Pajiba

I watched Season 1 Ep 1 of Mad Men last night, I think I might be hooked.

I find shirtless women to be empowering. I find men who tell women to take their shirts off in the name of "female empowerment" to be idiots. I also find women who let me touch their boobs to be the best people ever.

Playboy servers don't act like bunnies. They wear a sexy bathing suit and heels with bunny ears and a tail. The costume aligns with the brand. The fact they dress with a nod to a bunny is no more demeaning than someone wearing a chicken suit while handing out KFC flyers. I don't think any of the men in a Playboy Club are turned on by small animals or are even making that connection.

I think a waitress in bunny ears is a less demeaning job than a stripper. Would you rather be a stripper than a waitress at Hooters also? The whole suggestion seems like you're being facetious.

I think is was Tosh who said; women lost the war of the sexes the minute stripper poles became a popular form of exercise.

I generally agree with your point here, but I'm not sure these two thoughts can be reconciled: "When a man or woman owns their own sexuality, it’s a thing of beauty. But there is NOTHING powerful about being part of a sex industry".

If a woman works in the sex industry and honestly chooses and enjoys it, how is that different from anyone else "owning" their sexuality? Isn't the point of female empowerment to be able to choose what you do with your life? If we outlaw certain promiscuous jobs/ways of dressing/attitudes, aren't we right back to a Mad Men-esque square one?

We release control of our lives every day when we go to work. I think it's all a matter of greys, not black and whites. As an artist and photographer, I have my choice of thousands and thousands of models who will gladly remove all of their clothing and pose for me, in a million different variations and levels of sexuality.

Every one I've worked with, and it's an admittedly small list, does what they do because they want to. Some do it more as though it's truly work and some do it because they love it. If they didn't do it professionally they would still do it in an amateur capacity. It's the same for many who work in the sex industry. I follow one and only one porn actress on Twitter and it's abundantly clear that she does what she does because she loves it, not because some boyfriend forced her into it or because she's supporting a drug habit or working her way through college. She revels in it. It might be a marketing thing entirely, but I do not believe that for a minute.

It's certainly not that way for every porn star or model or prostitute, but that's my point. To label it one way or another ignores the shades of grey that the world exists in.

That being said, I still despise the 'whorification' of everyone and everything lately.

The women’s movement has been the most single destructive thing against women in the history of the world, and I don’t say that lightly. You will never see a two hundred pound pig doing the weather on your local tv station. You will never see a two hundred pound pig mannequin in a store window wearing thongs. You will never see a two hundred pound miss America or miss Universe, hell, you won’t even see a two hundred pound miss Kentucky. When I hear the word empower as it relates to women, it means that some woman didn’t get a job she was looking for because management thought the pretty and sexy chic was a better fit. Sometimes the hot sexy chic has brains also.

Was the black girl called a chocolate bunny?

I'm asking for History!

I have absolutely no idea why women are complaining, except that maybe it's a female thing.

I'm fairly certain a lot of people would feel dressing up in a chicken suit and handing out flyers IS demeaning. Maybe not sexually demeaning (which may be your point becks), but demeaning none the less.

And while a lot of men don't necessarily pick up on the promiscuity angle of the bunny symbolism, I think a lot of them recognize it as a woman dressing up as a cutesy, weaker animal for their (the men's that is) enjoyment. I'd be hard pressed to believe that Playboy, a magazine (now full blown enterprise) that sells sex didn't consider the sexual connotations of its mascot as well. Honestly, to NOT do so would be bad business, despite its questionable morality.

@Pookie... your first sentence has promise, it is a thesis I have heard many times... but your arguement poorly supports it. I realize that you basically troll here (intentionally or not)but I am disappointed that it all boils down to calling 200 pound women pigs.

YAWN

Posted by: Theresa at August 2, 2011 5:46 PM

Ok maybe pig was a bit much, but my point is that models do the weather and wear thongs in store windows, and not zaftig women. The word empowerment means that a woman that doesn’t get what she wants most times will pull out the big guns, by big guns I mean sex appeal. You never hear BBW’s using the word empowerment because straight off the bat they knew that in order to become successful they had to use their wits.

I'd just like to say I'm so glad that someone came the fuck out and said that it needs to be a public service announcement.

@Pookie, I sometimes do believe that the feminist movement has backfired in small but significant (to some) ways, but I do not know if I agree with your premise. I have never felt dis-empowered because a hotter chick got something I wanted. I have felt dis-empowered when people (almost always women) tell me that what I want - what makes me happy - is setting back *the movement*

I am a stay at home mom who bakes and cooks from scratch. I knit and sew and have dinner on the table when my husband gets home. But I am happy. If I change my mind, and no longer want to do it, I will put my kid in aftercare and get a job... but I love it.

Maybe some women truly do love being Bunnies. If they love it, who are we to tell them they are not empowered? Make sure they have options? Yes. Make sure they know their options? Yes. Tell them with choice to make? Never. Even if it is the *right* choice for feminism.

@Pookie, BBW, really? You did not help your counter-argument by your ignorant comment about women of larger size. Let me see if I get this straight: women of slimmer sizes MUST use sex appeal for empowerment and larger women MUST use wit for empowerment? Do us all a favor and please stop commenting before you dig yourself a bigger hole.

By the way, has it ever occured to you that some guys like bigger women too?

Hey, how come the black bunny has to be the SHORT one?!

Sorry. That's all the outrage I can muster for a show I had not planned to watch anyway.

Manekin, I would propose that it's not that they "must", it's more like they often do and often, it's all they need to do.

How many women (and men) have we seen or met who did not deserve the position they are in and clearly got it because they were good looking? It's not solely a female thing, but females own it more than men do. Ironically this is as much, if not more, the fault of males than anything else.

Having worked in news most of my adult life, I've seen it firsthand too often, but you don't need me to tell you that, just turn on the tv. The thing that most don't realize is that a huge proportion of the women in television news came straight from the beauty pageant to the television set. Do not attend journalism school, do collect your six figure salary. Not that the men aren't much more than pretty faces themselves, their backgrounds are more often grounded in the field they're in. That being said, the incidence of street reporters who are dim and beautiful are more often women, whereas there are more men who weren't hired simply because they're camera candy.

And before the long knives come out - as I said, this has a lot to do with who's hiring them, not a dearth of plain but intelligent females who could and would fill those shoes easily. And as a further attempt to cover my ass, I've worked with some beautiful AND brilliant women reporters and anchors. Amy Kaufeldt at WOFL in Orlando stands out as just that. Plus, she's an extremely nice person.

The only empowerment angle I know for sure that exists on The Playboy Club is that Laura Benanti's character--the first Bunny--actually takes over managing the club. She is put in charge of running the business and still gets to be the head performer. I think there is more to this show than girls in bunny suits and I'm willing to give the actors--some of whom I greatly respect--the benefit of a doubt here. If it is just showing off T&A in a period drama, then it's not empowerment. If there's something more than the visual, then it might not be a line of crap by NBC this time.

@Pookie, BBW, really? You did not help your counter-argument by your ignorant comment about women of larger size. Let me see if I get this straight: women of slimmer sizes MUST use sex appeal for empowerment and larger women MUST use wit for empowerment? Do us all a favor and please stop commenting before you dig yourself a bigger hole.

By the way, has it ever occured to you that some guys like bigger women too?

Posted by: manaken at August 2, 2011 6:43 PM

Mamaken, BBW are the only kind of women that I fuck with, not that I won’t lay pipe on a skinny chic. You missed my entire point by saying I said that a big girl has to use her wit and a slimmer chick has to use her sex appeal. My point is that the word empowerment has been used by feminist to tell women what to do and what to want. I don’t give a damn what a broad does, as long as she’s happy doing it, whether it’s being a playboy bunny or being a homemaker. I'm not one of those type of guys that tell women that they can't be happy dancing or being a playboy bunny.

I'm just going to drop in here and leave this lovely quote on the subject that I found last week in an article on foot binding and high heels and other painful beauty conventions:

“And very sexualized power is false power, because in order to be sexy someone has to find you sexy, and so the power actually is in the beholder.”

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/20/snow-flower-foot-binding-high-heels_n_901184.html

I knew it. I knew it. I knew from the moment this show was announced that the word "empowerment" would soon rear it's ugly head.

Ahh Hollywood, you are nothing if not predictable.

I'm sure the other Mad Menesque show making the rounds Pan AM will be using the same word soon.

Protoguy, because she's still depending on the guy to find her attractive enough to do what she wants. The power is ultimately still with the man, who gets to decide if the woman is hot enough to warrant doing what she wants. A woman's "power" should not hinge on her ability to turn some guy on. When a man is powerful, it's not because he has a six-pack or a talent for clitoral stimulation.

I didn't bring up the rest of the article because I didn't really feel like bringing up the footbinding/stiletto debate, and I still don't - I was just putting a source to the quote. But I also think it's more than a slight exaggeration to claim that examining and attempting to analyze all the painful beauty shit women are pressured to do (and make no mistake, there IS a significant amount of social pressure to wear heels) in order to look good for men = complaining that men are forcing them to do it.

And the part about depending upon the guy to find her attractive enough to do what she wants? One, that's simply manipulation based on sex on the part of the woman and it is not really a legitimate argument - unless as stated before, you're thin and beautiful enough to make it work. One could argue that it works and is therefore a kind of pressure, but we still have freewill and can play the game or not.

Does that mean only hot chicks are victimized in this way? Or do plain or overweight women just have to hobble along and hope to get by on their intelligence and personality. Maybe never being the hottie makes it impossible for me to understand the rigors of being beautiful, the sad pressures of using my looks for position or rewards, but I guess I'll never know.

This sounds like the cheerleader complaining that she can't make it because the nerds rule now.

There's no such thing as empowering someone else (of whatever gender.) You can only impede someone else in using their own power ... or not. Like having boobs to show off, other people are empowered, or not, without your help.

Good point. Any woman who dares to disagree with you is clearly... "selling" something.

What the heck is that supposed to mean?

It is not the act of exposing one's breasts that are necessarily empowering (although some absolutely find it so) but having the RIGHT to expose one's breasts... or not... *is* empowering.

BTW -- have you had the guts to participate in a SlutWalk... or is there too great a chance that some woman might feel empowered to show her boobs?

Anybody want a peanut?

^^Stop rhyming! I meant it!
(If you don't get it, I'm pretty sure the "selling something" line is in reference to The Princess Bride.)

So speaking from my own base sexual attraction, yes the ears and tail do add something to the suit. (I don't think I'm a closet "beast-o-sexual" but you never know I guess.) Obviously I can't speak for men as a whole, however.

I think where the big gulf here is, though, that there's a large difference between doing something demeaning because you have to in order to get ahead, and something being empowering.

Someone earlier mentioned the original Bunny who went on to run the club. That's exactly the point. The empowerment comes from being able to extend herself beyond merely a sexual object to be ogled and into an equal human being who is capable of running the business of the club, and who also happens to be hot and worthy of ogling. But is this a common career path at Playboy? (I don't actually know. Maybe it is.) Are there management positions waiting for these women, and are they being given ample chance to show themselves capable in this area? Or are they wandering around in sexy costumes until they aren't as sexy as someone else who will immediately step in to take their place?

While I think that kind of affirmation is a very good thing, you have to look at where the power is coming from. I'll use your example of an attractive woman exerting power over the man that's attracted to her.

In that situation, what is controlling the power between the man and woman? It's the man's level of attraction towards the woman. In order to maintain her powerful position, she has to continue to be attractive to the man. In this sense, she's ceded the control of power to the man because it is based on his judgment of her. If you were to decide she wasn't attractive anymore, or that her hotness didn't matter to you, she would lose that power that she supposedly controls. I guess what I'm trying to say is that it isn't simply a matter of having power, but controlling it.

Like I said, it's a very good thing to recognize that things only have the power to give them. But simply saying you don't give something power over you doesn't make it true. When it becomes about someone else's judgment of you, you've already given power to the other.

Are there management positions waiting for these women, and are they being given ample chance to show themselves capable in this area?
---
Christie Hefner?

OK, maybe a bad example ...

By the way, the ears and tail add something for you because they're a seal of approval more than an imitation of an animal. You don't like bunnies, you like girls who have been carefully selected for certain assets and then universally lauded for those assets by male society. They could just as easily be in a cheerleader uniform in high school. Guys love even the most modest cheerleading uniforms because they suggest a certain level of social and sexual importance in society. A sexual ideal.

To put it another way, they aren't dressed in a small animal costume, they're dressed in a popular sexy model costume and that's what men are fantasizing about. The ideal woman that all other men adore.

I don't understand how a sexy woman--dressed scantily and tottering around on high heels--can in ANY WAY be empowering? So, maybe she can get one sucker to do what she wants? Or, maybe she gets clubbed over the head and dragged into the bushes? Sorry, but it will never be a fair equation. Unless, she's got some protection, and then, we have a pimp situation. And, how is this in different from Biblical times? Answer--it's not. It's the same game with a new name.

"Empowerment" is one of those popular, code words--used to cover up the fact that's nothing but the same old hustle. The word is meaningless, essentially.

That explanation makes a bit more sense Socrates_Johnson, but it is still a choice to use that power that starts the process. Which came first? The woman choosing to flex that power or the man who chooses to respond to it. I see how it can get turned around and that it's basically a trap - but that should be the argument then, right? - Don't fall into that trap? I suppose it just rankles me that the male is taking all the blame for a situation that requires an active participant from both sides.

Then there's the whole attitude that women are strong and can do anything, yet so easily relinquish their own responsibility when it comes to sexualized issues like this. Which is it? Are women strong or are their psyches so fragile that they are so easily manipulated? The argument always seems to fall back on blaming culture, if not men, that I still have a hard time believing that, at least in the sexual arena, women are weak victims who can't make their own decisions. I think it's applied when and where it's convenient to place blame or responsibility on others rather than where it lies.

I know it happens. I know there are indeed people, not just women, who are easily overpowered emotionally and sexually, but to apply it across the board culturally and to place the onus completely on men seems rather screwed up.

I suppose all those videos all over the internet of teenage girls doing booty dances and pretending to be strippers or dressing slutty are the fault of men too? Seems to me the only people showing up to a Taylor Momsen concert or a Britney concert or a Christina concert or a Miley Cryus concert - are girls. I'm sure it's their male management that's to blame though, right?

Daria, I personally believe that if a woman wants to go to stripper classes to get a stripper body, or flirty girl classes or whatever they're called, that's her prerogative and she can spin away all she likes, but to pretend that it's not a STRIPPER pole or to then turn around and declare in other contexts that men objectify women or pressure them to do these sort of things is utter crap.

So just to be clear, I'm not necessarily blaming anyone for anything here. In fact, the impetus for the article here is a statement made by a woman, so pretty clearly the attitude that a scantily clad woman who doesn't mind is empowering comes from more than just men. And just as I said earlier that I can't speak for all men, it would be foolish of me to say that I can speak for ANY woman's view on the subject. As such, I'm trying to keep my arguments as generic and...philosophical I guess...as possible.

It's more that your comment about giving something power got me thinking about the nature of power and how it plays out in interpersonal relationships. In writing my last comment, the image I got of power is that it flows from one person to another. One person is providing it by making a judgment about the other, and thus controls this "flow" of power, while the other receives it.

You ask where does it start? Well I don't think it starts anywhere. There are lots of judgments all going on simultaneously, and in each of these the judger is in control of the power they allow the other person to have. So to me the key isn't where it starts, but which is most powerful, and more importantly which will give you access to more power.

So to apply to the situation we were talking about before, there are two judgments going on here. There is the man judging how attractive the woman is, and the woman judging the worthiness of looking attractive to you, or possibly men in general. Now in a one-on-one situation this could go pretty much either way. But if you extend that out to all men, or even just a specific group, suddenly there all sorts of men making varying judgments about the amount of power she can hold over them, but she is giving out the same amount to all of them more or less equally. At that point, I think it gets much harder for the amount of power she's gained to equal or exceed the power that she's giving out. It's possible. It's just that in my view, it is very unlikely.

I'm sorry if that thought process is difficult to follow. I actually really like this concept of power flowing from one person to another as if it were a liquid, but I've been struggling with a good way to articulate it for most of the day. This is actually probably one of my better attempts, but I still don't think it's all that great.

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