Blurred lines and Feminist Shirts

READ THIS FIRST :

http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/feminism-t-shirt

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3044450/Ohio-school-removes-word-feminist-girl-s-T-shirt-class-photo-offensive-unflattering.html

The feminist movement is starting to affect people younger and young nowadays. Eighth grader Sophie Thomas wanted to make a statement when she decided to wear a black t-shirt with the word feminist in bold white letters on class picture day. Her Ohio middle school and photographer thought the shirt was “unflattering” and “offensive ” to some people and decided to photoshop the word out. The school then claimed that they notified Sophie’s mother and she said it was okay. When asked, Sophie’s mom said she agreed to no such thing and the school finally apologized.

Although Sophie is very young, She has strong thoughts on feminism. She was quoted saying,

‘People around here misconstrue the word [feminism].’

‘Like, ‘Oh, you’re a feminist so you hate men.’

‘I just want to spread equality, and a lot of people here don’t agree with me.’

To spread the word Sophie started a twitter instagram movement using the hashtag #Ideservefreedomofexpression. On April 17th, thousands of teens and adults around the world wore feminist t-shirts and posted photos online in support.

When the school asked Sophie what she wanted out of all of this media attention she responded with,“I want everyone to realize that we NEED feminism. I want you to have someone come into the school and educate everyone about feminism. I want us to show the people that we are working together the make this school and our community and better place for everyone. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.”

Sophie’s school is proof that people are still not comfortable with the feminist movement. Schools should want to help students perpetuate their beliefs and educate them on the importance of equality not suppress them.

I think Sophie is right. We should educate everyone on feminism and maybe people would feel less “unconfortable” about the whole thing or learn that feminist aren’t man haters. What do you think?

• Do you think schools should have seminars on feminism?
• What are your thoughts on what Sophie’s school did?
• Do you think Sophie is too young to be a feminist?
• Do you think there is an age that one must be to fully understand everything that feminism entails?
• Why do you think the word feminist makes people so uncomfortable?
• Do you think the world needs more young feminist like Sophie?

“Tart, Slut, Whore, Bimbo” – Lewinsky, a Feminist With a Lowercase ‘f,’ Is Back

Please, read THIS ARTICLE  and THIS ARTICLE before reading the post.

In her articles Jessica Bennett talks about Monica Lewinsky, and her recent public appearances, including her TED Talk in Vancouver. After a decade of hiding from media and press, Lewinsky finally comes back, addressing issues of cyberbullying, humiliation, and women’s rights.

Bennett seems to be in awe with “the new Monica,” but she seems to be even more fascinated by the reaction of media and general public to Lewinsky’s public appearances. People seem to love her, especially young women and teenagers. They are inspired by Lewinsky’s active stance on the slut-shaming issue. Several journalists who wrote about the scandal back in the 90’s have publicly apologized to Lewinsky. Of course, she has also been criticized for using media to get public attention again. Some people wander why did she choose to talk about her story now, and why did she have troubles finding a job, if she could’ve just changed her name. However, most of the people tend to support Lewinsky.

What do you think of Lewinsky’s public appearances? Do you think that she is being genuine or that she is just trying to get more attention again?

Does this case prove that there has been a cultural shift towards feminism and away from slut-shaming? Or do you think that the public has accepted Lewinsky simply because the scandal is not a hot topic anymore?

Finally, young women and girls seem to look up to Lewinsky. Do you think that Lewinsky is sending a positive message to the new generation?

Is birth control feminist?*

In January of this year, Carl Djerassi, dubbed “father of the Pill,” passed away. He once believed he worked to liberate women, but in 2010 interview, he said, “Modern, intelligent men won’t take responsibility, wouldn’t even use condoms,” he said. “They shrugged and said: ‘All women are now on the pill, I don’t need to bother.’ This has become another woman’s burden.”

Please read the following articles before reading this blog post: Some young evangelicals forgo birth control and a radical feminist review of Holly Grigg-Spall’s book Sweetening the Pill.

Birth control has been and is paraded by mainstream feminists as a “miracle drug” essential to furthering the equality of men and woman, but fringe movements, including those based in religion to race, protest.

Grigg-Spall…critiques the way HBC is set up as a solution to worldwide “population control” when the real issue is global inequality and poverty. The pill is a capitalist solution to this, and not a feminist one.

I personally agree that the premise of birth control and what it aims to achieve is problematic. I believe that the first step of equality is accepting that equality of men and women does not and cannot exist because men and women have different needs and desires. Therefore, all that can exist is equality of opportunity, which birth control approaches incorrectly.

In a simplified summary, birth control aims to keep a woman’s body’s natural functions at bay for as long as possible so that she can, to some extent, pretend to be a man and further herself in our male dominated society, which created and promotes birth control. But that same body is then pressured to give birth years after it intends to, a potentially harmful process. If a woman doesn’t postpone childbirth, she is essentially worthless in the modern working world.

Birth control is also at the center of politics and capitalism. Some of you may have seen this video before, but if you haven’t, it perfectly highlights much of what is wrong with birth control.

It is expensive, a hotly-debated health care topic, and not necessarily healthy. Grigg-Spall’s discusses “ the “dark side” of the pill.”

Apparently data collected from Bayer concentration camp experiments was used in developing the pill (p 31). The pill has negative side effects for women ranging from promoting bone loss (p 63) to blood clots to depression, etc. The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified the pill as a class one carcinogen alongside tobacco and asbestos (p 59). Apparently, Depo Provera is currently used in sex offender rehab programs to decrease sex drive (p 68).

Dorothy Roberts’ book, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty, takes a look at birth control through the lens of race. In black communities, coercive dispersion of birth control has been used as a means of controlling poverty without actually dealing with the issue itself. Black incarcerated women have been forcible sterilized. Roberts’ argues that these factors have been an integral part of racial oppression in the U.S..

Birth control also represents some alarming ideological ideals, as expressed by the first article.

Why do so many women feel pressure to postpone childbearing until the last possible biological moment? Why do stable couples fear that a child will ruin their lives? And why has our culture put more energy into extending women’s fertility window than into remaking the workplace to accommodate parenthood?

Instead of promoting these twisted ideals—along with the problematic health and racial side effects of birth control—shouldn’t we be promoting workplaces that coexist and cooperate with families and supporting the natural biological functions of women’s bodies?

Going back to Djerassi’s quote, shouldn’t men have more responsibility in birth control? Some argue that giving women full control is necessary, because they often bear full consequences of a man’s failure to use birth control.

But perhaps the problem isn’t that the woman has to bear all consequences, perhaps it’s that we live in a society that not only considers children a consequence, but a society that makes children a consequence. No one will say that being a single mother is an easy task.

So is birth control feminist?*

*I would just like to say that the opinions and view point expressed above, both in my post and in the above articles, are not necessarily my own views and opinions. However, I do think that they are worth exploring and worth thinking critically about. Perhaps my question, “is birth control feminist,” is misleading, because it seems like I don’t think it is. This isn’t true–of course, it’s feminist and empowering in that it liberates women sexually and allows them to take control of their sexuality. But this isn’t the only use of the birth control pill. I would encourage you expand your concept of the pill beyond how you use it and how it applies to someone like you–specifically a woman married to a man (or in a relationship like marriage in the sense that it is mutually committed and long-term, if you object to the idea of marriage) that is pursuing a professional career. Consider this article. If we agree that a women’s professional life should not be judged on the presence of a family, particularly children, then does birth control support this belief? And only in the case of a woman with a professional career who chooses, supposedly of her own free will, to postpone childbirth, is that choice really her own? If society were more open to the idea that a woman, like a man, can have a family and also succeed in the workplace, would she have to postpone childbirth?

In advertisement, are important figures more influential than super models?

In a world full of creative geniuses, in order to be successful at selling an idea or product one must reach to the target buyers in their Achilles’ heel. Please read the following articles What if all the major fashion brands ditched supermodels and hired super women instead? and ‘Super Women’ Replace Supermodels In Fashion Ads And The Results Are Epic.

Every day society is faced to advertisement. Even if an individual does not notice it, we are constantly exposed to ads that deliver the message of whether we can or cannot live with or without certain product. These advertisements picture the product very appealingly to the individual and he or she is then directly thrown into the desire of acquiring it. How do advertisements sell their idea? They hit on the buyers weak points. They present the product or idea using individuals with certain characteristics. These characteristics typically are traits any woman or men wished he or she had. By picturing the product with this “perfect individual” the public is attracted to the product.

Advertisers base their campaigns only on superficial traits that attract people. They use super models that are only known because of their flawless physical features. Buyers do not even know their names in most cases, unless it is a recognized super model. But again, to be a recognized super model you just have to fit into the perfect parameters society sets. What would happen if this advertisements substitute the super models with important figures? Would it be as effective? Or maybe even more effective?

Recently Céline, had one of the most influential writers in America, Joan Didion, pose for their sunglasses campaign. Given this, Elisa Rodriguez-Villa, was then attracted to Photoshop important woman figures in big name brands’ advertisements. About Joan Didion’s for a Cé campaign, she says “I’ve never even been able to afford a pair of socks by Céline, but all of the sudden they had my attention on so many levels”. She explains that the reason of her project is that when she recently skimming throught fashion magazines she was getting bored of seeing always the same: woman whom you did not even know their names but had the “perfect characteristics.” Rodriguez-Villa states that after seeing such an important figure, as Jian Didion, in the advertisement she was suddenly attracted to the product, an attraction she probably wouldn’t have felt if a super model was modeling it. Being this the situation, I ask you why do you think that advertisements use perfect super models to sell their products instead of actual important people whom have accomplished significant and influential things?

I would say that this is because people of such importance would be out of context posing and / or supporting these expensive brands. Take for example the photo-shopped image by Rodriguez-Villa of Malala Yousafzai with the Louis Viutton bags. Malala is an activist for female education that had lived through extreme poberty conditions and is fighting against sexism; why would she be posing besides these brands’ expensive bags? With the money needed to buy this product she could, and probably would, use it for another cause. So, do you believe if that by using important figures brands would rise their sells or people would just be confused by having to different poles in one image? Or the success of the campaign depends most likely on the product?

For more information about the Joan Didion Céline campaign visit Joan Didion Stars In Céline’s New Campaign.

Men and Feminism

The statistics and inspiration from this post came from this huffington post article by Rebecca Solnit.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rebecca-solnit/feminist-men_b_6093162.html

Feminism traditionally has been a movement run by women, meant to improve the lives of women, but by definition this standard is almost counter-intuitive of feminism’s overarching objective—the equality of men and women. In order to accomplish this goal both women and men need to actively support various movements. Only recently have men been targeted to create change. The “Its on us” campaign calls on young men to intervene in potential rapes, and the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi called on families to take more action raising their sons in order to teach them how to prevent rape. This is a new change of thought as rape has usual been prevented by teaching young girls how to defend themselves etc. If men are causing harm toward women, then men need to teach one other how to prevent this issue as well. This is the idea that necessitates men’s influence in feminism.

After nearly every single feminist speech or action initiated by women to help feminism there has been a huge backlash from individual men, usually over the internet, against feminism. Personally, I see two problems with this. The first being that serious misogyny exists and sexism is at the root of this anger, and secondly, individual men still feel attacked by the feminist movement. Why do men still feel attacked by a movement only trying to create equality? I think that genuine prejudice and selfishness lie at the heart of this resistance to change, and the only way to seriously call on these men to change their ideals is to give them strong male role models who feel empowered by feminism, not attacked by it. Role models like Chris Kluwe, a former football player who spoke out against #gamegaters which trended in reaction to criticism for sexist atmospheres on online video games. We need to change the attitude of these online forums and get men to take feminism and women’s issues seriously because at the end of the day most serious violent attacks against individual women are done by men.

The number one cause of injury to American women is domestic violence. This statistic is shocking. Even in modern households this statistic is still telling of men’s attitudes toward women. Even more appalling is that the number 1 cause of death for PREGNANT women in the U.S. is spousal abuse. Even though feminism has both men and women at heart, the reason men are targeted is because men are causing serious issues that women never would have to deal with. Even comedians Aziz Ansari and Louis C. K. have entire bits where they mock men’s aggression toward women. That’s right, men’s animalistic, violent, often sexually based, actions against women are laughable. Honestly, the above statistics frighten me, and make me, a man, embarrassed on behalf of my gender. Even if men are uncomfortable with supporting a mostly women’s movement, men need to still support changes in the home and society just to clear our name as perpetrators of nearly all these issues. Men need to begin supporting feminism because men are the only ones who can change these awful statistics. Even rape allegations are usually thought to be exaggerated.

1 in 5 women are sexually assaulted at some point in their lives, while only 1 in 71 one men are. The difference is only our perspective on the issue. Only 2% of rape charges are proven false. The superstition that false rape allegation are common is simply not true. The article has a plethora of facts and examples of past rape charges, but the main concern is the judicial system that process rape, and the fact that collages still manage rape cases themselves instead of giving them to the police. Rape is serious and should be taken more seriously by everyone, and that’s all I have to say about that.

This article isn’t a statement against American men—actually it’s the contrary. It’s a call for men to lead each other and create a better world for everyone. Unless men actually do take action and work to change the perception of women in the media then no change for women will happen. Although feminism needs strong women leaders in order to create change, some feminist voices must be from men, who call upon other men to rise above the standard that the above statistics set for us. Otherwise very little change will happen.

This article brought a few questions to mind. The first being whether or not its possible to have independent male leadership in a predominately women’s movement which for now has only focused on women’s issues. How can leaders communicate with one another?– should this even happen? How can feminism influence men to take on the challenge other than asking for “support?”