> It's about raising beauty standards impossibly high so no mortal
> can meet them, thereby undermining all mortal women, so none of us
> shall feel comfort in our own skin. "He has endeavored, in every
> way that he could, to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to
> lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a
> dependent and abject life." Declaration of Sentiments, 1848.
The Declaration of Sentiments of 1848 says:
"Resolved, that the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want."
Publishing their degradation is precisely what right-wing women such as Ann Coulter are _paid_ to do, regarding beauty standards or anything else -- even the right to vote (!).
<blockquote>Why does she think the franchise is too big already? Who exactly has the vote who shouldn't have? "Women," she says, laughing. "It's true. It would be a much better country if women did not vote. That is simply a fact. In fact, in every presidential election since 1950 - except Goldwater in '64 - the Republican would have won, if only the men had voted."
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,3605,956452,00.html></ blockquote>
Coulter now says that's a "joke," but even as a "joke," male pundits and politicians wouldn't be able to get away with such a "joke" as easily she can. She plays a "Girl" on TV for that purpose, and she plays a "Pretty Girl" to further it. (Really, though, if I had a daughter and she began to get as bony as Coulter, I'd begin to worry whether I should take her to a doctor. Talk about an unhealthy standard!) The Right inflates her conventional looks as if it were "drop-dead gorgeousness" (with emphasis on the "drop-dead" part, no doubt) because that's political capital for them -- she can use it on their behalf to put down (allegedly frumpy) women on the left. They have to make it look like right-wing women have more fun than left- wing women, you see, for the reason that Joanna mentioned:
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> >> Well, we know Ann Coulter plays one on TV. After all, gender is
> >> performance. The thing is that it is because of her gender
> >> performance that Coulter is useful for the Right. We did win the
> >> Culture War . . . to an extent. The extent of the small victory is
> >> that nowadays the Right can't purvey sexism without having "women"
> >> like Coulter give cover for them, racism without having "Black men"
> >> like Clarence Thomas and "Asian women" like Michelle Malkin give
> >> cover for them, etc. To say that Coulter is a victim of sexism is
> >> to say that Thomas is a victim of "high-tech lynching."
>
> Very, very, very true.
>
> And notice one other thing about the poster girl right wing
> women ... their bright, neon light "feminity" is always contrasted
> to the lefties muted birkenstock/no bra/unshaven selves. But the
> unspoken text the Coulters are always fighting is that sexually
> we're the hot ones because we actually like sex and aren't trading
> it for avocado refrigerators. No essentialist arguments here, mind
> you, just talking stereotypes.
>
> Joanna
After all, the agenda for women that the Right is pushing is not at all fun and games: chastity, covenant marriage, restrictions on birth control and abortion, lower wages for women, no public child care, lower social security benefits (women who live longer than men need social security more than men do), etc., etc. So, the Right have to sex up women on the Right hoping that we get blinded by their glitter and forget about their drive to take away (rich women excepted) women's ability to enjoy sex and the rest of our lives.
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>