The Change Into Pop Culture Through Media And Other Forms

In Deborah E. McDowell’s essay Black Female Sexuality in Passing she writes about the sexual repression of women seen in Nella Larsen‘s writings during the Harlem Renaissance, where black women had difficulty expressing their sexuality. In her essay, she writes about topics affecting the sexuality of women such as, religion, marriage, and male dominated societies. In Toni Morrison’s short story, “Recitatif” there are examples of women who struggle to express their sexuality. The people in society judge women based off their appearance, and society holds back women from expressing themselves due to society wanting them to dress/act a certain way.

Just as the “wave” model of feminism exploits the erotic, I personally feel that sex-positive feminism amplifies that exploitation. There is a cultural notion that women should not embrace their erotic power unless it serves the needs of men—often manifesting itself as sex and sensuality. Thus, heteronormative sex-positive feminism often works within that power structure under the guise of unleashing erotic power while failing to destabilize that power structure itself. In my Arab American Feminism class we read a piece entitled “Sex and the Muslim Feminist” by Rafia Zakaria in which she argues that she has been made invisible and is left out of sex-positive feminist discourse. In it, she describes her experience in a course on feminism, noting that “ It would be impossible...to explain that my oppositions were not at all to sex or sexual pleasure, but to its construction as unproblematic, un-colonized by patriarchy, the entire measure of liberation.” I think that this quote gets to the heart of my issue of sex-positive feminism—that in an effort to unleash the power of the erotic, that erotic power often becomes exploited while the problematic implications of this movement are left unnoticed and/or

This new feminist movement is also comprised of women who often use the terms liberation, empowerment, and sexy to replace the term equality which was once used synonymously with the feminist movement. This feminist movement has been touched by the previous waves of feminists, and therefore women today have “earned the right to look at Playboy...” (88) and so the fourth wave of feminism gave birth to what Levy refers to as the female chauvinist pig. Collectively, the feminists

Ariel Levy, a staff writer at the New Yorker, and author of the article “Female Chauvinist Pig” has brought up a very interesting topic about Raunch Culture. Now, what particularly is raunch culture? Raunch culture, in my own words, I can say is defined as a culture which allows a woman to participate in male-dominant cultures of raunch that deals a lot with sex in a way that is meant to be funny. Women who participate in this culture have to reject some of the things women are known to do, which they consider “girly-girl”. Although some things that they wear or do are considered “girly-girl”, women still have to embrace, acknowledge and accept certain male stereotypes in order to participate in raunch culture.

Whilst many disagreements have arisen in feminist discourse over the years, none has been quite as prevalent or divisive as the issue of the commodification of sexuality. There are two central groups in feminist ideology that are divided on this issue, liberal feminism and radical feminism. Liberal feminism is influenced by the ideas and values of liberalism. Thus, these feminists share a contractarian view which places an emphasis on a woman’s ability to make choices for herself and that the selling of one’s sexuality is merely an expression of that choice. Paradoxically, radical feminists believe that because women live in a patriarchal society, the commodification of sexuality can never be a choice or a form of expression. Rather, forms of sexual commodification such as pornography and prostitution just enforce male oppression. This essay will explore these two ideological positions in regard to their divergent definitions of human nature and freedom which has created a division within feminism about the commodification of sexuality.

Feminist Chimamand Ngozi once stated, "We teach girls that they cannot be sexual beings in the way that boys are/feminist someone who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes." Ariel Levy's essay "Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture" explores today’s women’s desire for sexual self-expression. The media leads women to believe being raunchy is appropriate by connecting raunch culture to feminist activities. Today raunch culture has expanded, leading one to question if raunch culture is something that should be supported. Is raunch culture sexual liberation or is it just exploiting women’s sexuality?

The purpose of this paper is to analyse and see to what extent women have been depicted within typical stereotypes, how they have been objectified and only seen as a sexual sell, and what consequences and effects these depictions can have on both the female and male audiences. The analysis is over two decades where major social changes underwent. The time after the war, being a housewife and mother was heavily implemented. Whilst after a decade, women started to step away from what was considered the norm, what was considered the ideal life. They started to fight for a better future for themselves, and a life free from their husbands ruling hand. I have chosen visual analysis of magazine front covers as my method because magazines were a major resource for both women and men at the time, it was one of their sources of information about what was going on around them. Front covers often represent the magazine or the audience it is meant for, and

Several women looked upon Playboy as a disgrace to the female race due to the fact women disrespected themselves by using their body to gain attention. As time went on, Playboy became revealed in to the public, which made it more acceptable not only to women but to young girls in society to do things like get breast implants and have a set image. The liberation movement was supposed to acknowledge the accomplishments without women using their bodies as sex objects. In addition, sexist implications are brought up with the way gender is portrayed in Disney movies. These Disney movies have propitious stereotypes of body image which cause young girls to be insecure about their body shape, seek perfection, and use their physical attributes to gain love and attention.

movement and the sexual revolution. In today’s time, raunch culture is the new trend of Playboy

Levy further asserts her binary comparison in a temporal manner by comparing the feminism of the past with the feminism of the present, as she claims “in recent years, the term feminism has fallen further and further out of favour” (Levy, 86). By framing her own views of feminism as those belonging to an earlier point in the timeline, she privileges these views as “original” or “authentic”. Yet this does not acknowledge that the “anti-porn wars” of the 80’s was a point at which feminism branched out, rather than transitioned from one set of beliefs to another. As a result, the cultural changes that she observed occurred in the presence of both stances of feminism, making it difficult to distil the cause. Levy privileges past over present in her suggestion

The media influences how people experience social life. Media such as newspaper, television and film, are important sources of information, education and entertainment. It can be used to learn more about the world and the people in it. In this regard it can be said that the media represent, interpret and endorse aspects of social experience (O’Shaughnessy and Stadler, 2005). The media are also implicated in social regulation, or in other terms, the government of society. The media are implicated in government and politics in an obvious way because modern systems of democracy are conducted through the media. But the media have a bigger role to play in government by structuring how society is controlled and maintained.

One issue that feminists should bring to the open and question is the definition of pornography. Often times anti-porn feminists argue that we can tell what is and isn’t porn easily. Yet the definition these feminists use to decide what counts as porn and whether it should be censored from the public applies to many things as Lumby points out in paragraphs nine and twelve. She draws up the movie Siren as an example of how Elle Macpherson’s nudity in the movie was widely accepted and went uncontested, but then Lumby points out how Macpherson’s shoot for Playboy was more modest than some of the shots in the film yet the photo shoot receives more flack because it’s categorized as porn (par 9).

The pornographic industry has not lost their viewers, and the constant leaks of female celebrity personal pictures demonstrate that society has always sexualized women’s body for their pleasure. McRobbie states that there is a modern movement where women are free to choose for themselves. Females are choosing to go topless to prove breasts are merely body parts. Celebrities such as Bella Hadid and Rihanna walk the streets with see-through tops, making the appearance of their breasts nothing but a fashion statement. Many allegations are made saying self-exposing breasts comes from a lack of self-respect. The question arises, is it only acceptable for women to be topless for the pleasure of others? Not in the current pop culture world. Women are free to make their decisions, and they have decided their breasts are not to be sexualized. If a woman’s breast is out, she is doing it out of choice and for her

What pops into your mind first when you think of popular culture in today’s day and age? The latest dirt on celebrities or the latest iPhone release? The latest controversial issue or the latest iTunes hit? Regardless, pop culture encompasses all four of these concepts and many more, which consume the world we live in each and every day. Think about education. At first thought, your mind may not make the connection between the newest Taylor Swift song and the highest ACT score, but the linkage between the two becomes undeniable when you dive deeper. Ponder this: each day millions of kids walk into school buildings across the United States, each of them glued to a little slice of pop culture, a.k.a. their phone. And each day these millions

Popular culture is a term that holds various meanings depending on where it 's being defined and the context of its use. It is usually recognized as the language or people’s culture that prevails in a society at a point in time. As social researcher Brummett explains in his book “Rhetorical Dimensions of Popular Culture”, pop culture reflects the characteristics of social life, where the publicly are most actively involved. Popular culture is known as the ‘culture of the people’. This culture is determined by the interactions between people within their daily activities, for instance, dressing styles, use of language, greeting rituals and the ways that people behave in public, etc. are all examples of popular culture. Popular culture is also diverted by the mass media (Abbott and Sapsford, 1987).