This is going to be completly my own rambling, my personal stand point… free from Freud, Lacan, Derrida, Deleuze, Kant etc
Initially, in the beginning of Romance (1999) by Catherine Breillat it was screaming in my mind, just LEAVE PAUL! Stop torturing yourself!! You don’t need shit from that male model!
It was in a way, kind of painful to watch because, as blantant as the truth may be, it is also sadly very realistic. So many of my friends have whined abot how they never get enough attention and commitment from their boyfriends…toturing themselves to no end…
When she starts getting involved with that stranger at the bar i thought…great! go ahead! i mean she has needs, that guy is on some power play, witholding sex from her…
BUT as the movie progresses, and she gets involved with him, and when she says she does not like to see the face of the person who is “stuffing” her…i thought uh oh, something is wrong…
It somehow becomes a bit clearer when she gets involved with the headmaster…her sexual encounters sort of liberate her to a certain extent while to the males, they are controlling her…
The bit where the guy offers to pay her to “eat her” and then procceds to rape her was really intense…and for that moment her body seems to become like a universal female body, abused and treated like “meat”…
There were bits that were rather laughable but overall i felt that in no way was it pornographic. The exposure of the male and female bodies, the sex scenes were necessary to get the point across and explain what is going or rather attempt to make sense of what is going on in her head… The final scene with the birth bit was a bit FULL ON though…
Well…that is that… i have been struggling with the whole female/feminist thing for quite some time… had discussion with friends and read up on it… my conclusion and my very own personal opinion is that in now way can there ever be true equality because of how we are physically built and emotionally wired…
(side track)
This book: Female Chauvinistic Pig by Ariel Levy is a fun read 
I did encounter briefly the whole 1st – 3rd wave feminisim somewhere else before…(courtesy of week 7, contemporary cultural studies powerpoint lecture)
The first wave had its origins from the modern Western feminism… Tied to the ideals of the Enlightenment, Emancipation and the Late-eighteenth century public sphere described by Habermas…Involving Women’s journals, Movements for women’s education.
The second wave was a personal yet politically aimed…tended to emphasize the commonalities of women’s oppression, in order to establish that male domination was systematic and affected all women’s lives…and the neglect of differences between women, such as race and ethnic identity, class, nationality, sexuality. It was politically because it rose out of the Civil Rights and anti-war movements in the late1960s…and they organized and campaigned on issues such as equal pay, abortion, health care and domestic violence.
The third wave range of feminist positions that emerged in the 1980s, partly in response to perceived limitations of second wave feminism. Challenging “essentialist” definitions of women, employs post-structuralist definitions of gender, queer and post-colonial theory. In popular culture, third wave feminism manifests itself in celebrations of ‘girl power’, sexual independence, new forms of pleasure and resistance.
(the above is just a VERY majorly summarized version)
Yes, now to talk about the human body… as females, we have the breasts and vagina, and we produce oestrogen, males have their scrotums and male penis organ and produce testosterone. Fundamentally to begin with physical changes are already there (not unless you go for a sex change operation, even then, its not the same… cause it is not real…)
Not to mention Language , ever noticed how WOMAN has MAN in it…
Till this very day, in today’s society like it or not IF a male has had multiple sex partners he is “a stud” “a player” “the master” or what not BUT IF it is a female, she is loose, cheap and slutty … my friends input on this bit is that: as females, the dick ENTERS the vagina, the dick is external so we as females are letting something INTO us and unlike the dick that can be washed, the vagina cannot be “flushed”… (apologies for all the references to the anat of the body)
Physically a guy can be tall short fat thin etc but a woman just has a “mould” “frame work” to fit into, no unwanted hair except for some places that matter, well preened, color coordinated, well accessorized, smell good, be willing to understand because we are the softer more emotional ones…Like animals in the wild, if you want a mate, you have to suit up, emit the right signals and use your body to “speak”…
Then there is the business of child bearing and period cycles, emotionally sorry to say this but females are not structured to be hard hearted, cold, “wham bam good bye”, they may convince themselves they can do so, but eventually that facade will break down and they will regret it, ending up feeling cheap…
We as females have more to loose as well such as the chances of unwanted pregnancy… No matter how succesful you are, high up on the power ladder, how fat is your bank account, IF you are not married, there is something wrong, if you are not a mother you life is not complete. For a guy its alright, he is just work driven, maybe he has commitment issues…(geez)
Ok honestly not that i am condeming the male population becasue they to, have their own issues, ultimately, when every pro and con is broken down, women, have to accept and embrace…
See, we are able if we choose to, to doll ourselves up with make-up and cover up flaws, we can get what we want because, lets face it guys are sometimes easier to deal with then girls, we may be bitchy but we stand together (most of the time), guys can’t openly powder their noses or preen (though it is something that is slowly changing), guys cannot afford to be too emo infront of their mates or they are seen as sissy, they cant be too accomodating because they will be called henpeck etc etc
Being male or female, we just have to learn to use what we have to our advantage:) aint it all about survival of the fittess? Lets not whine about this and that… As females, we have come a long way from the struggling, suffering females of the past and we have those who fought for our rights to thank…
As for film, poems, novels, magazines which seem to objectify woman, making use of the female body, in this day and age, SEX sells, instead of seeing it as being ‘gazed’ why not see it as being admired, appreciated, glorified, i mean heck, isnt it amazing how the female body can evoke such emotions and debate?
In all honesty, girls, when you see a guy with a cute butt, hot abs, drop dead gorgeous eyes, hair or whatever, just glancing or even “oggling” at him just because he is like a piece ‘eye candy’ is not a sin…It is an equal playing field out there, we objectivy men as well. Haven’t we all watched movie’s just because say Hugh Grant is in it or something…
Its tough just being HUMAN, there are worst stuff going on in the world like religions gone wrong, bigger ozone holes, gender becomes an issue in say abuse, age old traditions that favor males over females etc i guess…
(on a happier note, KOREAN! HONG KONG! THAILAND! films next 3 weeks woohoo)
if only we could have done films from taiwan and japan too! i know pretty little about their political films, the genres (movie wise) that i have watched are usually romance, action, horror …
frankly, i started with japanese, taiwanese, korean and hongkong drama serials
these 4 countries *in sequence, each had this “wave” in singapore, television stations, cinemas, music shops and memorabila shops had their share of the pie when it was in “fashion” yea…
