Women of the World, Raise Your Right Hand

Women of the World, Raise Your Right Hand, originally uploaded by starbexxx.

My pal Amanda Panda just stopped in to show me an ad in the new W. The foreground is a giant hand, sporting a ginormous piece of ice. The lady wearing the ring is all diffusion soft-focus, but you can see this look of X-TREME glee on her face. The man who apparently gave her this ring is nowhere to be seen. In fact, you can't really see anything beyond the giant diamond ring and the facial expression of "WOW I AM SO FUCKING AWESOME BECAUSE I HAVE A GIANT DIAMOND RING ON MY HAND, WOOHA!"

Amanda and I always talk about the ickyness of ads in women's magazines. And this new "i am so awesome because of the great big diamond ring on my hand" ad reminds me of the icky, icky, right-hand-ring campaign.

This shit makes me crazy. Surely you've seen these print ads; the copy reads: "Your left hand says "We." Your right hand says "Me." Your left hand rocks the cradle. Your right hand rules the world. Women of the world. Raise your right hand."

GAG ME WITH A SPOON! Because women aren't validated unless they have a diamond ring? But of course, one couldn't buy oneself a diamond ring and wear it on one's ring finger because that would imply one were engaged. So one needs to make sure to wear one's self-purchased diamond on one's RIGHT HAND to show the world "i am rich enough to buy myself a diamond and goddamnit, i'm not waiting around for some man to buy me a diamond, i'll buy it myself -- but, whimper whimper, i'm still single. see? no ring on my left hand. just a ring on my right hand to prove i rule the world. but i wouldn't dare wear a ring on my left hand because then men would think that i'm not available and then they won't ask me out and then i'll never get a date again and then i'll never be able to rock the cradle."

A spoon isn't even good enough for gag-inducing. Like, gag me with a smurf. This kinda shit makes my head spin.

I wear a sparkly snowglobe ring that's full of glitter-water on my left ring-finger, yo. Because it fits that finger and I'm a lefty. Nothing more, nothing less.

Women of the world, don't let DeBeers get you ... they're the ones who invented the whole diamond-engagement-ring thing. And you don't need to encourage cartels and exploit Africans to be validated.