The "Art" of Exploitation

I have a new post up at the Ms. Magazine blog:

I consider myself fairly liberal when it comes to some of the most controversial 21st-century debates about sex. I’m not anti-pornography or sex work, as long as they are properly regulated, include health care for workers and require explicit consent of all participants. I also think that erotically charged art can be very compelling, provided it goes beyond prurient sensationalism. So it’s pretty impressive, though not in a good way, that French artist Antoine D’Agata’s photographs of himself having sex with Cambodian sex workers piss me off so much.

D’Agata, whom Flaunt magazine calls a “provocative social documentarian,” revels in the controversial nature of his art practice. He has expressed hope that the photos–which depict him engaged in a variety of sex acts with young women in brothels–might somehow bring light to the plight of sex workers in Cambodia.

Read the rest here.

Article up at The New Republic

I'm very pleased to report that I have a post/article up at The New Republic's website on Geraldine Ferraro's legacy (thanks to C.S. for the opportunity!).

An excerpt:

When news reached me this past weekend that Geraldine Ferraro had succumbed to cancer at the relatively tender age of 75, I felt an inexplicable sense of loss. This wasn’t a generic sensation—the abstracted sadness we inevitably feel when public figures die—or a civic mourning for the loss of a champion of women’s rights. Rather, my feeling of loss stemmed from something I never had, a sense of nostalgia for a moment I didn’t experience.

Ferraro’s funeral is today, her death justifiably triggering a surge of tributes and recollections about her life and career, including my own. I was born only a year before Walter Mondale made the groundbreaking decision to name Ferraro as his running mate, making her the first female vice presidential candidate for a national political party. Needless to say, I was not aware at the time of the momentousness of the occasion, but that doesn’t mean that his choice and her narrative do not affect me. It’s a trap that many of us fall into: assuming that those who did not experience an event first-hand won’t feel its ripple effects in time.

Ferraro’s nomination signified hope—a hope that a country mired in institutionalized misogyny could one day see its way to true equality between the sexes. Now, 27 years later, her death compels me to wonder whether we’ve seen much progress.

Read the rest here.

Call for Papers: Women as Breadwinners

Another PSA for my reading audience:

Call for essays: Breadwinning Broads: stories from women who bring home most (or even all) of the bacon

The topic of wives out-earning their husbands has received a lot of attention recently. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, a third of all wives earn more than their husbands (2003). The Breadwinning Broads project wants to hear about life from the perspective of these meal-ticket mamas. Our hope is to shine a light on the shifting roles in modern marriages or relationships and how women feel these changes have impacted their identity as a wife, girlfriend, partner, mother, daughter or woman.

The Breadwinning Broads project is seeking first person essays of 2000-3500 words from wives, girlfriends, or partners, who earn, or once earned, most or all of the household income. Rather than social commentary or man-bashing rants, we are looking for stories focusing on unique perspectives of being the breadwinner.

Here are some questions that may help spark your essay:

1. As the breadwinner, how to do you see yourself? How do you think others see you? Has been the breadwinner changed you? What have you learned about yourself?

2. Does being the breadwinner feel liberating or confining? How and why? What are your hopes? What are your fears?

3. How has being a breadwinner impacted your role as a daughter? Was your mother a breadwinner, as well? Has your role as the provider affected your relationship with your mother or father?

4. How do you feel about your work outside the home? Are you passionate about it? Hate it? How do your feelings about your job affect the way you see yourself as the breadwinner?

5. How might your role as breadwinner impact your daughter(s)? Son(s)? Does being the breadwinner shape your feelings about motherhood? How? Why?

6. What about your marriage or relationship changed, improved or deteriorated as a result of your breadwinning status? Did you willingly enter into your role or did circumstances require you to take it on? If your marriage or relationship did not last, was it due to your role as the provider?

Above all, we are looking for writing that moves us, makes us laugh, surprises us and gives us unique insight into life as a breadwinning broad.

Please submit essays to breadwinningbroads[at]yahoo[dot]com by May 31st, 2011.

We look forward to hearing from you.

The Fine Print:

Submission of an essay does not guarantee publication in the book. Several factors will be considered when determining which works will be selected for publication by the editor and publisher.

1. Electronic submissions only, please. Essays will not be returned to the author.
2. No contributors will receive financial compensation for their work whether or not it is selected for publication. Contributing authors will be recognized in the book and in the book publicity for their published work.
3. If selected for publication in the book, authors agree to terms in a consent agreement (e.g., permission to publish the work in the book, use in promotional materials, use of name in the book, release of copyright).
4. Authors affirm that submitted work was not previously published.
5. The editor and publisher reserve the right to reject any submissions and to edit the stories for grammar, style and space.

Editor: Katie Griffith holds an M.A. in American Studies from the University of Wyoming and has spent the last ten years studying cultural and social trends in the United States. The Breadwinner project began when she and many of her thoughtful friends realized that things had really changed—and they weren’t sure they liked it. Katie has worked as a lecturer in American Studies, a young adult librarian, an educator and, of course, a breadwinning wife and mother.

Tough Women on Contemporary Television

While I'm not, personally, a huge fan of NCIS (I like my crime procedurals bloody and dramatic, not goofy), this NY Times article about it's tough, female character, Ziva, caught my eye (and was referred to me by a friend): "Sugar and Spice and Vicious Beatings."

What was of more interest to me, though, was the "TV's Female Enforcers" slide show that accompanied it. The slide show features women like Elizabeth Mitchell's character Erica from V, Buffy, and Archie Panjabi's character Kalinda from The Good Wife.

I think their list could be much longer, but it's still a fun diversion on a Sunday afternoon (and it will perhaps give you a new list of television shows to check out).

PSA: Engendering Progress Event in NYC on Thursday, March 23rd

A representative from Manhattan Young Democrats asked that I pass along this event announcement to my readers and, since it's for a good cause, I agreed. Contents of the email follow:

A group that I volunteer for is having an event in NYC soon. It is called MYD's [Manhattan Young Democrats] Second Annual 'Engendering Progress' event honoring women thought-leaders, activists and trailblazers.

NARAL Pro-choice NYC will be speaking and passing around a petition for attendees to sign. They will deliver this petition to our Senators in Washington. I really want to get as many pro-choice women in the room as possible.

HERE is information on last year's honorees as well as some pictures of the event which attracted over 100 young people and brought together many women's groups that had not had the chance to meet previously.

Engendering Progress will be held on Thursday, March 24th from 7-11pm at popular establishment Marquee in Manhattan.

Honorees include: GEMS, Domestic Workers United, Women's Media Center, Krista Brenner (a pro-choice activist and one of the few women in New York State to hold the position of campaign manager in 2010) and Lizz Winstead, co-creator of the Daily Show. We are expecting a strong showing of several hundred progressive young people.

The Facebook is HERE.

Co-sponsors include: Paradigm Shift (NYC's Feminist Community) and WomenElect and NARAL Pro-choice NYC.

It would be awesome if you could post this! You don't have to include all the details. I just want women to know that there is a war on women's health being waged and pro-choice people really need to sign this petition before it is too late.

So if you live in or near NYC, consider stopping by for a good cause. Tickets are $5 for MYD members, $15 for non-members or you can purchase a $20 MYD membership and get into the event for free.

Daniel Craig in Drag for International Women's Day

I'm a bit late on this, but here's Daniel Craig and Dame Judi Dench (v.o.) in their International Women's Day PSA.

"We're equal, aren't we Mr. Bond?"



(h/t Female Impersonator)

21st Century Girl

This is a little random, but I can't help but find myself charmed by Willow Smith's music videos, especially her most recent, "21st Century Girl," which features a bevy of girls rocking out, skateboarding, BMX biking and, you know, not dressing in miniskirts or playing with dolls and tea sets:



I like her first video, too, but the constant refrain of "I whip my hair back and forth" makes my ears bleed a little:

Secretary Clinton Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of International Women's Day

Just a little reminder on the importance of women's issues (particularly global ones) from our Secretary of State:

Pop's Diva Daughter as Primal Mother

I have a new post up at Ms.. Magazine's blog (after a long dry spell which was primarily the result of writer's block and lack of time) about Lady Gaga's newest music video, "Born This Way":

I’ve been looking forward to the music video of Lady Gaga’s much-hyped single “Born This Way” for several weeks, so, when it premiered Sunday on Vevo I really wanted to love it. Unfortunately, “Born This Way” just doesn’t have the twisted, Mad Hatter brilliance of Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video or the movie-pastiche playfulness and queer pleasures of “Telephone” (featuring Beyonce).

What “Born This Way” does share with earlier Gaga videos is an unabashed willingness (nay, insistence) to push the already elastic envelope of music video propriety, a penchant for dancing around in her underwear and a clear, but not completely realized, desire to blur the boundaries between pop rock and video art.

“Born This Way” refers to the idea that homosexuality is the result of nature not nurture, something Gaga emphasizes both through her lyrics (“No matter gay, straight or bi, / Lesbian, transgendered life / I’m on the right track baby / I was born to survive”) and with the neon pink triangle that opens and closes the video. But visually, she seems more interested in metaphors of childbirth and Motherhood (capital “M” intended) than in dwelling on images of queer pride.

Read the rest here.

The War on Women

An important op-ed in The New York Times from Friday (h/t Feminist Law Professors for the link):

The War on Women

Republicans in the House of Representatives are mounting an assault on women’s health and freedom that would deny millions of women access to affordable contraception and life-saving cancer screenings and cut nutritional support for millions of newborn babies in struggling families. And this is just the beginning.

The budget bill pushed through the House last Saturday included the defunding of Planned Parenthood and myriad other cuts detrimental to women. It’s not likely to pass unchanged, but the urge to compromise may take a toll on these programs. And once the current skirmishing is over, House Republicans are likely to use any legislative vehicle at hand to continue the attack.

The egregious cuts in the House resolution include the elimination of support for Title X, the federal family planning program for low-income women that provides birth control, breast and cervical cancer screenings, and testing for H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted diseases. In the absence of Title X’s preventive care, some women would die. The Guttmacher Institute, a leading authority on reproductive health, says a rise in unintended pregnancies would result in some 400,000 more abortions a year.

An amendment offered by Representative Mike Pence, Republican of Indiana, would bar any financing of Planned Parenthood. A recent sting operation by an anti-abortion group uncovered an errant employee, who was promptly fired. That hardly warrants taking aim at an irreplaceable network of clinics, which uses no federal dollars in providing needed abortion care. It serves one in five American women at some point in her lifetime.

You can read the rest here.

Ladies Drink Free!

Jamie Keiles of The Seventeen Magazine Project fame* just posted a clever chart about frat party politics (particularly iterations of the "ladies drink free" ideology) on her new blog Teenagerie. Check it out!

She makes a good point, especially, about the way men pay for access to women in these situations; the cover and drink charges function then as a kind of fee securing their place in a space where, presumably, many women have flocked, lured by the prospect of free alcohol. What she doesn't really bring up, though, are the issues of consent that go along with a "ladies drink free" philosophy. Without an economic incentive to stop drinking, "ladies" might get drunker than their male counterparts ergo it will be that much easier to take advantage of them. Of course, women have just as much agency over their alcohol consumption as men do--free or not--but that doesn't change the implications of this idea. And the fact is that many college students (at whom this type of advertising is primarily aimed, even when it's a feature of a bar rather than a frat house), male or female, will find it difficult to pass up free alcohol.


* In another life, I had planned an interview with Jamie for the Ms. blog, but I think she got swamped with requests as her website took off and that, unfortunately, never came to fruition.

No Women Allowed! -- Dr. Pepper 10

And today in super-annoying marketing decisions:



Unfortunately, Colorado must be one of the "selected test markets" Time alludes to in the linked article, because I've been seeing this damn commercial for the last three days and I hate it with a burning passion. You know what's really sad? I would probably buy this soda, since I've long been on a quest to find a soda that doesn't taste like aspartame but also isn't sugar- and calorie-laden. Of course, part of me wants to buy this soda in spite of the advertising--no girls allowed! I'll show you, Dr. Pepper!--but, of course, they're probably counting on women either not caring about their men-only advertising or being irked enough to buy the soda because of their men-only advertising.

I understand that advertisers need to push their products towards certain markets and that it may be difficult to sell diet sodas to men (because of a bizarre social stigma, or perceived stigma, that already doesn't make sense). What I don't understand is why they can't make ads that are either gender-neutral or advertise towards men without reinforcing gender stereotypes (and particularly inane ones at that). God forbid you like "romantic comedies and lady drinks." (Actually, what are lady drinks?) And women definitely don't like action films.

In anticipation that people will claim I just can't take a joke, I'm perfectly fine with ads that make fun of gender stereotypes (like the Old Spice "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like" ads, which I love). But, I mostly just think this ad this dumb and, hence, not funny.

Adventures in Women's Studies 101

I have two little anecdotes to share:

Last week, I asked my women's studies class how many of them consider themselves feminists; one student raised her hand (out of 60). When I asked them if they believe women and men should be equal in society, everyone raised their hands. This was a perfect set-up for talking about the antifeminist backlash, but also extremely depressing.

Earlier today, I asked my students to discuss what needs to be changed in terms of gender equity/inequity in society today. A guy in the back of the room who has barely made a peep so far this semester responded (this is an approximation of what he said), "I think it's really important that women have the right to abortion because from my perspective, as a guy, it's my job to support her decision no matter what because it's her body and not mine. And I don't think it's right that society makes being pro-choice look so bad and that some people, like the religious right, think it's okay to make decisions about women's bodies for them."

I now love this guy...although he still didn't raise his hand when I asked if anyone considered themselves a feminist. Peer pressure? Cultural denigration of a term that should be more neutral than it's often presumed to be? Any other theories?

Classic Feminist Writings

I just found this amazing internet resource, funded and provided by the Chicago Women's Liberation Union (CWLU). It's a collection of classic feminist essays and manifestos, available online and for free, including Barbara Ehrenreich's "What is Socialist Feminism," Jo Freeman's "The BITCH Manifesto," Judy Syfer's "Why I Want a Wife," Pat Mainardi's "The Politics of Housework," Kate Millet's "Sexual Politics" (the essay that led to the book) and many more!

Happy reading.

(Also, I'm planning a series of posts syncing up with my women's studies class--something I started last spring, but on which I never followed through. I'll be starting it in the next two weeks or so!)

It Gets Better: The Music Video(s)

I was listening to the Savage Lovecast the other day, and Dan Savage featured a new tune from comedian Rebecca Drysdale (whom one of my former contributors wrote about here a couple years ago), inspired by the It Gets Better Project, which Savage founded.

In any case, Drysdale's music video is pretty brilliant, not to mention hilarious (it does have explicit lyrics, just so you know). Also, just as a bonus, I've included a music video by former American Idol contestant Todrick Hall: a very different kind of "it gets better" anthem than Drysdale's satiric pop number (possible trigger warning).





You can also find a vast collection of heartfelt and (sometimes) heart-wrenching It Gets Better videos on their website and Youtube page. I posted a couple--less musical but no less compelling--videos a few months: President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and their contributions to the project.