We all know the power of consumers--we all made hammer pants popular in the late 80's. I figure if we have to live within the bounds of capitalism why not SHOP TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE??
I would encourage readers to buy from companies whose policies are advantageous to women. With collective effort, we can use our purchasing power to influence the policies of companies, states, and nations in order to advance feminist causes. This change in consumer policy should punish companies who are out of touch with a feminist position and reward companies who pursue a progressive agenda. Some thoughts:
Eckerd, CVS, and Walgreens' Pharmacy for refusal to sell the Morning After Pill in most locations. We can add Wal-Mart to that list but hopefully we are all already boycotting them
Abercrombie and Fitch for things like I talked about in THIS post
Mike's Hard Lemonade because it is GROSS and because they are the largest sponsor of the Man Show (remember that show? girl's on trampolines?). This could extend to A LOT of beverage companies like Coors and Milwaukee's Best for offensive advertisements and donations to the republican party which DOES NOT FIGHT FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS
General Electric not a purely feminist issue but they are a HUGE defense contractor and contributor to the US military and our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, they are investing huge amounts of R&D into nuclear power. BOOO nuclear power
And HERE is a list of women-owned businesses listed by product
GIRLCOTTS!!
Also, you should look into THIS BOOK for more ideas*
* I don't support the essentialist notion of the book that claims women shop more than men or that they are more powerful consumers due to their role in the family (i.e. buying all the household products). However, it has great ideas just the same
I would encourage readers to buy from companies whose policies are advantageous to women. With collective effort, we can use our purchasing power to influence the policies of companies, states, and nations in order to advance feminist causes. This change in consumer policy should punish companies who are out of touch with a feminist position and reward companies who pursue a progressive agenda. Some thoughts:
Eckerd, CVS, and Walgreens' Pharmacy for refusal to sell the Morning After Pill in most locations. We can add Wal-Mart to that list but hopefully we are all already boycotting them
Abercrombie and Fitch for things like I talked about in THIS post
Mike's Hard Lemonade because it is GROSS and because they are the largest sponsor of the Man Show (remember that show? girl's on trampolines?). This could extend to A LOT of beverage companies like Coors and Milwaukee's Best for offensive advertisements and donations to the republican party which DOES NOT FIGHT FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS
General Electric not a purely feminist issue but they are a HUGE defense contractor and contributor to the US military and our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. In addition, they are investing huge amounts of R&D into nuclear power. BOOO nuclear power
And HERE is a list of women-owned businesses listed by product
GIRLCOTTS!!
Also, you should look into THIS BOOK for more ideas*
* I don't support the essentialist notion of the book that claims women shop more than men or that they are more powerful consumers due to their role in the family (i.e. buying all the household products). However, it has great ideas just the same
9 Comments:
As a middle school teacher, I have noticed that we have a large number of adolescents who shop at A & F.
We at our school also have a club called GirlsMatter which, amongst other things, has organized a boycott of all things A & F. They can get very loud about this.
That's a good thing.
Sorry for the random comment here from someone you don't know, but how does nuclear power research tie in to fighting sexism? Is there something fundamentally wrong with researching a type of power generation in hope that it is made more feasible through the improvment its weak points? Or should we instead just burn more coal and natural gas and build more dams to meet the increasing power demand?
don't worry i will not be drinking any coolers or milwaukees beer anytime soon...although you should make sure matt isnt drinking too much mike's;)
Huisj:
I like random comments! A couple things--I know nuclear power has nothing to do with sexism...it is just another issue I had to bring up I guess! I couldn't talk about GE w/out talking about nuclear. Sorry for mixing the issues.
Nooo, we should NOT burn more coal and use more natural gas! But it is a false choice to argue we either need to stop using coal and start researching/using nuclear power or we continue to use power choices such as natural gas, etc. Instead, GE (and our government!) should be advocating feasible, clean AND SAFE energy sources. Why even waste our time on nuclear? While I may concede that nuclear is a step up over coal, I will never concede that it is a step over solar, or other energy efficient measures that other companies are using.
I guess I have to admit that I'm somewhat bias from my viewpoint as a mechanical engineer who spent a semester working with a professor from a Nuclear and Radiological Energy department last fall. I guess my two cents on this would be that while nuclear energy is not the perfect long term solution as far as being clean, safe, and renewable, it should be looked at as a stepping stone that can be effectively used while we work to move toward better systems like the ones you mentioned. At this point, technologies like wind, solar, or geothermal are not ready to take on a large enough chunk of the energy load to replace older power plants, so something else needs to act as a stopgap while those are developed further.
Ok, so maybe that only adds up to one cent worth, but that's ok, because I'm on spring break.
Hmmm..I guess I would prefer to develop long term solutions instead of continuing to throw money into unsustainable resources.
I would prefer not to live downwind of a ticking timebomb, like I do now, thanks very much. I'm wondering out loud if you folks are old enough to remember Three Mile Island. I was a sophomore in college when that happened.
It was the defining politicizing moment of my life, so I guess some good came from it.
And it's still sitting there. Tick...tick...tick...
As a sidenote, Wal-Mart has reversed its stance, and will start carrying the pill by the end of March. C'mon Kristen, you should keep up with this and revise your post EVERY time a statement you make is not longer 100% true!
Also, I'd have to agree with Huisj. Based on numbers, coal, oil, and natural gas have caused many more deaths than nuclear energy have. As for Dave's ticking time bomb, there have been many more natural gas explosions than nuclear incidents. But I bet he (and others) aren't prepared to give up a hot shower (although to be fair, not all water heaters are based on natural gas, but a good number are), yet more people die from carbon monoxide poisoning and/or gas explosions than have from nuclear power plants. Of course there are downfalls to nuclear power--but they are better than oi/coal/natural gas, they are a source of renewable energy, and with the exception of hydrogen (which I would love to see be the source of energy for everything), I would argue is the most promising source of energy on a wide scale.
That's my 1 cent, so maybe we have 2 combined. Of course with how the economy has been run under Bush, perhaps it's now only worth 1.005 cents.....
Russ
I honestly had not heard that about Wal-Mart...shame on me since the Morning After debate is one of the things I research. HA. I had heard about Target and possibly CVS but Wal-Mart getting all progressive on us...I missed it!
Anyway...I'm not sure I completely agree with your take on nuc power but I am somewhat sympathetic to the position. We do need to take action in *some* way. However, I feel that nuc power buys us some time but has the potential to lead to bigger problems in the future. Why not invest more resources to safe and sustainable energy? Why the obsession with nuc power.
I feel the dangers of nuc power get overlooked because the plants are in poor neighborhoods. It is easy for us to promote nuc power when we don't live anywhere near the risk. Give me a windmill any day!! :)
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