Feminist: It’s Just About the Worst Thing You Could Be
Feminism is in the media, you just have to know where to look to find it and even then, chances are you’re going to have to dig pretty deep through your popular publications to find an even so-so assessment of what feminism truly brings to the table and gives us our due hat-tip for our activism and our relentlessness. Feminist media is all too commonly seen as a niche or is marketed as “special interest,” or there’s the proverbial slap in the face when you see a truly important issue that either affects women or it is deemed acceptable to include the feminist population in a piece and it’s shoved in the style section of The New York Times. When you get through the thick of it, in most cases feminism just isn’t taken seriously by the boy’s club, misogynist media.
Two significant publications that recently put feminism in the media spotlight are A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything, written by Maria Shriver and co-written by the Center for American Progress, and Gail Collins’ When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present. Both of these publications highlight women’s achievements and victories over the past few decades and from the scope of society as a whole, that is all well and good; women have indeed accomplished a great deal securing the rights necessary for women to live long, healthy and happy lives, but there is still a great deal of work to do. When it comes to a major portion of our reproductive rights, well, there are a great deal of anti-choice, woman-shaming and misogynist people who hold significant power and a political agenda that is always trying to take those rights away. In order to claim victory over our own bodies, life choices, career opportunities, salaries and more, feminism needs numbers within the passionate, activist-driven younger community and sadly, because of how misrepresented feminism is in society, there are an astounding amount of women out there who refuse to go near the word ‘feminist.’
As Antonia Zerbisias recently pointed out in an article for Canada’s The Star, feminists are truly seen as hairy-legged, man-hating, social outcasts and even the enemy in the United States. Her assessment of feminists being seen as man-haters and as “feminazis” is really yet another ploy driven by misogynists in power to keep women in their place and I am inclined to agree.
From personal experience, the moment you tell someone that you are a feminist (and it always comes up eventually,) they usually take two steps back, especially if they are male, or will come out with some sarcastic phrasing like “Oh boy, one of those!” or something of that nature. I realized how deep this hatred for feminists goes when I was on Facebook one night and someone I knew when I was around 14 and 15 years old messaged me. We were catching up and the question of what I’m doing these days came up, so of course I rattled off what I do for work and also the fact that I run a liberal and feminist blog. Within seconds I was sent a reply that said “I hate feminists.” I wasn’t too surprised by this reaction, I’ve gotten it a lot, to say the least and I know the ignorance surrounding the concept of feminism and activism very well, but that didn’t stop me from being sad for this person, especially considering that they had just exited the world of college campuses and the feminist activism taking part on college campuses across this country is amazing and is so needed, especially considering just the one issue of violence against women and date rape that so often occurs on college campuses.
But why does this person hate feminists and feminism? Because the media portrays feminism in such a negative light that it is up to us to set the record straight and hope that the people who don’t know too much about what feminism really is and what feminists really do finds our spaces and delves into our words with an open mind because I’m not giving up the personal identity of being a feminist, regardless of how many times someone thinks they are saying something new or something hurtful when they call me a feminazi. I’ve never been a woman who could be “put in my place.”
The View Replaces Elisabeth Hasselbeck with…Two Other Blonde Republicans
Elisabeth Hasselback, the notorious right-winger and frequent argument-starter from The View will be out on maternity leave from the beginning of September until mid-October. In her absence, The View will be replacing her with Meghan McCain and former FOX News anchor E.D. Hill. Both McCain and Hill have joined The View panel before; in April McCain responded to Laura Ingraham criticizing her weight, mocking her as being a plus-size model who couldn’t get on the MTV show The Real World, by saying “kiss my fat ass!” Hill had appeared on the panel last October again, to replace Hasselbeck while she was out.
While having Meghan McCain as an anchor really doesn’t surprise me, since Elisabeth Hasselbeck had campaigned for John McCain during the 2008 election, what does surprise me is their choice of E.D. Hill. E.D. Hill has a failed career as a right-wing extremist anchor who was fired by FOX News. FOX News–that same “news” network that continues to let Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck spout out their lies, deceit, and utter hatred for any person, organization, and so on that disagrees with them about anything. That same “news” network that didn’t sack Glenn Beck for claiming that President Obama hates white people and “white culture” (I’m still trying to figure out what, exactly, “white culture” is…) That same “news” network that works more like a circus of idiocy rather than an actual and reputable news source cancelled Hill’s show, America’s Pulse and then, shortly thereafter chose not to renew her contract. There should be a new rule put in place–when a right-wing extremist gets fired from FOX News, their career is officially over.
However, by choosing a right-wing anchor to replace another right-wing anchor who not even FOX News will associate with, it shows the true intentions of The View. Because Elisabeth Hasselbeck can’t be on the show to make a fool of herself (as she does most of the time which you can easily see just by searching on YouTube for ‘Elisabeth Hasselbeck The View’–warning, you may get stuck on there for a while watching and re-watching segments that may contain your brain to explode) they need to dig up people who possess the same jaded view of the world to do it for her and E.D. Hill is just the person to add more close-minded sentiments to the show; although I wonder if she will, like Hasselbeck, try to cover up her sometimes delusional and close-minded comments by saying “other people will be asking that/thinking that…”
Something else that popped out at me immediately is the fact that both anchors to replace Elisabeth Hasselbeck… look like Elisabeth Hasselbeck. I am fairly positive that there are indeed other right-wing extremist anchors who could fit the bill for The View that aren’t blonde.
Meghan McCain will be on the panel starting on September 9th for three episodes, E.D. Hill will come on after McCain’s run.
Summer 2009 Issue of Ms Magazine
The summer 2009 issue of Ms Magazine received a decent amount of attention before the issue even hit newsstands due to the cover of the issue, which features a typical white, middle-class, American woman holding many items meant to signify life as a working woman and mother. Not too bad when you think about it in theory, but a great deal of people said that instead of showing a picture of what it is to be a multi-tasking mother in the age of technology, blogging, tweeting, cleaning, and making dinner, it inappropriately utilized Hindu iconography, mocked the religion, and diffused the imagery of it’s “true meaning.” However, Veronica Arreola of Viva la Feminista disagreed with the sentiment that the Ms cover was offensive by saying:
the image of a multi-armed woman in relation to motherhood is most likely as old as motherhood itself. I imagine this is why women papoosed or slung their infants to them as they worked the fields. As some in the comments of Mandy’s post pointed out, their own mothers use to say “I wish I had another set of arms!” or “I don’t have 8 arms missy!” I’ve always viewed the multi-armed image of motherhood as relating to an octopus. Again, growing up ignorant of Hindu deities, the octopus or spiders, especially in cartoons, were seen as having an ability us humans didn’t have – extreme multi-tasking. And today’s moms are pushing the boundaries of multi-tasking.
However, she also noted that she is in this issue of Ms Magazine (there is a picture of her speaking to an audience with the caption ‘Blogger Veronica Arreola brings feminist mothers to cyberspace’ and she also appears in the cover story ‘Cyberhood is Powerful’) so she could be a bit biased in her assessment.
But after reading this issue of Ms Magazine, I find myself absolutely flabbergasted as to why the ‘Cyberhood is Powerful’ story influenced Ms to put it on the cover, especially considering that there is another story that is far more important than a feminist-skewed story on mommy bloggers. It seems that over the summer, the stories about mommy bloggers have exploded all over the media and while this article is different in the respect that it is primarily about the online activism of feminist others who work hard to ensure that mom-friendly legislation goes through, the cover of the issue is very much off the mark in representing the story as something that is important to read and makes it look as if they are featuring yet another article on the lives of mommy bloggers. In my opinion, Ms Magazine downplayed the importance of their own article with their cover art.
The story that I would have liked to see even mentioned on the front cover of the issue is ‘Baghdad Underground,’ an article about an underground “railroad” that was founded in 2004 by feminist organizer Yanar Mohammed, who is also the head of OWFI (Organization of Women’s Freedom in Iraq) that provides the only escape for women victims of sexual and domestic violence. You can read a segment from the article here.
‘Baghdad Underground’ is a must-read article because it actually speaks out about the violence that is going on in Iraq right now that is so much worse than it had been under Saddam Hussein. It highlights that while Saddam Hussein’s regime persecuted political dissidents but allowed women personal rights and freedoms and what I enjoyed most about this article is its complete honesty; it shows how the American media has funneled through the facts of the Iraq war and have told us what they think we should know which of course, are only the parts of the story that makes America look like the good people. The fact of the matter however, is that after the US invasion of Iraq, violence was at an all-time high and women became “the easiest targets.” The life of women in Iraq has become unimaginably horrific and in fact, much worse than their lives pre-fall-of-Saddam-Hussein since Iraq now governs with much stricter Islamic Sharia law. Because of this, violence against women is at an all-time high violence against women goes virtually unchecked.
This is an article worthy of the front cover; in my opinion, of course.
The issue also has a great article on late Dr. George Tiller; his life, his work for women, his murder, and other abortion providers in the country who have been threatened and whose clinics have been vandalized by anti-choice extremists and who are at a very high risk of being the victims of domestic terrorism, just as George Tiller was. The article touched very deeply on the life that Dr. Tiller had lived and his commitment to women and their health and well-being. It was incredibly moving and paid an excellent tribute to the man he was; a man who trusted women. It was so moving, in fact, that I had a little tearing up action going on.
And of course, no magazine would be complete without book reviews and now I have to go out and buy Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood and When Gay People Get Married.
Keith Olbermann on How FOX News Incited the Assassinated of Dr. George Tiller
Keith Olbermann always seems to hit the nail on the head. I’m a little late in posting this, but I just saw it and had to share.
Since the assassination of Dr. George Tiller, I have stated that anti-choice organizations and anti-choice media outlets are indeed to blame for the murder of Dr. Tiller and no matter how many times these organizations, media outlets, spokespeople, and news commentators make public statements to the contrary, we have seen them in action and we have seen the damage they have caused.
We have seen them repeatedly distorting facts for their own personal and political agendas. We have seen them provoke people who disagree with them on their shows in order to show anger and thus exploit those people for their own benefit to drive home the mangled, half-truth version of the story they are reporting on. We have seen them use scare tactics to incite fear into those who may have an objective point of view on whatever they are reporting about and we have seen them search for legitimacy when their viewpoints are questioned.
As Keith Olbermann states in the video below, we must separate television from terrorism.
h/t Muckmakers
For The National Review Sotomayor Is The Wise Latina Buddhist
Okay, this latest image sent my WTF meter right off. Seriously, how much longer are white men going to display their ignorance and hatred to promote their undeserved privilege? It started with Sotomayor the piñata because apparently the fact that she is Puerto Rican and not Mexican is irrelevant. Now we have Sotomayor the Buddhist. When it comes to creating WOC as “other” any social construction will do, as our cultures and religions clearly have no individualized identity.
Sotomayor is Catholic and Puerto Rican, how hard is it to recognize these two basic facts? Not only is this image offensive to WOC, it is offensive to all Buddhists because their religion is being reduced once again to the “all knowing Asian” stereotype that whiteness loves to lean on. You will note that even though people around the globe practice Buddhism, this caricature has slanted eyes so that the viewer is sure to recognize that the artist (and I use that term loosely) is reifying that mysticism and or enlightenment are the preserve of those “brainy yellow people.” Buddhists certainly don’t move through the world, holding down jobs and interacting with others; no they are far to busy contemplating the nothingness of being in mountain ranges with hard to pronounce names.
With this latest graphic the assaults on Sotomayor have truly reached the level of idiotic, sexist and racist. In appealing to the irrational fear of white men that they are being supplanted, these artists have succeeded in creating a monolithic “other”. It does not matter what ones achievements, education, or political position is if your body represents that of an “other”. It panics these men of privilege that a Latina woman of humble beginnings could possibly have a different perspective or a line of thought that is more comprehensive due to a different life experience.
The very normalization of whiteness is what allows these kinds of images to exist. These cartoons scream DIFFERENT, DIFFERENT, DIFFERENT…without acknowledging that the issue is not really difference but the value that has been applied to difference. As Sotomayor goes through the confirmation process we will probably see more attacks of this nature. Though whiteness is under no great attack from invading Puerto Rican women seeking to rule, the idea that one could possibly sit on what has been commonly a throne to white men is threatening because it suggests that white men do not have a monopoly on intelligence.
Cross Posted from Womanist Musings
Disney is Robbing Your Daughters
The princess mentality has become nothing less than a rite of passage for many young girls today and at the front of the line for whom to blame, is Disney.
Disney’s international (and internationally accepted) multi-billion dollar Disney Princess brand has been around for many generations of young girls. I remember my childhood days, planted in front of the television while I watched Belle fall in love the Beast and because of her love, he turned into an oh so dreamy prince; I watched Ariel lose her voice in return for a pair of legs in order to appeal to the oh so dreamy prince; I watched Cinderella watch her two evil stepsisters try to force their fat feet into the beautiful glass slipper Cinderella had lost while fleeing from the ball and from the oh so dreamy prince. Are we noticing a trend here?
Today, young girls are still living in the land of Disney Princess make believe and while we encourage young children to explore their imaginations, they are but taking the imaginations and age old gender stereotypes from the many Disney animators that we have given permission to parent our young daughters in what really matters in life, as truth. We all know that to a certain degree, the media will do their part in raising young children, but not only has the princess phenomenon withheld the test of time, it is continuously growing, and due to our own childhood memories attached to these stories that we are now sharing with our children, it has proven to be a bit harder to ween ourselves away from the princess phenomenon, and thus Princess Parenting was born.
While it is natural to a certain degree to place your kid up on a pedestal and tell them that they can be anything that they want to be and do whatever they wish to do with their lives as long as they are safe and happy, coupled with the princess phenomenon, you can very well have a bigger problem on your hands than you may have initially thought. Because of the extravagant lifestyles that the princess roles play in Disney’s imagination, if your daughter plays into these stories enough, you may see an increase in an instilled sense of self entitlement that may very well last longer than acceptable princess-believing age.
When young girls are carrying your living room rug to the top of the staircase and banking on the fact that instead of plummeting to the bottom of the stairs wrapped in a rug, the rug will suddenly take on a pseudo-human identity and bring them on a magical tour of the royal surroundings they will one day reign over while at the side of “the bad boy” that she can’t help but fall for, I think it’s about time that we stop letting a multi-billion dollar brand tell our children what their futures hold.
Last May I posted a book review of a children’s book, Princess Bubble, that put a refreshing spin on the princess fairy tale story. Princess Bubble lives in a castle of her own, decorated just the way she likes it; she has friends that she loves and a career as a flight attendant. Already Princess Bubble has more true-to-life features than many of the princesses Disney is forcing into the mainstream! As she watches her friends find their princes and move into castles to live happily ever after, Princess Bubble realizes that she likes her life just the way it is and by the end, she decides not to marry a prince and live happily ever after because happily ever after can be attained all by herself. Now there’s a fairy tale story that I can get behind!
I think the time has come where we need to stop feeding our children stories that embrace gender stereotypes and glorify the princess brand to such a degree where girls approach adulthood and still maintain that self entitlement that will ultimately hurt them and hold them back from what they can truly accomplish in their lives. Girls can do and become whatever they want and what they want to become does not have to include stifling gender roles.
Argentinan Bank Ad Promotes Trans Acceptance
This is such a surprising and absolutely phenomenal ad from a bank in Argentina. Hands down, America needs to hop on this acceptance bandwagon.
h/t Babeland Blog
Scarlett Johansson Speaks Out About Body Image & Tabloid Media
According to the National Eating Disorders Association, as many as 10 million females and 1 million males currently living in the United States are fighting a battle with an eating disorder; with statistics this high, the situation presents society with a decision to make. Keep going in the direction we are going, letting media falsify the bodies of the people we see in print or make a commitment to stop presenting people with impossible body standards that are not even possessed by the people themselves who we see in magazines and tabloids.
Society’s image of the “perfect body” is severely out of touch with reality and it is a fact that the media plays a huge role in the way people look at their bodies; it is a sad world that we live in where publications are looking at the amount of money to be made in the business of self-loathing. Luckily, more and more celebrities are coming out and speaking for themselves on the topic of body image and holding the media responsible for the damage they have caused and continue to cause with every magazine cover they plaster their bold yellow font of body-hatred on.
Scarlett Johansson recently published a piece on her experiences with body image and the media, after seeing herself in the pages of magazines and tabloids containing several claims that she has been on a strict workout routine regulated by co-stars, whipped into shape by trainers she has never met, eating sprouted grains she can’t pronounce, and ultimately losing 14 pounds off of her 5′3″ frame, which she said herself if she had lost 14 pounds she would have to part with both arms and a foot.
In response to all of the media claims that have been made in her name, Scarlett Johansson had a few words of response:
I’m frustrated with the irresponsibility of tabloid media who sell the public ideas about what we should look like and how we should get there.
I’m not normally the type to dignify toilet paper rags with a response, but in this case I feel it’s my responsibility to comment. In a way, I’m glad some dummy journalist (and I use the term “journalist” loosely) is banking on my “deflating” so that I can address the issue straight from my healthy heart.
I am so glad that Scarlett has chosen to speak out against the media that has been portraying her in a false light in order to cater to their usual form of publicizing the “perfect” body and profiting off of the self-loathing of people world-wide. More celebrities need to speak out against the media that uses them as fodder for their obscene profit margins; perhaps if more celebrities spoke out against the lies that have been spread in their name the media would finally see that it is not okay.
Nancy Pelosi’s Hair is Not Newsworthy
I receive email alerts from Huffington Post. Whether you agree with the write or not, Huffington Post is on top of their media coverage and I happen to enjoy being up to date when it comes to what’s going on in the world, as any feminist/political blogger should! However, I was fed up with their Style Alerts by the time the second style email was delivered to my inbox. The entire style section of the Huffington Post is ridiculous, sexist, and the furthest thing from “newsworthy” that I can think of. The big poll as of late is Do you prefer Nancy Pelosi’s hair long or short? Who the fuck cares? She is the House Speaker and the last time I checked, the length of her hair had nothing to do with how she performs her job. The post regarding this very hot topic reads:
See how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s hair has gone from short to long to somewhere in between over the last 13 years.
Then voice your preference in the poll below.
The first comment left on that post got it right:
Oh, Come on! This is stupid and sexist! Where’s the slideshow featuring Joe Biden’s hair through the years!
Other style alerts I have received throughout the past few days have been about the fact that Michelle Obama wears sleeveless dresses (and apparently her arms are offensive) and the fact that she wore a suit of blue velvet to address the Environmental Protection Agency. What’s next, ‘Hillary Clinton wears shoes?’
This is ridiculous. Why is it acceptable to obsessively critique strong, professional, and intelligent women? Why must be continuously degrade women to the point where their fashion and their hairstyles are up for discussion? I think that not only these women, but all women deserve so much more than that. We are not merely the clothes we wear or how we look; when will what we actually do become newsworthy?
Bill O’Reilly Needs to Go Back to Clown College
Earlier this week Whoopi Goldberg appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show where he proved yet again that he and his show are just one, big joke by bringing up the comment he made about Helen Thomas last week. She said that she found his comment “out of character” and when he backed up his comment (again) by saying that it was meant merely as a joke, Whoopi told him “if you’re gonna do humor, learn how to do it.”
Watch the clip:
The comment Whoopi makes begins at 4 minutes, 30 seconds.
I agree with Whoopi here. If you’re going to do humor, why don’t you be humorous without also being sexist?
Bill O’Reilly has proven to us all that you really can continually beat a dead horse. His comment targeted at Helen Thomas was made early last week and now that we’re closing the following week, we are still hearing about it. The problem I have with this is that while it’s great that O’Reilly’s sexism, ageism and general asshole remarks are being harped on and he is being told again and again by the people he has on how show that he should be ashamed of his remarks and also apologize to Helen Thomas for them, but we know that he is not going to and is simply bringing it up again and again so he has something to glide on by with until his next shameful remark.
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Out Campaign
The OUT Campaign allows individuals to let others know they are not alone. It can also be a nice way of opening a conversation and help to demolish the negative stereotypes of atheists. Let the world know that we are not about to go away and that we are not going to allow those that would condemn us to push us into the shadows.
