Masked. The Feminist Issue
Is sex sells a feminist issue? Written by: Kristin Kennedy - Brown Model: Dena Rocca
“If it wasn’t mid-day I would have you right here.” Shouts an 18-year-old chav, wearing a snapback and a pair of three stripers. Loud enough that every member, in every house, of the surrounding area could hear. And no before you ask you weren’t ‘asking for it’. It’s mid day, you’re wearing your new spotty Zara culottes, a plain t-shirt, and a leather jacket. How do you feel? Angry? Degraded? Of course. A comment that threw you from female to sexual object in around 0.2 seconds. Now we can’t really sit here and suggest all males think of females to be a sexual object, that’s a contradiction that should be left unmade. But we’ve all felt sexually objectified at some point whether that was through a gawping stare, an undesired comment, or an unconsented bum touch.
100 percent of applicants answered the media and media distortion were the main contenders. ‘Sex sells’. We get it. We are open to the idea of sex from a young age through the media. Magazines brimming with overly sexualized advertisements of girls/women with perfect figures. Advertising anything from perfume to a Burger King meal deal. Through the power of media, women and even girls bodies are automatically associated with sex from as young as 13. There is an extensive amount of sexist negativity surrounding the topic of sex sells, and this in fact is a feminist issue.
It’s 2017, yet we are still living in a society, which in most cases still associates the female body with sex. The question is why?
Today there is a huge stigma around the topic of feminism, stereotyping every feminist to have over grown armpit hair, an agro towards men and a t-shirt that reads ‘feminist as fuck’. Hate to break it to you feminist haters but this isn’t the case.
When we questioned a handful of students from a university setting on what they believe is the main cause of the sexual objectification of women, a
We spoke to Dena Rocca a 2nd year Art and Design student, currently studying in Glasgow, who repeatedly portrays her views of feminism
“A guy in my flat called women a slag because she was wearing a bikini, which showed a bit of flesh.’ “I said to him: if that’s the meaning of a slag to you then you’re a slag for wearing trunks.” Dena Rocca
through her artwork. Dena doesn’t need that stereotypical feminist trademark. Dena is confident. She even said that herself. Dena’s artwork includes a diverse range of media, for example vibrant oil paints on canvas, video footage and clay in which she used to assemble her abstract nipple badges. Other of her artwork contains illustration inspired by the campaign ‘Free the Nipple’. As well as a photographic series where the muse is holding a cardboard sign that reads; ‘You can’t stop free thinking’ and ‘Art isn’t just for the rich’.
The issue is when did our outfit choice begin deciding whether we sleep around or not? It doesn’t, the media just leads us to think it does. There’s a huge inequality between male and female form, fundamentally because women are sexually objectified. If the sexual connotation around women didn’t exist, men wouldn’t brand women as ‘slags’ – it’s simple. Boys need to be open to a desexualised representation of female form from a young age, in order for them to not constantly relate our bodies to sex.
“In my final college exhibition, I wasn’t allowed to put my piece of artwork up, I think it was because one of the tutors, said, “do you not think it looks quite sexualised?”
Dena suggested, “I think it is important for boys to learn about feminism. It is just another word for equality and people should be more open to it and what it means. But they’re just not.”
Dena explained that the piece of artwork was a painting of a vulnerable topless woman in a mask with her hands tied, as she was held captive. The Pussy Riot, an activist group, who fought against the homophobic and anti-feminist parts within Russia, inspired the painting. A piece of artwork intended to make the figure look vulnerable was consequently branded as sexualised due to its nudity content.
In response to this there are numerous feminist artists who are striving to reinvent a desexualised representation of the female form through their artwork.
‘This exhibition contains nudity and explicit content’. A phrase we come across in pretty much every art gallery, regardless of it’s context. But never once have we opened a fashion magazine and witnessed the words this magazine may contain ‘disturbing or explicit content’. Dena spoke: “The media is filled with people that aren’t real”. Photographs of women posing in their underwear are deemed inexplicit. Why? Because the models have silky smooth skin and a figure that looks as though it has been carved from wood. An artificial outlook of the female form leads us to believe that the content we are viewing isn’t inappropriate. Yes the models in the advertisements are often pleasing to look at; they make us want to add as many filters as we possibly can to our Instagram photographs. However, consequently, the medias generalised criteria of how a woman should look allows for a lot of body shaming for those who don’t fit it. Dena Spoke “ I mean, a guy in my flat called women a slag because she was wearing a bikini, which showed a bit of flesh.’ “I said to him: if that’s the meaning of a slag to you then you’re a slag for wearing trunks.”
‘My Mum introduced me to an artist called Nicola Canavan – she did a project named raising the skirt’ Dena spoke. Nicola Canavan’s photographic series aims to empower women through natural, desexualised nudity, striving to change societies perception of the female body. In an interview with Dazed Digital she explains the inspiration behind her ‘Raising the skirt’ series was because: “Society told me I was too round as a child, sexual partners told me that my ‘bits’ were too large and not normal and not what they had seen in porn.” In allowing viewers to have contact with a desexualised female figure, we are creating a far better role model than the media. After all, we aren’t asking for women to be able to walk around London town with their tops off, rather a changed perception of how society views our bodies. Lets make sex sells a thing of the past. Because well… it’s boring and very 1980’s.
Media Distortion Kristin Kennedy - Brown
Model right: Fiona Kirkup, Model left: Charlotte Park
Model: Khushbu Shrivastava
“I think perfection is ugly. Somewhere in the things humans make, I want to see scars, failure, disorder, distortion.� Yohji Yamamoto
”We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves.” François de La Rochefoucauld.
“Everyone is living for everyone else now. They’re doing stuff so they can tell other people about it.” Karl Pilkington