Female Sexuality in the Media: an Introduction

I want to lay the groundwork here, for what will be a multipart blog series about women in the media. 

I identify as a feminist. I'm going to start with a few definitions so I can be transparent about my worldview when it comes to feminism. My definition of feminism is a person on any part of the gender spectrum, who believes in deconstructing patriarchy. I see patriarchy, as bell hooks describes as

"a political-social system that

insists that males are inherently dominating, 

superior to everything and everyone deemed 

weak, especially females, and endowed with the 

right to dominate and rule over the weak and to 

maintain that dominance through various forms 

of psychological terrorism and violence"

(great article by bell hooks here)

This is of course manifest in overt and subtle ways, from rape for example, to gender roles that emphasize 'femininity' as weakness. This elitists mentality/societal group think (which I think is a little easier to see than calling it a system) sets what is acceptable for all groups and in oppressive to all in its rigidity of roles and 'appropriate behaviors'. In other words, it emphasizes that men are strong thus elite, thus necessarily run the world'. It is the notion historically fought, and small battles have definitely been won. 

One of the pieces of that oppression that I am musing over is the notion of female sexuality. I read a great article that talks about the difference between sexual repression and sexual exploitation. When many people speak and write about feminism and sexuality ONE of these two concepts are discussed. But I believe there is a ton of ambivalence amongst women about the intersection of the two, that leads to oppositional views of feminism, that are complex and difficult to place in a particular value system. This is where Beyoncé comes in. 

There is ton of chatter in the internet space about whether Beyoncé is a feminist. Google Beyonce feminist and you will get pages of hits. I have read many a blog on the topic and decided to write because I am truly ambivalent about her. Here are some things I have questioned based on these debates:

1. is a woman calls herself a feminist, is she simply because she says she is?

2. is Beyoncé only being judged anti-feminist because she is a black woman?

3. when does a women go from being objectified to empowered

4. what role does agency play in liberating women who are participating in classically exploitative activities 

5. what IS the difference between self-objectification and sexual liberation

6. is sexual expression for the male gaze ever a 'real choice' (comparing the question of whether or not other expressions like Muslim women donning of hijab etc is ever a 'real choice') 

I plan to break my thoughts up on these topics into several blog posts and will come back and add links to the posts. In the meantime please comment on what your answers to these questions are, and I hope we can have a mature honest discussion about it. All I ask is that your argument doesn't revolve around someone being "a hater" and that we can discuss the topic from the complicated space it exists in. 

Some opening thoughts. Beyoncé to me is a prototype in this whole discussion, a metaphor so to speak. It actually doesn't matter to this discussion, what she as an individual says or does. She represents a woman owning (literally$$$) her sexuality, identifying with feminism, living a life she believes she chooses, like many of us women living in societies with "modern" legislation regarding the rights of women. I say this because many women identify with her and other women like Rihanna, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga etc. I believe the 'outrage' against Beyonce are not usually personal but are grappling with some hard modern day feminist questions. Her actions also, in and of themselves are not unique to her. I believe the outrage is more towards the implications that her actions (and maaaany other women's) are reflections of sexual exploitation. If she puts her own face on the soda can, is that different from a male dominated industry putting another woman's face on a beer ad? When a woman's actions reflect acts of objectification it makes sense to me that some women would be troubled. But the context is different. And thats what I want to think and talk about. I don't think the answers to any of these questions are straight forward. Comments welcomed but have respect. If anyone knows of any blogs that have already eloquently answered these questions please comment the links. Thanks for reading and helping me figure some of this stuff out.