By Cassidy Williams
Recently, I’ve been seeing a lot of pro-feminist videos and articles being shared on Facebook. As a feminist myself, I am pleased to see many girls taking up the fight for gender equality. Sexism is alive more than ever.
Just last week I got into an argument with my forty-something male co-worker when he told me that as I get older I will only look at men as a paycheck. The thought of me being more successful than my future husband seemed implausible to him. However, I think the reason guys have a problem accepting feminism is that a lot of it just doesn’t make sense.
It’s wrong when Go-Daddy or other advertisers use attractive women as “sex objects”, but nobody seems to mind when a guy has his shirt off in a Calvin Klein ad.
The bottom line is sex sells.
If a woman wants to use the body she’s worked hard for to persuade you to buy some clothes, why do we care? Many people claim pictures of models give girls low self-esteem and can lead to eating disorders and other problems. However, people have failed to realize this is a societal problem, not a female one. Just like girls feel pressure to live up to the perfect images in magazines so do a lot of men.
Guys face a lot of the same body image issues as girls; it just isn’t socially acceptable for them to talk about it.
Women, just like men, judge the opposite sex based on their appearance. For example, plenty of women went to see the movie Magic Mike to watch a bunch of perfectly toned men with their shirts off. If a similar movie was made about female strippers it probably would have been criticized as sexist. It’s a blatant double standard that gives feminism a bad reputation.
For some reason, many feminists have decided men are to blame for society’s obsession with body image and sex. Men are not to blame. All of us, men and women alike, judge people by their appearance and all of us are self-conscious about our bodies.
The only difference is that men are allowed to be sexy but not allowed to self-conscious, while all women are assumed to be self-conscious and criticized if sexy. In short, somehow “all women are beautiful” but men need to look like Channing Tatum. We need to give guys a break.
Just because a guy enjoys watching the Victoria Secret fashion show or would prefer to have a fit and toned girlfriend doesn’t make him a sexist, it makes him human. It also doesn’t make you less of a woman if you want to lose weight or wear a hot dress to impress a man.
The problem with society today is not that men are trying to make women sex objects through the media; the problem is somehow feminists are making girls feel guilty about being sexy. For some reason girls feel like they will be less sexy if they are intelligent, and that they will be seen as less intelligent if they are sexy. Women are just as much a part of this problem as men.
Girls call other girls “sluts” and “whores” on a daily basis and often look down on other girls who simply own their sexuality. There is nothing wrong with being a sexy woman.
Of course, a woman is more than just her body, but there is nothing wrong with her if she chooses to flaunt it.
The Spread 