In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Month: September 2005

Archives

I love it when we have a dust-up over the blog, in part because it reminds me to reconfigure the archives.

Forty-four is no longer the magic number.

Women’s Contribution to Society

Is apparently close to nothing if they choose to be stay-at-home moms.

You had to know it was only a matter of time before someone used the faulty New York Times article about college women predicting an eventual return to the dometic to argue that more men should be admitted, as they will likely be more “productive” members of society.

A better idea, though counterintuitive, might be to raise tuition to all students but couple the raise with a program of rebates for graduates who work full time. For example, they might be rebated 1 percent of their tuition for each year they worked full time. Probably the graduates working full time at good jobs would not take the rebate but instead would convert it into a donation. The real significance of the plan would be the higher tuition, which would discourage applicants who were not planning to have full working careers (including applicants of advanced age and professional graduate students). This would open up places to applicants who will use their professional education more productively; they are the more deserving applicants.

Although women continue to complain about discrimination, sometimes quite justly, the gender-neutral policies that govern admission to the elite professional schools illustrate discrimination in favor of women. Were admission to such schools based on a prediction of the social value of the education offered, fewer women would be admitted.

Read More…Read More…

Suicide Girls Quit The Site, Charging Exploitation and Male-Domination

This is interesting:

A group of angry ex-models is bashing the SuicideGirls alt-porn empire, saying its embrace of the tattoo and nipple-ring set hides a world of exploitation and male domination.

The women are spreading their allegations through the blogosphere, raising the hackles of the SuicideGirls company, which has until now enjoyed a reputation as porn even feminists can love. It offers burlesque tours, clothes and DVDs in addition to a sprawling online library of naked punk and goth women.

“The recent accusations are a little upsetting,” said “Missy,” the co-founder of SuicideGirls. “We think they’re all pretty much unfounded.”

According to the site’s critics, about 30 SuicideGirls.com models have quit in disgust over the past few weeks. Despite their resignations, their photos remain on the site, minus their ubiquitous SuicideGirls online journals.

I wonder if the company is still making money off of the pictures and whether the models agreed to let the pictures stay. Or if, at some point, they signed away the rights to their images.

Still, the woman-friendly reputation of SuicideGirls is being battered. Since its creation in 2001, media outlets have lauded the company’s focus on goth, indie and punk models who aren’t necessarily big-busted and bikini-waxed. “It wasn’t the first alt-porn site to come along, but it was certainly the most widely promoted and probably the most influential,” said John d’Addario, editor of the porn blog Fleshbot.

The message of business-side female empowerment hasn’t hurt either. “The perception that women had an important/equal role in the administration of the site probably made it more attractive to some people who might not have visited a porn site otherwise,” d’Addario said.

SuicideGirls has always been billed as porn even feminists could love. Personally, I have always been skeptical. I’ve seen young women who are not models sign up as members — their profiles indicate that they are tittilated by the idea of male attraction by association with the site brand and models.

In any case, the idea that the majority of these models are in any way an alternative to the norm is disingenuous. Throwing a tattoo on a sexpot makes… a tattooed sexpot. Most of the women featured on the site are traditionally attractive. A labret does not alt.porn make.

Two of the ex-models say they were attracted by the empowerment message, too. “I liked that you had a journal and voice, you had the chance to make your own (photo) sets,” said “Dia,” a 30-year-old former model who doesn’t wish to be identified because she now works outside the porn business in Northern California.

“I looked forward to making great art,” added Dia, who has unsuccessfully tried to get her photos off the site.

She and other models say that contrary to its image as a women-run operation, SuicideGirls is actually controlled by a man — co-founder Sean Suhl. They accuse him of treating women poorly and failing to pay them enough. (According to the site’s FAQ, SuicideGirls models get paid $300 per photo set.)

“The only reasons I’m doing this and I’m sticking my neck out is that people, especially females who are 18 years old and want to be a SuicideGirl, need to understand who they’re representing,” said 28-year-old ex-model Jennifer Caravella of San Francisco, who said she goes by the name “Sicily.” “It’s certainly not a group of women who are working together for this.”

I already knew that it was run by a man, but really, his gender is beyond the point. What matters is a) whether the company is as female-friendly as they purport to be, and b) whether the models are treated ethically.
For more detailed accounts, see two anti-SG blogs here and here.

And for what it’s worth, I believe SG is also in partnership with Playboy, a corporation not exactly known for it’s woman-friendly atmosphere. *

I’m curious what their specific charges are, more specific than the ones above. If they have not been paid their full $300 per shoot, there’s a problem. If the company is raking in money off of their pictures and the women want more money per set, I think that’s fair game. If there is proof of sexual harassment or some other something that constitutes “treating women poorly,” there is certainly a reason to expose the site for what it (potentially) is.

I don’t get off on exploitation.

* I’m not necessarily in ideological cahoots with the thoughts in this article, but do note Hugh Hefner’s response to marketing his products to teen girls and his curfew for the bunnies. Classy shit, you smarmy old man.

via Varkentine

UPDATE Hugo has more:

…this is where I find the likes of Larry Flynt (publisher of Hustler) to be less offensive than men like Sean Suhl of Suicide Girls. Flynt doesn’t pretend he’s empowering his models; he embraces raunch with a bracingly candid enthusiasm that even his detractors often find to be — almost — winsome. Fellas like Suhl are out to make money off women’s bodies in much the same way Flynt is, but in Suhl’s case, greed seems hidden behind the rhetoric of edginess, alternative culture, and a rather shallow feminism.

Word.

Together, you and I will destroy the gays.

“Exactly.”

Eugene Mirman chats with the folks at UAT long distance. Give it a listen. You will not be sorry.

After all, “UAT is the only carrier that is taking an active stand against same-sex marriage and hardcore child pornography” (although perhaps not soft-core).

A tidbit:

Eugene: AT&T sponsors child pornography?
UAT: No, that’s MCI.

Eugene: Basically, God hates MCI, AT&T and Verizon.
UAT: Yes.

It only gets better, folks.

Birthing Nightmare for African Women

The horror of obstetric fistulas is finally getting some attention — hopefully this will result in increased aid to reproductive health for women in developing nations.

What brings the girls to Dr. Waaldijk – and him to Nigeria – is the obstetric nightmare of fistulas, unknown in the West for nearly a century. Mostly teenagers who tried to deliver their first child at home, the girls failed at labor. Their babies were lodged in their narrow birth canals, and the resulting pressure cut off blood to vital tissues and ripped holes in their bowels or urethras, or both.

Now their babies were dead. And the would-be mothers, their insides wrecked, were utterly incontinent. Many had become outcasts in their own communities – rejected by their husbands, shunned by neighbors, too ashamed even to step out of their huts.

(…)

Dr. Waaldijk remembers one patient well. She managed to push out only her baby’s head before collapsing from exhaustion in her hut, he said. Her brother carried her, balanced on a donkey, to a road, where a bus driver demanded 10 times the usual fare to take her to a hospital. She half-stood, half-sat for the trip, her dead baby’s head between her legs, her urethra ripped open.

“This is what is happening,” the doctor said. “Nobody will believe it.” The fistulas point to the broader plight of millions of African women: poverty; early marriage; maternal deaths; a lack of rights, independence and education; a generally low standing. One in 18 Nigerian women dies during childbirth, compared with one in 2,400 in Europe, the Population Fund says. A larger share of African women die in childbirth than anywhere else in the world.

And the problem, as the Times shows, affects women young and old:

Nearly 600 women showed up, some arriving in busloads, when international and Nigerian officials staged a 14-day treatment campaign at Babbar Ruga and three other hospitals in February. Three hospitals ran out of beds. The youngest patient was 12.

The oldest, more than 70, had been incontinent for a half-century.

Part of the problem is that these girls are being married off as children, and having children at a very young age — according to the doctor, about a third of his patients are under the age of 15. They don’t have the right to refuse sex, to refuse early marriage, to divorce, and in some countries to own their own land. They don’t have access to birth control or sexual health information. They certainly don’t have access to the basic medical care that would prevent most of these injuries. And U.S. international aid packages require that we just tell African women, “Be abstinent until marriage.”

The UNFPA has a comprehensive campaign to end fistula in Africa (as a sidenote, the Bush administration has again cut funding to the UNFPA this year). Contribute if you can.

“This is the story about my abortion.”

One girl shares her experience of getting pregnant, going to a so-called “Crisis Pregnancy Center,” and having an abortion. From what I can tell from the post, she’s 17.

What I like about her story is that it’s complex, and it’s honest. She’s unapologetic, but recognizes that choices aren’t always made easily — and that makes it a difficult read for those on either side of the issue who like to think that “choice” is cut-and-dry. Read it.

FYI: I will be deleting any comments that personally attack or insult this young woman.

Stark Raving Atheist

Looks like someone’s got a little crush on the Feministe ladies. And, apparently, we (or at least I) are/am tools of the religious right (who knew?), intent on making gays and lesbians hate themselves by way of discovering Jesus. You learn something new every day.

I would just keep arguing this out on RA’s site, but I’m tired — and since he doesn’t leave trackbacks here, I’m bringin’ it home. I probably won’t argue my point much further here, because I think I was pretty clear in the first place, but here’s my take on religion: I consider my own beliefs to be private. I don’t think they’re any better or worse than yours, and I don’t like arguing about them in a public forum, because to me, they’re deeply personal, and between me and my God. If the fact that I believe in God makes me an idiot, fine. I don’t promote my own religion as the best one; I don’t think you’re going to hell if you don’t follow my line of belief. I recognize my religious and spiritual beliefs are often inconsistent. When it comes to the religious beliefs of others, as long as they aren’t hurting anyone and they’re not being pushed onto me, I’m cool with it. I don’t think it’s my place to tell anyone that they’re stupid or wrong for believing what they do; I don’t think hostility towards religion in general is at all productive.

Interestingly, the Raving Atheist also posts on Dawn Eden’s blog — although you wouldn’t even know they were the same person by the tone of the posts. I wonder how Dawn feels about being told her religion is a joke and she’s “retarded” (not my word choice) for believing in God at all?