Unless you have been living in a cave, you can’t have failed to notice the attention paid to Prop 8 over the past several months. And what about that women’s issue that was front and center media coverage during the recent election? Did you catch it? Oh, right. That was Hillary Clinton’s cleavage.
Sorry. It’s just that I can’t understand how we passed the Civil Rights Act 44 years ago and how we’re having a heated national debate (and state propositions) about defining gay marriage, and women’s issues aren’t even on the ballot. Women’s issues are so far out of the closet that they’re hanging at the consignment store.
There has been a multitude of media coverage about Prop 8. My favorite so far is a Newsweek story written by one its editors, David J. Jefferson, who chronicles his reaction to the recent yes vote that said no to gay marriage. “Most gay people I know seem to have forgotten – or in many cases never learned – the lessons of our collective history,” he writes. He talks about how gays have been lulled into believing their unions would be accepted since they are covered by non-discrimination laws, gay unions are recognized by some states, and some employers offer domestic-partner benefits. “We probably took for granted that gay marriage was an inevitability,” writes Jefferson.
This blog isn’t about gay and lesbian rights, but we might want to take a page from these activists’ book. While they’re acting up, women (me included) are watching from the wings while others – NOW, Emily’s List, The New Agenda, etc. – act for us. Yet, both the first and second waves of feminism were successful because women took to the streets to fight for equality. (NOW was created as a result of the momentum of second wave feminism – not before.)
In his article, Jefferson writes that Harvey Milk (the gay activist profiled in the new movie Milk – watch this trailer!) argued that “the only way to win civil rights is to demand and take them – as Thomas Jefferson, Martin Luther King Jr., Gloria Steinem and all the others did – rather than wait for them to be granted.”
I fear the “woman community” is at risk of being defined by its failures rather than its accomplishments (think ERA). Do you think we could pick one – just one – issue on which to shine the spotlight and use our political power to push it through? Equal pay seems like a no-brainer to me. We might even be able to get some Hollywood types to lend a hand through a viral video (like this one you have to watch as well).
Are you actively involved in speaking out for women’s issues?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
I Am Ovaries, Hear Me Roar
My apologies to Helen Reddy for abusing the title of her 1970s hit. But way back when, in the early 19th century, ovaries defined the woman.
The term of art was “ovarian determinism.” Women were seen as a womb and their ovarian hormones as the cause for fainting and hysteria – a common diagnosis in those days (never mind that the corset was literally taking our breath away). The remedy: the rest cure, which basically meant women were shut away in their houses and beds for fear they were too fragile to be a part of society.
We have the male-dominated medical profession of the same era to thank for this health care insight. Up until that time, women played a dominant role as healers (think midwifery). Then men took over the medical profession and claimed their ways were better for women and children, and women were banned from the medical profession.
This phenomenon was written about in an early work of feminist literature by Charlotte Perkins Gilman titled The Yellow Wallpaper (a short and good Wikipedia read via the link). The gist of it: A woman confined to her bedroom by her husband to recover from hysteria goes mad (no shortage of irony there).
I wish I could file this nugget in the “look how far we’ve come” drawer. But then I recall the ignoramus on the Sexism Sells video who stated that we should be worried about a woman in the White House because of PMS and moods swings, and I know that some men (dare I say many) still fear – rather than revere – the female organs that put them on this earth in the first place.
If I sound a little perturbed, don’t blame me, it’s my ovaries roaring. It must be that wisdom born of pain that Helen was singing about.
The term of art was “ovarian determinism.” Women were seen as a womb and their ovarian hormones as the cause for fainting and hysteria – a common diagnosis in those days (never mind that the corset was literally taking our breath away). The remedy: the rest cure, which basically meant women were shut away in their houses and beds for fear they were too fragile to be a part of society.
We have the male-dominated medical profession of the same era to thank for this health care insight. Up until that time, women played a dominant role as healers (think midwifery). Then men took over the medical profession and claimed their ways were better for women and children, and women were banned from the medical profession.
This phenomenon was written about in an early work of feminist literature by Charlotte Perkins Gilman titled The Yellow Wallpaper (a short and good Wikipedia read via the link). The gist of it: A woman confined to her bedroom by her husband to recover from hysteria goes mad (no shortage of irony there).
I wish I could file this nugget in the “look how far we’ve come” drawer. But then I recall the ignoramus on the Sexism Sells video who stated that we should be worried about a woman in the White House because of PMS and moods swings, and I know that some men (dare I say many) still fear – rather than revere – the female organs that put them on this earth in the first place.
If I sound a little perturbed, don’t blame me, it’s my ovaries roaring. It must be that wisdom born of pain that Helen was singing about.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Setting Me Straight
One of my goals for this blog was to educate myself about women’s issues so that I can teach my daughter and instill in her a sense of gratitude to the women who have paved her way.
But recently it was my seven-year-old son who set me straight.
“Why would you want to take a women’s class when you are a woman,” he piped up and asked one day as we waited in the car line to pick up his sister.
Shame on me for not including him in my goals.
His question took me back to the Declaration of Sentiments and the Seneca Falls Resolutions. It’s a document written 160 years ago at the Seneca Falls Convention, the first woman’s rights conference. To make it more appealing to the male dominated political world, it was patterned after the Declaration of Independence. It was signed by 68 women and 32 men, including the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. That’s more women than men who signed the original Declaration, and the sentiments expressed were considered equally, if not more, provocative than the rebellious statements in 1776.
These women and men were appealing to society – to men – to give them equal rights. I hope that, by including my son in my so-called feminist wisdom that I pass along, when he’s an adult that women will no longer be appealing to men for equality. We won’t still be trying to convince society that child care really is one of the most important jobs in the world – and should be compensated as such. Or that domestic violence is a man’s issue too. And that equal pay should just be an unquestioned assumption.
Can I instill in my son the understanding that women are not – as Susan Faludi states – a special interest group?
Do you have a boy who might benefit from knowing about the struggles and successes of women over the past 160 years?
But recently it was my seven-year-old son who set me straight.
“Why would you want to take a women’s class when you are a woman,” he piped up and asked one day as we waited in the car line to pick up his sister.
Shame on me for not including him in my goals.
His question took me back to the Declaration of Sentiments and the Seneca Falls Resolutions. It’s a document written 160 years ago at the Seneca Falls Convention, the first woman’s rights conference. To make it more appealing to the male dominated political world, it was patterned after the Declaration of Independence. It was signed by 68 women and 32 men, including the abolitionist Frederick Douglass. That’s more women than men who signed the original Declaration, and the sentiments expressed were considered equally, if not more, provocative than the rebellious statements in 1776.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
Can I instill in my son the understanding that women are not – as Susan Faludi states – a special interest group?
Do you have a boy who might benefit from knowing about the struggles and successes of women over the past 160 years?
Monday, December 1, 2008
Oh, How Far We Have Come. Or Have We?
No doubt you caught today’s news that Sen. Hillary Clinton has been nominated to be the next Secretary of State. Before we start feeling too proud about how far “we” have come, take five minutes and forty-six seconds out of your day to watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g-IrhRSwF9U.
If I had only one shot at one blog to post, it would be to bring you this link.
Enjoy – or maybe not.
If I had only one shot at one blog to post, it would be to bring you this link.
Enjoy – or maybe not.
Sunday, November 30, 2008
The Beauty Blues
This Thanksgiving did more than rob me of my voice. It rattled my confidence.
I was moseying merrily along, my same-weight-as-always self, feeling pretty good. I am running a half-marathon this weekend, and I know I am stronger because of my training over the past four months.
But then, someone I know happened to mention something about my weight and how I don’t look as thin as I did last year. The comment knocked me back a few thousand steps, and I have spent the weekend talking myself out of the “you don’t deserve [fill in the blank] because you’re not thin” cave. The good news is that the incident gives me an opening to talk about the beauty myth.
When it comes to beauty and its stranglehold on women, there’s a lot to write about. You pretty much know the drill: Thin is valued; other is not.
What I learned in class, though, is a theory to understand why. Turns out, some feminists believe there is a relationship between female liberation and female beauty. Here’s the essence: As women have broken through glass ceilings and gained power, images of females have gotten thinner. Women gained power, and eating disorders and cosmetic surgery soared. Women gained power, yet the images of us in magazines look frail. As Naomi Wolf writes in The Beauty Myth, there is a “violent backlash against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women’s advancement.” We may have left the domestic life behind, but on the way to the office we ran smack dab into the “gaunt, youthful model” that was put in our path to remind us not to get too big for our britches (so to speak).
I am so freakin’ naïve. I never connected the two – that being thin is society’s way of keeping women powerless. I’m not sure I buy the cause and effect, but my gut tells me there something to this ideology.
You don’t need to look far to see what the beauty myth looks like. Virtually every cover of every magazine invites you to join the ranks of the thin. If that's not enough, we have websites like Miss Bimbo where the aim is to be the coolest, most intelligent, talented and happy bimbo in the whole world. (For those of you with kids, it’s Webkinz for women.) At Miss Bimbo you learn that your bimbo's healthy weight is 127.6 lbs. If she strays too much above or below this weight then it affects her happiness.
Unfortunately, it’s all too true. My weight affects my happiness. And I cannot name one good friend who feels differently. While I understand the argument Wolf and others make, for some reason it doesn’t make me feel any better.
I was moseying merrily along, my same-weight-as-always self, feeling pretty good. I am running a half-marathon this weekend, and I know I am stronger because of my training over the past four months.
But then, someone I know happened to mention something about my weight and how I don’t look as thin as I did last year. The comment knocked me back a few thousand steps, and I have spent the weekend talking myself out of the “you don’t deserve [fill in the blank] because you’re not thin” cave. The good news is that the incident gives me an opening to talk about the beauty myth.
When it comes to beauty and its stranglehold on women, there’s a lot to write about. You pretty much know the drill: Thin is valued; other is not.
What I learned in class, though, is a theory to understand why. Turns out, some feminists believe there is a relationship between female liberation and female beauty. Here’s the essence: As women have broken through glass ceilings and gained power, images of females have gotten thinner. Women gained power, and eating disorders and cosmetic surgery soared. Women gained power, yet the images of us in magazines look frail. As Naomi Wolf writes in The Beauty Myth, there is a “violent backlash against feminism that uses images of female beauty as a political weapon against women’s advancement.” We may have left the domestic life behind, but on the way to the office we ran smack dab into the “gaunt, youthful model” that was put in our path to remind us not to get too big for our britches (so to speak).
I am so freakin’ naïve. I never connected the two – that being thin is society’s way of keeping women powerless. I’m not sure I buy the cause and effect, but my gut tells me there something to this ideology.
You don’t need to look far to see what the beauty myth looks like. Virtually every cover of every magazine invites you to join the ranks of the thin. If that's not enough, we have websites like Miss Bimbo where the aim is to be the coolest, most intelligent, talented and happy bimbo in the whole world. (For those of you with kids, it’s Webkinz for women.) At Miss Bimbo you learn that your bimbo's healthy weight is 127.6 lbs. If she strays too much above or below this weight then it affects her happiness.
Unfortunately, it’s all too true. My weight affects my happiness. And I cannot name one good friend who feels differently. While I understand the argument Wolf and others make, for some reason it doesn’t make me feel any better.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Hey You Guys
The Thanksgiving holiday rendered me speechless – literally. I have laryngitis and have lost my voice. That got me thinking about sexist language.
According to those who study feminism, we live in a world where male-based language reinforces a system where women are folded—linguistically speaking—into a male society. According to many feminist scholars, this makes women invisible and turns them into objects.
Sherryl Kleinman, a professor at UNC, writes about this in an article for a rape crisis center newsletter. There are the obvious “man” words, like “fireman” and “freshman” (and all those other words that end in “man” that we tend to stumble over). Then there are what she calls male generics like “manpower,” “man-made lakes,” and “oh, man.” Her point is that when we use these words, we reinforce the reality of a sexist world, and that by being aware of how we use them is an action we all can take right now to start to create a new reality.
In an accompanying article, The Politics of Naming by Dale Spender, we studied how those who hold the power to name influence reality. When one group holds a monopoly on naming, it is able to enforce its bias on everyone. Since men have predominantly controlled language, they have created a sexist reality.
The Bible is a good place to demonstrate this theory. I don’t know about you, but I grew up believing that God is male. While there are many versions of the Bible, ultimately, the men who wrote it created a male God. God could have made women and men equal in his image. But “God the Father” made Adam in his image and Adam “gave birth” to Eve by using his rib (I won’t even get into the issue of man giving birth). There is no doubt that from “the beginning” males play a superior role. The article also points out that not only did Eve come from man, but she is also his downfall. Both male supremacy and the superiority/inferiority dichotomy are deeply embedded in our language.
The pattern is also seen in how we talk about women’s sexuality (or the lack thereof). Here’s one example: A man who frequently enjoys sex is described as being virile and potent. What is a comparable description for a woman who does the same? Nymphomaniac? Baller? Then there are “frigid” and “impotent.” Frigid is defined as failing to become aroused, while impotent is defined as unable to engage in sex. The use of “frigid” makes a woman a non-participant – as in she failed to become aroused when a man tried to arouse her. What if she just didn’t want to?
Male supremacy also carries over into the language of reproductive biology. In The Egg and The Sperm, Emily Martin writes about how scientists describe the remarkable process of men producing hundreds of sperm versus a woman’s degenerating supply of eggs, of which only one is shed during menstruation. Then there are the descriptions of the thrashing and thrusting sperm on a mission that swims through the darkness to penetrate the egg. Like Sleeping Beauty, the egg awaits rescue by the superhero sperm or it will die. In actuality, recent research has found that the sperm’s tail is very weak and that the stickiness of the lining of the egg plays an active part in not only capturing the sperm but judging which one to hang on to. In other words, just like sex itself, reproduction is an equal endeavor. Based on the historical “sperm as aggressor” language of science, it is easier for me to understand how we have a popular culture that glorifies male domination.
What I have learned is that women have an option to reclaim language – either by choosing to not use male generics like “you guys,” or by replacing patriarchal names with ones that reflect a woman’s reality. By doing this, women can be liberated and find their own voices.
I’m going to try to be more aware of this when my own voice returns.
According to those who study feminism, we live in a world where male-based language reinforces a system where women are folded—linguistically speaking—into a male society. According to many feminist scholars, this makes women invisible and turns them into objects.
Sherryl Kleinman, a professor at UNC, writes about this in an article for a rape crisis center newsletter. There are the obvious “man” words, like “fireman” and “freshman” (and all those other words that end in “man” that we tend to stumble over). Then there are what she calls male generics like “manpower,” “man-made lakes,” and “oh, man.” Her point is that when we use these words, we reinforce the reality of a sexist world, and that by being aware of how we use them is an action we all can take right now to start to create a new reality.
In an accompanying article, The Politics of Naming by Dale Spender, we studied how those who hold the power to name influence reality. When one group holds a monopoly on naming, it is able to enforce its bias on everyone. Since men have predominantly controlled language, they have created a sexist reality.
The Bible is a good place to demonstrate this theory. I don’t know about you, but I grew up believing that God is male. While there are many versions of the Bible, ultimately, the men who wrote it created a male God. God could have made women and men equal in his image. But “God the Father” made Adam in his image and Adam “gave birth” to Eve by using his rib (I won’t even get into the issue of man giving birth). There is no doubt that from “the beginning” males play a superior role. The article also points out that not only did Eve come from man, but she is also his downfall. Both male supremacy and the superiority/inferiority dichotomy are deeply embedded in our language.
The pattern is also seen in how we talk about women’s sexuality (or the lack thereof). Here’s one example: A man who frequently enjoys sex is described as being virile and potent. What is a comparable description for a woman who does the same? Nymphomaniac? Baller? Then there are “frigid” and “impotent.” Frigid is defined as failing to become aroused, while impotent is defined as unable to engage in sex. The use of “frigid” makes a woman a non-participant – as in she failed to become aroused when a man tried to arouse her. What if she just didn’t want to?
Male supremacy also carries over into the language of reproductive biology. In The Egg and The Sperm, Emily Martin writes about how scientists describe the remarkable process of men producing hundreds of sperm versus a woman’s degenerating supply of eggs, of which only one is shed during menstruation. Then there are the descriptions of the thrashing and thrusting sperm on a mission that swims through the darkness to penetrate the egg. Like Sleeping Beauty, the egg awaits rescue by the superhero sperm or it will die. In actuality, recent research has found that the sperm’s tail is very weak and that the stickiness of the lining of the egg plays an active part in not only capturing the sperm but judging which one to hang on to. In other words, just like sex itself, reproduction is an equal endeavor. Based on the historical “sperm as aggressor” language of science, it is easier for me to understand how we have a popular culture that glorifies male domination.
What I have learned is that women have an option to reclaim language – either by choosing to not use male generics like “you guys,” or by replacing patriarchal names with ones that reflect a woman’s reality. By doing this, women can be liberated and find their own voices.
I’m going to try to be more aware of this when my own voice returns.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Bad Sex Sucks
Last night on the way home from class, I spied this lone bumper sticker on the pizza delivery car in front of me: Bad Sex Sucks. How ironic that I had just spent over an hour talking about sex trafficking as part of my women’s studies class at UNC. Talk about bad sex!
Here are some sex trafficking stats compiled from the United Nations that you should know about:
Here are some sex trafficking stats compiled from the United Nations that you should know about:
- Between 600,000 and 800,000 men, women and children are trafficked across international borders each year
- The estimated total market value of illicit human trafficking is $32 billion
- Approximately 80% of those trafficked are women and girls; up to 50% are minors
- The majority of transnational victims are trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation
- The U.S. is the second highest destination in the world for trafficked women (yet we don’t categorize our status as an offender in the global Trafficking In Persons report card because we give the grades)
- More women come from Russia than any other country, yet women are trafficked into the U.S. from Asia, Central and South America and Eastern Europe
- Trafficked women are sold for about $2,500
- They serve as many a 20 clients per day at the price of about $200 per client
Traffickers lure women into this modern-day form of slavery through force, fraud or coercion. They beat, starve, rape and gang rape the women they traffic. In Victor Malarek’s book, The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade (which we read for class), one trafficker states, “You can buy a woman for $10,000 and you can make your money back in a week if she is pretty and young. Then everything else is profit.”
Poverty is one of the many factors that make individuals vulnerable to trafficking. In addition to being drawn in by a promise of a good job in another country, women are sold into slavery by friends and family, kidnapped or are victims of a false marriage proposal.
Many experts agree – the sex trafficking industry is founded on the buying, selling and marketing of the bodies of women and children solely for the sexual pleasure of men. At the same time, men are the purveyors in the industry. Talk about the ultimate slap – women don’t even control the market for their own bodies!
Why? Why is the demand for trafficked women for sex so huge? Why is it that men’s sexual needs are so great that the rights of vulnerable women are violated? Why isn’t there an equally robust global market for male sex slaves?
If you think you know the answer to these questions, I need you to weigh in. We didn’t get very far in our class discussion. We talked about how through Western culture, men are taught that domination of women is the norm. For example, rape is often portrayed as a romantic notion, and power and violence against women are eroticized in our popular culture. In other words, we teach men to dominate women through sex.
I cannot figure out why we put up with this crap. Can you?
For more information about sex trafficking, visit the Polaris Project at:
http://www.polarisproject.org/?gclid=CMqY19eRkZcCFQpjnAod418C_Q
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