Brontesaurus: Barrier Breaking Feminist Vision

Since this is the last blog I have to post for my class, I thought I would go out on a bang...or a boom of laughter. Being a feminist and an English major, I found this link to be EXTREMELY funny. The Bronte sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, were Victorian authors who wrote books under the pseudonyms Currer, Ellis, and Acton, respectively. Admittedly, I have only read the work of Emily Bronte, who wrote Wuthering Heights. Although she wrote under the more masculine pseudonym, her book was not very well received during her time because her character Heathcliff was never punished for his immoral actions. The other two sisters, though, I believe were well received during the time. The link below shows a commercial (which never aired) featuring action figures made of the three Bronte sisters. I find it quite amusing, especially their "Brontesaurus mode" which features "barrier breaking feminist vision." I can only hope that my feminist vision is barrier breaking just like the Brontesaurus!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NKXNThJ610&feature=player_embedded

Send Betty Sutton Back to the Kitchen?

My roommate posted this link to my Facebook wall. Naturally, I looked at it and then thought this would be a great subject for my blog. First, I do want to tell you that the site could be somewhat biased due to it being funded by Betty Sutton for Congress. The link is about a flier the Republican Party sent out regarding Democratic Representative Betty Sutton. The flier, which was sent to about 15,000 homes (according to the Republican chair), apparently read "Let's take Betty Sutton out of the House and send her back to the kitchen."

Wow. Wow. I really do not even know how to reply to such a message. What do you say to such a blatantly sexist remark? Unfortunately, I'm not surprised by such remarks. I expect the worse from politicians, but should there not be a line? I'm pretty sure even politicians know what lines they can cross and which ones they cannot. For example, racist remarks about Black politicians are completely off limits for any official messages. That shows how seriously we take racism (although racism is still a huge problem in the U.S.). However, having official messages that suggest that women belong in the kitchen really shows that we do not take sexism as seriously.

Proving this point is Bill Heck's, the Republican Party Chair from Medina County (the one who endorsed the message), comment "I saw it, but I didn't think there was anything particularly wrong with it." Nothing wrong with it? Really? There's nothing wrong with suggesting that women belong in the kitchen? There is nothing wrong with suggesting that women should not be out working? Sorry Bill Heck, there is a heck of a lot wrong with your statement.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you all know about this horrible flier that was sent out. If you share my sentiments, which anyone who is not sexist should, in my humble opinion, then you can actually follow the link and make a difference if you so choose. If you scroll down to the bottom, you can sign a petition-like form to tell the GOP that you don't like these sexist remarks.

In closing, I just want to say that in my opinion, the only reason people want women to stay in the kitchen is because they are afraid of just how amazing and powerful they can be if they aren't held back.

Night Fears & Take Back the Night

I know I tend to talk about a lot of heavier subjects...well, this one is no different. What follows is a personal narrative about the fears of rape. By the way, nothing happened to me in the following story. I just want to establish that so that no one expects something bad to come.

There is something haunting in the light of the moon; it has all the dispassionateness of a disembodied soul, and something of its inconceivable mystery. ~Joseph Conrad (I don't know. I just wanted a creepy/eerie quote about night to open this story.)

Thursday night my roommate was out of town. This meant that I had to go to work (5-10 p.m.) and come home to my creepy apartment building alone without the comfort of knowing that someone would know if I didn't make it home. I consider myself to be way too paranoid to begin with, but a missing roommate definitely ups the ante for me. So, I decided I should leave work a little bit early just in case. Really it was more for my own peace of mind; I don't really think anything would happen to me. I talked to my boss about leaving early, and she was completely fine with it.

Not only was she completely fine with it, though, she encouraged it. She explained to me that you never know what's going to happen and that they take you by surprise; that's their M.O. My boss, then preceded to pull out her "cat's eye" keychain. I later looked it up online, it is commonly referred to as a black cat, I believe. The keychain is shaped like a cat's face, and it has two points which are supposedly perfectly aligned so that it would stab out the eyes of an attacker. Then she made sure that I knew how to hold my keys between my fingers. She also told me that the other night manager refuses to leave at 12:30 a.m., which is when she is supposed to leave, because no one is around to leave with her. Instead, she always leaves with her team members who leave an hour earlier than her.

I found the above to be a little bit over-the-top at first. Even when I said "I know I'm just being paranoid," my boss replied "That's good. You have to be." After at first finding the conversation a little bit ridiculous, I found it extremely saddening. I always thought I was overly paranoid, apparently I am not alone. The fact that so many powerful women can feel so helpless, especially when the sun goes down and the moon comes up, is a very saddening reflection of our society.

I bring up this story because of the event Take Back the Night. Take Back the Night is just about this phenomenon; it is a way of taking back the night and empowering women. People band together and march through the night with candles. There are other events as well. It is about banding together to defeat sexual violence and to defeat the silence in which it is shrouded. I strongly encourage any woman who has felt unsafe and helpless at night to participate in a Take Back the Night event. It can be a powerful message. Many Take Back the Night or Reclaiming the Night events are happening this month, so be on the look out for them.

"Twilight drops her curtain down, and pins it with a star." ~Lucy Maud Montgomery

Las Vegas: A Feminist Nightmare?

A few weeks ago, almost a month, actually, I went to the lovely land of Las Vegas for spring break and my 21st birthday. While there, I observed some fairly anti-feminist, or at least anti-my-understanding-of-feminism occurrences. This is just a simple recalling of those instances. You can put your own feminist meanings on them; That will make it more fun and help you hone your feminist skills.

Day 1 in Las Vegas: Seeing My First Prostitute

"Las Vegas isn't like it was. It's not like we'll see any hookers on the street or anything like that." (My friend reassuring me on what Las Vegas was like.)

When we got to Las Vegas, it was night. My friend's grandma picked us up at the airport and drove us out to eat. After eating way too much at an Italian place she liked, she drove us to the condo we were staying at (My friend's uncle has an amazing condo very, very close to the strip). While driving there, we had to stop at a light. A scantily-clad woman walked by the car, looking in before realizing we were not customers. Her name was Lola; she was a Show Girl. Just kidding. She was actually a hooker, and I do not know her name. However, her presence definitely disproved my friend's theory. I was kind of, sadly, ecstatic. "So this is what a hooker looks like?" I thought. I also want to sate here that I have no qualms against prostitutes/hookers/etc. I believe that many of them really need the money and that the profession works for them. I am not against them; I am against the system.

Day 2 in Vegas: "Porn Dispensors"

As we walked to the monorail station, we passed some dispensers. They looked like your average, run-of-the-mill newspaper dispensers. However, instead of newspapers inside, there were nearly nude, more than semi-pornographic papers inside. These papers had pictures of mostly naked women on them and numbers to call for escort services and phone sex operators. I was surprised that such pornographic materials were so easily available that any 14-year-old could access them. I had never seen that before in my little, conservative Midwestern towns.

Day 3 in Vegas: "Star Nipples"

"Watch out for the people in neon shirts. They give you porn baseball cards."

As we were walking throughout Vegas, we passed a series of people in neon shirts trying to hand these escort service cards out to the men. Never did a single person try to hand me a card; my fiance, however, wasn't so lucky. The people passing out these cards were predominantly Mexican men, but there were some women passing out these cards as well. The cards had, you guessed it, almost completely naked women on them. The women's "indecent" (I'll explain more about the quotes in a second) parts, however, were covered very nicely with little stars. Two new terms, then, came into my vocabulary that day: "star nipples" and "porn baseball cards." I'm still not quite sure, though, why it is alright to show all of a woman's boob except the nipples. I'm not sure why that particular area is the indecent area. We wondered whether it would be considered indecent if the woman had everything covered but the nipples. We believe it would be considered so, but I still have no idea why.

Day 4 in Vegas: Paris

All of the casinos had scantily-clad women servers waiting on the people at slot machines and tables. They all had their own little uniforms. The most scantily-clad ones, though, in my opinion, were the ones from Paris. Although I do not remember much about them now, they seemed to be the ones with the least amount of clothing on. I can't help but wonder if my disdain at these costumes is for or against my feminist cause, though. Sometimes there are blurry lines.

After being annoyed by all the annoying costumes the women had to wear in all of the casinos, I came to another realization. Las Vegas is a great place to live if you are an attractive woman. If you are an attractive woman in Vegas, there are a great deal of jobs out there for you. You are more needed in Vegas than men are. So, unemployed attractive women of America, flee, flee to Las Vegas if you don't mind showing off most of your body to the world.

Return of Star Nipples.

My fiance was carrying a tote bag for me as we walked back home from some arcades. As we were passing by some of those neon shirted, card holders, they tried to give some to my fiance. Since he would not accept any of the cards, they came up with a new inventive method. They apparently decided to throw them into the tote bag. We, unfortunately, did not notice until the last person threw one in. I opened up the bag, looked inside, and found five or six of those star nipple baseball cards inside. I took them all out and violently threw them to the ground. I was kind of angry that they put them in the bag. I was doing my best to give them evil glances so they wouldn't even try to hand us any. However, later I wondered if my looks were misconstrued as racism since most of the people passing them out were Mexican.

Day 5 in Las Vegas: Not as bad as I Imagined.

When we were visiting some of the casinos, I became aware of music and a dancer. Apparently at certain casinos, they have areas where women dancers come out and give a little "demonstration." They had a little platform to work on and a little pole if I remember correctly. I couldn't help but think of the film term, "the male gaze." Even though this seemed to be a pretty evenly split area between women and men, there were still plenty of shows to attract the male gaze with no public shows at the casinos to attract the female gaze. Why? Because there is no female gaze. In my opinion, there is not a publicly acknowledged one anyway.

After Vegas: Reflection

I decided that Las Vegas was really not as bad as I thought it would be. I think that by imagining it to be a horrible, horrible place, I was helping myself to feel less feminist crazy when I got there. Truth of the matter is that Las Vegas is a place that is based on sex, but you don't have to be constantly immersed in that culture of Las Vegas if you don't want to be. We rarely spent time in the bars and casinos, except when we passed through to see the sights. I really enjoyed my time in Las Vegas. I think sometimes, I just need to let those feminist thoughts go and have a good time. Then again, maybe not.

Lady Gaga and Kesha: Feminists?

Lately everyone has been in a Lady Gaga craze. Her lyrics to "Bad Romance" and "Poker Face" are known by many in high schools and colleges alike. Yet her lyrics are amazingly different from the girl bands of the 90's. Similarly Kesha has skyrocketed as of late to top positions in the music world. Her songs "Tik Tok" and "Blah Blah Blah" (the latter of which is my favorite) are two of her songs which I, myself, am obsessed with. Actually, despite their very different music styles, Lady Gaga and Kesha have some similarities...in my book, at least.

Looking at Lady Gaga's song "Love Game," we hear lyrics such as "I want to take a ride on your disco stick" which is both amusing and, in my opinion at least, a sexual innuendo. In this sentence, Lady Gaga seems to be taking control of her sexuality, not much different from the sexual liberation aim of many feminists. Kesha, in "Blah Blah Blah" presents such a role reversal as well. Kesha sings "I don't really care where you live at/ Just turn around boy, let me hit that/ don't be a little bitch with your chit chat/ just show me where your dick is at." I find these lyrics both humorous (after all how often do you hear a girl in popular culture telling a boy to stop talking because she just wants to have sex?) and very sexually explicit in comparison with most of the cheesy songs female singers/musicians sing about love. Now don't get me wrong, I love those love songs, but I also love these new songs that are coming out, as well. Let's face it, not that long ago, Kesha would have been staked for such lyrics. Women are pure and do NOT want sex! How could they sing about such things!

Kesha does not only suggest that she just wants sex in her song, but she also uses traditionally masculine language to suggest it. When she says "turn around boy, let me hit that," she is ultimately using masculine sex language used almost exclusively by males for her cause. This word usage, however, also makes the song humorous. As I said previously, "how often do you hear a girl in popular culture telling a boy to stop talking because she want to have sex?" Unfortunately, by saying that this is a humorous thing to say, I am also unearthing the very real difference we see in society between men and women. If a man were to sing "don't be a little bitch with your chit chat/ turn around girl, let me hit that" we would not only find it offensive, but we would also find it more normal than when a woman, like Kesha says it.

Lady Gaga's song, "Telephone" uses the lyrics "Stop callin', stop callin'; I don't wanna think anymore" to show a very similar role reversal in which the man won't stop calling the woman; she is getting fed up with it and refuses to answer and will not leave the club to see him any faster. Lady Gaga's song, however, seems less humorous than Kesha's. Also, the music video of telephone pays homage to some popular culture images of feminism: the Pussy Wagon from Kill Bill, the ultimate female revenge story, Thelma and Louise, and Madonna to name a few. The video then ends with the female sign.

So the question: are Lady Gaga and Kesha feminists? Their music videos, song lyrics, and attitudes all have markers of feminist perspectives, yet I would not want to label them as feminists without them personally accepting those labels. So instead, I think my real question should be: what is the significance of these feminist markers within their music? To this I answer that there is a great deal of significance in these feminist markers. The primary significance, I would say, is the fact that both of these singers/musicians are extremely popular right now. With their popularity and with these song lyrics, it seems to at least suggest that we have become more accepting of these types of role reversals and feminist perspectives. I hope that one day they will not even be considered role reversals and feminist perspectives, but just normal parts of our society. Until then, I'll try to be content with my Lady Gaga and Kesha lyrics.

RapeLay: A Video Game Too Horrific to Believe

I'm a gamer. As a gamer, I understand that some, no, most video games are not exactly real. In some games you are from the future and dressed in huge suits of armor as you go around shooting others, in some games you ride dinosaurs called Yoshi and try to defeat the big, bad turtle guy named Bowser, in others you steal cars, shoot people, and get the cops called on you. Games are not real. Yet even so, that doesn't mean that any subject matter for a game is acceptable. What am I talking about? I am talking about this: http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/03/30/japan.video.game.rape/index.html?hpt=C2. A video game in which the main object is to rape and sexually assault women. Yes, that's right, there is a video game about rape. A new agent to normalize sexual violence and dominance over women.

Now, while it has been taken off of store shelves everywhere (thanks to women's groups, by the way), that doesn't mean that it is not still obtainable. As the CNN article shows, the video game has been found downloadable online. The two people interviewed in this CNN video suggest that it is not that big of a deal, after all, we allow shooters, where the main objective is to kill. Besides, it's just a game. A form of escapism, really. I want to urge that it is NOT ok and the fact that we would even think this is ok is also NOT ok. Even if a video game is just a form of escapism, that does not mean that it doesn't say anything in our society. If these types of video games are allowed, doesn't that let people in our society think that this issue isn't really a big deal? Rape is a big deal. We cannot let people play games where it belittles the very harmful and real effects of rape. Also, we cannot let people play a game that degrades women in such a way and reinforces sexual violence and male dominance.

Let's look for a minute at first person shooter games. I would argue that in most of the shooter games you are killing aliens or zombies, and that there is a need for survival that requires this killing. I believe this is completely different than a game that focuses on raping a girl for "revenge." Also, just because video games are often used as escapism for most does not mean that everyone will understand that these behaviors are unacceptable. Also, by allowing people to carry out these behaviors, even in a fake setting, does that not reinforce these behaviors and thoughts? Now lets look at how tech savvy children are becoming. Don't think for a minute that a ten year old isn't capable of finding, downloading, and playing this game. Children are often the tech-savvy ones, meaning they are also the ones who can find these types of things pretty easily online (on purpose or not). A child that young does not need to see these types of games. It is, no doubt, exceptionally hard for someone at that age to understand the difference between what is acceptable in the game world and what is acceptable in the real world. Even if allowing rape in video games does not mean we allow it in our culture, it still means we are getting one step closer to allowing it.

By allowing such graphic and terrible portrayals of rape, we are becoming more and more desensitized to it. Rape is not a fun activity; it is not a game. Rape is harmful and we should never, NEVER allow it to be construed as otherwise, even in a seemingly harmless game.

Schools: The Gender Police

Today is personal story day.

Story:

In middle school I had a friend named Matt. Matt was a nice kid, kind of annoying at times to the teachers. Many thought he had the outward signs of being gay. I always argued with them about this because I didn't believe that being feminine is equivalent to being gay. (I still don't, but he did later come out.) One day, Matt wore hair clips to school. He liked his hair clips, and, to be honest, they weren't hurting anyone. The principal, however, apparently disagreed. Upon seeing the hair clips, he immediately demanded that Matt take them out. Matt refused on grounds that it wasn't breaking any school rules. The principal said that it was breaking the rule that also stated that hats could not be worn (yet he did not do anything to the girls with hair clips). This was clearly a blatant case of policing gender. In fact, it bothered the principal to the extent that he actually ripped the hair clips out of Matt's hair.

End story.

A few months back, a friend had posted a news article on her facebook wall. In the news article, the school had placed a new rule that boys could not have long hair because it was distracting and evocative of a rock star (or something along those lines). A preschooler, however, who had long hair was actually suspended from preschool because his hair violated the new rule. Again, I find this to be a form of policing gender. It also made me think of my two boy cousins who have longer hair.

Why is it that schools have such authority in gendering our children? I understand if they are wearing offensive shirts or something completely inappropriate. But why do they get to decide how long a child's hair should be? I think schools are wonderful places for children to socialize and learn, but I don't like that schools hinder the children's forms of expression. I also don't like that they have so much authority over a child's life.

From my feminist perspective, I think that these ways of making children fit into specific gender categories and policing their ways of dressing, acting, etc. is a harmful process. We are constantly telling children that they should be comfortable with who they are, that they should have good self-esteem, and be confident. Yet while we are telling them these messages, our actions belie our words. We tell them that they should be comfortable with who they are, yet we are constantly trying to change them so that they will fit into these different categories. In my opinion, we need to stop confusing these children and we need to stop stifling their self-expression.

But these are just my thoughts; what are yours?