“To sing of wars, of captains and of kings,
Of cities founded, commonwealths begun,
For my mean pen are too superior things:
Or how they all, or each their dates have run
Let poets and historians set these fourth,
My obscure lines shall not dim their worth.”
-Anne Bradstreet
I have always been intrigued by feminism. There are a great deal of
connotations associated with the word, “feminism”, most of them negative, so
let me clarify what I mean. I am very intrigued by the feminism that asserts
that women, not men, or any other animal or vegetable, need to define for themselves who they are. I do not burn my bras nor do I hold male bashing parties.
I am intrigued by the movement that brought fourth literary women like Virginia
Woolf, Toni Morrison, Simone de Beauvoir and Kate Chopin to name a few.
Most of these women struggled to prove they had a voice
worth hearing. I really don’t think the battle is over. Today, women are still
in many ways being defined by men. Just grab a magazine or turn on your TV and
you will see that you don’t make the cut, unless you have flawless skin, mile
long legs, and are extra curvy, but only in all the correct areas. The only
standards women are held to are their looks. If you are pretty, people will do
things for you and life is easy, if you aren’t then, well that sucks for you.
There is a video I saw a while ago and it has had me
thinking about it for quite sometime. It is the video to promote “Miss
Conception,” a documentary addressing the issue of the media objectifying
women. It has interviews with all kinds of activists, actresses, and
politicians from Condoleezza Rice to Jane Fonda. What everyone is saying in the
video is true and something needs to be done about it. However, as I was
discussing the video with my mom we began to realize that while this
documentary can stir up a passionate response that wants to fight for justice,
by what methods are they going to propose to stop the media from exploiting
women? Many of these women are supporters of abortion and many of the actresses
interviewed have played coquettishly “loose” women in their movies, neither of
which support strong feminine identity. Abortion goes against our nature, to
deny the most significant thing we possess as women, to grow a life inside
ourselves. And to play a woman in a film who sleeps around with her leading man
is showing that her honor is less important than a good time or a passionate
moment. All biblical truths aside, being pro-abortion or pro-slut does not help
the value of women. It detracts.
The problem is that most of these movies and TV shows are
extremely entertaining. You don’t need to be explicitly graphic in the
degradation of women. It slays us with its subtlety. For example I enjoy the
ever popular TV show, FRIENDS. Joey is one of the most likable characters with
his boyish charm and Italian attitude. But what is one of his most prominent
character traits? He’s a ladies man. He seduces women and then drops them like a
hot cannoli. And we are ok with it because it’s Joey and that is just how men
act right?
There are many other examples I could give but I don’t think
this post needs to be an exhaustive list. You probably have thought of some
others yourself. I also really wish I had a solution for all of this especially
for those Jr. High and High School girls out there who want so badly to feel
valued that they degrade themselves because they think that is the only way a
guy will notice them. Like remembering what our forefathers sacrificed so we could live freely in this
land, I feel, as women, we owe those who fought before us for to be considered
socially, politically and economically equal, to cultivate our minds and souls
so that we do not disgrace them.
I’m not saying we march over to Hollywood throw our stilettos
at the mean media men who degrade us. I don’t really know what the answer is. I
do know that a valuable step is to come to the Becoming Girls Conference, an entire weekend
designed for Jr. High and High School girls and their mothers. I am honored to
be a part of the team of amazing women who are putting this together and it is
something that you really don’t want to miss.
And now I leave it to people who can say it much better than
me:
“To be
queen Elizabeth within a definite era, deciding sales, banquets, labors and
holidays; to be Whitely within a certain era, providing toys, boots, cakes and
books; to be Aristotle within a certain era, teaching morals, manners, theology
and hygiene; I can understand how this might exhaust the mind, but I cannot
imagine how it could narrow it. How can it be a large career to tell other
people’s children about the Rule of Three, and a small career to tell one’s own
children about the universe? How can it be broad to be the same thing to
everyone and narrow to be everything to someone? No, a woman’s function is laborious,
but because it is gigantic, not because it is minute.”
-G.K.
Chesterton
“It’s tough being a woman.”
-Beth
Moore
“Feminism is the radical notion that women are people.”
-Cheris
Karamarae and Paula Trecichler
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