“Men look at women. Women watch themselves
being looked at. This determines not only the relations of men to women, but
the relation of women to themselves.” –John Berger
“A girl learns that stories happen to “beautiful”
women, whether or not they are interesting or not.” –Naomi Wolf
“We don’t have inalienable rights
the way men do.” –Roxanne Gay
“I think that we are still trying
to figure out how can we create sexual images, how can we create images of the
penis that are loving and tender and are not about domination?” –Bell Hooks
Women are instructed and
absorb early on, that to behave a certain type of way is to be seen as
valuable. Women not only watch the way in which men watch them, but also the
way in which society deals with varying types of women. Women’s bodies are not
only policed by the legislature which legally binds them, but through
mainstream culture which provides conflicting ideas. The most contradictory
conception being that women are supposed to be sexy, but not have sex.
Kilbourne
writes, “The [advertising] culture… urges girls to adopt a false self to bury
alive their real selves, to become “feminine,” which means to be nice, and
kind, and sweet, to compete with other girls for the attention of boys, and to
value romantic relationships above all else.” Within mainstream culture, the
valuable female, above all else, is feminine. But femininity is not strength.
Femininity is passive, is beautiful, and certainly is not promiscuous. Specific
narratives are formulated around which types of females are coded as valuable. The
traditional American patriarchal narrative illustrates that the value of a
female is in her potential to be a wife. She is, and always should be, a
support system. Therefore her needs, wants, and desires would preferably never
be heard, and if heard, not be a priority.
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Symbolic of the Continuous Messages
Women are Told as They Age
About What "Types" Of Women
Are Held As Valuable
|
As a girl matures, she is
able to pick up on these societal cues. Many posts thus far have touched upon
dress codes within schools. A young girl early on learns that she must police
her own body. Clothing becomes a choice of what “kind of person” a girl chooses
to be. More revealing clothing is seen as shameful. As one article on school
dress codes reports, “We force women to be viewed through a sexual lens, and
then we blame them for it” (Ratchford, Vice Article Link). During the stage of
adolescence, individuals are already faced with the weight of physio and
psychological changes. Women, especially have the mounting burden of coming to
understand their developing bodies. These dress codes send the blatant message
that school is for boys. Girls should actively police their bodies for the sake
of protection and professionalism, so that the sex-crazed boys (you know, boys
just being boys) don’t get distracted. To tie in, a few classes ago we
discussed the idea of invisibility. To be invisible is to dress modest, and to
under-sexualize oneself. To be invisible can be a means of protection against
potential harassment (which is bound to take place in a world where women are
blamed for their sexuality). However, in a world where the stories only happen
to the beautiful, girls become conflicted between dressing to ‘protect’ themselves
versus dressing to impress (obviously to impress the boys that we were told to
value above all else). Thus there is the repeated narrative, be sexy, but, of
course, not too sexy, and definitely do not have sex.
All over the world, women are not included in the conversations regarding their bodies. From religious ruling to political written legislature, women’s bodies and environments are policed. Within the patriarchal narrative, for a women to have sex outside of marriage is reprehensible. Women are slut shamed, and made to feel insecure about following their natural bodily desires. Women who do not follow the patriarchal narrative are hence punished. These women are socially discriminated against, and are faced with the added pressure of government practices which are degrading. With
I chose to include the four quotes at the beginning because they included certain concepts that I kept coming back to as I wrote this blog. Each of the quotes were supposed to resemble the corresponding paragraph. The first quote with the first paragraph and so on and so forth. Now, I chose to end this paragraph with the quote from Bell Hooks. Within her Open Dialogue on Transgressive Sexual Practices, she made the comment about trying to create transgressive sexual images. She asked how can we create images of the penis that are not symbols of patriarchal domination? And to think a little further, and to align it closer with this particular blog, how can we create images of the women's body that are not about objectification? How can we create images of the women's body in action? How can we create images of women and strength? How can we learn how to accept sexual dynamics outside of the patriarchal norm? How can we create images of sexual freedom where women can have sex and do not necessarily have to be sexy? Within the patriarchy frames have been curated to police a women's body, and the constant struggle is where to find liberation outside of it.
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| Erasing Pre-Determined Frames |
Works Cited
John Berger: Ways of Seeing
Bell Hooks: Open Dialogue on Transgressive Sexual Practices at the New School
Roxanne Gay: The Alienable Rights of Women
Jean Kilbourne: The More You Subtract The More You Add
Naomi Wolf: Culture
Links
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