Substantive Political Journalism

Update:  In case you’re interested, Ms Magazine has made it easy to send a letter protesting the detailed analysis of candidates’ cleavage.  

From the Washington Post: 

Showing cleavage is a request to be engaged in a particular way. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a woman is asking to be objectified, but it does suggest a certain confidence and physical ease. It means that a woman is content being perceived as a sexual person in addition to being seen as someone who is intelligent, authoritative, witty and whatever else might define her personality…To display cleavage in a setting that does not involve cocktails and hors d’oeuvres is a provocation. It requires that a woman be utterly at ease in her skin, coolly confident about her appearance, unflinching about her sense of style. Any hint of ambivalence makes everyone uncomfortable. And in matters of style, Clinton is as noncommittal as ever.       

Wow.  What shocking clothing did Clinton wear? This.   Next time your students insist that we no longer trivialize women by focussing on their appearance, show them this article.  It’s WARTIME, and she’s RUNNING FOR PRESIDENT.   And, for God’s sake, she’s not even wearing anything scandalous!  OK, calmer now.  It is actually interesting to look at the messages said to be sent by cleavage:  not *necessarily* “objectify me” (that’s nice), but nonetheless a provocation if there are no hors d’oevres.  Good to know.

Rich men, rich women…

…and how to bag one, respectively. Useful advice for you, Monkey?Although women after a rich man might find the advice worrying – you’ll have to be willing to be objectified and commodified, it seems. The author notes that:

• ‘Having sold yourself as a Ferrari [to bag the rich bloke], you have to maintain yourself like one. There is a reason Ferrari issues a new model every few years or so (a shiny knob here; a new electrical gadget there; that crucial extra iota of acceleration): it appeals to their core client, and there is never a shortage of beautiful, witty young women coming on to the market.’

But it’s not all bad news for the women: if you don’t manage to upgrade yourself sufficiently often, and find yourself replaced with a newer model, you might nonetheless do well out of a divorce settlement. Finding yourself laden with riches and without a man, the advice on offer about dating millionaire women will then come in handy, no doubt:

• ‘What a clever, professional woman wants in a long-term partner is an equally clever, professional man.  It doesn’t matter if she makes all the money; as long as he has a brain – and uses it. So while the tennis coach or yoga teacher may suffice for a flirtation, he will not cut the mustard around the dinner table.’

Hang on a minute: how come women who date rich men have to be ‘like Ferrari’s’, but men who date rich women have to be ‘more substantial’?A classic example of gendered stereotyping and norm-perpetuating tosh, that does injustice to men and women. Still interested? See news of a training course on how to get a millionaire. Key strategy:’Your favourite words and phrases [should be] … “Yes,” and “I can be whatever you want me to be”.’Moreover women who take this course will 

• ‘learn how to wiggle their hips, kneel in a posture of mock subjugation and eat a banana suggestively by practising in front of a mirror – all with a view to some day applying those techniques to the anatomy of a very successful man’.

Any subscribers? erm…

Please Sponsor My Surgery

Following Monkey’s post on websites for dating Rich Men , I thought this was kind of interesting. Should a women want breast implants (and why wouldn’t she?), all she needs to do is find a “benefactor” at Myfreeimplants, offer to send him photos, personal gifts(and something which is mysteriously refered to as “and more….”) and he’ll send her money towards helping correct what nature got wrong first time around. The British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (or BAAPS – honestly) doesn’t approve of this apparently. Erm… what more to say about this?