Strippers, pasties, lap dance, babes, tight tiny uniforms, unclothed. These are the words that I encountered as I read page one of Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinist Pigs. However, they are not just words, but words to describe some women today. I had to put down the book for a second, and think to myself that maybe we’re no longer moving forward in the feminist movement, but rather backward. Are women enhancing sexism?
Today, women can essentially do everything that men can do. But by wearing clothes that practically expose everything, are women enhancing the stereotype that women are simply sex? Are we supporting the negative way in which some men view us by bringing ourselves down to the way in which we would like men to see us?
The whole girls-gone-wild phenomenon raises exponential questions. While it may be liberating for the three seconds you flash someone, you’ll wake up the next morning regretting what you did. And when some bro yells, “What’s your problem? Just show them your tits,” a woman should not feel belittled and certainly should not feel the need to listen to the perverted man. Women today need to stand up, and yell just as loudly as the bro who said, “Just show them your tits,” NO. Men need to know that women are not some product, not something that they can control. Today, women are strong, independent, and determined. We are on a mission for equality.
Women participate in all kinds of sports from tee-ball to high school athletics to collegiate competition and even the Olympics and professional leagues like the WNBA. It is mortifying that female Olympians such as Amy Acuff, Amanda Beard, and Haley Clark would appear naked in a magazine such as Playboy or FHM. With these pictures, many who view them will forget what these women’s true talents are and they will simply become an image pleasing to the naked eye. The pictures turn the women into one thing, sex. Their athletic skills are masked by their nudity. It’s heartbreaking that naked pictures of women hold a higher standing in society today than Olympians and politicians. I play varsity field hockey here at Colgate and I know that I would always want to be known for my athleticism and never in a million years for my body. We should be embracing our unique talents, not taking off our clothes and hiding our many skills. If we continue to undress, we’re enhancing the sexist movement rather than the feminist movement.
Today, lots of women strive for big boobs, big lips, tiny waists, skimpy clothes and mountains of make-up. Many will do whatever it takes to be visually appealing, sexy, or hot. The VH1 TV show, “For the Love of Ray J,” is about a young R&B star looking for love. Women are chosen for the show and then feel the need to completely change who they are in order to make Ray J fall in love with them. They will change their appearance, their personality, everything about themselves if they even slightly believe that the change will make it easier for Ray J to fall in love with them. We can’t go changing ourselves to please men; it is just proving that they have power over us. We should not need to be sexy in order to be worthwhile; we should be worthwhile no matter what. Women should change themselves for no one but themselves.
Our reflex should not be to take our clothes off; our reflex should be to be who we are--women. We are not in the post-women’s movement; the movement is only beginning.
http://www.vh1.com/video/play.jhtml?id=1604934&vid=341160
I agree with Anna that one of the most disappointing things is to see female Olympic atheletes shedding their clothing to essentially gain the approval of their male audience. It's a tough call and I found myself thinking at times during the reading, "HAVE we in fact gained the right to act like that?" Is the fact that women have come far enough to be able to compete in the Olympics enough to justify them taking their clothes off and posing seductively on the front of magazines? But still, my answer was no. When I really thought about it, it almost seems offensive to those who fought so hard for women's rights. Here is our generation, loving our freedom and the ability to do what the men do, but when we reach a certain level of publicity, we still feel the need to return to our old ways of thinking; we still have to show a little skin to feel like we fit in. Even Katie Couric!
ReplyDeleteI recently read a magazine that had "seductive" pictures of Tiger Woods that hadn't been printed until the recent scandal...now people are looking at the pictures and thinking "We should have known, look at him...he's shirtless." I starting thinking...SO WHAT? So many well respected women and female athletes shed their clothing for puclicity that it's almost expected. But when a man does it, the world goes crazy.
I also started to think about the uniform I have to wear as a member of the track and field team. The men get to wear loose shirts and jerseys, while us women have to squeeze ourselves into shirts that are tight enough to be long sportsbras, and "spankies," which are practically underwear. It almost feels as though if we don't show off our body, we aren't of any interest. The simple fact that members of the team can run a 5:20 mile isn't enough, our BODIES need to reflect athleticism, not our actions.
Anna's reference to "For the Love of Ray J," was totally on. As an avid "Bachelor" and "Bachelorette" fan, I've seen a lot of sad displays of skimpy clothing and changing of personality for attention. Another thing I've noticed is the camraderie among the men on the "Bachelorette" that isn't present at all on "the Bachelor." When the men are in a group, they spend time together playing games and often say good things about one another when they are kicked off. The women on the other hand can't seem to get a grip...the entire show consists of who looks better in a bikini and who can kiss the Bachelor first. Have we gone so far backwards that women need to fight over one man on television without ever befriending one another? And why am I so intrigued by this show?!
“We are not in the post-women’s movement; the movement is only beginning.” As Anna has suggested, we have not yet reached a state of equality and liberation for females. For some reason, women just years shy of Ph.D.’s feel the need to drunkenly make out with one another in front of the Girls Gone Wild (GGW) cameras, women who are rich and successful, like Katie Couric or professional athletes, still feel the need to seek sexual attention based on appearance. Is this equality? Liberation? The view of females that we wish to promote? Absolutely not.
ReplyDeleteLevy writes, “proving that you are hot, worthy of lust, and—necessarily—that you seek to provoke lust is still exclusively women’s work” (33). It is not enough for a woman to be smart and accomplished; she must be beautiful, attractive, and desirable. Interestingly though, men do not feel the same need, the same pressure to display themselves in a physical and sexual manner. They can rely more upon their skills and talents than their sex appeal. Isn’t this what women want? To be judged by their merits, and not their appearance?
I would think the answer would be yes, but I am frightened by the willingness of women to degrade themselves (through participation in GGW photo shoots, reality TV shows like “For the Love of Ray J,” etc.). Equally dismaying is women’s involvement in encouraging other women to do the same. Mia Leist is the tour manager of GGW and smiles as she says “Debbie got naked for a hat,” (9) and Christine Hefner is the chairman and CEO of Playboy Enterprises. As these examples show, women are now supporting and reinforcing the messages that men have long been sending women. Have women internalized these ideals of body image and sexuality? How can we convince women that they are more than the sum of big boobs and tiny waists or that they do not have to fit into the narrow definition of femininity in order to be worthwhile? Interestingly enough, Mia Leist still denies that she would ever be in a GGW video herself, but how can she reconcile these two opposing viewpoints-- if there is a reason that she does not want to appear naked in a video for the pleasure of men, how can she find it acceptable to persuade and profit from other women doing the same? As we discussed in class, where is the solidarity and sisterhood between women?
The situation Levy describes is a frightening, startling, and frankly uncomfortable one. We like to boast that we are in a time of post-feminism, that the crusades and fights marking earlier decades are no longer necessary, that we have finally reached a state of equality. However, the issues facing women today, while different in some regards from earlier ones, are still numerous. In fact, today’s raunch culture is so pervasive and so engrained in our society that I do not foresee it going away very quickly—the movement is certainly far from over.
Anna’s post highlighted one of the most disturbing parts, at least in my opinion, of the opening chapters of the book. That is that women wear a certain brand of sexuality like a costume. The sexuality that we see on TV (like in For the Love of Ray J) and in magazines such as FHM is like a mold into which women must fit in order to be seen as sexually attractive. The idea of sexiness has become an entity unto itself, completely divorced from the women who seek to embody it.
ReplyDeleteFor example, Anna brings up reality television dating shows, in which women undergo makeovers and change themselves to achieve the kind of sex appeal that they think will win them a man. Going even further than that, on VH1 shows like For the Love of Ray J among others, contestants are designated nicknames, often based on physical attributes. (For example, on Ray J one woman is dubbed ‘Mz Berry’ because of her resemblance to Halle Berry.) As such, their ability to fit into a fetishized physical mold is prized above their identity as unique and individual women.
However, Levy suggests that this fetishization of what is sexy—in which sex appeal is removed from a strictly sexual context, and is instead based on a certain image—also serves to remove sexuality from the actual experience of sexual pleasure. Levy notes that in ‘post-feminism’ raunch culture, strippers and porn stars have become the icon of empowerment and female autonomy “despite the fact that it is their job to fake arousal.” (pg. 20) Female sex workers are being lauded as progressive and sexually liberated, when their sexuality has been created for (mostly male) pleasure. By and large, their public sexuality has nothing to do with their own pleasure but is rather an ornamental incitement to masturbation.
In my opinion, the goals of the sexual liberation movement, which encouraged women to be sexual and to be confident in their quest for satisfying sexual relationships, are undermined when women who commodify their sexuality are exalted as icons of sexual freedom. At least publicly, these women perform for the erotic pleasure of a primarily male audience, performing a sexuality that is less about pleasure than it is about spectacle. Even the women themselves admit that posing or performing in the ways they do is often uncomfortable and even painful.
I believe that many portrayals of female pleasure in pornography are harmful to women’s ability to claim their own sexual satisfaction. Just as media portrayals have told us what a desirable female is supposed to look like, porn has begun to tell us how we should get off and what we should look like doing it. Furthermore, by favoring aesthetics over pleasure, pornography has once again placed female satisfaction on the back burner.
While I appreciate the frankness with which sex can be discussed in our modern ‘raunch’ culture, I think it provides troubling messages about women’s sexual roles in relationship to men. The sexual revolution taught us that we are more than objects, we are sexual beings with a right to seek satisfaction. It is important that we do not lose sight of that in the name of pornified sexiness.
Fantastic posts! You've gotten a great discussion going, which I hope we'll be able to continue in class. Each of your posts acknowledge Levy's arguments before going a step further to discuss your own experiences and other examples with this raunch culture: this is exactly what I was hoping to see! Nice work.
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