Velvet Banana

Check out this cool video.  Found it on the Huffington Post today.  Some of the cast include: Neil Patrick Harris, Margaret Cho, John C. Reilly (Mike Honcho), Maya Rudolph, Andy Richter (I think…big guy in tube socks), and Craig Robinson (Darryl from the Office).  Let me know if I’ve missed anyone else.

Found this clip surfing the web from the Women’s Media Center. It’s a wonderful montage of many of the sexist asses on cable television. Just when you think people are moving past a “caveman mentality”, you see something line this on the airwaves.

Dear Governor Napolitano,

I am first and foremost a proud American. I was born in America. I served in the Armed Forces for 6 years. My dad is a retired military veteran with three tours of duty in Viet Nam. Both of my parents legally immigrated from Peru in the sixties. I pay my taxes, and I exercise the right to cast my vote regularly. My two kids are both honor’s students in school. Our entire family has never been in any sort of legal trouble, and we love living in Arizona (since 1989).

However, and it’s a big however, I am beginning to question if I wish to continue living in Arizona. Namely the actions of Joe Arpaio’s saturation raids are forcing me to examine if living in Arizona might deter my family’s pursuit of happiness. Because of my Hispanic heritage, I have a fear that my kids, my brother, or I might get caught up in Arpaio’s dragnet. I find myself ensuring our vehicles are washed, clean, and serviced at all times in order to decrease my chances of getting pulled over. I intentionally avoid any potentially ethnic areas of the city, and I am constantly preaching to my family to make sure they don’t forget to bring any ID cards along– just in case.

Having to live like this with the threat of getting racially profiled by officers of the law distresses me. I don’t mind complying with the law. In fact, my best friend from my military days in Georgia moved to Arizona in the early 90’s and presently is an officer in MCSO. I just don’t want my kids exposed to this sort of racism. The ends do not justify the means – especially to innocent, law abiding Arizona citizens.

I have read in news articles of your opposition to Arpaio’s tactics, and I applaud it. The purpose of this letter is to add one more voice of opposition and ask for your continued leadership in making Arizona a great state.
Respectfully,

George M. Velez

I was thinking of getting a Roomba, so I wouldn’t have to vacuum anymore.  Can you imagine my surprise when I go to the site and discover Roomba’s are actually made for moms?  Doh!

An elementary school in Wisconsin held a week long themed school dress up event. One of those days was “Senior Citizen and Opposite Gender” day where kids could dress up as the other gender. Naturally, right wing Christian fundamentalist groups assailed the innocent school tradition to the point where the school will never hold an opposite gender day. This is exactly the sort of societal pressure to adhere to antiquated ‘norms’ projected onto a forward thinking school (and causing the school to cave-in) that we’ve discussed in class. One of the headlines of this story is “Cross Dressing Event at School Causes Controversy” located in the “Strange and Unusual” section of the paper. Wow!

During Tuesday’s lecture, the question of why are men faster than women was raised.  A quick glance at the timed speeds of Olympic events shows the times of men are significantly faster than women – across the board.  If women were to compete with men head’s up, they would not receive gold, silver or bronze medals at all!

One journal article (American Physiological Society from August 2002 ) theorizes a sort of gendered-Darwinism explanation of lower female run speed.  “Archeological evidence suggests that human ancestors were tool users and may have had gender-specific tasks at least as much as one million years ago, possibly lessening the importance of running speed particularly in females. This analysis is strictly speculative.” So, slow cavemen were naturally selected from the population, while cavewomen stayed back in the cave and didn’t have to worry about run speed??

The rest of the journal article states that there is a negligible difference in male and female horses with respect to run speed.  The same applies to dogs.  It kind of makes you wonder if the principles of Darwinism are applicable especially for some of the physical differences.

Cut-and-Paste Revolution: Notes from the Girl Zine Explosion, by Jennifer Blyer, outlines the past, present, and future of feminist zines and their effect on the global community. Zines represent a societal reaction to commercialized media publications. A zine is a crude magazine cut and pasted together, Xeroxed, stapled, and then mailed out to its readers. Blyer suggests feminist girl zines evolved in the late 80’s and early 90’s as a convenient means for a minority to be heard. The author chronicles the meteoric rise and even faster decline of the girl zine in the span of a few years. Blyer also examines the mainstreaming of the girl movement, the misguided proliferation of zines, and the effect of the internet on zines.

I enjoyed this article because of the historical context leading up to the internet age. Blyer communicates a palpable sense of what it was like to create something genuinely fresh. The foundation of the essay highlights the beginnings of the girl zine movement as the precursor of today’s internet content. I especially like the quote, “Free speech on demand and without apology,” (p. 45), alluding to the contribution of the zine mentality towards the internet era. Girl zines served as a conceptual microcosm of the maverick nature of the world wide web.

I think the historical context is especially meaningful given we all grew up with computers and watched the evolution of the internet firsthand. From a historical viewpoint, it is easy to follow along with the progression of the zine culture to the e-zine culture, because we all ‘lived it.” It was right here, right now, and we were along for the ride. I can type in www.bust.com and ‘see’ the present state of the zine movement as opposed to just reading about plantation oppression in the Anderson text. The girl zine revolution is vivid.

Also, and this might be a little adolescent in thought, it was a nice break from some of the dense feminist readings so far this semester. The overall message was more of a description of a point in time with respect to feminist expression leading to the future. The author points out that the movement lives on through the internet “because you have to create your own venues” since “nobody else is going to do it for you (p. 60).” The picture below is an example of the cut-and-paste method found on the internet. The puppet strings symbolize societal expectations of heterosexism with the artist cleverly pointing out there is more to life than heterosexist constructs.

This next point is more of an observation. At a distinct time in the early 90’s, the ‘new frontier’ effect of girl zines meshed into popular culture. Many young women embraced girl zines and feminist trends as pop culture fashion and adopted the style and culture without the underlying understanding of the movement thereby diluting the overall effect. This reminds me of the revolution of “new wave” and “alternative” music succumbing to the masses and then suddenly transforming into everything the movement was against. When does alternative stop being alternative? Can pop culture consume radical ideas and free thought? More importantly, if/when it’s universally ‘cool’ to be feminist through action and ideology, will feminism live on?

In conclusion, Blyer’s essay was a fun commentary on girl zines and progress. The cavalier freedom afforded to zines enabled images like Wonder Woman versus Paris to express alternative ways of thinking. Whether the message is spread via pamphlets or disseminated through the electronic universe, feminist ideology will continue to evolve and transform over time to represent social change and progress.

There’s an absolutely brilliant article on newsweek.com entitled Obama: The First Woman President?. The article showcases a lot of the lessons learned in WST 100. Much of Barack Obama’s appeal is his break from the past – a sort of political modernity. The article posits that Obama is able to stray from prescribed gender norms (doing gender) and embrace stereotypical “female” gender characteristics. Because of this trait, people vote for Obama. Ironically, Hillary Clinton is almost forbidden to display “female” gender characteristics and just about required to assume predominantly male stereotypical qualities. You figuratively have the next Democratic candidate for the President of the United States jumping through the hoops of gender socialization backwards.

At first glance this article smacks of sexism. The author is restating the same stereotypes our class has gone over for the past several weeks. The author states “he is pushing against conventional…wisdom in five important ways, with approaches that are usually thought of as qualities and values that women bring to organizational life: a commitment to inclusiveness in problem solving, deep optimism, modesty about knowing all the answers, the courage to deliver uncomfortable news, not taking on all the work alone, and a willingness to air dirty linen.” This statement is clearly sexist. However, I do not think it is the author’s intention to advance sexism. I think the author is simply stating key components of gender socialization and how both candidates are stepping outside of stereotypical boundaries in ways never seen before in politics – especially during a Presidential election.

The other interesting point the author brings up is the gender double standard that Senator Clinton displays. We also discussed this topic in class imagining Senator Clinton in the back room smoking a cigar with the boys. The author states, “As a woman, Clinton feels constrained to portray herself as tough, competitive, willing to take on the bad guys. She has to be more male than men.” Overall, Clinton is not able to be herself, and Obama is free to embrace changes in attitude.

Last thing, the author of the article is Martin Linsky, Adjunct Lecturer in Public Policy at Harvard University since 1982.

Think the issues raised in WST 100 aren’t for real?? Check this article out dated 14 Feb 08. Campfield Proposes Ban. Stacey Campfield is a State Representative of Tennessee and is a fundamental right wing conservative AND a raging heterosexist as well.

One of the most telling quotes in this article is, “”Without heterosexuality you wouldn’t be able to teach biology.” This is interesting as it implies that either Campfield is an expert in biology (he is not -look at his resume) OR gays and lesbians do not exist in nature or society. Clearly, this represents a dangerous way of thinking. Granted, parents should contribute to the education of their children, and many parents do. However, schools have a duty as well in shaping the minds of the young. To deny this education of tolerance, acceptance and humanity reeks of a Fahrenheit 451 mentality. This is heterosexism and homophobia at its finest.

At my work we have the television turned on to Channel 10 mostly for background. Just before closing, I was watching the evening news about the national headline story of Jane Fonda saying the word ‘cunt’ on the Today Show. Her saying it wasn’t nearly as entertaining as watching Meredith Veira backtrack and make excuses for NBC, the Today Show, and Jane Fonda.

However, the funniest thing was watching the evening local anchor, Ron Hoon, tap dance about the content of the Fonda story. He referenced the Vagina Monologues about a dozen times without once saying the word ‘vagina’! It was almost like he was playing one of those word guessing games. After the segment was finished, both anchors must have realized how asinine doing a story about Fonda and the Vagina Monologues was without actually saying the word ‘vagina’ that they both made lighthearted comments about the difficulty of such a feat.

I am not 100% sure how it relates to WST 100. It seems like it ought to somehow. Even so, it’s definitely a commentary about the extent of the right wing mentality that pervades our culture and affects our media.