The Control of Female Sexuality

The Control of Female Sexuality The sexual revolution opened the way for greater expression and practise of female sexuality, at least in Western cultures. However, society has historically and still does exert control over female sexuality. This control, in fact, underlies mens general control of women in society. Such control is accomplished through gender definition and social pressure, and economic and political oppression. First, women are conditioned to certain, often oppressive, gender roles by hegemonically male society. Connell (1995) first introduced the term ‘hegemonic masculinity’ as a description of the most valued definition of manhood in a given society. He held that whilst in any society there are many possible types of masculinity, only a few will be the most valued or ideal (Connell, 1995). Society then provides power and benefit to males fitting in this hegemonic definition, establishing their dominance in relation to what is considered feminine and in relation to other, less ideal masculinities. As such, hegemonic masculinity becomes justification for both the hegemonically masculine man’s domination of women and over other men (Cohn and Weber, 1999). For example, Butler (1990) found that most women are trained from early childhood that caring for a home and family are appropriate womens activities. She describes how little girls are given dolls and encouraged to nurture, versus little boys who are given blocks and encouraged to build things. Certain behaviours are also considered acceptable for girls but not boys, and vice versa. Girls are allowed to cry and be more emotionally expressive in their gender roles. Boys are allowed to be more aggressive and assertive (Butler, 1990). In terms of female sexuality, girls are often taught to be little ladies, who do not spread their legs whilst wearing a dress or express their sexuality. Female sexuality is presented as something to be guarded, and young women are encouraged to be good girls. Such gender roles are reinforced by various authority figures, such as teachers and parents. Barnes (2003) finds social workers, for example, will often assume a â€Å"disciplinary gaze† to c ommunicate their understandings of appropriate behaviour for women, typically reinforcing traditional gender roles (149). Gender roles tend to be more strongly reinforced and womens sexuality typically more constrained when opportunities for women outside the home expand. For example, during World War II, when many women occupied jobs traditionally held by men, there is strong reference in the media regarding chaste women as patriotic (Hegarty, 1998). Promiscious female sexuality became a prime target during wartime (Hegarty 1998, 115). Acceptable male behaviour of the same period, however, included drinking, gambling, fighting, and picking up women (Hegarty, 1998, 121). Hegarty (1998) describes in society how the virtuous wife / mother and virginial daughter, devoted to domestic pursuits in their place the home is often presented as a symbolic measure of social stability (113). Sexually open women, in contrast, are considered deviant and refered to by negative language such as slut, whore, and prostitute. There are few negative words in the English language that refer to a sexually open man. Male virgins are often a subject of ridicule in movies and television, whilst promiscious women have historically been portrayed in the media and in culture as destructive to individuals and society, and as spreaders of venereal disease (Hegarty, 1998). These gender roles, embedded in Western society and reinforced through family, authority figures, and the media, create social pressures that exert control over womens sexual activity. Whilst there has certainly been a relaxation of attitudes towards sex in recent decades, women are still expected to exert more restraint and control than men regarding their sexuality and sexual practices, and are more likely to be judged or condemned for sexual openness. Economic and political oppression is another way that female sexuality is controlled. In some cultures and countries, this is through political legislation or religious rules. For example, women in many Arab countries, such as Saudia Arabia, are not legally allowed to vote, drive cars, or own property (Berk, 1985). Religious restrictions in some Muslim countries even prevent women from wearing anything but a very loose garment or from uncovering their heads in public, lest they entice a man. This strongly portrays such reaction from men to womens appearance as the womans fault. Such practice occurs in Western society to a lesser extent, although not regluated by legislation. Victims of rape, for example, are often portrayed as enticingly dressed or loose in their sexual expressions as justification for such crimes (Butler, 1990). A number of countries with strong religious foundations for their governments also directly legislate birth control and abortions, thereby exerting political control over female sexuality. Many countries with Muslim or Catholic foundations to their government restrict the use of birth control and do not allow abortions for any reason (Butler, 1990). As such, these governments control female sexuality, as women must then be concerned regarding unwanted pregnancy, often curtailing their sexual activity. Men obviously do not face such issues, and are therefore less curtailed by such laws (Butler, 1990). Economically, unequal vocational opportunities and a social responsibility for housework place many women in a dependent state on the men in their lives. A woman with small children and little work experience, for example, is in a much more difficult economic condition to leave her husband or make decisions contrary to his wishes (Berk, 1985). Baxter (2001), in review of multiple studies on gender and housework , concludes â€Å"women do a much larger proportion of child care and routine indoor housework tasks than men, regardless of marital status,† educational attainment, or vocational duties (19). Such duties leave them in an economically dependent state, where their sexual wishes are often subverted to accomodate the men on whom they depend (Oakley, 1974). Acceptable expression of sexuality, therefore, becomes one that is either controlled by or designed to serve men (Butler, 1990). For example, pictures of attractive women provacatively dressed in popular magazines serve as both a reinforcement to women that their attractiveness to men is of prime importance, and provide men with stimulating pictures. Hawkesworth (1997) contends that many men would be happy to look at such pictures, but not for their wives or daughters to dress or portray themselves as such in public. As such, women are constrained to dress or behave a certain way at the bidding of men, not as a direct expression of their own wants or desires (Hawkesworth, 1997) Such social pressure, political and economic oppression allow not only control of womens sexuality, but of a more general control of women by men in society. As social systems were typically designed by men and with their best interests in mind (such as the wife staying home to serve her husband, whilst he participates in career and other interests and even equally employed women retaining responsiblity for many hours of unpaid household labour each week), the control of women and keeping of them in their place becomes a need in regard to stability (Oakely, 1974, Hegarty, 1998). Expressions of women that conflict with such traditional power relationships, including that of female sexuality, therefore threaten both the fabric of society and the power position of men within it. REFERENCES Barnes, A. 2003. Social Work, Young Women, and Femininity. Affilia, Vol. 18, No. 2, Summer 2003, pp. 148-164. Baxter, J. 2001. Marital status and the division of household labour. Family Matters, Vol. 58, Autumn 2001, pp. 16-21. Berk, S. F. 1985. The Gender Factory. Plenum: New York. Butler, J. 1990. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. Routledge: London. Cohn, C., Weber, C. 1999. Missions, Men and Masculinities. International Feminist Journal of Politics, 1999, pp. 460-475. Connell, R. 1995. Masculinities. Polity Press: Cambridge. Hawkesworth, M. 1997. Confounding Gender. Signs, Vol. 22, No. 3, Spring 1997, pp. 649-685. Hegarty, M. 1998. Patriot or prostitute? Sexual discourses, print media, and American women during World War II. Journal of Womens History, Vol. 10, No. 2, Summer 1998, pp. 112-36. Oakley, A. 1974. Housewife. Pantheon: London.

Never Back Down Review Essay -- Movies Film

Never Back Down Review A) Event Synopsis and Theme 1. The film opens in the middle of a high-school football game, with Jake Tyler helping his team to win. Frustrated, one of the players from the opposing team taunts him about the death of his father from drunk driving. Known for his hot temper, Jake immediately begins a brawl with the opposing player. The brawl is captured on the crowd's mobile phones and personal video cameras, and soon is downloaded to the internet. This is in fact the last game Jake will play at this high school as he and his family is moving to Orlando, Florida. His younger brother, Charlie (Wyatt Smith), has received a tennis scholarship at a school there. His mother (Leslie Hope) is upset that Jake often seems to be fighting and getting into trouble, but despite this, Jake and Charlie are close. At his new school, Jake has a hard time fitting in. He catches the eye of a pretty classmate named Baja Miller (Amber Heard) who seems to flirt with him. Later, he spots a fight going on campus where he sees a young man getting beaten. Although this is actually a street kickboxing match, Jake mistakes this as bullying, and attempts to defend the man. He is surprised when everyone, including the young man, tells Jake to leave. In school the next day, the young man introduces himself to Jake as Max Cooperman (Evan Peters). He tells Jake that there are videos on the internet of Jake's football brawl, gaining him a positive reputation on campus. He offers Jake a chance to learn mixed martial arts with his teacher, but Jake declines. Baja comes by and invites him to a party. At the party, held at a mansion, he meets the host, Ryan McCarthy (Cam Gigandet), who has seen the internet footage, challenges Jake to a fi... ...we were enjoying it. We sat in the best seat and no annoying sound. F) Most Memorable Moment 1. The last fight impressed me most. A lot of scene flashed in Jake’s head and he use all his techniques to knock down Ryan. 2. The music delivered a victory-like feeling, the flashing scene of his life and the slow motion were responsible for this affecting moment. 3. I and my friend nearly yelled out when Jake finally wins. G) Audience / Personal Response 1. My friend, who likes talking while we are watching movie, seldom makes noise in this film. 2. I would recommend this film to young male. There’s really a lot of muddled commentary to be found here. Explorations of class structure and bored teenage anomie are attempted in Never Back Down, but who wants their social critique served with a garnish of male anguish? You do? Okay, well you’ll like the film then.

Play and sportsmanship Essay

In my opinion a sport in which levels of fair play and sportsmanship have totally been abandoned is American Football. With the amount of spectators the game gets, the coaches and chairpersons of the clubs like to put out their best players every game. Regardless of their physical health. There are countless times that players have been seen to go off with horrific groin strains and shoulder injuries, but the medical staff and coaches put them right back onto the pitch doped up with huge amounts of pain killers and drugs that will affect their performance. If a player of a sport that has the nature of American football, (being very physical and tough) goes on the pitch to play hyped up on pain killers then are clearly going to perform differently to that of a player who plays with spirit and strength. The other thing about this sport is the way in which each team is always reading the lips of the other teams coach to see what their next move is about to be. Surely if the oppositions know each others moves all the time then the fairness of the sport is lost. Today’s top athletes all use dietitions, health advisors and personal trainers to become the best at their particular sport. They all use performance enhancing techniques to improve their sporting ability and performance in competition. But is this against the Sportsmanship/Gamesmanship theory? With the production of illegal performance enhancing dugs being more and more common in the sporting environment of today , the governing bodies for the particular sports are having more and more trouble detecting whether athletes have used illegal stimulants to help them to train. To conclude. In today’s sporting world. Nations will use sport as a platform for political power. This can sometimes lead to sportsmanship being thrown aside and made way for other styles of gaming like gamesmanship. In my own opinion sportsmanship is still strong in many of today’s sports and athlete’s, but if the values of sportsmanship are not upheld, by the governing bodies of the sport, such as the FA then the sport is likely to become worse to be a spectator of and less fair to play in. If the bodies who govern the game do not maintain strong levels of justice and fair play within their own rulings then players will become less sportsmanship and the levels of the sports fair play will drop.

Descartes s Theory Of Skepticism And The Cogito - 1469 Words

Descartes’s Project Rene Descartes was a philosopher that lived from 1596 to1650. In Meditations of First Philosophy, Descartes leaves the reader with two main themes: skepticism and the cogito. In this paper, I will be examining Descartes’s writings. Mainly, what Descartes’s project consisted of, skepticism, the arguments he gave as means to his project, and the cogito. In doing so I will explain how he left the reader with the two important philosophical notions of skepticism and cogito. The first thing that we will discuss is the project the Descartes assigns himself in the first meditation. Descartes has a realization that many of the things that he accepted as truths in his past have actually turned out to be false. This realization†¦show more content†¦Skeptical arguments contain two components: a skeptical hypothesis and an argument that incorporates the skeptical hypothesis. A skeptical hypothesis is a reasonably possible situation where everything appears precisely as it now appears but all of the beliefs that are based on the appearances are incorrect. For example, all of the people that think that they exist could, in fact, be nothing more than a part of a giants dream of tiny aunt like representations of himself and his people. Skeptical arguments are of the following format: (1) if I know that I am writing this paper, then I can know that I am not just a manifestation in a giant’s dream. (2) I cannot know that I am not just a manifestation in a giant’s dream. (3) Therefore, I don’t know that I am writing this paper. Granted that, we now have a better understanding of skepticism and skeptical arguments, we may examine Descartes arguments used to find reasonable doubt. The argument Descartes gives is the untrustworthiness argument. This argument states, that human senses can sometimes be deceiving and if human senses may sometimes be deceiving, then maybe they are always deceiving and if they are, humans should doubt their senses. This argument is not very strong and is self-defeating. Even Descartes voices objections to it in his writings. The second argument, is the dream argument and provides better circumstances to doubt all that is reasonable to doubt than theShow MoreRelatedDescartes Vs. Descartes s Theory Of Certainty1852 Words   |  8 Pagesof the greatest philosophers in history, Renà © Descartes tackles the daunting task of ensuring what is truly certain in life using a systemic thinking process known as methodological doubt in his Meditations on First Philosophy. In order to determine what is absolutely certain, Descartes concludes that the foundation which even reality sits upon is not firm since most of what contributed to its certainty is based on sensory perception. 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