California Feminist Blogs

Today in my Gender and Communications class we had to turn in a paper on vibrators and the history of them. It sucks that there isn't as much in depth history about women as there are about men, but I was surprised and shocked at the evidence that I discovered when searching for a youtube clip. I didn't know the exact prompt of the essay because I accidentally missed class (damn furloughs are screwing me up) and I didn't get a chance to see the actual video that we watched.

But when writing the essay I discovered something that can't be taught or shown really in a video; shame and embarrassment. I began wondering what it would be like for other girls in my class who weren't as open as I am, who didn't know how to handle the term "vibrator" being repeated in their papers and be the bold title that everyone around them can see. I'm not ashamed, I'm actually proud to have written about the history of something that is so taboo in our country.

Advertising for vibrators back in the lat 1800s, early 1900s was normal in nationally spread magazines, but this was only because it was a cure of sorts. Women who had hysteria, a sort of disease, were informed of the sexual release of vibrators (not explicitly) and went to their doctors for a ten minute session to feel relief. We now know that vibrators aren't exactly a cure all for hysteria and even the idea of female hysteria was because women weren't orgasming during sex. To have an orgasm during sex (which in this case is defined as penile penetration into a vagina and strictly so back then) is so difficult for a woman. Thanks to the grand ol' enlightenment period, they discovered that women didn't have to have an orgasm to conceive a child. So now it's all about the men and their orgasm since it will ultimately lead to creating a child... fucking enlightenment period ... I have so many reservations against that time. It's also when women were considered to be the sexual morale compass, an ideology we hold in today's society.

But I digress in my own personal anger. Back onto the subject of vibrators -- it's completely ingrained in our social ideologies that a woman shouldn't be sexually expressive, thus there are no advertisements for vibrators in national magazines. Conservative family groups would be up in arms at the mere thought of it, yet we can show Dolce and Gabbana ads that have a woman on the ground, surrounded by men, looking like she's about to be or already has been gang raped (thanks rape culture!!).

Personally, I'd much rather see advertisements about sexual liberation than sexual confinement, but that would take some time, some hefty lobbying, and a huge social change within our culture. It's all about control in our society and when it comes to sexual control, it is usually illustrated that it is the woman who needs to be constrained, caged, and -- heaven forbid -- not have a penis at her disposal and a fake one at that. It makes men obsolete. We have enough sperm banks to tie us over for years to come (no pun intended), enough children in the world who need homes to create a bunch of wonderful, loving households, and now we can even get pleasure from an artificial creation or even from ourselves and our glorious clitoris that isn't talked about as much as it should be.

Vibrators ... the end of mankind as we know it?

Being out sick for almost a whole week made me reflect on my idea of feminism and what it means to me. I'm reading books to nod to, to get a better history of women and the movements they started. I'm reading article after article in hopes to soak up what's going on in the world and relate back to my feminist values.

It's tiring, overwhelming and makes my head explode at time.

But I don't think I'll ever change now. Thanks to all of this reading, this enlightenment, etc, I can't look at anything without a feminist lens. Everything can be skewed in a certain lens such as feminism (even the movement itself has been analyzed time after time by myself and fellow colleagues).

Where exactly am I going with this post? Well when I was bed ridden and could only concentrate on movies I watched a film that made me wonder about women in today's society. I watched The September Issue about Anna Wintour and the Vogue empire she has created. The movie opened my eyes a bit more to the trials and tribulations of creating a magazine. It's lavish, it's expensive, it's manipulative, it's catty, its romantic, and it's all run by woman. Granted, most of the designers are men creating garments and frocks that women should wear and it just keeps us in small little bubbles. But everything is decided by this one woman. She has full control over what is in and what is out. Its an interesting concept and it got me thinking if I could believe in designer clothing and fashion if it was practically run by a woman of such high power. I decided finally that, yes, I can be into high fashion, wear heels, have great make-up and wear dresses if I choose to; I will manipulate the system to work for my benefit. If I need to wear a pair of high heels, a blouse, and tight fitting high waist skirt in order to show myself off as being all powerful or get that job that I want, then I'll do it. Its a contradiction, but its a way to get this all too encompassing world to work for me.

I think just keeping in my head when I go shopping that these styles and trends are developed by a single omnipresent woman (and also there's a lot of in put from chic, fabulous black man who can't be seen without a pair of sunglasses and a Louis Vuitton emblem somewhere in his grasp). I know that this turns me into a mannequin, but if people have to see my body and judge me for what I wear first before they judge my mind, I will make the best first impression I possibly can.

It's all about playing with the cards you were dealt with.