My soapbox, thanks to the can of worms opened by Jersey
Jersey posted on her blog today commenting on pornography and I had to comment. It started as an actual comment on her post, but I got on my soap box and ran with it, so I decided to put it on my blog instead. So, here goes:
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EXACTLY!!! It isn't about whether a woman has a right to show off her body. She does, and if she's doing so as a form of empowerment, more power to her.
But when the female body, beautiful as it is, becomes something that women have to USE because their other alternatives are limited, or because (as in the case of so many in porn) they were abused at such an early age that their view of themselves and their own sexuality is warped, it is not about empowerment or about women's rights to use their own bodies however they sit fit. Instead, it is about a systematic problem in our society that says that women must fit into a potentially unhealthy physical ideal in order to be deemed valuable.
Look at the stats on women in science and math. Girls enroll in advanced math and science courses at the same rate as boys until Junior High. They then stop. Common reason? Because they don't want to be looked at as too "smart."
We worry about little boys who look up to athletes as heros, but at least their heros (warped as they may potentially be) are using their talents to advance. Little girls are instead shown that it's okay to have talent, as long as first and foremost, you're pretty.
Another example. Think of Anna Kornikova. She was the closest thing to a female sports superstar that really hit the mainstream and unless you checked really closely, you might have missed what sport she played. Give me Jennie Finch any day -- is she beautiful and charming and all of that? Absolutely. But ask her about any of it, and she'll tell you that she just wants to play ball. Don't know who Jennie Finch is? Well, I guess that tells you a whole lot about our society, but I'll give the differences to you really simply. Unlike Kournikova, Jennie Finch wins.
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EXACTLY!!! It isn't about whether a woman has a right to show off her body. She does, and if she's doing so as a form of empowerment, more power to her.
But when the female body, beautiful as it is, becomes something that women have to USE because their other alternatives are limited, or because (as in the case of so many in porn) they were abused at such an early age that their view of themselves and their own sexuality is warped, it is not about empowerment or about women's rights to use their own bodies however they sit fit. Instead, it is about a systematic problem in our society that says that women must fit into a potentially unhealthy physical ideal in order to be deemed valuable.
Look at the stats on women in science and math. Girls enroll in advanced math and science courses at the same rate as boys until Junior High. They then stop. Common reason? Because they don't want to be looked at as too "smart."
We worry about little boys who look up to athletes as heros, but at least their heros (warped as they may potentially be) are using their talents to advance. Little girls are instead shown that it's okay to have talent, as long as first and foremost, you're pretty.
Another example. Think of Anna Kornikova. She was the closest thing to a female sports superstar that really hit the mainstream and unless you checked really closely, you might have missed what sport she played. Give me Jennie Finch any day -- is she beautiful and charming and all of that? Absolutely. But ask her about any of it, and she'll tell you that she just wants to play ball. Don't know who Jennie Finch is? Well, I guess that tells you a whole lot about our society, but I'll give the differences to you really simply. Unlike Kournikova, Jennie Finch wins.
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