New Year, Same Old Issues

Happy New Year Everyone! Another post to bring your mind back to the awful state of earthly affairs that continues to plague society today on this brand new day and year- sorry! That's what you get when you follow the blog of a feminist who reads the news everyday (:p)

Anyway, today's post doesn't come from the news (although I just read in the New York Times that the 270+ girls kidnapped by the Boko Harem in April are still missing... my guess is they have since been sold to slavery, and my heart aches for them). Rather, it's about how numbed society has become to using women's bodies. Take, for example, last night's television program, New Year's Eve with Carson Daly. I was at a friend's house celebrating the New Year, and we began watching the show around 11:40pm. There, on the host platform, sat Daly, actors Terry Crews and Ken Marino, and (gorgeous) model Chrissy Teigan, hurdled around a fire to discuss what went down in 2014.

Everything's cool, except that poor Teigan wore a short dress that exposed her bare thighs, and an unbuttoned jacket that covered her bare hands and shoulders but did nothing for her bared upper chest area. As for accessories, she had gloves and knee-high boots on (thank goodness!) but no hat--didn't want to mess up her beautifully-styled hair, you know.

In contrast, her fellow hosts, all male, were bundled up to the max! Hats, gloves, scarves, layers of tops... the only skin exposed to the camera were their faces. Terry Crews tore off his shirt after the countdown (ha ha ha), but put it back on soon afterward because, guys, DECEMBER NIGHTS IN NEW YORK CITY ARE FREEZING COLD.

So, why is it that women are expected to freeze their butt off for television, but not men? Double standard yeah?

I don't dress celebrities so I don't know how the process goes, but I'm guessing that it's a negotiation that takes place between the producers/ crew and the celebrities. In all likelihood, the producers asked Teigan to expose a little more skin, and she agreed to it, so it's not as if she was coerced to do so.

I just think that we have become a society that is too used to this double standard of using women's body to "oomph" the sex appeal of a television program in order to increase viewership. I'm not saying that to solve this, 1) we ask the men to strip too, OR 2) women should all start dressing in dowdy, baggy, long-everything clothing. No, no, no. Even I, as a heterosexual woman, can appreciate a little sex appeal from women (emphasis on the word "little").

"Wait, how can you as a Mormon feminist say things like that?" you ask. My reply is long and complicated, and I can elaborate more on another post, but the short answer is: Look, in an ideal society, women wouldn't  need or want to use their bodies to fight for a place at the entertainment table. Unfortunately, we live in a fallen, carnal world where human beings, male and female, are visual creatures. And because I personally am an extreme realist, I understand the power of visual appeal. Even church leaders have commented that we need to take care of our physical bodies and strive to look our very best (see last 3 paragraphs of this article), albeit in a modest manner.

However, there needs to be a balance, and I don't think it is too much to ask that Teigan bundle up a little more for a) practical purposes of health preservation. There is no way she was not freezing her tail off dressed like that; and b) to combat this double standard. Surely she can still remain appealing (and even sexy) without having to resort to skin-baring on that frigid winter night.