View
221
Download
0
Category
Preview:
Citation preview
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
1/12
Bysong 1
Tessa Bysong
FYC 115
Unit Two
Martha and the Media:
Souffl, Scandal, and Sex Roles
To say Martha Stewart is successful is putting it lightly. The proud owner of
multiple homes and a company worth billions of dollars, she is one of the most successful
American businesswomen to date. To say Martha Stewart has had it rough lately is ahuge understatement. News broke early in the year when Kmart, which sells a line of her
products, declared bankruptcy, followed quickly by allegations of an insider trading
scandal. Recently, Martha Stewart Omnimedia stockholders filed a lawsuit against her.
Is there something about her apparent perfection and success that draws the media to any
hint of a Martha Stewart scandal? Recently, the biggest scandal has been the accusations
that Stewart sold off her shares of the soon-to-fail ImClone after getting an illegal tip-off
from the owner of the company. The media seems to have a great deal of interest in this
case and has paid it an undue amount of attention. Granted, the recent wave of corporate
scandals, starting with Enron, has obviously contributed to this attention on Stewart, but
any possible scandal she may have been involved with pre-Enron was also covered
heavily, as I will discuss later. Why does the media report so negatively on Martha
Stewart, and what does it reflect about our culture? To answer this, we must look at the
coverage various media outlets have provided and use information from educated
authors. In doing so, we will discover that media coverage of Martha Stewart reflects the
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
2/12
Bysong 2
larger problem of Americas continued distaste for successful women and the gender
biases that exist in this progressive age.
The history of women in American business before Stewart has been a rocky one
at best. In brief, women first entered the workforce in record numbers during World War
II, filling in for the men at war. After being removed from these jobs and returning to the
home following the war, women didnt emerge as a vital part of the work world until the
1970s. Faced with prejudices, women found it difficult to break-in to the working
world and were forced into segregated roles as secretaries or marketers of distinctly
feminine focused products (Scott 245). Simone de Beauvoir, noted philosopher andfeminist, offers a possible reason for this difficulty saying, Throughout history [women]
have always been subordinated to men, and hence their dependency is not the result of a
historical event or a social change it was not something that occurred (de Beauvoir
58). Essentially, women faced difficulty becoming involved in business because they had
always just been housewives; this wasnt looked on as abnormal, rather as just the way
things were. Becoming a businesswoman, however, was abnormal, and thus it required
(and still requires) a special, almost heroic, effort on the part of women to be successful
in business. Thus, Martha Stewarts ability to go beyond the traditionally feminine role of
marketing domestic goods to control her company, hundreds of workers, and even (until
recently) sitting on the Board of Directors for the NYSE is particularly unique. These
accomplishments become especially distinctive because they allow Martha Stewart to
retain domesticity, through centering her business on affairs of the home, while
conquering the business world.
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
3/12
Bysong 3
Yet despite her phenomenal success, the media is clearly interested in reporting
the negative side of Stewart both before and after the ImClone scandal. A People article
by Alex Tresniowski quotes a close friend of Martha Stewarts as saying, When she
steps out, she gets slammed. She knows everybody smells blood (Tresinowski). But
what, exactly, are the people who are slamming Stewart saying? For example, an
article by Seth Stern in The Christian Science Monitor describes how A stock trading
scandal is chipping away at her image and that she risks sinking her media and retailing
empire unless she resolves the mess soon (Stern). Stern is over-exaggerating the danger
to Stewarts company, which becomes obvious later in the article when he concedes thatad sales for her magazine have sold through the end of the year. Clearly, other
companies still have faith in Stewarts empire.
So, why are newspapers, television news programs, and magazines so interested
in destroying her image? Shirley Teresa Wajda, a professor of both Womens and
American Studies at Kent State University, offers an interesting possibility in her article,
Kmartha. She proposes that we, as Americans, are uncomfortable with Martha Stewart
because she embodies what has become an increasing dichotomy for women between
promoting family well-being (at least in the sense of striving to make a comfortable home
for ones family) while maintaining independence. As Wajda puts it, we see in Stewart
our own widespread anxiety about [our] pursuit of the American dream (Wajda 72). In
essence, observing Stewart easily balance everything domestic while becoming a tough,
efficient business owner reminds women of their own failed attempts at this balance.
While we struggle to reconcile our desire for family cohesion and community with
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
4/12
Bysong 4
self sufficiency (Wajda 72), our society doesnt necessarily enjoy seeing someone
handle this impossible balancing act so well, and we inevitably become a bit jealous.
Thus, we become ready for Martha to fail, waiting to see her perfect equilibrium
collapse and, in turn, for her perfection to be chipped away. We perceive Stewarts
ability to create balance as yet another symptom of her perfection, which further
intimidates us by confronting us with our obvious lack of perfection in comparison.
After all Martha Stewart also re-enacts the selflessness embedded in womens domestic
roles and promotes a lifestyle in which the individual is not only the laborer but also
the CEO of his or her own household (Wajda 77). Stewarts image is that of a womancapable of anything, and women were anxious to feel that this perfection was not entirely
possible before the recent scandals. Now that news of the ImClone scandal has broken,
we feel even more justified in pointing out her imperfection, as is made obvious by a
USA Today headline that reads, Why Does the Government Seek to Ruin Ms. Perfects
Life? (Doherty). Clearly, in referring to Stewart as Ms. Perfect, and continually
referencing the troubles that Stewart has with the government, our media reflects
societys distaste for her perfection by reporting every foible Martha possesses or
difficulty that comes her way. In this manner, we are not quite so obligated to achieve
this balance and perfection, and we arent confronted with our failure to do so whenever
we see Martha on television.
Media coverage then simply shows us what we want to hear. Examples abound
of criticism and sarcastic humor aimed at making Martha Stewart appear less perfect and
emphasize her failings. For instance, a faux book cover, circulated on the internet before
the recent scandal, sports the title, Martha Stewart Walks on Water and depicts Stewart
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
5/12
Bysong 5
in a cardigan and khakis standing cheerily atop a calm body of water offering a plate of
cookies. While intended for parody and amusement, the message is obvious: we believe
that Martha Stewart considers herself so perfect that hyperbolic comparison to the
supposedly perfect figure of Jesus seems funny. Obviously, we find a degree of
satisfaction in hinting that perhaps she isnt so perfect. Even more criticism can be found
now, post-scandal. A brief note about Stewart in Time flashed the headline, Someone
Else Will Have to Bring the Scones (Orecklin). The article describes Stewarts
relinquishing of her position on the NYSE Board of Directors, and the headline clearly
demonstrates how we dislike seeing her achieve balance. The reference to scones (adecidedly domestic product) in an article about Stewarts difficult business affairs mocks
the apparent fact that she cannot handle both successfully. We, in turn, are justified in
not being able to achieve balance as well because if Martha cant, why should we be
expected to?
The problem of the medias over-coverage of Martha Stewarts most recent
scandal likely reflects a problem in our society beyond our desire to see perfection fail:
Americans are still surprised and not necessarily comfortable with a powerful woman in
business. We were anxious to see Stewart fail before because we didnt like her
perfection, and since the ImClone scandal broke, we have a new area in which to wish
her ill. As Americans, we still arent ready for powerful women in business, so we
become anxious to hear about a womans failure. Stephan Weiler and Alexandra
Bernasek, both psychologists and sociologists, point out that the number of self-
employed women in the United States is still much lower than that of men, and typically,
women-owned businesses are much less successful than those run by men (Weiler and
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
6/12
Bysong 6
Bernasek 88). In fact, women make up little more than 30% of the self-employed in the
United States (McManus 74). Furthermore, Annual incomes of self-employed women
were 36.7 percent of the incomes of self-employed men and 28.2 percent of the incomes
of male wage and salary workers (Hundley 1). Obviously, women are still not a huge
force in self-employment in the United States. Thus, the confident, highly successful
business woman is not the norm, and we, as a society, cannot necessarily relate to her nor
are we particularly ready to do so.
This is reflected in the difficulty many women have in breaking into business.
That difficulty results from others in the business world not being accustomed to their presence and because women do not have the network connections that men do (Weiler
and Bernasek 90). Candace West and Don H. Zimmerman, both professors of Sociology,
discuss the reasoning behind this division: We conceive of gender as an emergent
feature of social situations: as both an outcome of and a rationale for various social
arrangements and as a means of legitimating one of the most fundamental divisions of
society (West and Zimmerman 476). Women do not have the same business
connections that men do not only because women havent been in the business world as
long, but also because men see them as the other in the social situation that is
business. As de Beauvoir describes it, He is the Subject, he is the Absolute she is the
Other (de Beauvoir 56). Business is a mans world, and he has always inhabited it.
Thus, when women become involved, they are seen as the outsider in a non-traditional
role. Because Stewart crosses the division between the mens world and womens world
we become even more uncomfortable as we begin question the legitimacy of this
fundamental division of society. Her ability to succeed in the mans world probes
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
7/12
Bysong 7
the question of why these divisions exist in the first place. So, we look for her to fail to
reinforce our reasons for believing women shouldnt be so involved in business.
Sociologist Patricia McManus also suggests this idea, further saying that our usual
views of a successful business person include typically male characteristics. She
describes the successful male by saying, In this classical vision, entrepreneurship is the
act of a charismatic individual who recognizes new opportunities, takes risks, perseveres
through adversity, and eventually changes the face of the economy (McManus 79). In
essence, we associate these characteristics with men because they have always embodied
the business world. Furthermore, Competent adult members of [Western] societies seedifferences between the two (men and women) as fundamental and enduring, and these
differences are seemingly supported by the division of labor into womens and mens
work (West and Zimmerman 477). The separation of men and women in business is a
further extension of the differences we believe exist between them in the rest of society.
To see a woman step up and become successful in business confronts us with the idea
that our society is changing, causing discomfort for many people. It is this discrimination
that McManus suggests perpetuates difficulties for female business owners and may help
to explain why the ImClone scandal receives so much media attention. Reporting that
Martha Stewarts empire, from TV shows to Kmart towels, scrambles as the stock
scandal drags on (Stern 192), gives those unnerved by her success a chance to relax and
believe that perhaps things arent changing that rapidly after all.
We have so far established that the media wants to convey an image of a
successful businesswoman not succeeding. A further possible explanation for the
medias negative and excessive coverage of this case lies in societys gender biases. We
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
8/12
Bysong 8
not only want the media to show us that not everything is changing and that women
arent going to dominate business, but media coverage also reveals how we feel about
women themselves. While we were intimidated by Marthas perfection before the
scandal, we now have even more ammunition; we can attack her femininity because if
she was succeeding in business, there must have been something manly about her. This
can be seen in many cases. An editorial in the Omaha World-Herald , for a simple
example, states, Rosie we like. Oprah we love. Not Martha. If Martha came to our
door, we would hide behind our sloppily slipcovered sofas (Rowell 17). American
women are intimidated by Stewart, and thus lash out at her personally, pointing out howshe is unloved unlike other famous females. Granted, these other women receive
negative press as well, but as Rowell clearly describes, women like and love them.
Obviously, Martha Stewarts transgressions are viewed as much more egregious than
anything these women do, likely because neither of them transgresses gender roles the
way Stewart does.
In an interview with Larry King on February 14, 2002, Martha Stewart spoke
about the gender biases held for women in the public eye. King asked Do you think
successful women have it tougher than successful men? The successful man is called
tough, the woman is called a bitch Ive never heard a successful mans appearance
being discussed. Martha responded, I think theres still a little bit of inequality at the
top We have to talk the business talk. And I think sometimes coming out of a
womans mouth, business talk sounds maybe it does sound a little tough (King 7,8).
Here Stewart strikes an excellent point. We are used to the way men in business behave
because giving orders, making tough decisions, behaving in the classical vision of
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
9/12
Bysong 9
entrepreneurship, is simply what one has to do to survive in business. However, we do
not expect that sort of behavior from a woman; we expect her to be polite, caring,
understanding of others feelings, and having other stereotypical womanly characteristics.
Popular culture holds the assumption that doing gender merely involves making use of
discrete, well-defined bundles of behavior that can simply be plugged into interactional
situations to produce recognizable enactments of masculinity and femininity (West and
Zimmerman 484). So, if a woman survives in business by portraying male bundles of
behavior, she is considered atypical, masculine, and, as King so adroitly put it, a bitch.
Historian Joan Scott elaborates on this idea: Business is not reflecting or appealing to stable beliefs in gender; rather it is producing these beliefs and
relationships (Scott 249). She essentially believes that the gender roles and difficulties
that develop in business spill over into society. The lack of successful businesswomen
causes the assumption that men are the only gender that can be tough and successful,
which is reflected in our society and our media. Thus, perceived business roles
perpetuate stereotypes, and we have a societal trend toward discouraging businesswomen
simply because they are breaking with tradition and gender roles. As a result, the media
glorifies in reporting, as King points out from The Examiner in his interview, Martha
Stewart, Fraud! Shes falling apart. And this one has [her] as ballooning to 212
pounds (King 7) to show us that women who are successful and challenge their roles
will inevitably suffer and have huge difficulties. The media coverage of the ImClone
scandal serves as a fatherly finger-wagging reminder not to break with gender roles,
especially in business.
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
10/12
Bysong 10
Despite all this, however, some may argue that the Martha Stewart scandal does
warrant the coverage it has received. After all, she is a celebrity, so she receives a lot of
attention, and celebrities open themselves up to public comment, whether it is pleasant or
not. This, of course, is true; those who live in the public eye are doomed to be judged by
that eye. However, it seems to me that we judge Martha more harshly than other women.
As Rowell pointed out earlier, we seem to enjoy other powerful female celebrities, and
while they do get harsh, unfair critiques in the press sometimes (like the chronicling of
Oprahs weight battles), Stewart is criticized about nearly every aspect of her life
including her relationships with her children, her appearance on her television show, theway she treats her employees, the way she presents herself in her magazine, and
obviously, her business choices.
Critics of Martha Stewart might offer, with some justification, the recent
explosion of corporate wrongdoings as justification for her media backlash. I absolutely
agree that the public deserves to be informed about corporate wrongdoings, and if Martha
Stewart has been involved in illegal activity, we ought to know. However, to illustrate
just how much attention everything about Martha Stewart receives, I did a search in a
periodical database for articles about Kenneth Lay (CEO of Enron) and found 434 such
articles. When Martha Stewart was the search topic, 2775 articles appeared. Obviously,
Stewarts story is being followed much more closely than that of Kenneth Lay. The fact
that she, personally, (not her company) is the one who may have benefited from illegal
activities shows that this does, in fact, have little to do with the general public. Whether
or not Stewart made $40,000 illegally will not determine the future of an entire company
and the jobs of hundreds of workers as Lays scandal did. Yet, she is still the topic of
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
11/12
Bysong 11
many more articles and editorials. Based on this evidence, it seems obvious that the
media does pay an undue amount of attention to Martha Stewart.
Martha Stewart has long endured the negative spotlight, likely because she
highlights our struggles for independence and a loving home, represents a changing
society in which women are emerging in unexpected power, and because she has broken
traditional gender roles. Various media outlets, when examined in the light of multiple,
educated authors, show us that the media coverage of Martha Stewart appears on the
surface to be merely a nightly update, but the reasons behind the reporting and our
reasons for watching go deeper than that. In fact, the reporting on Stewart is a reflectionon ourselves, as well as our societal values. As it stands now, a woman watching the
beating that Stewart receives from the press could easily become disheartened. Martha
sums up this feeling saying, Its kind of difficult to survive in a world that is always kind
of pounding you down (King 8). Hopefully, as more women become active in business
and rise to the heights of power, we as a society will become more comfortable with all
that they represent and learn to give them their deserved respect.
8/6/2019 Bysong-TessaMcP
12/12
Bysong 12
Recommended