One would think that intelligent women would have finally gotten their heads around how manipulative TV and trash magazines are and how they feed hatred between us but hey, turns out a lot just haven't. Now this might seem a bit full on so let me start with a few facts:
1) I am calling myself a feminist. I am all for equality. However, I do think achieving equality is only possibly with a strong female community....a united community. Sisterhood, if that's what you want to call it. I believe that with the end of female rivalry said 'Sisterhood' is a possible scenario and with a community like that, a lot of gender related issues and inequalities could be resolved. I sometimes feel like women stand in the way of their own progression, that we have to move on from the 'men are evil'-pattern and look at what is actually blocking us.
2) I believe in freedom of speech and am happy for everyone to have an opinion. Stupidity, however, hurts me physically. Being oblivious to one's own stupidity gives me strokes.
7 am:
I am checking my facebook before work and have to come across the following status update:
"A man's best accessoire is the woman by his side"
Unsurprisingly this was posted by a girl of 18 or 19 years of age. All her friends, male and female, went on about how this comment is 'so true OMG' and 'such a lovely thing to say'.
Now imagine me on my little office chair, angry and agitated and slowly reaching boiling point. I got so worked up I felt nauseaus.
My questions to you:
How can one NOT see the sexist message in what is supposed to be some sort of a weird compliment here? A men's accessoire? OH HELL NO (imagine this in Beyonce's voice)
Every single one of us has come way too far to be happy with being someone's accessoire. And for all of you who are still having trouble realising this: Women are perfectly functional humans. We wear accessoires, we don't act as one.
Did you get trapped by the 'nice' way this degrading statement is wrapped up in the same way, the girl and her friends did? And can you understand why I am so agitated about this?
Most ladies I have had the pleasure meeting so far claim to by 'totally emancipated and feminist' and one can see the feeling of empowerement and independence glance in their eyees when they hear that 'Girls run the world'-song on the radio..
Righto. Again - Sisterhood and all. Goodonya.
And when asked about what's wrong with society they usually complain about how advertising is creating this perverted image of the female body, that makes us all get eating disorders and feel self hatred. And men. They're evil. Cause they get more money. And stuff.
Ten minutes later, I see them opening a magazine and giggling about how KE$HA has cellulite on her thighs. I see how they are celebrating hatred and determine another female's worth by how she looks.
A great way to treat someone of your own kind, right?
"What was that? You say it makes you feel better about yourself when you see someone's 'ugly'? Then you've got some bigger fish to fry than jiggly thighs, darling."
7:15 am
Found another statement, this time coming from the Austrian Lesbian Community:
'Real women dress casually, not sexy'
Wow for this shit coming from the last place on earth I would've suspected anti-feminism at.
Dear Austrian Lesbian Community,
I would like you to define the world 'real' in the context you used it. What is a 'real' woman? How and why does cleavage and a mini skirt take that 'realness' away from her?
XOXO
This is such a devaluating statement of women who dress (what society perceives as) sexy.
You might be able to tell what they were trying to say with this statement so let me just re-phrase it a little bit:
'Women should be found perfectly capable of choosing their wardrobe and can dress however they want. If they choose to show more skin than my grandma, they should be able to do so, without being judged by anyone else (including other women), held responsible for being raped by some filthy sick human being or considered a second class citizen. If they choose corporate wear, that's cool. Sporty? Cool! Fetish clothing? Cool. I only have a problem if you don't wash and sit next to me on the bus. Everything else is non of my business'
Moving on from this....
6 pm:
I knew that a day after the Oscars the online community (as everyone else in media) would start tearing into what people were wearing. And by people I mean women. Of all age. All backgrounds. All colours.
Now the blogs and newspapers I tend to read are ones that usually stay away from headlines such as 'Jessica Simpsons says: DONT CALL ME FAT' etc... (you get the idea).
 |
| how life-defining!!! |
So when I went over to one of the few Austrian pop culture blogs I have in my Google Reader (and I am not going to link the article for the simple fact it doesn't deserve any traffic) and saw the headline 'Oscar night bitching' I already sighed and prepared myself for the worst.
Again this bullshit was born in a female's mind:
Imagine a flood of photographs of actresses in designer gowns and said female judging each one of them, making fun of Natalie Portmans 'non-existant' tits (Wow, you really seem like a decent human being! I would SO want to hang out with you!), wants to 'feed Angelina Jolie' (gooddamnit, that tastless 'joke' has been chewed on for years now. You call yourself a writer? Get a creative mind!!!) and feels grossed out by the fact that 'Michelle Williams is starting to look more like Renee Zellweger'. Wowzers, seems like I've found the breeding ground of mysogony today. Again (and isn't this ironic?) this was all written by a woman.
Sounds like your common $ 1.75 trash mag article, doesn't it?
So after lines and lines of superficial blah the conclusion of said article was as follows:
A) Celebrities (make that a 'female celebrities') have to look amazing (whatever that means) all the time, otherwise they are deemed worthless and have to be MADE FUN OF
B) All men supposedly looked amazing because, y'know, men in tuxedos always look good (that was her statement, true fact.)
C) There is no need whatsoever to mention anyone's achievements, nominations and projects when writing about the most important award of the film industry. Great journalism. So full of interesting observations and information. But remember: Nat's tits were too small for the dress.
After power-spewing for a few hours I commented on the article and expressed my disbelief and disgust to my husband in what was a mixture of angry dance and yelling/dribbling. (His suggestion: to play 'Syndicate' and shoot people on the Xbox. I'm sure he would've refused to hand over the controler so I decided on written vomitting instead...)
I can take quite a few hits but these three things literally drained the life out of me today and at some stages I just sat here, shaking my head and feeling indescribably frustrated.
When's this nonsense gonna come to an end?
I was going to post about something a bit lighter today (I shopped on ebay...haha), but I just had to put this in writing.
And to end this post, I present you with the ad I hate so much it makes me turn into The Hulk: