I wanted an excuse to put in this video of a 13-year-old girl that I would be proud to call my daughter.
[youtube]SXH2K7OC37s[/youtube]
**** Shaming and Why it's Wrong - YouTube
Now obviously, I AM already proud of my own daughter for who she is and how she lives her life so far at 14. But I was very impressed with a young teen girl understanding and explaining why ****-Shaming is wrong.
She also brings up some salient points for further discussion/debate on the topic and how it springs up in various cultures around the world. I had the thought that ****-shaming is our version of FGM, and is also actively propagated not by men, but by other women to uphold sexual purity - or at least the image of sexual purity - in a culture's young women. Here are my arguments as to why:
1) Though the means of protecting a female purity for honor (whether it's a husbands honor or a familys honor), the motivation is the same. A female who enjoys sex, "gives it up" often indiscriminately, or is aggressive in her seeking of sexual partners brings shame to an institution that perceives her as part of its property. Whether it is to mutilate her clitoris and/or her labia, or to socially exile her, the female must learn that she is not to stray from the model of being owned by an institution and/or a man. She must not think she has self-ownership of her body. And her community will remind her many times that self-ownership is a grave sin.
2) The people (mostly women who are perpetuating the misogynistic patriarchal construct mentioned above) who support and/or advocate such measures as warnings or as rites of passage are also left with a conundrum that a virgin girl who is told she must not enjoy sex, must not seek it out, must deny any advances unless marital rites are granted, or that she must feel pain during intercourse, urinating, or with her menstrual cycle....continue to carry this baggage in their marriages and to be reminded that she is not an equal partner in sexual enjoyment. She remains a "keeper" of emotional intimacy, or of the kitchen. But in the bedroom, she is always reminded after decades and generations of being told that to enjoy sex, or to communicate sexual desire, is to be met with pain or shame.
Any thoughts to add?
[youtube]SXH2K7OC37s[/youtube]
**** Shaming and Why it's Wrong - YouTube
Now obviously, I AM already proud of my own daughter for who she is and how she lives her life so far at 14. But I was very impressed with a young teen girl understanding and explaining why ****-Shaming is wrong.
She also brings up some salient points for further discussion/debate on the topic and how it springs up in various cultures around the world. I had the thought that ****-shaming is our version of FGM, and is also actively propagated not by men, but by other women to uphold sexual purity - or at least the image of sexual purity - in a culture's young women. Here are my arguments as to why:
1) Though the means of protecting a female purity for honor (whether it's a husbands honor or a familys honor), the motivation is the same. A female who enjoys sex, "gives it up" often indiscriminately, or is aggressive in her seeking of sexual partners brings shame to an institution that perceives her as part of its property. Whether it is to mutilate her clitoris and/or her labia, or to socially exile her, the female must learn that she is not to stray from the model of being owned by an institution and/or a man. She must not think she has self-ownership of her body. And her community will remind her many times that self-ownership is a grave sin.
2) The people (mostly women who are perpetuating the misogynistic patriarchal construct mentioned above) who support and/or advocate such measures as warnings or as rites of passage are also left with a conundrum that a virgin girl who is told she must not enjoy sex, must not seek it out, must deny any advances unless marital rites are granted, or that she must feel pain during intercourse, urinating, or with her menstrual cycle....continue to carry this baggage in their marriages and to be reminded that she is not an equal partner in sexual enjoyment. She remains a "keeper" of emotional intimacy, or of the kitchen. But in the bedroom, she is always reminded after decades and generations of being told that to enjoy sex, or to communicate sexual desire, is to be met with pain or shame.
Any thoughts to add?