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"Feminism is fun again! Every bit as edifying as your women's studies books from college, but with a biting sense of humor that keeps things punchy, not preachy." Marie Claire, December 2006
Because a 3-second soundbite wasn't enough... Here's what else I was going to say about the so-called controversy over Hillary Clinton sporting a v-neck top. Then I promise to stop yammering about it.
First off, Robin Givhan is a fashion writer for a paper in the political capital of the country. Of course she's going to write about what the '08 frontrunners are wearing. The difference between Hillary and the boys, though, is that she gets WAY more attention paid to what she wears. And even though Givhan's article appeared in the style section (where, if anywhere, such an article belongs), the unfortunate thing is that other news outlets took it for news, and interspersed it with their political coverage. That's when it gets really offensive.
Another difference between this incident and, say, the totally unwarranted flap over John Edwards' hair, is that when it's about a female candidate, it's all about sex. Givhan even compared Hillary sporting a v-neck to one of the male candidates appearing in public with his zipper down. Umm... really? And in her article, she even noted that Hillary's sedate, conservative black pantsuits during her senate campaign were "desexualized." But the minute Hillary goes to work (because that's where she was -- at work, on the Senate floor, not on the campaign trail) in something other than a collared shirt or turtleneck (in 90-degree weather, no less), she's supposedly making a break for "sexy."
We're going to run into this problem again and again. Because you know what? Hillary can never just grab a sedate gray suit out of the closet, pick a "fun" tie, and hit the road. She cannot make a fashion choice that doesn't "say something" about her, because there is no default, nondescript outfit. The default for politicians is the traditional male suit, because for so long, all major national politicians were male. She doesn't fit that mold. And try as she might, there is no clothing selection Hillary can make that won't elicit some sort of commentary.
The Clinton campaign was very smart to turn this into a fundraising issue. Every female public or political figure faces the same no-win situation that Hillary does when it comes to her clothes. Too conservative? You're a stuffy matron. A little lower-cut? You're practically baring your boobs, you slut. Women can relate to the experience of having every aspect of their personal appearance analyzed and critiqued. So even if the fundraising appeal didn't come right out and say, "Hillary has to put up with bullshit criticism of her appearance, just like you!" that was the sentiment they were capitalizing on. And rightfully so.
The ACLU reports that the House of Representatives has passed H.R. 2831, the "Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2007."
...aimed at fixing the May 29, 2007 Supreme Court decision undermining protections against wage discrimination in compensation that have been bedrock principles of civil rights law for decades.
Oh what a sad day when I found this piece of trash in my inbox today courtesy of reader Traci, found via CNN but originally in Oprah's mag. Oh Oprah, how could you do me like that?
More bad frenzy inducing advice on how to get through to your man. Gross.
"You're 100 percent correct"
It doesn't matter what you're arguing about -- he just wants to be right. This is his weakness; you can use it like judo, turning his own momentum against him.
Saying two little words, "You're right," is the verbal equivalent of darting a raging elephant with animal tranquilizers. It gives him what he wants, reducing tensions and leaving the way open for you to get what you want. Try it: "You're right, but I still want to go to the party."
Meet every protest and argument he makes, no matter how ridiculously false, with the observation that he is absolutely correct ... but you still want what you want. In boxing this is called rope-a-dope, and even if you don't know what the rope part means, the dope part sounds pretty applicable. This is called win-win -- except you did and he didn't.
No, wrong. That's right ladies, put to the side that you have a brain and just yes 'em to death. I think this is more insulting to men. Who wants to be some childish buffoon that needs to be right all the time? Grow the hell up. And who wants to date someone that is so insecure they need to feel reassured all the damn time?
The rest is equally amusing. I mean I know we Feministers know better. I am so disappointed with mainstream dating and courtship writing though. It seems to exist in a bubble. As though feminism happened everywhere, except behind closed doors.
A recent study found that women are less likely to ask for higher salaries because when they do the social costs are far greater than when men ask for raises. You know the usual--I don't want to work with an aggressive, ball-busting bitch.
The study first done by a professor, who noticed that women Ph.d candidates were less likely to be teaching classes than men, decided to inquire.
When Babcock took the complaint to her boss, she learned there was a very simple explanation: "The dean said each of the guys had come to him and said, 'I want to teach a course,' and none of the women had done that," she said. "The female students had expected someone to send around an e-mail saying, 'Who wants to teach?' " The incident prompted Babcock to start systematically studying gender differences when it comes to asking for pay raises, resources or promotions. And what she found was that men and women are indeed often different when it comes to opening negotiations.
These differences, Babcock and other researchers have concluded, may partially explain the persistent gender gap in salaries, as well as other disparities in how people rise to the top of organizations. Women working full time earn about 77 percent of the salaries of men working full time, Babcock said. That figure does not take differing professions and educational levels into account, but when those and other factors are controlled for, women who work full time and have never taken time off to have children earn about 11 percent less than men with equivalent education and experience.
The studies done were all really interesting as were the conclusions.
"What we found across all the studies is men were always less willing to work with a woman who had attempted to negotiate than with a woman who did not," Bowles said. "They always preferred to work with a woman who stayed mum. But it made no difference to the men whether a guy had chosen to negotiate or not."
They luckily moved past the tired and archaic, 'women are genetically inferior' bull, and looked at reasons outside of just blaming women for not being aggressive enough in demanding salaries. They found that there are clear social ramifications for women to ask for raises. It is dangerous for them to do so as they will hurt their reputation and potentially hurt their work environment.
Furthermore, I think that women are so used to working twice as hard as men, they may not always think they can get a raise. They have probably internalized the message that they are lucky they got the job in the first place. Naturally you can't totally generalize, but in a lot of cases, it is not that women don't believe they deserve it, or they are afraid of being perceived as a bitch, they just don't believe they will actually get it.
The reality is, women do the majority of work, in non-profits, in education, in government jobs, in corporations, in health care and in universities and men make the majority of the money. Still. Today.
Maybe that is why women don't ask for raises. When was the last time you asked for a raise? And I know damn well you deserve it.
How much jail time should women get for having an abortion?
Ann and I were sure that we had posted this video before, since it madetherounds a couple of years ago, but we can't find it anywhere. And it's too good not to post.
It's resurfaced because Anna Quindlen has written an article about the National Institute of Reproductive Health's new campaign, "How much time should she do?", and points out how anti-choicers are hesitant to tell folks how much jail time they think women should get if abortion were to be illegal, and they got one anyway.
"They never connect the dots," says Jill June, president of Planned Parenthood of Greater Iowa. But her organization urged voters to do just that in the last gubernatorial election, in which the Republican contender believed abortion should be illegal even in cases of rape and incest. "We wanted him to tell the women of Iowa exactly how much time he expected them to serve in jail if they had an abortion," June recalled. Chet Culver, the Democrat who unabashedly favors legal abortion, won that race, proving that choice can be a winning issue if you force people to stop evading the hard facts. "How have we come this far in the debate and been oblivious to the logical ramifications of making abortion illegal?" June says.
UPDATE: 21st Century mom scanned the picture for me! THANKS!
I can't seem to find this picture online, but my coworker pointed this out to me in today's Chronicle. It is in response to a picture of a pregnant woman's stomach from the side with an image of the world imposed on it. This was the response that one reader had and I applaud it.
Don't blame women
Editor - Your picture of a naked, pregnant woman's belly (Letters, July 22) to symbolize the overpopulation crisis is both vulgar and misleading. A picture of an erect penis would be more accurate. Men's lust and arrogance, not women's fertility, is the cause of overpopulation.
Patriarchal religions, such as Roman Catholicism, fundamentalist Judaism, Christianity and Islam, as well as patriarchal societies, such as just about every one in the world, are responsible for the overpopulation crisis.
Access to birth control is denied to hundreds of millions of women. These same women are often forced to have intercourse at the risk of their health and lives. It is they who are victims, not the perpetrators, of this crime against the Earth and humanity.
Native American women, domestic violence and Congress.
Native and indigenous women are victims of domestic violence at higher rates than the average American woman. Why is that? A history of displacement, colonization and violence I am sure have something to do with it, along with lack of resources, legislation or education to help women out of bad situations. You know, just a few minor bumps in the road.
I guess Congress noticed after an Amnesty report found that Native and Alaskan women are 2.5 times more likely to be victims of sexual assault in their lifetimes.
The House of Representatives Wednesday approved a bipartisan measure that would provide one million dollars for the creation of a tribal sex offender and protection order registry to identify serial perpetrators of such assaults, most of whom are non-Indian.
The same measure, which was approved by a 412-18 vote, provides an additional million dollars to conduct a baseline study on sexual violence committed against indigenous women in the U.S. to better identify the extent of abuse and how best to address it. Both appropriations have already been approved by the Senate.
The study also found that 86% of assault against indigenous women is by non-indigenous men, who are rarely caught or charged with the crime.
"American Indian and Alaska Native women are living in a virtual war zone, where rape, abuse and murder are commonplace and sexual predators prey with impunity," Sarah Deer, an attorney at the California-based Tribal Law and Policy Institute, told IPS in April.
"In many tribal communities, rape and molestation are so common that young women fully expect that they will be victims of sexual violence at some point," she noted, adding that the weakening of tribal justice systems by the federal government has made it far more difficult for victims of sexual violence to gain redress.
Indeed, federal and tribal statistics may understate the degree of violence suffered by Native American women, according to the report, which noted that fear of retaliation and the lack of confidence that the authorities will take allegations of assault seriously tend to reduce reporting of sexual assault throughout the United States, as well as in Native American communities.
One support worker in Oklahoma, for example, told AI that only three of her 77 active cases of sexual and domestic violence had been reported to the police.
Half the problem is trying to figure out where to try the case. This combined with lack of resources in tribal courts, makes for a pretty dismal situation.
The 15th Erase Racism Carnival is up over at Racewire and it is GOOD! Please go check it out and show some love for all the excellent, insightful and necessary writing that makes this carnival what it is.
Radical Doula has an important post on the flipside of this debate. As she noted in comments to my previous post on young women being denied tubal ligations,
I think that you will find that for women of color, low income women, or immigrant women, this issue is completely different. Rather than having trouble getting sterilization surgeries, they are being FORCIBLY sterilized.
I completely missed this angle, and really appreciate her bringing it up. Read her whole post here.
Previous Feministing posts on forced sterilization are here, here, and here.
The Today sponge, now put out by Synova Healthcare Group, is back on the market. And it has a new "look."
The new package is meant to have a more modern look: instead of a pink flower and a conservative-looking typeface, the box has drawings of hip-looking women, playful typography, and colors that Synova officials call “fuchsia and wine.”
Barry Schmader, executive vice president and creative director of Synova’s advertising agency, Dudnyk, of Horsham, Pa., said the new colors and graphics were chosen to create “high impact” and to help the Today Sponge compete on store shelves, especially with condoms. “We need to stand out on the contraceptive shelf space and compete for presence,” he said.
The new advertisements feature four drawings of women who personify the different customers whom Synova seeks to attract: Maria, 22, who is health conscious and job hunting; Monique, a “30-something” career woman; Lilly, a 32-year-old doctor and new mother who is breast-feeding her child; and Jill, 40, a newly single store manager.
You can find these cartoon gals on Today's website. They're a little too cutesy for my taste, but cutesy seems to be par for the course when it comes to birth control ads. But I'm all down for more BC options--especially those that are hormone-free.
The sponge is a bit before my time, boot-knocking-wise...anyone who has used Today want to weigh in?
Dead women, furries and rehab: The pinnacle of fashion
Insanity is the new black!
To further touch upon Vanessa's question about why the media (and everyone these days) seems so obsessed with celebrity downfall, I enter into evidence the above spread from Vogue Italia. It's crazy chic! Complete with a model buzzing her hair off a la Britney. Charming.
But that's not all, folks! In related women-in-distress-are-fashionable news, W magazine ups the ante: dead models posing with furries!
I think Amanda said it best in a recent IM conversation: "I can't wait until fashion is about trotting out women in fancy clothes and shooting them dead on the runway--so daring!"
Okay, I think this poster is just great. It's a poster used when Clinton was speaking at the National Beauty Culturists' League Convention recently. Being judged on your hair (or supposed cleavage) is completely crappy. Being cheeky about it is awesome. Kudos.
Speaking of cleave, Ann will be on CNN tonight talking about the ridiculousness that is this article. We'll give you the details as soon we have them so you can tune in!
The Observer had a piece yesterday on the media's obsession with the "Bad Girls of Hollywood," and questions why everyone seems to get off on watching these irritating rich, white women get in trouble.
While an obvious answer to this is that it's entertaining to see these overly privileged bad gals like Britney Spears, Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan who think they can get away with anything not only be treated as criminals just as any one of us would, but also have overwhelming flaws and personal problems. (In other words, rich life ain't all that grand.)
But is there more to it? And what is so appealing about famous women's demise rather than the lads? 'We have had years of young male stars running amok. It is now so much more fun for the public to see beautiful young women being hauled off to jail,' said Robert Thompson, professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, New York state.
Is this saying something bigger about our culture? Why is it so much fun to watch "beautiful women" be imprisoned--or drug-addicted or clearly sick with eating disorders? And the comparison of these women's behavior with "Girls Gone Wild" is irksome as well; it's almost being posed as some kind of fetish. And who are we blaming?
