Women in 2024 live in a post-feminist society, where they often find themselves conflicted between adhering to society’s expectations of women, or subverting from these expectations to form their own, unique identities. To some extent, Joanna Murray-Smith’s Bombshells illustrates that individual identities are shaped by society’s expectations of gender roles; however, she also acknowledges that women are still able to form individual identities despite society’s expectations. This idea is also evident in modern society, presenting itself on a global scale, and in my own personal experiences. Murray-Smith’s exploration of the sexual identities of young women in Bombshells is a vessel for the comment that society’s expectations dictate the way …show more content…
In Bombshells, Murray-Smith presents Winsome Webster as “a sixty-four-year-old [...] widow” who defies stereotypes to embrace individuality. Patrick, the blind man whom Winsome reads to, acts as Murray-Smith’s personification of the ideal absence of the male gaze. When the male gaze is physically removed from Winsome’s world, there is a shift in her mood. She used to feel confined to the constraints of being a widow, and a surge of melancholy when she concedes that just because “anything can happen to a widow, anything doesn’t.” However, Patrick diminishes both the notion and the power of the male gaze in his blindness, which allows Winsome to reclaim her sexuality, and learn that it is “not about possessing youth, but being in touch with it”. When Winsome was living in a world that was dictated by society’s patriarchal perceptions of women, she felt the need to behave a certain way, as if sex was taboo due to her age. Similar to sexuality, society's beauty standards are often shaped by the male gaze, emphasising younger, thinner, and narrower ideals of attractiveness. However, female artists, such as photographer Cindy Sherman, have used their work to subvert and critique the male gaze. Sherman’s work is known for exploring themes of identity and representation by staging self-portraits that disrupt traditional notions of femininity and empower women to express themselves on their own terms. In this way, Murray-Smith’s encouragement for her audience of women to subvert social expectations and form their own individuality is proven
To elaborate, Scott argues that as a picture interpreter, we must make a distinction between the “ideal and the real,” to understand the true meaning of an image. She argues how the Gibson Girl and the American Girl were two idealised visions of modern beauty and femininity which made women to try to be like them. These two girls became markers of their decade, ...
The values and rules of traditional community add great pressure on an individual 's shoulder while choosing their identity. While women 's have relatively more freedom then before but however values of traditional communities creates an invisible fence between their choices. It put the young women in a disconcerting situation about their sexual freedom. Bell demonstrates the how the contradiction messages are delivered to the young woman 's, she writes that “Their peers, television shows such as Sex and the City, and movies seem to encourage sexual experimentation... But at the same time, books, such as Unhooked and A Return to Modesty advise them to return to courtship practices from the early 1900s”(27).
Georgia O’Keefe is a famous American painter who painted beautiful flowers and landscapes. But she painted these images in such a way that many people believed she was portraying sexual imagery. “O’Keefe’s depictions of flowers in strict frontality and enlarged to giant scale were entirely original in character . . . the view into the open blossoms evoked an image of the female psyche and invited erotic associations.” (Joachimides 47) O’Keefe denies these allegations and says that she “magnified the scale of the flower only to ensure people would notice them.” (Haskell 203) O’Keefe’s artwork was misinterpreted because of cultural prejudice, her non-traditional lifestyle, and gender bias art criticism. But despite these accusations, Georgia O’Keefe’s artwork was not based on sexuality.
The conversion of feminism into a binary relationship simplifies the bigger picture of the feminist debate, and thus makes it easier to read. This in turn reaches an audience that is larger than just the highly educated feminists; something that feminists have argued is needed to make the movement stronger. However, on another level, who can interpret what is real feminism and what steps are forward? At what point are we ‘genuinely’ enjoying our sexuality as women and at what point are we simply seeking attention from men? At what point are we being manipulated by our consumer culture? This is ultimately something that every woman must decide for herself.
As of May 30th 2017, the Supreme Court has settled the case BNSF Railway Co. v. Tyrrell in an 8:1 decision, ruling that a state level court cannot implement jurisdiction over a railroad company under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act.
People say we are who we are but, in reality the friends, family, and the media shape us everyday of what is called our identity. Families have a huge impact of who and what we are of course. In both Julia Alvarez “Once Upon a Quinceanera” and Jayme Poisson “Parents keep Child’s Gender Secret” talks about in how which families influence who and what we are and how much power they have in shaping one’s identity even if we do not see it. It is evident that society have expectations that are placed among gender and/or women roles but families tend to have the power to avoid these issues. Due to the articles, families do shape women 's identity just as men and have much power in doing so, due to tradition, expectations, and the way how society keeps reminding them to act a certain way.
In this essay, Gay deconstructs the stereotypical view of a feminist, by showing that you can be a feminist, even if you’re not in the small box the rest of the world thinks you should be in, in order to qualify as a ‘feminist’. Throughout the essay, Gay uses several quotes and stories from other women who are either afraid to say that they’re feminists, or don’t quite understand you don’t have to be in the limiting ‘box’, even though in their moral beliefs and actions, these sourced women are, in fact, feminists. According to Gay, if we didn’t have this stereotype, then maybe more women with diverse lives and views would be able to ‘come out’ as
No other artist has ever made as extended or complex career of presenting herself to the camera as has Cindy Sherman. Yet, while all of her photographs are taken of Cindy Sherman, it is impossible to class call her works self-portraits. She has transformed and staged herself into as unnamed actresses in undefined B movies, make-believe television characters, pretend porn stars, undifferentiated young women in ambivalent emotional states, fashion mannequins, monsters form fairly tales and those which she has created, bodies with deformities, and numbers of grotesqueries. Her work as been praised and embraced by both feminist political groups and apolitical mainstream art. Essentially, Sherman’s photography is part of the culture and investigation of sexual and racial identity within the visual arts since the 1970’s. It has been said that, “The bulk of her work…has been constructed as a theater of femininity as it is formed and informed by mass culture…(her) pictures insist on the aporia of feminine identity tout court, represented in her pictures as a potentially limitless range of masquerades, roles, projections” (Sobieszek 229).
Over time, a women’s identity has been seen as powerless and incompetent to achieve anything. This image of women is being created at a young age at young age. For instance, little
Cultures throughout the world encompass a diverse array of lifestyles by which societies are led by. These cultures, in a typical sense, are created by the subset of a population that follows a particular set of morals and ideals. An individual’s own identity, as a result, is dependent on many varying factors of their lifestyle in these culturally regulated regions. In the stories, “Selections from Reading Lolita in Tehran,” by Azar Nafisi, and “The Naked Citadel,” by Susan Faludi, the authors depict the impact made on an individual’s identity by male-dominated communities prejudiced against women. The discriminations described in these stories contribute to the creation of cultures that oppose the idea of seeing women as equals to men. Hence,
However, the stigma of openly sexual women was not eliminated therefore marking down women's sexual freedom because of the stigma they carry in society.In conclusion, chapter by chapter hooks highlights how feminist theory repeatedly excluded non-white and working class women by ignoring white supremacy as a racial problem and by disregarding the highly psychological impact of class in their political and social status all while, in the case of black women, facing three classes of oppression in a racist, sexist and capitalist state. Throughout the book the author defines feminism, the meaning of sisterhood, what feminism is to men in addition to brushing upon power, work, violence and education. Although I found some elements of this book problematic hooks' critiques of feminist theory and the movement are well-presented, piercingly direct and remain relevant.
The sexualization of women in the 21st century has led many to wonder whether or not the feminist movement actually resulted in more harm than good. Although the progress and reform that came out of the feminist movement is indisputable, things such as equal rights under the law, equal status and equal pay, the reality is that the subjugation of female roles in society still exist, and the most surprising part about this is that now women are just as much as at fault for this as men are. Ariel Levy defines female chauvinist pigs as “women who make sex objects of other women and of ourselves” (Levy 11). This raunch culture is mistakenly assumed to be empowering and even liberating to women when it is in fact degrading and corrupting to the modern feminist movement and makes it more difficult for women to be taken seriously in society. The shift in the nature of the feminist movement is in Levy’s opinion attributed to by the massive industry now profiting off of the sexualization of women, the reverse mindset now adopted by post-feminists and women in power roles in our society, and ultimately the women who further their own objectification as sex objects and thus, so by association, deem themselves lesser than man.
Fausto-Sterling, Anne. Sexing the Body: Gender Politics and the Construction of Sexuality. NY: Basic Books, 2000.
In just a few decades The Women’s Liberation Movement has changed typical gender roles that once were never challenged or questioned. As women, those of us who identified as feminist have rebelled against the status quo and redefined what it means to be a strong and powerful woman. But at...
16.)Utt, Jamie. "Navigating The Difference Between The Appreciation of Beauty and Sexual Objectification." Everyday Feminism 18 Apr. 2013: n. pag. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. .