April 15, 2008 at 4:18 am (feminism, male feminism, male violence, pornography, sexism, violence against women)
Tags: anti-porn, anti-rape, feminism, pornogaphy, stop rape, take back the night
“How can we stop rape and woman-battering by staffing rape-crisis centers and refuges when there are thousands of movie houses, millions of publications, a multibillion-dollar business that promote the idea that violence and the rape of women is sexually exciting to men, and that we like it too?”
- Diana E.H. Russell, giving the concluding speech at the Feminist Perspectives on Pornography conference in 1978, published in “Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography”
Take Back the Night: Women on Pornography is a compilation of essays and interviews edited by Laura Lederer and released in 1980. 28 years later, it’s as valuable and relevant a read as the day it was released. When I first read it in the late 80’s, I was amazed at how many strong pieces were in the book. The essays were as readable as they were revolutionary, thorough and researched without being boringly academic. Two pieces in particular, “Playboy isn’t Playing: An Interview with Judith Bat-Ada” and Helen E. Longino’s “Pornography, Oppression and Freedom”, have stuck with me to this day and are central to my understanding of pornography’s place within American rapist culture.
Anyone looking to understand why pornography is so bad for women (and everyone else too) should read this book a.s.a.p. It addresses all of the popular questions and criticisms leveled at the feminist anti-porn movement, so if you have any questions, suspicions or doubts, get them addressed here! These would include the caricature of feminists as “anti-sex” or “repressed” or “puritanical” in their condemnation of porn. As the various writers make clear, the complaint is not against sexuality but of the eroticizing of male power and female degradation, of the reduction of women to sexual objects, and of the sexualization of violence and children.
The book’s title? Many people have heard of Take Back the Night marches and vigils, and the book notes how that slogan was first used in the U.S. for a protest march down San Francisco’s pornography strip.
From Lederer’s introduction to the book:
“The title of this book, Take Back the Night, refects this growing realization of the links among crimes against women. The pollution of our media with sexist articles, programming and advertisements, and the increasing amounts of pornography readily available, are hardly questioned. Rapes, muggings and sexual harassment of women at all times, but especially at night, are the norm. That we have been unable to walk the streets after dark without a male to protect us from all the rest of the men has been assumed in this society for so long that people can hardly imagine a culture in which this would not be the case.” (Lederer, 19)
Next up: some quotes from the book to hold you over until the copy you’re about to order arrives!
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April 14, 2008 at 2:02 am (feminism, pornography)
Tags: alison bechdel, anti-porn, feminism, girls gone wild, pornography
This week I will be posting about one of the most controversial topics within feminism, pornography, from the Greek pornographia, literally “the depiction of whores.”
The phrase, “the depiction of whores” is a little more charged than “nudity” or “erotica” for sure. This difference speaks to the feminist critique of pornography, which is not puritanical or anti-sex as sometimes claimed, but rather generally anti-degradation, anti-objectification, and anti-dehumanization in goal.
To start us off, I was recently reading a news item about Alison Bechdel, the genius writer/cartoonist of “Dykes to Watch Out For” (check out her official site here), hands down one of my all-time favorite comics. The item was related to her recent autobiographical comic, “Fun House“, which was pulled from some classrooms due to a few panels portraying lesbian sex.
Here’s Bechdel’s response from an interview, which is just spot-on.
“This sort of bullshit will pretty much permanently fuck up any attempt of feminists to start a reasonable discussion about why so many men are attracted to a flavor of pornography that is as much, if not more, about humiliating and hating women as it is about getting men off. Which is not even all porn, but certainly doesn’t encapsulate novels like this.
Hell, we’re stuck in definitional hell, with the right wingers defining porn as “any material that portrays sexuality in a way that I don’t approve of”, and most everyone else in liberal land defining it as, “sexually explicit materials designed to sexually arouse the reader/viewer”, and radical feminists defining it as “photos and videos where the humiliation and pain of the woman is considered an essential part of the erotic experience for the viewer”. Which is, to be fair to radical feminists, the majority of the material available through your internet channels or “Girls Gone Wild” videos.
I’m not getting into the discussion of censorship from feminists, since it’s a red herring, since the number of feminists willing to talk censorship is a minority of a minority.”
Right on! Stay tuned readers, more on this topic soon!
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April 13, 2008 at 11:43 pm (feminism)
Tags: end gender, feminism
I started this blog in January and have been pretty laid-back about getting it rolling, but no longer! It’s on!!!
What “it’s on” means, practically.
My two main goals for the site are:
1. Provide resources for feminist and gender activism and study
2. Put up my own writing. I’m been working on a book on gender for years, and while I wrap it up this year I’d like to put out some of the material in essay form.
So far on this site I’ve done a lot more of the former, posting quotes and links to cool organizations.
My promise to you, the visitor: beginning this week, I will be posting regular (at least weekly) original content. Feel free to comment, and thanks for stopping by!
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March 9, 2008 at 7:39 am (feminism, sexism)
Tags: feminism, male feminism, sexism, sexist language
I was in college in the late ’80’s, before the internets, and one night a friend did the equivalent of surfing a dictionary, just opening up to random pages looking for weird or funny entries. She cringed when she came upon “creeping vine,” which had one definition of “a woman.”
“Ball and chain” anyone? Talk about the institutionalization of gender stereotypes and sexism – it’s in the dictionary for christsake. The place where things are defined.
Now 20 years later, it turns out that the times haven’t changed much. In 2006, Vanessa from Feministing wrote a post, “Synonyms are a girl’s worst enemy.” She looked up synonyms for “girl” on Thesaurus.com and was dismayed by what she found. I just did the same search a minute ago and the list is identical or near-identical to 2006.
| Main Entry: |
girl |
| Part of Speech: |
noun |
| Definition: |
female |
| Synonyms: |
babe, baby doll, bird, blonde, bobby-soxer, boytoy, broad, butterfly, canary, chick, coed, cupcake, cutie, dame, damsel, daughter, deb, debutante, doll, female, filly, gal, jail bait, lady, lassie, mademoiselle, maid, maiden, minx, miss, missy, mouse, nymph, nymphet, piece, queen, schoolgirl, she, sis, skirt, spring chicken, teenybopper, tomato, tomboy, virgin, wench, witch, woman |
Even worse, looking down the rest of the page shows you what you’d find if you were a young girl trying to find out what being a “girl” means to this society. Here are the second through fourth results:
| Main Entry: |
call girl |
| Part of Speech: |
noun |
| Definition: |
female prostitute |
| Synonyms: |
B-girl, harlot, hooker, hustler, lady of the evening, prostitute, scarlet woman, streetwalker, whore, working girl |
| Source: |
Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1) Copyright © 2008 |
For visitors who want to read up on the relationship of language and sexism, I’d like to recommend the following book, one of the first feminist books I ever read: Dale Spender’s Man Made Language.
From the inside cover: “For women, language is man-made, for it encompasses the meanings of men, who have arrived at their definitions of the world from a position of dominance, a position which women as a group do not occupy; for women, these meanings are partial, and false. In this book Dale Spender presents an exciting, wide-ranging feminist study of language, its rules and uses. Readable, positive and entertaining, she argues that, since language is fundamental to human-ness, it is through the patriarchal language that much of women’s subordination is structured.”
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February 20, 2008 at 5:22 am (feminism, sexism, violence against women)
Tags: feminism, media images of women, sexism
I recently started using StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com), a community based web recommendation engine, and it’s completely genius – I love it. After downloading a toolbar to your browser, you can click the “Stumble” button which takes you to a random web page based on your interests. You can then give that page a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” to vote, and highly rated pages get moved up in the rotation, ensuring good stuff gets sent your way.
One of the interests I indicated was “humor.” In just a week or two I’ve already come upon some horribly sexist crap, which isn’t the world’s hugest surprise, but it is sad.
In a study done by the LiveScience.com staff, they found that after exposure to sexist humor, participants were less likely to donate to women’s organizations, and more likely to approve of funding cuts for women’s groups. This was the case even more so than when they were exposed to sexist statements.
“We believe this shows that humorous disparagement creates the perception of a shared standard of tolerance of discrimination that may guide behavior when people believe others feel the same way.”
Like porn, in the age of the internet there’s nothing you can do to make this material go away, so you have to develop educational / activist strategies to get counter messaging out there.
Read the full article here.
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February 18, 2008 at 6:18 am (Resources, Tools, feminism)
I am WAY psyched by this web tool. You can make a ton of different signs, badges, etc. Fun! http://www.says-it.com
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February 18, 2008 at 5:59 am (feminism)
Tags: feminism, girl power, media images of women
I’ve been researching sexism in ads (doesn’t take a lot of work to find samples, sadly) and learning about some groups that are
fighting back and trying to get more positive images out there. One such group is About-Face, and you can check out their web site here.
Their mission statement: “About-Face’s mission is to equip women and girls with tools to understand and resist harmful media messages that affect self-esteem and body image.”
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February 11, 2008 at 5:39 am (Resources, feminism, male violence, violence against women)
My Strength is a project of the California Department of Health Services and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA), a statewide coalition of rape crisis centers and prevention programs founded in 1980.
From the MyStrength.org mission statement:
“Our vision is a world free from sexual violence. To help make this vision a reality, we’re initiating ‘The MyStrength Campaign’ to enlist to young men to take action to stop rape. “
Find out more about the group at the MyStrength.org web site or their My Space page. They have downloads of rape education flyers and postcards and other stuff worth checking out.
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February 10, 2008 at 9:37 pm (feminism)
Tags: feminism, girl power, girls rights, male feminism
As I get this blog up and running, I’m doing a bit of mixing of new info and stuff I’ve compiled over time. Here’s a list from the group “girls inc.” – “inspiring all girls to be strong, smart and bold.” Check out their website here.
The Girls’ Bill of Rights
- Girls have the right to be themselves and resist gender stereotypes
- Girls have the right to express themselves with originality and enthusiasm
- Girls have the right to prepare for interesting work and economic independence
- Girls have the right to have confidence in themselves and to be safe in the world
- Girls have the right to accept and appreciate their bodies.
- Girls have the right to take risks, to strive freely, and to take pride in success.
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February 5, 2008 at 6:57 am (feminism, male feminism, male violence, sexism, violence against women)
Tags: feminism, male feminism, mexico, sexism, violence against women
There’s been so much sad news coming out of Mexico in terms of violence against women over the past decade, it’s refreshing to hear anything positive! Check out the article by AP writer E. Eduardo Castillo here.
“MEXICO CITY – Mexico has created a new federal position to prosecute violence against women and human exploitation, as rights groups urge the government to do more to investigate the killings of women, especially along the U.S. border.”
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