Sexist Sex

Oh, for goodness sake.

A short while ago I checked my aol email account & was greeted on aol's home page by the trivial celebrity headline of the day. Apparently some female celebrity (never heard of her) is pregnant and - oh wait! - HERE'S THE JUICY PART! - she's unmarried! Wow!

Good grief, I thought. Who the heck cares? Now - part of my grumbling is due to a free-floating irritation with our celebrity saturated culture. But the other part of my grumbling has to do with the sexist, holier than thou gasping nature of the headline over the fact that she is unmarried.

This is a new concept? Single, unwed motherhood? Public figure unwed single motherhood? Remember the broohaha over the Murphy Brown pregnancy about which Dan Quayle so famously (stupidly) opined? At the time the issue was forced into open discussion as a public debate erupted over the definition of family, over the puritanical shaming of women "caught pregnant" out of wedlock, etc. That was over a decade ago but apparently we have not moved on from our gasping at such news - at least in the media driven, sensation generating headlines of pop culture.

And dare I ask the question? Where is the headline about the father of this soon to be born child? Just once I would like to see a headline gasping out the words - HOLLYWOOD CELEB JOHN SMITH IS GOING TO BE A FATHER BUT HE'S UNMARRIED! or better yet - HOLLYWOOD CELEB JOHN SMITH HAS IMPREGNATED HIS GIRLFRIEND!

If we are going to insist on puritanical, sensational headlines to fuel our pop culture appetite then we can at least stop being so sexist about it. Let's at least strive for an egalitarian approach to our puritanical shaming.

On a final note - I actually don't think that all that many people (the RIGHT excepted) care that much about the fact that this celebrity is unmarried & pregnant. What I do find fascinating, however, is that the media continually tries to play on old puritanical ideas of shaming to generate sensation about the story they are trying to sell. The extent to which we are suckers for this is debatable.