“I think we need to get much angrier…”

I already referenced this article in my last post, but the title of this post is something Gloria Steinem said in an interview with The Observer when talking about women working towards flexible working hours and childcare. She was generally speaking about areas of the feminist movement that require more attention and focus.

Anger is a very interesting emotion. I feel that many social movements have been formed based on anger. And outrage. And righteous indignation. In one regard, if you take a look at the current state of the world today, how can you not become angry? Looking at the rampant injustice and inequality that characterize the institutions and processes that lie at the core of our society and the sheer number of people that suffer as a result, it’s no wonder anger begins to bubble up inside. And sadness. And a general loss of faith in the inherent nobility of human beings.

Yet at the same time I can’t help but wonder whether acting for the betterment of the world, for the equality of women and men, out of anger is really sustainable. I don’t think anyone can be in a state of anger for very long, its damaging to your mental and physical health. It sort of flairs up and then inevitably dies down. Also when you’re taking action on the basis of anger, you’re really reacting to an incident rather than actively pursuing something for its own sake. You’re angry that some injustice is being perpetrated so you are reacting to it by trying to work for change rather than being an active protagonist that works for sustainable change even without some trigger.

Also I think you would be working for the advancement of civilization from a misconception of human nature. If you’re angry it’s because you’ve been hurt, because you’re disillusioned, because you’re fed up – all manifestations of being disappointed in your fellow human beings. But how can you really work for the betterment of the world when you don’t actually trust in the capacity of individuals to be better? If you aren’t looking at others as your equal, your partner, your fellow builder of a world civilization? Because I think if you looked at people like that, then you would inevitably be looking at people with love. And this love is the place from which you would be working towards equality and justice.

I think love is often underestimated and underemphasized and deemed inappropriate for the public sphere. Its power is limited, misplaced and misrepresented.

Love is a light that guides us through darkness and what greater darkness is there than the forces of inequality and disunity that are so pervasive in our society right now? Love connects us one to another and allows us to recognize the oneness of mankind and recognize that our individual fulfillment and happiness lies in the welfare and happiness of others. And if we recognize that, the interconnection that exists between us, then we will inevitably continue on our path towards equality, undeterred and unshakable, until we reach our desired end goal.

The issue of gender equality is inherently an issue of justice and I think the following quote on justice pretty much encapsulates what I said above. “[Justice] is not obtained by righteous indignation and loud demands made from a distance on behalf of the oppressed when one is cushioned by the comforts of privileged circumstances. It is promoted, instead, by patience and long suffering, through consistent action and loving education. One endures injustice in the process of building justice.”

I should clarify that I don’t mean to say that when unjust things happen, we can’t be angry about it. But to attempt to try and create change in patterns of thought and behavior by having anger at the core of our motivation is greatly limiting. I would even say it’s debilitating. So when we work for the equality of women and men I think we need to get a lot more loving, both men and women. I think we should constantly be reflecting on our motivations for working for change. And we have to recognize that what we’re working towards, the establishment of gender equality, is a process. This by no means has to curb our intensity but it should make us more focused, less superficial and more thorough. Because on the days when you get fed up, disillusioned, tired and angry, it’s the love, for each other and for the end goal, that makes us persevere.

Sisterhood

Tags

gloria steinem, sisterhood

After the previous post I had a conversation with a friend in which she related similar situations where her female friends shared variations of the “boys are better than girls” ideology. Apparently somewhere along the way women became catty, dramatic witches and it’s just a fact that we’ve all accepted. As a sort of first step to combat all this negativity, I feel like there needs to be a greater emphasis on sisterhood, on female solidarity, on women sticking up and supporting other women and refusing to accept negative stereotypes.

Because all these situations have made me wonder why is there no sense of female sisterhood, no sense of women speaking up for other women? Where is all the conflict and contention coming from? Recently, in an interview with the Observer, Gloria Steinem explained her thoughts on why people so often complain that groups of women can be catty, “do women compete for the favors of men? Yes. They’ve spent 5,000 years competing. It [competition] is true of any subordinated group. But once you get a sense of possibilities and shared experience, it becomes the most powerful community. I see a form of it when I travel. I’ll be walking through an airport, say, and my plane will be four hours late, and a woman cleaner will say: ‘Here, take these magazines I’ve collected’, or: ‘When I’m tired, I sleep in the closet over there. Would you like to use it?’ It’s the same with the flight attendants. It’s a floating community.”

So it seems that women, just as other oppressed groups, often perpetuate the same prejudicial thoughts or behavior that they’ve experienced in a way to separate themselves from the oppressed group and be accepted as part of the positive majority. Competition is formed in order to be ingratiated to those in positions of power or those seen as possessing positive characteristics. And yet, Steinem explains, when an opportunity is created for the sharing of experiences, a sense of community emerges. A sense of sisterhood, if you will.

I admit, I’ve had my own problems with the notion of sisterhood. It always seemed like this sense of camaraderie between women was based upon some opposition to men (granted that was probably a very ill conceived notion of sisterhood but it’s the one I understood). But in thinking about it now this sense of sisterhood is important in that it should lead us to a greater sense of community, which in turn leads us to a better understanding of the oneness of humanity as a whole. It might just be a first step. If women can see other women as more than just these characteristics assigned to them by culture and tradition then we can use this same outlook towards men.

And why sisterhood and not brotherhood?

Well brotherhood is probably also important but I think it goes back to the idea of an oppressed community. In instances of oppression, it’s true that both the “oppressed” as well as the “oppressor” need time and space in which to reflect on the forces that are acting on them and causing them to behave in such a manner. I think men also need space to reflect on where they are getting understandings of manhood from.

But in response to this pattern of behavior, of underestimating and insulting women, so endemic to our culture and perpetuated by both men and women, and by social structures and institutions, lets promote this idea of sisterhood (men can promote it too!). Let’s promote this idea that groups of women as well as individual women aren’t dramatic, catty, manipulative gossips. They are human beings endowed with the capacity to love, reason, understand, acquire knowledge and serve their community. Let’s move beyond stereotypical tropes that have been perpetuated and supported by years of subjugation, lets question cultural norms of thought and behavior, and let’s support each other in the process, as we move towards an understanding of the oneness of humanity.

Boys > Girls

Tags

Social Constructions, society's definition of female, women

Confession: I’ve developed a bad habit since I started this blog. My eyes and ears are always opened to any and all issues that I think might be relevant to bring up in this forum. So basically, and I think I’ve mentioned this here in the past, no conversation or passing comment related to women and men goes unnoticed when I’m around. It may very well end up on this blog. Names and places will always be left off but you might recognize yourself – you’ve been warned.

I was at a dinner the other day and for a time much of the attention was focused around this young child, who was sweetly interacting with one of the other dinner guests. Some of the other guests were commenting to each other about how cute this young boy was, and he really was, and cooing about the way he was dressed and the way he was interacting with the other guest. Then a comment from one of the side conversations caught my attention. “I really want to have all boys, girls are just too much drama”, I overheard one of my friends say. The others around her nodded and spoke up in agreement, interjecting their own brief statements of why boys were preferable to girls. Boys were easy to dress, girls wouldn’t let their moms dress them, boys are more easy going, girls are high maintenance – basically boys > girls.

As I sat there listening to some people I consider to be pretty amazing women, who would raise terrific women themselves, I couldn’t help but wonder, where were they getting these idea from? And why was everyone so readily agreeing? Did no one think this mass generalization of boys and girls was a bit of an oversimplification of reality? Not every social situation lends itself to serious conversation about the forces that are acting upon us and causing us to accept certain beliefs as fact so I figured this was perhaps not the time in which to bring up the questions above.

This conversation actually reminded me of an article that I think has been going around from Yashar Ali, published on the Huffington Post a few days ago. In it, Ali explains how women have been constantly portrayed as emotional, hyper-sensitive and generally crazy that it impacts not only how men view and treat women but also how women view themselves. His depiction of men interacting with women under this assumption was interesting but more interesting to me was how he was describing women who bought into this idea. He describes an encounter he had with a flight attendant in which he explained that he mainly wrote about women, which caused the flight attendant to respond, “oh, about how crazy we are?”

Much like Ali, her reaction makes me rather depressed. There is very little chance of achieving gender equality, so crucial for the advancement of civilization as a whole, if women themselves hold misconceptions about women. When I was studying ISGP’s document on the equality of women and men in Uganda, one of the women we studied the document with said that before we want to talk about how we can stop men from oppressing women, we have to deal with women oppressing women. She was right. The task of overlooking stereotypes and recognizing someone’s true identity doesn’t lie just with men interacting with women but also with women interaction with women (and men interacting with men for that matter). Essentially, you teach people how to treat you and if women can’t even support other women, why would men support women? Somehow when women can make callous and careless statements about other women it makes you realize we still have a long way to go.    

I’ve asked people to contribute to this blog and write about how they try and engender equality in their own lives and a lot have said that they don’t really think they are actively contributing so they don’t have much to write about. Honestly though, if one person in that room would’ve said something, not in a confrontation way, but in a way to invite reflection, that would’ve been engendering equality. We should all take time to reflect and thus become more aware of what is influencing our understanding of gender and relationships between men and women. I think any contribution to equality between women and men requires honest reflection and the realization that our actions and our beliefs are not always perfectly synced, as well as the commitment to achieve that coherence between the two.

A Part of the Whole

Tags

ellen johnson sirleaf, leywah gbowee, nobel peace prize, Social Constructions, tawakkul karman, women's issues

I’m always impressed by tough women and sweet men. When I come across individuals who hold those qualities they always stand out in my mind. I think it has something to do with the fact that they go against gender norms and undermine societal pressures to conform to a certain standard of behavior. That’s the type of subversion and rebellion I can really get behind.

The three ladies who won the Nobel Peace Prize at the end of last week definitely fall into that tough lady category. Firstly, there is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, current president of Liberia, first female president in all of Africa, nicknamed the “Iron Lady.” She shares the award with her compatriot, Leymah Gbowee, founder and executive director of Women Peace and Security Network-Africa, who fought to bring an end to the civil war in Liberia, which is the focus of the documentary, “Pray the Devil Back to Hell”. And finally Tawakkul Kamran, the youngest of the three, currently one of the leading activists fighting to bring peace and democracy to Yemen, has been arrested several times and received numerous death threats.

In one of the articles I was reading about these Nobel Prize winners, the author was lamenting the fact that women’s issues are still considered separate issues to be highlighted and defined as its own category. It is funny that women’s issues are considered a special interest when women are actually the majority of the population. But I find myself turning to cynicism sometimes when I read the news so I don’t want to be cynical about this. At the same time though it’s a point worth mentioning because it should help us remember that women’s issues don’t exist in a vacuum. When President Sirleaf promotes mandatory primary education for all Liberians, she does it to help ensure that young girls get to receive an education but she also recognizes that promoting the interests of young girls is not a standalone issue, that she has to be a promoter of education so that these girls (and boys) can help create a better future for themselves and for their country. When Leymah Gbowee mobilized Liberian women to fight to bring about the end of the war in her country she knew that the end of war would ensure peace for of all of Liberia’s people. When Tawakkul Karman protests on the streets of Yemen she does so knowing that her rights are intrinsically tied to that of all Yemenites.

I don’t mean to downplay what these women have accomplished in the field of the advancement of women by discussing the impact their courage has had on more than just women. But the point is that working on women’s issues is working on everyone’s issues. These Nobel Prize winners know that in their push for women’s rights, they are working for the advancement of whole communities, whole countries. That’s the reason why they dedicated their wins to all their people, both men and women, of Liberia and Yemen.

Upon handing out the prize to these three women, the Nobel committee explained, “we cannot achieve democracy and lasting peace in the world unless women obtain the same opportunities as men to influence developments at all levels of society.” Actually, I’d go a little further, because I don’t just think achieving the same opportunities as men is exactly the end goal these women are working towards. They aren’t working towards creating spaces alongside men in broken institutions; they’re demanding new institutions and social practices that ensure the prosperity of all. That’s why they are undercutting the status quo. And that’s what being a tough lady is all about, after all.

Miss Representation

Tags

attraction to beauty, disempowerment, femininity, gender stereotypes, masculinity, media, sexism

This link for the trailer of the documentary Miss Representation has been going around my Facebook for a little bit, some of you might have even already seen it, but I thought I’d share it here.

Miss Representation explores the media’s portrayal of women. It talks about how the media’s representation of woman as sex objects and possessions of men has detrimental effects on both young girls and boys. It focuses on the role media has in shaping the way we perceive ourselves and the expectations that are placed upon us. The trailer is eight minutes and includes some interesting points.

The trailer made me think of a conversation I had with two friends a few days ago. One of my friends was discussing how men are negatively impacted by the media because it skews their standards of beauty. They develop unrealistic expectations of beauty and this impacts how they seek relationships. Honestly I had never really thought about that before and my initial reaction was a bit unsympathetic, as in, “oh no, poor boys are disappointed because they only want girls who look like models they see in magazines and they don’t actually exist, boo hoo.” But in addition to being a bit condescending, this understanding of how media impacts boys is highly superficial. Even if you just focus on this aspect of beauty standards, having an unrealistic standard of beauty is detrimental. Boys can end up forsaking certain friendships and missing opportunities for real long term relationships because of this, which in turn impacts their development. This might sound like a little thing but as my friend sat across from me and explained how guys have told her, this clearly beautiful human being both inside and out (seriously, she fits neatly into conventional standards of beauty), that they just weren’t attracted to her, that she wasn’t pretty enough, I sat there feeling sorry for any guy who missed out on the opportunity to spend time with this woman. Any guy who knowingly walked away from her clearly had some negative forces acting on his understanding of beauty.

There are other aspects of the media’s portrayal of gender norms that can have negative impacts on boys. Media hypes up a certain idea of masculinity and imposes it on these young boys, fostering a culture of ridicule and bullying for any boy who doesn’t succumb to these pressures.

And of course there is the impact had on young girls. They are bombarded with images of what they should look like, how they should act, what their value is – all reinforcing the idea that they aren’t good enough. It starts from a young age and follows women throughout their lives.

Likely, just as the trailer makes clear, we need more female leaders and more women in media. But we also need a better understanding of what our true value and nature because without that, we’re likely to continue to promote some of the same media messages just in different forms.

A Zero Sum Game

Tags

gender roles, gender wars, Social Constructions, zero sum game

I’m going to need you guys to explain something for me. We’ve talked about this topic before on the blog, the propagation of the idea that the advancement of women comes at the expense of men and that there is some sort of power struggle happening in our society and any success or promotion of issues that impact women more directly is negative for men.

I just don’t understand the value of promoting this type of thinking. The author of the article The End of Men, which we’ve talked about here and caused a lot of controversy when it was released last year, was featured in Slate Magazine lately in order to discuss this issue and promote a debate that she will be having on this topic later this month. To remind us, Rosin explains that men are falling behind is the job market because they have failed to adapt to the more stereotypically feminine skill set that is become valuable in our postindustrial economy, skills such communication, empathy, social intelligence and consensus building. For Rosin, there has been a shift in society that is seeing women advancing and men falling behind. Now women have become the dominant gender.

This might be a slightly simplistic presentation of Rosin’s ideas but I’m less interested in the specifics of her arguments right now but rather the underlying assumptions she’s making about human behavior and human interaction. She is very much working within the framework of competition—that success looks a certain way and that there can only be a limited number of people who will be able to achieve this success. She’s not making a case on whether the end of men and the dominance of women is a good thing or a bad thing necessarily but just that it’s a fact; it’s the reality of our current economic order.

What I struggle to understand, however, is the value of engaging in this sort of conversation about interactions between men and women. What’s the conversation hoping to achieve? Why are we seeing these interactions as a zero sum game in which there are winners and losers? This thinking is premised in an understanding that there will always be those at the top and those are the bottom, that the success of one sector of society will necessarily come at the expense of the other. But that type of thinking has gotten us into the inherently competitive social reality in which we now exist. I think we’re all losers now, trapped in a reality that tells us that because of how we look, where we live, and what we do, we have act in a certain way.

Our understanding of our social reality should be advancing, should be building on itself and should recognize the inherent interconnectedness of the well being and welfare of all human beings that is an inescapable fact of reality. Yet continually working within frameworks and thinking that espousing competition and zero sum games doesn’t allow us to advance. It’s the same thinking that has shaped our social reality for years and has allowed for the perpetuation of the same broken systems and institutions which promote sexism, racism, classism, war and violence.

So I just have to ask, why?

Contemplating Equality

Today’s personal account of trying to engender equality comes from Oak.

I was introduced to the term describing the advancement of understanding and actions between men and women, “gender equality”, when I came in contact with the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith when I was nineteen years old. By that point, I had already absorbed much of the social hype regarding how a “man” and “woman” should behave and experienced its shortcomings. I had said, done and heard so much regarding so many less-than-favorable behaviors and postures, and found myself in front of a mirror. A mirror that wouldn’t be ignored or avoided when the term that had been nagging at my subconscious all these years found me. In the mirror I saw a hurt boy struggling to understand his place in the universe, and within the social spaces he traverses, and I often have to converse with him to get a better gander at what I’ve learned and have yet to learn. This conversation would always be incomplete without some of the major players in the social space: Pops, Moms, Lil Sis and My Peers.

Pops 

Pops grew up in a highly rigid atmosphere within Port-au-Prince, Haiti, as a son to a Priest. This environment had the strange blend of the fear of God and the guilt felt of ones’ own shortcomings. My grandfather wasn’t a monster, but had some very specific training about a woman’s “place” according to a particular Biblical interpretation, and many mixed messages were passed along to his children about what that “place” should look like. Within the household of 3 boys and a girl, maids would turn up pregnant from the men in the household, and new branches of my extended family thus formed. Pops, having internalized these values, went on to have many sexual exploits with women as a source of pleasure rather than a true partner in life to be valued as an equal. This pattern held through his meeting my mother at a club in Spain, where the natural attraction brought them together through dancing and partying. The perceived compatibility of this couple brought them to decide to get married because…that’s what you’re supposed to do eventually, right? 

Moms

Moms grew up the first of two children in an African-American family that valued education and the arts. She was raised by a music teacher who was driven to succeed in a world where there were very few people of color in prominent positions in society, and was determined to be one of them. Moms was brought into dance, singing and acting lessons, and many other artistic areas that would develop in her a sense of appreciation for the act of creation. Her younger brother was somewhat less inclined artistically, but was given preference in his education, and many stories could highlight how she came to feel less valued and subservient to the males around her who simply didn’t consider that her role in society could be as important as the man that she found to take care of her. As she grew up, her experiences with men developed a pattern of codependency and acquiescence to subservience which carried over into her meeting Pops.

They decided to get married and start a life together. Pops was in Medical school and Moms was studying education in Valencia, Spain, and came together in the US to pursue a path towards material prosperity. My father entered Chiropractic school, and my mother soon had a little Oak in her womb. During this time, Moms was contemplating spirituality for this little person growing within, and found a community to relate to with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. The teachings that she internalized informed her that her life had to change, and change it did. This change seemed somewhat abrupt to Pops, and he didn’t gain receptivity to the teachings of Moms’s exciting and new faith. Over time, the things that brought them together faded away. Dancing and partying were now “Things of the World” to Moms, and she wanted no part of it. Their sexual relationship, the very fabric of what their initial relationship was based upon, became strained and faded into the distance. Lil Sis was born, and we moved to the Caribbean where Pops would open a practice. Infidelity and distance began to seriously strain the relationship, and it was determined that the physical location was the culprit, and a move back to the US would be a reprieve from the challenges that Moms and Pops faced, not to mention they had a little boy about to go into preschool. Both of them were trained that the women in the family, to some extent, play a role of servitude to men, and that they were never to be “heads” of the household. That men and women could be “equal” in any practical sense is to this day a puzzling and preposterous thought for them.

Lil Sis brought an interesting new element into the mix, because I was charged by my parents to be a good example and protect her. In that role, I had to challenge even the examples that my parents set in how they saw the role of women in society. I would have to stand up to bullies, teach her to stand up for herself, and ultimately, that role paved the way for my understanding of why calling a female anything less than noble was unacceptable, for I wouldn’t want anyone to refer to my sister in such a way. I also learned that the often patronizing role of men as “protectors of women” was an ego trap, which is fraught with false responsibility and devoid of empowerment of our female family. My most major regret in providing an example to Lil Sis is that I fall into the social pressure trap that many young boys fall into regarding sexuality. Most young boys when I was growing up had little to no sexual experience, but felt the need to prove their “manliness” by boasting of their sexual experience, if not prowess. The social implications for me for being truthful about my utter lack of experience with females had been ridicule and allusions if not condemnations regarding my possible interest in males instead. All of that played on my young brain when my Lil Sis began to ask about all things sexual, and I streamed my usual ridiculous web of tales that I had on hand for just the occasion. Little to knowledge, my response compounded with the other social influences that she was exposed her to actually brought her to experimenting and losing her virginity even before I did. Many things followed that I won’t recount, but it instilled in me a profound lesson on how we can truly be influenced and influence each other. She has grown into a strong woman who I respect far beyond the bonds of family, and I am thankful for the positive influence I may have had in light of my earlier blunders…

My peers informed me of the multitudinous contradictions between what one presents publicly to an audience that doesn’t know you from what they practiced in private. The same kids who would refer to or call a woman a “bitch” in a heartbeat, would speak with the utmost respect to their own mothers at home in most cases. If one said anything untoward about their mothers or sisters, there would invariably be a violent altercation with the source of the offense. Seeing this dissonance made me question a lot about the way we were being socialized and socializing each other, for it seemed to all make little sense. 

All of that baggage traveled with me over the years as I explored the space that I occupied with women, and much of the various arguments made on the topic flow through my head as I process my role in the process of understanding gender equality. Many women have been socialized to accept and even defend their role of subservience or inadequacy in covert and overt ways, even those who have been empowered in some ways. Questions that this now married boy asks are: What does gender equality look like within a marriage? Does it mean that we hyper-emphasize the responsibilities that were held to be traditionally “women’s work” as valuable when the family set-up is one that may on the surface look like the traditional model? Do we pressure men to suppress their masculinity in order to prove that they are committed to whatever sacrifice it takes to be the “new man”? Do we ask women to be more like men in ways that runs counter to the unique and powerful station that women naturally bring to the table? How do we treat a couple who is pregnant or has a child, and do we value each individual’s contributions equally? Do we strive to bring equality in all ways or do we favor the traditionally oppressed at the risk of creating a new type of oppression? My answers to these and other questions remains unclear…

 

Interested in sharing your experience promoting the equality of women and men? write a post and send it to engenderingequality@gmail.com

What is the Role of Gender Roles?

Firstly, I should apologize for my prolonged absence from the blog. I was traveling for work and assumed I’d still have the opportunity to blog but that never really worked out so here I am 6 weeks later, back in the office and back on engendering equality.

A very interesting point came up during my travels that I thought would be useful to bring up here. I was in Uganda, for part of the time, studying the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity’s document on the equality of women and men with a non-governmental organization that focuses on the advancement of women and the topic of gender roles was brought up.

The organization we were meeting with focuses specifically on food security, so we were discussing what type of conversations they have with the people they work with in the villages. One of the women at the organization explained that most of the agricultural work is left to the old women and young girls, the youthful energetic ones rarely take part and yet they are among those benefitting from this work. The staff members were talking about the importance of creating a strong sense of community within the village so that everyone is participating in the production of food and everyone has enough to eat. It was clear to them that restructuring communities and promoting gender equality will require profound changes in the minds and hearts of people.

Two of the staff members at the NGO then began to discuss how they had actively begun to promote equality between women and men in their homes. One of the female staff members explained that she has three boys and one girl and that in her home, it was everyone’s responsibility to contribute to the chores. Her neighbors thought it was very strange that she made her sons participate in cooking. Normally the boys go and play and come back and eat. She said that in many homes in Uganda, boys will not do what is regarded as woman’s work. The male staff member agreed as he is an active contributor to the chores in his home, including making dinner and fetching water, much to the confusion of his neighbors.

The challenge of men taking more of an active role in the home is not limited to just Uganda, this subject was recently discussed in the New York Times**, reflecting on this issue in the United States and across Europe. While it has become easier for women to work outside of the home, men have been slower to participate in work around the house. The series of articles attempts to explore why this is so, although the conversation is often stuck in this very narrow understanding of work and success. They are written from the perspective that our current employment structure is best and that we have to think of ways in which we can get more women to be involved in this system. Yet it is clear that our current emphasis on material gain is not without its problems and has contributed to this stark division of work inside and outside the home, making it an either or situation, and promoting one (working outside the home) as having more value than the other.

Achieving total parity around the division of work between women and men inside and outside the home isn’t the benchmark of equality. Yet the lack of mobility regarding this issue is indicative of gender norms which stand in the way of equality. If so much of our identity as women and men is the acts that we perform and the responsibilities we have around the home, we will continue to perpetuate inequalities. What we need is the space in which to reflect on the roles that we assume to be natural and ask ourselves, where did they come from and what is their purpose?

 

**for some reason its not letting me link now, you can find the articles here http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/07/05/how-can-we-get-men-to-do-more-at-home

Strong is Beautiful. Or maybe Strong is just Strong and that’s Okay.

Tags

adversiting, media, women in sport

Summer 2011 – time for the women’s World Cup.

This time last summer, my friends and I gathered every evening to watch whatever game from the men’s World Cup that was on that day. Without fail we would rush home from work, eat our sunflower seeds and spend the next two 90 minutes yelling at the TV.

And this summer?

I haven’t watched a single game of this World Cup. Every so often I catch the results of one of the games if it happens to come up in the headlines of one of the news websites I’m reading.

Clearly I’m not the only one paying less attention to female sports. An article in Time magazine explains that a recent study showed that across TV and print media in the US, female athletics makes up about 8% of the overall sports coverage. In an attempt to counteract the lack of coverage and increase viewership, female sports associations have been seeking to drive up publicity for their sport through more aggressive advertising.

One example of this is the Women’s Tennis Association, which launched the Strong is Beautiful campaign. In its video segments, female tennis stars are shown hitting the ball in slow motion as they explain their love of the game in a voiceover. Obviously the emphasis on the female form and beauty has drawn criticism. The article mentioned above explains, “when female athletes are featured in ads, it tends to be in ways that hyperfeminize them rather than highlight their athletic competence.”

A similar approach was taken by members of the female German national soccer team, with several players deciding to pose in Playboy magazine in their underwear, explaining, “we want to disprove the cliché that all female footballers are butch. The message is: look, we are very normal — and lovely — girls!” The article makes the overall point that advertisements focusing on female athletics seem to by tied up in the context in which the public is comfortable looking at women. Essentially the idea that women can be strong, powerful athletes has to be curbed by the idea that they are beautiful as well. To simply be strong and capable athletes would be off putting, it’s not how society likes to see its women. We like our women beautiful.

I guess. So say the advertising and athletic associations that are desperate for money and funding and somewhere along the way they got to decide how we like to view women. As it explains in the document, “media systems work to naturalize the messages and habits of thought they propogate, until these messages and habits begin to appear as normal, inevitable features of social life.” So maybe these media messages aren’t the norm, they aren’t what people really want. Maybe there is a market out there for people who just enjoy sports; who enjoying watching people play to their fullest capacity. Maybe they just need a helping hand to realize what they are missing and should be reminded through images of athletes doing what they do best not looking their best. People like me.

A Few Thoughts on Weddings and Wedding-Related Reality TV

Tags

engendering equality, gender stereotypes, media, weddings

Today’s personal account of trying to engender equality comes from Chloë.

I never cared much for fantasizing about my future wedding, nor do I believe the (Western?) myth that all little girls do it. It was not until I had to plan my own wedding (with help from my now-husband) that I fully realized what madness is going on.

I observed—with apprehension—that weddings are becoming increasingly lavish. They cost incredible amounts of money that could otherwise be used to establish a somewhat secure life for a couple. They involve great and greater amounts of complexity in terms of clothing, food, gifts, decoration, and entertainment. They invite many and more members of extended families and circles of friends and acquaintances. And it’s not only in North America (where I live); I’ve heard tales of enormous, bank-breaking weddings from friends in India, China, and other places—tales that would strike fear into humble hearts.

Now, somehow, our permissive culture has turned wedding-related materialism and selfishness into “entertainment”. Sarah Haskins sums it up with insight and humor in one of her “Target Women” videos (which satirize advertising that employs gender stereotypes):

These “reality” shows paint brides as manipulative, controlling, shallow, and self-obsessed. Grooms are painted either as impotent slobs or indifferent chumps. Where is the equality in that? These shows highlight inequality as well as the widening gap between the rich and the poor.

The most beautiful and touching weddings I’ve been to have upheld both bride and groom as contributors to a new family, a new social institution (however small in scale), and have asserted that both members accept responsibility for the well-being of their relationship.

I suppose I can only speak from my experience when it comes to equality on the ground, so I will:

As I began to plan my own wedding, I made efforts to strike a balance between humility and hospitality. We wanted to host and be generous to our dear family and friends, yet we wanted to emphasize that the marriage was to be more important than the event of getting married, no matter how joyful and reverent it was. We took to heart certain examples set by the humble and greater-purpose-driven figures of religious history—in particular, those from the Baha’i Faith, since my husband and I are Baha’is: we read about the modest weddings of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá and Shoghi Effendi (in The Priceless Pearl). We found it valuable to seek inspiration about principles and attitudes, even in the matter of wedding planning.

Yet we also had to contend with the extravagant climate. For example: I walked into a bridal shop last summer and was immediately bombarded by an overbearing busy bee who aggressively insisted that I fill out a form with all my personal information and details about my wedding (date, theme, etc.) before I peruse the store merchandise—which I was afterward sharply instructed to do (quickly, and with no shoes on, presumably so as not to sully anything). The gowns began at $1000 and ranged in color from “white” to “eggshell” to “ivory”.

I left the store. I won’t bore you with the details of my wedding, but I wore a reasonably priced blue dress. A select group of immediate family and dear friends gathered for a weekend, went tobogganing together, ate vegetarian food, and played board games. We wanted not only a just, moderate, joyful wedding, but a just, moderate, joyful marriage. We had a brief but lovely ceremony, and then it was over. On with the business of being married—and it is going very well; we both work to be equal participants in a balanced relationship. Now the only thing left to do is keep at it for the rest of our lives….

Interested in sharing your experience promoting the equality of women and men? write a post and send it to engenderingequality@gmail.com