Saturday, April 10, 2010

Sex = Sex For Men



I'm sure my alien visitor (the one I used in my feminism series as the eye of the beholder) would wonder about our almost universal confusing of "sex" with "sex for men."

This piece talking about the Hooters restaurant chain now invading China is a good example of it. Everything the story mentions is about sex-for-heterosexual-men, but none of it is labeled as such. The role of women in the story is as employees for sex, either in brothels or now, family-style (!!!), at Hooters restaurants.

The whole story is pretty interesting. Like the clash of two different systems of sexism. The Chinese system of women's oppression battling with the American system! Take out the popcorn.

And then there is this:

A sign hanging by the bathroom reads: "Caution. Blonds thinking."

I wonder what the Chinese customers think of that? After all, the predominant hair color in China is black and they might not associate "blonds" with only female people with fair hair but with --- err --- those Americans who introduced Hooters to China? It's too much to hope for, sadly.