Monday 17 May 2010
Feminism a step too far.
I'm certainly not one to dispute Feminist values. In fact, I certainly consider a lot of my moral and political psyche to stem from aspects of Feminism. However, I have recently become aware that modern Feminism has become far too "PC" and extreme. My understanding is that the original aim of Feminism was to achieve a political state wherein men and women were equals. A political party broadcast my boyfriend notified me of revealed quite the opposite idea. Said broadcast covered several outlandish ideas which followed a "women are always better than men and must take over the world" trend. Now this appeared to me as very "tit for tat": Yes men have definitely made similar and more extreme comments in history about women, but is the gender equality of the world going to improve if we continue to adopt this point-scoring system? Moreover, the issue that appealed to me the most was that of lingerie modelling "objectifying" women. Now I am a Burlesque performer with an avid love of lingerie. Does this therefore mean that I am advocating some form of sexist objectification?
Personally, the idea that all stripteasers and models are bound, gagged and forced into the industry is not only untrue but degrading and insulting to my right to make my own decisions! It also tars the name of Feminism and dubs the feminists as boring and ironically conservative; not true! They do have very relative ideas such as the anti-rape "Take Back the Night" march.
I would like to ask the views of Burlesque ladies and Pin-up girls alike, does your modelling/stripping make you feel empowered or slandered?
