I have been scrupulously avoiding exposing myself to the degradation of mainstream “news” media of late. Yet despite my best efforts, I did hear tell that there has been something of a political storm in a tea cup brewed up by some, over the new Prime Minister’s appointing only one woman to a cabinet ministry position.
It seems there are many in our community, and particularly those who self-identify as socially and politically “progressive”, who fervently believe that there should be more women in positions of power and responsibility.
I remembered this, while working out at the gym yesterday.
For the first time, I had taken with me the ear plugs I wear while riding my motorcycle. My aim? To block out the soul-destroying, mind-numbing, monotonic noise of the music videos playing on the gym’s entertainment system. With that noise mostly gone, I was able to work out in relative quiet, and peace. And in that near silence, I could not help but notice instead the monotonic images flickering from the ubiquitous TV screens.
Here are just two of the many, thematically-identical music videos that I recall seeing yesterday. Watch both of them. Right through. Take careful note of how the main characters are clothed. Or not. Their physical behaviour. What the videographers repeatedly draw your attention to. And if, perchance, you still don’t “get” the common theme, consider also the lyrics:
Lyrics – Rude Boy
Lyrics – Talk Like That
I do not see “free”, “liberated”, “empowered” females there.
I see debasement.
I see enslavement.
I see two souls. Two beautiful Beings. Whose bodies have been commodified. Used. To make money. For other people.
Alas, what I also see, are role models. For today’s young females.
Tomorrow’s adults … parents … and purported national leaders.
I cannot but wonder at the myopia of those who have selfishly sought to gain political (and/or self-assumed moral) advantage, by making a song and dance about there being only one woman — a “token”, they say — appointed to the new government’s inner cabinet.
Are these gender warriors really, truly concerned about “advancing the cause of women”?
If so, then perhaps we may, some day, witness their abandoning the weight of their double standards, and taking up arms with equal umbrage over the rampant sexploitation of females in music, in advertising, indeed, in just about all forms of modern mass “communication”.
We may even see them actively supporting, rather than viciously mocking — as is their wont — the likes of Melinda Tankard Reist.
Forgive me for saying so, dear reader.
But methinks the latterly-caricatured and ridiculed “home maker” female of generations past, likely enjoyed more dignity, respect, and freedom, than the 24/7 sexploited “working” female of the “liberated”, “progress-ive” present.
“None are so hopelessly enslaved, as those who falsely believe they are free. The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies. They feed them on falsehoods till wrong looks like right in their eyes.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Barnaby Is Right 
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