Almost exactly a year ago today, The Onion
posted my favorite parody news article of theirs. Its headline was, “Woman
Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being a Feminist To Enjoy TV Show.”
TO ENJOY A TV SHOW.
I laughed until my eyes watered and sent it
to some of my best friends. I feel like
this headline and article perfectly express the day-to-day fleeting moments of internal
conflict I experience as a modern day feminist who grew up strongly socialized
within a patriarchal society. That is, I don’t know how to embrace and
honor my feminism while still consuming (virtually) any mainstream media.
What I mean by that are things like...
·
The traditionally “girly” part of
me wants to watch The Bachelor and laugh about its ridiculousness with my
friends. The feminist part of me is
mortified and ashamed that I am consuming it and thus supporting and enabling
its degradation of women. Those of us
who claim we are hate-watching it or watching it ironically are lying to
ourselves. Not in the “you have a drinking
problem” kind of way, just in the “you only pretended
to try to hold the elevator” kind of way (see: http://jezebel.com/5982222/hate-watching-is-mostly-just-being-embarrassed-by-your-own-tastes and http://www.xojane.com/entertainment/i-watch-the-bachelor-okay for further consideration of these ideas).
·
Ariana Grande presents a
thin-ideal sex object that I think glorifies so many things that are harmful to
women. But I love her voice and her
songs, and part of me is jealous of her appearance I think, so some combination
of that leads me to watch her music videos.
Like, multiple times each.
·
A moment I present as either embarrassing
or awesome depending on the audience: attending a Britney Spears concert. As an adult. After my feminist awakening (but... but...
nostalgia!)
·
Say Yes to the Dress only
validates and perpetuates the message that a girl’s whole life is building to
her wedding day, which will be the most important day of her life and on which
she needs to look perfect. This
pressure seems to have multiplied exponentially with social media – Pinterest
wedding boards, a much larger audience for wedding photos, etc. But few things are a greater guilty pleasure
for me than watching Say Yes to the Dress with girlfriends, and I already
anticipate that I, too, will not feel able to help striving to look perfect
(read: thin, beautiful) on my own wedding day.
·
The Kardashians/Jenners pain me. But.... sometimes I click on links to articles
like “Kylie Jenner Goes Without Makeup, Flashes Torso in a Crop Top: See Her
Street Style Look.” Oh, yeah, and that
means that sometimes I visit websites like People Magazine or Us Weekly.
Is this hypocrisy? Kind of like how I feel strongly about animal
cruelty but still purchase leather items and sometimes eat
conventionally-produced meat?
Or is this just what it can be like to grow
up strongly influenced by female gender norms and then later discover feminism?
Is this a small, privileged version of
what many feminist scholars have referred to as living in the liminal space
(space in between two identities)? Is
this just an embodiment of sometimes feeling tired of fighting it constantly
and wanting to take a break?
Or maybe my choices aren’t problematic at
all. Many believe, for example, that some female pop stars’ unapologetic
sexuality is indeed empowering to women (e.g., http://bitchmagazine.org/post/nicki-minajs-unapologetic-sexuality-anaconda-video-feminism). But I have felt so
confused by sometimes-only-subtle differences between media presentations of
female sexuality that are empowering vs. those that are repressive that my
choices to consume this type of pop culture don’t sit well with me.
A heroine of mine, Roxane Gay, embraces all
these contradictions as being a Bad Feminist. She says it is a totally human
and still valuable version of feminism (http://feministing.com/2014/08/05/feministing-readz-bad-feminism-gives-us-permission-to-be-complicated-with-our-feminism/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter).
Writers like Roxane Gay help me accept my
complicated, normal person feminism. And,
at the same time, I still want to strive to be a less-complicated
feminist. I want to do this because I want
my actions to match my values (cognitive dissonance?). If I
really cared about promoting a healthier popular culture for girls and women, I
wouldn’t support The Bachelor’s success by watching it. I also want this because I strongly believe women have to lead by example. I want
to show my future daughter, not just tell her, that women should not feel ashamed
of how they look without makeup. In
short, I believe in the words of
Marie C. Wilson, feminist author, political organizer, and entrepreneur (and
creator of Take Our Daughters to Work Day): you can’t be what you can’t see.
I have found a few small things that help me
to make the choices I feel better about in the long-term. I follow accounts on Twitter like The
Representation Project (@TheRepProject) and Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls
(@smrtgrls) to help feminist media keep reaching my eyes and ears. Before consuming something, I try to stop and
ask myself, “Is this helpful to me?” “How
will watching this make me feel in the long-term?” “Would I feel comfortable
publically acknowledging that I am consuming this?”
And sometimes I just let myself be a Bad Feminist
and indulge in the latest Rose Ceremony drama J (it was
Most Dramatic Rose Ceremony Ever, so I mean, I had to).
How do you navigate today’s media environment
as a feminist? What have you found
helpful? How would you reconcile choices
like these?
- Written by Kimberly Burdette, M.A.
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