Enlightened Sexism

Hannah Dickie

2/20/15

Entry 4

Enlightened Sexism

            In the introduction of Susan Douglas’s book “The Rise of Enlightened Sexism” she describes what exactly enlightened sexism is. It’s the idea that women have achieved so much through feminism there really is no need for it anymore. This made me think has a lot really changed and through one experience in particular I have come to the conclusion that no not much has changed women for the most part are still viewed as sexual objects. The experience that made me come to this decision was being on my high school cheerleading team. Being a cheerleader it was like other people expected me to be a dumb blonde who only cared about what she looked like and boys. But I was the complete opposite I cared a lot about my grades, actually my whole team did we weren’t those dumb cheerleaders who got a’s for being cheerleaders. We helped each other get good grades and do the best we could. Another thing I didn’t do was try to make myself look like the typical cheerleader wearing her uniform all the time or wearing small skirts and tight shirts. The one thing that really hit me though had nothing to do with me. One of the girls on my team I had been cheering with for more than 10 years was on the heavier side. People in school had no problem with her being overweight when she was in school and walking through the halls. However the second she put on her cheerleading uniform the comments began to come and they came fast. “Look at that girl how can she be a cheerleader”, “she should not be in that uniform”, and the one that hit me the hardest was “cheerleaders aren’t supposed to be fat”. That makes no sense at all. There isn’t a law that says only skinny people can be cheerleaders. This is a stereotype that I thought didn’t exist anymore but I was definitely wrong. Because she was being made fun of she tried her hardest to lose weight. This came up in our discussion today in class that celebrities are so proud to be their weight and there is nothing wrong with being heavier, but then they go and lose like half their weight and tell everyone how much better they are now. That’s sending the wrong message to girl’s young girls primarily that even if they love their body and their happy they should try to keep it as tiny as they can. As it was also discussed during class today they then remind girls who are skinnier then most how skinny that actually are. This was something I had a problem with. All my life I have been tiny both weight wise and short. It’s not something I can really control. People would tell me all the time maybe you should eat more or put on a couple pounds. I mean really did they think I wasn’t eating, I could probably out eat any of them. I ate more than a lot of people I just could not keep anything on and I accepted that and once I was able to do that I got back a lot of the confidence that had been taken from me. The girl one my team is now in her senior year of high school and is one of the best on the team she stopped trying to make herself something she wasn’t and she continued to do what she loved not letting the stereotypical society bring her down. This is something that needs to be taught to young girls to because many of them see the stereotypes out there and assume they need to be so tiny and look a certain way and if they don’t maybe they won’t be able to do something they really enjoy. Enlightened sexism is supposed to be empowering for women look at all you have accomplished, when really nothing has changed in fact it’s probably gotten worse. Women are now judging other women more than ever and putting them down to build their own selves up. How is this more empowering? Feminism may have come a long way but in the end enlightened sexism is taking everything it achieved and ruining it.