Women and Influence

                                                      Women and Influence

       In this week’s Huffington Post are pictures of the young star, Rihanna, gracing the cover of Italian Vogue. Additional photos inside the magazine shows the pop star posed in bondage gear, a lip-shaped muzzle, thigh high boots and in one photo, she even goes topless, her nipples demurely taped in sparkly tape. The credit of these photos is given to Steven Klein. Now you may wonder why I am mentioning these pictures and of what interest are they to the waiting public. My answer is simple. For many years, women have struggled for independence, equality and respect. Today, many young women are allowing their image to be used in a negative light to portray sexuality.

       “It’s all in fun,” some might say. It isn’t to be taken seriously. Really? Let’s take a look at what is being portrayed in these pictures. Rihanna, you might remember was recently in the headlines as a victim of abuse. Her friend, Chris Brown, was convicted on charges of injuring Rihanna, a beautiful, young, black woman famous among teens and young people nationwide. Brown battered her face and the pictures are quite disturbing. Now in these photos, this young woman is shown in various subjective poses, one in which her mouth is muzzled and her body is on display in various poses indicating her being a victim of possible sexual torture. Provocative? To whom? Perverts?

      As a woman, I like to think of myself as an open-minded, sexually positive person who loves the idea of art, sexuality, romance, love and enjoyment. In these photographs, a young woman is used as an object, a sexual being with no voice. Why? She has been muzzled. Is this the image that we want our young women in today’s society to emulate? Do you want a group of women to be quietly submissive to any type of sexual fantasy that someone might want to perform? I don’t think so. As a mother, I want my daughter to have a say in what goes on between her and the person she is involved with. I don’t want her to think that she can’t speak for herself or must subject herself to something she might not enjoy.

      What people do behind closed doors is their own business. How women are portrayed to the public is the business of all of us. Women are people too, and as a woman, I would like for us to stand together and stop these negative images so that perhaps spousal abuse, kidnappings, pornography, and female killings will lessen. Women are being abused every day. Some women are being stalked, kidnapped, murdered and thrown in dumpsters as trash to be taken away. This attitude about women must be stopped. The only way that we can stop the negative images is to stand up and speak out. Don’t buy magazines or products that use women in a demeaning way. Look at the way men speak to women in certain shows, movies, or commercials. Sometimes it is supposed to be humor but in reality, these comments show a lack of respect.

      If we, as women, don’t respect ourselves and allow women to be shown as sexual objects, victims, and permit this subtler form of abuse to be perpetrated, we are not doing our jobs to protect our children, our grandchildren, sisters and mothers. Rihanna is not to be blamed. After all, she is simply following today’s trend of sexual deviants and perversity. She is unaware of the negative connotations these pictures perpetrate. She might even think it is “sexy” but in reality, it is truly sad. She is being silenced and sending the message to other women that silence is sexy and being in bondage is cool. Bondage of any sort is repression and oppression. We, as women, fought for equality, for respect, for the right to vote, for the right to own property and not be owned by our mates. We should never, ever go backwards --only forward. For information regarding the HP article see: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/01/rihanna-topless-and-muzzl_n_274261.html