Feminism is a collection of social theories, political movements, and moral philosophies largely motivated by or concerned with the liberation of women from subordination to men. (Wikipedia) Feminist from the past and today strive everyday for equal rights for women. In my opinion I think we have come a long way throughout the years… women can vote, women can play sports in college without a problem because of title nine… most of things that we discussed in class. We actually encounter “feminism” every single day… in the way women are portrayed in the media, in our social environments when people say that girls can’t do something better than a guy, sports, and driving. What I mean by driving is the stereotype that all female drivers are horrible drivers; men are better drivers. Think about a time when you were compared to males. I remember when I was younger, I used to ride dirt bikes and quads… and the other kids in the neighborhood, especially the boy, would tell me I couldn’t do a trick that they apparently could do. Another example, I know everyone has heard the statement “you throw like a boy!” Why is it that people compare good sporting skills like throwing a baseball really hard to something a boy can do. Just that statement shows how we stereotype the male species to be the more dominant one. If you take a brief look at the article “You Throw Like A Boy” by Victor Lana, you can understand that statement “you throw like a boy” more thoroughly. Some Thoughts on Sexism” Another example, why is that when men have many sexual relations with various amounts of women he is considered “the man!” Yet if a female has many sexual relations with many different men she is assumed to be a “slut” or “loose.” And if women dress provocatively they are considered to be dressed “whoreish.” If you look at the other article from Yahoo News about the lawsuit being brought by Gene Simmons’, from the rock band Kiss, ex-girlfriend claiming he defamed her name by explicitly showing her picture and referring to her as "wild" and "unchaste." In the article he also seems to view women as just sexual objects. Those are some things that we encounter everyday in our daily lives. In the media we can see these female portrayals, in music videos when women are half naked dancing around the men rapping for example or even on the cover of CDs. The female artist if you look at different covers, they are always placed very sexually and enticing. The article, “Dirrty Discourse: The politics of Gender Representation in Popular Music” by Lesley Robinson talks about Christina Aguilera’s “Dirty” Video. It is stated in the article, that “Within the discourse of Sheppard’s theory, a reading of Christina Aguilera’s “Dirrty” video appears simple to naturalize the sexual objectification of women and subordinate femaleness to the dominance of the male gaze.” Going back to the statement I made before about how women are considered to be “sluts” if they have many sexual relations or dress in a certain manner, the article points out that there is a new “fearless feminism”, where women “embrace a feminism focused on individuality, independence and women’s ‘choice’ to engage in heterosexually attractive bodily displays.” It is a mix of sexy, strong, saucy, and strident women. If we want to dress like that we should be able to without being subjected to criticism. Do you think that women who dress like this or sleep with many people should be immediately called a “slut”, even though men can do it and it is seen as no big deal?
http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/33646908
http://blogcritics.org/archives/2006/03/08/224944.php
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After reading that Gene Simmons article on Yahoo, it is interesting to think about the different labels that women take on. I feel llike the media specializes in portraying the extremes for both men and women. For example, Gene Simmons was the prototype "rock star" but another Simmons (Richard) is famous for being femenant and encouraging peopel to believe in themselves. For Women I feel like every media figure has fallen somewhere between Dr. Quinn medicine woman and Hallie Berry in Swordfish. As we discussed in our las class however, there are people who don't want to fall into the extreme labels of the media. With that in mind, I can't help but sympathize with the woman who settled with Gene Simmons. While most men will read that article and say "that woman just wanted money," she was identified by everyone who watched that documentary essentially as Gene Simmons's "backstage betty."
We are all responsible enough to know the media can paint most any picture, we just need to figure out how to not paint women so negatively.
The double standards still set in today’s society are astounding. If a woman were to claim that she had over 4,600 sexual partners she would be considered a slut or a whore, but Gene Simmons is a god. The second article points out the double standards placed on younger children. “You throw like a girl” implies that girls are unable to “throw” but also demeaning what usually is a boy by calling them by the opposite gender; it’s a lose-lose situation for girls. The author of this article argues that it’s time for equality across genders, and it is about time. Even with the women’s rights movements and title nine women in certain areas are still considered to be secondary to men. In life, this must be stopped, but when women can use it to humor (in truth) to their advantage, it may be ok; “…the best of the best in almost everything that men can do, except for starting wars. Men have a lock on that one and probably always will; otherwise, everything else should be up for grabs and let the best man/woman win.”
I think the real problem with feminism today is that women are labeled easy, and being blamed for putting themselves up sex.
It's portrayed that if women dress sexy when they go out to a club, or put on lots of make-up, then they are sluts and asking to be raped.
But is it a crime for a woman to want to dress feminine? Feel like a woman? Well supposedly it is, because it's the short skirt that seduced the man, and the man is not to be blamed at all, because the female asked for it.
I find this ridiculous that the media focuses the blame in a lot of cases to the woman, when the man is just as guilty, if not more guilty.
I think the blame should be placed less on individual genders, and more on how we throw around our words. For example, the term "slut" is overused today. Guys call girl's sluts when they wear revealing clothing, heck, even girls who are friends with other girls call each other sluts. Girls. Think about the last time you were out at a bar with your girlfriends. Did you call either one of them a slut? Even jokingly? If you didn't, there are many girls out there that do, and even if it's only joking, it makes guys believe that if girls use the term loosely, then guys can use it too.
As a matter of fact, I read something else recently, (forgive me I don’t remember the source) but it was talking about how middle school girls throw the word slut around in normal conversation.
So in answer to the question posted in the original blog, a girl should not be called a slut for flaunting a little cleavage, but it is used, because it’s a word people know and use frequently. If it were used less frequently, I don’t think it would be as much of a problem.
After reading the "You Throw Like A Boy: Some Thoughts on Sexism" article, I found the George Steinbrenner scenario given by the author to be very interesting. I have never thought of sexism in that kind of situation and it really got me to think, what would I do in that situation? Personally, I feel that if a female had those kind of guts to walk into a major league baseball tryout, especially for the team like the Yankees, say she can strike out their three best hitters, then go out and do it with every pitch being one hundred miles an hour, then yes I would take her on my team and give her a chance. Why not, you can not find males who throw that hard and for a person to show that kind of confidence in a pressure situation like that, that is what you would want from your pitcher. They gave Randy Johnson a shot, why not her? This is a good example to apply to the rest of life. I think that talent is talent and it should not be held back on the account of someone's gender. If a woman is more qualified for a job then let her have it. Why should we not have the best of the best working for our organizations because society feels a certain gender is not fit to be able to do certain tasks?
I am not entirely sure how the article on Gene Simmons and his VH1 debut relates to feminism. After reading the article, I found it was more of an example of the poor editing skills done by VH1. I think VH1 merely added in pictures to go with what Simmons was saying, without necessarily linking the exact photo to his story. He even refers to himself as a “whore” for sleeping with 4,600 women, and I would definitely agree with him. Simmons constantly refers to himself, although pictures of him and Ward were constantly displayed throughout the documentary. If anything, this merely makes Ward look dumb, not like a “sex-addicted nymphomaniac.” Sure, Ward was displayed in a less than “ideal” light because she was dating a rock star that slept with 4,600 women, but from the article it does not seem like she was displayed as a woman addicted to sex. Instead, her picture was merely thrown into the documentary as Simmons talked about his life as a rock star.
I don't think you can blame VH1 for poor editing skills because they didn't do anything to distort the truth. They simply b-rolled a picture of a girl whom Simmons was involved with over a soudbyte of him talking about all he ever thought about was sex. There's nothing wrong with that. What I find interesting about this article is the fact that there wasn't any payment involved in the settlement as reported in the article. I think this proves that the documentary just presented the facts and didn't strecth the truth.
I do agree that this article plays to your point that men can get away with being "loose" without many consequences. With that being said, I do believe there is a fine line in the way someone dresses dictates how they are percieved.
A good example can be from last class when we watched the hip hop video from spring break and all the hoochie mama's walking around with their booty hanging out of their shorts. You can't say this was coincidence. People dress like that because they want attention or else they would dress more conservatively.
I think the example of Christina Aguilera and her song "Dirty" can support that argument how women can use their sexuality as empowering rather than degrading. But bottom line, sex sells no matter what industry you're in or what spin you put on it.
But if we're going to talk about Christina being "drity" what about male artists, like Justin Timberlake bringing sexy back? Any objections to that?
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