Two MONUMENTAL things occurred for women in the last week or two. Unfortunately, more people, even females, know of one of the monumental occurrence, rather than the other. Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn has just come out, sending women into a blood-curdling and moist frenzy at the sight of their sparkly vampire, Edward Cullen. It made a mad killing (pardon the pun) at the box office; THE BELLA wedding dress, which is the most anticipated wedding dress of the year after the Duchess of Do-Little's wedding dress (aka Kate Middleton), has already inspired knock-offs which will be flooding the lucrative bridal market and filling the heads of starry eyed bride to be's with silky-lacy dreams. Need I continue on the number the Twilight books and movies have done to the collective romantic fantasies of women? They have turned sparkly vampires and muscly, stinking werewolves, into viable romantic partners for mortal females? I'm sure the release of this movie has not gone unnoticed.
Then the second event, which may have slipped the notice of many a woman: it was the day of November 25th, The International Day of Elimination of Violence Against Women. Such an important day, yet it doesn't receive half as much media coverage or leave an impression on the collective conscience, as those mind-numbingly silly Twilight books and movies have (must be pretty obvious by now that I dislike those poor excuses of literature and cinema, immensely)!
We are in the 21st century, yet horrific violence towards women still continue. Be it a woman who is being abused every which way by her husband/spouse; women being killed by their partners or families; to cultural notions of men being superior; to women being seen as easy & being preyed upon by sexual predators; to women being displayed as sexually available, quiet & submissive beings (a la Bella in Twilight); to women not being believed by judicial authorities (run predominantly by men) when they report their sexual assaults; to global sex trafficking of women to available "buyers"; to female rape being used as a weapon meant to cower and defeat war opponents.
Social support services for women in Canada are facing downsizing and cutbacks by government, thus leading to another method of exploitation of women. One of the many cases in point is the funding that was stopped by the Conservatives for the Sisters in Spirit national database for murdered, missing & cold cases of hundreds of Aboriginal women (Read more here: http://aptn.ca/pages/news/2011/02/03/conservative-mps-back-sisters-in-spirit-database-funding/).
These are the issues that the Nov 25th day is meant to raise awareness of; to keep fighting against the ignorance, which begets the violence, towards women; and fight towards the elimination of this kind of violence.
And then you have the Twilight books and movies, which promote the following, that takes the women rights movement back by 50 years:
1.) Revolve your entire life around getting the boy of your dreams, at the expense of having your own friends & social life, supports, paying attention to your family; developing a fulfilling career & gaining financial independence, instead of Bella depending on Edward to fill the emotional holes in her life & counting on him to always love her & take care of her.
2.) Constantly forgive & make excuses for a man who is emotionally abusing you & abandons you, by believing that he is doing this because he passionately loves you & doing it for your own good (just like Bella & Edward)!!! Kind of sounds like what a male spousal abuser will say to his wife, who he has gotten used to using as his door-mat.
3.) If the man is handsome enough, he can treat you however the hell he wants to, because hey....at least he is handsome and is a stallion in bed!
4.) Your boyfriend/partner watching you sleep & following you around, without your knowledge; should send tingles of lust up your spine, instead of tingling your fingers to dial the phone and call the police.
And there are many more instances of how these Twilight books, which millions of young females are reading & developing their ideas of a romantic adult relationships, are giving females the wrong idea of what kind of treatment they should expect and demand from their partners. These Twilight books & movies, entrench ignorance about the presence of violence in relationships (such as justifying any psycho behaviour as love and possessiveness), and teaches women to not recognize signs of abuse being committed by their partners. Keeping females dumbed down through ignorance, breeds the prime ground for violence to occur and for a woman to continue being abused. It teaches women to accept that violence can and will happen in any romantic relationship, until the woman can change the man for the better! Which is what Bella Swan did, ladies.
I'm not blaming the Twilight saga alone for promoting the idea of "abusive relationships are real relationships" myth & for all the other evils of the world. Nor am I saying that by engaging with this garbage literature and the far worse movies, all women will behave this way.
What I'm trying to say is that global media phenomenon like The Twilight Saga, will be read by many women, through which many women will learn that the Bella-Edward relationship is a star-crossed, ideal, love story; the women's ideas about relationships could be influenced; or it could confirm many womens' insecurities about relationships, because they may say, "Hey Bella, the not-so-popular, not-so-hot girl got to marry and bang the totally hot vampire, by being willing to give up everything for him!" These media products and many others like it breeds women's ignorance; women's quiet acceptance of their victimization; and women confused ideas about their sexuality!
These are what I feel takes the fight of elimination of violence against women, backwards!
I will FULLY blame the Twilight Saga for one thing though: they have turned vampires from the towering, sexy, mysterious and deliciously dangerous villains of literature, into puny, sparkly, whiny, brats with forever bed-head hair! I hate the Twilight Saga for this very reason too!
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