Powersuits and G-strings

Mahangu Weerasinghe

It's Saturday afternoon, and you are channel surfing. Iraq - boring. Afghanistan - boring. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq, Afghanistan, and some woman in the Midwest has cut off her husband's penis, again. Finally, you decide to just settle on the generic music channel.

First up is a new female artist called Rihanna, who, while producing some pretty catchy music, wears a black latex body suit and dances suggestively with an umbrella between her legs in her latest video. Fifty years ago this would have been considered soft porn. Now it's just MTV.

The problem with feminism, or a lack thereof, in Generation Y, is one of ignorance. Although the term Generation Y has quite a few interpretations, I use it here to identify those born from the late eighties right up to the late nineties - Internet generation, or the Echo Boomers, if you will. What I maintain is that the young men and women, the boys and girls of this generation, do not know the distance that feminism has come in the last century, and hence see no need to try and understand, or protect it.

in the guise of culture, our boys and girls, and young men and women, are being exposed to entertainment that is degrading women clearly, systematically, and indeed, unashamedly

The Paradox of Gen Y Feminism

Over the past hundred years, First and Second-Wave feminists fought hard for issues that were very real to them. From the right to vote in the early 1900s to the glass ceilings of the sixties, women who saw the injustices being done to them stood their ground, suffered, and finally, one might say, came out on top (no pun intended). Although it is not realistic to say that the glass ceilings have been entirely removed, they have been extended, or become more porous.

What's baffling then is the nature of the new female role models.While the need for role models is in itself an issue that has been under debate recently, the fact remains that public figures, and in particular, public figures in the sphere of popular entertainment, do have a significant impact on the way people see themselves, their peers, and even their goals and aspirations. While not all girls who see Britney Spears on TV may want to end up on the Billboard Top 40, it is very likely that a sizable majority of them will, consciously or unconsciously, try to imitate her attitude, dress, and mannerisms. Therefore, what is alarming is the fact that, in the guise of culture, our boys and girls, and young men and women, are being exposed to entertainment that is degrading women clearly, systematically, and indeed, unashamedly. While it may be argued that the media, and especially Hollywood, has been objectifying women for decades, I maintain that the process has never been this fine tuned.

Let's take a close look at Rap, and Hip-Hop, two of the most popular music genres today. While all such music does not degrade women, a major part of the culture it has spawned certainly does. Watch ay Rap or Hip-Hop music video and you will get the same message - guys are pimps, girls are whores. Oh wait, girls can also be sluts or bitches, depending on their personal association to you, as a man. Of course, men can only be pimps, players or brothers. Many of you may say that the language is a cultural thing, and that the semantics of the words differ, and so on.

On the one hand you have the random groups of boys who can't seem to have a conversation without words like 'dog' and 'homie', and then you get the guys who try to be all 50 Cent

It is true that the Gen-Y Black people are using these methods to subvert the carefully crafted White structures, especially those which portray women as delicate, and fragile, and men as their protectors. The reclamation of the word nigger as a mark of greeting among Black males can, along with the use of pimp, slut, and ho (abbr. of whore), be taken as an act of hitting out at the Middle Class morality of the majority. However, has this effort to subvert WASP ideals backfired on Black America? In attacking the pillars of White society, have African Americans shattered the founding ideals of their hard won political freedom? What about equality? What about respect? Weren't these the very things that the community fought for, over centuries?

Perhaps what is most alarming is that the use of these derogatory words is spreading rapidly, even outside Black culture. Fuelled mainly by the popularity of the Rap and Hip-Hop, words like ho are now in common use, especially among teenagers and young adults. In April 2007, Don Imus, a prominent American radio personality, had his show taken off the air when he called the Rutgers University NCAA women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos" soon after his executive producer Bernard McGuirk referred to them as "hard-core hos". If there's anything the Imus fiasco brings out, it's that semantics and usage aside, ho is still a derogatory word. Rap and Hip-Hop are a part of a culture that is spreading widely in Sri Lanka at the moment. English, Sinhala, as well as hybrid Sinhala-English Rap and Hip-Hop outfits are forming, and these genres of music, along with everything else they entail, are being popularised via radio, television and live shows.

Aneesha Varusawithane (name changed), 19, a resident of Colombo, says that the spread of Rap and Hip-Hop related lingo is on the increase in her social circles. "On the one hand you have the random groups of boys who can't seem to have a conversation without words like 'dog' and 'homie', and then you get the guys who try to be all 50 Cent and use the lyrics as pickup lines." She says that a word like ho, even if it isn't meant in its original context, "is still a derogatory word" Regarding her peer group, and the attitude of her female friends towards this new subculture, Aneesha says, "some women seem to think that to get the attention of guys, they have to dress and behave like the women they see and hear about. This is becaue these women [of Hip-Hop] seem to come across as extremely attractive to most guys so sometimes my friends turn to dressing and acting like them."

The ways in which young people in Colombo are being affected by the spread of such music is thus evident, and one can only deduce that the frenzied import of this now global culture will continue. The question is 'how will this phenomenon shape the face of youth, and in particular, the image of women among youth in the coming years?' This is not to say, however, that Rap and Hip-Hop are the sole sources of this trend. There are many other genres and sub-genres that help to spread similar attitudes. For example, pop music, and in particular, pop music performed by female artists, is equally responsible for the perpetuation of this negative attitude toward women. Although they don't use the same words in their lyrics, Britney Spears, and the generation of sex-doll clones she leads, dress, act and perform on stage in a manner that is consistent with this culture. When a young man or woman turns on the television today, does she see Arundhati Roy, or Meg Whitman, CEO of Ebay? Does she even see Enya, whose lungs could power a shuttle launch? Of course not. She sees Beyonce giving Terrance Howard a lap dance ("Beyonce Lapdance Stuns Actor"). Yes, on public television, at the Black Entertainment Television Awards. Now before you accuse me of moralizing, let me just make it clear - I have no problem with people who make a living from lap dancing. It's a job, and if you've gotta do it, you gotta do it. I'm sure that most of you agree, however, that foreplay is best performed between consenting adults, in a private setting of their choice. A public performance of such an act, in my mind, is no different to pornography, and certainly should not be on public television, let alone at prime time. What troubles me is this - why would one of the most popular female artists in the world (Beyonce's net worth is an estimated $315 million) want to give a guy a lap dance on TV? As the truism goes, sex sells.

The question is, what is the message we are giving girls? Are we making them think that they have to be a size 0 in order to be accepted by society? Are we inadvertently telling them that their talent as a singer, writer, scientist, anything, is not enough and that they have to sell their body in order to popularize their work?

Also, what are we telling our boys? Are we telling them that the worth of a woman is in how short her skirt is, or how good her legs look? Are we telling them that it doesn't matter if she is smart, educated, or passionate about what she believes in, and that all that matters is how willing she is to put out?

we do not, as it turns out, tell [young people] that normal male Homo sapiens can't go at it for three hours at a time, and that a woman's clitoris is not akin to a light switch

Generation Y is growing up in a media blitz. From cable and satellite television, to the Internet, and the world wide wank, sex is being streamed across the globe 24/7. Yay for the breakdown of archaic moral structures! Viva la sexual revolution! My fear, however, is that the sex that is being distributed worldwide is not really sex at all. It's a manufactured, unreal sexuality that we are encouraging our young to enjoy. Yes, I say encourage, because that's exactly what Gen Y is being told - porn is a good, healthy way in which to experience the joys of sex. Pornography is no longer something that is passed around in a hushed circle at the back of the school toilets. It's downloaded, copied on to DVDs, and distributed in classrooms and on street corners worldwide. No more do young boys squint at blurry images ripped haphazardly out of some pavement magazine. No, they're online and downloading Sorority Sisters' Seduction 3, and the widescreen release, no less.

While we equip young people to differentiate between reality and fantasy with regard to explosions, car chases and zombie invasions, we do not, as it turns out, tell them that normal Homo sapiens can't go at it for three hours at a time, and that a woman's clitoris is not akin to a light switch. Porn, which began as a liberating force for sexuality, has now become something that works against sexual identity, and understanding - setting impossibly high sexual goals for us, and privileging sexual prowess or performance over a real relationship, and a false idea of attractiveness over an intimate understanding of a partner's likes and dislikes. In this reality, men never stop wanting and women never stop giving - a reality, which the porn industry would like you to believe is healthy.

Praveen Wijesundara (name changed), 21, comes from a typical Upper-Middle Class background in Colombo. He was first exposed to pornography in his early teens, when a friend gave him a website to look at. He describes his porn consumption from then on as "increasing over time, and then decreasing rapidly in the last few years"." He said that he lost interest after he had seen "pretty much everything there is to see" (Wijesundara).

When asked when he began to realise that pornography was not real, he said that it was a distinction that he gradually made as he grew up. He admits that often, in his peer group for example, that distinction is not made, or is made very late in the viewing process, and that "men and boys often up their expectations of women after being exposed to porn - these expectations include their physical beauty as well as their behaviour in certain situations". When asked if viewers were more likely to identify between reality and fantasy in a normal movie as opposed to a porn flick, he had this to say:

"I think high speed car chases, for example, are generally watched from the time you're pretty young, with the right atmosphere, as in, with parents, and their guidance. Porn on the other hand, is something you have to do on the sly, and so you're less educated and more likely to believe what you see."

Praveen, then, appears to be one of the more enlightened connoisseurs of pornography. Then again, he too readily admits that the line between reality and fantasy is often blurred in the mind of most viewers. Indeed, this line is one that has been under scrutiny since the days of Second Wave feminism, the era in which pornography first came to the mainstream. History records that,

"; not only did early feminists sticker and add graffiti to offending images on display, they also looked to produce more positive images of women which portrayed a range of bodies, ages, ethnicities and abilities." (Pilcher and Whelehan 97)

How is it then, that now, nearly fifty years later, a generation of women is growing up believing that having unbelievably large breasts, and implanted buttocks is an essential part of being attractive?
In 2006, as many as 329,000 breast augmentation procedures were performed in the United States (American Society of Plastic Surgeons). Again, I do not dispute a woman's individual right to do whatever she wants with her breasts. They are, after all, hers. However, one also wonders why over three hundred thousand women would want their breasts enlarged. It is clear that at one point, we did perceive porn as a problem. Then, somewhere along the way, we got so taken up by the idea of freedom and choice, that we stopped thinking about the collective responsibility we have towards educating our young, and perpetuating a healthy image of sexuality. The problem with feminism in Generation Y is one of ignorance. The men and women of today do not know how far the struggle for equal rights has come, and therefore are not in a position where they believe it needs to be protected. If the entertainment industry has its way, however, women will be long gone by the time people realize this need. Instead we'll have bitches, hos, and a lot of artificial breasts to go along with them. What is clear is that liberalism, and the strong focus it has placed on individual rights, has effectively killed off any notion of collective responsibility. Fifty years ago women declared that their bodies were theirs. Today, when that fact is no longer disputed, they are using freedom to destroy the collective image of woman, and, in consequence, slowly undo the work of many decades. Pilcher, Jane and Imelda Whelehan. 50 Key Concepts in Gender Studies. London: Sage Publications, 2004
