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WHO SAID LOOKS SHOULD BE EVERYTHING?
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Sep 14 16:18 UTC 1998 |
COMMENTARY HOME
WHO SAID LOOKS SHOULD BE EVERYTHING?
By Caryl Rivers. Caryl Rivers is a professor of
journalism at Boston
University and the author of "Camelot," to be...
September 10, 1998
Is there a double standard in the way the major players
in the presidential
scandal are dealt with by the press and the public?
The answer is yes. The faces and bodies of the women
involved in
"zippergate" are regarded as fair game for public
comment, while the
physical attributes of the men remain largely out of
bounds for public
discussion.
Monica Lewinsky, Linda Tripp, Paula Jones and Hillary
Clinton are the
targets of a barrage of printed and broadcast jokes
about their
appearance. On the night the president made his mea
culpa
speech, Arsenio Hall said in a TV interview that Monica
was fat and
Paula was ugly, sentiments often repeated. Paula Jones
got so tired of
remarks about her less-than-classic nose that she had
plastic surgery to
have it fixed.
Jay Leno, no sylph himself, refers to Linda Tripp as an
elephant.
Tripp has said she feels savaged by the constant
attacks on her
appearance. And when Hillary Clinton was photographed
in a bathing suit,
public comments about her thighs abounded.
In contrast, few comments are made in public about the
imperfections of
the bodies of the men involved. If Bill Clinton's nose
were on a woman, it
would be mentioned in a less than flattering way. And
while there have
been occasional mentions in the past about the
president's thighs, usually
the commander in chief is referred to as a handsome
man. No comments
are made about Ken Starr's abs, or lack of them.
Curiously, though
Webster Hubbell is far more overweight than Linda
Tripp, his size
is rarely remarked upon, but hers is constantly
mentioned.
This whole sordid story reveals that there remains a
double standard for
men and women, allowing men much more latitude in
appearance and
natural aging, while women are judged by much harsher
standards.
What philosopher Susan Sontag refers to the "double
standard of
aging" is certainly clear in regard to Tripp. While
most women regard her
as a weasel ratting out a friend, they still recoil at
the constant attacks on
her looks. In fact, she's an average-looking
middle-aged woman,
not much different than many other mid-level government
workers. In
that regard she's similar to Kenneth Starr. Neither
would turn heads as
they walked down Pennsylvania Avenue. But she's a joke
and he's
not.
Hillary Clinton is, in fact a very good-looking woman
at 50, who is fit
and dresses with style. If she's hasn't got the thighs
of a supermodel,
who does after 25?
Monica Lewinsky, as the Vanity Fair pictures show, is a
beautiful young
woman built along the lines of 50s sex goddess Jane
Russell. But today,
"Jane," and her co-star Marilyn Monroe, would be
marched off to a
fat farm. Like most women endowed with ample chests,
they also had
hips. The ideal beauty today is an artificial creature;
a woman with the
legs, hips and stomach of an 11-year-old boy, but with
outsized
breasts created by surgery. The average model in l950
was a size 12;
today she's a size four. Monica Lewinsky may have been
a pudgy
teenager, but today she's fat only by a standard that
renders real female
bodies unacceptable.
In fact, the modern media appear in a crusade to make
real women
invisible, and to imply that for women, aging is the
worst sin. As
Sontag points out, there are two standards of beauty
for males--the
boy and the man. The boy has a slim waist, smooth skin
and abundant
hair. But the man can be considered handsome with a
thick waist, wrinkles
and a receding hairline. Sean Connery, looking every
one his 60
years, was declared to be the "sexiest man alive."
There is only one standard of beauty for women
however--the girl.
This double standard has the effect of silencing women.
How many men
would put themselves forward in the public arena if
they knew their body
parts were going to be under constant discussion?
Massachusetts
gubernatorial candidate Evelyn Murphy had to suffer
comments
about her body after an unflattering picture of her was
taken. Few males
suffer this indignity. And while Janet Reno's
appearance is made sport of,
the same did not happen with Ed Meese, Ronald Reagan's
attorney
general.
The unreachable perfection for young women, combined
with the double
standard of aging, has the effect of making women less
powerful.
Young women have the sexual power of youth, but if the
media sets up an
impossible-to-achieve standard of beauty, even Marilyn
Monroe can't
reach it. Columnist Linda Chavez reports going into a
video store that
featured the famous picture of Monroe with a subway
blast blowing
her dress up. Two pre-teen boys recoiled. "Isn't she
fat! " one
remarked. Already they had been programmed to see a
normal female
body as obscene.
With aging comes wisdom, and often, power. But if
middle-aged
women are mocked in the media unless they've had face
lifts and
liposuction, they are de-legitimized, at the age when
they in fact have the
most to offer in the public arena.
Either way, young or old, women lose.
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response 4 of 69:
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Sep 15 00:54 UTC 1998 |
Having been in all-male settings dominated by the "less than polite" set any
number of times, I tend to view this sort of stuff as a simple reflection
on the source. However regrettable or unpleasant, it's just natural for
the outhouse to stink. Untiring diligence & zeal with the lime can do
quite a bit to improve things, but the outhouse can't be cured.
In a somewhat-higher-class all-male setting, my feeling is that this
sort of raw sexist criticism of women is - for the most part - basically
confined to women who's sexual identity is seen as a large part of their
identity. Monica, Madonna, various British Royals - all fair targets.
Janet Reno, Maggie Thatcher, Barbara Bush - you'd think that they were
guys from the contexts in conversations.
Judging from the covers & headlines I've seen on grocery-checkout-lane
magazines that appear to be aimed at all-female readerships, women are
perhaps even more inclined that men to judge women by Madison-Avenue-
supermodel physical criteria. How much of a problem is this?
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