* I am in love with Kerry Howley's book review of Paco Underhill's "What Women Want"—an examination of the consumer behavior of what Underhill terms "the female of the species" of humans. Marry me, Kerry Howley's book review:

Instead of telling us what women actually buy, Underhill considers a product and deigns to divine its male or female origins. Often, the thing he doesn't like is the "male" thing. The product he does like he attributes to the growing and glorious power of the woman consumer. McMansions, which Underhill considers vulgar and atomizing, he deems male. For New Urbanist communities, we are told without benefit of explanation, you can thank women. And because women are in charge now, McMansions are going out of style. ("Good-bye, McMansions. And hello to a new species of home that accommodates the female of the species.") In a typical passage, Underhill notices that pillow quality in American hotels is improving. He attributes this, on a hunch, to pillow-demanding women travelers, which sounds plausible. But might good pillows merely be a response to the taste preferences of an increasingly wealthy society? Would a world without women necessarily be a world with a smaller proportion of soft pillows?

* Who wants to go see Love Ranch with me? Alyssa Rosenberg describes the plot: "Older couple fights for the legalization of their brothel and prostitution in general while [wife] falls for a much younger, exceedingly sexy Latin American boxer." I'm sold.

[youtube:v=cC4i83ejkbo]

* Via THE LINE, it's a headline fail!:

Hmm!

* Speaking of pillows: Are dead ladies sexy, and are they sexier having expired from a girls-only pillow fight? Sociological Images points to some recent instances of sexualized violence for fashion's sake, including "a fashion shoot in which women were depicted as having died in a pillow fight."

* Amanda Marcotte on D.C.'s "modesty police" who shame Supreme Court nominees for leaving their legs uncrossed and First Ladies for showing just a touch of cleave:

The modesty police here or in Saudi Arabia use sex as cover to shame women for having the temerity to walk around in public while possessing lady parts. Creating a situation in which everyone is staring at your crotch or boobs in hopes of finding some transgression from arbitrary modesty standards is just a way to pick on women for being women. I've often been tempted to take pictures of what I was wearing when some guy on the street harassed me, just to point out that if your harasser is determined enough, a hoodie sweatshirt and a pair of jeans can be considered hoochie-mama clothes that somehow demand harassment.

Photo via Romantic Crafts, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

This photograph basically sums up the scene at today's "Boobquake" festivities in Dupont Circle, where women bared their cleavage, and people paid attention to them. Feminism! City Paper photographer Darrow Montgomery, who was on-hand to shoot the event in a completely not creepy way, says that Boobquake participants were outnumbered by members of the press. Click through for more photos of the event.

Last week, I wrote about how women with big boobs are perceived as inherently sluttier than those of us with minimal cleavage. In response, large-breasted women everywhere emerged to tell their stories. (I told you I was committed to blogging about boobs today.) Talk about your boobs in 3, 2, 1 . . .

PD is not trying to tantalize/horrify:

You have no idea how relevant this is to me. Basically, anything cut lower than a standard t-shirt is going to reveal my decolletage. I’ve had big breasts since I hit puberty, and thus have been dealing with trying to find clothes that fit, bras that fit, and ignoring all the stares and comments since I was a kid. I’m not trying to tantalize and/or horrify the general public with my tremendous, obscene, 38J milk bags. Nor am I willing to undergo surgery or resign myself to a life of Victorian-era necklines just because I’ve got big breasts and that makes other people uncomfortable.

This is my gift. This is my curse. Spiderman 3 was a terrible movie.

bellacocker is not giving men "ideas":

I used to have a nice, church lady of a boss who would stand over my desk, look down my shirt, and tell me that my clothing and breasts set a bad example for the staff under my supervision and gave men “ideas.” When I asked for a written copy of the dress code, in order to shop more appropriately, she said she didn’t want to limit her staff’s freedom like that and that we could wear anything as long as it was “professional.” Which meant, I could buy anything I wanted, but I wouldn’t know whether it was acceptable work clothing until I wore it in and had heard her opinion about it.

wisiti is wearing the appropriate level of cleavage for this situation:

I can’t wear anything lower than a scoop neck without showing off ample cleavage. Many shirts and/or dresses are not cut to cover my cleavage to the amount that I would prefer, but the only other option are high-necked shirts that make my boobs look even bigger! I hate that I’m constantly pulling up my shirts or worried about the amount of cleavage I’m showing (am I making that person uncomfortable? Is this the appropriate level of cleavage to show in this situation?) when there doesn’t really seem to be a solution to the problem. And, like the first commenter, I spent the majority of my high school years larger than most of my friends, with a (now seemingly small) size 32C, that were the focus of too much attention, from both my male and female friends. I’ve spent most of my life worried about my big boobs, when there has never really been anything I could do about them.

Melanie is wondering when a boy's legs are "slutty":

And then there’s the problem with dress codes. I work for an organisation whose current dress code amounts to boys, you can wear anything except earrings, girls, don’t show your slutty cleavage or slutty legs. I am trying to convince them that it might be a good idea to de-gender the dress code a little lest it be regarded as discriminatory.

Joliska has got a name, you know:

I have had large breasts for years. I guess I first noticed as a senior in high school when people would yell comments at me as we passed in the hallway. I also found out how people classified me: my name didn’t ring a bell, but when my breasts were mentioned, people knew.
for some reason, having bigger breasts (which wasn’t by choice, however) seemed to make people think they had permission to make comments and grab at them when they felt like it.

I don’t usually have a problem with shirts that expose more cleavage than I’m comfortable with, but I do have a problem finding bras that fit me, and I’m constantly having to readjust and try to mold them into the cups. I also have trouble finding shirts that are long enough if not wide enough. It doesn’t seem that clothing designers thought of my body type when they designed their clothes.

Em has learned how to karate-chop:

Big boobs are public domain. Like, not just ogling, I have had strangers effing GRAB at them. I’ve even evolved to have a karate-chop type maneuver to thwart them if I’m out at a club or a bar.

The way I look at it, it doesn’t matter what I wear, so I might as well look cute. Actually, I get the most attention in a fitted t-shirt–no cleavage, but it emphasizes that my boobs are quite large for my waist size and I inevitably get unwanted attention. I’ve definitely had my outfit called “slutty” (usually by women, who are damn judgemental about these things) when a less endowed friend was wearing much less and apparently not deemed slutty. That’s just how it is. Culture is threatened by big boobs, I think because they’re in-your-face-femininity…also because people make such a big deal about boobs in this country. To quote an international student I used to know, “What is the big deal about boobs in this country?”

Cindy disagrees:

I have large breasts and I do not agree that wearing them on display is some kind of god given right. Maybe this is a generational difference.

Photo via freeparking, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Today is "Boobquake," the day where women are encouraged to show excessive amounts of cleavage in order to disprove the theory of Iranian cleric Hojatoleslam Kazem Sedighi, who posited that scantily-dressed women cause earthquakes. Local participants are encouraged to haul their breasts over to Dupont Circle from noon to 12:30 p.m. As for me, I'm showing about as much cleavage as I generally do—not much—but as Amanda Marcotte points out, I don't have to dress particularly immodestly to be blamed for a natural disaster—because "by Iranian cleric standards, every day in America is boobquake."

* Thinking it's a bit counter-intuitive to stick it to misogynists by flashing some cleave? A counter-protest, "Brainquake," encourages women to fight Sedighi's words by "show[ing] off their résumés, CVs, honors, prizes, and accomplishments." Speaking as a creative writing major with minimal cleavage, I will instead be participating in "Blogquake," in which I make some sort of point about the oppression of women by just blogging about boobs. Boobs, boobs, boobs.

* What the fuck is this headline? "Women Engage in Barebacking at Higher Rates Than Gay Men." The piece opens: "For all the flack gay men get for their sexual antics, it turns out the ladies have them beat for an oft-chastised but ever-present-in-porn act—barebacking." Hey, way to get personal! It takes two to bareback, so why focus all the shaming on the receptive partner? And as one commenter on the piece points out, there's no need to drag lesbians into this: "Editors: Parallelism in style, and fairness require the headline to read: HETEROSEXUAL Women Engage in Barebacking at Higher Rates Than Gay Men."

* Cracked writer Christina H.'s piece, "Five Mistakes Women (Like Me!) Make on the Internet," chastises women for ever thinking that anyone is ever being sexist to them:

women who expect to be treated better on the Web are often more likely to accuse anyone who disagrees with them of being afraid of a "strong opinionated woman." Not only is this as bad as playing the race card, it insults all the other ladies in that online community who haven't been bashed, since it implies that they're not intelligent enough to be persecuted by your imaginary conspiracy.

The author—who is, if I'm reading this right, too intelligent to not be persecuted by the imaginary conspiracy of sexism—was apparently not dismissive of women enough to actually be accepted by the Cracked crowd. She netted several hundred comments like this one: "This article was only mildly amusing, kind of like when a friend gets diagnosed with testicular cancer. Mostly though it just came off as another female rant with a pinch of humor. That said: TITS OR GTFO."

*Hysteria! points to this horrific feature in the New York Times' T Magazine which asks the eternal question: So, was Simone de Beauvoir hot, or what? Her photographs say "yes"; her ardent feminist beliefs say "no."

Photo via Ian Muttoo, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

A couple of months ago, I was at a house party. A couple of guys I was with started commenting on the appearance of a woman sitting across the room. She was wearing what they considered to be a very inappropriate shirt—a low-cut v-neck that revealed what registered to them as an obscene level of cleavage. They were speculating as to why a woman would wear such a shirt in public and what her intentions were in putting it on. "If I were wearing that same shirt, it wouldn't seem inappropriate at all," I noted. Of course, it wasn't really the shirt—it was the size of the woman's breasts that was deemed socially unacceptable.

Big boobs: I don't have them. And good thing, too, because if I did, I'd have to dress myself with the expectation that others would view my anatomy as inherently obscene. This week, plus-size clothing company Lane Bryant accused FOX and ABC of refusing to air its latest lingerie commercial over decency concerns. The central objection? Lane Bryant's well-endowed underwear models revealed cleavage that was just too ample. The low-down, from Ad Week:

In a post on LB's Inside Curve blog, the company complains that "ABC and Fox have made the decision to define beauty for you by denying our new, groundbreaking Cacique commercial from airing freely on their networks." . . . The post also claims that ABC "restricted our airtime" and refused to air the spot during Dancing With the Stars, while Fox "demanded excessive re-edits and rebuffed it three times before relenting to air it during the final 10 minutes of American Idol, but only after we threatened to pull the ad buy."

The post continues: "Yes, these are the same networks that have scantily-clad housewives so desperate they seduce every man on the block—and don't forget Bart Simpson, who has shown us the moon more often than NASA—all in what they call 'family hour.'"

The ad depicts several attractive, plus-sized models in the latest line of Lane Bryant lingerie. Ample cleavage—which Bryant says was a problem for the nets—is on display in the ad. "The networks exclaimed, 'She has . . . cleavage!' Gasp!'' the blog post states.

Ah, "ample cleavage"—not to be confused with the socially acceptable amount of cleavage displayed by Victoria's -Secret-sized models, who generally possess large—but apparently not obscenely large—breasts. Fox and ABC didn't respond to Ad Week's request for comment; Lane Bryant has since removed the accusatory post from its blog, Inside Curve, but it still touts the offending ad on its website as "The Lingerie Commercial Fox and ABC Didn't Want Its Viewers to See."

The lesson, ladies, is that great cleavage comes with great responsibility. People who shame women for wearing "too-revealing" clothes like to center their objections on women's clothing "choices," but make no mistake—this is not about what we choose. This is about the things we don't choose—having chests or butts or legs or necks or hair or any other part of our human bodies that others decide to project their particular sexual interests—and their slut-shaming—upon. The man who is horrified at a woman's "overly exposed" breasts will likely never have to worry about wearing one shirt—one shirt out of a lifetime of shirts—that happens to accidentally set off some random person's slut meter, because of the way his body just is. And because my breasts are smaller, less visible, less imposing than other women's breasts—because there's less boob there—I can feel free to wear the more revealing top without attracting claims of public obscenity. It seems that some women's bodies are just naturally sluttier than other women's bodies—and all women's bodies are naturally sluttier than men's bodies.

(a) stilettos
(b) pantyhose
(c) cleavage
(d) eyeliner

According to one lawyer, two will ruin a female attoyney's career, while two will send her on the partner track. Are career women held to a higher standard of dress than are men? Is business attire absurd all around? Or is the corporate uniform a valuable tool to help boys and girls get ahead? Reader theories—and the answers to your quiz—are after the jump:

whet moser says that the focus on low-cut blouses and too-high heels obscures the fact that in lawyerin', class issues cut both ways:

Yesterday, Feminist Law Professors drew my attention to the Miami Daily Business Review's "Rodent" column, a weekly anonymous rant written by various members of the legal community. The latest missive, "Lady Lawyers Should Dress the Part," warns female attorneys that they may be sabotaging their careers with overly sexy business attire. Actually, I think it's more likely that the conveniently anonymous Rodent, who spouts off platitudes like "women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls," is the force that's keeping women down in the workplace.

According to the Rodent, otherwise capable female lawyers are ruining their chances at being taken seriously by forgoing pantyhose, wearing heels, and revealing their cleavage:

Women who dress like Barbie dolls get treated like Barbie dolls. I know a lawyer who is in her mid-30s. She is stunning—tall, long blonde Lady Godiva hair and a body that would make a porn star jealous. This woman also happens to be a crackerjack lawyer. But she dresses to emphasize her looks, not her mind; as a result, her career seems to have stalled. Though she is an extremely bright woman, no one sees past the stilettos and low-cut blouses.

The vermin continues:

Clients tend not to hire women who look like hookers unless they hire them as hookers. Don’t show your “girls” at work unless you are looking for a one-night stand.

All right, let's hear one more:

I knew an associate who wore shoes that looked like she was a bridesmaid. She was a good lawyer, but there was a real disconnect between those gold sandals and the notion that she wanted to go the distance as a lawyer. She didn’t, and the shoes were a tip-off.

The Rodent's theories are convenient: The lawyer who looks like a porn star stumbled because her shoes are too high. The lawyer who looks like a bridesmaid is not serious about her job because her shoes are too strappy. The lawyer who looks like a hooker is not successful because her breasts are too prominent. Beyond the offensiveness of grouping female professionals into categories like Barbie, porn star, hooker, and bridesmaid, the Rodent appears to be going to great lengths to deny the obvious. Perhaps the lawyer who looks like a "porn star" is devalued because people think she's too attractive to be smart, not because she dresses like a Barbie. The lawyer who wears anything other than a turtleneck is devalued because she's got boobs, not because she dresses like a hooker. And the lawyer who looks like a bridesmaid, whose strappy shoes are a "tip-off" that she's not a serious lawyer? That sounds like a pretty insane explanation for a career misstep to me.

The Rodent, of course, is attempting to explain away a more offensive aspect of the legal profession: women are consistently partnered and paid less than men are. A commenter on Feminist Law Professors draws the obvious comparison between devaluing a woman's work based on her attire to outright sexual harassment. She writes that men have informed her of the harassment rule: “If she’s going to dress like trash, then she’s going to get treated like trash.”

Blaming a woman's clothing choices for her professional failure is simply a strategy for selectively discounting women without being called on your sexism. All you have to do is project your biases on to "her choices," and you can discriminate away.

This becomes clear when the Rodent gets specific about what aspects of a woman's appearance are unacceptable. Interestingly, several of the Rodent's tips are not specific to female lawyers. "A tattoo that shows is NEVER appropriate when you are a female attorney," the Rodent writes—as if face tattoos are generally accepted among lady litigators' male co-workers. The Rodent then offers up a weak defense for focusing on lady ink—women sag. "I promise you that once you are a woman of a certain age, your skin will lose elasticity, and that cute Asian saying . . . simply won’t look good when it’s sagging."

Many of the Rodent's recommendations are inconsistent. According to the Rodent, "Frumpy is the opposite end of the spectrum, and I see a lot of that these days, too. Looking like an unmade bed—wrinkled clothes, no makeup, dirty hair—doesn’t inspire much confidence either." Apparently, femininity-enhancing attire like heels are unacceptable, but makeup is required. The anonymous ranter also points to Condoleezza Rice as an acceptable style icon, even though Rice hardly shied away from figure-hugging, sexy-heeled outfits in her tenure as Secretary of State.

The lesson we can learn from this is that the standards regulating female appearance are largely arbitrary, and are designed that way to keep the door open for criticism. Men may either be labeled "sloppy" or "professional," but women must also navigate between being "frumpy," "professional," and "overly attractive." And since the "too sexy" meter can often be set off by simply looking like a woman, not dressing like one—having breasts, hips, legs, and a waist—hitting the right note can be a lot more difficult than learning to knot a neck-tie.

Feminist Law Professors' Bridget Crawford concurs with the Rodent on some points:

I myself am on record against visible toes in the office, so I am inclined to agree with the Rodent on this topic. . . . Displays of exaggerated female sexuality (cleavage, heels, etc.) are tools that some women attempt to use to their benefit. Kathleen Bergin explains this in her article Sexualized Advocacy and the Ascendant Feminist Backlash Against Female Lawyers . . . the Rodent reminds us that the same tools can be used against women, too.

I agree that this double standard—be attractive, but not too sexy—is used against women in the workplace. But I disagree with the Rodent's conclusion that the solution to workplace sexism is for women to modify their behavior by buttoning up and trashing the sandals. Apparently, no matter what a lady lawyer wears, there will be some vermin waiting on the sidelines to tell her it's not appropriate.

Photo by markusram, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

* Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville says a cat's place is in the cleavage:

this morning, after [the cat had] been driving me bananas for about an hour with this new routine, I tucked the bottom of the tanktop I was wearing up under my boobs to create a little pouch, then stuck her inside, where she promptly fell asleep for about three hours.

And yes, there is a photo.

* Over at The New Gay: A David Foster Wallace obit, from the perspective of someone who's never read a book by David Foster Wallace.

* The District cracks down on clubs that have different age requirements for men and women, the G.W. Hatchet reported last week. Metro News Editor Alexa Millinger writes that it's "not uncommon for bars and clubs to advertise events with a minimum entrance age of 18 for females and 21 for males," and writes that ABRA community resource officer Cynthia Woodruff-Simms "said she knows of a few places in Adams Morgan, U Street and the Southeast Waterfront that use these practices"—all of which seems unnecessarily vague. Can we get the skinny on the effect on those "few places"?

* Via Feministing via Boing Boing: Sexist men make more money. Writes Vanessa:

Most of my friends who make a lot of cheese (finance, technology – all male-dominated fields mind you) seem to have experienced or witnessed more sexism than others. (The corporate world alone is enough to make one nauseous.) And what is there to be said for women who believe in traditional gender roles making less money than women who don't?

* Via Slate: How the "Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood" made the case that "Bratz" dolls—along with "explicit music," "rap videos," and M&M flavored "lip gloss," contribute to "eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression and poor sexual health."

* Larry Craig is back: The Idaho senator has started a legal defense fund to aid in his attempt to overturn his guilty plea from a June 2007 "misdemeanor disorderly conduct" charge, the Idaho Statesman reports. Last February, the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Craig for spending over $200,000 of unused campaign funds to try to reverse the plea; now, he's accepting donations after the fund, dubbed "The Fund for Justice," was OK'd by the Ethics Committee.

* Larry Craig extra: While perusing the Senator's Web site, I came across this page, wherein Larry Craig debunks common Internet rumors for his constituents. The page features a totally creepy photo of Craig who, through some feat of dark magick, appears to be balancing a man-sized Fabergé egg in his palm. My favorite of Craig's "fact or fiction" crusades for truth, filed under "Tax on email":

Some folks have contacted me about a possible five-cent tax on email. This is a hoax that began circulating on the Internet several years ago. An email message warns people that "House Bill 602P" will levy a five-cent surcharge on every email sent. It goes on to say that the bill is sponsored by Congressman Tony Schnell, and the funds would go to the U.S. Postal Service. Further, it refers to an "editorial" in the "March 6 issue" of The Washingtonian supporting the tax. . . . Let me assure you, there is no Bill 602P. There is no Member of Congress by the name of Tony Schnell, and the United States Postal Service has nothing to do with delivering email. The Washingtonian is a monthly magazine, and does not even have a "March 6" issue. It is highly unlikely that a measure like this will ever come to the Senate floor for debate.

Glaring omission: That pesky Larry Craig gay rumor.