Being derogatory toward women is still endemic in our society.
I was listening to WPGC yesterday morning before work and the DJs were talking about the presidential candidates. Obama and McCain were having some kind of public beef about the Taliban in Iraq that was all over the news, but nobody was talking about Hillary Clinton. So DJ Chris Paul says, "In another week or two she'll have to show her boobs to get on the news." And everyone laughed.
I was very, very disappointed to hear that. Here we are talking about media coverage of presidential candidates and he brings up, in what I consider a demeaning way, body parts that have been extremely sexualized in our culture. And as we all know, probably because we've sadly all done it, the surest way to attack a woman's character is to slander her sexuality. Whether she's frigid or a slut, a tease or a whore, or any number of slurs about her sexual organs that I can't even write here, the most degrading insults involve her sexuality.
When coverage on other [male] candidates was getting low, I didn't hear anyone suggest that they drop their pants to get on the news. So why did they say that about Hillary Clinton? Because it was a "funny" (to whom, I don't know) way to dismiss her entirely, simply for being a woman. Would it have been as effective to say, "By next week she'll have to say the Taliban wasn't in Afghanistan to get any news coverage"? While true, saying that doesn't offer up nearly the pathetic, ridiculous image that Hillary holding her shirt open does.
Consciously or not - and honestly, probably not, Chris Paul isn't exactly the most introspective man I've ever heard speak - he wanted her to appear small and humiliated, in the most cutting way we have at our disposal in this society. And to hear it made me very sad. It's a problem so deep we don't even know what it really is - is it that we demean women in a sexual way without even thinking, or is it that we use sexuality to demean people in the first place?
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I think you cant just blame men for this. when ppl like Paris Hilton , Amy Fisher or a lot of other not so famous women use sex to get attention u cant expect a DJ not to generalize. America is perverted , we gotta face it. when, Bill Clinton gets impeached for getting a blow job then we should have known something is wrong. Sexuality is a tool women use it men make fun of it!!!
I absolutely don't just blame men for this. I agree with you, I think both sexes are part of the problem. But it concerns me that women are demeaned on the basis of their sexuality at a far, far higher rate than men are (and not just in this country, either).
I disagree with you, though, that I shouldn't expect the DJ to not buy into it. Just because a behavior or misguided thought process is widespread doesn't mean we have to accept it. I feel justified in pointing out behavior that is unfair or beneath what humans are capable of, in the hopes that maybe recognizing it will somehow help us change it. We are all better than this.
well i guess what i meant was that when our democracy is being jeopardized because of ppl's obsession with sex. so i think a DJ making such comment should be the least of our concerns. the problem is more widespread and fundamental... sad but true ;)
i find this whole situation sick...but mainly just sad and typical. i agree with you, ginger - just because it exisits doesnt mean we should all accept it and blow off this sort of behavior (don imus, anyone??).
i think his comments were out of line for a lot of reasons, and not included in those reasons is the fact that it was a man saying it. i actually think its more damaging for women's rights to have another woman say things like that... to demean another female on that level is so very sad to me and feels like not only are women in a fight to prove they are "man enough" to sit at the adults table, now they also have to fight off one another? great. this is not a problem starting and stopping only with men - it comes from both sides and both sexes have a responsibility to change this point of view.
and as far as perversion in america goes - i tend to view us as being in adolescence in terms of being comfortable with our sexuality and therefor doomed for inpropriety and awkwardness.
i can't really think of a time where men have been publically shamed for their sexuality (can anyone? im honestly curious). men get high fives while women are called sluts. like you said, it could have been used in a "dopping pants" kind of a way and yet...wasn't. people can't stand to just let others be. making fun of them is an easy scapegoating tool. i also imagine it's a lot easier to say things like that when the person you are talking about isnt standing in front of you. coward.
Oh girl, if you want to read a horrifying article a woman wrote demeaning other women, you've got to read this opinion piece in I saw in the Post yesterday, titled "We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?": http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022902992.html
It honestly knocked me speechless. I don't care if it is satire or if I have lost my sense of humor, I thought it was GROSS. And in the Washington Post, no less. Ugh.
I am trying to decide what's better about this article... that this woman is openly admitting she can't add up 2 and 2 (let alone possibly consider the number of shoes she owns!!! honestly, lady?) or that she says women should just "relax" and enjoy what they do best, "revel in the things most important to life at which nearly all of us excel" if I may quote, - which is to take care of the kids and keep the house neat. poorly delivered in terms of self-mockery... because it was hard to tell if it was serious or a joke, i sort of lost interest and felt more annoyed with her than anything else.
it seems like its trying to get a rise out of people...out of the feminists who take themselves so, so seriously so that we can all point and laugh at them for it. it got a rise out of me, but somehow im comforted by thinking i am smarter than her because i can count my shoes.
Stupidity: 1, Witty Journalist: 0