Kirsten Dunst has angered the “Shut up” crowd, heaven help her. She voiced an opinion without the permission of the right-thinking crowd. Because clearly women should know their place, only speak when spoken to, and even then only with approved talking points. Having their own mind and speaking it is unbecoming of a woman! Just listen to these sexist, misogynist geezers! They sound like something out of “Mad Men.”
“Kirsten Dunst is not paid to write gender theory so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that she’s kind of dumb about it,” Erin Gloria Ryan at Jezebel wrote.
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And Stacey Ritzen at Uproxx — who admitted she’s “hated” Dunst since the 1990s — also slammed the “Elizabethtown” actress for apparently suggesting “women should know their place is in the home.”
And what horrible thing did Ms. Dunst have to say?
“I feel like the feminine has been a little undervalued,” she said, according to Us Weekly.
“We all have to get our own jobs and make our own money, but staying at home, nurturing, being the mother, cooking — it’s a valuable thing my mom created.”
Dunst added that sometimes “you need your knight in shining armor.”
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“I’m sorry,” Dunst continued. “You need a man to be a man and a woman to be a woman. That’s why relationships work.”
Dunst uses much, much more careful language than Ryan or Ritzen. The only thing she was somewhat assertive about is that there are differences in gender, and that relationships work best when the two people don’t try to be redundant of one another. What’s so dumb about that? For those of us living in the real world and not the ivory utopia of gender theory, it’s fairly obvious.
Dunst’s two critics are quite amusing, in a pathetic sort of way. Suppose Ryan’s comment were attributed to Paul Ryan instead. Can you imagine the uproar? There would be front-page hissy-fits and witch-hunts galore! But it’s okay for a woman to put down another woman as “not being paid to think.”
As for Ritzen, she’s pretty good at putting words in people’s mouths. Since when does “–it’s a valuable thing my mom created” equate to “women should know their place is in the home”? Is Ritzen really trying to say that motherhood has no value? Would she dare to say that to her own mom? For heaven’s sake, kudos to Dunst for being appreciative of hers!
It bothers me to no end that feminists seem to believe that the only worthwhile work is what you get paid for. Men don’t even believe that (witness the number of volunteer coaches), and feminists seem to believe they’re better than men! Why is it I hear feminists willing to trumpet the value of people doing grunt jobs like waiting tables or cleaning streets, yet turn around and disrespect mothering? It really makes me sad. It’s the apex of self-absorption: Mothering is so easy anyone can do it! Look at me! I turned out okay, and my mother didn’t have to do a thing! Just put any babies you’re stupid enough to have in the care of a toaster and go do something important!
Absolute idiocy. If that were true, why do I hear so many women claiming it’s so hard to “have it all”? I’m sorry, but of the three women mentioned, only Dunst shows any real intelligence, let alone appreciation for the importance of motherhood.
I really hope Ms. Dunst sticks to her guns and doesn’t let the “Shut up” or the “Just die” crowd bully her into a retraction or an apology. Women should be allowed to speak their minds, no matter whether they have anything intelligent to say or whether they get paid for it. Women should be able to have their own set of values, independent of what others insist they should believe. It would be terribly ironic if the feminist movement turns out to not have been about freeing women from oppression by men, but to simply to gain control of the leash. It’s women who are dead-set on oppressing women now.
Ms. Ryan and Ms. Ritzen, you deserve each other. Feel free to go back to writing gender theory and leave the rest of us alone. You offer nothing of value to society with your narrow-minded, intolerant perspectives. I wouldn’t dream of infringing on your right to be that way and to say what you want, but just know I am under no obligation to take you at all seriously, either. And I don’t intend to. Unfortunately for “feminism” you besmirch the brand to the point that I can’t take it seriously, either.
Ms. Dunst, bravo. Thank you for having the courage to be a rebel. Thank you for having the intelligence to see what should be obvious: that men and women are complementary, not identical, and can find a great deal of happiness together. And you especially have my respect for respecting both yourself and the woman who raised you. It is a valuable thing your mother created. My compliments to you both.
The choice that has value is the choice that I want chosen. If you fail to choose what I, the intelligent one, would choose, then clearly your choice should be over-ruled by those of us who are truly enlightened.
Ms. Dunst is right and I agree. She should not apologize and stick up for what she believes. If people continue to back down, we will end up having to learn the lessons of World War II all over again. (Yes, I visited the Holocaust Museum this week and was struck by how similar the Nazi rhetoric is to that of today.
You had to mention Nazis. Now, by the rules of internet logic, your comments were just totally invalidated.
By the rules of internet logic (ie. “It’s someone other than me writing this post”) the entire post was invalidated the moment they disagreed with it.
The sad thing about Godwin’s Law (or how it’s applied, anyhow) is that it ignores the question of whether anyone could ever be correct in comparing something to Nazis. The corollary that everyone seems to be tacking on is that the Nazis’ evil was so epic that they invalidate their own existence, and that something like that could never happen again. Even while it’s happening this very moment in various parts of the world, albeit on a smaller scale.
A further thought … We may not like to admit it, but men aren’t just women with more hair and women aren’t just men with different lumpy bits. Decide for yourself what it means to be a man or a woman, but if you attempt to be just the same sort of sexless genderless automaton, it won’t be a lasting relationship.
Hmmm, I guess that I didn’t show my tongue in my cheek enough. The root of the problem is that the Nazi comparison has been tossed around so much that it has virtually lost all meaning. The world is a complicated place and those comparisons DESERVE to be made … on occasion. Nuance and degree, nuance and degree.
I got the tongue in cheek part. Mainly just bemoaning the reality that others would have said the same thing in full sincerity.
Maybe we could come up with our own version of Godwin’s Law, where anything posted on Jezebel is automatically invalid. It’d save a lot of time.