This essay first appeared on Cliterati on March 17th; I have modified it slightly for time references and to fit the format of this blog.
A month ago today, the European Parliament passed a call for continent-wide censorship of sexual content, justified by a view of women more at home in Victorian thought than in the second decade of the 21st century. Yes, I know you heard that the measure was defeated, but that’s because the Fourth Estate no longer bothers to perform the function so respected by 18th-century thinkers that they considered freedom of the press vital to liberty: namely, the task of keeping governments honest by publicly reporting on their sneaky doings. The truth is that the EP overwhelmingly (368-159) enacted a resolution calling for women to be “protected” by our masters from words and images which could shatter our delicate little psyches, turning us into tragic, fallen, “sexualized” victims of evil men. Now, this isn’t cause for panic (not yet, anyway); as Wired explains, European resolutions are not laws:
This kind of proposal…isn’t a binding resolution…it’s simply the European Parliament signalling that it agrees with the actions proposed by the lead author…of the report — in this case, Dutch MEP Kartika Liotard…these kinds of endorsements…are…taken by the European Commission as an indication of the opinion of the Parliament, and it then drafts bills accordingly. If the Commission wants to introduce measures such as those found in the resolution, it’ll have a mandate for them…then the draft bill goes back to the Parliament to vote on, and if it passes then, it becomes a legally binding directive for EU member states to follow.
It’s hard to say exactly what the chances of the Commission acting on such a resolution are, because it varies from session to session; though the Parliament tends to rubber-stamp whatever resolutions come before it (passing 89% of them since 2009), the Commission often functionally ignores them. For example, this is the second time a call for Protecting the Weaker Sex from Dirty Pictures and Words has passed this way:
…in 1997 the Parliament passed the “Resolution on Discrimination Against Women in Advertising” – which, while…less comprehensive than the latest report, does contain a clause that “calls for statutory measures to prevent any form of pornography in the media and in advertising and for a ban on advertising for pornographic products and sex tourism”…that’s almost exactly the same wording as in the latest report is because…it explicitly “calls on the EU and its Member States to take concrete action on its resolution of 16 September 1997″…it just updates it with extra clauses that take the web into account…
And thereby hangs the tale. Though many reporters announced that the call for censorship had been rejected, the truth (as explained by CNET) is that it was simply hidden more effectively:
…[The] porn-blocking proposals…were buried within a report titled “Eliminating Gender Stereotypes in the EU”…Amendments …removed certain explanatory text, but not the references to the [1997] resolution…which called for a blanket ban on pornography…While the explanation was removed, the effect was not, according to Swedish MEP for the Pirate Party Rick Falkvinge…the 1997 resolution remains referenced, and therefore the call to ban “all forms of pornography in the media” remains intact. Falkvinge said that striking out this text “has no other effect than deliberately obscuring the purpose of the new report”…to make matters worse, when a handful of MEPs called on their citizens to e-mail their representatives in protest, the parliament’s own IT department began to block these e-mails en masse from arriving in politicians’ inboxes…
Furthermore, as reported in The Telegraph, “controversial proposals calling for the creation of regulators with the power to police the depiction of women in media were voted through. MEPs voted for the establishment of ‘independent regulation bodies with the aim of controlling the media and advertising industry and a mandate to impose effective sanctions on companies and individuals promoting the sexualisation of girls’.” And in order to circumvent legal safeguards against censorship, the resolution tries to pass the dirty job off on the private companies who control most modern communication:
…Christian Engström…deputy leader of the Swedish Pirate Party… [wrote on his blog] “This is quite clearly yet another attempt to get the internet service providers to start policing what citizens do on the internet, not by legislation, but by ‘self-regulation’. This is something we have seen before in a number of different proposals, and which is one of the big threats against information freedom in our society.” Engström worries that the resolution would refer just as much to naked pictures that people send each other as professional pornography, as well as any kind of pornography included in private communications via email or social networks — “an attempt to circumvent the article on information freedom in the European Convention of Human Rights”…
Though everyone commenting on the affair, politician and journalist alike, hasten to laud the aims of the resolution as commendable, they are actually anything but; as I pointed out above, they are rooted in the fallacious notion that women are intrinsically fragile, childlike beings who can be somehow harmed by words and pictures deemed by our “protectors” to contain sexual content, and that sexuality, rather than being a natural function of our bodies and minds, is something imposed on us from without via “sexualization”. Those who believe in this ill-defined concept seems to imagine that if it weren’t for equally ill-defined bogeymen like “the Media” and “Patriarchy” subjecting girls to “sexualization” (often but not always qualified with the adjective “premature”), we would all grow up in a blissful, chaste state and never, ever, ever be interested in dirty, nasty sex…and that this would be a good thing.
I’m sure most of my readers would disagree on both counts. I didn’t need “sexualized images” to inspire fantasies and behavior I now recognize as sexual at an extremely young age, and I’m not remotely unusual in that regard. Sexuality is not a social evil imposed on innocents from without, but a natural development of biological organisms driven from within by instinct, brain architecture and (starting as young as 10 for some) hormones. I doubt many of y’all think of sexuality as an evil, or adult websites as something they need to be “protected” from by the diktats of self-appointed, self-important censors. Women need to start speaking out against those who view us as china dolls to be protected from our own inherent weaknesses by being shut away from the world in glass cases.
There is a report done some years back by a commission was formed by President Nixon on the negative effects of porn, their report which is here quite interesting.
Actually, the commission was formed by Johnson but released its report under Nixon, who summarily (and unsurprisingly) rejected its findings. Reagan’s Meese Commission even more absurdly rejected its own findings almost 20 years later.
Interesting people and thanks for the correction. why people think women need protection from seeing pics of other naked women is beyond me, maybe am too naive but I sure don’t get it.
For people who think that self regulation has no effect, I give you old Lara Croft and new Lara Croft:
http://929nin.com/lara-croft-gets-a-makeover/
I understand how empowering it is to force Lara to wear long pants in the hot sun, but I’m surprised they didn’t decide to empower her even further and make her wear a full burqa. Well, maybe next game, if there is one. Oh, and of course they’ve covered her midriff, because if we learned anything from “I Dream of Jeannie” it’s that belly buttons are wicked.
(Oh, and they’ve reduced her breast size as a form of empowerment, but you can still tell she’s female so I’m not sure she’s been empowered enough.) At least they let her keep one firearm.
The only thing I’m not sure about is who this makeover is aimed to please, since this is a worldwide release. It could be aimed at the increasingly insane EU market, or it could be designed to deal with the current “games are sexist” “controversy” in the United States. I guess I should flip a coin, or just figure out which market is bigger. (Obviously I don’t have to state that this was definitely not done in order to please the Japanese market!)
The changes didn’t help them anyway. The game still got hammered by the Feminists.
You can’t win, you can’t break even, and you can’t get out of the game.
I have to interject here as a large-breasted woman who was also athletic…a while ago. While I never considered Lara Croft’s figure to be even remotely sexist (indeed, she was an inspiration to my young self), I can make the argument that it was unrealistic considering what her job entailed. When I’m working out, I have on about two sports bras because, guess what? Running, jumping, flipping, with anything larger than a D-cup without proper support: 1) hurts; 2) isn’t sexy for the one doing it; 3) hurts– it’s worth saying twice. If the breasts aren’t properly “secured”, depending on the type of movement a woman is doing, you can smack yourself in the face with your own boob.
That may be funny and sexy in other contexts but Lara, like all other big boobed female action-archaeologists, knows that’s terribly distracting when one is trying to kill a minotaur in a previously undiscovered temple to a forgotten god.
But the most unrealistic part about Lara Croft is similarly unrealistic in Indiana Jones or any other action-archaeology tale: the action part. As my archaeology professors pointed out, “It’s mostly sifting through dirt and cataloging.” Fun if you’re a history nerd or someone who gets all hot and bothered over detailed organization. Heh.
Right, my main problem is that they talk about the new character as being “feminist” and “empowering” while maligning the old model. (I don’t even really hate the new model. Well, except for the pants. And the breasts. I might not even hate the breasts if it was a new character. I’m never going to like those pants, though.)
I’d even argue given that back in the days of the original PlayStation since the character had rock-like, immobile breasts, it is not unrealistic to believe that she was wearing a sports bra or had bound them in some way.
I did give the original Tomb Raider as a gift to a little girl (well, she’s a college freshman these days, we’re so proud of her).
Aside, yes, my partner has the same problem, and she loves her sports bra for most kinds of vigorous exercise.
Oh I absolutely agree with you there! As though cup size is proportional to empowerment.
This is a younger Lara Croft, who hasn’t yet mastered gymnastic combat and the use of two guns at the same time. I likes boobs big and I likes boobs small, and I even likes ’em medium, so I’m fine with that. In some adventures, long pants would make more sense. But watching NatGeo I’ve seen that women going out into the field DO often wear shorts.
I like the dirt.
Piety should have the word syndrome permanently attached to the back side of it. Perhaps then Pfizer can find a way to cure it with one pill per day for life.
This could almost make one long for the good old days when far from being thought of as chaste, pure creatures who needed protection from the evil world, women were considered the font of all sin and sexuality, whose mere presence could lure honest, pure, upright men into terrible acts of depravity (against their most desperate will, to boot).
Find something natural and inevitable in human behavior and biology.. Condemn it, punish public displays of that behavior, assert that all who feel impulses to follow such behavior are wicked and vile…unless they follow a set pattern laid down by wise, pure leaders to mitigate the worst excesses of such behavior. Only the leaders can protect you from your own inner desires; you must follow their edicts or suffer terrible torment. Repeat as necessary, be sure to exempt or forgive your fellow leaders for the inevitable ‘lapses’ (if possible, blame the poor or disenfranchised for the errors of the leaders).
{zombie like} We love the Leader! All hail the Leader1
(Just FYI: the Telegraph now has a paywall. You get 20 free views/month, any more and you have to subscribe — £1.99 per month.)
Here’s a discussion of the silly concept of “premature sexualization” you linked to a few years ago: http://sexhysteria.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/premature-sexualization/
I am continually amazed how politicians worldwide can ignore 60 years (going back to Dr. Kinsey with all of his faults) of studies on the realities of sex for human beings, and head in the exact opposite direction the Victorian attitudes handed down to us by even Sigmund Freud.
Premature sexualization is not a problem unless someone in authority is using their position to abuse a younger person.
Now excuse me, rampant stupidity gives me a headache.
DON’T DO IT EUROPE!!
Really, we Americans HAVE TO have somebody we can point to and say, “Hey, reason and acceptance of reality works for THEM; maybe WE should try it!” I you guys go nuts, who can we look to?
Well, maybe Asia will be more reasonable.