Patriarchy

Do our fathers, husbands, boyfriends, and sons 

know women can be more than two sexually 

dichotomized categories

of 

"pure of heart virgin"

&

"slut and bitch"?




STOP SELLING US:

Gail Dines on Pornography & Pop Culture

Gail Dines talks in this lecture about the pornography industry.  She begins  by talking about the history of pornography, and Playboy and Hustler's begining in Capitalist America.

She continues on to talk about our image culture, where stereotypes of femininity and masculinity are continually bombarded upon us through magazines, movies, celebrities, music, etc.  She speaks of Jessica Simpson, who has become the laughing stalk of American media (just as Goldie Hawn and Meg Ryan were before her).  She states that when we laugh at her, we laugh at every woman because it reinforces those very stereotypes about women. 

Food For Though: The Reader Inscribed in the Text: When you look at an image of a person in a magazine, who is the presumed spectator of the image?  Who is the image geared to?  What is the image trying to communicate?  She then talks about the "fuck me" look; this image is bombarded upon men in our culture, and it is what this image to the right illustrate.

She then goes on to talk about the glamorization of the "perfect"  woman for men in our culture, shifting from the "perfect housewife" image to the "slut, brainless" image of women.  She speaks about Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Anna Nicole Smith, and Pamela Anderson who are given stardom but then spitted out by our culture for being "whores" and useless.

Lastly, she speaks about the porn industry and the glamorization of violence against women within the porn industry.  Gail Dines ends the lecture by stating that she isn't against porn itself but the culture that is perpetuated within the porn industry, and I couldn't agree more.

Update:  Here is Gail Dines website

Doll Face

Here is a 4 minute video which is extremely creepy (I must emphasize the creepy), yet it is a very accurate metaphor for the incredibly impossible task of achieving feminine beauty in our culture.

It begins with a mechanized 'doll' and a TV screen very close to the machine.  The fact that the 'female doll' is a machine can have so many layers of meaning.  Drawing from my previous post about childbirth, women's bodies = money, profit to corporations.  It's not important that women (and men) have feelings, have lives of their own, have pain of their own; profit is the bottom line, and, therefore, women become machines with no purpose of their own other than to serve someone who controls them.

As the mechanized 'doll' takes in what's on the TV, the 'doll' begins to doll herself up with makeup.  After the 'doll' achieves this goal, the TV moves further and further away the more she tries to achieve perfection, representing the unachievable goal of American beauty.  The doll then tries to move closer, but it eventually ends in her own destruction (real life examples: anorexia, bulimia, depression, poor self-image, bad diets habits etc.)

Media Education Foundation

Here you can find many GREAT documentaries for FREE (other than a slightly annoying watermark on the films...).  The full length videos are offered as previews for purchase considerations of colleges.  While the semitransparent watermark "For Preview Only" is embedded over the films, I highly suggest checking them out. 

Media Education Foundation is committed to exploring how the media (particularly advertising such as TV commercials, Magazine ads, and the like) affect our culture.  There are several categories of films to chose from including gender, politics, race, health, and commercialism.

I highly suggest Killing Us Softly 4, Micheal Kimmel on Gender, and Codes of Gender found under the the category of gender.  I also recommend Red Moon under the category of health.  All of these are great for some interesting conversation about gender issues.  

Here is Micheal Kimmel on Gender from youtube without the watermark:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-rpbihTvlY&feature=PlayList&p=14C11A9B6693D5C6&playnext_from=PL&index=11

Here's Killing Us Softly 3 on youtube, although I highly recommend Killing Us Softly 4 too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svpMan9cWyo&feature=PlayList&p=14C11A9B6693D5C6&playnext_from=PL&index=9