How Popular Culture Has Affected Women in the US
In America, after suffrage battles by female activists, a new dawn appeared, and there was nothing that seemed beyond their reach. The bold and brilliant reformers were taking over. They were independent, reliant and audacious in a way that made people marvel at the splendor of the new woman. The activists, though, found realities in the new world to be more complicated than expected. The right of women to vote became such an inspiring symbol of their rights that it successfully subdued the class, ideological and racial differences that might have caused the suffrage supporters to splinter into factions. The Nineteenth Amendments ratification meant that there would be no other such dramatic goal to serve the same purpose of minimizing internal conflicts. There were mixed feelings on what being a woman and being equal meant. To move on about matters of sex equality called for ideological visions on the goals to be achieved. The term feminism got into popular culture, at least to indicate a bolder, more unrestrictive attitude regarding womens rights. Today, not only can women vote, but they can also vie for political office, even the presidency. A good example is Hillary Clinton, who although she failed in the Democratic primaries, was a very strong contender (Chafe, 2010).
Turkey, being a country situated in a predominantly Muslim-state region, secularism was a very significant part of her modernization. Her early republicans took on a number of measures toward secularization going beyond separation of state and religion. After the Ottoman Empires collapse, Turkey became the first Islamic country to be transformed into secularism and also among the first and few countries in the whole world to recognize the political rights of women, not to mention that they were given by the Republics founding fathers even with no remarkable womens activism. Women contributed a lot to the Welfare Partys successes in1994 and even representing a third of the partys members. But in spite of their great involvement, they were barred from the official positions (Ozyegin Gul, 2010).
Today, In Turkey, there are increasing numbers of women in political offices like parliament. There has even been a woman head of state, Tansu Ciller (PBS, 2010).
Popular culture is an ideal place for finding sympathies as well as connections to women and also womens studies, because women are disenfranchised many times but rarely canonized. But because popular culture mirrors the standards, practices, and beliefs of a whole society, negative attitudes regarding women and discrimination against them show in it as many times as in the elite-origin forms of culture. Popular culture can be typical, and at the same time be subversive, making it very interesting. Popular forms of culture made by women or made for women though, remain debatable even in popular culture studies they are sometimes elevated, sometimes mocked (Magoulick, 2006).
Everybody knows the stereotypesthe supermom, the femme fatale, the sex kitten. The media television, magazines and film are full of images of desperately thin, typically white women girls. Many people agree that something positive has been achieved in how the media portray women in the media, and also that for the past two decades the presence as well as womens influence in media has improved. All in all, female stereotypes still flourish in the media that we consume daily. There has been eroticization and objectification of women by the media and also efforts to offset negative stereotyping. Some popular culture genres, e.g. romance novels, totally focused on and dominated by women, may in fact lead to the prevailing cultural philosophy, where women are stereotyped as dependent on the men for accomplishment (Magoulick, 2006).
Pimp was once a very dirty word, an indisputable abusive term. However, to some, it is now at the pinnacle of fashion. The term pimp chic has gotten into mainstream culture luxury shops, music industry, clothes lines and airlines have all adopted symbols of this culture in advertisements. There are images of sharply-clad men wearing scowls on their faces and scantily-clad women admiring. So many people today seem to believe it is cool to be a whore or a pimp. Sex trafficking is going on young women are being forced to have sex many times in a day that the pimp can get all the cash.
Thousands of advertisements mainly focused on young girls and women that imply they are unattractive or not sexy, or intelligent, unless they look like those in the advertisements. Some stars music videos are always simulating sex, and there is a trend among many hip hop artistes to create pornographic films to be sold alongside their songs graphic lyrics. All features of the sex industry are being shown to be hip and also cool. Pole dancing has been made to look like exercise celebrities are frequenting clubs that offer lap-dancing, swanky-dress balls not to mention the daily use of bitch or ho when referring to women have become so popular. Today, no one seems to be upset any more by the pimpdom that has become so eminent (Magoulick, 2006).
There is a sharp contrast between the medias portrayal of women in Turkey, where culture does not allow for such permissiveness regarding sex and sex-related issues. A womans sexuality is held to belong to the husband her sexuality only being accessible within the family sphere, that is through marriage. A woman is expected to guard herself against other men. The patriarchal culture and the Islamic exposition have an influence on the definition of relationships between man and woman in public circles. No matter whether she is religious or not, there is a way in which she is expected to conduct herself in public (Oztimur, 2010).
In the United States, even airlines have embraced the pimp chic culture with great fervor. For instance, Virgin Atlantic Airlines introduced a campaign of advertising its Upper Class clubhouse that carried Pimp My Lounge. As its slogan The departmental store ran high-flying advertisements depicting a pimp chic-clothed, with a glassful of champagne, and two half-naked women surrounding him. A strip-line, flanking the image, said Get your Christmas booty (Roddick, 2006).
In Turkey, though a secular state, things like these would be seen as too permissive. In fact, to Turks, such things are unimaginable. Womens dressing code revolves mostly around wearing a veil or not. That is almost as far as it gets regarding womens way of dressing in public. No such posters or advertisement slogans can be seen. Patriarchal and also principles of Islam call for control of the womans body, relationships as well as her behavior of being modest in Gods eyes or the societys (Oztimur, 2010).
Religion gives a chance for women to take charge of their own lives and contribute in popular.Womens groups sometimes form sub-cultures inside of their churches, temples, synagogues, or mosques. Several new spiritual communities and religions are sprouting up, some of them being female-centered, in which women are respected figures, officials and functionaries, and carry out important duties as adherents e.g. Neopaganism. In the Roman Catholic Church, women are not allowed to become priests, and many of them feel discouraged for being kept out of chances to completely express their profoundest spiritual experiences. Although the churchs official culture continues to maintain Mass control that is male-centered, women can create their own sub-cultures. Some Episcopal churches, however, have changed to allow for female ministers. In Judaism, which is also practiced in the US, there have been some women rabbis in the Reform and also Conservative Judaism since twentieth centurys last part. Women in churches also record music or even design and sew some special clothing (Magoulick, 2006).
Because of activism in the United States, womens rights are now recognized by law. Many women now have access to education equal to mens. Women can now get employment in jobs once thought to be for men. Nevertheless, the womens fight for freedom of expression has only led to their being seen as sex objects. Their freedom of expression through fashion, media, books, magazines, etc. has only brought about their being seen as objects to serve mens desires. Because they fought for their rights to express themselves, the government cannot do anything about this dominant culture now.
The media is greatly influencing the way women are viewed in American societies. This is evident in the advertisements, the programs, the music, especially the videos, the talk shows which constantly uses demeaning terms to refer to women. To an American woman today, freedom includes being able to express herself through fashion trends that only serves to present her as a sex object for the fulfillment of mens desires. The television industry in the US considerably traverses with issues regarding womens in popular culture. Men tremendously control the television industry as producers, executives, editors, directors, writers, and also staff who establish the types or content of programs to be broadcast.Women and girls are stereotyped according to images, desires and expectations of the men, stereotypes that serve to reflect the socio-economic designs.Women are constantly depicted as almost entirely as white and middle-class heterosexuals.When women of color or lesbians do get prime time appearance, it is usually to act as deviants, victims, or male-desire objects, but not role models. Generally, even those women who overcome hostile forces still have to face them time and again every week.The Vagina Monologues by Eve Enlser uses humor and wit, as well as a bit of performance techniques that are fieldwork-based to convey new dimensions on the lives of women to the theaters and also television. Also, the National Womens Music Festival offer places for music by women that might not find appeal in the mainstream (Magoulick, 2006).
Some genres of popular culture, like the romance novel, completely dominated by and focused on women, may actually subscribe to the dominant cultural philosophy, stereotyping women as dependent on men for fulfillment. Despite the fact that romance novels are devoted, at least on one level, to the very outcomes patriarchy expects (seeing women happily married and ready to produce children) these works are generally belittled and despised, especially by powerful men. Many men and many feminists as well, may nonetheless mock those women who find in romances ways to take charge, artistically explore, and possibly even enjoy the sensual possibilities of their historically assigned functions. Many romance readers and writers, however, subvert the genre with readings that move them beyond the novels assigned roles (Magoulick, 2006).
Islam is incorporated with the systems of daily individuals activities, through the means used to meet daily lifes needs. Their contribution to economic as well as socio-cultural activities is to engage in the many patterns of relationship which are feed the agencys constitution. The more women face different patterns of relationship, the more they may have the power to bargain with dissertations which are subordinate (Ozyegin Gul, 2010).
Since theirs is a construction of self under the pressures of a secular society, and since their life decisions and life-strategies, not those of their male peers, are subject to outside interventions by secular outsiders, they, not Muslim men, bear the burden of representing Islamic identity. Women, not men, actively work to construct a new religious self in modern contexts. The active appropriation and presentation of religiosity in the public sphere is achieved through them. They point out that it is their veil that transmits the religiosity and social difference and discredits and excludes them from some public spaces and many educational and professional opportunities. But Muslim men dont have to clearly assert their religious difference in the public sphere. Young women find this unfair. Moreover, they insist that Muslim men take advantage of their vulnerable position, use the secular restrictions on them as an opportunity to confine women to the domestic sphere and exploit womens labor. Muslim men use secular restrictions on Muslim women as an advantage for themselves. For instance, because she does not wish to be uncovered she is not going to be able to work outside, she will be used to work for men at home (Ozyegin Gul, (2010).
Women sometimes work longer days than men, earn lower wages, have less access to resources and are predominantly responsible for meeting household needs. Moreover, gender inequalities impact upon economic variables such as productivity, economic growth, and efficiency. The burgeoning employment of women may have been essential to victory in the war, but it also raised challenging questions about the future direction of male-female relationships and the perpetuation of the existing social order. It was one thing to encourage women to work as a temporary device to meet a war-induced labor shortage it was quite another to view women as permanent jobholders. The achievement of economic equality required more than simply hiring women as replacements for men gone to war. It also entailed the establishment of a uniform standard of pay, equal access to the higher ranks of business and government, and, most difficult of all, the development of community services to ease the conflicts between the multiple roles of homemaker, parent, and worker. American women and men had to decide, for example, whether it was more important for a mother to care for her children all day long or be able to join men as an equal contributor to the work force. Not surprisingly, such issues involved substantial controversy and were not resolved easily. But they also highlighted the profound nature of the questions raised by changing gender roles. Thus, while womens economic activity may have altered significantly during the war years, the larger problem that remained was whether steps would be taken to root out the basic causes of persistent inequality between the sexes. Discrimination against business and professional women constituted a primary example of enduring prejudice based on sex though the government had urged all women to sign up for jobs, regardless of their occupational background (Chafe, 2010).
In Turkey, the public spaces of the Sunni villages are dominated by men who worship together, without women, in the village mosque. This dominance and segregation are found also within their respective households, where men and women lead largely separate lives but the men possess overall authority. One conception of the relationship of men to other men, and of men to women, serves to regulate both domestic and public relations. By contrast, in the Alevi villages, relations between the sexes and between men differ sharply depending on whether they fall in the public or the private sphere. In the private sphere of the mahalle and the household, dedes are treated differently from other men. But there is no segregation of men and women, and both sexes worship together in the cem. In the public sphere, to be from a dede lineage carries no special rights or privileges women are secluded and men worship alone. In the Sunni villages, peace keeping authority has been awarded to the state. There are no internal mediators and there is no elaborate mechanism to solve disputes. Those who believe strongly reinforce the subordination and segregation of women and the ideal of equality between all men, but religion has no explicit peace-keeping function. Alevilik, in contrast to this, is court and religion rolled into one a regulatory, mediating and reconciliatory function is present in almost every part of its doctrine and practice. Thus there is a correlation between the participation of women in ceremonies, and the great significance which they possess for the social order in the Alevi villages. This does necessarily mean that women are equal in all ways to men rather, that there is a doctrine of social control enshrined in the cem which acknowledges all people, and requires that all, whether men or women, be answerable to it. This chapter, the longest in the book, is devoted to exploring these issues in more detail. In a Sunni village women possess their own space independently of men, both in that they have elaborate rituals which men do not attend and a distinct domestic sphere. Womens relationship to authority is also absolutely clear (Ozyegin Gul, 2010).
In the US, women are presented explicitly even in films, largely because of the persistent stigma that is largely associated with women and alcohol. Television has begun producing and widely disseminating images of women alcoholics. Alcoholic women are mostly relayed as sexually promiscuous, morally decayed, inadequate wives and mothers, or as independent women. Popular culture presents alcoholic women for the most part in the relationships-with-men perspective. Alcoholic women are viewed as socially obscene, are humiliated and, in a way, harder for people to watch than their alcoholic male counterparts. Alcoholic women are seen as self-devastating as well as family-devastators while alcoholic m men who are usually presented as amusing, self-directed agents who are free-will steered (Kanner, 2010).
Most often, women are expected to make decisions related with family health-care they are expected to take the children to see the doctor, care for the children when they are sick, etc. Most often, even mothers who are employed in professional jobs, together with their education and titles, are still expected to be the ones to look after the sick and also the home (Wong, 2010).
Conclusion
Legally, women and men in the US are equal. That means they have equal rights to education, employment, social needs, etc. However, culturally, women are more and more being seen as sex objects. The media is a very major contributor to this perception, because it possesses tremendous power to influence peoples minds and thus their cultures.
Women in the US are now getting elected to high offices, and they have shown that they can be as good as men in leadership. Women are becoming more and more independent and this has given them a lot say in society and more respect.
In music, women are portrayed as sex objects by the men who reap fortunes from their culture and this promotes popular negative views about women in general. Pornography is also rampant in the American societies and this has become so deeply engrained in the society that is almost impossible to remove it. This has hugely contributed to the image that women only exist to fulfill mens sexual desires. Women who, in their music videos, end up showing too much flesh and include too much nudity and words that demean women only help in promoting negative attitudes towards women in general.
However, there are still many women who promote positive views towards them. Some of them are very successful singers who have refused to promote themselves as sex-kittens, or supermoms. Some sing only very clean music and never use dirty words in their music. Some writers, fashion designers and media personalities also help promote positive images about women.
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