Columbus Day Linkage

Some great posts on what it means to celebrate Columbus Day and why there's really nothing to celebrate:

Día de la Resistencia Indígena, Womanist Musings

A Day that Lives in Infamy, elle, phd

Happy Día de la Raza!, Nezua

Columbus Day Observed, Mamita Mala

Speaking of racism, The Bilerco Project analyzes the McCain campaign's scary race tactics and its effects and Tim Wise weighs in on the cost of silence.

And Cara at The Curvature decries another one of those awful, "provocative" victim-blaming anti-rape PSAs.

On the flip side, on an amusing/day-making note, my hero Tina Fey says she'll leave the planet if McCain-Palin win:

The "SNL" veteran who has come back to play the Republican Vice Presidential candidate (and whose own show, "30 Rock," is still nowhere to be seen), said, "We're gonna take it week by week. If she wins, I'm done. I can't do that for four years. And by 'I'm done,' I mean I'm leaving Earth."

The line between sexism and fun

Becky Drysdale (of Time Traveling Lesbian/Big Gay Sketch Show fame) recently made a video entitled "L Word Serenade". It's been around for couple of weeks or so, and it's rather funny:


Ha, ha, silly lesbians watching the L Word for the sex, right? I thought so too, at first. But after watching it several more times, I'm not so sure.

What if the song had been performed by a man, about some other show? My reaction to that would likely be, "Oh, great, another stupid rap about some guy's sexual prowess." I know, I know, it's "just a joke", right? But sometimes it seems like we have a lot more tolerance for objectification if it's being done by a woman.

It seems like there are two way to view objectification:

1. It's a social construct, and it's a problem because it's pervasive, constant, and nearly completely biased against women - if it was equally distributed and less prevalent, it would be okay. Lots of feminist adjacent men seem to think like this, mostly in terms of "It's okay to objectify someone a little." A number of lesbians seem to agree, cf. Sandy from the Lesbian Mafia, who thinks that porn would be just fine, if only men wouldn't look at it!


2. It's a moral issue: objectifying someone's body is essentially always wrong. This, curiously enough, is a view held by both right-wing Christians, and by some of the most radical feminists: Andrea Dworkin comes to mind.

I personally tend to float somewhere in between: I think that it's possible to appreciate sexuality without objectifying the person, but I think that it becomes wrong as soon as you actually start treating them only as an object. I'm not always sure where exactly that line is, though. This song, while not offensive per. se., still bothers me somewhat.

Or, perhaps I'm just still mad about the Margeret Cho incident.

What do you think? Does the 'L Word Serenade' offend you, or is it just funny?

Feminist Flashback #6

Foxy Brown, 1974
(Warning: There's some offensive language and imagery in this trailer, including the use of the "N" word. But it was the best overview of the film I could find. I apologize if it offends anyone.)



A quick caveat for this week's feminist flashback: not everyone would categorize blaxploitation as feminist since it is, by definition, about exploitation of certain racial and gendered tropes. Significantly, blaxploitation is a genre very-much based in the 1970s – urban crime, the war on drugs, post-civil rights. Gary Morris’s article on the genre in Bright Lights Film Journal defines it fairly well:

The plots of most of these films — and they are conventionalized enough to confidently treat them as a group — are pastiches of old Warner Bros. melodramas, with dashes of MGM fashion glamor — via the street — thrown in. Most are gangster melodramas with elements of social protest, dominated by a single (male or female) charismatic personality. They fall loosely into two overlapping categories. First are the stories of the pimp or pusher at a crisis point, caught between the needs of his people (black nationalism) and sellout pressure from The Man. […] The second is the straight-on revenge drama, in which a character — often female, more violent and less conflicted than her male counterpart — single-handedly destroys a white-based power structure that's harmed her, her family, and by extension the black community.

Many people -- particularily reviewers -- found (and find) blaxploitation films to be degrading and unrealistic. However, in a 1977 interview, Pam Grier (star of Foxy Brown, among other things) stated

I feel I portray all images of a woman on all levels because I am product of my environment. As far as people insisting that I have been cast in blaxploitation movies, I don't know what black exploit means. All the roles I have had were reflections of our society. Those were real people from real elements. The heroiness I portrayed always showed concern for the terrifying social conditions and it is only in this area that I feel I meld with the screen characters I depicted.

Even though it's violent, hyper-sexualized and gratuitous, I love Foxy Brown because Pam Grier's character is kick-ass. What do you all think? How do we define feminism in text when so many other factors--violence against women (and men), racist stereotypes, revenge, etc.--seem counter to that ideal?

Happy National Coming Out Day

Today is National Coming Out Day. Why is that important? Because when people come out--as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, asexual, etc.--they're telling the world that they're not ashamed of their sexuality, themselves or their lives. That they're proud to be who they are. The more people come out, the more obvious it will become that LGBTQ folks are just the same as everyone else, that being LGBTQ is only a part of our identity. We have families and pets and jobs and houses/apartments and coffee tables. And, chances are, people who know LGBTQ people are more likely to stand up for LGBTQ issues (except if you're Dick Cheney or Sarah Palin).

But you don't necessarily have to be gay to revel in the spirit of coming out day. Today, even if you're straight, come out as something as a sign of solidarity with the LGBTQ community (H/T to the Pride group at my graduate institution, who did this last year). Are you a feminist? Come out as a feminist. Are you a Buddhist? Tell the world. Each of us has many identity positions we occupy day after day, sometimes without even realizing that we take certain rights and privileges for granted. So, whether you're LGBTQ or not, today is a day to own your identity and to think about how your life is shaped daily by all the little pieces that make up who you are.

I'll start. I'm a lesbian, biracial, agnostic, a democrat and a feminist. Everyone I'm close to knows that I'm gay, from my parents--who were and are terrific about it--and relatives (even though it took me quite a while to tell them) to my friends. Still, I used to be very wary of coming out to people I only knew casually, to the extent that I attended the same karate dojo for five years (and worked there for one of those years), and only came out to two people there. But this summer I moved and made a decision; I wasn't going to hedge anymore. If someone asked me why I moved, I would tell them (to be with my partner) and if they didn't like it, tough. Four or five times now I've encountered the same question from people I just met, "Oh, so why did you come all the way out here?" and I've answered, "To be with my partner." And when they ask what my partner does, I always start the sentence with "she." It seems like a small step, but it's a huge deal to me, and every time so far the person I'm speaking with has responded positively and without hesitation. And that's how I realized that all these years I've been isolating myself. No, not everyone is going to be okay with the fact that I'm a lesbian, but I'll never know if I don't tell them and give them a chance. That's what Coming Out Day is about to me--not worrying what people will think of me and being proud of who I am and whom I love.

What about you all? Come out, come out! And, remember, you don't have to be LGBTQ to participate. Share your stories in the comments.

Update: Check out Hahn at Home's great coming out post over at Lesbiatopia and Queers United's Coming Out Day open forum. Also, a wonderful coming-out-as-an-ally post from Renee at Womanist Musings and Britni explains over at her blog why it can still be so hard to come out even when you're open about everything else.

Yay Connecticut!

Despite my "tolerance" for the Democrats' pro-civil unions anti-gay marriage stance, I am of course beyond thrilled that the state of Connecticut has decided to legalize same-sex marriage:

The Connecticut Supreme Court ruled on Friday that same-sex couples have the right to marry, reversing a lower court decision that had concluded that the civil unions legalized in the state three years ago offered the same rights and benefits as marriage.

With the 4-to-3 ruling, Connecticut becomes the third state in the nation to legalize same-sex marriage. California legalized gay marriage in May 2008, and Massachusetts in 2004.

“Today is really a great day for equality in Connecticut,” said Bennett Klein, senior lawyer at Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders, which argued the case before the Supreme Court. “Today’s decision really fulfills the hopes and dreams of gay and lesbian couples in Connecticut to live as full and equal citizens.”

Is it too early to be optimistic and say that things are starting to look up?

(H/T Pretty Much Everyone)

Woman with a Gun (Part 1)

Much has been made in the six weeks since we were introduced to Sarah Palin of her gun-totin' ways, her life-long NRA membership (unsurprisingly the NRA has come out in support of the McCain-Palin ticket), her rather extreme views on gun control (or lack thereof) and her propensity for shooting things. For a while now, I've been interested in media representations of violence (or implied violence) and so Palin's predilection for firearms has me intrigued. What follows is the first part of a three-part analysis/exploration of the "woman with a gun" trope in popular/media culture. From politics to film to television and back to politics.



Part 1: They Shoot Wolves, Don't They?

In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit something before I even begin: I'm not really anti-gun, nor do I have a moral problem with hunting in general. I do believe in stricter gun control, including required background checks and permits to purchase both rifles and handguns, but I don't think firearms should be illegal. (Some states already have these requirements and some don't. If you look around, you can find up-to-date gun control laws on the internet with little trouble, but--just for illustrative purposes--this map of gun control laws by state is straightforward and succinct and gives you a general overview, even though it's a little outdated.) As regards hunting, I've never hunted myself and I'm not sure I'd ever want to hunt, but as long as hunters handle the animals humanely (i.e. not dragging out the chase or carelessly maiming) and use the animals they hunt for food and not trophies, I don't really have a problem with it. (It'd be pretty hypocritical of me to get up-in-arms over animals being hunted for food when I regularly eat meat. In fact, responsible hunting is probably more humane than what happens at slaughterhouses. But I digress.)

That said, we all know Governor Palin likes to hunt and she's happily asserted that "We hunt as much as we can, and I'm proud to say our freezer is full of wild game we harvested here in Alaska" (Newsweek). We've also seen the pictures of her with her spoils:


(The bear was actually shot by Palin's father, but now resides in her Anchorage office.)

You've probably also heard about her promotion of an aerial wolf gunning program, which is quite a bit more insidious than shooting the occasional caribou. The program, started by previous Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski, was designed to control the population of wolves so they would leave more prey for human hunters:

Wolves, Murkowski believed, were clearly better than humans at killing elk and moose, and humans needed to even the playing field.But that was before Sarah Palin took Murkowski's job at the end of 2006. She went one step, or paw, further. Palin didn't think Alaskans should be allowed to chase wolves from aircraft and shoot them -- they should be encouraged to do so. Palin's administration put a bounty on wolves' heads, or to be more precise, on their mitts.
(Read the full article at Salon.)

Here's the ad against the practice paid for by the Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund:


While hunting prey animals may be partially about "living off the land" and feeding your family (although I imagine the percentage of hunters who only care about food is small), the aerial wolf gunning program is solely an assertion of power. The mastery of (wo)man over nature. It not only enacts human dominance over animals for our own gains but also implies that we have the right to exert our superior weaponry and machinery however we please. It doesn't take a huge leap of logic to imagine where that kind of thinking can lead us (and has already).


And what of the image of Sarah Palin with a gun--from the faked bikini photo and Tina Fey as Palin pretending to cock an invisible gun on SNL, to the real McCoy (see the first photo above)? In the first two instances, the emphasis is clearly on sex appeal. Woman with a gun = hot.


And the latter case? The actual Sarah Palin holding an actual gun? Take a look at this very short video made by Palin supporters before the rest of the country even knew who Sarah Palin was (the video was posted to Youtube way back in July by the Draft Sarah Palin for Vice President folks, who are probably patting themselves on the back right about now):



What visual associations do they make with Governor Palin? Integrity. Sarah Palin is sworn in as governor. Leadership. Sarah Palin speaks with Army officers. Courage. Sarah Palin shoots an assault rifle. And then the kicker: "Republicans are much more open to strong women." Following on the heels of rat-a-tat gunfire, the only spoken words in the video make implicit connections between firearms/courage and courage/strength. So, again, we're back to guns as symbols of power (certainly not a new idea in and of itself). The photos speak: This woman can shoot and kill a 1200lb moose, a swift caribou or a vicious wolf, so she's master of the natural domain. She knows how to fire a rifle and doesn't blink, so she has the strength to lead and the courage to defend our nation.

But...there's more. Stay tuned for Part 2. In the meantime, what's do you think is the (theoretical) appeal of Sarah Palin and her guns? Why are they important to her image?

Carnival of Feminists, #66

Check out the 66th Carnival of Feminists over at Apu's World.

The next Carnival will be hosted on October 22nd by Sally over at Jump Off the Bridge, so don't forget to submit your recent feminist blog entries to share with the world.