From: Judy Seigel (jseigel@panix.com)
Date: 08/26/02-01:47:29 AM Z
Shannon, you're making a fairly simple story into something bizarre and
outlandish, and there isn't time enough in the world to extract my meaning
from the jumble... If I did, you would rejumble and the attempt to
rescue my meaning would become a lifetime job.
However, I think it might be useful nevertheless to note that words do
have meanings, and if we don't respect those meanings, "discussion" turns
to flailing. Was it the White Queen or the Red Duchess who said "words
mean what I say they mean"? Whichever, that was intended as satire not a
recommendation.
In reality, the ability to share, understand, and communicate meanings is
crucial to civilization. I note again, therefore, that to be *unequal* is
not the same as to be *oppressed.* If a woman is passed over for a
promotion, for instance, she may still have a good job & a nice life.
Given the meaning of the word, she is not "oppressed." Still, she is not
equal.
There is a lot of talking and claiming that women are *equal* in our
culture, but by many measures, including their longevity as movie stars
and their authority as news anchors (which I chose because they're so
obvious and so unequal), they are not. There are other measures that show
much the same thing -- for instance, 60% of the entering class at a major
school of journalism the year my daughter went there was female, and the
numbers elsewhere are similar still... yet female front page bylines are
rare. Sunday's Times has one out of six.
Women enter medical school in larger numbers than ever, but how many chief
residents are women? How many surgical residents (the highest paying most
prestigious)? In fact, when women enter a profession, or a medical
specialty, in large numbers, prestige & pay traditionally go down.
This is merely to point out, at 3:40 AM, some of the indices. And the
reason? Lots of reasons -- read Freud for some apt and excellent
commentary for instance. More explicity, look up a book called Gender
Advertisements, by Erving Goffman, circa 1973: It showed how women were
then portrayed in advertising, contrasting each pose with a related, but
more dignified, "power pose" of a man, often in the same ad. Can anyone
doubt that women are portrayed more erotically now than in the '70s? You
think this has no effect? Who could imagine that billion dollar
corporations spend billions and trillions to -- what, fill air time?
Support magazines out of the kindness of their hearts?
The pervasive display of women as erotic stereotype, whether in underwear
ads, car advertising, or "high art," not only affects their status, it
illustrates it... a self-reinforcing cycle. To repeat: in our culture
the people in power wear clothes.
I note also, tho I probably shouldn't, that you seem to want to make a
distinction between advertising and "fine art"... apparently unaware that
much fine art is a response in some manner to the media culture. But such
a distinction is not possible in any event... It's a continuum, not
either/or. So after the matter of defining "fine art," then justifying the
attempt to make such a distinction, you want to say there's no effect of
fine art imagery on our consciousness? Probably not, it being all too
feeble much of the time --- still, we can but try...
But I'm wondering, why should we try to distinguish between advertising
and fine art? Because fine art is on a higher plane? Purer? More
intellectual? And anyway, they're not naked ladies in fine art, rather a
neutral art convention? I can't believe you said that.
Judy
On Sun, 25 Aug 2002, shannon stoney wrote:
> > > 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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