Cosmopolitan is not your friend
Apr. 17th, 2009 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redorchidsThere 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
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
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no subject
Date: 2009-04-17 02:28 pm (UTC)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.
no subject
Date: 2009-04-17 02:43 pm (UTC)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*)