Sunshine Cleaning

This is (sadly) not a review of Sunshine Cleaning, the new indie dramatic comedy about two sisters (played by Amy Adams and Emily Blunt) and their crime scene clean-up business. However, once I'm home, I'm going to make a beeline for the theater to watch this film. It looks hilarious, engaging and smart, both the writer and the director are women, I love Adams and Blunt as actors, and I'm thrilled that a film with not one, but two, female leads is getting so much press.

If you just can't wait for my review, which I hope to write within the coming week, check out Melissa Silverstein's post about the film over at Women and Hollywood. Then, watch the trailer and figure out where and when you can see the film at a theater near you!

Feminist Flashback #30

First, a quick note about last week's Feminist Flashback. While I though I had scheduled a post to go up during my travels, I accidentally left it saved as a draft instead. Silly mistake. So, the March 22 Feminist Flashback is now up (and backdated).

Secondly, I apologize (again!) for my absence this last week. Traveling has proved more detrimental to my writing than I expected. Suffice it to say, I'll be home soon and back to posting again regularly. I miss the blogging world!

Thirdly, for this week's Flashback and without further ado, I present the photographs of artist Cindy Sherman. Since the late 1970s, Sherman's self-portraits have eloquently confronted the male gaze and explored the relationship between women and narrative. Her "Untitled Film Stills" series, in particular, asks viewers to consider the implications of the story in which each pictured character (all Sherman) finds herself. Some of her later work addresses iconic female characters and the mutability of women's roles (and her own performance of them).

From the Untitled Film Stills series
(Dates, in order: 1978, 1977, 1978, 1978, 1979)











Other work

Untitled #90, 1981

Untitled (Woman in Sun Dress), 2003

Ada Lovelace Day: Joanna Rutkowska

(This post is for Ada Lovelace day, a new media event for raising awareness about women in technology. You can find a list of the many other posts here.)

Happy Ada Lovelace Day, everyone! Today, I'd like to talk about the woman who, more than anyone else inspired me to go into computer science, Joanna Rutkowska. Joanna Rutkowska is a computer security researcher. Simply put, she tries to find new ways to break into a computer, so that the bugs which allowed the break-in can be fixed. And she is very good at it. Her original claim to fame was the Blue Pill, a virtualization rootkit. Basically, it uses hardware present in newer processors to take over a computer. (If you want to know more, read her blog post, but be warned - it's very complicated!) The Blue Pill sparked a bit of a media frenzy - not to mention controversy (over whether is was really undetectable). Now, she is the CEO of Invisible Things Lab, a computer security research company.

At the time the blue pill was released, I was fascinated by the whole situation, and by Joanna. If you think about is, most of the really well known people in technology are teachers, especially for women. And yet, here was a woman who essentially, A: wrote some brilliant code, and B: gave a little presentation about it. And it was a big deal. More than that, and despite all the media craziness, I got the distinct impression that Joanna didn't really care about the whole circus, not really - she just wanted to hack computers!

Now, there's certainly nothing wrong with teaching - but I personally don't like it, and have no desire to teach. It felt strange to me that almost all of the women in technology I read about were teachers. And so, Joanna has become a tremendous role model for me. She's a programmer, a researcher, she's brilliant, and she's just really, really... cool! (After all, that's what technology is in the end - finding cool new things to do!)

So thank you, Joanna, and all of the other women we're honoring for Ada Lovelace Day. Thanks for being an inspiration and for simply doing what you do best!

(Crossposted at Constant Thoughts)

Pre-Ada Day #2: Kim Polese

(This post is for Ada Lovelace day, a new media event for raising awareness about women in technology.)

If you've been anywhere near a computer in the last 10 years, you've probably heard of something called Java. It's a programming language and run-time environment, which, over the last 14 years, has gone from being non-existent to being the most popular programming language in the world. Much of Java's popularity can be attributed to a woman named Kim Polese. Often described as a 'one woman marketing team', she insisted that Sun release Java technology without charging royalties: according to this interview, she said, "...it became pretty obvious to me that's[royalties] a good way to kill a new language. People just won't pay royalties. I was very insistent about that, and also about getting the source code out there."

It's no understatement to say that releasing Java in this way has revolutionized the software industry.

If you'd like to read more about Kim Polese, some other good interviews are here, here, and here. She is currently CEO of SpikeSource, an open source software company.

(Crossposted at Constant Thoughts)

Pre-Ada Day #1: Limor Fried

(This post is for Ada Lovelace day, a new media event about raising awareness about women in technology.)

One of the hazards of being an aspiring woman in technology (and I speak from personal experience here!) is that you spend a great deal of time on related websites, forums, chat rooms, and other 'geek related' sites. And women in most of these places are non-existent. Not vastly outnumbered, not ignored, but non-existent. Try posting something, anything on, say, Slashdot with a female user name. Here are the responses you'll get (unless things have greatly changed in the last 2 years - which I doubt). If you're lucky: "OMG! A girl" or "It's the only girl on /." If unlucky? "Pix pls!" or "Wanna Cyber?".

Lovely, isn't it? You quickly learn to use a male pseudonym.

Given that a million tech-interested teenagers are spending their formative years at these sorts of places, I wouldn't be surprised if this "women don't exist on the Internet" attitude wasn't primarily responsible for the overall lack of women in technology. You see, everyone's heard of Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, and a dozen women Google and Microsoft employees, but they're just not... cool. They don't have much geek cred., if you will.

Enter Limor Fried, geek goddess extraordinarie!


Her biography page says, "Hello, my name is Limor & I'm an engineer," She's an EE (electrical engineer), she has a masters from MIT, and she has one of the most interesting tech websites anywhere.

Her site contains an immense number of original, useful, and fascinating projects, from SIM card readers to a universal TV power button. She has a company, adafruit industries, which sells kits for electronic projects, and she operates one of the most intelligent (high SNR!) electronics forums I've ever seen. Her pages on multimeter use and PIC vs. AVR microntrollers are currently the most popular on the Internet.

Her original claim to fame was the wave bubble, a portable cell phone jammer. She wrote an amazing thesis for MIT about the jammer (she calls it 'electrical engineering art') It basically posits that technology is taking over our lives, and we need to be able to control it. Thus, the jammer (and a pair of TV darkening glasses). I highly recommend reading the thesis - it's excellent, and not boring at all.

In short, Limor Fried is one of the coolest people on the Internet. Oh - and she happens to be a woman!

(Crossposted at Constant Thoughts)

Feminist Flashback #29

For this week's Feminist Flashback and, again, in honor of women's history month, I present two of the many poems included in Alice Duer Miller's 1915 book Are Women People?: A Book of Rhymes for Suffrage Times, the full text of which is available over at The Gutenberg Project. Enjoy!

Such Nonsense

"Where on earth did the idea come from that the ballot is a boon, a privilege and an honor? From men."—Mrs. Prestonia Mann Martin.

Who is it thinks the vote some use?
Man. (Man is often such a goose!)
Indeed it makes me laugh to see
How men have struggled to be free.

Poor Washington, who meant so well,
And Nathan Hale and William Tell,
Hampden and Bolivar and Pym,
And L'Ouverture—remember him?

And Garibaldi and Kossuth,
And some who threw away their youth,
All bitten by the stupid notion
That liberty was worth emotion.

They could not get it through their heads
That if they stayed tucked up in beds,
Avoiding politics and strife,
They'd lead a pleasant, peaceful life.

Let us, dear sisters, never make
Such a ridiculous mistake;
But teach our children o'er and o'er
That liberty is just a chore.


The Protected Sex

With apologies to James Whitcomb Riley.

"The result of taking second place to girls at school is that the boy feels a sense of inferiority that he is never afterward able entirely to shake off."—Editorial in London Globe against co-education

There, little girl, don't read,
You're fond of your books, I know,
But Brother might mope
If he had no hope
Of getting ahead of you.
It's dull for a boy who cannot lead.
There, little girl, don't read.

Share your links (travel edition)

Very sorry about the lack of posting. I promise the hiatus is very, very temporary. I've been out of town all week and haven't had oodles of time; however, I will be on a train pretty much all day tomorrow, so I'll look forward to stockpiling a few posts for the next week or so.

In the meantime, what's up in your world? Share links below!

Tell It WOC Speak Blog Carnvial, #2

I'm currently in transit to the East coast, probably about the land (that's the magic of scheduled posting), but that's no reason you can't check out the latest installment of the Tell It WOC Speak Blog Carnival!

Eleanor Powell and tap dancing

The other day I was procrastinating (yes, I did finally get that story done...) and happened to think, "I like tapdancing, but I've not really seen much of it." So, I fired up youtube, and found this:

Which is all kinds of awesome, especially for 1937. But it gets better!


This is a pretty famous scene - I don't think I'd even seen it before, but I have played the music. Notice something, though:

It's a 'couple', a man and a women dancing, and yet they manage to be completely equal! The steps are the same, the stage position is the same, it's all the same. (Minus the clothes, of course.)

Now, I don't know much about dancing, but I do know that it is usually quite gendered. Ballroom has it's 'leading' partner, ballet and modern dance often feature women being lifted and tossed by men, and even random people dancing for fun and mating talk about dancing 'like a guy' or 'like a girl'. Not so here.

I don't know if this equality is typical for tap, but this instance, at least, seemed pleasantly gender-free!

Feminist Flashback #28

Since, my feminist flashback from two weeks ago featured Barbie, it's only right that I post Sarah Haskins' latest video as this week's "flashback" (obviously, I define that term very loosely). I think this may be one of my favorite Target Women segments yet:

Supergirls Speak Out Contest Details

As I promised yesterday, in my interview post with author Liz Funk, here's your chance to win a free copy of Liz's book, Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls. In the interest of full disclosure, the copy I'm offering is my review copy, sent to me by Liz's publisher. Liz has given me permission to give it away and I was very careful with it while I was reading; for all intents and purposes, it's brand new.

This is probably the easiest contest in the world. You can do one of three things to be eligible:

1. Post a comment on this blog entry.
or
2. Follow fourthwavefem on Twitter and send us an @reply indicating your interest in the contest.
or
3. Join the Fourth Wave Feminism group on Facebook and post a note on the Wall.

That's all! Do one of these three things before Sunday, March 15, 5pm EST -- at that time, I'll draw a name at random from those who've entered the contest and will alert the winner! If you leave a comment on the blog itself (option #1), please make sure you either provide a valid email address or that you have contact details listed in your blogger profile, since, if you win, I'll need to get in touch about shipping details.

Happy contesting. And look out for FWF contests in the future!

Feminist Blogger Friday: Interview #3 with author Liz Funk

Come one, come all to the third installment of Fourth Wave's interview series with feminist bloggers and thinkers (the first two interviews can be found here and here and the next will be up April 10th). This month, I interviewed author Liz Funk, a senior at Pace University whose first book, Supergirls Speak Out: Inside the Secret Crisis of Overachieving Girls, just hit the shelves! FWF is thrilled to have Liz join us as part of her virtual book tour (click on the link to to check out other blogs she has and will visit over the month of March). And, as part of the promotion for her new book, I'll be posting contest details tomorrow -- you could win a free copy!

I really enjoyed reading Liz's book--it's informative, engaging and incredibly interesting--and you'll find that some of my interview questions are tailored specifically to the book, which her website describes as follows:

In the tradition of bestsellers, such as Ophelia Speaks and Quarterlife Crisis, Liz Funk’s Supergirls Speak Out sheds a disturbingly bright light on a condition that is spreading quickly from Generation X to Y—and even to little girls. Funk calls this being a “Supergirl,” i.e., a girl who believes that in order to be happy, she must excel at her job or career, have the best grades, wear the coolest clothes, date the best-looking boy, and have the perfect body size.

And now, without further ado, the author of Supergirls Speak Out, Liz Funk.


1. In your book, there seems to be a tension between the term “Supergirl” as a positive qualifier—Supergirls being high-achieving and smart and pretty and wanting to go places—and the Supergirl phenomenon as a negative thing—girls and women who are overachievers, who have a constant need to be perfect at everything, often to their own detriment, and who have an overwhelming and stressful desire to be at the top of their game at all times. And I wonder if, to start off this interview, you could talk a little bit about the connection between the positive and negative aspects of being a Supergirl and how one might negotiate those tensions?

Great question. Overachieving girls themselves aren’t a “secret crisis”—it’s the consequences that accompany overachieving, and achieving for the wrong reasons, that’s the problem. I’ll be the first to say that girls should reach for the stars and go for their dreams; after all, we need go-getter girls if we want more presidential candidates and women in business and women as public intellectuals, et cetera et cetera. The key is, we want young women to aspire for success for the right reasons. If girls are achieving because they’re looking to matter or to feel valuable because they don’t feel like they matter on their own, that’s the problem!

2. Okay, so it's not about achieving, but achieving for the wrong reasons. For your book you interviewed (almost) a hundred girls and women about their experiences, but you also rely on your own experience. And here you are: you’re only 20, you’ve just published your first book, and you’re about the graduate from college; you’ve arguably accomplished more than many people your age! How do you fit yourself into the Supergirl narrative? You’ve mentioned that you’re a “recovering” Supergirl, but what does that mean to you? Do you feel that by “recovering” you’ve overcome some of the negative aspects of being a Supergirl or do you feel it’s something you struggle with on a daily basis?

I truly believe that for any young women to get over being a Supergirl, she needs to have a mental meltdown of some degree and confront why she is working so hard and going so hard on herself. Personally, I had that mental meltdown my junior year of college and was really forced to take a second look at how I was living my life and why I was trying to find myself in my work and how others perceived me. Now I try to make more time for myself and one of my new year’s resolutions was to get more hobbies and to stop being fake—so I’m definitely still a work in progress. I try to be in a constant conversation with myself about whether I’m going too hard on myself, and I work to be mindful and live in the moment and not go into everything with really high expectations. That’s the worst part of being a Supergirl, I think: everything is disappointing. Being a “recovering Supergirl,” who can be open to exploring the wonder of life, is much more fun!

3. So, what made you decide to start researching Supergirls? Was it your own experience? The experience of your friends? A combination of things? And where did you come up with the term itself?

Growing up, I was always observing the girls around me trying to look like perfect 10’s—pretty, talented, smart, charming, desirable—who made this all look easy. However, occasionally the token “perfect girl” in high school or college would have a breakdown, and it would get people talking, saying things like, "Wow, I thought she was perfect." I wanted to look into these girls’ secret lives. And although I didn’t become a full Supergirl until my later years of high school and college, I definitely spent my whole life investing my identity in superficial things, like my weight, and my relationships with guys, and my career. Also, in 2006, Girls’ Inc. released a study called "The Supergirl Dilemma" that found that overwhelming numbers of tween and teen girls felt pressure to be perfect, and Duke University had done a similar study on college women not far before that, so I really wanted to do a broad study of the lives of overachieving young women between the ages of 13 and 30 and see what their lives were like.

4. And once you decided to write about Supergirls, how did you actually take those next steps to negotiate a book contract and set out to do your research? You talk a bit in the book about doing a lot of networking, but can you be a little more specific about what that networking looked like and how you came to meet the right people at the right times?

I moved to Manhattan in September of 2006 and was really determined to meet other women writers, magazine editors, and young authors so I could learn more about how to make a writing career a reality. I was always really proactive about writing to authors who I like and asking them to have coffee or lunch with me, or reaching out to writers whose articles I read regularly in publications I liked. Gloria Feldt, the former president of Planned Parenthood, has a really good saying that has sort of been a guiding light in my career, which is that it never hurts to ask!

5. Great advice! I have a quick question about one your Supergirls, Yolanda, who, at 27, is one of the older women you interview. In reading the book, I didn’t feel that she quite fit the high-anxiety mold occupied by most of your other high school and college-aged subjects. She seemed pretty put-together and had pursuits and hobbies outside of work. Do you think there might be a generational factor for Supergirl-ism—i.e. is it something more prevalent among girls and women who grew up in the 1990s and early 2000s? If so, why do you think that might be?

Yolanda was definitely on the chill side of the Supergirl scale, but I do think that she’s a great example of how overachieving young women can confront the pressure to be extra-sensitive and please everyone, and excel in the professional world. There definitely may be a generational factor—that the younger girls in Generation Y, like my age and younger, are a bit more high-strung than our big sisters—but I also think that it might be a geographic thing. Yolanda went to high school in Austria and college in Canada, so I think that she missed the U.S. hothouse effect, in that we raise our girls to be a bit hyper-active and hyper-sensitive as they pursue their goals. You’re right, though: although Yolanda was really successful and beautiful and charming, I do think that she expressed less aggressive Supergirl traits, because she was older and was comfortable in her skin and had already done a lot of the negotiating and learning about herself and her femininity that younger Supergirls in the office struggle with. And I think she had a lot more confidence than your average Supergirl… but she was still a total wunderkind banker.

6. In your chapter on feminism, you make a comparison to Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique, arguing that the desire of contemporary women to do and be everything mirrors Friedan’s 1950s housewife who supposedly had everything she could ever want but was still discontent. What other aspects of earlier waves and generations of feminism do you feel warrant a second look vis-à-vis contemporary society? How do you, personally, negotiate the past while embracing the future of feminism?

I think feminism is cyclical, and when we don’t fully resolve issues, they come back again in different forms. Personally, I’m rather worried that we haven’t resolved the “raunch culture” issue and the “faux empowerment” issue that a lot of people were talking about a few years ago, especially in 2005, when Ariel Levy’s book, Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture debuted. I feel like a lot of women dismissed Levy’s argument as condescending and chose to ignore this issue—that young women see their sexuality as currency to be traded for power and validation—and I predict that this problem is only going to boomerang back and get much worse if it’s not confronted. After all, if feminists—who care the most about women!—don’t take this on and have a calm-cool-collected conversation about how women see empowerment, who will? Outside of psychotherapy and Jamba Juice, feminism is the only proven method to help women live happier, healthier lives. Naturally, I’m kidding. A little.

7. As you mention in your book, a lot of young women today resist the feminist label. Do you have any thoughts about why this might be? And did you encounter any resistance around feminism from the girls and women you interviewed?

What’s funny about Generation Y and the Supergirls is that they seem to have no problem with the idea of feminism—most young people who I’ve met are totally open to women having equal rights and equal power, and many girls are eager to talk about the ways that they feel discriminated against and in a disadvantaged position. It’s the word “feminism” that people don’t like. And I really don’t have a solution, other than to encourage the girls who don’t want to use the word “feminism” to keep living feminism. For example, my freshman year of college, one of my friends took down all of the posters that the fraternities and sororities were putting in the dorms and wrote “GREEK LIFE HURTS WOMEN” on them in a big marker and hung them back up—which is a totally radical thing to do—and she didn’t consider herself a feminist. And I think with people like that, rather than arguing with them about the semantics, it’s better to just appreciate the shared sentiment and find commonalities. I mean, it’s sad that girls don’t want to shout “Yay feminism!” from the rooftops, but I’m glad that they are invested in protecting feminism’s legacy, even if they wouldn’t explicitly say that they are.

8. And what made you personally decide to identify as a feminist? Is it something that happened organically or was it a label you took on after some thought and/or trepidation? Do you have a feminist “coming-out” story you’d like to share?

It came about really organically. I first became interested in gender equality in middle school, and in the eighth grade, I did a project on Betty Friedan for social studies class and was like, “Oh, I guess I’m a feminist.” It wasn’t a huge deal or anything, it felt very natural to me. I was twelve, and I actually thought it was kind of cool! At that point in my life, I wanted to be the American ambassador to France, and I knew that I was going to need feminism if I wanted to make that happen. Since then, I’ve changed career goals, but I’m still a feminist.

9. Obviously, over-achieving and perfectionism can become all-consuming, obsessive and difficult-to-abandon pursuits. How do you recommend girls wean themselves away from the need to be a Supergirl? What’s a good place to start?

Young women need to realize their intrinsic worth. They need to figure out why they matter outside what they look like, how others perceive them, and what they’ve accomplished. They need to have a relationship with themselves, where they like listening to their thoughts and spending time alone with themselves, where they don’t berate themselves. Naturally, that’s a huge task to take on, but it starts with giving yourself some free time, spending solitary time by yourself to think and meditate, and treating yourself! A big part of this is cutting down on our use of technology; iPods and PDAs and text messaging are really distracting, and they keep young people from being able to listen to their internal monologues and have downtime during the day. But having that relationship with yourself is how you have a sense of self-worth!

10. Excellent, I always love an excuse to treat myself! So, downtime is essential, and you say that a symptom of being a Supergirl is a constant need for occupation, the unwillingness or inability to relax and just enjoy life. So, as someone who’s “recovered” and advocates taking time off, what do you like to do for fun? What do you find helps you unwind after a busy day of classes or writing? And, last but not least, what are you going to do once you graduate in May?

I watch so much television! I love 30 Rock, How I Met Your Mother, and Arrested Development—I am nearing memorization of the latter. I also love to paint and to read novels and to play the oboe; it took me about two months of daily practicing, but I can play the musical “Spring Awakening” from start-to-finish on the oboe. I’m not sure whether that’s cool or embarrassing. Ha!

I’m not 100% sure what I’m going to do after graduation in May; I know that I’m going to have a pretty chill summer (assuming I pass all my classes; in a truly un-Supergirl move, I have a MAJOR case of senioritis right now)—I want to finish writing the novel I’ve been working on for a year and read lots of books. Then, I think I’m going to move to Los Angeles; “move somewhere warm” is very high on my priority list, and I’m trying to take my own advice from “Supergirls”—taking risks, being unafraid to make mistakes and face trials, and being open to exploring the wonder of my life!

Thanks, Liz, for the great interview. I'm sure we all wish you luck in your future endeavors!



P.S. to FWF readers: Don't forget to check back tomorrow for details on how to win a free copy of Liz's new book!

Women's History Month Interviews over at Womanist Musings

Renee over at Womanist Musings did a great series of interviews with womanist, feminist and queer bloggers in honor of Women's History Month and International Women's Day. I've provided a listing of links to her posts below.

Add to that my interview with Renee from last month and the newest installment in FWF's Feminist Blogger Fridays interview series coming up tomorrow...Three cheers for the diversity of women's voices!

Renee's Interviews...
...with Monica of Transgriot
...with Amanda of Pandagon
...with Loryn of Black Girl Blogging
...with Melissa of Shakesville
...with Hexy of Hexpletive
...with Cara of The Curvature
...with Faith of Acts of Faith in Love and Life
...with Holly of Menstrual Poetry
...with Brownfemipower of flip flopping joy
...and, last but not least, with Octagalore of Astarte's Circus

Enjoy!

Meghan McCain on Rachel Maddow

Politics aside, I'm watching Meghan McCain on The Rachel Maddow Show right now and finding myself very charmed. She seems smart, rational, diplomatic, put together and willing to stand by her political views, even if they're not completely on-track with the [old/white/conservative/male] Republican baseline. If more Republicans were like her (although, she is a former Independent), perhaps I wouldn't have so much disdain for the GOP as a whole.

Admittedly, I don't know that much about her, but I liked what she had to say about Ann Coulter over on The Daily Beast on Monday (which I have generously from quoted below, though you should of course go read the whole article on their site):

To make matters worse, certain individuals continue to perpetuate negative stereotypes about Republicans. Especially Republican women. Who do I feel is the biggest culprit? Ann Coulter. I straight up don’t understand this woman or her popularity. I find her offensive, radical, insulting, and confusing all at the same time.
[...]
Coulter could be the poster woman for the most extreme side of the Republican Party. And in some ways I could be the poster woman for the opposite. I consider myself a progressive Republican, but here is what I don’t get about Coulter: Is she for real or not? Are some of her statements just gimmicks to gain publicity for her books or does she actually believe the things she says? Does she really believe all Jewish people should be “perfected” and become Christians?
[...]
I’m often criticized for not being a “real” Republican, and I have been called a RINO—Republican In Name Only—in the past. Many say I am not “conservative enough,” which is something that I am proud of. It is no secret that I disagree with many of the old-school Republican ways of thinking. One of the biggest issues from which I seem to drift from the party base is in my support of gay marriage. I am often criticized for previously voting for John Kerry and my support of stem-cell research. For the record, I am also extremely pro-military and a big supporter of the surge and the Iraq war.

More so than my ideological differences with Ann Coulter, I don’t like her demeanor. I have never been a person who was attracted to hate or negativity. I don’t believe in scare tactics and would never condone or encourage anyone calling President Obama a Muslim. But controversy sells and Coulter is nothing if not controversial.
[...]
I am sure most extreme conservatives and extreme liberals would find me a confusing, walking contradiction. But I assure you, there are many people out there just like me who represent a new, younger generation of Republicans. [...]Where has our extreme thinking gotten us?

White House Council on Women and Girls

I big hip, hip, hooray for President Obama, who signed an executive order today for a White House Council on Women and Girls:



H/T Jezebel and Salon.

"The Difference" PSA

Via Queers United, a short PSA, featuring Lucy Lawless, about the difference between domestic partnership and marriage:

FWF on Facebook

Fourth Wave finally has a Facebook presence!
Join us here!

Daughters.com

If you’ve ever challenged by the journey of raising or working with a girl (if? I should say when!), then you’ve wished you could get some ideas on what to do—and get them quickly. I think you’ve finally got a place to do that.

It’s a new website, www.daughters.com/, created by a group of folks who know girls just about as well as anyone, New Moon Girl Media.


Daughters.com features advice from experts and parents, an interactive community, and has its information and resources organized a variety of topics, from body image and building friendships to dating and communicating successfully. The site also includes:

• "Ask the Experts” Forum: Submit questions on parenting girls to New Moon Girl Media’s Expert Advisory Board
  
• "Parent to Parent” Discussion Board where parents, grandparents and caregivers of girls meet up, connect with and support one another on a vast array of issues
  


• Fully-searchable collection of more than 250 articles written by the top experts on raising girls—and real-life parents & stepparents of girls.
  


• Parenting Daughters Expert blogs by me and New Moon Girl Media Founder Nancy Gruver.
  

Here’s what renowned girls’ development specialist and author JoAnn Deak, Ph.D. says about daughters.com: “Parents of girls are in desperate need of a genuine, trusted ally available to help with the challenges of raising daughters. At daughters.com, parents can focus in and get the information they need with a few clicks of their mouse, instead of digging through online resources or reading entire books on a wide range of topics. As a result, parents will have more tools at their fingertips for raising their daughters, and more time to spend with their girls instead of searching endlessly for answers.”

So check it out, add daughters.com to your favorites & spread the word to other adults who care about girls.

Bessie Smith

Here's patriarchy (and feminist reaction, perhaps?) in a nutshell:

I've got a hard workin' man
The way he treats me I can't understand

He works hard every day
And on Sat'day throws away his pay

Now I don't want want that man
because he's done gone cold in hand
--Bessie Smith, "Cold In Hand"

(Full lyrics here)

It seems like everyone has heard of Bessie Smith, but few besides jazz/blues musicians actually seem listen to her. And many of those are actually listening for Louie! (It's even worse when you consider that Smith was the most popular blues singer of her time!)

It's really a shame. Bessie Smith was an amazing woman. To be sure, she was rough, rude (and what's wrong with that?), and often violent, but she was strong, independent, hard-working, and had some amazingly insightful things to say about the world.

Her songs range from blues about love and abuse and the relationship between the two (too many to count!) to alcoholism (Gin House Blues) to objectification of men(!) (Do Your Duty, I'm Wild About That Thing) to capital punishment (of sorts, in Send Me To The 'lectric Chair) to sexuality (see here)

The wonderful thing about blues, is that it simply tells it like it is. The lyrics are simple, the first line is repeated twice so we're certain to hear it. And Bessie Smith tells it like nobody else ever has.

Send me to the 'lectric chair:


Sobbin' Hearted Blues:

I'm wild about that thing:


(By the way - this post was so late because I was looking for a blues, possibly by Smith, which started with the line "I got a husband/ He beats me every day". Scared me half to death the first time I heard it, but now I can't find it. If anyone knows what I'm talking about, I'd be eternally grateful!)

Feminist Flashback #27

Inspired by AfterEllen's retro review, this week's Feminist Flashback is the fabulous 1995 movie Boys on the Side, starring Whoopi Goldberg, Mary Louise-Parker and Drew Barrymore.

I love this movie! Somehow, I'd totally forgotten about it...


Watch Boys on the Side (1995) in B  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

"Only in a Woman's World": What were they thinking?

I've got a new post up at The Hathor Legacy about this highly disturbing advertisement for Baked Lays, Smart Earth and Smartfood Snacks.



Check out my post here, and you tell me if I'm overreacting!

Breaking the Silence

What follows is a cross-posted guest post by Pat from the Campaign for Gender Equality. Check out their website for more information.

“Turning a person into a thing is almost always the first step in justifying violence against that person.”
- Jean Kilbourne, lecturer and keynote speaker focusing on violence, women, and the media.

Chris Brown’s brutal beating of Rihanna reignited talk about domestic violence in this country. That is a good thing! We need to have more honest conversations about this epidemic. The statistics shed some light on the severity of this problem:

Battering is the single most common cause of injury to women in the United States, more common than car accidents, mugging and rape combined. Much to the misconception of many, victims of domestic violence come from all races, classes and ethnic backgrounds. Of all women murdered in the U.S.—an average of three a day—about one-third were killed by an intimate partner. According to the National Organization for Women, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year.

I found this recent article by Megan Twohey and Bonnie Miller Rubin disturbing. According to them, 1 in 10 teens suffer from dating violence, yet their reaction to Rihanna’s beating is that she deserved it. What is the answer to this gross misconception? Education. According to Twohey and Rubin:

“In recent years, some schools and youth organizations have started educating teens about the dangers of dating violence. Rhode Island and Virginia have adopted laws requiring such instruction in the public schools. But most states, including Illinois, don't have such a mandate and education on the topic remains in short supply, experts say. Two of three new programs created by the federal Violence Against Women Act in 2005 to address teen dating violence were never funded.”

Not only are we not doing enough to educate youth about domestic violence, but the media (a prime source of information for today’s youth) doesn’t give domestic violence its due coverage. We barely heard anything about the woman in New York who was recently beheaded by her husband after she had filed for a divorce. Where is the outrage? I know it’s not a pretty story, but if we don’t talk about domestic violence, and, more importantly, learn about its roots and causes, we will never eliminate it.

What makes domestic violence and other forms of violence against women so prevalent? What makes men feel they can have power and control over women? The answers to these questions are abundant and complicated, but recently I came across two videos that shed some light:

This one speaks to advertising and the effects it has on women and the value of women.

This one talks about the media and how men learn to treat women.

Campaign for Gender Equality is a non-profit 501c3 organization focused on raising public awareness of the benefits of gender equality, regardless of age, race, class or sexual orientation, through education and advocacy.

We have partnered with Professor Bettina Aptheker, head of Women's Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, to promote her "Introduction to Feminisms" course now available in a 17 set DVD. In her DVD titled “Domestic Violence: Strategies for Prevention and Resistance” Aptheker says, “Violence against Women is the magnification of the historical unequal power relations which have lead the domination over and discrimination of women by men to the prevention of women’s full advancement.” Order “Introduction to Feminisms” on DVD.

Battery, whether emotional or physical, is about power and control. From Aptheker’s DVD, here are just some examples of the different types of domestic violence.

• Emotional – putting her down, making her feel bad about herself, calling her names, making her think that she is crazy.
• Economic – trying to keep her from getting or keeping a job, making her ask for money, giving her an allowance, or taking her money.
• Sexual – making her do things against her will, physically attacking the sexual parts of her body, and treating her like a sex object.
• Using children – using the children to give messages and using visitation as a way to harass.
• Threats – making and/or carrying out threats to do something physically or emotionally, threatening to take the children, and threats to commit suicide.
• Using male privilege – treating her like a servant, making all the big decisions, acting like the master of the house.
• Intimidation – putting her in fear by using looks, actions, gestures, loud voices, smashing things, destroying her property.
• Isolation – controlling what she does, who she sees and talks to, and where she goes.

Perhaps many readers do not experience these confinements, but a great many women in our own country still live this way. These patterns of domestic abuse and domestic violence are all about power and control. To stop the epidemic of violence against women that exists in this country we must break the silence. We must put adequate funding into educating the next generation of girls and boys about violence against women and its root causes. We must have honest conversations about domestic violence and pressure the media to change its portrayal of women as objects.

McDonald's McCafe ad

There's this incredibly annoying McDonald's McCafe advertisement that I've been seeing lately, but I can't find a video of it anywhere to showcase its sheer stupidity. I also haven't been able to catch it on tape yet, but if any of you either have it in a digital format or have seen it floating around online somewhere, I will be very grateful for a copy or a link.

That said, the commercial goes something like this: two young women drinking McDonald's coffees--one hot, one iced and covered in whip cream--talk whilst walking a park, amidst boisterous giggles, about everything from the unwanted gift of a puppy to boyfriend trouble. Stereotypical "girl talk." And they giggle constantly. And, there's a twist! As the commercial nears its end, a voice-over extols the virtues of McDonald's McCafe to bring people together and let you have a break from real life and the two women smile and hug as they part. Then, the blond woman turns towards her companion and asks something along the lines of "Wait, I didn't catch your name?" They introduce themselves to each other, amidst more giggling, and the voice-over says something revealing that amounts to "McCafe helps you connect with friends, even new ones."

Obviously, I can't remember the commercial word-for-word, but it's the most grating commercial I've seen in a long time. The incessant giggling makes me want to change the channel. The implication that something as simple as bonding over your McDonald's coffee can cause two women who are complete strangers to giddily reveal all their secrets to one another? What's up with that? Not to mention that the commercial makes the two women look like completely airheads. Argh!

Has anyone else seen this ad?

Glamour Magazine's Salute to American Icons

For Women's History Month and in honor of its 70th Anniversary, this month's Glamour Magazine includes a huge photo shoot of contemporary actors posing as some of the most well-known and influential women of the last seventy years, in an article entitled, American Icons: 7 Decades of Rule Breakers, Risk Takers & Style Makers. Since it's Glamour, there's obviously an emphasis on fashion, but I actually think the shoot is pretty great (although I would agree with Amy over at Appetite for Equal Rights that the inclusion of Carrie Bradshaw is a little weird...not that Ms. B isn't a style icon, but...yeah).

Anyway, you should check out the whole slide show, but here are a few of my favorites:

Hayden Panettiere as Amelia Earhart

Alexis Bledel as Rosie the Riveter

Chanel Iman as Althea Gibson

Odette Yustman, Spencer Grammer and Rumer Willis as the Women of Woodstock

America Ferrera as Dolores Huerta

The fight for marriage equality continues

Yesterday, the Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD, not to be confused with GLAAD) filed a challenge to the Federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). You can read more about that here and here.

Tomorrow, the California Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the case of Proposition 8. Tonight, Marriage Equality USA has organized candlelight vigils all across the state in support of LGBTQ rights.

Today, you should watch this powerful, short video put out by Equality California, and I hope it will inspire you to find some way--whatever your means--to help out in this continued fight for equal rights:

I forgot how much I love Janeane Garofalo

Where has the outspoken-feminist-comedian goddess that is Janeane Garofalo been since the late 1990s? I've missed her.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

(H/T AfterEllen)

Daddy Issues on Criminal Minds

I have a post up at The Hathor Legacy about the latest episode of CBS's Criminal Minds. Here's a snippet, but you can read the rest over at THL:

Episode 4.16 had all the makings of a compelling episode, although perhaps the fact that they opened with the following Camille Paglia quote should have given me pause: “The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men but rather their conqueror, an outlaw who controls the sexual channel between nature and culture.” In any case, in this episode the unsub (”unknown subject of an investigation”) is revealed in the first scene (and in last week’s previews for the episode) to be a twenty-something woman, clearly coded as a call girl in only a lacy bra and thigh highs; she poisons her wealthy john with champagne. Cue the foreboding music and the opening credits.

Things start off pretty predictably. The BAU team, discussing their current unsub, note that a very small quotient of serial killers are female, and that they are often very discrete and able to get away with killing far more people than their male counterparts before getting caught (ah, yet another example of women being underestimated and undervalued for their skills!). Mentioning the infamous, real-life serial killer Aileen Wuornos–who killed men she thought might be the type to rape her (and who was notably portrayed in the film Monster)–as a point of comparison, the BAU agents assume their unsub’s murders are also sexually motivated. In particular, they hypothesize that she chooses to kill certain clients because of some specific sex act they all like that triggers her in some way. But soon, clues reveal that the trigger for this particular violent femme might not be sex at all.

Speaking of Criminal Minds, how fantastic is it that Kirsten Vangsness (who plays the awesome, oracular tech-goddess Penelope Garcia on the show) just announced her engagement to girlfriend Melanie Goldstein. A big congratulations to them both.

What’s Happening to Dora the Explorer?

Have you seen how Dora the Explorer is being marketed nowadays? This once-proud symbol of girl agency & power now stars in sexed-up, passive incarnations in toy stores, on cereal boxes…and even, more and more, on her TV show.

Sign on to a petition and tell Nickelodeon to knock it off and restore Dora to her place of inspiration!!!

Feminist Flashback #26

For this week's Feminist Flashback, the first Barbie commercial, from 1959. Lyrics and transcript below the cut.




Transcript:

[Female voice, singing]
Barbie, you're beautiful.
You make me feel
my Barbie doll is really real.

Barbie's small and so petite.
Her clothes and figure look so neat.

Her dancing outfit rings a bell.
At parties she will cast a spell.

Purses, hats and gloves galore,
and all the gadgets gals adore.

[Male voice, speaking]
Barbie dressed for swim and fun is only three dollars. Her lovely fashions range from one to five dollars. Look for Barbie wherever dolls are sold.

[Female voice, singing]
Someday, I'm gonna be exactly like you
Till then, I know just what I'll do.

Barbie, beautiful Barbie,
I'll make believe that I am you.

(H/T Feminist Law Professors)