centerfolds and symbolic systems.

i am officially in bloglove with hugo schwyzer, everyone's favorite male christian pro-feminist college professor. with surgeon-like precision, hugo absolutely nails it today with this post concerning a new study concerning the language of Playboy. according to the study (found via jessica at Feministing), Playboy has begun using more (to steal a term from nonprofitland) “strength-based” language in their descriptions of their centerfolds over the last 15-20 years. jessica says, so what? they’re still using strong language to caption naked prone women.

hugo takes that ball and runs with it, pointing out the uncomfortable idea that these “strong” captions may only serve to make it more enjoyable for men to see said “strong” woman displayed for his pleasure. as he puts it:

When I talk to many guys about gender issues, I find a troubling undercurrent of deep anger at women and the feminist movement that is extraordinarily strong... Men who are angry at beautiful women for not allowing them access to their bodies, and men who are angry at powerful women for their successes, can gain a kind of revenge by seeing the beautiful and the powerful stripped, exposed, and prone for their enjoyment. For most men, that's the payoff of porn -- the opportunity to reclaim power over women by focusing on them as submissive, pleasing bodies rather than autonomous human beings.

right on, hugo. go read the whole post, seriously, it’s that good.

thinking about this issue made me think of this post from Shakespeare’s Sister, which deals with the question of whether altering politically incorrect and/or misogynistic language is really feminist progress. i absolutely subscribe to the theory that language is incredibly important and incredibly powerful – i mean, when you think about it, it’s the one of the only ways that we have to communicate (and, i’d wager to say, far and away the most effective way). so while the symbolism of language is a crucial piece of our human interactions, and can have a huge effect on us, in the end it’s only symbolic. language only represents things. therefore, i think that changing language can be helpful, but cannot be truly constructive change without a concurrent change in action.

for instance, changing the term “freshmen” to “first-years” could possibly do something to change sexist mindsets (though i remain doubtful, in that particular case). but that linguistic alteration certainly won’t change anything in the long term without concrete action to go along with it, such as community discussions about the language change, and community discussions about sexism and harassment in our schools and in society as a whole. the words don’t technically mean anything – it’s the associations with which we imbue them that are highly charged. if we don’t tackle those associations – that deep, dense foundation of misogyny that underlies much of our culture and our lives – it won’t matter at all if we call a fourteen-year-old girl a “first-year” or a twenty-year-old centerfold “strong-willed.”

we are how we see ourselves, not how we name ourselves.