Human trafficking. Murder. Rape. Assault. Drug addiction. Coercion. Intimidation. Degradation. These are but some of the most severe traumas women endure when they are entangled in prostitution. It is the oldest form of male violence against women, and because it has proven to be so enduring, many assume that it is inevitable, something that will always be a part of society. Fatalism and acceptance of the unacceptable are two of the mitigating factors in the struggle to end male violence against women.
Many of those traumas apply also to women who work as strippers. Many young women are abducted and forcibly relocated to work in this segment of the "sex industry." Many will end up becoming prostituted women. Many will experience the same forms of male violence that prostituted women do. They have to endure endless vile comments from male patrons of strip clubs, people who don't regard them as human beings telling them the things they would like to do to these young women and then throwing a five-dollar bill at them. Many of these men claim that strippers hold a "power" over them that "makes" them give up their money, but how many of them have a conscience about the terrible things they say or even do to these young women? Further, how ludicrous do those claims of "power" sound to a woman that is naked and vulnerable in an audience of drunk, aggressive men who are all fully clothed and already demonstrating a contempt for her humanity, her life, her existence? What does it say about men that they relish these temples of misogyny and the opportunity to go leer at a bunch of naked teenagers with their friends?
Further, what does it say when that behaviour carries on outside the walls of the strip club? We know what the men themselves say: they say that women could/should be strippers, too. They portray this as a "compliment," as if a woman's highest calling is to take her clothes off for male approval and gaze. A woman in a dress shirt can have a future either as a business executive or a stripper. Which does the male prefer, the former or the latter? When there's a sense of entitlement, that any woman should be available to him at any time for his pleasure, obviously he would prefer her to be standing up on a stage and denied her agency and have her feel completely vulnerable. After all, if she's in a boardroom delivering the quarterly report, she's unavailable.
Could this be the motivation behind the campaign to glamorize stripping? I would suggest yes. By shoving the ugly realities under the rug and hiding them from view, men have created a false impression of what stripping truly entails. Look at music videos or television shows that feature trips to the strip club: they never feature the comments from drunken dishevelled men, they never show the women breaking down into tears after realizing the loss of their dignity, the backstage drug use, the rapes in the alley behind the club, they only show everybody having a wonderful time--the happy hooker myth. Anybody that's ever read commentaries from women who have been involved in stripping know the truth, and that's what causes so much frustration surrounding the ignorance of the great majority of the population.
It is this ignorance that fuels marketing stripping to white, middle-class women. I am not a class warrior, by any stretch of anybody's imagination, but this is so obvious in its attempt and so potentially harmful in its purpose that one would have to be blind to not notice some simple facts. Wealthy, educated, privileged women don't take off their clothes for strangers. Poor, uneducated, hungry, lower-class, and quite often women of colour, do. Yet the established beauty standard is a white blond woman. It is no wonder that men are seeking to enhance the scope of women pushed into the sexploitation class. They read Playboy and then wonder why they don't see that at their local strip club, and demand it. Hence Playboy being mass-marketed and sold in the Wish Book next to kids' stuff. Hence Carmen Electra and her Strip-Aerobics videos. Hence stripper poles you can install in your own bedroom.
The "democratization" of prostitution has made it something to be desired by a woman with recourse to education and a decent wage-paying job. It is no doubt insulting and humiliating for many women who are utterly trapped in the prostitution industry to know that university graduates "want" to take their clothes off in front of an audience (or, in some cases, would, "if only [they] had the body")--not because they fear losing out on money, but because these middle-class women think it's something fun, sexy, and empowering to do. For women trapped in prostitution, it is not a fantasy or some facade, it is a vicious, hurtful, and trauma-inducing existence. I have heard far too many women who should know better say that they would love to go and strip. They can have their illusion, go out, drop their attire, and them go home. For far too many women, that simple escapism is not an option. The "fantasy" of the middle-class wannabe-stripper is the perpetuation of the ongoing humiliation and oppression of the real woman who has to take off her clothes to make the 20 bucks she needs to survive for another miserable week.
I do not blame women for this failure of empathy, this enthusiasm to live out a male fantasy, this twisted sense of what is "empowering," this bizarre desire to attain all the illusory glamour of stripping while avoiding the far-too-painful reality. The daily onslaught of images, movies, words, and and any other medium is overwhelming, and emanates largely from the men that control them. It is taken as natural for men to hire a stripper or two for a bachelor party, for a group of guys to spend their Friday evening at the strip club, and there's not a consistent prevailing message from the media that says that these activities result in harm to women. They're presented as glorious, fun, wonderful, and of course, empowering, with no mainstream media outlets raising a red flag or serious opposition. It is also, of course, male demand for women to be readily available to them that fuels this prostitution. Demand is not created by supply. The simple existence of a woman does not create the demand for her to be naked; it is the male demand for women to be naked that creates the existence of strippers and prostituted women.
So, in the end, it comes down to a need for men to adjust their attitudes and demand change. Individual men can influence those around them by telling them about the harm caused by stripping and prostitution. Those men who believe that they have a right to have sex with any woman, or that women should become strippers, are not beyond redemption, but they must be confronted on their misogyny or else their practice will continue unabated.
Showing posts with label misogyny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label misogyny. Show all posts
07 September 2007
07 March 2007
Hatred Hits Home in Toronto
Easily the most vile story of the day comes from Toronto, where four young (and I use the term extremely loosely) men--two youths who cannot be named plus a pair of shitheads named Philip Perry and Barton Reeder--raped an unconscious young woman. And they videotaped it on their cellphones, presumably to forever treasure the memory of their action and show it off to their friends. They probably would have even told themselves that she was asking for it, since she didn't say "no" and all.
This is the type of story that should make every decent human being shudder in disgust. I know that since I first saw the headline in this morning's Post and subsequently read about it again in the G&M and saw it on CTV, a fury has been building inside of me. It is the type of thing that makes me want to call the Minister of Justice's office and repeat the calls from all corners of the country to get serious and impose some serious punishments for this type of violent offence against the integrity of the person. Sure, stiffer penalties may not deter everybody from committing crime, but they will make at least some potential perpetrators think twice. Getting locked away for 20 or 30 years would no doubt affect the thinking of some potential rapists who would no longer feel as though it was worth the risk.
Of course, we probably have to take another step back. If groups of young men are patrolling the streets looking for passed-out women to gang rape, we're already in a world of trouble. Kids such as this already have such hatred for women that they're actively looking for targets to express that hatred and assert their lust for domination. The parents, the schools, and the system have already failed by this point. And the ones that have to suffer, as is often the case, are women. Women bear the main brunt of male hatred.
How many will it take until people stand up and say "NO MORE!" We're already at a point where 1 in 3 women in Canada will experience male violence during the course of their lifetimes. Does it have to be 1 in 2? 2 out of 3? 3 out of 4? 4 out of 5? All of them? At what stage of things do women and men--particularly the latter, since it is ONLY MEN WHO CAN STOP RAPE--collectively say, "Enough of this bullshit. It is well past time we took action against those who rape and inflict violence against women simply because they are women." Because clearly 1 in 3 isn't enough.
A 16-year old girl, who had no agency or ability to defend herself in this circumstance, was assaulted by a group of males who hated her for what she is. Will they face the appropriate consequences? Seemingly yes: they are being charged with sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, gang sexual assault and manufacturing child pornography. Philip Perry is also facing a charge of uttering death threats, while one of the 17-year-olds is facing an additional charge of possession of child pornography. If convicted, they will face jail time, a not insignificant amount of it. The young woman, however, will have to bear the scars of this assault for the remainder of her life. Whatever their intentions were, these men have profoundly affected, for the worst, the life of another human being that they didn't even see as a person. And it is for that reason, I conclude by asking: will the consequences, if any, amount to justice? On that front, I fear that the answer, as it so often is, is no.
This is the type of story that should make every decent human being shudder in disgust. I know that since I first saw the headline in this morning's Post and subsequently read about it again in the G&M and saw it on CTV, a fury has been building inside of me. It is the type of thing that makes me want to call the Minister of Justice's office and repeat the calls from all corners of the country to get serious and impose some serious punishments for this type of violent offence against the integrity of the person. Sure, stiffer penalties may not deter everybody from committing crime, but they will make at least some potential perpetrators think twice. Getting locked away for 20 or 30 years would no doubt affect the thinking of some potential rapists who would no longer feel as though it was worth the risk.
Of course, we probably have to take another step back. If groups of young men are patrolling the streets looking for passed-out women to gang rape, we're already in a world of trouble. Kids such as this already have such hatred for women that they're actively looking for targets to express that hatred and assert their lust for domination. The parents, the schools, and the system have already failed by this point. And the ones that have to suffer, as is often the case, are women. Women bear the main brunt of male hatred.
How many will it take until people stand up and say "NO MORE!" We're already at a point where 1 in 3 women in Canada will experience male violence during the course of their lifetimes. Does it have to be 1 in 2? 2 out of 3? 3 out of 4? 4 out of 5? All of them? At what stage of things do women and men--particularly the latter, since it is ONLY MEN WHO CAN STOP RAPE--collectively say, "Enough of this bullshit. It is well past time we took action against those who rape and inflict violence against women simply because they are women." Because clearly 1 in 3 isn't enough.
A 16-year old girl, who had no agency or ability to defend herself in this circumstance, was assaulted by a group of males who hated her for what she is. Will they face the appropriate consequences? Seemingly yes: they are being charged with sexual assault, sexual assault with a weapon, gang sexual assault and manufacturing child pornography. Philip Perry is also facing a charge of uttering death threats, while one of the 17-year-olds is facing an additional charge of possession of child pornography. If convicted, they will face jail time, a not insignificant amount of it. The young woman, however, will have to bear the scars of this assault for the remainder of her life. Whatever their intentions were, these men have profoundly affected, for the worst, the life of another human being that they didn't even see as a person. And it is for that reason, I conclude by asking: will the consequences, if any, amount to justice? On that front, I fear that the answer, as it so often is, is no.
24 February 2007
In Defence of Britney Spears, Person
Over the course of the past week or so, Britney Spears has been in the headlines a lot, for reasons that have nothing to do with her music career. First, it was Headline News for 24 hours on serious news channels that she got her head shaved and got a couple of tattoos. Then, in mostly tabloid fodder, it was revealed that she had checked herself into rehab. A day later, there was a frenzy over her leaving. Mixed in with this was the announcement that her court date to determine custody of her two children with Kevin Federline was put on delay because of her rehab stint.
For any non-celebrity, male or female, none of these events warrant countless hours of television time. I shaved my head last June and not a single television camera captured it to put it up on TMZ or YouTube or to sell the footage to CNN. But the cult of celebrity in North America is such that anything a remotely famous person does is amplified to become "newsworthy," regardless of its actual importance or consequence to any human beings beside the subject in question. And only for celebrities is getting one's head shaved something used in the court of public opinion to determine whether they or their ex-spouse should get custody of the kids. And amplify that if it's a woman doing it.
Now, I am not a fan of Britney's music, and I never have been. Pop doesn't cut it for me, and the record label-engineered turn to Britney's full-on sexual exploitation and degradation--which they referred to as her "maturing"--certainly didn't do anything to make me a fan.
Of course, in the past couple of years, Britney's music career has been put on hold--maybe never to return--as she turned to family life: marriage, kids, and ultimately, divorce. It is in this arena, more than any other, that the dehumanization and hatred towards Britney Spears have manifested in ever-more prominent and despicable fashion. Say what you will about her music--I certainly have--but it is an entirely separate category of bile that is thrown towards her that is so offensive and should serve as a reminder to all women that there are some men out there who hate them.
How does the misogyny directed towards Britney represent a microcosm of a broader hatred of all women?
Britney Spears is a highly successful woman. In many of the hate-filled comments made by men about her, the evidence of jealousy is clear and in abundance. Jealousy of her success and their own decidedly average or uneventful lives. This is something that is fairly pervasive in society, as many men feel intimidated by women who make more money than them, creating a sense of resentment and anger. She defies the archetype, the norm that men make and are entitled to make more money than women. She may do so in a manner that isn't the most positive role model for young women, relying on her sexuality and body more than her vocal talent, but she has reached a point where she will be financially secure for herself and her kids and their kids...at the young age of 25 years old. It is the use of her image that can result in a lot of problems, exactly the same as any other powerful female public person has to encounter, and many of them don't even use their corporeal vessels to get ahead. Which leads to comments like this from random men:
"When your looks are your number one asset, why get rid of them?"
"can't believe why she did this, she used to be such a pretty girl, but over the past years she really made herself uglier, getting these huge breasts and now this... shame"
"My god this bird is so stupid i just want to give her a slap and tell her to grow up."
"Can't believe this trailer trash whore still makes the news."
"I think Britney's a scumbag, dumb bitch no matter what she does"
Being a high-profile woman, Britney is of course obligated to fulfill her obligations under the Professional Beauty Qualification so that she is visually acceptable to the men out there. This doesn't nullify their anger that she makes truckloads more money than they'll ever see, but it does allow them to still use her as an object for their own gratification. Note the comment lamenting how it's such a "shame" that she's not "such a pretty girl" that meets his standards of hawtness. Of course, for some people it doesn't even matter what she looks like since she's a "scumbag" regardless of anything that she chooses to do in her life. Ignore the fact that she's made significant donations to cancer charities and has a foundation in her name that is dedicated to helping needy children, she's just a "dumb bitch" that needs a few good slaps so that she grows up, learns her place, and gets hot again so that she can entertain men.
An example of "sympathy" being shown:
"she is still human but that doesnt automatically make her a person...you have to have a personality to be a person."
This is how people on the Internet refer to Britney Spears when they pretend to feel bad for her. I suppose that it is only a degree less bad than some of the comments directed at Anna Nicole Smith after her death. Some folks out there decried that her death was not a particularly huge deal, seeing as she'd "never contributed anything to the world" and all. This coming from people who have made no contribution of note to making the world a better place, it seems a little rich.
The manner in which high-profile women are treated has a trickle-down effect on the way all women perceive themselves and how men feel about them. We are on the cusp of seeing a woman secure the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2008, yet rather than embracing this historic occasion, the hatred thrown at Hillary Clinton has been readily evident. A fellow blogger, known far better than I am for Blaming the Patriarchy, had a post a couple of weeks ago regarding Donatella Versace's comments that Hillary needs to stop acting like a man and be more "feminine." Tasha came across a KFC billboard picture that was advertising the "Hillary special," which consists of "two small breasts, two fat thights, and a left wing." While the wing part was good for a laugh, the first two-thirds were a reminder that this will be the first presidential campaign in history in which a candidate's bust size, thighs, and degree of sexual desirability to men will be issues. When a woman who works 9-5 at a crap job for 2/3 of what her male colleagues makes overhears how said colleagues and other men spew the hate-filled garbage they do at Britney Spears or Hillary Clinton or any woman that has a spotlight on her, how is she supposed to feel? Is it any wonder that a lot of women don't seek high-profile work that will subject them to similar discussions?
Again, I have no interest to sit through a Britney Spears video to listen to one of her songs. That type of music does nothing for me. But Britney Spears is a human being, a person, and that's why I will occasionally listen to what people are saying about her. Sadly, the lack of empathy or consideration for her humanity all too often come to the fore. The term "trainwreck" and a host of other such terms (see above) seek to portray her as an evil force in the world, while young men who are apparently still embittered over her having the audacity to marry Kevin Federline seek to deny her of even being a human being. That is wrong. Whatever her faults and foibles, she is still a person who is entitled to be treated with a measure of dignity and respect, something glaringly absent from much of the public discourse around her.
For any non-celebrity, male or female, none of these events warrant countless hours of television time. I shaved my head last June and not a single television camera captured it to put it up on TMZ or YouTube or to sell the footage to CNN. But the cult of celebrity in North America is such that anything a remotely famous person does is amplified to become "newsworthy," regardless of its actual importance or consequence to any human beings beside the subject in question. And only for celebrities is getting one's head shaved something used in the court of public opinion to determine whether they or their ex-spouse should get custody of the kids. And amplify that if it's a woman doing it.
Now, I am not a fan of Britney's music, and I never have been. Pop doesn't cut it for me, and the record label-engineered turn to Britney's full-on sexual exploitation and degradation--which they referred to as her "maturing"--certainly didn't do anything to make me a fan.
Of course, in the past couple of years, Britney's music career has been put on hold--maybe never to return--as she turned to family life: marriage, kids, and ultimately, divorce. It is in this arena, more than any other, that the dehumanization and hatred towards Britney Spears have manifested in ever-more prominent and despicable fashion. Say what you will about her music--I certainly have--but it is an entirely separate category of bile that is thrown towards her that is so offensive and should serve as a reminder to all women that there are some men out there who hate them.
How does the misogyny directed towards Britney represent a microcosm of a broader hatred of all women?
Britney Spears is a highly successful woman. In many of the hate-filled comments made by men about her, the evidence of jealousy is clear and in abundance. Jealousy of her success and their own decidedly average or uneventful lives. This is something that is fairly pervasive in society, as many men feel intimidated by women who make more money than them, creating a sense of resentment and anger. She defies the archetype, the norm that men make and are entitled to make more money than women. She may do so in a manner that isn't the most positive role model for young women, relying on her sexuality and body more than her vocal talent, but she has reached a point where she will be financially secure for herself and her kids and their kids...at the young age of 25 years old. It is the use of her image that can result in a lot of problems, exactly the same as any other powerful female public person has to encounter, and many of them don't even use their corporeal vessels to get ahead. Which leads to comments like this from random men:
"When your looks are your number one asset, why get rid of them?"
"can't believe why she did this, she used to be such a pretty girl, but over the past years she really made herself uglier, getting these huge breasts and now this... shame"
"My god this bird is so stupid i just want to give her a slap and tell her to grow up."
"Can't believe this trailer trash whore still makes the news."
"I think Britney's a scumbag, dumb bitch no matter what she does"
Being a high-profile woman, Britney is of course obligated to fulfill her obligations under the Professional Beauty Qualification so that she is visually acceptable to the men out there. This doesn't nullify their anger that she makes truckloads more money than they'll ever see, but it does allow them to still use her as an object for their own gratification. Note the comment lamenting how it's such a "shame" that she's not "such a pretty girl" that meets his standards of hawtness. Of course, for some people it doesn't even matter what she looks like since she's a "scumbag" regardless of anything that she chooses to do in her life. Ignore the fact that she's made significant donations to cancer charities and has a foundation in her name that is dedicated to helping needy children, she's just a "dumb bitch" that needs a few good slaps so that she grows up, learns her place, and gets hot again so that she can entertain men.
An example of "sympathy" being shown:
"she is still human but that doesnt automatically make her a person...you have to have a personality to be a person."
This is how people on the Internet refer to Britney Spears when they pretend to feel bad for her. I suppose that it is only a degree less bad than some of the comments directed at Anna Nicole Smith after her death. Some folks out there decried that her death was not a particularly huge deal, seeing as she'd "never contributed anything to the world" and all. This coming from people who have made no contribution of note to making the world a better place, it seems a little rich.
The manner in which high-profile women are treated has a trickle-down effect on the way all women perceive themselves and how men feel about them. We are on the cusp of seeing a woman secure the Democratic nomination for President of the United States in 2008, yet rather than embracing this historic occasion, the hatred thrown at Hillary Clinton has been readily evident. A fellow blogger, known far better than I am for Blaming the Patriarchy, had a post a couple of weeks ago regarding Donatella Versace's comments that Hillary needs to stop acting like a man and be more "feminine." Tasha came across a KFC billboard picture that was advertising the "Hillary special," which consists of "two small breasts, two fat thights, and a left wing." While the wing part was good for a laugh, the first two-thirds were a reminder that this will be the first presidential campaign in history in which a candidate's bust size, thighs, and degree of sexual desirability to men will be issues. When a woman who works 9-5 at a crap job for 2/3 of what her male colleagues makes overhears how said colleagues and other men spew the hate-filled garbage they do at Britney Spears or Hillary Clinton or any woman that has a spotlight on her, how is she supposed to feel? Is it any wonder that a lot of women don't seek high-profile work that will subject them to similar discussions?
Again, I have no interest to sit through a Britney Spears video to listen to one of her songs. That type of music does nothing for me. But Britney Spears is a human being, a person, and that's why I will occasionally listen to what people are saying about her. Sadly, the lack of empathy or consideration for her humanity all too often come to the fore. The term "trainwreck" and a host of other such terms (see above) seek to portray her as an evil force in the world, while young men who are apparently still embittered over her having the audacity to marry Kevin Federline seek to deny her of even being a human being. That is wrong. Whatever her faults and foibles, she is still a person who is entitled to be treated with a measure of dignity and respect, something glaringly absent from much of the public discourse around her.
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