Oh- I'm a bit farther down the article now; being feminine has to do with talking fashion, huh??..

"So I talk to her about weightlifting, and I'll be into it when she tells me what new eyeshadow she's working with"... hahaha, wow- these two must have some deep conversations....

"He has more informed opinions than most girls"- Is that right? Says who??

"He has over 100 pairs of sneakers (many worth over $200)"- UGH... well it's evident what kind of girls/women this dude would attract. What am I in here, the Life section? These people need to get a life as far as I can tell.

Oh great -- now young men, too, think that identity is something that you purchase at the Gap. What a bunch of fashion victims. I don't think vanity and narcissism means that young men are getting in touch with their so-called "feminine" side.

Easy Kitten, they're still young and impressionable. Where as I am old and only have one pair of sneakers. They may read this article, send 5 copies to their mothers.... and then perhaps flip through some of the other issues that actually have significance.

Hear hear Fii. Ironic how these guys being 'more in touch with their feminine side' has actually perpetuated the gender role stereotypes. I sorry but i thought that being in touch with my feminine side was not about having a trendy fashion sense or having body image issues. But then again, i'm a little older than generation y.

Wow, interesting piece. Some guys care about fashion, muscles, yelling during sports events, playing videogames, good grooming. Fascinating... They can even have "girlish" conversations and fit right in... no... more...outdo the chicks in knitting talk. Just incredible. The significance of this is....?

Vanessa Richmond really put herself out there for this investigative ethnography. It must have been deadline time and she struck up a conversation in a gym.

these are some very confused young men.

clarke kinda looks like carole taylor to me.

Everything you people have said GOES WITHOUT SAYING. It's like answering rhetorical questions, valid, but still pointless. Now that we've stated the obvious, do we have anything else to say?

I think it is great that young men are comfortable expressing their femininity. It is misguided to think that femininity is restricted to what comes in a can or with a designer label, but it is a starting place. As such I don't think we are in a position to be crapping on it. Besides, that is an unpleasant thing to do to your computer.

Ain't gonna touch this one with a ten foot pole. I'm just way too old school to even try. :-) Sorry ladies, but this is your baby.(No pun intended.)

But eh! We knew how to "chat" up the ladies and show our "feminine side", if that's what it took. Assuming that it actually is "the feminine side", and not just one of the many aspects of the complexity of the male that was always there, only y'all missed it, in your own self-obsession.(Can't stop laughing here. Too much.)

So men have 'evolved' into getting manicures and liposuction and talking about knitting and makeup?

There's hope for humanity yet!

"Guys used to have to fit just one mold, now they can pick and choose: it's cool to be a geek, jock, teck-nerd, lazy bum, skater - whatever - and to move in and out of these categories."

Wow that guy must be living an insulated life (read spoiled silly)- I was under the impression that bullying was about as bad as it's ever been.

All I ever knew about metro sexual I learned in an episode of South Park - and this article is almost as funny.

"There are other ways to attract women than my sneakers, believe me."

Now that's wisdom eh?

OK I'd better stop now. But... wait... one more... no I must control myself.

Read the whole too-long piece with great difficulty.

Still many do not realize that we are considered commodities to be milked - and still the gullible are sucked in.

A brand name, style or color is "in" and it becomes more important to the wearer that one's backside looks good in the jeans, than that you can't sit down in them without losing your wallet from the too-small, buttonless, ass pocket and that those skin-tight jeans just might be causing that crotch-rot.

A prime example of idiocy on a huge scale was women and high heeled shoes - but don't get me started on that.

Perhaps we should be more demanding. I don't like carrying a purse or belly-pack and won't, but there is not much in mens' clothing today that permits carrying a paperback - an item I'm never without.

The only brand name I look for is 100 per cent cotton.

The thing that annoys me is that if this article was about an odd emerging breed of women you would not be so critical to the author and the subjects of it.

I'm not so sure, teen, that this article really points to an odd, emerging breed of anything at all. I mean, Richmond spoke of/to -was it three or four young guys and has even tagged the look "softcho". Clever but a clever tag is only as relevant as that which it purports to describe. A few guys who care A LOT about their hair and can "move in and out of categories..." C'mon now. Get off the feminist line cuz it really has no place here.

Dear Mr. Clarke,

Good-on-ya that you feel the need to keep your body in good standing because your grandchildrens' children with thank you for it in a kinda-sorta way - after all if you just stuck to the chattin', videogame-playing, coffeebar minglin' gig minus the excercise you might whither away and eventualy - a few generations down the road - bear a descendant in the form of one of those freakish nano-assisted humans with four fingers a hand and big diagonal eyes we've all become to know as "aliens from outer space" (but in fact the educated script writers predition of what his great (by the power of 30) grandchild will look like).

Good God, Good Darwin, what's commin' our way?

Oh ya, cut the bullshitn' cause we can all do without it.

Hang Ten!

Deep... 'uber' deep.

Dirty wool sweater with dry grass stuck in it, slight pong of marijuana, grey receding hair pulled back in a ponytail tied with a thin leather string, faded ill-fitting "brand-free" levis paper-thin over skinny thighs, pushed down below your paunch and hanging loosely where the bum should be, slimy worn out old "brand-free" birkenstocks, big ugly yellow-nailed toes waving about in the air. Or are you the bean-pole with the short hair cut badly, slightly uneven over the brow, "brand-free" MEC t-shirt, 10 year old bike pants that used to be black, now grey, elastic pretty much worn out, still working on your thesis after 12 years. Believe me, we really do get that you don't care how you look. Do you have any idea at all how much your opinions completely don't matter on this topic? No, I didn't think so. Still see yourself wild and free at the center of a storm of rebellion and intellectual relevance. Sad. Pathetic. Most men aged 40 or over (yes, I'm generalizing!) are totally sexist and they don't even know it. Morons.

what do these guys put on their resumes? Play video games 3 hours a day?

Please, give us articles on less shallow subjects.

Notshorter, I haven't noticed anyone stating either ex/implicitly that they don't care how they appear. Perhaps many don't. The point being made is that this article and its subjects suggest that looks are all-important and not only looks but the "softcho" (sounds like something you'd buy at a 7-11)image is the hot thing and the softcho package suggests an ideal softcho blend of softcho substance. I personally don't care how people choose to dress, coif their do or choices of conversation or what they do in their spare time. An article about 3 guys extrapolated into an emerging new model of man is not something I like seeing on the tyee. Not if it's not accompanied with some kind of analysis, deconstruction or what have you. Then again, I guess that's what we're sorta trying to do here...

"The point being made...." This is what I'm getting at. Don't frickin tell me what the point being made is! My point, is that you're missing the point of this article. Who cares what you like to see on the Tyee, who are you? I don't like to be force-fed my analysis, personally, I like to do that part myself. Most of the commentary regarding this article is utterly vacant and pointless. You can't just roll out of bed utter: "looks are not all-important" and think you have said something profound or analytical.

Sorry, but if there was humour in this article(and it must have been extremely subtle), I missed it.

Otherwise, I simply can't understand why Tyee would run with something aimed apparently at selling more consumer chic to the impressionable.

This article simply comes across as something I might stumble onto while sitting on the throne scanning one of my daughter's latest fashion, style or entertainment magazines.

Unfortunately it suggests the author is still financially if not emotionally caught up in the fashion industry's ongoing effort to direct more male traffic down the still female dominated Fantasy Lane.

Fii, I too almost choked at the "he could snap girls in two" and other references to the author's view that there must be physical, if not violent competition between these new-age Adonis's and the now over-the-hill metrosexuals.

But wait a minute. The competition is to "out-girl" the other.

You mean like they still all have only one thing on their mind? Oh well, you can dress 'em up but . . .

NotShorterThan3, I think someone tied your shorts in a knot.

You sound a real mess and I would encourage you to lighten up before preening yourself for the show at work this morning.

Otherwise you might cut yourself or are you into plucking these days?

Allan, perfect. Thank you for the fine counterpoint. Old Allan really is quite sexist. "Otherwise you might cut yourself or are you into plucking these days". Why don't you just call me a fag while you're at it? Many younger men, as described in the article, wouldn't even think of saying such a thing, I don't mean they would think it rude, I mean it wouldn't even cross their minds! Also, "scanning one of my daughter's latest fashion, style or entertainment magazines." Nice to see you've raised your daughter in a non gender-stereotyped manner.

NotShorterThan3, I'm curious, then, to read your own enlightening analysis. What I read from you is that you figure someone posting here wears old slimy birkenstocks and/or has a bad haircut. I also read that the comments are "utterly vacant". What is it that you utter as you roll out of bed? I hope it is of more substance than: "Oh, man, I have to wax again. Well, no pain...no gain!"

I hoped the Tyee editorial policy would remove it from the banality of what passes for news in among "chattering classes".

In this case it hasn't.

Please don't go down the drivel road in the interests of being topical or trendy. Building a readership is based on cultivating trust which is founded on the cornerstone of integrity.

Without integrity and trust your publication risks becoming just another pretty face . . . a trend . . . and will disappear undersome appellation akin to "softcho".

Give your heads a shake.

I don't think Allan's calling you a "fag". That must be your own hypersensitivity and perhaps it's in large part created by rednecks "calling you out" on the street or whatever. What Allan I think (if I may, Allan?) is that you appear to be someone overly obsessed with the projected image. Whether you pluck, shave, wax or get lazer treatment or whether you're gay or not is of no consequense. Don't try to read between the lines too much. Actually, simply read what's posted and try to keep your baggage checked.

And slighting a man you don't know for how he's raised his daughter? How uncouth! Most of us older men here would never think of doing such a thing!! I, sir, am offended!!

As a former esthetician I just want to let you know that you tweeze hair, not pluck. You pluck a chicken. ;)

As a former chicken plucker, I want you to know that I empathise with your frustration. I remember when an out of work esthetician was working with me and asked me to show him the finer points of "tweezing a chicken". I'd never felt so embarassed for someone;)

I made that last story up. I think the "out of work esthetician" line probably gave me away.

Oh Ruby, of course I wasn't suggesting NotShorterThan3 is a chicken or even that he uses tweezers.

No, with an attitude like that first thing in the morning I suspect he has far too much on his mind to even contemplate hair removal.

It's my take now that NotShorterThan3 is well short of a lot of things, the first being something we like to call thick skin.

For the record and, as jtothemfk noted in coming to the rescue of this aging non-ponytailed, non-birkenstocked, (oh I hate itchy wool sweaters), non-jean wearing pot smoker, I didn't call you a
FAG for a couple of reasons.

The first is that the term is quite offensive and my second is that you better fit the term loud-mouthed, reactionary, know-it-all jerk who is obviously pissed about something that nothing less than a run to the mall will fix.

Finally, if I had assumed you were anything but hetro-sexual, I might have used the term Gay, but then that sounds so contradictory after reading your posts here this morning.

Still angry?

Next on Oprah: Fashion, is it political or religious? We'll answer those tough questions like... "just how many pair of sneakers does it take to impress someone?" Also "uber-sexiness" is it worth the risk of steroids?"

A more poignant question, clubofrome, is "just how many pairs of sneakers does it take to impress one's self?" Apparently over 100 but final tallies aren't in yet...

I see that Richmond is the "culture editor", so maybe we've been a bit too harsh on her. Perhaps we should save our sniping for our culture itself and those that promulgate the more pernicious, noxious aspects of it? Certainly it is not the role of the "culture editor" (not critic) to participate in the task.

As the great statesman and phrase-turner Churchill once remarked, referring to the artists, poets, cultural critcs', etc bitching about lack of substance and meaning: "Culture is merely the scum that floats on top of the river of industry" (I think this is just a paraphrase). So if culture consists of some part at least in owning over 100 pairs of sneakers, then the river of industry must consist of in part of the labour which creates the foundation. So I wonder how many pairs of tiny hands laboured to create the more than 100 pairs of sneakers, which sneakers form such a vital representation of our culture?

The repartee above esp. the tweased chicken exchange - has me giggling. I agree with a lot of the comments, and think you've all done a good job of pointing out what analysis is missing in this article.

But I also think the photos are great, and it's an interesting foray in the lives of young guys who are conscious of the image of themselves they are projecting into the world.

I wonder how many Tyee readers equate this kind of self - decoration as frivolous, and how many know first hand how it feels to be concerned about this kind of stuff.

I'm not really, but I do kind of what to know if there are people who consider it importnat- and why.

NotShorterThan3, sorry to have overlooked your mild rebuke of my daughter's upbringing as exemplified by my bathroom reading material.

I might have mentioned she also litters the house with fresh editions of the Economist, Harpers, Vanity Fair, but it would certainly not have served my argument well, would it?

Then you'd likely accuse me of raising a young capitalist piglet of something equally sexist and appalling.

But just to show you I know where you are coming from and all, I must say you were bang on about my "short hair cut badly" as well as the slight paunch, which might hide things if I just weren't so excited all the time being over 40 and all.

In a kind of screwball way, this article reveals just how fascism, in many ways, won the war... influencing and controlling the masses never really ended at war's end... no full stop... but forged on ahead under the commanding helm of its new master, the world of commercial advertising...

from post-war Ronald Reagan selling you a GE refrigerator that would supposedly change your life... to today where a pair of sneakers bearing the right label will now apparently make you a man.

A world controlled right down to the finest detail, weakened now by self-obsession and left at the miserable mercy of the artificial image.

The photos accompanying this article expose, I think, the real vulnerability of these guys...trapped by excessive input.

Much better than any pair of sneakers... is a guy comfortable in his own skin, and who enjoys his own sense of aloneness from the pack. Nothing sexier than that in a man...

Hmm. I guess I skimmed over the part where the author mentioned that these young guys are afraid of being unique and expressed their concerns that if they didn't have the right pair of sneakers they wouldn't be considered manly enough. You're all reading an article that's in your head... sorry, I haven't read that one so I will refrain from commenting on it.

Hey, by the way, I'm a 40 year old female. As for Vanessa Richmond, I just googled her and she is described as: "a high school English teacher and journalist who edited a youth magazine and now writes stories on youth culture for The Vancouver Sun, Georgia Straight, and CBC, and is currently completing an MA in youth culture and literacy at UBC". Could you entertain the thought, just for a moment, that you may not be grasping the secondary message of this casual article that was included in the "Life" section of an on-line newspaper? Sorry, I’m not going to S-P-E-L-L it out for you. I leave you with two images from your youth…. oh, wait a minute, these really aren't images from your youth are they? Hmmmm.

http://graphics.ocsn.com/schools/stan/graphics/stan-2003-w-soccer-wallpaper.jpg

http://members.impulse.net/~dunn/newsnote/29oct04a.jpg

PS - allan, no, I wouldn't think your daughter was "a young capitalist piglet" for reading The Economist since I subscribe to that publication myself and do not consider myself a capitalist.

NotShorterThan3...just curious, what do you find so hopeful about this article?

NST3, thank you for the clarifications, especially the one about the author having written for the Vancouver Sun.

That isn't a real surprise as her style appears much better suited to the consumer-oriented flavours normally present in Can/west publications than in a progressive internet site like Tyee.

But hey, we all have our pet bitches, don't we?

I find it quite crass when the media panders to the impressionable, especially the young by tapping into the so-called lifestyles issues that are at best fronts to sell more fad-induced crap.

Whether the issue is sofcho, metro, hardcore or redneck, each is at best a mirage, the creation of wishful thinking or worse the categorization of humans to fit into artificial boxes, which can then be broken down into economic units for easier processing and handling.

And I see you have your own quite negative views of any male who may be over 40 and has the nerve to think for himself or worse, to do it before you have had the chance to pass judgment.

Perhaps next time you get irate over one of we males having such gaul you'll temper your rage a bit at least until you get your own blatant sexism under control.

His pet peeve? He hates it when people dress the same, or just get their whole style from one store. "I try to be a bit more individual. So I'll be like 'Hey, Kels, do you like this?' And if she's like 'Yeah," then I'll get it because I trust her opinion. If she likes it then I know other people will. "

"If she likes it then I know other people will". Why does he want to be "a bit more individual"? - so other people will like it. What kind of motivation is that? Sorry dude, but I don't give a rat's ass if you have shorts over your pants or 2 shirts on or how "structured messy" your hair is . All that effort for nothing. Does that kind of thing really work on people? I'd like to think that's just the mistaken impression you get from being exposed to too much advertising.

Shorter, if you did really get it that I don't care how I look, then you probably wouldn't care either. Obviously you don't get it though. What is "style"? - it's a marketing gimic.

I do get it that you like to consider yourself that much more intelligent than the herd of "sexist" "morons" apparently roaming around. Do you have any idea at all how much your opinions completely don't matter on the topic of your superiority? No, I didn't think so.

Most entertaining :-)

Now, ain't that the bloody truth! Yours is the most astute observation here yet, I think.

You're doing fine, Allan. ;-)

I thought this piece might read different a second time through, but nahhh. Same shit, just a different day.

At one level though, the extreme stero-types it draws out of the social fabric are really quite campy and funny, if also more than a little pathetic, dressed up as trendy and haute couture.

Who advanced the "marketing gimic" theory? :-) Indeed, most entertaining, at the shallow end of the pool. :-D

Coyote, it is kind of funny in a sad pathetic way, I agree.

The saddest part is that so many of us have to categorize people into nice little compartments and then explain their reality through a commercial perspective, as if we don't count unless we shop.

Witness the outright anger that arises when someone suggests the author and her subjects are caught in a retail web.

Instead of explaining the addiction, she goes to all lengths to justify the vanity induced madness sparked by the ad industry.

Perhaps I'm being overly critical here, but why does culture have to be defined in retail terms?

Have we slid so far down the vine that consumerism is now a virtue?

Oh sorry man, we were talking about the shallow end, weren't we?

The author has obviously penned some clever satire. The photos are the pudding.

i won't even bother submitting this 'sofcho' nonsense to any deep critique because the article itself is as simple-minded and shallow as it gets, unless... is this supposed to be a satirical piece, i keep asking myself?? if it
is, it's poorly written satire, to be blunt.

i just wanted to say that jumping from 'metrosexual' (a term that purports
to represent a particular urban style that tries to portray more of the gender and sexuality spectra than the traditionally black and white representation of male and female as polar opposites) with this ridiculous 'sofcho' crap is irritating and nothing more. please, let's not incorporate this word into the vancouver vernacular!

men trying to be more macho than the average male and yet more 'feminine' than the average female?? c'mon! this josh fella is a muscle jock posing as 'in touch' simply to get laid by women/girls too foolish to see what he's really about (i hope you didn't fall for it, vanessa, and jump those 'sofcho' bones). and i
don't care for the rhetoric with which this 'photo essay' wraps and obfuscates this truth.

and the photo gallery? it's a collection of men/boys that play video games, work out, beat on their drums... basically an utterly random
collection of some males in our part of the world. well done! (am i being sarcastic or serious, i can't tell). there's no relevant narrative apparent in this montage.

i love reading the articles on tyee but this one slipped through editing by accident (i can only hope). honestly, if it is supposed to be
satirical, it was a feeble attempt. if it was meant to be taken seriously in any way, i'm stunned.

"Please don't go down the drivel road in the interests of being topical or trendy. Building a readership is based on cultivating trust which is founded on the cornerstone of integrity.

Without integrity and trust your publication risks becoming just another pretty face . . . a trend . . . and will disappear undersome appellation akin to 'softcho'.

Give your heads a shake."

hear, hear, mr. gimpy! well said.

Eeeeks a lifestyle story hits Tyee...

I always love stories about people who a)own 200 pairs of sneakers, b) have paid "over $200.00" a pair for some of them, c) can't make shopping decisions without checking in with their girlfriend/boyfriend/small dog.

I am reminded of an earlier round of Tyee stories covering the freebie press littering Vancouver streets where the PR gal for one of the papers proudly announced that her target audience were guys who were not afraid to spend three hours shopping for a pair of two hundred dollar jeans. Cool I though, a new diversion for the unemployed.

So this is culture?

To invent sub-categories of gender, it is probably best to have thoroughly analyzed and understood gender to begin with. Tracking gender evolution solely along consumer purchasing trends leads to insipid conclusions. Perhaps it simply would have been better not to invoke such a taxonomic tone in an article that makes blithe reference to "bitch tits" and snapping girls "in two".

But even if we take gendered consumerism for granted as our realm of duscission, I see nothing in this article that hasn't already been encapsulated by the metrosexual meme, and moreover, I see nothing that differentiates either "new" trend from the varieties of urban masculinity that have been popping up since the fifties. Whether donning violet hair cream or cucumber facial toner, fancy boys have existed for a while. Yes, some are strong and some are brainy. This all seems like a dead-end, not a new vista, of gender evolution to me.

I didn't see any explanation of where the word softcho came from, but for you etymological types out there, "cho" is the Carrier First Nation word for "big", eg. cat is "bus" and cougar is "buscho".

Hint think was past metro and go straight (no pun intended) to really really superficial...

I kept hoping this article was written tongue in cheek. I guess not. I am wondering at TheTyee's reason for running this, as it is one of the most depressing things I've read lately. How easily it seems that crass commercialism manipulates us all, expanding its reach to both genders, making them spend so much time fretting about their "look" and forcing the spending of cash to assuage their feelings of inadequacy. How is it we're so easily exploited?

2+2=5. It always amazes me how many pack-think double-plus-good type notions can be draped with the flag of anti-consumerism. I'm all for anti-consumerism but not if it's used to bully others into buying - or not buying- what YOU consider acceptable. I figure if you have 200 pairs of shoes then you're not spending that money on something else. I mean are you all saving your money or spending it? Why is what YOU spend your money on 'correct'.

Here's another perspective for the budding fashion (anti-fashion?) fascists among us. A bit extreme in my opinion but makes a good point.

http://www.exile.ru/2003-September-18/anticonsumerism_equals_antiwomanism.html

"It always amazes me how many pack-think double-plus-good type notions can be draped with the flag of anti-consumerism. I'm all for anti-consumerism but not if it's used to bully others into buying - or not buying- what YOU consider acceptable."

a carefully chosen login id, NOAM. you sound like a confused mall shopper throwing an ideological blanket over every forum participant that criticizes this 'photo essay'. yes, i've similar arguments many times and they always start out with someone referring to orwell's 1984 and claiming that all people who are doing 'x' think alike and are ignorantly caught up in a 'fascist' thought network.

c'mon! the article uses the 'metrosexual' concept as a segue into a poorly written thought experiment that simply divides the genders in two again and suggests that the idea of heterosexual ueber-males being vain enough to blow big money on aesthetic vices makes them more feminine than the unmentioned, yet assumed, 'typical' hetero male! dribble.

and i haven't read any commentary yet, in which a critic of the article suggested other, better consumer goods to buy instead of $200 shoes. i have noticed that different notions of how certain males of different ages can/do look, but i don't think anyone was advocating for buying a particular brand. however, some companies out there have greater ethical purchasing policies than most others, and they should be applauded. but i won't mention any of them here. many of us already know who they are because we stop to think about how we spend our money and to whom it goes.

one point that has come across in the above commentaries, however, is that spending money on expensive clothes and hair products and cosmetic surgery does not make a person different, nor does it make them feminine; it just means such people are insecure with who they are, finding personal value and self-worth through the consumption of the ever-greater array of fashionable products on the market and are thus trying to embellish their hollow 'self' with things that cost (and indicate the possession of) great amounts of money.

the article purports to address a new 'type' of male! what, pray tell, does shopping have to do with gender??

so, it's clear, noam, you're no chomsky. great. but many readers are following the tyee precisely because it is trying to be a 'progressive' medium. if you're not into people thinking and working together for positive results, why not read a canwest paper and find the mainstream pulp that compliments your faith in the world of disposable consumer culture.

"fashion (anti-fashion) fascists"... throwing the word fascist around whenever you need to get angry only proves that you have no analysis to back your argument, or lack thereof. i apologize for being so brutally honest with you but it was called for. it's sophomoric to use the word 'fascist' without explaining how it is that a person who is pro- or anti-fashion (which, as an aside, is not the case here, really) is being a 'fascist.'

correction to my last posted comment:

first paragraph after the initial quote... "i've HEARD similar arguments many times..."

"a carefully chosen login id, NOAM"

Yes, I have my mother to thank for that. ?

"one point that has come across in the above commentaries, however, is that spending money on expensive clothes and hair products and cosmetic surgery does not make a person different, nor does it make them feminine"

And you're accusing me of being sophomoric?

"you sound like a confused mall shopper"

I hate malls. I hate shopping. I'm pretty sure I spend less on clothes than you do.

"if you're not into people thinking and working together for positive results, why not read a canwest paper and find the mainstream pulp that compliments your faith in the world of disposable consumer culture."

Where do you get this stuff?

"fascist: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control"

Noam, I just checked out your link and must say I haven't read such pathetic babble since Charlie the Tuna was told to take a swim.

Shopping is a human right?

Oh sure, why not and while we're at it a Lexus in every driveway. What do you mean you can't afford a driveway?

I'll agree to that dream when things like three square meals a day, a decent education, access to quick and effective health care, equality (shall I go on), are enshrined in someone's idea of human rights and are acted upon.

Sorry pal, but it ain't the rich and powerful men who are encouraging most of we anti-consumers to speak up, it's the mindless mall trippers, which may fit in to some form of female culture if hanging around a bingo hall all day would also qualify because both require only one thing, sufficient money to make it at least part way through your planned human rights efforts.

Noam, I'm certain there is a Walmart just waiting for you and other human rights people nearby.

Back off on the fascist claim at least until you are stopped from foolishly spending your loonies.

Hey you want a real charge out of your money. Why not give it to someone who needs it for more than you do. I can pretty much guarantee if you are to follow up on the last suggestion the sense of power you will enjoy is far deeper than anything K-Mart or Canadian tire can deliver.

You see there is no power in you money. The power is how you choose to use it and rather than owning 200 pairs of shoes, most of which will never be worn, wouldn't it be better to ensure 200 pair of feet have shoes, all of which will be used regularly.

I can hear all those footsteps now. Boy, that's power at it's max.

Leave it to the boys to drop the discussion of gender like a hot potato! With, you know, herb butter on it, for a touch of sofchismo.

Just kidding. ; b

But, fellow forum users, we should try to stay on topic -- and we are not the topic.

Maureen, if you'll notice, we boys have managed not to go off topic here for a full day now.

Beside we didn't drop the gender issue maam, but were fully engaged, I thought, in a gender based Tom cat fight.

Oh wow, I just read that link too, by Naomi Wolf. Now, I have a copy of her "Promiscuities", and I'm pretty damn sure that piece was a bit of sarcasm. At least I freakin' hope so...