“The wife of PPR’s François Henri Pinault is every bit the little woman.”

Maybe it makes more sense when you read the title of the article: “The Real Housewife of Paris.”

Why would you write that? I haven’t heard the phrase “little woman” uttered in a long time. Trust me, after reading that and being reminded of the sentiment that comes with it, those were good years.

And that’s why I say, throw this one back. Fast. Before the smell has time to stick.

The international Female Value Index dropped 200 degrees because someone wrote this antiquated, loaded phrase – and it was published, in 2011.

“Momma! There’s a black lady on TV and she ain’t no maid!”

This is a what a supposedly young Whoopi Goldberg said when she saw Captain Uhura on Star Trek for the first time.

I am looking for the day I can say “Look! There’s a woman on TV and she ain’t no slut, bitch, killjoy-mama, sweet innocent naive victim/plaything*!”

Am I missing other limiting stereotypes? Hmm. Wise-ass granny is coming to mind. Or the blonde laughing bimbo a la Goldie Hawn of Laugh-In.

Growing up was tough. I didn’t aspire to be any of these things. Yech. Yet, there was no mentor, no hero, no footsteps to follow. There were tons of stories of princesses waiting, but none of women doing.

What happened was I didn’t walk forward in my own shoes, along my own path or journey. I walked sideways – skirting. The path forward was too dense, dark and scary. I didn’t know how to do it alone and couldn’t find someone to go with me.

But every so often I found a beam of light through the forest and started walking towards it. Or someone would appear in front of me, and I’d follow as best I could, sometimes running after an apparition that felt so far ahead of me, I was scared I’d lose it.

Societies like to “throw rocks” at those who stray from the norm. I was hurled a few pebbles here and there. I am just grateful I didn’t grow up in a country where this is considered the honourable thing to do.

We are all still pioneers in creating the story of our lives. But now that women are finally allowed to work, have money and bank accounts, a big big change is coming. You think that was an accident that these things were denied us? Absolutely not.

But it’s still hard. At a trip to The Atlantic Film festival just a week ago, Megan Wennberg pitching Crooks and Nannies, her feature about a middle-aged woman trying to change her life was told she was up against 3 big hurdles for feature films:
1. it has a female as the protagonist
2. it has women over 40 as the protagonist
3. It’s a comedy. They don’t translate well internationally.

If the stories we keep telling are all about men for men, how can we not help but feel marginalized?

I dunno.

My answer for the most part is to ignore media and the stories being told by the mainstream. When I look around in “the real world” I see a very different story than that on magazine covers and TV shows. And in the real world, the balance is much better.

When I do partake in popular culture, I try to be very aware of the value system and message in the story. They can “hook” you very quickly, and I am trying to unhook myself.

*If the sweet innocent naive victim/plaything is in a French film, she will harbour a deep psychosis and suffer a total breakdown in the film, usually committing suicide or dying tragically.

This is pretty clever. I’d bet most people won’t even get it.

A funny cartoon getting some thumbs up in the Digg World. Does that mean geeks are mostly atheists?

“To the casual observer, she’s the very embodiment of a lady.”

Dressed demurely in a blushing pink blouse, hands sheathed in dainty white gloves, Aiko – quite possibly Canada’s first android – sits patiently, ready to engage in polite conversation using her 13,000-word vocabulary. She’ll recognize your face, shake how-do-you-do, read you a story, add sums and deliver the current weather.”

They are talking about a robot in the story.

It’s just not the sad creepy Stepford wife allusion. It’s that we – the media – storytellers – culture – parents – keep perpetrating and believing age old stories about how we “should” be and behave.

For example demurely means
1. Modest and reserved in manner or behavior.
2. Affectedly shy, modest, or reserved.

Yeah. Like Paris Hilton, Madonna and Pam Anderson.

Growing up, I railed against this limiting description of how a “real” woman was supposed to act. I was not like that. Most of the women I knew weren’t either – until Grade 6 when we were all hushed, shushed, given the back seat, and beaten into submission.

“You’re not an angry feminist are you?” they accused. The way they said it, there was nothing worse that you could be.

And thus we were kept small, submissive and silent. We were bonsai’d

It’s pretty creepy that men want to screw plastic dolls, and that women like Pamela Anderson and the rest of the Hefner harem want to grow up to be just like them.

Seriously – look at the women in this video. They are using the femmebots as role models and have no problem dressing and looking alike, talking in fake voices and pretending to like turning an old man on. They are trained like poodles in a circus ring.

I don’t like Madonna, her brash bad girl image is just a role she plays to get a reaction and as such, she and her art wear thin, devoid of depth. I prefer authentic, or something close to it – but I’ll take Madonna’s shallow over the femmebots any day.

And don’t tell me it’s not hard to be this fake day in and day out, pretending to be so gaga over old men that you start believing it.

Here’s the
Pam nude video here.

The International Female Value Index falls 500 points because of the poor ratio of old man to women in the video – and because of how they have no problem presenting themselves as silly harmless widgets in his presence.

In fact the series opener says, it’s about “Extraordinary people who are changing the world by being themselves.”

By being themselves. It’s amazing how we humans have the capacity to be something other than they are.

But sure enough, as we can see with Cameron, the first guest, she’s got it together. She’s 10 years old, very confident, and very real. And thus way cool.

In fact it’s a bit weird watching Cameron being relaxed and natural in the moment, surrounded by the comedy gals – like host SNL’s Amy Poehler, who are putting on an act – a mask. It sat a bit wrong with me – you can see the kid being confused, wondering if she’s being put on. Hopefully they will get the balance right – because it wasn’t way off. They can bring the girls in to the joke, or hone it in and get more natural and it should be ok.

Big points for a show featuring little girls as the stars for their cool hobbies and interests – and for how different they are from how the media portrays them.

And most of all, for championing smarts. Not sure how that got out of style.

Check out Smart Girls at the Party on On Networks

It’s sponsored by Barbie. He He.

Tags: Smart Girls at the Party, Amy Poehler, kids shows

“Harry Shearer’s Found Objects” presents this clip of beauty pageants chat portion.

I found this video mesmerizing and horrifying. I remember watching pageants on TV as a kid, and distinctly took them as teaching models – this is how we have to be in order to be praised and prized. I remember thinking how hard it must be to walk that way.

From Wikipedia – the breakdown of beauty pageants
“Beauty Queens, or title holders, are chosen on many criteria. Each individual pageant will provide to prospective delegates its particular methods of competition and scoring. For example, The Worldwide Pageant has a unique scoring system wherein delegates have the potential of earning a score of 110%. The breakdown is 25% evening wear (may be pants or gown), 25% athletic wear, 50% personal interview, and an optional 10% for an achievement portfolio.”

It was interesting to note that there was much contempt for beauty pageants right from the start. But much more interesting to see how they have endured. I have no idea why women would want to compete in these pageants. I find them insulting -especially the question part where they judge personality.

The International Female Value Index goes down 50 points because the pageant portion of Sarah Palin’s life has become such a hot topic – although it is interesting to note that make beauty pageants are on the rise since the early part of this decade according to Wikipidea. I am always for equal objectification.

Tags: Sarah Palin, beauty pageants

While 1980 features woman hating Thatcher and Regan, 1981 spawns a subversive feminist hero and socially conscious crusader – Ms. Pacman.

“Ms Pacman quickly overtook her husband to become the best selling game in the world. Featuring a strong female protagonist unafraid to eat constantly, kick ass and look good.”

Ha ha. Love it. Thanks to feministing.com who’s list of 10 depressing anti-feminist videos would have put me in ” I can’t live in this world” funk if it had not been for this bio on Ms. Pacman – my new hero.

Tags: anti-feminism, feministing, ms pacman, feminist hero, very funny video

It is hard. It’s way harder than we thought. It’s not like the books said – happily ever after. It’s not that way at all.

Nope. It is all very hard. But some things are just worth it.

But really. What else are you going to do? Lie around and complain?

Yeah, yeah. Sure – that’s popular. Works for a bit.

Or you could just roll up your sleeves and do it. Hard and all.

Tags: amazing guitar player, armless guitar player

I’ve heard about this for a long time. I’ve istened to complaints about this for a long time. We’ve laughed, the way they do in this video.

But you know – it’s really not fair. Worse, it’s really not nice.

So when is it going to stop? When are we going to make this go away?