Bitch Exposure: Feminist professor encourages gender inequality

Allow me to self-indulge today with an editorial involving the mistreatment of women by women. I was utterly appalled by how I was treated this morning by my speech professor, an astute and beloved woman who has taught at my University for over ten years.

A friend who I play tennis with sits next to me and she assumed we would be in the same group and told the class so… calling me “his girlfriend”…repeatedly.

I asked her if she knew my name and she looked right through me as the class laughed. I can’t believe that a woman who considers herself as an animal rights activist and feminist would diminish me to a “girlfriend” aka something owned. My friend, who is married and has a child, was also very uncomfortable.

I left my class completely enraged, wondering why it upset me so much. It could have been just an off the cuff remark… was I looking too hard into it? I couldn’t help but wonder about the way I conducted myself. What left me looking like arm candy?

I would consider myself an independent woman. I am currently in a committed relationship, with a boyfriend in Chicago. We’re both going to different colleges and pursuing different career paths. He doesn’t define me in the slightest. I would never allow myself to be defined by a man, or anybody for that matter.

Women are so quick to judge each other. No wonder gender equality is still a problem. What is the solution to this social issue? This isn’t unlike the girls who I wrote about supporting a rape case: https://notyourcoffeebitch.wordpress.com/2012/09/07/girls-rally-behind-alleged-rapists/

Especially among women, there will be no social advancement in terms of gender equality, if females cannot look past their preconceptions/ misconceptions.

It is important, especially as a professor, to value a person by the contents of their mind and encourage it’s further development. I thank her for giving me the opportunity to expose the injustice of solely defining a woman by a man, a belief I thought she held.

Really Bill?

Attention, attention: Bill O’Reilly hates “fashion people” and the “idle rich.” This fact was crystalized when he sent Jesse Watters to explore Mercedes Benz Fashion Week. The story was filled with girls with thick Russian accents, and people who aren’t well-informed, and people who don’t watch his show (the last two items are in no way related). There were also movie clips slathered through the bit to bring some humor to the already malicious piece.

To say that these women represent every fashionista, is like playing someone Zoolander, and telling them that it is a documentary. We must question how many  intelligent fashion week goers were interviewed only to be left stranded on the cutting room floor. If I do say so myself, everyone here at NotYourCoffeeBitch is very stylish, and we are all well-informed on American politics. Bill O’Reilly’s piece on fashion week is like saying that all gay men are flamers, all blondes are dumb, and all upper-class white males are ignorant. Anyone who has yet to receive a lobotomy knows that these stereotypes are not true. I find this kind of scum bag journalism offensive.

Not only were Bill O’Reilly and Jesse Watters blatantly stereotypical, but they were very ignorant. Apparently fashionistas are “idle rich” that spend money frivolously because of our “little dresses” that cost thousands of dollars, and because Katie Holmes is selling a $3,100 cape. However, he forgot to mention the jobs that the fashion industry creates. From retail jobs, to more lucrative careers in P.R, fashion stimulates the economy more than anyone from Fox News ever has.

Photo Credit: Crushable.com

I think that the duo were a tad hypocritical as well. I’m sure that a man who has had the top rated cable news show since 2001 and is a New York Times best-selling author isn’t buying his suits at K-Mart (not that there is anything wrong with K-Mart). I would assume that Bill O’Reilly’s wardrobe is filled with pricy duds that the fashion industry played a large part in. No one is exempt from the fashion industry, not the bag lady on the corner, and certainly not Bill O’Reilly. It touches everything that we do, everything that we see. It provides and outlet for creative minds, and helps to express who you are. So Bill, listen to what Meryl Streep has to say, because we are all thinking it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LVptO7o4L8

9/11 not forgotten

We at Not Your Coffee Bitch support and value Patriot Day as a day of reflection and observance; a day of mourning as well as a rebirthing of America. The death of thousands of people by a handful of terrorists has unfortunately brought our country together in ways that words can not.

Rightfully so, this post will end with a moment of silence.

Girls rally behind alleged rapists

When a girl can not press charges for rape without a school turning against her, you know that mass integrity has gone out the window. I am appalled by my generation’s lack of assertiveness on the grounds of morality and justice.

Not only has it been a hot topic among thousands of kids, but also online. This is my problem with social media: even though it may be a freedom of speech, people should be more conscious as to what they say online, because it has come to the point where you might have been better off giving a speech to about 100 people or more who weren’t listening in the first place. Not only is it a mistake saying something ignorant, but also a mistake in the sense that everyone can see what you are typing, and reread it to their friends. This means that colleges, teams, relatives, potential job opportunities,  your boss, can type in your name on a google search, and up pops your life for the past few months, usually in great detail. Actually, if you google my name, up pops this blog. Go ahead, type in your name and see what comes up for you. Would you hire yourself based off of your facebook comments, those pictures of you pointing at the keg, of you bitching out an alleged rape victim on twitter?

This looks bad for you, but shouldn’t you feel slightly bad about it too? Why do people feel the need to rally behind criminals? This is not dissimilar to the Chris Brown and Rihanna incident a couple years ago. No matter if it was true or not, why would anyone rally behind domestic violence?

The worst part, and why I’m blogging about this,is because it is girls who are feeding the problem. Posting “#teamfootballplayers” next to “@yourname: Your a skank. die slut” Is just like posting #Isupportdomesticviolenceit’snotabigdeal. And then what happens? These boys think they can do it again! Would a girl make up a story, then press charges against two sober football players who rape her at a party, while she was drunk? I don’t see why. Not only would she be kicked off her sports teams, but also, she would be tried for underage drinking as well. I admire her strength to come out with the truth to prevent this from happening to any other girls. It is sad that this kind of incident, and the fall out, is so common on the internet and social media.

I understand why people would want to keep out of a crisis like this, but I don’t understand why people would want to feed into it. It is time for girls to wake up, realize the ill intentions of some boys, and RALLY behind  a girl who finally has the courage to stand up for herself and for her gender, she is the Sandra Fluke of domestic violence to me.

Domestic Violence is a Two Way Street

For as far as women have come, there is one huge thing that holds us back. This thing, my friends, is domestic violence. Before you get ahead of yourself, it probably isn’t what you are thinking about. In my experience as an avid television viewer, I have noticed women glorified for hitting, beating, and shoving the men in their lives.

It is seen everywhere: Sex and the City, The Client List, and most recently Think Like a Man. In Sex and the City, Carrie repeatedly hits Big with her flowers after being dumped. If Big were to hit Carrie like that, he would have been classified as a monster, possibly arrested, and never spoken to again. When Carrie did that, she was made out to be a victim and whisked away on a Mexican holiday with her friends. That is completely uncalled for. Violence is never the answer. I have always been taught that you should do on to others as you want others to do to you. That being said, I would assume that no one wants to be a victim of domestic abuse, so why would you hit someone else?

Just because you are a woman, doesn’t mean that you have full rights to hit men. It is wrong. According to an article published by DailyFinace.com 50% of all victims of domestic violence are men. Just because they are men, doesn’t mean that they should just take it. They need to be able to seek out help. Sadly, almost all funding to help victims has been given to women and it is harder for them to find help.

How did we let this happen? Thinking that men don’t face this issue, solely because they are men, is considered sexism. Yes, women can be sexist too. That is part of the reason why we at NotYourCoffeeBitch try hard to stay away from feminism. We want gender equality, not preferential treatment because of the past.

Photo Credit: satopsychology.wordpress.com

A link to the DailyFinance.com article http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/01/30/a-hidden-crime-domestic-violence-against-men-is-a-growing-probl/

Baby Dolls Kind of Really Piss Me Off

I was out shopping today, while in a tiny consignment store I saw two little girls carrying around baby dolls and mothering them. The naive girls worried about feeding them and were picking out their clothes. Since I have a long-standing hatred for the toys, my heart broke for the children.

As you read the last two sentences that I just wrote, you are more than likely questioning what I have against the plastic propaganda trains. It is because they are nothing more than “mommy to be” training devices aimed at girls who don’t know any better. They smash the idea into girl’s heads that they must be mothers. Why would you want to be a mommy when you’re five? At that age you don’t know much: babies still come from the stork, you can grow up to be an ice cream scooper with a private jet and unicorns exist. We don’t see little boys running around with plastic babies pretending to be dads. When girls “play” like this, it reinforces the typical fifties style gender role for women. The girls that play with baby dolls are the ones who grow up to go to college only to find a husband. Or to be the 4.0 honor student who wants to waste her intellect and be a stay at home “trophy wife.” It is down right shameful what society is doing! Children need to be children before they worry about being parents. It is absurd!

On the other hand, there is a plastic doll that has faced large amounts of scrutiny, that I applaud. Not for her unrealistic body type, but for her success as a woman with a multitude of strong careers. She has been President of the United States, multiple doctors, an olympian, an astronaut, a teacher, an ambassador, a pilot, in every branch of the military and has had countless other high-profile careers. Barbie teaches girls that they can be more than trophy wives and mothers. They can be any thing that they want to be and there is no limit to women. I know that not everyone is a fan of Barbie, but she is a kick ass woman. Barbie gives girls something to aspire to be, not just the someone who can create a person with her genitals.

A child learns by playing, which is why we need to pay attention to how they play. Do we want the next generation of young women to be more like Snookie, or more like Hillary Clinton and Gloria Steinem? The choice should be clear, don’t you think?

Photo Credit: StyleSizzle.com