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Tag Archives: Sexism

Beyonce: Empowerment or Objectification?

04 Monday Feb 2013

Posted by in Women

≈ 9 Comments

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Last night Beyonce did her usual song and dance at the Super Bowl halftime show. People went crazy, as they always do, and she just might have caused a major blackout. (At least that’s what Twitter seemed to think.) She certainly wasn’t lipsyncing and I thought the Destiny’s Child reunion was pretty great – I really respected her for that.

But the most visually obvious part of the whole thing was that she took off half of her already scanty outfit, did most of the performance in lingerie, and danced like a stripper the whole time. To me, it seemed like yet another brick in the wall keeping women locked in as sexual objects and not much more. But so many of my intelligent, capable, female friends felt that it was so empowering. (Including Welcome to the Motherhood, whose opinion on just about everything I respect and usually agree with, and also many others.) It forced me to analyze my own feelings.

Beyonce-Knowles-Super-Bowl-Halftime6

I will say, before going into anything else, that she’s said some really right-on stuff about birth, parenting and motherhood since having little Blue Ivy. Including this quote that I think about sums up the amazing experience of motherhood: “I feel more beautiful than I’ve ever felt because I’ve given birth. I have never felt so connected, never felt like I had such a purpose on this earth.” I really respect that. But her role as a mother really has nothing to do with her role as a performer. So let’s get to the meat of the issue: Was that performance empowering to women?

First, let’s just state the obvious. Beyonce has managed to build herself a media empire and become incredibly wealthy based entirely on her own efforts. No matter what else, that IS empowering to women. The more independent and strong women around, the better. And I won’t argue with that. But it’s not her as a person that I have a problem with (I don’t really know anything about her and wouldn’t presume to judge) – it’s her public performance that bothered me.

Some women feel that Beyonce’s use of her sexuality is empowering. Continue reading »

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The “dolls test”: On race, women, and inferiority

17 Monday Sep 2012

Posted by in Children, Parenting, Writing

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While doing research for my novel, I came across this passage about race from a brief for Brown v. Board of Education (the case that struck down “separate but equal” and eventually led to desegregation of schools, for all you non-legal folks). I’m going to just quote it in full, because it’s so powerful: Continue reading »

Click This & Friday Phone Photos (5/11/12)

11 Friday May 2012

Posted by in Art, Articles, Baby, Causes, Children, Gentle Parenting, Parenting, Photos, Toddlers

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** A collection of articles and other fun stuff from around the web. Mostly dealing with babies, parenting, moms, etc. But not always. **

How to Miss a Childhood (A recipe for a lifetime of regret. And some suggestions for change. Hint: stop checking your email.)

The Six Enemies of Greatness (and Happiness) (The whole list is great, but this is my favorite line: “If you’ve been doing what you’re doing for years and it’s not-so-great, you are in a rut. Many people refer to these ruts as careers.”)

Arrested Development: The Criminalization of America’s Schoolchildren (Very interesting article on the anti-freedom message that our children are receiving in public schools.)

MCA’s Feminist Legacy (Listening to and reading about the Beastie Boys over the last week has reminded me of how much I used to love them. This is a great article about the way that they grew up and came to embrace feminism.)

Six to Nine-Month-Olds Understand the Meaning of Many Spoken Words (This is the kind of thing that it surprises me we don’t clearly know already. Adeline very clearly understood so many words at six months old. At nine months she would walk to the laundry room if I mentioned doing laundry and help with the task.)

** Friday Phone Photos ** Continue reading »

Sexist Toys: On Becoming a Feminist

14 Wednesday Dec 2011

Posted by in Articles, Baby, Family, Opinion, Parenting, Politics/Current Events

≈ 27 Comments

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A little over a year ago I had a daughter and I became a feminist.  OK, in truth I’ve been a feminist all my life.  But I’ve been lax at times, indifferent at others, and sometimes I let the politics of the word (“feminist”) cloud the issue. But as soon as I knew there was a girl growing inside of me, I started becoming fierce.

This newfound feminism takes many forms, some of which I’ve already mentioned. (Toddlers & Tiaras?  Kill me.  NFL Cheerleaders?  Stay away from my daughter.  The Girl Effect and microfinance to women?  Yes indeed.)  But right now I’m focused on the issue of sexist toys.  Last night I came across this article about stores that separate their toys by gender: doctors uniforms for boys and nurse uniforms for girls.  Because god forbid a little girl wants to be a doctor – learn your place!  (Or the corollary: your boy wants to be a nurse?  Not on my watch!)

Even though the article was the catalyst for this post, it isn’t really news to me.  I hate when I walk into the toy department at Target and one entire aisle is all pink.  It’s not that I have a problem with pink, per se – hell, I dress Adeline in pink a lot and her room is done in pink.  I think it’s cute.  What I have a problem with is the idea that pink is the only thing that girls like.  And the dolls in that aisle are utterly disgusting.  Call me a crazy feminist if you will (seriously, call me that!), but I’m going to avoid buying Adeline barbies as long as I can.  Hello, body image issues.

I was at a holiday party over the weekend at a friend’s house.  She has two little girls and in the kitchen she has a little play kitchen for them.  It’s really cute and the kids were all having so much fun playing with it.  My initial reaction was, “Oh man, I’m going to have to get one of these for Addie.”  And then my inner feminist reared her head: “Seriously, you’re going to give her a kitchen?  Is that all she’s good for?? Why not get her that play tool set or a train set instead?”  The thing is, I know Adeline would love the kitchen.  Mostly because she’d be able to imitate mommy. (And yes, I see the irony here: as a stay-at-home mom all I can model right now are stereotypical gender roles.  More on that dilemma in a future post.)  But even if she would have fun with it, I just don’t think I can do it.

And think about this: how many parents would buy a kitchen for their son?  The gender stereotyping goes both ways.  It’s totally fine to buy “boy” stuff for your daughter – I dress Addie in boy clothes a lot and no one thinks twice if she plays with dinosaur figurines or trucks.  It’s ok for girls to be like boys because people (secretly and without admitting it even to themselves) think boys are better.  But parents don’t buy the kitchens, the pink clothes, the barbies, or the nurse uniforms for their sons.  Is it because girls are inferior and they don’t want their boys to be girly?  Or are they just afraid too much girl stuff might turn a boy gay?  (Because that would, apparently, be the worst possible outcome.)

Whatever the reason, this much is clear: our retailers, at least, think that certain toys are appropriate for girls and other toys are only for boys.  And if you want your daughter to have the doctor’s outfit, that’s ok, but she’ll know it’s from the boy’s department.  And no matter how you try to shield her, she’ll get the message: “boys are better.”

Adeline in "boy" PJs playing with her truck

Football; or keep your cheerleaders away from my daughter

09 Friday Sep 2011

Posted by in Baby

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Fall might just be my favorite season.  The air is cool and crisp, the leaves are beautiful and everything is pumpkin flavored.  Awesome!  But most importantly, football is back.  I love football.  So I was super pumped to watch the game last night, especially since my team, the Green Bay Packers, won!  Not sure if you remember the last real game the Packers won.   It was February 6, the day we moved to Denver.  Oh yeah, that was when the PACKERS WON THE SUPER BOWL.  Ok, so it’s still really exciting.  Here’s a picture of Adeline way back then:

Gah! She's so little! And she can't. stop. watching football.

But watching football with Adeline around has made me pay more attention to some of the things about football that have always bothered me.

First, there’s the obvious fact that it’s a bunch of overly testosterone-y guys kicking the shit out of each other for about three hours.  Yeah, that’s maybe not so great for a kid to see.  But honestly, I’m cool with it.  It’s a sport, ya know?

Then there’s the commercials.  They’re pretty terrible and you have to watch so. many. freaking. commercials.  I don’t really watch live t.v. except for sports, so I’m not sure if commercials are just always this bad.  But I can attest to the fact that golf commercials (that’s right, I watch golf) are not so bad.  During golf, it tends to be commercials about planning for retirement and getting your prostate checked.  That’s cool.  During football it’s mostly over-sexed and sexist commercials for beer and crappy fast food.  And godaddy.  Because apparently the only way to sell website hosting services is with naked ladies.  Not really things I want my daughter to see.

And the other thing I hate about football is related: the cheerleaders.  Luckily the Packers don’t have cheerleaders.  Yeah, the Packers rock.  But most other teams do, and they’re disgusting.  The message seems to be “Hey, while we take a break from watching the men do the real and important work that we’ve all come to see, why don’t you spend a few minutes staring at these plastic women-bots as they dance in a hyper-sexual way and shake their giant boobies.  Feel better now?  OK, let’s watch some more football!”  And the subscript: “Because that’s all women are good for.”  Again, not the kind of message I want my daughter absorbing.

But do I really want to be the kind of mom who never lets her daughter watch football to avoid this kind of thing?  For one thing, I love football (I think we covered that in the first paragraph) and I don’t really want to stop watching it.  But more importantly, this is reality.  Eventually Adeline will be confronted with our society’s over-sexualized, disgusting view of women.  And if she’s never seen it before she’ll have no context with which to handle it.  She might even believe it more.  So it’s probably better that we watch football together and I find some way to explain to her that this is just one way to see things.  I show her women athletes and women scientists and women CEOs and I tell her they matter more than those cheerleaders.  Or I try to take the even higher road and explain that those cheerleaders are just as important as everyone else, and maybe they really do enjoy their jobs or maybe they had an abusive father and they have no self-worth.  You know, whatever.  Ok, so I still need to work on my speech.  But I figure I have a few years.  Right?