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There’s a piece of this puzzle missing Mr President…..

Thursday 22nd January, 2009 in feminism, gender, Politics, Popular Culture by Suzi | No comments

Reading through the Guardian today, re- celebrating the fact that America finally has a decent President, a guy who happens to be intelligence and have a social conscience I was struck by something. And that something was the absolute absence of commentary on women’s role in the Obama victory. In all the coverage I read there were TWO mentions of Michelle Obama and ONE mention of the Obama girls- the bulk of the commentary about Michelle was about how journalists couldn’t decide what colour her dress was. The one sentence regarding Sasha and Malia commented again on the colours of the dresses that they and their mother were wearing.

I watched the inauguration on the BBC. I wept a little, listening to the address, booed at Rick Warren and practically danced for joy watching Bush fly off out of public life. But, I noticed something. Of all the commentary on the BBC, there was only one female presenter and she was assigned to the route of the procession and largely redundant in the coverage. None of the guests were female- they were all men, and none of the commentary mentioned any of Michelle’s accomplishments or any of the sacrifices she would be making as her husband became president. Renee wrote a few days ago about the unpaid labour a First Lady performs and yet none of this was mentioned in any of the coverage I’ve seen. The one mention of Michelle’s role in her husbands presidency, was that she would be at the school gates each afternoon to collect Sasha and Malia. Her husbands role as a father was totally written out. It would seem, that, in the eyes of the world now, the Obama children have one active parent and that is their mother. Their father is just, obviously, going to be far too busy doing important manly things to be worrying about the trivialities of raising children. This portrayal annoys the hell out of me, because I’m damned sure that isn’t what the Obama’s think.

This total erasing of the women who are key in Barack’s life astounds me. The world really hasn’t changed that much. Michelle, a talented, intelligent successful woman, with her own career, her own achievements, her own dreams has been wiped out in effect, and reduced to being unpaid housekeeper to the worlds most ppowerful man. Or at least that is what has happened in the eyes of the media. She has ceased to be a dignified human being in her own right and become merely an extension of him.

I was bitterly disappointed. But, the fight for recognition goes on. Maybe one day, POTUS will have a wife who continues her own career, who employs ( at a decent and reasonable wage, let’s not perpetuate the exploitation here people)  someone to carry out the Housekeeping at the White House , and whose achievements are recognised, giving her a public identity of her own in the eyes of the media. Maybe the position of First Lady will change into a meaningful position of political power and social change, instead of being one of sacrifice and expectation. Maybe one day we’ll have a First Gentleman, or a female POTUS and First Lady. I live in hope.

For now, the fight goes on. The war isn’t won, even if the battle was.

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Rise of the golddigger in the credit crunch

Monday 19th January, 2009 in gender, sex, Uncategorized by andieberry | No comments

Reading through the Sunday papers today two articles caught my eye.  The first one is an idiotic article regurgitating the same old nonsense about hetero women being attracted to rich men because its part of our genetic code. It was  “backed up” by a quote from a female Lawyer – well she’s a professional so it must be true! Apparently being a rich man gives you the capacity to deliver top notch orgasms which of course next to money are the only things we women require.

But wait… further on it stated that men can pick up how fertile a woman is , and this observation was concluded from watching men tip Lap Dancers. Apparently the more fertile you are the more you get tipped.

My question is do lesbians, transgender, infertile and women with poor partners therefore have really crap sex all the time? That’s what this *ahem* ‘scientific’ led piece suggests.

An excellent article over at  The Guardian points out that employers are more likely to dismiss women first because of the belief that there will be a man around to financially support her. Surely this a massive sign of sexism given that most households need two wages in order to survive? An adjoining article pointed out that just being financially secure does not eliminate the feeling of redundancy and social isolation. In short you can’t buy fulfillment.

The link in my mind is this – according to The Times article we hetero women can take the rough with smooth as long as we get a good orgasm out of it. According to The Guardian we can take the rough with the smooth as long as the goal of personal fulfillment is in sight. Sorry to be a spoilt brat but……….. I want both.

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And for my first trick….

Thursday 8th January, 2009 in feminism, gender, magazines, Parenting, sex, Uncategorized by andieberry | 1 comment

This post is my response to a part of Suzi`s post  `The Mummy Myth`and also  expresses my thoughts on female competitiveness.

To begin with lets look at the two -sided coin which is the mainstream media…..

Can anyone remember any obviously pregnant women presenting the weather, reading the news or presenting breakfast T.V in the eighties? The only woman I can remember is Janet Ellis who presented Blue Peter and was subjected to complaints from outraged viewers because she was a)pregnant and b) shock horror, also unmarried.

Fast forward to the here and now, and pregnant TV presenters are  commonplace,a good thing wouldn`t you say? Pregnant women can be seen, heard and are generally considered capable  enough to carrying on working in their high profile jobs. Of course, the maternity leave ,pay and birthing plan are all held in the public eye, and  maybe the expectant mother will do an interview with various magazines saying how wonderful she feels and how she now, inexplicably  likes eating raw marrow with ice-cream.

After she’s had the baby, done the OK photo shoot and obligingly shown off said precious bundle it all goes downhill and becomes  a media free-for-all.Why hasn`t she lost that baby weight yet? Why’s she depressed when she`s got lots of money and round the clock nannies? Should she be going back to work so soon? Does she breast feed?

All these questions in some shape or another have been asked for millenia at the water well,over washing lines and in recent times, at the coffee shop. The only thing is, now these questions are amplified through the media, and so the stereotype of the Yummy Mummy in upper/middle class circles or MILF in working class circles has appeared, demonstrating that women’s only true commodity is to be fuckable. Crude but more to the point.
These stereotypes trickle down into society, and,  in my experience the ‘Yummy Mummies’ at my kid`s school (by the by, I live in social housing in a very desirable area and professional families frequently relocate from London to get into the schools catchment area)always look fantastic have the latest bicycle and trailer sets,talk play dates, eat organic food and about the marvelous kids boutique in town.There is one middle class mum there who talks to her child, doesn’t give a crap about her appearance and seems to do lots of volunteer work for the school ,but it doesn’t matter how marvelous she is, the nasty whispers are still there `Why doesn`t she lose some weight/Get some new clothes ? / Put some make-up on?’ (n.b I`m a semi goth skinny person who can look slightly scary to the untrained eye).
Of course this happens at school gates throughout the land and in also media land,  but why does it happen? Consider the facts -the media is controlled and bankrolled by men and what do men do when the empowerment of women is seeped into the national consciouness? Give us what we want thats, what,the gossip. How else do the media get away with giving meek reports about women sacked for being pregnant, or for asserting their right to extended maternity leave which in short costs money, money that most important commodity of all.  This all  shortly followed by hiring an attractive younger woman to read the news, in order to attract male viewers.
It seems now (sadly) that even after we`ve competed with each other in order to secure said Mr Wonderful (I realise this statement is heteronormative, but lesbian motherhood does tend to be ignored by the media at large unless it’s being reported in a negative way and I have no experience of being a lesbian mother and so am basing this on my  personal experience of motherhood and competition) that competition is  nothing compared to pursuing the crown of `perfect woman`- it’s the perfect housewife amplified with new and improved features .Marvel at her organizational skills! She`s still fuckable after four kids! She makes her own organic baby food and brings home the bacon too!

The point is is that the media amplified and commodified women’s competitiveness, packaged it,sold it back to us in glossy form and we’ve brought it in every sense

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The Inevitable post about Palin.

Wednesday 17th September, 2008 in Politics by Suzi | No comments

Being as I’m British, I haven’t really had much to say in Bloglandia about the American Election. I just wish our elections got as much coverage stateside as the American one gets back here in Blighty!!

That said though, I do have to question exactly what the hell John McCain was thinking when he picked Sarah Palin. I mean really, you would think that being an experienced Statesman (not to mention a POW *rollseyes*) he would have considred that picking a candidate with foreign policy experience, Senate experience and well general ‘has lived outside of Home-state at least for college’ to be important. You would think he would have considered that he is in fact old. And it’s a stressful job running America. Whilst I’m not for a second going to say someone old isn’t capable of running a country (because that’s bollocks and also highly ageist), I am going to say that given his age, he should have considered the likelihood that he MAY pass away whilst in Office and be looking to pick a candidate for the position of Vice President who is capable, at least on paper, of taking over the leadership of the USA at a moments notice and doing a good job of it.

Instead he picks a candidate who has no foreign policy experience and who appears to know very little about ‘truth’, ‘decency’ and ‘working for the good of the people’.

Palins pick is historical- for starters she’s a woman, she’s a working Mother (which is not an easy thing to be). The more I read about her though, the more I am absolutely convinced that either a) John McCain has taken complete leave of his senses and picked an idiot or b) John  McCain has made what he considers to be a shrewd political decision in picking a WOMAN regardless of her abilities or qualifications to be VP on the grounds that it will curry him favour with the scores of women pissed off that Hillary didn’t get the Democrat Nomination and the scores of women pissed off that Obama then chose Joe Biden to be VP.

Actually, I think both a) and b) are true. Thing is McCain hasn’t just picked a woman, he has managed to handpick perfectly a woman who represents just about everything I think is wrong with the Republicans and conservatism in general. She’s anti-choice, pro-abstinence, she hunts, she’s pro-drilling (and lying about it), her morals are distinctly questionable (*see Troopergate, ladies and gentlemen) and to top it all off, we all now know about how her actions meant that rape victims in Wasilla were forced to pay for their own Rape Kits leading to Alaska having to pass a State Law making this illegal.

So erm yeah. Palin = More of the same old Republican shit, dressed up in a package to try and appeal to women and fool the people generally that voting for McCain won’t be another 4 years of the last 8 years of shite.

Don’t do it people please. For the love of any deity/non-deity/the universe at large please vote for the nice people who have a reasonable grasp of economics, a non-isolationist approach to foreign policy and a decent track record of reproductive rights, women’s rights and fighting against VAW.

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On Gender, Transgender and Cisgender Feminist fighting.

Tuesday 5th August, 2008 in feminism, gender, sex by Suzi | No comments

So I’ve noticed that there is a resurgence in the good ole theme of trans v cis feminist fighting. Radical cisgendered feminists are often  accused of discriminating against transgender feminists and the whole “are trans issues women’s issues?” questioning starts again.

So before I get to the bit where I express my opinions here are some links. First of all, go and read this. Then go and check out the links in this post over at Renegade Evolution. Remember when reading these – check your privilege. There are levels of privilege and cisgendered women have privilege in comparison to transgendered women. Key part of that sentence is WOMEN.

As (cisgendered) feminists we fight against being judged, discriminated against or categorised according to our biological sex. We argue that womanhood is more than biology, that we are more than our genitalia, that we should not be constrained by our ability to or not become pregnant or judged and valued solely by the fact we have vagina’s.We argue that GENDER is a social construct, and that we are socialised into a certain gender according to the gender binary which may or may not be at odds with our biological SEX which is another thing all together. We argue against the binary, pointing out that gender like sexuality is not a ‘pure’ static thing, but fluid and changeable throughout life.

So why in the face of these arguments then, do some groups of feminists insist that trans women are not women and seek to exclude them from women only spaces? I can understand there being some issues about trans men in women only spaces, and Kit over at Today I am a Boy has a great post up about her feelings on transitioning and gendered spaces. What I don’t get is excluding trans women from women only spaces. They too are women and face the same discrimination as cis women and then some more for being trans. That isn’t to mention other discrimination against trans WOC or queer trans women.

To me this discrimination makes those who perpetrate it no better than the system we fight against and seek to change. Maybe because I am a bi/queer woman whose own gender identity is not strictly conforming to my biology, I am more sympathetic to those whose biological sex is totally at odds with their gender. Maybe I’m just a very nondiscriminatory person. I don’t know.

What I do know is that in my not-at-all-humble opinion, trans women are every bit as female, as women identified cis females. I also know that gender is a social construct and is far more fluid than the binary allows socially acceptable gender identification. And I also know that trampling over other underprivileged groups in our fight for equality is the wrong damn way to be fighting.

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Wow…

Monday 4th August, 2008 in Politics by Suzi | No comments

The Conservatives have said something that is A) eminently sensible and B) I approve of.

Drawing the link between popular images of women and their presentation and problems experienced in wider society can only be a good thing.

Whilst I disagree with their approach to abortion, and the ‘More marriageable working class men’ plan, the Tories do at the moment seem to have the best approach to both gender equality and ending poverty. No they aren’t perfect – they are still overwhelmingly white, middle/upper class ridiculously privileged men. But to be fair look what Labour have done and are doing. Seems no one can ever win in this game we call politics sometimes.

Of course whether the Tories out their money where there mouth is and instigate any of these great plans they have is another matter altogether……

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