Wednesday 11 February 2015

OUIL505: Tumblr and Lipstick Feminism

I have created my own Tumblr!

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/awaspinawig

I chose the name based on the missing chapter from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The relevance of this to my own practice/branding is because I am quite often compared to Alice in Wonderland so this could link to my personal branding but mainly because the chapter was not included because the illustrator decided it was too hard to illustrate. I am not saying this was the right thing to do or that there are things illustrators cannot depict, however it does emphasis the power and importance of illustration! He could not illustrate it so the chapter was not included! The name of my blog will be a useful reminder of the power of image making.

In my PPP project I will be pushing this further to create my own promotional package, however just getting Tumblr itself has been really helpful in seeing other creatives work and has opened up even more of the internet.

I have found this Tumblr:

http://lipstick-feminists.tumblr.com/

http://38.media.tumblr.com/d216823aeac194dd1cd7d9b9b6b1c8e2/tumblr_nj7vpgdrqK1rbf5cro1_500.gif

which is really relevant to my topic and theme of third-wave feminism for this project. I will use this as inspiration and I will have a go at depicting some of the messages in my sketchbook.

Lipstick Feminism

Lipstick feminism is a part

Lipstick feminism is a school of third wave feminism in which women support the belief that it is possible to be a feminist while also displaying femininity, being sex positive, or engaging in other displays of sexuality which earlier generations of feminists once condemned. In the literal sense, lipstick feminists believe that it is possible to wear lipstick and still be called a feminist, since feminism is about much more than how you dress. Some feminists have criticized the lipstick feminism movement because they believe that it is contradictory to engage in displays of sexuality while advocating for equal rights for women.
So-called “third wave” feminism began to emerge in the 1980s and 1990s, in response to a perceived failure by second wave feminists. Second wave feminism was marked by extremely radical activities, and a focus on correcting social inequality for women as well as legal inequalities. Second wave feminism empowered many women in the 1960s and 1970s, but it also generated a backlash in some regions, stimulating stereotypes about feminists, feminism, and what it is to be a feminist.
Lipstick feminism is simply one part of the third wave movement, and it is hard to make generalizations about lipstick feminists. Some women, for example, find sexuality empowering and they believe that being positive about sexuality, pornography, and sexual deviance is an important part of the feminist movement. Others would not go that far, but they would say that they do not see a conflict between wearing makeup or dressing up and holding feminist values which include a desire for equality between the sexes.
One aspect of lipstick feminism and the third wave movement in general has been the attempt to reclaim words which were once used to insult women, like “slut” and more aggressive phrases. Some people call lipstick feminism “slut feminism” in a reference both to the desire to take the stigma out of these words and in a nod to the sexual behavior of some lipstick feminists. For a classic example of lipstick feminism, look at people like Madonna, a well known performer who embodies “girl power” for many women.
Lipstick feminism is a topic of intense debate. Some women believe that lipstick feminists are simply playing into age-old ideas about women's sexuality, and that displays of sexual power actually just play right into a patriarchal system which objectifies the female body. Other women argue that by taking control of their sexuality through everything from wearing short skirts to pole dancing, they are empowering themselves and women in general.
One of the more serious criticisms of lipstick feminism is that lipstick feminists tend to focus more on legal challenges and issues for feminists, rather than social challenges, especially the portrayal of women in the media. For example, critics of the movement suggest that it is hard to criticize sexualized displays of female bodies in the print media when a woman sexualizes her own body.
Philosophically, Lipstick feminism proposes that a woman is empowered — psychologically, socially, politically – by the wearing of cosmetic make up, sexually suggestive clothes, and the practice of a sexual allure that appeals to men and/or to women. The rhetoric of choice and empowerment is used to validate such overt sexual practices,[5] because they no longer represent coerced acquiescence to societally established gender roles, such as “the good girl”, “the decent woman”, “the abnegated mother”, “the virtuous sister”, et aliƦ.
Other feminists object that the so-called empowerment of Lipstick feminism is a philosophic contradiction wherein a woman chooses to sexually objectify herself, and so ceases to be her own woman, in control neither of her self nor of her person.[6] In an ongoing debate, Lipstick feminism counter-proposes that the practice of sexual allure is a form of socialpower in the interpersonal relations between a man and a woman, which may occur in the realms of cultural, social, and gender equality.
Linguistically, Lipstick feminism proposed to semantically reclaim, for feminist usage, double-standard insult words, such as “slut”,[3]in order to eliminate the social stigma applied to a woman whose sexual behaviour was "patriarchically" interpreted to denote “immoral woman” and libertine.[4]
Lipstick feminism is a variety of third-wave feminism that seeks to embrace traditional concepts of femininity, including the sexual power of women, alongside feminist ideas.[1]
It developed in part as a response to the ideological backlash against radical varieties of second-wave feminism, with the negative stereotypes it generated of the “ugly feminist” or the “anti-sex feminist”; in part the result of the belief that the successes of second-wave feminism had made it possible to reclaim aspects of femininity that had earlier been seen as disempowering, like make-up or stilettos.[2]
Stiletto feminism, a more ideologically radical variety of Lipstick feminism, sees the postmodern use of fetish fashion as empowering;[7] and extends the argument from the acceptance of makeup, to the validity of women practicing occupations specifically predicated upon female physical beauty, such as working as a striptease dancer or as a pole dancer, as well as (flashing) or lesbian (girl-on-girl) exhibitionism.
Critics argue that in practice the rhetoric of empowerment and equality is far removed from actual reality: "just look at the lap-dancing club...The men in there are respectable, they are in suits, they have bank accounts, the women are not respectable, they are naked, they have debts"

In the U.S. television series, The West Wing, the 57th episode, “Night Five”, features a scene wherein the characters debate the merits of Lipstick feminism. The female protagonist decides it is empowering, while determining that sex-negativism distracts from important issues like pay equity

http://thenewinquiry.com/blogs/the-beheld/do-lipstick-feminists-actually-exist/

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