How to Get a Grip

How to Get a Grip

Subtitle: I’m still trying to figure out why you people care so much about Miley Cyrus and not about the subjugation of women as a whole....

No steps this time, but a rant. 

I don’t watch MTV and haven’t for quite some time. I dislike reality television, MTV’s new platform, as I find it boring, predictable and just plain unentertaining, but you know that already. I like SciFi and Fantasy because I LIVE reality and don’t need it to be my outside of real life entertainment. Point being, I didn’t watch Miley’s performance live. 

Problem was, I couldn’t have missed it even if I had wanted to. The next morning, as I checked local news and CNN over coffee, trying to see what was going on in my community, MILEY, looking much like as one blogger put it the scary spider toy in Toy Story, was all over my screen. I mean all over. So much so that banner stories floating along about her performance floated OVER stories about Syria and real issues that I’m trying to keep up with. Rolling my eyes, I clicked to read, wondering what was so awful and horrible that the world was ending over an Ex-Disney Channel star on an awards show. 

I watched it, the entire thing. 

My thought? 

SO FRAKKIN’ WHAT?? 

Seriously, THAT is what gets you upset? Yes, it was horrible, her actions, her costume, her sound, everything about the damn performance, but THAT is what gets everyone worked up?? A no-talent kid of another no-talent singer making a tail of herself, in such a way that she got EXACTLY what she was looking for - SHE MADE THE HEADLINES and is STILL doing it. 

STILL. 

And you, for reading this, and I, for writing this am helping. 

See a problem here? 

I think, however, the bigger problem is this, that we are, yet again, focusing on the wrong issue here. Yep, twerking can be degrading to women. Yep, ‘Blurred Lines’ apparently according to it’s singer was supposed to be about rape culture (even though my naive ass thought first the “blurred lines” between Daniel & Addy as boss and employee, but whatever). 

We as women have lost the place in society that Susan B and Jane Addams and good ‘ole Lizzie Cady Stanton worked so hard for us to have. As the economy got better we allowed our husbands once again to become breadwinners, confining ourselves to the kitchens to bake. Don’t believe me? Go be the working mom at a regional scouting event or a local playground. You’ll be told how much you’re missing having a career, just enough to make you doubt yourself to tears all the way home. We’ve let politicians pander to gender bias and roles, having local meet and greets at nail salons and jewelry boutiques. Barbie’s job selections as you peruse the toy store include only “women’s traditional” jobs or ones that a man can do, but Barbie can do wearing a cute swimsuit. Other popular girls toys are based on TV characters that bemoan math, science and school in general while gushing over the captain of the football team asking them to prom. 

A prom they will spend $500 on a dress for. 

And people will think that’s cute. 

I have even seen more religious friends post Bible versus talking about not supporting their husbands but SUBMITTING TO THEM. I took an ENTIRE women and the Bible class. Guess what? Jesus thought we were equals. 

Just saying.

What happened to you people? 

You see, the problem with Miley Cyrus isn’t that she set women back, because we’ve already beat her to it! Hell, we freak out if a lesbian couple doesn’t have a “butch” one in it (and by ‘we’ I mean straight people who only know gay from TV) because heaven forbid two women in love don’t even fit our stereotype of them either. We created the environment in which a Miley Cyrus can thrive and get attention by allowing our gender to be pigeon-holed only because we have different parts. 

So, the next time you decide to rant about that latest big popular trend for ranting that you see on TV and radio ask yourself the following: 

Am I living my life to its potential or am I worried about if that makes me look like a ‘proper’ lady? 

Did I tell my daughter to be _______ little girl, not because she really needs to be but because that’s her gender role? 

Am I allowing the role models of the my daughter/niece/sister to be boy-obsessed under achievers only concerned with their appearance? 

Am I staring in a mirror, where my daughter can hear, calling myself fat and obsessing because I don’t look like a Victoria’s Secret model? 

And does my daughter think we eat right to be thin rather than to avoid heart disease or diabetes? 

And even then, you shouldn’t be worrying about Miley. Let her live her life. Her parents, manager, etc. are gonna have to deal with her bad choices, not you. 

Then go take your daughter for a walk, and talk about the stars and how they are within her reach.

 Because all she has to do is try. 

Girl or not.