Women's Actions Toward Media Matter

I agree with Susan Douglas, author of the book "Enlightened Sexism" (2010), that the new form of prolific media sexism is harmful to women and that we need to change it. But I continually have the sense, when I read feminist points of view, that somehow societal change with respects to media depictions of women is somehow just suppose to 'happen' for us, simply because it's not right the way it is.

The answer for how to solve the problem is usually left unsuggested, but I believe the answer is simple. Women can produce and create TV shows too. The people who dream up shows like the Bachelor, Jersey Shore, Real Housewives, all that reality crap, are probably all men. Men don’t necessarily go “get hired” in those professions, they just go create a show and work hard to get it on TV. I know a couple of 22 year old young men who have been in LA for one year and are already producing their own animations for clients and are writing scripts for Disney. They are “just doing it”. They are not sitting around wishing society would make animations and scripts like the ones they want to see.

Ok, so that is point one: If we don’t like the content on TV and in films, we can create and contribute to different content.

Point two: none of us can stop a girl from taking off her clothes in a film and doing sex scenes as directed by a crew. But any woman who doesn’t like this phenomenon in media (like me) can do one really powerful thing: NOT WATCH; and don’t be the actress in that film. We can also even go one step further if we are really offended by something: we can refuse to buy products that advertise on shows that offend us. Like, for example, the new sitcoms on TV, “The Bitch in Apt 23” and “Good Christian Bitches,” which are actual titles of two shows that ABC launched and currently air (now under the names "The B---- in Apt 23" and "GCB"). I think every woman in America should boycott those shows, maybe even the entire ABC network, AND all the advertisers that advertise on those shows. If we did all that, those two shows would be off the air tomorrow.

I have walked out of countless films, even at the end sometimes, and have always gotten my money back if the reason was because I was offended by the graphic sexuality and/or sexual violence and/or derogation to women. I walked out of “Just Go with It” (PG–13) because there were so many eight-year-old boys in the theater with their eyes literally popping out of their heads at the shocking scenes of breast exams and a woman with giant breast implants that had one that "popped," leaving her grotesquely disfigured (in her clothes), and which was a humiliating laugh-point in the film. I was highly offended just by the images I was witnessing on the screen, as an adult movie-ticket-buying woman. Seeing the young boys witnessing it was more than I could handle, so I got my money back and complained to the theater manager about all the kids in there, although there was nothing he could do, of course, since they were with adults.

The point is, if you don’t like the scene, make your own scene and don’t just acquiesce to the current situation. This is how men accomplish everything. Women have a tendency to want to have someone else do it for us. We are like the “idea person,” which is great, but ideas without action are generally non-effective at producing change.

For example, I understand that many actresses are true artists and that being true to the art of drama is important to them, which can include performing nudity and sex scenes. But I also believe that when countless actresses and models are always willing to be fully manipulated by “someone else’s vision”(often a man's), they end up propagating these narrow images of women over and over, which is a form of complicity to the problem. Women today have to live in a world full of nearly continuous female sexualization across multiple channels of media (from games and comics to TV, Film and Internet porn) and very narrow depictions defining "what women are" which, in my opinion, is a violation of women's rights. We are bombarded with this stuff whether we like it or not. Why do women have to be subjected to female nudity and naked breast over and over again in media when men never have to be confronted with size and shape and sexuality of naked penises? Why is there no male erotica channel on late night TV for women?

There are always going to be people willing to take their clothes off for money, not just women. Being naked is fun, especially if you have a hot body. And young people are broke and need the money, and are into exploring new experiences and their own sexuality. So yeah, there will always be nudity and sexuality in entertainment, art and film. But must it be so predominantly female? We need balance because otherwise women are just the sex objects acquiescing to male power and male sexual interests. Women can drive this balance by speaking out that we are not happy with the overt imbalance and taking actions that make people take note of our attitude.

We can also stop watching the TV show "The Bachelor." I can’t stand that show and it kills me that women seem to watch it in droves. Same with Dancing with the Stars. And a bunch of other TV shows that stereotype women as sex vixens, emotionally petty girls and little else. In other words, if you don’t like the stereotype, then don’t support it by watching it. It has largely been female audiences that have made both “The Bachelor” and “DWTS” hit shows for the past 11 years or so, which kinda speaks volumes that women do identify with those images of women and are not offended by it. That is another example of complicit participation by women to the current media climate we are facing.

I’d love to see a show on TV about women who have started their own international organizations, depicting the daily struggles and rewards they go through making their vision and service become reality. I went to a presentation recently and heard two women speak, both of whom started their own non-profit organizations when they were in their 20s and now do international work that is making incredible opportunities for empowering women and people in third world countries. And I tell you, those women were nothing at all like the bimbos on the Bachelor or the sleazy, naked girls on Dancing with the Stars.

I have spent my entire life proving and demonstrating that you can be hot, sexy, attractive and feminine without over-sexualizing and over revealing yourself in the fashions you wear. In my case, the result was that I developed a unique fashion style all my own, one that many men commented on in appreciation over the years. I have proven and demonstrated over and over again that women can truly make choices –just about every day – to not participate in the propagation of the current myth about femininity; that is, the myth shown repeatedly on TV that we are all bitches and whores and strippers but it’s ok because we do it all in fun, kinda like all that girl-on-girl play for the cameras even though we may or may not really be bisexual.

We do not have to accept that the only porn on late night TV channels is male-fantasy porn, and most often just girl-on-girl porn, because that is supposedly “soft core,” - which, by the way, happens to be total bullshit. It’s lesbian sex and it’s for men’s erotic pleasures, not women’s, and it’s ubiquity is offensive as hell. Even the titles and descriptions of the shows are offensive (and inappropriate for teenage boys to view on the channel guide, even if the show itself is blocked to their access).

A group of women could organize and start a cable/satellite channel called MEN and just run hot videos of men all day long. We do not have to keep "just accepting" the way things are in media. I walked out of the movie “Adaptation” as soon as the girl in Nicolas Cage’s dream unzipped her shirt all the way to reveal two large naked breasts. But before I left I made a loud comment so that everyone around me could hear too. I said, “Yeah, where’s the penis? Show us your naked Penis” or something to that effect. I basically let it be known that I am sick and tired of naked breasts in films when they seldom to never show naked penises. And they don’t even show erections through sweat pants or underwear in R–rated films! Erections are a huge part of humanity, on a daily basis, just like breasts. But they are all but disappeared from the world of film.

In conclusion, women need to take a stand and have an opinion about female media depictions and the drivel they try to sell us all about what makes women female and desirable. It has been my experience that the vast majority of girls ages 20 to 40 don’t even really have an opinion on this stuff, or if they do, they don’t really want to talk about it. I have tried initiating discussion. Even a group of feminists I met with recently shook off that topic as quickly as possible so they could get back to talking about keeping abortion legal, a new bill in Michigan they were bummed about, something else having to do with Planned Parenthood, etc. In spite of those worthy feminist issues, depictions of women in media are one of the biggest threats facing women today. It affects our quality of life, our self-esteem, our relationships with men, marriages, domestic and sexual violence towards women, and prevailing (often false) attitudes men hold about women.

If women continue to passively participate in the current sexual status quo of women on TV and in film–and by passive I mean not boycotting it, still watching it, and not talking or writing about it publicly–then we can’t really sit around and expect anything to change. Yet if suddenly every woman in America refused to attend any film that shows women’s naked breast and no penises, do you know how fast film companies would stop showing naked breasts with no penises in films? Films MUST be foreseeably profitable or they won’t get made. That’s the plan, typically. Women have huge economic buying power.

In "The Beauty Myth" (1991), by Naomi Wolf, she mentions this point precisely and takes it one step further. She articulates how the marketing machine that caters to women–and the products/services they buy – is a multi–billion dollar industry and is a significant portion of the overall GNP of the United States! So yeah, if women get ticked off about something and hold back our support – by not paying, by not watching, by boycotting related advertisers – we can move mountains as far as changing popular media culture, I guarantee it.

Many of the feminist sociological commentaries that have been published since the 50s and up through today have noted that oversexualization and narrow depictions of women in media does exist. But what’s been missing from all the feminist arguments is the notion that we can change it through our own actions. It is inaction that is the devil. It makes us look stupid, like we don’t know or care what’s going on.