It’s 2015, and I’d like to know why we still believe that a woman can’t be both smart and desirable.
It’s late January and while navigating a sea of new course syllabi, doctoral applications, and conference research, I haven’t been the best at keeping up with recent news. What little media trickles through the stacks of paperwork comes from conversations with friends and the occasional Facebook share, specifically from the lovely Sam Eyler.
Lately, the feminist spotlight seems to be shining on the Madonna-whore complex. It’s alive and well, and it’s everywhere.
An Elite Daily piece recently made the rounds detailing “the actual difference between women who are hot and who are beautiful,” to which I responded with the Mr. Yuck face from those poison control labels. The Telegraph responded to more Miley nudes! and an adult film star’s public ridicule with an op-ed on why women shame one another for stripping down. Sam Eyler photographed a charming little sign she found in Colombia reading: “When a lady says no she means perhaps, when she says perhaps she means yes, and when she says yes she is no lady.” In other news, circular reasoning is circular.
Filmmaker Jason Pollock informed women last weekend that they “don’t need lots of makeup or fancy clothes to impress us.” Yes, I’m sure his heart was in the right place. But you know what they say about the road to hell.
The larger point about these instances, whether they’re as crass as the Colombian sign or as well-meaning as Mr. Pollock’s advice, is that they perpetuate a mentality that should have died with Freud himself.
It’s 2015, and I’d like to know why we still believe that a woman can’t be both smart and desirable, that her wardrobe choices or sexual proclivities change her at some foundational level, and that these preferences can’t be examined apart from what the men in her life might think.
I’ve written before about how dangerous this polarized way of thinking is, using a short story by Milan Kundera to illustrate the damage to both sexes caused by categorizing women as this or that. In short, the Madonna or virgin-whore dichotomy maintains that all women fit into one of two exclusive categories: the virtuous future wife, or the degraded prostitute.
As childishly simplistic as this sounds, it’s a very real presence in the lives of adult women. Ever had to fake modesty in a sexual encounter to avoid looking like the aggressor? Ever had a man suddenly treat you differently after you slept with him? Ever guiltily put back clothing or makeup you genuinely liked because it might “attract the wrong kind of attention”? The effects are all around us.
Men who evaluate women in this split way have difficulty reconciling sex with romantic idealism, viewing a woman’s sexual enjoyment or positive body image as evidence that she wants and deserves to be treated like an object.
This is often masked in suggestions that seem complimentary on the surface, e.g. Jason Pollock’s urge for women to pitch the beauty products. A nice thought, maybe, until we remember that women are also ridiculed whenever they don’t put enough effort into their appearance.
Likewise, the Elite Daily “hot/beautiful” piece opposes commercial standards and the objectification of women…by, well, objectifying women who don’t dress like Laura Ingalls Wilder. Lauren Martin claims that “there is a certain type of man that continually defames women, judging them solely on sex appeal…these are the men who don’t understand the concept of natural beauty and uniqueness in flaws,” but I’d argue that the vast majority of men can and do appreciate “natural beauty.” Unfortunately, they are just taught that natural beauty and sex appeal cannot exist within the same woman.
