Disgusting Misogyny

[No science in this post.]

This is disgusting, even for the Huffington Post*.

Guess The Celebrity Breast Implants (PHOTOS)

What happened to egalitarianism? Why is this acceptable?

This kind of shit:
1) objectifies women for their bodies and in doing so denigrates their intellectual self-worth by making them seem like nothing more than a collection of parts to be groped and drooled upon;
2) legitimizes my fellow mens' too-often outright skeevy objectification of said women when this appears in "respectable" publications. If it belongs anywhere, it belongs in Playboy or Hustler;
3) oppresses all women everywhere;
4) perpetuates stereotypes;
5) gives assholes and douchebags an excuse to be assholes and douchebags in public (in the comments).

You know, the 1950s may have been a period with some serious social inequalities and major hypocrisies built into its zeitgeist, but at the very least the adults of that time would have had the decency and sense to label this kind of B.S. as rude, objectionable, and crass. I am not advocating a return to the '50s values, but maybe that sense of decency wasn't such a bad thing.

I think about the sacrifices my grandmother and mother have made in their lives, the uphill battles they had to fight to see the world become what it is today and I appreciate them for it because greater gender equality isn't just good for women, it's good for everyone. I even think back to my great-grandmother and how she was perceived as daring simply for having a job outside of the home. We have come so far, that we can live in a world where it is seen as perfectly OK that our grandfather could teach my brother and I how to feed ourselves with nothing more than a fishing pole and at the same time our grandmother could teach us how to clothe ourselves with nothing more than a needle and a bolt of fabric and NO ONE GIVES A SHIT. We have come so far that my cousin can be good at volleyball, make-up, texting, AND math and NO ONE GIVES A SHIT. We have come so far that my mother can walk down the streets holding her partner's hand and NO ONE GIVES A SHIT.

But then at the same time we have this kind of utter hogwash plastered through the news, these regressive pop stars selling their KY-fit leather jeans and plastic surgeries over their opinions and intellects. We have so many wonderful and intelligent women out there in the world making differences and kicking ass, but all we seem to pay attention to is fashion and cleavage and who's fucking whom in Hollywood. This is an injustice, a gross disservice to the women reclaiming their intellectual heritage as people from crusty old men who can't see out of their pants scared of competition and unfortunately NO ONE GIVES A SHIT...

It's not so much indecency as it is injustice. The men-children who run amok on campus and embarrass me deeply use feminism as an excuse to be lazy douchebags or subtextual misogynists. That because women are liberated they shouldn't be given "special-treatment" and forgetting that respect and "special-treatment" are very different things. These assholes who whine that feminists are too complex and man-haters when it really is just as simple as respecting women. Failure to show respect to a person for being a person regardless of their whatever whatever is a form of injustice. And that, fundamentally, is why I am pissed off about this piece in the Huffington Post, because it is deeply disrespectful, regressive, and bullshit...and I really thought we, in 2009, were better than this.

*Not that I had high expectations anyway.