Feminism - Noun
The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.
I don't know where the "equality" portion of this was lost, but it has been lost somewhere. More and more I find that the Feminist Movement has become more of a joke than anything else. Please, don't misunderstand. I believe in equality of all people without bias of gender, orientation, race, religion, marital status, Facebook status, dog or cat preference... However, I do mean that the Feminist Movement has become a joke.
Most arguments for feminism and empowering women that I hear/read come down to two end games:
Neither of which actually make a real difference towards women being equal to men AND men being equal to women. If anything, it has become more about women being better, more entitled, and more valuable than men. How exactly is that equal? Maybe I am missing something?
There was a particular article (and accompanied hashtag and movement #headlesswomen) that I came across recently that finally set me off: Headless Women of Hollywood
In a cliffnote:
"... the Headless Women project seeks to bring attention to the still standard practice of fragmenting, fetishizing and dehumanizing the images of women we see in film, TV, book covers, and advertisement."
Oh so much about this was just wrong, I don't know where to start. Immediately, I thought of all the romance novels that I have read, heard about, and seen plastered all over the grocery store second hand book section. I wasn't the only one who thought about this as there was a comment by another user that read:
"Have you seen the covers of women's dirty novels? How 'bout #shirtlesshunks"
In that moment, I met a stranger I called friend. The comment from him/her was immediately ridiculed and bashed. "That's not the point" "Women are being degraded and you want to talk about dirty novels?" "Oh, yeah and I'm sure that men just hate being depicted as hunks"
I thought the point was justified and made perfect sense. But, no it's okay to depict men sexually for female entertainment - they enjoy it. Depicting women in a sexual manner for entertainment is just... shame on you!!
Please, find me a romance novel that doesn't depict a strong, buff dude or someone who resembles power! Even our latest dirty (famous) novel "Fifty Shades of Grey" shows the guy as someone with power and control, not to mention he happens to be a billionaire, but hey men should be strong and rich, right?
I also thought about all those movies, TV shows, books, commercials, and other media outlets that men are depicted as:
We turn men into sex objects (or what else was Magic Mike?), we make fun of men, we portray what a "good" man is, we do many things that inn some ways are worse than what we do to women. It is OK for a women to be feminine or masculine - have you seen the way we shame feminine men?
How is that equal in any way? It's not, men just don't seem to be bitching about it.
To be fair, they did add a section for #headlessmen on the site. They have a roaring gallery of four pictures, three of which have an added entry explaining why its OK to be a headless man.
On to my next point from the headlesswomen
This was my personal favorite (part):
"By decapitating the woman, or fragmenting her body into decontextualized sexual parts, she becomes an unquestionably passive object to the male gaze. The question of her consent is removed completely alongside her head, and her purpose becomes solely that of being looked at by men obediently. Her value is that only of her sexual appeal to men, and not of her personhood."
First, the way that this is written like a universal fact is somewhat annoying. Not all people feel this way, I know this because I am people and I most certainly don't agree. But, that's just me nitpicking (like a women I would say).
How is this unquestionably passive? If you scrolled through the posters they have on Headless Women of Hollywood, many of the women serve a purpose related to the story, even if they happen to be headless and half naked.
Some women would say it is far from passive, being naked, being sexual. Actually many women throughout history have used sexual appeal as a far from passive beacon of womanhood, of power.... sorry, I said that incorrectly. Women throughout history have used their bodies and their sex appeal as an icon to show GREAT power, to show GREAT persuasion, to manipulate, to lead, to conquer...
WOMEN refer to Marilyn Monroe as a SEX SYMBOL. Idolizing how she used her sexuality and sex appeal as a strength. Another point here being that, while you are stating that men be the ones here that are objectifying women, in all actuality women do it more themselves than anyone else.
"Oh, I want to look like that" "If I look like [insert something here], I'll look hot" "Mmmmm, I'll look so good he can't resist"
According to legend, Lady Godiva was like, "Ok, you want me to be naked to help my people, I SHALL BE NAKED!" Obviously, that is a very chopped version to add to fit a narrative.
I could go on about that particular post, but overall - women are the ones who seem to be valuing their sexual appeal down to nothing more than pleasing men and somehow blaming it on men and making it a sexist thing. Women are sexy and it not a bad thing. Men are sexy, it's not a bad thing. Let us all be sexy!
This isn't all of my views on this. I will make this part 1 of my rant on feminism. Next how about we tackle feminism in the work place and Reese Witherspoon!
