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The Modern Myth of the Woman and Lack of Progress in Feminism
Margaret Herrinton
As a young woman who aspires to have multiple college degrees, a family, and a career, I
could not be less amused by the way people expect me to behave, think, and look. There are
times where I feel like I am stuck living in the 1950s. Many people still do not believe that when
I do have a career, I should be paid equally to men. Or, if I should someday receive a doctorate
degree, I should have both a career and a family. It is still not completely socially acceptable for
women to have all of these things in American culture, despite how many years have passed, and
how much people say things have changed. When examining the development of the roles of
females throughout time, it is simple to see that there have been changes. More women go to
college, have careers, and seek independence than they did fifty years ago. Most people view this
sociological development as progress, but I would like to challenge that belief. Women are
viewed as a minority and are still set up to behave and appear just like women in the media.
Unfortunately, that portrayal is not something that women should be proud.
According to Daniel Pope’s essay, “Making Sense of Advertisements,” Advertisements
became sexualized in the World War I era, beginning with a campaign started by John
Woodbury. His campaign was for soap that the Andrew Jergen’s Company was selling, and it
showed women being touched by a man, with the tag line “Skin you love to touch.” This started
a revelation in the advertising industry. Some of these new advertisements were outrageously
sexist. For example, in an article titled"10 Most Sexist Print Ads from the 1950s” there is an
advertisement for the Kenwood Chef food processor says, “The Chef does everything but cookthat’s what wives are for.” Other advertisements are shown with men spanking their wives for
not buying the competitor’s product, women with fake-looking, oversized breasts, and smiling
with the vacuum they received from their husband Christmas morning. These images are viewed
as derogatory in present day, but similar advertisements are still being printed in magazines or
aired on the television. It is common for advertising campaigns for products such as cologne and
deodorant to show men using the product, and women all of a sudden throwing themselves at
them. Most advertisements for alcohol show women who are barely clothed saying what a
wonderful beverage it is. While women are no longer limited to being fully clothed spokespeople
for kitchen products and cleaning supplies, they are now half naked, sexually objectified
spokespeople for male-targeted products.
None of these perspectives prove that women have any value beyond sexual or domestic
purposes. These views of women are forming an archetype for women that is not realistic.
Simone De Beauvoir, a French political activist and feminist, said within her Book, The Second
Sex: Chapter XI Myth and Reality.”
“As every woman has a share in a majority of these archetypes - each of which
lays claim to containing the sole Truth of woman - men of today also are moved
again in the presence of their female companions to an astonishment like that of
the old sophists who failed to understand how man could be blond and dark at the
same time!”.
Many women do choose to be homemakers for their families instead of having a career and
many women do ooze sex appeal; however, what is frequently not stated about women in these
advertisements is their ability to also be smart, funny, and talented in other ways. Women serve a
purpose beyond cooking dinner and filling men’s sexual fantasies. Because women shown in
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advertisements marketed towards men are frequently depicted in a way that follows this
archetype and the myth of women, it starts to seem that men lose sight of all that women are, as
De Beauvoir suggests, because it is challenging to understand that no woman truly fills the
archetypes. Women in advertisements are incredibly flat characters, whose sole purpose is to
fulfill some form of male-driven fantasy, and these women, as Simone De Beauvoir says, are just
a myth.
The myth of the woman used to be that women belonged at home, caring for their
families, and doing house work and chores. This image has evolved, into a “New Myth” so that
the modern woman is not considered extraordinary if she has a job. Unfortunately, that job is not
one that pays well or is intellectually demanding, and it appears that this hypothetical woman is
still thin, beautiful, and willing to be sexually objectified. Plus, the image of the modern woman
still is someone who marries, has children, and takes care of her family. In fact, the only
difference between the former myth and the modern myth is that it is normal for a woman to
have a job and be more open about her sexuality. Yet, it seems that none of these fantasy women
are doctors or lawyers or in any intellectual positions. It seems that their lives still revolve
around the older, traditional ideal of domesticity and womanhood. Forbes.com even posted an
article recently by Michael Noer called “Don’t Marry Career Women.” This opinion article
explains that men should marry women without a career in order to have a successful marriage,
because if the woman has high goals she is less likely to be satisfied with marriage; however,
men with high goals have this same chance, but they should still marry. These double standards
are ones that modern women are constantly being faced with.
Gayle Rubin, a cultural anthropologist and a politician, who platforms focus on gender
issues, defined sexual essentialism as “the idea that sex is a natural force that exists prior to
social life and shapes institutions.” (2385) This is an important term to understanding both the
modern and previous myth of the woman because these social institutions that are created affect
the social perspective of women. This definition of the theory helps to shape the impact that
women’s sexuality has on media because it explains the phrase, “Sex sells”. Many companies
use a woman’s sexuality to target the weakness of the men that are being target by the ads. When
men are being targeted by an ad that flaunts a woman’s sexuality, they want the women in their
lives to buy the product in order to have the same level sexuality that the fictional woman does.
Our culture seems to be making sexuality is so important that we focus music, advertisements,
art, and movies around it. We are shaping our institutions around it and partaking in the concept
of sexual essentialism. Which means as a society we are creating myths around female sexuality
that hold unrealistic expectations, and worse yet we are driving their growth.
Even advertising campaigns that appear to be pro-feminism seem to be feminist only for
the attention. In 2004, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty was launched. The ads featured real
women whose looks defied the norms of beauty. The women featured were older or heavier than
and were not the company’s normal models. This campaign focused on how women are handed
unrealistic expectations for their appearance from the media, and that Dove wants to fix this by
seeing women for who they are. While this seems like forward progress, Dove simply has a more
effective marketing strategy to reach women than other companies. I believe this campaign
doesn’t defy the myth of women; it edits the myth to be slightly more obtainable. There are few
differences between the way these women are shown in these commercials and other make-up
ads. The women are not portrayed to have personalities or skills; they are just a healthier weight.
These women are not in portrayed in a sexual way; so, if they are not being viewed in a sexually,
is it really the same as the way as the super thin women are being viewed in other ads? These
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women appear normal which, although a step in the right direction is different than ending a
process that ensures normal women are being held to a different standard than the women who fit
within the myth are.
The modern myth of women is not just found in advertising. It is also prevalent in films,
and one of the largest offenders is the Walt Disney Company. Disney princesses for decades
have been framed as damsels in distress who need to be rescued by handsome princes in order to
achieve their dreams. This unrealistic, all be it popular, expectation is setting up women worldwide for disappointment. However, it appears that Disney is trying to reform this image through
the 2012 film Brave. Brave is different because it is a princess movie where the protagonist does
not end up with a prince and chooses to find her independence instead. This movie received
attention because viewers thought it was so wonderful to see Disney break a social norm, which
they created, in order to adapt to a modern view of women. Disney was praised greatly for
creating an independent female character, Mirroring women who have been fighting for their
rights to be independent individuals, since 1848. This concept is not revolutionary to most
normal women. They’ve all lived this experience; they’ve all, at some point or another, given up
on love in order to pursue their own dreams. Because this is the first time it is put into a film it is
considered revolutionary since the media has formed the myth of women. What makes this
movie shocking was how the myth of the woman was denied by Disney, create creator of this
myth who has supported it traditionally.
There are times where it appears that the myth of the woman is being defied to in order to
gain publicity. There is nothing truly scandalous about teaching young girls that they do not need
a prince in order to be happy. However, the media would have us believe differently. Many
women go through life, reaching all sorts of levels of success, and never marry. There is nothing
wrong with this, and this being Disney’s only movie where the princess does not end up with a
prince makes is seem like it is uncommon and awful for a woman to stay single.
However, the worst media representation of women is in politics. There is a tendency for
female politicians to frequently be disgraced by the media for superficial reasons. For example,
Hilary Clinton is frequently discredited - despite her intelligence, accomplishments, and passion
for her work - because she does not have the ideal appearance that has been created by the
media. In “Focus on Hillary Clinton’s Appearance Sparks Criticism” by Martha T. Moore, in
“USA Today” Clinton was quoted saying "If I want to wear my glasses, I'm wearing my glasses.
If I want to wear my hair back I'm pulling my hair back. You know at some point it's just not
something that deserves a lot of time and attention." This same article states, “Terry O’Neil,
president of the National Organization for Women, says politicians of both sexes get evaluated
on their looks, but women face closer scrutiny.” This scrutiny is a demonstration of how the
modern myth is hurting and limiting women’s opportunities.
Simone De Beauvoir said, “If the definition provided for this concept is contradicted by
the behavior of flesh-and-blood women, it is the latter who are wrong: we are told that
Femininity is a false entity, but that the women who are concerned are not feminine.” (1265). I
feel as if this is how women truly are viewed. The women who are passionate about their rights
may not be the most beautiful women. Women could defy the myth of the woman to the extent
that the male population does not see them in a feminine light at all. The biggest issue is that if
women are to start fighting to prove a new form of feminism, they would have to blend with the
myth first.
There are so many implications to the modern myth. The biggest issue of all of this is
why does there have to be a difference between the real modern woman and the myth of the
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woman? The way women have been portrayed by media is less shocking, evolutionary, and
forward-thinking than the real women of today because it is less controversial. It seems that more
people with differentiating perspectives are going to agree on an older, more traditional
perspective of women. The problem with settling for an agreeable, traditional perspective is that
many people never see beyond that, and miss out what is going on in reality. Poorly informed
people travel through this world making decisions that affect women without actually knowing
them.
For example, recently Governor Mitt Romney ran for president with a controversial
perspective on women’s rights. The Romney family is filled with women who have chosen to be
homemakers. His mother, Lenore, according to Archives.com, left a promising acting career in
Hollywood when she met his father, George. While there is nothing wrong with choosing this
lifestyle, it drove Mitt to generate very unrealistic opinions on women that cost him the election.
In an article by Melinda Henneberger titled “Why Romney Lost Women” in The Washington
Post, says that Obama won 54% of the female vote, and that Romney lost the female vote in
every swing state. Plus, his comments about needing to search for women to fill his cabinet in
binders because he doesn’t know women who could fill these positions, and his claim that
women need hours that will allow them to be home to cook dinner for their families, as
mentioned in the article “‘Binders,' Cooking and Equal Pay: Did Romney Undo Gains with
Women Voters?” on the CNN website by Halimah Abdullah, proves he is upholding the myth of
the woman. The media never educated him that this isn’t the norm in households anymore.
Romney places women in traditional gender roles because he doesn’t know any better.
Men have formed hegemony, meaning a group of people that governs over another,
making women “the other” and bullying them into the myth. Virginia Woolf, a modernist
English writer and feminist, in A Room of One’s Own, discusses how different it would be if
Shakespeare’s genius had been given to a girl. She would not have received the education to
create the works because she would have been forced into the kitchen. But, she also raises the
question, “do men and women really think that differently?” Woolf proposes that men and
women both think in feminine and masculine ways. If this idea were to be accepted, it would
help shatter the myth by proving that women are capable of thinking on the same level as men.
This would deny the males’ ability to bully women into being the other. When given the example
about Shakespeare people should understand that women have, throughout history, been denied
opportunities because they are needed elsewhere. If all women had received educations, or were
viewed equally as men, this world could be full of so many wonderful things. Instead of being
able to be themselves, women are being expected to demean themselves and be the sexual
objects the media has framed for their gender.
It has been shown in all social situations that there always must be a group in power,
whether it is men or women, Caucasians or African Americans, the gay society or the straight
society, Jews or Christians, or any other groups. In response, Paula Allen Gunn, who was a
literary critic, lesbian activist, and poet, developed the term “gynecentric” meaning womencentered. The media has formulated a society that is the opposite of gynecentric, and by coining
this term, the question is raised, “what if our society was equally gynecentric as it was malefocused? What if men were shoved into the same box of appearance, sexuality, and
domestication that women are? What if that box did not exist at all? If women and men were
held to equal expectations there would no longer be this made up sense of hegemony and no one
would be the other. There have, throughout history, always been hegemonies and the group it
governs over. Women have been the other since the beginning of time, to those who follow the
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Bible, since Eve is responsible for original sin and was made second to Adam, automatically is
lesser to the man. Despite the attempts of change throughout history, women have never gained
full equality because their battles have been spread out significantly. There will never be a law to
protect women from having to compare themselves to sickly thin models in advertisements, and
the myth of the woman will always stand because there is no law that can make perceptions
illegal. However, the myth can be significantly changed through powerful actions.
Fictional perspectives, such as film or television, are used to recreate the way things used
to be in other times. The consequences are that we compare our culture to the culture it was
before it evolved into the present. We always view the past with a nostalgic point of view,
despite the fact that it isn’t always an accurate one. Because of this, some may think that
women’s role in the 1950s was exactly what it should be now. Also, it has to be examined from
the author’s point of a view, and the way the book was intended to be read, which might have
bias (in this case the media uses it because it sells). The positive way to view this social issue is
to see that interpreting fictional perspectives can help give us a greater look into the past. It can
give us ideas on how things were before, and teach us a bit about history. I think we learn what
people valued throughout history the most, because people create based on what they care about
the most, and so much of creation has revolved around women. Because of this, feminism has
become such an important, yet misunderstood ideal. Annette Kolodny, feminist activist and
literary critic, said, “Instead of being welcomed onto the train, however, we’ve been forced to
negotiate a minefield.” (2052). By this, she is telling her readers that no matter how important
women are in society, they are not seen as equals to men their theory will not be considered
seriously. Feminism theory is, in a way, a part of the myth because so few want to look at social
issues through the woman’s perspective because it is seen the lesser compared to the man’s
perspective.
It is a social responsibility to see that the myth does evolve into a more respectable
presentation of women and solidified image. In order to change the myth, society needs to
change its perspective on women,. It should become a priority for society to present positive
images and role models to young girls and teens so that they can see the true potential they
possess as women to do something productive with their lives. The social pressure for them to
look like their Barbie dolls should also be lifted because they are equally unhealthy and
unrealistic expectations that women hold themselves to as well.
Monique Wittig, who was a French feminist and authors, in “One is Not Born a Woman”
discusses how women who resisted in the original women’s liberation movement were
considered unfeminine the same way women who resist the myth of the woman are today.
Because the media defines what is feminine and what isn’t, the women who defy popular
conceptions are not seen as feminine and limit the protest that women can do in a feminine way.
In order for the myth to change, all of society needs to come together to realize the points of
view that media is providing are no longer acceptable. Women cannot just step outside of the
definition independently because they will be persecuted for not acting like women, Wittig
focuses on material feminism, which is what make a woman feminine on the surface level, and
how women’s sex is not the only thing that makes them a woman in society. The modern myth
says that a woman is formed through her body, make up, and hair styles; she is judged by her
style and clothes, and wins affection by showing her sexuality. If material feminism was not how
our culture created gender, media portrayal would be very different. A woman would be defined
by biological factors, and nothing more. If material feminism did not exist, there would not be
the same expectations for women to live up to. They would only be judged by their biological
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differences from men, which may still make them the other, but it would not attack their entire
existence. It would simply make them less, and give them nothing to change about themselves.
Instead, all women are less than men, but then within women, the more attractive women are
better than the less attractive; it seems, in American culture, that there is a hierarchy within the
feminine sex that could be eliminated if material feminism did not exist.
The former view of women in media presented women as a necessity for the home,
limiting their value to their work there. In modern society women have the majority of their
value placed on appearance. These images that the media are formulated their material feminism
and they give society forms a myth of women, which is based on the expectations that women
are held to, and they even sometimes hold themselves to. This myth is typically offensive,
demeaning, and belittling to women. When the myth is defined by forms of media, it normally
gets a tremendous amount of attention even if the way women are being portrayed is similar to
the way they behave in reality. Because of hegemony, the myth of the woman will always exist.
However, it is up to society to deny myths that are too unrealistic, and try to help form one that is
less offensive to females. It is important for the evolution in the myth to happen fast. The longer
we wait to give women a greater chance in society, the more likely intelligent women will get
shot down before reaching their full potential. By holding women to the same standards as men
can help women attain equality in society. Acknowledging who modern women are, and that
women and are not very different is the best way to defeat the myth and the unfair media
standards that drive so many women to fail.
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