Non-Feminist Lit 101

What does everyone think of "chick-lit?"

My general impression is that these books focus on white women balancing well-paying careers with their love lives.  I'm not sure because though I've occasionally picked up a book and read the back cover, vaguely attracted because I recognized a subject-matter similarity to Sex And The City, I've always put the book back down because it seemed kind of "ditzy."  The thing is, these are women who have benefited from the perks of feminism, but none of whom would acknowledge being feminists, not if that terms means standing up for or against something against the cultural norm.

But focus on my "ditzy" call.  Is that fair?  Why should women who enjoy the perks of femininity and the fruits of feminism be labeled?  Aren't they just living their (fictional) lives the best way they know how?  It goes back to feminism.  I want to ask, how can you be so oblivious about the movement that has given you (it must be acknowledged as such, I think) so much freedom?  How can you afford to be so self-centered and utterly oblivious?  (So I've found more accurate labels than "ditzy"...the mere fact that I would use this put-down generally reserved for women, though, to describe something that doesn't appeal to me, speaks to how culture rubs off on us all when we're not careful and, perhaps, how social norms are in us all and bubble out when we're not reflective.)  And, truthfully, though I thought the TV series was great, the criticisms I have of the heroines of "chick-lit" probably also apply to those of Sex And The City.  Heck, Sex And The City was "chick-lit" before it became a TV series.

The thing is, guys like Nick Hornby write about the same thing as it pertains to men, but I don't hear "dick-lit" used to describe his novels.  As a point in fact, it seems that "chick-lit" is a cottage industry while "dick-lit," which is an actual category too, is its ugly, hardly recognized counterpart, basically for the reason that not much of anything readable by general standards is classified in that category. 

So basically, I have two problems, one, how no chick-lit heroines are feminists (I didn't know how to check on this though, other than actually reading it all, so maybe my entire post is riding on bad evidence) and, two, how stuff concerning women's lives, as they are, however they are, is labeled in a sub-category, while similar stuff for guys (I'm depending a lot on the Hornby example here) is recognized with critical plaudits.  I don't care if I think "chick-lit" is just as vapid as Hornby.  It's as vapid as Hornby who gets by with no odious categorizations, that's the main point!

And no self-respecting feminist would say, well, "chick-lit" is empowering.  I mean, where do you go if as a movement all the individuals are focused on their narrow lives and have no values respecting something bigger than themselves?  I know working lives and finding love are real feminist concerns.  I just don't think "chick-lit" addresses those concerns in anything but a superficial manner.  So my position is slightly paradoxical.  I'm defending something and demanding "equal" treatment at the same time as I acknowledge what I'm defending isn't worth all that much.  But I have to say it's worth something, comparatively at least, to say it's worthy of equal treatment.  So one position elevates while the other lowers.

To those who says it's all just fun, I would say, point taken respecting the ultimate value factor, though I would say if all your fun is in the same vein, it's going to influence your "serious" side, and a division between "fun" and "serious" sides is not always workable.  For those who think arguing for equal treatment of hamburger fiction is vapid, I would say, it's these little cultural battles that form the fabric of our existence.

How do you raise a feminist?

How do you raise a feminist?

In this blog post I have decided to write something about myself as a person. Therefore it is not so much “legal”, but still “feminist”.

When Professor Pruitt asked us on the first day of class if we were feminists, I was not taken by surprise. I have thought about it before, and have come to the conclusion that I am. (One of the things that made me think about it was actually a statement by the former Swedish Prime Minister Göran Persson that he was a feminist, which I thought was pretty cool). But I have never thought about why I do consider myself a feminist. My response to Professor Pruitt on the first day of class was that, that it is just the way I was brought up. And after thinking about it for a while I am definitely sticking to my initial answer, because my conclusion after thinking about in the last month is, that it was in fact the way I was brought up. But how do you raise a feminist?

When I was growing up my sister and I would sometimes ask my father if he was sorry that he did not have any sons. And his response was always, that he was glad that he only had daughters. I don’t know if he was telling the truth or he just said it to make us happy. But I am pretty sure he actually meant it, because he is not really into “traditional” male activities like sports.

When I was younger my father always used to say, that when I grew up I would become the Prime Minister of Denmark, because I was so smart. I never had any aspirations to a political career though, but I think that what my father essentially told me was that I could do exactly what I wanted with my life, even hold the highest position in Danish society (besides from that of regent, but that is a pretty unrealistic career goal), regardless of the fact that I was girl.

My mother has worked outside the home my entire life. She is a kindergarten teacher. During the first five years of my life my father was still studying at university. My mom therefore worked full time, while my father stayed home more often, because studying allowed him to do so and to take care of me and my sister (in Denmark attendance in class at universities is not mandatory). So therefore my father did a good deal of the nurturing in my early life.

I was also raised as a feminist in a more direct way, because my mother, I am sure, would definitely also characterize herself as a feminist. She was educated as a kindergarten teacher in a period (the early 80’s) where feminist issues were very much discussed in her field of work and in the milieu surrounding that profession. So she has directly influenced me when it comes to opinions about feminism. It has just always been in her way at looking at the world.

When I was a baby I had both traditional girls toys and boys toys (even though I would never play with the boys toys except in a “girly way”). And my mother was opposed to dressing us in traditional girl colours such as pink and clothes that was typically feminine like lacy dresses. She always used to say, and still says, “there are no girl colours or boy colours”.

Furthermore my mother did not take my father’s last name when they got married and she insisted that we (my sister and I) should have her last name. In return my father chose our first names.

What I have described above are of course only a couple of the reasons why I today consider myself a feminist, and there are obviously also other reasons, such as experiences I have had in the latest years when it comes to the legal profession. But what the examples above are meant to say is that I have been taught to regard myself as in no (significant) way different from men or boys pretty much since I was born. And I think that is, partly, what has made me a feminist.

"Ultimate Outsourcing"

NBC morning show ran a segment called, "Ultimate Outsourcing: Wombs for Rent in India." It features a white San Diego couple, unable to conceive, who pays a woman in Indian to be a surrogate after finding her on a website. There has been a lot of discussion popularly and academically about transnational adoption, and some of it centers around (fairly offensive) fixed ideas of race and culture where commentators worry that the adopted child will lose his/her "real" culture/race. So much better than to avoid that quandary and jump right to having women in the third world literally produce America's biological children. It's the perfect meeting of postcolonialism (a new twist on the 'raw materials' to 'finished product' relationship of mercantilism), reproductive politics (increased government regulation of women's bodies), racism (no explanation needed), and bio-essentialism (or perhaps more appropriately bio-obsesssion--this couple sold their house to afford a child that looked like them).

Here's the link:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23252624/

Dowd: A Flawed Feminist Test

Here's the latest from Maureen Dowd on Hillary. I think she's spot on with several of her points, including her statement that many women empathize with Hillary, "knowing that any woman in a world dominated by men has to walk a tightrope between femininity and masculinity, strength and vulnerability." Just what we were talking about in class yesterday.

Dowd goes on to suggest that if Hillary loses, it is not necessarily because we're not ready for a woman president:

But Hillary is not the best test case for women. We’ll never know how much of the backlash is because she’s a woman or because she’s this woman or because of the ick factor of returning to the old Clinton dysfunction.

I'm not so sure about Dowd's less-tentative conclusion: "If Hillary fails, it will be her failure, not ours." The "ours" refers to women's -- or perhaps more broadly to our society's inability to accept a female leader. All the subtle and not-so-subtle misogyny on display on so many fronts during this campaign makes it impossible to excise "gender" from any assessment of the outcome.

segregrating busses a good thing for women?

I thought this NY times article was interesting.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/11/world/americas/11mexico.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin
Read the different reactions of men to the "women only" busses in Mexico City. It seems that some take the harrasment experienced by women quite lightly and ascribe it to a cultural idiosyncracy. But can this form of machismo --that is, touching and gawking at women--be culturally acceptable if only men partake and women are put in a place of fear?

60 Minutes has pushed me over the edge

I have never blogged about anything before. I don't think I've ever written an angry letter to a newspaper or done much other than complain (lately more than usual) to friends about the problems we're facing in this country. I have stomached the growing anti-intellecualism and continuing shift to the right, and have simply gone about my business, giving to liberal causes, and working at the grassroots level. And I've taken heart in the fact that finally the Democrats have a deep bench, but, this election season has exposed some very ugly truths about the way that our society views women, particularly women in politics. Still, to this point I have kept my ranting to myself. When 60 Minutes, though, starts buying into and perpetuating the gendered and dare I say misogynistic nonsense that's gone on during this campaign, I find that I'm so beside myself that I must share and solicit your thoughts.

Now, the title of this, my very first (and possibly last) blog, is "60 Minutes has pushed me over the edge" and I say that because I have always believed that 60 Minutes was the last hope we had for an in-depth news program minus the Stone-Phillipsizing drama that is now so pervasive on all of our news programs. But, tonight I saw on 60 Minutes the most offensive and gendered set of interviews with Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama that I have seen yet-- and that is saying something in light of the Chris Matthews debacle circa the Iowa caucus (you can see one video here and another here, but there are plenty of great articles out there like Rebecca Traister's in Salon), the violent and offensive anti-Clinton nonsense on the internet (which was aptly described by Kathleen Hall Jamieson on Bill Moyers), and the odd "iron my shirt" comments that Clinton has been hearing on the campaign trail. I'm not even going to touch the "pimping Chelsea" thing.

Take a look and see what you think. But here's what I saw:

Obama interviewed by Steve Croft who asked inane questions about Obama seeming to have endless energy even though he sleeps only 4 hours every night, about Obama gaining momentum, about Obama playing basketball, and about Obama's success on Super Duper Tuesday. Now, granted, there were a few no-follow-up softballs lobbed about Obama getting a pass from the media, about him being light on experience, and about his light-on-details stump speaches. There was, however, no pressing; this was just a check-up on our pal Obama.

Then Clinton was interviewed by Katie "There's a war going on?" Couric, who pressed Clinton about bizarre and non-substantive issues, e.g., "What's your nutritional regime on the campaign trail?", "Were you the girl in front of your class with your hand up; didn't the boys call you 'frigidaire?", and (this was my favorite because KC asked it more than once) "What are you going to do if you lose?"-- I can only assume that the correct answer is cry or seek out Ben & Jerry, but I digress.

I don't think that the stupidity of the KC interview was the result of a bias towards one candidate, rather I'd submit that it was the result of some seriously gender-biased assumptions on the part of 60 Minutes and KC herself. But, if 60 Minutes has gone the way of MSNBC (see references to Chris Matthewes above) and Fox (I don't think I need to say anything), then we're all really in trouble, so I'm hoping that some of you fellow feminists can add something to this discussion because I'm at a loss.