Is The New-Feminism Merely Glorified Soft Porn?

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My book deals largely with feminist issues both in Japan and in the West.
Germaine Greer, who has long owned this issue, touched on it again recently in an essay titled “Why do so many female artists put themselves in their work—often with no clothes on?” In a recent article in the Sydney Morning Herald written by Elizabeth Farrelly– Farreelly states that Greer herself was never backward in coming forward as often naked as clad, when young. In a career fueled by the volatile mix of intellect and notoriety, in equal parts, her readiness to bare all didn’t hurt. Nor did the defiant gorgeousness of what was exposed (for many people Greer’s was the first published vagina). But her question remains valid why do so many contemporary woman artists insist on rendering themselves nude?

Male art, while often provocative is hardly deemed de rigueur these days, as it is for women; painting, photographing or performing on their own, fully revealed (but often perfected) nakedness. Take for example the recent Spice Girls World Tour. In order to achieve penultimate ‘girl power’ one must lose all their post-pregnancy weight (in the instance of Emma Bunton, within 3 weeks after the birth, prior to the tour) in order to parade around half naked on stage, the world over. We do this to ourselves. But why?

In this weekends essay feature, reporter Elizabeth Farrelly notes that where “men’s art” commonly says “look at this” women’s art commonly says “look at me”. So god help you if you are an ugly girl? Hardly, British painter Jenny Saville ruthlessly exposes her own flaws, that’s her shtick, though a noticeable characteristic of women’s self portraiture is the degree to which the subject self is a perfected one; the sheer shameless soft-focus, air-brush, Photoshop and blow dry treatment that suggests as much narcissism here as art. Is this entire genre then, a kind of avatar-creation Fennelly wonders, a rarefied form of cosmetic surgery whose purpose is not art at all, but me-perfected: self portrait not as revelation but as armour?

Interestingly too, is the cultural divide regarding all things beautiful. While living in Japan my big blue eyes and decent sized bust were an obvious point of difference, something that distinguished me from the crowd. But as any sane single woman knows, standing out from the crowd can be just as detrimental to ones safety and sanity as blending in. Within months of relocating to Asia I began shaving my arms, and cultivating my pubic hair (as they do). I began covering my body much more than I had ever done living on the beaches in Bondi. I ceased bleaching my hair and grew increasingly aware, and to be honest, paranoid of my size and the space I occupy—albeit on the tube, in a shopping aisle or passing through a doorway. I did however; start photographing myself privately with great frequency—more often than not—nude. To me this was and remains a sanction, a celebration of my own female form without the prying, judging eyes of an audience (or a mother). My armour.

Male self portraits, by contrast, seldom play the glamour game. Often they do the opposite, undermining what glamour fame might otherwise endow. Think for example
of famous self portraits by Rembrandt, Goya, Van Gogh, Hockney, Bacon. Freud and Munoz. All very warts-and-all, striving not for beauty but for depth, and some kind of—dare I say it?—honesty.

So why the need to pose? To pretend to be something we’re not? Even the proto-feminist Frida Kahlo, notes Greer, “Could engage with no subject other than her fictionalised and glamorised self.”

Internationally, Fennelly goes on to say, women’s art is gutsier. Ballsier. Not just Saville’s ruthlessly rendered fat, but Cindy Sherman’s Cinderella, Tracy Emin’s I’ve Got It All, Sam Taylor-Wood’s 1993 Fuck, Spank, Wank T-shirt portrait. The body, argues Fennelly, may be naked and the pose provocative but God help anyone who pins it on the garage wall.”

American academic, Linda Nochlin, wonders “why most women’s art is no good?” Its whether such repetitive, narcissistic, self glamorising is substantially different from the three-year old blonde in pearls and stilettos kissing her own mirror image? Or for that matter, from your common or garden stripper?

Again, to look at Facebook and MySpace, the number of women who pose as raunchy sex objects in their profile photos is laughable. Busty, bleached twits with more “friends” than you or I could count. Tila Tequila (www.myspace.com/tilatequila) is one such inspirational female figure. Famous for being easy and dumb. Excellent. Why do we need to appear fuckable to feel of worth? And don’t get me started on fingers down throats.

Feminism has often wanted it both ways. Wanted to keep women’s sexuality veiled. Out of the question, leaving women unburdened by the gaze. And wanted to celebrate that sexuality, as evidence of difference, especially when this celebration was a female choice. Take that choice away and we land, fairly squarely, slap bang back in Japan where any sort of feminist movement is yet to take place. Cutey cutey is their liberation. Being wanted their sanction. Feminism has often tacitly implied that women should be denied nothing. Why then must we be naked to gain anything?

There is also the presumption that female sexuality is so potent and dangerous—so powerful—that it must at all times be hidden from view. It is a view in which we are all complicit. As John Berger wrote in his famous Ways of Seeing (1972) , “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determined not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves.”

My parents, having co-operated their own fashion label for the past 27 years often comment on how women do not dress for men, they dress for other women. This never ending kind of rivalry is detrimental to the progress of feminism. Enter the Burqa.

Men desire and women desire desire. They want to be wanted. Hence the cleavage riddled facebook profile shots and album covers leaving little to the imagination… lest we forget the ubiquitous music video clip (MVC). You only need to sit for 5 minutes to observe the size zero, groomed to perfection women and the obese, often offensively so and eternally under dressed male demographic. Feminism at its finest.

Mills & Boon writer Julie Blindel notes that “in every book… a scene where the heroine is ‘broken in’, both emotionally and physically, by the hero.” This is the origin of the rape fantasy, the urge to be cave manned, which most women feel now and then. Myself I tend to err on the side of deploring such misogynist propaganda. The Rape Fantasy I will explore later with a staunch focus on Japanese manga anime.

Fennelly adds though, that for the female to be overpowered by the male inclines her to the strongest sperm, and the strongest offspring. How charmed. Steven Shainberg’s film, The Secretary, played with this paradox, showing a timid woman empowered by a “submissive” relationship. I’m looking at ways in which I can portray this paradigm within my own work without seeming extremist or whiny. Yep.

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