Thinking about if there's any link between unequal pay and the rise of vulgar content in social media.
We are living in a society where everyone is a social influencer!
Some love the word 'influencer' as dessert and some sniff their nose. Well, I don't have any problem with the word but what they replicate. Because most of the time they influence for their own benefits.
I'm not talking about any specific gender but in general. The rise of social media also forces the generation to express their life in a vulgar way. You may have different thoughts but in general, this is what I see and find. From the dress to body language, from values to behaviors everything seems so vulgar these days.
Maybe I'm old school that why. But again, this topic was making brain food for me. I was thinking, why? Why this is happening? Why did all of a sudden in a few years, we started to act like that?
Yes, I approve and accept that there are many other causes and reasons behind this social change. And I believe unequal pay of men and women is one of them.
How?
This is where I'm going to be gender-specific. But don't get offended rather think deeply if there's any connection and what we need to do to solve this. Because how we are doing things may not bring a solution but will make the matter worse.
Women still don't get equal pay as men do. My thought is, women are using social media as an alternative for their source of earning as they don't earn equally. And it's a great alternative actually. But we need to think of what we are presenting. It's easy to show ourselves in a sexually vulgar way, it brings much more attention in no time, with less effort. But making the long road for our future general is not easy.
Every single day we are making our private life public in many ways through social media. From my understanding, people tend to share things they are not supposed to. Influencers are becoming millionaires. That's not my headache. But I'm more concerned about what footsteps we are leaving behind. If this act will narrow the path of equal pay!
By saying this thing, I'm not generalizing the whole thing. But I believe, this is a fact just like many other facts.
What do you think?
I think partially that pay has nothing to do with this although some end up looking forward to it. Some Ladies (forgive me if this sounds offensive) just don't think of the general consequences of their actions while others are just to hooked on chasing cash. Yes a woman's strongest selling point is her gender.
But sometimes, they just chase after the few minutes of attention forgetting it may incur bad consequences.
I enjoyed reading your post. It does point out a lot of the misconceptions we have today.
I got your point. As I said, it's not the major factor but I believe it passively works as an influence.
There's nothing to be offended, we know it's true.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. :)
❤️
Thanks :)
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Two points: I think your idea is the same reason why MLMs (Multi Level Marketing companies, like Herbalife and Avon and things like that, where you try and sell products to your friends/have sale parties/recruit friends to sell too) target primarily women as their sellers. The thing is most people lose money with these companies, but they target the vulnerable people who need money, and people who need to be able to work from home (so, a lot of mothers get taken in because they have kids and can't afford daycare to take a regular job).
While "vulgar" is subjective, it's really patriarchy that lends to that more than anything. Someone made the point once that media/advertisements that are targeted to men, if it's men in the photo, they're usually big, burly, strong, hyper masculine, etc. But if it's targeted to women, and it's men in the photo, they look either dressed up and handsome or gentle and kind. There were two photos of Hugh Jackman to illustrate the point: one of him on a men's fitness magazine where it was him shirtless with big muscles and veins and sweat, and one on a women's magazine where he was wearing a pastel sweater and smiling and looking like someone's dad. Same guy, two very different portrayals, depending on who the target audience was. I mean obviously there are exceptions to this, but you get the idea.
This applies to how women are portrayed in media, of course, and if the target audience isn't gender-specific, it's generally more targeted at men; so, women are generally portrayed as beautiful and sexy. We had commercials for a burger restaurant that were of a pretty woman eating a burger in various suggestive ways in the back seat of a car, for crying out loud. Women who are given a lot of agency/power and not there to look pretty often get a lot of backlash - like Star Wars fans who harassed the lady who played Rose in the new trilogy so hard she got off social media and her role was actually diminished in the last movie. They were mad that her character robbed Finn of his big Hero Sacrifice Moment (I don't know if you saw the movies or not), and so they harassed the actual actor about it!
Anyway, as I said, "vulgar" is going to be subjective, and I'm for people celebrating their body or having fun with makeup if that's their thing; the body itself is not "vulgar." The difference is, I think, when people feel like they have to look "sexy" or they only get views if they do certain things. Like I just want people to be able to create content that they want to create. If they're a body painter who does amazing art on naked bodies, awesome, that's not vulgar at all. But if they feel pressured into doing things they wouldn't otherwise want to do in order to get followers, then I feel like that's sad and speaks to how society treats women.
Again, I'm sure there are guys who do this too, but generally that will probably end up in different ways, like, "let's do dangerous stunts for views" instead of "let's be sexy for views" more often.
People are expected to sell their bodies for money, whether that's ruining your health working in a coal mine, or showing your breasts online, it's still "selling your body." Capitalism treats this as normal, and it's only social judgement that alters how we view it (we'll call it "selling your body" if someone does sex work, but not if they are getting injured playing sports, for example, but it's still selling your body either way, really). We tend to morally condemn the ways that women have traditionally had opportunity to do so, and ignore it and think it's fine in the traditionally men's ways. That's bad for both men and women, if you think about it - women are being condemned for just trying to survive and men are expected to continue harming themselves doing dangerous work without question.
Yes, I totally agree with you. Vulgar is subjective.
This is what I intended to say.
You have discussed the thing from a different angle where my point was only social media specific. We understand what's going on outside the line of social media. There are many factors that influences people to behave like that. Another thing I need to make clear that this is not a gender specific thing. But when it comes to women, maybe it's related to our pay system.
Anyway, I agree with your points. Thanks for sharing your broad analysis. I enjoyed reading it.