The Evasive Midriff

The video we have been watching in class, The Merchants of Cool, discussed how the media portrays teenage girls and how teenage girls are marketed. Teenage girls are depicted as mere sexual objects that will do just about anything to gain the acceptance of their peers or the attention of the opposite sex. Throughout history women have been viewed as weak, inferior beings who need men to save them from their own futility. Men are praised for their sexual prowess, yet women are supposed to stay chaste. We are constantly being sent the message: "Women are here only to please men. Buy them and you can get them to do whatever you want." This so-called “double standard” can be found in language as well.

We might not always think about it, but language can be truly abusive to women. About two years ago I read a book called Slut! Growing up Female with a Bad Reputation by Leora Tanenbaum. The book was a study on why girls are subjected to sexual labels and how those words have shaped society. On the first page of the book there are four lists of words; one each for terms used negatively to express sexually active men and women, and one each for words used positively to express sexually active men and women. There are only two words to describe women positively: hot and sexy. Men, however, have a good quantity of positive terms, such as stud, player, Casanova, and ladies’ man. When it comes to negative terms, men only have womanizer, wolf, and “can’t keep it in his pants.” Women, on the other hand, have a myriad of negative terms to describe them. There are almost thirty terms on the list, including slut, whore, tramp, hooker, and floozy. Even the term “feminist” has been turned into a negative connotation, or could be seen as one of Hayakawa’s words with built-in judgments.

The saddest part of this is that men aren’t the only culprits. This is so deeply embedded deep into our culture that women identify themselves with these terms. Much of the name calling comes from other females. I’ll even admit to partaking in it. We see another girl as an outsider or as competition and she's automatically a slut. Detrimental words are used to illustrate women in all forms of the media and in our own personal conversations. In The Merchants of Cool a band called Insane Clown Posse was featured. It was stated that their lyrics were demeaning to women, but there were women there to support them at their concert. How can we mistreat ourselves this way? Our music, magazines, movies, and television programs continually degrade women. Recently, when Don Imus referred to the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hoes” (among other racial remarks) there was an outcry from Americans disgusted by the verbal abuse women face from the media. The commotion to remove these words from our vocabulary was sadly short-lived. Everybody realized there was a problem, but no one wanted to own up to it.

If we ever expect to have equality between the sexes, how can we use these words? How could we ever expect to receive respect from men if we are relentlessly devaluing ourselves? There will never be an end to this unless we stop buying into these stereotypes. If we are so disgusted by the scantily clad, blonde popstar crawling around lasciviously on stage, why do we in turn idolize her?