Ya know, I just really want to know when people are going to stop flogging a dead horse and grow the fuck up.I'm sick of people using any means they can to undermine women in politics. No, wait. It's not really "any means". It's targeted sexism. It's people making low-brow, moronic and demeaning comments to and about women in politics. You never see that with men, but with women it's a bloody free for all. Case in point: the US election. First we had Hillary Clinton, whom many men openly made absurd and outright rude sexist comments about, comments they would never make about male candidates, slagging her for things like "being a nagging wife" or "being too masculine, being a ball-buster" and then going in the complete opposite direction and slamming her for "intentionally showing cleavage to get votes". CLEAVAGE!!! Seriously?? She wears suits, people!! PANTS SUITS!! It had nothing to do with her god damn cleavage, it had to do with people, mostly idiotic male newscasters, feeling really uncomfortable with the idea of a smart, strong woman in politics running for president, and looking for the only way they knew how to demean her, to degrade her as a person and put her back in her place, back into a little box where they could feel comfortable about it.
And now, it's poor Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin, whom the first fucking thing I heard about the woman was, "McCain picked his vice presidential running mate, and it's a woman, Sarah Palin. She's hot!" The first fucking thing I heard was about how she LOOKED. That she was hot, beautiful,, blah blah blah, a pageant queen, like that has ANYTHING to do with her being able to run a god damn country. Everytime someone mentions her, they have to bring up the fact that she's a "former beauty pageant contestant". Because I guess that's all there is to her, ya know? Let's just keep pointing out moments from her past when she was a silly little woman competing in a silly little beauty pageant. That way she's not so threatening, and hey, at the same time, we can belittle her for it!
GEORGE CARLIN, WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOU!!
And now, some fucker out there (I believe it's Larry Flynt) has come up with a porn script for a flick that will be called "Nailin' Palin", with characters like Sarah Palin, Hillary Clinton and Condoleeza Rice. Really? Seriously? Like, okay, she's a woman. We get it. Does that mean she's relegated to the category of sex object, right off the bat? Sure, Sarah Palin is kind of an idiot. She's completely unfit and unqualified to actually be the vice president, or even president, of the United States of America. But she doesn't deserve to be so fucking undermined as a woman and as a human being, that she's now being made into a porn symbol, which in itself is a symbol of complete intellectual emptyness and void of all real meaning. I mean, let's be fair here. Does anyone remember the word, respect? So basic, yet so under-utilized.
Women in North America (and many other continents) are raised in a world that shoves a false, preconceived idea of acceptable femininity, sexuality and beauty down their throats from the time they come out of the womb (girls wear pink, boys wear blue!) and I can't even begin to tell you how many doofy guys I've met who've said to me, "Well, if women want lives like men, if they want to be equal with men, then they should go after it and work just as hard and be like men". Wow, really? I didn't know it was that simple. Thanks for that, moron. I'm surprised Hillary Clinton made it as far as she did with such grace and dignity, given the intense, scathing scrutiny she was under for her entire campaign. The stupidest part is, when women actually do want to step out of that socially conditioned role of feminity and display a different side of themselves, a side that people might label as being more stereotypically "masculine" than everyone's comfortable with (focused, driven, hardworking, intelligent, outspoken, no-nonsense), especially in the intense public spotlight that an election is, people just keep trying to dumb them down, to force them back into the idea of a woman that they're comfortable with. And that's what is really behind the whole concept of making a fucking porn film about women in politics.
You might think that some idiot making a porn flick about Sarah Palin is a bunch of lame hoopla, and on a certain level, you'd be absolutely right. It is. But the reality behind it is not. It's just that, a big ol' smack in the face from reality. Thanks, reality. It stings a little. Hoopla always has a darker side to it, and this bit of hoopla's dark side is the unavoidable fact that sexism, really brutal sexism that demeans women as human beings, is still alive and well-nurtured, and it's running rampant in the most ridiculous of places, like government, an arena in which women are still struggling to gain stature and respect.
So all I have to say is, fuck you, Larry Flynt. Fuck you.
