Unpacking women's supposed sexual power over men

Note: This post is not meant to imply that women can never have any form of power over any man and are always de-facto victims. On a case-by-case basis, this can and does happen, of course. This post is meant to de-construct a view of women's sexual power over men as the consistent, broad, and enduring phenomenon it is often portrayed as.

I saw an image online of a little girl in her underwear, pulling on the elastic so she can see what it's covering, as a little boy near her looks on. A speech bubble above the little girl's head reads: "with this, I'm gonna rule the world!" And of course, it's difficult to be a woman or a man in this country and not be familiar with that sentiment; you hear it almost every time a woman brings up her oppression and male privilege: "no, it's actually you women who have power over us men, because you can use the power of sex!" Which of course doesn't address the issue of institutional, socio-political, and cultural inequality, or the fact that even when/IF this sexual power is operable, it would usually only apply to women men found conventionally attractive and cis-hetero women. But let's just unpack this assumption and PRETEND that there's something to it. When people say this, what sorts of things do they have in mind? Just how are these instances of power supposed to play out?

A woman getting free drinks at a bar, either because men buy them for her or because it's Ladies Night? Men CHOOSE to buy drinks for women, and they usually do so in the hopes that they'll get laid, (even if all they want is a phone number, it's so they can get laid at a later date). Ladies Night is a way for bars to get more business, because more female customers = more male customers, so it's for the sake of money and appealing to men's desire to hit on women at bars.

Do they mean it in a more direct, transactional way, like getting money for sex? I doubt it, and sex workers are one of the most abused, disrespected, and disenfranchised groups in this country. Often their finances aren't even in their own control, but in the hands of a usually abusive pimp.

Does it refer to women deciding who they want to have sex with and being the gatekeepers of their own body? That's not a privilege or power over anyone; that's a human right, but one that is violated and ignored at an alarming rate, anyway.

Using attention and/or sexual favors to advance professionally? I don't think this is all that common and is pretty problematic, but wouldn't needing to give sexual favors in order to advance from a subordinate position underscore your position as a member of an underclass anyway?

Becoming famous and/or wealthy through being sexually attractive? This is quite possibly the only example that even remotely makes sense here, and 1. it only affects a handful of women, and 2. it can also apply to attractive men (actors, models, musicians, etc.) so it is not unique to women. Many women would be completely barred from this avenue of wealth. What's more, even these women are still exploited in some way; their successes belittled, their minds dismissed, their whole being objectified and often reduced to the sexual pleasure they can offer men (quick and easy example: men's magazines like Maxim and Equire. The latter referred to Rihanna as "the essence of the word 'fuck'". Talk about reducing someone to a sex object, even when they're a successful, accomplished woman!). They are often slut-shamed for using their body for capital gain, as though they created the system and weren't simply trying to take advantage of it. And doubtless there is usually some man or multiple men behind the scenes profiting from her success. Most importantly, being famous or wealthy hardly translates into ruling the world. Money usually does not necessarily entail political power for women, especially not as a group.

The sad thing is, it was a woman who posted this comic (I don't know if a woman created it, though), and I know that many women agree with this view and find it empowering. When women use the system to their advantage, I don't blame them for it. But I think awareness of the fact that women's bodies, either the disseminated image or even the real physical body, are linked to sexist oppression (through pornography, sex trafficking, rape, and femicide), is key to understanding what we're up against. Calling objectification empowering is like living in bondage and calling it freedom. It's like using the master's tools to dismantle the master's house. I'm not suggesting that a woman's own body and sexuality can't be instrumental in her liberation. It definitely is. Sex is a part of life, and no liberation is possible by denying ourselves sexual pleasure. But cis-hetero men's obsession with women's bodies as an object for sexual consumption is not a source of real power for women; it's linked to men and their pleasure, it's a "power" men give us, that they allow themselves to be affected by, because they know how fake it is, how flimsy, how it ties into their desires and forms no real threat to their power and privilege, to the socio-political order, not even close. It holds as much power as a diversion, as a game before the return to real matters at hand; there may be some resistance, some refusal, some playing hard to get, some flaunting, some teasing, but he knows that he'll get what he wants in the end, through force, coercion, manipulation or simply by moving on to the next one.

-J

I take it we're too sexy for you?

[CN: Sexual harassment, bullying, victim-blaming]

I want to talk about a few things that have been on my mind lately that were crystallized in this post over at Geek Feminism.

The post begins with a story about a girl in first-grade who was bullied for bringing a Star Wars water bottle to school. It got so bad she wanted to bring a pink bottle instead, just to avoid being teased. This story generated a lot of sympathy and even action on her behalf:

“Katie’s story went viral including at the official Star Wars blog and a year later CNN reported that at GeekGirlCon when a brigade of Storm Troopers formed an honor guard for Katie, and that there’s an annual Wear Star Wars day as a result. We had our own smaller burst of geek support on the Geek Feminism blog in May this year, for five year old Maya, who was turning away from her love of cars and robots...In addition, it wasn’t an especially difficult thread to moderate as I recall: a few trolls showed up to tell Maya goodness knows what (sudo make me a sandwich LOL?) but in general people left warm, honest, open stories of their geek life for Maya.”

Just as Mary specified in her post, I also want to clarify that I think this kind of support is a very positive thing. But I too have to ask: why doesn’t this degree of unified, unequivocal support exist for women who point out gender-based bullying and harassment, especially in male-dominated spheres? What about cases of sexual harassment or rape?

I think one important distinction lies in the latter: much of the harassment women discuss is different precisely because it is more likely to be sexual. Mary briefly alludes to this contrast too:

“What they don’t seem to have in common is a universal condemnation from geekdom: bullying children? Totally evil. Harassing adults? Eh… evil, except you know, he’s such a great guy, and he hasn’t got laid in a while, and (trigger warning for rapist enabling) he does have the best gaming table, so what are you gonna do, huh?”

But I think this point merits deeper analysis, particularly because it accounts for a broad array of bullying women face, as distinct from the kind that Katie and Maya dealt with. This type of bullying exists on a continuum:

• Targeting a woman’s presumed sexuality or promiscuity as a way to justify disrespect, invalidation or exclusion (this is especially relevant in geek culture)

• Targeting a woman’s presumed sexuality as a way to demean them, by using hyper-sexualized rhetoric and slurs and/or pornographic imagery (which Anita Sarkeesian discussed as just one component of the bullying* she faces online)
• Sexual harassment
• The threat of or act of sexual assault and rape

You may be thinking: how does this relate to the topic at hand? A couple ways: 1) I’d venture to say that the above encompasses the vast majority of bullying that women face and discuss (whether in geek culture or not). Any discussion about the bullying and exclusion [geek] women face is woefully incomplete if sexual harassment/violence isn’t also addressed and 2) I think it’s another important component in understanding why the same people that felt sympathy for Katie and Maya will feel far less for [geek] women who experience this kind of bullying.

I understand that there are a lot of reasons that Katie and Maya received more sympathy than adult women, and Mary already discussed a lot of them. Thus, I’m not arguing that sexual harassment is the only factor or even the most important factor in explaining this difference in sympathy. But I think it's an important factor that merits more discussion.

Let’s use Katie’s story as an example. Perhaps her story seemed universal to other geeks and that made it easier for a broad array of them to empathize with her--after all, she was being teased and bullied for being different and for her “geeky” interests.** But what exactly did those boys say to her that made her feel bad? Well, isn’t that a ridiculously callous question? All we need to know is it was bad enough to make her cry and no longer want to take her Star Wars water bottle. In the face of her unhappiness, I’m betting no one would feel right about grilling her, especially with an aim to argue that she somehow wasn’t justified in feeling that way.

But once you reach adulthood, that callous reaction becomes much more commonplace when talking about harassment and exclusion; people want to know what happened, largely so they can assess whether they find your emotional response justifiable. “Wait, what made you feel uncomfortable? Oh, that? That isn’t even a big deal/That wouldn’t bother me/Others have it worse/Can’t you take a joke/You should just suck it up/Well, if you don’t like it, you can just go somewhere else/It’s part of the culture” etc.

I acknowledge that part of this callousness is due to the fact that there’s less compassion for adults, regardless of their gender. But that doesn’t account for all of it. The problem is compounded when a)the harassment is sexual and b)the victim is a woman. 

For one, the lack of empathy (“this isn’t a big deal”) can be tied to a lack of perspective: not everyone experiences sexual harassment, and men certainly don’t experience it on the same scale or in the same way that women do, so it may be more difficult for them to empathize (this of course doesn’t give them a free pass,  just explains why some men have trouble being sympathetic). Some men don’t understand the ways that sexual harassment and bullying can make the victim feel uncomfortable, alienated, or even unsafe because they’ve never been subjected to it. And of course, some men just don’t care either way because they’re not personally hurt or excluded by it, and in fact, enjoy being able to harass women and and don’t want to give it up. If they felt sympathy for one victim of sexual harassment, wouldn’t they have to question their own behavior? Cognitive dissonance? Oh no, we can’t have that!

For another, sexual harassment opens the door to victim-blaming in a way that is far less feasible in cases like Katie’s. No one asks if there was something Katie did that meant she was “asking for it” or deserved to be bullied. But in the case of sexual harassment, there will probably be a lot of interest in what the victim was wearing, whether she was being flirtatious, whether she was drunk, etc. (i.e., victim-blaming and slut-shaming). This means that, for some people, sympathy for women who’ve been sexually harassed is conditioned on whether they conform to the flawed notions of what a truly “blameless victim” looks like.

With all of this in mind, let’s take one more look at Katie’s story. What moved people? I think it was ultimately because it was sad to think of her giving up something she loved, something that made her happy, all just to avoid being made fun of. It was sad to think that gradually, she might change herself and her interests to avoid being targeted, instead of just being herself. And it was sad to think that all of this trouble was caused by some arbitrary, baseless notion that she wasn’t supposed to like Star Wars because it was “for boys.” But the point is: all of that is still sad regardless of her age, interests or the nature of the bullying.  And it happens all the time (and this is only the tip of the iceberg.)

-C

*Yup, bullying, not “trolling.” Jay Smooth does a great job explaining why these coordinated attacks should not be understood as harmless trolling, but as an effort to intimidate, bully and silence. I want this distinction to catch on because it’s essential to understanding the nature of harassment and bullying in a digital world.

**Although Nick Mamatas makes a good case that the perception that geeks are bullied for their interests does not reflect reality, I’ll still argue that the perception is fairly strong, and was probably at play in this case.

"Bitch Bad?" How About "There's No Such Thing as a Bitch"

[CN: misogyny, rape culture, slut-shaming]

Lupe Fiasco just released a new single called “Bitch Bad,” and it’s probably accomplishing what Lupe ultimately wants: a lot of discussion. He wants to be thought-provoking, and he never fails to deliver on that front. But I wanted to add my own voice to the discussion.

Now, I can’t pretend to know exactly every argument that Lupe is trying to get across in his lyrics--I understand that song lyrics are limited by rhyme and meter, so admittedly he can’t be as clear and thorough as he would be able to be in normal prose. So I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt when I inevitably have to read between the lines to flesh out the songs message.

If we break down the lyrics we get a young boy who hears his mom call herself “a bad bitch” as she sings along to a song on the radio and thus starts to relate the word with his mother. Then we have two young girls watch a music video in which an artist describes “bad bitches” in a [sexually] desirable way, so they feel pressured to be like the girl they see in the video (in addition to thinking that being a “bad bitch” is a good thing).

After this story is set up, the song culminates with: 

“Sure enough, in this little world
The little boy meets one of those little girls
And he thinks she a bad bitch and she thinks she a bad bitch
He thinks disrespectfully, she thinks of that sexually
She got the wrong idea, he don’t wanna fuck her
He thinks she’s bad at being a bitch like his mother
Momma never dress like that, come out the house, hot mess like that
Ass, titties, dress like that
All out to impress like that
Just like that, you see the fruit of the confusion
He caught in a reality, she caught in an illusion
Bad mean good to her, she really nice and smart
But bad mean bad to him, bitch don’t play your part
But bitch still bad to her if you say it the wrong way
But she think she a bitch, what a double entendre”

You can see what I mean by needing to read between the lines, because it gets a little convoluted at the end. I won’t do too close a reading here, because that’s not the point of this post.*

What I really want to talk about is the discussion this song prompted, because it reveals a lot about language, sexism and misogyny--even outside of the context of hip-hop. I also want to talk about it because as soon as I read the lyrics, I had a sinking feeling that a lot of people would interpret it in a misogynistic way--and that’s exactly what a lot of commenters did:        

"Lol I knew wat dis song wuz bout from wen I saw da title. Nd I couldn't agree more. A bad bitch is da hoe dressed da skimpiest wit da colored weave( something I hate 2 see on black women). Females, if u call urself a bad bitch, don't complain wen u get raped or disrespected, u call it on urself."

This comment is probably the worst out of them all--it manages to victim-blame and slut-shame at the same time. I don’t even think I need to waste energy refuting it...right? It’s pretty obvious that just because a person refers to themselves using a derogatory term or they dress a certain way, it doesn't mean they deserve to be abused or disrespected, or that they “can’t complain” if that does happen to them. It also ignores the fact that a lot of women use the word bitch to attempt to subvert it or reclaim it--that when someone like Nicki Minaj raps “I’m a bad bitch” she means it completely differently than a man who hatefully spits it out at a women he looks down on. She means that she’s strong, formidable, powerful--whether or not using the word “bitch” is counterproductive in those instances, whether or not the word can be “reclaimed” is debatable (more on that in another post). But regardless, it’s still important to note that when a woman calls herself "a bad bitch," the context, meaning, and use is vastly different.

Most of the other comments embody the same kind of sexism and misogyny in the above example--even if they attempt to word it less blatantly. I’ll spare you the experience of reading all of them in detail, especially because I perused 70+ pages. To sum it up: their assumptions mainly come down to two different messages, one for women, one for men. For women: they need to stop being “bitches,” despite the fact that that’s what the media (and mainstream hip-hop) told them to be, particularly because guys will [understandably] treat them badly because of it. For men: they need to make sure not to disrespect all women because not all of them are “bitches.” 

And here we finally come to my main argument, and what I hope Lupe’s ultimate message is: that it's not that some women are bitches and some are not, but that none of them are--that that there is no such thing as a “bitch.” There is no such thing as this fabricated caricature of a human being--a willfully ignorant, petty, “slutty,” and subservient woman not worthy of respect, who is “just asking” for mistreatment and abuse. This is also an important corollary to There’s No Such Thing as a Slut. Beyond the fact that this kind of caricature doesn’t actually exist in real-life, it’s also important to stress that the presence of these individual traits in a real, living person would also not justify her abuse. Any argument to the contrary, that justifies the abuse of women, is sexist and misogynistic.
And really, this is what mainstream misogyny comes down to, and it's at the core of common misogyny apologia. You can hear, in the same breath "no, of course I don't hate women, I love my girlfriend/mother/sister!" and "well what did she expect? she was asking for it, she's so stupid, dressing like that, acting slutty like that." Misogyny isn't about necessarily feeling hatred for every individual woman you ever meet. It's about conditionally assigning respect, humanity, empathy to only certain women who "deserve" it, and casting the rest off as unworthy of such basic qualities. It's about classifying whole groups of women as "worth less" based on imagined, constructed distinctions and stereotypes. It's the same idea when we talk about racism--someone may not hate all black people ("but I have black friends!") but if they subscribe to stereotypes about "certain kinds of black people" and believe them to be less worthy of regard and empathy, they're still a racist.

These arguments feel really blatant and self-evident. I almost stopped writing this post several times because of that. But then I just kept looking at more comments, and realized that, for at least some people, these arguments were clearly not obvious enough.

-C

*I think interpreting the song really comes down to one simple question: are we supposed to think that the boy is wrong for assuming that the girl is a "bitch" when in fact she isn't? And that's his only mistake? Or that he's wrong because he believes that any woman could ever embody the term? The song is pretty murky on this critical distinction, especially with lines like: "He caught in a reality, she caught in an illusion," the slut-shaming "Momma never dress like that, come out the house, hot mess like that/Ass, titties, dress like that/All out to impress like that" and "Bad mean good to her, she really nice and smart/ But bad mean bad to him, bitch don’t play your part..." I wish there weren't lines like this that all too easily play into the kind of misogynistic thinking displayed in the comments.