Ray Rice’s wife does not hold him accountable for knocking her unconscious. Rice attacked his fiancee, Janay Palmer, in an elevator at the Revel Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City. Ironically, two months later, the White House launched the “It’s On Us” campaign to fight domestic violence.
This campaign showed male celebrities such as Daniel Craig and Seth Meyers fighting back against the domestic violence that women face, and the way they are treated when it gets attention. It quickly went viral, and the campaign has gotten partnerships from major brands like MTV, EA, and Tumblr. Along with Beyonce Knowles’ performance at the VMAs and many other media pieces with a feminist tone, feminism seems to become more prominent in the media.
The CBS Evening News ran a story on domestic violence, which reported that 85% of the 10 million annual victims of domestic violence are women. That same night, Entertainment Tonight had a segment on street harassment where they filmed the responses a woman gets while walking down a sidewalk. These stories addressed two major issues that feminists are trying to address: domestic violence against women, and street harassment. Feminists are trying to move past the bra-burning, man-hating stereotype that many people think is what feminism is.
As feminists are trying to project a clear and accurate picture of feminism, celebrities are coming out with their opinions of the ideal. Some, like Beyonce Knowles and Taylor Swift, are excited about its growth and have called themselves feminists.
Knowles used Nigerian author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s definition of feminism in her song “Flawless,” which Adichie delivered at a TEDx Talk entitled “We Should All Be Feminists.” According to Adichie, a feminist is “the person who believes in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes.” In her self-titled album, Knowles also released a song called “Pretty Hurts,” which focused on the way that beauty pageants and the standards set for women are hurting them.
At the VMAs, Beyonce performed a medley of her songs, which included that quote. It was hailed by MTV as “Fearless, Feminist, Flawless,” and she walked home with three awards: one for “Pretty Hurts,” which won the best social message category.
But why should people listen to Beyonce to learn about feminism, or care about what any celebrity thinks? Junior Max Catala doesn’t believe we should. He said that “if you’re a celebrity for something other than feminism, you don’t have a right to a more publicized opinion than everyone else.” His viewpoint is easily explainable because no one can guarantee that just because someone is famous, they know what they’re talking about.
In some cases, people do. Emma Watson was appointed the United Nations Women Goodwill Ambassador, even though she became famous as an actress, most notably in the Harry Potter series. Watson addressed this in her recent speech at the UN. “You might think: who is this Harry Potter girl? What is she doing at the UN?” Watson asked. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing. All I know is that I care about this problem and I want to make it better. And having seen what I’ve seen and given the chance, I feel it is my responsibility to say something.” Her speech launched the He For She campaign, which aims to get one billion male advocates of feminism in twelve months. So far, famous actors including Logan Lerman, Tom Hiddleston, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Harry Styles have all taken part in the campaign.
Other celebrities not involved in He For She have taken a feminist stance. Taylor Swift did an interview recently in The Guardian, in which she said something that many fans have been waiting for since the question had arisen. “As a teenager, I didn’t understand that saying you’re a feminist is just saying that you hope women and men will have equal rights and equal opportunities. What it seemed to me, the way it was phrased in culture, society, was that you hate men.” Swift added that she had “been taking a feminist stance without actually saying so.” But are these developments a good thing?
Mariena Sciarra, a senior, believes that the rise of feminism in the media is good for getting the word out. “Women all over the world need feminism, and many women are starting to be educated either on their own or by the media,” she said in an interview. She added that “[feminism] is needed in mainstream media because women and men need to realize the situation, and the differences in how women and men are treated.”
But Sciarra feels that celebrities aren’t representing feminism well. “I feel like celebrities are still trying to make feminism appealing to everyone… It should be more clear and direct. Not generalized or sugarcoated.”
Certainly, sugarcoating the struggles modern women face is not going to make them better. Even in 2013, women made 78 cents to every dollar men made for the equal amount of work. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research estimates that “if change continues at the same slow pace as it has done for the past fifty years, it will take almost fifty years—or until 2058—for women to finally reach pay parity.” Socially, women are also more likely to face sexual assault. According to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network, one in six women will experience sexual assault in their lifetimes, while only one in 33 men are at risk.
The problem of sexual assault and harassment has been dealt with on media platforms, such as YouTube, more recently. YouTuber Sam Pepper uploaded a video in which he inappropriately touches women on the street, then excuses it as a prank. He faced backlash from much of the online community, and it has been exposed that he has allegedly sexually harassed, even raped, other girls. Internet mogul Tyler Oakley tweeted, amongst many others, “Sexually harassing women is vile to begin with, but normalizing it by calling it a prank? So harmful.”
Pepper released a video in the midst of the backlash, claiming that the prank was a “social experiment” to draw attention to the plight that men face as victims of sexual assault. Laci Green, a popular vlogger and declared feminist, replied and pointed out how that was not a viable excuse. “Male sexual assault is a serious issue, and how assaulting women to raise awareness about it makes any sense, is beyond me,” she said in the video. She went on to say that “we all know, because we’re not idiots, that’s not what the video was about.”
The original video was taken down by YouTube for violating their terms of service, and Pepper’s representative network, Collective Digital Studio, has dropped him as a client. In this way, it seems as though YouTube itself has held up its own opinion: sexual harassment disguised as a prank will not be tolerated on their site.
As corporations, celebrities, and news outlets are adding to the modern ideals of feminism, more and more people are being exposed and informed about it. Hopefully, this trend continues, and less stories like Janay Rice’s will exist.
