Is This Really Feminism?
From fashion to media to music, even video games, we can see how the raunch culture influences just about every aspect of everyone's lives. Ariel Levy’s Female Chauvinistic Pigs gives readers a greater insight into why this culture is affecting the lives of women and young girls everywhere. Pop culture feeds social media is constantly being absorbed by young men and women, where both subject ideas of the predator/ prey mindset and chauvinist mindset discussed by Serano and Levy are taught to young individuals. Not only is this culture and mindset expanding, but it is also now helping the rape culture grow exponentially as well. This becomes 'ordinary' or 'worthy' to have ladies be oversexualized and too much misused, to the point where regularly ladies must acknowledge raunch culture, as characterized by Levy, so as to flourish in their job fields. Julia Serano’s essay “Why Nice Guys Finish Last” paints a vivid picture of why rape culture still exists and will continue to. The raunch and rape cultures, produced by pop culture, go hand in hand in hindering the lives of females everywhere. The raunch culture is on the rise and is impacting how teens and adults behave and think. This stems from a pop culture that causes confusion in teens' social and sexual lives, opening the gates for rape and raunch cultures and closing them on feminism.
Currently, all over social media platforms and the digital world, women and men are being influenced by the things they see on TV or social media essays. The raunch culture is now opening more jobs that we never even heard of until recently: Instagram models, YouTube Influencers, Brand Ambassadors, and more. In Levy's book, the expression 'female chauvinistic pigs' are ladies showing up in male-oriented settings where ladies feel committed to acknowledging these oversexualized generalizations of themselves so as to progress or get any kind of regard in their profession. Young girls start to idolize celebrities with “perfect bodies” and soon result to having a lack of love for themselves and their bodies because they don’t look like these celebs. Levy says, “women who’ve wanted to be perceived as powerful have long found it more efficient to identify with men than to try and elevate the entire female sex to their level” (Levy 268).
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These social media stars are aiming to bring male attention to themselves in order to gain more followers, up the amount of activity on their accounts, and get followers to buy the products they are advertising, and young girls buy these things in hope that they look like their idols. Figure 1 depicts the influence of the raunch culture clearly. Social media influencers posting content like “Flat Tummy Tea” opens up the box of self-esteem issues in every young girl, and even in grown adults. They feel that they have to have the perfect body in order to exist in this world. This ideal put on the same amount of pressure as the “virgin/whore” or “nice guy/a**hole” double bind that Serano speaks about. Teens feel forced to partake in things they don’t want to do in order to keep a certain image of themselves in others’ eyes. Nice guys will turn into a**holes in order to attract female attention, just as females will try and alter their bodies to get the attention of males.
Today, it is hard to try and escape the raunch culture and its effect on the media. This can now be seen in music as well. My go-to example of Nicki Minaj’s Anaconda song followed by a very provocative music video. Figure 3 is a clip from her music video for “Anaconda”, which spins predominantly around how a lady feels certain on the grounds that the size of her 'butt' pulls in men. Due to her body, men have disclosed to her that they want her for that very reason, as lines of the verses show. Men's esteem for a lady's body is by all accounts the topic of the tune. Moreover, Minaj has performed shows wearing only a thong swimsuit. Both her verses and her exhibition pass on the possibility that a ladies' value originates from having intercourse request and being respected by men as opposed to being autonomous. The music industry transforming it likewise brought numerous new style patterns. Fashion is intended to enable ladies to be engaged with their bodies. Pop fashion is for the most part extraneous and sexual. The same fashion is reflected in teenagers and young ladies. As found in figure 2, Miley Cyrus who grew up with today's teenagers is one of the numerous women that are always advancing this kind of style and raunch culture. This type of style is great due to it promoting women's empowerment, but it can also be sending across an inappropriate message and giving predators the wrong idea. Most adolescents will feel forced to dress along these lines and could be sexualized and generalized. This could wind up affecting the rape culture because of the over-sexualization and objectification of ladies that accompany design patterns. Because of objectification, the noteworthy garments, prompts the 'predator/prey mindset', considering ladies to be sexual items. By affecting rape culture and raunch culture, it would conflict with their need to grasp their sexuality, as Serano expressed in her paper.
Now the raunch culture wouldn’t be as much of a problem if it wasn’t for it helping the rape culture expand. Female Chauvinism is a problem that is common, and its effects can be projected throughout the media in young society. Female Chauvinism is an unhealthy mentality, which discretely supports the over-sexualization of young girls and women. This promotes a culture in which sex is rewarded, which raises unhealthy images for young adults. Women who as trying to fit into the image of the raunch culture with their perfect bodies and model-like physique are bringing good and bad attention to themselves. Men will think that this is an invitation to assault women by taking on this image. Serano highlights this ideal in her essay when she says, “The underlying assumption is that women should simply know better – they should recognize that they are prey and men are predators, and they should act “appropriately.”(Serano 415). This is the reason the raunch culture makes the rape culture even bolder. People are not inherently predators or prey, and they may not be associated with their parents but, popular culture paints them to play the role of these certain generalizations and practices through the same depictions.
Overall, pop culture, raunch culture, and rape cultures have an interconnected relationship that collectively takes down feminism. In the two writings by Serano and Levy, 'Why Nice Guys Finish Last' and Female Chauvinistic Pigs, the spread of raunch culture among ladies is affected by popular culture because of them normalizing sexualization. It makes women display their bodies as sexual items and not have any ethics doing such, just as getting other ladies to take part in the demonstration. At last, outcomes show more youthful teenagers seeing this sort of conduct as some other customary social standard in the public eye. Young women and men are truly being affected by this mindset of having to be perfect in aspects of their physique. All thanks to the media and the new way of thinking.
Works Cited
- Levy, Ariel. Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture. Black Inc., 2010.
- Serano, Julia. Why Nice Guys Finish Last. 2013.
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