Trying on jeans is annoying for women for various reasons. For me it's the fact that sizes come in the all too ambiguous 8, 10, 12 series--which really doesn't mean much. Guys, it seems, have it much easier with their pant, jeans, and even dress-shirt sizes measured in inches. Who whoulda thought?
Well, my rant on men's versus women's clothing sizes will have to wait for another day... right now it's nice to know that a store called Hub Clothing in Scottsdale has installed The Butt Cam with the belief that "[a] lot of people dread trying on jeans and so any more entertaining you can make it the better. A lot of people compare it to trying on bathing suits, you know something they just don't like to do, we're trying to make it painless," (Hub Clothing Partner Tom Simon).
Oh, yes. That's what I want! I want an unnatural view of my ass that no one will have unless they stick their nose up my crack. I'll be an informed consumer this way! Thanks, Tom Simon! Thanks for reinforcing that women's asses and how they look are the most important consideration women have when shopping for jeans.
But, of course, there's more to this story.... According to Tom Simon, he and his associates are "even thinking of doing a best of and putting it on DVD for the year, 'Best Butts of '08' or whatever, yeah."
The SiFeet Pussy Foot is a silicone foot with a "fully functional and totally fuck-able silicone vagina" on the underside of the foot. While I wonder what the "fully functional" aspects of the vagina are, the fact that it is obviously "fuck-able" isn't the only thing that disturbs me--the feet are disembodied (in a crude manner) and bound together by a rope, hanging like a piece of meat.
But why am I surprised? Foot fetishes are behind Chinese Foot Binding. The objectification and fragmentation of female bodies through sexualization is the main reason why women are still seen and treated as disposable and consumable material objects.
Stockroom.com describes "[t]his silicone sex toy is also a convenient practice tool for preparing to get hot and kinky with actual feet." Well, maybe their customers should practice with these feet--and get intimate with the destructive history men's foot fetish has had on women throughout the centuries.
I'm a graduate student and I also teach. One thing I've noticed about the campus I work at is that it is absolutely littered with flyer advertisements. There's everything including the to-be-expected "looking for a roommate" and "selling my car". However, there is another type of flyer, a much more dangerous one.
These flyers are the glossy little cards that usually have a half or fully naked glistening woman in some sort of contorted animal-like position. It's a great attention grabber, obviously. It's also very affective to throw these glossy flyers down stair wells (which already happen to be quite slippery (add to that the scenario of the occasional Florida downpour)) or to lick the back of these tasty advertisements and slap them onto the back of bathroom stall doors or to the inside of elevator doors (something nice to look at in both occasions). It's also especially brilliant when the distributors of these flyers (who are mysteriously never seen in the act) leave one flyer on each and every desk inside of a classroom. It's just wonderful! They leave me some great teaching material.
Not only do I have to physically see these things at school where I both work and try to study as a student, but now they've infiltrated my Facebook account. The image below is a cut-and-paste from a side advertisement on a wall-to-wall conversation page on Facebook. It's lovely how the people at Facebook match up your zipcode to these ads (I wonder if people in small towns have Wet Wet Wednesdays). This was plastered (literally) right next to where I was typing. And I find it interesting how throughout many of these social websites there are options to “report” an image or a post that another user uploads, but not for advertisements that we really have no other choice but to look at. Quite interesting.
I know the image below is small and obviously a scan of one of the dreadful flyers I've mentioned before but the woman in the picture is clearly naked and covered in suds. I'm sure this would offend more than just a few people. Or maybe I'm wrong. Either way, if people (especially women) are just ignoring these images or see these images and shrug them off as unimportant, trivial, not allowing the images to affect them, it is still sad that these images are allowed regardless of the public's reaction. Though how many images of women covered in soap suds, degraded, and in submission can a person see without being affected, I am not sure, but I don't think it takes too many of these images to cause an imprint.
WET WET WEDNESDAYS
@ Club VIP
(on the corner of 79th and 7th ave)
18 to party
21 to swallow
FOR MORE INFO CALL
(yea...I'm not going to advertise for these idiots, sorry)
I originally posted this commentary on my Facebook and MySpace profiles, so it is not academic, researched, or even partially well-written. However, my lack of time compels me to include a post on this subject of "cougars" and hopefully when I have more time, I'll come back and expand on this post.
Ok...I need to take a time out and write something about these new (or are they old) terms for women. Kitten, I've heard before, but Cougar? WTF?
This morning [when I originally wrote this it was Tuesday 19 June 2007] while I getting dressed I turned the tv on and started watching Live with Regis and Kelly. I love/hate the show for various reasons that have to do with misogyny and sexism that I just am not going to get into now. Well, Kelly's husband, whatever his name is, he's a pretty-boy, is the host of a new show called The Age of Love (I think). It's another stupidly idiotic show about a bunch of women trying to get a guy. Oh my god, let me give them a freaking award for originality... Anyways, there are two groups of women on the show who seem to be fighting for some dork's affection. One group is of kittens (young women, in their 20s) and the other is called cougars (older women, over 40).
BTW, Kelly stupidly told a little anecdote about her husband calling her a cougar and acting all sad-like because she wasn't called a kitten. WTF? She's always acting so retarded on that show and now this? I mean--c'mon, I love shoes and nice outfits too, but that's not the extent of my brain. She should at least try to get a little more respect, especially from Regis who is a closeted misogynist.
Well, tonight, after getting home from school I thought I would flip on the TV, relax for an hour or so before I start working on the scary Spenser paper that's due Thursday. What do you think is on my freaking TV screen? Secret Lives of Women and tonight's episode is about cougars. Of course! Where did this stupid word come from? How could I have heard it twice in the same day?
Well, I shouldn't have to explain why this makes me so mad, if you know me, you know why I am pissed...
Now I don't care if an older woman dates a younger man, but why the fuck does society feel the need to label that? When men date younger women they are not called or labeled anything! I can't believe such stupidity and ignorance still prevails. You'll never see men being called anything similar... nor will you see a tv show that labels a group of men anything as stupidly retarded as kittens and cougars.
The FX Networks’ new show “Dirt” will premier sometime in January 2007 and is about a female editor of two tabloid magazines. The network advertises this new show with a series of flashy commercials and a catchy song. Obviously, the title of the show “Dirt” correlates to the dirt these magazines compile about the lives of celebrities. However, the advertisements lend themselves to feminist interpretation because this “dirt” occurs only in conjunction with the female body. Any feminist interpretation can easily supplant the notion that the representation of women and dirt in these commercials exist only to illustrate the connection between the female editor and the dirt she dispenses to the masses. Coincidentally the metaphor women are dirt is a very old idea and one embedded in the discourse of popular culture and evident in these commercials.
Eleven different commercials for “Dirt” currently air on the FX channel and all, except one, are available on the FX Networks website.
This clip, which is untitled by the FX Networks, does not appear on the FX website. Why they would not mind airing this clip, but seem to overlook its absence on their website is interesting. Perhaps simulating drug use on TV is better than simulating drug use on the internet. Here a woman’s manicured hands with nails painted bright red rolls up a tabloid and uses it to inhale dirt like cocaine. What is important to note, and what is a recurring theme in all of the other clips, is that women, often associated with the color red, are always associated with dirt, reinforcing the old notion that women are dirt and their bodies are something dirty.
The clip above, entitled ‘Camera’ depicts a female carrying a camera with a zoom lens dangling in front of her vagina like a penis. As she walks towards the viewer, she grabs the camera essentially erecting her pseudo-penis, and snaps a shot collecting dirt.[i] The phallus nature of the camera emphasizes the active characteristics of the penis: it becomes erect, flashes, and captures a photograph/dirt. Conversely, this phallus obscures the vagina, which is active only in its ability to recognize and select the dirt that the camera/pseudo-penis will capture. While the phallic camera only has dirt passing through it, not becoming a part of it, this commercial as well as the others in this series suggest that the female body is inherently dirty, dirt-filled.
This phallic camera also represents technology, advancement, and science. The female body can only achieve such advancements by toting this phallic camera in her groin, taking a shot with her vagina, not her head or eyes. In fact, the omission of the woman’s face contributes to female objectification because she is a torso, a body, an object; she has no head, no mind. [ii] In Gossips, Gorgons & Crones Jane Caputi writes that these images “suggest that women have no minds” (82).[iii]
In ‘Suit’ the male face and eyes appear while only the woman’s back and arm are visible. She remains faceless. The male wears an immaculately white starched shirt, which the woman’s touch stains. These commercials continue to suggest that filth is inherent in the seductively red-clad woman. Her touch and kiss stain him. Of course, this dirt is superficial for the male. He can wash his shirt, the camera/phallus can be opened and the dirt removed, but the female in these commercials seems to need this dirt, it is like a drug, it is a part of her, inherently connected to her.
The origins of the idea that women posses an inherent stain repeats throughout history in many forms. Gerda Lerner’s The Creation of Patriarchy identifies how monotheism endows “God’s blessing of man’s seed [....while] in the story of the Fall, women and, more specifically, female sexuality became the symbol of human weakness and the source of evil” (201). [iv] It is interesting to note that man’s seed, whitish in color, stands in metaphorically for the man’s shirt in the previous clip, while female sexuality, literally her menstruation is red like her dress. Caputi notes that “[m]any anthropologists have reported that, almost universally, menstrual blood and menstruating women are considered dangerous and/or offensive” (164).
Returning to the creation myth, women are seen as the originators of our sin. Eve ate of the apple of knowledge first (smart girl). Therefore, in their book The Great Cosmic Mother[v] Monica Sjöö and Barbara Mor remind us that “the entire priesthood exists to ‘redeem’ us from the ‘sin’ of being born from the Mother” (231) and these priests in almost all patriarchal religion are men. Inherently, men believe that the Bible story justifies their moral superiority, it is their job to save everyone especially woman from wickedness. This reinforces the idea that men are more pure, closer to god than women, who are associated with the earth, and in these commercials, with dirt.
The notion of women as sinful and evil are not restricted to theological concepts, even Freud perpetuates this notion as Mary Daly notes in her book Gyn/Ecology. [vi] She observes that Freud expanded “the list of maternally caused symptoms.” For example, Freud believed that the “mothers of hair-plucking children [....] induced such disturbed behavior” (266). But Daly’s observations do not stop there as she discusses and examines the “mother-hating myths,” the fairy tales which “teach that the only good mother is a dead mother” (266).
It is interesting to examine how the idea of women as dirty originated in order to elucidate the suggestiveness of these commercials and their impact on societal thought, which works on a subliminal level to solidify these stereotypical notions of women. For example, in the fourteenth century Giovanni Boccaccio writes about women’s uncleanness saying that “[n]o other creature is less clean than woman: the pig, even when he is most wallowed in mud, is not as foul as they” (qtd. in Blamires 167).[vii] Statements like these abound and create the basis for current societal thought of women.
The implications of these advertisements are obvious. Women are still objects, associated with sex, blood, and filth. These arguments are not new. The medium through which they travel has transformed, but the metaphors are still the same.
Finally, besides the visual imagery of these commercials, the song that colors the background is charged with metaphorical references to women’s bodies. Peter Gabriel sings the song “Digging in the Dirt,” which he also wrote. The best examples from the lyrics that refer to the image of women in these commercials are the following lines: “Something in me, dark and sticky / All the time it’s getting strong / No way of dealing with this feeling / Can’t go on like this too long.”Of course, this something that is dark and sticky could only refer to a woman who is menstruating. The interesting twist of this song may be that it a man sings it, but juxtaposed with the images of fragmented female bodies, the focus of the song turn to them. When he sings that this dark and sticky substance is “getting strong,” feminists would immediately see this as a good thing, but modern day gynecology would have us believe otherwise. Anything that makes us feminine is a nuisance. If we consider these lyrics from the male perspective perhaps he is disgusted by the feminine qualities that exist in his body, they are disgusting, like the dirt the woman leaves behind on the man’s shirt. It is something that must be controlled and removed, he “[c]an’t go on like this too long.” Later in the song, he sings that this substance/essence can be felt in his “head” and “toes” as well as in his “sex, that's the place it goes.” Indeed he must be frightened like many other men throughout history who perpetuate the cultural practice of circumcision under the guise of hygienic (which is untrue, proper hygiene will avoid any complications with foreskin); in reality the foreskin is too similar to labia and therefore it is removed in order to heighten the maleness of the child. Whether this song refers to the “dark and sticky” substance within women or men, one this is certain, it is always a bad thing. Anything feminine, whether it exists in a woman or a man is dirty, dark, and sticky.
For the full lyrics to the song "Digging in the Dirt" click here.
[i] In the ‘Lightbox’ clip a camera opens and rather than film falling out, a pile of dirt falls upon the table. For this particular clip, when the female snaps a photograph we can infer that she is collecting dirt, not images.
[ii] Courteney Cox’s face does appear in some of the commercials, but the actor whose hands inhale the dirt, whose feet leave behind dirt footprints, and whose torso appears in many of the commercials, never shows her face. In fact, it is interesting to note that in the ‘Tabloid Dog’ clip Cox’s face is superimposed with what looks to be a Rottweiler with it’s teeth showing, perhaps an allusion to the vagina dentata. In another clip, ‘Shovel’ Cox’s face glistens on the surface of a shovel, the metaphorical phallus about to penetrate the earth/woman. In either case, the commercials depict woman as fragmented, in pieces, without a head and when a head appears is associated with violence, carnage, animalistic characteristics, and woman turned into weapons against women (I discuss this further in the Starship Troopers blog entry below).
Shovel Clip
[iii] Caputi, Jane. Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth. Santa Fe: Bear, 1993.
[iv] Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy. New York: Oxford U P, 1986.
[v] Sjöö, Monica and Barbara Mor. The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth. San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1991.
[vi] Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston: Beacon, 1990.
[vii] Blamires, Alcuin. Ed. Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon, 2002.
Jane Caputi discusses the ritual sacrifice of women and uses the example of Marc Lépine who on December 6, 1989, “entered the college of engineering at the University of Montreal, separated out the women from the men, and then fired on the women, killing fourteen of them, because, as he averred, they were ‘all fucking feminists’ (175).[i]
Animosity towards women and feminists in general is not new. While many people would argue that things are better today than they were in the past, the truth is that society does not take women and women’s issues, as much as they are popularized and glamorized by media, as seriously as they should be.
Authors like Mary Daly, Nancy Tuana, and Gerda Lerner all criticize the male authoritarian role in forming our consciousness of history. History pushes the female out of our collective notion of history and leaves it buried. Daly criticizes contemporary historians of attempting to “re-cover” (24)[ii] the feminine, but instead literally only cover her again.[iii] While many of these female writers (feminists) are using their authority to write books, clarify, and untangle a long tradition of doublespeak in Western history, society has yet to consider these efforts worthwhile, serious, or important.
In this clip from a man’s vlog (video blog), which I found browsing YouTube.com, he discusses feminism and why he believes that feminists are children of the devil. To make his point he uses biblical rhetoric, which does absolutely nothing to support his claim. However, this kind of doubletalk is exactly what has clouded the pages of history. Only now, because of technology more and more people have the opportunity to voice their opinions about varying issues. This is wonderful, however, just as Daly and Gloria Anzaldúa suggest, women must empower themselves and their voices in order to be heard and begin to be taken seriously.
He says at the beginning of his vlog: “feminism is sin.” He explains that many of his viewers were shocked at that statement and that he would “like to correct that.” However, he never “corrects” this statement. He continues to perpetuate it. Obviously, his use of the word “correct” implies that what he had said originally, “feminism is sin,” is a false statement. Perhaps unconsciously he knows that what he is saying is baseless.
In this speaker’s clear logic, he proceeds to discuss religious issues mainly claiming that the “children of God” are few and the “children of the Devil” are the majority, what God calls the whole “world.” He emphasizes that the two are “entirely separate entities.” So far, so good, however what this has to do with feminism is not clear. He never makes a clear connection between all of the animalistic and degrading labels that God supposedly uses to describe “the wicked,” or how feminism fits into this discussion. His connection, a very flimsy one, appears later.
In order to illustrate the complete lack of objectivity and common sense this speaker posses, two statements he says are analyzed.
The first is his commentary and definition of feminists. He says they are “right to shave, concrete prune-hearted women who have sought after a man’s role, position, and function in society and have paid for it with their femininity. They are co-blokes.”
His second statement provides his listeners with an example of these feminists in action. “Some famous woman violinist speaking contemptuously (he repeatedly emphasizes this word) of the term mannered-wife on the radio and contemptuously of what they call the patriarchal society.”
First, he himself “contemptuously” describes feminists. How can he be offended that a woman questions the term, which could eventually be applied to her? The term will never be applied to him because he is a man. I have never heard of the term mannered-husband. Nor does it exist in the dictionary. However, mannered-wife does. She has the right to question this term, to speak out against it if she so wishes. However, her speaking out is a contemptuous attack against god. His speaking, his words, are truth because they are in essence the words of god. So he has the power to call women devils, or anyone else who speaks out against the system that gives men power.
After these two statements he begins to make connections between feminists and “devils.” He explains that feminists speak out against patriarchy because the “pseudo-matriarchal model of feminism you see in society today is satanic and of course they hate god’s way. God’s way is the patriarchal model that they contemptuously speak of.” If are against patriarchy, you are against god. He never tries to define “what they call the patriarchal society” or why anyone would want to speak out against it, or even what that speaking out consists of. The example he provides above is unfair and baseless.
When he says that feminists are “prune-hearted women,” he is suggesting that women make themselves sexually unavailable to men and this is not a good thing. I am concluding that based on his use of the term “mannered-wife” he considers a woman’s place to be in the home, as an object for men to fuck. Really, what else is left for us to do if we stop trying to seek out “a man’s role, position, and function in society?” Housewife...
Therefore, taking his argument one more step, any woman who is not a housewife (because being anything else would mean encroaching on men’s place in society) is a follower of the devil, dare I say: witch. Watching these videos of which there exist many, from him as well as others on the internet, makes me feel that we live in a society about to embark on a modern-day witch-hunt. Or have we already begun to do so?
This is just one example of how feminists, women, or any similar issues can be twisted and completely transformed through rhetoric. It is important to use the same technology/blogs/television/advertisements/popular culture and have women’s voices be heard in a serious way.
Feminism is a term that not many women understand or even agree upon; however, that should not make it open season for men to bash it. We have not yet fully shaped what feminism is or what it could eventually be, but if has already begun to slip away from us, then we are left with even less potentiality for the word than before.
Here are two more examples and I am sure there are many more.
Here is the second clip. This just aired on Comedy Central last month.
[i] Caputi, Jane. Gossips, Gorgons & Crones: The Fates of the Earth. Santa Fe: Bear, 1993.
[ii] Daly, Mary. Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. Boston, Beacon P, 1990.
[iii] Mary Daly will “unmask deceptive words by dividing them and employing alternate meanings for prefixes” (24).
Kanye West’s hip-hop number one single of 2005 “Gold Digger” features Jamie Foxx singing a cappella, and a sample of Ray Charles singing his original “I Got a Woman.”[i] The opening lyrics sung by Jamie Fox set the tone and subject matter of this song and the accompanying music video. It is about gold diggers, women who are only with a man to take his money. The song’s lyrics and music video perpetuate many long-standing stereotypes of women, especially black women.
The most obvious stereotype is that represented in the song’s title and is the overall theme of the song. The idea that women, and in the context of this song, black women, are interested solely in a man’s wealth is one that is discussed in Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Sexual Politics.[ii] She writes that the “theme of the materialistic, sexualized Black woman has become an icon within hip-hop culture” (126). In the second verse of the song the speaker discovers that after eighteen years the child he supported is not his biological child and while the mother was supposed to buy “ya shorty [his child] TYCO [toys] with [his] ya money,” instead got “lipo” and plastic surgery with his money. Here the father is depicted as a caregiver who provides monetary support while suffering himself because he is “drive[ing] off in a Hyundai” rather than in an expensive luxury vehicle.The image of the mother as concerned only for materialistic wealth is similar to the image of the “female hustler, a materialistic woman who is willing to sell, rent, or use her sexuality to get whatever she wants [and this] constitutes this sexualized variation of the ‘bitch.’” (Hill Collins 128).
West’s lyrics provide a specific characterization of the “bad bitch,” which Hill Collins defines as a bitch who’s “power is her manipulation of her own sexuality for her own gain” (126). West sings about a woman who carries a “Louis Vuitton” purse and who is not “messin wit no broke niggas.” A “bad bitch” will choose a wealthy man before they choose a poor man. Love is not important, but a man’s financial success is. For these women “having a relationship is out” (Hill Collins 126). The only type of relationship possible for these women is a sexual one with rich men, and this is illustrated in West’s lyrics where the woman has a reputation to have “fuck[ed] wit Usher” and “got a baby by Busta.” Hill Collins would suggest that West’s depiction of women here is that they “screw for status” (128). The significance of this is embedded within the notion that Usher, Busta, and now the singer of this song, presumably West himself, are the victims of this woman’s manipulative and conniving nature. The idea of men as not only victim, but also as sympathetic characters are emphasized when the speaker states that he “don’t care what none of y’all say [he] still love her.” He is willing to sacrifice for “love” whereas the woman is incapable of love even towards her own children as depicted in a previous quote. Her vanity, her greed supersedes even the needs of her children.
When West sings “If you fuckin with this girl then you betta be paid” his attempt at a sympathetic male character is undermined. He believes that men should protect themselves from these money hungry women on the prowl for men’s hard-earned income. He believes men should have insurance against these women and protect themselves financially.
Should of got that insured, GEICO for ya moneeey, money, money If you aint no punk holla, “We Want Prenup. WE WANT PRENUP!” Yeah It's something that you need to have Cause when she leave yo ass she gonna leave with half
Having a prenuptial agreement will prove that men are not punks. They are not “the object[s] of sexual abuse [....] weak, vulnerable, [or] ‘female’” (Human Rights Watch qtd. in Hill Collins 235).[iii] The speaker foreshadows what will happen if men do not attain a prenuptial agreement: “she gonna leave with half” of his money. Many people consider marriage to be an equal union and if there is ever a separation it seems reasonable to split the accumulated wealth; however, West’s lyrics suggest that keeping half is unfair to the man who works while the woman seems to do nothing except have plastic surgery, buy brand name purses, and go to the beauty salon. This reinforces the idea that woman who do not work and stay home are lazy. Just as “[p]oor Black women’s welfare eligibility meant that many chose to stay home and care for their children, thus emulating White middle-class mothers. But because these stay-at-home moms were African American and did not work for pay, they were deemed to be ‘lazy’” (Hill Collins 132). Although the woman in this song is not on welfare, she is living off the man’s money. The stereotype though modified in the context of this song is still essentially the same.
There is a glaring hypocrisy embedded in this song, and one that also permeates societal thought and affects women to this day. If women should not live off men, then they should work. An independent, working woman would be the solution for many of the stereotypes presented in this song; however, both Kanye West’s song and Ray Charles’s song undermine this possible solution by depicting women as static beings belonging in the home, or as objects for men.
The opening of the chorus features Kanye West singing his lyrics and an interpolation of Ray Charles’ lyrics from “I Got a Woman.” When Jaime Foxx sings his a cappella lines at the beginning of the song he modifies Ray Charles’ lyrics by singing, “She take my money, while I'm in need / Yeah she's a triflin friend indeed / Oh she's a gold digger way over town / That digs on me.” While Ray Charles’ lyrics are not as negative, “She give me money, when I’m in need / Yeah, she's a kind of friend indeed / I got a woman way over town that's good to me. Oh yeah.” At first the juxtaposition of these two lines may suggest that the songs are dissimilar and West’s lyrics are playing off of Charles’, essentially updating them, and using them to make a contemporary comment on women’s nature. However, while the two songs at first seem to be opposite, upon closer analysis some similarities and interesting stereotypes emerge.
Ray Charles’ original song reinforces the idea of static women whose “place is right there now in her home.” While Charles’ song somewhat gives praise to the women who financially support their man and portrays the man who receives this support in a positive light, when West alters the lyrics the man still remains a positive figure, but the woman is further objectified and vilified. When a woman receives the money she is a gold digger, when a man gives it to her he is a punk. A man who receives money from a woman is praised and the woman who supports a man is still subject to him and objectified by society. For example, the women who obey West’s lyrics and “stick by his [their man’s] side” will suffer one final action of the fully mobile man—he will “leave yo [her] ass for a white girl.”
The “Gold Digger” music video reinforces the idea of women as static and immobile in their depiction of women as pin-ups on the covers of imaginary magazines. In one instance, there is a woman pictured on the cover of Dish Washer magazine with a headline entitled “Roll up your” and the rest is cut off the frame. If the subtitle had included “sleeves,” it would be a joke because the woman pictured there is reclining her body and wearing nothing but lingerie. There is nothing she can “roll up.” Her place is in the home, as sung by Ray Charles, but her pseudo-role as “dishwasher” is in reality a position of objectification, an action controlled and allocated to her by men. Forced into the space of the magazine covers and forced into the space allocated to women by the songs leaves women little room for maneuvering. The “dishwasher” scene in the music video appears in conjunction to one of the following lines and correlates to their theme:
You goout to eat and he can’t pay ya’ll can’t leave There's dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves But why y’all washin watch him He gone [gonna] make it to a Benz out of that Datsun He got that ambition, baby, look in his eyes This week he moppin floors, next week it's the fries So, stick by his side.
Here the speaker asks women to recognize the potential of men, and stick by them because eventually they will become successful. However, while this song line suggests the upward mobility of men, the flashing images of the women in the pin-ups suggest their immobility. Their bodies are in awkward, sometimes unnatural positions. Usually, they lie supine or are upright but with their legs chopped off and left out of the frame. The images of immobile women, whose only movement is in the confines of that imaginary magazine cover space, are for men’s enjoyment. Keep in mind Ray Charles’ song lyrics where the woman who gives money to her man is a good woman—she knows her place. Her place is in the kitchen, as sex object.
A woman’s place within this video and within the context of the song lyrics is a very confined and controlled space where women are subjected to men and are the fulfillment of their sexual fantasies. For instance, the speaker explains that he has just met a girl in a beauty salon who tells him that as “far as girls [...he has] got a flock.” Here, the animal metaphor for women echoes the conception that women are like animals and associated with the earth, in short, women are lesser beings than men. This idea is one that echoes throughout history and exists in the writings of Aristotle. Nancy Tuana examines Aristotle’s “scientific” observations of women’s nature in her book The Less Noble Sex.[iv] He believed that “woman is a misbegotten man” (118) and because her different biology is closer to animals while men are closer to the image of god. West’s repetition of the line “get down girl go [a]head get down” reinforces this notion and proceeds to put women in their place below men, nearer to the ground. The first time West sings that line he points twice downward, supposedly to his crotch area, although this is not immediately apparent, he repeats the action later in the music video when he sings the chorus right after verse two. There is a full body shot of West dancing when he points to his crotch with both of his hands. Adding to the objectification of women in the music video, now she must perform sexual favors that physically and psychologically place her below men.
The music video creates a visual representation of many stereotypes associated with women. The women in the video appear on the cover of magazines simulating pin-ups. They are always in lingerie and often in sexual positions. All the women gaze back at the viewer with seductive looks. Patricia Hill Collins writes about the representation of Black women in popular culture and notes that what began as “the celebration of Black women’s bodies [...] in earlier Black cultural production [...] became increasingly replaced by the objectification of Black women’s bodies as part of a commodified Black culture” (emphasis in original; 128). In this music video the women are not only objects, but they are also on display as a consumer good to be bought and used in whatever way the male consumer wishes.
Hill Collins writes how “[c]ontemporary music videos [depict] Black women who dance, strut, and serve as visually appealing props [....] The women in these videos typically share two attributes—they are rarely acknowledged as individuals and they are scantily clad. One Black female body can easily replace another and all are reduced to their bodies” (128). In the music video “Fresh: a HOT magazine” contains the subtitle “bold beautiful bodies” and the girl in the scene is sitting, with one finger in her mouth with a coy, playful expression on her face. When referencing women here, instead of using “bold beautiful women,” the term bodies in inserted in order to reinforce women as objects. They are not individuals, they do not think, they have no feelings, and most of the women in the video do nothing more than contort their bodies into strange poses in order to appear animalistic, seductive, and attractive to the male eye.
In their book Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers[v] the Guerrilla Girls explain that the term ‘Gold Digger’ was a Flapper-era term first used in the 1920s to describe modern women who pursued a man, known as the Gold Mine, for his money. A guy who did the same with women was a Forty-Niner” (73). The Guerrilla Girls note that somehow the female term stuck while the derogative term for the male seemed to disappear although Forty-Niners most certainly still exist. It is interesting to reflect on Kanye West’s song in this context and to look at the key lines from Ray Charles’ song, which both find a way to put a woman down no matter what the situation. In West’s song women are represented as immobile, they are forced into this subjective by society, the same society that later chastises them for not being mobile, more like men. In Charles’ song women are only good if they give money to men, and “[n]ever grumbles or fusses.” In other words, women should be silent, like the women in West’s video, who never speak. Only in the final scene does a woman appear to speak, but her voice, her words are not important and are never heard. The men who are not willing to protect their assets are, according to West, punks. Why this double standard exists, and why a man’s money and financial well-being are worth more than a woman’s is unclear. What is clear is that woman are damned one way or another while man remains forever a victim of women while enjoying her objectification and subjectivity.
[ii] Hill Collins, Patricia. Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge, 2005.
[iii] Patricia Hill Collins references a study done by the Human Rights Watch which looks at the rape culture within the prison system where “[r]ape victims become stigmatized as ‘punks’” (235). The term in West’s song is not used in the context of a prison but still represents the fagotization of men who allow women to “rape” them of their manhood and their money.
[iv] Tuana, Nancy. The Less Noble Sex: Scientific, Religious, and Philosophical Conceptions of Woman’s Nature. Bloomington: Indiana U P, 1993.
[v] The Guerrilla Girls. Bitches, Bimbos and Ballbreakers: The Guerrilla Girls’ Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes. New York: Penguin, 2003.
