I've got some news for you
Fembots have feelings too
As I was walking around the other day
I kept running into these billboards ads
that say "RU Bot or Not" for Svedka Vodka
and it's apart of this larger ad campaign
that they have. Some of the other ones say
things like "Make your next trophy wife
100% titanium" or
"Turn ons: stiff drinks and greased elbows."
I was looking at the Svedka Vodka website
and I noticed they have this Bot Builder
where you can "create your perfect silicone
clone, ready and willing to serve"
or you can turn "yourself from hot to bot."
And it gets even more disturbing when you
get inside the program, because you have
all these options of clothing choices and
one of which is a french maid outfit and you
can have your new french maid pose in
these cute or sexy model poses and in
addition you can give her martini hands
so she can you drinks at your whim.
Let's talk about fembots for a second then
because in popular culture and historically
fembots are the ultimate
misogynistic male fantasy
They are a mythic construct used
to serve male desires.
These fembots are sex slaves and sex
objects, ready and willing to serve
and clean up after these men.
Commercial for Phillips Moisture
Shave System Ad
♫ instrumental/electronic music ♫
So is she the accessory to the razor or is
the razor the accessory to her?
I don't really know but what I do know is that
her whole reason for being is
to serve this man.
Commercial for Heineken Draught Keg Ad
♫ electronic music ♫
Wait so her uterus is a keg ready to
serve beer on demand?
I think Advertising Age actually covered it
best, which is kind of surprising
when they said that the "Heineken Draught
Keg is arguably the most sexist beer
commercial ever produced."
Which is quite a large statement considering
beer commercials are pretty sexist.
They went on to say that these commercials
"reduce half the world to a
man-servicing beer tap."
Why do advertisers love to use images that
reduce all that women are into plastic
homemaking, obedient, sex slaves who
don't talk back, in fact they don't talk at all
and they even have an on and off switch.
Advertisers are tapping into a core element
of patriarchy which is the obsession with
control. Author of The Gender Knot
Allan Johnson says,
"As with any system of privilege that
elevates one group by oppressing another,
control is an essential element of patriarchy:
men maintain their privilege by controlling
women and anyone else
who might threaten it."
The fembot fantasy is an expression of total
control especially over women. And these
commercials are selling men this fantasy of
control associated with their product.
I love science fiction and what I love most
about it is this opportunity to imagine
alternative societies and futuristic technology
that can improve our way of life and really
be used as a tool for liberation but what
these commercials are doing is taking this
imaginary futuristic world and making it a
tool of subordination and oppression.
[Commerical for FEMBOT
(Bionic Woman Franchise)]
"It's the fembot new from Kenner and Jamie
Summers the Bionic Woman
sold separately."
'I'm Jamie Summers'
'Oh no you're not, I am, you're a fembot!
Your paralyzer gave you away.'
'She's unmasked me, now I have to disguise
myself as a mystery maiden no one will
recognize me, not even Jamie ha ha'
"Fembot comes with everything seen here.
Jamie Summers, the Bionic Woman
sold separately."