The idea that wearing a dress or seeming girly is a sign that one is gay is also completely ahistorical. If wearing a dress as a child means boys are gay, then there should have been essentially no straight men for much of American history. Until the 1920s, infants and small children, whether male or female, were dressed and looked alike, often in long hair and dresses (source: Jo Paoletti). Behold, American President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945):
Roosevelt may or may not have been gay then, but this outfit and hairdo certainly cannot be read to suggest that he was, at least not anymore than it can for young people and adults today.
It’s been a big week for stories of families denied and disrupted by the state. Family denial came up in the form of bodily intervention (as in North Carolina’s eugenics program), border control (as when Jose Antonio Vargas‘s mother put him on a one-way plane for the U.S.), parents’ incarceration, or legal denial of family rights (the refusal to recognize gay marriage, or what I suggest we call homogamous marriage).
(1) North Carolina’s eugenics program was the subject of hearings this week, dragging on with no compensation for the 7,600 people who were involuntarily sterilized between 1929 and 1977. A collection of literature at the State Library of North Carolina includes this 1950 propaganda pamphlet:
(2) Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, recounted his life as an undocumented immigrant. His mother put him on a plane for the U.S. with false papers, maybe never to see him again.
(4) The 40th anniversary of the drug war was a bleak reminder of the millions of U.S. families separated by incarceration during that time.
The text says, “more women and mothers are behind bars than at any time in U.S. history,” from (www.usprisonculture.com).
(My graph from data in an article by Wildeman and Western in The Future of Children)
Philip N. Cohen is a professor of sociology at the University of Maryland, College Park, and writes the blog Family Inequality. You can follow him on Twitter or Facebook.
The Stonewall Inn is a bar in Greenwich Village in New York. In the ’60s the bar was frequented by, among others, gay, lesbian, and transgender locals. On June 28, 1969, in response to frequent harassment by police, the patrons rioted. The description on Wikipedia, I must admit, is worth the read. Suffice to say that the police were roundly trounced. The riot is often cited as the birth of the LGBT rights movement.
This is purported to be the only photograph of the riot:
And this is a picture of the Inn, three months later, with a sign in the window that reads:
We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village.
Originally posted Feb. 11, 2009. Reposted in honor of the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
I found a collection of images relating to gay and lesbian studies put together at Columbia University, including this scan of a NYT article on what came to be known as the Stonewall Riots, when crowds reacted violently when police attempted to raid a club on June 28, 1969 (skirmishes continued for several days):
Graffiti from the Stonewall Riots (published in the Village Voice):
There are also some other good photos unrelated to Stonewall such as this one, from 1962, of entertainers at a drag club being hauled off by police after a raid:
The database might be useful if you’re interested in what is generally seen as the start of the gay rights movement.
Recently while reading the feminist magazine Bitch, I came across an interview with Leila Cohan-Miccio and Caitlin Tegart, creators of the web series Vag Magazine. The series focuses on three women who buy a fashion magazine and recreate it as a feminist magazine, a la Bitch or Bust. The young women, Bethany, Fennel, and Sylvie, are stereotypical third-wave feminists. The series pokes fun at them specifically and third-wave feminism in general, highlighting the differences between a vision of feminism as empowering women as a group (Meghan, the “normal” character used to ground the viewer, defines feminism as the idea that men and women should be equal) and the idea that empowerment means individual women are free to do “whatever they want” and “have fun”:
The series reveals some of the limitations of “catch-phrase feminism” (to use a term from Brittany Shoot’s Bitch article). These catchphrases echo throughout American culture: “You go girl!” “It’s about choice!” Vag Magazine’s theme song informs the audience, “A girl is a girl, because she is power. Power is power because it’s a girl.” Another prominent pop culture feminist, Lisa Simpson, sums up this vision of feminism: “Well, as a feminist, virtually anything a woman does is empowering” (“The Blue and the Gray,” originally aired February 13, 2011). A viewpoint like this is inclusive, but can also shut down meaningful conversation. For example, the young women have trouble getting anything done (Fennel hires an intern because “We don’t believe in hierarchies, but we also don’t have time to get our own coffee.”) In another instance, Bethany, Fennel, and Sylvie tell Meghan that the skirts she wants to write about aren’t feminist enough, but are unable to clearly articulate what a feminist skirt would be.
Third-wave feminism is sometimes viewed with disdain because it can seem empty: if any choice a woman makes can be construed as feminist, then perhaps no act can be truly called feminist. At the same time, third-wave feminists can be more inclusive than previous generations: stay-at-home moms, working mothers, sex workers, and scientists are all embraced. However, there can be less of an emphasis on organizing and fighting for equality (though recent efforts to support Planned Parenthood and organize Slut Walks shows that third-wave feminists are interested in more than mere slogans).
Various episodes also address the available media options for those looking for a feminist perspective. The main rival to Vag Magazine is Cunt, a magazine staffed by more stereotypically aggressive feminists. The series shows how often women can feel like they are stuck with only two images of feminism: New Age-y “I honor you as a woman” feminists who seem spacey and ineffectual, or the stereotype of the radical man-hater. Episode 4, “Feminist Sweepstakes,” delves into this dichotomy. The episode starts with Fennel wanting to read her poem; she is asked to wait until the designated poetry hour; these women feel so much that they must have an entire poetry hour. Later, the audience is introduced to Jaybird, the editor of Cunt. Jaybird and her followers wear leather vests and jeans, which contrasts with the dresses, pastel colors, and feathers favored by the Vag staff. Only Meghan, the audience stand-in, gets to be “normal” – that is, reasonable. During the two magazines’ confrontation, Jaybird yells and talks about the patriarchy; Bethany and Fennel use poetry and talk about honoring Cunt’s place. Meghan is the only one who can speak clearly and without rhetoric, transcending common feminist stereotypes, doing so by being clever and critical.
But Vag Magazine is not about putting women down or just laughing at them or feminism. Indeed, there is a lot of love in this series, and a lot to celebrate. The cast is all-female, and all funny. The women are able to buy the magazine thanks to their efforts at selling crafts on Etsy. They do publish an issue of their magazine: they are, ultimately, successful. Indeed, the women of Vag Magazine act out the inner turmoil about how to present themselves as feminists to the world. The series humorously highlights the bind modern feminists often find themselves in: how to be inclusive without embracing everything, how to be forthright and challenging of inequality but not bullying.
In the 1940s and ’50s dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, a synthetic pesticide better known as DDT, was used to kill bugs that spread malaria and typhus in several parts of the world. DDT was argued to be toxic to humans and the environment in the famous environmental opus, Silent Spring. It was banned by the U.S. government in 1972.
Before all that, though, it was sprayed in American neighborhoods to suppress insect populations. The new movie Tree of Life has a great scene re-enacting the way that children would frolick in the spray as the DDT trucks went by. Here are two screen shots from the trailer:
Searching around, I also found some vintage footage (the person who uploaded the clip doesn’t specify the documentary):
The scene reminded me of an old post we’d written, below, featuring advertisements for the pesticide, one with the ironic slogan “DDT is good for Me-e-e!”
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DDT was a pesticide marketed to housewives (and many others). We later discovered it to be an environmental toxin. Below are three of the advertisements (via Mindfully and KnowDrama and noticed thanks to John L.):
Katrin sent along a link to a Los Angeles Times article reporting on how family composition in the LA area has changed in the past decade. The short story is that families are less “traditional” than they were ten years ago. Only 23% of households are now made up of a married couple with kids (down 10% since 2000). Meanwhile, single-parent families, non-married partners (with and without kids), and same-sex couples (with and without kids) have all increased by 20-25%. Married couples without kids are up too (by 4%), they’re now 26% of all households.
The maps below show the percent of households in each census tract that include an unmarried couple living together. Darker orange means a greater percentage. You can see that this convention-breaking isn’t evenly distributed. I think the big orange blob underneath Burbank is Silver Lake/Echo Park, a notoriously hip part of the city where you find lots of “hipsters,” and Hollywood, where the population of same-sex couples is likely higher.
Los Angelenos, do you see anything else interesting?
Dolores R. sent us a link to some graphics at Mother Jones about work and income. There are a lot of different topics covered, but I thought I’d highlight their inclusion of some maps generated by the McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy, which gathers international data on government policies about work and family, such as requirements for paid parental leave.
This map shows how much weekly time off from work national governments have guaranteed workers (16 nations require none):
Of course, some nations, like the U.S., don’t regulate whether hourly-wage workers must have a day off each week but require they be paid at a higher rate if they work more than a certain number of hours (40 is usually the magic number in the U.S.), though this often doesn’t really apply to salaried workers, who aren’t paid by the hour.
Here’s paid annual leave (9 nations have none):
Paid maternity leave (6 nations have none):
The McGill Institute has interactive maps that let you compare global policies on a number of family-work balance issues. You can get global maps, such as these, or compare specific countries.
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