Art & Words by Fanitsa Petrou
By regressing into earlier expressions of womanhood that denounce feminism as aggressive and “unfeminine” and a form of misandry, and above all, by fetishising marriage and pregnancy, women are kept locked inside that cruel world.
In a society that is in fact becoming more patriarchal, marriage and motherhood are still glorified by pop culture and fashion as a woman’s ultimate goal. Getting married is the thing a woman does as a way of becoming an adult. And sadly, the thing that often steers her away from her studies (or renders them unnecessary) and her professional or political goals. It is the thing that still justifies (in fact glorifies) the giving up of her dreams. The narrative is still the same as it ever was. TV shows – even the so called “gritty” ones, tend to end up in extravagant wedding ceremonies and pregnancies for example. A big wedding ceremony (or at the very least a proposal) is still seen as the best way to close “triumphantly” a movie, or a TV season, and it always guarantees increased popularity, while single women are still portrayed as sad, lonely, desperate, sex-crazed, angry outsiders, who are consumed by their obsessive search for husbands (not necessarily love) or else as cruel bosses who turn bitchy, bitter and cold. Likewise, a real-life pregnancy when it comes to female TV journalists and morning show hosts, can instantly boost their ratings.
This was not always the case. Or at least it briefly stopped being the case a few decades ago. Specifically in the late 80s, early 90s when, when for the briefest of moments, we were allowed to see the occasional positive portrayal of “alternative” lifestyles available to heterosexual women (and NOT as a way of proving a “woke” agenda which is the case with such stories today). When the “Baby Boom” movie was released back in 1987 for example, with Diane Keeton playing the role of a 40 something business executive who is forced to become the reluctant adopting mother of a baby girl, it was pretty spot on in its portrayal of the social trend of the second wave feminists of the 80s, who were in fact more allowed than modern-day women, to have choices. The female lead (who was both unmarried and in a relationship) was seen as having never contemplated motherhood for example, and then when faced with the possibility, she was “allowed” to have apprehension and conflicting feelings about it all. It was not automatically assumed that being a mum would magically become her main – in fact only – point of focus, providing complete fulfillment on the spot. It was a difficult process and an adjustment (as it is in fact for most women). In the end, it was her love for the child, which became overwhelming (as it does admittedly tend to become for most women), that led her to embrace the role of a mother, not her “gender duty” as a female, and even then, she was not portrayed as happy to give up on her dreams in order to do that. And in the end, she didn’t have to choose. This in itself was quite refreshing! The same narrative was visited in the TV show Murphy Brown as well, when (in 1992) we saw the middle-aged news anchor being positively portrayed as a single mum, causing Dan Quayle’s outrage who considered a fictional character to be a real thread to “family values.”
A recent movie that takes an honest and brave look at the ambivalent feelings a woman may have about motherhood is The Lost Daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal’s first film as a writer-director (based on the brilliant book by Elena Ferrante). The film attempts to portray the overwhelming nature of motherhood, by avoiding the binary Hollywood stereotype of the “perfect” mother who wants nothing from life other than cook and clean after her kids or the cruel monster who hates and ultimately destroys them. It is not often that we come across such portrayals of motherhood: the emotional depth, the overwhelming need to love as well as the resentment for being swallowed whole into a world that negates every other aspect of you. It is admittedly a difficult watch, but one that offers a rarely visited by pop culture, perspective.
Yet, in the last 15 years or so, we seem to have retrograded: pregnancy has again been practically fetished, and turned into “public property”, not a woman’ s private affair. Because it gives “purpose” to a woman, when all others are purposely taken away: it keeps her homebound and busy and conveniently away from where the decisions are being made for her life and her body. It is no longer the – admittedly – very important event in a woman’ s life, it has again become the ONLY truly important one. It is her reason for existing. What more, pregnancy is no longer seen as a pretty shitty time too (and let us be honest, it mostly is!) It is on the contrary cutesied, and presented as a great opportunity for great fashion moments and publicity photos and increased popularity if you are a celebrity, and endless posing on Instagram stories holding your “bump” if you are an everyday woman.
Celebrities who don’t follow the new rules of either keeping their figure while pregnant (in manner of Victoria Beckham – the original yummy mummy) or playing the fertility “goddess” card (in manner of Beyoncé) are severely shamed by the media. It took one single “bad” photo for the reality star Kim Kardashian for her to be temporarily ostracized from the land of the fabulous, back in 2013 for example, when she was five-months pregnant and caught wearing a black and white dress that showed that she had (The horror! The horror!) the body of a pregnant woman (instead of that of a stick figure who has swallowed a soccer ball). Her photo was actually shown in many publications and websites next to the photo of a killer whale with the caption “Who wore it best?” Gossip magazines and websites were posting the photo for weeks with headlines like: “Kim’s Pregnant Nightmare! “65‑lb Weight Gain!” “Binges on Pasta, Cake and Ice Cream!” (Instead of, you know: “Properly and dutifully starves herself while pregnant”…) These are the same people who did not mind of course the photos of her turning her ass into a side table…
The cult of the “celebrity pregnancies” and the trend of the “yummy mummies”, happened simultaneously with (and because of) the return of Patriarchy and pornography’ s profound takeover of men’s life. As women are being daily degraded by their porn-addict husbands (despite of the fact that very few of them would be open about it, or even willing to face the fact) they are again holding on tightly to the stereotypical gender identity they briefly left behind because of feminism. As men started entering one-by one, the dark, nasty, violent, misogynistic Neanderthal caves of their porn obsessions, women revisited their old “biological destines” and began their own regressing route into the fifties. They were being for once more, defined not by their humanity, their personality, intelligence, heart, empathy, abilities, ambitions, loses, intelligence, suffering, potential, triumphs, talents, individuality, or the freedom to explore any of the above, but by their looks and their biology: their weight, their age, their wedding gowns, their rings, their pregnancies, and their ominous ticking clocks. Fashion stepped in (as it always does, being such a cunning and ingenious interpreter of the Times) to finish the job: Women were brainwashed to wear high heels ALL the time, (including while doing the housework) by ads and TV shows and movies. Clothes started to become close fitting again and midriffs started making their appearance in the mid 90s. Gone were the long wide skirts of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and the loose fitting, cozy oversized sweaters, the long wide romantic dresses that left things to the imagination, the sober jackets and pants that were tailored like men’s, and were favoured by the women who believed that they should be judged as individuals and professionals in their work place, not as body parts. Gone were the muted earthy tones and the naturally curly hair, the flat shoes, the natural make up (or indeed the natural breasts, the vaginas which were not surgically altered, the asses which were not surgically “cushioned” (or in constant displayed) etc. And gone was also the time when women were thought – for the briefest of moments – to have the right to be seen as human beings! Who among other things are allowed to age! To go out there and claim their place in the world, attempt at least to break that fucking glass ceiling, have a choice between being single or married (and be respected either way), not to mention have an equal right to orgasm as a man (instead of being slaves to a man’s own) while at it.
The new Patriarchy smelled the goods and needed a new look that was in many terms – quite predicably – a revival of the fifties (the golden era of sexism, the wet dream of all misogynists) that keeps women in a state of constant sexual availability and perpetual discomfort. That keeps them on their toes (literally!): so high (the highest in human history actually!) heels and tiny waists and oversized boobs, gigantic behinds and bee-stung lips became the thing. The comic-book woman of the 50s has made a come back. When Nature didn’t help, plastic surgery, dieting and corsets (actual fucking corsets!) came to women’s rescue. (Whenever corsets return in fashion be on your guard ladies… It means the times are changing again. It means some serious sexist shit is coming your way)
Social platforms played a vital part of course. An exhibitionist new sort of public woman was now the norm. A strange hybrid of a woman who is obviously spending half her day in beauty regimes and when she opens her mouth speaks like a man: defending men’s rights, chastising feminists, seeing prostitution as a valid “career choice”, visiting strip joints and taking pole dance lessons that show that she is “cool”, and defending violent pornography as “freedom of speech” and “sex positive”. Not to mention ”, gladly being cuffed to her bedpost like a dog by her hubby so that she will fell “empowered”. As for public life, who among us isn’t simply bewildered but also downright scared when watching those well-groomed Right Winged ladies, with their emaciated, strip-treaser’s bodies, their blond hair, their dead eyes, their immaculate nails and their preference for a wardrobe of basic colours (bold reds and blues and yellows – the colours of childhood, let us not forget!) preaching about ‘family values”, standing by their cheating husband and warning us about the end of days? Those modern-day Phyllis Schafly clones who see feminism as a threat.
Much like the election of a black president has obviously woken up the nasty beast of racism in modern-day America, so did the progress made in the eighties result in a nasty backlash: women became nothing but bodies again. Caricatures of femininity. Barbie-sied women. Comic-book women, conjured up in an adolescent boy’s sexual fantasy world. Because the porn-addicted male is very much like an adolescent boy who is hiding in his parent’ s basement, lost in the fog of his masturbatory monomania, too damaged, too scared to climb the steps and face the real world were real, human women reside.
So women became bodies again, which exist in order to service their husbands whose eyes were now turned elsewhere. They became bodies in order to shift their man’ s gaze away from his monitor screen. To compete with the porn stars who took a permanent residence inside his head, by becoming homogenized, identical to all others, equally submissive and eager to please as them. By altering their body by relentless exercising and beauty regimes and exhausting diets and plastic surgery. By replicating the “porn-chic” look he spends his days jerking off to: gigantic boobs and asses on otherwise emaciating bodies (the shape / brand of the self-hating female). And by aspiring to learn the kind of skills “sex workers” have mastered: lap and pole dancing and all kinds of S/M degrading crap. By becoming the new “perfect”, “cool” woman who is willing to obey her man in bed, as well as have his kids, cook his meals and clean his house. Not to mention take gladly a beating in bed. Besides, porn stars seem not to mind it… In fact they seem love it!
The paralysing fear of ageing, is also rooted in this: a woman’ s place in the world is defined by being the good-wife model: young and fertile and in a state of perpetual sexual availability to her husband / provider. Earning her keep. Always doing her bit in keeping the marriage “alive”! Her worth therefore diminishes, as her beauty and fertility diminish. It’s a nightmarish, cruel Handmaid’s Tale-like world (see*3). And it is the world in which most women reside. By regressing into earlier expressions of womanhood that denounce feminism as aggressive and “unfeminine” and a form of misandry, and above all, by fetishizing marriage and pregnancy, women are kept locked inside that cruel world.Too afraid to escape it, because they were told by a multitude of voices that not much else exist in the alternative. Ιn the despised, empty plains of “spinsterhood”. Out there where women brazenly attempt to live the lives they have chosen, instead of being told what they prefer by husbands, priests, law makers, pop culture creators and pornographers and are being punished for it, in ways that are far worse than how married women are being punished.
But the thing is, the voices lied!
Posted on the 17th of July, 2023. Art & Words Copyright © Fanitsa Petrou. All Rights Reserved. Any unauthorised use – copying, publishing, printing, reselling, etc – will lead to legal implications. Feel free to share on social media, by using the link.
Read also: “The “Right” kind of Mother – Motherhood Within Patriarchy, Part I” –https://www.fanitsa-petrou-blog.com/archives/5887
ART by Fanitsa Petrou: http://www.fanitsa-petrou.com
