The rise of the ‘Raunch’ Culture

I first noticed it several years ago. I would flip channels on the television and look at female strippers giving lap dances. I would flip the channel and see babes in tight, tiny dresses jumping up and down. Britney Spears was becoming increasingly popular and increasingly unclothed. Charlie’s Angels, the film came in and everybody was talking about it. There is so much to talk about. The way we are all exposed to soft porn on a daily basis. From television to magazines, from movies to radio jingles. This does not end here. When we walk down the road in a not so traditional area but an area which is considered ‘hip and happening’, you will realize that there are teens and young women, the occasionally ‘wild’ fifty year old – wearing nice low cut jeans paired with miniature tops. Was all this seen some 25 years ago as well? I don’t quite think so from what I have heard. Where are we all heading? Is this all just modernization or just another generation change? If so, why don’t I feel a part of it?

Some odd things were happening in my social life too. People I knew (female people) liked wearing these skimpy clothes and going out with different men on different nights. It was sexy and fun, they explained. It was liberating and rebellious. Was it? Is this the way they really wanted to rebel. I realize while I am writing this that many may have a viewpoint. A lot may disagree. But I have seen it with my own eyes and heard it too.

What is going on? I grew up watching my mom, who hardly ever wore make up; to a generation who did and now a generation who just has different view points. I am a part of it. But I still am not. What is going on?

What is almost surprising than the change itself is the responses I got when I spoke to people about it. The new ‘raunch’ culture didn’t mark the death of feminism. Apparently, it was evidence that the feminist project had already been achieved. ‘We earned the right to look at men and men’s magazine and are empowered’, said a friend.

Women have come so far, I learned, we no longer need to worry about objectification and misogyny. Instead it is time for us to join the pop culture, where men have been enjoying themselves all along. We do, after all see women going out more often these days. Drinking, partying, smoking etc. Doing all that was considered a taboo at some point in time. So is it just a change in time? Or like I said, that the feminist project has already been achieved?

While just speaking to a friend, about what they get out of this culture, I realized its not only about being sexy and noticed but its also about being ‘one of the guys’. Talking like them, acting like them and drinking like them. It was women empowerment!

But just because we are post doesn’t automatically mean we are feminists. There is a widespread assumption that simply because my generation of women have the good fortune to live in a world touched by the feminist movement, that means that everything we do is magically imbued with its agenda. It doesn’t work that way. ‘Raunchy’ and ‘liberated’ are not synonyms. It’s worth asking how far we have come, or how far we have left to go.

Is this the new form of rebellion today??