Hissy Cat

April 12, 2006

Punk Rock Librarian

This article from the NYT is brimming with my favorites: lesbians, archives, librarians, low-brow ephemera. Barnard librarian Jenna Freedman, who is quite clearly the most awesome person on earth, has spearheaded the college's scholarly collection and new digital catalogue of zines. You can check out what Barnard has online here.

Posted by hissycat at 12:01 AM | Comments (27)

March 28, 2006

You've Come Far Enough, Baby

The Annalog pointed me to the interview of powerhouse magazine editor Bonnie Fuller by the NYT's Deboroah Solomon that ran in Sunday's Magazine Section (I know, I know-- I've been that busy.) Fuller's promoting her book, The Joys of Much Too Much, as an antidote to the women-can't-have-it-all books. God forbid anyone suggest that a woman can have a successful career and a happy family, even-- no, especially a woman who has managed to pull off a high-power media career and mother four children. For this, Solomon has only disdain:

As a wife, a mother of four and a symbol of female accomplishment who has served as the editor of Glamour, Cosmopolitan, Us Weekly, Marie Claire and other magazines, why would you stoop to writing a book like "The Joys of Much Too Much," which basically argues that greed is good?

Fuller's reply:

I think it is good to be greedy in terms of your dreams and in terms of trying to have everything you want out of life. The road to the richest life is one in which you partake of careerhood, lovehood, mommyhood — all of those things.

Wow, what a totally reasonable thing to say! Pursuing your dream of being a mother is no reason not to pursue your dream of being a firefighter! Being an award-winning journalist does NOT mean you'll become man-repellant; you can have a happy marraige and a thrilling career. It's OK to put your needs first. By the way, here's the Publisher's Weekly blurb:

If you still don't know how she does it, Fuller can tell you: don't sweat the small stuff (forget about organizing the sock drawer!), don't expect to be perfect and don't feel guilty. Fuller is a high-powered magazine editor, wife and mother of four, and in the upbeat, peppy style of Helen Gurley Brown, one of her mentors, she explains how you can have it all and enjoy getting it. Fuller is a believer in the power of positive thinking: push yourself forward, she says, and behave in a self-confident manner in order to get the job you want. You can balance marriage, family and career, she says, if your marriage is based on mutual unconditional love. Fuller has had a few hard knocks along the way and describes how she coped with the serious illnesses of two of her daughters, and a career crisis when she was fired from Glamour and had to struggle for months before getting another job. Failure is not a permanent condition, this optimist advises, and her pragmatic approach to a "jam-packed, maxed-out" life should inspire other women trying to have it all.

Not exactly The Fountainhead, is it?

But remember how wacky Bonnie Fuller who, oh yeah, just happened to raise with her husband their four children while accomplishing kind of everything in her field and writing about it, said it is possible to have a family and work? Solomon says no-no:

But we can't have everything. We're in a moment of postfeminist Realpolitik, when women are realizing that juggling a job and family life requires some sacrifices. It's impossible to do everything well all the time.

Which is why men are only dads or professionals, but never both. Because that would just be greedy. Greedy and Poseurpolitik so sacrifice, martyr!

Back to Bonnie:

I'm not suggesting that you do. In fact, I say it's O.K. — your house doesn't have to be clean. You don't have to have clean floors. Your drawers don't have to perfect, and dishes can pile up in the sink. That's part of my philosophy.

What philosophy is this? The philosophy of Dishevelism?

Oh, dis. Good one, Deboroh Solomon. Way to prove that you can't have everything. Sure, you may be a loving mother and an accomplished careerwoman but if your floors aren't pine fresh, you just fail. Fail. As a wife. As a mother. AND AS A HUMAN BEING.

You mention several times in your book that you are the main breadwinner in your family. Are you boasting?

I do like it. I don't mind it.

But how does your husband feel about that? You never even say what he does.

He is a self-employed architect. At one point, after we had our second child, he decided to take time off and stay home. I think he's happy that at least one person in our family is a breadwinner.

Deboroh Solomon, I expect if/ when you have children you'll stop writing at the Times and instead spend the days cleaning the floor till it shines. With your tongue.

Posted by hissycat at 04:31 AM | Comments (64)

March 05, 2006

Feminist Link Love

The always incredible Twisty Faster has an especially incredible post up called South Dakota and Libya: Blood Brothers in Misogyny:

. . . Rape isn't just a subset of unrelated incidents perpetrated by a fringe contingent of sickos. It is, as Susan Brownmilller asserted, "a conscious process by which all men keep all women in a state of fear."

If you are a man, and you don't rape women, well, goody for you, but if you email me with some inane vituperation about how your personal noble restraint invalidates Brownmiller's statement, you will only embarrass yourself. No matter what kind of man you are, you benefit in a thousand different ways from the violent sexualization of women's subordination. Actual rapists have got the initial shock and awe covered, but they're only the infantry; it's up to the rest of you to finish the job.

You do this by demonizing feminists, by renting women for lap dances, by letting rapists off the hook in court, by buying cheap crap Victoria's Secret thongs for your woman, by congratulating your girlfriend on her boob job, by ignoring mass rapes in Rwanda, by passing along the URL to Paris Hilton's fuck video, by ogling that girl at the bus stop, by letting your mom do your laundry, by "giving away" a bride, by voting control of women's uteruses over to godbag politicians, by pressuring your girlfriend to take it up the ass because all your friends are doin' it, by having an opinion on the size of human labia, by arguing that stripping is "empowering," by claiming you're "hardwired" to be turned on by women who emulate the ludicrous fashion practices of strippers and centerfolds, by your inability to conceive of sex without dominance, and by refusing, despite 30 years of intelligent, educated women telling you otherwise, to concede that you don't really, truly view women as human beings in anything approaching the same light in which you view yourself.

Go read the rest at at I Blame the Patriarchy! When you are done, you can go cast your vote for Twisty in the Koufax Awards, where she's nominated in nearly every category.

Posted by hissycat at 07:24 PM | Comments (16)

March 02, 2006

Guess The Century: An Exercise In Institutional Brutality

1. During which century did American prisons shackle female prisoners during childbirth? Why, this one, of course! There is an article in today's NYT about the barbaric practice still practiced in many prisons of shackeling pregnant inmates in labor. I'm supposed to comment insightfully on the article now, this being a blog and all-- but really, what do I need to say? Read the article. It's enough.

There was a very interesting special on incarcerated mothers that was done on Forum this summer. I remember listening to it in the car and driving circles on my way to work so I could finish listening to the program. It covers a range of issues, and if I remember correctly, the first show dealt a lot with pregnancy, mother-infant bonding, and early childhood when the mother is an inmate. Highly recommended.

2. Name the year in which the federal government responded to concerns over mining fatalities by lowering safety standards? This one! The NYT has an article on how the Bush admin. has reduced the fines and/ or not collected the fines for potentialy lethal safety violations in mines.

"The agency keeps talking about issuing more fines, but it doesn't matter much," said Bruce Dial, a former inspector for the mine safety agency. "The number of citations means nothing when the citations are small, negotiable and most often uncollected."

Before the January disaster at the Sago Mine near here, where 12 miners died, the operator had been cited 273 times since 2004. None of the fines exceeded $460, roughly one-thousandth of 1 percent of the $110 million net profit reported last year by the current owner of the mine, the International Coal Group.

[At a House oversight hearing on Wednesday, agency officials repeatedly cited the frequency of fines against Sago in the year before the accident as proof of aggressive enforcement. Exasperated, Representative Lynn Woolsey, Democrat of California, replied that maybe those fines had little effect because many were for $60. That point set off applause from audience members.]

$60 is a freakin' parking ticket. The punishment for endangering the life and health of human beings (if you are a multi-mill company) is the same as forgetting to move your car for street-cleaning (if your are an individual). Actually, it's less-- they don't even get a yellow bootie.

Posted by hissycat at 02:09 AM | Comments (6) | TrackBack

January 26, 2006

I'm Working (!)

You read this.

I'll be collecting your paragraphs on Monday.

(Yesterday a middle-schooler mistook me for her teacher-- or, possibly, her classmate. I was wearing a pink sweatshirt with cats on it and my hair was in a ponytail. You tell me.)

Posted by hissycat at 10:37 AM | Comments (11)

December 02, 2005

Tit & An Ass

Let it be said, for the record, that I adore Feministe. I read it every day. I think the world of Jill and Lauren, to say nothing of Lauren's cats.

I don't, however, love the creepy misogynistic commenters that are perpetually buzzing around the comments, making coarse cracks about Lauren and Jill. Now, I am, in general, in full support of coarse cracks about just about anyone or anything, but, still, something about the pro-life kinksters' remarks really give me the heebie-jeebies. I once started to write a post about this before but stopped because 1) I have no desire to engage any of them and 2) Jill and Lauren seem to accept the ribbing in good cheer, and it's their blog, so if it's a-ok by them, I really have no business reading their comments otherwise. However, I just finished reading Cintra Wilson's very funny and entertaining novel Colors Insulting to Nature, and as I eyeballed the string of increasingly odd comments following this, one line from the book came to mind. Now, I don't have the book in front of me, and I'm sure I'm going to totally mangle the quote, but it comes up when Liza, the protagonist is observing the antics of the depraved offspring of a depraved celebrity-- particularly, the offspring's flip way of calling the model/starlettes/escorts he cavorts with "slut," or "trollope," or "whore." Wilson writes that "his playful faux-disgust was nothing other than undisguised disgust." Or something like that. It's close enough, anyway, to get where I'm going with this. Sometimes, reading the Feministe comment threads, I get the feeling that a lot of the playful, faux-mysognism is really just undisguised mysoginism.

Now, all of this is somewhat beside the point, the main point, of this post, which is not, in fact, to complain that someone else's blog is not totally in line with my own taste. What I want to point out has nothing, really, to do with Feministe in particular-- it just so happens that Feministe's recent comment thread responding to Lauren's post about this revolting little specimen of humanity who, in his most recent NRO column had this to say:

Jennifer's bristols. Did I buy, or browse, a copy of the November 17 GQ, in order to get a look at Jennifer Aniston's bristols?** No, I didn't. While I have no doubt that Ms. Aniston is a paragon of charm, wit, and intelligence, she is also 36 years old. Even with the strenuous body-hardening exercise routines now compulsory for movie stars, at age 36 the forces of nature have won out over the view-worthiness of the unsupported female bust.

It is, in fact, a sad truth about human life that beyond our salad days, very few of us are interesting to look at in the buff. Added to that sadness is the very unfair truth that a woman's salad days are shorter than a man's — really, in this precise context, only from about 15 to 20. The Nautilus and the treadmill can add a half decade or so, but by 36 the bloom is definitely off the rose. Very few of us, however, can face up to this fact honestly, and I am sure this diary item will generate more angry e-mails of protest than everything else I have written this month.

** Bristols. Cockney rhyming slang. There is a well-known soccer team in England named Bristol City.

Charming. One of Feministe's most endearing commenters even takes it upon himself to defend Derbyshire's comments. Whatever. That should not be surprising given the numerous other endearing comments that man has left at Feministe before.

What troubles me more than gross people making gross defenses of other gross people's gross statements is that the other side, those who find Derbyshire's remarks distasteful, false or revolting keep making the same argument-- essentially that Derbyshire's comments are objectionable because they are wrong; slightly older women are actually quite pretty. Women commenters testify that they receive more male attention in their thirties and say they're much prettier now than they were at sixteen. Male commenters chivalrously step in to claim that they don't find nymphettes appealing at all, that older women are really sexy, and that they raised no objection at all to the display of Jen Anniston's titty.

Am I being overly harsh and unfair to people I'm largely in sympathy with? Yes, undoubtedly. But I find myself really rankled by the narrowness and sexism that both sides of the spat are participating in. On one side, they say older men are wired to get hard for ninth-graders; on the other side, they say, no, developed breasts are actually much more sexy. Big fucking deal. The disagreement is about which variety of sex-bot is most pleasing to me; everyone, on both sides, in complicit in the assumptions that 1) pleasing men is important, and 2) women are sex-bots that exist for no reason besides men's viewing pleasue. So, yes, this kind of boils my blood.

The Derbyshire-inspired faux-debate reminds me of the Dove ad dance that was all the rage a few short months ago. In particular, I am reminded of always-fantastic Wendy McClure's Chicago Sun-Times Op-Ed responding to the "Real Beauty" debate. McClure had this to say about the nasty reactions to the "heavy" models in the ads:

They expose the nasty inverse of "the beauty standard," which is the belief, held by some men, that women who don't look like fantasy material aren't just unworthy of their attention but are actually offensive, or even menacing.

and this:

t's a dirty little notion, and rarely is it ever this publicly expressed. The sheer entitlement behind it is usually a silent presence, perhaps even an unconscious one. But it's disconcerting when it emerges, when perfectly nice men like Guerrero insist that Dove ditch the Real Women in order to "make [his] morning commute a little more pleasing to the eyes." Even though he's not even the one buying firming cream.

and, not least of all, this:

This isn't about whether the Dove women are beautiful or not. We could argue endlessly over whether the women are too fat to be attractive, or not fat enough to be "real," or too airbrushed; whether they're prettier with their clothes on, if the angles of their photos are flattering. But we'd be taking them apart the way we do with so many other women in the media, dissecting them piece by piece. Which gets us nowhere.

And this isn't about whether men's fantasies are unrealistic or stupid or shallow or shameful. Men are certainly entitled to their preferences. Having preferences is one thing; expecting the world to cater to them is another.

Men aren't obligated to consider every woman beautiful, or for that matter, to make every woman feel good about herself.

But by the same token, nobody owes you a nice view, guys.

Wendy's point about "fat" women in media holds for "old" women in media as well, but I suspect Derbyshire missed the article. So heinously offensive is an over-twenty tit that Derbyshire feels traumatized and indignant that the world dare subject him to Ms. Anniston's malevolent nip, and instead of slapping the twit across the face and reminding him that no one gives a doo-doo about his regard for Ms. Anniston's breats and that he (shockingly) is not entitled to a world peopled exclusively by nymphettes that are pleasing and arousing to view, instead of engaging in the trap of trying to argue what age/ weight/ etc. is really the most attractive.

Posted by hissycat at 07:51 PM | Comments (8126)

November 30, 2005

It's 10 pm: Do You Know Where Your FSH Levels Are?

The new Samsung E530 pink mobile phone is a girl's best friend, equipped with calorie counter, megapixel camera, shopping list . . . oh and it even tells the ladies when they're ovulating!

Ladies, did you hear? Samsung has designed a phone-thingie just for us gals! I know, I know-- that press release is sooo long-- but you can look here to see some hott pix of the phone.

I tell you this, girlfriends, even at the risk of your snatching the last one from my hands with a catfight in the cell phone store ensuing, because I truly care you. Just like Samsung! Samsung really cares about us. That's why "the opening angle and all other small things were created for women and the ergonomics is interesting to them, naturally. . . the device lies to their checks well and the keypad gladdens even long-nailed ones." It's created just for us! And it's pink!

But the best part is the "Woman's Life" applications. My favorite, Fragrence Type, "is unique and was not applied in any phone before." Both those things! Wow! Fragrence Type gives you a mini-questionnaire to fill out and when you're done, "you get a small piece of text with a picture describing the most appropriate smell for you." Amazing! And, "according to the girls, that used the application, it helps choosing the smell correctly in 70 percent of cases." Wow, that sure is one smart little phone!

Also in "Woman's Life" is a Calorie Counter that not only, well, counts calories, but also tells you your height/ weight ratio and BMI. You can check "Your Fatness" (in percentage) every single day! Or more!!!! Plus, you can make up to five seperate shopping lists at one time and check your "Pink Schedule" to see when (ahem) your "Aunt Flo" is due to pay a visit. Very convenient! You can also "calculate biorhythms for a day or a month. . . and send it as a usual SMS. The function is very useful for friend's parties, attracts attention." I'll just bet!

Oh, and did I mention it's PINK?!!

I used to think technology was, you know, "boy stuff," but the Samsung E530 is made just for girls like me. I feel so empowered! And PINK! PINK POWER! ROCK! Thanks again, Samsung, for another amazing example of girl technology.

Posted by hissycat at 08:30 PM | Comments (32)

November 23, 2005

New Yorker, New Yorker

Charming the way 79% of New Yorker articles are written by men, isn't it?

Posted by hissycat at 03:05 AM | Comments (2)

November 18, 2005

Repro Depot

Nerve's reproductive rights issue is out. Jill at Feministe gives a comprehensive round-up of the juicier pieces and provides a meaty, insightful critique. She does an especially good job dealing with this article about a "pro-choice" woman who thinks second-term abortion is a "sin" and feels "revulsion" for women have second-term abotions. Jill articulated my reaction to the piece more eloquently than I could have done. Whereas I probably would have written "the author is a self-righteous ninny who uses one hand to pat herself on the back for having gone to pro-choice rallies while using the other hand to shake a finger at women who actually have abortions," Jill puts it thusly:

Personal, private discomfort is one thing. Talking about it is fine. But that isn't what she's talking about here -- what she's actually saying is, "I do not trust you to be your own moral decision-maker. I believe that my moral misgivings are more valuable and valid than the decisions you make about what goes on in your own body. I believe there is a right way and a wrong way to have an abortion, and you're doing it the wrong way."

That's why you should read Jill. Also highly recommended is BitchPhd's (old) post about the misogyny of the pro-choice with stipulations position.

The other article that caught my attention-- and Jill's, too-- was Baumgardarner's article about the stigma of second or third (or forth or fifth or sixth) abortions amongst the pro-choice set.

There were a couple of moments in Baumgardner's article where I had to go 'huh?' What the hell is a "mentsrual extraction," for instance? And then there's this:

Pauline Bart . . . suggested at a screening of "Speak Out" that younger women learn to do abortions themselves just as the collective of women known as "Jane" did pre-Roe v. Wade. "It's just like taking a melon-baller and scooping out a melon," she said, referring to performing an abortion in ones' own apartment. I nodded earnestly but thought, "No, it isn't." Or, at least, it isn't to me. I don't doubt that some women experience abortion as devoid of angst as Pauline Bart depicts, and for them each abortion is created equal.

Does Baumgardner harbor reservations about D.I.Y. uterus mellon-balling because of abortion angst? That seems to be what she is suggesting, but that is so puzzling that I can't even make sense of it. D.I.Y. abortions = not good. I agree with her there. But their not-goodness has nothing to do with the emotional weight of having an abortion. I don't have any moral angst about having my tonsils removed, but I'm not about to grab pliers and some barbeque tongs to pull 'em out because removing tonsils, like removing the products of conception, is a medical procedure with a certain amount of risk involved and it would fucking stupid to try to do on my own. First-term abortions are, as far as invasive medical procedures go, straightforward and not very risky. But it ain't mellon-balling. Without sonograph equipment, products of coneption (especially if it is very early in the pregnancy) can be left behind. Scraping the uterus can leave scarring if done incorrectly and complicate a woman's future fertility. Hemorraghing can happen. That's why it is imperative that abortion be legal and available in safe situations, hospitals or clinics, by medical professionals who know what they are doing and are prepared to handle all possibilities. I understand that in certain situations people have to do the best they can-- whether that means inducing abortion at home because abortion is illegal or treating cancer with folk remedies and prayer because medical treatment is unavailable or unaffordable or whatever. But that's not what we should be aiming for.

Anyway, something in Baumgardner's article did strike a nerve. I mentioned once on this blog, just in passing, while yammering on about my health-insurance woes, that I had an abortion. Yes, I had an abortion. About two months ago, I was out for drinks with then-boyfriend Brett and a bunch of our friends. The topic of med school came up-- one of the friends is thinking of applying-- and I guess we were talking about rotations, and Brett mentioned that his sister, a med student, said that the rotation she liked the least was her gynecology rotation, when she worked in an abortion clinic, and that she found that experience upsetting. Something about him saying this kind of burned my fur. What was his point? That abortions are sad and upsetting? I bit my tongue at the time-- after all, if that's what she said, that's what she said, there's nothing to argue with there-- but later asked Brett what he meant by that and why his sister found it so upsetting. Part of it had to do with her personal 'ick' factor, fine. But part of it was that she found it upsetting that a lot of the women who were there had already had multiple abortions. "Why is that upsetting?" I asked. I don't remember what his answer was. I do remember that it ticked me off. Part of it had to do with women who didn't use birth control and who were irresponsible-- more or less the same old 'abortion as birth control' panic as usual.

I pointed out that, as I had already had an abortion, if I ever got pregnant again, I would be one of those women who'd had more than one abortion. "No, not like you," he said, "you're resposible. You're on the pill. I don't mean women like you at all." Of course, I was responsible and on the pill when I got pregnant (by him) and had abortion numero uno. I don't remember how the argument ended, but I went to sleep feeling insulted as well as pissed. Pissed because who was he to judge the women whose circumstances he did not know, insulted because I felt at that moment that I was one of them-- one of those women.

I think Brett had a harder time with the abortion, in some ways, than I did. While he did not have to deal with the physical discomforts of pregnancy and abortion, he had a kind of guilt about it that I never did. Both my parents are doctors and my aunt is a doctor who performs abortions. The attitude on sexual matters in my home was a practical, straightforward realism. People who have sex sometimes get pregnant. Even people who use contraception get pregnant. The pill has a small failure rate even with perfect use. I just happened to get (un)lucky.

Brett, though, felt bad, like we'd done something wrong. Since I was on the pill, we didn't use condoms, and he felt responsible for getting me knocked up. A few weeks after the abortion, when we started having sex again, we used condoms because I'd changed pills and was adviced by the doctor to use a secondary method for a few weeks while my hormones settled down. When those weeks were up, I wanted to stop using condoms, but Brett was wary. What, he asked, if in another eight or nine or ten months you get pregnant again, is that just how it is going to be, every so often you get pregnant and have an abortion?

Well, the short answer is yes. I'm not with Brett anymore, but I'm twenty-two years old, I plan on having sex and hope I have lots of it. I'm also, as it turns out, ridiculoulsly fertile. The odds are that before my eggs are up, I will get pregnant again. I don't plan on it, don't look forward to it, and certainly don't want it to happen. Realistically, though, it will, and if and when I do, I will have another abortion. Which is why I still feel like I'm one of those women.

Posted by hissycat at 07:36 PM | Comments (6)

November 08, 2005

Mo' MoDo, Mo' Problems

Or, Dowdiana, Part Two, Wherein I Move Beyond My Critique of the Critiques of the Article and Offer My Own Critique of the Article

Actually, this is less of a critique with a particular point than a more general reading or interpretation of the article with special attention to places where my interpretation diverges significanty from those of other feminist bloggers.

A lot of bloggers complained that Maureen was blaming feminism for the bad deeds of the patriarchy, and that she was using the feminist movement as a catch-all scape-goat.

Dowd starts off with a reminiscence about her college years, remembering, "I didn't fit in with the brazen new world of hard-charging feminists. I was more of a fun-loving (if chaste) type who would decades later come to life in Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw. I hated the grubby, unisex jeans and no-makeup look and drugs that zoned you out, and I couldn't understand the appeal of dances that didn't involve touching your partner. " Ann Bartow at Our Word takes particular offense at this passage, taking it to be insulting. I don't find it insulting. Personally, I thought it was kind of funny, in the same way that I find it funny when Woody Allen or Phillip Roth exaggerate cultural stereotypes with a knowing wink at the reader. Maybe this is the New Yorker in me. I recognize the wink. Maybe Dowd's stroke wasn't PC or feminist, but it sure made me chuckle, as did the bit about how she longed to "live the life of a screwball heroine like Katharine Hepburn, wearing a gold lamé gown cut on the bias, cavorting with Cary Grant, strolling along Fifth Avenue with my pet leopard." Hey, I've entertained those fantasies, too. How could anyone who's seen Bringing Up Baby not?

I realize that it's a fools errand to explain a joke to convince someone uncharmed to find it funny, so I'll give it a rest. I think the more important and much broader reason I give Dowd a pass on the feminist-fashion-is-funny jokes has to do with the overall tone of the article, which is one of ambivalent but nagging regret. Note that Dowd is not saying 'I don't fit in with feminists because they dress funny and I'm too dashing and glam.' Rather, Dowd is recounting the particular way in which she, as a younger woman, imagined herself in relation to feminits and feminism. The image of herself she had was one colored by the grande dames and femme fatales of old films, and however deluded her imagination might have been on that score (and she admits it was deluded; her momma told her so), that was how she saw herself then. How many of us really had realistic notions of ourselves when we were eighteen? Well, I didn't.

Importantly, I think Dowd's ambivalence towards feminism is one that many, many women feel. Dowd, whatever stance she took on issues of women's equality to men, didn't feel she fit with feminists, or at least not with the people she imagined feminists were. I think a lot of women have that experience of feeling apart from or "not like" feminists. We see it in the whole "I'm not a feminist, but--" phenomena; a large number of women feel that, though they are pro-choice, desperately want health care, are pissed off that they get passed over for promotions as their male colleagues advance, cringe when their boyfriends make some asshole, sexist joke, etc. don't feel that they fit with-- or don't want to fit with-- their image of who feminists are.

It's not surprising that someone growing up in mainstream America would be put-off by feminism or that the kind of women she thinks are the feminists are hairy, media-whory, hysterical harpies. If you live way out yonder where Bust is not stacked on the magazine shelves and your parents keep the radio tuned to a Fox station you'd get the impression that feminists are a rather unappealing bunch. Even if our hypothetical hickette doesn't dislike/ fear/ feel threatened by hairy armpits, she might logically believe that since she happens to shave her own pits, she's just not part of the club.

Now, you and I know that's a bunch of hooey and that for every feminist who rocks an au naturel look there is a feminist who shaves and wears make-up, and that for every feminist who is a short-haird single lesbian living a life of delicious hedonism in San Francisco there is a feminist who is a wife and mother sporting a sensible shoulder-length 'do in Midwestern Suburbia. But if your ideas about feminists and feminism come from the mass media or the village elders in a Baptist hamlet, you'd have no idea. Combine that with the pressures girls and women get from all sides to be attractive, to attend to their looks, to evaluate themselves in terms of how boys see them and to form a self-image that is largely about how closely one conforms to a narrowly-defined beauty, and well, no wonder a lass would hesitate to call herself a feminist.

Where this fits in with Dowd is that I think it is this kind of extremely common experience of ambivalence that she is tapping when she writes, " I didn't fit in with the brazen new world of hard-charging feminists," and then follows up with regret that she "took the idealism and passion of the 60's for granted, simply assuming we were sailing toward perfect equality with men, a utopian world at home and at work. I didn't listen to [my mother] when she cautioned me about the chimera of equality." To the extent that this is an essay about Dowd's relationship with feminism-- the concept, the movement, the wardrobe, whatever-- it is not about how feminism has let her down but about her regret about not taking feminism (and her mother's warnings) seriously. If we pull out the core story Dowd uses to structure her observations, arguments and broader points, it is the story of her transformation from a naive young woman who, caught up in dreams of personal glamour, stayed aloof from feminism, assuming her burlier sisters could take care of things without her, to a more mature woman who, faced with a troublingly sexist and increasingly reactionary culture, questions her old view of feminism and comes to see that view as misguided and naive. She was wrong, she says, we do need feminism.

It is the personal transformation that I find most compelling in the piece (that, and I am charmed by her wry humor and predilection for Old Hollywood glamour and Howard Hawkes movies, which I happen to share) and that I think is probably of most value. In a way, I think the audience best served by this piece is not people like me who are already self-identified feminists, people who already read and think and write about feminism and feminist issues. It would be my guess that this article is most relevant to women who, like Dowd, are very ambivalent about feminism. For anyone's who's read Backlash, there is nothing new or surprising about the arguments she puts forth. But when I think of women like my mother, or like the sorority girl in an English seminar who was clearly and vocally bothered by the limited, rather sexist interpretations of the TA but who blushed and looked genuinely shocked when someone accused her of being feminist, I think, you know, maybe an article by a very femmey woman, who is very sexy-looking and has pretty, shiny red hair and wears make-up; who admits to familiar feelings like ambivalence, or wanting to be attractive and who still comes to the conclusion that feminism is in need now more than ever-- maybe that kind of article does have a value.

I'm tempted to shut my trap now, and leave at that, but there are a couple more, whaddayacallem, interpretive issues to address. At this point I'm going to break down by critique by the section headings Dowd uses in her own article for the sake of clarity and specificty, as well as for expediency (as I said, I find her "arguments" much less compelling than her narrative and see them as basically a milder, more class-specific and less clear version of Susan Faludi's arguments in Backlash).

Here we go. Whee!

Courtship
Dowd shows anecdotelly how certain restrictive, sexist notions that feminism once seemed to make passe have come back in fashion. Such notions include: frilly aprons, "landing" a man, playing hard to get, the unbecomingness of women who are sassy, brash-mouthed and sarcastic.

No objections here. Moving on.

Money

Dowd notices a trend in her social circle of men picking up the checks at the end of a date. She notes that many women seem to expect or want the man to pay, that some men like paying to "demonstrate their manhood." We also learn that the term "girl money" is becoming common parlance in some social circles. Also, she says "quid profiterole," which a lot of people thought was very funny and/ or confusing.

Lots of objections were raised to Dowd's argument here on the grounds that (1) no one had ever heard the term "girl money" before and therefore (2) the people that use terms like "girl money" are a rare breed of extremely wealthy and incredeably wacky.

Sure, Dowd could have picked more familiar examples of this trend. For instance, she could have pointed out the tabloid fuss over the size and expense of certain famous young ladies' engagement rings. He point, though, that that the apparent trend of evaluating a woman's worth and desirability in terms of how much dough she can get a man to spend on her still stands.

I don't think she draws this strand out far enough. More troubling than caddish comments about "girl money" is the reality that women still do make seventy-five cents for every dollar a man earns. Dowd's argument is incomplete, not incorrect.

Power Dynamics

This seems to be the section readers found most problematic, and it's not difficult to see why. Instead of sticking to anecdotes, as she has been so far, she pulls in some shoddy statistics and evolutionary theories. To make matters more confusing, it is not clear to what ends this evidence is being employed. Does she endorse it? Does she trot out the experts because she believes the conclusions of evolutionary psychology or because she holds them as another example of the retro sexism so prevalent today? I'm not sure because she never comes out and says so.

I do give Dowd a lot more credit than the readers who take her words at face value. I detect more than a little irony on her part when she writes things like "There it is, right in the DNA: women get penalized by insecure men for being too independent." And sarcasm. And condescension. And wry amusement. I don't think it is with much fondness or respect that she delivers Bill Mahr's charming theory.

Where she slips up is in the paragraph that begins "Women moving up still strive. . ." She is now, I believe, making a point that she does think is true, but there is no clear delineation between Dowd-speaking-in-her-mocking-voice and Dowd-speaking-in-her-serious-voice, and that makes everything confusing.

Moving on.

Ms versus Mrs.

The argument she makes, and the weak spots in it, are very much like the ones above. She notices a new fetishization of marraige and motherhood and apparent trends in some circles for women to stop working after marraige or birth. Yes, unreliable stats, very, very class-specific, and so on.

The most important paragraph in this section is the last one:

To the extent that young women are rejecting the old idea of copying men and reshaping the world around their desires, it's exhilarating progress. But to the extent that a pampered class of females is walking away from the problem and just planning to marry rich enough to cosset themselves in a narrow world of dependence on men, it's an irritating setback. If the new ethos is "a woman needs a career like a fish needs a bicycle," it won't be healthy.

Dowd acknowledges that there should be room for women to make choices like make a choice like quitting a profession to take care of a child. But, she warns, there is a danger. She's mostly right, I think (speaking about a very limited class of women, of course), but she falls a little short of the mark when she frets that females are "walking away from the problem." I would have liked to see her take it further and ask what about the working world makes not working seem the better option (for those wealthy enough to even consider such a thing)? Is it because the gap between a woman's salary and her husband's is so great that her financial contributions seem useless? Is it that the high-powered jobs these women are walking away from make it impossible to be a mother and career woman simultaneously, so that one has to choose one or the other? Do they feel pressured by their husband to give up their jobs and become a trophy/ status symbol for showing just how rich he is?

Movies

I think her observation about the new slate darling little Cinderella-story movies reifying and idealizing the romance of unequals (in which it hardly needs to be stated that the woman is the lesser) is about right.

Next.

Women's Magazines

Easy target-- I should know. I'll fess up to occaisionally purchasing Cosmo (or Star). What can I say? I don't get TV and my whole life is in the shitter; I'll take some cheap pleasure where I can find it. Anyway, not that this has to do with Dowd's essay per se, but I just thought, while we're on the topic of Cosmo's sex advice, I'll take the opportunity to point out, yet again, how-- not just funny, not just weird-- but really, truly bizarre their sex advice columns are. See, they have this formula where they pair one "hot tip" that is so banal, so obvious, so basic it's almost quaint that they print it with another "hot tip" that is so wacky and unexpected you have to go back and read the first one to make sure you read the whole thing. For instance, in one of those "10 secrets to hot sex!" deals, the #1 "secret" was lube. Seriously. Because lube is such a kinky secret. Right. The kind of thing that makes you feel sorry for anyone who actually was surprised to find out about lube.

But wait! Can you guess what the #2 tip was? No, because it's totally wacky! The "#2 secret to hot sex!" was, and I paraphrase here, "wrap your man's scrotum in saran wrap then, breathe heavily onto his shrink-wrapped testicles for a sensation he'll never forget!" (No offense to practitioners in the audience; maybe it's totally common, and in any case it wasn't polite to call some one else's sexual practices wacky, so I'm sorry, please forgive me, and feel free to assume I'm a total snooze in the sack if it makes ya feel better).

But what was I saying? Ah, yes: Maureen Dowd. What struck me, and I could be wrong, as I'm too poor to buy a single damn book, is how similair Dowd's point seems to the one put forth by Ariel Levy in Female Chauvanist Pigs (or at least, how her book is represented in reviews and whatnot). "It took only a few decades to create a brazen new world where the highest ideal is to acknowledge your inner slut. I am woman; see me strip. "

Beauty

Here's my reaction: Yes. Right. Good point. That's a little hyperbolic, but ok, I see what you're saying. Ok.

And the Future. . .

In which Dowd sums up the danger of buying into the "raw deal and old trap" again in the future.

Yeah, I rushed through the end, but I'm tired, and this post is already longer than anyone is going to read. So. In sum. There are points on which I disagree with Dowd and points where I think her arguement is weak. But I don't think it is a trainwreck and I certainly don't think Dowd is a bitter old shrew. At worst I think the article is limited in its focus, a little wobbly and underdeveloped. But, you know, it is the Magazine Section.

Posted by hissycat at 05:36 AM | Comments (8097)

November 06, 2005

Dowdiana

Before I write my scathing critique of the NYTimes Magazine feature on the charming (by which I mean revolting and idiotic and, well, silly) notion of "literary Darwinism" I need to pause to say something about last week's lengthily discussed essay by Maureen Dowd on the shortcomings of feminism.

I should start by stating my own reaction to the piece: mild pleasure, which is about what I expect from the NYTimes Sunday Magazine. Nothing earth-shattering, nothing really challenging to the reader's worldview. But something smart enough, entertaining enough, well-written enough to make for a good Sunday read, preferrably in bed, with a lox bagel and a cup of good coffee.

I also read Maureen Dowd's article as a little more in the "small social observations" category than in the "feminist polemics" category some other bloggers seem to have been looking for. So, Dowd offers a critique drawn from her personal life and heavy on the personal anecdotes to make a point about a cultural shift she observes in her particular social world that she finds troubling and troublesome for women. Her point is rather a small one, and one I thought not very controversial: there's been a backlash against the ideals of feminism and whatever gains the feminist movement has made, and as a result we find ourselves in a bizarre cultural moment where women who are more educated and higher-acheiving in their careers than ever before yet being presented with a feminine ideal that is frilly and deferential. And that some women are listening to that message. And this is a little sad and dissapointing. This, to me, seemed like a milder and more limited version of the critique that a number of feminist writers and thinkers have been saying for years.

Whatever issues I may have with the ideas Dowd puts forth in her essay, I find the virulent reactions against Dowd by (surprise!) feminist bloggers far, far more troubling.

The first common criticism of the piece is that it is "classist." My reaction to that complaint isn't that it's wrong. My reaction is just kind of, 'Meh, what did you expect?' This is the NYTimes Magazine section, after all. And if, like me, you read the article as an essay about Dowd's social world then it is hardly surprising that Dowd wrote about, well, her social world. It's a classist decision, I suppose, to allot seven pages to an article about well-paid, college-educated women with prestigous and powerful jobs instead of, say, poor, rural women, but take that up with the NYTimes editors, I say. That's only typical of the editorial classism of the paper, and is not Maureen Dowd's doing.

Whatever. The snipes and swipes I find really disturbing are those like this and this. Feministing's post, in the form of "urgent messages" to Maureen Dowd, cites announcement after bloody wedding announcement from the NYTimes Styles Section of heterosexual pairings that are supposedly ample evidence that men marry women to whome they are age-, IQ-, and power- matched, and then points out the article on writer Mary Gaitskill as further proof that, see, all these smart, older women are getting married most appropriately, so it must be that something's wrong with you, Maureen.

Echidne's post lambasts Dowd for unreliable statistics and lack of data. That's true, but I can't say I see why she should have included stats in her social observances. I think Dowd is pretty fair in not positing her observances as anything other than her observances of a select layer of society. But then it's maybe my own idiosyncracy that I generally distrust the use of statistics in essays about subtle social phenomena-- they are so malleable as to be meaningless while giving an opinion/ observation a scientistic air that is at once deceptive and defensive (See! I have numbers! That makes my opinion more true than yours! See!). The stats Dowd used I found odd, but mostly because I think she misuses them to get to her point. I think her point would have been better served if used less, not more, stats. It was also confusing to what end she meant to use them. I didn't get the sense that she was endorsing Evolutionary Psychology or the notion that career women are romantically doomed so much as laying it out to critique it. But maybe that's just me.

But I'm getting distracted by fine points. There is plenty of room to disagree with Dowd's conclusion or take issue with her methodology, and that's fine, that's great, we should have these debates. My main concern, I guess, is with statements such as Echidne's low blow:

The funniest part of the excerpt has to do with the bit about oh-how-hard it is for successful women to find men. Dowd is very taken by this idea, and I wonder why. I have always had to swat men away like flies and I'm fairly smart and independent. . .

And a quick glance around the comments suggests that it is this sentiment (oh Maureen's just so bitter and desperate) to which most people most strongly responded. There are exceptions, of course (and the comments responding to this post at Feministing are much more civil, much more varied, much better reasoned), but what else to make of reactions like these:

Another thing I can't help but thinking is that this book is Dowd's way of dealing with her own unhappiness. Any regular reader of hers can tell you that she's written numerous columns about her problems with men. . .But I'm smart, strong, and an outspoken feminist who also happens to be (very) happily married. And I know plenty of other strong, feminist women who are likewise happily partnered.

I don't know if this is Maureen's problem with men, but I have known women who are high-achievers yet will only consider men who are even higher-achievers as mates. You can't blame feminism for that.

If she does find a man, she'll quit her job and start writing about babies and marriage.

Ditto the comments on Pandagon, where the "Maureen's just bitter she can't get a date" chorus is nicely complemented by the "I'm a smart, sensitive guy and I date women who are my equals" chant.

The "Maureen just wrote that cause she can't get a date" is far too close to "you're just a feminist because you can't get a date" or "you're just a lesbian because men won't shag you" for my taste. I don't think writing off all Dowd's points as the harpy call of a bitter, desperate women really does much for women or for feminism.

Then there's the condemning chorus of "you're no feminist" "you're not my sister" that reminds me of a high school clique excommunicating a member as soon as she is humiliated out of fear that the aroma of desperation might rub off on the rest of them. Shh, Maureen! You're not supposed to admit that you think about boys and dating! That's so embaressing!

(I did not get the sense, by the way, that Dowd has any particular inclination to marry the chauvanist clods she describes in her article, and I think a lot of the readings really miss the humor in the piece. A man confessing he'd wanted to ask the author on a date "between marraiges" but didn't because he was scared of her? Funny. And I think it's meant to be. I was puzzled by the comments smattered around that said things like, "why doesn't she just realize he's a jerk anyway?" You know, I really think she does. I give her that much credit. Her writing can be very funny, very caustic, very sarcastic-- but that's another post, for another day.)

Well, everyone has her own ideas about feminism, I guess, but then one of my ideas about feminism is that it is relevant to all women-- even Maureen Dowd. We all make value judgements about which battles we find most compelling or important; you can't not prioritize; there's just too much. But my judgement that, say, access to abortion, is of utmost importance does not make other feminist issues-- say, representation of gender, marraige and family in popular movies-- any less "real." You may not care particularly about the politics of who on a date picks up the check when the check is from Nobu, but to assert that there is no issue at all is, I think, wrong-minded and false

Feminism is not a dating service: agreed. But I have to think there is something disingenous in the comments of the "What on earth is Maureen talking about with this 'men preferring docile babes' business? Doesn't she know that things are just peachy: I have a powerful career and I'm married. 'Pressure to conform to a frilly feminine ideal'? I have no idea what she could be talking about!" genre. Please! Feminists have been critiquing for years the cultural idealization of women as domestic, silly, deferntial, unambitious in career but ambitious in marraige sex-bots! For years! Well, at least I have.

Goddamit, this is going to require a second post. And I so wanted to make fun of Literary Darwinism. Harrumph!

Posted by hissycat at 07:42 PM | Comments (83) | TrackBack

November 01, 2005

Every Woman's Battle

On a usual Sunday morning on which I wake before noon (which, granted, is already not a usual Sunday morning), I amble on over across the street to Katz's for my lox bagel and New York Times (you can take the girl out of New York, but you can't take New York out of the girl, etc.), which comes as a welcome relief after a long week of getting up and ambling on over across the street to Katz's for my whole-wheat bagel with humus, cucumber and sprouts and New York Times. If Katz's is sold out of the Times, I shrug and return to bed crosswordless but unharmed. The thought of walking to the Castro before the caffiene from my third cup of joe has had time to fully absorb into my blood stream is not what I usually find an appealing notion. Yet, as if pulled along by some unearthly foresight appdo not normally trek out to the Castro in search of the elusive Sunday paper, yet yesterday, as if drawn by some vague foreknowledge, that is exactly what I did.

My premonition was fulfilled. The entire trek was made worthwhile by the pleasure of this littegem of an article.

In case you were distracted by the Maureen Dowd essay on feminism and sexual mores in the Magazine Section or the Iraq war themed Book Review and did not get a chance to fully savor this article, allow me to fill you in.

New Life Ministries, "an evangelical radio ministry," has taken it upon themselves to ship off packages of books "intended to promote Bible-based abstinence from pornography, adultery, nonmarital sex and masturbation" to soldiers in Iraq.

Interestingly enough, there are two different sets of books, one for the boys and one for the girls. For the boys, there is the blue covered Every Man's Battle; Every Woman's Battle comes in pink. Every Day For Every Man is colred in earthy shades of reddish brown and bluish green; Every Woman, Every Day is colored with the turquise and yellow pallette of drugstore eyeshadow. And the girly counterpart to Every Man's Bible (which has on its cover a rugged, South Western landscape) is the Life Recovery Bible, its cover taken up with curly, pastel calligraphy.

Though the article contained no discussion of the differences between the two sets of books, I was struck by the graphic and little summaries of each book included in the inset, which could be a handout for a Language and Gender 101 class.

In "His Battle Kit" the rhetoric emphasizes sexual purity as a battle: "Your malesness looms as your own worst enemy. You got into this mess by being male; you'll get out by being a man."; "It's time to fight. And you realize that your battle for sexual purity will cost you something. It requires sacrifice,, intensity and honor."; "Is it O.K. to have lunch with a female coworker? What about working together on a project past quitting time? Be honest as you evaluate what is going on in your mind and heart. If temptation lurks around the corner. . . run!"

The books in "Her Battle Kit" use the soft, self-hating language of psychology, urging women to reflect and listen to their feelings: "Society has twisted our minds into thinking that if we are drawn to someone, we must want to have sex with them"; "Masturbation is not healthy because it can train a person to 'fly solo,' to operate independently of anyone else"; "'Please love me!' Isn't this the whispered cry of our heart? We may not want to admit it for fear of rejection, but we are all hungry for love."

The man books are about action and practical advice. The woman books are about health and personal relationships. The appeal to abstain from masturbating is part of a noble "battle for sexual purity" that proves masculine and individual virtues like "sacrifice, intensity and honor." Women, on the other hand, are harmed by masturbation. It is not that women need to be strong and fight for sexual purity; to the contrary, women need to be protected and sheilded from the inherent destructiveness and unhealthiness of female independence.

Posted by hissycat at 02:57 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

October 18, 2005

OH FUCK

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck. The papers handed over to the White House include a record of her opposing abortion. It's not a surprise, per se. But still: fuck.

On the other hand, perhaps it is just as well that any illusions that Miers could be alright are drying up.

Posted by hissycat at 03:30 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack

October 04, 2005

The Mark Of A Great Writer Is. . . Lots Of Pussy

The Times of London ran this charming article by British writer David Baddiel.

THE LAST TIME I WENT TO Cheltenham, I was interviewed by Professor Lisa Jardine about my third novel, which led to a finely balanced discussion about history, truth, Jewish identity and personal responsibility. . . The time before that, I did an hour and a half of stand-up, which led to a woman coming back to my room, who then sold her story to The Sun. Say what you like about being a comedian and a novelist, it leads to a wide spectrum of experiences. However, I have to admit that, as far as Cheltenham goes, the last is the more defining.

What a drag to have to be interviewed by a woman who is a professor and interested in having a discussion on a book tour when, really, what being a novelist is all about is getting blown by groupies!

Now, whenever I go to the festival, however much I might be looking forward to a searching hour of literary deliberation, once I see those Neo-Classical pillars framing the entrance to the town hall, all I can think about is Rachel W-- for that was her name-- and how she ran away after little more than a dry kiss, pleading boyfriend-inspired guilt; only to reappear photographed looking hurt and bewildered in a hotel dressing-gown, on a piece of fax paper handed to me by a man who came into my dressing-room in Preston three days later from the super, soaraway Sun.

Only a dry kriss? Cock-tease!

I had apparently spent the night with Rachel: I had apparently stripped down to my football socks; I had apparently left without a word, or even a chorus of Three Lions.

You are apparently an asshole.

I sometimes wonder what, if I was a single man without children once again, I would do for groupies. Because the sad truth is that, whilst obviously rock star will always be the top job for bedpost notching, comedian isn't far behind: author, sadly, is a long way down the list, well past footballer, celebrity chef, politician and possibly even local dignitary.

What's the point of being a writer if even the local diginitaries are going to rack up more lays than you?

Maybe in America, the ones with rock star names, Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, Dave Eggers, are rock'n' roll enough to attract them: but most of the time at literary events in Britain the front rows are a sea of blue rinses.

See, I knew I was lucky I lived in America. Sure, I may have less of a chance of being published than a man, and if I am published, my books may be shoved over in the Chick Lit session where they will be dismissed out of hand as unserious, but at least I can take comfort in the fact that the man-authors get their dicks sucked at every stop on the book tour.

Where are the literary groupies? A cursory glance at English literature shows us that not long ago nothing became a beautiful woman more than throwing herself at some laudanum-chomping Man of Letters. Whether it be Lizzie Siddell, Lady Caroline Lamb, or the Dark Lady himself, the list of muses reveals that, before the pop stars carved out this territory for themselves, all you had to do was throw a few couplets together and some bit of top-class totty would be falling over herself to die of consumption for you.

Yes, where are the literary groupies? Who let them get the idea that they could write books of their own instead of being fodder for mine? Bring back the good old days when all a man had to do get into the petticoats of "some bit of top-class toddy" was write some crappy poetry and just sit back and let oppression do the rest of the work!

Now it tends to be someone keen to tell you how your novel alone got the entire book group through the menopause.

Back when the top-class toddy was dead of consumption at twenty, there weren't any of these old hags hanging around and making their silly, feminine "interpretations" of literature.

I have made this worse by writing a novel with a vaguely Holocaust theme. First, this means that the audience becomes even more decrepit-- some are so old now that that number on their arm could be their age-- and second, you're starting from a point where it's much more difficult to move the subject in a bedwise direction.

See, the thing that really sucks about the Holocaust, is that it adds nothing to the bedpost talley.

When I did stand-up, women coming up after the show might say, for example, "you know that bit about anal sex . . ?" Now, it's more likely to be "you know, my grandfather was killed in Auschwitz". Try suggesting a drink back at the hotel from there.

Also, the Holocaust totally does nothing for getting some anal action.

Oh well: as a virtually married man, it makes life easier.

Man, is your wife a lucky woman.

Of course, novelists are, in general, very keen on sex, so I presume it is going on, just that the tabloids aren't interested. You can understand this. If Rachel W had dry-kissed Julian Barnes and run away, The Sun would have had to make up something about how he'd stripped down to his period Victorian socks; how he'd sent her away without even a reading from Flaubert's Parrot. If Jodie Marsh forsook footballers and boy-band members for one night and copped off with, say, Vikram Seth, she'd have to be in tabloids afterwards saying: "He was A Suitable Boy, all right. He kept going and going, longer than all three volumes."

See, the thing is, that's not a bad Vikram Seth joke. If it didn't appear in such a repellant context, I'd have laughed. I hate you David Baddiel for everything you are and stand for, and I hate you even more for ruining that joke.

Of course, Rachel W should have gone for Martin Amis, because then the headline could have been "The Rachel Papers", with pull-out quotes such as: "He offered me Money. It was an amazing Experience. We did it Yellow Doggy-Style. Turns out it's not just Einstein who's got a Monster. Now I'm just hoping that I don't have to go and get myself one of them Dead Babies."

Yeah, why don't you just give that one a minute to sink in. Have fun!

It's not that surprising that there is a prick who feels so entitled to adulation by women, who sees women as sex objects that exist for his benefit and that have no brains or reason to live after they lose their youthful charms. It's just a little upsetting that a newspaper would think it's a good idea to publish it.

Oh, Curtis Sittenfeld. Not that I ever doubted you but, dear god, how you were right.

Posted by hissycat at 12:02 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack

September 27, 2005

Good, Not Good

Good:
This thoughtful, intelligent post about rights that fetuses have but adult women do not.

Not Good:
Call-in radio talk shows about "What's Wrong With Women!" Zuzka and I were in the deli this morning while the most obnoxious man on the radio was inviting callers to call in and to share what about women do you hate. "What does your girl do that gets on your nerves? Is she moody, sulky? Does she brood after a fight?" We left at the announcement that "after this commercial break we have a woman on the line who called up to complain about women," unable to stomach any more.

Posted by hissycat at 10:48 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack

September 20, 2005

He Forgot To Ask About The Legal Status Of The Undead

I bring to you, in today's post, two wacky current events stories in a just-shy-of-timely manner:

1.

One of the most bizarre, fucked-up crazy and perversely-fascinating episodes of the Roberts conformation hearing was surely the abortion-issue "questioning" of Roberts by Senator Bareback-- oops, I mean, Brownback.

Let's just walk through this one, shall we?

In our legal system, everything's either one of the two: you're either a person or you're a piece of property.

Ok, ok, I can accept this premise. Let's go on.

If you're a person, you have rights; if you're a piece of property, you can be done with as your master chooses.

Right. For example, let's take women. Ok, so if women are people, then they have rights. They have self-determination. Gotcha. But if, on the other hand, we consider women to be but property, then they can be done with as those in power please. Without self-determination or recognized moral agency or, um, complete personhood, a woman could be made to, you know, do things against her will, according to the will of those who have greater power. Like carry a pregnancy to term, for instance. Alright, Brownback, I'm wit'cha.

And I believe everyone agrees that the unborn child is alive. And most agree that biologically it is a life, a separate genetic entity. But many will dispute whether it's a person.

Wait, what? Oh-- oh, I see. . . you're not talking about whether women should have the rights of persons. No, no, no. You were talking about fetuses. Ri-ight, and we all agree that-- wait, wait, we do? Oh, you just mean "alive" as in "a seperate genetic entity" like, um, a virus or, um, a spore. Things that have genetic codes but aren't independently viable and certainly not pers-- oh, wait, are you saying fetuses are persons? Yeah, um, NO? But hey, maybe this is more of your cutting edge "Kansas science." The kind that has really broken ground in the political arena, if not in the scientific or intellectual ones.

I hope you would agree with me that this is at the core of the issue, obviously, the competition between the woman's right to choose and the legal status of the unborn.

Phew. See, for a moment I thought you weren't going to get back to the issue of women. Silly me! Of course you are going to address the rights and status of women. I mean, there's no way you were going to just skip over the rights of half the population that is definately alive--

In Plessy v. Ferguson, it's been cited yesterday along with the Brown decision, which my state is the proud home state host of Brown v. Board of Education. And I personally knew two of the lawyers that practiced in that case, and they were noble gentlemen.

So, you're not going to talk about women?

And I want to take another point on that to tell you -- we talked a lot about the disability community, and well we should, and the protection needed for the disability community. And that's important, because I think it really helps people that need help, but it helps the rest of us to be much more human and caring.

Well, we're moving right along, aren't we?

Senator Kennedy is helping me with a bill because a number of children never get here that have disabilities. Unborn children prenatally diagnosed with Down's Syndrome and other disabilities -- I don't know if you know this, but there was a recent analysis, and 80 percent to 90 percent of children prenatally diagnosed with Down's Syndrome never get here -- never get here. They're aborted in the system.

That's what he said, never get here. Because of prenatal genetic testing (evil, evil, non-Kansas science!), pregnant women and their partners now have access to the information that allows them to chose whether carrying the fetus to term is the correct choice for them or whether terminating the pregnancy is the more manageable, feasable, moral-- yes moral-- action. Outrageous! Those fetuses never get here, the man said. They're aborted in the system. Notice he didn't say in a uterus. He said "system." Because women aren't really individuals, just extensions of the "system," tentacles extending from the Senate floor. And of course he spoke in the passive, because it's not as though women are full agents capable of acting. It's like, women don't make ethical choices. Stuff just happens. They don't choose abortions, or anyway, if they do, they're just being manipulated by the system. Big government. Or something.
I'm gonna warn you: it's just gonna get wackier from here on out.

And people just say: Look, this child's got difficulties. And we even have waiting lists in America of people, today, willing to adopt children with Down's Syndrome. And we will protect that child -- as well we should, under the Americans with Disabilities Act and other issues -- when they get here.

We even have waiting lists in America of people, today, willing to adopt children with Down's Syndrome. You did know that, right? And Sen. Bareback is one of them. You know, the financial, not to mention emotional and psychological, cost of raising a child with Down's Syndrome is so overrated. Because this country so obviously has an affordable, accessable health care system as well as schools with fantastic, widely available Special Education programs for students with severe developmental disabilities. Not to mention the subsidized childcare that allows mothers to ensure that their children are adequately cared for while they working.

But so much of the time, and with our increased ability of genetic testing, they don't get here. Diagnosed in the womb, system that encourages this child to be destroyed at that stage -- and this is all in the records.

And we are the poorer for it as a society.

It's a damn shame all the opportunity, all the resources. If only there were Americans who actually need opportunity and resources. America's offer of opportunity, protection and equality is just withering up on the branches as it waits for any takers. But there aren't any. And we a are a poorer society because of it.

All the members of this body know a young man with Down's Syndrome named Jimmy. Maybe you've met him, even. He runs the elevator that takes the senators up and down on the Senate floors. His warm smile welcomes us every day. We're a better body for him.

See? This isn't about women at all. Never was. It isn't even about the disabled. This is about us, isn't it Bareback? This is about how much more fun Senate hearings can be when they begin with a good-natured ribbing of retarded Jimmy in the elevator. Every abortion deprives you, Sen. Bareback, of more lovable "characters" like Jimmy from the elevator.

He told me the other day -- he frequently gives me a hug in the elevator afterwards. I know he does Senator Hatch often, too, who kindly gives him ties, some of which I question the taste of, Orrin...

(LAUGHTER)

... but he kindly gives ties.

Heartwarming, indeed. Let's all share in a good-natured laugh about Jimmy and those ker-aazy ties Orrin gives him because he thinks it is funny to see a retard in a kooky tie. Ha ha ha. Christ's asscrack, this is creepy.

2.

If in the midst of Katrina, the hearings, and the public radio pledge drive you missed this story about incensensed parents intent to rid the school libraries from "horribly obscene, explicit, pornographic books" by Toni Morrison, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Francesca Lia Block, E.L. Doctorow, Julia Alvarez, Bret Easton Ellis, Alice Sebold and that perennial favorite of book-burners, Judy Blume-- well, consider yourself lucky.

Laurie Taylor, the indignant mother who demanded the school library purge its shelves of such filth, and her organization, the sinesterly titled Parents Protecting The Minds Of Children has posted on its website not only a list of the offending titles but synopsis and juicy excerpts as well. On the page titled Shocking Pornographic Children's Sex Education Books in Arkansas School Libraries the featured link, in bright purple font about thrice the size of the next largest on the page, is Link to Shocking Pictures in Elementary books at Fayetteville, Arkansas School Library. Because we all know that there is nothing that anti-"pornography" nuts love to look at more than anything else, it's porn.

Not that it's not obvious that children need to be protected from vile pornographic images such as this:

or this:

No joke, these images are posted there as examples of pornography. Poor Taylor, what a sad, sad life hers must be for her to see a cartoon woman drawn seemingly by the hand behind a whole line of Hallmark greeting cards examining her vulva in a hand mirror and think "porn! evil, sexy, graphic, obscene, hard-core porn!" Or the couple. I mean, the corny cartoon couple, who are clearly in a loving, committed relationship, as they are shown in a bed canopied by a goddamn sprinkling of hearts-- hearts, for god's sakes, hearts. But maybe it was the caption that offended her so:

Most often, they have sexual intercourse because it feels good

Putrid vice, indeed.

Posted by hissycat at 03:11 AM | Comments (17) | TrackBack

September 14, 2005

I Didn't Intend To Write About This Today

John Roberts is reminding me of Joe Pitt, the Mormon who is Roy Cohn's law clerk in Kushner's Angels in America. Maybe it's the Reagan connection. Maybe it's the scrubbed, wholesome personna he projects. Maybe it's the utter obliviousness to the moral and ethical consequences of his decisions. Everytime he is asked about a memo he authored he insists that he was acting as the administration's yes-man. I keep thinking of the scene in Angels where Louis confronts Joe about being Roy Cohn's butt-boy. Louis is aghast at the memos and briefs Joe wrote in support of rulings that were anti-gay or otherwise unfair and nasty, and Joe keeps repeating that he was 1. just doing his job and 2. not responsible for the merits of a law only for upholding it. Or something like that.

After listening to creepy pro-life, religous, mysoginistic Senators on the commute to work, I was so, so glad when I got back to my desk after lunch and tuned in just as Chuck Schumer was taking the floor.
just say, sir, in all due respect -- and I respect your intelligence and your career and your family -- this process is getting a little more absurd the further we move.

SCHUMER: You agree we should be finding out your philosophy and method of legal reasoning, modesty, stability, but when we try to find out what modesty and stability mean, what your philosophy means, we don't get any answers.

It's as if I asked you: What kind of movies do you like? Tell me two or three good movies. And you say, I like movies with good acting. I like movies with good directing. I like movies with good cinematography.

And I ask you, No, give me an example of a good movie. You don't name one. I say, Give me an example of a bad movie.

SCHUMER: You won't name one. Then I ask you if you like

Casablanca, and you respond by saying, Lots of people like 'Casablanca.'

(LAUGHTER)

You tell me it's widely settled that Casablanca is one of the great movies.

Damn that Schumer made me proud to be a New Yorker.

Diane Feinstein was no slump either. Oh, and watch how his eyes positively glow with evil as he writes off his snide remark about how it is not a good idea for homemakers to become lawyers as just a an old (boys' club) lawyer joke.

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August 29, 2005

Lesbians on the Radio!

Lesbians and me!  Listento me call in and stammer nervously as I ask Ann Bannon, Sally Singer,and Katherine Forrest about the surprisingly affirmitive endings oflesbian pulp novels.  

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August 24, 2005

Heather Has Two Mommies Who Have A Custody Hearing

Currently Listening Misery Is a Butterfly By Blonde Redhead see related

Yet another re-post from comments I left at Bitch PhD,this time about the new ruling in California on custody and childcarefor same sex partners who have children and then break-up:

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August 22, 2005

Chick Lit Cat Fight: Meow, Hiss

Currently Listening Exile in Guyville By Liz Phair see related

This is the expanded (well, expanding-- I'm not really done) version ofa recent comment I added to a conversation about Chick Lit going on at Bitch PhD:

1. Yes, it is just a marketing term.  Chick lit is a way tocategorize books so that they can be conveniently pitched, packaged,stocked and sold.  Like all genres (including the genres Fiction& Literature and Classics, which are, after all, also just nameshanging above the aisles at Barnes & Noble), the genre chick lit isnot inherently meaningful.  It is a tool of utility humans use tocope with variety by identifying patterns and grouping items of varyingsimilitude.  Categories allow people to find books they want orbelieve, given past reading experience, there is a good chance theymight like.  Genres also prepare readers to approach the book witha certain set of expectations.  (The idea that there are twotribes of readers-- high-brow and low-brow-- with no intersection issilly. It is perfectly possible for the same woman who enjoys War &Peace to enjoy the latest Nora Roberts; there are certain satisfactionsone gets from one kind of book, and certain kinds of satisfactions onegets from the other, and we approach each book with a different set ofexpectations and demands.)  As a category, chick lit can't beeither good or bad.  It is a rough, utilitarian term, and it iswhat it is.

2. I'm not comfortable making assumptions about the authors or thereaders of these books.  As far as authors go, it is impossible toknow where their imagined book ends and the  PR department'scampaign begins.  I would bet my big toes that there are a numberof women writers who are uncomfortable being classified as chick litbut who do not have the ability to challenge it.  And if someone,realizing she is more likely to publish and hence make a living,decides to steer her writing into a genre of which there is a highdemand-- well, what's it to you?  I can't stand the idea thatwriters operate free from economic demands and constraints; the onlypeople who have the ability to operate free from economic realities arepeople with money.  And yes, there are some exceptional writerswho have produced great art by working for hours at night in the coldbasement alone after nine hours at a job-- but not too fuckingmany.  Writers who admit to (god forbid) a material, laborlyelement to their work, are easy targets for those that still worshipthe model of Romantic artist, individualist, iconoclastic, anduncorruptable. In the 19th century, Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote that"America is now wholly given over to a damned mob of scribbling women,and I should have no chance of success while the public taste isoccupied with their trash � and should be ashamed of myself if I didsucceed."  Many 19th century female writers of the Romance wereworking women with mouths to feed, and Hawthorne's disdain for"scribbling women" suggests an assumption that women writers who writeto support themselves (that is, writing a lot) cannot be seriousartists and do not make rational, ethical and aesthetic decisions intheir work.  Which sounds awfully familiar to me.

3. As far as chick lit promoting unchallenged acceptance of gendernorms, sexist beliefs, etc.-- um, I hate to be the bringer of bad news,but that is a problem not confined to Chick Lit.  Seriousliterature is full of bullshit, too-- there are tons of currentmale-authored, serious, literary texts that rely on and promote sexistand otherwise obectionable assumptions-- and I have no reason tobelieve that being how harmful a book is has anything to do with howserious, how good, how well-written or whatever it is.  It alsoseems condescending to me to assume that the readers of Chick Lit orother low-brow trash are not able to see the stereotypes or sexism,that they are unwitting sponges absorbing whatever they're given. I think women readers of Chick Lit deserve a little more credit thanthat.  People go to books for all sorts of reasons-- escape,comfort, entertainment, companionship, stimulation.  I'd like tobelieve that it is possible to watch a movie or read a book, deriveenjoyment from it, and not buy into every single assumption behind it.

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August 19, 2005

Roberts. Ick.

Currently Listening Is This Desire By PJ Harvey see related

This is terrifying.  John Roberts is so the evil boss from 9 to 5.  I want Lily Tomlin to poison him NOW.

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August 08, 2005

9 to 5

Currently Listening Super Hits By Dolly Parton see related

9 to 5 is my new favorite movie.  I watched it with Brett lastnight (he liked it, too, I think, though I couldn't help feeling like,really, I should be watching this with a female friend, or, at least, agay male on.  So we could feel empowered, you know?). 

But it also made me kind of depressed.  Like, it made me really,really wish I was there in the late '70s and early-to-mid '80s, whenthere was a big, kinda mainstream feminist movement.  What Ireally like about 9-to-5 is how non-indivdualist the message is and howearnest it is.  I mean, there are a lot of '80s movies about'strong women,' even ones in suits, but the heroine's triumph oversexist assumptions and blahdiblah in the business world (you know,besides making it with a shiny-toothed man) is always  anexceptional, personal triumph.  I mean, she may be VP, but noother woman is getting any help from her.  9 to 5 has a lovely,indulging fantasy to it-- of hogtieing the boss and unmanning him withDays of Our Lives and soap digests-- but it also outlines what it wouldtake to make the workplace more fair and equitable and just all-aroundbetter: daycare, flexible hours and job-share, employer-sponsered AAmeetings, and a more personal touch (i.e. house plants and schoolpictures).  The working mothers and wheel-chair using person inthe final scene, when you see the new, improved workplace?  Thetotally gratuitous sex-positive speech Jane Fonda gives herex-husband?  Fuck yes, I love this movie.

I know it's unhip to rat on whatever feminishy movement  is aroundthese days.  No, it's not that I want to complain about'third-wave' feminism, but after watching 9 to 5, I just feel likewhatever feminist sentiment remains these days is channeled into suchsmall, such personal feats of self-expression or visibility ortheorizing or blahdiblah or else into expressing how omnipresentinjustice and fucked-upness is and how it is impossible to reallychange the system in any meaningful way.  Sometimes I just wantsomething neat and practical, like the ERA, that I could get behind.

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