There's been a lot of fervor over the fact that Ginni Thomas, wife of super-conservative misogynist Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, was running a teapartyish group called Liberty Central. She's recently stepped down very quietly now that the mid-terms are over.
There's been a lot of talk about how when you agree to be a Supreme Court justice, you give up certain rights, like expressing political positions. I agree with this overall, especially since a few of the ultra-conservative justices have been making public appearances at conservative fundraisers. But when we talk about "Supreme Court spouses" and how they agree to give up their rights, I can't help but sense the sexism in this assertion.
Of all the Supreme Court justices in history, four have been women. Three of those currently sit on the Court. Two of them do not have spouses. When we talk about who has to sit down and shut up, especially because their spouses have voices that overpower every law in the country, we are talking about women, though we conveniently call them "spouses." We are talking about yet another reason that women shouldn't just be overshadowed by our spouses' careers, but we should be controlled by them. Because "we" have "agreed" to accept a Supreme Court post.
It's true that spouses' political opinions often give a window into Supreme Court justices opinions, but it's not true that their spouses' actions actually do anything to affect their rulings. The fact that Ginni Thomas founded and headed a super-conservative political group doesn't tell us anything we don't know. Let's take a vote. Raise your hand if you didn't know that Clarence Thomas is a misogynist, conservative asshole.
Right. That's what I thought.
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sexism. Show all posts
Friday, November 19, 2010
Monday, September 20, 2010
Datafail and Truthiness
Yet another well-respected philanthropy journal, which I am choosing not to name, is marching forward with the same "Generation Y doesn't care" trope that seems to be so popular as my generation goes out on our own and makes our own brand new adult trends. We are the generation born between 1981 and 1991 -- roughly, my brother (1981), myself (1984), and this year's college freshmen and sophomores (1991). In the article entitled "Charities must find multiple ways to persuade people of different generations to give, study finds," the article rightly makes the point that marketing, solicitation, and cultivation tactics work as a multi-pronged single strategy, not as separate strategies for separate demographics. And somehow, they fit this in:
When you report data inaccurately, it doesn't help that you grant that we "have a strong desire to help others." It isn't okay to acknowledge our intentions are good if you're also insulting us based on your own preconceptions about what you'd like to find. So let's remember some things about this generation that is sooo picky about where we work and who we give our money to:
I've been reading The Canon by Natalie Angier, and I just finished the chapter on probabilities. The moral of the chapter was a warning that it's easy to be hoodwinked by statistics with poor or, in this case, a lack of analysis. I expected better; perhaps that's foolish. This is truthiness at its best: "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."
*These data come from the Wall Street Journal article, Students Borrow More Than Ever for College.
**These data come from here and originate in a cnn.com article.
Members of Generation Y...tend to be less loyal to an organization and hold high expectations for online attempts to attract them. But they also have a strong desire to help others and to raise money and attention from friends and acquaintances for their favorite causes.As datafail to back that up, we get this.
Donors born since 1980 gave an average of $341 to an average of 3.6 groups, while members of Generation X gave $796 to 4.2 organizations.Anyone else see the problem here? Yes, that's it, in a typical career environment you make more money as your career progresses. Anything else? Right, a good chunk of Gen Y are still in college! Assuming typical matriculation and graduation, the oldest GenYers graduated around 2003; the youngest won't graduate for another three years.
When you report data inaccurately, it doesn't help that you grant that we "have a strong desire to help others." It isn't okay to acknowledge our intentions are good if you're also insulting us based on your own preconceptions about what you'd like to find. So let's remember some things about this generation that is sooo picky about where we work and who we give our money to:
- The total amount of student loans borrowed by students increased by about 25% from the 2007-08 academic year to 08-09 academic year. Compare this to the increase from 1997-98 to 98-99, which was 1.7%.
- Two-thirds of college students take on student debt, with an average of $23,186 after a Bachelor's degree. Compare this to the numbers from 12 years ago, when 58% of students borrowed to pay for college, and the average amount borrowed was $13,172.*
- This burden keeps us from doing things we want to do, like having a kids, buying a house, or throwing a wedding. (Things, I should note, that are big ol' important milestones for adulthood which we're criticized for "delaying.")
- On average (using a median) starting pay for men is $8,400 more than starting pay for women in the same graduating class.**
- More women than men graduate college (this trend is growing); more women than men donate to nonprofits. The bulk of the donors and likely donors in our generation are making less than our peers.
- The third of Gen Y who are still in college are largely living on borrowed money and thus aren't giving as much. Maybe we should count the interest I'll be paying for the money I donated when I was in college, and then see where the averages end up.
- Many of us opt to work in nonprofits as a moral decision, rather than an economic one, and thus make far less money than we would in for-profit organizations. For example, I am in the 16th percentile for jobs similar to mine in responsibility and region. If we consider the $9,312 between my salary and the average market value of my work to be a contribution, I wonder whether we'd still be decrying how stingy and flighty Gen Y is.
I've been reading The Canon by Natalie Angier, and I just finished the chapter on probabilities. The moral of the chapter was a warning that it's easy to be hoodwinked by statistics with poor or, in this case, a lack of analysis. I expected better; perhaps that's foolish. This is truthiness at its best: "the quality of preferring concepts or facts one wishes to be true, rather than concepts or facts known to be true."
*These data come from the Wall Street Journal article, Students Borrow More Than Ever for College.
**These data come from here and originate in a cnn.com article.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Fuck your fascist beauty standards, OR, Nike and my ass
My ass is amazing. It's not really a big ass proportional to my chubby body, but it's not a tight little tiny ass either. My partner's got a nice ass, too, and I think his is cuter. Body image is tricky, and I know no one who has sailed into a positive body image, regardless of our relative sizes or shapes or genders. So when I saw this post when it was shared by a friend on Google Reader, I bristled. Yes, I like images that support women, our body images, our agency, and our needs. But no, this ad doesn't do that, nor does the little bit of commentary around it.
Stop using my body to sell things. When you're saying nice things about my lovely ass, or when you're telling me it's too big, shaped funny, doesn't look good in these jeans, whatever, you're still using my body as an object to pump up your bottom line.
Between the model's skin and hair color and the fact that the ad is about her ass, Nike clearly means for us to assume it's a Latina ass they're objectifying. Great, because women of color don't have enough media attention focused on their bodies? (My mind is a puzzling place, but this called to mind Queen Emily's post from last year about visibility and invisibility, particularly this quote: "...to whom is one visible, and why? Under what circumstances, and in what light?") Hyperfocused approving attention is not an antidote for hyperfocused disapproving attention. The point is that we pay attention to the bodies of women of color in a way that is overly sexualized, fetishizing, and creepy.
To add more race fail, the model is wearing a cutoff tank top and too-small spandex shorts. If you're so proud of her ass, why is she wearing shorts a few sizes too small? Do you not make them bigger? The cutoff tank top looks like something out of a sexy version of West Side Story, complete with people (especially women) of color wearing clothes that are too-tight, "urban," and torn. Her hands are wrapped like she's boxing or overly prepared for a streetfight. (In productions of West Side Story, including the 1961 movie, the white "jets" wear light, cool colors and are prim and proper with tucked-in shirts and clean sneakers. The Puerto Rican "sharks" wear warm colors, torn clothes, black jeans, and boots.)
She's standing on her toes. Her shoes are flat sneakers, made for running and jumping and doing athletic things, and she is standing on her toes, as if she's in high heels. What are high heels for? Oh, to make our calves and asses look better. (Or to make us totter like we need assistance crossing the street. I love my high heels, but that doesn't negate the sexism of their cultural significance.)
The post's author opines that this ad is "exactly the type of message that women need to hear and see." Oh, so the author is a woman, perhaps a woman of color as the model appears to be, who has struggled with body image issues and is relieved to see a positive, butt-approving ad, right? No. The author appears to be a moderately sized trim white dude, and his blog is about fitness and being a personal trainer. Please, sir, tell me more about what I need to hear and see. (To be fair, he says it's what he "thought" when he first saw the ad, and he didn't state it as objective fact. Fine, whatever, he can have half a point back.)
At the end of the post, the author writes, "I’m so sick and tired of seeing models with no ass, no muscle, and no shape being touted as the ideal 'look' for women to aspire for. Why not just get a 2×4 and put a dress on it?" Aside from the fact that the woman in the ad still has a figure that is unattainable for the vast majority of women, why do we have to hate on skinny women? Eating disorders and unhealthy body images are not just the business of fat women. Some of the smartest body image talk I've heard came from a friend who battled an eating disorder for a good part of her life. She told a story about grabbing available food for lunch on her way out of the house to go to her job at a feminist health clinic one day. As she sat down to eat the cheesesticks and tofurky that were the easiest thing to bring with her and eat on a short lunch break, a coworker of hers began bemoaning how she could never eat so little and not be hungry, and she wishes she was as skinny as my friend. That is not a compliment; that is not helpful. It took years for my friend to gain weight, and even more years to be ok with the fact that she did. And clothes shopping is still a trigger, and cooking is a trigger, and eating in front of other people is a trigger. Let's quit with the question of who has it worse. Any "perfect" size is still going to be oppressive for every woman who isn't that size (and is likely oppressive for that woman as well).
I know, I know, it's a Nike ad. It shouldn't be touted as the new perfect ad campaign, but what more do I expect for products made in sweatshops that exploit workers (who are often women and/or people of color)? How about this? "these were made in a cooperatively owned factory" or "we pay a living wage, support a unionized workforce, and would like for you to buy our products, thanks." Maybe "these shorts will keep you from chafing" or "these shoes provide great arch support." That might convince me to buy an overpriced pair of shorts or shoes. But "hey, look! New standard of beauty, complete with new and improved racism and sexism"? No, that's not going to sell me anything.
Stop using my body to sell things. When you're saying nice things about my lovely ass, or when you're telling me it's too big, shaped funny, doesn't look good in these jeans, whatever, you're still using my body as an object to pump up your bottom line.
Between the model's skin and hair color and the fact that the ad is about her ass, Nike clearly means for us to assume it's a Latina ass they're objectifying. Great, because women of color don't have enough media attention focused on their bodies? (My mind is a puzzling place, but this called to mind Queen Emily's post from last year about visibility and invisibility, particularly this quote: "...to whom is one visible, and why? Under what circumstances, and in what light?") Hyperfocused approving attention is not an antidote for hyperfocused disapproving attention. The point is that we pay attention to the bodies of women of color in a way that is overly sexualized, fetishizing, and creepy.
To add more race fail, the model is wearing a cutoff tank top and too-small spandex shorts. If you're so proud of her ass, why is she wearing shorts a few sizes too small? Do you not make them bigger? The cutoff tank top looks like something out of a sexy version of West Side Story, complete with people (especially women) of color wearing clothes that are too-tight, "urban," and torn. Her hands are wrapped like she's boxing or overly prepared for a streetfight. (In productions of West Side Story, including the 1961 movie, the white "jets" wear light, cool colors and are prim and proper with tucked-in shirts and clean sneakers. The Puerto Rican "sharks" wear warm colors, torn clothes, black jeans, and boots.)
She's standing on her toes. Her shoes are flat sneakers, made for running and jumping and doing athletic things, and she is standing on her toes, as if she's in high heels. What are high heels for? Oh, to make our calves and asses look better. (Or to make us totter like we need assistance crossing the street. I love my high heels, but that doesn't negate the sexism of their cultural significance.)
The post's author opines that this ad is "exactly the type of message that women need to hear and see." Oh, so the author is a woman, perhaps a woman of color as the model appears to be, who has struggled with body image issues and is relieved to see a positive, butt-approving ad, right? No. The author appears to be a moderately sized trim white dude, and his blog is about fitness and being a personal trainer. Please, sir, tell me more about what I need to hear and see. (To be fair, he says it's what he "thought" when he first saw the ad, and he didn't state it as objective fact. Fine, whatever, he can have half a point back.)
At the end of the post, the author writes, "I’m so sick and tired of seeing models with no ass, no muscle, and no shape being touted as the ideal 'look' for women to aspire for. Why not just get a 2×4 and put a dress on it?" Aside from the fact that the woman in the ad still has a figure that is unattainable for the vast majority of women, why do we have to hate on skinny women? Eating disorders and unhealthy body images are not just the business of fat women. Some of the smartest body image talk I've heard came from a friend who battled an eating disorder for a good part of her life. She told a story about grabbing available food for lunch on her way out of the house to go to her job at a feminist health clinic one day. As she sat down to eat the cheesesticks and tofurky that were the easiest thing to bring with her and eat on a short lunch break, a coworker of hers began bemoaning how she could never eat so little and not be hungry, and she wishes she was as skinny as my friend. That is not a compliment; that is not helpful. It took years for my friend to gain weight, and even more years to be ok with the fact that she did. And clothes shopping is still a trigger, and cooking is a trigger, and eating in front of other people is a trigger. Let's quit with the question of who has it worse. Any "perfect" size is still going to be oppressive for every woman who isn't that size (and is likely oppressive for that woman as well).
I know, I know, it's a Nike ad. It shouldn't be touted as the new perfect ad campaign, but what more do I expect for products made in sweatshops that exploit workers (who are often women and/or people of color)? How about this? "these were made in a cooperatively owned factory" or "we pay a living wage, support a unionized workforce, and would like for you to buy our products, thanks." Maybe "these shorts will keep you from chafing" or "these shoes provide great arch support." That might convince me to buy an overpriced pair of shorts or shoes. But "hey, look! New standard of beauty, complete with new and improved racism and sexism"? No, that's not going to sell me anything.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
Discrimination minus intersectionality...
Since I graduated in 2006, I've stayed involved with my alma mater's LGBT Office. A month or so ago, I was on a career panel called Out At Work, co-sponsored by a bunch of queer/trans* groups on campus. There were five of us on the panel, all white, two female, one male. All identified as gay/lesbian and none mentioned being trans. The moderator was also a white gay man. I was the youngest by about four years, and I think I was the only one who had gone to the school as an undergrad. Three people had post-grad degrees -- one doctor, one lawyer, one MPH -- and the other may have, but I'm not sure. (I do not.) This sort of crowd isn't unusual to me when I do work with this particular school. It's a very white, very heteronormative, very patriarchal crowd. It was an old-money Southern school that now has significant regional, if not racial, diversity. This may be obvious, but it's also a private and very expensive school with a huge endowment, so everyone expects to end up in white-collar and/or professional jobs.
The evening went mostly as expected. The five of us sat at a table in the front of a room, the moderator asked questions, occasionally students in the office would ask questions. There were two remarkable moments when it took effort to keep my jaw from dropping. First, one student asked about how to decide whether to put LGBT activities on his resume. I was surprised to hear the doctor on the panel, whom I respect quite a bit, say that it's entirely up to you because it's an activity, and there's nowhere on your resume where you would write in your sexual orientation. To the satisfaction of two women sitting in front of me, I interjected that actually, it comes up very often on job applications, specifically when they ask if you've ever used a different name, and how many people applying for jobs won't necessarily be using their legal name and/or may have an incongruous gender marker on their documentation. It does come up, it just never did for the people on the panel. The original respondent was sweet enough to say "oh duh, I can't believe I just said that" and correct himself, and mentioned it to me again after the panel. I wasn't surprised to hear this kind of gaffe, but I was heartened by the fact that I wasn't the only one with a quizzical look on my face.
The second moment was one I should have expected, but didn't. We had all had pretty pleasant experiences at our jobs, and found them to be queer- or gay-friendly. Sometimes, as with me, we had been standard-bearers who were able to change things in our offices without much of a fight, and we shared that. But the moderator, in an effort to get us to bring up and discuss some problems that could arise, said, "None of you have experienced discrimination at work, but what are some issues that you think could come up?" I didn't feel bad at all to nearly cut him off and say, "I haven't had any discrimination issues come up about my sexual orientation, but I work with a bunch of gay people. I deal with gender-based discrimination every day, and I'm really tired of beating that back." The moderator was dumbfounded. I kept talking about examples because I thought it was really important, and in the end, I was proud of how it went. But egads. Really? We exist in vaccuums?
*Most of the groups on campus use "LGBT," but they're moving away from it slowly. Overall it's a very LG(bt) campus, with significant differences between the experiences of cis queer folks and the experiences of trans folks (whether queer or not).
The evening went mostly as expected. The five of us sat at a table in the front of a room, the moderator asked questions, occasionally students in the office would ask questions. There were two remarkable moments when it took effort to keep my jaw from dropping. First, one student asked about how to decide whether to put LGBT activities on his resume. I was surprised to hear the doctor on the panel, whom I respect quite a bit, say that it's entirely up to you because it's an activity, and there's nowhere on your resume where you would write in your sexual orientation. To the satisfaction of two women sitting in front of me, I interjected that actually, it comes up very often on job applications, specifically when they ask if you've ever used a different name, and how many people applying for jobs won't necessarily be using their legal name and/or may have an incongruous gender marker on their documentation. It does come up, it just never did for the people on the panel. The original respondent was sweet enough to say "oh duh, I can't believe I just said that" and correct himself, and mentioned it to me again after the panel. I wasn't surprised to hear this kind of gaffe, but I was heartened by the fact that I wasn't the only one with a quizzical look on my face.
The second moment was one I should have expected, but didn't. We had all had pretty pleasant experiences at our jobs, and found them to be queer- or gay-friendly. Sometimes, as with me, we had been standard-bearers who were able to change things in our offices without much of a fight, and we shared that. But the moderator, in an effort to get us to bring up and discuss some problems that could arise, said, "None of you have experienced discrimination at work, but what are some issues that you think could come up?" I didn't feel bad at all to nearly cut him off and say, "I haven't had any discrimination issues come up about my sexual orientation, but I work with a bunch of gay people. I deal with gender-based discrimination every day, and I'm really tired of beating that back." The moderator was dumbfounded. I kept talking about examples because I thought it was really important, and in the end, I was proud of how it went. But egads. Really? We exist in vaccuums?
*Most of the groups on campus use "LGBT," but they're moving away from it slowly. Overall it's a very LG(bt) campus, with significant differences between the experiences of cis queer folks and the experiences of trans folks (whether queer or not).
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