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| Spot the commodity. Clue: It's not the scantily dressed female in a provocative pose. |
The girl sitting opposite
frowns in thought, her caked make up creasing as she plays with her bleached
hair. “No, I’m not a feminist.” She
answers eventually. “I don’t hate men or
anything.”
Incredibly, this
statement is surprisingly common. Top other answers consisted of the
following; ‘Do I look like a lesbian?’
‘I don’t dress that badly do I?’ and
my personal favourite, ‘No, I have a
boyfriend. In the last decade, we
seem to have sunk back miserably into crop-topped date-rape acceptance. Gone
are the bra burnings, female pride shirts and sexless music videos.
Okay, maybe we aren’t wearing
corsets and darning socks. But the new sexism, the ‘in’ sexism of the seasons
is perhaps more aggressive than ever. This is the age of twerking, sexist
lyrics and hideous memes. What a delightful world
this is to be a 17 year old girl. I come home from school, or work, open my
laptop and am exposed to a whole crowd of lovely misogynist links. ‘How to tell if a girl is a slut’. ‘Hot
girls before they got fat.’ ‘How to tell if your gf’s a virgin…’
This is incredibly
disturbing to me. I want to be judged on my character, not my bra size and how
good I look in a bikini. If I choose to get close to a girl or boy, maybe it’s
because I’m a hormonal teenager, just like you, dear young gentlemen, rather
than a ‘slut’ as you so nicely label us. Also, virginity is such a
bizarrely constructed idea I believe you should look into the origins of these
beliefs before passing judgment. If I hear that ‘lock and key’ metaphor one
more time in reference to sexual behaviour I might well be driving the speaker
to A&E.
You want to know why
virginity is so preciously viewed? It’s alarmingly simple. If you were getting
married in your desert tribe or cave, you wanted to know the offspring of your
wife, that you were feeding and teaching to throw spears, was actually yours. What’s
the best way in Pre-Contraception World to ensure it’s yours? Marry a virgin!
Of course there is an
emotion attachment to sex. I’m not arguing there shouldn’t be. But even our
language is engineered to be derogatory towards a woman’s sexuality.
Pejoratives for a promiscuous female all focus on her as a statual noun- ‘slut’
literally means unclean. ‘Bitch’ dehumanized women to a sexually frustrated
animal, that of a dog. Which is also subservient, not all too surprisingly. ‘Whore.’
To sell yourself for money. Connotations of greed.
Where does all this stem
from? The answer is, once again, tradition. Women were viewed as inherently sinful,
ever since the Bible story of ‘The Fall.’
So it isn’t exactly a huge leap to view all female sexuality, from these beliefs,
as inherently and objectively wrong and potentially harmful.
What about male sexual
pejoratives? ‘Player.’ Focuses on behaviour, not self. Connotations of games,
playing, teasing. Men, in the ancient world, didn’t carry the aftermath of sex-
illegitimate children, childbirth, and potential death. So why view male
sexuality as wrong? It was irrelevant.
So no,
sexism is nothing new. But it doesn’t mean it’s right, or acceptable. Women are
our mothers, our sisters, our friends and our family. So the next time you
watch a music video with the latest starlet clinging desperately to recognition,
remember she’s a person, same as you.
Top Three Misogynists of the Year
· · ·
11. The appropriately named Robin Thicke. This
crusading patriarchal hero delighted misogynists across the world by releasing
his new single ‘Blurred Lines’. Yes
Mr Thicke. Of course we want it. Perhaps a better title would be ‘Date Rape Forever?’
22.David Cameron. No, I’m not just an angry Lib
Dem. He sure knows how to sweet talk his fellow honourable ladies. Top quotes? ‘Calm down dear.’ And ‘the blonde’ in reference to the Danish
Prime Minister. And let’s not go into Bullingdon. Way to go, Dave.
3.Georg Baselitz certainly
didn’t draw a smile on female artist’s lips this summer, stating ‘women don’t
paint very well, it’s a fact.’ I’d like to know where he got those statistics.
