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Lately I’ve developed an affection for TV shows that aired on ABC between 1989 and 1993. Doogie Howser, and the Wonder Years have been faves for some time, and nostalgia has led me to add thirtysomething and Life Goes On to my Netflix queue. Most recently, however, I’ve fell in love with a show I’ve actually been hunting down for years: Homefront.

Homefront aired on ABC from 1991-1993. Its short run means it was rarely syndicated and no one has gone through the trouble to release it on DVD, so creative googling and luck are necessary to hunt down VHS recordings. It was rather critically acclaimed during its initial run but failed to pull in the ratings necessary to guarantee renewal. It seems a very similar story to my favorite show on TV these days, Friday Night Lights. Kyle Chandler stars in both, but whereas Homefront died due to lack of viewership, Friday Night Lights had the advantage of being produced in a more flexible era of television, allowing it to live 5 (short) seasons–for which I am eternally grateful.

But back to Homefront. It’s an evening soap that revolves around a town, River Run, Ohio, at the end of WWII. The first episode begins with the young soldiers returning home from overseas and begins to explore the early post-war era.

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With our boys off to war, American women stepped it up during World War II, represented by that iconic figure, Rosie the Riveter (check out this sweet post about Rosie at Bitch Blogs).  Ever wonder what Rosie had on under that blue work(wo)man’s shirt?

How about a plastic safety bra?

I’m not really sure what to say about this.  It seems that it would be equally sensible (if not more so) to wear something akin to a sports bra, essentially strapping those beauties down to keep them from harms way.

I mean, I’m not an expert on the manufacturing industry, but were men encouraged to wear jock straps and nut cups in order to protect their goodies?

Anyway, next time you’re admiring the safety goggles and hard hats of laborers, remember fondly this image of the plastic bra.  Gives new meaning to “save the boobies,” doesn’t it?

You can find more (and somewhat less confusing) images of women at work in the Records of the Women’s Bureau of the US National Archives on Flickr.  Shoutouts to io9!

I’m always cautious to post about my own life, because those are the areas that are so much more sensitive – the places where invalidation (or just plain lack of validation) is too hard to make it worth the risk.  But talking about the places where political meets personal is kind of the point, and if I can’t talk the talk when it relates to my own life, I’m not really walking the walk.  So here goes another personal anecdote.

This week in a professional meeting one of my superiors made a comment about an overweight woman that caught me so off guard that I wasn’t even able to put my thoughts together about it until now.

He asked “I wonder what it is she’s trying to hide with her fat.”

I immediately crossed my arms over my stomach and tried to situate myself in such a way that the majority of my midsection would be protected from any passing glances.  I wanted to melt into the wall.  And although I could certainly stand to lose a few pounds, I’m not in any significant health danger or out of control. And I have a lot of privileges because in the grand scheme of things I’m still relatively thin.

Weight sucks.  Maybe some excess weight is occasionally an emotional defense – a physical barrier to protect the individual from the (cruel) world around them.  But sometimes it’s a product of genetics.  Sometimes it’s a product of being an adult with an adult metabolism but the eating and exercise habits of a teenage couch potato.  Sometimes it’s a result of a physical condition (thyroid problems, anyone)?  Sometimes its a product of SES and not being able to afford the foods health magazines suggest or not being able to go to the gym instead of working that extra shift.  And sometimes its just a matter of having better things to do than work out to make my body look like you think it should.

But as much as I tell myself these things, I still wish I was that thin girl I was at 16.  People would rather listen to a thin, beautiful woman talk about how its okay to look however you look than a slightly overweight, average woman say the exact same words.  And so I can rationally say that the woman in question’s weight has nothing to do with anything, and I can sincerely not care if she’s 120 or 220 or 320, but I can’t convince myself that my extra 30 pounds are acceptable.  WTF.

So I didn’t say anything.  And I talked to a colleague of mine afterword who reported she had the same shocked and insulted reaction.  And this man walked away from that meeting thinking he had asked a thought provoking and insightful question.  And he has power over us.

Anyway, it’s just been one of those weeks for me and with Thanksgiving coming up food and weight issues are here to stay though the holidays (my dad once recommended I see a doctor when my teenage metabolism retired and I gained those freshmen fifteen, and my grandmother has been known to poke my stomach and ask “what’s that?” when my mother or partner aren’t there to slap her hand away).  I’d love to hear how you cope with the social double standard regarding women’s weight issues.

I also recommend these posts at Adventures of a Young Feminist and Deeply Problematic on the topic, as well as the BMI project slide show.  They’ve helped me in the past.

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!

The other day I was sitting in a TV-related class and a fellow student began discussing her enjoyment of Sex and the City. I am not a fan of the show and I made my feelings about it clear (admittedly, the language I used was rather harsh, hence me not repeating it here, but I was mad because she said harsh things about Seinfeld, suggesting that all of America was silly for even watching it, and well… it bugged me). Anyway…

So I said I didn’t like the show and she said, “Wow, that was really aggressive, and kind of anti-feminist.”

I understood the aggressive (I was), but the anti-feminist thing really caught me off-guard.

“I don’t think Sex and the City is necessarily a feminist show,” I countered.

“I think it is,” she responded. Fair enough. But then she explained her reason for believing so: “Because the entire show revolves around Carrie’s job.”

I’m not a fan of Sex and the City. Although I think it had its moments, the materialism played out in the show and surrounding it here in the real world made me really uncomfortable. Not to mention the fact that all four of these liberated women ended up in happy little heterosexual relationships at the end of the series. Love isn’t a bad thing, but for a show that celebrated independence it seemed a little unnecessary.

However, even though I’m not a fan of the show, I can understand how it could be argued that the show was incredibly feminist, but I don’t think the focus on Carrie’s job is really good support.

Then I began thinking; what makes a show feminist? How many “negative” elements must there be to rule out the good (if that’s even possible)?

So I ask of the readers of feministhemes.com, what are your favorite “feminist” shows? Have you ever felt bad for not liking a show because of it’s noble and laudable ideals? And are there any shows you gave up on because you felt women were being marginalized in a way that made you uncomfortable? Lastly, what are your thoughts on Sex and the City? Am I not giving it a fair chance? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

She’s one of the most recognizable cartoon vixens in America.  She’s not a female counterpart to a male star, like Minnie Mouse or Daisy Duck, and she’s not just somebody’s babelicious girlfriend, like Jessica Rabbit.  However, her status as a sex symbol is undeniable.  But who is Betty Boop really, and can she be seen as an early feminist icon, or nothing more than a black-and-white pinup?

Based on the 1920’s fun-loving flappers, Betty Boop debuted in 1930 as the partner to a little dog named Bimbo who was intended to compete directly with the famed Mickey Mouse.  Although she eventually became far more popular than her beau, she stared out with long, floppy ears, a doglike face, but the curvaceous body of a woman.  As Betty stole the center stage from Bimbo, she lost her doglike characteristics, although she maintained an awkward relationship with the canine Bimbo.  Eventually Bimbo faded from Betty’s films, though Betty was later overshadowed herself by another mutt, her own puppy Pudgy.

The 1930s animated shorts were intended for general (read: adult) audiences, not for children.  Betty’s shorts (no pun intended) were considered “sexy, tongue-in-cheek” romps.  The animators were typically in their late teens or early 20s, and enjoying the freedom that followed the end of prohibition.  Of course, it wasn’t long before the films drew the attention of outraged church groups and moral watchdogs.  Betty was forced to clean up her act (and lengthen her skirt), as seen in the short “Housecleaning Blues (1937).”  However, as narrated in the A&E Biography special Betty Boop: The Queen of Cartoons, this led to audiences perceiving Betty as “the homebody that cared more about her home than her body,” and the demise of her popularity.

But Betty was more than just a homebody…

After the jump Betty goes to work and runs for president!

I recently visited the Ellis Island Immigration Museum. The following quote was a part of a display describing the mental screening new immigrants had to go through before being determined fit to enter the United States;

“They asked us questions, ‘How much is two and one? How much is two and two?’But the next young girl also from our city, went and they asked her, ‘How do you wash stairs, from the top or from the bottom?’ She says, ‘I don’t go to America to wash stairs.’”

The museum highlighted well many of the race and ethnicity-based problems faced by immigrants historically, but that’s to be expected. That is, after all, what the museum is about, but I was happy to find they didn’t fail to recognize some of the different ways men and women were treated in their quest for a new life and some of the problems faced exclusively by women. One of the most interesting was in a discussion about working conditions. Women were often paid far less than men and were asked to work much longer hours. At one point they were lucky enough to have a law passed that restricted the number of hours a person could be asked to work in a day. That’s great, except it now meant women couldn’t earn as much to support their family.

If you’re ever in New York, take the time to see the museum. It’s very cool. They just need to update the computerized citizenship exam guests can take. They haven’t updated it to reflect the changes made to the text in October 2008. Maybe if they had I would have passed it.