A rebuttal of @poisesocial’s THE SILHOUETTE CHALLENGE. HOW CRAZY PEOPLE ARE TRYING TO MAKE US SOUND LIKE THE CRAZY ONES
So I came across your article on the silhouette challenge this morning and from the first few words, I concluded you were against it. My first instinct was, to jump and attack you. Of course you all hate women. We know. However, I decided to follow the link and read up the whole article. It was quite captivating I must confess and by the end I got to the end of it, I was in my feelings about the whole challenge. Maybe you were right after all...Maybe not.
Quick to catch my attention was this phrase “2:0 feminists ENCOURAGED the challenge UNDER THE GUISE OF WOMEN EMPOWERMENT”. The first problem I see here is women having to disguise and give a morally justifiable reason, before they indulge in sexual practices. I mean, it’s just sex. This is not expected of men. Men won’t be held to these same standards. They don’t give excuses as to why they indulge in sex however way they please. Does this mean what is good for the goose, is not good for the gander?
But assuming the excuse is women empowerment, let me give reasons why this is sexually empowering and I’ll quickly state that the highlighted statement has a seemingly mockery undertone, which of course is not new wherever women issues are discussed 😊. For years, women for religious and traditional reasons have had to be very conservative sexually. Sex was solely for the benefit of their husbands and for women, reproductive purposes. And for years, we know that women didn’t experience orgasm, didn’t enjoy sex. Women were raped by their spouses, should we mention the ills of child marriage which of course was solely done to women and its effect on them sexually? We have genital mutilation, breast ironing etc amidst other gory practices. All these in a bid to tame sexual desires IN WOMEN. For years, we know women have lived like this.
These women gradually over the years have become tired of these cages.
These endless sexual challenges, are not actually women showcasing their bodies. We stand in front of our mirrors 24/7 and know how our body looks to the last details.
It’s women telling you, “I will be sexual however I choose to be, whether you like it or not. I have the right to enjoy sex, have the right to expose myself, have the right to do what I want and I don’t owe you any explanation. You will try to police my sexual liberty but I’ll continue.”
This, is Sexually empowering.
Rather than see it as them being indisciplined, I’d say they’re exploring the limits of these new found liberty. And I can assure you that these challenges will keep coming. They won’t back down in fear of consequences. Women have been killed for simply being women. Men have raped women and killed them. When it comes to sex, women fear for their lives. So the excuse of it affecting their careers is a small price to pay.
Another piece of the article that caught my attention was the sympathy being extended to “MEN WITH GOOD HOME TRAINING WHO WERE CHIDED, DESPITE HAVING GOOD INTENTIONS”. Talking as a woman, I can assure you that most of these supposed good intentions are rather selfish intentions. Feminism would not be in existence if men were naturally interested in the wellbeing of women. It has never been the case and this challenge will not be the beginning of the long sought after revolution. Most of the men opposing this do so because; they expect women to be ashamed. Shame is the woman’s natural position. If she must be praised both sexually and otherwise, the man should do so. A woman is worthy only as much as a man says. If she’s free, let me determine how much of the freedom she gets. So how dare she expose what I am supposed to use as a comedic session while drinking beer with the boys? I mean she’s my property and now she’s putting out what is mine to behold, privately. What do I use now as a weapon against her? It centers around him, his want, his likes, his reputation. Reinforcing the idea that women are men’s properties.
“Men with good home training”, does it matter to you if she really is not concerned about the consequences of her actions? Are you okay and willing to respect the fact that she is comfortable with whatever the consequences of her being naked on the internet will be? Or do you naturally expect her to cower in shame and thank you for looking out for her, a weaker being, who is in no position to make sound decisions for herself because she’s...a woman...Weak, dull and incapable of understanding the gravity of her actions?
The answer is a resounding NO!!!
A good example was that of men who went as far as taking off the red lights from the videos.
Two guys “DEVELOPED AN APP” that could help take off the red light thereby exposing the naked body properly. This challenge is barely up for three days. An app has already been developed. To what end? This doesn’t come off as good home training. It comes off as abuse, as harassment, as someone trying to establish that he will always have THE power to humiliate you. The joke here is that I can assure you , these women really don’t care.
If they are complaining of their supposed privacy being tampered with, it is to prove how far men will go, just to show how much disdain they have for women. Trust me! For women who put out this much sexual content, they already weighed the consequences. They’re dead to shame. They don’t care.
What about CONSENT? A lady put out a clear video of her having sex. It is within her rights to do so. She owns it. You on the other hand, reserves the right to not see it. Twitter which is the platform for that gives you the option to regulate what comes to your timeline. You have the right to block, mute, or unfollow this person. Every social media platform gives you the right to regulate whatever content you see.
This same person goes on to post a silhouette video. She wants to be seen only as much as in a silhouette. If you want to see her nakedness, refer to her sex video. How does going as far as taking out the colour to reveal her nakedness not scream harassment and abuse? She is in the right frame of mind, she has the clear options and opted for silhouette. What exactly is the motive for that if not to “teach her a lesson”?
Do we mean that instead of punishing theives breaking into houses, we should punish the house owner for having a wooden door? Or should we blame the one who sprayed their clothes in the sun to dry for washing them instead of the thief who passed by and picked them? If the answers to these analogies are no, then we know who is the culprit here. And rather than carry on a culture that blames women and focuses on teaching them how to try to stay safe, WE SHOULD FOCUS ON TELLING MEN TO STEP BACK AND LET WOMEN DO WHAT THEY WANT. Everything, everyone is subject to consequences. Women will not be the first. So thank you for caring that we might be affected in future. We are aware, but we’ve chosen to go on still.
We should teach ourselves how to respect people’s choices even when it doesn’t align with ours, even when we have the best intentions.
Disney preaches this to us, women are damsels in distress who need saving. But the whole idea is always her needing a Prince Charming saving her so she remains indebted to him for the rest of her life.
But maybe and easier way is this, if we don’t put damsels in distressing positions, we will not need a savior Prince Charming. That is where the problem is, Prince Charming knows he will lose his powerful charm because it can only be displayed where a damsel is distressed. And so, the vicious cycle continuous😊.
There’s much still to be said. But this should suffice for now.
- BonjehGrace
POISESOCIAL'S RESPONSE TO THE REBUTTAL
First I want to applaud your approach of writing an article to respond to Wandji’s. It is what we need more people with a lot to say against our write ups to do.
Now, lets take a look at your rebuttal.
It appears from your very first statement that after reading the first few words of Wandji’s article, you activated rebuttal mode and therefore failed to grasp the message behind the article which is - the world is filled with both good and bad people. If you decide to put something out there on a place as public as the internet, just know that it will be for all good and bad people to use as per their character, hence the development of an app to unmask the silhouette videos. We may all want to rid the world of those bad people but we have been trying for millenniums. That we have made progress is not something I know of.
In your third paragraph, you write “But assuming the excuse is women empowerment, let me give reasons why this is sexually empowering.” You see how you substituted the women in women empowerment to sex? This goes to reinforce the very idea that the power of women is tied to their bodies and sex; an ideology that we are fighting against, a cause which the silhouette challenge is rather undermining. About the mockery undertone you identified in parts of the writeup, you are definitely talking about the fact that citing the silhouette challenge as a tool for women empowerment was found to be laughable and shaking my head-able by the author.
You write that “For years, women for religious and traditional reasons have had to be very conservative sexually. Sex was solely for the benefit of their husbands and for women, reproductive purposes.” I agree that in certain parts of the world, women have been denied the pleasures of sex. In those parts of the world, we have seen things like female genital mutilation and breast ironing which you mentioned. I will like to remind you that meanwhile women in such communities need to be emancipated, they constitute by far a minority of women. In most countries in the world, female sexual desires are not being tamed. Let us also not forget that there is a huge difference between sexual desire, sexual expression, and sexual irresponsibility.
You also write “These endless sexual challenges, are not actually women showcasing their bodies. We stand in front of our mirrors 24/7 and know how our body looks to the last details.” Which is what the article also touched on - the idea that all the challenges are for attention seeking and should be called that without trying to attach a women empowerment motive to it.
You go on to talk about the plight of being a woman and you list very many valid issues that women have faced in the past and continue to face today. Wandji’s article in my view, is basically just saying that the sexually oriented challenges do little towards women empowerment but rather more likely does it a disservice.
Most of your thinking can be summarized in one question you asked. You wrote “Do we mean that instead of punishing thieves breaking into houses, we should punish the house owner for having a wooden door?” And to that, I will ask you WHY THE DOOR IN THE FIRST PLACE? Of course, nobody should blame the house owner for not having an iron door. Imagine he has no door at all, someone will definitely ask “What did you expect?” Or “What were you thinking.”
Besides that, the rest of your rebuttal was talking about valid issues that should be addressed which were not the question Wandji was trying to answer. Summarily, the sexual challenges should not been talked of as a means of women empowerment. They constitute what we know in social media parlance as clout chasing and should be seen only as that.
- Norbert Foy