The Color of Gender

Imagine the maternity ward at a hospital. There's a room filled with babies in their cribs in front of a huge window, from where you observe.
What color are their hats?
Well, it depends, right? Pink for the girls, blue for the boys. And if it's not a hat it's the comforter, the diaper or a band around their tiny little hand.

We are obsessed with labeling babies by their gender. Even before they are born, one of the first questions an expecting parent is asked is: is it a boy or a girl?

According to this article, blue and pink didn't become assigned as male and female colors respectively until the 1940s. Before that, there wasn't a universal understanding on the color of sex:

For example, a June 1918 article from the trade publication Earnshaw's Infants' Department said, “The generally accepted rule is pink for the boys, and blue for the girls. The reason is that pink, being a more decided and stronger color, is more suitable for the boy, while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl.” Other sources said blue was flattering for blonds, pink for brunettes; or blue was for blue-eyed babies, pink for brown-eyed babies, according to Paoletti.

Jo B. Paoletti is an expert in the history of fashion, and very interested in American children's clothing.
In her blog, she talks about different styles throughout history and how they relate to the feminist movement.

She also talks about androgynous clothing and gender neutral clothes, which has been in and out of favor since the 1960s.

From a Sears catalog, 1973

Why do we need to gender babies? All babies do the same but we still treat them differently depending on their sex. And it's not like it really matters, just watch the video below on 1920s clothing. If one thing is for sure, women and men's expectations then were VERY different. So it really isn't about what color they wear or even what they wear.




How do we benefit from gendering? The only reasons I can come up with are 1) keeping the status quo and 2) selling more child specific artifacts (toys, diapers, cribs, wallpaper, bedding, etc.) that is also gender specific.
Is there a health reason I should be aware of? Am I missing the extraordinary social benefit of this binary categorization?
Or is X the way to go?

Something to keep in mind, through all this, is Kelsey Lueptow's point:

"Capitalism means that if the public demand for gender neutral toys rises, the toy companies will comply because even more than they care about perpetuating the current mainstream values, they want your money."

 I guess a good thing about Capitalism is that they are willing to be less sexist, as long as you pay them.

What's there to like?

Recently, I've been unliking - no matter how puny, silly or outright funny their name is - all the pages that post shitty pictures, videos or links to dubious sources on Facebook.

Most of these posts are sexist, racist or oppressive in some way. Even when the name of the page is as innocuous as "Mike Wazowski". 

Why is a page that is supposed to show to the world that I like a character from an animated movie posting degrading pictures? And, more importantly, why does Facebook allow it?

Facebook has certain Community Standards that are somewhat ambiguous and definitely not respected by many users. When a user posts something that is distasteful or offensive, other users can report it to Facebook, who will review the content following their own regulations and either deleted or leave it. 

Over the past few years and up until recently, several news outlets have been pointing out at their reproachable choices of action. For instance,  Facebook has been under a lot of fire for not deleting groups or pages that are pro-rape or display pro-rape messages. It took them months to take down pages or groups such as "You know she's playing hard to get when your chasing her down an alleyway", "I know a silly little b--ch that needs a good slap", "define statutory" or "Kicking sluts in the vagina because its [sic] funny watching your foot disappear"on the grounds that it was meant to be a joke.

Nirvana's "Nevermind"cover violates the terms of use but, disturbingly enough, a video of a child being abused by a grown man stayed on Facebook long enough to become viral  before it was taken down.

Even pages that promote anti-Semitism by denying the Holocaust happened get to stay.

 Pages that promote violence against women –  by posting pictures of specific women and photoshopping bruises and a bloody nose on them, with captions that suggest that women need to be beaten on the regular – are allowed to stay up and running, until several people report it and the story is finally picked up by international media outlets, Facebook issued an apology (although not to the woman).

If hitting the news doesn't warrant the deletion of the offensive pages, change.org petitions need to be signed by thousands or, if that doesn't get the message across, the Advertising companies need to tell Facebook to pull their ads from these sites because they don't want their products affiliated with the page's message. 

However, Facebook has taken down pictures of pregnant women, pictures from "Uprising of Women in the Arab World" of unveiled Arab women  as well as a picture of instructions for a home abortion (whether safe & legal or not, I'm not sure...I don't know why you would go to the pharmacist and ask for Cytotec for your grandmother's arthritis. If the pharmacist needs to ask what you need them for, are you being careful enough? And as for the legality...is this what a consequence of criminalizing abortion looks like?). Also not okay to post are pictures of breast cancer survivors who've undergone a double mastectomy, of women breastfeeding  or of elbows that look like a boobs.Even drawings of female nudity are removed. Men kissing are not allowed but Jenna Jameson and  Suicide Girls are. 

Jeebus, that's a lot of stuff.

But is it fair to say that Facebook is hypocritical and oppressive on purpose or should we assume that they are just misguided and ignorant, playing by the rules that the patriarchy has set up over a long period of time?In which case, does pointing out sexist they are work? There are initiatives (as well as twitter hashtags) out there such as everyday sexism that don't explicitly educate about sexism but narrate situations that are sexist. But like Lindy West puts in her article about the misogyny Seth MacFarlane demonstrated in the Oscars as humour, "you might as well write me a note on a banana peel demanding that I prove to you that bananas exist". Why do we need to constantly prove that sexism is a thing? And why do women (and men) that draw attention to the social injustice we live in get threatening emails and calls, and their personal information (and of their families and friends) publicized for the sole purpose of terrorizing them?
What are we so afraid of? The wrath of these cowardly people? The anonymous bullies? 

Well, I'm not afraid. Because I know the other side is better than this. I know that equality is attainable and that with it we can eradicate this violence against our bodies and our voice.
We should never stop using our voice. You saw what happened to Ariel in The Little Mermaid, right?

That's how the getcha - forget your voice, gurl, objectify yourself. for empowerment!

 Guys, this is the second to last post. I hope you enjoy it, we're almost done.

(As my procrastination tool this semester, I'm re-watching Community - Nick is a total enabler)

Porn & Sexuality

I think it's fair to say that porn is a representation of how we are socialized.
Or even better, it's an exaggeration of how our arousal has been socialized.


We are very interested in sex and sex drive and, more specifically, how to turn our partners on. There are many articles online about this, all heavily based off gender norms and relying on the thought that women and men are intrinsically different.

Men are taught to become aroused with visual cues. Porn banks on this socialization: we have POV shots, the money shot, exaggerated expressions (accompanied by equally exaggerated noises).

Women, on the other hand, are taught to...not be aroused. Women are generally not allowed a sexuality, because women are tools for reproduction purposes.
Okay - maybe that's a little inflammatory.

Am I really off base saying that? Is women's arousal really connected to how desirable we are/feel?
Does that mean that the majority of women depend on men EVEN at our most intimate?

What's the one of the techniques that stereotypical bros use to play a girl? Isn't it to make her feel like he wants to settle down, have a meaningful relationship, marry, and have kids? This stereotype touches on many different aspects of the hookup culture AND patriarchy AND has different levels of fucked upness.

BUT. It sort of follows this idea that there is no porn for women because women are taught to not be sexual and, at the same time, be aroused by naked women. So unless the whole system that defines who we are sexually and how we express our sexuality changes, I don't see a lot of good quality porn popping up.

Why do we need porn anyway? Isn't that just another expression of patriarchy?
Like infomercials for sex, they sell us normalcy: how we are supposed to behave , what is acceptable and what is a fetish, who belongs with who...
Why do we, as a whole, buy into that?

WHAT IS WRONG WITH US?!?!?!

Hairy Situations

On spring break, Nick and I went to LA first and then to Miami. We were planning on hanging out in our respective bikinis A LOT.

Since both places are pretty plastic and image driven, I decided to get a bikini wax. Definitely not on my "Top 10 Most Enjoyable Experiences Ever".

ouch.

At the spa, I started thinking about where this aversion to hairy ladies comes from.
Then I talked about it with Brittany, my very bubbly and nice and gentle aesthetician (I'm not sure that that's her official title).
I was saying something along the lines of: isn't it just another way of getting women to feel bad about themselves and spend money on themselves, for a false sense of belonging?

  

She started commenting on it and interrupted herself to tell me that she was a perfectionist and that the wax might be a little hot and that I should just try to relax.

right.

She also told me to NEVER get anything waxed on my period or right before my period because it would hurt like nothing has hurt before.

duly noted.

After a pretty painful (and unnecessary?) experience, where a complete stranger is plucking away at my crotch after applying hot wax and literally ripping it off, REPEATEDLY, I thought that maybe this whole hairlessness for women is kind of like the success by zeroes in a man's bank account.

Sometimes it's hard to realise that this drive to make money isn't completely related to being successful just like not having an ounce of hair on your legs, doesn't equate being beautiful.

We don't really realise how pervasive these thoughts are, though.

I know that this obsession with hairless women is not a new phenomenon. I think I remember hearing that in Ancient Greece, Rome & Egypt they had different ways of getting rid of unwanted hairs, they tweezed their eyebrows and other facial hair. If we are to judge paintings from the Renaissance, women are not very bushy, and there are even recipes on how to get rid of body hair. Yuck.

Do we do this as a way to separate the two sexes even more? Since men are naturally hairier, do we shave, pluck, tweeze, bleach, dye and wax ours to draw a thicker line between us?

The comic relief

I don't know what you guys do when it's deadline season, but I procrastinate like it's nobody's business. Like, a lot.
No lie, I usually start watching a new show when finals are approaching (or better yet, during finals). If I'm in a particularly self-destructive mood, I'll pick a show with like, 10 seasons.

You go, Glen Coco.

Otherwise, I'll resort to online comics. And let me tell you, I read A LOT of comics online.I'm currently reading about 30, without counting the ones that are done (which I tend to re-read during times I can't really afford to procrastinate).

Recently, I found 4 comics to read (GUYS, FINALS ARE NEXT MONTH), and they've made me think about the portrayal of women in comics.

 For example, here is a re-imagining of Wonder Woman, by Kate Beaton from Hark! A Vagrant (go read it, she is awesome).

Although there is a feminist critique aspect to it, the comic doesn't really stray from the normative: Wonder Woman is a bitter burnout.

This comic is definitely better than others.  Zits and Luann both star teenagers. The protagonist of Zits is Jeremy Duncan. He is in High School, has a band, loves pizza and his old VW van. Luann´s protagonist is a teenage girl who is also in High School. Luann has two best friends, one who is ambitious, earth conscious and a feminist and another one (her best friend) who wears glasses, has curly hair and is "smart", a pessimist and sarcastic.

Zits by Jerry Scott and Jim Borgman

Why is it that women have a "girl filter" that turns lame half truths into the news of the century? Pink flourishes? Girls only? She was so excited she dropped her notebooks and everything! What kind of syndicated crap is this?

Aren't mums the worst? Especially when they are cooking you dinner.

Luann by Greg Evans

I find very problematic that 1) the only two options are education and job or married; 2) that education doesn't equal happiness - are we saying that the only way we can be happy is by marrying right out of High School? and 3) why don't the parents take any sort of issue with their 16 year old saying that marriage is an option in a year and a half? why don't they correct her and explain that those are really not the only future prospects?

You should know better than talk to women while they do their house work, amirite? Not only will they make you help out with the chores in your own home, you'll be wrong all the time.

Ugh. How depressing. Think about the message this is sending to the audience. Comics like these, syndicated and available on print on the Sunday paper, cultivate a distorted view of normalcy. I really don't remember ever being that vapid.
 
If you want to read anything that stars female teenagers in high school in constant scenarios where semi-nudity is expected (like, say, walking down the street), you should check out the projects Gisèle Lagacé is working on - specifically anything that came out of Eerie Cuties (Dangerously Chloe and Magick Chicks). For her portrayal of LGBT sexuality issues, check out Ménage à 3 or its spinoff Sticky Dilly Buns (NSFW).

It's tough out there.

There are pretty nonsensical comics going around. Like, all-women cast, crazy adventures and whatnot but every other page has a detailed drawing of female genitalia. 
But there are also pretty rocking comics. Like Blip (the author was having some problems with the site and then stopped updating in 2011. Sadface.), or Girls With Slingshots or Lackadaisy or Namesake or Bite Me! (vampires AND the French Revolution? What's there not to love?!).

There are many more. Like, tons. So I vote we support these poor struggling artists that support egalitarian narratives by reading their comics and maybe even buying the hard copies sometimes.

Are there any comics out there that you've found worth a look?

So we all know how to objectify...now what?

I understand the empowerment of women literally fighting back in WWE and I understand the empowerment of women surrounding themselves with almost naked hunky guys in music videos, such as Kelly Rowland in Lay It On Me.



 But aren't we just as bad when we accept these behaviors? Aren't we perpetuating other problems that also affect everybody, such as violence and trivialization of sex? Aren't we perpetuating the emotional imbalance in Western culture? Aren't we still playing by their rules of normalcy and getting a fake sense of empowerment? Because they (network CEOs and people that have a direct impact on what we learn from mass media) tell us what to do and how to empower ourselves. And that is objectifying others.
But think about it. Our power doesn't stem from ourselves, it still stems from how little we can make other people.

This train of thought reminded me of the performance artist Marina Abramović. In 1974 she performed Rythm 0 as part of a series. From Wikipedia:

To test the limits of the relationship between performer and audience, Abramović developed one of her most challenging (and best-known) performances. She assigned a passive role to herself, with the public being the force which would act on her.
Abramović had placed upon a table 72 objects that people were allowed to use (a sign informed them) in any way that they chose. Some of these were objects that could give pleasure, while others could be wielded to inflict pain, or to harm her. Among them were a rose, a feather, honey, a whip, scissors, a scalpel, a gun and a single bullet. For six hours the artist allowed the audience members to manipulate her body and actions.
Initially, members of the audience reacted with caution and modesty, but as time passed (and the artist remained impassive) people began to act more aggressively. As Abramović described it later:
“What I learned was that... if you leave it up to the audience, they can kill you.” ... “I felt really violated: they cut up my clothes, stuck rose thorns in my stomach, one person aimed the gun at my head, and another took it away. It created an aggressive atmosphere. After exactly 6 hours, as planned, I stood up and started walking toward the audience. Everyone ran away, to escape an actual confrontation.”

This piece is eye opening! Abramović dehumanizes herself and very quickly the audience resorts to aggression. I wonder what would've happened if the performer was a man. Would the audience have been as quick to be violent as with Abramović? And what type of aggression would they have used? Would they have cut off his clothes and stuck thorns on his stomach? Would they have stopped when he started crying?

Sometimes I feel like I'm fighting against these huge insane unchangeable things. I wonder what Alice Paul felt when she was arguing for a federal amendment to the Constitution. I feel like people I talk to about this look at me like Carrie Chapman Catt would look at Alice Paul. Something on the lines of: are you fucking insane?

But Alice Paul did it, guys. She also had a strong group of people who believed in her and her cause and she was smart and had experiences that I will never have. And a looooong legacy of women fighting for the same specific cause.
Do I have all these women in my corner to fight the social inequalities we are plagued with? Will we ever be able to have maternal AND paternal leave? To be treated equally on the war front? Will we ever be paid the same as men for the same job? Will we ever be treated like sentient beings instead of money spending machines? Is it possible to change?

Can Feminists Be Happy?

I've been asking myself that recently. 
According to this article, no. To be fair, this article also states that: "A woman who takes joy in the health, love, and growth of her children? Not a feminist.", so clearly the author doesn't understand what feminism is. And he is in the same metaphoric boat as many others, because what feminism is and means and wants has been attacked for centuries.

 

So, if we are to believe the propaganda and what the different media outlets have been feeding us, then no, feminist cannot be happy. But if we dig a little deeper we realise that these depictions are characters - they are not real. Anita Sarkeesian calls them Straw Feminists:


By turning feminism into the opposite of chauvinism not only does one prove that they don't know what feminism means, they also prove to have no media literacy at all. And a general sense of ignorance that particularly irritates me.

"you wanna rephrase that, punk?

They miss the point by a gazillion km and oversimplify a very complex issue. And that's not only true for feminism but for every aspect of life, even established dual categories such as people's sex.
And that's the problem, our inherent need to categorize everything to the point of ridiculousness. Our brains naturally categorize sensory input because otherwise it would collapse. We use categorizations to process all the information and react rapidly to every situation. Stereotypes are a product of this process. 
So when mass media outlets use these stereotypes or construe new stereotypes and feed them to everyone, indiscriminately, they perpetuate the "othering" of feminism.
The sad part is that social equality is beneficial (and necessary) to both women and men.

So maybe it's not "can feminists be happy?", maybe it's "can we be happy?"as part of a collective of people ruled by a minority that purposely oppresses the rest? Because to be honest, in this system, no one wins - not even men.

They figured it out: media is the most powerful indoctrinating tool.

Although I believe happiness comes from within and our own ability to put specific situations we find ourselves in into perspective, I wonder if actively pursuing social justice and equality would make me the most miserable person on Earth.

But if I didn't, wouldn't I be equally miserable? Is this the result of tireless efforts to suppress our desire to fight back by the media conglomerates? 

The Elusive Alpha Female

Recently, my roommate Crystal, Nick, and I had a conversation about alpha males.
We tried to delineate what characteristics an alpha male possesses, keeping in mind that the idea comes from the animal kingdom (or a fantasy of how the animal kingdom works). Is the alpha male aggressive? Is he always in control? is he charismatic? a good speaker? heterosexual or homosexual? bisexual? is he rich? does he get laid when he's not busy being alpha somewhere else?
We conformed with equating the alpha male with the dominant male and so, their traits are the same:

• Powerful
• Wealthy
• Influential
• Attractive
• Heterosexual
• Objectifies women

So then, can women be alphas too?
What does a woman alpha need to be? Can we extrapolate "alphaness", or is it sex-specific?
 I read an article that suggests that high heels suggest status:

"Certain class advantages make it easier for upper middle class and wealthy women to don high heels.  High heels can really only be worn routinely by women who don't work on their feet all day (I'll grant there are dedicated exceptions).  Valet parking makes it a whole lot easier to wear shoes that hurt to walk in, so does not having to take the bus.* Having money, in itself, means that nothing stands between you and buying things that are impractical."

But heels didn't start being shoes for women. Heels started as riding shoes for men and then evolved into status wear, until the Enlightenment. Then, the discomfort of heels was left to women.
So nowadays, women show power by wearing 6 inch heels, instead of a sleek leather belt. 

Two days ago, PBS ran a documentary called Makers: Women Who Make America. Not only is it super inspiring, these women explain one by one the hardships they had fighting, what we now see as, an incredibly backwards patriarchal system. NB: what if what we now see as fair and egalitarian is actually not? Seriously think about this. Because back in the 1920s people still believed women were rendered incapacitated during their period. As in once a month for a full week.  As in out of 52 weeks, you spend 12 in bed because you're a useless individual.
 

Crystal thought for a second and said: what about Lara Croft? Or River Song? or Buffy the Vampire Slayer? or Anita Blake?
Honestly, from that list I only know Lara Croft and Buffy and I only played a Tomb Raider game over one summer (and I can't even name it) and I've seen a handful of episodes of Buffy. But I get what she meant. I also get that these characters are not exactly pushing for equality. Although they are somewhat, and in varying degrees, positive in depicting capable women that, you know, do their thing, they aren't something we should strive for or settle on. It's not a matter of making women fighters in media, it's about making them fighters without having to take their clothes off or without them always being white or well off or fulfilling some sort of sexual fantasy. And making them fighters without using violence, but that's just my personal taste.

So what do you think? Can we abstract "alphaness" or is it an archaic notion?

In case of absolute despair, look at this.

The men of Revenge

Revenge is a fairly new (currently airing the 2nd season) show on ABC that stars a young woman, Amanda Clarke, as the daughter of a wrongfully convicted man.
After turning 21, she reinvents herself to become Emily Thorne and spends the rest of her time exerting revenge on all the people that were involved in her father's imprisonment and murder.*

Dun dun dunnn: Emily just put a house on fire and looked glam while she did it

Although I absolutely LOVE watching this show, there are a few things that bother me.
For example, the lack of black people on the cast. Or the representation of homosexuality (hint: it's the only male that wears pink). Or the relationships that Emily has with her romantic interests. Or the stereotypes thrown left and right. Or the relationships between the men in the show.

Thorne...get it?

There are four main male characters worth talking about. In alphabetical order:

Aiden: Aiden is a new character and Emily's new love interest. We don't know a lot about his background (oooh! mysterious!) but we do know that he is violent, that he went to revenge training with Emily and that he has a British accent. Jean Kilbourne talks about this kind of character in Killing Us Softly 4 (around min. 40).

Daniel: Daniel is the wealthy son of Emily's targets. He is seen as the main man until Emily and his parents start manipulating him and he starts looking like a fool and an idiot. No amount of muscle or cash can compensate! In a sense, Emily is superior to him because she also has the money, and the body but, on top of that, she has more influence and wit. So Daniel becomes a pawn in her plot to bring his family down and stops being a romantic interest.

I hope he keeps that attitude when he finds out that his life = lies

Jack: Jack is Emily's old flame from the past. He is broke as a joke and keeps making very stupid decisions. But they are out of desperation, not for lack of intelligence. No one that good looking can be true working class and that's why even with dialogue about money trouble, the public never sees it.

Nolan: Nolan is the only guy in Emily's age range that doesn't want to sleep with her. So they made him scrawny, nerdy and gay. Problem solved! He owns a tech company that is very successful and still manages to be Emily's unpaid IT guy. Since they don't have a romantic interest in each other, their relationship has to be based off something else to push the plot forward, so it's driven by a promise made to her father that Nolan would take care of her. 

Like many other LGBT characters, Nolan was the comic relief...until he started adapting more into the heterosexual norms. During season two he becomes romantically involved with a woman and his character becomes more serious.

From left to right: Nolan, Declan, Emily, Jack and Daniel. Violence and nudity = successful TV show!

Since manliness is demonstrated with toughness, how they are violent becomes part of the characters personality.
Nolan is against violence, Jack is physical, Daniel uses guns and Aiden uses both.
Since Nolan is the submissive male and gay, his pacifism is unquestioned. Jack, being a blue collar guy, is rough and barbaric; while Daniel, being privileged, uses a revolver. Guns are a upper class weapon symbol because they inflict pain in such a removed, "civilized"way. Aiden is the ambivalent one - his accent brings forth stereotypes of lower class English people, but also exoticism. He is able to walk both worlds (just like Emily).



Emily needs and uses these men to get to the final goal - these men are necessary to get to a woman that they surround.

And Madeleine Stowe is fantastic

 However cliché the underlying current of the plot is, this show is more than redundancy of the stereotypes and plot lines that have been thrown at us ad nauseam by the networks. Because otherwise - I'd like to believe - it wouldn't have an audience. Emily is a modern character that follows some of the traditional dogma that is taught to girls, but she is still the main protagonist and heroine, independent, smart,  resourceful, well connected through her own abilities, and financially savvy.

Cheers to the modern woman!

*Looking for a cool clip to add to this post, I saw a panel where they said that if they can revive the father, they will. Expect it for season 4 or 5, when they start running out of ideas.

Advertising and Class Relations

The other day, my boyfriend and I got into a huge discussion about the class system in America. He said that working class individuals are in and stay in precarious conditions because of a series of bad decisions and poor planning. I disagreed, saying that some people have a harder time moving up in the corporate world because there are barriers that society has set up to keep a large proportion of the population in the service of a smaller group. I pointed out that our world wouldn't work otherwise.

Just like this wouldn't work, either

After a heated argument, we decided that our different points of view were the consequence of two very different upbringings, based on two separate cultures. He is American, after all, the country that values individuality and underdog stories. I come from a culture that rose from a dictatorship and is very fond of their unions. But after seeing Class Dismissed I realize that a very specific part of culture – TV – has a critical influence over class relations. 

I won the argument!

By representing the working class as idiots and fools, and equating success with material goods, advertising companies succeed at stigmatizing being poor. More importantly, these shows survive on stereotypes that the networks and ads cultivate, such as a patriarchal society where men hold power over women. We see this in all the shows where working class families are characters. No matter how smart and capable the wife is, she is never able to succeed in life (i.e. buy things) because her husband – the one that is financially responsible for the family and main decision maker -  is a dunce. The woman holds absolutely no power over her own fate and well being. 

As in: not at all.

It’s important to be aware of what the advertising companies – through the shows we watch – are trying to sell us. Since poor people can’t afford to buy luxury items, these characters will always be criminals or losers and it will always be by their own volition. But we know better! and since we know what they are up to, we can stop agreeing with this skewed view of reality.