Thanks to Madison Avenue, which mirrors back a fantasy world through the pages of Cosmo, Vogue, and other "women's magazines" and to marketing Czaresses like Oprah Winfrey, american yuppie women have the illusion that they are liberated, empowered, and in control ... that they have come a long way, baby. But the reality is, I fear, very much a case of the "Empresses' new clothes."
What do we really see under the transparent wardrobe?

My take? A frightened and very disempowered little girl desperate for male approval. I mean, consider the facts. Women are the primary culprits driving the SUV craze. Why? Ask and 9 out of 10 will say it is because they feel "safer" — even though the SUV has been proven to be less safe than an old fashioned large station wagon and is an environmental disaster.
But, the "little girl woman" of the U.S. needs, psychologically, to drive a "tank." Women are primarily responsible now for the insane popularity enjoyed by Donald Rumsfeld. They think he is sexy because he promises to go trash someone else's country on "their" behalf — he is thus a surrogate "Daddy" — one that doesn't demand responsible behavior - just beating someone else up, like the hockey Dad in Massachusetts. Of course, Rumsfeld is the surrogate Daddy who, while conning women, could give a rat's ass about their real safety. This is, after all, the same man who, as CEO of Searle, "called in markers" (his own words) to make sure aspartame was approved over the FDA's initial objections. Rumsfeld did so knowing full well the trials showed the sweetener would likely have potentially serious health effects, especially for women, the product's primary consumers.

The American woman says she is in control of her own body. Yet in the quest to conform to male models of beauty, she is rampantly self-abusive. Rates of cosmetic surgery, anorexia nervosa, and consumption of drugs, legal and illegal, aimed at enhancing this
model are skyrocketing. At the same time, the competition for male approval has driven women to become nastier to one another than at any other time in U.S. history (even AOL, that bastion of non-news, actually ran a story about this). American women helped put one of the most anti-woman administrations in office the U.S. has ever had — an administration that does not believe in reproductive rights or in helping working mothers — or poor mothers — care for their children or for their own health.

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