Ladies of the Royal Court

American society is home to a hidden misogyny: unconscious and covert yet existent nonetheless. This misogyny is present both through the disproportional statistics of domestic violence as well as the clearly sexist and degrading portrayal of women in pop culture. A solution to this problem must address the issue from both ends: punishing sexism where it appears while taking proactive steps to replace negative influences with positive ones.

The number one cause of injury among women nationwide is domestic violence. Including such leading causes as heart attack, car accidents, etc, the most prominent cause of physical injury for women occurs in the home. Similarly, women are in nine times more danger in their own houses than they are on the street. Perhaps the most disturbing fact is that when women confronted with domestic violence turn to the law or the police for aid, they are routinely ignored and marginalized. The very forces which ought to protect them ignore their cries for help and punish them when they act in self-defense. These facts point towards a hidden mass of sexism extant in our culture and society.

Such sexism is clearly seen when one considers the ad industry, one of the foremost representations of pop culture. Ads repeatedly and clearly display women are sexual objects. They are portrayed as passive, objects of desire rather than individuals in their own right, while universally they are shown as objects of lust. This dehumanization is seen in other aspects of pop culture, such as music and magazines. Numerous songs portray women purely as objects of desire, referring to them as “bitches” and degrading them. Similarly, popular magazines glorify sexuality and physical beauty in a woman, specifically those aimed at teenagers and developing adolescents.

A resolution of the dehumanization and hyper-sexualization of half the world’s population must include both negative and positive aspects: negative through punishing the old view and positive in pushing for a new alternative view. Elements of pop culture that contribute to hyper-sexualization of women must be boycotted or face some sort of financial loss. From sex-obsessed magazines to degrading songs to objectifying ads, the cultural elements that contribute to this hidden misogyny must be eliminated. Similarly, a real crack down on domestic violence is necessitated. Women must be provided with real and significant resources to protect themselves and their children, and the legal and police systems must be reformed to support the real victims.

At the same time a new viewpoint must be advocated and turned into the cultural norm. This viewpoint and new set of cultural values must reject contemporary society’s obsession with sex and physical beauty, while applying a new set of values in an equal way across gender lines. Companies and elements of pop culture that advance this new viewpoint must be rewarded, either by attracting the purchasing power of reform-minded citizens or through federal grants and support.

The misogynistic tendencies present in contemporary culture, tendencies that dehumanize and hypersexualize women, are serious problems that need to be confronted. The incredible amount of domestic violence present in American and current lack of support for victims is atrocious and intolerable, as is the role that pop culture has played. For real and meaningful change to be achieved however, a new set of values must be fashioned to replace the old. It is up to the people to decide what these values will be, but they must reject the misogynistic failures of the current system. By combining this new value system with serious economic pressure on the vanguards of the current value system, true social change can be achieved.