Search results for patriarchal bargain

A while back, in a post about Kim Kardashian’s fame, Lisa summarized the concept of a patriarchal bargain as “a decision to accept gender rules that disadvantage women in exchange for whatever power one can wrest from the system. It is an individual strategy designed to manipulate the system to one’s best advantage, but one that leaves the system itself intact.”

Christine B. sent in an excellent example of an individual-level attempt at empowerment with the confines of gender inequality. The video, part of the Howcast series of how-to videos, explains to women how to get men to buy them drinks at a bar:

In case you didn’t feel like watching the video, I can sum it up for you:

• Dress sexy, but not slutty, or you’re asking for it. How do you know if you’ve crossed the line? Well, if any men act inappropriately toward you, you must have shown too much boob. Better luck next time!
• Instead of planning a fun night out with your female friends, select only one — the bubbliest one, obviously — and go find a male-dominated environment.
• Buy yourself one drink right off the bat, so it looks like you’re an independent-minded woman who isn’t trying to get free shit in return for being pretty. I mean, you are doing that, but you don’t want to make it obvious. Men might be turned off if the gendered exchange were made explicit.
• Assume all men are stupid.
• Don’t ever stop to question a system that tells women that trading on our appearance, faking interest in people, excluding friends from social outings because they might be annoying to random men you’ve never met, and being manipulative are all totally empowering and socially-acceptable ways to behave as long as ladies get a fairly low-cost item for free in return for our efforts.

Transcript after the jump.

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(source: Google Images)

Since the inception of the Gaga machine, her message has been to love yourself, flaunt your difference, be you in a conformist youth culture. As a 20-year-old struggling for an alternative sexual expression to “sexpot”, my interest was piqued. She was young and raw, full of a singular energy that demanded attention, with a decent set of pipes… so what was the catch? The catch was the patriarchal bargain.

A patriarchal bargain, as Lisa Wade wrote in a previous post, is:

…a decision to accept gender rules that disadvantage women in exchange for whatever power one can wrest from the system. It is an individual strategy designed to manipulate the system to one’s best advantage, but one that leaves the system itself intact… Don’t be too quick to judge; nearly 100% of women do this to some degree.

Even Lady Gaga.

Gaga, as weird and anti-Britney Spears sexy as she is, still exhibits sexiness that appeals to the male gaze. At times, it is positively pornographic. That is Lady Gaga’s patriarchal bargain. Despite bucking traditional rules of femininity with innovative fashion elements, she upholds contemporary standards of beauty and sex appeal. Her method is achieved through the use of palatable distractions: telephones as headwear, shamelessly poisoning ex-lovers, and dancing in flawless skeleton makeup. Give ‘em the old razzle dazzle and they won’t even notice that she’s a skinny white woman gyrating in underwear.

Bad Romance:

Telephone:

Throughout her body of work there is a thread of what we know all too well:  ass-shaking, barely-there nudity and conspicuous consumption, just in an offbeat fashion. Gaga is bonkers, but Gaga is sexy. Gaga is political and outspoken, Gaga is skinny and [often] blond.  Indeed, “Mother Monster” may uplift her fans because of her affinity for oddness, but lest we forget, she is a lady and must inhabit the flesh that adheres to gender norms and restrictions, she reminds us:

“I would rather die than have my fans see me without a pair of heels on. And that’s show business.”

If you want to ride the ride, you have to pay the price.  And that price is patriarchy.

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Sonita Moss is a 2010 graduate of the University of Michigan with a B.A. degree in Sociology and French & Francophone Studies. Sonita hopes to receive her PhD in Sociology with a focus on the intersections of gender, race, and beauty. Whilst she prepares for the GRE, she occasionally updates her blog, Deconstructed Beauty.

If you would like to write a post for Sociological Images, please see our Guidelines for Guest Bloggers.

This month’s celebrity gossip included a scandal over a photo Serena Williams tweeted of herself that was quickly taken down.  The photo was of Williams in a bra and panties behind what appears to be a curtain; you can see her silhouette and some fuzzy details of what she is wearing.  It was timed to correlate with the release of the World Tennis Association’s Strong is Beautiful campaign, featuring Williams of course.

Williams took the photo down because of criticism.  A man had recently been arrested on charges of stalking her and the image, critics claimed, was exactly the kind of thing that triggered men to stalk her.  She shouldn’t encourage the creeps, said the blogosphere.  Sports columnist Greg Couch, for example, called her a hypocrite for daring to release such a photo and still wishing to avoid being stalked, and then went on to discuss her appearance and clothing choices at length.

Of course, selling one’s own sex appeal is more or less required for any female athlete who wants to reach the pinnacle of her career without being called a “dog” and a “dyke” at every turn.  So Williams isn’t breaking the rules, she’s playing the game.  And, yet, when she plays the game she gets, in return, not only stalkers, but criticism that suggests that, were she to be stalked again, she was asking for it.  This is an excellent example of the ugly truth about the patriarchal bargain.

A patriarchal bargain is a decision to accept gender rules that disadvantage women in exchange for whatever power one can wrest from the system. It is an individual strategy designed to manipulate the system to one’s best advantage, but one that leaves the system itself intact.  Williams is making a patriarchal bargain, exchanging her sex appeal for the heightened degree of fame and greater earning power we give to women who play by these rules (e.g., Kim Kardashian).  Don’t be too quick to judge; nearly 100% of women do this to some degree.

But once women appear to have acquiesced to the idea that their bodies are public property, their bodies are treated as public property.  Others, then, feel that they have the right to comment on, evaluate, and even control their bodies.  Williams made her body public, the logic goes, therefore anything that happens to it is her fault.  This is why the bargain is patriarchal.  Williams will be excoriated for her unwillingness to defer to the male gaze if she refuses to trade on her sex appeal. But if she does make this trade, she’ll be the first against the wall if anything bad happens to her.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

Cross-posted at Jezebel.

Tila Tequila has become famous through the strategic display of her culturally-idealized face and body.  A quick Google image search reveals as much:

Her success and celebrity suggests that Tequila has managed to negotiate with sexism such that she, by capitulating to the male gaze, wins. But the idea that it is ever possible to successfully maneuver around patriarchy is challenged by Tequila’s most recent court battle. Nearly seven years ago she and her then-boyfriend filmed themselves having sex. Her ex is now threatening to release this sex tape against Tequila’s will. Tequila went to court to get an injunction against the tape’s release, but the judge denied her request, arguing that “Tila exploits her sexuality” anyway.

Tequila’s exploitation of her own sexuality (or, more accurately, her sex appeal), apparently, gives everyone else the right to exploit her sexuality, too. This is what it means to live in a society in which women are second-class citizens, specifically, the “sex class.”  Women’s bodies are public property. Women are supposed to display them in public for men’s pleasure.  If they do not, they lose: they are dykes, bitches, and ugly, fat, feminazi cunts.  If they do, they lose.

Thanks to Stephanie Hallett at Ms. magazine for the tip.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

SocImages News:

Sociological Images’ post on Kim Kardashian and the patriarchal bargain is mentioned in Peggy Orenstein’s forthcoming book, Girls and Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape. What a wonderful surprise!

Also this month, we featured a guest post by sociology graduate student Nicole Bedera. Her criticism of the latest viral Barbie ad prompted NPR to do a story. Listen to hear Nicole and Barbie-scholar Ann DuCille comment on about how far the doll has, or hasn’t, come.

Finally, I had the opportunity to contribute to a smart analysis of energy drink marketing at the New Yorker and a really nice discussion of “love your body”-type marketing at The Establishment.

You like!  Here are our most appreciated posts this month:

• The “man-bun” as cultural appropriation (1,500+ likes)
• On the insidious sexism of the Covergirl Star Wars collection (600+ likes)
• Protecting white women in the bathroom: A history (600+ likes)
• What the 1% wants from our politicians (500+ likes)

Thanks everybody!

Editor’s pick:

• Disobedience or civil disobedience: Who decides when breaking rules is good?

Top post on Tumblr this month:

• “Man” vs. “girl”: Halloween edition (1,000+ notes)

Upcoming Lectures and Appearances:

Hey folks, I’m all booked up for February and March, but might be able to squeeze something in later in the semester. Happy to talk about hookup culture (that’s the favorite) or to offer some of the other talks I’ve worked up on American thinking about genital cutting, the science of sex differences, feminism and friendship, public sociology, and more!

Social Media ‘n’ Stuff:

Finally, this is your monthly reminder that SocImages is on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, and Pinterest.  I’m on Facebook and Instagram and most of the team is on Twitter: @lisawade, @gwensharpnv, @familyunequal, and @jaylivingston.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

We’re celebrating the end of the year with our most popular posts from 2013, plus a few of our favorites tossed in.  Enjoy!

Oddly, three high profile female musicians find themselves in a public debate about what it means to be a feminist.  We can thank Miley Cyrus for the occasion.  After claiming that the video for Wrecking Ball was inspired by Sinead O’Connor’s Nothing Compares to You, O’Connor wrote an open letter to the performer.  No doubt informed by Cyrus’ performance at the VMAs, she argued that the music industry would inevitably exploit Cyrus’ body and leave her a shell of a human being.  Amanda Palmer, another strong-minded female musician, responded to O’Connor.  She countered with the idea that all efforts to control women’s choices, no matter how benevolent, were anti-feminist.

I keep receiving requests to add my two cents.  So, here goes: I think they’re both right, but only half right.  And, when you put the two sides together, the conclusion isn’t as simple as either of them makes it out to be.  Both letters are kind, compelling, and smart, but neither capture the deep contradictions that Cyrus – indeed all women in the U.S. – face every day.

Cyrus in Wrecking Ball:

O’Connor warns Cyrus that the music industry is patriarchal and capitalist.  In so many words, she explains that the capitalists will never pay Cyrus what she’s worth because doing so leaves nothing to skim off the top.  The whole point is to exploit her.  Meanwhile, her exploitation will be distinctly gendered because sexism is part of the very fabric of the industry.  O’Connor writes:

The music business doesn’t give a shit about you, or any of us. They will prostitute you for all you are worth… and when you end up in rehab as a result of being prostituted, “they” will be sunning themselves on their yachts in Antigua, which they bought by selling your body…

Whether Cyrus ends up in rehab remains to be seen but O’Connor is, of course, right about the music industry. This is not something that requires argumentation, but is simply true in a patriarchal, capitalist society.  For-profit industries are for profit.  You may think that’s good or bad, but it is, by definition, about finding ways to extract money from goods and services and one does that by selling it for more than you paid for it.  And media companies of all kinds are dominated at almost all levels by (rich, white) men. These are the facts.

Disagreeing, Palmer claims that O’Connor herself is contributing to an oppressive environment for women.  All women’s choices, Palmer argues, should be considered fair game.

I want to live in a world where WE as women determine what we wear and look like and play the game as our fancy leads us, army pants one minute and killer gown the next, where WE decide whether or not we’re going to play games with the male gaze…

In Palmer’s utopia, no one gets to decide what’s best for women.  The whole point is to have all options on the table, without censure, so women can pick and choose and change their mind as they so desire.

This is intuitively pleasing and seems to mesh pretty well with a decent definition of “freedom.”  And women do have more choices – many, many more choices – than recent generations of women. They are now free to vote in elections, wear pants, smoke in public, have their own bank accounts, play sports, go into men’s occupations and, yes, be unabashedly sexual.  Hell they can even run for President.  And they get to still do all the feminine stuff too!  Women have it pretty great right now and Palmer is right that we should defend these options.

So, both are making a feminist argument.  What, then, is the source of the disagreement?

O’Connor and Palmer are using different levels of analysis.  Palmer’s is straightforwardly individualistic: each individual woman should be able to choose what she wants to do.  O’Connor’s is strongly institutional: we are all operating within a system – the music industry, in this case, or even “society” – and that system is powerfully deterministic.

The truth is that both are right and, because of that, neither sees the whole picture.  On the one hand, women are making individual choices. They are not complete dupes of the system.  They are architects of their own lives.   On the other hand, those individual choices are being made within a system.  The system sets up the pros and cons, the rewards and punishments, the paths to success and the pitfalls that lead to failure.  No amount of wishing it were different will make it so.  No individual choices change that reality.

So, Cyrus may indeed be “in charge of her own show,” as Palmer puts it.  She may have chosen to be a “raging, naked, twerking sexpot” all of her own volition.  But why?  Because that’s what the system rewards.  That’s not freedom, that’s a strategy.

In sociological terms, we call this a patriarchal bargain.  Both men and women make them and they come in many different forms. Generally, however, they involve a choice to manipulate the system to one’s best advantage without challenging the system itself.  This may maximize the benefits that accrue to any individual woman, but it harms women as a whole.  Cyrus’ particular bargain – accepting the sexual objectification of women in exchange for money, fame, and power – is a common one.  Serena Williams, Tila Tequila, Kim Kardashian, and Lady Gaga do it too.

We are all Miley, though.  We all make patriarchal bargains, large and small.  Housewives do when they support husbands’ careers on the agreement that he share the dividends.  Many high-achieving women do when they go into masculinized occupations to reap the benefits, but don’t challenge the idea that occupations associated with men are of greater value.  None of us have the moral high ground here.

So, is Miley Cyrus a pawn of industry patriarchs?  No.  Can her choices be fairly described as good for women?  No.

That’s how power works. It makes it so that essentially all choices can be absorbed into and mobilized on behalf of the system.  Fighting the system on behalf of the disadvantaged – in this case, women – requires individual sacrifices that are extraordinarily costly.  In Cyrus’ case, perhaps being replaced by another artist who is willing to capitulate to patriarchy with more gusto.  Accepting the rules of the system translates into individual gain, but doesn’t exactly make the world a better place.  In Cyrus’ case, her success is also an affirmation that a woman’s worth is strongly correlated with her willingness to commodify her sexuality.

Americans want their stories to have happy endings.  I’m sorry I don’t have a more optimistic read.  If the way out of this conundrum were easy, we’d have fixed it already.  But one thing’s for sure: it’s going to take collective sacrifice to bring about a world in which women’s humanity is so taken-for-granted that no individual woman’s choices can undermine it.  To get there, we’re going to need to acknowledge the power of the system, recognize each other as conscious actors, and have empathy for the difficult choices we all make as we try to navigate a difficult world.

Cross-posted at Pacific Standard.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

In 1990 I was still an American Culture major in college, but I was getting ready to jump ship for sociology. That’s when Madonna’s “Justify My Love” video was banned by MTV, which was a thing people used to use to watch videos. And network TV used to be a major source of exposure.

I was watching when Madonna went on Nightline for an interview.  The correspondent intoned:

…nudity, suggestions of bisexuality, sadomasochism, multiple partners. Finally, MTV decided Madonna has gone to far.

They showed the video, preceded by a dire parental warning (it was 11:30 p.m., and there was no way to watch it at any other time).  In the interview, Forrest Sawyer eventually realize he was being played:

Sawyer: This was a win-win for you. If they put the video on, you would get that kind of play. And if they didn’t you would still make some money. It was all, in a sense, a kind of publicity stunt. … But in the end you’re going to wind up making even more money than you would have.

Madonna: Yeah. So, lucky me.

The flap over Miley Cyrus completely baffles me. This is a business model (as artistic as any other commercial product), and it hasn’t changed much, just skinnier, with more nudity and (even) less feminism. I don’t understand why this is any more or less controversial than any other woman dancing naked. Everyone does realize that there is literally an infinite amount of free hardcore porn available to every child in America, right? There is no “banning” a video. (Wrecking Ball is pushing 250 million views on YouTube.)

No one is censoring Miley Cyrus — is there some message I’m missing? When she talked to Matt Lauer he asked, “Are you surprised by the attention you’re getting right now?” And she said, “Not really. I mean, it’s kind of what I want.”

I think the conversation has slid backward. In Lisa Wade’s excellent comment, she draws on a 1988 article, “Bargaining With Patriarchy,” which concluded:

Women strategize within a set of concrete constraints, which I identify as patriarchal bargains. Different forms of patriarchy present women with distinct “rules of the game” and call for different strategies to maximize security and optimize life options with varying potential for active or passive resistance in the face of oppression.

I think it applies perfectly to Miley Cyrus, if you replace “security” and “life options” with “celebrity” and “future island-buying potential.” Lisa is 1,000-times more plugged in to kids these days than I am, and the strategies-within-constraints model is well placed. But that article is from 1988, and it applies just as well to Madonna. So where’s the progress here?

Interviewed by Yahoo!, Gloria Steinem said, “I wish we didn’t have to be nude to be noticed … But given the game as it exists, women make decisions.” That is literally something she could have said in 1990.

The person people are arguing about has (so far) a lot less to say even than Madonna did. When Madonna was censored by MTV, Camile Paglia called her “the true feminist.”

She exposes the puritanism and suffocating ideology of American feminism, which is stuck in an adolescent whining mode. Madonna has taught young women to be fully female and sexual while still exercising total control over their lives. She shows girls how to be attractive, sensual, energetic, ambitious, aggressive and funny — all at the same time.

When Miley Cyrus caused a scandal on TV, Paglia could only muster, “the real scandal was how atrocious Cyrus’ performance was in artistic terms.”

Madonna was a bonafide challenge to feminists, for the reasons Paglia said, but also because of the religious subversiveness and homoerotic stuff. Madonna went on, staking her claim to the “choice” strand of feminism:

I may be dressing like the typical bimbo, whatever, but I’m in charge. You know. I’m in charge of my fantasies. I put myself in these situations with men, you know, and… people don’t think of me as a person who’s not in charge of my career or my life, okay. And isn’t that what feminism is all about, you know, equality for men and women? And aren’t I in charge of my life, doing the things I want to do? Making my own decisions?

And she embraced some other feminist themes. When Madonna was asked on Nightline, “Where do you draw the line?” she answered, “I draw the line with violence, and humiliation and degradation.”

I’m not saying there hasn’t been any progress since 1990. It’s more complicated than that. On matters of economic and politics gender has pretty well stalled. The porn industry has made a lot of progress. Reported rape has become less common, along with other forms of violence.

But — and please correct me if I’m wrong — I don’t see the progress in this conversation about whether it’s feminist or anti-feminist for a women to use sex or nudity to sell her pop music. As Lisa Wade says, “Because that’s what the system rewards. That’s not freedom, that’s a strategy.” So I would skip that debate and ask whether the multi-millionaire in question is adding anything critical to her product, or using her sex-plated platform for some good end.  Madonna might have. So far Miley Cyrus isn’t.

Cross-posted at Family Inequality and Pacific Standard.

Philip N. Cohen is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and writes the blog Family Inequality. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook.