Seeing Sexism In Everything

It's not hard to find sexism in the media. Although the signs are often subtle, you can find them if you look closely. But I wonder where the line should be drawn between identifying actual sexism and simply reading sexism into things when it's not really there.

Please have a look at this video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpDnr2s9yxQ

It features Feminist Frequency (as she calls herself) giving her analysis of the top 5 most "creepy and/or sexist" Christmas songs. Number 5 on the list is Maria Carey's "All I Want For Christmas is You" (roughly between 0:50 and 2:30). She says:

Is this really the message Maria Carey intended to convey? Really?

I highly doubt it.

I can't profess to know what was going on inside Maria Carey's mind when she thought up the lyrics to this song, but then again, neither can Feminist Frequency.

If I wanted to, I could put a spin on the same song that turns the tables onto men, objectifying and degrading them in a similar way as Feminist Frequency seems to think the lyrics do to women. Observer:

"The sinister lyrics of Maria Carey's All I Want For Christmas is You clearly suggests that men amount to no more than tools or 'possessions' for women to own. In stating that all she wants for Christmas is her man, Maria Carey is depicting men as Christmas gifts--wrapped up in a neat little bow--an a par with a material object sitting on a shelf in the mall, with a price tag and everything, waiting for someone to buy and own."

But seriously, is anyone going to take my interpretation seriously? Should we take Feminist Frequency's seriously?

In my opinion, Feminist Frequency has clearly crossed the line from identifying actual sexism to reading sexism into everything she sees (or hears).

But the larger question remains: where is this line? Where do we draw it? How do we know when a lyric, a billboard, a sound bite, a film, a book, an advert, a magazine article, really is saturated with sexist themes and messages and when it is really we who are so saturated (in our minds, that is) that much of this saturation seeps out onto the things we see, hear, read and encounter everywhere we go?

I feel this is an important question to answer because if we don't know where to draw the line, reading sexism into things when it really isn't there can be dangerous and unhealthy.

 

She's insane. She's sneaky, lying, hypercritical megabitch who claims to care for women and has collected thousands and thousands of dollars in donations, but hasn't done hasn't done shit for the world except bitch and complain about women in video games and movies every now and then. She's an intelligent SCAM ARTIST who is using the modern hysteria of victimhood of women in 1st world countries to make a living. When she first appeared in the scene she claimed to be a cool 'female gamer' who enjoyed video games and had some opinions on them, she later confessed in her videos that she actually wasn't a gamer and never was. In fact she hated video games. :/

Is it insane? Yes. But the support she has gotten speaks more about our culture's pathology than anything else.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRquPxdHNGE

 

At least they made the effort with this bra advert.

http://youtu.be/x0bC__I-Lqs