Going on 500 of you “liked” our recent post summarizing the statistical case against Walmart for gender discrimination.  A new Catalyst report, sent along by Washburn University Professor Sangyoub Park, reveals that Walmart isn’t alone in failing to promote women.  The study of Fortune 500 companies found that the percent of board seats and corporate officer positions held by women have been increasing, but not particularly quickly (source):

As of 2010, 18% of senior officers and 6% of their top earners were women (source):

136 of the 500 companies had exactly zero female executives.

The data, however, actually varies quite tremendously by type of company (in a way that dovetails with general job segregation by sex):

Data from the Deloitte Global Center for Corporate Governance, covered by NPR, reveal how the United States compares to other similar countries.  It shows that Europe is also struggling to achieve parity in the boardroom:

Sometimes public service announcements miss the mark.  Like really, really miss the mark.  In 2009 I described an anti-teen pregnancy PSA as gut-wrenchingly horrible and the feeling has not waned with time.  It suggests that teenagers who have gotten (someone) pregnant are dirty, cheap pricks, nobodies, and rejects.  We’ve also highlighted PSAs against statutory rape featuring children with giant breasts and an anti-domestic violence campaign in which you “hit the bitch.”

The campaign I’d like to discuss in this post is along these lines.  Brought to my attention by Debbie at Body Impolitic, it is the Georgia Children’s Health Alliance’s anti-childhood obesity campaign.  And it shames fat children and encourages viewers to retain negative stereotypes about them.  First, I wonder how it must feel to be chosen to be the posterchild for this campaign?

Second, some of the short videos available on the website confirm nasty stereotypes about fat people.  Like, all they do is eat:

Ironically, some of the videos acknowledge that fat children are subject to discrimination (at least from other kids), but that doesn’t appear to have stopped them from feeding that prejudice with their message.

Forbes magazine recently ranked Stockton California as the most miserable city in the US, a dubious award that comes as little surprise to the city’s struggling residents. Home prices have declined 67% since 2005, unemployment averaged a whopping 17.2% in 2010, and Stockton has the second highest crime rate in California.

Cross-posted at Ms.

Growing up in America, we learn that sweets and junk food are “guilty pleasures.” Women, especially, are supposed to refrain from such indulgences.  And, if they cannot — if they, for example, desire more than that modest slice of cake served to each birthday guest — then they should feel not only guilt, but shame.  For overindulging is grotesque and it, accordingly, should be hidden and kept secret.

This is the cultural background to Lee Price‘s realist paintings of women (mostly her) eating sweets and junk food.  She draws two contrasts.  First, she makes very public something we are supposed to do only in private.  Not only do the paintings literally display the transgression, the birds eye view and frequent nudity exaggerates the sheer display of the indulgence.  And, second, she takes something that is supposedly disgusting and shameful and presents it in a medium associated with (high) art, challenging the association of indulgence with poor character and a lack of refinement.  Fascinating.

Visit Lee Price’s website.
Via BoingBoing.

Christine sent us a link to some fabulous photos coming out of Toronto. In January a member of the Toronto Police force, Const. Michael Sanguinetti, suggested to students at York University that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized” (source).  In response, SlutWalk was born.  The SlutWalk, which strode just yesterday, was a march designed to draw attention to the way in which the term “slut” is used to stigmatize and invalidate women.

As Leora Tanenbaum argues in Slut! Growing Up Female with a Bad Reputation, the term is used to control all women, not just women who want to have sex, because it can be applied to girls and women regardless of their sexual activity (as any virgin with a slut reputation can tell you).  Young girls grow up using, and fearing, the slut label.  And that label continues to be used against them as adults, even when it comes to sexual assault, as the police officer’s comment makes clear.

In an effort to bring attention to word and  its use as a mechanism of control girls, women and men of all sexual activity levels came together on Sunday, re-claiming and diffusing the “slut” label.

Lisa Wade, PhD is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of American Hookup, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender; and a forthcoming introductory text: Terrible Magnificent Sociology. You can follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

To great acclaim, we previously featured the work of Adriel Luis after Occidental student Samantha Figueroa illustrated his poem “Slip of the Tongue” with clips from Pocahontas.  Luis is back with a touching spoken word performance inspired by the Watts riots in Los Angeles.

Visit Luis at Ill-literacy.

Men and women are told, in a myriad of daily ways, that being masculine is good and feminine bad. It sneaks into our daily language in ways that are so common that we fail to even see it anymore. For example, a recent New York Times article about Google’s effort to determine what makes managers successful featured a list, written by Google, of what makes a good boss.

I noticed that they added The New York Times added the phrase “Don’t be a sissy” to “Good Behavior” #4.  It reads “Don’t be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented.”   It’s the only Good Behavior that includes a derisive slur. And while I’m accustomed to seeing terms like “sissy” thrown around as insults, it occurred to me that the very next rule #5, “Be a good communicator and listen to your team,” could easily have been prefaced with “Don’t be a man.”

But being a “sissy” (that is, feminine) is something that we can all agree is bad, while being a man is good.  So, even when the rules suggest that men take on feminized traits, they’re unlikely to adorn the suggestion with a denigration of masculinity.

Via Teppo at OrgTheory.

Feminist Frequency‘s Anita Sarkeesian has released the first of her series of short videos examining the roles women are often assigned in movies and television.  In this one she goes after the “manic pixie dream girl,” or the female side character who helps the male main character find himself, love life again, or overcome some obstacle.  This character, Sarkeeisan argues, is problematic because she “perpetuates the myth of women as caregivers at our very core”; her main role is to “‘fix’ these lonely sad men, so that they can go ‘fix the world.'”  The women themselves?  They’re too busy being adorable.

(Transcript after the jump.)

A trope is a common pattern in a story or a recognizable attribute in a character that conveys information to the audience. A trope becomes a cliche when it’s overused. Sadly, some of these tropes often perpetuate offensive stereotypes.

In the world according to Hollywood men are often written as the great protectors, the heroes, the creators and the inventors, but sometimes all that pressure of running the entire world really gets them down. Enter the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, the shining beacon of child like joy that will rejuvenate our fallen hero.

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a term coined by Nathan Rabin to describe the female character whose written to help the usually white, and definitely straight male hero loosen up and enjoy life. Rabin writes, “That bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is a supporting character used to further the storyline of the male hero.
She really has no life of her own, she has no family or interests or much of job that we ever see.
She is as the AVclub describes, “On hand to lift a gloomy male protagonist out of the doldrums,
not to pursue her own happiness.”

All of these male characters find a Manic Pixie to help them out of their depressed, uptight and doom and gloom state so that they can be happy functioning members of society again.

Let’s start with Kirsten Dunst’s character from Elizabethtown who is the catalyst for Rabin naming this trope. Drew Baylor played by Orlando Bloom has just lost his job, his girlfriend and he decides he wants to kill himself. So just at that very moment he gets a call from his sister saying his father died and he needs to go handle the family affair. Drew gets on a plane and meets Claire, a flight attendant who talks to him throughout the whole flight even though he’s clearly not interested in interacting with her. Claire eventually guides Drew on a personal journey of self exploration, growth and embracing fun.

CLIP: Elizabethtown

“I’m checking out this cute guy.”
“Why are you telling me that?”
“How could I leave you in distress?”
“I’m taking you out.”

You might remember Zooey Deschanel in 500 days of Summer, the non-committing love interest of the film’s star Tom Hansen played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt. The story follows Tom on his journey of falling in and out of love with Summer Finn. They have the classic Manic Pixie Dream Girl scene where they are frolicking around in the world and the Manic Pixie teaches the uptight star how to embrace his inner child.

CLIP: 500 Days of Summer

“Penis”
“Penis”
“Penis”
“Penis”
“There’s kids around.”
“There are no kids around.”
“Penis”
“Penis”
“Are you having fun?”
“Ya”
“This is the kind of thing you did with the Puma?”
“No… we rarely left the room.”
“Penis!”
“Sorry tourettes, you know how it is.”
“Penis”
“She has it too.”
“Penis”
“Peeeennnniiiisssss!”
“Shhhhhh….”

And this list would not be complete without an appearance from Natalie Portman. Her young and bubbly child like character in Garden State just might be the quintessential Manic Pixie Dream Girl. She’s here to guide angsty, emo Andrew Largeman played by Zach Braff out of his depressed state and general gloominess all with traditional Manic Pixie child like glee.

CLIP: Garden State

“Any way… ah… I’m talking too much, you gotta fill out your forms.”
“What are you listening to?”
“The Shins, you know em?”
“No”
“You gotta hear this one song, it’ll change your life I swear.”
“Oh I’m sorry, you have to, ah, fill out your forms.  Conundrum. Think you could uh, maybe listen while
you fill out-” “Ya I think I can handle that” “Ya?”

The list of Manic Pixies kind of goes on and on and on. There’s Kate Hudson’s character in Almost Famous,
Meg Ryan in Joe Versus the Volcano, Charlize Theron in Sweet November, and what about Winona Ryder in Autumn in New York, Rachel Bilson in The Last Kiss and Elisha Cuthbert in My Sassy Girl among others.

The Manic Pixie perpetuates the myth of women as caregivers at our very core, that we can go “fix” these lonely sad men, so that they can go “fix the world”. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is really a muse who exists to be the inspiration for the troubled, tortured man.  In fact we should talk about this whole idea of a muse which is the foundation for this trope. For centuries male filmmakers, writers, painters, artists of all kinds have often cited women as the inspiration for their brilliant masterpieces.

I swear if I hear one more story like this I’m going to scream. Or puke. Or both.

Women are not here for men’s inspiration or celebration or whatever else. We are musicians and artists and writers with our own brilliant and creative endeavors. But you wouldn’t know that from the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope.

Needless to say, the Manic Pixie, not so great for women’s representations.

So Hollywood writers, let me remind you that women are not here for your inspiration, celebration or to coax you out of your troubles. You might not know this but we’re full and complete human beings with our own troubles, interests and creative endeavors.

So how’s about your stop using us as your muse and start writing us as real people.