Phone Sex

My roommate and I have the same cell phone. We also have the same problem concentrating on our homework.....

I Have No Words.....

Dehumanization? Via Gizmodo.

Suggestions?

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I am just getting started on my finals. Graduate school does not leave a lot of time for writing about popular culture here! However, I do get to do just that in my research which is why I am so completely in love with school.

On that note I am wondering if you all can help me with one of my research papers. I am interested in looking at representations of transnational bodies in American mass media. I have written about Gwen Stefani and her Harajuku Girls before but I think it is very relevant to this research. I am curious as to who else you all think might be relevant. I plan to peruse the archives of Racialicious to see what they have written about but I thought I'd open it to my dear readers (like feminist gal and kat) since they have been so helpful in the past!

If the project is a success, I'll post high lights here.

"I'm already pregnant so what other kind of shenanigans can I get into?"

Image Via

I finally saw Juno. I think I am the last feminist alive to see it but I am not a big movie goer. Not really in the mood to go into an analysis of it but I enjoyed it a whole lot. If not for the atrocious indie-gross sound track I'd even go so far as to say I love it. By the end I felt like I was going to puke if I heard one more f-ing mopey guitar riff.

Maybe I'll write more later but for now I'll just say that I LOVE any movie about teenage pregnancy that does not make the young woman look like a victim. Yay!

"You're Fat and You Need to Ride Your Bike"

Somebody sent me a link to this video at my HollaBack Chicago site. WTF?

Is Feminism Colonialism?

When I would discuss feminist issues, my ex would occasionally argue that feminism is no different than colonialism. He would compare me to a missionary going into another country to spread Christianity. The same comparison works for other types of colonialism as well. Though I quite fervently disagreed with him, my globalization, transnationalism and gender course has caused me to rethink my position.

The authors that we discussed in class tonight argued that liberal and radical feminisms (or, arguably, 'first wave' and 'second wave' feminisms) were exclusive and dogmatic. They often represented 'women' as a homogenous category in order to lobby for change either within the system or outside of it. The post-structural and post-colonial/third world feminist critique of these feminisms is that they really only benefit middle to upper class white women in the United States and parts of Europe. Making feminism into an exclusive club limits the voices that we hear and the progressive change that we can affect. And of course, it made feminism irrelevant for so many women!

I have long considered myself to be a post-structural/post-modern/quasi-socialist feminist with Marxist leanings (take that!!). But I am starting to wonder whether all feminisms by their very nature as political movements aren't just additional forms of colonialism. If we give feminism a certain set definition and we hold on to some utopian vision, whatever that might be, then we must believe that our ideology is superior to others and our goal must be to sway all people to our position. Why spend so much time reading, writing and re-writing theory if this were not true?

When I write for this blog I am trying to convince anyone who will listen that there is something wrong with American media; that portrayals of gender in media are hurting people and that feminist analysis can help. And I do firmly believe that. Of course, as a post-structuralist I believe that there are many layers of meaning embedded in every image and that interpretations of images and their effects are wide and varied. Still I wonder if my strong ideological stance as a feminist does not mirror the ideologies of the Christian missionaries or the European colonists. In fact, I think that the argument could be made that feminism isn't all that different from some religion only it is less centralized and much less organized.

This thought is really frightening to me because I have been recovering from Catholicism since I was sixteen and I certainly don't want to utilize similar techniques for disseminating knowledge that I believe to be enlightening. But I wouldn't be a feminist if I didn't think that feminism could or would improve the lives of anyone who embraced it.

One of my classmates suggested that we just need to remember to check ourselves. That if we never settle into a comfortable ideological position and constantly challenge our own beliefs we can avert some of those tendencies. She also suggested that we need to remember to see ourselves as part of the system for better or for worse. Imagining ourselves as transcendent is the epitome of modernity.

I am not sure I have any answers to offer here. Tonight my feminism experienced a major challenge. I guess that is a good thing.

How Privileged Am I?

Got this survey from Racialicious. They do a pretty good analysis of the problems with this survey but I found it interesting anyway. Anything in green is a true statement for me.

If your father went to college
If your father finished college
If your mother went to college
If your mother finished college
If you have any relative who is an attorney, physician, or professor (All of the above actually)
If you were the same or higher class than your high school teachers (Exact same)
If you had a computer at home
If you had your own computer at home (When I was in college)
If you had more than 50 books at home
If you had more than 500 books at home (I probably do now... or will by the time I get my degree)
If were read children’s books by a parent
If you ever had lessons of any kind
If you had more than two kinds of lessons
If the people in the media who dress and talk like me are portrayed positively
If you had a credit card with your name on it
If you have less than $5000 in student loans (way, way, way, way more)
If you have no student loans (HA!)
If you went to a private high school (elementary school)
If you went to summer camp
If you had a private tutor
If you have been to Europe
If your family vacations involved staying at hotels
If all of your clothing has been new and bought at the mall (My mom was thrifty)
If your parents bought you a car that was not a hand-me-down from them (HA!)
If there was original art in your house
If you had a phone in your room (Do cell phones count?)
If you lived in a single family house
If your parents own their own house or apartment
If you had your own room (I have been very lucky to always have my own room)
If you participated in an SAT/ACT prep course (Probably should have)
If you had your own cell phone in High School (Just senior year)
If you had your own TV in your room in High School
If you opened a mutual fund or IRA in High School or College
If you have ever flown anywhere on a commercial airline (Never! Really!)
If you ever went on a cruise with your family
If your parents took you to museums and art galleries
If you were unaware of how much heating bills were for your family

She Wants Revenge...or.... He Wants Revenge?

One thing I have not talked a lot about on this blog is music (besides Britney Spears, of course). That is in part because I love my music so much and because listening to it is such a personal and intimate experience that it is difficult to be critical of it.

Image Via

That being said, I have discovered a new band that I am really, really enjoying. She Wants Revenge is electronic, darkwave, whatever (I am not big on categorizing music) but I just love it. I have watched the video for "Tear You Apart" quite a few times to try to figure out just what is happening. While I am still puzzled, all I know is that this video creeps me out. The suggestions of sexual assault and transphobia are palpable.

I wasn't sure quite how I felt about it until I listened closer to the lyrics and read this Dig Magazine article in which band member, Bravin, said: "I don't think there are a lot of bands out there right now that are men speaking to women."

According to SWR in the lyrics for "Tear You Apart" this is what men want to say to women:

Either way he wanted her and this was bad
He wanted to do things to her it was making him crazy
Now a little crush turned into a like
And now he wants to grab her by the hair and tell her

I want to hold you close
Skin pressed against me tight
Lie still, and close your eyes girl
So lovely, it feels so right

I want to hold you close
Soft breasts, beating heart
As I whisper in your ear
I want to f*cking tear you apart


Now if that does not sound rape-y I don't know what does. Woman hatred is all over popular and even underground/indie music. Sometimes it is subtle, sometimes it is in your face. This is a bit more subtle until you really pay attention to the lyrics and what the band members say that those lyrics mean to them.

This is another of those situations where, as a feminist, I need to take pause and acknowledge the misogyny in my music but then do I stop listening to it? I am not that much of a martyr. I love this music and I still want to listen to it. Sometimes I believe that media consciousness is a huge first step. We don't have to give up the media we love so long as we learn to be critical of it and not just passive absorbers of it. How do we enact progressive change in this situation?

Getting to Know Your Feminist Blogger: Blogging for Choice

I know it is a little bit late but here is my contribution!

In so many of my Women's Studies courses throughout the years I have been asked to write about the formation of my feminism. I will share that story here because it has so much to do with why I vote pro-choice.

My feminism evolved out of my realization that pregnancy should not be compulsory. I attended Catholic school from kindergarten through eighth grade. With no knowledge to the contrary, I assumed that all people were Catholic. Upon entering a public high school, my entire world changed. I met people who practiced a variety of religions and even a few who had no religion. When I encountered my future best friend for the first time, she told me that she was outraged by the continuing struggle for reproductive rights. When she told me what an abortion was, I had a light bulb moment. Being Catholic, sex had always seemed scary and dangerous to me, I knew that it was related to pregnancy and I certainly did not want to be pregnant! Once I realized that pregnancy is not an inevitable part of heterosexual activity, I felt enormously liberated. That is until I realized how abortion and other reproductive rights are consistently in danger. That is when I started advocating feminism. That moment literally changed the course of my life.

Body politics are a huge part of what I discuss on this blog. Why are bodies presented the way that they are in mass media? It is increasingly difficult to tell whether media influences reality or reality influences media or whether it is some combination of the two. It is certainly easy to see how deeply held ideologies play out in media. Control of women's bodies is a theme that advertisers just cannot get enough of. And reproductive control is a large part of that.

I recently got into a heated debate with an old friend about why I vote pro-choice. This friend was upset when I said that it is unlikely that I will ever vote for a candidate who is not pro-choice. He suggested that other issues were more important, like privacy from governmental interference into our private lives. (It will not surprise you to know that he is a Ron Paul supporter.) I suggested to him that as a woman I feel that my uterus is about as private as it can get and that if that is such a pivotal issue, than this candidate is just an enormous hypocrite. Why is bodily sovereignity only a pivotal issue until it is a pregnant body? Why is this enormous hypocrisy so unimportant to Paul's supporters?

Choice is among the most important issues that I consider when choosing a candidate. I know that reproductive control is woman hatred, misogynistic, and backwards. I trust women to make their own choices. And I know that anti-choicers are also anti-contraception leaving women with NO choice. I know that I would never be able to enjoy heterosexual intercourse again if I knew that if the condom broke, if I forgot a few pills, if my diaphragm slipped or we just got careless that there would be no safety net. I believe that sexuality should not be dictated by the government and that without Roe V. Wade the privacy of one's body and bedroom would be no more. I also see major hypocrisies that even so-called progressive people are choosing to ignore because of their (male) privilege.

And finally, I know that abortion rights are not the end all of feminism because so many women do not have access to even minimal health care that choice seems like privileged feminist rhetoric and I think that that is also woman hatred, misogynistic and backwards.

I am thankful every single day for the reproductive rights granted to me by Roe Vs. Wade but like so many other bloggers today, I recognize that a lot of work still needs to be done to ensure that abortion rights are not just a mirage for so many women.

More Guest Blogging for Choice

Another of my fabulous friends wrote a great piece for Blogging for Choice Day. Erika is a friend from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She is working on her undergrad. at UWM in Nursing with minor in Women's Studies. I think her perspective is so important because she has a foot in both fields when it comes to the issue of choice.


What Roe V. Wade Means to Me

You want to know what Roe V. Wade means to me? Not much actually, especially if you’re asking me as a Wisconsin woman. Wisconsin is a pretty progressive and accepting state, which is little known to people who live outside of it. The state of Wisconsin in general, allows a woman to have a choice, until you look a little closer. If you live in Madison, Milwaukee and Green Bay (and their surrounding areas) then maybe you do have a choice. But for 80% of Wisconsin counties you probably will not have access to this choice because doctors are not licensed (by choice) or clinics where one could have a choice are not there. So you tell me what choice is it for 80% of the young, poor, and immobile women of Wisconsin is there to make? And that is not even half of the battle. Every weekend I can drive down Farwell Ave (in Milwaukee, WI) and see people with giant posters of aborted fetuses chanting about sins and wrongs women are doing just by entering a clinic. How accessible is that? Do I think I would want to walk into that clinic knowing with what I would meet just outside of it?

Roe Vs. Wade was supposed to mean something and should mean something, but does it really? The reason Roe V. Wade will stay in “limbo” amongst politicians, “friendly” debates, and bloggers is because it has somehow found its way in an untouchable place where it can blindly keep both sides happy. We supporters of choice think we’ve won! Aha! We have a choice, and if you don’t agree, too bad we’ve got Roe V. Wade in our hands to prove it to you pro-“lifers” that we have the law on our side. I just hope that excitement and your choice (if you live in WI) will last ‘til you get to the clinic (if you’re fortunate enough to get to one) and are met with people telling you “All babies want to get borned” and that your baby probably “has fingernails” (Quotes from Juno). There is no choice, when there has already been one made for you. This needs to change and not just be a luxury for women who are more privileged.

Why Choice Still Matters

When I started this blog I had hoped that I would have the opportunity to include additional voices. Since I started graduate school and have made fabulous new feminist friends I opened an invitation to some of them to post at my blog. Here is Elizabeth's contribution to Blogging for Choice Day. You can expect to see mine later tonight or tomorrow.

Why Choice Still Matters

Today marks the 35^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which in itself is a great cause for celebration! Often we hear about abortion discussion coming from the Christian right; however, we often as progressives fail to continue the discussion on our end. We dismiss the evangelical arguments but then fail to let our arguments be known. We assume that because it is legal, it doesn’t need to be talked about anymore.

So, on this great blogging for choice day, it is important to look at the reasons to celebrate the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. While this landmark case did make abortion legal in the United States, it is not simply a day to celebrate the option of abortion only. We have to look at what access to abortion means in a larger social context. For women in the U.S. the main rhetoric for making this procedure available is for the choice to have the procedure if wanted/ needed. The point is that a woman should have control over her body and have the means and services available to her to make that choice. It is not about being pro-abortion but about being pro-choice. It is the choice that matters, which is why this case was so important.

While pro-choice advocates celebrate this day, it is important to look at choice for women not only in the U.S. but also around the world. If we look to reproductive justice, which includes access to not only abortion but all reproductive and health services for all women, regardless of race, class, sexual preference, etc, we can gain a better understanding of how the U.S. compares with other parts of the world. With this understanding we can look at examples around the world where women are not given control or choice over their body. In China, women are encouraged to have abortions after they already have one child and fined if they have two or more children. Additionally, the social services available to these women when they have one child are taken away when they have any further children. Likewise, transnational migrant workers from the Philippines in Taiwan face losing their job and being sent back to their home country if they continue with a pregnancy. Again, abortion is encouraged through the system, which again does not give women control over their bodies or a choice of any sort.

When a system traps women into a particular decision, whether to have an abortion or not, there is a problem because individual women do not have control over what happens to their own bodies. So, while we can celebrate that women in the U.S. have access to abortion, we also need to look at the comprehensive idea of reproductive justice and make sure it is available to all women. Additionally, we need to look at what it means in a global context so that we as progressives, do not lose sight of an issue even when it is not our hot button issue.

Happy 35^th Anniversary!

Cross Posted at Faithfully Liberal

The Personal is Political: Getting to Know Your Feminist Blogger

I usually refrain from writing about personal things here. I save those for my personal blog. However, as any good Women's Studies student will tell you, sometimes the personal is political. So, on that note:

I have never really been single in my adult life. Since I was in high school I had a string of boyfriends that were pretty much one directly after the next. I spent the past five years in very serious relationships. (One for about two years, the other for about three years.) Anyway, I am single now... really, really single.... pretty much for the first time in my adult life. And I really don't like it.

Sparing you all the details of the heart-wrenchingly miserable break-up of a nearly three year partnership, I'll say that I am sure it has altered my perspective more than a little. But even granting that, I am facing a real ideological crisis here. The crisis of knowing that I should be okay enough with myself to be single while simultaneously dealing with a tremendous heartbreak.

Being raised in a nuclear family surrounded by nuclear families in the suburbs and being indoctrinated by the Catholic Church and American mass media has had plenty of influence on my idea of what adult life should be. But I always thought that my feminism could outweigh all of that. So why am I so uncomfortable and unhappy being single?

I have amazing, supportive friends and family, I live in a fabulous city full of opportunities, I have a job that I love, I am in a graduate program that suits me perfectly, I am passionate about school and my career, basically everything in my life is right on track. But since he left I have felt like I have nothing. I allowed a relationship to really define who I am and that is something that I swore would never happen to me. In fact, I have chastised friends for doing that very thing and have written about how relationships are socially constructed.

Still it happens so easily. Even though I know I don't want to have children and probably will not get married (at least not as long as it is a heterosexist, misogynistic institution designed to maintain women's subordinate social position), in many ways I bought right in to the ideal heteronormative, repressive relationship that I have been so quick to challenge. I feel like a bad feminist for buying in to those ideologies and yet I know that it is nearly impossible to not to be part of that system, at least to some degree.

Normally I wouldn't do this in a blog either, but I feel that Susan Bordo (whom I adore) says it so well in Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body.

"Feminist cultural criticism is not a blueprint for the conduct of personal life (or political action, for that matter) and does not empower (or require) individuals to 'rise above' their culture or to become martyrs to feminist ideals. It does not tell us what to do... whether to lose weight or not, wear makeup or not, lift weights or not. Its goal is edification and understanding, enhanced consciousness of the power, complexity, and systematic nature of culture, the interconnected webs of its functioning. It is up to the reader to decide how, when, and where (or whether) to put that understanding to further use, in the particular, complicated, and ever-changing context that is his or her life and no one else's" (30).

Susan Bordo alleviates some of the guilt. I know that feminism and romance are not inherently at odds but I also know that I bought too much into the ideal and am now suffering the consequences. Do people actually enjoy being single? Do I sound too much like Carrie Bradshaw?

And on that note I'll say, I am sure I am not the only one at home alone on this -20 degree night in Chicago but it sure feels like it.

~

Not totally unrelated: while I was writing this I was looking up some stuff on feminist relationships and though I didn't find much that related to what I am feeling right now, I discovered this fabulous blog and really felt the need to share. I have high hopes.

Dr. Phil Duo

I need to get another job. This can be evidenced by the fact that I have been watching too much Dr. Phil. What is so fascinating about this is that I watched episodes on Thursday and Friday which were just so strikingly sexist, particularly in relationship to one another, that I almost couldn't believe it.

On Thursday Robin McGraw, Dr. Phil's wife, had the opportunity to tell women what we need to do to look ten years younger during an oh-so-tired makeover show. Apparently all it takes to be a happier menopausal woman is microderm abrasion, teeth whitening, cellulite reduction cream, velashaping (?), eyebrow sculpting, 'natural' hormone therapy, not eating, a gym membership, working out in the proper (name brand) gear, an iPod, sunglasses, perfume, high heels, bubble baths, a cocktail dress, a crap-load of make up and a haircut. (Seriously, all of these things were mentioned!)

Image Via

The show featured five 40-50 year old women who were unhappy with their appearance.
"I've become a frumpy mom... I'm not feeling pretty anymore!"
Dr. Phil's only apparent reason for even being in this episode seemed to be to illustrate the contrast between men and women. Every time Robin named off some inane new beauty treatment he would shake his head in that condescending "oh you silly women" way. He joked many times about how women just like to be pretty and thin, blah, blah, blah. He lectured the women about going to the gym (one of them moaned about weighing 130 lbs!) AND he consistently referred to them as 'girls!' Remember, they were all between 40 and 50!!

Near the end of the show all of the women came out to show their new make overs. The audience applauded vigorously when Robin announced that one of the women was now a size 4. Now all of these viewers have learned that being a size 4 is how women are valued in mass media, this is the only reason that this woman made it onto broadcast television. This revelation sequence was my very favorite part because the first thing Dr. Phil did was ask the women's husbands how they thought that their wives looked. He didn't ask the women how they felt or what they thought. No, he was much more concerned with whether their torturous beauty rituals had succeeded in making their fat, balding husbands' dicks hard. Job well done! And of course, all of this was presented as being some great treat for all of these women.

Another portion of the show was spent at the mall. Robin showed viewers how to shop so that you can look years younger! She did this with her token gay man and her vacuous Barbie-doll-looking daughter-in-law.

Heternormativity, misogyny and class privilege all smashed into one hour long show. Well done!

~

The show on Friday was seemingly very different in its focus. However, if you pay attention to the subtext the connection becomes very clear.

The first part of the show was about Adam who is $200,000 in debt. Adam's family thinks that he is too concerned with material things. He claimed (and no one really disagreed) that "it's all about image." I am assuming he meant life.

Image Via

He would buy himself new vehicles at an alarming rate and he went to the tanning salon and got his hair done before being on the show. These things apparently demonstrate his obsession with his image. Dr. Phil's advice for him?

"Why do you care so much about what people think?
"Why do you need that Hummer to perceive yourself as okay?"
"Don't be that shallow, don't define yourself by that stuff."

Now remember that just one day earlier he and his wife were encouraging women to do those very things!! To absorb themselves in their image, to allow their possessions to define them, to be extremely concerned with their outward appearance. Now when a man is perceived as doing those very same things, he is told that that is unacceptable. He should not be so concerned with material things or with his appearance. No, that is the burden that only women must bear.

Another Sexist and Rape-y Advertisement

Image Via

Only days ago, I was a guest speaker in an Intro to Women's Studies course. I spoke to the students about gender representations in advertising (think Jean Kilbourne). I sure do wish I had had this one for my Power Point.

Romance Vs. Career

I desperately want to be one of these women. Or maybe that's just an effect of a messy break up. I really don't want that. And I don't really buy into the idea that they are dichotomous.