feminist blogs

Today marks 90 years of women in the USA having the right to vote!

Because I've been running around like a fool this past week, I'm giving ya a graphical post made of things not of my creation. Enjoy!

What to Chicago women do when a British suffragist is in town? Postpone Thanksgiving dinner!  Image from The Society Pages. One of the awesome things about living in Chicago is that I know I'm raising hell in a city that has a long history of women raising hell. Click over to see the newspaper account of this postponed dinner.


Have you received the email about women & voting? Kinda surprised it hasn't found a new life in recent weeks. Either way, enjoy these images from that email and two that I took myself:

I am currently visiting my family in Utah. I love my family, but the gender dynamics in their household have really got me down. My stepmom works a full time job, then comes home to cook dinner, water the garden, and clean up after my dad and brother. My dad and brother both work full [...]

Whether Oklahoma elects a Republican or Democrat as governor this November, one thing is clear– it will be a woman.

A woman has never before occupied the gubernatorial position in Oklahoma, a gender disparity that exists for 26 other states, as well. And as NPR reports, an all-female face-off for a state’s top elected position has only happened 3 times in United States history (once in Nebraska, and again in Hawaii).

For these two candidates, there are almost more similarities than differences. Both women bring to this race a history of breaking gender barriers in state politics. Mary Fallin, the Republican candidate, was the first woman elected to Congress from Oklahoma since 1921. She is currently Vice Chair of the Congressional Women’s Caucus. Her opponent is Jari Askins, the current Lieutenant Governor of OK. Askins was previously the first female to lead a caucus in Oklahoma’s legislature. Both Fallin and Askins are the first two– and only two– women to have occupied the position of Lieutenant Governor in the state’s history. (Fallin served from 1995–2007).

Both women faced difficult elections to become their party’s nominee. Askins only narrowly eclipsed the NRA-endorsed candidate who was favored to win. In the Republican primary, Fallin faced gendered criticism when her opponent, Randy Brogdon called on her to “stop hiding behind the skirt of Sarah Palin.”

The race should be an interesting one, particularly because it is predicted to be a close one.

As the NYT puts it: In Oklahoma, it’s not the year of the woman. It’s the year of the women.

Just when you think that a minister is on the right track in regards to the pressure that women face everyday to look a certain way, they go and make a mess of it.

Whilst I haven’t got anything against women getting breast enlargements if they want to, whilst I think it is a submission to a objectifiable culture in aim to meet a certain ‘ideal’, for a minister to then stand up and say that a woman who has had breast enlargements is somehow a ‘role model’ is a bit unbelievable really.

Apparently, Christina Hendricks is a suitable role model for us women – yes, one ‘ideal’ (skinny super model) replaced by another (big breasted super model). Can’t really see the improvement. Most women don’t want some male fantasied model to have to live up to everyday, and wont really appreciate a minister telling them to do so.

There is a problem with promoting ‘ideals’ anyway. It’s wrong to problematise certain women (like I am doing now) against other women, making out that one form is best. What ‘ideals’ do is pigeon-hole women into certain groups – they don’t help with liberating women so they can look and feel how they want to do. Therefore, promoting a certain type of women doesn’t help – why can’t we just promote women to be seen as for what individually they are. Spare all the ‘ideal’ rubbish, shaped by masculine ideology.

This is for the same reason I don’t really agree with the Dove soap type of adverts, where the women are posing naked but are supposedly breaking ‘ideal’ conventions. Again, all this does is replace one ideal with another – making women’s position in society 10x worse, as they try to work out and fight out different ways of being.

Whilst I appreciate the intention of Featherstone, I think that her comments aren’t helpful for liberating women. They only add to the already intense amount of pressure women suffer from everyday regarding what to look like.

Update 26th of July: Lynne Featherstone kindly added a comment to this blog post that clarifies her interview (see below) – it seems that it is just classic media spin. So, whilst what I said in general still holds true, it is not right to attribute Lynne Featherstone’s name to the criticisms, as she did not argue that Christina Hendricks should be the only role model for women. Maybe it is another classic case of journalists promoting an ideal they want themselves?

The Public Affairs party in Czech Republic, have produced a calendar featuring 4 female MPs and 2 other females involved in the party in provocative poses to supposedly represent:

“A sign of the times here [in the Czech Republic]. A new generation of Czech women is coming of age that is embracing femininity and sex appeal while at the same time fighting for, and winning, more equal treatment in the realms of business and government.”

What this basically means is that women have to flaunt their sexuality to be able to gain equal treatment. There is nothing wrong with women being expressive of their sexuality, but the principle of this calendar is to represent ‘progress of equality’ – inherent within this progress is the idea that women can only be on par with men, if there is somewhere a productive benefit for men.

There is the claim from the article I have used for this news story (linked above), that:

“Many are likely to claim that a project like this objectifies women and represents a step backwards for feminism. However that same argument suggests the acceptance of a system that does not recognise femininity and “feminine” traits on the same level as those classic “masculine” business attributes so entrenched in the male-oriented business and political structures of society.”

There are several problems with this. For one, it is creating the binary between women and men – masculine vs feminine, rational vs emotional – and so on. This then leads to the reinforcement of gender as being paramount for the division of labour. What it ultimately means is that for women to succeed and earn the same amount as men, or get into positions that men predominately are involved in, they have to be willing to objectify themselves in the name of ‘equality’.

Why do you need a calendar promoting ‘womanliness’? What about women who don’t meet these characteristics? Are they not worthy of office? You have to be careful when promoting a certain ‘ideal’ woman, certainly when it comes to attaching to it messages of equality and public office. This denies some women the human right to be their own person, the promotion by a political party of what you should do, look and say to become successful is entering dangerous territory.

Click here for a special offer for Hello Ladies’s readers from The Massachusetts Conference for Women.

Statistically women experience more poverty than men. I have cited figures from the 2005 General Household Survey before, merely because I used it for some coursework at university, thus it is important to remember that there are many more comprehensive analyses that can be used when proving that the feminisation of poverty is a fact – however, it is useful all the same. It shows how female heads of households are two times more likely to be in poverty than male heads of households, with poverty levels at 43.4% and 21.4%, respectively.

Given that women are already more likely to be in an economic situation that can mean that they are dependent on their husband/partner etc. or the state – the detailed audit that was commissioned by Yvette Cooper (who incidentally would have had a much better chance of winning the Labour leadership than Ed Balls) showing how women are set to face three-quarters of the cuts “with more than 70 per cent of the revenue raised from direct tax and benefit changes to come from female tax payers” is disastrous when it comes to striving for equality and fairness. Consider this, for example:

“Of nearly £8bn net revenue to be raised by the financial year 2014-15, nearly £6bn will come from women and just over £2bn from men.”

A specific budget policy worth highlighting when considering these figures is the inability of the rise in income tax threshold to help women out of poverty. As women are less likely to pay income tax, they are not likely to be as helped by this change – and will actually be even worse off when taking into account that the income threshold rise will be paid largely from cutting the public sector – which women predominately work in – 65% –  (in part-time work mainly, I may add).

Consider also the recent comments by Frank Field, who is all but in name a Tory, (after recent Twitter discussions, there are many of us who just try to pretend he isn’t real) who is very much toeing the traditional conservative line that women are the ‘natural’ carers and should stay at home and look after the child whilst the man goes to work and fulfils his ‘natural’ breadwinner role. It is utter rubbish, and is proudly something the feminist movement has helped overturn. The economic dependence that is promoted through these damaging traditional attitudes only seek to make women’s poverty experiences more likely.

The ‘Big Society’ also has to be factored in here. This is something I have commented on before, as the promotion of the private sector, charity and voluntary services all seeks to undermines women’s paid work. Women are less likely to work and be employed in the private sector, whereas they are more likely to work in the thrid sector – which is often unpaid. Added on top of this, is often house duties which women are unfairly pressured into thinking is their ‘natural’ obligation to fulfil, and this only seeks to make them dependent on the state and their partners etc.

So for many women who have basically had no choice but to rely on the state for benefits because of the still prevailing corrosive attitude towards women, the ideological disposition of this current government to cut and shrink the state is only going to make their situation 10x worse.

In summation, it is only more damning evidence that falsifies any credible claim that this budget is somehow a beacon of progressive policy and direction.

I recently had a minor altercation with a meat-head at the gym. You know the type . . . uber-muscly dude with an attitude problem, likes to look at himself in the mirror while he lifts weights. You know the guy I’m talking about. I was lifting weights last week with my work out buddies, [...]

The Awl ran a piece today about inquiries they get for submission, noting the difference between emails they receive from men and from women:

The emails from men are pretty direct. The emails from women are often kind of… apologetic!

Inquiry letter from a man:

“Do you take pitches? Should I just write something and send it? Do I have to tickle the balls? I want to write for the awl, dammit.”

Inquiry letter from a woman:

“As an long-time admirer of your site (and non-too-frequent registered commenter), I’ve been too shy to pitch as I’ve never felt like my work measured up to your fine standards.”

Inquiry letter from a man:

“Can you offer a word of advice regarding how submissions work, desired timetables, what you like the pitches to look like, and so forth?”

Inquiry letter from a woman:

“I’m sure I’m going about this all wrong, but I couldn’t find any sort of submission area on the site. What I’m wondering is, how does one go about becoming a contributor to The Awl?”

Reading the differences between these pitches, they sound almost as if they’ve been exaggerated for effect – but I’ve already heard a few editors echo that this looks exactly pitches they receive. A friend of mine was talking about this last week and noted that women often start pitching to less prestigious publications thinking that they can’t aim for the top, while men often shoot for top publications first and then work their way down if they don’t get their first pitch accepted.

As a freelance writer, I do my fair share of pitching to various editors. Pitching is easily my least favorite part of the process – you want to get every single thing right and then you imagine how the editor will react to it and then fine-tune it again, before you finally send and hope they don’t reject the idea that you’re so excited about. I’d like to say I don’t fall into the trap of self-conscious, apologetic, overly cautious pitches, but I have definitely done it. And I’ve seen some of my female writer friends do it as well. Not that there’s anything wrong with politeness, but part of getting published is about how well you can sell yourself and your story to editors, right? So why the self-deprecation?

And this contributes to an overall larger problem for women in the media. Women are already less likely to pitch stories, and according to the Op-Ed Project, men make up 80% or more of newspaper op-ed pages; 84% of Sunday talk show guests; 85% of Hollywood producers; 85% of bestselling authors on the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list; and 83% of Congress.

There are some terrific groups dedicated to combating this problem – such as The Op Ed Project, the Women’s Media Center, Women, Action & The Media, and others; but despite the discussion around this issue it sometimes still seems like there’s still a lot of room for improvement. For me, reading the pitches highlighted by The Awl and noting the staggering difference in their tone and their ask was a big wakeup call – are women writers doing enough to promote themselves and their work? And are we doing our part to help other women journalists get published as well?

There’s so been much happening on the interwebs this week!  Here are some links to help keep you busy while you clock watch on a Friday.

Debunking Professional Feminism – Abortion Gang
Abortion & Regrets: The Remorse Cuts Both Ways – Politics Daily
A Doctor Tells Why She Performs Abortions – Health Affairs
Why Some Women Candidates Just Aren’t Feminists – Calbuzz