Prompt #6

Women are most commonly either sexualized by media or criticized for their perceived sexuality. Even in occupations, like in political positions, where being overtly sexual is frowned upon, women are still seen as sexual objects and judged based on their perceived femininity. The media will criticize Krystal Ball for taking pictures that they deem too risqué, and at the same time the same media outlets will criticize Elena Kagan for looking too “manly” and not presenting an appearance of femininity.

In Ball’s case, many people form their opinions of her based on personal pictures of her home life instead of her ability to act in a political position and the authority she can express to accomplish political agendas. The pictures that people take offense to aren’t even socially unacceptable pictures for the majority of people, yet that same majority is judging her quite harshly. I don’t hold candidates that I support politically to a higher casual-setting social standard than I hold my friends or family members. As long as no one is behaving in an obscene manner and all necessary body parts are covered, I don’t see anything as being too sexually explicit for my friends or for business professionals after hours. Clearly not everyone has the same standards of obscenity, but that standard should be steady across the board, whether the opinion is of a friend, family member, or business professional.

The real issue at hand seems to not be the fact that she acted in this way, but the fact that pictures were taken and seen by the voting public. With vastly expanding social networks this is a fairly new issue, but it’s not one that will go away any time soon. In fact, it will only grow worse. Currently most politicians are too old to have been involved with a social network before his or her career. They know what they should and should not put on the internet for the voting public to see, and they are highly unlikely to incriminate themselves by posting something they are aware can be damaging. As long as that generation is in power, the privacy of social networks will only occasionally come into play.

However, as current politicians retire, younger and younger candidates are cropping up to hopefully fill those positions. This upcoming generation had networks like facebook and myspace with which they had the opportunity to completely embarrass themselves earlier in life. Teenagers and young adults, possibly with no desire to enter into politics or another business setting might not consider all of the possible consequences of posting pictures that visually represent immaturity. As a 21-year-old college student frolicking in the snow in a tank top and miniskirt, a picture to remember the moment probably seems innocuous or even like a fantastic idea. But if those pictures came to light ten years later when that person tries to advance in the business world, it is perceived completely differently.

More and more people with pictures showing lapses in judgment will try to achieve high statuses in politics and business because the generation that didn’t have that problem is aging out. It’s important to keep in mind that the current businesspeople and politicians were not necessarily more mature or conservative in their personal lives, but it just wasn’t as easy to document and share those moments with the world. Professionals should be judged on their professional activities as long as their personal lives exist within legal boundaries. However, a simple fact is that they’re not judged solely on their ability to excel in the workplace, and younger generations need to be aware of their current activities and how those activities will inevitably reflect on them later in life.