As much fun as I had reading Douglas's book since she is both sarcastically funny and very intelligent in making her arguments, a lot of what she brought up resonated heavily with me personally. First off, the parts about Tailhook and Anita Hill especially made my blood boil because I know women - my friends - who have been raped or sexually assaulted; they are not delusional or at fault or just making it up. It has had an extremely strong impact on their lives - it has led them to depression, low self-esteem, fear, and bad relationships with men - and it kills me to think that men could (and still can) dismiss something so horrible or blame it on the female victims when it is a crime that is mostly committed by men. Sexual violence is not an issue that can just be swept under the rug because God forbid it messes up people's delusion of a perfect, butterflies-and-flowers world. The fact that men are willing to ignore it further escalates the problem because they are refusing to change the environment that makes sexual violence so easy.
The other phenomenon that Douglas talked about that captured my attention was how the media loved to portray hot girls that took down five big burly guys with sick karate moves, but also how this female power became a threat that had to be tamed by counterbalancing these strong women with dumb, big-breasted bimbos that only thought about boys and shopping. I've always admired those girls that just kicked butt in brains and brawn, both on TV (big fan of Hermione Granger with her magical skills, Detective Benson on SVU, Ziva and Abby on NCIS, and Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds) and in books (too many for me to recall here). I look up to these women as role models to remind me: look what you can do, you are just as strong as these women, and you can do whatever you want. However, when I look at my own life, being strong like these women hasn't scored me any points in the dating world. I am intelligent and am not afraid to show it and speak up whether in class or not, but I do believe that being an independent women who can think for herself has hindered my love life. Guys always say that they want a woman who is intelligent, but a small part of me wonders if they wouldn't like a hot, dumb girl that they could manipulate easily much better - they would never have to worry about a stupid girl challenging their ideas because she is too busy catching up on Jersey Shore. In my experience in high school, people disliked me for being smart and voicing my opinions; that has continued somewhat here. I remember freshman year my then-boyfriend told me that some people (men and women) thought I was a snob and know-it-all for speaking up in class so much. I've had to toe the line between stereotypical girl and manly freak my entire life (I've leaned more towards the manly freak side), both admiring these strong women I saw in the media as well as wishing I could be beautiful and rich and have date after date after date like the stereotypical shopping-obsessed girls on The Hills or Gossip Girl. I wonder if I dumbed myself down, spoke up less, wore makeup everyday, if guys would pay more attention to me instead of always passing me by for the prettier girl.
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