Must admit I protested as the Taylor Swift juggernaut gathered steam and laid waste to the land, considered her just another pop princess with vapid and cheesy songs about lost loves.
Then, a funny thing happened; she grew up and embraced feminism. She embraced and became a proponent of girl power and feminism. Girl grew up.
Now consider her music as deeper exploration of the human condition, relationships as essential existential philosophical questions, except for me and my lone wolf life: ".... because that's what fascinates me more than anything else — love and what it does to us and how we treat people and how they treat us." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fearless_(Taylor_Swift_album)
Indeed, interpersonal connections form the basis of human experience. So watching Ms. Swift grow, from country singer ingenue to existential feminist philosopher, has looked like quite a ride. Who knows what kind of dept her songs will have when she turns 30?
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Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Friday, September 14, 2012
Motherhood & Political Office
Oh hell, just tell 'em to stay in the kitchen, barefoot & pregnant.
[Madigan is already being pressed on whether she is fit to run for office -- because she is the mother of two young children.
While at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. last week, reporters asked Madigan whether she could be governor and still raise her daughters, who are ages 4 and 7.
"Wow. Does anybody ever ask that question?" she responded. "I'm very lucky to have the support of my family. My husband helps take care of our kids. But, I think more people should ask that of men running for office as well...."
And people who, unfortunately, have to work three jobs and don't necessarily have health-care coverage -- they’re even in a worse situation. So nobody needs to give any pity on what elected officials have to endure."]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/lisa-madigan-illinois-attorney-general-mom_n_1870457.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
[If I was married to Ohio Governor John Kasich, his name would be Limpin’ John today.
It seems he got carried away with himself and let us know where Republican women are while their husbands are out runn ing the world. “It’s not easy to be a spouse of an elected official,” Kasich continued. “You know, they’re at home, doing the laundry....]
http://juanitajean.com/2012/09/14/barefoot-pregnant-and-voting-republican/
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/ohio-gov-kasich-our-wives-are-home-doing-la
[Madigan is already being pressed on whether she is fit to run for office -- because she is the mother of two young children.
While at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. last week, reporters asked Madigan whether she could be governor and still raise her daughters, who are ages 4 and 7.
"Wow. Does anybody ever ask that question?" she responded. "I'm very lucky to have the support of my family. My husband helps take care of our kids. But, I think more people should ask that of men running for office as well...."
And people who, unfortunately, have to work three jobs and don't necessarily have health-care coverage -- they’re even in a worse situation. So nobody needs to give any pity on what elected officials have to endure."]
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/10/lisa-madigan-illinois-attorney-general-mom_n_1870457.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
[If I was married to Ohio Governor John Kasich, his name would be Limpin’ John today.
It seems he got carried away with himself and let us know where Republican women are while their husbands are out runn ing the world. “It’s not easy to be a spouse of an elected official,” Kasich continued. “You know, they’re at home, doing the laundry....]
http://juanitajean.com/2012/09/14/barefoot-pregnant-and-voting-republican/
http://crooksandliars.com/karoli/ohio-gov-kasich-our-wives-are-home-doing-la
Monday, May 26, 2008
Why hysterical Hillary hate?
Reading political blogs lately, even progressive ones, reveals an extraordinary amount of bile poured out on the presidential candidacy of Hillary Rodham Clinton, akin to what normally describes President Cheney.
Without dog in this fight-perhaps a poor choice of metaphor but I will work for whomever the Democratic party selects--the depth of rhetoric shocks even my jaded sensibilities, coming as it does from bloggers I read regularly like Americablog, sorry Mr. Aravois.
Wih the recent ginned up controversy over HRC's metion of Bobby Kennedy, otherwise normally rational people rushed to claim she should not even use the word "assasination" and equated it to sme racist comment when the selfsame bloggers used it detailing security breakdowns at Senator Obama's campaign appearances.
For the sake of the US constitution in mortal peril under a McCain/Cheney administration, seems to me we ought to tone down the rhetoric, get a beer or other libation of choice, and watch a sunset with no laptop, ipod, 'net connections or other tools of the devil to hand for it occurs instaneous communication breeds excessive vitriol on all sides.
The inimitable Paul Krugman agres with me in his column today, "So what should Mr. Obama and his supporters do?
Most immediately, they should realize that the continuing demonization of Mrs. Clinton serves nobody except Mr. McCain."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Also with 2 talented nieces, both of whom I'd like to become US President someday, the conundrum facing succesful women--a take charge female boss gets perceived as a "bitch" while identical actions by a male manager evoke descriptions as strongwilled--makes me fear them someday bumping up against a glass ceiling.
This has a historical context also, perhaps starting with literal witch hunts in Middle Ages when some reports exist of female populations nearly wiped out in some areas.
Please read the Chicago Tribune column in entirety at http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-fempower-0518may18,0,4333714.column
[...Revealed in the coverage of Clinton's campaign is the persistence of an ancient and distasteful cultural theme: the powerful, ambitious woman as cackling fiend, as fantastically terrifying ghoul threatening civilization. And because this creature (or "she-devil," as MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews called Clinton) is not human, the only solution is to kill it. Not just derail its career—obliterate it. Smash it to smithereens. Vaporize it. Leave not a trace of the foul beast behind.
Hence the appalling preponderance of violent, death-infused imagery in conversations about Clinton, smuggled into otherwise ordinary political discourse like a knife taped on the bottom of a cake plate: On CNN, pundit Alex Castellanos said democrats must realize that "it's time to take the family dog to the vet." Matthews' MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann expressed the hope that "somebody will take her into a room—and only he comes out." CNN's Jack Cafferty gleefully floated the specter of Clinton being run over by a flatbed truck. A recent Tribune editorial compared Clinton to a euthanized Kentucky Derby contender...
One of the most barbaric medical procedures ever performed legally in this country was the lobotomy, and a look at its early history is chilling. As Jack El-Hai recounts in his book, "The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness" (2005), the frightening operation that could leave patients catatonic or dead often was employed as a way to deal with "difficult" women, with wives and mothers who had minds of their own, with willful daughters and headstrong sisters. The message was clear: Do whatever you have to do—but shut her up.
The notion of a powerful, driven, influential woman as a hideous threat—a threat that can be curtailed only with her death—ripples through literature, from the D.H. Lawrence novel "Sons and Lovers" (1913), with its protagonist's conviction that he must escape the clutches of his looming, clingy mother if he is ever to realize his destiny, to the 1962 novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey, with its way-scary female character: the loathsome, larger-than-life Nurse Ratched. The joyless, hulking harridan who wants to keep her patients drugged and miserable so she can control them. From the Furies in Greek literature onward, the women-as-mythical-monsters theme has shrieked, flapped and lurched its way through the arts.
These observations, by the way, have nothing to do with the issue of Clinton's or Obama's continued candidacies. That's a subject to be debated on the editorial pages, not here. This corner is reserved for cultural imagery, for a spirited exploration of the way a shared belief or preoccupation ultimately manifests itself in our entertainment products. Such an idea is like a splinter driven so deep, resting undisturbed for so long, that for a time you may not even be aware of it. Then slowly, slowly, it begins to work its way to the surface. One day, the sharp tip breaks the skin, and you see what's been down there all along, spreading its poison.] emphasis added
So please give my hope for my nieces a chance.
Without dog in this fight-perhaps a poor choice of metaphor but I will work for whomever the Democratic party selects--the depth of rhetoric shocks even my jaded sensibilities, coming as it does from bloggers I read regularly like Americablog, sorry Mr. Aravois.
Wih the recent ginned up controversy over HRC's metion of Bobby Kennedy, otherwise normally rational people rushed to claim she should not even use the word "assasination" and equated it to sme racist comment when the selfsame bloggers used it detailing security breakdowns at Senator Obama's campaign appearances.
For the sake of the US constitution in mortal peril under a McCain/Cheney administration, seems to me we ought to tone down the rhetoric, get a beer or other libation of choice, and watch a sunset with no laptop, ipod, 'net connections or other tools of the devil to hand for it occurs instaneous communication breeds excessive vitriol on all sides.
The inimitable Paul Krugman agres with me in his column today, "So what should Mr. Obama and his supporters do?
Most immediately, they should realize that the continuing demonization of Mrs. Clinton serves nobody except Mr. McCain."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/26/opinion/26krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
Also with 2 talented nieces, both of whom I'd like to become US President someday, the conundrum facing succesful women--a take charge female boss gets perceived as a "bitch" while identical actions by a male manager evoke descriptions as strongwilled--makes me fear them someday bumping up against a glass ceiling.
This has a historical context also, perhaps starting with literal witch hunts in Middle Ages when some reports exist of female populations nearly wiped out in some areas.
Please read the Chicago Tribune column in entirety at http://www.chicagotribune.com/features/lifestyle/chi-fempower-0518may18,0,4333714.column
[...Revealed in the coverage of Clinton's campaign is the persistence of an ancient and distasteful cultural theme: the powerful, ambitious woman as cackling fiend, as fantastically terrifying ghoul threatening civilization. And because this creature (or "she-devil," as MSNBC commentator Chris Matthews called Clinton) is not human, the only solution is to kill it. Not just derail its career—obliterate it. Smash it to smithereens. Vaporize it. Leave not a trace of the foul beast behind.
Hence the appalling preponderance of violent, death-infused imagery in conversations about Clinton, smuggled into otherwise ordinary political discourse like a knife taped on the bottom of a cake plate: On CNN, pundit Alex Castellanos said democrats must realize that "it's time to take the family dog to the vet." Matthews' MSNBC colleague Keith Olbermann expressed the hope that "somebody will take her into a room—and only he comes out." CNN's Jack Cafferty gleefully floated the specter of Clinton being run over by a flatbed truck. A recent Tribune editorial compared Clinton to a euthanized Kentucky Derby contender...
One of the most barbaric medical procedures ever performed legally in this country was the lobotomy, and a look at its early history is chilling. As Jack El-Hai recounts in his book, "The Lobotomist: A Maverick Medical Genius and His Tragic Quest to Rid the World of Mental Illness" (2005), the frightening operation that could leave patients catatonic or dead often was employed as a way to deal with "difficult" women, with wives and mothers who had minds of their own, with willful daughters and headstrong sisters. The message was clear: Do whatever you have to do—but shut her up.
The notion of a powerful, driven, influential woman as a hideous threat—a threat that can be curtailed only with her death—ripples through literature, from the D.H. Lawrence novel "Sons and Lovers" (1913), with its protagonist's conviction that he must escape the clutches of his looming, clingy mother if he is ever to realize his destiny, to the 1962 novel "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" by Ken Kesey, with its way-scary female character: the loathsome, larger-than-life Nurse Ratched. The joyless, hulking harridan who wants to keep her patients drugged and miserable so she can control them. From the Furies in Greek literature onward, the women-as-mythical-monsters theme has shrieked, flapped and lurched its way through the arts.
These observations, by the way, have nothing to do with the issue of Clinton's or Obama's continued candidacies. That's a subject to be debated on the editorial pages, not here. This corner is reserved for cultural imagery, for a spirited exploration of the way a shared belief or preoccupation ultimately manifests itself in our entertainment products. Such an idea is like a splinter driven so deep, resting undisturbed for so long, that for a time you may not even be aware of it. Then slowly, slowly, it begins to work its way to the surface. One day, the sharp tip breaks the skin, and you see what's been down there all along, spreading its poison.] emphasis added
So please give my hope for my nieces a chance.
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