As a passionate seventeen year-old who has no qualms about describing herself as a feminist, I was unsurprisingly shocked and disgusted to hear my fifteen year-old brother innocently inquire, “Maybe men are just better at politics?” during a discussion about the entirely unequal American Congress statistics (362 men and 76 women, can you believe it???) But before you begin to draw conclusions about the typical teenage, sexist pig my brother probably is, let me elaborate. My brother is a well-educated young man who has been brought up with importance placed on the qualities of open-mindedness, equality and being non-judgemental; therefore I was aghast to say the least when this rather chauvinistic comment popped out of his seemingly unprejudiced (or so I thought) mouth.
This small incident although as insignificant as it may seem in a world where women are still being paid 14.9% less than men, being objectified on a regular basis and stoned to death in predominantly Islamic countries where ‘honour killings’ are apparently necessary and acceptable, sparked a startling thought; in society today are we breeding misogynistic and chauvinistic attitudes amongst young men? I had always presumed that steady yet significant progress was being made in relation to women’s rights, I mean let’s face it – my fellow female peers and I are just as inclined to achieve as much in life as our brothers and boyfriends… right? This slip of the tongue by my younger brother lead me into the turmoil of questioning the progress being made in relation to attitudes towards women.
It probably doesn’t help that my brother attends a Catholic boys’ school, Catholicism not being a particularly famous advocate for women’s rights… but aside from that, let’s look at the society which teenage boys are growing up in. You only have to leave your house (unless you live in Eketahuna or somewhere similar where only sheep roam) and stroll for five minutes before seeing an advertisement on the side of a bus or pasted on a billboard which shows a beautiful, often semi-naked, woman selling some commercialised fragrance. Or why not switch on the radio to hear Kanye West vehemently rapping into your ears? “I got that hot bitch in my home. You know how many hot bitches I own?” Turn on TV and see news of the Australian Liberal Party’s lewd and sexist ‘mock menu’ which objectified prime minister Julia Gillard and made a mockery of her aesthetic appearance. These sadly typical examples of popular culture just go to show that society has ingrained social values that far too often objectify and discriminate against women.
To elaborate on what I mentioned briefly, previously about Julia Gillard and the objectification of her, this is a current event in Australia that happened this month (June 2013) in which Gillard’s opposition party both made a mockery of, and objectified her. During a Liberal Party dinner a menu was distributed which included the option of “Julia Gillard Kentucky Fried Quail - Small Breasts, Huge Thighs and a Big Red Box”. This menu, as light-hearted a joke as it was intended to be, actually has major repercussions. The Liberal Party, whom carry the responsibility of representing a large proportion of Australian society politically, have shown themselves to have misogyny ingrained into their political party culture. This leads me to think that if the people at the very top of the social hierarchy in Western society, those who represent a majority of a society and have large influence over many people still believe it is okay to share sexist jokes and therefore embrace misogyny... then surely this is just encouraging those growing up in the society in which this is happening to share the same values? Thus, breeding an attitude that it is ‘okay’ to be misogynistic and sexist.
The effect that these ingrained social values have can be frightening, particularly when impressionable young men are being shaped by them. The Steubenville rape case, Retaeh case, and Tarpon Springs case, all rape cases from 2013 involving teenage perpetrators are an example of this effect. The effects show that petty comments or ‘harmless jokes’ that involve sexism and misogyny can lead to wider acceptance of these attitudes and eventually people acting upon that attitude (which obviously has disastrous and highly alarming results). Of course one cannot claim that the perpetrators of these cases committed the heinous crime that they did simply because of the effect that the objectification of women in popular culture played on them. However, I think it would be unwise to not consider the role that both the objectification of women and misogynist attitudes in society and popular culture must have played in forming the mindset of the boys which gave them the ability to commit such inhumane and degrading crimes.
So whilst one small comment from the mouth of a teenage boy which hints at having sexist connotations may seem inconsequential, in actual fact it’s all these small comments that lead to the growth and acceptance of gender inequality.
