Tag Archives: Women’s rights

Kim Novak denounces misogynist trashing of older women

What is not to respect about Kim Novak publicly denouncing the ridicule she received at the Oscars awards & the ridicule of Liza Minnelli by Oscars host Ellen DeGeneres? She likened the treatment of older women, including those using plastic surgery, to the bullying so destructive to teenagers.

The obsessive & vicious media scrutiny of celebrity women compels them to starvation diets, dangerous & multiple cosmetic surgeries, umpteen beauty enhancers & prothetics. They are humiliated, even lacerated, publicly for any deviation from the odious standards of being perfect at all times. Their “baby bumps” get monitored, their post-pregnancy recovery to body-beautiful is commented on (the quicker it is, the more admirable it is considered), every weight gain is monitored with scathing disapproval, eating disorders are pilloried, they’re commented on in every gown, in bikinis, in gymwear, & they are recoiled from if they dare appear without full makeup.

You needn’t read celebrity magazines to know all this; you catch it in the checkout line at the supermarket or on the nightly news. No wonder so many young women grow up with an encompassing, even disabling, sense of insufficiency. It’s a misogynist outrage that young women don’t get to enjoy their beauty & their bodies & the vibrant energy that characterizes them. Their so-called imperfections put those loathsome–& let’s be frank, white supremacist–beauty standards to shame. Nature is not improved on with identical prosthetic masks. (Though a little lipstick is always good.) And aging isn’t deformation; it’s a different kind of beauty.

By speaking out, Kim Novak has done all women a great service & we should tip our hats to her beauty, her intelligence, her dignity, & her sense of solidarity with the rest of us. She makes us older ones damn proud.

(Photo from yahoo)