feminist blogs

Girls are more plugged-in than boys. Duh.

A new LA Times/ Bloomberg poll surveyed the habits of 12-24 year-olds and uncovered some interesting data regarding girls' media-consumption habits, as well as their attitudes about media:

They are the most sensitive to degrading depictions of women — 78% find this type of content most offensive — and the most enthusiastic about viewing content on iPods, laptops and cellphones. They're also the most carefully monitored by parents: 68% say their parents know how they spend their time online.

[...]

Often called Generation Y, the Millennials or Echo Boomers, these kids are known by economists, sociologists and marketing experts as optimistic team players and rule-followers, born into "child-centered" families and raised as part of the most celebrated, protected and overscheduled generation in memory. Technology has been so much a part of their lives that, to them, life before e-mail and the Internet was "the Stone Age."

[Girls this age] were influenced by the late-1990s "girl power" phenomenon and now are often more accomplished, higher achievers than their male counterparts, economist and historian Neil Howe said. They're also more likely to use technology to socialize, according to the survey findings. More than half of teenage girls reported regular instant-messaging, about two-thirds report writing and reading e-mail regularly and just under half report visiting social networking sites.

"Today it's the girls at the front of generational change," Howe said.

[...]

The poll showed that ...today's teens contradict long-held assumptions about gender. For example, the survey found that when it comes to offensive content, 66% of boys and girls ranked disrespecting women at the top of the list. Teen girls are especially facile with technology, in some cases more so than boys their age — for example, 21% were open to the idea of watching a movie on an iPod, compared with 16% of teen boys.

Cue the "but boys do the math and science and coding better because they're genetically pre-disposed to perform better at anything that requires thinking. Naturally, the females do better at the social Web." BECAUSE OF THE SOCIAL!!!!!!!!

And, as we all know, women dominate the boards of Web 2.0 companies. BECAUSE OF THE CLUETRAIN!

And while we're on this topic, has anyone seen any women bloggers lately?

 

According to Pew (link is pdf), more than half of all bloggers blog anonymously or under a pseudonym. So I wonder if everyone was lying, coming out naked or drawn from a self-selectively-skewed sampling, because I was the only pseudononymous blogger I met at the BlogHer conference.

"So what's your blog?" was the opening refrain to many conversations. Multiple choise: (a) "Oh, I blogged more in the past, but not much lately, but I'm thinking of getting active again" (which is true); (b) "Mrs. Borden's Parole" (which is false); (c) "I don't want to say, I'm too embarrassed" (which is true); (d) "If I told you, I'd have to kill you" (which is false b/c I'd just kill myself)....

This may not be a fair generalization, but it seemed like a mommyblogger's conference. At least it seemed like I was meeting a lot of mommies (who presumably were bloggers, or else why would they be there?).

A lot of the sessions were interesting. From what I read of the first conference, I guess I was expecting more interaction within the room, but it seemed like most of the presentations were just that -- presentations, and while they all had Q&A, few of them were room-wide discussions, and that's too bad. There were a lot of really interesting women there, but it seemed like I heard mostly just panelists and presenters.

Now maybe I'm just too burnt out on politics, but I think the most boring session was the politics session. At first the room wasn't even that crowded, but people started to come in after it started. It was kind of unique, with one woman (whose name has escaped me) being kind of the Sally Jessie Raphael, walking around the room with the microphone, getting questions, having a panelist answer, and then opining herself.

I don't know. The whole political thing bores me these days -- which was kind-of addressed, at least the burn-out "dark night" kind of angle. Me, I'm just bored with stupidity. And so I guess I was hoping that we'd have some sharp commentary on the political scene. Maybe I just slept through it. It just seemed like this session was the opposite of what I'd expected, because while the panelists for the most part did not engage each other in debate, it almost had this kind of kumbayah feeling, like, Isn't it just so cool we're all blogging about politics (but let's not really get into it).

It was kind of fun seeing Lindsay Beyerstein up there, and for a conserative, Ann Althouse was reasonably non-offensive -- at least her statements were mostly devoid of party-line jingoism.

(I can already hear the protests about my admittedly over-generalized characterizations of that session and the people. Well, share it. Maybe we can have the exchanges that did not happen there.)

I also liked hearing Jarah of Fresno Famous, who was funny talking about how odd her town is. And hearing about Lindsay's harrowing encounter with the gubmint post-Katrina, and a soldier's (?) threat of "disappearing" her and her friends when they trespassed onto prison grounds where an unofficial morgue was supposedly kept.

The room was overwhelmingly liberal in the I'm-skeptical-of-anything-the-government-does kind of way (which used to be a conservative trait before conservatives embraced fascist values), so at least I didn't feel out of place.

Just bored.

But the conference itself wasn't boring. Arianna Huffington and Grace Davis were almost more political in their closing keynote. Arianna's story about losing her social circle of friends when she dropped conservatism and embraced liberal values was interesting. As someone whose politics haven't changed much in xx years (while the parties have raced righward), I'd never thought about losing all of one's friends just for dropping GOP gang colors.

Still, looking back I can see why the majority of bloggers who blog anonymously or under a pseudonym don't seek out an event like this. In many ways, it was like going back to high school, with clicques and -- how do you spell what sounds like "soashiz"? and then the rest of us.

Biggest hoot: Seeing a blogger named Liz Henry living it loud (to the extent that she is the subject of not one but two of the more outlandish appearances in the Flickr BlogHer photos [and that's 'nuff said]).

Biggest disappointment: Missing Lauren, formerly of Feministe, who's now blogging under a male name and suddenly garnering all sorts of respect. Go figure, huh?

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Technorati tags: blogging BlogHer internet personal

Sorry for the slow posting of late. It's convention/ conference season and I'm down in Little Rock.

Speaking of conferences, I've heard through the grapevine that Chris and Amanda have raised enough dough (thanks, in part, to you) to purchase Lauren's flight to and from BlogHer. Now she needs some coin to pay for her hotel stay, meals, transportation, etc. If you could give up a latte or two this week and throw those resources Lauren's way, that'd probably be really helpful.

Chris Clarke has all the details:

...A groundbreaking feminist blogger with an emphasis on building community really ought to be at July’s BlogHer conference, which is itself devoted to building community among blogging women. But Lauren can’t afford to go. Strange as it may seem, this Midwestern single mom in her mid-20s with a newly-minted degree and a job in the social services sector to pay for it all is too broke to go to BlogHer. I know! It’s just weird. But it’s true...

Chris and Amanda have devised a scheme to get there. So throw her $5-$10, would ya?

Kim Ponders on Blogher writes a compelling post Fear Up Harsh where she begins,

Last week’s New Yorker highlighted the 2 ½ year efforts of Alberto J. Mora, the Navy’s former general counsel, to avoid interrogation techniques like “fear up harsh”—increasing the prisoner’s fear level to such extreme that he feels compelled to confess—that violate the Geneva Conventions.

This goes to the highest levels in the government,

That was the point Mora made when he went public in the New Yorker with a 22-page memo documenting his long, unsuccessful struggle to keep Bush administration officials not only within the law, but also within the our long-standing tradition of fair and humane war practice.

The blog, the New Yorker Article, and the 22-page memo are truly worth a careful reading.

Author Ponders, concludes,

Our alarming disregard of the Geneva Conventions after the 9/11 attacks is, to me, the worst crime we have committed against ourselves as a free and open democracy since the days of Japanese internment during WWII. In allowing ourselves to commit torture on war criminals, we have negated the very values we stand for.

Forest Church in his book the "Seven Deadly Virtues" reminds us that we must pick our enemies carefully, for in the end, we will become like them.

This latest revelation reminds us just how far down that road the United States has gone.

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Technorati tags: human rights BlogHer crime Guantanamo Bay Iraq link military review torture

Media girl posted a blog topic So what's wrong with a little objectification, anyway? As science fiction writer, J. F. Rivkin once complained, the cover of the novel (and even the title) often is not under the control of the author, so I have no arguments with author Marrit Ingman, unless she disabuses me of that presumption, about the "babes" cover of her article about Blogher.

Perhaps Second Wave Feminists have no sense of humor about their political struggles and trivializing women's topics is grist for the mill.

I was a young activist and I recall the cover of Ms Magazine - we called it "M" "S" in those days - which had an article about "why we aren't laughing." Like Polack, black, Jewish, Italian, Irish, and other ethnic jokes, jokes about women are legion. In 1973, I framed this picture and hung it on my office wall as "protest" against the "Rad Libber," (Radical Female Liberation) jokes that were making the rounds. It did not stop my boss from making his own jokes about the woman in the drawing and exactly what "movement" she would be making.

About 15 years ago, Andrew Dice Clay drew jeers for his jokes that demeaned women - women as bimbos and airheads.

Women tend to laugh to hide discomfort and mask embarrassment or even anger.

Make a racist joke to a minority, and chances are the person will call you on it. Make a sexist joke about females, the woman is expected to laugh. If she gets annoyed, then it means she has no sense of humor.

I am sure no one meant any real harm in putting up that cover and were it the Onion, I might think it was trying to make a satirical point, but the cover seemed out of place given the rest of the article.

I hope that this is not part of the post-Roe world.

Like "Lois Lane," "Clark"s" jokes aren't funny any more.

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Technorati tags: arts BlogHer feminism thoughts

Lisa Stone's got the skinny. I'll be in Austin next week for the festivities work-related stuff. If you'll be around, drop me a line. If I have time, we'll hook up.

I suppose it's cool that the Blogher conference has gotten such high-profile attention from the Austin Chronicle, but I can't quite get over the fact that the editors ran with this cover.
Here Blogher is about empowering women's voices, and the spin they put on it uses cheap sex appeal, while also echoing the really bad movies of the '50s, like, um, Queen of Outer Space....

Three American astronauts are on the first manned mission to Venus, and when they arrive, they find the planet to be inhabited solely by women with high heels and short dresses. Unfortunately, they are immediately imprisoned, for the queen who rules Venus hates men... Suspecting the astronauts to be spies, she now plans to destroy the Earth. So now it's up to the three men (and some friendly Venusians) to overthrow the wicked queen and save the Earth.

Yes, that's right, get a few women together and they automatically hate men and want to take over the world. Those familiar with the genre of the times know that there were many movies like this, drawing on cultural fears of women who don't live to be in the arms of their man, much like the alien invasion movies played off of the red scare.

The final plot point of most of these movies was when the evil women finally succumbed to romantic advances by their male captives, dropped their guns and presumably rushed off to happy lives spending their nights on their backs and their days in the kitchen. Silly, uppity women, they just didn't know their place!

And this is the image the Austin Chronicle decides to run with to position Blogher in the minds of its readers.

The article itself is quite complimentary, introducing the founders of Blogher and the stuff they're talking about in panels at the SXSW festival.

"Women who write about family are 'mommybloggers,' while men who write about family are 'personal bloggers,' incorporating personal elements into their blogs," Des Jardins says. "It's so easy to call someone a 'mommyblogger,' to say that they write 'just' about family."

"As though so much of our great literature and art isn't about family relationships," Camahort points out. "When Arthur Miller wrote All My Sons, nobody said, 'Oh, he's just a 'daddy playwright.' Nobody calls him a 'male playwright.' I think that's why women are rightfully apprehensive."

Fellow BlogHers Stone and Casino – who Stone describes as an "unashamed, unabashed feminist blogger" – will continue the talk about marginalization, identity, and their implications in "Public Square or Private Club: Does Exclusivity Strengthen or Dilute?"

A serious enough take, and it's presented without any snark or sarcasm.

So what's with the overtly sexist cover? I've never been to Austin, but I hear tell it's a liberal town, so maybe they will all "get it." But really, this seems like a rather cheap shot to me. Imagine an African American blogger's conference with a Sambo-like caricature on the cover, or an Anti-Defamation League conference with a caricature of an "evil Jew" with a long hook nose. This cover says that women empowered want to emasculate men (note the three women ) while lounging around as objects of desire.

If that's the political climate we have in liberal areas, no wonder ERA never passed and forced pregnancy is the political fad du jour.

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Technorati tags: news arts BlogHer feminism media politics progressive values visual arts

So now in this post-O'Connor era, with the Roberts/Scalito court taking on the foundations of Roe and South Dakota making it quite clear that "protecting innocent life" does not include women, period, we're moving into a regressive era. For some good reading on these issues, check out these BlogHers....

Morra Aarons, If You're Pro-Choice and Not FURIOUS Today....:

Get angry. Write an op-ed. Post to your blog. As Amanda suggests in this post, call Rep. Hunt. If you want to call your Rep, click here for more information.

Any other ideas? Post a comment.

This bill is extreme- it doesn't allow for abortions even for victims of incest or rape.

Amanda, The shit has hit the fan...:

Earlier this morning, several major newspapers published articles revealing South Dakota to be the first state to challenge Roe V. Wade head-on. The Mount Rushmore State Senate voted last night to pass a bill that outlaws all abortions, even those intended to end a pregnancy caused by rape or incest.

(Comment: "wow. in what year are we living again?")

Melinda Casino, in Around the Dial: "And so it begins..." The Supreme Court will review a late-term abortion procedure - Part 1 and Around the Dial: South Dakota, Summers resigns, Science, and VW, links to sharp posts by some of our favorite feminist bloggers.

Click and read....

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Technorati tags: human rights blogging BlogHer civil rights feminism politics reproductive rights Supreme Court

We were so rough, so tough, so radical ... and oh so young.

I look back to my own roots in the Women's Movement of the later 1970's, and the shoulders we stood on and recall the retrospective of a dear friend who recounts it vividly in A Year of Living Dangerously: 1968 and how things changed - and the world turned on an idea - Female Liberation!

"It has begun!" The words were galvanizing, chilling; the implications were massive, dangerous and revolutionary; their seriousness precluded euphoria. I knew that the liberation of women was not going to be easily won, nor won through any moderate means. I knew that once I had embarked on this path, there would be no stopping short. Reality shifted, and I felt myself to be in a new world.

It was a different era and we saw a different reality from what young women see today.

It was a terrifying and dangerous time. We felt that we were laying our lives on the line in a way the boys of The Resistance weren't even contemplating. We saw the violence and hatred that demands of personhood and dignity for women brought out in men who until then appeared normal. These were many women's "nice men". They were the apparently-dignified conservatives, the open-minded liberals, the justice-hungry leftists, the apolitical hippies. These men gave us every indication that they would choose open warfare, to the death, rather than yield any privilege, including the psychological privilege of feeling superior. We felt we were girding for an apocalypse in male-female relations. It was startling--and deeply disturbing--how frequently men responded to our direct but courteous remonstrances about sometimes-small issues of behavior with the verbal and body language of physical violence.

And how far we've come.

I am amused today to find young women who scornfully declare that they are "not feminists" taking for granted their rights to do some things we scandalized our feminist comrades for suggesting in the early days. I spoke the other day to a young "not-a-feminist" with a shaved head and remembered the scandal, the uproar, the outrage Cell 16 created at a feminist conference in New York City in 1969. We were speaking from the stage on the subject of the political implications of our making ourselves into conventional womanly women through the cultivation (often at the expense of great time and effort) of stereotypical feminine appearance. To dramatize this, we included a bit of guerilla theater: one of our number who had luxuriant long blonde hair had decided to cut it to a more practical chin length. To help us make the point about femininity, she had also agreed to have us cut her hair on stage. There was pandemonium in the hall, with women standing up and screaming "don't do it!" One woman shrieked, "Men like my breasts, too; do you want me to cut them off?" In 1994, in contrast, my young "not-a-feminist" acquaintance considered her shaved-head haircut practical and rather interesting. If it shocked anyone, or if someone chose to regard it as "unfeminine," so much the worse for them.

It was a time when our lives went on hold,

Beyond the matter of whether one ought to stay in an abusive relationship, we questioned how much time and energy ought to go into working out "personal" relationships even of a more promising sort, and asked whether women ought to be devoting themselves to raising children. Although we didn't condemn good sexual relationships or worthwhile family life, should these be found, it is true that, at that historical moment, we thought it best for women to stay free for making the revolution. Even good relationships take time and energy, time and energy that we needed in getting the word to women about the possibility of a better way of life, time and energy that we needed for the struggle. And isn't it obvious that a guerilla must be free? Hence we wondered at women who professed to be dedicated to fighting for female liberation and who also chose to have children. We felt that children became the hostages of the system; women's need to protect children make us vulnerable to male threats and bribes. We might be willing to bring the world down on our own heads through a revolution total enough to effect true liberation for all, but we flinch in contemplating the danger to innocent little ones. Of course, in our apocalyptic thinking, we never envisaged this struggle being one that would go on for twenty, fifty, a hundred years. In this, too, we were progeny of the sixties: we were going to remake the world in the next two or three or five years. There would be plenty of time for "a personal life" later.

This week Coretta Scott King passed, also and so I think of Martin Luther King's last speech,

Well, I don't know what will happen now. We've got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn't matter with me now. Because I've been to the mountaintop. And I don't mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I'm happy, tonight. I'm not worried about anything. I'm not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.

The women of the Second Wave of Feminism are passing and we still are not free and the ERA is a curious footnote of history.

We wait and wait and wait.

Yet it has been good company that we have kept and we sorely miss those who will not get to that mountain top, and for those of us who are still on the climb.

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Technorati tags: human rights BlogHer feminism personal thoughts