The return of sexism?
Natasha Walter, in her latest book, Living Dolls
She then goes on to describe how soft-porn images and attitudes are omnipresent in popular culture: in magazines, newspapers, music videos, reality TV, the internet, etc, exaggerating "the deeper imbalances of power in our society". Walter writes about a sexualised culture in which empowerment and liberation have become equated and confused with sexual objectification. The language of choice and freedom is cleverly used to try and legitimise what is, in effect, a cultural counterrevolution. Women dieting, undergoing surgery, stripping, believing that fame and success are defined by how closely they conform to a narrow image of sexuality: "If this is the new sexual liberation", writes Walter, "it looks too uncannily like the old sexism to convince many of us that this is the freedom we have sought". Leaving aside for a moment the effect that all of this has on the way that women are viewed and treated generally in society, these images offer an extremely limiting and narrow view of sexuality. It is one that is defined by the sex industry which, Walter’s book suggests, is becoming ever more pervasive. This is not a criticism based on moral considerations. If young women think that being sexually liberated means behaving like a porn star, and if young men’s sexual experience is dictated by pornography in which women are merely objects for men to control and abuse, how can we say that choices and experiences are being expanded? Instead, the reality is that they are becoming restricted for both women and men.
At the same time, sexist images of women in popular culture are not just a bit of harmless fun, they influence and impact on men’s attitudes and behaviour towards women, and on women’s own view of themselves. Tender, an educational charity working with 13-18 year olds in schools in greater London, surveyed 288 young people and found that 29% of male and female students felt it was sometimes OK for a man to hit a woman if she slept with someone else. Eighty per cent thought that girls and women sometimes encourage violence and abuse by the way they dress, and 76% thought that a woman encourages violence by not treating men with respect. Walter cites examples of sexual bullying (harassment) in schools which, according to Kidscape, is on the increase: from one to two calls a year four or five years ago, to two or three a week now. Sexual bullying can involve ‘sexting’ (circulating sexual images by mobile phone), calling girls names such as ‘slags’, ‘slappers’, ‘bitches’, or ‘whores’, or physical touching and even rape.
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Stereotyped gender roles
THIS ALSO EXPLAINS why biological determinist ideas about gender differences appear to be making a comeback. Most people are familiar with the title of John Gray’s bestselling self-help book, Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. Psychologists, like Steven Pinker and Susan Pinker, and scientists, like Simon Baron-Cohen, have also written popular books which argue that differences between men and women are explained by biology and the way in which our brains have become ‘hard-wired’ over centuries. We are told, for example, that men are better than women at maths and have more spatial awareness, and women are better at language and relationships, that behavioural and cognitive differences are determined not by social factors but by our genes and our hormones.
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Walter argues that "without thoroughgoing economic and political change, what we see when we look around is not the equality we once sought; it is a stalled revolution". But how that change will come about she never really explains. "Television producers and publishers have told me the same story", writes Walter, "that in society they cannot make decisions based on quality or morality, they must make decisions based on sales. Throughout our society, any attempt to complain about or change this culture is often met by fatalism; if the market is so powerful, then how can any individual stand against it?" On an individual basis, resistance against the capitalist market system is limited. Collective struggle, however, which challenges the structurally unequal economic and social relations of capitalism, could lay the basis for ending sexism, and all forms cultural and social oppression as well as material inequality
http://www.socialismtoday.org/138/sexism.html
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"The conclusions drawn by the influential feminist, Natasha Walter, in her latest book, Living Dolls, may surprise readers of her earlier material. In an honest reappraisal of her position, Walter now accepts that sexism and discrimination against women are ever more widespread, and that it is not possible to separate the personal from the political in capitalist society. CHRISTINE THOMAS reviews this change"
in the 90's walters wrote a book New Feminism. in it she argued "that feminists should no longer be too anxious about the sexual objectification of women". she felt it was ‘Old feminism’ and she thought they too hung up on the personal and wanted a feminism where personal was separated from political.
after a decade, her position has shifted.
where my position is, it seems like our sexual liberation has resulted in an oppression. i have been looking at the 80's and 90's to see what happened with our direction that lead us to where we are today. i think that this new and improved oppression has allowed the total disrespect and dehumanizing women that has allowed the political party and the right to feed off it helping to create an environment where they have been allowed the recent war on women. i believe the war is being played out in the extreme of both sides which takes us to the always present virgin/whore.
and i just like this picture that someone sent to me.
= new reply since forum marked as read
She then goes on to describe how soft-porn images and attitudes are omnipresent in popular culture: in magazines, newspapers, music videos, reality TV, the internet, etc, exaggerating "the deeper imbalances of power in our society". Walter writes about a sexualised culture in which empowerment and liberation have become equated and confused with sexual objectification. The language of choice and freedom is cleverly used to try and legitimise what is, in effect, a cultural counterrevolution. Women dieting, undergoing surgery, stripping, believing that fame and success are defined by how closely they conform to a narrow image of sexuality: "If this is the new sexual liberation", writes Walter, "it looks too uncannily like the old sexism to convince many of us that this is the freedom we have sought". Leaving aside for a moment the effect that all of this has on the way that women are viewed and treated generally in society, these images offer an extremely limiting and narrow view of sexuality. It is one that is defined by the sex industry which, Walter’s book suggests, is becoming ever more pervasive. This is not a criticism based on moral considerations. If young women think that being sexually liberated means behaving like a porn star, and if young men’s sexual experience is dictated by pornography in which women are merely objects for men to control and abuse, how can we say that choices and experiences are being expanded? Instead, the reality is that they are becoming restricted for both women and men.
I could not agree more.
Thanks for posting seabeyond
