Some interesting links on family planning (and not-so-planning) out there this week, folks.  Read, think, share, enjoy.  And don’t forget that the Planned Parenthood nearest you could always benefit from donations if you want to put your money where your heart is.

Nearly half of U.S. pregnancies are unintended [feministing]

“We’re trying to figure out where the system is breaking down,” England said. “You need to get to the point where contraception is so convenient and user-friendly that people who don’t want to get pregnant use it all the time.”

To Whom Do Children “Just Happen”? [sociological images]

Notice that people with less education and lower incomes were more likely to have their first child by “accident” than people with more education and higher incomes.  They were also more likely to have their first child as a teenager.  These are the groups that we might expect, on average, to have less knowledge about birth control and less access to (especially more effective forms of) birth control.  Given that our society is class segregated, members of these groups may also be surrounded by other people who “just happened” to have kids.  The ideology of near-perfect control of reproduction, then, may not be as strong.

More American women choosing to be child free [feministing]

Education level also plays a factor – women who are more educated are more likely to choose to be child free.

Yesterday I stumbled upon this short over at Sociological Images:

Girls suck at video games / Les filles sont nulles aux jeux vidéo from Stéphanie Mercier on Vimeo.

What do you think?

LOST has reached its end, and whether it was a fond or a furious farewell for you, here are some other perspectives on the show and its treatment of (in particular) its female and POC characters.  As I (unfortunately) have not yet seen the 2.5 hour finale, none of these links have any finale spoilers, but other season 6 spoilers abound, so be warned if you were waiting until you could binge on the whole season at once now that it’s over.

TelevIsm: The Numbers–Lost and Race and Death Off the Island [bitch]

Portraying marginalized people in the face of a mostly white slate of network television shows is great, but it’s only a start. Painting these lives comes with responsibility: to not play into racist stereotypes, to create new and interesting portrayals and stories, and to build on the promise of a main cast that is only a little over half white.

LOST Has A Mommy Track [the sexist]

Claire’s most interesting story line was having a baby and a boyfriend. Sun’s most interesting storyline is having a husband and a baby. Kate’s most interesting story line is having two potential boyfriends, between whom she cannot choose, and also a baby eventually. Juliet’s most important storyline was that her boyfriend might have thought for 1.5 seconds about liking another girl so she had to fall down a mine shaft and explode three times on screen.

TelevIsm: The Disappointing Case of Kate Austen [bitch]

I really loved her at the beginning of the show. She was so capable yet so compelling, and she totally seemed to have an inner life. And now she’s just useless. She does whatever the dudes do, or quite frequently, whatever they tell her to do. Whenever she manages to form a unique opinion of her own, it pretty much always ends up not really mattering in the end and being overruled.

Farewell, Kate Austen: We Won’t Miss You, And That’s Too Bad [jezebel]

Austen isn’t the only problematic female character on the show; the fates of the majority of the women on the show are tied directly to the male leads, and women who have been left on their own (Ilana, Claire, Danielle, Jacob’s mother) tend to end up either dead or crazy… Penny’s fate is always tied to both Desmond and her father, Alex’s fate is always tied to Ben, Sun’s fate is always tied to Jin’s, and motherhood is always presented in an odd and frightening way and never seems to end well for anyone.

Last night, I saw the most beautiful woman in the world.  I have loved Ani DiFranco since about the 9th grade.  I picked up the album Dilate at a used record shop, popped it in my walkman + car tape-deck adapter, and dove in head first.  With my mom.  Who kind of liked it, but didn’t “know about all this F%$# You business.”

Then there was the time I headed off to camp for the summer as a volunteer junior counselor and my mystery bunk-mate had an extensive Ani collection, guaranteeing me that we would be BFFs (which we are).  Ani posters have accompanied me from home to home, dorm to rental, state to state.  I’ve driven hundreds of miles to see her.  I’ve driven tens of miles to see her.  And I think I’m up to about… 7? shows now.  Last night was one of the greatest.

I’ve never fallen in love with Ani’s new material as quickly as I did last night at her show in SLC.  Like this one (which is not a video that I took, and which is not the best video quality, but listen to it for the song anyway – you won’t regret it):

I was especially impressed with the way that she introduced this song in such a conservative state.  She prefaced it with how hard it is to write political songs, since they aren’t very romantic or emotional or pretty, but that she felt it was time to get down to business.  She added that not everyone was going to agree with what she had to say in the song, but that that’s okay, and “welcome so much” to her point of view.  And (although I’m admittedly biased in her favor) I honestly liked her political stuff better than her personal stuff last night.

Ani has always tapped in poignantly to the human experience: pleasure, pain, suffering, longing, desire, dreams, hope, anger, power…  We love her because she puts to words and music what we feel.  And humans love that dark, suffering, angsty stuff.  Last night Ani was happy and busted out some love songs and celebrations of how far she’s come, her new marriage, and her new outlook on life as a mother.  It’s not what Ani fans are used to (although we’ve been slowly acclimating to it over the past few albums), but Ani’s music isn’t for us.  It’s for her.  And she has every right to celebrate her joy.  She certainly deserves it.

Plus she’s still totally righteous.

About a month ago I was contacted by a promising young filmmaker in New York – not bad for a lil’ ol’ blogger out here in the wild west.  Katie Madonna Lee describes her film as follows:

When her mother is murdered by her father, Julie Ann Mabry is confronted by a life of hardship and poverty. Taken in by her Evangelical relatives, she begins to adopt new convictions in an effort to reconnect with her mother. Slowly, the threads of her new life begin to unravel and Julie Ann is sent to prison. It is there she finds the freedom and community she had sought so long, yet it does not come without a price.

Woman’s Prison is a tragedy through and through.  It is filled with the consequences of poverty, people stuck in cycles that they can’t break out of without the help of mankind, which all too often turns a blind eye to the needs of others.  Julie Ann’s life is punctuated by moments of beauty, in her relationship with her mother and with her cousin Britney – two people who genuinely love and accept her as she is.  The rest of her life is filled with pain, suffering, and people who use and discard Julie Ann.  She never has a chance, spends the majority of her life in jail, and eventually faces the death penalty.  She becomes the epitome of the the poor and untouchable that our society sweeps under the rug.

Woman’s Prison is a story like so many others that most of us would rather ignore.  That is exactly why it is so important for us to face.  You can find out more about the film at its official site.

“The male society is letting the men think of the women as something pretty and soft and that kind of thing, especially in those days, you know. So I just wanted to show what we were. Women are the ones who actually created the human race. I mean without us bringing up the new generation, there wouldn’t be a human race. So we have this very strong powerful energy in us. But the world wants to think that it’s the weaker sex. So that’s why I want to bring out this thing from me.”

– Yoko Ono

On how she got the idea to do primal scream-type music (overhearing a a kid people discussing the sound of childbirth).

From Mother Jones via Jezebel.

I wasn’t expecting a lot when I Netflix’d Baby Mama. The movie seemed to come and go when it was released and the lack of buzz took it off my radar pretty quickly. However, I love funny women so I gave it a shot, and I’m glad I did.

About a month ago I watched Bride Wars with my friends. I feel like that movie and Baby Mama could be categorized together, in that they’re both movies about women with stereotypical feminine desires, and both have over the top happy resolutions. They’re the kind of movie you’d watch on a lazy Friday night with a few friends and a bottle of wine (or beer). The difference between the two is one of them made me weep for humanity and the other just made me wish for a slight change of ending.

[Spoilers Ahead] Read the rest of this entry »

There were two things that had me pumped up about The Wild Things: 1. Jim Henson muppets, and 2. Karen O.  I was never very attached to the story as a kid, and was pretty sure that it was going to be a hyped-up-indie-fest as a film.  However, this was also during that period that I kept going to movies expecting little and being blown away (Away We Go, Jennifer’s Body, Paper Heart, and Whip It!), so maybe that explains the mild obsession that overtook me after seeing The Wild Things last fall.  The film, the soundtrack, and the book all made their mark on me, and all have a little feminist spin in my opinion.  Let’s break it down:

The Film

Sadly this trailer doesn’t incorporate the Karen O led music that really contributes to the feel of the film, nor does it capture what, to me, was the most meaningful theme: Max’s relationship with his mother.  What? you say?  His mother?  Please, this is a story about a naughty and wild little boy. On the surface, yes, but Max’s relationship with his mom is what gave the film depth.

Max is being raised by a single mother who has a new boyfriend, which can be hard on any kid.  It’s hard even into adulthood to understand split parents, and when a newcomer steps in things become even more difficult.  Max was already a pain-in-the-butt kid, and between a fight with his older sister and the apparent intrusion of a new man into his home, he loses it.  He runs away and winds up living among the Wild Things as their king.  And each Wild Thing offers us an insight into Max’s relationship with his mom.  Carol represents the possessiveness Max feels towards her; Alexander represents how ignored he feels; Judith represents his difficult and disagreeable side; Ira represents the doting and needy part of him; and the Bull represents the stoic role our society asks us to show when we’re really experiencing pain.  K.W. on the other hand, represents Max’s mom.

K.W. is warm, loving, kind, and is more complex than the other Wild Things can understand.  She has a different level of maturity, she needs relationships outside of the group.  Carol in particular is resentful of this and alternates between loving K.W. and not knowing how to express it and loathing her in a violent and possessive way.  This is a clear reflection of how Max has treated his mother on the night he ran away.  When Carol turns on Max for letting him down as a king, it is K.W. that protects him, hiding him in her mouth.  For a moment after it is safe, K.W. wants to keep Max, but she understands that as much as she loves him, she must let him go.  Whether Max has the capacity to understand this as deeply as I see it or not, this is the turning point where he realizes he needs his mother and must return to her, hopefully with a new respect for her as a person, not just a mom.

After the jump, an analysis of the soundtrack (including an interview with Karen O.) and the book

Diablo Cody has done it again, folks.  The United States of Tara is complex, smart, progressive, and entertaining, and well worth your time.  The show is about a suburban family coping with the typical stresses of work, school, and relationships with a twist: Mom’s got four personalities.

Tara’s persona’s aren’t the most accurate representation of mental illness, although they do manage to use accurate terms: Dissociative Identity Disorder rather than Multiple Personality Disorder – something that Tara regularly has to correct others on.  Instead, her persona’s illustrate the various stereotyped roles women navigate – T, the wild, rebellious, and promiscuous teenager; Alice, the overly-sweet but passive-aggressive 50′s housewife; Buck, the grungy, rough and tough masculine side; and Tara herself who is trying to live a “normal” modern life with her husband and two children while coping with a buried childhood trauma that led to the development of these personas.  As Tara gets closer to that lost memory a fourth alter arises: Gimme, the animalistic child.

But the show isn’t just about Tara.  It’s about family.  Read the rest of this entry »

“There’s a direct connection between a woman’s ability to plan her family, space her pregnancies, and give birth safely, and her ability to get an education, work outside the home, support her family, and participate fully in the life of her community.

When a girl becomes a mother before she becomes literate, when a woman gives birth alone and is left with a permanent disability, when a mother toils daily to feed her large family but cannot convince her husband to agree to contraception, these struggles represent suffering that can and should be avoided. They represent potential that goes unfulfilled. And they also represent an opportunity to extend critical help to women worldwide and the children who depend on them.

Investing in the health of women, adolescents, and girls is not only the right thing to do; it is also the smart thing to do.”

- U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s
Remarks on the 15th Anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development

Full transcript here via Jezebel.