The new sexism
A recent ad for easyJet featured a pair of disembodied
women’s breasts below the slogan ‘Discover weapons of mass distraction’. Is this
a clever, humorous take on British and US imperialism’s failure to find weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq – or a blatant sexist use of a woman’s body to sell
air flights? Should we be amused or outraged? CHRISTINE THOMAS writes.
WOMEN’S BODIES ARE widely used to advertise any number of
products from chocolate to men’s toiletries. In the past, anti-sexist campaigns
targeted adverts featuring semi-naked women draped over the bonnets of cars.
Yet, a recent car advert thought nothing of using a naked Claudia Schiffer to
sell its product. Ads for Yorkie chocolate bars haven’t featured naked women,
but Yorkie’s advertising slogan unashamedly declares ‘It’s not for girls’.
Images of women, which many people would classify as soft
porn, have now become mainstream in men’s magazines such as FHM and Loaded –
magazines that are read by around one million men in Britain every month.
Lap dancing clubs (described as the fastest growing sector
of the ‘entertainment and leisure industry’), which in the past would have been
confined to seedy back streets, are now deemed ‘respectable’, frequented by
businessmen and celebrities like Stephen Hawking and Kate Moss.
Some writers on women’s issues claim that we are witnessing
a ‘new’ or ‘retro’ sexism: images which the women’s movement campaigned against
in the past because of the way in which they objectified and demeaned women, are
becoming more visible and, it appears, more acceptable.
Others, however, have argued that we are now living in a
‘post-feminist’ society, where the old rules no longer apply. Women are more
empowered and young women in particular are more confident, especially about
their sexuality. Things that were once considered sexist are no longer so.
Anyone who objects to the ‘ironic’ way that women are portrayed or spoken about
is lacking a sense of humour or sexually uptight, or both.
These ideas have gained a certain credence, including
amongst a layer of young women. They have coincided with a ‘post-feminist’
ideology which has emphasised individual self-improvement within the current
system.
Adverts and women’s magazines exhort women to transform
their lives by changing themselves. For young women, wearing T-shirts emblazoned
with ‘porn queen’ and a role reversal ‘ladette’ attitude to sex and sexuality
are defined as ‘liberation’.
This has taken place against a political backdrop where many
of the economic and social gains which working-class women and men had achieved
through collective struggle have come under attack through neo-liberal policies.
At the same time the women’s movement has collapsed and the Labour Party has
become an openly big business party. Collective struggle to improve working
people’s lives has become superseded by the idea of individual solutions. New
Labour politicians argue that their policies are improving equal opportunities
for women – it’s up to women to grasp these opportunities themselves.
So with the New Deal and child credits in place, lone
parents should be able to come off income support and find themselves a job. If
they don’t, it’s down to their own individual failings, not the fact, for
example, that in many areas affordable childcare simply doesn’t exist.
‘Post-feminism’
ALL THIS HAS been reinforced over the past few years by a
wave of ‘new’ and ‘post’ feminist writers.
One of these writers, Naomi Wolf, coined the phrase
‘genderquake’ to describe processes which she argued were having a dramatic
effect on women’s lives. She wrote about men’s ‘empire’ crumbling, how more
women than ever before were in powerful positions, and how legal barriers to
women’s equality had been eliminated. But, she argued, if women were to secure
the equality that was within their grasp, they had to experience a psychological
change, eschew ‘victim’ feminism and instead embrace ‘power’ feminism. (1)
Other writers, while not necessarily endorsing Wolf’s
assertion that equality was just around the corner, concluded that an important
transformation had taken place in the lives of most women. Educationally, young
women are surpassing boys in school, they are more confident about their own
abilities, and their expectations about work and relationships are higher than
those of previous generations of women. In the world of work, women are moving
into jobs and positions previously the preserve of men. Because of these
developments, these writers argue, the programme and methods of the women’s
movement in the past are no longer valid – a fresh approach is necessary.
Journalist Natasha Walter called for a ‘new feminism’: [old]
feminism, she argued, has become too associated with "sexual politics and
culture". (2) Women do not want to have their personal lives "policed by
feminism". They want to wear what they choose, enjoy pornography, celebrate
their sexuality, and be allowed to "live their personal lives without the
constraints of a rigid ideology".
"This generation of women must free itself from the spectre
of political correctness", she wrote. The new feminism "aims to separate the
personal from the political".
Undoubtedly, many young women would agree with the
sentiments that Walter expresses. After all, her book emerged from interviews
with young women themselves and her findings on women’s attitudes have been
backed up by other surveys. Nevertheless, her conclusions flow from a distorted
view of ‘old’ feminist ideas.
‘Political correctness’ was originally concerned with
challenging offensive language and behaviour. Now it is increasingly used as a
derogatory term to trivialise the concerns of women (and men) who object to
images and speech which they consider sexist.
‘The personal is political’ was one of the slogans of the
women’s movement in the seventies and early eighties. For most women this did
not mean that they should be restricted in how they dressed or expressed their
sexuality. Rather, it was shorthand for explaining that issues such as domestic
violence, sexual harassment and sexism generally are experiences shared by other
women: experiences that are not separated from but flow from the wider
structures and ideology of society and, as such, are not personal problems but
issues that require a political and collective response.
Domestic violence, for example, is rooted in outmoded ideas
about men’s control and authority over women within the family. The unequal
power relations that exist in capitalist society as a whole are reflected within
personal relationships and therefore reinforce and perpetuate domestic abuse.
This analysis, which defines domestic violence as a social
rather than a personal problem, has been important for women suffering abuse.
They have gained the strength and confidence to leave violent partners or take
action to end the violence perpetrated against them through understanding that
it is not they or their behaviour that ‘provoked’ the violence – that they are
not at fault.
Given that one in four women will experience domestic
violence at some time in their lives, the understanding that domestic violence
is ‘political’ and not ‘personal’ is as valid as ever.
Natasha Walter does identify domestic violence as a serious
social problem which needs to be addressed. But she makes an artificial and
false distinction between the ‘cultural oppression’ and ‘material oppression’
which women face. She argues that "feminism has recently been associated more
with a movement to change women’s attitudes and society’s culture than with
[these] material inequalities". "Feminism now must attack the material basis of
economic and social and political inequality".
There is no doubt that, despite the important economic and
social changes which have taken place over the past two to three decades, women
still experience serious material inequalities. The average income for women in
2001-2002 was £145 a week compared to £287 a week for men. Even when women work
full-time the overwhelming majority still assume the main responsibility for
childcare and household tasks. In old age, women are far more likely to live in
poverty.
As Walter points out, these inequalities need to be fought
against. And she correctly criticises the dominant ideology of the last ten to
15 years which promotes individual solutions to the problems that women (and
others) face in society. A collective struggle is needed.
But such a struggle cannot separate material from cultural
oppression. Ideology plays a crucial role in legitimising, reinforcing and
perpetuating the material inequalities which women experience.
Cultural & material oppression inseparable
ONE OF THE main reasons why women are paid so much less than
men, is that they are overwhelmingly segregated in a narrow range of low-paid
jobs such as retail, catering, cleaning and caring professions. Most of these
are an extension of work which women have traditionally carried out unpaid at
home. The ideology of women’s second-class status – which has its roots in the
development of class society thousands of years ago – has been adopted and
adapted by capitalism to maintain its profits and its rule.
Sexist images, which objectify women, both reflect and
reinforce deep-rooted ideas about women’s inferiority and second-class position
in society. As such they serve to strengthen and maintain material inequalities
such as unequal and low pay.
Sexism is also divisive. It creates obstacles to forging the
unity between working-class men and women which is so essential in the struggle
for the economic and material changes which are needed to transform women’s
lives.
Divisions between workers strengthen the hand of the
capitalists in the workplaces and in their aim to maintain their profit system.
As capitalism developed in the 19th century, for example, the capitalist class
used cheaper female labour to undermine the conditions and jobs of male workers.
Initially, instead of fighting to improve women workers’ wages and conditions,
male workers campaigned to restrict female access to the factories and the
workplaces. Many used the argument ‘a woman’s place is in the home’, echoing the
prevailing ideology, to justify their stance, which inevitably played into the
hands of the bosses.
Historically, working-class women have had to wage a huge
battle for their organisations to challenge such things as sexual harassment and
pornographic imagery in the workplaces, and establish them as trade union and
political issues. These are issues which don’t just undermine and devalue women,
they affect the whole labour movement because of their potential to create
disunity.
Of course, economic and social changes influence how women
experience oppression and how ideology is expressed. Nothing is static.
Advertising, for example, to a certain extent reflects the changing reality of
women’s lives. Claudia Schiffer might be naked but she is driving the car – not
draped over it as an accessory.
A woman is shown giving the kids breakfast and cleaning the
kitchen floor. But she does all this before she goes to work – she is not
totally defined by her role as a wife, mother and household drudge as would have
been the case a few decades ago.
Nevertheless, while reflecting economic and social changes,
advertising also strengthens and perpetuates existing inequalities. Women go out
to work but they are also the main person responsible for the housework and
kids. When men are shown washing and cleaning they are invariably figures of fun
because it’s not really their thing and they just don’t seem to be able to get
it right. Women are expected to hold down a job, be a supermum, a ‘domestic
goddess’ as well as striving for sexual fulfilment.
Real life for most working-class women involves a constant
juggling of work, children and housework with very little time for
self-improvement. Men are doing more to help than they did in the past but the
majority of women are still disadvantaged by the historical gendered division of
labour within the family. And while individual men might benefit from a few
extra hours leisure time, the main beneficiary of this unequal division is
capitalism, through its ability to continue to exploit women as cheap labour in
the workforce and as unpaid labour in the home.
In the same way, adverts have reflected the increased
confidence and openness of women with regards to their sexuality. Take the
Wonderbra advert, for example, with a smiling, confident Eva Herzigova in her
underwear and the ‘cheeky’ slogan, ‘Hello boys’.
It is a positive development that many women feel more
empowered and freer to express themselves sexually. But in a society where
institutionalised inequality still exists, just how liberating is it?
Lap dancing, it is argued, is empowering not exploitative
because, when ‘dancers’ can earn as much as £500 a night, they’re often on
better money than the men they’re stripping for. As one student told the BBC’s
Inside Out programme: "I work when I want to. I make the amount of money I want
to, and if I don’t feel like it I can quit. No one is pushing me to do it".
But contrast this with the comment of a regular frequenter
of lap dancing clubs: "It makes me feel like a king to be sitting there with all
those women surrounding me, giving me loads of attention. Nothing beats the
thrill of calling a woman over, sitting her down and talking to her, knowing
that if you give her money she is going to take all her clothes off. It’s great
to have that kind of control, that power, and it’s an ego boost to have girls
competing with each other to dance for you". (3)
However empowered individual dancers might feel (and of
course not all dancers are well paid), lap dancing itself promotes the idea that
women are not thinking ‘whole’ beings but body parts – objects available for men
to control and enjoy. The fact that women sometimes join businessmen in
attending clubs in no way detracts from this. In the same way, female editors
are sometimes employed on pornographic magazines and women themselves may buy
and get turned on by porn. But the images portrayed still objectify women in
general and therefore strengthen ideas about male control, which unfortunately
are deeply embedded in society.
A survey for Edinburgh Zero Tolerance, for example, found
that one in two men thought that raping a woman might sometimes be acceptable
while one in ten men would rape if they could remain undiscovered.
The power of imagery
OVER THE PAST few years, anti-sexism has come to be equated
with anti-sex. But there is a big difference between objecting to imagery of
women because it is sexually explicit (which the moral right and family values
brigade do) and objecting to women’s bodies being used to sell products.
However, the two different kinds of objections have become
conflated. Women who are offended by sexist imagery are accused of being prudes
and not having a sense of humour. Yet, it is perfectly possible to ‘get the
joke’ in the easyJet advert while at the same time recognising that it is
treating a woman’s body as a commodity to sell a product and make a profit; that
it is just one of a myriad of images which devalue and objectify women,
therefore reinforcing wider inequality and discrimination. The fact that young
women are deemed to be more liberated and ‘in control’ of their sexuality
doesn’t alter that one iota.
Under capitalism, real control lies not with women but with
the fashion, beauty, sex and leisure industries, etc, which are responsible for
creating the all pervasive female images in society. They are products of a
system which is based both on the selling of commodities to make a profit and on
institutionalised inequality.
Sex sells – as does manipulating and artificially
maintaining socially constructed norms of what the ‘ideal’ woman should look
like. These are omnipresent images that women absorb and internalise, often
subconsciously. But they bear little resemblance to ‘real’ women – causing
anxieties and insecurities, undermining women’s self-esteem, and contradicting
many of the positive developments that have affected women’s lives.
The global beauty industry, which includes make-up, skin and
haircare, fragrances, cosmetic surgery, health clubs and diet products, is
estimated to be worth $160 billion a year. Six multinational companies control
80% of US make-up products, while eight corporations control 70% of the skin
care market. Americans spend more annually on beauty than they do on education.
(4) Beauty is most definitely big business.
The beauty industry directly contributes to a situation
where only 1% of young women feel ‘completely happy’ with the shape of their
body; where 54% of ten to 14-year-olds are worried about being fat and girls as
young as seven are dieting. The images they promote don’t necessarily cause
eating disorders but they are a contributory factor and one that can delay
recovery.
The way that women are represented by the beauty industry
strengthens and promotes the notion that how women look is more important than
what they think or do. In one survey carried out in 2001, two-thirds of women
thought that their lives would improve considerably if they were happy with
their body. Thinness was equated with attracting men, being sexy and achieving
career success. Two-thirds said that they would consider cosmetic surgery to
improve their self-image.
Big business will exploit whatever they can to make a
profit. Increasingly, men are also targeted by the beauty industry. They too are
encouraged to buy products which they don’t really need in order to improve
their life chances. However, although this is undoubtedly exploitative, it does
not impact on wider, structured gender inequality as is the case for women.
Collective campaigns can play a useful role in raising
awareness of cultural sexism and the way in which big business dominates and
controls society. A campaign, for example, to lobby a local council to oppose
the granting of a licence for a lap dancing club could highlight how these clubs
perpetuate backward attitudes and beliefs about women while at the same time
make enormous profits for ‘entertainment’ companies like Spearmint Rhino. This
would be a very different approach from the moral right, who campaign to ban
sexually explicit images and ‘immoral’ behaviour.
Some European Union officials are pushing for a directive
which would ban sexist images on TV or in advertising. Examples cited to back
their case for a ban include two French adverts. One is for Suchard chocolates,
featuring a nude model with the words: ‘You say no; we hear yes’. The other, is
an ad for Babette cream which portrays a woman wearing an apron with words
printed on it. Literally the words translate ‘I thicken it, I whip it and
sometimes it goes in the pot’. Colloquially they mean ‘I tie her up, I whip her,
and sometimes I have sex with her’.
But censorship can have unintended consequences. Two radical
anti-pornography feminists, Andrea Dworkin and Catherine McKinnon, have
campaigned vigorously for material which is considered harmful to women to be
banned. In 1992 a version of the Dworkin/McKinnon definition was incorporated
into the Canadian obscenity law. Within two-and-a-half years over 50% of
feminist bookstores had had material confiscated or detained at customs. The
main targets were gay and lesbian literature. Books seized by customs included
Weenie-Toons! Women Artists Mock Cocks because of its alleged
"degradation of the male penis". (5)
Who would decide what constitutes sexism? There were 186
objections to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about the easyJet advert
– the second most complained about advert of the year. Yet, the ASA rejected the
complaints stating that the ad was "unlikely to cause serious or widespread
offence", and that it was "in the best tradition of British humour such as the
Carry On films".
Many ‘post-feminist’ adverts, like the French examples, are
deliberately ambiguous. It’s not difficult to imagine the moral right using
anti-sexist laws to target sexually explicit material.
Challenging sexism
ANDREA DWORKIN ONCE argued that "at the heart of the female
condition is pornography, it is the ideology that is the source of all the
rest". But sexist images of women, of which violent pornography is the most
extreme expression, do not cause women’s oppression. They are the products of a
society based on inequalities of power and wealth. The roots of women’s
oppression date back thousands of years to the rise of class society, private
property, and the family as an institution of economic and social control.
Ending oppression requires a fundamental transformation in
the way that society is structured and organised. Through democratic workers’
control and management of industry; through moving away from a system based on
inequality, hierarchy and exploitation to one where equality and co-operation
prevail, it would be possible not just to end the economic problems which women
face, but to prepare the ground for eliminating cultural oppression too.
The ‘new’ sexism can be complex and ambiguous. This is a
reflection of the contradictory processes that have taken place over the past
two decades. But now the political landscape is gradually beginning to change.
Last year the number of strikes increased; many, such as the local government
workers’ strikes, involved large numbers of women workers. Historically, when
women have become involved in action over issues such as pay and working
conditions, they have also gained the confidence to challenge wider issues which
affect them as women as well as workers.
Movements towards collective action by workers, including
the building of a new mass workers’ party, will be crucial steps in the struggle
for socialism. However, as part of that struggle, it is important to recognise
that sexism, whether ‘old’ or ‘new’, is not just the product of class society
but part of a wide ideological apparatus which helps to maintain the capitalist
system in place. In this respect, understanding and challenging sexism is not
peripheral but central to the struggle for an end to inequality and oppression
in all its forms.
References:
1. Naomi Wolf, Fire with Fire, Chatto & Windus, 1993
2. Natasha Walter, New Feminism, Little Brown, 1998
3. Evening Standard, 13 December, 2002
4. The Economist, 24 May, 2003
5. Defending Pornography, Nadine Strossen, Abacus, 1996 |