TW: My body is my own

I want to preface this post by saying that this text is not directed at anyone in particular. I wanted to write a reflection on the content I have linked to and add my thoughts on body objectification.
This content might act triggering to some people, so please read with caution.

This post will come to you in two parts and a conclusion.

Part 1. Shaming of women in modern media.  

Contains spoilers for all but one slasher movie I have ever seen.

While I was watching this clip, my attention was drawn to the shaming of women in modern slasher movies. (I call them slasher movies, mainly because I don't find such movies scary or horrifying, so I don't want to call them horror movies.) In these movies, it seems that the general idea when it comes to survival is "Don't have sex and don't be independent". (I won't even get into the idea of "Don't be not-white if you want to live" that is also abundant in this kind of movies. That's a topic for another post.)
All these slasher movies have a few things in common, each very much problematic it it's own right.

First, there's the group dynamic. Most main characters in slasher movies are high school seniors or college freshmen, meaning they are between 17 and 20 years old. Usually you have the Cheerleader, The Jock, the Nerd, the Outcast, and the Journalist/Thespian, for some odd reason gathered in the same place, usually by either some common misfortune or a study group setting.
The Cheerleader and the Jock are always mean and/or stupid and always Caucasian (I am not talking about satire slasher movies here. Scary Movie and the likes are in a category of their own). They're usually dating, and they either die first or end up having sex and then die.
If the Journalist/Thespian is a girl, she'll end up having sex with the Outcast and then she'll die.
The Nerd or the Outcast or both will always survive, and the survivor is almost always a girl who has never had sex. 

Secondly, the killer is almost always either the Nerd, the Outcast, or someone the group as a whole mistreated/killed/pissed off. Sure, the idea of a bullied Nerd or Outcast getting even is something I can kind of get behind, considering my own past, but the idea that the only merit a Nerd or Outcast has in this group is to be either undesirable or a killer or both is problematic on several levels (socially, stereotypically, and ideologically. Ever heard of positive representation, Hollywood?) 

Thirdly, the Killer and the Survivor usually share the common trait of not being stereotypically desirable. They are never ever fat, freckled, or physically disabled, but they don't fit the mold of Show Stopper either. 

Finally, when the boys in the group get killed, it's close to never in connection with their sexual prowess. While the girls can get killed directly after having sex, the boys usually manage some act of heroism or douchebaggery that lands them in the way of the Killer. If the boy dies trying to be a hero, the girl he saved will feel guilty about it. If he's being a douche bag, the one who points it out is immediately put in harms way.


Part 2. Body policing and body objectification.

Recently, I have caught myself policing my own body, and it makes me feel sick to my soul. The thing is, I like my body most of the time. It's a brilliant machine that does all these amazing things that keeps me alive, and I like being alive. I like how my feet look, the shape of my hands, and the color of my hair. I love how my eyes go from brown to green depending on my mood. I love how my boobs look in a bikini and the arch of my neck. I adore my freckles, the curve of my lips, and the shape of my ears.

So why am I so apprehensive about showing off all these parts of me that I love?
Because the objectification and sexism I get subjected to as soon as I show off a part of me that I am proud of, be it my hair, my tattoos, or my cleavage. So many people seem to think that because I am a woman, they have the right to comment on what I wear, how I look, what I eat, and what I do. And I am not alone in getting attacked like this, as this column by B in Mommyish shows.

For a while, I didn't care which parts of me other people saw. I felt that if I did what I could to stay modest, it wasn't my problem if some creep got on all fours and tried to look up the towel at the beach or peeped through my blinds while I was changing after a shower. That later turned into a disregard for my own body, and I stopped being modest around certain people. That has now changed. Not because I want to hide, but because I respect and love myself more. I am in charge of who gets to see my body, no one else. Especially not a woman like this, who thinks that it's other women's job to hide their bodies so that her husband doesn't get tempted.

I am a long time MMORPG player (AtlanticaOnline ftw) and I've heard all kinds of requests and demands over the years. Just the fact that the gaming industry objectify female characters to cater to a male audience, when almost half of the player base consists of female identifying players, is proof that something needs to change.

Conclusion.

I was shocked that I hadn't thought about the shaming in slasher films before, but I was more shocked to notice that people around me don't seem to find any problems with this ideal of a "pure" woman. Why is that only half of the world's population is regarded as being qualified to make decisions about their own body? Why is it that I feel guilty about feeling good in a bikini and also feeling guilty about not wanting to show more?

I believe that, as long as we deny one large part of our society and community the right of body autonomy, we as a whole suffer. As long as women are regarded as objects, we can't stop seeing men as defilers of these sacred objects. As long as we put the responsibility of all sexual encounters on one party, we can't help but to see the other party as savage and volatile. If we teach women how to not get raped or harassed, aren't we telling men that they're unable to control themselves? That they're mindless machines, incapable of common decency?

    “Ancient moon priestesses were called virgins. ‘Virgin’ meant not married, not belonging to a man - a woman who was ‘one-in-herself’. The very word derives from a Latin root meaning strength, force, skill; and was later applied to men: virile. Ishtar, Diana, Astarte, Isis were all called virgin, which did not refer to sexual chastity, but sexual independence. And all great culture heroes of the past, mythic or historic, were said to be born of virgin mothers: Marduk, Gilgamesh, Buddha, Osiris, Dionysus, Genghis Khan, Jesus - they were all affirmed as sons of the Great Mother, of the Original One, their worldly power deriving from her. When the Hebrews used the word, and in the original Aramaic, it meant ‘maiden’ or ‘young woman’, with no connotations to sexual chastity. But later Christian translators could not conceive of the ‘Virgin Mary’ as a woman of independent sexuality, needless to say; they distorted the meaning into sexually pure, chaste, never touched.”
— Monica Sjoo, The Great Cosmic Mother: Rediscovering the Religion of the Earth



DFTBA