Really?

So I went to MC Sports yesterday. I like sports stores. They give me hope for the world when I see an equal amount of women's sports gear and men's. Sports are one of those interesting arenas where gender rules are...different.

Until now.

Wilson has unleashed a line of gear labeled "It's a girl thing."

For awhile looking around at the line and thinking, "Why does everything have to be PINK?"

My roommate, who knows my GWS ways, said, "You and your friends would have a field day in here with your analysis."

We would have.

Why does something have to be pink for girls and women to enjoy it? Or for it to be OKAY for them to enjoy it? I had blue softball bats and a black mitt when I grew up. My sliding shorts were black. Not hot pink. My volleyballs were white and so were my kneepads. No pink, and I was a fine athlete.

It gets worse, though.

Right before we left we noticed something. There was a pink softball mitt and a pink and purple ball INSIDE OF A PINK AND PURPLE PURSE. Necessary?? I don't think so.

Thinking about it more, I realized that the only two pink things I own are a track jacket and gym shoes, both by NIKE . I don't know what to make of that.

Conference this Saturday!

I am in Amnesty International, and we're putting on a conference this Saturday.
The focus is about the trafficking of women and the femicides of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. Here's all the information if any of you are interested. It should be really intense and thought-provoking, since it's addressing many of today's hotbutton topics:

STOP VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN ACTIVISTS' CONFERENCE hosted by Amnesty International on Saturday, April 28 at the University YMCA. In Juarez, over three hundred women have been raped, mutilated and murdered, while the perpetrators remain at large. Every year, millions of women and girls are trafficked across international borders and forced or coerced into prostitution. This culture of abuse extends even to our own campus, where every year female students are raped and assaulted. Meanwhile, women and men everywhere are taking action to stop the violence. Hosted by Amnesty International 124, a program of the University YMCA, this conference will include workshops designed to raise awareness about these current issues, and to teach important skills for engaging in women’s rights activism, including fundraising, outreach and publicity, and how to organize effectively on a college campus.Amanda Flott, Field Organizer for the Amnesty International Midwest Regional Office, will be delivering the opening plenary, unveiling a new report by Amnesty International, "Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women from Sexual Violence in the USA." Dr. Karen Flynn, professor of African-American studies here at UIUC, will be presenting "Sex Trafficking: Making the Global Connection" at the closing plenary.Whether you have signed a petition once in your life, or you are a seasoned activist, this conference is for you! This event will be held on Saturday, April 28th at the University YMCA, located at 1001 South Wright Street across from Lincoln Hall. Come at 10:30am for breakfast, we will begin at 11am and adjourn at 3:30. This conference is free and open to everyone!

yooooo. how are we all doing on this absolutely wonderful friday afternoon? i have been thinking about courses lately..whats offered, what should be offered, etc. etc.

i would absolutely love to see atleast an undergrad intro class to critical whiteness studies. wouldnt that be kinda cool? id also like to see a few more classes that take the intro to queer studies topics into greater detail. maybe a queer studies minor option....maybe a major option. and what about a class that looks at masculinity more specifically, that be pretty cool. i would also orgasm at the sight of a feminist philosophy class. word. wouldnt that be so cool! my brain would probably explode with happiness. lets see what else....there could be more feminist theory classes that could elaborate more on the topics discussed in intro to feminist theory. I think that a course on women and the law would also be pretty interesting where you could have an opportunity to turn an analytical lens on the legislative and judicial practices in this country. it could look at reproductive rights, health policy, etc. etc.

obviously it takes work on a number of levels in order to have more courses offered, but hey we should start taking a more influential role in GWS cultivation so we can bring the noise to the people. holler.

and so, i pose the question....what would you like to see offered?

have a wonderful weekend, my friends.

Alright, I just felt the need to say that I really think the focus should be on OUR blog as GWS interested people, not on people's individual blogs. We created this blog as a forum both for people to share ideas and rants, as well as to continue some of the discussions we have at our FIST meetings. If you have something to share, share it here instead of referring us to other links to read what you have to say. This is about a GWS-supportive community being built here, not about self promotion.

ay ay ay

mo's cello is a lil fucked up, otherwise we would have a cello-piano jam session. shes got a keboard you could play. its about 15 years old...its under my bed. right on.
love us.

Rape Survivors Tell Their Stories

Tonight the documentary Survivors Speak will be shown at 7 pm in room 160 of the English building. Four survivors of sexual assault tell their stories, along with answering questions about their experiences. My friend Dan is the director of this documentary, and you can read more about it here. Rumor has it that there will be wine at the reception following the screening. Please feel free to pass on this information to anyone :-)

http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2007/04/23/OpinionColumns/Rape-Survivors.Speak.Out.Tonight-2873177.shtml

i meant to post about this earlier but have been unable to reach internet for a few days...

from alternet.org:
"Supreme Court Ruling Threatens Women's Health"

The Supreme Court handing down what's being called one of the biggest setbacks for the abortion rights movement in years. On Wednesday, the court voted 5-4 to uphold a ban on late-term abortion. The so-called Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was signed into law in 2003, but it had been held up by rulings from lower courts. The Supreme Court ruling marks the first time justices have agreed a specific abortion procedure can be banned. It's also the first time since Roe v. Wade that justices approved an abortion restriction that does not contain an exception for the health of the mother.

In her dissenting opinion, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the decision "alarming" and "irrational." She said, "[The ruling] tolerates, indeed applauds, federal intervention to ban nationwide a procedure found necessary and proper in certain cases by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists." She later continues, "[It] cannot be understood as anything other than an effort to chip away at a right declared again and again by this Court -- and with increasing comprehension of its centrality to women's lives."

Amy Goodman discusses the implications of the ruling with Louise Melling, director of the Reproductive Freedom Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. As an attorney, Melling has appeared in federal and state courts around the country to challenge laws that restrict reproductive rights.

AMY GOODMAN: Louise Melling, welcome to Democracy Now!

LOUISE MELLING: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain the significance of this ruling.

LOUISE MELLING: This decision, as you said, is devastating. It's incredibly significant. This is, as you commented on, the first time the court has upheld a restriction on abortion that lacks protections for women's health. This is the first time -- this is the first-ever federal law banning certain abortions, and the court has upheld that. This really is a decision that undermines a core principle of Roe that's been in place since 1973, that women's health must remain paramount.

AMY GOODMAN: Talk about the significance also of this majority, the 5-4 majority. with the new Chief Justice, John Roberts, with Samuel Alito, the two George W. Bush nominees to the Supreme Court, ruling with a majority against late-term abortion.

LOUISE MELLING: Well, what you see is a real shift right. In 2000, the Supreme Court considered a law that was also called a partial-birth abortion law, and the court struck that law. And in striking that law, what the court did was, there, as it had always, recognized women's health to be paramount. What the court did in 2000 was also say, we're going to listen to doctors, and where some doctors say that procedures that might be banned here are the safest for women's health, we will defer to those doctors, and there has to be a health exception to ensure that women's health is protected. And in that decision, the court also looked to, as you said, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists view. ACOG is the leading medical organization for physicians who care for women during pregnancies. Now -- and that decision was 5-4 also, with O'Connor, Justice O'Connor, in the majority.
Now, seven years later, what's really different is you have two new members of the court. This is the first decision of the court on abortion since Justice O'Connor resigned, and you have a very, very significantly different holding.

AMY GOODMAN: So what are you planning? What is the ACLU, what are reproductive rights groups planning right now? Where do you see this going from here?

LOUISE MELLING: Well, I think, you know, first of all, it's alarming that the court isn't protecting women's health, so we're concerned about women's health. What's also alarming is that the court's decision has language that's so broad that it really does constitute an invitation to legislatures to further restrict abortions. It sends a signal that in many respects the court thinks that legislators, not doctors, may be the ones best positioned to make decisions about our most fundamental options.
So, you know, of course, what we're going to be concerned about is figuring out how to best continue to protect women's health and to continue to protect the ability of women to decide, as we've been able to for over three decades, to end pregnancies when we, in consultation with our doctors and whoever else we think is appropriate, decide that's the best course for us.

AMY GOODMAN: And in terms of doctors or women who have abortions being criminally charged, can you elaborate on this?

LOUISE MELLING: Well, this is a federal law. This is a law that reaches, you know, doctors who provide abortions in every state, all across the country. And if a doctor performs any procedure that's viewed as prohibited by this law, the doctor is at risk of prosecution, and, if convicted, this would be a federal crime. I mean, again, this is unprecedented. For the first time ever, you have a federal law making certain abortions a crime, a law that would say that doctors can be prosecuted for federal violations, for performing abortions that the doctor believes -- and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists support it -- would be best for a woman's health.

AMY GOODMAN: And what are the future cases that you see most significant coming up around the country?

LOUISE MELLING: Well, I think what will be most significant is to see what happens in response to this decision. I mean, I think if you're looking at the press, you already see that anti-choice activists feel emboldened by this decision. I think what's incredibly important is that those of us who really care about abortion and protecting access to abortion and protecting women's health take action and are active in the political process, including in the legislative process, to ensure continued constitutional protection, continued legislative protection, for what is important for women's health and women's equality.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, I want to thank you very much for joining us, and we will, of course, continue to cover the significance of this. Louise Melling, our guest, with the American Civil Liberties Union.

(http://alternet.org/rights/50781/?page=2)

Day of Silence

I feel the need to give you the back story to this. I’m taking a class right now that is all about oppression and activism. It’s an amazing class, in part because many of the most recognizable campus activists are in it this semester. And I was so excited that it fell on a Wednesday. In fact, secretly, it was the one thing I was looking forward to most about Day of Silence this year. I announced the day of silence events twice in class in the last week, and we watched a video in class last week in which June Jordan railed against all those people who will protest racism, but not homophobia. The timing was perfect.

I eagerly awaited class today, imagining the silence as those who most often participate were silent, hoping that for the first time in four years, I might have a class where I wasn’t one of a small handful in black, but part of a collective majority. I was so excited in fact, that I got there early. And as one after another they walked in chattering and wearing blue, pink, red, green, yellow clothing, my heart slowly sank. As I sat in class today, instead of taking notes, I wrote this.

An Open Letter to Student Activists at the University of Illinois
As I went through my day on this Day of Silence, I was profoundly sad. If people who call themselves anti-oppression, anti-chief, anti-racism, anti-sexism, against the racist, imperialist war on Iraq, or activists for justice and equality really were all those things, the whole campus should have been filled with people dressed in black the same way Foellinger was filled with people fed up with the racism, abuses of power, and unacknowledged privilege rampant on this campus. This was a singular opportunity to easily and visibly unite around a cause that affects members of all our communities, and it was missed.

I suppose it was naïve of me to have so much faith in other people. But these are not my enemies. These are MY people. They are my friends, my classmates, my, dare I say it, comrades in the struggle. They are those who nod in agreement when I question sexist attitudes, who smile and compliment my anti-chief t-shirt, who march with me when I protest the war. And I feel betrayed.

All that we asked was that you put on black clothing this morning. Silence was highly encouraged, but left to your discretion. And you chose not to participate. You chose not to take a stand against violence and oppression when doing so would have meant no inconvenience to you.

None of us is perfect, of course. We forget, we rush around without thinking, we get distracted. And if you were not aware of what today was, then I apologize. Our hours of chalking, hundreds of fliers, thousands of facebook ads and tens of profile pictures, our letters to the editor, weeks of quad tabling, and numerous class announcements went unnoticed.

But when such a huge proportion of a group shows such ambivalence, that is no accident. This speaks to me as the clearest evidence of what is wrong with this campus. Your complacency implicates you, and your silence on this issue speaks louder than the silence that we gave this campus today. And now, even as I am surrounded by those who chose to take a stand, I am profoundly sad.


In peace,

Bridget

some lectures going on this week...

Thursday at 4pm, Education Building Room 2: A Global Perspective on Socially Responsible Entrepreneurship
"Professor Wu Qing's dedication to social activism has won her world acclaim and in 2001 the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service, considered the "Asian Nobel Prize." She is the first woman to receive the honor and has also been selected to join the Schwab Foundation network of exemplary social entrepreneurs. Join Professor Wu Qing in discussing how socially responsible entrepreneurship can dramatically impact societies and economies around the world."
http://webtools.uiuc.edu/calendar/Calendar?ACTION=VIEW_EVENT&calId=7&eventId=58875

Thursday at 7:30pm, Alice Campbell Alumni Center Ballroom: 16th Annual Daniel S. Sanders Peace and Social Justice Lecture given by Larry Cox (exec. director-Amnesty International)
http://webtools.uiuc.edu/calendar/Calendar?ACTION=VIEW_EVENT&calId=7&eventId=58514

Friday at 4pm, Illini Union 314B: MillerComm Lecture Series "Humanities in Post-human Times"
"The goal of the conference is to explore the interfaces between the humanities and high technology with talks by specialists in these areas from the U. of I. and from other institutions. Speakers will explore how the humanities and technology meet now and can meet in the future. Talks will look at how the humanities pursue traditional and not-so-traditional subjects. Speakers will also examine how emerging technologies illuminate and illustrate cultural artifacts. Visualization and virtual reality look at text-based objects of culture, and facilitate and add to interpretation and reading. Talks will also look at the repercussions of emerging "post-human" paradigms by examining new ways of thinking and models of the post-modern. This conference not only produces new knowledge, but also develops innovative approaches to these issues and problems that are central to having an on-going dialog at the U. of I. and elsewhere. The keynote lecture is by Professor Alan Liu (University of California-Santa Barbara) as a MillerComm talk, on Friday, April 20, in 314B, Illini Union at 4 p.m."

I won't be in town for the Friday one, but it sounds pretty cool. definitely relative to post-modernist feminism and queer theory. if you by chance get to attend it, i would love to hear a run down of how it went.

ok. peace out.

The Prospect of All-Female Conception

The prospect of all-female conception
By Steve Connor, Science Editor
Published: 13 April 2007

Women might soon be able to produce sperm in a development that could allow lesbian couples to have their own biological daughters, according to a pioneering study published today.
Scientists are seeking ethical permission to produce synthetic sperm cells from a woman's bone marrow tissue after showing that it possible to produce rudimentary sperm cells from male bone-marrow tissue.

The researchers said they had already produced early sperm cells from bone-marrow tissue taken from men. They believe the findings show that it may be possible to restore fertility to men who cannot naturally produce their own sperm.

But the results also raise the prospect of being able to take bone-marrow tissue from women and coaxing the stem cells within the female tissue to develop into sperm cells, said Professor Karim Nayernia of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.

Creating sperm from women would mean they would only be able to produce daughters because the Y chromosome of male sperm would still be needed to produce sons. The latest research brings the prospect of female-only conception a step closer.

"Theoretically is it possible," Professor Nayernia said. "The problem is whether the sperm cells are functional or not. I don't think there is an ethical barrier, so long as it's safe. We are in the process of applying for ethical approval. We are preparing now to apply to use the existing bone marrow stem cell bank here in Newcastle. We need permission from the patient who supplied the bone marrow, the ethics committee and the hospital itself."

If sperm cells can be developed from female bone-marrow tissue they will be matured in the laboratory and tested for their ability to penetrate the outer "shell" of a hamster's egg - a standard fertility test for sperm.

"We want to test the functionality of any male and female sperm that is made by this way," Professor Nayernia said. But he said there was no intention at this stage to produce female sperm that would be used to fertilise a human egg, a move that would require the approval of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority.

The immediate aim is to see if female bone marrow can be lured into developing into the stem cells that can make sperm cells. The ultimate aim is to discover if these secondary stem cells can then be made into other useful tissues of the body, he said.

The latest findings, published in the journal Reproduction: Gamete Biology, show that male bone marrow can be used to make the early "spermatagonial" stem cells that normally mature into fully developed sperm cells.

"Our next goal is to see if we can get the spermatagonial stem cells to progress to mature sperm in the laboratory and this should take around three to five years of experiments," Professor Nayernia said.

Last year, Professor Nayernia led scientists at the University of Gottingen in Germany who became the first to produce viable artificial sperm from mouse embryonic stem cells, which were used to produce seven live offspring.

His latest work on stem cells derived from human bone marrow suggests that it could be possible to develop the techniques to help men who cannot produce their own sperm naturally.
"We're very excited about this discovery, particularly as our earlier work in mice suggests that we could develop this work even further," Professor Nayernia said.

Whether the scientists will ever be able to develop the techniques to help real patients - male or female - will depend on future legislation that the Government is preparing as a replacement to the existing Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.

A White Paper on genetics suggested that artificial gametes produced from the ordinary "somatic" tissue of the body may be banned from being used to fertilise human eggs by in vitro fertilisation.

via The Independent
(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2444462.ece)

this is one of my favorite documentaries. inga muscio gives props to it in her book, autobiography of a blue eyed devil. she also wrote cunt and although i dont agree with her on everything i think shes a pretty awesome writer bring cool messages to the people. if youd like to borrow either of these, ive got em so just shout a holler.

the revolution will not be televised.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5832390545689805144&q=the+revolution+will+not+be+televised&hl=en


i watched this last summer and one of the things that stood out the most was the notion that hugo chavez got on the radio/tv and answered public questions from constituents.....i remember thinking it would be cold day in hell before georgie goes on public radio and fields spontaneous questions...a cold day indeed. now chavez has his own downfalls, but i think hes a man for the people. word.

seriously, watch this video if you can....its good stuff.

dear boy across the library table from me,

its not cool to refer to a transgendered individual as an 'it'. its blatant and egregious ignorance. you should be ashamed of yourself, you fucking moron.

love,
me.

The season is upon us

As the wedding season kicks into full gear, I'm feeling the need to vent. It's not that I'm bitter towards the people having weddings. On the contrary, weddings tend to make me cry because there's so much concentrated joy. And I don't entirely agree with those "We're not getting married until everyone can" people. I certainly appreciate the sentiment, but it doesn't do much good to deprive yourself. I have no need to at all dampen others' happiness. But I think the current regulations cheapen heterosexual marriage.

I want couples everywhere to be absolutely outraged. I want people storming the courthouses demanding an explanation for why the government thinks they can regulate the kind of love it takes to commit yourself to another person for life. For LIFE! The kind of all consuming, head-over-heels, connected on the deepest level, only in the movies, can't even be done justice by words kind of love. If you can't say it in words (and you can't) you can't put it on a fucking piece of paper. It would probably burst into flames.

All they're doing is institutionalizing reproduction. And with that in mind...: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/politics/2003558717_nokids06m.html

top that!

it never gets old.

Sweeeeeeeeeet Jesus!

Looks like a milk chocolate jesus has stirred up much controversy with the christians... too bad they don't sell miniatures at the market.... yummyyyyyyy.... comments?














http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/30/chocolate.jesus.ap/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6509127.stm

Check It Out!

Date: Apr 17, 2007
Time: 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Location: McKinley Foundation, 809 S. Fifth St., Champaign
Sponsor: IPRH Women of Color Feminism Reading Group, IPRH, Gender & Women's Studies, Center on Democracy in a Multiracial Society


The IPRH Women of Color Feminism (WOCF) Reading Group will host a one-day event of programming, which will include a symposium, film screening, reception, and a co-sponsored concert with Brooklyn-based funk band Antibalas on April 17, 2007. The symposium, titled, "Las Krudas: Women, Power & Resistance," will feature interdisciplinary scholarship by UIUC faculty and graduate students conducting research about Black women's activism, the African Diaspora and women-centered Caribbean creative productions that specifically speak to the critically-acclaimed artistry of the internationally renown lesbian feminist Cuban hip-hop trio, Las Krudas. A confirmed concert featuring Las Krudas and Antibalas not only will bring together the campus and larger Champaign-Urbana community, but the daylong programming ultimately will fulfill the primary goal of the WOCF: to heighten community awareness about transnational women-centered intellectual-cultural intervention, which promote a feminist poetics and praxis that engages with diasporic social justice movements.

Please join us for the following events at the McKinley Foundation (809 S. 5th St., Champaign):

1-2pm Film Screening of "T con T: Lesbian Lives in Contemporary Havana"

2-3pm Panel discussing the work of Las Krudas, a Cuban, hip hop trio that address issues such as female liberation, lesbian rights, female solidarity, and racism.
Panelists:
Celiany Rivera-Velazquez, ChairInstitute of Communications Research, UIUC
Marc Perry, PhDAnthropology and African American Studies, UIUC
Erik McDuffie, PhDGender and Women's Studies and History, UIUC
Tanya Saunders, PhD CandidateSociology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

3:30-4:30pm Reception with food and music
8pm Concert: Antibalas with special guests Krudas Cubensi, Canopy Club, $13 at the door

doesnt get much better than that!

(http://www.krudas.org/)
(http://www.antibalas.com/)

Where did the kittens go on the class trip? -- to the meow-seum.

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of making a visit to Grinnell College to see a dear friend. She took me on a bit of a tour and showed me their student activist common area (I guess you could call it). Its a mad cool place with a large work/meeting room, a smaller room with a little library and then a locker room that I think would be used mostly for storage. Now granted its a very small-very liberal school (about 1500 students I think), it seems like its a great place for like-minded people to gather in one centralized place and I bet the environment that stems out of that is really invigorating. As I related this back the structure of our school's student group complex, it became clear that the size of this university is both a determining positive and negative factor in terms of coalition building amongst similar goal oriented groups.

We have a ton of groups here so theres a lot of potential for broad coalitons to make resonant social and political progressions but at the same time sometimes I feel like we are too diffused. I feel like theres not enough of a centralized calendar or events/meetings/actions etc. and also a lot of times cosponsorships or coalitions are more so in name or a kind of 'removed' support than anything else. That is to say, if I was to cosponsor your event or become a coalition member it would consist of me 1. supporting it, 2. advertising it to people, and 3. potentially showing up. But, maybe in order for these cosponsorships/coalitions to really become dynamic movements there needs to be a strength of force in numbers at all stages, not just a show of solidarity by way of a shout-out on a phamplet or something like that. I am speaking solely out of my own individual experience on this campus and I don't want to make claims that are bogus or anything, so I am posing two questions sort of. One being: how do you feel about the environment of student activism within the University of Illinois? The second being: do we need a more centralized space to bring people together or with so many people, is it better to just work hard in forming connections by sending people out to different meetings/events to establish familiar ties thereby making it easier to overlap/piggyback onto each others' activism?

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately, because I really believe coalition building can be foundational in the evolution of a movement. Ultimately, we are affected and potentially oppressed intersectionally and right now it makes sense to me to see activist movements stemming from such oppressions working most efficiently when we can enlist a cross-section of groups. Maybe if our identities are constituted through a number of intersectional forces and networks, it then also makes sense to use an intersectional approach in how we resist/reflect those identities through our activism.

word. let me know your thoughts.

I'm sitting here trying to write a paper, but I just can't write anything til I vent this to people who will understand. I know I've already told this to some of you, but here's the latest political science class complaint:

We were talking about what Bill Clinton could've done better during his years in office. Our professor asked what we thought he could've changed in terms of appointing Hilary to be the Chair of the Healthcare Reform Committee and having her be otherwise involved in politics. None of us really had anything to say, so our professor felt the need to share his views: "He should've first of all told Hilary not to be so confrontational. Second of all, he should've told her that he only said the American people were going to get 'two for one' if they elected him in order to gain the Presidency, and after he won, she, 'can go do some dishes.'"

Any suggestions for ways I can deal with this, other than bringing an AK-47 to class?"

Entitlement

I went to Cowboy Monkey last night to see Shipwreck, Page France, and Headlights, all excellent local bands you should check out. But I had a really creepy experience that had a lot to do with entitlement and sexism. I was sitting at the bar keeping track of all the winter coats and paraphernalia of the group I was with, who are all bigger fans and had gone up to the stage. I noticed this older (30-ish) guy walk around me, looking at me, and sit down behind me. I switched seats so I could see the stage better, and to consolidate the stuff I was watching. One of my friends came back and sat down in my old seat and we chatted a bit over the music. Out of the blue the guy puts up a hand and manages to slur out between swigs of his drink, “You know, I could say something about the two of you…” “what? Go ahead.” He mumbled incoherently and we exchanged a few words. But there were two things he managed to say clearly that really disturbed me. Very early on he said “You know, I just can’t help it if you’re a hot woman and I’m just, you know…” This kind of thinking is so irritating on so many levels. One, it blames me just for being female while absolving him just because he’s male. Power imbalance, anyone? Two, dude, get some self respect. Do you really have that little self control that you can’t close your mouth when someone is clearly being hostile and avoiding you? You really think that little of yourself?

The second thing he said, with astonishing clarity and force given his intoxication, he said while my friend had gone to warn the bartender that if they didn’t stop serving the guy she was going to have to deck him, because he had started trying to touch me. “It’s just, you know, it’s, -- You can’t, legitimately, challenge me. You know it.” “Says who?!” I replied, mouth agape. He didn’t have a response aside from an eyeroll, and then she was back and I told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to go somewhere else at the bar.

This kind of thing is why I can sympathize with feminist separatists. Regardless of whether every man has this kind of mindset, it is clearly a virulent strain of sexism that persists today, the kind that says that a man who chooses to treat a woman as a human being entitled to some kind of dignity is just restraining himself, offering her charity, and that he could rescind that at any moment he chose. He remains in power because he can choose how to treat her. It would be easy to just say that this can’t be fixed, that we can never undo something so pervasive and we should just start over on our own.

But then I think that ties into allies of all kinds. Men are supposed to be women’s allies in the fight against sexism. But they could choose to take back their power at any time. In thinking about my own status as middle class and white, it makes me understand why people who aren’t would be suspicious of me.

Realistically, I know that allies of historically oppressed groups have often been instrumental in creating change. Alliances across groups can be powerful things. But I still think it takes a certain amount of trust, or faith, in other people to make things work. And I guess I’m not really sure where that comes from, or how to build it.

The other thing that really bothered me about the whole thing was that it kind of ruined the whole concert for me. From that point on I had to be on watch, just because I was female and had left my house. And I did so with good reason- within the next half hour he walked past me twice more, looking me up and down both times and then came back a third time to go around behind me and slowly creep closer. I didn’t even realize he had done that until my girlfriend said “oh my god is that him?!” to which I turned around, found him within six inches of my face, and grabbed the wrist of the hand he had just put on my back, slammed his hand on the bar and said “GO! It’s a big bar, get away from me!” Today he probably doesn’t even remember doing any of this, and I’m still on edge. There’s that power imbalance again… What can we do about it?

In the spirit of Stephanie's post about FIST because I, too, am very excited about our group, I thought I'd post a little bit about what we're trying to do so that if anyone else wants to join they can.

We met after a follow-up discussion about Racism, Power, and Privilege and decided to continue that conversation and form a group around it. It seemed like a great opportunity to form a group of GWS undergrad and grad students (since not everyone knows each other), and to act on the issues we discuss every day in class.

After discussing the possibility with the STOP coalition, we decided to jump on board with some of what they are doing because for some reason there wasn't an organized GWS presence around the issue. We're still just starting, and right now we're in the process of getting together with the Tri Delts to discuss how they've felt oppressed as women in the Greek system, hear more about their experiences of what happened after the "incident," and hopefully to link some of their oppressions with other oppressions on campus. This will later be a part of the narrative collection that STOP is doing.

If anyone has anything to contribute or would like to join our weekly parties-er-meetings, we meet on Thursdays at 4 in the GWS house. If you can't make it but would like to be on the email list, let me know and I'll send you weekly notes (elabedz2@uiuc.edu).

Also, this Tuesday the 10th, our group is sponsoring a queer women's night at the rainbow coffee house. If you or anyone else you know who identifies as a queer women would like to come, join us at the coffee house on the corner of Goodwin and Green from 6-9 and discuss the current climate on campus.

With Feminist Fury,
Elizabeth

The Routine Debasement of the Transgressive Heroine

Hi everyone. Stephanie invited me to this blog, so I thought I'd contribute by posting a paper I wrote for a Women Writers class last year. It starts by focusing on the "fallen woman" film genre of the 1930s, but soon delves tangentally into an incoherent array of associations. I apologize for the obscene length of the post - not to mention its inexcusable dryness. (This is why I'm not an advertising major).

The Routine Debasement of the Transgressive Heroine

In The Wages of Sin, Lea Jacobs scrutinizes the pre-production controversies surrounding the fallen woman film genre, often referred to as the “sex picture.” The story of the fallen woman was typically marked by a sexual transgression linked directly to the heroine’s downfall (Jacobs 5). Contemporary digressions from traditional conventions, however, were viewed by certain parties as potentially offensive, sparking the need for some method of regulation. Relying primarily on case files, screenplay revisions, and studio memoranda, Jacobs presents a thorough examination of how the industry’s system of self-censorship contributed to the Hollywood representation of female sexuality from 1928 to 1942 — the latter year being “when the system of self-regulation [became] complicated by the Office of War Information’s attempt to monitor scripts through its Bureau of Motion Pictures” (Jacobs 25). The idea of the fallen woman, however, certainly does not seem to be a novelty of 1930’s film. The Biblical Book of Genesis, for example, gives the account of the first woman’s fall in the face of temptation. Upon discovering her transgression, God tells Eve that “In sorow thou shalt bring forth children: and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and hee shall rule ouer thee” (16). Thus, childbearing and societal inferiority are the eternal wages of her sin. In Milton’s Paradise Lost, which also is rendered divinely legitimate by the author’s self-proclamation, Adam tells Eve that “nothing lovelier can be found / In woman, than to study household good, / And good works in her husband to promote” (Milton 1978). The promotion of the female’s domesticity and of subjugated devotion to her male counterpart as a God-intended role is nothing short of value-oriented manipulation working to justify patriarchal morality. Similarly, the system of self-censorship associated with the 1930’s film industry effectively denounced or punished transgressive heroines in order to stabilize gender roles and to advance a normative definition of the family through domestication (Jacobs 123). Bearing in mind the gradual demise of the Production Code, and the advent of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960s and 1970s (as described by Alice Echols in Daring to be Bad), the idea of the fallen woman has evolved considerably. Consequently, contemporary film, and the viewing public, are generally more sympathetic to feminist values, yet some of it is still marked by rote conventions of self-censorship distinguished by the effort to maintain a sense of contemporary decency or the attempt to avoid potential backlash from morally conservative communities.

The rationale behind the necessity to portray sexuality in a certain manner “is best understood,” according to Jacobs, “as a function of a set of assumptions about spectatorship, specifically female spectatorship, current in the thirties” (3). These assumptions were reinforced by Herbert Blumer and Philip M. Hauser’s Movies, Delinquency and Crime, a reputable scientific study focusing upon the psychological and social effects of filmgoing on young males and females, which attributed the problems of prostitution and misbehavior among female adolescents to the “sex picture” (Jacobs 5). Due to this conception of the consequences of spectatorship, Jacobs argues, “the resistance to the fallen woman film on the part of censors and reformers largely centered upon…new permutations of the genre” that were deemed potentially offensive (6). It was then suspected that films shaped the morals of audiences, so it was argued by the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors Association that they must safeguard moral standards (Jacobs 40).

One particularly troubling aspect for these parties was a new emphasis on social mobility among women. Perhaps the most blatant example of aggressive social mobility is found in the 1933 film Baby Face, which portrays a woman who sexually exploits men in order to rise to a prominent and luxurious position. Considering the film was “banned in Switzerland, Australia, three Canadian provinces, and in the United States in Virginia, Ohio, and initially New York,” even after standard revision procedures were implemented, one can get a sense of how dangerous or undesirable the idea of female aggressiveness was viewed to be, for there was a fear that witnessing such aggression on screen would produce a congregation of imitators (Jacobs 69).

Also among the permutations of the fallen woman film, along the same lines as social mobility, was the depiction of glamour. Jacobs states that “in the thirties, glamour was defined as a problem by reform groups and social scientists concerned about the Hollywood cinema’s presumed appeal to women, particularly young, working-class women” (133). In the 1937 film Stella Dallas, the heroine goes to the movies and becomes mesmerized by the upper-class lifestyle portrayed on the screen. Her aspirations for such riches come true when she, a poor girl, marries into an aristocratic family and is provided “with a large house, elaborate clothes, and an entrance into the town’s most exclusive club” (Jacobs 134). Yet in both films, the heroine is not allowed to remain prosperous, as the instances of female aggressiveness are intentionally reciprocated with some form of denunciation; for it would not be conducive to conventional morality for the films to condone transgression by associating it with success.

Jacobs makes a distinction between the regulation techniques of pre-1934 and post-1934, the former generally relying on a single major debasement or punishment of the transgressive heroine, and the latter using a more omnipresent form of judgment, “‘hidden’ within the mechanisms of narration” (148). It is commonly believed that the Studio Relations Committee, the division of the MPPDA in charge of the administration of censorship, was “an ineffectual organization, unable to enforce the terms of the Production Code until its reconstitution as the Production Code Administration in 1934.” However, Jacobs points out that in the period 1929-1934 the office actually was active in negotiating with producers and formulating strategies for dealing with the fallen woman genre (27). For example, the Committee was heavily involved in the negotiations concerning Baby Face. In order to render the gold-digging heroine’s exploitation of men less explicit, the producers were advised to censor much of the sexual innuendo surrounding her rise to prominence (Jacobs 74). After the New York state board rejected the film, however, it became clear that an acknowledgment of conventional values was needed in order to undo the appeal of female exploitation. This was accomplished by changing the ending—which originally was to show the heroine reacting with indifference to her husband’s suicide—to one that both punishes her with sudden impoverishment and stabilizes her role as a female through domestication. According to Jacobs, Baby Face’s “ending is crucial to censorship, not only because it inverts the trajectory of class rise, but also because the heroine’s sudden reformation allows the inversion of the power relations that have been played out along the lines of sexual difference” (78). The product of such endings was apparently typical of Studio Relations Committee negotiations, given that, as a general rule of thumb, sin was to be ultimately portrayed as unattractive and crime was to be punished.

Since the Committee “focused primarily on denunciation scenes and endings, it could tolerate forms of the plot which would have been unacceptable after 1934” (Jacobs 152). This is because, as previously stated, the Production Code Administration developed a more pervasive mode of censorship, one interwoven throughout the majority of the film narrative. Whereas “pre-Code” films were often characterized by abrupt shifts and seemingly illogical sequences, films after 1934, such as Stella Dallas, were rather uniform in their judgment of the transgressive heroine. In contrast to films of the early thirties, which frequently portrayed class rise as a graceful and unproblematic experience, Stella Dallas “marks the failure of the heroine’s social aspirations by rendering her transformation as a hideous display” (Jacobs 135). After her marriage to Steven Dallas, Stella is almost immediately shunned due to her inability to conform to upper-class tastes and interests. Later, she is even forced to leave her daughter in the care of Steven’s new upper-class wife in order to guarantee her daughter’s success (Jacobs 134). Stella’s realization of her own common status and her self-sacrifice for the well-being of her daughter were clearly contributions to the acceptability of the film in the eyes of the Production Code Administration, but what was probably most significant to that end was the portrayal of her discomfort with the upper-class lifestyle. Jacobs asserts that Stella Dallas “undercut the motif of class rise in ways which made it highly congenial with the aims and interests of censorship” (134).

Jacobs’ most important clarification is that self-regulation or self-censorship was always, to some extent, in accordance with the goals of film producers (150). The Studio Relations Committee typically was not involved in banning films or cutting scenes, but rather in negotiations that were ultimately beneficial to producers. The Committee’s goal was to identify certain elements of a film that the state boards would find offensive. Upon identification, the committee would advise the producers to alter particular aspects, or it would defend the inclusion of such elements as instrumental in upholding certain conventional values; Jason Joy, head of the Production Code Administration, declared that “the mere statement or even description of an evil, lawless or immoral act is not in itself immoral and the question of whether it would ‘tend to corrupt morals’ or incite to crime would depend upon the impression left as to whether the act stated is profitable or unprofitable” (Jacobs 49). The state boards, as Jacobs notes, were the genuine threat to producers, with the ability to alter a film’s editing by emitting certain scenes and also to even prevent films from being shown (20). So the Studio Relations Committee actually aimed to help producers avoid such violations to their films, though they still tried to remain faithful to the Code.

The Production Code, which was implemented officially in 1930, specified primarily that “‘no picture shall be produced that will lower the moral standards of those who see it. Hence the sympathy of the audience should never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil or sin’” (Wikipedia). Aside from films centered around gold diggers and other transgressive women, one genre affected by the Code was classic noir, in which the villains tended “to be homosexual aesthetes…or homosexual Nazi sadists…[threatening] the values of a democratic and somewhat proletarian masculinity” (Naremore 98-99). The motivations behind the suppression of depictions of such “sexual perversion” were ideologically analogous to those underlying the criticisms of the transgressive female in film; the misrepresentation of what was deemed corruption and immorality constituted a danger to the conservative patriarchal status quo. Accordingly, it was violence—a matter relatively harmless in the patriarchal scheme in comparison to sex—that “accounted for the most visible changes in the standards of motion-picture censorship during the 1940s and early 1950s” (Naremore 102). Perhaps, in part, this also can be attributed to the desensitization of routine violence in the midst of American involvement in World War II and the Korean War. During the McCarthy Era, with the formation of House Un-American Activities Committee and the Hollywood blacklist, writers and directors relied on self-censorship to avoid any overtly undemocratic or unpatriotic subject matter. Once again, the pressures on filmmakers stemmed from the apprehensions of conservative ideology.

It was not until the late 1960s that the Production Code was abandoned due to its ineffectiveness and the lack of any means of enforcement. Furthermore, the Motion Picture Association of America introduced a ratings system, in 1968, “under which there would be virtually no restriction on what could be in a film” (Wikipedia). Another significant transformation came with the alleged sexual liberation of women. David Loth wrote in a 1961 publication that

“emancipation” and other factors have given women a taste for more precise sexuality than the insinuating tone of the Victorians. The social conversation which is permitted in polite circles broadens. Petting, even in public places, and discreet sexual experiences outside of marriage grow more tolerated and are even condoned. The widespread recognition of the fact that orgasm is not only possible for women but is entirely proper and indeed their right is encouraged by much of the current sex education. The literature which women reared in this atmosphere find erotically stimulating must also undergo some alterations.” (Loth 152-153)

This suggestion that women’s desire for erotic stimulation is at the heart of thematic and descriptive alterations is remarkably unsatisfying. It seems more sensible, rather, that the prospect of open sexual expression, in the absence of any form of overt censorship, allows for the inevitable acceptance of new extremes, and the redefinition of what constitutes pornography.

Loth’s assessment of emancipation, because it was published in 1961, obviously was not able to evaluate what is today considered a more distinguished time for the advancement of feminist agendas—the late 1960s to the mid 1970s. An understanding of the women’s liberation movement of this particular time and its cultural implications may help to explain some of the changes in the portrayal of women in contemporary film. The movement was comprised of numerous factions including the politicos and the liberal feminists, but the radical feminists were perhaps the most influential of the period. While

“liberal feminism sought to include women in the mainstream, radical feminism embodied a rejection of the mainstream itself. And while liberal feminists defined the problem as women’s exclusion from the public sphere, radical feminists focused on the sexual politics of personal life.” (Echols 15)

Often employing the slogan “the personal is political,” radical feminists argued that women’s inequality in the public domain was linked to their subordination in the family (Echols 3). Echols notes that “the historical conditions that prevailed by the mid-twentieth century—improved possibilities for female economic independence, and accessible and reliable…contraception—made the radical feminist assault on the family possible” (13). Radical feminists “shamelessly asserted women’s right to sexual pleasure while resisting male-defined ideas of sexual liberation,” since they still, to some degree, equated sex with danger (Echols 14). Radical feminism, like all social change movements, failed to survive.

It remained the dominant force of the women’s liberation movement until cultural feminism became the prevailing tendency in 1975, led by the liberal feminists (Echols 243). One of the most appealing aspects of cultural feminism was that it offered women a sort of escape from male supremacy and subordination (Echols 269). Cultural feminism, unlike the politically-charged radical feminism, revolved around the idea of creating an alternative women’s culture with institutions independent from the dominant culture (Echols 270-271). Stressing the connections between women rather than the differences, the founders of the Feminist Economic Network “maintained that women could embrace capitalism and eschew democracy precisely because they were women and had common interests” (279). The empowerment of females through the prospect of entrepreneurship signified economic self-sufficiency and freedom from patriarchy (Echols 272). Yet cultural feminism was attacked and criticized by both radical and left feminists alike. Joanne Parrent argued that “‘we will never make the immense changes that as feminists we see necessary by imitating the structures that men have created’” (Echols 278). Adrienne Rich, though an early supporter of alternative women’s culture, contended that it was a withdrawal from political struggle, and that “‘woman only space,’ while often a ‘strategic necessity,’ had too often become ‘a place of emigration, an end in itself.’” (Echols 281). In response to those who were cynical about women’s culture, Rita Mae Brown made the provocative assertion that

“Big is bad. Feminists don’t want anything to do with it because women will strangle in frozen hierarchies…Perhaps what we don’t acknowledge is that big means successful in America. Many feminists may die before they admit but they are terrified of success. Failure in patriarchal terms, defines women. Success means you’re a ballbuster, acting like a man.” (Echols 275).

One significant transformation that cultural feminism brought about, as Echols notes, is that “the struggle for liberation became a question of individual will and determination, rather than collective struggle” (279). Thus, if one accepted this individualist line, it was a woman’s own fault if she was not successful. This line of thinking was indicative of liberal and cultural feminists’ shared promotion of power and hierarchy, and their condemnation of confrontational politics (Echols 279).

Despite the fact that it was internally fractured from the beginning, the women’s liberation movement, most notably the radical feminist faction, made some great strides that have vastly affected the world today (Echols 285). The rise of “feminist health centers, credit unions, rape crisis centers, bookstores…publishing companies,” and newspapers were, for cultural feminists, a profitable opportunity for women (Echols 272). But for radical feminists, these counter-institutions were part of a compromise to help satisfy needs unattended to by the current system and to raise public awareness of feminist political issues. Echols lists some of radical feminism’s lasting impacts:

“By challenging the phallocentrism of normative heterosexuality, radical feminists have contributed to a restructuring of heterosexual sex… [W]omen are today more apt to assert their sexual needs. Both the legalization of abortion and growing public awareness of rape as a serious crime (reflected in revised rape laws) have done a great deal to further women’s sexual self-determination. By exposing the sexism of the medical profession, questioning the omniscience of the physician, and promoting, questioning the omniscience of the physician, and promoting self-help techniques, radical feminists have encouraged women to take a more active role in their health care. Radical feminism’s assault on the nuclear family and institutionalized heterosexuality has helped to make it possible (if not easy) for people to fashion alternatives to the nuclear family and heterosexuality…There has been some erosion of sexual division of labor in the home…Finally, although gender is far from meaningless in our culture, our cultural definitions of masculinity and femininity are today far less rigid and constraining than was the case before the resurgence of feminist activism in the late ‘60s.” (Echols 285-286)

The effects of radical feminism are reflected in the release of the 1994 film The Last Seduction, which probably would not have been made before the 1970s, and certainly could not have been made as early as the 1930s. Linda Fiorentino plays the heroine (or perhaps the anti-heroine) Bridget, who is first seen in an office building, patronizing and belittling the men who work for her. Her assertiveness and dominance in this scene set the tone for the rest of the film. Bridget’s idea of an alternative to the nuclear family is in running away with her husband’s drug money (which is earned as a result of her persuading him to sell medical cocaine), tossing her wedding ring into the vehicle’s loose change bin, and then proceeding to get another job under a different name. At the local bar, after she asks “what a girl has to suck around [there] to get a drink,” an onlooker remarks that there must be “a new set of balls” in town. A man named Michael attempts to play the chivalrous gentleman in buying Bridget a drink, but she is not impressed. He tells her that he is “hung like a horse,” and she, unexpectedly, orders him to show her. While sitting at a booth in the bar, she reaches inside his pants and feels him up (which is ironic, as the men were talking about how many women they’ve felt up at the bar). As if this was not humiliating enough for the now-emasculated fellow, Bridget coldly tells him when he should meet her outside to have sex. After having sex on multiple occasions, Michael tells her that he wants to get to know her more, and she responds, “Okay, you can be my designated fuck.” This reversal of the prospect of phallocentric heterosexuality is a dangerous thing for Bridget’s new sex object, who complains that she will not “stop reminding [him] that [she’s] bigger than [him].”

As Nicholas Nicastro contends, “the pleasure [in The Last Seduction] isn’t suspense, but in the definitive portrayal of a particular male fantasy: the beautiful woman as emotionally disconnected, remotely controlling, and therefore invulnerable as men wish they could be…Bridget engages the deep current of male masochism so cleanly missed in pop psychology and most Hollywood movies.” She almost always remains in control of men and, consequently, everything else. Indeed, the scenes where she appears to be weak or submissive are deceiving. For example, the first sex scene where she is not on top occurs only after he submits to her interests. Another instance is when Bridget walks out to the car of the private spy hired to watch her. Her attire is, opportunely, similar to that of a domestic housewife from the 1930s. And although she is carrying a plate of chewy, homemade cookies, she also is carrying the nail strip that she places under the tire of the spy’s car. Alone, the heroine’s deliberate use of sexuality to exploit and manipulate men undoubtedly would have called for justice done unto her if the film were made in the 1930s. But her utter disregard for morality does not stop her merely at sexual exploitation; she later deceives Michael into killing a man (who happens to be her husband), and then ends up doing it herself. This particular femme fatale, however, is never punished or denounced as was typical in early fallen women films. Instead, she is seen driving off in a limousine, knowing that her husband is dead and that Michael is in jail for it. The fallen woman comes out on top. Nicastro commends director John Dahl for never letting up, never condescending “to Bridget by parsing her character in search of why. To answer that question would make Bridget a character instead of an icon, and The Last Seduction a morality play instead of a kick in the balls.”

The moral disregard of The Last Seduction and the mere thought of Loth’s supposed sexual emancipation are both absent in the 2002 film The Magdalene Sisters, which is based on the true story of the estimated 30,000 women detained in Ireland’s laundry factories, or Magdalene Asylums. Run by Catholic nuns for over 150 years, the last factory reportedly was closed quite recently, in 1996 (Dolbee). The fallen “whores” subjected to a life of labor are told to follow the example of the Biblical character Mary Magdalene, for, as the head sister avows, her “salvation came only by paying penance for her sins, denying herself all pleasures of the flesh.” The main characters, however, can hardly be called sinners—Margaret is a victim of rape; Bernadette is denounced as a “temptress” (though she never once touches a boy); and Rose has a child out of wedlock. (Mary Magdalene’s traditionally poor reputation can be called into question too, since the Catholic Church did not regard her as a prostitute until the late sixth century, over two centuries after Jesus Christ’s divinity was affirmed, quite conveniently, at the Council of Nicea, but I digress). Although the film attacks the moral domination of the white male Church, the actual transgressors never are punished satisfactorily, and the true victims are not compensated consistently. For example, the much-abused character Chrispina provides a voice of moral denunciation in harshly condemning the sexually unreserved priest, howling repeatedly, “You’re not a man of God!” Yet this only leads to her being confined to an insane asylum for the short-lived remainder of her life. The film’s judicial ambiguity, however, serves effectively as the fallen women’s redemption, at least in the eyes of the audience. While the punishment and denunciation of transgressive women in the films of the 1930s were often warnings to the audience, the same treatment in The Magdalene Sisters is essentially an invitation to sympathize with the lesser of two relative evils, in this case being the women’s desired release from the subjugation of patriarchal morality.

The 2005 independent film Thirteen seems to follow more closely to the 1930s portrayal of fallen women in its blatant declaration of the exponential dangers of insubordination, sexual promiscuity, and drug abuse. In certain scenes where lewd acts are committed, a conventional utilization of ellipses suggests the worst without actually showing it. For example, thirteen-year-old Tracy is last seen unzipping a boy’s pants before she is shown laying next to her friend, where she subtly alludes to how “it” tasted. In another scene, Tracy and her friend mention getting high, before they are shown suddenly dancing in an unabashed manner among the water sprinklers of a local golf course. Filmmakers typically desire controversy to an extent, as it has the potential to increase sales and marketability, but careless distaste can lead to adverse outrage. Accordingly, such instances of directorial self-censorship are an instinctual attempt to maintain a sense of decency that is appropriate to contemporary standards.

The film’s two main characters, Tracy and her mother Melanie, seem to be doomed from the start, taking into consideration the former’s impressionableness and the latter’s difficulties in coping as a single mother. In fact, Melanie’s “transgression” lies in her rejection of both patriarchal marriage and her role as maternal nurturer. She instead seeks to be a friend to her daughter, despite the paternal sensibilities pouring from her son. Tracy detaches herself from familial responsibility as well, and she devotes herself to insubordination. Her mounting exploitation of patriarchal values in her reckless pursuits is mirrored by a rise in social class; her new wardrobe is characterized by glamour, a distinguished quality ascribed to the appearance of gold-diggers. The glamour and fun obviously is transient, though. The screen, once filled with vibrant, bold colors, becomes tinted in a melancholy blue shade as the family’s relationship grows more disastrous. At the point of Tracy’s and Melanie’s ultimate low, just after they have been condemned by neighbors and friends alike, they embrace in the midst of their despair on the kitchen floor, essentially returning to their domestic familial roles as nurturing mother and obedient daughter. Familial reconciliation is hence valued as the moral solution to transgression.

While Thirteen’s writer and director Catherine Hardwicke probably did not intend her sincere warning to be undermined by an omnipresent defense of normative patriarchal domesticity, it nonetheless occurred, due to the awareness of conservative ideology made intrinsic in all humans by society’s perpetual repetition, and the unavoidable rote learning of its values. The conventions of the “sex picture” and the teachings of the “divine” are ingrained in societal thinking; this rote manner of thinking plays a part in the realization of a self-fulfilling prophesy, one where only female limitations are seen rather than female possibilities. Thus, Rita Mae Brown’s assessment of feminists’ fear of success can be applied more vastly to an entire culture. The majority of the population is arguably uncomfortable with the idea of a dominant female figure. Though they are few and far between, it is the films like The Last Seduction that challenge the authoritarian mentality of the patriarchal culture and that cause viewers anxiety and even great anger. And while The Magdalene Sisters and Thirteen do tend to sympathize with their female characters, the films nonetheless place women at a level that viewers are comfortable with. For if the fallen woman is not punished or denounced, she had better not be glorified.


Works Cited

“Bible in English: The First Booke of Moses, called Genesis: Chap. III.” King James Bible. 6 Apr. 2006 .

Dolbee, Sandi. “Film about Laundry Factories Puts the Catholic Church in the Hot Seat – Again.” 21 August 2003. BishopAccountability.org. 10 April 2006. .

Echols, Alice. Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

Jacobs, L. The Wages of Sin: Censorship and the Fallen Woman Film, 1928-1942. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1991.

Loth, David. The Erotic in Literature. New York: Julian Messner, 1961.

Milton, John. "Paradise Lost." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. 8th ed. vol. B New York: Norton, 2006.

Naremore, James. More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 1998.

Nicastro, Nicholas. “A lust. Actresses and ambition.” Film Comment. 32.1 (1996): 2-4.

“Production Code.” 6 April 2006. Wikipedia.org. 9 April 2006. .

folk music will save your soul

and I'm not talking about Ani.

Hello lovely people. We picked a name today!!

FIST. Feminists Instituting Social Transformations. I included visual aids (on the right). Love is a good "feminist instituting social transformation"-ing. How appropriate.

In other news, I just saw Jackson Katz give his talk (I think it was called "What Will It Take"). He's quite a talented orator and he touched on some really important points. I think it will be shown on tv at some point because a local affiliate was taping it. I'll keep my eye out for it, because you NEED to check it out. I always find it particularly invigorating when someone who enjoys a certain amount privilege uses their position to promote the vocies of the unheard, thereby beating the path and making the trail that much easier to walk when those very voices are granted and/or forcibly take their visibility.

I attended a fantastic lecture at the end of last semester given by Robert Jensen, a feminist professor at University of Texas. He talked about the issue of critical whiteness studies. He kinda also reiterated this idea that social movements can benefit from sympathetic and ideologically vested alliances who exhibit characteristics of privlege to further their message in ways that the oppressed group sometimes can not do. Am I making sense? I'm thinking out loud so its all rather muddled. Like for example, white men have historically been given more voice than say other oppressed groups, so if a white man is to use his privlege of 'authorship' that has been endowed by normative hegemonic discourse in a way that furthers the progress of those oppressed groups then he is actively resisting and maybe also working to create a new discourse. But what Im getting at is......what does this look like, and what does this comes to mean in terms of a capitulation to hegemonic normative structures (ie: the master's house)? How strong can a resistance be if it is still recognized by those who subscribe to 'the master's house'. Or maybe you need a way to get in the door before you can gut anything. I don't know if I've even acurately conceptualized the metaphor, shit Im lucky Im even wearing my shoes on the right feet.

Thats enough of that. This girl keeps staring at me at the library because Ive just been talking out loud to myself for like 20 minutes. Hah, she thinks Im crazy!

Anyway, Jackson Katz....cool guy, cool mission too.

Peace and Love.

Fuckin' ay

So, Bess was telling me today that when she's eighty she wants to punch a police officer. It appears that someone has beaten her to the punch. (Gosh I'm so clever).

Jurors convict woman of caning officer

Associated PressPublished April 4, 2007, 7:50 PM CDT
SOUTH BEND, Ind. -- Jurors convicted an 81-year-old woman of felony battery Wednesday for hitting a police officer with her cane. Betty Chambers showed no reaction when the guilty verdict was announced, but outside the courtroom she used a newspaper to hide her face from cameras. "I'm sick of seeing my picture on TV! I've done nothing wrong!" she said. The verdict came one day after a judge dropped a charge of resisting law enforcement against Chambers, who claimed she acted in self-defense. Chambers could face six months to three years in prison when she is sentenced May 15 in St. Joseph Superior Court. Chambers also is being sued by two officers who say they were injured when they went to her home south of South Bend to check on her welfare in February 2005. When Cpl. Lonny Foresman and Detective Sgt. John Pavlekovich arrived, the woman's caretaker, Thomas Holleman, now 58, became argumentative and told them to leave, according to a police report. Pavlekovich reported that Holleman resisted arrest and that Chambers began striking Foresman in the neck and head with her wooden cane. Foresman was diagnosed with a mild concussion, while Pavlekovich separated his shoulder while wrestling Holleman to the ground to handcuff him, the lawsuit contends. The judge listened to testimony from both officers Tuesday and ruled that evidence showed Chambers did not directly struggle with Pavlekovich or injure him. The battery charge involved Foresman's injury. "I felt a bump on my head," Foresman testified. "I shook it off at first because I didn't know what it was. It was just a knock." But then he felt a second and a third blow. "That's when I was stunned," he said. "I knew I was hurting at that time." Chambers, who is 5 feet tall and 100 pounds, testified that she acted out of self defense and feared Holleman would be killed. "I have to protect my interests," Chambers said of Holleman. "If he's gone, I'm gone." Holleman served 40 days in jail for the incident.

Alanis Morissette does 'my humps'

Saw this on AOL news...had to give props to the lady who constituted the better part of my 4th-6th grade musical indentity. classic.

Vagina Cake

I want a cake like this for my birthday! <3

I should be doing homework, but this is way more constructive.

In my attempt to delay studying further, I found this photo and thought I'd share it...for those who don't know Spanish its translates "My body is mine."

In other randomness, lately Ive heard on three separate occasions an appeal to the idea that you can be too politically correct. I don't know if this is a broadly held view or if it even holds any merit. Where is this logic coming from? Is it only coming from the mouths of those who embody the very notion of white heteronormative privilege....those who see 'political correctness' as some kind of burden? Does it stem out of corrosive and utterly ABSURD/FALSE idea that we are in some sort of post-feminist movement or post-civil rights movement moment?

I just googled, 'too politically correct' and the 4th website listed was a DI article from Feb 20th 2007 about the racist mascot which i wont even go into on this post....aside from being complete and utter bullshit, I think it does a little to illustrate where my ruminations are coming from...(http://media.www.dailyillini.com/media/storage/paper736/news/2007/02/20/Letters/Becoming.Too.Politically.Correct-2729843.shtml).

Right now, Im leaning toward the notion that the ones who use this argument that you can be too politically correct are the ones who need to readjust their focus and look through more than just the lens of privileged ignorance. I want to get into this more, but my brain hurts and I gotta study.

Holler.

ps: Coalition Against Coke Contracts is doing a phone bombing to the chancellor tomorrow to remind him that the UIUC community doesnt want Coke on campus. If you want to make a call the number is 217 333 6290. Drop him a line about your concern about the unversity's silence about the matter and about how you aren't down with corporations that put profit over sustainability and safety...something alone those lines.

pps: The GEO is also having open office hours either on the Quad or in the Union, I think from 11-1 tomorrow. So if you wanna show a little love over there, I bet theyd appreciate it.

my weekend getaway.

So this weekend I had the pleasure of spending some time in Oxford, Ohio on the Miami-Ohio campus for a little water polo action. Yo seriously, I felt like I had stepped into the Midwestern Martha's Vineyard. I have never seen so many pastel colored men's sailing shorts in my life. I read a little bit of their student paper and they have a whole week devoted to conservative ideology and politics called "Conservative Week". This campus had 'old boys club' written all over it. While I concede I was only there for 3 days, I felt a certain air of white upper-class homogeneity within the throngs of designer sports jackets and spring dresses.

But I digress, my real point here (I've got one) is that I saw a makeshift "shantytown" that students were (I think) living in for the weekend to raise funds for Habitat for Humanity. It was made out of cardboard and tarp and about 4 or 5 people were sitting on fold out lawn chairs with a collection box on the corner of the street. I think they were staying there overnight because the structure looked sound enough and at around 1am, they were still around. An applaudable effort, right. A good cause, with a nice bit of activism enshrined around it, one would think at first glance. But as I got to thinking about it more, there's a great deal of privilege going on in this situation. While I support their efforts, I feel like it almost trivializes the severity of the international issue of 'spontaneous housing'. People who live in these 'shantytowns' don't have the privilege of shooting the shit with their friends while sitting on lawn chairs chatting it up on their pink Razr cellphones on their college campus into the wee hours of the morning. No, for real 'shantytown' dwellers, their lived reality is that of real poverty. When the weekend's over, these kids get to go home to the luxuries their social status allots for them. And so yes, maybe a makeshift shanty is one way to make the issue visible to these privileged MU college kids but at the same time how can you attempt to transcend the historical and social contexts which come to constitute such realities and make them fit serenely onto the corner of your lovely quad for two nights, and leaving the issue at arm's reach until next years fundraising season starts again. Maybe that's the point I'm trying to get at, I feel like these issues shouldn't be so easily paralleled through a weekend's indulgence in campus activism. I don't know, I might sound cynical. I understand their aims are probably just but the whole thing rubbed me kind of the wrong way. Maybe it was the irony of the pink razr amidst the the meager cardboard shack. Who knows though, maybe I'm looking at it too harshly? I guess something is better than nothing...

Just some art...

Lynn Randolph... all i have to say is that she is one amazing female artist...











The Coronation of Saint George













Scenes From Hell