Misogyny Spotlight

Living in a Misogynist World

2012-02-06T15:53:00.000-08:00

Response to Madonna's Half-time Show was Ageist
Liz W. Garcia
Forbes
2/6/2012

The talk in the press today, the day after the Superbowl, is all about musician MIA giving the middle finger to America during the half-time performance. But the talk DURING the halftime performance was all about Madonna being old, a trend I find disturbing and lame given that on any other year, it’d be Tom Petty or Garth Brooks, or a middle-aged male musician whose appearance would not elicit ageist remarks.

But in spite of the fact that Madonna is 53-years-old and lept from a kneeling position to standing, over and over whilst wearing spike heels (go ahead, try it, and when you’re done icing your knees, read on) and keeping pace with her twenti-something backup dancers, the focus was on her age.

‘Least it was, overwhelmingly, on my social media feeds. And no, I’m not just friends with jerks. During her performance, I logged in Twitter to find at least a dozen varieties of the same joke, that went something like “Nice halftime show (insert name of old person here.)” Comedians I admire had their turns at her: Steve Martin said Maggie Smith. Michael Ian Black said Joan Rivers. Friends of mine mentioned “grandmother” and “melting skin.”

So, while the facts –i.e. the performance that, according to Deadline Hollywood, 48.1 million eyes beheld — suggest that Madonna is quite vital, the jokes suggest that people watch her and they found her laughably old. What’s so funny about a 53-year-old woman performing the half-time show? Tom Petty was 57 and Bruce Springsteen was 59 when they did their respective halftime shows. Must be the ‘woman’ part of the equation, huh?

We live in a world where Fox makes an “amusing” commercial from clips of 63-year old musician Steven Tyler flirting with American Idol contestants, who, because of the contest’s age restriction, we can deduce are younger than 30. In one, after a particularly spirited and sexy audition, he says ‘You must be crazy… (falters, catches himself) on the dance floor.’ Oh yeah, real hilarious. After you’ve read this article on Jezebel about his history with underage women, you’ll laugh ’til you cry.

And it’s a world where we cut down an uber-successful female entertainer because she dares to entertain at the age of 53. It’s a world where every darn TV pilot season, I read the same words “our female lead, (Name), age 28.” Twenty-eight. Were you solving crime, busting terrorists or performing heart surgery at 28? I sure wasn’t. But women on TV have to be young. Women romancing our leading men in the movies have to be young. When I read about Clint Eastwood’s latest film starring himself and Amy Adams, I half-expected she’d be playing his wife (well, he DOES have a thing for redheads).

What does any of this matter, apart from the icky burst of mean spiritedness? It matters because your wives and daughters and sisters and mothers are gonna get older, too, y’all, and they’ll take those kind of cracks seriously. It matters because this ageist mentality translates to the images we send out into the wide world in TV and film, and where we disproportionately prioritize youth we send the message to our young women that they are relevant only briefly and superficially, like shooting stars. Or like pop stars.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/lizgarcia/2012/02/06/response-to-madonnas-half-time-show-was-ageist/

(Thank you, Liz W. Garcia!)

Trailer Voice-Over Work Scarce for Women

2012-01-29T10:56:00.000-08:00

Melissa Disney did the voice-over for the trailer for “Gone in 60 Seconds,” starring Angelina Jolie and Nicolas Cage. Women “have so much more to pull from than your typical male action voice,” Ms. Disney said.

January 27, 2012
"Why Men Always Tell You to See Movies"
By Andy Isaacson

The New York Times

(Excerpt)

"Do moviegoers want to hear female voices?

Research indicates that our brains are wired to prefer theirs to male ones; that’s the reason robotic voices, like those in GPS devices, tend to be female. (This probably has an evolutionary explanation: fetuses in the womb, identifying with their caretaker, can distinguish their mother’s voice from others, a study published in the journal Psychological Science found.)

When it comes to credibility, however, research into the perceived believability of a voice — an important quality for the omniscient narrator of a trailer, as well as the spokesman or woman for any product, which is the function a trailer serves — tells a different story.

On average both males and females trust male voices more,” said Clifford Nass, a professor of communications at Stanford, noting some gender disparity exists in that women don’t distrust female voices as much as men distrust them.

In one study conducted at Stanford two versions of the same video of a woman were presented to subjects: one had the low frequencies of the woman’s voice increased and the high frequencies reduced, the other vice versa. Consistently subjects perceived the deep voice to be smarter, more authoritative and more trustworthy."

(Full Article)

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/29/movies/trailer-voice-over-work-scarce-for-women.html

Respect the Breast

2012-01-15T11:07:00.000-08:00

Israelis Facing a Seismic Rift Over Role of Women

2012-01-15T10:57:00.000-08:00

The New York Times
By Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner
Published: January 15, 2012

JERUSALEM — In the three months since the Israeli Health Ministry awarded a prize to a pediatrics professor for her book on hereditary diseases common to Jews, her experience at the awards ceremony has become a rallying cry.

The professor, Channa Maayan, knew that the acting health minister, who is ultra-Orthodox, and other religious people would be in attendance. So she wore a long-sleeve top and a long skirt. But that was hardly enough.

Not only did Dr. Maayan and her husband have to sit separately, as men and women were segregated at the event, but she was instructed that a male colleague would have to accept the award for her because women were not permitted on stage.

Though shocked that this was happening at a government ceremony, Dr. Maayan bit her tongue. But others have not, and her story is entering the pantheon of secular anger building as a battle rages in Israel for control of the public space between the strictly religious and everyone else.

At a time when there is no progress on the Palestinian dispute, Israelis are turning inward and discovering that an issue they had neglected — the place of the ultra-Orthodox Jews — has erupted into a crisis.

And it is centered on women.

(Link to Article)
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/world/middleeast/israel-faces-crisis-over-role-of-ultra-orthodox-in-society.html

Saudi Woman Beheaded for 'Witchcraft and Sorcery'

2011-12-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

Saudi woman beheaded for 'witchcraft and sorcery'

By Mohammed Jamjoom and Saad Abedine, CNN
December 14, 2011

A woman was beheaded in Saudi Arabia for practicing witchcraft and sorcery, the kingdom's Interior Ministry said, prompting Amnesty International to call for a halt in executions there.

Amina bint Abdel Halim Nassar was executed Monday for having "committed the practice of witchcraft and sorcery," according to an Interior Ministry statement.

Nassar was investigated before her arrest and was "convicted of what she was accused of based on the law," the statement said. Her beheading took place in the Qariyat province of the region of Al-Jawf, the ministry said.

In a statement issued late Monday, the human rights group called the execution "deeply shocking" and said it "highlights the urgent need for a halt in executions in Saudi Arabia."

"While we don't know the details of the acts which the authorities accused Amina of committing, the charge of sorcery has often been used in Saudi Arabia to punish people, generally after unfair trials, for exercising their right to freedom of speech or religion," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's interim director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme.

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy, practices a puritanical version of Islam and is governed by Shariah, or Islamic law. In the deeply conservative kingdom, sorcery, witchcraft and blasphemy are all offenses that can be punishable by death.

The London-based Saudi newspaper Al-Hayat quoted a source in the country's religious police who said authorities searched Nassar's home and found books on sorcery, a number of talismans and glass bottles filled with liquids supposedly used for the purposes of magic. The source told the paper Nassar was selling spells and bottles of the liquid potions for about $400 dollars each.

CNN could not reach Saudi Arabia's religious police or Justice Ministry for comment. Amnesty says Nassar's execution is "the second of its kind in recent months. In September, a Sudanese national was beheaded in the Saudi Arabian city of Medina after being convicted on 'sorcery' charges." The human rights group said the number of executions in Saudi Arabia has almost tripled in 2011. "So far at least 79 people -- including five women -- have been executed there, compared to at least 27 in 2010," the Amnesty statement said.

This is not the first sorcery case in Saudi Arabia to spark outrage from human rights groups. In 2008, Lebanese TV host Ali Hussain Sibat was arrested on charges of sorcery while in Saudi Arabia on a religious pilgrimage. In 2009, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. While Sibat has not been executed, he remains in prison.

Saudi Arabia's judicial system also made headlines this month for the sentence imposed on Australian national Mansor Almaribe, who was convicted of blasphemy while performing the Hajj in the kingdom, and sentenced to 500 lashes and a year in prison. The Australian government is pleading Almaribe's case.

Gendercide: India's Disappearing Daughters

2011-12-14T08:29:00.000-08:00

video platform video management video solutions video player

Disappearing Daughters: Women Pregnant With Girls Pressured Into Abortions
By ALAN B. GOLDBERG and SEAN DOOLEY
Dec. 9, 2011

It is a country with a female president and where men revere female goddesses. And yet, India is far from a haven for women.

According to current estimates, Indian men outnumber women by nearly 40 million. That startling gender gap, activists say, is the result of gendercide. Nearly 50,000 female fetuses are aborted every month and untold numbers of baby girls are abandoned or murdered.

"It's the obliteration of a whole class, race, of human beings. It's half the population of India," said women's rights activist Ruchira Gupta of Apne Aap Women Worldwide.

Why is there such deadly discrimination against girls? Part of the answer is money. Girls are a financial burden to their parents, who must pay expensive dowries to marry them off. The dowry is a cultural tradition and the single biggest reason Indians prefer boys.

When an Indian woman gives birth to a baby boy, it is an occasion for jubilation, said women's rights activist Gita Aravamudan, author of the book, "Disappearing Daughters." A boy's birth is greeted "with great joy because he's going to bring in the moolah," Aravamudan said. "He's going to be the person who gets married to a girl who's bringing in the money."

The reaction can be far different when a baby girl is born, especially when a family has more than one daughter and must face a future of having to pay more than one dowry. "Amounts of dowry have become higher and higher, and families can get into huge debt bondage just to be able to pay the dowry to get a daughter married," Gupta said. If a woman's family fails to pay a dowry, she might be beaten, tortured or even burned to death.

"We put very little value to girls and to women," Gupta said. "So they're always in danger from birth to death." The high rate of female fetus abortions can be traced partly to the proliferation of clinics offering ultrasounds. It is a crime in India to use an ultrasound to determine the sex of a child and it is also illegal to perform an abortion based on gender, but the laws are rarely enforced.

RESOURCES: How to help girls and women in India.

Aravamudan said that the Indian issue of gendercide is unrelated to the American debate on abortion. "This is not about pro-life or pro-choice," Aravamudan said. "This is about pro-women, anti-women. I'm not against abortion. This is a crime against women and I am against that."

Last July, in a effort to expose doctors breaking the laws, two activists with a hidden camera, posing as a husband and his five-months-pregnant wife, walked into an ultrasound clinic to hear their test results. The doctor didn't mince words, immediately breaking the law to tell the couple the gender of the fetus.

"It is not a good report as it is a girl child," he said. He recommended the fetus be aborted and offered the woman an illegal injection to induce a miscarriage for 60,000 to 70,000 rupees -- between $1,100 and $1,300. After activists submitted the sting video to authorities, the clinic was shut down, the equipment was sealed and two doctors there face possible charges. But stings like that one rarely lead to convictions.

"The very people who have to implement the law -- the police and the judiciary -- also believe that having too many girls is a burden on the family," Gupta said. "They never implement the laws because they believe in the same thing, and sometimes actually do the same thing."

In an interview with "20/20" this summer, India's then-secretary of health and family welfare, Dr. K. Chandramaouli, admitted that more needs to be done to enforce the laws intended to prevent gendercide. "Probably, we've not been aggressive enough," Chandramaouli said. Those seeking to maintain the status quo, meanwhile, have been aggressive.

Mitu Khurana, 34, a pediatrician and a mother trying to fight the system, said she's faced death threats for the lawsuit she has filed against her husband and her husband's family. Khurana said her parents-in-law tricked her into eating a cake made with eggs, knowing that she was allergic to eggs. She had to go to the emergency room and at the hospital, where, Khurana said, an ultrasound determined that she was pregnant with twin girls. (Watch an interview with Mitu Khurana here.)

Khurana claims, to ensure she miscarried, her husband and his family tortured her and deprived her of food, until she fled to her parents to give birth. When one of her daughters was 4 months old, Khurana said, her mother-in-law threw the baby down a staircase.

When ABC News reached Dr. Khurana's husband, he denied her claims but refused to provide any further comment. Khurana's lawsuit has been ongoing for nearly four years. She said she's willing to fight as long as it takes in hopes that her daughters don't someday have to face the horrors that she did. "How do I safeguard them when they get married? If this can happen to me, it can happen to them when they grow up. And that is the reason I'm fighting it," she said.

Trafficking for Brides
It's not just pregnant women and infant girls who face the consequences of gendercide. With men outnumbering women, some families resort to the black market and human trafficking to buy brides for their sons.

Sakina was 12 years old when she says she was sold for 10,000 rupees, or $200, and moved 1,000 miles from her home to a village in the Indian state of Haryana. She has since given birth to nine children, eight of them boys. Though Sakina herself says she was the victim of human trafficking, she said she might turn to the black market to find wives for her sons.

"In Haryana, because there are no women, I will have to pay money to marry my sons. And if I have to buy a bride, I will," she said.

A Unique Home
There is hope for young girls in India. In addition to the activists fighting against gendercide, the government and charities have set up a network of orphanages called "cradle houses."

One of them is called Unique Home. The woman who founded the orphanage, Prekash Kaur, cares for 60 girls, some just days old. Some abandoned infants are found in trash cans. Others are discreetly left in a drop box at the orphanage door.

Many of the infants, Kaur said, are "half dead" when they arrive because of the drugs their mothers have taken in an attempts to abort them.

No child is turned away from Unique Home. They live in close quarters and eat, sleep and study together. Kaur is affectionately known as "mama" and calls each child there her daughter -- girls she'll raise, protect and educate. She doesn't allow adoptions for fear that girls will again fall victim to abuse and neglect.

"It is important to empower and embolden these girls to make them stronger, so one day, when they give birth to a baby girl, they will not give into the pressure to play with nature," she said. "They should understand whatever their moms did to them, they should not do to their own daughters."

Lucy Singh, 19, has lived at Unique Home since she was one day old. She attends college and wants to be a teacher. She calls Prakash Kaur her mom, her dad, her everything.

"I feel that I'm the lucky one," she said.

Women Are...

2011-12-08T18:34:00.000-08:00

"From the set of the 2011 Sundance Doc, Miss Representation, a slew of powerful women exemplify the diversity and unlimited potential of women.

Featuring: Jane Fonda, Rosario Dawson, Katie Couric, Lisa Ling, Rachel Maddow, and many more..."

http://missrepresentation.org/

The Language of Rape

2011-12-08T08:59:00.000-08:00

Are Sex Offenders and Lads’ Mags Using the Same Language?

Middlesex University Report, December 7, 2011

Far from being harmless or ironic fun, lads’ mags could be legitimizing hostile sexist attitudes, according to new research.

Psychologists from Middlesex University and the University of Surrey found that when presented with descriptions of women taken from lads’ mags, and comments about women made by convicted rapists, most people who took part in the study could not distinguish the source of the quotes.

The research due to be published in the British Journal of Psychology also revealed that most men who took part identified themselves more with the language expressed by the convicted rapists.

Psychologists presented men between the ages of 18 and 46 with a range of statements taken from magazines* and from convicted rapists, giving the men the source of the quotes in only some cases. Men identified more with the comments made by rapists than the quotes made in lads’ mags, but when told which quotes were from lads’ mags they identified more with these, despite some being incorrectly attributed and actually from rapists.

The researchers also asked a separate group of women and men aged between 19 and 30 to rank the quotes on how derogatory they were, and to try to identify the source of the quotes. Men and women rated the quotes from lads’ mags as somewhat more derogatory, but generally couldn’t categorize the quotes more accurately than if guessing.

Dr Miranda Horvath and Dr Peter Hegarty argue that lads’ mags could normalize hostile sexism, by making it seem more acceptable when its source is a popular magazine.

Dr Horvath, lead researcher from Middlesex University, said: “We were surprised that participants identified more with the rapists’ quotes, and we are concerned that the legitimization strategies that rapists deploy when they talk about women are more familiar to these young men than we had anticipated.”

Due to concerns about their content, from February this year many major supermarket chains and petrol stations in the United Kingdom agreed to place lads’ mags on the top shelf, out of the eye line of children and some have installed modesty boards to hide front cover images.

But the measures to protect children do not address the concerns born out by the findings of the research and Miranda Horvath, is concerned that lads’ magazine editors are not working hard enough to moderate the content of their magazines: "A lot of debate around the regulation of lads’ mags has been to do with how they affect children but less has been said about the influence they have on their intended audience of young men and the women with whom those men socialize."

"These magazines support the legitimization of sexist attitudes and behaviors and need to be more responsible about their portrayal of women, both in words and images. They give the appearance that sexism is acceptable and normal - when really it should be rejected and challenged. Rapists try to justify their actions, suggesting that women lead men on, or want sex even when they say no. There is clearly something wrong when people feel the sort of language used in a lads’ mag could have come from a convicted rapist.”

Dr Peter Hegarty, of the University of Surrey’s Psychology Department, added: “There is a fundamental concern that the content of such magazines normalizes the treatment of women as sexual objects. We are not killjoys or prudes who think that there should be no sexual information and media for young people. But are teenage boys and young men best prepared for fulfilling love and sex when they normalize views about women that are disturbingly close to those mirrored in the language of sexual offenders?”

He added that young men should be given credible sex education and not have to rely on lads’ mags as a source of information as they grow up.

Anna van Heeswijk, Campaigns Manager for OBJECT, a human rights campaign group which campaigns against the objectification of women, said: "This crucial and chilling piece of research lays bare the hateful messages which seep out of lads' mags and indoctrinate young men's attitudes towards women and girls. When the content of magazines aimed at teenage boys mirrors the attitudes of convicted rapists, alarm bells must ring.

“If we are serious about wanting an end to discrimination and violence against women and girls, we must tackle the associated attitudes and behaviors. This means tackling the publications which peddle them. The Leveson Inquiry is currently looking into the culture and ethics of the press. These disturbing findings unequivocally demonstrate the need for the portrayal of women to be included in the remit of this inquiry. Now is the time for action."

*The study used quotes from the four UK lad’s mags with the highest circulation: FHM, Loaded, Nuts and Zoo, published between January and March 2010. (Circulation data from the abc website) Quotes from convicted rapists from verbatim interview transcripts in the United States in the book: ‘The Rapist Files: Interviews With Convicted Rapists’ by Sussman & Bordwell

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/aboutus/news-events/news/mags.aspx

(Thanks UK friends at Misogyny Watch)
http://www.misogynywatch.com/
https://twitter.com/#!/MisogynyWatch

This is What a Feminist Looks Like

2011-11-26T12:59:00.000-08:00

Judi Bari: Earth First, Women Last

2011-11-22T21:12:00.000-08:00

Judi Bari, Earth First! activist at Headwaters Forest rally, 1996

"There is a barrier to how close I can get to a man. And that barrier is based on the fact that I have not met a man that in his very deepest gut can really see a woman as an equal.

They can say all the words they want, they can mouth all the right phrases, but when it comes down to it, every one of them resorts to the lowest kind of sexism in an argument, in a moment of anger, and that reveals to me that way deep down inside them, they don't think that women should be as pushy as I am, they don't think that women should be in the position that I am.

It's a threat to a man to be with a woman like me who is assertive, who is vocal, and who is doing things that are traditionally reserved for men."

Judi Bari, New Settler Interview, 1990

Eve Ensler: I Am Over Rape

2011-11-13T08:17:00.000-08:00

Eve Ensler, Tony award winning playwright, performer and activist
Huffington Post
11/11/11

I am over rape.
I am over rape culture, rape mentality, rape pages on Facebook.
I am over the thousands of people who signed those pages with their real names without shame.
I am over people demanding their right to rape pages, and calling it freedom of speech or justifying it as a joke.
I am over people not understanding that rape is not a joke and I am over being told I don't have a sense of humor, and women don't have a sense of humor, when most women I know (and I know a lot) are really f***** funny. We just don't think that uninvited penises up our anus, or our vagina is a laugh riot.
I am over how long it seems to take anyone to ever respond to rape.
I am over Facebook taking weeks to take down rape pages.
I am over the hundreds of thousands of women in Congo still waiting for the rapes to end and the rapists to be held accountable.
I am over the thousands of women in Bosnia, Burma, Pakistan, South Africa, Guatemala, Sierra Leone, Haiti, Afghanistan, Libya, you name a place, still waiting for justice.
I am over rape happening in broad daylight.
I am over the 207 clinics in Ecuador supported by the government that are capturing, raping, and torturing lesbians to make them straight.
I am over one in three women in the U.S military (Happy Veterans Day!) getting raped by their so-called "comrades."
I am over the forces that deny women who have been raped the right to have an abortion.
I am over the fact that after four women came forward with allegations that Herman Cain groped them and grabbed them and humiliated them, he is still running for the President of the United States.
And I'm over CNBC debate host Maria Bartiromo getting booed when she asked him about it. She was booed, not Herman Cain.
Which reminds me, I am so over the students at Penn State who protested the justice system instead of the alleged rapist pedophile of at least 8 boys, or his boss Joe Paterno, who did nothing to protect those children after knowing what was happening to them.
I am over rape victims becoming re-raped when they go public.
I am over starving Somalian women being raped at the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya, and I am over women getting raped at Occupy Wall Street and being quiet about it because they were protecting a movement which is fighting to end the pillaging and raping of the economy and the earth, as if the rape of their bodies was something separate.
I am over women still being silent about rape, because they are made to believe it's their fault or they did something to make it happen.
I am over violence against women not being a #1 international priority when one out of three women will be raped or beaten in her lifetime -- the destruction and muting and undermining of women is the destruction of life itself.
No women, no future, duh.
I am over this rape culture where the privileged with political and physical and economic might, take what and who they want, when they want it, as much as they want, any time they want it.
I am over the endless resurrection of the careers of rapists and sexual exploiters -- film directors, world leaders, corporate executives, movie stars, athletes -- while the lives of the women they violated are permanently destroyed, often forcing them to live in social and emotional exile.
I am over the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you?
You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren't you standing with us? Why aren't you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?
I am over years and years of being over rape.
And thinking about rape every day of my life since I was 5-years-old.
And getting sick from rape, and depressed from rape, and enraged by rape.
And reading my insanely crowded inbox of rape horror stories every hour of every single day.
I am over being polite about rape. It's been too long now, we have been too understanding.
We need to OCCUPYRAPE in every school, park, radio, TV station, household, office, factory, refugee camp, military base, back room, night club, alleyway, courtroom, UN office. We need people to truly try and imagine -- once and for all -- what it feels like to have your body invaded, your mind splintered, your soul shattered. We need to let our rage and our compassion connect us so we can change the paradigm of global rape.
There are approximately one billion women on the planet who have been violated.
ONE BILLION WOMEN.
The time is now. Prepare for the escalation.
Today it begins, moving toward February 14, 2013, when one billion women will rise to end rape.
Because we are over it.

Ciao, Berlusconi

2011-11-12T20:17:00.000-08:00

Italy's longstanding Prime Minister and lothario, Silvio Berlusconi, resigned today amid sex scandals.

In February, thousands of Italian women in over 200 cities took to the streets to protest his alleged affairs, the degradation of women on Italian TV (Berlusconi owns 90% of the channels), and the fact that Italian woman are far behind their European peers in equality and pay equity.

Andy Rooney on Women Over Forty

2011-11-09T22:34:00.000-08:00

Andy Rooney said:

As I grow in age, I value women who are over forty most of all. Here are just a few reasons why: A woman over forty will never wake you in the middle of the night to ask, “What are you thinking?” She doesn’t care what you think.

If a woman over forty doesn’t want to watch the game, she doesn’t sit around whining about it. She does something she wants to do. And, it’s usually something more interesting.

A woman over forty knows herself well enough to be assured in who she is, what she is, what she wants and from whom. Few women past the age of forty give a hoot what you might think about her or what she’s doing.

Women over forty are dignified. They seldom have a screaming match with you at the opera or in the middle of an expensive restaurant. Of course, if you deserve it, they won’t hesitate to shoot you, if they think they can get away with it.

Older women are generous with praise, often undeserved. They know what it’s like to be unappreciated.

A woman over forty has the self-assurance to introduce you to her women friends. A younger woman with a man will often ignore even her best friend because she doesn’t trust the guy with other women. Women over forty couldn’t care less if you’re attracted to her friends because she knows her friends won’t betray her.

Women get psychic as they age. You never have to confess your sins to a woman over forty. They always know.

A woman over forty looks good wearing bright red lipstick. This is not true of younger women. Once you get past a wrinkle or two, a woman over forty is far sexier than her younger counterpart.

Older women are forthright and honest. They’ll tell you right off if you are a jerk, if you are acting like one! You don’t ever have to wonder where you stand with her.

Yes, we praise women over forty for a multitude of reasons. Unfortunately, it’s not reciprocal. For every stunning, smart, well-coiffed hot woman of forty-plus, there is a bald, paunchy relic in yellow pants making a fool of himself with some twenty-two-year-old waitress.

Ladies, I apologize.

For all those men who say, “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free,” here’s an update for you. Now 80 percent of women are against marriage, why? Because women realize it’s not worth buying an entire pig, just to get a little sausage.

(Thank you, Mr. Rooney. Rest in Peace.)

The Independent Woman in Primetime

2011-11-06T12:27:00.001-08:00

Watch The Independent Woman Short on PBS. See more from America in Primetime.

The Independent Woman, the first episode of PBS' new series, America in Primetime, reveals how women have transformed from model housewives to complex, and sometimes controversial, characters.

The four-part series premieres Sundays, October 30-November 20, 2011, 8:00-9:00 p.m. ET on PBS.

Miss Representation Premieres on OWN TV

2011-10-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

Miss Representation Trailer

"The film explores women's under-representation in positions of power by challenging their limited and often disparaging portrayals in the media. Miss Representation takes the stand that the media is portraying women's primary values as their youth, beauty and sexuality - rather than their capacity as leaders.

The film brings together some of America's most influential women in politics, news and entertainment, including Condoleezza Rice, Nancy Pelosi, Katie Couric, Rachel Maddow, Margaret Cho, Rosario Dawson and Gloria Steinem to give audiences an inside look at the media's message and depiction of women."

Premieres Thursday, October 20th at 9/8c, only on OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network).

You can find additional information at:
www.missrepresentation.org

http://www.oprah.com/own-doc-club/Miss-Representation-Trailer

My New T-shirt by Designer, Vicki Channel

2011-10-21T11:48:00.000-07:00

NBC Cancels "The Playboy Club"

2011-10-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

October 4, 2011

NBC axed the new primetime series "The Playboy Club" due to low ratings. (Thank you, Gloria Steinem!)

Men We Love: Joseph Campbell

2011-10-15T16:46:00.000-07:00

"And when you think of this! The number of men who are in fact responsible for the condition of the world right now ... could all be contained in this room, and they are acting as though there were no way of common understanding ... the world is in chaos simply as a function of their inability to assume the middle position in a conversation."

Joseph Campbell, interviewed by E. Bourantinos
September 30, 1985

"Progressive" Portland: Casa Diablo

2011-10-03T11:45:00.000-07:00

El Diablo himself, Johnny Zukle

"My life's goal basically is to save every creature in the universe from pain and suffering."

"Progressive" Portland: Hot Bikini Brew

2011-10-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

"Stop by the corner of SE 7th and Madison and experience the coffee sensation that is sweeping Portland. Hot Bikini Brew is your one stop shop for all things coffee, espresso, smoothies and breakfast food. With baristas that are professionally trained to meet all of your coffee needs. Hot Bikini Brew is your destination every day as you head into the office or if you need a quick jolt as you are on your way out of the city. Here’s the catch: Not only will the baristas make you anything you possibly desire, but they do it while dressed in only bikinis…it’s true. Rain or shine, the ladies of Hot Bikini Brew will always be there to get your day started right."

Gloria Steinem hopes for TV boycott of "Playboy Club"

2011-08-11T14:11:00.000-07:00

"It normalizes a passive dominant idea of gender. So it normalizes prostitution and male dominance...I just know that over the years, women have called me and told me horror stories of what they experienced at the Playboy Club and at the Playboy Mansion."

By Jill Serjeant | Reuters – Tue, Aug 9, 2011 1:29 PM PDT
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Veteran women's rights campaigner Gloria Steinem said on Friday she hoped TV viewers would boycott "The Playboy Club", calling the 1960s nightclubs tacky and far from the glamorous places depicted in the show.

"Clearly 'The Playboy Club' is not going to be accurate. It was the tackiest place on earth. It was not glamorous at all," Steinem told Reuters in an interview.

Steinem, one of America's leading crusaders for women's rights for 40 years, went undercover to work as a Bunny at the New York City Playboy Club in 1963 and wrote a ground-breaking expose about the onerous conditions for women who worked there.

"When I was working there and writing the expose, one of the things they had to change because of my expose was that they required all the Bunnies, who were just waitresses, to have an internal exam and a test for venereal disease," she said.

Steinem said she regards the Emmy Award-winning drama "Mad Men", which is also set in the 1960s as "a net plus, because it shows the world of the early 1960s with some realism.

But she added; "I expect that 'The Playboy Club' will be a net minus and I hope people boycott it. It's just not telling the truth about the era."

"The Playboy Club", set in the first Playboy Club in Chicago, debuts in September as one of the centerpieces of NBC's new fall television season. Speaking to TV reporters last week in Los Angeles, network executives, producers and the show's cast all rejected opinions by critics who feel the series will glamorize the porn industry and is demeaning to modern women. NBC entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt called the show a "really fun soap opera", while executive producer Chad Hodge told TV reporters that the program was "all about empowering these women to be whatever they want to be." One NBC affiliate, in Salt Lake City, has already said it will not broadcast the show but NBC says it does not expect others to follow.

Steinem, 77, said on Friday that it was important to reject the TV series, despite the fact that it is set 40 years ago.

"It normalizes a passive dominant idea of gender. So it normalizes prostitution and male dominance...I just know that over the years, women have called me and told me horror stories of what they experienced at the Playboy Club and at the Playboy Mansion," she said.

Steinem was speaking ahead of the premiere of an HBO documentary about her life, "Gloria: In her Own Words", on Aug 15.
(Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

Misogyny Hurts Men and Boys

2011-06-27T13:53:00.000-07:00

"It's something I talk about often, that misogyny is as harmful to men and boys as it is to women and girls. The prescribed definitions of manhood are as limiting and damaging to them spiritually as the consequences are to women."

Ashley Judd, Excerpt from All That is Bitter & Sweet, A Memoir

2011-06-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

Excerpt from All That is Bitter & Sweet, A Memoir, Ashley Judd

I believe that the social construction of gender--the cultural beliefs and practices that divide the sexes and institutionalize and normalize the unequal treatment of girls and women, privilege the interests of boys and men, and, most nefariously, incessantly sexualize girls and women--is the root cause of poverty and suffering around the world.

Gender inequality is implicated in every obstacle to peace and poverty alleviation: lack of access to education, along with early and forced marriage; lack of ability to choose the number of and space the births of one's children; lack of legal rights, including exclusion from inheritance and land tenure; and lack of access to capital and political power.

Women's Rights are Human Rights

2011-06-04T18:00:00.000-07:00

Hillary Rodham Clinton

Remarks to the U.N. 4th World Conference on Women
September 5, 1995, Beijing, China

If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights, once and for all.

It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.

It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution for human greed -- and the kinds of reasons that are used to justify this practice should no longer be tolerated.

It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire, and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.

It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.

It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes by their own relatives.

It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.

It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.

Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely -- and the right to be heard.

"They really enjoyed my pain and suffering. It incited them to more violence."

2011-04-29T18:17:00.000-07:00

CBS Reporter Recounts a ‘Merciless’ Assault
By Brian Stelter
The New York Times
April 28, 2011

Lara Logan thought she was going to die in Tahrir Square when she was sexually assaulted by a mob on the night that Hosni Mubarek's government fell in Cairo. Ms. Logan, a CBS News correspondent, was in the square preparing a report for “60 Minutes” on Feb. 11 when the celebratory mood suddenly turned threatening. She was ripped away from her producer and bodyguard by a group of men who tore at her clothes and groped and beat her body.

“For an extended period of time, they raped me with their hands,” Ms. Logan said in an interview with The New York Times. She estimated that the attack involved 200 to 300 men.

Ms. Logan, who returned to work this month, is expected to speak at length about the assault on the CBS News program “60 Minutes” on Sunday night. Her experience in Cairo underscored the fact that female journalists often face a different kind of violence. While other forms of physical violence affecting journalists are widely covered — the traumatic brain injury suffered by the ABC News anchor Bob Woodruff in Iraq in 2006 was a front-page story at that time — sexual threats against women are rarely talked about within journalistic circles or in the news media.

With sexual violence, “you only have your word,” Ms. Logan said in the interview. “The physical wounds heal. You don’t carry around the evidence the way you would if you had lost your leg or your arm in Afghanistan.” Little research has been conducted about the prevalence of sexual violence affecting journalists in conflict zones. But in the weeks following Ms. Logan’s assault, other women recounted being harassed and assaulted while working overseas, and groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists said they would revise their handbooks to better address sexual assault.

Jeff Fager, the chairman of CBS News and the executive producer of “60 Minutes,” said that the segment about the assault on Ms. Logan would raise awareness of the issue. “There’s a code of silence about it that I think is in Lara’s interest and in our interest to break,” he said. Until now the only public comment about the assault came four days after it took place, when Ms. Logan was still in the hospital. She and Mr. Fager drafted a short statement that she had “suffered a brutal and sustained sexual assault and beating.” That statement, Ms. Logan said, “didn’t leave me to carry the burden alone, like my dirty little secret, something that I had to be ashamed of.”

The assault happened the day that Ms. Logan returned to Cairo, having left a week earlier after being detained and interrogated by Egyptian forces. “The city was on fire with celebration” over Mr. Mubarak’s exit, she said, comparing it to a Super Bowl party. She and a camera crew traversed Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the celebrations, interviewing Egyptians and posing for photographs with people who wanted to be seen with an American journalist.

“There was a moment that everything went wrong,” she recalled. As the cameraman, Richard Butler, was swapping out a battery, Egyptian colleagues who were accompanying the camera crew heard men nearby talking about wanting to take Ms. Logan’s pants off. She said: “Our local people with us said, ‘We’ve gotta get out of here.’ That was literally the moment the mob set on me.”

Mr. Butler, Ms. Logan’s producer, Max McClellan, and two locally hired drivers were “helpless,” Mr. Fager said, “because the mob was just so powerful.” A bodyguard who had been hired to accompany the team was able to stay with Ms. Logan for a brief period of time. “For Max to see the bodyguard come out of the pile without her, that was one of the worst parts,” Mr. Fager said. He said Ms. Logan “described how her hand was sore for days after — and the she realized it was from holding on so tight” to the bodyguard’s hand.
They estimated that they were separated from her for about 25 minutes.

“My clothes were torn to pieces,” Ms. Logan said. She declined to go into more detail about the assault but said: “What really struck me was how merciless they were. They really enjoyed my pain and suffering. It incited them to more violence.”

After being rescued by a group of civilians and Egyptian soldiers, she was swiftly flown back to the United States. “She was quite traumatized, as you can imagine, for a period of time,” Mr. Fager said. Ms. Logan said she decided almost immediately that she would speak out about sexual violence both on behalf of other journalists and on behalf of “millions of voiceless women who are subjected to attacks like this and worse.”

More than a dozen journalists have been detained in Libya in the past two months, including four who were working for The Times. One of the Times journalists, Lynsey Addario, said she was repeatedly groped and harassed by her Libyan captors. For Ms. Logan, learning about Ms. Addario’s experience was a “setback” in her recovery. While Ms. Logan, CBS’s chief foreign affairs correspondent, said she would definitely return to Afghanistan and other conflict zones, she said she had decided — for the moment — not to report from the Middle Eastern countries where protests were widespread. “The very nature of what we do — communicating information — is what’s undoing these regimes,” she said. “It makes us the enemy, whether we like it or not.”

Before the assault, Ms. Logan said, she did not know about the levels of harassment and abuse that women in Egypt and other countries regularly experienced. “I would have paid more attention to it if I had had any sense of it,” she said. “When women are harassed and subjected to this in society, they’re denied an equal place in that society. Public spaces don’t belong to them. Men control it. It reaffirms the oppressive role of men in the society.”

After the “60 Minutes” segment is broadcast, though, she does not intend to give other interviews on the subject. “I don’t want this to define me,” she said. She said that the kindness and support shown by Mr. Fager and others at CBS and by strangers — like the high school class in Texas and the group of women at ABC News who wrote letters to her — was a “very big part of picking myself up and restoring my dignity and my self-worth.”

Among the letters she received, she said, was one from a woman who lives in Canada who was raped in the back of a taxi in Cairo in early February, amid the protests there. “That poor woman had to go into the airport begging people to help her,” Ms. Logan recalled. When she returned home, “her family told her not to talk about it.” Ms. Logan said that as she read the letter, she started to sob. “It was a reminder to me of how fortunate I was,” she said.

Love Your Mother

2011-04-22T15:11:00.000-07:00

Photo by Arghus

Earth Day Every Day

Et tu, Brute?

2011-04-14T14:37:00.000-07:00

"Women are just fundamentally not funny."

John Belushi, Comedian

Saturday Night Live debuted during the heyday of second wave feminism and employed women writers & comedians from day one, yet founding cast member, Jane Curtain, described it as a "primarily misogynistic environment". Curtain said the same could be said for the male population at large. "I couldn't get a credit card in 1975, because I was a self-employed female. Things were very different. Women were not treated equally."

Jane Curtain appeared this week on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" with former SNL cast members, and (courageously) told it like it was. She described the difficulty that women writers, Ann Beatts and Rosie Shuster, faced in getting their material on the air. The main obstacle? John Belushi. "Their battles were constant. They were working against John, who said women are just fundamentally not funny," Curtain said. "So you'd go to a table read, and if a woman writer had written a piece for John, he would not read it in his full voice. He would whisper it. He felt as though it was his duty to sabotage pieces written by women."

Tina Fey, fellow guest and former SNL Head Writer, said she is beholden to Jane Curtain, Lorraine Newman, Gilda Radner, Rosie Shuster and Ann Beatts, "And all the women who fought through all that nonsense. By the time I got there, in that read-through room ... our director was a woman; one of our stage managers was a woman," she says. "The more women that were in the room to laugh at the different pieces, then [the more] people were like, 'Oh, OK, maybe we'll put it on.'"

Thank you, Jane Curtain, for speaking out (then and now) and for proving him wrong.

(View video clip)
http://videos.nymag.com/video/ne-Curtain-Reveals-John-Belushi

Miss Representation

2011-03-09T20:21:00.000-08:00

“It’s critical to me that all girls grow up in a world where their voice

counts. Where the media reflects them in all of their diversity and

where they’re afforded equal opportunities to succeed in life.”

Jennifer Seibel Newsom, Filmmaker

Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from on Vimeo.

"Writer/Director Jennifer Siebel Newsom brings together some of America’s most influential women in politics, news, and entertainment to give us an inside look at the media’s message. Miss Representation explores women’s under-representation in positions of power by challenging the limited and often disparaging portrayal of women in the media. As one of the most persuasive and pervasive forces in our culture, media is educating yet another generation that women’s primary value lies in their youth, beauty and sexuality—not in their capacity as leaders. Through the riveting perspectives of youth and the critical analysis of top scholars, Miss Representation will change the way you see media."

http://www.missrepresentation.org/welcome

Open Letter to The Dan Patrick Show

2011-01-27T21:07:00.000-08:00

Dan Patrick,

Most mornings in my household, I am exposed to your show on DirecTV--and the wall of Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition covers in your studio. I feel compelled to write.

I understand that SI is the sponsor of your website, and that your home studio was recently remodeled by DIY Network into a “Man Cave”—but your program is, at heart, a national sports call-in show--for the fans. And Dan, some of the most diehard sports fans are women.

These enlarged images of non-athlete bikini models are the only women-related “sports memorabilia” visible to viewers. In 2011, do you honestly feel that these images are representative of women's place in sports? You are projecting the clear message that your show is primarily for male fans, and panders to Male Gaze. I perused your archive of recent interview podcasts--and none featured women athletes. In fact, the only web-evidence of prior interviews involving women were with SI swimsuit models!

It is difficult enough that the sports media is so biased toward male athletes—and that only male-defined “hot” female athletes get attention and endorsements—but women fans should not be marginalized and under-served in this way.

I am asking you to consider using that wall to honor the sports heroes who inspire female athletes & fans of today and tomorrow: Babe Didrikson, Billie Jean King, Althea Gibson, Chris Evert, Martina Navratilova, Mia Hamm, Mary Lou Retton, Nadia Comaneci, Lindsey Vonn, US Women's Snowboarding Team, Venus and Serena Williams—to name a few.

I hope you will take these words to heart.
Leigh Anne Kranz

Organizations We Love: Promundo

2011-01-10T21:15:00.000-08:00

Promundo is recognized as a global leader in promoting the engagement of men and boys in gender equality.

(Excerpts from website)

Promundo is a Brazilian NGO that seeks to promote gender equality and end violence against women, children and youth. Our work is based on the premise that gender norms and social constructions of gender (how men and women are socialized to be men and women) are among the key factors that influence men’s and women’s health and other related issues including gender-based violence and men’s participation as fathers and caregivers.

In 2009, Promundo co-hosted the “Global Symposium on Engaging Men and Boys in Gender Equality” in Rio de Janeiro. The Symposium was the first-ever global event dedicated specifically to the issue of engaging men and boys in: reducing violence against women and girls; promoting sexual and reproductive health; HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment; and fatherhood and care-giving.

The outcome document, The Rio Declaration, expressed the shared desires and goals of the participants for a more equal world.

For information, curriculum and resources: http://www.promundo.org.br/en/

Killing Honor

2010-11-28T21:01:00.000-08:00

Excerpts from:
Kidnapping, Tribal Reprisal Upend Iraqi Woman's Life
Kelly McEvers and Isra' al Rubei'i
NPR
November 12, 2010

It starts with a young woman named Uhud, who is 19 years old, and the daughter of a proud and ancient tribe in Diyala, a province northeast of Baghdad. One day back in August, Uhud went shopping in the center of town. "A car stopped — four men," she said. "They threatened me with a pistol and then grabbed me, wrapped me in my abaya and put me in the car." The men took her to a house and beat her across the feet so badly she eventually lost her toenails. She said they blindfolded her and locked her in a room. "They threatened me that if I escaped, they would go kill my father or my brother," she said.

(Upon being returned to her family...)

Her father's brother-in-law, Ahmed, described to us what happened next. "When she first came, the whole family had one thing in mind. We assumed she had been raped," he said. "So we thought of killing her. She has a brother who would kill her as easy as drinking a glass of water. But then, we calmed things down."

This is the way it works in tribal families. If a woman has spent time with strange men, it's assumed she was raped. And if she was raped, she has brought shame to the family. To her family and to us, Uhud insists that she wasn't raped. But then, why would she tell anyone she was raped when her life could be at stake?

She says her father, who usually takes her side, recently got frustrated with her and beat her. Her uncle now spits in her face when he sees her. "He always tells me that 'Listen, if we find out anything — if we find out that you are responsible for anything, I will myself slit your throat.' And that's why I'm afraid of him."

Full story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131272775&sc=emaf

Astronomy Misogyny

2010-11-16T16:56:00.000-08:00

National Geographic Channel: "Journey to the Edge of the Universe".

Their description of Venus is Misogyny 101. The words chosen, the metaphors, are ones that have been used for eons to create the duality of good woman/bad woman. The good woman, who is calm and beautiful at all times, vs. the woman who expresses her other dimensions, especially anger--perceived as an ugly threat to manhood. This dichotomy has been used across the globe, like a cautionary fairy tale, to keep growing girls in their serene, silent place. Been used so long, it's become mythical. Today, it largely goes unnoticed, unchallenged. This made my jaw drop.

(Narrated in the hushed, manly tones of Alec Baldwin)

Out of the darkness, a friendly face. Venus, the goddess of love...

Never expected this. Venus is one angry goddess. The air is noxious, the pressure unbearable. And it's hot, approaching 900 degrees. Stick around, and we would be corroded, suffocated, crushed and baked. Nothing can survive here...

So lovely from earth, up close this goddess is hideous. She's the sister from hell, pockmarked by thousands of volcanoes. All that carbon dioxide is trapping the sun's heat. Venus is burning up. It's global warming gone wild. Before it took hold, maybe Venus was beautiful, calm, more like her sister planet, Earth. This could be Earth's future...

(Another view of Venus)

Ageism is Misogyny

2010-10-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

Fight the powers that be

Another Letter to the Portland Mercury

2010-09-29T18:28:00.000-07:00

Letter to the Editor
Regarding I, Anonymous, Portland Mercury (9/23/10)

Why? WHY would you publish a letter from a budding misogynist, warning all Portland women to prepare for him? In a classic case of "How Misogyny Happens", this man gets his heart bruised, twists his pain into rage, and directs it toward ALL women--from now on. He says he's figured-out that women just love to be treated like crap by men--in fact, we can't even have "chemistry" with a man unless he dislikes us. His first step toward becoming the kind of man we women want is "learning to hate every f****** one of you b******."

Mercury, why would you spread this hate speech around my town?
(I hope you didn't give him free movie tickets for this!)

Leigh Anne Kranz

***

Original Letter Published in I Anonymous, Portland Mercury (9/23/10)

Dear Portland women:
F*** you. Every one of you. You're all looking for "chemistry," and I've finally figured out what that means. You use that word as an excuse to date someone who doesn't like you very much. You want a man who's mysterious and hard to reach—which is another way of saying you would rather date someone who doesn't actually like you that much. I'll develop more of a strategy next time—I won't spend the night after f****** you, I'll flake out on you the next time we plan on hanging out, and maybe when you do manage to get a hold of me, I'll get incomprehensibly stoned before we actually go out—which, by the way, will be a full three hours after we planned. You know why I'm going to do that s***? Because that's what you want. You want to date an a******. And the first step toward becoming an a****** is learning to hate every f******* one of you b******. So, one more time, with feeling: F*** you. I'm not going to treat you well, and you're going to like it.—Anonymous

Ding-Dong!

2010-08-11T08:38:00.000-07:00

Good News:
HBO programming president Michael Lombardo said “Next summer will definitely be the final season for Entourage.”

Bad News:
“We have a long-term relationship with Doug Ellin [Entourage Executive Producer and Head Writer], and I’m sure you’ll soon see another series from him here."

They're Back: The Boys of Entourage

2010-06-28T13:17:00.000-07:00

I considered re-watching the season 7 debut of HBO's Entourage--to count the number of times the word p**** was used (a dozen at least)--but reminded myself that I was far too talented. :) Oh, the power of the p-word. A single utterance was enough to make the confident movie star face of Vincent Chase quiver with self doubt.

The p-word was used as a mano-a-mano weapon throughout the episode--first by the director of Vince's latest action film, Nick Cassavetes (sadly playing himself)--used to goad Vince into doing his own flaming car stunts. The word was then tossed around by Vince's clown posse, and his agent (the misogynist muppet, Ari Gold)--used to convince him NOT to do the stunts--since he was far too much of a p****.

The visibly terrified Vince was backed into a corner by his boyz--facing the dilemma that has confronted men since the playground, since the cave. Are you a p****? Vince had no choice in Boy World but to risk his very life to prove his Manhood.

Vince did the stunt, almost died--but emerged from the flames in slow-motion, strutted past his naysayers and said he was ready to do it again.

The writer of this episode, Doug Ellin, seems oblivious to the subtext--neglecting to add a female character (or better yet, an enlightened male) to point-out the unnecessary roughness and immaturity (absurdity) of the male interactions--and to tell them once and for all to STOP using the infernal p-word--cuz women hate it even more! But alas, we are left with the same OLD moral of the story: a man must succumb to the bullying of other men (who claim to be friends), risk life and limb to prove that he is what nature already made him--meanwhile offending every woman in his midst--and be willing to do it all over again, every time.

It's going to be a long summer.

The Swagger of Young Male Athletes

2010-06-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

June 8, 2010

Their Dangerous Swagger
By MAUREEN DOWD
New York Times Op-Ed Columnist

It was set up like a fantasy football league draft. The height, weight and performance statistics of the draftees were offered to decide who would make the cut and who would emerge as the No. 1 pick. But the players in this predatory game were not famous N.F.L. stars. They were unwitting girls about to start high school.

A group of soon-to-be freshmen boys at Landon, an elite private grade school and high school for boys in the wealthy Washington suburb of Montgomery County, Md., was drafting local girls. One team was called “The Southside Slampigs,” and one boy dubbed his team with crude street slang for drug-addicted prostitutes.
The young woman who was the “top pick” was described by one of the boys in a team profile he put up online as “sweet, outgoing, friendly, willing to get down and dirty and [expletive] party. Coming in at 90 pounds, 5’2 and a bra size 34d.” She would be a special asset to the team, he noted, because her mother “is quite the cougar herself.”

Before they got caught last summer, the boys had planned an “opening day party,” complete with T-shirts, where the mission was to invite the drafted girls and, unbeknownst to them, score points by trying to rack up as many sexual encounters with the young women as possible. “They evidently got points for first, second and third base,” said one outraged father of a drafted girl. “They were going to have parties and tally up the points, and money was going to be exchanged at the end of the season.” He said that the boys would also have earned points for “schmoozing with the parents.” His daughter, he said, “was very upset about it. She thought these guys were her friends. This is the way we teach boys to treat women, young ladies? You have enough to worry about as a 14- or 15-year-old girl without having to worry about guys who are doing it as sport.” Another parent was equally appalled: “I think the girls felt like they were getting targeted, that this was some big game. Talk about using people. It doesn’t get much worse than that.”

Landon is where the sons of many prominent members of the community are sent to learn “the code of character,” where “a Landon man” is part of a “true Brotherhood” and is known for his good word, respect and honesty. The school’s Web site boasts about the Landon Civility Code; boys are expected to “work together to eliminate all forms of disrespect” and “respect one another and our surroundings in our decorum, appearance, and interactions.”

The Washington suburban community of private school parents has also been reeling this spring from the tragedy involving former Landon student George Huguely V, a scion of the family that owned the lumber business that helped build the nation’s capital. Huguely, who was a University of Virginia lacrosse player, was charged in the brutal death of his sometime girlfriend, Yeardley Love, a lacrosse player on the university’s women’s team who also hailed from Maryland. The lovely young woman’s door was kicked in and her head was smashed over and over into the wall.

The awful crime, chronicled on the cover of People with the headline “Could She Have Been Saved?,” raised haunting questions about why Huguely had not already been reported to authorities, even though other lacrosse players had seen him choke Love at a party and his circle knew that the athlete had attacked a sleeping teammate whom he suspected had kissed Love. Huguely had also been so out-of-control drunk, angry and racially abusive with a policewoman in 2008 that she had to Taser him.

In The Washington Post, the sports columnist Sally Jenkins wrote about the swagger of young male athletes and the culture of silence that protects their thuggish locker-room behavior.
“His teammates and friends, the ones who watched him smash up windows and bottles and heard him rant about Love,” she wrote. “Why didn’t they turn him in? ... Why did they not treat Yeardley Love as their teammate, too?”

Some of the parents of girls drafted for the Landon sex teams think that the punishment for those culpable should have been greater, and the notification to parents should have been more thorough. Was the macho culture of silence in play?

Jean Erstling, Landon’s director of communications, said she was “aware of the incident” but that “student records including disciplinary infractions are confidential.” She said that “Landon has an extensive ethics and character education program which includes as its key tenets respect and honesty. Civility toward women is definitely part of that education program.”

Time for a curriculum overhaul. Young men everywhere must be taught, beyond platitudes, that young women are not prey.

HBO = "His" Box Office?

2010-04-26T18:48:00.000-07:00

I'm a long-term subscriber of HBO (Home Box Office). I appreciate the writing and storytelling of HBO's Original Series. And yet, HBO is a first-rate purveyor of misogyny. The female viewer is continually subjected to gratuitous objectification (and worse).

Case in point, now that The Sopranos is over, HBO found a way to recycle its obsession with strip clubs, as well as props from The Bada Bing! HBO's excellent new series, Treme', set in post-Katrina New Orleans, is riddled with the same lingering shots of stripper pole ballet. In lieu of commercials, the viewer gets suspended scenes of T & A. And now, a word from our sponsor...

HBO has 47% female viewership in the US alone, yet continues to pander to Male Gaze...

Self Defense

2010-04-16T09:53:00.000-07:00

A woman's best defense against misogyny? Intuition. If it doesn't feel right, it isn't. Humans are the only animals who habitually go against their first instinct.

Man to Man: 10 Things Men Can Do

2010-04-04T21:40:00.000-07:00

Ten Things Men Can Do to Prevent Gender Violence

Jackson Katz

1. Approach gender violence as a MEN'S issue involving men of all ages and socioeconomic, racial and ethnic backgrounds. View men not only as perpetrators or possible offenders, but as empowered bystanders who can confront abusive peers.

2. If a brother, friend, classmate, or teammate is abusing his female partner -- or is disrespectful or abusive to girls and women in general -- don't look the other way. If you feel comfortable doing so, try to talk to him about it. Urge him to seek help. Or if you don't know what to do, consult a friend, a parent, a professor, or a counselor. DON'T REMAIN SILENT.

3. Have the courage to look inward. Question your own attitudes. Don't be defensive when something you do or say ends up hurting someone else. Try hard to understand how your own attitudes and actions might inadvertently perpetuate sexism and violence, and work toward changing them.

4. If you suspect that a woman close to you is being abused or has been sexually assaulted, gently ask if you can help.

5. If you are emotionally, psychologically, physically, or sexually abusive to women, or have been in the past, seek professional help NOW.

6. Be an ally to women who are working to end all forms of gender violence. Support the work of campus-based women's centers. Attend "Take Back the Night" rallies and other public events. Raise money for community-based rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters. If you belong to a team or fraternity, or another student group, organize a fundraiser.

7. Recognize and speak out against homophobia and gay-bashing. Discrimination and violence against lesbians and gays are wrong in and of themselves. This abuse also has direct links to sexism (eg. the sexual orientation of men who speak out against sexism is often questioned, a conscious or unconscious strategy intended to silence them. This is a key reason few men do so).

8. Attend programs, take courses, watch films, and read articles and books about multicultural masculinities, gender inequality, and the root causes of gender violence. Educate yourself and others about how larger social forces affect the conflicts between individual men and women.

9. Don't fund sexism. Refuse to purchase any magazine, rent any video, subscribe to any Web site, or buy any music that portrays girls or women in a sexually degrading or abusive manner. Protest sexism in the media.

10. Mentor and teach young boys about how to be men in ways that don't involve degrading or abusing girls and women. Volunteer to work with gender violence prevention programs, including anti-sexist men's programs. Lead by example.

www.jacksonkatz.com

Reprint freely with credit.

Men We Love

2010-03-18T21:31:00.000-07:00

Astronaut Jose Hernandez

"It would be nice to bring all the world leaders up there to look at our world. Because we are typically used to seeing world maps with political boundaries, but when you look at it from up there it all looks as one. If we bring world leaders up there and let them take a look at the beauty of our planet, maybe I'm an optimist and an idealist, but I think there would be a lot less conflict and war, and our world would be a better place."

Feminists Love Men

2010-02-14T07:47:00.000-08:00

There is a pervasive myth that feminists hate men. If that were true, why would we go to all this trouble to make everything right between us, to shift things back into balance? Feminists love men, in all their (true) glory. We love men--as friends, lovers, brothers, fathers, sons, uncles, nephews and cousins. We see the beauty in men, in all phases, all ages, of their lives. Feminists want to release men from their "act like a man" prison. We want men to have the freedom to experience and express the full spectrum of their emotions. To be fully human.

All we ask is to be treated with that same level of respect and love.

Our Gang

2010-02-12T20:58:00.001-08:00

Members in good standing of the He-Man Woman Haters Club do solemnly swear to be a he-man and hate women and not play with them or talk to them unless I have to. And especially: never fall in love, and if I do may I die slowly and painfully and suffer for hours, or until I scream bloody murder.

2010-01-31T11:54:00.000-08:00

The Glow of White Women is described as an autobiographical documentary by Yunus Valley that "tells a personal story of growing up amidst the extreme segregation of Nelspruit, South Africa, which affected societal perceptions of beauty."

In actuality, the film reveals far more about the filmmaker's unexplored misogyny.

Yunus Valley: "I can't live with a woman. It's impossible. They're silly and trivial. They're women. They are just demanding by nature. The idea that I have to get up next to it is daunting." When asked if perhaps he just hasn't found the right one yet, he responds, "Maybe if they are quiet and sort of find a nice little couch and sit there invisibly. Like a cat."

A white woman, I sat down to watch this film expecting, sincerely hoping, to learn more of how "my people" impact the world. I was surprised to be subjected to lopsided analysis and textbook misogyny. While the filmmaker recounts his victimization under Apartheid, he unapologetically objectifies white women as mere sexual conquests--used to prove his manhood and validate his humanity.

Apartheid was a social/economic/political policy of racial segregation and discrimination, enforced by a white supremacist government--ultimately controlled by white men. It was also white men who controlled the media that bombarded the filmmaker with all those images of white women. However, Yunus Valley seems to direct the lion's share of his lingering rage toward white women. He says he would resent working for a white woman, "Still feels like the Madam is telling me what to do." He laughs, "I'm going to start my own Truth and Reconciliation Commission against white women."

I understand that white women in South Africa benefited from Apartheid, helped enforce it, and were complicit, but they were not ultimately in control and (believe me) were also victimized by the patriarchal system. In a classic example of "how misogyny happens"--the filmmaker's righteous anger bypasses the true oppressor (the source) and is misdirected toward women--of all colors in the end. "They're women."

LinkTV Airdates:

Sunday, February 14th 9:00 PM PST

Wednesday, February 17 3:00 AM PST

DirecTV Channel 375

Dish Network Channel 9410

2010-01-22T21:20:00.000-08:00

Rape Culture

2010-01-17T22:56:00.000-08:00

A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change. Transforming a Rape Culture, Emilie Buchwald, Martha Roth, Pamela R. Fletcher

Mad Men

2010-01-17T20:05:00.000-08:00

Dressed like that, he's dinner.

Letter to The Portland Mercury

2010-01-17T19:01:00.000-08:00

Published January 14, 2010

PORTLAND MERCURY - In The Spotlight
[Re: "A Common Pornography," Feature, Jan 7]

The "artistic" layout that accompanied excerpts from local writer Kevin Sampsell's new autobiography was so egregiously misogynistic that it's now featured on the local watch blog, Misogyny Spotlight.

Misogyny hurts women and girls. Please stop.

Leigh Anne Kranz

Sexism, Straight Up

2010-01-10T17:50:00.000-08:00

The Key to Ending Misogyny?

2010-01-07T09:01:00.001-08:00

My brothers, you must speak with your brothers...

For Love

2010-01-04T16:31:00.000-08:00

"Women who want men to love know that that cannot really happen without a revolution of consciousness where men stop patriarchal thinking and action." bell hooks, The Will to Change

The Will to Change

2010-01-02T20:21:00.000-08:00

"It is not true that men are unwilling to change. It is true that many men are afraid to change. It is true that masses of men have not even begun to look at the ways that patriarchy keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. To know love, men must be able to let go the will to dominate. They must be able to choose life over death. They must be willing to change." bell hooks

Kiss Off Fragoli

2009-12-31T18:23:00.000-08:00

Land of the Lost

2009-12-31T09:22:00.000-08:00

Will Stanton: [grabs cup in the shape of a woman's bust] "This is a little travel mug I like to call the perfect woman. Big ole set of boobies, no head. And a handle."

They ruined my favorite childhood TV show! My nephews said, "You aren't going to like this one part. It's sooooooo sexist!" As we watched, I became viscerally outraged that my six little nephews were growing-up exposed to such base-level misogyny, packaged as comedy--but, ultimately, I was encouraged, hopeful for the future--because they spotted it.

"There has got to be something here..."

2009-12-31T09:02:00.000-08:00

My friend Jessica wrote, "There has got to be something here... Just saw this link and thought of you and your blog. Something about it does not sit well with me. It could be just because yet again another young woman strips down to sell or is she empowering? I'm confused. Either way I think it sucks."

I, too, am confused. It amazes me each time a successful female artist takes-it-all-off for the world--an ever increasing trend. Sheryl Crow posed in micro-shorts on the cover of Maxim when she turned forty, Liz Phair in bustier on Stuff ("sister" publications that circulate misogyny throughout the globe on a monthly basis). These intelligent, creative, talented women--who call their own shots--are stripping for Male Gaze. Some women defend this as an act of empowerment, but I agree with Jessica that it must be related somehow. Pleasing the Oppressor? Stockholm Syndrome? Bet it confuses young women and girls, too. And it makes it that much harder for other women artists coming up. Yo, my sisters, knock it off!

Seventies Realism

2009-12-13T19:21:00.000-08:00

"l never could find no tracks in a woman's heart... Don't get me wrong, l love the women, l surely do! But l swear a woman's breast is the hardest rock the Almighty ever made on Earth and l can find no sign on it." "Bear Claw" Chris Lapp

Misogyny Rocks

2009-12-12T16:23:00.000-08:00

Yoko Ono was the target of a misogynistic culture war, for supposedly breaking-up The Beatles. As if there aren't a thousand reasons for even a terrible band to break up--egos, artistic differences, music business pressures--let alone not being able to walk down the street without a riot. John Lennon loved Yoko Ono. First turned-on by her art, then mind, then the rest. He spoke of her as an equal partner. Rock and Roll wasn't ready for it. Yoko Ono was subjected to mass media misogyny from deejays, critics, journalists, comedians, cartoonists--not to mention the street corner hate-speech of generations of fans--a campaign that continues.

Dockers Man-ifesto

2009-12-09T18:26:00.000-08:00

(Thanks, Jen)

Open Season on the Dixie Chicks

2009-12-04T20:43:00.000-08:00

Video traces the Misogyny leveled against the Dixie Chicks post 2003

By msgdub

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9a6RcVVW_w

Misogyny Tactics 101: Anti-Feminism

2009-12-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

“Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating.” Andrea Dworkin

Male Bonding

2009-11-28T20:30:00.000-08:00

"Save it, honey. We're anti-women here." Johnny Drama

2009-11-27T22:35:00.000-08:00

Gastronomy Misogyny

2009-11-25T18:40:00.001-08:00

Misogyny has a long history in hallowed kitchens throughout the world. Only men cooked for emperors. Only dudes rolled sushi. This culinary tradition continues today. Here are some prime examples:

Jeffrey Steingarten—persnickety Vogue food critic and judge of Food Network's Iron Chef America--hostile to female judges, attacks intelligence and opinions as often as palates.

Michael Isabella--Bravo Top Chef contender, uses Ageism as a weapon sharper than his knives. Frequently referred to female competitor, Robin Leventhal (early 40's) as "old lady" and “grandma”. (Poetic justice--he was voted off before her)

Hef, I'm Coming For You...

2009-11-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

Met A Kindred Spirit (and Misogyny Slayer)

2009-11-19T18:39:00.000-08:00

Queenie Harrison is a writer, musician and performer living in Britain.

"It seemed to me that while there’s often plenty of righteous high profile reaction to mainstream media when they publish racist, homophobic or imperialist articles, sometimes what seems to be pretty virulent hatred of women passes under the radar. Time to redress the balance. And to see the funny side, of course. Laughter is more powerful than polemic. So Misogyny Watch will point out when the media is guilty of sexism, or gender hate, and link to it so everyone can make their own minds up."

Check out her Misogyny Watch blog and Twitters: http://www.misogynywatch.com/

Thank you, Queenie, for keeping your eye on things over there.

Misogynist of the Day: Grumpy

2009-11-18T17:44:00.000-08:00

"All females is poison! They're full of wicked wiles!"

Quote from Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs

Letter to the New York Times

2009-11-18T17:42:00.001-08:00

Published: May 4, 2008

To the Editor:

Re ''Material Woman, Restoring Her Brand'' by Jon Pareles [April 27]:

In his article about Madonna, Jon Pareles alludes to the day when Madonna's sex appeal ''inevitably fades.'' When a male writer, in 2008, states as universal law that women's sexuality and beauty fade over time, I must challenge this notion -- as Madonna has done throughout her career. We don't fade. We deepen.

Leigh Anne Kranz
Portland, Ore.

Svedka Vodka: Putting a New Face on an Old Prejudice

2009-11-18T17:41:00.001-08:00

Misogyny on TV

2009-11-18T17:40:00.001-08:00

Entourage (HBO)

The Sopranos (HBO)

Family Guy (Fox)--Even the baby is a misogynist...

The Hills (MTV)

30 Rock (NBC)--Tina Fey inflicts it upon herself.

Journey to the Edge of the Universe (Nat Geo)--Their description of Venus ("the angry goddess") is Misogyny 101

The Real Housewives of Orange County (Bravo)--Sad example of Internalized Misogyny

Fed Up

2009-11-18T17:39:00.001-08:00

I am tired of going about my day--a fearless woman of the new millennium--being assaulted by misogyny in its many forms. The earth's oldest prejudice is alive and multiplying. Misogyny hurts women and girls. It's a blind consciousness, a false construct, a lie. Think I'll call it out.