In defense of white 'girlie girls' — Martha Stewart and Billie Eilish

"Women's Liberation" began as a movement to expand the range of jobs women were perceived able to fulfill, and to obtain equal pay for equal work as their male counterparts.  Many readers may not recall that the want ads in newspapers, when newspapers were a thing, were segregated by "men only" and "women only" columns. 

Somehow, this basic objective of women's liberation for equal opportunity and equal pay morphed into women marching in the streets while burning intimate apparel, and dressing in suits with padded shoulders and red scarves substituting as ties.  During that phase, it appeared that women could not succeed in the workplace unless they were female manifestations of men. 

This basic goal of work/pay equality mystifyingly morphed again and descended into the endless battle of "pro-choice" versus "pro-life."  The point was that one wasn't a real woman unless one accepted that aborting an unborn child at any time prior to birth and, in some instances, even after birth was a universal right. 

Sickly, after President Trump won the 2016 election, frenzied women attacked inauguration attendees and filled Washington, D.C. with obscenities, and obscenity-filled placards, while dressing in "p---- hats" and other questionable attire. 

Now, as we are swallowing the current diversity, inclusion, and equity cancel-culture environment, some white women are derogatorily called "Karen."  Karen is a pejorative term for middle-class white women who are perceived as behaving obnoxiously and using their so-called white privilege to be over-demanding and entitled.  Where are the women's rights crowd countering this insult?  Nowhere.  The only retort bandied about among my girlfriends is "okay, so I'm a Karen."  Stated in a huff, but not a solution.

This brings me to the crux of our current cultural ills.  While neither of the women this article mentions asks for or requires support, and their political ideology is surely not in sync with the majority of American Thinker's followers, the attacks on both are unfair and irksome. 

Martha Stewart is an 81-year-old super-successful white woman who parlayed an early modeling career into a an ever-expanding business empire.  But in between, she went to jail in 2004 for felony charges related to insider stock trading.  Countless men have done the same, and for Congress members, it's legal.  So no jail time for them.

Just imagine what a target in prison Martha Stewart could have been.  Incredibly, she didn't complain, didn't play the victim card, whining that she was a woman, or her child and/or business would be harmed.  She did ask for certain geographic locations,  but when those requests were denied, Martha went to jail, served time, became a helpmate to other prisoners, and emerged unruffled. 

Martha has been accused of being demanding and difficult.  This author has worked with both the Martha Stewart corporation and Oscar de la Renta in the high-end furniture category, and specifically at showrooms in High Point, N.C.  Both perfectionists, but neither mean.  However, when Oscar de la Renta walked around a showroom, making adjustments to his displays, nobody negatively commented.  Yet when Martha wanted guarantees of her vision of perfection, she was deemed difficult.   She was not. 

This month, Martha is on one of four different covers for Sports Illustrated.  She looks stunningly gorgeous.  Some have derided her cover, claiming she is an 81-year-old trying to regain her 21-year-old self.  Nonsense!  She is proof that an 81-year-old woman can be gorgeous and alluring — stopping the ageists dead in their tracks. 

Billie Eilish is a musical prodigy.  She started her career at the astonishingly young age of 14 and has been growing her incredible following ever since.  Until recently, Eilish maintained an androgynous appearance, seemingly wanting to succeed on her talent rather than looks.  Her hair was dyed green; her attire was almost uniformly baggy shirts and pants. 

Now that Eilish has an enormous following and has established her musical bona fides, she has morphed at 21 into a beautiful, feminine young woman.  So what has happened?  Her detractors have called her a sell-out for accepting and proclaiming her feminine self.  And as a true feminist, she has pushed back at her detractors. 

White women have stood mutely by as their white husbands were mocked and unfairly denigrated.  We are now allowing that same diminution of ourselves.  Obviously, our children are next, as chat co-host Sunny Hostin so cruelly proclaimed on The View.


Billie Eilish at the Met Gala (YouTube screen grab, cropped).

We must woman up and decisively push back from these evil classifications.  

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