“ Twenty-five percent of young American women would rather win America’s Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize. Twenty-three percent would rather lose their ability to read than their figures. (…)
When I read that Oxygen Media survey — that a quarter of us would rather win a contest for looking bootylicious in a thong than for, say, ending genocide — I tried to go to my happy place. But I couldn’t get there. Because I know we have a problem, one that I don’t hear anyone else talking about. The problem is not just about that 25 percent of young women who would rather be hot than smart; rather, it’s about a culture that actually makes that a rational choice: rewarding girls for looks over brains. And it’s about all of us, intelligent American females, ranging from girlhood to old age, who are dazzlingly ignorant about some critically important things. (…)
This is part of what I call the Dumb American Syndrome. The majority of American men and women can’t name a single branch of government, for crying out loud. (…)
Girls and young women earnestly analyze whether Angelina Jolie has another baby bump but know nothing about her life’s work: bringing aid to millions of innocent refugees, people for whom our attention means the difference between life and death, hope or despair. Many of us spend more time looking in the mirror than looking out at our planet, and the thing is that doing so is rational because there can be a bigger payoff for being sexy than brainy. Young women have little motivation to think because the rewards for being hot are so powerful. Then, in our middle years a new wave of nonthinking sets in. Married women and working moms spin ourselves ragged in the work-kids-housework-repeat-repeat-repeat cycle. At this stage, who has time to think?
(…) We’ve got to use our brains for more than filler in the space beneath our smooth, Botoxed foreheads. The generation before us fought like hell and won for us equality in education and employment. Let’s use that for a higher purpose than sending pictures of kittens on Facebook.
Lisa Bloom (“Think”)(Source: The Huffington Post)
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