In Defense of Michael Grimm

DCBK

Click here to read my article, "In Defense of Michael Grimm," my former boss

The Odd Throuple

DC

CLICK HERE TO READ MY ARTICLE

about the three lesbians that got married in Massachusetts.

Terry Richardson's War on Women

DC

Read my article about Terry Richardson and the fashion industry's inherent hatefulness towards women on nationalreview.com:

Click me!

An LSAT Problem for Bill de Blasio

A basic LSAT problem for Mayor Bill de Blasio:

Studies show that children who attend Pre-K receive better grades later in life and earn more money in their lifetimes. Therefore it can be concluded that attending Pre-K leads to a better life.

Question: What is the flaw in the author's (and the mayor's) argument?

Answer: The author (and the mayor) are confusing correlation with causation. In fact, multiple studies have shown that the degree of seriousness a student & his or her family takes his or her education is the number one factor in determining later success. And in fact, it follows that parents who put their kid in Pre-K do care more about their child's education. So since giving every child free Pre-K won't make them or their parents care more about their education, (just as sending kids to school for free didn't make them care about education or get better grades) providing free Pre-K will not improve the grades or overall well-being of anyone, except the mayor. Lawyered. (Sorry, Willy, it's basic logic.)

The Politics of Hate

DC

and also BK

Like most of you, I was extremely angry and, to be honest, hurt, by the comments Gov. Cuomo made about "pro-lifers," saying that they have no place in New York.  When I first heard the news, my knee-jerk reaction was: I should leave the state I love (yes, technically I already left because I'm in DC now, but whatever) because you disagree with my opinions about abortion. 

And here was my second thought:  The reason that I am pro-life is because I believe that when a woman has an abortion, she is killing a child.  And to be fair, I do understand and sympathize with the following situation: you sleep with a guy who's not a great guy and accidentally get pregnant.  If you don't have an abortion, you're tied to this guy for life.  Is that really the best thing for you, the child, your current family, and society?  No. But you're still killing a child.  Having pedophiles and murderers walking around isn't good for society either, but killing them for no reason other than they are an inconvenience is still illegal.

Damn fine analogy, Christine, damn fine.

No matter what pro-choice argument you put in front of me, I cannot support Planned Parenthood because I believe they are in the business of murdering children.

My point is, though, that this opinion doesn't come from a bad place.  It comes from a I-don't-want-to-see-innocent-babies-get-killed place.  

However, the opinion that people should leave the state because they disagree with an opinion?  That comes from a bad place.  That comes from a vindictive, malicious, angry side of a person.  And I don't want politics in New York state or America to be dictated by anger.  Anger is erratic and quick-to-judgement and emotional and illogical.

*Swoon*

Bill DeBlasio agreed "100 percent" with Cuomo's opinion, which makes him just as angry at people who don't want to kill babies.  And he certainly seems to revel in the politics of hate.  When he was on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart last week, he did not deny, and even encouraged, the rumor that the Upper East Side of Manhattan was purposely not plowed during the recent snow storm.  He is clearly mad at Catholics since he has refused to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade, even though this beautiful meme is currently circulating on Facebook:

I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and say that maybe he wasn't aware that Catholics didn't support homosexual marriage when he was on the campaign.  LOL

So far, DeBlasio's mayorship seems to be one big middle finger in the face of the "establishment," as defined by my pot-head college roommates (more on them later).  And unfortunately, saying "F*** you" seems to be all he cares about.  Take his "universal pre-K" thing that he wants to do.  The only concrete campaign promise I heard him make throughout his campaign was that he was going to raise taxes on the rich in order to provide universal pre-K to NYC kids.  (All that taxpayer money spent so kids can finger paint and learn how to tie their shoes, and they still won't be able to graduate high school.)  When Cuomo suggested providing for this universal pre-K without raising taxes, because after all, Cuomo's got to get re-elected and he needs that rich people money, deBlasio farted in Cuomo's general direction and stalked away from the negotiating table.

Look, if DeBlasio really cared about New York's children then he would've accepted the deal.  Who cares if the money isn't coming from taxes, as long as there is (legal) money for pre-K, right?  Nope, because that's not what he really cares about.  He only cares about taking money away from the rich people.  That's his MO, not the children.

You know who else seems to be running government like he's angry at some nebulous "establishment?" 

This guy.

How many times has President Obama blamed Congress for something?  Too many times. Seriously, just Google "Obama blames Congress" and a slew of separate issues come up.  The debt, Guantanamo Bay, NSA, etc.  Not for nothing, I thought Congress was supposed to be ineffective.  According to Obama, Congress is an evil despot quickly smiting down every good idea he has... effectively.  

In fact, if you read Dinesh D'Souza's book, The Roots of Obama's Rage 

his basic thesis is that Obama is running his government much like DeBlasio, that is, as a big this 

to the "establishment."  D'Souza says that the establishment that Obama is fighting is a colonial ideology, and, to be honest, I don't know how much I agree with that, as I see some flaws in his argument.  I personally think that Obama's definition of establishment is the the same as Cuomo, DeBlasio, and my Democratic friends' nebulous definition (and yes I do realize that that phrase is oxymoronic.)  Heh, moronic.

Because nuances are a foreign concept to me, I'm just going to spell out my basic thesis of this blog post right here: The new (read: liberal) way to raise your kids these days is without any labels.  You're not supposed to raise them any particular religion (they should choose on their own), you have to send them to public school (which teaches them that they have a right to say whatever is on their mind) and you have to be accepting of all of their behaviors (so they can express their individuality).  All of this is supposed to teach kids to question everything, which, at first glance, sounds like you're teaching your children to be inquisitive, which is a good thing, but my argument is that this method of child-rearing is not raising kids to be inquisitive, instead it is raising them to be angry and lost.  And that anger is seeping into politics and the way we run our lives, as evidenced by DeBlasio et. al.  And that loss is causing the younger generations to be less and less effective as human beings and as a society.

  

Now here is how I think this is happening:

Let me start off this argument by telling you a little story.  I went to a four-year university in Washington DC.  I had four randomly assigned roommates my freshman year.  (Fun fact: My freshman-year dorm is often very high on the "most sexually active dorms in the country" lists.  Here's a Washington Post article on it: GWU's Freshman Zoo: Thurston Hall.)   I was quickly labeled the token Republican, (I was not yet a registered Conservative) and as it was 2012, I was endlessly criticized for my support of John McCain.  (One of the bigger liberal kids on the floor even threw some of my Ann Coulter books in the trash when I was not in my room, which I thought was both cowardly and insanely disrespectful.)  See? Anger.

Anyway, three of my roommates, let's call them A, N, and H were liberals.  The other girl, S, was a registered Republican, but not nearly as interested in politics as I was/am.  A and N LOVED their pot, alcohol, Obama, and seemingly nothing else.

This is what happened when I Googled "pot love GIF."  

They would often smoke in the room with the windows closed and mind you, there was one large, main room that A, N and I slept in and a small side room that H and S slept in and a bathroom and that's it.  So yeah, when they smoked pot, we all had to suffer.  I probably hated this the most because they often smoked on Thursday nights and I had 8am classes on Fridays and because the smell of marijuana smoke has always given me a headache.  (In case you are wondering, no I have never smoked marijuana.)  Of course, I asked them numerous times to at least do it on our small balcony or on weekends or something that wouldn't interfere with my sleep, but they didn't listen.  After all, I read Ann Coulter and was, therefore, less than human.  

Besides being pot-enthusiasts, A and N, as S, H, and I liked to gossip about, were totally devoid of personalities.  I couldn't tell you one thing that they were genuinely interested in except marijuana and Obama and not because they agreed with his policies.  (H, who was one of the biggest Obama supporters I have ever met and also a good friend of mine during freshman year, would at least debate me over policy and had read The Audacity of Hope.)  If you were to ask A and N why they supported Obama, their response probably would've been, "Woooo! Obama!"  

So they were hipsters.

But I digress.  My point is they had no personalities, but of course, were infinitely more popular than S, H, and I, because most of the other students at my college were a lot like them: they drank and smoked profusely, were born of rich suburban parents, voted Democratic, voted for Obama, but couldn't put why into words, and they disrespected and disliked me for being Republican.

More than that, when I tried to talk to A, N, and their crew (and much of the time I was forced to, as they were always in my room, often sitting on my bed without my permission) they weren't interesting.  They were all nebulous clones of each other.  You know those acquaintances that you have where the two of you have one random thing in common?  And you talk about that one thing all the time?  I couldn't even find that one thing with most of them.  

This lack of personality came from their extreme lack of motivation.  

Ok, look, I am prone to bouts of laziness.  I spend too much time on BuzzFeed.  I will zone out in front of the television instead of going to the gym.  I'll pretend to have plans so that I don't have to actually put pants on and go outside.  During my freshman year of college, I would sometimes forgo studying so that I can do some very important Facebook research, but there is a difference between being lazy and not being motivated. 

I always had a job throughout college.  I've been holding down jobs since I was thirteen.  And I am never late for work, and I am known for getting tasks done quickly and efficiently.  (Ok, let me stop before this turns into a resume.)  

But these kids never went to class.  They never did homework and often didn't even buy the books.  They went all through college without getting a job, but every Friday night at 8pm sharp they were in my room, ready to light up.

In fact, I'm pretty sure the only things these kids were interested in was pot and drinking.  Quick story.  Because we were a roomful of girls, we quickly split into two factions: A and N on one side and S, H and I on the other.  Basically, the pot-smokers versus the non-pot smokers.  The two sides didn't like each other.  We thought they were rude and inconsiderate.  They thought we were boring.  One day, H came back to the dorm after spending the weekend with her boyfriend, who lived in Virginia.  She was standing in the middle of the main room telling S and me about her weekend.  A and N were also in the main room, pretending they couldn't hear H.  (Aren't girls great?)  H was one of these people that always seems to have a great story to tell, who knows if they were true or not.  So she's telling us this crazy story about her weekend and this wild party she went to and S and I are listening intently, laughing loudly and gasping at all the appropriate moments, while A and N are pretending that they are super-interested in folding their laundry.   

Yeah, we were singing.

And H randomly says, "... and I tried pot for the first time..." Well, A and N snapped to attention and suddenly realized H was in the room.  "Omigod, how was it?  How did you feel?  Did you love it?"  H conceded that she wasn't crazy about it and probably wouldn't do it again, and, of course, the laundry once again became the most interesting thing in the room for A and N.

These girls and their contemporaries were literally only interested in smoking.  H, who was their enemy, only became acceptable once she admitted to smoking, but once she didn't confess her undying love for weed, she became an enemy again.  To all of the twenty-somethings out there who are reading this, how many people do you know who are like A and N?  My hunch is: a lot.  Unfortunately, much of my generation is just like A and N.  Doing nothing is their favorite activity.  

Ok, I know that logic is full of holes, but here is my point: these kids clearly had not grown up with any identity.  They were not religious, they had no strong political beliefs (except "Woo! Obama!"), they had no work ethic, they had majors but didn't seem particularly interested in those majors. (True story: A, who was an engineering major thought that the Washington Monument was called... wait for it... the Pentagon.  Her eyes glazed over when I tried to explain that the Pentagon has 5 sides and the Washington Monument does not.  She was an engineering major, folks.)  And to be honest with you, most people at my school were like them.  Granted, I realize that my "evidence" is based on a very small set, namely, people I've met, but based on the recent hipster takeover and people that I talk to, I'm sure this is a widespread trend.

Another story: on my mother's side I have three uncles.  One of these uncles is an atheist, Obama-loving liberal.  He is also the most financially well-off and the most educated uncle.  How liberal?  He originally refused to baptize his son, but after realizing this would break my grandparents' hearts, he reluctantly baptized the child when he was about four years old.  After living his whole life in Brooklyn, about three or four years ago, he up and moved to Seattle for no real reason, and as you know, Seattle is possibly more liberal than New York City.  He does not want to put his children in Catholic school, which is fair enough, but he also does not want to raise them believing in any "deity," as he says.  So now his kids are little hipsters in the making.  Children of educated, somewhat well-off parents, going to not only a public school, but a super-liberal public school, and living in the suburbs of some city.  Recently, we went to a Christmas party that they held (in Brooklyn) and don't ask me why he was having a Christmas party when he doesn't believe in God, I don't know, but the party honestly looked like a hipster convention.  The women all looked like they had just rolled out of bed and/or were wearing the bed as their clothes looked mostly like sheets and the men all had laughably long beards.  And I'm not generalizing, I literally mean all.  They were all drinking red wine and complaining about politics.  

Ew.

Anyway, my uncle and his family came over for Thanksgiving and I was sitting next to his son, who is about eight years old now.  My boyfriend, my mother, the children at the table, and myself were having a very simplistic talk about Thanksgiving, when my uncle's eight year old son says, "America tricks us into liking this holiday so that they can make more money."  My boyfriend thinks this is very funny and says, "It's all about the corporations, right?" and my cousin perks up and says, "Yes exactly!"  This is from an eight year old; he already has some misdirected dislike with "America" and "corporations."  So basically, this was my eight year old cousin: 

Yes, my eight year old cousin was so liberal that he sounded like a spoof of liberals.  (Disclaimer: I am not calling my cousin a F.A.G. That is an unfortunate screen shot that I cannot change.)  Granted, he is eight years old and therefore probably didn't express his thoughts as succinctly or logically as an adult could have, but mind you, prior to this outburst, he was pretty quiet, almost withdrawn.  We couldn't get two words out of the kid for hours, but he managed to find the strength to tell us how much America sucked.  

Because it is against my religion to read controversial magazine articles when they are first printed, I recently read the Rolling Stone article about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who, along with his brother Tamerlan, is suspected of being responsible for the Boston bombings this past April.  The article was, of course, meant to be a profile on the average-college-student-turned-killer, but I also saw it as a dialogue about the pre-college life of kids like my freshman-year colleagues.

I'll summarize the article as best I can, as it relates to this blog post.  Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (nicknamed "Jahar") grew up in Cambridge, a very liberal suburb of Boston.  Even though he came from a Chechnyan immigrant family, he was an average American kid.  He was described as having a "laid-back manner that 'made him the dude you could always just vibe with.'" He also "smoked a copious amount of weed," but the liberal Cambridge parents did not discourage weed.  It was pretty common to smoke a lot in his neighborhood.  He was a naturally talented wrestler who could've been a lot more talented if he put some effort into the sport.  The parents in the neighborhood were politically liberal, and the children reflected those beliefs, but, for the most part, held no concrete beliefs, although Jahar's friends remember one day in a pizza place where Jahar admitted that he thought the terrorists' actions on 9/11 were justified, but "to be fair... Jahar's perspective on foreign policy wasn't all that dissimilar from a lot of other people they knew."  

He was raised Muslim, but wasn't very religious, though he did fast for Ramadan, which included not smoking, which, his friends admitted, showed immense self-control on Jahar's part.  He was proud of his Chechnyan roots, but, as one of his teachers noted, he didn't know much about Chechnya.  Instead, like many other kids from immigrant families in the area, he had an idealized version of his roots in his head.

A few things happened to Jahar right before college that changed his personality.  His older brother, Tamerlan, who, in Jahar's eyes, could do no wrong, became increasingly interested in the more radical side of Islam, became chronically unemployed, and seemed to slowly lose his sanity.  His sisters were married off and seemingly disappeared, and his parents abandoned him and his brother and moved back to Chechnya.  Jahar went off to college at UMass Amherst, where there is infamously, nothing to do.  He struggled with loneliness and boredom during his freshman year.  He missed his family and his old friends and started selling pot to support himself and smoked even more. 

Jahar's Twitter posts during this time show that he was becoming increasingly angry at America, just like his brother, who was his only family left.  He had no direction.  His professors say that he showed no interest in any classes or really anything, except smoking.  (Sound familiar?)  One professor remembers that the one time he did speak in class, it was some anti-America rant.  (Sound familiar?) The professor said that his general attitude about politics, school, and life, wasn't much different than other students' attitudes: "These kids are blazed on pot, looking for factoids on the internet... And the adult world totally misunderstands them and dismisses them-- and does so at our collective peril."

Basically, the kid was raised with no direction, as most suburban, liberal kids are raised these days.  He longed to belong to something, to have some kind of identity, and the only person he knew that had a strong identity was his increasingly radical brother, Tamerlan, who happened to be someone he loved and respected.  

What I'm saying is this: the current generations are being raised to value nothing.  The children of liberal intellectuals are so against any kind of label in fear of forcing their kids to be something they don't want to be that they're raising them devoid of religion, culture, values, or respect for the law.  So they are growing up with no direction and no interests and no personality.

The only label that parents readily encourage is a vague personality of  a rebel.

Jahar gravitated toward his brother's anti-American ideals because it was something.  And because of his upbringing, being against America was something he knew and was familiar with. 

It is human nature to want to belong and parents raising their kids this way, with no sense of self, are doing their children a great disservice.   

I think that my family raised me with a pretty clear identity, that eventually spurred my interests.  American.  Roman Catholic.  Italian.  Brooklynite.  Hard-worker.  Because I was proud to be American (excuse the cheesiness), I became interested in how the country worked, and then I became interested in politics.  Because I was a Brooklynite, I had to pick a baseball team.  I chose the Yankees and eventually wanted to play softball because I watched so much baseball on television.  If you're not raised with an identity in your formative years, what do you become interested in?  Probably the other things that you're exposed to: television and internet, and if those are your main interests, then you're not a very interesting person.  And when these uninteresting voids of teenagers discover pot or alcohol or video games, then they become intellectually lazy and unmotivated.  

By the way, my brother lived in the Cambridge area for a long time.  He left because he saw everything that I described above and he didn't want his children to be raised that way.  So he moved to a really remote area of Massachusetts (where you literally cannot see your next door neighbor because they are too far away/ there are too many trees in the way) and he says that the problem is state-wide.  He wants to move to Texas.  

So here's where my argument comes full circle.  Do you know who else grew up in the Cambridge area and had a very similar upbringing to the Boston bomber? 

Is it just me or does he look incredibly stoned in this picture?

That's Bill deBlasio, by the way.  Bill deBlasio is what happens when kids like Jahar have charisma.  They become politicians.  They run our government.  

If you read about deBlasio's childhood, it is a lot like Jahar's.  And Jahar's is a lot like my college roommates'.  And my college roommates' is a lot like my cousin's.  And my cousin's is a lot like Obama's.  They all are raised with no labels, no identity, so they feel lost in adolescence and because they constantly hear liberal nonsense from their parents and communities, they blame their frustration with their lives on America.  

Now, there's nothing wrong with being angry or frustrated with your country.  I know that I can feel very frustrated with the way the country is being run sometimes.  But these kids don't know exactly where to direct their ire and that's where the problem lies.  It's just "America" or "corporations" or "Republicans."  They also don't know where to direct their happiness.  ("But why do you like Obama?"  "Woo!! Obamaaaa!")  The Democratic side, and to be honest, more and more of society, speak in buzzwords and unctuous platitudes.  Examples: "No person is illegal."  "Be yourself."  "Women are not an interest group."  They're the kind of phrases that will elicit applause applause and retweets, but when one stops and thinks about what they really mean or why they are being said, one finds that they don't actually make sense or they mean nothing or they are untruths presented as truths.  

All these kids know for sure is: rebellion/anger, good.  America, bad.  If they have these feelings and are charismatic, they become Bill deBlasio.  If they mix in a little extremism and have a mentally unstable brother, they become Dzokhar Tsarnaev.  If they have no particular stand-out skills or severe personality defects, they become average Joes and Janes, going to work everyday (hopefully) and raising their kids on a meager budget.  If they eventually gain some momentum and motivation later in life, then perhaps they will more affluent, move to the suburbs, and raise their kids with the same vague non-ideals that they were raised on.

And the cycle begins again.

  

  

    

  

  

            

My Last Blog Post Summed Up in One Image

Not sure why Kevin Spacey is here...

The New Feminism

This is Casey Jenkins.

Casey Jenkins likes to knit.

I know what you're thinking.  Gee, Christine, exciting article.  But give me one more image to grab your attention.  Here is a picture of Casey Jenkins knitting: 

Did I get your attention yet? If not, look at the picture again.  Where is the spool of yarn that she's using?  I'll give you a second to examine the picture.

Couldn't find it, could you?  That's because the ball of yarn is in her vagina.  

Yeah.

The self-proclaimed "craftivist" is knitting a scarf from yarn that she's shoved inside her hoo-ha.  She calls it "Casting Off My Womb," a 28-day performance piece.  Here is another picture of her knitting: 

No, those red spots aren't a clever design, they're her menstrual blood.

Why would she do this, you may ask yourself.  (And I really hope that you do.)   Well, let's see what Ms. Jenkins says about it.

From casey-jenkins.com:

"The piece is designed to be one of subdued action, of quietude and even subtlety."

"Because it is such a slow-paced work the silences and space that run throughout it are just as important as the actions.  These silences give the audience room to inject their own visceral responses to the piece and the subject matter." 

And what exactly is that subject matter?  What is she trying to say? 

It has something to do with gender roles.  I'll try to explain as best I can.

Ms. Jenkins says that she's "not referencing anyone's body except my own and at no point do I make the indelible connection between the vulva and the womb and gender."

And "Negative reactions towards the vulva and menstruation are hallmarks of misogyny and they are the reactions I want to address in this piece."

Ok, so it's about society's view of women in some way.  I don't agree, but I can sort of understand.

"In this piece, I'm trying to draw the warped and misogynistic views about the vulva and menstruation into the open.  I hope the dissonance between those views and the common warm and or dismissive responses to knitting (also based on patriarchy-serving fallacies), will begin to break down both responses and the damaging ideas behind them." 

Ok now I get it.  She's saying that people need to accept women as a whole.  The scarf is warm and fuzzy and people often expect women to knit scarves and sweaters etc, but people often don't want to hear about menstruation, which is an important part of any woman, as it is part of the cycle that ultimately provides life.  People only want the warm and fuzzy.  And women are being made less of by constantly being told that their periods are "gross."  I'm with you, Casey.  Woo, feminism!

Now here's my problem with this "piece," if I must call it that.  It is hopelessly outdated.

You would be hard-pressed to find someone more feminist than me, except maybe those man-killing chicks from that terrible Nicolas Cage movie.

Yeah, that one.

You would be hard-pressed to find someone more feminist than me, and I wholeheartedly disagree with Casey Jenkins' message.  I will explain why using fun animations. 

You know that .gif I just used to personify feminism?  In case, you're too lazy to scroll up, I'll re-post it here:

Pretty crude, right?  Actually, it's not too far off from what Ms. Jenkins is doing herself, although I DO NOT want to know how Sailor Jupiter (I assume that's who that is) got electricity into her vagina, but I digress.

Guess what?  That was the FIRST image search result when I Googled "Feminism gif."  That's right, that's how I choose my gifs.  Pretty impressive, I know.  And guess what the second image search result was? 

And the eighth search result was this:

That is NOT a .gif, Google!

And here's another one:

The author of an article entitled, "Who Needs Feminism Anyway?" posted this picture and said, "THIS is why we need feminism."

Basically, the new en vogue definition of feminism seems to be "female nudity."  When people think of feminism, they think of naked women, and guess who's playing right into that?  So called "alternatives" like Casey Jenkins.  

Look, I've read my history textbooks.  I know that a lot of today's feminists are still lashing out at 1950's housewives.  But, seriously, do we really need to?  

Show her who's boss.

Didn't the flower-children of the hippie generation smoke enough weed and have enough sex to show their hard-working parents how wrong they were? (Not that I don't think the 1950s was a terrible time for women, in general; I do.)

So who should the feminists of 2013-2014 be trying to prove wrong?  If you ask me, it's the liberal media, specifically Hollywood.  

Right on, random cheerleader girl.

Hollywood increasingly shows women's bodies as nothing more than men and society's property to be used for their own sexual or visual pleasure.  The first example that springs to mind is this: 

Notice how Ciara's necklace is chains (at 0:11) and how Justin Timberlake is constantly smacking her (at 2:27) and how she's behind bars, dressed as an animal (at 2:30).  And notice how, constantly, Justin Timberlake doesn't have to do anything while Ciara exerts herself to turn him on (in a scene that starts around 1:17 and another one that starts around 2:10).  At 1:45 he even uses her as a leaning post.

Have you ever noticed how many boobs are clearly visible in R rated movies?  Yet if there's a penis, it's NC-17.  My mother was flipping channels on her tv the other day, and decided to watch Cloud Atlas for awhile.  Of course, it was her (and my) luck that the 20 minutes of the movie she decided to watch featured a bunch of "clones" (or something like that) fresh from the clone-oven, walking naked to the showers.  Literally, dozens of boobs in a 60 second scene.  And then the movie showed one of the clones getting raped, while the clone just laid there, with an expressionless face.  And in no way was this rape scene labeled as "bad."  It was more like, "This is the life of a clone."  I just looked up the rating for this movie and it's rated R, and just in case you're fuzzy on your MPAA ratings, that means children under 17 must be accompanied by a guardian.  Granted, I'm not such a prude that I think 17 year olds are too young to see boobs, but let's face it, small children are often taken into R rated movies, as I have had the displeasure of experiencing when I heard babies screaming in the theater while I watched the remake of The Last House on the Left, which, by the way, also has a rape scene in it.  However, what does bother me is that teenagers are witnessing this misuse of women's bodies over and over again and it isn't being labeled as "bad." 

  

One wouldn't expect the fashion industry, which is dominated by women, to be guilty of similar atrocities, but they are perhaps one of the worst offenders.  Have you heard of Terry Richardson?  This is him:

Sexy.

Unless you're a fashion person, you probably don't recognize him, but I'm sure you recognize his photography: 

As you can probably guess from his photography subjects, he is a world-renowned fashion photographer.  He has shot for Marc Jacobs, GQ, Vogue, and he even directed one of Beyonce's new videos.  Unfortunately for me it's the one with Beyonce in Coney Island. 

Even though the Beyonce video is not sexualized too much, you know, as much as Beyonce can possibly hold back, look at the pictures of Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and Lindsay Lohan.  They're obscene.  Lindsay Lohan is even sexually threatening to kill herself.  The man has actually sexualized suicide.  

Terry Richardson has been accused numerous times of sexually harassing models.  One model has come out and said that he manipulates young girls into getting naked and takes pictures of them that they're "ashamed of," and keep in mind, these are models.  Their job is basically to ooze sex, and even they're embarrassed of some of the pictures Richardson takes of them.  In an expose in the New York Post, which labeled him "Fashion's Favorite Pervert," Maureen Callahan quotes Richardson as saying, "I was a shy kid and now I'm this powerful guy with a boner, dominating all these girls."  One model talks about her experience in a photo shoot with Richardson, where he asked her to remove her tampon and play with it and then "strongly suggested" that she give him a hand job, which she did. He has also been accused of dangling his power over women, telling them they could get published in Vogue, if they simply performed certain sexual favors for him.

This man is not a pariah in the fashion industry however.  These accusations against him began in 2010, yet that Beyonce video I just posted came out last Friday.  He is also, apparently, responsible for Miley Cyrus' recent image change and her "Wrecking Ball" video.  Also, he has photographed this guy: 

Good job, Barry.

He is a sought-after photographer, who continues to be successful and influential.  Granted, Richardson has suffered some blowback.  The NY Post expose was written in response to an 18-year-old girl in London, who started a petition to urge clothing brands and magazines not to work with him.  The petition has gained some traction, with the young woman gathering 12,000 signatures as of November 3.  H&M and the world-renowned model Coco Rocha refuse to work with him, but honestly, is that so bad?  Who cares about Coco Rocha when you can photograph the president?

Sorry, Coco.

Furthermore, even though many people dislike Richardson, few have gone on the record to speak out against him.  According to the NY Post, an anonymous fashion-industry source has stated that people know "full well Richardson's predatory behavior, [he's] tolerated because industry folks are just sheep."  

Where are the feminists speaking out against this guy?!  When you Google "Terry Richardson," you get search results like, "The 100 Sexiest Terry Richardson Photoshoots."  At the bottom of the first results page is Jezebel.com, which seems to be the only website who cares about the atrocities this man has inflicted on women, but overall, the search results are positive.  You'd think Jezebel.com was a hack crazy-conspiracy website.  How can the fashion industry, which constantly spouts unctuous drivel about "being your own woman" and "being fierce" and "being proud of your body," let this man continue to not only work in the industry, but allow him to enjoy VIP, possibly even legend, status?  This is feminism? 

I'm not going to launch into a soapbox speech about how women's bodies are used as objects by big bad advertising companies.  I'll just let this video explain it:

Fun fact: The woman who narrates this video taught one of my college classes.  

However, one issue I will bring up that I don't think is talked about enough is how women's bodies are often used to portray a (often liberal) message.  

For the few of you who read this blog that actually know me, and by the few of you, I mean my boyfriend and my mother,

you know that I have a problem with PETA.  

Yeah, these guys.

Here's why:

Those, of course, are all from PETA's "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign.  (I especially like the one with Pamela Anderson, where PETA basically calls women animals.)  And if you think that I pulled very specific PETA ads to prove my point, just Google PETA.  The Pamela Anderson picture is literally the first one that comes up.  

In fact, all PETA ads feature naked women or worse.  Here are some more of my favorites: 

Ok you get the point.  In all of these, the women are replacing the animals, and are often even being called animals, and yet these women are applauded for sticking up for a cause and PETA continues to be seen as a righteous institution.  

In all of these means of communication/ entertainment, women are expected to open up and expose their bodies for a certain cause.  Whether that cause be sex appeal, or entertainment, or a critically acclaimed movie, or the ethical treatment of animals.  And, getting back to my original point, Casey Jenkins is no exception.  In order for her to convey a message about how society views women, she must open her legs and let the world see everything.  She cannot convey this message by being modest.  Forget modest, she cannot convey this message by being decent.  And why can't women stand up for something noble, like the ethical treatment of animals, without shedding their clothes?  

My point is, women are being told, ever more increasingly, that to be a strong woman, to stand up for something, to make a statement, you must give men and society everything and leave nothing to the imagination.  Not only that, in the cases of PETA and Terry Richardson, you must demean yourself, as I believe Casey Jenkins is doing, by carrying out something so unsanitary, unhealthy, and frankly, dangerous.  Nothing is off-limits.  Depicting women as animals,  showing them in gimp suits (see below), showing them accepting rape.  Everything is allowed, as long as it's for a bigger cause.  Women aren't expected to stay home and be unpaid maids anymore, they're expected to strip down and allow the world poke and prod them.

And if you don't believe women are demeaned in popular culture, just watch this video.  The first 5 seconds will demonstrate my point: 

  

So sorry, Casey Jenkins, but you're not a "craftivist."  You are a poor activist and a poor crafter.  Actually, the latter part may not be true.  I heard she didn't drop a single stitch.