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I admit to being an avid reader at Gosselins Without Pity: gosselinswithoutpity.blogspot.com/
I admit to snarking along with them at nearly everything.
But there's one trend there that really irks me, and keep in mind how much it pains me to say anything nice about that wretched person Kate. I do appreciate her and her fame for one thing: Now when people ask me why I won't have a hospital birth, I can point directly to her and say "because every L&D nurse I have ever encountered has that nasty personality" and they basically shut up.
But the trend that irks me is the trend to rip on her appearance. There's just something so nasty about grown women ripping on one another's looks. Weren't we supposed to get over that in high school? Don't we get enough lookism from the media? Do we really need to weigh in on it with one another on top of it? Can't on this one little point we stick together?
Sometimes, the posters strike me as being from rural holes in the wall as they refer to her "hoochie mama" clothing choices. Maybe it's because I live in the Sin City of the North, but she looks like most any well put together 34 year old mom I know who has the body for what she wears. If I wore that here, no one would look twice. A few people might actually call me boring. And my 47 year old stepmother dresses rather similarly. If anyone dared call her a hoochie mama within my hearing range they'd have some explaining to do.
But they wouldn't.
See the internet affords that. I sincerely doubt anyone would flip and freak about "omg you look like a slut" to her face.
Recently, a poster shared this quote:
There comes a time when a woman needs to stop thinking about her looks and focus her energies on raising her children. This time comes at the moment of conception. A child needs a role model, not a supermodel. ~Astrid Alauda, on the "hot mom" trend
I don't know Astrid Alauda. I have never seen her. But the first thought that popped into my head reading that was "you sound fat." I have never see a woman rip on another woman's appearance who could in fact call herself attractive. Sorry, I just haven't. Women who are well put together and happy with their appearance (and I mean really are, not claim they feel fabulous and sexy in their 300 lb bodies with a hair cut from 1990 and land's end wardrobe circa 1998) don't slam other women for trying to look good. Now maybe my assumption can be construed as woman bashing too, fair enough. But I am trying to suggest one "consider the source." I think it speaks volumes more about how a woman feels about herself when she criticizes another woman for even trying to look good versus what it says about a woman trying to look good.
Now, maybe Alauda was trying to tell women to cut themselves some slack, don't feel so bad if you're not a size four. I have more than one friend who looks absolutely stunning for an adult mother closer to 50 than 22, but but spends most of her time whining and hating herself for not losing her last 15 lbs. It's unattractive to put it mildly, and someday she's going to look back and say "wow I was perfectly lovely, too bad I was too busy feeling insecure instead of getting over myself and having fun and appreciating myself." So yeah, that kind of advice is good for women like her. "Relax a little, this isn't America's Next Top Model." But taken out of context, that quote can have a snarky "well that's nice you look nice but it's really unnecessary" demeaning tone to it.
So on one hand, we have a society bemoaning the women who after childbirth turn into the lesbian soccer mom sloth creature, making herself unattractive to her husband and the world at large. We remind her that her husband would like sex sometime this decade and not with the androgynous beast she has become. It is implied if not outright stated that if her husband strays during this time, it's her fault for not going back to the lovely woman she was before kids. We pressure her to get in shape since then she'll have more energy and live longer "for the kids." Then, when she does look good, even with a bit of plastic surgery for help like with Kate's tummy tuck, we rip her to shreds for daring to look good or think about herself. Can't win for losing.
So fine, complain about the exploitation, the lack of privacy for the kids (did we really need to see poops in the toilet?) the idea that somehow paparazzi are invading her privacy while they shoot the exact same things TLC are, the whining about the paparazzi when they could just go in their back yard instead of right out front, the nasty, ugly, mean, vindictive way she speaks to... anyone, but let's lay off the appearance bashing. It's petty, juvenile, and makes the other claims suspect by the very nature of being so petty and juvenile. And in a world where women are constantly judged and evaluated on their appearance, by everyone from the grocer to their husbands to people on the street, can't we cut out just *one* element and refuse to participate in that kind of patriarchal induced misogyny?
I admit to snarking along with them at nearly everything.
But there's one trend there that really irks me, and keep in mind how much it pains me to say anything nice about that wretched person Kate. I do appreciate her and her fame for one thing: Now when people ask me why I won't have a hospital birth, I can point directly to her and say "because every L&D nurse I have ever encountered has that nasty personality" and they basically shut up.
But the trend that irks me is the trend to rip on her appearance. There's just something so nasty about grown women ripping on one another's looks. Weren't we supposed to get over that in high school? Don't we get enough lookism from the media? Do we really need to weigh in on it with one another on top of it? Can't on this one little point we stick together?
Sometimes, the posters strike me as being from rural holes in the wall as they refer to her "hoochie mama" clothing choices. Maybe it's because I live in the Sin City of the North, but she looks like most any well put together 34 year old mom I know who has the body for what she wears. If I wore that here, no one would look twice. A few people might actually call me boring. And my 47 year old stepmother dresses rather similarly. If anyone dared call her a hoochie mama within my hearing range they'd have some explaining to do.
But they wouldn't.
See the internet affords that. I sincerely doubt anyone would flip and freak about "omg you look like a slut" to her face.
Recently, a poster shared this quote:
There comes a time when a woman needs to stop thinking about her looks and focus her energies on raising her children. This time comes at the moment of conception. A child needs a role model, not a supermodel. ~Astrid Alauda, on the "hot mom" trend
I don't know Astrid Alauda. I have never seen her. But the first thought that popped into my head reading that was "you sound fat." I have never see a woman rip on another woman's appearance who could in fact call herself attractive. Sorry, I just haven't. Women who are well put together and happy with their appearance (and I mean really are, not claim they feel fabulous and sexy in their 300 lb bodies with a hair cut from 1990 and land's end wardrobe circa 1998) don't slam other women for trying to look good. Now maybe my assumption can be construed as woman bashing too, fair enough. But I am trying to suggest one "consider the source." I think it speaks volumes more about how a woman feels about herself when she criticizes another woman for even trying to look good versus what it says about a woman trying to look good.
Now, maybe Alauda was trying to tell women to cut themselves some slack, don't feel so bad if you're not a size four. I have more than one friend who looks absolutely stunning for an adult mother closer to 50 than 22, but but spends most of her time whining and hating herself for not losing her last 15 lbs. It's unattractive to put it mildly, and someday she's going to look back and say "wow I was perfectly lovely, too bad I was too busy feeling insecure instead of getting over myself and having fun and appreciating myself." So yeah, that kind of advice is good for women like her. "Relax a little, this isn't America's Next Top Model." But taken out of context, that quote can have a snarky "well that's nice you look nice but it's really unnecessary" demeaning tone to it.
So on one hand, we have a society bemoaning the women who after childbirth turn into the lesbian soccer mom sloth creature, making herself unattractive to her husband and the world at large. We remind her that her husband would like sex sometime this decade and not with the androgynous beast she has become. It is implied if not outright stated that if her husband strays during this time, it's her fault for not going back to the lovely woman she was before kids. We pressure her to get in shape since then she'll have more energy and live longer "for the kids." Then, when she does look good, even with a bit of plastic surgery for help like with Kate's tummy tuck, we rip her to shreds for daring to look good or think about herself. Can't win for losing.
So fine, complain about the exploitation, the lack of privacy for the kids (did we really need to see poops in the toilet?) the idea that somehow paparazzi are invading her privacy while they shoot the exact same things TLC are, the whining about the paparazzi when they could just go in their back yard instead of right out front, the nasty, ugly, mean, vindictive way she speaks to... anyone, but let's lay off the appearance bashing. It's petty, juvenile, and makes the other claims suspect by the very nature of being so petty and juvenile. And in a world where women are constantly judged and evaluated on their appearance, by everyone from the grocer to their husbands to people on the street, can't we cut out just *one* element and refuse to participate in that kind of patriarchal induced misogyny?
