Vicki Iovine in Women's Day

"I had an epiphany that once a woman is past childbearing years, long, swinging hair below the shoulders is just false advertising." (27, October issue)

This sentence only makes sense if the following assumptions are "true":

1. Women's outward appearance can be considered advertising to men
2. Women wish to advertise something about themselves via their outward appearance, to men
3. Women's outward appearance should be pleasing to men so that their advertising is successful to men
4. Women who wear their hair "long, swinging below the shoulders" do this so that their outward appearance will be pleasing to men.

It is not clear what the "advertising" is supposed to convey. Some possibilities:

- Long hair might represent time spent on personal grooming. A woman with long hair would then be "advertising" that she will spend the (long) time necessary to keep her hair attractive to men (until she has children, at which point she no longer needs to appear sexually attractive to men)
- Long hair might represent youthfulness, or at least the absence of adult responsibilities which would allow the time for this type of personal grooming, as well as the importance of the self, which must disappear as a woman gets older
- Long hair might represent sexual adventurousness of the type that appeals to men

In what sense could long hair be considered false advertising? Perhaps it falls into the category "bait and switch":

The goal of the bait-and-switch is to convince some buyers to purchase the substitute good as a means of avoiding disappointment over not getting the bait, or as a way to recover sunk costs expended to try to obtain the bait. It suggests that the seller will not show the original product or product advertised but instead will demonstrate a more expensive product or a similar product with a higher margin. (definition from Wikipedia)

The last sentence is the most relevant. Long hair, then, is a display of a "more expensive product" to men, with the conscious intention of substituting a less desirable good in its stead. Therefore, a woman past childbearing years with long hair may seem

- concerned with personal grooming, when in fact she is not, and will cease to care for her personal appearance once she is "safe" within a relationship
- youthful, when in fact she is old and consequently undesirable
- sexually adventurous, when in fact she is not

All of the above could be "true" simultaneously.

Yes, that IS sexist.

MILF is not a compliment

MILF is not a compliment.

MILF stands for "Mother I'd Like to Fuck". As with all labels for women, it has meaning only from men's point of view. A person who uses this label for a woman places themselves in the privileged position of men, a position from which men assess and label women according to their fuckability.

Women are divided by the patriarchy into two categories: Fuckable and UnFuckable. This division is made by men for the convenience of men. Men "elevate" women into the Fuckable category because they conform to an arbitrary set of standards of appearance and behavior, established and enforced by the patriarchy. Women in the Fuckable category have value to men as

1. examples for women in the UnFuckable category
- to remind them of what they should be like
- to foment jealousy and divisiveness among women
- to create self-doubt and self-hatred

2. receptacles for men's sexual expression; this is done
- "willingly", through the quid pro quo of the attention, money, and severely circumscribed power given by men to Fuckable women in return for sex
- unwillingly, through sexual harassment and rape

3. status symbols with which to shame and best other men

Women who are mothers are automatically assigned by men to the UnFuckable category. This is easily demonstrated by the existence of the label "MILF": if mothers were Fuckable, there would be no need to call them out as an exception.

By accepting the label MILF, a woman accepts her temporary assignment by men to Fuckable category. Because, as a mother, she is automatically in the UnFuckable category, she is expected to be grateful for her reassignment, and, indeed, to work hard to maintain her place there. However, she will sooner or later be re-categorized as UnFuckable when she inevitably violates one of the many arbitrary standards women must adhere to in order to stay Fuckable. One day, a man will decide that she is

too old
too fat
too thin
too child-encumbered
too ugly
trying to hard to be an MILF
too loud
not smiling enough
not sexy enough
a slut
too self-confident
not deferential enough to men
etc. (the list is endless)

and she will once again be UnFuckable, and therefore worthless to men, except as unpaid labor and something on which to blame men's problems.

To accept the label MILF is to accept that one's value is determined by men, for men. I blame the patriarchy.