Calling Out the Media
Playboy magazine published a flowchart designed by artist Shea Strauss titled “Should You Catcall Her?” that took the reader on a step-by-step process of whether or not you should catcall a woman (spoilers: you should only catcall her if she’s an actual cat, or if you have in “explicit terms” agreed to shout “sexually suggestive comments” to each other.) It’s a step forward for a magazine that prides itself on objectifying women in every way possible. While there is more work to be done (I mean, what actually goes on in the Playboy mansion), I’m glad they’re taking this first step.
Well, it’s a new day and a new study about subjective topics like moving in with your partner! The Atlantic reported a very long article called, “In Relationships, Be Deliberate.” The title should be a dead giveaway that statistics aside, this is kind of common sense. Of course you should be deliberate in your relationships. I think most people would agree that it’s pretty important to be deliberate in most aspects of your life. Who wants to deal with a wishy-washy person?
But this isolated article just deals with moving in together. It opens by reiterating that even though traditionalists say moving in together before marriage is a bad idea, progressives are making it the norm. But it’s not actually question of whether or not they should move in.
But before couples sign a lease together, they would do well to ask themselves: Did we slide into the decision to move in together or did we decide to cohabit?
That question matters in terms of the length and quality of subsequent marriage. Traditionalists tend to think cohabiting before marriage is a bad idea, and progressives are more likely to embrace it, but new research says that’s not the best way to approach the question: The important thing is how couples make the leap into a shared life.
Does anyone else find this to be the most nuanced, yet obvious study about relationships?
“Why, yes, that’s correct: my magic number is like 1022, I think. I lost track a while ago,” Kirsten Knisely–outspoken 26 ¾ -year-old single white feminist, and author of her very own blog Love and ADD–said from the soapbox of her small apartment in the early hours of July 16. “I’m like a modern-day Carrie Bradshaw.”
This statement shocked the women of the Internet when it came in direct response and contradiction to sex expert Tracey Cox’s article, “No matter how many people you’ve slept with, it will always be too many’; Sex expert Tracey Cox on why women should NEVER reveal how many lovers they’ve had.”
We, citizens of the world, love us some Kimye. We watch them. We tweet them. We insta-stalk them. We dissect and opinionate over their every move. We time our workouts to coincide with the daily E! programming schedule so as to catch the latest KUWTK rerun on our gym TVs because we don’t have adequate cable of our own….
Oh wait, we don’t all do that one? Just me? Cute.
I don’t think anyone denies that the union between this fashionable fame-bot and rapper-turned-self-proclaimed taste genius is anything short of a match made in Ryan Seacrest’s dreams. Kimye is a celebrity merger extraordinaire, always giving us common folk something to discuss, and after their recent nuptials, New York Post writer Candace Amos gave us her thoughts on just why exactly the Kimye marriage will stand the test of time. While Amos in fact promotes this union’s durability, she criticizes Kim Kardashian West for treating marriage like a business transaction.
Well honey, guess what…. Marriage IS a business transaction.
Ladies, we have got to stop comparing ourselves to other women — and more than that, we have to keep ourselves from getting compared. No young woman is safe. Actress Shailene Woodley discussed recently about how she feels pressure now that everyone is comparing her to actress Jennifer Lawrence. While on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Fallon asked how Woodley felt about the comparison. She replied,
Well, comparison always leads to despair.
And the audience booed her for it.
Remember Sandwich Girlfriend? She’s the one who was on a mission to make 300 sandwiches for her boyfriend, because if she did, he would propose. The story went viral with people attacking Sandwich Girlfriend for being that woman who, when a man says, “Make me a sandwich” she says “On what kind of bread?” Well, her plan worked — she’s engaged, and she didn’t even get to the 300th sandwich.
Is this really the perfect woman? Brobible posted this graphic generated by lingerie company Bluebella, who polled men and women asking what their idea celeb body parts are and Frankensteined them into one “perfect” woman, from the ladies’ answers and the mens’.
Do we really need this? Once again, here we are, faced with beauty ideals we cannot possibly achieve. The mens’ perfect woman kind of looks like The Human Barbie, while the woman’s perfect woman resembles more of an actual Barbie doll. The mens’ woman also has a lot more curves than the womans’ woman, even in the hair.
What does this tell us?
I was inspired to write this by my friend, Jamie Varon, who wrote a piece called “The Defense of the Selfie”. I also think the selfie needs some defending.
Today I’m going to be analyzing a retro love song, this time, “Marriage Is For Old Folks” by Nina Simone off of the I Put A Spell On You album from 1965. Let’s see how it holds up.
Note: In the 1960′s, many singers like Nina Simone did not write their own songs. When I refer to Nina Simone, I’m referring to her not as a songwriter of the song, but as the character singing it. We don’t know if she really agreed with the message in the song, or if she was singing it tongue-in-cheek. It sounds like there’s a little bit of cheekiness in her delivery.
“Marriage Is For Old Folks”
I love dancing
Crazy romancing
Fellas advancing constantly
Hey, I also love those things! Except the whole “fellas advancing constantly” sounds well…at worst, a little rapey.
Marriage is for old folks
Old folks, not for me!
One husband
One wife
Whaddya got?
Two people sentenced for life!
Is there any type of girl that’s really the “marrying kind?” And conversely, are there specific girls that will just never see the altar? It seems a little too subjective to say and, yet, there is one girl who believes she knows the answer to both questions.
Ally Batista is a self-proclaimed “housewife in training,” according to her author bio on Elite Daily. A couple months ago, Batista wrote an article called, “Girls Who Are Never Getting Married,” a list that ruthlessly categorized, stereotyped, and ripped apart female groups such as coke whores, models, video vixens, princesses, and liars. It’s always a good idea to generalize on the Internet, right?
Rielle Hunter, John Edwards’s mistress, came out with a public apology. That’s not a bad thing; it’s refreshing when someone comes forward and says, “I am sorry for what I’ve done.” But why is she apologizing so much? And where is John Edwards’s apology?
After a quick internet hunt, I found that John Edwards, after lying about the affair for months years, released a statement in 2008 (via France 24):
I told my wife that I had a liaison with another woman, and I asked for her forgiveness. It is inadequate to say to the people who believed in me that I am sorry, as it is inadequate to say to the people who love me that I am sorry. In the course of several campaigns, I started to believe that I was special and became increasingly egocentric and narcissistic.
That’s not a bad apology. It’s a little cold but it’s honest and it gets to the point.
Now compare it with Ms. Rielle Hunter’s (exclusively from Huffington Post, titled “I, Rielle Hunter, Apologize”):
Kerry Washington recently spoke about her positive experience going to an all-girls school. I, also, went to an all-girls school. From 8th grade to 12th. I know some of my peers absolutely hated having an all-girls education. I don’t know if any of them would admit to “loving” it, but I think inside they did. Here’s some of what Washington had to say, via Huffington Post:
I was really lucky because I went to an all-girl school and that single sex education really helped me because I really learned to bond with women and to not compete with or compare myself as much because we were all allowed to be ourselves and be unique and kind of have our unique strengths. But I always felt like my value was much more in my intellect than it was in my appearance, and so that’s what I spent time cultivating. And some of that I get from my mother, some of that comes from the schools that I went to, and some of that comes from probably insecurity. This feeling that my value is what’s on the inside, because what’s on the outside can’t really compete with other people, so I’ll place my focus there. Which I think has been a blessing for me. Because I’m not stupid.
She rambled off a bit, but somewhere in there is her point: a single sex education gave her inner strength, a sense of community, and place where looks weren’t valued above intellect. I get what she’s saying. I support an all-girls education. I’ve been through it. And I’m not going to say that I didn’t care about makeup or hair while in high school, because I still totally did. But it was different.