BROAD SPOT

Ashton Kutcher, are you just really inappropriately trying to punk me?

2011-04-13T10:47:00.004-04:00

Have you seen Ashton Kutcher's new anti-sex trafficking ads? They are ridiculous.

Do they really think that a potential buyer of sex slaves will see these ads and think, "Nope, you're right. I should just make a grilled cheese sandwich with an iron now.." Celebrity vanity projects where they make PSAs ABOUT a problem that in no way SOLVE a problem, and here, just MAKE A MOCKERY OF A PROBLEM, are the one of the most exhausting elements of pop culture.

Okay Jessica Biel, just because you have been in movies, why do you think you need to try to solve problems you don't seem to know much about, or else you wouldn't BE in such ads? Are you doing this to suck up to your ex-boyfriend? Were you guys still together at the time you both made your respective PSAs and you were trying to stay in his good books so he wouldn't leave you for that piece Olivia Wilde?

And you know what, part of the problem with trafficking of women is that we live in a our world where women are still often treated as objects. IF you didn't want to treat a woman like an object, why would you BUY her? So, being the sexy girl who purrs out to be a "real man" at the end of a PSA about a women's issue where the boys get to be the stars, well, aren't you just feeding the objectifying gaze? You're not FIGHTING the attitudes towards women that perpetuate sexual slavery of women. You are confirming some men's disgusting belief that women are just there to look hot and service men...

Angelina Jolie is too old to be a bombshell at 35?

2011-03-11T18:38:00.003-05:00

Instead of making a third Tomb Raider movie with Angelia Jolie, who originated the character on film, the powers that be have decided to recast the role. Apparently, at 35, Ms. Jolie is now too old to be a bombshell. Nope, can't work with her - have to replace her. This, to me, is evidence of EXTREME sexism in hollywood. Think about it, Harrison Ford was 39 when he STARTED playing Indiana Jones, and got to play him twice more in his 40s, and once more again in his 60s. Robert Downey Junior got to start two major franchises (Iron Man AND Sherlock Holmes) in his 40s, and Daniel Craig was no 20-something when he took over from Pierce Brosnan as James Bond.

The doublestandard is obvious - men in hollywood gets some of their BEST opportunities AFTER 35, whereas women - even beautiful women like Ms. Jolie - are replaced by someone ten years their junior while still very much in their prime. By today's average lifespan in North America, 35 isn't even yet middle-aged, and yet apparently Ms. Jolie is past bombshell age. Next stop, "Driving Miss Daisy!"

It's not just rich movie stars like Angelina who suffer when they themselves cease to be relevant in their mid-thirties, it's the average woman too! If women can't play sexy at past the age of 33, we start to question whether it is indeed possible to BE sexy past our twenties. We wonder if we stop being relevant the minute the first blush of youth is past.

When we don't see women our age on screen being sexy (even fantasy women with great lighting and makeup artists at their disposal), it makes us feel a little worse about ourselves as we age. When they replace Angelina with someone like Megan Fox for Tomb Raider, the injustice of it all will just be f-ing annoying. Not to mention the fact that it creates worse and less believable movies.

I'm sick of seeing romantic comedies that start girls in their 20s who are too young to get the trials or tribulations of love the way a 35-year old Kate Winslet. The entire time I was watching last year's "Letters to Juliet," I was all like why can't this star Reese Whetherspoon? Because yes, I do like Amanda Seyfried, but at 24 she was just too young for me to care whether or not she found love. I was all like, you have time! What's the rush? Where's the urgency? Date around! IT was about as compelling as the love story between high schoolers VAnessa Hudgens and Zach Efron in those tv movies I've totally never watched and which shall remain nameless.

Yep, I'd like to see some real leading LADIES, not leading GIRLS

Dear Natalie Portman, This Is Why You Annoy Me...

2011-03-04T12:17:00.003-05:00

Natalie Portman annoys me. She has for a while too. I'm not part of the recent backlash. I've always disliked her. Why? Because she annoys me.

To be fair, Portman is pretty. I have never denied that. She has a lovely face. I am not going to deny that. But really, does this make you someone who deserves to be seen as a role-model or an Oscar wining actress? Does this even make you deserve to be a celebrity?

First off, Portman is arrogant. She's always talking about how cultured she is and how she went to Harvard, but it's like she's not self-aware enough to know what GOT her these opportunities. Celebrities have been getting into the Ivy League to give these schools publicity for decades and will continue to do so for decades more (I'm assuming James Franco will get at least a few more fake PhD's before he's through). Connected people, from movie stars to royalty, have long gotten preferential treatment when it comes to getting into prestigious unis, and judging by Portman's current behaviour, I'm starting to thing she was one of them. Because honestly, after watching her lately, she doesn't seem that smart.

My irrational hatred for Ms. Portman became much more justified when she got pregnant and declared that she would like to stay inside all throughout her pregnancy because she didn't want to go outside while looking like a "whale." That's a lovely comment that surely makes all women who are bigger than Ms. Portman's prepregnant body (that's most women who have gone through puberty) feel like shit. It's also an offensive comment to pregnant women by implying they're all so unattractive they should hide until they pop. It harkens back to the days when pregnancy made people so uncomfortable back in Victorian Great Britain that doctors recommended "confinement" to women when they started to show. For someone who claims to be so feminist-identified, you'd think Portman would show greater concern for the feelings of pregnant and larger women. After all, her comments weren't made to a random friend at a coffee shop, but to an international magazine. With great privilege comes great responsibility, and I'm not sure Portman lives up to hers there.

I don't just have a problem with Portman the personality, but I also have a problem now with Portman the artist, with her movies. So, Portman has recently made it known she wants to make romantic comedies that are empowering to women. This would be an admirable goal, if Portman knew how to do that. Having just seen "No Strings Attached", I think Portman really fails to do that and doesn't seem to understand.

"No Strings Attached" features Portman playing a doctor who appears to be on the autism spectrum. She's awkward to the point of asking someone she barely knows to go to her father's funeral with her as her date without actually specifying that it IS in fact a funeral. Because of this, Ashton Kutcher's character unwittingly shows up clad in an orange hoodie. Rather than being funny, to me the scene where Ashton stands by as others grieve for a man he's never met and didn't even know was dead twenty minutes before was just hard to watch. It was disturbing, but for some reason, it's MEANT to be funny.

As the film progresses, Portman shows herself as a jealous character who wants to have casual sex with Kutcher but also doesn't want him to see other women. In short, she wants to have her cake and eat it too. She's portrayed as a ridiculous hypocrite and not a sympathetic character at all.

Kutcher and Portman finally do end up together, but Kutcher isn't part of the reason they are kept apart. He is portrayed as a standup guy who's emotionally mature enough to have a real relationship, but Portman is the problem. She can't be in a relationship. She is jealous of her competition and yet refuses to be exclusive, and so, Kutcher ad Portman must go separate ways because Portman is inconsistent, crazy and broken. Never fear, however! Because Portman's sister and mother give her advice. They tell her that she's broken for not wanting a relationship rather than simply giving her a lecture on the problems with hypocrisy.

Portman learns her lesson and goes to find Kutcher. They live happily ever after in the end, because the broken girl got fixed, but I left the movie thinking, "Fuck, she wasn't broken because she wasn't into committed relationships, she was broken because she was too immature to get over her jealousy in order to have the type of casual relationships she wanted to have!" Portman's character gives a rousing defense of light relationships. She's right - she wants an impressive career, and it's hard to do both and she's not very good at relationships, either, so she rationally decides not to have them. It all makes sense. All decisions have upsides and downsides, and sure, jealousy is one side effect of choosing against monogamy, but that's why you TRY not to be jealous. That's why we're supposed to work on our flaws. Every decision has a cost and involves sacrifices, and the fact that Portman's character doesn't get that isn't empowering to me as a woman.

Sure, in the end Portman decides to try to make things work with her former lover, but one wonders how long that will last? Portman isn't even sensitive enough to warn her date he's attending a funeral beforehand, so one wonders how well she'll be able to look after another person's needs in a longterm relationship? Not being good at relationships does not make you a failure as a woman. Wanting to focus on things that you're good at, like your career instead is a legitimate choice. There's nothing wrong with making that. I wish the film wouldn't moralize and tell us Portman was broken before, but just needed the love of a good man (Kutcher) and some sage advice from "proper women" who like both marriage and babies to fix herself.

So, in conclusion, I don't like Portman. I don't like her public persona and I really don't like her latest film. So, congrats on winning your Oscar, Nat! I wish you well, but please find a way to be less annoying...

Ageism and the Oscars: Why The Young People Just Annoyed Me

2011-03-01T18:10:00.005-05:00

The Oscars this year represent a victory against ageism. To be sure, they started out as an endorsement of it. They chose two young people with no hosting experience to present despite their lack of credentials thinking that a young audience would inevitably tune in for young hosts because, like young people have an innate preference for other young people as Oscar hosts? Even when those young people show up stoned and can't open their eyes to see the teleprompter and just squint through the whole show?

Like, seriously, James Franco could NOT be bothered to open his eyes. AT ALL. Not even to look at Anne Hathaway, who was cooing and hanging off him like a syncophant. Now, I don't hate Miss Hathaway. I like her a lot, in fact, but her reaction to having a slacking co-worker was to indulge his ego! Why did she need to say he was doing a super awesome job hosting when he was letting her do all the work? Then, he wouldn't even look at her while thanking her for that compliment. How fucked up?

Despite Hathaway and Franco sucking as a duo where one was on coke and the other was on pot (you know which was which), there were some nice moments; however, these nice moments came from older people. When Billy Chrystal came out and told a few jokes, my viewing companions and I were enchanted (and we were all under 25). David's Seidler's speech, where he called himself a "late bloomer" for winning the Oscar at 73 also served to show that older people can be and are relevant. "The King's Speech" was a smashit with every generation, and it was the product of an old man's childhood memories. Here, his age was an asset and gave him an emotional connection to a story that provided the foundations for a movie masterpiece.

When Ms. Portman, who is about the same age as Franco and Hathaway, got up to accept her Oscar, her speech lacked the class and wisdom of Colin Firth's. She almost seemed bored with the award. When they called her name, she didn't look delighted or surprised - she looked entitled. The fact that Colin Firth, who has been a fine actor since Portman was a little girl, seemed more in awe of the award than a 29-year-old was bizarre (especially when a lot of people thought Annette Benning, who is REALLY DUE, might beat her). If anyone in Hollywood has paid his dues, it's Firth. He is an actor with impeccable training who has spent years doing a mix of art films and commercial blockbusters. He is a cult icon who got type-cast as "Mr. Darcy" and managed to overcome that Oscar simply by showing his talent and versatility. After all that work, after all those years, Mr. Firth was still honoured to be given Hollywood's greatest award. He didn't feel due for it, and even though he was OVERWHELMINGLY the odds-on favourite, he still seemed happy and surprised to have won.

By contrast, Portman's blase attitude of entitlement at only 29 was offensive. My favourite part was when she thanked her fiance for impregnating her and then referred to her upcoming motherhood as "the most important role of my life." As in, fuck you academy. I don't care about everything you represent. You will never be as cool as me or the fruit of my womb, which will definitely be super awesome. So suck it! So honey, you might have gone to Harvard, but apparently that doesn't make you smart.

Franco, Hathaway and Portman all showed that youthful exuberance isn't better than wisdom and the humility that goes along with it. Firth made me feel that grace comes with age and made me actually look forward to 50.

So Oscars, given that the older people were the best part of your show this year, next year can we please have some grown up hosts?

humour and complacency

2011-02-05T14:55:00.006-05:00

This is like, Gender Studies 101, but I need revisit some age-old questions and get this rant off my chest. So, I'm sitting with some friends last night - all guys. They start making make-me-a-sandwich jokes, trying to get a rise out of me.

It. fucking. worked.

To sit, surrounded by men, being barraged by offensively sexist jokes is infuriating. But what was even more infuriating is that I found myself paralyzed, unable to say anything. Maybe it was because they are longtime friends, maybe it was because I knew that they had no idea how offensive what they were saying was, maybe it was because these comments were intended as 'jokes', or maybe it was because I've been conditioned to be quiet, passive, and non-opinionated for 25 years.

But what do you say to 'jokes' like this? How do you avoid being dismissed as uptight and hyperbolic? Or should you even care what they think at all?

Trying to fall asleep later that night, I starting thinking about how gendered oppression exists on a spectrum. On the one end: make-me-a-sandwich jokes. On the opposite end: rape. All rest on the assumption that women ought to be passive objects existing primarily to satiate male desire. I don't mean to equate victims of rape with victims of jokes in bad taste, as their experiences are clearly incomparable. However, we see the same excuses offered up for sexist comments as we do for rape: 'she's overreacting;' 'he didn't know it would be unwelcome;' 'she was enjoying it.'

My friends are intelligent people, but appear never to have bothered asking women about why these jokes are offensive, nor have they critically considered the jokes on their own. If they did, they might see that it was indeed venomous to degrade and humiliate me like that. But more importantly, they might consider their own role in gendered oppression broadly - the assumptions they make, the jokes they laugh at, the comments they excuse.

After last night, and having been out of a feminist-friendly environment for almost three years, I certainly need to recognize my complacency in gendered oppression. I'm making assumptions I shouldn't, laughing at jokes I shouldn't, and excusing comments I shouldn't.

You Don't Want Mr. Darcy...

2010-12-17T15:05:00.005-05:00

Mr. Darcy is presented to all of us, even to this day, as the perfect man. He's not an anachronistic character you studied in your grade 11 English class, he's the man we all think we want to marry to this day. First, A and E preserved his memory in the 1990s, and then Bridget Jones reincarnated him in the 20th and 21st centuries as a haughty human rights lawyer. Also, there was that dreadful Keira Knightly movie where none of the characters brushed their hair and they tacked on a really stupid ending. Let's forget about that, okay? I mean, the costumes didn't even fit! Poor Keira's flatchestedness (And I know she's a bitch so I probably shouldn't feel sorry for her, but whatever) was on display to everyone when they couldn't even be bothered to tailer the empire-waisted dresses to f-cking fit her. The least they could have done was stuffed her bra!

Anyway, enough of the sartorial sniping. Back to Mr. Darcy. Generations of girls have gone gaga for him. Colin Firth practically made a career out of PLAYING him, after all. But what's so great about Mr. Darcy, anyway? He's the man you SHOULDN'T Marry. There, I said it.

Elizabeth Bennet is supposed to have high standards for herself. She won't marry just any jerk who doesn't respect her, and this is why she rejects Mr. Collins' advances, and it's supposed to be why she rejects Mr. Darcy the first time, as well she should. Why would you marry a guy who loudly calls you homely to his friend the first time he sees you because he's embarrassed about liking a middle-class country girl, then goes on to sabotage your sister's marriage to his friend because he thinks she's too poor? To top it all off, the first time he proposed, he basically told her she was just shame-sex he REALLY wanted to have, and that's why he was popping the question. No woman should value herself so little as to want such a controlling, classist, impolite dick!

But then something happens. After Elizabeth rejects Darcy, he becomes nice for about five minutes and then she marries him. WTF? Does him uses his money to bribe an old associate to marry her sister Lydia really make up for all the shit her put her through? Is this really proof of change, or does he just want to bang her that badly?

We've all been there with a guy. At first he's a jerk because he's read the game and is trying to nettle you into bed. When he realizes, however, that you're a confident chick and can't be manipulated like that, he might change tactics and start being INCREDIBLY nice. For example, he might offer to help you rearrange the furniture in your house or to drive you to the hospital to visit your grandmother. DO NOT BE DECEIVED! If he really were just a nice guy and not only trying to get up all in your business, why wouldn't he have been nice from the get-go? No, he just wants to bang you and is changing tactics out of desperation because his usual games didn't work!

A truly confident girl holds out for the guy who doesn't publicly insult her at parties they first time they meet or mettle in her older sister's love life. She doesn't change her mind when he's nice to her for all of five minutes. No, sir, if she knows her self-worth (whether this is in the Georgian era or today), she doesn't go for Mr. Darcy. Because, guess what? Mr. Darcy is "just not that into you." He just wants to bang you...

After marry Elizabeth Bennett and shagging her for a few months, I'm sure he moved on to a mistress of some sort. Let's not be naive here. Mr. Darcy is the 1800s equivalent to the guy who pretends he wants to be committed and calls you his girlfriend for a week so he can get in your pants before discarding you. No, jerky guys did not just emerge in the 1960s with the baby boomers - Jane Austen had them too.

Don't get me wrong, there are some lovely men out there. There are great guys, and of course we women can find them, but we shouldn't be distracted or please be suspicious of the one who's only nice to you AFTER being mean failed to pick you up...

Gossip Girl Girl's Return to Excellence...

2010-12-09T12:13:00.003-05:00

After a lacklustre season last year, Gossip Girl has once again hit its stride. It is no longer the fashionable high school drama it once was. After a season three where it attempted and failed to focus around the politics of university classes and cliques with much success, Stephanie Savage has finally realized what the show should be now that prep school is over - Gossip Girl today is a comedy of manners about young socialites and their exploits. Sure, some happen to go to university, but that's incidental, as it should be. University is not the type of place, in my experience, where cliques matter nearly as much as in high school, but New York high society seems like prep school on crack. This is great fodder for a great comedy of manners.

What's more, this year the show is doing some valuable social commentary about how class and cliques intersect. For example, Juliet and Vanessa both realize that when it's their word against Blair or Serena's, all the upper-class boys will always stick with their upper-class female counterparts. Our middle-class characters can't win for trying!

It's not just social status and friendships that are at steak, however. Ben Donavan, Juliet's brother, goes to jail because Lily couldn't get her daughter into a Manhattan prep school without finding a way to blackmail her boarding school into doctoring her record. Rather than keep her daughter at said perfectly decent boarding school or sending her to a less prestigeous Manhattan school, Lily, based on idle gossip, accuses her daughter's teacher of statutory rape (which he did not commit) and sends him to jail for 5 years - all behind Serena's back. Ben knows he can't fight it because Serena's family is so powerful, and so he doesn't. Here, innocence can't compete against class privilege, and Ben, who is a university educated teacher, isn't even that poor! In Gossip Girl, we see a world where middle-class people have good reason to live in fear, because any rich person could take them down at any moment just to get their loser daughter into a slightly better prep school...Lily Van Der Woodsen is the ultimate mean girl, because EVERYONE without a doorman is a means to an end for her - even when the end really doesn't nearly justify the means.

Not only is the show a powerful commentary on the class system, but it's also maintained its feminist relevance. This week, we had a very compelling storyline when Nate's mother decided to divorce her husband after years of "standing by her man." All set to take him back, Mrs. Archibald realizes that taking back an ex-con, ex-druggie husband who has even hit her son on occasion comes with a high cost. In addition to the fact that the Captain could easily relapse as a druggie or a criminal, putting her through more emotional hell, none of her friends want to be around him, and so by extension, they will no longer want to be around HER when he's released from prison.

When Mrs. Archibald sees her son at Lily's party (which she was not initially invited to when it looked as if she would not file for divorce), she tells her son that she "needs all this" more than her husband. One might think that this is a shallow and materialistic viewpoint. But I don't think she meant she simply needed parties with good champagne and famous people. What Mrs. Archibald doesn't want to risk are her friends, her charities (which are her life's work), and her family who disowned her the last time her husband went to jail. All that is a heavy price to pay to take back a dude who wasn't very nice to her when they were married. Maybe he's changed, but is the possibility that it MIGHT work out this time worth risking everything else in her life?

Mrs. Archibald, as a strong women perhaps should, chose not to sacrifice her friends, work and family for one guy with a history of being a bad husband. It's a very valid choice, and I'm glad she made it. These kind of plotlines make me love the show all the more!

Oh Christmas Glee!

2010-12-08T10:05:00.003-05:00

So, Christmas Glee was a little bit heartwarming, and also a little bit problematic. Here's why I can't endorse it without some concerns.

First off, Becky being forced to dress up as the Grinch's pet? Perhaps a little bit insensitive to draw parallels between her AND A DOG. I mean, I thought we were supposed to see Becky as a sidekick with agency and to look passed her differently abled status, but the show makes that hard when it trusses her up like an animal. I found that offensive.

Next, I like that Britney is still accepted by the group despite being slow. I like that people don't hold her natural lack of intellect against her, because it's really not her fault. At the same time, going to great lengths to trick and DECEIVE her is condescending and controlling. I'm not sure how I feel about a girl's boyfriend engineering a circumstance that will purposely continue to leave her in the dark. Most kids stop believing in Santa Clause when something happens to make them realize he's not real (Eg. for me, it was when I didn't get an ice cream maker for Christmas because my mom left the shopping too late and there weren't any left). This is a natural part of growing up. For Britney, this could have been the year she came to this conclusion herself, and sure, it would have been disappointing, but it's disappointing for every 8 year-old that comes to it too. Britney is just slower than the other kids, so she's coming to this same right of passage at 15 instead of in second or third grade, but why should she be denied it? Because she's dim she should never be given the opportunity to learn how to deal with growing up or disappointment? Because she's dim we shouldn't just allow her to develop at her own pace, but she ACTIVELY BLOCK HER DEVELOPMENT? That's akin to forcing Artie NOT to go to physio therapy to try to improve his mobility because, in the short term, he might feel discouraged by the process. So, why in Britney's case do they chalk up elaborate and manipulative deceptions to just having CHRISTMAS SPIRIT? Don't be ablist - actually LET Britney learn at her own pace instead of INTERFERING with her development.

I'm also offended at how self-absorbed Finn is being. Now, of course he doesn't HAVE to forgive Rachel. In fact, I think breaking up with her could be a good thing if done for the right reasons. The fact that he lied about Santana and she was then driven to cheat on him just shows that NEITHER ONE trusts the other, so maybe they should break up; however, that's not how Finn sees it. He outright BLAMES Rachel. He gets all angry at the tree lot when she tries to reconcile, telling her. "You screwed me up! I've had two girlfriends and they both cheated on me!" Well, couldn't Rachel say a similar thing? She's had to real boyfriends (Jessie and Finn) and both of them lied to her about serious things. Jessie, for example, was dating Rachel so he could spy on her, and Finn lied about being a virgin. Finn KNEW Jessie had lied to Rachel, so he was part of a pattern that could screw her up. So, if Rachel deserves to be reproached for cheating on Finn when she knew cheating was already a sore spot for him, doesn't Finn deserve to be reproached too? Now, I wish Rachel had said this, had stood up for herself a little more and pointed out that they both abused EACH OTHER, that she is no more to blame than Finn. But she didn't. Rachel stood at the Christmas tree lot and took Finn's abuse. It's especially ironic because Finn's lying to Rachel is what spawned her cheating. He started the cycle of abuse but takes absolutely no responsibility for being part of it AT ALL.

All in all, Christmas Glee was not so great. Sure, I loved the carols, but at what PUBLIC high school is Christmas this big a deal? It's a religious holiday not all the kids and teachers celebrate and that shouldn't be forced down their throats with club Christmas trees and carols in the goddamn staff lounge. What I found even more offensive than this, however, is that the show seemed to make it okay to shove Christmas in everyone's face by totally glossing over its RELIGIOUS SIGNIFICANCE. For Mr. Shue to say Christmas is all about "forgiveness" is factually wrong and is offensive to the kids in his class who really do believe and see it as the birth of their saviour. Easter is much more about "forgiveness" and "atonement" if you're Christian, and I wonder why Mercedes, who goes to church regularly, and Quinn who is so religious she wouldn't have an abortion in season one and keeps a virgin Mary statue beside her bed, didn't pipe up and SAY SOMETHING. So, yeah, even the non-Christian kids were forced to celebrate Christmas (there wasn't a Hannukah song in sight for good measure), but the Christmas the kids were forced to celebrate was still offensive even to the Christian kids. If anything, this episode was a good argument for keeping holidays out of the schools, because when we force kids to celebrate them but sanitize their religious significance so as to make them less awkward for non-believers, EVERYBODY loses. For a show that usually doesn't shy away from discussions of God or religion, it's interesting that Christmas Glee became an episode about manipulating a developmentally delayed girl into continuing her belief in SANTA CLAUSE.

Shit My Tutorial Says, Entry #1

2010-12-02T12:29:00.005-05:00

Today marks the launch of a new feature! This is called Shit My Tutorial Says. It's based on the bizarre things students say in the first year tutorial I teach. It is a course that is cross-listed in Women's Studies, sociology and criminology. All the shit posted will be anonymous, so no students will be called out. Do not worry about that. I will be posting a variety of humourous, ignorant and politically incorrect statements made in the tutorials I teach and those taught by colleagues. I am doing this in part for the satirical comic value of it all, and in part to draw attention to a crisis in education. There are times when I am genuinely surprised at the gaps in my students' knowledge, yet they are all in university and most had A's in high school. What does this say about the future of the intelligentsia if we aren't being educated to be that intelligent? When a girl graduates high school and manages to get entrance at a Canadian university without even understanding the basic definition of democracy, what does that say about Canada as a whole and how much we care about education?

You might think I'm just mocking undergrads for funsies, and while this definitely IS fun to write, it is also a form of artistic activism. So read my entries, and then please go and vote for politicians who support good quality public education later on...

Without further ado, Entry #1

Boy in Tutorial: I think we talk about women too much in this course. I took law in high school, and it wasn't all about women then. So, like WHY do we talk about women so much in this class?

Me: Because it's called "Women and the Law."

In Defense of Rachel Barry

2010-12-01T12:05:00.003-05:00

On this week's Glee, the Season Two sectionals episode, Rachel Barry got screwed. Why? Because she deserved that solo and also didn't deserve to be dumped or to be bullied by absolutely EVERYONE.

So, Rachel is by far the best remaining member of Glee Club. We all know she has the most talent, and so she's an obvious choice for sectionals. Rachel can sing, she can dance, she can just outright perform. Now, you might say that if she were just genetically talented, it wouldn't be fair to give her all the solos (even though it might be a good idea from a competitive standpoint, and this is a competitive club. You wanna sing for fun? Join a choir that doesn't compete), but she also works harder than ANYONE. Do you see the other kids stay after practice to practice MORE? No, but she does. She also isn't necessarily a spoiled sport. Do you remember last year when Mercedes initially beat her in the competition to get a solo for sectionals? She was all kinds of nice and gracious. Rachel CAN be a good sport, even though Mr. Shue doesn't seem to remember that. Why is Rachel pissed off now? Because she earned a god-damn solo, and didn't lose it to someone else who is also talented, like Mercedes, she lost it to Quinn Fabray, the goddamn head cheerleader!

Truth is, Quinn isn't as good at Glee in part because she's not as talented as Rachel, but in part because she's not as dedicated. Cheerleading is what she works at, and, like Rachel, she will throw down to get what she wants there (Remember how she outted Santana for plastic surgery so she could be head cheerleader again?), so I don't think Miss Pillsbury has a point. Glee might be about thinking everyone is special, but Quinn doesn't need Glee to make her feel special. It's an after-thought club for her to make her college application look more well-rounded. So, if we're going to reward commitment, and since there were TWO lead vocals female parts up for grabs, you clearly reward Rachel for being most committed AND most talented.

Time and time again, Rachel has given more to Glee than anybody. Remember last year when she had a solo ready in a pinch to sing at sectionals, saving everybody and actually WINNING the tournament? Remember just a few episodes ago, when she saw Kurt was hurting and did a duet with him to show him he wasn't alone? Sure, Rachel is bossy and annoyingly self-confident, but it's not like she doesn't have the talent and the hard work to back that up. The show shows everyone turning on her. Even her teacher who lets kids say they want to PUNCH her in public. Is the message to young girls then supposed to be not to stand up for what you deserve? To let less talented and lazier people take your spot in choir, in the school play, and to take your promotion from you when you get older? Even when you not getting the promotion is big risk for the company as a whole? They tied the Warblers without Rachel, so the club is good, but with her, judging from last year, they probably would have won! Rachel should have gotten that solo.

Now, on to part two of my critique: Does Rachel deserve to be dumped on and dumped by Finn? Fuck no! Rachel had every right to be mad. Why was what Finn did just as bad as what Rachel did? Because it was dishonest! They both betrayed each other's trust. He lied about being a FUCKING VIRGIN, which, at that age, is a really big deal. What if Rachel had lost it to him thinking it was okay to do so because it was his first time too? He essentially made a fool out of her.

So, yes, it also does matter that it's Santana he slept with, because he should have KNOWN she wouldn't keep it a secret and it would become inevitable that Rachel wouldn't just be betrayed by her boyfriend as she already was, but that everyone would know and laugh about it BEHIND HER BACK. Santana is not fucking discrete. Remember when she showed Quinn Puck's sexts when Quinn was f-cking pregnant? Santana is a bully, and given that, I think Rachel deserved advance warning that one day, when Santana up and felt like it, she would bring out the info about deflowering Puck in the most embarrassing way possible (Which she did, at a GLEE club rehearsal, in front of all Rachel's teammates, who already dislike and bully her).

So yeah, maybe Rachel did make out with Puck, but is physical cheating any worse than what Finn did? Sure, Finn f-cked Santana BEFORE he was with Rachel, but he knew the act would have reverberations at the time he started DATING Rachel, so why not come clean then? Rachel admitted she had lied and still was a virgin, so why couldn't he have done the brave thing at taken the opportunity to tell her the truth too?

At the end, when Rachel yelled at Finn, "But you said you'd never break up with me!" my heart sank. Here is this poor 15-year-old girl who is deserted by everyone. And partly, that's because she's talented and assertive. Remember when Finn said he didn't tell her about f-cking Santana because Rachel's "scary." What he really meant, is that Rachel has a sense of self-worth. That Rachel stands up for herself and asserts herself and might have told him to take a hike. Finn lies to Rachel for the same reason Mr. Shue won't give her the solo she deserves - because he's threatened by her.

Mr. Shue sees in Rachel his most talented student - the only one with both the talent and the dedication to make it big like he never did, because frankly, despite all his hard work, he just never had the talent. And so Rachel is the girl he beats up on because he's unhappy with his divorced, pathetic existence where he teaches kids but really wishes he could be in the club instead of them. If Mr. Shue, as GP taught us when she guest-starred, doesn't seem to even like teaching. After all, he never listens to the kids or seems to care how much they're learning as long as they're doing what HE wants to do. And now, well, he's pretending to have learned that lesson by getting them to perform hipper songs at sectionals, but by discriminating against his most talented student, we see his bitterness IS NOT GONE.

So, Mr. Shue beats up on Rachel because he's insecure with himself and his own perceived failure, but I also contend his hatred has a misogynistic aspect as well. His world is full of assertive women who he feels have long controlled him. Rather than facing the facts that he was an idiot who allowed Terry to manipulate him for all those years or owning up to the fact that he resents Sue's success or the fact that Emma rejected him, he displacing his anger on a young woman he CAN dominate where he failed to dominate all the adult women in his life. After all, the more Will losing to adult ladies or loses them, the more he displaces his anger towards the teenage Rachel, the only woman in his life he can successfully hurt and withhold things from.

Because it's not JUST Rachel's talent. Last week he was all ready to give Kurt, who is probably as good as Mr. Shue if not a little bit better, a solo. Now, perhaps you could argue because Rachel is just THAT MUCH BETTER, he hates her, but I think it's also important that she has a vagina.

Mr. Shue was an emotionally abused husband and works in a hostile environment with Sue and lost Emma to a better man - rather than being responsible and going to therapy for his feelings of inadequacy, he chooses to project them and beat up on a young and vulnerable girl. He sees the making of a confident woman like Sue or the newly confident Emma, and the chooses to beat her down, consciously or no. He needs to stop taking his own failures out on women and blaming them for HIM not succeeding.

So yeah, when I watched Glee last night, I wanted to hug Rachel. Rachel might not have learned how to be gracious ALL THE TIME, which talented people should learn to do so as not to be annoying, but she's 15! All the other kids have flaws too, like Puck and Santana bullying people AND QUINN HAVING LIED TO FINN TO TRICK HIM INTO BEING HER BABYDADDY! OHMYGOD WHY DOES NO ONE REMEMBER THAT? Let he who is without blame cast the first stone - the only thing we can really blame Rachel for is being the most talented and dedicated member of Glee club and not denying it...

Gossip Girl Musings

2010-09-28T23:45:00.003-04:00

So, I feel like Gossip Girl has dropped the ball on several things this season. First off, why did the writers forget that Penelope is Persian? So, we don't see her for all of season three, and suddenly she comes back and is descended from the founders of some WASPy Ivy league secret society? 60 years ago Pene's relatives were living large in Tehran, not hanging out in uptown Manhattan (let's face it, Columbia's in a kind of sketch neighbourhood compared to the Shah's palace).

Secondly, I am now less in love with Blair than I was before. Blair is not EVOLVING. Blair will always be power-hungry, but does Bitch have to tear apart the nicest French girl ever in some designer boutique? PSYCHO EX-GIRLFRIEND! B., if you can more or less forgive Chuck and tell him it's okay for him to come back to New York, then it is COMPLETELY out of line for you to harass his lovely (and SUPER HORNY) new French girl. Be nice! Why do so many girls do this with new girlfriends of their exes? You have a problem with the way he treated you, go key his car, don't ream out a perfectly lovely young lady who just happens to be hooking up with him. Blair has the potential to be a feminist, but ragging on Eva is the opposite of feminist-sexy.

How much sexual energy does Eva have? Where does it come from? Eva is ALWAYS about to jump Chuck. Now, I get having a healthy libido. I think it's admirable, but no matter what time of day, she is constantly trying to get it on. This leads me to wonder if her love of Chuck is really based on a belief that he is, deep down, a good person, or if she just likes his sexual stamina? Although, Chuck Bass does have a certain undeniable creepy sex appeal, so if I were dating him, I'm not sure I would act differently.

Where did Serena's clothes go? She's always been scantily clad, but this season she walks outside in shorts that are so skimpy they ACTUALLY resemble underwear I own. She might as well be leaving the house in hanky panky boy short panties, that's how classy and covered she looks.

Observation: Leighton Meester kind of looks like Winona Rider! I never noticed this before!

Oh, and Chuck is totally still in love with Blair. When he publicly made up by making out with Eva at fashion's night out, he looked back at Blair to see if she was watching - she wasn't! That's my girl! See, sometimes, Blair, you can make me really happy, so why do you have to so frequently disappoint me?

When did Girlfriend Girls Take Over the World?

2010-07-29T19:42:00.002-04:00

Have you watched the trailer for "Eat, Pray, Love"? Now, I don't think the movie looks bad per se, it's just the story that I don't find that interesting. Now, I know it's a memoir, but at the end of the day, it's a memoir about a Girlfriend Girl. A Girlfriend Girl is what my friends and I call a certain breed of serial monogamist chick who doesn't really have any identifying characteristics besides the fact that she is "so and so's girlfriend." These girls typically spend all their time with their boyfriend and his friends, and they typically talk more about their boyfriend and his needs than their own, even from a very young age.

I don't like Girlfriend Girls. Why? Because They ARE BORING. These are girls who live their lives through men. And sure, the point of "Eat, Pray, Love" according to what the trailer represents is that a girlfriend girl learns how NOT to be a girlfriend girl and develops a sense of self. I think that's great for her, but really, why do we NEED stories like this? The fact that a book about a chick learning to find herself after living her life through men became a hit that resonated with so many women out there scares me. Sure, I know a fair number of Girlfriend Girls, but are there even more out there than I thought?

Where has feminism gotten us if there are STILL so many Girlfriend Girls in the world? I wonder....

So F-cked Up!

2010-07-21T12:33:00.003-04:00

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/7901025/Palestinian-jailed-for-rape-after-claiming-to-be-Jewish.html

Please read this article. It is truly bizarre. So, in Israel, a court just sent a Palestinian man to Jail for EIGHTEEN MONTHS because he told a chick his name was Daniel when it wasn't and had totally consensual sex with her. Many people, however, often adopt traditional regional names when working and living in a region where their names are considered foreign and hard to pronounce. So, I don't think it's necessarily that deceitful to go by an alias like that.

This court ruling is disgusting. First off, it's a bit paternalistic. Don't worry, nice girl who accidentally had inter-ethnic sex, we'll defend your honour by sending that dude to jail! It's also racist, because it wouldn't have been a problem if the dude hadn't been considered one of the dirty ethnic Others.

I have a name that is considered "traditionally Jewish." I have also been told by many Jewish people that I "look Jewish," whatever this means. If I were to go to Israel and introduce myself to some guy as "Sarah" and he just assumed I was Jewish and thought, "I'll bang her, because I only bang Jews" how is it my fault when he finds out my vagina is actually Christian? Doesn't he have agency? If f-ing only nice Jewish girls was really that important to him, shouldn't the onus have been on him to figure out for damn certain if I was in fact actually Jewish?

Also, this is a slippery slope. Can men go to jail for exaggerating their income levels slightly to sleep with a woman now? Or is the court just making a special allowance for racism?

Okay, Kim, You're Thin, But Why Lie About Your Weight? Why?

2010-07-14T15:09:00.003-04:00

Now, Kim Kardashian has recently gone around telling publications that she is tired of being referred to as a "bigger" girl. I say, AMEN, sister! Kim is well below the national size 12 average, and so calling her bigger makes the average woman feel huge, instead of what they are, which is average. At the same time, I'm not sure I buy how little Kim says she is.

Ms. Kardashian says she's usually a size two or a four. Okay, I'm willing to believe that in CERTAIN things she can fit into a size 4, but I don't see her as a two. And that's not a bad thing. A two is not inherently better than a 4. A body's attractiveness is not just about size, and smaller doesn't equal better. I would personally, for example, much rather have Kim Kardashian's body than Paris Hilton's, and Ms. Kardashian is definitely a couple sizes larger than Ms. Hilton. And I would also like to look like Christian Hendricks over Elizabeth Moss, and Hendricks is probably a few sizes bigger than Moss (No offense to Miss Miss. You have a lovely figure, it's just not Hendrick's arresting body of the century).

I also don't know if I believe that Ms. Kardashian weighs 117 pounds, as she says she does. Now, she has lost a bit of weight recently (which she didn't really need to, as, at most, she was a size six before), but she and I are the same height (5'3) and have vary similar proportions (large breasts, big ass, you know, courtesy of Anatolia), and I weigh considerably more than 117 pounds. Kardashian does a lot of crunches, so she might weigh a bit less than me in the middle area, but I do cardio and I eat decently, so I see no reason why I would weigh much more than ten pounds more than Ms. Kardashian at most, when our measurements are pretty much the same, unless of course, she has ABSOLUTELY NO muscle tone.

No, I don't weigh 127 pounds. I weigh more than that, so I'm willing to bet that Kim weighs more than 117. And that's okay. Why does she have to lie? She looks great at her weight, so why can't she just come out and say what it really is, if she feels the need to say anything at all?

You don't HAVE to tell us how much you weigh, so when you do, don't lie. It gives the rest of us all body dysmorphic disorder. Kim, you probably weigh around 125 or 127. Maybe even 130 And THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT. That is a very healthy weight.

Although, what saddens me most isn't that Kim Kardashian is lying about her weight - it's that, despite being a sex symbol and superstar who's been on the cover of numerous magazines because people think she's hot and for no other reason, she still feels the need to....

What Rachel Barry Has in Common With Blair Waldorf

2010-06-23T23:41:00.003-04:00

I love Rachel Barry, queen of the Glee Glub Geeks (known as "Gleeks") on Glee. I also love Blair Waldorf, queen of the popular girls on Gossip Girl. Why? I mean, they run in very different circles and have very different goals. I mean, one's a Jewish princess who wants to dominate Broadway Streisand-style and the other is a WASP princess the show seems to suggest is a future president of the United States. Well, what I like about BOTH of them is that they want things. They want power, they want influence, they success. They aren't demure. They aren't afraid to plot what they get what they want and call out injustices where they see them - they are kickass young women who fight (I contend feminist-style) to get what they want and deserve.

When Mr. Shuester takes against Rachel on Glee! despite the fact that she is the most talented in the bunch, giving her solos to the musically less gifted Tina, Rachel tells him off. She's not afraid of his patriarchal authority, and when Mr. Shue refuses to give Rachel's talented the respect it merits, she tells him off.

Not only does Rachel tell Mr. Shue like it is, but she isn't afraid to pursue Finn. She doesn't sit around waiting for the guy she likes to get his act together and pursue her. She isn't passive. When Finn later rejects Rachel because he's uneasy about dating a girl with a lower social status, Rachel delivers a rousing speech about how she sees through him. She doesn't blame herself for not being good enough; she sees he's immature. Even Finn applauds Rachel's perceptive power in this breakup monologue, responding once it's done, "It's like your in my head!" Rachel is smarter than the boys and she tells them off when they deserve it. Later in the same episode, Rachel sings gives Finn a musical comeuppance by singing "Gives You Hell" in Glee Club and moves on to dating a better singer who isn't ashamed of being in a Glee club or dating a Glee clubber practically the next day. Finn later comes crawling back, but she makes him eat a lot of crow over a series of episodes before eventually accepting his apology and his love. Rachel Barry has a highly developed sense of self-worth.

Blair Waldorf also has a sense of self-worth, which is why she's kickass too. When compared to Hilary Clinton by her best friend Serena, Blair responds, "Yes, except I'd win!" One can assume Blair is referring to the presidency. Blair might be a bit boy crazy, but she also spends a lot of time scheming to get into the school she wants. Still, in the boy department, Blair is aggressive, like Rachel. After months of pursuing the emotionally tortured and commitment-shy Chuck Bass, she too has a monologue that calls him on his bullshit. She psycholoanalyzes the FUCK out of Chuck Bass, and it's awesome. "I love you," Blair declares, "And I know you love me too." This kind of confidence in a female character must be applauded.

Blair and Chuck eventually get together, but Blair only allows that once Chuck has conquered his fear of the "L-Word." In season 3, after Chuck starts being a manipulative boyfriend and Blair realizes she's spent months becoming his docile trophy girlfriend and a pawn in his ridiculous schemes, she dumps him. Why? Because she wants to be with someone who "brings out the best" in her. Blair isn't so desperate for a boyfriend that she'll settle for just any Wall Street boy billionaire - she needs one who is good to her.

So, Rachel Barry might be Queen of the Gleeks and Blair Waldorf might be the Queen Bee, but they're both tenacious girls who know their own worth and stand up for themselves. They speak their minds and refuse to allow men to manipulate them or make them feel little. These are girls who OWN THEMSELVES. They aren't just someone's girlfriend. These are some good role-models for teenage girls. See, teen tv can be profound tv too....

But What About Quebec?

2010-06-23T12:16:00.003-04:00

Click here for a provocative article. . Um, so apparently Canada is a super popular dream destination for potential immigrants. Huge numbers of people the world over would give up their country for Canada. Why? Because apparently we're super accepting of immigrants! Hmm. This must explain why, in Quebec, they want to curtail women's rights to wear the niqab and won't let girls who wear the hijab play soccer.

While it's true (and I'm not trying to sound prejudice here), that the VAST majority of potential immigrants to Canada have no desire to move to Quebec, what with its lackluster economy and the fact that more immigrants know Englih than French, Quebec, by law, is still guaranteed about a third of immigrants who come to this country. Yeah, they get immigrants, and then they hate on them. It makes no sense to me, unless they get a kick out of doing it because it makes them feel MORE French?

Anyway, I know it's almost Canada Day, but let's not trade in self-reflexivity for blind patriotism. Yes, we are very lucky to live in Canada. I'm not saying we're not, but still, we could make this country much better and make its residents even LUCKIER to live here...

Margaret Atwood on Israel and Palestine

2010-06-08T16:09:00.002-04:00

Word, Margaret Atwood. She hits the nail on the head when it comes to Israel and Palestine. Click here to read it.

Israel, Please Stop This Troubling Trend...

2010-06-08T14:00:00.003-04:00

Watch this video.. Israel's behaviour regarding Palestinians is getting more and more disturbing. No, I'm not claiming that there are never any anti-Jewish sentiments expressed by Palestians or anti-Israeli sentiments, for that matter. What I'm saying is that if you want to claim the moral upper hand, as Israel does, and when you have WAY more weapons and cause WAY more casualties to your enemies than your opponents do, then these t-shirts are especially troubling.

Dehumanizing people, making their dehumanization the kind of joke that one can put on a graphic T-shirt and wear down the street, that paves the way for genocide. There, I said it. I think that Israel ought to be cautious to avoid causing a full-fledged genocide of the Palestinian people. No, I do not think it is an actual genocide RIGHT NOW, and I do not think most Israelis wear these t-shirts, but the video shows us there is cultural sympathy for the people who DO wear them, that you can buy one and they are not considered sartorial hate crimes. Now THAT is a troubling trend.

I'm sorry, but a t-shirt about murdering a pregnant Palestinian woman that reads "1 Shot, Two Kills" Is morally repugnant. If anyone tries to defend it, I think he or she is morally repugnant too.

Can You Be Too Hot to Work?

2010-06-04T13:23:00.001-04:00

This woman is claiming she was fired for being too hot. It's an interesting video. Give it a look.

"Sex and the City"? How about "Orientalism and Abu Dhabi"

2010-05-31T14:33:00.004-04:00

Did you see the New Sex and the City movie? Well, if you haven't, then don't. If you have, you have my condolences. That movie really aught to have been called "Orientalism and Abu Dhabi." They spend approximately 20 minutes in New York before hightailing it to the UAE for a free vacation worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the thing is, they expect the UAE to be just like New York, or at least New Jersey. They get all offended at the site o veiled women and assume they must all feel oppressed because they don't show off their bras through their transparent clothes (I'm looking at you, Miss Bradshaw). The birkini, which is a brilliant invention that allows niqa-wearing women to swim without feeling uncomfortably exposed actually becomes the punchline to a joke!

Throughout the movie, the girls conflate the veil with oppression and having promiscuous sex in public while wearing overpriced clothes is conflated with freedom. Do they bother to read any theory about why women wear the veil? No, because if they did, they would find a lot of feminist writers who find it empowering. I mean, wearing the veil means you can control who sees your body. You can have sex and all that, but it controls who is able to objectify you. The niqab can then be seen as a tool of liberation. I can be a feminist act. Yes, being FORCED to wear the veil sucks, but most women I've met who wear it aren't forced at all, and being forced to a wear a veil doesn't suck anymore than being forced NOT TO as many women are in France.

Part of being a feminist is making the choices that are best for you. That means, if you wanna fuck a lot of guys while wearing peep-toe heels and a halter dress, then do it! IF you want to wear the niqab and only show your body to your husband, then do that. But I don't think it's feminist-y to mock women just because their choices are different than yours....

Be Thin, But Have a Baby: The Paradoxes of Performing Femininity With the Female Body

2010-04-30T15:00:00.004-04:00

The female body is a highly contested topic. When is it too thin? When is it too fat? When is it natural? We talk a lot about teenage girls and body issues, but at no point is a woman's body more contested, in my opinion, than during pregnancy and post-partum. Women in today's society are NOT supposed to get fat. Fat is considered some sort of character flaw associated with lazy women who do not give a damn. But, at the same time, all women are told that they are supposed to have a baby, that pregnancy is one of the defining experiences of womanhood. And what, exactly, pray tell, does pregnancy do? Well, it makes you FAT!

It is ironic that women are meant to perform their bodily femininity both by being thin and by getting pregnant. These are basically polar acts. No wonder women post-pregnancy report feeling like shit about their bodies, and no wonder some women don't want to have babies because they worry about getting fat. Getting fat is not a trivial concern. Do not dismiss such women as superficial - they have been raised in a society where thinness is associated with self-worth, so the desire NOT TO GEET FAT is akin to a desire NOT TO BE WORTHLESS. Still, it's a catch-22, because while women who have gained weight due to pregnancy are seen as less attractive, women who stay skinny but never have kids are seen as selfish. You can either have the personality a woman is meant to have (maternal, caring, self-sacrificing) or the body a woman is meant to have (thin).

Femininity is therefore set up to be something we can never perform perfectly. If I have a baby, it will make me fat, but if I don't have a baby, everyone will call me selfish! It is quite the conundrum.

How do I deal with this? Well, at some point, regardless of the physical price of having a child, I would like to have one. That is something I would like to do for myself. I do not, however, think it makes me any more of a woman because I want a baby compared to someone who does not. Just as I do not think if I gain weight during pregnancy that this would then disqualify me from being an attractive woman.

For more thoughts of femininity and the postpartum body, please go here. It's a very good editorial I found on the subject.

Ridiculous Anti-Feminist Video of the Day

2010-04-18T11:03:00.002-04:00

If this is the face of the anti-feminist movement, I am not scared. This girl is inarticulate and ridiculous. Come on, check out the competition! It will make you feel much more secure.

Victory is ours!

Paradox of the Day

2010-04-16T09:47:00.001-04:00

In whose world, exactly, does protecting freedom of expression involve dictating to people what they are and are not allowed to wear? This is paradox Belgium should have solved before considering banning the burka. Read more here.

Glee makes me wish all breakups contained musical numbers!

2010-04-14T19:01:00.004-04:00

Glee is back! How much do I love Rachel Berry? I love how her reaction to Finn dumping her was a totally incisive speech AND a song and dance number. Wouldn't it be great if ALL break-ups were musicals?

Listen to Lea Michele's rendition of "Gives You Hell" from last night's Glee here. Serenading your ex with a comeuppance song is SOO much better than a public dance-off. Why didn't Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake sing-off instead when their relationship came to an end?

I like how Rachel moved on after the breakup though. She got rejected by a boy, and didn't wait around for him. Jenny Humphrey could learn a thing or two from this. I also like how she spoke her mind and told Finn what she thought about WHY he was dumping her instead of just taking his abrupt termination of their relationship. Rachel might be a bit grating at times, but she's a great contemporary example of Girl Power! I can't wait to see how Rachel deals with Jessie's sham is revealed. I know she said it would "kill her emotionally" if he fucked with her, but Rachel proved today that she's a strong girl. She'll survive, and maybe even sing "I Will Survive"?

Oh My Gossip Girl!

2010-04-11T20:59:00.004-04:00

Did you see gossip girl tonight? Blair is finally a feminist! She cut Chuck because he was an emotionally immature guy who used her and turned her into a submissive shadow of her robust former self. Now, I love me some Chuck and Blair, but Chuck is not at the point yet where he is man enough to love a womanly Blair. The right relationship is about finding someone who brings out the best in you, and Blair knows that now. After a seasons of struggles, Blair came to a totally believable turning point. That is like plus 4000 feminist points. I knew Blair could do it. I knew after all those trials and tribulations, she'd evolve.

I also love how Eleanor came to the realization that she hadn't been a perfect mother, and that Dorota is more than just hired help - she was a mother to her daughter. And when Dorota married Vanya, I swear, every little WASP girl in the world who was raised by a European nanny (this one included), shed a tear! After all, everyone overly privileged former WASP schoolgirl hopes that one day her nanny will find happiness.

Not only this, but DAIR! DAIR! DAIR! This hookup was inevitable at some point in the show's run, and it's the one I was MOST excited for (other than CHAIR, of course). Why? Dan and Blair are not the most compatible couple, and they won't end up together in the end, but this odd couple has amazing chemistry. They have good banter, and they're a total case of opposites attract. I HATE Dan usually. I normally think his character is boring as f-ck, but when he's with Blair, he's somehow more manly. He stands up to Blair rather than worshipping her, and everyone knows the best sex comes when people challenge each other. Blair and Dan challenge each other. This WILL BE HOT!

Kids Can Be Wonderful!

2010-04-11T18:13:00.004-04:00

I hope one day to have a daughter as articulate and wonderful as this. Watch this! It will give you hope for the future!

The Mothering Equivalent of a One-Night Stand.

2010-04-04T23:23:00.002-04:00

I am going to start a business. I am going to rent children to childless women for the night so that they can mother them and get it out of their system. Easy there - I'm not saying all women need to mother. That would like saying ALL men need to go to prostitutes. I, however, need to get some mothering out of me every once in a while.

Last week, one of my best friends and I took her 12-year-old cousin to see the new Rob Pattinson movie, "Remember Me." It was a dreadful movie, but I had a fantastic night. Why? Because my friend and I got to listen to a little girl talk about middle-school and give her advice about dealing with playground politics for 6 hours. We held her hand, we bought her movie ticket and we got her a snack. It was like having a child - for a night. The next day, I was not a mommy but my maternal craving was sated. Awesome!

Now, I do want kids one day, but I don't want a kid EVERY day right now. It's like when you don't want to be in a relationship, but you have a craving for sex, so you have a one-night stand. Yep, this night with my friend and her little cousin was the mothering equivalent of a one-night-stand. I got to help take care of an adorable and intelligent little girl for an evening of A-14 cinematic fun, but I didn't have to nag her to do her homework the night day. I think there are women who would pay to rent kids like this. I will start this service; it will make me rich.

The Three-Way Relationship Test

2010-03-21T10:48:00.003-04:00

Lots of people have lots of tests to determine if your relationship will be success. They ask if you have the same political beliefs, if you're "compatible heights," or if you both want to live in the same types of neighbourhood one day. Sure, having the same morals and lifestyle preferences is nice and all, but at least in the heterosexual dating scene, one thing I've noticed is very telling is the "threesome test." What does this mean? It means, is there any woman out there he's attracted to that you are too, with whom you could have a threesome? If none of his girl crushes are yours, it's a no-go.

Let me explain. My girl-crushes are often girls I admire. They have traits I feel on some narcissistic level that I embody, or WISH I COULD embody. I love Kate Winslet because she's so body-confident and is really good at her craft (She has, like a million Oscar nominations). I love Leighton Meester because she's not one of those teen idols who pretends to be a goody-goody virgin to get ahead and because she takes risks with her fashion choices. I think Carla Bruni's sexy because she seems to be a shit-disturber. I also love Maryl Streep because she's talented and seems super modest, nice and gracious. I could name other ladies I find sexy, but the point is, if a guy doesn't have the same taste in girls as you do, you should wonder what he sees in you. Does he like the qualities in yourself that you want to be loved for? If you couldn't coordinate a real-life threesome (or a fantasy one, for that matter. Come on, where am I gonna meet Maryl Streep?), then maybe it's not going to last.

I can get down with a guy who likes a Nathalie Portman or a Christina Hendricks, but if you're dating a guy who wants to f-ck Lauren Conrad or Megan Fox, all I'm saying is that maybe that's a sign he's not "the one", if you know what I mean?

Why St. Patrick's Day Can be a Little Bit Racist Sometimes....

2010-03-17T20:26:00.004-04:00

St. Patrick's Day is racist. No, I don't mean it's racist for Ireland and Irish diasporic peoples to celebrate a national holiday day, but I DO think it's racist for the rest of us to mark March 17th by getting hammered and wearing green, reducing this holiday to a drunken binge and enforcing stereotypes of Irish people as alcoholics. Sure, Irish people might have a drink on St. Patty's day. Why not party? They are celebrating freedom from hundreds of years of oppression. Most of us are not Irish, so we don't share in this sense of liberation, so why have the drink? It is not "International Alcoholism Appreciation Day." Most of the kids I see celebrating St. Patrick's Day who aren't Irish don't even get what this holiday is about, and that wouldn't be so problematic, if they didn't insist on drinking green beer and downing a 5th of vodka anyway.

How would you feel if people around the world used Canada Day as an excuse to get drunk? Sure, we drink on Canada Day, but we also understand it's our independence day and marks the anniversary of confederation. If people in Namibia just used this day as a n excuse to get wasted without caring about our independence, wouldn't that hurt your feelings? IT would mine. It would make me feel like an international laughingstock. IT would make me feel like the rest of the world had reduced "Canadianness" to drunkenness. Well, it wouldn't just feel that way. It WOULD be true.

So, if you're thinking about having a drink or two not just because you yourself want one, but are justifying it by saying, "Hey, it's St. Patrick's Day!" Please be self-reflexive. Are you Irish? No, if not, think, would I want people to use Canada Day as an excuse to get drunk or high and pretend that's what it was all about? IF your answer isn't, "no," I'll wager you weren't being self-reflexive ENOUGH...

2010-03-16T19:07:00.004-04:00

Okay so I've been out of the Gender Studies realm for a while now. I'm admittedly a little rusty on my post-modern feminist pop-culture dissecting. Please help me figure this one out:

I Now Know People On Reality Tv

2010-03-15T19:48:00.002-04:00

Oh my God! It was only a matter of time, but girls I went to high school with ended up on reality tv! Yes, I went to Branksome with the lead on "Jaclife," some series of television shorts on slice.com. It's basically "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" meets "The Hills." It revolves around the hip luxury store "Jacflash" on Queen West. I am not sure what I think about this. Ask me when I have watched a few more of their 5 minute clips. Watch Jaclife here.

Gossip Girl Feminist Index Returns!

2010-03-09T11:22:00.004-05:00

Okay, so this week's episode wasn't great, but it set up a lot of good potential. Let's grade that potential, shall we?

Minus 5 points to Blair for telling Serena she needs to wait to have sex with Nate and "play games." I'm not against waiting to have sex. I think it can be really helpful to wait for physical intimacy until you've established emotional intimacy, but I don't think that's the way it HAS to be. If two people feel comfortable starting with sex, then let them. Let's not be prescriptive. Being prescriptive about when people should have sex is not feminist-sexy. I would deduct more points, but Blair is young and just getting the high school beaten out of her. She doesn't realize there really aren't clear-cut rules when it comes to dating yet. Plus, didn't she first have sex with Chuck before they had come anywhere close to going on a date? He was her fuck buddy and then he became the love of her life, so even Blair doesn't follow her own rules. At the moment though, she's too young to be self-reflexive enough to realize she's a hypocrite. This is why she needs to take a course in first year women's studies!

Plus ten points to Serena for ignoring Blair and screwing Nate anyway, because she felt like it. Making decisions for yourself about when you're ready to do what is feminist-sexy. Yes, I am going to keep using the term "feminist-sexy" now. I like it. I don't care if you think it's lame.

Minus 10 points to Lilly for not coming clean to Rufus about "kissing" her ex in a hotel room earlier. Is it just me, or is this story she's telling him ridiculous? I HOPE, for the sake of the show, that this rich lady is lying. So, her ex is a doctor and her mom was dying, so she HAD to seek advice from him? That's what she tells Rufus. Like, um, is he the ONLY doctor in the world? You are Lilly Bass, you could OWN the Mayo Clinic. Does your mother's life really depend on one random doctor who abandoned you and your kids to live like a fugitive running around the world? Also, why did you kiss him, Lilly? Where did that get you? I can see him agreeing to help you for sex, but a kiss? I think this is a case of equivocating. She never said WHERE she kissed him. Clearly this was an exchange of oral sex for expert medical advice.

Minus 5 points to Jenny for being so obsessed with the drug-dealing Belgium prince who blows her off for Serena. Jenny, you are pretty but you are 16. Belgium princes who deal drugs are just too much for you right now, and he's not even into you. Your shade of lipstick at the French ambassador's party was nice, though.

Plus 10 points to Blair for leaving that random Table Elitaire guy to support her boyfriend in a personal crisis. Now, I don't think a woman's dream should always take a backseat to her partner's, but part of being an adult is learning what's important and what's not. In my opinion, founding super secret exclusive societies is NOT important, but when your partner's mother comes back from the dead, that's both pretty creepy AND important. Part of being a good feminist girlfriend is knowing to prioritise and when your partner needs your help and when to focus on yourself - it seems Blair is figuring that balance out.

Plus 5 points to Blair for telling that lying vaguely accented woman off for lying about not being Chuck's mother. Why the hell IS she lying though about being Chuck's mother? Her whole motivation for abandoning him and faking her death makes about as much sense as Lilly's reasons for visiting her ex-husband in his hotel room.

Plus ten points to Chuck's mom for taking responsibility for the pain and havoc she reaped on Chuck's life by faking her own death by attempting to call him. This is promising.

Overall Score: Plus 15.

General Comments:

I do not buy Serenate. Serena and Nate are boring. They are too superficially good looking people who cannot act, and so, the only solution is never to put them in a scene together. They can't do dialogue with one another and they have no chemistry. They are the only people in the history of "public coatroom sex" to make "public coatroom sex" look boring! I just didn't care. If I'd walked in on them doing it while getting my Prada trench, I probably wouldn't have batted an eye. When Serena grabbed his Nate's ass while they were going at it? OMG, awkward! You could tell that was not Blake Lively's highlight of her work day.

Also, what is up with Leighton Meester's face? I love her! I think she's a tremendous actress and I find her beautiful, but seriously, girl is living HARD. She's developed deep lines in her forward in the last six months. There is nothing wrong with wrinkles, but they probably shouldn't appear so abruptly. I think that's a bad sign.

Finally, where is Chuck's mother from? What the f-ck? is that accent? First we had Lilly and Rufus' secretly half-Persian son, and now we have Chuck's ambiguously accented mom? Ugh, so confusing. I would like some cultural specificity, please! I don't know why this is so important to me...

Tina Fey, I love you, but....

2010-03-02T21:12:00.002-05:00

I love Tina Fey. Well, I love most things about her. What I don't appreciate is how much she and her show downplay her physical beauty to the point of ridiculousness. Sure, Tina Fey is not Pamela Anderson, but she's undeniably sexy (and not even in a super unconventional way). When they characterize her as a hag and a slob on her show, though, that just reifies unattainable beauty standards for women rather than deconstructing them. After all, if 127 pound, alabaster-skinned and doe-eyed Tina Fey is homely, what is your average woman?

Tina Fey is a capable and attractive woman in her late 30s. She's not an old maid. In fact, she looks ridiculously good for her age. Her face and her body are both holding up super well, and so it comes off as really insincere when her character says she's going to go home and eat lots of ham and cheese and cupcakes. Tina Fey the actress might binge on these things occasionally now, and I believe her that she over-indulged in them in the past, but she currently can't believably portray a character who goes home and eats donuts all night without ever exercising. To pretend that slobby women who don't try look like Tina is to make every woman who does try and still doesn't look as good feel like shit. Let's not promote a myth that Tina Fey is some scary, sub-standard specimen of femininity.

So, Tina Fey, I love you and I love your show. Playing a flawed character is great, but one of her flaws is NOT her looks. Stop making the rest of us feel terrible when your character is supposed to be all dumpy, but can still pull off a Herve Leger!

A Myth We Must Dismiss...

2010-02-05T09:29:00.003-05:00

Last night, my best friend and I were having a conversation in which she said something pretty profound: "Don't you hate the media for how it socialized us to think that dating is easy?" No, she didn't think it socialized us to think there would never have to be any heartache or compromise. Quite the opposite! Sex and the City showcased more disastrous dates and relationships with outright cruel men than a girl can shake a stick at; however, what the show did make us think when we were 14 year olds watching it late at night without our parents knowing, was that a date was always right around the corner.

"You can't just go into a Starbucks and meet a non-creepy guy and hit it off in 30 seconds and arrange to meet for dinner on Friday," my friend railed. Indeed, you can't. You really, really can't. A guy who asks you out 30 seconds after having first seen you is a sleaze and is likely married so he must work quickly, or wants to kidnap you for human trafficking purposes.

What this myth does (for heterosexual women, that is) is to set up unrealistic expectations about how easy it is to meet someone great. Fabulous, emotionally mature men with law degrees and clean finger nails do not just see you on the street, notice you checking them out and immediately ask you out in response. If they did, they wouldn't be fabulous or emotionally mature, and I bet they wouldn't have clean fingernails, either.

The truth is, guys aren't out there, just waiting to pursue us every time they see a girl they think is cute - in fact, how insulting would that be, if guys only every asked you out before speaking with you. Wouldn't that mean they just wanted a warm female body they found sexually attractive enough? I'm not against physical attraction, but if a guy doesn't really even say 10 words to you before picking you up, does that mean he'd ever want to do anything with you besides have sex with you? And if all you want is sex, which is fine, then that's fine, but the idea that you can have a great date or meet a great guy from these chance encounters is f-ing ridiculous. They are not the foundations for good relationships.

This is why I love When Harry Met Sally. They meet 3 times before they actually develop some sort of bond, and that seems natural to me. Of course, they have to have years of friendship and accidentally sleep together before they get married, but at least Nora Ephron wasn't trying to convince us they fell in love at first site meeting at the garbage chute.

I hate a meet-cute that doesn't take a while to develop into a cute couple. You know?

Six Six IS NOT FAT, So Shut the Fuck Up and Eat a Sandwich!

2010-01-15T10:46:00.003-05:00

I'm sick of celebrities losing weight and that being considered "news" (Don't get me wrong, I'm also sick of them gaining weight and that being considered news, too), but really, honestly, when Kim Kardashian uses a crash diet to lose two dresses in one week, why must US weekly document this? Also, if they must, why is there no condemnation of why dangerous this must be? Because that's what it is - dangerous - to stop eating for 7 days and subsist off maple syrup or some such shit. Also, Ms. Kardashian didn't need to lose any weight. Not even from an aesthetic perspective, either! She had a gorgeous hourglass figure that worked perfectly on her. It was slim and it was sexy and it looked HEALTHY, so why starve yourself?

I'm also sick of hearing about the tiny Kate Hudson go from a size two to a zero for a movie using Tracy Anderson's crazy two-hour a day workout that you're supposed to do six days a week! Am I the only one who thinks that's extreme, and if that's the only way you can be a size zero, it's just not for you? I'm all for exercising, but it's more like 4 or 5 days a week for 45 minutes in the gym. I'm down with yoga a few times a few in the gym and some spinning classes in addition to fun weekend bike rides, walking to work or playing with your nieces in the park, but how am I supposed to enjoy my healthy body if I spend two hours a day working on it? Add that to my eight hour workday and my 1 and a half of commuting, my obligatory daily shower and chores like the laundry, and I have approximately 75 minutes a day to hang out with friends and enjoy my figure before I go to bed!

I'm sick of a media that would have me believe I have weight to lose even once I'm totally in shape and able to fit into all my cute clothes. Last year, Jennifer Love Whatshername told me she was fat when she was a size six, and then celebrated her transformation into a size two in magazines across America. This year, Kim Kardashian is telling me the same thing. Stop it! You're not fat! You're not unhealthy! Shut the fuck up and eat a sandwich!

Good News of the Day!

2010-01-13T17:35:00.003-05:00

My alma mater done did me proud by raising thousands of dollars to educate young girls in Afghanistan. You can read about it here in the Huffington post. It's important to get girls into feminist activism young, and privileged young women in particular should realize it's just luck, not superiority, that gave them their privilege, and therefore we ought to redistribute some of our disproportionate wealth.

My Childhood Isn't Just Over, It's Been Discontinued!

2010-01-12T17:30:00.004-05:00

When I Was 11, I asked for the Samantha doll from the American Girl catalogue for my birthday. My parents, deciding I was too old to collect dolls anymore, got me a CD player instead. I have never forgotten this event. I was told I was too old to be a child that day, AND I got the most disappointing gift of my life (I know, I sound spoiled, but I NEVER said I Wanted a CD player. I was NOT interested in that). Well, to this day, I covet Samantha but have never received her. Unfortunately, I found out today that Samantha has been discontinued! How can American Girl do this to me? I always held out hope that one day my parents would realize their mistake and give her to me - Yes, I still believed that even yesterday, despite the fact that I am now 23. This is depressing news. Our childhoods now aren't just over, but they've been discontinued!

As a generation, I guess we've grown up, and all our memories are now available only on e-bay.

Good News for the New Year!

2010-01-02T14:45:00.004-05:00

Isn't this nice? Kate Winslet's very healthy but smokin' hot celebrity body came out on top as the most desirable celebrity body according to a poll of women by the UK's Daily Mail. What's even better is that women don't want to emulate UNHEALTHY celebrity bodies, like Victoria Beckham, according to the poll. While I do not want to mock Ms. Beckham for having an eating disorder (Which, in interviews, she basically admits she does, as she openly admits she doesn't eat regular, balanced meals), I do think it's positive that the average woman polled isn't JEALOUS of her figure. This says that women may want a hot celebrity body, but they know which ones look like the product of a healthy diet and good fitness regime, and which ones seem to be the product of severe psychological illness and should not be emulated. Good news for the new year!

The Top Movies I've Seen in Terms of Providing Good Roles for Women This Year

2009-12-28T12:05:00.002-05:00

Good roles for women are hard to find in hollywood. Some studios (you know who you are) have basically decided not to produce movies starring women, because they think they can't sell. Well, that's ridiculous. Write a really good script with a good role (the kind George Clooney and Matt Damon get all the time), actually promote the f-ing movie so people know where and when to see it, and I'm sure you'll find an audience for woman-centred movies. Don't write a shitty script, like The Women, and don't let a movie languish in obscurity without proper promotion, like the amazing Notes on a Scandal. Here is a list of some movies that actually provided good material for women this year. Some were well seen, some were not, but still, if you haven't, YOU should see them. Show the world people want and will watch woman-centred stories.

1. An Education - An adaption of a British woman's memoir, Carrie Mulligan plays a young girl being seduced by a cad to brilliant perfection. What's remarkable about the movie, however, is how matter-of-fact and almost optimistic it is. Our protagonist is not a ruined woman, she's resilient. It's lovely to see such a strong woman character, and Ms. Mulligan plays strength so well with such divine poise and understatement.

2. The Young Victoria - Another coming-of-age story based on true events, the Young Victoria gives Emily Blunt time to shine that she has never before really been given. She plays a range of emotion, from boredom to profound loneliness to exquisite joy, and she does so with believability that pays suitable tribute to the legend that is Queen Victoria. This is a simple but sublime love story, made all the better by the fact that it's true.

3. Up In the Air - How can you not love Anna Kendrick? She's adorable, and her role really isn't just supposed to be as George Clooney's sidekick as he teaches her how to downsize. Anna plays an overachieving failing at something for the first time in her life, as she realizes she's not very good at her job of firing people and the man she moved to the middle-of-nowhere for her dumps her. Kendrick is funny, vulnerable and just generally gives a really promising performance.

4. Nine - Now, it's not a very good movie. It's dull in parts and disjointed in others, but it does honestly provide some magical moments for a few very talented female performers. For example, Kate Hudson's exuberant song and dance scene made me see her in a whole new light. Nicole Kidman, a truly maligned figure in recent years, also gets the chance to show us why she is a movie star, by playing a world-famous movie star with such presence and dignity I fell in love with her a little bit all over again. Marion Cotillard also gets a couple of scenes that show case her beautiful singing voice. Judy Dench also gets the dryest and wittiest lines in the movie. Overall, there were lots of good moments for women performers in this pic.

5. It's Complicated - Meryl Streep plays a divorced woman having an affair with her ex-husband so well it makes me wonder if she's an even better comic performer than a dramatic one. She and Alec Baldwin have brilliant chemistry. This film is practically flawless. I'm so happy Streep, now in her 60s, was given this chance to headline a romantic comedy. She shows a woman performer is never to old to be hilarious and sexy.

6. Julie and Julia - Amy Adams and Meryl Streep might never share a scene in this movie, but both are given the chance to show a range of emotions, from profound creative frustration to elation. It's a film that shows how one woman's bravery can inspire another to change her life, which might sound trite, but in this film, the message is usually so subtle that it's not.

7. The Proposal - I love that Sandra Bullock gets to be a leading lady in a romantic comedy at 45. She's hilarious and really cares this film with her uptight, neurotic, yet believably vulnerable character.

8. Precious - Well, it's a tour de force. It's a profoundly dramatic film that affords a huge cast of women the opportunity to deal with such heavy topics as teenage pregnancy, sexual abuse, and HIV AIDS. The performers shine in this movie, and even make up for the schizophrenic direction.

Well, it's to bad to report, but that's really all I've got. Good roles for women in the Hollywood system are hard to find, and if you're a woman of colour, it's even harder. Let's hope next year will be better, because this year, in all honesty, I really can't even complete a top ten. That's not the women performers' faults, it's the people who refuse to write, produce and promote for them. Hollywood is still so often too sexist to realize that women's stories can be pretty profoundly - and profoundly entertaining - as well.

Sufjan Stevens for Christmas

2009-12-23T15:54:00.002-05:00

Christian music gets a bad rep. Don't get me wrong, I f-king HATE most Christian rock, because usually the melodies suck and the lyrics about Jesus are over-the-top and uninventive; however, Sufjan Stevens, a musician I would classify as pretty indie hipster, has a number of songs about God in Jesus in addition to his standard angsty hipster love songs. These songs are gorgeously written and are a refreshing celebration of a faith so many people still follow - the only difference is, Stevens' songs will appeal to Christians with good musical taste, and believe me, they are out there, worshipping Christ but hating most Christian rock just as hard as the next person. So, because it's Christmas eve eve, I thought I'd treat you to a spiritual song that DOESN'T induce vomit. Here it is.

What Mad Men Means To Me....

2009-12-21T18:35:00.005-05:00

So, I'm in Mad Men withdrawal right now. I hate not getting a scene to dissect each weak, so, instead, I'm going to write some holistic observational analysis of the best television series of our time.

A few days ago, I was trying to explain to someone who had never before seen the show what it was about and why I liked it. Basically, I believe it chronicles an important period in the evolution of modernity. It starts in 1960, and in theory, it's meant to end with the onset of the 70s. So much changed in this decade. I mean, there was the Cold War coming to a head with the Cuban Missile Crisis, there was the assassination of Kennedy, The Vietnam War, the civil rights movement, the women's movement, Stonewall, and so much more. The other thing that happened was the increased commercialized and commodification of our culture. Television becoming part of the typical American life created vast new opportunities for advertising and consumption. It's interesting to see the evolution of a society through the perspectives of the people who are trying to sell stuff to that country. The big question is, "What do American people want?" It's asked over and over again when we ask what specific demographics within it want. Draper asks, "What do women want?" He asks how to sell a bank account to a white male executive, and Stirling Cooper also notices there is a burgeoning "Negro" market. Mad Men analyses a changing country through its changing demographics.

What is most compelling about Mad Men to me, however, is watching its more tragic characters, who are, not the ones who are fighting for greater freedoms or equal rights, but the ones we suspect might be left behind; the ones for whom this social change might have come too late. Joan is certainly one of these characters. She is compelling in that she is so incredibly capable. There is nothing she isn't good at, from running at very complicated and chaotic office to saving a man's life when he has an uncontrollably bleeding foot. Joan is a dynamo, but alas, unlike Peggy, who'll get to be a pioneer in her field and might one day be a creative director herself, for all we know, Joan is tragic because there were too many structural barriers to her becoming a pioneer like Peggy. The world is just starting to change as Peggy gets her start, and so it's great that she's smart, because she opportunities. Sure, she'll have to work a little harder, but at least they'll give her the work. Joan, however, was born ten years to early. She might be college-educated and the best damn secretary Stirling Cooper has ever had (so good that she gets promoted to be Office Manager), she came to early to start as something more. In fact, when she gets an opportunity to do some work for the Television department and aces it in Season two, no one thinks to promote her, unlike when Peggy did well writing copy, because Joan has carved out a niche doing grunt work and no one can see her as anything but the hot babe who has mastered business supplies and the art of getting coffee. She's a monument to those women for whom the Women's Movement came too late and whose potential was never fully realized because of it.

Another compelling and random thing I've noticed about Mad Men is how Don Draper flirts with feminism. Sure, he marries the wooden and superficial Betty, whose only real virtue is looking the part of the perfect housewife besides not even really liking the task of being a mother, but he is always attracted to progressive women who have careers and don't really prioritise getting married. There was Midge, who never made Don breakfast in the morning, worked as a graphic artist and lived as a beatnit in Greenwich Village; there was Rachel, an educated wealthy Jewish woman who refused to get married unless it was love and preferred instead to run her father's high-end department store; and finally, there is his daughter's teacher, who likes to play Civil rights speeches for her class and takes care of an epileptic brother. They're all independent and progressive, and when second wave feminism really takes off, no doubt they'll all relate to its concerns. What's so appealing about Don's attraction to feminists is how he's fascinated and drawn to them, but clearly with some trepidation. I mean, he didn't marry one, now did he? But now that his marriage to Betty has collapsed, one must wonder if her regrets that. Perhaps what he really would have liked was a wife who challenged him, as opposed to Betty, whose life once revolved around him. Perhaps the nuclear family structure, where a woman's job is to make her husband's life better, doesn't actually appeal to Don at all. He might have it, but he never really seemed to want it, cheating on his wife and avoiding coming home at every turn.

Yeah, Mad Men's great, because the sexy girls who satisfy Don are the more feminist-friendly characters, whereas his racist, anti-feminist wife is the one he comes to see as unattractive....

Well, that's all for now! I now these were random and disjointed thoughts, but I hope you enjoyed them.

Rock Me, Sexy Jesus!

2009-12-20T14:56:00.002-05:00

Now, if THIS doesn't get you into the Christmas spirit, nothing will. It's a clip from the movie Hamlet 2, which is a terrible movie, but it's a brilliant song and dance number, nonetheless (I give credit where credit is due, and it is due here!). Anyway, LOOOOVE this song, and I hope you do too.

An NGO Worth Reading About

2009-12-16T09:32:00.004-05:00

A friend of mine's father is the head of this organization, so I thought I would pass the word on, and basically, just say Kudos for doing a good thing! Jewish Voice for Peace is all about ending human rights abuses in Palestine and creating a fair and lasting peace for the conflict between Israel and Palestine. Check out their mission statement! If you're looking for a cause to donate to this holiday season, they are a VERY good one.

Christmas is coming and hanukkah is coming to an end. The holidays, for obvious reasons, remind me of Israel and Palestine, because those nations are where so many of the biblical stories we know and tell around this time of year took place. Wouldn't it be great if these nations could enjoy peace? Well, obviously! That goes without saying, but organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace go beyond WISHING for these things, and come up with an ACTION PLAN that I think could possibly make it happen, if it was popularly adopted. So read the mission statement I linked to. I hope you support it too! Popular support helps breed change, after all.

Remember, the conflict between Israel and Palestine is a women and gender issue, too. Huge numbers of Palestinian women and their babies die because they cannot cross through checkpoints in time to get to hospitals while in labour. This is just one example of how the conflict affects women (and there are many). It's also an example of something we could end if there were peace between these two nations.

Anti-Christian Hate Speech is Hate Speech, Part Two

2009-12-16T09:02:00.002-05:00

I apologize if some of my comments were polemical or rushed (One of the risks of writing in anger), but at the same time, I misspell lots of words all the time (Even those regarding Christianity. I'm just not a good speller, so I don't think I was being culturally insensitive, it's just the remnants of my mild case of dyslexia that I mostly conquered in childhood. I just write shit down and it doesn't occur to me I could have misspelled it often, as I spell phonetically. This was a problem while writing my thesis, which involved using a lot of transliterated Arabic words). I also apologize for saying "most sects," of Judaism, rather than "multiple sects don't allow women rabbis." I was writing quickly and angrily. The reference, however, is still SUPER relevant, as all that I needed to prove to satisfy my burden for my argument that it's unfair Christian sects that don't allow women priests get a disproportionate amount of attention is to prove that SOME major sects of other religions, like Judaism, are really just as bad on the woman question. This is not to say that there aren't progressive sects of Judaism or Islam, and basically all other religions. I am not PRIVILEGING moderate Christian sects - I am just pointing out that they exist and often get side-stepped - especially both those who are the perpetrators of anti-Christian hate speech. My point in my original post is that HATRED is wrong, which I think I illustrated, though, admittedly, it's not a hard point to prove!

Ultimately, the basic point of my argument still stands; it is wrong and hypocritical for people of other religions to bash Christianity and it is no better or less hateful than bashing, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, Sikhism, etc. There are more conservative sects in all these religions (just as in Christianity) that are not cool to women and are extreme, but there are also moderate sects in all of these religions, too. I just don't like the double-standard that people are allowed to make anti-Christian comments in North America, and it flies under the radar so damn often - people don't get that it's hate speech, which is something that civilized and educated people shouldn't do, and yet so many educated people whom I believe happen to believe they are good people feel they can make an exception where Christians are concerned in North America, and to me, it's concerning. Any time we become desensitized to hate speech, our society becomes more dangerous, because we start to see the target of our hateful speech as less valuable (and maybe one day, perhaps expendable) members of our society. This is why I'm holding people with hypocritical and offensive views towards Christianity accountable in this blog post. I don't care what religion you are (or if you have no religion at all), if you hate on Christians and think it's acceptable, that's just plain ignorant. I am not favouring Christianity. I wrote an entire thesis speaking out against those who persecute Muslims for my master's, but surprisingly, even though Muslims are far more persecuted in North America than any other religion (It's an assertion, but come on, if you've been to an airport, you know it's true), I think most educated people are more sensitive to avoiding Islamaphobic comments than anti-Christian ones, because, even if they harbour anti-Muslim views, they at least know they shouldn't, that this prejudice is ignorant - or at least politically incorrect and SEEN as ignorant by fans of critical race theory, like myself.

I have spent a huge part of my life participating in anti-genocide activism and also trying to end prejudices towards Muslim Canadians and Britons in my research. I don't like hatred. The point of my argument is not to prove that Christianity is BETTER than other religions, or that Christians themselves are more tolerant towards other religions than Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc, etc. The point is that it's not okay to make Christians the victims of hate speech. I am passionate about the anti-Islamaphobia movement, and I tell people off for anti-semitism when I hear it, as well. What I want to emphasize here, however, is that anti-Christian prejudices are just as morally deplorable as Islamaphobic, Anti-Semitic or anti-Sikh prejudices and should be condemned.

Let's Applaud This Baby Name

2009-12-14T14:49:00.002-05:00

I'm not sure what this has to do with feminism, but Kourtney Kardashian has had her baby, and it actually has a really cute name! She and her partner called it Mason Dash Disick. Now, Mason is fine. I don't love the name but it's normal and not overly common, so I have no objections to it, but that middle name is awesome! Kourtney, having an Armenian last name, was presented with the problem all women with Armenian last names have. Do you hyphenate your baby's last name, despite the fact that this is arguably an act of child abuse? I mean, can you imagine someone saying to this baby 30 years from now, "Hello, Mr. Kardashian-Disick! This is your new office." No, you can't, because it's too long and those two names don't really go together. So, Kourtney taking the "Dash" from her last name and making that her baby's middle name is an adorable and elegant solution to what I previously thought was a conundrum. Now, she also could have just given the baby HER last name period, and dropped the Disick, but I guess like Ms. Kardashian didn't feel like being that revolutionary, and I'll forgive her for that.

Kudos to Ms. Kardashian and your mad baby-naming skillz. I might take a cue from Kourtney Kardashian in one day naming my own children. No, I don't think I will subject my child to the middle name of "Sahag" or "Hag," but "Ian" is a very nice name, and that could be cute!

Being "Anti-Christian" Is NOT Okay...

2009-12-13T14:39:00.003-05:00

Today, a friend of mine and I were at a diner in Foresthill for brunch. It's where I live and this particular place is a common hangout of mine, so I felt pretty comfortable in there. I mean, I know the menu, I know the staff. The place has all the components it needs to to be a cosy and comforting place for me to eat. Still, I didn't feel comfortable there. Not today. Why? Because the people at the table next to us were making anti-Christian comments.

So, this 30 year old guy who was well-dressed and had a pretty good vocabulary at the next table over from us decided to say something offensive. He said to his buddies - quite loudly, I might add - "The Christians have really commercialized Christmas. It's disgusting. We Jews haven't done the same with Hannukah. It's not commercial like that." All I have to say in response is, "WTF?"

Well, that's not true, I lied. I have LOTS more to say in response, as I'm blogging about it here and this blog entry is going to be LONG. So, first off, Christianity is not a monolith. There are many different sects of Christians, many of whom have not really commercialized Christmas at all. Sure, some people treat it like it's just a gift-giving frenzy, but those are the more secular Christians out there. There are secular Jews, too, who just do Hannukah for the gifts and the dradels (Trust me, I know some of them, just like I know some nominal Christians who have never even been to church but still exchange gifts on Christmas). The idea that Christians are all commercial but Jewish folks never are is both inaccurate and offensive. There are still many Christians who don't even exchange gifts and take Christ's coming VERY seriously.

I am culturally Christian. What I mean by that is, I don't necessarily believe in all the God in heaven stuff (I do WANT it to be true, though), but I do celebrate the holidays and understand their meaning. I was baptized, I was confirmed, and I also grew up going to church on a reasonably regular basis. I know the dogma the their biblical studies pretty well.

I also know that a lot of people find it okay to bash Christianity, but would be taken aback if you bashed other religions. For example, it's not uncommon to hear people make completely ignorant and unjustified statements, like, "I feel like Christians just get crazier with their religion than other people in the world." Or, "Christianity is just a more sexist religion than Judaism." Or my personal favourite, "The world would just be better if Christianity didn't exist." Hmm. Are we Christians of all denominations really all crazier than every other religious sect on the planet? Don't get me wrong, SOME of us are crazy and refuse to believe man didn't walk around with the dinosaurs no matter what modern science tells us, but some of us are absolutely awesome. Anglicans, for example, allow women to be priests (something not only Catholics, but most Jewish sects I know STILL don't allow) and many Church officials are even cool with gay marriage. Same goes for the United Church. So, for every Pope Innocent who doesn't want people in Subsaharan African to wear condoms, you have a much more progressive character, like Archbishop Desmond Tutu (IF you don't believe me, google him; he is AWESOME!). Also, in the UK, the Archbishop of the Church of England is leading the charge for great religious pluralism and tolerance towards the UK's Muslim population. Is that not pretty damn cool? No, not all Christians are like the evangelicals in the US, trying to convert everyone and control the government so that its laws reflect their religious beliefs.

The thing I resent most about anti-Christian comments is how the usually ignorant people who make them refuse to acknowledge that the generalizations and acid-tongued comments they are making are hate speech. They think that because Christians as a whole make up the majority in North America, it's okay to bash them. They act as if Christians have never been persecuted meaningfully, and so it's not scary for us to be exposed to hatred. Well, I have relatives who CAME to Canada as refugees escaping persecution BECAUSE they were Christian (See The Armenian Genocide for proof), Sure, that was 90 years ago (Still, only 20 years earlier than the Holocaust), but Christians are still persecuted in Saudi Arabia and sometimes in Egypt. It's not that easy to be a Christian in China, either, and try being a Christian in the UAE, where some even think the Swiss flag is blasphemy. The point is, it's not okay to hate on Christians. It's not any better than hating on Christians, or Muslims, or Sikhs, or Hindus, or Jews. You are just adding ammunition to the arsenal of those extremists in the world who would hate and even kill Christians for their identity (And they have existed and continue to exist). You make such extremists seem more justified in their acts of violence, and that's wrong. That's enabling - and that's disgusting.

So, merry Christmas! Yes, I give Christmas gifts, but this December 25th, I will also be at Church, on my knees preying for a better world, and yes, I will be worshipping Christ. Is that really so commercial?

"This is What a Feminist Looks Like" - the video

2009-12-12T16:08:00.003-05:00

This here video is pretty good. A lot of celebrities I LOVE are in these magazines.

On Team Tiger?

2009-12-07T11:11:00.004-05:00

So, a lot of people are on Elin Woods' side in this whole sordid Tiger Woods cheating scandal. I would say that popular opinion supports her, but I don't. Not Necessarily. If it turns out to be true that she lacerated Tiger's face and assaulted him with a golf club, then I'm NOT on her side. Sure, cheating is bad. It's incredibly painful and he apparently did it a lot, but abuse is worse. There is no excuse for assaulting someone who is not trying to assault you. If this had been a man assaulting a wife he believed was cheating on him, I really don't believe that popular opinion would have been on his side. We seem to feel that men can't be victims, and if a woman tries to pummel her husband's ass, it's just funny. Because in this case, lots of people have been laughing at Tiger, but really, it's not weak to get injured by someone who has a golf club as a weapon. A golf club can be a serious weapon, and really, despite the fact that Woods doesn't have a lot of personal integrity, he didn't deserve to be the victim of domestic abuse.

That's the thing we have to realize - anyone can be a victim of domestic abuse. All an abuser needs is the right weapon to even out the power dynamic. Domestic violence is NOT funny, and it should never be mocked on an SNL skit, in my opinion. The particular irony of this Saturday's skit, however, is that Rihanna was the musical guest that night. While some people were insensitive regarding Rihanna's experiences with domestic abuse, she was not mocked in the same way.

If your wife abused you, I'm on your side, Tiger. If she hadn't hit you, I'd be on hers, but assault is worse than cheating. No one ever has a brutal beating coming to them.

Remembering The Montreal Massacre

2009-12-06T16:25:00.003-05:00

I remember. In truth, I don't actually remember the Montreal Massacre happening. I was three. My parents had me, and my mother had just given birth to a second daughter, my sister. My mother herself was not so different from the women who had been shot; she too was a woman in a man's profession, one of the first five women in North America to work as an i-banker on a bond desk. What's more, she had started out in engineering. After deciding it wasn't for her, she switched to economics, but my mother had always been a woman in a man's world. A woman who had operated safely within it. She might have encountered sexist men who expected her to bring them coffee when she was their professional equal, but she had never, as far as she has told me, feared for her physical safety. This, I imagine, must have been a wake up call.

December 6, 1989, must have been a truly frightening day to be both a woman and a mother of daughters. I wonder if, just for a minute, my parents had wished they'd never had me. That they'd never had my sister. I wondered if they wished they'd had boys. If they'd felt like giving up on the incredibly hard job of being a mother and father of daughters in a world where women are still hated by so many. My mother was a feminist who was raising her daughter to be feminists, but suddenly, this was a liability, as the Montreal Massacre's perpetrator said he was "fighting feminism" in shooting innocent female engineering students. Sure, my parents wanted us to be whatever we wanted to be, but I wonder if they wondered if we'd be safer if they raised us not to rock the boat, to be women without opinions or feminist values who stayed at home and raised children and always deferred to our husbands. In the end, my parents must have decided the risk was worth it; they raised us to be feminists. I am doing a PhD in women's studies at York university and my sister is a science student who hopes to go to medical school.

My parents never told me about the Montreal Massacre. I think they couldn't find the words to tell me no parent ever wants any child to understand, "if you had simply been born in a different time, a different place, someone would have tried to kill you just for being you." It be true, but it doesn't mean it's a lesson you want to teach. In the end, I finally learned about the Montreal Massacre at my all-girls high school, when I was in grade 9. My teacher burst into tears and had to leave the room halfway through her explanation of what had happened. It was a lesson she too knew we had to learn, but one she also didn't want to teach. It's one of those lessons that's true and women must face (that still so many people hate and resent us for our dreams and accomplishments), but it's so unfair that it's true. It's a lesson our parents and teachers shouldn't have to teach, because it's so tragic it shouldn't be true....

Today, I'm 23. I am the same age as some of the women who were shot for being what their killer called "feminists." I am a feminist. Feminism's fights aren't over, as Stephen Harper, our prime minister, seems to hate women. Just look to his policies in Catherine Porter's article on the Montreal Massacre here. .

I wonder, if I one day have a daughter, how I will tell her about the Montreal Massacre and when that will be? Because, you see, she would need to know; I would have to tell you, but where would I find the strength to tell her what my parents could never tell me? I suppose I'll find the strength from knowing that the only way to achieve my feminist goals is to fight for them. My daughters would need to know what they are fighting against....

Why is Liz Lemon so Sex-negative?

2009-12-04T22:28:00.002-05:00

I love Liz Lemon. Well, I love to laugh at her, and yet, I am disturbed by her. No, not just because she's clearly out of touch with reality and has more irrational and ignorant prejudices than educated, self-identified liberals typically like to think they have. This, in many ways, is what makes her such a brave character. Fey isn't afraid to admit that lots of white liberals still feel self-righteous about giving charity, as we saw in last year's Christmas episode, when Liz Lemon felt she deserved a hero's thank you for helping out a black family that was likely made poor by the white supremacist capitalist patriarchy that privileges Liz Lemon herself and makes her rich enough that she CAN give charity. As much as Liz does a lot of subtly racist and sexist things, what I don't get about her and what I just can't find anything enlightening in is her sex-negativity.

You see, when Liz is being racist, it's illustrated as her ignorance. Liz, while claiming to be an educated liberal who is aware of the world around her, has a lot of ignorant prejudices she just can't shake. That's a powerful social commentary, but why, oh why, does she HAVE to hate sex so much? Because Liz really, really does. She longs for a relationship where you just watch tv with your partner and no one tries any "funny business," she tells comedic condfidante Jack. When handsome men hit on her she often rejects them or doesn't fucking care and ignores their interest. So, the only thing I can come up with that MIGHT be insightful about this character quirk (I don't want to think Fey is writing a character who buys into and reifies stereotypes about women hating sex) is that we're supposed to read Liz Lemon as a repressed lesbian. Think about it, Liz is too ignorant to realize she's racist and classist. She's clearly not too self-reflexive, is she? Perhaps Liz just hates sex with men!

There is some evidence to suggest Liz has lesbian tendencies on the show. For example, when Selma Hayak asks Liz if she wants to see her naked, she replies, "Kind of." She even accidentally goes on a date with a woman one episode and seems to have some romantic chemistry with her. Liz Lemon, closet lesbian? I would LOOOVE that, because then the moral of her sex life wouldn't be buying into myths about women hating sex, but would suggest that women who hate sex are just perhaps too close-minded about what kind of sex they'd like to have and with whom...

Sexy Kids: What Do YOU think?

2009-12-02T22:20:00.002-05:00

Please watch this clip on Youtube. I find it problematic. It's a clip of three seven year old girls dancing to "My Boyfriend's Back" at a dance competition. They are seven years old and very scantily clad, with sexy knee high stockings. Their choreography also resembles that of what you might see at a strip club. Not that there is anything WRONG with strippers. I am sex-positive and think it's cool to be a stripper and make money off of sex work. Sexuality is not dirty to me, having said that, is teaching seven year olds to dance like this okay?

I first saw this clip today in one of my PhD classes, where we debated where or not it is disturbing. The student who used it in her presentation is a mother of young dancer and she finds it troubling that young girls are sexualized this way in dance recitals. One student, however, argued that this type of dancing really isn't that disturbing; after all, even children are sexual, and we shouldn't teach kids to deny or be ashamed of their bodies and their sexuality, as that can have huge effects on body and sexual confidence later in life. I get both sides of the argument. I mean, we don't want young girls to think from the age of seven that they HAVE to be sexy to be entertaining and that their sexuality is all they have to offer; however, I don't want them to feel they ought to hide or deny their sexuality, either. If I had a daughter, I'm asking myself, what would I do?

What do y'all think? If you had a daughter, would you let her dance in false stockings and a bra top at the age of seven?

Is This Commercial Supposed to BE Funny?

2009-11-27T10:59:00.004-05:00

You know that Pledge commercial where they trap the poor woman inside a glass box for seven days to show her that all the wood she cleaned with Pledge will stay clean a week later because of their special Pledge wood-cleaning formula? The woman is not happy when they tell her she has to stay for a week to watch her wood stay clean. "A week?!?!" she replies, but then don't care that she probably has other things to do. I mean, she might have a super important job, a friend's birthday party, a special date, or even some kids to feed, but it doesn't matter, she has to stay in the glass box with the wood. And then, at the end of the commercial, by the time we all know the wood is still clean, the woman knocks on the glass and begs, "Can I get out now?" But we never see them let her out, so for all we know, she's still trapped in there.

So, my question is, are we supposed to find this commercial funny? I personally feel that kidnapping and forcibly confining women is never funny, so why, in the year 2009, is it socially acceptable to show this on TV? And furthermore, am I really expected to laugh when you do insist on showing it to me? Is it really supposed to be funny, because I get the impression that it is? Sick!

Maybe I Don't Know Dick, But You Don't Know This Chick!

2009-11-25T21:23:00.002-05:00

So, for the class I TA, we watched a film in lecture today called "You Don't Know Dick." It's about FtM transsexuals and traces their lives from childhood, through transitioning, to present-day living as a man. One dude in the doc, however was a fucking annoying and completely ignorant hegemonic man, in my opinion. This particular dude said that when he was a woman, he had very little sex drive and just cared about cuddling and relationships, but as a man, all he wants is sex. He says this is true of all men and all women - that women just want cuddles and men just want sex. He claims he knows this because he has been both a man and a woman. He attributes his now increased sex drive to the testosterone he takes, so all he's proven is that for HIM, taking testosterone and transitioning to be a man has made HIS sex drive more intense. Why does that have to mean all men like sex better than all women?

I know lots of women who like sex, and I don't appreciate women being essentialised as inherently less sexual. There are lots of other reasons this dude might like sex better now. I mean, if you never really felt comfortable with your body or genitals as a woman, as this man claims he didn't, then perhaps you wouldn't really be that into sex or feel that sexy. I mean, if you don't like your genitals, you probably won't enjoy sex, as it typically requires you to use them. Also, not all women have identical sex drives, just like not all men do, either. As early as the Kinsey reports in the 50s, we knew some men needed like 30 orgasms a week and some needed hardly any ever. There is the same range in women, I believe. Some women like lots of sex. I KNOW women who like lots of sex, just like I know some men who can go months without it quite unproblematically.

I just resent a transsexual man who tries to call upon his experiential authority about having lived both as ONE WOMAN and ONE MAN to try to claim that there is some essential and rigidly defined sex drive difference between the sexes. No, I've never transitioned to live as a man. No, I might "not know dick," but that stereotyping dude in the documentary doesn't happen to know THIS CHICK....

Great news!

2009-11-24T15:31:00.001-05:00

Woot!

Thank you, Miss G__.

Dissecting Mad Men: Season 3 Season Finale!

2009-11-11T22:16:00.003-05:00

Did you watch the season finale of Mad Men? It was so good! My moment, the one I will analyse, is Joan's entrance. The boys are mutinying, but they can't find the files! These are men like Don, who didn't even appreciate Peggy until this episode, let alone their secretaries, and then they realize, despite thinking they were in control the whole time, that they were always at Joan's mercy. Joan saves the day and the boys really do seem to appreciate her for it. Don has fought for Peggy and is making her a partner, and Joan leads the charge to the new hotel room office, where she gives instructions about where the guys and Peggy are to have client meetings. Joan knows how to run an ad agency and none of the people who were paid to run it and had titles that suggested they could actually did. It's time for women's lib!

What makes it time for women's lib, however, isn't that Joan clearly knows how to run the agency and knows she is capable of this. Joan isn't just playing with the boys, but the boys seemed to appreciate her for playing with them. They know they need her and this gives her room to maneuver and negotiate - maybe they won't resist feminism much longer?

2009-11-03T14:18:00.003-05:00

The Gossip Girl Feminist Index

Wow, Gossip Girl certianly has picked up some steam. This week's episode was very good. i like it when Gossip Girl gets all "political" and shit. On to the index!

Plus five points to Serena for attempting to be the bigger person and make up with Blair by suggesting a latte run when she runs into her outside Olivia's dorm room. Now, Serena's impulse to be the bigger person didn't last long, but the fact that she had this impulse at all deserves some points.

Minus 5 points to Blair for turning down Serena's latte offer. It's not high school. Just make up already!

Minus twenty points to Serena for publicly mocking Brandeis, a call girl who is just trying to network and do her job and has done absolutely NOTHING to Serena. Since when are call girls not worthy of respect? Unlike Serena's drunken disaster of a date, Brandeis was being subtle and everyone she was targetting seemed to like her overtures. Ugh! Treating people without dignity is NOT feminist-sexy. Serena, you're a billionaire, but not everyone was born that way. If some people are going to put themselves through private colleges and wear nice clothes, they need to make the money themselves. Work isn't a game for everyone like it is for you. Looking down on a sex worker and having her kicked out of a party she was doing nothing to disturb IS NOT COOL. Is money supposed to be a commodity reserved for people lucky enough to have been born with it, Serena? Is everyone who has to work to wear Louboutins therefore less of a person?

Minus five points to Blair for calling Serena a prostitute and meaning it as an insult. Ugh! What is with these girls and their denigration of sex workers?

Plus fiften points to Chuck for telling Serena that she and Blair basically both need to grow up and stop being so catty to each other or risk losing their friendship with each other forever. Chuck is the only character who seems to have matured and realized that THIS IS NOT HIGH SCHOOL ANYMORE. Everyone needs to grown up and treat each other with RESPECT.

Plus ten points to Blair for actually having a cool reaction when Brandeis eventually comes out to her as a sex worker near the end of the episode. When Blair hears Brandeis's logic (that she needs the sex work money to pay for tuition and couture), she doesn't really judge her for it and is surprisingly accepting. The only reason Blair de-friends Brandeis in the end is that she finds out Brandeis was really just using her to meet new clients, and didn't really seem to care about hanging out with Blair at all that night.

Plus ten points to Nate for taking the fall and pretending he had staged Tripp's rescue of that dude who was faking drowning on election day. Now Tripp is innocent and NO ONE suspects otherwise. Sure, Nate had to lie, but let's face it, he didn't have a brilliant political future ahead of him, anyway, and he helped what seems like a good and honourable candidate win without scandal.

Minus five points to Tripp's crazy wife for staging the drowning incident. I would deduct more, but bitch is crazy and can't be held accountable. Plus, I think the show is going to make an example of her. I think we're SUPPOSED to hate her. She's not getting away with anything, because it seems like Kharma is going to be a bitch; We ended the episode with Tripp staring at Serena's cleavage in a private bar area. You CANNOT tell me he is not going to tap that shit.

Overall score: Plus 5.

General Comments:

Now, the whole plot that's unfolding where Blair and Serena's friendship is in crisis surprised me because, frankly, I had forgotten they were best friends. Their chemistry is just so unbelievably bad. They have nothing in common, either, besides the fact that they are both hot and rich, but is that really enough to make us believe that they have been friends for 15 years? I don't care if they stay friends. It's boooring!

Now, on to Chuck and Blair. Why aren't they f-cking? For serious, they need to get it on. I am sick of watching them spooning in bed with their clothes ON! They are a couple after two long season apart. Could they please take advantage of it and have sex once in a while? We saw more groping from these two last season when they WEREN'T officially an item. CHAIR softcore porn is one of the reasons this show became such a cult success in the first place. Do you remember that scene from the finale where Blair is stripping for Chuck and asking him what he thinks of each article of her clothing as she removes it? Do you remember how isanely hot that was? Yeah, I watched that scene like 7 times. I want me some more of THAT this season.

Also, I LOVE that it looks like Tripp is Serena's new love interest. That is brilliant! First off, Tripp is super cute, so he's good eye candy. Secondly, Serena being embroiled in a political scandal is a GREAT plot twist. Serena is EXACTLY the kind of girl you cheat on your fucking crazy frigid WASP wife with. I mean, you certainly don't take Serena and her super low-cut, short-skirted dresses home to mom, but if you want secret quickie sex in the back of your bullet-proof town car en route to JFK for your 8 am shuttle to D.C., she's your girl! Serena makes good shame sex, it's true. I'm not being mean, either. I'm not saying these guys SHOULD be ashamed to take a girl who is comfortable with her body and showing it off at every corner home to mom, but Tripp clearly is, or he wouldn't have married that evil girl whose ONLY redeeming factor seems to be that she totally LOOKS sweet. WASP marriage practices are complicated. Most WASPs would understand Tripp's choice of bride, even though I doubt it makes any sense to normal people. Serena was right to quit her job. I mean, not only does she not need it because she has family money, but it also looks like she's about to start a very long and profitable career as a mistress!

Dissecting Mad Men: "The Gypsy and the Hobo"

2009-10-26T19:25:00.004-04:00

So, Donald Draper's secret is out. The high-ups at Stirling Cooper know and Betty knows, and yet it's still an open secret. People want Don to be Don even though he's Dick. They need him to be Don just as much as this man needs to be Don. Anyway, today, I'm dissecting the moment where Joan hits her husband with a vase. Hot!

So, Joan's husband, who raped her in season two, is failing at everything. He failed at becoming a surgeon, and now he's failing at becoming a shrink. So, dude has a break-down, telling Joanie, "You don't know what it's like want something your whole life and not get it," or words to that effect. The look on Joan's face in the close-up that ensues is telling; Joan thought she wanted to be the wife of a professional man who could take care of her. She worked towards this her whole life, but now because of her husband's incompetence, everything she thought she had is gone and seems entirely out of reach. Joan's husband never considers that the death of his dream might also be the death of something for Joan. He is THAT self-centered. It's just like that he never considered that when he wanted to fuck her in her boss's office, that she might not want it too. It's not that he doesn't care about Joan's feelings, it's that he doesn't seem to think she HAS any. He assumes his failure is his alone, despite the fact taht she lives with him and is his wife. In protest to his self-absorption, Joan picks up her vase, which is full of flowers, and hits her husband on the head with it. If Joan's husband insists on concentrating only on his feelings, then Joan will make him feel pain BECAUSE of her. She'll infiltrate his selfish bubble by physically hurting him when he just wants to be left alone, just like he invaded her personal space and body when he raped her.

Joan's anger here isn't her first rebellion against her husband; she has told him off before, but she has never before seemed angry and out of control. Joan is consummately calm, and for the first time, she seems genuinely angry. Maybe her anger will be a productive force. Before, Joan was just frustrated with her husband, now she seems to realize her deserves for her to hurt him. Perhaps she'll leave him? I hope so!

Massive Assertions About Child-Rearing

2009-10-25T11:37:00.002-04:00

I've wanted children my whole life. Not right now, but sometime in the future. Because kids are theoretically part of my future plans, I have thought a bit about how to raise them. Of course, what always gets to me is that I can't plan anything (not their names, their rights or passage or anything big) without knowing who their father is. This isn't just because their father might have an opinion about about these things. It's because their father brings half of their heritage, and at least half of their last night, to the table (Maybe more. I don't think I want to hyphenate my children's names if it leads to something too long, which it likely will). Why does their father potentially change the game so much? Because. I think children should be raised to identify most strongly with the part of their heritage for which they are most likely to be discriminated against.

When kids are, for example, part WASP, part Jewish, but are raised to self-identify as WASPS and entirely in WASP traditions, the minute they hear an anti-semitic remark, I feel like they'll be confused. I actually think that, the less investment these hypothetical children have in Judaism, the more likely they are to be more strongly affected by anti-semitic remarks. After all, they haven't been raised to have pride in Judaism or to be familiar with its strong traditions, this hypothetical kid is more likely to believe these anti-semitic comments, because her parents have not raised her to respect Judaism in her own life. Perhaps she might think her parents raised her not to identify with Judaism because it's something negative that one SHOULDN'T identify with. This, however, doesn't change the fact that this child still knows she has Jewish heritage inside herself, so if anything, I feel like she is likely to become self-loathing because she embodies something she sees as a shameful attribute.

Kids are often going to be discriminated against because the world just plain sucks, so raise them to think that the part(s) of their heritage they are most likely to be discriminated against for are parts they take pride in. Fortify your kids against discrimination by helping them realize their heritage is something to take pride in.

Gossip Girl Feminist Index

2009-10-22T15:09:00.003-04:00

This week's was an exciting episode! Chuck Bass is bi-curious! Love love love! Now let's index.

Minus ten points to Vanessa for falling for Blair's manipulation and not asking Olivia just to surrender her speech. Vanessa, you are supposed to be smart! Of course Blair was sabotaging you the whole time. Blair doesn't speak to you unless to sabotage you.

Minus 15 points to Blair for sabotaging Vanessa to steal the parents' weekend speech. I'm all for some scheming, but for a parents' weekend speech? For serious? What is parents' weekend, anyway? We don't have those in Canada. Probably because they are lame.

Minus 5 points to Serena for being tricked into helping Nate deceive the Buckees so his cousin can get into congress. Serena, Nate is the sole person on the show who is more stupid than you are; he should not be able to lie to you so easily. It's one thing to get manipulated by Chuck or Blair, but Nate? That's just embarrassing.

Plus ten points to V's mom for hating private colleges. Hell's yeah! If my kid wanted a $50,000 undergraduate education, I'd be all like, "That's just criminal and unfair!" too. I like V's mom. She seems kind of Canadian.

Plus 20 points to Chuck for having been a bi-curious youth and also for the way he informed his girlfriend of this. I just love the condescending tone in his voice when Chuck said to Blair, "Do you really think I've never kissed a boy before?" Love the fact that Chuck's totally casual about his bi-curiosity. He's not ashamed of it and he's almost embarrassed by his girlfriend's provincial attitude when she assumes he'd be "upset he kissed a guy."

Plus five points to Hillary Duff's Olivia for wearing a Herve Leger dress despite not being a stick. Duff's got real person arms and a body that's lovely but has a few lumps here and there like yours and mine. I love that this imperfect girl is the one who is cast as the glamourous film idol. Now, if only Duff could act...

Plus ten points to Blair for realizing she was wrong to manipulate Chuck and being the bigger person by seeking him out and apologizing. I hope this will be a catalyst for some prof-feminist personal growth.

Plus 5 points to Chuck for not just taking Blair back right away. She abused his trust and she SHOULD have to earn it back. I don't care how good in bed she is (Although I'm sure she's VERY good).

Plus 30 points to Carter for wanting to pay back his debt to the Bucklees to prove he can be an honourable and responsible person. I get why Serena wanted to spare him from the oil rig, so I'm not deducted points for her. She loves him and wants him with her and not to suffer, but I'm liking his new responsible attitude, and now Carter doesn't want to be with Serena if she doesn't want to let him make up for what he did.

Total Score; Plus 55 (mad points!)

General Comments:

This week's episode was pretty feminist-sexy to me. I loved the bi-curiosity and the dresses that don't hide Hillary Duff's arms. The episode made me proud to watch the show. This week's was innovative tv! I also hope we see more of V's mom in the future. Lily's "Wasp Mom bitchface" might be deadon, but V's "hippie mom bitchface" was so judgey I felt judged by it. It was like she was staring at me THROUGH THE TV. My housemate wasn't home, so I watched to show alone, and that whithering look she gave while taking about shallow Hollywood celebrities nearly kept me up all night.

On Whiteness and Otherness

2009-10-16T11:51:00.003-04:00

For anyone who has non-white relatives but appears white, the question of race can become a very nuanced one. The closer to you the relatives, the more complicated the question of your own race can be. Of course, on a very technical level, I know I'm inter-racial, and yet, the level of looks, not necessarily. Some people think I have features that look "ethnic," and yet others mistake me for French, Irish, and countless other ethnicities. In general, people interact with me like a generic white girl. If I cry at the airport, I can get away with carry-on baggage that is over the weight limit and young men often like to walk me to my door out of concern for my safety. I can pass for the stereotype of the nice, helpless white girl. But really, am I passing? Race is as race does.

I have been treated unproblematically as a white girl for most of my life, with a few offensive incidents here and there that really didn't even register until my twenties. I don't really have to worry about issues like racial profiling or experiencing poor service because of my skin colour. These things WILL NEVER happen to me in the current racial climate of Canada, and yet, I have relatives who aren't white. I have relatives who fit the post-9/11 stereotype of what terrorists look like, but I don't, and unless I were traveling with them, this fact would probably never affect me.

I love people who have to deal with racism, but on a daily basis, I really don't. So, when you have that other race in you, but not on you? What are you? I like to think I'm sensitive to issues of racism. I like to think I'm good at interrogating issues of race and ethnicity and critiquing white dominance, and yet white dominance has privileged me. I have white privilege. Can you be white on the outside but be conscious of your inter-racial background on the inside? Will you ever GET it - the idea of being inter-racial, if people only know once you tell them? If people don't know to discriminate against you unless you let them? I don't know. I don't think it's something we can ever know, and yet I'm doubtful that I ever could really "get" it at all....

The Gossip Girl Feminist Index, Season 3, Episode 5

2009-10-13T13:57:00.004-04:00

This week's episode was much better than last's. It still wasn't as good as the auction house episode, but at least the moral of this week's story isn't, "Remember your name."

Plus 5 points to Blair for not liking Bree. Sure, she was a little too rude at the table. I mean, Blair Waldorf is a master of the subtle slight, so she really didn't have to be quite so blatant about her vitriol, but Blair is proving to be a good judge of character. There always was something super shady about Bree and Blair was proven right.

Minus 5 points to Blair for her defense of WHY she doesn't like Bree: "I know women, and trust me, none of us are that nice." Ugh! Furthering stereotypes about bitchy catty women is so not feminist-friendly in my books. We women can be super nice. Blair just has never hung out with any true friends, which is because she's still 18. Once she's in her twenties, she'll find only losers still hang out with mean girls, because most girls have learned it's just more fun to be nice.

Plus ten points to Serena for taking a year off to work in publicity despite the fact that it apparently means NOT living off her mother's money. I would give her more points for this sacrifice, except she's living in her best friend's Park Avenue penthouse for free, so it's not like her standard of living went too far down-hill. I do suppose she'll have less shopping money, though. I guess now she'll have to go to Bloomie's instead of Bendel's. Poor girl, she's become so upper-middle-class.

Minus ten points to Vanessa for initially letting Georgina blackmail her. WTF? V., you're supposed to be the one with integrity. Well, I guess there was that incident last year where she stole Nate's letter to Jenny too, and that she staged a public make-out session with Chuck to get revenge on Nate and Blair, so she can't really have THAT much integrity. No, V.'s really self-righteous, but she's not that good a person, is she?

Plus five points to Vanessa for coming clean to Dan pretty early into the blackmailing plot. She didn't let it go TOO FAR, even though the whole "I lied about Scott being your real brother" secret was probably really hard to confess.

Plus five points to Serena for dumping Carter when she realized he had just left Bree's cousin at the altar, like, a year ago. I kind of like this new decisive Serena who doesn't like bad news guys. Now, if ONLY she weren't played by Blake Lively, she and I could have a fictitious feminist fangirl/tv character love affair, but we can't, because Blake does play Serena and she will never learn how to modulate her voice or wear clothes in her proper dress size. Too bad, because it could have been a beautiful friendship, and I also could have lent Blake some clothes that aren't too small.

Plus five points to Nate for dumping Bree as soon as she betrayed him. Nate has gotten smarter from going to university we now know, because he UNDERSTANDS betrayal. This is huge progress!

Total Score: Plus 15.

General Comments:

Blair and Chuck are STILL boring. They used to be the best part of the show, and now I could kind of care less, even though Blair's outfits this week were super chic - especially what she wore to the wedding. I also liked how Lily wore red to her wedding. I mean, it's her fifth, so switching it up and not wearing white just seemed a little bit more tasteful to me. But speaking of clothes, what is WITH Serena's work wardrobe? I know she works in publicity, which is not like working in accounting, but still! How are you going to bend over in a skirt that short, Serena?

I have another weird observation. Has anyone else ever noticed that everyone on the show has the same ring-tone? I mean, now that ring-tones are so incredibly various, wouldn't you expect at least one character to have different taste and select something else? I graduated high school in 2004, and even THEN we didn't all have identical ring-tones, so you'd think these kids, with all their money and their 21st century technical savvy, would have a wide array of ring-tones? You know at least one asshole in the group would have "Love In This Club" as theirs. You just know it! Also, teenage boys typically have ring-tones that sound like the theme songs from 1970's pornos or excerpts from rap songs. Trust me, I have a teenage brother and I do a lot of community outreach with/teaching of teenagers. Teenage boys, whether it's because of nature or nurture, usually seem to have no class. Sorry to essentialize them, but I find it's true. God, I'm in such a binarist mood today! It's really upsetting...

Academic Freedom and "Pointless" Questions

2009-10-11T11:53:00.003-04:00

For once, I agree with Leah McLaren. In the UK, the government wants to stop funding "pointless" academic research. Well, define pointless! I'm afraid this new funding philosophy would harm feminists academics more than most, because no, I can't really prove that my research on Muslim Women's veiling practices in London today will have a direct impact on the economy and it sure as hell doesn't come with a business plan.

We academics often can't predict the "usefulness" of our inquiries BEFORE we start them. We don't always know what applications they might produce. This is a good thing. It means you aren't going in with too many biases that might cloud your vision and limit your research. It's important for academics to be able to ask as many questions as possible, regardless of how useful the government and you initially might think they are likely to be, because the MORE questions we ask, the more answers we'll get, and we as humans don't necessarily know what kind of answers we want...

You can read Leah's full article here. For Thanksgiving, I would be grateful for more academic freedom and support from G8 governments, how about you?

White People Food Will Make You Sick...

2009-10-10T23:05:00.005-04:00

Ah, am so sick from WASP Thanksgiving at the country club (no, not joking. That is for reals where we had it. Everyone there is white. Even the buildings are all white. And fittingly, they serve white people food from the 60s, which means, think club sandwiches and ice cream sundaes) that all I can do now is blog. I can't move. White people food made me seriously sick. You know how stereotypical white people in movies (like Charlotte in The Sex and the City Movie) are afraid of ethnic food making them feel sick? Well, white people food makes me sick. Not just on an ideological level, either; I actually was physically sick tonight. Everyone at my father's golf club now thinks I'm bulimic, but it's really just that lobster salad and dinner rolls seem to make me sick. Now, if only I had some pita and hummus, it would all be better...

I DO Feel Sorry For Jen, But Not for the Regular Reasons...

2009-10-10T10:23:00.003-04:00

Lainey linked to a great article about Jennifer Aniston the other day from salon.com, and now I'm going to link to it here.. It's all about how that girl is a total hypocrite who tells GQ she's sick of movies that make it look like the primary goal of every woman is to find a man while producing movies herself where that's the protagonist's goal AND selling us a tabloid vision of a woman on the hunt for the perfect man to have kids with. Please, I"m sure the real Jen, who seems calculating and doesn't seem to want kids or care too much about finding a husband (because she keeps dating men who clearly don't want to get married, like John Mayor), could actually be something of a feminist icon. She could defy convention and say that not all women want marriage or children, that becoming an earth mother like Angelina Jolie is not the only route to happiness and self-fulfillment. She could do this, and as a feminist who wants women to have as many choices as they might want, I would appreciate this, but something tells me she won't.

The stills from the newest Sex and the City movie show even Samantha Jones, the consummate single girl who truly seemed confident in her life choice, is now getting married. And people say we no longer need feminism? Please! The single girl isn't a fabulous cultural icon, she's still seen as a spinster who must eventually settle down. Thus, Samantha Jones must get married at the age of 52 in a designer white wedding dress, and Jennifer Aniston must at least pretend she's trying to do the same, or we couldn't like her any more. Better to be a loser who tries and fails to get married and have babies than a freak who doesn't want to?

In our pro-natalist, neo-conservative culture, it seems if you don't want to get married and have babies, no one gets you. So, Jen, I do feel sorry for you, but not because you haven't found a husband and had babies (it's not THAT hard, and if you'd wanted to settle and do it, I know you would have), but because you can't sell yourself to the media the way you REALLY are. Your fans wouldn't like you anymore if they knew you were childless by choice....Wow, our world is really fucked up, isn't it?

Gossip Girl Feminist Update: Episode 4

2009-10-07T00:12:00.002-04:00

This episode was the worst ever. My housemate and I agree, but still, its feministness MUST be quantified. A feminist tv commentator never sleeps.

Plus Ten points to Serena for finally telling Lily that she isn't going to Brown. Now, it was a bit cruel to leave it so long! What a shock Lily got when she came home to find her daughter hadn't gone to college like she thought, but still, her WASP bitchface was priceless and worth watching. WASP moms don't yell when they're disappointed, they just give withering glances that could castrate someone form across the room. For serious. Trust me, I know.

Plus five points to Jenny for freeing her schoolmates from aristocracy. I would give her more, but the act of giving an over-the-top speech to let them know they owe their freedom to you and that you could oppress them if you wanted to is pretty condescending. Little J. is making it clear to her peers even here that she could be queen if she wanted to be. Now, just how humble and democratic is that? Little J. is pretty insincere.

Plus ten points to Serena for wanting a job. No, she's never worked a day in her life, but really, she ought to start if she's not going to Brown. I'm happy that she's not going to laze around doing nothing all year. Serena showed some initiative for the first time every today, and that's great! Now please find some clothes that fit. It's okay to be a size six, Blake, now let them buy your clothes in it.

Minus ten points to Hillary Duff's Kate/Olivia character for NOT firing her traitorous publicist. Seriously, she WORKS FOR YOU! She should NOT be undermining you and your wishes. Just get another publicist, for crying out loud!

Minus 25 points to Blair for GOING BACK TO HIGH SCHOOL to relaunch the aristocracy and throwing a sleep-over for 14-year-olds. That was just sick. I do like that Blair has hit rock bottom, though. It gives her a good place to evolve from. Hopefully her initial social failure at NYU will be the catalyst for more feminist-friendly personal change on Blair's part.

Minus 5 points to Chuck for PAYING a photographer to pap his girlfriend. Trying to convince her that she has self-worth all on her own because she's fabulous is a point undermined by PAYING people to be interested in her. Blair should learn to love herself without being worshipped and monitored by voyeurs like Constance's less popular students. She doesn't need a pap shot to make up for the lack of Gossip Girl coverage!

Plus 5 points to Chuck for sending Blair the naughty teacher costume. I like that they seem to be having good and adventurous sex now, even if we can't see it! Seriously, CW. I know your ratings are hurting, and the best way to make them bounce back is definitely some softcore Chair porn like in the old days. Why do you never listen to me about that?

Total Score:Minus ten

General Comments:

Why were all of the emotional climaxes punctuated with people's names instead of profundity? I hate dialogue that goes like, "Don't forget you're Blair Waldorf, because I'm Chuck Bass," or, "I'm Olivia, but I'm also Kate." Yay, everyone knows their name! Can we please move on? Looks like College hasn't made anyone any smarter, with the notable exception of Nate, who, in his one scene, actually managed to play a practical joke on Dan. You see, he Knew Kate was Olivia all along, and thought it was funny his friend didn't. OMG, Nate understands irony! Looks like Columbia has done him good!

The Daily Gripe

2009-09-29T10:50:00.004-04:00

Margaret Wente says women just naturally don't want careers and most of us quit our jobs to raise babies because we want to. Well, some of us do, but this article here lacks nuance and careful consideration. Wente says the lack of women in senior positions isn't at all due to a lack of daycare (onsite daycare might be nice if you have to work long hours at a law firm while breast-feeding, I would think), or sexism, or anything else. Someone needs to fire this idiot! I've worked at some pretty high pressure law firms, and while I can't speak for other fields, in law, the mommy track is one hundred per cent real!

The Gossip Girl Feminist Index - 3.3

2009-09-28T23:38:00.002-04:00

It's time for The Gossip Girl Feminist Index!

Today's episode was highly entertaining, but was it feminist-friendly? That's what we're about to find out!

Plus 5 points to Georgina for owning a copy of "Our Bodies, Ourselves." It's a lovely feminist guide to women's bodies that has been translated to countless cultural contacts and languages. Now that we're in college, we read feminist books! I like this....

Minus five points to Vanessa for breaking various privacy laws to spy on her boyfriend. Listen, all signs point to imposter! When that happens, stop the spying, go with your gut and dump the guy! Also, as a sidebar, how did SUPER WASPy Lilly and relatively WASPy Rufus have a child who looks so ethnic? My housemate thinks he looks like he's of a quarter descent from somewhere in the Middle East. I say he looks half Persian. The point is, however, bad casting call! Or maybe Rufus is not the REAL father of Lilly's bastard baby and we will find out that she had an affair with a Persian aristocrat right after breaking up with Rufus. That would make a good story arc for season 4.

Minus five further points to the random girl who ENABLED Vanessa by TELLING her Scott is not registered at NYU. That is not sisterhood, that is petty and illegal. Does no one have a concept of the criminal code on this show?

Minus five points to Blair for getting super excited about Le Table Elitaire, a made-up secret society. Blair is also only in first year, so if this club is all about academic elites discussing shit together, why would she ever dream she was already educated and cultured enough for it? Blair, this is why you shouldn't have skipped French history! A society based on the model of French salons would NEVER pick a frosh who doesn't even have a major yet. Attitudes of entitlement, when this absurd, are certainly not feminist-sexy.

Plus ten points to Blair for attempting to initiate sex with Chuck. I like how sexually aggressive and sex-positive the girls are on this show. They aren't innocent flowers or passive objects of male pleasure, which is great. I do, however, wish Chuck would have been more receptive to Blair's "trenchcoat and lingerie" routine.

Plus five points to Blair for stealing Chuck's shoes upon realizing he was trying to distract her with sex so he could buy the photograph they both wanted. I like a woman who knows what she wants and doesn't let her boyfriend walk all over her!

Minus five points to Blair for surrendering the photograph both she and Chuck needed to him simply because he needed it and she "loves him." Yes, but Blair, he loves you too, and so by that logic, he should also want to give it to you! Why is his business deal more important than your personal goals all of a sudden. Sure, the Table Elitaire was made up and sounded weird anyway, but it meant something to Blair, so the fact that her boyfriend's interests trumped her own so easily just isn't feminist-sexy. Has Blair been tamed? I hope not, but I mean, a few scenes before, she was all stealing Chuck's shoes, and now she's GIVING him the photograph. It doesn't look good.

Plus ten points to Serena for standing up for her best friend to Georgina. Yay solidarity! No, G. shouldn't have fucked with B. like that. S. is right to let her know there is gonna be a reckoning! I love the strength of the female homosocial bonds on this show.

Overall score: Plus ten points.

General Comments:

So, Dan is surprised Serena is dating Carter, but that's strange. I mean, who ELSE is she supposed to date? I mean, every other guy on the show is her brother, with the exception of Nate, whose father Lilly probably would have tried to marry at some point had he not had to flee to the Dominican and then gone to jail. Serena just keeps accruing more brothers! When the show began, she had one, and now she has 4! There is no one LEFT for Serena to date. She HAS to give Carter a chance. Why doesn't Dan see this?

Also, I think it was very self-reflexive how Blair felt starved for Chair action in this episode. The audience feels starved for it too! Show us some! Don't end the scene BEFORE They go up to the hotel penthouse for a good time! Ugh, we can only hope it gets better next week, but at the moment, there really aren't any hot new Chair moments from season 3.

I'm Tired of Tyra Banks....

2009-09-27T10:58:00.004-04:00

This morning, I turned on the television and it happened to be on America's Next Top Model, a show I don't often watch, but I was curious today, because the current cycle is about taking so-called "short girls" (i.e. girls who are 5'6) and giving them a chance to be models. Okay, sort of cool, I thought. Let's deconstruct our beauty standards, yes. Let's show that beauty can come in a girl who is under 5'10. I thought Tyra was being all lovely and subversive, but I was wrong, because in the judging segment, Tyra and her panel were all like, "Get rid of that one, because she doesn't look tall in her picture! Last week she looked tall, but this week she doesn't, so cut her!" Um, when did this become a tall girl impersonation competition? I thought we were actually enfranchising short girls and giving them a chance in a really sizeist beauty industry. I thought we were questioning the norm that says tall girls are the most elegant and modelesque, not just teaching short girls HOW TO LOOK TALLER. What is wrong with being short? I thought Tyra was insisting there was nothing wrong with being little!

So, Tyra, all you've done is make me feel worse as a short girl. You've told me that short girls CAN be models, as long as we figure out how to achieve OPTICAL allusions and basically lie about who we are. Is that really good for young girls' body image, something you claim to care so much about? You have your big, "So what?" movement, where every time a girl hates something about her body, like being short, you think she should say, "So what?" Well, your show has shown her what. What's up is that these short girls' little bodies AREN'T good enough. They have to pretend to be tall. These short girls aren't given the opportunity to be seen as beautiful, they are given the opportunity to pretend to fit beauty norms they will never really live up to, because when the cameras stop rolling, they really are under 5'7, after all...

Oh, Tyra, stop trying! You're just such a hypocrite and you make things worse. You've taken girls who are too short to be models and taught them to lie about who they are. Yeah, that'll make them feel better about being short....

A Lamentation for Judy Greer

2009-09-26T12:24:00.003-04:00

You all know who Judy Greer is, right? She played Jennifer Garner's best friend in "13 Going on 30", she played Katherine Heigl's best friend "27 Dresses" and she most recently played Jennifer Aniston's best friend in "Love Happens." I like this girl, she is super talented (Have you seen The Village?), she's very pretty in an unusual and striking way, and she's always the best part of any movie she's in. Now, Greer doesn't just do romantic comedies, she has also been on "House" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" in addition to "The Village." Girl has range. So could HBO PLEASE cast her as something in a starring role?

No one in Hollywood who doesn't fit the stereotypical babe mold makes it, and that makes me said. This is why Jessica Alba, whom audiences hate, still gets starring roles and Judy Greer has to play the irritating Jennifer Aniston's best friend. Judy might be quirky, but she's better than bland Jen and her boring straight pretty hair.

I'm not sure what I intend to accomplish with this blog entry, other than saying that life is unfair! Judy Greer deserves better! If you ever have the opportunity to watch her play anything other than the snappy sidekick, please do. Support Greer when people give her a chance. Show them you like her, please!

WTF moment of the day

2009-09-24T11:34:00.004-04:00

Today, I was reading people magazine during my office hour, because none of my students came to see me. In it, I found a truly bizarre celebrity news item; Emmy Rossum and Adam Duritz are dating! He is 45 and she is 23. He has crazy dread hair and she has Victorian ringlet hair half the time. He has lots of facial hair and she looks like she wouldn't know what to do with facial hair. He is a singer for a lameass cheesy rock group and she is in lameass cheesy movies - Wait, no, I change my mind. They are PERFECT for each other! They should get married and have really lame, cheesy babies with names like "Finn" and "Harmony."

Anyway, enjoy that piece of Gossip. The cloying Emmy Rossum has found herself "accidentally in love." When the only rock star you can fuck is one whose last big hit was on the Shrek 2 soundtrack, you know it's time to call it a day, Emmy. Accept defeat. Find a real job or marry some type of banker or New York-based brain surgeon.

More Dimitri

2009-09-23T19:22:00.002-04:00

This is why I don't think going to medical school in and of itself makes you a good person. Lots of med students are arrogant and full of themselves like they are GOD. Like the fact that they got into med school is proof they are good people. Well, Dimitri is not good people. He is bad. He is evil. He is a Toronto-based pick-up artist who went to U of T med school (yeah, one of the best ones, I know) and then got his license taken away for sexually harassing his female patients. Click here to read his website. It's super misogynist, I warn you. According to him, if you want to be part of his network if you're a girl, "you have to worship the cock." Yeah, not joking.

The Funniest Thing EVER!

2009-09-22T23:17:00.003-04:00

Today, my housemate had a bad day because of some lazy admin people. Despite her printing nightmares at school and some pretty weak office hours, she ending the day smiling because of this link. Click it, please. It is the funniest shit like ever. It's this dude with WAAAY too much self-confidence leaving a message on the phone of a girl he just met at a bar. He makes it clear that he is "great in bed" and asks her voicemail if she was "abused as a child." Yeah. Classic. Men like this are why I hate dating!

The Gossip Girl Feminist Index - 3.2, "Heart of Darkness"

2009-09-22T10:19:00.002-04:00

Okay, so last night's episode redeemed Gossip Girl for me in a big way. I knew it would get better when they got to college, and it did. The only thing that was awkward was the parallel storyline between our Columbians, Bree and Nate. I'm sorry, but it was just too disjointed from the rest of the plot. Yawn! I could have cared less, and that's as someone who loves Joanna Garcia too, so I wonder what the rest of you must have thought. Can Nate just transfer to NYU or get written off altogether? It would make things easier. Now let's put our feminist thinking caps on for the index!

Plus 5 Points to Blair for realizing she ought to live in residence, despite what her boyfriend tells her. I like a woman who thinks for herself.

Minus 20 points for the REASON Blair wants to live in residence, which is, becoming Queen. I'm sorry, honey, but uni is too big for one dominant social leader. If you want to plan parties and exclude people, why not just become a socialite like Serena and forgo higher education altogether?

Plus ten points to Dan for taking a lit course that features heavily on the "scorned women." I like a man who isn't afraid of stories about women emasculating him. College Dan is kind of sexy to me, don't you think? It's like those boys in high school, who never quite fit in, but get them into a uni classroom and all of a sudden their knowledge of Proust and Said is suddenly sexy. Boys like Dan look hotter next to big limestone buildings and inside anonymous lecture halls. Dan is all brooding intensity, and that's exactly the guy you all of a sudden want to fool around with when you get to first year. The era of Nate is dead!

Plus 25 points to Serena for having the self-reflexivity to defer Brown. She's right, she doesn't know what she wants to be and going there to make her mother happy just isn't a good enough reason. Serena asserts her own agency here, and that's just so feminist-sexy.

Minus ten points for Serena being too cowardly to tell her family (except for Chuck) about her decision, then sabotaging Chuck's meeting, then reaping revenge on him when he gets mad at her after she has sabotaged said meeting. Seriously, Serena, it's NOT ALL ALWAYS ABOUT YOU! Rank tabloids might care about your nude sunbathing photos, but your brother is trying to close a business deal and for once in your life you might not need to be the centre of attention.

Minus ten points to Blair for exporting her classist remarks (though admittedly VERY WITTY) to uni. Blair's judgmental and classist digs were cute in high school, when the victims of her tongue-lashings were always almost as privileged as she was (if not more so). Making fun of other Constance girls and telling them they were dressed like Jessica Biel in 2003, or their outfits smacked of white limos and new money was funny because it was hyperbolic and generally untrue. Even Little J, who was the poorest kid in school back in the day, was still the very upper-middle-class daughter of a former rock star whose Brooklyn pad, I am sure, would retail for at least 4 million dollars. But, at NYU, where the pool of kids is bigger, there are indeed what Chuck refers to as "public school girls." They don't need to hear how it's "bridge and tunnel" to go to a club in New York on the weekend, because these girls are probably all too middle-class even to live there. The classism is insensitive and silly. Unlike at Constance, these girls can't just go buy a new Prada gown if Blair tells them their new Nanette Lepore dress is "too Bloomie's, not enough Bendel's." Still, Blair will learn. Blair's classism is a defense for her insecurity. She is scared she's not smart enough, or thin enough or pretty enough, but the one thing Blair knows she does have is that she's rich enough. It's a mask, and I'm confident that as Blair gets more confident, she'll need the crutch of her wealth less and less.

Minus 5 points to Vanessa for convincing Dan the two of them should give Georgina a second chance. Seriously, V, are you stupid? G. is still a sociopath - meds can't cure that! I know G. goes off the deep-end because she only has, like, a three-episode story arc. Dude, she has to be crazy!

Plus ten points to Serena for apologizing to Carter for using him as her fellow saboteur and admitting she wants him romantically. I love how the girls on this show are, more often than not, the pursuers. It's great to see teenage girls taking the lead instead of feeding into stereotypes about girls needing to be passive and wait for boys to approach them. I mean, you can't get much hotter than Blair and Serena, and yet they are always the ones chasing the boys instead of just waiting to be chased. Troubling courtship-based gender roles is feminist-sexy too! Now, if only Serena would wear clothes that actually fit, I would find her even sexier. That, and I think she should learn how to act. If she does not learn how to act, the minute they cast someone who larger breasts, she's screwed. Her breasts are the only thing Serena really brings to this show. I mean, she can't even modulate her voice! One day, your perfect 32 C's will sag, Serena, and then you will have to learn how to use inflection!

Overall Score: Plus five points.

General comments:

Seriously, Georgina's wardrobe was boring. I know we're at college now, but do we have to walk around in black tanks and big earrings all the time? I guess the fashion porn will have to come from Little J now, but we didn't even see her at all this episode. Not that I missed her, either. She's really boring, like Serena WITHOUT the breasts. I mean, she cannot act (She just always sounds irritated and petulant). This show really just should be all about Chuck and Blair, with a little bit of College Dan thrown in. College Dan is sexy!

PS. There still is not enough Chair softcore porn. One short-lived public make-out scene is not enough! The writers have GOT to work on this. And what was with the cuddling in bed scene where Blair climbs in with Chuck while he sleeps, and Chuck wakes up momentarily to hold her hand and tell her everything is alright now that she's here, then GOES BACK TO SLEEP. Chuck Bass would NEVER got BACK TO SLEEP when a hot girl enters his bed. Chuck Bass would all of a sudden be wide awake and ravishing Blair. Even a normal guy would do that, so Chuck Bass, the horniest muthafucka ever, would totally be all up in Blair's business the moment she crawled in. He could have AT LEAST kissed her hello!

PPS. To my own personal S., good luck with everything today! You can call me whenever you want for any reason, and I'm making an extra effort to blog a lot this week for your benefit, as you told me last week's tally just wasn't good enough.

Dissecting Mad Men: Episode 6

2009-09-21T12:50:00.003-04:00

This week's episode was excellent. It was basically haunting. I loved every minute of it. I loved how as soon as the British "get the proverbial foot in the door", the foot gets cut off. Great symbolism. British hegemony over the US is over by the 60s. Britain is no longer the cultural centre of the English speaking world and while the Brits themselves might not yet have accepted that, it's already pretty obvious to us today in retrospect that this was the case in the 60s. Anyway, the scene I'm dissecting today is when Joan's prick husband comes home drunk without calling her. I think that's a good place to put my feminist analysis today.

So, Joan leaves work early to cook her rapist husband a "celebratory dinner," because he basically told her he was all but guaranteed to get chief resident at his hospital. Joan goes home, makes a huge dinner and he never shows until it's like 2 in the morning and he's drunk. Then, instead of just apologizing, Dr. Harris tries to pull a Don Draper and insist he HAD called her to tell her he wouldn't be home, that it's not his fault and it's all in her head. Joan, however, is a different kind of wife. I've said it before and I'll say it again; Joan is not Betty and she's changing the landscape of marriage by requiring some measure of honesty and respect at the foundation of her relationship with her husband. She insists it's a lie; he didn't call her at work at all and she makes it clear he hasn't fooled her about his being drunk, either. Joan demands to hear the truth, which ends up being, her unintelligent evil rapist husband didn't get chief resident.

Here's what was problematic about the scene, however; as assertive as Joan was with her husband, she insists that it's okay he's mislead her about his career for months and that he's lied to her tonight, because, in her words, "I didn't marry you for your hands, I married you for your heart." Joan, this dude's heart is the only thing sicker than his hands! He raped you in your boss's office last season! Remember? He's both stupid and heartless. He told you to quit your job before getting a promotion, and now he has failed in getting the promotion and tells you to get your job back despite the fact that it's just too late.

So, what do you think will happen next? The office manager job has been taken over by that obnoxious British dude, but Joan needs work. Do we think Don might somehow figure out her plight and give her a promotion like he did with Peggy? Or might there be an opening in the new and improved TV and Media department which Joan sees in the paper and for which she applies? I mean, she's qualified. I think Joan should start to assert herself all the time. It's not enough to tell your husband off for getting drunk and missing dinner but say nothing when he rapes you. Similarly, Joan demanded respect as Office Manager, but she didn't demand the more challenging job she should have had at Stirling Cooper.

Joan ends the episode, and her job at Stirling Cooper, by saving the day by saving one of the visiting British executives' lives. This one moment symbolizes how Joan saved the day so many times at Stirling Cooper during her tenyear there. No, it wasn't as dramatic before, but this is her role. Joan is a capable woman who can do basically everything, even save a life - something he surgeon husband finds more difficult than her. If Joan has simply been born ten to twenty years later, she really could have been anything without any problems. It sucks how our historical context restricts us, doesn't it?

The Gossip Girl Feminist Index - Season 3 Season Premiere!

2009-09-15T09:08:00.002-04:00

Today is a truly great day! It is the return of the Gossip Girl Feminist Index! Woo! Yay! So happy. Anyway, let's get straight down to it, shall we?

Minus 20 points to Chuck and Blair for playing their disgusting little sex game. I mean, I'm all for being as kinky as you want, but getting off on humiliating unsuspecting girls IS NOT COOL. I know they all know Chuck has a girlfriend when they agree to fool around with him, but these girls aren't committed to Blair. They aren't the key moral agents here. They are still being exploited, not taught a lesson, in my books.

Minus ten points to Dan for lying about being rich. I know, Dan, you are obviously a poser and always have been, so now you are posing as poor, but being insincere is just not cool. Admit you aren't immune to being seduced by wealth. Stop being such a hypocrite!

Plus 10 points to Vanessa later in the show for pointing out that Dan is being a hypocrite with his newfound wealth.

Plus 5 points to Serena for standing up to Rufus about her European escapades (Which honestly didn't seem that bad, besides the one where she let Prince Harry take a shot off her boobs. Ew! Harry is cute and all, but he is kind of smarmy!). The others were all classy topless sunbathing photos. To be fair, in Europe, everyone sunbathes a bit naked - even Angela Merkel. Serena was just being continental....

Minus 10 points to Serena for the real reason she was taking those photos and baiting the paps - her dad! Really, your father doesn't love you and it's silly that he doesn't; he is an asshole, but if you really wouldn't otherwise take those photos, Serena, playing the attention whore is NOT WORTH IT. Let him go. If he doesn't want you, he's not worth having.

Minus 5 points to Blair for being so reluctant to tell Chuck her true feelings about their little game until he forced it out of her. Blair, you are a strong woman who was even able to tell Chuck you loved him when you knew there was a good chance he wouldn't say it back, so I don't understand why you've gotten all passive aggressive and incommunicative now that you're his girlfriend.

Plus ten points to Blair and Chuck for their waitress/patron sex game at the end of the show. Role-playing and finding ways to get the most enjoyment out of sex are feminist things in my books. I also loved how in this particular sexcapade, it seemed like Blair was taking the aggressive role. Good for them, switching stuff up in bed, and good for the show for illustrating strong female sexuality.

Overall Score: Minus 20.

Overall Comments:

Last night's episode was not very feminist-friendly in my books. It had lots of very problematic elements. That does not mean, however, that the SEASON will not overall be feminist-friendly. One thing Stephanie Savage, who is brilliant, could be doing is setting up a lot of problematics, like Dan's hypocrisy and Serena's ridiculous attempts to reunite with her father, just so she can deconstruct them all season long. I live in hope. I am optimistic. I have faith in Savage.

Now, here are some miscellaneous comments about Chuck and Blair. Why the fuck are the so much less hot together this season? It's not just because they are together and the suspense is gone. They don't grab each other like they used to. What, two months into a relationship and your boyfriend stops grabbing your ass? Chuck would never stop grabbing Blair's ass. That is the test of how enduring their love really is. He would never just hold her face and tell her he just wants her "to be happy." If Chuck Bass had to say something corny, he would do it while taking Blair to the nearest park and ravishing her beside the duck pond. Now he's all completely appropriate hugging and smiles and it's gross! I have been waiting two seasons to see these characters in a relationship, and I WANT THEM TO GET IT ON! Where are the threesomes? Where are the sex tapes? Where are Blair's sexy little strip teases from back in the day? Can we at least have those back? Instead of enjoying all my suggestions, Chuck and Blair choose to be kinky by humiliating models before going back to their vanilla-looking make-out sessions. Ugh! At least that sex game at the end of the show seemed promising.

As a sex-positive feminist, next week I want more feminism and more sex from Gossip Girl. Stephanie Savage, please do not disappoint....

Two Men Kissing IS NOT GROSS!

2009-09-13T15:48:00.002-04:00

I'm still in the process of doing six Tiff (Toronto International Film Festival) screenings in 3 days, so I don't have much time, but I must blog about this one observation. So, on Friday, I went with my mom and my little sister to the gala premiere of The Picture of Dorian Gray. It was great. I really enjoyed the film, which was a sublime adaptation of the Wilde novel that kept the spirit of the story in tact without simply recreating the book line for line, making the film redundant to anyone who'd already read the classic novel. What was most disturbing about this screening, however, was not seeing Dorion's sickly painting age while he stayed a dewy 20 years old, but the reaction to the movie's homosexual kiss between Dorion and Basil.

So, if you've read the book, you know Basil has the hots for Dorion. There is this scene in the film, where, in an effort to distract Basil, Dorion kisses him. It's a manipulative act of self-preservation that manipulates how Dorion knows his friend feels about him, so in that respect, it is an uncomfortable moment, but what I was not prepared for was for about a third of the audience to scream, "Ew!" Why is watching two men kiss so repulsive to so many? This is Toronto, one of the first major cities in the world to have know gay marriage, so if people are that homophobic here, it does not bode well for the rest of the world, in my opinion.

How far have we really come in 2009 when a fictitious kiss between two men can elicit such a heterosexist response? The answer is, not fucking far enough!

You Must Watch GLEE!

2009-09-09T22:32:00.004-04:00

If you haven't watched Glee (on Global on wednesdays at 9 pm), you must! It's so good my housemate and I were actually sad when it ended tonight. Plus, Rachel, the president of Glee club and its most frequent soloist, is my new teen feminist hero. Rachel even tells the kids at Abstinence Club that their whole waiting thing is bullshit, and that when it comes to teen sex, "That's what contraception is for." She then shouts before leaving the room,"I'll let you in on a little secret; girls want sex just as much as guys do!" Sex-positive teen tv that promotes responsible sexuality is a good thing in my books. Plus, these kids can actually sing. Move over, High School Musical (Where the main characters don't even kiss until the third installment)! It's time for Glee!

So Many Vampires, So Little Estrogen...

2009-09-09T20:51:00.004-04:00

What is with the proliferation of pop culture texts about vampires? Like, for serious? The latest edition to the crew is The Vampire Diaries. It looks like a carbon copy of Twilight, right down to the show's symbol, the red rose (isn't that on the cover of one of the twilight books too?) Anyway, Vampire Diaries appears to be about a girl (who is not a vampire) who has boy vampires fighting over her. What I want to know is, if we're going to have this many FUCKING SHOWS ABOUT VAMPIRES, why can't one of them star a girl vampire who falls for a non-vampire boy, or a non-vampire boy who falls for a girl vampire? Why is our heroine always the damsel in distress who is not a vampire? Why can't the protagonist be a chick who likes to suck blood? At least back in the day Buffy killed vampires!

This nouveau vampire shit really is a metaphor for female chastity. The Dudes in these texts are handsome seducers who want more than anything to suck your blood (even if some of them, like Edward, TRY to control themselves with all their might), but watch out, because if they go too far with the blood sucking (read: sex), you could bleed to death (read: get pregnant or catch an STI). I get it; men are dangerous blood-suckers who have a hard time controlling themselves, so don't let them bite you until you get married. Moral understood. Now why don't we switch it up a bit and make movies, books and tv shows about goblins? I am convinced they are the next frontier in creepy mythical creature sex Gods....

Dissecting Mad Men: Episode 4, "The Arrangements."

2009-09-07T14:04:00.002-04:00

The moment I picked this week is little Sally Draper and Grandpas Gene eating ice cream together shortly before his death. Grandpa Gene blatantly favours his grandaughter over Bobby, agreeing to buy peaches for snack time because Sally loves them even though they give his grandson a rash, though that admittedly occurs after the scene to which I am referring. So, let's get to the scene in question.

Sally and her grandpa are sitting in the kitchen, conspiring to eat ice cream before dinner and to hide it from Betty in the process, who probably wouldn't like her daughter eating something so fatty, as Betty seems to have developed pregorexia in previous episodes (Remember the melbatoast incident?). Gene tries to trick his daughter with lines like, "I have a salt tooth. It's right back here, see?" But she just groans and says, "Oh Grandpa." Instead of getting mad at Sally for being precocious, Grandpa Gene instead tells her, "You could really be something. Don't let your mother tell you that you can't." He tells Sally she's smart and encourages her to eat the ice cream. He doesn't care if she gains weight because he senses his grand daughter's potential isn't limited to her looks. I love this moment because it seems to be foreshadowing for The Second Wave feminist movement to come.

What's significant in this moment is a grandfather considering his granddaughter's intellect and favouring her for it. He knows what he's saying is subversive too. He knows Betty wouldn't want him to encourage Sally to become something besides a Stepford wife, and yet here he is, about to die just as traditional patriarchy was about to begin its demise in the face of a heightened feminist movement (although, as we know, it's still not completely dead). Gene's a successful man, but he seems to think his granddaughter is the progeny who'll make him proud more so than his grandson. As he's dying, he's starting to see his family in a more meritocratic way. Not only this, but he sees how he's too blame for Betty's unhappiness. He tells her earlier in the episode, when they are discussing his funeral arrangements, that it's his fault she is the way she is because he shielded her from the unpleasantness of the world as a child. He tells Betty that's why she married "this joker" in reference to Don. And maybe that's true. If she hadn't been shielded from the realities of the world as a child, she might have been more suspicious of Don's shady past and lack of parents before they got married. If she'd been a little tougher, she might have made better life decisions. Patriarchy makes women weak and unhappy, which Gene seems to know. He also seems to know that Betty has become totally complicit with patriarchy and lacks the self-reflexivity to raise her daughter differently. This is why Gene's words to his daughter are so touching; he wants her to learn to speak up, to learn that she can "be something," that she isn't her mother's emotionally stunted and infantile daughter.

Sally will grow up in a generation where women did have more options than they previously had. She will come of age watching schools integrate, listening to The Beatles, hearing about people doing acid at Woodstock and perhaps she'll even protest the Vietnam War. But what's important is that someone has told Sally she has potential, so maybe she'll grow up to use it. Sally will have the opportunity to participate in many social movements and help change the world. Maybe now that Sally has been told she can do that, she will....

Children and Stripper Poles

2009-09-07T12:00:00.003-04:00

Do I really have a problem with this? I feel like I should, and yet I don't really care that much about it. To what am I referring? It's that new pole-dancing toy marketed at children. Read an article on it here.. Would I BUY this toy for a six year old? No. I wouldn't, but do I think that it's incredibly inappropriate for any six year old to have it. Hmm. I don't know.

You see, children are not all asexual creatures. The idea that kids are pre-sexual by definition is bullshit. Lots of kids touch themselves and each other and think about sex all the time. Yes, even at 6 or 7. I have seen 18-month-old babies look at Victoria's Secret catalogues while breathing heavily and looking aroused. These kids grew up to be normal adults, so no harm done there, either. I don't think exposing kids to sexuality means showing them something they are not ready for that will screw them up. I mean, kids whose parents tell them where babies come from at 5 are not fucked up for life. I know those kids, they don't seem any more messed up than me, and my parents never told me where babies came from and let me learn from those kids whose parents had told them.

If kids like poll dancing, which is considered sexual, is that too different from talking jazz classes? Jazz was considered super sexy back in the day (Have you SEEN Chicago? Such hot dancing!), and ballerinas dance in leg-revealing leotards that lots of people find super hot, so really, what's wrong with pole-dancing? It's aerobic, it requires strength, and it's artistic. The problem is that it's honest about its sexual associations. Sure, lots of people watch jazz routines for the sexy girls, but we pretend that that's not really what the discerning viewer should really be appreciating about it. Pole dancing, however, is all about embracing, celebrating and seeing the female body. It requires confidence, I think, to do that. To portray yourself, your body as art in the way that pole-dancing showcasing a woman's figure as the primary subject of a dance. We, however, often teach girls to be modest (read: insecure). Flaunting what you've got and embracing your body is called vain by many parents I know. But really, I think I might prefer my daughter feel okay with her sexuality and be a stripper when she grows up than become a ballerina with an incredibly high likelihood of developing an eating disorder because most ballet companies teach women to be ashamed of their figures unless they are small enough for a man to lift them. In pole-dancing, a woman just has to be strong enough to swing herself. Pole dancing is a self-sufficient art form. Perhaps this is part of what we don't like about it?

Listen, pretending sex doesn't exist until your daughter gets her period is not going to keep her a virgin any longer. I know there's a Cult of Virginity in the US, but being proud of your sexual body is not what makes you have sex at 12 any more than being ashamed of your sexuality is. What we need to teach girls is sexual confidence and self-ownership. That's how we'll make sure our daughters have sex when they are ready (not before, and not after, either). I don't think pole-dancing necessary is contrary to that goal - it might even help us achieve it....

Loving on Lilly

2009-09-06T11:29:00.002-04:00

I know a lot of my blog entry titles alliterate. This is just part of who I am. I had a childhood quest to make the whole world alliterate. I have an alliterative name, and I always felt very sorry for people who didn't back when I was 5 or 6 or 7. I was convinced their names just weren't as good because they didn't alliterate. I vividly remember learning what alliteration was for the first time. I asked my mother, "What do you call that when two words start with the same letter?" She replied, "That's alliteration." To which I replied, "I love that!" It's definitely still my favourite literary device to this day.

Anyway, I love Lilly Allen, and I love that my love for her can manifest itself in alliteration. To be sure, Lilly is flawed, but she admits that she's flawed, and that's what makes her so great. Watch a video here where Lilly talks all about how much she hates consumerism and new celebrity culture, and yet still participates in it. Lilly is self-reflexive and somewhat self-loathing, and it's just so rare to see a celebrity be that real. Gotta love a girl who can critique herself! Although, I do wish she were a little more confident. Confidence is feminist-sexy.

All About Orgasms

2009-09-05T15:05:00.002-04:00

Orgasms are a funny thing. You know them when you have them, yet they can be really hard to describe and everyone has different associations with them. When I was younger, I thought I would never have one. This was not a pessimistic, defeatist belief on my part. I didn't want one; I thought orgasms were trashy. This is because in all the sex ed I ever had (and I had decently descriptive, pretty comprehensive sex ed where they even taught ten year olds what "rainbow kisses" are) I had never ever been told anything about the female orgasm. I knew that male orgasms happened at ejaculation and that ejaculation was the end of intercourse, but I was never told anything about why a female orgasm should or even could come in (pardon the pun).

So, I wasn't taught about female orgasms being part of the point of sex in school, and the media didn't really help either. Loving sex in movies is often portrayed as sex where the woman is super quiet and barely moving while getting it on in missionary position. Not sexy! Not intense, not energetic, just boring, but that's what I thought love was. I thought loving sex was quiet. I thought girls who screamed during sex were pleasure-focused and trashy. I thought if you were in love, that's what made sex feel good, not the orgasm. I assumed orgasms made sex LESS meaningful. I remember Reese Whitherspoon quietly losing her virginity in Cruel Intentions, and that's what I thought sex was supposed to be like at the time - quiet as the fucking dead.

We need better sex ed. I don't think I was the only young girl to think that the female orgasm was a woman giving into trashy lustfulness. What we need is more pleasure-focused sex ed. Sure, we need to teach safe sex, but what about good sex for girls? I used to think sex was only supposed to feel good for guys, and when you look at sex ed and sex in the media, that's not such an insane assumption to make.

Dissecting Mad Men: Episode 3

2009-09-03T17:23:00.002-04:00

Today's episode had lots of great moments from a feminist perspective, but alas, the rule is I only get to dissect one. So, here it goes. I could easily have picked Peggy standing up to her co-workers and insisting they let her join in on their pot-fueled brainstorming. I could also easily have picked Peggy telling her secretary not to worry, that she would succeed. I could also have picked Betty Draper's father's altercation with Carla, and Carla's confident comebacks. I could have picked so many moments, but one that stood out for me this week was Joan telling off her husband as the two of them planned their dinner party.

So, Joan's mediocre doctor rapist husband needs Joan to throw a dinner party to impress his boss, and Joan obliges. Still, Joan does it ON HER TERMS. She's not going to be like Betty Draper, who married a guy who wouldn't even tell her who his parents were or how much money he made last year. Oh no, Joan might have married a date rapist, but she's still asserting herself in their marriage. You see, Joan's husband wants to seat his boss at the head of the table, but Joan says no, Emily Post would not approve of anyone other than the host himself sitting there. Joan's dude says he doesn't care about Emily Post and that he just wants to impress his boss, but Joan points out that the other wives WILL have read Ms. Post and will judge her for not knowing proper protocol. When Joan's husband yells, "I don't want to fight right now," Joan in term says firmly, "Then stop talking." Joan follows this snappy come-back up with her brilliant solution; they'll have a buffet and people can sit wherever they want. Her husband is relieved by her plan, and goes to leave the room, but Joan makes him kiss her first, because she wants what she wants.

I LOVE that join is trying to assert some measure of equality in her marriage. It's not all about being his partner and serving his image; she wants to appear as a good hostess too. Screw her husband's man's world, she wants to excel in women's world too! Joan won't sacrifice everything she wants just to help her husband get chief resident, a job we found out today he is woefully unqualified for, what with his assy surgery skills. So yeah, Joan comes up with the perfect solution for the dinner party herself and it's one that both she and her husband approve of. Joan has agency and won't just give into her spouse's demands. This is progress. Now maybe she'll have an affair, or leave him for someone who hasn't raped her...

Down With Harper!

2009-09-02T12:19:00.004-04:00

Please God let it happen - A Canadian election, I mean. Please God let people vote for Iggy. I think as a good feminist, it's important to vote and take an interest in our government, obviously, but also, I think we need to go farther this time. This time, we can't just vote, we need to get out there and tell people why NOT TO VOTE FOR HARPER. Get Loud, and get busy! Voting for Harper is something I fervently believe a real and well-informed feminist just wouldn't do. Harper, after all, slashed funding for the Commission on the Status of Women and justified this with Bev Oda just declaring women are already equal. That must explain why we still make 30% less than men for doing the same work, are still less than a quarter of MP's in the house of commons and why we so often get sexually assaulted without ever seeing any justice for it. Yep, we need to tell our friends why Harper sucks, make sure they vote, and maybe even do some community activism too. Get to the blogs, get to the rallies, and for the love of God, don't forget to get to the polls!

My Television Producer Girl Crush

2009-08-31T09:43:00.003-04:00

I love Stephanie Savage, the creator of Gossip Girl. She's an academic who abandoned her PhD to write tv shows that actually apply what she learned in grad school. Just think about her scenes that deconstruct the male gaze (a la Blair stripping for Chuck) or the fact that these kids live in what Foucault would call a panopticon - See, Stephanie Savage is really educated and smart. So, here's a neat little article all about her. If you're interested in women in entertainment, read it here.

madmen

2009-08-25T10:15:00.003-04:00

I am starting a new feature. It's called "Dissecting Mad Men." Each week, I'm going to take a scene or theme or plotline from Sunday's episode and perform a feminist critique of it. So, warning: There be spoilers in these here blog waters!

This week's moment for episode 2 is Penny pretending to be Anne Margaret in the mirror. Now, what do we think? Penny, that same day, had decried Margaret to her male colleagues as a 25 year old who acts likes she's 14 and insisted she wasn't the right type of girl to sell a "pepsi patio", a new pepsi diet product. At the time, I was like, "Yeah! Go, go feminist Peggy! We're selling this product to women, so let's not sell it using an infantilised woman!" Then, Peggy did her impression of Anne in the mirror. To me, it didn't read like Peggy trying to get what the guys thought would sell about the opening number from "Bye,Bye Birdie" retooled for a Pepsi ad. It didn't look like she was mocking Anne, either. This impression was done in earnest. Peggy was shimmying and bobbing and pursing her lips and pouty and singing in a breathy voice, and at the end, she looked into the mirror almost wistfully. She wished perhaps, that people would see her this was, was what the image implied to me. What happened to Peggy taking pride in being a grown-up woman? WTF?

Towards the end of the episode, Peggy tries to sell Don on the idea that Pepsi should go a different way from the "Bye, Bye Birdie!" idea. Don says of Ms. Margaret to Peggy, "Peggy, you know every man wants her and every woman wants to be her." Peggy accepts this assertion far too easily for me, and the men get their way, selling products to women using a sexy babe they find hot and Peggy initially found irritating. What makes me sad, however, is it seems that our Peggy, the girl who is a pioneer in a man's world, also really secretly wants to be Anne Margaret. It's like she's a career girl by default, and if she were as sexy as Anne, she would totally prefer to sing and shimmy in b-movies like her.

Peggy also problematically lies to the guy she meets at that bar by ommitting the truth about her job - he assumes she's a secretary, which isn't sexist, so much as reflective of the way shit went down back then, but she doesn't correct him. It's weird, because it's not even like the dude she's talking to isn't educated and successful himself (he's becoming an engineer). Her job is pretty much equal in prestige to his, but Peggy can't seem to assert her equality. She doesn't seem to want it in parts of this episode. She disavows it. The way Peggy's character is constructed resists my desire to read her as a feminist figure, or at least a pro-feminist one. Is Mad Men attacking feminism, or is it just creating one isolated, conflicted character? This type of conflicted, confused and contradictory character would be okay to me if we had one regular character who really did seem to be more of a second-wave feminist, but Peggy's all we've got, and she seems to be going for an independent and professional life in this particular episode because she isn't super sexy.

All in all, Peggy

Friday Frivolity

2009-08-21T11:29:00.006-04:00

I'm still depressed from the article I read in the Toronto Star yesterday about homeless queer youth and the lack of appropriate services available for them, so today, I don't want to write about anything too too serious. Instead, I'm going to be judgey and mean. Have you seen the pictures of Renee Zellwegger from Letterman last night? Okay, Lainey is right; Renee is a serious actor who shouldn't be so damn concerned about her effing posing. She's like Kate Wimslet, so why does she need to starve herself like Victoria Beckham or try to make a bootyicious pose a la Jessica Biel or Kim Kardashian (women who have to be bootylicious, because they don't have talent!)? That, however, is not the point of my rant today. The point of my rant today is that stars effing overdress! Look at this dress! It's not that it's not beautiful. I love it, it's gorgeous. In fact, I have one very similar (though likely 5% of the price), which I wore to my LSE graduation ball. This leads me to the observation that, Letterman is NOT prom! You are not at the Met Ball! Do not wear an $8000 couture cocktail dress!

Once upon a time, celebrities used to wear jeans and a cute top or the type of dress I would wear to a nice dinner with friends on a Saturday night (just a bit more expensive) on shows like Letterman. Why do celebrities now feel the need to dress like it's the Oscars on late-night tv? It's not just Renee, because I've seen Hillary Swank, Nicole Kidman, Blake Lively and countless others pull this shit too. Once, I'm pretty sure I saw Nicole Kidman in a $12,000 Prada gown I would have felt comfortable wearing to a presidential inaugural ball on The View. The view is filmed at 11 am, people! Who rolls out of bed and puts on their silk Prada masterpiece first thing in the morning?

I love fashion. I think it's art with real social significance, but I also think it involves etiquette and knowing what's appropriate when and why. I wouldn't wear jeans to a ball thrown by the king of Sweden, so why the fuck would you wear a ball gown to The View, when the people watching you are mostly at home in their sweatpants? It's just not cool to lord over everyone else whom you are addressing how much more fabulous you are than them. To be sure, celebrities are more fabulous than us to an extent. That's what we pay them to be, but I'm offended by the extent of their excess glamour and money being put on display when they overdress this way. It makes me feel poor and sloppy, which, in a recession, everyone is already feeling to an extent, so why must celebrities lord it over everyone how they get free dresses and shit? It's time to show a little bit more sensitivity and intelligence for these over-dressers. It's time for them to show us how hot they can look in a tailored suit some nicely fitted jeans and a cashmere sweater. I'm not asking them to shop at the Gap, but I would prefer if they would leave their couture gowns for the Red carpet....

The Sad Truth About Homeless Queer Youth

2009-08-20T12:43:00.004-04:00

You MUST read this Toronto Star article here. It is very unfortunate, but queer youth are disproportionately likely to get harassed at shelters. We need sensitivity training for shelter workers and perhaps some shelters that specialize in assisting queer youth. Street kids are already marginalized as it is, but add a queer-identity and what they are facing often becomes even more unbearable. What I couldn't f-ing believe in this article, however, was Covenant House forcing a transgendered women to sleep in the men's dormitory at one point. Why does assistance to people in genuine need have to be so bloody conditional sometimes?

Perez Hilton on Abortion...

2009-08-19T12:48:00.005-04:00

Kourtney Kardashian is pregnant. That is not that interesting. People get pregnant all the time and she's just on reality tv; however, what is interesting is Perez Hilton's reaction to Ms. Kardashian's admission that she considered getting an abortion before finally deciding to have the baby. In regard to her decision to keep the baby, Perez says, "We think you made the right choice." WTF? Why would he have an opinion? How does he know if she's ready to have a baby or not.

Ms. Kardashian makes it clear that, despite not having an abortion, she supports the right of women to choose do to what they want with their bodies in her comments. This is admirable. She is standing up for family planning choices. She does not want her decision to keep the baby despite her pregnancy being unplanned to make her a role-model and endorsement for having a baby no matter what, even if you're not ready. For personal reasons she does not really go into, Ms. Kardashian likely decided she was prepared to become a mother, but Perez Hilton has no idea what those reasons are! Why must he endorse this choice when it doesn't concern him and for all he knows, it could be based on some hideously stupid logic, like, "Oh, if I have this baby, I'll get my ex-boyfriend back!" I'm not saying this example of stupid logic is why this woman is having a baby, but what I am saying is, blind endorsements for keeping a baby are not cool. Perez has no idea what he's applauding here.

Anyway, it doesn't come as a surprise to me that Perez seems to have anti-choice leanings - he's a misogynist, and his various displays of sexism and gay slurs have been well-documented on this blog. Still, his opinions are widely read and never stop being upsetting.

Still, one thing to be grateful for is Ms. Kardashian's relatively nuanced statement, although, where the FUCK did the doctor get off giving her that advice! Are doctors supposed to give such strong opinions when counseling women on whether or not to get abortions? I wish Ms. Kardashian would have realized what her physician said to her was incredibly inappropriate!

I Love Zoe Deschanel

2009-08-18T20:11:00.002-04:00

Can I just praise my non girl-crush, Zoe Deschanel for a bit? Zoe is currently starring in indie Darling (500) Days of Summer, and not only is she a truly talented, charming actor, but her new musical duo, She and HIm, kicks muthafucking ass! She's not like one of those celebrities who has no talent and yet insists on acting AND singing. She really can do both. Also, Deschanel is legitimately articulate. I also love how she hasn't much changed her look since becoming famous. She doesn't feel the need to become someone else; she seems really comfortable in her own skin.

Here's a sample of Deschanel's singing awesomeness here . You may recognize the song from the (500) Days of Summer bank dance video. Well, it really is Deschanel singing for her musical duo She and Him. Isn't she cool?

Porn Wars Born Again

2009-08-17T20:18:00.004-04:00

Apparently porn ruins your humanity, according to this fucked up fundamentalist Christian website that wants to "cure" you of the desire to watch porn. Click here if you want to get angry. I'm sick of porn wars. This is so 1983, don't you think? Except, instead of Andrea Dworkin, we have ministers with bad hair.

Hilary Duff: Enough Is ENOUGH!

2009-08-17T12:08:00.004-04:00

Click here for a link to an interview with HIllary Duff about her upcoming arc on season three of Gossip Girl. I have said it before and I'll say it again, Duff seems like a nice girl, and physically she's super cute, but why do we have to keep her famous? Not every nice pretty girl deserves a tv show! Why does she have to be on Gossip Girl? Her interview about her character is just so vacuous. She speaks in such cliched language - eg. "My character likes Dan because she thinks it's refreshing that he likes her for her." Yuk! Perhaps that's not a direct quote, but she says something like that - "he likes her for her" was definitely in there.

Compared to Leighton Meester's candid and incisive reflections on the symbolism of Blair's wardrobe and her motivations, Duff just comes off as such an amateur. And that's the problem with Duff - she doesn't have natural talent and she wasn't ever really trained, either. She was allowed to coast through life as a child star because she had a friendly face and pretty eyes. If Miss Duff wants to keep acting, maybe she should take a page out of her character's book and GO TO SCHOOL and study it. Have you seen Material Girls? Yeah, that is what Hillary Duff has to recommend her. That, and being a puck bunny...

Just when you think television is rewarding talented women, we start celebrating mediocrity again with Hillary Duff.

If You're Going to Rag on Chick Lit, Read the Books First...

2009-08-15T09:52:00.006-04:00

Read this article by Dan Wright on chick lit. He condemns the genre without really referencing many of its works. He basically thinks that it shows women as "Selfish" because they aren't all about "mothering" and finding the right man all the time, but often instead explore sex and personal fulfillment in many forms. Honestly, this man is clearly just bitter about his own book sales!

Wright's most valid criticism of chick lit is that it usually deals with white, Western, middle-class girls. This is true; however, that's also true of a disproportionate amount of Western fiction in general. His survey of chick lit also does not even mention some very popular books that are exceptions to what he seems to think is a rule. For example, Marian Keyes, arguably the most celebrated and one of the most popular chick lit writers today, often writes about women with working-class backgrounds. It's true that many of her heroines triumph through their intelligence and educations to become middle-class in adulthood (as is the case with the gang from Last Chance Saloon and one of the main characters in Sushi For Beginners as well as JoJo in The Other Side of The Story), but not all do. Lucy Sullivan of "Lucy Sullivan is Getting Married" might find love in her story, but she never becomes anything more than an entry-level white collar employee and doesn't really mind it.

Okay, so I've made it clear that Ms. Keyes has some class diversity, but what about other authors? To this I say, has Mr. Wright never heard of The Nanny Diaries, about a young woman working part-time all-year long to put herself through college because her teacher father and pro-bono lawyer mother can't afford to pay for NYU for her? Nan might come from an educated family, but there are definite limits to her class privilege.

Maeve Binchy's characters in Circle of Friends aren't all wealthy, either. In fact, one of the main characters is an orphan raised by nuns. And who could forget Meg Cabot, one of the most prolific chick lit writers of our time? I would say her characters come from working class backgrounds most of the time, and are often struggling to put themselves through university or find themselves homeless and sleeping on a friend's couch for most of the novel. Sure, her heroines usually find a way to achieve somewhat greater financial stability by the end of the story, but wtf? Is the only valid heroine one who accepts poverty and doesn't aspire to having a successful career? Is that what Mr. Wright is saying?

Yes, chick lit is mostly about white chicks. No, I don't like that, but it's also often about women with real problems, like drug addiction and alcoholism or suffering from domestic violence (Marian Keyes novels) or women working shitty jobs to pay for college like Nan in the Nanny Diaries. Not all chick lit is good, but since when does every book in a genre have to be good for it to be considered a legitimate one? Not all British Renaissance theatre is good, so does that discredit Shakespeare, because that was his genre? Certainly not!

If You Are On The Pill, Read This!

2009-08-15T08:22:00.003-04:00

I read this article this morning in the globe and mail. I've always had problems with the pill. I have mixed feelings about it - sure it's effective in controlling birth, but I personally have always felt a little bit off while taking it. This study says pills with higher amounts of estrogen are bad for blood clots (well, not bad, but worse), and I want to see more studies about different side-effects of the pill (like weight gain and mood swings) concerning this same variable. I'm thinking progesterone only pills are the way to go in the future, and I want to see even more proof of this...

Jessica Valenti: I love you, but do something about your effed up def. of feminism...

2009-08-14T12:29:00.004-04:00

I Looove Jessica Valenti, and I love her work on feministing.com (for the most part). I've seen her speak live and she's awesome, and I've read her books and they are mostly pretty cool too. Watch this video with her here. I agree with most of what she says, but WTF is up with her definition of feminism. It's all about "Equality for women" she says, because she claims that's the hardest one to argue with, but she admits later on in the segment that feminism is not just about women, because it's not! Feminism, to me, is a movement to eliminate what bell hooks calls "white supremacist capitalist patriarchy" and live in a world where people have the maximum amount of choice and opportunity to flourish. Let's not essentialise it as being all about the ladies if we want to sell it. Also, let's not prop up the gender binary, either. We want equality for transgendered people, gender-queer intersexed people and two-spirited people too, don't we? I think high-profile feminists like Jessica (Who features a decent amount of stuff on deconstructing the gender binary on her website) aught to make current feminist theories and missions clear.

I'm Not a Model Feminist

2009-08-13T19:58:00.006-04:00

A few weeks ago, I got stopped on the street by a modeling scout. The scout said to me, "Excuse me, you look so French. Are you French?" I said, "No, not at all." I am not even French Canadian. The woman said, "Oh, well, you have a good look. Are you interested in being an extra in movies or modeling work?" I did not know what to say, but I love movies, and while I only had a few weeks left in London, I automatically gave the woman my phone number upon receiving her card and hearing a few of her credentials. The modeling agency checked out. Turns out they specialize in "normal looking models." You know, not too skinny, not necessarily that tall and not necessarily that gorgeous, though, I have checked out their website, and some of their models definitely live up to all the common Western beauty ideals - they are not THAT subversive.

I basically forgot about that whole encounter until a woman phone me last week and said, "We'd like you to be in a Marks and Spencer's catalogue photo shoot. Would you be interested? If that doesn't sound like your cup of tea, you could be an extra for an MTV special or model some fall hair styles for a chain of salons?" As I know only have a matter of days left in London, I turned this work down despite the fact that they were offering good money - I wouldn't have been in London for most of the gigs, anyway. I was, however, in shock. I wasn't flattered per se, because all they told me was, "We really like your look. We all agree you have a great look" That doesn't mean, "We think you're gorgeous and if you were taller you would have been scouted a long time ago and doing runway in Milan!" No, it could mean any number of things, like, "We think you're cute in a normal, average, totally unremarkable girl-on-the-street sort of way, and that's the look M and S is going for this year to avoid intimidating their clients with stunning models." This last one is what I suspect was the case, but it got me thinking, even if they scouted me because of my ordinary normal-looking status, would I feel comfortable modeling? If I'd had the time, I would have been an extra in movie for sure, but modeling. No, I was sure that was not for me! Bear in mind, these people were offering me hundreds of pounds to be made up to look my best and pose for a few hours, and yet, I still didn't want to do it. Why, I asked myself?

I'm not against the modeling industry from a feminist perspective. Yes, it promotes a beauty ideal. Yes, I would prefer if there were more genuine diversity in our definition of beauty in the Western media (The Dove Real Beauty Campaign doesn't count; I have written about this before), but really, our society also has elitist and limited definitions of what it is to be smart (Ie. the university educated person with a successful professional career). Still, I don't want to be a model. It's not just that this isn't my dream job - I recoil at the thought of doing it. I hate having my picture taken, I rarely wear make-up and my looks are the last thing I think of when I think of what I value about myself. This isn't to say I think I'm completely unattractive. I am not insecure about my looks. There are parts of my body and facial features I love (For example, I think I have lovely eyes, nice full lips and good legs), but really, at the end of the day, this matters to me far less than the fact that I think I'm pretty intelligent. I don't know why, though, as both both looks and intelligence are a mix of the hereditary and hard work. No one is born always looking stereotypically beautiful any more than anyone is born knowing how to read - We must cultivate our looks AND our intelligence. For some people, it's harder to cultivate their intelligence than for others, and some people may cultivate their looks all they want, but will never perfectly satisfy Western beauty ideals. Western beauty is an accomplishment we create for ourselves using the material were born with, just as Western intelligence is, so why would I rather be valued for being smart? Why do I recoil at the very thought of making money off of physical appearance?

Grooming and beauty have long been associated with women in Western culture. We're called "the fairer sex," and our fashions change more frequently than men's, requiring us to do way more up-keep than stereotypical men when performing our gender. In turn, women who are just trying to be seen as passable, normal women by curling our hair or going on diets, are deemed superficial. It's a catch-22 if ever I saw one. intellect, conversely, has long been identified with masculine gender. For years, women were excluded from universities and professions. We we (and are) thought inferior scientists, writers, artists and teachers by many. We were the decorative sex. We were there for show, and models, to this day, are there for show (even the male ones, which I believe is why they are the butt of so many jokes - because society views them as feminized). Still, does buying into the idea that modeling is not legitimate work and is beneath me (which I seem to believe) mean that I've internalized sexism? Do, on some level, recoil from modeling because it is associated with the devalued feminine of western society? Yes, I do. I think it's obvious. I don't want to cultivate my looks or make money off them because that seems girlie to me. Of course, at the time I had the opportunity to do modeling, I was not thinking in these terms. I just thought, that, for whatever reason, modeling seemed yucky to me. Never mind that these people were fine with the fact that I am a size six and have no intention of losing any weight. Never mind about the fact that they were cool with me being only 5'3, having a shoulder-length bob instead of long lustrous hair like Giselle and owning disproportionately huge breasts in comparison with my body. Never mind that all these people wanted me to do was get a good night's sleep, get my hair blown out, let a profession put some make-up on me and work hard at posing nicely. Never mind that they weren't asking me to do anything unpleasant at all besides making lots of money for looking my personal best without having to alter my body drastically. No, it was just that it was still modeling, no matter how palatable they had made it. It was still getting paid to try to look pretty - it was still women's work. At the end of the day, I have to admit, I'm a feminist, but I don't seem to be above being sexist....

I tell myself, at least I'm being self-reflexive. At least I know that I still have to decolonize my mind. At least I know that I'm not immune to the discourses used to devalue femininity in white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Acknowledging my own limitations is a starting point for changing them. What do you think? Do you ever catch yourself accidentally being sexist?

The Return of Gossip Girl!

2009-08-11T15:46:00.002-04:00

Do you have your headband ready for September 14th? I do, I do! I got it from headmisstress accessories, a fabulous hair accessory label run by a Canadian artist based out of London. Check it out here. You can even order her catalogue and get stuff shipped to Canada if you REALLY like something. Anyway, Dan, who is lame as ever, doesn't seem to think that headbands are allowed in college in this promo here. Do you agree? I don't! I wore them all the time. I STILL Wear them to grad school to this day. I just got a bunch of new ones in honour of starting my PhD. If I can wear them to my THIRD university degree, Blair can surely wear them to her first.

Still, I am happy there are promos for new Gossip Girl episodes. They came out none too soon, because last night I actually had a Gossip Girl related dream, where, for some reason, Chuck's father was back from the dead and hitting on Blair, and Blair had to run away, but she couldn't find Chuck, so Rufus had to help her feel Bart Bass and find safety. Not even kidding - this is what I f-ing dreamt. This is how much I seem to love this show, even in a dream-state.

But, in other observations regarding this promo, does it seem from the way Blair says, "Thanks for brining me, Humphrey," and the way he pats down her hair almost lovingly, that perhaps he and Blair might develop something romantic this season? I'd never considered it until this clip, but as boring and lame as Dan is, he's kind of sexy when he's touching Blair. At least, he's his sexiest. The two seem to have chemistry together. So, here's what I think should happen just to keep things interesting this season: Obviously Chuck and Blair will be together for at least a bit, and Hillary Duff has a story-arc as Dan's love interest, but what would happen if both these relationships break up because Blair and Dan get a bit too close? Think about it - they're at NYU together, probably in the same classes. They don't know anyone else, but they're both good students, so they grudgingly decide to do a study-group together, and then, suddenly, all those years of amazing enemy-tension turn into explosive sexual tension! Of course, as they one day are confiding to each other about how they are each having problems with their respective significant others while cramming for a comparative lit exam, they will accidentally kiss, and just then, either HIllary Duff's character or Chuck will walk in, see the two, and bam! You know what would happen next - whichever one found the two together would go find their competition's partner, tell them the truth and then start some major revenge sex! What do you think? I know, I know, we all want Chuck and Blair to end up together in the end, but if we want the show to last several more seasons there have got to be some twists and turns along the way....

Sometimes I'm Ashamed to Be Canadian...

2009-08-11T12:25:00.003-04:00

I hate this judge! Read this article and I'm sure you'll agree, unless, for some reason unknown to me, you agree that a woman with a job and a child who commutes to work as a politician will be too distracted to serve as an adequate witness at a frickin' trial. When, as a judge, you are so sexist you turn away evidence because it's a woman, it's obvious you are a BAD JUDGE! I thought in Canada we weren't ALLOWED to discriminate against people because of their gender? What the fuck? Is this a judge who has never read our fucking Charter of rights and freedoms? I think I want to move to Sweden...

I Want Babies, But I Don't Want You To HAVE TO WANT THEM...

2009-08-11T07:28:00.007-04:00

Two women I think are great are kind of in a flame war over parenting. Lainey Liu of Laineygossip.com and Catherine Connors of herbadmother.com have opposing view points on parenthood. Lainey says it's motherhood in particular that is becoming a retrograde cult where the easiest way for a woman to increase her social esteem is through having babies and Connors thinks that Liu's argument is bullshit. Connors thinks that parents don't get higher social esteem and the only joy is the children. She says she chose to have kids, so why shouldn't she be able to celebrate them? Why does her choice impede Lainey's, she wonders, and concludes that it doesn't. I think Connors is wrong.

Connors is wrong because, as Anne Phillips would say in her seminars, every choice people make in society affects the acceptability of other choices. A good example is that many women, after having a breast removed when they have cancer, opt for a prosthetic. I do not judge this choice. There is nothing wrong with it on a theoretical level. If it makes people feel normal and healthy, I say knock yourself out! But, in practice, there is one unfortunate and often unforeseen consequence. Every woman of the thousands who opt for the prosthetic makes it harder for women who don't. Audre Lorde didn't wear her prosthetic after losing a breast to cancer and she said while reflecting on it that she got some weird looks. People thought she was crazy because most women did the one thing, and it made most women happy, so surely if she just tried the prosthetic, it would make her happier? Surely she was wrong not to TRY IT? While I would never deny a woman her agential choice to wear a prosthetic, the more popular a choice, the more normalized it becomes and the harder it becomes for agents who wish to make a different choice.

The case with parenting is similar to the example above. The more women have children and CELEBRATE and are CELEBRATED for it it, the harder it is to resist motherhood. People assume you are abject or selfish if you don't want kids in many cases and there can be a major social stigma attached. When Liu refers to the "Cult of Motherhood," she is not referring to celebrating women who have raised good citizens with strong moral compasses, she's referring to the phenomenon where a celebrity somehow starts getting press just because she has a baby bump that is still so small it resembles what I look like after eating a sandwich (and not even a big one - we are talking like a six-inch sub here). Liu is decrying that just having a functioning womb can make you famous like Jennifer Garner or can make a talentless alcoholic like Tori Spelling who was previously hated a best-selling author just because she wrote about her kids. We seem to forget mediocrity as soon as people become a mommy - and we don't even wait for proof that they did at good job at being a mother! We seem to celebrate motherhood in and of itself, and that is sick, because there is nothing worth celebrating about being a BAD, inattentive or abusive mother, which some of these celebrities could turn out to be, for all we know.

Also, despite wanting kids desperately myself someday, I resent that we seem to call children every woman's greatest accomplishment, no matter what else she does. I agree with Lainey that this attitude is retrograde. I even think it can serve as a distraction from being "mommy-tracked" in your job or the fact that you will end up making less money after becoming a mother, or that if you have a male partner, he will do WAY LESS WORK FOR THE KIDS THAN YOU and CONTINUE TO PROGRESS PROFESSIONALLY.

Having Children, in my mind, has never been my "highest calling." It's arrogant to think that it would be, because kids are just more people, and I do not think that I'm so FUCKING GREAT that it's my DUTY TO THE WORLD to produce something with a similar genetic make-up to me and then socialize it with my rules and values so I can sort of continue living once I'm gone? I mean, there is a chance my kid could turn out to be AWESOME (and not just in the way I will probably think any kid I have is awesome, but like, in the world-altering, saviour-of-humankind kind of way), but that's unlikely. It is very, very slim chances that my kid will solve climate change or find the cure for HIV or put a stop to the desertification of the Sahara or create peace in the Middle East or win the Nobel Prize for literature by writing a staggeringly beautiful series of historical fiction novels about the Armenian Genocide that finally get Turkey to acknowledge that it happened. Hell, my kid could well BE A DRAIN on society. He could become a banker who causes another financial crisis or something, and then runs away from it on his private jet to live on his private island somewhere tropical and never be of any real use to anybody. That could be my kid. Also, if I believe that motherhood is my highest calling and don't work or do anything else but raise kids, and all I have are girls, I'm not even helping to raise people who do stuff besides have kids if they buy into these same myths. How fucking far down the line will my investment in child-rearing pay off in terms of changing the fucking world?

When I was 9, I asked my mother what her greatest life accomplishment was. She replied, "Being one of the first women in North America to work as a trader in a stock exchange." I was all like, WTF? You were supposed to say ME. I'm supposed to be "your greatest accomplishment." My mom made no apologies and stood by her previous statement. At first, I was hurt, but years later, I got it. First off, I was only 9. How did she know at that time I would not grow up to be something awful, like a member of parliament for the conservative party or an arms dealer? Secondly, I think I'm pretty cool now, but as I sit here at 23, a girl finishing her master's and about to start her PhD who (knock on wood) seems to have at least a decently bright future ahead of her who does a fair amount of community service, I now more than ever get why I'm not her biggest accomplishment. Why? Because I accomplished me! Yes, my mom was the most influential person involved in parenting me while growing up, but let's not inflate the importance of mothers. To be sure, they are important, but they are not the ONLY factors that influence the kind of person you become. First off, I have a mind and perspective of my own, and even though she instilled a lot of values in me, I critiqued the shit out of lots of them and rejected many. I might have a lot of her DNA, but I'm WAAAY different. Also, I wasn't even just socialized by her - I was also taught and inspired by my child-care providers, aunts, uncles, grand parents, teachers, friends, neighbours, siblings and my dad. It's impossible to determine exactly what about me was produced BECAUSE OF HER or what about me might eve have been produced TO SPITE HER. I'm me - she just gave birth to me; I have agency and I've had innumerable other influences.

At the end of the day, I want kids because I think it would be neat to see a person socialized from scratch, to see his/her/zer life progress from the start, no matter how much influence I have in that. I would also like to be pregnant at least once, probably out of an almost academic curiosity to see what that's like, but I think I might also adopt kids, because I really do love spending time with children and don't care THAT MUCH if they share my DNA. While adopting a kid who would not otherwise have a home (if they really truly wouldn't otherwise have a home - not the way Madonna adopts) is definitely good for the world, in general, the reason I want to have kids, whether they are adopted or biological, is not altruistic but is simply because I think they're neat. I think watching someone grow up and get socialized from an early age is awesome. Is that something worth starting a cult about? Is this impulse truly a higher one? I love love the idea of raising children for much the same reasons people say they like going snorkeling - because I think it's cool.

Yeah, I want babies. I hope I have kids who become responsible adults, and I hope I have something to do with them becoming responsible adults, but at the end of the day, they will be their own people, not just extensions of me, and creating "a cult of motherhood" would just help me feel better about the fact that my husband doesn't change as many diapers as I do...I don't want to make it hard for women NOT to have kids. I don't want to stigmatize that choice, so if I have kids (which I hope I will), I won't expect to be celebrated for it and I won't lose site of the fact that children are children, not reflections of one's own hot awesomeness.

No More Tim Horton's For ME

2009-08-10T16:01:00.003-04:00

Hmm, I guess we'll have to boycott Tim Horton's. Read this and then decide. Apparently Tim's is bank-rolling people in the states who run campaigns against gay marriage. I'm sorry, but that's no cool. No good Canadian company should do that, in my books. I'm about to come home to Canada, and I was really looking forward to going to Tim's again, but now it looks like I'll be staying away. How about you? Are Tim bits and a large double double worth propping up heterosexism for?