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

Month: October 2011

Modern Dating

Via the Awl:

“After a first date on a Saturday night, if it gets past 11.48am on Monday without a text or call then there’s not much chance of a second outing, a survey has found.” Even better: “The three-day rule might have worked when all we had were landlines, but technology has revolutionised how we date. When everybody takes their mobile phone everywhere, waiting three days to get in touch just makes you look snooty or, worse, like you have run out of credit.”

True story: I was in Germany a while back, talking to a nice young German man about dating and cultural differences.

He said, “The way Americans date is weird.”

I said, “Well yes, but how so?”

He said, “The whole waiting three days until you call rule. Is that REALLY a rule? Do people actually do that? They always do it on TV and it seems weird.”

I said, “I hate when people do that, and I think it’s less common now than it used to be? But yes, some people actually do that. I think they learned it from Swingers, which seems like a bad way to learn anything. They don’t do that here?”

He said, “No, they don’t. I had never heard of it until I was watching American TV. And I have no idea what Swingers is?”

I said, “Don’t worry about Swingers. Anyway, dating in real life isn’t exactly like TV, even in the U.S. where it is indeed super weird. If someone waits three days to call me, I’m going to assume they’re not interested.”

He said, “Ok. So I guess what I’m trying to say is, how accurate is How I Met Your Mother?”

Wednesday Oct. 26th: Debating Abortion Rights at Trinity College

On Wednesday Oct. 26th I’ll be at Trinity College in Dublin, debating the resolution “This House Believes Abortion is a Woman’s Choice” (you can probably guess which side I come down on). My sparring partner is Serrin Foster from Feminists For Life. I hope Dublin feminists can make it! And, for any Irish readers, what should the debate touch on? Any particular resources I should check out, or points that I should make? My familiarity with abortion politics is fairly U.S.-centric, so I’m particularly open to suggestions that address Ireland specifically.

As an aside, I’ll be spending the week in Ireland (working for much of it, but getting to travel at least a little). I’m hoping to do three days on the western coast, and the rest of the time in and around Dublin. Any travel tips or recommendations?

The Back of the Bus

Didn’t an iconic figure in the American civil rights movement already take this one on?

In many ways, the B110 bus that connects South Williamsburg and Borough Park seems like any other bus. It has a route number and blue bus stop signs like any other city bus, and it’s open to the public. But the B110 is operated by a private company, Private Transportation Corporation, which pays the city for the right to provide a public service. And reporter Sasha Chavkin finds that on this bus—which caters to a predominately Orthodox Jewish ridership—special rules apply. Namely, women get the Rosa Parks treatment.

Chavkin recently asked an acquaintance to ride the B110 recently and found that female passengers are asked to sit in the back. His canary in the Hasidic coalmine encountered a bus full with “Orthodox Jews with full beards, sidecurls and long black coats, who told her that she was riding ‘a private bus’ and ‘a Jewish bus.'” When she asked why she had to move, a man scolded her, explaining, “If God makes a rule, you don’t ask ‘Why make the rule?”
…
A female Post reporter had a similar experience when she sat in the front of the B110, where signs written in Hebrew and English also direct women to use the back door during busy times.

Yeah no.

This bus in question is run by a private company, but has a contract with New York City in order to operate — and that contract requires that the franchise “comply with all applicable laws and is prohibited from discriminating in the provision of the bus service on the basis of race, creed, color, national origin, sex, age, handicap, marital status, or real or perceived sexual orientation.”

In other words, they’re really not supposed to be sending women to the back of the bus. But it’s kind of amazing how many commenters over at Gothamist are like, “It’s religion, not discrimination!” Sure.

Thanks, Zuzu, for the link.

Also: pink NFL jerseys

This book is dedicated … to those women who cope with kids six days a week and when it’s Daddy’s turn on Sunday–find him long gone to the stadium or equally long gone in front of the TV, watching football from August to January.

All this is generally bad news for American Womanhood.

Definitely. That a woman should be expected to take care of the kids solo all week, and then when their dad has a single day of responsibility there, he still manages to find a way to dick off? That is terrible (if not uncommon) news. It’s not good for a woman to have sole responsibility for homemaking in what is generally accepted as a domestic partnership, and it’s not good for kids to grow up seeing manhood modeled by a guy who can’t be bothered to participate in said partnership.

Except this isn’t commentary on contemporary women’s issues circa 2011–it’s commentary on American football (or, as I like to call it, God’s football) circa 1966. Bird’s Eye Vegetables’ “Ladies Guide to Football” teaches you enough about football to “ask your hero intelligent questions” so he’ll let you hang out with him while he watches football.

And that’s what all women want, isn’t it? Not to be left out of things or, Heaven forbid! ignored.

As the gendered, outdated guide to Good Wifehood that it is, this book is kind of funny/sad. But simply as a guide to God’s football for the uninitiated–without the gendering–it’s actually pretty good. It translates the refs’ arcane hand signals, gives an illustrated rundown of various player positions, and provides a glossary of football terms that don’t really self-define. I know more than a few guys who would benefit from a book like this, because they don’t really understand the game but have to pretend to avoid being unmanly. And the design reminds me of a reading book I had in elementary school.

Read More…Read More…

Steven Greenstreet proves he’s definitely not a misogynist by making rape jokes.

Steven Greenstreet is the dude behind the Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street tumblr and video. That video has gotten a lot of attention — a lot of women and some dudes have been like “well this is fucked up,” and then some other dudes have been like “I don’t see what the big deal is, boys will be boys and what’s wrong with wanting to meet attractive women at a protest?”

And like I said in my initial post, the deflecting from legitimate concerns, and the fact that the OWS “public” includes a lot of men who think it’s ok to treat women at a protest like we’re there for their visual fulfillment, troubles me. No one is saying, “Don’t find women attractive.” I actually like hot chicks too! No one is saying “Don’t meet hot people at a protest.” People meet people in all kinds of social settings, and that’s great. I met a past boyfriend at a liberal blog conference. Meet away, I say. No one is objecting to dating or hooking up or meeting women or meeting men. No one is objecting to the fact that straight men are attracted to some women (fun fact: straight women are also attracted to some men! So really, no one is pissed about attraction, I promise). What people are pissed about is what Rebecca Traister says:

The larger, simpler argument, outside of consent or permission, is: This video is sexist. It’s an example of women participating in public life — political, professional, social — and having their participation reduced to sexual objectification. That’s what happened here, nothing more, nothing less.

The notion that dressing in a certain way is an invitation (and presumably that dressing in another way is not) is flawed. There is no way for women to dress (dresses, shorts, jeans, overalls) that is not considered an invitation by someone. When you add in the ways in which women are expected to dress in order to be taken seriously, or liked, or listened to or paid attention to, and then add to that assumptions that the choices that they make equal invitations to be ogled, it leaves women no sartorial freedom.

Emphasis mine. If you’re at an event and you strike up conversation with someone cute? Wonderful. But creating a blog and a video dedicated to showing women at a protest with the sole purpose of reminding dudes that women at the protest are hot? That does reduce women to objects of male attention. It’s another reminder, for women, that how seriously we’re taken and how valuable we are depends on how sexually attractive we’re deemed. That it’s ok to use us as bait because hey, it’ll attract more dudes to the protest!

Frankly, the kinds of dudes who would come to the OWS protests because they heard there are hot chicks there? Are not the kinds of dudes I want to be protesting with. I would hope they’re not the kinds of dudes that most progressives would want to be protesting with — but judging by the lefty-dude reaction to Steven Greenstreet (hi Matt Zoller Seitz, looking at you!), that’s not the case. It’s disappointing. It’s pretty shitty to know that some progressive men are a-ok with female protestors being portrayed as boner-bait, because boys will be boys and it’s all in good fun. It’s also worth noting here that actual sexual assaults have happened at OWS.

Also? The early “he’s a misogynist creep” vibe that I got off of Steven Greenstreet appears to be pretty on. I avoid Twitter fights like the plague because nothing productive ever happens in 140 characters, but last night Mr. Greenstreet apparently spent the evening google-imaging me and then kindly used his Twitter account to link to photos of me wearing — get ready, ladies, it’s shocking — a dress, in a feminist eco-friendly fashion show my friend Kate hosted, where she used her friends because she didn’t want to exclusively feature traditional very thin models. Greenstreet added commentary like, “Oh I see, dressing in a short skirt and showing off your body to leering men is totally cool only when you do it” and “Love how these guys stare as you show off your curves.”

Because walking in a friend’s fashion show is totally the same thing as taking pictures of women on the street without their knowledge or permission and putting them on a “hot girls” website. And yes, by wearing a skirt in some photos I was obviously asking for it, right? Not creepy at all. Just totally normal guy stuff.

Steven is also mad that I use the f-word sometimes. It is a shame that I am the face of feminism, he says. Steven Greenstreet would definitely do feminism better than me. Especially when he gets all rape jokey.

Read More…Read More…

Links for 10-18-2011

Hi everyone !

Here are some of the things you should read/watch/check out this week :

A moving piece on abuse and gymnatics, over at Jezebel.

The Population Action International recently released this film, on the impact of climate change on women.

Last week we celebrated Coming Out Day – and Basic Rights Oregon marked the occasion by producing a video series, Our Families, that highlights the experiences of LGBT people of colour. The first video focuses on the Asian and Pacific Islander community, the second on the Latino community and the third on the African-American community.

Last weekend marked another anniversary : the twenty years of the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings. Read about Anita Hill’s legacy here, or watch the fantastic conference Anita Hill : 20 Years Later here.

For those interested in the ongoing debate over how revolutionary Occupy Wall Street is or isn’t, this is an important piece to read.

Also, your dose of depressing is brought to you by this remarkable charming ad that was published by both the National Post and the Toronto Sun.

Aaaand in good news of the week, the Moroccan minister of Social Development and the Family, Nouzha Skalli, said that the “legalization of abortion in extreme cases such as rape or incest” was not taboo anymore and is part of the government platform. Yay for steps in the right direction!

As usual, if you’d like something to be featured in these, please do email feministe@gmail.com.

Oh Sam Sifton, I will miss you as the Times food critic

Say what you will about Sifty’s preferences when it comes to dining — I tend to be pretty on-board with his recommendations, but there are have been a few that I think were slightly off — he’s one of the best good-review writers out there. Bruni wrote two of my favorite bad restaurant reviews of all time — hilariously mean, exactly on-point — but thinking up new and exciting ways to say “that was delicious” is particularly difficult. So I’m sorry to see Sifton go (unless Jill Abramson wants to call me up and offer the position, in which case Sam can’t clear out his desk fast enough). This piece about the highlights of restaurant criticism is exactly why I love the guy. A few samples:

All criticism is argument. Mine has been from the start that restaurants are culture, and that there is no better perch from which to examine our shared values and beliefs, behavior and attitudes, than a seat in a restaurant dining room, observing life’s pageant in the presence of food and drink.

Take an abysmal meal I had one night at Hotel Griffou, a warren of rooms below a town house on West Ninth Street: nasty, brutal and short. Worst of all was an entree of chorizo-stuffed squid that tasted of rubber and sawdust, as if it had been fashioned at a sex-toy factory. My guest pushed at the thing with his fork. It repelled his efforts.

Instead, my guest and I hustled over to the John Dory Oyster Bar, where April Bloomfield cooks a similar dish, but brilliantly. My guest was nervous from his earlier experience. But when he bit into the food, his eyes went wide and he started to woof that way that people do when they want to talk and they want to keep eating at the same time because it is so delicious. I felt a surge of love for the city that can provide such antidotes to misery, and so easily.

Sommeliers are as rare and amazing in the general population as albino squirrels.

It looked like an abscess, frankly. It tasted like godhead.

And he gives a shout-out to one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants at the end. Sifty, next time you’re at Frankie’s, call me and I’ll split the cavatelli and the meatballs with you.

Another day, another man kills his ex-wife, MRAs cheer

A man in California shot and killed his ex-wife and seven other people last week. The two were involved in a bitter custody dispute over their son. The story is incredibly sad, but men’s rights activists (“MRAs,” going forward) have again taken it as a lesson in the evils of both women and a legal system that promotes the ideal that both parents should have rights. American laws have evolved to reflect the fact that mothers are more than mere incubators to produce children for men, and MRAs are not so much on board with that. Divorce laws that give both parents custody of the children but that may limit custody when one parent is abusive or violent apparently “drive” men to shoot their ex-wives and seven bystanders. So, limiting custody when a parent is abusive or violent is “misandrist” (a word that is right up there with “reverse racism” in terms of usefulness or accuracy) because men aren’t really violent, bitches just lie to steal a man’s kids from him; but when men whose custody is limited because of accusations of violence proceed to act violently by killing their exes, their kids, themselves or innocent bystanders, well, bitches made him do it.

It’s worth noting that the shooter in the California case was in fact given an equal custody split with his ex; that didn’t seem fair, apparently.

Like David, I don’t know any details of the shooter’s ideology or politics, but the MRA reaction has been predictable (though nonetheless startling). MRAs are, quite simply, men who hate women. They especially hate feminists, or women with opinions beyond “Whatever you think, dear.” Because they believe men are superior, they also believe that men should have pretty much free reign to behave however they want towards their women and their children. They believe that violence is often necessary to maintain control, and that judges who declare that children should be placed in non-violent households are anti-male. They believe that violence is provoked by women who don’t know their place. Case(s) in point:

Essentially men need to tell feminism to shut the fuck up, give it a vigorous slap across the face thus reminding it who is the biological superior, then order it back into the kitchen/bedroom.

Gandi [sic] and MLK got what they were after via non-violent means, but they were dealing with people of conscience, people who would think about the issues they espoused and not just kill them. Non-violence only works when your opponent has moral character. …

I submit that women … are much more likely to pay attention when they’re being threatened. If it becomes obvious that claiming child abuse during divorce, withholding visitation and other such actions could result in their death, then they might think twice about such behavior.

You can read more at Man Boobz.