Savvy Women

I keep discovering these writers I should have already known about. My latest discovery of this type is Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia, a wildly successful memoir that tells the story of a year-long series of travels the author went on immediately following a very painful divorce. Now that I know about Gilbert and her story of self-discovery, set in three countries and on two continents, I’ve put it on my 2010 reading list.

Gilbert has many more interesting things to say about romantic love, companionship, and marriage, but I’ll let her speak for herself.

The advertisement you’ve just watched was produced to promote a competition called “Cougar Pride” which was sponsored by Air New Zealand and featured on the carrier’s Grabaseat site, a webpage which allows travelers to book discount airfares online. Though the contest ended a few days ago, details about it are still available on The Inspiration Room website, which describes the competition in the following way: “Grabaseat is looking for 60 of these exquisite creatures to join them at the sold out NZI Sevens in Wellington as their pride of cougar cheerleaders. Winning contestants will be given cougar costumes and the equipment to make enough noise to attract the attention of young males. And to make sure the pride doesn’t go hungry, 10 brave young men recruited by ZM will be thrown in as fresh meat to the winners in Wellington.”

As you’ve probably guessed, the “exquisite creatures” mentioned in the previous paragraph are “cougars.” If you’re not familiar with the latter term, it refers to “mature” women who are sexually attracted to younger men and pursue them just as cougars do when they go after prey.

Here’s the rub, though. The ad caused such an outrage in New Zealand, especially among rape victim advocacy groups, that Air New Zealand was forced to discontinue it before the contest deadline expired. From what I’ve been able to find out about the controversy, these groups argued that it was irresponsible for the company to air an ad that made light of sexually predatory behavior.

I certainly understand that those who have been victimized in this way might have an entirely different way of viewing it in light of their tragic experiences. With that said, here are my thoughts on the ad. Firstly, I think it is super funny and ingenious. The whole mock nature documentary approach really makes it. Secondly, I’m in favor of anything that challenges stereotypes and pokes fun at what are normally considered taboo subjects, like human sexuality. In my opinion, sex is already way too hush-hush. Let’s talk about it and show it and make jokes about it.

I’d like to hear your thoughts.

This week I’m looking at young American women, the choices they make about how they are going to live their lives, and the role older female mentors can play in helping youngsters make good decisions. I’ve included two CNN videos that work very nicely together. The first one describes a number of societal problems facing young women today, and the second one, which profiles a wonderful woman named Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch, shows how role models can help girls overcome many of the difficulties that they face.

Just a little to set up the first video: Mike Galanos, of CNN, is shown discussing the problem of teen pregnancy at Robeson High School in Chicago with two experts–Dr. Brenda Wade, a clinical psychologist, and Lauren Lake, attorney and co-founder of Women in Entertainment Empowerment Network. The video provides no justification for why CNN chose to focus on this particular school. Anyway, as you’ll see when you watch the video, the numbers of pregnant girls at RHS is indeed high. What I most like about the video is that the experts actually focus their discussion on the larger issue–why so many young women are making so many bad choices, decisions that are likely to limit their abilities to reach their full potential as human beings.

For me, the most telling comment came right toward the end of clip when Ms. Lake asked the following question (I’m paraphrasing): Why don’t we celebrate more people for being intelligent? She then goes on to say that we worship those with sex appeal but show limited appreciation for those who use their brains.

Now, on to video two, which presents a possible solution to the problems we’ve been discussing.

The thing that makes Ms. Kickbusch’s message so persuasive is that it comes out of her ethos, her credibility, as a speaker. She understands her audience and can speak to them with great power because she was among them at one point in her life.

Being an educator and thus someone who has thought long and hard about the larger implications of my work, I can assure you that there is nothing more important to a nation’s security than making sure its young women are well educated and empowered.