Wednesday, September 15, 2010
The New Girliness (and a little You Go Girl
What I found most interesting from chapter 4, The New Girliness was how Douglas described the inner voice we hear from the female narrator in movies such as Clueless. I never thought previously to pay special attention to this voice from within but Douglas is right. The female "narrators" we hear in movies like Clueless and T.V shows like Grey's Anatomy are the voices that we stereotypically associate with women and their problems. The inner thoughts "were meant to represent the true, authentic female"(102). And what are these voices saying? Mostly dieting, shopping, men, and babies. Is this what our society has come to? Putting all women in this one category and creating this stereotype that all we do is worry, worry, worry? Douglas states the facts, and she does it in a way in which she doesn't voice her opinion about the things she's saying. This kind of bothers me though. I want her to be as outraged as I am when I read about how the "true empowerment came from buying the right things and using the right products to look irresistibly attractive." I could only hope that other women reading this book understand that what Douglas is saying is generally what society makes us out to be. Something else I find infuriating is when Douglas goes into detail about Bridget Jones and how she had become the "icon of the allegedly new postfeminist woman"(114). This woman whose world revolves around men and her calorie count has seriously become the epitome of womanhood? After all the great strides women have made in the past to get to where we are today, and this is what women are being labeled as. Lastly, to end my rant, I want to go back to the inner voice again but from a different movie: "What Women Want". The inner thoughts of women can be heard and all were worries, about men, children, chores... Nothing about their job, or political issues, anything of significance. I am about to read chapter five but just wanted to post this so you guys had something to work with. I'll comment later. :)
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I one hundred percent agree with what Courtney said about the female narrators that appear in movies and t.v. shoes of today. I as well had never thought much about the importance and what it meant that women were able to get such a role. However, along with that I never thought about the repercussions of what they were saying would be on women. The way that women are represented in the media unfortunately has a huge influence on the way that we view feminism today. I really liked how Douglas noted the contradiction that women face today in regards to feminism. She starts by saying "Hypergirliness is vapid, superficial, a dead giveaway that someone should not be taken seriously" (121). But later goes on to say "feminists are silly, humorless, and obsessed wth trivial, utterly symbolic issues and political correctness" (121). We are constantly bombarded by conflciting images of what it means to be a feminist and successfully in society. While reading chapter 5, I could not help thinking that it was so ironic that Douglass kept pointing out that white women were jealous of African American woman's ability to speak out. Since the fight for women's rights was initiated by their lack of power in the civil rights movement. It started that white women felt as though they needed to first get rights for themselves and then they would focus on African American women's rights. It is almost as though the role has been reversed. However, I was not really that sure how I should be reacting to this chapter. I left my reading envying these women for their success and ability to speak out, but then I reminded myself of how little of the African American commuunity these few successful women such as Oprah are representing. For example, Douglas noted all of the derogatory images of African American women we see in rap videos. I think overall, these two chapters just further emphasized the double standards that all women are facing in todays society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what Courtney had to say about the female "narrators" being stereotypically associated with women and their problems. I feel like we also see this in the show Gossip Girl. Even though the narrator is never actually seen, she focuses her attention on gossiping about the other characters. And what is this gossip all about? It was all about shopping and scandals. And the "it girl" (Serena) is the one who "bought the right things and used the right products to look irresistibly attractive." So would we consider her to have true empowerment, since that is the definition according to Douglas? I couldn't disagree more. Just because someone has enough money to buy the clothes and the makeup does not mean she is empowered. Ya it feels good to look pretty but having all that money means nothing. I think that true empowerment comes from within oneself. It belongs to the girl who is happy with the way she is and doesn't have to hide herself being anything artificial; the world can see her for herself and not for her clothes and makeup
ReplyDeleteI think we sometimes do not realize how much the stereotypes of on gender effect the other--women are taught by the media that they should be girly: their main concerns should be love (and men), fashion, beauty, shopping, dieting, babies, cooking, and the like. However, these stereotypes also put men in binds: if they are concerned with any of these things they are seen as feminine and not viewed as "real men" or at least ideal men.
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