So here at the Shameless Blog we’ve started talking about the proliferation of the “poptarts.” You know who I’m talking about: the bad girl “pantyless celebrities,” the train wreck girls arrested for DUIs and even the “modest” ladies of Hollywood talking (a lot of bs) about how they’re not “angry feminists.” It seems we’re bombarded daily with news that LiLo’s been arrested (again) or Britney peed with the door open at a photo shoot. Why all this madness and why do we all care so much?  It’s a shift in our culture and the media is desperately looking for a reason why the bad boys of Hollywood are suddenly all girls:The trend has sociologists and fame-watchers alike wondering what is going on. One possible explanation is that the rise of the Bad Girls is simply a reflection of the generally increasing power and visibility of women in all fields of entertainment…

At the same time there is a wider social acceptance of bad behaviour by young American girls. America is caught in the age of Girls Gone Wild videos which would have been unthinkable a few decades ago.

-Paul Harris, The Observer 

Sure there are some fantastic musicians and actors of the female persuation who deliver great messages (like Beth Ditto of Gossip fame,) but they always seem to fly just slightly under the radar in the realm of popularity. It really seems that everywhere you look in the mainstream some young woman is falling apart infront of a telephoto lens. So my question is: Where’s a girl to go for her empowered mainstream girl idols?

Well, to the idol herself. I submit to you exhibit A:

“I’ve sold more than 15 million records worldwide, and still nobody listens to what I have to say. Because I’m 25 and a woman…”

-Kelly Clarkson, Elle Magazine

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A few days ago I posted on the general fiasco that was the You Tube/CNN democratic debate. Now The Daily Show has their own take on how absurd the whole thing was, and I urge you to watch the video if only because it’s a good laugh. They mock how the debate was aimed at making “politics hip for young people” and yet failed miserably. It should be obvious that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report are together becoming a powerhouse of fantastic political satire (Colbert, Steinem and Fonda on cooking with feminists anyone?)

As for their take on the You Tube debate, it should be noted that the piece features (and, well, mocks) a group of hard-drinking left-wing, liberal youth, who are better known south of the border as a group called Drinking Liberally,  (“Promoting democracy one pint at a time,”) a group that boasts 207 chapters in 44 states plus DC. Despite the obvious satire, Drinking Liberally really is making politics and a very important upcoming election very accessible for young (albeit of-drinking-age) people. The grassroots organization describes itself as follows:

An informal, inclusive progressive social group. Raise your spirits while you raise your glass, and share ideas while you share a pitcher. Drinking Liberally gives like-minded, left-leaning individuals a place to talk politics. You don’t need to be a policy expert and this isn’t a book club - just come and learn from peers, trade jokes, vent frustration and hang out in an environment where it’s not taboo to talk politics.

As for Drinking Liberally having a sense of humor about The Daily Show piece, they most certainly do. As it says on their website:

Do they mock us? Yes. Is it loving? We think so.

Watch the very funny video here.

Has anybody heard of Wendy Shalit? She has a new book out called Girls Gone Mild. It reports from the movement headed by teenage girls who want to make modesty cool again, and reject the pressure to put out all over the place, or at least wear a t-shirt that says “Stacked Hottie.” There’s a favourable article about her in the Toronto Star.

In the late 90’s when Shalit was only 23, she wrote A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Value arguing that women’s attempts to liberate themselves sexually have really just taken the mystique and grace out of sex, and consigned women to dreary hookups and the loss of male honour.

At the time Shalit’s calls to women to cover up, hold back and wait until marriage were painted as staunchly anti-feminist. But almost ten years later, our culture has changed. In the time when the Pussycat Dolls are painted as the model of female empowerment (yes yes, I know I need a new target other than the Pussycat Dolls…) and Bratz dolls encourage two year-olds to wear thongs (okay, maybe an exaggeration), could it be that a little Shalit style modesty wouldn’t hurt us?

After all, Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs, though controversial, has been taken seriously by the feminist community. In it, Levy suggested that 70’s feminists’ attempts to sexually liberate women backfired, and instead created a generation of women who are simply complicit in their own objectification.

Jessica Valenti at Feministing.com though, isn’t buying it. She has a pretty searing critique of Girls Gone Mild here, where she suggests that Shalit has co-opted feminist language, and even faked some of the interviews with teenage girls, calling into question Shalit’s claims that teenage girls find the pressure to be “liberated” overwhelming. Has anybody read Girls Gone Mild, or do any of our teenage readers know anything about this underground campaign for ankle cover?

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The Hillary “I couldn’t imagine having a girlfriend” Duff hilarity and drama continues with my discovery of this promo video she made for afterellen.com (News, Reviews & Commentary on Lesbian and Bisexual women in Entertainment and the Media.)

So let me get this straight (har, har, pun, har, har) she can’t imagine having a girlfriend, but she can certainly imagine girls who have girlfriends buying her record. Nice.

Watch the video and sigh here.

I have all sorts of raging angry opinions on this one, folks, most of which I expressed loudly last night at the bar so I won’t go into them here. Regardless, I thought I’d share this darling exchange between John McAlperin and Hilary Clinton during CNN/You Tube’s Democratic debate:

McAlperin’s question to Clinton was as follows:

Hello, my name is John McAlperin. I’m a proud member of the United States military and I’m serving overseas. This question is to Senator Hillary Clinton: The Arab states and Muslim nations believe [in] women as being second-class citizens. If you’re president of the United States, how do you feel that you would even be taken seriously by these states in any kind of talks negotiations or any other diplomatic relations?

I feel that’s a legitimate question.

A legitimate question? (cough, cough, sexist, cough, sweeping generalizations about muslims and arabs, cough, cough.) Feministing.com sums up my thoughts on McAlperin’s question perfectly:

Has this guy been living under a rock? Condi Rice and other female Bush administration officials make frequent visits to the Mideast and appear to be taken quite seriously. India just elected a woman president. (There is an) insanely long list of other countries that have had a woman president or prime minister— several of them are Muslim nations.

I think what’s really going on here is John McAlperin might have a problem taking a woman president of the United States seriously.

Clinton’s response?

CLINTON: Thank you, John, and thank you for your service to our country.

You know, when I was first lady, I was privileged to represent our country in 82 countries. I have met with many officials in Arabic and Muslim countries. I have met with kings and presidents and prime ministers and sheiks and tribal leaders.

And certainly, in the last years during my time in the Senate, I have had many high-level meetings with presidents and prime ministers in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Pakistan and many other countries.

I believe that there isn’t much doubt in anyone’s mind that I can be taken seriously.

(APPLAUSE)

I believe that other countries have had women presidents and women prime ministers. There are several serving now — in Germany, in Chile, in Liberia and elsewhere — and I have noticed that their compatriots on the world stage certainly take them seriously.

It would be quite appropriate to have a woman president deal with the Arab and Muslim countries on behalf of the United States of America.

(By the way, there were a ton of great questions, including this one from my new personal hero, a reverend in North Carolina asking Senator Edwards why he thought it was okay to use religion to deny gays their full and equal rights. Watch it and know that there is some hope for the world yet.)

ok everyone I just read the most amazing book! I devoured it in a day and a half.

The novel is called Flight, and it’s by Sherman Alexie, one of my favourite writers. 15-year-old Zits, a Indian kid stuck in a cycle of foster homes, jail, and the streets, is at the brink and ready to do something really stupid with his anger. I mean really stupid. But suddenly he is catapulted through time to inhabit the different bodies of people involved in critical moments in American Indian history. He travels through the body of an FBI agent in the civil rights era, to the body of an Indian boy at the battle of Little Bighorn, to the body of a white Indian hunter in the 19th century, to the body of a flight instructor in the 9/11 era…etc, etc. In all the moments he inhabits, he is forced to act, make decisions, and figure out where his allegiances and angers lie.

And by the way, it is FUNNY. Zits may be a misguided jerk at times, but he has a keen sense of irony about other people’s charity and privilege. The dialogue is full of wisecracks. Some people would call it Native humour. I just call it hilarious.

Sherman Alexie is also the author of The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, which is one of my very favourite books.

Check it out! Don’t you love it when other people read the same awesome books as you at the same time and you can jump up and down, sharing every bit of brilliance?!? I need that!

On the topic of Hilary Duff, and misunderstandings about feminism, this funny (or horrible?) article is about the chairman of a Welsh family charity who blames feminism for, well, everything.

Saying that the push for equal opportunity has broken up families, denying many children their “fathers’ love,” David Hughes states:

“Prior to the emergence of the false values of feminism, there was a distinct under-standing between men and women that he would bring home the bacon and she would look after the home and care for the family.”

“Women relied on men for their support. They still rely on men for their support but, sadly, that support is now being channelled via our tax system and the vast majority of taxes are contributed by men.”

And this one is my favourite:

“The detritus left in the wake of 30 years of feminism is considerable, an international disaster. And, as with most other disasters, such as 9/11, it falls mainly to men to clear up the mess.”

Yeah, 9/11, feminism, it’s all pretty much the same thing. And cleaning and men? Yeah, most of the world’s cleaning is done by men, sure…

With this kind of rubbish coming out of the mouths of adult men, can we really blame Hilary Duff for having such redonculous views of feminism? I’m telling you, we oughta just buy her a copy of Shameless.