Wordle 757

 

Unobtainable Ideals

Some women, have a problem with little girls playing with conventionally attractive dolls, like Barbie.  Supposedly, the doll presents an unobtainable ideal of how a woman should look.  Personally, having observed sisters and then many years later, daughters play with this kind of doll; they seemed like they were having fun and not thinking too deeply about how they looked in comparison to their toy.

Not lately, but at one point in time, there was a media frenzy of outrage over the doll's proportions, if scaled to Human size.  I used a sewing site to look up hip, bust, waist and height and when I scaled up to 5'4" (the average height for an American woman) I get a 20" waist.  Meanwhile, the media sites can't agree on the height (Huff Post, "...about six feet tall " and CBS News, "5'9") but they both agree on a waist of 18".  It would be tempting to track down the original claims, which they probably all just accepted and never bothered to buy a doll and measuring tape.

So, the question which induced me to write this whole post:  How come I haven't heard one blessed feminist complain about unrealistic ideals when it comes to a very common theme in movies and TV--a slim woman who easily defeats much larger men in hand-to-hand fighting?

Notwithstanding the supposedly crazy proportions of Barbie,  Girls, if they're bothered by her at all, are not concerned with matching her proportions exactly.  They might only want to match Barbie's nice figure.  Such figure is hardly unobtainable--I've seen untold numbers of women with attractive figures, while in real life, no woman could do what they regularly do in action scenes.  The latter seems as if it's a more dangerous delusion, since it could motivate a woman to put herself into a life threatening situation.

Addendum:

When I was in the Marines, there was a saying:  "The Marines can make anyone into a man, especially a woman Marine."  In reality, something like the opposite was true.  With few exceptions, every woman Marine I met was attractive.  Why?  They were all young and they all had to meet fitness standards.

Wordle 756

 

Wordle 755

 

Wordle 754

 

Cold, It Makes a Difference

Jimi Hendrix changed a lot about Bob Dylan's All Along The Watchtower.  A small but powerful change often gets overlooked because the pyrotechnics are so compelling.

The original ending lines:

Outside in the distance a wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching, the wind began to howl

Hendrix version:

Well, uh, outside in the cold distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
And the wind began to howl, hey

Wordle 753

 

Wordle 752

 

Wordle 751