Douglas' chapter "The New Girlness" echoes the common belief boys hold about girls: a girl's life is revolved around a boy. It confirms the image boys have in their mind when they think about a girl who just broke up with her boyfriend; the image of a girl crawled up in her bed with a bucket of chocolate ice cream watching romance movies--she's looking like an irrationally emotional wreck. I find it interesting that Douglas points out when girls cannot find their "Mr. Right" in real life, they often console in hyper-masculine boy bands for an escape and a fantasy of their dream boy. Who don't remember the days when the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync were huge in teenage girls lives? This tradition of teenage girls obsessed with boy bands still continue today. There are teenagers and even little girls who obsessed with the Jonas Brothers and the new craze of Justin Beiber. Here's a link to a hit YouTube video of a 3 years old girl crying over Justin Beiber: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTCm8tdHkfI . This brings me to wonder why it seems that it is only female fans that are obsessed with superstars.
In Douglas' next chapter "You Go, Girl," I am troubled by this statement: "enlightened sexism suggest that black women deserve to be objectified and should be rendered powerless because all they really care about are sex and money anyway." The Hip Hop culture have surely displayed such image of African American women as sex objects. The industry of Hip Hop is not one that I want to discuss at the moment, but a great documentary that examines "manhood, sexism, and homophobia in hip-hop culture" (IMDb) is called HipHop: Beyond Beats & Rhyme if anyone wants to check it out. This is the one chapter that I feel Douglas actually takes a stand on and display her opinions. She has a strong stand on what it means to be a successful black women; her comparison of Wanda Syke, Queen Latifah and Oprah with Big Momma and Tyler Perry's Madea is extremely interesting. I don't know if I'm over analyzing, but I feel that Douglas suggest a successful black women needs to know how to code switch and also have the approval or support of the white audiences. Douglas mentions Oprah's successful because not only does she have the support of women like her but white women also support her. On the other hand, if we think about it Tyler Perry's movies seem to only attract black viewers.
Overall, these two chapters have a common theme of women's lives being dominated by male related activities. Douglas states "men can't and won't change, so women must accept this and accommodate it." We see this in Douglas examples of girls looking toward boy bands for their ideal boy and female rappers still responding through their lyrics about men instead of addressing the issues. So now I wonder, to what extend is Douglas' statement true; how much have women accepted and accommodated for men?
I also found these two chapters that Douglas writes very interesting. I was surprised by Douglas' statement "men can't and won't change, so women must accept this and accommodate it". Douglas seems to promote women's rights and I consider her to be a feminism. So by saying that women must accommodate and change according to men, I felt that Douglas went against everything else she believes in. That statement is basically telling women that no matter what happens, since men won't change, we must change ourselves to best cater to a man- giving men total and ultimate control over not just themselves, but over women's actions. I was a bit disgusted that Douglas choose to say this in her chapter because, even if that is the case with some women, Douglas is not one to promote women's inferiority and subservience.
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