Responding to Jason's post

            Enlightened Sexism by Susan Douglas makes the point that though women have been given power through the feminist movement in the 1970s, that that power has now been curtailed.  A female’s power comes solely from her sexuality and her ability to be a consumer.  Political and economic power is still largely out of her sphere.   This idea resonates with me.  I remember around junior high years being initially intoxicated by the idea that I could use my sexuality as a tool over men (boys at the time).  Though I do feel that maturity helped to move me out of this thought pattern, I hesitate to say that it was completely eradicated with age.   Residual feelings still exist.  This always proposed a troublesome self-contradiction.  Females that relied only on their sexuality repulsed me, but there was something secretly tantalizing about their power.  Douglas explores whether a woman’s sexuality provides a sufficient degree of power as to qualify her as liberated.

           Susan Douglas’ concept of enlightened sexism exposed an element of our society that I had yet to have a name for.  Douglas mentioned the television program The Man Show.  Being ignorant of it, I watched a clip on YouTube.  I’ve included the link below.  This shows how at times the media portrays women in ways I find to be inherently degrading and yet gets away with it because it subtly hides its chauvinistic core with a self-mocking veneer.  I agree with Douglas’ point that this is still sexism.  Women whose sole life goals centered on pleasing men always made me uncomfortable.   They always grated against my ideas of what being a woman should be.  The contradictory ideas that this was the woman’s choice and that these shows were mocking their overt sexism pulled against my belief.  Douglas’ thoughts helped to solidify the ideas the clip below and attitudes like it are, in fact, sexism.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJagtCv7mx8 -> clip from The Man Show

Based on Adrienne Rich’s speech “Claiming an Eduaction” I have no doubt she would agree.  At one point she says, “Do not treat your body as a commodity with which to purchase superficial intimacy or economic security.”  The women in the video seem to me to be doing that.  They allow men to use their bodies to perpetuate sexist ideas about where the worth of a woman resides. 

Rich’s speech articulates where she believes the worth of a woman can and should reside: in her mind, in her ability to actively influence the world.  I found this entire speech to be incredibly inspirational.  Rich points out that academia participates in “almost total erasure of women’s experience and thought from the curriculum” (page 1).  This semester I am taking both CORE 151 and CORE 152.   Between both of these courses, only one text is written by a woman.  Colgate requires these courses from each of its students because they are supposed to engage students in necessary conversations, conversations led almost entirely by male thinkers.  Now, I am not impractical.  I understand that because of the societal climates, women were not afforded the same opportunities as men to produce such influential texts.  I am not demanding that Colgate incorporate texts of lesser importance authored by women simply to appease feminist thinking.  However, it is nevertheless telling.  It will be interesting to see if throughout the course of this semester, this disparity is acknowledged.