Kay Steiger

A Woman's Nation: CAP Report on Working Women

2009-10-19T12:43:00.001-04:00

Today [Campus Progress'] parent organization, the Center for American Progress, is hosting a series of panels and speakers to coincide with the release of its report, The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation. Maria Shriver, daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver (brother to President John F. Kennedy), wrote an essay in this week's Time magazine to bring attention to something that was happening quietly for years. It is no longer an anomaly that women are working. Today, more than two-thirds of families either have a woman as the sole breadwinner or women who are part of dual income households. Still, women make between two-thirds and three-quarters of what their male counterparts make.

For some of us who grew up in homes where our moms worked (like me) this is hardly surprising. Women have been taking place in the working world for some time now. But although we have a federal law that allows for family leave, employers can decide whether or not that leave is paid. Although it is no longer legal to fire a woman for getting pregnant (or not hire her because she could become pregnant someday), paid maternity leave is still not required by law. In other words, women still get the short end of the stick.

The report includes pieces from awesome feminsts like CAP's own Heather Boushey, Feministing's Courtney Martin, and marriage expert Stephanie Coontz.

Cross posted.

Morehouse Bans 'Women's Garb' in Public

2009-10-19T12:42:00.000-04:00

Inside Higher Ed reports that Morehose has gotten serious about its status as an "elite" historically black college. (Full disclosure: Campus Progress once held a regional conference on Morehouse's campus.) They have adopted a dress code that encourages its students to be "well read, well spoken, well traveled, well dressed and well balanced." As a single-sex instiution that has an all-female counterpart, Spellman, Morehouse created a policy so their men will be "well dressed":

Caps, do-rags and hoods are banned in classrooms, the cafeteria and other indoor venues. Do-rags may not be worn outside of the residence halls.
Sunglasses may not be worn in class or at formal programs.
Jeans may not be worn at major programs such as convocation, commencement or Founder's Day.
Clothing with "derogatory, offensive and/or lewd messages either in words or pictures" may not be worn.
"Sagging," defined as "the wearing of one’s pants or shorts low enough to reveal undergarments or secondary layers of clothing," is banned.
Pajamas are banned in public areas.
Wearing of "clothing associated with women’s garb (for example, dresses, tunics, purses, handbags, pumps, wigs, make-up, etc.)" is banned.

Understandably, LGBT students are protesting the policy. The administration claims this policy isn't about its LGBT students and is instead focused on "all students," saying that Morehouse is supportive of its LGBT students. But Morehouse's site doesn't list LGBT as groups that students can get involved with on campus, instead favoring "Greek life" and "athletics."

The policy sets a standard of what "well dressed" means without taking into account students that may not identfy with this particular type of dress. Even students that don't identify as falling outside of gender norms may have problems with the school's effort to restrict other clothing items that are popular at other HBCUs.

(The photo above was one I took at a bar in Grand Forks, N.D. that banned certain types of clothing, supposedly to prevent "gang members" from entering the establishment.)

Cross posted.

Recognizing Gay Marriage, If Not Allowing It in California

2009-10-19T12:41:00.000-04:00

Yesterday Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) signed a bill in California that would recognize same-sex marriages from other states. Other states, including the non-state District of Columbia, have begun recognizing same-sex marriages in other states. For many states, it becomes a way of supporting LGBT marriage rights if it's not politically possible to pass same-sex marriage in their own state. This is certainly good news for LGBT rights in California.

Cross posted.

A Conservative Guide to Economics

2009-10-15T13:29:00.004-04:00

Young America's Foundation, like many other groups on the right, is taking up the moniker of freedom as a veil for opposing progressive economic reforms. The organization is holding an event at their Reagan Ranch home on the "road to freedom: selling your freedom to government in the era of Obama." They're billing seven old white dudes to teach you about economics. Sounds riveting.

You could watch it all live on U Stream tomorrow, but -- well -- we're guessing you'd rather not. Instead, I've summarized what each of the sessions will be about:

Lecture: Rabbi Daniel Lapin, President, Toward Tradition, "Restoring America's Respect for the Morality of the Free-Market"
CliffsNotes: Seriously, guys. It wasn't free market that destroyed the world economy. It's because the market wasn't free enough.

Lecture: John Fund, Editorial Board Member with the Wall Street Journal, "Reaganomics vs. Obamanomics"
CliffsNotes: Reaganomics are better.

Lecture: Tibor Machan Ph.D., Professor, Chapman University, "Liberty: Pessimistic and Optimistic Assessments"
CliffsNotes: Sure the economy is going to hell, but let's be optimistic. The rich will still be rich.

Lecture: Reagan Ranch Roundtable: John Fund, Editor, Wall Street Journal, "A Visitors Guide to an Alien Planet: Washington, D.C."
CliffsNotes: Did you know that Washington is full of lobbyists? Also we upped our cool factor by referencing science fiction. Get it?

Lecture: Kirby Wilbur, Foundation Director and Seattle Talk Show Host, "Ronnie and Me"
CliffsNotes: In case we didn't already mention it and you didn't get it from the fact that we're hosting this event on Ronald Reagan's sacred ranch, we just wanted to reiterate that Ronald Reagan was awesome.

Lecture: Lawrence Reed, President, Foundation for Economic Education, "Great Myths of the Great Depression"
CliffsNotes: The Great Depression didn't exist. Even if it did, FDR totally wasn't the one that fixed it.

Lecture: Ivan Pongracic, Professor, Hillsdale College, "The Lessons of the Great Recession: The Limits of Knowledge in Economics and The Case for De-politicization of the Economy"
CliffsNotes: Conservative, free market economics are the only real economics.

Cross posted.

The Tina Fey Backlash Begins

2009-10-15T11:24:00.003-04:00

Tonight is the season four premiere of Tina Fey's critically acclaimed and Emmy award-winning show 30 Rock. Feminist blogs have salivated over a smart and funny feminist like Tina Fey experiencing success as a TV writer, a field in which women are severely underrepresented. TV critics at the New York Times and USA Today are not impressed.

Alessandra Stanley writes in the Times that the problem with 30 Rock is Tina Fey herself:

When they star in their own semiautobiographical television shows, the best comedians play an exaggerated caricature of themselves, notably Larry David on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” but also Ray Romano on “Everybody Loves Raymond” and Bill Cosby on “The Cosby Show.”

Ms. Fey isn’t as convincing, or as funny, playing Liz Lemon, perhaps because the hapless single head writer of a late-night sketch comedy show doesn’t track as a comic distortion of Ms. Fey. She has surrounded Liz with a menagerie of wonderfully silly and original characters and is reluctant to play their straight man. Liz’s foibles — she dresses badly, is a junk-food glutton, can’t get a date — are the kind of flaws that thin, beautiful actresses affect because they think it makes them more approachable. None of those traits seem natural to Ms. Fey or plausible for Liz.
[...]
Ms. Fey plays a satirical version of herself and seems miscast in the part.

Stanley's critique is almost nonsensical. She seems first to be saying that Fey is too "real" to be around such silly comedic characters (presumably like Tracy Morgan's Tracy Jordan), yet her exaggerated characteristics are "affectations" that are unbelievable when played by her. If only Tina Fey's comedy didn't star that annoying Tina Fey, Stanley seems to be saying.

Admittedly, I haven't seen the screener these TV critics were privy to. Perhaps season four of 30 Rock won't be all that great. But I find the criticism that Fey isn't entitled to play a comedic version of herself in a series written by her when Larry David, Ray Romano, and Bill Cosby are a little odd. And why suddenly come to this realization now? Has Fey somehow become less "herself" since season one?

But I've been a watcher of 30 Rock recently even if I wouldn't count myself a huge fan. I find some of the commentary of Fey in a management position as a woman smarter and funnier than anything else on TV today. And I've always found Lemon's struggle to deal with the exaggerated characters on 30 Rock to be more of a commentary on what it's like to manage a group of actors, writers, and comedians.

Maybe season four is suffering a slump, but many comedies do as they move from the new hot thing to more established comedies. It seems weird to blame that on Fey's portrayal of Liz Lemon.

Cross posted.

Horrifying Serena Williams Thread

2009-10-07T11:05:00.000-04:00

This Friday Serena Williams will appear on newsstands naked. She's posing for the cover of ESPN's body issue. Although I'm generally a little squeamish about the commodification of women's bodies that comes with the naked woman on the cover (magazines often use it to boost newsstand sales). But I couldn't help but feel a little happy that for once the naked woman was a beautiful, curvy, dark-skinned woman. All too often the women that pose naked on magazine covers all look the same: bronzed white women that look freakishly thin. But on Just Jared goes ahead and askes the problematic question, "Hot or Not?"

Some of the answers are wonderful. They mention how empowering it is for women to see a healthy black woman on the cover of a magazine.

Many comments pointed out that the cover was probably Photoshopped. Well, duh. Every commercial image we see has gone through Photoshop. France is even considering a law requiring that advertisements that are Photoshopped carry a "health warning."

But there are some comments that are pretty horrifying:

Why? @ 10/06/2009 at 3:00 pm
I don’t know why she had to do this. She’s a great athlete, but her body could be a lot better if she slimmed down some. I think she’s a little too thick and she does not have pretty feet.
Tom @ 10/06/2009 at 3:11 pm
She is a bit scary. I would love to do her in the ass.
this family is so fubar @ 10/06/2009 at 3:14 pm
Oh yuck - tubby checkers!
Neorules2112 @ 10/06/2009 at 3:15 pm
Gross
Gross
and Gross
ew @ 10/06/2009 at 3:31 pm
Ew, she’s so dark!
pam @ 10/06/2009 at 4:42 pm
Yuck, don’t like big black women..
ilovemykittyb @ 10/06/2009 at 5:05 pm
gross. like A Monkey…..

Cross posted.

Whipping the Sexism Out of Whip It's Box Office Numbers

2009-10-06T10:48:00.003-04:00

Apparently Whip It, starring Drew Berrymore and Ellen Page, didn't do so great at the Box Office last weekend, pulling in about $4.9 million. The male-dominated cast of Zombieland dominated, trouncing all other movies with $24.7 million last weekend. (To be fair, zombies are amazing.) But critics say Whip It is a pretty good film. It's getting 81 percent over at Rotten Tomatoes, just 8 points behind Zombieland.

Over at NPR, Linda Holmes doesn't understand why the film is doing so poorly. "Not only is it touching and funny and a rollicking good time, but it's a movie that rarely finds its way to the multiplex -- it's a sports movie about a team of women, it's got a cast chosen mostly for suitability and not perceived hotness, and it's warmly funny but almost wisecrack-free," she writes.

Box office numbers do matter, though. Melissa Silverstein, who writes the blog Women & Hollywood writes, "I am seriously sad." Many people viewed Whip It and Jennifer's Body (Diablo Cody's adventure into feminist horror fimmmaking) as the rise of the film starring young women. "So now we won’t have movies about older women and we won’t have movies about younger women," Silverstein writes. "Great."

As Silverstein has noted often, films that star women are few and far between. And films that do star women (and are directed by women) become "underperforming films," Silverstein writes, though they are often produced on small budgets so they still usually make a profit, even if they don't do so hot at the box office. And that's not to say that Whip It won't do well eventually. It might. After all, Julie & Julia, the Julia Child/blogger biopic, is still raking in a reasonable amount of money (outperforming, ahem, G.I. Joe) even though it came out over the summer. And as I recall Juno wasn't an instant hit either. Many word-of-mouth films don't have a smash opening weekend but end up performing well overall because the public wants to see it after hearing from a friend that it's good.

Silverstein has done a phenomenal job of pointing out that there just aren't enough films written by, directed by, or starring women coming out of Hollywood. The problem is, Hollywood executives will look at a film that didn't take top spot at the box office produced by women, even if it ultimately ends up making a profit, and assume that it performed poorly it's because it was produced by women. Then they'll back fewer films directed by women. It's a bad cycle.

Worst of all, people are starting to put Whip It and Jennifer's Body in the same category. Because, um, I guess we have to put all women-produced films in the same category? That's like putting Drag Me to Hell in the same category as The Hangover. I guess they are lumping the two together because they're both "female empowerment" films. God, that's horrifying.

It's useless to look at Whip It in a vacuum. If there were gender parity in the films that Hollywood produced, I think you'd end up seeing that films directed by women "underperform" at about the same rate as male-produced films. It would be nice if feminism didn't have to put all of its eggs in one basket every time a film is written by, directed by, or stars women. As it is now, as a feminist, I feel like I failed because I didn't block out time to see Whip It this weekend. I plan to see it soon, but because I didn't see it on opening weekend, my voting dollars somehow count less.

But let's be clear about one thing: Hollywood produces a ton of crap every year that doesn't take a top spot at the box office on opening weekend. Much of it is produced by men. But Hollywood still produces crap produced by men. Hollywood execs shouldn't look at films like Whip It as failures because they're directed by and star women. Looking at Whip It as an indicator of whether women's films can and should succeed is dangerous business and downright silly. Let's hope movie executives realize that.

Cross posted.

Let's Talk About Sex (Columns), Baby

2009-09-30T11:33:00.002-04:00

The Nation reports that ever since Berkeley's "Sex on Tuesday Column" in 1996, students have been writing columns in the vein of what author Alex DiBranco calls the "student sex columnist movement."

At its core, the sex column phenomenon is a radical progressive movement in the sense of pushing against traditional silence and the status quo, which is a source of concern for many administrators, parents and even students. Challenges to the columns stem from a conservative mindset--whether that be political, religious or cultural.

The challenges, it seems, are numerous. Universities and state legislatures threaten to pull funding from campus media that publish sex columns. Ultimately, to me it seems like more expression about sexuality is a good thing. Sex columns, as trite and annoying as I often find them, sometimes do perform an important public service for people who feel alone in their sexuality. The good ones push conventional wisdom and social norms about what's "normal" when it comes to sexuality.

The Nation column pointed out that Dartmouth is a school known as a conservative campus, but the Dartmouth Free Press, a Campus Progress-sponsored publication, has been publishing a sex column for years.

The sex column entered the pages of the Dartmouth Free Press in 2004, when senior Sheila Hicks, sexual leftist and host of the campus radio sex talk-show, "In Your Pants," encouraged readers to send "the questions you probably wouldn't ask your parents or your clergy members" to Dartmouth's liberal, progressive and alternative biweekly. Clint Hendler, Free Press editor in chief during the latter half of Hicks's tenure, saw the column as "a way to put a thumb in the eye of campus elements who found a ready outlet in the Dartmouth Review for rather churlish and reactionary takes on steps taken by the administration and others to support safe sex and LGBTQ culture." Unsurprisingly, given the aesthetic of the paper, sex columnists for the Free Press tend to be more clear about having explicit political and activist motivations than those on campuses in general.
Heather Strack asserts in the Free Press, "A sex column is a significant statement of female rights. Not only am I a female columnist, but I am writing about a topic considered taboo and improper for a woman." Women are the main target of abstinence/purity movements; thus, even if most columnists do not state this as unambiguously as Strack, the campus sex column is not only about students seizing control but about hearing underrepresented voices. Though men are readers in equal numbers, the sex columnist is a (straight and queer) female-dominated profession, with a small minority of queer men.

It's true that not all sex columns are the same. Just as many are inspired by Sex and the City, Cosmopolitan, and Dan Savage (although Dan Savage's column is decidedly the most progressive of the three, since he actually acknowledges that non-straight couples exist), as they are by open and honest views of sexuality.

Sometime around my junior year (if I recall correctly) my alma matter's campus daily began publishing "Dr. Date," a letter response column that reads like a more inane version of Savage Love. The column, as I remember it, was awfully relationship focused and took more of an opportunity to snark than it did to educate.

Cross posted.

Taxpayer Protests

2009-09-14T11:46:00.003-04:00

Over at Campus Progress today, I have a take on the heath care reform protesters that flooded D.C. this weekend. Go ahead and take a look.

Wrong Again: Monica Hesse Edition

2009-09-10T14:48:00.003-04:00

Apparently Monica Hesse's horrible puff piece on Brian Brown, the director of the National Organization for Marriage, wasn't enough to stop her from publishing more worthless drivel in the pages of the Washington Post. She didn't want to step too far from the topic she knows she can ~~screw up~~ write about: marriage.

See, Hesse is like other unimaginitive journalists. She cannot possibly comprehend that what's going on in her own personal life isn't interesting to the rest of the world. That's why, apparently she decided to write a very annoying article on the fact that she's getting married. Um, is this just some gaint scheme to link to her wedding registry?

Much like the last time the Washington Post tried to address the "When is a good time for people to get married" question, this time is an utter failure. Hesse is baffled that some people think 26 is too old to get married and some people think it is too young an age to get married. She thinks it's determined by how old her friends were when they got married (if they have that option at all; she seems to have fallen for Brian Brown's argument against gay marriage, so I guess she doesn't care if her gay and lesbian friends don't have the option).

She seems to have stumbled on the already prevelant data that the average marriage age tends to be lower in rural areas than it is in metropolitan ones. There's also marital status data by age, socioeconomic class, and size of families over time.

But Hesse couldn't be bothered with data or statistics to inform her piece. Instead, her conclusion is that you should not get married unless you know where "home" is. Well. Gee. Thanks for that.

Honestly, I think we should stop worrying about when people get married. Or if they get married. Rather than trying to figure out what the "best age" for heterosexual couples to get married is, perhaps she could have thought about a real issue for a change.

But I guess that's too much to expect.

Cross posted.

Flickr image by Kables

According to Technorati, Blogging Is Male, Old

2009-09-09T16:42:00.001-04:00

Technorati released results of their study of the blogosphere today. According to the research they found, by and large, bloggers are male.

It's something that we've seen replicated in other new media paradigms (and some old ones). Men make up the majority of "popular" Twitter users and men have dominated "old media" -- especially among high-level editor positions -- for centuries.

We might be tempted to write this off as The Way Things Are, but I think it reflects some deeper gender stereotypes. After all, many men I know don't think twice about putting their opinions on the web in a professional context and many women are more hesitant.

When I first started blogging, waaaay back in February of 2007, I couldn't come up with a name for it so I named it after myself. That, I figured, wouldn't change. (For all of you out there waiting for me to change my name if I get married let me just pause to assure you that it ain't gonna happen.) My colleague at the time and blogger at Feministing, Ann Friedman, marveled at this. In the feminist blogosphere, many women adopt psudeonyms. Many of the stereotypes and social cues we take about how to act in life translate to other kinds of media.

What's more, it sounds like of the female bloggers out there, they tend to be older women. Only 9 percent of active female bloggers are between the ages of 18 and 24. That's pretty dismal. Research also found that women are more likely to be "personal" bloggers and their style is more likely to be "conversational."

But there is one thing to be optimistic about: Although two-thirds of global bloggers are male, the stats are slightly better in the United States. Here, only 57 percent of bloggers are male. It's still disproportionate, but it's better than in Asia and Europe.

Cross posted.

Is Matthew All There Is?

2009-09-04T09:57:00.004-04:00

Thanks to the publication of The Meaning of Matthew, Judy Shepard's new book on her son's life, the hate crimes legislation resulting from the horrible scene of Matthew Shepard's death is back in the news. But as his mother's book discloses, Matthew Shepard wasn't an angelic figure in life even though he has turned into martyr in death.

Gabriel Arana's piece on this subject is something I find a little problematic. He seems to blame Judy Shepard because she "ultimately falls back on eulogistic platitudes." But I find that criticism distasteful. Judy Shepard has gone through something I dearly hope no parent ever has to go through -- not only the death of a child, but the homicide of her child. If anything, I admire her strength to be critical of her son's memory at all.

The other point I find problematic is here:

The Matthew Shepard Act is currently under consideration in the House after being stymied under George W. Bush, who threatened to veto it. If it passes, gay-rights groups can declare a victory. But what will have been vanquished? Even his mother acknowledges that "a dyed-in-the-wool and determined bigot isn't about to log onto the Internet to check state or federal statutes before bashing someone's head in."
What hate-crime laws do provide are stricter sentencing guidelines, feeding a criminal-justice system that has imprisoned more than 1 percent of the U.S. population and unfairly targets minorities. The courts imprison blacks at six times the rate of whites, and Hispanics, at more than double the rate of whites; the rate of black incarceration under President George W. Bush was higher than it was in South Africa during apartheid. If the face of anti-gay violence were a racial or ethnic minority, would we still be pushing for hate-crimes legislation that props up the criminal-justice system?

As Jos Truitt at Feministing.com points out, activists' energy would be better spent on empowering victims and combating the homophobia that motivates hate crimes. Groups like the Human Rights Campaign, which are spearheading the effort to get the Matthew Shepard Act passed, should focus instead on education programs and passing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act. Harsher murder sentences can't bring back the dead, but nondiscrimination laws and education programs can help LGBT Americans who are still living. It's hard to see how Shepard's memory is "honored" by a legalistic redefinition of federal sentencing guidelines or how this accomplishes anything concrete for gay rights.

I understand the general idea that it's unlikely hate crimes legislation would be enforced in any kind of systematic way if passed, but I do think that by passing such legislation, Congress is making a statement that killing someone because they are gay, lesbian, queer, or transgender is unacceptable. Furthermore, Arana seems to suggest that when it comes to LGBT rights, we must choose one thing and work on that. There's plenty of political advocacy to go around. Sure, some legislation my make a greater impact than others, but when it comes to figting for LGBT rights, it seems insulting that we're asking activists to choose one thing for which they can fight.

Arana's other -- and perhaps bigger -- point is one to which I'm more sympathetic:

Over 1,400 members of the LGBT community are victims of a hate crime every year, which includes violent attacks as well as harassment. Why, then, is Shepard the "face" of gay rights? The implication is that all the other candidates weren't quite right: not urban New Yorkers dying of AIDS in the 1980s, not inner-city black adolescents whose parents kicked them out of the house, not leather daddies marching on Washington. The pictures of other gays, lesbians, and transgender people did not prove sufficiently salable to make it onto rally placards.

By making Matthew Shepard, a young white man who otherwise comes from a place of a certain kind of privelidge, we sometimes imply that others who suffer from violence and harrassment somehow don't count. I understand that by elevating Matthew Shepard's story we can be ignoring the stories of others. Still, many people understand why violence against LGBT people is problematic because of Matthew Shepard. It's something they might not otherwise think about. I don't think that's bad -- but we should use Shepard's story to tell the stories of others.

Cross posted.

Cottle Gives McDonnell a Pass?

2009-09-01T13:47:00.005-04:00

Michelle Cottle finds herself torn over whether Republican candidate for the Virginia gubernatorial race Robert McDonnell should be judged by his 1989 master's thesis from Regent University. It said, among other things, said women and feminists were "detrimental" to society and that the Supreme Court's decision to allow unmarried women access to contraception "illogical." Cottle says,

I find myself torn in this fight. In general, I find the obsession with politicians' student writings excessive. Most of these papers spring from the brains of people in their early- to mid-20s who have spent the past several years in the self-indulgent cocoon of academia. I realize there's no demographic group more convinced of its inherent genius and infallibility than recent college graduates and grad students. But in reality, most people don't spring forth from Harvard or Berkeley or Florida State or Texas A&M fully formed. (Thank god.) Many even (gasp!) change their views as they trudge through the big, wide, complicated world.

I find it sort of insulting to young people that things you do before you're an "adult" -- whenever that is -- somehow don't count. As if you're unable to think about the fact that what you're doing has consequences. Let me assure you, young people are perfectly aware of what they're doing. It's just that older people claim the ruse of being "unaware" of consequences at the time. It's a myth we hide behind so that we are all somehow unaccountable for our past mistakes. It's okay to say that you've changed your mind or evolved your thinking, but please, don't claim you didn't know what you were doing at the time.

But even if we were to give McDonnell the "youth pass" on this thesis, there's one part of her argument that doesn't quite work. McDonnell was nearly 35 when he wrote that thesis. Can we really give him the "youth pass" when he was in his mid-thirties? That seems overly generous to me.

Five Minutes of Fame

2009-08-24T13:51:00.001-04:00

I'm guest blogging over at Jezebel this week. (Hat tip to Amanda for the great photo!)

Scientists As Organizers?

2009-08-13T17:41:00.002-04:00

I interviewed Chris Mooney about his new co-authored book, Unscientific America, over at Campus Progress today. Here's what he had to say about how science is (un)like feminism:

It seems to me it almost has some parallels with the battles that the reproductive rights community goes through, in that they're constantly trying to rework messaging and things like that, but the polling numbers roughly stay the same year after year, decade after decade. Do you see those similarities?

I'm willing to buy it, [though] I don't know the [issue of reproductive rights] as well. I know that it's a long, hard-fought battle. But to me, you're saying that the reproductive rights groups are constantly working on their messaging, and I believe that they probably are. I don't think that's true of the science groups. Maybe some of them, but in science it's different, because there's this whole thing where you're not supposed to have messaging. It's seen as a lack of integrity. And there's no coordinated strategy in the science world about how to handle this.

Read the whole thing.

'Mad Men' Shows 'Slut' Is Relative

2009-08-13T11:10:00.003-04:00

Ann Friedman writes about the influence women writers are have on Mad Men's plot relating to the female characters:

And indeed, I love how the show paints an unvarnished picture of '50s gender roles and how the female characters are so three-dimensional. They don't easily map onto the sorts of stereotypes prevalent in TV shows and movies set in all decades. The bookish achiever (Peggy) is also kind of a slut. The slut (Joan) is also kind of a bookish achiever. And the devoted wife (Betty) is primed for a feminist awakening. (I've often wondered if the character was named after Betty Friedan.)

But commenter vwom asks:

What is a "slut" exactly?

I think one of the cool things about Mad Men is it challenges some of the stereotypes we have even today. Peggy, it becomes clear in the second season, is very different from her Catholic family. Even though Peggy doesn't seem to have a particularly active sex life (especially in comparison to other characters on the show), her family views her as a radical slut. Her sister breaks down into tears in a confession when she tells the priest how much she resents her sister who has a lot of freedom but leads what she views as a sinful lifestyle.

This all brings into focus the idea that the term "slut" is relative. When I think back to high school and middle school, I realize that girls that may not have ever had sex were viewed as "slutty" because they were viewed as such. The term has little to do with one's actual sexual activity and more to do with the way we slander women and the idea of women as sexual beings. It's a way to attack women, much like the term "bitch" is. Some women, like Tracy on Jezebel, have been trying in their own way to reclaim the word "slut" in her blogging moniker Slut Machine (although she dropped it when she got engaged).

Looking at Mad Men, their portrayal of the way women's sexuality was viewed in the early 1960s is illustrative of some of the remaining stereotypes today. I can't wait to see how they deal with the publication of the Feminine Mystique this season (and I hope they do!).

The Sarah Haskins Screenplay Has a Name (And Natalie Portman)

2009-08-13T10:55:00.002-04:00

Sarah Haskins mentioned in an interview I did with her earlier this year that she had sold a screenplay that she co-authored, the details were vague. Now it sounds like the film will be called Booksmart and they've signed Natalie Portman onto the project. I've always valued Haskins' feminist comedy on Current, so I was a little surprised when I saw that this is a plot summary:

Laffer will revolve around two overachieving high school seniors who realize the only thing they haven't accomplished is having boyfriends, and each resolves to find one by prom. (emphasis mine)

Um, it doesn't sound very different from other romantic comedies: girl needs boy to feel "complete." I hope that Haskins' touch will add a new perspective to this old trope (and it's possible that the industry just can't deal with describing anything outside the old stereotypes of romantic comedy). After all, we could go a long way in expanding the genre.

On Misogyny

2009-08-12T14:09:00.002-04:00

I'm about to take off for Netroots Nation, but you should definitely read Jamelle's post about why George Sodini's murderous rage against women in an exercise class is anything but about how much sex Sodini was having. He said it better than I could have.

Chick Lit: Revised for the Recession, But How About for Life?

2009-08-11T15:38:00.003-04:00

This piece on Double X, written by self-proclaimed chick lit novelist Sarah Bilston, asks some critical questions about the genre. What does this mean in a era where women are getting laid off? They can't be freewheeling-independent-yet-looking-for-the-perfect-man women in an era where they have to worry about their finances?

Bilston didn't ask the really essential questions about the genre of chick lit (for obvious reasons). It's sometimes not particularly encouraging when you look at the plots of these books. Perusing an Amazon "chick lit best sellers" list reveals the plots are all roughly the same. Almost every book that falls into the chick lit category ends with the heroine falling in love with (and usually getting married to) the man of her dreams.

The Publisher's Weekly summary of LoveHampton:

In Rifkin's dazzling debut, Manhattanite media pro Tori Miller shares a posh Hamptons summerhouse with five upwardly mobile 30-somethings. Wanting out of the depressing slide her life takes after being dumped by her first love and losing her dream job, Tori starts MillerWorks, her own TV production company. Still, Tori's depressed, bringing about an intervention staged by her loyal employees, Jerry and Jimmy, her best friend Alice and the Transformation Trio—three make-over experts who use Tori as the pilot subject for their new reality TV show. Tori flirts with a glamming lifestyle, and her fling with George, a rich playboy with a publicist, while she's also secretly canoodling with a housemate, banker Andrew Kane, is a recipe for disaster. Tori must think fast on her borrowed Manolos, especially when Cassie Dearborn, her new friend and housemate, needs help with her own disastrous Hampton hijinxs.

From the description of Confessions of a Beauty Addict:

Bella Hunter may be down but she's not out yet—and she's ready to take on the world of beauty...one bad makeover at a time.

Pity the poor twenty-eight-year-old beauty expert and columnist for ultra-chic Enchanté magazine, knocked right out of her Jimmy Choos—and out of a job—when her off-the-cuff comment to a reporter is blown way out of proportion. Once the authority on style, Bella's reduced to taking a position at Womanly World, a publishing dinosaur of no interest whatsoever to any woman under fifty. Suddenly she's got to take orders from a dreary and dowdy beauty director—and is soon at war with her male publisher, who might actually be appealing if he wasn't so totally frosty.

Bella's supermodel boyfriend, a hometown wedding, and a Paris junket are fine distractions, to be sure. But how can she face her friends and ex-coworkers now that she's stuck in an office where khaki—not Cavalli—is the way of life? And if beauty's not what it's all about...then what is?

From the description of The Naked Truth:

Falling in love is never easy, but there's nothing like it to keep a woman on her toes. There are no rules to romance-and usually the only way to get a little is to take the plunge. In these fabulous original stories, four acclaimed authors deliver the whole truth and nothing but the truth about four bold women who risk it all to win at the unpredictable game of love.

I could go on, but you get the gist. The women in these plots are social climbers and Prince Charming chasers. At least in Jacqueline Suzanne's Valley of the Dolls there was a dystopia to these women's marriages. Each of these novels are, in some thinly veiled way, the same narrative of a woman looking for fulfillment and finding love. They all seem obsessed with designer shoes, bags, and clotes. Not to hate on love and materialism, but couldn't they come up with something more interesting?

Coverage for Pregnancy: Not All It's Cracked Up To Be

2009-08-11T14:53:00.002-04:00

Sarah Wildman experienced the problem that the National Women's Law Center has been talking about for months. While many women's rights groups (and conservative congressmen/women) are getting up in arms about abortion coverage in the new reforms proposed by Congress, the real issue at stake is the way insurance companies deal with pregnancy for those on the individual insurance market. As Sarah points out, having a baby in this country is expensive:

One CareFirst rep we actually managed to reach explained we had maxed out because the benefit was “capped” at $3,000 per pregnancy. That means $3,000 for all pre-natal visits, tests and sonograms, labor and delivery, hospital stay and hospital care. In what mythical U.S. hospital is nine months of medical care paid for with $3,000? The study by the National Women’s Law Center found that (in 2006) a normal vaginal birth cost, on average, $7,488 in hospital charges alone. Using examples of riders similar to mine, NWLC found that women with uncomplicated vaginal births would pay between $6,780 and $9,682 out of pocket. C-sections came in around $13,000 nationally, and for them, the out of pocket costs ranged from $10,000 and up. I presented those numbers to CareFirst, and they freely admitted they knew their policy in no way came close to covering a pregnancy. “It’ s a crappy benefit,” one rep admitted to me.

And this is if women can get coverage for her pregnancy with an "opportunity to buy additional coverage—known as a “rider”—to tack a maternity benefit onto your plan. It’s almost always only available in anticipation; if you try to buy the rider once you’re already pregnant, the fetus becomes a 'pre-existing condition.'"

What Sarah's story shows is that we often think of different kinds of care not getting covered by insurance because it's experimental or unique. Sarah's lead shows this:

Our six-month-old daughter cost over $22,000.

You’d think, with a number like that, we must have used fertility treatments—but she was conceived naturally. You’d think we went through an adoption agency—but she is a biological child. So surely, we were uninsured.

Her experience shows precisely how screwed up our system is now. It's not risky proceedures or unique circumstances that aren't covered by insurance. Instead, insurance companies skimp on basic medical care that is commonplace.

More Women in Skepticism?

2009-08-11T14:08:00.005-04:00

Rebecca Watson relates a debate over sexism that took place at an annual skepticism conference, The Amazing Meeting. (I wasn't there, but I've actually been a big fan of The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe podcast of which Rebecca is a part. Rebecca is a writer by trade and her colleagues are academic scientists.) Skeptics view their mission as bringing science and scientific reasoning to media and a broader community. They are fierce defenders of evolution, opponents of homeopothy, and work against the anti-vaccination crowd. But I've noticed that Rebecca is the only woman on the show, and that they rarely interview any women on the show at all.

Rebecca's point was that although women were about 40 percent of attendees, all but one presenter was a white man. Her post was overall very diplomatic, but I wonder how long the skeptical movement will be able to skirt the issues of gender and race balance. After all, science itself, especially the hard sciences, is a field where very few women reach gender parity. Women make up the minority of grant recipients (PDF) at the National Institute of Health, and few schools even approach gender parity in its faculty ranks in hard sciences. The fact that science itself is realtively undiverse is a problem. With only a certain kind of perspective making up the majoirty of the people, there are fewer challenges -- even skepticism -- applied to what is often thought of as assumptions.

But what I found really disturbing was the reaction Rebecca got just by opening up the discussion of sexism at TAM this year:

I mean is it surprising that attractive girls might be steered toward a path that is less than academic as they go through middle and high school? I rarely see really attractive women that are also highly intelligent or geeky and i dont think its a result of some kind of discrimination. (emphasis Rebecca's)

It seems that science and skepticism itself is suffering from a lot of stereotyping, part of it directed at women.

The question of how to gain gender parity in sciences is a complicated one. Some say it is due to a lack of mentoring. Others say it goes all the way back to how boys and girls are treated in science in elementary school or that women are taught that their value is based in their attractiveness, and science isn't viewed by many as a field that attracts attractive people. Such complicated questions like the ones raised by Rebecca at TAM this year are ones that should be addressed, but they should be opened up to the broader picture. Women don't just make up the extreme minority of presenters at TAM, but they also make up a minortiy of high-profile scientists. Perhaps we need to start examining the reasons for what that is to answer the question about TAM.

Abortion Politics Aren't Just for Women

2009-08-11T13:36:00.003-04:00

This piece in Esquire about Warren Hern is an unsettling reminder that there is only one surgeon skilled enough in America left after Dr. George Tiller's death that can perform late-term abortions. The story itself is chilling. It talks of Hern's compulsion to keep a rifle next to his bed, his distaste of the word "abortionist" (which has become a dirty word thanks to the anti-choice movement, he says), and that this man is 70 but that he doesn't have a shot at retirement. It is an interesting piece about an important aspect of the debate over reproductive rights -- and it was written by a man and published in a magazine that says its target demographic is men.

I agree with Alyssa Rosenberg when she says that a "woman's" magazine (i.e. the unserious glossies like Glamour, Elle, Vogue, or Marie Claire) wouldn't bother to devote enough space or depth to such a story. I would also venture to guess that it's about the controversy that such a piece brings as well. Women's magazine advertisers don't like controversial issues. They like to walk the middle of the political spectrum. As long as "women" who read the magazines aren't asked to choose politics then they aren't either. They can be equal opportunity capitalists to conservatives, liberals, and moderates alike.

But I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing that such a piece appears in a men's magazine. After all, I've said before, the reproductive rights movement needs to recognize that it can't just spend time talking to women. It needs to engage with men if we ever expect to see women's rights addressed seriously in a political arena. There are plenty of straight men that might read that piece in Esquire and actually take some time to think about the issue of abortion. They might come out with different conclusions than women who defend choice might desire, but at least they're thinking about it. So often it seems that women's issues are left to women. It is for them to sort out finding a doctor who will perform the procedure or fight for the issue in health care reform. By getting men on the side of the reproductive rights community, it might make pro-choice battles a little easier.

Brüno's Attempt to Shock

2009-07-13T15:00:00.000-04:00

I went to see Brüno this weekend, helping it make $30.4 million on opening weekend. It was precisely what I expected. The movie is made up of attempt after attempt to squeeze uncomfortable laughter out of the audience. Maybe I read too much about it before I went to see it or maybe it was the day I was having, but I just wasn't into it. I found it predictable in its attempts at shock value.

I also found its attempts to expose homophobia a little too obvious. It's not surprising or shocking that those who try to "convert" gays through Jesus or fans of ultimate fighting might not be the most open-minded when confronted with the über-stereotype of gay culture. It seems like the choices of places to expose were rather low-hanging fruit. There are far more interesting and subtle forms of homophobia in today's culture, especially among those that theoretically support gay rights and want to be sure they don't come across as bigoted. That seems a far more interesting nut to crack (ok, I admit, pun intended).

Verdict: Less funny than Borat, but good for a laugh if you've got nothing better to do.

In It to Quit It

2009-07-13T12:00:00.000-04:00

The news that Sarah Palin quit is old, but she certainly hasn't disappeared from the public eye. It's like we're reliving the last few months all over again, An article in today's New York Times examines her reasons for tossing the towel in on the Alaska governorship, and it seems to be exactly what I thought it was. A mess of low-level scandals got to be too much.

Yesterday Frank Rich seemed to say that it is precisely because she is quitting (and is so much more "real" than other potential Republican stars out there) that she's qualified to run for the Republican nomination in 2012. I'm not totally sure that's the case. He points out that she's more popular among the GOP then ever these days.

What's most strange about Sarah Palin is that she, unlike other failed vice-presidential nominees, didn't fade into the background: she continues to live out loud in the news. Palin stories generate more hits than other political stories. People are, in some weird way, fascinated by her.

Dahlia Lithwick, who incidentally I got to meet last week when she keynoted the Campus Progress journalism conference, insists that Palin is both charismatic and unintelligible. This is perhaps the root of the fascination. She's both successful at drawing attention and a mess at the same time. We can't wait to see what she will do next, certain it will be predictably more outrageous than the last thing.

I'm not one to gaze into the crystal ball, but I think we'll see Palin pop up every now and again. She'll continue to raise money for Republicans, especially among pro-life groups. But Palin's place on the public stage as an elected official is nearly over. This fact is perhaps best illustrated by a nugget found at the end of the Times story:

At the governor’s Anchorage office, staff members are struggling to roll with Ms. Palin’s surprise announcement. Last week, a clock on the wall continued its countdown. Under a “Time to Make a Difference” placard, the clock ticks away the days, hours, minutes and seconds until the scheduled end to Ms. Palin’s term. As of Friday, it had 513 days left.

Dahlia Lithwick Previews Sotomayor Confirmation Hearings

2009-07-13T11:28:00.002-04:00

Dahlia Lithwick, at the Campus Progress journalism conference last week, previewed the Sonia Sotomayor confirmation hearings this week for The Nation.

Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court justices are evolving. We've gone from a simple stamp of approval by the Senate to something we see today. The first Supreme Court confirmation hearings I remember are those of Justices John Roberts and Samuel Alito. At the time, even though liberals knew that they were going to be very bad for liberal issues, there was a sense of inevitability. No matter how badly we knew it would be for America to confirm them, we knew that they would be confirmed, with "yes" votes from many Democrats.

With so many Democratic votes this time around, it's hard to imagine that Republicans feel anything but that inevitability. Instead, they will simply use the hearings to rally their bases, winking and nodding about overturning Roe v. Wade, the Second Amendment, and affirmative action.

Even though conservatives might feel on the defensive during the confirmation hearings of Sotomayor, the difference is that the Supreme Court, as we've seen with rulings this session, is still on their side. Sotomayor, if confirmed (and it's looking like she will be), is replacing one of the most liberal members of the Court. The balance of power still remains with conservatives.