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Do Women Buy Into Objectification?
Dad wears short shorts, like daughter
By Jack Smith
Why do some women buy into our objectifying culture?
I wondered about that one day when my women’s studies instructor asked this question:
A feminist friend of mine has a daughter who wants to wear short shorts that show her butt cheeks. Her mom doesn’t like it because she feels that it objectifies her. But her daughter says she’s a feminist and feels women should be able to choose to do whatever they want.
What do you all think about this?
Here’s what I think: While this young woman probably truly believed what she was saying, I can see things from another perspective. Which may or may not agree with her. It depends. Read the rest of this entry
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Why Women Don’t Ask Guys Out
Guys sometimes ask why women don’t ask men out. Some suppose they can’t take rejection.
I teach women’s studies so I asked my students to write down what they thought on the topic.
I asked:
Have you ever asked a guy out? If not, why not? If yes, why? Were you nervous? How did he respond? Should it be socially acceptable for women to ask men out? Would making a move make you feel more empowered? Or would you rather not have to face rejection?
This is an intro to women’s studies class in the Bay Area, so the women may be more liberal than most.
I got 26 responses. Interestingly, most had asked a guy out at some point. But over a third (9) had not. Why not? Here’s what they said: Read the rest of this entry
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Too rich, too thin, too in control of women’s bodies
A rich Wall Streeter looks in the mirror and sees someone at the cusp of poverty.
An anorexic looks in the mirror and sees someone who is fat.
One is addicted to money. The other to starvation. As each grasps for power.
Enter Mike Huckabee.
***
In my last year on Wall Street my bonus was $3.6 million — and I was angry because it wasn’t big enough.
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Girls Get Friend-Zoned, Too
Think only guys get friend-zoned?
Well, I’ve been interested in men who saw me as “just a friend,” too. One particularly can’t-take-my-eyes-off-you gorgeous man comes to mind. It’s not that I asked him out and got rejected. He just never asked me out. So we stayed friends when I wanted more. Leaving me in the friend zone.
So even women who don’t ask men out get friend-zoned. Unless every man they are interested in asks them out–which is hard to imagine.
Yeah, being “friended” in a not-so-wanted way happens to women, too.
True, the friend-zone is more in-your-face for guys since they’re expected to make the first move. So it may be more hurtful for them in that way. But we all end up in the same place: outside the arms we want to be in.
Of course, it’s possible that some of the men that women are interested in simply don’t make that first move because they are shy or don’t realize we find them attractive. So that brings up another topic. Girls often don’t feel like they can ask guys out. Read the rest of this entry
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Selling Daughters into Slavery is “Baad”
Aisha
The word itself suggests evil: baad, the practice of making daughters pay for others’ crimes. A young girl becomes a slave and target for the rage that one family feels toward another. In the end, greater wrongs are committed than the original crime.
Baad is practiced in Pakistan and Afghanistan. The most well-known case is Bibi Aisha whose disfigured face shocked the world on an August 2010 cover of Time.
Aisha had been forced to marry at age 13 in retaliation for her uncle’s crime. Read the rest of this entry
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Why is Lena Dunham Naked on GIRLS?
Why is Lena Dunham constantly naked on HBO’s Girls?
Well, not constantly. It just seems like it to some folks. A ruckus broke out last week when The Wrap reporter, Tim Molloy, asked Girls creator, Lena Dunham this question:
I don’t get the purpose of all of the nudity on the show, by you particularly, and I feel like I’m walking into a trap where you go, ‘Nobody complains about the nudity on Game of Thrones,’ but I get why they are doing it. They are doing it to be salacious and, you know, titillate people. And your character is often naked just at random times for no reason.
It’s a question that has stuck in my mind.
Artists say they only do nudity for artistic reasons, not prurient purposes. So why is titillation the only legit rationale for Mr. Molloy?
Ms. Dunham says,
It’s because it’s a realistic expression of what it’s like to be alive.
Alive, and not ashamed of your body, it seems to me.
Lena does not have what’s considered the ideal body type. But her obvious comfort has made me aware of my own discomfort. Read the rest of this entry
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It’s Not Easy Being A Man
![self-madeManCoverweb[1]](https://broadblogs.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/self-mademancoverweb1.jpg)
Norah Vincent passed as a man for a year and a half. She wrote a book about the experience, Self-Made Man, which was published in 2006. When one gender visits the world of another it can be eye-opening, so let’s take a peek at one part of the woman-turned-man experience.
Turns out, it’s not easy being a man.
Norah had thought she’d love joining the privileged man-club that, until her transition, she had only glimpsed from the outside. Instead, she felt strangely inadequate.
For instance, as a lesbian, she’d expected dating to be the fun part. But it was arduous. One of the most difficult parts of her research. In her new man-role she felt an expectation to lead, take charge. This made her feel small in her costume. Read the rest of this entry
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Bras Just Want Some Appreciation. Don’t We All?
Women can be mistaken for their sexuality. Or, women can make their sexuality work for them.
Intimates and Fools, with poetry by Laura Madeline Wiseman and illustrations by Sally Deskins, is a thought-provoking, conversation-starting coffee table book that got me thinking about all that.
Here, brassieres emerge as the main characters.
A ribboned and bowed satin looped bra that hugs and squeezes can’t help but twirl in a soft orange light. You just know “she” will be treasured and cared for.
Others are self-important and inflated, via tennis balls, water balloons, tissue, silicone…
Until they’re removed or disposed of.
I’m so great, why would anyone take me off? Bra wonders. And yet people do: Lovers, doctors — and soon-to-be sleepers slipping into PJs. Read the rest of this entry
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Women as Prey, Men as Predator
Women are expected to attract, men are supposed to be attracted. Men want, women want to be wanted. Metaphorically, this is a predator/prey type relationship. Women are subject to the hunt whether they like it or not, so men’s attention can be pleasing, annoying, or frightening. It all depends.
Accordingly, women know what it feels like to be prey.
That’s from Prof. Lisa Wade of Occidental College and the popular blog, Sociological Images (where I got the great cartoon, too.)
Not all men make women feel this way, she says, and probably most don’t, but we’ve all pretty much had this experience, whether it’s,
The leering guy on the street, the heavy hitter in the bar, the frotteurist on the subway, the molesting uncle, the aggressive fraternity brother, etc.
Does homophobia arise partly from being demoted on the food chain and feeling like prey, she wonders? Read the rest of this entry
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Getting Creeped Out to Fit In
Sometimes we’re confused about what’s “normal” and end up doing uncomfortable things — that may even creep us out — just to fit in.
Take wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am (or sir) sex. Plenty of us are really into it. But usually, we think others are more comfortable with random sex than we are, ourselves.
University of Texas sociologists, Mark Regnerus and Jeremy Uecker, studied sex on college campuses and found that many young people feel conflicted between their private preferences and their public behavior because they think everyone else — most importantly, “the popular” — want hookups. To not join in — or at least act like you want to — would be social suicide.
That, in turn, creates its own reality: a hookup culture that everyone thinks is real, but which is a figment of the collegiate imagination. Because while most say they’re for it, most don’t actually do it.
Researchers, Chris Reiber and Justin Garcia asked college students how comfortable they felt doing acts ranging from “first base” to “home run” (you might say) with someone they barely knew. Their findings were reported in “Hooking Up: Gender Difference, Evolution and Pluralistic Ignorance” In the journal, Evolutionary Psychology (2010).
Turns out, women and men, alike, tend to think that men are more comfortable in random carnal intimacies than they, themselves, are. AND, Read the rest of this entry
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