From: shannon stoney (sstoney@pdq.net)
Date: 08/25/02-07:33:06 AM Z
> > But this argument has some weaknesses. First, if you are saying that it is
>> mainly young women who are seen as sex objects, but not middle aged or older
>> women, then it should be no problem for middle aged or older women
>>to be taken
>> seriously at work. The problem would exist mainly for younger
>>women. So, the
>> argument fails logically there.
>
>Firstly, the woman has lost the young years when men were building power,
>which doesn't arrive in a moment.
Not sure what you mean here. Could you clarify?
> Secondly, the pervasive image of
>eroticized woman makes the older non-eroticized woman drab, a non-person,
>doubly powerless.
But I thought you were saying that *eroticizing* women makes them
non-persons, or at least, non-professionals, or not partner material.
Or do you mean the opposite? Ie that the other lawyers want to have a
nubile woman, in her twenties, for a new partner in the law firm, but
not, say, Hillary?
>
>And not tolerated. What female movie star keeps a career after, say, 40?
>Those who do are so exceptional they're known for that. What male movie
>star is younger than 40? Oh I know, a few, but 40 is not old and the male
>stars keep getting the girls into their 70s, even wimpy ugly guys like
>Woody Allen. Same for news anchors... bunch of jowly old guys. How many
>jowly old women?
OK: I think your point here is that society values pretty young
women over old women, even when appearance shouldn't make that much
difference, as in tv journalism. And the implicit point is that when
artists photograph nude young women, that act exacerbates this
tendency in society. The logical connection here is tenuous, but
let's grant it for a minute.
First, let's make a distinction between advertising and fine art.
It's true that advertisements usually feature scantily clad young
women, and fine art photographers also sometimes photograph nude
young women, but we also photograph middle aged women and old women,
even ourselves at an advanced age. I've seen a good bit of that kind
of stuff recently ("it's been done!"). I've photographed myself nude
working in my garden, spinning, weaving, etc as a sort of
Muybridge-like study of the female body at work. And I was well into
my forties when I did that. In fine art photography, we do whatever
we want to: young women, old women, young men, old men, perfect
people, imperfect people...it's all grist for the mill. The choice
to photograph a young woman as opposed to an old woman may not be a
sign of some sort of malevolent "male gaze" but rather a decision
having to do with formal requirements, or even social commentary,
again, not necessarily malevolent in intent. And, what would it mean
if a woman photographer photographed nude young women? Would that be
suspect too?
If every time a man photographs a nude young woman, he is to be
accused of perpetrating some sort of sexist outrage, wouldn't that be
a kind of censorship of the fine arts?
Elaine Scarry has written a book called On Beauty and Being Just that
deals with some of these issues of the "gaze" as harmful. She says
that when we see something beautiful, we want to replicate it in art.
This is not inherently harmful to the thing or person being looked
at. How could it be?
> And I certainly never
>said erotically charged imagery causes oppression. It could even yield a
>certain power. My point was about *equality*, as in "making partner"--
I thought you DID mean that. I thought you meant that erotic imagery
of young nubile women causes older women to be oppressed in the
workplace, in the sense that they can't get to the top of the
organization because they are older women. If there is this glass
ceiling, it is a form of oppression, is it not?
If this is not your point, I'm not sure what your point is.
>. The Greek culture was so
>different from ours in any event that few analogies would hold, but I
>daresay some of those pretty boy bodies in the sculptures were relatively
>powerless.
There are also a lot of statues of powerful men like Odysseus and
even the gods that I would say were erotic.
>
>Shannon, again, I am NOT talking "oppression," which is entirely your
>construction.
Then what are you talking about?
>
>You're just like Bill Jay -- using the term "erotic portrayals of the
>human body" to mean naked ladies.
Who is Bill Jay?
Erotic portrayals of the human body could be naked ladies or naked
gentlemen. Is there a problem?
> And let's say it IS good for the man,
>is it equally beneficial to the woman? My point is that it is not... my
>entire point.
Women need to find their own way to keep their blood pressure down!
--shannon
"The charm of simple good manners is almost irresistible."--Tocqueville
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