My take on Wendy Shalit’s Girls Gone Mild is now up over at The American Prospect Online. A teaser:

“Unrequited Love: Musings on Girls Gone Mild”

Author Wendy Shalit wrongly blames lenient baby-boomer parents and third-wave feminists for the hyper-sexual culture that surrounds young women, and in doing so loses potential allies in her nascent “modesty movement.”

Had Wendy Shalit not adopted the tone of a beleaguered conservative, blaming feminism for turning young women into sluts, I could have gone with her all the way. She’s not like those modesty-advocates of yore who fretted that women’s liberation would result in coed bathrooms, and then went on to oppose the Equal Rights Amendment. She’s different from the rest….

…As the American Psychological Association notes in a May 2007 report, there’s a paucity of research on the sexualization of girls, and there’s certainly a need for more. Shalit’s reliance on the experiences of those who email her is beyond questionable, but she nonetheless peppers her prose with some solid statistics that make you want to run to your local toy manufacturer and stop them before they put Slutty Elmo on the shelves. She emphasizes girls’ agency and activism. Among the book’s heroes are the girls from Pittsburgh who orchestrated a successful “girlcott” of offensive t-shirts sold by Abercrombie and Fitch with catchphrases such as “Who Needs Brains When You Have These?”. Shalit’s desire to incite positive social change is admirable — and genuine.

But Shalit giveth, then taketh away. Her tactics are gratuitously divisive. After celebrating said young activists, for instance, who were hailed by third wave feminists as inspirational, she uses these girls to trump up the so-called intergenerational divide on modesty. She also loses progressive allies in the fight against the pornification of the girls’ toy aisle by giving a free pass to advertisers and corporations. And she loses feminists young and old by conflating the inappropriate, premature sexualization of girls under age 18 with the entire project of sexual revolution….

For more, click here.

I’m back from WY, back in the city of polluted air and garbage on the streets that, for better or worse, I love. But this cheered me up:
Nominations are now open for one of my favorite young feminist projects going down these days, The REAL hot 100. Riffing on Maxim’s Hot 100 list, the annual Real Hot 100 list shows that young women are “hot” for reasons beyond looking good in a magazine. By featuring this list of young women from around the country doing incredible things in their every day lives, they’re battling the popular notion that all young women have to offer is outward appearances.

The annual list, declare the smart hotties/hot smarties beyond REAL Hot, is just a first step. Through the Real Hot 100 network, nominees and winners can combine their resources, share strategies and join forces to further their social causes and to affect real change.

So…Do you know a smart, savvy young woman who represents the intelligence, drive and diversity of young women today? Is she breaking barriers, speaking her mind and making the world a better place? Look around – she may be your best friend, your wife, your partner, your colleague, your sister, your student. Nominate her today!

Greetings from WY! I’m so excited Karl Rove resigned, but the lovely people I’m staying with are not. Potentially interesting breakfast conversation, as you can imagine.

Meanwhile, the ladies at MotherTalk have done it again. Check out the blog tour for Becoming Jane – which Elizabeth Curtis, Alison Piepmeier, and Consuela Francis so awesomely participated in here at Girl with Pen.

Guest post by Conseula Francis and Alison Piepmeier

Conseula Francis blogs at Afrogeek Mom and Dad. In her real life she’s an English professor with a James Baldwin fetish.

Alison Piepmeier blogs at Baxter Sez. She read Pride and Prejudice once…a long time ago…and has very lowbrow taste in movies.

Alison:
This film is an homage to birth control.

No, really—one of the subtexts that Conseula and I both noticed was the fact that, as a woman, your life is much more difficult if, as Jane Austen’s sister puts it, you’re having “a child every year. How will you write?”

How, indeed.

The homage to birth control is especially poignant because this film is—at least in its first half—unbelievably sexually fraught. And hot. It’s a shame that Conseula and I are both married to other people, because otherwise, we both would have gotten lucky after seeing this film. Whew.

Conseula:
Alison, as usual, is incredibly inappropriate. But she is right. “Becoming Jane” is ultimately about passion—passion for work, passion for life, passion for other people. And it is also about the sacrifices and responsibilities that often make a living a passionate life impossible.

Alison:
Although Conseula would like to take us into a more appropriate train of thought, I’m taking us back to the sex. This film did a great job of letting the audience experience the sexual tension in very subtle interactions—the unexpected meeting at a ball, a conversation ostensibly about literature in a private library. In fact, Jane and Tom’s first kiss, and what Conseula calls their “sneaky hand touches” are far sexier than many explicit scenes I’ve seen in other, less carefully controlled films.

And when Tom and Henry (Jane’s brother) take off their clothes to go swimming in the river after a very flirtatious cricket game, the audience gasped in delight.

Oh, and let me not forget to mention one of the sneaky—but not so subtle—sexy touches in the film happens in the first three minutes, when the Rev. Austen slides under the covers to go down on Mrs. Austen. I love that James Cromwell.

Conseula:
In addition to being incredibly sexy, though (and it was sexy—the actors portraying both Tom and Henry are nothing short of eye candy), the cricket scene also reveals one of the film’s primary themes: the restraints of propriety on 19th century women. As Tom and Henry race from the cricket field to the river, Jane and Countess Eliza (Jane’s cousin) are racing after them, just as alive, just as turned on by the freedom of it all.

But then the boys strip, propriety (as well as other things) rears its head, and Jane and the Countess head back to join the others. The audience is reminded that their freedom is severely constrained, particularly if they hope to marry well.

Alison:
One thing this film does very well is convey the sense, the experience, of those constraints. I could feel myself as a modern audience member searching for the loopholes, the ways that Jane could get out of those constraints and make exactly the life she wants for herself, find ideological and professional (and sexual) gratification. The film knew that I was looking for the loopholes and showed me exactly how they were all closed off for Jane—and, to a lesser extent, for Tom, as well.

Conseula:
It’s difficult to say more about the film without spoiling readers. Though we go into it knowing how the story ends, the journey is, nonetheless, worth it. Instead, I’ll talk about the people in the theater tonight.

We saw “Becoming Jane” at our local “art house” theater and the crowd was typical for such a venue. Well dressed patrons ordering pinot grigio to go with their popcorn. The audience was made up primarily of groups of women, seemingly bonded by their love of Jane Austen and Pride and Prejudice (if the little squeals of delight that erupted every time an allusion to that novel was made is any indication). They were also a few dour looking men attendance, but they didn’t say much.

Alison:
Also, Conseula was the one black person in attendance. Which leads to this important sociological query: why do black people hate Jane Austen?

Conseula:
Given the fact that I actually went, willingly, to this movie and own the A&E production of Pride and Prejudice (Mr. Darcy!), I think we can’t make the sweeping statement that black people don’t like Jane Austen. Maybe they just don’t like pinot grigio with their popcorn.

*With all due respect to Lisa Johnson, whose book of this title is not about Jane Austen.

Guest post by Elizabeth Curtis

Elizabeth M. Curtis recently graduated with an M.A. in women’s studies from the George Washington University, where she wrote her thesis on blogging and the formation of feminist networks online. She blogs regularly at A Blog Without a Bicycle.

1. With Prejudice

When sitting in a theater watching the trailer for Becoming Jane in early July, I turned to my movie-watching date and observed, “That film cannot end well.”

My comment, which puzzled my companion at the time, was based on my undergraduate engagements with Austen’s novels in English seminars. Doing critical readings of Jane Austen’s leading ladies at a women’s college – what feminist literary theorist could ask for anything more, right? Studying Persuasion or film adaptations like Clueless or Bridget Jones’s Diary in my courses, though, quickly led me to conclude that I was not quite ready for scholarly critiques of my girlhood heroines and an author I idealized. I’m sure you can imagine the horror I felt when presented with a Lacanian reading of Austen’s novels as pathological and obsessive ruminations on her own “failed” love life.

And now a movie expose of Austen’s real-life romances? Oh, dear. Marketed with the tagline, ““Their love story was her greatest inspiration,” I could only imagine what a historical yet fictional film could do to poor Jane…and it wasn’t very becoming at all.

The early reviews that I read about Becoming Jane did little to assuage my anxiety. On Salon.com, Stephanie Zacharek described Becoming Jane as a <a href="
http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2007/08/03/becoming_jane/”>”weird effort to remake Austen’s life — about which we actually know very little — into a genteel, tasteful Harlequin romance.” Questioning the slim historical evidence that was used as the foundation of this flick (the Jane Austen Society of North America provides a great analysis of fact versus fiction), Zacharek critiques the way in which this film is forced to fit a contemporary sense of romance. BBC Movies provided a similar yet slightly more positive review. There Stella Papamichael wrote, “Mercifully, director Julian Jarrold resists turning a literary icon into a 19th century Bridget Jones, but this story does take a few flights of somewhat dubious fancy in speculating on her relationship with the real Mr Darcy.” None so reassuring.

So it was with great trepidation that I sat down in a theater to finally see Becoming Jane for myself. Personally, I’ve always thought of Jane Austen as one of the great feminist figures in literary history (of course, as it is with most things feminist, whether Jane Austen and her characters are feminist friends or foes is, well, debated) – and I was worried that her dating life would get more attention than her prolific prose thus leaving audiences to forget her accomplishments as an author and to focus instead on a soap opera version of her so-called life.

2. With Pride

I must confess that I was pleasantly surprised by Becoming Jane. Sure, I’m a sucker for period pieces – seeing them is a hobby bordering on obsession for me. But I think most Jane Austen fans will be tickled by the clever blending of her fictional characters with the personalities of her real-life companions in the film.

There were some great feminist-y – though stereotypical – moments in the film, too. You go with that cricket paddle, Jane! You go, girl! I especially appreciated the girl-on-girl mentoring action. Whether it was writerly advice bestowed by Mrs. Radcliffe or sisterly advice shared by Cassandra, it always warms my heart to see strong, positive female relationships in major motion pictures. Because, really, the mean girls just get too much screen-time.

My major issue with the film comes from what I found to be mixed messages about combining career and marriage. Perhaps this issue is a bit too much on the contemporary scene to avoid being incorporated into this historical fiction, but I found myself wishing that I could rewrite history so that Anne-Hathaway-Jane-Austen really could have it all. Women receive so many negative messages in the media about the “consequences” of choosing a career in terms of their personal lives…Wouldn’t it be nice to see a more positive portrayal – just once?

To be fair, Jane’s on-screen love life was thwarted more by class and circumstance than by career. But when questions like “But how will you write?” were posed as counters to Jane’s proposed romantic schemes or when a successful writing career is presented as a consolation for the loss of a lover…It just makes me more aware of the (unfortunate) timelessness of the struggle for women to find a work/life balance that allows them to reach all of their aspirations – personal and professional.

I can’t think of a better place, though, to discuss the life of this literary lady, its cinematic portrayal, or the film’s messages about professional writerly woman than Girl with Pen.

A quick hello from a layover in Dallas! Please do check out thisWomen’s eNews article, “Women’s Studies Writers Vie for More Media Turf,” by writer extraordinaire Courtney Martin. I’m so excited. Seriously, I’m jumping up and down.

And to stay updated on future workshops and course offerings, be sure to subscribe to the Girl with Pen newsletter (<-subscribe button over there). I'm looking forward to doing more.

I’m off to Wyoming this afternoon (crossing fingers that Cheney won’t be there!), but an exciting offering is coming to you in my absence. Not one, not two, but THREE guest bloggers will be posting their reviews of the new movie, Becoming Jane, during the next few days here on Girl with Pen. One, Alison Piepmeier, is a professor of literature at the College of Charleston in South Carolina and a blogger at Baxter Sez (described as “a swirling mini-cosmos of academic and cultural quirkiness”). Another, Elizabeth Curtis, recently finished a hot M.A. thesis project on blogging and the formation of feminist networks online and blogs over at A Blog without a Bicycle. The third, Tiby Kantrowitz, is a writer with a background in film production and a passionate interest in women’s issues. I really can’t wait to read their reviews!

Enjoy the weekend, enjoy these bloggers – and hey, you New Yorkers out there, stay cool.

In the category of too-goood-not-to-share, I just came across this poster (left) for a 1972 film version of Anne Roiphe’s feminist novel, Up the Sandbox. According to Wiki:

Up The Sandbox is a 1972 comedy film directed by Irvin Kershner. Paul Zindel’s screenplay, based on the novel by Anne Richardson Roiphe, focuses on Margaret Reynolds, a young New York City wife and mother who, neglected by her husband and bored with her daily existence, slips into increasingly bizarre fantasies that involve, among other things, armed robbery, tribal fertitlity music, and a terrorist plot to blow up the Statue of Liberty. The cast includes Barbra Streisand, David Selby, Paul Benedict, George S. Irving, Conrad Bain, Isabel Sanford, Lois Smith, and Stockard Channing in her film debut. Critics in general were impressed by Steisand’s performance but thought the film itself was a confusing mess. Audiences avoided it in droves, and it proved to be one of her lowest-grossing films ever.

Um, maybe that’s why I hadn’t heard of it. The movie version, that is.

I think a lot about the line between research, me-and-my-friends-search, and journalism. I read with interest the review of Wendy Shalit’s GGM in Sunday’s Washington Post. Reviewer Jennifer Howard seems to feel, as I did, dubious of Shalit’s method, yet somewhat sympathetic to the portrait she details. Writes Howard,

[Shalit] asks, “Why, in the year 2007, should women’s focus be completely on pleasing young men?” (Is it?) And she wants us to take heart (and I do, I do) from the growing number of young women whom she describes as “rebellious good girls.” These new avatars of girl power give abstinence talks to high-schoolers; they stage “Pure Fashion” shows in which fashion doesn’t just mean flesh; they become “girlcotters” who lobby retailers such as Abercrombie & Fitch to pull tee-shirts emblazoned with sexist slogans. They don’t sleep with the first, or second, or third boy who comes along. They don’t become “people-pleasing bad girls” who will do anything, anything, to get a boy’s attention.

More power to them. Behind Shalit’s celebration of such girls, however, is some very dubious sociology.

Dubious indeed. And passing off anecdotal journalism as researched reality is particularly frustrating to the academically inclined in light of the fact that Shalit is onto something important. As the American Psychological Association noted in a May 2007 report, there’s a paucity of research on the sexualization of girls.

Jim Naughton over at Episcopal Cafe has an interesting take on it all:

Wendy Shalit has made a career as the sort of journalist whose trend stories fall apart on closer examination. But no matter, because by the time closer examination occurs, the stories have frequently started quite useful conversations. Her latest book, Girls Gone Mild: Young Women Reclaim Self-Respect and Find It’s Not Bad to Be Good, is a case in point. Unless one believes that the plural of anecdote is data, there is simply no evidence for a resurgence in modesty. But by the time a reader figures that out, he or she has skipped past the need for data, and leapt to the discussion of whether such a resurgence would be desireable. It is possible to regard Ms. Shalit simultaneously as a mediocre journalist and a useful contributor to contemporary conversation about morals.

And so I ask you, when does mediocre journalism constitute a useful contribution, and how do we draw that line?

Economist Heather Boushey weighs in at WIMN’s Voices Group Blog on that New York Times article from Friday titled “For Young Earners in Big City, a Gap in Women’s Favor.” She writes,

I haven’t seen the full study, but I’d guess that NYC must have fewer of the highly paid (white?) men and more of the poorly paid men (Black and Hispanic?), relative to highly paid women of any race. Is this progress? If it’s because there are more young, low-wage men of color, I’m not so sure that this is a sign of college women’s progress….So, is this a story about women with college degrees moving to the big city and makin’ it or is it about a change in the demographics of cities, with more, very low wage men of color? It may be a bit of both, but while the article implies that this data show that women with college degrees are outperforming their male colleagues, there is nothing in the statistics presented that indicates this is the case.

I’m guessing this counterview never makes it mainstream. Instead, how long do we think it will be before the backlashy chorus–women outpacing men!–chimes in? If that chorus shines the light on raising wages for urban low-wage men of color, terrific. But I’m not holding my breath.