By Alexa Tomaszewski
Published October 21, 2013 17:55
Originally Published on: www.50mmphotography.ca

Stereotypes about women haven’t for the most part changed or gone anywhere and ultimately are proliferated daily in the media industry.  The femme-fatale, good-girl, sex-kitten, corporate-climber or super-mom are all examples of images repeated in over and over again. Some of these images have a huge impact on young women and more specifically young girls.

All I’m thinking about is: Selina Gomez, “Spring Breakers” and ‘If you want it come and get it”. Do I need to have a talk with my cousins about their daughters? Because I’m picturing one of them in a Selina Gomez t-shirt, with her eyes beaming in pride about to see the artist perform. The kicker? I’m pretty sure I remember a “really hope Bieber show’s up” comment. This is all bad. Bad, bad example Gomez, who might I remind you, is a Disney starlet.

After Miley Cyrus’ performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards we have to ask ourselves as women, do we want the next generation to grow up with this as an example? The politics of juxtaposing a young, thin, caucasian woman against a backdrop of full bodied black women – “twerking” aside – the racialization and sexualization of the feminine body sends a message. That message being: sexual promiscuity is power, acting like a sex worker is cool and that outward displays of raunch culture are socially accepted and proof the feminist mission of yesteryear worked.

You can’t stop. You won’t stop. But what exactly is it that needs to be stopped? Has anyone actually taken a moment to consider that the idea of sexual freedom as empowerment is actually a form of subjection to keep women, white women especially, just a tier under the powerful white men in the hierarchy?

Sure, Cyrus’ performance was raunchy. Yes, she looked like a spoiled brat, tongues out and surrounded by toys. One writer atVulture.com said “her act tipped over into what we may as well just call racism: a minstrel show routine whose ghoulishness was heightened by Cyrus’s madcap charisma, and by the dark beauty of “We Can’t Stop” — by a good distance, the most powerful pop hit of 2013.”

Is this type of controversy good for ratings? Of course it is. But what is it doing to the ego’s of both grown and young women watching?

“Black feminists have critiqued the material advantage that accrues to white women as a function of their elevated status as the normative cultural beauty ideal,” wrote Tressiemc on her blog after Cyrus’ performance. “As far as privileges go it is certainly a complicated one but that does not negate its utility. Being suitably marriageable privileges white women’s relation to white male wealth and power.”

Performances like Cyrus’ and Thicke’s at the MVA’s epitomize the perverted gender themes running through today’s popular culture. More frighteningly so, young women performing for other young women are propagating these themes, proliferating the ideas to future generations of women.

Both Cyrus and Gomez shimmy & shake, and are as under-clothed as the strippers in their music videos. These young women are look to psychologically traumatized sex workers as their inspiration. You need to go no further than Gomez’s performance in “Spring Breakers” to see this influence, as Gomez sucks back on a bong and dances promiscuously with her friends.

Writer Ariel Levy explores notions like this in her book “Female Chauvinist Pigs”.  Levy explores notions of feminism in programs like “The Man Show”, “Girls Gone Wild” and publications like “Playboy” which she dubs “raunch culture.” This raunch culture, she explains, is believed by most women to be evidence that the feminist project has been in fact achieved.

“We’d earned the right to look at Playboy; we were empowered enough to get Brazilian bikini waxes. Women had come so far, I learned, we no longer needed to worry about objectification or misogyny,” writes Levy. “Instead, it was time for us to join the frat party of pop culture, where men had been enjoying themselves all along. If Male Chauvinist Pigs were men who regarded women as pieces of meat, we would outdo them and be Female Chauvinist Pigs: women who make sex objects of other women and of ourselves.”

Spectacles of naked ladies have moved from seedy side streets to center stage, where everyone — men and women — can watch them in broad daylight, Levy writes. “Playboy and its ilk are being embraced by young women in a curious way in a postfeminist world,” to borrow the words of Hugh Hefner.”

Stars like Cyrus talk about “strong women” and “empowerment” but are dressed in “soft porn” styles and ultimately acting like, what Levy calls, “Female Chauvinist pigs” – women who make sex objects of themselves and of other women.

Women, including Cyrus, who want to be like “one of the guys” therefore women act as they want mimicking strippers or porn stars in an effort to be seen as sexy and not as a “girly-girl” or a “prissy little woman”.  Ultimately, we have laced this sleazy energy and aesthetic of a topless club or a Penthouse shoot throughout our entire culture.” This is clearly seen in the spectacle that was the 2013 MTV Music Video Awards.

Sex work is frequently and specifically referenced in the style, speech and creative output of women in general. Consider Lady Gaga seated in a thong, Katy Perry mimicking a boxer, her generous bosoms bouncing and, of course, Cyrus, twerking on Robin Thicke. The MTV VMA’s only prove that men and women both have developed a taste for the kitsch-y, slutty stereotypes about female sexuality we thought were old fashioned or outdated.

Sinead O’Connor touches on this in her open letter to Cyrus, which she posted to her website just days after the starlet compared herself to O’Connor in Rolling Stone.  Cyrus compared her ‘Wrecking Ball” video to O’Conner’s video for “Nothing Compares” in a recent interview with Rolling Stone after which O’Connor said she recent in influx of calls from the media for comment.

Comment she in and in the spirit of “motherliness and love” – O’Connor now 47, succeeds in keeping this tone throughout. “I am extremely concerned for you that those around you have led you to believe, or encouraged you in your own belief, that it is in any way ‘cool’ to be naked and licking sledgehammers in your videos,” O’Connor writes. “It is in fact the case that you will obscure your talent by allowing yourself to be pimped, whether it’s the music business or yourself doing the pimping.”

Essentially O’Connor is plainly asserting the fact that nothing good can come from selling ones sexuality in the long run. “It is absolutely NOT in ANY way an empowerment of yourself or any other young women, for you to send across the message that you are to be valued (even by you) more for your sexual appeal than your obvious talent,” writers O’Connor, along very much the same lines as author, Ariel Levy quoted above.

“The music business doesn’t give a shit about you, or any of us,” writer O’Connor. “They will prostitute you for all you are worth, and cleverly make you think its what YOU wanted … and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, ‘they’ will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body and you will find yourself very alone.”

The “they” she is referring to is very much the white, male dominated music executives who run the business from behind the scenes. I would bet any female artist would agree that men to this day dominate the industry; in fact Nicki Minaj has said the rap industry is incredibly hard to come up in if you’re a woman. No matter how much talent you have.

O’Connor’s motherly concern, and old world values come across clear when she writes “You ought be protected as a precious young lady by anyone in your employ and anyone around you, including you,” O’Connor writes. “This is a dangerous world. We don’t encourage our daughters to walk around naked in it because it makes them prey for animals and less than animals, a distressing majority of whom work in the music industry and it’s associated media.”

As I write this I consider the young women in my family and that we have come a long way from Britney Spears shimmying down a school hallway singing “Hit me baby one more time” or Madonna in her cone bra. In 2013 mature, adult women have it even harder delineating between too sexual and just enough. Imagine what insecure, teenage women must feel? How confused they might be? I suggest instead of slut-shaming Cyrus for her performance at the VMA’s we sit down with those young, females and talk to them about what they are seeing. Let’s be honest, and lets discuss why Cyrus’ actions are a problem and not shame her for those actions. Because lets be honest, it was society who taught her to act that way.

“Real empowerment of yourself as a woman would be to in future refuse to exploit your body or your sexuality in order for men to make money from you,” writes O’Connor. “Please in future say no when you are asked to prostitute yourself. Your body is for you and your boyfriend. It isn’t for every spunk-spewing dirtbag on the net, or every greedy record company executive to buy his mistresses diamonds with.”