Sexism in the Media

What comprises sexism and feminism? Do sexist images in the media throw off an impact on wowork force and girls? And, what argon the broader policy-making issues here? I am hoping that we can reframe the debate around sexism and bleakness in the media in a modality that even ups sense for socialists. Were wholly probably aw atomic number 18 of sexist represendations in the media from innovativespapers and magazines to the movies, TV and radio. For ex group Ale, Rolling gemst adept magazine didnt used to be a soft erotica magazine, scarce it is so rough-cut now for female person musicians to be in soft-porn poses on its cover.Howard down in the mouth, the radio DJ, is always asking his female guests and c entirelyers what they be tiring. Stern focuses heavily on wowork forces physical attri hardlyes for the titillation of his male listeners. We to a fault see some movies each year where the female graphemes atomic number 18 in that location solely to support and grat ify the male characters. Magazines often show exactly pieces of a fair sexhood, such as her legs, or torso so that wo custody argon seen as pieces of a human being, reduced to only body parts, which ar usu on the wholey hyper internalized for male stimulation.The currently popular TV show heroic Housewives has a predominantly female audience, but tends to appeal to male viewing audience with story lines involving the wo manpower in their underwear or locked out of their houses nude. Soft-core pornography is the staple fibre of m any mainstream handss magazines such as Maxim. In the preceding(a) decade the decline of the mass move manpowert, and the capitalists promotion of escapism, has been at the cost of increased degradation of women in the media. Womens MovementWebsters lexicon defines sexism as attitudes or behavior immorald on traditional stereotypes of sexual roles or favouritism or devaluation based on a somebodys sex. According to Websters, this word came into us age in the period of 1965-1970 and was sculpted after the word racism, which itself came into use in the 1865-1870 period, during the revolutionary days of re redoive memory in the South. The timeline of the creation of the word sexism gives us an conception of the dramatic counterchange in the consciousness of women in the 1960s and 70s, which was fillly influenced by the civil rights motion.However for a word with such a short history, a mere 40 years later, capitalism is extending to make women retrieve that sexism no yearner exists. In my research for this introduction, I came across treatment of something termed post-feminism which argues that the old ideas nigh what is sexism and who is a feminist no longer apply. That it is non sexist, but merely ironic, that naked women are used in advertizement such as the TV ad where Nicolette Sheridan from Desperate Housewives dropped her towel in front of a football player to get much men to watch the NFL.The idea is that wo men are now in mis equal of their bodies and that to tendency to the use of a nude muliebrity in an advertisement is in authenticity an attempt to repress that individual chars sexuality, or an stuff and nonsenseisation of prudishness, and not a comment on the growing of women for financial gain. The Repackaging of Sexism & Feminism Feminism is being repackaged and portrayed as a restrictive police force telling women what not to wear, how to have sex and not allowing women to live their personal lives without the constraints of a rigid ideology, as one post-feminist author put it.On the positive side women, and especially young women, are much than confident about their sexuality, but for some women this liberation is expressed through and through the assumption of some of the roles, attitudes and sexual behavior previously more common among men. This is what one so-called feminist writer described as a shift from the old victim feminism to the new-sprung(prenomi nal) power feminism. In fact the shift is away from challenging the old male-dominated status quo and toward determination a place inwardly it.Christine Thomas in her article The stark naked Sexism writes about this shift in feminist intellection. She writes about the recent social movement of the increased acceptance of strip clubs and intersection dancing club convergence dancing, it is argued, is empowering not exploitative be take, when dancers can earn as much as $800 a night, theyre often earn break out money than the men theyre stripping for. As one student told the BBCs interior Out program I work when I want to. I make the amount of money I want to, and if I adoptt feel like it I can quit.No-one is pushing me to do it. But contrast this with the comment of a regular frequenter of lap dancing clubs It makes me feel like a king to be posing there with all these women surrounding me, giving me loads of attention. Nothing shell the thrill of calling a charwoman ov er, sitting her down and lecture to her, knowing that if you give her money she is going to chair all her dress off. Its great to have that kind of condition, that power, and its an ego supercharge to have all girls competing with each other to dance for you. However empowered individual dancers might feel (and of course not all dancers are well paid) lap dancing itself promotes the idea that women are not thinking whole beings but body parts objects available for men to control and enjoy. 1 This new feminism likewise represents a shift from a collective to an individualistic approach to womens equality. If a given woman feels oppressed, feels exploited, or feels demeaned, it is because something is wrong with her. Perhaps she is not aggressive enough or not motivated enough.She has not figured out how to advance within the current system. When women buy into the basic concepts of capitalist coating, the new feminists imply, as many doors entrust open for women as for men and they will no longer be victims. The new post-feminism also argues that the male dominated empire is crumbling and that more women than ever are now in positions of power. However, we know who these powerful women are Margaret Thatcher, Hilary Clinton, and Condoleeza Rice. They actually represent a step backwards for womens equality.Condoleezas promotion to Secretary of State reinforces the illusion that racial and gender discrimination no longer exists and that nonstarter to succeed is only the failure of individuals to take advantage of their opportunities. Her work for the Bush administration is helping to increase the attacks on all workers, women and men, which in turn especially increases the burden economically on women. Her promotion represents no change whatsoever for the status quo and for the reality of works severalise women across the United States. How Equal are We? Women today mollify consistently make less than men for fulltime work in the identical jobs.In s tatistics from 2002, nationally women average 78% of mens even up for all jobs. Among the highest paid professionals (doctors and lawyers) women only make from 58-76% of mens average pay and they make up about a third of the workers in these jobs. On the other hand, those jobs that are predominantly occupied by women such as cashiers or child care workers women make about 95% of mens wages. But the average weekly wage for men and women is rattling low at $250-$300 per week. Also, traditionally unionized jobs like care for and construction have higher average weekly wages and women make about 91% of mens pay. 2However, the developling fact is that in the Bureau of promote Statistics information from 2002, out of hundreds of job categories, there is not a single job where women make more money than men do. There are also a radically higher coincidence of women than men living in poverty in the U. S. For many American women, violence is also a nasty reminder of the inequality in this society. Estimates of non-fatal domestic violence against women range from 1 billion to 4 million a year with nearly 1 in 3 women experiencing a physical assault from a partner in adulthood. Women have a 10 times greater likelihood of being victimized by an intimate than men.Also, 33% of all women murdered are murdered by an intimate partner. In fact the leading cause of death among expectant women is not complications from pregnancy, but murder. 4 The sexist representations of women in the media are a direct reflection of this economic and social inequality. But these images also help oneself to reinforce the lower status of women not only through present us as a commodity to be packaged for mens enjoyment, something to be controlled, but also by directly undermining womens self-esteem and emphasizing the unattainable i circularise of a perfect woman. Up to 80% of American women are issatisfied with their appearance. Much of the marketing of the ideal woman is targeted at women directly. Womens magazines, both(prenominal) in articles and advertisements (and it is often difficult to split the two) carry a lot of ideas about the ideal woman. In admission 1 out of every 3. 8 television commercials carries some descriptor of attractiveness message. 5 Media Images and Girls The American Society of Plastic Surgeons reports that 82% of all cosmetic surgical procedures are performed on women. The most common procedures are liposuction, breast augmentation, nose reshaping and eyelid surgery.In the years from 1992 to 2003 total cosmetic surgical procedures increased by 192% with breast augmentation increasing by 657% and liposuction by 412%. 6 Not only are women reshaping their bodies in character numbers to try and fit some type of female ideal, but girls are influenced by this pressure as well. Some 81% of ten year-old girls are cowardly of being fat and 51% of 9 and 10 year-olds feel better about themselves if they are on a diet. Of normal dieters, a bout 5-6% will progress to partial or full syndrome eating disorders. 7Eating disorders often start for women in their teen and pre-teen years, and represent an extreme attempt to control ones body. It may not seem such a misrepresented priority to young girls to achieve the perfect body through self-punishing starving or vomiting when record numbers of adult women are voluntarily subjecting themselves to invasive surgeries. Now this process is being accelerated and normalized through TV shows such as Extreme Makeovers and The Swan. Here, mostly women are shown going through a series of major cosmetic surgeries.In The Swan a scratch goes to the best makeover. Capitalism sends mixed messages to women that only create anxiety. Their perfect woman is young, thin, and never has acne. However, the unhealthy food big business pushes at us makes this perfect woman even more unattainable. Not only do they profit from interchange us this bad food, but the food itself intimately guarante es that we will need to spend more money on cosmetics, dieting, surgery, or antidepressants if we buy into this ideal woman concept. We cant talk about sexisms effect on women without also iscussing its effect on men who are also damaged by it. From boyhood, men are sent the message that women are here for their pleasure and that they are primarily commodities for their consumption. If this idea is completely internalized, it makes men unable to connect with women in any but the most superficial way, and cuts them off from a deeper understanding of both themselves and women. skilful as the oppression of women has forced women in general to develop a more skillful understanding of human relations, so also male privilege tends to stunt mens relationship skills.Also, for men that have themselves experienced abusive upbringings, it makes them more likely to be trapped into attempting to control women through physical or emotional abuse. Sexism and Capitalisms new Moral Divide In the 1 984 movie, This is spinal Tap the fake documental about an English heavy metal circuit, a female record company executive lets the band members know that they have concerns with the bands album cover. They feel that the image of a naked woman wearing a leash and dogs collar is sexist. Sexy, one of the band members says, whats wrong with being sexy? There is enormous discombobulation today surrounding this difference between what is deemed sexy and what it sexist in the media. The recent media hype around the Janet Jackson breast exposure casualty and the uproar over the NFL commercial I previously cited are examples of how this intelligence is being spun in the media as the relentless sex-oriented focus of popular culture verses the purity of family values. In an era where some women are losing access to work that help them control their bodies reproductively, we are now seeing the control of images of womens bodies as an issue in the media.The new feminists would have us c onceive that the ultimate control of an individual womans body belongs to the woman herself and so the images are not discussed in the context of sexism. The liberals argue that a womans naked body is no big deal and cant we be mature and realize that its however a womans body failing, like the guy from Spinal Tap, to distinguish between sexy and sexism. The family values coalition argues that it is damaging to children to be exposed to nudity and the subject of sex making it appear that any outrage is due to prudishness.The argument goes that these are the opposing interests in the word leaving little voice for most people. Is it possible that this divisive construct is promoted by the media itself to obscure the real issue? The real issue is the exploitation of a womans body and sexuality for the purpose of selling products magazines, TV shows, movies, football games. If we understand it this way, then we have a way to object to the objectification of women without falling into the trap of prudishness.We can condemn CBS and the NFL not for viewing us Janet Jacksons breast, but for exploiting her desire to further her biography and the captive audience of viewers to boost ratings, which in the end makes more advertisement money for them. Capitalism typically creates and exploits divisions for the purpose of undermining working home solidarity. Sexism undermines the solidarity between men and women. By failing to point out capitalisms role in this issue, we can allow a new threat to class solidarity to take root. This non-class based division, created by the media, the so-called object lesson divide. A New Mass Movement The current trends in the media represent a step backwards for women in the battle against sexism and exploitation. This is another facial expression of the global phenomenon, regardless of gender, of working class people being attacked more fiercely by the capitalist class. The current onslaught of sexism, besides undermining class so lidarity, also serves capitalism by expanding markets for diet and beauty products and for surgery. It also represents a huge drain on the resources of an individual woman.With her self-image and self worth foremostver and a day under attack, it is no surprise that some women have fallen into an individualistic, superficial, self-absorption, pass less time fleck to change the workplace and the community. Especially with the failure of working class and womens organizations to fight on concrete issues that are important to women. However, just as in the 1960s, a mass movement gave birth to the womens movement and sexism even started to be talked about, so too a new mass movement of workers that confronts capitalism will also confront sexism. Working class women will be at the fore of such a movement.In fact, women play a key role in many community struggles. LMV has been involved in the Campaign for Renters Rights a direct action group in which women took the leading role in figh ting off Section 8 housing cuts. 8 In the 70s we saw how differently women could be treated in the media with real stories about real women. There was a trend toward increased reality in TV and film including the portrayal of women. In the movie Alice Doesnt Live Here Anymore a working class woman who is a single parent stands up against everyday sexism. The central character is a woman who is strong, funny and insightful.The scarcity of movies like this since the 70s with strong female characters confirms the degeneracy of not only the popular media but of capitalism itself. collectivism, on the contrary, will not only achieve material equality between men and women, but also allow both men and women to better explore their own individuality, and break free of the base superficiality that market capitalism promotes. January 2005References 1 Christine Thomas , The New Sexism, Socialism Today Issue 77 Sept 2003 2 The Bureau of Labor Statistics, Median usual weekly earnings of full- time wage and stipend workers by detailed occupation and sex, 2002 annual averages. Domestic Violence Statistics, rule of Columbia Coalition Against Domestic Violence at www. dccadv. org More stats from issue Domestic Violence Hotline at www. ndvh. org. 4 Kim Curtis, Murder The leading cause of death for pregnant women. Associated Press April 23, 2003 5 National Eating Disorders crosstie at www. nationaleatingdisorders. org 6 American Society of Plastic Surgeons at www. plasticsurgery . org 7 National Eating Disorders Association 8 For more on this struggle see www. laborsmilitantvoice. com