Women And The Rise Of Runch Gwendolyn Brooks Analysis

The effect of feminism on the world during the past century has been massive – but not enough. Equality still does not prevail between the two dominant genders of society – male and female. Everything that deals with being weak is still associated with femininity and frailty. Women who try to defy the norm of being gentle, submissive, and soft-spoken are seen as masculine and raunchy. What’s even worse is that women further bury their own gender by slut-shaming other women, implying that what men do to them to undermine their worth – catcalling, objectifying, and trivializing – is acceptable. In Gwendolyn Brooks’ “the mother,” she talks about the struggles of a woman who goes through abortion. While in Ariel Levy’s “Women and the Rise of Raunch
Culture,” she talks about the regression of feminism because of the increase of the objectification of women in the 21st century. The two pieces come together when both try to empower women – but both fail to by undermining the strength of women. In “the mother,” and “Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture,” the authors – though females – emasculate femininity through the following: blatant misinterpretation of women due to their biases which exemplifies their; fragile redefinition of feminism – resulting in the further degradation of women; and pretentious shoe filling which shows their lack of sympathy for numerous women.
The authors, though they try not to, demoralize women by misjudging what other women see as empowering and liberating because of their own biases. In “the mother,” the speaker's tone is regretful and guilty when she talks about abortion. When the speaker says,
If I stole your births and your names, … and your deaths,
If I poisoned the beginnings of your breaths,
Believe that even in my deliberateness I was not de- liberate. (Brooks ll. 18-25) she is trying to evoke a guilty emotion from the mothers who have aborted their children.
She is trying to admonish the fact that they destroyed a person’s life when it hasn’t even started. However, she does not take into the account the potential damage that bearing and giving birth to a child could have done to the mother. By admitting one’s flaws as a person, in this case, as a mother, shows the strength of an individual. The mother could have been emotionally unstable, physically incapable, or psychologically unpredictable to have a child – but the narrator simply talks about the lost potential of the unborn children. This one-sided view is exemplified when the speaker states, “The singers and workers that never handled the air.” (Brooks l. 4). Her lack of concern for mothers shows that Brooks belittles a woman’s decision about her own body, making her appear like she is not a supporter of feminist movement. Similarly, in “Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture,” Levy suggests that the resurrection of stereotypes of female sexuality that feminism “banned” is not good for women (160). Levy neglects to take into account the empowerment and liberation that most women feel when they are free to express themselves in all ways possible. She seems like she is the one who is objectifying women when she mentions that she sees women while walking down the street “wearing jeans cut so low they exposed what came to be known as butt cleavage paired with miniature tops that showed off
breast implant and pierced navels alike.” (Levy 159). She claims that women are even more objectified by men because of the way women dress when she, herself, reduces them even more. In reality, women are hyper-sexualized by all genders – including those part of the LGBT+ community, and her blatant description of other women exemplifies this. Hence, through the authors’ own biases, they misjudge women’s views on empowerment and liberation.
Both authors try to redefine feminism to make it stronger by using an aggressive and alarming tone; however, they only reduce it further by putting down other women who have different views than theirs. In “the mother,” the speaker talks about the events that could have happened if the child were born. She is implying that those who have had an abortion should feel remorseful about the fact that they were responsible for the life of a child that never had the chance to live. This is exemplified when the speaker articulates, “Though why should I whine/ Whine that the crime was other than mine? –/ Since anyhow you are dead.” (Brooks ll. 26-28). She only portrays mothers who regret their abortions – she does not mention the fact that some women are actually relieved when they get abortions because they have been discharged of a responsibility that they were not ready for. Furthermore, she implies that women who aborted their children should regret their decisions when she says that, “Abortions will not let you forget/ You remember the children you got that you did not get” (Brooks ll. 1-2). She’s implying that the women who abort their children will always have the lingering feeling of loss. This further shows that she emasculates women who are indifferent of abortions, meaning that she may not actually be a feminist. By now, society should know that other people should not tell a woman what to do with her own body – because at the end of the day, she is the one who gets affected the most. On the other hand, Brooks talks about the almost shameful way that women dress when she comments that “[She] would turn on the television and find strippers in pasties explaining how best to lap dance a man to orgasm.” (158). She projects a condescending tone when she judges the way that females act and portray themselves in public. She implies that women who flaunt their bodies are diminishing their femininity. However, she neglects to mention women who are proud of whom they are. Many women suffer from insecurities; some women get over them, some don’t, and a misogynistic society shouldn’t stop those that have from being confident about their own bodies. Furthermore, she uses imagery to portray scanty-clad women who, in her opinion, exemplify the regression of feminism. When she illustrates, “the shirts would be emblazoned with the Playboy bunny or say PORN STAR across the chest,” she wants the reader to be persuaded that these women are portraying themselves as pieces of meat for others to ogle at. However, by doing so, she also shows that she indeed objectifies women and uses physical appearances to identify their worth. Therefore, by projecting an offending tone towards other women, and by degrading them, Brooks and Levy show that they are misunderstanding the concept of fully supporting feminism.
When Brooks and Levy try to sympathize with the women whom they are talking about in their respective pieces, they do so pretentiously, which leads to their views being skewed.
When one puts oneself in the place of another person, there is usually a misunderstanding because of the various circumstances that one goes through. For example, one cannot simply say that they felt what poverty feels like by spending a few hours with the poor. The same goes for a person who “was starting to show signs of impact” of raunchiness (Levy 159). She claims that she has been immersed in “raunchy culture” when she was merely dipping her toes into it. She misinterprets the views of women who want to feel good about themselves as their want to be sexualized. She has not experienced what it feels like to be thought of as someone who is vulgar or crude, yet she uses her immersion as evidence of her credibility. Similarly, Brooks talks about abortion in her piece – she does not even try to empathize with the mothers, but she tries to undermine them. By her mere use of lower case letters in the title “the mother,” she implies that women who have abortions do not deserve to be called true mothers because their motherhood was short-lived. Moreover, by using lower case, she weakens a mother’s worth just because she gave up a child. She continues to neglect the fact that some women are physically and mentally unable to bear a child without sacrificing their own lives. Furthermore, all mothers want
what’s best for their children and if abortion were the answer than giving them a sad life in the foster system, they should be able to make that decision freely. She just continues to act as if all the other circumstances that a woman goes through do not matter. Thus, through their pretentious shoe filling, Levy and Brooks show that they have little sympathy for women who have different views than theirs.
By now, in this somewhat more accepting and understanding society, one would think that women would stop their continuous degradation of their own gender. However, because of carelessness, we still tend to forget that our opinions are not everyone else’s. In “the mother,” and “Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture,” the authors try to improve the status of feminism. However, they fail to when they use their biases to misinterpret other women’s views on empowerment and liberation; degrade women through their fragile redefinition of feminism; and vicarious empathy for women who they view as shameful. Through these obscure messages in their pieces, it can be seen that feminism is not viewed universally as the equality between men and women. By being equal with the other dominant gender, women should be able to express themselves as freely as men do. Women should be able to have the ability to show that they are capable of so much more than what their gender hinders them from. Lastly, women should be able to make decisions about their own bodies, and not have other people make these decisions for them. A woman should always be comfortable in her own body – those who do not think so do not deserve to be called feminists.