Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Is it only oppression if you let it oppress you? Discuss.


The Heywood and Dworkin article I read last night just blew my mind in the matter of objectification (or is it?) of female athletes in the media. When forming opinions about what to think of such matters I like to really chew over matters discussed in such articles and see if I can incorporate some of these ideas into my own ideology. When it comes to women in the media I’ve basically been taught to think that the male gaze dominates all and that women are usually objectified through sexualization in one way or another. However, in recent times I’ve been noticing that representations of women have been tending to stray further from this subordinated femininity. I haven’t really been able to find the right ideas that express what I’ve been noticing but I think “Bodies, Babes, and the NBA” are right on target with pinning down what’s been going on, at least with athletes anyway.

There is such a diversity of images of athletes that to argue that those that do not portray them either in action in their sport or fully clothed would be to ignore the real say that athletic women have in their own portrayal in magazines and calendars. There is a camp of third-wave feminists which fully supports the notion of self-possession discussed on page 87. This is something that struck me as a new and justified response to concern about appearing sexy in print and on screen. The athletic body is not only something to be proud of for its contours and appeal, but also for the fact that the athlete has worked for it. Unlike the body of, say, a Playmate, the athlete’s body took hundreds of hours of strenuous work and commitment to the goal of finely tuning her body to become a highly able “machine.” This body is her body and she is going to flaunt it at will and with unflinching pride.

I do agree with the authors in pointing out what is problematic about the portrayal of athletes is that this is considered to them to be a major way to get attention as a skilled athlete. They assert their existence in the “hyperreality” and in many ways to bring attention, attendance, and funds to their much-ignored sport. Coming upon this point in the article made me flinch because of its allusion to prostitution, and it also made me think of some of the deeper implications of this kind of portrayal in the media. Even though the athletes and probably many other women see their strength as empowering, what about those that view these images with visual pleasure in mind? Which point of view even matters more in pop culture anyway? What’s the point of making such a statement if everyone is going to overlook it in favor of their own perception of what you’re doing?

In a slightly different direction, I’d also like to mention the subject of lesbian desire. I really wish the authors had touched on this more in “Bodies, Babes, and the NBA” after leaving us hanging on page 82. Miller cites “targeting lesbian desire” as a reason for the recent glorification of “masculine” (i.e. muscled, well-sculpted) women’s bodies, which is problematic as it buys into the linking of sexuality and gender inversion and stereotyping of athletes as lesbians. Heywood and Dworkin take this point down in the following paragraphs of their article but it leaves me to wonder just what lesbian desire is attracted to. Is there a specific image of lesbian desire? Gay desire? I mean the objects of straight desire can have so many faces, so does there have to be just one lesbian sexual ideal?

3 comments:

  1. I think they link lesbian desire with naked women in general. It would be wrong to assume that all lesbians are attracted to sculpted bodies, but I can see where you're going with this in terms of stereotyping athletes as lesbians, therefore lesbians as being attracted to athletes. This is highly problematic, and I hope they didn't mean this intentionally.

    As for perception/meaning applied to photos, never will everyone be on the same page; there is always deviation. Also, being attracted to a photo doesn't necessarily make it sexual, but somehow nudity is always classified as either art or porn. Ya know?

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  2. You have something interesting to say about working for these bodies, that athletes deserve the gaze of the male, because they've earned it. I'd like to push this further - does the gaze they attract figure into the male gaze? Is the male gaze something deserved and therefore something that women seek to have? That introduces a different facet of this argument and a different perspective.

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  3. I agree with Vicki in that lesbian desire is probably linked to naked women in general. Straight male and female desire do have many faces, but in general it's not that face that people are looking at in that situation. The fact that it's specifically athletic women's bodies that lesbians are supposed to be attracted to reinforces the ideal that the only acceptable body is toned and that fat bodies have no place in our society.

    I think that if a woman is proud of her body and she wants to show it off she has every right to. if someone perceives it as sexual even if it wasn't her intended message, then that is their issue to deal with. It's like analyzing the author's perspective on books in english class. We don't actually know what the author was thinking when they wrote the novel, we can only form our own opinion. That doesn't make anyones ideas any less viable, just different. We shouldn't condemn the athlete for posing nude in pictures, they grab your attention and good or bad implications, that's what the pictures are there for. Ultimately, these pictures are going to get both positive and negative press, so maybe athletes should just focus on promoting themselves and the sport.

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