CULTURAL CRITIQUE

British Columbia Failing our Women

2011-10-25T12:02:00.000-07:00

West Coast LEAF released its annual women's rights report card this month, and British Columbia has clearly not been doing it's homework. For a prosperous and diverse province, we've scored a dismal C-. BC scores dismally in the fields of access to justice, criminal treatment, public safety, social assistance and racial equality.

Based on the news coverage of women in B.C., it's hardly surprising. Another big piece of news that came out of October is that the RCMP has arrested another alleged serial killer in British Columbia and have accused him of the murder of 4 women. At the time of the first murder he was 19. This arrest still does not account for the many women murdered on the Highway of Tears, where an estimated 43 women have disappeared - indeed B.C. was graded a D- in the arena of missing and murdered women. What kind of social climate are we living in that breeds this kind of hatred towards women? That puts so many women in such a vulnerable position? The LEAF report gives some insight into that question.

This score was lowered when the government refused to provide funding for women's groups to have counsel in the Oppal Missing Women Inquiry, the inquiry committee set up to investigate why it took so long to catch murderer Robert Pickton. (A decision that excludes "the very groups whose expertise, information, and participation it originally deemed to be crucial to the success of its work", and demonstrates the lack of commitment to genuinely solving the problem of violence against women.)

Diana Russel has attacked this issue of violence against women and demonstrates how it is a product of all the other elements of women's inequality. She states "Feeling their power threatened or challenged, these men appear to feel entitled to use whatever force is necessary to maintain dominance over those they consider their inferiors. Male supremacy continues to render all women chronically and profoundly unsafe. In Campbell’s words, “all women are at risk of femicide.” The fear of being murdered by a man is probably felt by most women at some time in their lives." Based on this analysis, Russel encourages us to take on the word "femicide" to refer to murder of women. These murders of women are directly related to the inequality we continue to face.

So in light of this information, and all the other information provided by West Coast LEAF, we can see both why it is perfectly appropriate that B.C. received the low score it did, AND why it is so important to speak openly and fight against this inequality. We are fighting not only for the right to justice, to economic equality and security, to physical safety, and to dignity, we are actually literally fighting for our lives.

West Coast LEAF's report:

"Failing to meet its potential: Province scores a “C-” for women

October 18, 2011 – For the second year in a row, British Columbia has scored an overallC- in women’s rights. The province is failing to meet its potential due to continueddetrimental practices particularly affecting low income and marginalized women. Thegrade was awarded in the West Coast Legal Education and Action Fund’s third annualCEDAW Report Card, released today.

Canada ratified the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all forms ofDiscrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in 1981. The CEDAW Report Card assesseshow well BC is measuring up to some of the CEDAW obligations that are withinprovincial jurisdiction.

Although the province’s performance shifted slightly in several areas over the last year,there has been no overall improvement. Over three years, the province has yet to scoreanything higher than a B-, and this year two grades dropped while three others stayed thesame.

West Coast LEAF Legal Director Laura Track says, “BC is a wealthy and prosperousprovince that has been internationally recognized for its livability. But for the tens ofthousands of British Columbians experiencing poverty, marginalization and deprivation,it is anything but livable. The long-term costs of poverty, inadequate social assistance,and lack of legal aid far outweigh the up front investments required for housing, access tojustice and greater economic security. BC could live up to its potential as a livable,wealthy province while creating a more equitable society.”

Once again, a failing grade was awarded in the category of Women & Access to Justice.Despite the recommendation of a Public Commission on Legal Aid to recognize legal aidas an essential public service, there has been no overall improvement in legal aid servicesor funding. Women are most affected by this lack of access to justice.

Two marks decreased this year. Women and Girls in Prison was reduced to C+ from lastyear’s B-, due to the ongoing use of solitary confinement for “high risk” femaleprisoners, increasing over-representation of incarcerated Aboriginal women, treatment oftransgendered inmates, and the government’s refusal to reinstate the mother-babyprogram in BC’s women’s prison.

The grade for Missing & Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls was raised from an F toa C last year due in large part to the government finally agreeing to hold a public inquiryinto the death and disappearance of so many of BC’s Aboriginal women and girls.Disappointingly, that grade was lowered this year to a D-. Despite initially hopeful signsof an investigation into the failed systemic response to this issue, the province’s decisionnot to fund the meaningful participation of community groups makes it highly unlikelythat there will be a meaningful process or results.

Social Assistance, Housing and Health Care for Women improved marginally. Thereport notes increases in the minimum wage, more emergency shelters and thecancellation of a discriminatory policy that was harmful to low income families asreasons for the improvement.

The most socially impoverished group of women in BC is low-income Aboriginalwomen, cited five times in the report. In addition to issues relating to Missing andMurdered Aboriginal Women and Girls and Women and Girls in Prison, Aboriginalwomen are at a heightened risk of violence and suffer from substandard housing andcorrespondingly poor health.

The CEDAW Report Card is released every year on the anniversary of the 1929 PersonsDay victory that established many women as “persons” under the law and eligible forappointment to the Senate.
Excerpts from the report:

Aboriginal women are among those most affected by homelessness and unstablehousing situations. Nearly half of the women experiencing homelessness in MetroVancouver are Aboriginal.
There area a number of transgendered prisoners in BC jails whose safety andsecurity may be put at risk by a Correctional Service of Canada policy of placingtransgendered inmates who identify as female in men’s jails if they have not yetundergone full sex reassignment surgery.
Financial eligibility thresholds [for legal aid] are so low that many low-incomeearners make too much to qualify, but far too little to pay the actual costs of legalrepresentation.
This fall, full-day kindergarten was extended to all five year-olds in the province.Teachers have criticized the implementation of the program and argue that the$365 million the government expects to spend on the program over the next threeyears will be insufficient to meet children’s needs. It has also placed a strain onbefore- and after-school care programs, and has resulted in some childcare centresactually losing money because they are no longer providing full-time care.
West Coast LEAF’s mission is to achieve equality by changing historic patterns of systemicdiscrimination against women through BC-based equality rights litigation, law reform andpublic legal education.
Please note: West Coast LEAF is an independent organization from LEAF "

Worth Watching: James Baldwin

2011-10-24T23:50:00.000-07:00

James Baldwin analyzing power, race, and culture in America. Watching this I was struck by how relevant it is to today. It addresses the way we have been convinced to believe a false history. ("Black slaves did not build America out of love"). He confronts the Western power structure depends on our silence and apathy - "Once you stand up and look the world in the face like you had a right to be here, you have attacked the entire power structure of the Western works". He challenges American claims to freedom - "if we were concerned with freedom, boys and girls would not, as we stand here, be perishing in the streets of Harlem". Would Baldwin be joining the Occupy movement? My summary can't do it justice - so for everyone:

Another great clip from my Baldwin excursion:

BOYCOTT KANYE WEST, that's all there is to it.

2011-07-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by how sexist the world is, how interrelated sexist events in the world are, and how much the media, media consumers, politicians, courtrooms, police officers, pig farmers, musicians and artists seem to love it, need it, defend it and recreate it. I realize I'm behind on this and it happened a few months ago, but Kanye West made a music video based on the Pickton murders. I don't know if he realized it, but the only thing this video can possibly represent, is that farm in Coquitlam. No, it's not an insightful documentary, it's not a piece of artwork meant to reveal the true terrifying pervasiveness of sexism, it's just a bunch of rappers in suits raping surrounded by dead female bodies. (Oh, did I say raping? I meant rapping. Actually, no, I meant raping)

The album is called "My Beautiful, Dark, Twisted Fantasy". Oh, you fantasize about murdering women and stringing them from the ceiling in their underwear? Fondling them in your bed, straddling them on the couch, storing them in a freezer? I can think of someone else who's into that. He's in jail. Anita Sarkeesian responded to this and she decided NOT to link the video, and I agree. It's sick and I don't want to subject my friends to watching blatant and violent sexism. I don't want to increase the playlist on YouTube. I don't want to give any more hype to this piece of hateful crap. But I want to tell you all about it so you can join me in my overwhelming hatred and anger.

The video opens with images of women in lingerie, high heels, and lipstick strung from the ceiling by their necks. Rick Ross is sitting in a throne underneath them rapping. It proceeds to show Kanye West lying in bed with two dead women, stroking their legs and rubbing their faces. At the end of the video, one of them faceplants into his crotch (well, her corpse does, she doesn't because she's not alive), and he groans at the ceiling. (blow job?). We also get an image of Jay Z rapping in front of a naked dead woman on a couch with her legs in the air. The video zooms in on her naked body, her lifeless face, and her open lifeless mouth. Creepy, disgusting. The video is basically implying that Jay-Z murdered and raped this dead woman. (not to mention he raps right at that moment "rape and pillage the village women and children".) Notably he also says "everyone knows what my achilles heal is, love. I don't get enough of it". You don't get enough love Jay-Z? Maybe that's because your a rapist and a murderer. Maybe it's because the women in your life are DEAD.

So I know what the come back will be for this- Nicki Minaj is in the video! And she is ALSO torturing a woman, so it can't be sexist! Yes- Nicki Minaj is shown as erotically torturing the good version of herself. She is dressed in black dancing/torturing a good version of herself, who is chained to a chair. This has only one message- in order to join in on the big boys club, (Kanye and co.), you have to join in on sexism. Feminists talk about internalized sexism among women in a patriarchal society- women who have learned sexist loathing of women just like men have. They also talk about women who are forced to turn on other women in order to gain the level of power and respect men get. (can you say Sarah Palin?) Nicki Minaj is made unthreatening by incorporating her into this violent sexist fantasy. The whole sexist fantasy of male domination and lifeless (read voiceless, actionless, opinionless) women is severely threatened by having a woman rap (and powerfully) on the song. UNLESS she internalizes the sexism, joins in on the male fantasy torture and learns to use it against herself. By showing Nicki Minaj torturing herself in the video, the producers reaffirm viewers and patriarchs worldwide that Minaj is not a threat to the male dream of raping dead women, cause she's in on it. Talk about fragmentation - she fragments the part of her that is represented by all the dead women around her from the part of her that is a part of the monster club. I guess fair enough, how else would she deal with her colleagues fantasizing about raping and murdering women if she wasn't able to separate her own body/mind/agency/independence/freedom from that image. (other than maybe rejecting the fantasy altogether).

Another fucked up aspect of this video is that the dead women are all white, and the living women are all dark skinned. But not just dark skinned- they are all also crazed and terrifying- zombies, werewolves and demons. So what's the message: black women are savage beasts, white women are eroticized sexual objects who are at their best when dead (so Kanye and company can do whatever they want with them). Racialicious does a great job of analyzing the racist aspects of this video. (as always). Racism, Sexism, Violence. And even with all that, they have the nerve to put a bullshit disclaimer at the beginning of the video that says "The following content is in no way to be interpreted as misogynistic or negative towards any groups of people. It is an art piece and it shall be taken as such."

Sorry guys, but that doesn't cut it. Contrary to what your video would have us believe, us women, we are alive and our brains are working. We can recognize misogyny when we see it. This condescending bullshit is typical of most sexist imagery, but it's taken to another level. Raping and murdering women is sexist, and it shall be taken as such.

So what climate is this video taking place in? Dominique Strauss-Kahn is on his way to getting off the hook, after two women have come forward with stories of his violent sexual attacks on them, while media uses lies, heresay, and prejudice to undermine their characters (while ignoring his extremely troublesome past). A Canadian court let a convicted rapist go free because the women was "inviting", calling him a "clumsy Don Juan". Two New York police officers were acquitted of a rape accusation. Violence against women is widespread. 69 men were convicted of murdering their wives in 2001. Women are 3 times more likely to be murdered by a lover than men. 52% of female victims of murder in Canada are murdered by men with whom they have had some variety of sexual relationship with (boyfriend, husband, etc). Somewhat progressive news articles are defending this video, and commenters online seem to love it. There is only one conclusion- people don't care about violence against women. Remember when Kanye West said George Bush doesn't care about black people? I have always liked him because of that, because it's brave, and I like people who call racism and sexism what it is. (in fact, watching it again makes me remember how awesome it was). Well how about this: Kanye West Doesn't Care About Women. In fact, he apparently hates them.

Well I hate YOU Kanye West! Fuck you and fuck this video. (and fuck Jay-Z, Rick Ross, Rocafella, Universal, Jake Nava, and everyone else who participated in making this video and expressing their hatred of women). Don't watch it- watch this instead:

What Strauss-Khan Tells us about the IMF

2011-05-21T11:21:00.000-07:00

Not to be cynical, but are you really surprised? I’m angry, to be sure, but it doesn’t surprise me that another man with too much power and prestige in the world assumes he is immune to the consequences of violence. It doesn’t surprise me that he is a misogynist and he is willing to use his power to hurt and oppress women. And here’s my disclaimer: I believe her. I believe her because I know the world, the courts, the lawyers, and the international political community will refuse to believe her. I believe her because I know she has an uphill battle in front of her, and it would be way easier to say nothing than to bring the truth forward. Women don’t put ourselves through international scorn and distrust for nothing. So there you have it, I believe her.

That being said, let’s take a look at what that tells us about the IMF. Now, I’m no international economy expert, but I do know a thing or two about development, and I know the role the IMF has played in the global south. The IMF is infamous for its conditional loans, its conservative economic policy and its determination to strong arm its member countries into following one-size-fits-all policies that have plunged the developing world into increasing poverty and destitution, also known as structural adjustment programs. They are known for using the debt owed to them by developing countries to force these countries to follow the policies they want. These kinds of policies are mass privatization and de-regulation, that has led to widespread unemployment and severe lack of access to services. They have included liberalizing trade borders, so that the west can profit from their market. They have including selling off natural resources, so the west can profit from their oil, their banana plantations, their rainforests, their coal, their gold. The IMF is infamous for using their power - the power that comes from being a wealthy institution backed by capitalism and white supremacy - to get what they want. (Is this starting to sound familiar?)

There is another key dimension here - when we talk about global poverty, unemployment, avoidable deaths from curable diseases, famine, war, and violence, who carries the majority of this burden? The world’s women. It is estimated that of the worlds 1.3 billion poor people, nearly 70% are women. It has now become clear that structural adjustment had a disproportionately negative impact on the worlds women. The distinct experience of women was never considered, and as a result women have been left behind in the worlds development. There is unending evidence for that. A quick google search for more proof led me to this free article. With the privatization came a surge of the informal economy. The informal economy is women’s primary form of income, and it is the least stable, lowest paid, and most dangerous form of labour. With the elimination of health and education services, families had to pay for the services for their children. Mothers, as the primary care givers, are left with this additional economic burden. With small resources and many children, it is often the boys who go to school. Indeed, two-thirds of the 130 million children worldwide who are not in school are girls. Furthermore, deregulation and export-oriented economies led to severe environmental degradation around the world. Women, who are responsible for gathering water, fire-wood, and conducting most of the worlds agricultural work, suffer disproportionately from this destruction. In India, after the liberalization of the lumber industry, women found they had to walk double the distance to get firewood and clean water, and yet due to an system based on patriarchy, were never given access to the economic benefits of the formal international trade in lumber. All these are just small examples of how structural adjustment negatively impacted women and put women in a state of cyclical poverty.

So, some would argue that the IMF had best intentions and it was a simply an ideological blunder. But to me this illuminates what kind of attitudes are so deeply ingrained into the men who run this institution and make decisions about the worlds economy. First, we see now that respect for women, and regard for women's well being is NOT a requirement for holding the lead role in the institution. It is coming out now that Strauss-Khan has a history of disrespect for women. Some call it “womanizing”, some call it “seduction” others call it a history of sexual abuse. He has a history of hiring and mistreating women in prostitution. Whatever the truth of his background, its clear that cheating on his wife and disrespecting women is a theme. No one in the organization stood up against his misogynist attitudes, no one thought that if this man is going to be making decisions about the world's finances he should have respect for women and a passion for women’s equality. If he has a history of racism, he would never be able to make decisions about the worlds poor, why can he do so with a clearly sexist track record. Maybe it’s because the International Monetary Fund does not care about women.

What else does it tell us that the man who chose to lead the IMF is a man who gets off on power and domination, who has sexualized his privilege and gets excited by dominating people with less power. What does it tell us about the job that this position is attractive to a man like that? What does it tell us about the institution that a man like that is suitable to the job? I know just like anyone else that you can’t tell a rapist by looking at him, he could be anywhere and anyone, from your shy next door neighbour to the most powerful men in the world. But the similarities between the attitude the IMF takes to the rest of the world and the attitude Strauss Khan takes to women is striking. To me it is no coincidence that this institution that is run by a rapist has consolidated women’s poverty as a seemingly permanent reality.

I know that Strauss-Khan was not a Structural Adjustment advocate. In fact, he came into the Fund proposing massive changes, supposedly an advocate of more tempered development policies and a supporter of substantial development. A left wing hero of sorts, Strauss-Khan was supposed to bring a new era to international development. But turns out, he is a power hungry misogynist, so, there goes that bubble. A man who is willing to use his power to rape women will never make the world a better place for women, and he is certainly not the man to change the distorted and damaging power dynamics that exist between the Fund and the global south. So that's why when I heard the director of the IMF had abused a poor immigrant woman in New York I was sad and angry, but I wasn’t surprised. That’s what the IMF has been doing all along.

From Baking to Business: How the Media's Working Women are Behind the Curve

2011-04-03T12:46:00.000-07:00

Women in the Workforce: Still one of society's biggest fears! Discussing the topic I posted earlier this week regarding the ways society/government/media attempt to coerce women into domestic spheres and out of the work force, my friend Lily Hassall sent me an essay she wrote for class at McGill which I think is super awesome. Lily talks about the ways that the media creates myths about women in the work force, women's abilities as mothers and career women, women's responsibilities and 'correct role', as well as men's, in order to construct a false reality of gender in our society, undermine women's success and independence, and ultimately maintain male supremacy. She examines the ways women have been portrayed in media throughout the decades, concluding that ultimately the media is hostile to women's progress. Basically, to this day the media still utilizes the same anti-woman scare tactics that you see in this anti-suffrage ad. It is well worth a read and really reminded me of a "Backlash", by Susan Faludi, which I think it one of the best feminist media studies analyses I have ever read. I attached a video at the bottom of her discussing her new book, and basically analyzing why gendered myths constantly permeate popular consciousness. If we can undermine the material realities of working successful women, instead creating a popular understanding that men are capable providers and women are best as mothers, then we can continue to justify male dominance. Give it a read!

From Baking to Business:

How the Media's Working Women are Behind the Curve

The history of European women in North America is characterized by a long battle against norms and barriers that make them secondary citizens. Since World War I, women's status has risen tremendously, as has their labor force participation, but progress does not come without opposition. While inequality is sometimes written into laws, ideas of who women should be, how they should act, and their place in society are also deeply rooted in the Western subconscious. As noted by Hammer (203, 2009), "stereotypes, controlling images, and myths existing in all arenas of society" have helped to establish and reinforce both conscious and subconscious gender norms and expectations that work to keep women out of the work place. While these stereotypes and myths are deeply rooted in history, mass media, one of their carriers, has never been as ubiquitous as in the last 90 years. Beginning in the interwar period with the rising popularity of magazines, and continuing on with the growth of advertising, the personal television, VHS and DVD players, and finally the personal computer, media has instrumental in carrying controlling images that place women firmly in the domestic sphere.

Examining portrayals of women from magazines, television, film, and non-fiction news stories, this essay traces examines media backlash to women's increasing labor force participation from the interwar period to the present day. Since World War I, the media has responded to women’s increasing participation in the work force with waves of coercive backlash, re-emphasizing women’s role in the domestic sphere, exaggerating the sacrifices of professionalism, appealing to essentialist gender norms and ultimately undermining women’s progress in the public sphere. A critical analysis of the media’s response to women’s work through the decades demonstrates that although huge strides have been made for depictions of employed women, the media still portrays their primary role as in the home with the children.

In order to understand 20th and 21st Century portrayals of employed women, a brief discussion of the cult of domesticity is necessary. Before the industrial revolution in Europe, the dominant economic unit was the family enterprise, in which men tended to the land and women did light manufacturing, including the production of clothes, food stuffs, soaps, and other commodities (Weiner 2011). With industrialization, however, the family shifted from a unit of production to a unit of consumption. Men were no longer tending their plot, but seeking outside employment in factories, and their wives were buying commodities with their husbands' wages, rather than producing them (Weiner 2011). One of the main consequences of this shift is the advent of the cult of "true womanhood," or the cult of "domesticity", referring to a set of beliefs that equate piety, purity, submissiveness, and most importantly, domesticity, with femininity, in order to justify the labor division between men and women. In other words, this ideology states that woman's "natural" place is in the home. It was this understanding of women that would be evident in the media of the interwar period and onwards.

While World War One did not draw a significant amount of new female workers into the labor force, it did pull women from traditionally female sectors into traditionally male sectors, such as manufacturing (Hesse-Bibber and Lee Carter 2005). As such, the war left North America with lingering images of women in male sectors, as well as the knowledge that women were highly competent in these positions, powerfully questioning previous conceptions of womanhood. At the same time, the interwar period witnessed an "increased visibility, commerciality, and affordability, and therefore influence, of media" including advertising, the magazine, and cinema (5, Marcellus 2011).

This could have been a major turning point for understandings of women and employment, but unfortunately, it was not meant to be. As Marcellus notes (4, 2011), the portrayals of female employees during this period "reinscribed employed women into a traditionally feminine, domestic discourse," using a number of techniques and tropes that would continue in various mutations through to the present day. As Marcellus notes, two major strategies for portraying secretaries and telephone operators were the "Office Wife" and "Office Debutante" tropes (24, Marcellus 2011). In the former, the "Office Wife's" work for her boss was conflated with domestic work a wife would do for her husband. In the trope of the "Office Debutante," employment was portrayed as a mere interlude before her marriage, and an opportunity for her to meet prospective husbands. Both of these emphasize that a woman's primary place is in the home, and the "Office Debutante" trope in particular suggests that that is where she will soon be returning.

Two prevalent ways of portraying and disempowering professionally employed women that Marcellus points out are the "Woman as Expert Woman" and "Woman as Exception" tropes (2011). In the "Woman as Expert Woman" trope, a woman's professional status, often as a nurse or a schoolteacher, gives her expertise on fulfilling the domestic role, thus undermining any professional status. The “Woman as Exception trope”, on the other hand, deals with women in unconventional (and often unacceptable) positions who by their existence call into question their own femininity and their society's gender norms. Marcellus describes how the media undermines the subversive power of the ‘professional woman’ by emphasizing her feminine aspects; by "reassuring the reader that the lawyer still knows how to bake a cake", and emphasizing this woman's oddity as a professional, social gender norms are maintained.

With the Great Depression in 1929, media assertions of women's domestic role became more forceful in the "back to-the-home-movement", a surge of articles encouraging women to leave their jobs and return to their families (Marcellus 2005). There were two central lines of reasoning in the media that demonized employed women. The first stated that employed married women harmed others by either taking jobs away from men who had families to support, or from unmarried women who had no husband to support them (Marcellus 2011). In the second line of reasoning, articles used essentialist notions of gender to discourage women from employment, focusing on the idea that employment meant a "loss of femininity" and that "by giving up their role as homemakers, women had also forsaken their spiritual role as women" (64, Marcellus 2011). They also warned that leaving their role of housewife would mean their children would be either endangered, lead astray and become juvenile delinquents, or both (Marcellus 2011).

Despite the media's attacks on women in the workplace, the percentage of women working continued to grow. Indeed, because of the "disappearance of 'male jobs' in manufacturing and heavy industry - combined with the rising prominence of 'female jobs' in white collar, light industry, and service arenas," female labor force participation continued to grow throughout the Depression, (41, Hesse-Bibber and Lee Carter 2005). It was not until World War II, however, that drastic changes would occur. The second world war brought a "tremendous change in numbers and occupational distribution of working women," and gave white women access to "skilled, higher paying industrial jobs" (41, Hesse-Bibber and Lee Carter 2005). The war's end, however, brought with it immense public pressure for women to leave jobs and return to the domestic sphere. Because of employment and union practices that discriminated against women, many were pushed out of their higher paying jobs and were relegated to lower-paying jobs they had left before the war (Padavic and Reskin 2002). At the same time, however, the percentage of employed married women continued to grow throughout the forties, and even through the fifties, jumping from 15% employment of married women in 1940 to 24% in 1950 and up to 32% in 1960 (45, Hesse-Bibber and Lee Carter 2005). Thus, while the numbers of married working women were increasing, they were returning to traditionally female jobs, and so "the late 1940s and 1950s marked the reestablishment of the sex-segregated labor market" (46, Hesse-Bibber and Lee Carter 2005).

Unfortunately, the media of the 1940s and 1950s continued to reflect and re-enforce essentialist notions of gender roles, portraying women almost exclusively in the domestic sphere and largely ignoring their increasing labor force participation. The 1940s propaganda suggesting that women take on traditionally male jobs to help with the war effort also warned against permanent employment, reminding women that their primary role was in the home. The media of the 1950s was similarly overt in promoting a return of women to their traditional gender role. In a phenomenon Betty Friedan famously identifies as “the feminine mystique,” the media put forth the idea that women were naturally made happy by fulfilling the domestic role (1963). Indeed, the television, a new staple in homes, "famously celebrated the stay-at-home mom" tied to "safe and simple suburban life with neatly defined gender roles" (213, Marcellus 2011). Shows such as Ozzie and Harriet (1952 - 1966), I Love Lucy (1957-1960), Leave It To Beaver, and Father Knows Best (1954 - 1960) celebrated and normalized family after family with male breadwinners with housewives kept firmly within the domestic sphere.

The 1960s and 70s saw a continued increase in the labor force participation both of young women and older married women, as well as a new increase in percentages of younger married women with young children, spurred on by the women's liberation. Indeed, in 1970 over 41% of married women were employed, up 9% from 1960, and 1980 was up another 9% to 50% of married women in the work force (Hesse-Bibber and Lee Carter 2005). And the media, it seemed, finally took the hint. Indeed, though the housewife was definitely the ideal, the sixties and seventies offered numerous exceptions, such as Dr. Maggie Graham on Ben Casey, Ulla Norstrand, a female oceanographer on Flipper, Mary of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and numerous others (Marcellus 2005).

At the same time, however, many television shows of the 60s and 70s went out of their way to reassure viewers of the femininity of televisions fictional employed women or make these women nonthreatening, similar to the media of the interwar period. For example, Kate on Petticoat Junction runs a hotel, but the show focuses more on her role as a mother. Additionally Jane Hathaway, employed as a secretary on The Beverly Hills, is portrayed as "pretentious" because of her intellect. She is also infatuated with a male character, thus affirming her heteronormativity and the gendered script that even successful women are ultimately needy and desperate for love. As well, employed female protagonists, such as Mary Tyler Moore were still constructed as completely non-threatening, characterized by "innocence, deference, and only occasional stubbornness" (215, Marcellus 2005). The 1970s also saw the reappearance of the Office Wife and Woman as Exception tropes. Mary Tyler Moore, as "alternatively nurturing, mediating, facilitating, and submitting," takes on the role of Wife for her male coworkers (Marcellus 2005). The Exception pattern was visible in female characters with dangerous and powerful jobs, such as Charlie's Angels and Wonder Woman. These characters' bodies are prevalently featured, assuring viewers that sexual differences would ultimately prevail, and affirming femininity despite their masculine professions. They functioned more as titillating fiction than any reflection of women’s reality, and therefore remained ultimately unthreatening to male supremacy.

Moving into the 80s up to the present day, the percentage of married women working has continued to grow. In 1995, 61% of married women were in the labor force, with the numbers growing to over 75% by the year 2000. At the same time however, women also continue to have lower status jobs and be paid less than men. Indeed, in advanced industrialized countries, women's wages are approximately three quarters of men's, with women in Canada and the United States making approximately 66% and 63% of men's wages respectively (Weiner 2011).

The media of the last few decades made strides, but continued to put forth essentialist notions of gender, and even saw new anti-female-employment ideology take root. As Descartes and Kottak (2009) point out, by this time it was common for women to be represented as "fully capable of engaging in paid labor, including highly skilled professional work," and images of males in the domestic sphere became more common. Shows such as Alley Mcbeal, Sex and the City, Judging Amy, all showcase women with high-paying professions, and shows such as Daddio began to portray men taking on the domestic responsibilities. At the same time, however, shows about professional women often focus more on their attempts to secure a husband, rollercoaster emotional lives, or roles as mothers than their professional lives.

As well, women's role is still depicted as being primarily in the home. For one, professional women on television are mostly single - despite the fact that dual-earner families are now the norm in North America, married women with jobs are few and far between on television and in the media in general, reinforcing the idea that women's "primary energies should be domestically oriented" (45, Descartes and Kottak 2009). The working mothers on screen are shown to have a much harder time balancing work and family life than the working fathers, "contemporary media thus represents family welfare as a complex task of female juggling, with working mothers constantly exhausted by the process" (51, Descartes and Kottak 2009). Descartes and Kottak further find that on television, there are "three times as many parent-child conflicts when the parent in question is a man," emphasizing the idea that women are better suited to deal with children then men are. This media trend demonstrates the determination to maintain gender norms and threaten women and families breaking down these gendered scripts.

As well as old essentialist notions, the more recent decades have seen new kinds of ideological opposition in the media to employed women. Focus has shifted from women as wives to women as mothers. Douglas and Michaels (2004) call this increased attention on intensive mothering "the new momism," and suggest that the media portrays mothering as the most important part of a woman's life. This is supported by Descartes and Kottak's (49, 2009) observations that non-fictional media, including news programs and especially cable news "routinely transmit messages suggesting that working mothers endanger their children." They also suggest that the "media preoccupation with child endangerment emerges from a persistent cultural model of motherhood as a moral status achieved through culturally approved sets of activities" (50, Descartes and Kottak 2009).

Another new technique encouraging women to stay home is what Walters identifies as a kind of post-feminism, whereby traditional images of women reminiscent of the “Feminine Mystique” are "couched in the language of liberation" or choice (139, 1995). In other words, the idea that women choose to take on traditional roles disguises the role's essentialist, pre-feminist roots. This notion of choice is analyzed independently from the social pressures such as media backlash that coerce women back into the home, thereby undermining the notion that it is indeed a woman’s ‘choice’.

The media depiction of women "opting out" of work in favor of motherhood presents us with a microcosm of the present discourses on the role of women, providing an example of old essentialist notions of gender, the new focus on mothering, and the rhetoric of choice. In recent years, there have been a great number of articles discussing the supposed phenomenon of opting out. In these, the focus on motherhood was clearly linked to "essentialist preferences," - in the articles analyzed by Kuperberg and Stone (8, 2008), husbands were "a minor presence" if discussed at all, ignoring the possibility that men could take on a larger portion of the domestic labor. As well, the articles emphasized childcare rather than taking care of the home or husband, reflecting the "increasing centrality of motherhood to the depiction of women who opt out and its ascendance over other aspects of the domestic role" (9, Kuperberg and Stone 2008). Furthermore, the media frames the decision to opt out "almost exclusively in terms of rhetoric of choice" between work and children, ignoring the barriers that women face in the workplace, or any other factors that may lead them to leave their careers (9, Kuperberg and Stone 2008).

If women’s entrance into the workplace has been slow, it has been even slower in the media. From the beginning of cultural awareness of working women in World War I, and during the interwar period that followed, the media has actively undermined employed women by invoking essentialist notions of gender and reinscribing female professionals into a domestic discourse (Marcellus 2011). As a great surge of married women entered the work force during and after World War II, the media ignored employed women altogether, confining portrayals of married women to the domestic sphere. When the media began to portray female professionals in the 1960s and 1970s, the old interwar techniques for undermining them reappeared. Finally, between the 1980s and the present, depictions of high-status highly skilled employed women are frequent, but old as well as new barriers are present. The primary role of any married woman in the media is still in the home, and a new essentialist focus on mothering has appeared, often hidden in the rhetoric of choice and liberation. Today, Feminism has transformed the official discourse on gender, and the official politically correct line is that women are equal in the workplace. Even this brief glance at the media, however, reveals that though strides have been made, the determination to prevent women’s advances into historically male dominated sphere remains present, and our society’s subconscious still has a long way to go.

And now, a short clip of a much longer discussion of a similar theme by another great feminist, Susan Faludi

Why Stephen Harper is Anti-women, Part I

2011-03-28T12:13:00.000-07:00

I'm not that great at following election campaigns, but I like to keep a general idea of what the white guys at the top are talking about so I can try to choose the one who has the least negative impact on the things I care about. Reading the Globe and Mail today reminded me why, as a woman, it is extremely important that I care. This article outlining the newly released conservative tax cut program for families with only one working parent really got to me. Stephen Harper has proposed "Income splitting" as a new tax program for single-income family households. According to the globe this will allow "the spouse in higher tax bracket to shift income to their partner with a lower level of earnings so that the overall rate of taxation is reduced". Apparently this is to offset the problem that families where one parent earns more than the other end up paying more taxes than equal income parents, where both parents are in the same tax bracket. Now I am all for acknowledging unpaid labour, and I believe that women's work and work in the home is valuable and under-acknowledged in contemporary capitalist societies. But this strikes me as just another way to keep women at home. It is basically tax cuts for families with stay-at-home moms (disguised as 'single income families, come on stevey we know what you really mean!) . There are so many useful ways to help parents! We are still waiting on child-care services for single parents, childcare in the workplace, and a comprehensive approach to genuinely assisting low income families. Mothers struggle to raise children in our country whether they work or not, and often they end up making less money than their partners (hence the need for splitting incomes) BECAUSE of our constant determination to make it difficult for mothers to work. Many of these split income families are split income because of social policies that favour stay-at-home mothers and disadvantage working moms, making it extremely difficult to be a mother and make money. Let's try to figure out a way to get these couples to equal income! In addition, this article addresses the way this, like many conservative policies, will end up largely benefiting the rich. It addresses the fac that "the families that will most benefit from Harper’s income splitting promise will be those who need the least help. The higher the income, the bigger the tax break, and a much lesser challenge of keeping one parent at home. " Realistically, most families struggle to get by with one parent at home. So the people who benefit from this will be the rich. In addition it gives economic incentive to have one parent at home. Take a couple for example, in which dad works full time and mom works part time. If the amount of tax dollars saved would be greater than the amount of money the mother makes at her part time job, then she is actually better off staying home. If this isn't a clear ideological project, what is? I support women's choices to stay home and raise their kids, but why should this decision be favoured or given priority over mothers in the workplace? I agree with tax breaks for parents, but that should go for any family who is struggling to raise their kids, not just ones that fit into Harper's anti-woman perspective of which families deserve it!

Media Moments - Some of the best women on TV

2010-01-02T01:24:00.000-08:00

Lately, as I have finally graduated from school and actually have time to sit around and watch movies and television, I spending a fair amount of time in front of the screen. As always, I can't help but keep my eye out for the varieties in modes of representations. More often than not, I am offended/unsatisfied with the personas and realities that are portrayed in media, but as of late I have encountered some amazing media personalities that I really think deserve mention. Thus, with the coming of the new year and all, I decided to make public the five most amazing/entertaining/subversive/interesting women I have met on the screen this year. I wish I could to a "Characters of 2009" list, or something, but I am not nearly up to date enough to do that, these characters are from media I just happened to discover this year.

1. I am going to give my first star to Vanessa Lutz (Reese Witherspoon) of Freeway, made in 1996. This is a pretty ridiculous modern interpretation of Little Red Riding Hood,

in which down-home trailer park Vanessa leaves her southern home to hitchhike to find her grandmother. She encounters a lot of adversity along the way and never fails to be totally awesome and badass about it. This trailer gives a pretty good idea of what its about:

Vanessa is amazing because she tells it like it is and is totally hilarious, but in a more academic sense, the character of Vanessa Lutz points out how the hypocrisy and male-centrism of contemporary America creates layers of oppression against women, the non-white and the non-wealthy. Vanessa ends up going head to head against a wealthy, successful white man (Bob) who is also a sadistic rapist. As the system again and again penalizes Vanessa for her gender and class, and rewards Bob for the same, the layers of systemic oppression that permeate society are revealed. It is a really interesting and innovative way to convey this kind of social commentary. For example, when Vanessa turns the table against Bob, her would-be rapist and killer, he points out to her that the system always protects "people like him" (White, successful, men), and systematically disadvantages people like her (uneducated, poor, women)- therefore, he would never end up in jail, and if she goes to the police she will just end up being stuck in another one of a series of abusive foster homes. Instead of accepting this reality Vanessa takes matters into her own hands. I couldn't embed that scene, but it is amazing and you can watch it here .

I also love the part when Vanessa confronts the stereotype of lower class women in the face, when she gets called a 'natural born whore'

This may seem really racist- but in the grander scheme of the movie I really think Vanessa is instead demonstrating the way that misogynistic speech is as unjustified and damaging as the use of racial slurs, which is a point so often lost.

One of her most bad-ass moments and the line that may have sealed the deal for her number one spot is when Vanessa, stranded after running away from juvey, and with nowhere to turn, picks up a trick and then robs him at gunpoint. When she finds out he has no money she decides to kidnap him and forces him into the trunk of his car. The guy protests by saying "Small spaces make me claustrophobic", and Vanessa says "YEAH, WELL I GET CLAUSTROPHOBIC SUCKING STRANGE DICK!" . Yeah girl!

2. Felicia Snoop Pearson. It was extremely difficult for me to put Snoop second, because I am in love with

her, but she seconded Vanessa because, although they are both bad-ass, Vanessa is way more hilarious and she also has a moral footing for her violence, which Snoop totally lacks. That being said, Snoop (Felicia Pearson), from The Wire, has got to be one of the best female characters ever seen on television. A hardcore lesbian gangster who runs the streets of Baltimore, Snoop turns the notion of what it means to be powerful and what it means to be female totally upside down. If anyone demonstrates gender is constructed it is Snoop. She successfully obscures the boundaries between male and female, not just by "acting like a guy", but by actually exercising social power so often reserved for men, and by doing so while maintaining her female identity. I also love when Bunk (a local cop), is hassling Snoop and her comrades on the streets and says "I'm looking for pussy". I interpret this to be a misogynistic way of re-sexualizing Snoop bu drawing attention to her gender, and by doing so de-legitimize the power that Snoop has in her domain. By making her seem less powerful he can then regain the power he is so used to having over the street, and over women in general. When Snoop retorted "Yeah me too", I almost died. That simple sentence just took her power right back- she basically said "my identity is contribution to my power, not a detriment".

Ok fine, I can't really comment on the power dynamics on the streets of the Baltimore Ghetto, but thats how I saw it. She's also just awesome

This is one of her amazing moments

3. Karen (Tanya Franks) from the BBC series Pulling. Pulling itself is an amazing and hilarious TV Show - it is one of the few sitcoms that is written by and about women. It's like, Sex in the City, but with real people, real situations, written by the people it is supposed to be about, funny, and actually enjoyable to watch. Three roommates, all hilarious and painfully accurate characatures of single women, as they navigate through work, relationships/flings, friendship, and living as women in modern Britain. This show gets five giants glowing gold stars as far as women in media goes, and Karen is just the most hilarious and incredible character ever created, so I chose her for the list. An outspoken, promiscuous, binge-drinking school teacher. Karen always has something hilarious to say.

Where shows like Sex in the City, Oprah, whatever, try to appeal to "women's issues", by dealing with abstract relationship issues that never actually happen to real women (Charlotte: should I make my boyfriend get circumcised?), Pulling gets to the nitty gritty and hits the nail so unbelievably well on the head. Who doesn't know this feeling:

Some of Karen's best lines:

"If god didn't want us to get drunk on saturday night he wouldn't have made the morning after pill!"

"People in glass houses shouldn't take their best friends ex-boyfriends cock inside them in a pile of yogourt."

4. Mona Bergeron (Sandrine Bonnaire), of Sans Toit ni Loi (or Vagabond) by Agnes Varda. Mona is a lonesome drifter who abandoned her working life in search of freedom. Sans Toit ni Loi follows Mona as she navigates the highway, following her numerous encounters and tracing the difficulties and benefits of life as a drifter. Mona is an interesting character that definitely steps far from the typical female roles we usually see in film. She is independent, gutsy, determined and confident. She doesn't have much to say and doesn't need to justify herself, her character is one of absolute solitude and self-sufficiency. This is romantic and fascinating, except for the very real side of her life which is portrayed well in this film- the encounters with sexual abuse and social exclusion that accompany the life of a single female hitchhiker. Mona is also unique in that she is given the role of the silent and introspective drifter, a role so often allocated to men. Whereas single women are often seen as loud, obnoxious, ditsy, or desperate (please see Karen above!), Mona is not searching for love, commitment, or support, she is searching for the more abstract ideal of total freedom. This is the 'rambler'-esque persona that is so present in popular culture, yet almost always reserved for male characters (earlier I posted a Jimmie Rodgers line: When a woman gets the blues she hangs her head and cries, when a man gets the blues, he grabs that train and rides"). Mona is none of the former and all of the latter. Thanks to an innovative female director like Agnes Varda to reinvent those gendered roles.

And how rare is it to watch a movie in which the sole main character is female? This movie is refreshing in that it revolves around the life of one young girl, with very few additional characters. It's like the Castaway and company that sit you through two hours of the life of some random man, but interesting, entertaining, complex, and not male-centric. It's also just a beautiful film.

5. Rhonda Pearlman. Is The Wire being overrepresented? NO! The Wire

is the best show ever made. And Rhonda is badass. She gets to the top in a man's world, and does so by being honest, respectable and still playing the game. She's the 'good guy' in Baltimores criminal law world, and she kicks ass. She proves the whole world wrong by making judge based on her merit - by being tough and gutsy lawyer who doesn't run from the truth. Damn I love Rhonda! And what does it say about popular culture that of all the scenes from The Wire in which Pearlman pulls the whole episode together, there is only ONE YouTube clip of her that isn't her having sex. She is so close to being dragged into the Hotty McHotty powerful woman stereotype who is more valuable for her role as a sex object than an actual character, but she doesn't get stuck there. I did notice that in the later seasons of The Wire Pearlman is more sexualized, she has a fake tan, she loses weight and she wears sexier clothing. Thats mass media for you, the show got popular so she had to fall in line. I was starting to despair but Rhonda came out so high on top that I can overlook it. So to all the YouTubers who want to take Rhonny's power, screw you! We're keeping her! Here's Pearlman kicking some lawyer ass.

For next time you have nothing to do...

Enjoy!

Whither Law School?

2009-11-17T16:41:00.000-08:00

For the past few years I, among countless other fellow Arts Undergraduates who have a passionate yet somewhat diffuse interest in social activism and social change, have been in the process of deciding to go to law school. Of course, there are innumerable challenges with being a radical, anti-class feminist who is simultaneously in the process of committing myself to the individualistic, hierarchical, capitalist, and patriarchal legal institution. The underlying questions always lurk - am I choosing law school to avoid the challenge of finding something less obvious? (of course I am) Am I motivated by the money? (of course I am) Am I resistant to committing myself to grassroots social change which may actually yield a greater ability to initiate change because I am subconsciously obsessed with the prestige and social capital endowed on professionalism and success (particularly to lawyers)? I'm sure I must be...

OR, is the law a tool for breaking down the establishment? Is the only way to help those oppressed by the patriarchal legal establishment to know and understand intricately the laws used against them? Is it a way to break free from patriarchal stereotypes and typecasting of women to become a powerful, independent and successful lawyer who is not trapped by economic dependence or dragged into depression from the monotony of housewivery?

In an attempt to answer some of these questions, I took the opportunity in my last Women's Studies class at McGill to investigate the practice of feminist legal activism, and as many of my friends and I face the challenging decision of where to go next, I will vainly assume that my research may be of use to others in my shoes, and share it with the world. Many articles in this blog have been dedicated to the hypocrisy of middle class educated activists who purport to support social change while simultaneously rigidly maintaining and reinforcing their own social status (see here and here). I wanted to figure out whether becoming a lawyer is another step in the hypocritical self promotion that is often unavoidable as an activist in a position of power. Hope it can be some sort of guidance, and if not at least its not sitting lonely and unused in my Word files anymore. For anyone interested in the latest in feminist legal activism- check out Feminist Law Profs, it's very rad(ical)

Enjoy!

Feminist advocacy and methodology has many manifestations, from local grassroots community activism, to large-scale national and international political movements, to incremental activist litigation. In Canada, constitutional activism, in particular legal interventions in judicial interpretations of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, has been a significant platform for feminist advocacy for social change. This approach to change has had an important impact on equality rights in Canada, yet it has also been widely criticized. Critical legal schools and critical race theories have both pointed out significant flaws with the use of liberal rights discourse and a legal system that is inherently oppressive as an avenue for change.

While these criticisms are useful and necessary to contribute to the evolution of a more successful activism, they do not negate the very real material successes that feminist intervention in Charter litigation has generated for Canadian women and society. Feminist legal scholars are aware of the deep-seated and pervasive biases of the legal system, yet maintain that rejecting litigation as a feminist practice is to “ignore the fact that law as legislation has real practical impacts in the daily lives of real people” (Jhappan, 21). This essay will explore theoretical analyses of legal activism, and then investigate how these criticisms interact with the material gains of feminist litigation. I conclude that feminist litigation is a useful tool for change, yet its success requires reflexivity and inclusive practices in order to instigate substantial social change within the liberal rights framework.

Critiques of legal activism as a methodological tool for change focus primarily on the capacity to create change and inclusivity in a fundamentally conservative and exclusive institution. Legal activism is criticized for its elite nautre, in which the capacity to make legal challenges is limited to those who have access to Supreme Courts by virtue of education and privilege. This limits activist litigation to the specific interests that are represented by those who have access to elite legal professions (St Lewis, 299).

It is also criticized for its dependence on an inherently conservative framework that is dedicated to the maintenance of social norms, indeed is designed specifically to prevent large-scale social change (Jhappan, 17). The law is hinged on a liberal rights discourse that embodies the primacy of the individual at the expense of collective or group rights; a framework in which “rigid separation between public and private activity is maintained… and inequality is privatized as the outcome of individual differences” (Razack, 37). This discourse depends on free market individualism in which systemic inequality is ignored and the theory of equal opportunity pervades. Judicial decision-making depends on this theoretical abstraction and rejects real life examples and experience (Sheehey, 461). For example, rape can be understood in the abstract as an individual experience that could happen to anyone, yet in reality it is a specifically gendered form of violence that perpetuates female subordination through fear and terror (Sheehey, 461). By ignoring these material realities, the law perpetuates the subordination of marginalized communities. The law maintains and naturalizes social hierarchies and oppression.

The legal discourse of rights and equality also perpetuates what Collins defines as the “white male hub” (Collins, 39), in which those closer to the white male norm are inherently endowed with greater social status and access to resources. The law is controlled and dictated by those existing in the centre of the white male centric hierarchy, as those individuals have access to the institutions of knowledge and power. This narrow and unitary legal perspective further obfuscates the role of systemic oppression, as those engaging in legal decision making are not individuals who have experienced - and therefore understand - the ways that social forces maintain inequality. These individuals are indoctrinated by and committed to “the tradition-bound, conservative legal culture…that hold individuals responsible for their situations rather than social and economics structures” (Jhappan, 17). Excluding the experiences of those who understand the mythology of liberal individualism prevents the legal doctrine from including analyses of systemic oppression; it perpetuates a false reality in which race, gender, and class are not necessary sites of analysis. The white-male centric judicial process claims to be race and class neutral when in reality it is defined by the interests and experiences of the powerful elite, and is constructed specifically to protect their interests (St Lewis, 299).

This white male centric hierarchy is dependent on the construct of binaries that is embodied by Charter language of equality and discrimination. Section 15, the equality clause of the Charter holds that

“Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.” (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms).

This kind of dialogue perpetuates the understanding of the white-male centre, by characterising difference as anything that exists in opposition to the middle class, white, Anglo-Saxon, able-bodied, heterosexual norm. In this construct the world is understood in dichotomous halves, in which the relationship is intrinsically one of oppression/subordination (Collins, 42).

By articulating equality claims in the language of section 15 dichotomies, legal activism risks discounting the experiences of people existing at intersections of oppression (Razack, 47). The very structure negates the existence of fluid identities that cannot be defined solely in terms of their opposition to the white male norm. In doing so, section 15 litigation can reinforce and further normalize this inherently oppressive white-male centric hierarchy. Indeed, as critical legal theorist Alan Hutchinson has pointed out, “to participate in the litigation process as lawyer or litigant, however radical the claim or cause, is to sanction and reinforce existing social relations” (380). According to these theoretical critiques, the law is a conservative institution that perpetuates white male supremacy, and due to its inherently conservative nature cannot be used as a tool for social change.

These theoretical critiques, although useful, have a tendency to neglect the material gains that have resulted from feminist legal activism, and the potential danger of not participating in legal interpretations. Vivianne Namaste claims that the only theorizing that is useful for feminist processes is theory that provides direction for substantive change (31). This can be expanded to mean that the success of a feminist practice is based on the substantive impact it has on women’s material life experiences. By this standard, although feminist legal activism has not overturned the dominant ideology of patriarchy and white supremacy, it has been a successful contributor to the pursuit of social justice by impacting the daily lives of marginalized communities.

Feminist litigation has made very substantive changes to laws and legal precedents that are directly connected to the daily experiences of Canadian women. In Canadian Charter litigation, the Women’s Legal Education and Action Fund (LEAF) has participated in legal interpretations and actively influenced outcomes in cases, securing gains in numerous areas including reproductive rights, sexual assault, sexual orientation and domestic concerns (Manfredi, 63). For example, the judicial acceptance of abortion established in R v. Morgentaler (1988) has fallen under constitutional attack numerous times since the ruling. LEAF has participated actively in defending reproductive rights of and ensuring Canadian women access to abortion by intervening in these court decisions (Manfredi, 68). These substantive, material gains have not necessarily impacted the broader philosophy of Canada’s legal framework, but they have made real life changes in the daily experiences of Canadian women. Legal activism therefore, is successful and necessary for protecting women’s rights in Canada.

This is opposed to critical legal theories that criticize the use of feminist litigation, whilst providing little direction for alternative responses to constitutional attacks on equality (Jhappan, 18). Critical legal theories provide a useful framework for legal activists to understand the context they are working in, yet neglect the reality that within this structure there is an enormous amount at stake. It is therefore necessary to “erase the line we sometimes draw between legal and political activity and recognize that when we go to court we are fighting for our lives” (Razack, 49).

Razack’s use of a legal battle metaphor is in many ways an apt description. The litigation process is by its very nature adversarial as it places both sides of the argument in direct opposition to one another. It is therefore a dangerous suggestion that feminist legal activists should abandon litigation entirely. Without powerful interveners such as LEAF, the hierarchical legal structures have even more power to oppress marginalized groups. It would allow the voices of the privileged to remain uncontested in the courts, giving them even more power over the entire system. Feminist intervention has directly confronted the dominant ideology in the courts, providing insight into the flawed notion of liberal individualism and expanding the courts understanding of the women’s specific gendered experience that results from society’s patriarchal structure. This is not a revolutionary upheaval of individualism, but nonetheless takes necessary steps in protecting marginalized groups in the context of this pervasive ideology.

This is evident in Moge v. Moge (1992), in which feminist intervention restricted the court’s ability to terminate alimony payments by drawing the courts attention to the inherent economic disadvantage women experience in marriage (Manfredi, 92). They successfully argued that every marriage is characterized by a gendered division of labour that has material economic consequences (Manfredi, 92). This emphasizes the role of systemic disadvantages and complicates the liberal notion that individual characteristics - and not hierarchical patterns - should determine decision-making in the court.

Without the direct intervention of feminist activism, the specifically gendered experience of disadvantage would be unacknowledged, as only the arguments of individual capacity would have been vocalized in the court. Feminist activists are able to present an alternative understanding of gendered labour and advantage that would have otherwise remained obscured by the dominant rejection of systemic analyses. Had feminist activists refrained from legal intervention this opportunity to reveal systemic gendered disadvantage caused by heterosexual marriage would have been lost. Women who are economically disadvantaged by divorce would be further marginalized by a constitutionally sanctioned denial of support.

Feminist litigation has an important role to play in the judicial process, and in order to adequately fulfil this task it must engage in constant self-reflexive evolution. This requires an inclusive legal practice that acknowledges intersections of oppression, and constantly questions whose voices are being represented in their legal positions (Razack, 47). Just as Canadian law is inherently patriarchal, it is equally laden with race and class based biases that must be constantly acknowledged in the struggle for legal equality. As feminist theorists provide a specific insight into the gendered experience, “contributions of racialized peoples to the judiciary [can] directly challenge the previously unacknowledged Eurocentric norms within the system” (St Lewis, 304). Any feminist analysis that does not directly include and relate back to the experience of intersectionality will inevitably perpetuate racial and class-based subordination (St Lewis, 297).

This reality is evidenced in equality cases that have neglected the role of race and class, and in doing so have contributed to white supremacy and the legal protection of privileged groups. For example, Symes v. Canada (1993) is a case in which income tax laws prohibited self-employed professionals from deducting childcare expenses as a business expense. This rule is theoretically gender neutral, yet due to the gendered division of labour it has a disproportionately negative effect on women. This case represents a significant barrier to gender equality among privileged professionals, yet it simultaneously demonstrates the exploitative commodification of racialized, mostly immigrant domestic workers by privileged, mostly white professional employers (Manfredi, 32).

While the Symes case advocated a substantive approach to equality that acknowledges systemic patriarchal biases, its absolute ignorance of the systemic exploitation of domestic workers epitomized the absence of intersectional analysis in feminist legal activism. The Symes case is not fundamentally about substantive equality for all women, but “increased access for women beyond the glass ceiling of male privilege” (St Lewis, 309). The use of Symes as a site to advocate for gender equality - at the expense of the female domestic workers - was a demonstration of “how the structural inequalities that have differential impacts on racialized communities are ignored” (St Lewis, 310).

Symes demonstrates the danger of legal activism that does not engage in dedicated reflexivity and actively include women from diverse backgrounds. It demonstrates the necessity for substantive analysis in determining equality - investigating whose concerns are at stake and what consequences the issues in question have for the material lives of all Canadians. It does not, however, discount the value of social activist litigation. LEAF did not intervene in the Symes case specifically because of its incomplete conception of substantive equality (Manfredi, 31). Although the law was used to defend the Symes claim, legal activism also provided a venue for LEAF to contest legislative claims that favour the privileged. Cases such as Symes demonstrate the necessity for legal activist groups such as LEAF to engage in constitutional definitions of equality to ensure that the experiences of all marginalized peoples, and not just an elite class of privileged women, are taken into account.

Criticisms of activist litigation provide necessary frameworks that can guide the direction of feminist legal activism, yet they do not discredit its worth. Critical race theory provides insight into how legal activism can be more complete and pursue a more accurate conception of social justice. Critical legal theorists are correct in their assessment that until dominant oppressive ideologies are overturned, social layers of inequality will pervade. They are flawed in their assumption that the lives of marginalized people are not affected by legal activism. Contrarily, legal activism is a rare example of a socially legitimated tool to confront the societal assault on substantive equality. Although the use of legal institutions such as the courts and the constitution are limited by inherent boundaries of liberal rights discourse, it still has a substantial impact on the daily lives of Canadian citizens. This in itself makes the legal battle for equality a necessary component of feminist activism in Canada.
Works Cited:

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Constitution Act 1982. Accessed at Department of Justice Canada, http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/charter/#egalite

Hill Collins, Patricia. “Learning from the Outsider Within”. Beyond Methodology .ed. M. M. Fonow and J. A. Cook. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Hutchinson, A. “Charter Litigation and Social Change: Legal Battles and Social Wars” Charter Litigation. ed. R. Sharpe. Toronto: Butterworth, 1987

Jhappan, R. “Introduction: Feminist Adventures in Law” Women's Legal Strategies in Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto, 2002.

Manfredi, C. P. Feminist activism in the Supreme Court : legal mobilization and the Women's Legal Education and Action Fund. Vancouver, UBC Press, 2004.

Namaste, Viviane. “Theory Trouble”. Invisible Lives: The Erasure of Transsexual and Transgender People. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Razack, S. (1992). "Using Law for Social Change: Historical Perspectives." Queen's Law Journal 17(1): 31-54.

Sheehy, E. “Feminist Argumentation Before the Supreme Court of Canada in R v. Seaboye; R v Gayme: The Sound of One Hand Clapping” Melbourne University Law Review 18(2): 450-469

St Lewis, J. “Beyond the Confinement of Gender: Locating the Space of Legal Existence for Racialized Women” Women's Legal Strategies in Canada, Toronto: University of Toronto, 2002.

Looking for subversive music? You're Looking at Country!

2009-08-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

When most people in our generation think of Old Time Nashville country, we don't usually think of subversion or gender empowerment. Typically, images of over-done country women with big hair and too much make-up, coupled by the unabashed sexism of songs like (as an obvious example) "Cocaine Blues" ("I took a shot of Cocaine and shot my woman down"), and other wife-killing, women blaming songs, overshadow the country reputation. And with reason; gender roles and deep seated notions of sex and power dominated much of the American south, along with the rest of the world. From songs like "Lost Highway", that blame "a women's lies" for the lost life of the poor helpless man, to less obvious songs that subtly reinforce constructed notions of gender, and damaging female stereotypes, such as Jimmie Rodgers "Train Whistle Blues" ("when a woman gets the blues she hangs her little head and cries, when a man gets the blues he grabs that train and rides"), country music can be understandably interpreted as male-centric and sexist.

Yet, this image comes from a context in which country music is generally disregarded by modern women, for whatever reason, and wherein the male presence and contribution within a certain genre dominates collective memory of that place and time. The contribution of female country singers is therefore widely under-appreciated. Because of these many factors, the subversive and revolutionary message communicated by the great country songstresses are largely unknown, and their role in the gender movement remains unacknowledged. Having recently been consumed with the likes of Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton, and Kitty Wells, among others, I have finally had the opportunity to realize the way in which these country women bring forward and underline

a truly feminist message.

Kitty Wells is particularly significant, because not only was she the first female country singer to top the U.S. charts, she did so with a song that spoke explicitly to the experience of women within a patriarchal society. Her first single, "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels", is a powerful response to Hank

Thompsons "Wild Side of Life", which criticizes women for being unfaithful and unreliable, drawing back to the "Wild Side of Life" instead of staying home with their men. He states "I didn't know God made Honky-Tonk Angels...", reinforcing the gendered notion of female imperfection, and characteristically extracting social context, as well as the context of the relationship itself, from the situation that would cause a woman to leave their husband. From a time in which the general increase in divorce, drinking and 'moral decay' during the post-war era was commonly seen to be a result of women moving out of the home, Thomson's tune epitomizes the tendency towards blaming women for societies problems.

Kitty Wells replies, in "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels", that there is a lot more going on within the context of social changes and changing standards of relationships than simply a wild and uncontrollable woman. She highlights the double standard, saying "it's a shame all the blame is on us women", claiming that too often when a 'loving wife' turns into a 'honky-tonk angel', it was the husband who was cheating first.

This simple song was at the time considered so subversive that it was banned on many country stations, including in the Grand Ole Opry, the epicenter of Nashville country.

Dolly Parton also addresses this issue, she underscores the historic and ever-present double standard that causes women to undervalued for their successes and over-criticized for their flaws, quite obviously in "Just Because I'm a Woman", where Dolly soulfully sings "My mistakes are no worse than yours, just because I'm a woman". Dolly Parton is easy to criticize, due to her excessive make-up and plastic surgery, her overtly pro-American propaganda and her weirdly over-sexualized little girl image, yet the power of songs such as these is still significant.

These songs are clearly hetero-normative and exist in a context of patriarchy, but it is interesting to see these country women standing up and (within the socio-cultural context) challenging these manifestations of patriarchy.

Another amazing woman who sings passionately and convincingly about the experience of women is Loretta Lynn. In a genre that too often ignores the experience of women, and exists within the very double standard Kitty Wells is challenging, Loretta Lynn brings to the forefront the consequences of patriarchy and the liberatory experience of resisting the stereotypes of gender. Rated X is another song that deals with double standards - it addresses the experience of a woman who is caught in the double bind of either staying in an unhappy marriage, or managing the negative stigma that is attached to divorced women. At the end of the song Loretta says "us women haven't got a chance, if you've been married, you can't have no fun at all". This kind of message and experiential standpoint is critical in a culture that assumes the worst about women (as Dolly points out), and is quick to jump to the conclusion that a divorced women is 'fast' or 'unwomanly'. Loretta unravels the negative stereotype and in doing so, de-legitimizes it.

In "One's on the Way", Loretta sings about the challenges of motherhood without support from the husband:

"But here in Topeka, the screen door's a bangin'

The coffee's boilin' over and the wash needs a hangin'
One wants a cookie and one wants a changin'
And one's on the way"

She addresses how hard it is to get support, and she also talks about the "girls in New York City who all march for women's lib".. but here in Topeka one's on the way. This is an interesting point and really demonstrates how much farther the women's movement has to go.

This comical tune pokes fun at the life of an at home mom, but also brings forward an experience and a standpoint that is widely unavailable to the mainstream (even still), and by doing so demonstrates the need for change.

Loretta Lynn doesn't only address 'struggle', but also embraces the things in life that can make a woman's experience a little easier, and she's not shy to speak openly about issues that are often avoided or unacknowledged in conservative culture. She even sings about how awesome it is to have birth control! The song "The Pill" talks about how everything is going to change now that she's got the Pill. At the time the song came out it was considered so subversive that some country radio stations refused the play it. Loretta refused to back down however, and the positive response it got from her audiences caused these conservative stations to back down. Talk about opening minds and creating positive change!

She talks not only about how much fun she's going to have, but also about how the power dynamic in their relationship is about to change. Funny verses like

"This old maternity dress I`ve got is going in the garbage

The clothes I`m wearing from now on won`t take up so much yardage
Miniskirts hotpants and a few little fancy frills
Yeah I`m making up for all those years since I`ve got the pill"

serve to illuminate just how limiting life is without reproductive health and choice, whereas

"I`m tired of all your crowing how you and your hens play
While holding a couple in my arms another`s on the way
This chicken`s done tore up her nest and I`m ready to make a deal
And you can`t afford to turn it down `cause you know I`ve got the pill"

demonstrate the ways in which having access to birth control and the ability to control what happens to ones own body gives women an added level of power and self-determination. You can't afford to ignore me no more baby, I've got the Pill!

So, despite the big hair and ugly dresses, asides from being amazing music, the songs written by country women deserve a little more credit. Especially when compared to the songs written by women in todays mainstream, who are supposed to represent women's movement to empowerment (please see earlier post on "Cater 2 U"). The mainstream music of our generation reinforces the double standard instead of drawing attention to it, yet the country songstresses are easily written off as old-fashioned and unimportant. Could the ease with which these women are discounted reflect the greater tendency to reject the contribution of women to the genre? (such as Wells and Lynn were rejected for engaging with issues of gender and power?) Too often when people see country they run the other direction. But as far as I'm concerned, if you want to look towards the roots of feminism in music, you're looking at country!

Worth Watching: Middle Sexes

2009-07-09T15:05:00.000-07:00

Middle Sexes is a documentary that investigates intersex experience and transsexuality. It's really interesting and provides useful perspective on the discriminating impact of gender normativity. Worth watching!

I Don't Need to Study Feminism, I'm Already Liberal... Baby

2009-03-22T10:04:00.000-07:00

Nothing pisses me off more than phony-liberal men. I think we all know the type... eats organic, goes to protests, speaks out against "oppression" (as a blanket concept: "I'm against oppression", wit no specificities as to how or why oppression exists, or how to go about actually being against it). Or there are the kinds who have a cause- Aboriginal rights, freedom of identity, libertarian notions of free-will, who yet still refuse to participate in the one area of thought that might actually allow them to engage in how oppression and subordination is created- feminism.

I'm sure you've all encountered the experience of some man talking about social justice, and suggesting 'Hey, if you're interested in social justice you should take women's studies", and then the old "Yeah, I'm not really interested in feminism"

How can you be interested in social justice and not interested in feminism?! What these people don't realize is that feminist theories provide a framework for understanding all realms of oppression, that all oppression is intertwined and until you take the effort to understand the way capitalism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, white supremacy, and ablism, among others are interlinked, there will be no understanding of what 'social justice' means.

Or, they DO realize, and they are simply too terrified to participate in it, because it would mean threatening their male privilege. Also imagine the threat to some peace-marching masculinity, the kind that imagines they can swoop in with their white male power and change the world, if he actually accepts that gender is constructed. (Hey, I may have a white penis but that does not make me more capable than anyone else! SHIT!) In my opinion, this is why men won't take women's studies, because they know that if they actually want to deconstruct oppression, they will have to start by rejecting male privilege. It is easier to go to anti-police brutality protests and buy organic food than to genuinely deconstruct hierarchies of power, and find that all this time you have tried to take care of your weak little girlfriend, you have been participating in patriarchy, and all the token exhibitions of social engagement are kind of pointless...

Not to be totally cynical, I know a lot of people out there are genuinely interested in making social change. Some of them want to break down international imperialism, some want to deconstruct North American colonialism, and in doing so, they think they don't need feminism, because everything a women's studies class has to offer, they already know. This is interesting, and it is of course entirely possible.

But then the cracks start to show, it starts when the group of guys discussing the evils of capitalism refuse to listen to your opinion, or when in the process of theorizing about racial oppression, they start throwing out essential characteristics about how men are 'more rational' than women... and then you realize, it is all an act. That is the phony liberal, my friends, the one who cares about social justice, yet continues to participate in day-to-day manifestations of patriarchy, without even acknowledging that it is happening.

And you can try, you can try with all your might to change them. You can use ration and reason to convince them gender is constructed, (and be ignored) and you can raise your voice and yell till your blue in the face to make the phony liberals listen to you, (and then they will tell you you are being too emotional), but nothing will change their mind. As much as they may give lip service to the possibility that gender might be constructed, they will continue to believe that men are more intelligent/rational than women, and you will realize that when they refuse to acknowledge your opinion.

They will continue to think that although it is wrong that there is no pay-equity, there must be some natural reason behind. I've heard many phony liberals use strange socio-biological explanations such as, maybe women just can't work as much because they have PMS, or they have babies (yeah or their just less capable, right?). They claim to be against it, yet they deep down believe that patriarchy is natural. And that is what will prevent them from making any substantial changes to social structures of oppression.

People can be sexist, racist, homophobic, and as much I hate it, I don't have to participate in it. It is the phony liberals, who make their way into the world of empowerment and equality, only to infiltrate it with pre-concieved notions of patriarchy that I really can't stand. They will engage in social movements, and all the while, they will treat you like a second-class citizen. "Yeah girl, let's change the world, by the way baby, what you doing tonight?"

PMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2009-02-14T08:38:00.000-08:00

There isn't much more terrifying about a woman than the fact that she bleeds from her vagina for five days out of a month. I think most men can agree that menstruation is a horrifying and inhuman process, discussion of which should be avoided at all cost.

There is one thing, however, that is worse that periods, and that is the dreaded PMS. PMS, which can arguably be blamed for all the world's disasters (you know women were just angry that they coudn't vote because they were PMSing), it is also responsible for the demise of many innocent husbands, striking fear and terror in the hearts of all men

That's why men have to do all they can to stop it, however possible. Even if it means venturing into the weird land of women (who may or may not be PMSing!!!) - the grocery store:

GIVE ME ALL THE MILK YOU'VE GOT!!!!!! MY WIFE IS LOSING IT!!!!!

Come on guys, if you really want to help you should be getting us iron pills!!! But honestly, maybe for once PMS is actually doing some good. I mean, now their poor wives won't have to rush to get milk in the morning to make the family their morning coffee. What do we have to do to get a little help around here?! OH!!! BEING A BITCH REALLY WORKS!!

I think what really puts the icing on the cake (housewife allusion intended) here is loving hubby coming home to his darling housewife "honey I'm home! I brought you some milk to pacify your lacent rage for being stuck in this awful house day after day while I go have a life!"

But really, PMSing women are dangerous, so if milk can do something about it, why not! Luckily, now men don't have to wait for the beast to rise before trying to tame it. The new iPhone app allows men to track their girlfriends menstrual cycles, so they can be totally on guard before the hell begins. (Mark on your iCal: April 13, Joan's progesterone levels are falling, stock up on milk)

PMS, Periods, and Sex are all combined into one giant taboo. Periods and pregnancy are weird women things that don't happen to 'everybody', and therefore NOBODY needs to talk about them. PMS, however, is the one area that "people" (men) seem to think is worth addressing... (fear woman!). So, as Sarah Haskins aptly demonstrates, anything to do with the other two, can be just as easily addressed by talking about what's really important, making sure we don't get too angry. Although preventing pregnancy is pretty important, so that we can go get great careers and time our reproduction, to prevent becoming stuck in a domestic life that might not necessarily be best for us at the time, although birth control was a major breakthrough in the role and rights of women, what is REALLY awesome about birth control pills is that it can prevent that angry irritable side of you that NOBODY wants to deal with. After all, pregnancy prevention and physical self-determination is pretty amazing, what is most important is that we stay polite and kind so that no one gets the wrong idea...

Young Jeezy and Nas on Obama: A step forward, but not the finish line

2009-01-28T20:27:00.001-08:00

There has been a lot of discussion about what Obama's election means for the black community, which I think has caused an equal amount of undue optimism and cynicism alike from journalist, theorists, and commentators. While not claiming that hip hop music is the ultimate representative of the black community, I do think it offers a venue of expression for people who's views are not always given an opportunity to be heard. In that light, I think it's important to address and analyze the use of hip hop music by Young Jeezy and Nas to communicate a message (and doing so without turning into annoying political rap that no one wants to listen to)

"My president is black, my lambo's blue

And I be god damn if my rims ain't too

My momma ain't home and daddy still in jail

Tryna make a plate anybody seen the scale"

Young Jeezy and Nas are pointing out that typical indicators society commonly references as proof that we are overcoming racial oppression are still not sufficient to adequately resolve the complex and interconnected issues and oppressions facing African Americans. By these 'typical indicators' I mean the ability for the black community to gain power economically and succeed commercially through the use of hip hop music, which is presumably symbolized by the blue 'lambo' - cars and material wealth being a typical demonstration of success in hip hop music, and the ability for black people to rise to economic and political power through democratic means, obviously demonstrated by the black president. While these are unquestionably amazing steps forward for equality in America, Jeezy and Nas point out that they haven't yet alleviated the day to day struggles faced by black people (systemic incarceration and poverty, among others).

In short, I think this song does a good job of acknowledging the success of Obama's election, without buying into the naive perception that Obama is the end to all racial struggles in America.

I also am EXTREMELY impressed by the (albeit too brief) shout out to Sojourner Truth in the beginning of the video, who is one of the first women of colour to come out and speak amazingly eloquently and engagingly about racial and gendered equality (I highly recommend you visit the link). I must point out, however, that of all the signs and people featured in the video, Sojourner Truth is the only woman, and still only earned about 1/2 a second. Maybe we could make a song about how putting Sojourner Truth's name at the beginning of a music video, while still a mark of progress, doesn't exactly make-up for the under-representation women of colour in media or popular political discourse.

Volunteering, Development, and the Global Binary

2009-01-26T17:10:00.000-08:00

A major pre-occupation of young western students in the past decade has been the concern for international problems and suffering- 'development' related issues such as poverty, disease, oppression, etc. This concern leads many young students (myself included) to head to the developing world, for places like Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America with the intention of helping. While this is a noble goal, the implications and manifestations of "international development" and what has been called "voluntourism" are much more complex.

In the article Under Western Eyes, Chandra Mohanty takes the necessary step of investigating and critiquing the ethnocentric and disempowering approach of Western analyses of the developing world. She premises her argument in the context of Western hegemony, the illustration of the world as a Western and non-Western binary, and proves how western projects in other cultures have operated within this framework. The Eurocentric perspective places the Western world as the centre, and everything that is non-Western is homogenous as a unifed whole, understood only as it is in opposition to the Western norm. It delegitimates the unique and diverse experiences of cultural groups internationally, thereby homogenizing the ‘non-western’ world as an ahistorical, monolithic body (23).

This binaric understanding of the international community also allows those from the West to feel a self-indulgent sense of self-congratulation - by perceiving the West and the "Third World" as absolute opposites, and perceiving suffering, poverty, and oppression as distinct characteristics of the "Third World", Westerners are necessarily perceived as the opposite: liberated and privileged.

This oppositional perspective travels with NGOs and volunteers into their development volunteer experiences, as their self-identification as educated, honest, and altruistic individuals causes them to inherently view the citizens with which they are working in opposition: uneducated, corrupt, and self-interested. It is this perception that allows Western volunteers to dominate and control the direction of development projects, to mistrust local participants, governments, and individuals, and to discredit development initiatives that are not directly associated with Western-oriented projects.

These issues are addressed fantastically in the film "They Come in the Name of Helping" by Peter Brock, who gives voice to development workers in Sierra Leone, and shines a critical light on western development initiatives abroad. Although the film falls into the problematic trend of re-documenting African poverty, it also successfully demonstrates intelligence, capability and initiative in Sierra Leone which is so lacking in our current discourse on Africa. Hope you enjoy!

Works Cited:

Mohanty, Chandra Talpade. “Under Western Eyes”. Feminism Without Borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.

Killing Us Softly- Jean Kilbourne on Women in Media and Advertising

2009-01-23T07:56:00.000-08:00

In this amazing 7 minute video, Jean Kilbourne provides a critique of advertising, in particular, the representation of women. She gives insight into the many effects on women, and society in general, of women in advertising. I decided to include this video as it draws on many of the concepts I have been addressing throughout this blog. She points out how advertisements re-enforce the gender roles from childhood, in which the boy is vocal and strong, and the woman is quiet and weak. This kind of attitude reflects the societal values that continue to see a woman speaking of politics and religion as not sexy.

Kilbourne also points out the exotic and animalistic representation of women of colour in advertisements, and how these images serve to reduce women of colour to a level of inhuman powerlessness within the context of advertisement, much like the Destiny's Child video addressed below.

Most importantly, Kilbourne gives important insight into how these advertisements, which seem distant and irrelevant to our daily reality, have very real consequences. The perpetuation of violence against women is legitimated by their constant objectification ("reducing them to a 'thing')- racial heirarchies are legitimated by the imagery of power and subordination. These ads, though many would argue are simply shock tactics to entice the consumer, have reached such an overpowering level of societal influence that it would be hard to argue that the popular consciousness is not affected by this form of mass media. And we certainly can't argue that these advertisements aren't informed and created by the popular consiousness - we create media, and thus we are still re-creating sexism and racism.

Post Feminism

2009-01-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

A topic addressed in the previous post about Destiny's Child, and one I find to be of increasing urgency and relevance to feminist discussion is the emergence of the 'post-feminist' backlash: the concept that feminism has been completed, and we are now free to conduct ourselves in a context of 'post' feminism, that no longer requires the vocabulary of freedom and oppression that has characterized feminist thought. Post-feminism embodies what Angela McRobbie refers to as the "taken into account-edness" of feminism- the idea that feminism has been completed and acknowledged. Feminism has achieved it's goals, and it is now acceptable to revert to traditional gender roles, to sexist vernacular and activity, because sexism is no longer a problem and feminism is over. Post-feminism moves beyond the supposed "completion" of feminism, to a reaction against feminism. Feminism has come to be characterized as a movement of the past, one that is repulsive and unappealing to modern women. I recently came across this article on msn.com, written by a male (Bob Strauss) that attempts to explain how a guy can know when is lover is about to leave him. In addition to being totally offensive and demeaning to female endeavors (assuming that if your girl starts going to the gym it means she's off to find another lover- beware of strong woman), it has the added feature of acknowledging, and seeming to have moved past feminism. Feminism, in addition to any other area of critical thought and demonstration of intelligence, features as one of the key ways to throw off your man:

"During the date, to continue to show him I wasn't interested, I brought up every taboo subject I could think of, and tilted my views toward the radical side: feminism, politics, religion, marriage, etc.", says Melissa.

(from: http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articlematch.aspx?cp-documentid=16048040)

Apparently - this worked. What is so critical about an argument like this, is that, as opposed to sexist articles and media of the earlier generation, it is conducted in a context of feminist informativity. This woman is aware and engaged in feminism, yet appears to have moved past it, into an area in which she can use it as a tool to make herself unappealing, and in doing so return to her traditional gender role of the appealing hetero-normative partner: quiet, uninformed and unintelligent. It is critical that the author acknowledges that ability and potential for female academic thought and discussion, yet continues to perceive that engagement as unattractive and 'anti-male'. We have moved out of the context of believing that women are inherently apolitical and incapable, but we haven't realised that hetero-normative and patriarchal norms continue to act against us and re-situate women as apolitical and oppressed. This article, written by and for men, co-opts feminism and feminist 'taken into accountedness' to ultimately reinsert and entrench patriarchy. In this way, the post feminist consciousness creates the allusion of "a comfortable zone where women are free to choose", while "for male viewers tradition is restored" (McRobbie, 259).

Feminism is acknowledged, yet the pursuit of feminist activity and the original goals of feminism are discredited; in this way, the post feminist consciousness allows the successes of feminism that have opened the channels of political and social critical thought to be ultimately undone.

Works Cited:

McRobbie, Angela. "Post Feminism and Popular Culture", Feminist Media Studies, Vol 4 no 3 (2004).

Another example of constructed and unattainable femininity

2009-01-21T18:09:00.001-08:00

It's always fun when the gender construction is called out- these photoshop errors, in addition to being totally hilarious, also provide direct evidence of the way femininity is constructed and consumed by the general public in the form of mass media. This character's whole demeanor is typical of the submissive yet subversive femininity that has come to embody high fashion representations of women. Her disheveled dress and her sexy eyes give off the "come get me" impression, while her ridiculously thin body, and the impression of intoxication implicitly send the message of weakness and insecurity. What this picture is really saying is: Come get me, I can't fight back... and then you realise that she is missing her thigh, and then you realise that the whole image is totally unrealistic. Unfortunately, it doesn't prevent these images from informing popular consciousness that the way to be "sexy" is to be tiny, disheveled, and weak. It also tells you that the only way to be a sexy woman is to force yourself to be something which is literally constructed, and absolutely unattainable

Commodification of black female bodies part 2

2009-01-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

Introduction

2009-01-20T17:51:00.000-08:00

Hey all- welcome to my cultural critique blog. This blog is intended to target and address incidents in media, academia, and cultural consciousness that establish and re-enforce socio-economic hierarchies that have long been established.

My idea to start a blog grew out of my discomfort with popular representations of gender, class, race and sexuality in my community, and our society as a whole, and the surprising way in which these representations are consumed and accepted by community members. From online ads and editorials, to lecture and academic material, to common conversation, the entrenched social hierarchies are constantly being enforced, and importantly, attempts to overcome these barriers (such as feminism, anti-racism, etc) are constantly being diminished. My goal here is to draw attention to the active reinscription of oppression, and the ways in which reactions to these oppressions are diminished. In doing so, I hope to contribute to the de-naturalization of white patriarchy. I welcome comments and criticisms, and hope you enjoy...