Va-January is important! It’s a chance for female empowerment, to stand up against the society that has depicted the way we look, feel and compose ourselves. It’s not all about how big your bush can get. It’s about media and social awareness of gender in-equality.
“It must be a pretty picture, you dropping to your knees.� - Donald Trump
In a society where high status political figures can be outrightly misogynistic yet still successful what hope can we have for equality. This is why Va-January and other awareness campaigns are so important.
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Case study 1 - Instagram Instagram is a perfect example of the in-equalities surrounding women and the over sexualisation of their bodies. The application allows the upload of mens nipples to be uploaded freely but womens have to be censored. Even though nipples are scientifically the exact same in men and women; each has breast tissue, areola and nipple. Yet due to the sexualisation of womens breasts in the media a womens breast is now considered pornographic regardless of its context. Instagrams argument against petetions to change this is due to age restrictions created by the app stores. As it stands, the app store only allows explicit nudity if the app is rated 17+; Instagram is currently rated 12+. Systrom argued that if the app were to increase its age bracket, it would end up keeping out many younger users who only want to see nonexplicit content.
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Free
Censored
Nipple-gram 5
Feminism - the word is derived from the female pronoun and is often misunderstood as man hating; but it stands for equality! Men suffer from the gender roles placed upon society just as much as women. The portrayal of ‘manlyness’ and the pressure to be strong, emotionless and the financial breadwinner.
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Source - What real men cry like
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Case study 2 - The Bechdel test The Bechdel test asks wether a work of ficiton (usually film) features two women (they have to be named charecters) have a conversation with each other about something other then men. It seems like a simple enough rule but its shocking the amount of films fail this test (big names included). The absence of ‘heroic’ female charecters in the film industry is improving but still a huge issue. The main argument for which being the lack of strong, positive women rolemodels for young girls in popular media.
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Source - Jemima Kirke for I-D magazine
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Source - Honey have you mowed the lawn
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Case study 3 - Body hair Although the Va-January campaign month aims to raise awareness for all elements of gender in-equality; our main focus is the negative portrayal of body hair on women. The 70’s were a big hit for the bush but since then body hair has become considered as a sign of bad hygiene. This campaign aims to help women and society to embrace all body hair (armpits and legs included); as its all natural at the end of the day. The purpose is to fight back the negative veiws of body image society and media force upon women. To raise awareness and celebrate our own individual preferences and differances as women.
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“She is not an autonomous being but an object for a man’s erotic needs, his comforts and for procreation” Frankl, George.
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American Apparel once held a brave and brilliant marketing campaign showing models and mannequins with outgrown pubic hair.
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Although i’m sure 50 shades of grey doesnt pass the Bechdel test; it does feature female body hair. Infact Dakota Johnsons bush was a masterpeice of CGI after editing. The fact the director of the film felt it was more attractive shows we could be heading in the right direction.
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Source - Take this Waltz
So take a stand against social convention even if thats just for the lovely month of January! Refuse to shave and spread the word about the cause. Maybe we can even start a hairy style gender equalising revolution; it’s worth a shot.
Visit www.va-january.com for more info