17. Supermodel – Jill Sobule 1995
Many years ago I went to the footy with a guy I was seeing
at the time, and about three of his five brothers.
North Queensland Cowboys matches in
the late 1990s involved lots of alcohol consumption, lots of mascots promoting various
businesses, and lots of cheerleaders. The cheerleaders were imaginatively named
the Cowgirls, while the junior cheerleaders were the Ponytails.
Now, one of the brothers was happily
ogling and yelling obscenities to the Cowgirls as they demonstrated great
dancing and gymnastic feats. He happily lead the procession of male mob mentality
as the other brothers followed suit. Then out came the Ponytails, little girls,
presumably aspiring to one day make it onto the Cowgirls squad.
This is when one of the other
brothers pointed out that the mob leading brother’s daughter was both a) not far
off being old enough to join the Cowgirls, and b) out on the footy field with
the women her dad had just been yelling obscenities at – by the way, words don’t
have to be offensive to be obscene.
Needless to say, the mob leader didn’t
know what to say.
It’s not cool to treat those that
you don’t care about in a manner that you wouldn’t treat those that you do care
about.
Remember Post 11 where I
expressed frustration at society’s expectation for females to maintain an appearance
of virginal angles, while carrying on like a banshee behind closed doors for
reproductive and male sexual relief purposes? Girls pick up on this stuff at a
very early age.
In 2019 the Cowboys announced
that they’d be lowering the minimum age for the rebadged Cowgirls (now known as
the Cowboys Spirit) from 18 to 16.
‘Oh my God! They’re not even women yet!’
Another thing that girls pick up on at an early age is the way society
values them for their looks. Unfortunately this situation isn’t going to change
in a hurry, but I do love the comment in this article that the survey referred to represented an
opportunity lost to only survey perceptions of female beauty and not of male
beauty too. These perceptions of a female’s value really came home to me a few
years back when one of my partner’s brothers had a drunken conversation with me
about how good looking his daughter was. He even went as far as relating his
daughters good looks to the apparently not so good looks of his mate’s daughter.
Don’t you dare tell me that only women can be bitchy, petty and mean!
Mind you, this is the same guy that has girlie magazines floating
around his car and that visits King Street each time he goes to Melbourne. He’s
also the one that some of the other siblings, my partner included, refer to as
A GIRL, which is sexist in itself.
I personally think that the sooner we enter a vortex of over-the-top
political correctness, the sooner we can make our way out of the vortex better for the experience.
By the way, the whole time through the drunken conversation about my
partner’s niece’s good looks - not her sporting, social or academic virtues,
just her looks - I was thinking to myself that the niece must have inherited
her good looks from her mum, cause her dad was no oil painting. Was this
thought judgemental or observational? Don’t bother responding. I know it’s a
bit of both, but will be taken as judgemental first and foremost.
Late follow up to this post.
ReplyDeleteI recently watched North Country. A great movie about women entering the male dominated work environment of mining.
There's a point in this movie where the main character's father stands up and defends her in a room full of males and says something to the effect of 'It’s not cool to treat those that you don’t care about in a manner that you wouldn’t treat those that you do care about'. I felt a bit satisfied with this post at this point.
Mind you, the same character had also been deeply embarrassed by his daughter for falling pregnant as a teenager and then for choosing to work at the mine. At the end of the movie, when it came out that his daughter's teen pregnancy was due to her being raped, he then attached the rapist. I know it was a movie, bu funny how male perceptions can be formed and then changed so readily.