.  They also cite that 71 countries have had female presidents or prime ministers, but the U.S. never has.

All in all, I enjoyed watching this movie, and it certainly had interesting statistics and interviews.  I will probably look into the other documentary by The Representation Project, listed on their website as being released in 2015: “The Mask You Live In.”

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