Category Archives: gender
Girls Walk Fine Line Between Attractive, Slut
Women and men both use sexual allure to raise their status. Men may try to “score” with as many women as possible, with each conquest boosting their place among men.
For women it’s more complicated. Many college women think that being “hot” is the most important thing in the world. That’s because self-worth is so attached to beauty. But Elizabethe C. Payne, Director of Queering Education Research Institute (QuERI), explained in the Huffington Post that girls can face a double bind of “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” as society tells them they will only be loved and held in high regard if they show off their bodies – but they’d better not do it the wrong way:
Girls have to “straddle an often unclear line in appearing sexually attractive (desirable) and receptive (thus not “gay”) yet unavailable (not “sluts”).
She says that middle school girls who simply dress attractively and wear makeup—or who develop breasts before their peers – may be labeled “sluts.” And any girl who actively pursues a boy, defying the double standard, can get slut-shamed too. She needn’t have sex, she only needs to be assertive:
Many young girls who have never had sex or anything close to it — at all — have been marked as “sluts.” Once marked, young girls are repeatedly subjected to sexual harassment, threats and taunts.
But the pressure on young women to constrain themselves moves beyond sexuality and sexual allure. Middle school girls can also be labeled as sluts, bitches, whores or gay for acting assertively or challenging male authority – including the authority of boys.
Girls and boys both slut-shame. Girls, because they feel threatened by attractive young women, especially when they feel they cannot be attractive, themselves. And boys might sustain the male privilege to act and be free while girls must hold themselves back.
Which brings us to another double-bind. Women and girls who criticize a system that judges us only by our beauty, and who seek, instead, to work for equality can be labeled “feminazis.” But if they smile and take it they still lose.
If you’re going to lose either way in the short-term, you might as well work toward long-term freedom and empowerment, I’d say.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Did Slut-Shaming Kill Phoebe Prince?
Sex and the Walk of Shame
Lose Virginity, Lose Self-Esteem?
Share this:
Men: Erotic Objects of Women’s Gaze
Sexy, but all covered up.
A nude woman frolics in silhouette as clothed men sleuth about, guns in hand and feet in chase. These images introduce The Spy Who Loved Me.
Flipping through TV stations the other day, this Bond rerun caught my eye and left me imagining the reverse: a nude man cavorting about as clothed women race in pursuit of criminals. Weird.
The female body is celebrated – or exploited – while the male body is ignored.
Check out People’s sexiest men. Until 2013s Channing Tatum you would be hard-pressed to see anything but face shots, loose T-shirts, and very few rippled muscles. Who could imagine a “sexiest woman” shoot sans bodies.
Searching for a calendar of sexy men at one bookstore, the closest I could find was Barack Obama.
Yeah, yeah, there is the occasional men’s underwear ad, but they are rare.
And when men walk around in the world they’re all covered up.
No wonder women don’t spend a lot of time checking out men’s bodies, ogling them or judging them.
A man commented on one of my posts that (to paraphrase):
Not only are men not considered erotic, they are often used to get laughs. In Seinfeld, Elaine referred to the male body as “utilitarian,” implying that the female is much more erotic. George Costanza became a victim of “shrinkage.” Scenes of Johnny Knoxville running around in a thong get chuckles.
Why is the male body so de-eroticized?
One possibility: Men have historically controlled media, and they focus on what they find sexy (about 95% of them anyway). Homophobia further hinders eroticization. As women enter the industry we find more focus on men, but still not much compared with women. Meanwhile, showered with sexy-women images from the time they are small, even women come to find women the sexier of the species.
What if the world were to switch? Suddenly, a universe of men in Speedo’s?
What if women became subject, and men erotic object for women to gaze upon? What if women sought to consume men as objects? Judging them, grading their beauty? Would women feel empowered, experiencing themselves on the “person” side of the person/object divide?
Something to think about.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Women Seeing Women as Sexier than Men
Man as Object: Reversing the Gaze
Women Learn the Breast Fetish, Too
Share this:
The Rules vs The Game
The Rules and The Game are manuals created to teach men and women how to attract the opposite sex. What do they tell us about the war between the sexes in this new millennium? For in these manuals, it is war.
The Game
The Game was written in 2005 by Neil Strauss after his book editor asked him to investigate the community of pickup artists. After a few workshops this self-described “chick repellant” found that the techniques worked surprisingly well for a “pick up” — but not for relationships. And, as it turns out, the game works best for misogynistic men, but only works to attract women who are misogynistic, themselves.
Here are some rules of The Game:
- Approach a woman within three seconds of seeing her so you won’t lose your nerve
- Ask something benign like “What’s your sign?” or “What’s your type?”
- Act somewhat disinterested
- Briefly disqualify yourself from being a potential suitor
- Ignore the girl you want and flirt with one of her friends instead
- Ogle other women
- Subtly insult her to lower her self-worth
- Isolate “the target” from her friends
Clearly, these rules are all about bedding women by means of controlling them and weakening their self-esteem, while inflating the confidence of men.
The Rules
The Rules were written to aid women in getting a man to commit. Published in 1995, they were updated in 2002 to reflect single life in a high-tech culture.
Here are a few rules:
- Let him take the lead
- Don’t talk to a man first and don’t ask him to dance
- Don’t call him and rarely return his calls
- Always end a date first
- Don’t see him more than once or twice a week
- Don’t talk very much on the first date
- Break up with him if he doesn’t buy you a romantic gift for your birthday or Valentine’s Day
- Don’t open up too fast
- Be sexy
In sum, The Rules urge women to manipulate men by playing hard to get. In an ironic twist women are advised to make men the leader even while creating a sense of female independence. (Even keeping her mouth shut works to create a sense of “man as leader” as some research finds that when women talk more than one third of the time they are seen as honing in on men’s space.)
On the bright side, women are urged to get on with their lives instead of waiting around for “him.”
What The Rules/The Game have in common
Both manuals advise game-playing, so we have not evolved much — or many of us have not.
Both amass power to “their side” by means of disinterest – which may work since whomever cares least has more power.
The Rules advises a traditional source of power for those who lack it: manipulation, controlling men without their knowing. Interestingly, The Game urges this same feminine technique for men, who do not have direct control over women’s minds and bodies.
And we find sexism surviving in both books.
The war of the sexes lives on
Not surprisingly, the books also differ in a way that reflects traditional gender norms. The goal of The Game is to bed women while the goal of The Rules is to snag men. The stereotypes live on.
My students are surprised that The Rules weren’t written in the middle of the last century. But The Game’s even more recent publication comes as no shock. I guess we are more puzzled by women who agree to sexism, whereas no one is surprised that some men continue to support it.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Using Insults to Pick Up Women
Are Men More Likely to Separate Love & Sex?
Sources of Power in Relationships
Share this:
Non-Sex Reasons For First Sex
![Women-with-Vaginal-Problems-after-Sexual-Intercourse-039-Allergic-039-to-Partner-039-s-Semen-2[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/women-with-vaginal-problems-after-sexual-intercourse-039-allergic-039-to-partner-039-s-semen-21.jpg)
Freud may have named sex drive the primary motivational force among humans, but sometimes you gotta wonder. Because sex serves other aims an awful lot of the time.
How about first sex? According to a 2011 study by Laura M. Carpenter, PhD, many see virginity as a gift to give to someone special, with the goal of strengthening the relationship. Women were more likely than men to have this purpose in mind, though some men did, too.
Men were more likely to have sex to shed the stigma of virginity. Not surprisingly, women were much less likely to state that reason, though some did. But for men, especially, it can be embarrassing to be a virgin.
About one third of those in Carpenter’s study saw losing virginity as a rite of passage, a step toward growing up. By the way, this group was the most satisfied with the experience, perhaps having lower expectations. They typically planned for the moment, complete with birth control, and they could more easily take a bad first experience in stride.
Looking at a 1994 study, by comparison, half of women said they had sex for the first time out of affection, which fits well with social expectations that women will have sex out of love — or “strengthening a relationship” as cited in the 2011 survey. Meanwhile, 51% of men had sex for the first time out of curiosity or because they felt ready. This fits well with a focus on achieving manhood (“ready” to be men).
Interestingly, only 12% of men and 3% of women said they had sex for pleasure their first
time, in the 1994 survey. Carpenter didn’t separate out “pleasure” as a separate category, and said it was most often attached to “ridding self of stigma” in her study.
By the way, the 2011 survey found that women and men were more alike than expected. “The idea we have from TV and movies is that for women it’s all about love and for men it’s all about getting it over with,” Carpenter related. “If men and women shared metaphors, the choices they made and the kinds of experiences they had were pretty similar. That’s something that hasn’t been noticed that much.”
Carpenter also noted that gays and straights were similar in their experiences.
All in all, it’s interesting to see how often pleasure takes a back seat to other concerns when it comes to sex. I’ll discuss this in a variety of other contexts to come.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Lose Virginity, Lose Self-Esteem?
Sex Objects Who Don’t Enjoy Sex|
Women Want Casual Sex? Yes and No
Share this:
Boob. A Breast? Or a Fool?
![e412ba0843ed5a18555a51ed4c185b32[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/e412ba0843ed5a18555a51ed4c185b321.png?w=604)
The English language has more than 1000 words that sexually describe women or their body parts. Here are a few:
Babe, nymph, nymphomaniac, bimbo, fox, dog, beaver, freak, super freak, knockout, melons, tomatoes, whore, ho, dumb blond, shapely, pussy, boobs, hussy, slut, buxom, trim, troll, femme fatale, skank, goddess, jugs, bush, poontang, tart, loose, tramp, butch, bitch, Lolita, Betty, sex kitten, temptress, beast, promiscuous.
Sometimes neutral words take on a sexual meaning when they are applied to women. Call a man a professional and you’ll likely envision a doctor or a lawyer. But say, “She’s a professional” and “prostitute” may be the first thing that comes to mind.
An author was asked to rename a book title before publication. “The Position of Women in Society” seemed too suggestive.
“It’s easy” sounds like a simple task. “He’s easy,” might denote an easy grader. But say, “she’s easy,” and you’ll likely hear “sexually promiscuous.”
One-time courtesy titles, or even high titles, can take on sexual meanings. “Madam” is a polite way of addressing a woman. She may be the female head of household. But she may also be the female head of a house of prostitution. Mistress, another term for the female head of house, is now associated with adultery. “Lady” is a polite title. But “lady of the evening” is not. Even the highest status a woman can gain, “Queen” takes on sexual connotations when applied to a gay man or a “drag queen.”
And notice how these words are demeaning as well as sexual (“gay” is overcoming the stigma, but there’s still a way to go). We could add drama queen and cootie queen to that mix.
Even the term boob, slang for a woman’s breast, is defined in the dictionary as, “a stupid or foolish person.” Odd that something so valued is also degraded. Is the appeal of boobs similar to the draw of a dumb blonde?
What difference does it all make?
In their work in anthropology, Edward Sapir and Benjamin Whorf learned that words affect how we see. The Hopi Indians had no words to distinguish among the past, present, and future. And they had a difficult time with those concepts. Skiers are more attuned than most to different kinds of snow: powder, packed powder, corn, ice, slush, for example. Or, we so often use male terms to describe humanity – man, mankind, brotherhood, fellowship – that when people are asked to think of a person, a man generally comes to mind.
Words dig deep into our unconscious psyches, directing how we see ourselves and others. When we constantly hear sexual and pejorative terms describing women, women come to be sexualized and demeaned in our minds.
The language we learn is neither the fault of the men or the women of our society, in so far as baby girls and baby boys both grow up immersed in these words. What’s important is how we use language once we “get it,” and once we get that it matters.
Related posts on BroadBlogs
“Cock” vs “Down There”
Sex: Who Gets Screwed?
Words: Sticks and Stones? Or Shaping How We See Ourselves?
Share this:
Saying “No” in 520 Languages
I’m Learning to Say No in 520 Languages
How often do I hear my brain screaming NO as I smile and say yes? These random words are all “NO” in different languages. So I am learning to say no in 520 languages, most importantly mine, NO.
Artist, Karen Gutfreund, works with unconventional materials: roof tar, bone, red food coloring, wax… As she moves against standards and customs, is she saying NO even as she works as an artist?
She has good reason to go against the flow. We all do.
Her work strikes a chord with a piece I once read entitled, “Betrayed by the Angel”:
I’m 25 years old. I’m alone in my apartment. I hear a knock. I open the door and see a face I don’t know. The man scares me, I don’t know why. My first impulse is to shut the door. But I stop myself: You can’t do something like that. It’s rude… He is inside. He slams the door shut himself and pushes me against the wall… Since he is being rude, it is okay for me to be rude back.
Despite the young woman’s revelation that rudeness can be good, it was too late. She was raped.
Some feel queasy at self-defense seminars when told to gouge out an attacker’s eyes. “Could I do something less gruesome?” someone asks. Advice from the expert: “He’s bigger than you. If you try something weaker he’ll overtake you and you’ll be raped or dead.”
I had it easier. But not really easy. He was a guy from church, and we were dating. At church we didn’t have double standards. Men and women were both told to stay pure. I was so inexperienced and naïve that when he touched me outside my clothes, but at “third base,” I froze in shock. Was he really doing that? I didn’t want to be rude. In guarding his feelings I paid a price, smacked with the label, “loose.”
Virginia Woolf speaks of the Angel in the House. Some scattered lines:
You who come of a younger and happier generation may not have heard of her – you may not know what I mean by the Angel in the House… She was intensely sympathetic. She was immensely charming. She was utterly unselfish… She sacrificed herself daily… She preferred to sympathize always with the minds and wishes of others…
I turned upon her and caught her by the throat. I did my best to kill her. My excuse, if I were to be had up in a court of law, would be that I acted in self-defense. Had I not killed her she would have killed me.
This piece was originally shown at “CONTROL,” an exhibition of California women artists presented by The Women’s Caucus for Art at New York’s Ceres Gallery, February 1 – February 26th, 2011.
For more on Karen Gutfreund’s work go to her website.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Spoon Fed Barbie
Cartoonish vs Authentic Sexuality
Sex: Who Gets Screwed?
Share this:
A Woman Slut-Shames, in Verse
![35u7yq[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/35u7yq1.jpg?w=604)
By Rebecca Gardner
I’m always surprised at how women can foster sexism, themselves. I heard Nicki Minaj’s “Stupid Hoe” the other day and thought of the problem. She uses tough-girl guises, but she is far from modeling powerful womanhood.
The title, itself, says men may do as they please. Women may not.
Or how about these lines:
ice my wrists’ and I piss on bitches
you can suck my diz-nik,
if you take this jizz-ez.
Seeing through sexist eyes, she asserts that one woman might be superior to another, but she will never equal a man. And “piss(ing) on bitches” hardly promotes female solidarity or empowerment. The jab puts other women down just to raise Minaj up.
Meanwhile, she raps-idizes on male pleasure and the “diz-nik” as a symbol of male supremacy while the genitalia of “stupid hoes” fall short.
“Pretty bitches can only get in my posse”
In her video, Minaj wears several wigs, mostly blonde and coupled with big breasts, a big butt, and a fit body. She transforms herself into viewing pleasure – pleasure for men. And unless a woman is “beautiful,” she cannot be Minaj’s friend. She’s just a “stupid hoe.”
Beauty norms are unquestioned, eliminating room for individuality and self-expression while the camera pans from her butt to her bust, like that’s all she is, like that’s all sex is, and as if her power emerges only sexually.
And then she imprisons herself in a cage – not so powerful, after all. The camera flashes between images of her head and a leopard’s, creating a sense of Minaj as animal, sub-human.
“Stupid Hoe” cries out “hoe” nearly 50 times, and the n-word more than once. This sexist racism paints a clear picture: Minaj identifies with privileged white males.
Bitches play the back cause they know I’m the front man
Why does Minaj exalt white men — and herself — at black women’s expense?
She may have simply internalized racist and sexist norms so that these “isms” now live, unquestioned, in her head.
Or she shrewdly plays a game. She gains whatever power and status she can wrest from powerful men, while leaving a system that oppresses women intact. She gains even as she loses in this patriarchal bargain.
Underneath it all lies an illusion of power.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Making Violence Against Women Sexy
What Do Top Model and Hard Core Porn Have in Common?
Virtually Attack Women, But No Nudity
Share this:
Sexual Objectification, The Harm
![Dolce-Gabbana-Ad-Sexist[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/dolce-gabbana-ad-sexist1.jpg?w=300&h=224)
By Caroline Heldman (Cross-posted at Ms. and Caroline Heldman’s Blog)
This is the second part in a series about how girls and women can navigate a culture that treats them like sex objects. (Part 1 can be found here.)
Sexual objectification is nothing new, but this latest era is characterized by greater exposure to advertising and increased sexual explicitness in advertising [PDF], magazines, television shows, movies [PDF], video games, music videos, television news, and “reality” television.
In a culture with widespread sexual objectification, women (especially) tend to view themselves as objects of desire for others. This internalized sexual objectification has been linked to problems with mental health (clinical depression, “habitual body monitoring”), eating disorders, body shame, self-worth and life satisfaction, cognitive functioning, motor functioning, sexual dysfunction [PDF], access to leadership [PDF] and political efficacy [PDF]. Women of all ethnicities internalize objectification, as do men to a far lesser extent.
Beyond the internal effects, sexually objectified women are dehumanized by others and seen as less competent and less worthy of empathy by both men and women. Furthermore, exposure to images of sexually objectified women causes male viewers to be more tolerant of sexual harassment and rape myths (false notions about rape). Add to this the countless hours that some girls/women spend primping to garner heterosexual male attention, and the erasure of middle-aged and elderly women who have little value in a society that places women’s primary value on their sexualized bodies.
Theorists [PDF] have contributed to understanding the harm of objectification culture by pointing out the difference between sexy and sexual. If one thinks of the subject/object dichotomy that dominates Western culture, subjects act and objects are acted upon. Subjects are sexual, while objects are sexy.
Pop culture sells women and girls a hurtful fiction that their value lies in how sexy they appear to others; they learn at a very young age that their sexuality is for others. At the same time, sexuality is stigmatized in women but encouraged in men. We learn that men want and women want-to-be-wanted. The yardstick for women’s value (sexiness) automatically puts them in a subordinate societal position, regardless of how well they otherwise measure up. Perfectly sexy women are perfectly subordinate.
The documentary Miss Representation has received considerable mainstream attention, one indicator that the public is now recognizing the damaging effects of sexual objectification of women.
Widespread sexual objectification in U.S. popular culture creates a toxic environment for girls and women. The next two posts in this series provide ideas for navigating objectification culture in personally and politically meaningful ways.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Sexual Objectification, What is it?
Nude Men Seem Less Intelligent
Objectification’s Role in a Suicide
Share this:
Guys, Girls Swap Roles at a Bar
Men ordering Raspberry Kamikazes at a bar as women make passes — and get shut down? This bit of videoed role swapping has gone viral.
The reel holds stereotypes but even they can contain kernels of truth. And anything that moves us out of our taken-for-granted ways sheds light.
Outside the video real women can order any sort of drink they want, but guys had better keep to manly brews or risk scorn. So in that way women have a bit more freedom.
But a freedom that is gained by ranking men over women. If women order manly drinks they aren’t lowering themselves, but when men order girly drinks they are. (Even the terms “manly” and “girly” are charged.)
Meanwhile, both sexes seem to think the other has more power. Probably because we get frustrated when we don’t have it.
Men have the power to assert themselves. They needn’t wait around to be asked. And if they want sex, well, that’s expected. But women must wait to be asked. And they may worry about reputations, leaving them more shamed and less sexually expressed. Repression lowers sex drive, too, lending women the passive power to care less. And whoever cares less has more power. But here, only with a sacrifice of sexual pleasure.
In the video all is topsy-turvy. Girls try to cut in and dance with guys who are dancing with each other — and get shafted. They intrude into private conversations and get spurned. Polite men utter, “Not now please.” Others are less civil.
The message can come across: “You’re not good enough.” It can be tough on a gal.
But it’s tough for guys too. An annoying girl moans, “Those are amazing jeans. They’d look so much better on my bedroom floor.”
A girl spies a guy in an unbuttoned button-down and beckons, “Hey, I like your necklace. Is that the key to your heart? … Don’t button it up! Oh, come on!”
Male objectification may be paired with assault as women grab men’s butts or pressure them to drink shots to lower their resistance.
Guys who want sex must face the repercussions of, “good guys don’t.” The next morning a young man fumbles for his clothes as the woman he has slept with cool-confidently asks if she should call him a cab. Embarrassed, he sneaks away in shame.
As Joanna Schroeder over at The Good Men Project observes, it all “seems so much more rude, more intrusive, more exclusive, more violent, sillier or more intimidating” when the tables are turned.
But with this new slant, maybe we can all gain a bit more understanding and empathy.
Popular Posts on BroadBlogs
Sex and the Walk of Shame
Lose Virginity, Lose Self-Esteem?
Sexual Desire & Sexism
Share this:
11-Year-Old Blamed For Her Rape
![rapist-victim-blaming[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/rapist-victim-blaming1.jpg?w=300&h=199)
“It should not be this hard to get it through anybody’s head that an 11-year-old child who’s been repeatedly abused is not the problem.”
That’s Mary Elizabeth Williams over at Salon bemoaning that a young girl has been repeatedly blamed for a gang rape meted out by 20 boys and men.
The townspeople of Cleveland, Texas began the indictment, complaining that:
She dressed older than her age, wearing makeup and fashions more appropriate to a woman in her 20s. She would hang out with teenage boys at a playground.
The New York Times reporter who covered the case seemed to think the charge held merit, obediently recording the concerns.
Next, she was blamed in court.
As 20-year-old Jared Cruise stood trial his defense attorney, Steve Taylor, told the jury that she had never reported the rape to police. And that,
She had never shed a tear nor voiced a single complaint about her sexual encounters with any of the 20 males accused of assaulting her two years ago.
When he asked if she had been a “willing participant” she said, “Yes, sir.”
Actually, on her affidavit she said that the men had threatened to beat her if she did not do as she was told. That may have seemed to her like willing compliance.
Taylor then accused her of being, “Like the spider and the fly. Wasn’t she saying, ‘Come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly?’”
Her attorney retorted, “I wouldn’t call her a spider. I’d say she was just an 11-year-old girl.”
Taylor scolded, “I hope nothing like this ever happens to your two teenage sons.”
Because, as Williams points out,
Apparently those four months of sustained sexual abuse against a child are something that happened to Jared Len Cruise and 19 other guys.
The girl’s lawyer then played the rape video, saying, “Look at how proud [Cruise] is on that video as his buddies say ‘beat that ho.’”
“Beat that ho.” Yes, that sounds exactly like what a little eleven-year-old would tempt men to do to her.
Victim-blaming often works because so many blame girls and women for their assaults.
Too many believe that women take pleasure in rape even though it doesn’t involve foreplay or clitoral stimulation. And most women need emotional connection to enjoy sex. Since men get off on straight intercourse many think it’s great for women too.
Why didn’t she report the assault to police? She may have felt ashamed or not known that she could. She may have feared the men’s further retribution. Abused kids often feel powerless and unsure what to do. And how do we know that she never cried?
Last week Cruise was convicted of assault. I guess the jury didn’t believe that an 11-year-old “wanted it.”
But if she’d been older, would he still have been convicted?
Related Posts on BroadBlogs
Community Bullies Rape Victim
Cheerleader Ordered To Cheer Her Rapist, and Other Stories
12-Year-Olds Wanted Rape, Judge Says
BroadBlogs 