Pro-choice activists have emphasized that the Supreme Court’s decision will have a more profound impact on those with less economic resources. There’s irony in the Supreme Court opinion being leaked during the Met Gala, with its theme of “Gilded Glamour,” a period in American history where wealth became more concentrated and inequality grew more extreme. “You can celebrate women at the Met Gala, but if you are also telling them they can’t control their own reproduction, it’s not celebration, it’s objectification, pure and simple,” she says. While the Met Gala may seem like a harmless celebration of fashion and celebrity, UCLA gender studies professor Juliet Williams says the spectacle can also reveal hypocrisy. ‘It’s not just trying to catapult us into the past. It’s coming from all sides,” says Chelsea Ebin, a political professor at Centre College in Kentucky and co-founder of the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism. And then we see the supremacism of heteronormativity in the bills targeting trans kids and LGBTQ folks. We see what’s happening with Amber Heard – that is male supremacy. “We see the battles around critical race theory – that is white supremacy. Many marginalized communities, who are already experiencing a legislative assault on their rights, fear what comes next. Women aren’t the only social class that feels threatened.
Wade and the public’s treatment of actress Amber Heard during her defamation trial with Johnny Depp are all influenced by misogyny – explicit and internalized. When women break the unspoken rules about their bodies, like talking about abuse while not being the perfect victim or by having an unwanted pregnancy, we quickly realize that that autonomy is an illusion,” says Kjerstin Gruys, a sociologist at the University of Nevada, Reno, who studies the relationship between physical appearance and social inequality.Įxperts in gender, misogyny and reproductive justice say the Met Gala, the leaked Supreme Court opinion overturning Roe v. “When women’s bodies behave, it seems like they have autonomy and that their bodies can even be used as a source of empowerment. These examples may seem disparate, but there’s an important through line. The morning after, an actress embroiled in a high-profile civil suit with a revered Hollywood star was mocked and scorned for trying to defend her right to speak about their marriage. But as the attendees posed, a document leaked that revealed the conservative Supreme Court planned to strip women of their constitutional right to an abortion.
On Monday night, guided by the theme “Gilded Glamour,” society’s elite converged at the annual Met Gala to watch women, in particular, parade their bodies for consumption. In the last 48 hours, powerful political and cultural forces have tried to show American women what they may do with their bodies and what they may not. Experts say it’s worth noting how we view these events and we shouldn’t ignore the link between them.These seemingly unrelated events deal with women’s bodies and autonomy.Wade, the Met Gala, and the Amber Heard and Johnny Depp trial all speak to our views of women.