It’s wasn’t Charlie Sheen’s possibly deranged, potentially BS and certainly attention-seeking behavior that has disturbed me over the last week or so. It’s been the way in which this behavior has been greeted largely as a joke — with phrases like “winning” and “tiger’s blood” being used as punchlines and Sheen in general being greeted with smirks and a record number of Twitter followers. One man even immortalized Sheen’s insane media blitz with a particularly ugly tattoo which he said was the talk of the bar after he got it done. Perhaps more confusing and disappointing was Jezebel blogger Jessica Coen posting an article about how she “Played Phone Tag with Charlie Sheen,” pretending she was interested in a job as a “Goddess” at Sheen’s newly-christened Sober Valley Lodge, even sending a photo …
… of herself to the star and admitting that she was kind of hoping he’d call.
Sure, plenty of people are denouncing Sheen as a deranged drug addict and a bad father, but it seems that the coverage of Sheen has been far more indulgent of the perpetually-troubled actor than it was for, say, Britney Spears whose motherhood and sanity seemed to be in constant question because she shaved her head, gained weight and was photographed going into gas station bathrooms in bare feet. That seems rather tame compared to declaring that you’re descended from Adonis and brandishing a machete on a rooftop, doesn’t it?
And yet when Gisele Harrison of The Windsor Star reposted an article on her Facebook page about Sheen’s history of violence toward women, and his misogyny in general, she was met with mostly female commenters arguing that these women were just fame-seeking gold-diggers. Gisele responded:
Of course, I posted a reply on my wall addressing each point, in particular that years of therapy to work through the trauma of having a knife held to your throat was a high price to pay for 15 minutes of fame.
While Harrison felt disheartened by this response, she used it to fuel a talk she was set to do for International Women’s Day, looking at the role models of yesterday, today and tomorrow. Harrison noted that her ambitions as a young woman were career-minded, focused on being an independent and intellectual young woman on her own:
I recalled how as a young girl I wanted to wear smart clothes, live on my own in a cute apartment in a big city, go on dates, have a great job, and wonderfully supportive friends just like Mary Tyler Moore.
Harrison wonders whether Snooki or Sheen’s Goddesses aren’t some kind of twisted new standard for women — finding the fastest and easiest way to make money while looking as young and trashy as possible doing it.
Because while I am a huge fan of Jessica Coen’s work, don’t get me wrong, there had to be some small part of her that did crave Sheen’s desire and attention. Sure, she’d never actually consent to being a Goddess (I hope), but the fact remains that a self-declared feminist got some kind of jolly from texting and flirting with a woman-beating drug abuser.
Because, unfortunately, I’m afraid Harrison might be right — we have swapped the young, eager career-woman for the reality show drunk. And the real question is: what are we planning to do about it? Because Sheen’s behavior isn’t funny or affable or cute or off-beat. He’s a father of five who has held a knife to the throat of the mother of two of his children, threatened the life of the mother of two more, shot his fiance in the arm and given a woman a split lip. And we need to stop acting as though any woman he abuses or degrades is somehow asking for it because she might get a stack of cash in exchange for her safety or dignity.
*sniff**sniff*… I smell drama!
I’ve heard, and said “winning!” many times after this debacle.
But myself, and every person I’ve heard say it, is saying it in a way that clearly implies mockery towards Charlie Sheen.
It’s in no way an endorsement of his behavior, and I can think of no reason he shouldn’t be mocked.
As for the women who have entered into relationships with him and been abused, I have as much sympathy for them as I would any woman in this situation.
By which I mean less and less for each successive woman who enters into a relationship with a man who has a well documented past of abuse towards women.
For instance, his “Goddesses” receive no sympathy from me, nor would any woman who entered into a relationship with him from this point on.
I really think that the blame for drunken famewhoring needs to be a little more personalized. I hear the blame for society in general, but not parents in particular.
Reality shows should not be more of an influence in a kid’s life than their parents.
Throwing your kid in front of a tv and not monitoring what they watch is a bad idea.
Not having intelligent conversations with your kids about the crap they’re watching is even worse.
Agreed, I don’t think anyone takes Charlie Sheen seriously. The closest I’ve seen to admiration is people who think he’s the greatest troll ever.
Watch it Erin,your going to piss of Lola.
OMG Lola is Charlie Sheen!
Wait, no. Lola doesn’t have the finesse to be a winner with adonis DNA.
But it does believe that it’s the greatest troll ever.
I do not think most young women today want to emulate Snooki, or become kept women of the Sheen variety. I think the draw is more akin to watching a car crash than inspirational viewing.
Exactly. It’s a train wreck. As of now, anyone who hops aboard the crazy train is completely nuts — including any “goddesses”. It’s gotten to the point that Charlie Sheen’s children have been removed from his home for their safety. And you know what? I’m more than happy to laugh at him. Here’s a man so rich that he can afford to pay an entire rehab staff to come to his home. Yet he won’t, because his ego is the size of Mars. We’re currently watching his hubris bite him in the ass in the biggest flameout of the year. Britney was nothing compared to this. I understand that addiction is a disease, but my sympathy lies with the addicts who realize they have problems and are hurting everyone around them and want to get help. Not assholes with a bajillion dollars who treat all other human beings like crap and go on national television to brag about it.
.
When people say “winning” to each other, I think most of them mean it sarcastically. As in, “look at this douche calling middle America names while he alienates the mothers of his children and makes a mess of his life. Check back in 2 years Charlie, and see who’s in better shape; your skeletal figure found pissing all over yourself in some back alley of Oakland, too screwed up to even verbalize your need for cocaine; or middle America. Money can’t buy you dignity.”
Ha! let me say it again, Ha! Charlie is rich, handsome, charming and famous. Always lady pleasers. I am willing to bet every women on this site has been treated worse by men who had less. Fact is the ladies like the thrill (at least the young hot ones, and I don’t think Charlie cares about the others). Chicks can whine about how awful Charlie and guys like him are but the reality is women love the “Dark Triad” and are, and have always been, willing to put up with the dangers of these individuals to cozy up to a “bad boy”. So spare me the “poor girls these days” routine.
Um, no. Bad boys are shitty boyfriends/husbands/human beings. I’ve yet to let a boyfriend treat me like that, probably because I don’t date just any guy with a leather jacket or Rolex who comes along.
I know, I’m feeding the troll who’s going on his little “women are shallow evil harpies” spiel again, I just can’t help it.
“leather jacket or Rolex” I think it was more like a Carhartt, and Casio for you. But a woman doesn’t get a hide as thick, and claws and sharp as yours dating dudes from the chess club. So why don’t you tell me another one.
I actually bought my guy his first pair of Carhartts this Christmas. Weird, huh?
Carhartts, what the hell it that – his first set of balls?
Well, we can tell Lola here has never had to work a day in its life.
Charlie Sheen looks like a gaunt scarecrow. I don’t think “handsome” is the word for that. So far, none of his women have stuck around, so they must have weighed the risks at some point! The “Goddesses” are porn stars. I’m sure THEY have done worse, but women in general? No, it’s not within our biological drive to want a man who will not provide an environment conducive to raising one’s children to adulthood…
Did someone leave the window open again…boring just blew in here in a gust of sweeping generalizations.
The sad, sad, “but I am not like that!” mantra. Kinda pathetic really, sell it somewhere else snowflake.
Nah, I’m pretty sure plenty of other women buy pants for their male significant others as well.
There is no ‘standard’ for anything. The fact of the matter is, people do what they want. No one ‘swapped’ anything for anyone. The career-minded woman is still there, along with the baby mama woman and the trashy drunk woman. Just because one is getting more attention doesn’t eradicate the existence of another. And I’m also not entirely sure that complaining about the aforementioned ‘type’ of woman makes it disappear.
Wow, this site sure is quiet. Who would have thought it would be difficult to get women to start talking? Maybe I should get the ball rolling. Segregated sports teams, WNBA, WPGA etc. A good thing? One point of view is that it empowers women by letting them compete and bond against each other without the influence of men. But women sports tend to be second rate. Or is the answer to let women compete with and against men, but this runs the risk of getting women pushed out in favor of faster, stronger men. Have any of you ladies ever competed in a sport against men? And did you enjoy it or would you have favored an all female competition? And were you any good?
Depends on the sport. Men are clearly more athletically able than women, generally speaking. When it comes to professional athletics, this difference is a bit smaller, but even so, men are still bigger and have more upper body strength than women do, which means that sports that involve mostly upper body strength will never work out in an egalitarian manner gender-wise. But for casual or intramural sports played by nonprofessionals, I like nonsegregated teams better (heavy contact sports excluded – no tackle football thanks). Sports like soccer, hockey, softball, volleyball, etc. can easily be played with mixed gender teams. And they’re more fun to be a part of in my experience. When I had to switch from playing coed baseball as a kid to playing softball I was pretty upset, because softball is comparably lame. I don’t even play it any more. Mixed sports do not work at a more competitive level though because, like you said, women get pushed out.
When is the memorial service?
Or has Zelda Lily been quietly cremated?
This is simply pitiful :(
Quick Blurry, get the resuscitation pads and charge to 500! Shes flatlining. LIVE DAMN YOU!!! LIVE!!!
I’m kinda starting to get worried about the writers…
Like in a “somebody send the cops to see if they’re still alive” kinda way.
Sarah, Please let us know what is going on!!!! Why do you suddenly dislike us so much? We are all going through ZL withdrawal. Is it permanent?
LOL Not permanent doll … There’ve been few stories submitted, but I promise there’ll be some up today! :)
I’ve been boycotting since Naomi Hogg quit posting.
I’ve been busy trying to organize a war protest,nobody wants to join me. Sure was easier when Bush was in office!!
I’ll join you Joey, I’m a pacifist :)
I talked to Sarah on Facebook today and she said that Sheen’s people bought the site for two weeks. Charlie and the goddesses winning in the Number 1 slot until March 31.
.test
Suck on it.
I sure would like to bang a 7 grand rock!
OMFG… :S
I love Charlie Sheen just by association to Willem Dafoe. If he wants to live with two pornstars and make a life with them or just live with them for two weeks, that is his and their business. I don’t think he treats them poorly, at least in the public eye. I also am not sure that condemning him for treatment of women that he has never been convicted for (and which could likely be just a media shit storm) is fair. Yeah, he is pretty out there, but so far I haven’t actually seen anything that makes me dislike him. Pretty soon though I’m going to get tired of the catchphrases.
On another note, maybe ZL should just schedule a two week break or something? What is going on with this place?
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Just dropping my two cents. How come a girl can hit me with a bat for a smartass comment, (only avoided a split skull because I got an arm in the way) with no reprecussions: but if I punched her and “split” her lip, I’m abusive and should be locked up? Don’t make sense to me. Equality should mean equal, not: equal, but with more privilages because girls aren’t inherintly violent but men are slavering monsters.
Where in the law does it stipulate that only men can be held responsible for physical abuse? I’m not sure why you think there are no repercussions for women who are perpetrators of abuse, there definitely are. It’s almost impossible to sort out cases like this after the fact because all police have to rely on most of the time is he said vs. she said and visible wounds. Generally speaking, the most important thing for them to do is remove one of the parties from the situation to prevent further escalation of the violence. Sometimes that means removing the person they think was committing less violence, sometimes not. Men and women are equally likely to be abusive, although men are more likely to use lethal violence. And in the vast majority of cases, both parties are committing the violence.
It’s in the part of the law where humans are involved.
It never states that explicitly, but ‘men abuse women’ is the underlying thread in the head of most people involved (police, lawyers, jurors), and that affects how things come out.
People tend not to take seriously female-on-male abuse because they assume a guy should be able to handle himself.
When police come upon a confrontation, they remove the man. They remove the man in essentially every situation, and it is up to him to later prove that he was not the one causing the problem. Which tends not to go well.
Women have all kinds of resources. Men don’t. Women rarely want to be ‘equal’.
While more men are brought to trial for spousal murder, it’s still pretty even, and the avergage sentence for women who are convicted is drastically lower. I am in no way excusing or condoning violence, verbal abuse, or petty cruelty in either direction in relationships, but I have personally seen more than a handful of women hitting or slapping theirboyfriends and husbands in PUBLIC. Even peace officers present just told one woman to “cool down”. Another time, many of my friends thought the guy “had it coming”. If any of these cases had been the man hitting the woman, he would be behind bars. The standard exists, and there ARE two of them. The fact is that men are supposed to be able to shrug off domestic abuse, or face public and political ridicule. God forbid they need help, ever wondered what happens when a man shows up at a domestic violence shelter with a shiner? He gets the door slammed in his face.
Equality means renaming the DoJ’s Violence against Women department to Violence against People. But it seems that real equality doesn’t have that nice ring to it. If people want to make a real difference, they should educate kids on alternatives to violence, not point at the big scary Man as the bad guy, especially when negibilizing crossgender violence. Ah, the frying pan upside the head, classic… except I own a few cast iron skillets, and you’d probably kill the person you hit with one of those.
I dunno, Kal, I think women want to be equal, and they should be, but it’s a very human thing to want the benefits without the downsides.
But getting the benefits without the downsides (or the rights without the responsibilities) isn’t equal. Yes, women say they want equality, but really, what the want is the benefits that men have – without giving up any of the benefits that they enjoy. I’m a big believer in reading actions rather than words.
It is human – what person in any situation does not try to maximize their benefits and minimize detriments?
But honesty goes a long way.
If you want to better the state of women in general, or in respect to men, the least you could do is be up front, rather than hiding behind ‘equality’.