Feminist Theory & "Women's Issues" Discussion Thread: All Gender Identities Are Encouraged To Participate

according to this, it was 12% of the murders in 2008: http://www.feminist.com/news/vaw68.html

which would compare to about 25% in america: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/homicide/gender.cfm

there is a story, or rather lots of stories here - but using decontextualized statistics to soup up your article is bad journalism

2005 not 2008

looks like it was 11% in 2011
http://centralamericanpolitics.blogspot.com/2012/01/murder-by-gender-in-guatemala-2010-2011.html

The Hunger Games has this same feminist problem. Other than the initial volunteering to replace her younger sister, Katniss never makes any decisions of her own, never acts with consequence-- but her life is constructed to appear that she makes important decisions.

I haven't even read the books and I had sort of guessed this? Uncomfortably and unhappily. So into this article.

maybe it's where/how i've run into that article but my impression of "the last psychiatrist" is not so good

Tell me?

let me quote the opening at length:

So there are some racist fans, so what? In itself, why would this be surprising? There are racists everywhere. I once asked a black guy where I could find some racists and he punched me in the mouth, turns out I'm a racist. Who knew? Actually, I did, because every time I see a black guy do anything odd I say to myself for no reason at all, "oh, hell no, oh no you didn't." This is going on in my head, silently, no audience. Apparently not only do I see race, I hear it. And god forbid it's a black woman, my neck and skull actually start moving from side to side as I think, "mmmm hhhmmmmm!" Why do I do this? I don't talk like that. So much for individuality, so much for free thought, I am so polluted by the world that my reflex thoughts are someone else's. You don't even want to know whose thoughts I think when I see boobs.

Of course, if this racism was attached to a Transformers movie you can be sure that Jezebel would pronounce all of the Transformers audience racist. But in this case, it's only some of the audience who are racist, because progressive Jezebel likes The Hunger Games, and they're not racist. How can they be? They're post-feminists, i.e. the racism for Jezebel is merely an opportunity to criticize the bridge trolls who live in Central Time, just in time for the elections.

Most of the "racist" comments I've seen about this complain about the race from a anti-Hollywood, anti-left perspective, i.e. "there goes liberal Hollywood, pushing the liberal agenda." The complaint appears to be not that they don't like black characters in general, but that this was some underhanded move to use the story to promote a political agenda, like making Sherlock Holmes a gay action hero. Now that's just wrong.

If that's the case I don't completely fault them, the story is important to these girls/women, and they feel betrayed that someone alters it to suit their interests rather than give a faithful telling of the story, which, as happens to stories, become partly owned by the audience.

The point here is not whether Rue should be black or not. What's interesting is how Jezebel seized on the racial controversy, but completely avoided the one bludgeoning them in the face for two hours: this is a book for females, written by a female, with femalist themes, gigantically popular among females, yet is more sexist than a rap video.

1st paragraph is just creepy and stupid. 2nd para is prime conspiratorial anti-liberalism. the 3rd sticks up halfway for the "anti-Rue" racists twitterer types. 4th and 5th betray that he completely misses the point of the controversy: the characters in the Hunger Games were not altered by "hollywood". they are black characters in the book. obliquely referenced, i gather, but not mistakable.

whatever he has to say about gender after that (btw, "femalist"? the fuck?) is highly suspect.

idk i just clicked on a few links and what i found is not inspiring much confidence either. not that i have an exact bead on his (and it is a he, isn't it?) POV. idk i'll have to dig around.

Also a lot of that post suggests the writer hasn't read the book either.

I'm not sure how I feel about any of those paragraphs, I think I may have skimmed them because they made me uncomfortable? Which is my critical fail.

I did latch onto the auth's "main" point (debatable, I guess) about how the story is a particular sanitized kind of fairy tale, and as far as I can tell it's directly in line w the vampire novels that I shall not name, and that Gemma Doyle trilogy that is also for "strong-minded young women" but challenges absolutely nothing, and approx fifteen hundred other "books for girls" that people like to fuss about.

And then this:

What makes this such an impossible, lose-lose situation for a woman is that this choice isn't about "what to do" but about who she is, what society wants a woman to be: while she must make herself look pretty, if she is observed doing this she is immediately and simultaneously critiqued for being vain. The decision about whether to be or not to doll herself up is thus somewhat up to her, but the judgment about whether she is vain is entirely out of her hands-- it is a judgment imposed on her for doing exactly what is expected of her. Her only hope is that she is can make herself look pretty enough that it looks like it was not on purpose, i.e reveal the results but hide the process. (4) This manipulation of her is all deliberate design-- what society actually wants is that it gets her to be pretty, demarcates her as an object to be gazed upon-- but not bear any of the guilt/responsibility for forcing her into this. If it works and you are pretty I guess that's some consolation, but imagine if you're not pretty but still have to go through all this, suspecting but never admitting that everyone is going to think, "why'd she even bother?" Being pretty is in many ways worse, because you're not only competing with other pretty women but with yourself ("you look tired today") and, as the old saying goes, a beautiful woman dies two deaths. But before you go try some of our Nivea skin care products. That's the system, it wants you to participate in your own marginalization so you don't dare unplug. It's exhausting being a chick. I mean girl-- woman. Jesus.

So this is why we have a book about a post-apocalyptic killing game that spends zero pages describing how Katniss kills anyone but spends countless pages on how she is dressed, how everyone is dressed. What will she wear? What kind of jewelry? Hair up? Will the "sponsors" like her better this way or that? Her chief weapon isn't a bow, it's her appearance.

...which ties into things I was just talking to people about at great length, about blame and self-blame and how feminism should be freeing you from blame because you can identify that something caused you to think like that, something made you "vain", it's not just who you are, and you can get off the treadmill now that you can see that it's there.

And this: Forget about it being entertaining, which I concede it is. It has managed to convince everyone that a passive character whose main strength is that she thinks a lot of thoughts and feels a lot of feelings, but who ultimately lets every decision be made by someone else-- that is a female hero, a winner.

That take on the book may or may not be right but at least as far as the movie is concerned (which is all I've seen) think it misses a crucial layer of irony to the whole thing. Katniss is subject to an oppressive dystopian regime! any "act" she takes within that system is only gonna only perpetuate the system. I mean, taking charge of her situation means she would have to cold-blooded murder people! (hence the romeo and juliet moment at the end inciting fear in the authorities because it raises the possibility of actions outside the system.)

So I think the movie, at least, draws attention to the ironies of Katniss embracing "love" and femininity as means of survival within the system she's in.

The Hunger Games has this same feminist problem. Other than the initial volunteering to replace her younger sister, Katniss never makes any decisions of her own, never acts with consequence-- but her life is constructed to appear that she makes important decisions.

This is insane! To the extent that she doesn't make decisions it's bc of, like Ryan said, the oppressive dystopian/capitalist regime that eliminates agency from all ppl in her class and community. But even within that framework, the decisions she makes (to not kill the other participants, to resist particular elements of the game, to bury another contestant and inspire a revolution by doing so!) are significant, and more significant than the decisions of any other character in the film. Especially when you compare Katniss to Bella (the audience I saw Hunger Games with was largely an audience that was watching the Twilight films half a year earlier), it's a sea change in female agency.

nb I also haven't read the books

http://i.imgur.com/TCn4Q.jpg

Also surprisingly Deja Thoris in the John Carter film is at least a frame below Leia there!

i'm interested to see how the movie versions of the next two Hunger Games books turn out, because (very faint spoilers) by book 3, Katniss is an EXTREMELY reluctant hero. some people view this as a deliberate and worthwhile authorial choice, i.e. Katniss is pretty clearly suffering from PTSD and the world she's living in does not know how to engage with/rehabilitate this. but this also complicates the perception of Katniss as a "strong female character" because she spends large chunks of the book acting far more like Bella Swan than Hermione or Leia, and her PTSD/reluctance often manifests itself in behavior that's childish and whiny.

bummer :(

otoh i have to say, she does have one final wow-moment at the end of the series that very much represents her deliberately choosing to take action in a difficult situation, and it's super kick-ass.

ashley judd pretty otm for a kentucky wildcats fan

I posted this on the Ashley Judd thread earlier. It's great. So is she.

ps - Don't read the comments.

a guide to life tbh

a judd goes in on fools!

buncha my homies are posting this on fb, good set of suggestions imo

http://danthedude.wordpress.com/zine/

ashley judd, pretty, otm

She was one Dateline or some similar show last week talking about that article but I was out and didn't get to see it. Wish I'd been able to though.

ON dateline not one

the urinal-free campus campaign

I had no idea this was a thing: http://www.salon.com/2012/04/17/pinterests_pro_ana_dilemma/
(the pro ana ppl, not that they used pinterest or that pinterest banned it)

Oh mordy. Between this and what you found so dark on the girls thread i think you are learning about some gross things today. :\

just bc i know about awful things doesn't mean i want to watch them every week!

i can totally understand that some ppl are pro-ana/pro-mia (ugh, jesus), but far less so their need to proselytize?

tumblr is full of that shit

it used to be - they banned those communities iirc?

idk i googled a bunch up before making my comment to make sure! i mean maybe they tried.

this natasha vargas cooper article about it pretty good: http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/02/07/020711-arts-thinspiration-1-2/

I've been asked to write some governance documents for the place where I work.

There are two things that I particularly want to achieve - one, how to make sure that any harassment or sexually motivated behaviour (does that even need an 'inappropriate' next to it?) is reported (don't want it to be a case where people feel they are 'in control' of situation and therefore do not need to report it for instance).

And secondly, and linked, in my mind anyway, for guidelines on how the company should be run with regard to gender to be as progressive as possible. I understand that race and sexuality need equivalent care and attention, but a main aim is to ensure that any female employee can see that not just the specific set of guidelines, but also that the guiding philosophy is a good one.

Clearly achieving these things will mean new processes need to be put in place (although there's unlikely to be a huge amount of money for such things) so any suggestions there would be good as well.

There are places to go for this sort of thing! I've gone on to the ACAS website and read relevant material. I'll probably need to do a bit more than that, and talk to a few experts (our HR is f'ing useless tho). But I did want to get suggestions from people here, from 'it would be great if...!' to 'go to this website/blog, it'll tell you what you need to know'.

Few low-level thoughts running around my head:

Feel US companies are better at this sort of thing than UK ones? More awareness and better processes in place. (this might just be me building on the rather too easily thought view in the UK that the US is a litigious culture. ie we're not litigious, we just GET ON WITH IT! clearly a bad thing in that circumstance).
This is a young company, which in one way helps - there's less unreconstructed male office culture - but there's also perhaps a fair degree of ignorance, or perhaps 'lack of thought' is a better phrase.
Am wondering whether office culture is almost congenitally or structurally built around 'male' drives (ok we're talking the legacy or continuation of late 20th boss culture here, rather than some sort of inherent biological male 'office gene'). Or is it just that there aren't enough efforts generally to change the culture? A low-level tolerance of all sorts of minor interactions that reinforce the office culture of the past.

If this isn't an appropriate thread for this discussion, let me know and I'll start a new one. I hope I don't sound like too much of a pious prat - got to do this, want to do this, and esp want to do it right.

The Revolution Will Not Be Polite

The conflation of nice and good also creates an avenue of subtle control over marginalised people. After all, what is seen as “nice” is cultural and often even class-dependent, and therefore the “manners” that matter get to be defined by the dominant ethnic group and class. For example, the “tone” argument, the favourite derailing tactic of bigots everywhere, is quite clearly a demand that the oppressor be treated “nicely” at all times by the oppressed – and they get to define what “nice” treatment is. This works because the primacy of nice in our culture creates a useful tool – to control people and to delegitimise their anger. A stark example of this is the stereotype of the desirably meek and passive woman, which is often held over women’s heads if we step out of line. How much easier is it to hold on to social and cultural power when you make a rule that people who ask for an end to their own oppression have to ask for it nicely, never showing anger or any emotion at being systematically disenfranchised? (A lot easier.)

That link! I appreciate the idea of making a list of non-oppressive insults, though tbh people don't really take you seriously if you go around calling people a doofus or a big galoot (both of which I looked up just to make sure they don't have malevolent origins).

Also I agree being socialized to be "nice" has seldom done me any favors.

http://www.lds.org/images/Magazines/NewEra/Archive/neweralp.nfo:o:167b.jpg

Jesus wasn't always "nice," Mormonad! They certainly don't teach women to talk to people like he did.

Nice work Mormonad stealing one of the fundamental tenets of Rave!

Big fish, little fish, cardboard box (containing five loaves)

(no bad reason to link this song tbh)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPvsHo4NPNo

(er, except possibly on this thread - Scooter's video makers are not necc. widely read on feminist theory)

i agree with being good, in a social-justice sense of the term, rather than "nice," but at the same time I can see where that might, and historically has, lead to serious trouble that has to do with definitions of good re: morality, politics, religion, class, the usual power issues of who decides what's right and what's wrong, what's "good." but obv the writer makes tonnes of sense.

also the Gavin De Becker book about fear is really freakin interesting and has actually affected me on a day-to-day level even though i have only read a few chapters and excerpts online and in a store. for me this has mostly been about listening to my intuition, the gut feeling that isn't general anxiety but is actually prickly-feeling instinct, even if it isn't outright fear in all cases - steers me right.

liked that SJL piece, especially the points it makes about the difference between giving offense and oppressing

this is a little ott ('ambivalence. indecision. fear.') but i've no doubt that it is a thing and i'm curious about ppl's thoughts on the matter

when motherhood never happens

ugh

^^pretty much

that article gets written every five minutes, btw. see susan faludi, backlash.

i think the only fear i have about not having kids and not wanting kids and pretty soon being physically unable to have kids is that a future potential partner might want them, and it would ruin the relationship, but there are so many other potential dealbreakers in life it doesn't bother me much.

Can't believe everyone ignored Fizzles' post, guess it's too late to help now?

was a good post, and i read it at the time but had no idea what to say in response. i don't know much about such documentation, employee management, or the differences between US & UK office culture. also, it seems to me that "low-level tolerance" is what makes workplace life bearable, more or less, so i figured i should probably keep my mouth shut