Jesus fuck.

So after Michael got this new, magical box from Shaw we get some channels that we didn't get before.
One of those channels is the Cosmo channel.
Yes, I get it:  "How to Keep Your Man!" 
"76 Moves in the Bedroom You Didn't Know About!" 
"Friends or Frenemies?"
"94 Things You Are Doing Wrong to Make Your Man Hate You!"
Seriously.  After watching "Sex and the City" tonight they did this "we want to help you be the demure, 1950s Cosmo slut that we know you can be" segment and I almost threw the television off the balcony (which is way easier to do now because it's not wall mounted, and it's super light).
And so we shall wade into the conflicting crossroads that is the Cosmo channel.
A couple of days ago we were watching "High Fidelity" on this very same channel and Michael remarked that all the commercials were - literally - the same.  Weight Watchers, weight loss, hair removal, dating sites.  He couldn't believe it.  He even went so far as to say that he thought the whole "Cosmo" thing was about liberated women.
I said I had rather thought so too, but that there is a multi billion dollar industry in fostering insecurity in women (you're fat, you have a faint moustache and you're sitting here alone watching "High Fidelity" on a Saturday night instead of being in the throes of passionate, sweaty sex like all your friends are... except really: they aren't) and doing it so adeptly that a lot of women don't even notice it.
Case in point: tonight's "tips" on how to approach your man when he's grumpy.
You know what?  Fuck him when he's grumpy.
Does he have monthly, crippling pain in his lower regions?
Did he get pinned up against the wall at a company function by a drunken vendor that knew he could only ever make a move by doing it when his prey was burdened down with dirty dishes and was too young and scared to make a big deal about it?
Did he get hired as an apprentice cook at the Pantry because they needed "more women in the kitchen"?
Did he ever have to try to explain, politely, that what a women is wearing on the night that she is raped is totally irrelevant?
How about Rush Limbaugh?  How about that. I'm a slut and a prostitute and I should post the videos of me fucking the men that I fuck because the government funded my tubuligation.
Wow. 
That all came out of left field and really wasn't the intended crux of my post but, if you know me - and you don't - you know that I'm tired of being a second class citizen.
And yet, I watch "Sex and the City".
See, I liked it tonight when, after scant weeks of dating,a couple got married and the four girls stood there as the bridal bouquet was tossed and landed-  untouched - at their feet.
I like when Carrie threw her "unmarried party" as a way of fighting back at all the engagement and wedding gifts she had shelled out for.
And yet the underlying concept was always there: marriage was the goal, albeit secretly.
It's easy to shit on something that other people believe in if you haven't yourself been offered it.
Oh: if I were rich I wouldn't change a thing.
Really?  Cause I'd quit my job, burn down Michael's office and buy some crazy shit, like a dog and villa in France.  Oh, and I'd have Limbaugh assassinated.  And I'd make out with Rachel Maddow.
Rush: I will kill you.  You and Coulter.  Your days are numbered.  Right after Vic Toews.
Holy shit.  This is really long winded.
The point of the whole thing being that I did feel the girls' resentment of this woman who, upon meeting a man, falls in love with him, he proposes and they marry.
Why.
Why do I care?
Is there some deep-seeded need in a woman's psyche that she must have a man's approval to be successful in the world?
After high school, is it still a popularity contest?
Am I still reeling from the time that my aunt inferred that it, too, would happen to me eventually, when I attended my cousin's wedding (who subsequently went into counselling as said marriage wasn't going so great)?
I love "Sex and the City".  There are so many truisms in that show that I devoured it wholly.
But how do I reconcile the themes of independence espoused in that show with what it's ultimate goal was: marriage.
And why do I feel that this is a goal that I need to accomplish also?