tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post8678980135886799671..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: Race and neurosisPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-38408258235139800412009-12-09T16:35:23.624-05:002009-12-09T16:35:23.624-05:00One can't help but feel a bit dirty after look...One can't help but feel a bit dirty after looking at it, but at least some of these women are hardly barbie dolls<br />http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/gal_tiger_an_animal_in_sack_ldoJNkKfYwkauBDid8grXO?photo_num=7<br /><br />The so-called "flapjack floozy" most obviously, I guess. I understand there's some suggestion that at least some of these women were not Woods's lovers but rather involved in procuring a steady stream of women for him when he was out out and about. Since I already know very much more about this subject than I ever wanted to I'm hoping not to read much more and to never know the truth.Matthttp://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/mlister/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-1690590276202375252009-12-09T10:28:24.866-05:002009-12-09T10:28:24.866-05:00Also, I didn't get into this in this post, but...Also, I didn't get into this in this post, but the idea that a member of a minority group (or in Woods's case, several) who dates/marries among the majority does so out of self-hatred seems unique to cases when the <i>man</i> is the minority. None of the women mentioned in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/dining/09hanu.html?_r=1&ref=dining" rel="nofollow">this story</a> are presented as having any kind of fetish, whereas Groucho Marx <a rel="nofollow">is</a>.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-88129183954860782722009-12-09T09:36:20.637-05:002009-12-09T09:36:20.637-05:00Britta,
Having now seen the photos, I fully agree...Britta,<br /><br />Having now seen the photos, I fully agree with you that not all the women have blond hair. I don't really think there's a 'thing' in the culture to describe all non-black women as 'blonde'. In fact, I reread Robinson's passage about Barbie, and his concern is <i>long</i> hair, not blond hair, although to be fair, the doll is known for a very specific hair color, not merely a distinct body type. Some mix of the National Review posts, Robinson's doll reference, and the photos I <i>had</i> seen at that point made me think blonde, when in fact Brunette Barbie made the occasional appearance.<br /><br />Anyway, I have always been curious how beauty would be determined somewhere like Scandinavia, given that in many situations I've been in (high school especially), merely having features (hair especially) that suggest heritage from that part of the world, assuming not paired with morbid obesity, made one "crazy-hot." <br /><br />I can see how if for you, blondness is a not-unusual trait, or a trait you yourself have, the fetishization would be annoying. But I'm not sure how as a society this could be fought - by pointing out that some blondes are not that hot (or blonde) after all? (And as for Woods's wife, who does seem to model swimsuits, I think you'd have a tough time arguing that point.) By, as Robinson suggests, celebrating the beauty of women of all races? This, I find, only serves to make women of races one has to be explicitly told to celebrate end up looking worse, as when the leader of my Birthright Israel trip told the guys in the audience to remember how attractive Jewish girls are.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-49213830593400820182009-12-09T01:06:47.974-05:002009-12-09T01:06:47.974-05:00Can I just say, I know that Scandinavia and the US...Can I just say, I know that Scandinavia and the US have very different definitions of blonde, but it what way are at least half of these women even close to blonde? I am blonde myself (by anyone's definition), and I am fully cognizant of the many levels of privilege that it makes me privy to, but it gets annoying when anyone gets described as "blonde" merely because they are...not black? Are supposedly conventionally attractive? White? Sure, Tiger Woods' mistresses are more blonde than the average population, but it's still not all. And, isn't there another way to point out their Barbie-like proportions without assigning them a fictive hair color?<br />A similar thing struck me when I was reading back issues of a Chinese magazine I study. An issue from the late 80s had an article on a Chinese peasant who got a college education, started a bar, and married a Portuguese woman. This was apparently unusual enough at that time to warrant a human interest story. They had multiple photos of the couple, and in all but one her hair was as dark as her husband's. In one photo, she had brown highlights in her dark hair, yet the article described her as a "blonde haired, auburn-eyed, western woman." Clearly blonde stood in for a certain level of desirability regardless of any basis in actual hair color.<br />Finally, this a little snarky, but I don't actually think his wife is that attractive. In some photos she looks fine, but in others her face is weirdly unproportional. Yes, she looks Swedish, and she has blonde hair, but those two facts are not enough to automatically make someone "smoking hot." Obviously this personal for me, and compared to actual discrimination the complaint that your ethnicity is stereotyped as so beautiful people disregard the actual attractiveness of your features and assume you beautiful no matter what isn't (and shouldn't) garner much sympathy. <br />Ok, that's my rant for the evening.Brittahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02224221011978374915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-69544148075691305832009-12-08T19:47:08.292-05:002009-12-08T19:47:08.292-05:00Tiger is only 25% (for lack of a better term) blac...Tiger is only 25% (for lack of a better term) black, and has not exactly turned himself into an ambassador for Causes of Color. I think people like Robinson have always been a bit irked that he has not more explicitly played the Influential African-American role.<br /><br />I believe he's 50% Asian but as far as I know no Asian commentators are chiming in on his choice of women.<br /><br />And if you look at the women (safe-for-work pic <a href="http://tinyurl.com/yztrxmy" rel="nofollow">here</a> of the first seven women, Tiger, and his wife), it's not exactly the seven best looking women in the country. And hey... on one of them... is that frizzy hair I see?Jeffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13097613583141006228noreply@blogger.com