Major Asshole-Alert

How can people still say there is no problem with misogyny when we have shit like this?

http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2005/08/dove_beauty_pro.shtml

www.campaignforrealbeauty.com

Notice on the "tell us what you think" "wrinkled or wonderful" "grey or gorgeous" "oversized or outstanding", people voted most harshly against perceived "fatness" and "flat chestedness"

1. The ads are to sell a product for women, not men. Why should a man criticize these ads? Does it matter if he likes the look of the women?
2. The women on these ads are not overweight as he stated. If he is offended by looking at normal healthy women, it makes you wonder how he can stand to go out into the world each day. He must really hate women since most women are the size of the women in the ad or larger.

I might say more later in this thread, but the attitudes in his article and the discussion hits a very personal issue for me and I am not up for dealing with that at the moment.

Sorry for the language, But they are missing the point. Women shouldn't be have to defined by their looks. Period. End of story. There is conventionally attractive or even beautiful, but that is NOT WHAT A WOMAN IS. It's just packaging. Like nice abs on a man. Shit the whole issue is sideways. I better shut up because I feel a major language deterioration comin' on. (That means I'm incoherently pissed) When, oh when is this shit going to stop?

Based on my encounters with other Libertarians, I'm not surprised at their behavior here. Disgusted, but not surprised. :-(

I've read their party's entire party platform statement and its vile. Simply vile. They actually go out of their way to insult women in it in various places. VILE.

Based on some of the crap I've read here on DU and other (progressive!) blogs, not to mention the reactions of big entitled babies like Richard Roeper to some billboards ("I shouldn't haaaave to look at regular women! Wah!" basically sums up his piece in the Chicago Sun-Times), I say fuck it. Let 'em have all the T and A they want. Let them judge, criticize, and categorize us to their silly little hearts' content.

But you know what? I think I'm entitled too. I want sexy guys to look at. All the time. I want TV, movies, magazines, and advertisers to provide me with gorgeous buffed hotties, preferably no older than 30. The age part is especially important. I swear I'll die a happy woman if I never have to see Michael Douglas, Sean Connery, or Bruce Willis in anything ever again. Sorry Brad Pitt, you're too old now too.

I want the visual media purged of "regular" looking men. Why should I have my eyes assaulted by their hideous flaws? Why should I have to tolerate male newscasters and weather forecasters who look like my uncle Ed? Why should I have to get movie reviews from portly Ebert and that aging crepe necked dickweed Roeper? To sort of paraphrase Roeper, if I want to see baldness, spare tires, and back hair, I can go to Home Depot thank you very much. Get those fuckers off my TV! Now!

My letter writing campaign commences immediately.
:rant:

And I don't want to see any more average-looking men on television getting beautiful women, either. Average-looking men should get average-looking women THEIR OWN AGE! I swear, most women look at themselves in the mirror and think "I'd like to change this, and this, and this, and this.... Most men look in the mirror and see Adonis. I don't know where they get this mindset.

Both of these double standards are perfect capsules showing the level of sexism and how far we have to go.

I am sick of all the comedies with fat, older, average men married to tiny, younger, beautiful women who are at least their equal in every other way. I am sick of all the ads where the geek is married to the model especially where the disparity is not even a point of the commercial but they're simply presented as a "typical" couple. I'm sick of all the news shows anchored by a lovely female 20 something year old and her age 50+ homely, male counterpart(s). The message is so clear: Women have no value if they are not young, thin and beautiful; even if they have that, our "modern advance" is that they must also be just as smart and competent (or more so) than males. Men can be average or worse and get by, and aging only makes them more qualified for jobs and and still appropriate for young beauties to mate with.

I'd like just once to see a show with a heavy, average, middle aged woman paired romantically with a young hunk who is otherwise equal (e.g., in intelligence, personality, etc.). People would freak out, or it would be presented as an extremely weird situation for comedic or dramatic effect.

I remember rejoicing years ago when I saw an East German movie in which the female love interest was in her forties and had "fat" arms by Hollywood standards.

Even some of the British TV programs are better in this way. Look at Helen Mirren in Prime Suspect. She ages over the years, and there is no attempt to cover it up, but she has lovers. Or take the comedy As Time Goes By, which is about middle-aged lovers reuniting after a long separation.

I've even seen ordinary-looking women in Japanese media, despite all the latent pedophilia in some of the genres. It's interesting to me that so many of their dramas take place in very ordinary settings with very ordinary-looking people.

With the huge population of baby boomers, half of whom are female, you'd think there would be an audience in the U.S. for entertainment that portrays real women, not super models, or ordinary older women getting someone who looks like Ioan Griffudd.