Move over Susan B. Anthony! Feminists, you have a new leader. Meet Jenni "JWOWW" Farley from MTV's "Jersey Shore." A boob-enhanced Italian American that proudly declares she hunts men like a "praying mantis" and then sends them on "a roller-coaster ride to hell."
"After I have sex with a guy, I will rip their heads off," she said on the show.
"JWOWW" and her fellow female "Jersey Shore" cohorts are, according to The Daily Beast's Nicole Laporte, "progressive prima donnas." LaPorte argued in her article "Jersey Shore's Surprise Feminists" that these agressively predatorial, mean-spirited, and crass girls are the (no doubt, oblivious) leaders of a "progressive, and even revolutionary" change in the age-old stereotype of Italian American women.
"In contrast to the one-dimensional portraits," she wrote, "of Italian-American women that have been trotted out over the years-the loud-mouthed bimbo (Marisa Tomei's Oscar-winning performance as Mona Lisa Vito in My Cousin Vinny); the long-suffering housewife (Connie in The Godfather; Carmela on The Sopranos); the daddy's princess (Meadow Soprano)-the trash-talking, overly tanned ladies of Jersey Shore pick fist fights, refuse to cook or clean up, and shuffle around in slippers and sweats while the guys in the house preen and put on lip gloss. Most dramatically, they are not women who are defined by, or in the service of, the guidos and goombahs around them, whether it's their fathers, husbands, or boyfriends."
The "Jersey Shore" girls are "empowered," LaPorte claimed, because "they're aggressive predators who, if anything, objectify the men they're so intent on scoring."
"On the dance floor, while the guys buffoonishly pump the air with their fists," she wrote, "the guidettes majestically bump and grind up to their prey."
LaPorte managed to find another person to second her opinion. Donald Tricario, a sociology professor at City University of New York/Queensborough, agreed with her that the "Jersey Shore" girls are "empowered sexually" because they "seem to be making their own decisions about who they sleep with and when."
So esentially, to be a progressive Italian American female, you need to become as viciously shallow, crude, and promiscuous as your male peers. Some progress.
"The [Italian American] women were always defined as sex objects. And I think that's something that they're reversing," Tricario concluded.
You've come a long way, baby.
