Original Diva

A little over 15 years ago, I was briefly a member of NOW, but I left because they became too fringe and irrelevant. Lately, it seems all they are is a mouthpiece for far left causes vs. an organization for all women. So it’s perhaps not surprising that NOW has not said one peep about all the of the rapes and sexual assaults going on at Occupy Wall Street camps. This is just the latest one:

Where did I found out about this? Not on NOW’s website, but ironically, the right-leaning BigGovernment blog, which has been doing a great job covering the various assaults on women at the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) camps. Of course, critics will say they are just trying to discredit OWS, but on the other side, could we perhaps wonder if pro-OWS groups aren’t purposefully ignoring serious assault charges because they don’t want the movement discredited?

It’s not just an isolated incident. The first story I read was about a learning disabled girl in Ohio who was told to share a tent with a strange man at Occupy Cleveland. A 14-year-old runaway experienced numerous incidents of statutory rape at Occupy Dallas. Here are a few more stories:

Three men threatened to kill 24-year-old Occupy Wall Street protester: cops
(She had reported a sexual assault to the police.)

Woman raped in tent at Glasgow George Square protest camp
(She wasn’t just raped, she was gang-raped.)

Woman charged with pimping teen recruited at Occupy NH rally
(Great, not just rape but child prostitution.)

A sexual free-for-all seems to be contributing to the dangerous environment for women:

Protesters Having Sex, Losing Virginity At Occupy Wall Street
(‘One protester who left his girlfriend behind in California has “shared sleeping bags with… several women”…’)

Occupy Madison permit not re-issued
(Public masturbation was one the reasons cited for the permit being revoked.)

Public sex and masturbation may seem to be in the spirit of “free love,” but ultimately, such environments put a lot of pressure on young women to be sexually active and could potentially put young men into a state of hyper-arousal. Unfortunately, a few of those men who are angry at a system of injustice may be all too happy to take out their feelings of powerlessness on a young woman nearby. Rape would give them a feeling of power and control they are otherwise not feeling in the world.

Rape and outright assault aren’t the only problems. Women have been harassed in other ways, such as this woman who ran a small coffee kiosk near Occupy San Diego:

After years of being in business, she shut down due to fearing for her life. She had supported Occupy Wall Street prior to her experiences with the negative elements at the park next to her business.

Now the big question is, will Occupy Wall Street take this problem seriously? Or will they try to sweep it under the rug? Sadly, most reports lately are suggesting that women are being instructed to deal with assault within the OWS communities, rather than taking problems to outside authorities, perhaps to keep negative press away. This is sickening.

The modern feminist movement of the 1960s actually sprouted up in part because the left at the time was hostile to women’s issues. “Free love” became “free sex” and disrespect for women. The feminist movement was a backlash to that treatment. The question is, will a new feminist movement arise from the treatment of women at Occupy Wall Street? Or are young women too brainwashed by our overly sexual culture to realize how much sexual pressure they are really under?

Perhaps men will join a new movement this time. In this last video I share, men claim to be victims of assault and sexual assault at Occupy Ottawa – and the group shows an extremely hostile attitude towards the “outsider” who wishes to film the meeting:

JC Penney should fire the idiots who thought it was a good idea to market a t-shirt for girls that says “I’m too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me.” JC Penney not only thought this shirt was OK to sell in their stores, but they went even further with their website description for the item, which read:

“Who has time for homework when there’s a new Justin Bieber album out? She’ll love this tee that’s just as cute and sassy as she is”

Now, it’s clear from reading some of the comments on articles about this issue that a lot of folks simply don’t get what’s wrong with this type of shirt. “Can’t you people take a joke?” is the typical response from the oblivious (actually, it’s more likely to read: “Cant u take a joke?”). Let’s outline clearly why concerned parents and smart women need to stand up against this sort of crap:

Our young girls are constantly under an assault of media that tells them that they are “less than” if they are not pretty, thin and flawless. From women’s fashion magazines to the strippers that are now becoming ubiquitous as background in certain television scenes, girls are bombarded with false images of women and advertising designed to make them feel physically inferior so they will become lifelong consumers of cosmetics, beauty products, and plastic surgery.

Is it a conspiracy? If you define “conspiracy” as large companies trying to brainwash young customers into becoming lifelong addicts to their products, yes, it sure is.

T-shirts like this are just another way to feed insecurity into the minds of average looking girls. What parent would buy this shirt for a kid who was ugly? What sort of narcissism is this shirt promoting when it is bought for a pretty girl? What sort of message does it tell her?

Many, many years ago Susan Faludi wrote a seminal book on feminist called “Backlash,” which described how many advances made by the feminist movement were in danger of being lost due to a backlash against the movement. As she noted at the time, much of the “backlash” was insidious and subtle. Nowadays, no-one questions the right of women to work, but the backlash consists of trying to put girls into boxes based on their appearance. I actually get less upset at conservative religious people who think women should stay at home and raise kids – at least there is some respect for the ideal of old-fashioned womanhood there. But the trend towards elevating beauty as the only value a girl has is ultimately misogynistic at its core.

I recently stumbled across an article I remember reading some years ago. The headline blares provocatively: Doctor: I built myself a wife. A plastic surgeon took on a “dowdy” woman as his wife and then rebuilt her using his plastic surgery skills. Apparently, only after he put her through eight operations, did he finally “fall in love” with her.

At least he’s not a total hypocrite. He’s also done work on himself: “I inherited a big nose from my dad, so my business partner made me a new one. And I have Botox too.”

I just have to wonder how desperate you must be to marry a man who doesn’t love you for who you are, who then puts you through multiple surgeries to change you into who he wants you to be, and then finally, after all that work, he “falls in love” with your new, glamorous body.

What will happen when this woman ages, I wonder? Will she turn into Jocelyn Wildenstein? Or will her attentive doctor-husband find another “promising” young woman to mold into his ideal woman?

It’s really great to see an actress who is aging gracefully and not liposuctioning the life out of her thighs. In this photo, 47-year-old Mariska Hargitay sports a nice one-piece bathing suit instead of a bikini, and looks healthy and real, not overly thin or plastic. The usually snarky and overly critical Daily Mail was nice for a change and actually called her an “arresting site” in its headline. You can compare this picture of Hargitay to Halle Berry, just two years younger, who opts for an eerily flat stomach and fake boobs over natural curves.

In the news today is a story about 16-year-old model Hailey Clauson and her parents suing Urban Outfitters for putting a “salacious” image of her taken when she was only 15 on t-shirts:

Filed in Manhattan on Thursday, the lawsuit alleges: ‘She is posed in a blatantly salacious manner with her legs spread, without a bra, revealing portions of her breasts.

‘The image of Teen in a spread eagle position making her crotch area the focal point of the image may portray a child in a sexually suggestive manner and may be in violation of one or more federal and/or state laws.’

It accuses Mr Parry of making ‘her crotch area the focal point of the image’, adding that it also appears to reveal ‘what some observers believe to be pubic hair.’

[Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2027729/Parents-sue-Urban-Outfitters-salacious-Hailey-Clauson-T-shirt-28m.html]

A number of things are really sad about this whole episode. One is that this young girl was posing for such sexy shots in the first place. If you search her name on the Internet, you’ll come up with a bunch of photos taken when she was as young as 14 that are clearly inappropriate for a girl of that age. One highlights her bare legs as she poses provocatively in what appears to be pleather underwear. In this picture it’s clear she’s a child, and yet the photographer posed her in such a way to make her look like a sexualized adult.

If you want to be creeped out, read the comments on this thread about Hailey Clauson. The thread is started by a man who is clearly obsessed with Hailey. He gushes in his initial post:

I came across her completely randomly. I find her features so stunning even if she’s just 14. I can see her doing great things!

He then posts picture after picture of her, some in bikinis where she’s clearly so young she barely has gotten any womanly curves yet.

What’s sad about this thread is that it’s not just one creepy guy slobbering over a 14-year-old girl, but many women participate in the worship of Hailey’s body. A constant focal point is her lips:

Apparently she is in NYC at the moment. I think she is amazing, just needs to grow into herself a little more and learn to use her lips in the best way so they aren’t too distracting. A lot of girls’ lips look bigger when they are younger, then they grow into them (I am thinking of Hannah Davis).

The entire thread on this young model spans 65 pages. That grown adults would spend this much time oohing and aahing over the beauty of a young teen is extremely disturbing.

But, this is all part and parcel to our supermodel culture. Modeling is seen as “glamorous” and great attention is put towards the so-called “talent” of the model. People obsessed with models, men and women alike, don’t seem to be bothered one bit by the increasingly young ages of the models being photographed.

And despite some outcry over the use of young models, and even industry standards set to keep girls under 16 off the runway, casting directors and photographers seem to have no problem using underage girls. Hailey Clauson had actually appeared on the runway at 15, despite an industry rule that underage girls weren’t supposed to be doing runway work. The fault lies with the people in the industry, many of whom seem to be either oblivious to the exploitation of girls or are consciously complicit in it.

Blaming the Parents

In comments on the articles over the Hailey Clauson lawsuit with Urban Outfitters, people seemed to brush it off by saying that the parents were simply “in it for the money” and didn’t really care about whether their child was sexualized, considering how many bikini shots of her are plastered over the Internet. This may be true, but it still does not excuse Urban Outfitters for printing the t-shirts, nor does it excuse the photographer who took the pictures in the first place.

That said, parents who allow their girls to be photographed for modeling purposes should be more careful about the types of pictures they allow. Unfortunately, they aren’t that careful. They themselves may have been exploited as children, or they are simply dumb, clueless or greedy.

Should there be laws against taking certain types of photographs of teenage girls? If so, where is the line? What separates a “suggestive” photo from a pornographic one?

Perhaps the Urban Outfitters lawsuit is the way to go – if more photographers and companies fear litigation over salacious photos of young girls, they will be less likely to indulge in it.

Regardless, we as a society need to start demanding the end to child exploitation in the name of modeling. If you don’t think these sorts of pictures aren’t encourage pedophilia, go read that Hailey Clauson thread I linked to above. I personally found it chilling. Some of the posters there are people who would have no problem having sex with a minor if given the opportunity. They are clearly mentally disturbed, and society is encouraging their youth fetish.

Halle Berry just turned 45, and by all measures, she really does look great. However, we need to be aware that when the media prints glowing articles about how “hot” an actress is in her 40s, that she probably had some help. Here in this photo, 45-year-old Halle looks good, but almost a little too skinny, in her bikini. If you’re a normal woman living a harried, normal life, you might wonder how it’s possible to have that flat of the stomach once you pass the big 4-0.

I grew up quite skinny myself, but have definitely found that after 40, my tummy likes to hang onto a little bit of belly fat. It’s not a huge deal, and I am not going on low-fat diet nor doing obsessive exercise to burn it off. I’m still the right weight for my height, and I honestly wonder whether it’d even be healthy to try to get a super flat stomach at my age! So I do know, based on how extreme my metabolism used to be, that any normal woman who gets to middle age is going to have a little bit of softness going on, because if I can get a little belly fat now after being able to eat anything and look downright anorexic in my 20s, most women are going to have a tough time staying super skinny into their mid-40s.

So how does a star like Halle Berry do it? There are a few things she might be doing – one is that she could be on an extreme diet of the “lettuce” variety. Two is that she could have gotten liposuction on her belly. Three is that she is using diet pills – and in Hollywood, there is a black market for diet pills for the extremely obese that are sometimes used by women who don’t really need the pills. Of course, she also has the time and money to use a high-end personal trainer and possibly even a personal chef to help her keep her body close to perfect.

Most female stars are under tremendous pressure to look good way past their prime. It’s a shame that more of them don’t stand up and just “own” growing older. But fear and attachment to being young and beautiful is probably the reason – and they are, after all, human.

We average women simply need to remember that, while bodies like Halle Berry’s do show us what’s “possible” for 40something women, they don’t express what’s realistic. Staying fit and being in shape is a worthy goal, but trying to maintain an unreasonably flat tummy  (to the point of being concave) is not.

The Daily Mail (from the UK) just published a very sad article by self-proclaimed attractiveness expert Catherine Hakim on how attractive people do better in the world…of course, she’s also peddling a new book that purports to explain how you, too, can gain “erotic capital” and become more “attractive” even if you aren’t naturally good-looking. She writes:

It may not be fair, but it’s definitely a big plus to have been born handsome or good-looking. You’re more likely to develop charisma, confidence and sex appeal — and you could end up earning up to 20 per cent more.

How do I know this? Because, as a social scientist, I’ve uncovered evidence from dozens of academic studies that all point to the same remarkable conclusion: people who are socially and physically attractive get a giant step up in life.

(Note: She says she’s “uncovered evidence” from academic studies. Wouldn’t the studies themselves have “uncovered” the evidence? Has she done any studies herself? Or did she just find a bunch of studies to support her claims? Are there any opposing studies she’s not mentioning? At any rate, I’ll let her continue…)

They’re more successful. They have better sex lives. They’re more persuasive. They’re less likely to get depressed. They’re more alluring to both sexes. They’re even slightly more intelligent.

You may never have the symmetrical features and even-toned skin that are a vital component of the Western concept of beauty, but you can certainly acquire other related qualities.

At the heart of true attractiveness is what I call erotic capital. It’s an asset that’s been ignored in the stampede to analyse people’s economic capital (what you earn and possess), social capital (who you know) and human capital (what you know).

Erotic capital is a blend of beauty, sex appeal, liveliness, charm, social skills, sexual competence and talent for dressing well. In other words, it’s a crucial mixture of physical and social attractiveness.

[Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2027701/Think-need-natural-beauty-attractive-How-learn-sexy.html]

I don’t know where to begin with all this, so I’ll just pick at some of her specific claims in the article:

Other feminists argue that it should be against the law for employers to take any account of a woman’s appearance — even if she’s obese. Yet obesity is known to be a major health risk. Obese people are less likely to marry, more likely to have a low-earning spouse if they do, and generally have lower incomes themselves.

A few things are wrong with this. First, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Are obese people earning less because they are obese? Or are they obese because they earn less? Eating healthy costs more. Getting hamburgers at McDonald’s is cheap. Being able to go to a personal trainer or even take yoga costs money.

This also gives the false impression that overweight people are doomed to being single. The fact is, every obese friend or family member I’ve ever known has been married. (Sometimes more than once.) I was always the skinny one. Never been married. Not that marriage should be the end-all and be-all of existence anyway!

She continues on to say:

So it’s not surprising that many young women regard feminism as irrelevant. The steady growth in sales of cosmetics, fashions and cosmetic surgery suggests that rising affluence and everyday reality are more influential than any feminist rhetoric.

Ummm…how about the billions of dollars spent on advertising and the constant media brainwashing targeted at women that tells us we must look young and thin forever?

In the midst of this “pretty propaganda,” we have women like this like this author, who are actively trying to make money off of the shallow rather than working to change it. This is not the fault of feminism, but the fault of society and women who don’t strive to go beyond it.

She also writes:

Attractive men and women also have, on average, twice as many dates and more active and better sex lives. Statistically, attractive women even have better marriages. When the wife has more erotic capital than her husband, the marriage is likely to be more mutually supportive and positive. (Intriguingly, research shows a marriage is more likely to suffer when the husband is more attractive than the wife.)

Specious reasoning here. Having dated an awful lot, I can firmly state that having a large quantity of dates is not desirable. Quality is what we want here, not quantity. As for sex, even a high quantity of “quality” sex gets tiring after a while if it’s not done in a meaningful, long-term relationship. It’s just a merry-go-round of fleeting connections, not something fulfilling.

As for marriages, I’d have to look at the specific studies she’s referencing, but I am skeptical that marriages do better in the long term if the wife happens to have more “erotic capital” than her husband. The big question here is this: How long did those studies track the couples? A young man (or a middle-aged man in a mid-life crisis) may very well be enamored by his pretty young wife, but how does he feel about her years later when she’s aged? I suppose in some respects that might prove the theory that having “erotic capital” can “help” a marriage, but I look at it like this: If you’ve based your marriage on your youthful good looks, then at some point you’re going to lose, because aging happens to everyone.

At any rate, I just find this shallow justification of trying to be more “attractive” because “that’s the way the world works” to be sad and pathetic. Nothing is said here about other things that might make life fulfilling, including spirituality, good friendships, family, and life purpose.

While I’m all for everyone making the “best” with what they’ve got – that is, being healthy and wearing clothes that flatter and are age appropriate – I just don’t think we all need to work at being charming and “captivating.” Some of my favorite people are those who wouldn’t rate even a 5 on the physical attractiveness scale, but they rate a 10 when it comes to their hearts.

Welcome to the Original Diva blog. This site has gone through many iterations. In its previous iteration, it was focused on single women. Unfortunately, a server outage and life changes disrupted the publishing of the website. I got into a relationship and moved to another state. While I will still be talking about being a single woman here, I’ll be expanding the discussion to include other topics relating to women as well.

One issue that I feel strongly about is the constant bombardment of images in the media aimed at sexualizing not just women, but more and more, younger girls. Girls can’t just have fun anymore – they are under increasing pressure to look pretty and be thin at younger and younger ages. The sexualization of women and girls has long-term effects – not just on the self-esteem of females, but on the mental health of everyone. Men, I believe, suffer tremendously when they are brainwashed into seeing women as objects. They can end up becoming desensitized and unable to connect to real women and have lasting, fulfilling, loving relationships as a result.

I’ll be discussing these issues and more on the blog. Welcome.