Cosmopolitan is not your friend

[redorchids]

There are few things in the world that make me genuinely pissed off and depressed all at once. Homophobia and other kinds of bigotry is one. Misguided feminism is another.

A while back, me and my guy went to the store and got one copy of a guy magazine (lots of naked chicks, equivalent of Penthouse/Playboy) and one copy of Cosmo. We then compared and contrasted how women were portrayed in them.

The results were frightenly similar, except Cosmo was worse, and I don't understand why the female population as large is not getting this.

Being worth just as much as someone will pay for you (in time and attention) or that you will pay for a purse is not being a strong, independent woman. Building your self esteem on how other people see you ("X said I was beautiful today, now I'm all happy again") is NOT healthy! Valuing your talents and ideas just as high as other people value them is not believing in yourself. Looking down on/Trashing girls who fail to conform (who break the rules in the giant pink rule book) is putting back equality another 50 years.

I've seen a lot of Keltie-praising comments since she and Ryan broke up, and it friggin' scares me. Keltie is not a role model. Are you even reading what she writes? There is enough pain, insecurity and desperation in there to flood a country. She's trapped in the Cosmo lie, just like a lot of the female population, and it makes me really sad, because she, like the rest of us, wouldn't have to be. Stop making your own prisons. Grow some balls. Watch Moulin Rouge again and see Satine for what she is--trapped and insecure, just looking for someone to save her. And it depresses me like nothing else when people look at that think that they aren't worth more, that that's the ideal, how things are supposed to be.

Cosmopolitan is not your friend. Next time you're picking one up, take a Penthouse instead. It will say the same thing, but at least, it will be honest with you.

/end rant

Comments

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

I accidentally stumbled upon it. It's what inspired the angst. I just... it makes me want to give up. How do you get equality in the world when the people you're working for don't want equality? It's like trying to free the House Elves and it just makes me sad.

So yeah, apparently, I'm Dobby. Yay for me. *is sad*

[behindthec.livejournal.com]

survivor: cosmo edition.

it gives me fuzzy sparkly feelings that you dislike keltie as much as i do.

(i watched your porn. it made a happy in my pants. ily. fingers and heart hurt too much to respond right now. lolzzzzzzzz my angst let me show you it.)

[behindthec.livejournal.com]

(*...as much as i do and for the same reasons, i should've specified. just for comment stalkers. i'm not one of those ZOMG SHE DESTROYS TEH RYDENZ, SHE MUST GO. clearly ryden destroys itself just fine.)

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

That's why Disney reinvented it. ♥

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

See, that's the thing: I really don't dislike her. To me, it's like disliking somebody for being a younger sibling, or for being a Catholic. It's not really something they've had much control over. (They could break out of the role though, and they don't even try, so that severely limits my pity when things happen to them that are DIRECT RESULTS of their own mistakes, but it's not dislike per se.)

It's the old "don't hate the person, hate the acts" rhetoric, and it's true. I hate the effect she (and the other fifty million cosmo girls around) have on other people. Seeing younger girls looking up to these women and breaking down their own personalities to become that... It just makes me want to go and die in a little hole. :-(

(see house elf analogy in previous comment)

Matching angst today, it seems. I miss you.
God, I really hope I can have some time for writing when I get home. I really REALLY need it today.

[behindthec.livejournal.com]

well, yes, if i bothered to really articulate it, that's what it comes down to for me too. i hate that girls look up to her. and that so many people judge you if you dislike her (as i said, write you off as a 13-yr-old obsessive ryden tinhatter).

miss you too. writing from you would be awesome. i am kind of head over heels in love with the pornstar AU also.

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

thanks. ♥

idk, today was a crappy day. i've been thinking about you all day. i want to escape to my own little neverland and just not come out again for the weekend. wanna come with me? we could do something completely silly, like writing panic twitter wars post pccf. *tempts with cookies*

oh, and the carwash bj? totally playing in my head. will try to pin that down. (heh. :-D)

[behindthec.livejournal.com]

i'm sorry it was crappy. *hugs* i would love nothing more than to do that.

(after bden's "off the market" comment...)

thisisryanross @brendonuriesays like the black market?

YAY BJ. WANTTTTTTTTTT

heh

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

"like the black market" ROTFL!

brendonuriesays @thisisryanross: more like a satiny blue one

LOL LOL LOL

[behindthec.livejournal.com]

thisisryanross @brendonuriesays: <33

(FIRST PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT? y/y?? :D)

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

shouldn't it be something sneakier though? like an obscure lyric or quote or something? LOL

thisisryanross @brendonuriesays: press repeat

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

OR

thisisryanross @brendonuriesays: let's get this party started

LOL LOL LOL

(cut to porn)

[behindthec.livejournal.com]

yeah, my brain's just fried.

[ivesia19.livejournal.com]

I think you're one of the first people in bandom to actually call Keltie and her followers out on her shit, because you're exactly right. The way she presents herself? I'm sorry, but I can't like someone who in many ways defines herself (and is certainly defined by others) by Ryan. And when she's not, she's overcompensating big time.
We should get into feminist theory, bb, seriously.
The other day my friends and I (one guy included) sat down and tried to think of a blockbuster movie that stars a woman who is empowered. Empowered not through utilizing her sexuality or in a movie that's a fantasy genre.
...We still haven't thought of one.

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

Scarlett O'Hara.

I love/hate how utterly skewed most people's perceptions are of that character, though. It fascinates me how people can just throw away 95% of someone because the other 5% fit into the mold and it's so much more comfortable to just look at that instead. It depresses me like nothing else.

Using your femininity doesn't negate empowering, I don't think. It's just another part of you, like intelligence or talent or connections. My problem is when girls start using whatever to get, not what THEY want, but what society is telling them they SHOULD want. Take Sex and the City, where people look up to Charlotte, who's something like 70% cosmo girl, when Samantha's really the only empowered one in that group. (And she gets called a whore and gets all the comic side-kick functions. Isn't that just peachy? *growls*)

[scoradh.livejournal.com]

Keltie would never be my role model. Admittedly this is mainly because I don't like how she does her hair. Honest!

I wonder now how much of my life is dictated by this pink rule book, given that I don't read magazines - like, at all. Hmm.

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

probably a lot more than you know. that's what so scary--we've been born and raised into this system. it's like trying to get a fish to define the ocean around it. *is depressed*

[fannyt.livejournal.com]

Baby! <3

Just spent an hour in discussion with not exactly cosmo girl, but still the kind of girl who boasts of having broken the mold when all she's done is fit into another one... sort of... it isn't easy and we shouldn't think it's easy! It's good to think we're getting somewhere, because on good days I think we are, but we always have to remember that we're seeing things from a perspective where we've been raised with all these preconceptions, too. I think you always have to revalue yourselves and the basis you stand on -- but I think I'm kind of rambly tonight and not making much sense, so I'll just mooch off to bed good night and see you tomorrow instead, I think.

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

the kind of girl who boasts of having broken the mold when all she's done is fit into another one

yes. just... yes.
perfectly put.

<3

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

btw, made this for you. to chase away that pesky writer's block. <3

[fannyt.livejournal.com]

Ee, for me? Thank you! <3

Will now proceed to use shamelessly. :)

[lellaxleila.livejournal.com]

hey!
ema just send me this and i like it a lot. i was wondering the same thing about cosmo for a while. and i was absolutley shocked how media throws so called 'beauty ideals' at us while i was working on some paper for my class (it was about sociological view of body). most of time we don't even realize how much they fed us with commercials and make us believe we'll be loved if we'll have 'THAT' purse or something along that line. it makes me wonder how can someone be an individual if everything around us is trying so hard to catch us in the shape of avarage.

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

yeah. and it's not only commercial, it's EVERYTHING. it's what friends you have, who you date, what your sexlife looks like, what career you pick... *is sad*

[lellaxleila.livejournal.com]

yeah and that's why this shit it so scary.
everyone are saying haw you can be an individual, but if you even slightly break 'the rules' suddenly you're wrong. *pissed off*

[the-randomist.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much for this. <3

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

<3

[(Anonymous)]

Um...

Can I steal this rant? Please? My friends and I are writing an editorial on how bad Twilight is for girls' relationships and on their lives in general, and I don't think I could have said it better than this. Bella is a perfect example of this. I can't stand how crazy people get about Twilight; Bella is a terrible heroine who depends completely on Edward.

I never really liked Keltie when I first heard about her (even though she is an awesome dancer), she just seemed way too much like the blond-bombshell type. Then when the whole Keltie-Ryan drama happened, I really, really started to dislike her pining failure to keep her two lives separate whoring herself on attention and being completely egotistical.

Plus, I got the April issue of Dance Spirit and was kind of appalled at her interview... she sounded way too egotistical. I think being famous kind of went to her head.

SO, pretty please? I'll quote you (correctly this time >.<) and everything... I'll give you Patrick Stump...

[redorchids.livejournal.com]

Of course you can. Go right ahead. :-)