Is Western media persuading young girls everywhere to be reckless? Has the fight for female empowerment swung wildly into a lost territory of irresponsibility and extreme behavior as the world waits for the next ridiculous media frenzy surrounding Britney Spears or Lindsay Lohan?
In her highly-acclaimed book, “Prude: How the Sex Obsessed Culture Damages Girls (and America Too!), Carol Platt Liebau explains why young girls in today’s world would rather be sexy than intelligent or virtuous. Her writing has reawakened the debate about how mass media objectifies women, a debate that is now relevant to Egypt as well.
In today’s society, it is cool to be out of control. Surveys find that young girls strive to be the party girls they see on glossy magazine covers. In her 2005 book “Female Chauvinist Pigs, Ariel Levy says we are living in what she describes as a raunchy culture.
This real-life travesty is satirized in American movies like “Mean Girls (2004) and the cartoon series South Park. In a telling 2004 episode, a parodied Paris Hilton opens the Stupid Spoiled Whore store in South Park mall selling seductive clothing and pornographic toys to girls. What’s funny is that it is almost true.
While South Park may not be as easy to come by in Egypt (yet), there are plenty of other provocative shows readily available on satellite TV. One could even argue that the lack of satire and English slang-literate censors may make these media messages far more dangerous, especially to girls in their formative years.
Take, for example, “Daddy’s Spoiled Little Girl on MBC 4. The title speaks for itself: The reality show features American girls who get whatever they want by whining and batting their eyelashes. But what happens to the message when the local graphic omits the word “spoiled from the title? The joke is lost when it is globalized and the negative connotation vanishes.
A recent Wall Street Journal article reports that two-thirds of American women surveyed said they were “very or “extremely willing to marry for money (basically going from daddy’s spoiled little girl to husband’s spoiled brat). The article rehashes the controversial Craigsllist personal ad earlier this year by a New York woman looking for a boyfriend who makes at least half a million dollars a year. One respondent called her beauty an unwise purchase since it is a “depreciating asset.
At least the American media has reached the comfort level of self-condemnation. And at least the airwaves are censored by native English speakers at the Federal Communications Commission.
In Egypt, the rhetoric seems to focus more on the ill effects of music videos. In a popular 50 Cent rap song played in local cafes and on a current Mazzika promotion campaign, the coy female singer sings in the chorus, “One taste of what I got, I’ll have you spending all you got. And I thought this was a conservative culture.
This is the dangerous, extremely liberal culture Liebau is describing in her book. Girls today think of emancipation as freedom from rules, expectations, modest dress and class. As pole dancing becomes a health fad and pornography a pop culture, we seem to be moving towards a world of unhealthy extremes.
If actions speak louder than words, Egyptians are quite happy with the media infiltration. In 2004, Arab music satellite channels were saturated with Egyptian music videos carrying the same risqué images – and they’ve flourished, to say the least. As of 2005, 90 percent of Egyptians had a television set.
Western media outlets are carrying out anonymous interviews in Arab countries, reporting that pre-marital sex in Egypt is on the rise. So is reconstructive hymen surgery.
Ashleigh Brilliant explained it well, “The trouble is that sex is a force of nature, and reason is not.
Media is giving kids this crazy idea that sex is a means to an end, a tool to gain power. Those who are able to form a solid sense of worth in the meantime should consider themselves lucky.
