There has been a lot of commotion about Kim Kardashian’s  nude cover for Paper Magazine in which she bares her bottom under the headline  ‘Break The Internet Kim Kardashian.’ While it certainly set the internet alight, I find it short of anything significant enough to “break the internet. Basically, Kim Kardashian is visually reduced to a body, or more specifically, parts of her body (e, as if she is not a real, whole person. This is a perfect example of female objectification, which has been around for as long as I can remember. It is frightening to consider just how deeply entrenched objectification of women is in our cultural subconscious. Hyper-sexualized images showing women’s bodies are all too commonplace — but would we react to these ads differently if they objectified men the same way they do women? We see thousands of ads with women scantily clad and in provocative poses regardless of the product being sold, yet we don’t even bat an eye to it. However, when these same ads are recreated with men, the sex appeal apparent in the ad miraculously dissipates and it is somehow turned into a comedic routine. That is because men, in contrast to women, are frequently portrayed as sexual subjects, actors exercising their sexuality, instead of objects meant to gratify someone else’s sexuality. The recreation of the sexy image by men points a finger at how ridiculously uncomfortable and demoralizing the originals are. There’s nothing quite like a bit of role reversal to underscore the unrelenting, culturally-ingrained objectification of women, and to highlight just how obscene the marketing industry really is.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/11/14/men-recreate-kim-kardashian-naked-bum-photos_n_6157014.html

I was scrolling through my Facebook the other day and came across a disturbing video on my newsfeed and thought it was appropriate to share with you guys. This video is about a man named Julien Blanc, a so-called dating coach working for US company Real Social Dynamics; a service that claims to teach insecure men how to force girls into sleeping with them “after short-circuiting their emotional and logical mind into a million reasons why they should.” Blanc launched the social media campaign #ChokingGirlsAllAroundTheWorld and released a now-viral YouTube video titled “White Male F*cks Asian Women in Tokyo (and the Beautiful Methods to It!).” He hosted a series of pick-up artistry seminars, teaching men how to sexually assault women in Japan.  “Just go through Tokyo, grab girls and yell ‘Pikachu’ and put her head on your dick”, Blanc instructs his audience before showing footage of himself doing just that. This is nothing short of a lesson teaching how to rape.

Oriental women categorized as the “other,” have consistently been hypersexualized by western culture and have long been the targets of a predatory, booming sex-tourism industry. Misogynist western men travel to Asian countries to sexually exploit women on whom they project their orientalist, racist fetishes. In doing so, he actively instructs men to exploit their white privilege to assault women, declaring that “if you’re a white male, you can do what you want”.

“Pick-up artists” such as Julien Blanc hunt women as sport, referring to women as “game”. The fact that this atrocious man can stand on a pedestal, hold seminars and sustain a profitable business out of promoting rape culture, patriarchy, and white imperialism with total impunity is a testament to the extent to which our society today still accept racism, sexual violence and abusive attitudes towards women. These men epitomize the rabid culture of male entitlement and the toxic social enabling of violent hyper-masculinity that puts women in danger every day. This is how sexual violence becomes normalized.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grV1iDns87s

A few classes ago, we watched a portion of Liz Canner’s film, Orgasm Inc, which is a a documentary that explores female pleasure, with a focus on sexual dysfunction. The video highlighted drug companies that competing to develop the first FDA-approved Viagra for women, in which female sexual dysfunction is made a creeping medicalization, defined as broadly as possible to increase the targeted market population to up their sales. The video exposes sexuality as a construct of society and contends that there is an assumed mold that we should all fit into (as demonstrated by the standardization of porn for all women), and if we don’t match up with society’s normative definition of sexuality, well then it’s our own fault and it is our responsibility to fix it. This gives rise to the wave of negative self imaging and capitalist sexploitation, which casts a hetero-normative shadow on our desires, thus opening the market for unnecessary interventions like trying to “cure” female sexual dysfunction with drugs or surgical procedures while it is still unclear whether it is truly even a medical condition that requires concern. This video has made me realize how blurred the lines are between societal ideals and the self. It has opened up my eyes and served as a reminder for me to think rationally about what it is that I want and to consider why I want it before buying into ideas shoved at me, as my sexuality should be defined by me and not by society.

In response to the video that went viral about two weeks ago exposing the harassment women face just walking down the street from the nonprofit Hollaback, many men insisted that catcalling is a harmless, non-sexual greeting and were left angry asking why they can’t just say hi to women.

This prompted comedian Leon James White to ask the perfect question: “If catcalling is just a friendly gesture then why don’t men be social amongst other men?” The divide in the dialogue, White explained, was largely about “privilege,“ that is the right to approach women at any point in time no matter where they are is seen as a right by some men.” Thus, White created the hashtag #DudesGreetingDudes to urged people to take those catcalls and turn them on their heads — using humor to imagine those same comments directed to women coming from a guy, being made to a guy. These witty tweets expose the implicit expression of misogyny behind the seemingly “harmless” or “flattering” action and has done wonders to raise awareness. Using humour, White flawlessly draws our attention to a genuinely serious issue. Check it out! It’s a funny read!

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rachelzarrell/dudes-greeting-dudes

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Orientalism is chiefly defined as the manner in which the West constructs and implements an exotic sheen to Asian culture, while broadly construing Asian culture as “Asian,” rather than perceiving the different societies of each region in Asia as distinct societies and cultures. Orientalism provides a means of justification for European colonialism situated on a self-serving antiquity in which “the West” constructed “the East” as wildly different and subservient, and accordingly a cry for appeal, in need of “rescue” from the West.

Some of you may be familiar with the term Yellowface, which is the practice in cinema, theatre and television where East Asian characters are portrayed by actors of other ethnicities while wearing make-up to give them a stereotypical oriental look, often with the application of powder to make their skin more pale and the utilization of eyeliner to make the eyes appear slanted. Yellowface has often been used simply to facilitate comically insulting representations of East Asians. Though this practice may be considered “a thing of the past”, It is interesting to note that the ridicule of the orient never gained the same stigma associated with blackface, and still remains far more acceptable in Western media.

Look around you, how many Asian faces do you see on ads or in film in modern day? Probably very few. And those “lucky” few who have made it in Western mainstream media are ultimately given roles that inevitably perpetuate stereotypes. The media has long been a sea of information and with the Asian population largely underrepresented in the North American media, it fails to address the diversity of North American Asian community and restricts them to stereotypical roles such as the model minority, hyper sexualized woman or the emasculated Asian man which perpetuates misconceptions among society. Lucy Liu is a prime example in playing sexually charged roles such as Ling Woo on Ally McBeal, a character who is a “a self-described “tramp” … simultaneously addicted to casual sex and uses sex to have her way with men.” Although the Western media has made modest attempts to the inclusion of the oriental minority, it is evident that racism is still largely pervasive and requires some radical change.

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