It's particularly timely that I found this article from a journal at Tufts called "A Dissenting Feminist." It's a critique of The Vagina Monologues, which, incidentally, ratzeo and I just went to see on campus last night. Also, the writer of the article is a fan of Christina Hoff Sommers (who is going to speak at the school on the same subject). Having just given the textual finger to Phyllis Schlafly, now I get to give one to Sommers and her ilk. This must be some kind of feminist rite of passage. XD

( So let's see what this writer has to say ... )

The play itself, by the way, was fabulous.

The Art of Retouching

Take a look at the portfolio of a photo retoucher named Glenn Feron. Think it's impossible to attain the bodies of celebrities in real life? Guess what! It is! You only have to look at a few of the pictures to see what the real people (mostly women) actually look like, and how much is considered "bad." Thighs? Arms? Stomach? Even elbows? Erase it all! Add ass and breasts to the point that the cleavage defies physical laws!

I actually don't like using this to help people feel better about their bodies ... It's like, I would rather that women feel good about how they look, regardless of the celebrity standard -- even if the celebrities actually have the insane figures in real life, it shouldn't matter. But I know, sometimes the very basic recognition of "Ha! Even [insert famous name here] doesn't actually look like that!" can be gratifying. So here you go.

I finished the last two episodes of Firefly yesterday. So that thing I said before about waiting for ratzeo to come home so we could watch it together? Um, right, yeah. XD;;; But hey! Rewatching is also good, so I can view it more objectively -- and by "objectively" I mean "more solid than a soupy puddle of fangirlish glee."

( Cut for spoilers? length? incoherent glee? )

I also stumbled across this today: A neo-feminist's view of abstinence.

( Cut for snarking about sex )

There's a discussion on BDSM going on in feminist. It's getting a little angry. (The group on average is young and generally sex-positive, but this just goes to show you how sex can be as touchy a subject as religion or politics.) One of the best points made so far, which really cuts to the heart of the conflict, uses this quote from Amber L. Hollibaugh's My Dangerous Desires:

"The truth is that our current state of feminist affairs has demanded that women live outside power in sex. We seen to have decided that power in sex is male because it leads to dominance and submission, which are in turn defined as exclusively masculine. Much of our theorizing has suggested that any arousal form power felt by women is simply false consciousness. In real life this forces many feminists to give up sex as they enjoy it and forces an even larger group to go underground with their dreams. For the many women who have no idea what they might eventually want, it means silencing and fearing the unknown aspects of their passions as they begin surfacing. Silence, hiding, fear, shame - these have always been imposed on women so that we have no knowledge, let alone control, of what we want. Will we now impose these on ourselves?"

Power relationships in sex has been a big issue in feminism -- Andrea Dworkin's Intercourse is a notorious indictment of heterosexual sex, while some radical lesbian feminists formed strict rules about lesbian sex in an attempt to erase power dynamics from sex. Even The Beauty Myth talks about the eroticization of power, and how it contributes to a rape culture. To me, though, that's all about blaming power for the crimes of oppression -- basically conflating power with the abuse of power.

Let's face it: power is sexy. Someone who's in control of him/herself is sexy. Someone who evokes respect or obedience through his/her competence is sexy. This has nothing to do with someone who has power but is a jackass. Jackasses are not sexy. Okay? Okay.

I don't doubt that the eroticization of power has felt the influence of society. I just hate the idea that, just because I might like someone to act in a dominant manner on occasion, that this is inherently some sort of internalized oppression. I am not submitting as a female to someone because he's male. Submission and obedience are not necessarily weaknesses -- whether that is actual, D/S style submission, or just the decision to listen to your partner's opinion. (This is especially the case when the people involved are equals, and there is the possibility of reversal of roles.) So long as the parties involved are consenting, where is there an actual inequality of power? I'll say it again: equality does not mean sameness. Consenting to acknowledge someone else's power requires trust, and trust can be pretty damn sexy.

(The comment itself is specifically about how power relationships relate to domination and submission, so it's not as generally applicable. :P But it's interesting on its own.)

~~~~~~~~~~

On a completely unrelated note: watch the commentary of "War Stories" by Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk. The actual relevance of their commentary to the episode is ~5% (unlike, say, "Out of Gas," which had explanations by the director and writer, Nathan and Alan spend time mocking themselves and commenting on Gina Torres' hotness), but the hilarity is worth it. Includes such memorable quotes as "Headless Wash!" and "I think you can tell just by looking at my face that I have the legs of a dancer," and the insightful, "Is 'essence' the root word of 'essential'?"

Hodgepodge of stuff. First of all, some food for thought:

-An editorial on homophobia written by the mother of a gay son. This was written a few years ago, during the civil union debates in Vermont, but the sentiment is obviously still valid. My favorite part: "If you want to tout your own morality, you'd best come up with something more substantive than your heterosexuality. You did nothing to earn it; it was given to you."

(I myself give great thought to my moral principles, and foremost among these is, without a doubt, heterosexuality. Don't kill people? Check. Love my neighbor? You betcha. Liking boy-parts? Certainly a given principle in moral discourse!)

-A comment from a post in feminist about street harassment. The question was whether guys leering/catcalling at women on the street could be considered harassment, and this answer sums up my feelings: it's not so much about what is said, or the genders of those involved, or even about unwelcome advances. It's about objectification and the overblown sense of entitlement that some people have.

-A quote from Whores and Other Feminists that (for me) trumps the argument that all prostitution is rape, and is disrespectful of rape survivors: "By the blood and bruises of sexual violations that I have sufered, I advocate protection for consensual sexual expressions of all kinds." (emphasis mine)

-Another quote, from Carol Queen, famed sex-positive feminist: "The stereotype about sex workers that says we are driven to this demeaning lifestyle by a damaged history must be exposed as the sex-negative and, yes, sexist crap it so often is. (How eerily this parallels what used to be said about lesbians!)" This reaffirms my impression that anti-pornography and anti-prostitution often acts as a mask for the 'other'ing of a minority sexual group that makes the mainstream feel more secure, rather than an actual, principled opposition to the practice itself.

Second of all, I watched several more episodes of Firefly this weekend. (I'm not going to be able to save it for when ratzeo comes home, am I? ~_~)

-Shindig: Much fun! But the best parts were Wash's ode to the "corpsified" Zoe, and Mal's ode to himself ("Mercy is the mark of a great man," etc.). Also love the way Mal said "sw-what?" when he found out about the duel.

-Safe: Simon has my heart. That is all.

-Our Mrs. Reynolds: I loved the hilarity (Mal is adorably dense!), but also for the sense of mundane conflict -- Zoe getting snappy at Wash, Inara getting snappy at Mal. This episode, even more than Shindig, makes me feel the Mal/Inara. Also love the way Mal said "you dubba wha?" when Saffron wanted to "cleave" to him.

-Jaynestown: I was afraid I wouldn't like Jayne as much as I'm coming to like the other characters. I was happily proven wrong.

Also, I'm developing a deeper and deeper affection for Simon. Not just for his actions in Safe (but it does help that he called River "Mei-mei," because that made me MELT), but for the fact that he's a really ordinary guy. He's smart, and he loves his sister, and he *is* brave -- but he's not a good fighter, not good at deceit, not even very good at being witty. I sympathize with him the most as the 'wants to be useful but is sometimes just an irredeemable gimp' character. <3

You know Dove's new advertising campaign? The Campaign for Real Beauty? It involves 'models' who are not professional models, whom Dove picked for having more realistic body sizes. They're running an ad with these women pictured in their underwear.

The Chicago Sun-Times ran this editorial about the ads. The first part is written by the woman whose name is on the byline. The second part, though, "Reserve billboards for the unattainable," is by another writer, a man named Lucio Guerrero. Just ... go read it. You'll understand.

( So I wrote an email ... )

I'm hoping to get a response, in which case I'd post it.

For further references, go here to see a picture of the ad in question, and here for the post on feminist that I originally saw this story from. The writer's email is lguerrero [at] suntimes [dot] com. And finally, this article is a lovely response to the response.

EDIT: See this for Guerrero's response to one of the emails. And this ... *sigh* This is the supposed 'apology,' or some facsimile thereof.

The problem, as these demonstrate, is that these people (men and women) are taking it as a big joke. They think that those of us who respond to it for what it is -- perpetuating stereotypes of a single universal objective of beauty based on skinny legs and big breasts -- are just crazy, obsessive, too serious. But it *is* a serious issue. I don't think these people understand the rates of eating disorders -- eating disorders which cause serious health problems and death -- that are a result of these standards, the ways in which women sink their money into weight-loss products and plans, the less quantitative but pervasive problem of discouragement that girls and women feel because they are shown these images all the time. Breaking the monotony of beautiful women of a single shape/size is not a joke. Worrying that you look 'wrong,' that you're unattractive, that you need to stop eating; dieting, starving, exercising, getting surgery, and dying; these things are not fucking funny.