Leonore Tiefer Presentation Blog #13 Frank DiMaria

So, I went to see Leonore Tiefer who spoke on a wide variety of issues concerning the ideas of gender and societal roles in our society today. Her resume so to speak was quite impressive and it appeared that she really was quite passionate about what she was doing. Though I am not as passionate about the issues Tiefer spoke about, it is always wonderful to me to see someone who is so passionate about anything. I really enjoyed the presentation as well and I felt that she clearly laid out her points and did a good job teaching about her “New View campaign” into women’s sexuality. I also thought her section about American consumerism in the buying of sex pharmaceuticals was interesting. Every time we turn on a television we see a commercial for some kind of Viagara pill. Every ad presents what a perfect human specimen should look like. We as a whole are so influenced by our media that I can see why a woman would want a surgery like the ones Tiefer was talking about. It seems our society is genetically programming people to feel certain ways about themselves and in turn people look for a quick fix. Not only is this mentality in ads, but whole programs are based off this concept; plastic surgery reality shows for instance. Before this presentation I didn’t even really know that this type of surgery was being done. It’s quite scary to think about everything we as a society buy into and believe. I also want to make the point that Tiefer, like many other activists stressed the idea of a societal change, that is in other words changing the rules of society, rather than fixing each individual. As society changes we buy into it more and more. Like Tiefer said, it’s a vicious cycle of what’s in, fads and so on. Her point that medicine in sex has been occurring really only in the last twenty years is quite interesting to think about. We have come a long way from television shows that showed a married couple with two separate beds like Leave It to Beaver, but is the way we are addressing sex really the right way? Have we really progressed? In my opinion I think sexual expression has its place, but people, modernly, buying into a pill solution in accordance to fixing insecurities should consider what they are really doing.