While the world has been rapidly progressing in the ways of technology, art, and modernization, there seems to be only minimal change being made on Western society's views on issues of class, race, and gender. Still today do we see attitudes like that of Holden Caulfield and Stradlater, where sexual consent is seen as optional, not only from person to person, but from positions of power like justice systems where inconsistent definitions of rape lead to only 25% of reported rapists being convicted.
Hero worship of men that produce popular media allows an unofficial forgiveness to be bestowed upon them, where because they make things that people like, they can get away with acts of horrible violence towards women and girls. Men like Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, David Bowie, Kobe Bryant, and Pablo Picasso who all remain(ed) improperly unpunished for the crimes they've committed.
However, even though it is very slow-moving, progress is being made. Popular media is no longer limited to "by men for men" or "by men for women" or "by women for women about women who only care about men". Many prominent female figures continue to adopt the label of feminist, abandoning the age-old and incorrect definition that summates to man hater, making the label less scary and more accessible to the people absorbing the media.
While this progression may be slow, it is a huge step up from the rule dominated 1950s, and still has more progressing to do. Hopefully, by the time my grandchildren are grown the Great American Novels will not be so relateable and will just be a memory of a perplexingly barbaric past.
Hero worship of men that produce popular media allows an unofficial forgiveness to be bestowed upon them, where because they make things that people like, they can get away with acts of horrible violence towards women and girls. Men like Roman Polanski, Woody Allen, David Bowie, Kobe Bryant, and Pablo Picasso who all remain(ed) improperly unpunished for the crimes they've committed.
However, even though it is very slow-moving, progress is being made. Popular media is no longer limited to "by men for men" or "by men for women" or "by women for women about women who only care about men". Many prominent female figures continue to adopt the label of feminist, abandoning the age-old and incorrect definition that summates to man hater, making the label less scary and more accessible to the people absorbing the media.
While this progression may be slow, it is a huge step up from the rule dominated 1950s, and still has more progressing to do. Hopefully, by the time my grandchildren are grown the Great American Novels will not be so relateable and will just be a memory of a perplexingly barbaric past.