Jenny
Be-Musing Momma
Reged: Jun 12 2006
Posts: 225
Loc: Minnesota
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Hi all! I picked up a copy of Ariel Levy's FCP, and plan to begin reading it this week. For anyone else interested, why don't you pick up a copy and start reading it now. My suggestion is that we discuss chapter 1 from July 7 to July 14 (and we can extend that if people have trouble getting their hands on the book).
The Amazon review is here and you can order it from a feminist bookstore.
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No matter what your fight, don’t be ladylike! God Almighty made women and the Rockefeller gang of thieves made the ladies. ~Mother Jones
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Jenny
Be-Musing Momma
Reged: Jun 12 2006
Posts: 225
Loc: Minnesota
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I was particularly interested by the scene in chapter 1 on page 16 in which 50 or 60 people (mostly guys) surrounded two girls on a beach in front of GGW cameramen and harassed them into exposing themselves in front of the camera.
Sure, this is an easy case--it's harder to know what to say about girls who "choose" to be filmed for these projects, though Levy tackles that subject later on--but it still suggests that one of the primary problems with raunch culture is the sense of entitlement it appears to fuel in men. It was as though they deserved to see these women naked.
I would feel horribly violated if I were surrounded by a crowd of boisterous, drunk young men asking to see my "tits."
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Kampire
AGA Blogger
Reged: Jun 20 2006
Posts: 205
Loc: Ohio
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I think that that particular scene is a great example of, like you said, one of the main problems with raunch culture. It is really easy to imagine how a scene where 50 guys are yelling "Take it off" at two girls can turn violent and physical.
I saw this video on feministing a few weeks ago that illustrates some of the issues Levy talks about in this first chapter. The final scene is especially chilling.
The idiotic comments on the YouTube page are also a great example* of the sense of entitlement young men seem to feel towards women's bodies. After all, they're just a bunch of drunk sluts asking for it, right?
*honestly, I wouldn't bother reading them, because you've heard this demeaning stuff a million times before
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Speaking out for women's rights: voice4choice.org
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ariel
Reged: Jul 13 2007
Posts: 1
Loc: USA
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First of all, I agree that the main problem with this scene is the male entitlement. I would say that this goes further than "asking" to see the woman in question remove her top - they are demanding it, frighteningly enough.
However, I feel that the closing part of this scene is equally disturbing. Levy describes how the second woman (the "friend"), without prompting, "rose up off her towel . . . then spanked her friend to the rhythm of the hooting" (17). For me, this really drives home the corollary to this kind of male entitlement - women are co-opted into acting out male fantasies, so much so that they have internalized this as part of their role in (raunch) society.
And what happens after this scene? In my imagination, at least a few of the men in the crowd would be describing these women sluts, ho's, etc... These women did not begin their day at the beach as "sluts asking for it." Yet, after being subject to the whims of their (predominantly male) peers, they have perhaps been relegated to this role by the end of the scene. And they have gone along with it willingly, in order obtain this approval.
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Kampire
AGA Blogger
Reged: Jun 20 2006
Posts: 205
Loc: Ohio
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One of the examples of raunch culture that really drove it home for me (not that it really needed to be, I believe it, I live it everyday)was that of the Olympic athletes posing for Maxim and Playboy. It's saddens me that successful female athletes have to prove their sexiness in this artificial manner. It's funny because I doubt that being spread out, vapid and barely-clothed, mimicking porn star expressions, can be sexier than showing the women coming off the field or court, sweaty, passionate, alive.
but what would I know about what's sexy? I'm just the young black woman who has to conform to these stupid standards, not some rich white man imagining them in his hottub.
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Speaking out for women's rights: voice4choice.org
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Beppie
Reged: Jun 22 2006
Posts: 362
Loc: Sydney, Australia
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Kampire, that really got to me too. Women's ability to be a sex object trumps achievements that have been worked for, whether those be sporting, academic, or anything else-- when there are all these messages suggesting that our value is in our object-status, it's no wonder that many of us internalise the message.
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Kampire
AGA Blogger
Reged: Jun 20 2006
Posts: 205
Loc: Ohio
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I wrote something about it in a blog post
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Speaking out for women's rights: voice4choice.org
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