The other day in lecture we were speaking about the election. My teacher was mentioning the historic significance and the fact that, though it is an amazing stride in the right direction, we would be naiive to think that race relations are going to be perfectly smooth all over the country or that racism doesn't exist anymore.
However, I'm getting to my p
oint in a very roundabout way. It's important to realize that, even in actions that seem like huge, positive societal changes, there are still damaging aspects. The feminine/sexual revolution is one of these instan
ces.
Women became more aware and educated. Contraception became widely available. Women achieved much progress including the eventual right to vote and (we're still workin on....) job equality. However; my professor mentioned something I never considered:
This time period also brought us Twiggy. My professor left it simply at that and told us to think about it. Well, I thought all right. What's the deal? Once we're able to safely have sex we become commodities? Now that women are able to sexually declare independence, body image and appearance become important. We were forced to appeal to men now that the emphasis changed from house and home to freer demonstrations of love.
Or is it predominately a control issue? It seems that as soon as women felt they had the ability to assert themselves in the sexual aspect of their life, all of a sudden appearance thrust it's way to the forefront. Women are able to be strong in their personal and political lives: love, vote, work- now this sense of perfection pervades the physical as well and we assert control over out bodies. Since we all have the opportunities to show our power in these non-physical ways, it seems as if it has become a competition or show of strength assert will power through physical appearance. Women now show how strong they are through their fitness/lack thereof, and I don't know about you, but that seems a bit skewed to me.
I could be rambling and getting this wrong because it's about half past midnight and I've had a long day- but shouldn't us women band together to accept our bodies and find better, more powerful ways to assert our abilities and independence?
How do you show your strength?
2 comments:
Hmmm... Interesting topic. I've had many a conversation about this.
It's great that women have become more empowered, but at the same time, we are still often regarded as sex symbols, commodities, trophies, what have you. This point is interesting because I've often wondered why women like to wear flashy/sexy clothing. Some say they wear it because they can, because it looks good, because it makes them feel sexy and strong. Some say they do it for themselves, and not for the guys. BUT, if it REALLY has nothing to do with guys, why do we show off the body parts guys like to see? And when guys see girls dressed like that, a lot of them immediately start viewing the girl as some'thing' instead of some'one'. I think the whole female/male equality thing still has a long way to go in this country.
Sorry this is getting long, and Im rambling, but it's definitely an interesting topic.
Very thought-provoking!
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