Listen Up, Boys and Girls!

Ireland's kind of all over the place when it comes to gender. The Celtic pagan religion was structured around the idea of a sacred feminine, but Irish women didn't get the vote until 1928. Despite countless speeches and poems dedicated to "Mother Ireland," the streets here are all named after her great sons --- Daniel O'Connell, Padraig Pearse, Arthur Guinness, James Connolly. Along the River Liffey, there's Bachelor's Walk. No Spinster Street, though. But Ireland's got a female president and deputy prime minister! The place is full of contradictions.

This is a popular chocolate bar around here. I keep meaning to buy one, but...apparently, I can't. Who would tell a girl she can't have chocolate? Talk about reverse psychology. This is not a recent sensation, though. Nor is it a sensation at all. Yorkie bars can be bought anywhere, anytime!


And then there's the new Burger King campaign going around here advertising the "Meat Beast Whopper." 100% Irish beef, bacon, and pepperoni, in case your arteries were getting bored. Anyway, buses and posters everywhere are urging Dubliners to buy one --- well, maybe not every Dubliner. The campaign's slogan is "A Man Has a Right to More than One Meat."

Here's one of the TV spots they've had on recently:

Burger King Polygame..
Watch the ad...

I'm not really sure how to feel about this. It's kind of funny? Nobody really thinks of it as controversial.

At the same time, this being Europe, there's also a certain level of flamboyancy that's tolerated --- and even encouraged --- in men, regardless of orientation. Primetime television is interrupted not only by the typical glamour ads featuring Penelope Cruz wearing mascara and loving it, but also by cute young guys playing soccer, hair frozen in trendy peaks with the aid of Garnier Sculpting Gel! Never is a man here emasculated by the fit of the pants he wears, or the moisturizer he uses.

Next blog entry will be lighter, I promise. I guess we're all getting pretty fired up for the election here, and it's been making me think about why Palin's so-called "success" and Clinton's apparent "failure." Even here in Ireland, where there's such a contradiction in terms of the social expectations of gender, they had a female president elected in 1990. That was Mary Robinson, whose excellent quote I will leave you with as I go to fill out my absentee ballot:

"I was elected by the women of Ireland, who instead of rocking the cradle, rocked the system."

Now that's what I'm talking about!