What Justin Bieber and Gold Diggers Can Teach Us About Feminism

Article here. Excerpt:

'For starters, as I'm sure has already been stated by others, part of what's troubling about the case is that if the gender roles were reversed and a nineteen-year-old man had impregnated a sixteen-year-old girl I don't think everyone would have initially treated the matter as a boys-will-be-boys like joke.

But the equally disturbing issue is that Bieber's accuser follows a long line of women who not only use their sexuality to get ahead, but their wombs. The act of becoming pregnant on purpose with the goal of landing financial security has become viewed as such a common practice that it is regularly joked about whenever stories like this become public. Bloggers, commenters and commentators use language like "just became pregnant with eighteen years of security" or "she just hit the lotto" to describe women announced to be carrying the children of rich men, particularly men they were not in serious relationships with but will now be linked to, both personally and financially, for life. From Mick Jagger, to Hugh Grant and countless professional athletes, the notion these women (and the men involved), help perpetuate is that there is another option besides appearing on a reality show for those who don't want to work for a living. (And yes I consider parenting, at least being a good parent, the hardest job in the world, but you get my meaning.)'