Grazia magazine recently had a post on their website about Iceland's new law banning all strip clubs. Supposedly, this move was made by President Sigurdardottir for feminist reasons, to combat sexism and the objectification of female bodies.
This seems like a great step for feminism on the surface, but I find that raunch culture and sexual liberation are such murky areas, I can never quite decide if I think of stripping as liberating or objectifying for women.
I was particularly troubled by this quote from the article:
'Think of it this way: throughout history men have been more than willing to pay – repeatedly – for the privilege of seeing a woman's naked body. The reason male strip clubs haven’t truly taken off is basically because: women are smarter, superior beings. Save for some initial curiosity about Jamie Durie's Manpower troupe many years ago, most of us wouldn’t pay to see a naked man gyrating on a pole.'
Is this true? Can we state so firmly that women are just 'smarter' and 'superior' to men because male strip clubs are less popular than female strip clubs? Could this in fact be less due to the fact that women don't desire male bodies as much as men do female bodies, and more due to the fact that there is a taboo against blatant displays of female desire that just doesn't exist for men?
Let us know what you think! And you can read the full article on Grazia here.
- Zoya
Incomprehensible to me that denying women reasonable choices out of plain paternalism has become a feminist goal. Out with the old arbitrary restrictions on women's freedom, in with the new.
ReplyDelete"Can we state so firmly that women are just 'smarter' and 'superior' to men because male strip clubs are less popular than female strip clubs?"
Quite apart from whether it's cultural taboo or biological preference, one cannot conclude anything about 'smartness' or 'superiority' from the strength of one's preference for seeing naked bodies.