I believe that it is better to be looked over, than it is to be overlooked.
---Mae West
---Mae West
Recently I was on Facebook and decided to respond to what was surely meant to be an earnest discussion starter, only to realize that my frank and honest opinion deadened the conversation point blank! The Topic? The Plight of Woman! See the Author's question below:
So this started me thinking and of course thinking led me to a few questions: What is Women's Liberation, after all? Can't a Woman enjoy the often childish displays of men, especially when brought on by her own good charms, without feeling demeaned? Can't one feel empowered instead? Can't a Woman both be a brain who gets things done (and runs things, duh!) and an exciting creature beyond compare? Can't we enjoy being the Fairer Sex (as we most certainly ARE)? Where has our sense of humor and dignity gone? Why are women so downright dismissive of themselves and any other woman who owns her beauty? I mean truly, does a Man feel demeaned when a woman looks him up and down? I think not! Yet here we are, in 2010, posing as puritanical and earnest as ever... still wanting to be acknowledged for our brains and brawn. Truly it betrays the point and begs the question, Where Have The Dames Gone?
By Dames I mean those ladies who not only owned every single ounce of their sexuality, but held Men at the Mercy of their charms and garnered Respect (careers, apartments, rings, husbands & doting children) besides! Dames like Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn, Joan Crawford, Diana Rigg, Lana Turner...these ladies not only used their charms but certainly their brains too, sending both men and women away in a huff! And while it is easy to think of these ladies as mere sex symbols for men's pleasure, a closer examination of their lives shows that in fact they were the ones running the show, and that it wasn't just their beauty, but their savvy, feminine wiles, that trumped the gender card every time. And they paid a price -- not because they were fitting into the "stereotypes" men approved of, but precisely because they were exploiting that stereotype on their own terms, for their own price and purpose! How Dare!
Mae West faced outright censorship over her choice to exploit her rather feminine, erotic view of things... she even wrote under an alias, Jane Mast. Spanning a career with personae as vast as a male impersonator to a black face shouter, this is a woman who wrote, produced and starred in her own Broadway shows, who time and again faced rejection and was even prosecuted and jailed when her first Broadway production, entitled Sex, was a hit with the public, but broke the law, the cast being arrested under charges of "corrupting the morals of youth". She was incarcerated and sent to what is now Roosevelt Island, all while taunting the press of wearing her silk britches whilst in the bunker! Then, her second show, The Drag, which bravely dealt with issues of homosexuality (Mae was a criticized supporter of Gay Rights ), was cut short of its debut by The Society of the Prevention of Vice, who swore to ban it if it ever opened! Indeed, Mae was a strong support of the Women's Liberation Movement, but curiously said she was not a feminist, and now I wonder: Is this because feminists seem only to encourage the Liberation of women from being a woman at all?
What I find most interesting in today's climate where supposedly a woman can be whatever she so chooses, it seems that actually Ladies are preferred to choose one role or the other -- brainy or beautiful --and certainly if she had sense, she'd choose brainy! If she is daring enough to choose beauty alone, well she gets flogged by other women who dismiss her as pandering to the standards (& pocketbooks) of men! Even worse, if a brainy lady wants to own her sexuality and wield it, she gets flogged all the same! What gives? are these not still skillfully crafted roles with no real regard for the actual person behind it? Is this really Liberation?
Sure we have the right to vote and the right to work...but the way I see it, work isn't all that it is cracked up to be -- and well, voting is a far cry from direct power in the personal vs. public sense. Men are more confused than ever before, trying their best to respect our equality (but not so much so as to not pay our way!). I hate to tell how I really feel, but from my viewpoint, until a woman truly has the 'Right to Bare Arms' & strut about anyway she sees fit, she will never be fully in charge of her destiny! The tired notions that a woman should feel somehow offended by a Man's desire for her , or by his juvenile comments and jokes, and that she should certainly not decide to enjoy her own charms unless they fit some commercially prescribed notion of what is acceptable, and even worse, that our Daughters should be protected from the woes of Female Sexuality, well, pardon my French gals, but this is patent Horse Shit!
Seriously Ladies, it's a well established fact that men are children (and I do love them so!) and to look to them to have better self control when such alluring creatures as ourselves are strutting about everywhere -- it really is unrealistic. Besides, I get a laugh every time a man drops his hammer on his toe over me, especially when I'm busy on my way, usually dressed less than desirable, not even bothering to notice him! It truly Tickles Me Pink!
Even Madeleine Albright knew how to use her feminine charms and cleverly placed brooches to make her point all too clear -- and not a soul can question her brains! She won some of the toughest minds in the world over. In truth, a Man doesn't stand hardly a chance against an Empowered Woman, because he simply can't keep up; while he is fumbling about drooling, we are running the world!
Yet here we are still trying to prove our mettle and our earnest abilities when in fact our worth, power and allure are not only obvious....but dare I say, Feared.
So get on Ladies, or, better still, Get Off!
Mdme. B.
Can you post your opinion on sexual jokes or sexual comments about women? Does it have any positive or negative effect on you? How many times a week do you hear such comments? Is a tolerance of sexual 'jokes' something you want to pass onto your daughters?
Oh dear. How could I resist that one? Already before I had commented there had been a flurry of responses --all fast and furious, with mine being the 7th and final! Of course I didn't mean to end the conversation, but I guess my opinion that I eagerly welcomed being seen as a sex symbol rather than being seen as say, a "Ma'am", and that indeed I did my very best to illicit such inappropriateness at least daily.... well, this didn't go over too well ! And since I've not seen anymore of her questions, I think perhaps that I am now being punished and maybe even being excluded from the Women's Liberation Forum on Facebook! I didn't get one response --- not even a laugh! Oops!So this started me thinking and of course thinking led me to a few questions: What is Women's Liberation, after all? Can't a Woman enjoy the often childish displays of men, especially when brought on by her own good charms, without feeling demeaned? Can't one feel empowered instead? Can't a Woman both be a brain who gets things done (and runs things, duh!) and an exciting creature beyond compare? Can't we enjoy being the Fairer Sex (as we most certainly ARE)? Where has our sense of humor and dignity gone? Why are women so downright dismissive of themselves and any other woman who owns her beauty? I mean truly, does a Man feel demeaned when a woman looks him up and down? I think not! Yet here we are, in 2010, posing as puritanical and earnest as ever... still wanting to be acknowledged for our brains and brawn. Truly it betrays the point and begs the question, Where Have The Dames Gone?
By Dames I mean those ladies who not only owned every single ounce of their sexuality, but held Men at the Mercy of their charms and garnered Respect (careers, apartments, rings, husbands & doting children) besides! Dames like Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Marilyn, Joan Crawford, Diana Rigg, Lana Turner...these ladies not only used their charms but certainly their brains too, sending both men and women away in a huff! And while it is easy to think of these ladies as mere sex symbols for men's pleasure, a closer examination of their lives shows that in fact they were the ones running the show, and that it wasn't just their beauty, but their savvy, feminine wiles, that trumped the gender card every time. And they paid a price -- not because they were fitting into the "stereotypes" men approved of, but precisely because they were exploiting that stereotype on their own terms, for their own price and purpose! How Dare!
Mae West faced outright censorship over her choice to exploit her rather feminine, erotic view of things... she even wrote under an alias, Jane Mast. Spanning a career with personae as vast as a male impersonator to a black face shouter, this is a woman who wrote, produced and starred in her own Broadway shows, who time and again faced rejection and was even prosecuted and jailed when her first Broadway production, entitled Sex, was a hit with the public, but broke the law, the cast being arrested under charges of "corrupting the morals of youth". She was incarcerated and sent to what is now Roosevelt Island, all while taunting the press of wearing her silk britches whilst in the bunker! Then, her second show, The Drag, which bravely dealt with issues of homosexuality (Mae was a criticized supporter of Gay Rights ), was cut short of its debut by The Society of the Prevention of Vice, who swore to ban it if it ever opened! Indeed, Mae was a strong support of the Women's Liberation Movement, but curiously said she was not a feminist, and now I wonder: Is this because feminists seem only to encourage the Liberation of women from being a woman at all?
What I find most interesting in today's climate where supposedly a woman can be whatever she so chooses, it seems that actually Ladies are preferred to choose one role or the other -- brainy or beautiful --and certainly if she had sense, she'd choose brainy! If she is daring enough to choose beauty alone, well she gets flogged by other women who dismiss her as pandering to the standards (& pocketbooks) of men! Even worse, if a brainy lady wants to own her sexuality and wield it, she gets flogged all the same! What gives? are these not still skillfully crafted roles with no real regard for the actual person behind it? Is this really Liberation?
Sure we have the right to vote and the right to work...but the way I see it, work isn't all that it is cracked up to be -- and well, voting is a far cry from direct power in the personal vs. public sense. Men are more confused than ever before, trying their best to respect our equality (but not so much so as to not pay our way!). I hate to tell how I really feel, but from my viewpoint, until a woman truly has the 'Right to Bare Arms' & strut about anyway she sees fit, she will never be fully in charge of her destiny! The tired notions that a woman should feel somehow offended by a Man's desire for her , or by his juvenile comments and jokes, and that she should certainly not decide to enjoy her own charms unless they fit some commercially prescribed notion of what is acceptable, and even worse, that our Daughters should be protected from the woes of Female Sexuality, well, pardon my French gals, but this is patent Horse Shit!
Seriously Ladies, it's a well established fact that men are children (and I do love them so!) and to look to them to have better self control when such alluring creatures as ourselves are strutting about everywhere -- it really is unrealistic. Besides, I get a laugh every time a man drops his hammer on his toe over me, especially when I'm busy on my way, usually dressed less than desirable, not even bothering to notice him! It truly Tickles Me Pink!
Even Madeleine Albright knew how to use her feminine charms and cleverly placed brooches to make her point all too clear -- and not a soul can question her brains! She won some of the toughest minds in the world over. In truth, a Man doesn't stand hardly a chance against an Empowered Woman, because he simply can't keep up; while he is fumbling about drooling, we are running the world!
Yet here we are still trying to prove our mettle and our earnest abilities when in fact our worth, power and allure are not only obvious....but dare I say, Feared.
So get on Ladies, or, better still, Get Off!
Mdme. B.
hurray!
ReplyDelete