Why Not Start at a Young Age..?

Well...Let me start of by admitting to you a guilty pleasure of mine: going to toy stores. I never outgrew the Nerf guns and balls and building objects and EVERYTHING that a toy store sells. I'm a six foot four inch tall twenty year young man and I can't get enough of shooting my brothers in the face with toys meant for ten year olds. Anyway...
Today I actually had to go into the local toy store for the first time in a few months, as I needed a football to throw around with my brothers. Now I hadn't been there in a while, but the changes kind of shocked me, in particular the note of sexism in the selections of toys.
The shop was literally divided into two sides: boy's toys and girl's toys. The right side of the shop was brutally pink, with dolls, ponies, and anything one might have a girl play with.The left side was chock full of weapons made of spongy stuff, footballs, baseballs, blocks and anything a little man would want to destroy. Even the pictures of kids playing with the toys on the boxes were separated by gender: the boys were having fun with toy pistols and the girls were being taught how to be mommies with their dolls.
All of us (dear god, I HOPE so...) know this sort of thing happens, and most of us (again...) know to work against this broken system of inequality. Unfortunately, even toy stores aren't safe from such things, as my blatant example illustrates.

Some of you may read this and say "so..? Why is it so bad to so easily be able to buy a toy either for a girl or a boy?", and to that I say this: one should not buy a toy based on gender. This sets a child up to feel there are certain mandatory ways of being based solely on gender. Why can't a little girl grow up wanted to stab her friends in the eye with a fake sword, or playing sports? Couldn't a boy play with a small representation of  a young human (doll)..? Can't a boy be a fan of small horses?

As I sit here being one of those people typing away on a laptop in Starbucks, I think about all the questions EVERYONE has. There's just so much to write on this subject, and I don't plan on doing it all here, as I am an avid fan of sleeping. However, I urge you all to continue questioning these things we ALL take for granted: things we might not realize are wrong, and things we know are wrong but do nothing to counteract. It's like the Science Channel says: Question everything.

Beauty and the Beast

     Apparently I'm "metro-sexual", a term used to describe a man who observes closely the way in which he dresses, first given to me by a previous girlfriend of mine. I have no problem with this. I mean, I've never been one for labels, but I have no qualms with the concept. I buy myself nice clothes, when I can afford it, and I look pretty damn good.

     However, it isn't just clothes that I pay close attention to: I work hard to stay healthy, and I don't just mean working out, staying fit, and of course working out my brain. I mean my skin. Healthy skin is important to general health. I mean, it is the largest organ in the human machine. Part of maintaining a healthy veneer is washing regularly, with the appropriate soaps and what have you, though I'll grant you that not everyone needs to be so meticulous in their soap purchases. Some people have strong skin that doesn't need too much care. To those people, I am jealous.

     Here in lies the reason for starting this new blog: the purchase of a soap that will be almost medicinal to my skin. The problem? It's this:

     Men do not have a wide selection, or any selection at all, of soaps which are actually good for their skin. I observed in my local Shop Rite that men had a selection of soaps designed to attract a woman (I won't even get into the homophobia there...) with strong scents. It's the most basic soap with a very complicated scent designed to get men laid by women. Nice.

     Except that the women's soap area had exactly what I was looking for. I got a bottle of soap with various  clays and minerals designed to detox the skin. The bottle was beige and pink, with little purple flowers. I seemed to be the only person at the store to think nothing of this purchase. But why is that..? Why shouldn't a man buy soap that's good for his skin?

     Well, the answer is that there is no reason not to get something like that. We (Americans, at least) live in such a sexist society, and I don't just mean the obvious areas that the feminists are fighting so bravely to dismantle. I mean that there is sexism in the market as well, which affects women and men. This further internalizes the ideas that men must bathe only for sexual appeal, and that women must be healthy and radiant for similar reasons. Women are beautiful. Men are handsome. But how do I explain knowing many handsome women and droves of beautiful men..? She is the beauty and He is the beast. Or is He? Where do we begin to question these social "norms"? 

     Answer: wherever you see them. For me, it's in the shop. It's walking down the street. In America, sadly, social inequality is rampant. It is in this blog that I'll share my personal experiences with these realizations and I'll continue to do it, probably irregularly, so long as my passion on the subject exists.