Female Sexuality in the Media

Cultural Anthropology: Post-Feminism in the Media of the Modern Era
Introduction
In the wake of Weinstein scandal and the #MeToo movement that made women who speak out about sexual assault Time’s Person of the Year in 2017, a reassessment of the values (often contradictorily) displayed in the media in the modern era regarding sex and sexuality is in order. In the 20th century, the Women’s Movement launched the Feminist ideal, which argued that women had the right to be independent, treated as equals to men, work alongside men, and not be viewed as slavish homemakers or as sexualized fantasies for what Laura Mulvey called “the male gaze” (6). In the 21st century, the Feminist generation appears to have be replaced by a post-Feminist generation that, instead of resisting the male gaze, actively seeks to attract it and use it to its own advantage. For instance, the arrival of the Britney Spears in the 1990s ushered in an era of sirens in the video and music industry that is still continuing today, and getting more and more erotic (and often aggressively so) with every passing year. Britney was followed by Christina, Beyonce, J-Lo, Miley, and a host of other female performance artists as well as actresses who have used sexuality to sell their image. How does this aggressive use of sex and sexuality gel with the Feminist ideals and doctrines supposedly still promoted and upheld in the modern era? This paper will examine what cultural anthropologists have had to say about this idiosyncrasy in the history of Feminism and what it means in today’s culture.
Literature Review
The article by Rosalind Gill entitled “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility” examines the meaning of postfeminism and how the term itself means different and often contradictory things to different people. Gill looks at how media interpretations of strong womanhood range from women who are politically active and in public or corporate leadership positions (such as Hillary Clinton or Angelina Jolie) to women who are sexually empowered and use sex and sexuality to dominate and control the male-female relationship (such as Britney or Beyonce). The article discusses the inherent contradiction in the fitting of these two descriptions under the same label, especially as the latter depiction of feminism seems to undermine the former’s seriousness. The latter, after all, appears not to be a repudiation of the male gaze and the “phallocentric” social order that gave rise to it (as identified by Mulvey in the 1970s), but rather an indulgence of it—with the spin being that the hypersexualized women in the media who use sex to control the narrative are the ones actually in power.
The article by Michael Unger entitled “The Aporia of Presentation: Deconstructing the Genre of K-pop Girl Group Music Videos in South Korea” looks at how this phenomenon of hypersexuality is being played out on the Asian front. Like the Western representations of sex and sexuality by women in the media, the Eastern representations also demonstrate an aggressive sexuality that appears to be about exploiting the “male gaze” to gain control in the male-female relationship. One artist known as CL surrounds herself with erotically-dressed women wearing dominatrix outfits while she dances and gyrates to a song called “Hello Bitches.” CL promotes an aggressive sexuality in the video that shows men being treated like slaves by women who clearly are in a position of sexual dominance. Unger asks whether the video is making commentary on the nature of male-female relationships by inverting the traditional roles (in the video, the females dominate the apparent mating ritual while the men are passive recipients of their decision to engage or withhold sex), or whether the video is undermining the Feminist notions of equality between the sexes that the forerunners of the Women’s Movement sought to achieve.
The article by Laura Holson entitled “A Blurred Lines Boomerang: Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke See a Reversal of Fortunes” for The New York Times poses the same questions: how is glaring, gratuitous sexual aggression on the one hand (as demonstrated by Miley in her co-performance alongside Robin) acceptable while sexual aggression on the other hand (as demonstrated by Robin in his infidelities) unacceptable? What does this dynamic say about the state of affairs between men and women, the norms that govern relationships, the push for equality by women during the Feminist Movement, and the demonstration of gratuitous hypersexuality by young women in the media in what is unclearly defined as the post-Feminist era?
The article by Laura Mulvey from 1975 entitled “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” attempted to answer some of these questions decades ago by identifying the culprit for hypersexualization: the phallocentric social order that deliberately invited male audiences to indulge their “male gaze” by viewing women in various states of undress in the cinema. Women were reduced to eye candy and objectified in order to satisfy (or at least inspire) male lust. However, if that was that aim in 1975—what is the aim today? It appears that rather than condemning the objectification of women, women rather promote it and view provocative dances and videos by artists like Miley and CL as empowering, liberating and inspiring. Mulvey condemns the objectification of women in the cinema as a tool to obtain female oppression. In the 21st century, the reverse appears to be the case: women objectify themselves so as to control the male-female relationship narrative in media. And when men step out of line in private, they are excoriated in public, as Time’s Person of the Year—the #MeToo Movement—has shown: sexual aggression by women is acceptable and a career-booster in the post-Feminist era; from men, it is repulsive and a career-killer.
Conclusion: How This Process Altered My Initial Understanding of the Topic
Gill’s article helped me to underscored the hypocrisy of media representations of men, women, sex, feminism and postfeminism in the modern era. On the one hand, men like Louis C. K. and Harvey Weinstein are condemned for exposing themselves to women in private, while in public women are encouraged to expose themselves to men (and women) in advertising, films, television shows, music videos, and so on. In these cases, men who might prefer not to see so much exposure of the female anatomy (on their way to work, for instance, when a billboard or magazine cover flaunting a hypersexualized female model being used to sell a product is passed) have no voice or say in the matter. It is assumed that every man is “phallocentric” and uses the “male gaze” to pursue his own pleasure when the reality is that many men would just as soon prefer women to not expose so much of themselves as women would prefer men to keep their private parts tucked away. It seems that a double standard does exist, as women are celebrated for using sex and sexuality in public to build their confidence (Holson), while men are condemned for turning into slavish beasts when lusting after that same sex and sexuality in private. Miley Cyrus was honored as taking a step forward for women in the post-Feminist media of the modern era when she “twerks” on Robin Thicke (himself in the midst of a cheating scandal at the time) on stage at a performance event: he was dressed in a suit, she wore nothing but her underwear (Holson). Thicke’s fortunes tumbled as the story of his infidelity took shape in the media, while Miley’s fortunes soared in the media as her name became celebrated and she became the momentary poster-child of strong, independent womanhood. While Gill’s article (and Holson’s for that matter) did help to point out this hypocrisy of how the media interprets men and women’s roles in the projection of sex and sexuality in the modern era, the question of why this projection occurs in the first place is one that has not been answered. Why does the media support this apparent double standard? Is it really good for young women to have role models like Miley Cyrus, Selena Gomez or any of the other numerous young starlets performing hypersexualized acts on stage and on camera to be imitated by young girls who then post their own erotically-charged dances to the Internet thanks to social media?
Or what of the men who enjoy these publicly shared videos and who then seek satisfaction of their lust in private? Is this not to be expected—or is that the point? In the post-Feminist model of woman projected by the media, is control the only thing matters? Whereas Feminism in the 20th century postulated that men and women should be treated equally, in the 21st century post-Feminism seems to suggest that equality between the sexes is good for women who seek the staid route, but for women who want to control and dominate sex and sexuality is useful too. In other words, nothing is off limits for women: they have been oppressed by patriarchy; the patriarchal system is unjust; women must assume power in any way they can—even if it means exploiting the “male gaze” in public but condemning men who violently seek more than to gaze in private. Undoubtedly rape, harassment and assault that are to be condemned—what is being pointed out here, however, is the context in which sexual aggression on the one hand is condemned while sexual aggression and exploitation on the other hand is celebrated.

Bibliography
Gill, Rosalind. “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility,” European
Journal of Cultural Studies, vol. 10, no. 2, 2007, pp. 147-166.
Holson, Laura. “A Blurred Lines Boomerang: Miley Cyrus and Robin Thicke See a
Reversal of Fortunes.” The New York Times, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/26/fashion/miley-cyrus-and-robin-thicke-see-a-reversal-of-fortunes.html
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema." Screen, vol. 16, no. 3, Autumn
1975, pp. 6-18.
Unger, Michael. “The Aporia of Presentation: Deconstructing the Genre of K-pop Girl
Group Music Videos in South Korea.” Journal of Popular Music Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, 2010, pp. 25-47.