The Purity Myth

I recently finished the Purity Myth by Jessica Valenti. It was amazing, definitely a 5 out of 5. 

Valenti writes in a way that I like, sarcastic humour and viewing issues from both sides. Let’s start with a visualization: A world were women are not judged because of whether they have sex or not but whether or not they are good people. Sounds pretty good to me. Though the “Virginity Movement” (to use Valenti’s term) wouldn’t have it that way. They believe in retro gender roles. Surprisingly they don’t really want to get rid of the hypersexualized culture, or rather they could not exist without it. Our culture gives women one of two places, virgins or whores. No inbetween, no grey area, just black and white based on sex. Sounds like fun doesn’t it? 

She spends a good amount of time talking about abstinence-only education. Did you know that over 80% of Abstinence-only programs contain lies (all her stats are for the United States). 

The strangest thing is that though her book focuses on the United States and seemingly ‘radicle’ right wingers I can see the things that she talks about. I grew up in a WASPy little town and to this day I am still startled when I find out that some of my friends aren’t virgins (though after the initial shock it doesn’t matter). And I didn’t even go through the indoctrination that some people go through, just through my interactions with culture. Even my sister, who goes to a Catholic High School, receives an abstinence-only education. This means that she has no working knowledge of birth control, or even avoiding STIs, should she ever need it. Can’t say for certain if they lie, though.

Women need to be judged on moral character, not on sexual character.

What Mother’s Day is Really About

Today as I was surfing the net I stumbled across this site: www.takebacktheday.ca.

The website is about what Mother’s Day began as. Somewhat surprisingly it was not invented by Hallmark. It was, in fact, Mothers Day, the realization of a dream of a woman named Anna Jarvis. She and her mother both worked for peace and were social activists.

The inspiration for a national Mother’s Day came from a West Virginian woman and mother of eleven who suffered through the loss of eight of her children. In 1858 at only 26, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis organized women in her area into Mothers Day Work Clubs to improve the health and sanitation conditions in her county. During the American Civil War, she was adamant her clubs stay neutral, and they courageously nursed soldiers from both sides. When the war ended, she arranged the first Mothers Friendship Day in 1868 to reconcile friends and families torn apart by the bitter conflict, and the holiday was celebrated on several occasions after.

One writer, Julie Ward Howe, wrote a Mothers’ Day Proclamation in 1870. It called on mothers around the world to work for peace:

Arise then… women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts!
***
And up from the bosom of a devastated Earth
A voice goes up with our own.
It says “Disarm! Disarm!”

Mothers’ Day was recognized as a national US holiday in 1914. Canada, Mexico and 48 states had been celebrating it since 1909. Shortly after becoming a national holiday the apostrophe was moved and it became Mother’s Day, a celebration of individual mothers. Individual mothers who needed flowers, and cards, and jewelry, and as many other gifts as one could think of.

According to the National Retail Federation Mother’s Day is a $15 billion industry in the US alone.

Perhaps it is time for us to take back this day. To put that apostrophe back where it belongs and instead of buying something for our mothers make something, or donate to somewhere, or volunteer. 

We can take back this day from Hallmark and work for peace.

“Whose Counting” and Who Counts?

A reflection on the article “Whose Counting” by Sara Ahmed done for my Feminist Theories class.

I recently had a discussion like this one about queer theory. A prof here believes that difficult problems need difficult language and thus his class is reading the more complex, abstract and at times confusing theorists. It is my personal belief that though this kind of theory should exist and that at times new language, not necessarily difficult language, is needed as this type of theorizing encounters new problems not previously address. I do not believe however that this should be the only type of theorizing that is privileged as such. I think that because feminism (and queer theory for that matter) deal with issues that affect the general population it should be accessible to everyone regardless of literacy of education. Granted not all theorizing can be accessible to everyone everywhere, but as Ahmed points out, things like poetry and children’s stories could be, and in my opinion should be, included in the umbrella of theory.

I also think that critical theory should be taken into account when studying the criticized theory. For example, Ahmed sites that black feminists have criticized white feminism. I believe it is important when studying white feminism one must understand the criticisms of that approach. I believe that because the lives and experiences of women are fluid so too must be the theory that attempts to explain it, hence my agreement with Ahmed’s term ‘theorizing’ as opposed to ‘theory’. To truly understand a theory I think that one must understand the difficulties with that theory as well.

Is it possible that what is considered feminist theory differs from place to place, or even person to person? For me I feel that what some may call ‘queer theory’ could fit under the umbrella of feminist theory because queer theorizing has a direct effect on my life. Though I could understand how some women could see that post-colonial theorizing or theorizing on race could also be put under the umbrella of feminist theorizing, who actually gets to say what belongs there?

I think one of the things that Ahmed only briefly mentions is a discussion of the politics of publishing, especially in the academy. One possible reason for the privileging of complex theory maybe that those in the academy, especially those who give tenure and are in administrative positions, feel that anything that is not complex do not belong in the academy. Considering that many administrators in the academy are male is it possible that feminist with in the academy are being guided into only producing those theories which will be acceptable to the university administrators?

Also third wave feminism has seen much more self publishing, especially via the internet. Should these blogs and zines be considered important to feminist theory? Also these could be an example about how feminism is fluid as even 15 years ago we didn’t have the resources we do now to self publish and communicate our personal ideas to so many people around the world. As well there are many movements which do not have formal academic theory behind them. Some of these movements, especially grass-root movements have many people taking part. Aren’t these movements producing theory? Shouldn’t everyone be able to take part in a movement whether or not they are formally educated?

Also should theorizing be called feminist if the theorizer does not identify his/herself as feminist? Also if a theorizer calls his/herself a feminist does that automatically mean that all of his/her theorizing is feminist?

*Sigh*

So many questions and not so many answers…..

My Obsession with Ties

Neckties I mean.

As some of you may know one of my friends and I started what we call NeckTie Tuesday. Basically the premise is that on Tuesdays you wear a necktie to question the gendered (and classed) representation of it.

Necktie Tuesday was started because of a coincidence. Both my friend and I decided to wear a tie on the same day. So then we decided that through ties and looking awesome we could start a feminist revolution. Of course we were really only expecting a total of 7 people to join. To our surprise we have over 30 members on our Facebook group. Not many but it’s a start.

The thing that I noticed about my friend and I is that we tend to be much more confident while wearing ties. Like having that thing around our neck makes us a little more likely to say what we are thinking. It actually gives me so much confidence that I have been wearing them to my exams.

So this raised the question. Why? Why does it give us this confidence? What about that piece of fabric is powerful?

For me ties have always been a gendered thing. Only men wore ties. Women were to wear dresses (much to my mother’s dislike I refuse to do that anymore). When I think about ties I generally end up thinking about powerful, rich, white men who get to do or say whatever they want to. So to me by putting on a tie it’s like I get to indulge in a little bit of the power and confidence not normally afforded to me.

Maybe it just ends up gendering the tie even more.

But in the end I think that even when I take off the tie, even if I’m not noticed as much I still get to say what I want to and sometimes I am even heard.

Males are the disappearing “gender”?

So I got up today and went to check my email. When I did so I saw this:

I thought that this article would be very interesting. My answer to the question “Men or Women?” was automatically women. I thought it might be talking about abortion of female babies, feminicide in export processing zones like those in Northern Mexico, or maybe even violence against women in general.

I was wrong. When I clicked the link up came a video from Fox News discussing how males are the disappearing “gender”.

I put gender in quotes because sex and gender are different things. The easiest way to describe the difference is that sex is between the legs and gender is between the ears.

The titles at the bottom said things like:

Common Chemicals Feminizing Entire Male Gender

Study: Male Humans and Animals Vanishing due to chemical exposure

Then there was a selection of pictures entitled: Male Gender in Danger?

Not sure If you can see it but yes all of them are 'wearing' lipstick

As pointed out all of the pictures are wearing lipstick. Because what is the first thing feminized males do run to the local Shoppers Drugmart and purchase lipstick, especially when they are ferocious wild animals prior to said feminization.

At one point you can hear the other news anchors in the room laughing. The woman who is reporting this tells them that it isn’t funny. The laughing man say “No it’s not funny and you’re a woman. For the men in the room it’s really not funny.” As in “How could you possibly understand? You’re just a woman”.

The study in question found male deer with deformed sex organs, alligators with low testosterone and hermaphrodite polar bears.

But the biggest question was not about what we could do to reduce chemical usage for the good of the environment? This question is asked at the end but not for the good of the environment but to stave off the long term effects on males.

The biggest question was

Drumroll please………

Should men be worried?

The answer:

Male reproduction is very resilient.

Thank you once again for reminding us of that.

Doctors…

Luckily since I’ve started school I have been able to get a new family doctor because I no longer live in the same area as my old family doctor.

She was a piece of work. Her skills when it came to me telling her I was cutting was to tell me to “stop it” like it was just that simple. I often questioned her ablity to be a doctor (not because she was female.

The thing that I disliked most about her was the fact that she used to have a sign in her office basically saying in a round about way that she did not support abortion.

I was just informed by my younger sister today that this doctor now has a more direct sign which tells people not to ask her about abortion or viagara or cialis if you are an unmarried man.

To me not even giving information about a legal procedure should be illegal. I respect the fact that she does not wish to carry out the procedure but she should be legally bound to give *all* available options to a patient whether they conflict with her sensibilities or not.

It is doctors like her that lead to women being so desprite that they will do *anything* to get rid of a baby.

And the whole no erection help for the unmarried thing… I’m pretty sure that they are big boys now and they can make their own decisions. Who is she to dictate who can or cannot have sex?

Now this probably wouldn’t matter as much except that because of the shortage of doctors here the only way for anyone to switch doctors is by moving. That means if you are a pregnant woman or an unmarried man you are stuck with this woman imposing her morals on you.

This just really bugs me and I wish that there was something that I could do about it…..

Norway Named Best Country for Women

So I was going to post this a while ago but have been overloaded with school. So I’m doing it now.

Forbes.com recently put out their evaluation of countries and their policies for women. 

The Global Gender Gap Report measures the size of the gender gap—the disparity in opportunities available for men and women—for 130 countries in four critical areas: economic participation and opportunity, health and survival, educational attainment, and political empowerment. A country’s rank is based on the overall score, which is expressed in a percent. The score represents how much of the gender gap the country has been able to close. A score of 100 per cent would represent perfect equality. The majority of the data come from various non-government organizations, such as the International Labor Organization, United Nations Development Program and the World Health Organization. – From Yahoo!

Norway was ranked number one for women with a score of 82%.  Finland, Sweden, Iceland and New Zealand ranked 2nd through 5th.

Where is Canada? you may ask. Surely we ranked in the top 25? No. The top 30? No. We earned 31st place. Disgraceful. We got 71%. We even ranked behind the United States who came in 27th.

Our ranking was hurt by poor educational attainment and by low political empowerment. I mean look at our House of Commons right now. Not many female faces there.  

And the Ivory Tower? Still mostly an Old Boys Club.

Education here actually widens the pay gap between women and men. Women with post secondary education earned 75% of what their male peers did. By 2005 it had dropped to 68%. (From the Canadian Labour Congress)

And yet we stand by and watch as the government takes away funding, as it seeks to oppress us. Something must be done. Something can be done. We must make our voices heard from the streets of small towns to the offices of the Prime Minister. We are citizens. Laws need teeth. We should no longer fear demanding our rights from employers. We should have protection, not even special protection, just the protection provided to every citizen by our government.

Stand up. Make yourself be heard. You are not alone.

This Just In: Women’s Bodies Are Still Their Most Economically Valued Asset

So I was checking my mail on Yahoo like I normally do the other day and I was intrigued by a video titled “Desperate Women Turn to the World’s Oldest Profession During Economic Downturn”. Unfortunately I can’t embed this video so you’ll have to click on the link.

Basically this video looks at the trend of women applying to brothels because of the economic downturn. I find that this is extremely disturbing. Mostly because these women are being forced, they say “choose”, but with only one viable option there isn’t much choice involved. This is rape for money.

This video really makes me mad because it only focuses on a legal brothel. It disregards the fact that there are many much dirtier scarier brothels in the world, without doctors and condoms.

It also focuses on the economic aspect of prostitution. That the Johns are not able to pay the women as much. Thus the women make less money.

This disregards the emotional damage that can be caused. It also disregards the possible violence these women face on the streets.

This disheartens me. I cannot believe that the only work that women can do and be pay very well is prostitution. In any other profession women make 30% less than men.

I can’t believe that a news program would broadcast this so non-chalently. It is almost as if they are closing their eyes to the fact that this is no more than paid for rape

Education

So I`ve been thinking about education a lot. Well, I`m kind of forced to because I have so many things to do for school. It`s just that a lot of the time I forget how fortunate I am to even be able to not to school. Not just post-secondary education but any education at all. Especially since I am a woman.

How many places could I have been born where I would not have had access for education? How many places would have been too expensive for me to go to school? How many places where it would have been illegal for me to even go to school?

This really frustrates me because I feel like there’s nothing I can do to help women have access to education. I looked around online for things I could do.

The one I could afford to do comes from the Miss G___ Project right here in Ontario. I could write to my MPP and ask that Women’s Studies be added to the High school curriculum. An amazing cause. In fact I’ve previously taken part in their Valentine’s Day phone in.

Most of the other ones involved money, much more money than I have. For Example, through Plan Canada I could pay $100 to support literacy training to two women in Rwanda or for $1225 I could give a girl a scholarship in Burkina Faso. I don’t have that kind of money…

Certainly there is something that I can do, that will feel like I am actually making a difference. I just can’t seem to think of anything…

Rape is Disease … Just Covering Your Ears Won’t Make It Go Away

I was dismayed today when I read yet another article about rape. I guess its good that it is being talked about within the media. Sort of. Kind of. Not really at all… except for the most sensational stories.

This article in particular detailed how a teen girl was allegedly raped and forced to work by her aunt. She was under ”Cinderella-type conditions” … not exactly the usual conditions of rape.

More disheartening than the sensationalism used by journalist and by Yahoo for placing the story on their homepage was the dicussion happening in the comment section of the article. There was a blatent disregard for the victim, for rape, and for feminism, even by those who claimed knowledge of the concept of rape and feminism.

The first was the accusation that the girl fabricated the rape to make her own story so sensational. I am not naive enough to believe that this never happened, nor that it will stop happening but until there is some more hard evidence accussations like that should not be thrown around. This is also the reason why I hate the word ‘allegedly’, though I do understand “innocent until proven guilty”.

Also there seems to be this idea that feminism and feminists are propegating the ‘myths’ that “there is still inequality” and that “rape is rapant”. These unfortunately are not myths. Rape is prevalent in our culture, our media, our psyche. Ordinary men *can* and *do* rape (some also are raped). Ordinary women are raped (some also commit rape). Rape is about many, many things, power, sex, and anger to name a few.

Another thing that irked me is that feminists are seen as man-hating dykes. Personally I like men, I wouldn’t sleep with one, but I generally like them. Sometimes they irk me, just like women irk me sometimes. Frankly men are also effected and hurt by social constructs, just like women, though not always to the same extent. I tend to find that the reason that people hate feminists seems to be because the change that we propose scares them. 

Rape won’t go away if you just pretend that it’s not there. And neither will we.