So How Come Political Correctness Doesn't Extend to Sexism of Women?

Answer me that, folks. In particular, if we're going to ban certain classic cartoons because of offensive racial stereotypes (and yes, the Censored 11 stuff is pretty bad).

Yet we're STILL being exposed to the stereotypical 1950s housewife types in the classic Twilight Zone along with Olive Oyl in the Popeye series, various bitchy housewives in the Looney Tunes cartoons that beat up on cats for daring to eat birds (usually it's Sylvester because he dared to eat Tweety, who's a freaking canary). When you get down to it, there's a ton of sexism in the old cartoons.

I was watching some Popeye cartoons earlier & my husband reminded me of a rant I've not done: I absolutely can't stand Olive Oyl. She epitomizes everything stereotypical & insulting about women. Cartoon Olive, at least. Comic strip Olive is less offensive since she actually knows how to take care of herself.

I thought my husband & I were the only people who hated Olive Oyl until we watched a special feature on one of the Popeye DVDs that came out. Fortunately, the entire era of the cartoons that we wanted was put out on DVD & we got to buy them. One of the women speaking on this particular feature said she hated Olive Oyl as well. I was like "YES! Finally, someone else feels like I do."

So, why my hatred? I'll gladly explain:

If you've seen classic Twilight Zone episodes, you should be familiar with the bitchy and helpless housewives. Apparently, Rod Serling was not good at writing women in his stories. He admitted this in the introduction of one episode (I believe it was from Season 1) that we caught on DVD. Spotting these characters is like spotting pornography: you can't define it but you'll know it when you see it.

I personally watch these women in action on a lot of them & there are some I don't feel any sympathy for. It's like if some guy were married to them, you could hardly blame them for wanting to beat the crap out of them. Now I'm not a supporter of domestic violence but I'd want to beat them since they annoy the shit out of me.

Olive Oyl in the Popeye cartoons is like these women & I'm going to give you numerous examples of why she sucks.

1. She is a fickle bitch. In most of the Popeye cartoons, she's dating Popeye then tosses him aside for Bluto because she thinks Bluto is more suave or has a clean shave or whatever other reason. In real life, she'd be knocking boots with this guy. You know what we call women like that in modern society? A slut. Loose. Plenty of other names that you don't want to be called if you're a woman. I wouldn't find "fickle" flattering, either.

2. She is a total tease. Probably wrote the book on it, in fact. She acts like she's interested & then when Bluto makes his move, she goes all helpless & whines for Popeye. Popeye, of course, always saves her in the cartoons.

You know what Popeye would have done in real life, especially in today's time if some chick was doing this Olive Oyl impression? He'd say "Fuck you, bitch! You wanted Bluto so have fun. Don't come crying to me!" I know real life men would say something similar. Even Superman did in one story, according to my husband the comics expert.

3. She's downright shitty to Popeye in plenty of them. Has zero respect or regard for that relationship & then has no regard for Bluto if she's supposed to be with him. She also laughs her ass off at Popeye's expense in many of them. Classless could be an apt description as well.

"So, you still want to save that bitch?" I ask Popeye in my brain. I wouldn't do shit for you if you had dumped me then laughed at my expense when your new significant other was mean to me. Popeye would have moved on in real life.

4. She's totally & completely helpless. You know what would happen if you went all Bluto on a natural redhead & hopefully most modern women? She'd hit you right in a sensitive area & you'd be traumatized from even thinking about sex for a long time. Maybe even years. No, I don't mean the crotch. There are other sensitive areas that work for both genders & any woman who took a self-defense class knows what they are.

Why is it that she can do a token hit but it means nothing? Why is she so damn helpless? I appreciate a guy intervening if some scumbag is bothering me but don't do it because you think I'm helpless! Unlike cartoon Olive Oyl, I'm not helpless.

Most women aren't Olive Oyl. Yes, I'm sure there are Olive Oyl types around encouraging wannabe rapists to hate & attack us but we have our own ways of dealing with them (wannabe rapists & the Olive Oyl types). If I knew any Olive Oyl sorts myself, I'd definitely handle that. No woman in my family fits that one, that's for sure. That includes me, my policy on date paying notwithstanding.

I had respect for men I dated & have respect for my husband. You wouldn't see me ditching him for some guy with more money, a better car, better clothes, whatever. If some woman is doing that, she's not respectable. If she knows about this guy's private parts, you're definitely better off without her.

I also was not a tease. I never led guys on. I was always honest & probably to a fault. That always pissed me off when guys did it so I felt it was uncool to do that to them. Certainly other women agree with me on this. Plus, I have a healthy sex drive (if Manswers is accurate, it's a natural redhead thing but you can't tell me that only the smallest minority on the planet has a healthy sex drive; otherwise, you'd only see natural redheads with kids & all the people in sex therapy would be natural redheads). Most women aren't frigid or asexual. Those are the people who should do their dating on Christian Mingle or create some new dating site for people like themselves since they don't fit the majority of us.

Furthermore, most of us are adults. We don't expect some guy to save us from a situation we created ourselves. Respectable women operate from a place of truth & don't go leading folk on. They aren't assholes or little kids like Olive Oyl. We don't need some pimp to bail us out & I really hope a pimp wouldn't do that.

Nor do they trash someone they supposedly care about with their new beau & later expect them to do shit for them. Nope, if I've insulted you not only have you deserved it but I'd sure not ask for your help later on.

We've already established my lack of helplessness. I'm also not a fan of helpless people. Actually, I really hate helpless people (that is, the ones who can't claim a medically diagnosed condition & have something so bad, they actually need anti-depressants). For one thing, it's a state of mind. Few people are truly helpless & even the people everyone thinks of as being helpless (those who've lost limbs or senses) are usually functioning better than the rest of us.

For another, I believe in being the change you want to see. If you don't like something, you need to get off your butt & do something to change it or shut up for good about it. You don't get the right to bitch about things you took no steps to change.

Finally, if you truly feel helpless & you aren't suffering from a medically diagnosed case of depression (WebMD diagnoses don't count) why are you still doing the same stuff? Take some personal responsibility for YOUR life & YOUR behavior!!!

Maybe that's the crux of why I'm not an Olive Oyl fan: she lacks personal accountability. You never see her making the connection b/t her actions & people's reactions to her. It's like "Are you that dim?" To me, if you're that dim how do you manage to function from day to day? Can you even walk & chew gum at the same time? Maybe we should euthanize you for your own good. Many people ought to be euthanized for their own good but that's never going to fly until laws are changed.

With all this though, you don't see me or some other women's groups sending down a shit storm on broadcasters or anyone else & demanding them to never show some cartoon because of the sexism to women. You don't see networks censoring that stuff but they'll do it for other groups & most recently have done that for Native Americans (yet, you could still see those stereotypes in old cartoons when they aired in the late '80s & early '90s; I know b/c I saw them personally).

How about some respect for women here? Or better yet, no censorship for anyone? Women, Italians, Irish people, no one else who didn't choose their status in life should get to be fair game while other groups aren't. To even encourage it just furthers racism & causes more problems. Discrimination is discrimination. Why don't you PC cops get that?

If you ask me, the portrayals of women you see to this day just further sexism & ill will toward us. I think it's totally undeserved when it comes to me & probably undeserved for many women. How about the PC police tackle that one instead of setting up barriers to honest discourse & meaningful conversation? Olive Oyl doesn't represent me any more than Mitt Romney represents most of the Republicans I know.

Should We Pierce Kids Too Little to Object? Musings While Waiting for the "Hurricane"

Or, if you like "the big, wet rainstorm" (thanks, Daria). Not sure what we'll be getting this time with Sandy but as you might already know, I'm not the type of person who freaks out about the weather. Go read that entry if you haven't already.

I still have that extra gig to write about. I've decided it's going to be my last one since now I've already worked with most of the bigger background companies in NYC, I've already gotten that learning experience I was doing it for & I'm pursuing other opportunities. More on that later, though.

Right now, it's been hurricane hysteria in my area. I figured while I was dealing with all this, I'd go on and write another of my many rants. Here's one such rant.

A while back I read this entry in a childfree community. Now, let me just say that I'm NOT a child hater & I stopped posting in this community ages ago when the PC police decided to get in my face.

This post brings up an interesting debate: is it cool to pierce a little child's ears (or anything else for that matter)? Or are you taking consent away from that kid or enforcing a gender norm that may not fit the kid as she ages?

The comments went in many directions & definitely made me think. One poster talked about how her earring holes were lopsided as she aged because of having them pierced so young. Others talked about how the practice was "cultural" and implied that those who'd claimed this culture used this to say that anyone outside that ethnic group/background had no right to a contrary opinion on the matter (which, if you try with me, I'm probably going to get in your face about if it's something I actually lived & might have some familiarity with). After some thought, I figured out my take.

I think you're a fucking moron with a lot of self-hate if you would pierce your little child's ears without that kid being old enough to ask for them. If you have other children under 5 and you're doing this, you're an even bigger moron.

If you're the relative of some child & get that kid pierced without the parents' okay, you need to be smacked upside the head & forced to have "inconsiderate prick" tattooed on your face. Painful consequences might make you think twice about making a parent have to deal with this.

Why do I say this? Because getting ears pierced isn't a painless process. It DOES hurt some. I have 3 holes in each ear; I insist on maintaining them. I got my first holes when I was in the 4th grade. You know, 9-10 years old when a kid's old enough to ask for them & take care of turning the studs, putting the solution on the piercings daily, keeping the holes clean, etc. One of those holes ended up growing back after I didn't wear earrings for a while & had a resumed interest in them in 6th grade.

I got the one hole re-pierced then got my second holes in 8th grade. I got my 3rd ones in the 10th grade (I'd have to double check this with class pictures but I'm pretty sure that's accurate; I waited 2 years between the second and third hold piercings). Paid for this stuff with my own money, by the way. I did babysitting when I was in 8th grade and did cat sitting before that. I also was very good about saving my allowance for bigger items.

Case in point: I bought Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1990 when it retailed for $50. I was in the 4th grade at the time & had paid to rent the game numerous times before I bought it with money I'd saved. I may have also paid for the tax but I'm not sure about that. I remember my parents being impressed with this.

My niece is 3 months old. I don't see my sister going & getting her ears pierced (even with her desire for that kid to be a girly girl). She already has one kid under 3 who's a handful; why would she want to add even more to her plate by piercing her little girl's ears? Do you want to add ear piercing maintenance to changing dirty diapers, feedings, burping, erratic sleep schedules, etc.?

Guess who has to clean the ears, turn the studs, put solution on, etc.? You do, Mommy & Daddy! Grandma probably won't have to. Auntie & Uncle probably won't have to. Don't let busybodies put more work on you! I say let the kid decide to do that & make sure they know THEY have to do the maintenance to keep the holes open, make sure the ears don't get infected, etc. If your child doesn't have that kind of personal responsibility, (s)he is too young to get pierced ears.

That entry dealt with ear piercings but could you see some parent getting their baby a navel ring or a tongue ring? I'm sure if that parent wanted to get a genital piercing for their kid, someone would be calling CPS immediately (I'd sure hope so anyway). Why is there a double standard for ear piercing? Why do people think it's okay to pierce ears without a parent's consent but would never think to pierce these other areas? I mean, when we're dealing with babies & kids who can't even speak in complete sentences, pain is pain is pain. Right? Someone want to explain this to me.

I'm just not convinced that a sane, rational parent has enough vanity to justify all that extra work to get pierced earrings for their infant or toddler.

Oh, and what if that kid's earring falls on the floor & (s)he likes to stick things in his/her mouth? You want to deal with that, folks? What if your child or a sibling died from that? Do you want that on your conscience for the rest of your life just because you were too lazy to find clip on earrings when you felt compelled to make your little girl dress like a child pageant contestant? Seriously, what child needs to wear earrings before (s)he can speak in complete sentences & not try taking them out or leaving them for younger siblings to think of as candy they can eat? Most aren't movie stars, pageant queens or even regular attendees of adult church.

Is it just another exercise in "keeping up with the Jones?" What if their kid gets a sleeve tattoo? Are you going to get one for YOUR kid next? Parenting, folks! If you can't do it, then don't procreate. We have enough neglected and abused kids already without deadbeats like you popping out more of them! No one wants to hear you bitching about what's on TV or who's doing a concert. No one is impressed with your imitation of a sprinkler; we just feel sorry for your kids & are pissed at you for draining society's resources by not bothering to parent.

I can also see the point of the female who is a tomboy or a butch lesbian that is as anti-feminine as it gets not being happy about a parent piercing her ears before she was old enough to consent or scream "No way, bitch!" I don't think I'd have liked someone doing that to me without my consent either. Most of us don't like being told what to do or having things inflicted on us without our consent.

Maybe the deadbeats in favor of this should ask how they'd like to have a tattoo they don't want placed in a location that they don't want while their lips are super glued shut, they are handcuffed and otherwise have NO way to tell anyone if they consent or object to that tattoo. They also don't get to shift to disturb the artist's work.

How about this punishment for those assholes? Then they might get what their kids feel about it. Have some damage to your career, self-esteem, psyche & person! Since your vanity runs too deep to think of your own self-interest, this might be the only way to bring home the level of harm a kid in this country could experience.

Note that I'm speaking of American customs & culture. That's where I live & it's my experience (as is everything I ever write about). If you want tolerance or at a minimum understanding of your culture, then you should start explaining instead of telling people they have no right to their opinion if they disagree. In America, that's how you get people to respect your views & values (unless you're dealing with total bigots, of course; that's a whole other scenario).

The "Image" of Lawyer & The Social Justice a.k.a. "We Are the PC Police" Movement

Perception vs. reality is a dichotomy that many newer attorneys surely have to be able to relate to. Public perception, especially among non-lawyers, seems like it hasn't caught up to the archetype of "$100K+ in debt, no jobs or job paying less than a Wal-Mart manager's yearly salary". It gets even more unusual if you're a committee member of a bar association committee that has many veteran attorneys as active members. Being a business owner also seems to drive this perception vs. reality issue.

Then again, if you went back to look at my life, you'd see this conflict in full force. I went to a religious private school that cost a pretty penny in tuition but lived in a trailer park. I was a smart kid taking classes with kids from far higher economic backgrounds than me (even my former best friend didn't come from particularly humble means). The higher level classes at my school weren't associated with kids from broken homes or a dysfunction you could see just by looking at them. I went to a college attended by lots of kids who weren't from a trailer park (Ted Turner's daughter even went there). My sorority didn't have other girls from my parents' situation & I certainly didn't see it at my law school either.

In all this time, no one would ever refer to me as "trailer trash" or "white trash"; honestly, I was always credited as coming from a higher income level than I actually did. No one EVER treated me differently i.e. inferior or viewed me as out of place. I'm pretty sure that to this day, if you didn't ask me but just saw me someplace or didn't know my origins you'd probably never think of me in that way.

It's not that I ever tried to put on airs or act like a social climber. Far from it: I was always just being myself, however eccentric or unusual. In fact, I was trying so hard to rebel from the "prep" image everyone had of me (I got 3 holes pierced in each ear for this reason). No matter what I did, that "prep" image still seemed to follow me; maybe it still does considering I'm a lawyer.

I also wasn't crazy about the "goody goody" image but that bothered me less since I had a laser focus to get out of my hometown. I wasn't going to sleep with guys or do things that would stop me from leaving as fast as I could & as soon as I could. My personality is just naturally seen as "classy," I suppose. Look how big I am on my own privacy!

You could also say my parents (or at least my mother) raised me right since I wasn't hanging around the ruffians who lived in my neighborhood & got into trouble at school. I knew who they were but I had nothing in common with them as people. My methods for doing something to break conformity were still within the system and I had the advantage of my "goody goody, smart kid" image to get away with things.

When I heard about Columbine (which literally happened days before our graduation & was why we could not bring hangars for our robes to the coliseum), I figured that if you want to have a successful high school shooting you'd need a smart kid like me to help you. No one would have suspected me of a thing; I was in the hall one day when my entire class was gone on the senior class picnic (I was the only junior there & my teacher was one of the chaperones) & had no place to go. Other kids around me were being busted for skipping but not a single teacher or administrator approached me to ask why I was in the hall. I'd have gladly told them why & asked them what they'd have me do when my classroom was locked up & my teacher was gone but I ended up hanging out with another teacher during her free period. I was even a page at various school offices & had access to sensitive information such as students' class schedules & personal information.

Now even though I had this persona in high school, I freely said it should be renamed "Parkland Prison". I even have a picture that illustrates WHY this is so. My high school literally had no windows in the classrooms except for these little skinny things that let in almost no light. I have a picture of one of these windows.

There's also that whole petition situation. You'd think the powers there would have been watching my butt like a hawk, especially when my parents sided with me over one of their own in that whole thing. I even had that whole "woman of the people" aspect going for me since I'd speak up if something was asinine though I gave credit where it was due. Strangers with Candy got it right when they said high school was like prison though I said that about mine before I ever saw it.

Scared, respectful of me or just viewed me as too much of a non-issue to deal with (and this doesn't even cover middle school when I started standing up for myself & helped friends who were being racially discriminated against by one of the teachers there)? You decide.

For the record, I STILL think that if you want to take down the maximum amount of people in a high school, you need one of those kids to help you or you're just an amateur + not really committed. You could probably extend that to most other places as well. The "insider" angle.

See what I mean about perception vs. reality? Today, this has led to people asking me for money I don't have (I got a solicitation from The Actor's Fund to help poor actors & I thought "What about poor me?"), assuming I have much more than I do & getting access to things that your average "rabble" probably wouldn't.

I signed up for a forum on Tuesday where my bar association is having a talk with the State Attorney General. I'm sure plenty of Occupy protestors, folk at Credo & others would love the opportunity to ask him why he's not pursuing criminal action against the Wall Street bankers & forces that caused the mortgage crisis. I may have to ask that if others do not. That temptation may be too great to pass up. Plus, you'd better believe I insist on any political figure representing me knowing that I'm watching them like a hawk & if you want my praise, your actions will make or break you.

I'm also a hard core cynic who's getting more hardened by how government has reacted to the Occupy protests. As far as I'm concerned, I think the 1st Amendment & the Constitution are nearly reduced to platitudes at this point. Platitudes mean shit to me, okay?

I'd also like to see if any other topics are mentioned that I may have to inquire about as well (assuming my more progressive colleagues don't seize those moments since any real attorney stands behind the rights of protestors to express their rights without government ordinances, sham "clean up" efforts & other dirty tricks). Going to this event, presumably populated with more of the 1% than the 99%, I'm sure a speaker would be caught off guard by people who aren't engaged in ass kissing.

Again, you find me a politician who isn't a back-pedalling, PC obsessed, hypocritical crybaby who has a fully functioning brain & I'll vote for him/her. There may be an easier way to find this: if only there were an app to tell you about these people, there would be a way to even up the information gap & prevent the guy with the most money & best smear ads from winning every single time b/c mainstream media told you to vote for him.

Oh, and in case you thought I was lying about professional, so-called "mainstream" types supporting the Occupy protests go read this. That's how I'd be if I were in that position since I don't consider myself "special" or "superior" to anyone because of my occupation.

Glad to see some people aren't greedy assholes who should be exiled to their own island. I'd also like to see idiots get the same treatment. In fact, I saw comments from an Internet user that if I saw in real life, I'd have to smack. The "poor me" is sick & tiring; we can ALL play that crap. Plus, playing Word Police isn't going to win you any friends (particularly when you're attacking common phrases like "lame" & "stupid" or claiming that strangers have white privilege -- go back to earlier entries for my views on that topic). The "social justice" movement doesn't have a friend in me, that's for sure.

Not that I condone using the n-word or racial slurs against people (you can insult them in so many better ways such as with the term "God botherer," a British term for "bible thumper" that I'm going to start using) but when you act like a bitch, I'm not going to call you a princess & kiss your feet lest your precious whittle feelings get hurt. That's called "Grow up & join us in the real world! Have some accountability for your assholishness or suffer the consequences."