Taking It Back

When feminists discuss objectification of women as one of the big problems of our culture they often do so with covers of men’s and women’s magazines in mind. These covers regularly feature scantly clad women in sexually suggestive poses and many have argued that this depiction identifies women with their sexuality thus denying their individual agency as thinking, feeling individuals. In a recent Facebook thread a counter-argument was raised: women that pose for these magazines do so out of their own volition and are therefore in charge of their representation instead of being objectified. In this post, I would like to address the validity of this counter-argument as well as the attempts to “take back” words and behaviors that have been historically harmful to the position of women in Western societies.

Moreover, studies have shown, that women are more likely to be hired or get a raise if they “conform to a feminine stereotype” i.e. “appear friendly, warm and concerned for others above yourself” in interviews. Consequently, I can’t help but wonder whether empowerment, not only in the strictly abstract sense, can be achieved by embracing the stereotypes. If a woman acts in a stereotypical manner in order to get a raise and succeeds in doing so, this behavior has effectively benefited her. Similarly, a men’s magazine model whose covers attract a lot of attention is very likely to be popular and well paid. While adopting the kind of behavior that feminists tend to criticize, these particular women are advancing in their careers and potentially living a better life. Why is it then appropriate to criticize these behaviors?

One of the answers lies in the fact that in considering both the model and the businesswoman we cannot deal with individual cases as fully separate. The problems arising from stereotyping and objectification are by default systematic, which implies that our analysis also has to take into account the proverbial big picture. In both cases that are bing discussed the stereotype of women as always gentle and friendly or the identification of women with their bodies viewed as esx objects does not only affect the particular woman interviewing or doing a photo shoot but rather all women everywhere. Consequently, even though an individual woman might achieve some level of empowerment by adopting stereotypical behavior or consenting to be objectified, her behavior serves as an example of what women are like that the readers and editors of magazines or owners and managers of businesses necessarily keep in mind when thinking about and interacting with women in general. In the case of the stereotypically feminine interviewee this effect is fairly obvious. As the study cited above suggests, most employers are already inclined to hire a woman acting in what they consider to be typically feminine and will, in fact, be expecting such behavior from a good candidate. An increasing number of female candidates acting in that way can then only further this bias and therefore effectively create less opportunities women that don’t find stereotypically feminine behavior empowering or comfortable. In the language of economics, consenting to stereotypical behavior in order to gain personal profit is a negative externality i.e. it has a negative effect on a party not directly involved in the hiring process, in this case, all women everywhere.

This particular danger with respect to “taking back” the stereotypes is strongly related to the fact that when a woman is acting in a stereotypical manner, it is not obvious that the she is doing something empowering despite the fact that she might feel that way. A similar situation is that of a typical classroom in which the teacher might be convinced that his or her students understand the material because the material is clear and obvious to themselves. With this mindset, teachers are inclined  to interpret the lack of questions as meaning that the students understand everything even though, in reality, students might too confused to even phrase a question. This phenomenon is known as the illusion of transparency.

An excellent example of how the illusion of transparency relates to the argument at hand is in the attempts to take back the words such as “bitch” or “slut” and rebrand them as superlatives rather than slurs. While this might work in some social circles, as long as the meaning of the word is not universally changed, the “taking back” of it usually only causes confusion. If I refer to a friend as a “bitch” in a loving manner and someone that is not aware of the way I am using it overhears it, they might think I am deeply insulting her because of the socio-historical context of the word. Furthermore, if they note that my friend is not offended they might attempt addressing her in the same way and with the same intention, but in this case it is her that might be confused and take offense. As a friend recently noted “if I started declaring that pink was the gender neutral colour for babies to wear that doesn't mean that people feel that to be the truth”. The same is definitely true for all behaviors that are taken to mean approximately the same thing by the vast majority of people. Consequently, the project of “taking back” words and behaviors is only possible in terms of the much broader feminist project of fundamentally changing the way in which women are perceived and described in general.

Finally, I want to emphasize that none of the situations being discussed are as black and white as they might seem. There exist women that enjoy being stereotypically feminine and they should not be judged because of that. It is problematic that women have to act stereotypically in order to succeed and it is problematic that one sexy looking woman on a cover of a magazine is taken to mean that most women are sexy things to be looked at. It is not problematic that some women like spending time in the kitchen or chose to be housewives in the same way it is not problematic that some women just like to be sexy. The kind of ignorance that prevents one from knowing whether a woman is deriving empowerment from stereotypical behavior or if she is forced into it makes judgment in these cases very difficult. In particular, the same way we should be weary of generalizing the behavior of one stereotype-abiding woman to all women, we should also be careful upon judging women that seem to be conforming to these stereotypes. A Facebook discussion of Laurie Penny’s slightly too emotional article “I was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl” produced a variety of comments explicitly addressing this difficulty. A friend writes: “how can an actual person feel like a MPDG? It seems impossible to feel like a "supporting actress" with everything you do. To me, it seems she's [the author] interpreting OTHERS' lives as somehow unimportant, as if what they've chosen to do is just play a "supporting role.”  The same point seems to be important relative to the behaviors I have been discussing. While it is hard to deny the utility of stereotypes as “cognitive shortcuts” in short term interactions with new people, they are problematic mostly because they are often one-dimensional and therefore cannot provide a good description of someone we have known for any significant amount of time. Real people are, in general, unbelievably complex and cannot be fully defined only by their more stereotypical features. Stereotypes can serve as placeholders in the process of getting to know someone, but should not be taken to be complete and rigid descriptions of their personality. Consequently, while we should be aware of the danger of embracing stereotypes even when they seem to be individually advantageous to us, we should also not judge or blame those that find stereotypical behaviors comfortable or natural since its is always incorrect to assume that just because one sometimes acts stereotypically, she is a nothing more than that stereotype.

Thanks to Victoria, Monica and Vipul for sharing the thoughts quoted above and pointing out relevant pieces of information clickable in the text.