The post we looked at this week was a comic strip geared towards women being victims of sexual harassment. The comic strip focuses on how women are victims daily but people just don’t seem to notice it because it has become a social norm. The author of the strip talks about how sexual harassment towards women are both done physically and verbally and how most power in society is claimed by men. The comic strip gives many examples of it in the work force, relationships, public property ownership and even in common jokes made popular today. It also focuses on the power inequality between men and women today. The comic strip says an issue with mens’ attitude towards women is that men “choose to insult challenging or uncooperative women by dismissing their attractiveness” (Tickld). The real problem that the author was trying to get at in this comic strip was that the real problem is not only the men who treat women like this, but also women who allow this to happen to them or other women. The author’s main purpose was not to accuse anyone of sexual harassment towards women but to simply give notice about the growing problem.
My group and I said that we see this epidemic problem growing in the music industry. We questioned how many female singers do become successful without the use of sexual or physical appearance and whether or not songs that objectify or portray women as lesser become more popular than songs that don’t. Without doing any research, my group and I believe that there is a correlation between women being victims of sexual harassment and music itself today.
How many people honestly see ugly female singers today in the music industry? The biggest and most renown female vocalist are beautiful and sexy women. Let me give you a few examples of females who come to mind when I talk about beautiful, sexy, successful women: Beyonce, Ariana Grande, Miley Cyrus, Lana Del Rey, Madonna.. Should I keep going? When you think of a female artist you think of an individual who is strong and beautiful but what if I talked about Susan Boyle? She’s not the most attractive looking and successful artist but she is most definitely known or used as a comedy joke because of her looks. Sadly, some people only know of her because of her looks. But on the other hand, how many female singers use their looks to have become successful? An online blog post said that “if a female singer isn’t completely ugly, then labels and media take that and run with it” (Carroll). Lana Del Rey was shown in a magazine cover fully nude only covering up with her own body parts while four other male artist were fully clothed.
Popular songs have an impact on what our culture defines as beautiful/ugly or in this case, right/wrong. The message that the popular song portrays is usually seen as cool because it’s popular due to a lot of people enjoying listening to it. An article written in Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter states that, “It forms the background of car rides and social gatherings, and it also informs the adolescent about the adult world through the lens of the artists’ lives, language and role modeling” (Brown). Teens at a young age learn that harassing a girl about her looks becomes normal because it was in a popular song. In Chris Brown’s song Loyal, the hoes (females) weren’t loyal so they gain the title of a hoe. Which for many girls in any context is not a pleasant name or term of endearment. Young girls learn that it seems ‘cool’ to dress like women in music videos because that video or song was popular. Thus the vicious cycle of sexual harassment continues, especially in the music industry.
Works Cited
Brown. "New research explores effects of rap music on adolescents." Brown University Child &
Adolescent Behavior Letter 19.6 (2003): 1. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 16 March 2010.
Carroll, Grace. "Women in the Music Industry: Chewed up and Spat Out?"GIGWISE.com.
Gigiwise.com, 14 Nov. 2014. Web. 02 Oct. 2014.
Tickld.com. “Next Time Someone Says Women Aren’t Victims Of Harassment, Show Them
This.” Tickld.com. Tickld, 09 Aug. 2014. Web. 02 Oct. 2014.
Well thought out. I appreciate the incorporation of Beyonce. Honestly though, overall a really well done piece. I could feel the passion in your writing.
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