Final Draft Formal Paper #2

Santa Cruz, CA 95060

December 11, 2012

Jean Kilbourne

1234 Kilbourn Ln.

Jeantowne, MI 11111

Dear Ms. Kilbourne:

It’s true that all throughout human civilization, at least in the majority of western culture, females have been the underdog of society. As you stated in an exert from your piece Advertising and Violence, women in modern society are absolutely no exception to the disadvantages provided by western civilization and, in contemporary civilization, they are not only subject to suppressive abuse by their male counterparts, but in fact are also subject to oppression in the form of mass media; a hierarchy quit separate from any form of oppression privy, and of which further encourages said male counterparts to participate even more in roles that are suppressive to females. The oppression that women face through media is that which supposedly represents the thoughts of society at large; male, and female, young, and old, black, and white, etc. According to your piece, Ms. Kilbourne, it seems that the oppression women receive from media is far more elusive and indirectly domineering, than the oppression women have received in years past; media prescribes oppression via images and vague subliminal messages that influence unbeknownst to the oppressed. According to your piece, these images create an environment in which the male gender are made to believe that it’s ok to mistreat and dominate over a woman, and women are made to believe that that dominance is simply their reality. But I have to ask, how is this oppression really any different from any other oppression women have already received? If society used to be even more patriarchal than is today, wouldn’t that suggest that the reality being given then is in fact very similar to the reality that media is giving to us now? And if that is the case, then why is it that women are all of sudden just as susceptible to this oppression now as they used to be in the past? Have women really made such little progress?

            It’s absolutely true that the images the media displays of women have very adverse effects on them and on society as a whole. The images have the potential to be incredibly detrimental to the way women think about and perceive themselves; they can have the ability to very negatively persuade the ill-equipped mind into behaving and thinking in ways that are unconducive to the betterment of woman kind and in turn, of all of society. By condoning behavior that is both base and fruitless towards the efforts of creating a just and equal society for all, media makes women’s struggle for equality all the more difficult and should be fully reprimanded for said difficulty imposed upon the female gender. The images media produces suggest that it’s acceptable behavior for a male to hold a woman at gun point or to suggest that women should utilize their sexuality as a means of obtaining success and material goods. In providing these images the media sets an expectation for females to act in a manner that is limiting for them, and that renders them incapable of finding their true potential for success and happiness, as well as preventing the rest of society from being able to see that potential as well.

            Expectations, however, seem to be what the feminist movement has been opposed to all throughout the entirety of its being. In the early Americas it was the oppression for women to remain as a housewives that were unheard and unseen that required women to have to retaliate and in doing so, to be condemned as a witch or impure. In the 50’s and 60’s, when the feminist movement as we know it was on its rise, was it not the struggle for equal opportunities and to be taken seriously among society that drove females so definitively towards the passing of equal rights and equal opportunities legislation. It’s a harsh truth to accept, but isn’t it in the norm of the of the women’s rights movement and females to continuously be the ones who have to rise above and against one form of oppression or another.  As such a seasoned group of civil rights activists, is it not time that the female rights movement starts to handle their oppression in a mature manner? If modern feminists’ predecessors from the 1960’s were the adolescence of the feminist movement, wouldn’t that make its members thirty years in the future the mature and qualified members of the movement?  If all women were simply just suppressed and diminished by the effects of media and mass culture, than we must ask ourselves how women like US Treasury Undersecretary for international affairs, Lael Brainard, or US chair of Secretaries and Exchange Commission, Mary Schapiro are to be accounted for. Regardless of what propaganda and media is present, these women have somehow been able to obtain incredibly powerful and respectable positions in society, and have been able to put themselves in positions of which even most men find difficult to achieve. The mature feminist does not only make the argument that media is suppressive and violent towards the rights of women; the mature feminist is already aware of the forces in favor of suppressing her, and instead of generating more complaints about said suppression, she takes the next step in the feminist evolution and takes action to break through the barriers said suppression.

            Growing up, I was the daughter of a single father, and can first-hand say that the suppression and adverse effects that media has on society are not only those belonging to women. The struggles my father faced as, first, being a husband and a father, and then as being just a single father, drew much more sympathy from me, than the struggle of my single mother being able to make it as such after my parents had had their separation. As a child, my father grew up in an incredibly patriarchal household, and as a parent and as husband, my father had an incredibly difficult time overcoming the standards on which he was brought up. His father was an exact representation of the behavior media condones and endorses for modern culture and more specifically for males. By having to face that reality everyday of his adolescent life, my father grew to hate and resent the reality he was being presented with, and he knew that that reality was not something that he ever wanted to take part in. His rejection of that reality caused him much confusion and grief in his struggle to find an alternative to it, and ultimately, is what lead to his and my mother’s separation due to her inability to accept his rejection of the societal norms that the lived in. Even after their separation, my father found much difficulty than my mother and received far less sympathy in terms of custody rights and government benefits in being a single father.

In Joan Morgan’s piece, From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos, some of the arguments regarding the male gender’s struggle in society are more heavily touched upon. Although veered more towards the black community and the struggles encountered by African-American males, Morgan argues that to counter the injustices and misogyny directed at women by the male gender, females cannot simply point a finger and say “The things you’re saying are wrong and us women condemn you and hate you for saying them!” Morgan states that to deal with such misogyny, the female community has to do what their opposition has not; they have to find an understanding for their male counterparts, and not treat them as just a generalized other. This need for understanding also applies to the role of media; for those who understand the means of suppression used by media, the desire to criticize and demonize it is an absolutely rational one. Given all the misdeeds media has put upon the already disadvantaged female gender, how could any female not feel infuriated? But that desire needs to be put aside; without providing education and examples of what it means to overcome and defeat said media alongside what criticisms they have, the feminist provides no means to overcome said criticisms and simply exaggerates the conditions woman are in, which in some cases prove to only provide them with yet more of a sense of hopelessness and worry.

I don’t think it’s simply by chance that male suicide rates in the US is 1 to 4 with males taking the steadfast lead over women; by these statistics I think it’s safe to assume that women are not the only ones who have been cheated by the media and effect of modern society. If females are still arguing for their equality and to find justice within the media, news, and regulations and on the other side of the argument, the male portion of our society is killing themselves at four times the rate of the females, then can women really be so blind as to say that the problems and effects of society and media are really just their own? The fact that this issue is even just that, an argument, is probably a good starting point in which a solution for that equality can be found. How can equality be found when each side of the issue is pointing fingers at the other, and making accusations against one another?

Morgan states that, “…rap music is essential to that struggle (the struggle of stopping sexism) because it takes us straight to the battlefield.” In Morgan’s metaphor she describes the struggle of finding feminist rights in modern culture as a result of understanding the struggles that exist within other parts of our societal community, of which is greater than I believe the feminist community has yet to acknowledge, and of which puts the feminist movement into such a light that makes it incredibly difficult to deny the progress feminism has made up to this modern day. A true measure of the progress females have made in modern society should not be measured their ability put down what used to an opposition; the real measure of the feminists progress should be acknowledged by their ability to forgive and let go of what is the past so as to take unity and find strength between one another, and put their efforts into something that will push them forward and not keep them in an everlasting cycle of arguing and placing blame.

Sincerely,

Arianna Brown

Work Cited

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, 2012. Web. 27 Nov. 2012.

This website contains statistics of suicide rates up until the year 2010.

Kilbourne, Jean. “‘Two Ways a Woman Can Get Hurt’: Advertising And Violence”. Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. By Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 1992. 575-600. Print.

This exert from Jean Kilbourne's book Can't Buy My Love: How Advertising Changes the Way We Think and Feel is Kilbourne's reflection on the effects that the media's portrayal of females could be having on the females of the US.

Morgan, Joan. "From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos". Rereading America: Cultural Contexts for Critical Thinking and Writing. By Gary Colombo, Robert Cullen, and Bonnie Lisle. 8th ed. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 1992. 575-600. Print.

This essay by Morgan describes what she describes as a need for an understanding of the male stigma towards the degrading of women prior to condemning them and judging them for said degradation.

"The Most Powerful Women You've Never Heard Of." Foreign Policy 193 (2012): 1. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 11 Dec. 2012.

This is an article interviewing several very successful women (women who own their own business or are in positions of great responsibility and power)