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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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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