I’ve been struggling, like many feminists interested in sexuality, with the issue of self-identification. I am clearly neither an anti-porn feminist nor a sex-positive feminist. I very much enjoy porn, but I think its trends and messages are extremely problematic. I'd much rather see a new, different kind of pornography as an alternative to what we've already got.
In the past, I’ve identified most closely with sex-positive feminism. When I was growing up, I was socially attacked and ostracized for being a woman who was openly interested in sex. This hurt me. When I encountered sex-positive feminism, it was like a light shone down from the sky. There were other people who thought that sex was important, that women could be sexual, that I was really an okay person even though I had a sex drive.
On the other hand, I don’t agree with their total lassiez-faire attitude towards porn. I think it’s important to recognize the systematic misogyny in porn. I don’t want to ban porn at all, but we can’t do any better for sexuality if we don’t recognize its problems. That “pornified” misogyny is part of what creates the idea that women can’t be sexual unless they’re whores (in other words unless their sex is in service of men). I can see that, and think it’s important.
Therefore, I am coining a new term for myself. I am a sexuality feminist. I believe that sexuality is central to gender inequality. I think that addressing sexual inequality is a very crucial step towards decreasing overall gender inequality. I make sexual equality the main focus of my activism.
This term could, in fact, apply to both the anti-porn and the sex-positive feminists. It says nothing about whether you’re in favor of mainstream porn or not. Maybe it could even let us work together sometimes.
It doesn’t mean we have to give the word “pornography” a new meaning in order for the average person to understand what we mean when we define ourselves. It doesn’t suggest that those who oppose us are “sex-negative” or anti-sex. Rather than putting us in opposition to something, it gives us a realm in which to work, rebel, agitate, create, define, and live.
Who knows, maybe it could catch on. I'm claiming it here and now: I’m a sexuality feminist.
Cross-posted at Paper Cuts and Plastic.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Will unemployment help reduce pay equality?
Mild speculation alert!
According to the latest statistics, due to men being laid off at higher rates women now make up almost 50% of the workforce. (Thanks to Girl w/ Pen.) Now, as the Gw/P post pointed out, this is not necessarily a good thing, either for women or society as a whole.
But I do think that something very interesting could happen here. While much of the reason for this gender-unequal decrease is due to an overall decrease in male-dominated sectors (construction, etc.), there are many, many jobs being lost in other areas. Now, we know that women are paid much less on average than men. Furthermore, this pay inequality is not only caused by a larger percentage of men having jobs in higher paying fields, rather, the inequality holds true in almost every field (PDF).
If an employer is forced to lay someone off out of several who hold similar jobs, who are they going to choose - the higher paid person or the lower? Given similar work output (which is reasonable, I believe), most employers should choose the higher paid worker, who is statistically more likely to be male. This, will lead to a decrease in the gendered pay gap, at least temporarily.
The real test will come when the economy improves, pay rises, and unemployment drops. Will the men who were let go for having higher salaries be hired back at similar salaries to the women who remained? Will women's salaries be raised? (increased relative seniority, etc.) In other words, whereas historically women have been entering, at a lower wage, into a male-dominated workforce, at some future point significant numbers of men might be entering into a (slightly) female-dominated workforce. I'm certain pay won't become equal overnight, but hopefully things will improve.
On the other hand, non-whites are being disproportionately affected by rising unemployment. I'm not sure what the causes are, but I imagine it's related to social inequalities. So, it comes down to: a (potential) step forward, and an (immediate) step back.
(Crossposted at Constant Thoughts)
According to the latest statistics, due to men being laid off at higher rates women now make up almost 50% of the workforce. (Thanks to Girl w/ Pen.) Now, as the Gw/P post pointed out, this is not necessarily a good thing, either for women or society as a whole.
But I do think that something very interesting could happen here. While much of the reason for this gender-unequal decrease is due to an overall decrease in male-dominated sectors (construction, etc.), there are many, many jobs being lost in other areas. Now, we know that women are paid much less on average than men. Furthermore, this pay inequality is not only caused by a larger percentage of men having jobs in higher paying fields, rather, the inequality holds true in almost every field (PDF).
If an employer is forced to lay someone off out of several who hold similar jobs, who are they going to choose - the higher paid person or the lower? Given similar work output (which is reasonable, I believe), most employers should choose the higher paid worker, who is statistically more likely to be male. This, will lead to a decrease in the gendered pay gap, at least temporarily.
The real test will come when the economy improves, pay rises, and unemployment drops. Will the men who were let go for having higher salaries be hired back at similar salaries to the women who remained? Will women's salaries be raised? (increased relative seniority, etc.) In other words, whereas historically women have been entering, at a lower wage, into a male-dominated workforce, at some future point significant numbers of men might be entering into a (slightly) female-dominated workforce. I'm certain pay won't become equal overnight, but hopefully things will improve.
On the other hand, non-whites are being disproportionately affected by rising unemployment. I'm not sure what the causes are, but I imagine it's related to social inequalities. So, it comes down to: a (potential) step forward, and an (immediate) step back.
(Crossposted at Constant Thoughts)
Friday, January 30, 2009
Some Entertainment News
According to Just Jared (and with a h/t to After Ellen for the link), Amy Poehler's new television series, created by The Office executive producers Greg Daniels and Michael Schur and co-starring Rashida Jones, has begun filming. The new show Public Service will premiere on Thursday, April 9th at 8:30pm on NBC. As a huge fan of Poehler's, and an even bigger fan of women headlining sitcoms, I'm looking forward to it!
In a related vein, Awards Daily published a list of 2008’s Top Ten Best Written Female Characters (h/t Women and Hollywood). They are, in order:
1. Eve, Wall-E,
2. Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo), Frozen River
3. Sister Aloysius Beauvier (Meryl Streep), Doubt
4. April Wheeler (Kate Winslet), Revolutionary Road
5. Queenie (Taraji P. Henson), Daisy (Cate Blanchett) and Elizabeth Abbo (Tilda Swinton), The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
6. Juliette Fontaine (Kristin Scott Thomas), I’ve Loved You So Long
7. Poppy (Sally Hawkins), Happy-Go-Lucky
8. Rachel (Rosemarie DeWitt) and Kym (Anne Hathaway), Rachel Getting Married
9. Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), The Wrestler
10. [Honorable mentions] Wendy (Michelle Williams), Wendy and Lucy, Kate Walker (Emma Thompson), Last Chance Harvey, and Maria Elena (Penelope Cruz), Vicky Cristina Barcelona
I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that #1 is a robot, but Eve is a pretty awesome character. I haven't seen most of the films listed (although I can't wait to see #6 and I'm going to see #8 tonight); I did see The Wrestler and have to agree that Marisa Tomei (who is generally not my favorite actor in the world, and that's an understatement) was incredible.
What do you all think about the list?
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Tweet tweet tweet
Just a quick public service announcement to let all our readers know that I've finally succumbed to Twitter. You can find FWF's twitter feed on the right sidebar or via this link. For those avid tweeters, I may not be quite in your league yet, but I'm going to try to stay on top of things, at the very least I'll tweet updates about what's new on the blog.
Put on your lipstick ladies and fight!
So we have a few news items to get excited about from this new political regime. First the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay act will be signed by the President today (great name for legislation, almost as good as Loving v. Virginia). Whitehouse.gov explains the bill here.
Hillary Clinton's election campaign has now morphed into Nolimits.org. It is hard to tell what they will get themselves up to, but I'll do my best to keep you posted. In the meantime some tasty nuggets from what they have posted so far on the site. First Senator Barbara Mikulski from my home state, Maryland on the Fair Pay Act:
Change in the federal law books means change in women’s checkbooks. We need to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It's time for a new American revolution - we need to put on our lipstick, square our shoulders and fight together!
Gotta love Senator Mikulski!
And also a great story from New Hampshire which not has the first state senate with a majority of women.
Hillary Clinton's election campaign has now morphed into Nolimits.org. It is hard to tell what they will get themselves up to, but I'll do my best to keep you posted. In the meantime some tasty nuggets from what they have posted so far on the site. First Senator Barbara Mikulski from my home state, Maryland on the Fair Pay Act:
Change in the federal law books means change in women’s checkbooks. We need to pass the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act. It's time for a new American revolution - we need to put on our lipstick, square our shoulders and fight together!
Gotta love Senator Mikulski!
And also a great story from New Hampshire which not has the first state senate with a majority of women.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Check out the 71st Carnival of Feminists
Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Hop to It! and check out the excellent entries in the 71st Carnival of Feminists!
(Also, if you haven't already, you should also take a gander at the 70th Carnival of Feminists over at Sheffield Fems, which I stupidly forgot to mention a couple weeks ago. Oops!)
Go. Read. And be careful not to land on Park Place or you'll owe the banker your first-born.
(Also, if you haven't already, you should also take a gander at the 70th Carnival of Feminists over at Sheffield Fems, which I stupidly forgot to mention a couple weeks ago. Oops!)
Go. Read. And be careful not to land on Park Place or you'll owe the banker your first-born.
Ten Tips for Dads to Promote Daughters' Sports
Why should a daughter or stepdaughter participate in sports & physical activity? To be more healthy (in mind & body), feel better about herself, learn new skills, stay off alcohol & drugs, defer sexual activity, and, TO HAVE FUN! Sadly, some people (too often, including fathers) worry that girls are too delicate, unskilled, or inadequate to play sports. To which the smart father and stepfather reply: "Baloney." In anticipation of February 4, National Girls and Women in Sports Day, here are 10 Tips to help Dads provide the kind of support Daughters need.
1. Make sports fun from an early age. Keep a relaxed approach when she's young. For example, have athletic-theme parties, like kickball and pizza.
2. Demonstrate interest in her athletic programs and activities. Attend her games and other extracurricular activities. If you live away from your daughter, be sure to talk with her after every game to hear how it went.
3. Learn the importance of physical activity for girls. Read research from organizations like the Women's Sports Foundation (e.g.: "Go Out & Play") and Kids' Sports Psychology.
4. Leave coaching to coaches. Tina Syer of the Positive Coaching Alliance says, "You're there to fill the kids' emotional tanks and make sure they bounce back from mistakes, not to tweak their throwing motion or tell them where to be on the field." Be smart about choosing coaches tuned in to her age and skill level. If there's a lack of adequate coaches, sign up to volunteer!
5. Be a model fan. Cheer hard for your girl, and then cheer for everyone else who is playing, too. Think about what you would look like on the sidelines if someone were videotaping you instead of the game. Be sure you (and your daughter) would be proud of what you'd see. Every kid (and parent) should remember why they call it "playing" sports. And then encourage her to be a fan of college and professional women's sports like the WNBA--by becoming a fan yourself!
6. Ask, "What do you and I hope to get from the experience?" Then tell her what you hope she gets. If you don't talk (and listen), she may assume all you care about is a winning record or how good her stats are. Make sure she knows you want sports to be a fun place to make friends, test herself, be healthy, and feel good about herself.
7. Let her play with boys. In "Raising Our Athletic Daughters: How Sports Can Build Self-Esteem and Save Girls' Lives," Jean Zimmerman and Gil Reavill suggest utilizing coed or single-sex programs according to your daughter's comfort level and what will contribute most to her learning and growth.
8. Help her use "mistakes" productively. When she messes up, she'll look to you first. So illustrate how to put mistakes in perspective by a) showing her how to let go of them and b) encouraging (but not demanding) her to use them as motivation to improve her skills.
9. Make sure girls and boys have equal sports opportunities and resources. Support Title IX and encourage school and other sports programs to be aware of and promptly address inequities.
10. Keep a relaxed, fun approach. Team sports teach girls how to be self-reliant while also working collaboratively to be competitive. If she loses interest in sports, you and she can still be physically active together--and books like The Dads & Daughters® Togetherness Guide have plenty of other ways to relate and have fun together.
2. Demonstrate interest in her athletic programs and activities. Attend her games and other extracurricular activities. If you live away from your daughter, be sure to talk with her after every game to hear how it went.
3. Learn the importance of physical activity for girls. Read research from organizations like the Women's Sports Foundation (e.g.: "Go Out & Play") and Kids' Sports Psychology.
4. Leave coaching to coaches. Tina Syer of the Positive Coaching Alliance says, "You're there to fill the kids' emotional tanks and make sure they bounce back from mistakes, not to tweak their throwing motion or tell them where to be on the field." Be smart about choosing coaches tuned in to her age and skill level. If there's a lack of adequate coaches, sign up to volunteer!
5. Be a model fan. Cheer hard for your girl, and then cheer for everyone else who is playing, too. Think about what you would look like on the sidelines if someone were videotaping you instead of the game. Be sure you (and your daughter) would be proud of what you'd see. Every kid (and parent) should remember why they call it "playing" sports. And then encourage her to be a fan of college and professional women's sports like the WNBA--by becoming a fan yourself!
6. Ask, "What do you and I hope to get from the experience?" Then tell her what you hope she gets. If you don't talk (and listen), she may assume all you care about is a winning record or how good her stats are. Make sure she knows you want sports to be a fun place to make friends, test herself, be healthy, and feel good about herself.
7. Let her play with boys. In "Raising Our Athletic Daughters: How Sports Can Build Self-Esteem and Save Girls' Lives," Jean Zimmerman and Gil Reavill suggest utilizing coed or single-sex programs according to your daughter's comfort level and what will contribute most to her learning and growth.
8. Help her use "mistakes" productively. When she messes up, she'll look to you first. So illustrate how to put mistakes in perspective by a) showing her how to let go of them and b) encouraging (but not demanding) her to use them as motivation to improve her skills.
9. Make sure girls and boys have equal sports opportunities and resources. Support Title IX and encourage school and other sports programs to be aware of and promptly address inequities.
10. Keep a relaxed, fun approach. Team sports teach girls how to be self-reliant while also working collaboratively to be competitive. If she loses interest in sports, you and she can still be physically active together--and books like The Dads & Daughters® Togetherness Guide have plenty of other ways to relate and have fun together.
Learn more about healthy fathering of daughters @ www.DadsandDaughters.com.
© Joe Kelly
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Subversive Sirk: A Preview
In this evening's class, I'll be discussing two Douglas Sirk melodramas: All that Heaven Allows (1955) and Written on the Wind (1956). Though Sirk expressed some discomfort over critics' interpretations of his films as subversive, ironic statements on the failings of American social values, even the trailers for his films seem to support such a reading of his work. Check out the trailer for All That Heaven Allows for a taste of Sirkian melodrama and Universal's sensational marketing of his highly popular "14-karat" films.
Many of Sirk's films contain fascinating, and highly problematic, female subjects that should provide plenty of fodder for feminist-minded debate: a daughter who is an avid student of Freudian theory, a son who seems the very embodiment of the Oedipal complex, a nymphomaniac socialite who's been repressed by her domineering father and brother, and the list goes on. His films are full of subversive female subjects who engage in behaviors that challenge the social norms that determine how women should behave. And spectators may find themselves in the interesting position of both admiring a Sirkian woman's courage and condemning her rashness. Or, in the case of All That Heaven Allows, one may be impressed by a character's initial willingness to challenge deeply-seeded social norms, only to exclaim in frustration when she returns to an unsatisfying, but socially acceptable, position of conformity. Later in the week I'll present more detailed highlights from my class's discussion of the two films
Feminist Flashback #21
Sunday was my birthday, so I'm going to count that as a valid excuse for being a day (and a half) late (again) with this week's Feminist Flashback. Today, as a form of penance, I'm offering two videos (the intro and a skit) from episode 9 (11/27/1976) of the second season of Saturday Night Live, which was hosted by Jodie Foster when she was 14 and the most adorable tomboy you will ever see. Enjoy!
Sunday, January 25, 2009
The End of Swagger
Sometimes, it really is better to just let the professionals say it for you. In this case, Anna Quindlen's take on U.S. foreign policy, women, and the woman who is now in charge of it.
The End of Swagger
The End of Swagger
Something Else Besides a Mother: Reexamining a Feminist Classic
This semester, I'm teaching a graduate seminar in film theory that will examine three different film genres/types: melodramas, crime films, and horror films. In fact, we'll be discussing many representations that are ripe for feminist analysis: sacrificial mothers in the 1930s "woman's film;" manic lesbians in Peter Jackson's Heavenly Creatures and Jean-Pierre Denis's Murderous Maids; castrating women in Mitchell Lichtenstein's Teeth and Paul Verhoeven's Basic Instinct; both female victims and valiant "final girls" in 1980s slasher films like Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween. The films selected for the course, and the accompanying readings, certainly betray my interest in genre films and their often contradictory and inflammatory representations of the female subject. Since I thought all of this might be of interest to Fourth Wave readers, I'm planning to share highlights from each week's seminar in the hopes that readers might find these films interesting, perhaps even weighing in on the debates that crop up in my classroom each Tuesday night. So I'll start with a film that is likely familiar to anyone who's spent any time reading feminist film theory: Stella Dallas.
King Vidor's 1937 film has been debated almost to the point of exhaustion in the 70-odd years since its release. Yet, Stella Dallas's central questions--What, precisely, does it mean to be a good mother? What, if anything, should a mother sacrifice in order to ensure her children's happiness--still feel strikingly modern and ripe for debate. My students certainly expressed a wide range of opinions about Stella's struggles. The film focuses largely on its titular character, a feisty working-class woman, Stella Martin (Barbara Stanwyck), who seduces and marries a man seemingly far outside of her league, Stephen Dallas (John Boles). In this clip from early in the film, we see the method by which Stella attracts the attention of the eligible, handsome, and rich bachelor.
With Stella's mother prominently displayed in the background looking haggard and unhappy, this scene makes it clear that Stella's decision to woo Stephen is motivated by a desire to avoid becoming a tired "mill hen" like Mrs. Martin. Unlike her brother, she believes in being ambitious in searching for a spouse. So what's so interesting about that, you might ask? Hollywood constantly depicts women who use their sexuality to escape poverty via marriage, who hood-wink men into marrying them by recasting themselves as picture-perfect examples of wifely compliance. However, Stella Dallas's story becomes increasingly complex and inspires a debate about whether women want, or should want, "to be something more than a mother."
I'll summarize the narrative so that readers may have some insight into why this film has attracted the attention of so many feminist film theorists: shortly after the above scene Stella manages to win the hand of Stephen Dallas, much to the surprise of both the upper- and working-class citizens of the mill town. In one particularly telling scene, the couple go to a movie after which Stella expresses her desire to become just as refined as the women she sees on screen. Although he counters that Stella should remain 'just they way she is,' Stella's proclamation clearly impresses Stephen. Though it later proves to be an empty statement, one can't help but admire Stephen's insistence that Stella is far more interesting than the cookie-cutter women he sees in their town or on the silver screen.
Following a brief courtship, the couple marry and, after the passage of an indeterminate amount of time, have a daughter, Laurel, whom they both adore. In fact, even though Stella used to make fun of the other mill women who were so eager to have children, she is surprised to discover that she loves being a mother. In fact, when her friend Ed Munn asks why she doesn't get out much anymore the former party girl proclaims, "I don't seem to get any fun out of a good time anymore. All the time I'm out I'm thinking of [Laurel] and what she's doing and how soon I can get back to her." To my mind, Stella's comments speak to both her particular situation and to today's debates about motherhood. Certainly, I'm troubled by Stella's house-bound state, her willingness to give up all her social activities, every time I watch that scene. I wonder what happened to the woman who enjoyed parties and meeting new people. What happened to Stella's plans of going to school so she could obtain a job. Why must she only sew clothes for little Laurel when Stella can design clothes that look like they belong in an up-scale boutique. On the other hand, I also must acknowledge that Stella seems to truly enjoy the role of devoted mother. She is doing precisely what seems to make her happy.
Yet, despite her obvious devotion to her daughter, many members of Stella's community--including her husband--deem her too crass to be a good mother to Laurel, and her husband decides that moving away from Stella's working-class roots will allow them to "start fresh" and encourage Stella to become a more refined, upper-class wife and mother. However, Stella longs to remain in the community she has always called home and refuses to join Stephen in New York. With Stephen making only occasional visits home, the couple's relationship becomes increasingly dysfunctional. To make matters worse, while in New York, Stephen runs into his first love, Helen Morrison (Barbara O'Neil) while purchasing a gift for Laurel's upcoming birthday. Many years before, just prior to his first meeting with Stella over sandwiches in fact, Barbara left the mill town to marry, leaving Stephen broken-hearted--not that one would have guessed given Stephen's eager romancing of Stella. Stephen sees in Barbara, the picture-perfect mother of three picture-perfect boys, the kind of wife and mother he thought Stella could become with a little coaching. And, as luck would have it, Barbara, with down-cast eyes, informs Stephen that she is now a widow, which allows Stephen and Barbara to renew their relationship posthaste, with Laurel paying frequent visits to the Morrison's lavish Long Island home.
Though she obviously loves her mother dearly, Laurel quickly become enamored with both the Morrison's high-class lifestyle and Barbara's particular brand of femininity.
Eventually, Stephen tries to persuade Stella to grant him a divorce, but she steadfastly refuses--until she learns that her own working-class roots are preventing Laurel from fully integrating into the upper-class world that Stella had long dreamed of accessing. Laurel falls in love with the wealthy Richard Grosvenor III (Tim Holt) during one of her trips to New York to visit her father, but now she is in danger of being ostracized due to her mother's flamboyant attire and crude behavior. In the following scene, one can see how Stella's unique attitude and style of dress may hamper Laurel's ability to move up the social ladder and win Richard's hand. Though she has the money to grant her entry into the country club frequented by the Morrisons and the Grosvernors, Stella cannot project an image of feminine beauty that will satisfy this crowd. In fact, Stella embodies a vision of womanhood, and motherhood, that turns her into an object of ridicule within this button-down, country-club community, one that will likely cause Laurel to lose the affection of Dick Grosvernor.
Or is there another way to read Stella's feminine self-presentation? Are her attire and her crassness signs of naivete and failed imitation? Or is Stella expressing an admirable devil-may-care attitude that exposes the absurdity of this upper-crust imagery? I'm not sure Stella cares one bit whether those country club snobs approve of her sartorial style--that is, until that sartorial style begins to have a negative impact on Laurel's life.
Shortly after the above scene, Stella decides that perhaps her critics were right: she's bad for Laurel. Stella becomes convinced that a complete severing of the mother-daughter relationship is the only way for Laurel to achieve the full transition to the upper-class that has eluded her mother. As a result, Stella tells Laurel that she has fallen in love with loud-mouth, drunkard Ed Munn, a friend whom Laurel has always loathed. Stella emphasizes that she cannot pursue this relationship with Laurel hanging around and explains that she wants to "be something else besides a mother" at this point in her life. The viewer knows this proclamation is all a lie, but Laurel runs back to New York, completely heartbroken.
An ellipses follows this wrenching scene between mother and daughter and the film immediately moves to the day of Laurel's marriage to Dick Grosvenor. And it is this final wedding scene that often inspires the most heated debates among viewers and critics. I know my students certainly disagreed about how one is to interpret the film's final moments: Laurel mourning her mother's absence on her wedding day while Stella stands out in the rain, stealing a glance at her daughter's wedding before walking away with both a wide smile and tears clearly visible on her face.
What happens to Stella after that moment is anyone's guess. And there's the rub. Viewers often debate about whether this final moment is a sign of Stella's victory--she has happily assured her daughter's success--or a sign that Stella has simply become complicit in her own demise. Stella has been convinced to give up the thing she desires above all else--her child--because being a good mother means making that ultimate sacrifice. I wonder where Fourth Wave readers might fall in this debate. Whether you've watched the entire film or only the clips I've posted here, I'd enjoy hearing how our readers might interpret that final scene of Vidor's much-discussed film. Until next week, when I'll bring you the highlights of some feminist-minded aspect of our discussion of two classic Douglas Sirk melodramas: All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind. Hopefully, this series will encourage me to become a more regular contributor to FourthWave as I've certainly been lax in posting!
King Vidor's 1937 film has been debated almost to the point of exhaustion in the 70-odd years since its release. Yet, Stella Dallas's central questions--What, precisely, does it mean to be a good mother? What, if anything, should a mother sacrifice in order to ensure her children's happiness--still feel strikingly modern and ripe for debate. My students certainly expressed a wide range of opinions about Stella's struggles. The film focuses largely on its titular character, a feisty working-class woman, Stella Martin (Barbara Stanwyck), who seduces and marries a man seemingly far outside of her league, Stephen Dallas (John Boles). In this clip from early in the film, we see the method by which Stella attracts the attention of the eligible, handsome, and rich bachelor.
With Stella's mother prominently displayed in the background looking haggard and unhappy, this scene makes it clear that Stella's decision to woo Stephen is motivated by a desire to avoid becoming a tired "mill hen" like Mrs. Martin. Unlike her brother, she believes in being ambitious in searching for a spouse. So what's so interesting about that, you might ask? Hollywood constantly depicts women who use their sexuality to escape poverty via marriage, who hood-wink men into marrying them by recasting themselves as picture-perfect examples of wifely compliance. However, Stella Dallas's story becomes increasingly complex and inspires a debate about whether women want, or should want, "to be something more than a mother."
I'll summarize the narrative so that readers may have some insight into why this film has attracted the attention of so many feminist film theorists: shortly after the above scene Stella manages to win the hand of Stephen Dallas, much to the surprise of both the upper- and working-class citizens of the mill town. In one particularly telling scene, the couple go to a movie after which Stella expresses her desire to become just as refined as the women she sees on screen. Although he counters that Stella should remain 'just they way she is,' Stella's proclamation clearly impresses Stephen. Though it later proves to be an empty statement, one can't help but admire Stephen's insistence that Stella is far more interesting than the cookie-cutter women he sees in their town or on the silver screen.
Following a brief courtship, the couple marry and, after the passage of an indeterminate amount of time, have a daughter, Laurel, whom they both adore. In fact, even though Stella used to make fun of the other mill women who were so eager to have children, she is surprised to discover that she loves being a mother. In fact, when her friend Ed Munn asks why she doesn't get out much anymore the former party girl proclaims, "I don't seem to get any fun out of a good time anymore. All the time I'm out I'm thinking of [Laurel] and what she's doing and how soon I can get back to her." To my mind, Stella's comments speak to both her particular situation and to today's debates about motherhood. Certainly, I'm troubled by Stella's house-bound state, her willingness to give up all her social activities, every time I watch that scene. I wonder what happened to the woman who enjoyed parties and meeting new people. What happened to Stella's plans of going to school so she could obtain a job. Why must she only sew clothes for little Laurel when Stella can design clothes that look like they belong in an up-scale boutique. On the other hand, I also must acknowledge that Stella seems to truly enjoy the role of devoted mother. She is doing precisely what seems to make her happy.
Yet, despite her obvious devotion to her daughter, many members of Stella's community--including her husband--deem her too crass to be a good mother to Laurel, and her husband decides that moving away from Stella's working-class roots will allow them to "start fresh" and encourage Stella to become a more refined, upper-class wife and mother. However, Stella longs to remain in the community she has always called home and refuses to join Stephen in New York. With Stephen making only occasional visits home, the couple's relationship becomes increasingly dysfunctional. To make matters worse, while in New York, Stephen runs into his first love, Helen Morrison (Barbara O'Neil) while purchasing a gift for Laurel's upcoming birthday. Many years before, just prior to his first meeting with Stella over sandwiches in fact, Barbara left the mill town to marry, leaving Stephen broken-hearted--not that one would have guessed given Stephen's eager romancing of Stella. Stephen sees in Barbara, the picture-perfect mother of three picture-perfect boys, the kind of wife and mother he thought Stella could become with a little coaching. And, as luck would have it, Barbara, with down-cast eyes, informs Stephen that she is now a widow, which allows Stephen and Barbara to renew their relationship posthaste, with Laurel paying frequent visits to the Morrison's lavish Long Island home.
Though she obviously loves her mother dearly, Laurel quickly become enamored with both the Morrison's high-class lifestyle and Barbara's particular brand of femininity.
Eventually, Stephen tries to persuade Stella to grant him a divorce, but she steadfastly refuses--until she learns that her own working-class roots are preventing Laurel from fully integrating into the upper-class world that Stella had long dreamed of accessing. Laurel falls in love with the wealthy Richard Grosvenor III (Tim Holt) during one of her trips to New York to visit her father, but now she is in danger of being ostracized due to her mother's flamboyant attire and crude behavior. In the following scene, one can see how Stella's unique attitude and style of dress may hamper Laurel's ability to move up the social ladder and win Richard's hand. Though she has the money to grant her entry into the country club frequented by the Morrisons and the Grosvernors, Stella cannot project an image of feminine beauty that will satisfy this crowd. In fact, Stella embodies a vision of womanhood, and motherhood, that turns her into an object of ridicule within this button-down, country-club community, one that will likely cause Laurel to lose the affection of Dick Grosvernor.
Or is there another way to read Stella's feminine self-presentation? Are her attire and her crassness signs of naivete and failed imitation? Or is Stella expressing an admirable devil-may-care attitude that exposes the absurdity of this upper-crust imagery? I'm not sure Stella cares one bit whether those country club snobs approve of her sartorial style--that is, until that sartorial style begins to have a negative impact on Laurel's life.
Shortly after the above scene, Stella decides that perhaps her critics were right: she's bad for Laurel. Stella becomes convinced that a complete severing of the mother-daughter relationship is the only way for Laurel to achieve the full transition to the upper-class that has eluded her mother. As a result, Stella tells Laurel that she has fallen in love with loud-mouth, drunkard Ed Munn, a friend whom Laurel has always loathed. Stella emphasizes that she cannot pursue this relationship with Laurel hanging around and explains that she wants to "be something else besides a mother" at this point in her life. The viewer knows this proclamation is all a lie, but Laurel runs back to New York, completely heartbroken.
An ellipses follows this wrenching scene between mother and daughter and the film immediately moves to the day of Laurel's marriage to Dick Grosvenor. And it is this final wedding scene that often inspires the most heated debates among viewers and critics. I know my students certainly disagreed about how one is to interpret the film's final moments: Laurel mourning her mother's absence on her wedding day while Stella stands out in the rain, stealing a glance at her daughter's wedding before walking away with both a wide smile and tears clearly visible on her face.
What happens to Stella after that moment is anyone's guess. And there's the rub. Viewers often debate about whether this final moment is a sign of Stella's victory--she has happily assured her daughter's success--or a sign that Stella has simply become complicit in her own demise. Stella has been convinced to give up the thing she desires above all else--her child--because being a good mother means making that ultimate sacrifice. I wonder where Fourth Wave readers might fall in this debate. Whether you've watched the entire film or only the clips I've posted here, I'd enjoy hearing how our readers might interpret that final scene of Vidor's much-discussed film. Until next week, when I'll bring you the highlights of some feminist-minded aspect of our discussion of two classic Douglas Sirk melodramas: All That Heaven Allows and Written on the Wind. Hopefully, this series will encourage me to become a more regular contributor to FourthWave as I've certainly been lax in posting!
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Boy-fronted girl bands?
Those of us who like women in popular music, tend to favor listening to, well, bands that feature women musicians. Like the wonderful (and slightly misnamed, as they play pop, too) Girls Rock Radio, "...features the music of women artists, all-girl and girl-fronted bands." The same is true of Jennifer Corday's Girl Rock, or any random feminist/women-centric music blog. It's always all-girl bands, girl-fronted bands, and female solo artists.
But this makes sense, right? A male-fronted band wouldn't be much for women! I thought so, too - then I saw this:
Harmonica aside, it struck me that I had never seen a band with all female instrumentalists and a male singer before. This is interesting...
Now, there are lots of bands with a sole female singer, many bands with a 'token' (if you will) female instrumentalist, plenty (but not enough!) all-girl bands and bands with one male instrumentalist, and a very few bands with a more equal gender representation. But how many bands with a sole male singer?
Patriarchists don't mind male bands with a female singer. "She's just the singer," they say, "Anybody can sing. She's just there to look hot." (You don't often hear that about male singers, of course...) A token female is okay, too - especially if she's just the bassist. All-girl bands - well, there aren't any really popular ones, and they're not any good, anyway. But a boy-fronted girl band? That's a big, big problem! Men can't be 'just the singer'!
At least, that's the only explanation I can find for the almost complete lack of that particular band line-up!
There are a few male soloists who have, and often exploit, a female backup group, but Elvis and the Sweet Inspirations doesn't count here. And neither does this. I'm talking about a reversal of the guy-band-who-happens-to-have-a-chick-singer phenomenon - an band who's only male member is 'just the singer'.
After spending a large amount of time searching the internet and asking a number of people who know about these things, I found one reference to a defunct jazz ensemble, lots of off-one performances (like the S-K/Vedder stuff) and a grand total of three bands. And two of them may very well fall under the category of soloist+backup singer. First:
Jens Lekman, who loses points for naming the band after himself and for having all of the women dress in white, but they are standing evenly in a line, and have non-trivial horn parts, so... maybe.
Next, The World Provider, which is a very weird name for a fairly weird band:
And finally, there's Shlonk. They fit the criteria admirably:
(I'm not sure what this song is about, by the way - I doubt they actually want people to give their children guns... can somebody who not as lyric-dense as I am figure this one out?)
I suppose I should also mention Huggy Bear - near the end of their existence, their guitar player left, leaving just the male singer. Plus, I really like this song!
Any boy-fronted girl bands I have blindly overlooked? Is there some secret society that I missed? Does anybody else think that the extreme lack of such bands is odd/annoying?
But this makes sense, right? A male-fronted band wouldn't be much for women! I thought so, too - then I saw this:
Harmonica aside, it struck me that I had never seen a band with all female instrumentalists and a male singer before. This is interesting...
Now, there are lots of bands with a sole female singer, many bands with a 'token' (if you will) female instrumentalist, plenty (but not enough!) all-girl bands and bands with one male instrumentalist, and a very few bands with a more equal gender representation. But how many bands with a sole male singer?
Patriarchists don't mind male bands with a female singer. "She's just the singer," they say, "Anybody can sing. She's just there to look hot." (You don't often hear that about male singers, of course...) A token female is okay, too - especially if she's just the bassist. All-girl bands - well, there aren't any really popular ones, and they're not any good, anyway. But a boy-fronted girl band? That's a big, big problem! Men can't be 'just the singer'!
At least, that's the only explanation I can find for the almost complete lack of that particular band line-up!
There are a few male soloists who have, and often exploit, a female backup group, but Elvis and the Sweet Inspirations doesn't count here. And neither does this. I'm talking about a reversal of the guy-band-who-happens-to-have-a-chick-singer phenomenon - an band who's only male member is 'just the singer'.
After spending a large amount of time searching the internet and asking a number of people who know about these things, I found one reference to a defunct jazz ensemble, lots of off-one performances (like the S-K/Vedder stuff) and a grand total of three bands. And two of them may very well fall under the category of soloist+backup singer. First:
Jens Lekman, who loses points for naming the band after himself and for having all of the women dress in white, but they are standing evenly in a line, and have non-trivial horn parts, so... maybe.
Next, The World Provider, which is a very weird name for a fairly weird band:
And finally, there's Shlonk. They fit the criteria admirably:
(I'm not sure what this song is about, by the way - I doubt they actually want people to give their children guns... can somebody who not as lyric-dense as I am figure this one out?)
I suppose I should also mention Huggy Bear - near the end of their existence, their guitar player left, leaving just the male singer. Plus, I really like this song!
Any boy-fronted girl bands I have blindly overlooked? Is there some secret society that I missed? Does anybody else think that the extreme lack of such bands is odd/annoying?
Suggestions Please!: Radical/WOC/Alternative/Global Feminist Blogs
Ojibway Migisi Bineshii and I are trying to generate a list of 100 (or so) radical/alternative/racially- and ethnically-diverse feminist/gender blogs as a companion/alternative to this list. We would LOVE your suggestions! Please leave links in the comments (if you think your own blog fits the bill, that's great too) and we'll post the list to both our blogs once it's compiled.
Thanks in advance, and please do forward this post to friends and/or ask for suggestions far and wide. We'd like to amass as diverse and comprehensive a list as possible!
Thanks in advance, and please do forward this post to friends and/or ask for suggestions far and wide. We'd like to amass as diverse and comprehensive a list as possible!
Friday, January 23, 2009
Global Gag Rule Repealed
As of today, President Obama has repealed the "global gag rule", which, as we all know, was a "ban on U.S. funding for international health groups that perform abortions, promote legalizing the procedure or provide counseling about terminating pregnancies." Reagan instated the rule in 1984, Clinton repealed it in 1993 and then good ole Bush junior (good riddance!) reinstated it in 2001.
According to The Washington Post:
According to The Washington Post:
The memorandum revokes Bush's order, calling the limitations on funding "excessively broad" and adding that "they have undermined efforts to promote safe and effective voluntary family programs in foreign nations." In an accompanying statement, Obama said he would also work with Congress to restore U.S. funding support for the United Nations Population Fund "to reduce poverty, improve the health of women and children, prevent HIV/AIDS and provide family planning assistance to women in 154 countries."Dang, our new President is sure hitting the ground running. Go, Obama, go! Also, Planned Parenthood has a form you can fill out to thank President Obama...so go. Do it.
Obama's decision was praised by family planning groups, women's health advocates and others for allowing the U.S. Agency for International Development to once again provide millions of dollars to programs offering medical services, birth control, HIV prevention and other care.
"For eight long years, the global gag rule has been used by the Bush administration to play politics with the lives of poor women across the world," said Gill Greer of the International Planned Parenthood Federation in London.
Kirsten Gillibrand
My father, Fred, who writes for Die Achse des Guten (a German news site/blog) wrote me an email today sharing some of his insight on U.S. Representative Kirsten Gillibrand, who New York governor David Paterson just named as Hillary Clinton's replacement in the U.S. Senate. I would have probably written about her myself, but I'm more than happy to let him do the work since I've been a bit swamped with my dissertation of late. The rest of this post is in his words:
Gillibrand, 42, represents a conservative and, until she won the seat in 2006, Republican district that meanders from the Hudson Valley to north of Albany. She has been labeled a "Blue Dog" Democrat, especially because of her 100% rating from the NRA. Although she has a passion for hunting in common with Sarah Palin, her candidacy was strongly supported by the senior senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, an outspoken liberal and anti-gun advocate.
She is also quite liberal on women's and gay rights, consistently supporting a women's right to choose and advocating Federal recognition of civil unions on par with marriage rights as a precursor to full gay marriage recognition in the States.
In a recent interview with the Hudson Valley InsideOut magazine, she said:
(So, Gillibrand sounds pretty good--pro-choice and pro-gay--although I'm still wondering what happened with Carolyn Kennedy. And, hey, don't I have a great, liberal dad?)
Gillibrand, 42, represents a conservative and, until she won the seat in 2006, Republican district that meanders from the Hudson Valley to north of Albany. She has been labeled a "Blue Dog" Democrat, especially because of her 100% rating from the NRA. Although she has a passion for hunting in common with Sarah Palin, her candidacy was strongly supported by the senior senator from New York, Chuck Schumer, an outspoken liberal and anti-gun advocate.
She is also quite liberal on women's and gay rights, consistently supporting a women's right to choose and advocating Federal recognition of civil unions on par with marriage rights as a precursor to full gay marriage recognition in the States.
In a recent interview with the Hudson Valley InsideOut magazine, she said:
What I’d like to do legislatively, on the federal level—and I think we’ll be able to do this with the new president—is actually make civil unions legal in all 50 states, make it the law of the land. Because what you want to fundamentally do is protect the rights and privileges of committed couples, so that they can have Medicare benefits, visit in the hospitals, have adoption rights. All [the] things that we give to married couples, committed gay couples should be eligible for. And then the question of whether you call it a marriage or not, what you label it, that can be left to the states to decide.
[It’s] so culturally oriented. My mom’s generation, they want their gay friends to have every right and privilege that they should be eligible for as a married couple, but they feel uncomfortable calling it marriage. To them, a marriage is a religious word that they learned from the Catholic Church: It’s a covenant between a man, a woman, and God. So they feel uncomfortable with the word. But they don’t feel uncomfortable with the rights and privileges. I think the way you win this issue is you focus on getting the rights and privileges protected throughout the entire country, and then you do the state-by-state advocacy for having the title.
(So, Gillibrand sounds pretty good--pro-choice and pro-gay--although I'm still wondering what happened with Carolyn Kennedy. And, hey, don't I have a great, liberal dad?)
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Gene Robinson at "We Are One" event
You've all probably heard by now (or noticed it yourself if you were watching the HBO broadcast), that Bishop Gene Robinson's invocation during the pre-inaugural "We Are One" event was cut off (probably unintentional, but pretty negligent on the part of whomever planned the broadcast/event schedule). Well, here's the invocation for those of us (that's pretty much everyone who wasn't in the audience) who missed it:
(H/T Feminist Law Professors)
Also, check out Bishop Robinson's appearance on last night The Daily Show.
And, last but not least, Gwen and Tonni wrote an incredibly compelling post today on feminism and religion over at Girl w/Pen.
(H/T Feminist Law Professors)
Also, check out Bishop Robinson's appearance on last night The Daily Show.
And, last but not least, Gwen and Tonni wrote an incredibly compelling post today on feminism and religion over at Girl w/Pen.
The Obama Administration, Women's Issues and LGBTQ Rights
President (yay!) Obama has an entire page on the White House website devoted to women's issues, including agenda items about pay equity, health care, domestic violence, and education. Here's a small sampling:
(H/T Feministing and RH Reality Check)
Supports a Woman's Right to Choose: President Obama understands that abortion is a divisive issue, and respects those who disagree with him. However, he has been a consistent champion of reproductive choice and will make preserving women's rights under Roe v. Wade a priority in his Administration. He opposes any constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court's decision in that case.Also, the Civil Rights page of the Obama Administration agenda includes these bullet-points, among others:
[...]
Investing in Women-Owned Small Businesses: Women are majority owners of more than 28 percent of U.S. businesses, but head less than 4 percent of venture-capital-backed firms. Women business owners are more likely than white male business owners to have their loan applications denied. President Obama and Vice President Biden will encourage investing in women-owned businesses, providing more support to women business owners, and reducing discrimination in lending.
[...]
Strengthening Domestic Violence Laws: Approximately 1,400 women a year -- four every day -- die in the United States as a result of domestic violence. And 132,000 women report that they have been victims of a rape or attempted rape, and it is estimated that an even greater number have been raped but do not report it. In the Senate, President Obama co-sponsored and helped reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, legislation initially written and pushed through Congress by Vice President Biden. The law funds and helps communities, nonprofit organizations, and police combat domestic violence, sexual assault, and stalking. The reauthorized legislation establishes a sexual assault services program and provides education grants to prevent domestic violence.
Support Full Civil Unions and Federal Rights for LGBT Couples: President Obama supports full civil unions that give same-sex couples legal rights and privileges equal to those of married couples. Obama also believes we need to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act and enact legislation that would ensure that the 1,100+ federal legal rights and benefits currently provided on the basis of marital status are extended to same-sex couples in civil unions and other legally-recognized unions. These rights and benefits include the right to assist a loved one in times of emergency, the right to equal health insurance and other employment benefits, and property rights.What do you all think? I think it's a pretty impressive list, but only time will tell how it's executed. So, let's hold him to it.
[...]
Oppose a Constitutional Ban on Same-Sex Marriage: President Obama voted against the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006 which would have defined marriage as between a man and a woman and prevented judicial extension of marriage-like rights to same-sex or other unmarried couples.
[...]
Repeal Don't Ask-Don't Tell: President Obama agrees with former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff John Shalikashvili and other military experts that we need to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" policy. The key test for military service should be patriotism, a sense of duty, and a willingness to serve. Discrimination should be prohibited. The U.S. government has spent millions of dollars replacing troops kicked out of the military because of their sexual orientation. Additionally, more than 300 language experts have been fired under this policy, including more than 50 who are fluent in Arabic. The President will work with military leaders to repeal the current policy and ensure it helps accomplish our national defense goals.
[...]
Expand Adoption Rights: President Obama believes that we must ensure adoption rights for all couples and individuals, regardless of their sexual orientation. He thinks that a child will benefit from a healthy and loving home, whether the parents are gay or not.
(H/T Feministing and RH Reality Check)
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Monday, January 19, 2009
Feminist Flashback #20
For Christmas, one of my best friends (whom I've known since 2nd grade) gave me a new collected edition of Alison Bechdel's comic strip, The Essential Dykes to Watch Out For. I've always loved DTWOF and this collection is awesome, starting with some of her earliest strips from 1983 and leading all the way up into the present. Her comics are smart and funny and incisive, interrogating everything from gender and sexuality to politics, queer or otherwise. And, hence, for today's Feminist Flashback (one day late, sorry!), I present one of Bechdel's Dykes to Watch Out For strips from 2002 (click on the image to enlarge). Check out her website for more.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Sounding Feminine
I haven't been able to listen to very much music this week, but one song did manage to catch my ear. The song in question, "Just Say When" by Kate Micucci, was featured on the web series Anyone But Me (which is also very, very good, by the way!)
Kate seems to mostly be a variety act sort of musician (judging from youtube, at least!) - she sings songs to go along with a comic act, but "Just Say When" is a song of an altogether different sort:
(You can listen to "Just Say When" on Kate's myspace page)
A first, I thought, Isn't it a little sentimental? Isn't her singing rather weak? Isn't this song just a bit boring?
But after a few seconds, I didn't agree with any of those anymore!
"Just Say When" is, more than anything else, about uncertainty. And while many singers would sing such an emotional song with, well, strong emotion, Kate does the opposite. The dynamic level (loudness) stays nearly the same throughout the entire song. Her voice cracks on the high notes, and waivers on the low notes. It is soft, truthful, not overtly confident, slightly vulnerable. At the risk of invoking a stereotype, the song is exquisitely feminine.
And yet, she doesn't sound weak; doesn't sound helpless. She doesn't need someone to come along and clear up her uncertainty, make her feel safe. She's simply telling us how life is and how she feels:
Kate seems to mostly be a variety act sort of musician (judging from youtube, at least!) - she sings songs to go along with a comic act, but "Just Say When" is a song of an altogether different sort:
(You can listen to "Just Say When" on Kate's myspace page)
We could be
Better than we were
If you could only see
I'm different than before
Best believe that I will never knock upon your door
But than... again, you just say when
A first, I thought, Isn't it a little sentimental? Isn't her singing rather weak? Isn't this song just a bit boring?
But after a few seconds, I didn't agree with any of those anymore!
"Just Say When" is, more than anything else, about uncertainty. And while many singers would sing such an emotional song with, well, strong emotion, Kate does the opposite. The dynamic level (loudness) stays nearly the same throughout the entire song. Her voice cracks on the high notes, and waivers on the low notes. It is soft, truthful, not overtly confident, slightly vulnerable. At the risk of invoking a stereotype, the song is exquisitely feminine.
And yet, she doesn't sound weak; doesn't sound helpless. She doesn't need someone to come along and clear up her uncertainty, make her feel safe. She's simply telling us how life is and how she feels:
I'll be fine
Two feet on the ground
But no one knows when no one is around
The Hathor Legacy's Year in Review
I meant to post about this a week ago, but somehow it slipped my mind. I may have mentioned before that I have a little side gig over at The Hathor Legacy helping out with marketing and PR. Last week, I posted two "year in review" posts over there, rounding up some of the great posts THL contributors wrote in 2008 and compiling a comprehensive list of all the television, film and book reviews posted on the site in the past year. If you have a moment, check it out! Jennifer Kesler and the rest of THL's contributors are fantastic.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Feminist Blogger Friday #1: Interview with Frau Sally Benz
Good morning, everyone! I'm very excited to announce the start of a new feature here at Fourth Wave. The second Friday of every month, we'll be posting an interview with a feminist blogger. I anticipate it will be an excellent opportunity for FWF readers to learn a little bit about another blogger and help us all appreciate, one blog at a time, the great diversity that is the feminist blogosphere.
Without further ado, I present you the very first in a series of Feminist Blogger Friday Interviews. For today, I've interviewed Frau Sally Benz, creator of Jump off the Bridge and contributor at The Feminist Underground and CHICKS ROCK!.
1. Sally, your blog was one of the first feminist blogs I came across when I started researching for Fourth Wave. I’m not sure now entirely how this transpired, what search terms I used, etc., but for this and other reasons I’m very happy to have you here as my first Feminist Blogger Friday interviewee! What drew you to start your own blog? Did you initially imagine Jump off the Bridge as a personal or public endeavor (or some combination of the two)? And how do you feel it’s developed since?
I had been reading blogs for several months and had started commenting a few months before I started my own blog. But I found myself feeling shut out by a lot of the comment threads on blogs. I also wanted to expand on my thoughts, but had no outlet for that. So I decided to just start my own blog where I could say whatever I wanted and engage people in conversation that way.
I always imagined my blog as a combination of the public and private. My passions are feminism, activism, politics, citizen engagement/participation, etc., so I knew that was what I mainly wanted to talk about. But I also love turning my brain off every so often and just listening to music, or finding recipes, or reading, and I wanted to be able to do that on my blog, too. And because I need an outlet just to keep myself sane and to seek solidarity, I also do often lean towards the personal. It’s been hard to keep a balance at times between all of these elements, but I think so far it has been ok. I hope that in finding more time to write, it’ll be easier to balance these things, while still staying true to my focus on feminism, activism and politics, with other fun things thrown in from time to time.
2. You’re also a contributor over at The Feminist Underground and, recently, at CHICKS ROCK!, a blog off-shoot of The Women’s Mosaic. How did you get involved in The Feminist Underground and The Women’s Mosaic, respectively?
The Feminist Underground was one of the first blogs I found (I think through a comment Habladora wrote somewhere) while I was starting to come up with ideas for my own blog. I loved the energy on there and Habladora is just such an awesome writer, so I was a groupie for a while. I wrote a guest post in response to her call for submissions on feminist definitions, and she had been keeping up with my own blog and commenting here and there. One day she asked me if I wanted to be a contributor over there, and I ecstatically agreed.
For CHICKS ROCK!, it’s a much shorter story. I’ve been working with The Women’s Mosaic for a couple of years now and when they came up with the idea of starting a blog, I ended up becoming the head of that project. I knew about the blogosphere and had a strong sense of TWM’s vision and back then I also had the most time (I have much less free time now). So I’m a contributor, as well as the editor/blog mistress, if you will.
3. Do you think of blogging as work or play? And speaking of work, what’s your day job? Do you have aspirations to someday take up blogging or some form of writing or journalism full-time?
This question made me LOL! Blogging is work and play, depending on when you ask me. It is certainly A LOT of work to write, edit, maintain, troubleshoot, moderate, etc. for one blog, let alone keeping track of three, even while sharing responsibilities on two of them. Sometimes posts just come very easily to me – either because I have a lot of free time, something has sparked a reaction inside of me, I’ve found something of interest, etc. But sometimes I’m struggling just to put sentences together. Writer’s block hits hard, and it’s even harder to deal with that when my work schedule is so unpredictable sometimes.
I work for a women’s rights organization at the moment, and volunteer part-time for The Women’s Mosaic. My responsibilities are a bit all over the place for both, but I like it most days. :-)
I’ve always loved writing and editing and anything having to do with either, but I’ve never considered doing it full-time or professionally. Who knows, though… it’s a new year!
4. Are there some days that you just have no interest in blogging? What do you do to inspire yourself to write?
There are plenty of days when I have no interest whatsoever in blogging. If it’s been a while since I posted on Jump off the Bridge, then I try to at least throw up a video or something to have something on there. I feel guilty otherwise!
Sometimes when I set out to write a post, but don’t know what to write about, I just start reading through news websites and react to whatever I find on there. My guy also sends me links every so often when he sees something he thinks I’ll want to write about. This is usually a good way for me to at least write something substantial, but it doesn’t always work.
5. As we both know, a lot of the work involved in maintaining a blog is cultivating and sustaining readership. Do you have any advice for people relatively new to feminist blogging about how to gain readers and encourage comments on their blog? Did anyone give you any great advice when you first got started that you’d be willing to share?
My number one advice for gaining readers is to comment, comment, and then comment some more on a variety of other blogs. I think a lot of people would say the same thing. If people like what you have to say and/or if they keep seeing your name on comment threads all over the place, they’ll get curious.
Aside from that, the advice I always read is to keep a regular schedule, but I struggle with that as I already said.
I’d also say take advantage of places that promote link love! These are posts where you can link to a few of your own posts with a short description to get traffic & comments on your blog. Womanist Musings does it on Saturdays, Feministe on Sundays, Shakesville on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We do it on The Feminist Underground and CHICKS ROCK! from time to time as well.
Taking advantage of social networking sites is also good, depending on how comfortable you are on those to start with. Facebook has a Networked Blogs app and you can also create a group or fan page for your blog. Twitter is great for promoting your posts. I’m not a big MySpace fan, but I’m sure people do it on there too and other places.
As far as encouraging comments, I still need help with that one. If you know of any tips, please share. :-)
6. I would have to agree with you about the advice to comment prodigiously yourself, but if I ever learn some secret comment-boosting formula, I'll be sure to share! Now, less about blogging, but more about feminism: how do you embody your feminism in your day-to-day life and/or how is feminism part of your daily life? Can you recall any specific event in your past that made you decide to identify yourself as a feminist or do you feel that feminism has always been a part of who you are?
I work for a women’s rights organization, so that helps me feel feminist-y. The blogosphere is a great way to incorporate feminism into your daily life. Whether it’s questioning the status quo, taking action on issues around the world, or just learning about things people write about, it’s a great way to really work out your feminist muscles.
I also just have conversations with people whenever the opportunity presents itself. I make people question why they don’t call themselves feminists even though they believe in pretty much everything we believe in. I try to break down oppression/privilege to them, and teach them about the struggles women have dealt with throughout history. I’m also a big proponent of including men in the conversation, so I make them see how feminism helps them too.
7. What do you feel is the most important issue facing contemporary feminism?
More than any one particular issue that feminists fight for, I think there is a lack of inspiration and effective strategy amongst feminists. There is not enough focus on grassroots efforts, not enough communication and partnership with people who don’t call themselves feminists (but have similar goals), etc. I think it’s a shame, for example, that people are still so intimidated by feminism. If you ask them what they believe in, they often agree with you about a lot of things, but refuse to call themselves feminists or to work towards the very things they believe in. I think in the future, we need to focus on addressing these things in addition to the issues already in the feminist agenda.
8. Along those lines, do you have a favorite feminist anecdote?
I do have one! I have several actually, but I’ll use the one from my feminism definition post at TheFU:
My guy's aunt could barely say the word "feminist" without getting a look on her face like she just swallowed sour milk. I started asking her questions:
"Do you have a job?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe you should keep the money you make instead of giving it to your father or husband or brother?"
"Of course."
"So you consider yourself pretty independent?"
"Yes."
"Then, I hate to break it to you, but you're probably a feminist."
"No I'm not, just because I keep my own money?"
"Well, there was a time way back when, when women weren't allowed to keep any money or property. Women had to fight to earn that right."
"Really? I never knew that."
"Just like they had to fight for the right to get divorced from abusive men, keep their own children, make their way to the top at their jobs."
"Well, I knew that, but not everybody wants that."
"You're right, but feminism gives you a choice. We didn't have that choice before and now we do. That's why I'm a feminist. I want to keep fighting for all the choices we should have that we don't."
Somewhere around here, my guy came into the convo and said he's a feminist too. This seemed to boggle her mind. We explained that feminism is about men AND women. Sure, we're different. Some differences are biological, some social, some a mixture of the two. But that doesn't mean that gender stereotypes don't hurt us all.
At the end of our little chat, she said "Well...I guess I'm a little bit of a feminist."
9. That's a great story! And now for something completely different: is there anything that you feel particularly fan-girlish about that you could discuss (or blog about) for hours on end with the right audience (a particular television show, a certain band, puppies, politics, etc.)?
I could do this about Harry Potter (hard-freaking-core!). A few others, to a lesser degree: the Beatles’ or Alanis’ music and Disney movies.
10. Speaking of movies, I noticed on your profile page that When Harry Met Sally is one of your favorite movies. It’s one of my favorites, too! What’s your favorite scene?
Woohoo! When Harry Met Sally!! I love every minute of that movie so this is by far the hardest question in this thing. While the orgasm scene is pretty classic stuff, I love the scene when Sally finds out Joe is getting married. Starting with the teary phone call to Harry right up until the hilarious look on Harry’s face after they’ve slept together – it’s BRILLIANT! A close second would be the scene at the Sharper Image when they sing “Surrey with a Fringe on Top” and Helen finds them there. I have to go watch the movie now...
That's all for now folks (and, for the record, my favorite WHMS scene is also the teary phone call bit!). Sally, thank you so much for granting me this interview. To everyone reading this, tune in February 13th for the next installment in this new interview series. In the meantime, I hope you'll continue to join us here at Fourth Wave for posts on myriad other topics, and, if you have any suggestions for people you'd like to interview or if you yourself would like to author a guest post wherein YOU conduct the interview, please don't hesitate to drop me a line (fourthwave[dot]feminism[at]gmail[dot]com).
Without further ado, I present you the very first in a series of Feminist Blogger Friday Interviews. For today, I've interviewed Frau Sally Benz, creator of Jump off the Bridge and contributor at The Feminist Underground and CHICKS ROCK!.
1. Sally, your blog was one of the first feminist blogs I came across when I started researching for Fourth Wave. I’m not sure now entirely how this transpired, what search terms I used, etc., but for this and other reasons I’m very happy to have you here as my first Feminist Blogger Friday interviewee! What drew you to start your own blog? Did you initially imagine Jump off the Bridge as a personal or public endeavor (or some combination of the two)? And how do you feel it’s developed since?
I had been reading blogs for several months and had started commenting a few months before I started my own blog. But I found myself feeling shut out by a lot of the comment threads on blogs. I also wanted to expand on my thoughts, but had no outlet for that. So I decided to just start my own blog where I could say whatever I wanted and engage people in conversation that way.
I always imagined my blog as a combination of the public and private. My passions are feminism, activism, politics, citizen engagement/participation, etc., so I knew that was what I mainly wanted to talk about. But I also love turning my brain off every so often and just listening to music, or finding recipes, or reading, and I wanted to be able to do that on my blog, too. And because I need an outlet just to keep myself sane and to seek solidarity, I also do often lean towards the personal. It’s been hard to keep a balance at times between all of these elements, but I think so far it has been ok. I hope that in finding more time to write, it’ll be easier to balance these things, while still staying true to my focus on feminism, activism and politics, with other fun things thrown in from time to time.
2. You’re also a contributor over at The Feminist Underground and, recently, at CHICKS ROCK!, a blog off-shoot of The Women’s Mosaic. How did you get involved in The Feminist Underground and The Women’s Mosaic, respectively?
The Feminist Underground was one of the first blogs I found (I think through a comment Habladora wrote somewhere) while I was starting to come up with ideas for my own blog. I loved the energy on there and Habladora is just such an awesome writer, so I was a groupie for a while. I wrote a guest post in response to her call for submissions on feminist definitions, and she had been keeping up with my own blog and commenting here and there. One day she asked me if I wanted to be a contributor over there, and I ecstatically agreed.
For CHICKS ROCK!, it’s a much shorter story. I’ve been working with The Women’s Mosaic for a couple of years now and when they came up with the idea of starting a blog, I ended up becoming the head of that project. I knew about the blogosphere and had a strong sense of TWM’s vision and back then I also had the most time (I have much less free time now). So I’m a contributor, as well as the editor/blog mistress, if you will.
3. Do you think of blogging as work or play? And speaking of work, what’s your day job? Do you have aspirations to someday take up blogging or some form of writing or journalism full-time?
This question made me LOL! Blogging is work and play, depending on when you ask me. It is certainly A LOT of work to write, edit, maintain, troubleshoot, moderate, etc. for one blog, let alone keeping track of three, even while sharing responsibilities on two of them. Sometimes posts just come very easily to me – either because I have a lot of free time, something has sparked a reaction inside of me, I’ve found something of interest, etc. But sometimes I’m struggling just to put sentences together. Writer’s block hits hard, and it’s even harder to deal with that when my work schedule is so unpredictable sometimes.
I work for a women’s rights organization at the moment, and volunteer part-time for The Women’s Mosaic. My responsibilities are a bit all over the place for both, but I like it most days. :-)
I’ve always loved writing and editing and anything having to do with either, but I’ve never considered doing it full-time or professionally. Who knows, though… it’s a new year!
4. Are there some days that you just have no interest in blogging? What do you do to inspire yourself to write?
There are plenty of days when I have no interest whatsoever in blogging. If it’s been a while since I posted on Jump off the Bridge, then I try to at least throw up a video or something to have something on there. I feel guilty otherwise!
Sometimes when I set out to write a post, but don’t know what to write about, I just start reading through news websites and react to whatever I find on there. My guy also sends me links every so often when he sees something he thinks I’ll want to write about. This is usually a good way for me to at least write something substantial, but it doesn’t always work.
5. As we both know, a lot of the work involved in maintaining a blog is cultivating and sustaining readership. Do you have any advice for people relatively new to feminist blogging about how to gain readers and encourage comments on their blog? Did anyone give you any great advice when you first got started that you’d be willing to share?
My number one advice for gaining readers is to comment, comment, and then comment some more on a variety of other blogs. I think a lot of people would say the same thing. If people like what you have to say and/or if they keep seeing your name on comment threads all over the place, they’ll get curious.
Aside from that, the advice I always read is to keep a regular schedule, but I struggle with that as I already said.
I’d also say take advantage of places that promote link love! These are posts where you can link to a few of your own posts with a short description to get traffic & comments on your blog. Womanist Musings does it on Saturdays, Feministe on Sundays, Shakesville on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. We do it on The Feminist Underground and CHICKS ROCK! from time to time as well.
Taking advantage of social networking sites is also good, depending on how comfortable you are on those to start with. Facebook has a Networked Blogs app and you can also create a group or fan page for your blog. Twitter is great for promoting your posts. I’m not a big MySpace fan, but I’m sure people do it on there too and other places.
As far as encouraging comments, I still need help with that one. If you know of any tips, please share. :-)
6. I would have to agree with you about the advice to comment prodigiously yourself, but if I ever learn some secret comment-boosting formula, I'll be sure to share! Now, less about blogging, but more about feminism: how do you embody your feminism in your day-to-day life and/or how is feminism part of your daily life? Can you recall any specific event in your past that made you decide to identify yourself as a feminist or do you feel that feminism has always been a part of who you are?
I work for a women’s rights organization, so that helps me feel feminist-y. The blogosphere is a great way to incorporate feminism into your daily life. Whether it’s questioning the status quo, taking action on issues around the world, or just learning about things people write about, it’s a great way to really work out your feminist muscles.
I also just have conversations with people whenever the opportunity presents itself. I make people question why they don’t call themselves feminists even though they believe in pretty much everything we believe in. I try to break down oppression/privilege to them, and teach them about the struggles women have dealt with throughout history. I’m also a big proponent of including men in the conversation, so I make them see how feminism helps them too.
7. What do you feel is the most important issue facing contemporary feminism?
More than any one particular issue that feminists fight for, I think there is a lack of inspiration and effective strategy amongst feminists. There is not enough focus on grassroots efforts, not enough communication and partnership with people who don’t call themselves feminists (but have similar goals), etc. I think it’s a shame, for example, that people are still so intimidated by feminism. If you ask them what they believe in, they often agree with you about a lot of things, but refuse to call themselves feminists or to work towards the very things they believe in. I think in the future, we need to focus on addressing these things in addition to the issues already in the feminist agenda.
8. Along those lines, do you have a favorite feminist anecdote?
I do have one! I have several actually, but I’ll use the one from my feminism definition post at TheFU:
My guy's aunt could barely say the word "feminist" without getting a look on her face like she just swallowed sour milk. I started asking her questions:
"Do you have a job?"
"Yes."
"Do you believe you should keep the money you make instead of giving it to your father or husband or brother?"
"Of course."
"So you consider yourself pretty independent?"
"Yes."
"Then, I hate to break it to you, but you're probably a feminist."
"No I'm not, just because I keep my own money?"
"Well, there was a time way back when, when women weren't allowed to keep any money or property. Women had to fight to earn that right."
"Really? I never knew that."
"Just like they had to fight for the right to get divorced from abusive men, keep their own children, make their way to the top at their jobs."
"Well, I knew that, but not everybody wants that."
"You're right, but feminism gives you a choice. We didn't have that choice before and now we do. That's why I'm a feminist. I want to keep fighting for all the choices we should have that we don't."
Somewhere around here, my guy came into the convo and said he's a feminist too. This seemed to boggle her mind. We explained that feminism is about men AND women. Sure, we're different. Some differences are biological, some social, some a mixture of the two. But that doesn't mean that gender stereotypes don't hurt us all.
At the end of our little chat, she said "Well...I guess I'm a little bit of a feminist."
9. That's a great story! And now for something completely different: is there anything that you feel particularly fan-girlish about that you could discuss (or blog about) for hours on end with the right audience (a particular television show, a certain band, puppies, politics, etc.)?
I could do this about Harry Potter (hard-freaking-core!). A few others, to a lesser degree: the Beatles’ or Alanis’ music and Disney movies.
10. Speaking of movies, I noticed on your profile page that When Harry Met Sally is one of your favorite movies. It’s one of my favorites, too! What’s your favorite scene?
Woohoo! When Harry Met Sally!! I love every minute of that movie so this is by far the hardest question in this thing. While the orgasm scene is pretty classic stuff, I love the scene when Sally finds out Joe is getting married. Starting with the teary phone call to Harry right up until the hilarious look on Harry’s face after they’ve slept together – it’s BRILLIANT! A close second would be the scene at the Sharper Image when they sing “Surrey with a Fringe on Top” and Helen finds them there. I have to go watch the movie now...
That's all for now folks (and, for the record, my favorite WHMS scene is also the teary phone call bit!). Sally, thank you so much for granting me this interview. To everyone reading this, tune in February 13th for the next installment in this new interview series. In the meantime, I hope you'll continue to join us here at Fourth Wave for posts on myriad other topics, and, if you have any suggestions for people you'd like to interview or if you yourself would like to author a guest post wherein YOU conduct the interview, please don't hesitate to drop me a line (fourthwave[dot]feminism[at]gmail[dot]com).
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Super-feminist Obama to the rescue!
I posted a few days ago about Ms. Magazine's "This is What a Feminist Looks Like" Obama cover. Since then, a lot of blogs besides Feminist Law Professors (where I came across the cover the first time around) have shared their thoughts.
Some people love it. Some people hate it. And I feel pretty ambivalent. I definitely don't love it, and while I think that it's great that Obama has privately declared himself a feminist, I would like it a whole lot more if 1) this had been a public declaration and 2) if the magazine cover didn't implicitly suggest that Obama's come to save feminism (and you can't tell me that Superman iconography isn't explicitly about the idea of rescue).
In any case, check out these other posts discussing this cover and consider this post as a link round-up of sorts of all these varying opinions.
The original Feminist Law Professors post was, unfortunately, followed by what I think was an unnecessarily snarky and (I think) insulting response by Megan at Jezebel (thanks Laruen, for this link!) who claims that Ann Bartow of Feminist Law Professors and Amy Siskind writing over at The Daily Beast are the equivalent of P.U.M.A.s (Hillary-lovin', Obama-hatin' Democrats) and just "have their collective (organic cotton, sweatshop-free) panties in a wad." She concludes:
As would be expected, Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville offers a much more thoughtful response to the cover:
If you've found other posts about this cover or you've written one yourself, feel free to post links in the comments!
ETA: Again, care of Feminist Law Professors, this CNN video about the Ms.'s cover:
Some people love it. Some people hate it. And I feel pretty ambivalent. I definitely don't love it, and while I think that it's great that Obama has privately declared himself a feminist, I would like it a whole lot more if 1) this had been a public declaration and 2) if the magazine cover didn't implicitly suggest that Obama's come to save feminism (and you can't tell me that Superman iconography isn't explicitly about the idea of rescue).
In any case, check out these other posts discussing this cover and consider this post as a link round-up of sorts of all these varying opinions.
The original Feminist Law Professors post was, unfortunately, followed by what I think was an unnecessarily snarky and (I think) insulting response by Megan at Jezebel (thanks Laruen, for this link!) who claims that Ann Bartow of Feminist Law Professors and Amy Siskind writing over at The Daily Beast are the equivalent of P.U.M.A.s (Hillary-lovin', Obama-hatin' Democrats) and just "have their collective (organic cotton, sweatshop-free) panties in a wad." She concludes:
So maybe it's not so surprising they missed the point Ms. was trying to make in celebrating a President who supports so many of the policy issues that have been on the feminist movement's agenda, like wage equality and reproductive choice — it's still only the composition of his chromosomes that matter to some. I think that's called sexism, right?If you like the cover, great, but I see no reason to be rude to those who have offered legitimate reasons why they think it's problematic.
As would be expected, Melissa McEwan over at Shakesville offers a much more thoughtful response to the cover:
That Obama has not regularly and unapologetically identified himself as a feminist makes this image problematic—as does the reality that, while Obama is clearly better on women's issues than the retrofuck lunkhead and his band of misogybag miscreants who've been leading the country the last eight years, he's not been what might fairly be deemed a leader on feminist issues.On the other hand, Tracy Clark-Flory, over at Salon didn't really think anything of the cover initially, but understands the conflict:
[...]
Yet he's represented here as a superfeminist, which reinforces the same old narrative we see played out over and over again when it comes to men's participation in a "women's domain"—the women of feminism (or parenthood, or housecleaning, or rape prevention, or early childhood education, or nursing, etc.) are doing What Women Do, but the men who engage strongly in these areas are ZOMG SO SPECIAL AND BRILLIANT AND SELFLESS AND HEROIC!!!!11!
Rarely does an image so perfectly, depressingly capture this phenomenon, this reflexive tendency to over-reward men for doing what, in a just world, would be the bare fucking minimum to be considered a decent person.
When I saw the cover yesterday, I thought: Well, that's silly. Yes, we're all crossing our fingers that Obama is a superhero who will rescue our country, and his policies do seem basically feminist. But isn't it, I don't know, a little premature to declare him a superhero, particularly of feminism?In response to criticism, Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation and publisher of Ms. posted an explanation over at The Huffington Post, claiming
Then I considered that perhaps the intended message was simply that Obama, widely heralded as our nation's savior, also happens to be an undercover feminist. And then I moved along. But the cover has since sparked a feminist firestorm online.
When the chair of the Feminist Majority Foundation board, Peg Yorkin, and I met Barack Obama, he immediately offered "I am a feminist." [...] But we are not giving President-Elect Obama a blank check. For our hopes to be achieved, we must speak out and organize, organize, organize to enable our new president's team to achieve our common goals. Ultimately, we must hold our leaders' feet to the fire or, to put it more positively, uplift them when they are caught in the crosscurrents of competing interests.All that said, Jill over at Feministe loves the cover, as does Deborah at Girl w/Pen, and I respect both of their opinions a great deal, so it's by no means a cut and dry issue.
If you've found other posts about this cover or you've written one yourself, feel free to post links in the comments!
ETA: Again, care of Feminist Law Professors, this CNN video about the Ms.'s cover:
Sesame Street, "30 Rocks"
Okay, so this isn't completely feminist, but it is completely hilarious:
(H/T Neil)
(H/T Neil)
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Nominate a Beautiful Girl
Every summer since 2000, New Moon Girls magazine has celebrated 25 special girls ages 8-12 for their inner beauty. Nominations for the annual “25 Beautiful Girls” issue can come from anyone. So, take a moment to tell New Moon Girls about the inner beauty of your sister, daughter, granddaughter, niece, neighbor, student (or other girl you know) and help to inspire girls everywhere with their own unique inner beauty: the beauty of action, caring, creativity, passion, etc.
The magazine is edited by girls and its Girls Editorial Board selects from the nominees to feature girls (in the May/June issue) representing different aspects of inner beauty. All the other girl nominees receive special recognition and are honored at NewMoonGirls.com.
Anyone can nominate a girl – her family, someone in the community, another girl. And girls can also nominate themselves! I encourage you to nominate one or more girls by downloading their short form. Then complete the form and email it as an attached document to submissions@newmoon.com.
The deadline is midnight Central Standard Time next Monday, January 19, so do it today!
Top 100 Gender Studies Blogs
Check out this great list of Top 100 Gender Studies Blogs! I personally think they left a couple out, but there were also quite a few on the list that I didn't know about and look forward to exploring. Also, guess who's in excellent company?!
(H/T The Feminist Underground)
(H/T The Feminist Underground)
Gay bishop at Obama's Inauguration
Though it doesn't completely make up for the Rick Warren debacle, I suppose that having openly gay Episcopal bishop V. Gene Robinson deliver the invocation at the big Inauguration kick-off concert at the Lincoln Memorial on Sunday is a step in the right direction.
What do you all think? Does this make up for it? Is it just a band-aid? Is Obama just covering his tracks? Or is this about as much as we can expect from a politician?
(H/T to Fred for the link)
(By the way, I'm sorry about all the short posts lately. I've been trying to schedule and organize my non-blog life and work in the New Year. I should be back on track soon.)
ETA: Nancy Goldstein at Salon argues that Robinson is too little, too late.
What do you all think? Does this make up for it? Is it just a band-aid? Is Obama just covering his tracks? Or is this about as much as we can expect from a politician?
(H/T to Fred for the link)
(By the way, I'm sorry about all the short posts lately. I've been trying to schedule and organize my non-blog life and work in the New Year. I should be back on track soon.)
ETA: Nancy Goldstein at Salon argues that Robinson is too little, too late.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Musical Androgyny
The Cliks are one of the most fascinating bands in existence - the lead singer, Lucas Silveira, in particular.
Here's why:
As someone who thinks she knows enough about music to write about it, I haven't actually been listening to popular music for very long. I'd been a classical musician since I was quite young, but I've only been listening to popular music for a few years, and one of the first things I noticed as I started to listen was the overwhelming influence of sexual attraction. And not simply as a subject of the music, but as a part of the music itself.
The vast majority of popular music is sung, and one's attraction, or lack of attraction, to the singer (either in voice or appearance) greatly influences the way we perceive the music. The instrumentalists, too - one could write books on the guitar as a phallic symbol. This isn't a bad thing, certainly! I used to wonder, though - what would androgynous popular music sound like?
Not asexual music - that's what (some) classical music is for. The question is more difficult than it seems. What does an androgynous singing voice sound like? The first thing that comes to my mind is the sound of a boy's choir - but that brings us back to the asexual problem! I really can't imagine what normal, adult, androgynous singing would sound like. (Although, it's quite possible I simply haven't heard it yet!)
There is another solution, though. I first heard the Cliks on NPR. My first thought was, I like the singer. She has a great voice! After I listened to the interview and realized that Lucas was an FTM, however, it became obvious that he had accomplished something amazing.
The combination of a female (but not overly feminine) voice with a male (but not overly masculine) appearance creates androgynous music without sacrificing sexuality. In fact, many of the Cliks' songs are rather overtly sexual. By avoiding the typical feminine or masculine attraction, we are forced to focus on the song and on the music itself - yet without losing sight of the singer.
Is anyone familiar with a comparable MTF singer? I would imagine that the effect would be much the same.
Here's why:
As someone who thinks she knows enough about music to write about it, I haven't actually been listening to popular music for very long. I'd been a classical musician since I was quite young, but I've only been listening to popular music for a few years, and one of the first things I noticed as I started to listen was the overwhelming influence of sexual attraction. And not simply as a subject of the music, but as a part of the music itself.
The vast majority of popular music is sung, and one's attraction, or lack of attraction, to the singer (either in voice or appearance) greatly influences the way we perceive the music. The instrumentalists, too - one could write books on the guitar as a phallic symbol. This isn't a bad thing, certainly! I used to wonder, though - what would androgynous popular music sound like?
Not asexual music - that's what (some) classical music is for. The question is more difficult than it seems. What does an androgynous singing voice sound like? The first thing that comes to my mind is the sound of a boy's choir - but that brings us back to the asexual problem! I really can't imagine what normal, adult, androgynous singing would sound like. (Although, it's quite possible I simply haven't heard it yet!)
There is another solution, though. I first heard the Cliks on NPR. My first thought was, I like the singer. She has a great voice! After I listened to the interview and realized that Lucas was an FTM, however, it became obvious that he had accomplished something amazing.
The combination of a female (but not overly feminine) voice with a male (but not overly masculine) appearance creates androgynous music without sacrificing sexuality. In fact, many of the Cliks' songs are rather overtly sexual. By avoiding the typical feminine or masculine attraction, we are forced to focus on the song and on the music itself - yet without losing sight of the singer.
Is anyone familiar with a comparable MTF singer? I would imagine that the effect would be much the same.
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