Foci

I think the top three foci of the feminist movement should be: 1. The abolishment of violence against women, 2. The construction of a unified, globalized feminist movement, and 3. Equal rights for women in all areas of life, politically and in the domestic sphere. I think the abolishment of violence against women should be the most important goal of the feminist movement purely because it is the issue which is most pressing. It encompasses the most heinous atrocities committed against humans and must be stopped as quickly as possible. Too many women suffer too much for no other reason than that they are female and being oppressed for that characteristic. Only in a time of peace can other progress be made. When women are struggling to survive and fleeing for their lives, they have no opportunity to organize and fight against the systems which have initiated and perpetuated the violence being committed against them. Stability must be gained in order to make strides in other areas of women’s rights.

That said, I think these things are all interconnected. Violence against women is the result of institutional prejudices and cultural ideologies which must be altered significantly in order to abolish the acts of violence themselves. The feminist movement can only work toward preventing and abolishing violence against women by addressing the portrayal of women in media and culture as objects and possessing symbolic value as figureheads of ethnic, cultural, and religious identity. The feminist movement must work to alter these social, political, and cultural representations and expectations of women in order to abolish violence at its root causes.

In order to be able to make such huge revolutionary changes in these areas of culture, society, and politics, it is necessary to have a strong, unified movement which is becoming easier and easier to do with globalization. A universal feminist movement which focuses on specific areas, regions, and issues but is united in a common cause for the safety and equality of women would be ideal. The resources are available to create such a network of support and a strong feminist front which can operate on a significant level through power of numbers to change society at large. However, the feminist movement is divided amongst itself in factions over petty ideological concepts. They argue about issues such as abortion and women’s rights and equality, over which issues should be given precedence and the solution which should be enacted. Yet, I think that in large part, the feminist movement is working toward the same end goal. The renunciation of concerns over small discrepancies is necessary for the movement to unite and be effective in producing change. If the movement could establish a set of common goals, then individual organizations could focus on their specific agendas at the same time as they unify and all work in common against the most major concerns. Only a unified, global movement can be strong enough to alter our societies and cultures significantly enough to make true progress. Additionally, there is much to be learned from sister feminist movements across the globe. If we can learn and give to one another in terms of theory, resources, and strategy, then we can make the world a better place for all women everywhere.

I think that a major focus for the feminist movement should be equal rights for women in all areas of life because it is only when women are empowered from the microlevel (domestically) to the macrolevel (global politics) that their voices can be heard and their concerns addressed. Without proper representation and rights, women are powerless to advance their cause and better the world for their children. This is a necessary result of a unified, global lobbying for change and advancement of the cause of women’s rights. They must be given the power to evoke change in their lives, in the world, and then to maintain it through continued representation and political power.

Marginalized Minorities

            Kimberlé Crenshaw’s article outlines a number of ways in which most women of color suffering from domestic violence are excluded from services which claim to protect them. Some of the reasons are less the fault of the service providers and more the fault of cultural and societal pressures. For instance, she says that as a result of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1990 which as designed to protect immigrant women being battered by the US citizens they moved to the United States to marry. It prohibits application for permanent residency until after at least 2 years of being “properly” married and it demands the application be filed by both spouses. This act caused many immigrant woman to be reluctant to leave their abusive partners because they did not want to be deported. Even after pressure to create a opportunity for these women to leave their spouses without fear of deportation it took a while for a waiver to be made available to claim domestic violence. Yet, most immigrant women have limited access to the resources to file the waiver and provide evidence that they are, in fact, being abused. Many cultural barriers also contribute to their inability to file the waiver and their reluctance to report domestic violence. Many minority women live with their extended families which means they have very little privacy and no opportunity to leave the home and communicate their distress to help centers. Additionally, they are often entirely dependent upon their husbands as a link to the outside world and for information regarding their legal status.

Even women who are permanent residents remain with their abusive partners because their husbands threaten them with the fear of deportation. They could not possibly be deported but they are unaware of the reality of the situation and rely on their husband’s manipulative misinformation. They often fear that they will put their entire family at risk of deportation if they call attention to themselves. Additionally, Crenshaw’s article focuses on the issue of language barriers. Many shelters limit their services to individuals who are English proficient. They turn away non-English speakers because they don’t have bilingual personnel or resources. Efforts to include women who are of minority cultures or who don’t speak English are often merely afterthoughts for these institutions and when the shelter in the article finally did begin to make efforts to include a Latina board, they ended up driving off their minority committee members by refusing to recognize their feminist credentials and forcing them to struggle with the bureaucracy of race and class issues instead of actively helping women suffering violence. The Latina women walked out of the program sick and tired of not accomplishing any good and returned to their own community programs. This was counterproductive, obviously because these women could not assist the program in diversifying its services because their hands were tied by politics.

Other women’s services which discriminate against women of color are organizations such as Planned Parenthood (traditionally anyway). I think recently they have removed themselves pretty substantially from their past of forced-sterilization and supposed goal of “killing black babies.” Another organization which I know of locally is SOS. The program has recently enforced a strict dress code and  appearance guidelines which transform their advocates from the tattooed, pierced, alternatively hair styled women (and men) into upper-crust white-collar, pristinely dressed and sanitized “representatives” of the program. This has driven many of my friends away from the role of advocates because they felt that the limitation of their free speech and individual expression would have a negative impact for the victims they were attempting to help. If I were a rape victim I’d be much happier talking to someone pierced and tattooed, someone I could relate to, who wasn’t looking down on me from above (literally and figuratively) but someone like me. The program worried that victims would be made uncomfortable by the alternative appearances of their advocates, but I think it is quite the opposite. I think victims would be made more uncomfortable by being approached by women (and men) dressed professionally with supremely tidy ‘caucasionised’ dress. The victims of rape in South Bend are often members of minority cultures and subcultures who do not relate to the white middle class image, yet the program insisted that its advocates take it up in the name of helping the recipients of their services feel “more comfortable.”

The white, upper-middle-class women who dominate the antiviolence movement have the power to determine whether the intersectional differences of women of color will be incorporated into the basic formulation of shelter policies but they often fail to dos. This, as the article pointed out, often becomes a matter of deadly seriousness which decides which victims will survive and which will not. The powerful boards of these programs need to be diversified so that their members have a variety of experiences and understandings of minority cultures and they need to reevaluate their policies which are often made with good intentions but end up marginalizing those who are not white-middle-class. Additionally, law enforcement and minority cultures need to become more open to sharing statistical information about rape, sexual and domestic violence within minority communities so that the need for prosecution and investigation as well as increased protections and services for minority women can be understood, recognized, and acted on. If everyone keeps pretending that these problems are much less of an issue than they really are, then they will never be brought to full light and they will never be effectively resolved.

Miss Representation

Please craft a blog post that reflects on the film “Miss Representation.”

You may use the questions below to guide your reflections.

What most surprised you about the film?

What did you learn from the film?

Miss Representation director, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, and many of the

interviewees, such as Margaret Cho, Jane Fonda, Jennifer Lawless, and

Devanshi Patel, talk candidly about their experiences with sexism. What

connections or empathy did you feel with the experiences presented in the

film?

What strategies are working to promote more women to leadership

I think the thing that surprised me most about the film, “Miss Representation” were the statistics. I hadn’t noticed, until the film pointed it out, that most of the women on television and in films are only in their 20s and 30s. The idea that a woman is only useful/viable while she has potential to bear children and then can be thrown away after she has served that purpose is staggering. The statistics that support that claim are even more noteworthy. While women aging from 20-30 years old make up only 39% of the population of the United States, they comprise 71% of the figures on television. Where do all the old women go? The idea that the female actresses interviewed were pressured to lose excessive amounts of weight, get botox, and undergo minor plastic surgeries to improve their appearances for the sake of television programs is ridiculous. I must admit that my knowledge of popular culture is so pathetic that I’m not sure of the name of the actress who found the botox procedure so incredibly traumatizing (was that Jane Fonda?) but her description of her experience alone is enough to make one stop and consider how one supports these industries. She got the procedure done reluctantly and was so objectified and made to feel so insignificant and dehumanized by it that it has had a lasting impact on her. She has taken the stance for now of refusing to have it done again, but she did make herself a pretty loophole should she decide it’s important for her career to have it done in the future.

I learned a lot about the representation of women on cable television from the film. I don’t have cable, nor do I watch much television that I don’t hand choose from Hulu (Modern Family, 30 Rock…those are about the only two with random geek attacks of Terra Nova when I really want to shut my brain off) so I had no idea what cable news shows looked like. They’re a far cry from the BBC broadcasts I watch I can tell you. (And my NPR intake doesn’t really help with my visual understanding of how women are depicted in the media). Imagine the outcry if a male newscaster showed up on screen in a Chippendale’s outfit. The things (and lack of things) those women were wearing was absolutely astonishing. The idea that a woman is powerful and authoritative (and that in only a limited scope) so long as she is also sexually interesting and entertaining is absurd.

I also learned the neat tidbit that it is actually harder to induce men to watch television. That makes the programming being streamed today make so much more sense. Of course the advertisers are in cahoots with the producers of film and television (aren’t most of them produced by the same corporations anyway?) to make the programming appealing to men so that they will watch it so that they will see their ads. Yet, why do they undercut men to such a degree? Don’t they think there are any men out there who care about the content they view as much as they care about their visceral entertainment? Our media is undermining the intelligence and maturity of the men of our country. In so doing, they are producing generation after generation of men who don’t actually care about the more important things in life, who do only value women for their appearance and sexual utility, and who will only watch television if it is stimulating them on some base level. Yet, if we provided programming that was free from any of the superficial junk which we spoonfeed every member of our society day in and day out, maybe we’d all grow up a little. Maybe if the consumers demanded that the companies that produced their entertainment take a public interest, they really would.

Instead, we’re all happy to shut our brains off and veg out in front of television which objectifies and simplifies us all, especially women. I’m not saying we should “re-regulate” the industry. I think that the FCC was silly in a lot of ways in the ways it attempted to control freedom of expression. Yet, I think that it’s time for us to start voting with our remotes (especially where people are buying cable programming) and watching only things which promote the decency, respect, and civility of humanity. It might be hard to find shows which do that at first, but I’m pretty confident that once we decide as a whole, that’s what we want, that’s what they’d provide. Of course, with men in charge of the programming and men watching the programming provided for men and women watching it too because that’s all there is, this cycle should be difficult to break. However, steps are being taken to educate our younger generations about the harmful effects of what they’re seeing on television. They know the damage it can cause because they live with it every day. They’re voices are being heard and some of them at least are choosing to reject those messages of value rooted purely in appearance.

I, like most young women have struggled with my appearance, especially in terms of my weight. I have an on again off again eating disorder as a result of young men who took offense to my inability to live up to their expectations of femininity when I was younger. Their media intake caused them to produce output which was seriously damaging to my self image (which had been relatively unscathed by the media at large due to diligent parenting and free thinking). Yet, I didn’t manage to avoid the self-esteem problems associated with the warped media message being sent to young people because I operated within spheres with young people who were actively being shaped by it. Their perceptions of me in comparison to what the media had taught them to expect resulted in the message being passed down to me in a more personal way than simply subliminally through the advertising and programming of television and film. There is absolutely no escaping it.

When the population who is funding this kind of programming ceases to do so and ceases to stand up for individuals who condemn women in leadership because they are not perfect, things might begin to change. Those women who are in positions of power now are fighting for change and they’re being successful to some degree. They’re using their place to speak out and up for themselves and others like them so that they can carve a place of leadership in politics and in the media which is defined by intelligence and self-worth, not fashion and physicality. Respectable, strong women in positions of power are growing in numbers and as they become more and more visible, more young women of generations to come are seeing models they can follow to provoke change and to encourage them to follow in their footsteps. 

Awareness

I do not think that the breast-cancer culture helps women. I agree with Ehrenreich that the Women’s Health Movement of the 1970s-1980s was crucial and very important to help women take a step up and begin to advocate for themselves and their rights as free embodied agents. However, I have often criticized the breast-cancer awareness movement myself. Watching 20-30 people wearing pink t-shirts, pushing strollers and carrying balloons down Main Street this summer made me angry. We’re all ‘aware’ of breast-cancer now. Mammograms are required by most heath insurance companies. Traveling mammogram busses make sure everyone has the opportunity to get one and every gynecologist I have ever spoken to or read has advocated for monthly self-examinations. So, since we’re all ‘aware’ now, why keep marching? I agree with the statements proffered by one of the men interviewed for the article, they’re better off writing a check and moving on, that’s much more effective. I realize this sounds unsupportive of those who are actually survivors of breastcancer but the author seems to have a very healthy perspective on the issue.

We shouldn’t be focusing so much on a cure which hasn’t been all that effective up until this point anyway, we need to be focusing on the cause. Just as those who purport the need to find a cure for diabetes should be focusing on the cause of diabetes in order to prevent rather than treat it. The number of cases of Type II diabetes far outscale the number of Type I. As my boyfriend and I watched the marchers move down the street he turned to me and asked when they were going to have a march for prostate cancer. I shrugged and said I doubted they ever would. Prostate cancer is highly prevalent in men but there is no great movement out there, no prostate cancer matchbox cars (as the author pointed out) and I suppose it’s understood that men will either heed or disregard their doctors advice to seek regular exams for early detection. Yet, with this huge prevalence of a man’s cancer which runs neck-in-neck with this female cancer (thought, unlike prostate cancer, men can and do get breast cancer) it is the woman’s cancer which gets all the hype, all the commercial opportunistic endeavors. I think it’s the same with the way that women are the ones who are most heavily hit in all consumer fields. We are the “shoppers” and we need teddy bears and crayons to make our “boo boos” go away.

Women infantilize themselves by parading around in pink t-shirts crying “save the tatas” and “hooray for boobies!/I <3 boobies” “walkin’ by buns off for boobs.” What kind of derision would a man face if he started making stickers or buttons with slogans like “Bros for balls” or “prostate posse” or “check your junk for cancerous funk” or for penile cancer “liveschlong” or, my friend, Mr. Robinson’s favorite childish slogan I asked him to come up with: “better spread than dead.” (He is a prostate cancer survivor himself.) Mrs. Deery (his wife) came up with, “If you lose your family jewels you’ll never become a prince charming.” The one slogan I managed to dredge up from the internet about prostate cancer was a mundane, “Don’t procrastinate…check your prostate!” Fabulous, right? It’s not that equivalent slogans for male specific cancers are difficult to come up with, it’s just that they are not dignified or proper enough to use for masculine persons but they are perfectly applicable and good for women. We participate and perpetuate our own denigration based solely in our breasts.

Ehrenreich argues that the breast cancer culture causes a woman with breast cancer become someone who is longer a woman, a person, just cancer (459). It “blur[s] the line between selfhood and thing-hood” becoming a composite of organic and inorganic materials (469). She notes that  “Awareness beats secrecy and stigma of course, but I can’t help noticing that the existential space in which a friend has earnestly advised me to ‘confront [my] mortality’ bears a striking resemblance to a mall” (460). It has reached an astonishingly commercial and superficial level. Ehrenreich notes, “The ultra feminine theme of the breast cancer marketplace –the prominence for example of cosmetics and jewelry –could be understood as a response to the disastrous effects on one’s looks. But the infantilizing trope is a little harder to account for” (460).

She writes extensively on the desire of the movement to infantilize women, especially citing the presence of crayons in the tote from the Libby Ross Foundation. She comments, “Possibly the idea is that regression to a state of childlike dependency puts one in the best frame of mind with which to endure the prolonged and toxic treatments. Or it may be, that, in some versions of the prevailing gender ideology, femininity is by its nature incompatible with full adulthood” (460).

I thought it interesting that she found the extensive availability of personal stories and experiences caused the author to compare her experiences to those of others, from the way she describes it, almost obsessively. The same way women compare themselves obsessively on the fronts of appearance, weight, attractiveness, etc.  “There is nothing very feminist—in an ideological or activist sense—about the mainstream of breast-cancer” (461).

The feminists want a cure but they also want to understand the causes of the disease. “’Bad’ genes of the inherited variety are thought to account for fewer than 10 percent of breast cancers, and only 30 percent of women diagnosed with breast cancer have any known risk factor…Bad lifestyle choices life a fatty diet have, after brief popularity with the medical profession, been largely ruled out. Hence suspicion should focus on environmental carcinogens, the feminists argue, such as plastics, pesticides…and the industrial runoff in our ground water” (461).This puts the feminist breast cancer movements in line with environmental and anti-corporate groups while the fluffy bunny approach to breast-cancer remains mainstream. “sentimentality and good cheer” (462). It is the “Darling of corporate America” and “a way for companies to brand themselves friends of the middle-aged female market.” “Breast cancer provides a way of doing something for women without being feminist” (462). Because the movement is politically correct and a way for corporations to show their love and support for women without having to take a stance on anything controversial, those companies have found ways to cash in on the market of all female buyers by appearing sentimental and empathetic to their cause.

The author notes that all this hullaballoo and great affair begins to look like “a positive embrace of the disease” (462). She found numerous “testimonies to the redemptive power of the disease” (463). While, I am an advocate of finding the good in everything and learning through suffering, I don’t think that the vast corporate sphere needs to have a place in helping women make themselves over through cancer. The author writes,“in our implacably optimistic breast-cancer culture, the disease offers more than the intangible benefits of spiritual upward mobility. You can defy the inevitable disfigurements and come out, more femme. In the lore of the disease…chemotherapy smoothes and tightens the skin, helps you lose weight; and when your hair comes back, it will be fuller, softer, easier to control, and perhaps a surprising new color. ..opportunities for self-improvement abound” (463).

            The companies that fund and perpetuate the breast cancer culture cult are the ones who are cashing in on the $12-16 billion-a-year business in surgery, “breast health centers,” chemotherapy “infusion suites,” radiation treatment centers, mammograms, and drugs” (464-465). Even though, “The benefits of routine mammography are not well established; if they do exist, they are not as great as many women hope” (465). Mammography might not even be successful and sometimes, all early detection does is prolong the amount of time a woman was aware of her condition.

The author summarizes her viewpoint by stating, “America’s breast-cancer cult can be judged as an outbreak of mass delusion, celebrating survivorhood by downplaying mortality and promoting obedience to medical protocols known to have limited efficacy” and that “obedience is the message behind the infantilizing theme in breast-cancer culture, as represented by the teddy bears, the crayons, and the prevailing pinkness” (465).

I think this breast cancer culture makes breast cancer cute, cuddly, pink, approachable, and something which is almost to be looked forward to. It is something which permeates our consumerist existences and yet has little to no effect on the number of women who die from breast cancer every year. The fact that we pour so much time and effort into a movement which produces little to no results is disheartening and a sign that the author’s viewpoint is accurate. The industry which perpetuates breast cancer also claims to oppose it but it cannot successfully do both, though it can rake in vast amounts of money in both arenas. The movement is a rouse to keep us all buying in the name of righteousness while we ignore the real issues and problems at hand. Keep the women happy through material goods and cute slogans but don’t actually take a stand and do something about breast cancer prevention seems to be the underlying motive. I think breast cancer patients would benefit more from having others take the disease seriously and reverently rather than seeing it as a marketing opportunity.

Proving Something

Messner used sport to prove his masculinity by joining a “D Team” basketball team precisely because he was insecure about his “baby fat” his height (5’2”) and the fact that he was “still prepubescent with no facial hair and a high voice that [he] artificially tried to lower” (401). While on the team, he became “infatuated with Timmy” but later “aggressively rejected him” (401). His efforts to prove that he was an athletically competitive and competently aggressive player caused him to act out in aggressive violence against Timmy. Even though he was captain of the team, he wasn’t the best player and he wasn’t “happy or secure” in that position (402). He felt that he needed to prove himself a thorough heterosexual, “100% heterosexual” and so he joined in when his other teammates called Timmy a “geek” and a “faggot” (402). He used sport to underline his masculinity even though for a while, the delay he experienced before fully entering puberty at the onset of high school and his attraction to Timmy who later became the subject of disdain and ridicule seemed to be holding him back from being perceived as “100% heterosexual.” He wanted to be a “man” and men were rough and aggressive and good at basketball, they did not play on the periphery of the game or feel things for other players that wre anything but strictly platonic or competitive feelings. Messner unconsciously used the basketball team to underscore his vehemently heterosexual identity. He decided to have a “moment of engagement with hegemonic masculinity, where [he] actively took up the male group’s task of constructing heterosexual/masculine identities in the contest of sport.” His aggressive action toward Timmy served to underscore his commitment to that task and to quell his fears that he might not be failing at that goal (402). He picked on Timmy with the rest of the team and chose him as the “victim” for his aggressive maneuver primarily to underscore his heterosexuality in contrast with the weak, effeminate, and otherwise “unsuccessfully male/heterosexual” Timmy.

            Waddell also used sports to construct his identity in regard to his gender but he also used sports as “his closet” (403). He clung to so called “masculine” such as football and track and field as a way to reinforce the perceptions that he was a “red-blooded American man” even though he would have preferred to participate in other sports such as dance and gymnastics but he grew up in the 1950s which he described as “a terrible time to live” (403). He says that it was obvious to him that “male ballet dancers were effeminate, that they were what most people would call faggots. And [he] thought [he] just couldn’t handle that…[he] was totally closeted and very concerned about being male.” (403) Thus, choosing sports that he felt men played helped him to assert his gender identity as male. He chose those sports in order to “do something to protect [his] image of [himself] as male…so [he] threw himself into athletics—[he] played football, gymnastics, track and field…[he] was a jock—that’s how [he] was viewed, and [he] was comfortable with that.” (403). He says, “I wanted the male, macho image of an athlete. So I was protected by a very hard shell. I was clearly aware of what I was doing… I often felt compelled to go along with a lot of locker room garbage because I wanted that image” (403). He entered sports and constructed “a masculine/heterosexual athletic identity precisely because he feared being revealed as gay.” (403). He used sports as a way to reinforce the idea that he was heterosexual even though he was not really. He needed sports as a way to project a heterosexual image in order to protect himself from the negative backlash of being anything but heterosexual. “Waddell seemed to be consciously ‘acting’ to control and regulate others’ perceptions of him by constructing a public ‘front stage’ personal that differed radically from what he believed to be his ‘true’ inner self.” (403)

Messner notes, “as young male athletes, heterosexuality and masculinity were not something we “were,” but something we were doing” (403). Both men used sports as a way to discover how to behave as men and as heterosexuals. He writes, “doing heterosexuality as an ongoing practice through which we sought (a) to avoid stigma, embarrassment, ostracism, or perhaps worse if we were even suspected of being gay; and (b) to link ourselves into systems of power, status, and privilege that appear to be the birthright of ‘real men’” (403). Both stories point “to the importance of the athletic institution as a context in which peers mutually construct and re-construct narrow definitions of masculinity—and heterosexuality is considered to be a rock-solid foundation of this conception of masculinity” (403). The institution of sports is an “institution of compulsory heterosexuality.” Messner notes that there are “extremely high levels of homophobia that are often endemic in boys’ and men’s organized sports” (403).

Women who play sports however, are often deemed “unfeminine.” By the very fact that they are participating in the realm of athleticism which is an institution founded basically to make men look masculine. It is firmly rooted in the effort of promoting masculinity as it is understood by our culture as traits of aggression, assertion, strength, and dominance. By participating in the institution of sport they are participating in one of the institutions which is utilized to formulate and maintain ideas of masculinity. This means that they are often ridiculed, considered homosexual or “unwomanly.” It is a major problem because there is nothing about athleticism which is inherently gendered or sexualized but society has endowed sports with those unspoken (and sometimes vocally spoken) characteristics and defining notions about gender and sexuality. When women cross over into realms which have been determined to be masculine they are deemed deviant and therefore ostracized and given a difficult time.

Bliss Can Be Bought

When I dogsit, I tend to watch copious amounts of “Say Yes to the Dress” which is Tivo’d by the family I housesit for. Since I can’t work the remote to watch television being currently aired (I don’t have cable and really can’t maneuver around 3,000 channels) I watch what they have “taped.” This also includes “16 and Pregnant” and “The Secret Life of the American Teenager”. These are not shows I watch on my own, or really care for aside from a minor sociological curiosity. However, I am strangely fascinated by “Say Yes to the Dress” simply because I like to gawk over how utterly insane and inane these women and their families make the event of getting married. I don’t plan to get married to my life partner, though we are currently, casually, planning a commitment ceremony which is a gesture to our families and an excuse for use to get needed gifts such as a mattress and maybe a blender (Though, we’d really love a waffle maker if anyone here is looking for “John and Alex Love Gift” ideas.). However, that sense of obligation to have any kind of formal recognition of our love is one that is only being casually entertained and is by no means a necessity or end-goal for us. We are us and will be regardless of official approval granted by family, government, or gods. The institution of marriage itself has been deemed discriminatory and embodies a certain set of associations and societal expectations that we do not condone and will not approve by entering into any formal “contracts” of that nature.

Still, I watch “wedding porn” and sometimes gaze at table center ideas and invite formats simply out of curiosity and a kind of horror to see what sort of superficial value people place on what should be a very serious and deep time in their lives. I can’t imagine spending $38,319 dollars on a wedding like one couple I read about in Modern Bride. Their itemized list of expenses included $1,000 for hair and makeup for six people, $900 for stationary, $2,306 for flowers, and $4,000 for photography (http://www.brides.com/wedding-answers-tools/wedding-timeline-budget/2011/07/how-much-does-a-wedding-cost-venue). That sort of extravagance is something I cannot conceive of both because I don’t have the financial backing to dream of doing it myself but also because I wouldn’t if I did. $38,000 is a house payment, several house payments. The kind of attention paid to dresses, floral arrangements, catering, lighting, photography, gifts for the wedding party and guests is seriously overemphasized. All of the categories the website is broken into are concerned with some kind of commodity that entails weddings. Even the links and stories about “real weddings” are not so concerned with the relationship details of the couple but rather their financial and decorative choices. They have a brief bit about how the couple met, perhaps their age, and then they jump straight into location, dress brand and cost, catering details, number of guests invited, invitation quirks, etc. They are also very interested in helping the reader discover how they can have a similar wedding experience. How to recreate the table settings, make their own invitations or find the same press or floral companies to make them for their very own use. These weddings are about spectacle and the magazine serves to flaunt and perpetuate that sort of thinking.

Modern Bride also turned out to be extremely hetero-normative, though not entirely. Five out of the five hundred “real life” couples I looked at were same-sex couples. That’s…you know, 1% of all couples represented on the website. However, they did have a section on “fun summer hues” for cakes where they featured various rainbow decorated wedding treats. They were advertised as seasonally appropriate for a summer wedding but also doubled as an appealing option for an audience who might be looking for a nod to gay pride. It was irritating and confounding that the website would bury these kinds of acknowledgements of same sex unions under mounds and mounds of heterosexual propaganda. Their attempt to escape criticism for being tolerant of non-normative wedding practices is almost the equivalent of not including them at all. Their attempt to walk the fine line between appealing to both groups was not very successful or convincing.

Overall, I discovered that the conception of weddings represented by Modern Bride was one which presents them as an event designed to impress and please other people. They even had a whole article about how to “Create a memorable event by putting your guests’ needs first” (http://www.brides.com/wedding-answers-tools/wedding etiquette/2010/05/BLM FW09 WeddingGuestNeeds). These representations of weddings do, as Morrison asserts perpetuate “traditional American values” that is, they are “big, expensive and involve a lot of shopping.” Additionally, they are celebrations of “well-off white people” with the occasional “bridesmaid of color thrown in as a nod to multiculturalism” or the occasional “couple of color,” or same sex couple all included in the name of diversity within an industry concerned with exclusivity. 

Goal Oriented

According to Glamour Magazine, women need to follow all of the latest fashion and beauty trends. It is important to judge the fashion of others, i.e. “The  Five Best Outfits of the Week: Vote for Your Favorite Spring 2010 Runway Look.”Cute Jeans and Shoes are necessities. All readers of the magazine should be interested in and buying all the same fashions from all the same brands and designers. Skincare, nails, and makeup should occupy a great deal of your time and money. Flat abs, thin thighs, and constant diet, exercise, and weight loss are also necessities. However, Glamour had an interesting article under their Health and Fitness subheading on their website entitled “Body Image: Are you Ready to Start a Body Image Revolution? Oh, Wait—You Already Did!,” You can “see the models who proudly bared it all,” bodies which are “beautiful,” and get “Body-Confidence Secrets from Plus-Size Model Crystal Renn.” This is followed by an “Exclusive Body Image Survey” and a quiz to see if “you have healthy body image.” However, directly following this seeming support for body types of all kinds are diet tips from Weight-Loss Bloggers. This magazine does offer more attempts at helping women find healthy weight loss solutions to real health related problems which can be caused by carrying excess body weight but it also suggests that the one thing that can make you feel 1,000 times better in a swim suit is “a cute coverup.” Fantastic, one should hide their body if it’s not “optimally beautiful” like the ones we saw and dress like on the fashion runways. It would also seem that a woman’s life is composed of shopping, beautifying, and attempting to date, hook up with, be proposed to by, and marry a man. Their “Sex, Love, And Life” section, the only section that mentions “Life” is altogether consumed with “Sex Tips,” “What Men Want,” “Dating,” “Romance,” “Hooking Up,” “Getting Engaged,” “Brides,” “Bridesmaids,” and “Real Weddings.” It would seem these women’s only goal is to find a man, please him with her body, keep him interested romantically by putting forth tremendous effort at remaining beautiful, alluring, and mysterious enough to keep him interested enough to inveigle a proposal and wedding out of him. And then, the wedding is not about love or a partnership between two people but more about the clothing, decorations, and food that will be seen at the event.

InStyle Magazine seemed most preoccupied with celebrity fashion and how one could look like, act like, and appear to be a celebrity. The writers of the magazine assume their readers are obsessed with which celebrities are dating each other, what they are wearing for a casual evening out, to the grocery store, and to high end events. They are also interested in their weddings, what kinds of gowns they wore, decorations they used, and cakes they had. There is a great interest in what kinds of parties they have, who attends, and what they all wear there. It also seems to be of great importance to compare and contrast what the celebrities have chosen to wear on all occasions.

InStyle’s Fashion section then goes on to describe which celebrities are wearing which designer labels and where they are doing so. One can search an extensive photo gallery of women celebrities (and by celebrity they mean famous actresses) by Designer or by the name of the celebrity to narrow down the set of images you are viewing. They have exclusive information of what new clothing trends need to be obsessed over and followed by their readers through their coverage of Fashion Week. Overall, their beauty and shopping sections were all about how to look more like a celebrity. They describe how one should style one’s hair and dress to transform one’s appearance to be more like those of the “optimally beautiful” stars.

In order to view Maxim’s website, one must first be subjected to ten seconds of “Devil’s Cut” advertisement which consists of a photograph of a large bottle of alcohol and a woman in a corset and miniskirt wearing a painted on mask, fishnets, and little else while she licks her lips and holds out a shot to the viewer. Once one reaches the website’s main site there are alternating slides of boxers, recipients of the Medal of Honor, Rugby fouls, and supermodels posing as well as all the girls who were rewarded the high honor of “Hometown Hottie” by the readership. The website offered articles on gaming, movies, and sports while touting “girls girls girls.” It has offers a girl of the day, today’s girl was Christina Hendricks who is “so hot she makes us all Mad Men.”  And featured videos of Tiki Barber’s girlfriend “baring all.” Listed under its most popular section were “Seven Odd Places to Take Your Summer Fling” implying that sexual relationships with women should be short term and flippant. They also listed the “19 Best Man Movie Moments,” “Nine Classic Beards,” “40 Best Man Cities,” and the “10 Dumbest Dumb-Asses in Sports.” The best man movie moments included exploding heads from zombie movies, the best disemboweling from a slasher movie, the best three-girls-on-one-guy action scene, best house party which included a naked woman shooting out a chimney. This is apparently both sexually exciting and humorous.

Instead of having a woman of the day, GQ featured a Look of the Day alongside a video of Zoe Saldana lying on the floor taking off her clothes. It also offered a fall fashion report on the latest men’s fashions to come out this fall. It implies that if one dresses according to the fashion, one will attract women who look like Hollywood stars. It suggests that the items which will make you the most eligible bachelor are “tipped polos,” “sneakers,” “the Blue Steel watch,” “Varsity jackets,” and “tweed suits.” Their “Women” section was basically a set of slideshows featuring semi-naked women on display. Including a woman sexually soliciting adolescent boy scouts (not at all illegal). Otherwise it highlighted extremely athletic (but simultaneously stylish) men, food and travel (and how they can help you in seducing women), and cars and gear (and which ones will best attract women to you).

It would seem that these magazines (both those for men and women) are primarily concerned with celebrity fashion, what the elite classes are wearing, and how to attract members of the opposite sex. Men are supposed to be active in the seduction and casual sexual encounters with women while women are supposed to passively attract, allure, and mystify men until they decide to marry them so that they can have a big fancy party and wear another fashionable outfit. They assume that women should be passive, work very hard and spend a lot of money on being attractive to men and should only be concerned with getting married. It should be their life goal, along with looking and dressing like a celebrity which will help you in your pursuit of married bliss. Men, however, should be obsessed with finding ways through fashion, sports, cars, and fancy gizmos to attract women just long enough to get them to have sex with them. They provide insights into how every man can become James Bond, but without any of the personal health risks. Both magazines push a heteronormative agenda as well as the idea that designer fashion will help you in your endeavors to attract and bed a member of the opposite sex. However, they suggest the different genders have different roles for these “hook ups.” Women should look for ways to trap men who would otherwise only be interested in them for sex into marriage. Men, however, should be doing their best to avoid any long term commitments and have sex with as many women as humanly possible, while fantasizing about the women they cannot obtain precisely because they are mere fictive inventions of the advertising and fashion world. 

Advocacy

Each of the groups introduced to us through this second blog post assignment have different goals and agendas due to their various foci on issues regarding gender, sex, and gender and sexual identity. However, all of them seek to make a difference by making educational resources available to those who are struggling with the issues they outline or those who are seeking to understand and know more about LGBTI experience. They all recognize that change can occur only with full disclosure (this applies to medical full disclosure as well as open, direct discourse about gender, sexual identity, and sexual orientation) and the availability of the resources individuals need to better understand themselves, the institutions they must operate within (and through an understanding of the way those institutions operate come to an understanding of how they may also be changed), and resources for others who may not be facing the same oppression or medical problems to be able to understand and sympathize with their experiences. 

GenderPac has helped over 200 major corporations add gender identity and expression to their non-discrimination policies. They initiated “National Gender Lobby Day.” They advocated for gender protections in ENDA. As members of the Hate Crimes Coalition they advocated for gender protections in the federal hate crimes bill. They have provided support for student leaders who wanted their colleges to address gender identity and expression in their anti-bullying policies. They made reports on gender-based violence to document “the underreported tide of violence against the predominantly Black and Latina/o transgender and gay youth. And they even focused on masculinity and the challenges faced by young men of color.

GenderPAC’s argument that “Discrimination based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity at some level are all discrimination based on stereotypes about what is or is not appropriate for men and women” has helped to build “broader coalitions and bring gender issues into the mainstream.” While GenderPac is no longer an advocacy organization,  their work continues through ChoiceUSA. GenderPac sought to raise awareness of the need for legal and societal protections for members of the LGBTI community. They refused to allow bullying and hate crimes to be underreported or unquestioned. By raising awareness of discrimination and by expanding their coverage of these issues to include masculinity and the special challenges of gender and sexual identity within racial and cultural contexts they were totally inclusive and sensitive to the very different problems which face members of different cross-sections of our society. Their emphasis on the idea that discrimination "based on sex, sexual orientation, and gender identity" is "based on stereotypes about what is or is not appropriate for men and women" helps make the issue of protections for members of the LGBTI (protections which are readily available for those who do not self-identify as members of the LGBTI community) seem more sensible, just, and less threatening for those who might consider them as such. Even in their most basic definitions of discrimination, they sought to emphasize that the reasons that people discriminate against others are not "facts" or "truths" but rather socially constructed stereotypes based in fear and hate. That kind of language and awareness is crucial to changing the face of discrimination protection and acceptance and tolerance in our society. 

The Intersex Society of North America is “devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.”

They argue that intersexuality is a problem of “stigma and trauma, not gender.” That surgery is not the answer to parents’ distress about the fact that their child is intersex. That “professional mental health care is essential.” That “honest, complete disclosure is good medicine.” And that all children should “be assigned as boy or girl, without early surgery.” Again, they present the idea that intersexuality is a problem because of the "systemic" issues which result in shame and secrecy. The true problem, according to the ISNA is "stigma" not the inability of an intersex individual to "fit" into the gender binary of our society. The organization seeks to raise awareness of the issues concerning DSDs and the options available to patients and their families so that individuals don't rush into what are often damaging and traumatic "medical solutions" to their situations.

As an organization, they work to “advocate for patients and families who felt they had been harmed by their experience with the health care system” and to be a “resource for clinicians, parents, and affected individuals who require basic information about disorders of sex development )DSDs) and for how to improve the health care and overall well-being of people with DSDs. “

They put together a Consensus Statement which includes the following: “Progress in patient-centered care” to encourage psycghological support for patients and families struggling with DSDs. And that “genital exams and medical photography should be limited.” They also argue that “care should be more focused on addressing stigma not solely on gender assignment and genital appearance.” They recommend “no vaginoplasty in children, clitoroplasty only in more ‘severe’ cases, and no vaginal dilation before puberty.” It stresses that “functional outcome of genital surgeries” “not just cosmetic appearance.” They also are attempting to get rid of misleading language to ”help clinicians move away from the almost exclusive focus on gender and genitals to the real medical problems people with DSD face.

The ISNA has met with some resistance in implementing these ideas however so in 2007, they “sponsored and convened a national group of health care and advocacy professionals to establish a nonprofit organization charged with making sure the new ideas about appropriate care are known and implemented across the country.” Accord Alliance began operating in 2008 and they seek to “improve the way health care is made available and delivered” so that “people receive the services and support they need to lead happy, healthy lives.” The organization is also focused on changing perceptions and language so that individuals can find greater self-acceptance, tolerance in wider society and answers to their questions and problems that don't discount and discredit their sex as abberant. 

Gender Education and Advocacy is “a national organization focused on the needs, issues, and concerns of gender variant people in human society.” They support LGBTI Health Summits. They raise awareness about dangerous cosmetic procedures such as “silicone use.” They draw attention to and raise awareness about crimes against LGBTI individuals.  They include articles which help others to understand aspects of the LGBTI community and the struggles of individuals within it. And they seek to inform people about medical conditions which specifically affect members of the LGBTI community and which would otherwise maybe remain obscure or unknown to them. They post articles about societal and medical concerns which directly impact members of the LGBTI community and also provide resources for legal, medical, and cosmetic interests, LGBTI individuals may have. As a whole. they also help to raise awareness of issues which affect LGBTI individuals because of a dearth of acceptance, tolerance, and policies which include their distinctive needs in our society. I found the article on the new airport security scanners especially interesting because I'd never thought of them from the perspective of a transgendered individual. Many people claimed serious problems with the new full body imaging scanners because they violated privacy and might be misused in ways which violated those who were subjected to them but I'd never considered the problems they might pose for a transgendered individual. Firstly, there is the problem of being "escorted" through the search by a member of your own sex. If your sex is at odds with the way you are presenting or identifying that is difficult to explain to a security guard (and one shouldn't have to). And if the security scan shows an "anomaly" such as a prosthesis or bound breasts what kind of ridicule, discrimination, and unnecessary searches and profiling might they then be subject to? This website provides members of the LGBTI community resources for dealing with discriminatory problems and other issues which pertain to their specific subset of society and also raise awareness for those who do not have those same concerns to better understand their experiences. This understanding allows for an avenue to change which would make society and its institutions less hostile and prejudiced against the LGBTI community and ways in which their needs and desires can be accommodated so that their dignity and rights are preserved.

Privileged

In Peggy McIntosh's "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack" she gives an extensive outline of the ways white privilege acts in her daily life. She notes that the effects of these privileges include: feeling “at home in the world” thanks to the overwhelming representation of her race and culture in the media and in academia (FF 15). She also notes that her privileges allow her to “escape fear, anxiety, insult, injury, or a sense of not being welcome, not being real” (FF 15). She also comes to the realization that these privileges allowed her to “freely disparage, fear, neglect, or be oblivious to anything outside the dominant cultural forms” (FF 15).

I find that these effects of white privilege (including all the others she listed) are consistent with my experiences as a white person. I consistently find that my race is represented positively in such a way that affirms my identity and culture and my “proper” place in society as an educated, middle-class, politically active, (etc.) individual. I do feel at ease in my home, work, and school environments as well as out and about utilizing the social facilities in my area, such as the grocery store, bank, and various cafes and restaurants I frequent. I rarely feel that my actions or words are going to reflect upon my race as a whole, either positively or negatively. However, as much as I am privileged to be white in a culture of white hegemony, I also am privileged to live, work, and socialize in spheres where race does not factor highly in social relations between myself and others.

I live in a diverse neighborhood comprised of equal numbers of black and white families, with a few Korean families interspersed. Certainly, we are all of the same socio-economic class (middle-class) but our differing races have not prevented us from living happily, peacefully, and quietly side by side. I don’t live in an “old school” neighborhood where we know all our neighbor’s names and sit on their porches with them in the evenings, but we all smile and wave to one another and assist our elderly neighbors with their yard work. Our friendliness is colorblind. I don’t think that the minority groups (whose represented members are not in the minority in my neighborhood) who live near me feel that they are unwelcome or put under any kind of special scrutiny or suspicion. They very well may, I’ve never asked them, but my family and I have never given them cause to.

I also labor in a diverse workplace. My boss, and owner of the store, is Malaysian.  His wife, and co-owner is white (but a woman and in a very high position). My shift managers (and seconds in command) are African American, Latina, and Caucasian. I work side by side with sandwich makers and order takers (the bottom line of the hierarchy) who are African American, Latino, Latina, Caucasian, and of Asian descent. There is no preferential treatment. There are no discriminatory hiring practices. There are even equal numbers of men and women in all job positions. There are times, when I notice cultural differences when socializing with my co-workers but these points of divergence have always been a way that we come to learn about each other’s personal lives and a forum for open discourse about our racial experiences. None of us are so ignorant to claim that racism is not real or prevalent, but we do not perpetuate it within our daily lives and interactions with one another. I am white, and I am privileged, but I live and work in environments that do not categorize, stereotype, advance, or oppress in racial or ethnic bounds.

Certainly, I cannot speak for the customers who enter into our sphere of cultural and racial security. I have seen a woman be surprised to find that the head manager was African American when I directed her to speak to Cortney when she requested to speak to the head manager. I have had customers look down on Trisha for being a proud Latina (but she, with our backing, fought back, because the customer is sometimes very, very wrong).  

My educational environment has been extremely homogenously white (with the occasional, rare, exception). This most certainly has affected the way that I learn, have come to view the world, and my subconscious understanding of race and my place within a global environment where my race and culture is, in fact, the minority. However, I like to believe that I have transcended this institutional racism and that I do not allow it to greatly influence my daily life, and particularly not my interactions with those of differing social backgrounds.

I am white. I am as racist as any other human being. I think to a great extent we all, subconsciously. These things are ingrained in us on an institutional level and that is hard to ignore or remove oneself from. However, I work hard every day to ensure my personal, work, and educational experiences take place in environments and with people who do not privilege one another based on ridiculous, superficial criteria, but rather on individual merit, centered around the idea that all humans are equal, regardless of skin color. I understand that I am privileged, because I am white. The institutions of this culture favor me for unearned and ridiculous reasons. However, I choose to actively engage and support those institutions which do their utmost to transcend those ideas. I couldn’t conscientiously do otherwise.

Epistle

Letters have never been my favorite form of communication, despite my weekly use of snail mail (a tradition my partner and I established when I went away to college and have continued though we now reside in the same city as a form of communication which allows a significant form of creativity, unique expression, and a nice surprise to come home to after a long/hard/tiring/etc. day).  I think my least favorite part is the salutation so I’m going to skip it.

For the purposes of semi-anonymous posting thanks to the dangers the interwebs pose, here, I am simply Alex. I am from South Bend and am currently a senior Art History and English Literature double major. This course interests me on a number of levels. Firstly, it fulfills requirements which will allow me to graduate this year. I transferred to Saint Mary’s later on in my college career and so I’m still playing catch up with GenEds (this course being the last I require). However, most of my friends are either Feminists or Women Studies majors/minors or both so I’m interested to begin learning what it’s like to study these issues from an academic standpoint rather than a merely informal one which takes place in conversation with them. I’d like to better understand the methods and theories involved in Women’s Studies on a technical level and understand how to best apply them in the field.

As an Art History major I’ve utilized feminist methodology in studying artwork and I’m interested in enhancing my ability to do so by expanding my knowledge of Women’s Studies. I expect this course will give me the vocabulary and tools to better express the sentiments I already attempt to communicate in a more professional and politically correct manner.

I currently take part in activism via financial donations to charities and groups which support freedom and justice for all. This varies depending on my financial need at the moment I receive my paycheck but I usually manage to budget so that I am able to donate 10% of my pay to these groups and the services they provide. I used to donate to SOS but have since ended that practice because it came to my attention that their management discriminates against their advocates which infuriates me and has encouraged me to find another organization which provides the same services for women but does not treat anyone unfairly.

            I think that activism is important because it is expression. Without it, dissent is not possible and change is hard to come by. I have participated in marches and movements in the past and I find it empowering and a great way to raise awareness for others who may not have known about a certain injustice or issue in our community/country/world. I am careful about which organizations and causes I step behind however, because I have some very particular moral criteria which I expect them to adhere to. It’s not difficult criteria, it’s just that most human beings have a hard time showing complete respect, tolerance, equality, and love for all human beings. We seem to be a judging creature.

            My definition of feminism is clouded by what may be an overly rationalized or technical approach to the word and movement. I feel that feminism is a delusional movement if it really is what most feminists I know say it is and believe what they say they believe. My argument is rooted in the idea that feminism suggests that both sex and gender are socially constructed Most people agree that there are three primary ways to determine sex. 1. Physical genitalia. 2. The individual’s chromosomes or 3. Whatever sex the individual claims for themselves (regardless of gender identity). Who is to decide which genitalia is which in “ambiguous cases”? If the chromosomes and physical genitalia are at odds which determines one’s sex? And if the person’s identification of their sex is at odds with either or both of their genitalia or chromosomes than do we disregard all these things? Anyway, many feminists agree that one of these three ways is the right way to determine a person’s sex but it remains that these three forms are at odds with one another and society determines which one we use at a given time. So, if sex and gender are socially constructed and therefore not “inherent” or “innate” than the idea of “female” is one which is arbitrary. In the end, it is impossible to determine what “woman” is and so what feminists fight for (equality for all people regardless of sex, gender, race, class, etc, etc, etc,) is really humanism. And using the word “feminism” implies that gender and sex are not arbitrary terms with arbitrary definitions which much of the feminist movement relies upon for their arguments for equal opportunities for all.

            I realize that may sound insane but that’s where I stand. Women’s studies on the other hand is the study of what is generally considered “woman” and hir place in the world, generally speaking within hir culture/religion/region/social economic class, etc.

            I don’t think there are any major difference between genders because genders are arbitrary terms which mean little to me. I think humans are humans and we’re all pretty well equal, despite our hardware.

            The social construct of gender influences my daily life because I attend a “women’s college” and am therefore defined as and generally identify with the idea of woman. I also work in a drive-thru and am constantly sexually harassed, denigrated, and otherwise made to feel inferior because of my outward appearance.

            My brainwashing culture has had the most influence on my understanding of how men and women behave but it is hogwash and I’ve come to a greater understanding of the truth of these things through my own experience and those of my friends. I adore the people who break these rules and I aspire to be one. (I hope I succeed).