On Capital, sort of.

Posted on December 5, 2011 by kb

The 99%: “Money Can’t Buy You Class”

Social Commentary post by GretchenSisson, Submitted by GretchenSisson on December 5, 2011 – 12:24pm;tagged Beverly Hills, Gossip Girl, inequality, Real Housewives, Wealth.

screen shot from the opening credits of the Beverly Hillbillies, showing a family of four white people driving in a car with lots of stuff in the back

A very special thank you to the Countess LuAnn of the Real Housewives of New York for supplying the title to today’s post. I doubt this is what the Countess was going for, but she brings up a good point: what’s the difference between having money and having class privilege? Is there one anymore?

There’s always been the concept of “old money” and “new money,” and the former seems to spend a good deal of time spurning the latter until begrudgingly accepting them—usually when newer money comes along. In fact, when Caroline Schermerhorn married William Astor in 1854, this was a marriage of old and new money. Caroline brought to the marriage old New York Knickerbocker stock (this is where the New York Knicks get their name from) and William Astor brought the new real estate money. The Astors were now “old” money, and would be allowed to look down their noses at the upstart Vanderbilts with their tacky railroads.

But do these lines between old and new money ever really go away? The Beverly Hillbillies of the 1960s showed us an unsophisticated rural family transplanted into swanky Beverly Hills after oil is found on their land. Are they accepted by their neighbors? No, obviously not. But their tight-knit family and clearly voiced morals place them as superior to their rich, superficial neighbors. If upward mobility won’t get you accepted by the people with money, well, that’s OK—did you really want to be like them anyway?

Even on Gossip Girl, ruling prep school princess and over-achiever Blair Waldorf is portrayed as a bit of an upstart because both of her parents have earned, rather than inherited, their money (like Serena’s parents did). As Jenny (who lives in Brooklyn, takes the subway to school, and makes her own clothes, so is clearly “poor”) tells Blair in season two: “You might be privileged, Blair, but you work for every single thing you’ve achieved. Like me. Serena just glides through.”

What’s really going on here?

Well, the Countess has a point. Class privilege is something different from having money, even though having money can take you pretty far. (And it should go without saying that class privilege is connected to race privilege—people of color don’t have the same opportunities or experiences as white people, regardless of how wealthy they are.)

Sociologist Pierre Bourdieu was one of the first to spell out how class privilege really comes from different kinds of capital. There’s the obvious kind: economic capital, cash money, the stuff that gives you purchasing power and freedom from having to worry about how to pay rent, your heating bill, and your student loans.

Then there’s social capital. This is your network: who you know, who your parents know. Unsurprisingly, if you go to a fancy prep school with the grandsons of Congressmen and the daughters of business leaders, you have pretty darn high social capital. You have easier access to sources of power, which means you have more power and privilege.

Finally, there’s cultural capital. This form of capital is not who you know, but what you know about how to succeed in the culture you live in. (It can also include what you own, based on what you purchased because of what you know.) So, if you’re well educated, and you read the right books, know the right artists, own the right gadgets, watch the right TV shows, can name the right designers, speak with the right accent, and eat with the right fork—well, that’s a form of privilege all on its own. Middle-class families can be really, really good at giving their children lots of cultural capital, even when they lack economic and social capital.

I’m opening my series with this little sociology refresher so that, as you (hopefully) read on, you understand what I mean when I refer to class privilege, and you can think about what kinds of privilege different characters in pop culture might have and where they got it. Additionally, when we talk about social mobility, we might wonder with kinds of capital are most important to that mobility. Because, really, we’re not just talking about money.

source: Bitch Magazine

On Working Moms

Posted on December 2, 2011 by kb

Working Moms Multitask, And Stress, More Than Dads

by PATTI NEIGHMOND

Allison Long/MCT /Landov

A Kansas City family prepares a meal together. A new study finds that working mothers log more hours — and get more stressed — than working fathers while multitasking at home. (This family wasn’t part of the research.)

A new study in the December issue of the American Sociological Review comes up with some findings that lots of women may feel they already know too much about: Working mothers spend significantly more time multitasking at home than working dads. And those mothers aren’t happy about it.

Researchers from Bar-Ilan University in Israel and Michigan State University looked at 368 working mothers and 241 fathers who worked outside the home. Turns out, the women were on overdrive, with some even describing the hours between 5 and 8 p.m. as the “arsenic hours.”

“The first thing they had to start worrying about is getting dinner, interfacing with their kids, getting done all the housework chores,” says sociologist Barbara Schneider with Michigan State University, who co-authored the study. “You could see from the data all the stresses and strains they felt as they walked in the door, and all the tasks” they felt they had to accomplish during those early-evening hours.

The working parents in the study wore watches that beeped randomly seven times throughout the day. Researchers wanted to know how much they were multitasking. So, after the beep, the men and women filled out forms that described what they were doing, what “else” they were doing, and whether they were happy, stressed or wished they were doing something else.

After gathering all the information, the researchers found that working mothers spent 10.5 more hours every week on multitasking compared with working fathers — typical chores like preparing dinner, doing laundry, maybe even doing some work brought home from the office, while also talking with their child and helping with homework.

Fathers, on the other hand, did a different kind of juggling. “When they’re multitasking, it tends to be more work related — so they might be answering a work call” while spending time with the kids, Schneider says.

As a result, Schneider says, the women reported much greater feelings of stress and being overwhelmed than the men reported. The men reported feeling pleased with their multitasking.

Psychologist Russell Poldrack, of the University of Texas at Austin, studies how our brains make decisions and process information. He says there’s a big difference between multitasking in the short term — answering the phone while driving, for example — versus multitasking over a number of hours, like the mothers in this study. These mothers were likely overloading their “working memory,” he says.

“Our brains can only hold so much information in working memory, and when we get overloaded, a different set of systems turns on in the brain — chemical systems that are actually related to the stress response,” says Poldrack. “And the neurons in our prefrontal cortex lose the ability to hold information in the same way that they can when we’re not stressed out.”

Understanding the biology behind being frazzled may not be much comfort to the average over-stressed working mother.

Which is why researcher Barbara Schneider suggests some big changes. While men in the study worked longer hours on the job outside the home than women, Schneider says, employers could be more creative in scheduling, giving men more flexible hours and more time at home so that child care and household chores can be more equitably divided.

Source: NPR

On Afghan Acid Attacks…

Posted on November 30, 2011 by kb

One of the biggest issues facing our planet is women’s rights. It won’t stop being an issue. We can’t stop the fight for education; independence; equality.

This goes beyond women’s rights – which are often neglected after revolutions. Globally, we need to redefine our definitions of masculinity. We need to reinforce that violence (in all forms) has negative consequences. We need to start discussions about the negative impacts of violence on our communities.

I applaud the parents of this young woman for making the choice to refuse the man who asked for her hand in marriage. It’s a shame that their strength was answered with violence. I hope that they find the support they need in their community.

Afghan woman attacked with acid after refusing marriage

http://www.facebook.com/plugins/like.php?href=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reuters.com%2Farticle%2F2011%2F11%2F30%2Fus-afghanistan-acid-idUSTRE7AT1EY20111130&layout=standard&show_faces=false&width=450&action=recommend&colorscheme=light&height=35

Analysis & Opinion

On Dear Margo and other things…

Posted on November 29, 2011 by kb

“Dear Margo” really pissed me off today. (Great, Katie, now even mature women are offending you? Actually, yes.)

It deals with the word “slut” (among other things). While I don’t particularly care for the word itself, and thus I have no desire to in any way “reclaim” it, I do see the word as one of the biggest obstacles to overcoming the stigmas surrounding female sexuality.

Dear Margo: I often see references in your column (and elsewhere) to “friends with benefits.” Where can I find a woman like this? It sounds wonderful. I can have sex and do nothing for her in return. When did this “friends with benefits” start? When I was a young man, we used to call those women sluts. So today we rename the sluts, and they fall for it. I wish I were 30 years younger. I could use a friend with benefits. —John from Essex
Dear John: Thanks for the laugh. Your sly take on this subject is most likely shared by everyone who is middle-aged. My guess is that this new casual approach to what used to be something meaningful is post-sexual revolution, if not post-post-sexual revolution. Somehow the kids went off the rails and decided sex was just something to do … you know, like a video game or playing darts. The women you call “sluts” I would call “loose,” and they have been around forever. That behavior, however, was not sanctioned, as it is now; there was usually a reputational price to pay, if not a venereal disease. (Those are still possible, by the way!) Around the 1780s, Count Talleyrand observed: “In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” So you see, dear, the activity has remained the same; only the name has changed. —Margo, historically

Read more:Dear Margo – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/dearmargo#ixzz1f7enXBCX

Margo reminds the writer that this is not a new behavior – a reminder for which I am grateful; this is in no way new behavior and shouldn’t be treated as such – yet she reinforces the negative connotation of words such as “loose” and “sluts,” going so far as to imply that these woman who are participating in “friends with benefits” relationships have venereal diseases.

This irks me for multiple reasons, but let’s start with the most obvious. Saying that a venereal disease is a price to pay for loose behavior is way off the mark. Sex does not equal disease. More sex does not equal more disease. Sexually transmitted infections and diseases have existed for most of history. They don’t just belong to women (who get screwed, literally, because their anatomy is more receptive to diseases). They are spread by any number of people in any number of different ways. While people who have a higher number of sexual partners may have more opportunity to come in contact with more diseases, that is not always the case. Anyone engaging in sexual activity should regularly take the responsibility to seek medical attention (including preemptive care like obtaining birth control pills and STI testing). Some people contract something the first time they have sex. Some people never do. Having a casual sex relationship – “friends with benefits” – does not imply dangerous sexual practices. The rates of sexual infection are through the roof in so many demographics. Someone you know has one, and, for all you know, so do you. The only way to be sure is to be tested regularly and be honest with your partners. Trust me, they’ll respect you for it. (While you’re at it, don’t forget to get your HIV test!)

Secondly, Margo focuses on the women. It is interesting to me that both the writer and respondent think that the issue of “friends with benefits” implies a lack of morals on the woman’s part, yet not on the man’s. So it’s perfectly fine for men to engage in this sort of behavior while women are shamed for doing exactly the same? Are we socially regressing? Seriously? Did this year’s SlutWalks teach you nothing? Women walk this terrifying line between progressive sexual freedom and the social sanctions they face for embracing and “owning” their sexuality. Trust me, I get a lot of flack for being so outspoken. There are a lot of incorrect assumptions made about who I am as a woman because of it. Just because you’re pro-sex or sex positive does not make you a floozy. It means you’re informed (hopefully).

Finally, I take issue with Margo saying that this behavior is sanctioned, when in fact, it isn’t. Her tone proves that much. Again, the double-standard for sexual behavior is still alive and well. Men are allowed to have certain desires and act on them, yet women are shamed for either having desires or acting on them. As far as I see it, there’s no reason to walk to the purity line if my husband/future partner won’t be expected to do the same. That said, there’s nothing wrong with making any of those choices – for purity, for modesty, etc. Sexuality is a gift, and it shouldn’t be used recklessly. There is something to be admired about the sanctity of any sexual relationship; many of those “friends with benefits” relationships also contain the elements of respect, admiration, and companionship that are mutually satisfying for both partners involved.

But are those relationships socially sanctioned? No, at least not for the female participants. We still use derogatory language when referring to girls exploring their sexuality; we still put men down by calling them feminine names; we still objectify women; we reinforce beauty as a means of success. We are doing nothing but reinforcing antiquated power structures through our subtle expressions of disapproval of what acceptable female behavior can or cannot be.

When the writer of the letter says, “It sounds wonderful. I can have sex and do nothing for her in return,” he is completely forgetting that any “friends with benefits” relationship is a relationship just like any other. Things that keep relationships alive? Mutual satisfaction. Trust. Respect. Communication. Things he doesn’t seem capable of providing.

On Abortion Opinion Pieces (this is one of them)

Posted on November 3, 2011 by kb

I realize that there are different sets of beliefs on this planet. I really try to see the other side of things. It’s so hard to understand where people who don’t believe the same things as you are coming from. To understand that is the first step toward being able to rationalize their thought process. Or perhaps for mutual respect and compromise. Oh wait, compromise isn’t real.

I get that you, believing whatever it is you believe, might want to turn a news story into something that fits your own agenda. So you write an opinion piece and then you publish it. People read it. That’s great. Now they’re aware of your opinion and they’re seeing the connection between whatever it is that you wrote and your agenda.

Below is an article about how Steve Jobs’ adoption “defied Planned Parenthood’s abortion agenda.”

Seriously? That’s how you want to use his death? I guess it got my attention, so you must be doing something right. Actually, I was distracted while reading an article that used such terminology as “the abortion business” and how Planned Parenthood, said “abortion business”, by offering birth control such as free condoms, is bilking Medicaid out of millions of dollars. Since I couldn’t verify the validity of the article – and I tried – I could not tweet it for the healthcare company I do contracted social media work for. So naturally, my next move was to spend twenty minutes digging through this site reading anti-everything articles. To my surprise, there was a very rational one about Gardisil (the HPV vaccine) and religion, abstinence, and parenting. I recommend reading it. And then getting your kids vaccinated.

Abortion accounts for only 3% of Planned Parenthood’s services. 3%. Their agenda is not in fact abortion. It’s not to kill of all the unborn babies. They’re not grim reapers sitting in dark alleys waiting for pregnant women to happen by so they can lure them into killing the kid. They do a lot of other things, too. Good things. Cancer screenings, free condoms, birth control, testing.

As someone who was adopted (and was arguably closer to the possibility of abortion than most of you who came from married people or single mothers who chose to raise you), I am so pro-life it’s ridiculous. While I would personally never have an abortion, I do see it as a viable option for those who fall pregnant in really bad circumstances. Of course it’s not birth control. Of course it’s actually not that hard not to get pregnant. But accidents happen. And abortion – in serious moderation – isn’t the end of the world. (See the second article, below the Steve Jobs one, for 10 questions for pro-lifers.)

(I put a socio-economic rant in here but then deleted it. In conclusion: life is really beautiful, but it can be really ugly, too. Also, insert medical issues that could affect mothers’ health. Those can get problematic under anti-abortion laws. Abortion isn’t really the issue for me. It’s not my thing. It’s the fact that laws that govern abortion really govern my body. And my body belongs to me. I worry that it’s a slippery slope from anti-abortion to anti-…well, anything. I don’t want the government to be able to assert eminent domain over anything connected to my reproductive system or any other system either.)

This really bothers me on a personal level. Steve Jobs’ biological mother was a graduate student. She made an active decision to give him up to a family. She made them promise he’d go to college. She wasn’t plucked from the operating table mid-abortion to achieve some sort of salvation for the future-tech-god living inside of her. She made a choice that didn’t involve Planned Parenthood at all. But again, it’s just an opinion piece.

Steve Jobs’ Adoption Defied Planned Parenthood’s Abortion Agenda

by Ciara Matthews | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 10/10/11 10:21 AM

Opinion

Following the news last week, the nation is in mourning over the loss of one of this country’s greatest innovators, a man who has shaped technology, communications and human interaction and networking in a profound and unprecedented way. Apple visionary and co-founder Steve Jobs has left an eternal footprint on mankind that will be forever seen in the way we interact and connect with the world around us.

But, if Planned Parenthood had any say over his destiny, chances are he would have never been given the chance to live such an extraordinary life and lead the next generation of technological advancements.

Born February 24, 1955, Jobs was given up for adoption by his parents because of pressure his biological mother received due to her relationship with his biological father. He was adopted as an infant by Clara and Paul Jobs who named their new son Steve Paul Jobs. And, the rest, as they say, is history.

Thankfully, the man the world has come to know and love due to his success as Apple co-founder, CEO, revolutionary, innovator, and entrepreneur as well as Chief Operating Officer at Pixar Animation Studios, was given a chance at life, a life that Planned Parenthood denies approximately 330,000 unborn babies each year. According to Planned Parenthood’s own numbers, in 2008 it was reported, the organization gave 2,405 adoption referrals the entire year. In that same time they performed 324,008 abortions. This means that for every adoption referral Planned Parenthood gives, it performs 134 abortions.

Clara and Paul Jobs valued the life of a child Planned Parenthood labels a “crisis,” and Steve Jobs did not become just another “problem” Planned Parenthood attempted solve. Steve Jobs adoptive parents, as well as his birth parents, what Planned Parenthood refuses to see – a helpless life with the potential for greatness. He could easily have been an abortion statistic. The world has been touched by Steve Jobs because he parents recognized the value his life held. While the beginning of his life may have been “unintended,” the life and legacy of Steve Jobs had meaning and purpose. He accomplished great things in his 56 years. Unfortunately, the abortion industry has ensured that the potential and greatness of millions of boy and girls will never be realized.

Learn more about other great thinkers, entertainers and leaders that were given a chance to accomplish great things thanks to their mother’s decision to choose life.

From Ms. magazine:

10 Questions for Anti-Choice Candidates

October 20, 2011 by Holly L. Derr · 65 Comments

Amanda Marcotte posted an interesting rant at Double X yesterday about the cognitive dissonance between the desire of anti-choice individuals to make abortion illegal and their unwillingness to address the legal issues that would arise if that happened:

The widespread delusion that advocating for bans on abortion won’t mean that abortion is, you know, banned, runs so deep that if you ask a typical anti-choice obsessive how much time women should do for breaking the law they wished existed, they straight up can’t answer the question because they’ve quite literally never thought that banned means banned.

Click the link above and you’ll see what she means–many anti-choice individuals haven’t ever thought about that detail before. It made me think: There are a lot of questions I’d like to ask candidates running for office over the next year.

1. How many years do you consider to be a fair prison term for a woman who has an abortion?

2. How many years for a doctor who performs one?

3. Will the punishments be greater the second time around?

4. Where will the state get the money necessary to prosecute one-third of all American women for this crime?

5. Forty-two percent of women who have an abortion have incomes below 100 percent of the federal poverty level (that’s $10,830 for a single woman with no children, if you’re counting). When women are forced to have children they cannot afford to raise, will those children become wards of the state or simply new Medicaid recipients? Where will the state find the money necessary to support them?

6. Will you be willing to watch your wife die in front of you when her life is threatened by an unsafe pregnancy that no one is allowed to do anything about? Your daughter?

7. Will rapists have to pay child support to women who are forced to have their children?

8. Will the child of incest be in the custody of its rapist father or the father’s teenaged daughter, his mother? In fact, 18 percent of women who have an abortion in America are teenagers. Will they be required to drop out of high school to raise their children or will the state provide free childcare?

9. Will upper-class white women be prosecuted as vigorously as other women who have abortions?

10. You are aware that upper-class white women have abortions, aren’t you?

Help me out here, what else would you like to have asked? The only way to hold people accountable for their views is to question them relentlessly. These people are running for office–ask them what kind of society they envision creating.

On Bullshit

Posted on October 24, 2011 by kb

It’s always the same conversation. You’re at a bar. It’s happy hour. You’re holding a gin and tonic that you wish you could just drink in peace. The people around you are annoying or maybe they’re only that way because you’re annoyed. Whatever.

You start talking to someone. Blah blah blah, my name is so and so, who are you, what do you do? I realize that the career question is important for gauging quite a bit of information about a person, but it’s also the biggest chance for filler. Some people immediately jump into a detailed description, including that inflated job title. Some people are more demure. Some pretend to be interested in what you do.

The responses are all bullshit.

I spend most of my happy hour conversations bullshitting right along with them and listening to people drop their technical terms like it’s going to make them sound, seem, or even be more important. (I did just begin to type “impotent”, I wonder if that was my subconscious trying to make a point.)

I love the implied importance, the illusion of grandeur, the self-delusion.

This is where successful people are forged. Either you can hack it as a bullshitter or you can’t. Your ability to bullshit directly correlates to your ability to work under pressure. It’s not a bad quality; it’s just funny that so much of the human race relies on it for basic communication.

P.S. I was at Target a few months ago and there was a little girl (seriously, no more than four years old) walking down the aisle just whispering “bullshit, bullshit, bullshit” under her breath. It was so adorable. But it made me worry about her media consumption/home environment.

(sidenote:)

My boss is super rad. We were demonstrating our product for a potential client last week, and when the guy on the other end made a couple of disparaging remarks about women, my boss stepped up and told him to watch it. Considering that I work in an office full of women, he’s probably used to doing it without thinking anything of it, but I think it’s awesome that he was willing to stand up for us and other women.

Also, your song of today is a remix of a beautiful indie song.
It’s called Skinny Love and it’s by Bon Iver.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kS2w5B0MvvY

On Sluts. And the Racism/Feminism divide.

Posted on October 5, 2011 by kb

I’ve written about SlutWalks before, but a quick history: they stem from comments made by a police officer giving a speech. In it, he implied that women could avoid being raped by not wearing provocative clothing. The comments prompted so-called SlutWalks in major cities across the world. Women (and men) have marched (and are still marching) in protest.

To be clear, I really hate the word “slut.” It’s not a word I feel any inclination to reclaim. I don’t want to be called “slut.” I don’t want to call myself “slut.” It sends shivers up my spine. But I really like how moved people were to try and do something about it.

We live in a culture that is not supportive of women, of their clothing, or of their victimization. Rape victims are often reprimanded. Rather than addressing the rapists, we address the victims with criticism, complaints, judgement. New Jersey just passed a law to ensure that victims don’t have to pay for their own rape kit processing. As of August 15, it hadn’t been signed.

We were driving out of Chicago last summer and passed a scantily clothed woman on the South Side. “She’s just asking for it,” said my passenger. I nearly slammed on the brakes and made him walk. I turned to him and, while agreeing that her clothing was inappropriate for 4pm on a weekday, asked him how he’d feel if it was me who was being judged. Or how he’d feel if I got raped. “Would it be my fault?” I asked him. I often wonder what would happen, since I’m so outspoken about sexuality and sexual issues. Were I to be raped, would anyone believe me? Would I lose the respect of my peers?

Granted, there are things you can do to help mitigate the potential for rape, but often, nothing can be done. Rape is not the fault of the victim, no matter the circumstance.

The article below, published on the Ms. magazine website October 5, 2011, addresses the issues of racism within the feminist movement.

A few months ago, I purchased Girl Drive, a look at everyday women across America. What struck me was the disconnect that people reported feeling between feminism and their cultures. They spoke about feminism being for white girls. I actually fit the definition of their idea of what a feminist was: it’s the academic, middle-class, white girl (basically college me). They spoke about being black rather than being a feminist. Or about being black before being a feminist. It’s as though the idea of being a black feminist was impossible. Culture comes first. And sometimes, there’s not enough room for both.

On the surface, it seems simple to bridge the gap between race and feminism. But it’s not. Peace and love is way harder than you’d think.

Another article, mentioned in the article below, discusses other issues associated with black feminism. It argues that white women have benefited from the “racialized virgin/whore dichotomy,” by fostering distrust of white women and blinding the white women to “what a SlutWalk would look like in solidarity with black women, with low-income women” etc. I don’t entirely agree with that. I don’t think that any women have benefited from the dichotomy, and that separation of women (by race, by income level, by immigration status, etc) only hinders our progress as we must fight among ourselves before we can fight for something else.

[Some] White women embrace feminism and that shouldn’t be a reason that anyone else can’t embrace feminism as well. People do. There are feminists of all colors. There are poor feminists and rich feminists. Feminists who are double-jointed and feminists who aren’t. Feminists who have longer second toes. Feminists who have wonky ears and who have no taste in music.

I am finding that more and more of racial tension (in specific situations and circumstances, not across the board) stems from our attempts to address and acknowledge differences because regardless of our own color, we’re so hypersensitive to it. (It exists. We all see it. I absolutely accept that I have “white privilege” but disagree that it blinds me entirely.)

I realize that racism is still alive and well. Racism happens every day in institutions, from schools to prisons, in the media, in government. By acknowledging race before we acknowledge any other characteristic, we’re limiting the scope of our focus. We can’t see any further. Therefore, we make no progress.

I think that to move past it, we must put it aside. As educated individuals, we must simply step over it rather than letting it be a line that both sides draw. It has to start somewhere. It will trickle out around us. It will grow in the minds of our children. Progress.

As women, we can be that beginning. We can work together as women united by a stronger cause. We can embrace our differences, learn from each other, and begin to create a strong network of support. Regardless of color, women must realize that other women are not the enemy. Neither are men.

The enemy is the idea of inequality, of implied consent. The enemy lies in assumptions.

It is possible to be many things at once. Our connections, our histories, all of those things could lead us to create powerful webs of community. Instead, we let them divide us. We must stop seeing everyone as fractured statistics and start seeing them as whole people before we make any progress on this.

I agree with the author (of the second article – linked here) when she closes by saying:

There’s a reason why many rape survivors don’t come forward with their experiences. They do not want to be subject to such words by a larger society that still blames victims. At least the SlutWalk boldly takes on that word, and in doing so, invites us to empty it of its power and its racist, classist, hetero/sexist meanings. Whether that’s possible is another debate, but for now, it’s useful to remember what Emi Koyama once wrote: “Everyone is safe when sluts are safe.”

What NYC SlutWalk Was, and What It Wasn’t

October 5, 2011 by Noelle Williams · Leave a Comment

Union Square was packed when I arrived at this weekend’s inaugural New York SlutWalk. The crowd was mostly women, mostly young and mostly white. Clothing styles ranged from topless to scanty to normal street garb to formal. One woman wore a business suit. A common thread was “slut” in red and black markers across foreheads, arms, backs and chests. The red-and-black writing was striking: People silently write “slut” across a girl’s chest everyday, but here it was, literalized.

I wandered through the 3,000-person crowd amid signs such as “Women are Souls, Not Holes” and “If I was asking for it, I would ask for it.” “This is what I was wearing when I was raped” read one sign held by a woman in pajamas. Another held pictures of her battered body from a sexual assault a few weeks prior. As I talked with her and other NYC SlutWalkers, they all kept using the same word: empowerment. For many of them, it was the first time they had ever participated in a march about women’s rights, and it was the first time they felt surrounded by other people who “got it.”

When I finally found my way to the SlutWalk organizers, I was feeling pretty slutty and powerful myself. I’d even found a “Slut Pride” pin and attached it to my shirt. But as I reviewed my prepared questions, I remembered the serious qualms I and other feminists had with SlutWalk, such as the recent criticisms from women of color. When I asked Holly Meyer, one of the organizers, about these critiques, she had a simple response:

We have always been inclusive. We’ve always said anyone is welcome to come to our meetings, we’ve never excluded any group. It’s unfortunate that some people have that perspective and don’t feel welcome, but our message is to end sexual violence.

Plain and simple. The point of SlutWalk isn’t complicated. Or, at least, the NYC SlutWalk organizers don’t seem to think so.

Holly was proud to say that many of rally’s official performances were by women of color. From what I witnessed, those performers focused on calling for solidarity and inclusiveness, but did not get into the unique experiences that black and other marginalized women have had with sexual violence and words like “slut.” For example, Amber Stewart of Radical Women said during her performance:

We have to work to tear down racism, because there is no place in this movement for an Us versus Them mentality. We need all voices, all concerns brought to the table.

Holly told me some other great things about the NYC SlutWalk, like its pressure on the NYPD to have sensitivity trainings or its calls to the FBI asking for a change in the FBI’s definition of rape.

Despite all this, it’s easy to criticize the NYC SlutWalk as a rally for privileged white feminists, especially when women of color at the rally were few and far between. I also couldn’t help but wince when I saw a group of men staring, mouths open, at the woman in lingerie pole-dancing on the back of bike during the march. If I talked to those men today, I doubt they could tell me what the march was about.

Overall, however, I left the NYC SlutWalk feeling like it was a work in progress. Yes, it should focus more squarely on women of color issues. But it brought out thousands of New Yorkers against sexual violence at a time when Brooklyn NYPD are telling women not to wear skirts to avoid being raped. It allowed 3,000 New Yorkers to feel like they were in power for a few hours on a Saturday. We should ask SlutWalks to graduate to a higher level of feminist thinking that addresses race and deeper issues within rape culture, but I think we should also recognize them for the work in their freshman year.

Photo of SlutWalk NYC sign holder from Flickr user David Shankbone under Creative Commons 2.0.

On Romance Novels

Posted on October 3, 2011 by kb

I swear I’ll get back to work after this….but….

I love historical romance novels.

When I write one, Evan Stone (below) shall grace the cover. I’m sure he’ll say yes when I ask him….

Romance Novels, Hairless Chests, And

‘Everything I Know About Love’

by LINDA HOLMES

(published 10/3/2011 on NPR)

Sarah Wendell undoubtedly knows exactly what you’re thinking when you hear the title of her new book,Everything I Know About Love I Learned From Romance Novels.

She’s been working at the web site Smart Bitches, Trashy Books for years now, and she’s heard everything you care to say about what kind of a woman would actually learn everything she knows about love from romance novels. You’re thinking: This is how people develop unrealistic expectations and cannot form healthy relationships, and what’s the deal with the bosoms and bodices and pecs and roses and OH RIGHT, LADY, I GUESS EVERYONE IS SUPPOSED TO BE FABIO.

(It’s always Fabio in comments of this kind. Fabio is to romance novels as eating bugs is to reality shows.)

She knows. She’s over it. I’ve been reading Sarah for a long time — and, in the interests of full disclosure, we chatter back and forth on Twitter now and then about Downton Abbey and what books I should read next — and I can tell you, you have nothing snide to say that she hasn’t already been told. Probably many times. But she remains, as I said she was back in late 2009, one of the best explorers I know of the interesting aspects of things typically deemed lowbrow and unimportant, and this book is a great example.

Collecting comments from her readers and from authors, as well as drawing on her own experience as a reader and a blogger, she sets out to explore the relationship between what romance readers get from novels and what they experience in their own lives. She talks about the kinds of men you meet on the page, the kinds of conflicts that arise between couples, and the qualities that separate healthy relationships from unhealthy ones.

What Sarah ultimately identifies is not a one-way transfer in which books teach women (because it is mostly women) about romance. It’s more of a feedback loop. That’s the trick to the book’s title. If it were entirely, totally accurate, it would beEverything I Know About What I Already Think About Love, I Learned From Romance Novels. While her thesis is not that a romance novel indoctrinates readers into believing in certain kinds of relationships — that would be creepy — there’s a strong argument here that the genre helps readers identify and articulate needs and feelings they already have, as they notice what kinds of books and heroes they gravitate toward.

This is one of the interesting points about genre entertainment in general: when there are elements of formula, identifying which versions of that formula appeal to you is surprisingly enlightening. Which iteration of a hero, for instance, do you choose, and what does it mean when you do? Everything from personality to chest hair tends to be specified in great detail; you can pretty much take your pick.

I’ll give you an example. (You knew I would.) I’m a romance reader myself, but I almost never read historical romances, which are probably more numerous than any other kind. I don’t read the ones with the voluminous skirts and Lord Whomever and Lady Anne Blah Blah Blah whose father is the Duke or whatever happens in those books. (I don’t know. I think they mostly drink sherry?)

Instead, I am almost entirely devoted to contemporaries, which are books set in the approximate here and now, in approximately the culture and world I live in. I had never given a whole lot of thought to why that is, until I read this book and realized that for me, freestyle back-and-forth banter is so fundamental to any remotely affecting flirtation that the courtly love stuff — people who cannot speak of their feelings because IT IS TABOO — is too restricting. I am what I am, and nothing charms me like a good zinger. I don’t like status and manners interfering with everybody yammering a mile a minute. (See above: I am what I am.)

Other people are the opposite: they’re charmed by the restriction, and they find the unspoken things to be the most romantic. Corsets, in that way of seeing the world, are sexy precisely because they’re an obstacle. I prefer for the obstacle to be stubbornness and never shutting up. Potato, po-tah-to. But the fact that I feel this way is something I arguably learned and noticed from reading and then reflecting on these books. (None of which contain Fabio, I’ll just have you know.)

There are plenty of variations on the theme. Some people find possessive, aggressive partners (within reason) to be alluring, and some find them terrifying. Some people like a lot of overt reassurances that they’re loved, and other people like things to go unspoken. When you really, really love a book that does, in fact, have a lot in common with other books like it, it’s a kind of spelunking into your own tastes, not only in reading, but in reality. Not because you actually expect anything to go as it does in a book, but because individual elements jump out and make one book up your alley while another isn’t. Why … well, why does your brain see the book and say, “This one”? It’s not necessarily the book you learn from as much as it is the fact that you picked it.

The sex chapter, incidentally, works basically the same way. It’s less about “I read this in a book, so this is how you do this particular thing,” and it’s more about … well, let’s make it about handholding, just to keep things on the up and up. The analogy would be that the book would allow readers an insight like, “When I read about having my right hand held, that’s not sexy, but when I read about having my left hand held, that’s very sexy, so maybe I’ll ask the next guy to hold my left hand instead of my right hand.” There you go; you’ve learned something. Not about handholding, but about you.

Lest you conclude the book is entirely analytical, I will assure you that it contains Sarah’s trademark snappy, funny writing, as well as her tireless defense of the readers she’s met. One example:

Ironically, many people who disdain the romance genre and look down on the women who read it presume that reading about courtship, emotional fulfillment, and rather fantastic orgasms leads to an unrealistic expectation of real life. If we romance readers are filling our own heads with romantic fantasies, real men and real life won’t and cannot possibly measure up to our fairy-tale expectations, right? Wrong. Wrongity wrong wrong wrong. That accusation implies that we don’t know the difference between fantasy and real life, and frankly, it’s sexist as well. You don’t see adult gamers being accused of an inability to discern when one is a human driving a real car and when one is a yellow dinosaur driving a Mario Kart, but romance readers hear about their unrealistic expectations of men almost constantly.

It’s always refreshing when anybody cares about anything enough to put a title on a book that is guaranteed to draw the same angry snorts she’s been hearing for the last … oh, five or ten years. I am inspired to write a book called I Am Made Of Television, Slapstick And Jackie Collins Books. I owe no less.

Read an excerpt of Everything I Know About Love I Learned from Romance Novels

Women, Swearing, and the Workplace

Posted on September 12, 2011 by kb

Women, swearing and the workplace

By Emanuella Grinberg, CNN

updated 1:46 PM EST, Mon September 12, 2011

Ousted Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz vented her displeasure with being fired via phone to Fortune magazine.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Profanity, candor were trademarks of Carol Bartz’s management style as Yahoo CEO
“It stands out because it’s not expected,” professor says of her tendency to swear
Attention devoted to language reflects “double-bind” women face in corporate America
E-mail to colleagues announcing she was “fired” via phone “brilliantly refreshing,” author says

(CNN) — It’s not every day you read about one top-level executive asking another where his balls are. But in the end, former Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz lived up to her reputation for “salty language” and candid management style.

Since Bartz’s very public departure from Yahoo last week, her penchant for blunt, profane language have become recurring themes in discussions of her career, driving conversation about what women can and can’t be in the workplace.

“It stands out because it’s not expected,” said Deborah Tannen, a linguistics professor at Georgetown University and author of “You Just Don’t Understand: Women and Men in Conversation.”

“We always take notice of what’s unexpected and women are still not expected to curse, so when they do, its noticed more.”

Bartz got the ball rolling when she called the board members that fired her a bunch of “doofuses” who “f—– me over” in her first public comments after the now infamous firing-by-phone. Those statements came two days after Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock called her on her cell phone last Tuesday to deliver the news. In response, she sent an e-mail to Yahoo’s 14,000 colleagues telling them “I’ve just been fired over the phone by Yahoo’s chairman of the board,” and wishing them the best.

Since then, tales of her “characteristically salty language” and perceived abrasiveness have peppered the post-mortems on her two-year tenure, which many seem to agree ended due to her failure to boost revenue and lack of long-term vision. Even The Wall Street Journal published an amusing compilation of “Carol Bartz’s Best Quotes,” a testament to how her “crude honesty” and “blue language” became part of her brand.

“What do I look for when hiring? Well, let’s get past the assumption that they can do the job. There has to be a no-a—— rule,” she said in a 2010 interview with Esquire titled, “Hi, I’m Carol Bartz… Are You an A——?“

The attention devoted to Bartz’s candor, profane or otherwise, reflects the double-bind faced by women in the business world, especially those in high positions, Tannen said.

“If women talk in ways expected of them or project a feminine demeanor, its seen as weak. But if they talk in ways associated with men or bosses, then they’re seen as too aggressive,” she said. “Whatever they do violates one or the other expectation, either you’re not talking as you should as a women or as boss.”

Perhaps unsurprisingly, if you believe women are treated differently than men, Tannen and others think that a dirty-mouthed man would not receive as much attention for his blue language as Bartz has.

“For people to call it ‘salty language’ shows how we’re uncomfortable talking about women who swear. I don’t think anyone would describe a rapper’s language as being salty,” said former Nickelodeon executive Anne Kreamer, whose book, “It’s Always Personal: Emotions in the New Workplace,” came out this year.

The fact that Bartz was known for swearing, crying and confrontations also reflects the tight-lipped, button-upped culture pervading corporate America, Kreamer said. In researching her book, “Emotions in the Workplace,” Kreamer said she found that 60% of employees reported never seeing their bosses get angry or display any kind of unpleasant emotion.

“People are barely keeping it together and that’s why this becomes a conversation point because everyone wants to be able to publicly flip off the boss one way or another. But you swallow it because you don’t want to lose your job,” she said.

Not everyone considers swearing in the workplace appropriate, said Charles Conine, who runs Consilium, an employee and labor relations consulting service. But standards vary depending on whether the workplace is a corporate office in Silicon Valley or a battlefield in Afghanistan.

Yahoo isn’t known for its culture of confrontation, which could be why Bartz’s actions — while at Yahoo and in her public flipping-off of its board — still has power to shock the public, Kreamer said.

“We go through these Kabuki-like dances of ways to save face in corporate America,” Kreamer said.

“The way she simply said, ‘I’ve been fired’ was brilliantly refreshing. She said it as blunt as she did because she was pissed off, and we rarely see that.”

On "The Help"

Posted on August 10, 2011 by kb

I have not had time to really read a book from start to finish in a long time.

Instead, I do what I normally do: start a book, read about a hundred and fifty pages, and set it down. I’ll start another book, then pick up that first book and finish it, or at least get a little further, and then repeat the cycle.

Pretty soon I’m halfway through about five books and finished with none.

One of my co-workers lent me the book “The Help.”

And so, with recently atypical abandon, I went to town on that book. Literally devoured it. I read nearly three hundred pages the first night.

The movie comes out today, and the blogosphere is up in arms about the racist-ness of the movie.

I’m rolling my eyes. Not because I’m a white bitch, but because I read something totally different in the book. Of course, it might be that I’m always wearing my feminism lenses.

Here’s the article that basically sums up a lot of the backlash: Why I’m Just Saying No to The Help

Before I begin, let me note that I don’t think the author of the article read the book.

Her refusal to see the movie is based on a whole bunch of other things – like people’s opinions and their reviews of the movie.

That’s all fine, but it strikes me as interesting that people are so quick to label this movie as one of those white-people-reinforcing sort of deals. Like, “oh, let’s take pity on the blacks. Those poor blacks, where would they be without us whites?”

Bullshit.

We’re so over-critical these days. We’re hot on the lawsuits, quick to jump to a conclusion, way less forgiving, and super focused on political correctness.

This book was not like the “Blind Side,” as some are claiming. By the way, how would the story of Michael Oher have been a different one had it not been framed by his race?

(Don’t get me wrong, there are serious race issues still in play today. And there are still a disproportionate number of under-educated, underemployed blacks. Expectations and cultural disparities exist. The prevailing attitudes and undercurrents are still not about equality. But that’s not always the case. And we can’t always revert to that rule – in my opinion, that sort of thinking helps perpetuate the oppression, self-inflicted or not.)

This book was about women. It was narrated by three women, two black and one white. They each had a ton of shit to deal with. The white one is college-educated but unmarried. That’s sort of a problem, since all of her upper-crust friends are married and having kids left and right. There is an educational disconnect here – Skeeter, the unmarried one, is more ambitious as a result of having finished college.

Her two friends are more obsessed with social standing that social justice.

That’s not to say that Skeeter herself is interested in social justice, she happens to stumble upon it and then grow into it as the story progresses. Her interests in writing the book about the black experience stem from her desire to attain legitimacy in the eyes of Ms. Stein, a New York-based editor.

The black women are so badass. There’s a woman who’s got five kids, a serious attitude, and an abusive husband. At the end of the book (SPOILER ALERT) – she’s leaving her husband. She’s more secure in her position than ever – granted, she’s still a maid, so there was really no upward mobility, but at least she has the gratitude and respect of the people she’s working for.

The other one has lost a son, is constantly fretting about money (who isn’t?), and is deeply attached to the white babies she’s raising. And it’s so fulfilling when the white child colors herself black in school, starts to identify the black woman as her mother, and then starts to play Rosa Parks with her younger brother and then lies to her father about who taught her all of those things. The maid has been telling them stories about Martian Luther King, the alien who didn’t fit in with the humans because he was green.

Aww, heartwarming as that all is, it’s also heartbreaking. There is violence directed at people in the movie, stories of horrible things done by the whites, stories of how hard life is for the blacks.

I guess for the first time, it really hit me that my grandparents were adults by the time that the Civil Rights Movement rolled around. That my mom was entering adolescence.

But that’s not my point:

This book is about women.

The men play supporting roles. They manage to dominate their women while at the same time being absolutely dominated. Leroy beats his wife. Johnny supports his even though she’ll never be able to carry a baby. The Senator’s son dumps Skeeter for her progressive views, god forbid. The socialite queen of the town runs her husband and supports his going-to-fail campaign for government.

It’s about being over-dependent on a husband. It’s about not having a future without one. It’s about upper-class misery, dependency on popularity, isolation.

It’s about women on their own. In the end, there are no love matches for the three. Skeeter’s lost her fiance, Minny’s dumped her good-for-nothing abusive drunk husband, and Aibileen hasn’t had one in a long time – her husband left her when their child was no more than a baby. They are independent, strong, driven women.

They are united in that.

They each have different goals to reach. It’s not one of those, “all the ends are so neatly tied up” sort of deals.

The book highlights the struggles faced by single women, shows the oppression of marriage – the social pressures and expectations from parents, children, family, friends. It also shows the power of community.

While it may not paint the most accurate picture of life in 1960s Jackson, Mississippi, I think it does a damn good job at reminding us that we’ve come a long way. We’ve still got a ways to go with both racism and feminism, but the battle is moving forward.

So read the book and get back to me. I’m going to go see the movie and let you know.

a mile high and then some…

the space between reality and the rest

Category Archives: feminism