Current mood:	pensive
Current music:	A Perfect Circle - Judith

ranting on the subject of 'girly' drinks
like most other bizarre cultural things related to our concept of gender, there exists something known as the 'girly' drink...

where did this concept come from? a drink is a drink! enjoy it, and be happy. the drink doesn't have XX or XY chromosomes - and even if it did, that's not always an accurate way to determine gender anyway ;)

i got into this conversation last night after work, after i stopped at the bar with one of my co-workers and the subject of 'girly' drinks came up in jest, to which i had to respond by quickly finishing my draft beer and defiantly ordering one :)

The Cosmopolitan.

to some people that's THE girly drink and to others it's a really, really gay drink. why, 'cause of the color? yeah, it's a little pinkish. i also happen to find them extremely freaking tasty, so whatever.

The Cosmopolitan also has WAY more alcohol than that oh-so-masculine beer you're holding, buddy, and it's not nearly as pink as that Pepto-Bismol you need to swill down after deciding your life just wasn't complete without those extra hot peppers on your steak sandwich, so chill.

there's already a huge divide in the way food products are advertised - for just one example, if you see someone eating a salad or some new low-fat product in a TV commercial, you're pretty much certain to see a woman eating it in the ad, a woman narrating, etc etc. there are other examples too, watch TV and try to point out which foods and drinks are supposedly 'masculine' and 'feminine'.

how much further can this go? is this a future that we really want? one where everything is divided (completely arbitrarily, mind you) on the basis of gender? is this helping us as a society at all? or is it simply helping out the corporations who wish to turn every single thing in our lives into nothing more than an easy target demographic they can peddle their merchandise to at an overinflated sticker price?

there's already some degree of gender segregation in conventional grocery stores - but maybe the day is coming when there will be separate men's and women's stores, like we have now with clothing or whatever. these won't replace the existing grocery stores - the woman of the house needs to go out and shop for the family as well, right?

but there will be separate stores as well - the women's will contain nothing but low-fat products, with extra sugar taking its place of course. also sold will be various salad ingredients - all designed for a guilt-free eating experience.

the men's grocery store will heavily emphasize red meat and various high-fat, high salt snack foods. real men don't feel guilty about actually enjoying their food. unless it's one of those fruity little low-fat yogurts or something, because after all, if you eat one of those and listen closely enough, you can hear the testosterone screaming and writhing in agony as it cries out in desperation for a slab of sirloin.

forget such antiquated notions as 'crossdressing' - the real gender outlaws of the future will be guilty of - you guessed it *gasp* 'crosseating'

'Oh my God, Bill, you're eating a salad. Do you just do this on the weekends, or are you having the surgery?'