We Need to #AskHerMore Louder Than Ever

In light of the politically, socially, and culturally unstable nightmare that was 2016, women need empowerment now more than ever.

Last year could have gone a very different way. At the end of a tumultuous and frighteningly dark election cycle, we could’ve celebrated. There could’ve been a reality in which we’d be living in an America soon to be governed by a competent, respectable, respectful, hard-working, intelligent, fearless woman.

But millions of Americans couldn’t, or more accurately, wouldn’t, bring themselves to vote for her, not necessarily because she was questionable in her policy or unstable in her demeanor, but because of the permeating sexist rhetoric that surrounded her and was denied by (yet constantly perpetuated by) her opposers at every turn. It’s not an excuse. It’s not the cry of a sore loser. It’s simply a terrifying and undeniable fact of this current cultural climate: women are not taken seriously.

We do not, as a whole, allow women to be viewed as fully realized, autonomous human beings who operate outside of the context of the men with whom they associate. This man-made (pun definitely intended) inflicted invisibility is apparent everywhere: in rape culture, which blames women for the men who attack them; in the media, which often only portrays women to be objects of sexual or romantic desire; in the presidential election, where millions couldn’t separate Hillary’s accomplishments (and failures) from the mistakes of her husband; on the red carpet, where female actors and creators at the top of their game are only worth whatever they’ve chosen to wear that evening.

Where is our hope for a better, fairer, more inclusive future for our gender? It starts with asking her more.

So, in a world where we’ve proven that a woman- no matter how qualified and admired- cannot overpower a man- no matter how incompetent and reviled- where is our hope for a better, fairer, more inclusive future for our gender? It starts with asking her more.

It’s very easy to pretend not to understand where sexism comes from, or how it’s perpetuated. It’s an excuse I’ve heard more times in the past year than I ever have before- that the media’s portrayal of women informs the general public’s treatment and understanding of the way women function in our culture. Blaming the all-powerful, amorphous god that is “the media” for our inability or unwillingness to address our own responsibility for the problematic way we regard and treat women is easy, lazy, and partially accurate.

There’s no rational argument to be forged against the fact that we take our cues from pop culture at large, nor in the notion that culture is created by what is being demanded from the people of which it is comprised. As such, it seems so glaringly clear that the consistent portrayal of women as sexual objects and consumer products does not reflect the truth of our worth, but rather the brokenness of a system that only accounts for those at the top of its customer base: straight, white men.

Screengrab courtesy of Entertainment Tonight.

It’s just as easy and lazy to blame culturally embedded sexism entirely on men as it is for these men to blame the media, but again, it’s partially accurate. They’re both to blame, because they both constantly and cyclically inform each other.

Let’s break it down simply: sex sells. In the historical sense, this means that the female represented is to be objectified, and the male represented is to deserve and receive pleasure at her expense. With this model, sex sells because men believe women to be for consumption; everywhere they look, that ideal is being legitimized. If it weren’t true, they internalize, then why would there be so many cultural instances in which women were merely sex objects? There are so many instances because that’s what consumers (or more accurately, the most important demographic of consumers) have proven to be ready and willing to pay for. Studios make it, people buy it, studios keep making because they know people will keep buying, and so people come under the false impression that the acceptance and substantiation of their sexist ideals are because those ideals are correct, rather than just because producers takes their cues from what will make the most money. And so, as you may have noticed, this model leaves absolutely no room for minorities to either be considered in the creation of new media OR to be considered as consumers of new media.

Let’s break it down simply: sex sells.

Women, gay people, and people of color remain at the bottom of the pile, with very little media being curated exclusively for us or about us. We’ve not been considered as a major demographic because no one is making movies that are driving enough of us out to the theaters to make the significant amount of money that will change studios’ minds about our narratives being worth it. Movies aren’t made for us, so we aren’t seeing movies, so studios discount us as valid consumers and subsequently valuable members of the society of which we make up more than 50%. We’re just not the right 50%, it seems, and we are existing within a culture that systematically ignores our existence by refusing to tell our stories. We, in turn, are so uninterested in the mainstream stories they are telling that we revolt. We complain, we tweet, we boycott, we yell about how we can’t continue to be ignored. But the majority is yelling louder, and we need to change that. Not by out-shouting, but by getting them to shout the same things we are.

It seems tremendously insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but as we approach awards season, the disparity of treatment between genders becomes alarmingly apparent. It unfortunately can become easy to overlook the inequality among genders, races, and sexual orientations when it comes to character representation, especially when we’ve been conditioned to accept one type of character as the “norm.” But during awards season, when the alleged best of the best are paraded in front of our eyes in pared down top 5 lists, the contrasts are unignorable. And furthermore, when the creators, producers, and stars come out on the actual nights-of, and the myriad media correspondents descend upon them with question after question, if you’re not noticing a difference in the way men and women are treated, you’re willfully not paying attention. Which may be the case.

Screengrab courtesy of E!

We need to force ourselves to pay attention. We need to be aware of the internalized, often subtle changes we make when we switch between talking to men and talking to women. We need to realize that asking a male actor about his process but asking a female actor about what she ate before she arrived is disturbing. We need to understand that asking a male director about his inspiration but asking a female director how she manages to spend time away from the kids is no longer okay. We need to see, without willful blinders or excuses, that asking a man about the hard work that led him to where he stands now, being interviewed at the top of his field, but asking a woman what she’s wearing is no longer acceptable. We need to finally really examine the culture we’ve been building and feeding, and recognize that our complicity in the unfair treatment of women isn’t just allowing it to continue, but the reason it exists in the first place.

We need to be aware of the internalized, often subtle changes we make when we switch between talking to men and talking to women.

What would happen if we all refused to participate? What would our screens look like if we didn’t simply look at what’s being presented to us as an ideal, or accept that what’s being offered is innately correct? We live in a world where representation equals validation. When we see a cultural figure saying or doing something that we’d previously suspected was right, the mere fact that it’s on TV or in a movie gives us a boost of confidence. We’re empowered, because if the people on TV say it, that has to mean we were right. Done responsibly and consciously, this phenomenon can work to the advantage of underrepresented groups (see Ghostbusters). However, unfortunately, the way our culture trends is toward the blatant validating of negative stereotypes, which keeps the cycle going. The only way to break it is to get ahead of it. The only way to get ahead of it is to get the media-makers to recognize that women deserve to be treated like human people with thoughts and feelings. An easy way for this to happen in a way that guarantees millions will witness the fair treatment of a human lady? Ask her more.

In a world where even the absolute best, most qualified of us are still not perceived as trustworthy enough- or even just plain good enough- to rise above hateful, damaging, less-accomplished men, even the most arbitrary of movements can be revolutionary. We need to normalize the notion that women are people until it’s so internalized, resonant, and pervasive that this statement sounds as ridiculous to everyone as it does to feminists. We need to start where everyone’s looking, in the places we like to pretend don’t matter because they’re fictional but in truth, inform every aspect of our reality- pop culture. We need to demand characters and stories that account for the narratives of the members of the population besides straight white men, and then support those projects. We need to talk about women in a way that suggests they matter, and we need to talk to them in a way that allows them to show us just how much they do.

We need to ask her more, if only so that she finally has the opportunity to tell us more. And when she does, we need to not only be willing to actually listen, but to just keep on asking until she no longer needs to be asked in order to be heard.

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