what? Poor Mrs Ramsey??

Crunchy Carpets — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 16:19:11 -0500

Gimme a break.
There is soo much being kept a secret about that family and the people they worked and 'played' with.

Until they can prove without a doubt that that family had nothing to do with her daughters death.....I will hold little sympathy for the 'cruel' comments out there.

I think it is a travesty and a horror that mothers find it ok to tart up their daughters into tiny adults and still call it a 'beauty' pageant.

The extremes and JonBenet was a perfect example of that ...murdered or not....

I cannot wait for the day when all sorts of beauty pageants go the way of the dodo.

I hope one day the truth will come out about that girls death...but I have a feeling that the truth will be more shocking than most of us can handle.

well said

aunt blub — Sun, 27 Aug 2006 11:43:20 -0500

Yes, well said!!!

Rock. On.

Dana Loesch — Mon, 21 Aug 2006 23:39:51 -0500

GREAT post. I've always said that a girl shouldn't have her interests discriminated against, whether she's into sports, academics, or pageants (though the itty bitty girls in full makeup and chorus girl attire straight-up freak me out).

Dana
www.mamalogues.com
In the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Pop with Bang
Since Eve on ClubMom

Stereotypes about Motherhood, Family Life, and the JonBenet Ramsey Case

Suzanne Reisman — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 02:03:01 -0500

The news that JonBenet Ramseyâ€™s killer may have been finally found (and that it is not, in fact, any of her family members) brings back all those pictures that the press loves to show of a sweet little (frosted) blonde girl wearing lots of make-up prancing and performing in really expensive outfits. When Patsy Ramsey died in June, Love and Garbage read and objected to a horrifying obituary in The Guardian that read in part:

The case fascinated America and the world. It was not only the mystery and the Ramseys' wealth, but the mesmerising film of little JonBenet in $600 costumes, her lips and cheeks rouged, mascara on her eyelashes, flouncing and pouting as she danced awkwardly to show tunes and sang off-key. Despite her inadequacies she won several titles in this self-adoring world of junior pageants, while her mother relived her own glory days on the catwalk.

This is not the only nasty dig at Patsy and the child beauty pageant industry, Confessions of a Libertine takes it one step further, indicating that even if Patsy didnâ€™t kill JonBenet with her own bare hands, she is still responsible for her daughterâ€™s death::

I believe that JonBenet's murder was connected to her participation in child beauty pageants. Patsy Ramsey, a former beauty queen herself, had entered JonBenet into these pageants from a very young age, before she was even old enough to decide for herself whether she wanted to participate in them.

A comment left by Selkie agreed, â€œI was outraged when I saw what these beauty pageants were like - even more disturbing was the stolen childhood - I remember seeing footage of her "rehearsals" and her mother pushing her over and over.â€?

There is also some criticism of JonBenetâ€™s dad for being â€œpervertedâ€? enough to let his wife live her dreams through their tarted up daughter, but most of the bile is directed at Patsy. The theme of the evil stage mom using her daughter to compensate for her own failure in life is time-honored. The infamous stage moms all seem to have daughters â€“ Patsy Ramsey, Mother Rose (of Gypsy Rose Lee), Dina Lohan â€“ instead of say, Fred Savageâ€™s mom, who moved the family from a suburb of Chicago to a suburb of Hollywood to further little Fredâ€™s acting career. Even Svengali seems to have a slightly better reputation than stage moms. It is a special hatred for women who donâ€™t fall easily into the completely self-sacrificing, own identity-and-personality-erased-for-the-good-of-the-children role that exists in our stereotyped, dichotomous society. Granted, there is a wide golf between a Stepford Wife and Mother Rose, but if something goes awry, mothers have historically been blamed for what happened. What is easier than to point the finger at a pushy mom who oversteps her role? Reportedly, JonBenet liked being in pageants. Why canâ€™t people accept that?

On a related note, there is discussion at the way a childâ€™s interests can dominate the rest of family life and how willing parents are to subsume their own (and sometimes their other offspringâ€™s) interests to make sure their talented child succeeds. What are the boundaries between parents helping their children find themselves, children altering overall family life with their pursuits of happiness, and parents living through their children? The indie movie Little Miss Sunshine, hitting theaters right about now, is about a child who wants to enter a beauty pageant, so her family loads up the VW bus and road trips to indulge her wish. Is it wrong that a family organizes their family vacation around the desires of a young girl? When I was in high school, my family drove eight hours from Chicago to Minneapolis so that I could spectacularly crash and burn while trying out for Teen Jeopardy. Thus is it OK when the familyâ€™s plans are driven by their daughterâ€™s intellectual pursuits rather than physical? What about families who organize their lives around a girlâ€™s engagement in sports? Acting? Music?

Iâ€™m no fan of beauty pageants (it weirds me out when a 5 year old is wearing more make-up than I have in the past year) nor am I very forgiving of parents who push their kids for their own glory, be it in a beauty contest or a chess match or track meet or violin concert. It is easy to blame Patsy for JonBenetâ€™s death for a variety of reasons, but it is completely unfair to do so. Obviously, she was not a perfect mother or part of a perfect family. But who really is?

Suzanne also blogs at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

BlogHer - Stereotypes about Motherhood, Family Life, and the JonBenet Ramsey Case - Comments

what? Poor Mrs Ramsey??

well said

Rock. On.

Stereotypes about Motherhood, Family Life, and the JonBenet Ramsey Case