feminist blogs

Original Target logo. 1962. Image via Wikipedia Recently, Change.org‘s Michael A. Jones covered a “public relations” misstep by the highly-recognized corporation, Target. It was revealed that the chain had donated $150,000 to a known antigay political figure in Minnesota (home to Target HQ). The matter of whether or not Target officials will work on rebuilding [...]

Read more global feminist posts at Gender Across Borders.

Apparently, in the name of fairness, universities are hiding a list of  supposedly ‘banned’ a-levels. What is clear from the list (see here) is that if you don’t fit the mould of a traditional student – who likes the classics whilst passionately involving oneself in a touch of economics or a splash of philosophy, you are at a severe disadvantage. But as many have pointed out, who defines this supposed ‘Z-list’? How is it fair to somehow classify subjects by one’s own subjective opinion of what is ‘easy’ and what is ‘hard’?

Easy and hard, and all the other related terms, are social constructs. Not everyone wants to become a scientist or an economist, and we are better off for it! Many people are very creative and are extremely good at it. They have talents that other’s don’t have, even if they can’t get past the dogmatic values of Oxbridge.

Furthermore, it illustrates the need for more informative teaching within schools of what universities are up to. However, the universities also need to become more open, what’s the point of keeping it secret when we all know how annoyingly prejudice they are to anything that they see as ‘pointless’? They should be asked to explain why they have these views. Do they not enjoy art or media productions? Do they think that kind of talent is not worth bothering with?

It really angers me how elitist and unbelievingly class based this type of snobbery is. It downgrades people’s ambitions and talents so that only those envisaged by the one’s who are seen as the ‘cleverest’ in terms of socially defined characteristics, are respected.

Gramsci’s views around ‘professional intellectuals’ and ‘organic intellectuals’ is a rather interesting aside here. Professional intellectuals are those that are very close to the ruling class, and help support their power. This is clear to see with the current government’s policies, such as free schools and a desire to import traditional aspects of schooling back into education. Free schools will only perpetrate this division, as the more privilege schooling will continue to get more advise around what is needed to get where. Also, they are more likely not to be given the choice of ‘banned’ a-levels.

However, that shouldn’t matter – there shouldn’t be such obvious elitist determination to stop those with equal, but different, talent from going to the best universities. Nor should assumptions be made on the ‘best’ degrees, people should be able to choose a course without being looked down at for not meeting a certain ‘ideal’.

In this ten-minute talk, super-famous psychologist Philip Zimbardo talks about cultural differences in the perception and orientation towards time… and  how that translates into boys dropping out of high school and underperforming in college.  How does he make the link?  Watch:

Via BoingBoing.

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

This is from the “Readings” section in the August 2010 issue of Harper’s, and I have been reading it over trying to decide what frightens me most about it.

The content of education is always, always, political and there will always be someone somewhere who thinks her or his perspective has been left out of what children are taught, to their detriment as individuals and to the detriment of society as a whole. Independently of that, thought, I am a big believer in trying to find as many ways as possible to include as many perspectives as possible in the classroom, not to make the point that they are all equally valid, but to make the point that the more informed we are about those perspectives, even the ones that have been shown to be invalid, the more responsible and accountable we are likely to be in our own perspectives. The proposed changes to history and social studies curriculum recorded here, made by Texas State Board of Education member Don McElroy–and if you have not read about the Texas text book controversy earlier this year, here’s a Washington Post article that gives a taste of it–are problematic on their face because they so clearly favor an overtly conservative political agenda, but three things stuck out to me in particular:

• Removing discussion of propaganda as one of the reasons that the United States entered World War I so falsifies what goes on when any nation decides to go to war–and I am obviously talking here about the government propaganda directed at that nation’s public to garner support for the war–that it transforms whatever lessons are taught in the context of this curriculum change from education into propaganda.
• The third paragraph down about “efforts by globalist organizations to usurp the U.S. Constitution transitioning from U.S. sovereignty to global governance” is frightening not only because it suggests that the U.S. has, and should have, an agenda to become, essentially, the governor of the world, but also because it is so badly written–unless I have read it wrong; and I have read it over more than a few times now–that it grammatically attributes “threats to individual freedom and liberty” not to the supposed “efforts by globalist organizations,” but to the Constitution itself.
• Curriculum guidelines that compare historical figures to fictional characters as if those fictional characters were real–and remember these are history and social studies, not literature guidelines–sound like something out of Orwell’s 1984 or some other dystopian novel. That Mr. McElroy and whoever advised him could not find an example of real life optimistic immigrants to compare with Upton Sinclair, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells and W.E.B. Du Bois seems to me say more about the canyon-wide gaps in their education than these proposed changes could ever say about the ostensible liberal bias in education that they are supposed to correct.

I don’t know if these proposed changes passed, but that they should have been put forward as serious and substantive, that they should have been taken seriously at all, really scares me.

Cross posted on It’s All Connected.

This is a photo of a class at a girls’ school in Qaysar in the northern region of Afghanistan.  For those of you who think that wearing a burqa is a woman’s choice rather than cultural and religious oppression, just ask yourself if you would like to be like these Afghan girls.

But, actually, these girls are lucky to even be able to go to school since the Taliban has been moving into many areas of Afghanistan and closing girls’ schools.  The cry for President Obama to get the United States out of Afghanistan is getting stronger all the time.  I agree that the U.S. should leave, but my belief is always tempered by the knowledge that the Afghan people will suffer even more.

In a patronising and nonsensical way, Ed Vaizey told the film makers and those who are appalled with the wrongful abolition of the UK Film Council to stop being so damn hysterical. For some reason, this government actually likes destroying people’s hopes, aspirations and jobs. The UK Film Council was a way to help fund films and projects that may never of happened. However, the abolition fits nicely with the Conservative’s ‘traditional’ approach to education, where anything that is slightly practical is deemed ‘unfit for purpose’ and illogical to fund. Michael Gove’s hopes for the future of education is a testament to this.

Yes, the UK Film Council is not the only reason for why the film industry is as big as it is, but its abolition is a symptom of this government’s inability to construct a real growth strategy. They just cut like its going out of fashion, ignore any piece of intellectual advice (which is most of it) that shows soundly, how illogical their polices are. Vaizey seems surprised with how strong the opposition to the government’s abolition of the Film Council is. It just shows how disconnected from the mainstream they are.

So how about considering the role of the Big Society here. How does abolition of vital services that encourage innovation, talent and aspiration fit into a Big Society narrative? Well it actually does. As the Big Society in its practiced form isn’t about empowerment, it’s about dis-empowerment. It stands over and watches vital services being plugged out of people’s lives and then has the cheek to call for people to do something about it. It ignores the fact that people don’t really get that inspired to do things when they witness the consequences of illogical economic policies.

Do they think its going to be all that inspiring for young budding film makers to see the UK Film Council being abolished? It is also another good example for why the left needs to create a comprehensive counter narrative to the right’s current attempt of localism – the Big Society.

There is again no real thought for the determinant this type of illogically has on people’s lives. And when people speak out against it, all the government can do is classify it as childish outrage with little regard for ‘reality’. They pass it off as ‘Labour’s Legacy’, as they try to wipe their hands of the real choices they are making – the choice to put their own self ideological interest, over the opportunities and hopes of real people.

Yesterday I posted about the use of femininity to ridicule men (and, by default, women). Today I thought I’d post this cartoon from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, sent in by Steve D., Lisa Currie, and Anjan G., that comments on a different aspect of femininity and stigma — superficial attempts to overcome the often structural constraints that keep women out of masculinized arenas of social life. Enjoy!

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Last month a New York Times article covered the stiff competition for entrance to public and private kindergartens in Manhattan for especially smart kids.  Whereas at one time teachers recommended students to these programs, today entrance to both public and private schools for gifted children is dependent entirely on test scores.

Accordingly, a whole industry revolving around gaming the tests has emerged.  The New York Times profiles Bright Kids NYC. The owner of Bright Kids confesses that “the parents of the 120 children her staff tutored [this year] spent an average of $1,000 on test prep for their 4-year-olds.”  This, of course, makes admission to schools for the gifted a matter of class privilege as well as intelligence.

The article also tells the story of a woman without the resources to get her child, Chase, professional tutoring:

Ms. Stewart, a single mom working two jobs, didn’t think the process was fair. She had heard widespread reports of wealthy families preparing their children for the kindergarten gifted test with $90 workbooks, $145-an-hour tutoring and weekend “boot camps.”

…

Ms. Stewart used a booklet the city provided and reviewed the 16 sample questions with Chase. “I was online trying to find sample tests,” she said. “But everything was $50 or more. I couldn’t afford that.”

Ms. Stewart can’t afford tutoring for Chase; other parents can.  It’s unfair that entrance into kindergarten level programs is being gamed by people with resources, disadvantaging the most disadvantaged kids from the get go.  I think it’s egregious.  Many people will agree that this isn’t fair.

But the more insidious value, the one that almost no one would identify as problematic, is the idea that all parents should do everything they can to give their child advantages.  Even Ms. Stewart thinks so.  “They want to help their kids,” she said. “If I could buy it, I would, too.”

Somehow, in the attachment to the idea that we should all help our kids get every advantage, the fact that advantaging your child disadvantages other people’s children gets lost.  If it advantages your child, it must be advantaging him over someone else; otherwise it’s not an advantage, you see?

I felt like this belief (that you should give your child every advantage) and it’s invisible partner (that doing so is hurting other people’s children) was rife in the FAQs on the Bright Kids NYC website.

<start sarcasm>

Isn’t my child too young to be tutored?

These programs are very competitive, the answers say, and you need to make sure your kid kicks all those other kids’ asses out of the way.  It’s never too soon to gain an advantage.

My child is already bright, why does he or she need to be prepared?

Because being bright isn’t enough.  If you get your kid tutoring, she’ll be able to show she’s bright in exactly the right way. All those other bright kids that can’t get tutoring won’t get in because, after all, being bright isn’t enough.  Fuck ‘em.

Is it fair to ‘prep’ for the standardized testing?

Of course it’s fair!  It’s not only fair, it’s “rational”!  What parent wouldn’t give their child an advantage!  (Notice how they avoid actually answering the question by making kids who don’t get tutoring invisible and then suggesting that you’d be crazy not to enroll your child in the program.)

My friend says that her child got a very high ERB [score] without prepping.  My kid should be able to do the same.

Don’t be foolish.  This isn’t about being bright, remember.  Besides, your friend is lying.  They’re spending $700,000 dollars on their kid’s schooling (aren’t we all!?) and we can’t disclose our clients but, trust us, they either forked over a grand to Bright Kids NYC or test administrators.

</end sarcasm>

Test prep for kindergartners seems like a pretty blatant example of class privilege. But, of course, the argument that advantaging your own kid necessarily involves disadvantaging someone else’s applies to all sorts of things, from tutoring, to a leisurely summer with which to study for the SAT, to financial support during their unpaid internships, to helping them buy a house and, thus, keeping home prices high. I think it’s worth re-evaluating. Is giving your kid every advantage the moral thing to do?

(View original at http://thesocietypages.org/socimages)

Do you know Scarleteen? You should know Scarleteen, as it’s the most comprehensive, inclusive, all-around best sex education resource geared at younger folk I’ve ever encountered. In fact, I spent the latter end of high school referring my friends to the site and I still surf it a lot. Scarleteen has information on anatomy and relationships and consent and friendship and pleasure and all manner of things. While it is aimed at younger folk, it’s well worth a read whatever your age.

Sometimes there are projects you yourself might want to participate in, like this series around forming conversations about shared experiences between people of different ages (of, for example, abortions, queerness, different family situations, being trans, bullying, being HIV positive). They even have message boards for support and advice, not to mention a group blog! There’s a great series running on the blog called Queering Sexuality in Color, which consists of first person profiles of queer people of colour. Check out their feminist sex ed policy.

Founder Heather Corinna kindly agreed to speak with us. She’s an activist, educator and the author of S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Progressive Sexuality Guide to Get You Through High School and College. She also co-founded All Girl Army, a group blog for girls and women from 10 to 25 years of age (the AGA is looking for new bloggers, so apply and pass the link on!). Heather’s personal site is femmerotic.com. Without further ado…

Please tell us about what Scarleteen does.

Every day, Scarleteen provides opt-in, progressive, inclusive and comprehensive sexuality, sexual health and relationship information, support and advice to around 25,000 readers and users around the world. We do that via static articles as well as interactively: via advice columns, our message boards and our text service. There are also some offshoots of all of this, like the local outreach work I do, my book, and other projects we help with. Because we’re mostly online, we can serve users who have sex ed in school already but want more (or want something different than they got), who don’t have comprehensive sex ed in school, or who aren’t in school at all, either because they homeschool or because they don’t get any kind of schooling, which is the case for millions of teens and twentysomethings all over the world every year.

Could you tell us about how feminism influences Scarleteen’s work?

I feel like it’s harder to figure how it doesn’t than how it does. Even that fact that I’m able to do any kind of work at all as a vulva-toting person obviously has a lot to do with feminism, and that we’re talking about sexuality for all people and coming from all people — not just as something to please or obey a certain social construct or one privileged group — has a lot to do with feminism. My whole interest in sexuality as something to study and work in when I was in college stemmed from my feminism — including having sexuality presented as something that had nothing to do with feminism, which I found and still find infuriating — and it’s a thread I don’t think I could ever unwind from the larger skein.

But gender inequities play SUCH a huge part in so many of the troubles we have with sexuality as cultures. They are gargantuan when it comes to sexual and interpersonal violence, in contraception and safer sex, even in the notion of whose sexuality someone’s sexuality really is. It wasn’t that long ago that everyone’s sexual behavior was seen as being only or primarily about heterosexual, cisgender men, and even though those attitudes are changing, they are changing very slowly, and still have not reached many people or cultures, including in the western world. Gender inequity has quite a lot to do with the fact that we still only have a small number of birth control methods, and nothing 100% effective, but have advanced technology to visit other planets. Gender inequity has everything to do with the way pregnancy and abortion are treated. Gender inequity has an awful lot to do with our STI rates, with how little we know about sound health for anyone who isn’t cis gender or “perfectly” XX or XY, with the increased rates of violence, homelessness and poorer health among those of us who are LGBT. Gender inequity has an awful lot to do with the way so much of sexuality is presented as being about reproduction when it’s really about pleasure.

All of that is just the tip of the iceberg, both in terms of how sexism can play a part, but also in how a world of -isms do. Because feminism is about addressing and working to correct gender inequities, and so much of the work we do is as well, it’s hard to see how we’d do what we do without feminism being central.

How did the site begin and have Scarleteen’s aims or methods changed over time?

We began through another website altogether. In early ‘98, myself and a couple other women started one of the first adult women’s sexuality sites online (the now-defunct Scarlet Letters), and in very little time at all, young people started writing to us with sexuality questions. What I ideally wanted was to refer them somewhere that could serve them specifically, but there just wasn’t anywhere online to send them TO. So, I answered the questions I could, leaning on my background as an educator, having grown up in and around healthcare, as a voracious reader and with sound sexuality information I already had at the time from life, from school and from anywhere else I could find it. In a few months, I — with the help of a couple of those women, namely Hanne Blank and Suzanne Peak — put out a small offshoot site. Naively, I figured a few pages would suffice.

Yes, as a matter of fact, I do feel very, very, VERY silly about that now. :) Between the static pages and the message boards, Scarleteen contains tens of thousands of pages and those STILL don’t answer anyone’s questions. Thankfully I’ve since wised up and realized nothing ever will, you just keep plugging away to fill gaps as best you can, knowing there will always be more.

We’re constantly in growth and flux. The model of education that we use — a model I was teaching with before I was a sexuality educator — requires that we do, because it’s based primarily on responding to what our readers and users ask us for, rather than in us deciding what people want and need based on our own ideas, agendas or from our own, anecdotal experiences. While broad public health and sexuality information informs what we do, it’s so important to us to be sure we’re serving our own population best, and so often what young people want and need is something decided by adults from adults, rather than by them and as coming from them. What young people express they want and need has some universals, but on the whole, we’ve just got to be ready to roll with wherever they take us in a day or a year.

I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to build Scarleteen gradually as the Internet has built gradually. If I walked into doing this with this much traffic around, I would have had a heart attack. Often, I have to put the current numbers out of my own head because if I think about how many people are reading, I get struck with pretty overwhelming stage fright and a feeling of overexposure. So, that’s a way that it helps me to just and focus on the one person or small handful of people who are asking or have specifically asked for something.

As well, the other work that I do and have done, and that our volunteers do or have done, also plays a part. Coming into this with a background both as an alternative educator and a writer and artist influenced what it’s like and what we do, and work that I have done and do in the interim, like the work I’ve done at abortion clinics and the outreach I do with homeless and transient youth has influenced what both Scarleteen and myself do and how we do it. We also never had any real model for what we do and how we do it, so I’m fairly convinced pretty much all the time that we always need to be in growth and in flux, ever-adapting as we learn and refine what we do.

You’ve been running the site for over ten years now, which is pretty amazing. How does it feel to look back on all that?

Thanks! To be perfectly honest, this is the longest consistent, uninterrupted thing outside my own body and mind I’ve ever had in my life. We’re going on thirteen years now, and I don’t even know what that is in Internet dog-years. I haven’t had any interpersonal relationships, even family ones, that were uninterrupted for that period of time, no other jobs that lasted that long, and I’ve yet to live in one place for this period of time. So, it’s pretty overwhelming.

But it’s also really cool: I (usually, because some days I am tired) love that this is my long-term love affair. It’s amazing to be getting to the point where people who came to Scarleteen in the early days as older teen or people in their early twenties are getting ready to — or already have! — send teens of their own to us. It’s very satisfying to hear from people years later who, in finding out we’re still here, tell us how much we helped them out and how much better they feel about their sexuality thanks to us. I grew up with an activist parent who schooled me soundly in the idea that I should be an activist if I felt strongly about it, but never expect to see any impact in my lifetime. To see an impact like we have has been an extraordinary and wonderful surprise.

What are some common questions you receive?

“Am I pregnant?” always reigns supreme. Other common questions are, and pretty much always have been:
- is a given body part “normal,” usually genitals or other body parts considered by a person or others as sexual
- am I straight/gay/lesbian/bisexual/queer/asexual
- how does a given kind of contraception or safer sex work, how do I get it
- is this, that or the other thing a symptom of an illness, infection or pregnancy
- how can I give my girlfriend or boyfriend am orgasm, or how can I have an orgasm
- is it okay for me to have sexual feelings at all
- when is the “right” time for me to have sex
- how do I negotiate what I want with a partner or how do I even find out what I want in the first place?

Over the last few years, we’ve also had an increase in questions about abusive/controlling relationships and about sexual abuse. Some of why is likely because we have a lot of visibility, these are things we talk about a lot, and a lot of our staff/volunteers are survivors. (On top of a strange majority of us being redheads.) But we also know the rates of intimate partner abuse and violence have been increasing in teens and young adults, which undoubtedly also plays a part. It also seems like we have had more and more users coming to us terrified and convinced they’re pregnant even when they’re clearly not, which seems to have a lot to do with what’s been going on on television of late with pregnancy and teen pregnancy. Yahoo answers is also big on my list of current offenders for misinformation (some awful bullying happens there, too) users come to us with.

How can our readers help you out?

One of the biggest ways we always need help is with funding. Unlike most other sex education initiatives, Scarleteen does not have any kind of government, institutional or foundational funding. We rely entirely on private donations in order to stay afloat. That’s pretty different from other organizations our size who do what we do and provide this level of service. We do things that way because the fact of the matter is that funding for sex education is very tough to get, especially when it’s not just about pregnancy or STIs, when it’s inclusive, when it’s holistic, when it’s feminist and when it’s for young people expressly. In order to get the big foundation bucks — something which is harder and harder for everyone to get, period — we’d have to be a very different enterprise than we are, and make compromises we don’t really want to make. There are some orgs out there doing good work within those boundaries already: doing the same things they’re doing would be redundant.

So, when we do fundraising drives, anything anyone can do to donate — even a little — and/or get the world out loud and proud makes such a difference. We are highly cost-efficient, but still have yet to have a year where our needs are truly met well. It doesn’t help that the majority of the people we serve would love to help financially support us, but few have their own incomes to do it with!

But it’s also a lot of work to run Scarleteen and to tend to as many users as we have, so when people can volunteer to actively help, that’s just as valuable. A vast majority of our content comes from my fingers and my mouth because so few people step up to guest-write for us. It’s always great when other writers can pitch in and do a piece for us, both because we always need more good content, but also because our readers benefit so much from a diversity of voices, rather than by only or primarily hearing my own.

Lastly, just letting young people in your life know we’re out there is a big deal. We don’t advertise, so word-of-mouth has always been how most of our users find us, and so many report they wish they’d found us earlier than they did.

Do you have any take-home messages?

Obviously, young people — any people — having accurate and non-anecdotal information about their bodies, about sexuality, about sexual health, about contraception and safer sex, the works, is so critically important. And obviously, not everyone has and can provide all of that information, because it’s just not everyone’s job, skillset or interest.

However, it’s very clear that what is just as critical is plain old kindness, compassion and support for ourselves and others with sexuality. That’s something everyone can both have and give. So, maybe you’re not someone who can tell others what all the stages of syphilis are or know what tends to impede sexual desire. Maybe you don’t know that epididymis is not something at the aquarium, or wouldn’t have the first idea about what muscles innervate the pelvis or where to refer someone for abortion funding, birth control or sex therapy.

But what EVERYONE can do is be a person who makes a difference when it comes to dismantling the fear and shame that surrounds pretty much everyone’s sexuality or sexual life. It’s so pervasive in our world, many people are deeply impacted by it and no one can completely avoid it. (If we think we have, we’re so kidding ourselves.) Young people are absolutely one of the groups who get whacked with a lot of shame and fear around sex, no matter what other groups they’re also part of. So, if and when a young person — or anyone — talks to us about their sexuality or sex life, or asks us about ours, we can all do our best to speak and listen mindfully, truthfully and with our hearts and minds open; to be supportive, accepting and flexible instead of judgmental, silencing or convinced we know How It Is just because we know how it is or was for us personally. I know it’s really hard for some folks to do that, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. Just doing that probably makes the most impact when it comes to people having a healthy personal sexuality and for all of us having a healthier global sexuality. We can help other people heal from sexual shame and fear that way while also healing ourselves. It’s so incredibly powerful and important.

In my job and with my organization, I try and do both, but not everyone finds services like Scarleteen, and even for those who do, we all need more than just one person or resource to give us that good stuff. Since most of our work is online, I also don’t think the emotional impact of having someone be supportive is as powerful online as it can be in person. Being able to have your sexuality supported and accepted by someone whose face you can see, and who can give you a hug if and when you need one, is a very big deal.

This post is cross-posted with Transatlantic Sketches and Redheaded Shenanigans and co-authored by Emily and Kate Wiseman. What a revolutionary concept. And yet—I bet you would find a lot of people out there, adults and young adults alike, who instinctively disagree with the statement that “shaming teenagers about sex is a bad idea.” Think about [...]