"Shoot the Slut:" The 21st Century Backlash Is All About Sex

[kpete]

"Shoot the Slut:" The 21st Century Backlash Is All About Sex

by Amanda Marcotte, RH Reality Check

.......... now we’re in a backlash period, and the focus hasn’t been on fashion or even sending women to the home as much---it’s all about sex, baby. Or more precisely, there’s been an alarming trend towards glamorizing chastity standards that have often been out of fashion for 50 years. It’s not just the nearly 1,000 bills in state legislatures aimed at punishing and controlling female sexuality by depriving women of access to birth control and abortion, though god knows that would be enough. As Faludi demonstrated in her history of the 80s, these things tend to spread and morph and infect the discourse and behavior of all sorts of people in all sorts of situations.

.............

the rest (quite interesting):
http://www.rhrealitycheck.org/blog/2011/06/12/21st-century-backlash-about

[xchrom]

1. recommend

[snot]

2. K&R'd.

[el_bryanto]

3. Is there a sense that things are getting worse?

Cultural Conservatives are always going to be pushing the envelope one particular direction, but are they having more of an effect? Or are they raging against the dying of their movement?

Bryant

[femrap]

8. Maybe you have something here....

when an animal is trapped...it is most dangerous.

But using 'religion' is very strong...I don't see religion dying any time soon. Getting rid of birth control is what they are doing....and they're doing a damn good job of it.

I was reading that the biggest CHANGE to the world was the Birth Control Pill. And now we are immersed in the Backlash to it.

Women gaining their Freedom is just not what TPTB want. The depiction of women on TV has changed dramatically in the past years. No strong women....'Murphy Brown' 'Roseanne' 'Designing Women' Women are, again, just sexual objects to point at and make unflattering comments. What's that show...'How I met your Mother.....' WTF? I just don't watch TV anymore. I used to like an occasional escape with a sitcom....they're not funny anymore. They just make fun of women. '2 1/2 men?' This would have NEVER aired in the '70's. NEVER.

Hell, in the '70's, women nearly bankrupted the Cosmetic Industry. Few were into being Eye Candy...the mind was cool; the body was just to be healthy.

Alas. Mother Nature may well have the final word.

[el_bryanto]

12. Actually I kind of like How I met your Mother

I would also suggest a number of modern shows have strong female characters. Fringe for example. 30 Rock is an ambiguous example, although I love it.

Bryant

[femrap]

24. I would prefer

How I met your Father.

30 Rock...Tina Fey running around trying to keep 'the stupid male boss who makes all the $' happy. Gee, that's more like a REALITY SHOW of my business life.

We are of different generations. You missed the Women's Movement years....we're now well burrowed into The Backlash with women dressing in 4" heels, low-cut dresses, and lots of makeup.

I'm so glad I'm not a young woman of today...having to deal w/ males who watch pron and extreme violence on a regular basis.

"Shoot the Slut" says it all.

[Horse with no Name]

21. Interesting response to one of my posts

I wish I could remember which post to give credit.

Anyway...was discussing the decimation of long women-held careers--teaching, nursing, etc. and the fact that these have been longstanding GOOD professions for women.

The reply that made TOO much sense said something along the lines of since GOOD jobs have been outsourced, the attack on teaching and nursing made perfect sense. They felt it was a concerted attempt to drive women out of these good paying jobs so that these would become jobs for men.

One way to accomplish this is through archaic means--driving the women out of the workforce. Keep them barefoot and pregnant at home.

Unless the younger women wake up to this shit...they are not going to recognize the world we live in.:(

[femrap]

26. I remember back in

1970 my grandmother asking me, "So what you are going to be? A teacher or a nurse?" I didn't want to be either...I don't have the patience to be a teacher and ick, blood. Those 2 careers plus fashion retail were the Pink Collar jobs. When manufacturing shipped jobs overseas, more men went into Pink Collar jobs.

I just wonder what all of the college grad women are going to do???? Are they in debt and now enslaved? I just don't know. Will the Corporate World make their life miserable as they did mine? I don't know. More women college grads than men today. But they certainly seem to love being 'eye candy.'

I hope they fight hard for their rights to Reproductive Freedom. A couple of years ago a college professor told me that more college women were for gay marriage than legal abortion. This is what a 24/7 MSM 'War on Women' will get us.

This is one hell of a Backlash. I'm glad I'm old.

ETA: I love your Comment Section on your profile....thanks.

[Horse with no Name]

27. The younger women have the safety of "being against" abortion

because they have the right to picket and petition and be "against" abortion. That is, until they need it. Then they slip away quietly, never tell a soul, have their abortion and then move on--because deep down inside--they HAVE the security that it is there IF they need it.

The thing about teaching...the "vision" that I see is a bunch of minimum-wage babysitters without benefits working for "Charter Schools" who have large administrations of men making good salaries.

I don't know how we ended back behind the starting line--but in my lifetime, we have regressed and there is NOBODY with an agenda to take it in the other direction.

Interesting times ahead, no doubt.

Thanks for the compliment about the quote. I LOVE it.

[femrap]

28. That 'vision' of teaching

sounds awful, but I, too, can imagine it.

Everything is cyclical. When I look back at my mother's era, one was fired is she was pregnant. We couldn't even get birth control until the '60's (I think....wasn't it Griswold v. Connecticut?) I have to keep those things in mind so I know there has been progress.

With Raygun, came the Backlash. Two steps forward and one step back. I still support NOW and Planned Parenthood.

Mother Nature will have the final say, imho.

Take care.

[AndyTiedye]

19. They Control Most of the State Legislatures Now

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. Yes, we're in the era of backlash. It's easier for both parties to

knock each other out one at a time, than it is to ferret out the corruption that permeates in both parties. That's because people cement relationships that interfere with accountability.

[shimmergal]

5. Interesting article, and

I don't know that I'd quarrel with its main points. Certainly the assault on abortion rights and even on contraception gives me nightmares.

But the "content analysis" it uses as proof is way overdone. Babies. Couples in love canoodling. And even women wearing pastels. Geez, those are matters of taste and human interest, not necessarily a sneaky way of supporting the morality police. Sex sometimes does lead to babies, you know.

And why aren't we pushing the message that sex without contrception, unless you WANT to make a baby, is the real immorality? Again, liberals are too mealy--mouthed here, while the fundies get all the attention with their slash-and-burn "morality."

[NC_Nurse]

16. as long as the message of contraception is for BOTH men and women, it remains sexist

not to mention unrealistic. people make mistakes, ya know.

there's a difference between glorifying the maternal role and honoring too, imo.

[no_hypocrisy]

6. As a proud member of The Woodstock Generation, I am both dismayed and aghast

that people younger than me want to rebrand women to the pre-feminist prototype of the Fifties. Return to Stepford . . .

[lumberjack_jeff]

7. Could be worse.

You could be a guy hounded out of office for sex he didn't have.

[Bunny]

10. I know. That's happening so much it's becoming an epidemic.

And it's just so tragic.

[seaglass]

18. no kidding. This is again when we see the very thin line of difference between D's and R's

both think they have the right to get into other people's bedrooms.

[eridani]

29. You might have noticed from the DU poll the other day--

--that women over 45 were the most likely to be agains that.

[lumberjack_jeff]

30. And women under 45 were the most likely to be for it. n/t

[eridani]

33. IOW, those who don't have the faintest clue about what life was like

--before Roe v Wade.

[Heidi]

9. Gosh, how I hate the word "slut." It serves no purpose except to try to shame women

for their sexual behavior. (And before I'm jumped on, it's a fact that the word "slut" is most often used to describe sexually active females, not males.)

Excellent article. Recommending.

[Ghost Dog]

20. Not jumping on you, but the term's being redefined, it seems (London Demo):

If calling a movement SlutWalk makes it go viral and garners global attention for it, I would say this is the way to go – not only is the title "SlutWalk" creative and energetic, it is also just the right response to the Toronto policeman whose remarks led to it in the first place.

As for redefining the word, that's a more controversial issue, as it involves the complexities of linguistics. There is firstly the difference in the language of the "slut-shaming" discourse all around the world. So, a boy might yell "hot" or "sexy" at me to humiliate me when I go out in western clothes in my home town – words that could be considered quite appealing in Britain. Close to this is the problematic, exclusivist use of the word slut for white girls – white girls with "normal" sexualities can be abused by being called sluts, while such terminology would not be used to shame black women, considered to be "deviant" and "hypersexual".

For me, however, SlutWalk is a movement aimed against the discourse rather than the literal language of slut-shaming – discourse that categorises and attempts to cage in women, discourse that manifests itself in myriad forms including the varying use of words like sexy, hot, bitch, slut etc. SlutWalk can be blamed for being white supremacist but the only way it would become representative is if women of colour decide to interpret it through their own experiences and narratives, and join in the movement.

SlutWalk is therefore, for me, not about the difference between "real" sluts and "pretend" sluts, as all women have been and are under "slut scrutiny" in most of the public spaces all the time. Those coming out clean from slut scrutiny have been "rewarded" with husbands and families and those judged to be "tainted" have been "punished" in varying degrees through rape, sexual assault, street sexual harassment and other penalties.

/... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/11/london-slutwalk?INTCMP=SRCH

:shrug:

[Heidi]

23. I have every respect for people who want to "take back" derogatory terms as an assertion of power.

However, I cannot see (and perhaps I'm short on foresight) how the terms historically used to assert power over the disenfranchised can ever really be reclaimed by the once powerless. They were never our own descriptors of ourselves in the first place.

[seabeyond]

11. can't point finger at one side and ignore other. one wants purity, one wants whore

those are the two options being pushed today

[October]

15. The two options I've heard my whole life...sadly...

[xmas74]

31. I've done my best to show my own daughter

that there is always a middle ground but the media, and society as a whole, doesn't help. The choices given to her are 1) a young woman saving herself to be all-consumed by one man who will take her away from everything she was and "change" her into what he wants (Twilight) or 2) a drunken, idiotic, hairspray and tan-addicted little fool who brags about "bangin' juicers" (the women of the Jersey Shore and their attraction to violent steroid injecting muscle men).

Sometimes I just don't know what to do. I don't let her watch either at home but she certainly sees it at friends houses. It's all they want young girls to see as options. There are few strong characters for her to identify with and emulate.

[seabeyond]

32. i hear ya. lots of forces working against

the best interest of the child.

on the upside. i see a lot of teens disgusted with the world we are creating for them, and the obvious manipulation into roles. we have always talked about it in this house to such an extent, my boys come to me to tell me sexist or racist things they pick up on tv or with friends. they recognize.

i have jsut started talking in teh language of

trash or class....

success or fail

[felix_numinous]

13. K&R

Oppression is all about making the common citizen into a criminal, and public shaming is one of the most powerful tools.

This is what the sexual revolution was all about, breaking out of this shame paradigm. If people can be shamed into feeling guilty for seeking (even peaceful and loving, consensual) pleasure--then their behavior can be modified easily. Sexuality is a hot button (sorry) issue--because it is about our own personal boundaries and how we enjoy this world.

We cannot allow pleasure to be redefined, debased --and then meted out to us on THEIR terms. How this works is, repress normal (consensual) sexuality, forcing it into the shadows and then catch people online or hiring someone to satisfy their pent up desires, then hold them hostage by threatening them with public exposure.

[Odin2005]

14. K&R

[divvy]

17. Why do we support the sexual values of Puratins and Republicans?

That is what I don't get. There is only a handfull of posters here who consistently start threads advocating conservative values at the expense of good Progressive Politicians.

Whats next .... masturbation? (gasp)

Kick and gratefully recommend

[LadyHawkAZ]

22. Very good reading. K&R

[TheKentuckian]

25. K&R