feministhemes.com

On the possibility of a female president: “I don’t see it happening because I don’t see one coming up the line in either party.”

On Hillary Clinton: “People don’t want to elect a feminist because they are not likeable. You have to be likeable to be elected.”

On the other hand: “Sarah Palin is the total package. She’s got a cute husband. She’s got a lot of kids.”

Keep it classy, Phyllis.  From Politics Daily via Jezebel.

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?

Yesterday in one of my graduate level classes we had a guest speaker who shared with us some of his experiences and thoughts about being a crossdresser.  He reported that he spent 95% of his time as a man and didn’t have a “chip on [his] shoulder” about the questions we asked him or the pronouns we used to refer to him, so despite his being dressed as a woman yesterday I’ll be referring to this individual as “him.”  Although he gave us the disclaimer that we could ask anything, I still wasn’t comfortable asking everything I wanted to or voicing some things I was struggling to understand, but I figured this was as good a place as any to work through my thoughts.

I was born female and identify as female, and I view that as a privilege.  I don’t know what it’s like to be born in the wrong body, but I believe it can and does happen, and I believe it can and does make life harder for many people.  I also understand that there are individuals who are drawn to crossdressing who have no feelings of wanting to be the other gender, but simply like the way it feels or the way they look when they experiment with gender atypical attire.  But something wasn’t sitting right with me today.

Our guest speaker kept repeating, as he showed us pictures of 50s housewives doing chores in dresses and heels, “doesn’t that look like fun!?”  Maybe.  But not to me.  And the idea that this was once an expectation for women but is now seen as kitchy, cute, and “fun” rubs me the wrong way.  Women have worked long and hard to have the option to get out of that role, and “fun” kind of belittles that struggle.  I was also getting bogged down in privilege-tied guilt that its acceptable for me as a woman to dress in “male” clothing and the reverse isn’t true for men. I firmly believe that rigid gender roles cut both ways and hurt both women and men, too.  It sucks that men can’t dress how they want, and our speaker was right in stating that it’s not fair.  But it’s a little more complicated than that. More thoughts after the jump.

Particularly if you are in the academic world (grad students and junior faculty, I’m looking at you) I highly recommend you check out the Gender Bias Learning Project website.

Joan Williams and her colleagues at the Center for WorkLife Law at UC Hastings College of the Law has put together a fantastic interactive, educational website that illustrates the many ways that gender biases and double standards can create hurdles for women in the workplace.  The site is filled with fun videos that illustrate different biases, suggestions for overcoming them, and conversation starters that can be used with friends and coworkers.

I’m still exploring the site and really enjoying it, but I’m more of a reader than a viewer, so I kind of wish there were more written resources available on the site.  It would also be great if there were some sort of student version of this project.  Clearly, working women face these problems every day, and I think that  a great way to start preempting these issues is to educate our young people (high school and university students), not only to make them aware of the issues, but to help nip them in the bud.

In my own experience as a TA and lab instructor I always try to find ways to incorporate diversity issues, including the implications and influences of gender, race, religious beliefs, socioeconomic status, and sexual orientation.  Reactions are always (predictably) mixed with some students thinking in new ways and others wondering why we’re wasting our time talking about dumb issues.

To those of you who teach, how do you approach these issues?  To those of you who are and have been students, did you ever have any instructors that did an exceptional job of incorporating these issues?  What are your recommendations?

Shoutouts to Alethea Joy for bringing this project to my attention!

“Women are always expected to be naked, and I like to try to be naked in films and have
the woman not be naked… It’s a feminist thing that I do.”

- Ewan McGregor (around 5:20  below)

Ewan McGregor is a Scottish actor known for taking risque roles featuring male nudity, non-traditional gender roles, and a range of sexuality.  Is he a feminist, is his reasoning feminist, is he making a joke?  Are any of these thing mutually exclusive?  You be the judge.  From here.

1. She values health for health’s sake, not for beauty’s sake.

“Women in particular need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we’re scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don’t have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own ‘to do’ list.”

2. She believes in the importance of identity.

“One of the lessons that I grew up with was to always stay true to yourself and never let what somebody else says distract you from your goals. And so when I hear about negative and false attacks, I really don’t invest any energy in them, because I know who I am.”

3. She understands the difficulty inherent in being a working mother…

“The work-life balance is a harsh reality for so many women, who are forced every day to make impossible choices. Do they take their kids to the doctor…and risk getting fired? Do they work weekends so they can afford to send their kids to better childcare…even though it means even less time with their families? Do they take another shift at work, so they can pay for piano lessons for their kids…even though it means they have to stop volunteering for the PTA? It just shouldn’t be this difficult to raise healthy families.”

4. …and what that “personal is political” phrase is all about.

“Policies that support families aren’t political issues.  They’re personal.  They’re the causes I carry with me every single day.”

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Because reverse objectification isn’t any better than the status quo.

This ad stinks.

“Women are the only exploited group in history to have been idealized into powerlessness.”

- Erica Jong

Erica Jong Jong is an American author and teacher, best known for her controversial first novel, Fear of Flying (1973), which dealt frankly with woman’s sexual desires.  This quote refers to the impact of what is now called “benevolent sexism,” sexism based on the notion that women are delicate, sensitive, and better than men in such ways that necessitate that men take care of them.

Diablo Cody is like a Rorschach test for feminists.  Some women love her for being brilliant, courageous, subversive, and vocal; some women hate her for being trendy, scandalous, irritating, and loud.  Make of her what you will, I have a special place in my heart for any woman willing to rock animal prints as frequently as Ms. Cody does.

1. She uses the F-word fearlessly.

“My feminist hat is permanently welded to my head—I definitely can’t take it off! It’s so important for me to write things from the female perspective and in service of women and in the right roles for women. That’s usually what I’m thinking going into it. Obviously, the story goes first. But then my next priority is how am I going to sneak my subversive feminist message into this?”

2. She has priorities.

“I want to write roles that service women. I want to tell stories from a female perspective. I want to create good parts for actresses where they’re not just accessories to men…”

3. She calls ‘em like she sees ‘em.

“The attitude toward women in this industry is nauseating. There are all sorts of porcine executives who are uncomfortable with a woman doing anything subversive. They want the movie about the beautiful girl who trips and falls, the adorable klutz.”

Click here for 6 more reasons to love Diablo

I saw Jennifer’s Body last night (bummed I couldn’t make it opening weekend, but such is life), and for all the feminist debates about whether or not it (or Diablo Cody or Megan Fox) has any merit, I have to say I liked it.  I’m not usually the horror-movie type, but like it or not, this one was different.

For one thing, its kind of refreshing to see women in a horror film who aren’t completely helpless and don’t spend all of their time shrieking, crying, running, and hiding.  You don’t spend much time in this film perched on the edge of your seat waiting for the Big Bad to jump out and attack the poor little woman – in fact, you spend more of your time on the edge of your seat waiting for the Big Bad to jump on and attack the poor horny boy.  It’s amazing how disorienting it was to watch male characters struggle to get away from a teen in a prom dress, not because they shouldn’t want to, but because it’s so rare to see a woman not only powerful, but on offense rather than defense.  For once, both the villain and hero were female and the prey were male, and not the other way around.

Based on this premise, one might think that the film has some feminist under(or over)tones, and yet the reactions in the webisphere have been pretty strongly divided.  Yes, the film is titled “Jennifer’s Body” – there is some objectification inherent.  Yes, Megan Fox is a babe and there is a fair share of (implied) nudity.  Yes, Amanda Seyfried is pretty beautiful for a “mousy” best friend.  Yes, there is some girl-on-girl action.  And yes, sex has some graphically violent consequences.  BUT…

My analysis (spoilers and all) ahead.

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