Yoko Romo is breaking up the Cowboys. Remember, the quarterback is not to blame if he is distracted when a hot girl is at the game; it’s her fault. Tony Romo shouldn’t be criticized for going to Mexico this past week because remember! That the blonde temptress lured him away from his work. Poor Tony Romo! He’s just trying to do his job, but she won’t leave him alone!
If you know anything about my writing style and opinions, you’ll realize that in the above paragraph I’m being facetious. Yoko Romo is not her name. Her name is Jessica Simpson and guess what? Tony Romo is a grown man who can make his own decisions. He would be the first to tell you that he is responsible for his own game and nobody else. He can go where he likes and do what he likes as long as he’s ready to go on Sundays. Now, if Tony Romo starts blaming Jessica for his sub-par play, then by all means, let’s make it a story. Let’s sensationalize it. Let’s revel in it. Let’s do what American media does best: exploit it! But until then, Tony Romo went on vacation during his bye week: end of story. It could have been with his parents, with his girlfriend, or with his dog. It could have been by himself, for all it matters! The point is, he was not at home or at the Cowboys’ training facility studying game film, hitting the weights, or running timing patterns with his wideouts. If his performance suffers on Sunday, it will be because of something other than Jessica Simpson. We are so obsessed with celebrity in this country, that what Romo was doing became more of a story that what he was not doing, wherein lies the real issue.
To change the subject slightly, but as a way of emphasizing my point, I recently spoke with somebody who feels that women shouldn’t be allowed in the military. To paraphrase him, men can’t really control themselves sexually in situations like that. To me, that’s saying because of a male shortcoming, we’re going to punish women. He summed up women in the military as “four letter words that begin with an S and end with a T.” One major flaw in that logic. Even if sex is that rampant and out-of-control on military bases throughout the country, you can’t blame it on one party without holding the other party at least 50% accountable. With whom are those women having sex? Unless they’re raping all the men with whom they’re supposedly sleeping, the blame needs to lie elsewhere as well. It takes two to tango. It also takes two to do a lot of other less G-rated things. Women and men can coexist in virtually every other workplace in the country, so why are military bases so radically different? If men and women alike knew and respected the boundaries, there would be no problems. If they were true professionals, sexual tension would be a non-issue. And if they allowed gays in the military, then nobody would know who was attracted to who and everyone would just stick do doing their jobs….but I digress. Plus, the very notion of calling promiscuous women “sluts” is disconcerting when men are not slapped with the same labels. If a man sleeps with a “slut,” what does that make him? A Ladies Man. A Player. Something that sounds distinguished, but is essentially the same thing.
Look at the Islamic religion, with whom we are currently at political odds. We condemn their way of life for the way they treat women, but are we really any better? Women, on paper, have more opportunities in this country than they do in Middle Eastern countries, but what about in practice? Islamic states at least make no illusions about what women can and can’t do, and at the end of the day, women are respected. Possibly a little persecuted or stifled from our point of view, but respected nonetheless. Now, what about America? We say they have equal rights, but is there a double standard that suppresses women’s ambitions and pursuit of equality? Feminists only exist as a way of countering sexism. If there were no sexism, there would be no feminists. People think feminists hate men, when actually their only agenda is equality. So as soon as women start earning the same salary as men, feminism as we know it will begin to dissolve. As soon as “boys will be boys” ceases to be a legitimate excuse for asinine and degrading male behavior, sexism will deteriorate. And one day, when a star QB can go on vacation and we focus only on how that affects the team and not his sex life, fiery writers like yours truly will be out of material.
