Duplicity

Something is bothering me. It's a sticky summer's day and I'm hot. Aching feet, tired limbs and a headache fizzling in my head. I continue walking down Bond Street, laden with bags and surrounded by  everyone. They're all looking at me, "Why are they looking at me"?

The mirror's there but I ignore it. I sit down and take off my shoes. I'm so tired. Hunger encompasses me.

"Here Vanessa comes, strutting as usual. Look at her shoes, just look at them! Expensive, of course. She looks so good, I wish I could look like her. Don't you Laurie? I mean if I looked like her, if I could be her,  if I could only know what it was like to be in her body, even if it was just for a second. Everybody would look at me, really see me. They would think I was beautiful! They'd stare, there eyes would trace my shadows. There'd be whispering, ogling, calling, appreciation. It would be fantastic!".

"It looks fantastic, really stunning. You just have to get it, I just can't imagine you without it! The cut looks great on you, it fits your body so well. I love the colours, they pop and complement you. I know it's expensive, but you just have to buy it. I mean it would be wrong of you not to get it. Why are you not sure? Don't you want to look stunning? You know how important it is that you always look good, right? It's more important than anything else".

Vanessa's new dress is beautiful. The colour makes her stand out, accentuating her beauty. The frill at the bottom rises elegantly up and down ever step she makes. Up and down, like a gentle wave.

It's beautiful but expensive. I can't afford to keep buying clothes, but I must. It's soft on my skin, but I can't banish from my mind all those children working in sweatshops day after day to make clothes like mine. I am torn. People stare and idolise me but they don't know me. My pain, my anguish, my hunger, my frailty and my ugliness are all ignored. People only know my beauty, but they have no idea of the pain that it has caused.

If people could see my ugly inner self just once, they would understand and I would be free. If I could only remove the facade I would be free. I'd be outlandish, honest and happy.

The one concurrent theme throughout all the texts that we have studied is that of women's spirit and individuality being suppressed in some way.

In works like Sweat, A Jury Of Her Peers and Jasmine the female protagonists were suppressed by society. The main characters were instrumental to the texts because they all at some point revealed there true spirit and character. All these characters are duplicitous to a certain extent. In Sweat, Delia Jones plays the slavish, compliant housewife for much of the story. We are shown a false facade of her true self and it is only at the end, when she lets her husband slowly die that we see the stronger, more sinister side of Delia truly emerge. Similarly in A Jury of Her Peers, Minnie Foster was seemingly happy before she went and killed her husband. No one saw Minnie Foster's pain and loneliness or predicted her emotional deterioration until she killed him. Jasmine is akin to Minnie Foster in the sense that she always seemed to be struggling to abide by what society told her she could do. In all of these texts the reader is given the privilege of being able to see both the normal mundane side and the erratic darker sides of these women.

The Beauty Myth and The Vagina Monologues differ in the sense that they discuss women's suppression by advertising, media and by cosmetics not by tradition. Both these books reveal the problems that women face and analyse how they are made to feel insecure. They highlight how the suffrage of women is a lucrative business by for example revealing that "The cosmetic industry in the United States grosses over $300 million every year" (232, The Beauty Myth).

The Vagina Monologues in particular presents ways for women to free their real selves and escape from society's burden. By imploring women to acknowledge their vaginas, Eve Ensler teaches women to appreciate themselves as human beings and to love their bodies.

Vanessa wants to escape beauty's grasp but feels that she can't. Because people only really see her beauty, it has become the majority of her identity. She therefore cannot escape the entrapment of beauty because she is so reliant on it. Thus as with all the other characters in the works that we have read, we see a duplicity about her. She is beautiful on the outside but haunted on the inside. She yearns forlornly to be what beauty stops her from being. And so instead she just wanders down Bond street, becoming more and more psychotic and begins to show her "Schizophrenic" (230, The Beauty Myth) tendencies.

Relative Interviews: My Grandmother

We were asked to interview one of our older female relations to find out what their experience was of growing up in their generation.

My granny was born in Rhodesia (Africa) in the 1920's. She describes her mother as being one who ran the house, but because of all the servants at her disposal, worked more as a supervisor than actually hands on.

My granny lived in a very rural part of Rhodesia; she lived and worked on a coffee plantation that her family owned. From the age of 5 to 14 she attended an all girls boarding school in Rhodesia. She has fond memories and describes how she loved being able to do lots of different things in her free time. However the one thing that she really wanted to do but couldn't was see boys.

Because of her rural upbringing she was able to have a lot more freedom than if she had lived in somewhere like London. She had even more freedom because her father often worked away from home and her mother was too busy to always keep tabs on her. The only thing was that as an upper class lady she wasn't really meant to interact with the 'natives' or get a job. Such things were frowned upon.

However she still had a lot of freedom. She left school at 16 and took typing and bookkeeping courses while also studying domestic science. But by the time she was 17 she was dreaming of joining the British army. In the end she had to compromise with her parents, joining the South African army instead of the British army because her parents thought it was safer.

She left the army when she was 20 and moved to England in the hopes of becoming a doctor. She rejected offers from Oxford and other universities, choosing study biology and botany at Reading university because it was closer to Cambridge which was where her boyfriend was studying.

She got engaged for the first time in 1933 but in the end she chose another man, getting engaged for the second time in 1950.

She worked as a bacteriologist. It would have been difficult for her to have gotten the job because of her gender had it not been for her accumen and the vacuum of male workers after the war.

It was apparently very unusual to be married and working like she was.


One of the things that resonated for me was that even though my grandmother seemed to have relative freedom to do what she wanted she is adamant that the girls of today have much more freedom than she ever had.

I was also struck by how successful my mother's academic and working career had been. The first question that I really want to ask is how common it was for a woman to be accepted to Oxford at that time. Secondly I would love to know and how great an extent did the war aid her in securing good jobs.

Why Love Your Vagina?

Loving your vagina is a fundamental part of being a woman. If you don't love such a central, important part of your body you are bound to lack confidence and be insecure.

Eve Ensler explained that one of the main reasons why women don't appreciate their vagina, and therefore themselves is because of what they have been taught by society. From a very early age girls are gradually being told that they are subordinate to men. One of the first steps to make someone comply is by making them feel insufficient or uncomfortable about their own body by making the  'vagina' taboo. Ensler aptly explores this in her chapter titled "I was twelve. My mother slapped me" (35, TVM).

This chapter is full of examples of mothers refusing to properly educate or explain the fantastic importance of vaginas and periods to their daughters. It's as though the female gender self impose this censorship and suffrage upon themselves. One such example of mother censorship in this chapter is when a young girl asked her mother what a period was and her mother replied by saying "It's punctuation.. You put it at the end of a sentence" (35, TVM).

Such censorship is shocking. For mothers not to educate their daughters about periods, instead letting them learn the hard way, just because vaginas are taboo is wrong.

But of even greater concern is genital mutilation, or female circumcision which still occurs in several countries and affects over 80 to 100 million women. This is several steps above making vaginas taboo, this is actively trying to destroy them. "About 2 million youngsters a year can expect the knife-or the razor or glass shard - to cut their clitoris or remove it all together, (and) to have part or all of the labia... sewn together with catgut or thorns"(67, TVM). This is clearly a female rights issue since this simply doesn't happen to men. It's disgusting, it's vile and it's illogical. After all it would stop women from having sex and having male offspring.

Vagina Monologues: A Guy's Perspective

It's been a while since my last post and I apologise! I have just been too busy reading a trio of books all under the genre of Women's Literature.

The Vagina Monologues was enlightening to say the least. It was contentious, humorous and stomach turning all at the same time. Eve Ensler didn't hold back and I know everything to do with vaginas. As a book for  a high school class it was a daring but ultimately successful choice.

The apprehension that we had as a class before reading The Vagina Monologues was aptly summed up in the Ensler's first sentence, "I bet you're worried" (3, TVG). The theme of the book was worrying and intimidating for some but not for me. I'm proud to say this because it shows that progression has happened. Some of the reasons why Eve Ensler felt compelled to write this book have already dissolved in more liberal societies such as mine.

One thing that I found particularly interesting was that Eve Ensler kept restating the point that many women did not really seem to value or acknowledge their vagina. Right at the beginning of the book Ensler comments on how women sometimes "go weeks, months, sometimes years without looking at it (their vagina)" (4, TVM). Ensler cites a businesswoman who imply explained that "she was too busy; she didn't have the time" (4, TVM). This shocked me. How can someone not see their genitalia or be barely aware of it it??

Eve Ensler went on to explain the multiple reasons for what I call 'this phenomena'. I had never absorbed the fact that it takes effort and time for women to see their vagina. For men it's a doddle, but women "it's not so easy to even see your vagina" (4, TVM). For women to see their vagina they need at the very least to have a free-standing mirror, perfect lighting, a bit of luck and to be able to contort their body to the right angle for viewing.

Another reason was aptly portrayed by an one old Jewish woman Ensler interviewed in Queens. When Ensler asked her when she had last looked at her vagina, the woman responded by saying, "Down there? I haven't been down there since 1953. No, it had nothing to do with Eisenhower" (25, TVM). What this woman goes on to say reveals that another reason why women don't acknowledge their vaginas is because they are ashamed and embarrassed about them.  This women, like many was embarrassed  both by the appearance and odour of her vagina. She was embarrassed to even say the word 'vagina'.

This story and Eve Ensler's description of how she has felt compelled to set up workshops to get women to acknowledge and be proud of their vaginas reveals a dichotomy of how men and women view their sexual organs.

I went to a boy's school for much of my academic life and for years our banter followed three main themes. Football, girls and our genitals. Now of course I am exaggerating, but penis talk is popular with men of all ages and when asked we will proudly declare 6, 7 or 8 inches depending on the day of the week.

This, what I see as healthy pubescent talk doesn't seem to occur to anywhere near the same degree with women. I think talking and looking at your is healthy and doctors seem to agree with me. In one of my upcoming posts I would like to analyse the reasons why some women refuse to acknowledge their bodies.

Ugliness is Now a Disease!

I would like to share, what I have learnt from my reading of the Violence chapter in The Beauty Myth.

The cosmetic industry it seems, is extending its reach by "manipulating ideas of health and sickness" (220, TBM). The notions of what is healthy and what is diseased change frequently, and "are often subjective judgements that society makes for its own purposes" (220, TBM).

The businesses and people who profit from The Beauty Myth, such as the cosmetic industry, try to "reclassify aspects of healthy femaleness into grotesque abnormality" (222, TBM). Any normal and therefore healthy woman, are now being reclassified as being "sick and ugly women" (223, TBM). The reason why industries such as the cosmetic industry have spent huge resources on advertising in order to redefine what is healthy and what is not is because they make money out of women's insecurities.

If a woman feels fine about her physical appearance she will have no desire to spend money on improving it. This is why cosmetic industry is "taking the feminist redefinition of health as beauty and perverting it into a notion of "beauty" as health" (224, TBM).

So even if you are the fittest, healthiest women around you will still be seen as diseased if you are not beautiful.

You don't have to look far to find evidence of ugliness being seen as a disease. Surveys have shown that, "Women are not cutting their breasts open for individual men, by and large, but so they can experience their own sexuality... they are doing this "for themselves" (247, TBM). Of those who were married their partners "categorically deny" they encouraged the operation" (247, TBM). This proves that women aren't compelled to have cosmetic surgery by men, but instead by desire to meet the media's version of femininity.

Cosmetic surgeons who profit hugely from this false femininity by agreeing to do completely unnecessary operations, are going against the very first line of The Hippocratic Oath of doctors, "First, do no harm" (236, TBM). Cosmetic doctors are not proper doctors since "doctors respect the healthy body and invade the diseased only as a last resort (whereas) cosmetic surgeons call healthy bodies sick in order to invade them" (238, TBM).

Public Enemy No.1: Advertising

Having recently watched Killing Us Softly 4 by Jeane Kilbourne, I am even more convinced that the majority of what is stated in the Beauty Myth is true.

While advertising may be the bane of our existence, we must unfortunately remember that it is a core, irreplaceable part of capitalism. Personally I think capitalism is a good thing, but advertising is one of the most irksome things about it.

We say that capitalism allows us to be free and prosper as individuals. But this simply isn't true! Capitalism creates divides between people. It categorises and stereotypes people as being rich and poor. Capitalism relies on the existence of poor people because everything is seen as commodities in capitalist economies. Poor people are less valuable as commodities and are easily exploited for the benefit of the rich.

The socio-economic stand of the bourgeoisie against the proletariat still exists today just as it did when Karl Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto in 1848. But what has happened is that as media's reach extended, the socio-economic stand has in part transformed into a socio-gender reality instead.

Throughout history, "women are shown either to receive less than men, or to get nothing at all. That is still true" (49, The Beauty Myth). Everywhere we look, women are poorer than men. A study in 1984 showed that, "women still earned an average of only .. 64 percent of .. (what) men working full time earned" (49, The Beauty Myth). This is largely because of gender stereotypes that have been reinforced by  the advertising industry.

According to a documentary called Miss Representation, "the average American teenager consumes ten and a half hours of media (in affect advertising) every day" (Miss Representation). Advertising has never has such a wide spread of influence. It's a fact that we cannot escape it in our daily lives and that it is impossible not to be influenced by it.

Advertising reinforces two gender stereotypes in particular. That men should aspire for brawn and that women should yearn for beauty. Brawn simply means that men should be strong, fit and domineering. Be confident enough to be noticed when they enter a room.

Beauty on the other hand means to be attractive. Women aspire first to be physically attractive and secondly to be socially attractive. What stands as being physically and socially attractive is ambiguous, as it is set by the media and changes periodically.

The key difference between brawn for men and beauty for women is that brawn is achievable, while beauty is something that you are born with and is only something that the minority have. Women, rather than men become insecure because advertising tells them that they must be beautiful in order to be feminine.

Women therefore feel compelled to buy overpriced cosmetics as a substitute for their lack of natural beauty. This is where advertising and the media begin to make their money.

Beauty has been monetised by the media and by capitalism. While this is wrong, it is necessary. Advertising needs capitalism just as much as capitalism needs advertising to function. Until we find a better economic model, I'm afraid we're stuck with capitalism.

Mass Steralisation in Uzbekistan

Link to the BBC radio report.

Last week a BBC report has revealed that women's reproductive organs have become "the new target of one of the most repressive regimes on earth" (Forced Sterilisation in Uzbekistan). Uzbekistan's plan to counter their population growth is to sterilise women without their permission. Most shocking is that "a woman can be sterilised without knowing that she has been sterilised" (Doctors in Uzbekistan).

Natalie Anteleva explained how this was possible. For "most women, the procedure is done after they give birth" (Doctors in Uzbekistan). This is particularly the case with women having caesarean sections, since the women are already heavily anaesthetised, unaware of what is happening and unable to stop anything that is being done to them. This is how women can be sterilised without ever realising.

According to Natalie's sources, doctors "are given quotas each month for how many women they need to sterilise" ranging "from one... to eight women a week" (Doctors in Uzbekistan). This is not something happening to a minority of women. It is affecting the vast majority, thousands of women are becoming victims. Some of Natalie's sources claim that over 80% of women in labour are having caesarean sections, many unnecessarily. Doctors really do seem to use caesarean sections as a way of sterilising women.

One particularly chilling story is of a young woman called Nigora who,  "is among many for whom forced sterilisation is a reality. She had an emergency C-section. A day later she was told she had been sterilised. On the same day, her newborn died" (Secretly Sterilising Women).

Several women during the report mentioned how they struggled to understand why their government took such drastic and costly measures to prevent population growth. They asked why the government couldn't try much cheaper methods methods like education campaigns which many believe would be just as effective.

The underlying answer seems to be that this totalitarian Uzbekistan government wants full control over their citizens, especially the women. The men, while possibly having their freedoms restricted are not exposed to the same sort of invasive treatment. The mass violation of women's bodies shows that the government fails to recognise that women own their own bodies. The government believes that they can sterilise women without permission, disregarding the terrible side effects that may occur.

TV: The Voice

The Voice

The Voice is a new show on BBC copied from the original NBC version in America. During the past few weeks it has become very popular, trumping previously concrete talent contests like Britain's Got Talent.


The show has just finished its 4 week televised audition stage. What makes this show so different from other talent shows like American Idol, Britain's Got Talent and XFactor is that the auditions are blind.

Here is a short clip from last night's show illustrating how the process works:

Jaz Ellington

The four judges: will.i.am, Jessie J, Tom Jones and Danny O'Donoghue have to sit with their backs turned during an auditionee's performance. Only if a judge commits to having them in their team by pushing their buzzer will they be able to turn round and actually see instead of just hear the contestant perform.

What I love about this show is that it is all about the voice. Nothing else. The judges and audience are encouraged to disregard anything else, including their age, appearance and physical beauty. In the audition stage this is especially true, since no judge is actually able to see a contestant before pressing their  buzzer of approval and committing to offering them a place on their team (About The Voice).

Jaz Ellington is the contestant in the clip shown above. While he is not unattractive, he does not have the obvious pin up poster looks that many producers would be looking for. Jaz said in an interview afterwards, "I feel like in the past, I have lost work because of what I look like" (Jaz Ellington). Many producers these days, particularly those focusing on the mass market want someone with not only a good voice but also good looks as well. This is because as a product, their looks may make them to sell to the mass market if they are good looking. 

This is often true for girls and boys. A book that I am currently reading called The Beauty Myth would refer to this as the 'Professional Beauty Qualification'. The PBQ refers to the fact that many employers in any service or arts based industry would in particular discriminate because of someone's beauty. Even if you are skilled for a job, an employer could legally fire someone who to their mind wasn't attractive enough for the job. Beauty is just one of the many legal loopholes of what "United States sex discrimination law calls a BFOQ (a bona fide occupational qualification) and Britain calls a GOQ (a genuine occupational qualification) (Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth).

I hope to discuss the PBQ more in a later post. But I'd just like to say how wonderful that there is something like The Voice in existence. By removing the PBQ out of the media, we can hope to remove PBQ worldwide and get rid of the problems presented by The Beauty Myth once and for all. 

Film: 'Legally Blonde' and Blondness

Legally Blonde

Oh what I have missed! Lacking sisters, I had never been exposed to films of this ilk before. My girlfriends (plural), aghast at my depravation, insisted on having an impromptu movie night.

So there I was, sweetened popcorn on my lap, sitting in between my, several, girlfriends. I should have been happy, but I wasn't. After all, I was being compelled to watch two very feminine films, a man's worst nightmare.

Legally Blonde was first. Looking at the blurb,  this was to be about a blonde defying all of the odds and her mishaps, to successfully not only win a place at Harvard Law School, but also blossom there as well. And all to win back a boyfriend! This was going to be silly.

Obviously this was going to be a pro blonde propaganda/anti-stereotype movie. And I have to tell you I appreciated it.

To anyone who doesn't know, the stereotype against blonde women is that they are dumb and superficial, while being hot, sexy and promiscuous. They are meant to be dumber and hotter than brunettes and redheads, who both have their own stereotypes as well. Brunettes are normally seen as smarter, while redheads are believed to have fiery tempers and be more witchlike (Living As A Redhead).

I wonder if it does affect the average person's thoughts about blonde women. This blonde stereotype's rise to fame is believed to be down to the performing arts. It can be traced as far back as the 1800's. In Les Curiosites de la Foire a blonde French actress called Rosalie Duthe was satirised for her long pauses before speech, making her look very stupid (Blonde Stereotypes).

The theatrical industry continues to satirise blondness, in part because people (especially men) still find it funny. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes are the American show, Three's Company are two good 20th century examples of this. But Glee is the most contemporary example. Think of Brittany Pierce, one of the members of the Glee club but also a cheerleader. Brittany is in affect a stereotypical blonde, dumb but very attractive (The Blonde Stereotype).

What Legally Blonde made me more aware of not only the general female stereotype but also that many women had to deal with stereotypes that were based solely off the colour of their hair! This has been quite an opener and it left me with two main questions. 

Firstly, why isn't men's hair stereotyped in the same fashion, to she same extent? Secondly, since blonde females are deemed to be the sexier and more attractive, does it make it harder for them to escape their female stereotype and problems similar to those presented by The Beauty Myth?

Keep following to here more about not only my thoughts on The Beauty Myth  and blondness but also my  movie night experience watching She's The Man!

Beauty Myth - Disproved?

Rise Of The Metrosexual

What about men?

This Beauty Myth is gradually becoming a debacle before my eyes.

To suggest that men are nowhere near as pent up and restricted by their own egocentric view of themselves seems ridiculous in 2012. Maybe in 1991 when it was published, but really Naomi Wolf?

Men are caring abou their self image more than ever before, which has lead to a boom not only in male fashion but malse cosmetics as well. With "leading luxury brands such as Jean Paul Gaultier, Clinique and Clarins scrambling to expand their lines to meet the boom in demand. Beauty for blokes is becoming big business" (Male Grooming Suits You Sir). From 2001 to 2006 the male cosmetic market has reportedly swelled by a staggering 800%, with the UK male grooming market expected to reach £1.5 billion by 2003  (MGSUS).

The fact that the average man is comfortable wearing make up highlights the tremendous shift that men have made.

There are multiple sources (especially the Daily Mail) reporting that men now on average spend longer on personal grooming than women do. Men spend around 83 minutes a day, whereas women only spend 79 minutes. Men are also on average spending only 19p less monthly on grooming products than women (Rise of the Metrosexual).

This change has also spread to the fashion industry, where male fashion is rising as well. A fellow blogger perfectly illustrates what is happening, "There has been a recent phenomenal up rise of men's fashion within the media and society as men are becoming more prominent on the runway. Many fashion events have been altered to include many more menswear opportunities than ever before and it seems that it is slowly competing with women's wear for the reign in the fashion industry"(The Recent Uprise of Male Fashion). The boom of male fashion is so dramatic that male fashion weeks are being created.


So I think it would be fair to say that men are at least as vain and self conscious as women since men actually seem to be beginning to surpass women in all the beauty markets of the world.

However there are other aspects of The Beauty Myth that I have failed to cover. Like, whether beauty is an actual requirement for women to get jobs.

I hope to talk all about this and more in one of my following blogs.

Roots of Female Oppression?

You may be wondering how sexist laws, like the ones I mentioned in my last post could have have ever been adopted. For me, the problem arises from what society regards as the social norm. In any country, it is their culture which primarily sets the social norms. I.e. If men oppressing women is deemed acceptable in a certain culture then it is bound to become the social norm, since men will not be perturbed from doing it meaning that it will happen very often.

Once something becomes socially normal, it will logically be transmuted into law since it is evidently supported by the people.

I want to know how the oppression of women became socially acceptable in the first place?

The basic, most well known theory is that it first became socially acceptable simply because of women's physical inferiority. This would have been reinforced by the fact that women would not have been able to work effectively in some of the more physically demanding jobs. It would have also been reinforced by pregnancy. This true physical weakness then evolved into men unjustly seeing women as wholly inferior. With the absence of laws, when women first began to be oppressed they would have been unable to physically fight back and demand equal treatment.

This theory is supported by the fact that in Western countries, women's status has risen exponentially. It is largely believed that this is because of Western world's mechanisation, which has replaced the need for brawn in jobs. This combined with the introduction of a child care system has allowed women access to the job market like never before.

However women's rise in the Western world could also be explained by Western world's part secularisation. Countries like America and France have completely secular state systems. In America for example, it is unconstitutional for a state school to highlight any particular religion. Even with Western Countries that aren't secular, it can be argued that many of them are not as focused on religion as countries outside the Western world.

So the question becomes, have certain religions supported/continue to support gender inequality?

In several of the women's literature books that I have read, including Jasmine and A Handmaid's Tale, religion seems to be a significant cause of women's oppression. I hope to continue this topic in one of my following posts.

Social Norm

http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/morocco.jpg?w=620

Feminist Protest in Morocco Sparked By Amina's Suicide

Women's subjugation is not directly encouraged by either sex. Instead it is society's expectations that often determine whether women are albe to thrive in their community.

In The Handmaid's Tale, women are instructed to be compliant by Aunts and other heads of a society that believes women are inferior to men. In Jasmine, we compare the contrasting depictions of women's role in India and America. Jyoti, the Indian women is brought up in a patriarchal society, stereotyped daily to believe that men supersede women. While Jane, the Americanised Indian revels in her new found freedom, enjoying her wild, unrestricted free life that would have been impossible in India. The contrast between their predicaments is profound. So great that the author, Bharati Mukherjee deems it necessary to give them different names.

And in today's world, the affect of society on the female status is still plain to see.

Very recently it was widely reported that Amina al-Filali, a 16 year old Moroccan girl, had killed herself after her family forced her to marry a man who had previously raped her. He married her because it is common knowledge that the penal code in many countries (including Morocco), "allows a rapist to stay out of jail if he marries his victim with the consent of her parents" (National Post).

This is not the first time I have heard of such a law, having previously heard about the problem in the book, Half the Sky: How to Change the World. In fact these types of forced marriages are common in many countries. It is only because the girl's suicide sparked a feminist protest that her death was so widely reported.

The man's motive varies but in many cases, if a man's marriage proposal was rejected by the woman he wanted, he would rape her. In certain countries rape is a way of ensuring marriage takes place, since once a woman loses her virginity, she is branded as impure, make it very difficult for her to find another suitor.

Henri Mamarbachi, the author of the article in the National Post supports this by saying, "Families of rape victims who are under 18 often agree to such a union because the loss of a woman’s virginity outside of marriage is considered a dishonour to her family" (National Post).

Amina’s father explained that he had initially opposed the union but his wife insisted. “She said we had to do it so people would stop deriding us, to remove the shame” (National Post).

Society's expectations are the cause of this tragedy. If the belief of man's superiority hadn't existed, this sexist law would have never been passed. Amina would likely have never committed suicide or even raped, since the man would have realised that the risk was too high.

What I want to discover is how the social norm of women's degradation exists. Where it comes from. This is what I hope to confront in one of my following posts.

The Phone Bill

Fact:

Women in general are regarded as being more sociable than men.

Personally, I have always thought that women are more sociable than men. Why? Firstly, because of the common, if not slightly dated story of the phone bill. Have you ever heard of a boy's parents complaining about his phone bill? I haven't. But for daughters, it's another story.

Secondly, according to this article 'women are taking over the social web' all social media platforms, apart from LinkedIn have more female members than male and the gap is only increasing. Just look at this recent poll:

http://smedio.com/2011/06/22/women-are-taking-over-the-social-web/

What this proves is that from the 1950's when the phone began to become mainstream women have dominated methods of communication when used for social purposes. While men of course use telephones a lot as well, more often than not most of the talk is about business. This is further backed up by the fact that the only social networking site that was more popular with men was the business orientated one.

My goal is not to prove that women were indeed more sociable than men. After all it could just be that men interact using different methods like talking face to face.

But then again women do this too. And through the eyes of many men (including my own) women socialise in this regard more than men as well. Just think for example, of the female habit of only going to the bathroom in a group when possible.

Lisa Warren confronted this topic head on, in her article "Why do girls go to the bathroom in pairs or groups", one that I thoroughly recommend you read. Lisa suggested that it was because "restrooms allow for having, or continuing, a conversation. (Why stop a conversation just because someone needs to empty a bladder?)" This suggests that women rely more heavily on their social interactions with other women than men do. The motherly, caring role that women are believed to posses, seems to be shown through the way that women care for each other.

Men on the other hand in general are more brashly behaved to one another and it is for this reason that they may seem to be more autonomous than women.

Another reason that women go in groups more often than men do may simply be in mind of safety. But I agree with Lisa when she says, "Some people suggest that women go to restrooms in pairs and groups because they're worried about freaks hiding in the stalls (and I suppose there could be some subconscious, or conscious, aspect of this). I don't so much think, though, that women make the trip together primarily as a way to keep physically safe. I think it may more often be a psychological/sociological defence mechanism." What Lisa says is true, since even in the smartest restaurants, women still go in groups. What is much more interesting is when Lisa queries the psychological implements that may be at play...

Bad Women

In one of my previous posts titled 'It's Not Women vs Men' I had begun to illustrate how men were not always the persecutors of women. The aunts in A Handmaid's Tale are a great example of this. Instead of despising the sexist ethos of the system and yearning for women's rights, Aunt Lydia, one of the head aunts running the Red Centre supports them. Aunt Lydia delivers impassioned speeches to her 'girls', encouraging them to behave in a docile, subordinate manner not only to herself but to all men in society as well. To any woman reluctant to accept this she simply says, Ordinary, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary" (43, The Handmaid's Tale). To try and make her 'girls' comply, Aunt Lydia would brainwash her them by telling them how bad life was before and how much better it is now. Unfortunately if they still refused to comply, the Aunts would torture them into submission.

There are many plausible reasons as to why the Aunts chose to become Aunts. They may, as suspected by Moira been cravers of power. They may have even believed in the cause they were working for. But the most likely reason is that being Aunts ensured that they'd be able to retain some degree of freedom. It is also very surprising just how much power the aunts had, especially when this had seemed to be a completely patriarchal society.

The sobering fact is that this is not only true in The Handmaid's Tale but also in the world today. Women continue to subjugate other women, whether through being strongly antifeminist to actually forcing women to behave slavishly.

A book analysing sex trafficking that I am currently reading called Half The Sky: How to Change The World covers this topic extremely well. In it they mention how a large proportion of brothels who imprisoned trafficked girls and made them work as slaves were owned by women. Geeta Ghosh was just one of the girls in the book who had been trafficked by a woman. "A friend's 'aunt' offered to help Geeta and took her to Sonagachi, where the aunt turned out to be a brothel owner. ... 'The madam said, "If you ever try to run away, we'll chop you up and throw the pieces down this drain.'" (31-31, Half the Sky: How to Change The World).

This in particular shocked me. I had always thought, probably because of the stereotypes that I had been exposed to that people in the business of slave trafficking, particularly sex trafficking were all men. I was very wrong.

This just shows how sexist stereotypes still exist today. How many male mobsters can you name? Al Capone, Charles Luciano, Mayer Lansky and today's Salvatore Lo Piccolo. Now how many female ones can you name?

Sure they exist. There are hoards of them in fact. But because of our still sexist society, they have never become famous or idolised. The day that Grand Theft Auto comes out with a female protagonist gangster will be the day that I know sexism in the West is coming to a close.

Select women were allowed to be power figures in the patriarchal society of Giliad. But in the case of the Aunts this was only because they were seen as "the best and most cost-effective way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves. ... no empire imposed by force or otherwise has ever been without this feature: control of the indigenous by members of their own group." (320, The Handmaid's Tale). This is why females are used to suppress other women, not only in The Handmaid's Tale but also in modern day life, simply because they are the best at doing it. Otherwise the system would have simply collapsed.

It's not Women vs. Men

Because of the nature of material we have been reading in our Woman's Literature class, many of the topics that have come up in my blogs have had this 'Us vs Them' mentality.

Even though I have recently been talking about sisterhoods and brotherhoods we must not forget that there are many gender neutral groups which exist for the same reasons that sisterhoods and brotherhoods do.

Offred's relationships with the Commander and with Nick in The Handmaid's Tale are examples of this. Offred gave her body and a sense of companionship to both and was duly rewarded. The Commander rewarded her by giving her contraband goods, letting her read and by salving her crave for explanation. Meanwhile Nick provided Offred with the true sense of companionship that she yearned for.

However Nick's relationship with Offred is one which we could more easily call a 'gender neutral' sisterhood since they are both alike, being subservient and disposable. Their relationship is more equal, contrary to the Commander's relationship with her since he took advantage of Offred and there was little risk for himself. Meanwhile, Nick took huge risks by having a relationship with Offred and proved beyond doubt his devotion to her when he risked his own life in order to save hers in chapter 46, the last chapter of the book.

We must also remember that like in today's society, there is no clear cut gender divide in The Handmaid's Tale. If this had been the case, every woman would have been at the bottom of the social ladder while all the men would have been at the top. But it isn't. The lowest ranked man was not above the highest ranked female. Think of the Guardians' measly power in comparison to that of the Wives or Aunts for example.

Surprised? Yes, so am I. But there are a myriad of reasons for this that I will enlighten you upon in one of my future posts called 'Bad Women'.

Where Are the Brotherhoods?

From a man's perspective, sisterhoods seem to be more prevalent than brotherhoods in the pieces I have studied this year. Sisterhoods arise for a multitude of reasons, but the most common cause seems to be the desire to ameliorate one's position by working with others in the same position.

In 'A Jury of Her Peers' there is an obvious bond between the female characters. Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters are sympathetic towards Foster, who is suspected of mariticide. Knowing the husband's faults and sharing a domestic life as well they are able to understand what compelled her to commit such an act.

To the reader and to the men investigating the case Foster's innocence is never likely. But without a key motive, any prosecution is likely to fail. When Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters find the dead bird, they know they have found Mrs Foster's motive for killing her husband. But instead of sharing the find with the men, they simply look at each other. "Mrs. Peters turned her head until her eyes met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other in a steady burning look in which there was no evasion or flinching" (17, A Jury of Her Peers). This is the most powerful part of the story. Throughout the story, Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters have sympathised greatly for her because unlike the men, they appreciate the context. All three woman have experienced the same ilk of treatment and because of their similarities, they create a group, a sisterhood. Mrs Peters and Mrs Hale's sympathy becomes so great that they are compelled to help their other sister, Minnie Foster.

The Handmaid's Tale also maintains sisterhoods as one of its main themes. In the Red Centre, women often helped each other in order to prevent the group being punished as a whole. Moira does this when she forces Janine to stop imagining that she is somewhere else. When Moira says, "You can't let her go slipping over the edge. That stuff is catching" (229, Handmaid's Tale) The reader can assume that Moira didn't just help Janine for her own good. It is more likely that she feared everyone would be punished if Janine was deemed crazy by the aunts.

Offred's relationship with Ofglen is also a sisterhood. Not only because they both risk being punished by talking to each other but also because Ofglen tries to incorporate Offred into the secret Handmaid sisterhood, spurred on by Offred's special relationship with the Commander which could have been a rich source of information. At first Offred is keen to join and provide information, but her attitude changes dramatically once she begins to have a relationship with Nick. "I hardly listen to her, I no longer credit her. The things she whispers seem to me unreal. What use are they, for me, now?" (282, Handmaid's Tale). What that had made Offred so eager to help and become part of the sisterhood are now not so enticing. The things that she had yearned for were things that would improve her situation. But once she gets these things, like gossip and companionship through the Commander and Nick she no longer yearns for other things so much, like freedom.

Ameliorating one's position by working as a group has long been documented in history as causes of bonds being made, whether in the form of brotherhoods or sisterhoods. Because there seem to have been more sisterhoods than brotherhoods in all the stories we have covered, we can therefore assume that women must of been suffering more than the men. After all, in all of the stories that we've read, women have been subjugated by men. But desire to improve one's situation isn't the only cause of sisterhood like groups being created. After all, the men that banded together to subjugate women could have been referred to as brotherhoods. But for some reason, I don't see them as brotherhoods. What do you think?

A Jury of Her Peers

"What was the author's purpose in writing this piece?" my teacher asks the class. A lull follows before we all gradually state our beliefs.

My hypothesis is that this piece was meant to highlight the injustice of male dominance in the society that this story was set.

Minnie Foster is believed to have killed her husband by asphyxiating him while he slept. Much of the story is written focuses on men involved with the investigation converging on the house to inspect it and find evidence. Two men bring their wives; Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters, the sheriff's wife.

From their interactions with the men it becomes obvious that while women here are respected to a point, they are still subjugated by men. Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters seem to have had 'their sense of place' instilled into them as upon entering the house they timidly wait near the door, not wanting to intrude into the men's business. The county attorney further highlights male dominance by saying to the ladies, "Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?" (6). The attorney implies that Minnie Foster is failing as a housekeeper and therefore failing as a women. He stereotypes what women must be. The men collectively also show how they believe women are not as intellectually capable as themselves. "Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder, and worrying about her preserves!" (6). Here Mr Peter laughs at how seemingly naive and disconnected the women since they are worrying about broken jars of preserves instead of the dead husband upstairs. Mr Hale reinforces this stereotype by saying to himself as they ascended the stairs, "But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?" (7). From this it is clear the men didn't believe that the women were wise enough to recognise things as evidence even if it was obvious.

Unfortunately, no one can really blame the men for thinking this way. After all male dominance is something that they have had all their lives. The degradation of women did not start and stop with this story.

And while the stereotypes are morally wrong and limit woman's potential it is understandable that in the farming environment they brawn would have been most important whereas intellect is omnipotent today. So there may have been a general truth that being a housewife was all women could do working on a farm since in general (I say this with caution!) women are weaker than men.

I can also understand how men would have perceived woman as intellectually incapable. Certainly to a point, women would have been naive since they would have been disconnected from much of the outside world. Mrs Hale and Mrs Peters worrying over broken preserves instead of a dead body is testament to this. 

But what was most noticeable for me was that these women actively subjugated themselves by willingly fulfilling their stereotypes. Even when the men were upstairs, Mrs Hale felt compelled to clean up, it is as though it is an instinct. And I shake my head every time I think of how the women failed to show the evidence that they had found that would have been key to the trial. I know they probably felt compassion for Minnie Foster because of universal suffrage, sisterhood etc. But the only way they can escape from this subjugation that they so seemingly hate is to challenge it. Proving their intellect by showing this evidence would have been a great way to do so. 

The Perfect Voice

A bit off topic but still relevant...

Recently researchers have released recordings of the perfect male and female voice. According to a BBC report there are certain voices that humans innately find more appealing than others. Preferences vary sporadically but surveys reveal that the actor Jeremy Iron and Alan Rickman possess the most popular male voices.

Meanwhile a melange of Dame Judi Dench, Mariella Frostrum and Honor Blackman's voices created the most admirable female voice.

While this find is largely irrelevant, I was still aghast that such a study had occurred. Great time and effort has probably been made into researching this topic but I believe this study should have been dismissed before it even began.

I am glad that this study did not garner great attention as it would have only made human stereotypes than they are now. Should all men be trying to sound like Jeremy Iron and women like Judi Dench? I think not, as it is one of the first parts of our unique identity, one that we need to protect dearly.

The End is Nigh

'Jeesums' was the word that sprung to my lips upon reading The End of Men by Hanna Rosin. Mankind was about to become Womankind and according to Hanna there's little any man can do to stop it. Hanna opens her article by predicting that men will soon be the subordinate sex.

Hanna attempts to prove this by referring to how neo natal clinics now get many more requests from patients wishing the sex of their unborn to be female rather than male.

Such a preference for girls is a huge shift from the historical trend of human and even animal existence. Even way back in Ancient Greece men "tied off their left testicle in order to produce male heirs" (3, The End of Men) in a desperate attempt to ensure male offspring. This seismic change of preference for girls over boys is very recent, and in her mind illustrates how society is changing.

Hanna's explanation is that only recently has "thinking and communicating come to eclipse physical strength and stamina"(3). Up until the late 20th century it could never have been argued that brawn was more useful in the first world mass labour force than intellect. Since in general, women are less strong than men, they would have naturally been not as competitive in the common workplace. However, like horses were replaced by cars, machines have been able to replace the brawn and productiveness of humans.

Manufacturing jobs are falling in the West, either because of the introduction of machines or because these jobs are being exported to countries with lower labour costs. Meanwhile, service jobs catering the female dominated female industry continue to grow.

This is omnipresent across Western enterprise. Male dominated sectors are falling while female dominated ones continue to rise. What is worrying 'mankind' is that men seem to be reluctant to adapt in order to become more competitive. They are reluctant to do jobs stereotyped to be feminine jobs.

Meanwhile women are eagerly breaking down stereotypes, hundreds of years old. More women graduate high school than boys. More women get master degrees and more women are entering male dominated sectors than ever before. According to The End of Men women's presence in the law sector used to be virtually non existent. But now they represent 50% of the work force.

Wherever we look women are breaking down stereotypes and are succeeding in life because of it. Shouldn't men be doing the same as well?