Suffrage a la Lady Gaga

Feminist Law Professors just posted an awesome video made by the folks at Soomo Publishing. It's an ode to woman suffrage, Lady Gaga-style! Enjoy:



By the way, regarding the fact that all the performers in the video are white: the prevailing response (on FLP and in the Youtube comments section which, as we all know, is a bastion of truth and righteousness) is that woman suffrage was a largely white, middle-class movement and, hence, the video is historically accurate. But...I think that's a little bit of a cop out.

Yes, the suffrage movement was incredibly problematic in terms of race. Some suffragists believed, for example, that the 15th amendment--which gave black men and male naturalized citizens the right to vote--was an insult to women because it allowed men of lower standing (read: non-white, working class, less educated, etc.) to have power over white, educated, upper-middle class women, thereby degrading and corrupting the political system which (white, upper-middle class) women would be better able to keep pure. And suffrage organizations like the NAWSA (National American Woman Suffrage Association) barred black women from membership.

So, yeah, that's pretty problematic.*

However, there were a lot of suffragists who were women and men of color (many of the former abolitionists turned to the suffrage movement after the Civil War): Sojourner Truth, Mary Church Terrell, Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Dubois, to name a few.

Despite what some suffragists (including "heroes" of the movement like Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton) would like us to think, the movement wasn't all white...why not at least acknowledge that in the video?

All that said...I do love this video.

* Professor Louise Michele Newman's written a fascinating book about race and the suffrage movement that discusses all this in much more detail: White Women's Rights: Racial Origins of Feminism in the United States (Oxford UP, 1999).

21st Century Girl

This is a little random, but I can't help but find myself charmed by Willow Smith's music videos, especially her most recent, "21st Century Girl," which features a bevy of girls rocking out, skateboarding, BMX biking and, you know, not dressing in miniskirts or playing with dolls and tea sets:



I like her first video, too, but the constant refrain of "I whip my hair back and forth" makes my ears bleed a little:

Pop's Diva Daughter as Primal Mother

I have a new post up at Ms.. Magazine's blog (after a long dry spell which was primarily the result of writer's block and lack of time) about Lady Gaga's newest music video, "Born This Way":

I’ve been looking forward to the music video of Lady Gaga’s much-hyped single “Born This Way” for several weeks, so, when it premiered Sunday on Vevo I really wanted to love it. Unfortunately, “Born This Way” just doesn’t have the twisted, Mad Hatter brilliance of Gaga’s “Bad Romance” video or the movie-pastiche playfulness and queer pleasures of “Telephone” (featuring Beyonce).

What “Born This Way” does share with earlier Gaga videos is an unabashed willingness (nay, insistence) to push the already elastic envelope of music video propriety, a penchant for dancing around in her underwear and a clear, but not completely realized, desire to blur the boundaries between pop rock and video art.

“Born This Way” refers to the idea that homosexuality is the result of nature not nurture, something Gaga emphasizes both through her lyrics (“No matter gay, straight or bi, / Lesbian, transgendered life / I’m on the right track baby / I was born to survive”) and with the neon pink triangle that opens and closes the video. But visually, she seems more interested in metaphors of childbirth and Motherhood (capital “M” intended) than in dwelling on images of queer pride.

Read the rest here.

A Feminist Countdown to 2011 ~ Day Twenty-Nine

See the full calendar here.

A Feminist Countdown to 2011 ~ Day Twenty

See the full calendar here.

A Feminist Countdown to 2011 ~ Day Ten

See the full calendar here.

A Feminist Countdown to 2011 ~ Day One

From my post over at the Ms. Blog:

When I was a very young child, I received a late November package all the way from my grandmother in Germany. It was a large, cloth Advent Calendar, designed to hang on the back of my bedroom door and fitted with little pockets, one for each day leading up to December 25. In each pocket she’d stuffed a tiny toy or bit of candy for me to retrieve day by day. I took so much pleasure in this calendar that my parents felt compelled to fill it for me each year around the holidays, well into my preteens.

I wanted to pass on the joy of this countdown-of-treats to Ms. readers. So, I present to you a secular version of my childhood calendar to help us at the Ms. Blog count down to 2011.

As the days pass, you’ll see more and more of the image behind the dates revealed. You’ll also be offered links to virtual feminist “treats”–a video, a game, a story. Check back each day to see what’s next!

Presenting my Feminist Advent Calendar! Day One is up...



(Click here to visit the home page with the full calendar)

R.I.P. Lena Horne

Alas, the incredible Lena Horne, died on Sunday at the age of 92.

Taylor Swift as feminist success

It seems various assorted feminists don't like Taylor Swift. At all.

I've been wondering about this ever since I read this article (which is entertaining and enlightening, the Riese's Lady Gaga obsession aside).

But I'm not so sure Swift is as anti-feminist as she seems. In fact, I think she can almost be seen as a sort of subtle triumph for feminism.

To begin with, I don't think it's fair to compare Swift to Lady Gaga et al. Swift's target audience seems to be younger teenage and preteen girls. Lady Gaga is not at all suitable for young teenagers. She thrives on being outrageous; Swift on being innocent. There's simply no comparison to be made.

I'm don't think we can compare her with more truly feminist artists either. Take someone like Ani Difranco - her music is has at least an order of magnitude more depth and complexity than Taylor Swift's. The target audience is just not the same. Swift's music is meant for easy listening on the radio, not for inspiring contemplation on the nature of women in society.

So I'd like to compare Swift to another artist who has that 'innocent' vibe: 78violet, better known as Aly and Aj. Aly and Aj started out as a relatively Disneyfied pop act, minus most of the songwriting stereotypes that plague the likes of Swift. They matured with their second album, which which certainly not overtly feminist does have a few gems:

Were you right? Was I wrong?
Were you weak? Was I strong?
Yeah...
--Chemicals React, Aly & Aj (Insomniatic)

Which (unintentionally, perhaps) turns an old stereotype of stupid men and weak women nicely on its head. This is 'post-feminist' music, if you will - Aly and Aj feel free to say whatever they feel, without worrying about stereotypes, or trying to break them. This is not to say we're in a post-feminist world - far from it. But the casual presence of such ideas proves that feminism has truly accomplished something.

And that's what Swift could be like. She could be innocent, non-subversive, and simplistic, while assuming the existence of an egalitarian world. She doesn't. Her music still relies on princes on white horses sweeping princesses away.

But even in her stereotypical world there are flashes of something else. Take 'Love Story', the huge hit. The motif throughout is, "baby just say, 'yes'" - the standard pre-engagement plea. If you listen carefully, though, the line is actually sung by the girl in every case but the very last time it occurs! And I, at least, didn't even notice the point-of-view swap until I read the lyrics online. The song is still cheesy and stereotypical, but the girl is essentially proposing to the guy - hardly the standard Western tradition.

So Taylor Swift really does owe a great deal to feminism in her music; even more so in her real-life career. And that's probably more important than anything else: the young girls who listen are more likely to want to be like Taylor Swift herself than like the characters in her songs.

The point to all this is simple: An important aspect of feminism is defending the right of women to be non-feminist (not anti-feminist perhaps, but certainly non-feminist). If Taylor Swift isn't a paragon of feminist thought, she does unintentionally embody certain aspects of it; we could do much, much worse in choice of entertainment (the Pussycat Dolls, anybody?).

So what do you think - is unintentional feminism a sign of success?

A gay version of Taylor Swift's "You Belong to Me"

Just a little thing via Feministe: the Yellowjackets, an all-male a capella group from my soon-to-be alma mater, The University of Rochester, made an adorable queer music video set to Taylor Swift's "You Belong to Me," which, in the spirit of school spirit and cuteness, I wanted to re-post here. Enjoy!

Ain't Nuthin' But A She Thing

So I've been a bit overwhelmed with life and teaching and the long-time-coming conclusion of my graduate school career, so I've been a neglectful blogger (what else is new these days?).

As a peace offering, will you accept Salt-n-Pepa's "Ain't Nuthin' But A She Thing" music video? I've been revisiting the music of my childhood and have become a bit obsessed:

Sweet dreams are made of this...

We were talking about gender roles and performative acts of gender constitution (from Joan Riviere's "Womanliness as a Masquerade" to Judith Butler's Gender Trouble) in class last week, and I decided to show a clip from Jennie Livingston's amazing 1990 documentary, Paris is Burning. In the film, Livingston showcases the underground, urban gay/drag club scene which popularized voguing (and, yes, it's this club scene that inspired Madonna).

Anyway, searching out a good clip to show from Livingston's film reminded me of my favorite 80s band, The Eurythmics, and their 1982 MTV scandal. In an interview I heard a while back, lead singer Annie Lennox explained that the still-relatively-new MTV banned the band's music video (for the song "Love is a Stranger, below) because they couldn't tell whether Lennox was really a woman or a man dressed in drag. Apparently gender ambiguity was not cool with MTV back in the early 80s; they obviously got over that pretty quickly.



Reminiscing about The Eurythmics sent me on a whirlwind trip down memory lane, which I thought I'd share with you here. Here's one of their most bizarre (and, in my opinion, awesome) videos, for their 1987 song "Beethoven (I Love To Listen To)":



And, because it would be severely remiss for me not to post this, especially relevant, video, here's Aretha Franklin and Annie Lennox singing their 1985 hit "Sisters Are Doin' It For Themselves":

Things I'm Looking Forward to in 2010...

#1. The new movie about The Runaways starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning (who, last time I checked, was eight...now she's a teenager...I feel old...).



(H/T AfterEllen.)

Three Things for Tuesday

In order to not get too terribly depressed about Stupak and the attendant health care debacle, I went out seeking mindless entertainment today. Good things (some poignant, some funny, some crazy fun) were found. I thought I would share.

Poignant: Emma Thompson on The View speaking out about sexual slavery.

(H/T Melissa at Women in Hollywood

Funny: Sesame Street does Mad Men.

(H/T my good friend Gloria)

Crazy Fun: Lady Gaga's "Bad Romance" video

(H/T FanGrrl Magnet)

"I'm an independent diva, but I still kinda need ya."

A hilarious send-up of all those "Single Ladies"-esque songs and music videos that have become popular recently.



Via Salon.

Rest in Peace, Legends of my Childhood...

I'm not ashamed to say that, glorified pin-up girl or not, I adored Farrah Fawcett--especially as Jill on Charlie's Angels, but also the hair! And she was only 62... Rest in Peace.



And Michael Jackson, at 50, on the same day. Sigh.

Feminist Anthems: "Something Inside Of Me" (Wicked Wisdom)

Anger is a fascinating emotion. On one hand, it's a natural, normal reaction to a negative situation, just another piece in the range of human expression. On the other hand, though, anger is seen as overly violent, as a nonconstructive way of dealing.

Especially for women.

We're taught that women aren't supposed to get angry. Sugar and spice and all that. We're supposed to collapse and cry in negative situations. Anger is a sort of 'tough job' that is reserved for the men. If we do express anger? We're bitches and shrews.

As feminists/womanists, we're opposed to that concept, of course. We're allowed to be angry. And we certainly spend our fair share of time being angry - enough that the 'angry feminist' is one of the more common stereotypes. There's honestly little wrong with that. Anger gets stuff done.

But there's a further layer to the emotion:


Feminists tend to be angry about something. We're angry about a problem, and want it fixed: a organization created, a law enacted, media representation of x, acceptance of y, society changed. And this song is seemingly the same. It's about sexual abuse of children - a important issue if there ever was one. The singer is rightfully angry about it. "VIOLATED LITTLE GIRLS AND / LITTLE BOYS I HATE THIS WORLD" But notice her 'solution'. It is to change anything? Is it a 'fuck you' sort of reaction?

No, she instead wants to "...break / that muthafucka’s neck"!

This isn't constructive anger. It's simple, unmitigated rage. And yet - at some level it seems completely appropriate. 2,400 children will be sexually abused today, in the US alone. How can you honestly respond any other way?

Now, I'm fairly certain Jada Pinkett Smith isn't actually advocating vigilante violence against child molesters. The song is, after all, entitled 'Something Inside of Me'. Still, this sort of anger is helpful, even needed - as a motivator, as a clarifier, as a release.

There's a place for calm. There's a place for righteous anger, and there's a place for the violent outburst.

Embrace the rage! (But only musically, please...)

Gender and the Classical Music World

While making my morning espresso, I did what I so often do: listen to NPR. This morning featured Scott Simon's interview with composer Jennifer Higdon and conductor Marin Aslop. Give the interview, and the sample recording of their music, a listen. Simon planned the interview to celebrate the fact that next month, Higdon's Violin Composition will be performed by Hillary Hahn with Aslop conducting her Baltimore Symphony Orchestra: female composer, performer and conductor. No mean feat in the male-dominated classical music world. Obviously, Simon saw this performance as both a reason to celebrate women's achievements in the classical music world and an opportunity to discuss why such achievements are so few and far between.


Yet, Simon was quite surprised to discover that Aslop and Higdon, long-time friends, had never explicitly discussed issues of gender in the classical music world--a fact that I, too, found shocking. Aslop insisted on this point, stating that "the interview Jennifer and I did with NPR's Scott Simon was the first time we'd talked seriously about women in the music industry. I think we did so only because we expected others to be curious about it." While Aslop did clarify that they both "examined the issue, especially in our positions as mentors to the next generation of women coming up through the ranks," she also insisted that gender rarely enters her mind when she works because she is simply too busy focusing on the music itself.

I'm sure Aslop's position is common among artists of all genders. Who wants to be thinking consciously about politics, more specifically the politics of discrimination, when brandishing that conductor's baton, paintbrush, or pen? On the other hand, I firmly believe that, unless the artist lives in an isolationist bubble, politics necessarily inform art, both consciously and unconsciously. Must not a female musician feel the impact of a professional world where few women work as conductors? Where few compositions created by women are performed by major orchestras? Where women rarely fill the roles of conductor, composer, and soloist all in one evening? Given this belief, I cannot help but be skeptical when women express such hesitancy to discuss how their work is informed by feminism and the gender biases it works to combat. Now let's be clear: classical music is a subject of which I know very little. Most of what I do know has been culled from interviews like this one. My thoughts here are not about their music, which I appreciate from my particular perspective as a total classical music philistine. What I would like to comment on, however, is Higdon and Aslop's seeming desire to distance themselves from feminism.

In my own professional life as a professor, I often heard my female students deny that their gender has every substantially interfered with their own ability to succeed. Such remarks often leave me amazed, thinking are you really living in the same world I occupy? I'll admit to feeling some small bit of jealousy for their ability to live their lives free from confronting the heady and often-frustrating issues at the heart of the feminist cause. On the other hand, I wonder if they are deliberately distancing themselves from a blatant feminist message for fear of being branded whiners? Or do they really believe that there is simply no room (or need) for feminism in their lives? I frequently have to convince my students that gender biases still exist, that feminism is not a dirty word, that one doesn't have to be a bitter, man-hating woman (usually the assumption is lesbian, of course) in order to be invested in the feminist cause, that having discussions about feminist issues can be worthwhile and productive. I wonder: would either Aslop or Higdon call themselves feminists? Their statements and their art make it clear to me that, even if they are hesitant to adopt the label, they fit the definition to a T.

Rock, Race, Hip-hop, and Why I Like Music

There's an interesting post up on Feministe titled "Asher Roth, Hip Hop, and Rockism, Or Why Doesn’t My Kid Like Hip Hop?".

I'm not going to talk about Asher Roth anymore; he's just an idiot. I do want to talk about the other half of the article. So why doesn't her kid like Hip-Hop? And more importantly, what's all this about Rockism?

Rockism, of course, is simply one of the youngest names in the grand old tradition of Art snobism. I personally used to be a classicist - if it wasn't written either: A. before 1930 and/or B. In a conservatory, I didn't want to hear it. Vocalists who needed microphones to sing weren't real singers, and I found the electric guitar to be thoroughly disgusting. And the Great (and not incidentally always white and male) Masters had the last word on everything.

By this standard, Rockism looks downright tame!

I got better. Do note, though: I didn't stop being a classicist because I suddenly realized that my prior ideas were racist, sexist and wrong. I stopped because I actually listened to all that other music, and liked it. I'll come back to this.

But Rockism. The Times article liked in the Feministe post makes some good points, but it honestly doesn't go far enough. It's not that rock music is 'white' and hip-hop is 'black'. It's that Hip-Hop is 'new', and rock music is 'old'. Let me explain:

Around 110 years ago, all the kids were listening to a new kind of music called Ragtime. They played it in the bars and clubs, they danced to it, it was exciting and rebellious and their parents were scandalized. Critics mostly ignored it, preferring to focus on 'real music' like Opera. Note that the greatest rag composer was a Black man named Scott Joplin.

Now, mentally switch (Modern) Hip-Hop with Ragtime, Rock with Opera, and Eminem with Joplin. Not an exact analogy, but fairly close.

Fast forward to today. What has happened to Ragtime? Simply put, it has become classical music, right along with Mozart, Wagner and the rest. White Art snob culture has co-opted it, and it has become part of the 'Canon', if you will. It's just the same with Jazz. And it's happening to Rock now, too - enough now that Rock is seen as 'white', despite its history! (Bo Diddley, anyone?) The patriarchy likes very much to utilize the 'if you can't beat them, join them' strategy, and so always takes credit for the accomplishments of the less privileged. And why stop now? Perhaps Asher Roth is simply the beginning of the end for Hip-Hop. Black culture will move on to the next new genre, and the cycle will continue.

Or perhaps not. Perhaps we can stop making it about which sort of music is 'better', and actually get around to listening to it.

You see, here's my criteria for whether music is 'good': I listen to it. If I get a shiver down my spine, it's good music. If my body is enveloped by an orgasmic feeling of delight, it's great music. It's a visceral, almost purely physical reaction, and as far as I can tell, it's quite genre agnostic.

Which brings me to Lauren's son. None of the nine-year-olds I know have even heard of Kurt Cobain or Elton John, let alone want to listen to them; this makes me think he really likes it! (Then again, he could be rebelling against his parent's music choices!) Perhaps it is racial - but perhaps he just hasn't hear the right Hip-Hop yet. Or, perhaps he would like some of the Black rock stars (is Hendrix close enough to Cobain?) With any luck, he'll be able to really appreciate music.

Some people want to rebel. Some people want to be snobs. Some people (Rockists) want to be snobs about rebelling! But really, music should be about feelings, and about meaning, and about choices, and about people.

(Curious counter-argument to everything I just said: is my insistence on criticizing music separately from its surrounding culture an artifact of my Art snobbishness?)

Women's Lib Fun

Two fun little women's lib-y things for you today.

First, on this past weekend's Mother's Day performance of A Prairie Home Companion, Garrison Keillor sang a cute little song about motherhood and equal pay for equal work. I've embedded audio for the whole first segment of the show below, but the song starts around 6:20.

Secondly, this past Sunday's episode of The Simpsons, "Four Great Women and a Manicure," is totally worth a watch (and features Jodie Foster providing Maggie's voice during her Fountainhead pastiche). The best line? Lisa: "So Snow White slept and waited for her prince to come, but he never did...because a woman shouldn't have to depend on a man. Snow White was brought back to life...by a lady doctor" Cracks me up!