Viva la Feminista

Fat Bitch

2009-11-28T10:07:00.000-06:00

I promise a much better review when I get time to write it up, but for Chicagoans, TONIGHT is the last night to catch Erica Watson and you had better not miss her.

Last night I got to watch an amazing show. Watson is genius at critiquing our weight & beauty-obsessed society (as she says, ugly fat bitches who lose weight just turn into ugly skinny bitches) as well as patriarchy. OK, she doesn't use the word patriarchy and that is where her genius lies.

Watson is able to do what PhD students do in an entire thesis, but she makes you laugh the entire time and without academic speak. For someone who flunked out of UIUC with Ds and Fs, she should type up that routine and get handed the PhD. Dr. Fat Bitch!

And her use of the word bitch is partially empowering, partially not so much. But it's used well.

While the audience was overwhelmingly African-American, us lighter skinned peeps were laughing just as loud with the jokes. She critiques race issues without resorting to stereotypes like other comics.

TONIGHT's show has many specials attached:

1. Two for one tickets at the box office. That's two people for $15. Can't beat that deal in Chicago!

2. There will be a raffle for a pair of Bulls tickets versus the Charlotte Bobcats - 6 tickets for $5 was last night's prices.

3. The after-party is at Funky Buddha!

Seriously, if you can make this show, do it.

I got to see if on a media pass after Watson's agent contacted me after a friend in NYC sent her to me. But if I didn't almost pee my pants from laughing so hard, I would NOT tell you to go.

I do have to warn you that the Chicago Center for the Performing Arts had some major heating problems last night. Wear an extra sweater if you want to take off your coat. It was COLD in there last night.

Erica Watson's Fat Bitch is playing at:

Chicago Center for the Performing Arts, 777 N. Green St., Chicago (handicapped access)
Some street parking one block west of Halsted (off Chicago Ave.)
$8 parking lot directly across Green Street next to Thalia restaurant
CTA Buses - #66 Chicago and #8 Halsted. CTA El - Red Line Chicago/State; Brown Line
Chicago/Franklin; Blue Line Chicago/Milwaukee/Ogden

Oh WaPo, you got me good.

2009-11-24T21:28:00.000-06:00

Yes, I entered the Washington Post's Next Great Pundit contest. I cobbled together a piece about adoption, abortion, feminism and my undying love for Dawn Friedman. Then Latinos in America was on and I sent in an entry about how much I did not appreciate that series. I knew it was a publicity sontest for WaPo, but the fact that they excluded already published op-ed'ers made me believe I had a decent shot.

When I saw that the ten finalists were 5 men and 5 women, I was fairly happy. Four of the dudes appeared to be white. Strike. The women seemed fairly diverse in ethnicity as well as kinda age. Althou someone on one of the many listservs I'm on said they felt the candidates skewed young. Point taken.

Then the final two came down to a white dude, Kevin, and a woman of color, Zeba. I guess I thought the feminist media community would throw it's weight behind Zeba - She worked on Obama's campaign and while her pieces weren't screaming feminism, she fit what I thought we'd want to see in a new op-ed voice. I admit that before the final two, I tweeted the contest without backing anyone. I was leaning towards Zeba, but also thought that having Courtney win would be fine too. Honestly I didn't have a horse in this race, but did think that if we could will it, a woman of color should win. Once it was a two person race, I tweeted my support for Zeba. Alas Kevin won. Zeba came up 600 votes short.

If Zeba had been a contributor at Feministing or Feministe would she had kicked ass in the final vote? Did we get tired of all the voting? On the last day? She was disconnected, from my POV, from the feminist media community despite having gone thru the Op-Ed Project and thus we didn't rally for her. Perhaps many of us were just disappointed that Courtney had been eliminated.

I am eagerly awaiting Courtney's reflection post on the whole process. She was called perky and I believe I read some comments about her voice. All things that are rarely, if ever, mentioned about a man.

As I said, I know that this whole thing wasn't set out to find that hidden jewel of punditry, but to jack up the hits at the WaPo. But they did have a golden moment when it had the opportunity to anoint Zeba or Courtney (the second runner up) as the next great pundit. A lot has been said about the contest and the quality of the finalists, but I still held out hope that the result would be different.

Or maybe America really does just want to hear from white dudes...But I highly doubt it.

Sponsor a Child this Holiday Season!

2009-11-24T00:07:00.000-06:00

Mujeres Latinas en Acción provides a variety of structured activities during non-school hours for children and teens and we need your help to make this holiday season special by supporting our Annual Holiday Party for kids.

The Annual Holiday Party provides the children in our Youth Programs with holiday gifts of winter clothing and accessories, games, sports equipment and books. Many of the children in our programs only receive gifts from Mujeres during this holiday season. The youth and children served in our programs are 100% low income and live in the Pilsen/Little Village area. The majority attends public schools and qualifies for free or reduced meals.

Mujeres' Holiday Party

Gifts for the participants of our Youth Programs will provide resources so that families can take part in a cultural tradition with laughter, fun and memories. Parents will appreciate that they have been able to access resources that provide gifts for their children. Further, the festive celebration will be a moment of immense excitement for all. Children and youth will enjoy receiving gifts as recognition of their hard work in the program.

How can you help?

Sponsor a child in the Peace or Proyecto Juventud program for the holiday season!

• Purchase a gift(s) by requesting a child's wish list;

• Provide a donation to Mujeres Latinas en Acción towards the purchase of gifts and holiday treats;

• Distribute this information to others! Encourage your friends, family and coworkers to sponsor a child this holiday season or make a donation to Mujeres Latinas en Acción.

For more information on how to sponsor a child or make a donation, please contact Alba Gómez at alba@mujereslat.org or 773/890-7664, or Linda Tortolero at tortolero@mujereslat.org or 773/890-7663.

**************
My family has received our wish list and the deadline for delivering gifts is December 11, 2009. So hurry up and drop Alba or Linda a line and make a kid's holiday. And for the Humbugs out there, the boy's wish list we received had items like gloves, sweaters and a coat on it. Nothing outrageous like a DS...Not that there's anything wrong with kid's wanting that.

There will never be closure in the Nicarico case

2009-11-17T23:03:00.000-06:00

Originally posted at the AWEARNESS blog

There will never be closure in the Nicarico case as long as Jim Ryan continues to run for public office.

The Nicarico family never missed a court date. For years they sat in courtroom after courtroom listening to the lies from Attorney Jim Ryan's team as they refused to admit their mistakes and consider Brian Dugan as a suspect. Instead, Ryan kept the case rolling along to wrongfully convict two innocent men and send them to death row.

Jim Ryan is now running for Illinois Governor and "spent a decade as DuPage state's attorney, previously had said he based his case against Cruz and Hernandez on the best information available at the time, though Dugan had long been a suspect in the crime." As I have said before in this space, the Nicarico case made a significant impact on my life. As a child it taught me to make sure the doors are locked. As a teen it taught me the harsh realities of racism in our judicial system.

Now that Brian Dugan has confessed and been sentenced to death, Ryan is apologizing. Not to Rolando Cruz, not to the Nicaricos, but to the voting public. Will we accept it? I can't. I simply can't accept his apology, especially since he has never given one to Cruz.

The fact that Ryan continues to run for public office only reminds us of the miscarriage of justice that occurred. The pain that he put not just the Nicaricos through, but an entire generation of Chicagoans. And it's not over. This case will be an issue throughout the primary election. Dugan still has one automatic appeal owed to him: Illinois has a moratorium on the death penalty. Amazingly, the huge flaws seen in this case alone are still not enough to convince people that we need to abolish the death penalty.

According to Amnesty International "ninety three percent of all known executions took place in five countries: China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the USA." I think that says a lot about the United States as a country. As our moms have said, we are judged by the company we keep.

I am opposed to the death penalty because it drags out court proceedings (thus wasting money), it is racist, but most importantly because we are flawed as human beings. The Nicarico case screams with our flaws. I don't believe any set of checks and balances can ensure that we won't make a mistake, especially in a country where we are still debating whether people have a right to NOT be framed or a right to DNA testing to prove innocence.

And sorry Jim Ryan, but no apology can make up for all of that.

Book Review: Impossible Motherhood by Irene Vilar

2009-11-15T00:50:00.002-06:00

The book is traumatic with a capital, bold T. At one part about 1/3 of the way thru, I threw the book down in disgust and decided I was done. You are warned.

Impossible Motherhood by Irene Vilar has received a lot of press and been a topic of debate on many a listserv due to the subtitle "Testimony of an Abortion Addict." When I first found out about this book my first thought was "Oh shit." Many people, including Vilar, believe that this book will be used by anti-abortion activists as proof of women using abortion as birth control and thus a reason for the procedure to be banned outright.

But if you read Impossible Motherhood, you'll soon discover that abortion is the hook not the heart of the story. Rather you find a sad story of a young woman thrust into an adult world and quickly found herself in a situation most of us would probably fall apart in as well. Depression soon engulfed her life, althou it was most likely merely lurking in Vilar's life after her mother's suicide.

Her 15 abortions didn't cause her depression, rather just like a 2008 American Psychological Association task force found, abortion can exacerbate depression that is already present in a woman's life. It was more of a symptom of her out of control life rather than a catalyst. And that is important to keep in mind.

While Vilar's life is more dramatic than most reality shows and it sometimes hard to believe, it does make you stop and wonder what you would do in her situations, especially as each abortion occurs. She falls in love with a bully 34 years older than her who "enlightens" her that children and family weigh you down, so a free and independent woman must remain child-free and thus is her excuse for multiple abortions.

Interestingly Vilar claims the label of feminist. She reads feminist authors and talks about them. She finds some strength in them, but talks about how feminism had no answer for her. And honestly I believe she is correct.

What I took away from this book was that while so many of us will fight to the death for abortion rights, many of us would shun Vilar from the movement due to having 15 abortions. She turns to the same people in her life. Would you stand by her abortion after abortion? I honestly don't know. One or two we can ~~forgive~~* support, but after that many of us start to blame the woman for not taking care of themselves, not protecting themselves, etc.

Another interesting aspect of this book is that this is Vilar's second memoir to cover the years she spent with her ex-husband (the bully). In her first, she talks says it was the happiest time of her life. Obviously in this one she takes a difference view of her marriage. With the number of memoirs being written by younger people (anyone under 50, I'd say) I think there is a lot that could change. Perhaps not as dramatic as Vilar, but think about how you looked at your 20s at age 30 then perhaps 10, 20 years later.

Do I think you should read this book? I'm not sure. It made me think and made me furious. The abuse she suffered in her marriage is what sticks with me far more than her abortions.

Politically you should read this book because I believe it makes a great case of why abortion can't be stopped by legality, if a woman wants one, she will get one. I also think the anti's will use this book and we should be aware of what Vilar actually says.

If you get a copy, please get one thru an indie bookstore or Powells.com.

Fellow Girl w/Pen writer, Allison McCarthy, wrote a review too.

If you have read this book and would be interested in an online chat or email discussion about the book, please leave your info in comments. A lot of us are conflicted about the book and a few of us have discussed this idea. Thanks!

Disclaimer: The only payment I received for this review was the copy of the book.

* Read my comments to see why I changed this word.

Aren't Latinas women too?

2009-11-14T13:52:00.000-06:00

Originally posted at the AWEARNESS blog

The Stupak amendment is the disappointment that just keeps on giving.
Monday morning, my inbox was flooded with emails from many organizations appalled by the passage of the House healthcare bill. One email stood out from the rest (including a few celebratory emails) and that was from the National Council of La Raza. It was celebratory and failed to mention the Stupak amendment, which would ban abortion coverage in public and private insurance plans:

"The health care reform bill passed by the House is a fundamental step toward making health care more affordable and accessible for all Americans, including Latinos," said Janet Murguía, NCLR President and CEO.

NCLR focused on some admittedly big gains won in terms of immigrant coverage, but oddly the next email was from the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Health which blasted the bill, and not just for the Stupak amendment:

While health care reform passed a hurdle in the House of Representatives, women and immigrants were left on the sidelines.

What is the difference? Is NCLR telling Latinas to stand back in favor of the other half of the community?

From an observer's viewpoint, I think it is fascinating that these two organizations are taking a vastly different view of the bill, yet are representing the same community. Which goes to further show that not all Latina/os are the same.

From a Latina viewpoint, it pisses me off. In the Latino community, women/mothers are the center of the family. I see eldest daughters put their dreams on hold to help with younger siblings (see Cindy's story in CNN's Latino in America series) and mothers walking their children to and from school each day. But their reproductive health is a bargaining chip? One not worthy of mention? NCLR mentions the flaws in the immigrant part of the bill, which tempers my anger at their celebration of a bill with so many problems. But there is no mention of Stupak at all. This invisibility hurts.

I honestly don't believe we can get undocumented immigrants covered, hell, we can barely get documented ones covered, but I do expect that women's full range of health care needs to be covered, and I wish the Latino community felt the same.

Interview: Lise Eliot, Ph.D. Author of Pink Brain, Blue Brain

2009-11-11T22:54:00.000-06:00

Lise Eliot, Ph.D., has been getting a lot of media attention about her latest book, Pink Brain, Blue Brain, and it was a pleasure to chat with her over the phone and an honor that she did it despite one of her sons being sick that day.This is far from a transcript of our conversation, but a summary of what we discussed.

VLF: Why did you write this book?

LE: The size is reflective of my compulsive nature. My first book was on brain development and it was inspired by my pregnancies and children. I kept running into brain development stories and began to wonder what do we really know about boy/girl differences? What are the causes? There wasn't a book out there that could answer that question, so I decided to write it. I gathered all the studies and decided to write the book myself. I wanted to take a chronological approach from prenatal to puberty.

I was seeing a trend in parenting literature that seemed to be exaggerating sex differences between girls and boys. Compared to the peer reviewed articles I was writing. I knew that part of my job was to temper people's views. Yes, there are differences, but not as dramatic as we have been led to believe. In some areas there are big differences and in others areas very small differences.

It's a book of science and I wanted it to be precise and quantitative.

VLF: What as your most surprising discovery while writing this book? Scientifically?

LE: Well...That's a hard one.

VLF: What was the most surprising way people responded?

LE: Oh, how adamantly people rejected that socialization makes a difference. I've read some of the comments on the blogs. People just revert to "Oh my son made a gun out of play-doh and my daughter made families out of her trucks." so therefore it is all hardwired. I try to make the point that some of the biggest sex difference are in toy selection. It's bigger than verbal, math, aggression and risk taking. I think it is misleading because parents see the difference in toy selection and draw a lin to everything else. Parents think that girls are so sensitive and appreciate others feelings and boys could care less about each other. Empathy has a very small difference between the sexes. The difference depends on how you measure it too. Self-ratings are skewed by our social expectations - women rate themselves more empathic than they are. If you test people objectively you see much smaller differences between men and women.

VLF: How can we effectively call a truce? Especially when something like the boys crisis comes up it makes girl advocates feel that all the attention and resources are taken from boys. And ditto for the flip debate.

LE: There still is a boys crisis. It's blamed on the feminization of the classroom. I keep pleading that we need to appreciate each child as an individual. Any focus on gender at all is backfiring on us, it is leading to these stereotype notions. I do think that classrooms need to be more boy friendly with more men as teachers, recess, physical activity and competition. All of this will benefit girls too. It won't hurt them to move around more or get comfortable with competition. Teachers need to remain sensitive to gender issues.

VLF: What is your biggest critique of how science is reported in the media?

LE: The media is always biased towards what is new. The problem is that a study comes along and violates 20 years of work. The appropriate response is to average it all together, but the media likes news so things off the press looks exciting. In the case of gender differences anything about the brain is given more weight, attention and credibility. What we see from brain imaging is really just a reflection of years of behavioral experiments. There are a few beautiful experiments that have helped expand our knowledge. We still have never answered the question between nature versus nurture.

VLF: How much do you think we shortchange boys by toughening them up or allowing the idea of "boys will be boys" to prevail?

LE: Some toughening up is good for everyone. There are some girls who ruminate a lot on their feelings is actually one of the big risk factors for depression. Managing your own emotions is one thing, applying that to others is inappropriate. We need to continue to cultivate boys' sense of empathy and caring. These things are learned. Children learn it by seeing it modeled by adults and other children around them.

VLF: You spend a lot of time talking about stereotypes and debunking them. But how can we effectively rise above them yet still give our girl pink Legos?

LE: In this day of age it is hard to fight the pink. Just walk into any toystore. I would certainly fight it as long as you can. When girls are little, they don't understand that pink is for girls unless it is drilled into them. Once they know that pink equals girl you have to play into that. We need to get our kids to exercise the domains that aren't gendered - spatial skills especially. I am really amazed at the strength of the pink in our world. I saw pink Bears jerseys in the store the other day. It's become code of "I am woman." I do think unfortunately that in this society where youth culture is so strong, we have to try to hijack these things to get girls to try things.

VLF: Do you consider yourself a feminist?

LE: Well, absoluately. I don't understand how feminist became a dirty word.

VLF: How do we overcome the idea that difference or bigger is better?

LE: It's has been a contribution of the whole difference feminism as well as all the psychological research. Sex differences divide up fairly equally. Boys do have bigger hearts, livers -- they are just bigger. Everything scales up.

VLF: What is your take away message for parents? For teachers and advocates?

LE: Parents want to treat kids in a gender neutral way. It's not easy, but keep at it. To realize that even when we are trying, it's not all possible. Children are difference and provoke different reactions out of us. Keep an open mind of how kids are spending their time. Think about how that is wiring them up for difference abilities. If your son takes a big liking to video games we might worry. But if it is done in a social group, it might be more of a bonding experience and that might outweigh the concern we have over the gaming. I hoped to open parents' eyes to the full range of intelligences, none of them are limited to boys or girls. Keep in mind this cross training that girls can benefit from - girls can benefit from spatial experiences and boys from verbal and social interactions. I was just at the grocery store and there was a little girl playing with the chain that separates things. I thought aw, that's just what my sons would have done as kids, but her mother was discouraging her. I thought, what a shame! The girl wanted to figure out how it worked. We should encourage tinkering and exploration.

Advocates need to be more proactive to encourage kids to cross these gender lines. We are so into "choice" and letting kids make their own choices. We give them a huge cafeteria of choices, but they will default to gender segregated roles early unless we do more encouraging and engineering. I've had people tell me that their girl wouldn't like woodworking because the class is full of boys. Teachers go too easily to gender segregation. We need to engineer beyond that. There is a lot to be learned by crossing over.

Living in a culture of rape - From AWEARNESS

2009-11-11T09:24:00.002-06:00

Originally posted at the AWEARNESS blog:

Our culture is still in a state of shock over the gang rape of a 15-year old girl outside her homecoming dance last week. But what is even more upsetting to me than the news of this crime is the type of responses I have seen regarding her attackers and the victim-blaming. Fellow students (and administrators, and people who don't know the victim or have any real information on the subject) are saying the rape is the victim's fault because she was drinking, and that the rapists themselves are not to blame for their actions.

What should shock us is not only the victim-blaming taking place here, but also that this is not an isolated incident. It is not just an American tragedy. Rape is used a tool of fear around the world, and not just as a weapon in a declared war either. In the UK two 10-year old boys are accused of raping an 8-year old girl. In India, a tourist guide attempted to rape a 14-year old. Rape is a not rare occurrence in South Africa's high schools.

My reason for pointing out that rape happens everywhere in the world is not to belittle what happened outside that homecoming dance or to lessen the lifetime of guilt I hope the bystanders carry, but to say that it is not just our society, our kids, or even our problem (it is those things, but it is also more than that). Rape is a global issue that has even grandmothers are trying to protect themselves.

This is what is meant by living in a culture of rape. Each time a rape happens and we try to find blame in the victim, we continue the cycle. When we dismiss rape as not being "our problem," we continue the cycle. Each time we talk about rape as a result of sexual desire, we continue the cycle. Rape is about power, not just about sex.

Until we can get that first step down pact - rape is not only about sex, but power - then our culture of rape will continue to engulf us into a darkness too scary to comprehend.

Will the recession change our view of homelessness? - From AWEARNESS

2009-11-10T17:00:00.002-06:00

Originally posted at the AWEARNESS blog

Fellow AWEARNESS writer David Alm shed a light recently on the plight of teenage runaways. Having to cope with economic uncertainty ripping their families apart, and even sex slavery (that's what I call underage prostitution, especially when it involves 10-year-olds), many of our nation's youth are facing tough times that can result in homelessness. Even my favorite "Golden Girl," Bea Arthur, chimed in on the topic from the heavens when her estate revealed last week that she left $300,000 to a gay youth shelter. Now that's being a friend to the end. . . and then some!
But if there is any silver lining whatsoever to the cloud of homelessness, it's that the media are beginning to show homelessness in a new, human, light. The Chicago Tribune just profiled a family who goes between living in a storage unit and various motels. Why is this news? Because it is straining our education systems:

Ron O'Connor, Will County's homeless liaison, said this academic year has been like no other. 'Where we used to see single moms, maybe leaving a domestic situation, now we're seeing more and more two-parent homes that just aren't making it,' O'Connor said. 'That's never happened before.'

The Tribune profiled a working family. They aren't slackers, but people whose jobs were hit hard by the recession. This profile, and others like it, gives a face to the homelessness crisis and shows readers that not only lazy "bums" are struggling to find shelter. This is happening to families and individuals of all walks of life, and it could happen to just about anyone - even you.

This got me thinking. . . Will profiling families like this help the homelessness problem? Will we stop assuming that people live on the street because they are lazy and don't want to work? Can we begin to see them as human beings who caught a bad break or have other issues which require outside help? The face of a homeless person appears to be changing in the media, but many of the factors that contribute to the situation are the same. In fact, NOW on PBS updated their website on homelessness to reflect the new statistics on homelessness.

If one good thing comes from the current recession and the increase in homelessness, I do hope it is a change in our culture's notion of who is homeless and most importantly, why.

Book Review: Pink Brain, Blue Brain by Lise Eliot

2009-11-08T21:54:00.002-06:00

Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps - and What We Can Do About It by Lise Eliot, Ph.D. is a must read for all parents.

Eliot takes a much debated issue - are girls and boys fundamentally different? - and sets out with a well restrained heart. And that frustrated me the most. Yes, I was hoping that this book would lay down that law that there are no real differences between the genders. That the differences we see are all our fault. Yes, even this science grrl sometimes wishes against reality.

Eliot painstakingly goes thru all available scientific research and popular culture books to sort out the truth. Are men from Mars and women from Venus? In a nutshell, no.
What Eliot does is walk us thru the research, data and the facts about the differences. I say painstakingly because this 315 page tome has almost 40 pages of endnotes and 45 pages of bibliography and zero fluff. Some might find this book too much - to that I say, read the sections you want to read. Even a paragraph is worthy of your time. Take small bites if you must, you won't be disappointed.

By now I hope you get the idea that Eliot has given us a book that puts all the research in perspective. She's not far left nor far right. As the mom of two boys and one girl, she has personal interest in each side of the debate.

Eliot does a great job at taking the popular culture literature that tells us that boys and girls are so different they can't be taught together and rips it to shreds WITH DATA! Yet, she also acknowledges the boy crisis as a real phenomena WITH DATA!

And this is where I think the book is genius. Eliot gives us so much data to prove her conclusions that you find yourself nodding along with one idea, then she switches over to the "counter" issue and you nod along. Here's what I mean:

* Prenatal testosterone does make a difference to how boys and girls act and think, but not as much as we think. There are biological differences to the hormone levels, but it is not the end all be all reason why boys are more aggressive, better at math or whatnot.

Eliot shows us that nature does give boys and girls their own small advantages in life, but it is our socialization that exasperates them to such an extreme that we think that bravery is masculine and the need for emotional attention is feminine. Example: In an experiment where moms were asked to guess how steep an incline their infants can climb down - face first - the moms underestimated the girls by 9 degrees. This suggests that even at infancy moms already believe that girls can't be as brave or agile at such a young age. "Girls attempted and successfully descended slopes ranging in angle from 10 degress to 46 degress, while boys attempted slopes between 12 and 38 degree (pp 66-67)." Thus no difference in performance, but a big difference in expectation. Does this mean that moms are holding back their girls?

Eliot also points out that boys are, on average, larger at birth than girls. We usually think about how tough this might had been on the woman pushing an extra few pounds of baby out, but Eliot reminds us that this is tough on the newborn too. This could be why boys are fussier babies. Where our gender ideas come into play is that Eliot points to research that shows that parents are more willing to let baby boys cry longer than baby girls. This is the beginning of toughening our boys out AND where they start to learn that expressing their emotions doesn't pay. Are we shushing our boys into their un-emo ways?

Eliot covers the gamut from in utero thru the teen years, from emotions to math skills.

What I learned here is simple and honestly pretty much what I've been saying for years too. Yes, girls and boys are different, they have biological differences, but most of the differences we see are created. Eliot shows us the research that proves over and over that there are bigger differences within genders than between them. That the differences that are there are small. SMALL!

But it also challenged me to reexamine my views of gender and how we are socializing our kids. This book didn't just reaffirm my beliefs, but it taught me a lot about how we see gender.

I was lucky to interview Dr. Eliot over the phone and will post it very soon.

Get yourself a copy thru an indie bookstore or Powells.com.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of the book from the publishers by my own request. I saw a piece on Dr. Eliot on TV and knew I needed to read and review this book. Thank you.

Gender Trouble Week - Update

2009-11-07T11:30:00.000-06:00

Sorry that I wasn't able to finish my Gender Trouble reviews when I said I would. I got a last minute opportunity to interview Lise Eliot. On top of that, my last two weeks have been pretty busy & I needed some down time. But the review will be up soon as well as my interview.

Thanks for reading!

Book Review: Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation by Elissa Stein and Susan Kim

2009-11-03T20:50:00.001-06:00

The first real job I had out of college was working for one of the founders for the Society for Menstrual Cycle Research. Which is ironic since I was not the "Woo, I'm woman, let me menstruate!" gal back then. And honestly I'm still not. That said...

Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation by Elissa Stein and Susan Kim is a riot.

My period was a mystery to me until about college when I found women who pointed me in the direction of books and resources. No, I wasn't a lucky gal who grew up coveting her mom's worn copy of Our Bodies Ourselves, oh how I wish! Instead I was like Nancy Drew putting pieces of the puzzle together.

Flow is not a replacement for OBOS, rather I would say it is a companion piece. It goes thru the history of menstruation and how our society has dealt with it or ignored it. Flow reminds/tells you of our awful past of douching with Lysol and hysteria diagnoses.

But it also walks you thru the history of how we got to have disposable pads (left over supplies from WWI) and tampons AND their war against each other that resulted in our ongoing battle to rid out girly parts of any type of smell. Flow then reminds us that unless it's a horrible smell, it's probably a natural smell and a good thing. It's not a book that makes you feel bad if you say are on birth control that reduces your faux-period to 4 times a year *ahem* but it does talk about why that period is a fake one, why we would ever want to reduce our menstruation and what that means overall for womankind.

Overall Flow is a beautiful book (coffee table worthy!) and quite educational, while keeping you laughing. There are some amazing factoids in here! (psst...There should be a trivia board game that goes along with this baby.) And the vintage ads are fab. Courteney Cox Arquette was the first person to say period in a commercial. I believe that Cybil Sheppard and Laurie Laughlin are in a few ads too. Did you know that the Hite Report didn't say anything about our periods? Lots of fun facts to wow your friends during the next girls night out!

Althou I do have to say that Stein & Kim do try a bit too hard to be hip and cool. I also wish there was an index so I can better find things like what was the name of the marathon runner who completed while visibly bleeding? But I do believe it is worth the investment, even just to leave on the bookshelf for the woman-child in your life to stumble across one day. My copy will be presented to her along with all her other menarche gifties.

Get yourself or the woman-child in your life a copy thru an indie bookstore or Powells.com.

Disclaimer: The only payment I received for this review was the copy of the book.

Want diversity? Start with diversity.

2009-11-03T18:07:00.001-06:00

Don't ask me to bring diversity to your organization, ask me to join your organization for my skills, my knowledge or because you just love me. Don't think that I'm the pepper to your bland mashed potatoes. I am the garlic to those potatoes - the first thing you put on the skillet after you start to boil the water. Where you dash on pepper, throw in some onion and make me a vital part of the dish....Not the afterthought.

***

Media itself is changing rapidly and in Chicago we have a new player in the game, the Chicago News Cooperative. Laura Washington gave them a tongue lashing for the total lack of diversity they are starting out with:

Nearly every staff member they have named so far is white -- and male. The co-op's board is white, all but one male. I would venture there are vast swaths of the city they don't know and rarely traverse....

If these reporters and editors check with the U.S. Census, they will discover that Chicago's racial and ethnic base is majority-minority. There are far more people of color than whites. Latinos are Illinois' fastest-growing minority group. A good half of the Chicago region is female.

Some might call it arrogance, hubris or just plain racism. I don't know about that, but to me it's just plain folly.

But wait! The Co-op responds:

Jim O'Shea, the former Chicago Tribune managing editor who last week announced the Chicago News Cooperative...says he intends to have a diverse staff and board of directors....O'Shea envisioned eventually having 20 to 25 staffers. "I am interviewing a candidate as we speak who will bring to us some diversity," he said.

As I wrote on a listserv about this topic, are they going to be hiring a Wiccan lesbian of color? A candidate? Come on...If this is the response that the Co-Op is going to send out after getting called out on their almost-all-dude, but still all white club, then I doubt that much will come from the Co-Op in terms of stories that truly reflect the diversity of Chicago.

That said, I know many under or unemployed journalists in this windy city who can bring a world of difference to your project Jim. So once you're done hiring that one candidate who will bring you diversity, get to work on bringing in a whole team of diverse candidates.Then maybe I'll read what your team brings to the table. And believe me, I'm hungry.

Good riddance to Breast Cancer Awareness Month!

2009-10-30T00:20:00.001-05:00

I hate it because it is all about the million pieces of junk we can buy that are pink.

The pink ribbon is everywhere. Ironically it is on things that just might cause breast cancer!

Breast Cancer Action calls these companies "pinkwashers." BMW, for example, gives $1 to Susan G. Komen for the Cure each time you test-drive one of their cars, even though pollutants found in car exhaust are linked to breast cancer.

Breast cancer is far too dangerous and serious of an enemy to be defeated by pink cleaning rags. From the earliest record of how a breast cancer patient feels to today's survivors who are saying "No thank you to the pink ribbon," it is clear that breast cancer can radicalize you.

It's easy for me to "Think Before I Pink" because I have issues with that uber-girly color. But even I had to do a double take when I saw that Dr. Susan Love has joined forces with Avon to launch Army of Women. Is this more pinkwashing? Or a real move to adjust the conversation from a cure for breast cancer to preventing it in the first place?

I honestly haven't a clue, but my first question is "What is in Avon cosmetics and could it give me cancer?"

Fundraiser: The Advantage and Disadvantage of Zine, a funding proposal

2009-10-29T23:34:00.000-05:00

If you read my blog at my blog, you may have noticed a little box over there >>>>

That is a ChipIn widget for fellow Chicagoan, feminist and in her own right, total bad ass, Anne Elizabeth Moore. So it's not me asking for your dollars for me or my own sake, but rather for Ms. Bad Ass. Here's what she's fundraising for:

Advantage and Disadvantage of Zine is a long-term, multifaceted collaboration with a group of young women college students in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. I first met these young women when I was offered a residency in their dormitory, where I lived for two months during the winter of 2007-2008. (To read more about this work, scroll down to the right-hand section of this blog, Camb(l)o(g)dia, Condensed.) During my time there I initiated a close relationship with all 32 residents, and together we created two seperate bodies of self-publishing work and initiated an international dialogue about human rights and young women in developing nations. I intend to return in December to continue this work during a time of tremendous need.

So click on over there or fuck it, here's the widget and the full funding proposal:

Give $5, yes the cost of a fancy coffee, and help send Anne back to Cambodia to organize a fabulous group of young women. Or buy the booklette! So what are you waiting for?

Where to send the girls who do like computer science

2009-10-29T22:21:00.000-05:00

Originally posted at AWEARNESS

WOW!

I can't believe the response my post about girls and computer science on Wednesday received on Twitter. Thanks. Many of the retweets were of "don't forget us too!" variety, so to follow up on the popular post, here is a quick run down of just a handful of the amazing groups working to recruit girls to computer science and keep them interested. Please, please add additional ones in the comments!

Anita Borg: This is a powerhouse organization that works to connect tech companies to women. ABI offers workshops, publications and information aimed to develop leadership skills; celebrates and highlights the success of women who are changing the face of technology; and provides programs that change the way technology is created, learned and taught. One peek at their board and you'll see that the movers & shakers of technology are gathering at ABI to bring more women to the keyboard.

Read the rest of the resource list over at AWEARNESS please. Thanks!

Book Review: The Trouble with Boys by Peg Tyre

2009-10-28T23:00:00.000-05:00

The problem with The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do by Peg Tyre is that it is a good book wrapped up in so many stereotypes it is difficult to find the true nuggets of knowledge.

As a grown up tomboy who ended up marrying a man who sat still as a young boy, I find dealing in stereotypes completely unhelpful to the conversation. In fact I am so allergic to them that it takes a lot of data for me to say uncle. Tyre claims to want to rip the myths to shreds, but I fear that she merely reinforces them.

One myth that needs to die is that boys are violent. Boys may be rougher than girls in their play, but violent shouldn't be tolerated. There is a line and we need to keep our boys on the proper side of that line. Tyre correctly blasts against zero tolerance rules, but we still need to deal with violence in our classrooms or the emergence of violence. Star Wars = ok, bloody murder scenes NOT ok.

Hands on learning is essential to all students, girls as well as boys. Tyre repeatedly talks to teacher after teacher about how boys learn better when they get their hands on something, they run around or put theory into action. Just because girls learn better than boys in a "sit down and be quiet" way does not mean that they can't also benefit from hands on activities. In fact it is hands on activities that will help girls break thru the glass beaker ceiling.

And this is where recess comes into play. Or rather a discussion of how recess is becoming more of a luxury than a staple. Yes, boys need to run the ants out of their pants, but girls need exercise too. From just learning to discover the power of their bodies to staying healthy, we shouldn't paint recess as a solution just for boys. But this was one point where I did learn how horrible our boys do have it with the quick to diagnose ADHD and the insistence that they have the wild rumpus medicated out of them. Again, this is where girls do benefit for being "good" and it sucks. That said, my daughter can't sit still to save her life, so I'm a bit worried of the ADHD verdict as well.

Tyre does tackle the "reading is for girls" stereotype by calling men out for not doing more reading with their sons and the boys in their lives. Her example of a firefighter coming in to read to classes is an excellent way to address the issue. Much different than say my nephew who improved his grades once he saw that some of the pretty girls were also smart! Or the teacher on Donors Choose who sought to entice the boys to read by getting the girls to fall in love with women authors. Oh, the bad well-meaningness of it all!

On the other hand Tyre blames those who championed "children are all the same" for the ramblings of Michael Gurian. Gurian's theory is that boys and girls brains are fundamentally different, so different that single-sex schools are needed. The problem is that no well-regarded scientist will back him up. Tyre's explanation for his success and popularity? That parents of boys NEED to have validation that their boys are different. OK, your boy is different than my girl, but difference can be managed.

And here's where I agree with Tyre. Our schools are in trouble. Boys and girls are suffering from standardized testing and the ramping up of education that goes along with it. Yes, I want all of our kids to read at grade level, do math well and graduate on time. But that doesn't mean that we need to have our first graders doing third grade work or pre-schoolers in professional tutoring to prepare for kindergarten.

Tyre spends a lot of time trying to discredit anyone who claims that the boy crisis is overblown (which I agree). On page 43 she takes Kim Gandy, past President of NOW, to task for drawing a line between how boys (men) are reacting to the changing role of girls (women) and rape. "How can concern about boys in the classroom be linked, even tangentially, with rape?" It's pretty simple to a woman who was pinned to a classroom desk in biology class by a boy while the teacher just stood there. It's about power. Girls are exerting their power in the classroom, yet a boys will be boys mentality still rules in life. Yes, there are zero tolerance policies, but I'll get to those later. Rape is a tool of power or more precisely a lack of power. It's really not that hard to see that aggression against women and girls can start right in the classroom.

Tyre does a great job at running the college admissions numbers. There has been a lot of whining about how hard it is to get into college, but the simple fact is that we have a record number of men and women entering college period. Colleges, especially state schools just cannot handle the increased capacity and thus making colleges even more competitive to get into.

Ironically we are at a point where we can say that boys just might be the canary in the coalmine when it comes to schools. Schools are so scheduled that there is little time for physical activity that is critical for boys and girls. Art and music is pushed out in favor of double reading and math time. Administrators can't fully grasp what it means to have actual sexual harassment occur so they set up zero tolerance rules rather than work to address the reason why boys (more often than not) feel entitled to touch or harass girls.

Boys are different, yes they are. But as Lise Eliot (her book is next!) says in Pink Brain, Blue Brain, the different among boys is far greater than between girls and boys.

I do recommend this book for those of us without sons. It is amazing what our society has done to boyhood, not just in trying to squash it, but also to romanticize it ala a conservative right-winger longs for a return to "Leave it to Beaver" days. If you can keep licking that block of salt, you will learn things that will knock your socks off. For those of you with sons, I fear this would only feed into your fears. Eliot's book is more up your alley.

Need to get yourself a copy? Try an indie bookstore or Powells.com.

Wanted: Girls who like computer science - From AWEARNESS

2009-10-28T19:16:00.000-05:00

Originally posted at AWEARNESS

Despite the rise of women attending college and becoming the majority of the workforce, one area that continues to be ignored by women and girls is computer science.

There are many theories as to why girls love using computers (women are the majority of social media users) but don't want to learn how to program or build computers. There are those who chalk it up to gender differences plain and simple. Some believe it is because girls are repelled by geek or hacker culture. Universities and companies who hire computer scientists are constantly recruiting girls and trying to show them why computer science is a great option.

One part of the theory why girls are excluded from hacker culture is that it is too "frattish" and misogynistic. That is why I find the lap dances at a recent Yahoo! event (Yahoo! paid for women to dance in skimpy clothing at a "brainstorming session") to be especially atrocious.

Read the rest over at AWEARNESS please! Thanks.

Book Review: So Sexy So Soon by Diane E. Levin and Jean Kilbourne

2009-10-27T17:00:00.003-05:00

Britney. Bratz dolls. Thongs for girls. Those are the things we think about and blame for the sexualization of childhood. In So Sexy So Soon, Diane E. Levin and Jean Kilbourne teach us about how commercialization and consumerism is quickly destroying childhood.

First of all, one might think this is a book for those of us with daughters. Nope! This is one is for parents, period. While there is a huge focus on the sexualization of girls, there is also great conversations about boys and how toys and media are screwing with their sexuality.

Levin & Kilbourne don't lecture parents. They are sympathetic to our situation, but they are stern in pushing us to assert our power as parents. It's not all about saying no in here, but they talk about how to say yes, how to talk with our kids about the decisions we make and how to make stores, marketers and product producers accountable.

Take child thongs for example. Look up blog posts about them and those who aren't outraged by them say things like, "If you don't like them, don't buy them for your kid." Well, it's not as simple as that. There is an excellent list of 12 reasons why it's not as simple as parents saying no. #10 sums it up: "It lets the media & marketing industries completely off the hook." So far, so good in my home, but saying it is all up to us as parents minimizes the huge market forces pounding on our children every single day. My daughter didn't see one scene from "High School Musical" or "Hannah Montana" before she was 4, but she knew who they were because kids in her preschool were bringing items plastered with them. And what kids see, kids want.

Honestly it's tiring saying no to everything, so many of us weigh things and say yes to things we think are the lesser of two evils. Levin & Kilbourne enlighten us to how even the lesser of the evils is setting up our children to end up right where we don't want them. There is an excellent discussion about princess culture and how that sets up girls to see beauty and their outward appearance as their source of validation and that sexiness is our goal. Princesses and "tame" teen shows teach girls and boys what it means to be sexy and they strive for that. What the media, schools and parents aren't teaching our kids is what sexy means and how it is different than sex. There's a sick logic to how we go from Bratz dolls for pre-tweens to seeing high school girls embrace Playboy as empowering.

Levin & Kilbourne discuss how children's minds evolve and how to talk to them appropriately AND how to figure out how they jumped to a conclusion without going batshit. For me, this was one of the best parts of the book. Where do kids get such crazy ideas? Well they put it together from what they see, but how much logic goes into it depends on their age and development. Again, it is hard for an 8-year-old to understand the difference between wanting to have sex with someone and dressing up to be sexy. Media and as an extension, toys, are blurring that line that many of us wrestled with in high school.

As for boys...Even though I don't have a son, I have two nephews and a gaggle of boys to love from my godson's family. Levin & Kilbourne discuss how professional wrestling and hyper-masculine toys are screwing up how boys see sex and how that then screws up their ability to deal with the girls in their lives. We all know that adult images are just a few clicks away on the internet. This increase in the rise of sexual images in media coincides with the decline in real sex ed in the schools.

This book is far from anti-sex or prudish. Rather, Levin & Kilbourne are repeatedly talking about the need for sexuality education. Let's teach kids about not the how-to of sex, but the how-to-feel of sex. What does it mean to love someone? What does it mean to have sex with that person? How do you know when it's being done right? For over a decade, abstinence-only sex ed has been telling our kids to "Just say no" to sex, yet TV, movies, music, billboards and even their toys are telling them to be sexy. Talk about a tease! "But sex in commercial culture has far more to do with trivializing and objectifying sex than with promoting it, more to do with consuming than with connecting (p 9)."

Too often the answer to how to deal with the sexualization of childhood is to either stop showing anything with sex in it or to loosen up, they are just kids. Levin & Kilbourne find that uncomfortable middle that does put a lot of agency in parents, but they also arm us with a lot of helpful data and knowledge.

This is a must-read.

Please get yourself a copy thru an indie bookstore or Powells.com.

Disclaimer: I received this book directly from the publishers on my request over a year ago.

EVENT: Media Democracy Day -- Chicago, 2009

2009-10-27T12:00:00.000-05:00

Join fellow progressive media professionals and activists to discuss how we can work together to create more media democracy and media justice, important steps to building a just society.

The Metro Chicago Progressive Media Network …
invites you join us for ...

2009 Media Democracy Day - Chicago
Date/Time: November 7, 2009, 1-4-pm
Location: Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn Ave, Chicago, IL
See: www.chicagoprogmedia.org

. PROMOTE MEDIA ACCESS TO ALL SEGMENTS OF SOCIETY!

. PROMOTE MEDIA THAT INFORMS THE PUBLIC ON IMPORTANT ISSUES!

. NETWORK WITH OTHER PROGRESSIVE MEDIA PROFESSIONALS AND MEDIA ACTIVITS

. CREATE MEDIA INITIATIVES TO STRENGTHEN DIALOGUE AROUND THE CHALLENGES FACING OUR WORLD!

Initially Media Democracy Day (MD day) was organized by local Toronto and Vancouver groups of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. In 2002, events were held in cities around the world. A Media Democracy Day has been held in Chicago in the past.

Today the tradition of MD Day is carried on by local citizens and student groups in Canada and around the world. This year a group of media activists and professionals is planning for 2009 Media Democracy Day - Chicago with the objective of including representation and participation from all around the Chicago area. The timing of the event is planned to coincide with the date of Media Democracy Day in Vancouver, Canada.

Goals of 2009 Media Democracy Day - Chicago:
1) to bring together area progressive media professionals and media activists to share their perspectives on how we can promote a media system that informs the public on important issues and provides media access to all segments of society.

2) to create coherent messages and media initiatives to draw public attention and broaden and strengthen dialogue around serious issues and challenges facing the area, the nation, and the planet.

Part I - Panel The event will feature concise (5-7 minutes) presentations by key area media activists, media professionals, media-related organizations and academics covering the full spectrum of the reform media map:

1) mainstream media itself, its content, structure, sources, balance, etc..

2) alternative media of all types, including TV, radio, print, internet, performance, and graphics,

3) public awareness and education about the media, and

4) the media environment, including legislation and regulations.*

The panel is also planned to include media representatives from the Latin-American community, the African-American community, women, youth, and the GLBT community.

Part II - Working Groups and Skills sharing
Tract 1 - Working Groups The second part of the event will consist of facilitated breakout working groups, tasked with
1) discussion and then
2) formulating actionable items.

Tract 2 - Skills Sharing, such as blogging, video, and editing

Part III - Report-back The last component will be a facilitated report-back session. A summary of the report-back will be made available to interested attendees. LIST OF

PANELISTS
Mitchell Szczepanczyk, Chicago Media Action
Joel Bleifuss, Editor, In These Times
Tim Wais, HumanThread
Veronica Arreola; Educator, Blogger (vivalafeminista.com)
Larry Duncan, Labor Beat
Robert Koehler, Syndicated Columnist
Mike Barr, Documentary filmmaker
Karen Bond, National Black Coalition for Media Justice The Metro Chicago
Kevin Gozstola, documentary filmmaker completing a Film/Video degree at Columbia College

Progressive Media Network (MCPMN), which was formed in November 2007, is an area networking group of media professionals and media activists,

*Source: Hackett, Robert A. and William K. Carroll, Remaking Media: The struggle to democratize public communication. 2006

Gender Trouble Week

2009-10-26T23:27:00.001-05:00

This week I'll be sharing reviews of books that deal with the gender of our children and our parenting.

I am the mother of a six-year-old girl and as long time readers know, I keep on eye out on how girls and their toys are sexualized. As an advocate for education equity, I keep tabs on the changed that our sons and daughters are making n the classroom.

As a feminist I get told that we're post-feminist, the battle of the sexes is over and it's our boys who need a revolution.

To that I say hell no and hell yes!

Women may be the majority of workers but we still are paid only 78% to a man's dollar (even less so for women of color), tracked into low prestige and low wage careers and we still carry the burden of caregiving for our families. The feminist revolution is far from over.

The next stage will be to free our brothers from the claustrophobic gender role box. If you read media depictions of why boys are falling behind you see feminists being blamed, but also painting boys as lazy and unwilling to learn. The boy revolution will free them from the testosterone ball and chain.

The books I will review this week include:

So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood, and What Parents Can Do to Protect Their Kids by Diane E. Levin and Jean Kilbourne, The Trouble with Boys: A Surprising Report Card on Our Sons, Their Problems at School, and What Parents and Educators Must Do by Peg Tyre and Pink Brain, Blue Brain: how small differences grow into troublesome gaps--and what we can do about it by Lise Eliot.

As an introduction to this week's reviews, I want to emphasize that while I went into the books very biased, I learned a lot from each one, especially Tyre's The Trouble with Boys. That book gave me such a brain cramp that it's taken me a year to write a review because I've been processing it and trying to figure out how to say what I want to say. Things are changing and we need to change with it.

I do believe that in some sense the battle of the sexes are over -- And I mean that as we need to stop pitting our girls and our boys against each other, especially in terms of education equity because there should be enough education to go around.

EVENT: Evolution of Activism

2009-10-21T23:10:00.000-05:00

A fellow feminista friend of mine is on this amazing panel. So if you are free that night, get yourself over there!

Lecture and Panel Discussion: Evolution of Activism
Thursday, October 29, 2009, 7:30-9:30pm
e-mail c-cantu@neiu.edu for more info

Review: The House on Mango Street

2009-10-19T23:17:00.000-05:00

And I'm not talking about the book either!

Tanya Saracho of Teatro Luna, has adapted Sandra Cisneros's classic coming of age tale, The House on Mango Street, into a play. Yeah, I know, like wow. Amazing eh?

I went to see it on Friday night for a fundraiser for the Chicago Foundation for Women's Latina Leadership Council. It runs until November 8th and tickets are already limited, so get some today.

It's been a few years since I read the novel so it wasn't like I knew how every scene should or could go. I sat back and enjoyed the show. Saracho includes some great songs as well to string the story together.

To see Esperanza come alive on stage was moving. Yes, I was in tears many times. The scene where Esperanza is assaulted was handled perfectly. The theme of women in windows was played out in heart-wrenching beauty on the stage.

It is amazing that a story that takes place over 30 years ago is still so fresh on so many levels. There's a joke about the mayor never fixing Chicago's public transit system that got a lot of laughs. But the struggle of Latinas growing up in a macho culture, wanting to be free enough to dance where we want, when we want and yet finding that we are "too beautiful" to be seen.

Ultimately for me, THoMS, is about home and what that means. I was just watching "Latin Music USA" on PBS and Lin-Manuel Miranda of "In the Heights" said it best. He said something like, "Home is a very tricky word for us Latinos. We're not really sure where home is. Is it where we grew up? Where our families came from? Where we are now?" Esperanza is always looking to get out, to leave Mango Street. And I soooo get that. I was pretty much raised to get out of our lil suburb, to aspire to "be more" and all that. That's one reason why it is so hard for me to go back and see my old house. It's no longer yellow and my favorite tree is gone. It was home for so long, yet it was always just a stop on my way somewhere else. Oddly I don't think I've felt at home until our apartment on Fletcher, which was our 3rd apartment in Chicago. Home.

There was a Q&A that I skipped out on, but someone reported that some of the men found the show to be man-bashing since it questions how Latino men have treated women and our macho culture. Guess it's a good thing I skipped it.

In conclusion...Go see this show if you can!!

FTC, Bloggers & Publicists oh my!

2009-10-16T15:01:00.001-05:00

Yesterday I attended the Publicity Club of Chicago's monthly lunch discussion. I never thought I'd say that because it was a room full of PR execs and while I do my fair share of publicity for feministy things, I just don't see myself as PR person. That said, I had the luncheon info sent to me by one of the husband's coworkers and the AWJ-Chicago listserv. OK, I'll go!

And I'm really glad that I went. I totally felt like a mole because the topic was "Are Bloggers Journalists? Dealing with the Legal Implications of Today’s Media." Dum, de, dum! To top off the mole feeling was the fact that they start off the lunches with a few minutes of speed networking. "Hi, I'm Veronica a blogger." ha!

The panel was moderated by Paul Rand and had Esther J. Cepeda, Toure Muhammad and Daliah Saper as the experts. First props to the organizers for having such a diverse panel and an excellent moderator. They kept the conversation going, even if Daliah could have just given a lecture because she was the lawyer on the panel.

Considering the timing of the FTC guidelines release of last week, the conversation was heavily focused on that. Over at the Guardian, I got a lot of smack for calling myself a mommy blogger and asked why being a mommy blogger was relevant to the conversation. Well, even at this fab panel, mommy bloggers were still the main character in the conversation. I think that the media that mommy bloggers have received makes us an easy frame of reference. But it wasn't a bad thing either.

So what did I learn?

* Toure made a great point to remind us that blogging took off because so many of us were leary of corporate media. Many bloggers started off, including myself, as critiquing news segments. Now that we are seen as influential, whether we have 40 followers or Twitter or are an A+ list blogger, we have to remember that our credibility is connected to our transparency.

* Daliah talked a lot about how the guidelines may lead to a chilling effect in terms of publicity. The FTC guidelines not only spell out that bloggers are responsible for being transparent, but the publicists and marketers are responsible for screening us and making sure we are transparent. I immediately recalled the pic I snapped at Blogalicious of a sign reminding us that we need to be transparent. But she ended up saying that publicists shouldn't change their practices, other than screening us, and to just be honest.

* Esther stressed the fact that publicists should know the bloggers they are dealing with. "Read their blog, is that the person/outlet you want representing your brand?" And really, aren't we all saying that we're tired of getting pitches that say, "Dear blogger..." Now that the FTC will hold publicists to a higher standard, we might get less pitches, but more meaningful pitches.

* Toure took us on a history lesson by connecting this current moment with multiple other moments when the line between advertising and editorial content were debated in media. We need to see bloggers are tiny media outlets. Instead of having Jane in advertising and Veronica in editorial working here, we have just Veronica accepting the advertising pitches and the editorial. I know that I won't be asked to join ABC campaign because I blog about how sexist ABC is as a company.

* Now Esther took on the "what about the TV, newspapers and magazines" question. I believe her answer was as simple as they have editors who watch out for liable AND that those journalists aren't relying on free products for income. If I got that wrong, I'm sure she'll let me know. But is that true? Is anyone really milking this for real income? I think a few elite ones are. I hear that some of the original Wal-Mart Moms have made a living out of being faces for brands. But I'd love to hear from y'all.

* The only jaw-dropping moment for me was that Daliah said that Google bombing could be seen as trademark infringement. Perhaps this is old news to some of ya, but not for me. So blogging about product X and then linking to their competitor is clearly trademark infringement. But remember back when bloggers linked pro-choice orgs to George W. Bush? I wonder what the courts would say about that if we linked say Planned Parenthood to a named crisis pregnancy clinic?

* Daliah was mad smart. I'd love to organize a discussion night with her and a few bloggers, especially some of us activist bloggers who might be skirting legal issues. We may still skirt them, but at least we'll know what we're up to.

* Daliah also said that the legal ramifications are piling up quickly with social media and employment. Can you prove discrimination because your Facebook profile is public and outs you as a minority or lesbian and you don't get hired? Who owns your LinkedIn contact list if you use it for work purposes? At that point my mind was spinning.

* But Esther had a great message for the publicists. You can't control your message anymore. You can control who you work with, but not the message.

It was a lot of fun and hopefully you also learned a bit of what is going on in the minds of publicists.

Blog Action Day: Our Kids Are Turning Green - From Awearness

2009-10-16T12:00:00.001-05:00

Originally posted at AWEARNESS

And I love it!

I have a six-year-old daughter and she's been quite the green cop for the past couple of years. It started off innocently enough when recycling was implemented in her day care. The teachers always included the kids in their activities. It really is a hoot to see 2-year-olds toddling down the hall pulling a garbage bag. So when recycling came to daycare, the kids were asked to rinse out plastic items and told why they were doing it. Soon the kid started to tell us to rinse our plastic and ask why we didn't recycle at home.*

Then came Happy Feet with its tale of overfishing. A peek at viewer comments and you see that some people thought that Happy Feet went overboard with the environmental message.

I can only imagine what they thought of Wall-E and its literal message that we're throwing Earth away as we sit on our La-Z-Boys getting fat. Last weekend my husband took our daughter to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs which has its own climate change message.

Don't think that kid's movies are the only place where they are getting the "Go Green!" message. In the past week we have read Judy Moody Saves the World and Nancy Drew and the Clue Crew - Earth Day Escapade, both obviously with green plots.

Last night as we read Nancy Drew, the mystery partly unraveled in the girls restroom when a character flushed the toilet three times, used a wad of paper towels and left the faucet running. The horror!! And for a six-year-old with a budding sense of the environmental justice it was a horror. Her face got that "OMG" look. It was pretty cute.

I know there are people out there who will complain that we are allowing schools and entertainment to brainwash our kids about climate change. But you know what? Climate change is real, it is happening and they will be the ones who will have to truly deal with the ramifications. I do worry that by teaching her so young, she'll come to me one day and ask why i didn't do more to stop it all. Keeping her ignorant might buy me a few years, but that's not how I want to raise her.

The best part of the greening of my daughter? Each time she leaves her bedroom light on, I get to say, "If you're going to be green, you need to turn off your light!" It's a twist on the old "You're wasting energy" line. She still keeps us on our greening toes by reminding us to rinse out plastic and asking if this or that is recyclable. And I really love that.

For a list of great environmental websites for kids, check out more4kids.info.

*We live in Chicago and didn't have any real home recycling programs until this past February. We did paper recycling because we had a collection site nearby, but not much for glass and plastic.

[Image: Moreforkids.info]