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Can't say how I missed it (except that sometimes Slate boooores me), but apparently the lady-folk over there (including a former classmate of mine) have taken to blogging: political blogging from the female perspective, to be precise. Now, there's lots of chatter out there that this bad, because it ghettoizes women, and that it's totally banal, because all these ladies have to talk about are their domestic travails. But I for one will cheer for The XX Factor, because it's nice--and important--to have more female voices out there, talking about whatever the hell they please.
And if you happen to need more on that particular topic, check out my mom's blog post today on the HuffPo. Rock on, CJ!!!!
Not that I'm unhappy that the Detroit News gave a little page space to the descent of thousands of feminist activists onto their home turf, but I'm a little tired of hearing the same old news about how old feminists and new feminists (such as they apparently are) don't see eye to eye. Yes, we know: things are different now. We don't get them and they don't get us. But can we get over promulgating the mythology and get to work already?
Many of us "young" women--those of us of the third wave--aren't all that young anymore, and I predict that within 10 years (if not less) none of this will be an issue. Why? Because, quite frankly, they've got to retire sometime. Given that fact, it would be better, it seems to me, to spend the intervening years figuring out what comes next and how we want to shape that future based on our own needs and realities--rather than squabbling over who owns the movement. And yes, this is largely about the press and their depiction of what's going on... but we who are feminists are clearly implicated. Because if we refuse to take part in the argument, the press won't have anything to write about, will they?
Just some food for thought as I prepare to ride off into the Berkshires for the weekend...
Jane is closing its doors.
Not that I've bought a copy of the magazine in years, or even more than glanced at it while getting my nails done, but still... you don't like to see magazines like this one--irreverent and thought-provoking at its best--die. And you definitely don't want to hear from folks like magazine editor Sally Koslow that this kind of thing was inevitable because, well, nobody likes that much attitude.
For the record, I think there are plenty of us who like that much attitude and more--it's just, apparently, that none of us were buying Jane anymore. Perhaps because we're building adult lives and reading The New Yorker, or buying our first houses and paging through Domino to fill them. Or maybe it's because it never really felt the same once founder/EIC Jane Pratt hit the road. And no, it was never as good as Sassy (which turned out not to be sustainable either). But it was a magazine it felt reassuring to have out there, even if you didn't buy it: some funky counter to Seventeen and Elle and all the other mags that seem born just to remind you you're not quite good enough.
And now it's gone. I'm sure I can find my irreverence in the pages of Bitch and Bust, but I gotta tell ya: there really was something nice about the idea that big, corporate Conde Nast was pouring bucks into something just the teensiest bit subversive. Say goodbye to all that, folks, and pour a little out for our sisters at Jane.
This weekend, Title IX--the crucial piece of Civil Rights legislation that made it illegal for educational institutions that receive federal funding to discriminate on the basis of sex--turned 35 years old. That's something to celebrate, even despite (or especially because of) the fact that the amendment has recently been given a swift kick in the gut by the Bush Administration.
In today's HuffPo, Rep. Linda Sanchez offers up a brief look at why Title IX is worth defending, pointing out that it's not just female athletes who have benefited from the legislation, but any and all females in search of education. That's one aspect that doesn't get mentioned enough, in my opinion.
Further to my last post, check out Andrea Otanez's opinion piece from yesterday's Seattle Times (via the Women's Media Center). I'd say it's not just a turning tide, but a tidal wave of opposition to women's voices and issues we're witnessing--but whatever your metaphor of choice, this piece gives some good food for thought... and a touch of hope.
So somehow I forgot to mention that I'm now also blogging for the HuffPo, and yesterday, my first piece ran. It's about violence and women and sports and dogs, and if you'd like to take a gander at it, you can find it here.
If you read the comments section, and you're a thinking person, you'll get a good laugh... It's great when folks get outraged and claim that violence against women isn't a "real" political issue. It's comments like those, from so called progressives no less, that make it the clearer to me why we need more women speaking the truth in the public forum. Otherwise, it all gets cast as sideline chatter. Pheh.
So I got to begin my day this morning with a huge, fun, bang: the 20th annual New York Women's Foundation breakfast. I was invited by my friends Liz and Ingrid, and joined by my friend Susan (all of whom I've mentioned before). The food was what it was, of course, and don't get me started about paying $150 for a plate of fruit ( I know, I know: my money was going to a good cause), but let me tell you: if you ever have a chance to attend one of these NYWF breakfasts, go. Not only because the honorees tend to be great, as do the 2400 other women in the room there to support them, but also because this event, like none of the others I attend on a semi-regular basis, always seems to leave me with a little extra oomph to get me going, get me giving, get me passionate about why supporting women's organizations is so important.
Tomorrow I'll tell you a little more about why this year's event was so special (hint: it has to do with the dedication and generosity of a "Minnie" heiress), but for now, I'll leave it at this: there are more than a few really good--no, great--people in this world... and we all have a chance to join their ranks. Go visit the NYWF and find out how.
Today was Take Our Daughters and Sons to work day, so, as part of the j-o-b, I was up and at 'em for 6:30 am press event and didn't wrap up the day until about 12 hours later. It was exhilarating and exhausting, and I'm glad it's over--but mostly just wanted to share by way of explanation of why I haven't posted until now and why this one is gonna be short. More tomorrow... time for me to curl up and drift away.
The Ms. Foundation for Women (an organization near and dear to my heart) today released its official statement on the Supreme Court's ruling on "partial birth" abortion. I may be biased (ahem), bit I think it makes a pretty decent case about what's at stake in this particular miscarriage of justice (if you'll pardon the pun).
Since I used my earlier post to wax teary-eyed about my wonderfully indulgent weekend, I figure it's time right about now to let you know what's keeping the newshound in me glued to the screen.
Deadliest Shooting Rampage in American History: Today, at Virginia Tech, 31 people were killed by a lone gunman; another 22 were injured, at last count. According to the NY Times, today's shooting comes just a few days shy of the eighth anniversary of the school shooting at Columbine, which left 12 students dead.
Kidneys for Sale: Should people be allowed to sell their own organs? William Saletan asks the question and here's my answer: Hell, no. I understand that there are people out there who are dying for need of an organ, but, like Saletan, I believe that issue it best addressed by encouraging more folks to become organ donors at the time of their death, not by putting people who are already vulnerable (read: poor) under increasing pressure to make a buck by selling off their inner goods. Enough already.
Another Sanchez Backs Away From Hispanic Caucus: Just a few months after her sister, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, resigned from the National Hispanic Caucus after accusing the chair of calling her a "whore", Rep. Linda Sanchez has now also cut her ties with the group. Though she says her resignation has nothing to do with the "whore" issue--and is instead about "structural issues"--I hope that's not entirely true. Anybody (or association) that called my sister names wouldn't be getting my support either.
Last night as Jess and I watched feature after television feature about Don Imus and his insanity, I reached a point where I absolutely hit the wall: I don't want to hear another THING about Don Imus, I said, and I meant it. I didn't want to hear the phrase "nappy headed hos" come flying out of his mouth one more time on constant repeat; I didn't want to hear Anderson Cooper's stats about how powerful Imus is relative to his radio peers (apparently he ranks at #14--Rush Limbaugh is #1); and I definitely didn't want to hear Joe Scarborough and Bill Maher talk about how "sad" it is to see a "mustang" like Imus cowed (are they kidding me???). I was done, done and done with this topic. So I went to bed.
And then I woke up this morning and there was Al Roker, interviewing Spike Lee and Whoopi Goldberg on the Today show. And that stopped me dead in my tracks--because when was the last time you turned on the biggest morning news show there is to see 3 black folks talking to each other and the rest of us about race in America? NEVER! And then I saw the front page of the print edition of the NY Times and there were the faces of the Rutgers women's basketball team--and the same thing on the cover of USA Today. Again, I ask you: when was the last time the major papers put a group of black faces on their cover that didn't have to do with a drug bust or a violent crime? Seriously--when? I bet you can't think of an example and I can tell you why: because it doesn't happen. Because though you may not have noticed it, black people don't get much play in the media unless they have done something wrong.
And that is why today, I am over being over Imus. I am now totally, 100% in the camp of let's keep talking about this; let's keep pushing for his dismissal. Because the longer we talk about it, the more space gets created for those of us who usually get pushed aside in the media discourse to speak up and be heard. One of the defenses that I've found the oddest in this whole debacle, which has been offered both by Imus and his defenders, is that rappers and other blacks have been calling black women "hos" for years. Ignoring for a moment that this is really no excuse at all, it's interesting to note that for just about as long as the word has been circulating in contemporary pop-culture, black leaders (Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, et al) have been fighting against it. The fact that nobody who's not black knows this is precisely the result of the fact that on your average day, the media has no interest in what black people have to say--about their own communities or about the world at large.
In any case, as terrible as this all is, I'm happy to finally see some real black people on TV, talking about the real and persistent issue of racism in our society. Now what we need are a few women, black, white or otherwise, to stand up and claim this as a women's issue as well. Not too many folks have pointed out that after the "nappy headed hos" comment, Imus went on to riff on the attractiveness of the Tennessee team and how he'd like to insinuate himself sexually in their midst. The point? This isn't just about race, it's about sex and gender, too. And every self-respecting woman in America ought to be crying from the rooftops in defense of these girls. Kim Gandy from NOW fired the opening salvo, and Rosie O'Donnell seconded the call yesterday. Today, Selena Roberts' article in the Times sports section offers up another set of arrows for our quiver. Let's see who else steps up to the plate.
Can't help but provide more links to the coverage of the Don Imus story, which is reaching fever pitch--as well it should. Kim Gandy, President of NOW, has spoken out about the controversy, which has now earned Imus a two-week suspension from his job at CBS radio and MSNBC (which airs the simulcast of his show on television). On the WIMN's voices blog, Jill Nelson reports on her own response to the event, while AlterNet's Don Hazen gives a good overview of what happened and why Imus is allowed to get away with it. And at the NYT, Gwen Ifill is brought back to give her first person account of being called a "cleaning lady" by Imus years ago. Even Al Roker is now calling for Imus' head, a source tells me.
Despite this hew and cry, however, I've noted that over at MediaBistro they've got a poll going on whether Imus should be fired that seems to indicate that folks are pretty evenly split on the issue. Apparently, the anonymity of the Internet allows people to say privately what they don't want to say in public (or at least they don't want to say it to me, a "nappy headed ho" herself): that even though Imus said a bad thing, they don't think he should lose his job for it. Do I take this to be yet another indication that people really are more racist than they admit? That what we've gotten good at is not actually accepting and understanding each other, but simply paying lip service to political correctness? It's probably the case, but damn is it depressing to be reminded of it.
Couldn't really call myself much of a feminist if I didn't report to you that the ERA (that's the Equal Rights Amendment, folks) has been reintroduced in both the House and Senate--this time under a new, feistier name: the Women's Equality Amendment. Democrats are hoping that the changing winds in congress will finally allow for passage of the bill, which, we learn via Women's eNews, "was first unveiled in Seneca Falls, N.Y., in 1923 at the 75th anniversary of the 1848 Women's Rights Convention." The bill passed Congress (as some of you may remember from your women's studies classes) in 1972--but died after it was unable to achieve ratification by three-quarters of the states a decade later.
It should be pretty interesting to see whether the Dems are right and this year proves to be the one where we get our house in order. I, myself, am not so sure it will happen. I think there may be, among too many young, female constituents, a feeling that this was their mother's bill to win; I worry, too, that it may be very easy for the opposition to cite the many gains that women have racked up over the years and argue that the bill is therefore passe. They may be absolutely deluded, but I fear their counter may be seductive enough to take the wind out of the sails of this one. I really, really hope I'm wrong, though.
Over at CBS.com, viewers are making their voices heard over their displeasure at Katie Couric's interview with John and Elizabeth Edwards on this past Sunday's 60 Minutes. I missed the first airing of the show, so to get myself up to speed I took the time to watch it on the site itself. Granted, I went into my viewing experience knowing, thanks to my Daily News Feed from MediaBistro, that people were already ripping Couric to shreds over her callousness, and so, given that I can be somewhat contrarian, may have been predisposed to rebuttal. But if you've read this blog for any period of time, you know that I'm not exactly what you call a huge fan of Couric's show. So all in, I figured, I was walking into it pretty balanced--if I had come away feeling she was terrible to the poor people I would have been no more surprised than if I took out my earphones and thought, "What a fantastic interview."
In the actual event, neither of those things were what first came to mind upon shutting down my video window. What came to mind instead was how clear it is that so many of these complaints have everything to do with Katie Couric being a woman--offering but one more irritating example of the lingering gender imbalance that colors our entire world. It's not that I believe that viewers don't have the right to complain about the media--indeed, I wish that happened more. But too much about both the tone and the terms of these particular complaints--which refer to her as "arrogant", "cocky" and "insensitive" to name a few--rings too close to an adage that was repeated to me just the other night by one of the pioneers of the feminist movement: "In order to be considered ruthless a man has to rape and pillage an entire country. All a woman has to do is say no."
Watch the interview for yourself and then let's get real, people, and start acknowledging the truth: Katie Couric did not ask a single, solitary question that any other respectable journalist, male or female, wouldn't also have asked. The questions were utterly predictable: tell us about your cancer, tell us about your kids, tell us about what you told your kids. And then the various versions of "How do you explain why you're staying in the race?" What else should she have--could she have--asked??
John and Elizabeth Edwards are not Joe and Milly Beecroft from Podunk, Michigan, hauled out as sympathetic, unwitting victims to give CBS's rating a boost. Edwards is running, for the second time, to be President of the United States. He has a campaign team that numbers in the hundreds, by my guess, and communications consultants up the wazoo. There is simply no way he and Elizabeth walked into that interview unprepared to face the "hard" questions, and if by some freak chance they did, then it's time for them to invest in better staff. You do the interview, if you are the Edwardses, precisely to answer questions like these, and to give the American people a chance to hear your rationale for staying in the game. Because the questions Couric asked are exactly the same questions we are all asking each other; better to control the flow of information by offering definitive answers than by allowing ordinary people to speculate and, given our too-often twisted media culture, pundits to wag their tongues in the wrong direction.
So why the sustained hew and cry over Couric's line of questioning? Well, without being too simplistic about it, it clearly has lots (too much) to do with both who Katie is (a woman) and what we expect from her because of that. Spend some time reading the rather mean spirited comments on the CBS site (there are currently 94 pages of posts--if you scroll to the bottom of this page, you'll see where the comments begin), and you begin to wonder if people were expecting Katie to wrap Elizabeth and John up in a blanket and rock them (and us) to sleep rather than conduct an interview. Because that's what women are "supposed" to do, you see: take care, coddle, patronize. Watching Couric ask for real answers to important questions about Edwards' candidacy seems to feel to too many people like having their own mother slap them on the hand; somehow, these viewers appear to be taking it as a personal affront that Couric had the chutzpah to actually do her job and demand answers to the questions we don't have the guts, or access, to ask the Edwardses ourselves.
But isn't that what the media are there for, after all? To ask the questions the average viewer would not dare? (Once upon a time, I hear, that was actually the case.) Is it that we've lost our sense overall of what "journalism" actually means, or is it simply that we're still (still!) unable to evaluate a woman's work on its merits alone? Because really: if Dan Rather had asked the same questions, would we even be having this debate?
It's time for the viewing public to realize that women journalists, just like their male counterparts, have every right to ask tough questions of the folks looking to serve in highest office--in fact, it is their responsibility to do so. All these complaints about how much Katie did or didn't smile, why she didn't bring her own personal experiences into the discussion (one poster calls her a "hypocrite" because she worked when her own husband was dying), and on and on, only make it more depressingly evident that women remain "women" first, and that, no matter how much folks talk about a post-feminist age, gendered expectations continue to put real limits on the ways that we are all allowed to behave, and, in this case, the questions we are permitted to ask. In a way I've never quite experienced before, I truly feel for Katie Couric today--probably more than anything because it reminds me of the proscriptions that exist for all of us women, whether we choose to pay attention to them or not. I hope she--and CBS--will remain brave enough to keep weathering these storms. All of our futures depend on it.
There's some old saying that I'll flub here about how half the battle is showing up... which somehow reminds me of something Winston Churchill must have said once. But anyway, point is, in all the talk about the unduly small number of women showing up on the op-ed pages, there hasn't, until now, been much mention of just how to increase the numbers of women actually submitting pieces for publication (apparently, only a fraction of the pieces submitted are written by women). But in yesterday's NYT, Patricia Cohen reports on the seminars Catherine Orenstein is now running to not only teach women how to write op-eds, but also how to frame themselves as experts--and believe in themselves enough to make such an assertion convincing.
I certainly find it reassuring that Orenstein is out there, helping women find their voices. But it also depresses me to no end to hear these stories of women--extremely accomplished women by any measure--who feel they don't have the authority to speak their minds in a public space, and have to be sternly guided to identify their areas of expertise.
Perhaps the next generation of women won't have these problems, but in order for them not to more of us women have to make a road for them by walking it, as another old saying goes. So the task for all of us smart women out there is to show up, and make equality a reality. Putting words on the page is intimidating for sure, and it's true that working women just have less time than men do to spend writing (what with raising families, taking care of parents, and holding down jobs; see The Nation's "Care Crisis" article). But it's something those of us who want to see change must make an effort to do. So get writing already!
Kudos to Alicia Shepard for addressing the fact that women in the media get short-shrift all around: from representation on panels, to bylines, to story sourcing, to the subjects of stories themselves, the number of female faces you'll see has absolutely no correlation to our numbers in the actual world--or even in the behind the scenes in the media. It's a problem that simply won't budge until we have more women in the executive ranks and behind the money in the media. When the day comes that there are as many women signing paychecks (and I mean, ALL the paychecks) as there are men, then we'll have a better shot at seeing something that looks like reality on the page, stage and set. Makes a lady leader want to head to business school, doesn't it?
I was late in discovering this, so, sadly, you're going to have to run not walk if you'd like to see it before it closes on the 24th. But still important to mention that Ceres has a show up called "Agents of Change: Women, Art and Intellect", a group exhibition celebrating women’s achievements in the visual arts, curated by Dr. Leslie King-Hammond, artist and Dean of Graduate Studies at Maryland Institute College of Art.
The show features the work of artists Miriam Schapiro, Faith Ringgold, Ana Mendieta, Renee Cox, Judy Chicago, Kara Walker and the Guerrilla Girls, among others, and represents "a multiethnic, multigenerational selection of work," according to the Times' Holland Cotter. In the same feminist vein, Cotter also recommends fans check out “Re:Generation,” a survey of emerging female artists at Smack Mellon in Dumbo, Brooklyn (closes March 11), as well as “What F Word?” at Cynthia Broan Gallery in Chelsea (closes March 17).
Not that my mother and I needed more proof that we're on the absolute cutting edge of thought in America, but thanks to Robin Givhan for assuring us that we are. Just recently as we rode the subway together, Mommy and I had a little conversation about how none of the women of color we could think of in the entertainment world have the standard "Hollywood" (read: rail-thin) body --and concluded that maybe it is the case that if you're Black in the entertainment world you have to be a little rounder, a little curvier, than the average blond in order to make the grade, be desirable to your target audience, and be believable to the public at large. It's a problematic structure, for sure, this rearticulation of what Givhan calls the "stereotype of the large black woman as the diva-like sexpot: strong, aggressive and entitled", but also interesting for what it tells us about how race/color mediates gender. And then there's the part of me that wonders: is it possible that Black women might come out on top on this issue--if only in the sense that they are able to avoid starving themselves to feel pretty? Not sure, but glad to see some bodies on the covers of the bigs that look like what God meant a body to be.
Just reviewed in the NY Times yesterday, Infidel is one of those books we should all be reading. It's the memoir of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, whose name you may recognize from the coverage she's received in the international press. As William Grimes writes in his review:
"Ayaan Hirsi Ali came to the attention of the wider world in an extraordinary way. In 2004 a Muslim fanatic, after shooting the filmmaker Theo van Gogh dead on an Amsterdam street, pinned a letter to Mr. van Gogh’s chest with a knife. Addressed to Ms. Hirsi Ali, the letter called for holy war against the West and, more specifically, for her death.
A Somali by birth and a recently elected member of the Dutch Parliament, Ms. Hirsi Ali had waged a personal crusade to improve the lot of Muslim women. Her warnings about the dangers posed to the Netherlands by unassimilated Muslims made her Public Enemy No. 1 for Muslim extremists, a feminist counterpart to Salman Rushdie."
My plan is to pick this one up on my way home tonight. Any feminist counterpart to Salman Rushdie (who might take umbrage at the remark) is hot in my book.
Can't say how I missed it (except that sometimes Slate boooores me), but apparently the lady-folk over there (including a former classmate of mine) have taken to blogging: political blogging from the female perspective, to be precise. Now, there's lots of chatter out there that this bad, because it ghettoizes women, and that it's totally banal, because all these ladies have to talk about are their domestic travails. But I for one will cheer for The XX Factor, because it's nice--and important--to have more female voices out there, talking about whatever the hell they please.
