I don’t know about you but I never stop being embarrassed by the poses women make in print. They look ridiculous, bent into strange positions, their faces contorted into…into I don’t know what. They posture and twist and try to look coy and sexy, in ways that are completely unnatural to…mmmm, anyone I’ve ever seen in real life.
It’s strange what we expect women to do to sell themselves, to stay alive. Looking weird and like idiots is one way, trying to be invisible is another, I guess. Lots of doors are closed to women where no doors even exist for men.
It’s sad and dangerous. Models have said that their bodies hurt after posing, because the poses are so unnatural. But that’s just another thing men apparently want to see and women give it to them because it sells.
I look away, because I wouldn’t want my daughter to look like that. I wouldn’t want her to be ogled by strange and icky men. It’s something that desensitizes men to what women are like, even more. Because women don’t usually sit in weird poses to have breakfast. their lips glistening, their hair teased, etc. Some men are disappointed that real women aren’t like the women in the media. No one is like the women in the media, not even the women in the media. But women are used and sold everyday.
Men always look important and in control. Women look like idiots. Weak, brainless, and pathetic. I mean I am a women. I know lots of women and we agree, that what sells is just more tearing down of women’s credibility and self esteem.
When I see young girls try to imitate the women who are sold, it makes me frustrated and angry. They want to be pretty, like the models who are airbrushed to death and fussed over for hours by make up people, hair people and lighting people, to get that one fake shot. The girls will never look like the models because the models don’t look like the models.
Things are definitely better today, at least in some ways. They used to have ads selling women’s products with a woman, acting as a lawyer, in her underwear in front of a robed judge and other men.
Women finally ended those things. But girls are faced with entertainment people who are supposed to look glamorous and wonderful and they want to look like them as well. Music video’s are filled with negative images of women.
I’m so tired of women being portrayed as sex objects, or other strange, usable and disposable, things. I wonder if the people who come up with these ideas had mothers who looked the way the females they dress up, look.
I think portraying women in this fake and horrible way just adds more danger to a woman’s life. Some men, who are unable to tell reality from fantasy, hurt women because they believe they are like the women they see in film and in print.
Women, many who have had to sell themselves to survive, have always been kept down so they would be forced to comply with what men wanted. It’s sick, cruel and hateful. It’s wrong and I want to reverse the tables so they can have a taste of it.
Funny how men don’t want to go to prison, isn’t it? Some of them fear being used like women. I don’t think they understand that that is what they have done, because women hating is a natural part of our culture. Men don’t seem to like it when the roles are reversed. No man wants to be treated like a woman and who can blame them? Women don’t want to be treated the way they are treated either.
It’s supposedly better in some countries, where women are treated more fairly and equality isn’t a dirty word. Truthfully, I can’t even imagine what it would be like to live in a place like that. It’s the old fish in the water thing. I’ve only been swimming here, so I have no experience swimming where sharks don’t exist.
Some men can get upset abut what happens to their daughters, or sisters, but they don’t seem to understand that the women they abuse are also someone’s daughter, sister or mother. Somehow that doesn’t register. As my professor said, “Men hate women as a group, but are capable of caring for one or two they are close to.”
I’m absolutely horrified about all the films that show kidnapped women. Horrified that things like that actually happen. You should be horrified too. Horrified for your daughters and any women you love or care about. Any women who can be grabbed and tortured. It’s insane that things like this are considered entertainment.
Men make the ugly world we live in. If you think I’m wrong then tell me what women do that makes it the way it is. How many wars have we started? As a gender, how much damage do we do and why? Women are kept poor and powerless. We have no voice in what happens to us. Men made this kind of life and all women suffer because of what they made. On the whole, they made a world of fear, threat, violence, cruelty, ugliness, hatefulness and death. Men in so many countries are simply brutal to women and it’s their RIGHT to treat them that way and to kill them. It doesn’t get any more hateful than that.
Rethinking Life 
Comments on: "Okay, so…" (14)
Women should be allowed to do, say, and wear what pleases them without having to care what anyone is thinking about them. Men don’t wonder if they are dressed inappropriately or if they will be harrassed or even attacked or if they will fall short of what is expected of them. That women are cruel and judgementsl to their own gender hurts us all as a whole. We need to stand together and defend one another because men will not defend womankind as a gender but will with few exception consider them property.
That is so true, Holly. Every word.
It is incongruous that men are never looked on as sluts, hookers, etc in their tight jeans and T shirts (laughing out loud right now, omg, the visual). God forbid they should feel rejected, who knows what revenge some of them might take. 🙂
What some of them do take. Margaret Atwood said, “Men are afraid women will laugh at them and women are afraid men will kill them.” She’s right.
Your posts make me ashamed to be a man, angry at the men who perpetrate this shit, and confused as to why hatred for and towards women ever became a thing. I just don’t get it. I love women. I can’t fathom the mistreatment. Makes no sense to me. I can tell you that I’d physically hurt anyone who tried to treat any of the women in my life like that. 😡
I know. There are a lot of great loving, kind, sweet men out there. It’s just that they don’t usually do much to help stop what’s going on. Women hating is part of the air we breath. It’s part of our culture. There is no protection for us except if we are with males who can stop aggressors from hurting us, when we’re on the street. I mean many women won’t go out at night and are virtual prisoners in their homes, homes which don’t always afford protection either.
I was called to jury duty for a case where a woman was raped in a bathroom in a gigantic Chicago building where she worked. I mean do we need guards, or groups of women to go with a woman who needs to use the bathroom?
It’s because women are not ALLOWED to have a voice in what happens to them. It’s because men are tough by our culture to treat women the way they do in every single way. Everything in our culture conspires to make us easy prey, from the clothes we are expected to wear to the dolls and toys we are given. To the rules we’re supposed to abide by and by what we are taught in every book, from Dick and Jane, to every film we see. It’s not your fault. It’s just what our culture IS. The violence against women in films is disgusting and terrifying. We need to change from the inside and you know that’s not going to happen any time soon. Unless we can rally a female army led by Wonder Woman.
I could get behind that last part. 😊
I believe you completely and I think your wife would join up. 🙂
The systemic inequality you talk about had impacted every aspect of what it means to be a woman in the eyes of men (not all men). If we are going to make the shift to systemic equality, we as women have to understand and take fully responsibility for how we want to be defined as women – looks, behavior, expectations and acceptance of support for each other. Our discomfort or maybe even shame with how we look is for me a sad commentary on our willingness to “look good.” So we buy some butt and breast and brows and hair and eyebrows and other parts – often more than is complementary. This is not a about enhancing one’s natural beauty. It is about doing things to look like what we are not and in some cases putting our health in jeopardy. We can keep saying the man made us do it. But at some point, we have to decide. We need as you said to change from the inside but I don’t think we need an army of “Wonder Woman to do so. We can instead be proud of who we are individually and collectively and model that for our daughters and every girl who will take their cues from us of what a beautiful, capable, competent woman looks like, acts like and how she interact with men. That will be a wonder and it is worth working toward.
I agree. Women are paid to look a certain way in the media, in order to attract men and their money. Women are seen as a commodity. I was writing more toward the extreme, pouting, overdone, brainless, sex object sometimes shown in the media. Things are a lot better today than they were but the way women are portrayed in the media often takes away our credibility, or makes us targets for abuse. But the matter you brought up, women feeling bad about the way they look, it a whole other issue and one that definitely needs to be addressed. No woman should feel bad about the way she looks, which is almost impossible in this culture. Making women feel bad about themselves is BIG business, as you said.
Until women have political power and a voice at the table, nothing will change. The people who have power over women get to dictate what women wear and look like, if they want to work. It’s unfair, but that’s what power is all about, being unfair. People are discriminated against because of their looks constantly. You can be confident and feel good about yourself but you won’t get the job if you are expected to look a different way, that’s what control over others is all about. You can have laws that say you cannot discriminate on those grounds but prove that you didn’t get hired because you were too tall, too short, too this or that.
Woman are kept from woking together. If we worked together that would give us too much personal power and group power. They keep us apart by keeping women poor and even desperate. Women are often forced to marry because they can’t make enough to support themselves. Men are often the goods over which women are expected to compete. Women are FORCED, by our culture, to compete against each other, for money, protection, food and shelter, depending on the woman’s position. Looks can play a part in that. Our culture doesn’t always care about what a person is like…they care about how the person looks. We live in a superficial, disposable culture. That can include people.
One of the problems with women working together is that there are SO many problems to address. Because of that groups often split their resources, and work on multiple problems at the same time. This can dilute their power but certain issues are important to different people and they need attention. And there’s ALWAYS the issue of money. It’s problematic for sure but we need to keep working at it. We are making headway but men have all the power, which means money, the law, and violence. How do we fight all of those things when we don’t have a voice?
Hello my friend, thank you for another important post. The comments are also very thought-provoking. Additionally, I feel it has been a “catch-22” situation for women for so many years that it’s become ingrained to a certain extent. For example, unfortunately, from my personal experience, women are often just as nasty (or sometimes even nastier) to each other. Especially in the corporate world. It is ironic, sad and frustrating – that we should be supportive and try to help each other, but so often wind up hurting other women. I hope this makes some sense? As always, I love these posts, and I think each of us (women & men) can do our part to work towards real change…
I agree with you completely. Sometimes women are our worst enemy. They hold on to what they have and try to be more like men because that’s what probably got them where they are in the first place. I think women should help each other as well, but that’s definitely not always the case. Sometimes women are threatening to other women and that’s just so convenient for men, isn’t it? So frustrating. I’ve met some incredibly vicious and nasty women and it’s kind os shocking. Some corporate women are guarding their own position and don’t want other women to encroach on their hard won territory. You are so right about that. Disappointing, not doubt about it. Thank you for this wonderful comment. Appreciate it very much. I’m posting a quote from Madeleine Albright just for you.
Thank you my friend! I just saw the quote.
And I’m relieved to know I’m not alone. I appreciate our conversation very much ❤ Wish you a great second half of the week. If I may say so, your daughter is lucky to have a mother like you 🙂
You are so very kind. My daughter and I spent the entire day today, having a wonderful time. Thank you so much. You are not alone. I also appreciate our conversations very much. ❤