over-sexualisation of (western?) society a large part of the reason for female oppression?

[rogueantimatter]

I have read very little feminist literature! So I accept that I am ignorant compared to many well-read posters on this board. I'd love to hear your opinions of my impression/home-spun theory.

It seems that western societies have more male/female equality than in other societies; eg, suffrage, job opportunities etc (I know we still have a way to go) But in other respects women are respected less? What I mean is, women are judged more on their appearance and expected to spend a ridiculously huge amount of time on making themselves fit the perceived model of sexual attractiveness and availability to men.

Now we're in a huge muddle - women are expected to (appear to) be sexually available, but men seem to be frightened of women's sexuality and slam women for 'dressing sluttily,' 'asking for it', make misogynistic porn etc. And the very reason for attracting a mate (from a biological perspective): having babies, though arguably fetishized - look at the pressures to be a perfect parent giving children a perfect childhood - is undervalued. New mums are isolated as never before - left to get on with it by themselves yet still expected to look good and work too!

I realise this is simplistic, but more and more I wonder if the solution to harmful attitudes to women is to massively reduce the cultural over-emphasis on sex. How we'd do this I don't know; clothes, perfume, beauty products/treatments, glamorous cars/drinks, attractive (frequently pornographic) pop stars are exploited for commercial gain. A huge force to counter. How we'd reduce the availability of porn I don't know either.

If we worked to promote qualities other than sexual attractiveness we'd all benefit surely. (also elderly people - no longer seen as wise, now seen as knowing nothing relevant due to being old and 'past it').

I know that many feminists work hard to reduce the perception of women-as-sex-objects, eg NMP3 (I bought and wear the t-shirt). But how can we encourage reproduction and child-rearing (for want of a better expression) to be more valued? And for women to be respected as individual people with valuable skills and qualities in the same way that men are, regardless of the ability to reproduce in a positive way? IYSWIM. Rather than being perceived to be attacking cultural norms to promote alternative values.

Do you think I'm right that over-sexualisation is now responsible for the male/female unfairness in our 'society'?

If you look at the numbers on Google of world searches, porn peeked at June 2013. The numbers continue to be around this area to this day. If June 2013 was "100", then January 2004 was 25. In other words searches for porn are 4 times greater in the world than January 2004. We are looking at an epidemic for our world society here. What does this do?

Generally porn simply makes women sexual objects. They become something to "have". I agree with your observation that there is over sexualization right now. That means many women spend lots of their time looking pretty, exercising, and attempting to basically look like porn stars.

I worry what porn will do to the younger generation who has such increased access that previous generations didn't have. Cell phones, ipads, and such are making porn extremely available and I forecast that the use of porn will be more available to the younger generation.

You have to wonder why many women take their lessons on beauty or "sexiness" from porn stars.

After all, what intelligent woman would want to hook up with boys/men who spend their time dribbling over their keyboards? These sorts of boys/men are locked into eternal adolescence.

Porn stars/pop stars; there's sometimes little difference.

Thefitfatty

Thank you for your info about Qatar and UAE. I would love to have spent forty days with my mum when I was a new mum. I needed practical and emotional support but I take your point that the absence of health professionals can lead to unhelpful advice.

It seems to me that many patriarchal cultures fear female sexuality. I wonder why that is.

I disagree with Jeanne that women aren't over sexualized. Women are positioned as the sex class. Here to adorn men.

I think we are talking cross-purposes.

I agree women are positioned as the sex class.

But, to me, that's not to do with women's sexuality at all.

Over the past fifty years, there have been some advances in seeing women's sexuality as a genuine, real thing. There's been some recognition that women might enjoy sex. There's been some recognition that women don't owe men sex, even in marriage. There's been acknowledgement of equal marriage. There's been some legislation against FGM. To me, those things have to do with women's sexuality. I don't think they are evidence women - or society - is 'over sexualised'.

I'd worry that, if we say that emphasis on sexuality is the problem here, we'd also censor those positive changes.

I thought this was an interesting piece of art. It's an image of veiled woman but the image is made up of pornographic stills.
Two sides of the same coin as already mentioned.

Sex has become a way to sell us stuff. And the 24/7 nature of social media and the telly mean that it's in the faces of women (and men).

The problem (as I see it) isn't women enjoying sex, wanting it or wanting to express their sexuality, it's the over emphasis on sex(iness) and/or our physical appearance.

If it was less culturally dominant perhaps women would be taken a bit more seriously, less likely to be labelled as either sexy or not sexy and less judged by how physically attractive we are (or aren't)

I assume it's normal for teenagers to be pre-occupied with sex/looking 'good' (ie sexually available) but it's now depressingly 'normal' for older women to feel the need to waste invest a shedload of time on trying to look 'sexy'. We should be respected for our actions and personal qualities not just written off as 'not sexy' and therefore not worth bothering about, or dangerous, unpleasant radicals 'aggressively' refusing to conform to societal norms. Eg by wearing comfortable clothes.

The prevalence of misogynistic porn and constant advertising of beauty products (etc) must fuel the attitude that women ought to be sexually available to men.

the image is made up of pornographic stills Women wearing burkas in porn?

Ahh right. Yes I agree it's not all about women's sexuality (although I think women's sexuality gets defined by men partly through objectification).

I took 'over-sexualised' as meaning that women are constantly being portrayed sexually in a way men aren't. And there is this expectation that women are there for men's sexual pleasure. I thing there is quite a lot of evidence that this isn't getting any better and in some respects getting worse. Porn has been mentioned which is undoubtedly more readily available and more of how men define women's sexuality.

I think the proliferation of things like porn is a patriarchal counter move to those acknowledgements of female sexuality you've mentioned.

From the Saatchi gallery regarding the image of burka woman -

Rana depicts an anonymous figure dressed in a burqa. Upon further inspection, the work is actually a fragmented collage made-up of thousands of small, unfocused pornographic stills of women. By using both these representations of gender in a rigid manner, Rana is effectively destroying them both, forcing the viewer to look beyond them and critique the so-called machinery of truth from which they are born.

Sorry that was to Jeanne (it took me rather a long time to write it!)

rogue - ok, I agree, if sexiness weren't the primary criterion for judging women, it might help.

But I am still uncomfortable with this.

If we lived in a decent society, women would be taken seriously no matter how we dressed, and no matter how much men treated us as sex objects. It ought to be that men who treat women as sex objects are seen as abnormal. To emphasise women's roles here is wrong.

Gah, sorry scallops, cross post.

I agree with you.

Yes I agree emphasising women's roles is not what needs to be done.

Male attitudes need to be challenged - is that what you mean.

It's not women's behaviour I have the problem with. It's the pressure that our culture puts on so many women to try to be 'sexy' (or at the very least, more groomed than we've ever been) and as you say the fact of men treating women as sex objects.

Thank you for the burka porn-stills pictures.

Sorry for being so unclear.

Yes, male attitudes need to change.

To a certain extent, both women and men are victims of a culture in which there is too much emphasis on sex and physical appearance. It can't be good for our relationships.

How to change our culture into a more positive one though? What should replace the emphasis on beauty, appearance, sex....? Part of the problem is presumable with capitalism?

Absolutely, that is what I mean. Male attitudes need to change.

Sorry for being unclear.

Ok cool! Sorry it might have been me being a bit dim last night and needing things spelt out in words of no more than one syllable. I was a bit shatterered!

This is going to sound a bit flippant, but in Scandinavian countries their attitude to nudity is more relaxed. Eg in swimming pools you get unisex showers that everyone can see in plain view, and it's normal to be naked when showering.

Skinny dipping is normal fun behaviour, not taboo.

Our society's attitude to nudity especially female toplessness seems precribed by male sexuality-ownership.

The Burka/Porn image is powerful.

Exactly, scallops and Jeanne, why aren't men called hypocritical when they want us to cover up then they want us to get yer tits out. There is unbalanced emphasis on a woman's behaviour.

Rogueantimatter, capitalism and profiteering generally works whereby you make someone feel like crap or you make them scared, so that they fork out money to buy rubbish.

Society judges women more harshly and to a bizarre standard whereby we have to look polished and unnatural and also be oh so happy about everything especially unwanted attention and missing out on promotion...

This makes women an easy target for capitalist mechanism.

Do you blame capitalism itself or society?

Sorry changing the first para to
*The advertising industry generally works whereby

(not capitalism)

Capitalism itself is not misogynistic but the advertising industry is undoubtedly because it targets people's vulnerability.

Do you blame capitalism or society?

That's a good question.

Anyone remember the Jasper Carrot sketch about advertising beauty products:

"Offensive Smelling Ear Wax?" viewer looks shocked, sticks fingers in his ear and smells them, looks doubtful (does his earwax smell offensive?)

"Never fear" continues the man on the telly, "Two drops of 'Waxaway' will give you all-day reassurance". Viewer looks reassured.

When those L'Oreal "Because you're worth it" ads come on I can never resist shouting, "I'm worth so much MORE than wasting my time and money worrying about the 56 signs of ageing" (or whatever)

Why do men want to own/be in charge of everything?

Why the fear of (presumably their own reaction) to sexually attractive women? Do men have some subconscious shame relating to sex too? Does feeling sexually attracted to a woman make them feel vulnerable? ????

Interesting questions, rogue. Personally, I don't think much of this is even about sex at all. We are constantly bombarded with images of what corporate culture has decided is "sexy", with very little regard for what people actually look like or what they are personally attracted to. I believe that the set of signs that constitute "sexy" are more about power and the status quo than about actual desire.

I think that the main message men get from a woman dressing up to look conventionally attractive is, "I have done the work, bought the products, gone to all this trouble to look good for you." And therefore many men see this as confirmation of their view that it's a woman's job to look good for a man, you're complying with this, he's your boss and all's well with the world.

But on another level, the message is also, "I am complying with what our culture says an attractive woman should look like - for men in general. But not for you personally." And this creates anxiety, this suggests that a man's individual needs and desires are not being taken into account, that this performance (as he sees it) is not explicitly for him but for men in general. And that calls the whole narrative of romance and sexual attraction, which is supposed to be about individuality, into question.

And so you have two conflicting messages "You're the boss" vs "Not you in particular, though" with two conflicting responses, satisfaction and anxiety. And the response to this anxiety is frequently aggression.

Ooh. How interesting thank you for your post.

Conformity innit? A woman who doesn't conform (by wearing 'sensible' shoes for example) is threatening/annoying/unlikeable to a man because she's not going to do what she's told, she's thoughtful and she's not a man? From a male pov, she's not one of 'us' (not like me) and she looks like trouble....?

Do men have a problem with a sense of entitlement coupled with anxiety about their own adequacy then? Do they (mis-interpret) non-conformist women and 'sexually available' women as somehow acting aggressively? Why do they think it's all about them anyway?

Are we in a muddle now that men's superior strength is no longer as valuable as it presumably was when we were less technologically advanced - men resent the fact that women can do something they can't (have babies) whereas their superior qualities now have little value? Is this why women get almost no (proper, practical) support with babies - because men are in a sulk/feel guilty/inferior/uninterested but can't admit it?

It seems to me that most men are too selfish to take much of a (really useful) part in caring for (let's face it, anyone, not just babies. I'm thinking of men's refusal to pull their weight with the domestic stuff involved in looking after children, sick people etc) Why are (so many) men apparently more selfish than women despite the progress we've made with gender equality? (I often think how excessive men's hobbies are compared with women's. 18 holes of golf - takes the whole day, the excesses of football - very bad behaviour on and off the pitch and dominates sport, ) Why do men sulk if they aren't dominating?