The media has an incredible effect on every one of us. Even those of us that do not watch TV. The image of women that the media presents is so distorted that if it was not lethal it would be laughable. The sad fact is that it is lethal. Extremely lethal.
Naomi Wolfe has written an excellent book called The Beauty Myth, and while I have not read it entirely I have read some of it and talked with several women that have read it to get more information. I agree with Wolfe's contention that the media presents a very distorted and unhealthy image of women. Most of the women that I have talked with about "The Beauty Myth" are very aware of the distortion that is the presentaion of women through the media.
The images of the models that sell us everything from toothpaste to tires is a image of anorexia and bulemia. It is just not natural or healthy for a woman to be that skinny. I use the word skinny intentionally, slender is one thing, this is something else entirely.
I once worked with a woman that talked about how she had been doing all these intense abdominal exercises to get rid of the "paunch" of her belly. After three years of this she realized that what was inside the "paunch" were her female reproductive organs. I do not write this to make fun of her in any fashion. I am writing this example to show how the media's portrayal of feminine beauty is distorted, and unhealthy. She was bought into the idea that "in order to be beautiful, you have to look like this." She is a very beautiful woman, and in excellent shape. Yet she felt that she was fat. The beauty myth was running and ruining her self-image.
One of the inherant drawbacks of modern mass media is the well documented effect of "objectifying" whatever it is dealing with. From the horrors of war, to the recent unmanned space-craft landing on Mar's, everything is turned into an "object." If there was any human aspect to the story it disapears like water in the sun quenched desert. This shows in the media's portrayal of women, by treating them as "objects" also. The objectification of women has several pernicious effects on our societies view and treatment of women. Looking through magazines it is all too familiar to see pictures of parts of women. Their legs, their faces, their breasts or buttocks. In most ad's we see only a portion of a woman. The same is true for men in the advertisement industry.
While I am not saying that we should not have pictures of parts of people I am trying to say we should be aware of what we are seeing. What we are seeing is not all of the picture. On the other side of that beautiful leg might be a mole or, heaven forbid, there may be an ounce of fat on the model. It is important to learn to see all of every person we interact with. The good, the bad, the beautiful, and yes even the ugly. When we only see a portion of a person it becomes much easier to think of that picture as an object. Shoulders, hips, legs, face, whatever. Again the important part is that when we see a picture we have to maintain the frame of reference that the picture is a picture of a whole human being.(One of my teachers told me several times "never hesitate to state the obvious," it is obvious that the picture is of a whole human, but it is important to state that and remember it.)
Just as the mass media distorts and objectifies everything it touches the same is true for our news; but that is another subject that requires much more time and energy than I can spare. Though I would ask you to think about the question of "who's perspective of the news are we allowed to watch?" If you are interested in that stuff check out the video The Panama Deception, a documentary about the Panama "Invasion"
Another viscious side of the beauty myth is the myth that we have to be young to be beautiful. Look at the ad's in the magazines, the models are either very young and made up to appear older and sexy; or in their mid twenties and dressed up to look like little girls, still with the same level of sexiness. Something is wrong here. Of course I am going to second guess a multi-billion dollar industry and say that I think the portrayal of little girls as potential sex objects is wrong. I also think it is wrong to have models that are only between certain age groups, and predominately white women of northern european descent. That is not a picture of the planet that I live on, thankfully. But it is a reflection of the beauty myth running our advertisement industry, a business that has serious health effects on thousands or even millions of young women, and to a lesser extent young men. All in the name of making a dollar.
The Link Between Objectification and Violence.
The link between objectification and violence is clear; when we treat humans as objects it makes it infinitely easier to become violent with them. In the armed services part of the process of going to war is to make the "enemy" seem "not fully human." If something is not fully human it makes it that much easier to justify killing it, torturing it and or raping it. But when you acknowledge that it is a fully human enemy that you are dealing with you have to be able to rationalize your intention to murder, rape, or torture him or her.
In a society that has become conditioned to see women as objects, subjecting them to violence becomes much easier to condone.
There is another part of this that I am not sure how to research, but it is a very strong intuition that I believe. I believe that as we grow up in this socicety we are taught to disconnect from our human nature. I believe that the media, our culture (or lack there of), and the increasingly fast pace of our society create a vortext of emotion, confusion, and desperation. One of the ways we may choose to survive this is to disconnect from our human nature. After all if I can disconnect from my emotions and still function in society I might get the idea that emotions are unnecesarry. The other extreme is to become controlled by my emotions. So that I am what ever I am feeling at the time. That is an emotional roller-coaster that usually gets out of control.
These types of unprocessed emotions and confusion can lead us into a place of desperation. From that place of desperation all kinds of things can happen. A lot of them are not good.
What I see that to mean is that we each have to learn to think about the images we are being sold. I also need to think about the nature of the communication I am engaged in. Am I communicating from a position of empowerment, or from a position of defense? Where is my power located? {For more detailed information look at "Preventing Sexual Assault," an upcoming page for this chapter} Is my power within me, or is my power outside of me? If my power is internal I am in control of it and my actions. When I let my power be controlled by anyone or anything other than my self it is out of my control. When my power is not in my control I do not have the capability to access it when, where and how I need it.
There is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR ABUSE! I have been writting this as a way to explain some of the ideas I have about the root causes of abuse in our society. But I want to be absolutely crystal clear about this. There is ABSOLUTELY NO EXCUSE FOR ABUSE! In the same way that a person may try to blame her or his actions on being drunk; the fact is they are the ones that drank the booze, so it is still their responsibility. Period.
A new definition of Beauty; Idea's for all of us.
I think it is important to learn to develop a different way of seeing beauty. Yes I still appreciate seeing a "beautiful" woman, but what about inner beauty? Or what about serenity, or ambition, compassion, caring, or vitality?
What I am thinking of here is that we need to expand our idea of what is "beauty" to encompass more of the human spirit. Whether that spirit comes in a male form or a female form. A truley beautiful person has a type of beauty that encompasses much more than the physical shape that the person is. The physical form is just the vessel that the spirit travels in, however it really does not reflect the truth of the spirit within; I am sure each one of us knows someone that may be physically very attractive, but is emotionally very disabled. The opposite is also true, that you may know someone that physically is not attractive, but emotionally and or spiritually is an awesome beauty.
I think what I am talking about here is learning to see with more than just our eyes. Then we can teach our eyes a new definition of beauty.
Ideas for men.
For men I think it is extremely important to learn to be an empathetic listener. I know that when a woman confides in me about her fear I want to solve the problem. That is nice, but it may not be what she wants. I need to listen and gently ask questions to learn what (if anything) she wants me to do about it. It might be as simple and as hard as giving her a sympathetic ear, without judgement or advice.
It is also important to develop healthy relationships with other men. I also think that as a man in this society I have the responsibility to work with other men, and when the time is right to convey the message that there is no excuse for abuse. That is where the isolation of men in our society becomes problematic. See "Isolation" for more thoughts on this.
The impact of Television and Movies
Please notice that I have not even addressed the issue of what we see on television or in the movies. The effects of televisons programming, and the subject matter of movies has to have an impact on a persons world view. Consider how many rape scenes are put on the air waves every day and night, that has to minimize the traumatic impact of the reality of rape. The amount of violence on TV, in my opinion, must have some impact on how and what we see as violence, as well as what we think the impact of that violence will be. "In the movies he always got up and walked away...", may sound 'unreal' but it has been said in so many court rooms and emergency rooms that I am amazed by it. It is as though some people actually believe that guns are not lethal. I also think that the amount of violence that our young people live with on a daily basis tends to shock them to the point of disconnecting from the reality and horror of violence; as though they have no other way to process it, so they deny it's impact. That type of "innoculations" can only delay the impact of the violent world our teenagers are living in. A world that is probably much more violent than ours.
One other sociologically accepted falsehood that directly impacts women's safety is the lie that women are incapable of defending themselves. This is simply untrue.
Historically women have been awesome warriors, they have developed complete martial arts systems, been bodyguards, and even been on the front lines in wars. They have been there, and done that and lived to talk about it.
From my personal experience I know that women are physically, mentally and emotionally quite capable of defending themselves. If anything they just need to be given permission to defend themselves,and to be trained how to do that.
The idea of permission is one I learned from working with the women in the classes. There were numerous times that a woman would say "I never knew it would be OK to do that." or "I was always told to never do that." Of course if you ask a man if it is OK to kick him in the groin he is going to say "NO!" But in the reality of a sexual assault it is a very good idea to strike the groin, if that target is presented.
What I feel may be one reason society perpetuates the lie that women can not defend themselves is that if women learn more about their inate power they will not tolerate the types of abuse that they have in the past. Also in our hierarchial society if one group assumes more power everyone else in that system feels they have less power. The scarcity mentality strikes again.
What is true is that when one group gains power they have the ability to help other groups gain more power also. Power is not a finite material substance. Power is infinite, and can be created.
In order to destroy this lie men and women are going to have to acknowledge the power that each one has.
It is from the depth of work together that the hope of living in a new way will start to blossom. It can be done, and it needs to be.