A feminist dismantles "feminism"
Want to challenge the feminist in your work/life circle to think outside the box (they've let other women construct for them)? Listen as academic and social commentator Camille Paglia lets her views be known despite political incorrectness:
Did you catch the part about women taking responsibility for the sexual messaging sent by clothing, or lack thereof? Inflammatory speak.
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Meanwhile, another modern-day maven for equality among the sexes, men's rights activist Karen Straughan, puts it out there in the following clip:
Call a cop! There's a crime being committed when a woman sticks up for men's rights or those rights of women outside what other women – for political expediency – deem acceptable. Tide's changing people and the truth is coming out. Finally!
Women's movements past and present
Think women's marches and using sex (rebranded as gender) as a weapon is something new? Think again. Women have always been there in large numbers, but the times and the topics have changed. Eve (a full 100 percent of the female population) rallied for godlike status in Eden. The fictional Greek Lysistrata, way back in the 411 B.C., lobbied for an end to the Peloponnesian War by way of withholding certain favors (a funny but accurate premise). And today's Women's March attendees – activist b****** supporting other b****** according to Hillary Clinton – are nothing new.
But let's pull it back a little to review the full cycle of such activism.
The Temperance Movement got a real kick in discouraging consumption of liquor in the 1830s-40s, thanks to the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). Their slogan? "Lips that touch liquor shall not touch ours!" The line was lifted from a rallying poem uniting women beneath the banner of the Divine according to Booze, Bottles, and Backstory:
The Demon of Rum is about in the land,
His victims are falling on every hand,
The wise and the simple, the brave and the fair,
No station too high for his vengeance to spare.
O women, the sorrow and pain is with you,
And so be the joy and the victory, too;
With this for your motto, and succor divine,
The lips that touch liquor shall never touch mine.
The captivating Gibson Girl poster girl, complete with tempting bee sting lips, was slowly replaced. The first redraft was envisioned by angry women who weren't getting the desired response from their liquor-loving swains – a prelude to nasty woman Ashley Judd maybe?
But subsequent renderings came from men – and those establishments catering to demon rum lovers – who took to mocking the activists by portraying them through their own lens.
But while getting America sober was a worthy cause – it still is, just like the idea of treating people with equal respect – using sex as a weapon rarely works. "Evidently prohibition," according to the Independent Institute, "had created a new set of evils possibly worse than the old, including organized crime and novel, fashionable temptations to youth. Then there was the appalling sight of women drinking – in public – in unprecedented numbers."
The "flapper" was born:
But at least the liberated women of the "Roaring 20s" didn't blame men for her boozing and carousing with men … unlike today's supposedly liberated icons that debase themselves in Hollywood and all across America, yet lay the blame on someone else, so long as that someone is male. Even the Material Girl, Madonna, who put it all out there in ways too numerous and grotesque to mention, brands herself as a doormat – a move that has genuine equality-seekers calling out the Queen of Pop as a prize-winning hypocrite.
But guess what? Women's activism helped repeal Prohibition. A change of heart? Or the maneuvering of change agents realizing that a wet-hen brigade threatening unrest at home – or in the bedroom – is a pretty potent weapon? Thinking, however, will win out long-term.
So don't let the current firestorm of angry women fool you. An angry person – male or female – is easy to whip up and manipulate. (Say as much and it's off to the woodshed for you.) Best to avoid them and go on as Robert Lewis Stevenson noted in Brainy Quote: "Quiet minds cannot be perplexed or frightened but go on in fortune or misfortune at their own private pace, like a clock during a thunderstorm."
This too shall pass – and hopefully sooner rather than later.
Who needs the bride with a cake like this?
Have you seen the world's most expensive cake? Check out cake-couturier Debbie Wingham's cash-catching design in the video below. That's cash to the tune of $75 million:
But hold your horses. Wingham, determined to outdo herself, has recently taken the cake game to the next level: Not upping the dollar value, but doubling down on drama. Dubai's Khaleeg Times reports on the cake to sweep you off your feet:
Recently, the 36-year-old designer (Debbie Wingham) unveiled a 120-kg cake at the Bride Show Dubai. Modeled on a traditional Arabic bride, the cake is dotted with five white diamonds, each worth $200,000, helping it earn the nomenclature of "The Million Dollar Bride."
"No one actually believes it's a cake. In fact, she is as good as a living being for me. I call her Lulwa (meaning pearls in Arabic)." This is not the first time Wingham has experimented with a life-size premium cake. Her résumé already boasts of the world's most expensive cake (valued at £48.5 million), a black diamond dress (worth £3.5 million), a pair of shoes (that cost £11.5 million ) and a red diamond abaya (priced at £3.5 million)."
We can only hope someone doesn't mistake some of Wingham's famous clients for pastry. Taking a bite out of Katy Pery, Kate Winslet, or Justin Beiber, despite fantastical fashion trends, wouldn't go over well. But who knows?