judge city

In the fast cycle of media hype, the Amal Alamuddin-George Clooney engagement is almost old news.

Some publications were overjoyed that George is finally engaged while others rejoiced that he is finally engaged to such a smart, successful woman. Amal suddenly didn’t just become ‘George Clooney’s Fiance’ but a feminist hero–the badass barrister whose clients make George Clooney look, well, like this:

Too bad America couldn’t have been mass-introduced to Amal before this whole engagement thing.

Though meant to seem like some feminist victory, the way certain media outlets used Amal as proof that a successful woman could turn a notoriously-hard-to-marry-playboy into a man-rushing-to-buy-the-ring read like a terrible 1950’s Doris Day film. What is the end game here? Celebrating his choice of her? Celebrating hope for all of us career women? Seems not only celebrity/wedding fetish-y, but like another giant pat on the back for him.

Plus, do we really need to use George’s proposal to Amal to make us feel justified in some of our career-first mindset? Like it could really happen for us! I thought we were smarter than using tabloid stories for empowerment.

But perhaps the most disturbing aspect of all this media coverage/Facebook statuses is the way his former flames have been dealt with. The snarky or passive aggressive asides about how his exes just don’t compare to Amal is truly a misguided ‘FINALLY!’ A finally that he’s become engaged to her–she’s not like the pro-wrestler Stacy Keibler, model/actress Elisabetta Canalis , or some Las Vegas cocktail waitress named Sarah Larson of yore. Finally, George stopped dating these floozies for a REAL woman! A woman with BRAINS!

How is this fair? How is this pro-feminist? Why can’t we celebrate the engagement and Amal’s career? Why bring down the exes and their chosen careers in the process?

For one thing, Stacy Keibler was a professional wrestler, which requires being physically strong and highly athletic. Being a pro, Stacy made it to the peak of her professional field.  Sure there is a lot of pageantry and 80’s nostalgia associated with wrestling, but isn’t being a pro-female wrestler badass? I think so, it’s just a different form of badass-ery.

And for Sarah Larson the former cocktail waitress, aren’t many of us getting by as full and part-time waitresses? Don’t we love 2 Broke Girls? Disregarding her as a ‘lowly’ waitress is hurtful to all of the women who are waitressing to pay loans, to attend school, to take care of their families, and to the women who enjoy waitressing as a career.

The  ‘us vs. them’ of it all: us (smart career women) snagging the man not them (ditzy models/actresses/pro-wrestlers/waitresses), both the overt and passive comparisons of his exes’ careers to Amal’s are the unnecessary, misguided, and nasty heart of a lot of the coverage/excitement. Amal Alamuddin is an inspiration for women because of her intelligence, poise, and stellar accomplishments.  Why can’t we appreciate the Amal’s and Stacy’s of the world? It’s not only unhelpful to deem women ‘inferior’ based on their career choice, but also just plain rude.

To judge women on their job or salary is not the kind of feminism I want to fight for. If we can only celebrate certain women but not the rest, that’s not the kind of  feminism I want to fight for. We’re women, we’re people, and we deserve equal respect–no matter what job we have, what we wear, what we  make, and most of all, whom we marry.