Venus vs. Mars

Douglas' chapter "The New Girlness" echoes the common belief boys hold about girls: a girl's life is revolved around a boy. It confirms the image boys have in their mind when they think about a girl who just broke up with her boyfriend; the image of a girl crawled up in her bed with a bucket of chocolate ice cream watching romance movies--she's looking like an irrationally emotional wreck. I find it interesting that Douglas points out when girls cannot find their "Mr. Right" in real life, they often console in hyper-masculine boy bands for an escape and a fantasy of their dream boy. Who don't remember the days when the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync were huge in teenage girls lives? This tradition of teenage girls obsessed with boy bands still continue today. There are teenagers and even little girls who obsessed with the Jonas Brothers and the new craze of Justin Beiber. Here's a link to a hit YouTube video of a 3 years old girl crying over Justin Beiber: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTCm8tdHkfI . This brings me to wonder why it seems that it is only female fans that are obsessed with superstars.

In Douglas' next chapter "You Go, Girl," I am troubled by this statement: "enlightened sexism suggest that black women deserve to be objectified and should be rendered powerless because all they really care about are sex and money anyway." The Hip Hop culture have surely displayed such image of African American women as sex objects. The industry of Hip Hop is not one that I want to discuss at the moment, but a great documentary that examines "manhood, sexism, and homophobia in hip-hop culture" (IMDb) is called HipHop: Beyond Beats & Rhyme if anyone wants to check it out. This is the one chapter that I feel Douglas actually takes a stand on and display her opinions. She has a strong stand on what it means to be a successful black women; her comparison of Wanda Syke, Queen Latifah and Oprah with Big Momma and Tyler Perry's Madea is extremely interesting. I don't know if I'm over analyzing, but I feel that Douglas suggest a successful black women needs to know how to code switch and also have the approval or support of the white audiences. Douglas mentions Oprah's successful because not only does she have the support of women like her but white women also support her. On the other hand, if we think about it Tyler Perry's movies seem to only attract black viewers.

Overall, these two chapters have a common theme of women's lives being dominated by male related activities. Douglas states "men can't and won't change, so women must accept this and accommodate it." We see this in Douglas examples of girls looking toward boy bands for their ideal boy and female rappers still responding through their lyrics about men instead of addressing the issues. So now I wonder, to what extend is Douglas' statement true; how much have women accepted and accommodated for men?                    

Women are from Venus.. Men from Mars

As I read "The New Girliness" I reflected back to a conversation I had with a male basketball player yesterday. I was telling him the difference between men and women, and was referring to an example in athletics. I asked him a simple question: "Is all your focus on basketball when you are practicing or playing or do you think about other stuff too?" He laughed as if it was almost a given and said, "All I think about is basketball when I am on the court." I started to explain to him how guys have an easier time separating their thoughts, and girls have a lot more trouble doing this. I may just be speaking for my team but I have took notice that a lot of my hockey teammates think ahead; they can't give their entire focus to the present. We may be thinking about food, boys, homework, evening plans. My basketball friend said that is the never the case with him. He then went on to explain that in a sermon he heard, the preacher talked about how men have separate boxes for their thoughts in their brain, and women had a bunch of interconnecting wires. This was just an analogy, but I have to agree with it. However, I am wondering if the reason for this is because of the recent wave of enlightened sexism. Douglass writes that women value "love, communication, beauty, and relationships." If women did not care so much about men, and their beauty and appearance, do you think that they would be able to separate their thoughts better? Not as much time would be spent on men, and appearance, and women would be able to focus more on achieving their goals, a supposed trait that men value in themselves.

Follow up: Third Wave

Caroline P brings up a great question: How will women ever escape this stereotype of gaining power through beauty? As a extremely superficial society, it is an instinct that people do not look beyond appearance. I read in an article for my American School course about a form of discrimination that I did not ever think about. The authors describe the subtle form of discrimination as lookism--giving attractive people more advantages, attention, respect, etc. over unattractive people. Going on this note, beauty is a huge factor in our society that dictates how people are treated, where they stand in society, and how others view them. Caroline C also brings up a good point that I wonder about; as television shows such as 90210, Melrose, Nikita, and other shows along that genre begin to influence our youth population, I wonder, not what influence these types of shows are imposing on our youth, but what responsibilities and roles we as consumers and viewers have in this form of entertainment. To think about it, the shows Douglas is analyzing are shows in the 1990s; however this shows have reemerge on television networks with new seasons, new actors and actress, but with the same plot lines. What does that say about our society and what we like to see on television or, even on a boarder scale, the media?

Both Rebecca Walker's "Becoming the Third Wave" and Susan Douglas' "Castration Anxiety" seem to come to a consensus that manhood is signified by "penis power," as Walker calls it. The incidences Douglas discusses in Chapter 2 illustrates men's fear of women's power in relation to what women can do to their private parts or the outrageous things they will do out of rage or jealousy. This chapter makes me think about how people and society define what a man or a woman is. In my Legacies of the Ancient World class, my professor said "if you think you are man, please stand up." Of course all the men stood up (and one girl stood up), but when the professor questioned why they stood up their answer ranged from the obvious answer, "I have a penis" to more board answers "I take on responsibilities" or "I took care of my single mother" etc. My professor was not satisfied with these responses and he challenged the notion of what society classify as male or female. I think it would be interesting to see how our class define as manhood and womanhood.

Douglas' third chapter "Warrior Women in Thongs" remains me of a conversation I had with a friend about how female superheros are portrayed. We could not come up with one female superhero that was not wearing revealing clothing. Besides the ones Douglas mentions in the chapter--Buffy and Xenia--the list of sexy superheros goes on and on. These superheros are not only extremely sexy in television shows and movie, but such image also extend to comic books, video games, and other. It seems as the caricature of sexy women in power are endless; and this brings us back to Caroline's question--is it possible (or is society willing) to separate power and beauty?

Third Wave

As I read EFR, and Enlightened Sexism, I noticed a common theme: Action. In Rebecca Walker's "Becoming the Third Wave," she takes a stand. After she overhears two men degrading women in a sexual notion, she decides to say something. She takes a stand for women in general, and herself when she says "I aint your sweetheart, I ain't your bitch, I ain't your baby." Her courage to stand up for herself shocked the men and they hardly could make a comeback.

In Baumgardner's and Richards piece, they list the 13 point agenda for women's rights. I agreed with the agenda and it is clear that actions want to be made about concerning sexism, but I think they should have gone on to describe how they were going to get these points accomplished.

In the chapter "Get the Girls" the theme of media was highlighted. The focus was on the show 91210, and the theme of enlightened sexism. Douglass even says "The show was an essential early building blocks of enlightened sexism because it was the vanguard of targeting teenage girls with an intensity that made the 1960s efforts..." I think that the media has a huge effect on teenagers across the country because they reflect on the norms in movies and t.v shows and imitate behavior. The age that people lose their virginity is getting younger and younger. The age that kids start drinking has decreased tremendously, and the age that boys and girls start "dating" is also at a young age. At the same time, our generation today has gone through a shift as media has gotten racier and racier. See the correlation?

In the chapter, "Castration Anxiety", it focuses on the violent action that some women have taken in order to prove a point to men. The two specific cases that stood out to me was the story about John Wayne, and the castration of his penis, as well as the story about Amy Fisher, shooting a woman in the face because she had been having a affair with her husband at the age of 16. These stories represent the extremes to which woman take action. In the beginning of the chapter it talked about how the media never highlights the accomplishments that woman achieve, rather the negative stuff like date rape, harassment, and crime.

In the Chapter "Warrior Woman in Thongs" it highlights the image in the most recent films at that time of sexy woman who have the karate moves to take anyone on. However, film makers adopt to this new trend, and automatically make them sexy and slutty at the same time, so that the power of attraction is still there. How will women ever escape this stereotype of gaining power through beauty? That is the real question.

Television- Women's Kryptonite?

In Susan Douglas’s first chapter, “Get the Girls” she discusses popular TV shows in the 90’s and their affects on women, and teenage girls more specifically. She shows how shows like 90210 created an ideal woman as an appearance focused, more materialistic person rather than a moral and just person. Douglas writes, “so 90210 was an important early building block of enlightened sexism because it insisted that the true, gratifying pleasure for girls, and their real source of power, came from consumerism, girliness, and the approval of guys” (p.31).

Today, I still find this idea to be true. Parents are always wary when their young children watch TV because they don’t want their kids to copy something negative or inappropriate they see on the television. However, this censorship usually ends when the children reach their teens and are deemed mature enough to watch R rated movies and more explicit shows. But, even though these children have matured, they still tend to perceive televisions depictions of society as the norm. These shows not only affect young woman, but also young men and their views of women. I once had my guy friend tell me he wanted to be just like Christian, the egotistical, extremely sexist plastic surgeon on Nip Tuck. I was shocked by this because not only does Christian lack any respect for women, he also is portrayed as depressed and suffering from emotional issues. Yet, because he was so successful and had sex with many beautiful woman on the show, my friend desired to be like him. My friend, probably like most sexually driven teenage boys, was overcome with Christian’s relationships with women instead of his more realistic life problems of depression and fear of commitment. This show set up an example of a successful man disrespecting women yet having women madly desire him. I noticed after this show came on the air, my friend changed a bit and became ruder and more sexist to women. Shows like 90210 and Gossip Girl set a negative, yet popular example of how young men should behave towards young women.

On the other hand, I recently got my nails done over break, when my manicurist was telling me about a 11 year old girl who came in every month to do her nails. I found this absurd. To me it showed how our women and girls in our society were indeed affected by this materialistic image of how a woman should look and behave. I had never gotten a manicure until I was at least 15, so I was shocked by this story and this young girls obsession with appearance.

These shows, 90210, Nip Tuck, Gossip Girl, all started the wave of new “enlightened sexism” and unfortunately, have lead to a tsunami of shows following in their footsteps. Television and media will always be a major part of society, but as a younger growing generation, I think it is our jobs to really watch shows with a critical eye because of the negative impacts they had have on women.