Yesterday, as I was sitting in the makeshift Production Office at the Dade County Auditorium, one of the singers walked in, half made up, waiting around for the moment when they finally deem it necessary to go all the way and put on their costume. I remember those times. Those extra half hours before the downbeat even happens where your wig is already itching and your face has begun to rebel against the facepaint, when you just can't bear to put on whatever cumbersome outfit you must, at that time, wear for your art. You wander around in your bathrobe for as long as you can before you retire back to your dressing room to continue the final transformation. My cut off point was always the fifteen minute call. Anything longer would be torturous, anything shorter would be cutting it really close...
...Anyway, said singer wandered in and handed me a book she'd bought, read, and was now passing on, a tradition I wholly agree with. I love the idea of packaged ideas floating from person to person, sometimes inciting discussion. She asked me to pass it on when I was done and I immediately began thinking about who might find the read interesting. The book was "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture," by Ariel Levy. I started it tonight and it's already brought up issues with me.
The book is about this shift in our society apparent through shows like "Girls Gone Wild," print ads using scantily clad women to sell soda, and lacy, skimpy thong underwear and low-rider jeans marketed to preteen girls. Ms. Levy questions whether the sexualization of nearly everything in a woman's existence today is a mark of female empowerment (we women can be as raunchy as men . . . this is how to play equally with the boys!) or a giant leap backwards for the feminist movement of the previous generation/s.
I'm intrigued. Have been intrigued by sexuality and feminism (and whether the two can ever appropriately meet without ado) since I was a teenager. In college I did an entire research paper for my Humanities class on women in the porn industry. I wanted to know why women went into the business, whether they felt objectified. Whether they really cared. I wanted to know how many women were in the industry who were actually calling their own (and other people's) shots. I wanted to know what made Christy Hefner tick. It was at this time that I was also rabidly reading Camille Paglia and playing around with how much I really wanted to present myself as a sexual object.
I'm bisexual. Women excite me as much as men do in pure sexual terms. I've spent a lot of time trying to reconcile my being titillated by sexy outfits/pictures/people (of both genders) and my inherent feminist side that finds the fact that women seem to need to show themselves off as a sexually exciting being in order to get anywhere in this society (corporate women too...) appalling in every way.
I guess what the first twelve pages of this book brought up is this: I don't buy into the raunch culture for myself. I don't dress trashy in any way, I rarely wear makeup, and when I do it's usually only powder and lipstick, I don't walk in the door expecting men to look at me and I'm not particularly happy about the fact that my boobs have gotten bigger as I've gotten older. However, is it okay for others to indulge? Where's the harm? When does it become too much? When does it become detrimental to women's advancement in society (if it hasn't already)? Who cares if a college freshman feels better about herself if she shows a little jeweled thong on her way to her philosophy class or if a 22-year-old spring breaker gets a rise out of flashing a little tit for some video cameras? Where does all of this skin-showing lead for the future of women in our society? I don't know, but it's certainly got me thinking.
There'll be more to this later I'm sure...
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