Post-Backlash Feminism

I have a confession to make. Yesterday I spent $200 on make-up. I did. I bought a "serum" for $49.00, that will make a 'visible difference' in my face's texture and quality. It has 'lipids' that will help to boost cellular...things... that collapse as we age. You see, the scaffolding of our skin weakens but can be repaired--with a fluid specially designed for women my age by caring men in white coats. (There were pictures.)

Today my make-up perfectly matches (compliments) my natural skin tone, enhancing the natural golds and other hues...I confess, I lack the vocabulary to describe what was described to me last evening in Macy's.

It's true that I love me some make-up and I also am not proud of that fact. Make-up, like shoes, is a stereotypically feminine obsession and drain on women's budgets. It is also, like shoes, one item whose quality does seem to increase with price. Unhappily,both are things in which I find myself increasing interested as I age. I find myself eyeing the comfortable shoes more and more these days--Naturalizers? Soffts? And, in spite of myself,  I perk up every single time I hear a commercial discussing "tiny lines and wrinkles." 

The older women get, the more money we have to spend to look young (and avoid aching feet).

Another confession: I want the $49 serum to work; I'd like my face to appear younger in as few as 21 days. However, I am a 46-year-old woman who knows perfectly well that the marketing of make-up--serums--is a scam designed to exploit insecurities like mine.

And that's what I bought yesterday: I handed the sales clerk my credit card and she handed me the promise of a cure for neither my age nor the condition of my skin, but for my feelings about myself.

Of course, it's a false promise and when the bill comes in the mail, I'll feel the true weight of its power over me.

I'll likely also wish I'd spent the money on books instead.

The Breck Girls wave to crowds, dress well and plainly know their way around a can of AquaNet.

They cannot be bothered to inform themselves on the issues they discuss. Or, more likely, they are happy to simply wave and wave and lie.

And they foster the worst stereotypes of women: petty, superficial, anti-intellectual, vain, with nothing of substance to contribute to public discussion. They talk about a potential Bachmann-Palin ticket like they're making plans for a sleepover.

There is nothing here for women, less for the country.

Notes on another tidbit of mainstream misogyny. *sigh*

Disney has decided they only want women with real breasts for their latest Pirates of the Carribean film. In fact, they will ask women seeking a role in the new film to submit to the standard boob authenticity test: running in place. You see, “false breasts,” the studio explains, are easily spotted by an audience because they “move less freely than the real thing” during action sequences. Since, says a former casting agent, “In Hollywood movies, where everything else is false, nothing is more valued than natural beauty.”

No matter how Hollywood or Disney wants to dress it up, their concern for the naturalness of women’s bodies is nothing short of invasive and harassing. And subjecting actresses to a “show and tell” offends privacy and continues the practice of judging women according to cup size (and shape and texture). The more Disney claims to change, the more it stays the same.

And, for pity’s sake, natural beauty? Seriously? The Disney casting call reads: “beautiful female fit models. Must be 5ft 7in-5ft 8in, size 4 or 6, no bigger or smaller. Age 18-25. Must have a lean dancer body.” Ok, some very few women naturally fit this description, but the limits-- “no bigger or smaller”; “18-25” only—suggest a fantasy of female appearance that is genuinely rare and always fleeting. A woman who stands 5 feet, 8 inches tall is hard pressed to be a size 4, unless, of course, she starves herself or undergoes any number of plastic surgeries Disney has not yet banned from its sets. The lesson from Disney has not changed over time: women must manage to fit impossible standards of beauty.

This time, they have to do it “naturally.”

Polls show that 76% of American women say healthcare needs reform, and for good reason. Most states allow "gender" to be a consideration in setting premiums, which allows insurers to charge women more than men for the same benefits. Cesarean sections are often consider "pre-existing conditions" and used to deny women coverage; in eight states it is still legal to deny battered women health insurance. Having been abused by a spouse or partner in this case would qualify as the pre-existing condition.

Women tend to be poorer than men, and tend to have greater health needs due to the cost of maintaining reproductive health. Women are more likely to be single parents, underinsured or to lack insurance entirely. This means women tend to spend more of their income on health care than men.

According to the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research Education and Trust, premiums for families have doubled since 1999 and wages have only increased by 34%.

Women are routinely discriminated against by the healthcare industry. Women's increased premiums are not just due to reproductive health. By allowing "gender ratings" insurance can reduce women's income by significantly more than the $.78 for every $1 a man makes differential. At age 25, according to one study, women pay between six and 45% more than men for the same coverage. By the time, we are 40 we pay between four and 47% more.

Because individual premiums can be prohibitive, and insurers so willingly discriminate against us, women need choices; we need a true public option. 

The current proposal--including the Medicare Option--is a good start to getting women the healthcare they need and deserve.

Here is a sampling of the pro-rape pages up and running on Facebook. This is just a sampling. Some of these pages have more than 3,000 members/friends and feature images of sexual violence.

I've reported them all. If you are reading this, please report them as well and tell Facebook we will not tolerate their tacit endorsement of these cruel and dangerous pages.

id r a p e dat (aka Rape Dat),

It's Not R A P E if you enjoy it ;

RAPE is only surprise sex;

its not r.a.p.e if its wanted;

its not r a p e if u like it :P;

Its not r.a.p.e, Your my GIRLFRIEND ;);

It's not r.a.p.e if you yell SURPRISE!;

If You R a p e a Whore is it R a p e or Theft?;

or i can Rap.e ur mom;

it's not r.a.p.e if you enjoy it :D;

it's not r.ap.e, its "SURPRISE" s.ex;

Hey! Don't touch Me There This is My Private Square! R-A-P-E!;

Someone shouts"R.APE!!!". And replying with"ITS NOT R.APE IF YOU LIKE IT!"--this one features a pic of a woman hog-tied with the caption "If she really didn't want to, she'd have said something"

you're effing hot i want to r.a.p.e youuu!

R A P E TIME! FO FUN NUKA;

9 out of 10 people enjoy gang rap.e;

It's not a professional R.A.P.E if they didnt do you up the arse!

Victoria's Secret has launched a campaign to encourage women to love their bodies. This bullshit is the height of cynical marketing.

VS doesn't give a damn about how women feel about their bodies; in fact, the brand does everything it can to diminish the average woman's sense of self. Indeed, they specifically market self-loathing. Their ad campaigns then suggest that the right bra will solve the problem.

The real problem is most women aren't built like ten year olds with silicone softballs on their chests.

Here is the pic attached to the campaign:

VS models are sticks with artificial breasts, posed in mildly pornographic postures, wearing garments very few of us have the thighs or wherewithal to fit into.

If Victoria's Secret really wanted to encourage women to love themselves, they'd make jeans that fit real bodies, panties that fit the average female bum, and hire models who look human.

Hannah Storm is cute as a bug. Petite, fit, great "stems" as BleacherReport.com puts it, and a nice smile. She's good at her job and a pleasure to watch. (I recognized her charm when I saw her interview Liam Neeson. Ms. Storm could hardly conceal her attraction to the actor. It was endearing---and not a bad interview.)

A small media hubbub has erupted this week after one of her colleagues, the always noxious Tony Kornheiser, recently tore into Storm on air for the clothes she was wearing that day. He suggested her clothing was too tight, too revealing and inappropriate for her age.

She looked fine, attractive, feminine. But, even if you didn't agree with her sartorial choices that day (red high boots, plaid skirt), she was hardly inappropriate in the manner Mr. Kornheiser's hysterics suggested. Her clothes were not, as Kornheiser put it, tight as a "sausage casing."

I worry, of course, that women spend inordinate energy on their appearance and staying thin, and I know that our media culture can be cruel if they don't. Indeed, as Kornheiser here demonstrates, that same culture can be punishing if women do care about their appearance. And this is the bind women find themselves in daily.

Mr. Kornheiser's hypocrisy here is visible from space: Ms. Storm works for a station devoted to sports and specifically marketed to men. ESPN prides itself on featuring attractive, slim, thoroughly glamorous female personnel. (Sadly, the same cannot be said of the men.) Breck girls all, they wear clothes that fit and flatter and sport glamorous do's as they interview (mostly male) athletes and celebrities.

But the more salient feature of this essentially meaningless media event is that while Ms. Storm is being discussed for how she looks, Mr. Kornheiser is garnering attention for what he said. That's the true offense of ESPN, women reporters are decoration, sprinkled throughout their coverage for spice and decoration; men are employed for expertise and commentary

Forgive if you have already seen this at OpEdNews.com; it seems important enough to re-post here.

Two days ago, Amy Bishop, tenure-track faculty in an Alabama English Department, opened fire on her colleagues during a department meeting, killing three.

The media consensus at the time the story broke circled around "having been recently denied tenure" as a motive. Yesterday, Glenn Beck blames the radical ideology he most fears, misunderstands, and mistakenly assumes has overrun American universities for this horrifying event.

I've been an academic for 25 years, and I am here to tell you universities are not the hot-beds of liberal thinking and radical ideology so many think they are. All my degrees are in the humanities; all my jobs have been in departments of "liberal" arts. Even in departments claiming to teach critical thinking, to promote openness to new ideas, and to practice the religion of liberality, gender and class hierarchies are fixed, closely guarded and quite conservative.

Being denied tenure is no true motive for violence, and Ms. Bishop was a demonstrably troubled person who committed earlier crimes free of the pressures of the tenure process. But, both guesses at motive illustrate how deeply misunderstood higher education and those who teach there are within the larger culture.

Academe is not an easy place to exist if one is a woman, or a person of color or gay. The myth of the comfortably employed, politically-correct, hyper-liberal academic grows out of work produced by a small minority of institutions. Even within these institutions, publishing and pumping out literary theorists of the post-modern set, women are a minority; power is maintained by a small, well-connected and largely white/male population.

We aspire to democratic notions of fair play and department citizenship. But higher ed is no such a place.

Sitting at lunch with a friend yesterday, I observed the university community around us: the Smug Table of Smug Men: those secure in their tenure, their influence, their academic cache which begins and ends in white skin and the male gender. The Smug Ones enjoy reduced teaching loads, gained through exotic research projects, or calculated moves into administration, or mere reputation.

Behind me, a junior professor (what we kindly label Tenure Eligible, promising nothing) who talks a bit too loudly, nervous about "the letter" and what it will mean once it appears in his next evaluation. The Letter will likely be written by a committee of Smug Ones, who neither appreciate nor entirely understand Tenure Eligible's work. They will feel no compunction undermining him, and promoting themselves as they execute this small task.

And to our right, two female professors, Tenure-Eligible-and-Female, clearly working to find their way through academic life as women: one dresses a bit too aggressively, the other too flirtatiously. Their conversation is smart and reflects good educations and critical minds; still, they are burdened with self-conscious body language and an unwillingness to meet their colleagues’ eyes.

Finally, at my table, here the two of us sit, mid-career, with several articles, a book a piece, heavy teaching loads, and a full plate of committee work and student projects. We are the Department Proletariat, performing service the Smug Ones are simply too busy to help with and the Tenure Eligible too inexperienced. We are the good citizens, having believed all these years that department service, a respectable research agenda, and dedication to teaching would earn us a measure of minimal respect--and perhaps a travel budget.

I wouldn't harm my colleagues, cannot understand what Amy Bishop did to hers. But I know too well the academic frustration that grows out of the invisible forces that seem to control our destinies, the "letter" included in the tenure file, the apparently arbitrary doling out of funds or offices, and (I am not making this up) pens and letterhead.

And I understand tthe wall of privilege some of us feel we pound against day after day, women, academics of color and garden variety professors (of all genders, all colors) who want not to undermine, or over rule, or bilk, but to do good work and to feel they are appreciated. To feel they are seen by the institution, their colleagues, the "system." On top of it all, we are maligned in the media, or portrayed as lazy, having taken the easy way, not part of "the real world."

Academe is the "real world" in small, pressurized form and it can be misery-making.

I googled the term, "vaginal rejuvenation": 1,020,000 hits. So many ads. Here’s a sample from www.Gynaecosmetics.com, a UK site explaining the range of cosmetic vaginal surgeries available and offering a rationale for most of these procedures. For example, for vaginoplasty, or vaginal tightening: “vaginal relaxation, which occurs when the vaginal supports lose their tone, strength and control. The vagina becomes quite roomy and slack…”

Ok. Wait. My vagina might be too “roomy?” And don’t get me started on the implications of a “slack” vagina. Not to worry, says the kindly doctor voice of the website, it’s not your fault your vagina has pushed out babies the size of watermelons and stubbornly refused to return to a “virgin-like” state. After this tragic turn of events, “the vagina is no longer at its best possible sexual functioning state.”

But they can help; as can tens of thousands of other cosmetic surgeons around the globe. For the price of a new car, one can have their labia redone, touched up, tucked in, whatever the hell they call it. Sadly, we can now have surgically done to our vaginas what women have been doing to their eyes, ears, chins, tummies and breasts for decades.

Why would anyone do such a thing? Well, the site explains, some women: “simply want to look and feel as normal and attractive.” Again, I have to pause here: “normal?” A virgin-like vagina is “normal?” One that is totally symmetrical and aligns with standards that are nothing to do with the biological facts of femininity is “normal?” Yes. I looked at the before and after pics, and well the “before” look a lot like your run-of-the-mill vagina, even before childbirth. The “afters” all look neatly closed shells. And little girl vaginas.

Ads for Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery tend come in muted tones, with images of beautiful, airbrushed women, photographed from the shoulders up, smiling, satisfied with their new bodies, some happily snuggle their man, both parties grinning with love and satisfaction. Often these models are lounging on a beach or in a wheat field. And of course, the requisite flower images. Comforting thoughts float by “peace of mind.” 

Oh, for god’s sake.

The standard explanation, taken from a survey of dozens of these sites, is that women find their labia minora embarrassing. The inner lips of their vagina are a source of unhappiness because they are the wrong size, they protrude beyond the outer lips, or the labia majora. I thought they all did that?

Now, some of the clinical problems associated with larger labia minor include, according to Aestheticspecialists.net, “discomfort during physical activity such as biking and horseback riding or when wearing those ever popular tight pants.”

To most women, these are ordinary complaints; anyone with a vagina experiences discomfort from time to time caused by clothes or--no kidding!--horseback riding. What all this boils down to is that women are being encouraged to surgically alter their vaginas in order to “cure” the ailment that is having. a. vagina.

In my first Women’s Studies class the instructor walked in one day with a box of hand mirrors and plastic specula. She invited us all to take one of each, go home and examine our cervixes. I thought this was pretty nuts, but I did it. When I got home, I dutifully quatted over that hand mirror, jammed that specula up there, and had a look. I remember thinking, “Ewww. Oh, well.” And promptly forgot  all about it.

Some parts of our bodies, like vaginas, aren’t—strictly speaking—beautiful. But they can do some pretty beautiful things, they can feel some pretty amazing things, and they tend to be standard equipment. It never occurred to me or anyone in that class that our vaginas might need a bit of nip-tucking; the Women's Studies instructor assumed we might be curious, not ashamed.

from: April 2009

My step-son hits. When he’s angry, he lashes out. Sweetand funny when feeling safe and unaccosted, this boy turns ugly and violentwhen he’s provoked. He has a kind face, is handsome as he can be, and his sillyjokes make his dad laugh. He is 24 years old.

Since I’ve known him these past four years, he has beenarrested twice, involved in no fewer than eight bar fights, and has moved ninetimes, switching roommates and groups of friends each time—twice, his moveswere precipitated by violence between himself and his roommates.

One evening last week, my husband hung up the phone andannounced that “Drew is going to stay with us for a few days”  because he and his girlfriend (with whom henow lives) got into a fight. In explanation, my husband had to tell mesomething, so he said, “He scared her.” Drew was staying with us to protecther, he explained, coming to our place to give her some space and get himselfstraightened out. He knows he’s got an anger problem, he assured me, and isgiving himself time to calm down. What a nice guy, my husband seemed to say,Drew taking care of his girlfriend this way.

What happened? How exactly did Drew scare Trish? “Helifted her up by the shoulders and dropped her into a chair.”

We all know this thread-bare bullshit story of the abuserrescuing the abused—and those who enable them. And many of us recognize whathappened next, when I made to object. Noting the look on my face, my husband offeredup the condensed version of the “He’s-my-son-and-it’s-my-house” lecture. Manyof us also recognize that whatever story we get from Drew about what happenedis a lie. If Drew tells us he dropped Trish into a chair, he more likelyslammed her into a chair, and also did other things. He broke her stuff or hither or screamed in her face or pulled her hair.

This situation presents the perfect storm for mymarriage. If I do nothing, if I resist my conscience and my impulse to reachout to Trish, I am complicit in the next act of violence. Reaching out to her,however, would probably end my marriage. I cannot imagine my husband toleratingmy treating his son’s girlfriend like a victim of his son’s violence. Not onlywould he not react well, but such an act on my part would force into the openthe compromises, the equivocations, the lies we tell ourselves about Drew’sviolent tendencies. For without these, we could not go on.

So I wait. For the next phone call, the act of abuse thatwill be definitive and convince my husband, his ex-wife (Drew’s mother), andthe rest of that family, that something must be done. Many of us know preciselywhat this means: until Drew inflicts enough damage to leave marks, on thiswoman, scars that cannot be equivocated away, I am powerless to move thisfamily to stop their son.

As an activist, committed feminist, a loving human beinga mother with a grown daughter, I feel my obligation to this young woman. And Ihesitate, delayed by anxieties about my husband’s anger, his son’s potentialfor violence. I hesitate, I wait. It’s a misery.