Fun House Mirrors: Popular Culture's Distorted View of Girl/Womanhood

(A sneak peek at the introduction to the new book that Sarah Burcon and I are just wrapping up – From Toddlers-in-Tiaras to Cougars:  How Pop Culture Shapes the Stages of a Woman’s Life)

Introduction

            Popular culture as of late has painted a blissful and utopic image of gender equality in the United States.  If you believe everything you read in books and see on the screen, then we are living in a wonderland full of female success.  It’s the age of girl power – of Frozen, Girls, The Hunger Games, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Hermione Granger, Olivia Pope, Lady Gaga, and Michelle Obama.  The past decade has seen our first female speaker of the house and presidential elections that found women perpetually in the spotlight as nominees for presidential and vice presidential candidates.  Today, we’re being told that if women want to succeed in the work force, they just have to “lean in.”[1]  And perhaps they don’t even have to lean in all that far because, according to media proclamations, we’ve supposedly arrived at “the end of men.”[2]  However – surprise, surprise – this simply is not the case.   

            Beyond the façade of gender equality lie several uncomfortable truths about the status of women, not only in the United States but around the world.  Women are still earning only 77% of what men in comparable jobs earn,[3] and the earning gap is even more glaring when it comes to women of color.[4] As far as job prospects go, the landscape pop culture paints as rich with female CEOs, government officials, surgeons, and lawyers grossly misrepresents the frequency of such high-positioned success among women.  Even in the 21^st century, less than 20% of Congress has been female[5] and the number of female CEOs has been miniscule.  As of 2011, there were only 26 women acting as CEOs for Fortune 500 companies, which accounts to a mere 6.4% of such globally influential leadership roles.[6]  Although law schools are now graduating more women than ever before, at rates almost equal to male graduates, women make up only 17 percent of the partners at major American law firms.[7] And while women fare slightly better in other prestigious professions – for example, in 2012 women made up 25 to 32 percent of judges in the country (depending on the court) – they still are greatly outnumbered by their male colleagues.[8] 

            While it is true that women now make up 75% of the job force,[9] most are not working in the positions fictionalized in primetime lineups.  The majority of women still work in the same gendered service jobs that have traditionally been available to them for decades (e.g. secretaries, daycare workers).[10]  And despite gaining ground in various professions, women are still more likely than men to carry the burden of most domestic tasks,[11] they continue to be held to outdated double standards, and the world they are living in is not growing safer psychologically or physically.  For example, there is a 30% chance that women will end up with an eating disorder at some point in their lives,[12] a 35% chance that they will experience domestic violence or a sexual assault,[13] and the statistics for both depression and suicide rates among girls have increased throughout the 21^st century at alarmingly steady rates.[14]

                We’re not claiming that the media never offers up evidence that points toward these cultural conditions.  Titles like The New Soft War on Women:  How the Myth of Female Ascendance is Hurting Women, Men – and Our Economy[15] flew to the bookshelves to contradict the messages concerning female success in the workforce found within Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead and Hanna Rosen’s The End of Men:  And the Rise of Women.  And the media frenzy surrounding the “Opt Out Revolution” – the sensational reports that exaggerated the rates at which women were flocking from their professional careers to return to lives as stay-at-home moms – further supports the fact that cultural standards are rarely the same for men and women.[16]  For example, when Nancy Pelosi became the first female speaker of the house in 2006, the only magazine to feature her on the cover was Ms. Magazine – a point they made sure to highlight in 2011 by featuring her again with the byline “The Woman TIME and Newsweek Won’t Put on their Covers” shortly after the other publications ran issues with the newly appointed Jon Boehner featured on the front of their magazines.  Similarly, the media commentary concerning presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin during the 2008 election was extremely problematic and points to the ways in which men and women are treated differently in public professional careers.  (This discourse continues to date.   For example, recently pundits posed questions about how being a new grandmother will impact Hillary Clinton’s 2016 election prospects.)[17]  Popular fiction and Hollywood film make the second-shift phenomenon that women face into fodder for comedic punch lines (e.g. I Don’t Know How She Does It) and ultimately support the practice by reinforcing the outdated idea that women are simply more natural and competent parents (e.g. What to Expect When You’re Expecting).  And if we were confused about whether young girls continue to face unreachable beauty standards and overt sexual objectification we need only flip through any sampling of reality television shows (e.g. Toddlers in Tiaras, Teen Mom, The Bachelorette) or watch Miley Cyrus twerking – or dancing with a foam finger or sailing through the air on a wrecking ball – to realize that this continues to be an epidemic. 

            Feminist media critics have long spent time analyzing such problematic imagery. However, some have turned toward studying the ways in which the imagery of the uber-successful women might be equally problematic. In Enlightened Sexism:  The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done, Susan Douglas argues that the depictions of strong, accomplished women in popular culture mask numerous societal problems still plaguing the United States, and the world at large. Her study proves that in the 1950s and 60s the media offered us narratives packed full of bathing beach beauties and stay-at-home moms, which didn’t reflect the reality of many women – women who were joining the Peace Corps, embarking on various professional careers, and engaging in politics. But the media of today offers us the opposite problem.  Decades ago the media illusion was that such ambitious women simply didn’t exist.  Today the media illusion is that equality for all girls and women has been accomplished when, of course, it hasn’t been.[18] As a result, today’s contradictory messages lead to a variety of misconceptions concerning the prospects of contemporary women. 

For example, a recent poll found that 60 percent of men and 50 percent of women believed women no longer face barriers in terms of advancement in the workplace.[19] Arguably, the endless stream of success narratives dominating popular culture – images of successful female doctors (e.g. Grey’s Anatomy), lawyers (e.g. The Good Wife), politicians (e.g. Scandal), CIA agents (e.g. Homeland), and more – has contributed to this erroneous thought. And, by far, the biggest “loser” of this new mindset is the women’s movement, which is all too often framed as antiquated, outdated, successfully completed, and no longer necessary.  Moreover, feminism has arisen as the other bad “F” word, causing women to try to distance themselves from the movement even as they are inundated by images of successful women who are, arguably, products of its work.  In Bad Feminist, media critic Roxane Gay discusses how the caricature of feminists as “angry sex-hating, man-hating” victims has been fostered “by the people who fear feminism the most, the same people who have the most to lose when feminism succeeds.”[20]   That women are buying into this notion that feminism is a cultural evil is not new and the evidence of this in popular culture dates back decades before the onset of the 21^st century.

            This book notes the cyclical nature of this feminist backlash, particularly in the United States, analyzing American pop culture’s depictions of women and questioning what effect they have on the women who eagerly (or reluctantly) consume them.  Although the chapters within this book focus primarily on the contemporary moment, we realize it is impossible to study these cultural depictions as if they exist in a bubble.  We live in a historical echo chamber:  the narratives we get today concerning gender are often reincarnations of earlier epochs; the images we see today are all too often not incredibly different from those witnessed by the generations before us.  Analyzing why this is the case and how and why the 21^st century alters these recurrent narratives is important because it is only when we understand what purposes these narratives serve that we can start to fully critique them.  So while we do provide historical context for these female representations, we primarily focus on how the immediate present (the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the social technology explosion, the self-help movement, etc.) has contributed to them. 

            Ultimately we argue that this current moment is a bit scarier than previous ones because the messages integrated into television shows, films, and popular literature are becoming increasingly didactic (either overtly or covertly).  In the midst of a moment that has trained us that we’re all selves in need of help, now it’s not just medical experts and pseudo psychiatrists who aim to show us the way to salvation – fixing our relationship woes and other problems one paperback purchase at a time.  Popular culture now subtly promises answers to all that ails us:  how to win the man, how to raise the kid, how to keep our sex appeal as we age.  We only need look as far as the latest Hollywood film or reality television show to discover the magical solution and prescriptive steps to getting the life we want.  Throughout this book we consider how this indoctrination into the self-help movement has impacted popular culture and its reception.  This idea that we’re selves in need of rescue is further reinforced by the culture created in the wake of 9/11. Therefore we also discuss how these portrayals of women that have existed historically are different in this 21^st century culture that witnessed the revival of the manly man image and resurrection of the damsel in distress motif.[21]

Ultimately, this book shows that contemporary popular culture has created a slew of stereotypical roles for girls and women to (willingly or not) play throughout their lives: The Princess, the Nymphette, the Diva, the Single Girl, the Tiger Mother, the M.I.L.F, the Cougar, and more.  We study the impact that popular culture products marketed toward girls and women have on their development through various ages and “stages” of life. These essays investigate the role of cultural texts in gender socialization at specific moments in a woman’s life:  as a young girl, an adolescent, a single/dating woman, a bride, a wife, a pregnant woman, a mother, a middle-aged sexual woman, and a menopausal/maturing woman.   By studying a variety of products from childhood toys and fairytales to popular television shows, Hollywood films, and self-help books, we argue that popular culture exists as a type of funhouse mirror constantly distorting the real world conditions that exist for women and girls and magnifying the gendered expectations they face.  Such warped depictions of women’s experiences are further complicated by the fact that the vast majority of products marketed toward girls and women ignore class, race, and sexual orientation – equating female experiences, in most cases, to that of a uniform middle-to-upper-middle class, white, heterosexual experience.[22]  Ultimately, we ask this: if women are perpetually trapped within this funhouse mirror, through the constant barrage of media they are exposed to, how can they ever see beyond its blurry view of reality? 

            What becomes clear by dividing the vast array of gendered imagery into these prescriptive “stages” of a woman’s life is that the instruction women receive at one stage of life carries over and influences her behavior during the next (e.g. messages about girlhood during youth impact narratives concerning female dating behavior during young adulthood; motifs found within cultural depictions of brides carry over into those focused on pregnant women and new mothers; and so forth).   So it’s not just that popular culture is providing these depictions ad nauseam at every stage of a girl’s and woman’s life (providing problematic depictions ranging from toddlers-in-tiaras to cougars-on-the-prowl); it’s the spiral effect of this cultural training that needs to be noted.  The little girl who overdoses on princess culture grows up to easily buy into the cultural mindset that all women should long to be princesses for a day; therefore she is easily manipulated into the consumerist trappings of wedding culture.  The woman who is fed prescriptive fear-mongering self-help books while pregnant turns easily years later to books about how to be the perfect helicopter parent by reading up on how to play “the heavy” or become a “tiger mother.”[23]  With the help of popular culture, our little Bratz become grown-up Bridezillas and our young Nymphettes become middle-aged Cougars.  And is this really any surprise?  Ultimately we argue that the effect of these cultural narratives compounds over time like layers of scar tissue unless such cultural narratives are engaged with critically.

            In the end we suggest that all is not lost and these scars can fade.  The ways in which people can, and do, counter these narratives are plentiful and spelled out in this text.  We discuss top down efforts, such as media literacy programs being launched in schools and attempts in the business world to create advertising campaigns that foster higher self-esteem in girls.  We discuss more grassroots efforts, such as the ways in which consumers are taking advantage of web 2.0 technology to influence television programming or to curve consumption trends by posting critical product reviews.   And we discuss the idiosyncratic ways that individual women are fighting against this barrage of imagery, oftentimes reappropriating and refunctioning these female stereotypes in powerful ways.  Finally, we join the voices of other feminist media scholars who came before us, reassuring our readers that even the smallest efforts can greatly diffuse the effects that pop culture’s gendered lessons have on us.  By talking back to these narratives, laughing at their imagery, we can learn to see through the distorted depictions of women and exit the funhouse once and for all.

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[1] Sandberg, Sheryl.  Lean In:  Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.  NY:  Knopf, 2013.

[2] Rosin, Hanna.  The End of Men:  And the Rise of Women.  NY:  Riverhead, 2012.

[3]  Figures provided by the 2012 Census Bureau Report on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance:  http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/income_wealth/cb13-165.html

[4] See Needleman, Sarah E. “Pay Gap Between Men and Women Remains a Reality in Work Force.” Career Journal.com.  24 April 2007.  For additional studies on the pay gap among women, see Chang, Mariko Lin.  Shortchanged: Why Women Have Less Wealth and What Can Be Done About It.  Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010.

[5] Mroz, Jacqueline. “Female Police Chiefs, a Novelty No More.” The New York Times Online.  6 April 2008.

[6] “Women CEOs and Heads of the Financial Post 500.” Catalyst.org. March 2011.

[7] O’Brien, Timothy L. “Why Do so Few Women Reach the Top of Big Law Firms?”  The New York Times Online.  19 March 2006.

[8] “2012 Representation of United States State Court Women Judges.” National Association of Women Judges.  24 March 2013. 

[9] According to a 2013 article in Forbes Magazine, “The U.S. Gets Left Behind when it Comes to Working Women,” most developed countries are averaging closer to 80% and the U.S. currently only ranks 17^th globally in this regard.

[10] Douglas, Susan J. Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done.  NY:  Times Books, 2010, pg. 279.    

[11] A 2012 study by The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development reports that across the developed world, women do far more of the unpaid domestic work that keeps households running.  In The United States specifically, women spend an average of 4 hours per day on childcare and household tasks compared to men’s 2.7 hours.

[12] The National Eating Disorder Association reports that 20 million women suffer from eating disorders throughout their lifetime.  A 2008 report by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reports that 65% of American Women admit to having disordered eating practices. 

[13] According to The 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey released by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately 35.6% of women report have experienced rape, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

[14]  Orenstein, Peggy.  Cinderella Ate My Daughter:  Dispatches From the Lines of the New Girlie-Girl Culture.  NY:  Harper Collins, 2011, pg. 6, 18.

[15]  Rivers, Caryl, and Rosalind C. Barnett.  The New Soft War on Women:  How the Myth of Female Ascendance is Hurting Women, Men – and Our Economy.  NY:  Penguin, 2013.

[16] Lisa Belkin’s 2003 article in The New York Times began the launch of articles related to the status of stay-at-home mothers.  The wave continues a decade later with articles like Judith Warner’s 2013 “The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In.” 

[17]  For more on this controversy, see Liz Kreutz’s article “Will Clinton Baby Affect 2016, And is it Sexist to Ask”:  http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2014/04/will-clinton-baby-affect-2016-and-is-it-sexist-to-ask/

[18] Douglas, Susan.  Enlightened Sexism:  The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done. NY: Times Books, 2010, pg. 4.

[19] Gibbs, Nancy Gibbs. “What Women Want Now.” Time (26 October 2009): 31.

[20] Gay, Roxane.  Bad Feminist.  NY: Harper Perennial, 2014, pgs. ix-x.

[21] Susan Faludi in The Terror Dream:  Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America (NY:  Metropolitan, 2007) discusses how the events of 9/11 helped to revitalize these stereotypical gendered depictions through the media’s frenzied attention to heroic (male) first responders and emotional (female) widows.

[22] Although at points throughout this book we do use specific examples of texts marketed primarily to women of color to show the ways in which they vary from other mainstream texts aiming to portray the same “stage” of life, we do not have the space to fully critique the impact these homogenous portrayals of women’s experience has for women whose identity constructs do not align with those of the fictional portrayals thrust upon them.   Whenever possible, however, we do direct readers to research that more fully delves into these issues.

[23]  Two of the most widely debated parenting books of the 21^st century include Dara-Lynn Weiss’s The Heavy:  A Mother, a Daughter, a Diet – A Memoir (NY: Ballantine Books, 2013) and Amy Chua’s Battle Hymn of a Tiger Mother (NY:  Random House, 2011).