Reuben !

1
Ashley Reuben
John Kubler
English 115
28 October 2014
Dont Judge A Book By Its Cover
Have you ever watched a music video and thought to yourself, What was she thinking?
She looks like such a slut! Have you ever walked outside and noticed someone whos clothes
were more revealing than yours and thought, She must be looking for attention. Many people
today are quick to judge about what a person is wearing and how they express themselves. A lot of
feminists today think that women are objectifying themselves by simply wearing an outfit that
they probably feel comfortable in. Being a woman is not about covering yourself up so that no one
gets the wrong idea. Women dress for themselves, not to make anyone else happy. If men wear
what they want then why should we be limited in our wardrobe? Before, men were dominant in
almost every relationship, and today women are dominant in almost each relationship. Nowadays,
women are being empowered in a number of ways. In movies, songs, music videos, and even by
the clothes that they wear. Every person has their own sexuality, and if women want to satisfy their
sexuality in a certain way then why not? If you see a man walking around shirtless you wouldn't
think anything of it, but if a woman is walking around in shorts and a crop top she is automatically
criticized for it. In order to keep modern romance going today, you need to have equality in the
relationship. Often times you will find that either the man or the woman will be dominant in the
relationship, but for a good relationship it should be balanced out. Women can do everything that
men can do. Men used to be the only ones who can initiate a conversation, but today many things
have changed. Women can take control of the situation if they wanted to.

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The film Crazy, Stupid, Love is a movie that shows how dominance can effect a relationship. It shows you how sexual identity can make a big impact on what a person needs. In this film,
there are four characters that are important. Cal, married to Emily, is a good husband that goes to
work and comes home to have dinner with his family. His every day life is repetitive and he is not
very interesting. Emily, works as an accountant, decides that there is something missing in their
relationship. She needs something that Cal is not giving her. She needs some excitement and affection in her life, so she seeks it elsewhere. Emily cheated on Cal by having a one night stand with
someone at work because she wanted to feel intimate with someone for a change. Emily tells Cal
that she wants a divorce, and instead of fighting for her, Cal just gives up and says that he will sign
anything that she wants. This is a good example of how Cal has forgotten how important it is to
keep his marriage exciting. They had been married for so long that he thought he no longer had to
work to keep the relationship going, while she was trying very hard to find a way to make it work.
They were not on the same page, which caused them to grow farther apart from each other.
In the film, there is another male character named Jacob. Jacob is a womanizer. He always
hangs out at this bar, searching for who he is going to take home next. He is very dominant, he approaches women with confidence, and never asks them what they want but instead he tells them as
if they dont have a choice. Hannah is studying to be a lawyer and she is at the bar with her friend
when Jacob approaches her. He tries to smooth talk her into going home with him, but of course
she is not looking for a one night stand. Hannah is looking for a lasting relationship. However that
changed when her current boyfriend disappoints her. She decides that she wants some fun in her
life so she goes back to the bar and tells Jacob that they are going back to his house. In this scene,
she is the dominant one. As they get to his house Hannah asks Jacob to show her all the moves that
he does on all the other girls that he brings here. So the night goes on, and Jacob and Hannah end

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up talking throughout the whole night. This scene shows how Jacob is changing because he would
never talk about himself to other women that he would bring home. They end up having a lasting
relationship because Hannah was able to break his shell and bring out the side that wanted to be
loved and cared for. What they were originally planning to be a one night stand turned into what
we think is going to be a long lasting relationship.
In this film individual identity plays a major role in getting to know the characters. Jacob is
a dominant male who would take a different woman home every night, and you would think that
he is incapable of real love. His character changes over time because he finally meets someone
that he developed feelings for. He changed his habits and he wasnt going to the same bar every
night to pick up women. Hannah was a more of a woman who would have never thought of sleeping with a stranger from a bar for one night. However her character changes in the middle of the
movie because she goes back to the bar planning to have a one night stand. Cal was a husband that
was unaware of his wifes needs and he wasnt able to keep his relationship interesting. His character changes as Jacob teaches him to become more dominant and to take control of the women
that he wants to be with. Cal then realized that he still loved his wife, and he decided to fight for
her. Emily went from being a lonely wife to wanting to make the relationship work and finding a
way.
The Article Technologies of Sexiness: Theorizing Womens Engagement in the Sexualization of Culture by Foucalt and Butler, talks about how women being more sexual is rising
throughout our world today. Women are liberating and they dont do things so that they can be noticed but they do it to make themselves feel good. Such a resignification can be seen in relation to
the popularization of pole-dancing, which has shifted from an activity typically associated with the
sex industry to all female exercise classes. Here, full embodiment in sexualized culture is contex-

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tualized as an expression of empowerment (119). Pole dancing classes are held in private areas
and there is only women taking the class. Therefore, women are not taking the class to get attention from men, but they are doing it because they want to. Just as if men play soccer. They are not
doing it because they want to get womens attention, but because they like the sport and it makes
them happy when they play it.
Women's wardrobe today has changed from what women used to wear before. Today if you
see a woman wearing shorts and a tank top on a hot summers day, you wouldnt think much right?
Wrong. There are some people today who think that when a woman is wearing revealing clothes,
such as shorts and tank top, is doing it only for attention or because she wants to show off. As
with much postfeminist advertising, the woman is positioned as the subject of her own objectification, posed as confident with her own sexuality discourses of empowerment and liberation imply that the woman pictured is presenting herself as an object through autonomy and
choice (121). This quote explains that no matter what women are doing with their bodies, they
are choosing what to do. If they want to show it off to the public or in the media, then that must
mean that they are comfortable enough to do so. They are not being objectified because no one is
forcing them to wear shorts and a tank top, but they decided that they were going to wear it themselves. When men posting for GQ magazine, no one argues that they are being objectified. There
is even a Sexiest Man Alive cover that goes out once a year for People Magazine. I never hear
anyone complaining how men are being objectified.
In the book The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi there are many ways in Marjis
character and her sexuality evolves. Most importantly, she evolves because her individual identity
and her sexualization is changing throughout the book. For one, she was desperately trying to fit in
with a crowd because she felt very alone. Ever since Id seen my mother, I didnt need

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anyone (208). This shows that because she had seen her mother she felt stronger than she had before. She felt as though she didnt need anyone, but in reality she really wanted some friends. She
wanted to feel loved just like her mother would make her feel. Only her mother was not there with
her anymore to provide that for her. Because of her empty feeling Marji takes extremes to find
some friends that she can fit in with.
Marji also feels like she is going to finally lose her virginity, but when she doesnt it is her
first time feeling insecure and shy. But this night was different. I felt ready to lose my
innocence. . . . Unfortunately, the next morning I was as much a virgin and as timid as the night
before Its my fault! Im so unbelievably ugly. Im sure thats why he didnt want
me (212-213). This quote shows how she was ready to lose the one thing that she was holding on
to from her past. Her virginity meant a great deal to her in Iran, but now that she loved her
boyfriend, Enrique, she was ready to lose her innocence. But when she woke up the next morning
and realized that they had done nothing, she felt very insecure and shy. This was something that
she had not felt before because she was always a strong woman. This signifies a big change in her
sexuality because if she was still in Iran, she would feel differently.
Not only did Marji feel alone and want to be loved, but she also turned to drugs to forget
about her pain. She had so much going on in her life that she couldnt handle anymore. She would
hang out with her friend Ingrid and do drugs so that she can have an escape from reality. Ingrid,
my former enemy, had now become a great friend. She taught me transcendental meditation. With
her, I spent my time either meditating, or tripping. I didnt always like it, but I by far preferred
boring myself with her to having to confront my solitude and my disappointments (218). This
quote shows how Marji is going through so much pain in her life that she doesnt want to face it.

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Instead of confronting her problems and figuring out how to fix them she is ignoring them by doing drugs and hanging out with Ingrid.
The article Todays ultimate feminists are the chicks in crop tops by Kate Taylor is attacking Ariel Levys article Female Chauvinist Pigs. In this article Taylor explains why she
thinks Levy is wrong. The answer is, laboring to look like Pamela Anderson is not empowering.
Were not trying to be empowered. The twenty something women I know dont care about oldstyle feminism. Partly this is because they already see themselves as equal to men: they can work,
they can vote, they can bonk on the first date. For younger women, raunch is not about feminism,
its just about fashion (1). This quote explains that women are not trying to act like a certain person to be empowered. Women dont need to prove themselves anymore because we feel as if we
have already proven ourselves. We can already do the same things that men do, so why try to empower ourselves. The quote also states that for younger women, the only reason they dress how
they do is for fashion. Crop tops are in style now and that is why most young women wear them,
not because they are looking to be empowered.
She proclaims that boob jobs and crop tops dont bring us any closer to the fundamental
feminist project of allowing every woman to be her own, specific self. But what if a womans
own, specific self is a thong-wearing, Playboy-T-shirted specific self who thinks lap-dancing is a
laugh and likes getting wolf-whistled at by builders? What if a woman spends hours in the gym to
create a body she is proud of? Is that a waste of time, time she should have spent in a university
library? No. . . . . If a thong makes you feel fabulous, wear it. . . . True feminism should celebrate
femininity, and make you feel wonderful to be born a woman. Its a shame some feminists today
cant do the same (1). If a woman feels good in what she is wearing, then she should wear it
proudly. Why would she wear something that makes her feel uncomfortable? Women dont wear

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thongs so that guys stare at their behind all day. If men want to stare at a womans behind then
thats his problem. Women can not control what a man thinks when he looks at a woman, but
women can control how they feel about it. Bottom line is, being a woman should be about feeling
comfortable enough to wear what you want and embracing how you look and what you have just
like men are proud and have no problem showing off their six pack to the world.
Throughout the past few weeks we have been talking about certain music videos in class.
There is a lot of controversy that can be said of each music video that we watched. Jessica Simpsons These Boots Are Made For Walking, Madonnas Justify My Love, and Miley Cyruss
video Wrecking Ball all have an empowering meaning to them. Simpsons video shows her
rolling up in a muscle car which already symbolizes power (0:07). In the video it also shows her
on top of the bar dancing, and the guys are lower than her. The guys in this film are portrayed as
sex hungry airheads, and in this scene they are acting like they are hungry for her (0:59). One guy
slaps her butt while she is walking past him, and as a result, she punches him. This punch starts a
fight between every guy in the bar. (1:22). While this fight is going on and the guys are all still on
the floor, Jessica Simpson and a bunch of the other woman go in the middle of the bar and start
dancing as if the men on the floor are completely irrelevant (2:09). So, with all these events going
on in the music video you can see that Jessica Simpson was trying to show that women can have
control over a situation as well. If you look past her wearing shorts and crop top, you will see that
the message she is trying to send is that women should not be afraid to show men that they are just
as powerful as them.
If you dont watch Madonnas video until the end you will think that Madonna is being
very objectified because of all the sexual acts going on throughout the video. Her message is made
at the very end of the video. At the end of her video it shows her walking out with a robe on and

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her suitcase, signifying that she is leaving the building that she was in. Then it cuts to a scene of
the man that she was fooling around with, and he is reaching for her as if he is asking her to stay.
At the very end of the video there is a quote that shows up on the screen, poor is the man whose
pleasures depend on the permission of another (4:54). This quote shows that a man who needs to
get permission to get himself pleasured is not a very happy man. This means that Madonna doesnt
need to ask someone to give her pleasure, therefore the men become the weak ones in this video.
Although when you are watching the video, you think that she is the weak one because she is the
one that is under him and he has all the control. But at the end of the video she flips the tables and
makes you see what her real message was. Her message was that women dont need to get permission from anyone to be pleasured, they can do what they want just like men can. This message can
be used for other situations as well, it does not have to be about pleasure. For example, you can
connect it to women wearing what they want without needing permission to go out in public.
Right at the start of Miley Cyruss video you see a close up of her crying. You can tell from
her face that it is not tears of joy because she doesnt look happy. So you sense that she is broken,
and she is about to share something personal with you (0:04). If you listen to her lyrics, you can
hear her saying All I wanted was to break your walls, all you ever did was wreck me and
then she goes on to hold her head again as she is still crying (0:59). In this video Miley is talking
about her previous relationship with her fianc. Everyone thought that they were a perfect couple,
but with her song she is trying to tell you a story. She is saying that she still loves him, but he ruined her. Her being naked on a wrecking ball is not supposed to be a sexual act, it is supposed to
show that her fianc stripped her down and made her feel hopeless, leaving her feeling naked and
alone (1:27). She is trying to send a message that most people took the wrong way. If you really sit
down and watch her video she is showing you that she feels very vulnerable. Her crying, and be-

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ing naked in this video is a symbol for how hard it must be for her talk about it. This is a sensitive
subject for anyone to talk about, so for her to make a music video about it and let the whole world
in on how she feels is very empowering. Miley Cyrus was not trying to be sexual in this video, she
was only trying to show a sensitive side that many people fail to see. Because she performs all the
time, she needs to be able to keep her personal problems aside and deliver a performance that her
fans want to see. But here, she is showing you that just because she does not show that she is hurt,
doesnt mean that shes not. Many people think that the breakup was her fault because the fianc
seemed more sad than she is, but here is showing that she was just as sad, if not more.
There are many arguments that can be said about how the media is becoming more sexual
and how it is affecting our society. For one, celebrities are supposed to be role models for children.
What are children going to think when they see their favorite singer make a music video and
where they are naked on a wrecking ball? Of course, seeing someone naked is never a good thing
for a child to see but again, showing the world that they are half naked and sexy is not their goal.
Jessica Simpson shows you that even though she was a waitress, her purpose was not to serve the
men that were there. Madonna showed you that no one can control your life but you, and Miley
was trying to tell you that you should never let a man make you feel less than you are. So if you
ask me, these women are good role models because of the message of equality that they are trying
to communicate to their fans. They are trying to show that women can take control and do the
same thing that men can do.
Many people argue that women might give men the wrong idea by wearing provocative
clothing. When a man sees a woman wearing shorts they automatically think that she is doing it to
get his attention, so he thinks that he should make a move. However, this is not true. Telling a
woman what she can and can not wear is very insulting. Why should she let someone else dictate

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how she wears her clothes or how she should look when she leaves the house? If you tell woman
not to wear certain clothing because of how other people will feel, then you are the one that is objectifying her. Being empowered is about taking control and how can a woman be in control when
she is choosing her outfit based on the publics opinion.
One could argue that women without curvy bodies are now looked down upon because of
the media. You see women like Kim Kardashian, her sisters, Nicki Minaj, Beyonce, and Jennifer
Lopez and all you see it a big butt and big boobs. With these women being talked about in the media all the time you feel as if you have no worth because you dont have the same curvy body as
they do. However, you see plenty of people in the media that are talked about because of their
bodies who arent curvy. For example, Victorias Secret models are worshipped because they are
beautiful but they dont have the same bodies as the people mentioned before. You dont need to
have a body to be talked about in the media. Believe it or not there are people who are noticed for
the good that they do in this world. For example, Oprah Winfrey. She is very well-known and successful, not because of her body but because of all she has accomplished. She has her own show
and her own magazine. She is talked about all the time and I never hear people saying things about
how pretty she is, or how nice her body is.
If everyone was not so quick to judge, the world would be a much better place. So next
time you see someone walking in the street wearing a crop top with jeans, dont think about what a
slut she is. Instead think about how lucky she must be to feel so comfortable with herself to be
able to show off her body that she worked hard to get. Next time you see a celebrity making a music video that you disapprove of, why dont you look past the singer wearing provocative clothing
and try to think what message the singer is trying to send. Next time you think that you are not
good enough for anyone because you are not classified as beautiful or having a curvy body, re-

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member that there are people are appreciated in this world not because of their physical features
but because of what they are doing with their lives. Instead of automatically looking for the bad in
people, take time to look deeper into the situation and find something positive that can be said
about it.

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Works Cited

10 Most Powerful Women in Media. Forbes. Forbes Magazine, n.d. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
Madonna - Justify My Love (video). YouTube. YouTube, 26 Oct. 2006. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
Jessica Simpson - These Boots Are Made for Walkin YouTube. YouTube, 3 Oct. 2009. Web. 22
Oct. 2014.
Miley Cyrus - Wrecking Ball. YouTube. YouTube, 9 Sept. 2013. Web. 21 Oct 2014.
Satrapi, Marjane. The Complete Persepolis. USA: Random Houses, Inc., 2007. Print.
Crazy, Stupid, Love. Dir. John Requa and Glenn Ficarra. Perf. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.
Warner Bros., 2011. Film Seen Online.
Foucalt, and Butler. Technologies of Sexiness: Theorizing Womens Engagement in the
Sexualization of Culture. N.p.: SAGE, 20 Feb. 2010. PDF.
Taylor, Kate. Todays Ultimate Feminists Are the Chicks in Crop Tops. The Guardian. N.p., 22
Mar. 2006. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.