First of all, hey everyone! I’m a new addition to the blog. 🙂 Aida, from Puerto Rico, rising junior at Brown, found this blog through Irene. Hopefully I’ll be contributing steadily. Anyway–I also wanted to let y’all know that I added two websites to the blogroll: Genderfork and Sociological Images. Now, for my first contribution–cross-posted from my personal blagh, found here.
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In response to this (blog entry that just has an embedded video) and this:
The author here grosses me out.
That guy isn’t real. Somebody decided to make him up so they could write the “write fuck me on your chest and smile” line, claiming female = victim and that somehow, if only men would understand and be sensitive to this, it would be okay.
Most men aren’t anything like this guy, and for the rest of us the author has done nothing to improve our understanding of “what it’s like to be a woman.” If the author were listening, I’d respond: “Being a grownup means taking the fuck me sign off your chest and telling people ‘no’ or ‘piss off’ whenever necessary.”
Giving a reality check to a straw man, kind of annoying.
*
I see where the commenter is coming from, but I think it’s a *very* shallow reading of that clip. The message I got from this video/scene was different. Writing “fuck me” on his chest would be about drawing a parallel between the symbolic gesture and the reality of inhabiting a woman’s body–a body that is unfortunately read by some as “willing” just by virtue of being female. If the guy had actually gone out with the FUCK ME on his chest, it wouldn’t have been the same thing/feeling…but it wasn’t about him actually doing it. It was about showing the parallel between that and walking around with an INVISIBLE (yet oh so visible) marker of “oh yeah, sure, fuck me, that’s great, I really want it from you, thank you.”
A man walking naked with FUCK ME on his chest would be seen as abnormal, whereas a woman just walking around would not be. Violence against women is perpetrated because it’s, in a way, normalized. This is the narrative that we’ve been given; people assuming a naked man with FUCK ME scrawled on his chest wants and is ready for sex is not realistic, but people assuming a woman walking down the street wants and is ready for sex IS realistic. This whole scene is about the psychological impact; it’s about the female character trying to show this man how it feels by creating a “story” that APPROXIMATES that feeling. Taking that story to reality wouldn’t work, but THINKING about it and thinking about what it MEANS would certainly make an impact.
Woman is not inherently “victim,” but the truth is that in society, many times there is a strong correlation between the two. And if it’s not “victim,” it’s still the receiving end of violence, be it symbolic, physical, or both. And that being said…yeah–if only men could understand and be sensitive to the realities of living in a body marked as “female,” we would probably have less scenarios like this. A man would be way less likely to invade a woman’s privacy like what happened on The L Word if he understood how that shit felt. A man would be less likely to leer at a woman and think it’s okay to grab her ass if he understood how that felt. Obviously it would only be a start. Someone’s knowledge doesn’t predict what they will do with it.
But the thing is, there’s no real way to understand, FULLY understand, unless one has lived through it. Anything else is just an assumption, removed to a certain degree, or a sympathetic thought. No one can TRULY and wholly understand or “feel” what someone else is feeling. We have approximations, yes, and a “common language,” yes, but these are only approximations. Still, these approximations are valuable–very valuable. They’re the closest we have to the real thing, and they are important. And even if we can’t feel exactly what someone else has felt, there are probably huge overlaps, and we can sympathize and find solidarity.
Finally, the “…telling people ‘no’ or ‘piss off’ whenever necessary” comment? Telling people “no” or to “piss off” when necessary is a right (and sort of one’s duty to a certain extent), but to have that right respected? A totally different ballgame. Women usually don’t have the privilege of not having to worry that their “no” may not be respected or even taken seriously. Saying “no” doesn’t necessitate or equal a respect of that “no.” Just because a woman screams NO and fights back, does that mean a rapist will stop raping her? Just because we say NO, does that mean a mugger will suddenly return all our money and leave us alone? Just because a NO is necessary doesn’t mean it will WORK. There are various situations when saying NO just isn’t enough.
And sure, most men aren’t like the guy in the video, who will set up cameras all over your house…but that’s not the point. Most men aren’t rapists, or murderers, or robbers–but we still have to talk about those that are, and represent them in the media, and show that they exist. We still have to show that women are hurt, not to normalize that violence, but to show the realities of the world and that they are NOT ACCEPTABLE. We have to put these things in the forefront so people cannot ignore them, so people have to acknowledge them and get educated and DO something about it. The fact that a (presumably) Average Joe (whatever that is) cannot relate at all to this clip and feels that it provides NO insight into how it feels to be a woman is VERY distressing to me.
Addendum: By this post, I don’t mean to say that ALL women are a certain way or feel a certain way. No monolithic understandings of men and women apply. Kthx.
Hey Aida, nice post.
the only thing I’d add to this is:
“A man walking naked with FUCK ME on his chest would be seen as abnormal, whereas a woman just walking around would not be.”
That doesn’t strike me as quite right. I think both males and females are oversexualized enough so that neither would be abnormal. Instead, the difference is that the writing on the man’s chest would be perceived as a aggressive and the writing on the woman’s chest would be perceived as self-objectifying and submissive.
meh?
I agree with your point. 🙂 However, I was comparing how it would look if the man were going out naked with that on his chest and a woman were just walking outside, fully clothed. The first scenario (be it a man or a woman) is not common/normal, so people would be like “wtf is this?” and wouldn’t immediately take it as “oh, this obviously means they DO want to get fucked.” It would probably be interpreted as a joke, or some “weird performance art” or something involving a hidden camera. So in that sense, if the character had gone out and done that, the actual repercussions and assumptions would have been different than if a woman had just been strolling around (and that is what the female character was trying to illustrate–her body being marked against her will, of people reading her as available, willing, and fuckable just because of her body).
Anyway, I think I should have clarified it more. From the way the sentence is phrased, it could be understood that I meant the woman was naked and had FUCK ME on her chest too. 🙂
I get it now, tanks! Sorry you had to explain it to me because I didn’t read carefully enough.
By the way, do you (or does anyone else) watch the L word? Is the show on the whole as cool as that scene?
welcome to the blog aida! great post. i wrote one about a guy asking me out and your post reminds me of my feelings of indignation. though i didnt literally say “no” to him, i did implicitly, and yet he continued to try to get to know me, and ask me about my life and family, etc.
it was really invasive. my saying no to him, in a subtle and kinder way, didnt really get him off my back as soon as id hoped. it sucked.
No worries, Luce! And…depends on what you define as cool. It’s pretty dramatic. XD Season 5 was way too ridiculous and I stopped watching it.
Thanks for the welcome, Orkinson. 🙂 The thing that gets me about trying to reject people is when they think that one is being coy or playing hard to get. I’m like NO, actually, when I said I wasn’t interested, I did mean it, fancy that.
Lucie, I recommend watching seasons 1 and 2… I think they’re fun and have some cool moments like that. It’s good if only for the increase in lesbian visibility in your life. Sometimes I watch pretty lame queer media just to add to my canon…