OP Ed Columnist Maureen Dowd expressed her opinion on the Tiger Woods scandal by parallelling it to Desiree Roger's, the White House social secretary who purported to stand on constitutional principle as she refused to talk to Congress about the White House gate-crashers.
Down more so criticized Desiree Roger's actions of dealing with public admittance and Congress, rather than the actual culprit himself: Tiger Woods. How Rogers situation parallels Woods I do not know.
It's so ironic to me that when most men are caught cheating on their wives (i.e Bill Clinton and half of our past presidency), the mistress is always the central focus. Here, another "mistress," if even an appropriate choice is victimized up against Woods, who committed a moral sin. God forbid we could put down Woods for once without comparing him to someone else.
Dowd argues that, "The smart thing would have been for Desiree to sail up to Congress, wearing designer sackcloth and pearls of remorse, apologize for the oversight at her first state dinner and promise it wouldn’t happen again." Coming from Maureen Dowd, a female journalist, I find it hypocritical for her to perpetuate her own stereotype of the female gender Why is it necessary to use designer clothes and pearls of remorse (which is a dumb metaphor if you ask me?)
The the column switches back to Tiger's affair and a whole load of bullshit on how athletes are not meant to be role models.
"Both Tiger and Desiree hid and stayed silent because they mistakenly thought they were protecting the Brand. But despite their marketing savvy, these two controlling players spiraled out of control. They made the same colossal error in opposite ways."
In my opinion, this is beyond false. Obama is not a brand. He is a lading figure in our history. Woods' actions within his personal life will not affect Nike and other ads he promotes such as AMEX and general mills. We associate Tiger Woods with golf, not with relationships, as argued by most media. People won't protest Nike sneakers or AMEX just because of Tiger Woods. People have been buying clothes for centuries that are made by child labor abuse in third world countries. If that doesn't stop them, a man who committed adultry sure won't-- let's be real.
Dowd also calls Roger's weak for not RSVPing to the Homeland Security dinner and refusing to take blame to the public for her actions; however, Tiger's faults toward his family, is merely labeled as an amateur adult with a puffed up ego. Weak and amateur or two very different adjectives; not surprising, the more demeaning one is geared towards the woman in this article.
Still, I do not see the parallel of Woods with Rogers. What's worst of all is that she ends her column by of course focusing on the dominant male figure, stating: "But once he served up the fairy tale wedding with the Swedish beauty and had two kids, his value was in family and his projection of family values. Now all we have left to look up to is Derek Jeter."
Derek Jeter?? I'm sorry but what happened to the millions of women role models out there. Are there no women's sports players, actors, singers, olympic medalists, and even congress women? So now is Jeter happens to have a personal life slip up, our world is left with no one to admire, as implied by this narrow-minded columnist. What a joke! And the "Swedish beauty", Elin Woods has a name and a personality.
Dowd tries to compare two of society's figures in the worst way possible, arguing against both, yet still ends her piece with praise for a single MALE sports figure. Why?
Although she fails in making any sense whatsoever in the article, she does succeed at further demeaning women and continues to put male athletes on an unjust pedestal for the world to gravitate toward. Thus proving, both men and women are responsible for a stereotypical society in a patriarchal dominant world.
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