Jones as Ann Perkins in Parks & Rec I think if someone is part of a project or show you love it's hard to separate them from it. If they happen to air opinions that are similar to yours your fandom grows. They say they like cookies, omigoodness you like cookies. They call themselves a feminist, you call yourself a feminist. They say they don't like dressing the same as a set of women they disapprove of, you don't like dressing the same as a set of women you disapprove of. It's easy to get carried away and a recent interview between Hadley Freeman and Rashida Jones seems like a good case for this. The talented and intelligent Rashida Jones of the hilarious Parks & Recreation recently tweeted the hashtag #stopactinglikewhores with regard to how starlets dress and whether or not they have pants on.
Naturally, various people thought this was an ill thought out instruction a little to close to the home of rape culture and victim blaming. Rashida wrote in Glamour magazine that: "The fact that I was accused of 'slut-shaming,' being anti-woman, and judging women's sex lives crushed me. I consider myself a feminist. I would never point a finger at a woman for her actual sexual behavior, and I think all women have the right to express their desires. But I will look at women with influence - millionaire women who use their 'sexiness' to make money - and ask some questions. There is a difference, a key one, between 'shaming' and 'holding someone accountable.'"
While it's a worthy question to ask, there are definitely better ways to frame it in which we question why there isn't more room for other ways of expressing yourself sexually and why we continue to think it is OK to publicly look down on and even laugh at women who do choose to be 'obvious' in their sexiness or use their sexiness to support themselves financially. Why is it morally OK to censor her but not Rashida? Mainly because censorship is pretty f*^king iffy.
However while I wouldn't want Rashida to feel silenced I was surprised that in her interview with Hadley Freeman in the Guardian the pair shared a little moment in which you can picture them wrinkling their noses at the other women in the private members club: "every single woman but me is wearing skinny designer jeans, metallic heels, a sexy top, a full face of makeup and an enormous designer handbag, at 3pm on a sunny Saturday... I tell her I was worried the club had a dress code. 'Oh God, that whole LA Barbie doll look, right?' she says. 'It's weird that everybody wants to look like everyone else. I love what you can do with fashion, but that look is just not my nature. I like conservative dressing. I don't like to dress to tell people that they want to have sex with me."
While it's a worthy question to ask, there are definitely better ways to frame it in which we question why there isn't more room for other ways of expressing yourself sexually and why we continue to think it is OK to publicly look down on and even laugh at women who do choose to be 'obvious' in their sexiness or use their sexiness to support themselves financially. Why is it morally OK to censor her but not Rashida? Mainly because censorship is pretty f*^king iffy.
However while I wouldn't want Rashida to feel silenced I was surprised that in her interview with Hadley Freeman in the Guardian the pair shared a little moment in which you can picture them wrinkling their noses at the other women in the private members club: "every single woman but me is wearing skinny designer jeans, metallic heels, a sexy top, a full face of makeup and an enormous designer handbag, at 3pm on a sunny Saturday... I tell her I was worried the club had a dress code. 'Oh God, that whole LA Barbie doll look, right?' she says. 'It's weird that everybody wants to look like everyone else. I love what you can do with fashion, but that look is just not my nature. I like conservative dressing. I don't like to dress to tell people that they want to have sex with me."
| To set the scene in which the tasteful pair are surrounded by total LA sexbots Hadley tells Rashida that "While I was waiting for her, I say, men kept approaching the two women sitting near us, who are wearing extremely sexy versions of this LA uniform, and one chat-up line was, 'Can I just charge my iPhone here?' 'Yeah, more like, "Can I just charge my penis over here?"' Jones cackles." | how great it is that a time poor woman who doesn't have a college education has actively looked for and found a way to access feminism that suits her |
I think the aim is to poke fun at the men falling over themselves to chat these women up. But it looks an awful lot like the women in the "LA uniform" are to blame in Freeman and Jones's opinion. But apparently it is OK for Rashida Jones to pass judgement on women she doesn't know and decide they are dressing that way to expressly inform others of their sexiness and not because they like the colour or, yeah, how their cleavage looks in it.
Look I think Rashida Jones, Tina Fey and other well educated, funny and famous feminists are great, but they - like everyone else, sometimes get it wrong and just because it's exciting to have such fun vocal feminists on the scene doesn't mean they should get a free pass. Considering Rashida is passionate about creating more diverse female characters in TV and film than the limited selection we currently have: "We're trying to inundate the market with women characters and create choices based on quality and not on stereotypes" it would be nice if she'd re-evaluate her idea of what acting like a whore is and why it's so awful.
It's a hard attitude to adopt when there's a 'but not you' hum going on. It seems to be happening louder and louder in feminism. When the news that Beyonce had been going on YouTube to source her feminist knowledge was greeted with some snobbery. Rather than talk about how great it is that a time poor woman who doesn't have a college education has actively looked for and found a way to access feminism that suits her, we had to discuss how she could even say the word "feminism" without her tiny stage outfits bursting into flames upon her body.
I realise this could look like I have spent a few 100 words criticising women and telling them they are doing feminism wrong just as I am criticising others for doing so. It is not my intention, I just want to change the tone from 'she did what?!' to 'hey, she did that too, cool'. Want a feminist interaction role model? Check out Leslie Knope and Ann Perkins' relationship in Park and Recreation.
Squeamish Kate
Look I think Rashida Jones, Tina Fey and other well educated, funny and famous feminists are great, but they - like everyone else, sometimes get it wrong and just because it's exciting to have such fun vocal feminists on the scene doesn't mean they should get a free pass. Considering Rashida is passionate about creating more diverse female characters in TV and film than the limited selection we currently have: "We're trying to inundate the market with women characters and create choices based on quality and not on stereotypes" it would be nice if she'd re-evaluate her idea of what acting like a whore is and why it's so awful.
It's a hard attitude to adopt when there's a 'but not you' hum going on. It seems to be happening louder and louder in feminism. When the news that Beyonce had been going on YouTube to source her feminist knowledge was greeted with some snobbery. Rather than talk about how great it is that a time poor woman who doesn't have a college education has actively looked for and found a way to access feminism that suits her, we had to discuss how she could even say the word "feminism" without her tiny stage outfits bursting into flames upon her body.
I realise this could look like I have spent a few 100 words criticising women and telling them they are doing feminism wrong just as I am criticising others for doing so. It is not my intention, I just want to change the tone from 'she did what?!' to 'hey, she did that too, cool'. Want a feminist interaction role model? Check out Leslie Knope and Ann Perkins' relationship in Park and Recreation.
Squeamish Kate
RSS Feed
