A lot has been accomplished in the past several decades regarding women’s rights, but there is still much to be done. In countries across the globe women struggle to be viewed as equals, and a recent event in Israel illustrates what we still have to overcome. A recent South Park episode illustrates where we’re trying to go.
Limor Livnat and Sofa Landver, the only two women serving in Israel’s Cabinet, have been removed from circulating Cabinet pictures by two Ultra-Orthodox newspapers. The Yated Neeman and the Shaa Tova, aimed at Orthodox readers, both found a way to keep their audience happy: Shaa Tova erased the women completely, while Yated Neeman replaced them with men.
The offense I take to that is not unlike the deeply ingrained offense Ultra-Orthodox men take to seeing images of women. They say they want to preserve female modesty, and not exploit women the way some other countries have. In the U.S. it is impossible to avoid sexed-up women beckoning from images everywhere. In Israel the women are just photo-shopped out. Where is the happy medium?
This is not the first time something like this has happened in Israel. During campaign season, pictures of female candidate Tzipi Livni were destroyed around Ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods. Livni is the leader of Kadima, which is the largest political party in Israel’s legislative branch of government, the Knesset.
Here at home things are quite different. There is way more than a mere acceptance of pictured women, there seems to be no shame in their sexual objectification. Even our female politicians are ridiculed and portrayed as irrelevant pieces of meat sometimes. Occasionally, however, I’ll notice something take a step in a more equal direction, and though some areas are still greatly behind, others are moving up to inspire real progress.
A recent South Park episode gives reason to believe that American media’s portrayal of women might be changing for the better. Always a good social commentary, South Park’s satirical humor has great underlying truth. No matter how obscene the journey is the kids usually make a good point. This episode’s point was that if men had the right to be open and laugh about farting, then women should have to same right to be open and laugh about “queefing.” I think the larger point was about rights and equality in general, but in South Park crudeness usually represents more sophisticated ideas.
At the end of the episode, “Eat, Pray, Queef,” all the men in South Park got together and sung a song about women-about how we are still oppressed and deserve equal rights. Photographs of real women- a scientist, a firewoman, a mechanic, a nurse, a doctor, a mother, an athlete, and Hillary Clinton-form a picture montage behind the choir; a choir so absurd, so completely ridiculing, that they can’t not be sincere.
Now would the Ultra-Orthodox be able to sit through the jokes? Would they be able to see the deeper meaning in them? I don’t know, but I somehow doubt this episode’s attempt at feminism would have flown among the Orthodox Israelis cutting women out of pictures.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t fly anywhere conservative around here either. The difference is that in Israel the Ultra-Orthodox folk are not equipped to deal with obscenity or objectification, or even shows that stray a little from the norm; unlike us they aren’t bombarded with raunch culture all the time, and don’t have the experience to automatically brush it off. Not that living in the states makes everyone an object-pursuing sex-fiend, but it does make most of us desensitized enough that no matter how conservative our upbringing, we should be able to sit down, look past the fart jokes, and absorb an intelligent message: the happy medium is still waiting to be found, all over the world.