Super Bowl LIV Half-Time Show haters – Are they all women?!!

I am extremely disappointed in all of the negativity and slut-shaming going on around the half-time show yesterday. This question in the screenshot was posted right after the show, and the highlighted comment really bothered me.

I don’t know about y’all, but here was my reaction while watching J.Lo:

me: Is she pole dancing?
me: Daaaamn, she looks good!
me: I can’t believe she looks that good at 50! I would kill to look that fit even back when I was 20! (I’m 39 currently)

I found it especially beautiful watching that part of the performance because to me it celebrated the female form and what hard work + dedication + top entertainment can get you.

Being a good entertainer is a skill like any other that requires development, hard work, and commitment. I respect and admire that.

Seeing comments like the above and so many more that were worse made for several WTF moments for me.

At the end of the day, these women and their performances do not steal anything from me. I enjoy seeing them as examples of people who are at the top of their field. Shakira and J.Lo are PERFORMERS. This is their JOB, people. GET A GRIP.

It’s easy to tear other people down. I see it all the time, but I especially hate it when it’s women doing it to other women around their personally defined boundaries of acceptable female behavior.

It’s already hard enough being a woman in today’s world, but then some of us are traitorous jerks who make it that much worse. These are the women who penalize other women for asking for a raise, or deem someone else’s skirt as being too short and, “therefore she was asking for it.”

UGH.

“trashy does not equal ’empowerment’ ” ???

I understand that some people may not have found the show to their liking, but then I was confused why this one comment said that “trashy does not equal ’empowerment.’ “

So of course I had to go and look up the definition of “empowered.”

Here’s what I found on Google. There were many definitions similar to the dictionary one, but these are the ones that stood out to me as more nuanced and explanatory.

First, I saw the Oxford dictionary as usual:

Next, I saw this from the Brian Tracy blog:

Third, I noticed this excerpt from another blog: What makes an empowered woman?

(mariaandelizabeth.com › what-it-means-to-be-an-empowered-woman)

So, given the above, the main elements seem to include something along the lines of giving other people the power/energy/enthusiasm to become stronger and more confident being who they really are, and the feeling that they are in control of their life.

Shakira and J.Lo – empowered/ing check

• Strong, confident women in control of their own lives? Sure as heck seems like they are to me. Do they make other people feel that way? I find their stories (and the stories of other people like them) to be inspiring and the examples they set encourage me to reach for more.

• Do they know their purpose and pursue that purpose each day? Well, only they can know whether that’s true for themselves, but they’re both top entertainers who put on an excellent show. Since their primary jobs are as entertainer/performers, what they’re producing looks consistent with that.

I feel pretty damn empowered

Watching women like Shakira and J.Lo who are bold, act with purpose, and positive makes me less afraid to speak my mind and more comfortable with the idea of being fully and unapologetically me.

I also thought to myself, if I spent a lifetime training and dancing and loving that, I might look like them too and I would love that. It’s not a desire to flaunt what’s beautiful or to be provocative, but more the sense of pleasure derived from your body being like a well-oiled machine performing at its peak. The fact that the body is also beautiful is not the main point.

What I find funny is looking at definition #2. “So the first step in empowering people is to refrain from doing anything that disempowers them or reduces their energy and enthusiasm for what they are doing.” The reactions like this person’s are disempowering!

After thinking upon this for all of a whopping couple of hours, I conclude that 1) I spend way too much time being annoyed by people on the Internet, 2) I’ve always believed that I’m in control of my life, and 3) I continue to believe that.