something on my chest

My friend Deb tweeted at me today: What was she referring to?

Here’s the backstory.  Last night I was sitting on my couch in a black tank top and a pair of sweat pants, laptop on my lap, surfing the net when Yoono (my Firefox add on social networking client) alerted me to some unread Tweets.  Meghan McCain, whom I follow because sometimes she has interesting things to say about politics, and because, despite the fact that I sometimes wish I didn’t, I like her, had posted a new twit-pic about staying in on a Wednesday to read a book about Andy Warhol.  This was the twit-pic:

I admit my first thought was “whoa, girlie’s got the GIRLS out.”

But then my inner feminist began to chastise me.  What do you MEAN she’s got the girls out? You two are wearing the EXACT SAME OUTFIT!  You betta check yourself before you wreck yourself, lil Miss Feminist!

About that time, Meghan apparently started getting some negative feedback from her Twitter followers, because she tweeted the following in rapid succession: Apparently people were both “offended” by her appearance and convinced that somehow her appearance made her a “slut.”

REALLY.

It was after reading those tweets that I realized how deeply unfair it is that Meghan and I could be wearing the exact same outfit, and yet she’d be deemed a slut or offensive simply because she has larger boobs, and I’d be just a girl in her PJs because I’m a member of the IBTC.  Meghan has large breasts.  Large breasts are neither slutty nor non-slutty.  They just ARE.  I tweeted in reply to Meghan: Now, while I do believe that Meghan should not be called a slut or accused of being offensive simply because of the way her body looks in a photo when she’s at home in her PJs, I think it is worth questioning whether she should have posted the photo.  Meghan is a columnist for the Daily Beast, which, I admit, sometimes makes me seethe with jealousy because I can write a lot better than she can, but I don’t have a daddy who ran for president.  It further irritates me to see someone who is a wanna-be political pundit undermining her own seriousness by posting a photo she KNEW was not particularly serious to a public forum.  I mean, like I said, I’m a member of the IBTC, and I also have a bit of a narcissistic addiction to taking goofy pictures with Photobooth, but there are some things I don’t post on my Facebook or Twitter, because some things just aren’t for public consumption.

However, I think it’s up to Meghan to decide for herself how seriously she should take herself– clearly unlike me, she’s never going to worry about a potential employer checking out her internet postings when deciding whether or not to hire her.  She’s not just a girl with a famous name who gets to write columns for the Daily Beast, she’s also a million-heiress.  Clearly this sort of stuff just generates buzz for her and leads more people to read her columns and give her pageviews, so maybe this strategy works for her.  It has been a while since her springtime controversy in which she told a conservative pundit who had denigrated her appearance on the radio to “kiss my fat ass” on the View.

So, Meghan McCain, you keep posting Photobooth pics to your Twitter if you want to. You’re not a slut for it, your body isn’t offensive, and you clearly don’t have to worry about it keeping you from getting jobs.