Okay Olympics,

Dear Olympics,

I have been a dear fan of yours for some time now, and with this year’s world-record-breaking record, wow has it been exciting! But seriously–WHY are all the ladies wearing extremely TIGHT PANTY athletic underwear while they perform?

Seriously, the volley ball ladies, the hurtling track ladies, the gymnasts, the swimmers, all of them picking wedges out of not only their asses but also their hootinanies. WHY? Why, when a diver is standing on the boards, should she have to be yanking at her crotch worried that the world can see her areas? Why are the men trackstars and volleyballstars wearing knee-length shorts if it’s so much more “comfortable because of the heat” to wear PANTIES?

I’m sure some ladies like it, support it, are just plain used to it, whatever. But i don’t care what the argument for wearing these clothes, nothing is going to amount to an argument in support of wedgies. No one likes that shit. Especially in the Vagine!

I understand that some sports are going to require the bare minimum in dress–surely swimming and gymnastics are two big ones. Olympics, I don’t want clothing to get in the way of performance. I just want a girl to have some self respect and have the choice to not be flashing the world her vagine when she falls over a hurtle, or when she falls off a balance beam.

Surely the reason for the tightness is BECAUSE of the skimpiness–when you wear PANTIES to gymnastics, they sort of have to be super tight in order not to fall off or away from your body. But, I mean…we’re talking about expectations here. The mens are oftentimes wearing shorts if not pants to perform the same sports that the women are wearing their PANTIES to. Why?

Oh Olympics, if only you could talk back to me and tell me this isn’t just world-wide sexist expectations that women display their bodies for other people, I could sleep at night.

Becca
PS–Fuck, I was going to post some contrasting photos of men in pants to women in their skivs. But as for the ladies, all I could find was website after website featuring the “Hottest” female Olympic athletes with links to photos of them POSING like fucking porn stars. What is the percentage of Olympic ladies who pose, spread eagle, in thier bikinis to the ones who don’t? I don’t know, and don’t have time to research it right now. But it’s disturbing that only a fraction of the photos I could find were about these women’s atheticism (those were on the Olympics website) instead of thier sexual worth.

Perceived Higher Need

One of the primary things that keeps people in relationships with each other is need for unconditional love and need for physical comfort and safety.

By believing in the theory that men are driven by a primary need to “spread seed” and women to “protect nest,” we aren’t just subscribing to some abstract theory of evolution. We are also subscribing to a much broader set of ideas and beliefs that effect our day-to-day lives, which have nothing to do with evolution. They are ideas that keep power structures stable.

This idea of evolutionary urges insists that there are wide, gaping differences in the needs of men and women sexually, and that those needs are the most powerful of all needs. That women need men to “stick around,” and so are neurotic or otherwise not good enough if they are single or can “catch” a mate. This has implications on women’s self-image and worth, and implications that the sexual identity of women is completely contingent on a man’s sexual desire for her.

For men this theory tells them that they don’t need emotional and physical comfort and unconditional love and attention from a stable community. That if they don’t think about and desire sex 24/7 that there is something “wrong” with them. And it gives monuments of excuse for a “boys will be boys” attitude that not only allows sexist and misogynist men to continue their sexual harassment and prejudice, but encourages new generations that this is the way to gaining acceptance, it’s a right of passage.

As individual groups, men and women both suffer from this extremely simplistic theory, which excludes many factors of culture and not-biological conditioning that influence behaviors.

And then there is the need thing again. In relationship, this dynamic causes women to have more percieved needs from men in day-to-day life than visa versa. And therein lies the emotional support structures for a power differential that keeps men “needing less” and having more power over women who “need more.”

A Woman’s Courage

This is a tribute to Shukria Barkzai and a rebuke to the women of America.

Shukria Barkzai is a heroic, courageous woman who puts passive, apathetic, complacent Western women to shame. Every time I discuss feminism with a woman who says, “I don’t care if I’m discriminated against,” I think of Shukria Barkzai right before I excuse myself from the conversation, for fear of going radioactive.

Shukria Barkzai is an Afghan woman. During the years of Taliban control of Afghanistan, she ran a number of clandestine schools for girls in Kabul. She did this at great risk to her own life. If she’d been discovered, there was a good chance she would have been killed. Most certainly, she would have been imprisoned and tortured. She acted with mind-boggling courage to educate Afghani girls; she stood up to the most savage persecution of girls and women imaginable, in a place where women were—and still are—entombed alive.

In 2003 I had the honor of meeting Shukria Barkzai.  The occasion was my alma mater honoring her as the 2003 Journalist of the Year.  The award was in recognition of her founding a women’s magazine in Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban, and managing to get it distributed not only in Kabul, but also in remote areas of Afghanistan.

When Ms. Barakzai accepted her award, she thanked us in broken English.  She struggled to answer our questions, and became visibly angry when commenting on the press conference Laura Bush had held in Kabul shortly before Ms. Barkzai was honored.  At her press conference, Mrs. Bush had boasted that her husband’s administration had liberated the women of Afghanistan, who no longer were oppressed thanks to her husband; they now enjoyed freedom and equality thanks to his policies.  Ms. Barakzai begged to differ, and she said so.

Much as I shared Ms. Barkzai’s ire about Mrs. Bush’s comments, another issue was bothering me.  I felt honored to be in the presence of this heroic, brave woman who risked her life to give young girls an education under the constant threat of being discovered by the Taliban.  And she didn’t stop there.  Once women had gained enough liberty, she also founded a magazine devoted to their concerns and issues.

Much as Ms. Barakzai’s courage inspired me, the contrasting, shameful apathy and complacency of American women brought disgust and ire.  I find little excuse for it.  I do remind myself that many women remain silent out of fear.  As to fear: can we think for one nanosecond that Shukria Barkzai did not fear the wrath of the Taliban as she secreted little girls into her schools for the basic right to learn to read, to write, to add, to count?  In the face of her courage, how can any American woman justify silence by claiming fear?

Here’s a guess.  Silent, compliant American women will argue that we do not suffer abuses as savage as those Afghan women and girls suffer, so we bear no need or responsibility for taking risks.  We need act only if the American Taliban’s persecution of women reaches the savagery of Taliban extremists in Afghanistan.

I don’t have an answer so much as a question.  What if the status of American women were to descend to the plight of Afghan women?  Would now-silent, complacent women act?  Would they risk their lives to educate American girls?  Should we expect valor or heroism from them?  If women don’t stand up to sexism and discrimination American-style when they’d face no danger in doing so, why should we think they’d stand up to persecution if it did carry great danger?

Shukria Barkzai puts us to shame.

I’ve been busy but here’s some skims!

Hi reader(s?)

Sorry I’ve been so absent from posting, life has taken a turn for the busy. So I thought I’d give you some food for thought since I’ve found a minute to do some reading of my own in the Feminist Blogosphere! Thank god some people get paid for this!

• Most EXCITEDLY check out the lady Catholic priests being ordained in Boston earlier this week!!
• Wait, so is this saying we should get the HPV vaccine? Weren’t we angry a while ago that this vaccine is so expensive yet treats only a fraction of disease-causing HPV…post a comment if you have insight!
• Jessica at Feministing reports on a really weird review of Purity Balls in Time Magazine…ew
• And something related–a Purity quote that might make you vomit a little bit in your mouth.
• Convert your bra into a face mask in the event of biological war!
• A review of the New Fat-chick video game by feminist blogger and game designer Holly
• This girl speaks for so many….sexism from the mouth of Brook Hogan (daughter of Hulk)
• Environmentalists HATE AMERICA!! you’ll get a chuckle at the sarcasm.
  
• Rape still being called “sex” ..

Progressing, Regressing, or Static?

I’m thankful for the advancements women have made in past decades. But though a lot has changed, not enough has changed. And we still face stony-faced resistance against the progress we still need to make.

The resistance shows itself when “Take Your Daughters and Sons to Work Day” rolls around. Remember the good old days, when we first greeted it as “Take Your Daughters to Work Day”? When it was an answer to the resistance to women in the public sphere, when it’s purpose was to instill in our daughters the awareness that they have every right to enter professions, any profession? Remember when it was meant to overcome the toxic message that they were rightly confined to the domestic sphere, with no say in public policy?

I don’t begrudge boys the opportunity to learn about the livelihoods of their fathers, and to be able to explore what path they want to take as adults. But the point of “Take Your Daughters to Work Day” was that boys already had all of that, and too many girls were denied that. The day’s purpose was to help girls to break free of oppressive, confining, unjust demands; it was to give them a self-image as people worthy of the same opportunities as the boys. It was to show them their mothers, and other women, as role models with successful careers in the public sphere.

The reaction to “Take Your Daughters to Work Day”—to change it from a proudly feminist tradition to a generic one—reveals how deeply ingrained resistance to women’s equality still works to create drag on our pursuit of equality.

I suggest a more apt answer to “Take Your Daughters to Work Day”: on that same day, let’s establish “Keep Your Sons at Home Day.” Let’s work at chipping away oppressive roles, and let’s teach our sons to participate in, and respect, the unpaid work done in the home. On “Keep Your Sons at Home Day,” fathers would stay at home with their sons. They would teach them about competently doing laundry, scrubbing bathrooms, cooking, and managing a home. They would teach them that juggling the responsibilities of child rearing and maintaining the home is a high-skilled, demanding job. They would teach them how to prioritize, how to manage their time, how to defuse a cranky, defiant child, and how to rearrange priorities in the case of an emergency. They would teach them that once they marry and have children of their own, they should honor their obligation to do their fair share of the household work.

The reaction we have had to “Take Our Daughters to Work Day” reveals a lingering lack of respect in society for work in the home. Boys are still taught to avoid any activity or appearance associated with girls and women; they’re taught that a likeness to anything thought feminine is something to be ashamed of. They’re taught to avoid it as you would avoid the ebola virus.

I’m glad that when boys participate in this day, they’re seeing their mothers in non-traditional roles. And I don’t want them denied opportunities. I just remember my glimmer of hope when I saw girls provided a hand-up in overcoming the resistance to equality that still besets us. Now, this day looks like another day that enables more of the same disrespect for the feminine in America. Now it’s a once-hopeful breaking of chains co-opted by foes of women’s equality.

A lot has changed, then, but not enough has changed.

Filthy Fuckers

Okay, it’s been a minute (ha) since I got REALLY angry over something REALLY pathetic (mostly because you get used to that feeling). There is a web site called boobsforbarack, where women are encouraged to “Write a message on your mammories, wear a bra, bathing suit, or go totally bare, if you support Barack, then show IT by showing THEM!”

I wasn’t going link to the site because I don’t think people should click on it. But you can go to the site and take ACTION without giving the nudey parts a click!!

Take a picture of a message of protest to these people and upload it at their sight at boobsforbarack.com

Here are some of the images I sent in already:

There isn’t a lick of information about who runs this site. And a lot of the pictures are photo-shopped models, not real people. But there are real people on there too. What the fuck, ladies? I’m ripping my hair out. Without any other forethought about the misogynist overtones of this website, there is a simple question that I think everyone of us ought know the answer to before hooking up to the internet: DO I WANT TO SEND A PICTURE OF MY BODY TO A WEB SITE WHOSE ORIGINS OR INTENTIONS I DON’T KNOW?

Barack Obama people–I implore you to not let scum bags use your campaign to take advantage of women.

Flexing Feminism and Basic Human Rights

Lots of other bloggers have commented on the vile hate messages women bloggers get from the troglodytes out there in cyberspace. They aren’t men, they’re boys with Internet access without adult supervision.

Some time ago I read a news article about this, and sadly, some women bloggers stopped blogging because a few of these knuckle-scrapers sank to threats, and possibly knew where the women bloggers lived.

Which brings to mind a sad fact of the Internet: if you’re a woman and you’ve secured anonymity, you can blog in safety. On the other hand, gender bigots and woman haters out there also have anonymity, and if they know enough about you, they can make threats from behind the mask of anonymity—or worse, carry out those threats.

Still, women bloggers do have a good degree of safety and anonymity, and the troglodytes can’t stop us from blogging. They know it, and that’s what drives them around the bend.

Bloggers who use Internet anonymity as protection from threats or physical harm are not cowards, but only the most pathetic cowards use that anonymity to threaten others.

They can’t do a damned thing about what we say, can’t stop us from saying it in public. So we should take courage in that. When overgrown boys throw hissy fits at us because they hate us and our freedom, we take it as high praise, as an encouraging sign that we’re stronger than them and their hate, that we’re reaching goals they want to withhold from us.

Still, I recall fondly graffiti I saw years ago on a wall in London: “Take the toys from the boys.”

Feminism, by definition, needs to show attitude. Real attitude.

Can She Get A Witness?

This morning I was listening to NPR as usual during my morning routine, and I have to say I am pretty disappointed because of their lack of coverage on how misogynist the media has been towards Hillary.

A woman was speaking when I first woke up to the radio alarm, a reporter for NPR reflecting on how the first female candidate for president has made some kind of impact on her as a woman and probably the rest of the world too, regardless that Hillary may not have even gotten her vote. Well that’s awesome, really it is.It’s just that the piece was just…well, it was weak. The reporter looks back to when she covered Geraldine Ferraro’s selection to the Democratic vice presidential position in 1984, the first woman to get to that spot, and ends the piece with a description of another female colleague and herself tearing up, still all well and good. But the impact of that short piece was less a tribute to how incredibly remarkable this even is, it came off with the taste of letting the girls have some fun for a while–oh look, a lady tearing up, how cute…

I was also left with this feeling of . . . but . . . but that’s it? What about all of the sexism and misogyny in the reporting around her? What about all of the really sickly pessimistic way so many people are predicting there won’t be another female candidate for president in a generation or more? Why are you still not covering this NPR?

How can we just kiss Hillary off with a “Well you did good, and we won’t forgetchya gal”? I’m not talking about political platforms and who is a better candidate, I’m talking about the mistreatment Hillary has been getting, and all women have been getting by extension.

Next, NPR’s David Greene is on with a a few interviews and close ups he’d done with Hillary earlier on in the race up through a few weeks ago. NPR’s aim was obviously to leave listeners with the feeling that Hillary did a good job, had supporters who told her NOT to give up (while pundits and commentators yelled that she is a sore loser for not quitting earlier), but still, I was left hurt and unfulfilled by it. First of all, why hadn’t NPR aired Greene’s interviews two months ago when almost nothing positive about her was being aired?

And secondly, why no in-depth discussion on the sexism in this race, the misogyny? I’m deeply disappointed with NPR.

The blatant hate that people spewed at Hillary this campaign needs to be accounted for, and the hate messages that came from middle-class liberals and others’ tacit support of it especially needs to be accounted for.

And if you’re still saying to yourself, what more do you want? Here is example the likes of which I wish NPR would cover so brilliantly so that more people would be exposed to it. It’s a post by a brilliant blogger, Melissa McEwan, that does more justice to the issue: For the Record.

And if you liked that, here’s her response to all of the misogynist responses she got to that post.

PS–If any of you have heard NPR cover this issue better, please let us know in the comments section.

I Have to Vent: It’s the Conservatives, Stupid!

Okay, that isn’t a very civil title, but the stakes are high and I can’t contain myself.

I’m a 55-year-old white woman. Our greatest matter of urgency is to be sure a Democrat becomes President in November, and to get as many Democrats as possible elected to both houses of Congress. We’ve also got to do that at the local, grassroots levels. When we’re finished doing that, we’ve got to hold the Democrats accountable for what they do or don’t do. We’ve got to demand representation, respect, and results. If they descend to the depths of the Republicans—or even come close—, we need to fire them all and hire new elected officials. We need to repeat the process until they get the message that we mean business. We need to be uppity women and citizens.

I’ve never supported any political candidate enough to campaign or canvass for them. I’ve observed them all, and none of them inspires my impassioned belief in them. And until now I’ve been able to keep a respectful silence while others with very strong feelings for either Democratic Presidential candidate have public melt-downs when their candidate has a political setback.

I can’t keep quiet now. I’ve just been watching a white woman in my age group on CNN going radioactive about how she’s going to vote for John McCain if HIllary Rodham Clinton doesn’t get the Democratic nomination. She gave as her rationale for this chop-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face tactic that the Democratic party has turned on its women supporters.

To this woman, if you and others like you are reading this: Im sure you aren’t in the majority of Clinton supporters. But you’d like the proven record of Republican conservatives for their all-out war on women’s rights? We’re now paying the price for three decades of conservative domination in America—what it’s done to the American character; the fact of American commerce now as morally bankrupt as it is; the abuses of Wall Street; the abuse of the environment; the poisonous cynicism and corruption of this administration; the use of torture, illegal wiretaps—I could go on for pages.

Back to the issue of women’s rights. You, Screaming Woman: you are old enough to remember the pre-Roe v. Wade days in America. Remember coat hangers, Drano, women hurtling themselves down stairs, illegal abortions performed on garage floors without anesthesia? Remember women dying and left unable to bear children from illegal botched abortions? Remember birth control—even birth control information—outlawed? Remember the early 1970s, when a woman could not get a credit card or a bank loan in her own name—when a woman needed an adult male co-signer’s permission for them because we were deemed incompetent to manage our own financial affairs? Remember gender-segregated “Help Wanted” ads, with the best-paying jobs always in the “MALE HELP WANTED” column? Remember when sexual harassment and sex discrimination were legal? Remember when a woman being used as a punching bag by her husband had no recourse—no earning power, no options, and when the police she turned to often were abusers themselves and sympathized with the husband? Remember when we had no rape shield laws and when marital rape was legal? Remember when domestic violence shelters weren’t even a twinkle in anyone’s eye?

If I remember all of that—and I do—then you do, too, Screaming Woman. Republicans fought the changes that spare today’s women the horrors and humiliations they endured then, and too often still do. Give the Republican Party platform a close reading. They want to return us to those days, want it so bad they can taste it. And because the Democratic Party enacts a decision you (and maybe I) don’t agree with, you’re really going to show them, aren’t you, and vote for McCain? The same McCain who, in front of a group of people and in a fit of mouth-frothing rage, called his wife a cunt? The same McCain who mocked Chelsea Clinton—a child at the time—as ugly? The same McCain who vows to appoint Supreme Court justices who will vote to overturn Roe v. Wade? The same McCain who laughed when a Republican woman asked him, on camera, “How do we beat the bitch?”—referring to Clinton, your candidate of choice? The Democratic Party’s decision is worse than this?

Please. Get things in perspective. I do not consent to watching Republicans—the American Taliban—imposing their misogynistic agenda on my nieces. Grow up. I seldom use language this strong, and I understand your anger. No one wants to see a woman President more than I do. But remember who our adversaries are. Remember what theyr’e made of, remember the damage they’ve done already and the worse damage they will surely do if we vote them back into power. Truly, Screaming Woman, I cannot wrap my brain around any woman willing to hand all American’s women over to these American Taliban if Clinton doesn’t get the nomination.

You implied in your meltdown that the Democratic Party is making a calculated effort to prevent a woman from winning the nomination because she’s a woman. News flash: it’s possible to support Obama and not be a misogynistic goon.

I had to get that out of my system. Now please, calm down and do this. Think critically, interpret accurately what the candidates say and do, reach informed decisions based on their judgment, character, track record, and positions on the issues, and don’t abuse the vote—a precious right—that women fought so courageously to win.

“Sexism Sells But We’re Not Buying It”

Hearing all of these opinions in one video is sickening. Head over to the Women’s Media Center to sign the petition.