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

Month: September 2008

Five Reasons I Love Cosmo

1. It is like The Onion, for feminists. Through some strange machination of the Hearst Publishing company, as of last year, I have started getting Cosmo delivered straight to my mail box. Each month I gain at least an hour of entertainment from the articles and sex tips. It’s kind of like a sexually charged Where’s Waldo, where I find myself hunting for ever more ridiculous “knowledge” about the male mind.

Like when to give your boyfriend an ultimatum. (According to the September issue of Cosmo, it’s when you’ve been in a serious, monogamous relationship for a year. Four or five moths is too soon.)

Or the health articles – I recently spotted an article titled “When Your Nipples Act Weird.”

2. It reminds me of Clueless. I fucking adore that movie, and when I read Cosmo, I totally feel like I’m talking to Cher Horowitz.

3. The Sex Tips. Just when I think they can’t get any crazier, they do. I wonder if the people who think these up are sadists. Check out these gems (handily complied by Cosmo EIC Kate White in her book You On Top: Smart, Sexy Skills Every Woman Needs to Set the World on Fire):

* When fondling your man’s penis, slip a hair scrunchy around the base of it. The tight scrunchy combined with your touch creates an amazing sensation.

*Using a bit of lube, make two fists around the shaft of his penis and twist in opposite directions.

*Mak[e] a tight ring with your thumb and forefinger around the base of his penis, for[m] a second ring around the head, and then g[o] up with one hand and down with the other.

*Tak[e] him in your mouth and then swir[l] your tongue around like a pencil sharpener.

*Take a strand of fake pearls or other beads and, holding each end, pull it back and forth around the shaft of his penis.

*Take a sip of hot water – as hot as you can stand – before going down on him, and then, keeping your mouth closed, swish it all around his penis.

*Chill a bunch of marbles in the fridge. Toss them on the bed and make him lie on them while you straddle him.

*Slip a glazed doughnut around his penis and nibble it off.

4. The indignation when people insinuate Cosmo is ridiculous. After that last sex tip, Kate White notes:

In his book I Am Charlotte Simmons, novelist Tom Wolfe mocked our write up of this move. But perhaps he was just jealous no one had ever tried it on him.

Ooooh! In your face, Tom Wolfe! Now you have to write another novel with a fresh comeback.

5. They put the word “Va-jay-jay” on the cover of a national magazine.

Okay, okay – that’s not fully fair to Cosmo. The truth is Cosmopolitan is an easy target for feminist ire. It seems to represent the worst parts of women’s magazines, with their obsession with a tight ass, perfect hair, catching a man, and then fucking him senseless until he submits and gives you a rock. (That should be the Cosmo tagline – Do it for the ring!) The articles are shallow, the subjects tepid, the covers airbrushed to within an inch of their life.

Even the search bar on the Cosmo site reminds us of the main interests of the Cosmo demographic:

Try: bikinis | boyfriends | cocktails | shoes | relationships

And yet…

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Friends of John McCain

I’ll admit to being (blessedly) ignorant of right-wing talk radio. I’ve listened to Dr. Laura a handful of times and had to shut it off before I ripped my own ears off my head. So I have no idea who Jim Quinn is, beyond what Wikipedia tells me — which means I know he’s a conservative radio-guy, and that the stations that run him are owned mostly by Clear Channel (and Christian Voice of Central Ohio).

I also know that John McCain also went on his show, ostensibly as a way to court conservatives. And what are the conservatives who listen to Jim Quinn hearing?

Well, in addition to calling the National Organization for Women the “National Organization for Whores,” Quinn had this to say about Philadelphia Daily columnist Fatimah Ali:

I’ll tell you what, folks, it’s the great depression. It’s bread lines, soup kitchens. Fatimah Ali, writing in the Philadelphia Daily — you know, Fatimah, what’s your real name? Come on, seriously. I mean, get an American name, will you, if you want to be an American. You don’t suppose she’s a liberal black Muslim, do you? I’m just curious.

I realize that to a lot of us (myself included), Quinn is just one of the many bigoted and irritating men who dominate right-wing radio. And I know it’s not considered particularly polite to point out that a lot of conservatives who listen to (and believe what they hear on) right-wing radio are bigoted assholes — after all, it’s an election year and we’re supposed to be coddling those precious conservatives who may just have a change of heart and vote Dem (and we’re supposed to do it by pretending that they represent The True American Experience, while white-washing the bigotries that underlie their political views).

And so we have a major-party candidate for the highest political position in the country going on a show that relies on racism, sexism and general bigotry to maintain its audience. We have a candidate going on that show explicitly to shore up votes from that audience. And no one seems to find this unusual precisely because, in GOP-land, it’s not unusual.

But it’s really, really wrong. And as long as the corporate media and the right wing are obsessing over Obama’s pastor and where he went to school when he was 7, it might be worth our time to point out who Republicans are associating with and actively courting in the political arena.

…and yet somehow this isn’t getting quite the same attention as Jeremiah Wright

Hello, out-there and bigoted religious views at Sarah Palin’s church:

…Palin’s church, the Wasilla Bible Church, gave its pulpit over to a figure viewed with deep hostility by many Jewish organizations: David Brickner, the executive director of Jews for Jesus.

Palin’s pastor, Larry Kroon, introduced Brickner on Aug. 17, according to a transcript of the sermon on the church’s website.

“He’s a leader of Jews for Jesus, a ministry that is out on the leading edge in a pressing, demanding area of witnessing and evangelism,” Kroon said.

Brickner then explained that Jesus and his disciples were themselves Jewish.

“The Jewish community, in particular, has a difficult time understanding this reality,” he said.
Brickner’s mission has drawn wide criticism from the organized Jewish community, and the Anti-Defamation League accused them in a report of “targeting Jews for conversion with subterfuge and deception.”

Brickner also described terrorist attacks on Israelis as God’s “judgment of unbelief” of Jews who haven’t embraced Christianity.

“Judgment is very real and we see it played out on the pages of the newspapers and on the television. It’s very real. When [Brickner’s son] was in Jerusalem he was there to witness some of that judgment, some of that conflict, when a Palestinian from East Jerusalem took a bulldozer and went plowing through a score of cars, killing numbers of people. Judgment — you can’t miss it.”

Assholery — you can’t miss it.

I’m Too Young For This

Within a two minute conversation: Ethan just informed me that his bus driver told all the kids on the bus that she posted a poem on Facebook. WHY?

He also says, in reaction to a Buffy episode, that he believes that frat houses are just like “government or Congress” in that they are secret societies bound by pledges of brotherhood.

Ow, it hurts.

Fighting Sexism With Sexism

It sure is interesting to see conservatives adopt the banner of feminism now that Sarah Palin is on the ticket. I can’t help but shake my head every time I hear or read one of them say, “Had she been a man…” — simply because conservatives have spent the past century or so totally dismissing that line of argument. I guess when it’s a woman on their side — you know, the side that wants to do away with most of the gains that women in this country have made, and that traditionally shames women like Sarah Palin who are “careerists” — it’s valid. And for not offering our full-throated support to Sarah Palin — a woman who is anti-choice, anti-contraception, anti-education, pro-gun — we’re the hypocrites.

At least that’s the story the Wall Street Journal is sticking with. Because, see, sexism is so bad that in order to fight it, you should start your op/ed off like this:

The glummest face Wednesday night might have been, if only we could have seen it, that of Hillary Clinton.

Imagine watching Sarah Palin, the gun-toting, lifelong member of the NRA, the PTA mom with teased hair and hips half the size of Hillary’s, who went … omigod … to the University of Idaho and studied journalism. Mrs. Palin with her five kids and one of them still virtually suckling age, going wham through that cement ceiling put there exclusively for good-looking right-wing/populist conservative females by not-so-good-looking left-wing ones (Gloria Steinem excepting). There, pending some terrible goof or revelation, stood the woman most likely to get into the Oval Office as its official occupant rather than as an intern.

It is hypocritical, I think, to speculate about Palin’s choices in having her children (i.e., “Why didn’t she go to the hospital sooner when she was giving birth to Trig?;” “Why did she go back to work three days after having a baby?”; “How is she going to manage being a mother of five/mother of a special needs baby/mother of a pregnant teenager and be the VP?”) when we would never do the same to a progressive female politician (and let’s be honest, we wouldn’t). So I would be a-ok with everyone on the left knocking off that line of questioning. “How is she going to do it?” She would be Vice President of the United States. She’d have more resources on-hand than the vast majority of women in America. As the governor of a state she has a lot of options. She’s coming from a position of extreme privilege. That’s how she does it.

What I’m more interested in is how she (and all those male politicians who also have kids — remember them?) is going to make the kinds of resources she’s had access to available to all of us. I’m interested in how she’s going to help other working parents, single parents, young mothers, and women who are trying not to become mothers just yet.

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A Little More on Motherhood and Choice

….and then I swear I am done. No more politics!

Maegan, aka La Mamita Mala, gives her thoughts on the parameters of motherhood:

So what does this Palin parranda of information and analysis mean to mamis of color, Latina mamis like me? Not surprisingly, nada.

Sarah Palin wants to put herself out there as “every woman”. She wants to be seen as “just your average hockey mom”, and other mommies see themselves and their reality reflected through Palin, except, mamis of color, that is.

The talk returns to mommy wars, not mami wars, because the entire conversation excludes Latinas and other moms of color. We are not even soldiers. Even for so called progressive white feminist, the war is fought by them and maybe, if mamis like me are lucky, we’ll reap some benefit. When I was a pregnant teenager, in a Latin American country where abortion was and still is illegal (Chile), there was no opting out of pregnancy or working. Which is why the debate of how Palin could go back to work after having a baby with special needs or how a pregnant unmarried teenage daughter is being used, feels like a sideshow with little significance in reality. The politics of choice is being raised, with the emergence of a woman who is anti-choice, even in cases of rape or incest and with no talk of how for women of color, choice goes beyond an abortion and means the very right to have children (forget 5!) Imaginate if Michelle Obama had five children? Imaginate if one of the Obama children were older and pregnant? Imagine the hate and stereotypes that would be unleashed? Oh wait, I don’t have to imagine, as a single mami of color, I live it. Palin’s large brood isn’t seen as a strain on the system. They are a beautiful portrait of an “American” family making every other family, families like mine, ugly.

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I am shocked, shocked to find a racist Republican

The Republican Party hasn’t come to terms with doesn’t have a problem with racism (via The Hill):

Georgia Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland used the racially-tinged term “uppity” to describe Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama Thursday.

Westmoreland was discussing vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin’s speech with reporters outside the House chamber and was asked to compare her with Michelle Obama.

“Just from what little I’ve seen of her and Mr. Obama, Sen. Obama, they’re a member of an elitist-class individual that thinks that they’re uppity,” Westmoreland said.

Asked to clarify that he used the word “uppity,” Westmoreland said, “Uppity, yeah.”

Yes, this is only one congressperson, but I have no doubt that many, many other Republicans feel similarly.  Indeed, the GOP’s anti-Obama narrative is driven by the claim that Obama is an “elitist” who can’t understand “regular people.”   Now, this is thrown at any Democrat running for higher office (see John Kerry, 2004), but when applied to Obama, it can’t help but sound like code for “uppity.”  I think the folks on McCain’s campaign realized that, and I think they’re running with it.  One Drop at Too Sense says it best:

Whenever one of Obama’s critics talks about “average Americans” and makes reference to Obama being an “elitist” or a “snob”, this is what they are saying to working-class and lower-class whites:

“That nigger is looking down on you. How dare he look down on you? How dare he think he’s better than you and yours? How dare he talk like he thinks he knows better than you?”

Welcome to Nixonland folks, I hope you enjoy the ride.

cross-posted at my blog

Women vs. Women on Sarah Palin

I hate being in this position.

I truly do.

The blog I edit is an anti-racist one. That is our focus. It is staffed entirely by women. We prefer not to deal with sexism, either. So, in a nutshell, covering this election has been a pain in the ass. As the main moderator, I get in fights all the time with readers about everything under the sun.

“No, you don’t have to like Barack Obama to be on our site. No, we didn’t think that was sexist. Okay, I’ll put up a thread about it. No, that’s not true. No, I said stop that now. WTF? Why are you comparing him to OJ?!?”

“No, you shouldn’t use sexist language against Hillary Clinton. Yes, I can read, I saw those remarks. I don’t care if you don’t like her, there are other ways to make your point. No, that nickname is not cute. I don’t give a damn what you *think* you’re saying in the comment, spell her name right or it isn’t getting approved!”

The election cycle threw a spotlight on the uneasy territory alliances we have working around issues of prejudice, and every couple minutes, there is a new hotspot waiting to flare up.

I got sent an article last week, which basically read “Black women can’t complain about the sexism aimed at Michelle Obama because you didn’t stand up for Hillary!”

I had Nadra respond. In an even handed response, she notes: “It wasn’t that black women felt that privileged white women couldn’t speak out against sexism. It was that, during the primaries, such white women seemed to be doing so at the expense of blacks.” And even in that comment thread, tempers flared around all the past dealings and past hurts. (If you comment on that thread, please read *all* the submissions first, so you have an idea of the flow of the conversation.)

So, when Sarah Palin hit the scene, I was expecting a break.

She’s a Republican. An anti-choicer. She fully drank the kool-aid about Iraq, Oil, Iran and everything. There is no way I am going to have to argue against her AND defend her, right?

Wrong!

Carmen called it out first, noting in the comments section to the open thread:

Carmen Van Kerckhove wrote:

A few random thoughts:

1) Palin (or her speechwriter) has a killer instinct for soundbites. There’s a reason every single media outlet is repeating that line about pitbull and lipstick ad nauseum.

2) I’m not down with criticism of Palin centered on her ability to balance the VP job and her large family and young baby (e.g. the last point in John Riley’s piece). She has a stay-at-home husband for god’s sake. We would not be asking these questions if she were a man.

3) Related to point 2, Obama supporters really need to avoid falling into the trap of using sexist and racist attacks on the McCain camp. I’ve seen a couple bloggers I otherwise respect using words like “cracker” and “ho” to describe McCain, his wife, and Palin. You can’t criticize sexist/racist attacks on the Obamas if you’re doing the exact same shit.

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 12:00 pm ¶ (Edit)

Some readers agreed – some pushed back hard.

Nina wrote:

Carmen, I have to disagree that questions about Palin’s family and how it will afffect her leadership are off limits. Palin constantly brings up her son going to Iraq, her special needs newborn, and now her pregnant teenage daughter. She even gave a cover interview to People Magazine about these topics. Why should she not be asked about these situations and why should such questions be considered sexist? John Edwards was questioned about continuing to run for office when his wife’s cancer returned and that was far less of a political issue than the war in Iraq, abstinence-only sex education or the abortion debate*.

Furthermore, as a mother in the workforce, Palin should shine a light on the challenges faced by working mothers and possibly champion change in that area. She should not shy away from these questions nor claim they are sexist. These are womens issues. Millions of women have to make tough choices everyday about when to become mothers, whether to stay at home with their children or whether to work. If Palin can’t bring these issues to the forefront what kind of a maverick is she?

*I always find it interesting that Republicans refuse to respond to questions about their families (Cheney’s lesbian daughter, Bush’s daughters’ drunken antics) but have no problem attacking the families of democrats (remember the mud heaped on both Jimmy Carter’s and Bill Clinton’s wayward brothers?)

Posted 04 Sep 2008 at 5:52 pm ¶ (Edit)

Winn wrote:

@ Nina: cosign! I find it interesting that Palin has used her family as evidence of her conservative and traditional family values bona fides, but questioning her about how she will balance the demands of that family, particularly with respect to a special needs child and a pregnant teenager, with the responsibility of holding the second highest office in the land, is sexist and off-limits?

As was pointed out, John Edwards’ commitment to his family was questioned when he elected to stay in the race after the recurrence of his wife’s cancer. There were several articles talking about Rudy Giuliani’s strained relationship with his children, their failure to participate in his presidential bid, and wondering if his overarching ambition had irreparably damaged his relationship with his children. The clear implication was, he couldn’t manage his own household, so how fit was he to lead the country? I also recall reading articles questioning whether Mitt Romney’s “too perfect” family would backfire on him as the campaign wore on and people found him too difficult to identify with and suggested that something was phony about him. So how candidates present and interact with their families plays a role in how they are perceived by the electorate, for good or ill, and if carefully navigated, can be legitimate lines of inquiry to pursue.

In fact, in an article on Romney last year in the LA Times, an audience member at a stump speech in which Romney exhorted the crowd to encourage stronger families by teaching teenagers to marry before having children (natch!) nodded appreciatively and said, “If you can’t run a family, how can you run a country”? I’m not saying I agree with this sentiment, but I don’t think the people who do only feel that way about female candidates, especially ones who put their family at the top of their professional resume.

Michelle wrote:

Hey Carmen and LaToya and the rest…

I completely agree with you. No one would ask about her ability to lead the country with five kids at home if she were a man. However, and this is important to me, so far she has presented herself as someone with very traditional values. In a traditional, Christian paradigm, the brunt of the work of raising and caring for children falls on the mother’s shoulders. If that is not the case for her then she should address it. I only bring it up because of the model of parenting that she seems to present, not because she is a woman with kids. Because she is woman with kids who makes it seem like she doesn’t believe in childcare, that she can do it alone. Her husband does have a job. He has two. He works a union job and he is a commercial fisherman. I would like to know if he plans to quit both jobs and stay home with the kids. Lastly, even if he does, it takes a lot more than one person to care for an infant with special needs, a pregnant teenager, and two other small children. I think it only advances the cause of working women if Palin would say that she will need help, that her family will need adequate childcare, just like all working women need adequate childcare. I have a problem with women who make it seem like other women are “whining” when they complain about needing childcare so that they can work and care for their families. Lastly, and this is also important to me, she doesn’t believe in birth control. So, I think it is important to ask if she will be getting pregnant while in office. I think that is a very good question. While pregnancy is not a health issue in general, for someone of her age, it would be a high risk pregnancy. That is something that we need to really be clear on before her ability to lead the nation is really ascertained.

Our readers raise great points. I was still mulling over them, and trying to figure out a way to respond when I checked in with one of my favorite bloggers. Expecting a post on careers, I was a little surprised at the heading.

Penelope Trunk’s headline was “Palin’s children should take priority over being Vice President.”

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Open Thread: Politics, In General

Some quick background on me.

I am a registered Independent voter. I generally vote Democrat, Independent or Green. (This may change, since I have only been eligible to vote in one state election and one federal election.) I have considered some Republican candidates (see: former Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich) but there was always some kind of red flag waving in my face at the last minute.

In this election, I endorsed Barack Obama. (The entire team of Racialicious at the time did, though we were not expecting to do so. We all prepared our statements separately, for a joint post, and then realized we were all supporting BHO.)

However, due to how the political climate is changing, I am considering submitting an op-ed for why women who feel disenfranchised by both parties should be voting green instead of opting out of the process. I am dismayed that the McKinney/Clemente ticket is not getting more time in the news.

And, what bothers me the most, is how the election news cycle is being framed in this election. I read pages and pages of opinion and analysis, and watch hours and hours of punditry and I am still not hearing the questions that are knocking around my mind.

“Drill, baby, drill!” But how is that going to help Americans now, when we will not reap the benefits for seventeen years? Why are we trying to wean ourselves off a dependency to foreign oil, just to create a new dependency on a stateside finite resource?

“Barack Obama wants to raise taxes!” But how else are we going to pay for the War? (You know, the War they keep cutting out of the budget estimates because it throws the budget off?) Someone has to pay the piper, and I haven’t seen anyone collecting tin cans or growing a victory garden in my neighborhood. And who – on either side of the aisle – has a plan for the budget? And where the fuck is the accountability for all of these punk ass contractors that are wasting billions of dollars for services that they may or may not be providing? (KBR, I’m looking at you. And you aren’t the only one.)

“Sarah Palin’s baby has a baby!” And? Where the hell are the plans for working mothers? What happened to all the discussions on poverty? Where is the townhall on how relying on the “market*” isn’t producing the jobs America needs? What about corporate accountability as well as individual accountability? And what the hell happened to the discussions on Social Security? Did we decide that program is FUBAR? Because if so, I would love to see y’all stop taking that out of my check.

[Oh, surprise! I’m a fiscal conservative. I’ve also lived in the ‘burbs of Washington my whole life and I currently work in a bureaucratic position designed to prevent reckless spending. We have more than enough money to pay for social programs, and we don’t even need to raise taxes. But that’s another post, for another day.]

I feel like there are a lot of comments that need to be made, and conversations that just aren’t happening. So this thread is for that. Feel free to argue/vent/scream/nitpick as you will. Over at Racialicious, we are discussing the RNC and the GOP at large. Here, I would love to hear just about anything. Party politics or social justice, have at it!

*Don’t quibble over the definition of the market here, I have a post coming out about capitalism, where we can yell about the market all we want to.