From: rdh@veritas.COM (Robert Hartman)
Subject: you just don't understand (was: control of display ...)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: VERITAS Software
Date: 30 Sep 92 17:10:52 GMT

In article <MUFFY.92Sep25152358@remarque.berkeley.edu> muffy%remarque.Berkeley.EDU@ucbvax.berkeley.EDU (Muffy Barkocy) writes:
>In article <19vnthINN7tc@agate.berkeley.edu> rdh@veritas.com (Robert Hartman) writes:
>
>>The reason I bring this out is because of the phrase Janis used
>>above: "allowing women ... to display themselves without being
>>censored."  As far as I know, women are protected by the First
>>Amendment, which means you are allowed to publish your views about
>>your breasts.  If the standard portrayal of breasts is a political
>>issue, then you have every right to bring your rebuttal to light:
>>with dignity and with pride.
>
>You're looking at two different sorts of "allowing" here, though.
>One is governmental, which is sort-of equitable - the First Amendment
>is certainly supposed to apply to everyone.  The other, and the one
>which Janis is clearly referring to in the paragraph above which you
>also quoted, is societal.

Hmmm.  I didn't mean to imply that the sense of not being allowed isn't
pervasive and real.  It is.  I guess what I'm saying is that it needs
to be confronted and that it can be confronted.  My intention was to
point out that there is some latent power to confront it, and to
encourage women to do so.  I in no way intended to dismiss or
invalidate Janis's concern.

I guess that this is another instance of miscommunication.  My
intention was to affirm, rather than to dismiss.  Also, I guess,
to question what I saw as an unquestioned internalized belief
that seemed to have something of a paralyzing effect.

It takes effort to recognize when one has internalized one's
oppression, and it appeared to me that by phrasing it as "we
aren't allowed" and leaving it at that, that's what might be
happening.

By what authority aren't "they" allowing it?  What would the
consequences be for doing it anyway?

> ... but it comes down to the fact that most of the people in our
>society don't want to look at *all* nude women, just those who
>conform to the current standard of "beauty" or "attractiveness" -
>slender, with large firm breasts, etc.  If only one view of women is
>being shown, it is indeed not an expression of the sexuality of women
>but of the sexuality of those people who wish to view that one sort
>of woman.

I understand this completely.  However, if women were to publish an
alternative to Playboy that they felt better portrayed their beauty in
their diversity, no one would put them in jail for it.  And who knows,
such a publication just might succeed!  There is a wide variety in porn
out there these days.  Too bad it's all such commodified junk.
Women over 30 ... women over 50 ... this exaggerated attribute
... that exaggerated attribute ... it's all quite lurid.

If those jerks can publish and sell that junk, I can't see why women
couldn't be successful at portraying themselves as they see themselves,
or as they want to be seen.

-r

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