05.30.08
links for 2008-05-30
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from Alternet: the argument of this article is part of the impetus for my Master’s thesis. Excellent.
05.29.08
links for 2008-05-29
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from feministing: one in a long line of “get guys interested ins serious stuff by involving naked women as a reward.” Not to mention the assumption that women don’t need to be interested in politics.YUK
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from Shapely Prose: this is great! Everyone should take these steps!
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from Shakesville: we critique sexist comments, and sometimes they are targeted towards those who have made them in the past. But that doesn’t mean they are beyond critique.
05.27.08
links for 2008-05-27
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from The G Spot
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from This is What a Feminist Blogs Like
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from Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog: excellent piece!
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from show me your wits!
05.24.08
links for 2008-05-24
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from Our Bodies, Our Blog
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from feministing: this comment sums up why her response was cool: “So it’s completely appropriate for them to harass her, but absolutely unacceptable for her to respond?It’s all so clear to me now.”
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from I am the Lizard Queen
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from Female Impersonator: interesting!
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from AfterEllen.com: Great response from Theron to W mag
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from Racialicious-love the poster!
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from Lesbian Gamers: excellent piece!
05.23.08
Want a bunch of reasons why Cosmo is anti-feminist?
…check out the comments on this post @ Jezebel. They did all the work for me! Feel free to add your own in the comments here.
05.22.08
News Flash: feminism gives women opportunities whether they identify as feminist or not
I had a conversation with a friend the other day, who (obviously) knows I’m a staunch feminist, and (I think) I was commenting on the over-focus on their own appearance and their partner’s sexual pleasure and under-focus on sexual pleasure in women’s magazines (ie Cosmo), and how that is bullshit and really needs to change. He (not at all a feminist or really that familiar with feminism, except through me) replied back that women are concerned with their appearance, for whatever reason, and that “not all women are, and actually most women are not, feminists like me.”
I started to tell him that feminism affects women (and men, likely) who would never identify with it or advocate it. That many women hold “feminist values” but for whatever reason, don’t discuss their views as feminist. I guess I was trying to suggest to him that my critique of, well, “stuff” related to gender and sexuality isn’t only espoused by feminists, or that have certain values “because I’m a feminist”–as in, that if someone doesn’t define themselves, conceive of themselves as “feminist,” they will not hold the same view as myself. Said otherwise, my feminist views are only held by “feminists,” and I hold them because I am a feminist, not because they’re, well, right.
So, fast forward to today when reading Melissa’s Wednesday Blogaround on Shakesville, and got to this post by Daisy (by way of this post), and even though Daisy’s writing about today’s feminists’ lack of appreciation for second-wave feminism, I thought it was applicable here. I’m only going to re-post part of her list, but read her post for more. So today’s feminists, remember the world second-wavers helped to bring you into….and women, the more-or-less legal (though not social) equality you experience as given is not because of American “values” but is a direct result of feminist scholarship and advocacy.
IF YOU ARE A WOMAN AND YOU HAVE EVER–
…had a credit card in your own name, rather than a man’s name.
…used safe birth control.
…worked in a field once considered male or that is still predominantly male.
…worn pants to school at any time during your academic life.
…learned to play unladylike instruments such as the drums (which I wasn’t permitted to learn).
…played on a sports team and people were actually proud of you for it.
…know where your clitoris is.
…know where your G-spot is.
…had a home birth.
…decided to postpone childbearing until your 30s or later.
…decided not to have children at all, and didn’t make up health reasons for it.
…decided to have a career AND children.
…been on maternity leave and got paid for it, rather than fired, demoted or laid off.
…had a stay-at-home husband.
…learned to play billiards, poker or Blackjack; ride a Harley or drive a semi.
…think what you say is as important as what a man says.
…don’t believe that women who are raped somehow “asked for it”
…don’t believe that a wife beaten by her husband somehow “asked for it”–or that it is “none of your business” if domestic violence goes on in relationships.
…played with anything other than dolls, tea sets, E-Z Bake ovens or coloring books as a child.
…been allowed to read whatever you wanted as a child or teenager.
…had a tattoo, or several.
…kept your “maiden” name or use a hyphenated name.
…worn any clothing considered “outrageous”–i.e. hippie, punk, goth, vintage, etc.
…ran for any office other than school board.
…lived with a man outside of marriage, and people still speak to you, employ you, etc.
…attended any kind of sex education course in public school.
…unabashedly enjoyed pornography, football, boxing, or other traditionally male entertainments.
…expected to make as much money per hour as a man does.
…attended college for reasons other than finding a husband.
…watch television shows or movies produced, directed and written by women.
…dated/married a heterosexual man who used cosmetics, moisturizers, or had his hair done.
…been in a position of authority over a man.
…use Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs.
…The, maybe you should also think about unabashedly advocating feminism.
links for 2008-05-22
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from Astarte’s Circus: on ageism, with feminism. Good read! comments too
05.21.08
links for 2008-05-21
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from Pandagon: this is bullshit I say!
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from BlogHer: on the NYT odd insistance that anything about women should be in the Fashion and Style section
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from The Curvature
05.20.08
Check out Beyond Masculinity online!
Beyond Masculinity is a groundbreaking collection of 22 provocative essays on sexuality, gender, and politics — all written by gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer men. Part audiobook, part-blog, and part-anthology, brings together a smart, diverse group of queer male writers all critically examining maleness and the construction of masculinity and gender norms for men. Contributions focus on five key areas: Desire, Sex and Sexuality; Negotiating Identities; Queer Feminist Politics; Beyond Binary Gender; and Transforming Masculinity.
This collection looks really great! And it’s online! And free! and there’s an audio version available through itunes! Wahoo!
links for 2008-05-20
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from Elaine Vigneault: masturbation is a feminist issue. yes!
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from Diary of an Anxious Black Woman
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from The New York Times
“Open Season” for ‘Peeping Toms’; or, musings on “privacy”
This post has been a long time coming, but this recent news put me over the edge: Remember back in March when I wrote about the Oklahoma Peeping Tom? He took cel phone photos up a minor’s skirt while shopping at Target; the charges were dropped because their Peeping Tom law only applies to situations where privacy is expected, and according to the ruling, privacy cannot be expected in public.
Well, it happened again. Via feministing, a Florida court dropped charges against a man for using a mirror to look up a woman’s skirt at a Barnes and Noble.
The key in these cases is “a reasonable expectation of privacy.” We ladies should be getting the message loud and clear now: we cannot expect bodily privacy in public. We cannot merely exist in public. In public, our bodies are subject to public ownership. We can only expect privacy in our homes. And in a marriage situation, some people don’t even think we should have that.
Twice now in the courts, and resonant with a culture that sees catcalling as a compliment or that thinks women like Uma Thurman should be flattered at stalking and unwanted sexual advances (because I s’ppose we should be thankful we’re oh so irresistable?!), it is becoming more and more clear that women appearing in public are open for the business of sexual consumption via harassment and now even more violations of physical privacy and integrity. The assumption is that any woman who is attractive or dresses sexy desires ogling…otherwise she wouldn’t dress that way, or wear a skirt short enough to photograph up it. (Gee, isn’t this all starting to sound an awful lot like most rape apologists?) And that women who dare to exist in public or online or anywhere where they can be viewed by someone are fair game for subsequent sexual remarks, objectification, physical criticism, circulation of images…
Because apparently:
- all women are heterosexual (since they dress “like that” for male attention)
- all women dress themselves according to how and when they want their physical appearance to be evaluated
- all women’s public existence is primarily and ultimately for the benefit of men
I’ve been thinking a lot about this recently, mostly regarding how people seem to lose all personal privacy upon public existence. In a culture like ours that sees women primarily as sexual objects, that any woman becomes subject to harsh criticism or objectification regarding their appearance (regardless of its relevance), this is becoming a huge problem for women. Pragmatically, we seem to have very little expectation of consent to our images being taken, and also taken out of context.
For example, if a woman signs a model release for nude artistic photography, she is consenting to a particular context of the images. The images cannot then be sold as pornography, or she would have grounds to sue. This type of consent does not seem to operate in the real world in the age of the internet. And if it does, considering the vastness of the internet, it seems hard to keep tabs on.
Let me provide some actual examples that have gotten me pissed off: Read the rest of this entry »
05.19.08
links for 2008-05-19
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from Pandagon: this is bullshit. girls at an all-girl school are only permitted to attend with a male date.
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from feministing: here they go again, caging up women in “sexy bikinis” to “prove” that caging up animals is bad.
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from Feministe: “Something tells me if the victim had been a soccer mom instead of a prostitute, this all would have turned out a lot differently.” Agreed.
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from Jezebel’s “Misdemeanors”: these are especially bullshit.
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from Broadsheet @ Salon.com: a gret extension of the “sweetie” conversation.
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from Chicks Dig Me: on agreeing with “equal rights” but being less than enthused about the legalization of only one more form of love.
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from PunkAssBlog
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from Female Impersonator: how does a size 8 woman get termed “plus size”?
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from An Open Letter by a Feminist
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from Racialicious: another good article on this topic
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from Feminist Philosophers
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from AfterEllen
Sorry for fewer posts…
…but I am desperately trying to finish up work on the final draft of my thesis, due in just a few weeks. Therefore, my posting over the next few weeks is likely going to be less frequent than I’d care for. I have bookmarked lots of items to write about later so bear with me until early June when my brain and time is a bit more free! In the meantime, don’t go anywhere!
05.16.08
links for 2008-05-16
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from the f-word: more comments re: her article on ‘birth rape’.
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from Salon.com’s Broadsheet: Gross.
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from Shakesville: GOP racism against Obama
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a few anecdotes that really speak to male privilege: these are things men do not have to endure on a regular basis nor are they expected to deal with it.
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elle, phd: on how the woman pregnant with her 18th would be treated differently if she wasn’t white. Really really good points made.
Women and men ‘covered’ differently in Entertainment Weekly
Unconventional Beauty has an excellent and telling analysis of the past few years of Entertainment Weekly covers, and the difference in how women and men are permitted to be represented. I particularly like how her analysis is reasonably “apples-to-apples”. Read it!
05.15.08
Quick note on Obama’s apology
As it turns out, Obama personally apologized to the reporter he called ’sweetie’ yesterday a few hours after the encounter. From his voicemail:
“I’m calling to apologize on two fronts. One was you didn’t get your question answered and I apologize. [...] Second apology is for using the word ’sweetie.’ That’s a bad habit of mine. I do it sometimes with all kinds of people. I mean no disrespect and so I am duly chastened on that front. Feel free to call me back. I expect that my press team will be happy to try to make it up to you whenever we are in Detroit next.” (emphasis mine)
First, I really appreciate and respect that he admitted to being wrong. Though it’s awfully pathetic that I’m actually impressed by this; unfortunately, this is the kind of incident that in our culture would typically elicit the “I’m sorry you’re oversensitive and took it the wrong way” kind of apology. But it seems to me that Obama made a genuine apology and owning up to his “bad habit” using a type of language that perpetuate inequality. Unfortunately, though, this isn’t the first time this “bad habit” has come up.
Second, I like his swift response. I think he had already apologized by the time I had even read about the incident. Which makes him seem more genuine to me–he knew he was wrong and took care it it in a timely manner. He didn’t need to read the public response to his comment to ‘realize’ it.
Third, I have to say that he doesn’t do it with “all kinds of people”…namely, he doesn’t do it with grown, professional men. While I appreciate that he is trying to say he didn’t mean it personally, it isn’t quite accurate to say he says it for anybody. To say “all kinds of people” dismisses the specifically gendered use of the term, which while it may be used as a term of endearment for loved ones, is wholly condescending to use, especially for a professional woman. And as I said above, it’s certainly not the first time Obama has used it to refer to women he doesn’t know. And as it turns out, this woman never got her interview (insult to injury).
I like Obama. I was truly disappointed to hear him refer to a woman in this way. And I can’t ethically loathe the media’s sexism against Clinton without pointing out sexism if Obama does it (and especially with how much I blog about language). But I think his apology was genuine, that he understands he did wrong (rather than that it was merely “taken to wrong way”), and that he desires to do right by people. I just wish that he could have also realized that it wasn’t a generic “bad habit”. And especially with NARAL’s recent endorsement, I do hope to see him recognize the need for our culture to take women seriously.
(Cross-posted to The Reaction)
05.14.08
Hey Obama: a female reporter is not ’sweetie’
Um, yeah…this is annoying.
I posted yesterday about the excellent Huff-Po article about phallocentric masculinity in politics and one of the points was the feminization of Obama. Calling a professional reporter ’sweetie’? Chalk one up for Obama’s masculinity!
(cross-posted to The Reaction)
The presidential election and masculinity
Stephen Ducat’s recent Huff-Po article, “Revenge of the Wimp Factor: The Ironies of Proving Manhood in the Democratic Primary” is a fascinating read. He starts off with a very accessible summary of psychoanalytic theory on the phallus as a central organizing term of utmost importance and value, while actually being illusory.
In terms of elections, Ducat says:
In spite of being an evanescent hallucination, political consultants spend much of their time trying to paint a phallus on their candidate. [...] In most electoral contests, the question is often “who’s the man?” And the manner in which political manhood gets displayed is tiresomely predictable: macho chest beating, posing with the fetish objects of anxious masculinity (trucks, big machines, and even bigger weapons), humiliating your opponent with castrating insults, calling into question his or her ability to be tough, ruthless, and merciless with the designated enemy of the moment — in short, phallic strutting.
He continues by showing how Sen. Clinton has made herself into the archetypal procurer of the phallus and all it represents, a representation that began by conservatives when she was First Lady, who also represented Pres. Clinton as feminized and emasculated. These representations were negatives for Clinton-as-First Lady, but as used by her campaign as positives.
Ducat makes the important point:
Some may ask a very reasonable feminist question that could challenge this argument: why must toughness, Machiavellianism, combativeness, or even swaggering bellicosity be viewed as masculine? They certainly needn’t. But it is, as we have seen, Hillary Clinton herself, along with her surrogates, who have explicitly gendered those traits in the campaign. As the oleaginous Clinton loyalist, James Carville, has said, if Mrs. Clinton gave Obama one of her testicles, “they’d both have two.” (emphasis mine)
I think this is an excellent point, and refers to the very limiting patriarchal constructions of masculinity and of civic competence specifically. One thing I’m wondering is if her phallic posturing is in part a response to the media’s sexist approach to her being a female candidate (see Shakeville’s series, currently on part 91), on top of the phallic seeming-requirement in politics and a way to avoid “the link American men have always made between effeminacy and aristocratic manners and privilege.”
Then there’s the representation of Sen. Obama:
More recently, we have the example of Barack Obama, the black candidate raised by a poor single mother, being called an “elitist” because of his grace, equanimity, intellect, dismal bowling performance, and reluctance to completely inhale his Philly cheese-steak. This, along with his willingness to negotiate with enemies, we are told, should lead us to question whether he’s man enough to be commander in chief [...] Barack Obama stands in stark contrast to the attitude of the Clinton campaign. His guiding political ethos has always been one of bridging but not overlooking divisions, while privileging dialogue, debate, and negotiation over conquest. This is not only a new politics. It is a new masculinity, one that is inclusive of those panhuman qualities previously disowned and projected onto women.
And isn’t that a version of political and civic leadership that could provide space for women’s participation and challenge traditional masculinity while also producing a politics that’s more respectful and just, decent?
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