Last week, BlogHer Co-founder Lisa Stone talked to President Obama about women, wages & the future. Here are the highlights, along with commentary from members of the blogging community. Pretty cool, eh?
This week, BlogHer's parent company, SheKnows Media, partnered with Public Radio International on the #womenslives media initiative. Basically, we want people talking about women.
We need to do this because only about 24% of all news subjects talk about women in any way, and only six percent of news stories highlight gender in/equality.
So, basically, we're ignoring half the population of the earth. Daily.
You can take a step toward changing that. We're going to talk about gender and womanhood and equality and inequality and stigma and women's health using the #womenslives hashtag.
Did you know JLaw got the paycheck shaft on American Hustle compared to her male co-stars?
Did you know heart disease is the number one killer of women and the symptoms can be different for women?
Did you know young women are harassed online three times as much as young men?
Did you know that people used to believe only boys were dyslexic because only boys were studied?
Would you stay in an abusive relationship? Why this blogger did.
That there are so many posts about surviving and witnessing domestic violence is heartbreaking, such as this one from Beauty School Scarlet, this one from Brown Girl From Boston, this one from Living Off Love and Coffee, this one from Loving Ryan (her mother's boyfriend starting their acquaintance by killing her kitten), this one from Heart of Michelle, this one from Not a Stepford Life, and this one from Transparency.
That Super Bowl domestic violence ad was a real 911 call.
I'm a feminist, and I catch myself accepting inequality all the time because it's always been that way. The whole women's paycheck thing hasn't changed, it hasn't changed! Women get charged more for everything from hair products to shoes even though that paycheck thing exists. We still don't have a female president. Women hold 4.6% of CEO positions at Fortune 500 companies despite the fact more women than men graduate from college.
Change takes more than just conversation, but it gets harder to ignore or cover up things people are talking about. If you're the Facebook type, please join our Facebook group, where we'll be sharing information and talking about #womenslives every week. Because all you need to do is believe in yourself. Like a girl.
No, like a woman.
Y'all, I totally didn't watch the VMAs. a) I didn't realize they were on b) I have really never cared about music videos, even when MTV first came out -- I think it was the newness. I can't remember the last time I wanted my MTV. c) I hate awards shows, too.
So it wasn't until Monday morning that I realized Miley Cyrus had quite the bizarre performance. Such a performance that we actually created a series on BlogHer to house all the reactions. Now it's Friday, and I think it's taken me an entire week to absorb the stupidity of just all of it and the danger of at least one part of it.
I didn't even watch the whole video at first. After Miley-I-knew-that-girl-was-trouble-and-didn't-let-my-daughter-watch-Hannah-Montana walked out of a giant teddy bear and started yelling, I figured I was pretty sure how it was all going to go down. I didn't get to the full video watching until today, after I'd had time to read the responses and also pour bleach into my eyeballs. I've read a LOT of response posts to Miley -- people mad at people for judging her as a woman, people who are pissed about her gold grill, people who say as a society we've lost it.
Yeah, I thought she was pretty gross. Just as I really hated Madonna on a cross and Janet Jackson's wardrobe malfunction and any reference to bitches and hos no matter what color your skin. I hate all of it.
Was Miley's foam-fingered teddy bear worse or better? I don't know. But I really did think we'd come farther than this.
Get More:2013 VMA, Artists.MTV, Music, Miley Cyrus
Everybody in this medley had back-up dancers. The same red-pants-wearing black female back-up dancers appeared wearing teddy bears and not wearing teddy bears for Miley and for other singers, and they seemed to be doing fairly normal background dancer stuff. What I just couldn't figure out was this:
This woman in the tights was mostly shown ass-out to the crowd. You never really saw her face. Then Miley smacked that ass. Now. There are a variety of things going on here. While the robot teddy bears and the tongue wagging and the foam finger and the bikini are all annoying and just weird, the using a black woman as a prop and accentuating her ass in this way, THEN SMACKING IT just, no, Miley. And really, not just Miley, because who the hell produces this show? Where was the adult in the room to go OMG YOU HAVE NOW TRANSCENDED BAD TASTE AND MOVED INTO THE CULTURAL FUCK-UP ZONE?
You know, I never thought Miley was all that impressive as an artist, and that's fine. I don't have to like everyone. And I don't even watch this show, so it would be no worries to me except for that image above. That one is a little more powerful, and not at all in a good way.
[Editor's Note: After being gone part of last week and now behind at work, I don't have time to do this post justice. But I'm going to write it quickly, anyway.]
Last week we went down to Table Rock Lake. Saying we were going to Table Rock Lake was actually kind of a trick, because I didn't realize that Table Rock Lake is actually pretty much attached to Branson, Missouri, the Dollywood of the Midwest.
Even though I knew I was in Branson, I had perhaps unfounded expectations for the entertainment. While visiting the amusement park -- Silver Dollar City -- I was, well, angered to be treated to a helping of rape culture on the train ride.
(Note: In our version of the train ride, YANKEES were supposed to attack the train, because perhaps between February 2013 when this video was filmed and last week, someone informed Silver Dollar City that using a Native American war cry in your train robbing skit is uncool. Otherwise this would have been an even longer post taking on racism, as well.)
(Another Note: My rant has nothing to do with the person who filmed the video and put in an intro. I don't know her. I just know I saw the skit performed by these same two actors, and this was the most recent video I saw of the skit on YouTube.)
You may think I'm overreacting, but the train robbers actually talked about handing over a trainload of women. What did they want them for? HEY HEY HEY. To shove something unwanted into the women's orifices, perhaps? 'Cuz that is FUNNY!
There was also a sign that I forgot to take a picture of on a bridge saying basically that bridges had coverings for the same reason pretty ladies wore long skirts -- to protect the underpinnings.
What, pray tell, from?
I'd love to see a sign hanging on a bridge talking about protecting a man's asshole from all the people bigger and stronger out to stick something in it. Because that would totally happen, right? And everyone would get the joke?
HEY HEY HEY
When we joke about women being raped, no matter how honkytonk and family friendly the ride is supposed to be, we teach girls and boys and men and women that it's totally natural for a man to want to rape a woman, and really, women should have to protect themselves from the randy males all around her. Or maybe if she can't, her man should protect her.
Or maybe she should just cover her underpinnings.
There is nothing funny about rape, folks. And this skit perpetuates rape culture.
The best part? At the end of the ride, the conductor told us all to have a blessed day.
I've been reading one of my very favorite books with my daughter this past week. THE LION, THE WITCH AND THE WARDROBE. I still remember going to get it at a book warehouse before there were big box bookstores, the boxed set, with my special blue group or whatever they called the gifted class in the mid-eighties. I kept that boxed set my entire life, because it was the only boxed set I owned in childhood (that I recall or that I kept track of), and it has sat on my bookshelf until now, when I finally was able to interest my daughter in hearing the story of Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy.
Initially, it didn't move fast enough for her, but by the time the Beavers appeared, she was hooked. Then when we got to the part in which Aslan gives the kids their weapons and tells the girls they were really just for back-up because girls shouldn't fight, my girl -- who had been lying down with her back to me, practically asleep -- actually rolled over and said, "When was this WRITTEN?"
And that, my friends, is how quickly culture changes.
Beloved, the little angel and I clomped down the sidewalk. It had snowed just a little bit, and what was there had already melted, but the air contained that combination of humidity and cold that tickles your nose and reminds me of the Rocky Mountains. I just wanted to be outside in it a little longer, so I whined for a trek down a neighborhood path that winds behind houses and essentially goes nowhere. I knew it went nowhere because we'd been down it before, but we were only a few blocks from home and I was stalling.
We'd only gone past four or five houses when the path became covered in the mud resulting from less than an inch of snow. I watched the little angel tromp through it in her snow boots and wished I'd been more thoughtful of my own footwear. I own snow boots, too. Why weren't they on my feet?
"This was a really bad idea," I said. "I'm sorry. We're getting all muddy."
She didn't even turn around. She just yelled, "Mommy, are you an explorer or are you a fashion model?"
I swallowed. "I'm an explorer! I'M AN EXPLORER!"
Win a Sony streaming device that will turn your TV into a smart TV on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!
One of the things I love about my husband is his awareness of my domestic shortcomings. I'm a terrible cook. I don't know how to bleach clothes. I'm loathe to scrub floors. It's not that I do nothing -- I do a lot of the laundry (while not using bleach), I clean the house weekly, I have learned how to use the lawn mower, I "cook" pretty often (tuna buns and mac & cheese, usually). My problem isn't that I'm too stupid to learn how to do these chores properly. My problem is that I just don't give a shit about knowing how to do them. I tried for a few years to care, and it failed, and then I started trying to write books and gave up completely on doing anything other than the bare minimum when it comes to domestic domination.
Which is why it's so hilarious that he gave me a tiny book for Christmas called Don'ts for Wives. It was written in 1913. From time to time, when I'm feeling particularly annoyed with society, I'll quote it. I've created a new category in my sidebar called Stupid Things People Think About Women in which I will store them. And I will tell you why I feel provoked on that particular day to go to the well.
Today's Stupid Things People Think About Women is inspired by two fine ladies' posts about the fact men often tell young women to smile and treat them as objects. Yes, they still do. I remember analyzing in my younger days why the hell any complete stranger would care whether I was smiling or not and then feeling weirdly guilty for having my choice of expression on my face in public, even right after my grandparents died.
I have heard people do it in stores to my daughter, who is not responsible for delighting you with her beautiful red hair and sunny smile. I have told her she does not have to smile on command. It's good form to thank someone for a compliment if it's meant sincerely, which she does to all the checkout ladies who ooh and aah over her hair. But it's a fine line, and after reading AV's post, I decided to explain the difference between a nice compliment and someone just telling you to behave like they want you to when they are not your parent or friend. She's just going to get prettier, I'm sure of it, and I don't want her to go thinking she is responsible for anyone else's viewing pleasure. It starts in tweendom. I am not overreacting. Have you seen the "I'm Hot" tshirts in size 6x?
I don't hate men. I don't hate women. I hate it when PEOPLE of either gender insist we live in a post-feminist society just because we're not aware we're still doing it. Most people don't think a thing of commenting endlessly on a little girl's appearance or dress and not a little boy's, thus convincing her that the one thing in life she will always be judged for first is her beauty or lack thereof. Not her actions, not her determination, not her intelligence, but her beauty. Listen to yourself -- aloud or not -- for a week as you move through the world, and see if you do it. I do it. We all do it. Because we've been raised that way. It's unconscious, and these posts are important because they can help you raise your level of awareness first and stop doing it second.
And so! Don'ts for Wives!
Don't grudge your husband his little luxuries -- his cigarette, or his pipes, or his books. Who has a better right to them than the man who earns them? (p. 19)
Don't refuse to entertain your husband's friends because it is a "bother." Nothing pains a man more than finding only a cold welcome when he brings home a chum. (p. 58)
Don't talk to your husband about anything of a worrying nature until he has finished his evening meal. (p. 50)
It seems silly now, not so much 100 years ago. I hope 100 years from now not every young woman who wants to be recognized for her singing or acting ability has to get half-naked on the cover of every magazine that my little girl sees when she stands in line for groceries. Post-feminist society, my ass.
UPDATED: 2:05 CT
I thought about some of the comments, and I think I wrote this too fast and didn't articulate myself very well. I probably should've left the comments about my daughter out of it because then the focus moved to her and whether or not her situation is unique. My argument is actually that we, as a culture, discuss women's appearance more often in casual conversation than we do men's. Even if it's a compliment, this constant focus on women's appearances reinforces the idea that women are something to be looked at and as such their appearance is appropriate for critical analysis.
I've noticed I do it myself. Maybe I grew up with women and girls more focused on appearance than my readers did -- that could totally be true. And the unwanted male attention has almost always come in anonymous settings -- strangers made shitty comments and people I knew just focused attention on it. And I did it to them. I found that when I really paid attention to my internal monologue, when I saw a young woman, I would think about how she looked in a different way than I do with young men. It's not a sexualized thing, either -- it's just that how a woman looks seems more important to us collectively than it does when we're talking about a man. I think we all like attractive people across the board, but what I'm talking about isn't even necessarily about attractiveness, but rather the idea that it is more important that a woman appear friendly and put-together than a man.
You may not fall prey to this thinking. I can think of a handful of people right now who I know are reading this and laughing -- and you know who you are. But watch a few TV shows and note whether the women and men are portrayed as putting the same amount of time and dialogue into their appearance. Read some celebrity gossip magazines and see where the focus is. Watch a female political candidate speak and then a man speak and see whose appearance is brought up more often (exception: Boehner and his spray tan -- but that is an extreme measure -- a woman just has to be, well, there). Listen to conversations in public places -- when women see each other, do they comment immediately on each other's appearance or not? Now listen to men. Do they talk about appearance or not? When you greet your friend's high-school-aged daughter, do you think about how she's dressed and whether or not she bites her nails? Now think of your friend's high-school-aged son. Do you check to see he's properly groomed?
If we were truly not unconsciously still holding women up to a higher appearance standard than men -- as though they shouldn't leave the house if they are not up to certain standards -- then we would see no difference in any of my above examples. I don't think we're there yet. What do you think?
So I just read this article by Derek Thompson at The Atlantic about sexism in TV ads. It seems like his thesis is this:
A certain kind of sexism, however, is still considered pretty funny and not terribly sacred. In most modern ads, there are two kinds of sexism. First there is winking sexism, where women are objectified but something in the ad seems to acknowledge to the audience: "We know we're being sexist, so that makes it okay." Second, there is the boomerang sexism, where we see men fighting back against their domestication and emasculation.
Then he ends with this:
A post-sexist age of advertising might be elusive. But it counts as a small victory, if not cause to throw a parade, that we've reached this moment, just a few decades after it was fashionable to scream at women for making bad coffee and not even pretend to feel wrong about it.
Derek, you want me to get excited about the victory of a post-sexist age of advertising being elusive? I shouldn't worry because at least it's not okay to blatantly portray women as second-class citizens who should feel bad if they can't make good coffee?
In some cases, the institutional sexism in today's TV ads is more disturbing than the old your-coffee-sucks-take-away-your-woman-card sexism of the fifties. It's underground. It's done the same thing, in my opinion, that institutional racism has done -- removed itself from blatant public exposure but still ingrained enough in our society that we don't question it at all when we do it: talk about Hillary Clinton's outfit instead of her politics, assume an angry woman just has PMS, question an attractive woman's intelligence before she opens her mouth. And television is a huge influencer on society -- I don't care how much you wink, if you're showing women fighting over beer in a fountain more often than you're showing them designing bridges or running companies, you're not making progress. Last SuperBowl I almost threw up my seven-layer dip at the sexism I saw in the commercials.
Am I wrong in my read of Derek's article? It feels -- to me -- like he's acknowledging the sexism still exists but saying it may never go away, oh well. He may not have actually added "don't worry your pretty little head about it," but the fact he's not demanding change or spitting mad pretty much says it all.
Listen, most men are taller and physically stronger than most women. We have different reproductive organs, different body fat percentages. It is not okay for one gender to make assumptions about the other, and that goes both ways. Women represent over half of America and more than half of higher-educated America. It's high time Madison Avenue stops pandering to the lowest common denominator to sell their beer.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxnGMdXZkc0]
Late last week, I wrote a post for BlogHer about the Piedmont Hills cheer squad. Their school district banned their cheerleading uniforms from class because they violated the dress code. I thought about it for a while and came up with this thesis:
I think it's fair to enforce a dress code policy unilaterally.
I think it's fair to make all athletes buy their uniforms or not buy their uniforms unilaterally.
I think it's fair to make all athletes wear their uniforms or not wear their uniforms on game day unilaterally.
The post was picked up by FOX NEWS on Monday. And it started attracting comments like these:
What I'm amazed about is the ignorance of many of the fairer sex about how the male brain works. Guys are visually oriented. Almost revealing will often cause more elongated sizing up by a male than totally revealing.
I was on a trip when a 28 year old lady in the group was wondering why the guys were stopping and staring at her. Well, duh! Se was wearing a pleated mini skirt walking down the street. Her excuse was that a part of the skirt was a pair of attached shorts. She said if the guys have an issue, it's their problem. I suppose she also thinks that if she were sitting on a guy's lap and rubbing his leg, it would be his problem if he became aroused.
Oh, then there was this:
What's up with that hate? The foot ball players DO wear their unpadded jeresys to school. Why you act like somehow there is this high school conspiriacy against WOMEN, and its all BOYS fault? Because you didn't mention anything about the gymnastics girls, or the dancing girls, you said nothing about the flag girls, all you said was "Cheerleaders" and then singled out the boys as being favored. Your blog sounds exactly like a high schooler. Then end it that you are all for equality. How perverse.
And this:
Because you were a cheerleader. Its not like cheerleaders are known for paying attention to what others are wearing. And who oppressed you to be a cheerleader anyway? Its not like you didn't have a choice to be something else if you hated it so much.
The conversation is veering around a lot, but the comments are really interesting, aside from the above, which, just, whatever. And it's totally solidified my belief that we need to get uniforms out of school, period. There are some uniforms that really shouldn't be worn to class (wrestling singlets, swimwear, gymnastics leotards, track shorts, cheerleading skirts), and if you can't have everyone wear their uniform, then no one should.
Would love your thoughts but closing comments because I'd like to keep them on BlogHer so everyone can see everything together. It gets confusing when they are in two places.
In completely other news, I finally reviewed Good Enough Is the New Perfect by Becky Beaupre Gillespie and Holly Schwartz Temple over on Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews!