In our culture, “sexy young women” are considered natural victims. Its become the norm to assume that a sexy young woman “naturally” runs the risk of acquiring a stalker / abusive partner / kidnapper / crazed killer. By “natural” I mean its considered just part of normal life – not something that is symptomatic of a grievous social problem that can be addressed (partially) by policy and program initiatives.

When you switch up the victims – say, have the victim be an elderly woman or man, or a heavy-set woman – it needs to be explained in the narrative. People don’t instinctively “know” why a killer would harm someone like that. But with a sexy young woman – no explanation is needed. Everyone “gets” why bad things happen to her. After all, its the victim that attracts the crime, right?

I know I don’t need to elaborate to you all how evil this is, on so many levels.

It is also the case that “unattractive” women have been all but disappeared from the country we see reflected by the mass media. It’s become very hard to find women who look like real women. I happened to watch the 1980 movie “Foxes” (starring Jodie Foster) on cable the other night. The movie focuses on four young women, and I was shocked to see how normal they looked. All four looked… irregular in a way that isn’t seen anymore. And this from a movie that was considered somewhat exploitative in its time. There is no way a movie would be centered around four girls that look like that now. It would be a non-starter, at least in the U.S.

My point is that of course the victims are beautiful – because in tv-land, if you’re not beautiful (or carry signifiers of beauty), you don’t exist.

As for that annoying Kelly Ripa ad, its not so much that she is doing all that work – its her perky enjoyment of it all that offends me. Like the women who find joy by using their Swiffers, and so on. Ugh.

She’s the one getting the constant message that she’s not human and just a machine for feeding the kids from the holy traditions of our patriarchal culture. The messages the dad gets are shame and ostracizing if he seems at all resigned to anything with the whiff of the debased female role.

Who knows? Maybe he’s a big time feminist sympathizer who loves his ids so much he enjoys taking care of them, the house and cooking and shopping. I know I do. When I’m able to do a great day of housework I feel very proud and full of love for my family. The only reason I’m free to feel this way is because I’m not oppressed, of course. A woman will always feel differently about it until women are treated like human beings.