So tell me, when did misogyny become cool again?

I know it was funny in the fifties, with the Ricardos and the Kramdens leading the parade in hilarious spousal abuse, and that even up to the nineties women were more often seen in their underwear in the background than anywhere else in entertainment (thanks for nothing sexual revolution!), but I thought we had made a few steps since then. After all, it is 2009, right?

It seems to me that this recession is not only economic, but cultural as well. Where are the strong women in entertainment? Seriously, where did they go? We had them before, I know we did. One or two, at least... I mean we lost Gwen Stefani long ago to the ultimate male fantasy, the living doll harajuku girls, but there were a couple others...

And when did every single song on both the rap and rock stations become either about getting (read: lots of) women drunk and having sex with them or a woman's ability for fellatio being her top quality? I mean, I'm a realist, I know there was always a certain percentage of pop songs relegated to demeaning women as much as possible, but there were a FEW other songs on the playlist. It feels like there were, anyway.

Maybe I'm only just now noticing what has never changed. Maybe it's the election and everyone's projection of peace and harmony and "NOW we're even." Because if that lie can be so transparent and so universally considered, then what other obvious lies are out there? Perhaps that it's 2009 and women are more than sex objects? That's a nice little lie. An adorable little, enormous, elephant-in-the-room gargantuan lie.

Maybe I'm only just now old enough to start thinking for myself as opposed to what MTV tells me.

Because I consider myself a forward thinking young woman of today with, and this is the most important part, a great sense of humor. And I sing along with Ludacris' "If I have one more drink [I'ma end up fucking you]" with the rest of them. And I don't even mind it, because it's funny and Luda is clever and often hilarious.

But seriously. "You look cuter when there's something in your mouth"?? Count the redeeming qualities of that song. It's easy, because there are none. And there is a LEGION of pre-teen and teen-aged girls and boys who are listening to that song right now and going, "What a great tune; he must be right! Thanks Nickelback, I'd like to pay for another hit of yours!"

And, like all the girl gamers out there and their greatly outnumbering male counterparts, they are learning that the only careers, thoughts, goals, and concepts of fun possible for females is to wear as little as possible, have sex with rich men so that they will buy them things, and make sure they go down on their boyfriends a lot so they won't leave them for a girl who WILL lay on the hood of a car. Oh yeah, and Hillary Clinton lost the presidency because she wasn't hot like Sarah Palin (who would only be a bad VP because she has five kids to raise!). Just putting that out there.

And I'm just saying. It's not funny, it's not cool, and it really, really burns my biscuits that I can't listen to the radio anymore without becoming enraged at the hypocrisy of our culture and driving home so I can blog about it.

ink :: graphite