Charlie and Lindsay

Could I be turning into one of those women who finds sexism around every corner?  Could you blame me if I did?

Here's a thought I had today:  Charlie Sheen behaves like the worst sort of frat boy. And, at best, he makes an utter fool of himself on his videos.  Yet the media are practically making a hero of him.   It seems that whenever they show him, they catch him in a cocky, defiant move.  Or, at worst, they make him seem like a dickhead.  But there's no law against that.  And plenty of men--and a surprising number of women--cheer him on.

I've seen him holding a cigar at a rakish angle and women standing at a similar angle from him.  Can any woman--no matter how young and bimbo-ish--actually look at him without thinking about the way he's treated his wife, and women generally?  

In contrast to the almost worshipful-treatment he gets, the way Lindsay Lohan has been treated can be encapsulated in the mugshots that were all over the news a while back.  Now, I agree that she should pay for whatever crimes she's committed.  But I'm sure that when she misbehaves at a party, people don't cheer or egg her on to more bad behavior the way they do when they see Chalie Sheen.

Plus, the inequity in the way they've been treated is all the more galling when you consider that Ms. Lohan has had issues with substance abuse.  One might argue that she made the choice to drink or do whatever else she did. That's true, at least in a sense.  But if she's addicted, she couldn't have known her propensity toward addiction until she took that first drink or pill or whatever.  Let's face it:  Almost nobody in this world wakes up one morning and says, "i'm going to get myself hooked on painkillers." 

One might argue that Charlie Sheen can't control his behavior.  If it is, that's all the more reason not to celebrate it, and not to villify Lindsay Lohan.

So tell me, dear readers:  Why is there such a discrepancy between the way they're treated?