The Big Sister

The Big Sister is participating in The Young Feminist Blog Carnival. What a great idea and a reminder that THERE ARE SO MANY OF US! Whatever your definition of “young” and “feminist,” there are so many people in the world who want equality and happiness for girls, boys, men, and women everywhere. Badges with the “this is what a feminist looks like” slogan are meant to do more than identify you and your political leanings. They are also meant to demonstrate the diverse meanings that identity has….THIS is what a feminist looks like, but so is THIS. Those people, backgrounds, ideas, actions, etc. might be completely different. Thanks for doing this project, Shelly.

This piece by Danielle was first featured on Press Pause to Reflect, a thoughtful blog about video games.

After watching the demo of Bayonetta, subtitled First Climax, I did not come away with the feminist outrage I half-expected the game would inspire. The game seemed silly, pulling out old tropes about broken commandments and a femme fatale. I mean, the name of the demo is First Climax; it didn’t really seem possible to take it seriously.

Of course, that doesn’t necessarily mean the game isn’t sexist – and here is where I point out that I have not played the entire game, so I cannot testify to any character development that may occur. Judging from the demo alone, Bayonetta uses her sexuality almost as a literal weapon, which I suppose does set her apart from her forebears. The femme fatale has for the most part been seen as a negative force, using her wiles to undermine the male hero. (The interest in retelling old stories that has soared lately has changed this somewhat; Lilith, after all, has gone from being a demon to being something of a feminist symbol.) In addition to all this, there is a heavy sadism theme in the demo. Bayonetta has “torture attacks,” one of which involves an iron maiden and another which has Bayonetta spanking her opponent before guillotining them.

The opening cut scene does nothing in the way of hinting at any personality beyond this, nor does it forward the plot in any real way. It features Bayonetta sashaying down the aisle of a train, into a metro station, and out to a garden. Then you’re right back into a crazy action sequence.

Speaking of fighting, I would be remiss if I did not bring up the hair. Bayonetta’s hair forms her outfit – which is actually pretty modest, all things considered. Her hair also forms her attacks, though, leaving our poor heroine unclad when she fights except for a strip of hair/clothes down her middle. Another attack creates a monster out of her hair, leaving her nude and covered with a swirl of hair circling around her. It is basically a drawn-out striptease, promising that if the player does well, he’ll get to see more. (I say “he” because, let’s face it, this is a market advertised to and dominated by men.)

It is easy to say that Bayonetta provides an unrealistic depiction of women, but it’s okay because the men are unrealistic too! The problem with this argument is that men are not held up to unrealistic standards presented in video games – or movies, magazines, television, etc. In fact, it’s easy to find examples of shlubby dudes who get the attractive lady in the end. Women, however, are held up to these standards. So every example of a woman like Bayonetta – even in a silly video game – is another standard of beauty being imposed.

I get that this sort of game is not going to be everyone’s cup of tea. Main character and sexism aside, I’m not super interested in fighting games like this. Honestly, it doesn’t seem all that much worse than other games that are out there. If anything, it seems a little sillier. In a time when the video game medium is rapidly maturing and becoming more mainstream, there is no reason to sacrifice character for crazy action sequences. In a mature field, there is simply less and less room for adolescent titles like Bayonetta.

So I’ve been reading a lot about queer theory in one of my classes so I’ve been thinking about sexual preference a lot lately. Today on facebook I saw an acquaintance’s status: “_____ is a straight ally. There are 9 days until National Coming Out Day and I pledge to have heartfelt conversations for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender equality” and it made me think…why do people have to specify that they’re a “straight ally” in situations like this?

I hear it all the time, “now I’m not gay but I don’t have anything against it.” I have a sticker on my guitar case that I got in highschool: “I’m straight but not narrow.” Even as a questioning teenager who was outspoken about progressive political issues, I didn’t want people to think that I was a lesbian. Why do people do this? Why are people afraid, if they’re supportive of gay equality, that someone (oh no!) might think that they are gay themselves?

When I went to donate my own facebook status to National Coming Out Day, it gave me the option to list myself as straight, gay, bisexual, or to leave it blank. I think people are afraid that even leaving it blank will imply you are gay. Why else would anyone leave it blank, the thinking goes. If you’re straight, what do you have to hide?

So if you’re a straight ally, I’m challenging you to not only speak out but also to leave the “straight” part out next time you have a conversation about sexuality. Let people wonder. Remember that some of the people you’re standing up for can’t ensure others that they’re straight without denying a part of who they are.

I recently read that the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto recently changed the requirements for inducting women. Men and women used to compete against each other for spots, but now every year, four men and two women will be inducted.

Bill Hay, the Chairman of the Hockey Hall of Fame said, “The new voting procedures address the basic principle and general view among the Board of Directors and Selection Committee that men and women ought not to compete directly against each other for limited places of Honoured Membership. It creates fair conditions for all candidates while reinforcing that the existing basis for selection and requisite standards of excellence be applied equally to both genders.”

I wasn’t sure how to feel about this at first. Some of the comments on the article I read about it thought it wasn’t fair. They complained that a really great male hockey player might never get in while a woman who wasn’t at all as good as he is would. I saw what this guy meant. And if a woman were inducted I wanted everyone to feel like she deserved it. I didn’t want people feeling like women needed special treatment to excel at a sport.

I’ve changed my mind though. It’s not giving women an advantage, it’s taking away the advantages that male hockey players already have. Women have a lot more obstacles to face than men do on the road to becoming a professional hockey player:

*A lot fewer women’s parents are likely to get their daughters involved in hockey at a younger age. A lot of professional male players have been playing since they were young kids, but women players are more likely to have to discover the interest on their own and start at an older age.

*I would imagine there are a lot fewer women’s high school hockey teams, so fewer women have the support and motivation to keep playing hockey that a team provides.

*Hockey is an aggressive sport. Men who excel at being aggressive are looked at positively…they’re seen as manly. Women are told they shouldn’t be aggressive though, and I’m sure many female hockey players have faced harassment for being too “tough.”

*Women don’t have as many or as easily accessible role-models to look to in hockey.

*Prime hockey playing age overlaps with prime child bearing age and that makes hockey a different kind of commitment for women. A male hockey player can easily be a dad, but a woman who wants to get pregnant has to delay or stop playing. It’s not like other careers where you can keep working until a few weeks before the baby pops out.

So I commend the Hockey Hall of Fame for their decision. Judging women separately is not giving them an unfair advantage. It’s simply recognizing that men and women become hockey players in very different conditions. The new rule judges people who face similar conditions in a similar manner.

What I Don’t Like About Porn
1. It perpetuates negative body image. When we see muscle bound men and huge fake breasts, tans, etc. in a context that we’re told is sexy, it’s hard not to feel like that is a physical ideal. It gives us unfair expectations about what we and our partner should look like and makes us feel bad about ourselves when we don’t look like that.

2. It perpetuates negative ideas about sex and gender roles. So much of mainstream porn is terrible about this. There are double standards (a scene with one man and multiple women will often portray the man as hot shit and lucky and the women as “sluts” but a scene with one woman and multiple men also portray the men as taking advantage of the woman being “slutty,” someone who “just can’t get enough cock.” A lot of porn also perpetuates the idea of exploitation as a pretty normal part of sex…the idea of “violation” is supposed to be sexy. I’ve heard the argument that this and the body image issue aren’t relevant…that they’re just like people saying video games encourage kids to be violent…that people separate porn from reality just fine. I disagree. If you continually expose or expose yourself to specific body traits or ideas and then reward yourself with a positive physical feeling (an orgasm), you’ll essentially train yourself to get off to these things. It’s called masturbatory conditioning.

3. It can be racist. Mainstream porn often plays into really ridiculous racist stereotypes. White men having sex with black women have “jungle fever” and Asian women play the stereotypical school girl parts. Interracial sex is portrayed as a fetish and some porn’s appeal is in violating or exploiting people of a certain race. Videos advertise their stars’ races almost as a commodity while simultaneously degrading them.

4. It can desensitize us. Pornographic images have gotten a lot more extreme than they used to be. People want to see more and more extreme images…it’s like in the old days when women wore full length dresses and a bare ankle was considered sexually risque. Now nothing is risque…we see completely naked bodies, gaping holes, etc. all the time, and porn has to push it even further to be taboo and exciting, and often this plays right back into the other issues…bigger fake breasts, more exploitation, more violent and objectifying sexuality.

5. A lot of the porn industry pisses me off. Yes, I’ve heard the statistics that women run a lot of it, and I’ll get into later the parts of that that I think are cool. But even if it’s women, porn uses some manipulative tactics. Sometimes they exploit people’s need for money. Because of a lot of the things talked about above and similar ideas in our culture as a whole, women often feel like being sex objects is a good way to gain value and attention, and they exploit that. Often people will end up in porn who have abusive pasts. All of this to make money.

6. Sometimes it just makes me a little jealous. This isn’t necessarily part of my big point by point look into the different aspects of porn that I’m doing here- this is more just my feelings. When I look at porn it’s not at all about the people in it. It’s about “hey…that’s sex and sex feels good…watching people feel good makes me think about what it’s like when I do things like that that feel good.”  And  I know that for most people, it’s about just that– watching stimulating images and not about having a desire for the particular people in the porn. Despite knowing this, sometimes I get upset about the idea of my partner getting off to the image of other people’s naked bodies.

What I Like About Porn

1. Porn sometimes encourages individual sexuality and masturbation and the idea that masturbation is ok for women too. When we talk about porn so much, we’re telling each other that it is ok to touch yourself– to want to feel good sexually, and to make yourself do so.

2. You may not be comfortable bringing up something you’d be interested in trying, or something you like to think about during sex or masturbation, but watching porn with a partner can provide a way to approach the subject.

3. It can give you ideas. Maybe you’ll see a position or a way to touch yourself or your partner  you wouldn’t have thought of on your own that feels really good. Even if you just end up laughing about it when you actually try it, it can be fun!

4. Porn sometimes challenges my ideas about my own sexuality. It makes me think about what I find sexy and why. Sometimes I’ll see a scene with a particular act that I find appealing and it makes me think about what I find so appealing about it. It challenges me to think things like, “Hmmm…what do I like about the idea of a glass dildo?” or “Why do I get turned on by men touching each other?” Porn was also one of the first indicators to me that I might not be completely heterosexual. I enjoyed watching women have sex and began to think about it when I masturbated. I have never had a desire to have a relationship with a woman, a lot of which could be social conditioning. Because that desire was never there, I had never considered the idea that I might be sexually attracted to women until I viewed lesbian porn and liked it.

Conclusion

Porn is one of the big divisive issues among feminists. It seems like a lot of people try to draw a big line between anti-porn feminists and “sex positive” feminists, but it’s really not so black and white. Both sides have really valid points, but instead of ignoring the bad or saying that the bad outweighs the good, we could instead be trying to change porn as it exists currently to be both sex positive and a truly positive expression of sexuality. And that’s where number five on my list of “what I like” comes in:

5. There are some really cool women-made porn companies. These companies are all about showing real people with real bodies making each other feel good in a completely consensual and respectful setting. They are striving to make porn with all the things I’ve said I like minus the things I don’t like.

Being a feminist doesn’t mean you can’t watch porn. It also doesn’t mean you have to ignore the things that can be really messed up about it. The most important thing is to be aware of the issues…watch it consciously and enjoy exploring your sexuality.

I recently got and started using a sewing machine. At one point, while planning something I was going to make, I had a realization…my grandma is really cool. I think of d.i.y. and making your own clothes as really cool, and she’s been doing this stuff for 60 years!

I was a little uncomfortable at the idea of liking such “domestic” activities at first, but then I realized that the point of feminism is that I can like what I like, regardless of my gender. It would be different if I didn’t enjoy making things but felt like I had to because I’m a woman, or if I thought it was weird or wrong if a men liked sewing, but neither of these things is the case. Sewing things I can give to friends, wear, or use, makes me feel creative and accomplished. It’s awesome because I can make things exactly how I want them and not have to spend a bunch of money and because the things I make are unique…there aren’t hundred of others exactly like them. And I think the idea of men sewing is awesome too. I like the activity for the activity and not the gender role that is often placed behind it.

It’s all about choice. It makes me think of women who decide to take time off of work to stay at home and/or raise kids. People might think this is harmful to all the work feminism has done to help women gain equality in the workplace and elsewhere, but this isn’t the case at all. If a woman wants to work, I want her to have every opportunity a man has to get to the place she wants to be. And if a woman wants to stay home with her kids, I want her to be able to choose to do that with her life too. And just like sewing…it would be different if I thought a woman should stay at home or if I thought it was out of place for men to do so or to want to.

Don’t let gender roles stop you from doing things that aren’t traditionally feminine. But don’t let them stop you from doing things that are, either.

On another note, since I’ve started sewing, I’ve found some really cool crafting communities…places where people share patterns, ideas, projects they’ve completed, etc. Check them out if you’re interested!

I’m Becca. I’m 22 and I have a little sister…she’s 3 and a half years younger than me, and it’s been really cool to watch her grow up. I’m just older than her enough to notice the phases she’s going through because she starts them just a little bit after I have. I’ve introduced her to non-mainstream music and given her advice on all kinds of stuff. One time, she put me on the phone with a friend of hers who was having relationship problems and I shared some of the wisdom I’d gained in the three years since I was their age. I realized my sister’s friend was probably not the only girl without her own big sister, and that lots of girls out there could probably use some of the same insight, understanding, and inspiration.

The articles below this post were all in the first issue of The Big Sister. The women and men who submitted the content all had things to say that they would have liked to have heard a few years ago…things they wish their big sisters or brothers had told them. We might not agree with each other on all of the issues, but we do agree that there needs to be more open communication about them, and that young women (and men) should have a place where they can be exposed to ideas about gender issues and sexual health, ask questions, and get support.

I hope you enjoy these articles and feel comfortable commenting, questioning, and submitting more.

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