Breaking down gendered personhood

TED talks have long been fodder for conversation. Ranging in subject from issues of the environment to innovations in scientific research to social commentary, these speeches often offer a snapshot of the United States’ current state of being. One of the most talked-about talks in recent weeks was one given by Monica Lewinsky, famous for her affair with then-President Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, or, in her words, for having “taken wrong turns by falling in the love with the wrong person.” In the talk, Ms. Lewinsky broaches the subject of her experience in the wake of being branded as “that girl” with a candor that is striking in its courage. She then extrapolates outward to offer a critical look upon a society that perpetuates cycles of public humiliation.

What interested me most within this video was also discussed in a piece Ms. Lewinsky wrote months before for Vanity Fair, in which she writes both to illuminate her personhood and to criticize the double standard that emerged in the wake of the White House investigation, which left her virtually isolated. As she so eloquently writes: “not lying low had exposed me to criticism for trying to ‘capitalize’ on my ‘notoriety.’ Apparently, others talking about me is O.K.; me speaking out for myself is not.”

As Ms. Lewinsky discusses in the 18 minutes she spoke at the TED conference and in the rest of the Vanity Fairpiece, there are a number of intertwining issues at hand. I encourage you all to read her op-ed or watch her talk, but what struck me as most salient was this idea of a single-faceted personhood and an inability to rectify that for oneself in a way that is very gendered.

Much has been said about the heteronormative sexual double standard that persists in society and is intimately tied to the slut-shaming from which Ms. Lewinsky suffered. Men are expected to demonstrate their sexual prowess and are portrayed in the media as bragging about various “conquests”; women are cast in a pure, chaste role and must toe the line between being a “prude” or “bitch” (often because of an instance where she refused a man) and a “slut” or “whore.” This isn’t news to anyone, I’m sure.

What needs to be considered alongside this troubling dynamic is this idea that many of the actions Ms. Lewinsky would have taken to move on with her life were cast in a way that implies her taking advantage of a situation, when in fact the media itself was doing just that to her. Countless other examples exist of such hypocrisy, perhaps the most notable next to Ms. Lewinsky herself being Kim Kardashian.

A woman who in part owes her fame to a leaked sex tape, Kim has often been portrayed in a way that ignores her successful branding since. She has built an empire for herself, but that was largely ignored up until the point a successful man was attached to it; namely, Kanye. She became that “one good girl … worth a thousand bitches,” in the words of Kanye’s song “Bound 2,” where before she and her attempts to reconcile her personal sex tape’s wider distribution were cast in an unflattering, slut-shaming light. When people choose to try to knock her down a peg, then, they revert back to some of this rhetoric. Kanye himself perpetuates this trend for other women: he made comments saying that he needed to take “30 showers” after dating ex-girlfriend Amber Rose before he dated Kim, in part due to Rose’s past as a stripper. He implied this notion of “dirtiness” as one that derived from a woman’s general sexuality, deriding it when convenient, while conveniently forgetting about its hand in shaping his wife’s fame.

In an age in which we see private information ranging from sex tapes to passport numbers leaked and available for consumption, it’s important to regain the consciousness of thought that recognizes those on the other end as more than just “that woman” (as Ms. Lewinsky was famously referred to by President Clinton) or “that man.” This is important not only with regard to public figures and how they play into or break traditional gender stereotypes, but how those we “know” or simply “know of” play into or break our own biases and how we react in turn. This could serve as a grassroots effort to combat many of these harmful, perpetuated notions not only pertaining to gender, but to race, class, age, etc. It obviously is not an answer, but one way to react in an age, to borrow Ms. Lewinsky’s phrasing, of “mass humiliation.”

Kelly Hatfield is a sophomore from Medford, Mass. She can be reached at kellych@princeton.edu.