Female Role Models: Pop Verses Geek
An astonishing number of my friends on Facebook have shared this image (I tried to find who to credit it to, but only managed to get back to George Takei and that had no further credit). Or maybe this is not so surprising; a lot of my friends are sci fi fans and women. On first view it has a strongly feminist message, but this image is fascinating because it has so many more layers than that (and some are not that great).
My first thought was a little puzzlement. All of these women – all of them, like them or not – are actually fantastic, for a variety of reasons. The top row are women who have power, money and visibility in our society, a couple of them because of doing very much their own thing. Historically speaking this is a modern phenomenon. These woman are, historically, amazing in their power and influence. The choice of women is odd if the Barbie image is the one being aimed for. Many of them are superficially Barbie-ish in their poses here, but most are famous and powerful for their profession, which is often about more than just their looks. Kat Von D and Lady Gaga are not your average Barbie. The diversity amongst them is also startling for something citing Barbie. There’s only one blonde, they don’t all have big tits and there is some diverity in body shapes. They’re not the greatest cross section of society, but it’s not outright terrible.
Meanwhile the bottom row are all fictional women being lauded here, not as talented actresses and strong women in their own right (which they all deserve), but for the characters they’ve played (largely written by men). The body shapes are much more similar to each other. The diversity on display in the bottom row is a lot less than in the top.
I was confused about my reaction to what, at first glance is a positive image, so I actually threw it open to the Boyfriend (my sounding board to keep me honest) and he made a very interesting point: all of these women are performing in all of these photos. They are all actresses, artists, models and musicians in the act of performing. Some in the top row have been “created” by men, but others have mostly created their performance themselves, especially in these chosen photos. And like I say, whilst the women in the bottom row have had an influence in creating their characters as great actresses, to a much larger extent the characters they’re performing in these photos weren’t created by them. Their influence as actresses on their characters isn’t what’s being celebrated.
The women in the top row are also diverse in the outfits they’re wearing. Yeah, some have a large amoung of flesh on display but it’s very much tied to the performance of who they are on camera for these pictures. The bottom row, in contrast, is striking in the number of uniforms being worn. The image on the left isn’t a unform but it’s very militaristic and masculine. The women in the bottom row are all dressed in manner that is what, in our society, is coded very masculine. But the majority also have their hair down. They’re masculine and yet a tiny bit female and that bit sexy. Even though they’re all well covered up, the uniforms tend to the form fitting (to be fair in these shows they often do for men as well) and there’s plenty of leather in there. They’re a bit male fetishy in these outfits and these poses.
Looking at the two rows we’ve also got, disturbingly, visually, a bit of a virgin/whore thing going on, with the slutty look (the boobs, the tats and the “fat” girl) being definitely painted as a bad role model. Or perhaps not strictly “virgin” but female sexuality under the strict control of a masculine dynamic. The body shapes also play into that. They have an athletism in common. It’s like it’s saying cover up ladies, preferably in a slightly kinky uniform, keep the curves there but be on the minimal side, and be sure to keep in shape, in order to be a good role model for other women. Also keep your mouth closed and don’t pose like a sexual being. There’s an acceptable sexuality, but it’s strictly defined as oddly kinky, yet remarkably modest.
Carrying on the militaristic theme, we’ve got the strapline. “I’m buying my daughter a ray-gun”. To be a female role model apparently you need to be carrying a weapon. Pacifists not welcome. I do quite like ray-guns, but is that the best thing about these women? That they get to carry a gun? Is that really what makes this group of characters good role models for women? Is that what feminism is really striving for here?
They also aren’t the most emotionally available bunch of gals in the universe that they’ve chosen to represent the women of sci fi. Some of them are outright fuck ups as human beings. Don’t get me wrong, I love them for being portrayed as human not just “female”, but there’s a certain pattern to them of being strong because they reject “female” emotionality a lot of the time to be able to get on with their job. A lot of their strength is often coded in a distinctly, traditionally masculine way, usually as a result of their military training. It runs true to the characters within their situations in their respective shows but, taken out of context in this picture, it’s an uncomfortable pattern on display here: to be a good role model ladies, at least try and be less emotional when you’re working.
This picture seems to be saying: overtly feminine = bad, “manning up” = good.
The top row of women are powerfully visible in our culture, and that’s good in some ways and bad in others. They’re all interesting, inspiring women for who they are and what they’ve managed to achieve in confines of our culture. They are role models in the sense that they show women can achieve positions of power and visibility. They may not be great representations of all we can be, but they are real women working within the society we have now. They are amazing for their very existence and their reality in a complicated world. They’re not the bunch of slutty, pointless Barbie dolls this picture is trying to make them look like they are.
The bottom row are interesting representations of women too, but the way this picture chooses to show them is weirdly one sided and actively makes them less than they really are within their universes by reducing them to their uniforms and the more “masculine”, gun totting side of their characters only. They all have moments when they’re strong women on their shows, but not just because of the guns, the uniforms and their ability to strike a tough pose for a photo. They’re good role models in many ways, but they’re also not real and they’re still women as written mostly by men, because our society hasn’t changed enough yet.
These characters all come from a certain trend in sci fi where the future, or the main concern of the show, is distinctly militaristic and/or wars are being fought against someone or some thing. Women are shown stepping up to the plate as fighters alongside the men. Within those universes, those situations, putting on a uniform and grabbing a gun are kick arse things for everyone to do. Showing women up there along the men, fighting the same fight, getting into and out of the same scrapes, is a definitely positive thing but it’s largely women reacting within a view of the future as created by men. The voices of the women in these shows are often not the voices of women themselves. We’ve come a long way, but we’re not there yet and when women are equal in writing the world, the future may look different to this and may contain very different challenges and roles for its men and its women.
The bottom row are good role models of women surviving and getting ahead in their worlds. The top row are a diverse range of good role models of women doing the same in our world. They’re not the absolute ideal – we want to see top women in other proffessions too, as well as doing these jobs – but we’ve only being doing this for short time, historically speaking. Getting women up there on an equal footing with men is a story that’s still being written by all of us. I hope that the women of the future are valued for all that we are, not just our ability to point, shoot and kick arse. We need more diverse role models than that. The women in the pictures are ALL the shoulders that the women of the future will be standing on, because they are visibly out there; having careers and working to prove that women are here, in the light of history, and we aren’t content to be written out any more. We’re not going away again. These real women (in the top row and the actresses in the bottom one too) are all our role models. We don’t have to be one row or the other. We can pick and choose who we are from a bigger set of options than this picture’s simplistic dichotomy.
I guess I feel that this meme has its heart in the right place, but ultimately is missing the feminist mark, possibly by a country mile.
