Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta is better known across the world as Lady Gaga. She is well known for her crazy clothing styles (including an outfit made entirely out of meat) and her lyrics that pack a true punch against discrimination and promote having your own identity.

Lady Gaga’s Meat Dress – A Feminist Statement?

Lady Gaga’s famous meat dress raised many question as to what its meaning was. She wore it for the MTV Music Awards, just days after appearing in Japanese Vogue wearing a meat bikini. Some felt the dress spoke out against the treatment of women in the music industry. Others felt it was a just one more of Lady Gaga’s death references. Others again felt it was a statement on mutability. In an interview with Ellen DeGeneres after the show, Lady Gaga explained that it was a statement against the horribly discriminatory policy in the US military, who accept homosexuals into the army, so long as they are not outspoken about it. She stated that it also meant that she wanted to be seen as more than a piece of meat.

Is Lady Gaga a Contemporary Feminist Icon?

Many Lady Gaga followers feel that she is a true contemporary feminist icon. She speaks out against discrimination by drawing our attention to it. Women are still seen as a piece of meat, hence she dresses as one. Women are only good for sex, hence she sings about sex. Those opposed to Lady Gaga feel that it is quite the opposite: she is nothing but an offbeat sex object. They also feel that Lady Gaga represents the true end of the sexual revolution. She has tried to copy the styles of Madonna and Marlene Dietrich, who were truly pansexual feminist icons; but Lady Gaga has been described as an asexual fake.

The main criticism of this argument, however, is that it appears to be necessary to be sexually attractive in order to be a female icon. This is completely opposing to feminist ideologies. In as such, Lady Gaga being as asexual as she is once again becomes a contemporary feminist icon.

Lady Gaga as a Contemporary Feminist Icon

Like her or not, there is only one way we can answer the question “is Lady Gaga a contemporary feminist icon”. The answer is “yes”.

Lady Gaga is a feminist in her name: Lady representing what is expected of women (lady-like behavior) and Gaga representing the insanity of these oppressive ideas. In her clothing style, Lady Gaga has often been compared to a woman trying to be a drag queen. Drag queens exaggerate female qualities by trying to demonstrate that what is expected of women is not natural. This is, in effect, what Lady Gaga does in her clothing. Lady Gaga is everything that the misogynistic ideology of a woman is not. She is barely feminine, she is not meek and subservient, she is highly opinionated and she has her own life, with the same, if not higher, level of successes than male artists have.

Sex and the City is a comedy show that ran between 1998 and 2004. It followed the lives of four women in New York who were affected by changing roles and expectations for women.

The Four Characters in Sex and the City

Carrie Bradhsaw is a columnist and the main character of the show. Her column discusses the different aspects of her relationships, both with men and with her friends. She is also well known for her dress style.

Samantha Jones is the highly sexual older friend. She has a variety of lovers and constantly discusses her bizarre sex life in very amusing ways.

Charlotte York works in an art gallery and has been brought up conservatively. She believes in romantic love and is forever looking for her knight in shining armor.

Miranda Hobbes is a career minded lawyer who is very cynical about men and love. In early seasons, she is portrayed as having quite masculine tendencies but this is softened up as the series progresses.

A Feminist Look at Sex and the City – Carrie

So, is Carrie a feminist? She lives alone and has her own job. She often does what she feels like and has an outspoken dress style. But is she a feminist? The series mainly focuses on her relationship with Mr. Big. Their relationship is on/off and Carrie alternates between enjoying the single life and feeling desperately lonely. In essence, her goal is to be with Mr. Big, which she achieves in the subsequent movie. Mr. Big is a high flying business man, exactly the type of man an archetypal woman wants to be with to feel secure. So no, Carrie is not a feminist.

A Feminist Look at Sex and the City – Samantha

Samantha could be seen as a feminist. One could say she uses men to her liking. However, she seems to need a variety of men in her life in order to feel happy. Again, not the most feministic outlook on life.

A Feminist Look at Sex and the City – Charlotte

Charlotte is probably the least feministic character of the group, in a very obvious way. She wants her knight in shining armor to settle down with and have children. A large part of the series focuses on her inability to have children and her adoption of a Chinese girl. Charlotte fully fits in with the misogynistic picture of women wanting nothing but to be carers and home makers.

A Feminist Look at Sex and the City – Miranda

Miranda is probably the most feministic of the group. She is a high flying lawyer in a male dominated world. However, as a woman, she always has to prove herself and really struggles with her career in the subsequent Sex and the City movies.

Sex and the City was supposed to look at the lives of women in a world where women and men are supposed to have equal opportunities and chances in life. If we look slightly deeper under the surface, though, the four main characters in the series and subsequent movies are anything but feministic, other perhaps than having a job.

Let’s talk stereotypes for a minute. If you were to draw a caricature of a feminist, she would probably look like someone with short hair, baggy clothing, definitely no bra, preferable Dr. Marten’s shoes, whilst shouting for equality. If you were to draw a caricature of femininity, you would probably draw a narrow waistline, long flowing hair, someone in a dress or skirt with a demure expression on her face. Stereotyping groups of people is always wrong, but can feminism and femininity go hand in hand?

Feminism

Feminism is the struggle of women to gain equality between men and women. The movement initially started in the late 19th century when women started demanding the right to vote. The movement then developed further in women fighting for full equality, both in the home and in the workplace. Nowadays, these struggles are still current, particularly in relation to equal pay. Another issue that is very current within feminism is images in the media about women.

Femininity

Femininity, according to the Oxford dictionary, is “the quality of being female; womanliness”. It then uses an example by saying “she celebrates her femininity by wearing make-up and high heels”. This is exactly what fits into the current feminist debate: the first part of the definition talks about celebrating being a woman. Feminists thoroughly believe in this in as such that they are proud to be women. Some forms of feminism, in particular radical feminism, would already have an issue with this definition, because being proud of being a woman already makes a segregation between men and women.

The example provided, however, is specifically what feminists have an issue with. They feel that you can be a woman without wearing make-up and wearing high heels. This is an image imposed on women by a male dominated society.

Feminism vs. Femininity – Can They Go Hand in Hand?

Feminists are proud of being a woman and they are proud of the major progress they have achieved for women. There is nothing wrong with being feminine. Many feminists these days celebrate the differences that do exist between men and women. The issue is in what femininity means. If this definition is placed upon women through an image that is construed by men, then femininity and feminism can never go hand in hand.

Femininity should mean being a woman, but following the image that women want to portray on it. This does not necessarily mean wearing a specific type of clothing, having hair in a specific kind of way, wearing make-up or anything like that.

Clearly, feminism and femininity can go hand in hand. However, this will only be possible once the general consensus is around femininity meaning being a woman, not the definition that is given to the word “femininity” by male dominated images in the media, the social world and the professional world. A woman is feminine regardless of her body shape, hair style or clothing style. Every woman is feminine simply because they are a woman.

Ah the struggle for equal rights between men and women in the military… So many movies have been made about women in the military, which are supposed to be either funny or thought-provoking, but in general offer a stereotypical image of women. One needs to only think of movies such as Private Benjamin or GI Jane. In the current climate of trying to make television inclusive, many action packed movies do have female soldiers in them who are supposedly just as “tough” as their male counterparts, but somewhere along the line, she will return to the damsel in distress that needs to be saved by the even tougher soldier.

Can Women Join the Military?

Well, the simple answer is “yes”. And that would be the truth. The whole truth, however, would be “yes, but only in certain roles”. In general, most countries will allow women to serve in the army, but many active infantry roles are not open to them. In the United States, for example, women are allowed to serve in some combat arms positions.

Why are there Restrictions on Women Joining the Army?

One argument is that the female skeleton is not as dense as that of a male, hence it is not able to withstand as much G-force as males. This means that they are potentially unable to fly fighter jets as well as men can. However, scientific research demonstrated that due to women having shorter blood vessels in the neck, they were actually less likely to black out than men. The military provided a counter argument in saying that women have less endurance and less aerobic capacity, which are necessary for endurance. The debate continues.

A second argument is that many male soldiers have said they feel they would not be able to trust a woman in combat as much as they could trust a man. This would be disruptive, as soldiers need to have complete faith in each other. There is also a concern that romantic relationships could develop, which is particularly common in situations of extreme psychological stress.

It is also felt that an occupational risk of being a soldier is the possibility of capture, torture and possibly sexual assault. It is felt that women should not be in a position of being potentially subject to this. In many armed forces across the world, women are not allowed to serve on submarines. This is due to it being impossible to segregate men and women sufficiently. In the United States, there are a few exceptions at present, which include one day training or family visits.

Feminist Arguments

More and more military and non-military people (including men) feel that the current policies are creating armies that see women as second-class citizens. They agree that women have exceptional skills that could be of very good use in the army. With regards to submarines, many army officials argue that submarines are now much bigger and would be able to have a much better level of segregation, for example having dorms for men and dorms for women.

The word “feminism” was developed in the Netherlands in 1872, making it the first country where the feminism movement came into existence. In the 1970s, a group called the Dolle Minas (Wild Minas) was started, which was one of the main groups in the second wave of feminism in the Netherlands.

The First Wave of Feminism Movement in the Netherlands

The first wave of feminism movement in the Netherlands was between 1880 and 1925, where women actively campaigned to have the right to vote. The movement largely stopped when these goals were achieved, which was also at the start of the economic crisis. Following that, the Second World War took place, which also moved the focus from women’s rights to more pressing issues.

The Second Wave of Feminism Movement in the Netherlands

The second wave started after the Second World War. During the war, women had taken over the roles of men in the workplace and other issues due to the men being sent off to war. Once the war was finished, it was almost expected that women would take back their original place in society, which was not a popular concept amongst women. In the 1960s, this movement once again became very strong, which was around the same time that birth control in the form of the contraceptive pill became available.

Some Famous Demonstrations by the Dolle Minas

The Dolle Minas were concerned with having very public demonstrations. They wanted to make a mark on society in the most visible way. For example, they took over a castle in Holland and finished the day by having a public burning of their bras. They then held a public demonstration around “the right to wee”, as there were no female public toilets in existence around that time. Their demonstration included closing doors of male toilets with pink toilet paper.

Following this, they campaigned to have a change in women’s magazines, demanding these magazines would provide women with interesting information and not only cooking recipes and cleaning tips. The symbolism they used in this campaign was to spray air freshener in the offices of one of the biggest women’s magazine, following the expression “something smells fishy”. All demonstrations by the Dolle Minas included some visually memorable actions, such as burning bras and handing out liquorish wood (in Dutch, the word used for liquorish wood is the same as keeping someone quiet).

This feminism movement was very inclusive of Lesbians. Unlike other famous feminism movements, the Dolle Minas movement looked at equality between men and women and was not set to overthrow complete societies, make women more dominant then men or use other ideologies such as Marxism. Some do feel that there are similarities between the Dolle Minas and the Marxist Feminism movement because they both held very left winged political beliefs, but the Dolle Minas were much more inclusive of all women, regardless of their place in society, and did not view men as a class in their own right that needed to be overthrown.

Women’s rights are one of the topics that come up whenever feminism is discussed. Women have, indeed, gone a long way since being treated as second-class citizens in prehistoric and medieval societies. Today, women stand toe-to-toe against men and the world offers more windows of opportunities to the 21st century woman. There is still more work to do for feminism supporters as women in the Middle East are still stoned to death, African women still experience female circumcision, and female babies in China are still regarded as liabilities to a growing family. However, the improvement in women’s rights is noteworthy to bring up and discuss to inspire more changes in favor of the female class. This article is about feminism and how it has inspired societies from all over the globe to bolster women’s rights. The three most important achievements are discussed.

Right to Choose

It is common knowledge that women in the olden times were not as free as they are today. Women during and before the 1800’s had minimal “say” on who they could marry, what they could do for a living and where they could travel. Much of the “say” had been left in the woman’s male guardian’s hands. Therefore, it can be considered a major achievement that women today are independent enough to choose their career, spouse, and the way they live their lives without society breathing fire on their necks for every decision they make. It is a common stipulation in the legislation of every country that allows women to have free reign on their lives, as provided by the guidelines of feminism and women’s rights. Coercing a woman in any way may result to a criminal offence that is punishable by law.

Right to Vote

The right to vote or “suffrage” is a large achievement in pursuing women’s rights as it is a means of showing a society that women are individuals who have a “voice” that is noteworthy to be heard. Men used to make the decisions in their respective countries because they were the only ones who were allowed to vote. By allowing women to vote as part of women’s rights, governments and societies alike acknowledge the ability of women to contribute to society and to the state where they live in. There are certain religions that prohibit women from participating in such activities, although the prohibition is contained in areas where these religions are practiced. It is difficult to convince religious leaders to provide women’s rights to vote if it is in contrast with their religious teachings. However, it is noteworthy to say that almost any other government in the world provides women the right to vote.

Right to Work

Women in Ancient China were not allowed to work, so much so that their feet were even bound to keep them from going out of the house. This practice, although still common in rural Chinese communities, is a stark contrast to the scenario in offices in large Chinese cities. Women can work alongside men in any career and any work environment they choose. Truly, the right to work as part of women’s rights is the ultimate show of progress in feminism movements, as women who can work are financially independent of their male counterparts.

Feminism still has a long way to go before the world becomes an ultimate equal place for the male and female. But, along with every individual’s help and cooperation, living in such an ideal world will be easy to achieve, hopefully soon.