More on the exotification & hypersexualization of black men. Imagine being a black man who has to deal with the fact that most women they encounter are going to impose these ideals on to them and expect nothing more than them to be this hyper-aggressive, sexual object. When you cross cultural lines, gender power structures can definitely work the other way…
Things I come across as I write this essay about how the media constructs/reflects hegemonic gender norms in terms of masculinity…
[click here for link to the second half]
In this update of her pioneering Killing Us Softly series, Jean Kilbourne takes a fresh look at how advertising traffics in distorted and destructive ideals of femininity. Killing Us Softly 4 stands to challenge a new generation of students to take advertising seriously, and to think critically about popular culture and its relationship to sexism, eating disorders, and gender violence.
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Morris / Perceptions of Black Girls in Classrooms
Educators spend more time trying to force young black girls into what they feel is “acceptable” femininity that actually ENGAGING with them about the school work becomes secondary to making sure they are “ladylike” enough.
“no one wants an unladylike, aggressive, self-reliant girl so put down those books and cross your legs”
I watch movies and I don’t care who is the protagonist, I feel what that guy is feeling. You know, if it’s Tom Cruise leaping over a building I, I want to make it, you know? And I’m going to, yes, I made it. And yeah, so I get that.
And I’ve grown up, well, partly because there weren’t great girls’ literature. Nancy Drew maybe. But there weren’t things. So there was Huck Finn and Spin and Marty. The boys’ characters were interesting and you lived through them when you’re watching it. You know, you’re not aware of it but you’re following the action of the film through the body of the protagonist.
You know, you feel what he feels when he jumps, when he leaps, when he wins, when he loses. And I think I just took it for granted that, you know, we can all do that. But it became obvious to me that men don’t live through the female characters.
—
Meryl Streep
“men don’t live through the female characters” - the realities of living in a andro-centric society…
some of these responses by parents during their interview are [while not surprising] fucking bananas:
This father had noted throughout the interview that his five-year-old son tends to show some attributes he considers feminine. At one point, he mentioned that he sometimes wondered if his son might be gay, and he explained his reaction to that possibility in the following terms: “If [he] were to be gay, it would not make me happy at all. I would probably see that as a failure as a dad as a failure because I’m raising him to be a boy, a man” (white, upper middle-class, heterosexual father). This comment suggests that the parent does not view masculinity as something that naturally unfolds but rather as something he feels responsible for crafting, and he explicitly links hetero sexual orientation to the successful accomplishment of masculinity.
father of the year award, anyone?
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Sandra Lipsitz Bern
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Sandra Lipsitz Bern
Asked by Anonymous
interesting question. I’m going to answer this 3 ways
I think what we need to do is first realize that this is a very classed issue [as in, to actually have the funds, resources and freedom determine if and when you will have kids is not a privilege that extends to everyone and all communities]
1] There is a long running critique on the type of feminist theory that demonizes pregnancy & child-rearing. There is one thing to want a safe-space for women who do not desire to have kids. But its another to make it seem as though having children is something HORRIFIC that needs to be avoided at all costs. Not wanting to have kids is fine, but positioning that as the new ideal for ALL women simply does not work. [i’ve also never seen this blog, but i’ve seen critiques - so if anyone has links…]
Specifically there is a critique on the historical way feminists respond to the “woman as body”, mind/body dichotomy. Historically, woman are essentialized to their JUST body [they are child-rearers, weak, restricted by the physical and irrational] & man is seen as mind [rational, strong, able bodied because they are unrestricted by passion and bodily limitations.] Some feminists respond to this dichotomy by rejecting all things associated with the body. HOWEVER, the critique is that instead of buying into the “mind/body” separation and advocating that women reject the body because the body is bad, just reconstruct the distinction. Or do away with the distinction entirely. So what if the female body might be able to rear a child? The womb exists but its not all that exists. Trying to devalue the womb or pretend that it doesn’t exist isn’t necessarily female empowerment, its just buying into the ideology that the womb deserves to be devalued, that having kids is a “lower” bodily function that no one should want.
I don’t know if that directly answers your question, because i’m talking more about feminist theory and not necessarily how race/class intersects - so personal story time.
2] I was in class once reading about women who want big families vs women who don’t want families and instead want to focus on their career. The majority of the class was like “the women who want families don’t exist in real life.” This is a college classroom in upstate NY. Since i’m from Texas, and a lot of my friends who graduated HS with me in 2008 either already have kids or plan on having kids soon… I found it odd that it seemed so despicable and implausible that people STILL desired to have kids. Its almost like they were looked down upon - and even pitied in some cases. [who would choose that life? Why would someone willingly want to do that? what a sad life, she doesn’t know what is out there for her. those women are just ignorant & brainwashed.]
3] Lastly, this could even be related to the whole feminine mystique complex. Where women grow tired of being placed into the “cult of true womanhood,” tired of being seen as the perfect trophy housewives with no real obligations but being a mother and wife. Obviously this trope is a problematic one, but outside of the trope is still a bubble of privilege. Not all women even fit this idealized “housewife” trope for various raced/classed reasons. So yes, its a problem, but its a problem that exists in a particular social context.
But yeah, those are all my thoughts on this - thanks for the question! If my answer is convoluted in anyway just ask me to expand on any points.
Claire Etaugh and Marsha break down the socialization of school children on a number of levels. First they explain that educators “tend to give more negative sanctions to boys than to girls.” They also touch on gendered toys given to schoolchildren, revealing that students are more likely to receive traditionally gendered toys than toys that are gender non-specific (Etaugh, 137). Generally, this study discussed the ways gender is used as a teaching tool to make sense of the classroom and quickly engage students in the material and daily activities.
In a Meta-Analysis of gender and leadership effectiveness, while it was found that male and female leaders are equally effective, their effectiveness is entirely dependent on the type of task at hand. In situations that require masculine and aggressive displays of leadership, men were typically the more effective leader. On the other hand, in tasks that required a less masculine approach, female leaders were more effective. As the authors of the study put it, “sex differences in leaders’ effectiveness were significantly correlated with the congeniality of their roles for men or women” (Eagley, 140). From this it is clear that male and female leadership is only viewed as legitimate when it is done so in strictly gendered ways. Meaning that female aggressiveness and male passivity is often met with resistance. Further, they found that female leadership especially did well in circumstances that required a certain extent of “interpersonal ability”(ibid).
— Germaine Greer (via Carlos Andrés Gómez @carlosaglive)
Season 1 : Ep. 9
I really like studying feminism and pop culture. More importantly, how gender roles were displayed on TV in the past.
Murder One is already a show about high powered attorneys and their high profile defendants. The season focuses around a “goldi-locks” murder, a “sex-slaying” of this 15 year year old girl. But in this episode they also take on a side-case of a catholic school professor who was found in the bathroom with a 15 year old male prostitute. In this episode, the one female lawyer (who’s second chair of their major case) spends more time talking about what she’ wearing and how bad she looks than about the cases she’s doing. She also spends a lot of this episode asking her boss for permission to do a lot of things - because he “knows whats best” for her and her career. But on the other hand, she’s still an obviously hard working and established attorney doing well at the start of her career. Then there is the head of the firm spends all his time trying to rescue all these poor young girls who’s “lives went astray” and sell their bodies to these rich powerful men who abuse them.
How do you all feel about the way this episode dealt with these issues?
Has anyone ever heard of this show? Hulu randomly recommended it to me but i’ve never heard of it before. What channel was it on?
