Floozy or Feminist?
Image source: DDC Works
Roskilde University: Cultural Encounters Spring Project. 2017
Written by Emily Page, Ida Stjerne, Jessica Silverio Rasmussen and Luna Stjerneby
Student numbers: 61689, 49275, 61497, 52263
Characters: 123,291
Supervisor: Zoran Lee Pecic
Abstract
Kvindekroppen, hvordan den bliver brugt, hvordan den bliver fremstillet og hvad den har på, er en konstant kilde til debat og diskussion i den offentlige debat i vestlige samfund. Begrebet empowerment bliver brugt bredt i forskellige kontekster og varierende formål. Der er stor diskussion om hvad empowerment begrebet indebærer, i særdeleshed når det vedrører kvinder der i kampen om frigørelse bruger visuelle medier til at udtrykke deres seksualitet og kroppe. Dette projekt tager udgangspunkt i de tre amerikanske berømtheder Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé og Amy Schumers fremstilling af deres kroppe i tre forskellige billeder, og analyserer hvilke tematikker der er på spil både i billederne fra kvinderne, og i de reaktioner billederne har skabt på sociale medier. Projektets teoretiske udgangspunkt er afgrænset til de tre hovedbegreber empowerment, objektificering og postfeminisme som skaber en ramme for at forstå de forskellige koncepter, der er i spil i analyseringen af billederne og udtalelserne fra kvinderne og i kommentarerne. Projektet konkluderer, på baggrund af den teoretiske ramme, at disse tre cases, i særdeleshed i reaktionerne, potentielt indikerer negative strukturer, der bliver reproduceret i relation til hvordan kvinder skal agere offentligt i forhold til deres kroppe og seksualitet. Skønt der er en forståelse af at kvinder, på sin vis, selv-objektificere dem selv gennem en reproduktion af patriarkalske strukturer, forholder projektet sig kritisk til dette og finder at der i denne forståelse ligger undertrykkende strukturer, der konstant irettesætter kvinder og videre bidrager til en begrænsning af kvinders selvudfoldelse og autonomi over egen krop.
2 Table of contents Abstract 2 Introduction 4 Problem Area 5 Problem formulation 6 Questions 7 Theoretical Framework: Postfeminism, Empowerment and Objectification 7 Postfeminism 7 Empowerment 11 Objectification 14 The Male Gaze 18 Methodological Considerations 20
Analysis 24 Case 1: Amy Schumer 24 Amy Schumer and Empowerment 25 Amy Schumer and Objectification 28 Amy Schumer and Postfeminism 29 Case 2: Kim Kardashian 31 Kim Kardashian and Empowerment 32 Kim Kardashian and Objectification 34 Kim Kardashian and Postfeminism 35 Case 3: Beyoncé 38 Beyoncé and Empowerment 39 Beyoncé and Objectification 40 Beyoncé and Postfeminism 42 Analysis Sum Up 45 Discussion 45 Great (S)expectations 45 Me, Myself, and I 47 ‘To Empower or Not to Empower? That is the Question’ 48 So, Women Can’t Win? 50 But Then, What Now? Give up and Go Home? 52 Conclusion 53 Bibliography 56
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Introduction
The sexualised female body continues to be a site of contest in contemporary feminist debate and in wider public discourse. Due to differences in perspectives on whether the naked female body is empowering or in fact objectifying, many women and feminists disagree on whether one can speak of “sexual empowerment” as a collective gain or loss for the feminist fight. While some state that the appearance of the sexy naked female body in pop culture is good, as it is liberating and empowering, others consider this a trend of sexualising the female body and as something that objectifies women, as it regards the female body as an object of lust, leading to what is often perceived as an objectification and disempowerment of women and their agency. On the basis of this discussion, this project aims to investigate how particular representations of the sexual female body, through images on social media and in women’s magazines, are perceived and discussed in the public debate, and further what these perceptions may express in a broader social context. The aim is to create an understanding of how the female body appears to be continuously torn within the feminist debate when it comes to the entanglement between the subjects of objectification and sexualisation opposed to empowerment and individualism. The theoretical framework of this project will therefore be based on three core concepts, each of which will be used to analyse the narratives that are at play, when it comes to the sexual female body. These concepts are postfeminism, objectification, and empowerment. To illustrate how each of these concepts come into play and how they are entangled with one another, we have chosen to use images of three female American celebrities as case examples for different representations of the female body in contemporary pop culture, which we found have been heavily debated in the media. Each of these women have been outspoken about feminist issues, and have to various degrees been identified as feminist pop culture icons. The chosen cases are pictures of Kim Kardashian, Beyoncé, and Amy Schumer, which all, in some way or another, are perceived as contemporary feminist influencers in the media. In the Analysis chapter we will examine how the chosen images, as individual acts of empowerment, are interpreted and perceived by the viewer. By applying the theoretical framework we aim to gain an understanding of how these images, and the reactions to them, could express sociocultural structures and reproductions. Our analytical findings will be
4 critically discussed within the Discussion chapter where we will address the question of whether women’s sexual expression is a matter of individual choice and empowerment, or if it is in fact reproducing oppressive structures conditioned within a society that sexualises and objectifies women.
Problem Area
While the female body has long been a subject of discussion within the feminist debate and within a larger sociocultural context, the contemporary discussion is largely shaped by the diverse representations and ideologies of women on social media. When regarding our contemporary reality it appears that, due to the possibilities of social media platforms, feminist activism has become easier than ever, enabling people to engage in the public discourse on feminism. This can be seen in regards to feminist influencers such as Beyoncé and Amy Schumer, who advocate for women’s rights and fight against structural sexism in their professional lives, art and political work (Blair, 2016; Maitlis, 2016). In a postfeminist context, this movement is similarly described as a shift from earlier representational practices of feminism, as it appears that femininity today is defined as a bodily property rather than a social, structural or psychological one (Gill, 2007: 148). This “embodied femininity”, that is characteristic of postfeminism (ibid), is to a large extent represented on social media, where the use of visual platforms such as the Instagram and Twitter enable women to share, express and communicate their individual ideologies and representations at a global level. In this way, Instagram and other social media platforms create a wide range of opportunities when it comes to the communication of feminist ideas and representations. This blooming of present day feminism has, for instance in the Danish public debate, raised the question of whether or not a “fourth wave” of feminism is arising. This “fourth wave” term emerged in an interview where Danish politician Nikita Klæstrup joined forces with Ekaterina Krarup Andersen and Louise “Twerk Queen” Kjølsen, to put into words and pictures how the latest form of feminism uses “sexuality as a weapon” in the gender fight (Københavns Biblioteker, 2017). Together these women have become a major subject of debate in the Danish media, due to their sexual appearances and liberal attitudes towards feminism, to which journalist Mette Fugl has remarked, "(...) Gangbangs and ass-shaking is not the way to go for a significant and inclusive women's fight" (ibid). The responses to the
5 fourth wave debate have drawn our attention to the relationship between feminism and public sexuality, regarding whether or not it is truly beneficial to view feminism and nudity as an element of empowerment, which pushes for gender equality, or if these two things stand in opposition to one another? However, the term “fourth wave feminism” is still a subject of debate and is yet to be defined or confirmed by the current and following generation, therefore we have chosen to use the concept of postfeminism, as we find that the values within the postfeminist sensibility are in many ways in line with the values that are depicted in the so- called “fourth wave”. In the following chapter we will further elaborate on the relevance of ‘postfeminism’ in connection to our chosen field of research. The general discourse regarding women’s bodies in the media appears to be torn between the opposing arguments of empowerment and objectification. We see that when a woman (e.g. Beyoncé), claims feminism and simultaneously dresses sexy and shows her body, a dilemma appears within the feminist debate. We have encountered feminists in our everyday lives who believe that constantly presenting your body in a sexual manner sabotages the feminist struggle, but we also encounter feminist who think that sexuality can be empowering and the individual woman should wear whatever she likes. This disagreement sparked our interest and made us want to take a closer consider the foundation of the discourse to gain an understanding of the different values which manifest themselves within the opposing views. Because we as four rather different women are divided in our opinions on this particular subject, we believe it would provide a more nuanced approach to the discussion than if we all agreed in advance. The analysis is executed with the purpose of being as objective as possible, however we acknowledge that it is not possible for us to be fully objective because we, as humans, analyse through our own individual interpretations.
Problem formulation
With point of departure in the visual representation of Schumer, Kardashian, and Beyoncé, how can we understand the role of empowerment as represented through the reactions to these three particular images? Furthermore, drawing on theory such as empowerment, objectification and the male gaze, how does the individual act of empowerment, expressed through these nude/semi-nude pictures, situate itself within a society where women’s bodies are sexualised?
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Questions
● How does sexual empowerment manifest itself within a postfeminist sensibility?
● How do the responses to these images reflect the contemporary discourse on female sexuality and empowerment?
Theoretical Framework: Postfeminism, Empowerment and Objectification
Postfeminism
Postfeminism is a term which has many different definitions and interpretations. The term was coined in the 1980s to describe a backlash against Second Wave feminism and is often used as a synonym to Third Wave feminism (Gill & Scharff, 2011). Postfeminism is being used in four different ways according to Professor of Social and Cultural Analysis Rosalind Gill (City, University of London, 2017) and lecturer in Culture, Media and Creative Industries Sarah Scharff (King’s College London, 2015). It can be interpreted as a break within feminism where instead of viewing feminism as mainly revolving around white middle-class women (which characterises the second wave feminism) it has now matured into intersectional feminism which deals with the many different factors that play important interrelated roles in understanding the nuances and layers of gender inequality such as race, class and sexuality (ibid). Postfeminism is also used to refer to feminism as something that has passed, hence interpreting the word “post” rather literally. This interpretation is often seen in the popular media’s feminist discourse and treats feminism as something which is no longer relevant in the same way as in earlier generations. Feminists have expressed their concern with this particular interpretation of Postfeminism as it sabotages the important social struggles feminism fights against and instead
7 focus on the exposure and sexualisation of female bodies for men’s entertainment (ibid). This leads to a third way of interpreting the notion; as a backlash against feminism that treats feminism as a battle that is already won, hence claiming that gender equality has been achieved. This is the same view which depicts political correctness as a kind of tyranny in which the white man is in reality the actual victim and that hegemonic masculinity is in danger of collapsing. Furthermore, what also identifies postfeminist culture is the centralisation of individuality and “an entanglement which facilitates both a doing and undoing of feminism” where it is acknowledged, but also rejected (ibid, 2011: 4). This double entanglement can be identified in the particular kinds of individual freedom and empowerment women today are offered instead of actual political and feminist change. The femininities which became popular in the third wave of feminism were the ones overtly criticised by the second wave: “In third-wave feminism, for example, high heels, low-cut, revealing clothing, and retro- lingerie – gear widely criticised by second-wavers – are ‘in’. The stay-at-home mum who prioritises family over career, or the super-sexual woman who wears revealing clothing that sexualises the female body, is newly fashionable” (ibid, 2011: 120). These styles were viewed by the second wave as sexualising women’s bodies and therefore taking part in oppressing them. The rhetoric of postfeminism and third wave feminism offers a “freedom” to women, a freedom to dress sexy and to embrace that feminine sexual aspect of their womanhood. Gill and Scharff suggest that femininity has become increasingly about “bodily property” which is referred to as a shift from objectification to subjectification in the way women (though not all women) are represented: “(...) an emphasis upon self-surveillance, monitoring and discipline; a focus upon individualism, choice and empowerment; the dominance of a ‘makeover paradigm’; a resurgence of ideas of natural sexual difference; the marked ‘resexualisation’ of women’s bodies; and an emphasis upon consumerism and the commodification of difference” (ibid, 2011: 4). After rejecting the sexualisation of women in the second wave, sexuality has made a strong comeback in the third wave and postfeminism, with the message that sexuality can be empowering and that it is okay for women to like makeup and revealing clothes because it is their own individual choice.
In order to fully comprehend how postfeminism came about it is relevant to mention the
8 feminist sex wars of the 1980s. Lecturer in sociology at Western State Colorado University Jess Butler (Academia, 2017), explained in For White Girls Only? Postfeminism and the Politics of Inclusion (2013) that the main focus of the feminist sex wars was on the issue of pornography which created a division within feminist society, a division which consisted of the feminists who believed in the need to protect women from sexual objectification while other feminists believed in the importance of sexual liberation for women (anti-sex vs. pro-sex). A key argument for the “protection” of women was made by feminist legal scholar Catherine MacKinnon (1987) (who will function as one of the key theorists in our theoretical framework) that women are depicted and constructed as objects for the pleasure of men from the very beginning, which means that a call for sexual freedom makes women’s objectification invisible, hence naturalising their oppression. In this way sexual liberation is viewed as an insufficient and dangerous solution to problems originating from male supremacy. In short, MacKinnon argues that as long as women are looked upon and defined as sexual objects, the notion of sexual freedom is a joke (Butler, 2013). The idea that women need to be protected against objectification ignited one of the main critiques the third wave has against the second wave. In the early 1990s, feminists began criticising the idea that women needed to be protected, and female sexuality rejected, and argued that in order to successfully complete the sexual revolution women ought to be allowed to become sexually liberated in the same way men are. These feminists were defined as “sexpositive” and concerned themselves with the way objectification constrains a woman’s sexual agency, disabling her from exploring her own sexuality. According to these feminists, the internalised victimisation which coexists with the sensory rejection of female sexuality will only further the idea of women as sexual objects, and therefore feminists should focus on freedom and rights (ibid). Butler further explains the problematic nature of the sex wars and “mainstream” feminists depicting sex as either being liberating or oppressive, but most importantly the continuing contribution to the ongoing tendency of ignoring the experiences of women of colour - something which is also an unfortunate factor of postfeminism as it too continues to emphasise the experiences of privileged, white, heterosexual, middle-class women.
It is important to distinguish between postfeminism and third wave feminism for the purpose of this project. We define postfeminism as a spectrum of contemporary cultural discourses and as a sort of “sensibility”, as Gill (2007: 2) calls it, consisting of several interrelated themes, and third wave feminism as a somewhat political movement (ibid). The third wave was created as a
9 more welcoming space which was more inclusive, especially regarding class and racial diversity, compared to the first and second wave. The goal was to involve young women and allow them to define feminism for themselves.
Postfeminist media culture
In Rosalind Gill’s article Postfeminist media culture: elements of a sensibility (2007), she writes: “One of the most striking aspects of postfeminist media culture is its obsessional preoccupation with the body” (Gill, 2007: 6). The extreme focus on body and sexuality is depicted as the core of femininity by today’s media. Instead of defining motherhood, caring and nurturing as the key factors of femininity, it has now become the “sexy body” which is central to conventional femininity. Gill argues that a woman’s body is presented as her source of power while she simultaneously has to constantly monitor, discipline, surveil and remodel her body to fit the shifting trends and judgements of female attractiveness. Women’s bodies are constantly being scrutinised and watched closely and are forever at risk of failing to meet the many demands that society and media set. This becomes apparent when one looks at society’s obsession with celebrities, particularly female celebrities, when talking about body surveillance. Female celebrities’ appearances are constantly being debated, which one can see in the endless number of magazines and websites that photograph and comment on everything from women’s visible panty lines to armpit hair, but also, in particular, on women’s weight. In postfeminist media culture the female body can be viewed as a window to the individual woman’s interior life: “(...) when Bridget Jones smokes 40 cigarettes a day or consumes 'excessive' calories we are invited to read this in psychological terms as indicative of her emotional breakdown. A sleek, toned, controlled figure is today normatively essential for portraying success” (Gill, 2007: 7). In this way the female body is depicted as being in direct correlation with how the woman’s mental health is, however it has also been acknowledged that no matter what a female body looks like it may have little to do with how the woman is feeling. The successful female body, in this context, is therefore beautiful and self-confident despite however hurt the woman may actually feel inside, as seen in the overwhelming focus on Jennifer Aniston after her breakup with Brad Pitt where the media called her ‘triumphant’ because of her beautiful and polished exterior the first time she appeared in public after the breakup, however there was not the same attention on Pitt (ibid).
10 Sexualisation of girls and women in media
Rosalind Gill further discusses sexualisation in the sense of the persistently sexual and erotic media portrayal of girls’ and women’s bodies. Professional women such as news anchors, politicians and foreign correspondents are frequently commented upon sexually, and rape stories are often produced as entertainment instead of devastating news. The discourse of sexualisation is also articulated differently in men’s magazines compared with women’s magazines: “In the 'lad mags' sex is discussed through a vocabulary of youthful, unselfconscious pleasure- seeking, whilst in magazines targeted at teenage girls and young women it is constructed as something requiring constant attention, discipline, self-surveillance and emotional labour” (Gill, 2007: 8). The relationship to sex is taught differently for boys and girls, and girls grow up to realise that they themselves are responsible for making themselves into heterosexual and desirable subjects while also pleasing men sexually and protecting themselves against sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Furthermore, women become the monitors of all emotional and sexual relationships while also having to take care of their own sexual reputation as well as men’s self-esteem (ibid). Men, on the other hand, are complimented for their hedonism and that they simply want casual sex. Gill explains that in magazines produced for straight women, men are depicted as vulnerable and complex beings, however in the magazines targeted at straight men, women are portrayed as simple beings who only talk about their sexual fantasies, body parts and dirty secrets.
Empowerment
The notion of empowerment is central to postfeminism, and it is frequently raised and problematised in postfeminist debates. Our analysis will draw from the arguments presented by various scholars (Gavey, 2012, Lamb and Peterson, 2011; Chatman, 2015; Gill, 2012) to consider how empowerment is produced and represented in the chosen images, and what this reflects about our postfeminist context.
Professor Nicola Gavey, a researcher in feminist psychology at the University of Auckland,
11 (The University of Auckland 2017) argues sexual empowerment is so frequently discussed that there is “(...) a sense of fatigue with the very concept” and asserts the term is “(...) too conceptually flabby to be useful in anchoring feminist debates” (2012: 719). Indeed, one of the key challenges in understanding the concept is establishing a definition. While Gavey argues “(...) feeling (sexually) empowered is not necessarily the same as being empowered” (ibid), prominent women, for example celebrity Kim Kardashian, continue to present a counter- argument (Marcus, 2016), that is, that any act of sexuality that feels empowering is empowering.
“Empowerment” reflects the individualism inherent in postfeminism, where women are empowered to make choices about every aspect of their lives, including their bodies. In a postfeminist context, they may choose to post a sexually explicit photograph of themselves online, or choose to be a stay-at-home mum, or both. In a postfeminist world, women are empowered because they can choose how they wish to behave and to represent themselves. This emphasis on choice reflects the neoliberal discourse that postfeminism is situated within. In neoliberal ideology, which pervades our present, postfeminist context, people are constituted to be free and autonomous, empowered to choose a fulfilling career, to start a family and to spend the money they have earned in whatever way they choose. Sharon Lamb, Professor of Counseling and School Psychology in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Massachusetts Boston, and Zoe Peterson, Associate Professor of Psychological Sciences and Director of the Sexual Assault Research and Education Program at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, discuss this in their article Adolescent Girls’ Sexual Empowerment: Two Feminists Explore the Concept (2011). They note that “(...) typically, for feminist theorists, it would seem that empowerment is conflated with the idea of choice” (Lamb & Peterson 2011: 704). In Foucauldian terms, while women are free and empowered with choices, they are expected to be “self-governing subjects”, who make the “right”, responsible choices in terms of career progression, sexual relationships, and establishing families. This process of subjectification both limits and expands choices regarding how women act and how they understand themselves (Gavey, 2012: 721), and is part of a wider neoliberal discourse which places increased responsibility on the individual (Gill, 2012: 737).
Gill (2012), Gavey (2012), and Dr Danya Chatman, George Gerbner Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication (Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, 2017), raise concerns about the impact of privileging individualism
12 over collective action in discussions of empowerment. In focusing on individual acts of empowerment, “(...) these discourses about women as autonomous empowered citizens ignore the conditions that continue to systematically oppress women” (Chatman, 2015: 927). In this neoliberalisation of feminism, women are encouraged to pursue their own freedom, individuality and equality, while ignoring (deliberately or not), the wider oppressive, patriarchal structures around them. Gavey notes that individual expressions of empowerment alone are not enough to make gains in the wider struggle for equality: “Feminism, as a change oriented theory and practice, cannot be limited to privileging individual expressions of contentment above the collective interests of women and the political drive for equality. If it had done so in the past, women may never have got the vote!” (2012: 720)
The commodification of empowerment is another concern often cited by feminists (Gill 2012, Chatman 2015, Gavey 2012; Lamb and Peterson 2011). Lamb and Peterson note the term empowerment is frequently used in advertising, where marketers suggest empowerment can be achieved through buying certain products (2011: 705). Gill argues the term has been “(...) emptied of its political significance, and used to sell everything from diets to pole dancing classes” (Gill, 2012: 738). The empowered woman – whose employment contributes to the economy, who is financially independent, and who makes her own consumer choices – is a valuable contributor to global capitalist society, because this society depends on “(...) maintaining an active population of producers (and consumers)” (Chatman, 2015: 927). While consumption itself may not necessarily be bad, Chatman argues that the notion of empowerment being tied to material consumption is problematic (ibid: 935, 938), because the economic means to choose to purchase certain products or a particular lifestyle is not evenly distributed. While those with adequate capital or buying power are empowered and can make their preferred consumer choices, others do not have access to this form of empowerment. In distributing this empowerment to only some women and not others, it is possible to see how material consumption, as a form of empowerment, does not helpfully contribute towards achieving equality among women and overall in society. In addition to perpetuating inequalities among women, and potentially hindering feminist unity, Gill notes it is possible to see how “(...) empowerment is regarded merely as a cynical rhetoric, wrapping sexual objectification in a shiny, feisty, postfeminist packaging that obscures the continued underlying sexism” (2012: 737). Gill argues that possessing “sexual empowerment”, as a normal part of female sexuality, has become another unhelpful norm that women must live up to (ibid: 737,
13 741). Gill examined the impact of this growing norm of sexual empowerment in her studies with teenage girls in New Zealand and the United Kingdom. She noted that many of the girls possessed high media literacy, and were, for example, able to point out contrivances such as photoshopping of celebrities in magazines (ibid: 738). She found, however, that despite the girls’ awareness of “fake” aspects of the images, they still did not experience positive feelings when looking at the images: “Media representations still got to them, still had an ability to hurt them, still - as they repeatedly told us – made them ‘feel bad’ or ‘feel sad’ and/ or made them long to look a particular way or to own a particular product” (ibid: 740).
The results of Gill’s study reveal that an experience of empowerment for one individual may not empower another, and this act may even produce disempowerment in the other. While the act of posing for a sexualised image in a magazine or posting such an image on one’s own Instagram account may produce feelings of empowerment in that subject over their own image and representation, this experience may not be shared by the woman or girl viewing the image. Rather, this encounter may serve to leave the viewer with a rising sense of the gap between them and the idealised subject. Lamb and Peterson summarise: “Thus while these media images of sexuality may be empowering to some extent, they are also incredibly restrictive and shape desire and subjectivity into forms that are more mainstream. And they bring up the issue that what might feel empowering to some may feel so in a context in which these images disempower others” (2011: 708).
This again returns to the dialectic of individual acts of empowerment versus the wider feminist movement for social and gender equality, and points to the need to scrutinise empowerment to determine whether it is a useful aspiration which progresses feminist ideals, or whether it entrenches oppressive patriarchal structures.
Objectification Martha C. Nussbaum is an American scholar, with a Ph.D from Harvard University, and currently a Professor in Law and Ethics at Chicago University (Chicago University, 2017). In her 1995 essay Objectification, she discusses the concept of objectification from different angles and attempts to broaden the understandings of this complicated concept, and define different ways and levels of objectification.
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In our analysis, we will draw on her understanding and definitions of objectification, as a theoretical framework of understanding the concept, but also in relation to analysing objectification in the representation of postfeminism in images in contemporary pop culture.
The concept of objectification is, according to Nussbaum, a term often used in feminist theory in general as a negative term in relation to men’s sexual objectification of women, and as a negative condition of female reality (Nussbaum, 1995: 250). Inspired by scholars such as Cass Sunstein (Ibid.), who has questioned whether objectification is only oppressive and negative, Nussbaum starts her analysis by stating that the nuances of objectification cannot be seen, as the concept is unclarified. Hence she aims to define and clarify the concept, and argues that in doing so one will find that it is a multi-faceted and complex concept (ibid: 251).
Nussbaum defines objectification as “(…) treating one thing as another: One is treating as an object what is really not an object, what is, in fact, a human being,” and further states that “objectification entails making into a thing, treating as a thing, something that is really not a thing” (ibid: 256-257).
She points to seven notions which she has found to be involved in objectification:
1. Instrumentality (treating the other as a tool or instrument) 2. Denial of autonomy (treating the other as lacking self-determination and autonomy) 3. Inertness (treating the other as lacking agency and activity) 4. Fungibility (treating the other as interchangeable) 5. Violability (treating the other as something to be allowed to break/harm/smash) 6. Ownership (treating the other as something owned by someone) 7. Denial of subjectivity (treating the other as without having feelings that count/are to be considered) (ibid: 257).
All of the notions are involved in objectification, but they do not necessarily need to all be present at the same time – the presence of one of the notions is enough for it to be a case of objectification.
15 Starting outside the sexual realm, Nussbaum points out three cases of objectification, where different kinds of the seven notions are at play: in children, workers and slaves. Different notions come to play and different levels of moral contempt. For instance, children are often treated as without having autonomy, and with some form of ownership, but almost everywhere it is viewed as morally wrong to treat a child with instrumentality, violability, inertness, and fungibility (ibid: 262). Nussbaum points to the fact that not all kinds of objectification are morally questionable, but rather that it depends on the context. The notion of instrumentality, for instance, can be seen in context as she points out that using a lover’s stomach as a pillow, is a form of instrumentality, but treating someone as primarily or only as an instrument is problematic (ibid: 265).
One of Nussbaum’s primary conclusions throughout the essay is that, “(...) in the matter of objectification, context is everything” (ibid: 271). Nussbaum highlights the importance of context as an essential aspect when analysing the nature of objectification, and this is illustrated in various examples in her analysis. She analyses six cases of objectification, five quotes from literature and a series of images in Playboy magazine with the caption “Why We Love Tennis” (ibid: 252-254). Though all are examples of objectification, they all illustrate different scenarios where the seven notions come into play, but especially illustrate that the concept of context is essential analysing whether the objectification is a positive part of human sexuality or a means of negative dominance or oppression. The context and mutual respect in the relationship of the person objectified and the person objectifying is key.
Nussbaum writes: “Denial of autonomy and denial of subjectivity are objectionable if they persist throughout an adult relationship, but phases in relationship characterized by mutual regard they can be all right, or even quite wonderful (…)” (ibid: 290). Nussbaum thus concludes that although objectification, and the seven notions that frame it, can be negative and directly suppressive, it is a complex concept. An analysis of objectification needs to take into account other factors such as context, and the overall nature of a relationship.
On the more radical side of the academic feminist spectrum is Catharine A. MacKinnon, Professor of Law at Michigan Law (The University of Michigan University Law School 2017).
16 In her book, Feminism Unmodified (1987), MacKinnon writes about how female sexuality is perceived and performed in society. With point of departure in female representation in pornography, movies as well as the magazine Playboy, MacKinnon analyses how the female sexuality and body is projected as an object of male desire (MacKinnon, 1987). For MacKinnon, sexual objectification of women is an unavoidable and always present condition of female lives. It is a central problem of living, indeed so central that it affects how both women and men perceive female sexuality (Nussbaum 1995: 250). MacKinnon writes of objectification of women: “Women’s intimate experience of sexual objectification … is definitive of and synonymous with women’s lives as gender female (…) All women live in sexual objectification the way fish live in water” (MacKinnon in Nussbaum 1995: 250).
MacKinnon uses pornography as an example of how female sexuality is perceived and performed. According to MacKinnon, women learn to fake or lie about sexual arousal and pleasure, as a mechanism to get by as women and for the pleasure of men (MacKinnon, 1987: 129). This is due to a perception that female sexuality exists for men to take and use. Magazines such as Playboy illustrate a male view of sex, with men’s desire in the centre of sexual relationships, as it revolves around women being able to engage in sex when the man initiates it or the woman initiating it when the man wants her to (ibid: 144). Thus, according to Mackinnon, the pornography industry both mirrors the sexual power relations between the two genders, and influences it at the same time. MacKinnon argues: “Male power makes authoritative a way of seeing and treating women, so that when a man looks at a pornographic picture – pornographic meaning that the woman is defined as to be acted upon, a sexual object, a sexual thing – the viewing is an act, an act of male supremacy” (ibid: 130)
Thus, pornography and magazines like Playboy promote not just sexual objectification of women but also violence and rape, rooted in an institutionalised male supremacy and dominance (ibid: 146), and pornography “institutionalises the sexuality of male supremacy, which fuses the eroticisation of dominance and submission with the social construction of male and female” (ibid: 148). This institutionalised male supremacy and dominance does not only affect men’s treatment of women, but also the female experience of desire and of their own sexuality. Women learn to eroticise being objectified and under male domination, which leads to a self-objectification
17 (MacKinnon in Nussbaum 1995: 268). This means that women, due to structures of oppression, self-objectify themselves as a part of their sexuality, and thus sex “ (...) entails a forfeiture of humanity, being turned into something rather than someone” (Nussbaum 1995: 268). MacKinnon thus argues that what can be perceived as being initiated by, and for, the pleasure of women, what is perceived even as love and mutual respect, is actually rooted in structures and patterns of oppression and male supremacy: “What looks like love and romance in the liberal view look a lot like hatred and torture in the feminist view” (MacKinnon 1987: 149).
The Male Gaze
One of the key considerations in discussions of objectification of women’s bodies is the role of the “male gaze”. Importantly, gaze theory “(...) provides a framework for analysing how people learn about, create and maintain power differences within a culture based on visual cues” (Moe, 2015: 2).
Laura Mulvey initially developed the theory of the male gaze in her 1975 essay Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Mulvey used a psychoanalytical approach to argue that women are portrayed in cinema primarily to fulfill an aesthetic purpose, that is, for the pleasure of the film’s male characters, director, and cinema audience (Moe, 2015: 3). She argues men are portrayed as active and looking subjects, and women as passive objects which are to be looked at (Mulvey, 1975: 10).
Mulvey argued women are presented in a sexualised way to appeal to male heterosexual desire, through, for example, close up shots of their legs (ibid: 11): “The determining male gaze projects its phantasy on to the female form which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-ness” (ibid: 10). Those viewing the film “must accept this portrayal, regardless of who they are or to whom they are sexually attracted” (Moe, 2015: 3). This entrenched patriarchal lens objectifies women as it encourages viewers to identify with the male protagonist, and “through participation in his power, the spectator can indirectly possess her (the female character) too” (Mulvey, 1975: 11). The heterosexual male perspective is thus presented as the dominant perspective, and as
18 Angela M. Moe argues, other perspectives become secondary or not relevant (Moe, 2015: 3). This is problematic, because “Consequently, women’s perspectives and worth, both in the entertainment industry and larger society, also appear secondary or irrelevant” (2015: 3). As a result, women learn their social value lies in how their physical appearance is perceived, rather than in their knowledge, abilities or intellect (ibid). As women thus expect to be gazed upon as objects for pleasure, in order to adapt to this value system they may begin “to look at themselves through the eyes of (heterosexual) men. The gaze is internalized” (ibid).
Further, women learn that in a capitalist context, “beauty, as defined by Western, heterosexual, white male standards, is a commodity,” (ibid), that can be utilised as a means of power, and exchanged for opportunities and advantages. This self-objectification further entrenches the hegemony of the male gaze and its system of determining women’s value based on their adherence to narrow beauty standards.
Feminist scholars have discussed possibilities for avoiding, re-orientating and challenging the gaze, through re-contextualising traditionally sexually objectifying activities such as pole dancing (Whitehead & Kurz, 2009) and belly dancing (Moe, 2015). While pole dancing and belly dancing are conventionally highly sexualised practices which draw attention to women’s bodies for the purpose of satisfying the objectifying male gaze, Whitehead & Kurz and Moe argue that women-only recreational pole dancing and belly dancing classes provide a space for challenging this objectification. The classes are places where women can practice these activities for their own enjoyment and fitness, away from the male gaze. In her study of women’s experiences of belly dancing classes, Moe notes the potential for empowerment and increased well-being, when the male gaze is removed. Moe refers to one participant who explained that she had not previously participated in such performative activities because she perceived her larger body type was not valued in these settings, because it does not fit the criteria for sexual desirability in the hegemonic male gaze. Participating in the women-only class, however, provided a refuge from the gaze and from the judgement of not conforming to conventional sexuality and beauty standards. The woman described how she learnt to value her own skill and expression of her body shape (Moe, 2015: 7). Moe also discusses how women who publicly perform belly dancing employ particular strategies to actively challenge the gaze. She notes groups of older dancers, larger dancers and those with stretch marks who perform with an active awareness that they are challenging
19 dominant perceptions of beauty (ibid: 15). While the male gaze is widely naturalised, socially embedded and unquestioned (ibid: 3), it is also possible to observe strategies of resistance, through, for example re-contextualising and subverting sexualised activities.
Methodological Considerations
In this part of the study, the research strategy is described in order to outline the methodological considerations and applied choice of methods. In this extent the collection and analysis of the data is explained to rationalise the choice and application of methods, while also contributing to the study’s overall validity and reliability. We have chosen to do a visual analysis, as a mean of looking into how empowerment can be expressed through visual representation of the female body. We have chosen this approach because we find that visual representation plays a big part in contemporary popular culture, and further we see this in line with a values ascribed by postfeminist view on society. We find that visual analysis is coherent with our line of inquiry, and theoretical framework, as we are looking at postfeminist view on society, that are highly influenced on a focus on visual representation and expressions of body and sexuality.
When investigating the methods that would support the research of this investigation, it was important to map out the overall fields of inquiry. As the topics of interest suggest, the primary fields of inquiry in this investigation are Women's studies and Media studies, both interdisciplinary fields offering a range of methodological disciplines and approaches related to the topic of feminism and nudity. Furthermore, when regarding the intersection between particular topics and discussions it was clear that the focus would concentrate on the crossing and relation between feminism and nudity, i.e. the relation between feminist attitudes towards female empowerment and feminist attitudes towards nudity on social media. In relation the methods used in this study, namely visual analysis and text analysis have been chosen to support the analysis and interpretation of social media data, that is the combination of images and text.
When examining images, photographs and other types of visual data, the visual analysis approach enables the interpretation of social tendencies, dealing with major fields of inquiry such as sociology, media studies, culture studies, gender studies, social psychology, and other fields relating to social sciences (Knoblauch, Baer, Laurier, Petschke & Schnettler, 2008). In
20 relation, this investigation uses visual analysis as a way of interpreting tendencies and attitudes in the discourse on feminism, female empowerment and nudity. This is in itself one of the strengths of the visual analysis approach, as it can be used to address the cultural meaning of visual data by relating it to ways in which the interpreters themselves interpret the data (ibid).
The use of visual analysis is considered to be a qualitative method, as it creates a subjective and reflexive form of data production (ibid). In this examination, the use of visual analysis enables the analysis of photographic self-representations, which constitutes the chosen visual data. The idea was to collect, interpret and analyse the self-representations of four women, who are considered to be influencers in the contemporary debate on feminism and female empowerment. To ensure that the selected self-representations are diverse, the data will be collected from distinctive social media platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter, as this will give the data a diverse outcome of expressions, meanings and contexts. It is however important to note that social media content can be ambiguous as it is multimodal and highly “context-and user" dependent (Kleim & Schreck, 2013: 1).
When working with social media data, it is therefore essential to interpret the meaning of the data and to question the processes, negotiations and views that the data produces for the users of the platform. When it comes to the visual analysis of pictures, German sociologist and professor Ralf Bohnsack argues, that it is critical to differentiate the understanding ‘of’ pictures with an understanding ‘through’ pictures, as many researchers tend to treat visual data as self- referential systems creating a form of one-sidedness (Knoblauch, Baer, Laurier, Petschke & Schnettler, 2008).
In order to avoid this form of researcher bias, it is essential to break down the visual analysis process by looking at the significance of particular elements and by then connecting these into a combined interpretation of the data. Bohnsack argues how approaching visual analysis in this way can contribute to a deeper understanding of images, by stating “(…) understanding is achieved by shifting perspective from the question of what is in pictures, to how pictures show, that means, from iconographic to iconology” (Knoblauch, Baer, Laurier, Petschke & Schnettler, 2008). According to Bohnsack, it is not only important to examine the objects or elements that constitute the image, but to analyse the social context and effect of the image. This approach is similarly shared by Matteo Stocchetti and Karin Kukkonen in their book Images in use, which looks at the ways in which people perceive images by connecting the relation between images and their effects in society (Stocchetti & Kukkonen, 2011:1).
21 Stocchetti and Kukkonen explain how the idea of images as powerful objects in themselves is fruitless, as images do not obtain meaning, but are given meaning by people in society. Stocchetti and Kekkonen explain this notion by arguing, “(…) images are not considered as meaningful objects in and of themselves but as part of the process of negotiating social values, i.e. politics and power” (ibid: 3).
Nevertheless, sociologists Eric Margolis and Luc Pauwel argue that researchers have a wide variety of interconnected opportunities when using visual data in the study of society and culture (Margolis & Pauwels, 2011: 4). One of the challenges of working with visual analysis is however, that there is little integration with the findings and practices of visual methods, particularly in the fields of social science, humanities and behavioral science (ibid: 3). However, when using visual analysis it is as mentioned crucial to interpret the social negotiations and values that self-representations produce for the users of the platform. Using visual data in this way enables the analysis of ideologies on female empowerment. However, because social media platforms are multimodal, it is nevertheless crucial to understand the communication of text as it is to understand the communication of images. Combining visual analysis and text analysis, therefore gives a more holistic interpretation of the chosen social media platform’s communication, as both of these methods complement one another.
When analysing images it is crucial to look at the context of the image, in order to interpret the social, political and ideological negotiations or values that are communicated. However, when analysing the use of text, it is important to question the authors desired communication in regards to the platform, as the combination of visual and linguistic elements are both semiotic choices. According to David Machin and Andrea Mayr, visual communication is often used to communicate discourses that may be difficult to express through language since, “images do not tend to have such fixed meanings or at least the producer can always claim that it is more suggestive and open to various interpretations” (Machin & Mayr, 2012: 31). They explain that “visual communication, by its nature tends to be more open to interpretation, which gives the author some degree of manoeuvre not permitted through language use” (ibid).
We have chosen to base our project on three American celebrities who we have found express empowerment through nudity. The cases are furthermore chosen based on the fact that we assessed these three women’s use of nudity as actions of empowerment, and have attracted a large amount of public attention. Amy Schumer and Kim Kardashian’s pictures went viral and attracted a great amount of attention on social media. We want to look into what the pictures
22 express, how the sender perceived the act, and what reactions they received. We chose Beyoncé as a case, because she can be considered one of the most influential artists in contemporary western society (Trier-Bieniek, 2016: 1), and furthermore because she uses both notions of feminism and empowerment in her work, and has stated that she finds expressions of female sexuality to be empowering (Beyoncé, 2013). We utilise these three pictures of these women with an assumption that all three have consented to the way they are depicted in the pictures. In the cases of Kim Kardashian and Amy Schumer, they have posted the pictures on their social media accounts, and the picture of Beyoncé is taken from one of her own music videos.
We have chosen to use celebrities as a point of departure for our analysis, because in our contemporary postfeminist context there is an obsession with celebrities and the body (Gill, 2007: 6). Celebrities can, within a postfeminist view on society, be seen as modern role models. We find that by looking at how these women expresses empowerment through their body and sexuality as well as the public reactions that they created, we are able to gain an insight in how female acts of empowerment, through nudity, are perceived in contemporary society.
In the analysis we will take point of departure in a visual analysis, along with analysing text in the form of the reactions on the pictures and statement of the women in focus. In relation to the comments and reactions, we acknowledge that, due to the fact that these women are public figures, people might have preconceived opinions of them and their actions, thus affecting the comments. We nevertheless focus our analysis merely on the comments and statements on the particular images. The images and the comments we use are found on social media, and the social media thus becomes the contextual platform, in which our analysis takes its point of departure. Due to these women being situated within contemporary American popular culture, one can argue that the commenters therefore are followers and users of this culture, and actively engaging with it, hence sharing a mutual, although broad, interest point.
In order to analyse notions of empowerment and female nudity, we have chosen three main theoretical concepts that we find are beneficial in illuminating different understandings and structures of the chosen subject. We acknowledge that the different choices, both in relation to the cases and theoretical framework, highly influence and affect our research and hence our findings, and that our research and findings might have been different, had we chosen otherwise.
23 Analysis
Analytical strategy
In this part of the project, we will use our methodology to analyse the images of the women we have chosen as cases. We will conduct a picture analysis, based on the methods presented by Gillian Rose, and consider the public reactions to the pictures, with the aim of looking into the narratives in play with point of departure in our theoretical framework of the three main concepts of empowerment, objectification, and postfeminism. This will enable us to identify the various expressions of the concepts in the images and the different responses and reactions on the images. This will depict, to a certain extent, the discourse around female empowerment and how objectification plays a role in defining this discourse.
We have chosen to divide our analysis into three chapters, analysing the cases separately with our chosen theory. Each analytical chapter is divided into four main parts. First is a short description of the case, following a visual analysis of the chosen picture of the person in question. There are then three separate chapters, each analysing the case and the reactions connected to it in relation to one of our three main theoretical concepts, in the following order: Empowerment, Objectification, and Postfeminism.
Case 1: Amy Schumer Amy Schumer is a 35 year old comedian, writer and actress from New York. Schumer had her big break when she performed a Live at Gotham episode for Comedy Central. Since then she has starred in movies and her hit comedy series Inside Amy Schumer, and performed comedy specials and written for both movies and television series. The recurring theme in her work is sex and feminist issues such as rape culture, unrealistic beauty standards, ageism and sexism. She has been nominated for ten Emmy Awards (IMDb, 2017).
Prominent celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz photographed Amy Schumer for the 2016 Pirelli Calendar, which is an annual calendar created by the Pirelli company since 1964. The style of the calendar differs from others as it is “capturing and interpreting contemporary culture and often setting new trends” (Pirelli & C. S.p.A 2016). Looking at the black and white picture one immediately sees an almost naked Amy Schumer sitting hunched over on a stool in the center of the photo, holding what is presumably a to-go cup of coffee while looking into the
24 camera. The positioning of her right arm covers her bare breasts in a natural manner as it is the arm she uses to hold the coffee and can therefore give the illusion that she is about to take a sip. Her hunched over posture creates stomach rolls which makes it feel as if the photographer walked in on her when she was getting ready. Schumer’s facial expression can be described as unbothered and confident, as if she is simultaneously aware of the camera and her unflattering position, but simply does not care. The photo plays with the line between being staged and unstaged. The backdrop is visible which indicates it is a staged photoshoot, however the wooden pallet adds to a raw and unpolished setting. She is wearing stilettoes and her long hair is loose and flows down her back which adds to traditional femininity.
Amy Schumer, photographed by Annie Leibovitz (Source: Manelis, 2016)
Amy Schumer and Empowerment
The picture of Amy Schumer by Annie Leibovitz is the picture which differs most from the other cases in this project, and arguably also from most professional photo shoots. When one looks in fashion magazines one typically finds thin models posing in a way that emphasises their “feminine features” and makes them look as slim as possible. The very posture of
25 Schumer in this image, and the way her stomach naturally creates rolls as she hunches over, does not constitute as beautiful within conventional beauty standards which is why the picture received such strong feedback. Schumer was the one who had the idea of being naked, she told www.news.com.au in their article Don’t call Amy Schumer’s nude photo ‘brave’: “I got to the shoot, they had all these racks of clothes and Annie suggested, ‘What about a bra and underwear?’ I was like, ‘What about naked?’ But Annie said, ‘No!’ She really wanted me to keep my clothes on” (Manelis, 2016). In this quote she makes clear that she is comfortable being naked and that she embraces her body, something she has continuously made clear in several comedy specials and interviews. She embraces that she is different and challenges the dominant beauty standards by pursuing her own individuality, hence ignoring the patriarchal structures which host the contemporary, confined beauty ideals (Chatman, 2015). One of Schumer’s fans posted a side-by-side picture of Schumer and the Greek Goddess Aphrodite to bring attention to the striking similarities between the two captions. The creator of the post wrote: “(...) the goddess of beauty is portrayed here with stomach rolls and doesn't have a perfectly smooth, toned body. I want to remind everyone that they do not have to be a Victoria's Secret model to be a beautiful goddess with a beautiful body. Your body is not bad, ugly, or wrong. Embrace your inner goddess” (Hines, 2016).
(Source: Hines, 2016)
26 The post gained almost 160,000 likes on Instagram, combining the original post with Schumer’s repost, and countless women commented and praised the image for being inspirational and empowering (Blair, 2015). As mentioned by Lamb & Peterson in the theoretical framework, (...) what might feel empowering to some may feel so in a context in which these images disempower others", in fact it can make others feel worse about themselves because they do not live up to beauty ideals (Lamb & Peterson, 2011: 708). Schumer’s photo is not purely natural as she is wearing full makeup and has styled hair, and furthermore, she is white, straight, famous and able-bodied which all come with privileges. Nevertheless, she does communicate through this individual act of empowerment that fat and stomach rolls are a realistic and a natural bodily aspect. Because she confidently embraces a body part which is predominantly viewed as a “flaw”, and something one would often attempt to hide, this act of empowerment arguably challenges the norm and “progresses feminist ideas” instead of reproducing “oppressive patriarchal structures” (Lamb & Peterson, 2011: 708). If one looks at the comments on the photo on Twitter, one finds numerous positive comments, mostly from women and girls. A word that repeats itself throughout the comment section is the good-spirited “brave”. “Brave” refers to Schumer being physically bigger than the women one usually sees posing semi-nude or completely nude in the media, hence expressing an expectation of Schumer being insecure and having to take a scary or uncomfortable step to take her clothes off in front of a camera and reveal her body. A woman with username TrumpUntaimed commented the picture on Twitter: “Beautiful, real and normal! Thank you for being so brave Amy! I support you!” (Appendix 1). It shows a gratitude for seeing an unretouched woman in the media with a realistic or “normal” body who is confident and unapologetic about it. Schumer herself took notice of the numerous “brave” comments and addressed it on several occasions: “When a nude photo of yourself goes viral, the word you don’t want people to use to describe it is ‘brave’” (Manelis, 2016). She also mentioned it in her acceptance speech at the Critic’s Choice Awards 2016: “That’s what you want everyone to say when a naked photo of you goes viral. You want them to say, ‘What a brave photo.’ You’re like, ‘Thanks, wow, thank you.’” (Blay, 2016). She points out the negative connotations “brave” has as it underlines that her body type is “flawed” or “unflattering” which unconsciously promotes the unhealthy idea that a size small or medium is too big. By addressing these comments, Schumer calls for reflection on the absurdity of the message society is teaching girls and women if posing semi-nude as a small/medium is considered brave.
27 Leia or “Lackadazy” commented: “Thank you. I'm really tired of hating my body and feeling like I'm unlovable” (Appendix 1). This tweet, and several other tweets in the same spirit, express a female vulnerability, state of mind and exhaustion over the constant media claim that they have to look a certain way to be desired and lovable. The majority of tweets regarding this photograph are women who express gratitude and relief because they identify with Schumer and recognise their own body which is now being confidently presented as beautiful instead of inadequate. Due to the predominantly positive feedback one could argue that for many women this image empowered numerous women as it challenged the shame of having belly-fat and normative beauty ideals.
Amy Schumer and Objectification
When analysing objectification in the context of this picture, one thing stands out - namely the fact that the photographer is a woman which creates an equal power dynamic. Furthermore, Schumer, as mentioned earlier, initially wanted to be completely naked, to which Leibovitz said no. This underlines that the nudity was Schumer’s individual choice and wish for the photoshoot, hence rejecting notions of instrumentalisation, lack of agency and denial of subjectivity occurring (Nussbaum, 1995: 257). However, the fact that the photographer is a woman does not completely eliminate the concept of male gaze. One could argue that Schumer, by stripping down to her panties, prioritises expressing herself sexually instead of emphasising her wits and intelligence. Whether or not Schumer is internalising the male gaze can be discussed. She is wearing heels which is a feminine and sexy touch, her hair is loose, she is wearing full makeup which all fit into beauty as defined by “Western, heterosexual, white male standards” (Moe, 2015: 3). However she is also breaking the tendency with her posture which enhances her “flaws” instead of hiding them. One could argue that Schumer is employing the strategy of challenging the male gaze, much like the strategy of the larger or older belly dancers who consciously challenge the dominant perceptions of beauty (Moe, 2015: 15). It cannot be known whether or not Schumer consciously tried to challenge beauty norms, but based on her remarks on being described as “brave”, one can assume that she is opposed to the normalised beauty ideals - which are so strongly embedded in society - that cause people to refer to a woman who is small/medium as brave when showing her body.
Looking through the comments on the photograph reveals that the majority of comments are written by women and most of them are positive. But as with most social media platforms, if
28 one looks closely enough one will find the body shamers. Andrew Krystal wrote: “please get dressed Amy. I was eating when I saw the nude pic. Please provide warning images may be disturbing” (Appendix 1). This insinuates that Schumer is so appalling that she makes the commenter physically ill. By saying this, the commenter treats his target as without having feelings, thus denying her subjectivity (Nussbaum, 1995: 257). Another male commenter wrote: “I would do naughty things to her oh my” (Appendix 1). By using the word “to” one could argue that he treats Schumer as something to be sexually acted upon, treating her as something without agency and activity - what Nussbaum (1995) calls “inertness” (ibid: 257). According to MacKinnon (1987), pornography is when: “ the woman is defined as to be acted upon, a sexual object, a sexual thing” (ibid: 130). Although Schumer is posing for a glamorous calendar and not a magazine such as Playboy, which seeks to define and use women as sexual objects for men’s sexual entertainment, she does not control the context in which the male viewer sees her. One cannot control if a man views a woman with little clothes on in the same way as he views a Playboy model: to be sexually acted and commented upon as if her body is for him. In this way, the viewing and sexual commenting can be perceived as an act of male supremacy (MacKinnon,1987: 130).
Amy Schumer and Postfeminism
When looking at the photograph of Amy Schumer in a postfeminist context, several things stand out. Her exposed body performs as focus of the image which sparked the endless comments (both positive and negative) on her body as “right” or “wrong”. This depicts a constant discourse on what it means to be a woman, but most notably, the “right” kind of woman. Schumer’s body functions as a center for the different perceptions on what femininity and womanhood entail, hence looking to her body as the source of femininity instead of looking to her actions and character (Gill, 2007). This photo and its thousands of comments express and feed into a discourse of empowerment as obtained through exposing your body and embracing your sexuality as a woman. It is in this context important to acknowledge that Amy Schumer is a white, heterosexual, middle-class woman who benefits from these structures, whereas if it had been a woman of colour the feedback would arguably change due to different context and connotations (Butler, 2013). In postfeminism, the role of individuality plays an immense part. Schumer’s photo is an individual act of empowerment and one could argue that she operates within a postfeminist
29 mindset where “If it’s right for me, it’s right. Period.”. Her body is for her the source of power from which she gains confidence. As she operates within the realm of postfeminist obsession with the female body as central to femininity and womanhood, she does not entirely comply with it because she does not completely fit into the conventional beauty standards that women are expected to live by.
30 Case 2: Kim Kardashian
Kim Kardashian is an American reality star who is known for her many selfies, often involving nudity or semi-nudity. Her career is mostly based on the reality television show, Keeping up with the Kardashians, and her celebrity status has resulted in various product branding contracts, which are mostly related to beauty and physical form (IMDb, 2017). On 8 March 2016, on the occasion of International Women’s Day, Kim Kardashian posted the following photo on social media, with the caption “#Liberated”, along with an essay on her webpage titled “Happy International Women’s Day”. In the essay she commented on the negative responses that her nude photo from the day before had created, along with a statement about her personal views on her use of social media. In this statement she proclaimed that in her opinion, she finds that posting nude or semi-nude photos is a means of empowerment, and that she views it as a way of encouraging other women to feel empowered.
(Kim Kardashian, 2016. Source: Twitter.com)
In the picture of Kim Kardashian one sees her standing naked, covering up her vagina and breasts with her arms and hands, slightly crossing her legs. The picture is in black and white, with a black background and dark lighting that contribute to highlighting of the contours of her body, such as her collarbone but also her breasts, face and stomach. The light emphasises her
31 skin standing out, appearing shiny and smooth. The black background further enables a focus on the object of the picture, which is Kim Kardashian and her body, since nothing else is visible, and this creates a sense of intimacy. Her black hair almost fades in with the background, framing and highlighting her face. She has a serious expression on her face, with slightly parted lips, looking behind the camera to the left of the spectator. She is standing up straight, but her body position is also a little closed due to the crossing of her legs/thighs, the closed positioning of her arms, and the slight curve in her shoulders. One can see the left part of her upper pubic area, revealing a smooth surface and absence of pubic hair. Her breasts are highlighted both by the chosen lighting and also the light pressure of her left arm and hand which creates a push-up effect.
Kim Kardashian and Empowerment
In the essay she posted on empowerment regarding the picture posted on International Women’s Day, 8 March 2016, Kim Kardashian states that she is empowered by being proud of her body and comfortable in her own skin, and through the act of posting the photograph, sharing her body and confidence with others (Markus, 2016). The understanding of empowerment through an act of choice is highly reflective of a postfeminist understanding of empowerment. Nevertheless, as Gavey argues, one’s free choices still need to reflect what society finds to be the “right” choice (Gavey, 2012: 721). An example of how Kim Kardashian’s action of posing nude is criticised for not meeting conventional understanding of “right” choice can be seen in the Twitter comments, where a number of women comment on her nudity in relation to her status as a mother:
“(...) as a mom you HAVE to ask your self how will I feel in twenty years if my daughter does this for the world to see” (Appendix 1)
“(...) What will North and Saint think of mommy when they look back and see this? I would be pissed if my mom did this!” (ibid)
“(...) sexy and sad, have to give it to you, you're HOT but don’t you think you have to respect baby North and her sibling & start acting like a mum” (ibid).
32 These three comments illustrate a view that posing nude is less acceptable when one is a mother, and that Kim Kardashian is challenging or ignoring this understanding by posting nude pictures of herself. The condemnation of the act of posing naked when having children illustrates reactions on women who choose to live and behave outside of what is understood as the “right” choice.
Furthermore, as Gavey argues, the feeling of empowerment is not enough to constitute empowerment: “Not only is it not necessarily the same as feeling empowered, but feeling empowered is not necessarily the same as being empowered” (Gavey, 2012: 719). In fact, in light of the notions raised by feminist scholars such as Chatman, Gill and Gavey, one can criticise Kim Kardashian for being ignorant of the negative systems of oppression and reproducing patriarchal structures in her framing of her actions as being empowering. As Chatman states “(...) these discourses about women as autonomous empowered citizens ignore the conditions that continue to systematically oppress women” (Chatman, 2015: 927). Kardashian argues that the action of posting nude pictures is not just an act of personal empowerment, but that it is a way of empowering other women, especially young girls: “(…) I am empowered by showing the world my flaws and not being afraid of what anyone is going to say about me. And I hope that through this platform I have been given, I can encourage the same empowerment for girls and women all over the world” (Markus, 2016).
Gill points out that not only is sexual empowerment in itself an unhelpful norm for young women that creates yet another standard for women to live up to, but that the representations of the ideal female body in the media has a negative effect on women’s self-esteem and self- image, especially young women (Gill, 2012: 737, 741). It can thus be argued that Kim Kardashian contributes to young women creating unrealistic understandings of how a woman should look with, for instance, her perfectly smooth skin and voluminous breasts. It can be argued that Kim Kardashian is furthermore adding to bodily insecurities by stating that she is showing her “flaws” in the picture.
Nevertheless, some women proclaim that they feel empowered by Kim Kardashian’s nude pose: “(...) you look fantastic. You make me feel good about my own curvy self. You do you!” (Appendix 1)
33 “ (...) thank you for helping me noticing I worth 100billions.” (ibid)
“(...) I LOVE quit hating on her .... She represents the curvy women in this damn world. #TeamKim” (ibid). The comments are primarily based on a sentiment that Kim Kardashian represents a more curvy female body type than what is mostly represented in mass media, and furthermore that by showing off a confidence and pride in her body, this creates a feeling of empowerment to these women.
As Gill (2012: 738) and Lamb & Peterson (2011: 705) argue, empowerment has been commodified in popular culture, and empowerment is often used as a sales strategy in advertising. Gill argues that “(...) the notion (empowerment) has become commodified – used to sell everything from washing powder to cosmetic surgery” (Gill, 2012: 743). Due to her career being built around her looks and her status as a reality star, one can argue that Kim Kardashian earns her living based on selling a variety of products, often related to physical appearance. One can argue that Kim Kardashian is using “empowerment” as a popular buzzword to brand herself and hence the products she represents as brands that can help women become empowered. This hypothesis is highly represented both in the Twitter comments as well as on other internet forums. On the debate forum Quora, a person writes: “Kim K. is a business. She post naked photos, because it gets attention, it will be discussed and that will keep her money income still rolling” (de Rooji, 2016). Another example from Twitter can be illustrated by a user writing “@KimKardashian oop, she's investing in her career again... (nudes)” (ibid).
Kim Kardashian and Objectification
According to MacKinnon, sexual objectification is an unavoidable condition of women’s lives (Nussbaum, 1995: 250). Looking at the comments on Twitter of Kim Kardashian’s picture, one need not to search for long to find examples of sexual objectification: “how many dicks did u devour this morning? 36?”; “I gotta admit, Kim. You've got GREAT TITS!”; “hello kim, please sit on my face”; “i wonder how big your hole is hahaha” (Appendix 1). MacKinnon argues that women are taught, in many ways, to objectify themselves to be the object of male desire, to fit into an institutionalised notion of male sexuality and desire as the
34 centre of female sexuality (Nussbaum, 1995: 268; MacKinnon, 1987: 129). From this understanding, one can thus argue that though Kim Kardashian claims to be sexually empowered by her actions, she is sexually objectifying herself by reproducing structures of male supremacy. It is important to state here that this line of argument does not justify the sexual harassment present in the Twitter comments, but it instead aims to explain some of the underlying oppressive structures that are reproduced from both sides. Kim Kardashian is acting, by posting naked pictures in the internet, within a structural setting where a woman’s sexuality and body is to be an object of male desire, hence reproducing these structures.
To elaborate on these structures, one can look at the concept of the male gaze as a description of how women learn to pose and objectify themselves, as here argued to be the case with Kim Kardashian, in order to gain sexual attention from men. Following Angela M. Moe’s discussion of the male gaze, one can argue that Kim Kardashian’s self-objectification stems from an underlying understanding in society, and perhaps especially in showbusiness, that a woman’s worth is measured by her beauty and sexual appeal to the heterosexual white male observer (Moe, 2015: 3). A woman’s abilities, perspective, and knowledge becomes a secondary factor to her aesthetic value, and beauty hence becomes a commodity (ibid). Again, one can argue that Kim Kardashian’s career is based on her looks, and her ability to sell products relating to her physical appearance, thus she uses and benefits from these structures of sexual objectification in society and uses the male gaze to her advantage.
Kim Kardashian and Postfeminism
Looking at Kim Kardashian from a postfeminist perspective one can argue that in her posing naked, she is taking back power over her body. Within the postfeminist view, as discussed by Gill and Scharff (2011), society has in many ways moved past the formerly argued structures of oppression, and women are to take back, or “reclaim” their sexuality. Postfeminism is first of all built on ideals of individualism, empowerment and freedom of choice (ibid: 4). These ideals can in various ways be said to be in line with how Kim Kardashian perceives her empowerment, and use of her body and sexuality on social media. For instance, freedom of choice as a path to empowerment, appears to be the centre of the issue for Kim Kardashian when she writes in her essay on empowerment:
35 “I never understand why people get so bothered by what other people choose to do with their lives. I don’t do drugs, I hardly drink, I’ve never committed a crime — and yet I’m a bad role model for being proud of my body?” (Markus, 2016). This quote illustrates that for Kardashian the heart of the problem is, firstly that people judge what other people “choose” to do with their life and body, and secondly; what they are essentially judging her for is being proud of her body. It can therefore be argued that Kim Kardashian shares values connected to postfeminism, and that how she perceives her actions are influenced by notions of femininity, individuality and sexuality, which are the core issues of postfeminism. Freedom of choice and reclaiming female sexuality are furthermore visible as core values/motivation for her as she states: “I will not live my life dictated by the issues you have with my sexuality. You be you and let me be me. I am a mother. I am a wife, a sister, a daughter, an entrepreneur and I am allowed to be sexy” (ibid).
Furthermore, it can be argued that Kim Kardashian’s use of media reflects a reproduction of postfeminist thought, due to its focus on the body and sexuality. According to Rosalind Gill, “One of the most striking aspects of postfeminist media culture is its obsessional preoccupation with the body” (Gill, 2007: 6), and thus the female body and sexualitity is seen and presented as the core aspect of femininity in modern society. A woman’s body therefore becomes a key aspect in her access to power. Kim Kardashian can hence be argued to act directly within a postfeminist view on women and media. She uses her body and sexuality to directly gain influence and power, both through the publicity and the branding deals that come with it. Women’s mental health and well-being is in the media depicted as directly visible and understood through the state of her physical appearance (Gill, 2007: 7). One can hereby argue that Kim Kardashian is attempting, within a postfeminist understanding of media culture, to depict an overall well-being and contentment with her life by posting these pictures as well as taking back some of the control and power over representations of her.
In this chapter, we found that Kim Kardashian first of all reproduces many of the ideals and understandings that lie within a postfeminist notion of society. Though some women, as well as Kardashian herself, find her actions empowering, our theoretical framework has provided us with an understanding of her actions that in various ways reproduce structures of oppression and objectification of the female body. Her possible financial gain from media attention, that
36 the nude images attract, as well as the staging of her beauty as a mean of selling beauty products can be said to be a possible motivation, perhaps more than an actual attempt of empowering herself and other women.
37 Case 3: Beyoncé
Entertainer Beyonce Knowles-Carter, known professionally as Beyoncé, continues to draw both praise and criticism in feminist discussions, particularly around her statements on sexuality and empowerment, and her sexual performances (Trier-Bieniek 2016: 11). While there are early expressions of female power in songs such as Independent Woman Part II, Survivor, and Run the World (Girls), Beyoncé as feminist rose to prominence with the release of songs such as ***Flawless in 2013, which declared women are flawless as they are, and features Nigerian feminist author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie reading an excerpt from her speech We Should All Be Feminists (Trier-Bieniek, 2016: 2-4). Pretty Hurts, also from her 2013 self-titled album, laments the impact of the pressure of beauty standards on women (Furler, Coleman, Knowles, 2013). In 2014, while performing ***Flawless at the MTV awards, the word “FEMINIST” was illuminated behind her in enormous pink letters. In magazine interviews she has also spoken publicly about how she identifies as a feminist (Gottesman, 2016; Trier-Bieniek, 2016).
In her video clip for Partition (2013), Beyoncé is depicted at a breakfast table in a glamorous mansion, fantasising about her partner sitting opposite her. In the fantasy, Beyoncé and her husband Jay Z fondle each other in the back of a car as they are driven to a nightclub. At the nightclub, Beyoncé emerges from behind a partition wearing a jewelled headpiece and stringy, jewelled lingerie and high heels, dancing in a cabaret style. The clip also features scenes of Beyoncé dancing in a black corset on a piano in the mansion while her husband watches, smoking; and with scenes of her and other dancers in stringy lingerie, high heels and hair down, dancing around poles in another nightclub with a more contemporary aesthetic.
In this image from the cabaret scene, Beyoncé is depicted in a highly sexualised position on her hands and knees, with her back arched to emphasise the curve of her bottom. The light is warm and soft, and is directed onto her buttocks and legs to further emphasise her curves. The lighting also highlights the contrast between the size of her buttocks and her small waist. She is depicted from the side however her face is also lit, and her face and gaze are turned directly to the camera. The backdrop is black and she is dancing on a reflective black surface, which creates a mirror image of her pose.
38
Image of Beyoncé from the Partition video, directed by Jake Nava (Source: Rob, 2014)
Beyoncé and Empowerment
The debate surrounding Beyoncé’s expression of feminism reflects the dialectic between liberal and radical understandings of feminism. Fadzai Nova, writing for Culture Crit in 2014 argues, “Partition’ is a form of sexual empowerment because it was her choice to participate in creating the content of the product” (Nova, 2014). This assessment of empowerment corresponds with Lamb & Peterson’s and Gill’s arguments that “choice” is the key indicator in determining whether an act is empowering or not.
The song features French lyrics, which translate to: “Do you like sex? Sex, I mean the physical activity, coitus, do you like it? You’re not interested in sex? Men think that feminists hate sex, but it’s a very stimulating and natural activity that women love” (Nash et al, 2013). Nova argues that while elements of the song can be perceived as submissive, Beyoncé’s articulation that “women love (sex)” projects her own desire and ownership over her sexuality (Nova, 2014). Nova perceives this is as an act of empowerment, not objectification or submission, because Beyoncé’s active sexuality depicts a sexual encounter between two active agents, rather than an active male and passive female.
39
Nova is also concerned that the policing of women’s expressions of sexuality is unhelpful and denies women agency: “It is unfair to dictate to women how they should live and behave in the world in the name of liberating them, as if women cannot think for themselves, and repressing the sexuality of women is another form of controlling and limiting them… Censorship is not the solution…” (ibid). Nova expresses a postfeminist understanding of empowerment, where actions are easily detached from their sociocultural context and consequences (Gavey, 2012: 719). She echoes the arguments put forth by sexpositive feminists of the 1980s that women can only be liberated if they are allowed to explore their own sexuality and break the perpetuation of victimising themselves as objects (Butler, 2013). While empowerment is frequently critiqued as unhelpful to progressing feminism because of its focus on individual rather than collective action (Gavey, 2012: 720), writer and media critic Jennifer Pozner comments that Beyoncé’s act of illuminating the word “FEMINIST” on stage, at the end of her performance at the 2014 Video Music Awards, challenged “(...) millions of mainstream fans… to think about feminism as something powerful, important, and yes, attractive” (Bennett, 2014). Pozner thus argues this act made an important contribution to creating visibility for feminism, and empowering the collective movement (ibid).
Beyoncé and Objectification
Beyoncé’s sexual pose in the image can be perceived as submissive and sexually available, and her direct gaze into the camera indicates an awareness that she is being looked at. Additionally, her costume, particularly the jewelled headpiece, and the cabaret setting, can be understood as a reference the aesthetic of African American cabaret dancer Josephine Baker, who performed in cabaret clubs in Paris in the 1920s and 30s. Beyoncé’s direct gaze complicates analyses of whether she is performing for the male gaze, and as feminist bell hooks has said, “(...) colluding in the construction of herself as a slave” (Gay, 2014), or whether she embodies an active and empowered sexuality, as critics such as Nova suggest.
Bianca Pencz, writing in the Vancouver Observer in 2012, presents an opposing argument to Nova, suggesting: “Perhaps the power Beyoncé feels comes not from truly expressing her own sexuality, but from so effectively embodying what patriarchy has told her from birth she should
40 embody” (Pencz, 2012). Pencz argues Beyoncé has been rewarded with power (in the form of influence, popularity and finance), because she has consistently subscribed to the demands of the male gaze, not because she has expressed sexuality on her own terms. Through applying MacKinnon’s notions of objectification and Mulvey’s theory of the male gaze it is possible to perceive self-objectification in Partition. MacKinnon has argued that women are always sexually objectified, even when they claim they are acting out of self-liberation, for their own pleasure (MacKinnon in Nussbaum 1995: 250). Beyoncé has explained that her inspiration for the Partition video arose when visiting the Crazy Horse cabaret club (where the video was later filmed). She says: “I remember thinking, 'Damn, these girls are fly.' I just thought it was the ultimate sexy show I've ever seen. And I was like, 'I wish I was up there, I wish I could perform that for my man...' So that's what I did for the video" (Beyoncé, 2013). This explanation reflects MacKinnon’s theory that women learn to eroticise male objectification and thus objectify themselves, because it brings pleasure (MacKinnon in Nussbaum 1995: 268). While a woman may perceive this as an expression of her own sexuality and romantic love, MacKinnon argues this act only expresses and reinforces conventional, patriarchal standards of desirability and value (MacKinnon, 1987: 149). It is also possible to observe the continuation of the male gaze in the public response to Partition. One of the most liked comments on the video, posted on BeyonceVEVO on YouTube, is “Jay is a lucky guy,” posted by TheLady2luv, while other comments include “Jay Z wins at life” and “Jay-Z is always thereeee” (Appendix 1). These comments, including more than 1,400 people who liked the comment “Jay Z is a lucky guy”, express an identification with the experience of the male viewer of the dance – in this case, Beyoncé’s husband Jay-Z. This entrenches the male gaze as the dominant and most important perspective (Moe, 2015: 3), and highlights the purpose of the video as a performance for male pleasure, rather than as an expression of Beyoncé’s own sexuality. The reaction represented in the comment also embodies an internalising of the gaze, where women (for example TheLady2luv, Ros Tibbs and El Chile Zeco, who posted the comments and appear to be women from their names and YouTube profile photographs) learn to view other women as objects of pleasure, and assign value to them according to dominant male, heterosexual standards (Moe, 2015: 3). However, contrary to MacKinnon, Nussbaum argues that depending on the context, objectification may not always be negative (1995: 290). In the context of a mutually respectful relationship, Beyoncé’s comment that the performance is for her husband can be considered an
41 act of shared, enjoyable sexuality, rather than problematic dominance, particularly since Beyoncé has chosen to do the performance. Gavey also notes that agency and oppression are not neatly divided between the states of being a subject or object: (We should) “(…) question our tendency to dichotomise the possibilities for self in terms of subject or object; and then imagine the ideal female subject only as the agentically active (pleasure seeking) subject. We are, of course, always both subject and object. As objects for another we are not necessarily victims of derogation and subjugation. And as subjects we are not automatically unfettered and free” (Gavey, 2012: 720). Gavey thus highlights the limitations of understanding subjectification and objectification as a good/bad power dichotomy, noting objectification in relationships does not necessarily imply a state of powerlessness or sub-ordinance. In the same way, being a subject does not necessarily imply power and freedom, since postfeminist subjectification processes increasingly require subjects such as Beyoncé to make choices regarding sex and relationships within a confined and invisibilised range of “right” choices (Chatman, 2015: 929). While Gavey and Nussbaum argue objectification in some contexts may not necessarily be negative, bell hooks, Pencz and The Guardian journalist Hadley Freeman raise concerns about the negative impact of such performances on women and young girls. At a panel discussion, bell hooks said, "I see a part of Beyoncé that is in fact, anti-feminist, that is a terrorist ... especially in terms of the impact on young girls" (Gay, 2014). In an opinion article about Beyoncé’s feminism for The Guardian, Hadley Freeman wrote that while women are humiliated by being paid less than men, “(…) they are similarly humiliated by being fed the message that it doesn't matter how successful, powerful or smart you are – all that matters is how sexually available you are willing to make yourself look” (Freeman, 2013). Hadley and hooks thus argue that Beyoncé conveys a powerful and unhelpful message to women that their value lies in how they are perceived by the male gaze, and whether they meet its standards; and that projecting a sexual self-image is the key for women to attain success.
Beyoncé and Postfeminism
Chatman argues Beyoncé’s success is due to her constitution as the ideal postfeminist subject (Chatman 2015: 931). She embodies the aspects that Gill & Scharff have identified as characteristic of postfeminism, including: “(...) an emphasis upon self-surveillance, monitoring and discipline; a focus upon individualism, choice and empowerment; the dominance of a ‘makeover paradigm’…the
42 marked ‘resexualization’ of women’s bodies; and an emphasis upon consumerism and the commodification of difference” (Gill & Scharff, 2011: 4). Beyoncé’s explanation of her motivation for filming the video reflects these characteristics: "I was 195 pounds when I gave birth... I worked crazily to get my body back. I wanted to show my body. I wanted to show that you can have a child and you can work hard and you can get your body back… You can have your child and you can still have fun and still be sexy and still have dreams and still live for yourself. I'm not embarrassed about it, and I don't feel like I have to protect that side of me because I do believe that sexuality is a power we all have” (Beyoncé, 2013). According to Chatman, Beyoncé “make(s) the right choices with respect to career, marriage, motherhood, and the disciplining of (her) body” (2015: 937). The discussion around Beyoncé, which focuses emphatically on representations of her body, also reflect the emphasis on surveillance of women’s bodies in postfeminist discourse. Beyoncé’s comment that “(…) sexuality is a power we all have” reflect a postfeminist tendency to focus on individual empowerment, while failing to see or making invisible the patriarchal structures (such as the male gaze) which continue to be produced (ibid: 927). Additionally, the comment reflects a postfeminist perception that a woman can “have it all” (a fulfilling career, family, and sexuality) through simply working hard enough, which ignores the systemic conditions enable some women – like Beyoncé – this opportunity, while denying it to others (ibid: 935).
The comments on Partition on BeyonceVEVO further point to the postfeminist notion that empowerment is an individual experience which is not necessarily transferred to or shared with the viewer of the image. While many of Beyoncé’s lyrics reference themes of empowerment and feminist unity, such as ***Flawless, Run the World (Girls), Independent Women and Survivor (Trier-Bieniek, 2016: 2-4), these sentiments does not appear to be present in the comments on the Partition video on BeyonceVEVO. One of the top comments, among the more than 34,500 comments (as at 23 May 2017), is “I can’t even imagine being this comfortable with my body” (Appendix 1), and this comment was liked by more than 2,500 people. Many other comments reflect admiration and awe at Beyoncé’s perfect image and otherworldliness, including: “Imagine being that sexy”, “in my opinion she is the most beautiful and sexiest woman in the industry”, “She is perfect wtf”, “the jewels on her left boob is my entire College Tuition”, “The only woman that can do this and not look TRASHY”,“Can someone give me a time where she doesn't look flawless”, “is.this.woman.real...?” and “there is not a single second where she isn't queen” (Appendix 1). The comments express a sense of
43 distance between Beyoncé and the viewer, in the notions of being unable to “imagine” being that sexy or comfortable with displaying their own body in a sexualised way. The confidence Beyoncé possesses in her body is beyond the scope of the viewer’s imagination, and thus Beyoncé’s appearance, confidence and empowerment is considered an unattainable fantasy. Many viewers did not identify with Beyoncé’s idealised body and sexual confidence, and thus did not identify with the feeling of sexual empowerment expressed in the image. In this way, the sexualised image of Beyoncé can be understood not as empowering to others, but rather as elevating her individual sexual power, leaving a distance between Beyoncé’s body as fantasy and the viewer’s reality.
Further, in stating that “sexuality is a power we all have”, Beyoncé infers the sentiment Gill observed where “(…) sexual ‘empowerment’ has itself become a normatively demanded feature of young women’s sexual subjectivity” (Gill, 2012: 737). However, rather than empower women, Gill argues this postfeminist expectation that women must possess sexual empowerment can serve to only increase pressure on women by adding another norm they must be measured against and live up to.
An additional element that is frequently raised in discussions of Beyoncé is the expectations surrounding race. Gavey notes that “tensions and the consequences for breaking the complex rules of contemporary femininity can be even more punishing for women who are not white, heterosexual, slim, conventionally attractive, and of the “right” age” (Gavey, 2012: 722). In an article for Bitch Media in 2013, Tamara Winfrey Harris observes this experience in the response to Beyoncé’s performances compared with the equally sexual performances by white American entertainer Madonna. Winfrey Harris writes that Beyoncé’s use of her body in her performances is critiqued as: “(...) thoughtless and without value beyond male titillation, providing a modern example of the age-old racist juxtaposition of animalistic black sexuality vs. controlled, intentional, and civilized white sexuality” (Winfrey Harris, 2013). The disparity between what are considered acceptable expressions of sexuality for black and white women are the types of issues that intersectionality, as an element of postfeminism, seeks to address. However, acts such as performing to resemble black cabaret dancer Josephine Baker, lead feminist critics such as bell hooks to argue Beyoncé does not challenge derogatory stereotypes of untamed black female sexuality (hooks 2016). Further, hooks argues that in defining feminism as being about “(...) equal rights for men and women” (Gottesman, 2016),
44 Beyoncé ignores the struggles that black women in particular continue to face. Chatman also critiques Beyoncé’s self-positioning “(...) outside a black feminist political agenda focused on struggle against racist and sexist oppression” as problematic (Chatman, 2015: 937). These critiques indicate not only the differing standards Beyoncé’s sexuality is assessed against because of her race, but also the additional expectations feminists place upon black performers. hooks and Chatman’s critiques reveal that black women do not just experience additional social punishment for sexual performances, but are also expected to take responsibility for the wider political struggles of black women.
Analysis Sum Up
In our analysis we have analysed how our chosen cases can be seen in relation to our theoretical framework, in terms of empowerment, objectification, and postfeminism. By doing this we have uncovered how these individual, self-proclaimed acts of empowerment have been received by their audiences and which factors have proven to be important in order to empower beyond the limits of the individual celebrity. By focusing on the chosen theory we have shown a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that come into play when the viewer sees an act of empowerment and how viewers’ perceptions differ depending on the case. We will further discuss these findings in order to illuminate some of the broader societal structures that these cases represent, in terms of the contemporary struggles of empowerment that women face in western societies today. In the following discussion chapter we will shed light upon these struggles with point of departure in the analysis of the three cases. What do these cases and the different reactions express in terms of societal structures? Why are they different, and what do the differences in the cases and the reactions express in terms of different performances of female sexuality, in different ways?
Discussion
Great (S)expectations
When analysing the reactions to the different cases, we found a pattern amongst commenters which expressed perceptions of what it entails to be the “right” kind of woman. As mentioned
45 in the analysis, comments on Schumer were about how her body is a “real” woman’s body, praising her figure, which is bigger than the typical image of thin women one often encounters in popular media. These comments are arguably meant to be positive and well-meaning, but by pointing out that “this is what a real woman looks like”, the comments once again favour a specific body type over others. One can argue that by constantly emphasising specific body types as the “right” kind, society may never move beyond constraining structures which always will strive to dictate women’s lives and bodies. Finding this repeated phrase in numerous tweets indicates a subconscious reproduction of structures which inevitably elevate certain body types and exclude others. Schumer breaks some conventional beauty norms and therefore empowers women who identify with her specific body type, but somebody will always feel excluded from what empowers others. The person who wrote: “Beautiful, real and normal!” (Appendix 1) about Schumer’s photo is praising Schumer for expressing a different kind of beauty than normally portrayed in the media, however she is also reproducing a narrow-minded perception of what is “normal” and “real”. One can argue that emphasising a particular body type, big or small, reproduces boxes which women are confined to live in and define themselves within. Claiming anything to be “normal” ignores other women who have different body types. The media and fashion industry have forced unhealthy body images upon girls and women by predominantly showing thin and skinny girls and women, and this emphasis on thinness has arguably taught girls and women to hate their “inadequate” bodies, but has also taught them to vilify women who fall within these conventional beauty standards. We further see how motherhood has its own set of rules through the Twitter comments. Beyoncé and Kim Kardashian both express an awareness of the societal norms which strive to separate female sexuality and motherhood, norms that also further the notion that by becoming a mother you should visibly become humble and modest in order to successfully perform the role of a mother. Kardashian and Beyoncé reject these norms and expectations of what they are supposed to do and choose to prioritise their individual sexuality and their right to express it publicly if they wish to. The tweet directed at Kim Kardashian, “sexy and sad, have to give it to you, you're HOT but don’t you think you have to respect baby North and her sibling & start acting like a mum” (Appendix 1), insinuates that “acting like a mum” and being sexual should be separated. This demonstrates how people police women’s bodies and choices while judging any act that falls outside the rules of womanhood and motherhood. By saying: “You can have your child and you can still have fun and still be sexy” (Beyoncé, 2013), Beyoncé rejects societal expectations and prioritises her own individual feeling of empowerment.
46 Beyoncé is also criticised for her way of claiming feminism whilst simultaneously catering to the male gaze and her way of expressing her sexuality, also in relation to her race. We can thus see a certain set of expectation of how to be a “good” black feminist, that Beyoncé is often criticised for not living up to. The fact that all three women break expectations tied to womanhood, in one way or another, and defend these actions, shows a common emphasis on the importance of their own choice to define what is “right” and empowering for them as female individuals. How this emphasis on individuality functions within Western society and in the context of feminist struggle will be elaborated on in the following discussion.
Me, Myself, and I
What has become apparent through analysing the different cases is the consistent focus on individuality. Beyoncé, Schumer and Kardashian all focus on their own lived experiences and perceptions as the bottom line for their individual act of empowerment. When Kardashian says: “I will not live my life dictated by the issues you have with my sexuality. You be you and let me be me” (Markus, 2016), it places an importance on the individual as an unfettered subject when it comes to right and wrong. What may feel right for one person is not necessarily what is right for someone else. This notion thrives within the postfeminist sensibility as it emphasises the complexity of well-being and how people benefit from different lifestyles and expressions of sexuality. But what happens when the focus on individuality overshadows the structures that it seeks to abolish? The focus on empowerment places the individual female subject at the core. What do you feel? Does this action make you feel good about yourself? Postfeminist sensibility situates “you” as a bottom line in the justification of actions which may reproduce oppressive structures. Feminism has a history of being a collective battle which requires women to stand together and find strength in plurality. One can argue that previous struggles of former waves, such as suffrage, the right to vote and access to education, were visible inequalities. In today’s Western society the inequality can be perceived as more subtle, for example sexist language and catcalling, which are situated within behavioural reproduction rather than obvious discrimination. On paper, Western women have access to education and jobs just like men, but this does not necessarily mean that women and men have equal opportunity. The structural oppression now lies within the way women are perceived which makes the struggle less
47 tangible and concrete, hence further problematising the act of identifying sexism and inequality in society. This illustrates a postfeminist internalisation which focuses on the individual experience and perception of inequality, and may possibly create a further division amongst women instead of unifying them. One could also argue that individual empowerment creates a strength and courage to stand up against gender inequality, and therefore pushing for equality through the empowered individual woman. However, due to the embedded individuality within the notion of empowerment, Western society creates a culture where female empowerment and social structures are treated as isolated notions, when they are in fact entwined with one another. As Gavey (2012: 719) points out, an individual act of empowerment cannot be isolated from societal structures as it will always arise in a context of cultural practices and norms which can have a problematic meaning and effect on girls and women collectively. This brings one to ask: is there any such thing as an individual act of empowerment if the act inevitably reproduces structures which are fixed to undermine women? As a public female figure you are constantly being watched, and what you share with the public will call for reactions, as shown in the analysis. One can argue that if your individual act of empowerment makes other women feel inadequate because they do not live up to the performed beauty norms, or it makes women feel pressured to be sexual in order to be the “right” kind of woman, the act itself loses its individuality as it affects other women. This leads us to the matter of how the chosen self-proclaimed acts of empowerment are received and connote different meanings for the viewers. We will further discuss the meaning and effect of empowerment as a notion and how it affected the viewers when they encountered the chosen images.
‘To Empower or Not to Empower? That is the Question’
When researching theory on empowerment we found a breadth of discussion on the concept, and it quickly became apparent how difficult a concept it is to define, and how many considerations arise when analysing whether an act is empowering or not. “Is feeling empowered the same as being empowered?”, “If an act of sexual empowerment has unintended outcomes, was it ever empowering?”, “Is a sexual image or performance always either
48 empowering or objectifying?”, and “Is empowerment possible in the context of enduring sexist structures?”, are just a few of the many questions that arise.
Gavey notes that “(…) while women can choose to act in various “raunchy” ways… they do not have control over meanings ascribed to those actions by others” (Gavey, 2012: 721). While there is an element of agency and control in a woman choosing to post a nude or sexual image of herself, the woman no longer has complete control over the image once it is posted, because the image is open to public interpretation and criticism. Is the image still empowering, if it is then understood by the audience as self-objectifying? Who or what counts in determining whether an image is empowering? What is the role of intentions in assessing if an image represents empowerment? In the postfeminist sensibility, an image is empowering if the subject posting it feels empowered, regardless of the reception it receives, given the postfeminist tendency to disconnect actions from their circumstances and consequences (Gavey, 2012: 719). In this framework, the power to claim “empowerment” lies with the woman who posted the image, not with the critics who have ascribed their own meaning to it. We also found empowerment was utilised in different ways, for example, as a commodity, as a source of well-being, and as a rhetorical strategy for claiming power within fundamentally objectifying structures. A frequent criticism that scholars raised in theoretical discussions is the commodification of empowerment (Gill, 2012: 738: Lamb & Peterson, 2011: 705), and we saw this clearly reflected in the way Kim Kardashian markets herself (and thus her product) as empowering. It is easy to understand why the concept is used as a marketing strategy, because, as both the cases and the viewers expressed, feeling empowered is conflated with well-being – with feeling good and feeling valued. Observing the commodification of empowerment led us to wonder about its actual transformative potential. Is it of any value beyond financial gain for the individual performers who use its appeal to sell beauty products and music? What value, if any, does empowerment as a commodity have for the viewer? Is the concept still meaningful in a producer/consumer dynamic? Another point of interest which arose during the analysis was why some of the images were perceived by viewers as empowering and others were not. What did viewers find in the images that was empowering? Amy Schumer’s image was widely praised by women because in revealing her stomach rolls, women recognised an aspect of their own bodies and saw a figure they could identify with. Further, this aspect of her body was openly displayed and celebrated as an integral part of the image, which communicated to women that they did not have to feel ashamed or inadequate for having stomach fat. By contrast, the responses to Beyoncé’s image
49 in the Partition video reflected adoration and attraction, but not a sense of sharing in her empowerment, because the viewers did not identify with Beyoncé’s idealised body. Rather, they perceived a vast distance between Beyoncé’s image as fantasy and their own reality. From the different responses to these two images, it appears that one of the key elements which contributes to whether semi-nude images are received as empowering or not is whether the subject is willing to show their “flaws”. Amy Schumer’s image was considered empowering because it was both a beautiful and realistic image. It encouraged women to think of their own bodies as beautiful and valuable – and worthy of display in, for example, a calendar – even if they do not have flat stomachs or meet conventional standards of attractiveness. Beyoncé’s portrayal of her toned body, under low lighting and without flaws, did not present a point of identification for the viewer, or a departure from conventional beauty standards. The image is thus a fetish rather than realistic role model, which places Beyoncé on a pedestal as the ideal image of feminine beauty and sexiness, and reminds the viewer that they are not on this same level. The way in which both male and female viewers critique women’s bodies against norms established by Western, white, heterosexual male standards, will be examined more closely in the following section.
So, Women Can’t Win?
As the analysis suggests, there appears to be some incongruity in the way that women perceive the image of the sexualised female body. The comments on the presented images indicate that there is (to some extent) a normalisation amongst women that allows for a shared justification, a culture, so to say, that permits women to judge and objectify one another on social media. Often women’s direct and indirect objectifications of one another tend to confirm the dominance of the patriarchy and the male gaze, such as in the comment by user TheLady2luv on Beyoncé’s Partition video, where she stated, “Jay is such a lucky guy”, or “Imagine being that sexy” by user Eirin Johansen (Appendix 1). While, these comments confirm the idealised values of the patriarchy, they also demonstrate the consciousness that women have towards these desired ideals. This “patriarchal consciousness” is used to either approve or disapprove of other women’s physical and/or sexual appearance. Drawing on Pencz’s (2012) critique that Beyoncé’s experienced empowerment is a result of the affirmation that she has gained by the
50 patriarchy for succeeding to live up to the demands of the male gaze (due to her fortunate good looks and popularity), one can argue that this affirmation is not only achieved through recognition from men but also the recognition from women. In this way, women can either support or disapprove of other women’s choices, leading to what can be perceived as a socially constructed system of affirmation. The male gaze is therefore not the only objectifying force when it comes to the objectification of women, as women too tend to objectify each other, as seen in a comment by user Shantel Love, on Beyoncé’s Partition video who commented that Beyoncé is“The only woman that can do this and not look TRASHY” (Appendix 1), entailing that if someone else had done something similar, she would have been suppressed. In this way, women have encouraged this “system of affirmation” for many years, through the education and upbringing of young girls and women. Drawing on bell hooks’ criticism, this becomes apparent in the comment: "(…) I see a part of Beyoncé that is in fact, anti-feminist, that is a terrorist ... especially in terms of the impact on young girls" (Gay, 2014). What this statement implies is indeed that bell hooks disagrees on how Beyoncé uses her sexuality, but more so it emphasises the influence that Beyoncé’s sexual representation has on the education of young girls, as it reaffirms the values and desires of the male gaze. This relates to Hadley Freeman’s comment on the humiliation of women, “(…) they are similarly humiliated by being fed the message that it doesn't matter how successful, powerful or smart you are – all that matters is how sexually available you are willing to make yourself look” (Freeman, 2013). If this is the case, then are women truly free to act as they like? Are women free to make the choices that they want, when contemporary social structures restrict women from doing so? Looking at the comments that were made on Beyoncé’s Partition video, user Amy Hall wrote: “Okay so, if women don't have sex they're prudes, if they have "too much" sex they're whores… Looks like we can't win either way” (Appendix 1). Perhaps this can be seen as one of the pitfalls of the neoliberal discourse that dominates postfeminism today, namely the idea that women are autonomous and free to make the choices that they like, however in practice this freedom plays out in a particular cultural setting that appears to be beyond our control. Furthermore, according to MacKinnon, women might believe and be under the impression that they are empowered by expressions of sexuality, that they are acting on their own sexuality, that they have a free choice, but in reality they are merely reproducing patriarchal structures - structures that objectify and reduces women to be for men (Nussbaum, 1995: 268). One hence wonders what possibilities women have for empowerment? If structures in society make women objectify themselves, even when trying to emancipate themselves, take control and claim empowerment, can women win? What is the solution?
51
But Then, What Now? Give up and Go Home?
Looking at our findings, one cannot help but reflect upon the question, “What now, then?”. If women feel empowered through certain individual actions, but these actions are not perceived as empowering by others, and are rather understood as the opposite or even as reproducing oppressive structures, should women then just “put their clothes on”? It appears to be a vicious circle, because if women start covering up their bodies and stop posing willingly in little to no clothes, are they not then giving in and agreeing with the patriarchal notion that a woman’s body is inherently sexual? If you cover up, you signify that your female body asks for sexual attention, but by taking off your clothes your body is still perceived as being for someone else. In western society we have seen Muslim women being forced to take off clothes (Weaver, 2017), but we have also seen western women being forced to cover up. What is the “right” amount of clothes? And does it even exist? If women feel empowered by their choice to take their clothes off and say that they are shamelessly proud of their bodies, why should society stop them? Women grow up learning that how they dress, speak and look will have consequences if not done modestly, and so the impulse to simply stop caring is not difficult to comprehend and sympathise with. One can argue that the word “empowerment” has become a shield which allows a person to claim personal benefit from their act of empowerment and therefore nobody should criticise that action, because choice is beautiful and one’s own. But does this not merely sabotage the attempts to point out social structures that seek to oppress women? It appears western society has reached a point where individualism and individual choice have become central in our value system, so central that any critique of those choices is considered disrespectful. In this way, individual empowerment can even be perceived as a patriarchal tool which wrap objectification into a “shiny, feisty, postfeminist packaging” (Gill, 2012: 737). The term has been used to the point of exhaustion, and milking its meaning for capitalist gain almost violates the original significance, potential and beauty. As Gill (2012) points out, the term has been used so excessively in the context of female sexuality, that the term empowerment itself has become sexualised (ibid). We argue that individual choice should be respected, and as Gavey writes “sympathised with” (2012: 723), but the ability to view actions in the bigger cultural context is a necessity, if we as
52 a society want to move closer to gender equality. This does not mean that women should not be sexual or should not explore their sexuality - quite the opposite. What is meant is that when “being sexy” becomes a fundamental necessity of being a woman and is constantly communicated through the media and idols as being empowering, society arguably regresses instead of progresses. The ideal reality is a society where this constant debate of women’s bodies is no longer relevant - a reality where the male gaze is not constantly encountered by women who have no interest in being sexualised. However, this is not the stage our society is at now. And, perhaps acting as if it is may not accelerate the speed of gender equality. Women have always been perceived as decorative and sexual. Feminists have fought for women to be considered as more than merely looks for decades, and being sexy is not groundbreaking for today’s woman, rather, it is required. We therefore argue that empowerment becomes more powerful when women who break gendered beauty norms or succeed in male dominated fields gain media attention. Schumer broke beauty norms by simply relaxing her stomach while hunched over and suddenly thousands of women felt represented. This shows a beauty and unity in something typically perceived as “ugly” or “wrong” and it further shows how women are fed up with their looks being dictated by beauty standards which exclude the vast majority of women.
Conclusion
By going in depth with the three chosen acts of individual empowerment, through posing nude (or semi-nude), and the reception of these particular cases, we have uncovered how the complicated notion of empowerment is expressed by our three subjects and understood by the viewers. By exploring these particular examples we have been able to identify patterns within the reactions which illustrate the gap between the subjects’ experiences of empowerment and the receiver’s experience. We found that the individual acts of empowerment were perceived as empowering when the female subject was breaking with conventional beauty norms, as depicted through the case of Amy Schumer and her confident reveal of her stomach rolls. The predominantly positive response to this image, which consisted of several women expressing that they finally felt represented in the media and more importantly, felt beautiful, depicts empowerment as a feeling which can be shared and which transcends an individual feeling or experience, instead of merely being confined to the individual. As illustrated through our cases,
53 female empowerment is often expressed through nudity and sexuality in contemporary popular media, which goes hand in hand with the postfeminist sensibility that a female individual’s personal feeling of empowerment is a justification for its own existence, even though it may harm girls and women in the long term. Furthermore, we found that the images of Kardashian and Beyoncé attracted comments which pointed out their sexual appearance as shameful, because it expressed a negligence of the “proper” role of a mother. This can be viewed as a further illustration of the gendered expectations women face and how there are not only strict rules for women to look “right”, but also to be “right”. It illustrates how women not only police their own bodies, but also other women’s. Our theoretical framework helped us place our findings in a sociocultural context, thus understanding how the acts of empowerment are connected to a broader cultural context, despite their intention of being isolated actions. The strong postfeminist emphasis on individuality creates a culture where individual acts of empowerment, through sexuality, are treated as disconnected from their cultural context, and therefore these acts are also not considered to be reproducing the objectification of women. It is easy to forget that we are all implicit in shaping, maintaining and reproducing these structures. Do famous women such as Schumer, Beyoncé and Kardashian have a responsibility to ignore their feeling of empowerment and instead tone down their sexuality because it may reproduce oppressive structures of objectification? Perhaps it is not a matter of being empowered or not. Perhaps, as Gill argues, the postfeminist obsession with empowerment distracts us from focusing on more concrete concepts such as “(...) desire, pleasure, ability to negotiate condom use”, which could be more useful points of focus in the effort towards meaningful societal progress (Gill, 2012: 743). As Gavey points out: “Instead we can open up other sorts of conversations which make space for all of us together to understand the politics of our personal lives, to understand the constraints on choice and to develop tools for weaving our way through them with our eyes a bit more wide open” (2012: 722). Gavey eloquently suggests opening up dialogue which enables girls and women to identify the cultural structures they are unwillingly situated within and how developing an understanding of how our lives as women come with certain pressure and expectations, and how we can best navigate within those conditions. Understanding one’s own life in context to the larger sociocultural context can hardly hurt anyone. However, the framing of this issue is very important. There is arguably a fine line between informing girls and women about societal structures and objectification, and teaching them rape culture. The aim should never be to make
54 women feel that by showing their bodies they are asking to be disrespected, or worse. The point is that girls and women should simply not feel pressured to be sexual. Beauty norms and sexuality being constantly pushed through the media upon girls and women as an empowering aspect of womanhood makes it difficult to feel like the “right” kind of woman if you do not live up to these ideals and requirements of femininity. Women feel empowered by different things, but something that became clear is that representation plays a big role in order for an act of empowerment to become empowering for the receiver. And if women find out that they are good enough and beautiful as they are, imagine then what they can overcome in the future.
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