It's the sex...it's the hetero....it's the race....and it's the age! It's all about -ISMS!!

I think that this world in many ways has become used to reading the "isms" in many places.  There are some companies that even make a lot of money off them. Think about the Carl's Jr. commercial on television - you know which one I am talking about!  Or what about many of the beer commercials?! In today's society many want equality and to not be treated differently from group to group, yet the commercials and writing continue.

With sexism, this was printed from the Boston Herald:

"Hillary Clinton has more brains in her baby fingernail than Sarah Palin has head to foot, though it is a very appealing head, and no doubt foot. Let’s be honest. There’s a reason why CNN’s debate-o-meter dial held by men moved skyward every time Palin opened her mouth Thursday night (women were a tougher sell). Palin is gorgeous, sexy. Ladies, she had a baby five and a half months ago. Did you get a load of that fitted black suit, hugging every curve? “I wish I had heard what they were talking about,” my buddy Albert e-mailed me Friday, “but the voice in my head that said ‘She’s so hot’ was just too damn loud.”
I am not sure who we are supposed to take seriously and who we are supposed to respect.

Heterosexism:

When the Bride Takes a Bride, Businesses Respond

By KEVIN SACK (New York Times)

Published: July 15, 2010

EAST POINT, Ga. — When the Palladinos were planning their wedding, they found that traditional bridal magazines were all but useless in addressing their particular questions.

Questions like: Where does a woman find a man’s suit that does not make her look like a woman in a man’s suit? Should Kirsten and Maria both walk down the aisle, or was it O.K. for Maria, who sees herself as more masculine, to wait for her bride? At which of the Caribbean resorts in the honeymoon pictorials would two women feel most comfortable holding hands?

“On every level there was something lacking,” said Kirsten Palladino, who took Maria’s surname after their wedding in June 2009. “We didn’t see any couples like us. The language was all he and she, bride and groom, please your man.”

After their honeymoon in St. Martin, they decided to do something about it. This month, they published the second issue of their online same-sex wedding magazine, Equally Wed.

Racism:

 "When Words Collide" says that it might be unlikely that you would demonstrate overt racism in your writing, but as we look at this picture and then the words printed on it, I think it is pretty obvious what kind of cake or candy would come to mind.  I don't think they would use this slogan on a white person either and I actually think that they didn't even need to use a person at all.

Ageism

In an ironic and amazingly tone-deaf statement in a story last week at Huffington Post, the mother of a two-year-old boy reported on a slur shouted at her son by a customer in the store where she was shopping.

”The fact that he [her son] was wearing a cute girly headband made him feel good, and he was charming all the old ladies by waving like a little pageant prince. I snapped his photo after two old birds came up to tell me just how adorable he was.”

From New York Times Op-Ed columnist Gail Collins – from one of my earlier collections of media ageism - writing in 2009 [emphasis added]:

“There is something about Romney that causes people to want to change the channel; or, if they are in a senior center in Florida listening to a candidate forum, wander off in search of a second helping of Jell-O. “

For the grammatical error

I can't remember if someone has used this one before but I have seen this and I think there are plenty of people out there that don't realize that "personel" - should be "personnel."  It just drives me crazy to think that someone has paid money to make this sign and even the printed misspelled the word!