Rabbi Schmuley Boteach was on Michael Medved's program talking about the decline of female attire since the dawn of the feminist movement. It's an interesting subject when one considers feminism itself could arguably be traced as the culprit to the undoing of a woman's voice in society. Of all places it was Harvard college students who posed nude for an erotica magazine, and that some conservative commentary have cited feminism's celebration of women in (or atleast once was) a male-dominated workforce, as opposed to the celebration of uniquely feminine qualities--that being the nurturing, suckling, and other child-rearing duties of what is a traditional stay-at-home Mom.
The conversation between the rabbi and Medved became all the more alarming to me when I realized the latter was basing his defense not on what is, but what was. Medved pointed out the NFL cheerleaders of the '70s wore small and tight outfits. That women need room to jump and stretch while cheering for their team with [high] skirts as apparently opposed to something a little more subtle like shorts.
I then realized something that is almost a never with Medved's gifted mind: He was losing the debate, citing 'we have always seen cheerleaders underwear when their cheering' as a plausable counter to the rabbi's debunking. What? The Rabbi's point is women in society are something more than "Go team, go!" and "Do you think I look pretty?", in what has become an increasingly tired and cliched easy grab bag in the sports market game.
Then a caller defended his girlfriend, who is a Golden State Warrior pompomer, with these are "professional dancers" and go through months of rigorous training. I decided to investigate these GSW dancers for myself, soon realizing to an obvious conclusion that both sexes enjoy being the entertainer and entertained. This boyfriend was after all defending the best interests of his maleness.
I appreciate women more who have the attained wisdom from the likes of Hollywood's Golden Era. They were schooled in and understood a proper standard of dress and etiquette must be met irregardless of what the individual temptations were. This was still a decade before the beginning of the feminist movement, and when men went bonkers over clothed women. Because women only had (and have) to exist, period, to be noticed and garnished by male nature.
Today, Hollywood is filled with raunchy comedians, and the heroine-look amongst actresses doesn't seem to be totally passe as of yet. I look forward to the day when Norah Jones's career does have the final say over Britney, and reality television realizes its reality is maybe a little too real and pointless in seeking new lows for its participants to make a quick buck. Even what was funny at one time in Celebrity Deathmatch is now little more than a satire on to its own culture, let alone that of a Hollywood decline in sophistication.
Michael Medved's suprisingly unconvincing commentary on rabbi Schmuley Boteach's article leaves me with the impression he doesn't either believe or know that women have been short changed in the appreciation department for decades. If this is the case, it is tragic. And we as men, women, feminists, and a society must come together and work as one to create new ways that will bring about a stronger tradition which appreciates and hallmarks womens' natural gifts on a sustained level that goes beyond Mother's Day.
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