SEXISM, MASCULINITY AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF WOMEN

“By marriage, the husband and wife are one person”[1], can be termed as the first legal statement that abolished the existence of status for women in any society, as it suspended the legal existence of women in marriage. Until the 20^th century, many sovereignties including the United States and Britain, observed this system of coverture. This, in a form commodified the existence of women, as they eventually gave up their identity to husbands, legally.

Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman”[2] speech in 1851 is perhaps the earliest, viral, vocal challenge at sexism. At the Ohio Women’s Right Convention in Akron, the weather beaten Isabella Baumfree (christened name of Sojourner) captivated the audience with oratory that reflected her New Yorker upbringing; speaking for the abolition of slavery (countrywide), but especially against, the prejudice of women in the larger American society. This was on a backdrop of women not being legally defined as “persons” until 1875.

Sexism, prejudice, discrimination or stereotype can be used to promote exclusion and hate; affecting any gender but mostly reported to affect women and girls. These prejudices are often rooted in financial payments such as dowry, bride price and dower; which often serve as legitimizing coercive control of the wife by her husband and in giving him authority over her. For example, Yemeni marriage regulations state that a wife must obey her husband and must not leave the home without his permission. Until 1983, Australian women required the consent of their husbands before acquiring a passport[3]. In developing countries across the world (and in some developed societies still), the prejudice of women against the milieu of lavish patriarchy continue to limit the advancement of women’s rights, and access to equitable opportunities.

In today’s age of digital media explosion, the crossroad where media – social, and sexism meet is but a thin line, which contextually can be confusing. While advancement in internet technology has influenced evolutions in healthcare delivery, commerce and governance; it has also promoted the distribution of, and demand for the commodification of women and their sexuality for the gratification of a larger, global patriarchal society. Pornography and advertising have combined well in an unbecoming manner, to objectify women only as tools doe sexual gratification, domestic providers who cannot make significant decisions and are dependent on men.

When Jill Abramson, the first woman executive editor of the New York Times was unceremoniously fired, reasons given from some quarters suggested that the publisher was unhappy with the way she was performing her job. Other said it was because she had discovered that not only was she being paid less than her predecessor, she was also making less money than some of her male subordinates at the time. Some attributed it to her “pushy”, brusque and demanding ethic – qualities that are usually admired, or at least tolerated in men. Abramson later opined that indeed, women are often ‘autopsied’ in ways that men never are[4].

Occupational sexism – discriminatory practices, statements or actions based on a person’s sex, occurring in the workplace is rife today, more than ever. Wage discrimination tops all forms of occupational sexism, with tokenism[5] following behind, especially in an era of increasing sexuality complexities. While gender might no longer refer to just male and female, the commodification of women whether conscious or unconscious (as is debatable in advertising), continues.

Masculinity continues to drive sexism, and as tweep – YeoshinLourdes[6] – opines, “When a man kills a woman, it’s usually because he won’t leave her alone. When a woman kills a man, it is usually because he won’t leave her alone.” So, it is common place for men to share and distribute text, pictures and videos of women in a commodifying way, while society frowns at women for being slutty and immoral for doing the same to men. The issues surrounding sexism and commodification of women transverse conservatism, liberalism and the wont for gender equality in an ever increasing “man’s world”.

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[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_I_a_Woman%3F

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism

[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joanne-bamberger/jill-abramson-in-her-own-_b_5333894.html

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokenism

[6] https://twitter.com/YeoshinLourdes

Localization of Search and the Proliferation of Mobile

My penultimate assignment in the course Understanding Media by Understanding Google on Coursera centered on the localization of news, books, politics, heroes, etc based on the convenience of generation Y and Z, to easily access them on their mobile. Thus, because a lot of people today are finding it harder to let go of their mobile devices (%75 of Americans are with their phones for up to 20 hours daily), there's that debate whether if peering in to phones in the middle of a task, is beneficial and deepening that original task because the person is engaged; or it is a distraction from the original task, because the individual is bored. Find my argument below:

Owen Youngman posits, that the new "local" will no longer be defined by physical attributes, but by convenience and ease or the use of less effort, especially in accessing news, or relevant information via digital media; albeit the ease that comes on our mobile devices. However, more than often, because we feel that "local" can go around with us in our pockets, mobile could begin to define "multi-tasking". I disagree with this growing notion, therefore, I opine that if someone instinctively and repeatedly picks up a mobile device to consume media (or conduct Google searches) while engaged in another activity, he/she is bored and seeking to be distracted from the first activity.

Before completing this assignment, I had not totally taken a look at all relevant course materials for the week, because I had a hashtag conference project, and had to do the reports before the end of the financial year, today. Thus, moving from one article, to watching Joe Kraus' video and then unto Youngman's seemed like a man seeking for answer from all materials at the same time -- "multi-tasking" like Joe Kraus said in his video. However, after four hours of that plus taking breaks to look at my tab, reply tweets, watch some Mexico vs Netherlands battle it out in Brazil, I had just written the first paragraph of this assignment, albeit, with the other assertion that "I was being engaged, and seeking to enhance and deepen the first activity".

But there could not be any better example to buttress my point than my own very experience, because after taking 45 minutes out to read Nicholas Carr's "Is Google making us Stupid" and another 20 minutes in keenly watching Kraus' video, I am now able to drop the report writing for my assignment, knowing that I'm not really multi-tasking,but distracting myself from accomplishing either tasks. Thus, because I feel that switching from one article to the other could quickly help me reach my answer faster, achieving "efficiency" and "immediacy" like Mr. Carr writes, results in me achieving nothing in the end.

The conclusion is that I have had to abandon the report for my assignment, and I'm glad to say that after 2 hours of reading and watching the course materials, I didn't only get better grasp of the question, I am able to complete my assignment before deadline, after which I shall now pursue my report writing in earnest.

The Googlization of Everything- Good or Bad for Books?

Recently, I enrolled for a course, Understanding Media by Understanding Google on Coursera andmy first assignment was to put up a write up. less than 350 words, explaining whether the digitization of books is good or bad. This is what I thought: 

The golden age of books “…was slow to take shape, suddenly glorious...”[1] but certainly not over. Perhaps the age of glamorous bookstores and museum-sized commercial libraries – built on rigid capitalist business models – is but, “quickly over”[2]. [What happened was that] the nature of the product expanded.”[3] This paradigm shift, has not just affected news, or newspapers or books. It has affected everything. Digital media explosion is changing the panorama and how we do things.
Thing is, the rules have changed. Today, “customers are in charge”[4]. People are eager to delve in to the new world of advanced technology, and their needs are increasing by the day. Digitizing books by google is good, because this means that a book sat in a New York or Milano Library but relevant for a researcher in Colombo, can now be available for rent or purchase within minutes. Thus, “instead of an economy based on scarcity, today’s is based on abundance”[5].
It is however, bad for Unions (who are said to 'dig holes' in the pocket of authors unnecessarily) and large bookstores – which have initially caused a dry up of local ‘indie’ libraries – as this affects their business models. With advanced technology and the interconnectivity that it affords, “people can find each other anywhere and coalesce around you or against you”[6]. And it is these people whom it has coalesced against, that Eric Thomas was referring to, when he said, “We’ve never been able to see what the Internet adds, we can only see what it subtracts”[7]. “It’s [perhaps then] tragic that the Internet hasn’t destroyed our tendency to paint with such a broad brush”[8].

[1] Warsh, D. "The Golden Age of Newspapers: A Short History," 8/12/2013, http://www.economicprincipals.com/issues/2013.08.12/1528.html

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.