Feminism/Morals/Values

Hey look, some people agree with me:

I was well-prepared for a career as a journalist, but I was sadly ill-prepared for a career as a strong, solid woman, with all the gifts and capacities that that word once implied. The character traits I should have been cultivating were neglected in favor of ever-stronger intellectual skills, and as a result I've spent the past few years playing catch-up.

While there is value in higher education, it doesn't teach the most important life tools—how to be a nurturing, kind, patient individual. It doesn't teach you how to be a mensch when you're sleep deprived or running a fever. It doesn't teach you how to be loving or lovable. These days, my ambitions are to acquire and internalize these qualities, and to strengthen myself as a woman, internally—not vis-a-vis what I look like through the eyes of a man, or how "successful" I am by society's standards. And the more I cultivate these inner qualities, the deeper and richer my life and my relationships become.

In addition to my ambitions as journalist, I had spent years striving for the perfect body, the perfect clothes, the perfect apartment—in short, all the external trappings of what I thought would make me look and feel good about myself. Needless to say, none of it ever worked for long.
~Andrea Kahn

Kind of hits on what I was discussing a few posts ago about how society today is ill-prepared for creating meaningful marriages and families. Our core attributes are sadly malnourished and the values that are most prized in society--ambition, independence, and a keen fashion sense ;) do little to prepare you for life as a spouse and parent.

I also on the same website I read an article by someone who agrees with my long-held interpretation of "Grease":

As readers here probably know, the story of Grease is about a girl and boy who meet one romantic summer and believe that they have fallen in love. The girl arrives unexpectedly as a student in the boy's school in September, and they are both shocked. She is taken aback by his cold and crass behavior, and he by the realization that he would lose his friends and his macho identity if he dates her as he had that summer, showing her love and respect without approaching her sexually. The tension in the film grows out of the inevitable choices that must be made: either the boy will have to give up his entire social community or she must--to put it bluntly--have sex with him. We all know what happens.

Now I never read it so literally as "she had to have sex with him", but I did read it as--she had to abandon herself, and all of her ideals and moral ways (Sandy went from being "lousy with virginity" to a smoking, drinking, high heeled, leather clad dominatrix of sorts) in order to fit in with HIS society, and THEN she could choose her keeper and "tell" him what to do ("you'd better shape up...because I need a man").

I still cringe every time I flip past that movie on TV and wonder how so many women could love it so much.

Outside of the catchy tunes it's a blatant smack in the face of feminism. It disguises the objectification of women as sexual liberation. Sure, Sandy is free to do what she wants and be with who she wants, but she'll only really be happy if she abandons her moral ways to "become" exactly what a man wants.

It's the sexual freedom of choice women have waited so long for--so long as that choice isn't virginity.

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