Full Frontal Feminism_ A Young Women's Guide to Why Feminism Matters - Jessica Valenti [65]
❂ Apparently, Jessica writes one of those blogs that are all about using breasts for extra attention. Then, when she goes to meet Clinton, she wears a tight knit top that draws attention to her breasts and stands right in front of him and positions herself to make her breasts as obvious as possible?
What?! My modest crewneck sweater? I was shoving my tits in his face? It was all too much. You would think from the way she described it that I was pushing my boobs together while doing a pole dance in front of Clinton, instead of just, well, standing there.
And thus “Boobgate” began: hundreds of comments—some calling out said law professor on her bullshit; some calling me a whore and a hypocrite; more than one hundred thousand views of the notorious photo on my Flickr photo page; hundreds of links on both the left and right sides of the blogosphere; even a podcast claiming that the only reason I was invited to the blogger lunch was to be set up with Clinton. Seriously. And those are just the responses I’m aware of; I stopped checking after a couple of days. It was an online extravaganza, and for a weekend I had the most popular boobs in the blog world. And it wasn’t fun.
At the end of the whole nasty mess, I realized something—or at least realized it more acutely. If you’re a younger woman, no matter how much work you do, someone is always going to claim that your success is due to the way you look or your general fuckability.
The fact that some folks couldn’t fathom that I would be invited to this lunch for anything other than my appearance and potential whorishness is pretty depressing, but not shocking. Young women are constantly reminded that their only real worth is their ability to be ogled or ridiculed. That’s what we’re there for, silly! All of these nasty comments about my appearance and chest were there to remind me to shut the fuck up and know my place—which definitely wasn’t, in their opinion, at lunch with a world leader.
So anyway, just wanted to point out that we’re all subject to this kind of bullshit all the time. And even if we work hard, do “serious” political work, and do our best to sport cute crewneck sweaters, someone is always going to be hating.
But, of course, using looks as a method of silencing women isn’t limited to young women. Pretty much any woman who speaks her mind (think politicians, journalists, feminists) is fair game for the shut-up-you-ugly-bitch line of argument. Or the you’re-too-pretty-to-be-smart argument. I’ve been privy to both, and they both suck.
Some digital cameras now offer a “slimming” feature. Instant eating disorder!
I remember back when Clinton was president, everyone gave Hillary shit for her headbands and hairstyles. Headbands! The media even ragged on his daughter for not being pretty enough when she was a teenager (like that age isn’t hard enough!). Disgusting.
And dear lord, how much time is spent in the media discussing Katie Couric’s looks? Or any other public professional woman? If she’s cute by beauty norms, then you can’t take her seriously—or she’s vain. If she’s not, then she doesn’t deserve to be in the public eye. The only solution? Nip and tuck, baby.
Don’t Like It? Cut It Off.
Because of my already-mentioned issue with my nose, I used to beg—beg!—my parents to let me get a nose job. They were cruel, I argued, to let me walk around with this monstrosity on my face. Of course, I’m forever grateful that they wouldn’t even entertain the notion of letting me get plastic surgery. But at the time I thought they were the worst.
There’s something insanely sick about plastic surgery when you really think about it. Now, yes, I know—some people truly need corrective surgery or reconstruction. I’m aware. But don’t go telling me that anyone “needs” silicone gel thingies shoved in their boobs. No one needs that.
I mean, they are: Cutting. Open. Your. Body. And you’re letting them. And paying them. I don’t know. . . . There