by K
Amy Richards, co founder of the Third Wave organization, in an interview on Talk of The Nation, defined the word feminism as “the movement that ensures that each individual has enough information to make informed choices about their lives”. The feminist movement isn’t about forcing someone into making a certain decision in their life but wanting everyone to have the kind of information they need to make a well informed choice, whether it is about abortion or being a stay at home mother. The word feminist has changed over the years for women everywhere, it no longer has the same meaning that the founders of feminism, Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan, had in mind. To some, feminism has no relevance to today, they believe that women are now fully empowered and liberated from suffrage and that feminism is no longer needed. So, has the feminist movement died or has our definition of liberation and empowerment changed from what it meant in the sixties?
In today’s society, we live in a world where when you turn on the TV you see young females cheering while taking off their shirts for Girls Gone Wild, lining up to work at bars like Hooters, or while walking down the street we are seeing girls wearing the bunny logo. What happened to the time where females were fighting for their right to vote, getting birth control approved, getting Congress to pass the Equal Pay Act that would make sure that women would get paid the same as a man for doing the same job, and winning the fight to legalize abortion? It wasn’t that long ago that the feminist movement was happening across the country, but we’ve gotten to a point in our society where our definition of what empowerment and liberation is has changed to much, that we need to sit back and realize that we haven’t come that far.
Sex and the City depicts a new kind of feminism, one that is so far from what feminism was supposed to be about. This type of feminism is all about the new liberated woman, the type of woman a lot of young females idolize. This kind of woman get what she wants in life by doing whatever she has to, is unapologetically selfish, irreverent, is independently wealthy, sleeps with as many strangers as she can, and wears six inch heels. In this scenario the woman is the epitome of what the stereotypcial male fantasy is; this is why it appeals to so many women today. Sex and the City targets the kind of women whose desire is to be every male’s fantasy, and becoming this fantasy has some major benefits; you get some serious power and control. Power is something that many women strive for whether it is through their career or spinning on a pole, it is something that women have little access to and will do almost anything to gain.
The women who strive for the kind of false empowerment shown on television not only send the wrong message to the world about how women are supposed to act, and sabotaging other women’s efforts to make the world a safer and better place for women, but are also giving young boys a distorted image of what to expect from the women in their lives.
In the book Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, the author, Ariel Levy, compares women objectifying themselves with the story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. In the story written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author talks about the issue of race and slavery in our world. In the novel, there were characters who, to achieve success and acceptance in the world “acted white”. The character Tom, who is a slave, fully accepts being a slave and the oppression that rbings. Because Tom accepts his situation and there is no chance that he will run away, he doesn’t need to be shackled and has gained the trust of his master. From the society Tom has grown up in since he was a child, he has come to believe that he is actually property, an object that his owner can do whatever he sees fit. This idea is so entrenched into his being that the idea of running away would be like robbing his owner. Tom doesn’t just accept his oppression, but continuously tries to gain his oppressors love and affection, thus conforming to what his master’s idea is of what he represents.
There are definite parallels that can be drawn from this story and the issue of women acting like men and trying to gain favour with men. Ariel Levy explained how, like in the story of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, women consistently try to act in the way men feel that they should, either to get ahead in thw world or they have completely internalized the idea that this is where they beling and this is how they should act. To do this women will do one of two things, they will either “act like a man”, making derogatory comments about a woman’s body, and bragging about who is more of a man or women. Another way women could act is, acting like the stereotypical woman, having huge breasts and dressing scantily clad. These are the reasons why it is not surprising to find out that a woman is the CEO of Playboy and that Cosmopolitan magazine is written by and for women.
Women are always performing for men to prove themselves in a world where they are told that their only value is in their appearance. If women only knew that empowerment means knowing that each of us are more than adequate in all so many aspects of our lives, and that we don’t need someone elses approval, to realize this we would all be happier, and knowing this is real empowerment, not going to a strip cardio class or getting implants.
Sex, Drugs, and Feminism 