Women, Sex and Power

Women, Power, and Sexuality

Both the Sexualization of Women and the Desexualization of Women has been used to remove women’s power.

Sexualization occurs when a person’s value comes only from his/her sexual appeal or behaviour to the exclusion of other characteristics and/or when a person is sexually objectified or made into an object for another’s sexual pleasure.

• Sexualization of young girls through toys (i.e. Barbie), clothing (A&F push-up padded bikini tops for prepubescent girls), advertising, and other media, beauty pagents lead to severe problems for females of all ages: low self esteem, depression, eating disorders, cutting, suicide, etc.

Child Beauty Pageants

• Using women’s sexuality to promote economic growth removes women’s other characteristics, i.e. emotions, power, intelligence, compassion, talents, etc.

• Women in the sex trade in North America have little or no voice/power. They are at the mercy of men, i.e. the pimps, the johns, the police, because of the law. Even in places where brothels are legal, i.e. Nevada, men run the brothels and live off the “backs” of the women. Only in New Zealand are the brothels operated as co-ops so that the women have a voice and an equal share in the profits.

• Approximately 16,000 women per week are kidnapped and held in sexual slavery all over the world including Canada.

Desexualization occurs when a person’s sexual appeal, characteristics, power or qualities are removed. This may happen physically, emotionally, or metaphorically.

• Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a cultural, social and religious practice which is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries in Asia and the Middle East, and among certain immigrant communities in North America and Europe. (an estimated 92 million women age 10 and up have undergone FGM). FGM is often motivated by beliefs about what is considered proper sexual behaviour, linking procedures to premarital virginity and marital fidelity. It is believed to reduce sex drive and to help her resist "illicit" sexual acts. When a vaginal opening is covered or narrowed the fear of pain of opening it, and the fear that this will be found out, is expected to further discourage "illicit" sexual intercourse. FGM is associated with cultural ideals of femininity and modesty, which include the notion that girls are “clean” and "beautiful" after removal of body parts that are considered "male" or "unclean". This is not a practice that is mentioned in either the Koran or the Sunnah but has become “law by custom”.

• The idea of women as “chattel” and owned by her father until she is “given” to her husband. The dowry was originally given to the husband as the woman did not have intrinsic value on her own. Women before marriage were expected to be chaste or virginal. During the middle ages, men who attended crusades would require their wives to wear chastity belts so that they could be sexual only with their husbands.

• The use of fashion to remove sexual qualities of women. An example of this was the “Twiggy” look from the 1960s or the flapper look from the 1920s.

Twiggy

Flapper look

By defining women by their sexuality or lack of sexuality does not allow women to be viewed as whole women.