Color My Life With the Chaos of Trouble

I am a radio DJ at my college, and every week my cohost and I talk about news from the week and play songs that relate to them. This week I brought up the fact that I wanted to talk about the sexism that was displayed at the Oscars. She was extremely blasé about every quote I brought up and even defending him saying that “she laughed for five solid minutes” at a degrading joke towards Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, and Javier Bardem. Infuriated by her response, I have prepared this, which I plan on reading tomorrow morning on air. 

There is a fine line between being funny and being downright degrading. Seth MacFarlane’s Oscar hosting performance was straight up degrading. It objectified many different people, but most of the questionable cracks were directed towards women. Here’s the thing; it’s all fun and games until it’s destructive to an entire group of people. Women account for 3.5 billion people on this planet. If they are not valued as equal members of this society, but rather as objects, or as lesser beings, then we as a society are failing. If you do not think feminism affects your life, or involves you in anyway, you are wrong. If you tie feminists to words like “radical” “liberal” or “emotional,” do not let a patriarchal society’s bias sway you. Every person should care about this. You either are a woman or came from one. Think about this the next time you argue that feminism doesn’t matter or doesn’t relate to your life. The fact that myself and many other feminists feel the need to apologize for our beliefs is a direct and undisputable symptom of sexism.

The Oscars should not be a place where these unbelievably talented individuals go to be objectified down to pieces of meat that exist only for Seth MacFarlane’s pleasure. When you come out and your musical number is called, “we saw your boobs,” and goes on to list every woman who appeared nude in a film this year, it is downright debasing and humiliating. It makes it seem like they are a deviant subculture.  The women in those films did not appear as a pair of breasts for you to look at. That was not their function, and Seth MacFarlane literally just degraded them down to their bodies in one swift action. Bottom line: enough is enough. Perhaps this is a defensive action, because women are more becoming more powerful and more prominent in Hollywood. Perhaps MacFarlane was trying to assert himself as a man and put women “in their place.” Regardless of this futile and ridiculous attempt, I have faith that women will become more prominent and more powerful, not only in Hollywood, but also in Washington. Why? Because I am a feminist, and I have no apologies for that.