If Susan J. Douglas of “The Rise of
Enlightened Sexism” and Pat Archbold of “The Death of Pretty” were forced to
have dinner together, I believe the conversation would be extremely
interesting. Their beliefs and values differ and match in many areas, creating
room for agreements as well as disagreements. First off, Archbold has a very
simple idea that women have completely turned away from desiring to be pretty
and innocent to look towards being considered as “hot” and being consumable.
His main idea is seemingly easy to sum up in one sentence, while Douglas has
multiple theories and ideas spread through 22 pages of work. To begin with, she
explains that feminism is no longer an idea women strive for, but instead, the
idea of “girl power.” Archbold would immediately shut down this first idea over
dinner. He would call it ridiculous because he believes that women have lost
all their power by basing their success on becoming a commodity instead of a
precious being. Secondly and mainly, Douglas states, “Yet, in the end, embedded
feminism and enlightened sexism serve to reinforce each other: they both
overstate women’s gains and accomplishments, and they both render feminism
obsolete” (15). Here, she explains to her readers that there are two types of
people. The first kind, who push feminism on everything and anything. Trying to
convince the world around them that women are the better gender. Then there is
the second type of person, who spends most of their time putting down women.
Telling them they belong in the kitchen, question them when they say that they
don’t want children. This type of person feels that women have a sort of “role”
in the community that will never live up to a man’s role. Douglas goes on to
explain how these two extremes of people sort of balance each other out. They
cancel the idea of women empowerment all together. Now, at dinner Archbold
would probably agree that feminism has become a lie to society but he would not
look at the ideas of embedded feminism and enlightened sexism as a cause. Instead,
he would solely blame this idea of corrupt feminism on his simple idea that
women no longer have an interest in empowerment but that they have a desire to
become objects by wishing to be “hot” instead of “pretty”. He states “Hotness,
on the other hand, is a commodity and must be used. It is a consumable”
(Archbold 1). This quote sums up his whole writing. He says being “hot” is
consumable, and because women wish for this, that they therefore, are
consumable. Overall, Archbold and Douglas both have very strong ideas of women
and at the end of their writings both exclaim to the women reading that there
is work to be done. However, they have clashing causes and results to their
ideas, which is why their dinner conversation would be very interesting.
The Dinner Party
ReplyDeleteIf you were to host a dinner party with Pat Archbold, author of “The Death of Pretty” and Susan J. Douglas, the author of “The Rise of Enlightened Sexism”, I believe that it would be quit an interesting evening. Both women are very passionate with their believe and both have the desire for women to do more and be more. Pat Archbold wrote a blog about how women no longer want to be pretty, defining “pretty” as combination of beauty and innocence. Further more, saying how women/ girls want to be viewed as “hot” or “sexy”. Then you have Susan J. Douglas, who wrote about how media has had a backlash on feminism. Though these two women are talking about two total different topics, however; I believe that their underlining message is the same. By Archbold saying that women want to be hot and not pretty, she is saying how the media in relation to celebrates has changed the way women see themselves. I have to agree with her, in today’s world there is so many different forms of media where young children idolize celebrates, and not always in the best ways. When you have celebrates like Brittney Spears and Miley Cyruses who are selling their bodies to make money, young children grow up thinking that is how they should act, the want to be rich and famous. Which is what Archbold is talking about when she says that “pretty” is gone. Douglas starts off by saying that the word feminist has been replace by “girl power” in the 90’s. I got the sense that she was not happy about that, the word feminist has a stronger connotation for women’s rights, where “girl power” has the connotation of being powerful but still sexy, and you can’t make a difference for women if you are a sex object.
Both women make strong points in how society plays a role in how women are projected today. I believe that these two women would have a lot to talk about at dinner, whether they would disagree or agree with each other. Women still have a far way to go to be seen as complete equals in society today. There needs to be more women like Archbold and Douglas to challenge the women of the world today to be more independent, strong and pretty.
First I would like to start off in commending you on your blog. I found it to be very entertaining and I enjoyed being a part of your audience. To go on, I agree with your statements about how interesting a night of dinner for Susan J. Douglas and Pat Archbold would be considering each of their opposing assets. They do hold completely different values but at the same time also have overlapping beliefs. I really enjoyed how you took statements and quotes from each author to compare, contrast and hypothesize what you believe would actually happen at the dinner table. I would state the same ideas about Archbold completely disagreeing with Douglas on the idea that feminism has veered towards “girl power” and Archbold arguing that the true reason instead is because of the corrupted outlook women want to portray themselves as. Now with your whole explanation on Douglas’s “two types of people” I still agree with your statement that Archbold would agree that feminism has become a lie to society but I think that rather than Archbold blaming the idea of “corrupt feminism” on his belief of the loss of pretty. I believe he would blame the ways of the anti-feminists. With their belief that their power comes solely from using their bodies against men as Douglas put it; “servants”; I don’t believe it’s the feminists who are to blame for Archbold’s claim, “death of pretty” it is the exact opposite. The anti-feminists don’t hold any interest in empowerment for women and have the desire to be seen as “hot” instead of “pretty” towards men because they feel that the title itself is empowering. They are the cause of Archbold’s plea to bring “pretty” back and it is up to the women who still believe and push for the improvement of feminism to do so.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Archbold’s article is much shorter than Douglas’s introduction, brevity has no bearing on the validity or contestability of the argument in “the Death of Pretty”. The grounds for Archbold’s disagreement with Douglas’s claim lies not in where women base their success but in what standards make a woman “desirable” to men. Archbold claims that when men find in a woman a combination of wide-eyed blamelessness and virginal beauty, the woman unknowingly extracts a certain warm chivalric vigilance from him on her behalf, bringing forth his most virtuous characteristics. This claim would most likely refute Douglas’s assertion that women are obligated to be perfect in every aspect of their lives in order to compete for the attention of men. She also declares that “enlightened sexism” teaches young women to believe that if they comply with societies demands on their sexuality, behavior and interests, however degrading or humiliating, they can earn both socioeconomic success and the approval of men. Furthermore, Douglas adduces that “embedded feminism” is not feminism at all. It is simply the distortion of the reality of the state of feminism by the media in order to create the deceitful apparition that feminism is no longer warranted. Lastly, Archbold not only disagrees with Douglas on the cause of the state of feminism, he also disagrees with her on the degree to which it is a woman's responsibility to attract men. Douglas asserts that women are taught by society to strive to become the envy of other women in terms of the attention of men, that a woman’s sole purpose is to fit the standards of beauty and attraction, regardless of how unreasonable and unrealistic these strictures are. Douglas, however, believes that it is a woman’s duty to achieve these standards if she wants a fulfilling relationship.
ReplyDelete