We of the feminist community know of the split between our sisters and brothers over the role of pornography and whether it does good or harm to women. I think there is another large debate is how much of our gender roles is defined by society, and how much by nature.
Every little thing in our society is seen as masculine or feminine. Boys play with blue guns, and girls with pink dolls. Finance is for men, and teaching for women. The type of lamp you buy. The shape of your car. The sex of a person is one of the first things that people notice about others. It is ever pervasive, and it can sneak into your understanding of yourself and other genders. The best defense if being aware of when it's occurring. On a recent interview, Obama started in on the gender norming.
Obama is just stepping up to the plate and letting us all down by reinforcing silly gender stereotypes. Through his future dog. He rejects the girly dog for favor of a rambunctious one. I get that as leader of one of the most powerful nations, you have to put forth a certain image of toughness. But toughness does not mean rejecting feminism. Active and rambunctious is not a masculine trait only appealing to men; nor is passive and cuddly feminine. Common, Obama, keep the good feminist vibe going. Don't fall into the "it's girly, eeeew" trap.
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What an asshole.
I'm so glad that the president of the most powerful nation in the world thinks it's okay to insult something by dismissing it as "girly", that to be feminine is an insult in and of itself, and that he saw fit to then say that he wanted a "rambunctious" (ie - "masculine") dog instead.
Michelle looked uncomfortable in correcting him when he called it "yappy" and then automatically concluded that "yappy" is "girly" (because women, apparently, never shut up).
What an enlightened leader America has.
[/snark]
Yes, he is an improvement from the last one and most definitely better than the candidate he beat out, but I think that people have such falsely high opinions of him and are holding him up to such a godlike status that the mainstream press is letting so much slip by without being duly critical (Larry Summers, the whole "sweetheart" comment, sexist comments about Sen. Clinton's "claws" coming out, etc.).
Kudos to you for bringing this to our attention, Destra!
I wonder if this will make it onto the main page...
Holy crap. That's worse than I thought it would be.
At least Michelle attempted to reprimand her husband for saying negative things about the dog and it's girliness. Hopefully his daughters choose a little cute dog like Cha cha and Obama doesn't try and defend the dog's masculinity, and isn't ashamed that it's 'girly'. That would make up for this comment, I think.
I won't try to defend 'girly', but I have trouble thinking he meant a direct correlation between the two words. I use yappy to describe dogs all the time. I don't equate 'yappy' with 'girly'; I equate it with small, loud, incorrigible, and annoying. Then again, I'm a Kool-Aid drinker. Could be wrong.
If I were to pick this apart, I'd have more of a problem with him not mentioning what kind of dog his daughters have been considering. The person who's going to be scooping the poop deserves the option of voting for a smaller dog.
There's also the arguably wider issue of how dogs are marketed at girls and boys. Obama isn't the first person to equate small yappy dog with "girly." His wife even buys into it ("It's girly!" "We're girls!"). You don't see male celebrities carrying around their little accessory chihuahuas.
In fact, I think a silver lining of this is that he isn't gender-norming his daughters, at least in terms of what type of dog they get. You know that if they had sons no one would dream of suggesting anything smaller than a labrador. My first reaction to the inevitable media "oooh, they should get a cute little doggy for the little girls!" was, they're KIDS. Give them a dog they can roughhouse with and not break.
But maybe that's because I was raised with labs ;)
It seems there are two issues.
The first is the inference that small dogs are girly and the second inference is that girly is a negative trait.
I think the more problematic of the two is the latter. I could really give a shit if people think that a cat is a girly pet, for example. What does that even mean? It's nebulous and inconsistent. If girly means an animal that hunts and kills creepy critters that get into my house, then so be it.
So I interpreted Michelle as saying, "fool, there is nothing wrong with something girly---do I have to remind you that me and the kids are girls too?" Recognize.