Gov. Ed Rendell: "Non-Serious" Shows Like The View Are "Not Worthy of the Presidency"

More unnecessary and annoying outrage from the left  over President Obama's upcoming seat on The View's panel on Thursday.

One leading Democrat Ed Rendell, the Governor of Pennsylvania had quite a bit to say about Obama going on The View.

On why the President should not go on The View:

 the talk show did not have the required stature to host the president

On why the show isn't worthy of the President's status:

I think the president of the United States has to go on serious shows

For anyone wondering what exactly The View is, I'll run down the basics. It is a show featuring an all-female panel targeted towards women . The issues discussed range from politics, to current events, and the economy. Most importantly however, is the show garners an enormous audience, most of which are women.

And the show is serious. Because it isn't "Jerry Springer" , as Rendell opined. The View discusses topics relevant to many people's lives, mostly topics that are interesting and relevant to women's lives. This of course includes political issues. In fact, in the past week The View has made headlines for the discussions surrounding domestic violence and Shirley Sherrod.

Not only is the show serious but it is important and relevant.

So first, my issue with Rendell's comments is that Rendell comes off totally ignorant of the obvious political move this is by President Obama . Polls show that white, suburban women are trending back to favoring Republicans after supporting Democrats and Obama in 2008. This is concerning, to say the least. Appearing before this very demographic to talk candidly about what he has accomplished in office and what he still plans to do, is at the very base just good politics.

The second and most important issue with Rendell's reaction is that he's essentially saying The View is not a serious show because it is hosted by and aimed toward women. The topics are no different on The View than those featured on shows the President and many other politicians have readily appeared on. The only clear difference is The View is a bunch of women sitting around having the politics conversation, as opposed to the group being comprised of men. It makes sense, given that Rendell thinks Obama should do "serious" shows, presumably morning interviews that are overwhelmingly hosted by men, and targeted to men.

LaPrincipessa | Twitter | Email

From The Onion: Trojan Introduces 'No One's Pleasure' Condoms for Bitter and Resentful Couples

HAHHAHAHAHAH- Brilliant.

Trojan confirmed that No One’s Pleasure condoms will be available in “Frigid Touch,” “Extremely Oversensitive,” and “Ultra-Chafe: Super Dry,” and will cost $20 for a three-pack, a price researchers found perfect for instigating squabbles over who has to pay.

Read the entire article, it is hilarious. Happy Monday !

LaPrincipessa | Twitter | Email

The Outrage Over Kendall Jenner is So Annoying

What is she doing that is different from the rest of the fashion world? Models now days start working at 14 or 15, and no one- when talking about Adriana Lima or some other SUPER HOT, exotic model-seems to care when they blast onto the scene. No one cares when under-age, gorgeous, models strut their stuff in front of millions wearing bikinis and thongs. No one wonders about the extreme conditions these women are subjected to: the photoshopping, the makeup, the work hours, the demanding public, the pressure to be thin. No is asking questions about the fashion world's youth -fetish, the demand for young, skinny girls; the stringent diet guidelines that seem to be correlated with models' deaths. No one is saying, "you know, that model there is too young, her parents shouldn't be allowing that type of stuff and shame on them".

When the majority of pop culture considers models, they reduce that model's worth down to the way she looks - "She is Hot". There is no thought about who her parents are or whether she should be wearing a string bikini.

So what is with the outrage over Jenner? She seemingly meets all the topical requirements to becoming a successful model: tall, skinny, photogenic, exotic, white looking- but not too white- and she's well connected (thanks to her mother ). Suddenly there are comments popping up all over the net asking if her cleavage is too much in these pictures and if she's too young and too sexy. Why does everyone suddenly care?

Oh, I know. Because Jenner "grew up before our very eyes". She started out on TV as a young woman , and you know, viewers feel somehow connected and emotionally invested in this young girl turned woman. Suddenly they are seeing her posing half naked, photo shopped up and with heavy, street walking (their words, not mine) makeup and think "that's not okay".

Its not okay because Jenner is not supposed to be degraded and sexualized in such a way, according to how those who have spoken out perceive it.  She's too young to be an object of anyone's attention , subject to society's base sexual desires. Not Jenner, not our little girl.

The truth is that were she some unknown girl from Paraguay, most of the same people standing up in protest of Jenner's sexy photos , would be slobbering all over them and wondering where they can sign up for automatic monthly catalogs so they can beat off to the pictures.

So save the faux outrage, its overdone and no one would give a shit if she weren't famous and linked to other famous people.

LaPrincipessa | Twitter | Email

From BuzzFeed: NSFW Priests Filmed At Gay Clubs

But let's not forget about the ROGUE NUNS PUSHING A LEFTIST, FEMINIST AGENDA Catholic Church!

I don't think being Gay or attending Gay clubs are bad things, quite the contrary. But I think this video is hilarious because it makes the Catholic Church look so bad to all the bigots who follow/support it. (Wait, that sounds bad. No , I don't think ALL Catholics are bigots, but um, most of the jack ass Catholic leaders are and that is what I meant.)

In Cameroon, Breast Ironing On the Rise to Stem Sexual Assault and Pregnancy

Warning: Graphic images and triggering language .

In response to the growing number of rape, sexual assault, un-planned pregnancies and contraction of HIV and other STI's, the practice of breast ironing is now on the rise, particularly in rural areas, of the African country of Cameroon.

Breast ironing is performed when a girl reaches puberty, the average age in Cameroon is 9. According to the BBC: "[breast ironing] involves pounding and massaging the developing breasts of young girls with hot objects to try to make them disappear". Hot rocks, hot shells and large, heated stones are among the tools used for this heinous practice. As the BBC article notes, international organizations are starting to take notice and of late, an concerted effort to stop the practice is now underway.

Video on breast ironing is posted within this article from HuffingtonPost.Com.





It is disappointing to know that the response to increased incidences of teen-pregnancy and sexual assault, is to physically alter young girls in order to dissuade the actions of men. It is as if these girls are responsible for the actions of men. Blaming girls' appearance for the increase of assault and unwanted pregnancy is something Western cultures regularly partake in. The next step of actually performing painful and life-altering procedures on young girls, is sad and very sick. It comes close to the practice of genital cutting, although not as graphic and painful. I sincerely hope to see the efforts of the organizations fighting to stop this practice, prove successful.

LaPrincipessa | Twitter | Email

The Portland Trail Blazers Organization is Blatantly Sexist

A Black Eyed Peas song is bumping and a group of girls swing their heads from side to side while they perch their hands on their knees. No one pays much attention, except maybe to glance the girls’ way while getting up to refill their micro-brew. The gyrating continues, going from hair swings, to hip thrusts, to a roll on the floor. The clothing comes off, shirts are thrown and a mascot saunters through the all girl orgy, his phallic tail bouncing. The women peer into the camera with pouty lips and coy , come-hither smiles. Some attempt their best sexy-face and boob shake for the Comcast NW spotlight. From a 300 level rafter seat, their attempts to appear sexy may succeed, but upon closer perusal, the desperate sexy-face looks and overdone, sexualized routines resemble an SE 82nd hooker approaching a potential customer after a slow night. The routine ends and the girls race off to the sidelines. A meek applause ripples through the 20,000+, Rose Garden Crowd.

On Monday the Portland Trail Blazers announced their next general manager will be Rich Cho, the first Asian American general manager in the NBA. Fans, internet posters and beat writers reported this fact with pride, some even applauding the organization for breaking down barriers and upholding Portland, Oregon’s rep as a diverse and liberal city. When it comes to the treatment of women however, the Portland Trail Blazers are as sexist and non-progressive as an organization can get. If the hiring of Cho is the Blazer equivalent to the American Public electing President Barack Obama, then the Blazers are on the same level as Republican David Vitter when it comes to the treatment and representation of women.

What exactly has me so up in arms over the BlazerDancers this time? The team has recently added a “vote” feature on its BlazerDancer page, allowing fans to vote on who is most attractive. With the help of an aggressive but ultimately futile attempt at creating a fan-geared site called Iamatrailblazerfan.com, fans are now able to “connect” with the BlazerDancers much like they do in  posting  congratulatory messages on player's respective pages. Unlike the players however, the fans connect with the BlazerDancers by voting on their appearance.

Who are the women that make up the Blazer Dancers? To this question there is no answer, as the details don’t matter. These women are not prostitutes but are used to sell sex; the women themselves are not the problem, rather it is an institutional issue that says training women to perform sexualized routines for men under the guise of “cheer leading”is perfectly okay. The women who make up this year’s squad were picked based upon their physical appearance and although they may alight from collegiate or high school dance/cheer squads, those skills are not required for this job. As detailed on the Blazers’ own website, hopeful BlazerDancers attending tryouts must provide a full body photograph and show up with midriff and legs showing. Preliminary rules are outlined that state all potential BlazerDancers must consent to maintaining mandatory appearance and fitness guidelines. In essence, the tryouts have become nothing more than a debauched beauty contest in which the talent portion includes women doing the splits as team photographers snap away.

The 2010-2011 tryouts were judged by the Oregonian’s Blazer beat writer Jason Quick and Brian Grant, among others. The qualification that places these men at the judging table is the ability to assess female attractiveness as red-blooded men, nothing more, nothing less. Perhaps the team considered Quick a good guest-judge candidate because he’s representative of the white, male, demographic in Portland. Or maybe he’s just that desperate for a close up view of half-naked women. Regardless, the presence of two, non-dance professionals, upon the judging panel of the BlazerDancer tryouts sends a blatant message that this isn’t about whether the women can dance, its about how pretty they are.

Corporations and other male-driven institutions have long used sex to attract male (and female) consumers. The Portland Trail Blazers are certainly no exception as they are part of an institution that perpetuates severe beauty, gender, race, and socioeconomic stereotypes and norms. While sexy women are not the main product, they are part of an overall package that in part promises sex ( in the form of women reenacting sexual acts) as a perk or byproduct of attending an NBA game. The dancers are not supposed to dance, they are selling sex and in this, the BlazerDancers are nothing more than an extremely cheap commodity.

And each year, NBA organizations push the envelope a little more by upping the ante on the commodification of women's bodies. The clothes cover less, the routines are more sexual and the women are marketed less as humans and more as a group of sex pots created just for us. I am sure the women on the BlazerDancer squad have great personal histories and have achieved many things that have nothing to do with the way they look, but the Blazers’ organization renders all of that irrelevant, cutting away everything except what the NBA deems the most important-their bodies.

Naomi Wolf says in The Beauty Myth, “images that flatten sex into “beauty“ and flatten the beauty into something inhuman... Are politically and socioeconomically welcome”. Reinforcing Wolf’s theory, the NBA portrays the dance squads to be legitimate and appropriate forms of entertainment, all the while knowing the sex is what matters, not the dancing. And in this, women are relegated to one of the three stereotypical roles as child bearer, sex-pot for men, and a slave to beauty- all of which are means to control women and maintain patriarchy. While some NBA organizations are still trying to front with the excuse that the dance squads are indeed just that, the Trail Blazers don’t even pretend anymore, allowing fans to vote on the appearance of the cheer squad and thus completely dehumanizing women.

I love basketball and feel the sport has taken many great steps in trying to improve its public image. The NBACares campaign and Basketball Without Borders have no doubt helped many communities. Even as the two programs are obvious PR stunts to shore up fan approval, there is some good that comes of them. But the rampant sexism displayed by my favorite sport team never ceases to enrage me and completely negates any strides the league has made in their NBACares campaign. The sexist and degrading displays, which commodify and fetishize women continue every year, each season getting more and more egregious. This is in spite of the fact that the NBA tries to make itself out to be a family activity, that the NBA spends billions on PR campaigns and that over 50% of the fan base is comprised of women.

The Rose Garden should not be a gentlemen’s club and as the shiteous teams of the mid 2000’s here in Portland proved, if the team on the court is bad, no amount of sex routines will get people into the Rose Garden. There simply is no need for the sport to maintain the male-dominated sex atmosphere, because what fans in Portland ultimately care about is whether Greg Oden is healthy and the Blazers can get to the 2nd round of the playoffs.

LaPrincipessa | Twitter | Email

Is True Blood Really Reinforcing Violence Against Women and Please Stop Talking About Skinny Girls

Last week , a particular blog that I happen to read almost every day linked to a photo of a mannequin that is skinny. The usual comments ensued, the gist of them going something like this: the skinny mannequin is reaffirming beauty norms; reinforcing the notion that in order to be beautiful, women must be skinny; there are no realistic sized mannequins anymore; and the mannequin is  portraying an unnatural and unrealistic form of woman.  This type of thing isn't new and I will consent that a conversation about the apparent size of mannequins displaying clothes to be sold to women is necessary. Critique of the fashion world, the media and our society is fruitful when we begin to realize that beauty norms are a form of control and many people, myself included, feel deconstructing and challenging beauty norms is valid and entirely necessary.

But the constant reiteration that somehow skinny is not natural or realistic is offensive to say the least and extremely  counterproductive.

For instance,  it is socially unacceptable to walk on the street and say to a person you think is obese, "you're fucking fat, go lose some weight". Yet, it is entirely socially acceptable to say, "that chick needs to eat, she's skinny".  Or worse, "she's got to be anorexic, or something". I don't blame the women's rights movement for this, but recently I have seen a prevalent  negative portrayal of women who are skinny, which suggests skinny women are somehow less real or less valid because they are perceived and conveyed to be conforming to "constricting beauty norms" or are sick with anorexia or another degenerative disease. In essence, women (and some good men) have been fighting the good fight, trying to deconstruct centuries old beauty norms that harm all women,  yet are simultaneously stigmatizing women who may be skinny.

Whether we are musing that a person should lose weight or gain it all back, judging a woman's worth in whole or part upon her physical appearance is not helpful. The fashions world and our mainstream media outlets reaffirm beauty norms that harm women, but saying skinny women are less real than normal sized women (whatever that means) harms women just the same. The mannequin in question is a disturbing display and the company(ies) that use them  deserve to be criticized, but do so without tearing other women down. Why can't we just accept people come in all shapes and sizes and leave it at that?  I guess I'm feeling particularly optimistic today .


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Change.org's Women's Rights blog posted a reaction to last week's True Blood episode, concluding that the show has become to violent and portrays too much violence against women all in the name of a shock factor. I think there is some truth to this, the episode in question features a scene in which the main character, Vampire Bill, has very rough sex with another vampire woman and during the act he twists her neck around and causes blood to spurt from her mouth. It was difficult to watch, yes but it was not a rape scene. The female vampire was more than willing and voiced her pleasure with the act on more than one occasion.

The author of the Change.org piece contends that the display of rough sex that includes violence mirrors rape and blurs the line between rough sex, consent and rape . She also contends that the scene perpetuates television's wont to portray sexually submissive women, which reinforces sexuality constructs. This is fair and there is indeed some correlation between sexualized violence against women on tv and real life violence against women, but what happened on True Blood episode 3 was consensual, rough, sex. That's it.  

There is also some commentary about characters on the show being punched in the face and physically assaulted, kidnapped or help captive. This is indeed depiction of sick violence against women, I find it troubling but actually don't want to stop watching. The reasons are many, but foremost among them is the fact that beginning a public conversation about domestic/partner violence is so necessary. These type of issues are concealed, considered private and are rarely talked about in the mainstream. Victims are still extremely stigmatized and statistics show rising cases of violence. Showing this type of material, even on HBO, I believe de-stigmatizes victims rather than encourages violence.

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It looks like a positive breakthrough has been made with the preliminary results of a new HIV prevention gel, which was shown to decrease infection. Awesome.


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