Running and Ruminating on Gender

I celebrated the Super Bowl by requesting my husband make something comfort foody for dinner while I watched Up with the girls. Without being able to put it into words, I dismissed it as something that doesn't entirely align with my values.

In the morning my Facebook feed was filled with commentary on the half-time show by Shakira and Jennifer Lopez. Several friends posted enthusiastic reactions. Two were dismayed at what they thought was the hypersexualization of the performance. One described the performance as "crap." Others said they were horrified that their daughters saw it (ranging between 4 and 8 years of age, no concerns over similarly aged sons seeing it were raised in my feed).

I saw these reactions while marching on the treadmill as a warm-up to a 3 mile run. I ended up running over 4 miles. My mind kept coming back to the reactions.

The first word that came to mind was "intersectional feminism." To someone who is middle-class, white, and in her upper 30s or older (as most of my Facebook friends are), shock at the objectification is an understandable reaction. Women provocatively posing in skimpy clothes sounds like the kind of objectification a self-respecting feminist would critique.

But we have to dig deeper and consider who the performers are. Shakira is 43. Jennifer Lopez is 50. Both are married with children. It is remarkable that these women "of a certain age" have the bodies to exude such sexiness, stamina, and talent (dancing OR singing, singing OR pole-dancing would be feats in themselves!). Consider how many Hollywood films pair a male actor with a female romantic interest who is 15 years younger or more. Consider how few film roles women over 40 are offered. The struggle models face as they age. Our culture's obsession with youth. Not to mention the puritanical fixation on women's purity and society's discomfort with women being sexual being period. Now go back to the half-time show. If we consider age/ageism then the performance was absolutely empowering. We have to acknowledge that age intersects with gender here.

It's also important to consider the performers are Latina and compelling research shows that women earn less than men for doing the same job, Black women earn less than white women, and Latina women make even less. Given the horrors of migrants being held in modern day concentration camps, calls for a border wall, and rhetoric painting Mexicans as criminals, we have to acknowledge these women's identities. It is important that they are Latina, spoke Spanish, and used imagery that evokes these political issues. We have to acknowledge that ethnicity intersects with gender here.

If we embrace intersectionality, and we have to if we really want to understand gender and make a claim like "that's objectification," we have to realize the sum of these intersections *could* actually be positive.

My next reaction to the whole thing was disgust. Why are people fixated on women's bodies when there are SO MANY UGLY THINGS ASSOCIATED WITH THE NFL?!! Let's start with the sharp increase in sex trafficking on the day of the Super Bowl. Colin Kaepernick. Concussions. Conditioning men and the boys they are when they start playing the sport that violence solves problems. DOMESTIC VIOLENCE. Hell, the cheerleaders' uniforms. Why the outrage over Shakira and JLo when there are SO MANY other things to be outraged about? Why were these women (all the original concerns were posted by women in my feed) so concerned about this? Why were they only concerned for their daughters? Why didn't they think their SONS being raised to see ALL of this was problematic?

While watching YouTube music videos on the treadmill a commercial for My Fair Lady at the Overture Center came on. Critics are already celebrating it. It's a popular play. The juxtaposition was maddening. Apparently it's okay for MEN to control women's lives. To decide that how they look and the way they support themselves are not appropriate. To take steps to manipulate them into changing themselves to conform to how men want to see them. Sure. That's great. But two multi-talented women who decided for themselves how to share those talents with the world should be silenced and their bodies should be hidden? That is REAL objectification.

Yeah. Nothing about the Super Bowl or the NFL aligns with my values. My kids had no interest in the Super Bowl so I didn't have to police their experience with it. If they HAD seen it I wouldn't object. I would have embraced having a conversation about all the problems with the spectacle and the organization that runs it. I would have faced the importance of ethnicity in the debate. I don't think we live in a post-racial society and it's definitely not color-blind. I would have celebrated two gorgeous women shaking their asses off with a healthy dose of critical analysis. Because those are my values.