This semester has awakened the feminist in me. I do believe it was there all along, waiting to come out of hiding, but it took just the right combination of a theory class, Shakespeare, and one X factor which I can only refer to as Doctor Brandie "Freakin' Awesome" Siegfried-- to call it to full consciousness.
Now, before we get our undies all in a bunch that I've gone crazy and joined a herd of Amazons, I'd just like to state:
1. I have no desire to burn my bras. That would be harmful.
2. I still like men. (Sometimes)
3. I don't want to overthrow the family proclamation
But seriously. There are so many things that really need to be rethought concerning the codes and systems we're currently using to construct gender. I know some of you who I've discussed this with will be grimacing. I'll pretend you're grinning.
I'm still in the stages of developing my own beliefs on this, but I just feel really strongly that we need to look closer and harder at what paradigms are being used in our world today which come to signify "man" and "woman." A lot of them, probably harmless, but a lot of them can also be incredibly harmful and misleading. To more clearly see this, take Chinese foot binding. What began as as a trend to accentuate the natural beauty of the woman's tiny feet (I know-- feet, right?) eventually came to the place other, peripheral effects of this practice (women not being able to move as far, not standing a lot, being more physically submissive) as the primary, natural attributes of a acceptable women, even long after the foot binding tradition was gone.
Laura Mulvey writes extensively about "the male gaze." Hollywood Cinema today is all about this, and you don't have to be a critic to realize it. The very ways in which shots are taken of women during movies are sometimes meant to show them as being 1: Eye candy 2: Subliminally threatening/seductive. Granted, Mulvey was writing during the 60's and 70's, but I think she makes some valid points concerning our attitudes toward the portrayal of women in media. The biggest thing I wonder is "Why are we so complicit?" No, we can't single-handedly change the porn industry or challenge COSMOPOLITAN's constant suggestion that the value of woman is based solely on her biology, but we can be armed with knowledge about the way these images attack us and infiltrate our thoughts. We can call a spade a spade, and help others around to do the same (even if we don't see the same spades... not talking about Kate Spade vs. Prada, either, for those of you more fashionably inclined.) Bottom Line:
Look harder. Thank you, Rafiki.
That's why I applaud my girl Katrina Hodge for wanting to rid beauty pageants of their swimsuit competitions. Use your brains folks: if the swimsuit section weren't so inundated in the tradition of the pageant, and if the Donald Trumps and Hugh Hefners weren't patronizing these shows, the mere idea of a swimsuit competition would be absolutely absurd. Because yes, gentlemen, I can somehow equate my platform of world peace with the shape and smoothness of my legs. Uh huh. Yeah.(whispers in the crowd: I think what she means is
a piece for the world...)
I know more people have to see the absurdity in all this. For our children's sake and our own, let's meet it head on, riding into battle with our helmets down and heads high... (whispers...
for Frodo..)
Well, that's enough for tonight. I could really go on about this forever; Twilight and beauty pageants are the two things in this world that I feel are not only plain stupid, but also poisonous. The article about modern day Joan of Arc is
here.
