Strut your Stuff

In my last section for my communication studies class we discussed the differences between males and females, focusing on their body language and mannerisms. This directly reminded me of the essay, “Throwing like a Girl” by Iris Young. When reading this piece I was struck by how much it rang true for me, and I realized Young’s essay exemplifies the exact issues that magazines like Cosmopolitan and Seventeen promote. Young discusses how women tend to be self-conscious and cautious of their bodies, which affects their mobility in their daily lives. In Young’s words, her essay illustrates a "phenomenological" examination of how we live in our bodies.

In my communication studies course we’ve investigated the progression of feminism throughout the 1990s and then 2000s. Currently we’re in the middle of “post feminism” or what my professor likes to refer to as “enlightened sexism.” It is the notion that since men and women are in fact equal, there is no more need for feminism. Feminism is in essence over with and ‘not cool’. Therefore, women should not protest and criticize the media when they see covers of Maxim with half naked girls on the cover. These magazines also portray women to be objects rather than subjects. They are constantly in the wraps of a man and look directly at the reader as if they are simply dying for their attention and gaze. Their bodies are restrained in positions that show off their breasts or other features. It looks unnatural, but also looks very feminine and seductive at the same time. Young argues:

“We often experience our bodies as fragile encumbrance, rather than the media for the enactment of our aims. We feel as though we must have our attention directed upon our bodies to make sure they are doing what we wish them to do, rather than paying attention to what we want to do thorugh our bodies” (146-7).

Of course there are exceptions to her claim, but these words directly describe the models and actresses we see in the media, which transcends to female teenagers and adults today because we aspire to be like the women that are portrayed in magazines and on television. In a sense, magazines targeted for females take what Young describes to be a self-imposed “I cannot” and make it work; if women simply “cannot” do the same things as men than why not be as appealing to men as we possibly can and have them do it for us? All these magazines are chock-full of articles on “How to leave him wanting more” or “How to win him over.” It’s no wonder women have this attitude “I cannot” if all we are supposed to think about is how to rely on men and being overly obsessive about having a guy. 

From the November 2012 Maxim issue

In my discussion two boys were asked to act like girls and two girls were asked to pretend to be boys. The two boys were surprisingly extremely accurate. They took smaller strides than normal and held their arms in close to their waist. They looked slightly uncomfortable and more fragile. It was actually creepy to watch these two boys portray what was supposed to be me when I’m walking down the street. It was like looking in a mirror and never realizing how restrained and uptight I look. On the other hand, the two girls took longer strides and looked more relaxed. Their arms hung loose and their shoulders were not up by their ears. They looked uninhibited and not self-conscious in the slightest. Young would relate this movement to “immanence” and “transcendence.” For Young, the way women move, and the way they throw a ball, can be related to “tension” and being “a mere object.”

To the extent that a woman lives her body as a thing, she remains rooted in immanence, is inhibited and retains a distance from her body as transcending movement and from engagement in the world’s possibilities” (150). 

              What better example than "The Plastics" from Mean Girls.

This part of the essay I don’t necessarily agree with. Today I don’t think women are “rooted in immanence” in the same way they were before or even during the first feminist movement. On the other hand, the media perpetuates restraint of female mobility and self-consciousness for ones body through images and stereotypes of what it means to be feminine.