I read this article from an older female journalist in the UK who was appalled by the Hooters restaurant. She got a lot of backlash in the comments from people who said things like
“it’s the choice of those waitresses to work there, no one is forcing them.”
In part of her article she talks about how in the late 70’s she interviewed a playboy bunny at a Playboy club and asked what it was like to be the last of a dying breed now that society is focusing on equality for women and equal rights. Then goes on to say that 20-30 years later women are once again playing that role of sex object to men professionally.
If you ask me, this will never go away completely. I’ve become a big fan of evolutionary psychology. In ep, you try to understand why people do things. It’s the whole nature versus nurture debate and ep tends to fall into the nature side of that debate.
It’s like “why do many women like girly things and why do many men like manly things?” Is it because society has programmed us to be that way? Partially. But realisitically you have to go even deeper than that and ask, why did society choose to program us that way? Where did it really begin and why?
This is what really strikes me. Throughout the history of the world most men have been men and most women have been women. Thousands of years. Maybe we are that way because that is our nature? Stereotypes are usually born out of some truth.
The truth is, young sexy women like the attention of men and men like to give it to them. This is our nature. The more we deny it, the worse off we’ll be.
What we’re seeing today is the reverse of the feminist movement that happened in the 70’s. Or rather not the reverse but the refinement. Where today’s young women are saying “Thanks feminist movement for identifying me as a human being with equal rights, but now that I have them, I chose to be a woman, I don’t want to play the role of a man. I want to be beautiful and sexy and get married in a white dress and maybe even just be a housewife or maybe not. I want the choice.”
This only makes sense to me. Obviously this journalist is an older professional woman who probably grew up in the heart of the feminist movement of that time and can’t help but be shocked by how young woman are acting these days. To her I’m sure she probably feels like all that effort by feminists was wasted. But it wasn’t. It played a crucial role. It sent out a message. But ultimately nature will win.
Gender equality (and expression) is an interesting subject. I don’t think it’s necessarily a problem of equality that women work jobs that show off their body, there are a lot of similar jobs out there for men. I do think you can choose what you want to do, and you can do it. The problem in my mind is more about the respect you get when you do choose what you want to do and if you are getting properly paid for what you’re doing.
Women have the choice to be a sex object or not, and they get to decide how they are given to other men. In essence, they have power over men because they’re allowing and limiting viewing and pleasure from their bodies, you get what I’m trying to say?
@haloed – Sort of. I don’t think women really have the choice to be a sex object or not. Just like men don’t. If you’re born beautiful people are going to desire you. Whether you seek the attention or not. To be honest, the women who know they are beautiful and take advantage of that fact are the smart ones. Chances are they’ll get further ahead in life because they are playing to their natural strengths. We’re all born with different natural strengths, denying those strengths doesn’t do you any good. But you’re lucky if you know what they are.
Beautiful women have always done well historically. If not physically stronger or mentally smarter they’ve at least had the sense enough to align themselves and their survival with men who are. How many rich and famous male celebrities do you see with ugly women? Not many.
But in the modern world that same can be said for men. Just like I don’t fault beautiful women for selling their sex to get ahead in life (playing to their strengths) I also don’t fault athletic men for selling themselves to a professional sport or smart people (men and women) for selling themselves to a certain company or cause.
What this all really comes down to I think, is that women by nature are catty and jealous and some of those not so beautiful feminists where trying to bring down the only strength some women had, their beauty. They were trying to sell women and men on the idea that all women should be treated and act like men. Which is stupid.
Today we’re realizing that everyone should be free to do what they want. Men and women would be allowed to sell their sex if that’s their strength or if it helps them.
We have to get out of this mentality that the most important aspect of ourselves is our inner beauty. Because that’s just not reality. Not in a world that has always and will always judge you for your outer looks as well. We are the sum of all our pieces. We just each individually need to find what our personal strengths are and exploit them. While at the same time not shitting on other peoples strengths just because we’re jealous we don’t have them.
I’ve been coming to peace with this myself. I can now look at men who are more attractive or men who are smarter than me and a enjoy them for who they are, rather than shitting all over them because I’m jealous.
I kind of came to a similar conclusion without actually knowing anything at all about feminism, back when I was a hardcore anarcho-capitalist libertarian whatever.
I mean, if I think that anyone at all, can do anything at all that they want to, then how could a feminist oppose me? So I’m probably a feminist? I never thought about it any harder than that.
Now that I care less about politics in general I still feel similarly. Women are choosing to do certain things. Some might say that “it’s a false choice” or that “they choose that because they don’t have any other options” or whatever, but even if that is true to a large extent there’s no way that you can say that about every single choice that every single woman has made that you disagree with.
I totally agree! I’ve thought about it a lot recently. Are we really happier since feminism came around? Sure, we’ve made huge advancements in terms of gaining rights for women, but with all the women acting like men out there, are we happy? I think that by acting like men, they’re just oppressing themselves to the point they don’t know who they are anymore.
Kudos to you for writing this. People are so afraid of the “F” word it’s laffable.
I think you worded this (in your comment) better than I could have. I too have been struggling with the “women’s movement”. I think it all depends on the woman, her upbringing and her estrogen level.