Sure, America’s women athletes may have taken home a whopping 29 gold medals, but over on The Thinking Housewife, Laura Wood is pissed off at them – and the rest of the Olympic women — for being so, well, athletic.
In a recent post, Wood rushes to the defense of a Turkish newspaper columnist who complained about the “broad-shouldered, flat-chested women” who were destroying Womanhood with their mannish, muscular bodies. Alas, wrote Yuksel Aytug, even their “breasts – the symbol of womanhood, motherhood – [were] flattened into stubs as they were seen as mere hindrances to speed.” Curse you, sports bras!
Seriously, in future Olympics, female athletes should face mandatory deductions for every cup size less than C.
Wood adds her own two cents:
A man who dares to say what every normal person has been thinking when confronted with the muscle-bound female gladiators at the games and what soft, effeminate Western men would not dare articulate, Aytug has been attacked for his remarks throughout the Western world. He is tiresomely accused of misogyny. In fact, judging from these words, he is an admirer of women, a courageous defender of them.
Or at least of their tits.
The Olympic Games are anti-woman. They require female athletes to ape men in grotesque ways. They compromise female fertility and modesty. They promote the idea that aggression and competitiveness in women are normal and healthy. They debase not just women athletes but womanhood throughout the world.
Well, I suppose Wood can take solace in the fact that the “muscle-bound” bodies of these “female gladiators” didn’t stop the Pedophile – sorry, Ephebophile – Army of Reddit from perving on McKayla Maroney and the rest of the US Women’s Gymnastics team.
On the other hand, Mrs. Wood is totally not competitive or aggressive at all. She’s just a sweet, soft, womanly woman.
And this: “they debase woman athletes” — wait a minute. Just what? How are what women do in the Olympics any different from any other sports that female athletes participate in? I don’t know what she means and I don’t think she does either, she’s just kvetching because the Olympics happened to be on.
So if a woman pumps iron it undermines the purpose of her body, makes her less womanly.
If a man pumps iron, it makes him more essentially man-like.
….there’s something in here. It’s like logic, but not. It hurts my head.
well, that explains the constant references to kerri walsh taking time off to have a kid between beijing and london
actually, fun fact, when the olympics were coming to atlanta my school’s gym teacher was training a woman who should have been an olympic class weightlifter, and they were part of the push to get the event added. tt came down to that or beach volleyball, i remember him telling us that part of the reason the ioc gave was that ‘women look more presentable in bathing suits’
Turkey is more western than Israel, but of course, is excluded from the club on grounds of not being run by white people. I guess it’s nice to see her ‘defend him’ though, while insulting him.
Also, ‘what everyone else was thinking’? I don’t give a shit that they don’t have hourglass figures. Why should I or anyone else =.=;
Also, wtf. ‘compromise womanhood’? Because… you say so? Because you say fertility is dropped? Christ on a stick XD
Whereas blogging about how all those women who aren’t you are disgusting and terrible, unlike you, promotes…kindness and humility? Something doesn’t sound quite right there…
She does know that just because female athletes exist it doesn’t mean other types of women don’t right? I mean all the other types of women aren’t negated just because some women train hard to accomplish extraordinary feet’s of athleticism.
Okay, so basically: “Why every woman should be a housewife just like me, Part MDXXXV.”
Oh, Wood you are extremely aggressive. Why don’t you delete your blog and dedicate yourself to cross stitch, will ya?
I wish the Thinking Housewife would stop trying to think. It’s never good.
Did she time travel from the 1800s or something? Seriously, I don’t know anyone who talks about “womanhood” unless it’s to make a joke. Yeesh.
Oh, Turkey, land of Cüneyt Arkın, as far as I’m concerned you can “become white” a la Noel Ignatiev any time!
Pro-woman Olympic events, apparently:
Sewing
Knitting
Pirouetting
Cleavage-pressing
Loving a male athlete competing in the Olympics from one’s kitchen
I’m sure she thinks it’s better to be married to a male Olympian, ala her drivel about astronauts. I’m sure she thinks these athletes train just to meet men.
drst: I’d totally use the word ‘womanhood’ if I was writing slightly overblown smut, as the obvious counterpart to manhood.
… Now I think about it, that does have some unfortunate implications.
Ah well. Meatscepters and lovepockets it is.
Oh man. Talk like this is what made life miserable for me when I was in my late teens and early twenties. I never developed womanly curves and have what is delightfully called a “boy shape”. I spent too many years feeling bad about myself thinking that I wasn’t womanly enough until one day I realized how strange it was for people to spend that much time worrying/thinking/talking about my shape and the shape of other women that might not fit into their ideal.
But it does get my blood pressure rising even now to hear/read comments like this [the housewife’s] because I know there could easily be some girl or young woman out there who may internalize it and feel a bit worse about her self. And I worry about having daughters of my own and whether I’ll be able to do a good enough job to help them feel good about themselves and their bodies when asshats like this woman exist in the world.
Though I will add that having found manboobz and coming here daily to read the conversation here does give me hope as well as much enjoyed adorable animal videos : )
Oh nooooo!!!! My smile fell off!!
Well. It seems that she thinks that a) women aren’t worth more that their bodyshapes and motherhood potential b) having small boobs makes you an unfit for motherhood* and c) she’s a not nice person.
Well, c) is my opinion, but maybe she’ll become self-aware.
* so many things wrong with that notion… She Fails Biology Forever
Every time I see a quote like this:
I want to scream. I don’t have much in the way of breasts, it’s just the way I’m built and a trait that runs in my family. My breasts, or lack thereof, do not define me as a woman and fuck anyone who says otherwise.
These attention seeking little rants by people who are mad at women who used their body for something other than a penis receptacle are almost cute compared to the actual violating crap Olympics committees require of women who have high amounts of natural testosterone in their bodies. They are requiring they undergo hormone therapy to be allowed to compete. No one is demanding naturally tall people hunch over or naturally keen sighted people wear dirty contacts or whatever. But testosterone- totally a dude thing, regardless of our biological makeup.
Heaven forbid the Thinking Housewife should ever have to get a mastectomy. She’ll have to start wearing jeans! Because she doesn’t have breasts anymore, therefore she can’t be a woman, therefore she must be a man. Maybe then she can live her dream and become an astronaut-gymnast.
Lord save me from people who think appearance always defines existence!
I actually had to think about this for a second to interpret it. Good work on the crypto-horribleness!
“Oh, Turkey, land of [actor who has a following], as far as I’m concerned you can “become white” a la [scholar who shows how the Irish in America eventually gained white privilege and began punching down] any time!”
Hmm, yes, that’s right, you don’t believe in white privilege. Thanks for the reminder.
Well lessee here…
Florence Griffith Joyner aka Flo Jo had a daughter.
Gwen Torrance had two kids-boy and a girl.
Evelyn Ashford had at least one daughter.
Wilma Rudolph had four kids.
Lots of women had both an athletic career AND babies. So no, it does not compromise female fertility.
It does however compromise the Thinking Housewife’s assumptions about the world so she has to kind of ignore that.
Wait, what?
This isn’t some kind of hold-over or consequence of the stereotype that the Russian women’s team are so hormoned they’re practically men, is it?
@TheMcGee, I couldn’t agree more. I have a somewhat boy-shaped body too, and the same anxieties about it. (I pretend I’ve gotten over them, but as I get older and into a potentially child-bearing stage of life, I find they have been transformed into worries about my fertility. Women with straight hips aren’t man-monsters, right? They sometimes have babies, right?) This kind of stuff makes me angry for every vulnerable young straight-waisted woman out there.
Not suprisingly, there’s comments on her linked article (the Daily Mail one) from men informing the author that “You’re Wrong Because My Penis Says So.”