WHAT THE FUCK!?

http://jezebel.com/5594774/jury-decides-consent-is-not-required-for-girls-gone-wild

Look at it. It will blow your mind.

Heterosexism

So today at camp some child asked me which male counselor i thought was the cutest. I asked her why she assumed i liked boys.

I love asking this question. People get rather freaked out when I question their heterosexism. (Just in case anyone is unfamiliar with the term, heterosexism is the assumption that all people are heterosexual or a bias against homosexuals)

Now i have a really bad gay-dar. You'll have to tell me if youre gay because i just won't think of it. I blame this on media. My assumption that everyone is straight comes from tv, movies and commercials that don't accurately represent the homosexual population.

When was the last time you saw a commercial where two men sat down with their daughter and had a family dinner? Never. It's disgraceful. It teaches everyone that homosexuality isn't "normal" and that they can't have a "normal" family. Which is of course bull shit. So what the hell world? get it together!

Commercials

Theres yet another commercial i hate.

So ok, first i'd like to talk about why i think so many commercials piss me off. Commercials think they have target audiences. So the swiffer duster commercial that plays on Lifetime at 1 in the afternoon is supposedly targeted to housewives (rather than college students home for the summer watching reruns of Grey's Anatomy, thank you very much). So advertising agencies make their commercials really vague and stereotypical, thinking they'll appeal to a larger amount of their target audience. The problem with this is that I'm not a housewife, but I am watching these commercials. So what about all those stay at home dads? or any other variation on the societal norm? It's sad that commercials only show a black and white world where "mom knows best" and isn't he silly, he can't cook!

One that really pisses me off right now is the new staples back to school commercial. I feel like it's a bit racist. I may be reading too much into it (and feel free to stop reading and swear me off for good if you disagree), but it seems racist. So ok, the scene goes like this. A young black man is looking over his back to school list and says "Hey this is funny, I'm going to make mom nervous about the cost of all my school supplies." Cue flashback of years past where mom is stressed over making sure her son has all the supplies he'll need to succeed in school. In present day, she pulls out her easy button and knows that, this year with the help of staples, she'll be able to provide for her son.

The reason i think this is racist is because it shows a black family, no father in sight or mentioned at all, and they're worrying about money. The first thing i think of is a single parent home where the mom is forced to take all shifts (mom, housewife, primary wage earner, etc) and needs help making ends meet. As I said before, advertising agencies feed on cultural stereotypes. So Staples is hoping that a real woman, like the one i just described, will watch this, identify with it, and go to staples.

The point is, we learn how to be people in the world in part though commercials. So as we learn what is "normal," we'll see that black women often are single mothers who want to be able to provide for their two children, but need help. Of course this is not true of all black women, just like it's not true that all white women are completely stable in their marriages and relationships. The more commercials use racist, sexist, heterosexist, etc stereotypes, the more difficult it will become (or remain rather) to move away from these ideas and move towards a more universal society.

Rule the air

Verizon's new commercial is pissing me off. Taking feminist ideas and turning them around to sell a product is disgraceful.

One step for woman, one giant leap backwards for womynkind

I pretty much love Christina Aguilera for (i think) some pretty obvious reasons, namely her song Beautiful. However, her song Still Dirty is a little perturbing.

On the one side I like it because she asks, "Why is a woman's sexuality always under so much scrutiny? Why can't she do exactly as she please without being called a million things?" YES! THANK YOU! I love this line because she's so right! There are so many more words for promiscuous women than there are for men and we get called each one of them a million times a day. To our faces, behind our backs, just everywhere!

But her line "If I want to wear lingere outside of my clothes, if I want to be erotic in my own videos, if i want to be provocative, well, that aint a sin. Maybe you're not comfortable in your own skin." Um, girl please.

I touched on this subject in the Katy Perry post but music videos are the most main stream form of pornography there is. Just look at any top 40 music video where the artist is a woman. She is always half naked and drawing attention to her ass and tits. And often there's no mention of sex in the song, but the directors throw it in there just for funsies. There are so many social ramifications on this. We learn that women are always up for sex, we learn that women typically lounge about their bedrooms in just our bras and panties, we learn that men have to constantly turn down women and we learn that heterosexual sex is the only kind of sex. (seriously, tell me the last time your saw gay sex in a music video)

So by asserting her right to "do exactly as she please," she is indeed taking a step forward as a person. But by saying she really wants to do this, she's insinuating that all women really want to be treated the way they are portrayed in main stream music videos. It's like a woman who crys to get out of a ticket. Yes she has an individual benefit by not having to pay the fine, but she's pushing a negative stereotype about all women.

So good for your ms Aguilera for standing up for your right to do what you want. I just wish you'd realize what a detriment to womenhood your music videos are.

Rules of Engagement

I'm pissed.

The episode on right now showed the married man being accused of abusing his wife. From what I gathered, this sitcom was poking fun at how serious us women's rights activists get when we see abuse. So here's a giant FUCK YOU to Rules of Engagement. How dare you belittle spousal abuse you fucktards!

Plus the consultation with the supposed battered wife was horribly written. A social worker would never say those things to a woman s/he thinks is in an abusive relationship. If you're going to touch on such an important issue, at least do it justice. and also, don't make fun of it douche-bags!

respect women, respect choice

I was watching a house episode where a woman wanted to put off chemo in the hopes that she could deliver her baby premature. Wilson said if she did this she would exponentially decrease her likelihood of survival. In the end, the baby survived and she did not. I'm not sure how I feel about this ending, but the premise deserves a what the hell.

I'm pro-choice, obviously. (i mean have you met me?) I actually feel I destroy the potential for life every month with my menstrual cycle. By not having sex, an egg, nay A CHILD, is flushed out of my body. Sounds like an abortion to me. So I support the right to choose. And if I ever have to, I won't think twice about it.

Now for situations where it's the mothers life or the childs I will always think the mother is more important. If the fetus is not able to survive outside the womb, then it's part of the woman, and therefore not a life of it's own. We have BIRTHdays not conception days. I think this is a big difference.

So what the hell character on House!? You've left your child without a mother and your husband without a wife. I don't get it.

Love at first sight!

BULL SHIT!

"The second I saw these hands I knew I wanted to hold them forever." awwww. NOT! What? come on now! So it has nothing to do with me, but my hands?! Or my looks?

I have a problem with picking partners based on physical appearance (and shut the fuck up about natural selection. That's not what Darwin meant. We're not animals, we have fully grown, fully functional frontal lobes. We can move past all that nonsense). I know I can't be in a committed, long-term, romantic relationship with someone who doesn't agree with my views on this stuff. It means too much to me. So how can I say that I'll be able to look at someone and say, "that's the one!" without knowing a single thing about their political views? I can't.

So what the hell Love at first sight? That's stupid.

This one's for you Tem!

Men as feminists! Yes!

Ok so in a theatre class one day, my teacher asked the class who among us were feminists. One guy said, "well given the definition that feminist believe in gender equality i would say yes. However, people accused of being feminists get defensive because of the stereotypes associated with them."

There have been several studies (scientific and otherwise) that indicate that men receive benefits just for possessing a penis. So there is a fear that when women achieve social, political and economical equality with men they will be taking something away from men. Perhaps men when men no longer dominate the high paying jobs, the fact that the "men's club" will have female intruders will make them change the way they act. Now, if you understand my run-on sentence here, i get this. I really do. Because I would hate to feel like i have to change my behavior to benefit someone else. However, it is just plain wrong that the men's club has been around as long as it has. Florynce Kennedy once said, "There are very few jobs that actually require a penis or vagina.  All other jobs should be open to everybody." Men are receiving benefits they have not earned and at the expense of other (namely women).

So if feminists seem angry, it's because we realize how unjust the world is and it's disheartening. It's why I write on here and call myself annoyed. Dr. Rachel Griffen said at JMU's Take Back the Night 2010: "They write me off as an angry black women as if I don't have a damn good reason to be."

So ok, now that you know this, (sort of, i realize i'm not explaining it fully or well enough) hopefully you may be inclined to help change it. Some suggestions for men off the top of my head:
- if you know you're being paid more than your female peer, speak up. Your boss may be more willing to change that. Now if you receive a pay cut for your troubles, thats obviously not the sort of equality we have in mind, but it is fair.
- gladly accept the label feminist if you feel the same as i do. The more men embrace the label the more we can change the stereotype. Also we can use the male stereotype to our advantage. So ok, men get angry for good reasons, right? As opposed to women who get upset for silly reasons, because we're too emotional. Men who get equally disheartened by sexist activities are more likely to be taken seriously and perhaps, makes it more likely for changes to occur.

If you have any other tips please feel free to add them in the comments!

"And don't nobody on TV look like none of y'all!"

I'm sitting here in a mood.

Yesterday was a fantastic day! I got a new bathing suit and I wore it to the pool and I felt beautiful and confident in my body. Today I'm sitting here feeling fat and bloated (because I just got my period whoopdidoo!)

ok so in case none of y'all recognize the quote in the title, this is my favorite show of all time "Whoopi Goldberg: DIrect from Broadway." Whoopi did a one woman show on Broadway that helped make her the star she is today. In this show she took on various characters and addressed various issues from teen pregnancy to ablism to body image problems in children. The quote is from Whoopi as a little black girl who wishes her hair could be long and blonde like the women she see's on TV. As she looks out into the audience she realizes that no one looks like actors in real life: "Don't nobody on TV look like none of y'all"

I'm trying to remind myself of that right now. Every time I look at my body I think about actors and models and how my body compares to theirs. I figure they don't have an excess of fat anywhere on their body. Now I don't know about you, but I have a rather flabby midsection (I get tan lines on my stomach from where the fat folds). I've had cellulite on my thighs ever since I knew what it was and how to look for it. I also have stretch marks on my thighs. All these features can send me into a spiraling depression because for so long my entire self-worth was tied up into my appearance and I never felt it was good enough.

So here are some fun facts courtesy of this great website I found, Fullandfabulous.org

- The average American woman is 5'4", weighs 140 lbs, and wears a size 14 dress.

- The "ideal" woman--portrayed by models, Miss America, Barbie dolls, and screen actresses--is 5'7", weighs 100 lbs, and wears a size 8.

- One-third of all American women wear a size 16 or larger.

- 50% of American women are on a diet at any one time.

- The diet industry (diet foods, diet programs, diet drugs, etc.) takes in over $40 billion each year, and is still growing.

- 90% of high school junior and senior women diet regularly, even though only between 10% and 15% are over the weight recommended by the standard height-weight charts.

- Girls develop eating and self-image problems before drug or alcohol problems; there are drug and alcohol programs in almost every school, but no eating disorder programs.

I have a huge problem with industries that profit off of the pain of others. I immensely dislike fashion magazines, cosmetic companies, plastic surgeons, and diet companies because the only way they stay in business is if people look "wrong." They control what "normal" looks like and profit off of those who do not fit the mold. In 1998 The Body Shop used the tagline "There are 3 billion women who DON'T look like supermodels, and 8 women that do." I'm not sure if the numbers are still true but the sentiment is. If those 8 women are the standard for beauty, then 3 million women are ugly.

However, even as I write this I think of all the steps taken to fix this problem. But I wonder if I'm the only one who thinks it's not good enough. Ok let me try to explain.... I am in the healthy BMI range, but I don't have a flat stomach and my thighs touch at the top. So one could describe me as skinny, but I'm not skinny enough to be one of those 8 women. Now I don't see anyone on TV or in magazines that looks like me. I feel like there are skinny women and plus sized women, but no in between. This obviously isn't true of real life, but really: Don't nobody on tv look like me. Some days it gets to me. this just happens to be one of those days.

Gloria Steinem

So my favorite article is called If men could menstruate by Gloria Steinem. If you haven't read it, do. It's awesome! But she doesn't talk about mood swings.

Story time! Today I cried in front of my boss. He couldn't understand why I would be crying over something so trivial as people being mean to me all day. Now, since every woman's different around her time of the month, I'll let you know a little something about me: I get moody about 1 week before my period. I will yell at you for almost nothing and cry at the drop of a hat. I can't control it, Believe me I try.

So (in line with Steinem) if men could menstruate, mood swings would be not need to be controlled. Men would proudly announce that they were not to be messed with because "I'M ON MY PERIOD!!!" Or if they happened to shed a tear because... I don't know.... someone stole his parking spot, this thief would apologize! If only men apologized to me for making me cry! But instead, I'm called hysterical and too emotional and overreacting. WHAT THE HELL!?!