Must they be ugly?

I never really considered a social context to art before.  Artists idealize gods or royalty, create something incomprehensible or objectify sexuality. At least, it so seemed in my experience. A friend recently passed on to me Linda Nochlin’s collection of essays that I initially looked at only to be polite. But then some insights caught attention - the social power of gender portrayed in and through art.

Nochlin’s focus is the social status of women - or rather the lack of it - depicted in the structure and theme of the artworks. She investigates images painted by both male and female artists in the West, between 18-20^th centuries. It is interesting to note that in the art world as in any other organization, for female workers, the glass ceiling is imminent, among other things. Their being out of sight, so to speak, makes no difference!

In the essay Women, Art and Power, Nochlin writes:

… representations of women in art are founded upon and serve to reproduce indisputably accepted assumptions held by society in general, artists in particular and some artists more than others about men’s power over, superiority to, difference from, and necessary control of women, assumptions which are manifested in the visual structures as well as the thematic choices of the pictures in question.

Her sentences sometimes feel a sea of words, and I cannot claim to have understood all pronouncements of the book, but some perceptions make absolute sense. She points out how prevailing social contexts have strongly influenced the artists. Their works reflect the thought and guidelines of behaviour in the society of the times. These notions appear as subtext in the pictures about women and by women.

 

 

In the eighteenth century, assumptions about women being the secondary sex were clearly stronger than they are now. Women were conditioned to prefer death to defying conventions. Gender was objectified in art as in all aspects of everyday life, and so was class and race. The hierarchical divisions were rigid, immovable. For instance, a painting of honourable British women in colonial India during the sepoy mutiny, entitled In Memoriam, portrays them heroic in the face of danger. How so? The women do nothing at all to survive, but properly await their fate.

Nochlin explains:

Now there are at least two discourses articulated in this image. One is the overt story of heroic British ladies and their children during the Sepoy mutiny, fortifying themselves with prayer as they are about to be assaulted by savage, and presumably lustful, natives. The other discourse, less obvious, is the patriarchal and class-defined one which stipulates the appropriate behaviour for the lady, and it implies that no lady will ever unsex herself by going so far as to raise a hand in physical violence, even in defense of her children.

She says that the original image, considered too graphic for the delicate sensibilities of the upper crust Victorian society, had to be painted over with the Scottish rescuers appearing at left replacing the “presumably lustful” Indian rebels! 

For eons, respectability for women has meant the confines of home and family. Women are honourable in the community as long as they are weak, passive, nurturing and domesticated, available for the needs of their husbands, and with no real needs of their own except to be of service to preserve the social order. Women artists have been hard-pressed to find acceptability and self-expression outside the entrenched social rules. They have had to be subtle in their approach; else risk caricature. Case in point, Nameless and Friendless by Emily Mary Osborn in the nineteenth century that describes in more than a thousand words the plight of women in the harsh reality of the time.

The young woman artist/model, stepping outside the home, possibly facing hard times yet unwilling to lose her dignity, is nevertheless subject to keen male scrutiny and condescension, both for her person and her work. It is surprising that, despite this painting of 1857 being created by woman herself, it was described in a 1970 art publication as Gentlewoman reduced to dependence upon her brother’s art. Perhaps the standard received wisdom carried forward is that women are incapable of creativity. The female artist too must adhere to that social norm and deny talent to her female model...but does she?

The slightest aggression amongst women or other signs of being unsexed would banish them from the respectable class, and put them beyond the pale of ‘normal’ or ‘human’. Women social activists have thus been portrayed as poor, ugly, demonic rabble-rousers, destroyers of the social fabric. It would seem that these social have-nots strive, in frustration rage, to reverse proper power equations. Apparently, the mere attempt at being a change agent renders a woman certifiably insane! 

Some women artists of earlier times have adhered to the popular myth in their creations. Perhaps, riding the traditional bandwagon has been the only way for them to survive in the man’s world. Sadly in the process, they do themselves and their own representative group no service, because the association renders capable women untouchable - poor, mad and ugly – and open to derision. 

 

Many closet feminists suffer emotional pain in private at their own public obeisance to gender inequality. Unable to cross the invisible social barrier, they confess cloying the deception to the pages of their personal journals. In an essay on the works of Florine Stettheimer, Nochlin quotes a telling poem written by the artist and poet, but published only after her death:

Occasionally

A human being

Saw my light

Rushed in

Got singed

Got scared

Rushed out

Called fire

Or it happened

He tried to extinguish it

Never did a friend

Enjoy it

The way it was

So I learned to

Turn it low

Turn it out

When I meet a stranger---

Out of courtesy

I turn on a soft

Pink light

Which is found modest

Even charming

It is a protection

Against wear

And tears

And when

I am rid of

The-Always-To-Be-Stranger

I turn on my light

And become myself. 

Ah, yes, on the other side of the world in India as well, feminine initiative is traditionally discouraged. This image of assertive women being dark and disorderly has endured through mythological epics created over two and a half millennia ago. Durga, the sylvan deity, is the epitome of beauty and grace as wife and mother. But in her role as the warrior goddess Kali, she is depicted as so frighteningly bloodthirsty and uncontrollable that few women would want to identify with her fearsome (outcast) image or be inspired to action. Of course, only the intervention of husband Shiva, shames her into remembering her place, and brings the Kali fighting evil outside back home to her senses!

The at best patronizing attitudes to women and women’s work have resisted change in many parts of the world. Women must think, feel and act exactly as males at home or in society decide for them, or else. In social fundamentalism even today, women and girls seeking education or employment have been brutalized, defaced by acid, shot, raped and murdered; punished for transgressing some gender role or dress code dreamed up by men to reiterate authoritarianism. 

It is more than time to rectify this demeaning outlook. Many women artists have used deconstruction techniques to make their point, to expose and deny the standard received concepts of beauty. Hannah Hoch’s Pretty Girl is an intriguing photo-collage from, I believe, the 1920s. This woman artist was earlier considered marginal, but it seems to me that her bold perspective and courageous rejection of the pervasive patriarchal order puts her far ahead of her time.

Nochlin writes:

Pretty Girl is in part a savagely funny attack on mass-produced standards of beauty, the narcissism stimulated by the media to keep women unproblematically self-focused. At the same time, the collage allegorizes the arbitrarily constructed quality of all representations of beauty: the “pretty girl” of the title is clearly a product assembled from products …

I must confess that as a very ordinary spectator, my unconscious search has been for aesthetic harmony in art images. I remember once visiting a photo-art exhibition in USA in the late 1990s. I forget both theme and name of artist, but it seemed an ugly, unabashedly cynical display of larger-than-life male genitalia. Possibly I was both naïve and prudish that I found the pictures off-putting, although other viewers appeared unfazed. I thought it a deliberate intent to elicit reaction, which I found repugnant. Was it necessary to assault the senses to draw attention? I took it as narcissism hidden behind the right to freedom of expression, laziness in actually harnessing creativity, and a banking on gender to carry the work.

Nochlin’s essays push me, the reader, to rethink my own premises. Definitely there are thought-provoking aspects to art I overlooked before. I wonder today if I did that phallic photographer a disservice in my negativity. There might have been a social comment in the work that escaped me. Perhaps the artist attempted to shock viewers into a conscious awareness of the effects of overindulgence. The graphic images might actually have highlighted the increasing social preoccupation with the pursuit of pleasure in developed society. That technology scales new heights, but the minds of men remain entrenched in overt, self-absorbed and even deviant sexuality… I don’t know, maybe…  


Reference for this post:

Nochlin, Linda. "Women, Art, and Power and Other Essays". ISBN 0-06-430183-4 (pbk.) Icon Editions. Westview Press USA & UK. 1989.

What women's dreams foretell

Feminine groups around the world seem to develop organically, and rather like Nature, lack definitive organization. Any exercise to discover the trends finds more diversity. But where they are similar is in dreams. Women’s nighttime experiences are universally vivid and memorable. I imagine dreams are the unconscious confirmation that, beneath diverse surfaces, women are the same.

Everett reports that dream episodes display distinct gender differences. She writes: 

I often dream I'm searching for something in an old, crumbling house, or discovering abandoned rooms in my childhood home. Occasionally, the dreams will become nightmares, featuring bereavement, murder or terrifying chases up spiral staircases. By contrast, my husband tends to have dreams so dull he either doesn’t remember them, or recounts such gems as: ‘I was waiting to buy a new printer cartridge and the receptionist told me to take a seat.' 

Some authors pin women’s remembering dreams on their gender training. Women are taught from childhood to be emotionally attentive, because the maintenance of relationships depends on them. They may thus continue to hone soft skills during sleep, which they recall during wakefulness.

Some other studies seek to explain dreams as the nature of women, the product of the genetic makeup. They are perceived the result of periods of heightened hormonal activity and body temperature. Hence, female hormones contribute to the extreme action categories, the most aggressive dreams appearing in the premenstrual period and in pregnancy.

In my view, and because menopausal women also report similar dreams, rising tides of female hormones during the menstrual cycle may not be solely responsible for nightmares. Instead, violent dreams could stem directly from unresolved stress carried over into sleep states. Thence, they are normal in stressful environments, for women of all ages. Especially in Asia and Africa, where traditions impose on them a secondary status, education is denied them, and female infanticide gets tacit social support. The female gender must serve and obey, while men take all decisions, and boys as young as ten police sisters and mothers.

This uncertainty of being itself would naturally disturb sleep patterns far beyond hormonal biorhythms and learning of gender roles. Their constant need for vigilance would take toll on mind and body, preventing the women from relaxing even at nighttime. Because of the dominations they are constantly subjected to, dreams amongst women trapped in traditions, would be no more than reality revisited.

Across the world, post-feminist women are able to exercise personal choice similar to men. These women have distanced from the choices of their mothers in relationships. They have equated the institution of marriage with gender discriminations of the past. They have sought to be in charge of their own lives, and to negate traditional social learning with liberal new outlooks of self-reliance.

Greenfield writes:

My parents had a terrible marriage, with my father working away a lot and my mother at home with six children, growing increasingly resentful. … it has made me reluctant not just to marry, but to commit fully to a relationship. I’ve always kept a bit back, never daring to make myself financially or emotionally vulnerable.

The women have rendered the marital piece of paper redundant for their chosen lifestyle, investing instead in the lifelong commitment to a shared future. They have preferred to pour energies into having a lovely home, good friends and happy children with their partners, eschewing legalities.

It would then seem logical to assume that liberal environments would largely diminish the dreams, because the extreme stresses ease. Women that have resolved gender issues, and gained equality in the social interface, should also experience male-type change in their dream sequences.

However, in any part of the world, and at any age, women’s continue to dream vividly. Why? I should think that, rather like old wine in a new bottle, the perceived social change remains superficial. Women wanting to escape from the pains of the past have been unable to adequately define equality. The choices taken, based on faulty conceptualization, do little to alleviate traditional fears of vulnerability. And thus generate the unconscious stresses that continue to express in terrifying dreams.

For instance, although Greenfield chooses to live radically different from her mother, her life pans out similar. She becomes precisely what she had sought to avoid – the single parent saddled with child responsibilities. The woman is now left unsupported, while the father of her children, and her soulmate of so many years walks out on the family, citing her lack of respect for him as his reason for doing so.

With the wisdom of hindsight, Greenfield writes:

One thing I do know is this: it’s far easier to separate when you are not married than it is if you are. For a start, there are no lawyers involved. All you have to do is say ‘I want out’, and off you go, which is surely the main reason co-habiting couples are more likely to split up than those who are married.

Many Western women that likewise free themselves of social weddings find out too late that cohabitation does not change mindsets. Their familial responsibilities do not reduce; in the absence of marriage, the increase is manifold. Surveys confirm that the incidence of “divorce” is more than twice higher amongst cohabitating couples when compared with those legally married. 

Post-feminist women may be missing the forest for the trees in their evaluations. The haste to achieve "gender equality" actually hurts women in the future. They appear more focused on the exercise of choice, than to think through all its possible outcomes. Like, its effect on their partners. When the public affirmation of marriage vows is omitted from the equation, men are provided convenient windows of escape as the novelty of the partnerships wane. It is clear that all parties are not on the same page - the men do not perceive oral agreements of long-term commitments as binding.

Firstly, because men are brought up to identify with organization, women’s decisions to step outside of it earn neither respect nor compliance. Secondly, in an organized society, the institution of marriage needs to be appropriately organized too. Rather than demolish the institution of marriage itself, women need to push for changes in legislation that support them. Finally, social ceremonies confirm the social contract; else the individual becomes isolated, outside the social purview. Errant partners are far more likely to conform with pressure from the collective, than to respond to the entreaties of individual women.

Perhaps the point expressed in dreams is that for the women, the habits of dependence persist despite the modern notions of equality. Women have wanted others to be different, but within their self, attitudes resist change. Women anywhere in the world are yet to centre in their universe. Despite “equality”, they continue to perceive themselves as satellites, nurturers and caregivers romantically awaiting rescue from their own decisions while suffering the extreme stress their dreams foretell, just as their sisters under the skin do elsewhere.

References for this post:

1. Everett, Flic. “Why women's dreams are much wilder than men's... who often don't remember them because they are so dull” dailymail.co.uk. Mail Online. 14th September 2011. 
2. Greenfield, Louise. “Like many co-habitees, Louise dismissed marriage as 'just a piece of paper'. Now she admits it would've kept her family from falling apart” dailymail.co.uk. Mail Online. 15^th September 2011. 

Social: 6. Allure of the zero

Women around the world avidly pursue the glamour quotient, for which thinness is an important criterion.  Many women that obsesses over appearance in terror of being perceived dumpy, suffer extreme health issues. However, society more than the women themselves seems caught with the visual effect, signalling at large that the intellectual quality of the feminine gender is unimportant even today.

 

Ostler writes:

…the fact is that when a woman is feted for her fashion sense, the more pressure she will feel to show off those dresses to their best advantage — which means being super-slim. Fashion doesn’t favour natural curves or, indeed, shapeliness of any kind …

Hounded by the social expectations, style icons seem to ride merry-go-rounds they cannot get off of. Beauty salons cash in on the style craze to offer programmes that recreate their attractive body parts in those women not so favoured. Increases in fashion sense  are generally concommitant with their decreasing body weights.

Women in show-business starve themselves to appear more appealing.  They may not eat most foods because weight gains could result in contract terminations. Hence they must hit the gym regularly, and depend on a diet pills to deaden hunger pangs. Other women do their best to emulate them in looks, dress and lifestyle.

Over the last century or so, romantic novels have encouraged escapism their vast feminine readership. Women begin to identify with their heroines and behave in like manner. The push is to choose romanticism over rationality. Medical journals have recently implicated these literature as causing marital breakdowns, adulterous affairs and unwanted pregnancies. In the conscious or unconscious idealization of men, women may abandon their own moral codes, sexual health and competition at work.

The corporate industry realizes that sex sells. Various billboards and glossy publications bombard consumers with stylized feminine perfection. Their aggressive marketing glamourizes sexuality in product advertisements that may otherwise look mundane. The association with the words hot and sexy for women is that more beautiful, more thin, and more revealing in dress attract more popular attention.

Toys and clothes for children under-10 sexualize gender, like with Lolita beds and playboy logos on t-shirts, creating unrealistic aspirations in impressionable minds.  They are surrounded by the imagery of standards that may be personally unachievable – thin, beautiful, and popular. Thus the body dissatisfaction takes root from childhood.

A young teenager, Milly, for example, was a confident, happy-go-lucky child in her parents’ eyes. She was abducted, and only afterwards did they realize that she in fact, hated herself for her looks and yearned for cosmetic surgery.

Carey reports:

… it now transpires Milly had already had a go at slicing into her wrists with a dinner knife because she’d been teased at school…At the age of just 13, Milly was already counting herself a loser in the popularity and beauty contests of life. For girls today, the two are inextricably linked … looks also determine whether or not you belong.

The youthful feminine gender thence begins to associate popularity with the size zero waistline, and gargantuan breasts – just like Barbie, the stylish, iconic doll. The assumption is that otherwise they must fail in society. And society in the minds of the women probably represents the men they have been brought up to look up to for approval.

Barbie dolls that have been beloved companions for girl children for decades, have now been made multicultural. They however, probably perpetrate the social learning of gender stereotypes. Girl children in cultures around the world learn by association to feel disadvantaged to be growing up different from the hot and sexy ideals.

A life-sized model constructed along the famous doll’s proportions showed how dangerous for women’s health the dimensions are in real life. Abraham writes:

Galia Slayen, who made the model, revealed that a real woman with the same dimensions would weigh just 110lb, giving her a BMI of 16.24 - a figure associated with eating disorders … 'If Barbie were an actual woman, she would be 5ft 9in tall, have a 39in bust, an 18in waist, 33in hips and a size 3 shoe.  She likely would not menstruate... she'd have to walk on all fours due to her proportions.'

Women further away from the stereotypical ideal tend to become sensitive about appearance. An email sent to the sales team of a company by their manager may say: If you have a FAT FAT face then you do not need to read this. Now, this jibe could be directed at anybody in the organization, but the feminine gender would quickly assume being singled out for indignity. Men also learn to push the buttons of low self-esteem.

Perhaps a part of the preoccupation with appearance stems from the fear of loneliness in later life, since ageing men reputedly prefer trophy wives decades younger. A survey conducted on online dating patterns, showed that the majority of mature women believe that men of their own or older age groups are uninterested in them, because they are no longer svelte.

McVeigh writes:

…eight out of 10 women over 50 think they have become invisible to men. Seven out of 10 women in the study felt overlooked by the fashion industry, while three-quarters of women in their 60s believed they had lost their identity by being labelled as a "mum"… Because of its 'anything is possible', 'sweet-shop' appeal, online dating just encourages men to cherry-pick their ideal – usually younger – mate.

Male suitors on a dating reality show, for example, joked that the bachelorette in question was an ugly duckling, and needed boob fund contributions.  Similar taunts about puppy fat at school drive many young girls into unhealthy lifestyles that continue in later life. Women are not born with body issues, but develop them over time following unrealistic goals of social desirability. 

Anorexia and bulimia are eating disorders commonly associated with them. In both cases, the very thought of putting on weight repels to the extent that life itself becomes a burden. Essentially, the health consequences of these disorders are severe organ failure and death. Anorexics minimize food intake to almost stop eating altogether. Bulimics alternate between bingeing and forced vomiting. They develop because of the women’s inability to confront reality. 

These disease conditions have been linked to female style-consciousness. Fashion institutions have begun to realize the dangers to social health with underweight models. Some retailers are banning marketing excesses in their stores. Some clothes houses also have now started a new trend of healthier models as a campaign against the potentially fatal eating disorders that generally afflict women, including a host of celebrity role-models. 

However, researchers at the University of Bologna, Italy argue that introducing plus sizes as the ideal would tip the balance the other way. In the industrialized nations, the average already is overweight. In changing the policy on thinness, the average eating habits would also reset towards obesity.

On the other hand, health reform advocates say that the issue of concern is not whether people are fat or thin, but the political incorrectness of both media and industry on the subject. The media blitz of corporate advertising that glamourizes unhealthy standards of beauty and sexuality, sets stage for the exploitation of gender. 

I should think women themselves need to develop a stable identity to make responsible choices, resisting the allure of the zero. Fact is women have been swayed by aggressive marketing tactics, forgetting that there is a lot more to them than just their bodies. They have been unable to identify the strong strand of patriarchal beliefs entrenched in social attitudes that accord mere lip service to gender equality. 

Women demean their own intellectual capabilities, basing social approval on visual appearances. Despite modernity, the age-old patterns persist, of submitting to dominance and awaiting rescue. They need to rethink their concepts, because in narrow definitions of belongingness they set themselves up as no more than receptacles of masculine favours. Women need to wake up to the reality that self-esteem depends not on the external world, but on their own identity.

References for this post:

1. Abraham, Tamara “Former anorexic’s life-sized Barbie reveals doll’s dangerous proportions” dailymail.com. Mail Online. 22nd April 2011. 
2. Abraham, Tamara. “'I wanted to be no one, to not be recognised': Allegra Versace on shunning the limelight after battle with anorexia” 7th June 2011. 
3. Carey, Tanith. “The secret self-hatred of confident Milly shows how little we know of our children's inner lives” thedailymail.co.uk. Mail Online.  26th May 2011. 
4. De Rossi, Portia. “Hollywood actress Portia de Rossi on the disorder that drove her to the edge” thedailymail.co.uk. Mail Online.   8th July 2011.  
5. Hickman, Martin. “Retailers ban 'sexy' underwear for children under 12” independent.co.uk.  Home News. The Independent. 6 June 2011. 
6. “'I'm a great catch!': The Bachelorette's Ashley Hebert puts cruel body taunts behind her for bikini shoot”. Daily Mail Reporter thedailymail.co.uk. Mail Online.  23rd June 2011.  
7. McVeigh, Tracy. “Online dating leaves middle-aged women in 'single wilderness'” guardian.co.uk. The Guardian. 10 July 2011.  
8. Ostler, Catherine. “A waist that made Nicole Kidman look dumpy and why Kate      deserves to be more than just a clothes horse” thedailymail.co.uk. Mail Online.  12th July 2011. 
9.  Rawi, Maya. “Vogue uses three plus-size models for cover in bid to 'battle against anorexia'” thedailymail.co.uk. Mail Online.   3^rd  June 2011. 
10. “Sales manager 'put female colleague over his knee and spanked her' A sales manager chased a female colleague around the office before he put her across his knee and spanked her, a tribunal heard.” Retail and consumer news telegraph.co.uk. The Telegraph. 21 Jun 2011. 
11. Singh, Anita. “Mills and Boon 'cause marital breakdown'” telegraph.co.uk. The Telegraph. 07 Jul 2011 
12. Smith-Squire, Alison. “I was a secret bulimic for 15 years” mirror.co.uk. Daily Mirror. 6/07/2011. 
13. Whitelocks, Sadie. “Forget chubby, keep it slim! Says a new controversial report supporting size zero” thedailymail.co.uk. Mail Online.   21^st April 2011.  
14. Whittaker, Marianne. “The agony of having an anorexic mother” thedailymail.co.uk. Mail Online. 12th May 2011.

Social: 5. The spirit of recovery

In March this year, Japan reeled under devastating blows from the environment. The country’s economic ascendency seemed to dissolve away in an instant before Nature’s fury, causing widespread trauma. Some authors say, however, that Japan’s economic decline began much earlier.

Familiar surroundings disappeared in the earthquake and tsunami.  The toll was at least 5,000 lives along with major infrastructure, leaving people lost and literally cold in the pre-spring weather.  Survivors of the destruction were left to grapple with shock and sudden adversity. Everywhere, writes a friend, almost no electivity, no water, no gas nor gasoline.

The worst environmental calamity in 140 years of that nation’s history has wiped out all traces of development. Even months later, the emotional distress persists, the friend writes:

It passed 3 months since that terrible earthquake attacked us. Since then until now I have been, somehow lethargic and do not want to do anything. But it was beginning of March and still cold and after March, April and May, now we are in June … and seems no changes happen … Northern Part of Japan, focus of the earthquake are still desert. So many people died and still so many missing, so many suffered a lot. On the other hand we are alive and so we have to live, exist…

Lethargy is but a natural reaction, a defence against trauma most unexpected. Many wonder why they have been left alive at all when all they hold dear in life is gone. In addition, looms the threat of a nuclear fallout that could affect generations. But not everything should be blamed on Nature – the lacks of foresight and openness to change are the human contributions to disaster.

Japan became the Asian superpower on the shoulders of its manufacturing prowess over the later half of the twentieth century, while China and India still grappled with burgeoning populations and poverty. Since globalization, however, these other countries appear to have picked up their pace of development, and they are being termed ‘the new economic frontier’.

Globalization showed up the cultural stagnation. The reason for it, as Japanese retail business leader Yanai perceives, is the people’s getting stuck into change-resistant ways. Ethnocentric preferences turn them inwards celebrating sameness, and in the process, gradually they lose adaptability to the outside world that is meanwhile changing differently.  

The business practices, Yanai writes, have also become introspective:

One problem is that we look down on developing countries… we lack the willingness to learn because we have been so successful before…  we are under the illusion that we are rich and superior … in Japan, income has stagnated for many people for a decade or more. Japan is still very comfortable to live in, if you are Japanese. But there’s a difference between being comfortable and being viable.

In the global forum, crucial business decisions rest on cultural awareness. Yet many Japanese company representatives are unwilling to accept that they can and do make mistakes. Similar people issues may have underlain Toyota’s automobile debacle overseas. Their chairman, summoned before a US Congressional hearing last year on the accident involvements of their cars, hung his attribution on employee confusion between sales and quality. Disgruntled consumers however, complained that repeated problem feedbacks to the company fell on deaf ears. 

The general organizational pattern is bureaucratic, built upon traditional ideals of the Japanese culture including dignity, honour, discipline, and strength.  But expectations of social respect in the collectivistic society, often prevents bottom-up feedback and the sharing of information.  The need to preserve hierarchy may then encourage cover-ups, and thus face-saving of the decision-making structure becomes paramount.  The attenuation of creativity may naturally follow, as may the corruption of power and resources. 

Yanai points out:

Most ordinary Japanese industries are bound up by government regulation, or by agreements (tacit or explicit) within the industry. The idea is to create a union or association or something and then use it to start imposing regulation and preventing competition.

In the recent nuclear crisis at Fukushima, the country’s prime minister himself received news about reactor explosions from media reports! In truth, the reactors were able to withstand the earthquake. Against the tsunami however, the safety measures were inadequate, since a deluge of its proportions had never been experienced or even considered before. The plant authorities did not admit the shortcomings, they chose instead to play down the nuclear threat.

Garthwaite writes:

[International agencies] criticized Japanese authorities for "working from a standard nuclear industry playbook” …  calling for "a frank appraisal of what is known and not known and the potential range of damage and consequences … verbal reassurances about low radiation levels stand in stark contrast to repeated increases in the radius of evacuations."

Post-catastrophe, big firms have become pessimistic about Japan’s business conditions. Economic recovery is not expected to be broad-based and household spending has decreased. The country may also face labour shortage because of its social imbalance - the biggest demographic age group being the oldest. In a nation largely of of retirees and disconnected youth, the effects of trauma may well tend to hopelessness.

Back decades in time, in the aftermath of World War II, a proud nation was brought to its knees, with the atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki destroying Japan socially and economically.  The people’s indomitable spirit of recovery raised the levels of creativity and industry to achieve new heights of economic glory. 

Clearly, the present ‘traditions’ of closedness and ethnocentricity are not part of the cultural inheritance. Perhaps these later additions to social learning were adopted to secure the preeminence of the manufacturing industry against foreign invasions.

Beech writes that imminent labour shortage has forced open to change the most traditional doors – in sumo wrestling. This sport, totally associated with Japanese culture, has been practiced for at least 1,500 years.  Its traditional secrets can be expected to remain within the ethnic fold. And yet, the top spots of the sport in Japan itself have been taken over by gaijans – foreign athletes from Mongolia, Bulgaria, and Estonia. 

Economics again has been responsible for the dearth of local talent. In earlier ages, families sent their children to the sumo “stables” to ensure that they were at least fed. In an affluent nation, hard labour is a thing of the past. The goal becomes college education, and thereby a comfortable life.  With few indigenous aspirants, the ancient sport faced extinction. 

The training schools set higher and more stringent standards for the outsiders. But they found that international wrestlers take all in stride – discrimination, indignities, language, diet, isolation, and socio-cultural hierarchy. The rigours they were subjected to in fact enabled them to come out on top. Sumo wrestling adapted to globalisation, and now enjoys a global following.

Beech writes:

After all, if this quintessentially Japanese sport can accept—and even celebrate—foreigners, perhaps the rest of the nation can do the same in other fields.

Indeed, change is a necessary part of evolution. The world has changed, and today in the global forums, people skills are required to survive and flourish.  Sharing does not diminish knowledge, it expands it. In new millennial businesses, collaboration and partnership are replacing merger and acquisition. 

Perhaps the cultural need of the devastated nation is to revisit the forgotten past, and resurrect the spirit of recovery that once brought the people up from absolutely nothing.  Although their emotional minds are now burdened, the people of Japan need to realize that the opportunity arises to once more resurge from devastation.  And little by little, as my Japanese friend mentions, time and nature heal the sorrow.

References for this post:

1.      Beech, Hannah. “Sumo wrestles with globalization” mckinseyquarterly.com. McKinsey Quarterly. McKinsey & Company. JUNE 2011.   

2.      Garthwaite, Josie. “How Is Japan’s Nuclear Disaster Different?” news.nationalgeographic.com. NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC Daily News. March 16, 2011. 

3. Kihara, Leika and Ishiguro, Rie. “WRAPUP 2-Japan business mood to recover from post-quake slump-tankan” reuters.com. REUTERS. Jul 1, 2011. 
4.  Yanai, Tadashi. “Dare to err” mckinseyquarterly.com. McKinsey Quarterly. McKinsey&Company. JUNE 2011.  

Social: 4. The reclaim of self-esteem

It is common knowledge that women in traditional regions face major social disadvantages. The feminine struggle for equality in more developed regions is thought to be comparatively minimal.  However, with the Internet dispensing information at runtime about events happening around the world, we discover that social practices in differing cultures may not be quite so dissimilar.  For instance, the inequality that has existed between women and women in the traditional East now seems to be finding its way into the liberal West.

The SlutWalkers movement was ignited in Canada by a police officer’s implication that women are victimized because they dress like sluts. It has injected new life into a feminism that has appeared politically moribund in the post-feminist era. Social networking now spreads awareness and solidarity across continents, with demonstrations in major cities of the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia making clear that these women have had enough.  

They have taken to the streets in thousands against the stereotypes that blame the victims of abuse for the abuse. The placards point out that “little girl clothes don’t make a paedophile” (excuses for rape having included the sound of women’s footfalls on the pavement). Fact is many men rely on tacit social support to help them evade “responsibility for their own urges”.  Their power over others is offset by their lack of individual self-control. 

Other women, wives and mistresses, assist in perpetrating the practice as the price of their social privileges. These women fight tooth and nail to preserve the patriarchal status quo and their chains, admiring how becomingly they sit.  Self-esteem for them then rests on gender-centricity.  Epstein, who confesses she cannot resist flirting with her son’s age-group as well, writes:

I think flirting at my life stage is, inherently, an issue of self-esteem. A way of believing we remain attractive to men in the light of advancing middle age. A way of flagging up the ‘I’ve still got it’ message. … Indeed, I flirt far more than I ever did in my 20s — it’s a celebration of being far more comfortable in my own skin.

The demonstrating women would perhaps beg to differ with the outlook. The cloying dependence on male approval may instead portray an unhealthy self-esteem. Flirtation has been the ‘safe’ social pastime through generations. But beyond social boundaries, women are expected to remain passive receptacles of tradition. They must toe the patriarchal line to gain their privileges.  Men’s social learning over the same generational time has been that women say ‘no’ when they mean ‘yes’ simply to be dominated.

The double standards of society pressure women to attract men, and yet to remain chaste.  Women are expected to please men, but are called sluts should they choose to please themselves. Dependent women tend to readily apply derogation to describe women not quite like them - just as they would sex workers.

Women of talent, mothers who chose education and/or employment over the traditional dependence, are also socially demeaned. For instance, Kate McCann, whose 3-year old daughter Madeleine was abducted during a family vacation, became the target of hate because her lifestyle did not adhere to the social expectations of motherhood.  Her appearance and successful medical practice perhaps confirmed the stereotype that somehow she was to blame for the crime that befell her family.

Jardine reports:

Men and women have accused Kate, a part-time GP, of being a bad mother and worse, while Gerry, her cardiologist husband, has had a relatively easy ride. Her critics may chiefly wish to reassure themselves that such bad luck could never befall them, but their venom suggests a lingering prejudice against working mothers, especially those who dress neatly, express themselves crisply, go to church and jog in order to keep up some semblance of normality amid emotional chaos.

Some authors have viewed the moral policing of young, attractive, and independent women as sexual harassment.  Marcotte believes that the prurient attacks may be politically motivated. She writes:

Every picture of you available becomes the new Zapruder film, examined endlessly for some tiny detail that could be used to claim you're a slattern, a girl gone wild, a despicable flirt who can't be trusted not to sleep with every man who isn't a rightwing blogger. If you recede from the public view in response, you're accused of hiding something. If you face down your accusers, you're accused of being an attention whore.

Others point out the social hypocrisy runs across the board - in public denouncements of ‘deviant behaviour’ that power group members of all fields secretly indulge in.  When the infidelity is exposed, the individual recourse is to seeking public sympathy, professing great love for the wife they betray and family ideals. Even when the evidence proves overwhelming, the ‘stud’ continues to be socially more acceptable than the ‘slut’. All the women in the equation are but pawns in the organized misogyny. 

The SlutWalkers wear their attitudes like second skins. In many cities, groups of men watch in silence as the demonstrations sweep by – some also join in the march.  The objective of these women is to re-claim words that now have debasing connotations attached.  For instance, the keyword ‘slut’ originally denoted a dirty, untidy appearance.  The meaning of a woman of loose character developed from the 1920s onwards. Wescott explains why:

This was just after the end of World War I. Women had gained independence, this might have frightened men because women were encroaching on areas they used to dominate. Women were going out, they were drinking and they were being referred to in a derogatory way.

More than anything else, the present movement perhaps shows up the growing divide between women and women.  Like the hostile mother-in-law/daughter-in-law dyads rampant in traditional regions, there is no sisterhood between the rival groups. Jones holds that there is  a definite difference of class between feminine groups that goes beyond social positions. She writes:

…the brown, over-manicured young women who weren’t on yesterday’s march, who were half a mile away schlepping in and out of Primark and H&M, might as well have been a million miles away. … women who have only been taught to shop till they drop will, if not be raped, put up with low-paid jobs and expectations, domestic abuse, bad relationships, debt.

The SlutWalkers dress outrageously only because it makes them feel good. They are independent beings that ride high on self-esteem, and the power to self-actualize. And yet they retain awareness of their global citizenship, having also marched in protests against the ‘freedom’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Jones writes:

The exposed thighs of the London sluts are the only things that unite them and the young women who dress like hookers to visit the nightclubs and shopping malls of Britain. The slut walkers, with their black clothes and gothic make-up, are well educated and fiercely super-confident young women raised by middle-class mothers to expect everything they want from life. They take no prisoners.

Dines and Murphy are however, critical of the new feminist drive to reclaim words. They believe that the social barriers to doing so are insurmountable, and the attempts to break through change-resistant beliefs are ill-advised. They write:

The organisers claim that celebrating the word "slut", and promoting sluttishness in general, will help women achieve full autonomy over their sexuality. … The term slut is so deeply rooted in the patriarchal "madonna/whore" view of women's sexuality that it is beyond redemption. The word is so saturated with the ideology that female sexual energy deserves punishment that trying to change its meaning is a waste of precious feminist resources. ...Women need to find ways to create their own authentic sexuality, outside of male-defined terms like slut.

I should think that gender hostilities add similar connotations to other references to women. Words do not start out with prejudiced attachments but developed them over time. ‘Diva’, for instance, derives from the Italian, meaning  ‘goddess’ or ‘fine lady’ or even ‘prima donna’ opera singers.  In some Western cultures though, the word’s strongest association now seems to be with immoral, scantily clad performers. 

I had the original ‘goddess’ meaning in mind when I chose the pen name The Diva to write under in a regular magazine column.  Some years later, I was surprised to find that more women than men within the organization were affronted by the usage, and hence set about actively opposing its continuance!

In a global forum, what might be the solution? Do women bow to social dominance of connotations in certain cultures, or do they highlight meanings that make the most sense to them, which also work well elsewhere? Are definitions the prerogative of the adherents of organized patriarchy, or do all women have the right to contribute to the development of meaning in language? I ask you!

Fact is there is no guarantee that new words introduced into the vocabulary will indeed remain connotation-free. Any of them can soon become a euphemism to carry forward the same old social meaning. The women might be left running around in circles to find newer words to denote their sexuality that are untouched by prejudice. Thence, reclaiming words seems appropriate.

However, the concerns of the authors also cannot be denied. Dines and Murphy believe that exposing the social myths about women is more important. They caution that:

 … the label [slut] has dire consequences including being blamed for rape, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and self-mutilation.

Indeed, a goal of “promoting sluttishness” could prove counterproductive if the process entails the destruction of entrenched moral values. Women cannot forget their responsibility to future generations. Nor can individual women of closed, collectivistic cultures afford to choose reactance over reason, and thus jeopardize their personal safety.

In Germany, for example, family members quickly ostracize the Turkish Muslim model that sought to liberate from the “slavery of her youth” with a Playboy photo shoot. Accused of shaming the religion selling out to the West, she receives death threats from the men, but no public support from peer women of the community, also for whom perhaps she acted as she did - “very brave or very stupid”. 

Feminism needs to be proactive to make an impact, its focus being the reclaim of self-esteem for all women. Perhaps an assertive approach through the sustained voicing of convictions/dissent through social networks is required to ensure an exponential spread of the message. Women around the world need to believe emphatically that they are capable of the independent thinking necessary to facilitate social change.

References for this post:

1. Bell, Sarah. “Slutwalk London: 'Yes means yes and no means no'” bbc.co.uk. BBC News. 11 June 2011.
2. Denvir, Daniel. “Are we not, like Anthony Weiner, caught in a web of desire?” guardian.co.uk. The Guardian. 10 June 2011. 
3. Dines, Gail, and Murphy, Wendy J. “SlutWalk is not sexual liberation” guardian.co.uk. The Guardian. 8 May 2011. 
4. Epstein, Angela. “Hello handsome, want to hear the confessions of a compulsive flirt-a-holic?” dailymail.co.uk. The Daily Mail. 10th June 2011. 
5. Hall, Allan. “Fanatics fury at Muslim Playgirl” thesun.co.uk. News. The Sun. 27 April 2011. 
6. Jardine, Cassandra. “Kate McCann: Why didn’t they believe her?” telegraph.co.uk World News. The Telegraph. 09 May 2011. 
7. Jones, Liz. “Class is the real problem, sisters - not slutty clothes”  dailymail.co.uk. The Daily Mail. 12th June 2011. 
8. Marcotte, Amanda. “How 'sex scandal' is sexual harassment” guardian.co.uk. The Guardian. 1 June 2011. 
9. Westcott, Kathryn. “Why is the word 'slut' so powerful?” bbc.co.uk. News Magazine.  The BBC. 9 April 2011.