I Have a New Goal

To be the next President of Feminism.

From The Onion:Man Finally Put In Charge Of Struggling Feminist Movement

"All the feminist movement needed to do was bring on someone who had the balls to do something about this glass ceiling business," said McGowan, who quickly closed the 23.5 percent gender wage gap by "making a few calls to the big boys upstairs." "In the world of gender identity and empowered female sexuality, it's all about who you know."

The best part is the picture. Or the supposed Gloria Steinem quote. Go check it out.

Bill Hicks and Michael Richards

Racism and Sexism: Old News
I know that in a lot of ways, the racist comments that Michael Richards made not so long ago have been forgotten, to a great degree. Maybe that's for the best--a conversation about racism for which Richards was one catalyst can continue without invoking Richards (or Imus, for that matter). And yet, one of the things that I found interesting about the clip of Richards' racist rant, was that the audience, who seemed to 'go along' for a few moments, eventually turned on him. Of course, it took the men who were the objects of Richards' vitriol standing up for themselves for things to turn around, and it sucks that the audience played along at all, but eventually Richards has to leave the stage (and what was left of his career, likely) in shame:

Michael Richards, Racist:


I ran across another comedian losing it because of a heckler. This happened a while ago--I can't figure out exactly how long ago, but because Bill Hicks has been dead since 1994, it's got to be at least 12 years old.

Bill Hicks, Sexist:



I was pretty disappointed to see Hicks act this way, frankly. He had some great material, could rant about the military industrial complex, about fundamentalist Christians and corporate rule in ways that would make one laugh and cry (he was the one who asked whether or not Christ would be happy if he came back and all of his followers were wearing crosses, and likened that to going up to Jackie Kennedy with a long-distance rifle lapel pin). But the more I watch of him, the more I see that he definitely had this weird conservative/misogynist streak when it comes to women, even when he wasn't being a jerk in the particular way he is in the above clip. But more than that, I'm disappointed that the audience not only went along with his rant, but egged him on. When he starts calling his heckler a cunt and a a bitch, pretty much the whole audience starts cheering. And, though this was a while ago, I wonder if things would be much different today--people are more likely to call out blatant racism than they are to call out blatant sexism, I think. (f Imus had said, "Those ho's" instead of what he did say, would there have been as much outrage? I think it's hard to say. Still it's disappointing to see a very funny, intelligent guy like Hicks was (in some ways) not only going on a misogynistic rant, and not only not being called on it, but being encouraged.

Violence, Bullies, and the Right Time and Place

{Ok, it's a long one. But I figured since my long treatises of how I became a feminist have encouraged exactly ZERO comments, I'd just forge on ahead and see if we can get into the negative numbers of comments with more and more long posts.}

Kissing Feministe's Ass
Have I mentioned how much I love Feministe? I must admit that I mostly enjoy Jill's posts; though both piny and zuzu often have some great insights, I think I just like Jill's writing style the most. And, of course, I still miss Lauren's thoughts on feminism, though I thoroughly enjoy her new-er work in Faux Real. One thing about Jill is that she often has a combination of really long-ish, drawn-out posts, combined with discussions of pop culture, which I find good and necessary and powerful.

Friday Random Violence
All of which is to preface that I feel sort of weird complaining about a recent post of Jill's that is pretty much totally about pop culture. It's not even a normal content-filled post, because it's part of the Friday Random Ten feature. Jill posted the video to a Lilly Allen song:

I had no idea who this was until this video, but I could immediately relate to the feelings behind the song--getting dumped by a jerk sucks, and revenge fantasies can be quite healthy and comforting, I think. And I'd guess that lots of people can identify with feeling happy when a jerky ex feels sad. Showing my age: Many were the hours I spent listening to Cyndi Lauper's "I Don't Wanna Be Your Friend" and The Mountain Goats' "No Children". As I said, it's comforting.

That said, the video (not the song itself, since there doesn't seem to be any violence implied in the lyrics alone) freaked me out quite a bit, and I thought that I'd mention it in the comments there:

I may be overreacting here, but the first ‘prank’ pulled in that video seems really disturbing to me. Perhaps it’s because I have known several people who were accosted in a similar way, and seen the way even ‘mildly’ getting the crap beat out of you can damage you, long-term. I know that such a portrayal pales in comparison to the amount of violence against women portrayed in various media, but it still freaks me out. I’d be curious if anybody else had a similar reaction?

At least one person seemed to agree, but what ensued wasn't a discussion of the violence, but rather some short discussion on the merits of Johnny Cash.

Time and Place
I'll have to admit that I was pretty disappointed to not get any sort of reaction from Jill to my comment about the violence in the video, and disappointed that few others seemed to care one way or another. I was tempted to say something again over there, but decided that this was a perfect opportunity to check my privilege. It's not my right in any way to get feedback from Jill. There are lots of possible reasons that I didn't get much of a response, from the fact that few people read/post comments on the FRT posts to the fact that moderating and responding to comments on a blog such as Feministe must be something close to a full-time job. I already have to pick and choose what I respond to here on Feminist Allies, and we get a few comments a post on average. So, sure, I was very interested in what Jill might have thought about the violence, but if I had in any way demanded such a response, that would be akin to becoming something like the sort of bully, ironically enough, that I thought the woman in the video--and her friends--were being.

I don't want a cookie here. This is all by way of saying that I came thisclose to being an ass over there, which sort of sucks, but in another way helps me to understand when others forget to check their privilege when dealing with me. In addition, I'm happy that I have the space here on FA to talk about it--this is the right place to do so.

Bullies and Violence
As I had said in my comment on Feministe, I know that the violence perpetrated in the video pales in comparison to both the amount and depth of violence against women portrayed in various media. (Yet another reason to not make such a big deal of it over on Feministe.) Still, the violence bothered me, and I don't think that ignoring that is healthy for me--and that discussing it, drawing some attention to it, is something worthwhile for me to do as a feminist, and as a man.

My first reaction to the video is mostly visceral. Paying somebody to beat the crap out of somebody else just makes my skin crawl. It's an exercise in power dynamics that is at the core of what it means to bully people (i.e. having enough money/capital/influence to get somebody else to do violence to your enemy). Paying somebody to damage somebody else's property is up there on my list of wrongs, but it just doesn't have the same feeling as paying somebody to beat somebody up, potentially causing great physical and emotional harm, long-term. Are there people who 'deserve' to get beat up? Maybe. Rapists come to mind as one possible example. But even if we agreed that some people 'deserve' it, it still ought to be a last resort and only in extreme cases, rather than a way to get over one's heartbreak.

But this is just a video, some people might say. And I'd tend to agree on some level--but that's part of the irony of this situation: Jill is one of the people who has taught me (along with Bitch magazine and Feministing) that it's never 'just' anything with pop culture. Pop culture has power, and begs to be better understood and analyzed through feminist lenses.

But What About the Men?--Where I Stroll Into MRA Country
And I find myself thinking: What if the gender stuff was reversed in the video? What if some guy was hiring people (who are of two genders, interestingly enough) to beat up his ex-girlfriend, so he could enjoy seeing her cry? I think that would outrage me even more. Why? Well, in part because I think that women already get much, much more than their fair share of these sorts of portrayals in the media, not to mention lots of real-life violence in real life. I mean, crap, they make whole movies that revolve around physically harming women because they are women. (There are lots of movies about violence being done to men, but often the fact that they are men isn't the central reason for the violence.) It may also be the case that I would feel more outrage if the genders were 'reversed' because to whatever extent I buy into patriarchic bs (see below).

And I want to be careful here, because I am *not* saying: Men are oppressed because people don't see the violence done to the guy in this video as a big deal. But I do want to say that it's interesting that I am more easily bothered by the violence against that guy--partly because I identify with him on some level, as a man--than perhaps Jill or the other-than-male-identified people who read Feministe might be. Perhaps this is one of the places where men may be able to better recognize the ways in which patriarchy hurts men?

Patriarchy Hurts Men
And here's how patriarchy is working in and around the violence in this video. This is not an exhaustive list, but rather just some pointers into better understanding it all.

• It's patriarchy that helps us to less often see violence done against men as a big deal, by reinforcing traditional conceptions of masculinity such as uber-independence and able-to-get-beat-up-and-come-out-of-it-alive types of strength.
  
• Similarly, it's patriarchy which helps us to think that it's ok for a woman to hire people to beat up a guy, even though it more obviously wouldn't be ok for a man to hire people to beat up a woman--and patriarchy does this once again by reinforcing traditional conceptions of masculinity and femininity, in the minds of people of all genders.
  
• It's probably also patriarchy which keeps some men from voicing their concerns about the violence portrayed against men--fearing they may be thought of as 'less than' in some way.
  
• Also, patriarchy keeps us locked into traditional conceptions of women, too, as regards this video--after all, it might even be more cathartic for her to beat the crap out of the guy herself (and given the actual people in the video, I think she could take him, size and weight and all that).
  

Thanks for letting me get all of that off of my chest.

Feminist Lenses and Pop Culture

I've often thought about the fact that once one becomes aware of the issues involved in feminism, it's hard to look at the world without seeing it through the lenses that feminism offers up. This comes through in all sorts of ways, but one way that it's most apparent for me is in pop culture. Once you start noticing misogyny and the like in popular culture, it's hard to miss. (There are those who might claim that feminists look for it where it doesn't exist, I suppose, but that's a different topic.) More and more I'm unable to, say, watch a movie or read a book without sort of automatically filing things away under "sexist" and "patriarchal"--and various other categories.

Last night we went to see "300". This is a new-ish movie based on a comic book by Frank Miller. Miller is hit or miss for me, definitely, and the more of his older stuff that gets made into movies (Sin City, for example), the more it seems like it won't stand the test of time. But I expected 300 to be an interesting movie, and it was. Visually it was pretty intricate, I thought. But at the same time, it was really, really hard to not critique its portrayal of women (or a woman, really, since there were few women characters) as things went along. Sure, the Queen is a strong woman who stands up to various men, and is somehow first in her husband's heart--and yet her strength pretty much only comes from her alligience with her husband, and her loyalty to him. Maybe that's what society was like in Sparta, but I'm not talking about historical accuracy here--it's silly to expect historical accuracy from 300, and I don't think that's what the makers were aiming at anyway. What counts is the story and the concepts involved. The movie pushes hard on notions of democracy and reason (troublesome notions that it portrays mostly as not troublesome) and the like--but it doesn't push very hard on traditional roles for women as wives and mothers first, and as people second.

So when people ask me if I like a movie, there's always this hesitation, because there is almost always a caveat or three. And while this fact is hardly a heavy cross to bear, it still sort of creates a cloud over everything for me--it's tougher to enjoy stuff when it's got some of these problems.

On the other hand, as a movie that portrays various masculinities and problems therein, it's an embarrassment of riches. Perhaps a post about that stuff (which is not unrelated to the misogyny, of course) will be forthcoming. But what really gets to me is that these lenses just won't go away. It's good that they won't--I wouldn't want to become complacent about things, or to hide in some feigned ignorance, but still, it's sometimes tiresome to have to feel this way about most of pop culture, as well as culture in general.