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Notes -
So the Bezos-Sanchez wedding took place, and by all accounts it was exactly as overblown, tacky, and vulgar as anyone's little heart could desire. I haven't watched any of it myself, so why am I mentioning it in the Culture War thread?
Well, because Tina Brown commented on it, and it's at least tangential because we've often discussed on here "what do women want/dating apps/men get the rough end of the stick in divorce/other such delightful War of the Sexes fodder".
I get the impression that Tina wasn't on the guest list so there may be an element of sour grapes here, but in general I think I agree. Jeff Bezos, fourth richest man in the world (depending on the day and the ranking) could have pretty much any woman in the world he wanted. So, who did he blow up his marriage for and before we get into the complaining about his wife taking him to the cleaners, it was he who caused the divorce (actually, divorces because his inamorata was also married at the time)?
The woman next door, a triumph of grinding determination to keep her figure through diet, exercise, and plastic surgery. She managed to find a classy wedding dress so kudos for that, as well as showing off the results of all that effort.
Back to Tina's commentary:
Ouch. But also, yes. What am I trying to say here? Mostly that the next time there's yet another post about reversing the fertility decline by putting obstacles in the way of women going to higher education, steering them to marrying early, and good old traditional 'the man is the head of the house and women should work to please their husband and that includes sex whenever and however he wants it', remember this. Male sexuality is a lot simpler than female sexuality. Jeff could have destroyed his marriage for a nubile twenty-something with naturally big assets, but he went for tawdry 'sexy' with the trout pout and plastic boobs (though once again, I have to salute her commitment to starving and exercising in order to keep a taut muscle tone). It's not much good to criticise women for being shallow in the dating market when the fruits of success are to dress like this and hook your own billionaire.
This Tina Brown seems awfully bitter and judgemental about another woman's appearance for a supposed feminist. I wonder what her problem is.
I think it's a perfectly coherent view - the point is that she (Sanchez) is condemning herself (and in a small way all women) to infantilisation. Getting fake tits is essentially indulging and perpetuating male chauvinism - she should be satisfied with her own personhood without having to surgically alter herself in order to please men. The broader point has been a feminist theme for centuries.
Wollstonecraft:
I don't think there are many commonly used modern definition of feminism that directly involve policing other women's choices regarding their own appearances. I'd be surprised if Tina Brown has explicitly endorsed this principle.
In any case, this would be slightly more believable if the author had exhibited anything but total contempt for Laura Sanchez. I find it hard to believe Tina Brown is genuinely concerned about Sanchez's wellbeing.
I mean you've put in a bit of an autistic way but the idea that women shouldn't indulge the male gaze is a very common feminist one across time. This is the whole idea that lies behind critiques of 'lipstick feminism'. It's by no means a consensus view, in fact there has been a lot of debate on whether fashion/beauty is liberatory and agentic, or infantilising, but either way it's definitely not an uncommon feminist position.
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