Ain't I A Woman?

"I love my abs so much that I protect them with a layer of fat." - my sister (who is actually in pretty good shape)


I started reading a master's thesis written by the owner of Feminist Frequency, a website that focuses on feminism and pop culture, and something confused me a bit.


Quote:

"Heroic women in science fiction and fantasy television shows have done much to represent strong, successful women in leadership positions. However, these female roles that are viewed as strong and empowered embody many masculine identified traits, maintaining a patriarchal division of gender roles."

If the women are embodying "masculine" traits, doesn't there's less of a division of gender roles? I don't want to sound critical of this particular thesis, because this is something I've seen in a lot of places, and this just happened to phrase it most clearly.


If we don't want strong, successful women in leadership positions having "masculine" traits...what exactly do we want? Isn't the whole point to make those traits less "masculine" and more "characteristic of strong and successful people"?


The thesis actually looks really interesting (and it focuses on women in sci-fi/fantasy shows, so it may as well have been written just for me), and it's entirely possible she means that opening paragraph differently than how I'm interpreting it.


She seems to be writing about how traditionally "female" things need to be portrayed as equally important  as "masculine" things in media, which is all well and good, but nowhere does it talk about how it's kind of detrimental to everyone to label things in that way in the first place.


If I want to be assertive and confident and physically strong...I just want to be an assertive and confident and physically strong woman (and I don't want debate judges getting mad at my opponents when they're too aggressive towards me--which some guys on our team say is sometimes a legitimate issue). Not a woman who has decided to act like a man. Done.

Imagine...

There is no quote today. There is only the existence of Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart, who make me smile.

I just started reading a book by Peggy Orenstein (author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, which I read last year) called Schoolgirls, and before page 1 even begins (there's about 20 roman numerals' worth), she tells a story about a teacher who gave her 6th grade students an interesting exercise:

Imagine you were born as a member of the opposite sex. What is different?

So obviously, I grabbed my journal and immediately started a list.

If I Were A Boy:

• My mother would never have made me wear dresses when I was little (which I passionately despised at the time, although I don't anymore).
• I'd probably have had to mow the lawn at some point in my life, but I'm sure I'd still have to do all of the same chores I do now as well.
• Better relationship with my male cousins who live close by
• Different friends, and different relationships with those who would remain the same
• Less worry in general from all sides about dating (also, probably later curfews)
• Less comfortable acting in different roles. When I was little, there was never anyone or anything I couldn't pretend to be. And I feel that while in my immediate family it would have been the same is I were a guy, it isn't nearly as accepted everywhere else.

But that seems like a pretty good list, compared to what the kids in the book came up with. Most of it seems kind of "well, duh." Most of the stuff in the book was about make up or hair or sports.

The odd thing, though, is that the author then asks what's "lucky" about being a girl, and the girls she talked to didn't have an answer. I'm not going to go into it here, but I think there are plenty of things. Less obvious than the advantages of being a boy, maybe, but they're there.

Tournament Part 2

"The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware, joyously, drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware." - Henry Miller


First, just because you've been hanging around teenage boys all day doesn't meant you have the right to act like one.


Second, just because you're a teenage boy doesn't mean you have the right to be a sexist, objectifying, and completely inappropriate jerk. I should not be able to phrase the "first" like I did just now and still have all of you know exactly what I mean. /end rant


Third, a tournament anecdote:


I was up against first-timers for my first three rounds of debate, all of whom had written their cases the day before. Person 2 told me right before we walked in that her favorite show was Doctor Who, which made me immensely guilty about beating her.


The fourth guy, however, I knew absolutely nothing about.


I walked into the room, and my opponent stood up and asked, "Are you Olivia Wood?"
"Um...yes?"
"I heard your constructives are terrifying."


The judge just laughed and said "Your reputation precedes you."


We got started, and he actually knew what he was doing, which made it lots of fun. Afterwards, we shook hands and he said "You know, your constructive really was terrifying. I was just going 'oh God, I'm about to get my ass handed to me.'" So that was exciting.


End results: a beautiful 1st place trophy for me, 5th place in the same event to someone else on the team, 3rd and 6th in two of the speech events, and a ton of honorable mentions (3/4 wins, but not enough points to place) for various different debaters.


Then my car got confused on the way to Panera Bread for dinner, so we ended up eating at a different Panera than everyone else, which was sad. :(

The Feminism Post

"Mystery makes the heart go bonkers." - Craig Benzine, aka Wheezy Waiter (This quote, while seemingly only humorous, is actually supported by several studies.)

In my last post, I linked to something Aly wrote about feminism, but stated that I didn't have anything to add. Kenny expressed disappointment that the post was about something else, and I replied saying that I should have said I didn't have anything to add at the present time.

Well, now I do.

I was behind on watching YouTube videos, so this afternoon I've been catching up on them. Most of these videos were TED talks.

Now, the majority of the videos I watch have a viewership that is on the whole intelligent, conscientious, and positive. When it comes to TED videos, however, I am literally scared to comment because I know the Giant Squids of Anger will descend and attempt to pick me to pieces, and I just don't feel like dealing with that. It is those sorts of comments I will be dealing with in this post.

The video I was watching before I stopped to write this was "Jacqueline Novogratz: Inspiring a life of immersion," which is about immersing yourself in a cause (such as global poverty) and working great positive change. 

Here are the top voted comments:

"Every woman that talks at TED keeps talking about "Women this, women that".  Inequality was truly real 20-30 years ago. It's been diminishing and it will be gone within the next 10 years as the generations change."

"men and women are not equal. we never will be. that's how nature works. "

And those are actually very tame, considering they're at the top. Just check the comments of any other TED video with a female speaker.

Here are some from the "most recent" list: 

"I'm so cool, bla bla women bla bla women bla bla"

"Notre Dame, the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Statue of Liberty, Big Ben, Taj Mahal

Law, Equality, Freedom

Napoleon, Julius Ceasar, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne

Men have done more than woman did, as napoleon puts it:

Women are nothing but machines for producing children."

So women should shut up and stop complaining because we're equal to men now, but we're also inherently inferior. That makes a lot of sense, doesn't it?

Also, the last line of the final quote translates pretty well to "women are objects for me to have sex with." Yes, feminism is definitely out-dated in 21st Century America, much less in the rest of the world.


Aly's post dealt mainly with eliminating stereotypes surrounding women. This is more about social vs. political equality.


On paper, American (because I'm unfamiliar with other countries--sorry foreign people. Please leave a comment and tell me about your country) women are pretty much equal to men. We have full legal and economic rights. Everything's good. 


But social equality is an entirely different story. One needs only read the comments of a TEDWoman video to see that there is plenty of prejudice against both any woman and any woman who chooses to point out these inequalities. As I said: I don't leave comments on those videos anymore.


The women changed the political rules, but it's falls more (read: "not entirely, but more than political rules") to men like these to change the social issues. It's their attitudes that are the problem, and if they shoot down any woman who tries to reason with them, it's rather difficult for us to make any progress.


"You play like a girl," is still a common insult, isn't it? I recommend that you watch this video, although I think I've already posted it on here.


The majority of men, of course, would never write the kinds of comments I've shared with you. This post isn't about how men are evil. This post is about how there's still room for growth.


Also: of course they're going to talk about women at a conference specifically for women.