Why is it that, "Do something for yourself." means "Do what I think is right for you."?
Yes, I'm amending my eating habits...for gods sake, you talk about slim fast like I'm shoving my finger down my throat. I'm not going to go all diet crazy ...I just want to get some things under control...it was a decision I reached for MYSELF! Can't you just be happy that I'm trying to improve a small portion of my life?
I appreciate the concern...I really do... but don't tell me what you think I should do...I won't listen, I can guarantee it...I am stubborn beyond reason.
and hey, by the way...
Don't tell me my best friend is "bad for me" and that "you feel sorry for me"...you know what? FUCK YOU!
She is my best friend...what right do you have to tell me that you "feel sorry for me"...sorry that I am lucky enough to have her as my best friend?
I'm sorry you don't understand...you never will...because it doesn't make sense to you...you don't see the reciprocity in our friendship...yes, I do get stressed easily...but don't pin that on her! how I handle life events is MY problem...don't push them on her.
Just because I don't seem to aspire to the same goals you do, doesn't mean I'm not out there trying to make something of myself...just because I'm not dating anyone...just because I don't really want to date anyone right now...doesn't mean I'm a failure!
I went through HELL for awhile, and you know what? Believe it or not, I am much happier now than I ever was with a boyfriend.
I guess you just don't understand what it's like to have meaningful relationships without being "in a relationship"...
I'm so confused...people that say they care about me...and want "what's best for me"...don't appreciate when I try and take steps to help myself...they just heap on more criticism...
mother fucker.
it's not like I'm not trying!
I want MORE...I want my life to mean something...and you know, sometimes that doesn't happen instantaneously...sometimes you have to wait...be patient...for the right moment to come along.
I am sick and fucking tired of people telling me what I can or cannot do...
most people don't even know me anyways...they think they know, but they have no idea...
Monday, March 5, 2007
Thursday, March 1, 2007
An Article Worth Reading - Women's History Month - Part 2
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Evan Agostini/Getty Images
by Joanne Bamberger
There are plenty of women in the news, and while some are good role models, many aren’t the types of women we’d like our daughters to emulate. You don’t often hear mothers saying, “Some day, I hope my daughter will be just like Britney Spears!”
So where are the role models? Sure, there are high profile heavyweights like U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, just to name a few. But what about the women who have blazed trails or championed causes who don’t get daily headlines? There are thousands of them out there, yet their names don’t often make the nightly newscasts or get mentioned in cocktail party conversations.
While it was certainly hard to choose, here are 10 women you may not have heard of who are definitely worth taking the time to learn more about:
Emme Aronson: First plus-size supermodel
Recent stories about the deaths of anorexic fashion models have suggested that more should be done to convince clothing designers and producers of runway fashion shows to resist hiring models unless they meet a certain body mass index requirement. In other words: No more stick-figure models.
Plus-size supermodel Aronson—a spokeswoman for the National Eating Disorders Association, has championed that cause for many years. The outspoken advocate tries to convince girls to embrace the fact that we all come in different shapes and sizes, and that being healthy doesn’t mean being a size zero.
”We need to take collective responsibility for this cultural catastrophe and recognize our obligation to not only learn as much as we can about eating disorders but also how our actions influence young women and girls,” Aronson says. “It is imperative that we not just skim the surface, but dig deeper about unattainable ideals of beauty which can lead to life-threatening diseases with sometimes permanent consequences."
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Christian Charisius/Reuters/Corbis
Waris Dirie: Crusader against female genital mutilation
When Waris Dirie was 5 years old, she was subjected to the ritual female circumcision that was commonplace in her native Somalia. In that culture, female circumcision is performed to supposedly ensure a girl’s purity before her eventual marriage. But many times, as in Dirie’s case, it is performed under unsanitary conditions, without anesthesia, and can lead to death or lifelong pain.
At 13, Dirie managed to escape Somalia by agreeing to work in her uncle’s home during his tenure as Somalia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. There, years later, Dirie was discovered by a fashion photographer, which led to her eventual career as a successful model.
To help prevent other girls and women from suffering her same fate, she created the Waris Dirie Foundation to shine a light on this cruel procedure. As a result of her work, she was named the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation in 1997.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Alex Wong/Getty Images for Meet the Press
Dr. Julie Gerberding: Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Ranked No. 12 on Forbes magazine’s 2005 list of the 100 most powerful women, Dr. Julie Gerberding is not a name one hears on a daily basis. But with a possible bird flu pandemic on the way that could change.
Gerberding is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Gerberding and her staff have spent years studying and preparing for an anticipated bird flu pandemic. In February, she led a drill to test the country’s readiness in the event of a human outbreak of avian flu.
Gerberding allowed the media to monitor the trial run and report on how the CDC and other agencies involved would handle such a crisis. Some were surprised at the move, but Gerberding told the International Herald Tribune that, since a human pandemic could lead to millions of deaths worldwide, it was necessary to demonstrate to state and local governments the importance of focusing on bird flu preparedness.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Salvatore Di Nolfi/KEYSTONE/AP
Dr. Wangari Maathai: 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner
An environmental and political activist, Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, which she was awarded in 2004 for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”
As founder of the Greenbelt Movement, Maathai was directly responsible for convincing Kenyans, mostly women, of the need to start a tree-planting campaign in their country, both to protect against soil erosion and to provide an ongoing source of firewood for cooking fires. That effort has led to planting more than 20 million trees in her nation.
In addition to her environmental activism, Maathai also was active in opposing the oppressive government of Daniel arap Moi. She was eventually elected to the Kenyan Parliament in 2002.
According to one news report, her former husband was said to have remarked at one time that they divorced because Maathai was “too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn and too hard to control.”
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
Afghanistani woman at school
Safiye Amajan: Afghan teacher
Despite threats from the Taliban during their time in power in Afghanistan against those who defied their orders to cease educating girls, Safiye Amajan spent many years running a school for girls out of her home. After that oppressive government was toppled, Amajan served as the provincial head of the country’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs until she was murdered in 2006. In that post, she was responsible for opening several schools and vocational training centers specifically with the purpose of educating women and girls who had not had that opportunity under the Taliban.
Even though she must have known her life was still in danger from the Taliban, Amajan continued her commitment to educating Afghan girls. According to Amnesty International, the group that took responsibility for her death claimed Amajan had been an American spy, using the country’s nascent women’s movement as a cover for her activities.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Edward Stapel/AP
Dr. Ruth Simmons: First African-American woman to lead an Ivy League university
Dr. Ruth Simmons is not your average academic. In 2001, Simmons was named president of Brown University—the first African-American woman to be at the helm of an Ivy League university. Immediately prior to taking over at Brown, Simmons served as president of another prestigious school, the Seven-Sister institution Smith College.
Simmons did not have an easy path to academic super-stardom. One of 11 children born to Texas sharecroppers, Simmons rarely received more than a few pieces of fruit as holiday gifts. She eventually earned a scholarship to attend college.
Her career in academia has been marked by a commitment to enhancing diversity and opportunities. According to one report, a Smith faculty member once asked Simmons’ advice for two additional discussion sections for his course.
Simmons answer? “Dream bigger."
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Deborah Feingold/Corbis
Zainab Salbi: Women for Women International
Zainab Salbi was born and raised in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Surviving that nation’s wars taught her that the hardest-hit victims inevitably were the women and children—women who lost husbands, children who lost fathers, women who were used as tools of war through rape and torture.
Determined to change that, in 1993 she founded Women to Women International to help women survivors of war rebuild their lives through vocational training, providing seed capital for women to start their own businesses and helping women learn to read and write to become active citizens in their societies.
Since its inception, WFWI has raised $24 million and helped more than 55,000 women in wartorn countries including Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Rwanda. For its trailblazing humanitarian work, WFWI was awarded the 2006 the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which included a $1.5 million award to continue its work.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Nicholas Ratzenboeck/AP
Kelly Perkins: Heart transplant recipient, mountain climber, organ donation advocate
By the age of 30, Kelly Perkins was an enthusiastic mountain climber who had climbed many of the world’s most famous peaks. In 1992, shortly after she and her husband Dan returned from a European hiking trip to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, Kelly discovered she had a form of heart disease called cardiomyopathy. In 1995, she would undergo a heart transplant.
Not wanting to face life as an invalid, Perkins vowed to improve her physical health so she could continue to pursue her passion for mountain climbing. She became the first heart transplant recipient to reach some of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.
Perkins continues to climb mountains around the world, not only for her personal pleasure but also to raise awareness for organ transplantation and donation.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© PELLETIER MICHELINE/CORBIS SYGMA
Jody Williams: Founder of International Campaign Against Land Mines and winner of 1997 Nobel Peace Prize
Trained as a teacher of English as a second language, Jody Williams became aware in the 1980s of the growing problem of land mines around the world—deadly weapons planted for a wartime enemy, but left after war’s end to kill or maim innocent civilians. Williams began the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines in 1991, which led to the 1997 Land Mine Ban Treaty. Today, the ICBL has 90 countries and 1,400 nongovernmental organizations as members, though the United States has yet to sign and ratify the treaty banning the use of land mines.
Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for the ICBL’s efforts. She also was named one of the 100 most powerful women in the world by Forbes Magazine in 2004.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Linda Carfagno
Kathy Eldon: CEO and co-founder of Creative Visions Foundation
Kathy Eldon, an accomplished editor and journalist, when tragedy struck her family. In 1993, her 22-year-old son Dan was stoned to death in Somalia while on assignment there for Reuters covering the conflict in Mogadishu.
To honor his memory and celebrate a life cut short, Eldon and her daughter Amy created the multimedia production company Creative Visions Foundation to help encourage others, like Dan, who are “creative activists” people committed to using the arts as a way to promote awareness of important world issues, such as humanitarian crises and environmental issues.
One project of Creative Visions is called One Global Tribe, which connects young social entrepreneurs with social service projects around the world.
Joanne Cronrath Bamberger is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
© Evan Agostini/Getty Images
by Joanne Bamberger
There are plenty of women in the news, and while some are good role models, many aren’t the types of women we’d like our daughters to emulate. You don’t often hear mothers saying, “Some day, I hope my daughter will be just like Britney Spears!”
So where are the role models? Sure, there are high profile heavyweights like U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, just to name a few. But what about the women who have blazed trails or championed causes who don’t get daily headlines? There are thousands of them out there, yet their names don’t often make the nightly newscasts or get mentioned in cocktail party conversations.
While it was certainly hard to choose, here are 10 women you may not have heard of who are definitely worth taking the time to learn more about:
Emme Aronson: First plus-size supermodel
Recent stories about the deaths of anorexic fashion models have suggested that more should be done to convince clothing designers and producers of runway fashion shows to resist hiring models unless they meet a certain body mass index requirement. In other words: No more stick-figure models.
Plus-size supermodel Aronson—a spokeswoman for the National Eating Disorders Association, has championed that cause for many years. The outspoken advocate tries to convince girls to embrace the fact that we all come in different shapes and sizes, and that being healthy doesn’t mean being a size zero.
”We need to take collective responsibility for this cultural catastrophe and recognize our obligation to not only learn as much as we can about eating disorders but also how our actions influence young women and girls,” Aronson says. “It is imperative that we not just skim the surface, but dig deeper about unattainable ideals of beauty which can lead to life-threatening diseases with sometimes permanent consequences."
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Christian Charisius/Reuters/Corbis
Waris Dirie: Crusader against female genital mutilation
When Waris Dirie was 5 years old, she was subjected to the ritual female circumcision that was commonplace in her native Somalia. In that culture, female circumcision is performed to supposedly ensure a girl’s purity before her eventual marriage. But many times, as in Dirie’s case, it is performed under unsanitary conditions, without anesthesia, and can lead to death or lifelong pain.
At 13, Dirie managed to escape Somalia by agreeing to work in her uncle’s home during his tenure as Somalia’s ambassador to the United Kingdom. There, years later, Dirie was discovered by a fashion photographer, which led to her eventual career as a successful model.
To help prevent other girls and women from suffering her same fate, she created the Waris Dirie Foundation to shine a light on this cruel procedure. As a result of her work, she was named the United Nations Goodwill Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation in 1997.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Alex Wong/Getty Images for Meet the Press
Dr. Julie Gerberding: Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Ranked No. 12 on Forbes magazine’s 2005 list of the 100 most powerful women, Dr. Julie Gerberding is not a name one hears on a daily basis. But with a possible bird flu pandemic on the way that could change.
Gerberding is the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Gerberding and her staff have spent years studying and preparing for an anticipated bird flu pandemic. In February, she led a drill to test the country’s readiness in the event of a human outbreak of avian flu.
Gerberding allowed the media to monitor the trial run and report on how the CDC and other agencies involved would handle such a crisis. Some were surprised at the move, but Gerberding told the International Herald Tribune that, since a human pandemic could lead to millions of deaths worldwide, it was necessary to demonstrate to state and local governments the importance of focusing on bird flu preparedness.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Salvatore Di Nolfi/KEYSTONE/AP
Dr. Wangari Maathai: 2004 Nobel Peace Prize winner
An environmental and political activist, Wangari Maathai was the first African woman to receive the prestigious Nobel Peace Prize, which she was awarded in 2004 for her “contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace.”
As founder of the Greenbelt Movement, Maathai was directly responsible for convincing Kenyans, mostly women, of the need to start a tree-planting campaign in their country, both to protect against soil erosion and to provide an ongoing source of firewood for cooking fires. That effort has led to planting more than 20 million trees in her nation.
In addition to her environmental activism, Maathai also was active in opposing the oppressive government of Daniel arap Moi. She was eventually elected to the Kenyan Parliament in 2002.
According to one news report, her former husband was said to have remarked at one time that they divorced because Maathai was “too educated, too strong, too successful, too stubborn and too hard to control.”
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
Afghanistani woman at school
Safiye Amajan: Afghan teacher
Despite threats from the Taliban during their time in power in Afghanistan against those who defied their orders to cease educating girls, Safiye Amajan spent many years running a school for girls out of her home. After that oppressive government was toppled, Amajan served as the provincial head of the country’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs until she was murdered in 2006. In that post, she was responsible for opening several schools and vocational training centers specifically with the purpose of educating women and girls who had not had that opportunity under the Taliban.
Even though she must have known her life was still in danger from the Taliban, Amajan continued her commitment to educating Afghan girls. According to Amnesty International, the group that took responsibility for her death claimed Amajan had been an American spy, using the country’s nascent women’s movement as a cover for her activities.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Edward Stapel/AP
Dr. Ruth Simmons: First African-American woman to lead an Ivy League university
Dr. Ruth Simmons is not your average academic. In 2001, Simmons was named president of Brown University—the first African-American woman to be at the helm of an Ivy League university. Immediately prior to taking over at Brown, Simmons served as president of another prestigious school, the Seven-Sister institution Smith College.
Simmons did not have an easy path to academic super-stardom. One of 11 children born to Texas sharecroppers, Simmons rarely received more than a few pieces of fruit as holiday gifts. She eventually earned a scholarship to attend college.
Her career in academia has been marked by a commitment to enhancing diversity and opportunities. According to one report, a Smith faculty member once asked Simmons’ advice for two additional discussion sections for his course.
Simmons answer? “Dream bigger."
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Deborah Feingold/Corbis
Zainab Salbi: Women for Women International
Zainab Salbi was born and raised in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Surviving that nation’s wars taught her that the hardest-hit victims inevitably were the women and children—women who lost husbands, children who lost fathers, women who were used as tools of war through rape and torture.
Determined to change that, in 1993 she founded Women to Women International to help women survivors of war rebuild their lives through vocational training, providing seed capital for women to start their own businesses and helping women learn to read and write to become active citizens in their societies.
Since its inception, WFWI has raised $24 million and helped more than 55,000 women in wartorn countries including Afghanistan, Bosnia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Rwanda. For its trailblazing humanitarian work, WFWI was awarded the 2006 the Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, which included a $1.5 million award to continue its work.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Nicholas Ratzenboeck/AP
Kelly Perkins: Heart transplant recipient, mountain climber, organ donation advocate
By the age of 30, Kelly Perkins was an enthusiastic mountain climber who had climbed many of the world’s most famous peaks. In 1992, shortly after she and her husband Dan returned from a European hiking trip to celebrate their fifth wedding anniversary, Kelly discovered she had a form of heart disease called cardiomyopathy. In 1995, she would undergo a heart transplant.
Not wanting to face life as an invalid, Perkins vowed to improve her physical health so she could continue to pursue her passion for mountain climbing. She became the first heart transplant recipient to reach some of the world’s highest peaks, including Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.
Perkins continues to climb mountains around the world, not only for her personal pleasure but also to raise awareness for organ transplantation and donation.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© PELLETIER MICHELINE/CORBIS SYGMA
Jody Williams: Founder of International Campaign Against Land Mines and winner of 1997 Nobel Peace Prize
Trained as a teacher of English as a second language, Jody Williams became aware in the 1980s of the growing problem of land mines around the world—deadly weapons planted for a wartime enemy, but left after war’s end to kill or maim innocent civilians. Williams began the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines in 1991, which led to the 1997 Land Mine Ban Treaty. Today, the ICBL has 90 countries and 1,400 nongovernmental organizations as members, though the United States has yet to sign and ratify the treaty banning the use of land mines.
Williams was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1997 for the ICBL’s efforts. She also was named one of the 100 most powerful women in the world by Forbes Magazine in 2004.
10 Amazing Women You’ve Never Heard Of
© Linda Carfagno
Kathy Eldon: CEO and co-founder of Creative Visions Foundation
Kathy Eldon, an accomplished editor and journalist, when tragedy struck her family. In 1993, her 22-year-old son Dan was stoned to death in Somalia while on assignment there for Reuters covering the conflict in Mogadishu.
To honor his memory and celebrate a life cut short, Eldon and her daughter Amy created the multimedia production company Creative Visions Foundation to help encourage others, like Dan, who are “creative activists” people committed to using the arts as a way to promote awareness of important world issues, such as humanitarian crises and environmental issues.
One project of Creative Visions is called One Global Tribe, which connects young social entrepreneurs with social service projects around the world.
Joanne Cronrath Bamberger is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
An Article Worth Reading - Women's History Month - Part 1
To preface this article, the opinions contained within are an interesting read...I will share the women who are on the positive side of this critique. :)
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Luke MacGregor/Reuters/Corbis
by Joanne Bamberger
During the 20th century, legions of women worked tirelessly to help women break free of the stereotype that they were meant to be either housewives and mothers or men’s playthings. We pay tribute to these barrier-busters—such as Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Eleanor Roosevelt and many others—during Women’s History Month to thank them for their amazing accomplishments.
Yet, while we honor such women, there still are those who manage, through their actions or their words, to make us wonder, have we really come that far.
You know the type: The women who either perpetuate the stereotypes so many have fought against or who forget that women have won the right to chart their own course, even if it’s as a homemaker. There’s the spoiled young woman who seems to prize a good party over all else; the woman who harangues other women to get back to the home, even though the haranguer isn’t living by her own rules; and the woman who pressures her kind to forget about the pleasures of raising children to climb the corporate ladder.
Here’s a selection of 10 women, in no particular order, who make life a little harder for the rest of us.
Paris Hilton: Socialite and heiress
Many people blessed with money and social status use their good fortune to help others. Celebrities often use their fame to raise awareness and money for pet causes. But others leverage their notoriety into extending their time in the public spotlight. Enter Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton, an heir to the Hilton Hotel fortune, has cultivated a persona that revolves solely around her jet-setter lifestyle. In her TV series The Simple Life, she, along with gal-pal Nicole Richie, did their best to perpetuate the stereotype of a rich, dumb blond girl who mercilessly mocks others. Hilton further cultivates this portrait of herself through comments like, “Wal-Mart—like, do they make walls there?"
Unfortunately, all the attention Hilton gets attracts tweens and teens like a bee to honey, giving parents pause about the influence she has as a role model to young girls.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Dan Farrell Davis
Linda Hirshman: Retired professor of philosophy and women’s studies at Brandeis University
Linda Hirshman is pretty critical of her “sisters.”
In her 2005 article “Homeward Bound,” which appeared in American Prospect, Hirshman argued that women who leave the work force to stay home with children basically are turning their backs on other women. Forget about making choices based on what works best for one’s family—Hirshman suggests that women will never wield true power unless they return to the office immediately after maternity leave.
More recently, Hirshman took another swipe at women in her article “You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe,” where she claims that women today don’t like to think—they can’t be bothered with politics or forming their own opinions. She contends that today’s women prefer reading People magazine and asking their husbands who they ought to vote for on Election Day rather than formulate their own opinions.
It’s disconcerting when a former professor of women’s studies seems to enjoy criticizing other women’s choices—when they presumably don’t match her own.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Stephane Cardinale/People Avenue/Corbis
Lindsay Lohan: Actress
How does a girl go from playing sweet, impish twins in The Parent Trap to a wan 20-year-old in need of rehab? After developing a devoted teen fan base with movies like Freaky Friday and Herbie Fully Loaded, Lindsay Lohan appears to have fallen victim to that Hollywood lifestyle: She’s more infamous for her ability to par-tay than for her acting and singing chops.
Case in point: In recent years, Lohan has found herself in the spotlight for car accidents, run-ins with the paparazzi and purported drug and alcohol problems, not her latest movie role. This likely gives parents of her fans reason to wonder whether Lohan’s good role model material.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Ann Coulter: Commentator and author
Yes, we’re all entitled to First Amendment protections of the Constitution, short of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. But ultra-conservative right-wing commentator and author Ann Coulter seems to think it’s her birthright to criticize and lambaste whoever she wants, regardless of the facts or the impact of her vitriol.
In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she discusses some of the 9/11 widows who became politically active following their husbands’ deaths. She writes that she’s “never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths,” as much as the so-called “Jersey Girls.”
In that book, and in a nowinfamous appearance on the Today show. In a testy interview with Matt Lauer, Coulter said that she felt the widows, who she dubbed “The Jersey Girls” and who were instrumental in the creation of the 9/11 Commission, had unfairly exploited their husband’s deaths in a national tragedy for their own gain. As part of her mean-spirited critique, Coulter, who has refused to express any sympathy for the widows’, muses, “[H]ow do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?”
Nice, eh?
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Matthew Simmons/Getty Images for Rolling Stone
Britney Spears: Pop star
Britney Spears is another good girl turned bad. She started out as a girl other young girls wanted to emulate: She had a fresh-scrubbed, squeaky clean appearance and she was a Mouseketeer! But somewhere along the way, Spears has made some questionable choices—in husbands, about child-rearing and with her wardrobe (or lack thereof).
Now, with rumors swirling about rehab, Spears has turned up in the tabloids, tattooed and head shaven à la Jesse Ventura.
Millions of tweens and teens who follow Spears’ every move must be wondering what in the world happened to Britney? Or at least parents can hope.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Michael Mauney//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Phyllis Schlafly: Conservative activist
Self-described leader of the “pro-family” movement since the early 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly heads the Eagle Forum, a conservative organization that advocates for the protection of what it calls “traditional values,” like the role of wife as homemaker rather than as a professional.
Schlafly famously led the fight against what she called “radical feminists” to defeat the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the late 1970s. After 30 of the needed 38 states had ratified the amendment, Schlafly began a grass-roots effort to lobby the remaining legislatures, claiming that ratification of the ERA wouldn’t just provide equal pay for equal work, but that it would also lead to same-sex marriages, women in the military and erosion of “traditional” family roles for women.
Interestingly, Schlafly, who stridently urges women to be homemakers, and homemakers only, has not gravitated to that role herself. In addition to leading the Eagle Forum for over 30 years, she also holds three degrees, including a master’s in political science and a law degree.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Ray Fisher//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Marabel Morgan, Author, The Total Woman
In the mid-‘70s, as women were gaining rights in American society, Marabel Morgan, an anti-feminist housewife, published a book called The Total Woman—a tome for wives about how to keep happy marriages by being submissive and focusing on the desires of their husbands.
Many viewed her book, as well as her subsequent books on the same topic, as a political setback for women. Morgan’s premise? The antithesis of the feminist movement—for a happy marriage, a woman must cater to her husband’s needs, even if that means greeting him at the door in the evening in erotic costumes.
Surprisingly, Morgan’s works still get referenced today, some three decades later. Her book is discussed in popular magazines, such as the Atlantic Monthly, her views are defended on TV by the likes of Kathie Lee Gifford, and she still speaks at Christian conferences.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Mark Savage/Corbis
Caitlin Flanagan: Author
Feminist? Or anti-feminist? How you view the writings of Caitlin Flanagan depends on which side of that issue you start out on.
The author of the book To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife is the master of sending mixed messages about modern motherhood and making those on both sides of the fence second-guess their choices. Flanagan, who also has written for the Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, often evokes pity for women who “choose” to work full time and forsake the chance to create a warm home environment..
But Flanagan, who purports to be an advocate for stay-at-home moms, is no traditional SAHM herself—she has an extremely successful writing career, which she categorizes as a “hobby.” To allow herself the luxury of that hobby, she has in the past admitted to having a nanny and a housekeeper.
A woman with a high-profile writing career and who has employees to help with the kids and do the laundry? Doesn’t sound like the June Cleaver-existence Flanagan pushes on other women.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Carole Moschetti/Courtesy of Spinifex Press
Sheila Jeffreys: Author, professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, Australia
Are women harming their daughters if they let play dress up? Are women being controlled by men if they put on make-up before heading out on the town?
Yes, according Sheila Jeffreys.
Jeffreys has written a variety books that focus on ways in which she believes men control women through sex and fashion. Jeffreys believes that women allow themselves to be controlled by buying into the male-dominated beauty business.
In her 2005 book, Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West, Jeffreys defends her theory that today’s western beauty practices are personally and culturally harmful to women. She posits that women allow themselves to be controlled when they shell out hundreds of dollars for a pair of Manolos or just pick up a tube of lipstick from the Clinique counter. Women may think they are making their own choices when going for that tummy tuck or a brow wax, but Jeffreys believes that it’s men’s manipulation of women that’s pushes them to alter their bodies.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© MICHAEL CRABTREE/Bloomberg News /Landov
Bratz Dollz
Many mothers worry when their daughters start to play with Barbie. The moms fear that their daughters could develop a skewed sense of body image thanks to Barbie’s unnatural proportions
But for parents worried about that, Barbie’s got nothing on the Bratz Dolls—a big head, skinny body with the lips of Angelina Jolie and overly made-up come-hither eyes. And these are dolls that girls as young as 5 years old want to play with.
For heaven’s sake, girls don’t need dolls that look like streetwalkers. The social and behavioral cues girls get from the sleazy Bratz dolls are far from empowering—at least Barbie has been a doctor and an astronaut.
Joanne Cronrath Bamberger is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Luke MacGregor/Reuters/Corbis
by Joanne Bamberger
During the 20th century, legions of women worked tirelessly to help women break free of the stereotype that they were meant to be either housewives and mothers or men’s playthings. We pay tribute to these barrier-busters—such as Alice Paul, Susan B. Anthony, Betty Friedan, Eleanor Roosevelt and many others—during Women’s History Month to thank them for their amazing accomplishments.
Yet, while we honor such women, there still are those who manage, through their actions or their words, to make us wonder, have we really come that far.
You know the type: The women who either perpetuate the stereotypes so many have fought against or who forget that women have won the right to chart their own course, even if it’s as a homemaker. There’s the spoiled young woman who seems to prize a good party over all else; the woman who harangues other women to get back to the home, even though the haranguer isn’t living by her own rules; and the woman who pressures her kind to forget about the pleasures of raising children to climb the corporate ladder.
Here’s a selection of 10 women, in no particular order, who make life a little harder for the rest of us.
Paris Hilton: Socialite and heiress
Many people blessed with money and social status use their good fortune to help others. Celebrities often use their fame to raise awareness and money for pet causes. But others leverage their notoriety into extending their time in the public spotlight. Enter Paris Hilton.
Paris Hilton, an heir to the Hilton Hotel fortune, has cultivated a persona that revolves solely around her jet-setter lifestyle. In her TV series The Simple Life, she, along with gal-pal Nicole Richie, did their best to perpetuate the stereotype of a rich, dumb blond girl who mercilessly mocks others. Hilton further cultivates this portrait of herself through comments like, “Wal-Mart—like, do they make walls there?"
Unfortunately, all the attention Hilton gets attracts tweens and teens like a bee to honey, giving parents pause about the influence she has as a role model to young girls.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Dan Farrell Davis
Linda Hirshman: Retired professor of philosophy and women’s studies at Brandeis University
Linda Hirshman is pretty critical of her “sisters.”
In her 2005 article “Homeward Bound,” which appeared in American Prospect, Hirshman argued that women who leave the work force to stay home with children basically are turning their backs on other women. Forget about making choices based on what works best for one’s family—Hirshman suggests that women will never wield true power unless they return to the office immediately after maternity leave.
More recently, Hirshman took another swipe at women in her article “You’ve Come a Long Way, Maybe,” where she claims that women today don’t like to think—they can’t be bothered with politics or forming their own opinions. She contends that today’s women prefer reading People magazine and asking their husbands who they ought to vote for on Election Day rather than formulate their own opinions.
It’s disconcerting when a former professor of women’s studies seems to enjoy criticizing other women’s choices—when they presumably don’t match her own.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Stephane Cardinale/People Avenue/Corbis
Lindsay Lohan: Actress
How does a girl go from playing sweet, impish twins in The Parent Trap to a wan 20-year-old in need of rehab? After developing a devoted teen fan base with movies like Freaky Friday and Herbie Fully Loaded, Lindsay Lohan appears to have fallen victim to that Hollywood lifestyle: She’s more infamous for her ability to par-tay than for her acting and singing chops.
Case in point: In recent years, Lohan has found herself in the spotlight for car accidents, run-ins with the paparazzi and purported drug and alcohol problems, not her latest movie role. This likely gives parents of her fans reason to wonder whether Lohan’s good role model material.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Evan Agostini/Getty Images
Ann Coulter: Commentator and author
Yes, we’re all entitled to First Amendment protections of the Constitution, short of yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. But ultra-conservative right-wing commentator and author Ann Coulter seems to think it’s her birthright to criticize and lambaste whoever she wants, regardless of the facts or the impact of her vitriol.
In her book Godless: The Church of Liberalism, she discusses some of the 9/11 widows who became politically active following their husbands’ deaths. She writes that she’s “never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths,” as much as the so-called “Jersey Girls.”
In that book, and in a nowinfamous appearance on the Today show. In a testy interview with Matt Lauer, Coulter said that she felt the widows, who she dubbed “The Jersey Girls” and who were instrumental in the creation of the 9/11 Commission, had unfairly exploited their husband’s deaths in a national tragedy for their own gain. As part of her mean-spirited critique, Coulter, who has refused to express any sympathy for the widows’, muses, “[H]ow do we know their husbands weren't planning to divorce these harpies?”
Nice, eh?
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Matthew Simmons/Getty Images for Rolling Stone
Britney Spears: Pop star
Britney Spears is another good girl turned bad. She started out as a girl other young girls wanted to emulate: She had a fresh-scrubbed, squeaky clean appearance and she was a Mouseketeer! But somewhere along the way, Spears has made some questionable choices—in husbands, about child-rearing and with her wardrobe (or lack thereof).
Now, with rumors swirling about rehab, Spears has turned up in the tabloids, tattooed and head shaven à la Jesse Ventura.
Millions of tweens and teens who follow Spears’ every move must be wondering what in the world happened to Britney? Or at least parents can hope.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Michael Mauney//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Phyllis Schlafly: Conservative activist
Self-described leader of the “pro-family” movement since the early 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly heads the Eagle Forum, a conservative organization that advocates for the protection of what it calls “traditional values,” like the role of wife as homemaker rather than as a professional.
Schlafly famously led the fight against what she called “radical feminists” to defeat the ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment in the late 1970s. After 30 of the needed 38 states had ratified the amendment, Schlafly began a grass-roots effort to lobby the remaining legislatures, claiming that ratification of the ERA wouldn’t just provide equal pay for equal work, but that it would also lead to same-sex marriages, women in the military and erosion of “traditional” family roles for women.
Interestingly, Schlafly, who stridently urges women to be homemakers, and homemakers only, has not gravitated to that role herself. In addition to leading the Eagle Forum for over 30 years, she also holds three degrees, including a master’s in political science and a law degree.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Ray Fisher//Time Life Pictures/Getty Images
Marabel Morgan, Author, The Total Woman
In the mid-‘70s, as women were gaining rights in American society, Marabel Morgan, an anti-feminist housewife, published a book called The Total Woman—a tome for wives about how to keep happy marriages by being submissive and focusing on the desires of their husbands.
Many viewed her book, as well as her subsequent books on the same topic, as a political setback for women. Morgan’s premise? The antithesis of the feminist movement—for a happy marriage, a woman must cater to her husband’s needs, even if that means greeting him at the door in the evening in erotic costumes.
Surprisingly, Morgan’s works still get referenced today, some three decades later. Her book is discussed in popular magazines, such as the Atlantic Monthly, her views are defended on TV by the likes of Kathie Lee Gifford, and she still speaks at Christian conferences.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Mark Savage/Corbis
Caitlin Flanagan: Author
Feminist? Or anti-feminist? How you view the writings of Caitlin Flanagan depends on which side of that issue you start out on.
The author of the book To Hell With All That: Loving and Loathing Our Inner Housewife is the master of sending mixed messages about modern motherhood and making those on both sides of the fence second-guess their choices. Flanagan, who also has written for the Atlantic Monthly and The New Yorker, often evokes pity for women who “choose” to work full time and forsake the chance to create a warm home environment..
But Flanagan, who purports to be an advocate for stay-at-home moms, is no traditional SAHM herself—she has an extremely successful writing career, which she categorizes as a “hobby.” To allow herself the luxury of that hobby, she has in the past admitted to having a nanny and a housekeeper.
A woman with a high-profile writing career and who has employees to help with the kids and do the laundry? Doesn’t sound like the June Cleaver-existence Flanagan pushes on other women.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© Carole Moschetti/Courtesy of Spinifex Press
Sheila Jeffreys: Author, professor of political science at the University of Melbourne, Australia
Are women harming their daughters if they let play dress up? Are women being controlled by men if they put on make-up before heading out on the town?
Yes, according Sheila Jeffreys.
Jeffreys has written a variety books that focus on ways in which she believes men control women through sex and fashion. Jeffreys believes that women allow themselves to be controlled by buying into the male-dominated beauty business.
In her 2005 book, Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West, Jeffreys defends her theory that today’s western beauty practices are personally and culturally harmful to women. She posits that women allow themselves to be controlled when they shell out hundreds of dollars for a pair of Manolos or just pick up a tube of lipstick from the Clinique counter. Women may think they are making their own choices when going for that tummy tuck or a brow wax, but Jeffreys believes that it’s men’s manipulation of women that’s pushes them to alter their bodies.
10 Women Who Make Us Cringe
© MICHAEL CRABTREE/Bloomberg News /Landov
Bratz Dollz
Many mothers worry when their daughters start to play with Barbie. The moms fear that their daughters could develop a skewed sense of body image thanks to Barbie’s unnatural proportions
But for parents worried about that, Barbie’s got nothing on the Bratz Dolls—a big head, skinny body with the lips of Angelina Jolie and overly made-up come-hither eyes. And these are dolls that girls as young as 5 years old want to play with.
For heaven’s sake, girls don’t need dolls that look like streetwalkers. The social and behavioral cues girls get from the sleazy Bratz dolls are far from empowering—at least Barbie has been a doctor and an astronaut.
Joanne Cronrath Bamberger is a freelance writer based in Washington, D.C.
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