It’s been discussed to death, and I haven’t read everything that’s been written (I don’t have that kind of time), but I want to make a few comments about the Daily Show/Jezebel/Olivia Munn situation.

I take that back. I have nothing to say about Olivia Munn. I’ve never seen her perform and while I’ve read some quotes attributed to her that rub me the wrong way, I also realize I read those quotes in a very negatively biased context and thus I’m slow to make any sort of judgement based solely on them.

What I would like to respond to is the original Jezebel post written by Irin Carmon, and the response by the women of The Daily Show.

I’m a big fan of questioning what part of the story I’m missing, and there were many times while reading the Jezebel piece that I wondered what part of the story was being left out. For one it seemed as though no one who has worked there within the last seven years was involved in the piece. Not to excuse any negative behavior or experiences of the past, but seven years is a long time, and there may have been some important changes in attitudes or how things are run.

Another thing that struck me was the connections that were made. One person interviewed said that the real Jon Stewart is nothing like the guy on TV. The guy in reality “runs the show with joyless rage.” Also included in the piece is an anecdote about Mr. Stewart throwing a script in the face of an executive producer. While I don’t want to condone any such behavior, I am left wondering if that type of behavior is directed solely at women. If he really runs the show with joyless rage where is our evidence that every writer hasn’t at some point had something hurled in their direction? And was there perhaps something that instigated the script-throwing behind the fact the victim was a woman? It is not good behavior, certainly, but it is also not necessarily sexist.

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Links all over the place this week!

Scientists are “normal” people, some children discover [geek feminism blog]

In Drawings of Scientists, seventh graders draw and describe their image of scientists before and after a visit to Fermilab.  Among girls (14 in total), 36% portrayed a female scientist in the “before” drawing, and 57% portrayed a female scientist in the “after” drawing.  Among boys (17 in total), 100% portrayed a male scientist in the “before” drawing, and 100% portrayed a male scientist in the “after” drawing

The Lab’s Gender Gap [gender across borders]

Christensen points out that women scientists often start their careers with slightly lower salaries, in more poorly equipped labs, with fewer graduate students, and appointments to less-prestigious committees. Women are more likely to take time off work to stay home with their children, and less likely to go on the job market to improve their salaries. They’re also less likely to win high-status prizes.

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?

There has been a big controversy lately about the use of Trigger Warnings on feminist blogs, as started by Susannah Breslin at True/Slant.  You can bring yourself up to speed on that over at Feministe, which had my favorite posts on the issue.  I’m not going to talk about Trigger Warnings today (although they are important and useful and the criticisms of them are pretty pathetic). I want to talk about another of Breslin’s comments on feminism:

These days, feminism isn’t a movement at all, really, but a collection of blogs obsessed with the pop culture it claims to be victimized by, a forum for women who promote themselves as victims of a patriarchy that no longer exists, a pretend movement that contains within it no forward movement at all, only a fetal-like desire to curl up on itself, muttering Women’s Studies jargon, and handing out trigger warnings like party favors at a girl’s-only slumber party.

Quickly, let me address a few of these allegations:

• Yeah, we target pop culture.  Pop culture is interesting.  It surrounds us.  A lot of times we enjoy things that we know aren’t good for us (like too many oreos, too many margaritas, or too many episodes of Grey’s Anatomy).  That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about them.
• Patriarchy still exists.
• The feminist movement still exists.  It’s a little different from your mama’s feminism and your gramma’s feminism.  Consciousness raising happens in blogs instead of in living rooms.  Petitions happen over email rather than on the corner.  Networking, information sharing, and activism occur virtually.  I’m not saying it’s better.  But I don’t think it’s worse.

Which brings me to my main point: why I blog about feminism.  I took feminism for granted until I moved west.  Out here, I started really seeing sexism.  Largely because I started reading feminist blogs.  And once I started reading, I started thinking.  Then I started writing.  And those steps helped me get to a place where I could start acting.

Blogging allows me to engage in a regular feminist dialogue that I don’t always have in my day to day life.  I haven’t established a social network where I can have frequent, meaningful conversations about sexism, objectification, patriarchy (trust me, there’s plenty of patriarchy in Utah) and other issues that are common topics on feminist blogs.  So I visit the blogs almost daily to bring myself up to speed on what is going on in the world, important phenomena to be aware of, and tips for fighting for equality.

Then, I go back to the real world.  I go to school, I go to work, I go to the store, I go to the movies.  And I am primed to see the microaggressions that culture and socialization teach us to ignore.  And I am prepared to confront them.  I can speak up when an article that was assigned neglected to consider underresearched populations in their sweeping generalizations about human behavior.  I can speak up when a supervisor disguises sexual harassment as “challenging” a client, a student, or a supervisee.  I can support students and peers who are suddenly confronted with discrimination that they had never experienced so directly.  I can be a voice for a different experience.  I can be the person that people go to for a “feminist perspective.”

Blogging is not “a fetal-like desire to curl up on itself, muttering Women’s Studies jargon.”  It’s the locker room for the battle feminist women and men play out every day.

I’ll admit that I usually link to others when I’m too busy to generate my own posts, but I came across so many others making points better than I could this week, that I had to give some shoutouts around the blogosphere.  Check out the following posts:

Tina Fey: Esquire Fantasy Edition [bitch blogs]

Help me out here, folks. What do we make of the celebrity Tina Fey? She’s hilarious and smart as a whip, but she’s also been in a slew of sexy photo shoots lately that reinforce the notion that a funny woman can only be famous if she is also hot (a recurring theme in 30 Rock, but does making fun of something make it any less problematic?).

Pretty ugly: Can we please stop pretending that beautiful women aren’t beautiful? [feministing]

So, what does it mean when even the “ugly” women on our screens are conventionally beautiful? Firstly, it means that the bar for female beauty is being set higher than ever: if Tina Fey, Lea Michele and America Ferrera are “ugly,” what hope is there for the rest of us?

An Ode to Law and Order [femunity]

The conversation that I got to have would have never happened if it was not for Law and Order taking on such an epidemic. And I hope, I really hope, that my conversation was one of many that took place last night as women and men watched the show and simply asked–why?

To Speak Softly or Roar Loudly? That is the question. [gender across borders]

According to an article in the Jobs section of the NY Times, “Ultimately, women must be more mindful and use greater finesse when conveying their messages. We need to become better chameleon communicators and to carefully read our audience, adjusting our style to the circumstances.”My knee-jerk reaction is: NO. I don’t want to have to accommodate a patriarchal culture. The culture needs to change to accommodate me, and the other 50% of the population.  But I would like a successful career.

Soldier As Rapist: All Too Common [ms. blog]

Since one-third of women who join the military are raped or sexually assaulted by fellow soldiers, we must recognize that the soldier as rapist is all too common. Given that rape and sexual assault rates rise in the civilian world during wartime, we must also recognize that militarized sexual violence is trickling down into our communities.

Read on!  And as always, you are more than welcome to leave links to other posts that caught your eye or that you’ve contributed to the discussion in the comments.

“I admit I’ve been fortunate. I’m not at that place yet, age-wise, and maybe when I am I’ll feel that way. But I think, ‘Get over it! Don’t be bitter and complainy! Figure out something else to do with your life.’ It sucks that it’s sexist, and it sucks that it’s not often the case for men, but you don’t have to sit on the couch and be angry that you’re not getting roles. Pick up a camera, work at a dog rescue home, become a writer – there are a million things to do in this world.”

- Drew Barrymore

Okay, maybe (maybe) Drew is just letting us in on what she tells herself that she should do when Hollywood stops offering her parts, but that still doesn’t save any face on this one.  As a woman who has directed her own film (Whip It!), why isn’t this statement more empowering?  Like, direct your own films, work with directors who have different visions, create roles for older women actors?  Oh, Drew. From Daily Mail via Jezebel.

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!