It’s 2019 and women are all over the world preaching about equality, empowering one another, and women’s rights. More often than not, I find that women feel more comfortable speaking up and speaking out when other women are being held down from their liberties and freedom. But, as quick as we are to speak up against injustice against other women—we’re equally as quick to judge them for the way in which they live their lives.
When it comes to social media, we have the ability to get a taste of other people’s lives through words and photos. Obviously, people choose how they want to be seen on social media by deciding which photos to post and what to write. Women, for example, like to post photos in which they look and feel their best—obviously. And, if they choose to do so in poses that may seem provocative to you or outfits that seem revealing to you—who said it’s your business to comment on it?
So often, women will post photos that make them feel empowered and strong—and, if that means embracing their sexuality and their bodies, then it does. Why is it your problem if another human being decides to post a photo they like on their social media profile? Is this photo physically harming you in any way? Is it affecting your life in any shape or form? More likely than not, the answer to these questions are both “no.” Therefore, it’s not your place to judge them, comment on the photos, or “report” them for any reason at all.
Part of the women’s movement is not only about equal rights and taking “back” certain liberties from the patriarchy, but it’s taking back female sexuality from men, too. For so long, men have used women’s bodies for their own consumption. From TV shows to advertisements to film. I was in undergrad when I read about Laura Mulvey and “the male gaze.” The male gaze, in media theory, is “the act of depicting women and the world, in the visual arts and in literature, from a masculine, heterosexual perspective that presents and represents women as sexual objects for the pleasure of the male viewer.”
By judging women for embracing their sexuality and taking back their sexuality, we conform back into this pre-women’s right’s movement notion of objectification of the female body. That, women, are only showing their body off for the male consumption and not for their own confidence, happiness, or pride. We perpetuate the mentality of the patriarchy and the mentality that a woman is only put on this earth for men.
It’s time to stop allowing women to be judged and labeled as something derogatory because they are happy and confident in themselves and their bodies. In fact, in this new era of the “empowered female,” it’s time we stand up for each other, instead of bringing each other down. I’m sick and tired of someone viewing another woman on Instagram and—due to the outfit she’s wearing—call them a “slut” or a “whore.”
These words have consequences and, in fact, are perpetuating a male-dominated culture of holding down women and allowing them to solely be known by these male-ego centric standards. It’s time to put an end to it. Stand up for your fellow sister, no matter how she chooses to live her life.