“Where are the women? The strong women? The women we’d like to see in 200 years? Where are they in this world? They certainly aren’t around the roundtable when the Starfleet are learning about Khan (there might have been one in that scene, if so that extra was not cut to in any significant manner to be notable.) In the scene where Kirk gets his ship back and the admiral is having a meeting with “important” people around a table later, I failed to see ONE WOMAN AROUND THAT TABLE, ALL MOSTLY WHITE MEN IMPLIED TO BE MAKING IMPORTANT DECISIONS TOGETHER. Yes, these are just scenes with extras, but seriously, in the future not one woman over 40 is in charge in this world?! How can that happen? ”
—Felicia Day on Star Trek I.D.More here:
http://thisfeliciaday.tumblr.com/post/50858883769/star-trek-movie-spoilerzzzz
Why I Need Feminism: A Recent Realization
While driving to work today I had a very vivid memory that I haven’t thought about in years.
When I was in high school, I walked to and from school every day. I lived really close, and the walk took about 10-15 minutes. One day while walking home, I was close to my neighborhood entrance when a loud car pulled up to me with all of it’s windows down. It was full of older, intimidating, aggressive looking men who started simultaneously all yelling “Hey baby, nice ass!”, “What’s your name?”, and “Wanna go for a ride?” at me. I became clearly uncomfortable. I was an awkward teenager just coming to terms with my own developing body, wearing jeans and a blouse. Crossing my arms over my chest, I silently acknowledge that none of my shirts seem to conceal my ever-growing bosom anymore and I am growing red with embarrassment. I try to ignore them, and their car keeps following me. After 10 feet of this, they are still yelling at me, and begin waving wads of money out the window in my direction screaming “How much, baby?”
“Please leave me alone” I finally answer, and try to continue walking. They burst into laughter. When they continue to follow me, despite the blatant fear written all over my face, I quickly turn around, cut through a backyard, and walk in the opposite direction, even though I can still hear them yelling from where I left them. When I cannot hear them anymore I tear off my backpack, dig through it for a black hoodie sweatshirt, quickly throw it on over my clothes, despite the absurdly hot weather, and walk down the mile road that borders my neighborhood.
My family’s neighborhood is 1 square mile, stretching between mile roads. I am so terrified that I will run into the car that followed me into that entrance, I walk a mile and a half to the other side, and make my way home from there. By the time I made it to my front door I was exhausted, overheated, and completely terrified.
I never saw the car again. I never saw those horrible people either. It wasn’t until recently that I even remembered this story. If there is no other reason why I need feminism, it is because horrible people like that think that they are entitled to talk to anybody that way, and that when a clearly frightened young teenager actually asks them to stop, they can only laugh.
Former British racing driver Sir Stirling Moss believes women do not have the mental skills to race competitively in Formula 1.
So i came across this enlightening, lovely article this morning of how women lack the mental fortitude and capacity to compete in such ‘life-threatening’ sports.
“The trouble is, when you’re racing, it’s pretty tiring,” said Moss, who is widely regarded as the greatest driver never to have won the F1 world championship.
“We had three-hour races in those days. You needed tremendous concentration. Now races are only one hour and 10 minutes.” Moss feels women have the necessary physical strength to race but thought they would be lacking mentally.
“I used to blow a kiss if ever I’d lap her. The good news is she knew there was a race going on around her and she’d keep an eye on her mirrors and she’d always pull over. Her manners and everything were terrific. She was there to drive against us, but quite frankly, we’ve had some very competent lady drivers but they really haven’t been in a winning position in a grand prix.”
“The mental stress I think would be pretty difficult for a lady to deal with in a practical fashion. I just don’t think they have aptitude to win a Formula 1 race.”
“For Moss, it’s unbelievable that a female would drive a Formula 1 car, which is fair enough. In the days they were racing, every time they stepped into a car, they were putting their life on the line. But F1 is much more technologically advanced, it’s much safer than it was.”
After all of this one of the commentors added:
“Women’s natural construction is not suited to the specific demands and rigours of f1. You need razor reflexes, great spacial abilities and great mental fortitude. Men have these abilities to a greater extent than women as they were the ones being chased by woolly mammoths all day as they tried to catch supper.”
Oh i do apologise, us week-minded woman lack those ‘special abilities’ to compete against men, if only we had been chasing those wooly mammoths, damn it and our lazy ancestors.
I have never seen so much bullshit in one small article and people say things like “why are you a feminist, its not a big issue in todays society” well just read this article along with the hundreds of mysogonistic comments. It really is depressing especially coming from someone who is at the top of his game and is respected by so many people.
Here’s the full article [x]
A World without Rape Culture: Not a Concept, but a Possible Future
share.pdfonline.comIf anybody would like to read my finished Research Report on Rape Culture. Here it is. I’d love some feedback, honestly haha. If you’re interested, give it a read :)
- Me: “Good afternoon! Welcome to [store name]. How may I assist you?”
- Customer: “My phone’s not working, and your service is crap.”
- Me: “Well, I’d be more than happy to help you. Sorry for your inconvenience.”
- Customer: “Just fix the d*** thing and stop talking!”
- Me: *shocked* “Yes, sir.”
- (After a few minutes of testing his device, I figure out the problem is that the phone simply has not been charged.)
- Me: “Sir, your phone is dead. It needs to be charged. That’s why you weren’t able to place a call or turn the device on.”
- Customer: “That’s bulls***. I want to talk to your manager!”
- Me: “I am the manager, sir.”
- Customer: “But you’re a woman!”
- Me: “Yes, sir, last time I checked, I was.”
- Customer: *very condescendingly* “Your place is in the kitchen. I want to speak with a male!”
- Me: *speechless*
This afternoon, I turned on the TV and Ellen was on. I like Ellen DeGeneres. I like her show. I generally think she’s funny (I went to see her standup once, and laughed heartily).
But there were a couple of things about this episode that kind of rubbed me the wrong way. First, Ellen’s been having an underwear model search. Nothing wrong with that. Except that she had her winner, Mike, come out in only underwear, and do the entire interview sitting practically naked.
She goes on to offer him various nicknames (i.e., “Cinnabuns,” “Sweet Cheeks”) before talking about his actual, very significant achievements. Turns out Mike is a new dad and a Purple Heart veteran, but after a ten-second mention of that, she finishes out the interview by telling him that they have “business” for him to do:
And that “business” involves him bending down to mime picking up a coin.
If this was a man acting this way toward a woman, there would be outrage.
Yes, women have a lot more to overcome in terms of sexism than men. And yes, a huge majority of the time, women are the ones who have to prove their place above and beyond looks. And yes, Ellen’s show is generally kind hearted — though it does, rather often, parade men out for no other real reason than to flex their muscles.
Mike participated in The Ellen Show model search willingly. So did the women who provided reaction shots for Seth MacFarlane’s song. But why is this okay, and Seth MacFarlane’s trivial, rather unfunny “Boob Song” not? Shouldn’t they be at about the same level?
“I copped to the fact that we should have done a better job of not being gratuitous in our representation of a barely clothed actress. We also had Kirk shirtless in underpants in both movies. Do not want to make light of something that some construe has mysogenistic [sic]. What I’m saying is I hear you, I take full responsibility, and will be more mindful in the future.”
—Star Trek Into Darkness co-writer apologizes for sexist scene with Alice Eve.F**inism
Katy Perry is hardly a solution to any of feminism’s ailments, but she may be a symptom.
Perry, queen of spandex body suits and candy-coated underwear, was presented with the Billboard Woman of the Year award for 2012. The award is a relatively new one, only five years old, and its previous recipients include pop idols Ciara, Beyonce, Fergie and Taylor Swift. Condescension aside, the award is largely seen as a symbolic and cursory nod to reversing gender attitudes in the pop industry by celebrating women that own their music and their image; the awards evening purports to celebrate the most successful female music executives and artists. It aims to honour women that are in control of their destinies in a largely pimped out industry. Given the intent of the award then, it’s not a 20-inch waste pinch to say that it is the cursory glamour child of third wave feminism.
Back in December Perry was ceremonially awarded with her plaque. She stepped up the podium against the dulcet tones of her own number one hit “Firework” while a room of successful women clapped and cheered for her and flash bulbs erupted upon her.
Her speech was simple enough and predictable. “I am so honored by this award” she began, following with a perfunctory acknowledgment that she was “…surrounded by so many of the other inspiring women”. Next came the charming joke. Then a bit of personal interest about fighting for herself and her vision “while other people had other ideas” regarding who she should be as a female pop star. Then, to round it out beautifully she deftly ticked the awards night speech box with an all out denouncing of feminism. Cue awkward record scratch.
Now infamous, this speech of course included the since frenzied sound bite “I am not a feminist, but I do believe in the strength of women”.
Interestingly, Perry’s rejection of feminism (akin to ‘eww get it off me’) joins a growing list of similar statements as powerful, independent women across the board are deciding that feminism just isn’t for them: Carla Bruni and Marrissa Mayer recently, but also Taylor Swift, Dita Von Teese, Geri Halliwell, Cat Marnell and Suzanne Venker. Consider them losses to the cause or not, but one must ask: why is ‘feminism’ a dirty word in 2012?
Leave the pages of E News Weekly and Star magazine and the problem becomes even more pronounced. Only about 12% of surveyed women consider themselves feminists, despite the high probability that they believe in the central tenets of feminism- you know, ‘autonomy’ and ‘equality’. In the modern English speaking world, these are expectations, not pipe-dreams for Santa.
Perry, superficially at least, is very much a feminist: she’s a powerful woman making her dreams real, seeking to support other women who want the same thing. The same goes for Bruni, Mayer, Von Teese, Marnell and most of the 88% of women surveyed. So why, unprompted, did Perry ‘come out’? Why did they all? What is it about feminism that they find unattractive in name alone?
The first and most obvious issue is that feminism is a complicated movement.
It’s tainted with the radicalism of the 1960’s, Germaine Greer, hairy legs and burning lingerie. To the modern woman, these do not represent attractive options. Further, it lives on most prominently in academia, housing an infinite amount of niche interpretations making it difficult to readily define. Cursory readings of the literature will lead to inner turmoil. According to scholar Catherine Mackinnon, if you engage in raunch culture or sexual promiscuity, you are a victim of misogyny, but ask another scholar, say Ellen Willis, and she would say that promiscuity is a form of power all on its own. Feminism as movement has never been explicitly defined and its tendency to fluidity is unattractive and confusing. It’s popularized persona is unfortunately bought and sold by the wider world as believing that to shave, to look nice, to want babies, to want marriage, to have sex, to listen to pop music, to make sex jokes, to flirt and to just like men are all anti-feminist offences.
For both of these reasons and with a little bit of help from within, Feminism appears to be quite a hostile movement, it looks radical and looks like an exclusive club. It appears to be radical, judgmental and exclusionary.
And to make matters worse, ‘Feminism’, as a fluid, poorly defined and loosely linked community doesn’t always do the best job of proving onlookers wrong.
When Perry made her statement, the Internet exploded with feminist commentators armed only with anger and a litany of synonyms for ignorant bimbo. Their reaction is a sympathetic one, but a radical one. None of them thought to question why she said what she said, none considered that she might have a reason for what she said; it was assumed that as a pop star she was incapable of having an independent thought. Just because Perry has a bra that doubles as a whipped cream cannon does not mean that she is necessarily an enemy to the cause. She is clearly a bright woman- say what you want but being a pop princess that has her life in her control is not easy nor simply a matter of dumb luck- and she is successful, she has a dream and it realizing it. This is not an unworthy message.
Watching this unfold, the 88% of women that see feminism as passé would probably have felt justified in their decision- who really wants to be associated with a movement that looks down on women that supposedly let down the cause in a perverted, reverse Henry Miller witch hunt? It is easy to understand why the general public feels the way that it does.
The other women on that list of ‘defectors’ were pointed at with firm index fingers of belittlement opposed to considered empathy. Civil war does not seem warranted when these women are not actually diminishing the plight of women, as say Sarah Palin is or pro- life activists are. Being identifiable as a feminist should be low on the list of things that are important. As long as a woman stands for other women and their freedom then they should be left alone.
Feminism as a movement has a long history of being both provocative and effective. But it is clearly still not a movement of the past, it still has room to strive and room to grow. In Australia 2013 Women still earn less money than men, women are still represented less in parliament, women still have to fight for their right to choose, women are still the victims of domestic abuse and women are still slut shamed. There is plenty to fight for and plenty to rally against- we don’t need to pick fights where no punches were pulled. Feminism cannot afford to become irrelevant to 88% of the population. Feminism cannot afford to be a dirty word in 2013.
Caught on Video: Hedgefund Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones says love for their children is what means women will never be as good as men at Macro Trading
washingtonpost.com
”As soon as that baby’s lips touched that girl’s bosom, forget it, Jones said at a U-Va. symposium in April.”
According to Hedgefund Billionaire Paul Tudor Jones: In macro trading, babies are a killer to a woman’s focus. These comments were made in a symposium closed to the press but the washington Post got a hold of the video using the Freedom of Information Act. He basically admitted to being a bad parent and one that has little to no focus on his children. These comments really are an insult men and women everywhere.
Also isn’t this the same guy that ousted University of Virginia’s first female president Teresa Sullivan because she refused to “approach the school with the bottom-line mentality of a corporate chief executive”
Some Mormon ladies came to our front door...
they asked for my mom, a long ex-Mormon, and I stupidly said she was home. I eavesdropped on their conversation in the door way. When they asked why my mom wasn’t still with the church, she bald facedly said that it was because the church was a horrible patriarchy. Women can’t hold priesthood, her old church leader told her that going to college was a bad decision and she should just find a nice man, etc. She got a bachelors in architecture and a masters in business, and I think it’s worked out pretty well for us. I don’t really know where I was going with this… I guess it’s just ‘cause sometimes I forget that my mom was a second wave feminist, and I don’t really encounter feminism or misogyny so close to home.
I'm a little bit high at the moment, but bear with me:
Have you ever thought, or do you think it might be possible that the reason that the (majority of) the men are prone to be dominating and that the (majority of) the women are prone to be submissive, is because that’s how nature/genes/biology made us so procreation would be inevitable?
Most men become sexually aroused when they somehow dominate a woman.
Most women become sexually aroused when they are somehow submissive to a man.
(and homosexuality is a genetic mutation {for lack of a better term, I’m not biologist})
Thoughts?
