The Model Whisperer workout

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/25/t-magazine/25remix-whisperer-t.html?pagewanted=2

This relates back to Arubin's post about the control of the body.  If you read to the end of the article, the workout guru says, 

“It sounds corny,” he adds, “but I’ve always been about woman power. What I tell my girls applies to everyone and not just models: Look at what you are and what you have, and use that to the best of your ability. It’s all a matter of how you exploit what’s there naturally. Take what you’re given and do the best with that.”

Well, great. The whole article is talking about models, and how their workouts have to be structured a certain way because, "they can't afford to bulk up" even with muscle. Certainly not with food. You want a great body? Cut out all animal products and eat only broccoli, spinach, and kale. Don't use weights more than 5 pounds! Don't do lunges or run up stairs! Tone up, but don't look like you weigh an ounce more than before! So, when you "exploit what's there naturally" and "take what you're given and do the best with that," make sure you do so within the norms and boundaries set by dudes who can't bear to see you "big." Empower yourself! To conform to ideals established by (mostly) gay men!

There is another article or feature, I guess, in the NYT Style section, about the chief makeup designer at Chanel, playing with makeup. Less is more! Because "great skin is the ultimate luxury!" Check out his concepts. He loves that you can't see the eyes on the women; indeed, you can't see their eyes. So they're nothing but a blank canvas, a mannequin. So they don't ever engage with their viewer or with their male-designed look.

Fashion can be fun and enjoyable for women, but it sure ain't feminist.

Girlcore

http://girlcorerules.blogspot.com/

I just found out about Girlcore today, via Jezebel.  Apparently, Girlcore is a "collective" of young women who have really elaborate theme parties (sounds fun, if kind of a pain) all over the world and let men into the parties only if they come in drag and according to theme.  They also have a lot of female musicians, artists (photographers, graphic artists), and tips on creating visual pieces on their blog and magazine.  There's a distinct, hipster-y, Threadless-ish visual style to their work.

According to Jezebel, there's some criticism of the Girlcore group for being all glittery and fluffy. They're most definitely not RiotGrrls, Rex and my heroes.  But not all feminists have to be RiotGrrls and/or fall under the "hate men and hairy legs" stereotype, so that's cool.  What I do wonder is if the Girlcore girls are actually feminists?  They do promote female artists and musicians, and they foster a creative party atmosphere that is aimed for female consumers.  But the fact that they're so niche and so bound up with the creation and consumption of art and lifestyle gives me pause.  Is this again, a Butlerian performance of gender subversion, without agitating for societal change?  Should Girlcore promote these female artists AND lobby for record companies to sign more female artists beyond the pop mainstream?  Or to push for more equal education opportunities for women?

All that seems beyond the mission of the Girlcore, and there isn't a problem with that.  You can have whatever mission you want to have.  But when Jezebel says Girlcore "makes feminism fun" (because sometimes fighting for the cause is so "exhausting"), I think it's fair to ask and to debate if Girlcore is feminist. That's our mission.

Sex, Violence, and Humor

My mind started wandering this morning, in my super-boring administrative law class, about how easily female sexuality conjures up an association with violence. This is true even when there is no overt violence - eg, horror movies where the virgins are the ones who survive and the victims are running around half-naked - or, to cite something in the news more recently, this genre of holocaust erotica where Nazi officers are imagined as sexy dominatrix women (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/06/world/middleeast/06stalags.html). I was thinking about the much simpler proposition embedded in the image of a man surrounded by scantily clad dancing girls: that man is "bad," a transgressor of decency, someone who undermines the social fabric of respect and power by objectifying (and thereby controlling) people who are other men's daughters, wives, and sisters.

Perhaps there is something inherently violent in the proposition that any one person can objectify and dehumanize any other person - regardless of whatever puritan, desexualized norm that other person was supposed to conform to. This would probably be true if, instead of controlling a person's sexuality, the image were one of controlling a person's labor, say - that is, images of chain gangs and concentration camps are inherently violent too. But the thing that's troubling about sexualized violence is that it's violent only when applied to women. It just doesn't have the same meaning to sexualize a man transgressively. In a lot of ways men are subjected to the same kinds of puritan norms that make it shocking and out of place to see him in a sexualized light ("It wouldn't look right; like Santa Claus taking a shower" - to cite an extreme example of out-of-place sexuality from last week's 30 Rock). And yet when we see images of sexualized men, we don't think it's transgressive and violent. We think it's transgressive and funny. Santa Claus taking a shower is one example. Patrick Swayze and Chris Farley's Chippendale SNL skit is another example. And Jackass - a show that I love that is often expressly violent - is another example.

I'm not sure where this leaves me in suggesting feminist action points, and I'm not even sure if it's better or worse for sex to be violent or funny. I just wanted to point it out.

Are you a rectangle or a triangle?

The strangest things come up in my English III class. In my unending quest to show my students that I'm a real person who watches TV and has a life outside of our classroom, I used this Schick Quattro commerical to illustrate a point about society's need to control the body.

First, they had never seen this commerical. It took us three screenings, because there's a lot going on here. It's complicated in that it puts out there that women can talk about these things in public (yay you for feeling liberated enough to throw this is your basket at Target), but it basically affirms already prevailing ideas about controlling the body. What worries me is the fact that only a very small number (two, people) understood what the transforming shrubbery was alluding to. Funny that the voiceover promises results "whatever your style"---given the shrubbery, that means that any symmetrical, well-defined shape is cool, just as long as you get that shiz under control. Above all, remember, good girls are clean girls.

Verdict: not feminism, and not feasible. Given the symmetry of those shapes, does the trimmer come with a stencil?

Grow the hell up and deal with medical terminology

http://jezebel.com/5525506/gross-anatomy-disgusting-words-for-lady-products

This poster can't get over the word "speculum".  She thinks it sounds like ooze or something.  It means something doctors use to see inside your vaginal canal and your cervix.  Speculum.  It's not gross.  It's just medical.  Same with the other offending terms, like diaphragm.  Or Pap smear.  Or colposcopy.  

Get over it, please.  Please.  Honestly, if you are acting like a child about medical tools and procedures, or need pleasant sounding names to gloss over the fact that you're dealing with your biological functions, and feel like proper medical terms make you feel icky, is it any wonder that lawmakers feel it's okay to lie to women about their bodies and pregnancies?  Stop acting like an idiot and act like a grown up.  Then maybe people will no longer think it's okay not to treat you like one.

Oklahoma Passes Strictest Abortion Law, Protects Doctors Who Lie To Women

http://jezebel.com/5525617/oklahoma-passes-strictest-abortion-law-protects-doctors-who-lie-to-women

WRONG.

Why can't women just make their decisions on their own?  Why is it okay to be lied to so that they'll be making uninformed decisions?  If they decide to do one thing, and then regret it later, what the hell business is it of yours?  You're dealing with frigging ADULTS here.  Oklahoma, why is it okay for doctors to lie to half their patients?  What can they lie to men about?

Follow up to Rex's "Loose Women Cause Earthquakes": The "Boobquake"

6.9 earthqaue hits Taiwan on Boobquake day - NYPOST.com

Ugh. A "Boobquake". My sympathies are indeed with the "brainquake" folks. I don't want to see your cleavage, and certainly not as an "act of protest". By the way, does anyone still remember Neda Agha Soltan? I had basically forgotten her name too. But I think she was really doing more against the Iranian clerics and for women's rights in Iran than the Boobquakers, don't you?

"Alice in Wonderland": what is the deal with "empowerment"?

and "Drinking Blood: the New Wonders of Alice's World" (NYT)

I haven't seen this movie, because I'm not into self-indulgent late Tim Burton. I mean, does Johnny Depp have to be so "weird" in every damn movie? Does everyone have to look so pasty, and does the tea party really have to look like Miss Havisham's house? Anyway, has anyone seen this? From the looks of the trailer and the NYT article, it seems like Alice has become something of a "empowered" heroine. She runs away from a stifling engagement, falls into "Underland" (I mean, please), and leads an army against the Red Queen and the Jabberwocky? Then she goes with her father on a merchant ship to Hong Kong (or China, whatever) for a life of adventure rather than staying put as a prim and proper lady in England? Is that how it went? I'm interested to know whether anyone who saw the movie found Alice to be a feminist heroine, or if she is more of a personally liberated young woman who decides to live outside of period conventions. Any ideas?

The article got me to thinking about "empowerment" and "girl power" in pop culture, though. We have a lot of things that are considered girl power-y, like shows on Nick and Disney with female protagonists who have their own online youtube channels and pop careers and stuff. Then there's stuff like ads for Yaz that imply female resistance (against PMDD). And then there's stuff like Alice in Wonderland, the screenwriter of which said the following (in the linked article):

“I do feel it’s really important to depict strong-willed, empowered women,” she added, “because women and girls need role models, which is what art and characters are. Girls who are empowered have an opportunity to make their own choices, difficult choices, and set out on their own road.”

While I think it's great that this slightly older Alice (there's also this annoying "I'm not a girl, but not yet a woman" thing going on in a lot of pop culture) is not a damsel in distress and is fighting and being strong-willed, I don't know that this Alice qualifies as feminist. When she makes tough choices and sets out on her own road, does she carry the experiences of others like her, or those in positions of less privilege and power, with her? Are these choices still circumscribed (e.g., Alice can make a choice to have adventure, but not to be prime minister)? What is she doing for other young women like her? Is "empowerment" just an easy way to sweep structural inequality under the rug? I'm starting to think, yes. But seriously, someone who has actually seen this movie, please let me know how it was.

Genius.

by Martha Nussbaum, originally published in The New Republic, 2/22/99. Sent to Spectacular by a sympathetic (and Transylvanian) dude.

"The Professor of Parody"

http://www.akad.se/Nussbaum.pdf

Disappointment....

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/04/22/us/politics/politics-us-obama-disenchantment.html

This story reminds me of some things from the last election, so I'm going to put it out there. I was never a Barack Obama supporter during the election, even though I support my Democratic president now. I didn't have anything against candidate Obama personally (this includes his biography, his ethnicity, his youth); I just wanted more. I wanted someone with an aggressive--not conciliatory--style of politics, who understood that conflict has a place in democracy. I wanted someone who had some battle scars. I wanted someone to continue LBJ's Great Society and War on Poverty and and fight to win.

So, in the early stages of the primaries, I supported John Edwards. I didn't like him in 2004, when I had the (sadly correct, DING DING DING) feeling that he was too slick by half. But in 2008, he was talking about taking the fight to the insurance companies, really fighting them; he was talking about poverty being a problem in urban and rural America alike; he had Elizabeth and her dedication to a real healthcare plan for America. Then, even before he utterly disgraced himself and devastated his wife and family by not keeping it in his damn pants, he was out of the primaries. He just had no momentum. I was sad, but it wasn't exactly unexpected.

I then decided to go with Hillary. Yes, she and Bill were practitioners and pioneers of Democratic Centrism; they wouldn't identity themselves as liberals. But you know what, Obama isn't a liberal either. He never sold himself as such, even though his supporters wanted to see him as one. He and Hillary were quite close on most issues. So why did I go with Hillary, instead of supporting the person who would become the first black president of the United States?

I supported Hillary because she is a tough lady, who'd been in the trenches in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s. She'd been called a bitch, a ballbuster, a frigid wife who drove her husband to marital affairs, a Lady MacBeth. She had been called a traitor to feminism for sticking with her husband during the Lewinsky scandal. Yet she was still in it, giving as good as she got, and then some.

More than that, I supported Hillary because she was a qualified, WELL-QUALIFIED woman, who'd paid her dues, and had fought the fight. She would pursue a feminist agenda, and defend choice, because if she didn't, she'd have to answer to her own. She was a uniquely high profile female candidate, when there are none others on the horizon. I knew that if Hillary didn't make it this time, we wouldn't see a female presidential candidate from a major party (and please, don't even bring up Palin; she doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence) for 20 years. I wanted little girls to know that they could be proud feminists AND be president one day.

And during the campaign, the amount of misogynistic vitriol spewed at Hillary was unbelievable. Commentators on MSNBC would say about her, "man, she reminds me of an angry ex-wife!" For young women (3rd wavers, perhaps), she was the candidate for "dried up gray haired old feminists", who had the temerity to demand that the Democratic party to prioritize their agenda. There was so much eye-rolling about 2nd wave feminists and those old biddies' refusal to move on from the 1970s in ladyblog land. Look, I didn't and don't have a problem with a woman supporting Barack Obama. There were different compelling reasons for doing so. I DID and DO have a problem with women justifying their preference by slagging on Hillary, and by extension, on the generation of women who argued with their families, who marched, who protested, who voted, who went back to work, who demanded respect in the workplace, who broke into the ivory tower, so that their daughters and nieces and granddaughters wouldn't have it so damn hard when it was their turn. And in the end, Hillary lost the primaries. She didn't run the best campaign; she took her lead for granted. But she suffered more than she should have because of her gender, and still she stuck it out to the end.

For the most part, Hillary's supporters went to Barack Obama. Certainly the Party was telling them to, and to stop making such a fuss! But there were a few who formed or identified with groups like PUMA (Party Unity Means Authority, or Party Unity My Ass), who refused to budge. Some of them even made noise about supporting Sarah Palin, which is unreasonable and insane. There are a lot of issues that are important, not just "women's rights", like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, healthcare, education, national defense, etc. When the ultimate choice is between a moderate Democrat and conservative and utterly craven Republican, the Democrat is still going to be the better choice. But I think in the back of these PUMAs' minds, they knew that, if they didn't make some noise, women, a major Democratic demographic, would be forgotten and taken for granted.

And they were right. Sure, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was signed, but that guarantees a woman (or any person receiving discriminatory pay), the right to sue, which is great. It doesn't actually mandate wage equality. But that Stupak Amendment to the (watered down and insurance company-enriching) healthcare bill, denying any federal dollars to abortion access or coverage, making it more difficult for many women to buy health coverage, or to pay for the abortion that is still their right to obtain? That came from a Democrat, in a Democratic congress, in a Democratic bill, with a Democratic president. Abortion rights groups and pro-choice Democrats were outraged, but when NARAL-Pro Choice America endorsed Barack Obama over Hillary, when Democratic voters were yelling at Hillary and Chelsea to go iron their shirts during rallies (oh, bitterly true story), the fight for reasonable abortion access had already been conceded. It had been conceded because a lot of women voters in effect said to the Democratic party, "you know what, put other interests ahead of ours as women. It's okay. Us girls, we'll wait our turn for representation in the highest office in the land (even though the UK, Iceland, Germany, India, Israel, Pakistan, and Liberia have all had female heads of state). Don't mind us. Oh, those (old) shrews making all that noise? We're not here with them." And you know what? Fine. If getting out of Iraq was your top priority? Fine. If electing a president of color was what you cared passionately about? Fine. But those priorities and the choices made based on them, they have consequences.

So there's some disappointment now, and there should be, about a lot of things. But if the disappointment is with women's rights not getting enough respect, there's plenty of blame to go around. I don't feel let down by Obama personally right now; I was disenchanted a long time ago with my own party, in the heat of the primaries and their aftermath. And as happy as I am genuinely am that America elected a black Democrat president, I know that I don't have much in common with a black woman investment banker from Wall Street, or with a Latina woman doctor, or with a lesbian soldier in Afghanistan, or with a white woman in rural Appalachia. I don't share their experiences from being black, brown, or white (even though I'm yellow), from growing up in different parts of the country, from being rich or poor, from working in different jobs, or from having children. I share their gender, and that gender is still waiting for equality.

"Can Feminists Wear Aprons?" Can feminists find better things to worry about?

http://jezebel.com/5522007/can-feminists-wear-aprons

Everyday, when I have time, I like to check a bunch of websites. I start with DListed, and work on to Gawker, Gizmodo, ArsTechnica, then move on to the newspapers. I also stop at Jezebel, the ladyblog division of Gawker media. I enjoy Jezebel for the most part, because its writers tend to be politically and socially aware women. I have become, however, increasingly impatient with some of its posts, like the one above.

Why? Well, because, seriously? You're having a feminist identity crisis over wearing an apron? I get that she's unhappy about the article that, she argues, uses the cute apron trend to reinforce a stereotype of female domesticity. I'd be pissed at that too. But seriously? You question your feminist cred over an apron? Is that what feminism is about? About how YOU feel about YOURSELF when YOU wear an apron? What's your wearing an apron got to do with the fact that most working women don't have access to adequate and affordable childcare, or that stay at home mothers aren't recognized for their labor?

I think I have a problem with "third wave feminism" in general, which the author of this Jezebel article defines via Wikipedia: "The third wave embraces contradictions and conflict, and accommodates diversity and change." Yeah, great. It's more like, I have enough opportunity and liberty to question whether these opportunities and liberties are really serving my own personal interests, and to bemoan how difficulty my life is, now that I have all these choices to make. Oh man, choices!

You know what, I'm not interested in your identity crises, or the difficult kitchen attire decisions you have to make. A lot of women don't have choices to make and, increasingly, the choices we have are being taken away, or denigrated. So I'd really rather have a feminism that is about improving the welfare of women and less about helping you find an identity that you can deal with.

"Loose women cause earthquakes, Iran hardliner says"

http://www.wibw.com/nationalnews/headlines/91651569.html

No comment necessary, really, other than: HA! In some ways it's almost a compliment - like, say, if it were the lyrics to a snappy rock song (a la ZZ Top) or a bluesy country song. Funny how the speaker changes everything.

Maybe this is a lesson that can be generalized to other discourse about social attitudes as well: think who you are before you say something. Vaguely, I'm reminded of John Mayer thinking that he has a "hood pass" to say the n-word.

Lady Gaga - Paparazzi

Lady GaGa has become, for some reason, the pop star who is okay for smart people and sassy ladies to like. I don't understand it myself; I'm not a fan of her music. I think she has a talent for writing catchy songs that aren't very original, and for self-promotion. Good for her. But a narrative has sprung up around GaGa in ladyblog-land, a narrative in which, because GaGa exercises very tight control over her image and has signed some savvy business deals, she is the feminists' pop idol.

Well then, what is the deal with this:



GaGa gets thrown off a balcony by a boyfriend who has been exploiting her behind her back. She manages to survive, but COMES BACK to this asshole. She fetishizes her injuries by doing a crippled dance number in Thierry Mugler's Metropolis metal suit (first seen in George Michael's "Too Funky" video from 1992, by the way). There are more fetishized victims of violence, in the form of exquisitely painted models posed as corpses all over the place, in bushes, a foyer, poolside, etc. GaGa decides upon revenge by poisoning her boyfriend (yay, feminism?) not because he THREW HER OFF A BALCONY, but because she's pissed that a new starlet has taken her place in the media consciousness. And yes, that is why she kills him. See how she dresses up and glories in the flashbulbs at her arrest.

Is this supposed to be an ironic comment on domestic violence? Is the fact that GaGa kills her abuser enough to explain all the other images of victimized, yet still gorgeous, women? What the hell? I know her song and video are not ABOUT domestic violence, but seriously, way to make it sexy and glamorous. Is this feminism?



In this video from 1999, the Dixie Chicks ARE talking about domestic violence, and you can see that Wanda's face is beat the hell up. That's what domestic abuse is, not an excuse for edgy fashion (except the fashion was edgy in 1992, but whatever). By the way, when the Chicks came out with this video, about a wife getting beat up and murdering her husband as her escape, they caught a ton of shit for doing it. Because, you know, how could they trivialize and advocate murder?

The Last Abortion Doctor

The Last Abortion Doctor

I know that our project is highlighting what feminism isn’t, but I feel that I should post this as an example of what I consider feminism to be. You might not be pro-choice, and you might be pro-choice “up to a point.” That’s fine, and that’s not really why I chose to post this article. I wanted to post this because it’s about a person who cares about women for themselves, not as an incubator for a fetus. This is a person who sees that a woman has an identity beyond “mother” even when she is pregnant. This is a person who risks his life to help women exercise their rights. This is a person who believes that women should control their own bodies and their own destinies. This man is a feminist.

Side note: the fact that these articles on abortion access appear in Esquire, a "men's magazine", and not in any kind of "women's magazine" is its own issue. And the fact that Esquire's covers feature tarted up starlets for the ogling pleasure of men, that's another issue too.

"Equalists"

"I'm not a feminist, I'm an equalist."

No you're not, you're a feminist. Feminists believe in equality. You don't have to have hairy legs or hate men (though both are reasonable lifestyle choices) to earn the title of feminist. It sets us all back to disavow the work of those men and women who advocate for women. Don't distance yourself or leave the advocates hanging. Represent the movement as it is, and be an advocate too.

The Video that Started It All

Welcome to our new femzine! Cephalopod and Rex decided to start a publication to protest all the ways in which people justify atrocious things in the name of women's empowerment. Below is something of an archetype of atrocity, in whose dishonor this blog is named.

Part of the problem is that no one really knows what feminism is. The authors of this publication agree that Riot Grrl in the 90s somehow captures the basic ideals we want to bring back. For that reason we decided that our platform would be the zine. The blog is just a transitional medium, because we hope to bring a real, material, paper-and-stapler zine to life someday, to pass out to be read by people who aren't necessarily seeking us out. We don't want to preach only to the choir. At the same time, feminism shouldn't be just white noise, dammit, so it's our aspiration that we ultimately find a home outside the white-noise interwebs.

Like a magazine, we want a lot of authors and voices heard. Please invite your friends to write a post for Spectacular if you think our hopes and frustrations are compatible.

Because it may be too ambitious, right now, for us to give a definition of what feminism IS, let's start with the more intuitive task of identifying what feminism IS NOT. Then let's debate it. Maybe we can get less undermining and more solidarity once we come together toward something like a consensus. On that note, we present the video that started it all.

Love and bruises,
Rex



And this bullshit: