Vote of Confidence

The Feminist Majority Foundation website drew my attention to a new study conducted by the Girl Scout Research Institute showing an increase in political awareness, confidence, and engagement among girls ages 13-17 since the last time similar data was gathered, before the 2008 election cycle heated up. Fifty nine percent of the study’s 3, 284 female respondents stated that the election increased their confidence in being able to achieve their goals in the future and 55 percent said it increased their confidence levels in speaking and expressing their opinions on issues that matter to them. Also, according to the survey, both boys and girls showed substantially higher awareness of the difficulties and inequities faced by women in our society, with 43 percent agreeing with the statement that “girls have to work harder than boys in order to gain positions of leadership” compared with similar data gathered a year ago in which only 25 percent agreed with the same statement. Instead of being deterred by this heightened awareness of gender inequalities, however, four in ten young women surveyed stated that this election has had a positive impact on their desire to become a leader. 

I realize that data gathered through small-scale surveys of this type needs to be approached with healthy skepticism, particularly when the data-gathering organization is an affiliate of the Girl Scouts, an organization with a history of explicitly religious affiliations and ambiguous stances on homosexuality and other issues. That said, these findings make sense to me intuitively.

It’s long been with a sense of sadness, frustration, and sometimes embarrassment that I’ve witnessed the political and social apathy of women around me, in the media and in my circle of friends and acquaintances. This video, put out by  MobLogic.TV last year made a real impact on me because those types of reactions have grown so familiar to me. Of course, every person is not naturally interested in or engaged with politics, and that’s fine. But my experiences have shown a real disparity along gender lines. When I stop to really think about it, though, it’s totally understandable. It’s is pretty difficult to feel a sense of investment, engagement, or interest in a system that ignores and frequently disrespects your interests, a society in which the prevailing, respected voices in the media are still overwhelmingly male, in which many of the issues that most deeply effect women are trivialized, ignored, or dictated by legislative bodies which still consist predominantly of old, white men. After all, even today when there are more women in politics than ever before, only 17 out of 100 US Senators are women, as well as 74 out of 535 members of Congress and one out of nine Supreme Court justices. Shockingly, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, which would provide comprehensive protection against gender discrimination, has still not been ratified, despite numerous attempts since it was first proposed in 1923 (as in, 86 years ago). In light of all of this and in the face of overwhelming daily reminders of our second-class status within our society, it is not hard to understand why it would be easy for women to feel disenfranchised and altogether disengaged from political and social issues and processes. 

The past year or two have provided much reason to be hopeful for the future and I think this survey provides concrete evidence of what many of us, whether we are women, African American, or neither, have been feeling. This election cycle represented many firsts and above all proved that, after the initial uncertainty and ad infinitum rehashing of whether America was “ready” for a black or woman President died down, a non-white or non-male candidate could be a legitimate candidate who, though not entirely escaping prejudices and double standards, would be judged above all on substance, on the issues. Furthermore, I believe that Obama’s victory is a victory for women in ways that extend beyond his feminist stances on issues like abortion, birth control, and poverty. Indeed, I believe that simply by breaking the mold, expanding the vision of what a President looks like, Obama’s presidency will help move us toward the election of a woman president, something I hope can be accomplished in the near future. 

Much has been made of the significance of Obama’s win. It has been written about and discussed as a historic milestone, and indeed it is. Yet, we must not allow smug self-congratulation to make us complacent. Yes, we have a black president, yes we had a viable woman candidate, but there is still only one black person in the United States Senate, and only 17 women. And writing about the House of Representatives’ 39 African American members recently, FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver pointed out that most of these representatives were elected in districts in which African Americans represented more than 50 percent of voters.

None of this is meant to diminish the kind of deserved increase in political and civic interest and engagement by women, African Americans or other historically disenfranchised groups represented by these new statistics. Indeed, this is exactly what is necessary in order to continue to push toward a more equal future. My only reason for returning to these sobering statistics is to urge continued vigilance and to suggest that, though an important foundation, enthusiasm and engagement on their own are not enough to enact change. Just as many have cautioned in the months since election day that we should not take Obama’s election as proof of the achievement of a “colorblind” society and be lulled into a false sense that our work in this department is over, I believe that it is important to recognize that greater optimism is only significant if it is justified, followed through in concrete ways. We are far from a gender-neutral or gender-equal society and if this newly energized, excited, and engaged generation of young girls is to find justification for these feelings, we must all work, starting today, to create a society which fosters not only optimism but the opportunities for these young women to channel this increased enthusiasm into concrete action and change.

In January

Only one cell in the frozen hive of night

is lit, or so it seems to us:

this Vietnamese cafe, with its oily light,

its odors whose colorful shapes are like flowers.

Laughter and talking, the tick of chopsticks.

Beyond the glass, the wintry city

creaks like an ancient wooden bridge.

A great wind rushes under all of us.

The bigger the window, the more it trembles.

-Ted Kooser

Black Man’s Burden

In their January 16th New York Times article, “How the Movies Made a President“, Manohla Dargis and A.O. Scott provide an interesting analysis of the development of the archetypes of black manhood in film, using this as a frame through which to position Barack Obama’s historic ascendency to the Presidency and the enormously high expectations he faces as he assumes the position.

The authors begin by arguing that the existence of black presidents in television and film, such as Dennis Haysbert on “24″  and  Morgan Freeman in “Deep Impact”, has “helped us imagine” the very possibility of a black commander in chief. From there, they build into a broad discussion of  the progression of black men in the movies over the past several decades “from the ghetto to the boardroom, from supporting roles in kitchens, liveries, and social-problem movies to the rarefied summit of the Hollywood A-list.” One thing that struck me while reading the article were the similarities between the ways black men have been stereotyped and relegated to particular types of characters and the way women have faced a similarly reductionist treatment in movies. Of course, the stereotypes faced by these groups take different forms, but in some ways at least they both amount to the same thing–devices through which to reify and clarify white malehood through contrast with otherness. Too often women and black characters are portrayed as agency-less, figures to be acted upon, or are placed on pedestals, representing particular monolithic, unrealistic virtues.

One line struck me as particularly resonant in exploring the parallels between constructions of black malehood and the black male body and constructions of women and their bodies in film: “Movie history is littered with the mangled (Joe Morton in ‘Terminator 2′), flayed ([Morgan] Freeman in ‘Unforgiven’) and even mauled (Harold Perrineau in ‘The Edge’) bodies of supporting black characters, some sacrificed on an altar of their relationships with the white headliners, others rendered into first prey for horror-movie monsters.” This immediately  summoned to my mind the posts I’ve written about the eroticization of violence to women(“Ad Nauseum“, “Dead Sexy“) in movies, print ads, and other visual media (here’s a new example I recently came across) , as well as other things I’ve read and written about the objectification of women as a tool of oppression, objectification, and delegitimization, like Laura Mulvey’s discussion of the concept of “castration anxiety” in her article “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”, a phenomenon she argues is enacted in film through the constant controlling and often punishing “male gaze” which is employed to keep women in a safe, controllable space (as I discussed in my post “Nattering Nabobs of Negativism“).

Many of the arguments and ideas suggested by this article also call to mind bell hooks’ article, “Eating the Other: Desire and Resistance”. In this piece, hooks writes that “the commodification of differences promotes paradigms of consumption wherein whatever difference the Other inhabits is eradicated, via exchange, by a consumer cannibalism that not only displaces the Other but denies the significance of that Other’s history through the process of decontextualization.” As I wrote in a paper last semester,

“hooks argues that normative, mainstream white culture is fascinated by and drawn to the archetypal Other only in so far as the Otherness is useful to it–useful in exciting desires, useful in allowing access to a perceived world of idealized ‘primitivism,’ and sensual naturalism, useful in adding exotic ‘flavor’ to daily life, useful in assuaging the guilt of a legacy of white supremacy and black subjugation, above all useful in providing a canvas, a backdrop against which whiteness may define itself all the more clearly, centrally, and powerfully.”

When hooks refers to the “commodification of differences,” she is referring to the reforming of the Other into recognizable forms, forms which reflect nostalgia for an idealized vision of a “glorious past”. hooks looks at examples like the black nationalism movement and rap music in exploring the cannibalization of otherness and displacement and denial of significance, the decontextualization and dehistoricization of the black Otherness. She writes that dominant understandings, imagery, and stereotypes of Otherness render what might otherwise be subversive or self-assertive a “spectacle” of sorts, read within dominant discourses rather than opening the public up to new or expanded discourses.

Later on in my paper on hooks, I examined the campaign and election of Barack Obama as a lens through which to explore ideas about Otherness and the commodification thereof, writing:

“It is interesting to examine hooks’ arguments about Otherness and white supremacy and privilege in the aftermath to the historic 2008 election, an election which saw a black man beat a white man (and a white woman) to be decisively elected President of the United States. Yet, though his very victory would seem to suggest that hooks’ arguments are outdated and no longer relevant, much about the way Barack Obama was perceived by the American public and much about how he carefully shaped and marketed his persona, his “brand”, throughout the campaign holds echoes of hooks’ ideas. Obama represents an interesting figure culturally, racially, and his story, of being born to a white American mother and a black African father was of seemingly infinite fascination to the American public, something Obama exploited skillfully. Obama proved a master at constructing a narrative, building a brand around himself and his story. During the campaign, he was frequently chastised by some, particularly those in the African American community for “white washing” himself, often avoiding discussions or narratives of race that were overly controversial.

Instead, he built his image as a cultural hybrid, making sure not to come across as too racially radical, too Other, but at the same time, using his black heritage as a representation of his slogan of unity and change. In fact, some have suggested that it was at least in part Obama’s mixed race and his light skin, that allowed him to have the success he had, just as in fashion and other sectors of mainstream, white-controlled media where the black faces represented are predominantly light skinned blacks. Obama represented for the “white supremacist capitalist patriarchy” just enough of the intrigue of Otherness, but not so much that he presented a real danger or threat to the status quo, at least for most people. Obama as a public figure is a fascinating embodiment of the commodification of Otherness. His blackness was marketed as part of his narrative of diversity and change, yet his light skin and non-confrontational, easily digestible public image and stances on race issues (when, in fact, he even voiced such stances, which was fairly rare) allowed him to be easily consumable by a broad audience.

It is important to note, though, that a main strategy of those who opposed Obama was to try to play up his Otherness, suggesting that he wasn’t like “us”, that he was “too” Other and therefore subversive and not to be trusted. These opponents focused on things like Obama’s black Islamic father, and on his former “radical” black preacher, Jeremiah Wright. Ultimately, however, Obama’s successful commodification and marketing of himself which both exploited and downplayed his status as the Other was successful in helping him to create an appealing personal narrative and working the “white supremacist, capitalist patriarch[al]” status quo to his advantage. He turned the very tools usually directed at blacks by whites as means of control on himself, and was thus able to dictate the terms of the discourse. This is in no way meant to downplay President-elect Obama’s accomplishments or all of the issues of the campaign cycle that had nothing to do with race, but hooks’ arguments about commodification and the decontextualization and cannibalistic consumption of Otherness certainly provide an interesting lens through which to examine Obama’s campaign and election, events that at first glance would seem to completely disprove hooks’ statements.

 

Dargis and Scott, too, take their broader arguments full circle, finishing by looking at the feat Obama faces of living up to the expectations created by his almost messianic persona as he begins his presidency. As they write “Saviour, counselor, patriarch, oracle, avenger, role model–compared with all this, being president looks like a pretty straightforward job.” They voice concern that the constructions and stereotypes long put forward by movies and other cultural narratives of monolithic black manhood, particularly “fantasies of black heroism,” of the “black messiah” figure (as represented by many of Will Smith’s recent roles, such as those in “The Pursuit of Happyness,” “I Am Legend,” “Seven Pounds,” and even “Hancock”) have informed the construction of Obama’s public persona and will create a uniquely challenging burden for President Obama (how good it feels to write that) going forward.

Face to Face(book)

Facebook is a cruel, unyielding mistress. Its power to suck you in, steal hours of your time, and leave you with little to show for it other than a new Sex and the City quotation on your profile wall and the knowledge that your ex-boyfriend has joined the Peace Corps, is legendary. Among people of “a certain age” (pre-teens to late 20’s), it is so ubiquitous, it can be hard to avoid. And it’s catching on among the parental set as well, as this Jezebel item discusses.  I’ve seen more than one friend cancel their account and attempt to move on with their lives, only to come crawling back with a look of quiet desperation and resignation in their eyes. As I’ve watched the phenomenon that is Facebook expand and transform over the past several years (since I joined in 2004), I’ve been interested in the ever-changing etiquette, the politics and rules, spoken and unspoken, which dictate this space.

Facebook is a strange beast–it’s a place where interactions can seem simultaneously real and also entirely fake. In the same way that back in my days of AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) use, I became aware that there were things I felt able to say into a little box on a computer screen which I never would have said in person or even on the phone, in the same way that, similarly, a text message versus a phone call provides a particular, unique mode of expression, Facebook provides a different forum, one in which our interactions with others may be very different than those we engage in in the real world.

I’m sure most Facebook users have some funny or awkward story stemming from some aspect of this tension between reality and non-reality when it comes to Facebook. As for me, I literally walked up to someone several months ago, sure I knew him, only to realize that I had never met him–he had dated a distant friend and I had seen photographs of them together on Facebook…as you can imagine, that conversation ended rather quickly and left me appearing like much more of a stalker than I would have preferred.

In one of my classes last semester, we briefly discussed the funny way in which there is a certain kind of distancing that happens between Facebook and reality, a distancing which seems in many ways purposeful. For instance, I’m sure many Facebook users have experienced, as I know I have, the way that when two people, particularly people who may not know each other extremely well, “friend” each other on Facebook, reference to it is often studiously avoided in real world interactions. Similarly, references to seeing something written on someone’s Facebook wall or to some piece of personal information gleaned from the perusal of  someone’s profile in face to face conversation often seems to cast a momentary pall over the conversation. This is not a hard and fast rule by any means, but somehow what goes on in the universe of Facebook seems slightly embarrassing and uncomfortable for many of us when brought up in the realm of the real world.  And often, there is an unspoken, awkwardness when someone becomes Facebook friends with a person they don’t know incredibly well in real life. I suppose this results to a large extent from the fact that this person now knows much more about you than they did the last time you saw them, more, often, than they would be likely to know at that stage of familiarity in your relationship otherwise.

I brought up some of these ideas in my post, “Virtual In-Vanity” some time ago about the boy who committed suicide on his webcam before a live internet audience. In that post, I discussed a quality of Facebook that I believe is central to its appeal and also central to the politics that have developed within this space–the exhibitionism that lies at its very core. Sure, Facebook is a great resource for reconnecting with long-lost friends and acquaintances, keeping track of people’s contact information, and conducting brief, impersonal correspondence. But at least as much as this, I think for many people, Facebook is a forum for presenting ourselves to the world, shaping our profiles in ways that reflect who we think we are, who we want to be and how we want to be seen by others. The information a person chooses to include or exclude, whether comprehensive or minimal, the level of attention, the seriousness or silliness with which a person approaches the upkeep of the profile, the kind of photograph they select to represent themselves (Are they drunk? Trying to look hot? Being silly? Pretending not to care?), all of these things and many more factors reflect complex maps of personal meaning and self-construction. Central, then, to the appeal of Facebook is the narcissism of wanting one’s profile to be viewed, to present one’s self  through an ever-evolving map of meaning constructed of photographs, biographical tidbits, notes, status updates, inter-wall dialogue, membership in groups, number of friends, etc., and the related voyeurism of wanting to view other’s profiles as well. Maybe that’s partially responsible for the sort of sheepishness or mild embarrassment that characterizes so much discussion of Facebook in the “real” world. The anonymity or unreality allowed by the space somehow allows us to ignore some of the norms that usually shape our behavior. Things that in “real” life would seem unacceptably self-absorbed, trivial, or deviant in one way or another, have become acceptable, even accepted parts of the Facebook landscape. When the disparities between these two  increasingly different sets of values are highlighted , brought un-ignorably to our attention, it makes sense that the experience would unsettle and embarrass us.

I Think I’ve Got The Black Lung, Pop

I know, I know…I promised/new year’s resolution, etc. But I have been/am sick. As soon as I’m on my feet again, I’ll be back!

Mixed Messages

First, apologies for my unannounced holiday hiatus. I’m back in the saddle now and resolve that in 2009 I won’t leave my loyal readership (hi, mom) hanging like that, at least without warning. That said, onward and upward.

I found this article, published December 30, 2008 on the Huffington Post, to be an interesting perspective on so-called “women’s magazines”. I’d been thinking in vague terms recently about writing something about my conflicted relationship to celebrity/fashion/”women’s” magazines–the guilty pleasure I take in them and how I just can’t seem to quit them, no matter how much I disapprove of some (much) of their content, how stupid I feel when I let an hour or two slip by in which I’ve done nothing but flip through pictures of celebrities sunbathing and read about diet tips or the hot styles for fall.

This article, however, explores a different side of the genre of women’s magazines. Writer Sheila Weller makes a pretty compelling argument about the unfairness of the negative connotations embedded in the term “women’s magazine”, the way in which the term has become one of derision and “mild ridicule”. Weller provides a number of examples of  groundbreaking, socially conscious and socially relevant journalism published not only by magazines like Ms. but some perceived as more trivial and fluff-filled, like Glamour, Marie Claire, Self, Good Housekeeping, and others. She argues that often these kinds of publications are among the only ones taking on issues that are of concern to women in an in-depth way, citing examples such as domestic violence, women’s health issues like breast cancer, and other less widely known examples like the disproportionate health risks for women represented by the military’s mandatory Anthrax vaccine.

I’m interested in Weller’s argument, especially since in all of my years of trying to justify my reading of these magazines to myself, it never occurred to me that a part of the dismissive public perception of “women’s magazines” and their content might be based on the position women and our concerns occupy within the broader culture. After all, this kind of dismissiveness of women’s interests, tastes, and particular issues of concern, this marginalization, is reflected at so many levels–social, political, and economic–in our society. I discussed one example a while ago in my post, Mamma Mia, Here I Go Again, when I looked at the attitudes of major movie studios toward “chick flicks” and women-geared films in general, their reluctance to accept women as a substantial consumer power whose tastes and interests were deserving of attention, despite ever-greater evidence to the contrary.

That said, I do think the picture is more complicated than Weller is maybe willing to concede. Women’s magazines may have some great articles, ones that are well-researched, insightful, and serve the valuable purpose of providing women with information that is relevant to them and their interests and concerns, whether about health risks, social injustice, inequality in the workplace, women in politics, or any number of topics. But they also have a lot of fluff, not to mention some articles and content which go beyond fluff, perpetuating sexist assumptions, expectations, and stereotypes. I don’t even have a real problem with most of the copious content that deals with makeup and fashion, though I think more and more these sections are just glorified examples of product placement in which I’m quite sure at least some of the products praised and highlighted have paid for the privilege. I also think this content is pretty vaccuous–the new issue of Glamour features a full page article, for example, entitled “Side Parts are Sexier” and another called “I Want Bling on My Bag”. But what I hate most are the blatantly sexist articles–like those that instructing women how to get and keep a man (“21 Ways to Turn Him On”, etc., etc.), as if this were the be-all-end-all of a woman’s very existence. These also sometimes take the insidious form of content that purports female empowerment, like fashion spreads that claim to feature more than just size 2s by throwing in a few token size 4 models. To tell the truth, even content that on its own might have passed muster as empowering or non-essentializing toward women feels less so when placed side by side with much of the less empowering content I’ve just discussed. For instance, the same recent issue of Glamour (December 2008) features a cover story about  2008’s Women of the Year, featuring the likes of Hillary Clinton, Jane Goodall and Kara Walker. It also includes an article about British soul singer, Adele, entitled “I Don’t Care About Being a Size 2″ in which the singer gives such body confidence advice as “quit trying to be perfect” and “love your body as is”. Yet, wedged between content like “Get to Your Great-Sex Weight” and “10 Things Every Woman Really, Really Wants for The Holidays”, not to mention the extended fashion spreads, every one of which feature  a rail-thin model, these articles seem a little hypocritical or disingenuous somehow.  I somehow doubt Jane Goodall got to be a Woman of the Year by putting a single ounce of energy into trying to achieve her “great-sex weight”.

Perhaps if so-called “women’s magazines” were a little less schizophrenic and hypocritical in their content, it would be easier for me to appreciate the kind of genuinely good content Weller discusses. That doesn’t mean there can’t be articles that discuss makeup or that skinny girls should never be featured in fashion spreads. It means that along with the many makeup and hair articles, maybe there could be a few more that give women the kinds of resources and inspiration they would need to become not just a pretty face, but a future face of women’s empowerment like Hillary Clinton. And maybe it would be easier to believe that women should love their bodies, size 2 or not, if high fashion spreads (and high fashion designers) were designed for all women, of all sizes, short and tall, large and small, curvy and straight, black and white, instead of relegating diverse women to special “diverse” articles like the occasional fashion spread which features all plus-sized models or Italian Vogue’s all-black issue from last year. These marginalized displays come off more like gimmicks than true diversity.

So, while I agree with Weller that we should be careful in judging a Redbook by it’s cover and take a closer look at some of the truly good articles that can appear in such magazines, I think the story is more complicated than that. If these magazines want to be taken more seriously, their empowering or groundbreaking content recognized more broadly, they need to start correcting some of the core hypocrisies represented within their pages. They can’t have their sexist cake and eat it too. By sending such mixed messages, with their content, these magazines in large part negate, or at least obscure, the power of the kinds of content Weller speaks about.