Bad Girls: The media, sex & feminism in the 90s
By Catharine Lumby
Allen and Unwin 1997. 192 pp. $16.95 (pb)
Review by Corinne Glenn
Over the last two years, publishing houses have been rushing to provide books about young feminists and feminism of the '90s. Of these, Bad Girls would have to be the one that most fully represents the backlash against feminism and an organised feminist movement.
The book is built around the gross generalisations and stereotypes. For example, apparently Marxists in the '80s all wore Che Guevara T-shirts and Akubra hats, and all feminists who have a problem with pornography share Andrea Dworkin's view that "Pornography is the theory, rape is the practice."
In all the trendy jargon of communication and cultural theory, with many references to Foucault, Lumby tries to argue that sexist images of women in the media are in fact empowering. She denies the link between the media's portrayal of waif-like women as an ideal and the epidemic of eating disorders, describing this argument as an "Orwellian vision of female victimhood".
One of the most outrageous attacks is her critique of the Pat O'Shane decision, in which a judge used her discretionary powers to acquit five women charged with defacing a sexist billboard.
O'Shane, Lumby argues, is merely trying to replace the patriarchal reading of an ad with a feminist one. She argues that typical feminist readings depend on patriarchy to define them, and are unable to define women in their own right.
Lumby does not see the representation of women in the media as being defined by cosmetic companies or clothing manufacturers. Such theories, she argues are the result of "a pseudo Marxist critique of commodification".
According to Lumby it is not cosmetic companies telling women what to buy, it is the feminists. In Bad Girls, feminism looms like a spectre over a generation of women who have high self-esteem, are confident of their own sexuality and are eager to don lipsticks. Feminism is totalitarian and patronising toward young women because young women aren't really influenced by the media; the media are influenced by young women.
Lumby's main argument is that feminists do not see the public as being "image literate", that there are countless "readings" of any image, and while advertisers are providing multi-layered advertising, or TV is providing multi-layered programs, feminists are the only ones reading these images as sexist.
Lumby is much too intellectual a "reader" to examine the material culture that produces these images. Is it merely a "reading" that we live in a society where women earn 67% of the male wage, where they still do not have ready, affordable access to abortion, where the rates of domestic violence, sexual harassment and sexual assault are continually increasing?
Surely in a society where women are still being treated as second class citizens, the objectification of women in the media is not merely a figment of radical, separatist feminists?