media

This past week you might have noticed something different around here.

In addition to a guest post from Andrea Doucet (author of Do Men Mother? and a forthcoming book tentatively titled The Bread and Roses Project: Breadwinning Moms and the New ‘Problem with No Name’) about whether dads are facing discrimination on the playgrounds and a well-earned celebratory announcement from Veronica Arreola (go SCIENCE GRRL!), a number of regular GWP writers devoted our monthly columns to various aspects of historian Stephanie Coontz‘s new book, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s.  Coontz’s book is a biography of Betty Friedan’s iconic book.  A forum about book about a book?  Sounds rather…discursive.  So why did we do it?

As “crossover” scholar type peeps, we think the way conversations about feminism play out in public, in this case the cultural conversation about a second-wave feminist text, are important to track.  As a generation, we’re indebted to Betty Friedan for her classic.  And we’re  indebted to Stephanie Coontz for reviving a conversation about the journey this book helped launch–not only for women at the dawn of the 1960s, but for those of us striving for egalitarian marriages and humane workplaces and raising our children here in 2011.

Here’s a recap:

To kick it off, Virgina Rutter (NICE WORK) asked two dear friends, one born in 1935, the other born in 1940, to tell her their experiences around the publication of Friedan’s TFM in 1963. The kicker: they’re both men.

Fueled by Coontz’s analysis, we cleared up some myths about TFM and encouraged readers to Test Your Feminine Mystique Cliche Quotient. In a Review of ‘Stirring’ Reviews, we offered a reading of the initial reviews of Coontz’s book appearing in in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The New York Times, Salon, Ms., Bitch, and feministing.

Natalie Wilson (POP GOES FEMINISM) asked whether “Housewives” today are just as “Desperate” as in the era documented by Friedan and offers up pop-culture infused Thoughts on Coontz’s A Strange Stirring.

Finally, Deborah Siegel (MAMA W/PEN) waxed intergenerational and mused on How the Choices of Our Generation Are Shaped By the Last. (Your comments on that one are giving me–it’s Deborah here–tons of food for thought…!)

We hope you find the discussion of interest.  We’d love your feedback.  And if you’d like to see more of this kind of group forum, or would like to propose one yourself for the future, please do let us know!

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I had the pleasure of spending last weekend in the presence of Isla, a four-year-old who LOVES Toy Story Two and LOVES Jessie even more. When the scene highlighting Jessie’s back story came on, she jumped off the couch and ran towards the television with a look of rapture on her face. Once the song finished and the main narrative resumed, she chanted “More Jessie, more Jessie!!!”

Sadly, if her parents bring home Toy Story 3 for her to enjoy (released on DVD November 2^nd), she will find there is not more Jessie. Rather, the male toys are still front and center. Meanwhile, the female toys have gone missing (Bo), fallen in love with Ken (Barbie) or gone soft for Latino Buzz (Jessie).

Though Toy Story 3 opens on a female-empowerment high, with Mrs. Potato-Head displaying mad train-robbing skills and Jessie skillfully steering Bullseye in the ensuing chase, from there, the bottom drops out of the film’s female quotient. Out of seven new toy characters, only one is female – the purple octopus. This is far worse than the one female to every three males ratio documented in children’s media by The Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media.

When I first viewed the 3^rd film, I was almost giddy as Mrs. Potato-Head and Jessie chased a train in the opening scene. Alas, after this first scene, the movie went back to its male focus, throwing in rather sexist and homophobic banter along the way. For example, Mr. Potato Head says at one point “No one touches my wife, except for me!” while another character suggests she needs her mouth taken off. As for Ken, he is depicted as a closeted gay fashionista with a fondness for writing in sparkly purple ink. Played for adult in-jokes, Ken huffily insists “I am not a girl toy, I am not!” when an uber-masculine robot toy suggests as much during a heated poker match. In the typical way homophobia is paired with misogyny, the jokes about Ken suggest how funny and scary it is for a man to be either feminine or queer. Admittedly, Barbie ultimately rejects Ken and is instrumental in Woody and Co’s escape, but her hyper-feminine presentation coupled with Ken’s not-yet-out-of-the-toy-cupboard homophobia make this yet another family movie that perpetuates damaging gender and sexuality norms.

Though the film ends with young Bonnie as the happy new owner of the toys, Woody would have to become Wanda and Buzz become Betty in order for the series to break Pixar’s male-only protagonist tradition. Finally a female-helmed film is on the horizon though – Brave – too bad the protagonist is a princess (how original!) and Pixar recently fired the female director (it’s first ever).

This is not to say that Pixar’s films are not funny and clever. And I would agree that in many regards Pixar films are an improvement on Disney. But need we settle for “better than Disney”? Can’t we ask they also make films with female protagonists, with racial and class diversity, without homophobic jokes, and, ahem, with FEMALE DIRECTORS?

Some 43 years after Mowgli’s love interest in The Jungle Book sings of her future daughter, “I’ll send her to fetch the water, I’ll be cooking in the home” her metaphorical daughters populate not only Disney films, but also those of Dream Works and Pixar. Alas, not only do these animated daughters still accord to gender norms for the most part, so too do their creators – most animators, screenwriters, directors, and producers are still men, completing Mowgli type adventures in the Hollywood jungle, adventures that still place boys front and center while keeping their female counterparts as figurative water fetchers.

Brenda Chapman, the female director who seemingly broke away from the sticky Cinderella floor to slipper through the glass ceiling into what is reportedly the Pixar boys club was sadly turned back into a non-directing pumpkin– no fairy tale ending for her as the director heroine of Brave, a film she wrote and has been developing for several years. Instead, Mark Andrews has reportedly taken over director duties. The title of his Pixar Short, One Man Band, is a fitting way to describe what seems to have become Pixar’s one-note ode to male helmed and focused films.

While changes in directors are common in the film world, Chapman’s firing caused quite the stir as she was Pixar’s first woman director – all eleven previous films were directed by (and featured) men. Pixar is not unique in this regard: As Sharon Waxman & Jeff Sneider write, “The animation industry is not known as a warm and fuzzy place for women.”

And, it was only this year that a woman finally won Best Director at the Academy Awards, despite the fact women have been involved in filmmaking since its beginnings in 1896.

Tracy L., a former film development executive with 12 years experience in the industry, responded to Chapman’s dismissal as follows:

“The bigger issue here is not the firing but why Pixar has never had a female director to begin with. The bigger story to my way of thinking is the utter lack of female input behind the scenes and the lack of female protagonists on screen.”

In films, this lack of women behind the scenes seems to translate to a certain type of woman character on screen–one who is less heroic, adventuresome, independent and important than the male robots, toys, cars and humans that surround her.

With Disney figuratively cutting Rapunzel’s powerful locks by making Tangled more boy-focused, and now Pixar taking away Chapman’s directorial wand, what’s next–a film about a female warrior who suddenly becomes a gooey-eyed animal lover? Oh, that’s already been done (Pocahontas). How about taking a you-go-girl patriarchy-defier and stealing her voice? Oh, that one is taken too (Little Mermaid).Wait, I know: a movie about a matriarchal society filled with female power-players that have to be saved by a tremulous boy. (Oops, that’s Bug’s Life).

So, I want to add my virtual voice and echo four-year-old Isla “I want more Jessie!” Come on, Pixar, get with the Bigelow effect already: encourage more women directors and more female friendly story-lines! Really, now, let some women lead your (or at least play in) your one-man band, would you?

Sandra Guy’s profile of Ford’s Explorer design team schooled us on how to highlight women in engineering by making the women’s work smart but not too girly:

[Jennifer] Brace, a user interface engineer in Ford’s Human-Machine Interface Group, said she made sure that the buttons on the touchscreens accommodate the touch of a woman’s fingernails.

The reality is that many women have long nails. Even my nails get on the longish end of the spectrum, so the idea that touch screens would recognize nails is awesome.

A mom with kids might prefer to see the most fuel-efficient route to her destination, or ask the SUV to find the nearest ice-cream parlor and watch the directions pop up.

Clearly someone knows parenthood. And it’s presented in a non-judgmental way and not in a “oh, look, a mommy car!” way.

Drivers of the new Explorer can give vocal commands for the SUV to “find Starbucks,” or “find parking” or, Richardson’s favorite, “find a shoe store,” and the vehicle’s navigation technology does just that.

Cause what woman doesn’t drive around once in awhile thinking, “If only I could find X?” but can’t take time to stop and type that question into the GPS system? And yes, by using shoe shopping, it targets women, again without being condescending.

Though female engineers are widely scattered among small, medium and large private companies, these women — who are based at Ford Motor Co. headquarters in Dearborn, Mich. — represent the 12.2 percent who work for companies with 25,000 or more employees, according to the National Science Foundation’s 2006 Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System surveys, the latest available.

Julie Levine and Julie Rocco, commonly called the two Julies, work alternate days except for Wednesdays, when they tag-team their job.

In preparing for the Explorer’s introduction at the Ford plant, the two women met many times a week to pore over a matrix with 1,400 items covering 13 pages, trying to figure out solutions for each issue.

Loved this part the most! Guy presents the big issue in the field – the lack of women – but frames it as a positive WITH a solution as to how two of the women stay in the field – job sharing!

The two Julies describe their job-sharing arrangement like a marriage, and credit it with providing them the type of work-life balance that allows them to be involved in their children’s activities.

“We trust each other completely and work toward the same goal,” Rocco said. “That’s what makes it successful.”

Ahhh…such a wonderful end to an inspiring story AND it helps to debunk the myth that women can’t work together in a positive, respectful and empowering manner, especially when working in a dude-dominated field.

This isn’t Guy’s only example of tooting the horn of women in science, engineering and technology without painting it in pink and giggles. I only wish the Sun-Times archives went back further to show you! But there was just something about her latest column that really hit me in the heart and gut. Maybe it was because my campus’ fall semester had just started and I was still on that high I get during the first weeks of reconnecting with returning students and basking in the new energy of new students. Maybe I’m just getting old and sappy. Or maybe I am just damn tired of people thinking that the only way to get girls interested in science is to paint it pink and throw glitter on it. And I love glitter! Instead Guy takes the time to find amazing women doing interesting and socially important (something that is important to many women and girls!) things with their science skills and profiles them. Hopefully parents and teachers are cutting these profiles out and using them in science classes from kindergarten on up to college.

Thanks Sandra Guy!

For this month’s column, I had the pleasure of emailing with Chris Bobel, Ph.D. about her new book which deftly tackles a taboo topic.

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You explore new feminist activism that focuses on menstruation. Historically, how have feminists viewed menstruation, and why menstrual activism now?

The issue of menstruation has not been a top feminist priority, though, since at least the 1970s, a few bold feminists have recknoned with socio-cultural and political dimensions of the menstrual cycle. I argue that the menstrual taboo–which impacts us all, even feminists–often puts the issue off-limits. In mainstream culture, the only menstrual discourse that gets any play is making fun of women with PMS. I studied menstrual activists who want to widen and complicate the conversation. Menstrual activism is part of an enduring project of loosening the social control of women’s bodies, moving women’s bodies from object to subject status–something absolutely foundational to addressing a range of feminist issues, from human trafficking to eating disorders to sexual assault.

What do you think of Kotex’s new ad campaign “Break the Cycle,” which lampoons traditional menstrual product ads?

The new campaign could be a game change, but I’m doubtful. First, the campaign only works as long as the menstrual taboo persists; otherwise, their frank talk doesn’t stand out, does it? While I can join in the joke of the industry poking fun at itself–and I love the message of “no more shame”–in the end, it’s the same, just repackaged.

Second, I resent this campaign for exploiting shame to sell product for nearly a centuray and then exploiting THEIR overdue pronouncement–“enough with the euphemisms, and get over it”–to sell product.

Also, you’ve got to wonder if not only Kotex but their whole industry is now pulling out all the stops to try to hold onto its market share as menstrual suppression drugs–like Seasonique and Lybrel–are gaining interest.

So, what do you think of pharmaceutical industry arguments that support these menstrual suppressants?

Their quasi-feminist arguments co-opt feminism to push drugs. Big Pharma is marketing suppression as a ‘lifestyle choice’, but what most don’t realize is that “menstrual suppression” is actually cycle-stopping contraception that does not only reduce or eliminate menstrual bleeding but also suppresses the complex hormonal interplay of the menstrual cycle. We don’t yet have adequate data to really show if this is a safe long-term practice for otherwise healthy women. Check out this position statement.

Furthermore, ad campaigns represent the menstrual cycle as abnormal, obsolete, and even unhealthy. These messages underscore that women’s natural functions are defective, dysfunctional and need medical intervention. This can lead to negative body image, especially in young women. How is this feminist? ‘Choice’ without good, fact-based information based on thorough medical studies isn’t real choice, and a campaign that exploits women’s negative attitudes about their bodies isn’t feminist either.

Your work uses menstrual activism as an analytical lens through which to view continuity and change in the women’s movement, from what some call the “second wave” of feminism through the “third wave.” So, given that the ‘wave’ distinctions are not without controversy among feminists, what do you see as setting third wave feminism apart? Is it truly unique, or is it merely a label that recognizes the next generation?

There’s a lot of continuity between the waves–mostsly in the tactical sense. Today’s feminist blogs are yesterday’s zines, which reflect earlier mimeographed manifestos; radical cheerleading recalls street theater and public protests, like early second-wavers at the 1969 Miss America pageant. Second-wavers practiced what third-wavers call DIY (Do It Yourself) healthcare when they modeled pelvic self exams. But, most third-wavers depart from most (but not all) second-wavers by troubling the gender binary. For example, the radical wing of menstrual activism movements reers to “menstruators”, instead of assuming that everyone who menstruates gender-identifies as a woman.

Tell me more about that!

Most assume that a female-bodied person, with breasts and a vulva, is a woman, and usually that’s true. We also assume that menstruation is a near-universal experience for women. Radical menstruation activists question these assumptions. Menstruation is not and has never been EVERY woman’s experience. Women don’t menstruate for lots of reasons, and they don’t menstruate their whole lives. Also, some transmen and intersex people DO menstruate. So, equating menstruation with womanhood is problematic. Saying “menstruators” makes room for more people, more experiences. This linguistic move is boundary smashing, inclusion-in-action and bodes well for feminism’s future.

But, you’ve written that menstrual activists are not successful at all attempts at inclusion.

The first face of the feminist movement may have been white and middle class, but poor white women and women of color across the class spectrum have always been there, often toiling in relative obscurity. This could be the case with menstrual activism, too. However, I’m a white, privileged academic, and this biases my world view. I looked for women of color doing this work and found a few. But, was I looking in the right places? Was I using the right language? One activists of color said that I was likely missing Black women because I wasn’t clarifying how race and gender intersect in menstrual health. Also, menstrual activism is risky business for all, and especially for women of color, whose bodies have been denigrated throughout history. Taking on the menstrual taboo can make others see you as nasty, gross, improper…and if you’re already struggling to be accepted and taken seriously, then why go “there”?

Well, I and many other women’s health activists appreciate that you ‘went there’!

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For more on this topic and her research, check out Chris’s new book — New Blood: Third-Wave Feminism and the Politics of Menstruation (Rutgers University Press, 2010), previewed in the Our Bodies, Ourselves blog and in a provocative article in the Guardian last fall.

I’m always highly attuned to language—its nuances, implications, and effects—so much so that my partner is ready (if not always eager) on at least a weekly basis to hear the latest term or phrase that I find problematic.  So here’s the latest:  I’m troubled by the metaphors of battles, wars, fighting that often get linked to people with diseases or disabilities.

Two nights ago I was watching Extreme Home Makeover.  As a side note, let me warn you never to watch this show unless you just want to sit in front of your tv weeping while simultaneously being vaguely embarrassed at yourself for doing exactly what the show’s makers want you to do.  That pretty much describes my evening.

There are many, many problems with this show that other bloggers should feel free to launch into, but one of the things that struck me was the battle metaphors.  The father of the family whose home was being remodeled has ALS, a progressive neurodegenrative disease.  He seems like a genuinely wonderful person, with a great attitude and a passion for his family and his career.  Everyone who helped with the project of rebuilding this family’s house seemed moved by this guy, and repeatedly throughout the episode folks recognized him and honored him for, among other things, his “battle against ALS.”

This is, of course, a pervasive way of framing people with diseases of all kinds.  The ALS Association’s big statement at the top of every page on their website is “Fighting on Every Front to Improve Living with ALS.”   There are a number of websites devoted to fighting cancer, fighting HIV, cystic fibrosis, multiple sclerosis, etc.  The fight metaphor is often how individuals with these diseases discuss their own lives and priorities.  And yet, it gives me a small, uncomfortable twinge.

I’d be politically troubled or offended if someone had referred to the little boy in the Extreme Home Makeover family as “battling” his life in a wheelchair, or if people suggested that my daughter was “struggling against” Down syndrome.  Down syndrome and paralysis aren’t war zones, they’re simply parts of the lives of some people.  And yet diseases seem to be different, certainly to many who are living with them.  While Down syndrome has been part of Maybelle’s life since the instant she was conceived, ALS comes along later in life, and the fighting metaphor seems empowering and functional for many people.

But I’m not one of those people.  I think that much of why this bothers me is personal.  It’s not that I’m opposed to fighting.  I’m an activist:  I welcome a fight.  I’m happy to aggressively challenge many things in this world that need to be shaken up.  And yet, as a person with a brain tumor, I don’t want my health condition framed in terms of a battle.  I am not someone who’s “battling” a brain tumor.  Some scholars have examined this concept and have identified several ways that the metaphor is problematic—not only because it’s “inherently masculine, power-based, paternalistic, and violent” but because it frames the patient as the one who has to fight fight fight in order to win the war, and if they don’t win, then they didn’t fight hard enough.

I have a brain tumor, and there are things I need to do to take care of myself, but no level of armored-up embattlement is going to make it go away.  I don’t love it, but it’s part of my body.  As the scholars note, “There are conceptual weaknesses in the metaphor. There are no actual enemy invaders; the enemy is self…and the battlefield is the patient’s very body.”  I feel that I’d like a rhetorical framing of my condition that allows me a little more coherence and peace.

Fortunately, I’m very happy with my house, so there will be no need for the Extreme Home Makeover folks to come over here and cheer for my fighting spirit in order to make themselves feel better.

Editor’s note:  I promise that my next Girl w/Pen post will be about something other than my brain tumor!  You all have been very supportive, but I think it’s time for some variety.

Coco Chanel has often been quoted as saying, “A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future.” If perfume staves off doom, then perhaps that’s what inspired this otherwise-inexplicable new ad by GlaxoSmithKline for its HPV vaccine:

As you can see, it leads with a blue-eyed, fair-skinned, made-up (and apparently affluent) young woman lounging on an antique sofa on the first floor of a mansion. But softly shimmering lights and fairy-like chimes distract the waif from her book. She dreamily follows the golden twinkling lights up an impressive staircase, where she gazes with a beatific smile upon a champagne-colored perfume bottle magically floating in mid-air. As the bottle rotates to reveal the words “CERVICAL CANCER“, the young woman’s expression switches from bliss to frowning concern. Enter the narrator’s voice:

Maybe it’s unfair to get your attention this way, but nothing’s fair about cervical cancer. Every 47 minutes, another woman in the U.S. is diagnosed. But, there are ways to prevent it. Talk to your doctor.

Unfair? I would have said “insulting.” As in, maybe it’s insulting to assume that the best way to attract a young woman’s attention to a serious health issue is to dupe her into thinking she’s watching a perfume commercial? But, if you want to talk ‘unfair’…Maybe it’s unfair that there hasn’t been a public health campaign to educate teens, women and men about sexually-transmitted HPV (human papillomavirus), which can cause not only cervical cancer but also other serious cancers in men and women? Maybe it’s unfair that the only public “education” about the HPV epidemic has come in the form of pharmaceutical ads that continue to narrowly brand and market HPV vaccines as “cervical cancer” vaccines?

The ad finishes by presenting a GlaxoSmithKline website — which troubles me, as a sexual health researcher, because it does not offer visitors a comprehensive HPV education. But that may have been too much to hope for, given that their HPV vaccine (Cervarix) received FDA approval for use in girls and women (ages 9 to 26) just this past October.

So, skip this ad and website if you’re looking for a more neutral source of information about HPV vaccine options, and visit the CDC instead. And those who’d like a more thorough STD/STI education should check out the American Social Health Association and other website resources which are not funding by pharmaceutical companies.

Note: while GSK has disabled adding comments to their series of new ads, you may rate not only this ‘perfume’ ad but also their ‘front porch‘ and ‘night out‘ ads with the start-ratings you feel they deserve. And, for more on the mis-marketing of HPV vaccines, read my article, “Why Men’s Health is a Feminist Issue,” in the Winter issue of Ms., on newsstands now.

(Originally posted on Ms. blog, cross-posted at Sociological Images and AdinaNack.com)

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My daughter turned eleven this week. Though I agree with Allison Kimmich’s earlier post, which argued that it’s great to be a girl here in 2010, I can’t help but worry that growing up female in our culture still results in growing down.

Some examples to ponder:

When my daughter and I went to the mall to have her ears pierced last Saturday, we were deluged with anorexic size mannequins in thongs and barely-there bras.

Later, at the movies, we watched yet another film with a male protagonist (which included a male sidekick who ogled females throughout the entire movie).

For school, she worked on yet another dead white male report.

On television, she is still inundated by stories that focus on a girls looks and emphasize romance and/or beauty as the most important pursuits for a girl.

In music, there are undoubtedly many power-house female musicians, but this seems dampened by all the singing of ‘ho’s’ and ‘get-lows.’

Yet, there are positive aspects to each of these observations. At the mall, my daughter noticed the sexualization of the mannequins and complained about it, showing her awareness that our culture objectifies women in damaging ways (and revealing what I like to think is more feminist awareness in the culture generally). As for the film we watched, it did include one rockin’ strong girl character – only one, but one is better than none. As for books, we are able to find many feminist-friendly reads to fill her endless reading desires (and she subscribes to New Moon, a great feminist magazine for girls). Television may be the area most difficult to put a positive spin on, but at least there are more girl-driven shows. As for school, in general I think there is more emphasis on a diversified curriculum, one that offers more than the hetero white male view of the world.

However, I wish we had come further since I turned eleven back in 1982. The Equal Rights Amendment failed to pass that year, and has yet to be ratified. Laura Ingalls was still rocking the prairie feminism in “”Little House on the Prairie,” and my mom watched a show driven by the super-heroines “Cagney and Lacey.” Sure, Daisy wasn’t wearing much in “Dukes of Hazzard” and Suzanne Sommers was the stereotypical blonde ditz “Three’s Company,” but at least we had the strong mom and daughter trio of “One Day at a Time.” In music, female power abounded via the likes of the GoGos, Joan Jett, and Stevie Nicks. And ET, the top grossing film of the year, gave us one of my longtime favorite female actresses, Drew Barrymore. It was the year Women’s History Week was officially recognized, which has happily expanded to an entire month. (Ah, would that we could have inclusive history year round!)

In my hazy recollections of being eleven in 1982, I recall feeling I could be or do anything I set my sites on. I think here, in 2010, my daughter feels the same despite the fact popular culture still inundates her with the message she is only a sex object, only good for how she can please men, only important so long as she “plays by the rules” and shrinks to fit the mold of the “ideal female.”

As her world expands to include more ideas and experiences, her body is still expected to shrink to fit ever smaller and tighter fashions. As she grows up, the “queen be” culture at school seems to become ever meaner and more judgmental. As she is able to watch “more grown up” television and films, she is introduced incessant sexualization, dehumanization, and silencing of females. And, as her body starts to show the markers of womanhood, she will undoubtedly become more battered by the male gaze of a culture that is more pornified than ever.

Alas, growing up for girls in our culture in many ways still means growing down – but with feminist moms like ourselves guiding our daughters as they grow, I take heart in the fact that many girls are given the opportunity to expand their thinking, their horizons (and yes, even their bodies) without exhortations to “be quiet and diet.”

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Last week, I faced a parenting moment that I knew would come eventually: my kids discovered a video game online that was, in my view, gratuitously and offensively violent—and I banished it from the screen. The game pits two characters (one controlled by the computer, one controlled by the player) who engage in face-to-face combat. It allows players to select weapons, beginning with a pre-modern arsenal of slingshots, bows and arrows, and Viking-style hatchets. But my boys soon worked their way up to machine guns, and their curiosity took over. The game got ugly, and they knew I wouldn’t approve. They showed me the game, and asked me if it was “OK” to play it. I said no, and we sat down for another round of mom’s edifying (or is that moralizing?) conversations (lectures?) on the subject of “why toy guns and violent video games are bad for kids.”

At the ages of 8 and 11, they still willingly participate in these discussions, though I know my days may be numbered. Since my boys were toddlers, I’ve done my best to keep plastic pistols out of their hands. I say “done my best” because in reality, we parents can’t control all the variables.  They’ve picked up water guns at the local pool, and they’ve received toy muskets as party favors—occasions that inspired my own half-hidden, disapproving eye-rolling.  They like to try their marksmanship with a Nerf-ball shooter, and I now realize that compared to the graphic, gory violence lurking in cyberspace, such playthings seem almost as tame as Legos.

But when it comes to micro-chip warfare, my boys know where I stand. And while they—like millions of other boys for whom these games are intended—are intrigued by cyber violence, they seem to get my point. My older son even wrote an essay last year titled “Why Kids Shouldn’t Play Violent Video Games”: a homework assignment that I was all too willing to help him with. Maybe I’m a walking cliché:  a forty-year-old suburban mother who detests violent video games with every fiber of my being. I’ve read books and articles on both sides of the issue: the experts who say that online violence “desensitizes” kids to real aggression; and the researchers who claim that it lets boys “blow off steam” while improving their manual dexterity. I’m more convinced by the former argument, but my reaction to violent games is more visceral and instinctive than rational or scientific. In a word, the sight of my children controlling a virtual machine gun—seeing a barrage of on-screen bullets emanating from their hands—makes me feel sick.

Honestly, I don’t get the appeal. But I’m not an eight-and-a-half-year-old boy. So over tacos last night, I asked my younger son and his friend why kids like these games. “It makes you feel awesome and super-strong,” his friend replied. Eli explained that games with brawls and fights are “more challenging and more addicting” because “you keep advancing to higher levels and getting better and better and beating them.” When I pointed out that Wii Sports or race car video games also provide those thrills, they agreed. “We like those games, too,” they said.

“Those games are OK,” I replied, mouthing the psycho-babble in the articles I’ve read, “because they let you gain skills and feel strong without destroying or killing another person. Even if you’re just pretending, feeling good because you can dominate or murder someone else isn’t a healthy or positive way to feel good about yourself.”

“So why do they make these games if they’re so bad?” my son asked. “Well isn’t that the 64,000 dollar question!” I replied. As I took the last bite out of my taco, I asked “do you guys want to stay here and talk about how video-game companies use violence to sell products and make money—or do you want to go upstairs and practice your magic tricks?” Fortunately, they chose the latter option, but I know the topic will re-surface around the dinner table again soon.

Sunday, February 28, 2010. I wake up, brew a pot of coffee, and sit down to read the Los Angeles Times. Then my world shifts ever so slightly.

On the front page of the Calendar section I see the headline, “Redeploying Gender.” Jumping off the page this time around, the gender in question is masculinity. Finally, splashed across the corporate page of a mainstream publication, gender is no longer code for women! I read this and it feels damn good.

The article in question is about film director Kathryn Bigelow’s war movie and Oscar-award front-runner, The Hurt Locker. More than just a blow-’em-up extravaganza, journalist Reed Johnson suggests that Bigelow’s film “shakes up traditional ideas of what men are and how they act.” Bigelow likes the big bang in her movies — guns, explosions, a rough-punch to the gut. And in The Hurt Locker, there’s plenty of that rugged, isolated individualism that so often defines modern manhood. But Bigelow is more deeply interested in the warrior codes of masculinity that are intertwined with men’s fears and feelings, and their conflicted impulses around loyalty and leadership, posturing and parenthood.

“Kathryn,” I want to say out loud (as if she were in my living room), “So am I!” And so are other writers thinking deeply about masculinity, like Jackson Katz, Judith “Jack” Halberstam, and Sinclair Sexsmith, just to check a few in the genre.

My caffeinated heart beats a bit faster with excitement and I continue reading the Times.

The article is quick to note that Kathryn Bigelow’s perspectives on masculinity should not be labeled “feminist” and even quicker to comment that a feminist label can be a death knell for women working in Hollywood. But as my eyes skip to the right-side of the page, I see film critic Betsy Sharkey has also invoked the F-word in a companion article, this time in reference to director James Cameron’s exploration of “what women want, how they define themselves,” and — to me, a key point — “how society values [women’s] worth.” It’s troubling that while Bigelow (and other women) face professional risk for getting labeled a feminist, Cameron stands to benefit. It’s a jarring juxtaposition.

But, this problem notwithstanding, Johnson counterposes that Cameron and Bigelow’s partially intertwined careers suggest a growing fluidity and flexibility in how gender perspectives function in film. [The italics are my added enthusiasm.]

Did I just see this right? This beautifully written, politically trenchant, gender-astute sentence — on the pages of the Sunday Times? With write-ups like this and more projects on the horizon (Michael Kimmel’s popular book Guyland is optioned by Dreamworks), the day is looking even brighter here in sunny SoCal.

Still, there’s a ways to go in cracking the celluloid ceiling.

As Jane Fonda comments on Huffington Post, there are great moments in film this year, thanks to women in Hollywood. Five years ago, Fonda, with Gloria Steinem and Robin Morgan, founded the Women’s Media Center to keep pointing out that “women are not only assets but requirements for a truly democratic media, and for strong, innovative entertainment.” We need to improve the numbers of women and people of color among the Hollywood players. But it helps that directors like Bigelow are shifting images of gender and masculinity in our everyday movie faves. This, too, is an important step toward gender justice.

Oh, and postscript. Thanks to Reed Johnson, I have a clever new phrase that I plan to use in a sentence today: Stealth Feminist. Brill!

My thoughts have very much been with Girl w/Penner Alison Piepmeier these past few weeks, in part because of what she is going through as she wrote about here, and in part because I’ve so enjoyed reading her latest book, Girl Zines: Making Media, Doing Feminism.  Published by NYU Press this past fall, it is a significant contribution, wonderfully well written.  Comprehensive in tracing the history of girls’ involvement with zines, Piepmeier shows the significance of how zines function as an activist, feminist space.  Through her analysis, Piepmeier offers that “considered collectively, zines are sites for the articulation of a vernacular third wave feminist theory.  Grrrl zines offer idiosyncratic, surprising, yet savvy and complex responses to the late twentieth-century incarnations of sexism, racism, and homophobia.”

Her meticulous research is organized into five chapters – each exploring an aspect of zines’ history and use. Piepmeier gives an overview of the legacy of “grrrl zines” and their use by third wavers, then moves into the special joys the materiality of zines offers, particularly in contrast to the virtual world.  She analyzes how zines explore gender expectations, sexuality, motherhood, and intersectional identities through writing and drawing about topics such as body image, naming and calling out injustice, struggles with relationships and sexuality, in addition to creating visions for the future.  Finally, she offers a reading of zines as a “public pedagogy of hope” considering how zines are spaces of activism and agents of change.

Piepmeier is adept at revealing the incredible uniqueness of the zine as an active space for women and girls — a locus to work out identity, talk back to the presumptions of the mainstream media, contest heteronormative representations, and unleash anger, frustration, and an urge for change.  Her reading of zines as material artifacts of a generation’s grappling with cultural and political ideology becomes fascinating as these handmade artifact accrue meaning collectively.

What becomes progressively more mesmerizing is the revelation of how many levels at which the zine can function.  A handmade object, its value is held, in part, from the intimacy of containing the literal impressions of the hand that made it, then sent through the mail (almost old-fashioned now) with personalized attention, to be read individually.  Piepmeier points out the zine’s foremother in the scrapbook, then second wave’s move to the mimeograph machine, as part of a legacy of spaces where women collect images, preserve thoughts, and by taking the reins of independent printing also unleash words that might not otherwise be said, often around sexual abuse or identity, or dialogues that deviate from an omnipresenent cultural script.  Particularly interesting is watching the progression of Bitch magazine from its original zine roots in 1996 to its present-day incarnation with a major distributor as it straddled “zine and magazine status.”

This open space — standing outside “traditional” publishing practices of the magazine aimed at the teen girl, releases in zinesters an empowering sense of being able to say whatever they want, and unmasks worlds of emotion, rhetorics of protest, and concern with the micropolitical that uniquely combine in this format.  As Piepmeier details, the intersection of text and image, and a consequent sense of invention allows zinesters to query a multiplicity of issues through use of “flux, contradiction, and fragmentation” as she writes, using the zine as a space to both experiment and to creatively play.

Also conveyed is the sense of deep satisfaction zine-makers feel with their creations; by constructing their zines so they construct their subjectivities. Piepmeier writes, “I suggest that the physical act of creating a zine locates zine creators in their bodies… and the act of reading does the same thing for the reader, and thus they are brought into an embodied community.”  Her reading of these zines makes visible the palimpsest zinesters are writing over a cultural preset of female identity as zinesters articulate their outlooks, wounds, and joys.  This deeply affecting work collectively yields a deep effect – just like Piepmeier’s important book.