Guess what? Eliot rhymes with Idiot
Cats: slack woman|You know who I mean. Spitzer aka Mr. Clean aka the Love Rat of New York.
I heard a number of women call into the CBC radio program As it Happens to defend poor old Eliot. They say the wife’s to blame.
The argument goes something along the lines of this: Silda wasn’t paying enough attention to her husband (read: giving him sex) and THIS is what drove Mr. Clean into the arms of the $1000-per-hour call girl.
Oh, I see. So, the man cheats on his wife, humiliates his three daughters and betrays New Yorkers who voted him in because he was Mr. Clean…. and it’s all Silda’s fault.
Silly me for pointing a finger at Eliot the Idiot
Tell me. What century are we living in again? 18th or 19th? Is this what happens to women who give up their high-powered jobs to support their husband’s political career and bring up the kids? Do we blame the Silda’s of this world for the dispicable acts of the Eliots?
What’s particularly sad about this is that it’s coming from women. In 2008. What does this say about us? What do we tell our daughters and our little sisters?
Even cave women were more liberated than this.
March 21st, 2008 at 11:43 am
It’s like Tina Fey said in “Mean Girls.” There’s a lot of girl-on-girl crime. Bitches always blame everything on other women.
March 21st, 2008 at 11:51 am
I guess I missed that particular As It Happens, which is probably a good thing. I spend enough time banging my head against the wall in frustration…
March 21st, 2008 at 11:56 am
Barbara, I’ll join you in the frustrated head-banging. How sad that women are jumping to his defense.
March 21st, 2008 at 3:23 pm
I agree! But… At this point, it’s a useless conversation. Though he is the primary a-hole in this situation, she has proven to have little or no integrity as well (through her choice to stand by such a complete jerk). It’s possible they deserve each other.
March 21st, 2008 at 5:45 pm
I read this article in the Chronicle Herald and wanted to stand up and yell “Thank you!”
I’m 21, and there’s such a difference in thinking with my age group (and I guess it’s seeping into others) that I truly begin to feel mentally ill sometimes.
One of the main beliefs that I think is counterproductive to the women’s movement is that men need sex on demand lest they explode over in a furry of repressed sexual tension. Hence why people feel Spitzer is being chastised unfairly. “He’s a victim of society!”, “If he were allowed to seek mistresses openly this never would have happened!”, “She must not have done her job!”
How did we get to that point without questioning it? As you said, what century are we living in?
The other over-all belief of my age group, is very simple: choice. The push for women’s rights were about creating more choices (which I agree was part of the movement), so if a woman goes on Girls Gone Wild, especially if she does it unapologetically and with a sassy swagger, she’s being feminist.
Choice = feminist.
Therefore:
Any choice made by a woman = feminist.
End of discussion.
We never examine anything further.
And by extension of this thinking, men like Spitzer become pro-feminist examples by allowing women, i.e. the call girl, to make her choices.
This sounds bizarre but I recently witnessed a “pro-feminist” male talk about why getting a job at Lad’s Magazine would be feminism in action because he would be involved in a business of women “practicing their right to choice”.
*bites fist*
I’m not sure if he took the job offer, but from his sheer enthusiasm I pressume he did.
It’s immensely frustrating and I believe that kind of thinking does the opposite of its intended goal – it keeps women from being able to make an informed choice by never examining the other side. We aren’t told why we might not want to get involved with these things, so most girls who feel there’s something off about being expected to publicly imitate a porn-star, or who feel degraded by their boyfriend’s vocal obsession with porn-stars, end up feeling prudish and uptight.
And they adapt.
Needless to say, it was nice to see someone saying this in a paper that often features the opposite viewpoint.
Keep it up!
March 21st, 2008 at 9:59 pm
BeckEye, Mean Girls is such a morality play of our times
Beth and BB, don’t dent your fantastically superb heads. We need them.
Patrick, point taken, although she’s probably not feeling in fighting form right now. She needs time.
Kate P. – yu are the fourth wave. Thank you.
March 23rd, 2008 at 2:48 pm
To paraphrase Jimmy Buffet:
Some people claim that there’s a woman to blame, but we all know, it’s Eliot’s own damn fault.
March 23rd, 2008 at 8:47 pm
As someone whose husband cheated on her and then left her in order to have an open relationship with the other woman, it has been suggested to me in a roundabout way that somehow I must have failed him and be somehow to blame. Mostly by women 60 and over. It is a warped, weird way of thinking.
March 24th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Moxie, the tune fits perfectly.
Jacy, that manner of thinking is so out of date and so insulting. The women I heard saying these things sounded younger than 60 so go figure.
I did wonder what you would have to say about old Eliot.
March 25th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
I’m not sure it was that big a deal, but blaming his wife in any way for what he chose to do is indeed bizarre. I’ve known a few people who were both very ambitious and successful, a lot of them were sexual compulsives. It doesn’t make the behavior okay, but it’s a hazard of power. It either attracts folk who sexualize everything or there’s something about it that often brings that out in folk.
I do have to say that seeing an escort on your own time is not the same thing as cheating stockholders out of billions of dollars, but the media certainly acted as if the crimes werea t the same level and let any number of people say it.
March 28th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I am just catching up as I was away, thus the late comment.
I, too, was incredulous at how many women attacked Silda for somehow being responsible. All the comments I heard were from women. I felt ashamed of my gender; the self-righteousness of the commentary was astounding. I presume Silda is letting the dust settle before she kicks him to the curb. She was dignified and private about the whole thing, and I predict she’ll come out of it strong and well. How he could do this to his daughters is a whole other issue, one on which I can’t even begin to comment.
March 28th, 2008 at 9:51 am
Chance, I think the story hinged on the hypocrisy angle. He was Mr. Clean and he does something like this. But you are right, some people in power are compulsives with sex, gambling, whatever.
Dak, it seemed so out of place in the 21st century. I think Silda’s too clever to blow off and do something stupid. I’m sure she’s thinking of her daughters too