There’s an old saying that a man who speaks his mind is considered an assertive leader, but a woman who speaks her mind? She’s just considered a bitch. Someone must have told Carrie Prejean about this because she’s taken it as her motto and run.
The dethroned Miss California was back on the media junket today, promoting her new book, “Still Standing: The Untold Story of My Fight Against Gossip, Hate, and Political Attacks.” She was also fielding questions about a recently surfaced “sex” tape, in which she apparently is filmed alone. In an interview with Meredith Vieira this morning, Prejean called the sex tape the biggest mistake of her life, before going on to say that the tape is just further proof in a long line of evidence that the liberal, mainstream media is trying to silence her because of her conservative views. According to Prejean:
There is a liberal bias in the media and it’s unfortunate that conservative women are attacked...for their beliefs. It’s unacceptable and it shouldn’t happen... Since when does free speech not exist? Since when is someone able to go on TV and call someone the most awful names you can think of?
I have no doubt that Ms. Prejean was unfairly criticized during the backlash to her remarks about same-sex marriage. She had a right to express her opinion and should not have been called names. To insist, however, that she is the target of a media conspiracy against conservative women is beyond ridiculous. In the seven months since she first entered the spotlight, Prejean has been interviewed by countless news programs, become a spokesperson for the National Organization for Marriage, and has now published a memoir. If anything, she has benefited tremendously from the controversy surrounding her.
Prejean argues that she is being attacked now, not because of her sex tape, but because of a double standard. In a way she is right, but it’s not the media’s double standard that is causing the problem; it’s her own. Apparently, in Ms. Prejean’s world, you can say things like, “Our bodies are temples of the Lord. We should earn respect and admiration for our hearts, not for showing skin to look sexy,” all while getting breast implants, posing semi-nude for photographs, and parading around on stage in a bikini at a beauty pageant. I have no problem with her doing those things. I do have a problem with this: if anyone dares to question her about the seeming discrepancy between her stated beliefs and her actions, she tells them that they are discriminating against her gender, her religion and her conservative views. Since when is making a sex tape a part of the conservative belief system?
The most frustrating thing about Prejean’s claim of biased reporting is that it takes away from women who have really experienced such unfair scrutiny. Last year’s presidential campaign called attention to what Katie Couric called, “the continued and accepted role of sexism in American life…particularly in the media,” when candidates Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin were raked over the coals for everything from their voices to their hair styles to their parenting approaches. Accusing someone of being a ball-busting harpie or pimping out her daughter because you don’t like her politics? That’s the kind of sexist reporting that all women need to stand against, but that is not what is happening to Carrie Prejean. By including herself in this group, Prejean has taken a deeply entrenched issue and turned it into the whining battle cry of a self-proclaimed martyr.
This book tour will probably not be the last we hear from Carrie Prejean, who seems to have a knack for extending her fifteen minutes indefinitely. As she puts it, “They’ve tried to embarrass me, they’ve tried to humiliate me, they’ve tried to attack me and I’m still standing.” Hmmm…wouldn’t that make a great name for a book?
What do you think about Prejean's claim?
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