Casting Call For Mx. Potato Head

What's in an honorific?

Mr. Potato Head – the brand, not the character – is being re-branded as, simply, "Potato Head."

As reported on CNN and beyond,

"Hasbro is making sure all feel welcome in the Potato Head world by officially dropping the Mr. from the Mr. Potato Head brand name and logo to promote gender equality and inclusion," the company said. The rebranded toy launches this fall.

It's interesting that the reporting at first kind of freaked people out, with the fear being that the characters of Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head had changed their genders. So much so that Hasbro tweeted:

Hold that Tot – your main spud, MR. POTATO HEAD isn’t going anywhere! While it was announced today that the POTATO HEAD brand name & logo are dropping the ‘MR.’ I yam proud to confirm that MR. & MRS. POTATO HEAD aren’t going anywhere and will remain MR. & MRS. POTATO HEAD

The photo included in the tweet says volumes about how binary the Potato Head universe still is, with the art still showing Mr. Potato Head and Mrs. Potato Head, each on their respective box, under the new more gender neutral brand name, "Potato Head."

I guess rebranding the overall thing to be gender neutral is a step in the right direction. 

But if Hasbro really wants to be gender inclusive, perhaps the next step is for them to come up with a character who is part of the Potato Head Universe, who is also gender non-conforming, or Two-Spirit, or gender fluid. And maybe give that Gender Queer character their own box.

Casting call for Mx. Potato Head, anyone?

The light in me recognizes and acknowledges the light in you, no matter your gender.

Stay safe,
Lee

Billy Porter's Tuxedo Dress (Designed by Christian Siriano) Inspires!

This.

Lit up.

The Oscar's Red Carpet.

In Vogue, Billy explained how the Tuxedo Dress came about and how,

“My goal is to be a walking piece of political art every time I show up. To challenge expectations. What is masculinity? What does that mean?”

And as for the folks that didn't appreciate it?

"The comments are not my business. What people think about what I’m doing is not my business. I lived that already."

Go, Billy! And Bravo to you and Christian!

Representations of Gender in Advertising

This under five minute video is excellent, with some shocking statistics and thought-provoking images, and it is a great entry point to talk about how men and women are "supposed" to be, and how we need to break free of that mind trap...





Created for

"a Women and Gender Studies class at the University of Saskatchewan by Sarah Zelinski, Kayla Hatzel and Dylan Lambi-Raine [who] wanted to show how ridiculous media portrays gender roles and stereotypes in advertising through presenting gender roll reversals."

It was also interesting that in the "real" ads, all the women conformed to the thin and buxom stereotype of beauty, while in the role reversal ads, there were many different kinds of men portrayed.

What do you think?

Jailbreak The Binary - A Google Chrome Plug-In that makes our online world and language more gender neutral

Jailbreak the Binary

Takes all instances of 'male,' 'female,' 'he,' 'she,' (and many other gendered words) and "swaps them for gender neutral versions."  It's credited as "Attempts at gender neutrality by Marianna Kreidler."

So thanks, Marianna. My thanks as well to the reader who wrote in to tell me about this, saying

"It really makes you think about gendered assumptions.  My favorite instance using it so far was reading explanations of trans words and having it say that faab and maab both stood for human assigned at birth."

Namaste,
Lee

Halloween Costumes and the Gender Line

This image from online retailer Halloweenexpress.com is pretty typical in how it presents the categories of costumes: Men: Creepy, Women: Sexy, Boys: Aggressive, Girls: Girly

Have you noticed the aisles of "boy" costumes separate from the "girl" costumes? 

In our culture that sees gender as binary, it's challenging to find a Halloween costume idea that transcends the boundaries of gender.

Last week, Fandango surveyed 1,000 people who were going to dress up for Halloween, and among the top 20 costumes - divided, of course, by top ten for men and top ten for women -  only ONE Halloween get-up bent gender at all:  For women, the fifth most popular classic character costume was The Mad Hatter.

There was a good discussion thread over at genderfork about Gender Neutral costumes, which brought up the frustration of how to be gender-neutral without being an object - like an undersea fiberoptic cable, or a bunch of grapes.

Some suggestions were fascinating, and androgynous:

An Angel

Dr. Seuss' Thing One and Thing Two

Genderbending burlesque Zombie

A Lord Of The Rings Elf

and, of course,

a Zombie Apocalypse Rescue Team member.

What about YOUR costume? How gender-conforming, or non-conforming is it?

Let me know in comments - and if you send me a picture (as long as it's appropriate) I'll share it here!

Happy Halloween!

Lee

Yorkie - It's Not For Girls. Um, WHY?

Was in the store and saw this candy:

"YORKIE: IT'S NOT FOR GIRLS"

My daughter was offended.  Me, too.  And I'm thinking, HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Look, I don't want to be all 'there's no difference between women and men' but I do think stuff like this - the girl in the crossed out red circle - isn't helping with treating everyone equally.  It isn't helping with people understanding gender is more expansive than just male and female.  It isn't helping at all.

If you believe wikipedia,

Special versions for use in British Ministry of Defence ration packs read It's not for civvies.  In 2006 a special edition that was for girls was sold, wrapped in pink. 

Which I think makes me even MORE offended.

Aside from the original milk chocolate bar, several variants are available, such as "raisin and biscuit" flavour, "honeycomb" flavour, and Yorkie Ice Cream.  So I'm curious - since when has liking a particular flavor been gender-determined?

How about defining ourselves by ourselves and our likes, rather than what we're not or what we don't like?

Am I making too much of this - or do you, too, want to call this out as wrong?

Namaste,
Lee

Gender 101, Episode #18: Being Trans Enough

Continuing my discussions with my gender queer friend Lucy, we explore Lucy's experiences with being seen in different circumstances as being either too trans or not trans enough.



Thanks, Lucy.


This will be the last Gender 101 episode for 2011.  Look for the videos to start up again in Spring 2012!

Namaste,
Lee

Sex, Gender and Bathroom Signs - a fascinating article to check out

This post over at The Society Pages' Sociological Images was so interesting!

It looks at different bathroom signs across the world (with lots of photos!) and analyzes what's going on - the confusion between sex and gender,

the assumed universality of men (that they can represent "mankind") and the presumed lesser value of women (they they can only represent other women)

Where men are men and women are 'wo' -  This makes me want to spell 'women' as 'womyn!'

and most of all, that looking at how washroom signs segregate people who need to pee can be a window into how societies construct gender.

Stereotype Jackpot: The 'girl' image is thinking about shopping, and the 'boy' image is thinking about football. 

It's very thought-provoking.  I encourage you to check it out!

Namaste,
Lee

ps - My thanks to Sara Ryan for sharing this!

Gender 101, Episode #13: Presenting & Passing

Join me as I continue the conversation with Benji, my gender-variant friend, as we dive into the issues of "presenting" - as cis or trans or other, and "passing" - being perceived as non-queer when you are queer. We even play with the lexicon, minting some new words to describe love:



You can get those "Legalize Trans" t-shirts Benji mentioned here.

I'm learning so much from these discussions (I'd never even heard of Queer Femme before.) Fascinating stuff!

Thanks, Benji.

Namaste,
Lee

Blog Challenge: Let's Watch Our Words. Instead of "You Guys," let's say...

So I recently attended a conference session on empowering youth activists to fight homophobia and transphobia put on by the Gay-Straight Alliance Network.

I was really impressed.

Daniel Solis (their Southern California Program Coordinator) and two amazing teen facilitators, Claudia and Emily, went around the room and asked as we all introduced ourselves for our preferred gender pronouns - that sparked some great conversations. (Like we've been exploring with Lucy in our Gender 101 series, there are more than two genders, and you can't always tell by the way someone looks how they identify. So there would be ZE/HIR/HIRS (pronounced "Zee", "Here" and "Here's"), SHE/HER/HERS, HE/HIM/HIS, and another gender-neutral option, THEY/THEM/THEIRS.)

One of the things that came up in the discussion was the gender bias behind using

"you guys"

when talking to a group of people who maybe aren't all guys.

And for those who aren't guys, the expression is a not-so-subtle reminder of male privilege and the patriarchal power structure of our culture.

I know I say "you guys" all the time.

But now that the problem with the phrase has been pointed out to me, I know I can do better. We all can.

So here are some options. Instead of

"You guys"

how about

"You folks"

"You all"

"Friends"

"Colleagues"

"Hey everyone"

... and I'm open to your suggestions, too.

What are some other good options to "you guys?"

So let's all take the challenge to make our world a less gender-biased place, and let's all watch our words! What do you say, you all?

Namaste,
Lee