One of the major complaints women have is that of being seen as objects to be watched knowingly or voyeuristically but always on display. It is a well known and accepted societal norm that women are looked at by men and other women but for varying reasons. Men admire the beauty of women where as women look at the beauty of another in comparison to themselves. The act of women looking at other women in this way does not position the looking and the women doing it as lesbian because of the purpose and intent of the act. Interestingly enough the comparison arises out of the need to look good for the external gaze and hence the performance of maintaining aesthetic appearance reproduces itself not only through men but through women themselves. Females have appropriated the male gaze and in a way regulate themselves with the same tool they vehemently object when used by men.
However, this is not the only instance when women take up the act of looking from men as a study reveals through the consumption of Anime Manga. In this case the gaze is subverted and women are the voyeurs of men or boys in the animated sexual films. The film genre is one where there often is no real story line and the entire thing is just an excuse for the viewing of animated sex. The twist is that the sexual acts are not heterosexual which is why the films are appropriately nick named boy love essentially male same sex intimacy. The films work on the fringes of three societal deviances or ethical principles, the first being that often the characters involved in the sexual acts are children or at least one is under age, secondly it can be viewed as porn and the lastly is that of the same sex sexual intercourse. The predominant consumers of the material are surprisingly Western females so the question is why? Why are non pedophile non lesbian women interested in watching same sex children having sex? It has been theorized as being a subversion of the male voyeuristic gaze and narrows down to the relations of power.
There exist several contradictions in this theory because of the nature of the relationships between the animated protagonists. The first one is that although the romantic or sexual relations are same sex and there is a clear masculine identity in the one character and a clear feminization of the other character. Additionally the masculine character is the dominant character and the one who ‘does’ the sex to the other who has the sex ‘done’ to him. This reflects the heteronormative relations of pursuer seme and pursued uke “It is not merely the unlikely superimposition of a heterosexual model onto a same-sex relationship” (Zanghellini, 285:2009). This statement is contradictory because the uke is given characteristics that are associated with femininity “Display traits traditionally associated with femininity” (Zanghellini, 256:2009). It is said that the film genre arouse as a result of frustration that women felt with conventional romance stories where women were portrayed as weaklings existing purely to be pursued by men. Women wanted to see a female character that was strong and independent. Ironically the only way such a woman could exist was as a male because seemingly women are incapable of existing independently of male strength and perusal “Young female fans feel more able to imagine and depict idealized strong free characters if they are male” (Zanghellini, 279:2009). What does this say about who the female fans are identifying with? To be strong and free they feel you need to be male but at the same time the act of voyeurism is an act of rebellion to male gazing and authority. The same strong free male character they identify with is feminized and is a being that embodies both male and female but is neither. This feeds into Freud’s theory of penis envy, the women envy the freedom and strength that is afforded to men but detest them for imprisoning them in roles of dependency and subordination. At the same time in order to identify with the uke certain characteristics of femininity need to be ascribed to the uke in order for the female fans to identify themselves in the uke. The uke is performing gender bending androgyny in order for the matrix to be successful but that also points to the wider notion that all gender is performed. The other contradiction is that fans of BL claim that what draws them in is the fact that the voyeurism is about them but then the findings show that women watch because the stories semiotic core is about the ideal male lover, which centers the entire practice on the very thing it sought to escape.
The Exhibition: L’Orient des femmes vu par Christian Lacroix is a good example of voyeuristic subjugation of women that BL fans seek to escape. The Orient women exhibition was centered on the dress of the women of those societies. The dress represented them and symbolized femininity. In my opinion the dresses were repetitive which is clear even in the introductory presentation of the exhibit with a dress shaped like a colorful “T”. In fact all the dresses had the same shape the difference being the patterns on the T’s. This to me felt as though the women did not have very much more to them but the dresses. I also thought they had lots of time on their hands because of the intricacy of the designs on the dresses which meant that they did not have much to do in the society as a whole which afforded them this time. It also signified to me the importance of external appearance of women even then. Representations of the women themselves were absent except in the televised films of the society of the time. The film only depicted them in the dresses and head garments dancing and singing reducing them to mere entertainers there to be watched. These kinds of relations are the very ones that BL fans strive to detach themselves from but end up reproducing them in the ways in which they need a relationship to be present between a powerful and powerless individual.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Beauty= Girl Power or Consumer Feminism?
In today’s modern world anyone can be omnipresent through the use of satellites and the internet. Hence the ideologies of feminism and gender have permeated most societies and have caused a dialogue about the things that feminism entails. Most notably the discourse has moved from being one of social change and liberation to being something of the past which most people have become desensitized to in what is now referred to as the post feminist era. The supposition is that feminism as a movement has achieved all it set out to in the way of bringing about equality for women and the current struggles for the feminist movement is considered to be complaining for the sake of complaining. Out of the movement there was an emergence of successful women in the same arenas as men which was considered to be proof of the success of the movement. Feminism has become unpopular “By means of the tropes of freedom and choice which are now inextricable connected with the category of ‘young women’, feminism is decisively aged and made to seem redundant” (McRobbie, 255:2004)
However, these notions of success are elusive “Female achievement predicated not on feminism, but on ‘female individualism’” (McRobbie, 258:2004). In addition companies have used this as a strategy to subvert the ostensible progress that feminism provided women by enslaving them to consumerism and once again centralizing the site of feminist power as being purely physical. The new world has reinvented the wheel of commodifying female sexuality by guising it as women being in control of their beauty and being able to convert beauty into a tool of agency for attaining success in a male dominated world. Ironically despite the fact that feminism is said to have brought all these freedoms and leveled the playing field for men and women, it is acknowledged as being a fallacy through the very idea of being able to take control in a male world. This point to the fact that we all know it is still a man’s world and that women still need to prove themselves as equals or compete in it. Feminism drew too much attention to itself and thus has become it’s own undoing in that men in large consumerist corporations have taken the tools of feminism and are using them to reshape their campaigns essentially using feminism to feed into their economies of attention enabling them to maintain their positions of social and financial power. This is illustrated in the Wonderbra commercial “At the same time the advertisement expects to provoke feminist condemnation as a means of generating publicity” (McRobbie, 259:2004). What is the response of women to all of this? Silence, at the risk of seeming complacent because it is better than being perceived as fanatic Women’s Libers (The new female subject is, despite her freedom, called upon to be silent, to withhold critique, to count as a modern sophisticated girl, or indeed this withholding of critique is a condition of her freedom” (McRobbie, 260:2004).
This represents an internal gaze. This is an unlikely possibility because the media teach women how to be beautiful through prescribing and constructing image management. Women are through various mediations as though they have inverted the male gaze and that the performance of aesthetic beauty is for the female self. Female sexuality has become embedded and embroiled in popular culture through the use of the female body as a site of consumerism. Commodity feminism is the term used to describe this phenomenon “the complex and clever assimilation of fragments of feminist /post feminist discourse in social advertising” (Lazar, 507:2007). Such examples of this are clearly seen the Dove Real Beauty adverts where a model comes in for a photo shoot. The model is made up and photographed. Afterwards the photo is then digitally altered so that it fits with what is now considered the standard of beauty. The photo of the model no longer is the model it is a a perfect possibly even different woman in the advert. The tagline reads: no wonder our perception of beauty is distorted. This links to a social responsibility organization called the Dove Self Esteem for Girls Fund. Dove is playing on the fact that what is mediated as true beauty is all fabricated and through the use of their product women can be beautiful naturally as themselves without the aid of technology and make up specialists. However, the underlining point is the same, that left to their own devices women are not beautiful and that beauty is as a result of the use of some product. Thus beauty exists as an object independent of the barer. The advert informs us that the product industry continues to shape perceptions of female bodies and acknowledges the social damage it causes “The incorporation makes critique of the ads harder as the message of consumption is threaded together with voices of social consciousness” (Lazar, 507:2006).
The question then is what has really changed from the days pre-feminism to now in the post feminist era. Feminism was about empowerment and now advertising makes the same argument through presenting products of consumption as agents of empowerment. However the empowerment is based upon the old social norms of women as being objects whose quality related directly to their aesthetic value. The other way in which women overcome inequality is to perform of do masculinity as is the case of Agent Olivia Dunam and agent of the FBI Fringe Division in the popular serial Fringe. She shows no emotion, and always wears a suite (with pants) and flat shoes with hair hair drearily drawn into a neat pony tail. Her appearance makes no effort to do feminine beauty and therefore she is considered serious and is able to be the best agent in the division. Her ability to be like a man makes her a successful woman.
In order for feminism to be considered a real success structures of patriarchal social order would have to change and the existing gender binary would have to provide a space for negotiation where both genders could submit to each other in a mutually beneficial way. The problem with feminism was that it presented a threat to men and the male socio/political order. Feminism emasculated men by presenting the possibility of the erasure of the usefulness of the role of men. Images of women performing as men and essentially do the work traditionally perceived as a man’s work throws the role of men into nebula and hence men perpetuate conditions that maintain the status quo that keeps them in positions of power and reaffirms notions of masculinity.
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However, these notions of success are elusive “Female achievement predicated not on feminism, but on ‘female individualism’” (McRobbie, 258:2004). In addition companies have used this as a strategy to subvert the ostensible progress that feminism provided women by enslaving them to consumerism and once again centralizing the site of feminist power as being purely physical. The new world has reinvented the wheel of commodifying female sexuality by guising it as women being in control of their beauty and being able to convert beauty into a tool of agency for attaining success in a male dominated world. Ironically despite the fact that feminism is said to have brought all these freedoms and leveled the playing field for men and women, it is acknowledged as being a fallacy through the very idea of being able to take control in a male world. This point to the fact that we all know it is still a man’s world and that women still need to prove themselves as equals or compete in it. Feminism drew too much attention to itself and thus has become it’s own undoing in that men in large consumerist corporations have taken the tools of feminism and are using them to reshape their campaigns essentially using feminism to feed into their economies of attention enabling them to maintain their positions of social and financial power. This is illustrated in the Wonderbra commercial “At the same time the advertisement expects to provoke feminist condemnation as a means of generating publicity” (McRobbie, 259:2004). What is the response of women to all of this? Silence, at the risk of seeming complacent because it is better than being perceived as fanatic Women’s Libers (The new female subject is, despite her freedom, called upon to be silent, to withhold critique, to count as a modern sophisticated girl, or indeed this withholding of critique is a condition of her freedom” (McRobbie, 260:2004).
This represents an internal gaze. This is an unlikely possibility because the media teach women how to be beautiful through prescribing and constructing image management. Women are through various mediations as though they have inverted the male gaze and that the performance of aesthetic beauty is for the female self. Female sexuality has become embedded and embroiled in popular culture through the use of the female body as a site of consumerism. Commodity feminism is the term used to describe this phenomenon “the complex and clever assimilation of fragments of feminist /post feminist discourse in social advertising” (Lazar, 507:2007). Such examples of this are clearly seen the Dove Real Beauty adverts where a model comes in for a photo shoot. The model is made up and photographed. Afterwards the photo is then digitally altered so that it fits with what is now considered the standard of beauty. The photo of the model no longer is the model it is a a perfect possibly even different woman in the advert. The tagline reads: no wonder our perception of beauty is distorted. This links to a social responsibility organization called the Dove Self Esteem for Girls Fund. Dove is playing on the fact that what is mediated as true beauty is all fabricated and through the use of their product women can be beautiful naturally as themselves without the aid of technology and make up specialists. However, the underlining point is the same, that left to their own devices women are not beautiful and that beauty is as a result of the use of some product. Thus beauty exists as an object independent of the barer. The advert informs us that the product industry continues to shape perceptions of female bodies and acknowledges the social damage it causes “The incorporation makes critique of the ads harder as the message of consumption is threaded together with voices of social consciousness” (Lazar, 507:2006).
The question then is what has really changed from the days pre-feminism to now in the post feminist era. Feminism was about empowerment and now advertising makes the same argument through presenting products of consumption as agents of empowerment. However the empowerment is based upon the old social norms of women as being objects whose quality related directly to their aesthetic value. The other way in which women overcome inequality is to perform of do masculinity as is the case of Agent Olivia Dunam and agent of the FBI Fringe Division in the popular serial Fringe. She shows no emotion, and always wears a suite (with pants) and flat shoes with hair hair drearily drawn into a neat pony tail. Her appearance makes no effort to do feminine beauty and therefore she is considered serious and is able to be the best agent in the division. Her ability to be like a man makes her a successful woman.
In order for feminism to be considered a real success structures of patriarchal social order would have to change and the existing gender binary would have to provide a space for negotiation where both genders could submit to each other in a mutually beneficial way. The problem with feminism was that it presented a threat to men and the male socio/political order. Feminism emasculated men by presenting the possibility of the erasure of the usefulness of the role of men. Images of women performing as men and essentially do the work traditionally perceived as a man’s work throws the role of men into nebula and hence men perpetuate conditions that maintain the status quo that keeps them in positions of power and reaffirms notions of masculinity.
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Saturday, March 12, 2011
Looks of Colorblindness
Historically films and movies are a form of entertainment easily embraced because of their ability to transport the viewer into the world of the narrative, a form of escapology. The history of film followed much the same path as that of the world in which it was produced in. Movies moved from being dominated by male representations to stories inclusive of women during and after the feminist movement gained salience. Even then movies with and centered around female protagonists were a reproduction or maintenance of the phallocentric norms that existed in society “the function of woman in forming the patriarchal conscious” and “Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier fir the male other” (Mulvey, 746: 1992). Mulvey argues that women were in the films but only as a space for men to fill in the meaning of a woman in a given context, meaning they were present but powerless in that they were not self determinant entities. On account of the fact that cinema focuses on a type of voyeuristic looking, that looking is transferred quite easily to the female form in an erotic way because of how this already exists off camera in the lived world. Therefore women are subjected to being watched for their physical qualities more so than their actual role in the film “In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to- be- looked- at- ness” (Mulvey, 750:1992). Theories around the portrayal and representation of women in cinema have been put forth by many but what is always omitted is the fact that the category ‘women’ is monolithic because they are shaped by the white woman dominant theory. The experience of middle class white women is taken to be the representative for all women.
As a result of being omitted from most narratives and thus denied their right to gaze or recognize themselves and unable to relate or engage to the imagery of white women in film, women of color have developed what Hooks calls the oppositional gaze. She sees the lack of representation as a continuation of the racial subjugation that black people were subject to in the days of slavery “The politics of slavery, of racialized power relations, were such that the slaves were denied their right to gaze” (Hooks, 115: 1992). She further argues that to consume cinematic film with its negation of black women was to accept the notion being put forth that women of color are neither desired nor required to be represented in film. Because film is or was believed to be carried over from real life onto the screen this acceptance would hold true in the real world too. This is constructed around phallocentric spectatorship which I view as a form of soft power, a subliminal means of subjugating women of color. This serves to make the black woman feel inferior, insecure in her outward appearance and feel as though her beauty and womanhood are things that exist in relation to the beauty of the white woman. A good example of this is in the Tyler Perry movie “For Colored Girls” where Whoopi Goldberg the mother of two mixed race girls reveals how her husband “gave” her to a white man because he wanted to have beautiful children. The concept of beauty is in relation to closeness to whiteness and consequently Whoopi Goldberg herself is by her husband’s definition ugly because of her lack of whiteness and therefore has no ability to produce beauty in her offspring.
Even in films a where black women are represented, the women are not portrayed in an appealing manner or even a manner that black female spectators can relate to as seen in the example of Sapphire in the television show ‘Amos & Andy’ “How could we long to be there when our image, visually constructed, was so ugly. We did not long for her. She was not us” (Hooks, 120:1992). The other form of representation of black women was to be the backdrop of and draw more emphasis to the white female characters in the narratives “Even when representations of black women were present in film, our bodies and being were there to serve- to enhance and maintain white womanhood as object of the phallocentric gaze” (Hooks, 119:1992). Interestingly enough the images of black women which were and are considered desirable emulate the images of white women. Good examples of this are Jennifer Bills who is not easily recognizable as black and Oscar award winning actress, Halle Berry. Additionally, characteristics which are typically physical characteristics of white women have come to embody what the characteristics of women as a whole should be as is evident in all the films we see where black leading ladies are dawning Rapunzel like mains and straight figures. These characteristics have become the entertainment industry standards.
Ironically the images that women of color emulate in order to be accepted in film are in themselves fallacious as Julie Burchill points out “What does it say about racial purity, that the best blondes have all been brunettes (Harlow, Monroe, Bardot)? We are not as white as we think” (Hooks, 119:1992). This means that even the new and improved more representative images of the black female should not be something that women of color identify with. However, what they identify with is the ability to be accepted and viewed as desirable even though that is still not them. This further perpetuates the racial subjugation because what it is teaching is that what is and continues to be accepted blackness is as close to white as possible.
Writers and producers like Tyler Perry work to try and change or rather present a more accurate representation of women of color in the multiple forms in which they exist and points it out in the film dialogues, presenting it as humor, as something women of color and the black community at large can laugh at because ultimately the idea that one group of people should try to erase another’s presence is laughable.
As a result of being omitted from most narratives and thus denied their right to gaze or recognize themselves and unable to relate or engage to the imagery of white women in film, women of color have developed what Hooks calls the oppositional gaze. She sees the lack of representation as a continuation of the racial subjugation that black people were subject to in the days of slavery “The politics of slavery, of racialized power relations, were such that the slaves were denied their right to gaze” (Hooks, 115: 1992). She further argues that to consume cinematic film with its negation of black women was to accept the notion being put forth that women of color are neither desired nor required to be represented in film. Because film is or was believed to be carried over from real life onto the screen this acceptance would hold true in the real world too. This is constructed around phallocentric spectatorship which I view as a form of soft power, a subliminal means of subjugating women of color. This serves to make the black woman feel inferior, insecure in her outward appearance and feel as though her beauty and womanhood are things that exist in relation to the beauty of the white woman. A good example of this is in the Tyler Perry movie “For Colored Girls” where Whoopi Goldberg the mother of two mixed race girls reveals how her husband “gave” her to a white man because he wanted to have beautiful children. The concept of beauty is in relation to closeness to whiteness and consequently Whoopi Goldberg herself is by her husband’s definition ugly because of her lack of whiteness and therefore has no ability to produce beauty in her offspring.
Even in films a where black women are represented, the women are not portrayed in an appealing manner or even a manner that black female spectators can relate to as seen in the example of Sapphire in the television show ‘Amos & Andy’ “How could we long to be there when our image, visually constructed, was so ugly. We did not long for her. She was not us” (Hooks, 120:1992). The other form of representation of black women was to be the backdrop of and draw more emphasis to the white female characters in the narratives “Even when representations of black women were present in film, our bodies and being were there to serve- to enhance and maintain white womanhood as object of the phallocentric gaze” (Hooks, 119:1992). Interestingly enough the images of black women which were and are considered desirable emulate the images of white women. Good examples of this are Jennifer Bills who is not easily recognizable as black and Oscar award winning actress, Halle Berry. Additionally, characteristics which are typically physical characteristics of white women have come to embody what the characteristics of women as a whole should be as is evident in all the films we see where black leading ladies are dawning Rapunzel like mains and straight figures. These characteristics have become the entertainment industry standards.
Ironically the images that women of color emulate in order to be accepted in film are in themselves fallacious as Julie Burchill points out “What does it say about racial purity, that the best blondes have all been brunettes (Harlow, Monroe, Bardot)? We are not as white as we think” (Hooks, 119:1992). This means that even the new and improved more representative images of the black female should not be something that women of color identify with. However, what they identify with is the ability to be accepted and viewed as desirable even though that is still not them. This further perpetuates the racial subjugation because what it is teaching is that what is and continues to be accepted blackness is as close to white as possible.
Writers and producers like Tyler Perry work to try and change or rather present a more accurate representation of women of color in the multiple forms in which they exist and points it out in the film dialogues, presenting it as humor, as something women of color and the black community at large can laugh at because ultimately the idea that one group of people should try to erase another’s presence is laughable.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Games and Soapies
In the wake of the so called “Gamer Revolution” questions are raised of who the participants of the revolution are. Is the revolution gendered? Games are considered to be in the masculine space and are hence marketed and constructed as such. What is interesting is that the gaming realm is reified in the domestic space which is considered to be the feminine space “Technological autonomy meets the domestication and appropriation of it” (Thornham, 128: 2008).
The question of audience and the gaze play a central role in the formation social activities such as gaming and the viewing of soap operas. Gone are the days of the hypodermic needle notion of media reception and consumption. Often women are discussed and grouped as one monolithic subculture ignoring the issues such as race and class “Women cannot be considered as a homogenous category” (Ang, 115: 2006). “The basic assumption of women as objectifiable, somehow a unified whole, a group” (Ang, 117: 2006).
Both the gaming world and the world of soap operas belong to the realm of entertainment and are gendered that is targeted at the two different genders. The industry depends on this codifying of genders in order to ascribe to its target audience what and how to consume. It relies on the already existing gender stereotypes and reinforces them through their products.
The category of women and consequently genders is restrictive in norms and roles that the categorization prescribes or dictates. The narrow space is negotiated through interactions between the genders and the products. Soap Operas and yet many of the plots are centered on a relationship theme meaning that the main protagonists are both male and female. However, men will deny being part of the audience of something considered to be so girly when they in fact are represented in the Soap Opera. The same complexity that exists within the categorization of a gender I terms of class, colour etc. is also present in the industry that targets the sexes. Often gaming companies have women at the helm of game design and programming “’Women’ is a volatile collection in which female persons can be very differently positioned, so that the apparent continuity of the subject of ‘women’ isn’t to be relied on” (Ang, 118: 2006). Said games have both male and female representatives meaning both sexes can inclusively participate.
The sexes are set up in opposition to each other instead being complimentary however, in the interaction with gendered goods and spaces the members of both sexes work around the dictation of interaction by their performance. In relation to either the games or the Soap Operas they challenge the prescription of relations and interaction through their performance for example girls playing video games. In the end performance which is the monitoring variable for the conspicuous panopticon of gender becomes the tool used to subvert gender ‘norms’. The subversion does not change the gender of the performer it merely changes the perception of interaction and of gender roles. Additionally the subversion also changes the changes the discourse of the activities that attempt to maintain and feed into the gender stereotypes in theory. “I didn’t bother to improve as a gamer because that was my role” (Thornham, 133: 2008) indicates that theory of subversion is null and void when by such statements because they illustrate that gender continues to be defined by already existing notions of stereotyping and disingenuous performance than reinforce the status quo. Activities and interactions become cultural markers for what is considered to belong to a specific gender defined by de Lauretis as technologies of gender for example watching Soap Operas is for women and computer games are for boys “Gender performance is figured along other social power dynamics” (Thornham, 133: 2008). Continuing along the same lines, computer gaming needs to exist within a socially accepted context because despite the ability to perform the gendered activity, doing so out of context also incurs negative consequences. Men who play games on their own or do so too often are considered to be geeks and perverts. In some instances men above a certain age who play games are given the same social status.
The relationships between genders that exist are about interest groups and the maintenance of a particular status quo in order to enable the proliferation of certain privileges referred to by Henriques as investments. “Investments suggest that people have an often unconscious stake in identifying with certain gender positions” (Ang, 120: 2006) the quote clearly explains how identification and classification of genders carry consequences on social relations. The identification with a gender can be empowering in one context and disempowering in another, which speaks to the multi faceted nature of gender construction and performance. Gender is not a static construction and is fluid depending on the context and the social immersion of the performer. To consider it as fixed essentially traps the performer in one role no matter what context they operate in which limits life opportunities and experiences. Therefore the function of gender performance can be limiting or enhancing and is linked to identity formation performance. This is contradictory because the whole argument in gender theory and global documents such the UN Declaration of Human Rights is that the identity of a person is not founded on social constructs such as gender, race or class. Hence no should be treated in a particular way either preferentially or discriminatorily based on any of the a fore mentioned categories. The argument is then that the only relevant category should be that of humanity and categories arise out of the desire for attaining social power in the present day through the creation of consumerist societies. The fact that gender has become a social norm and a value is perhaps the greatest deception of the drivers of production and consumerism. C. S Lewis is quoted as saying “The devil’s greatest accomplishment is convincing people that he does not exist” similarly the unconscious internalization of gender is a fallacy.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
The Gaze
The male gaze or more appropriately the male gaze of the female has been a point of discontentment and education in the feminist movement and arena of gender studies. The war of the genders is one of inequality where one is in a position of power and the other has a reality that is determined by the gender in power. Presently notions of gender and feminism are wielded by the media and their projections of how to construct and perform gender. The current age is run by popular media culture and according to Watkins and Emerson “Popular media culture came under increasing attack as a particularly pernicious site if gender inequality” (2000:152). Through magazines, television and advertisements that bombard people with information all day the images all export the same message, which is that women are things to be looked at. In other words extreme emphasis has been put on the external physical quality of women.
African Gender Sociologist, Lucy Edwards-Jauch, is quoted as saying “If you want to sell a car, you drape a scantily clad woman on the bonnet” (2007). Women are portrayed as accessories that attract the mass audience into making purchases. To men they are the object to be collected; to women they are the object to be emulated. Mast et al. are quoted: “Studies found that women tended to be depicted in subordinate roles” (2000: 152). Traditional ideas of a woman’s place are construed as being inside the home or the private space and men’s roles as being in the public sphere administering the social lived experience and change. Under these kinds of social relations the woman can never be a standalone self determining character “Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other” (Mast et al., 1992: 747). Such notions are reinforced through various social institutions such as religion where the Bible states during the creation of the first man and woman that “It is not good that man should be alone, I will make him a helper comparable to him” and further on “God took one of Adam’s ribs, Then the rib which He had taken from the man he made into a woman and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man” (Bible NKJV, Gen:2 vs 23). Clearly the woman is set up to be less than a man in an almost infantile way because just as children come out of a mother, so the woman came out of the man. Social norms dictate that men are the head and women are the tail.
Admittedly, as a result of the various feminist movements the media has included a larger variety of ways in which women can be portrayed but behaviors are still very much associated with the different sexes. Pop Artist Christina Aguilera highlights the problem with the inequality in her song ‘Hold Us Down’: “The guy gets all the glory the more he can score, while the girl can do the same but yet you call her a whore. I don’t understand why it’s ok the guy can get away with it, the girl gets named” (Christina Aguilera: 2007). Through these lyrics the double standard of society that has endured despite the progress of ostensible equality and social change enforced through government policy is highlighted. Despite all the rights that are afforded to women there are still social pressures that stem from the cultural backgrounds pertaining to the way a woman should present herself and interact with men. It is my opinion that the various social institutions have and continue to cultivate an approval addiction mentality in women. Even though so much is happening on paper through policy etc the minds of people in society have not been emancipated from the bondage of categorizing women and men into spaces where certain things are assigned to each, never being able to intersect. These behavioral exhibitions then become cultural markers of the different sexes and get incorporated in the social construction of gender and what it means to be either of the sexes. This is also true in the reverse i.e. the behaviors could stand independently of sex and come to mean a particular gender which is what happens when for example drag queens appropriate female performance of femininity and vice versa.
Social deviance from what we are taught is attributed to the different sex’s results in conflicts both internally and externally. Seemingly men feel emasculated by women who behave the same way as they do sexually, however interestingly women are not especially threatened by men who behave like them in any way. Which is why the media and consumption are constructed in such a way as to capitalize on the male gaze which according to Watkins and Emerson “socializes women into identification and compliance with the very patriarchal values and ideologies that reproduce their marginalized status” (2000: 156). Rather than equalizing the social status quo what we see happening is women being marginalized even further by having equality added to their load of being nurturers and being responsible for continuing the human race through child baring. Instead of easing their burden women are now faced with having extremely complicated social responsibilities where they have to perform various forms of femininity depending on the role in which they find themselves. Another issue which society does not adequately address is that of the various forms of gender performance. In the case of men new categories have emerged such as the metro sexual which is defined as a straight man with style. These categories are necessary to maintain social order in that they provide people with what German Sociologist, Alfred Schurz, described as social recipes i.e. ways in which to interact with these people. This simultaneously creates a social environment which can accurately discriminate against them because of the fact that they can be categorized as not being a part of mainstream heterosexual society (subgroup) which is the social standard.
African Gender Sociologist, Lucy Edwards-Jauch, is quoted as saying “If you want to sell a car, you drape a scantily clad woman on the bonnet” (2007). Women are portrayed as accessories that attract the mass audience into making purchases. To men they are the object to be collected; to women they are the object to be emulated. Mast et al. are quoted: “Studies found that women tended to be depicted in subordinate roles” (2000: 152). Traditional ideas of a woman’s place are construed as being inside the home or the private space and men’s roles as being in the public sphere administering the social lived experience and change. Under these kinds of social relations the woman can never be a standalone self determining character “Woman then stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other” (Mast et al., 1992: 747). Such notions are reinforced through various social institutions such as religion where the Bible states during the creation of the first man and woman that “It is not good that man should be alone, I will make him a helper comparable to him” and further on “God took one of Adam’s ribs, Then the rib which He had taken from the man he made into a woman and He brought her to the man. And Adam said: She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man” (Bible NKJV, Gen:2 vs 23). Clearly the woman is set up to be less than a man in an almost infantile way because just as children come out of a mother, so the woman came out of the man. Social norms dictate that men are the head and women are the tail.
Admittedly, as a result of the various feminist movements the media has included a larger variety of ways in which women can be portrayed but behaviors are still very much associated with the different sexes. Pop Artist Christina Aguilera highlights the problem with the inequality in her song ‘Hold Us Down’: “The guy gets all the glory the more he can score, while the girl can do the same but yet you call her a whore. I don’t understand why it’s ok the guy can get away with it, the girl gets named” (Christina Aguilera: 2007). Through these lyrics the double standard of society that has endured despite the progress of ostensible equality and social change enforced through government policy is highlighted. Despite all the rights that are afforded to women there are still social pressures that stem from the cultural backgrounds pertaining to the way a woman should present herself and interact with men. It is my opinion that the various social institutions have and continue to cultivate an approval addiction mentality in women. Even though so much is happening on paper through policy etc the minds of people in society have not been emancipated from the bondage of categorizing women and men into spaces where certain things are assigned to each, never being able to intersect. These behavioral exhibitions then become cultural markers of the different sexes and get incorporated in the social construction of gender and what it means to be either of the sexes. This is also true in the reverse i.e. the behaviors could stand independently of sex and come to mean a particular gender which is what happens when for example drag queens appropriate female performance of femininity and vice versa.
Social deviance from what we are taught is attributed to the different sex’s results in conflicts both internally and externally. Seemingly men feel emasculated by women who behave the same way as they do sexually, however interestingly women are not especially threatened by men who behave like them in any way. Which is why the media and consumption are constructed in such a way as to capitalize on the male gaze which according to Watkins and Emerson “socializes women into identification and compliance with the very patriarchal values and ideologies that reproduce their marginalized status” (2000: 156). Rather than equalizing the social status quo what we see happening is women being marginalized even further by having equality added to their load of being nurturers and being responsible for continuing the human race through child baring. Instead of easing their burden women are now faced with having extremely complicated social responsibilities where they have to perform various forms of femininity depending on the role in which they find themselves. Another issue which society does not adequately address is that of the various forms of gender performance. In the case of men new categories have emerged such as the metro sexual which is defined as a straight man with style. These categories are necessary to maintain social order in that they provide people with what German Sociologist, Alfred Schurz, described as social recipes i.e. ways in which to interact with these people. This simultaneously creates a social environment which can accurately discriminate against them because of the fact that they can be categorized as not being a part of mainstream heterosexual society (subgroup) which is the social standard.
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Go to Jail, do not pass begin, do not collect $200 go straight to jail
The internet is according to Winokur “A site of cultural political and ideological contestation”. The internet is a foreshadowing of the post structural society it is intangible but real and constitutes individuals ability to determine their interactions. Panopticism belongs to the theory of post structuralism because of the apparent control it exerts through not having to actually control. The panopticon was originally a prison structural design which was centrifugal in that all power was centralized and then transferred to the prisoners to use on themselves. The central tower was positioned in such a way that it over looked the entire prison complex and every cell was visible to the ostensible guard. Each prison cell was exactly the same to semantically put across that all the inhabitants were the same. The guard was not always in the tower but the prison mates never really knew if he was there or not or when. The result was that whether or not he was there the prisoners regulated themselves at all times because of the possibility of being seen in the wrong.
The internet is explained and set up in such a way that it should be have an anarchical political structure but instead it is referred to by theorists an electric panopticon. Questions arise such as who the authorities in the panopticon are, why they are regulating, what are the consequences of their regulation and what the punitive measure are for those found to be wanting? The most important question is perhaps where is the line drawn between spying and regulation? To answer the question of authority Manovich asserts that “the internet and then the culture into which it is embedded belong to whoever writes the code and codec.” This is contestable because that would mean that the internet has multiple owners all of whom have conflicting interests. Additionally, the fact that the internet has now become a site for the operations of capitalism by companies partially answers the question. However due to the decentralized nature of the internet I think it is impossible to conclude that anyone owns the internet. It is a space in which at any point the usage of it can change depending on need. In the case of facebook we find that the user and consumer becomes the producer of content changing the flow of any kind of organizational structure. The internet has numerous spaces and depending on the space the roles of individuals and companies change. According to Winokur “Both panopticism and the Internet construct space with a special attention to the subject's internalizing a particular model of space, and a particular notion of how people are distributed throughout space in relation to one another.”
The use of the current power structure is controlled by unknown powers “Slovaj Zizek refers to the fiction of authority as the “radical uncertainty” (Winokur: 2003) within the internet prescribes uniformity to the netizen for the exploitation of capitalists. Just like in an actual prison cell the advent of internet supporting technologies such as smart technology compartmentalize individuals and hence “Each person inhabits his or her own prison cell. The uniformity that the ‘authorities’ have promulgated was geared towards consumerism and has lead to dependency of the technology because of the importance attached to its reach.
In terms of cultural production in the form of music the issue of control on the internet becomes very important. Constant file sharing between users of musical files leads to loss of revenue to the music labels and the musicians. The Recording Industry of America Association is currently suing the very people who listen to music made in the U.S. by recording labels for piracy and stealing. Copywriting has become the method of control of content generated from music labels. This presents situation where the private property of the musician and the record label being distributed on the public sphere of the net. I feel that the quote by Thomas Mare in his book Utopia best describes the situation “What else is to be concluded except that you first create thieves and then punish them for it”. The music industry creates the market and demand for their cultural good and then makes it inaccessible through pricing and then when people exercise their autonomy to be a participative individual in cyberia and engage in music file sharing, the labels sue the same people they want to be their customers. The object of the law suit is to ban peer to peer networking. The RIAA has a software program called Digital Rights Media, DRM, which encrypts the end product and restricts the ability to dupiplicate their product forcing people to purchase the product. In my opinion I think that it makes no sense to then release a ‘private’ product in a space that has the main objective of sharing and then force people to purchase it. If musicians and music labels do not want their music shared freely then they should not release it into a medium that is predominantly defined by liberation of most international, political and economic barriers.
RIAA vs. Limewire
Historically music was an art form but technological innovations such as the synthesizer has changed the landscape of music completely to the point it is made in order to be supported by technological equipment such as iPods which in turn feed into the capitalist machine through the purchasing of said songs from the is tore. In concurrence with Kembrew McLeod, before the internet piracy existed in the form of taping from home and both the music and video industry survived these eras through the invention of new technology that enhanced the music listening or film watching experience such as 3D and Blue Ray. The entertainment industry can survive internet file sharing as well without their current attempts at punitive measures. The question I have is, are they run out of innovative ideas to make the consumer want to spend money on the product or have they gotten to comfortable to be concerned with evolving with the times?
The internet is explained and set up in such a way that it should be have an anarchical political structure but instead it is referred to by theorists an electric panopticon. Questions arise such as who the authorities in the panopticon are, why they are regulating, what are the consequences of their regulation and what the punitive measure are for those found to be wanting? The most important question is perhaps where is the line drawn between spying and regulation? To answer the question of authority Manovich asserts that “the internet and then the culture into which it is embedded belong to whoever writes the code and codec.” This is contestable because that would mean that the internet has multiple owners all of whom have conflicting interests. Additionally, the fact that the internet has now become a site for the operations of capitalism by companies partially answers the question. However due to the decentralized nature of the internet I think it is impossible to conclude that anyone owns the internet. It is a space in which at any point the usage of it can change depending on need. In the case of facebook we find that the user and consumer becomes the producer of content changing the flow of any kind of organizational structure. The internet has numerous spaces and depending on the space the roles of individuals and companies change. According to Winokur “Both panopticism and the Internet construct space with a special attention to the subject's internalizing a particular model of space, and a particular notion of how people are distributed throughout space in relation to one another.”
The use of the current power structure is controlled by unknown powers “Slovaj Zizek refers to the fiction of authority as the “radical uncertainty” (Winokur: 2003) within the internet prescribes uniformity to the netizen for the exploitation of capitalists. Just like in an actual prison cell the advent of internet supporting technologies such as smart technology compartmentalize individuals and hence “Each person inhabits his or her own prison cell. The uniformity that the ‘authorities’ have promulgated was geared towards consumerism and has lead to dependency of the technology because of the importance attached to its reach.
In terms of cultural production in the form of music the issue of control on the internet becomes very important. Constant file sharing between users of musical files leads to loss of revenue to the music labels and the musicians. The Recording Industry of America Association is currently suing the very people who listen to music made in the U.S. by recording labels for piracy and stealing. Copywriting has become the method of control of content generated from music labels. This presents situation where the private property of the musician and the record label being distributed on the public sphere of the net. I feel that the quote by Thomas Mare in his book Utopia best describes the situation “What else is to be concluded except that you first create thieves and then punish them for it”. The music industry creates the market and demand for their cultural good and then makes it inaccessible through pricing and then when people exercise their autonomy to be a participative individual in cyberia and engage in music file sharing, the labels sue the same people they want to be their customers. The object of the law suit is to ban peer to peer networking. The RIAA has a software program called Digital Rights Media, DRM, which encrypts the end product and restricts the ability to dupiplicate their product forcing people to purchase the product. In my opinion I think that it makes no sense to then release a ‘private’ product in a space that has the main objective of sharing and then force people to purchase it. If musicians and music labels do not want their music shared freely then they should not release it into a medium that is predominantly defined by liberation of most international, political and economic barriers.
RIAA vs. Limewire
Historically music was an art form but technological innovations such as the synthesizer has changed the landscape of music completely to the point it is made in order to be supported by technological equipment such as iPods which in turn feed into the capitalist machine through the purchasing of said songs from the is tore. In concurrence with Kembrew McLeod, before the internet piracy existed in the form of taping from home and both the music and video industry survived these eras through the invention of new technology that enhanced the music listening or film watching experience such as 3D and Blue Ray. The entertainment industry can survive internet file sharing as well without their current attempts at punitive measures. The question I have is, are they run out of innovative ideas to make the consumer want to spend money on the product or have they gotten to comfortable to be concerned with evolving with the times?
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