Lactation Influencers... Are Y'all Okay?
I dislike clickbait headlines as much as the next Gen Xer, but that does not make me immune to them. Thus, when I saw this headline...
Cookbook author speaks out following controversy over lactation cookies ad
...I had so many questions that demanded answers. I had to click.
Friends, I was not prepared for the journey I was about to embark on.
Before I even got to the first line of the article, this assaulted my eyes:
Whatever I was expecting, it wasn't that.
From the article:
Molly Baz is speaking out following controversy over a Times Square billboard featuring the pregnant cookbook author promoting lactation cookies.
...
Brex, the company that sponsored Swehl's billboard, told ABC News the ad was removed following a message from Clear Channel, which owns the digital billboard. According to Brex, Clear Channel said the image depicted was "flagged for review."
Okay, but... lactation cookies?
According to Baz, the concept was meant to "empower" pregnant women and the cookies in the ad are marketed to help postpartum moms produce nutrient-dense breast milk.
*looks it up*
Y'all. They're called "BIG TITTY COOKIES"
I'll give you a minute to breathe through it.
Eye-rolling aside, this isn't the worst product I've ever heard of and, hey, maybe the cookies are good.
So why did Clear Channel want the ad gone? The answer to that isn't straightforward for a couple of reasons.
They did not remove the ad or even ask it to be removed from their billboard.
Molly Baz decided to use this opportunity tragedy to raise her profile as a lactation influencer the alarm about how men are misogynist (????).
"It's super disheartening and infuriating to me that my, kind of, first public foray into being a public mother was one that was deemed inappropriate," Baz said.
Said Baz, "From my perspective, the imagery that we put together was no different from any of the other ads that are in Times Square."
"[T]ake one look at the landscape of other billboards in times square and i think you'll see the irony. bring on the lingerie so long as it satiates the male gaze," Baz wrote...
I feel I can confidently say that I'm not being sex negative when I retort: MA'AM, what?
"There's a bit of a history of, I will say, a double standard that when bodies, specifically breasts are shown when it comes to selling lingerie, let's say, that's more acceptable but when it's something having to do with prenatal wellness or postnatal care, nursing, that tends to get flagged and we see a little bit of backlash," [Zoe Ruderman, a chief content officer for Adweek], added.
I know this is true in general, but in this case, is that what's really going on? After all, Clear Channel didn't even take the ad down permanently, and the marketing company provided an alternate ad without even being asked. One has to wonder if this is a manufactured controversy.
I say that even though I know full well that there is a double standard when it comes to women's bodies and whose gaze is being catered to and when it comes to lactating mothers, lactation, and women's health. That said, there's no way this image wasn't chosen for its Male Gaze Worthiness.
It's not the amount of exposed flesh, which isn't any worse than any lingerie or bikini ad. It is that this woman is holding cookies up to her breasts next to text that says "Just add milk" and the name of a website/company that is probably well-known to people who are or want to be pregnant and little known outside of that. If I were in Times Square, looked up, and saw that? I'd assume it's an ad for a sex fetish bakery.
In all honesty, the thing I assumed was controversial (before clicking) was that someone had posted an ad for cookies made using human breast milk. That would have made somewhat more sense as a controversy.
There's no way everyone involved in "concepting" this campaign (yes, they used concept as a verb in their official statement) didn't know this was a possible reaction or outcome. They appear to have expected it. Which is why they immediately had another ad to replace it and some very RAH RAH WOMEN! Down with the Patriarchy! social media posts likely on deck. That's real feminist of you, becky.
The disingenuousness of it all bothers me the most. Just because the social justice issue they're highlighting is real doesn't mean they are somehow champions of the cause because they dared to show a pregnant belly on a billboard. If anyone complained, I doubt their complaint was based on a prejudice against lactating mothers or that lactation was hinted at.
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[3]
Evil Wolverine’s crimes continue.
Fai is expressing concern over the fact that both individual Sakura’s had a huge amount of power separately, but now together…?
AND THEN EVIL WOLVERINE INTERRUPTS HIM TO EXPLAIN THE FACTS THAT WE ALREADY HAVE, BUT IN HIS UNIQUE FONT.
HELLO IT IS TIME TO RECAP ALL THE FACTS THAT YOU MAY REMEMBER FROM THE PREVIOUS PAGES THAT IMMEDIATELY PRECEDED THIS
SOULS GATHERED INTO OTHER SAKURA CLONES = DIDN’T WORK SO WELL
THIS ONE SAKURA CLONE IN PARTICULAR WAS EXCELLENT
STAMP THAT CLONE WITH ALL THE DIMENSION MEMORIES WE NEED
ADD THE SUPER FEATHER THAT GOT STRONGER OVER TIME IN THE RESERVOIR FOR SOME REASON
COMBINE THAT WITH THE ORIGINAL SAKURA, MIX WELL, AND BOOM.
You now have Super Goddess Sakura - the all purpose tool for all your universe destroying needs!
The place he loses me is when he says that Original ‘Sakura’ has the nature to take both of these things into herself. Which, I don’t know why she would, since the feather belongs quite specifically to a different soul, and I don’t know why she would absorb the body of her clone. Like, the Syaorans never absorbed each other, and Watanuki has always been fine when meeting Lava Lamp.
Is it specifically because the body is empty? So it kind of drifts automatically towards a soul very similar to its original to merge with? And since The Sakura Clone's soul was VERY close to the original Sakura's, that meant she was able compatible with the feather even through she isn't missing any part of her own soul? Like an Extra Memory DLC she could have since the files were compatible, even though those memories aren't hers? Or something?
I feel like I am being pedantic but he specifically says she has the ability to take both those things into herself.
If Syaoran had died but left an empty body behind would Lava Lamp have accidentally fused with it? Or is this a Sakura Specific Function that’s happening because of the Extreme Universe Powers that are being thrown around her?
Honestly at this point Evil Wolverine could just start adding any other random event he needed to make this work to the list and I’d just have to shrug and say Sure, Ok. Whatever you say. That might as well also be true now.
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If you were to look at the languages of Asia and Europe, you would see that many languages' word for tea is something like chai (Mandarin/Korean/Portuguese cha, Persian/Russian/Turkish chay, etc). It is repetitive to say "chai tea", even if chai does refer to a specific kind of tea. There is enough of a consistent difference between French tea and American or British tea to denote when tea is French, but nobody thinks thé tea is a legitimate phrase, and nobody would naturally think to use the phrase. There are people that see the French word thé's immediate linguistic proximity to the English word tea and recognize the redundancy there, but Francophones are also generally believed when they acknowledge a poor use of their language. Just because chai's linguistic proximity to the English word tea is less apparent to those who don't consider the presence of exchange between European and Asian languages doesn't mean chai tea isn't not repetitive and dismissive to Indians criticisms on Americans' use of the word chai
your bio says you’re southeast asian so I’m not going to tell you you can’t be critical of foreigners’ use of a word from your region. But also anything I could say to defend my (really harmless I think??) take on chai as a loan word is overshadowed by the fact that it’s now been two days of people reacting to that post and I’m tired. Many words enter other languages for various reasons and the way that other language folds them into itself is shaped by quirks of grammar, human communication, and that word’s purpose in its new language, not conscious disrespect. All languages have loan words in them that are used in ways that seem “strange” or “wrong” to native speakers of the language that word came from.
But I will say that I do not implicitly respect the French, and also if anyone asked me to make them “French style tea” I’d have no idea what they meant.
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ok i’m posting the cooks illustrated recipe for thai tea bc it’s the only thing sustaining me
7 tea bags assam black tea (or any strong black tea. If you have loose leaf do 7 tsp)
1 star anise (pod? one star thing)
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp turmeric
Put it somewhere, a bowl maybe, and pour 3 cups of boiling water over it. Steep this for 15 minutes then strain.
They say to use 3 layers of cheesecloth and a fine metal strainer, but I don’t have that so I use coffee filters, but you must note that this will take forever and you will have to do it multiple times.
Anyways. Add 1 tsp vanilla extract and 1 tbsp sugar. Then add 1/3 cup of sweetened condensed milk.
This is the concentrate, and when you want to drink it do 1 part milk and 2 parts of the concentrate. And ice and whatever else you want to drink it with. You can add more sugar but I personally think it doesn’t need it.
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No but like, I love just how tragic Dragon Age elves are. Yeah, yeah, it's a subversion of the usual elven interpretations of the graceful, fae-like species — BUT IT'S ALSO NOT!
They WERE like that thousands of years ago. They had a thriving, beautiful civilization where they were treated fairly, with decent gods, where they could live happily. Right?
That's also not true. Elvhenan was just as flawed, if not more, than the current Thedas of the games. Slavery was still there, so many social injustices, and the very vallaslin they wear in worship of their deities were the binding blood tattoos of said slaves.
But the Dalish have also reclaimed vallaslin, however unintentionally, into not only something to worship their deities, but a symbol of their fight, their people, who they are. Thing is, Dalish aren't exactly looked upon kindly — they're considered feral, savage, or just rumors. Myth. Any elf in the city is treated as lesser by the larger populace, and the Dalish are scrambling to discover/recover an ancient history they'll never understand without help from those in that ancient history. Long after Elvhenan fall, they're still looking for the last remnants of a home no one remembers.
Then, THEN, someone from that time reawakens after a millenia. Old, tired, worn, the one who felled the very gods they worship. Turns out he isn't the worst of them, far from it, but not worthy of worship either
That's good, though. Right? Surely he'll see the injustice brought upon them and hel-
Oh, wait, his goal to bring back the world he destroyed will result in the deaths of this current world? He considers everyone in this world a mistake, the elves nothing more than a reflection's reflection of the people he lost. Lesser. Stupid. Wild. Funny coming from a wolf, isn't it
The death of these people is only an inconvenience, like breaking a few eggs-
I know which egg I want to break
-or maybe the Inquisitor makes him think "Oh shit oh no, these are people too." That doesn't stop him, though. He's still going to tear down the Veil, probably resulting in the deaths of a significant portion of the population, if not everyone. Maybe he won't succeed in the future, I don't fucking know how DA4 is going to go down, but he's got elves from all over leaving to assist him.
If he's open about what he's doing the Dread Wolf doesn't lie, he misdirects, he evades, he poisons his tongue with honey, but he doesn't lie then that means these elves would prefer probably DYING. If he's not open about it, then they're being tricked. Played for a fool. Either way they lose.
The Dalish fought tooth and nail for their freedom, for the chance to find a new home and recover their culture and history long buried. They get a lot wrong, but fuck you, it's theirs, they've reclaimed it FUCK OFF SOLAS DON'T LOOK DOWN ON THEM FOR THIS, THEY'RE GOING TO BE ANNOYED IF YOU TELL THEM "hey you're wrong about the history you've work tirelessly to discover and maintain lol" AND LOOK DOWN ON THEM BECAUSE OF THEIR MISINTERPRETATION! Dumb fucking egg oml
Anyway I love the elves in Dragon Age and I love the tragedy of everything, but maybe slow down on that Bioware?? My heart can only take so much
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