Why do some women and girls not like feminists?

This morning I was talking to my friend (who's female), and we had a little bit of an argument about feminism, in which she said that she doesn't really agree with it and finds feminists annoying. Why is it that some women and girls don't "like" the people campaigning for their equal treatment of society? Because they kind of know but ignore how patriarchy is objectifying them, because it makes your life a whole lot easier, but with the presence of feminists, they can't ignore it as well. Feminists disrupt the cycle of ignoring that so many women engage in.

People aren't going to like it when you tell them they've been brainwashed or are oppressed without their noticing. Inherently, I think humans all have too much of a narcissistic trend in order to just accept if someone tells them they wrong about something.  And we've been conditioning women and girls not to notice or really care about the fact that society treats them very differently to men and boys. Can you force it onto women and girls to realise how the patriarchy is effecting their lives negatively? If you try to convince someone that their opinions are wrong, they're most likely going to harden their views and be more opposed to changing their point of views.

"I mean boys will be boys, but when they really embrace the LAD Culture, that really annoys me" Does that mean she's beginning to realise, but it's only the very extreme of the spectrum of behaviour that she finds irritating? The reason that you only find lad-culture in boys is that it is based on sexual difference, and objectifying females. You don't find it in girls, because "objects" can't objectify.

Alsop, Fitzsimons and Lennon write in Theorizing Gender (2002): "Until we treat men and women the same socially then we have no way of telling what natural differences there may be between them." They found that the impact of cultural conditioning is so great that it can impacts our abilities. Following that, it seems obvious that if you tell a group of people that they should spend a great amount of time and money on trying to make themselves look nice, and that, physically, another group of people will always outperform them (when in fact that depends on training, not sex), well, then OF COURSE THEY ARE GOING TO START THINKING THAT. If we would start treating sex difference as not important, however, the gender stereotypes employed by out culture would fade and we would see, what we as a human race are truly capable of, not what our men and our women are truly capable of. I hope that the wider acceptance and knowledge of intersex and transgender people will help, because there is (obviously) no fitting stereotype for these people, so people will need to change their ways of thinking.

Society needs to change how we treat women and men, though. At the rate we're currently going, near half of the next generation will believe that dressing up and putting make up on is more important than anything else - with our current issues of for example global warming, with only about half of the scientists that we could have, might not be able to find a solution (but a greater pool of talents has greater chances of success and development).

So, about 30-40 years after Second Wave Feminism, we've arrived at a even more difficult point of view. What does this teach us? Do we need to spread our ideas on how both (or all) genders should be equal more aggressively? I doubt that that would do any good. Instead, we should try to change how we talk about all genders, the kinds of attitudes we express, and the kinds of attitudes that we spread. And if we have an important position in our culture, we should use our ability to reach out to people and just show them a different set of attitudes than the ones that they might currently be applying.

Humanity has such a great variety and diversity in character and thoughts, why do we have to class it by race or gender or sexual orientation? None of these factors detract from our thinking ability. We are able to do so many amazing things, we have built cars that can go up to 300 km/s, triple of the cheetah, the fastest animal. We have left our planet, we can communicate with each other using radio waves. Humanity has such a great potential, well the half that has so far been participating more. Imagine what we could do, if 100% were allowed and able to contribute?

Charlie Crxsh

Beyoncé, Kesha, Lily Allen - The Struggle of female Pop Stars

The trend in society currently is to teach women that in order to gain power and authority, they have to be sexually attractive. It is not enough for a woman, to simply be intelligent, or very good in their field, they also have to be attractive to a certain extent in order for this to be recognized. This is why I find it so problematic, when pop culture names Beyoncé a strong and independent woman, because I feel that it will reinforce this trend. Her fans often consider her to be so great, because she is considered good-looking and attractive. Of course it's okay for a woman to be both, authoritative/powerful and attractive. I think what I struggle with mostly is that there is such a double standard between female and male pop stars/musicians. This picture of Beyoncé and Jay Z at the Grammys 2014 illustrates this quite well:

Beyoncé and Jay Z, Grammys 2014

Both Jay Z and Beyoncé are globally famous and successful musicians, and belong to the top of their field. So why is it, that Beyoncé has to basically wear lingerie, but Jay Z wears a suit, when they are performing together? Beyoncé is a great singer, I totally agree with that, but I also feel like she is (maybe unknowingly) reinforcing the trend that for women, sexual attractiveness and intelligence or power go hand in hand (patriarchy's response to the sexual liberation of women).

Beyoncé GQ Cover shoot February 2013

In this GQ Interview, Beyoncé does address equality issues, that would be quite interesting to explore, however most of the article focuses on either her clothes, her make up or her body. Why does it have to be that way? Shouldn't an interview be more about what she said, not how she looked? It might be that Beyoncé sees herself as an emancipated woman, and wants to come across that way. But the way people react to her is to objectify and reduce her to her looks only.

Kesha, I fear, might be facing a similar issue. She, too, is a sexually liberated woman but the response of the media is to objectify her, and call her a "slut" for talking about her sex life in her songs. Kesha imitates the way men talk about women in pop music, but inverts it. For a while I struggled with seeing a way that feminism, or gender-equality, can be successfully talked about in pop music. However, I feel that Lily Allen has found a good way to do so in her video "Hard Out Here", and I hope it will start a new phase of feminism in pop culture.

Lily Allen - Hard Out Here (Official Video) from Sammy Neal - Video Editor on Vimeo.

The lyrics are sarcastic and funny, and the video makes Lily Allen's message more obvious. Her background dancers do provocative dance moves, but they are almost grotesque and not very "sexy" due to the slow motion at some parts. It also makes it seem weird that these kind of dance moves are most commonly the way that female dancers dance in pop culture.

Some other videos of Kesha and Beyoncé:

Timber - Kesha ft Pitbull, Warrior Interrogation, Die Young - Kesha, Take It Off - Kesha, Partition (Explicit) - Beyoncé Drunk in Love (Explicit) - Beyonce ft Jay Z Pepsi Beyoncé "Mirrors" - Official 2013 video

Charlie Crxsh

P.S.: Could you imagine a man dressed like (e.g.) Beyoncé in the Partition music video in this scene? He would look ridiculous, people wouldn't take him seriously - and just because it's a female body, not a male one, it makes it look desirable.... 

Sexism in India

Over Easter I've had the chance to visit the country India, and while I have enjoyed it and learned a lot about it's culture and history, I've also encountered a lot of misogyny here. Sexism is common in Europe, too, but it takes a whole new form in India. In Europe, sexism is more passive, and less violent, I feel. Being in India made me realise, why a woman would want to wear a headscarf, or a veil, simply because the way some men look at me here makes me feel more uncomfortable than I've ever felt before. I feel like if they're going to look at me anyway (because of my skin colour), I at least don't want them to actually see the shape of my body. However, I quickly realised, that this is only treating the symptom of the problem, not the cause. The cause would be to teach the men here that you shouldn't objectify and silence a woman simply because of her gender. A large part of society (the conservative part) follow to some degree the rules, that a woman, once married, has to live at her husband's family's house, be a house wife (but it's okay for them to have a job before) and sometimes even wear a full veil in front of her parents-in-law, as a sign of respect. Rules are also placed on women regarding who they can speak with and who not - for example a married woman may not be allowed to talk to her father-in-law, or her husband when in public.

I actually met a about 30 y/o Hindi man, who told me that his wife has to fully conceal her face when at home, and is not allowed to talk to his father. When we responded with confusion and surprise, he continued to tell us that this is a sign of respect that his wife is not showing her face to his parents. I really do fail to see how having a veil in front of your face 24/7 is a portrayal of respect. I can slightly understand that wearing a headscarf that covers your hair can be respectful when in a religious place, because it hides an aspect of physical appearance that we usually highly decorate (plus it also protects you from the sun), therefore making a visit to a temple or mosque more about following a religious ritual or prayer, and less about how you look. But it annoys me how men don't have to hide aspects of their physical appearance, because it assumes that women will always be more decorated than men. 

Back to full veils - I've tried wearing one once when I forgot to put sun cream on my face and I was fearing a sunburn. While I successfully avoided a sunburn, I also noticed that the scarf I'd wrapped around my nose and mouth made it difficult for me to really engage in conversation. It drowned my voice slightly, it hid my mimics, if I wanted to be a noticed part of the conversation, I had to put a lot more effort in it than usually. I didn't wear it for long, and sought the shade instead, because wearing a full veil made me feel uncomfortable. This experience made me realise that, having to wear a full veil all the time would probably make whoever wore it feel rather horrible and restricted at first, and then probably apathetic. Why bother engaging in conversation when it is such an effort, and your probably rather traditional mother-in-law probably wouldn't quite listen to you anyway? And you weren't even allowed to talk to your father-in-law? Seems like a pretty good way to make sure that those women stay put. 

Walking down the street here, as a European woman of pale skin colour, you can expect men to stare at you. Take pictures of you on their phones without asking your permission. Point at you and discuss your appearance with the other men around you. Making it obvious they "enjoy" your presence a little more than you'd want. They probably won't stop taking pictures of you even if you've told them through waving your right hand dismissively (or your left hand, which is considered an insult here). The simple act of someone taking pictures might not sound so "bad" if you've never experienced it, but imagine walking down a street and having random strange men of all ages take pictures of you, and you don't even want to imagine what they're going to use those pictures for.. Street harassment takes different forms here. 

As a European, you might not find it odd or invasive if someone brushes past you in a public place, or places your hand on your back, but in India this doesn't have the same implications as in Europe. There are rather strong rules on PDA in India, and even touching a woman in what would be considered okay and non-sexual is not permitted here. Then ask yourself why the men do it to Western women, because they know it doesn't mean anything to us, and they want to touch women, even if it's just on the shoulder or her arm. 

More on this later,

Charlie Crxsh

Exhibitions in London

Today I visited some galleries in London as additional research in order to gain a wider perspective on the topic of feminism. I went to the Tate Britain, Tate Modern and the Spirit of Womanhood exhibition at the gallery@OXO.

In the Tate Britain I saw the 'Women and Work' Artist's Room, which showed the results of Margaret Harrsion's, Kay Hunt's and Mary Kelly's study of the working conditions of women in a metal box factory in Bermondsey.

There was no camera motion in the film, which emphasised the actions carried out by the women/men. I found the table next to the two screens a lot more interesting though, since I could make sense of the titles of the jobs a lot easier than of the actions shown on the film, since I'd never seen them before. 

The next piece was a series of framed photographs of hands performing a job, and below written the name of the job and how many women and men had this job. Below are some photographs I found striking, because of the nature of the job, or the inequality in the numbers of men and women who had this job. 

I noticed the rhetoric used in this piece - the number of women working is recorded in neutral numbers, but the numbers of men is recorded in either numbers, or simply "NO MEN", when they could have also used "0 MEN". The phrase "NO MEN" has a slightly aggressive undertone, and shows that this is no neutral piece of work, as well as clearly showing it's intention. The use of the word "NO" also emphasises the fact that no men had a particular job, a lot more than the phrase "0 MEN" would have emphasised the same fact.

The next piece was a text-based one, giving the reader information on the day to day routine of working women. This piece struck me, as it made me realise how much time these women had to spend doing housework on top of their paid jobs, and how tightly structured their days were. I also noticed how most of them needed about an hour to get to work - where factories out of town? Did the women have to walk to the factory? Seeing these made me realise why women might not have been so keen to get a job, since it would have made their lives a lot more stressful. This piece also clearly showed that house work and looking after a family is a job on its own, and if equality is to be achieved, a couple that decides to have children also needs to equally split the time to take care of children and do the house work. 

The adjacent room displayed Sylvia Pankhurst's work. She did designs for the WSPU and portraits of female workers and women. Below is a pin by the WSPU that she designed, as well as the "angel of freedom" which was more commonly used. All of these designs show the WSPU's colours; purple, white and green, which symbolise dignity, purity and hope. I prefer the triangular design, mainly because it is genderless. It makes the feminist movement appeal to a wider group of people - people of either gender that are in favour of equality. It also shows all three virtues leading to a peak, the utopia, when equality is achieved. I don't quite see the same symbolism carried forward in the later design of a female angel blowing a trumpet. 

Apologies for the bad quality of the photos, these documents were displayed in a horizontal glass case which made it rather difficult to get decent photographs.

The next piece I wanted to see was Joshua Reynolds painting "The Age Of Innocence", but sadly I just missed it by a couple of days. Instead, I spent some time sketching, and looking at the rest of the BP Spotlight collection. 

(Roger Hilton, Oi Yoi Yoi, 1963, oil and charcoal on canvas)

This painting is visually very striking because of it's crude depiction of the female body. The breasts are amplified, and both arms and legs are extended and go off the canvas. The female body works as a negative space which separates the blocks of colour. When looking at the title, this piece gains more meaning, as the title "Oi Yoi Yoi" is a sound you would expect someone of the older generation makes when surprised, or excited. 

I also really liked Martin Creed's installation called "Work No. 227, The Lights Going On And Off". Every time the lights turned on or off, there was a loud thump, like a really slow heartbeat. The room had a very calming atmosphere, and the rhythmic sound was very relaxing. I don't think the sound was intentional, it was just the normal clicking of the lights being turned on and off. I took a short video my experience of the installation.

(The Three Dancers, Pablo Picasso, 1925, oil on canvas)

(Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998)

(Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998)

Rachel Lowe, Letter to an Unknown Person no. 2, 1998, Film, Super 8 mm, 1 min 5 secs

This piece of video art does not relate to the theme of my FMP, but I really liked the piece. The lines drawn onto the piece of glass trick the audience into thinking they are letters, and challenge the audience to try and read some of the words, when really the "writing" is unreadable. The background in the video had a sweeping motion, which suggests that the glass is a train window. If it were a train window, the graffiti would be an act of vandalism. Does the artist say that all graffiti are letters to someone else? Does she try to give graffiti more meaning?


Charlie Crxsh

These Boots are made for Walkin'

A friend at uni recommended me to watch the music video of the song These Boots are made for walkin' by Nancy Sinatra and the cover version by Jessica Simpson. She said that the original song and video was very empowering for women, but the cover version was the exact opposite. After just watching both music videos, I have to disagree. I think both music videos are showing women as sex objects. The video featuring Nancy Sinatra is just not as explicit because it is from 1966, therefore would not have needed to be as explicit in order to provoke the audience. Both videos show women finding empowerment through being a sex object. It is the appealing looks of both the singers that gives them power. This is the fake-empowerment that has been taking place for a while in our culture. It creates the apparent need for women to become even sexier so they can be the ultimate sex object. The woman might observe some kind of freedom, in exploring her sexuality, but because she does so with an audience, it is not really her exploration but the enjoyment of the audience that is really her main focus. 

 The music video featuring Nancy Sinatra begins with just bare legs walking through the screen. The women are not shown in any kind of position of power. In fact they are not even shown as women, they are just a pair of legs, without a body. Nancy Sinatra's body in the next shot is very carefully positioned in order to look pleasing to an audience. Her position pronounces the length of her legs. Though the jumper-like dress is not very provocative to our eyes, at the time of its original release the length of the dress would have been very provocative to say the least. 

 
 

 

Throughout the song, the dance moves reveals the dancer's underwear, and the dancers move on the spot like flowers, or lie on their backs stretching their legs in the air. The only dance move where they really move forward, not just on the spot, is when they walk. Then however the camera quickly zooms in on their legs, portraying them as simply body parts, not humans. 

In order to find at least some part of the song that would be "empowering women" as my friend had told me, I had a quick look at the lyrics. The woman narrative character is shown to respond the being done wrong by a man. Even though the woman assumes some form of higher position and removes herself from a bad relationship, she only does so in response to being done wrong by a man - ultimately she is still passive and only reacting, not acting. 

I think my friend fell in the trap that our pop culture has been showing us - that women can be powerful, yes, but only when they are also a sex object, that ultimately being a sex object is what empowers a woman. 



   Jessica Simpson's take on the song

















Ultimately, her take on the song is very similar to Nancy Sinatra's, the imagery used in her music video is just a lot more explicit due to the context it was created in. Jessica Simpson is being shown to make the men in a bar almost dribble because she is so attractive. Then, one of the customers slaps her bum, to which she appears to be responding positively at first, only to then hit the man hard across the face. He falls over and into another customer, which sets of a domino reaction, leading to a bar fight.

Even though Jessica Simpsons is shown to be physically overpowering a man, it doesn't quite feel like she is being empowered.

She then proceeds to dance with a range of of other female dancers in way that makes it obvious that it is intended to be found attractive by a male heterosexual typical audience - they are making themselves sex objects. After she just confronted a man who essentially sexually harassed her, Jessica Simpson continues to objectify herself. The car wash scene at the end? Well… that is the cliché way women are being shown as sex objects, isn't it?

Charlie Crxsh