It’s hard to deny that the idea of female empowerment is trendy. Everything from Emma Watson’s kick-ass speech on feminism last week, to the increasing number of men joining the feminist movement, send the message to us that the time to bridge the gap between the sexes is now. Not only do we still have the issue of the prevalence of objectifying images of woman in the mainstream media, but also that we are unable to distinguish the difference between what truly is empowering for women and what is actually undermining us.
Perhaps the original pop culture advocate for girl power is Sex and the City’s Samantha Jones, who boasts a lengthy sexual resume and intolerance for men who refuse to meet her many needs. Samantha refers to herself as a “try-sexual”: a term that embodies her appetite for new experiences and no refrains. Samantha’s character is also the perfect example of pop culture’s response to its ambiguity about the conflicting movements happening throughout our culture. Not only does she take pride in her success at not only beating men at their own game, but believes this is the key to empowering women as well. This attitude, one that I without a doubt have seen increasing, is a response to the mixed messages we receive from the media: we are expected to not only be sexually desirable objects to men, but also to be empowered by it. This mindset, one that is very much similar to Samantha Jones’s character, is doing the exact opposite of what it intends though. By being unable to distinguish between these two images in the mainstream media, we allow the idea that they can, in fact, coexist to undermine the efforts to actually empower women.
As we are currently walking the line of both championing the feminist movement and indulging in increasingly objectifying images of women in music videos and throughout pop culture, the response several pop culture icons and outlets have adopted is one similar to the embodiment of Samantha’s character. We often strive to assume an attitude like Samantha’s, one of nonchalance towards sexual experiences and being empowered by it. By doing so, we are able to gives off the illusion that we are not only stronger than the objectification of women that exists in popular culture, but that by encouraging it in a way, we are actually also advocating for the feminism efforts that are occurring in conjunction with the way women are objectified in pop culture.
As collegiettes, it is inevitable that we will both absorb and reaffirm the images and messages we receive from the media. We are faced with the struggle of wanting to emulate this attitude of nonchalance and appetite for new experiences, and on the other becoming too heavily influenced by a culture that increasingly denies the importance of actual intimacy in our lives. Feminism, by definition, is a movement to achieve equality of the sexes, not to bash men or to try and beat them at their own game.