Is this a belated April Fools' joke?
Hey, women! What do you want from your airline?
According to this new American Airlines site, the answer certainly isn’t “Convenient flights at reasonable prices.” No according to their new webpage just for women, we broads need Stepford-esque advice on “girlfriend getaways”, straight-out-of-Oprah reading lists, an all pink layout, and a dumbed down search bar (shown above!) Of course, when designing a site for women, one just cannot complicate the flight booking widget with silly details like, oh, I dunno, price comparisons, awards points, or flexible dates. You know, actually relevant features. That would be too much for our pea brains! Lyke, this website has discounts on spas, y’all!!!
Righteously indignant? You should be. Who’d think that a 2007 company would cater to 1957 ideas of what women want? Targeted marketing is one thing, but pandering in stereotypes? I’m surprised the AA execs think women are getting to a computer at all!
If you’re a frequent flier and embarrassed by American Airlines’ pandering, here’s how you can say something about it (‘cuz picking up the phone is probably more effective than e-mail:
US or Canada
1-800-222-2377
6:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m. CT daily
United Kingdom
08-45-601-0619
8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m. GMT
Mon. – Fri.
Closed Sat. – Sun.
All Other Locations:
1-918-832-1384
6:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m. CT daily
As a former AA customer, I’m letting them know tomorrow that this chick won’t be giving them a dime.
(Via Consumerist)
vamps and tramps
I am working on my pale.The advent of fall and winter delights me, for it means I can cover up: slip on long sleeve shirts without attracting confused stares from passerby, shield my legs from the sun inside slim tailored trousers, cover my face in the brim of a black cloche hat. I apply my Clarins SPF 40, dab my face before braving West Philly, rinse and repeat. I used to be made fun of for my fear of the sun, for my habit of ritual sunscreen. "Casper!" I was called. "Bollio!" "What's wrong with you?" said a childhood friend, a nicaraguense girl. "Don't you want to be tan like me?"
Yet I see the worn skin of my aunt, who spent many moons (or suns, more aptly) on Ipanema Beach in Rio, slathering her limbs in baby oil and Crisco. She is 50 and already her collagen has escaped her. Treated for melanoma twice! I fear losing her, and so I fear the sun. My father is the same -- a life out at sea has rendered his visage rough and wrinkled, like the inside of an Italian leather bag, or the heels of the boots he wears when it is stormy. He has no health insurance and I always wonder when we reunite which mole will be the death of him. My mother is still blonde and beautiful, yet even she, sun-worshipper that she was/is, now has a fine network of crow's feet gracing her middle aged face. I find her crow's feet beautiful, of course. She ages with grace, and in the mirror of her face I see me, a touching recognition. But not everyone will recognize that beauty. Cancer doesn't care about beautiful.
My little sister like to contort her 9 year old body in front of me, letting me see that she is brown as a berry. "My father says this is a protective tan," she says, and I curse her father George, for he should know better than to tell her that. George is dark like a cafe mocha; Lauren has inherited some of her father's complexion, yet still I worry that she, too, will get skin cancer in her ripe old age. Little freckles dust her nose, she already has a few moles. The curse of South Texas summers.
And so I rebel, working on my pale. I like to think of my sunscreen as a shield, blocking me from ultraviolet and pollution and dirt. Yet even this is fallible. Sunlight will always shine through the cracks, simultaneously giving us life and aging us. What do I have to fear from the sun? My mother's face is a map of her life, the furrows representing the paths she has taken. It is beautiful, that map. For what mother would I have otherwise, if her skin was smooth as marble, without error? Would I have her any other way but less than perfect?
