Features

Charlotte Greenfield explores the strained dichotomy between the sexualisation of women, and the judgement of women’s sexuality.

It starts early. A marketing exercise in the US analysed language used in advertising aimed at children. Boys got words such as “battle”, “power” and “heroes” while girls got “love”, “magic” and “babies”. How might this difference play out ten or so years later when these little boys and girls become not-so-little and sexuality starts to play a dominant part in their lives?
 
Freud, being Freud, also thought the discussion around sexuality needed to start with childhood. He hypothesized, sometimes a little wildly, that certain childhood experiences, such as a boy having a poor emotional bond with his mother, would colour his take on sexuality in later life. One way was through a ‘Madonna/Whore complex’ in which a man can only identify women as falling under two distinct personas. The ‘whore’ side is relatively self-explanatory; its opposite comes in the form of a virginal mother figure (a bit of a contradiction, but then Madonna managed it). Not limited to men with mother issues, the fascination with the two extremes can also operate on a societal level, resulting in the hasty categorization of women into one class or the other.
 
It is no secret that Dr Albert Makary believes New Zealand women are unduly promiscuous. It is no secret that many New Zealand women regard Dr Albert Makary as a misogynist. Makary’s comparison of women’s sex to “paddock mating” was insulting, his claim that New Zealand women have an average of 20 sexual partners was based on dubious Durex led ‘research’ and his solution of “stigmatizing” such behaviour was not very helpful given that that stigmatization is often the worst way of dealing with a problem. But perhaps the misguided Makary’s heart was in the right place; he calls himself “an eyewitness of the pain” promiscuity causes. He was concerned that sex was taking place in a culture he described as “if you can remember what happened yesterday you haven't had enough fun”. Outside of our fair campus, such an attitude is seen as a justifiable cause for concern, especially if it results as Makary claims in children with mothers unable to remember the fathers of their children. So, though hedged in unhelpful language, Makary’s contentions are not utterly preposterous. But, why the focus on women? They’re not having sex with themselves (well perhaps they are, but this doesn’t seem to be the type of sex Makary’s worrying about). Surely men are equally culpable in the undertaking of promiscuity and surely if promiscuity is something damaging, it would be equally damaging to men.
 
As a gynecologist, Makary’s anecdotal evidence would revolve around his female patients, but aside from this there is a strong tendency to see negative sexual behaviour in a view revolving around women. At the beginning of every semester Catherine Dale asks her Otago gender studies class whether a girl who sleeps around is labeled a ‘slut’. Without fail they respond ‘yes’, while the corresponding label for men that sleep around is that they are ‘having fun’.
 
This raises the question of whether there is some something intrinsically negative about ‘excessive’ sexual behaviour by women that does not exist in ‘excessive’ sexual behaviour by men. Science has looked into this. New Scientist recently cited a study at Bradley University which suggests, “if a person was high in being able to trust other people, they were monogamous. If they were very low in trust they were much more likely to be unrestricted in sociosexuality." However the study emphasized this was true as much for men as for women. To accompany this research was a study that found that, as dubious as it sounds, women with longer ring fingers tend to have more sexual partners. Researchers believe that having a longer ring finger is linked to a higher prenatal exposure to testosterone. This could support the theory that women who have multiple sexual partners are seen as acting more in a stereotypically masculine manner, which could also explain the backlash; society doesn’t always like it when its members act out of their gender stereotypes.
 
Common sense can probably accompany science on this issue. Critic’s favourite sex columnist, Mrs John Wilmot, and I had a discussion about what it means in New Zealand when women are, to use the phrase we eventually decided upon, “sleeping around”. “There’s no dialogue at all, just people throwing ideas out into the ether. People are then going to choose the worldview that best justifies their own lifestyle.” If Mrs John Wilmot had to call someone a ‘slut’ she would use it to describe someone who sleeps around with no self-respect, rather than because they like having sex. “I think people do judge that harshly, and they assume all women are like this.” When discussing conceptions of women and sex, the words “needy” and “emotional” come up a lot, whereas Mrs John Wilmot can’t help but think we need to start making the words “strong” and “confident” a more regular part of this conversation. However as much as the ‘slut’ side of the spectrum is stereotyped, it’s just as easy to go the other way. “I’m a bit guilty, sometimes,” she admits, “of viewing people who are monogamous as a bit boring.”
 
Critic decided to seek a male perspective on this issue and talked to a student who sees men’s role in the Madonna/Whore complex as something like this: “From experience, one does reach the point where sexual desires, and the nature and power of our sexual appetites, tend to diverge. If the lass' desires outrun your own, that can be very disconcerting for men, who cast themselves, and are cast, as the more lustful of the sexes… you tend to start feeling insecure and that insecurity, more often than not, leads to denigration of the gal as a 'slut' in the long run.” So men want women to be ‘whores’, but can’t handle it when they are? “I think that it’s exactly what it is, of course it’s a gross oversimplification, but what men want is a whore who is their whore, and who they can outfuck and leave exhausted and replete.” And where does the ‘Madonna’ side fit into all this? “Our need for ownership.”
 
Catherine Dale from Otago’s gender studies department thinks the Madonna side of the traditional dichotomy is beginning to collapse, at least in Western society. “With the exception of a few, I don’t think people expect women to be virginal anymore.” With no obvious antithesis to the ‘whore’ role, we are instead led to question what role we do expect women to play in expressing their sexuality. What this hole reveals, suggests Catherine Sale is “the fear around female sexual desire”. We know how to deal with it in a ‘slut’ context – by responding with judgment or sympathy – but outside of this, society seems a little confused about how to deal with the fact that women have sexual desire and, thanks to contraception and less economic reliance on a male partner, are able to exercise it more freely than before.
 
But hand in hand with this fear comes fascination with female sexuality. This is played out in the coverage of women in the public eye with Erin Gloria Ryan observing on the blog Jezebel that, “the yellow journalism of celebrity reporting has seeped into profiles of powerful women”. She suggested sardonically that a Guardian piece on the International Monetary Fund’s new boss, Christine LaGarde, be re-titled: “First Female Head of the IMF Smart and Sexy, But Mostly Sexy” due to being “marred by the stereotypical body pan down that so often accompanies profiles of women.”
 
In New Zealand we are far from immune from the “stereotypical body pan effect” and the increased focus found on the sexual attributes of female politicians. Dr Chris Rudd from Otago’s politics department agrees. “With Helen Clark there were constant references to her not having children, to what she was wearing, to whether she was photo-shopped. Would they say that about a man?” That is the question it all comes down to and the answer is invariably ‘no’.
 
Helen Clark confirmed this, “yes, undoubtedly there is still more focus on the appearance of women than of men in public life - on hair styles, clothes, and presentation generally.” “It’s unfortunate,” says Chris Rudd, “because it puts women politicians in the position of having to ask: should I play to these prejudices? Or should I be bolshy and pull people up on it and then be seen in a certain image, in not being ‘one of the boys’.”
 
As a young, female politician, Labour MP Jacinda Ardern knows this better than anyone. She thinks the focus on female sexuality in politics, “probably manifests itself in the differences in the questions I sometimes get asked and the type of attention I sometimes receive. Do I feel discriminated about it? That’s not the word I would use but it is something I wish would change.” When she shares a platform with the also female and also young National MP Nikki Kaye, “the type of attention becomes very stark.” When they both decided to run for the Auckland Central electorate in the lead up to the 2008 election, the New Zealand Herald delicately entitled their coverage of it “Battle of the Babes”. “That’s the term that’s been raised ever since, the phrase that’s been coined, ” says Jacinda. It’s not exactly misogyny, but return to that question, “would they say that about a man?” and society’s divergent view of female and male sexuality becomes apparent.