Philoillogica: Monday morning bile rising

Now that I don't take vomit-inducing birth control pills every morning, I'm always looking for a way to facilitate my morning purge. It keeps me looking peaky with that elegant dewy sheen that Revlon's always on about. This morning I was delighted to find this article by The Windsor Star that did the job quite nicely:

Saumil Desai isn't afraid to admit it.

He wants a babe -- specifically, a babe who looks a lot like Angelina Jolie.

"She's fabulous." Desai's lips break into a broad smile as he lists the actress's attributes. "She's not only sexy, she has a playful, mischevious [sic] look, like a trickster."

"I think she presents a real challenge." Desai is still smiling.

Jolie is the "perfect woman" and the standard by which he measures all others.

Barfing yet? Saumil Desai is the lead in "Sexy stars raise men's expectations", yet-another exercise in blame-the-women-for-men's-failings, the new fun and easy workout routine from our friends at Patriarchy Inc ("We put the phallus in fabulous!"). Apparently a study by Top Sante magazine reveals that 80% of women feel that the way they are perceived by men is distorted by the omnipresence of perfect celebrity bodies.

Saumil is just a beacon in a sea of men's displeasure with women's squishy, stinky, lumpy bodies, and thankfully he's seen fit to let us all know what he's looking for in a mate, engaging in that crucial form of appearance-based sexual selection that evolution has decreed is men's exclusive right.

"For women," our vomit-inducing hero tells us, "looks aren't as important as they are to men. What matters more is personality, what a man does professionally and how he treats her."

Gee, since Saumil has discovered that we women put so much weight on what they do "professionally", he must be a super catch, right? A doctor, maybe? Or a civil rights lawyer? Did you guess rocket scientist? Children's librarian? Hospice volunteer? Group home administrator? Daycare worker? And since his ideal woman is Angelina Jolie, his real-life girlfriend must be amazingly hot, right? To live up to those standards?

Well, no.

"I believe that's why I don't have a girlfriend right now," says the 21-year-old business administration student at the University of Windsor. "All these standards I expect to be met. With women out there, I have criteria on which I judge them -- their appearance, the way they speak, move and the people they hang around with.

"I'm extremely picky."

Right. 'Cause you're gonna reel in the ladies with that business admin degree, sweetheart. Or with your control-freak, sociopathic tendencies. Women are just falling all over themselves looking for men who'll tell them who their friends can be, and how they can move. Nothing gets us hotter than some guy to tell us when and how to speak, and the right way to bend over to pick up your dropped remote control.

While Saumil himself is certainly barf-worthy, I hurled again when I noticed the way Windsor Star writer Grace Macaluso structured her article, making sure she covered the more serious side of this whole patriarchy thing by noting that these kinds of attitudes are *gasp* a problem.

After decades of struggling to be accepted for their intellect rather than their appearance, women believe that cosmetically enhanced celebrities and airbrushed images are reversing their fortunes, not boosting them.

WHAT? You mean the systemic objectification of women as lovely objects to be admired hasn't been working out for us? When did that start happening? I was so certain that looking prettier for my boss was the key to corporate success, and surely, if I could base my entire being on looking remotely like Jessica Simpson, well, that would enable me to become General Electric's youngest CEO ever, wouldn't it? It wouldn't? Women are supposed to know stuff now? Use our intellects? And this attempt to has been going on for, what, DECADES? [ed. Queen Elizabeth I and Mary Wollstonecraft along with a host of others have just been obliterated from history folks, check that out.]

But hey, Macaluso managed to redeem herself by interviewing one of them "feminist" broads, the real kind from one of those *snort* woman's studies programmes, who ends up saying that this sort of behaviour by men isn't all that bad:

While the survey's findings don't surprise feminists like Anne Forest, director of Women's Studies at the University of Windsor, they say men's expectations aren't necessarily to [sic] high, but too particular.

"The so-called epitome of female beauty is bounded by culture, age and race," says Forest. "It's an ideal that would be difficult for any woman, particularly for women of different cultures and race."

Now wait a minute. Forest certainly claimed that standards of female beauty are too particular, but she certainly didn't dismiss the "too high" claim. But anyway, who cares about accuracy, when really, everybody knows that women just judge men too, so none of it really counts as sexism at all.

See? This random guy seems to think so:

But, Kyle Baptista, a 21-year-old environmental engineering student, says "it works both ways."

"Women are also affected by media images -- not only of the perfect woman, but of the perfect man."

Aha! See?!? Women are just as awful! Quick, Grace Macaluso, find a quote to back that up!

Just ask Izzy Azenabor, a 20-year-old business administration student. Hunky Shemar Moore of the soap opera Young and the Restless is worthy of her lust.

"I love his height, his skin tone, his facial features, his acting," says Azenabor. "He's just perfect. I guess everyone has an ideal."

Whew. That was close. You nearly did some responsible journalism for a second there. You might as well celebrate by offering as a truism a statement that really deserves closer examination:

"In real life, men aren't that fussy. What you're attracted to is one thing, what you settle for is another." And, "smart men will know that women will settle for whatever they get."

Flush.