Category: Feminism

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Mean What you Say

November 10, 2016

“I wanted a change from business as usual in Washington.”
“I voted for the candidate who represented Republican values.”
“I voted for the lesser of two evils.”

These are some of the things I’ve heard and read in the last few days as those who supported Trump attempt to explain their decision. As an initial matter, I’m not sure that anyone should be required to defend why they voted for one candidate over the other, but given the current climate, it’s not surprising that some of the electorate feel compelled to provide a rational basis for their choice. And that’s fine.

In the last week, I’ve read two blogs by young college women, both of whom supported Trump. The first, “Dear Hillary, I really hope you do not become the first female president,” http://www.loneconservative.com/?p=365 is a barely literate, severely fact-challenged pastiche of Clinton myths and faulty assumptions, and it deserves no one’s time or attention. It left me nauseous and contemplating my own wishful retort: “Dear Summer Marie, I really hope you never hold any position in which you regularly interact with young people.”

The second, “I am not a racist,” by Cassie Hewlett, https://cassandrahewlett.wordpress.com/2016/11/09/i-am/, is better. It’s well-written and shows some insight and maturity, most importantly as to the point that not all Trump supporters are hateful, mean-spirited trolls looking to deport anyone who wasn’t born in this country, or to end marriage equality. Cassie, like many, explains that she voted for Mr. Trump because she supports small businesses, free trade, and a stronger foreign policy – nothing wrong with that. Cassie also points out that as a Republican on an American college campus, she spent most of yesterday surrounded by Dems in Mourning, which made her fear being ostracized if she were to express her happiness at the election results – that’s not cool, either.

But I have to take issue with Cassie, and with those otherwise rational and thoughtful people who voted for the human equivalent of Cheez-Whiz, because their choice for president addresses none of the stated reasons for why they picked him in the first place.

First up, change. A lot of Americans are really, really frustrated with the partisan-generated gridlock that has plagued our country ever since Senate Majority Leader and Perennial Turtle Impersonator Mitch McConnell voiced his intention to make Barack Obama a one-term president by opposing every single piece of legislation that wasn’t sponsored by a Republican. That frustration was evident in the Republican party’s nomination of Trump himself last Srping, and in the mass adulation of my candidate of choice, Bernie Sanders.

If you examine the results of the 2016 Congressional elections, however – and I did – it’s obvious that change was not, in fact, the driving factor in most voters’ election choices: Of the 472 Congressional races, incumbents ran in 424 of them, and 416 of those incumbents won re-election. Because 66 Senators were not up for re-election, 482 of the 538 members of the new Congress will be incumbents – that’s a whopping 90%. Does that sound like a mandate for change to you?

Next, a return to Republican values. The GOP has long been the party of strong foreign policy, a free market, and small business. It’s the party of people who were born in a log cabin they built themselves, people who aren’t looking for a handout, people who made their money the old-fashioned way, by sheer dint of hard work and determination. Those are fine values.

But in President-Elect Trump, we will have a commander in chief with no foreign policy experience – that is, none. Nada. Zilch. A man who, despite his many business ventures appears to have been far less successful than his gold-plated personal narrative would suggest. A man who has filed for bankruptcy more than once, who has presided over numerous entrepreneurial failures, and who is notable for stiffing small businesses for fees for services rendered and goods sold. And as for pulling oneself up by one’s bootstraps? Not so much – you can’t call yourself a self-starter when your first business venture was funded by $1 million you got from your dad.

There’s also the legitimate criticism that Trump is a Democrat in sheep’s clothing, a man who is secretly pro-choice, has no use for Christianity or any other religion, for that matter; a man who at one time said he agreed that the rich should pay more in taxes. From 2001 to 2009, he actually was a registered Democrat (as are most of his children), and he has donated to the campaigns of many Democratic candidates for public office.

Now, none of those things should be shocking or upsetting to those of us who bleed blue – and it’s the potential that he may turn out to be more moderate than his campaign dogma would suggest that gives me a small glimmer of hope. But Trump as the personification of Republican ideals? No. If Republicans had wanted someone who truly was, they had sixteen other candidates to choose from. They chose Trump.

Finally, the “lesser of two evils” defense. The flaw with this argument is that while Trump may be evil (although I think that may be too strong a word), Hillary is not. She is flawed, she was perhaps the single-worst candidate the Democratic Party could have selected, and she did little to correct the public perception of her as a dishonest and obfuscating career politician. But she isn’t evil.

What she is, is a woman who is careful in her pronouncements (with the exception, perhaps, of the “basket of deplorable” comment). She demonstrated rigid message discipline, refused to react to repeated low-blow attempts to throw her off her game (think Donald Trump bringing along Bill Clinton’s accusers to the second debate, for example), and she was relentless in her preparation. There was a lack of transparency that concerned many, and the nagging sense that a whiff of scandal seems to follow her wherever she goes.

But whatever her shortcomings or lapses in judgment, she did not make statements that lead many groups to believe that, if she were to become our leader, they would be marginalized. She did not reduce women to objects of sexual gratification. She did not suggest that Mexicans are criminals and that those of Mexican descent cannot be counted upon to discharge their professional duties with integrity and neutrality. She did not threaten to ban an entire group of people from entering our country based upon their religion. She gave no one in this country – save the rich – any reason to fear that their way of life might be in jeopardy.

And this is probably the single-most important thing that Trump supporters do not understand. They do not comprehend the impact of Trump’s statements on the groups to whom they were directed. For her part, Cassie Hewlett credits her parents for raising their kids “closer to the city so that we did not grow up sheltered and ignorant of the diverse world around us,” and for not being told that she “could not date or befriend someone because of their race, ethnicity, or gender identity.” I guess the Hewletts are to be commended for their forward-thinking child-rearing philosophy, and yet inherent in same is the appreciation that ignorance is the natural consequence of the very sort of isolation that Donald Trump now seeks achieve.

Cassie says that, as a result of the parenting she received, she’s not a racist, or homophobic, or sexist, and I believe her. She’s not likely to be swayed by Trump’s rhetoric, but not everyone was raised the way Cassie was. There are plenty of people – people who were raised in a sheltered, ignorant environment, people who do think it’s wrong to date or befriend someone who isn’t of the same race, ethnicity, or gender identity, and if we are to be a nation of equals, it’s critically important that our leaders take care that their words and actions do not alienate the very people they were elected to represent and govern. Prejudice and bigotry and anti-semitism do indeed exist in this country, and probably always will, but it is the job of every American who claims to strive for the equality imagined by our founding fathers to squash that kind of hatred when they see it, not to promote it.

But, because we now have a country in which our President-Elect has let it be known that Muslims are no longer welcome, can you be even remotely surprised by the anecdote I read on a CNN comments thread last night, in which a couple of hooligans in a pick-up taunted a Pakistani gentleman, minding his own business and gassing up his car the day after the election, jeering, “it’s time for you to go back to your own country now, Apu”?

I don’t believe all Trump voters are bad – I am related by birth or marriage to a number of them who I know to be otherwise good and loving people. What I do believe is that the life experience of most Trump voters is vastly different than those of the groups who now feel unwelcome and disconnected in a post-Trump presidency America, and that the assumptions and privilege that underpin the lives of most Trump supporters (and, indeed, my own) don’t permit any meaningful understanding of what it is like to be a racial, religious, or ethnic minority in this country.

Those who voted for Trump hoping that he would restore economic prosperity and a strong defense were able to disregard and quickly forget all the things he said that they didn’t like as the gristly part of a steak they are anxious to dig into. For blacks and Latinos, and Jews and Muslims, for those of Middle-Eastern descent, and those in the LGBTQ community, those statements can’t simply be set aside and ignored as the thoughtless, careless comments of an impulsive man given to hyperbole that they probably were. Those statements, many of which were made when he felt himself to be under attack, strike at the very fiber of who they are and whether they have a place in this country. That’s why Trump’s statements were so terribly damaging.

It’s time to move on, now, and move on we surely will. We are a resilient people who have a lot of cat videos and Instagram posts to get to, and we will heal. In the meantime, we have to find a way to peacefully co-exist in this country. As the main character in “LOST” used to say, “live together or die alone.” We have to try to understand, and accept, and love each other – all of us, every part of us; we have to try to see all the things we have in common and to rejoice in all the blessings we share as Americans. We are one nation, one country, one beautiful and magnificent and abundant land of freedom and opportunity. Let’s try to live in it together.

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Why I’m Ambivalent About Hillary has Nothing to Do with Hillary

October 7, 2016

As the presidential election nears, the attacks on both candidates have grown more fierce and mean-spirited. I’ve read with dismay the many posts decrying the lack of fitness on both sides–not only because both candidates seem to fall far short of what we all probably would have hoped for, but also because I wonder how we are ever going to move past the vitriol and hatred once one of them is elected our president and commander in chief.

What probably surprises me the most about this election isn’t the unprecedented level of bizarre behavior and personal attacks, but, rather, the extent to which some women hate–and I mean, DESPISE–Hillary Clinton. People who I know to have made it a career of criticizing President Obama now post statements he made in 2008, when he was running against her for the Democratic nomination, in which he questioned whether she was the right person for the job–as though what he had to say then is now, suddenly worth listening to. And while I can appreciate that many dislike and disagree with her ideals, why is it that they abhor her?

I asked myself this question because I’ll be honest–I’ve never been a huge Hillary fan. I recall her sitting next to her husband during an interview on “60 Minutes” amidst his first presidential campaign saying, “I’m not one of those little women staying home baking cookies,” and there was a certain level of condescension in her tone I didn’t like.

Later, I wondered where she got off running for the senate when she’d never even held elected office before…were we supposed to vote for her simply because her husband had been president? Because that’s all I really knew about Hillary Clinton, other than she’d gone to a Seven Sisters college (like me), and was a lawyer (also like me).

You would think that a raving liberal feminist like me would have jumped on the Hillary Bandwagon a long time ago, and yet, she just rubbed me (and, apparently, a lot of women) the wrong way. Why? Why indeed.

Obviously, the lack of transparency is troubling, and it needlessly raises questions that distract from more important and relevant issues of policy and qualifications. Then, too, there have just been so many dumb mistakes that, while not illegal, have unnecessarily caused people to draw conclusions that probably aren’t accurate but are nonetheless understandable.

And that troubles me, because Hillary has squandered, to some extent, the promise of her tremendous intelligence, legendarily exhaustive preparation, and enormous passion to serve. But that’s not what bothered me the most.

I am embarrassed to admit this, but the thing I just couldn’t get past was that Hillary was so damned ambitious–my gosh, she really thought she could be president!–and she never, ever apologized for it. I realized that I hated Hillary for the same reason a lot of people love her opponent: Because hating what she represented made me feel better about all the things I’d never accomplished.

Hillary Clinton is not a perfect woman. She’s not the person I would have picked to be the first woman nominated by a major political party to run for the highest office in the land. I guess I’d like that person to be a bit more demure and a bit less obvious about just how very much she wants to be our next president. Which it would never have occurred to me to say about any other person who has ever had a serious shot at the presidency in the last 240 years. Because men are suppose to be bold and brash and possessed of the single-minded determination and self-confidence that it takes to be a great leader. Women, not so much.

And so, the card carrying raving liberal feminist had to rethink a few things, like maybe it’s okay to be ambitious, and it’s okay to be confident, and you shouldn’t have to apologize for that, especially to other women.

I don’t purport to speak for any other woman out there, but I bet I’m not alone in my reasons for wishing that Hillary didn’t seem quite so much like a pushy broad fighting her way to the top. But you know, that’s often the way that a lot of “firsts” get there…after all, it’s not like the rich and powerful white guys just said to them, “hey, come on in and be the only non-white/male/ straight/Christian in our little club here…welcome!” Sometimes you have to be a little pushy so that those who follow you, don’t.

Dislike her for her politics, or because you think she lacks integrity and judgment (which would put her squarely on par with her opponent), but if you’re going to hate her, just be sure it’s for the right reason.

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Swimsuit Models and the Zombie Apocalypse

March 1, 2015

It’s been a long winter.  We’ve been hit with record cold and snow, and I think I speak for many when I say that those of us on the East Coast are pretty tired of school closings, Thinsulate gloves, and short, gray days that end at 4:30 p.m.  How lucky, then, that just as those of us who live in areas that have been blanketed by snow for the last six weeks are ready to stick our hands in a snow-blower set on “high,” the Girls of Winter have arrived.

I’m talking about the one-two punch of the annual Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition and the Victoria’s Secret Bathing Suit Extravaganza Television Special.  There’s nothing like these two heaping spoonfuls of well-oiled boobs and butts set against a tropical backdrop of palm fronds and white sand beaches to take your mind off the fact that we will be wearing snowboots and heavy wool sweaters for the rest of our lives, and that the temperature is never going to rise above the freezing mark, ever.  Yes, just when you thought you might have to throw yourself in front of a snow plow, or plunge headfirst into a bucket of ice melt, the SI Swimsuit Edition and the VS Bikini Fashion show are here to drive away your dead-of-the-winter blues.  So, if you’re someone who likes looking at impossibly beautiful women (barely) wearing exceptionally tiny bikinis whilst frolicking in the aquamarine surf, this is good news indeed.  If you’re someone who’s kind of tired of the ceaseless objectification of women, however, not so much.

The SI swimsuit was the brainchild of some (male) editor at the magazine who, over fifty years ago, had a eureka moment when realized, simultaneously, that (1) nothing interesting happens in sports between the Super Bowl and the opening day of MLB baseball (because no one watches NBA basketball or NHL hockey – not anyone I would invite to my house for dinner, anyway) and (2) by the end of January, most Americans are so thoroughly sick and tired of winter that they will eat up anything that provides them some escape from the relentless dreariness of North America in winter.

So this genius – I think his name was Andre Laguerre—said to himself, “how about if we take photos of gorgeous women in bathing suits lounging around in places like Bali or the Caribbean or Mexico?”  Thus, a great idea was born, and every year since, we’ve been treated to an annual parade of beauties sporting the latest in swimwear and showing off their flawless figures.

Not to be outdone, Victoria’s Secret, that bastion of push-up bras and barely-there panties, the same retail genius that first gave us the television lingerie runway show in which supermodels wearing precipitously high heels and very little else (aside from angel wings – and someone is going to have to explain to me, using small words that my tiny female brain can comprehend, the connection between haloed celestial beings and thongs), decided to go high-octane.  This year, VS gave us a late Christmas present in the form of a glossy hour of television featuring supermodels in tropical locales sporting tiny triangles of lycra that barely cover the naughty bits network television isn’t allowed to show.

As between the two, SI is a little racier and has been known to show a nipple or from time to time (I’m thinking of the Cheryl Tiegs fishnet bathing suit that caused such a stir back in the seventies), but VS is perhaps a little sexier, what with the models rolling around in the sand and engaging in the kind of conversation that does little to intimidate the men to whom these sorts of productions are targeted.  But as tired as I, too, am of winter, as much as I, too, am in need of some sunshine and mindless distraction, I feel compelled to say, as I gaze at the lovely Hannah Davis (who, from what I can tell, apparently had to pee just as they were taking this year’s cover photo – why else would she be pulling down her bikini bottoms?), Really? Still? In 2015, we continue to do this?

I’ve been aware of the extent to which woman are objectified by our society since my first year at Mount Holyoke College.  It had not occurred to me prior to that time to question whether what I saw on the pages of fashion magazines or on television was normal or healthy, nor had I ever thought to ask who got to decide what constituted “beauty” or to get angry when the answer turned out to be, in most cases, men. But then I spent four years marinating in feminism and having my eyes opened to the rampant misogyny all around me, and by the time I graduated, I was pretty pissed.

But then I went to law school, and didn’t have time to be pissed anymore, and as I got older and had less time to ponder such questions, I stopped asking them and accepted that we’re all slaves to such societal pressures.

Then I had three daughters, and I got pissed all over again.  It started with Britney Spears in the late 90’s, bumping and grinding her barely legal body into the life of my three young daughters despite my best efforts to shield them from what I considered the antithesis of the kind of women I hoped to raise.  It didn’t end with Britney, and I’ve been fighting what feels like an uphill battle ever since.  Britney’s been replaced by plenty of other scantily clad, gyrating young women, and the fashion industry has continued to push frighteningly thin models upon us while Revlon and Cover Girl show us flawlessly complected beauties and L’Oreal depicts glossy, unfrizzy, even-toned tresses.

I’m somewhat reluctant to tackle this topic because it’s such well-traveled territory that I wonder if there are any points left to be made, and I guess that’s a good thing.  I’d argue, however, that if showing the top half of your vagina on the cover of a sports magazine is deemed an acceptable way to “market” bathing suits, not much has changed.  I mean, when you’re supposedly “modeling” something, isn’t the focus supposed to be the actual item of clothing, and not the orifice it was designed to cover?

It’s no secret that our culture perpetuates ridiculously unattainable standards for “feminine beauty” and that there are about 23 women in the entire country who come even sort of close to conforming to those standards, and then, only after hair, make-up, wardrobe stylist, and Photoshop have worked their collective magic.

We should know by now that none of us measure up to the absurd (not to mention narrow) ideals of perfection we see in magazines and on billboards, on television and red carpets.  Pick the most beautiful woman you can imagine, be she supermodel, actress, or reality television star, and I can probably hunt up, in under half an hour, some picture on the internet showing her without her make-up and in sweats, looking decidedly normal.  Give me an hour, and I can probably find one with pimples or cellulite.  Bottom line? Even the most perfect women aren’t so perfect.

And we all know that, or at least we should, and so one would hope (at least I do) that we, as a nation, would stop pretending that what the media portrays as the ideal of female physical perfection is realistic, or even desirable, so that we could focus on more important things, such as, how does one get a job as a koala wrangler, or, why all the sudden interest in zombies?  But here we are, almost thirty years since I graduated from college, and we’re still being sold the same bill of goods—that is, that unless you’re 5’10”, 115 pounds (more or less), with long, flowing locks, a lovely face, and a flat stomach, you’re pretty much a troll who might as well just put on a burka and accept your lot in life, which is to be unlovely and, therefore, unloved.

I want to be clear that I think these women are beautiful – my god, they’re gorgeous.  Would I like to look like Kate Upton, what, with my 4.0 GPA cup size? Of course I would.  I don’t begrudge these women their beauty.  And, to be perfectly clear, I have no problem with the naked female body (or the naked male body, for that matter).  As well, I have no issue with taking pride in one’s appearance or wanting to look one’s best—male or female.  I own more than a few lipsticks and eyeshadows, I like wearing heels, and I regularly pay a significant amount of cash to hide my gray roots.

But there is no denying that how we present ourselves is in large part guided by what society tells us is attractive, and that the reason most of us take pains to look our best is because of the extent to which we are evaluated solely based upon our appearance.  Thus, it becomes necessary to either accept this fact and do the best we can with what we have in the name of moving successfully through our professional and personal lives, or to take a militant stance by eschewing all the trappings of what magazine editors and the Fashion Police tell us is acceptable, consequences be damned.  Who even knows what we would wear, or how we would style our hair, or whether we would shave our armpits or pluck our eyebrows, if not for fashion magazines and cosmetic companies?  If there ever really was a zombie apocalypse (which, I understand, generally results in poor hygiene, a lack of beauty products and electricity, and the more pressing concern of not being fed on by the undead), I guess we’d have to throw aside all those notions about Botox and bikini waxing.  We’d probably be less attracted to Pilates abs and more intrigued by biceps toned in more honest pursuits – that is, wielding machetes and kicking zombie ass.

It’s sort of sad that it would have to come to that for us to rid ourselves of these deeply-entrenched notions of what is and is not beautiful.  I’m encouraged that, unlike in the 1980’s, when I was having my eyes opened at college, we’ve expanded our ideas about beauty to include women of color and, in some cases, women who weigh more than 120 pounds.  I guess it’s progress that “plus size” is no longer quite the fashion death sentence it once was, though many of the models who identify as such don’t look much different (to me, anyway) than most of the women I see in the course of a normal day.  I suppose I should take comfort when Huff Po features yet another article revealing how extensively Photoshop is used to create images that bear little relation to reality, and how about Keira Knightly, my personal hero, who recently agreed to pose topless only on the condition that her modest breasts not be enhanced, as they were in a poster for an upcoming movie.

So, yes, there’s room for a modicum of optimism that men and women in America may be less inclined to blindly accept whatever vision of female perfection the media tells us we ought to aspire to.  It troubles me, however, that SI and VS think that we, as a society, are so stupid (justifiably so, it turns out) that we are all willing to pretend that the Swimsuit Edition and VS television special are actually about swimwear fashion, when we all know perfectly well that both should come with a container of lotion and a box of tissues, because the people at whom they are targeted don’t wear (or buy) bikinis and wouldn’t even notice if every model in every edition was wearing the same swimsuit, year after year after year.  They’d never figure it out.

SI and VS will continue to foist these lean, long-limbed beauties on us for years to come, because sex sells.  For my part, I’ve tried to raise daughters who care more about their character than their appearance, and I’m hopeful that they will pass the same message along to their children—male or female.  I suppose I should be heartened that my oldest daughter was a bad-ass hockey player at college, that my middle daughter can control an 800-pound horse at a full gallop, and that my wee youngest is working on her black-belt in karate.  While I have to admit that I think my girls are just as beautiful as those SI and VS models, I’m more proud of the fact that in a zombie apocalypse, they, and women like them, would probably be running the show, that’s probably more important than looking good in a bikini.

I’m hopeful that in thirty years’ time, we’ll be laughing at the SI swimsuit edition and the VS bathing suit fashion show the same way we now chuckle over Barbie and those home ec books from the ‘50s where women are admonished to greet their husbands at the door with a martini and slippers, hot meal waiting on the table and children fresh-scrubbed and docile, but I doubt it.  I have a feeling that as long as there are men who like to look at scantily clad women, we’ll be treated to the SI S

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Keep Your Pants On: Guys and Their Junk

April 9, 2015

Last week in my hometown, a local physician was arrested for exposing himself to a young woman who was walking across her college campus, minding her own business and probably contemplating the lecture on thermodynamics she’d just attended, or perhaps working out the first draft of a paper tracing the vicissitudes of the American economy from the trickle-down economics of the 1980’s through the dot-com boom of the late nineties, followed by the sub-prime mortgage crisis of 2008.  Because that’s what rigorous women at college should be doing.  You know, thinking about shit and puzzling out thorny, complex issues.

Anyway, Dr. X (who hopes to have a career in plastic surgery, probably so he can see a lot of boobs whose owners want them enhanced) was apparently sitting in his car doing that thing you’re not supposed to do if you’re Catholic.  He spies our intellectually formidable young woman walking towards him, and he beckons her over to his car.  She responds and approaches, probably because she’s a trusting sort who feels relatively safe on her nice suburban campus, and probably because she assumes that maybe he needs help.  Which, apparently, he does (because when you’re sitting alone in your car on a college campus and you’re not wearing pants, chances are you’re in serious need of help in the form of psychiatric evaluation and treatment).  When our college student sees what’s going on, what she DOESN’T do is stride on over to the passenger side of his car, open up the door and say, “hey, guy, can you keep doing that, and can I keep watching?”  What she DOES do is contact campus security and have him arrested.  Which should be surprising to no one, except, perhaps, Dr. X.

This story got a fair amount of coverage in the local media, probably because the guy involved was a doctor, and we tend to expect just a tad bit more self-restraint from our healthcare professionals.  If the last several years have taught us nothing, however, it’s that some men, no matter what their station in life, find it difficult not to share their genitals with the rest of the world, whether the rest of the world wants to see them or not.

Think former congressman Anthony Weiner.  Think Green Bay Packer great Brett Favre.  Think NBA player Tony Parker.  What do these guys have in common?  Well, they’ve all been caught texting photos of their junk to women who hadn’t signed up to be on the Celebrity Dick Pics mailing list.  At the time these guys sent their X-rated communiques, they were married to women who, presumably, did not know, and were not pleased to learn, about their husband’s texting habits.  Although two of those marriages seem to have survived (only Eva Longoria was miffed enough to give her hubby the heave-ho), the conduct in question forced Anthony Weiner to resign from public office and cast an unseemly haze upon the legacy of Brett Favre, who, up to that point, was widely considered to be not only one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history but also a loving, faithful husband and all-around good guy.  Now, maybe not so much.

When you consider the fallout, one has to wonder why men so powerful, with so much to lose, would take such risks and behave in such an absurdly stupid fashion.  You could ask the same question about other men who have been embroiled in sex scandals – Tiger Woods and Bill Clinton leap to mind – and there are probably a lot of explanations, including that the rich and famous are used to doing whatever they want and often forget that they’re not invincible.

What fascinates me, however, is not so much that people in search of sexual gratification sometimes behave recklessly, but that there are men out there—a lot of them—who believe that there are women out there who want to see their dicks.

And so, on behalf of all women, everywhere, from the beginning of time to the present, let me say once and for all, so that it never has to be said again, ever:

Gentlemen, women don’t want to see your dicks.

There.  Are we good now?

Good.

To be clear, I’m not saying that we don’t want to have anything to do with, or hope never to encounter, male genitalia – there are plenty of us who do.  It’s just that before most of us are interested in seeing your junk, we’d probably like to know a little bit about you first, like, your name, for starters.  Some of us would even like to have shared an interactive experience with you before we get a peek at your twig and berries – you know, like, having a meal, going to a movie, or maybe chatting over a cocktail (no pun intended), so that WHEN it’s time for you to take off your pants (not in your car, sitting on a college campus trolling for barely legal co-eds), we know a little something about you, and trust me, we can wait – truly, we can wait – before we find out once and for all whether or not your circumcised or shave your balls.  Call me old-fashioned, but I think I speak for the majority of women out there.

I think some of the misunderstanding on the part of all those guys out there with a cell phone and a penis is that men tend to be more visual than women when it comes to sexual attraction, and men kind of figure that if they like seeing and are aroused by pictures of naked women, that the converse must also be true—that is, that women like seeing and are aroused by pictures of naked men.

Well, we’re not.  Not even a little bit.  Which is perhaps why “Playgirl” magazine is no longer in print.

There are some women, I suppose, who find the male organ attractive, and, upon receiving a text of some guy’s willy, are ready to rock and roll.  Perhaps getting a digital preview of the main event gets certain girls going, but most of the women with whom I’ve ever discussed this issue have been of a pretty similar mind, which is to say that the penis takes some getting used to.  There’s a lot going on down there, and it’s a lot to take in.  Opening up a text from someone with whom you’ve exchanged nothing more than some casual conversation and finding some full frontal instead is kind of disconcerting; you can’t just spring those things on us, guys, because let’s face it—your junk be weird looking, and we don’t need to look at it to know whether or not we want to date you.

Despite this fact, there are men out there—a lot of them—who really, really, REALLY WANT TO SHOW US THEIR WIENERS.  Perhaps the impetus is as simple as that felt by a little kid who wants his mommy to watch him jump off the diving board, or perhaps it’s as insidious as the impulse which leads some men to commit more violent acts of sexual assault.  Whatever the reason, these guys can’t really be thinking that texting a woman a picture of their wing-wang is the surefire way into her heart (or her pants), can they?

If you are, guys, let me say it again:  It’s not.  It’s really, really not.

Now, let you feel I’m being unfair to the penis, I want to acknowledge that since the beginning of time, the male organ has given a lot of pleasure to a lot of people, including some women, but not because they were staring at one.  Men, we all know you’ve got one, and trust us, if we want to see it, we’ll ask.  But until then, please…keep your pants on.

 

 

 

 

 

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Please Go Back to Greenbow, Alabama

March 15, 2015

There’s a line in the movie “Forrest Gump” in which Forrest, in Washington, D.C. to meet President Johnson following his meritorious service in Viet Nam, runs into childhood friend and love Jenny, who’s also in the nation’s capital, but for a different reason – she’s there to protest the war that Forrest has just been fighting.  After spending some time together, Forrest meets Jenny’s boyfriend du jour, an abusive jerk who smacks her around, causing Forrest to get up in his grille as he tells Jenny that heading to California with this idiot is a bad idea.  Rising to his full height, fists clenched, he tells her, “I think you should go back to GREENBOW, ALABAMA!” Which is where they both grew up, and which is where he’s headed, after he finishes playing ping pong and all.

Even though Forrest is talking to Jenny expressing his wish that she return with him to their hometown, we in the O’Connor Household have decided, for no other reason than that it’s fun to say, that when someone is being an asshole, they should go back to GREENBOW, ALABAMA.  If we had our way, Greenbow would be the current home of the 2013 – 2014 Seattle Seahawks, proponents of fundamentalist religions that don’t think women should be educated, and most Republican members of Congress.

Now, that’s a lot of exposition and back story for one little blog, but I think you’re going to agree it was worth it, because we here at the WRSO713 Blogspot (that’s me) are introducing a new recurring feature, and it’s called, “Go Back to Greenbow, Alabama, ___ (fill in the blank).”  It’s sort of like how Mike and Mike on ESPN used to have “Just Shut Up,” or Keith Olberman’s “Worst Person Alive.”  Not that I am half the journalist that either Mike Greenberg or Keith Olberman are (I may be half the journalist Mike Golic is, but he’s about 17,000 times the football player I am).  So, it’s a little thing we’re going to be doing from time to time, and when you see me telling someone to go back to Greenbow, Alabama, you will know that I think said person is an asshole.

It goes without saying, of course, that all of this is terribly unfair to Greenbow, Alabama (if in fact such a place even exists), which should not be forced to serve as the default destination for the world’s assholes.  But I’ve got one coming for you who, even though she is in fact an asshole, is very pretty:

I’m talking about Giselle Bundchen.  God, what an asshole.  Why, you may ask, is Giselle Bundchen an asshole? It’s not because I am a Denver Broncos fan and her husband plays for the Patriots and Bill Belichek (perhaps the most dishonest coach in NFL history, but we’ll let that go), or that said husband is currently embroiled in Deflategate (although that might make him an asshole, too – pity the couple’s children)?  No, Giselle Bundchen should go back to Greenbow Alabama on her own merit entirely.  Let’s explore why:

Giselle is a staggeringly beautiful woman, probably one of the most beautiful women in the world (not why she’s an asshole).  She’s made millions of dollars as a lingerie model (also not the reason we don’t like her, although she is partially culpable for contributing to the objectification of women and the ridiculous standards of feminine beauty that persist even today), and she probably wouldn’t be married to fabulously handsome and talented quarterback who also makes millions of dollars if she weren’t a staggeringly beautiful lingerie model (againm not the reason she should be packing her bags and buying a plane ticket to the Deep South).

Here’s the reason why Giselle Bundchen is an asshole:  Every bit of her great good fortune is exclusively attributable to the magnificent stroke of luck of good genes—a fact that should be impossible for her not to appreciate given the fact that she has a TWIN SISTER who, though pretty, is nowhere near the goddess that Giselle is.  Giselle’s success and wealth and privilege are the sole result of being beautiful – something she had absolutely ZERO TO DO WITH.  Sure, she has to hold still while some photographer takes her picture, she has to know how to turn her head to just the right angle, and she has to be able to walk on really high heels while wearing a diamond-encrusted bra and panties and angel wings, and I am sure that’s just as hard as, like, working in the Pacific Northwest in January building a pipeline or laboring as a roofer in Miami in July.  But let’s face it – she’s lead a charmed life for no other reason—none—than that she’s gorgeous.  AND THAT’S OKAY.

What’s not okay – at least as far as I am concerned – is the shocking level of arrogance and insensitivity this woman exhibits just about every time she opens her mouth.  One of the things she said that drew some fire not too long ago was this:

“I did kung fu up until two weeks before Benjamin was born, and yoga three days a week. I think a lot of people get pregnant and decide they can turn into garbage disposals. I was mindful about what I ate, and I gained only 30 pounds.”

Now, any OB/GYN will tell you that pregnancy is not a license to eat everything in sight and that you should strive to eat in a healthy manner, and sure, we should all do that, along with drinking 64 ounces of water a day, walking five miles, and eliminating from our diet anything that isn’t whole wheat or made of kale.  But here are a few things I’d like to point out to Ms. Bundchen:  First of all, if your job depends upon you looking fuckable three days after you give birth, if your marketability is entirely contingent upon being able to bounce a quarter off your butt, then making sure you don’t gain excess weight during pregnancy may be slightly more important than those of us who make our living the old-fashioned way (you know…doing anything other than being a model).  For the rest of us trolls, it’s not quite so simple, especially since GB probably had (and has) a personal chef who made sure the food she ate while pregnant was low-calorie and delicious.  Maybe I’m going out on a limb here, but I sort of think that anyone with the resources Miss Bundchen had available to her during her pregnancy is more likely to have access to the kind of pregnancy diet that puts no more than 30 pounds on your Victoria’s Secret body.

But Giselle was doing kung fu and yoga, and I guess I have to hand it to her that she made time for exercise.  When I was pregnant, I was wasting my time working a full-time job and taking care of other children, but yeah, kung fu would have been a good way to keep off those nasty pregnancy pounds.  Since Giselle’s an active girl, moreover, her childbirth “wasn’t even painful, not even a little bit.”  Because we all know that as long as you do kung fu and yoga during pregnancy, and as long as you eat right, you’ll have a painless delivery.

Giselle has also been very vocal about the importance of breastfeeding, and while I, too, am a huge advocate of this form of infant nutrition, I don’t think I would say something as insensitive as the following:

”Some people here (in the US) think they don’t have to breastfeed, and I think ‘Are you going to give chemical food to your child when they are so little?’”

I haven’t read the ingredients list on a can of formula recently, and again, I’m a proponent of nursing, but what Giselle apparently doesn’t realize is that some women can’t breastfeed, including women who didn’t give birth to their children, or that sometimes, formula is the only option.  But Giselle thinks it’s important to breastfeed, so much so that she had a photo taken of her getting her nails done while someone combed out her hair and someone else applied her makeup, and all the while…she was breastfeeding! So, you know, if you can breastfeed while four people are teasing your hair and doing your eyeliner, there is absolutely NO REASON AT ALL why all the rest of us lazy moms can’t get off our fat, non-kung-fu’d asses to nurse our babies.  What’s that, you say – you have to empty the dishwasher and fold the laundry and drive your oldest to preschool? No excuses.  Burn those fucking yoga pants and stained t-shirt, put on your goddamned lingerie, blow out your hair, and look beatific while your gorgeous infant sweetly suckles at your breast.  We don’t care if you don’t have live-in staff to make you a lunch of boiled chicken and quinoa – suck it up!

If Giselle Bundchen had been born ugly, no one outside of her family would have ever heard of her, and she would have no platform for her hopelessly out-of-touch nonsense.  Since she’s sort of an idiot, I will say this in small words that her atrophied brain can comprehend:

When you have managed to attain such a stratospheric level of privilege based upon nothing more than having won a genetic lottery, you don’t get to sit in judgment of the rest of us mere mortals.  You don’t.

If, however, you want to continue to level your ridiculously out-of-touch opinions at the rest of us, here’s what you have to do first:  Fire your chef, maids, nannies, housekeepers, drivers, dressers, stylists, and personal assistants, move into a split level, do your own grocery shopping and scrub your own toilets, and then – maybe – you can tell the rest of us about how we should be exercising on our way in to the delivery room for our pain-free labor.  Until then, maybe you can limit yourself to criticizing your husband’s incompetent teammates, or maybe, maybe…you could GO BACK TO GREENBOW, ALABAMA!