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I’ll admit some of my reasons for writing this post are rather selfish. Parks & Recreation has quickly become my new favorite comedy (I’m sorry Community. I still love you), and I want others to understand its awesomeness (or at least give it a fair shot). Regardless, the show has a lot of good traits that I think are worth talking about. So here I give a few thoughts on what makes this show so fantastic.

Leslie Knope is Awesome!

I am not the first to fall in love with the charming, good-hearted, optimistic Deputy Parks Director. I could tell you what makes her so amazing, but others have said it so much better. Sady, over at Feministe.com, wrote a list of why she loves Leslie and it included things such as “You invented Galentine’s Day” (an annual celebration during which Leslie tells all the women in her life how much she loves and appreciates them), “you love your job without shame or reservation,” “you have a best friend, and she’s a GIRL!” and “you care.” Sady expands on all these ideas in her post, and she also takes some time to explore the differences between Leslie Knope and Liz Lemon.

Liz Lemon, the oft-discussed lead on 30 Rock has been the subject of much debate. Is she a feminist icon or not? What do we do with her? Sady suggests Leslie Knope may be a less frustrating alternative to serve as fictional feminist role model, and she offers a lot of convincing support. I recommend you read it if you haven’t. But then I recommend you read an article written by Kate Dailey on Newsweek.com. She echoes a lot of the same sentiments Sady expresses and offers some her own reasons for admiring Leslie. Dailey points out that Leslie is competent, and admired and supported by her colleagues. Leslie is also concerned with more than weddings and babies and the relationships she has are mature and genuine and they end just because they’re not right for each other, not because either party is crazy or neurotic. Many of these things are brought up specifically because they are the opposite of what we see from Liz Lemon, so Dailey takes things a step further and asks the question, “So what would Leslie Knope think about Liz Lemon?” and I think her answer is awesome;

That’s the best part, and the most telling: Leslie would be proud of Liz’s accomplishments. She would respect her desire for a husband and baby, and admire her career achievements. She’d encourage her efforts to get more respect as a female executive, while encouraging Lemon to reach out to the other women in her office. Leslie Knope understands that women’s advancement is about the advancement of all women, and that women need support from one another just as much—in fact, much more—than they need approval and access from the men that surround them. She might get frustrated with Liz; they may butt heads or disagree on certain points. But at the end of the day, Leslie realizes that she doesn’t need to compete with “Liz Lemonism,” and she’s not interested in besting Liz, shaming Liz, or proving Liz wrong. Instead, Leslie wants for Liz exactly what Liz wants for Liz: the freedom and confidence [to] make choices, the ability to command respect, and the opportunity to achieve all her goals.

Because Leslie Knope, overambitious dreamer that she is, believes that all women deserve those same advantages.

The other characters rock too Read the rest of this entry »

Sad stuff in the headlines yesterday – the idea that preventing bullying is coddling select groups is ridiculous.  Every person – every child – is entitled to safety in public, at school, and at work.  No name calling.  Talk to Jesus about it or something.

Focus on the Family attacks anti-bullying efforts as part of the “gay agenda” [feministing]

For these groups to use “what’s good for the children” as a guise to promote their intolerance only puts kids further at risk of serious harm — and we’re not just talking about hurt feelings; children are dying because of it. So if saving children from killing themselves over hatred that Focus on the Family is trying to protect is a “gay agenda,” then yeah, that’s exactly what this country needs.

The Pro-Bullying Lobby [yes means yes]

Their answer is tactically obvious: they have to try to encourage more homophobia at younger ages. They have to prevent young people from coming out in their early teens, forming their own peer groups and being seen to be happy. They need to use the social structures of teen life to enforce conformity to a heterosexist hegemon. They need to shut up the antibullying activists, and get those bullies back to beating up the queeny boys, the dykey girls, the gender nonconformists; marginalizing them by brutal force in the great public school tradition while the administration looks the other way.

Anti-Bullying Measures Are A Gay Plot, Says Gay-Bullying Org [jezebel]

In an interview with The Denver Post, Candi Cushman of Focus On The Family said, “We feel more and more that activists are being deceptive in using anti-bullying rhetoric to introduce their viewpoints, while the viewpoint of Christian students and parents are increasingly belittled.”

There have been quite a few ongoing dialogues lately regarding feminist relationships, marriage, and name changing – and these are great (and important) conversations for us to be having.

I think that the ultimate thing to keep in mind as feminists is that feminism is about choice.  It’s about every person having the right, ability, and power to decide for themselves.  We often think of choice only in terms of reproductive health (or more specifically abortion), but choice is imperative to every aspect of feminism, including fashion, work, marriage, and yes, name changing.  But here’s the thing that’s been bothering me lately *steps up on soapbox*:

A lot of acquaintances of mine have been getting married lately.  Mostly I am aware of this via Facebook since I moved more than 1,000 miles away from my hometown.  Sometimes I get that lovey-dovey little relationship status update – Mindy Morris is married to Joe Joseph – but most of the time I find out because there is suddenly a name I don’t recognize in my feed.  Then I click on my mystery acquaintance only to discover that it was the girl that sat behind me in AP History or the woman who lived across the hall in the dorms.

Now, I recognize that if these were my close friends rather than just acquaintances I would (hopefully) be in the loop enough to know that a marriage was impending and my ladyfriend was potentially changing her name, so I suppose you could argue that it’s none of my business that people that I’m not close to are becoming unrecognizable to me by their titles. But this is only a problem when it comes to the women that I used to know.  The dudes that I knew in high school are also getting married, and I have no problem recognizing them.  They’re still Chad Chadwick and Mike Michelson or whatever.

So what’s been bugging me is that a woman who gets married and changes her name is in some ways erased from the record.  If my good friend Carly M. from college, who eschewed Facebook and never joined (to my knowledge) has married her long-term boyfriend Dan whose last name I can’t remember, I can’t look her up.  Nor could I look her up if I returned to our college town and hit the phone book.  Because Carly M. could well be Carly XYZ now, and that makes her much more difficult to find.  But if my friend Charles H. in the same town got married, he’s just as easy to find as ever.  And that freaks me out.

Just like the Miss/Mrs/Ms vs. Mr situation, women are managed by their marital status while men are men are misters, no name changes, no identification by title.  This is not equitable.  So while it remains a woman’s choice whether or not to change her name, there is something going on in the system that is not right.

What if things could be different?  I mean, why is it that a woman changes her name anyway?  To match her spouse, to be united in some way, to share a name with future offspring?  Sounds great, but why is it the woman who must change her name (lets just skip over the whole historical exchange of property thing and the fact that most men have to pay exorbitant fees to attempt to change their last names while it’s pretty much a freebie for women)?

Check this out: at that folks festival last week I met the most amazing couple.  They had just gotten married and were honeymooning at the festival.  I saw the license plate on their minivan and had to take a picture it was so awesome – “HERLAND.”  I asked why they had chosen that license plate (being an avid fan of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and her Utopian story of Herland) and one of the women informed me that that was their last name, and that they had chosen it themselves.  They had combined their two last names to create a new one and both had their names changed.  Which is not only an awesome way to thumb your nose at a system that says married women must change their names in a state that will refuse to acknowledge this couples (same sex) marriage, but is really a much more beautiful tradition in my opinion.  This name belongs to both of them and will carry so much meaning when it is passed on.

Back in high school I occasionally watched the first couple of seasons of Everwood on the WB. I found it enjoyable but when I moved away to college my tepid devotion to the show got lost in the transition. Due to a summer without work or school I’ve recently rediscovered the series, and I’ve found particular enjoyment in watching the relationship between bumbling but well-intentioned womanizer Bright Abbott and sweet, unassuming book worm Hannah Rogers. And lately with all the talk of body image on the site, I thought it would be interesting to take a closer look at an episode that deals specifically with that topic; the season 4 episode “Getting to Know You.”

Read the rest of this entry »

I have been really into Tegan & Sara lately (in particular their fifth album, The Con), and I have always had a soft spot for Hayley Williams (Paramore).  So when I stumbled across this interview over at autostraddle it was a match made in heaven (there is also a fascinating bit about Lady Gaga at the link, which I’m sure I’ll address sooner or later).  Enjoy!

I think it’s about time for another round of body image links.  It’s always helpful to know that I’m not the only one struggling with self/body acceptance, so I thought I’d pass these along.

Image linked at gimme some feminism!

Struggling With Body Image [fbomb]

I’m not happy with the way I look. I may tell you that I am, but I’m not. I constantly worry if I’m too fat to wear certain clothes, too fat to be desirable, too fat to be beautiful. Who should I turn to for support? My friends? My family?  They feel exactly the same way. All of them, every single person I know says the same thing, that thinness is interchangeable with beauty, that skinny=good and “fat” = bad.

Power and Beauty [feministe]

Because it must be granted that women who fit a certain standard of appearance can sometimes get perks from that. It may be easier for them to find romantic partners. It made the news a while ago that women who were considered attractive tended to earn higher wages. Even if they might be too pretty to work in a bank or a traditionally male, blue collar workplace, you know, worse things could happen to a person than being born into a conventionally attractive female body.

I stumbled across this lovely website yesterday:

To be fair, there are also husband, pet, and (my favorite) kid varieties to choose from.  But this one really made my day:

Make your own damn sandwich, bucko, and while you’re at it why don’t you kick your shoes off and try conceiving a child.

The kid and pet photos are fairly hilarious in their exasperation.  The husband and wife ones are just stereotypical, aggressive, and depressing.

Lynn Hill may not be a large name in the world of feminism. However, she is an absolute superstar in the world of rock climbing. Few climbing “celebrities” are even on par with her on magnitude of fans and being recognized for the leaps and bounds she made.

Now-a-days, the rock climbing world is still predominately male, their muscles, and their “Just power through it” attitudes. There are many great female climbers in the world currently. However, back in Lynn Hill’s day, it was far more male, far more meaty muscles, and your self-worth was based on how many pull-ups you could do. Lynn Hill shattered as many realities as she could shake a stick at.

Lynn was well aware of sexism in the sport of climbing, and was frustrated by this. However, her records speak for themselves. She’s been long known as the top female climber in the world, and often times recognized in the top 10 or even top 5 climbers overall. This is major. This is ball-stomping goodness. But wait. It gets even better.

Even before she had turned 18, Lynn had figured out what had eluded so many muscle-headed men for so long. Climbing isn’t about strength all the time. It’s more about movement. Before she was even 20 years old, she had the FFA (First Female Ascent, a tribute to climbing’s sexism) on a wall in Telluride, Colorado. This set her in the “Who’s Who of Badassery in the 1970’s.” Read the rest of this entry »

“I think I am a feminist in a way. It’s not something I consciously decided I was going to be; perhaps it’s because I grew up in a singing group with other women, and that was so helpful to me. It kept me out of so much trouble and out of bad relationships. My friendships with my girls are just so much a part of me that there are things I am never going to do that would upset that bond. I never want to betray that friendship because I love being a woman and I love being a friend to other women… I think we learn a lot from our female friends – female friendship is very, very important.”

- Beyonce

From Daily Mail.

Also, if you haven’t seen the Why Don’t You Love Me video, I recommend you check it out.  Discussion is welcome.

Eminem and Rihanna have stirred up quite the controversy with the video for “Love the Way You Lie.”  I happen to be of the opinion that Eminem’s track record of homicidal misogyny prohibits him from ever doing anything that will redeem him or be seen as feminist in some sort of “edgy” way, but others out there have made an argument for the song portraying mutual abuse in a negative light, thereby being a statement against violent relationships.  You be the judge.

Love the Way You Lie (Feministing Group Chat) [feministing]

I think that you’re right to point out that there is nuance to a violent relationship – and that a depiction of a complicated DV situation shouldn’t be criticized out of hand.  That said, I don’t think this particular video does a good job depicting that complexity, and I worry given the intended audience of the video, that it will be taken at face value.

Love “The Way You Lie”? Maybe [amplify]

Many can’t get past the fact that the song is by Eminem, known for violent and homophobic lyrics… [Y]ou can hardly blame those who aren’t ready to forgive a guy who has threatened in song to murder his ex-wife AND his mother  - why is THIS threat to murder a woman somehow different?

I HATE I Love The Way You Lie [tiger beatdown]

I can’t even believe I have to say this, but a music video about Intimate Partner Violence shouldn’t be sexy. Which this video is, in places. This video is so very close to PROMOTING the thing it is supposed to be preventing. We have Eminem, who is singing about his relationship with his ex-wife. And we have Rihanna, whose only lines seem to be about STAYING in an abusive relationship, not getting the f*** out.