The New Woman is A Whore

Earlier today my boyfriend showed me a recent music video by Alanis Morissette: a cover song she did of "My Humps" by the Black Eyed Peas. Now, I haven't exactly been up-to-date with Alanis Morissette's music; her new stuff hasn't really appealed to me like her old, edgy music, such as "You Oughta Know" and others songs of that quality. However, when I saw this obvious parody of a cover, I got a kick out of it. It was incredibly amusing...

...Until I saw the Black Eyed Peas' video and heard the song. My amusement ended very, very quickly. I am so disgusted and appalled that I hardly know where to start.

I will say right now that I am a feminist. I am not an angry feminist where I believe that women should rule the world; I do not believe in any superiority of women over men. I believe that men and women are equal, I believe that humans as a whole were created equal by whatever power that may exist. I believe that women should have equal rights and opportunities as men, in this country and worldwide.

The women of the 1920s believed all this too. They asserted themselves and became independent; they fought for women's rights in an obnoxiously patriarchal society; they declared themselves as individuals free to make their own decisions. The "New Woman," as defined in the end of the 19th century (I believe, don't hang me if I'm incorrect) was, according to the ideal supposed:

• to have received an adequate education (primary, secondary and preferably also tertiary) and to be able to use her knowledge wisely;
• to earn money and thus be 'financially independent';
• to participate in political discussion and decision-making;
• to decide herself if, when and whom she wants to marry and how many children she wants to have;
• to show outward signs of being different by wearing more comfortable clothes;
• and, generally, to defy convention and social norms in order to create a better world for women (quoted from this source).

I am proud to say that many of today's women have had the opportunity to fulfill this ideal by their own initiative, ambition, and hard work.

But I am sickened by women who participate in garbage like "My Humps" and similarly distasteful bullshit to gain standing in society. These women starve themselves, undergo plastic surgery to "get rid of flaws," and flaunt their bodies in order to be "appealing" to the arbitrary standard of "ideal." And I'm not just talking about the music industry with women like Fergie and Britney Spears; I'm also talking about the modeling industry, the movie industry--the porn industry!--and any industry in which women become sexually objectified in order to appeal to people's moronic and erroneous misconceptions about who a woman truly is.

True women have defied convention and the expectations of society; they have asserted themselves in a male-dominated world (and no, you cannot say this world is not "male-dominated" anymore; have you looked at who tends to run all the major countries today?). These women--women like Tyra Banks (though unfortunately her work is a double-edged sword, but that's a tangent I can go on about at some other time)--speak out against these outrageous portrayals of what a woman is "supposed" to be. The women of the entertainment industry, on the other hand (and I generalize), sell their bodies and their souls; they flaunt themselves to make money. You know what sort of women these are?

Whores. Yes, no PC beating-around-the-bush. Any woman--no, any person--who sells themselves as a sexual object for a profit is a whore. Plain and simple. (Just look up the definition of a prostitute.)

Even worse? Young women--young girls!--are given these images and models to look up to, to aspire to! They are inundated day after day with images of thin women with large breasts and china doll skin and are told, "This is what is acceptable. This is the standard you need to follow. This is what you should be." And what happens when they don't live up to such expectations? They are ostracized and brutalized by their peers and by society for being different. In turn these toung women torture themselves with extreme diets and pills, with eating disorders, and with a continuously spiking sense of self-hatred that will haunt them throughout their lifetime, all because they were told they "weren't good enough."

And no, I do not need any reminder that the feminists of the late 19th-early 20th century asserted themselves sexually and were essentially perceived as sluts and immoral because their "loose ways" did not align with the societal norm. But allow me to point out that the feminists of this time were fighting the standards of the "Cult of Domesticity" that were forced upon them; they asserted themselves in this way to make a statement to men and to prove their equality, to defy convention and social norms in order to create a better world for women.

I ask you: how does a music video with camera close-ups of a woman shaking her ass, flaunting her breasts, and gyrating her crotch create a better world for women? How do these lyrics support women in developing their independence?

"What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside your trunk?
I'ma get, get, get, get, you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps (Check it out)

I drive these brothers crazy,
I do it on the daily,
They treat me really nicely,
They buy me all these ices...they be sharin'
All their money got me wearin' fly
Brother I ain't askin,
They say they love my ass ‘n,
Seven Jeans, True Religion's,
I say no, but they keep givin'
So I keep on takin'
And no I ain't taken
We can keep on datin'
I keep on demonstrating."

This can't go on any longer, for women or for men (because men are objectified just as much; sorry I didn't vent about it, but perhaps someone can post a blog covering that topic).

How can society continue to endorse such outrageous concepts? Oh wait no, that's right, we're still in Iraq. Silly me. (Sorry, couldn't help myself. Again, another rant for another time.)

I say boycott it all, though I doubt that would really work that well. But this, ladies and gentlemen, is a battle. The suffragettes fought the Cult of Domesticity. This battle isn't all that different.

It's just called the battle against the Cult of Prostitution.

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