Ema Studies Feminism

Ema A.- The University of Tennessee-Women in Media Class

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Am I A Feminist?

When i was first asked this questions, I was thrown back to my own family. For some unknown reason to me, I had the luck of being born the liberal child in the conservative branch of my family. Because of this this, I grew up hearing the word “feminist” used as an insult more than what it actually means. So going into answering that question, I had more trepidation at the beginning of the semester. 

“The world isn't friendly to those to embrace the term ‘feminist’”

I both agree and disagree with my statement now. After looking at the internet with fresh eyes, I can tell we are in an interesting place in time. When celebrities say they are feminist, they are both praised by the invisible ranks of feminist on the internet and torn down by feminist and anti-feminist alike. This goes back to my past blog, looking at the concept of “bad feminism”. The world is not a friendly place to feminism because it expect those who claim the term to walk on the thinnest line. They must be both non-threatening about their beliefs, as well as a crusader who speaks out and takes a stand. Any action taken in the name of feminist will come with both its fans and critics. 

“Negative connotations of feminist aside, I could consider myself a feminist”

Seeing that I wrote this made me happy because it shows that a more uneducated Ema on the matter could see past all the name-dragging the term has gone through and claim it as my own. This makes me happy because if I could do it, I am sure there are a lot of others out there that can do it too. Feminism was always such a dirty word growing up, sometimes I wonder if people actually know what the term means. But I have hope that others like me, especially with such easy access to the internet and popular media, will learn on their own to adopt feminism for themselves. Your family can shape a lot about yourself but I am proud in some ways of the area where I moved past my family and came into my own with my own ideas and beliefs. 

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A “Bad Feminist”

A very important theme to our class is the idea of Feminism, as it is the viewpoint through which our class is taught. In todays society, to call oneself a feminist can be a dangerous thing. In the video, writer Roxane Gay calls herself a “bad feminist” because she points out how society demands perfection of feminist now days. As we have struggled for so long and so hard for our voices to be heard, women in power are held to impossible standards as they stand on a pedestal. When this happens, less women have the opportunity for their words to be heard by other women. 

I think this video is really important because, especially right now, there is a strong feminist movement working into popular culture. It can be seen in Lena Dunham’s “Girls” or in campaign movements, like Lego has to get girls interested in building. Celebrities are constantly asked if they identify as a feminist and then are both praised and critically analyzed if they say yes. Feminism has power but right now, many feminist seem to wasting their time grading other peoples adherence to the word when they could be striving themselves to break through the many glass ceilings. Gay makes a strong case for a type of feminism that is more inclusive and less grading. 

Declaring yourself a feminism doesn’t mean you can’t be a housewife or like the color pink or take your husbands last name. Declaring yourself a feminist shouldn’t come with society willing to nick-pick and calculate how feminist you really are. Being a feminist should simply mean making everyday choices that support other women and to not support misogyny. We need to be more inclusive and to stop labeling women “bad feminist”. When we do that, it gives feminism a bad name and turns it into an impossible and unwelcoming way of thinking. 

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Kim “Empowering” Kardashian

Before I start, I would just like to come clean on something: I do in fact keep up with the Kardashians... *Gasp* I know.... This is a fact about myself that surprises a lot of people. Judge me or judge me not, I keep up with many of the sisters on Instagram and on National Women’s Day, I saw this post on my feed with its hashtag and my interest was peaked. I waited to see the social media frenzy around it and wasn’t disappointed.

After a lot of outcry, debate, and hateful messages, Kim went to her website and wrote a impassioned letter defending herself and her choices. In her letter, she wrote about being empowered. 

“I am empowered by my body. I am empowered by my sexuality. I am empowered by feeling comfortable in my skin. I am empowered by showing the world my flaws and not being afraid of what anyone is going to say about me. And I hope that through this platform I have been given, I can encourage the same empowerment for girls and women all over the world.”

A lot of debate has come out about her letter regarding the idea of empowerment and what it means. This word has been floating around the women’s issue world for a long time. Its a wold thrown around in descriptions of charities benefiting women and at conferences for women in the work place. I think over time, empowerment’s meaning has been muddled and the word is slowing losing (ironically) its’ power. When girls see this photo and the idea that power is attached to it somehow, it conveys a washed out version of empowerment in which the female body is more powerful than the women's thoughts and ideas. 

Kim Kardashian is an incredibly powerful businesswomen and entrepreneur with the #33 spot on Forbes “Highest Paid Celebrity” list to prove it. Kim tapped into the American value of outer beauty and there is no shame on capitalizing on that. She is just a savy business women making a fortune by playing into the system already in place. And in this photo, she is putting her body out to the world in her own terms and promotes the fact that, slut-shamers-be-damned, a women body is something to celebrate and is beautiful in all shapes and sizes. But that doesn’t make her a good role model for empowerment and it certainly doesn’t make her figure of power for others. There shouldn’t be power in taking your clothes off. A women power is not from buying into the idea that “sex sells” because we have so much more than our body to offer to the world. We have our worlds and thoughts to offer up too. 

All that being said, I still and forever will continue to keep up with the Kardashians. Not for the purpose of being inspired or moved, but because they are entertaining. From the comfort of my bed, I can experience heartbreak and joy, the tribulations of family and the kinds of shopping sprees I could only dream of. For the 30 minutes of each episode, I am transported into the lives of an insane family who also happens to be insanely rich and full of insanely powerful women. So yah I watch the Kardashians... But if we are being honest, who doesn’t?

Do you think a post like this empowers or objectifies?

Do you think empowerment is still a relevant term or has it lost its meaning?

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Growing up, my parents never bought very many DVDs and so my selection before the invention of Netflix was very slim. And thus, watching Tootsie become an all too common occurrence in my house. I remeber my mom at one point calling the movie a “feminist flick”. On the surface, the movie comes across as extremely empowering for women. It tells of a difficult to work actor, played by Dustin Hoffman, who decides to audition for a job as a women to prove that he was still hirable. In switching from Michael Dorothy to Dorothy Michaels, he becomes a strong willed and feisty women who shocks those on set and whose brass, feminist nature takes America by storm. Compared to the soft and gentle actress, Julie, and the crude and sexist director, Ron, Dorothy appears to be empowering figure. Throughout the course of the movie, the other women in the film begin to learn from Dorothy and find more power in their own voices. Julie leaves her unhealthy relationship with the director and Sandy becomes less timid and allows herself to show her inner anger. 

The women in the film are changed for the better because of Dorothy Michaels. And while Dorothy presents an image of a strong female, the movie makes the point clear that he is not a woman. The traits that make him empowering to others are all traits that are associated with being traditionally masculine. Where the women of the film are gentle, soft, and easily manipulated, Dorothy is headstrong and bold. Dorothy is the only women to stand up to the director and to pint out his sexism and male privilege. Michael transforms into Dorothy and becomes better at being women than any of the actual women in the film

Michael is shown the struggles that many women face everyday. And in doing this, the film highlights and shows the differences in treatment and social conditioning between women and men. However, the movie undercuts this point. Michael never apologizes to women he deceives. Dorothy called out the men around her for lying and using women but this never stops Michael from doing the same thing. And somehow, it is all justified in the end as Michael shares about how his journey has made him a better man. The film recognizes sexism but it is not the powerful feminist film it can appear to be on the surface. Instead, it is simply another example of how society seems to think that men can do anything better, even when it is being a woman.

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My Relationship to Media

My main relationship to media has long been established through my phone. I watch Netflix, read the news, look at Instagram, watch YouTube videos that others share on Facebook, ect... Accessibility had turned me into an addict. And I think that many others can agree with that statement. However, accessibility has also allowed me to function in a way that my parents and their parents never did; being not only a consumer but also a producer is now possible in every day life. In looking at something like Facebook or Instagram, I am given a platform in which I can put into the world media just as easily as I take it all in. It allows for a sense of feedback and to see how others live their life, as presented though social media. As I wrote in a previous blog, I has a lot to do with how many people determine their self-worth and I sometimes see that even in myself, despite the fact I am aware of it. My social media has been crafted to be a personal statement about who I am and to show the parts of me I am proud of. Everything else can be easily swept under the rug. Out of sight, out of mind. 

Besides my phone, I also am constantly listening to music. Streaming services, such as Spotify, allow incredibly easy access to all things “popular” by putting together lists and top charts. Often, I will mindlessly play these playlists and sing along without realizing what the words are saying. While some songs can be empowering, I often figure out how much I overlook songs that send a misogynistic message out. I knew all the words to “Blurred Lines” and “Fine China” before I even knew what they were really saying. Rap music is catchy, but because it is so fast and upbeat, it can send messages that linger in your brain without you even realizing what it is saying. And as a consumer of this, I become incredibly sad when I realize that a song I like so much is actually sending out such a negative message. It has made me more aware each time to pay attention to what songs are actually saying.

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This video is a clip from the popular sketch show Inside Amy Schumer. As we read in todays reading, “The Televised Sports Manhood Formula”, sports and violence are often linked together in how aggression is praised and valued. This clip recognizes this and uses comedy to show the absurdity of how violence is ingrained into young men from an early age, especially in contact sports. The target audience are younger audiences, both male and female. The show does a great job of making feminism cool by making it light hearted and pointing out double standards and flaws in how society thinks about gender. That is exactly what this clip does. 

As the coach implements his new rule, there is backlash from the community. This addresses the way sexual assaults cases with athletes are treated in a very different way by society. Male athletics seem to live in a special category where moral transgressions are more willing to be overlooked. Even at our own school, this is an issue. Currently, there is a class action law suite against UTK football for the mishandling of sexual assault and rape cases, especially with student athletes. The lawsuit claims that UTK has created a culture that allowed this to happen with minimal repercussions against the athletes for their transgressions. There is a book by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, called The System, that presents troubling facts on this issue. One in three college sexual assaults will be committed by an athlete. And while the general population has an 80% conviction rate, athletes have only a 38% conviction rate. 

The coaches speech at the end of the clip makes a very good point about the culture of sports and the aggression it breeds. Young men especially are put in uniforms and “sent to battle”. With each win, they are treated like Gods and put on a pedestal. With each loss, they are told to work harder and that they loss because they were playing it too safe. Society has given athletes a sense of entitlement that corresponds with their success on the field. If they are taught that dominating their opponents is the most important thing, it is not hard to see of that translate to an issue of dominating women off the field. Overall, sports has many benefits for those who partake in them, including providing a healthy way for people to channel their aggression. However, “jock culture” also puts players on a pedestal in which violence and sexual assault is tolerated and almost expected. 

Discussion questions: 

What factors do you thing contribute to creating a strong sense of entitlement for collegiate players? 

What actions do you think a coach can take to address violence off the field? To what extent are they responsible for the actions of their players?

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blog 2: living through instagram

I think that many girls my age can agree that social media played a primary role in how their self-image developed. Instagram, especially when I was younger and more insecure, was a window through which I could compare myself to the world. I can’t lie and say I don’t still have a slight obsession with Instagram, but when I first started using it, I remember almost using it like an empirical way of measuring my life. Every ‘like’ I received was a reason to smile; every ‘like’ I didn’t receive gave me feedback to how the world thought I should be living my life. A major goal was to be like the Instagram celebrities who looked effortlessly flawless. I remember refusing to cut my waist length hair because none of the girls on Instagram had short hair. Then when it became the new fashion trend, all my hair got chopped off into and I embraced the lob. I never had my own sense of person when it was easier to open an app and see what the other girls were doing.

One of the new social influences for girls started when I was in high school and has even grown worse. There is this new move towards worshiping the unachievable lifestyle we see from the superhuman women that live on Instagram and Twitter. Somehow they manage to cook gluten free and organic meals, do their daily yoga and pilates, and look completely flawless while doing so. If they have a job, you never seem to see it. Instead, they are too busy traveling the world in style. What makes these images so powerful to girls, and to myself, is that they seem so “real” compared to the models on glossy magazine pages. Many people see traditional celebrities lifestyles as out of this world goals, but Instagram celebrities promote a lifestyle that makes many girls feel like they have no excuse to not look or act like them. After all, they’re just ordinary, average girls like us, right?  

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Scholars state that harmful representations of women persist because the media uses objectifying and often hyper-sexualized images to see products/ideas/services. Who or what benefits from the misrepresentations of women in the media? Who holds responsibility? 

This is a very difficult question to answer. In many ways, its difficult to tell the difference between exploitation and empowerment. From a traditional point of view you can say men benefit from the misrepresentations of women in media. Men are not seeing other men as sexualized objects, therefore they know that they can aim to be more than a half naked person in a commercial eating a hamburger. When women see the commercial they see they can use their looks to get a monetary gain via a less traditional route like going to college and obtaining a degree. If everyone gets rid of these societal barriers and view things as just what they are, and not feel the need to carry it on into a more personal sense, everyone can benefit. Women will have the empowerment to use their looks but not get the backlash from doing so later on in life when they want to move on to better endeavors. Men will see women as equals that can do more than pose in hamburgers commercials sexually. 

Ema Auernheimer Anitah Kiombe

Savannah Bailey

Wilbert Chew

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Miss-Representation: Powerful Women are Important