Feminist Bigotry
Hoary old feminist Anna Quindlen is at it again.
In her newest piece, she mocks the Miss America pageant, contrasting its winners unfavorably with career achievers Katie Couric and Hillary Clinton (somehow, Condoleezza Rice is missing . . .), concluding:
Miss America was supplanted by her sisters, who carried briefcases instead of roses and preferred a suit to a maillot-and-heels ensemble.
Well. 'Scuse me if I'm not caught up in Quindlen's "you've-come-a-long-way-baby" frisson of excitement. Perhaps it's worth noting that I've never seen a Miss America pageant from start to finish, and I couldn't have been less interested in beauty contests as a general matter. It's just not my thing. But even so, I just don't understand why women like Quindlen write, think and act like they do.
It was unfortunate in the days when women's only avenue to prestige and power was through beauty contests like the Miss America pageant. It was wrong; thankfully, it's been rectified.
But now it seems that Quindlen, and women like her, want to do the same thing from another angle -- limit the women other girls can admire to those who "carry briefcases instead of roses." Apparently, there can only be so many "important" women, and they must only be hard-charging careerists. Quindlen writes, "the white gloves are off and there are no dummies involved." Were (are) the women who competed in the pageant necessarily dummies? I think not -- what cramped, bigoted view of women recognizes only one kind of merit, and one kind of intelligence?
What's so wrong with carrying roses, in white gloves, no less? Isn't there room for both Miss America and the Katie/Hillary careerists?
Must all women really aspire to the same things, all the time? And must those things be only what old-style feminists like Quindlen deem to be "good" for us?
In her newest piece, she mocks the Miss America pageant, contrasting its winners unfavorably with career achievers Katie Couric and Hillary Clinton (somehow, Condoleezza Rice is missing . . .), concluding:
Miss America was supplanted by her sisters, who carried briefcases instead of roses and preferred a suit to a maillot-and-heels ensemble.
Well. 'Scuse me if I'm not caught up in Quindlen's "you've-come-a-long-way-baby" frisson of excitement. Perhaps it's worth noting that I've never seen a Miss America pageant from start to finish, and I couldn't have been less interested in beauty contests as a general matter. It's just not my thing. But even so, I just don't understand why women like Quindlen write, think and act like they do.
It was unfortunate in the days when women's only avenue to prestige and power was through beauty contests like the Miss America pageant. It was wrong; thankfully, it's been rectified.
But now it seems that Quindlen, and women like her, want to do the same thing from another angle -- limit the women other girls can admire to those who "carry briefcases instead of roses." Apparently, there can only be so many "important" women, and they must only be hard-charging careerists. Quindlen writes, "the white gloves are off and there are no dummies involved." Were (are) the women who competed in the pageant necessarily dummies? I think not -- what cramped, bigoted view of women recognizes only one kind of merit, and one kind of intelligence?
What's so wrong with carrying roses, in white gloves, no less? Isn't there room for both Miss America and the Katie/Hillary careerists?
Must all women really aspire to the same things, all the time? And must those things be only what old-style feminists like Quindlen deem to be "good" for us?
posted by LadybugUSA at 6:22 PM
2 Comments:
Carol you could win any contest. Feminists lose all contests.
This must be the Chris Matthews equivalent of (paraphrasing), "They joined [the military] because they couldn't find a job." Yep! All those young women are poor, ignorant slobs. Except that I've heard some winners eloquently defend the contest, and have not seen any contestants led on stage in handcuffs or by a nose ring.
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