Photographer Visualizes Media Hypocrisy Surrounding Women's Bodies

Even before Kim Kardashian “broke the internet” with her nude photos for PAPER magazine, people, particularly young women, started talking about the sexualization of women in the media. Such was the case for photographer Krista Rudolph who decided to use the medium to express the hypocrisy in the portrayal of women’s sexuality. Rudolph designed a series of side-by-side photos with men and women posed in the same outfits and positions (which can be seen here).

On her website Rudolph said “The idea behind this is that women are frequently oversexualized in the media; you rarely see a magazine cover or advertisement containing women where they are not shown in a sexual manner. However, men are not constantly seen that way in the media in the same way that women are….I did this to show how ridiculous it would be if we put men in the same situations as we put women in the media.” The series of photos is a stunning visualization of the hypocrisy often surrounding women's bodies and how they are portrayed and often used in media, particularly in advertising. It represents one of the many great contributions from young women to the conversation surrounding representation of women that's taking place right now. Viral photos of Kim Kardashian may get people talking, but it is work like Rudolph's that will keep up talking about this critical topic.

Take a look at the photos and Rudolph's description of the work. I guarantee it’s worth your time. You can also see more about Rudolph's work on her website.

The TIME 100 and Some People TIME Forgot

Yesterday TIME published its famed “100 Most Influential People.” I love browsing this list, reading profiles of fascinating people written by other fascinating people, and every year look forward to it. I was thrilled to see some of my favorite feminist icons featured on this year’s list: Beyonce, Hillary Clinton, Malala Yousafzai. However, this year as I was reading some entries from the “Icons” section I got a sinking feeling that the list would not achieve gender parity this year. After finishing my perusal of the list, I went back and counted and my gut was right. This year only 41 of the world’s most influential people were women.

I can’t say I was shocked, but I’ll admit I was disappointed. The “100 Most Influential People” list is inherently subjective which gives the editors some leeway in who ends up on the list. If the editors wanted to achieve gender parity on the list, they would be absolutely within their rights to do so. I have to wonder why it isn’t a priority especially in 2014.

However, rather than wallow in my own disappointment I set out to fill in the gaps. I decided to pick out nine women to complete the list. I thought, at first, that this might be difficult given that TIME couldn’t come up with nine more women to add to the list and I found very quickly that I was right. It was difficult, but not for a lack of influential women, rather for a preponderance of them.

So many women seemed to deserve a place on this list. A few names immediately jumped to mind: Wendy Davis, Dilma Rousseff, Sheryl Sandberg, Elizabeth Warren. But even then I couldn’t stop naming amazing, fascinating, diverse, influential women. In fact, the longer I went on naming women, the easier it got to list off accomplished ladies. I ended up with a list of 19 individual women, one two-woman team, and one three-woman team, and I could have gone on if I let myself.

I stopped myself at a list that included these 24 women: Mindy Kaling, Wendy Davis, Shonda Rhimes, Elizabeth Warren, Tina Fey, Dilma Rousseff, Drew Gilpin Faust, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina, Sheryl Sandberg, Amy Purdy, Michelle Obama, Laverne Cox, Jennifer Lawrence, Lupita N’yongo, Piper Kerman, Amy Poehler, Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Robin Roberts, Lorde, Katy Perry, and Geena Davis.

Each of these women is, in her own way, redefining something about the world we live in. They are leaving indelible marks on our culture and our world and it’s a little bit ludicrous that none of them was recognized on TIME’s list, if you ask me. I hope in future years that TIME’s editors will consider making gender parity a must for the “100 Most Influential People.” I believe almost any relatively informed person could list 50 incredibly influential women so it shouldn’t be that much of a challenge to TIME’s editors.

Here’s to this year’s “100 Most Influential People” and to the many women on the list, the many women who should be on that list, and the many women who will one day be on that list.  

Hillary Clinton Is Not a Planet: The Dangers of Objectifying America's Most Powerful Woman

Disclaimer: This isn't about television. I just felt the need to address it.

I keep a March 2011 issue of Newsweek on my desk. It’s devoted almost entirely to “150 Women Who Shake the World” and features countless stories about what women around the globe are doing to improve the lives of women and children everywhere. Among those women is Hillary Clinton, then Secretary of State. A photo of her, in all the dignity and authority of the office she held, is featured on the cover bearing the title “Hillary’s War: How she’s shattering glass ceilings everywhere.” It’s hardly a remarkable cover, but for me it’s a remarkable magazine issue. I still keep it for two reasons. One is for the inspiration I can find by flipping through the stories of all 150 amazing women, but the more important reason is to remind me that, like former Secretary Clinton and these women, I am the subject of my own story.

In recent weeks, a spate of interesting magazine covers has made headlines. If you have been paying a lot of attention to the news, you probably know that I’m referring to TIME’s portrayal of Hillary Clinton as apantsuit-clad leg crushing a tiny man with a high heel and New York Times Magazine’s depiction of the same woman as a planet. Of course, these representations of one of the world’s most powerful women were offensive on a few levels. Whether you love Clinton or hate her, you have to acknowledge that this trend is disturbing. For me the issue boils down to the fact that in each instance Secretary Clinton was portrayed as an object rather than a person. This is objectification of women at its worst. Objectification of women has long been documented as detrimental to women’s self-perception and confidence. Furthermore, the objectification of women in political roles leads to the perception that they are more incompetent and less human, a phenomenon documented by Nathan Heflick and Jamie Goldenberg in their case study of Sarah Palin in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. The case of Hillary Clinton’s most recent magazine cover representations serves to point out that this objectification is not always sexual as it often was in the case of Palin. Objectification is so dangerous because it tells us that women are not subjects, or actors, but objects to be acted upon. By repeatedly portraying Hillary Clinton as an object rather than a subject, the media is making her less threatening and formidable as a candidate and less human.

The real problem with magazine covers like TIME’s and the New York Times Magazine’s is not simply that it is offensive to Hillary Clinton to be portrayed as a planet, but that it is dangerous to all women to see each other portrayed as things instead of people. I hope as the 2016 presidential race closes in on us that we will see fewer magazines like those and more like that of my treasured copy of Newsweek where women are just women, not things. 

Notes: 

The article about the objectification of Sarah Palin can be found using this citation: 

Heflick, Nathan A, and Jamie L. Goldenberg. "Objectifying Sarah Palin: Evidence That Objectification Causes Women to Be Perceived As Less Competent and Less Fully Human." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology. 45.3 (2009): 598-601. Print.

Women Won the Emmys (At Least in Comedy)

The nominations have been announced. The gracious thank yous have been issued. The snubs and surprises articles have been written. It’s Emmy season, everyone, and this time around women took the awards by storm in the comedy category.

In a world where some people continue to debate about whether women are funny, the list of nominees for Outstanding Comedy Series seems to set out to silence the disbelievers. Three of the six nominees have female protagonists and of the remaining three two are arguably ensemble comedies with relatively balanced comedies. Seems to me, women are funny or at least the Academy thinks so.

Furthermore, several of the nominated shows feature strong female characters and explore many of the problems modern women face at home and work. 

Girls of course is renowned for it’s focus on a group of young women who are struggling to find themselves in New York City. The show is, of course, representative of the struggles of a generation of women and with the success of Girls that generation of women finally gets a chance to hear their own voices on television. In addition, the creative genius behind Girls is a woman, the multi-talented Lena Dunham.

Like Lena Dunham, another woman continually proving that women are funny is the extraordinary Tina Fey, the woman behind NBC’s 30 Rock. The show, following the trials and tribulations of TV writer and producer Liz Lemon, has been an Emmy darling for several years, including this one, the show’s last. Though there’s only one other female character, the show does accomplish something in making the focus of the story a woman who openly identifies as a feminist. Liz Lemon feminism has been the focus of many conversations by feminist media critics and portraying a feminist lead was a huge leap in television.

Another stand out is Veep. While it’s satirical nature often makes Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s VP Selina Meyer seem ineffective, it does explore some of the ramifications of Selina’s gender on her job and public perception. Simply the fact that a woman is being portrayed as the vice president should also be appreciated in a world where television still often represents political power as solely a man’s game and where, too often, it’s right.

Modern Family and The Big Bang Theory  struggle most in their portrayal of women. Modern Family is by no means bad at portraying women, thought, it is somewhat lacking in the variety of roles women are portrayed in. The female characters tend to be housewifes but that may be changing and has provided an interesting story line for Claire, a woman exploring how to find fulfillment and fill her time after raising three children. In this way it’s reflective of the lives of many women and takes a stab at exploring the effects of the traditional home on women. Unlike Modern Family, The Big Bang Theory struggles much more to represent women well. Creator Chuck Lorre is infamous for shows with sexist portrayals of women. Women are treated as extensions of the male characters and they are too often the butt of sexist jokes. Their stories aren’t told as their own but are instead used to provide character arcs for the male characters. It’s worth noting, though, that as the show has progressed more women have joined the cast and it’s critical reception and ratings have gone up. Hollywood executives take note, women make good television.

The last show, Louie, of course is the brainchild of feminist darling Louie CK. The show centers on a male protagonist but it’s written and starred in by one of the most feminist members of the media out there. Feminists love Louie.

All in all, it’s a good year to be a woman in comedy television. The only thing missing from this year’s nominees is Parks and Rec.  The show is currently one of the highest rated on television an continues to excel in the world of comedy. Starring the beloved Amy Poehler as the competent and wildly-driven, if eccentric, city councilwoman Leslie Knope, Parks and Rec is both hilariously funny and beloved for it’s rich portrayal of female characters. Most won’t argue that it didn’t deserve more Emmy love than it got. Well, there’s always next year.

tl;dr Women are funny. Girls is good. 30 Rock and Tina Fey are awesome. Feminists love Louie. Yay for Veep and Modern Family. The Big Bang Theory is kind of sexist. Women make television better. Parks and Recshould have been nominated.

Women on "The West Wing"

Women on "The West Wing"

When I watched The West Wing for the first time, the ways in which the show, one I would argue is one of the best written series to ever grace our televisions sets, handled gender and sexism often struck me. At certain times I would pump my fist triumphantly in the air because of a particularly powerful feminist moment, but there were many others where I cringed. All too often these would happen in the span of a single episode. So finally I sat down to critically analyze the women of The West Wing, and the show certainly has some powerful moments and strong points, but I have to say it: The West Wing had a woman problem. Here’s a four point breakdown of that problem:

1. The show doesn't have enough female characters.
2. Those characters that are female tend to have jobs that are viewed as less important than the jobs of the male characters or are only featured because of their relationship to an important male character. To elaborate, many of the female characters are at the assistant level and there is only one female senior staff member for most of the show. Furthermore, many of the recurring female characters are members of the president’s family.
3. The women are often used as a  plot device so the “smart man" can explain some complicated issue to the confused woman, a stand in for the audience. All to often the audience surrogate is CJ Cregg or Donna Moss, two of the central female characters. Less often do we see Toby or Sam or Josh portrayed as the confused one.
4. The gender of the female characters is almost always ignored or viewed as irrelevant. 

While all of these four points contribute significantly to The West Wing's problems in handling gender, point number four is arguably the most important point and the part of the problem that affects women most. Expanding on the idea that a character's gender identity is often ignored it's worth saying that it’s rarely acknowledged that there are many fewer women working in the Bartlet White House than there are men and when it is pointed out (once, only once) the issue is never delved into. Instead, it's used as a humorous one-off line. I have a really hard time believing that the gender of the female staffers never affected their jobs or how peers perceived them. In the real world being a woman matters. It changes how people treat you, what is expected of you, and the obstacles you encounter in life. Why, then, was this facet of the female characters so completely ignored for most of the show’s seven year run? Ignoring the effects of a patriarchal society on female characters in The West Wing was harmful both to women and the show. Women need to see their stories portrayed realistically on television and discounting the gender of female characters and the ramifications of gender for those characters discounts the very real effects of misogyny and sexism in the world we live in. And why ignore gender? Gender is good for a show because it provides so much plot material. What good reason is there not to tell the stories of women affected by sexism? I truly believe the writers diminished The West Wing by refusing to tell the all too true stories of sexism and gender in the workplace, especially because that workplace was the White House.

Certainly The West Wing did handle women well in some ways. The female characters were always strong characters. They were well-developed and never tropes. That’s a pretty tall order on television these days.  In addition, the show often put women in powerful positions they have not yet attained in the real world like the White House Chief of Staff or the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. That's certainly commendable.

I'll be honest. I love The West Wing. I can't even pretend I don't but that doesn't stop me from wishing the show had done a better job handling the stories of women. I genuinely hope to see more television shows that are as well-written as The West Wing. I hope to see more shows that put women in places they have historically never been. I hope to see more shows that have strong female characters who are not merely tropes. I hope to see more shows with compelling narratives. I hope to see more shows that matter in the way The West Wing did. But when I see those shows I hope they do a better job telling the stories of women. I hope they don’t write women who are seen as less important than men. I hope they don’t write women as the constantly confused characters. And, above all, I hope they don’t ignore gender and sexism and the very real ways they affect women. I hope they don’t ignore women's stories. I hope they don't ignore our stories.