This essay first appeared on Cliterati on May 19th; I have modified it slightly for time references and to fit the format of this blog.
I’m sure you all heard about Angelina Jolie’s double mastectomy a few weeks ago; because she inherited a faulty gene from her mother she has a much higher chance than other women of eventually developing breast (87%) and ovarian (50%) cancer, and decided to have the breast tissue removed so as to prevent it before it could start. Now, breast reconstruction was part of the process; had she not made a public announcement, nobody would have known the difference from looking at her (not even in a skin-tight costume). But according to her New York Times article about the procedure, “I choose not to keep my story private because there are many women who do not know that they might be living under the shadow of cancer. It is my hope that they, too, will be able to get gene tested, and that if they have a high risk they, too, will know that they have strong options.” The revelation has triggered an avalanche of commentary from all conceivable angles, including praise for her courage, criticism of her decision as extreme, and hand-wringing over the costs of the genetic tests and surgeries. And though one might accuse all of those writers (including me, I’m afraid) of capitalizing on her misfortune to promote their own agendas, none of the comments were quite so nakedly revealing as the avalanche of tweets saying “poor Brad Pitt”, lamenting the demise of her famous “fun bags” or bizarrely declaring that a condition she has had since conception is somehow the karmic result of her being a “home wrecking whore” several decades later.
Revealing, that is, of the common but barbaric belief that women’s bodies are public property. Few people care what any given individual man, whether private citizen or celebrity, does with his body unless drugs are involved, and even then most of the original prohibitionist rhetoric revolved around the effects of male drug use on women (drinkers failing to support their families, cocaine causing rape, opium linked to Chinese prostitution, etc). But the dominant cultural narrative is that whatever any given individual woman does with her body is a legitimate public concern, especially when sex is involved. If Angelina had decided to replace her defective teeth with dentures, I sincerely doubt it would’ve attracted more than a few snide comments about kooky Hollywood types throwing money around; secondary sexual characteristics are, however, quite another thing. Every personal decision made by any woman, no matter how humble or unknown, is considered a legitimate subject for discussion, regulation and even legislation if it relates, however tenuously, to the issue of sex or reproduction. Adult human beings with titles and degrees actually stand up in the second decade of the 21st century and insist with straight faces that any individual woman’s pregnancy and birth control choices are matters of Grave Concern to the State, and that her miscarriages and motivations for engaging in sex are subject to criminal investigation and violent suppression.
Nor does this have anything to do with “patriarchy” as the feminists like to claim; a great deal of the nosiest, most judgmental and most dangerous obsession about women’s bodies is perpetrated by other women. The Swedish model of prostitution law, which frames women as eternal adolescents unable to make sexual choices for ourselves, was developed by radical feminists in Sweden and is popular with their sisters around the world; it is currently being pushed in Scotland by MSP Rhoda Grant and in Ireland by a coalition led by the nuns who ran the infamous Magdalene Laundries. In the United States, the feminist-beloved “Violence Against Women Act” has resulted in increased government control over women’s lives. In Europe, any kind of media depiction of women is declared to be potentially harmful to us, and UK feminists are at the forefront of the moral panic over “sexualization”, an “ill-defined concept [which] seems to imagine that if it weren’t for equally ill-defined bogeymen like ‘the Media’ and ‘Patriarchy’…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.” Anti-sex crusaders even rail against “clothes, cosmetics, diets, gym membership, trips to the hair salon, the waxing salon and the nail salon” as indicators of women’s “self-loathing” and the imaginary “hypersexualization” of modern culture, and blame pop stars’ revealing outfits for “sex trafficking”.
The need to control women’s bodies is rooted in the fact that though many men can die or fail to reproduce without adversely affecting the population, every woman who does so reduces the birth rate. But humans haven’t been an endangered species for a long time now, and modern nations don’t depend on biological descent from current citizens to keep the taxes flowing into their coffers. Furthermore, there are a lot of troublesome biological urges we somehow manage to resist enshrining in law; in fact, most laws tend to go in exactly the opposite direction. It’s long past time for humans, and most especially our governments and other powerful institutions, to stop pretending that the bodies and personal choices of individual women are anybody’s business but their own.
I get your point regarding the media and public pundits.
But lets not forget that by having a press conference about it, Jolie chose to make her tits (or lack thereof) public business (not that her career choice hadn’t already done so).
I suspect she saw the inevitable reaction as empowering for her.
I agree with you. I’m quite sceptical about this the whole media craze about Angelina’s mastectomy. It’s her decision, so actually no one has to say something about it. ( me neither, but still I do)
Lots of reactions go from extremely positive ‘you’re so brave! ‘ doing this to very negative ones ‘Angelina cut her beautiful melons off (or something like that).
I think that the media inflated her message, wich is inevitable in her position.
I was like: ‘okay, she made that decision. Done.’
I’m concerned about the effects this blown-up message will have on non-critical thinking individuals.
You said ‘inflated’ (snigger).
Beavis and Butthead aside, we are not talking about the breasts of just any old woman, but those of an actress whose public image and career was (in no small part) built on them.
Angelina Jolie made herself and her body public property, or at least public interest, long ago. As did Brad Pitt. And she has been amply recompensed – to the tune of millions upon millions of dollars, each million a lifetime’s labour for ordinary folks – for doing so.
Think it has something to do with the herd effect and female competition too. All women are equal, but if one stands out she can very easily monopolize attention and resources, which threatens the others’ “fair share”. Personally I’d question her decision to inflict her genes on her decedents, even though she already had a family through adoption… but giving birth is a basic herd member entitlement
I think you overthought this one a bit, Maggie.
Remember that “pop culture” empowers women to make decisions (without question) regarding abortion, including late term abortions and the decisions these women make concerning it – are sacrosanct and unquestioned. In fact, no matter how sadly ignorant a woman may be – “pop culture” holds that she is the ONLY ONE who can make such a decision. That kind of “empowerment” is significant and doesn’t jibe with what you’re saying here about women’s bodies being public property.
When Sandra Fluke, an ivy-league college coed born with a silver spoon in her mouth testified before Congress that taxpayer dollars should pay for her birth control pills – Rush Limbaugh made a joke out of that and was OBLITERATED by the “pop culture” media. His comments were considered to be way off base.
Again – “pop culture” reacted in this case to defend the woman and her birth control decisions – and her belief that the public should subsidize her sexual activities. “Pop culture” even seemingly pushed forward the notion that pulling money from the public till to fund birth control should be left up to this little rich girl and anyone with a different opinion should sit the fuck down.
In fact … “pop culture” defended this woman by saying that anyone against her was a misogynist engaged in a war on ALL women.
I’m sorry Ms. Fluke – but if we’re paying for your birth control we SHOULD have the right to make jokes about the way you use your vagina. At least give us SOMETHING for the money we’re pony’ing up here.
Laura Croft, is physically the ideal of female sexuality and her breasts are exploited in every movie. Every movie Angelina is in features highly erotic shots of her boobs. It’s no more complicated than that. Let’s face it – most of us out here in the peanut gallery really don’t think of Angelina as a historically talented thesbian …
We think of her as an an incredibly HOT, nearly physically sexually PERFECT, female.
So when a woman like that makes a decision like this – expect that idiots will make their presence known with sophomoric comments.
That’s really all this is.
As to Angelina’s decision …
Angelina is smart enough to know that it’s her sex appeal that puts money in her bank account – she knows that men and women look at her as the sexual ideal.
She also, I think, believes that many women WILL BALK at making the kind of decision she made because they are fearful of the impact that it will have on their own sexuality.
So Angelina’s basically saying … “Hey look at me – I’m going to be just as HOT after my breasts are removed as I was before – and you can too if you’re ever faced with this kind of decision.”
Which – may be a naive position for her to hold since many women don’t have her monetary and medical resources to pull this off with the kind of perfection she, no-doubt, will.
I’m with Maggie on this one. People who enjoyed Jolie’s movies got what they paid for. They don’t own her body. Nor do I think that anyone who has received government aid (and please tell me what program provides free birth control to rich women) becomes public property. I’ve paid for my social security and Medicare, and when I start drawing it, I’ll use it as I see fit. I pay for welfare programs and know that they will be there if I ever need them. After all the three months I received food stamps forty years ago would have been disastrous without the help.
The issue was over the religious exemption – which was, at the time, considered null and void due to ObamaCare.
No matter what the Chaotic Budget Office says – we’ll all be paying for Obamacare eventually.
You make a good point regarding ‘pop culture’, but it seems to me that is specifically a reaction against the widespread view that women’s bodies are public matters.
The only reason ‘pop culture’ is so strong on the abortion rights issue, for instance, is because there are so many out there who think they do have the right to tell a pregnant woman that she must carry a foetus to full term.
And no, I don’t think that paying taxes that may or may not be used to subsidise abortion gives anyone the right to ‘SOMETHING’ for the money from the beneficiary, any more than a taxpayer should be able to take the F-22 he has helped pay for out for a spin.
You have the right to argue your taxes should not be spent on abortions or Raptors and you can argue about how the jets will be used or who has access to public abortions but that’s where it ends.
What? That’s apples and oranges. I’m not talking about taking a woman “out for a spin” who receives public funding for whatever.
When you are taking money from someone else – you are giving them the moral authority to criticize your lifestyle and …
FORCE YOU to change via laws implemented once their political party is in office.
This baby runs a lot deeper than abortion. Once I’m paying for your healthcare – I can criticize you riding a motorcycle – because they are inherently dangerous – and the injuries take more money out of my wallet to treat. Soooo, I’ll have my party tax the hell out of your motorcycle in order to discourage you from riding it. Then when my party is back in power – we’ll ban them.
We have every right to do it – it’s our money afterall.
You can say otherwise – but the stockholder’s interests in your personal life must eventually be taken into account.
OK, to adopt your metaphor …
Paying taxes towards an F-22 does not give you the right to insist that it must stay in the hangar to avoid damage.
Why would paying taxes for my healthcare give you the right to keep me off a motorcycle?
Or, if I were a US taxpayer, would my contribution to road maintenance give me the right to insist that you keep your asphalt damaging SUV off it and stick to riding a bicycle?
.
And you used to teach ethics ??!!!
Would you smile and eat lifestyle critique shit from one of your clients just because he paid you?
Rush got everything about Fluke wrong. First off, he called her “Susan Fluke” when it’sSandra fluke. He couldn’t even bother to get the name right. Then, he didn’t bother to read or listen to enough of her testimony to realize that fluke wasn’t talking about HER OWN birth control pills, but instead about those of a friend of hers. Then, he started all that “slut” bullshit about Fluke having “so much sex” and in doing that he got two other things wrong at the same time:
1) Fluke’s friend wasn’t taking birth control pills for birth control. Turns out they’re useful for other things too, like controlling ovarian cysts, which is what Fluke’s friend was taking them for. It didn’t have anything to do with sex; there was no “sluttiness” involved. Rush didn’t bother to find that out.
2) Rush has this notion that the more sex you have, the more birth control you have to take. That isn’t how it works. If a woman is taking BC for contraception (and remember, Fluke’s friend [not Fluke herself] wasn’t taking them for contraception), then she takes exactly the same amount whether she’s having sex once a month or five times a day.
The problem with Rush Limbaugh isn’t that he’s a jerk (which he is), it’s that he’s a dumbass.
As a public service announcement for mastectomies to prevent cancer, Jolies’ announcement is a plus. As to the rest of it…I dream of a day when the first consideration of the general public in these circumstances isn’t overtly sexual.
I cannot find within myself much reason to criticize A. Jolie. She is just doing what her role requires. Her job has always been the getting of attention. That is one reason it is called “show” business.
She could have gotten this done privately if she wanted. Just like her first breast surgery…
If she wants to mix doing a valid public service – giving cultural permission for women to take sensible steps to protect their health – with getting herself another train-load of publicity I say go for it.
I am not a cynic. I just think that more good things happen when doing good things are rewarded.
You write that one of your researchers views monogamy as a “cultural cage” that distorts women’s libido. Is monogamy more suited for men than women?