Killing Women Is Totally Hot. And Cute!

Just ask the makers of Wode perfume, who are marketing their product, which features the pointless novelty of briefly turning the skin blue on contact before the color disappears, using the following images:


[Click to embiggen.]
The whole vanishing pigment business is so inane, so utterly without reason or purpose, that it's entirely possible for me to imagine that the imagery came first and the ooh-blue-now-you-see-it-now-it's-gone hook followed thereafter.

Either way, I continue to be amazed by the nonchalance in using overt and suggestive images of sexualized violence against women to sell products—especially to sell products to women.

Relatedly, Shaker Angelos recently sent me the link to this item:


Aside from what I'm going to guess are the fairly obvious problems with pitching an item of clothing that declares a woman's body a crime scene, in a culture where as many as 1 out of 6 women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, this product is being sold on a website I won't link called Girlz Lyfe, which otherwise hawks kitschy gear that appeals to the "grown-up girl" set—lots of childish pink toys and accessories, adorned with kittens and ladybugs and shaped like hearts, the plastic crap that's increasingly being sold to young women on the premise that it's "cute" to portray oneself as a vulnerable child rather than a strong woman. (You won't threaten potential suitors with a Hello Kitty keychain!)

Finding a crime scene scarf among the girlish toys is profoundly disconcerting, not because sexual assault is not a part of many girls' childhoods—unfortunately, I know that to not be the case—but because it's offered as just another "cute" accessory. Dress yourself up as a pre-pubescent victim of violent crime by pairing our crime scene scarf with our teddy bear backpack and ballerina hairpin!

Shudder.

A Culture of Violence Against Women: We're soaking in it.