How Feminism Has Effected Me…so far. December 19, 2009

Rebecca Watson - Third Wave feminist

I love talking politics and government but I hate being ill-informed and ignorant (largely because I spent the first two decades of my life ignorant and opinionated before having a change of heart). My desire to not be ignorant is what led me to major in Political Science. I wanted to be able to speak with surety about the things that were going on in the political theaters of the U.S. and around the world. But my quest for knowledge was just that…a quest for nothing more than knowledge. I just wanted to be able to talk about politics. I didn’t want to do politics. One of the reasons for this was that I didn’t recognize a need for change. I, as a white female, was adequately represented by my elected leaders and feminism was done. I believed in, as what Deborah Seigel called, “the trendy notion that we are living in a ‘post-feminist’ era” (The Movement That Has No Name, 2007, p. 34). Seigel’s essay and Patricia Hill Collins’s Toward a New Vision were instrumental in changing that misconception.

In my studies of politics, I’ve learned that representation is key to achieving a group’s goals. Upon reading The Movement That Has No Name, I realized that feminism was not done and there was still much work to be done before the goals of feminism (equality for all and an end to sexism) could be said to be realized. Siegel writes, “Polls proclaimed that 22 million unmarried women did not vote in the 2000 presidential election” (p. 33). Seigel writes that

Sarah Margaret Fuller - First Wave feminist

younger women are highly involved volunteers, grassroots organizers, and activists. These women are not voting, not because they don’t care, but because they “disillusioned” (p. 36). This disillusionment exists because in a world where the cost of running for office is in the millions of dollars–$3 million for a seat in the House and over $21 million for a Senatorial seat (projected costs for 2010), and over $300 million spent on President Obama’s campaign (as reported by Thomas E. Patterson in American Democracy, 2008)–women only own “1 percent of the world’s assets” (Siegel, p. 35). Is it any wonder, then, that women only make up about 16.4% of American Congressmen? Only “20 percent of full professors” are women as are only “17 percent of partners in law firms…Only 10 Fortune 500 CEOs are women” (p. 34).

“The low turnout among young female voters during the 2004 election doesn’t mean that all women under 35 are apathetic but rather, perhaps, that many are turned off and disillusioned by politicians who fail to take on their issues” (Siegel, p. 36), for without the resources that men have, getting one of their own in a position of power has proven extremely difficult.

As I finished reading Siegel’s work, I began thinking of ways to organize my peers, give them a movement they can stand behind and can support them. Siegel believes a principle cause of women thinking their “personal” problem is not political is the lack of just such a movement to support them (2007). I was left with the question, “How does one go about doing such a thing?”

Catherine MacKinnon - Second Wave feminist

Patricia Hill Collins’s Toward a New Vision gave me some of the answers I was looking for. She writes, “[C]hange starts with self, and relationships that we have with those around us must always be the primary site for social change (1993, p. 76). It is easy for me to forget how central personal relationships are. Before I met my good friend Alex, I gave little thought to the unique struggles of the partially disabled. Until my atheist husband joined the Air Force, I had given no thought to how oppressively Christian the military can be. Until I begin to share what I have learned and experienced, many around me may remain ignorant of the issues facing women today.

Collins also urges us away from “additive analyses of oppression,” (p. 76) as such is based on either/or thinking. Collins points out some of the “dichotomous” thinking with, “Black/white, man/woman, thought/feeling…” (p. 77). I add to that list other dichotomies that plague, not just the study of oppression, but the study of politics and government as well: good/evil, right/wrong, Left/Right, pro-life/pro-choice, pro-gun-rights/pro-gun-control, against war/patriotic. The list of divisions goes on and one. Dichotomies such as these tear people apart and create divides where none needs to be because dichotomous thinking means that only one side can be right and that side is 100% right. Therefore the other side (any side that isn’t right) is 100% wrong. The pro-life side does not see the pro-choice side as supporting choice. They see them as anti-life. The pro-choice side does not see

Becky Walker - feminist

the pro-life side as pro-life; they see them as anti-choice and pro-oppression. The pro-gun control does not see the pro-gun-rights side as pro-Constitution or pro-self-defense. They see them as pro-murder and mayhem. The pro-gun-rights side does not see the pro-gun-control side as pro-safety and anti-violent-crime. They see them as anti-Constitution and anti-family. Each side vilifies the other while elevating themselves to sainthood. Such thinking will ultimately destroy much more than it builds.

While my passion remains government and politics, feminism has “lit a fire” under me, so to say. Previously, my goal had simply been to understand politics, to be able to intelligently discuss government systems without embarrassing myself, and perhaps, to write the odd free-lance article. Now, armed with the knowledge that, 1. my voice, as a woman, is less heard than men’s voices; 2. There is great need for a cohesive feminist movement that young women can stand behind and be supported by; 3. Such an organizations will come about through personal relationships; 4. My fight to end dichotomous thinking in my own life is a good start but I must also spread it through those I’m in relationship with, I think perhaps I can and should do more with my education than just “have an education.” I must constantly challenge myself to remember these points and fight for the change I wish to see least I fall again into the ranks of the ill-informed, ignorant, and ultimately, powerless.

References

Collins, P. H. (1993). Toward a new vision. In S. Shaw, J. Lee (Eds.), Women’s voices, feminist visions.(2009). (pp. 76-84). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Patterson, T. E. (2009). The American democracy. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Siegel, D. (2007). The movement that had no name. In S. Shaw, J. Lee (Eds.), Women’s voices, feminist visions. (2009). (pp. 31-39). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Women’s Studies Final and a good law December 18, 2009

YEAH! I am done with my Women’s Studies class! Hurray!

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed learning about feminism needed to learn about feminism. It was NOT especially enjoyable. I spent yesterday morning in tears as I read about some of the heartbreaking stories that lead Margaret Sanger to found Planned Parenthood. (A mother of three died following an illegal abortion…after she had BEGGED the doctor and Sanger, her nurse, to tell her how to keep from getting pregnant again. The doctor’s answer? “Tell Jake [the woman's husband] to sleep on the roof.” Great answer, doc.) And yes, I am somewhat familiar with her racists views…that doesn’t change the fact that she was unable to help this woman because of a “gag” rule. I read about a woman in Ethiopia who lived for two years in a shack, isolated and alone, because of a obstetrical fissure (a tear between the vagina and bladder and/or rectum, causing the constant leakage of urine and feces). Because of higher quality of obstetrical services in the western world (simply better health as well), obstetrical fissure is almost unheard of and is insanely easy to fix if it does occur. This woman, abandoned by her husband, starving and dehydrated (as eating and drinking caused increased leaking), lived for two years curled into the fetal position, wishing she could die. Her parents finally sold all of their farm animals (I wonder how they will make a living now) to pay for her surgery. It was less than $500.

And as I read that, I couldn’t help but remember all the missionaries to Africa I had listened to. I remembered hearing of how they needed Jesus. Of how they needed to be freed from their barbaric religions. And I remembered the sometimes overflowing offering bowl and I couldn’t help but wonder how much more good it would have done to send doctors instead of missionaries? Even when I was a Christian, I could not make peace with the idea of preaching the gospel before taking care of people’s physical needs. *sigh*

Daily Mail photo of Twiggy and Twiggy

One of the problems I had during this class on feminism was the question of “so what?” So women (and many other sub-groups) are still being marginalized. What are we supposed to do about it? Make legislation that makes being a jerk illegal? That’s no better than legislating morality in the bedroom. Then today, just after returning from my final, I saw this article on Olay’s blatant false advertising. This is good legislation. Olay is LYING! They are showing a picture, quoting the woman in the picture as saying, “This product made me look like this” when in fact Photoshop made her look like that. That’s called a LIE and the British Parliament called them on it. Good for them. I wonder what the chances are of having a similar law passed in the U.S.?

There, Heidi, I said something positive about an article.

When Atheists Attack: Next on LRMR! December 1, 2009

The sign that started it all

I’m not sure yet whether to thank the friend who passed this little gem on to me or not but here it is…

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania is the site of a current Christmas controversy. Two weeks ago, Chambersburg’s Memorial Square was the site of a nativity scene that had been on display every Christmas for fifty years. Now it is gone. Why? Because a non-Christian group (Pennsylvania Association of Non-believers) wanted to put up a sign in celebration of Winter Solstice and honoring American atheist war veterans. The council’s decision was to ban ALL decorations.

Let me make this very, very clear. PAN did NOT want to remove the Christian symbols from the public square. They simply wanted to put their symbol in the public square. They are NOT happy with the council’s decision to ban everything. Removing Christ from the Christmas displays was NOT their goal. Being allowed to ALSO have a voice was their goal.

Naturally, the Christians are up in arms, hosting a couple hundred person rally. They sported wonderful signs, saying such varied things as, “Keep CHRIST in CHRISTmas,” or “Bring back the nativity,” “Enough is enough,” and “”Honk 4 Jesus.” There were also signs such as, “Silverman the Grinch” (Carl Silverman was the man who made the request for PAN), and “Wise men still seek him,” and “Carl Silverman Atheist and our spineless C-burg council, “The FOOL said there is NO GOD — Ps. 51 v. 1,”

What is interesting is the complete and total lack of reality. Here are some quotes from some of the rally attendees who criticized Silverman as “trying to disrupt their Christmas celebration”:

“This country was founded on Christian ethics,” he said. “I’m Native American, but I’m a Christian. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. The atheists can have their own day, April Fool’s Day. The fool has said in his heart there is no God.”

Nice. Way to work name calling into the mix and totally disregard the fact that Christians don’t own December. Way to go having a clue as to why the Catholic church chose December 25 as the day to celebrate Jesus’ birthday.

“They keep taking stuff away from us,” [Russell Bender] said. “They’re taking Christ out of Christmas. We need to stand up for Christ.”

Wow, that’s odd. Everything I’ve read says that the city council is the one that was taking Christ out of Christmas, not the atheists. PAN simply wanted equality. They simply wanted to take some time to honor veterans who are atheists and recognize the Winter Solstice…which Christians believe God designed!

Scott Fickes said Silverman and others like him are “propagating hatred just like the terrorists did on 9-11…As far as Fickes is concerned, Silverman is a “domestic terrorist, who comes to town and disrupts the economy. Citizens have the right to protect themselves.”

…

…um…

…yeaaaaaah…see Silverman and PAN were not the one’s calling names. They weren’t “propagating hatred.” And I don’t understand really how hijacking planes, flying them into buildings, and killing almost 3000 people is comparable to “Hey, we’d like to put up a little sign to celebrate our winter holiday.” And what exactly are these people trying to protect themselves from? Ideas not their own? Questions they don’t have answers to perhaps?

I just want to point out again, the non-believers WERE NOT TRYING TO OPPRESS OR SILENCE ANYONE! They were simply trying to also have a voice. Freedom of speech anyone? Separation of Church and State anyone?

Oh, and the nativity sign is now across the street on the front lawn of  a church. Where’s the Winter Solstice sign?

(quotes from rally attendees came from:  http://www.publicopiniononline.com/localnews/ci_13887618

The screenshot of the sign came from FoxNews’ coverage of the story at http://www.fox43.com/news/wpmt-pmnews-nativityrally-11-28-09,0,7450501.story)

Oppression Continues to Rear Its Ugly Head November 30, 2009

The Swiss opinion of immigration

Swiss voters passed a constitutional ban on the new construction of mosque minarets. Not any other religious symbols. Just the minaret. Mohammed Shafiq, of the Ramadhan Foundation, a British youth organization, said it best. “It’s a sad day for freedom of religion,” said Shafiq, “A constitutional amendment that’s targeted towards one religious community is discriminatory and abhorrent.”

The People’s Party, the sponsoring group of this referendum, has also produced anti-immigration posters such as the one on the right, which I think pretty clearly shows their opinion of…well, anyone that does look (or act) just like them and another showing brown hands reaching for Swiss passports. I am appalled but honestly, not surprised. It seems to be human nature to reject those who are not like us or those we don’t understand or those we disagree with. To reject and discriminate. The People’s Party actions are discriminatory and abhorrent.

Discriminatory and abhorrent.

WHICH WAY DO YOU WANT IT? November 28, 2009

A Facebook friend of mine joined this group called, “The Manhattan Declaration: A Call of Christian Conscience.” Their mission: to “affirm…marriage as defined by the union of one man and one woman, and religious liberty….”

Wait, wait, wait. Let me get this right. This group “affirms” the right to religious liberty but wants to deny homosexuals the right to marry? What about a homosexual Wiccan’s right to religious liberty? What about a lesbian Buddhist’s right to religious liberty? Now, if this group were willing to say that marriage is purely a religious institution and tax breaks should not be given to married couples, fine. Define marriage however you want. But as long as marriage gets you, oh, 1,400 legal benefits, EVERYONE gets it!

THEIR religion defines marriage as between one man and, depending on the civil laws of your country, one woman. To define civil marriage that way is to oppress religions that define it differently. So which do they support? Marriage as defined by their religion or religious freedom?

Maybe what they really “affirm” is the right of their religion to be the only one given special privilege. That’s what “rights” only given to a few is called. Privilege. That’s what they affirm. They affirm their right to be the privileged religious class.

Let’s read it again straight form their website, http://manhattandeclaration.org/:

Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family.

We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
3. the rights of conscience and religious liberty.

Inasmuch as these truths are foundational to human dignity and the well-being of society, they are inviolable and non-negotiable. Because they are increasingly under assault from powerful forces in our culture, we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them. We make this commitment not as partisans of any political group but as followers of Jesus Christ, the crucified and risen Lord, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 

Freedom or oppresion?

I love the fact that they call upon nonbelievers to join in defending the right of Christianity to be the defining religion of the U.S. The hypocrisy of wanting the government to both define marriage as their religion does and to simultaneously recognize a right to religious liberty is just appalling. I ask again: WHICH DO YOU WANT?

State religion or religious freedom? The problem with freedom is that it is granted indiscriminately. That means the Wiccan’s and the Buddhist and the Mormons and the Muslims and the Shintoists and the atheists and everyone else all get the same amount of religious freedom that the Christians do. And that includes being granted access to the tax breaks and legal rights of being in a government recognized committed relationship.

Anyway…thought I’d vent.

Stephenie Meyer is an anti-feminist, no-talent-hack. November 17, 2009

*This post contains spoilers*

Bella Swan stars in four anti-feminist novels, the Twilight series. She and the other main characters are gender stereotyped to a fault. Abusive misogyny and an embracement of lookism run rampant throughout the 500 pages of the first novel, Twilight, and her experiences with teen romance and/or love are truly a masterpiece on how to have an unhealthy relationship.

Her story is simple enough. Bella is an average teenage girl. She moves to Forks, Washington during her junior year of high school to live with her dad after her mom remarries a traveling baseball player. Bella gets situated at school where she meets Edward Cullen, a disturbingly beautiful and strange boy. He is initially hostile but warms up to her after a while, though his moods swing wildly between tender care and open aggression. In the first half of the story, he saves her life twice, both times by exhibiting extraordinary abilities—super human speed and strength and apparent clairvoyance.

After hearing an ancient Quileute legend about a group of “cold ones” who drank animal blood instead of human blood and went by the name of Cullen, Bella realizes that her gorgeous hero is a vampire. Instead of deterring her from pursuing a relationship with Edward, Bella realizes that nothing, not even the threat of death, could make her life worth living if Edward weren’t in it, and yet the reader is left wondering what exactly it is about Edward that Bella finds so captivating beyond his good looks. Stereotypical teen infatuation and simple physical lust seem to be about it.

Edward, despite repeatedly telling Bella he’s no good for her, is unable to stay away. He find the scent of her blood so alluring that it is a constant temptation to kill her. When she responds to his kisses with equal or greater passion, he draws away least he be overcome with temptation and kill her. Despite this obstacle, the two quickly fall in love and in short order, are professing their undying (?) love for each other.

When a conventional vampire sets his sights on ending Bella’s life, Edward and the entire Cullen family spring into action. Bella is whisked off to safety with Edward’s “sister” and her husband, while Edward, his brother, and their nearly four hundred year old father set a trap for the hunter. The hunter is able to trick Bella into leaving the relative safety of Alice and Jasper’s care. Bella meets the hunter in an abandoned dance studio (claiming he has her mom held hostage) and she is almost killed before Edward and company show up to save the day.

She returns home with a well fabricated cover story and the stage is set for them to live happily ever after…provided Edward is willing to turn her into a vampire so she can live forever with him.

The story is simple enough. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall in love. Girl (i.e. damsel) is in distress. Boy (i.e. knight in shining armor) comes to the rescue. Happily ever after.

Unfortunately, for readers, there is a dark undercurrent that flows throughout Twilight. Earlier, I wrote that Bella was “an average teenage girl.” I say “average” because there is nothing to set her apart. She is not especially smart or dumb. She is not particularly ugly or beautiful. She has no particular talents or shortcomings (aside from being chronically clumsy). Bella’s physical appearance is not described, aside from making note that she is about 5′4” and weighs about 110 pounds. In fact, Stephenie Meyer, the author of Twilight, purposefully wrote Bella as a mostly undefined character so that, as she said on her website, “the reader could more easily step into [Bella's] shoes” (www.stepheniemeyer.com). Meyer’s intent, then, was for the reader to put themselves into Bella’s place, which is understandable. I think most writers want their readers to be able to do the same. What is insidious is that, after carefully not defining a character so the reader is more easily able to insert herself into the story, Meyer’s main characters unapologetically promote traditional gender roles, blindly accept society’s unrealistic expectations of feminine beauty, and condone abusive and controlling behavior.

As Leonard Sax, writing for the Washington Post, said, “the girls are still girls, and the boys are traditional men…The lead male characters…are muscular and unwaveringly brave, while Bella and the other girls bake cookies, make supper for the men and hold all-female slumber parties.”

Traditional gender roles are assigned to the main characters from the book’s beginning. The story opens with Bella’s move into her father’s home. Within the first 48 hours, she has assigned herself to kitchen duty as her father can’t “cook much besides fried eggs and bacon” (p. 31). Bella comments on her father being aware of the upcoming school dance; “Only in a town this small would a father know when the high school dances were” (p. 81). Bella fully embraces the stereotype that social events such as dances are the realm of mothers (females) and not fathers (men) even though it would make perfect sense for her father, the chief of police, to be aware of an upcoming teen gathering. Bella makes this even clearer when she tells her dad about an upcoming shopping trip…which is the only time she spends with female friends outside of school, by the way. Bella, explaining that even though she isn’t attending the dance, she is helping her friends pick out dresses, thinks, “I wouldn’t have to explain this to a woman” (p. 149), embracing the idea that men could not possibly understand the female mind while a woman would naturally have an intrinsic understanding of all things “feminine.” Her father quickly embraces his own gender stereotype. As he turns back to the television, Meyer writes, “He seemed to realize that he was out of his depth with the girlie stuff” (p. 149).

Bella’s shopping trip with her friends supplies more gender stereotypes. Bella wanders into a dangerous neighborhood, distracted by the wallowing despair she finds herself in over not having seen Edward in two days. She runs into one group of people—four men. And naturally, these men are rapists who quickly scheme together to lead her away from the more populated areas so they can gang rape her. Edward shows up in the nick of time and saves the day, playing the part of the knight in shining armor to Bella’s damsel in distress who forgot her pepper spray at home.

Edward then takes Bella to a restaurant where he dazzles the, naturally straight, waitress with his unbelievable good looks. He asks Bella how she’s feeling, explaining, “I’m actually waiting for you to go into shock” (p. 168), because, naturally, that is the first reaction a female has to physical danger.

As mentioned earlier, Bella assigned herself kitchen duty for the duration of her stay in Forks. After school and obsessing over Edward, cooking is the only other activity the reader regularly sees Bella engage in. Bella listens to music in passing, reads a bit in passing (romances such as Wuthering Heights and Pride and Prejudice), but she has no other hobbies. She doesn’t paint or write. She doesn’t scrapbook or play an instrument. She doesn’t play video games or read voraciously. She doesn’t talk on the phone or play a sport. She thinks about Edward, talks to Edward, schemes to be with Edward, does some homework, and cooks for her dad, who is largely ungrateful as he watches sports on television and goes fishing on the weekends.

Besides promoting traditional gender roles, Bella fully embraces society’s current standard for female beauty. Bella observes Rosalie, one of Edward’s “sisters,” narrating, “The tall one was statuesque. She had a beautiful figure, the kind you saw on the cover of the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue, the kind that made every girl around her take a hit on her self-esteem just by being in the same room” (p. 18). Three paragraphs later, she remarks, regarding why she couldn’t look away from the five “siblings,” “…their faces, so different, so similar, were all devastatingly, inhumanly beautiful. They were faces you never expected to see except perhaps on the airbrushed pages of a fashion magazine” (p. 19). Bella believes that beauty is found in the glossy pages of mass media and nowhere else. There is no place for the beautiful, full figured woman, or the beautiful woman who looks like a human. Nor is there a place for the physically unattractive person who is still valuable. Bella’s only definition of beauty is that which conforms to the airbrushed models found in fashion magazines. Over seventy times, Bella mentions how beautiful the vampires are, in one way or another. Often it is in reference to Bella’s reaction to Edward’s “outrageous perfection” (p. 322). Other times it is within the context of Bella’s perceived plainness in comparison. Bella’s view of herself and her value has been completely and totally shaped by modern definitions of beauty, shallow as they are. As such, she sees herself as plain and therefore, without value.

As disturbing as Bella’s embracement of gender stereotypes and feminine beauty are, what is truly disturbing is her apology for abusive and controlling relationships. As Wendy Nosid of community.feministing.com said, “Bella’s choices are troubling, sure, but it’s the blatant romanticism of what she and [Edward do], excuses of him doing these things “out of love” and “to protect her” that makes her an anti-feminist figure” (http://community.feministing.com).

When asked if Bella is an anti-feminist heroine, Meyer, believing the accusation springs from Bella’s choice to marry early and carry a unexpected and life threatening pregnancy to term, argues that the accusations are invalid because Bella exercises her right to choose—the right to choose that feminists have fought for. Meyer says, “I never meant for her fictional choices to be a model for anyone else’s real life choices…she’s in a situation that none of us has ever been in, because she lives in a fantasy world.” (www.stepheniemeyer.com)

Meyer is correct. Bella does live in a fantasy world, filled with vampires and werewolves. However, if the vampire and werewolf aspects are removed from the story, you are left with a story which fits the description of an abusive relationship: “a pattern of abusive and coercive behaviors used to maintain power and control over a[n]…intimate partner” (http://stanford.edu/group/svab/relationships.shtml). Stanford.edu gives sixteen “signs or ‘red flags’ to assist people in identifying a potentially abusive person” (http://www.stoprelationshipabuse.org/signs.html). Edward exhibits 13 of the 16.

Rachel Allen, a California mom, whose daughter defended Twilight with the “it’s just a fantasy” argument, writes, “[T]he thing is, the romance is not really the fantasy part. The romance is presented as the realistic part.” (www.canow.org)

And therein lays the danger. Feminists have fought for women to be free to make their own choices, even if those choices are not perhaps the wisest. Bella, however, is not really free to make choices. She has been so convinced that she is unappealing that when an attractive boy shows her the slightest attention, she swoons completely. She spends the entire first novel marveling that such an attractive boy would deem her worthy of attention, much less love. She is utterly convinced that she has so little value that she believes it will hurt her parents less to lose her completely than to experience even a modicum of danger. She spends most of the second book (2006, New Moon) in the depths of depression (for which she receives no professional help) because Edward has left her.

It is only when she becomes a vampire herself, gaining the beauty and strength she so admired in Edward, that she gains any value (in her own eyes). Instead of working hard and making choices to better herself, Bella waits for Edward to “rescue” her from her humanity (and its inherent plainness, clumsiness, and fragility) by turning her into vampire.

Again, while no reader can make that exact decision, ten minutes flipping through a stack of popular magazines or surfing through television channels will reveal many other “miracle” cures. From diet pills, hair care products, teeth whiteners to Wonder bras. The “cure” to all of a girl’s problems is just waiting, furthering the belief that something outside oneself can fix the inside.

It is not Bella’s decisions to choose a “traditional” role that makes her an anti-feminist heroine. Meyer’s is mistaken if she believes that is the root of the issue. The root of the issue is the glorifying and romanticizing of gender stereotypes, cookie cutter beauty standards, and abuse. These are what makes Bella Swan an anti-feminist heroine and Twilight inappropriate reading for…well, everyone.

References

Allen, Rachel. (2008, November 24). Feminist mom talks Twilight. California National Organization for Women. Retrieved November 6, 2009, from http://www.canow.org/canoworg/2008/11/feminist- mom-talks-twilight.html

Meyer, Stephanie. (2005). Twilight. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company

Meyer, Stephanie. (2009, August 28). Frequently asked questions: Breaking Dawn. Retrieved November 6, 2009, from http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/bd_faq.html

Nosid, Wendy. (2008, September 20). Stephenie Meyer side-steps anti-feminist allegations. Retrieved November 6, 2009, from http://community.feministing.com/2008/09/stephanie-meyer-side-steps-ant.html

Sax, Leonard. (2008, August 17). “Twilight” sinks its teeth into feminism. The Washington Post. Retrieved November 6, 2009,, from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503099.html

 

After all that, I found this video and it’s just too perfect to not share. Enjoy!

Women’s Studies: What is it? October 17, 2009

“What is women’s studies?” you ask.

In short, women’s studies is the study of women – their lives, their works, their struggles, their accomplishments, their desires and fears, their future. In length, it’s much, much more – at least for me. Women’s Studies is the rejection of eighteen years worth of indoctrination. It is the shedding of a decade of willful ignorance.

I was raised believing that a women’s place was in the home. No, my parents would never have said, “A women should be in the kitchen bare foot and pregnant” but their disdain for working moms and feminists was clear. I was also raised in a Christian home where the man was head and the woman was submissive. “This models the church’s submission to Christ and to act any other way is a sin,” I was taught. Women were not allowed to preach or even lead prayer in church, teach to a co-ed group nor have any say in adult leadership (women were free to teach and lead male children). My exposure to feminism was through my Christian school, Focus on the Family, and people like Rush Limbaugh. Needless to say, my views were really skewed.

Even though I had a negative view of feminism, I couldn’t have given a definition if I’d been asked but I’d certainly not have guessed it to be anything like the one bell hooks gives in Feminist Politics: “[F]eminism is a movement to end sexism, sexual exploitation, and oppression.” If you had told me that was feminism in a nutshell I would have agreed wholeheartedly. But I didn’t know that definition (nor any other) and, as far as I’d been taught, there was no need for feminism any longer. Women had been “given” the vote, we’d complained enough that we’d been allowed into previously all-male schools and careers and now all was equal and fair. There was nothing left for feminism to do.

Jennifer Baumgardner and Amy Richards’ essay, A Day Without Feminism, revealed to me how wrong that line of think is. No child care? I stay at home with my daughter but I can’t imagine a world where there is no other option. I was appalled to find out that the National Honor Society will rescind a girl’s membership if she gets pregnant. (What happens to a boy if he fathers a child?) The Pill’s side effects were horrifying. The double standard of curfews for college women but not for men made me furious. I was fascinated by the fact that women weren’t the only disregarded ones. Baumgardner and Richards write, “The absence of women’s history, black history, Chicano studies, Asian-American history, queer studies, and Native American history from college curricula implies that they are not worth studying” (A Day Without Feminism, in Women’s Voices Feminist Visions. 2009). I was shocked by what they said about newspaper want ads being divided into “Help Wanted Male” and “Help Wanted Female.” The restrictions placed on a married woman’s ability to secure financial services was mind-blowing.

By the end of the article I was furious. Furious that my mom had never talked to me about this. Furious at myself for never questioning the status-quo. Furious at society for making this information so easy to hide. Furious at the universe for being indifferent. Furious at the fact that change happens when people make it happen and those people are people like me.

Then I got scared. I realized then what Women’s Studies meant to me. Women’s Studies was going to be my own personal revolution. My world was shifting and I didn’t know what was going to happen and I didn’t know how it was going to look when it was done and I didn’t know if I was ready but more than anything, I knew that this was the right road. I knew that hiding from the truth was not the answer. I knew that facing this thing head on was the only way to be true to myself and all that I hold dear.

Women’s Studies is the study of women – their lives, their works, their struggles, their accomplishments, their desires and fears, their future. I am a woman and therefore, Women’s Studies is the study of me – my life, my work, my struggles, my accomplishments, my desires and fears, my future.

Girl Scouts October 15, 2009

My daughter joined the Girls Scouts this last week. Most would not consider this that noteworthy. After all, 3.4 million girls and women are members of this “world’s preeminent organization dedicated solely to girls.” Over 50 million have passed through the ranks of the Girl Scouts. They were one of the leading organization on desegregation. They supported the war effort after the bombing of Pearl Harbor by growing victory gardens, operating bicycle courier services, and more.  Prominent women such as, Barbara and Laura Bush, Tipper Gore, and actress Debbie Reynolds have been involved in the Girl Scouts. Their website claims: “In partnership with committed adult volunteers, girls develop qualities that will serve them all their lives, like leadership, strong values, social conscience, and conviction about their own potential and self-worth.”

What’s not to like, right?

Until I sat down last week and did some research, the only thing I knew about Girl Scouts was what I had “learned” growing up in a Conservative Christian home. And that was that the Girl Scouts were evil. They were partnered with Planned Parenthood, encouraged teen sex, promoted abortion and lesbianism and were all commies. Of course none of this is true nor was it taught to me outright. I can’t honestly remember having any conversations with anyone about the Girl Scouts and yet, I had these impressions.

It is always strange to question things you’ve grown up with, beliefs so deeply ingrained you don’t even realize they are there until you are blindsided by it. And I was completely blind-sided. When Jayme invited Jael to Girl Scouts my first reaction was to smile and nod and get away from this psycho as quickly as possible. Obviously she was evil and would work to corrupt my daughter if she had access.

And then I realized, wait a minute. What do I really even know about the Girl Scouts? … They sell cookies.

That was it.

They sell cookies.

That’s what I knew about the Girl Scouts, all nicely summarized in one sentence. They. Sell. Cookies. More research was needed and that’s what we did. We started with “What’s the big controversy regarding the Girl Scouts?”

Shirley Dobson says: “Jim [Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family] is also determined to protect children from indoctrination by “politically correct” ideas that are promoted by…homosexual activists who want to manipulate young minds …within the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts.”

James Dobson himself said, in a 2002 letter to his followers, “[indoctrination] is what is behind the massive effort to install homosexuals and their influence into the Boy Scouts organization. The Girls Scouts have already been invaded, and now, according to one report, a third of Girl Scout leaders are lesbians.” This quote is followed by a little number 20 which, if you click on it, takes you to the reference which is one Kathryn Jean Lopez’s article, “The Cookie Crumbles” from National Review, 23 October 2000, p. 30.

Alrighty. Let’s find this report. Some time on UMUC’s library database and I’ve got it. Culture Watch is the column (which I think is an opinion column…of course, I think that National Review is largely an opinion publication anyway), Kathryn Lopez is the author and here’s what she had to say:

The Girl Scouts’ leaders hope to make their youthful charges the shock troops of an ongoing feminist revolution. It’s been a long slide…they dropped “loyalty” from their oath…in favor of “I will do my best to be honest and fair.”…[The Girl Scouts] executive director, Marsha Johnson Evans, has impeccable feminist credential: She had a 29-year career in the Navy, during which she earned the title of rear admiral, only the second woman ever to do so…she was the mother of the 12-12-5 affirmative-action policy, a mandate to make the Navy look more like America: 12 percent African-American, 12 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent Asain/Pacific.

Wow…I didn’t realize that being successful at your job gave you “impeccable feminist credential[s].” And shouldn’t we be proud of Evans for being only the second woman to become Rear Admiral? Isn’t that something to be proud of? I guess not.

Lopez goes on to say that the Girl Scouts advocate for sexual equality in sports (GOOD GOD! Girls playing sports! The horror!) and that the Girl Scout constitution has a “ringing endorsement of affirmative action in ‘recruitment, hiring, training, and promoting.’ Girl Scout moms are anti-gun…” Wow…I had no idea I was anti-gun. Huh. Who would have thought their mind control devices were so strong that with the signing of Jael’s registration form I became anti-gun.

In this same negative tone Lopez continues writing. She writes, regarding a Senior Scout resource book:

Some activities “you can do as a Girl Scout to address contemporary issues” include “organiz[ing] an even to make people aware of gender bias” or “help[ing] organize an Earth Day celebration.”…Girl Scouts can now earn the “Ms. Fix-It” badge for learning how to fix a leak, rewire an electrical appliance, or re-caulk a window, and the “Car Care” badge for checking fluids, filling tires to the proper pressure, and performing safety checks…Victimization is central to the Girl Scout worldview…

I’m confused. So, the Girl Scouts are bad for encouraging girls to learn how to take care of themselves and then they are bad for talking about victimization? Which way do you want it, Lopez? Oh…you just want to pretend that victimization just doesn’t happen. After all, we are in a post-feminism era with no further need of equality, right? Must be nice to be you.

Now Lopez brings out the big guns. Lesbianism. The Girl Scouts have them. She quotes from a book titled On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience. It is a collection of memoirs from lesbians who were in the Girl Scouts. Lopez writes, “Girl Scout staffers writing in the book claim that roughly one in three of the Girl Scouts’ paid professional staff is lesbian.”

And that’s it. That’s Dr. James Dobson’s “report.” Wow. A collection of memoirs, in which someone NOT speaking for the organization, claims that 1/3 of the paid professional staff is lesbian is a “report.” Reeeeeeaaaaaally? Also, “paid professional staff” and “Girl Scout leaders” are two VERY different things. When someone says “Girl Scout leaders” you think “troop leaders,” which are ALL volunteer, spend a lot of time with your kids and are NOT paid professionals. Holy. Freaking. Cow.

I’ve got other things to work on (like my first assignment in Women’s Studies…hmmm. Maybe Girl Scout people are raging feminists…).

Parental Rights in the Forgotten File October 6, 2009

We finally got an external hard drive so I can clean out the old computer and we can put on a new operating system. As I am going through my old files, cleaning out the junk and finding the good, I am stumbling across half finished almost blogs. I think, since I lack the motivation to do more, I am going to post them as they are.

The following was written almost two years ago. It just kind of ends at the end so…feel free to finish it.

I have a problem. A friend sent me a link to a group which is rallying support for a Constitutional Amendment to protect parental rights from government intrusion without due process of the law. I researched it (I am still in the process but had to get some thought out of my head and onto “paper”) and while I agree in part, I disagree in part as well.

I don’t even know where to begin.

Here’s the part I’m currently upset at:

There is only one solution to this approaching storm: a constitutional amendment that places current Supreme Court doctrine protecting parental rights into the explicit language of the U.S. Constitution. This amendment will shelter the child-parent relationship from the coming storm, ensuring that parents have the right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.

No government, regardless of how well-intentioned it might be, can replace the love and nurture of a parent in the life of a child. Parents care, not because their children are “wards” for whom they are responsible. Parents are willing to brave danger and sacrifice, hardship and heartache to ensure the best for their kids. (the last two paragraphs from ParentalRights.org’s website two years ago.)

I want to draw your attention to a couple of phrases.

“There is only one solution”

Really. Only one. And you’ve discovered it. I am suspicious when anyone or any group claims to have THE answer. Sometimes there is clearly only one answer. In this case I see many answers. Not included in these viable answers are the movement they are fighting against nor the movement they are promoting. More on that later.

“This amendment will shelter the child-parent relationship from the coming storm, ensuring that parents have the right to direct the upbringing and education of their children.”

Um, last time I checked, there were numerous Constitutional Amendments that are currently being violated. Why would this be any different? Also, as I said in my previous blog (read it here), “[t]he only thing that guarantees a right is the willingness to fight and die for those rights.” An amendment is going to do jack-shit until parents are willing, when the government ignores the constitution (Privacy Act anyone?), to take up arms and have their last act in the world be dying for their children or leaving their cushy jobs and McMansions and fleeing the country, provided of course that we’ve not locked ourselves in with a giant wall across our borders. Until parents believe in their rights enough to do that, their rights cannot and will not, be protected.

“Parents care, not because their children are “wards” for whom they are responsible. Parents are willing to brave danger and sacrifice, hardship and heartache to ensure the best for their kids. “

Yeah, and I know a lot of people who aren’t this “model” of a parent. I’ve started meeting some people who aren’t from my church. Yup, I’m 27 years old and I finally have friends that don’t profess the exact same things I do. I’m growing as a person and it’s absolutely blowing my world apart. There are parents out there who are absolutely not “…willing to brave danger and sacrifice, hardship and heartache…” to ensure even the mediocre for their kids. There’s a gal I know who despises her kids. You can see it on her face when they whine at her. Total disgust. She pawns them off on sitters and nannies, refuses to instill the simplest rules or boundaries and then wonders why they are whiny little rotters. She’s not going to fight for her “rights” as a parent and when enough of people like her have allowed the government to roll over them, the government will realize it can do whatever the hell it wants, just like it’s been doing for a century.

Point Two with this group: The first story they present as precedent of the “dark clouds on the horizon” is the story of Rolin and Laura Sumey and their daughter, Sheila. By the time Sheila was 15, there had been numerous “problems” between her and her parents, resulting in Sheila running away a number of times. Extensive counseling was tried but ultimately failed.

In June, again conflict arose and Mrs. Sumey fearing her daughter would again leave home, called the police and they placed Sheila in a receiving home (I have no idea what a receiving home is and a cursory investigation has not provided results. If someone knows what they are, please share your knowledge), preventing her from running away. DSHS (Department of Social and Health Services) began to provide crisis intervention services (as is no doubt law when a parent calls the police on their child). Mrs. Sumey signed consent for Sheila to be in receiving care.

DSHS counseling did not result in reconciliation between Sheila and her parents and within a month, “Sheila filed a petition for alternative residential placement with the Pierce County Juvenile Court…A hearing on the petition was held, and the juvenile court concluded that: the family was in conflict; prior counseling and crisis intervention had failed to remedy that conflict; the conflict could not be remedied by continued placement in the home; and the reasons for the alternative residential placement were not capricious. The court approved the petition for alternative residential placement and ordered that Sheila be placed in a non-secure licensed facility. The court provided for rights of visitation for Mr. and Mrs. Sumey. The case was set for review in 6 months to determine what had been accomplished in resolving the conflict and reuniting the family.” (excerpt from the Law Offices of David S. Vogel, P.L.L.C.)

This is not the story the Parental Rights organization tells you. Here’s their story:

In the early 1980s, a landmark parental rights case reached the Washington State Supreme Court. The case involved 13-year-old Sheila Marie Sumey, whose parents were alarmed when they found evidence of their daughter’s participation in illegal drug activity and escalating sexual involvement. Their response was to act immediately to cut off the negative influences in their daughter’s life by grounding her.

But when Sheila went to her school counselors complaining about her parent’s actions, she was advised that she could be liberated from her parents because there was “conflict between parent and child.” Listening to the advice she had received, Sheila notified Child Protective Services (CPS) about her situation. She was subsequently removed from her home and placed in foster care.

Her parents, desperate to get their daughter back, challenged the actions of the social workers in court. They lost. Even though the judge found that Sheila’s parents had enforced reasonable rules in a proper manner, the state law nevertheless gave CPS the authority to split apart the Sumey family and take Sheila away.

Not quite the same story, it it?

Let’s take a look at the other stories they have on their website:

A thirteen-year-old boy in Washington State was removed from his parents after he complained to school counselors that his parents took him to church too often. His school counselors had encouraged him to call Child Protective Services with his complaint, which led to his subsequent removal and placement in foster care. It was only after the parents agreed to a judge’s requirement of less-frequent church attendance that they were able to recover their son.

After much research and an email to the lawyer who started parentarights.org (to which, when we asked for verification, he said, “I was the lawyer on the case), and then more research, armed now with the lawyer’s name, we were unable to find independent verification that this case ever existed anywhere outside of this lawyer’s mind. This is the story as he put it in another source. The boy’s parents wanted him to attend three church services a week and he wanted to attend only one. The judge ruled that once a week is enough church for a thirteen year old boy. I hate to agree but I must.

If a thirteen year old is being forced to go to church against his will, he is not going to be changed by anything he hears or sees there. By the time a child is an adolescent, the groundwork of character development is complete and it’s just polishing from there on out. Forcing him to attend church three times more often than he wants is going to hinder, not help, his “religious education.”

A West Virginia mother was shocked when a local circuit judge and a family court judge ordered her to share custody of her four-year-old daughter with two of the girl’s babysitters. Referring to the sitters as “psychological co-parents,” the justices first awarded full custody to them, only permitting the mother to visit her daughter four times a week at McDonalds. Eventually she was granted primary custody, but forced to continue to share her daughter with the sitters.

When her case finally reached the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals in October 2007, the beleaguered mother was relieved to finally be granted full custody of her daughter.

In their October 25 opinion Supreme Court justices wrote that they were “deeply troubled by the utter disregard” for the mother’s rights. One justice referred to the mother’s right as the “paramount right in the world.”

Chief Justice Robin Davis summed up the case in one simple question.”Why does a natural parent have to prove fitness when she has never been found unfit?” he asked.

This one is a bit more serious. Misty, the mother in this story, had primary custody of her daughter, Senturi. Joshua, the girl’s biological father, had one day a week visitation and was to be paying child support. Christopher and Tanya, the babysitters, were his cousins. They watched Senturi frequently, though how frequently I’ve been unable to ascertain. They were paid for at least a portion of the time they cared for Senturi. When Misty decided to move to Texas to be closer to her family, return to school, and seek better employment, Christopher and Tanya, along with the father, Joshua, went to court. They claimed they’d cared for the child for months on end but I’ve been unable to find record of that claim being investigated. They claimed they were Senturi’s “psychological co-parents.” They were awarded complete custody for a while, then custody with visitation for Misty, then partial custody. When Misty appealed to the supreme court, they reversed the orders of the lower courts and returned full custody to Misty.

So the story as ParentalRights.org presented it was fairly accurate. The problem I have with them using this story as an example is that justice was done. Yes, the mother was deprived of her daughter and the daughter of her mother for a couple of months and that’s regrettable. But the court system did what it is supposed to do. When Misty was unhappy with the results of a lower court, she took it to a higher court and eventually, justice and reason prevailed. Do I think the lower courts were in the wrong? Of course! Do I think a constitutional amendment is the answer to some judge making a bad judgment? Absolutely not!

So the first story they present, they present falsely.

The second is apparently pretend. Maybe I’m being judgmental but if I were a lawyer and someone asked for verification of a case, I would do more than tell them I was the lawyer on the case. I’d give them a link to a court record or a newspaper article or something besides, “I was there. It happened. Take my word for it.”

The third story was a case of a court disregarding parental rights but then in the same court system it was resolved. The child was at no time in the care of someone whom the mother had not already approved. After a couple of months, it worked out. The lower courts were wrong but it’s not an amendment worthy wrong.

The next thing ParentalRights.org petitions against is the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child. The UNCRC is not something I want the U.S. to ratify but it’s not something that needs an amendment to stop. The reason that the U.S. has not ratified the convention is because it already contradicts U.S. Law. …

American Government Class September 27, 2009

For American Government, I had to write a comment about our two-party system. This was what I wrote:

The Constitution of the United States was a revolutionary work when it was written. The fact that our country has the longest history of uninterrupted democracy points to the quality of this first among many. Our constitution is also the shortest and as such, there are many things it does not mention. Political parties is one of them.

In order to make changes to our current two-party system, we must first make changes to our electoral system. Single-member-district-plurality (SMDP) leads, almost without exception, to a two-party system. Canada, with its unique population conditions, is the only major exception with five parties. However, as party choices on a ballot increase, as happens with proportional representation (PR), participation decreases, especially among lower income voters. The best solution is to combine the systems and use the strengths of each.

Congress should be elected using PR; the president with SMDP. The presidential election should be decided using one of the voting systems which fall under the heading of Condorcet method. In Condorcet voting, voters rank candidates in order of preference. “A particular point of interest is that it is possible for a candidate to be the most preferred overall without being the first preference of any voter. In a sense, the Condorcet method yields the “best compromise” candidate, the one that the largest majority will find to be least disagreeable, even if not their favorite.” (Wikipedia. September 22, 2009.) Example: Suppose 51% of the voters chose Candidate A as their first choice and 49% choose Candidate B. Under normal SMDP, Candidate A would win. However, if 75% of the voters chose Candidate C for their second choice, than Candidate C, being more agreed upon, would win. There is a lot more to it than I’ve described here but that’s the real basics.

That said, there are benefits to having only two strong parties. There is less to consider when heading to the polls. A voter’s choices are A and B. If all else fails, flip a coin. As Mr. Park said, a voter has a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right. The choice is not so easy when dealing with a multi-party system but a voter is more likely to find a party that actually represents her rather than a party that sorta-kinda-better-than-nothing represents her.

When there are only two parties, one is going to have the majority of the seats in the legislature. With proportional representation, there may not be a party in majority and it may be more difficult to get laws passed if cooperation between the groups does not exist. The flip side is that laws favoring one group over another are harder to get passed and the laws that do get passed are more likely to accurately represent the American people, their needs and desires.

Political parties that spring from a coalition of like-minded interest groups definitely have a place in proportional representation. The Green Party is a party gathered around the common interest of protecting the environment. The Christian Right Party would undoubtedly contain members of current Christian interest groups just as the Secular Humanist Party would contain members of the American Atheists and the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers.

Despite the struggles a change would require, changing to proportional representation in the legislature is something we should be fighting for. If we believe in a government of the people, by the people, than we must have proportional representation and the increased choices that goes along with it.

Wikipedia. Retrieved on September 22, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Condorcet_method