The Devalued Female Body
Sex is becoming less taboo each day, so it has become easier to talk about. Unfortunately the manner that women are spoken about in the media when related to sex, is verbally aggressive. Joel Leon, writer of, PUSSY: A Think Piece, explains that we have become accustomed to using violent terms to describe sex and the female body that the end goal for men has become to “tear up” their vaginas. The most popular artists rap/sing about lewd acts with women and how they can dominate them during sex. Music videos are mostly about women’s body parts rather than women as a whole. When thinking about Nikki Minaj’s music video for Anaconda, I don’t remember anything other than a bunch of asses constantly being flashed. The lyrics says, “My anaconda don’t want none, unless you got buns hun”, this meaning that if a woman does not have the desired body then the man wants nothing to do with her. This video is coming from a female artist and if a woman cannot respect or see her true value men won’t either. This song basically screams, “I am seen as a piece of meat and I encourage that”.
Taking this approach towards women and their bodies generates more gendered-bias violence in our culture over time.
Robin Thicke’s song, Blurred Lines, caused a stir in 2013 because of the topless women in the video. Despite the controversy the song was still a hit. It won numerous Billboard Awards,Grammy Award,NAACP Image Award, and a Soul Train Music Award. It caused controversy because we knew it was morally wrong but continue to accept and promote sexual objectification of women if it is a catchy-enough tune. Justin Bieber, who holds influence on much of the youth today, said in an interview with Rolling Stone Magazine that he thought, “rape is really sad but everything happens for a reason.” Wait, what?? Later he of course clarified that the quote was incomplete, “Well, I think that’s really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don’t know how that would be a reason[to abort a child]. I guess I haven’t been in that position, so I wouldn’t be able to judge that”.This showed a lot! First, Bieber may still have meant that rape happens for a reason. Second, Bieber forms part of the younger generation and if he takes rape so lightly, so may the rest of the youth. Third, what he was quoted had already been published, so any die-hard fan had most likely bought and read his interview already and since it’s Justin Bieber the fan may actually be influenced by his words.
“Fuck Bitches, Get Money” is the mentality that most of the youth has today. Women are no longer people they are seen as hoes and “fuck hoes”, “bros before hoes”, “bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks”, right? Everything comes before women. Money, power, friends, anything is basically more important than women and when they are approached they are seen as a body to be used for sexual pleasure then disposed of. When a woman isn’t seen as a person anymore, but instead as a “hoe”, some would believe that they cannot get raped. “She likes sex anyways.” “She was asking for it, when she wore that dress”. “She shouldn’t have gotten drunk.” No! A woman can have sex with everyone except you, but if she doesn’t want to have sex with you let her make that choice. Her relationships with others should not affect yours. Of course, not every man is a rapist or a bad guy but to some extent both men and women are affected by the social norm of seeing women as objects. If we weren’t entertained by sex appeal, nearly naked women wouldn’t be in music videos, used in ads, or to model around a car. But like the saying goes “Sex sells”. It is such a norm to see women do absurd things to promote a company but when seeing men preform the same tasks it is ridiculous.
Fortunately we have not gone to the extent that China has, by using young girls in bikinis to model cars. But how far are we from it? Toddlers and Tiaras is promoting scrutinization of girls, to judge them for their looks and ability to transform into doll-looking models.
Devaluing women leads to devaluing girls and what kind of sick world do we live in that as soon as you are born you have zero value and are simply a sex object? When looked from the outside,China seems disgusting but before judging them we should look at how terrible our culture is as well. Americans pride themselves on freedom but we have to wonder who is free? Rapist and molesters are out on the streets while women have to remain cautious of their surroundings of all time. So we have to wonder who is our Patriarchal system really protecting, the abuser’s or the victim’s?
