160 Million and Counting―The Product of “Gendercide”

Please read the following New York Times op-ed entitled “160 Million and Counting,” by Ross Douthat from 2010.

In the opinion piece, Douthat reflects on an essay the economist Amartya Sen wrote in 1990 called, “More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing,” (I embedded the link so you can review it, if you would like). In his essay, Sen discussed the greatly skewed ratios of women to men in India, China, and other developing nations. To explain this, Sen analyzed poor standards of healthcare, nutrition, and education for women in comparison to men. He did mention the possibility of female infanticide in the case of China’s infamous one-child policy. Twenty years and 60 million more missing women later, Douthat points to gendercide, or the selective mass killing based on gender.

The leading way gendercide is conducted is through selective abortion; Mara Hvistendahl in her book, Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, argues that these missing women were never born, and instead, “were selected out of existence, by ultrasound technology and second-trimester abortion,” (Douthat, NY Times). Douthat raises several interesting points about why gendercide is happening. Firstly, he points out the obvious claim that gendercide is occurring because of the prominent patriarchy and misogyny prevalent in many Asian societies. More interestingly though, Douthat goes on to analyze that it is often women who are selecting based on sex; this is because in Asian societies it is preferable to have boys as they bring a higher social status. This frames one of the main takeaways of the article: the irony of a feminist institution (the right to have an abortion) being the tool of termination of millions of girls based on their sex. 

Furthermore, Asian countries that made abortions legal were championed by the US and organizations like the International Planned Parenthood Federation. I would imagine that philanthropic organizations that supported these Asian countries could have never imagined what it would be used for, while anti-population campaigners (like foreign governments) probably saw the prospect of less women as a bonus to control population even more. With that being said, why is this twisted irony so relevant to feminism and women’s bodies?

In countries like China and India, the increasing empowerment of women is leading them to selectively abort female fetuses based on the fact that they are a girl. Essentially, feminism is a factor in why gendercide occurs in these societies. More feminist beliefs, like the right to have an abortion and the choice women have over their body, has led to women embracing their culture’s affinity for boys by aborting many more female offspring in favor of male offspring.

Additionally, Douthat highlights how there does not seem to be any (legal) crime committed or an enforceable opposition to gendercide in the form of sex selection. It is an especially difficult topic for many progressives because it tests their beliefs on choice and the definition of life after being born. How can one who shares these beliefs be opposed to women having abortions based on gender because they are technically not life, according to their own definition? I will tell you how: moral ethics based on the belief that both sexes are equal and therefore should be aborted or brought to term on an equal footing. Any form of bias based on gender is wrong and that includes the prospect of a girl never being born because of her female gender.

Douthat leaves the readers with a chilling and scathing conclusion:

“The tragedy of the world’s 160 million missing girls isn’t that they’re “missing.” The tragedy is that they’re dead.”

With all that being said, do you agree with my claim that feminism is a factor in why there is gendercide in countries like China and Asia? Why or why not? If not, do you find any irony in the ways gendercide is taking place? Furthermore, can progressives and feminists reconcile their beliefs on abortion and the definition of life with selective abortion based on sex?

Is this topic so depressing or upsetting that you want to cry? If so, comment about that, the above questions, or anything relating to the topic!

Women in Advertisements

This post will be based off of Jennifer Pozner’s interview of Jean Kilbourne, first run here: http://www.salon.com/2001/01/30/kilbourne/

Jean Kilbourne, advertisement critic, gave an interview to Jennifer Pozner for her piece “You’re Soaking in It” in which she sets out to prove that advertising has a profoundly negative impact on society, particularly in regard to women, through subconscious and harmful messages that the advertisers send.  Kilbourne targets an audience of women, particularly Mothers Who Think, the readers of Salon.com where the interview initially ran. She hopes that, by the end, the women are riled up enough by her argument to push for change.

One of the first claims Kilbourne makes is that, once advertisers focused on women, they co-opted feminism and the women’s movement, significantly minimizing the accomplishments of the female gender. She makes the point that advertisers were not above using a “trivializing slogan” such as “’You’ve come a long way, baby’” or “’Find your voice’” to sell cigarettes, though she uses hyperbolic, inflammatory language by saying that these ads were leading to the “enslavement” of women by equating it to women’s “liberation.” It seems like a bit of a jump, but perhaps she has a point. However, is the feminist movement something that advertisers cannot appropriate? Do they have less of a right to its exploitation than anyone else? She preaches about “endless ads that turned the women’s movement into the quest for a women’s product,” for the support of which she only offers a rhetorical question suggesting that advertisements create problems for the product to solve. But the question only states, “Was there ever such a thing as static cling before there were fabric softeners and sprays?” This does not speak to advertisements at all, really. It simply addresses the fact that products that have entered the market because a need was found and filled, then assumes that this is inherently negative because the product was essentially targeted toward a female buyer.

She also claims advertising exploits the need for interpersonal relationships, what she labels “’relationship marketing.’” Though this is a human need, she suggests that advertisements and society at large associate this need with women – apparently men don’t need other people. She goes on to argue that advertisements send the distinct message that relationships, particularly if you are a woman, are unreliable. For this claim, she discusses how ads show a man’s reluctance to make a commitment and reinforces violent behavior. She throws around strong diction such as words like “callousness” and “reluctantly” when speaking of how ads portray a man’s unwillingness to establish a relationship and makes the alarming statement that these ads “normalize the abnormal.” Much of her argument relies on a female reader’s indignation, tugging at her fears about men, which she conveniently blames on advertising rather than the history of male-female relationships. Married women with families especially, as the target audience for this piece, do not want to hear that their husbands, as men, are being told it is perfectly acceptable to be cold and not commit to the relationship. She uses the same tactics here that she claims the advertisements are – targeting women’s insecurities about their relationships by saying that it is encouraged by society in a subconscious way.

Moving to the assertion that advertisements say, essentially, the product makes the person, Kilbourne makes more sweeping generalizations. She says that advertisements tell the public that only attractive people are loved, but how do they tell us this? Because attractive people are used in advertisements? She asserts that overweight people are poorer and less likely to be hired, but where did this information come from? Is it really accurate? Especially nowadays, it seems less relevant in light of campaigns that celebrate diverse forms and body shapes including Dove’s real beauty campaign or the #EffYourBeautyStandards movement started by plus-size model Tess Holliday.

In an effort to provoke the audience, Kilbourne asserts that advertisers and corporations suggest that turning off the television or simple, honest conversations are enough to shield children from an advertisement parents deem harmful. Kilbourne takes the opportunity to maybe exaggerate through the use of a metaphor, comparing advertisements to toxic air that children are forced to breathe in and cannot avoid. She uses this last ploy to assert to these mothers that their children are being constantly harmed and the only viable solution is to turn against advertising, which is a reflection of our “toxic cultural environment.” She is trying to exploit a mother’s need to protect her child, another advertising tactic, according to Jib Fowles, who defined the fifteen appeals that advertisements use to target their consumers (link below). Is her assertion that this power advertisements have over us is not one we can overcome correct? Bringing up her daughter and her maternal fears, which address Fowles’s need to nurture, has an effective sway over the audience, which is one of mothers. Is she, in your opinion, correct to worry about her daughter growing up in such an environment? If so, do you have any advice for her, seeing as you have already gone through the stage her daughter is in already?

Kilbourne incorporates into her argument the fundamental needs of human beings that advertisements utilize and she herself is not above exploiting, despite her criticism of advertising. These needs include, but are not limited to, the need for affiliation, as Fowles calls it, or the need to love and be loved, as Kilbourne dubs it. How can she rail against the use of methods she uses as well?

While I agree on the importance of discussing women in advertising, I disagree with Kilbourne’s method of argument. At this point in time, seeing as this article was published in 2001, is Kilbourne’s argument still relevant and her conclusion still accurate, or must we reevaluate?

Jib Fowles and the 15 Appeals: http://producer.csi.edu/cdraney/archive-courses/spring05/cld_102_spring05/e-texts/15-basic-appeals.pdf

The Writers Behind the Romance

Please read this link first: http://therumpus.net/2014/07/writing-romance-fiction-is-a-feminist-act/

In this article it is said that, “It’s [feminism] about having what you want and being honest about who you are. It’s about respecting who you are and what you do.” This is a definition that would be welcomed by some, and cause outrage in others.

Impressions; we all have impressions, stereotypes, and beliefs about those that we interact with on a daily basis, and those that we hear about by proxy. Take a second to think about your own impressions about the people who would be enrolled in a “Feminism and Women’s Bodies” class. Did you think that these would be people who could not get into any other class, people who were extremist man haters, or people that you could see yourself being friends with? Did you anticipate that the class would be all women, or that you would be the only man in the class? Now let’s turn to the media. Think about the romance genre and your impressions of it, barring this class. Many people see romance novels as a guilty pleasure, and that these are airport books best left on the plane. My personal bias used to be that these were tawdry, bodice rippers that would not be described as books of “intellectual merit,” or in other words, not good example books for your English Literature AP essays.

Let’s now switch to talking about media portrayals of our topic. How are romance novels portrayed in the media? Or a more specific question, do we remember the hullabaloo made when Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James hit the shelves, and then the NY Times Best Seller List, (considering the backlash of people, I probably would have used a pseudonym as well), or consider the authors of more recently mainstreamed fanfiction genre? I personally think of the main character (a romance novelist) from an 80s movie called “Romancing the Stone,” (I will link the trailer and imdb page below). This movie depicts Joan Wilder, a very successful romance novelist with a cat and a sparse social calendar. After reading this article, it was clear that the author had gone in with some preconceived notions, namely the expectation of finding “breathy-voiced women with long nails talking about fine young stallions looking to sweep willing young women off their feet.” Bringing this back to a larger topic, we all have the same expectations about feminism and how it is displayed. I reference Roxanne Gay’s Bad Feminist here to ask the question that this blog post is all about: what are the criteria, if any, for making a romance novel be feminist?

Now please read this article before you post (yeah, I’m not sure if I’m allowed to make you guys read two but I’m going for it): http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/03/beyond-bodice-rippers-how-romance-novels-came-to-embrace-feminism/274094/#.UUcdBP_VBb0.twitter

For fun (and satire) here is a buzzfeed quiz to see if you are termed a “bad feminist”:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/catesevilla/are-you-a-bad-feminist#.jqRapvpYa

I personally checked off 25 out of 56 on the list, and Buzzfeed labeled me a “borderline acceptable feminist — or, as some would say, “problematic.””

Romancing The Stone trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WokoWHHAxp4

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088011/

How the Greek System Singlehandedly Brainwashed America’s Young Women

About two weeks ago, Greek Row lay in a dormant silence. Rows of houses drew their blinds under the unrelenting authoritarian eye of the George Washington University administration, but also in response to a greater threat: a reporter from the New York Times.

It was early in the night when he began his work. He positioned himself, waiting. He lurked in the shadows, biding his time.

He noticed her legs first. Her tights were stretched over her slender limbs, and her weight wobbled over her 4-inch high heels as would a newborn doe. They exchanged a glance, and in her intoxicated state, she ruled him benign. She began to walk back to her dorm for a quiet night, unaware of the hooded individual that was silently stalking her. He smelled blood, and just as a lion prepares to cut down his pray, he pursued her.

The reporter’s name is Alan Schwartz, and he just published an article entitled “Sorority Anti-Rape Idea: Drinking on Own Turf.” The article describes a purview of his findings, which are minimal, and the scope of his conclusions, which are as incendiary and vast as they are assumptive. It discusses the always popular topic of Greek Life, and the danger it purportedly presents to unsuspecting women who fall into its snare.

At least, this is the perspective of some young women. Martha McKinnon, a sophomore from the University of Michigan, believes that “The whole social scene is embedded in the fraternity house, and makes us dependent on them. I find this a dangerous scenario.” Nevertheless, McKinnon notes she is an active participant in the Greek System. Perhaps this is due to the fact that these women have no other party options, as GW freshman Ashley Alessandra will tell you: “It’s what we know. We go to frats.”

Perhaps these women are a poor representation of the whole, but the fact still remains that they portray themselves as helpless victims of an unstoppable evil. In reality, fraternity parties are indeed optional, and so is drinking alcohol. If both of these things pose such an unavoidable danger to young women, then why do they still attend in droves? Furthermore, if sorority parties are a safer option, then what is keeping them from happening?

The root cause is often difficult to assess because it forces us to confront ourselves on the aforementioned issues, and blame can seldom be assigned to only one party. Nonetheless, articles such as Schwartz’s and the subsequent feminist rabble often strive to do so instead of addressing the true issue at hand.

Thusly, we must first identify the issue itself. The attached article, and several others listed by the author, lay claim that the problem is limited to fraternities. By virtue of their Greek affiliation, some sources seemingly assert, fraternities are cesspools of alcohol-fueled sexual violence. While this is representative of an ongoing stigma against Greek-affiliated organizations, it is also a patent dismissal of a greater ill; it is an inability or unwillingness to address the equal share of responsibility.

Imagine two individuals, a man and a women, have engaged in a sexual act under the influence of alcohol. Both initially consented to the act, and albeit conscious, were blacked out. Assume, for the sake of argument, that both made the conscious decision to drink until blacked out and to have sex. Despite both parties having equal share in the consequence, I have just described de facto sexual assault. Let’s take this example to the extreme, to test its bounds: Lets say that the woman in this case encouraged, either by heavy persuasion or force, her male partner to drink to excess, resulting in blackout. Next, she proceeds to drink until slightly intoxicated. The two have sex. The consequence in both scenarios is the same: a legally justified sexual assault allegation against the male. One could hardly argue that the parties have shared equal blame in the end result, but the legal ramifications rest entirely on the male. Is it by virtue of the penetrative nature of the phallic form that shifts the entirety of the blame to the male? Or is it a feigning of equal responsibility on the part of the woman?

Female Privilege and Its Existence

Mark Saunders compiled a list of 18 Things Females Seem To Not Understand that he so aptly titled, because, you know, female privilege. Upon stumbling across this article, I was, at first, intrigued. I’d seen articles floating around about White Privilege, or Male Privilege or the combination of the two, but I hadn’t seen one on Female Privilege. I thought, what 18 things could I possibly have the privilege to over men?

The first thing Saunders listed was “1. Female privilege is being able to walk down the street at night without people crossing the street because they’re automatically afraid of you.” The thing about writing is, unless you’ve really developed a voice, it’s hard to tell when you’re being satirical, or serious. After reading this article, and the responses it received, I’m going to go out on a limb here, and say Saunders honestly believes this is female privilege. Because it’s our privilege to be uncomfortable and scared when we have to get home at night. Walker Hansen puts it into perspective in a responding piece, “Female Privilege Isn’t Real You Crying Diaper Man-Baby”. Hansen writes on the first topic, “Saunders is arguing that…being a f**king threat constitutes an unfair manifestation of hegemonic mechanism.”

Saunders not only makes light of rape culture (“Female privilege is being able to get drunk and have sex without being considered a rapist.”), but also go on to confuse what is a women’s right with privilege (see points 6, 10, and 11). Saunders does not establish himself as a credible writer. His article lacks the backing to even be taken, let alone considered, seriously. He paints women as crazy, weak, conniving, emotional, manipulative and lazy (points 1-18), but never stops to consider the other spectrum of these alleged ‘privileges’.

“Female privilege is being able to decide not to have a child,” he says in his sixth point. As I stated earlier, Saunders has confused a woman’s right with privilege, and has neglected to share the fact this is a right that is constantly ridiculed and called into question. It has been an uphill fight for women to maintain control over their bodies and what they do with them. In fact, it was only in 1973 after the Supreme Court case Roe vs. Wade that the Federal Law protected a women’s right to choose abortion. And since Roe vs. Wade, there have been many blows to this constitutional right. In the Abortion chapter of “Our Bodies, Ourselves for the New Century” by Boston Women’s Health Book Collective, it was explained how new cases broke down abortion rights:

“In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989), the Court opened the door to new state restrictions on abortion. In Hodgson v. Minnesota (1990), the Court upheld one of the strictest parental notification laws in the country. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 decision [upheld] a highly restrictive Pennsylvania law that included mandatory waiting periods and mandatory biased counseling.”

(You can read an excerpt of the “Abortion” chapter here.)

If you follow the link to the free excerpt, you’ll find a section entitled “Abortion Access in the U.S.”. There you’ll see that even though it is a women’s right to choose abortion, it is still extremely difficult to obtain one with only 17 states funding abortion. Still, Saunders claims this to be one of the 18 privileges women are afforded, even though it stands to be a right that many want to take away. Saunders takes a stab at education for females in his fifteenth point, claiming that women are “generally encouraged and supported along the way” (to college, that is). Again, what Saunders fails to acknowledge that it wasn’t until 1848 at the Seneca Falls Conference that a demand for higher education was brought up in the Declaration of Sentiments. Women did not have access to higher education before 1848. While some women attended female seminaries or academies, they weren’t allowed into colleges and universities. And even as women went on to seek higher education, they were ridiculed by many.

Saunders argument is weak and he fails to list any real “Female Privileges.” I don’t even think that Saunders intention was to bring to light any real privileges women may hold over men. It is true, females do have privileges just as men do but Saunders takes any difficulty men may have and turns it into a privilege for females. Walker Hansen says it perfectly, “Disadvantages to masculinity do not qualify as advantages to femininity…any measure of difficulty in the lives of men [does] not manifest an inverse corollary boon within the lives of women.” And because Walker Hansen’s ingenuity doesn’t cease to amaze me, I’ll leave you with this, too: “If Saunders doesn’t like that men are generally seen as the perpetrators of abuse, perhaps he should consider that women would probably be pretty into not being disproportionate victims of abuse.”

Feminism: Then and Now

Jennifer Szalai uses this article to look at how Helen Gurley Brown’s book, Having it All, has affected the feminist movement and women in society as a whole.

Szalai looks at the phrase “having it all”, as well as the subtitle of the book, “Love, Success, Sex, Money”. Originally published in 1982, the book encouraged women that like men, they too could find success in the workplace, be happy, and find a man. At the time, it was debated as to whether women could handle all of these aspects of life, especially being a mother, which is rarely mentioned in the book.

The fact that years ago, women were being told to strive for it all, and today this phrase is being strongly criticized goes against what I would have expected to see. Also, mentioned in the article is the fact that since the book was published in 1982, the amount of women in the workforce has decreased. I think this is because of women being able to strive for higher profile jobs in the workplace, such as CEO’s, whereas before they were normally secretaries. Now having a male secretary is not an abnormal thing. The diversity in jobs in the workplace is a positive change, so looking strictly at numbers is not giving the full story.

However, the message that was being pushed by the book I find very interesting. What are your opinions on the things hat Brown tells women to do? Do you think that what we consider successful today and in 1982 are different? How do you think people would respond if something like this were published today?

Szalai, Jennifer. “The Complicated Origins of ‘Having It All’.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 03 Jan. 2015. Web. 17 Jan. 2015.

Of toilets and feminism

In 1917, Dadaist Marcel Duchamp scandalously submitted a urinal to an art exhibit.  Here’s a replica of this masterpiece on display at the Tate:

Many consider this a landmark in twentieth-century art.  I’m ill-equipped for an argument about the meaning of art, but it’s entertaining to see this piece through the lens of gender analysis:  everything a man does, even “taking the piss” (this is a relevant piece of British slang, not me being vulgar), is a work of art.

In contrast, the experience of women in public toilets has never struck me as particularly transcendent.  Dressed up for the theater or the opera, elegant women leap up at intermission and jostle to the exits in an attempt to make it through the restroom line before the show recommences.  Airport toilets are similar.  I’ve had many opportunities, stalled at the end of a long queue, to notice how rarely men are backed up for access to their facilities.

The problem stems in part from fewer toilets for women, as older buildings once reserved primarily for men eventually allowed increasing numbers of women but only partially accommodated them.  As Soraya Chemaly explains in “The Everyday Sexism of Women Waiting in Public Toilet Lines,” that’s not the only problem today.  Newer and renovated buildings may well offer the same number of toilets.  So why do women still have to wait?  And, in cases where there is no longer a difference in the availability of actual toilets, does it make sense to consider this as a problem of sexism?  I think trying to answer this leads us to a couple of related questions:  does something have to be intentional in order to be considered sexist?  Also, do we define sexism as simply inequality?  If so, then how do we calculate inequality?  In this case, for example, is it the number of toilets, the amount of time in line, or something else entirely?

Writing and the Dread Five-Paragraph Essay

For years, English professors who taught incoming college students have bemoaned the five-paragraph essay.  You know the one I mean:  an introduction that introduces three main points, followed by three paragraphs reiterating those three main points, and then a final paragraph restating those three points.  It’s perhaps a good exercise for inexperienced writers to learn to organize their thoughts, but it continues to be taught long after it’s served that purpose.  Further, it’s possibly the world’s most boring thing to read.  I take that back–probably user agreements are the most boring:

This User Agreement (this “Agreement”) is a legal agreement between you and Happy Reader Communications, Inc. (“Happy,” “we” or “our”) providing, among other things, the terms and conditions for your use of the Happy Reader sites, (collectively, the “Service”)…

Yet the five-paragraph theme is a close contender.  I love cartoonist Sandra Boynton’s classic depiction:  

So let’s look at an example of a “good” five-paragraph essay.  Click on this link:

College Is Ambiguous

The real problem isn’t really this essay’s ability to suck the life out of any topic.  Instead, the five-paragraph essay is miserable because nothing of interest can happen it.  By the end of the first paragraph, the reader knows everything that the essay offers.  There are no surprises.  Imagine if Game of Thrones began with a synopsis telling us when and how each of our favorite characters was going to die.  Moreover, the format of the essay makes it hard for the reader to avoid huge, unsubstantiated generalizations, such as “Since the dawn of time, our ancestors huddled in a cave despised the five-paragraph essay” or “I think it’s safe to say that everyone, from the smallest preemie in its isolette to that 115-year-old Japanese woman who was just in the news, hates the five-paragraph theme.” And those are just two of the problems with this form of essay.  And it’s not the only form of poor writing that K-12 education sometimes encourages.

Why are bad approaches to writing sometimes taught in high school?  Teachers presumably want to offer the best caliber of education possible, but they are hampered by some constraints they can’t control.  Of these, the most pernicious is standardized testing.  Standardized testing depends upon standardized formats, and teachers who want their students to excel on those tests need to encourage their students to master those formats.  With writing, that means getting students to produce something with attributes that can be graded mechanistically.  And students good at pinpointing those attributes can achieve high scores even if the actual content of the writing itself is ridiculous.

Look back to that essay I mentioned at the beginning, “College Is Ambiguous.”  If you were grading this essay, how would you score it?  The automated grader at ETS gave it a perfect score.

The author of this classic work was not a student but Les Perlman, an MIT professor on a crusade against standardized writing tests.  And what does Perlman think about the five-paragraph essay?  According to a piece by Joanna Weiss at the Boston Globe, “it’s a staple of what Perelman calls ‘McLearning’—easy to evaluate and master, and not especially compatible with actual thinking.”

What have been your experiences with the five-paragraph essay?  With standardized testing?  Do you find Perlman’s critique valid?

You can read Perlman’s essay writing tips for students here:  http://www.actoutagainstsat.com/essay-tips.pdf

What’s a “bad feminist”?

Why does Roxane Gay use this as the title of her book?  What does this imply about what “good” feminists are supposed to be?

Good Housekeeping

Happy New Year to all of you who follow this blog! My spring 2015 sections of Feminism and Women’s Bodies are about to begin, which means that this blog is about to get very active. You are absolutely welcome to stick around and enjoy the fun.

If, however, you are sick and tired of blogging and do not want to get status updates from this blog, you will need to remove yourself as a follower. Here’s how:

1. Go to WordPress.com and sign in.
2. on the upper left-hand side, there is a pull-down menu labeled says “Reader.” From there, select “Blogs I Follow.”
3. Select “Edit.”
4. Click on the little X on the right, next to Feminism and Women’s Bodies
5. There’s just one last step: continue pursuing your dream of making the world a better place!

Easy, right?