Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Tolman and Higgins: Argument

Tolman and Higgins argue that females should learn to say yes. In their article How being  good Girl can be Bad for Girls they talk about how girls are always taught to say no to a guy which can lead them to be confused about when to say no. Most girls say no to something that they really want a guy to keep doing to them so when it gets to a point where they really mean no the guy doesnt take them seriously which can lead to rape. Tolman and Higgins argue that females need to learn that it is okay to say yes to the things that you do like or do want to happen. By saying yes to a man when you do say no he will know you are serious and not playing the whole no means yes game with him.
Our Society creates such a contradiction for women. All the media really teaches girls is that they have to be sexy and desirable but when a women does this in real life she is labeled a bad girl, slut, whore etc. Like in the movie Easy A  (heres a link to their main page) the main character is in her class and they are talking about the scarlett letter and its telling how women shouldntcommitt adultery and if they do they need to be put to shame. Hello?? What about men? why isn't it that people shouldn't not be adulterers whether they are male or female. Easy A showed the basic contradictions that women face in society. Before she lost her virginity no one cared who she was. Once everyone thought she had lost her virginity everyone had something to say to her. To the other females she was  bad girl to the guys she was "Easy". Why is it a good thing when a boy looses his virginity but a bad thing when a girl does?

2 comments:

  1. I think the reason for the difference is because girls are seen as a parent's little girl, whereas with a guy from a young age he is seen as someone is going to grow into a man. There is also a quote I found in "Mastering Your Johnson" about men being seen as masculine if they sleep with lots of women (114). It reinforces the ideas in the media and in society.

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  2. Great points! When females develop their own sense of sexuality, it's threatening because it often doesn't fit into the mold that the media/society has created. Males are taught to go forth and conquer but are not taught to be true to their own sexual desires (and possible lack there of). We're taught from a very young age that good girls don't do this and bad girls do that-with this binary in place, it makes automatically judge rape victims as bad.

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