| Feb. 13th, 2013 @ 05:39 am (no subject) |
|---|
been brooding on some things.
Like, the issue feminists have with how women are portrayed in comics. you point out to them that MEN are just as over-idealized in the comics, and their reply is "oh right, well, you don't see Captain America or Superman trying to show their boobs and butts to the camera at the same time!".... And you're left floundering. Not because they have an overwhelming truth on their side, but because you can't conceive of how they're not grasping what you just told them.
Because you can't understand how anything claiming to be human can look at men, women, and sex, and not realize that men and women approach sex from different perspectives. It takes either an indoctrinated feminist or an androgynous alien from outer space to not understand this.
First off, let's review some basic biological truths about sex here. I'm talking basic realities for pretty much every warm-blooded species on the planet, and probably the overwhelming majority of vertebrates.
The fundamental rule: In order to mate, males have to prove they're "worthy." Females just have to prove they're female.
You ever notice that the males in most every species are the ones that put on the mating display? They do the funky dance, wave the plumage, raise the mating call, battle for dominance with other males. The female, to the contrary, just has to be present. Occasionally the female has some sort of display, but it generally revolves around indicating that they're in heat. The male, to the contrary, is in a competition to prove he is virile, healthy, competitive, a good provider and protector...
Human beings are no different in this regard. The whole mating dance is complexified by political, social, cultural and subcultural subtexts, but the fundamental rule is still there. It means that men and women view sex differently, approach it differently, have different motivations about it and because of it.
In short, Women perform the social mating dance by displaying their fertility (their physical attributes), Men perform it by displaying their power (physical, political, financial).
Phrased in other ways, in the cynical language of the secular:
Women use sex to get what they want. For men, sex IS what they want.
Women use sex to gain money and power, men use money and power to get sex.
Men have to be "worthy", women have to be "accessible."
All facets of the Fundamental Rule.
Feminist ideology does not recognize or accommodate that.
The feminist, trying to use feminist dogma to interpret the world, cannot see that. She interprets male motivations through female spectacles. She sees a typical comic book cover and doesn't see males and females shopping the same aisle from opposite sides. She sees female characters exhibiting the yin of sexuality, and male characters exhibiting the yang, and concludes that since the male is not doing the mating dance in the "yin" fashion, that the female is the only one being sexualized-- and therefore debased and subjugated to the male.
Perhaps the real issue is feminism's own sexual confusion. Feminism not only interprets male behavior through female motivations (seeing sex as a "power struggle"), but it fails to interpret the feminist's own motivations and perspectives with any sensible consistency. The same ideologues who interpret Wonder Woman's traditional costume as debasing and an effort by males to sexually subjugate women would march down the street in protest if the Editor in Chief at DC comics demanded she be dressed in a modest and frugal New England conservative pantsuit... and accuse him of attempting to sexually subjugate women.
(A brief aside here: which culture is actually subjugating female sexuality to male power-- the one that has women wearing bikinis in public, or the one that beats them as trollops for not wearing a veil?)
Dealing with the intersection between feminism and fandom is to deal with the stereotypically schizophrenic. Feminists sneer at traditional superheroine costumes as debasing, degrading, oversexualizing, pandering---
But when a noted figure in the comics subculture takes note of the teeming masses of tight-body COSPLAYERS flooding the comic conventions in those selfsame 'debasing, degrading, oversexualizing, pandering' outfits, and cynically remarks that they're more likely there just to exploit the influence their physical attributes give them over hopeless nerds than out of any actual comic fandom... well, God have mercy on his soul for stating the apparent.
You see, he broke the unwritten law: Thou shalt never acknowledge the Fundamental Rule.
When you approach it from the perception that, for women, sex is a tool for obtaining power, then a great deal of actions on their part start to make sense, though.
The more I hear feminists whine about the issue, the more I suspect that the reason they are mad about sexually appealing women in comic books (and movies, and elsewhere) is that they are not personally in control of the supply of feminine pulchritude. Comics with shapely females in tight costumes means that a large group of men that they have deemed socially unacceptable (comic book fans) have access to pen and paper boobies without their permission. The schemes of feminism are largely Lysistratean; without cultural control over sexuality (both male and female) they lack the power to scorn, mock and shame men (and contrary-minded women) into obeying them. So long as any corner of culture exists that even SUGGESTS that it is okay for women to be sexy and men to be macho, their power over society is diminished. |
|  |
rhjunior
angry