..of shit Murdoch journos; however did Daniel Finkelstein, the Times’ supposedly premier political commentator, get away with a blogpost like this?
Lavishly illustrated, of course, with photos of said bunnies in costumes ranging from bits of strategically placed pink fur to a corset and vertiginous heels.
Why? I can only suppose it’s because Finkelstein thinks politics is serious, man’s business. Ladies, know your place!
…that unlike their customary portrayal in imported US TV shows, American women don’t only come in a few flavours. From what we see on our screens the average American woman is either a scary, psychopathic ballbreaker, a neurotic fundy, a crack whore, a botoxed glamourpuss or a scarily efficient soccer mom. Palin seems surprisingly normal when fitted into this limited range of prototypes.
But of course that’s not the truth; American women are as diverse in their politics and opinions as those in any other nation. Many ordinary women are seriously pissed off at Sarah Palin’s nomination and are saying loudly and very clearly, notably Cintra Wilson in Salon,who’s written something that just makes me want to cheer:
[…]
I did not think that women being downgraded to second-class, three-holed chattel would be a pressing concern in my lifetime. I thought it was like polio, or witch burning — an inhumane error that had already been corrected. But after eight years of Republican hegemony, and now the potential ascendance of this sheep in ewe’s clothing, I am so mortally offended I feel like it is really time for women to be angry, hardcore and disgusted again. Not just with old white Christian patriarchs and their hopelessly calcified, religiously condoned misogyny, but also with the self-abnegating, submissive female Uncle Tommies whose ambitions and eagerness to please the powerful males of their tribe are so desperate that they would sell out their sovereignty over their own bodies. And yours too.
[…]
Sarah Palin, in this light, makes so little sense that she makes perfect sense. She speciously represents a new power paradigm of the Nice Mommy: the opposite of Hillary (the Mean Mommy), the opposite of Oprah (black, and therefore foreign), the opposite of Martha Stewart (another Mean Mommy). In her support for women on women’s issues, she has done everything but volunteer for her own circumcision. She tacitly promises a roll backward into old-fashioned sexual roles — like Old Testament-style old. Her morality is fixed, predictable and inflexible. There are those who will find comfort in the fact that they will know exactly what can be expected from Palin: Free will subordinated to obedience of an airtight, evangelical interpretation of the demands of God, country and Republican men.
[…]
Sarah Palin and her virtual burqa have me and my friends retching into our handbags. She’s such a power-mad, backwater beauty-pageant casualty, it’s easy to write her off and make fun of her. But in reality I feel as horrified as a ghetto Jew watching the rise of National Socialism.
Yes, do read the whole thing. “Offended…angry hardcore and disgusted” – yup, that pretty much sums up what I feel about the nomination too, and I’m not even voting. I can only imagine the simmering anger that thinking American women must be feeling at this insult to their intelligence.
Note:
Scrolling through the comments I see the concern trolls are out in force: indeed Salon’s editors have elevated three of the most concern trollish of the comments to their star letter spots. Typical do-nothing liberal hedge-bettery and ass-covering.
One the more asinine posts I’ve ever read on HuffPo (and there’ve been quite a few) is this from expat Brit, former VH1 Wardrobe Assistant, social climber, PR man and media wannabe Tony Alcindor (see above), chastising women for their unkemptness.
He thinks women should be hypergroomed and hyperconscious of appearance all the time; any woman who’s not is a filthy, lazy slattern. Most Unlike our own dear Queen of the expat arch-social climbers, Arianna herself (and all the shiny Hollywood pals of hers Alcindor would love to be introduced to as a result of being invited to blog at HuffPo.). All are shined, waxed botoxed and coiffed to a pitch beyond even a dog’s ability to hear, much like Tony himself.
I have to quote a bit to give the true flavour of just how asinine it is:
One of my all time favorite pastimes is people-watching, and ever since I moved to New York I couldn’t be happier. It’s like being part of a giant fashion show and the sidewalk is the runway. Every street, every block, every neighborhood has another real life model strutting her stuff in this great metropolis.
Then I started to look a little closer…
To my dismay, not all was what it seemed. Not all of you were paying attention! Not all were taking the time to pull it together! When I looked a little closer, things were good from afar, but far from good. My rose-colored glasses are cracked and some of you are skipping whole steps — things you forgot to do. You think no one notices or you simply couldn’t be bothered.
THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE, LADIES!
[…]
Undergarments: A HUGE DETAIL. Stained bras, panties, slips, cami’s, stockings with holes, things with broken elastic and anything held together with a safety pin must be thrown away – immediately! Just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it’s not there. Once it is discovered (by accident or by circumstance) you’ll thank me for the lack of embarrassment you won’t have to suffer through. Didn’t your mom always say make sure you had on clean undies in case you got into an accident? So PLEASE make sure all of your underpinnings FIT CORRECTLY! Most women are wearing the wrong size bra. If you have back fat, you may not be fat! You just might have on the wrong bra. Lastly, SPANX under everything! This is the equivalent of liposuction without the surgery.
Yeah, right. If I went out in the street right now and made every man in it drop their pants (and who hasn’t sometimes wanted to do that), I suspect not one would be found unafflicted by crotch rot, saggy elastic, pee stained Y-front or a well-aged collection of superimposed skidmarks.
I know this. I do laundry.
Alcindor goes on to damn all of us who can’t afford the upkeep of even a basic style, let alone a monthly colour and cut or a weekly salon blowdry (those who don’t go to the hairdresser at all don’t even register on his radar):
Hair: This is a very sensitive subject so I’ll make it short and sweet. Whatever your hairstyle, make sure it is maintained — we’re talking color and cut. You know those crazy commercials where people are swinging their hair and loving it — it could be you. It’s no joke. I have a few beautiful friends in LA with that kind of hair. They didn’t always have that hair, but a great hairdresser is worth a million bucks!
“I have a few beautiful friends in LA”. Get you, Mr Big Shot. No, of course they didn’t always have that hair – not until they moved to somewhere you can buy it by the yard.
All it takes is money, and hey, haven’t we all got plenty?
I thought of posting an incandescently eloquent response to this arrant nonsense at the HuffPo, pointing out the socio-politico-economic context of the constant ‘beauty’ busywork that’s expressly designed and promoted by commerce to keep women too paranoid or neurotic to actually protest their subjugation to pointless routines and expenditure. Then I thought nah, fuck it.
Alcindor’s foray into blogging is another attention seeking stunt from a career attention seeker, so this is the first and last attention he’ll get from me. Not that it will or even should bother him any, up there in the rarefied air of minor celebrity HuffPo bloggerdom. I’m sure he has many more important people to toady up to and PR junkets to attend to notice some NL blogger calling him a wanker.
But dammit, he pissed me off. And I bet he has skidmarks and hair on
TV journalist Martin Bashir has apologised for making what he called a “tasteless” comment about Asian women.
Speaking at the Asian American Journalists Association annual banquet in Chicago, he said: “I’m happy to be in the midst of so many Asian babes.
“In fact, I’m happy that the podium covers me from the waist down.”
A used beemer, that is.
Why so? Thanks to Egalia at Tenessee Guerilla Women for drawing my attention to this sick little ad campaign for BMW:
As it’s described in Salon:
Broadsheet: [A] beautiful young woman — presumably naked and lying in bed — wearing a come-hither look and a crown of blond curls. In small print scrawled across her bare shoulder, it reads: “You know you’re not the first.” As your eyes drift to the bottom of the advertisement — and the top of her chest — you learn that it’s an advertisement for BMW’s premium selection of used cars. Used cars, used women — get it?! And, finally, there’s BMW’s slogan in the bottom right-hand corner, which takes on a whole new meaning: “Sheer Driving Pleasure.”
I’d also add – how old is that girl? 13? 14? She could be 18; but even so the aim is to make her look pubescent, yet still available.
The air of innocence suggests virginal chastity, yet the pose of passive abandon says ‘here, take me’. The makeup is deliberately designed to accentuate the dewy skin, pouting mouth and cherubic curls of extreme youth; yet the direct gaze gives an implicit promise of sexuality. It’s all very carefully done and just to make sure you get the message, it’s made explicit in the slogan. “You know you’re not the first”. Oh well, that’s all right then. Lech away at the child.
No doubt BMW’s marketing droids are aiming for a discrete demographic – and from the message sent by this ad, I’d say that’s the repressed-paedophile-with-aspirational-tendencies-in-a-boring-job-that-doesn’t-pay
[First spotted by Copyranter.]
* Jeremy Clarkson, The Sunday Times