Dear Female Reporters and other Female PR-types,
Please quit fighting for the wrong side in the war on women.
2012 was an odd year. I know. I know. It's an even number. That's not what I meant, math nerds. I meant odd in the sense that I had absolutely no idea just how poor our STEM education really is in this country. 2012 revealed that there are men out there who believe that lady parts have a way of distinguishing a rapist's sperm from the sperm that swimmeth forth from the loins of a one true love. We also learned in this historic year, that there are people out there who actually believe that evolution means that all creatures, big and small, eventually become human.
What was even odder about 2012 was the apparent 60-year roll back in our views of women. We witnessed a presidential hopeful awestruck and muted by the simple question, "Would you have signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act?" The booby prize (pun intended) that stemmed from that debacle was the Binders Full of Women meme. Despite the promise to pass constructive legislation to create jobs, the GOP-led Congress instead focused on lady parts. Some politicians and the Susan G. Komen Foundation thought it would be a good move to try to shut down Planned Parenthood, which I argued based on personal experience would be a bad idea. In the wake of the fallout that immediately ensued, the SGK president elected to "pursue other opportunities."
I guess William Congreve was right. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
While the issues above are serious issues that should be taken seriously, there are other issues that are pervasive in our society that play into this W.O.W. in more subtle ways. I'm talking about this fixation on making fun of a person's outward appearance. The other day, I came across a tweet by @HuffingtonPost that read "We think Miley Cyrus looks terrible. Are we being too harsh on her?" I clicked on the link expecting to find that Hannah Montana was being criticized unjustly by some A-hole guy who hasn't had a date in 10 years. Instead, I discovered that the piece was written by female reporter named Cristina Anderson.
Ms. Anderson's profile states that her daughter thinks her mom "gets paid to look at pretty dresses all day." While that's cute and all, I wonder how cute it would be if that byline read that Ms. Anderson's daughter thinks her mom "gets paid to pick apart the looks of young ladies and single-handedly decide who looks terrible." For the record, I really don't give a crap what Miley Cyrus does or what she wears. The last I heard, her profession is music, so if I were going to critique anything, I'd listen to her music and then make a fair assessment of whether I thought it sounded terrible or not. I wish that Ms. Anderson would do the same.
In another high-profile and *gasp* viral story, we learned that it was Beyonce's publicist--a woman--who ordered that websites remove "unflattering" photos of Bey-Bey. I'm sorry, dear readers, but if that perfect body is what one would consider "unflattering" there is absolutely no hope for yours truly. I don't know if Beyonce, herself, considered those photos unflattering or if she got a good chuckle out of the meme that resulted. Frankly, I'm too tired to do that research. I just hope that she and her publicist see the error in their ways and welcome the quite flattering unflattering body that rocked the Super Bowl halftime show with high kicks that blew the power grid.
But this got me thinking--why do women do this to ourselves? Why do we play into this petty perception that women are petty? I know we've come a long way, baby, but we're not there yet. Women leaders cannot even ask tough questions during Senate hearings without being called "extreme" and being reminded that the election is over and to "act accordingly" by the very same industry that got away scott free with contributing in a major way to the collapse of our economy. Imagine that--a US Senator who is doing her job being told how to act by a bunch of folks who quite rightly, should have seen jail time. I wonder if they would have the chutzpah to tell a male senator the same thing.
So, as you can see, ladies, the W.O.W. is far from over. We have more road ahead of us to get some R-E-S-P-E-C-T in a time that sees us slowly regressing to pre-ERA (which BTW, has not been ratified yet) times. It's bad enough that Team XY keeps doling out the hits. Don't you think it's time that Team XX quits throwing the game?
Respectfully submitted,
This Girl
Please quit fighting for the wrong side in the war on women.
2012 was an odd year. I know. I know. It's an even number. That's not what I meant, math nerds. I meant odd in the sense that I had absolutely no idea just how poor our STEM education really is in this country. 2012 revealed that there are men out there who believe that lady parts have a way of distinguishing a rapist's sperm from the sperm that swimmeth forth from the loins of a one true love. We also learned in this historic year, that there are people out there who actually believe that evolution means that all creatures, big and small, eventually become human.
What was even odder about 2012 was the apparent 60-year roll back in our views of women. We witnessed a presidential hopeful awestruck and muted by the simple question, "Would you have signed the Lilly Ledbetter Act?" The booby prize (pun intended) that stemmed from that debacle was the Binders Full of Women meme. Despite the promise to pass constructive legislation to create jobs, the GOP-led Congress instead focused on lady parts. Some politicians and the Susan G. Komen Foundation thought it would be a good move to try to shut down Planned Parenthood, which I argued based on personal experience would be a bad idea. In the wake of the fallout that immediately ensued, the SGK president elected to "pursue other opportunities."
I guess William Congreve was right. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
While the issues above are serious issues that should be taken seriously, there are other issues that are pervasive in our society that play into this W.O.W. in more subtle ways. I'm talking about this fixation on making fun of a person's outward appearance. The other day, I came across a tweet by @HuffingtonPost that read "We think Miley Cyrus looks terrible. Are we being too harsh on her?" I clicked on the link expecting to find that Hannah Montana was being criticized unjustly by some A-hole guy who hasn't had a date in 10 years. Instead, I discovered that the piece was written by female reporter named Cristina Anderson.
Ms. Anderson's profile states that her daughter thinks her mom "gets paid to look at pretty dresses all day." While that's cute and all, I wonder how cute it would be if that byline read that Ms. Anderson's daughter thinks her mom "gets paid to pick apart the looks of young ladies and single-handedly decide who looks terrible." For the record, I really don't give a crap what Miley Cyrus does or what she wears. The last I heard, her profession is music, so if I were going to critique anything, I'd listen to her music and then make a fair assessment of whether I thought it sounded terrible or not. I wish that Ms. Anderson would do the same.
In another high-profile and *gasp* viral story, we learned that it was Beyonce's publicist--a woman--who ordered that websites remove "unflattering" photos of Bey-Bey. I'm sorry, dear readers, but if that perfect body is what one would consider "unflattering" there is absolutely no hope for yours truly. I don't know if Beyonce, herself, considered those photos unflattering or if she got a good chuckle out of the meme that resulted. Frankly, I'm too tired to do that research. I just hope that she and her publicist see the error in their ways and welcome the quite flattering unflattering body that rocked the Super Bowl halftime show with high kicks that blew the power grid.
But this got me thinking--why do women do this to ourselves? Why do we play into this petty perception that women are petty? I know we've come a long way, baby, but we're not there yet. Women leaders cannot even ask tough questions during Senate hearings without being called "extreme" and being reminded that the election is over and to "act accordingly" by the very same industry that got away scott free with contributing in a major way to the collapse of our economy. Imagine that--a US Senator who is doing her job being told how to act by a bunch of folks who quite rightly, should have seen jail time. I wonder if they would have the chutzpah to tell a male senator the same thing.
So, as you can see, ladies, the W.O.W. is far from over. We have more road ahead of us to get some R-E-S-P-E-C-T in a time that sees us slowly regressing to pre-ERA (which BTW, has not been ratified yet) times. It's bad enough that Team XY keeps doling out the hits. Don't you think it's time that Team XX quits throwing the game?
Respectfully submitted,
This Girl