Thoughtful Thursday ..... It Really Is All About the Bass!

http://modcitymag.com/were-all-about-that-meghan-trainor/

A while back I wrote a blog about sexism in advertising and there was a video about how the "perfect" models we see in magazines are photoshopped to perfection. While I appreciated the woman giving the presentation I am not so sure she would hold the attention of young women of the world.

This however will:

I LOVE this song/video! I love the fact that while they are singing about boys that will appreciate their "booty" the women in the video are not sexualized, they are confident, they are happy, they are having fun. They are being sexual in a subtle refreshing way. They are not saying - eat all you want and become unhealthy, they are saying be happy with what you are born with and don't make yourself sick trying to be something you are not. That is at least what I got out of it.

It reminded me of the impact this Dove Soap "Real Beauty" project had on me the first time I saw it:

Dove also commissioned a study on "beauty" and women's concept of beauty. The below comes from the study's conclusion:

The study demonstrates that authentic beauty is a concept lodged in women’s hearts and minds and seldom articulated in popular culture or affirmed in the mass media. As such, it remains unrealized and unclaimed. This idea of beauty appears to have been replaced by a narrower definition that is largely located in limited ideals of physical appearance. It appears that the word “beauty” has – in many ways – become functionally defined as “physical attractiveness.” This definition of beauty is powerfully communicated through the mass media and has been assimilated through popular culture. It is this ideal that many women measure themselves against and aspire to attain. However, because this ideal is extremely difficult to achieve, women find it difficult to think of themselves as beautiful. This can contribute to unhappiness and low self-esteem and self-worth – especially among those women (often younger) who are more likely to take their cues from popular culture. 

It is almost reminiscent of Lady Gaga's "Born this Way" video in which she performed sans outrageous costumes in response to people who had called her ugly, who had said she looked like a man. This was another anthem for the youth to instill a belief that they are ok just the way they are (granted, Gaga is not as happy & uplifting as "All About the Bass").

Each time I hear an anthem song, or see a real beauty campaign I think to myself, this is it, things will change. But then I turn on the television and I see commercials telling women & girls of all ages that they need more make-up, or anti-aging cream to be attractive & keep their man. I open another magazine and see another unrealistic example of perfection women are supposed to aspire to. 

But with every new anthem there is hope .... there is always hope! 

#Yesallwomen vs. #notallmen

Today California University began mourning for the loss of their friends, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers at the hand of yet another individual that pulled the wool over the authorities eyes - an individual who should never had access to a gun, and should have been getting professional help instead of being called "perfectly polite and calm."

And as has been the case in these all too common experiences, we will now play the blame game, we will blame the police, we will blame Congress, we will blame the pro-gun lobbyists, we will blame California University, we will blame the parents. But we will not blame ourselves, the global us .... humanity. Our willingness to use violence as a remedy for all that ails us.

I have had my rants about gun violence before, I have issues with stand your ground laws because it makes those states a shoot-em-up town of vigilante justice. I believe that there should be background checks for all gun sales and I believe everyone who owns a gun should have to get a license and it should be renewed regularly. But this blog is not the place for that.

An interesting thing has occurred in this case, women have found a voice. #YesAllWomen has gone viral. A way, a place for women to talk about the violence, shame, fear and unfairness they live with everyday. And men just don't get it. In a conversation with a man I generally respect I became accutely aware of just how much men don't get it. When feminism and the quest for equality is reduced to women just being on the most recent bandwagon it is clear that men just don't understand or just don't want to understand.

The response that I got was how unfair the world is to men, with some valid points I will admit. It is unfair that women can lie to police about domestic violence and get a man arrested no questions asked, it is unfair that women still have the advantage in family court when there is a good man trying to get custody of his children in a divorce - these things are unfair because there are good men in the world who get screwed in the system. But for every man that gets wrongly accused of a domestic, there are many women who are beaten in their own home. For every good man wanting to be a part of their children's lives there is a man using the children as a weapon. It is unfair that society has to error on the side of caution so that things like like the Jared Remy case don't happen on a regular basis, so that another woman won't be murdered in front of her child.

Having said that #YesAllWomen should not have to come with a qualifier #NotAllMen, because it is not about men. #YesAllWomen is about giving women a place to voice the concerns and frustrations they live with. Every woman I have ever met has a story of either sexual abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse, being passed over for a promotion, having the idea that they suggested rejected & then having the same idea presented by a man accepted, cat calls on the street, being called a bitch because you have authority, or get paid less for doing the exact same job, the lists goes on and on. Men do not have their gender defined as something weak ("You throw like a girl"), or too emotional, or have their value determined by how feminine they dress. Men don't have to worry if they are caught in a dark parking lot, or make sure their breasts are inaccessible to random gropers on the train. It is just not a reality that men have to deal with. And women the right to talk about those issues and concerns without making the conversation about men, when you do that you are lessening the woman's experience, telling them is isn't really that bad, telling them their story doesn't really matter .... that of course is part of the historical problem that women face because we are seen as lesser. 

But this is not a social phenomenon about us vs them, or man hating, or self-loathing. Obviously not all men treat women this way, if they did women would never be able to leave the house. And obviously there are situations where women are unfair to men, even cruel and vindictive.  But ALL WOMEN have experienced some form of gender bias or abuse in their lives - ALL WOMEN. 

As I began this blog I read that my hero Maya Angelou had died. She is my role model, the woman who gave me a voice. Who told me that no matter how bad things got as long as I had a voice to fight the injustice I would be ok. I thought, what a shame she isn't seeing this - finally women getting together and creating a voice, not a bandwagon, to talk to each other about what it means to be a woman in this world. Young girls today need more role models like Maya who celebrated diversity and perseverance and acceptance and life. I have talked of my love of Maya before several times, but today I will leave you with one of my favorites and one of her most famous poems that I go back to from time to time, when I am feeling boxed in because of my gender, when I think I can't do what I need to do to better my life, when I need the inspiration to just be me ... a phenomenal woman.

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I'm telling lies.
I say,
It's in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It's the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can't touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can't see.
I say,
It's in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I'm a woman

Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Now you understand
Just why my head's not bowed.
I don't shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It's in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
'Cause I'm a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That's me.

Happy Mother's Day .....

I always thought Mother's Day was a made up Hallmark holiday. It bothered me that we needed a card company to tell people they should appreciate their mother. But I learned something new this year while listening to the radio on the way to work. The Public Radio station I was listening to was doing a fundraiser where you could purchase flowers for mom through the station. In their spiel trying to get you to purchase said flowers, they started talking about how mother's day was invented during the civil war as a way to calm the mothers who had sons fighting. I was intrigued.

And I discovered that Mother's day is not about celebrating being a mother, or thanking our mothers at all. It was a feminist cry for action to end war, sexism and abuse. I had no idea:

A Mother’s Day Proclamation 
Julia Ward Howe, 1870 

Arise then...women of this day! 
Arise, all women who have hearts! 
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears! 
Say firmly: 
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, 
Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, 
For caresses and applause. 
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn 
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. 
We, the women of one country, 
Will be too tender of those of another country 
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs." 

From the voice of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with 
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm! 
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice." 
Blood does not wipe our dishonor, 
Nor violence indicate possession. 
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil 
At the summons of war, 
Let women now leave all that may be left of home 
For a great and earnest day of counsel. 
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead. 
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means 
Whereby the great human family can live in peace... 
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, 
But of God - 
In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask 
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality, 
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient 
And the earliest period consistent with its objects, 
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities, 
The amicable settlement of international questions, 
The great and general interests of peace.

It was not until 1914 that the official holiday of Mother's Day was proclaimed to be held on the second Sunday in May yearly. Between 1914 and 20014 it has become a 20-billion-dollar a year industry in the United States. I am quite sure this is not what the founding mothers had in mind.

This mother's day especially we should be heeding the original cry of Mother's Day. As soldiers come home battered and bruised, physically and emotionally, under appreciated and under served as they step foot back on American soil, we should stand together. While the world searches for the girls in Nigeria,, girls who did not ask to be part of this war on western education, and their mother's cry for their return, mothers should rally behind #BringBackOurGirls and get those girls home safe. While there are children who go to bed hungry in a country of plenty - we as mother's should do something motherly on this day each year, take a stand. 

Instead, mother's day is about gifts. I don't know about anyone else's house, but in our house most of my gifts are handmade. Which is the way I like it. The first thing I got this year was a beautiful, warm sunny day (which after the never ending winter was a gift indeed), then I got to sleep late. I got an anklet made out of those elastic things by the seven-year-old and a table for the backyard handmade by my husband out of reclaimed pallet wood so it is the perfect height for my backyard chair, the 20 year-old surprised me with beautiful orange roses. I got to see the little one play an exceptional soccer game and got to have lunch with my mom and my boys. Overall it was a good day. But much like Valentine's Day, I have a hard time with people telling me they love and appreciate me, just because the calendar tells them to do so. I like the idea of Mother's Day being more about rallying around issues of kindness and fairness and peace, universal issues for Mother Earth and humanity. 

Then there is always the reminder on Mother's Day that there are children who may not want to honor their mothers, really because they don't deserve to be honored. What does the overload of joy being spouted on Facebook do for these poor children? There are women who for whatever reason don't have children, how do we honor their contributions to humanity? How do women who really want children and can't have them deal with a day like today? Or people who no longer have their mother to hug or have brunch with deal with aisles of Hallmark cards every time they walk into a store? 

I didn't mean for this blog to be a downer on Mother's Day. I would like to see things go this way .... honor and thank your mom on a random day of the year when they aren't expecting it, and make your card. Then on Mother's Day, let's celebrate Mother Earth and our place on this planet. We can spread the word of humanity and peace, love and respect, for everyone. Just a thought.

 

I can breathe .... well maybe after a conversation about sexism in advertising

The semester is finally over and I can almost take a breath. I have 35 final exams to grade and one take-home final to complete and the semester is over for me! I am stunned that I have completed a semester of graduate school - it is such a blur I can't even confirm that I remember enough of what I learned to say I have been successful. But I can say that once the papers were handed in and the exams were graded I did not embarrass myself (this was very important to me since my professors are also my colleagues).

So, the time has come to step back and begin observing my crazy world again and spend some time with my blog. As I began thinking of things I wanted to write about I remembered a recent comment by Sarah Palin that particularly annoyed me .... "I love the commercialization of Christmas because it spreads the Christmas cheer the most jolly holiday on our calendar ... obviously." I can't make this stuff up people! See for yourself ..... and giggle with John Stewart as you do.

The Daily Show

Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,The Daily Show on Facebook

I was going to go on a rant about what Christmas means to me ... how the commercials I am seeing every day make me feel sad and angry and kill my Christmas spirit and I realized ... been there, done that:

What happened to Thanksgiving?

Perhaps Christmas Means a Little Bit More .....

Family Friday ~ It is Christmas .... Let the Games Begin!

With no desire to be repetitive I started looking for something else that could start dialogue. Lo and behold in my Facebook newsfeed I found this gem:




It is great that someone is out there saying these things. The objectification of women to sell products is a time-honored tradition that really needs to end. When I heard her say she had been talking about this for 40 years I decided to do a search and go back to see if we have made any progress. I am sorry to say that I don't think we have.

 

 

 

It is a vicious cycle .... young girls see these advertisements and think this is the way women should be treated .... in turn media makes more risqué advertisements ..... more young women see them and so on and so on. It is not surprising that each semester the girls I have in class are wearing fewer and fewer clothes. It is no wonder that eating disorders are skyrocketing, and depression and anxiety is increasing year after year among young women.

 

I wish I had the answer on how to end the cycle, how to make men see women as more than a bunch of body parts, how to make women see themselves as more than a bunch of body parts at the beck and call of the men in their lives. I put some of the blame on the magazines sold to women as essential guidebooks on how to be feminine and beautiful: Cosmo - Vanity Fair - Vogue .....

 

   

 

And don't even get me started on Teen Vogue  or Seventeen ....

I remember reading these 30 years ago and feeling like I couldn't compete and that was before photoshop! I could never afford the clothes or do the make-up quite right and I never had the cute fabulous boyfriends they said I would have if I made myself up to look like a clown.

 

 

 

But in my search for what is wrong with media and it's portrayal of women and it's brainwashing of young girls I found this, a bright light in the midst of all of this: Julia Bluhm, Seventeen Reader, Petitions Magazine To Feature Non-Airbrushed Photos;  Teen Vogue Next In Anti-Photoshop Battle Waged By SPARK Summit Teens. There is hope. 

 

So in the end maybe we can begin to reverse a trend hundreds of years old.

• If we can teach our sons to appreciate women for more than their bodies.
• If we can teach our daughters that they should treat themselves with respect so that others will treat them with respect.
• If we can get women to stop buying magazines that are ultimately going to make them feel bad about themselves.
• If don't purchase products that advertise in sexist ways or buy magazines that publish these advertisements.

Then maybe - just maybe change will happen.

 

So much for a blog that started as a celebration of being able to breathe at the end of a long semester. Maybe breathing just isn't my style.

 





Thoughful Thursday ..... do you want to be a princess?

An article popped up in my newsfeed today about Disney Studio's newest Princess. Her name is Sophia and she is a little girl (as opposed to the others who are young women). She is meant to be "a positive and educational role model" for preschool girls (and no doubt sell a lot of toys).

There is also a new Pixar movie coming out over the summer called Brave, featuring Princess Merida, who is a "girl" trying to compete with the boys.

There was a point in time when even my five-year-old son was in a princess frenzy, carrying around his small Princess Peach toy everywhere he went. He has since decided he does not like princesses and has no desire to be a prince.

The article about Sophia made me stop and think. It talks about how hopefully this princess (since she is so young) will do more than sit around and wait for her prince to come.

The battle over whether or not Disney princesses are good or bad role models for young girls is endless ....

"This could go on for several movies, touching on points about racism, cookie-cutter gender roles and absurd resolutions that indirectly tell the audience women are powerless"

"Of course a princess movie is romantic and often ends in a wedding, but that is a genre expectation. Growing up watching Disney need no more make a well-read girl think marriage is the only route to happiness than growing up on Westerns forced me to be a cowboy"

I loved Snow White and Sleeping Beauty when I grew up. Even as a young adult I could watch Beauty and the Beast or The Little Mermaid over and over. I wanted the dream. I wanted to be saved. I admit, I brought my oldest son to see Mulan when he was very young, not because I thought he would be interested in a Chinese war movie .... but because I wanted to see Disney's attempt at a strong female role model. I was disappointed .... not because it was a bad movie, but because it showed women that to be powerful they needed to act more like men. Even the trailer for the new Pixar movie seems to be sending the message that no longer will the princess wait around for a prince to save her, she will act like a man and then be successful on her own.

As an adult I learned  that being a princess is not all it is cracked up to be. We learned from Princess Diana that being a princess is not all glitz and glamour. And the recent Princess Kate had premarital counseling to avoid the depressing that Diana dealt with. It makes you realize that perhaps Princess Jasmine from Aladdin was right in leaving the castle to pursue her dreams ..... which do not include being a trophy wife.

My new favorite television show is of course Downton Abbey. These are women that I can see as good role models. Caught between the era of women having no rights or independence, to women wanting and fighting for it. The battle between tradition and social change. And with it all a castle, Lords and Ladies; Dukes and Countesses. In the end our heroine, Lady Mary, gets the boy as well. It has all the romance and feisty ladies all rolled into one - where the men have the power, but the women have the strength.

I was fortunate that I birthed boys. I don't think I would have been a good mother to daughters. They would have been confused as I spouted strong female values .... and still sat down with a big bowl of popcorn to daydream about living in a castle and falling in love with a handsome prince. So instead of raising the next generation of Disney Princesses, I am raising the next generation of Princes. Who (I hope) will value women for what they are instead of what they look like. Who will value independence and free thinking while at the same time showing respect and tenderness. And to those moms who refuse to let their little girls imagine and dream of being a princess I say "lighten up." You can find good role models in the princess realm, as long as you are willing to sit down and talk about it with your little girl about the reality of being a woman.