What Have I Learned??

In doing this blog and attending my Pop Culture Theory class I have learned a lot about theory and how to put identify it in my daily life. I guess that is the point. But this class more so than any other this semester helped me to identify more of who I am and who I want to be. It helped me to be a wiser consumer of goods as well as media. For a couple of years now I have told people that I am a feminist, but then I would watch the Bad Girls Club, or feel bad about my body because it didn't look the ones in the magazine or worst of all I would portray myself in a certain way to get a man (and then read Cosmo as a means to keep my man, forget about him keeping me). After looking at advertisements through Jameson's eyes and daily myths through Barthes, I truly feel that I am a better woman because of my new knowledge.
I no longer wish to watch shows that degrade women and put women against women in order to keep them under the "man's" thumb. I don't feel that I it is necessary to obtain the "perfect body" in order to obtain self-esteem. I'm not saying that keeping my new found perspective in perspective will be easy especially with the mass media telling me that I am wrong or that I hate women because I don't believe in their choices. But I will just have to know that I love women and that is why I don't want them to be subjected to any longer. Women need to stop worrying about such trivial things so that big things can be accomplished, and accomplished together.

F* Word Housewives

"Perhaps the greatest social service that can be rendered by anybody to the country and to mankind is to bring up a family. But here again, because there is nothing to sell, there is a very general disposition to regard a married woman's work as no work at all, and to take it as a matter of course that she should not be paid for it."

- George Bernard Shaw-

I'm very disappointed and I guess well... pretty shocked. I guess I shouldn't be shocked, but I am. Today I was trying to look up pictures for my blog. I googled the words house wifes (I don't know why I did it like that, lack of sleep I suppose) and what to my wandering eyes should appear was many women without clothes on and tiny underwear. I thought maybe it would be different if I googled housewives, it was not different. I didn't understand how googling such a pure word could bring up such pornographic pictures. In my state of shock I remembered Chuck Klosterman's book SEX, DRUGS, AND COCOA PUFFS* In his book their is a chapter titled, "Porn". The very first line in the chapter is exactly what went through my head during my state of shock, "When exactly did every housewife in America become a whore?" When did that happen? I know that my mom wasn't a housewife so maybe my idea's of housewives are a little off, but my friend's mothers were housewives and definitely not scantily clad women. They were more the let's have hot chocolate and play board games type of moms.
Klosterman had a google search as well in his book that was slightly different than mine. In his search he found this, "There are 6,250 sites on the Internet that prominently include the phrase 'naked housewives'. There are also 7,110 that include the phrase 'nude housewives,' which I suppose is technically classier. We have 586 that promote 'housewife whores,' while a solid 2,600 offer a more generic alternative ('housewife sluts'). I could only find 51 that contain the phrase 'my wife is a whore,'". Seriously what happened? Are "normal" housewives the latest mythological creature. You can find them in the toy section next to unicorns and ligers.
I guess maybe it would make sense to find these pornographic housewives in the toy isle, because they there purely to be looked at, bought, played with and then discarded.
If you're not a pornographic housewife you might be a Meth addicted housewife. Utah statistics show that Meth is the most abused drug by women between the ages of 18-35. The average age for women to get married in Utah is 21. There is a culture in Utah that makes women feel that they have to be perfect in every aspect of their life. This is very exhausting and I believe leads to a lot of "perfect" moms to be Meth addicts.
So if you're not a porn crazed housewife and if you're not a housewife that is stirring drugs on your stove then what kind of housewife are you? Oh...you're the housewife that doesn't contribute to the economy, so you're the lazy housewife. This is another way that men and FCP's have been able to put women against women. The feminist movement was about change, it was about equality and it was about the freedom to choose. Now women did not have to stay at home if they did not want to they had the choice to have a job outside of the home. But it's a choice that every woman is free to make for herself. Now their is such a negative connotation in the word housewife, probably equal to the negative connotation of the word feminism. In these negative connotations, housewives would be the radical right wing ideologists and feminists are the radical left wing ideologists. Where the base for feminism and choice is respect for that choice is probably right in the middle of that. If feminists and housewives (that are apparently not feminists) could find a way to meet in the middle the world would be a different place. But until the FCP's stop whispering in feminist's ears that women who aren't "contributing to the economy" are not feminists, and until the FCP's stop being FCP's this can never happen. And the word housewife will remain tainted. And it really won't happen with shows like, Desperate Housewives.

Let's Talk F* Word Comments

I have had some friends make really great comments about my blog. Obviously anyone can just read the comments, but I felt it necessary to make some comments about the comments. Some of their comments will be by their name with black writing. My responses and thoughts to their words will follow in RED writing.

Mandy-The thing I think about the most related to feminism is how LDS men view women's roles--especially in our generation. It seems like there are a lot of young LDS men who (perhaps as a result of the feminist movement) expect women to be ambitious and driven, but then also (perhaps in response to the teachings of the church) expect women to be willing to give up careers and ambitions the second they say "I do." It seems like a strange double-standard that I've spent lots of time trying to reconcile in my mind.

Mandy I feel that I should preface what I am about to say. I am not downing the LDS religion. I am not saying that all LDS men are the way in which I am about to discuss. Having said that, I would have to say that as an active LDS woman I have felt and seen this happen and it is very sad to me. I know that saying LDS men just want a trophy Victorian housewife that looks good and doesn't have an opinion ( or at least keeps that opinion to herself) is a large generalization. I know that my brother's who are also active in the LDS church do not think like that. However, I do feel that many Utah LDS men are like that. I believe that many LDS men are intimidated by women who are educated and even know more than the man in different subjects. One of my LDS friends was recently told that because she is going for her PhD that she would never get married. Another friend of my just told me the exciting news that she is going to buy a house. Sadly the first thing that I thought of was it's going to be very hard for her to find a husband. I don't know why men, especially LDS men in Utah, seem to be so intimidated by women who are just living their lives to their full potential. I am not writing this to down my religion or the men in it, quite the opposite. I hope that they will read this and if they can identify with my frustration than maybe they'll change.

Alissa-Should feminism really be about turning the tables on men and making them the weaker sex? Or turning them into villains? I feel that I am a feminist in my own way. I am all for fair treatment. My feathers get ruffled when I hear a sexist comment. But I also think feminism should be about celebrating women. We are different from men and we should celebrate that difference. Not that we should say we are better than men, but just different. As a full time mom, there are times that I have felt looked down on because I have chosen a more "traditional" job. I don't think that feminism should be solely about women out in the work force. My job is tough and doesn't end at 5pm. I still deserve respect for what I have chosen to become.

Alissa I agree that stay at home mom's deserve the same respect "working" mom's do. The working is in quotes because I know that stay at homes work very hard at their job as well. Women and men are different, no better and no worse from one another, just different. In my opinion feminism is about choice. Whether a woman chooses to have a job or stay at home doesn't matter, it's the fact that that woman was able to make the choice for herself instead of letting her husband, or the government or anyone else decide for her. I believe that women, largely in part due to mass media, worry about what the "true" definition of feminism is that we stopped making progress, and even more than that I feel that we haven't just stopped but now we are taking steps backwards. It's very sad.

Mem-I would say that feminism has moved from the first and second wave into a new third wave that is going on right now. One that focuses much less on women empowerment and more on gender equality, which, it turns out, (i feel like) has become all about the boys. letting boys be okay with being effeminate or gentle, without the pressure to be "macho" and to play sports etc. I see it as moving away from gender inequality as sex vs. sex, male vs. female, and moving into a space where it's okay to disengage oneself from gender conformity to stereotype. freedom to be what is most "natural" for you, whether you are male or female.

Mem- It's very interesting to think, and yet not at all shocking, the this new gender equality would become all about the hegemonic man. Although, and I am sure you agree, I feel that men and women should be who they are and not what the media or some stereotype tells them they are, I wish that it could happen for both sexes equally.



(1996), 95% of women can recognize and identify the ideal body shape espoused by popular entertainment, and 92% feel the strong desire to conform to these unrealistic standards. n my eyes, emancipation and true freedom to live authentically chosen lives is possible when media consumers critically reflect on the ideology of mass media in shaping our understanding of “what exists, what is good, and what is possible” (Lexie-Feminism, to me, is being able to have the ability and choice to live authentically chosen lives - the lives we were born to live. It's not about man hating, bra burning, or lesbianism. It was never meant to be, though the media has skewed the reality of the feminism movement. I am a graduate student who is an active Latter-day Saint. I am also a feminist, and I believe those two identities fit perfectly together. I hear more uplifting, inspiring, empowering messages about what it means to be a woman within the gospel of the LDS religion than I have ever heard before. Christ was, in fact, the first public champion of women! At a time when women were not even spoken to in public, Christ loved and cared for the adulteress, the Samaritan woman at the well, and his best friends were women who were the first to see him resurrected and his mourners at the cross. Just as Marx (1967) believed industrialization’s substructure was seen as “creating an unnatural condition whereby all humans are prevented from realizing their fullest nature,” (p. 212) I believe shining a critical lens on mass media, more specifically popular culture, reveals many of those same demeaning, dehumanizing, unrealistic messages. As a scholar, I am highly intrigued by popular media’s depictions of women. These images, I argue, are hegemonic representations of an ideal female body, which is unrealistic and often unattainable. Judging by statistics that claim the average American woman watches four hours of television every day (Straubhaar & LaRose, 1999), and by the time the average woman reaches age 70, she will have spent the equivalent of seven to ten years watching television (Hammermeister, 2004, p.254), the overwhelming images of ideal female beauty on TV have potentially far-reaching consequences for women and men. Furthermore, according to Murray, Touyz, & BeumontTherborn, 1980, p.18). I am committed to the critical analysis of hegemonic female beauty as we are further flooded with mass media’s constant flow of information because I believe self reflection is the first step to EMPOWERMENT, the first step to realizing the unnatural conditions we are so often socialized to accept without questioning, the first step toward realizing our fullest nature. In essence, I am driven by the belief that if we can spend less time worrying about ourselves and media’s standards of beauty we do not meet, we can contribute much more good to the world around us.

I rest my case.

Those Ribs Are Hot

Throughout history women's beauty has been looked at through the fertility lens. If you looked "healthy" enough to conceive and bare children then you looked very beautiful. Roman Goddess Venus (equivalent to Greek Goddess Aphrodite) is associated with fertility, love and beauty. She has been pictured as the modern definition of voluptuous (Marilyn Monroe) and the postmodern definition of overweight and possibly even obese (Mariah Carey) . I'm not saying Mariah Carey is overweight or obese, I'm saying that possibly, because her ribs don't show through her dress, she is thought of by men and women alike as fat. Regrettably, most of the time, I am one of those women that thinks Mariah Carey and any woman above size of the bony models on the run way are not thin. I know that my fear of celebrities fat is from my own insecurities as a curvy woman. I can look at women, celebrities or not, and think you're thin, but you're not really thin. It's very weird because when I look at my friends size two or not those thoughts never go through my head. I believe my female friends to be like Mary Poppins "practically perfect in every way". I know my problems with body image stem from my past issues with weight, but also with the mass media who tell women daily what is beautiful and what is so last year.
When I was growing up I struggled a lot with weight. A lot. I used to believe that it started when, at the age of 6, my best friend's mom told me I needed to lose weight. I had never thought of myself as fat until then. I have looked at my younger pictures and I definitely did not need to lose weight. This might have been the needle that broke the hay stack, to my gaining a lot of weight over the next couple of years, but it was not the hay stack. My low self-esteem is due to my mother's low self-esteem coupled with the mass media telling me how I was not beautiful were the hay stack.
My massive weight fluctuations led me to believing that I didn't know who I was. I tried to be different to different people. Whenever I dated a boy I would turn into who I felt they wanted me to be. I didn't like myself when I was being someone other than myself. It took me a while to figure out who I am. I also came to the realization that I am continually changing, the difference is is that I am changing for myself and not someone else.
Well, what does that huge history have to do with anything. Well I believe that if women know who they are, who they really are, then they are better equipped to be the best of feminist according to their own ideology. They would be confident with their choices as women and accepting of other women's choices because of their confidence. I also feel that because of my past I can see through my negative thoughts about women and see their beauty. I also can see that whether the ideal model for beauty is thick or thin, that the definitions were made up by men. Women's body and their beauty were as much of a commodity at the beginning of time (how many children can you bare me) as they are now (how many records can you sell for me by showing off your body). The definitions of beauty need to change. Those changes cannot happen when Tyra Banks tells one of her America's Next Top Model nominee's that she wished that the modeling industry was different, but it's not. She continued to tell the model that the model need to make better eating choices that would in essence keep her stick thin. Well Miss Loophole Banks, the industry won't change if your condoning the way that it is. Women need to be the change that they wish to see.

Am I Down with FCPs?

In my Theories Pop Culture class at the U of U one of the books we had to read was Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture by Ariel Levy. It was an easy, interesting book to read. There was a lot of information that I already knew by just being a human being that gets out of the house on a daily basis, but there was a lot of information that I didn't know which was very intriguing to me. This book has helped me on my journey. As School House Rocks used to say, "Knowledge is Power". And this book was filled with wonderful knowledge. The following are definitions and quotes from her book that I hope readers of this blog will find interesting as well as worth discussing further.
Definitions:

Raunch Culture- "It is makes me sad to see young women base their sense of self on oversexualized media images of the “wild girl” as a faux empowerment model for intimacy, confidence and self determination."
Female Chauvinist Pigs (FCPs)- "If Male Chauvinist Pigs were men who regarded women as pieces of meat, we would outdo them and be Female Chauvinist Pigs: women who make sex objects of other women and of ourselves.
Some of my favorite quotes from the book that I hope will get you thinking.

Quotes:

"I could never make the argument add up in my head. How is resurrecting every stereotype of female sexuality that feminism endeavored to banish good for women? why is laboring to look like Pamela Anderson empowering? And how is imitating a stripper or a porn star--a woman whose job is to imitate arousal in the first place--going to render us sexually liberated?"

"There is a widespread assumption that simply because my generation of women has the good fortune to live in a world touched by the feminist movement, that means everything we do is magically imbued with its agenda. It doesn't work that way. "Raunchy" and "liberated" are not synonyms. It is worth asking ourselves if this bawdy world of boobs and gams we have resurrected reflects how far we've come, or how far we have left to go."

"There's just one thing: Even if you are a woman who achieves the ultimate and becomes like a man, you will still always be like a woman. And as long as womanhood is thought of a s something to escape from, something less than manhood, you will be thought less of, too."

"But if you are the exception that proves the rule, and the rule is that women are inferior, you haven't made any progress."

"If you process this information through the average adolescent mental computer, you end up with a printout that reads something like this: Girls have to be hot. Girls who aren't hot probably need breast implants. Once a girl is hot, she should be as close to naked as possible all the time. Guys should like it. Don't have sex."

"Instead of advancing the causes of the women's liberation movement or the sexual revolution, the obdurate prevalence of raunch in the mainstream has diluted the effect of both sex radicals and feminists, who've seen their movement's images popularized while their ideals are forgotten. As Candida Royalle said, 'We've become a heavily sexualized culture, but it's consumerism and sex rolled into one. Revolutionary movements tend t o be co-opted--swallowed up by the mainstream and turned into pop culture. It's a way of neutralizing it, when you think about it...it makes it all safe and palatable, it shuts up the radicals. Once that happens, the real power is pretty much dissipated."

"Women's liberation and empowerment are terms feminist started using to talk about casting off the limitations imposed upon women and demanding equality. We have perverted these words. The freedom to be sexually provocative or promiscuous is not enough freedom; it is not the only "women's issue: worth paying attention to. And we are not even free in the sexual arena. We have simply adopted a new norm, a new role to ;lay: lusty busty exhibitionist. There are other choices. if we are really going to be sexually liberated, we need to make room for a range of options as wide as the variety of human desired. We need to allow ourselves the freedom to figure out what we internally want from sex instead of mimicking whatever popular culture holds up to us as sexy. That would be sexual liberation. If we believed that we were sexy and funny and competent and smart, we would not need to be like strippers or like men or like anyone other than our own specific, individual selves. That won't be easy, but ultimately it would be not more difficult that the kind of contortions FCPs are constantly performing in an effort to prove themselves. More importantly, the rewards would be the very things Female Chauvinist Pigs want so desperately, the things women deserve: freedom and power."

So...

What next. The way I see myself relating to the Raunch Culture is by sharing with you all the following story.
At the end of my 6th grade year I weighed 130 lbs. At the beginning of my 7th grade year I weighed almost 165 lbs. You have to understand that I am only 5'1". This meant that I was very over weight. It wasn't until my 9th grade year that I decided to do something about my weight. I wanted to be pretty, but more so I wanted boys to find me pretty and even sexy. I lost 50 lbs. in that year and the following summer. When I started my Sophomore year many guys didn't even recognize me and were giving me the attention that I had always wanted. I finally felt that I was in control. They wanted me and I could either give them what they wanted or not. It was such a wonderful feeling. The only problem was that even though I appeared outgoing, happy, confident and more attractive on the outside, I still held all of my negative thinking, insecurities, distorted body image on the inside. Whenever I got the boy that I wanted I turned into who I felt they wanted me to be. I had no idea who i was. When I felt that the new me wasn't good enough, as well as feeling like I no longer had control in my life I turned to Bulimia. Again I began this much later in life than most girls. I was 18 almost 19 when I started throwing up my food and occasionally starving myself. I had boyfriends, yes plural, who knew about my eating disorders and in fact one boyfriend encouraged it. I was willing to do anything to make my man happy. I wasn't happy with any of these boyfriends, partly because of the means I used to acquire them, and partly because of my lack of self-esteem. The way I got boyfriends was to use the only commodity I felt I owned, my body. I am not alone in feeling that my body is my only commodity. Women have felt that their body and specifically their virginity are their only commodity that could be traded for power. I did not give my virginity away, but I did sell my sexuality with the way I presented myself to the opposite sex. I was living my life craving false needs.
Luckily for me I realized the error of my ways. I know that I have so much more to offer. I have been able to realize that mass media is pitting women against women so that they will stay submissive to the male-dominated society. Telling woman that sex sales, or that sex gives you power or even better yet that presenting yourself as sexual and being sexual is the new feminism is a great marketing and political strategy to keep women down. It worked for several years, but I believe that this conservative backlash is bringing true feminist ideals back to the forefront where it should be.

"And again I am reminded by dipping into newspapers and novels and biographies that when a woman speaks to women she should have something very unpleasant up her sleeve. Women are hard on women. Women dislike women. Women—but are you not sick to death of the word? I can assure you that I am." (Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, p. 115).

There is an interview with Ariel Levy on the Colbert Report. I tried to download the video unsuccessfully so the best I can do is to give you the link so here it is
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/76490/october-10-2006/ariel-levy

Are We Still Living In A Male Dominated Society?

"Existing patriarchal theory has no place for women as women; at best, women can be incorporated as pale reflections of men." (Great quote, but can't remember the author).

I guess it depends on who you are talking to and since you are reading my blog you are talking to me. I am going to have to go with "yes" on this one. I believe in Luce Irigaray's words when she discusses how there is no women's language and since there is not a language for women, things will never change. I want to add at least not until we either create a new language or perhaps redefine the language and codes that already exist. Women are in the margins.

This year we had Hilary Clinton running for president she made history. I wouldn't have voted for her, but she opened many doors for women. And then just like anything else dealing with feminism there was a back lash and her name was Sarah Palin. But I digress because even when history was being made with these two women it was still so very clear how far we still have to go for equality. I mean it was "news" that Hilary Clinton had cleavage showing. Seriously this was what was being shown on news channels.

I am obviously obsessed with Google. On my latest search I googled male dominated society. It brought up images of, surprise surprise, naked or scantily clad women and then women who look like they are of possibly Middle Eastern descent. I think that it's hysterical that the U.S version of Google brings up women who might of been under Taliban rule as if they are the only one's who are living in a male dominated society. The Taliban is an extreme case of that and much worse, but the U.S in all it's glory a male-dominated, women getting paid less than men society.
Until women get on the page and out of the margin that is how it is always going to be.

Is Feminism A Universal Ideology?

"Slut"
"So! You're fat and ugly and that's why your boyfriend left you for me!"

That's about the time that the hair begins to be pulled and the clothes torn on the Jerry Springer Show or Maury Povich or any other "talk show" that pits women against women. Sadly it is not just talk shows anymore, it has move a step up, or down, depending on how you look at it. Now women who love to fight with other women have their own t.v show called "The Bad Girls Club". Women trying to out do other women by being the worst woman they can be. Past bad behaviors have included, but are not limited to: peeing in the sink, spitting in other girl's juice, fighting with girls, showing off their cookies on camera, going to jail and they list goes on and on.
I never understood the women on these shows. How are you fighting with women? Why aren't you yelling at the man who you loved and supposedly loved you? The biggest thing I could never understand was how I could be interested in watching such crap. But I did.
I tried to talk myself into believing that yes I was watching this garbage, but I was doing it with a critical eye so it made it ok. I hate when I see women fight over a man. Why are women so easy to blame the other woman instead of the man who left you for that woman? I hate seeing women fight in general. I think it's ridiculous and generally it's about ridiculous things. But the mass media makes women who watch these shows believe that it is somehow "natural" for women to fight against women. That women can't trust women. That all women do is stab each other in the back. Which isn't the case the majority of the time and perhaps wouldn't be the case at all if women would stop watching shows that pit women against women for revenue.
I've also noticed on "family" sitcoms a family who is headed by a fat, balding, stupid father and a skinny, witty, sarcastic wife. The wife is a huge commodity in these sitcoms because she is a trophy wife and that is all she is. Ok maybe that's not fair. She is also mean to her husband and likes to humiliate him. I guess that is the media's way of equaling out the gender issue on t.v. Because that is equal? So if I'm a little kid watching this "family" show I am getting the message, if I'm a girl, that all I need to be is pretty in life, it doesn't matter how I obtain this beauty whether by eating disorders or implanting foreign objects into my body, and then I will end up with someone who let's me humiliate him all the time. And if I'm a boy, I don't need to worry about what I look like because I will end up with a hot wife, which is more important than how she treats me because I'm only with her for her looks anyway. What kind of messages are these for our kids. I know. I know. I sound like one of those radical conservatives who go as far as to have the Cosmo magazines covered up in the grocery store, but I guess with the back lash from the feminist movement comes the back lash of ultra conservatism.
Women need to stop watching these shows not only because women shouldn't be economically supporting shows that don't support them, but also for their own self worth as a woman. Women need to tell pop-culture that what is seen on the "reality" t.v is not reality. That sitcoms don't represent real families. That women can be more than just pretty and/or mean. Don't women understand that "the man" (although it is more than likely in this day and age that it is "the woman") is keeping them down by putting women against women. Women are being kept down by worrying about such little things that can't see the big picture. Women are not wanted to see the big picture, because if we do then we might actually accomplish something greater than a youtube video showing a group of girls beating up one girl. We might actually fulfill a mission or a goal or even several goals that are worthwhile, and that scares people. I hope that things are about to get scary.