The Feminist Critic

I normally try to blog on Wednesdays to be consistent and to hold myself to a schedule.  Yet this week we’ll call “Bonus Extra Blog Week” because I am starting to feel very annoyed with the world as it is.

I want to start first with the term “girls.”  I recently posted the following link to my facebook The Sexualization of Girls.  And while the whole video is great, I have been thinking a lot about her comment that when we were in college, we wanted to be called “women” and now young adult women want to be called “girls.”  Then I had a work discussion with some male students who could not understand why I felt that showing three videos of drunk women on reality shows was inappropriate for orientation.  I was trying to explain it wasn’t “balanced.”  They didn’t get it.

I’m normally an optimistic person.  Anyone who knows me  would attest to that, however, all the political fervor against women in terms of reproductive rights, birth control, and equal pay seems to connect too succinctly with not only the way women are represented in television (particularly the horrible reality shows so many of our women and men watch) but also the lack of awareness many young people seem to have of these issues.  For example, why it is important to be called a woman when you are over 18.  No one seems to think it’s weird that we don’t call men boys.  Girls and guys.  Or just guys.  One administrator recently spoke to the new students and called everyone guys.  That’s a whole other issue to save for another date. 

I believe college is a place to learn about things outside yourself.  It’s a place to have your old belief system challenged.  I wrongly expect that student leaders who are representing our university should be MORE aware than the average student.  And yes, I’m annoyed that in 2012 I now have to spend time trying to “prove” why a certain representation seems to be sexist or racist. And defending the importance of calling women, women. 

Even the recent HBO, supposedly feminist TV series, Girls has a young female creator who would rather be called girl than woman.  The power of language seems to escape many young people today and I am not so positive I have the will or the energy to fix it.  Maybe if the sun ever comes out I  feel less grim. 

This week the Senate blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act.  What we know is that EVERY Senate Republican voted against it.  Gee whiz, that’s bi-partisanism at its best!  From The Huffington Post,

The Senate failed to secure the 60 votes needed to advance the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have required employers to demonstrate that any salary differences between men and women doing the same work are not gender-related. The bill also would have prohibited employers from retaliating against employees who share salary information with their co-workers, and would have required the Labor Department to increase its outreach to employers to help eliminate pay disparities.
The final vote was 52-47, with all Republicans opposing the bill. That included female Sens. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), Susan Collins (Maine), Kay Bailey Hutchison (Texas), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Olympia Snowe (Maine).

President Obama said it was “incredibly disappointing” that Republicans would block a bill that would provide equal pay for women.  What he should have said is that it’s “incredibly disappointing” that all the Republicans have on their agenda is not to give up anything that would appear in some way to support the President.  In the last six months of Obama’s first term in office, it is apparent that Congress has become so politicized that they cannot even represent their constituencies.  Are you seriously suggesting to me that ALL the women from Maine who Collins and Snowe represent would have wanted this vote blocked?  I grew up in Maine and I can assure you there are many, many, many women who would appreciate a little government regulation in the equal pay department.  

For me this is just another example of a politics run amok.  How are we to vote with our conscience if it is clear that our Senators are voting for or against bills just to “give it to the President.”  This type of behavior gets me thinking about revolution and resistance and opposition.  Maybe its time we Occupy the Senate.  If your Senator was one of those who voted against women, please share your concern with them.  Hold their feet to the fire.  And let them know you won’t be checking a box next to their name in November if they keep dismissing the needs of their constituents.   

The war against women is really a war against Obama.  But for me, throwing women out the window in order to defeat Obama is a pretty shitty strategy.   

My life was touched by two women who left this physical world this week.  The first was my step-grandmother, Genny Jones. Grandmother, as many of us called her, took me in as one of her many grandchildren as soon as my step-father married my mother.  She was half Chippewa and spent much of her youth in the traditional BIA Reservation Schools.  She went to work as soon as she could.  After marrying Grandfather, she continued to work, even after having three children.  She de-boned chickens for Campbell’s Soup for much of her life.  After retiring, she took care of the church next to her house, mowing the lawn and keeping up with her garden.  She was a good cook.  She was funny.  She had the most common sense of anyone I had ever met.  She was a woman of few words.  But my step-father, Clinton, was one of the nicest men you will ever meet, so I know she was a great mother.  While many might consider her a traditional working class housewife and mother, I do believe she was ahead of her time, living to the ripe old age of 90. 

The other woman was my friend and yoga teacher, Stephanie Matson.  I met her by working with her husband.  I started taking her classes and we got to be friends.  Her style of teaching inspired me to commit to my practice in a non-judgmental way.  When she was diagnosed with leukemia a year and a half ago, I tried to help recommend some folks to fill in for her.  One of those people I recommended suggested that I could teach for her.  I talked it over with the Fitness Center Director and we both felt we’d feel more comfortable if I was certified.  I did lots of homework and committed to an expensive and long 7 month 200 hour certification.  She was with me in spirit and on Facebook through the whole process, checking in, encouraging me and being a support. 

When she was through with the bone marrow transplant, I felt confident she would recover and I would again be her student.  Her remission was far too brief and the process of trying to put her back into remission, so she could attempt a non-donor transplant, was too much for her already compromised system to take. 

Her death is not so easy to write about.  She was my age.  She had two little boys.  Grandmother had a full long life.  But one thing both of these women taught me is that being true to who you are is the best way to live your life with integrity.  Staying present is the best way to be.  We can’t fear what has not yet come.  We should not dwell in what has passed.  Today I am reminded by them to live fiercely.  Namaste Stephanie and God Bless Grandmother.

I was recently talking with my birth-father about my blog.  I am adopted and found my birth family 15 years ago.  He is very political.  He suggested I address the attacks on reproductive rights at the state level.  He feels the topic isn’t getting enough attention.  I think there is a reason for that.  The patriarchal media tends to focus on national issues, like Obama’s attempt to allow women access to contraception via their health insurance.  If the media doesn’t mention the statewide attacks on women’s right to reproductive freedom, the average citizen will remain unaware and no one will speak up.

The bottom line is that 17 states have introduced bills that present tighter restrictions to abortion than what is allowed under Roe v. Wade.  The ones that have garnered the most press are these “personhood” bills that give rights to the fetus while in utero.  

According to the Guttmacher Institute, and as quoted in Daily Kos,

• Ten states have introduced bills requiring all or some abortion providers to have hospital privileges.  The worst of these has been Mississippi, where the governor signed such a bill that could mean the shutdown of the state’s last remaining abortion clinic before the summer is over.
• A number of states, including Indiana and Tennessee, have introduced bills that would require   require all medication abortion providers to have hospital privileges at a hospital that is in the same county as the abortion clinic.
• Five states introduced or passed laws regulating crisis pregnancy centers. After seeing its 2011 law in this regard blocked by court order, South Dakota enacted a new law in March this year that “require[s] that abortion counseling include information on any research showing that some women (based on their ‘physical, psychological, demographic or situational’ characteristics) may be at higher risk of negative mental health outcomes associated with an abortion.
• Three states have introduced alternatives-to-abortion bills. In Kansas the bill would also prohibit abortion training in state-run facilities, create a priority system for distributing family planning funds and allocate funds for family planning.
• Fourteen states have introduced or passed and enacted bills prohibiting abortion coverage in insurance policies in the exchanges required to be set up under federal health care reform. The South Carolina bill would restrict abortion coverage in ALL private insurance packages. In Washington, however, a bill was passed in the state House of Representatives requiring insurers to cover abortion unless the purchaser opts out.
• Eleven states introduced bills affecting medication abortions. In Indiana, the Senate “passed a measure that would require a physician to examine a patient in person before prescribing medication for abortion, effectively banning telemedicine.” The session adjourned before the bill progressed further.
• Several states this year have introduced, passed or enacted bills setting a gestational age after which abortions may not be performed. The law is already on the books in seven states.
Originally posted to Meteor Blades on Mon May 07, 2012 at 09:35 AM PDT.”

My new mantra regarding women’s rights is to take back Susan Faludi’s term from the EARLY nineties and keep saying we are in a backlash.  Women continue to take two steps forward and what seems like three steps back.  My concern is that young women need to be at the forefront of this debate, this debacle.  I am reaching the age where birth control will no longer be a concern of mine (when did that happen?), yet while I work closely with college aged women every day, I am not sure they really understand the gravity of these attacks.  I am not sure they appreciate what the women before them did to give them reproductive freedom. 

We need to keep these discussions going with young women.  Educate them.  Tell them what it use to be like.  We need women who were alive before Roe v Wade to tell the young women today how bad it was.  And we need to elect more women to office who will understand that making laws on the backs of women is just an old fashioned tradition that needs to end.  Today. 

This week my dear friend, a second waver, we’ll call her, and I were talking about the way we judge women in our culture.  This conversation came up because I had just submitted a grant (cross your fingers!) that addresses the way that women are represented in the media. The focus of the grant is on raising awareness with young women that the messages they are sent, those very subtle messages, are deceiving.

She wondered if some of this obsession women have with looks is cultural and she talked about how she wore make-up at different points in her life depending on where she lived.  Then we moved into a conversation on how easily we silently judge other women about what they wear, how they look, why they dress the way they do, and so on.  We talked about how so many young women today wax away EVERYTHING and do so in the name of “cleanliness.”

I harp on this topic today because I wonder how we can break this so-called cycle.  As self-proclaimed feminists we are aware of the pressure to wax, paint our face, dress nice, yet as much as we fight against this pressure, we still bow to it, in many ways.  I wonder, is there a balance?  The documentary, Miss Representation, which I have written about previously features a gorgeous blond as filmmaker.  She briefly mentions her struggles as an actor being typecast as the dumb blond, but I feel like she just glosses over how she fits into this whole paradigm.

I think, too, of some of my favorite movies, those produced in England and Holland, like Mike Leigh’s Secrets & Lies or Antonia’s Line.  Are these movies on my top ten because of the subject matter, the acting or the writing; or are these movies so good because the actors look like REAL people?  When you live in a culture, (the U.S.) where everything presented to you is “perfect” it is hard to see what reality is.  What is beauty when we only see it photo-shopped and touched up?  How can we find real beauty and reject the artificial?

I know women who don’t wear make-up and tend to dress in a non-conformist way, but even they are conforming to some sort of “look” that fits into their world. I think of a good friend of mine, a former student, who has a unique style that reminds me somewhat of Ellen, the CoverGirl herself.

I certainly don’t have an answer to this big issue on this rainy Wednesday in New England.  Perhaps I am thrown into these thoughts today as a teeter on the edge of PMS feeling bloated and fat, eagerly awaiting my period so this monthly slump will pass on.  Maybe its because I went to my bridesmaid dress fitting the other day for my sister’s wedding and felt huge in that oversize dress, literally four sizes more than I normally wear.  Maybe its because I fell down the stairs two weeks ago and my lower back is still aching and discouraging me from running.  Or maybe it’s just that the media-owned-conglomerate is plain old patriarchal and the only way to avoid it is to turn it off.

Stop buying magazines that don’t feature REAL women.  Stop watching television that mis-represents us.  Only watch International films.  And when that woman walks by you wearing something you would not be caught dead in, say to yourself “you go girl” and let the judgment fade away.

One of my colleagues, who runs the University of Idaho Women’s Center, posted this article by Mark Perry, a professor and writer on economics and finance issues.  His main point is that since women are attending and graduating from college at higher rates than men than we don’t need campus based Women’s Centers. 

Click here for article

What is interesting about the article is that he cuts and pastes mission statements from five women’s centers who have main goals in promoting gender equity.  He disputes this by stating that if there are more women than men at a college, there is no need to promote gender equity.  Oh, Prof Perry, you just don’t get it!  Gender equity is not about filling the seats in the classroom.  Gender equity is about how girls and women are treated in our world, which in case you haven’t looked recently, ain’t so hot.  Shall I cite some examples as Perry did? 

•  Women make less than men.  White women in the 77 cent range, Black Women in the 67 cent range and Latina women in the 57 cent range to a white man’s dollar.  
• Over a billion women on the planet have been victimized by sexual violence.  One billion.
• 17 out of 100 of our U.S. Senators are women.  17. 
• Women hold only 3% of clout positions in the mainstream media (telecommunications, entertainment, publishing and advertising).
• Women comprise 7% of directors and 13% of film writers in the top 250 grossing films.
• The United States is 90th in the world in terms of women in national legislatures.
• Women hold 17% of the seats in the House of Representatives (the equivalent body in Rwanda is 56.3% female).
• Women are merely 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs.
• About 25% of girls will experience teen dating violence.
• The number of cosmetic surgical procedures performed on youth 18 or younger more than tripled from 1997 to 2007.
• Among youth 18 and younger, liposuctions nearly quadrupled between 1997 and 2007 and breast augmentations increased nearly six-fold in the same 10-year period.
• 65% of American women and girls report disordered eating behaviors. 

I could spend much more time on this list.  In fact, feel free to add to it in your comments.  As, here in the U.S., we are actually debating whether women should have birth control covered by their health insurance.  We are being told by men in power that an aspirin between our knees is the best way to prevent pre-marital sex.  We live in a culture that actively promotes violence against women.  There is a backlash occurring against women as I write.  This is why, Professor Miller, we need Women’s Centers.  Why don’t you go write about something that actually is of concern instead of trashing women’s attempts at gender equity in a world that is anything but equitable.