Category Archives: feminism
Sex with Men, Hoping to Feel Beautiful
By Anonymous
Imagery is powerful. I remember my mother watching Marilyn Monroe movies and looking at her pictures in magazines. She bleached her hair and styled it like Marilyn’s. Mom dressed in high heeled boots and miniskirts and wore the style of make-up that graced magazine covers. My father loved it. I saw the attention men gave her, especially at parties. Looking back I see how the ideal of the perfect woman had a huge impact on the psychology of my mother. And me.
Although beautiful, mom lacked self-confidence and self-esteem. She gave up on her dreams to pursue the love of a man through beautifying herself. She became a submissive woman at the beck and call of the men in her life. No surprise, she married eight times before age thirty.
I watched men walk all over my mother, treating her like a trophy wife in front of their friends. But behind closed doors they demeaned and objectified her. I grew to dislike men, yet followed in her footsteps. It began in elementary school.
In elementary school super cute girls wore bows in their hair and cute dresses with knee high boots in white patent leather. I was plain looking and had a poor self-image, partly because of experiences with my mom. But also because I looked nothing like the ideal
images that surrounded me on magazine covers.
At the same time, I felt uncomfortable wearing glamour styles and dressed more like a tomboy. I covered my body even though looking back, it was rockin’! I still got attention from boys, but not the kind a girl wants. I was one of the guys.
My low self-esteem carried over into my teen years. Mom made comments about my body and told me I better be careful or no man would want me. I’d never had weight issues until my mom made me painfully aware of it.
I looked in the mirror and saw things that weren’t there. I wasn’t fat, but I thought I was. I wasn’t ugly, but I thought I was. I thought my friends were prettier than me. Funny, my low self-esteem made me less attractive.
With poor body image and low self-esteem women don’t reach their full potential. I didn’t. My life goal: attracting a man. I dropped out of high school. I dropped out of college. I had sex with many men hoping to feel beautiful, adored and loved.
I recently took a photography class and learned the secrets of Photoshop. The instructor showed an un-retouched photo of Cindy Crawford, highlighting the roughness of her face, acne, arm fat, and a “thick” waist. He then showed how they thinned her waist, removed the arm fat, elongated her chin, and gave her a flawless complexion for the magazine cover.
I sat in disbelief. None of the images we see in Playboy, Vogue, Glamour,
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit, Shape or InStyle are real images. Men are made to
believe this is what women should look like and they view women who don’t
harshly. Women and girls also believe these images are true representations of
beauty and glamour.
They Aren’t.
But I hadn’t known that.
Hopefully the future will see new media sprout up portraying real women without airbrushing and manipulation. Let women embrace who they are so they can be strong and healthy. I want to get to that point in my life. I am still dieting and still struggling with poor body image.
One day, I will embrace myself for who I am and not worry about what I eat. One
day I will have the confidence I need to make my way through this second half
of life with a great career and a great love of myself. I wish that for all
women.
This piece was written by a student of mine. I asked if I could publish it on my
blog. She requested anonymity.
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If Gays Can’t Rule on Gays, Can Whites Rule on Whites?
Anti-gay rights activists want to overturn a ruling to allow same-sex marriage in California. In their most recent attempt, they maintained that because San Francisco Chief Judge Vaughn Walker is gay, and could personally benefit, he acted with bias when he rendered his decision. This week Judge James Ware rejected the claim, calling it warrantless.
No one calls “bias” when whites or men make rulings that benefit them. Affirmative action cases, for instance. White Justices have been known to rule in ways that would benefit their own white children and grandchildren.
Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts seems to vote consistently
in ways that benefit Republicans, and therefore himself, as a member of that
party. As court watcher, Jeffrey Toobin, observes, “In every major case
since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with
the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive
branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual
plaintiff… Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the
contemporary Republican Party.” Yet no one says that Roberts should recuse
himself from said cases.
Worries of bias seem only to rise when members of the LGBT community, women and people of color hold positions of judicial power. Many wondered whether Sonia Sotomayor could judge without favoritism as a Latina.
Meanwhile, in their search for justice gays, women and ethnic minorities have usually been at the mercy of white, straight, males. In the past it’s been argued that minority judges can’t be objective on affirmative action. Why would a white judge be fairer? It has been claimed that women can’t be objective on abortion rights. Why would a male judge be fairer? And now accusations that gays cannot rule objectively on gay marriage. Why is
the privileged perspective constantly deemed more fair-minded?
Why? Because most of our information has come to us over the years through straight, white men’s eyes, whether via the media or over the political, corporate, or religious pulpit. We are so inundated that after a lifetime, their view comes to seem like the “normal” and unbiased way of seeing.
But really, if gays can’t rule on issues affecting gays, should whites be allowed to rule on matters that impact whites?
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Female Activist Says Legalize Sex-Slavery
A female political activist and former parliamentary candidate prescribes sex-slavery as a means of protecting Kuwaiti men from committing adultery, according to the Kuwait Times and the Arabic news website, Al Arabiya.
In an online video the activist, Salwa Al-Mutairi, insists that Kuwaiti men could avoid moral corruption by purchasing non-Muslim women from an “enslaved maid” sex agency, if such a service were legally available. Otherwise, pious men may continue to be tempted by attractive household servants (who may go so far as to cast sensual spells).
Huh?
Sex-slavery would protect the chastity of both men and women, she claims.
Since she sees non-Muslims as something less than human, Islamic men can’t commit adultery by having sex with them. Al-Mutairi reasons thusly: “The rules regulating sex-slaves differ from those for free women [i.e., Muslim women].” She explains, “The latter’s body must be covered entirely, except for her face and hands, whereas the sex-slave is kept naked from the bellybutton on up — she is different from the free woman; the free woman has to be married properly to her husband, but the sex-slave — he just buys her and that’s that.”
Meanwhile, pious women would be protected from sex-crazed men.
While not scripturally based, she insists the practice is not religiously forbidden. After all, several sheikhs and muftis in Mecca assured her that sex-slavery was perfectly legal under Sharia.
I see the problem here not as religion, but the mindset. Every Muslim I know would be completely appalled by a call for sex-slavery. Or by Al-Mutairi’s view that non-Muslims are something less that human.
Religion and religious advisors can say all sorts of crazy things. The Hebrew Bible and the Old Testament (scriptures Jews and Christians share) recommend that disobedient children, Sabbath breakers, homosexuals and adulteresses all be killed. And God either approves or orders the destruction of several cities and communities. It’s just that today no one pays attention to these extreme passages.
Of course, it’s not just religion. Similarly strange notions can come out of culture, too. New York Times columnist, Nick Kristof, tells a story in Half the Sky that is eerily similar to Al-Mutairi’s proposal. When Kristof asked Indian border guards why they didn’t stop young Pakistani girls from being brought into the country to be trafficked in the sex trade, the guards felt that since there will always be prostitution, it’s better to bring in girls from a lower class (and presumably lower morals) to save the Indian girls’ virtue as future wives of the same men who will frequent the prostitutes.
What of the ethics of Al-Mutairi’s proposal? Is morality grounded in religion? Doesn’t seem like it, given the religiously stained horror of nearly everything written above.
Additionally, must we accept that all cultural practices and perspectives are equally worthy? In most cases I agree with the tenants of cultural relativity: don’t judge a society’s practices if you live outside of it. But I’m not a moral relativist.
I ground my ethics in reason and human rights with this question in mind: Is anyone being harmed? If someone is being killed or crippled, physically, spiritually, emotionally, or intellectually, the behavior is wrong, regardless of culture.
Clearly, slavery wounds. So would the ongoing rape that this setup would entail.
When powerful groups profit by exploiting the powerless among them, I call that immoral. Certainly, sheikhs and muftis who declare sex-slavery acceptable under Sharia would personally benefit from satiated libidos, but at great cost to enslaved women. Regardless of what they claim their religion allows.
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Sexy Weiner?
This week Congressman Anthony Weiner admitted sexting a picture of his package to a young woman, in the tradition of Brett Favre, Kanye West and assorted flashers everywhere.
What are these men thinking?
Tracy Clark-Flory over at salon.com put out a call on Twitter to get women’s reactions to this sort of sexting. Plenty of women wanted to see a man’s chest. But with few exceptions the response was complete repulsion. When asked whether crotch shots “do it” for them, one tweeter replied, “If by ‘do it’ you mean ‘send me to the toilet retching,’ then yes, they do.”
Flashers seem similarly clueless. Flasher message boards suggest that these men expect women to get turned on. At least one man finally “got it,” saying, “I simply can’t do it anymore… I found that I was basically just offending woman after woman.”
Men love looking at lady parts, so they think women must love the sight of man parts, too. Surprisingly, “penis” is a common web search among men, straight or gay, and they are as likely to “google” penis as vagina. No wonder they think women want to look at theirs, too. Of course, porn depicts women going wild at the sight of the male member. But porn is a wildly inaccurate instructor on women’s sexuality.
Some believe the flaunting is tied to evolutionary psychology. After all, “Male monkeys and apes routinely display their penis (usually erect) to females to indicate sexual interest,” says cognitive neuroscientist Ogi Ogas. The move may make female monkeys and apes swoon. But among women, retching seems an unlikely process by which to pass on ones genes.
But I think women’s reactions also run counter to Freud’s contention that women experience “penis envy” (this being the supposed cause of our feelings of inferiority: “His is so big!”). I know my first reaction to seeing a penis was a huge relief that I, myself, was streamlined. Looks like others might feel the same.
Women may appreciate a man’s package in the context of “wanting” and/or loving a particular man. But this sort of sexting? Not so much.
It seems men are a bit more obsessed with the sight of their penises than women are.
Georgia Platts
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Grade School Lingerie
When I was ten years old plenty of my friends would wear “big girl lingerie” that they got from Abercrombie and the like. I felt pressured to constantly push to be sexier, or more desirable. At ten years old, who exactly am I trying to attract?
This comment (paraphrased) came in reaction to a piece I recently wrote called, “Cartoonish vs Authentic Sexuality.”
I found the remark a bit starling. At age ten I did not feel any pressure to be sexy. I was a kid! None of my little-girl friends seemed to have such notions, either.
Wondering who she was trying to attract, the young woman added, “I don’t think any of us really knew the answer to that, but it felt necessary all the same.” And then she asked what lay behind the focus on sexualizing young girls.
My first thoughts are that companies like Abercrombie are trying to get young kids to like their brand by appealing to the desire to feel “grown up.” Not to mention all the free
publicity they get from controversies surrounding their products.
But I’ve also noticed a broad trend toward sexualizing both girls and women that goes beyond what I had experienced at the age of ten, or even twenty.
In fact, not long ago I was flipping through TV channels looking for movies when I saw the 1988 film Crossing Delancy with Amy Irving (Steven Speilberg’s ex) and the 1986 film About Last Night with Demi Moore and Rob Lowe. And then I noticed that in these films – and several other romantic comedies of that period – the women were not dressed sexually. No body-hugging clothing. No revealing décolletage.
Why the change?
Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth might help us out. Wolf points out that as women
have gained power they have also become more sexualized. She says it’s no accident.
Think about it. As women take on sex object status, they become objects. Objects aren’t quite human, leaving them at a lower rung on the ladder than men. Meanwhile, the ideal of huge breasts and skinny waists is near impossible to achieve, leading to poor self-esteem and an awful lot of time spent trying to fulfill this “requirement.” And if you’re busy focused on your looks, you’ll take your attention off more substantive things.
In sum: As women become more sexualized, even as they gain power they lose status by becoming objects. Even as women gain power, narrow notions of beauty leave them feeling worse about themselves as body image suffers. As women put tremendous time and energy into their looks, they have little time or energy left to become more empowered.
I personally feel that sexy is fine (and beyond the cartoonish narrow notions, please!), but that “sex object” isn’t. Sexy can be one part of a well-rounded woman’s life, while “sex object” sees women as being only about sex.
Women should not be seen as only sexy. Sexy should not be the primary source of self-worth. Sexy should not be the most important thing in the world.
And children should not be trained to see themselves as objects.
Georgia Platts
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Black Isn’t Beautiful Claims Evolutionary Psychologist
Somalian-born supermodel, Iman
Evolutionary psychologist, Satoshi Kanazawa, claims Black women are less attractive than others. It’s apparently such good science that Psychology Today posted his piece on their website. Maybe not. They quickly took it down and recently apologized.
Hmmmm. Thinking about Black women, there’s
Somalian-born supermodel, Iman or Sudan-born supermodel, Alek Wek. And then
there’s Halle Berry, Naomi Campbell, Tyra Banks, Thandie Newton, Beyonce, Janet
Jackson, Lisa Bonet, Jada Pinket Smith… Beautiful Melia Obama fits right in
with these folks.
Lupita Nyong’o
A few years back FX had a reality show called “Black. White.” in which a White family’s coloring and features were changed to Black, while a Black family’s coloring and features were changed to White. I thought the White girl looked great Black.
Black. White.
Really, we need to take evolutionary psychology with a grain of salt. Some research from this field may have some basis. But much carries cultural bias. Indeed, as Tami Winfrey Harris over at Ms. points out, others have demonstrated Kanazawa’s bad methodology and his taste for fashioning racism, sexism and conservatism as science. As much of evolutionary psychology is prone to do, I might add.
Supermodel, Alek Wek
That said, as Harris eloquently observers:
All women bear the burden of the European beauty standard and the fact that, as women, our value as human beings is too often defined by how closely we fit the
standard—how close we are to being white, blond, blue-eyed, thin, with long, straight hair, and a keen nose and lips. Narrow standards of beauty are oppressive to all but a few, but it is Black women as a whole who are held up as the opposite of the ideal.
Ethiopian woman
On Harris’ point, people do tend to prefer the features and fashions of powerful groups, but the bias is about power, not innate beauty. Just a couple examples:
When prosperous and influential Chinese families bound the feet of their daughters to signal wealth (what woman could work with bound, dysfunctional feet?) small feet came to be seen as beautiful. Unfortunately, poor Chinese soon imitated the fashion in pursuit of this excruciating “beauty.”
Or, when tanned skin indicated outdoor, poorly-paid, physical labor, Americans avoided the sun. But when Coco Chanel came back deeply tanned after vacationing in St. Tropez, her sun-kissed skin – now linked to wealth and privilege – appeared beautiful.
Sudanese woman
Blacks do have less power than other ethnic groups due to intense prejudice which was created to support their enslavement and the discrimination that followed. (It’s easier to feel okay about enslaving someone if they’re not quite seen as people.) Due to a history of educational and occupational discrimination, it has been more difficult for the Black community to gain and pass on wealth.
And yet, looking at all the women on this page all I can say is black is truly beautiful.
Lupita Nyong’o on Black as Beautiful here.
More beautiful black women here:
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Women Should Get Rape Insurance?
When women are raped the emotional fallout can be great. My brother had a girlfriend who had been date raped. On occasion she would suddenly begin crying because of this. Sexual dysfunction is common, with sex drive evaporating. One man I know of said a woman went numb when he initiated sex after weeks of dating. When he talked to her about it, she said she had been raped, and now leaves her body, mentally and emotionally, whenever sexual encounters arise. Many become anxious or depressed. Some experience posttraumatic stress disorder.
No wonder rape is the crime women most fear, other than murder. We plan our days and activities around it, we avoid going out alone at night, we consider the safest route, we get a friend to join us, we avoid strange men. The list goes on.
Now Kansas state Rep., Peter DeGraaf expects us to add one more thing to our list: purchase what, for many, would be essentially rape insurance.
DeGraaf wants to ban insurance companies from offering abortion coverage as part of their general health plans, even if the pregnancy results from rape. Instead, women should buy separate, “abortion-only policies,” he says. And at an extra cost.
When challenged that this expectation was heartless for rape victims who have already endured enough, DeGraaf simply explained that everyone needs to plan ahead in life. “I have a spare tire on my car,” he offered. “I also have life insurance,” he added.
Spare tire. Abortion insurance, just in case you’re raped. Yeah, the two are equivalent.
Sexual assault is too often trivialized in our culture. Some think women secretly want it or ask for it. Many think it’s not that traumatic. We see this when a 16-year-old cheerleader is ordered to cheer her rapist or get kicked off the squad. She took her case to court and lost and is now expected to pay her rapist’s court fees (he pled guilty to a lesser charge).
Most of those who govern rape victims are powerful men, whether legislators, school superintendents, or the courts. They rarely worry about becoming victims of sexual assault, themselves, and too often see the attacks as trivial.
Hard to believe DeGraaf is also an associate pastor. I wonder what sort of empathetic counseling he hands out.
Georgia Platts
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Surprises in Indiana University Sex Survey
Researchers at Indiana University have completed the most comprehensive sex survey since 1994. It yielded some surprising results:
- Young women were more likely than young men to report having had sex in the last year
- Young women are increasingly likely to report masturbating
- 85% of men report that their partner had an orgasm the last time they had sex; but only 64% of women said they had reached orgasm. Hmmmmm
- Men were more likely to reach orgasm if they were in a relationship than with a casual sex partner
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Baby Named “Storm.” Sex Unknown
Kathy Witterick and David Stocker of Toronto have chosen not to announce their new baby’s sex, at least for now, as “a tribute to freedom and choice in place of limitation.” The parents would like to give the baby, named Storm, the freedom to choose or discover who she or he wants to be.
Other than their two sons, a close friend, and the two midwives who helped deliver the baby, no one knows the sex.
Because kids are bombarded by so many messages from society, the Witterick-Stocker’s are hoping to knock off a couple million of them, at least for a while.
If they want to treat their baby gender-neutral, Kathy and David will need to keep guard, themselves, because gender creation begins even before birth.
Typically, parents begin to develop ideas about what their child will grow up to be like as soon as ultrasound reveals the sex. Once they hear, “It’s a boy” dad gets visions of playing ball and coaching his son in little league. Or mom imagines playing dollies with her daughter or dreams of her future wedding gown.
Once they’re born, parents perceive boys as being strong and alert, while little girls seem delicate and pretty.
Parents treat sons rougher. Dad grabs Teddy Bear and threatens, “Teddy’s going to get you!” But tucking his daughter in at night, he’ll bring Teddy in for comfort and good dreams.
I’ve found myself mimicking these gender notions. When I was learning about all this in grad school, I agreed to babysit my two-year-old nephew. I’d roar at him. And for some reason I thought it might be fun to take a beach ball (it was very light!) and bang him on the head with it (but just once!). As soon as I did, I realized I would never do that to my little niece. She would be too delicate.
Parents even talk to their daughters more, and use a wider variety of emotion words. They use more questions, numbers, and action verbs with sons.
Girls are kept closer, and helped more. Boys are given more latitude and expected to help themselves, with just a little aid from mom and dad.
Meanwhile boys’ toys, like blocks, develop spatial skills while footballs and baseballs build muscles and a sense of competition. Girls’ dolls encourage nurture while tea parties hone social skills. Barbie teaches girls all about beauty, fashion, and the importance of dating Ken.
As kids watch cartoons they learn that boys are more active and aggressive, and are more likely the main character. There are a few exceptions, like Powerpuff Girls. Sailor Moon is another girl character who is active, fighting crime. Yet she’s an oddly sexy fourteen-year-old.
Hard to know whether the parents, brothers and friend’s knowledge of Storm’s sex might have some effect. And unfortunately, parents are rarely aware of how much they do treat their children in gender specific ways.
If little Storm gets any whiff of his/her sex, s/he’s likely to be highly influenced by the outside world: TV, billboards, other kids…
A lot of people are upset by all this. Maybe you are, too. But I’d like to know what’s wrong with trying to keep limitations away from a child so that s/he can become who s/he is with fewer restrictions.
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Homophobes Aroused by Gay Porn
You’d think homophobic men would be the least likely to get aroused by homoerotic images. Think again.
Researchers at the University of Georgia surveyed young men on the degree of homophobia the felt, as measured by their self-described levels of aversion to gay men, and specifically, the intensity of “dread” they experienced interacting with them.
Then they wired them up and showed them gay porn, lesbian porn, and straight porn. Eighty percent of the homophobes experienced arousal at the homoerotic screenings. The non-homophobic men did not.
Are these men unconsciously deceiving themselves? Or are they consciously trying to draw attention away from their homosexuality? Who knows?
One gay man told a story about attempting the latter. Writing for Scientific American, Jesse Bering said, “My earliest conscious tactic to hide my homosexuality involved being outlandishly homophobic. When I was eight years old, I figured that if I used the word “fag” a lot and on every possible occasion expressed my repugnance for gay people, others would obviously think I was straight. But,” he continued, “although it sounded good in theory, I wasn’t very hostile by temperament and I had trouble channeling my fictitious outrage into convincing practice.”
Maybe it helps to be mean and angry, too.
Jesse went on to cite the Freudian concept of reaction formation which occurs when repressed desires become manifested in sharp emotional reactions and hostile behaviors toward the thing desired.
Plenty of gay homophobes screech against the so-called “sins” of the orientation, but end up outed, anyway: Evangelical Ted Haggard, George Rekers of the Family Research Council, and anti-gay megachurch pastor Eddie Long are a few who come to mind. The whole scene is reminiscent of the homophobic gay man from American Beauty attacking what he feared – his own gayness.
“Thou dost protest too much,” to paraphrase the bard, Shakespeare.
Really, who are you trying to convince?
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