The Home of Steven Barnes
Author, Teacher, Screenwriter


Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Hey Men - Don't You Dare Blame Sandra Bullock for Jesse James Cheating!

I was told by a friend, the aunt of Jesse James' previous wife, that Bullock stole him away while said wife was pregnant. The precise words were "husband stealing skank." If this is true, then good old Sandy got exactly, precisely what she deserved, and was stupid to expect him to behave differently. He is still a toad, but she is a toadette.



www.diamondhour.com
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't have any opinion one way or another about how Sandra Bullock handles her personal life, since I just don't know enough about her (beyond what I've seen of her onscreen).

But the friend in that article who blamed her and Elin Nordegren and Elizabeth Edwards for being separate too often from their husbands (because, apparently, if the wife travels and the husband doesn't come along, it's the wife's fault, and if the husband travels and the wife doesn't come along, it's the wife's fault), was off base. When a guy cheats on a wife who is terminally ill with cancer, saying that, well, it's partly her fault because she's not constantly personally attentive to him while taking a major role in his political campaign and also dealing with the small matter of having cancer, seems a bit much to me. If Edwards wanted his sick wife to campaign in separate locations from the ones he was campaigning in, that might well have been a good political call at the time, but not a particular flaw on her part if she wasn't the one handy when he got horny. Probably not the best judgment on either of their part to continue with the campaign, but not an Elizabeth Edwards is too cold to her husband bad judgment call.

Steven Barnes said...

Lynn--
Whatever Elizabeth Edwards' faults might be, her husband is responsible for his actions, ESPECIALLY since he was angling for high office, where such behavior could have made him a blackmail target.
It is true that there are people who blame women no matter what. Just like there are those who blame men no matter what (men doing better than women in a given context? It's because of sexism. Women doing better than men in a given context? It's because they're superior) That kind of crap isn't about gender--you find the same kind of thinking around politics, race, and class...in other words, it is a mode of thought, and the specific application is less important than the general tendency. If she "stole" her husband she got what she deserved. And if he began an affair while his pregnant wife was at home, he deserves to get TRASHED in his next relationship. They deserve each other.

Unknown said...

Sure, I'm mainly worked up about anyone making excuses for John Edwards, in particular. There may be other cases where "they deserve each other" fits best.

On the "other woman" in general, my feeling is that her responsibility is limited if it's both the case that the married man lied to her and that she's very young. Fully adult and mature people should be aware that "I'm separated from my wife" really needs to be confirmed rather than trusted automatically, so that even there, you can't fully abdicate your own responsibility. (And, of course, if it's a married woman and another man, they're similarly both responsible.)