Sarah Palin and Martha Stewart: Are Women "Just Jealous"?

According to a recent article in Glamour (such a pinacle of the feminist movement, I know) senior editor Cindy Leive claims most women are just 'haters' who are jealous of successful women. In fact, she even likens the recent loss of the GOP to the hatred many women had for Martha Stewart at the height of her career.


Article: http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2008/11/glamour_editor_cindi_leive_thi.html
The election’s over, but Glamour editor Cindi Leive is already rooting for a Sarah Palin comeback. "Oh, I think she’s got a brilliant future," said Leive at the election party she hosted with Harvey Weinstein, Jim Nelson, and Georgette Mosbacher the other night. "Personally, I think she is a gifted politician. She’s a great communicator. She’s a magnetic personality. I don’t see how you can discount that."

Leive thinks Palin’s candidacy was "great for women"; she’s even okay with that whole making-women-in-Wasilla-pay-for-their-own-rape-kit thing. "It’s anti-women, if you’re a feminist," she said. "It doesn’t seem anti-women to her. I don’t know. I’m not any more offended by her having those views than I am by any man holding those same views, and in the end, I think it’s a good thing to have more women out there with alternate political views. I just think that expands our ideas of what women are capable of." What does offend Leive, however, is "the venom with which some women have reacted to her. She has strong political views, but so do lots of men. The glee with which some women are jumping on her demise kind of turns me off. It reminds me of Martha Stewart," she went on.

"Back in the day when she first had her TV show, there were a lot of women who just loved to hate on Martha Stewart. And on some level it always seemed like they were feeling put down by her choices. Here’s this woman who’s stenciling her mantle. It makes you as a woman feel like you’re not woman enough if you’re not stenciling your mantle. A man encounters Bob Vila and he doesn’t think, ‘Who is this A-hole rebuilding his deck? I don’t have time to rebuild my deck! How dare he tell me to do that!’ A guy would just turn the channel, you know. And women should be able to do that, too. Why do you feel like that’s a referendum on how you live your life? Women take Sarah Palin’s choices really personally. And I think that real progress for women will be when there’s just enough of us out there that you don’t feel like every woman’s behavior is some kind of referendum on you and your choices."



Fact is:
I HATE Martha Stewart not because I feel "inadequate" but because she has an air of pompous superiority about her which she didn't have originally. Where most craft shows or cooking shows encourage their audience to go outside the prep list and make the project their own, Martha will spend the entire show emphasizing how her fortune allows her to waste hundreds on gold-foil imported pears as a centerpiece. Nevermind that her average viewer could never AFFORD half of the crap Martha shows us how to make. Now that we have Food Network, HGTV and Bravo, women realize what a snobby sham Martha was. She WAS holding us to some outlandish standard of wastefulness and time consuming garbage. Now, we have options and have cast her aside for the sham she is.

On the topic of Sarah Palin, she is in another category of idiocy all together. Once again, the fanbase decided that anyone who disagrees with her morally must be "jealous". The fact is, I don't want anything that Palin "has". I like having my right to choose. I like having the right to be a good person without fear of an invisible superpower or the threat of going to a lake of lava. The fact is, I pity her. I pity her and I pity Martha Stewart because they are trapped in a stereotype and don't know truly understand the meaning of 'freedom.' But hey, whatever works for them is fine.

For them.

Sarah Palin couldn't handle just keeping to herself. Oh no. She thinks to be a good "Christian" she has to influence the lives of everyone else around her by forcing people of all backgrounds and of all religions to confine to her skewed morals. That's why I don't like her. She's selfish and rude. And that kind of personality disgusts me. She's an insult to anyone who disagrees with her, INCLUDING most working women and any woman who's not a pentacostal Christian nutjob. So before you go jumping the gun and labeling all Palin and Martha haters as just "jealous bitches" educate yourself. I have many reasons to disagree with them, and not one stems from wanting to be like them.

Customer Service: Ask and Ye Shall Recieve

Demand and we'll hang up on you.

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I've been on hiatus from blogging for the last few months (without getting too much into it, politics and certain cult I am protesting have eaten up my spare time) but I am back and full of new experiences to post about. Today, my job. In fact, the job of over 80% of Americans:

Customer Service.
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Background Information:

I have been working fulltime since 1995 in mostly customer service and administrative jobs. Before that, I babysat kids in my neighborhood and mowed lawns on the weekends. I know what it's like to be the fry cook, the drive thru girl, the waitress for your bachelorette party, the cashier on Black Friday and the returns clerk the day after Christmas. I've worked everywhere from McDonalds to JP Morgan and I can tell you that my core responsiblity has never changed: satisfying the customer.


Behind the Counter:

From my experience, the most aggravating part of customer service is getting the customer to understand that you understand. That you are doing everything in your power to help them even if it is taking a while and even if you aren't the person they need. These are the people who will scream at you and accuse you of not caring after you've spent 15 minutes hunting down the appropriate manager for them.

The second most aggravating moments come when customers seem to forget that they are not the only person you have to help. Whether it's holding up the line at the bank window or keeping the other 5 phone lines on hold, this person is determined to have you lose four more customers in order to give them a refund or hear their entire story. This is when you have to get firm with people. Personlly, i am honest with them:

"Sir, I have other calls coming in, please hold."
I do not give people like this the option to wait, I just make them. Otherwise, I will end up with several upset customers, rather than just the one with unwarranted self importance.


The Other Side of The Desk: