Ephemerality

How did motherhood become the only acceptable expression of female power? The message that Sarah Palin gives when she spends the first 50% of her Vice Presidential candidacy acceptance speech talking about her role as wife and mother is the same message that tabloids give off when they go absolutely bonkers about star spawn: you might be successful in your given field, but all that means nothing unless you’ve given birth. (And then dieted down back to pre-baby weight within weeks.)

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Sarah Palin: How Tabloid Coverage Exalts Motherhood And By Extension, Sarah Palin

Word. Fetishization of motherhood especially in media has always bothered me.

Of course, it’s necessary for society - if we weren’t constantly convincing women they need to have children to be complete, they might realize they are a lot of work, and especially since the government refuses to help them in substantial ways (cough*subsidized child care, maternity leave, health care)  - stop having them. Especially the successful women, the ones we want reproducing.

Feminism has never been about getting a job for one woman. It’s about making life more fair for women everywhere. It’s not about a piece of the existing pie; there are too many of us for that. It’s about baking a new pie.

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Gloria Steinem, Palin: wrong woman, wrong message

Thank you Gloria Steinem. Preach On.

The images viscerally teach “the importance of being sexy” if you are female. The images teach all of us that acting sexy is how girls/women can have power without being rejected as domineering or bitchy (see media coverage of Hillary Clinton for the way “non-sexy” female power is conveyed).

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Feministing: Stockholm Syndrome in Media

and see media coverage of britney spears for what happens when you loose the ‘sexy.’ although in britney’s case there are other factors - i remember the media depicting her as ‘fat’ with a fiendish sort of glee.