I thought Celia brought up a lot of good points with the clips dealing with conflict between women – how a lot of times it is between women who are more sexualized, and women who are “virginal.” In a lot of Disney movies, especially, there is that contrast and the idea that the right woman is innocent, falls in love only once, marries young and yet is desired intensely by men.
The woman who isn’t wanted is the whore – the woman who takes charge of her sexuality and is proud of her appearance. Confidence isn’t much of a virtue it seems, in many movies that we show to young girls. Snow White is a pretty disturbing story on the whole – a dead girl is taken by a rich man to be his wife after her mother or step-mother poisons her because of her beauty. Certainly it’s not the most moral of tales. But it is the perfect example of what is valued in women.
I think that though “slutty” women are becoming more mainstream and women have more power over their sexuality, we as a society continue to teach young girls that it’s important to be virginal and pure for your husband and that girls who don’t do that aren’t worth much. Why is a girl’s worth so tied up in whether or not she’s had sex? In sex ed classes across the country, that’s what we’re teaching, and it’s incredibly disturbing.
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