My friend Jay sent me this great video, suggesting that perhaps it's a demonstration of the fifth wave of feminism. All I know is that this girl's got some skillz...
Via HuffPo.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Remembering Dorothy Height
A guest-post by my father, Fred Viebahn.
When Dorothy Height, the grand old lady of the American civil rights movement, died yesterday at the age of 98, it reminded me of a festive dinner nearly thirteen years ago where I was her table partner and saved her from going up in flames -- literally! (Or maybe I just saved a good part of Washington high society from having to take a collective cold sprinkler shower, fully dressed in their finest...)
It was on the occasion of the Sara Lee Frontrunner Awards, $50,000 each given by the cake & food company's charitable foundation to four notable women's favorite nonprofits. Dorothy Height had received the award in its early years and was, therefore, among the honored guests; this year, in 1997, the recipients were Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Washington Post owner Katharine Graham, Brady Campaign chair Sarah Brady and my very own poet laureate, my wife Rita Dove.
Of course Dorothy was wearing one of her elegant trademark hats. During dinner and the awards ceremony at the beautiful National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C., she was seated immediately to my right. (Rita, in the usual Washington power festivities fashion where couples are seated at different tables, sat across the room, next to Sara Lee's president.) I had an animated conversation with the then 85 year-old, very chipper Mrs. Height about Eleanore Roosevelt, whom she had advised many years ago, about Rita's and my time at Tuskegee Institute, where the two of us had spent a semester in 1982, and about Dorothy's four decades as president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position from which she had just retired that year.
Shortly after we had turned our attention to the ceremony, which had started with a women's choir, I smelled burning cloth right under my nose; when I glanced down, I discovered to my horror that the left sleeve of Dorothy Height's jacket had come in direct contact with the table candle between her and me, and a flame had already caught on to her arm.
"I'm sorry", I said, "but you're about to catch fire", and poured my glass of water on her sleeve, while everybody else at our table, hearing my pretty loudly uttered "fire", jumped up in panic. Dorothy Height, however, after realizing that my unexpectedly aggressive behavior was not meant as an affront by someone who had lost his mind, regained her composure within seconds and pressed her napkin to her wet sleeve, just in case it was still smoldering. "That should do it", she said. "Thanks for saving my hide." The fire was out, she had escaped burns, and everything went quickly back to normal.
I shot some video that night, and uploaded an excerpt to YouTube. It's a bit crude and haphazard, with the camera panning past Dorothy Height once (she seems to be looking a bit embarrassed), then lingering a second or two on the candle that was the culprit; after the incident I moved it further away from its victim.
When Dorothy Height, the grand old lady of the American civil rights movement, died yesterday at the age of 98, it reminded me of a festive dinner nearly thirteen years ago where I was her table partner and saved her from going up in flames -- literally! (Or maybe I just saved a good part of Washington high society from having to take a collective cold sprinkler shower, fully dressed in their finest...)
It was on the occasion of the Sara Lee Frontrunner Awards, $50,000 each given by the cake & food company's charitable foundation to four notable women's favorite nonprofits. Dorothy Height had received the award in its early years and was, therefore, among the honored guests; this year, in 1997, the recipients were Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Washington Post owner Katharine Graham, Brady Campaign chair Sarah Brady and my very own poet laureate, my wife Rita Dove.
Of course Dorothy was wearing one of her elegant trademark hats. During dinner and the awards ceremony at the beautiful National Museum of Women in the Arts in D.C., she was seated immediately to my right. (Rita, in the usual Washington power festivities fashion where couples are seated at different tables, sat across the room, next to Sara Lee's president.) I had an animated conversation with the then 85 year-old, very chipper Mrs. Height about Eleanore Roosevelt, whom she had advised many years ago, about Rita's and my time at Tuskegee Institute, where the two of us had spent a semester in 1982, and about Dorothy's four decades as president of the National Council of Negro Women, a position from which she had just retired that year.
Shortly after we had turned our attention to the ceremony, which had started with a women's choir, I smelled burning cloth right under my nose; when I glanced down, I discovered to my horror that the left sleeve of Dorothy Height's jacket had come in direct contact with the table candle between her and me, and a flame had already caught on to her arm.
"I'm sorry", I said, "but you're about to catch fire", and poured my glass of water on her sleeve, while everybody else at our table, hearing my pretty loudly uttered "fire", jumped up in panic. Dorothy Height, however, after realizing that my unexpectedly aggressive behavior was not meant as an affront by someone who had lost his mind, regained her composure within seconds and pressed her napkin to her wet sleeve, just in case it was still smoldering. "That should do it", she said. "Thanks for saving my hide." The fire was out, she had escaped burns, and everything went quickly back to normal.
I shot some video that night, and uploaded an excerpt to YouTube. It's a bit crude and haphazard, with the camera panning past Dorothy Height once (she seems to be looking a bit embarrassed), then lingering a second or two on the candle that was the culprit; after the incident I moved it further away from its victim.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Taylor Swift as feminist success
It seems various assorted feminists don't like Taylor Swift. At all.
I've been wondering about this ever since I read this article (which is entertaining and enlightening, the Riese's Lady Gaga obsession aside).
But I'm not so sure Swift is as anti-feminist as she seems. In fact, I think she can almost be seen as a sort of subtle triumph for feminism.
To begin with, I don't think it's fair to compare Swift to Lady Gaga et al. Swift's target audience seems to be younger teenage and preteen girls. Lady Gaga is not at all suitable for young teenagers. She thrives on being outrageous; Swift on being innocent. There's simply no comparison to be made.
I'm don't think we can compare her with more truly feminist artists either. Take someone like Ani Difranco - her music is has at least an order of magnitude more depth and complexity than Taylor Swift's. The target audience is just not the same. Swift's music is meant for easy listening on the radio, not for inspiring contemplation on the nature of women in society.
So I'd like to compare Swift to another artist who has that 'innocent' vibe: 78violet, better known as Aly and Aj. Aly and Aj started out as a relatively Disneyfied pop act, minus most of the songwriting stereotypes that plague the likes of Swift. They matured with their second album, which which certainly not overtly feminist does have a few gems:
Which (unintentionally, perhaps) turns an old stereotype of stupid men and weak women nicely on its head. This is 'post-feminist' music, if you will - Aly and Aj feel free to say whatever they feel, without worrying about stereotypes, or trying to break them. This is not to say we're in a post-feminist world - far from it. But the casual presence of such ideas proves that feminism has truly accomplished something.
And that's what Swift could be like. She could be innocent, non-subversive, and simplistic, while assuming the existence of an egalitarian world. She doesn't. Her music still relies on princes on white horses sweeping princesses away.
But even in her stereotypical world there are flashes of something else. Take 'Love Story', the huge hit. The motif throughout is, "baby just say, 'yes'" - the standard pre-engagement plea. If you listen carefully, though, the line is actually sung by the girl in every case but the very last time it occurs! And I, at least, didn't even notice the point-of-view swap until I read the lyrics online. The song is still cheesy and stereotypical, but the girl is essentially proposing to the guy - hardly the standard Western tradition.
So Taylor Swift really does owe a great deal to feminism in her music; even more so in her real-life career. And that's probably more important than anything else: the young girls who listen are more likely to want to be like Taylor Swift herself than like the characters in her songs.
The point to all this is simple: An important aspect of feminism is defending the right of women to be non-feminist (not anti-feminist perhaps, but certainly non-feminist). If Taylor Swift isn't a paragon of feminist thought, she does unintentionally embody certain aspects of it; we could do much, much worse in choice of entertainment (the Pussycat Dolls, anybody?).
So what do you think - is unintentional feminism a sign of success?
I've been wondering about this ever since I read this article (which is entertaining and enlightening, the Riese's Lady Gaga obsession aside).
But I'm not so sure Swift is as anti-feminist as she seems. In fact, I think she can almost be seen as a sort of subtle triumph for feminism.
To begin with, I don't think it's fair to compare Swift to Lady Gaga et al. Swift's target audience seems to be younger teenage and preteen girls. Lady Gaga is not at all suitable for young teenagers. She thrives on being outrageous; Swift on being innocent. There's simply no comparison to be made.I'm don't think we can compare her with more truly feminist artists either. Take someone like Ani Difranco - her music is has at least an order of magnitude more depth and complexity than Taylor Swift's. The target audience is just not the same. Swift's music is meant for easy listening on the radio, not for inspiring contemplation on the nature of women in society.
So I'd like to compare Swift to another artist who has that 'innocent' vibe: 78violet, better known as Aly and Aj. Aly and Aj started out as a relatively Disneyfied pop act, minus most of the songwriting stereotypes that plague the likes of Swift. They matured with their second album, which which certainly not overtly feminist does have a few gems:
Were you right? Was I wrong?
Were you weak? Was I strong?
Yeah...
--Chemicals React, Aly & Aj (Insomniatic)
Which (unintentionally, perhaps) turns an old stereotype of stupid men and weak women nicely on its head. This is 'post-feminist' music, if you will - Aly and Aj feel free to say whatever they feel, without worrying about stereotypes, or trying to break them. This is not to say we're in a post-feminist world - far from it. But the casual presence of such ideas proves that feminism has truly accomplished something.
And that's what Swift could be like. She could be innocent, non-subversive, and simplistic, while assuming the existence of an egalitarian world. She doesn't. Her music still relies on princes on white horses sweeping princesses away.
But even in her stereotypical world there are flashes of something else. Take 'Love Story', the huge hit. The motif throughout is, "baby just say, 'yes'" - the standard pre-engagement plea. If you listen carefully, though, the line is actually sung by the girl in every case but the very last time it occurs! And I, at least, didn't even notice the point-of-view swap until I read the lyrics online. The song is still cheesy and stereotypical, but the girl is essentially proposing to the guy - hardly the standard Western tradition.
So Taylor Swift really does owe a great deal to feminism in her music; even more so in her real-life career. And that's probably more important than anything else: the young girls who listen are more likely to want to be like Taylor Swift herself than like the characters in her songs.
The point to all this is simple: An important aspect of feminism is defending the right of women to be non-feminist (not anti-feminist perhaps, but certainly non-feminist). If Taylor Swift isn't a paragon of feminist thought, she does unintentionally embody certain aspects of it; we could do much, much worse in choice of entertainment (the Pussycat Dolls, anybody?).
So what do you think - is unintentional feminism a sign of success?
It may be impossible not to love Ellen Page
I've loved Ellen Page since Juno (and, then, even more after Whip It), and she just keeps getting awesomer and awesomer. An excerpt from her recent interview in The Guardian:
Love. Her.
H/T AfterEllen and Feministing
How did you feel about the controversy aroused by your role in Juno?
I was like, you know what? You all need to calm down. People are so black and white about this. Because she kept the baby everybody said the film was against abortion. But if she'd had an abortion everybody would have been like, "Oh my God". I am a feminist and I am totally pro-choice, but what's funny is when you say that people assume that you are pro-abortion. I don't love abortion but I want women to be able to choose and I don't want white dudes in an office being able to make laws on things like this. I mean what are we going to do – go back to clothes hangers?
What do you think of the way women are treated in the movie business?
I think it's a total drag. I've been lucky to get interesting parts but there are still not that many out there for women. And everybody is so critical of women. If there's a movie starring a man that tanks, then I don't see an article about the fact that the movie starred a man and that must be why it bombed. Then a film comes out where a woman is in the lead, or a movie comes out where a bunch of girls are roller derbying, and it doesn't make much money and you see articles about how women can't carry a film.
Love. Her.
H/T AfterEllen and Feministing
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Sarah Palin Redux
Check out a great post over at the Ms. blog that's related to my response to Sarah Palin and her recent return(s) to the media spotlight (had she really ever left?).
Ms. blogger Audrey's analysis is spot-on:
(I meant to post this last week, but it completely slipped my mind!)
Ms. blogger Audrey's analysis is spot-on:
At the Arizona rally, Palin trotted out the maverick label and praised McCain for his anti-Obama outsiderness. But her speech had a subversive undercurrent, working the seam of age and gender at McCain’s expense. For example, to illustrate how McCain’s “man of the people” stance hasn’t won him friends in Washington, she drew on her own expertise in beauty pageants, chuckling that “He could win the talent and debate portion of any pageant, but no one’s going to dub him Miss Congeniality.” Picturing McCain in a beauty contest is inherently incongruous (would he tap dance for talent?), and then to invoke him as Miss Congeniality? Such a title feminizes him and gives Palin a home-field advantage: She was, after all, Miss Wasilla–and Miss Congeniality.
(I meant to post this last week, but it completely slipped my mind!)
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