Blog 4

Alessandra Bisconti

Blog Post 4

“I’m Not a Feminist, But…”

The term feminist takes on a lot of baggage, and many women opt to not submit themselves under that title. Douglas says how Feminism is thought of as an “F word”. This was a funny, yet completely accurate description on how the world is viewing feminism. As some unspoken scary subject that is okay in small doses. Women should be accepted in LARGE amounts in the work and political fields. Just because there are a few women here and there to appease us, doesn’t mean that is satisfactory. There is no winning with how woman are accepted either. “Opinionated woman with big mouths are good for laughs in sitcoms, but keep them the hell out of politics and Hollywood movies-unless they are villains of course.” Women are being used for the benefit of others and where men see they would fit best. This relates back to the male gaze, woman are placed in roles that would be most suitable as men see them For example, female comedians are put in for humor but that is as far as they can go. Musicians must have music videos that are sexually appealing instead of focusing on the quality of the actual music. Also, there are significant amounts of movies where woman (who actually make it to be portrayed as a political or successful business woman) are shown as the villain! Why does a woman who earned her power have to be shown as a bitch now?

There is no definite answer to this question but Douglas makes a valid point as to where this stereotype and expectation we hold of women stemmed from. “We have grown up with these ever discrepant representations of women, and related to them all our lives, and while we have shaped them, they have had more power to shape us.” It is almost as though no matter how hard we try to resist the constant objectification of woman in our world, there is no escaping it. We are the future, and from an extremely young age we are already being brainwashed. Our culture thrives off what is physically appealing. Clothes, food, décor, and even our partners are all somewhat based off physical attraction because that is what is ingrained in us from a young age.

This is exactly where our problem lays. When will enough be enough and society as a whole will become more accepting? Feminism should not be the F word that people are afraid of. It should be embraced and accepted so a mass change can occur. There are ads and commercials telling us how to act, look, and eat. Feminism is still completely necessary today just as it was in previous decades. With the evolving times we have gotten more privileges, but within that different problems have arisen as well.