Bitchin' Times

Hey All,

I should have posted this a while ago, but I am currently blogging at the Bitch magazine website, which is why this blog has been so sorely neglected. So for now, head on over to Bitch to read my thoughts on all things feminist. Thanks!

Help Save Bitch!

This is seriously important. Spread the word!

http://bitchmagazine.org/post/bitchs-fate-is-in-your-hands

Some womanly advice. . .

Hello Feminists!

Long time no see, I know, but now I am back from my post-graduation hiatus and am ready to resume my role as feminist blogger to the stars. Hooray!

I was thinking it might be fun to do some sort of weekly advice column here at FWF, as a way to kick off the new academic year. Shall we say it will run on Fridays? You can send your questions to me, and then I will type up answers and post them once per week (which was implied by the title of advice column, I suppose). Here is an example of what a question/response might be, to get your mind grapes working:

Dear Fun with Feminism,

I am a heterosexual female. While I want to be a fun feminist, sometimes I find myself in situations with my guy friends wherein they are being misogynistic but I am afraid that if I speak up that they will call me a horrible bitch, therefore reinforcing the stereotypes that plague us feminists in the first place. What should I do? Should I laugh along with their anti-women jokes, or should I take a stand?

Sincerely,

Not Laughing

Dear Not Laughing,

Your situation is not uncommon. All of us who have chosen to fly the feminist flag are plagued from time to time with the dilemma of just where to draw the line when it comes to our feminist politics. While each situation is different, I say in your case it is better if you do take a stand. For the most part, these guys you are hanging with probably have no idea they are offending you (and women everywhere). That is one of the most problematic things about sexism, most people don't even notice it! If you let them know their comments are unappreciated by women everywhere, they will probably thank you for it later. Plus, by laughing along with their jokes, you are nonverbally telling them that their misogyny is just fine by you, which it isn't.

Of course, there is the possibility that these guys will be embarrassed by your calling them out, and will attack you by saying you’re a bitch (or a manhater, or a dyke, or whatever else they can think of to feel less threatened). While no one likes to be called names, we can’t let that fear keep us from standing up for ourselves, and for one another. You are a woman and you should feel nothing but pride in that fact, no matter what your friends say. Go feminists!

Sincerely,

Fun with Feminism

So that is just an example, and I am sure all of your lovely brains can come up with questions that are infinitely more interesting. So do it! Send your questions/comments to Fun with Feminism and let the great experiment begin!

If you love something, write it on your ass.

I read about these True Love Waits sweatpants in an article by Amelie Gillette, and when I heard about them again on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! I figured I should post them here, as well. These sweats are all over the internet! Here is a picture:



The pants are available exclusively at KMart, in what I would assume is a partnership with True Love Waits, the religious group that encourages teens to commit to remaining abstinent until marriage. Of course, the best way to do that is to let everyone know you are waiting until marriage by writing it across your ass in block letters.

I don't care if people want to wait until marriage to have sex. What bothers me about this whole thing is the commodification of the ideology, and the fact that a nationwide chain store seems to have no problem printing a religious message on sweatpants. What does this have to say about a woman's body? (I am assuming women will wear the sweats, although I suppose they are technically unisex). In my opinion, manufacturing a conservative religious message for young women to wear stamped across their asses is taking the notion of the body politic to a whole new level. What's next?

I Now Pronounce You Man and... I Forget the Rest.

Last night's episode of The Colbert Report featured Philip Weiss, author of the New York Magazine article "The Affairs of Men". According to Weiss, he identifies, as a man, with politicians like Eliot Spitzer who seek sex outside of their long-term marriage, and he thinks that marriage norms should be examined more closely in our society.

My issue with Weiss is not what he has to say about American morality when it comes to marriage. In fact, I thought he had a lot of great insights about his generation, and the fact that they did away with many of the taboos surrounding premarital or homosexual sex, yet they will not apply that same sense of sexual revolution to monogamous marriages. Although it's hard for me to say because I am not married myself, it seems like he is probably right that we as a country should be more open-minded when it comes to sex and marriage.

Where I had a problem with this article lies (surprise!) in its misogyny. Much like medications prior to the mid-1970s were tested only on men and then said to be safe for everyone, Wiess is claiming that "Americans" need to change their attitudes, but then he examines only the behaviors of men. What about the women in these marriages? Where is their agency? Weiss claims throughout his interview with Colbert that he is talking about married couples, but he is in fact only speaking of married men and their actions. Women have sex drives too! Women are in marriages too! When are we going to rectify the sexism present in marriage and start reflecting upon the experiences of both husbands and wives?

Take a look at the video and tell me what you think:

Some Ecards: For every occasion!

This ecard web site has been making me laugh pretty hard. Here are a couple of cards for you to send out on various feminist occasions:

A thank you to some helpful friends:



A professor who isn't quite getting the job done:



A review of a recent movie that wasn't exactly feminist:



A message to a new date:



The possibilities are endless! Thank you, Internet!

Sex and the City: The Blogpost

As a feminist who also loves television, I am constantly caught in a love-hate relationship with Sex and the City. On the one hand, it is a show that celebrates female friendships, sexuality, and independence, even if this celebration takes place in a decidedly unrealistic, television-like manner. On the other hand, it is a show that promotes consumerism, oppressive standards of beauty, and the quest for male attention at all costs. I don't think I would mind, except that SATC (as the journalists call it) is often held up as a third-wave or post-feminist masterpiece or at least debated as such. The reason for this, I think, is that there are so few shows marketed to women that actually portray contemporary female characters (especially ones who are not supernatural in any way) that SATC is just about all we women have in terms of "feminist" programming.

At any rate, I lined up last week with hundreds of other women to see a midnight screening of Sex and the City: The Movie. I am not going to review the movie here, as that has already been done in myriad places throughout the information superhighway, including this review by AV Club blogger Genevieve Koski. Suffice it to say, the movie met my expectations and I thought it was pretty much just like watching the television show, except with fancier outfits (and free popcorn!).

I wasn't going to post anything on this blog about the movie at all, since there is hype about it all over the place, but the experience of seeing it in the theater has been in my mind for the past several days. Never before have I been to such a large-scale event that was basically just for women. There were women and girls everywhere I looked, most of them dressed in their best approximations of SATC finery. As much as I felt a bit disgusted by some of the pseudo-feminism espoused by the show and its viewers, I also found myself getting swept away in a wave of girly excitement. We as women don't get very many media events, after all. SATC is the only recent movie I can think of with a practically all-woman cast, whereas I can think of several summer blockbusters that feature only men. What does this say about women? Where can we locate ourselves in this hot pink media blitz?

Unlike Carrie Bradshaw, I don't have a quick and clever answer to those questions. As a feminist, I want to watch Sex and the City because of its emphasis on the female, even if that emphasis is narrow and male-centric. As a television viewer, I want to watch Sex and the City because of the racy sex scenes and better-than-life wardrobes. It is my hope that the merging of these two parts of myself, which came together to watch SATC:TM, does not compromise my feminist ideology or my identity as a woman.

If I have learned anything about myself as a feminist up to this point, it is that being a feminist is confusing and full of contradictions. Is it wrong that, while part of me was appalled at the antics of the women in the movie theater last week, with their high heels and their highlights and their giggling, at the same time another part of me was loving every minute of it? I don't think so. I hope that we can all, as feminists, retain our ability to think critically while at the same time enjoying ourselves and our ability to celebrate in a room full of other women, even if the things we are celebrating are far from perfect.