Misplaced criticism shows what a sexist idiot your are

Tiger Woods. Mega-celeb-silver-spoon-athlete-commercial-endorsement-filthy-rich-mogul-with-sex-drive-addiction-issues. Cheats on wife, rather flamboyantly. Divorce. Huge settlement. Totally predictable course of events, and I don't really care.

Ah, but then we have Facebook.

So here's what happened. A friend posts fairly neutral, "Tiger pays $750 million in divorce settlement...wow."

Comments start flying in.

Content of comments get my attention. Suggesting she should be killed? Really?
If anyone really thinks that there are not still deep, patriarchal, dominant-culture, oppressive attitudes that keep women (and countless other groups) down in this country, I have more evidence to the contrary (not that there isn't tons and tons documented out there) and these attitudes aren't coming from some of the usual suspects...they are coming from people I went to high school with - a young, sub/urban hip and supposedly enlightened group of Gen Xers - diverse in gender, ethnicity, color, and class.

Holy crap we are screwed. Here's a few:

From a woman: That's why they say "its cheaper to keep her"!!
From a man: You know all your lady friends on facebook are gonna like this lol

From a man: QUITE SURE HE COULD GET HER "ORENTHAL JAMES-ED" FOR ABOUT $75OO FROM SOMEONE IN THE SOUTH BRONX...

Same guy: ...THAT BROAD AIN'T DID SHIT TO BE PUTTIN HER LIPS TOGETHER TO ASK FOR NO F****N $750 MIL!!! GET D FUCKATTA HERE!!!!!!!!!! SHE USED TO BE A NANNY DOG, C'MON SON!!!!

From a woman: ...she should not be allowed to get nearly as much as she is, he got where he is because of him, she didnt help him get that money, poor guy. i understand he cheated but thats insane to have to give her all that money, stingy bitch. lol


Instead of people reacting to this disturbing sum, like, "wow that dude is rich" because he is able to pay this enormous amount as part of a settlement with little trouble, people jump on the chance to ridicule, blame, and judge the female player in all this.
This is sexism at some of its simplest, and some of it is disturbingly pro-violence and victim-blaming. against women (the one guy alludes, tactlessly, to an OJ-scenario!)

Back to the female player - the wife. That he had children with. That entered into a 'deal' with him. He messed up the deal really badly and pretty much made a fool of himself, not to mention the risks he put his wife at with his wandering wang. He pays. Simple. Why should anyone care where she came from, what she did.

It's gross to imagine this scenario with the gender reversed. If Tiger were female, and she, as a top-grossing famous athlete that cheated on her hubby, agreed to pay out to her ex-husband, in a highly publicized scandalous divorce settlement, people would be happy for the husband and call her the bitch, and say it's just, that he deserves every penny.

So why, then, isn't Tiger getting this response? Because he's got a penis. And his behavior is expected and excused, because 'it's what men do'. And even when women are the victims of men's stupid behavior, they get to be called bitches, stingy, and basically worthless.

Awesome.

Here's something new to loathe

As if you didn't already secretly hate them a little bit, here's a perfectly legitimate reason to tell everyone to not shop A & F.

Organic Guilt

Without going into an examination of the benefits of organics, or its market explosion of the past five years or so, I will reveal that I have been buying organic products (food and cosmetics and household cleaners) on and off since about 1994, making me feel a little bit more qualified than mainstream consumers to whine about the topic.
In college it seemed sort of like a postmodern hippie thing to do, an elitist little secret. Buying handmade soap felt as anti-establishment as getting a tattoo, or at least as anti-establishment as you can get for a state college student in the mid-nineties - occasionally shopping at the local health food store in a thick coat of L'oreal Raisin Rage lipstick and a credit card. It all made sense, didn't it? OK, so that's my back story.
Today if I choose organics, it's in a more purposeful and planned way, taking price and practicality into careful consideration. I'd love to buy 100% organic, sustainable, fair trade all the time, but it's just not financially realistic (I hear a huge uh-huh out there). I mostly stick to the dirty dozen principle, some organic dairy, and natural bath products for Sam. Sorry, that was more back story.
Yesterday I stopped in the Green Earth (Oneonta's health food store) for a few specific items. The cashier gave me a free promotional magazine called, "Delicious Living". I had a chance to look at it this morning, and I realized that every page was yelling at me. Shrill, white, upper-middle class mom's voices rose from each page, condemning me.

--What? You don't buy raw vitamins??
--You don't supplement your child with DHA? His brain will shrivel!
--Non-organic milk is poisoning your family!
--All your produce is devoid of nutrients!

Alright, so these are not exact quotes, but they are pretty much the messages the mag was sending. I started over, from the Editor's page. The red-headed, simple-but-gorgeous Editor is pictured sitting lakeside on a rock (Colorado) wearing hikers and cargo pants, smiling smugly, suggesting,"I'm a natural mom. Why aren't you?" What a bitch.
The next article was something about Argan Oil in skin care. Dump out your olive oil everyone, this one has twice the vitamin E! If you don't use it, you'll look like Phyllis Diller by Tuesday. I also noticed that the photography was so totally blase. You can picture it pretty easily: small ceramic ramekins filled with creamy looking concoctions arranged on a neutral background. Think Clinique ads for the past 2 decades. Groundbreaking work, people.
As I leafed through the rest, it occurred to me that I hadn't seen one non-white woman, man or child...in the whole mag, including the ads. Hmm. Seems like a magazine with such principled values would make an attempt to be more inclusive. See? Snobby Bitches.
This stupid magazine bugged me for the rest of the morning, and I finally figured out why before I sat down to write. It made me feel guilty - on a couple of levels: the most obvious being that I'm somehow not providing enough for my child, or protecting him enough...whichever. On another level, I felt guilty for being a part of all this and paying attention to it, choosing an organic over a regular product - I do not identify with all of these women, and I don't want to be pegged as one....but I want to shop in the Green Earth sometimes. Maybe I'm having an identity crisis.