Teaching the Conflicts: Love and Helmbrecht ( Hyper Links)

When I began reading this article I will be completely honest, I was SOOOOOOO lost. But thanks to everyone posting before I finished it really gave me an insight and I was able to guide myself and find a way to make some sense out of this. Though I am not a huge fan of this article and not too much enthused about it, but I do understand the fundamental ideas about it. ( Just being honest)


In the beginning of the article both Love and Helmbrecht mention that being a third wave feminist in today's times is very difficult since there seems to be a lack of support. In the article they critique three different ideas. The musical artist Pink's song Stupid girls,  Dove's Campaign about advertising full figured women and portraying them as natural beauty, and last the movie The Devil Wears Prada.

They both start off with a quote,

The rap goes something like this: Older women drained their movement of the sexuality; younger women are uncritically sexualized. Older women  wont recognize the importance of pop culture;younger are obsessed with media representation. Older women have too narrow a definition of what make a feminist issue; younger women are scattered and don't know whats important.

This only implies that there needs to be much more education and exposure as to the issues women, and any underrepresented group is experiencing. The video below does a very good ob is briefly going over what feminists stand for, and how each one has their own identity.

Now to break down the three main critiques that were mentioned in this article, I'd like to begin with Pink's song Stupid Girls. For those of you who have not heard it, here is the YouTube Video,

In this video, the artist Pink is trying to tell the public that one does not need to conform to the ways of the media. Women can branch out and be themselves, and their personal identities as they chose. One does not have to conform to the radical consumerism, that the media has tried to implant that because you wear short shorts, having sex videos, have blonde hair and a small dog in a purse make you sexy. One needs to focus in building themselves as the individuals that they want to be seen in this world. Pink, mentions "My point is not that sexy is a bad thing; my point is that sexy and smart are not oil and water." She raise a very good point because females need to understand that just because the media is portraying females a certain way, by no means does that only say, that is the only one. Love and Helmbrecht also state, "...Melanie Lowe discovered that young women have learned a lot about their sexuality from the music and public performances of music icon like Spears." Pink wants to see females in powerful political roles, leading this country, not just having them believe that their only attribute is their bodies, and only to be used for sexual pleasure.

Love and Helmbrecht then go on to talk about the Campaign for "Real Beauty", for Dove's. Their real problem with this is that they were advertising full figured women, with supposedly no make up, no airbrush effect, just pure natural images. But Love and Helmbrecht critique it that, their products such as self tanners, skin tighteners and moisturizers are all for promoting false images in women. They both believed it was a true contradiction. Love and Helmbrecht believed this was all for a sales pitch, now women would go on and buy these products believe their natural abilities but really they are buying in to the consumerism idea. Love and Helmbrecht state that one, 

"Many young women of today consider their consumption of certain products that support “good” causes as one and the same with developing a critical political consciousness. This lack of truly grasping the issue, whether it be AIDS, sustainability, or breast cancer, limits both the social or environmental issue itself as well as the consumer. If the consumer’s foundation for understanding an issue is based upon and associated with the product they purchased,

there is a disconnect between buying the product and supporting the cause. . . . Society, and third wave feminists in particular, needs to understand the complexities of the issues within
society in order to truly change their community. The development of a critical social and political awareness is absolutely necessary to make change."

This very long quote (lol) basically breaks down to females needing to not just buy the product that's being advertised for a cause, and but to actually understand and do research in what they are investing their money in. People generally buy the product that is being advertised to them to take away the guilty feeling of not buying them, and having to go home with the idea that they did not help a general cause.

Lastly, Love and Helmbrecht gets right into the movie  The Devil Wears Prada. This one is pretty self explanatory, they are criticizing the main character in the film which is played by Anne Hathaway. Love and Helmbrecht  state that this character depicts the capitalist version of a post feminist discourse of empowerment. They both believe that the film buys into a consumerism view on how women need to be materialistic to show that they are successful. That it is a matter of imagine and not a matter of intellect.

Thoughts for class: Wow this was a lengthy post. How can society finally accept that average American models are truly not average American figures? Who gets to chose whats beauty? Why is it that for every charity there needs to be a sales pitch? Cant one just want to simply donate, and how can that be motivated? As much as the media is a heavy impact on today's society, its truly sad to see that sex sells, and only will that generate more sales to the business man's pocket. How can be move away from that ideology, and move into something that will be much more beneficial to our society?