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 »

Oh how I hate football.  I hate that athletics are more highly valued than academics from the time that kids start little league.  I hate that the football team gets more attention and funding than the art club, science club, and literary guild combined in high school.  I hate that football players are held to different academic and social standards in college.  And I hate the bullshit that professional football players get away with (check out my new favorite blog, nflcrimes.blogspot.com).  And I hate how much they’re paid.

And then there’s this:

Which, according to the Orlando Sentinel “has a chance to be the most successful professional women’s “sport” from a business perspective.”

Let’s all take a minute to think about what that says about the way that our country views women, women’s athletics, and men’s interests.  Because the LFL is an insult to all three. Women are more than their bodies, women’s athletics is more than women’s bodies, and dear God men must have interests beyond women’s bodies.

Also, the comments over at the OS are enough to make you puke.

Fess up. You’re not really indignant about this, but jealous. I know that you know that if you looked as hot as these girls and were just as fit, you’d be out there proudly flaunting it like they do.

My guess would be the writer of this piece is a frusterated former athlete or simply an unattractive or mis-informed women [sic] who never received 1/2 the attention the LFL is garnering.

Now I feel stabby.

Ahh football.  I would say that football and I are like cats and dogs, but I have seen cats and dogs snuggle.  I would say that football and I are like oil and water, but oil and water are both ingredients in making sweet, sweet cupcakes.  There is no love between me and football, there are no good feelings, there are no snuggles, and there are no cupcakes.  Guys like this certainly don’t help.

Crowd Taunts Roethlisberger With “She Said No!” Chant During NFL Draft [mediaite]

Yeah, that pretty much says it all for this one.

Despite Rape Accusations, Nike Stands By Its Man [Jezebel]

Roethlisberger was accused of raping a woman in Lake Tahoe last summer. He denied the accusation and no criminal charges were filed, but now a 20-year-old college student has alleged that he encouraged her and her friends to take shots at a Milledgeville, Ga. bar, then had his bodyguard “escort” her into a hallway, whereupon Roethlisberger raped her.

4 Ways The Cops Screwed Up The Roethlisberger Case [Jezebel]

A friend of the victim says [Sgt.] Blash told her, “You can file a statement but this man has a lot of money and good attorneys.” When the victim asked “whether she should just forget she was raped and not file charges,” Blash reportedly “became defensive [...] accusing the alleged victim of trying to put words in his mouth.”

After the victim made her accusation, Blash immediately notified Roethlisberger and his “associates.” One associate says Blash announced: “We have a problem, this drunken [expletive], drunk off her ass, is accusing Ben of rape.”

Former Steeler charged with domestic abuse [UPI]

Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Mike Tomczak has been charged with assaulting his wife at their home in Bell Acres, Pa., police said.

I’m going to put it right out there – I don’t care about sports. When they (okay, more like their cultural followings) aren’t irritating and enraging me, they are just plain boring me. I didn’t watch a minute of the Olympics (but, like my qualms about the SuperBowl, my qualms about the Olympics are fodder for another post). However, the interwebs inform me that I have been missing out on Johnny Weir, a fantastic, controversial, sh*t stirring figure skater who is threatening the masculinity of male professional athletes, commentators, and spectators everywhere. Also, he reminds people of Lady Gaga (another recent pop figure to make everyone feel uncomfortable about sexuality). Apparently that’s funny.

Of course, Johnny Weir is actually friends with Lady Gaga, so he’s probably not too offended here.  He also has a sweet exhibition routine to Poker Face.  But I wouldn’t expect these late night talk show guys to know much of anything about figure skating outside of the Olympics, Lady Gaga, or what is cool anyway.

From Feministing:

You can understand why Johnny Weir makes commentators, even figure skating commentators, so very uncomfortable. He’s an especially elegant skater who wears formfitting and sparkly costumes (yes, even more formfitting and more sparkly than one usually sees in figure skating) and who really emotes on the ice.

How sad is it that this is undeniably true?  Johnny is clearly comfortable with his sexuality, stating “I don’t feel the need to express my sexual being because it’s not part of my sport and it’s private. I can sleep with whomever I choose and it doesn’t affect what I’m doing on the ice, so speculation is speculation.”  The fact that he is not a typical heterosexual male and that he won’t give nervous and bigoted people the excuse to write him off as gay means that he can’t be neatly compartmentalized, and that means he might be like them – or worse, they might be like him.

From Bitch:

In response to two Quebecois commentators who spoke derogatorily of Weir and said he should take a gender test, Weir responded by issuing an awesome statement that touched on identity, free speech, life in the public eye, and the changing acceptance of gender.

You can find the whole clip of Weir’s statement at the Bitch post.  Some highlights from his response: “I’m not somebody to cry about something or to feel weak about something. I felt very defiant when I saw these comments. I felt that it wasn’t… these two men criticizing my skating, it wasn’t them criticizing my… anything. It was them criticizing me as a person. And that was something that really frankly pissed me off more than anything. So I felt like I had to make a comment and statement that I hope more kids cans grow up the same way that I did. That more kids feel the freedom that I feel to be themselves and to express themselves.”

Also, this:  “I think masculinity is what you believe it to be. To me, masculinity…it’s all my perception. And I think I think masculinity and femininity is something that’s very old fashioned. There’s a whole new generation of people that aren’t defined by their sex or their race or who they like to sleep with. I think as a person you know what your values are and what you believe in and that’s the most important things.”

Right on, dude.  We need more Weirs and Gagas in the world.  Maybe 25 years from now gender roles will be nostalgic and obsolete, and we can see all people for who they are instead of where they fall on the masculinity/femininity spectrum and how well that does or does not align with their physiology and sexuality.  I think Weir and Gaga are just ahead of the times.

I did not watch the SuperBowl.  Proudly.  But my stance on professional sports is a topic for another discussion.  Anyway, if there’s one thing that the SuperBowl is known for (besides hypermasculinity and large men in spandex trying to kill each other in addition to rubbing up against one another and grunting in a totally non-sexual way – wait, another post, right) it’s envelope pushing advertisements.  These are being covered all over the place today, so here are some links to get you thinking about the fallout.

Woes Of Bros: Super Bowl Ads Star Pathetic Men — And The Women Who Ruined Them [Jezebel]

Knowing that Super Bowl Sunday is the only day of the year in which TV viewers actually care about commercials, you’d think ad agencies would have tried to reach the men and the women watching at home, right? Wrong.

Superbowl Sexism: Spineless, skirtless edition [feministing]

I’m sensing an anxious masculinity theme for the Superbowl commercials this year. I mean, we get it, dudes: You’re worried about being castrated by lavender scented candles and shopping with your lady friend. Go kill something, quick! And for the love of god, stop being nice to your girlfriend.

The Super Bowl and Madison Avenue Misogyny [feministe]

Superbowl ads are sexist. This is well trod ground: Marketers objectify women and play up stereotypes in order to sell things to (heterosexual) men. But we knew this year was going to be special. This year there was going to be some extra anti-feminist flavor… There were fewer half-naked women and dick jokes this year. Instead, the 2010 Superbowl Ad Mantra seemed to have one common theme: “Feeling castrated? . . . by women? Man up.”

The Critics On The Super Bowl Ads: Boring, Misogynistic [Jezebel]

• From Time‘s James Poniewozik:

Wow, Super Bowl ad men really hate Super Bowl ad women this year, don’t they? …. Why would CBS turn down a Super Bowl ad from a gay-dating service, then run a bunch of ads with the message that men can’t stand to be around women?

• From  Slate‘s Seth Stevenson:

Is it me, or was this year’s dose of casual misogyny a little rawer and angrier than usual?

• From The Washington Post‘s Tom Shales:

An oddly recurring theme had to do with men asserting their masculinity, or attempting to assert it, as well as the perpetual male fear of emasculation.

• NOW via the Los Angeles Times:

NOW president Terry O’Neill said it glorified violence against women. “I am blown away at the celebration of the violence against women in it,” she said.

Looks like a big mess.  Did I miss any good critiques of last night’s ads?  Feel free to leave your own responses as well as links to more posts in the comments.

So I’m minding my own business, studying at my favorite bookstore coffeeshop, when I look up to give my eyes a break and what do I see?  This:

Exclusive! “TIGER: Raw, Never-Before-Seen Photos! by Annie Lebovitz”

Ahh, yes, always one to bring the scandal (remember the Miley Cyrus / Billy Ray Electra controversy last year?) I am not surprised to see Ms. Lebovitz has a hand in this.

“The MYSTERY of a SPORTS SUPERSTAR we thought we knew”

What is going on here.  Do I think that Tiger’s affairs should be cover material?  No, but that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, isn’t it.  I don’t see why any celebrity (or politician) sex scandal deserves front-page anything, save for our human voyeurism.  But how is it that after all the scandal Tiger still comes out as an Adonis?

I can’t even think of a role-reversal example of this to compare it to.  We typically are left with the aftermath of a husband-gone-wild and a wife in shambles, where Mr. Wild Oats comes across as the bad guy.  It is rare that we see as much attention paid to scandals of Mrs. Wild Oats’s adventures of her own.  But, if we did, I think it’s safe to say that Mrs. Wild Oats would play the role of slut/whore/bitch and not be featured on the cover of fashion magazines as a brooding sexual object only months after the debacle.

And yet, there Tiger is in all his shirtless, weight lifting glory (where are the golf clubs?), with Never-Before-Seen Photos! and an Exclusive! insight into the MYSTERY of the man we “thought we knew.”  Please.  Vanity Fair will do anything to move their lavatory literature.

Can you think of any examples of women in Tiger’s position that come out on top?

The last few weeks have been awesome for feminist movie goers!  Jennifer’s Body, Paper Heart, and now Whip It! haven’t exactly rocked the box office, but the presence of so many movies featuring powerful DIY women in Hollywood is encouraging.  And I’ll admit on a personal level, I am loving it.

Whip It! is a fun, exciting, empowering film about powerful women being exactly who they are, regardless of the expectations society has for them and the rules they’re supposed to follow.  Bliss (the phenomenal Ellen Page, who always plays awesome characters) is the stereotyped high school misfit, old school rock T-shirt, wide rimmed glasses, frizzy hair and all.  She’s not what her parents want her to be (mom wishes she had a beauty queen, dad wishes he had the all-star linebacker).  She’s not what her peers want her to be (she’s an easy target as such a predictable weirdo).  And she’s not who she wants to be either, until she discovers the roller derby.

I don’t care how cheesy or cliche the line “be your own hero” is – its a line that more girls and young women need to hear.  Rather than becoming a groupie or cheerleader to the Hurl Scouts, Bliss joins the team and becomes its star.  Her teammates are equally powerful and enjoyable.  I was particularly impressed with Kristen Wiig who was finally allowed to play a character other than her standard SNL parody, bringing depth to the team capital/single mother Maggie Mayhem.  Drew Barrymore as Smashley Simpson was also quirky and cute, as usual, but without the eye-rolling over-the-top style she often presents.  As this was her directorial debut, I was pleasantly surprised to see how small her role was and how graciously she let the other actors steal the show.

The second storyline romance was also refreshing about this film.  Part of this is that it was a second storyline in the first place, rather than the primary plot of the movie.  Additionally, as sweet as the romance is, it was fantastic to watch Bliss walk away in the end having made the decision that was right for her, refusing to be disrespected and strung along by a guy unworthy of her time.  Imagine the impact on young women if this were more representative of the messages they receive about friendship and romance.

I recommend this film to all young women, and all parents of young girls.  More women need to be allowed and encouraged to be who they are rather than who they’re “supposed” to be as the perfect daughter, sister, friend, or student.  Keep the lady-friendly films coming!

Have you seen Whip It!?  What were your reactions?

I don’t follow tennis, but you don’t have to to know about the latest sports scandal.  At the Wimbeldon tournament, Serena Williams, in two emotional outbursts, smashed a racket, shouted at a line judge, and was penalized on match point, costing her the game.  And we can’t stop talking about it.

But its not like this is new to the world of tennis.

And what are McEnroe’s consequences?