Sketches and Studies by Craig Houghton

Craig Houghton February 4th, 2007

Let’s talk about something with absolutely no weight or substance. Let’s talk about Newsweek. Here’s the blurb for their cover story:

“Paris, Britney, Lindsay & Nicole: They seem to be everywhere and they may not be wearing underwear. Tweens adore them and teens envy them. But are we raising a generation of ‘prosti-tots’? “

A far direr indicator is that a legitimate news outlet like MSNBC made this sexist opinion piece from Newsweek their front page article. More or less, Newsweek just called a generation of young women whores. Do they really think so little of women that they’d expect a whole generation to emulate Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan just because the msm assumes it’s their mission to plaster the front covers with images of empty aristiocratic debauchery?

Newsweek even helped to bury their reputation entirely by including a 15 page spread of “bad girls.”

Right now, the U.S. is preparing to knock down the already tottering Jenga tower of international stability in order to score strategy points and barrels of oil in the Middle East as the collective jaw of the scientific community drops before the staggering evidence that man made climate change is going to radically transform our planet. Right now, damning evidence in the Libby trial seems to implicate both the vice-president and the president. But, right now, Newsweek thought it would be great to instead keep alive the age-old premise that failing to meet some standard of purity makes one a “bad-girl.”

An apt commenter on the article called Newsweek on the underlying premise:

“Labeling any female a prostitute is a millennia old device that some men and most religions have used to control women. Then when women use the label it is women-on-women violence. That should be the discussion; that and why Newsweek chose to use the word. Newsweek kindly explain, please.”

Way to go, Newsweek.

• women , media