Wednesday night was an interesting night at James Madison University. Our campus was home to two speakers, one addressing “The Failures of Feminism”-more on this in a later post-and Susan Douglas, author of The Mommy Myth and Enlightened Sexism among other books.
I chose to attend Douglas’ speech, and I am happy to say that I do not regret that decision. Douglas operates by the mantra that humor, especially derisive humor, can be the most powerful of weapons. In her speech on the journey from “Girl Power to Girls Gone Wild”, Douglas illustrated the power in pointing out injustices and ironies in the roles of women in our culture.
Take, for example, The Man Show.
For those of you who are not familiar with The Man Show, it’s a show celebrating all things masculine and manly. There is a segment on the show entitled “Juggies” which apparently features large breasted women jumping around and performing various stunts that show off….well, the parts of them that jiggle. All of this occurs in front of a characteristically doofy male audience that oogle and cheer them on.
The premise of this show is that this is clearly sexist, but that these men are dumb for being that way. However, because this sexism is painted as “silly”, than it is painted as “funny”, and if something is funny than it is okay, right?
Wrong.
Douglas makes the astute connection that by putting women in powerful positions on TV:
ie: As doctors and surgeons on Grey’s Anatomy
Or as detectives and Lawyers on shows like Law and Order:
We lull women and society into a false sense of security, making them believe that we have achieved equality because that is what is reflected in our media.
However, there is a dark side of this idea that you won’t find on prime time. 5 Years out of college, women are making 80% of their male counterparts, and at 10 years out it is as low as 58%. But if what we see on TV is an equal distribution of power, than why would we have any reason to believe that we still have a need for feminism?
Here Douglas introduces the idea of Zombie Feminism: It’s dead, but it can still hurt you.
So be careful, readers. Be careful of letting media images affect your beliefs and attitudes without research into the real world.
Oh, and uh… Susan Douglas spoke to a full room of people. So, Kate Obenshain, I’m not sure we’re ready to call Feminism a failure.
ShoutOut! James Madison University 