A friend was telling me about The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and how she could not finish it due to the sexist main character, but most of the gentlemen I know who have read it RAVE about it.

Lisa: I’m kind of a snob in that I read a lot of classics. I love Jane Austen- I know some feminists give her a bad rap because her plot lines are all about marriage, but her characters are strong feminist women and for the 1850s, what else did she have to write about, really. If you’ve never read Emma, I suggest it.  

Catch-22 is one of my favourite books, but it is infuriatingly male-centric. All the women in the book are prostitutes, which doesn’t help, and they are described in a really objectifying way. REALLY bad. But the writing is so, so awesome, and the author has such a sly way with words and narratives and ugh, I love it. But I hate it. I have such a touch time resolving that confliction.

Bex: Personally, not a fan of Salman Rushdie. A bunch of people raved about his work and recommended him to me, but I read Midnight’s Children and The Enchantress of Florence and was not impressed. They drag on aout 600 pages too long, really masculinist writing and it seems like the women all have some horrible characteristic to make them unworthy.

Val:I was always heavy on the classics (Brontes, Austin, etc), but lately I am mostly reading non-fiction. But yes, Rushdie smacks of contemporary Hemingway. Boo.

Chelsea:  I actually really loved Oscar Wao. I read it before I really thought about gender issues, so maybe if I re-read it I would feel differently. If you are looking for a book that deals with something similar you HAVE TO HAVE TO read In the Time of the Butterflies. It’s an amazing book and totally feminist.

Mary: I question Huck Finn & Tom Sawyer as American Classics. I always felt uncomfortable with the word nigger in literature, and still do which is what fueled my doubt in the institutionalized “classics.” I don’t know how to deal with the term “nigger” in literature because we are supposed to read literature and say “within that society, writing a sympathetic minstrel character into his book deserves a pat on the back because it was progressive at the time.” I disagree that this gets to be classic American cannon and worshiped in high schools. If we are really trying to analyze American History of the 19th century and acknowledge how wrong the subjugation of blacks has been, why not teach Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois instead? I feel similarly about To Kill A Mockingbird. It is an acclaimed American classic written by a white author sympathizing with blacks. It was a well written book, I enjoyed reading it, but when are we going to value black authors’ writings about justice, childhood, slavery or American life and see that as just as relevant to the conversation?

photo by Carl van Vechten

We should not be patting Harper Lee on the back still in 2010. Their Eyes Were Watching God is a moving book that I read on my own time in high school, a work about a black WOMAN, by a black woman! I suggest that book become valued as a classic in American Literature.  I am not out to oust all white authors from American Literature, but there is a serious imbalance here that is perpetuated year after year unquestioned.

With regard to your ethnicity, do you consider yourself Hispanic or Latino? | Question 1b: If you indicated above that you consider yourself Hispanic or Latino, please select the ONE category that best describes your background.| Question 3: California State University often needs to report ONLY ONE summary race/ethnicity description for a person. Please select your reporting preference...

How do I play this game? By their rules or decline to state. How can ONE ethnic category describe anyone “best”? Are you more related to your father than your mother?

Lately my sister and I have been cleaning our garage, essentially a storage facility for our family. From my father’s old army fatigues and an out of tune piano to rusty tools and broken door knobs, we are unearthing nearly fifty years of history, determining what has some use or value from that which has past its utility in our hearts or lives.

Mary's box of playthings.

Among the artifacts: Eugene the Jeep, a 4-dimensional Popeye character who we discovered at the emergency room ages ago. We believed he appeared there magically to make us feel better.

My Cabbage Patch: Brown hair, brown eyes, dark skin and round facial features, old nailpolish and lipstick stained onto her face. My family made sure we each had a Cabbage Patch that looked like us, a special alternative to the perky-blonde ice-skating Barbie doll we took turns playing with. I’ve had this doll since before I could even talk.

Bernardo O’Higgins aka Hitler: This little leopard joined the family when my mom was in jail, he saw some hard times, including the burden of two names because my sister and I could never agree on one.

How could I possibly give these guys up? Do grown-ups take these guys upstairs and put them on a stuffed animal shelf? I’m not 14 anymore, I am a 25 year old woman. I do not know what to do with this box.
I love these guys. But I’m not sure I want them in my bedroom.
I feel like I need to stop collecting things though. I don’t like the idea of holding onto things that I never use, never look at.

Have you ever opened a box and felt conflicted by your childhood? Have you donated your old toys and moved on or do you keep Barbies and old hats?

Jeep! Jeep!

In two months now, we have gone 3,933 kilometers, the majority of our travel, via the Indian Railway system. For the country’s booming populace, foreigners and freight, the train system is one of India’s signature features.

As deep-rooted as the rail lines, the traditional distinctions between genders are preserved and strong. Gender specific services and social behavior can range from seriously problematic to pleasantly enriching and life at the train station demonstrates just a few episodes:

Purchasing our tickets at the Railway Station in New Delhi was an exercise in patience more difficult than 10 days of silent meditation. The ticket counters look somewhat like Black Tuesday in 1929. The lines are back-to-chest, two or three people wide, at least eight people are standing at the front of the line trying to fling desperate reservation slips into the window. As the majority of the people in train stations and their lines are men, there is a single “Ladies” window. This alternative presumably bypasses the need to stand groin-to-butt with a bunch of sweaty old men, but the alternative isn’t much better: Not long after I attempted to stand in the Ladies line, a fight broke out in the line next to us and proceeded to infiltrate the other lines.

I rate the experience neutral, because the separation of gender in these enquiry lines does nothing for safety, comfort or efficiency. As it turns out, the foreign tourist office (if your train station has one) is the most efficient way to book train travel for VISA holders.

Urinal 50 Ps. | Toilet Re. 1.00 | Bath Rs. 2.00

At times, gender inequality in pricing rears its ugly head and the Indian train station is no exception. In hot, humid Goa just before our 30 hour trip to Delhi, I decided it was necessary to relieve myself, finding the railway station’s bathrooms are both separate and unequal. For a man, the urinal is 50 paisa (half a rupee), whereas a woman must pay Rs 1 for use of the toilet. Were it up to me, I’d pay 20 times as much if the restrooms were even modestly inspected, but for women who make Rs 100 a day (about $2 USD), this is just unfair. Anita and I have experienced patronizing language, groping and even gender-based seating in restaurants because we are women traveling unaccompanied, something Indian women rarely do. But for this to be institutionalized by the Railway Corporation on principle left a negative impact on me.

Baby hammock in the Ladies Car

On one of our shorter train rides in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, I scoffed a bit when we were handed tickets for the “Ladies” car. What if I cared to find my own spot in a less crowded sitting class car?

As I packed myself into the sardine can of a car, I thought of the other trains I’d taken: mostly surrounded by men twice my age, sitting in silence, keeping to myself because of the barriers age, language and gender have on us. The Ladies Car introduced me to a world I had only tasted briefly once before in India. I was free to make conversation, smile and be smiled at (no suspicion of flirting), have conversations, share food, take photos. I got to know a local zoology teacher, a Christian with one young son. A group of high school girls enthusiastically probed Anita about our travels and our families back home. Best of all, I learned- learned about people from themselves and not in my guidebook or because I paid someone to teach me.

Since then, we’ve done another 60 hours of train travel, all in general quota cars. Though each ride has introduced me to different people and a unique experience of India, the Ladies Car remains in my experience one of the most memorable places I have visited in India. This gender-based space, a segregated train car, sounded awful to me as a Westerner. I had preconceptions before getting to India, about the effect of gender in matters like transportation. Today I cannot help but ask us to rethink the assets and liabilities of having a space for women, not based in fear but for the rewards which community can reap.

Andrea Smith, Conquest: I just blogged about this one, but I’ve finished it now and would wholeheartedly recommend it as an alternative to the white feminist “canon.”  It’s also especially helpful for identifying areas where the progressive movement (especially pro-choice and environmentalist) has wronged indigenous people and women of color.

Jennifer Baumgardner & Amy Richards, Manifesta: I like this book as an intelligent, in-depth discussion of feminist issues.  It’s not particularly good for young readers (it’s a little dense) and it doesn’t cover everything, but it’s a good read for those who have the basics of feminism down and want to go a little deeper.

Inga Muscio, Cunt: There are a lot of things I disagree with in this book, but I have to admit it’s a great little read for a personal perspective on feminist issues with research thrown in, and there’s a great resource guide at the back.  Muscio has a very powerful voice, and this book is accessible where more academic texts are not.

Jaclyn Friedman & Jessica Valenti (eds.), Yes Means Yes: Not a feminist primer, per se, but so much of why feminism is necessary is wrapped up in rape culture, and this anthology is absolutely mind-blowing even for someone who has been exposed to feminist ideas.  I recommend this book to every woman I know.

Megan Seely, Fight Like a Girl: This is my favorite recommendation for young readers.  It goes through a number of issues, making it a good third-wave feminist primer, and it’s activism- rather than academic-centric.  It’s also got some great resources for teens and young women.

Ariel Levy, Female Chauvinist Pigs: A little more topic-centered, but this book does provide a broad overview of what Levy calls “raunch” culture.  It links patriarchy to pop culture, the purity movement, pornography, sex work, etc.  I don’t agree with everything in the book, but for the most part I like what she has to say.

In her book, Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide, Andrea Smith talks about the many (many, many) ways native people in North America have been seriously fucked over by colonialism and modern (especially U.S.) government policy.  She includes a quote from a Native woman who belongs to a tribe that the government non-consensually experimented on by placing a nuclear reactor on tribal lands to see how much environmental radiation people can safely take in through “food, water, milk, and air.”  The woman describes the harm to her people, principally in the form of cancer cases, and then says “Is this what it feels like to be raped?”

It’s a really powerful way of putting rape in context, I think–I’m not necessarily saying that we should use the word “rape” to refer to a broader category of things, but I do think we should put rape in  context of a patriarchal, imperial society where forcing things on people without their consent is the norm.  Smith describes this type of force against indigenous people in forms ranging from physical and sexual violence to cultural genocide to environmental degradation.  I think it puts a broader lens on the fear many women feel as a result of living in a rape culture, and especially for white women who don’t experience similar fears every day in other contexts, it’s useful to think about the kinds of violations this society perpetrates on all its members, especially people of color.  As white women (and all women) fear the violation of rape, indigenous people have to live with the fear that come from not being certain what the government might have done in the past, or might be doing in the future, to harm a tribe’s welfare and the lives of indigenous individuals.  Similarly, many black men live in fear of police violence, immigrants live in fear of any number of abuses, and so on.  There are so many violations of autonomy that I can’t even begin to list them all, but what I think it comes down to is that in reality, our bodies, our property, our culture, our health, our families, our lives, are not sacred.  They can be violated non-consensually, and they are, often by the very government that “protects” our rights.  And in the US today, the likelihood of that kind of violation goes way up if you’re not a straight, white, cis-gendered, middle-to-upper class male.

Just some food for thought.

I watched An Education yesterday and I can’t stop thinking about how fantastic it was.

I don’t consider myself a movie buff or film critic by any means, so I’m sorry if this post is rather choppy. Usually when I like a movie I say, “It was so funny!” or, “What a great story!” or, “The acting was top notch!” or even, “What a great use of an original narrative device!” What I have never said is this: that movie meant something to me that I can’t explain.

I worry that I might drop some spoilers here, but even if I tell you the whole plot, it will still be worth watching. So take that caveat as you will. The plot is described:

It’s 1961 and attractive, bright 16-year-old schoolgirl, Jenny (Carey Mulligan) is poised on the brink of womanhood, dreaming of a rarefied, Gauloise-scented existence as she sings along to Juliette Greco in her Twickenham bedroom. Stifled by the tedium of adolescent routine, Jenny can’t wait for adult life to begin. Meanwhile, she’s a diligent student, excelling in every subject except the Latin that her father is convinced will land her the place she dreams of at Oxford University. One rainy day, her suburban life is upended by the arrival of an unsuitable suitor, 30-ish David (Peter Sarsgaard). Very quickly, David introduces Jenny to a glittering new world of classical concerts and late-night suppers with his attractive friend and business partner, Danny (Dominic Cooper) and Danny’s girlfriend, the beautiful but vacuous Helen (Rosamund Pike). David replaces Jenny’s traditional education with his own version, picking her up from school in his Bristol roadster and whisking her off to art auctions and smoky clubs. Just as the family’s long-held dream of getting their brilliant daughter into Oxford seems within reach, Jenny is tempted by another kind of life. Will David be the making of Jenny or her undoing?

Seems like not the most original of plots. School girl falls for older man? Snore! That might be the main plot line, but the movie is called An Education because a teen crush isn’t really the point that packs the punch. It’s the 60s, and Jenny wonders what the point of an education is for a female. She wants to read English at Oxford, but the only career options available to women are basically school teacher and nurse. I wish I had written down quotes, and there aren’t really that many online, but there’s this one scene where she points out to her well-educated teacher, that well-educated women aren’t necessarily happy after graduation anyway. So what’s the point of the hardship?

A memorable piece of dialogue that I’m probably messing up is when Jenny’s teacher says to her, “You’re pretty and you’re smart. Does your boyfriend like pretty Jenny or smart Jenny?” In another scene, they visit Oxford and Jenny’s glamorous female friend wonders why all the university girls are so ugly. They come in pretty and they leave ugly! BIG spoiler alert: when Jenny is considering dropping out of school to get married, her parents agree that there’s no point furthering one’s education if you’ve got a husband anyway! But I really don’t wait to spoil the ending, so I’ll stop recapping the movie there.

To me, the movie was about doing things that are challenging because that’s what you owe yourself. It’s not necessarily about the value of an education, nor the hardships that specifically women face, nor about taking paths less travelled. It’s just about facing hardships despite the existence of an easier journey. And I think that’s why this “review” belongs on a feminist blog.

Because haven’t we all, at some point, wished we were happy fitting more of a mould? I believe that there are some women who just really loooove wearing heels and lipstick and dresses. Women who don’t care about becoming a CEO, or finding a cure for a disease, or starting a polytechnic school in a developing country. (Note, I don’t mean to mix the former two sentences as mutually inclusive.) Women who are happy doing what is generally accepted and expected of women. And if that is what they are happy, then hooray! I am happy that they are happy!

But for the rest of us, it’s hard to make unpopular choices. Maybe we’re choosing not to shave our legs. Maybe we’re choosing not to become mothers. Maybe we’re choosing to get a degree in what is traditionally viewed as a man’s field. Whatever it is, we know what we’re choosing it’s unpopular. And An Education was a story about choosing it anyway.

On the one hand, not everything can be dissected.  I think there’s something really powerful in the elements of third wave feminism, for example, that encourage getting out of your desk chair and doing something, whether that something is marching in a rally, organizing a boycott, or starting a coalition of women entrepreneurs.  On the other hand, academics can lend something to the discussion, and the reflexive “anti elitist” thing might stifle some conversation.  Since those of us blogging here are relatively educated, I’m curious how the rest of the bloggers deal with this divide in various progressive circles, and also how our readers, whatever your education may be, experience this divide in life.

I think one common response to this argument highlights a larger problem regarding our culture’s attitudes towards sexuality.  The thing is, a lot of people have a tendency to respond directly to that argument by saying “of course this won’t lead to polygamy or marrying animals!  Gay marriage is clearly different from these things, and let me tell you why.”  The problem is that if you argue that way, you’ve already accepted the premise.  You’ve accepted that there is a category of bad things that includes polygamy, marrying animals, and presumably other practices as well, and that this category < gay marriage.

First of all, there is no such category.  What does polygamy have to do with marrying animals, other than that both of those things freak out the person speaking at the moment?  Though I’d concede that polygamy generally refers to a pretty crappy, sexist institution in common parlance, why is the two-people marriage model necessarily superior to alternative family models?  I’d rather simply say that the argument is based on faulty logic and refuse to engage it, and then perhaps go on to talk about family and culture and why we happen to privilege one form of sanctioned sexuality over another.

However you feel about a particular form of sexuality or a particular family form, or anything else for that matter, it seems like a common kneejerk reaction to say about your own practice or preferences “Well at least it’s better than x.”  I kissed a girl, but at least I was drunk, so I’m not really gay.  I like light bondage in bed, but at least I’m not doing any of that other crazy kinky stuff.  I’m for gay marriage, but at least I’m not for abolishing marriage–I just want equality in the existing system!  It seems that in most of these cases, the logical pattern is what’s off.  An interesting challenge to regulate our speech would be to say “I am interested in x.  I enjoy x, because it makes me feel good/it’s fun/I think it’s great.”  This doesn’t mean you have to love more extreme forms, but instead of that tricky “at least” formula, I would say “Additionally, I don’t like y.  I don’t like y for these reasons.”  There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with a particular practice or model, but it’s good to have a reason.