My favorite part of Bossypants:

Image via morethanwalk.tumblr.com

Thanks for sharing this story in your book, Tina Fey!


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Hooray for Scott Fujita!

Boo for Cosmo.

Here are the two articles I am referring to that I liked today:

Reasons to Love Scott, by Irin, Jezebel via Feministe.

1) He diplomatically but firmly opposed the message of the Tebow ad, which will air during the Super Bowl Fujita is playing in Sunday. "The idea of focusing on the family - who wouldn't agree with that?" he told The New York Times. "But the means of doing so, he and I might not see eye to eye all the way." Fujita was adopted, and his biological mother was a teenager when he was born. "I'm just so thankful she had the courage and the support system to be able to carry out the pregnancy," Fujita said. "I wouldn't expect that of everybody."

2) He lent his name to the National Equality March and has been outspoken about gay rights issues.

3) He supports an orphanage in New Orleans and started speaking out on gay rights in part because of his objection to laws limiting gay adoption. "What [such laws] are really saying is that the concern with one's sexual orientation or one's sexual preference outweighs what's really important, and that's finding safe homes for children," he has said. "It's also saying that we'd rather have kids bounce around from foster home to foster home throughout the course of their childhood, than end up in a permanent home."

Warning: The Cosmo Flirting Guide Might Turn You Into A Total Lunatic, by hortense, Jezebel.

An article titled "50 Ways To Become A Legendary Flirt" presents itself as a guide to getting what you want by flirting your way into the hearts and minds of others . . . Let's take a look at the most insane flirting suggestions, shall we?

[ . . . ]

17. Get the indie music guy hanging near the jukebox to help you pick out a song.

LOL what? Where is this mythical place where the "indie music guy" hangs out near the jukebox? The Max? The Peach Pit? The Peach Pit After Dark?

22. Hit up a sports bar and ask the guy sitting beside you what his favorite team is so you'll "know who to root for."

Oh, this is so sad! And so transparent! Doing this will just make you look stupid and desperate and pathetic. Especially if his favorite team is the Yankees and then you have to act like you like them for a few hours. So sad!

[ . . . ]

Here's the problem with the majority of these tips (aside from their ridiculousness): they rely on a woman dumbing herself down in order to appeal to some dude or to get what she wants. To get your coffee fast, you need to moan like an idiot, to try to meet guys, you need to ask them what they like so you can mold yourself around their idea of the perfect woman, and to impress your family members, apparently, you need to make vaguely incestuous comments.

For all the "fun, fearless" talk Cosmo pushes, its articles often revert to the notion that a woman has to play it safe and stupid to get ahead in the world, using her boobs over her brains and discarding all self-awareness in an attempt to appear "sexy" and "daring." The results are often a display of idiocy and transparent attempts to be what she believes other people expect her to be: the Cosmo girl has to try to flirt her way into the hearts of others with her underwear tied in her hair because she doesn't know how to just stand up, be herself, own her sexuality, and say what she means. There's a difference between being a flirt and being completely insane. Someday, Cosmo might figure it out.

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I take so much for granted.

Today I attended a women-in-business related meeting, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Afterwards, I invited myself into a conversation amongst women about how women in business are perceived, both by men and by other women. There was a consensus about the double standards, and the impossible standards, that women are held to. Some women were surprised that they would be treated differently simply because they were women, and they were not happy about it. If you are one of the women in question, Hello! Thanks for reading my blog! Please leave a comment. :)

As the conversation progressed, one of the women expressed disdain for the sexism involved in some men spreading rumors about women to undermine them. Then within her next sentences she said, "I am anti-feminist".

I don't understand how the words, "I am anti-feminist," could come out of a woman's mouth. I was offended both as a woman and as an out-and-proud feminist. It would be like Senator Obama saying, "I hate that Dr. King and his ilk. He and Malcolm X and Maya Angelou were always causing trouble. There was no need for all that rabble-rousing to make sure that people like me have equal rights. I didn't need any help to get where I am today, even though people still discriminate against me based on my color. Why should anyone fight for the rights of black people? Now I'm going to go deliver another speech that heavily borrows from 'I Have A Dream'. Check you later!"

Since I am young, educated and black, I never have the opportunity to forget where I come from and how hard millions of people before me have worked to allow me to get where I am, both as a black person and as a woman. I often forget that many nonblack women don't have that same awareness and historical perspective. I know who I am and how I am. I also know that other people think they know, but they have no idea. But many other women don't think about how they are perceived in the world until something happens to them. And even then, they don't always recognize it as sexism. Feminists have made it possible for women to live much of their lives without experiencing (relatively) overt sexism. Feminists worked to get women up to that 77 cents of the dollar that our male counterparts make. Feminists continue to fight for human rights every day, including the right for women to be in business in the first place.

To clarify about The F Word: If you believe women should have equal rights, you are a feminist. Period. End of story. Jam done. You can go home now.

You don't have to tell anyone that you're a feminist. You don't have to protest. You don't have to burn the MYTHICAL bra. You can keep it to yourself. You can enjoy professional sports. You can wear skirts. You can have sex with men. It's okay. Please realize that most if not all of the stuff that you have been taught about feminists and feminism is false. I will repeat: If you believe women should have equal rights, you are a feminist.

And, as I have said before, Men? You can be feminists, too. There is no vaginal requirement. For reference, here is my favorite famous feminist man. He's super cute, too!

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I wouldn't call it Horrible,

but I would call it lacking. Specifically, lacking in melanin content and quality roles for women. I watched Dr. Horrible today, the online musical created by self-proclaimed feminist Joss Whedon. The three-act production stars both Nathan Fillion of Serenity and Firefly fame, and my favorite child doctor Neil Patrick Harris.

Some say "Dr. Horrible is good!". Some say "Dr. Horrible is Fabulous!". I say it's the same stuff I've been complaining about for two years now. Happy early birthday, blog! It's about two white heterosexual men (including the main character played by "very content gay man" NPH) who fight over a skinny white woman. The woman, named Penny, is younger that both of her male suitors, and she has no real character of her own. Her defining personality traits include doing laundry, volunteering at a homeless shelter and eating frozen yogurt.

Rebecca Allen of A Nerd at Peace writes:

The problem was that the story was so caught up in its trickery—you really liked Dr. Horrible! But he’s eeeeevil! Mwahahaha!—it forgot to not suck. Though to be fair, the parts with Penny had always been kind of weak, because as a character, Penny had absolutely no agency whatsoever. She existed to be Dr. Horrible’s dream girl, and Dr. Horrible was an archetypal Nice Guy through the whole thing. The scenes were cute enough, and Neil Patrick Harris was darling enough, that I gave it the benefit of a doubt. But in the second part, it’s clear Penny exists as a prize for Dr. Horrible. She dates his nemesis, [Nathan Fillion's] Captain Hammer, instead, and that’s what sets off his fall into darkness. She falls for Captain Hammer and never questions his bullshit, even though from the watcher’s POV it’s obvious, which makes her look pretty stupid. She’s generically nice and sweet, but has no other character traits.

So Captain Hammer uses her (both her body for sex and her cause for glory), and it drives Dr. Horrible mad. When Captain Hammer begins to brag publicly about having sex with her, she grows uncomfortable. But before she can actually do anything about it (she seems to be slinking off in shame, but she never speaks about it, never confronts Captain Hammer about it, never takes a decisive action) she is tragically, accidentally killed. Dr. Horrible was trying to kill Captain Hammer, his death ray exploded, Hammer ran off in pain and shock, and she was caught by the shrapnel and dies. But her death gets Dr. Horrible entrance into the Evil League of Evil and turns him into a respectable villain.

The end.

Purtek of The Hathor Legacy writes:

Since it’s Joss Whedon, it’s practically guaranteed to come with high expectations attached, both for quality creative work and, in many circles, for feminist content. On the former, Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog definitely lives up to the hype. On the latter, unfortunately, I have to say that it failed miserably. Of the three characters, Penny is by far the least developed. She’s a sweet, somewhat naive, save-the-world local activist with big, romantic dreams for her life. While the two male characters are also stereotypes in a way, they’re both larger than life, hilarious caricatures, whereas Penny just seems to lack personality. The fact that Dr. Horrible initially falls for her as he encounters her twice weekly in the incredibly mundane setting of the laundromat is fitting, here.

And naturally, in a story with three characters, two male and one female, there is a love triangle at work, and as is often the case, the woman in that story becomes more of a prop at play in the interaction between the two men. The real relationship struggle, the real competition is between Dr. Horrible and Captain Hammer. The reason Penny has lasting appeal to Captain Hammer is because it’s one more front on which he can assert his superiority over Dr. Horrible - while the scene where Captain Hammer assures Dr. Horrible that he will be having sex with Dr. Horrible’s crush was admittedly hilarious, due mainly to Nathan Fillion’s delivery, it depended entirely upon playing out their battle with one another using a woman’s body as a way of scoring points. Worst of all, Penny dies at the end, in exactly the kind of death scene we’ve complained about several times on this site - one that serves almost exclusively to progress the character development of the men in her life. She dies as a result of the competition between the two men, accidentally, by getting in the way. Despite the fact that immediately before Dr. Horrible arrived on the scene, she seemed to be recognizing her boyfriend’s incredible arrogance and selfishness, with her dying breath, she sings “Captain Hammer will save us”. Not only does this show her as the woman to be rescued (if unsuccessfully), the main point of having her say it was to take away that last thing that made Dr. Horrible want to be…not horrible, and cement his commitment to proving himself as the most evil person alive.

I agree with both assessments, which I found on Joss Whedon's fan site under the July 20 entry. Commenter rufustfyrfly summed up my second problem with Dr. Horrible:

. . . [the musical] had exactly no named characters of color. Yet another bizarro parallel universe in which Southern California is mostly white.

Come on, Joss. We know you can do better than this! I push because I love.

Almost every person in the entire musical was white and male. Seriously. Even in the dedication of the homeless shelter, almost every person in the room was white. There was one possibly Asian woman who had a singing part, but she had to share all of her screen time with her two white friends.

This kind of nonsense is plausibly excusable when your production is governed by media conglomerates like Viacom or NBC Universal or Time Warner or Disney. But Mr. Whedon, when you decide to create a project with no strings attached, and you have complete creative freedom, you should do better. Especially if you call yourself a feminist, a label which some question.

Here are some related perspectives on Dr. Horrible:

...but., by elisha at sixth_light.

Dr. Horrible, or Why I'm So Pissed Off, by per_maybe_haps.

Blogging along with Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, by Holly at Feministe.

Also, here is Why film schools teach screenwriters not to pass the Bechdel test, by BetaCandy at The Hathor Legacy.

Finally, I leave you with Joss Whedon's Equality Now speech via Mother Jones:

Musings from a Black Woman: April Showers

This is some nonsense. This isn't "artistic" or "beautiful." This is not about whether teenagers are having sex, Defamer. This is a situation made of fail. Miley's parents failed her. Vanity Fair failed her. Annie Leibovitz failed her. Disney failed her.

Miley is 15. When I was 15, there is no way my Mummy and Grammy would have let someone take a picture of me wearing a bedsheet. That is nasty. All the perverts involved in creating this debacle deserve a visit from Dateline's Chris Hansen, complete with a pitcher of sweet tea.

Trai_Dep sums up my final thoughts on the matter:

When I see a picture of The Jonas Brothers tarted up, wearing smeared lipstick and posed so they look like they've just had the holy crap raped out of them, then I'll know that America has finally reached sexual equality.

Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, free at last!

Also, where were Taylor Momsen's parents during this photo shoot?

~

Next!

This appropriation situation got me thinking about Jessica Valenti's appearance on The Colbert Report last year. When it aired, I was proud that Stephen had a young feminist on his program. However I was also annoyed for reasons I couldn't identify. Now I know why.

In a May 20, 2007, post on Feministing, editor Samhita asked "why is Jessica the face of Feministing?"

Because she got to promote her first of three books on The Colbert Report, a program that prefers its guests to be older, white and/or male. The Report occasionally books female guests, but rarely are they of a nonwhite persuasion. (Yes, I do know Michelle Obama was on the show two weeks ago.)

Additionally, Jessica is listed as the "Executive Editor" of Feministing.

It's that simple. I haven't seen "Vanessa, Ann, Celina, Jen" or Samhita on any Comedy Central program. I haven't read any controversy stirred up about any of their books like the controversy fostered by the cover of Jessica's book. In fact, I haven't heard of any of their books. Do they have a three-book deal? And if so, why have I not heard about it?

Back to me. I was annoyed because I shared the feelings that MirandaJay expressed in the comment section of Jessica's latest mea culpa:

I'm glad you finally said outloud you realize part of the reason why the mainstream media picks up on your work is because you are cute, white and well dressed and not because you have anything edgy or new to add to feminism. I think you are right to be proud of being able to make a living off of writing, but it's good you understand why you REALLY got on to the colbert show.

And yes, Jessica finally acknowledged this sentiment in the post by stating

I have no illusions as to why my work has gotten the press that it has. The media likes nothing more than a young sassy white feminist who is mainstream-friendly. I know that there is work out there being done that is more nuanced and cutting edge - because I see it all around me. That’s not to say I’m not incredibly proud of the work I’ve done. I am proud. I know that Feministing and [her book Full Frontal Feminism] have made changes in people’s lives, and that warms my heart every day. I believe, whole-heartedly, in the work that we are doing and the women who I’m fortunate enough to blog with. But I also believe in our ability - and my own - to do better."

I agree with all of that. I just wish that more people, like Amanda and, er, other people, could understand that when colorful people like myself point out the racial disparities in our media.

It is indeed a huge personal accomplishment to write a book. It is quite another thing to get it 1) published, 2) well-marketed, and 3) supported by a late-night talk show targeted at an 18-34 white male demographic. Those latter three qualities are much easier to attain if the people in charge of the publishing house, the public relations department, and the television network all think the author is "marketable", i.e. young, pretty and white. And if you have a thin, naked white woman on the cover of your debut book, all the better.

These are the feelings that have fueled the anger behind Amandagate. This isn't about trying to "tear up someone’s career" or "setting out to destroy someone’s reputation as sport". It Was Never About One Thing. This is about acknowledging that (perceived) talent and hard work aren't the only things that make people successful, especially in the arena of mainstream media, and that with great privilege comes great responsibility.

For more on appropriation, inaccurate media representation, taking a stand, and misguided ally chutzpah, respectively, I direct you here:

About Erasing …, by Thomas at Feministe.

Trans-Racialization in "21″, by Jenn at reappropriate.

To BFP: Chickens, Princesses, Gypsies, and Slaves. by Rainbow Girl at Team Rainbow.

Intellectual Appropriation, Attribution Of Credit & Privilege (UPDATED), at PhysioProf.

My favorite part was this:

OK. One final point about male privilege and the role of men vis a vis feminism. This partial excerpt of a comment to Holly’s post was written by a dude named Hugo:

I write all this not to distract from the conversation at hand. The point is, the meta-conversation between white feminists and RWOC bloggers (acknowledging that those categories create a bit of a false dichotomy) has produced a lot of pain — and a lot of growth — for a lot of us this past year. That conversation works best, however, when we move away from the personal attacks of the sort that have been thrown, primarily in one direction, this week.

I am not a woman, so there is, of course, no way for me to know how women would react to this kind of comment by a dude. But this made my jaw almost hit the floor. I sort of imagine that if I were a woman, my reaction would be “Us!? What the fuck are you talking about, dude!?” And it kind of surprises me that in the comments to Holly’s post, no one said, “Yo, dude. This particular argument is about and between women; mind your own fucking business.”

I have always assumed that women would find it really fucking annoying if I were to ever tell them what is feminist or not, or to use the pronouns “us” and “we” in reference to feminists. And I certainly never refer to myself as a feminist, as I don’t think it is for me to say if I am a feminist or not; it is for women to judge.

What I do is try to treat women like human beings, and tell other men what I think they can do to try to treat women like human beings. You gotta be fucking nuts to wade the fuck in there as a man and start taking sides in an argument between a white female blogger and WOC bloggers over how to further their respective common and distinct goals. Seriously.

I get that I am viewing Hugo’s remark as a privileged male, so I could be missing something important. Am I getting this wrong?'

Nope, you're not getting it wrong at all. Also, all you anti-choice men in the House and the Senate and in state legislatures trying to restrict my reproductive rights, please take note: you don't have a uterus, so get your laws off my body.

Seacrest out!

.

And I'm not sorry.

You know what I love? When some guy tries to school me on the definition of misogyny. (Scroll down to the bottom for the reference.) Because he would know better than me. Despite the fact that I have been doing significant research on women studies, gender studies, and sexual orientation since I was fourteen years old, I'm sure he has the vast knowledge and depth of experience to tell me what is and what is not misogyny, at the very moment I have become the victim of it.

I will comment on all of that craziness, and on Dan's . . . response later. For now, since is the almost end of August, I am going a two week blog vacation. Everybody else is doing it, so why can't we? I'll be back on Labor Day with some choice words for some choice people. I will still be able to see the comments on this blog through my email, so feel free to leave some witty musings.

To anyone to voiced their support for me on the Superbad comment thread: Thank you. I really appreciate it. I often have to defend my views and even my very existence all by myself. It's wonderful when I have help from people who understand where I'm coming from, even if they don't necessarily agree with me.

Until September, I leave you with the abridged lyrics to Madonna's "Human Nature." I usually hate to quote song lyrics to express my emotions, because I think it's silly and overdone. However, this ditty fits the situation perfectly:

Express yourself, don't repress yourself

And I'm not sorry
It's human nature
And I'm not sorry
I’m not your bitch don't hang your shit on me

You wouldn't let me say the words I longed to say
You didn't want to see life through my eyes
You tried to shove me back inside your narrow room
And silence me with bitterness and lies

Did I say something wrong?
Oops, I didn't know I couldn't talk about sex
[I musta been crazy]
Did I stay too long?
Oops, I didn't know I couldn't speak my mind
[What was I thinking]

You punished me for telling you my fantasies
I'm breakin' all the rules I didn't make
You took my words and made a trap for silly fools
You held me down and tried to make me break

Did I say something true?
Oops, I didn't know I couldn't talk about sex
[I musta been crazy]
Did I have a point of view?
Oops, I didn't know I couldn't talk about you
[What was I thinking]

And I’m not sorry
[I'm not apologizing]
It’s human nature
[Would it sound better if I were a man?]
And I’m not sorry
[You're the one with the problem]
I’m not your bitch don't hang your shit on me
[Why don't you just deal with it]

And I’m not sorry
[Would you like me better if I was?]
It’s human nature
[We all feel the same way]
And I’m not sorry
[I have no regrets]
I’m not your bitch don't hang your shit on me
[Just look in the mirror]

And I’m not sorry
[I don't have to justify anything]
It’s human nature
[I'm just like you]
And I’m not sorry
[Why should I be?]
I’m not your bitch don't hang your shit on me
[Deal with it]

Turn that frown upside down.

I was having kind of a bummy day today for reasons I will expound upon later this weekend. Then I received a notice in my email Inbox telling me I had a new comment on my blog. It was in response to my infamous post, The Law Fairy says it best:

Anonymous said...

Wow. I was trolling through the internet looking for reviews for a movie I am dying to see and I come across this one. The love of my life is a former feminist. I say former because she had the brains to realize that feminism is as stupid as chauvinism. She says a lot of her female friends were bashing this movie for the same reasons I see here. Hold a sec.....

Let me get this straight. You are mad because a woman you find attractive and successful gets loaded and has sex with a man you find unattractive and gets pregnant. She then decides to keep the child and attempt to be a caring parent and wants the father in the child's life and you find that wrong? What in the hell is wrong with you. First of all, it is a FICTIONAL MOVIE for the strict purposes of ENTERTAINMENT. Second......You sound less like a feminist and more like a spurned woman. Who cares if a beautiful woman digs a guy you find below average. ! mans trash is another mans treasure. My guess would be that your man found another woman and you turned out to feel like the trash and now resent the idea. You have issues. It is just a movie and looks funny as hell. have a good day. :)

Ha ha! So funny. I was seriously cracking up. Where to begin, where to begin?

First, "Anonymous." One of those hit and run commenters. I understand that some blogging programs don't allow you to leave your name if you don't have an account with them. I get around that by leaving my name in my message, along with a link to my blog. That leaves an open door for communication. Anonymous did not do so.

Second, I feel sorry for the love of your life. Not because she's with you (snicker), but because she is a reformed feminist. That concept seems analogous to that episode of Will and Grace where Jack meets Neil Patrick Harris through an organization that tries unsuccessfully to turn gay people straight. The Ted Haggard treatment, if you will. Why would someone not be a feminist anymore? That's ridiculous.

Third, "What in the hell is wrong with [me]." A) that sentence should have a question mark at the end of it, and B) buddy, you have no idea. If you'd like to chip in for my much-needed therapy sessions, please let me know. Donations are welcome and appreciated.

Fourth, "it is a FICTIONAL MOVIE for the strict purposes of ENTERTAINMENT." It is? I've been watching television since I exited the womb and reading since I was three. But thank goodness Anonymous was here to school me on fiction and entertainment. Apparently my graduating cum laude with a degree in film production did not provide me with the necessary skills to recognize that Knocked Up is not a documentary.

Fifth, can't someone be both a feminist and a spurned woman? Don't all raise your hands at once.

Sixth, I'll ignore the "!" that should be a "1," because I'm nice like that. Clearly Anonymous has not read the rest of my blog. I've never had a man. So he couldn't have left me for another woman, because he doesn't exist. And I don't feel like "the trash."

Seventh, I do have issues. Duh. What are you, new? Oh yeah, you are. Welcome!

Eighth, "It is just a movie and looks funny as hell." I guess The Birth of a Nation was just a movie, too. Did Anonymous also find that film amusing?

Ninth, you have a good day, too, Anonymous! :)

Side note: the baby in the above picture was originally labeled "oriental_baby2" on the BBC Parenting website. Someone needs to let BBC know that it's 2007 and we in the civilized world no longer call people "Oriental." (Insert your own Sarah Silverman-esque joke here.) I'm going to watch Degrassi.

Why I don't say, "I'm sorry"

unless I really have to:

Living While Female, by Ann, at Feministing.

above and beyond all this, by kate, at a cat and twenty.

Let's Watch A Girl Get Beaten To Death, by Joss Whedon (yes, that Joss Whedon), at Whedonesque.

And, if you haven't heard any mainstream media coverage about this heinous situation, let's read about it together, shall we:

The De Anza case: men really hate drunk teenage girls, at I Blame The Patriarchy.

I remember when I was in college--which was like so long ago, I know--my mother was worried about my being a part of the LGBT awareness group on campus. She thought other people would harbor animosity towards me for associating with the gays. I told her then, and I still tell her now, people already hate me for no reason at all. There are people I know for a fact have despised me in the past and will continue to do so in the future because I'm too smart, or too dark, or too fat, or not fat enough, or too funny, or too creative, or too kind, or too patient, or too caring, or too progressive, or too concerned, or too peaceful, or too fortunate, or too demanding, or too driven, or too critical, or too informed. Or because I have a vagina.

Slightly more humorous post to follow in a moment.

If you're not a feminist...

I'd like to know why.

I don't think "you should kill yourself," even though Margaret Cho thinks you should. I'd rather you read this article, You might be a feminist if... from the April 5, 2006 edition of The Daily Vidette, which I'm guessing is the Illinois State University newspaper:

...anyone who opposes an injustice based on gender - whether they're male or female - is a feminist, or at least, they can be said to hold some feminist views.

Despite what backlash has claimed, feminism is nothing more than the powerful notion that women and men deserve to be treated equally...

...If you think it's unfair for a rape victim to be asked if she's a virgin at her rapist's trial, you might be a feminist....

...If you want to be paid the same wage as a man who does the same work as you...Who are you kidding? You're a feminist...

I thought about writing my own list for people who say, "I'm not a feminist, but..." But what? What is stopping you from calling yourself a feminist? Do you think people will buy into the myth that feminists burn their bras? Or the myth that feminists hate men? Or the myth that all feminists are lesbians?

All those statements are untrue for a variety of reasons. So now what's stopping you? Really, I want to know. Please leave comments!

I'm not usually into labels myself, because one word or phrase cannot fully describe a person, especially not a complicated individual like myself. However, feminist is a label that I have worn proudly since I was 14 years old. I would have called myself one sooner--as I have stood up for women's rights since I was in kindergarten--but I didn't know there was a word for that. At the time, I also had no idea that so many people all over the world didn't want women to have equal rights, or any rights at all. I couldn't fathom why anyone would want to keep me down just because I am female. Of course, now I know that's only one of the many reasons mean people will actively dislike me. I'm a nice girl, but I can't stop all the haters out there with my wit and charm.

Oh, and menfolk? You can be feminists, too. There is no vaginal requirement.