Just the headlines today, folks...
Proposition 8, The Mormon Coming Out Party: While the LDS Church's leadership role in the passage of Proposition 8 may have been a surprising new direction for observers here in the United States, the Church has been instrumental in the organization of a world-spanning alliance of right-wing Christians and Muslims.
Overthinking It: Why Twilight Will Be a Great Achievement for Women
Stereohyped: England's Black Women Overcome Pay Gap
The rise and fall of Rachida Dati: Born to a poor immigrant Muslim family, France's justice minister has had an astonishing political ascent, appearing in glamorous magazine shoots and holidaying with the Sarkozys. But now pregnant with a child whose father she refuses to name, and facing a rebellion by the country's judges over her 'incoherent policies', her future looks uncertain.
AutismVox: Girls and Getting a Diagnosis
Kay Steiger: Congresswoman Pregnant! (Psst. She's Not Married)
The "Bitch" and the "Ditz": How the Year of the Woman reinforced the two most pernicious sexist stereotypes and actually set women back.
Feministe: Tom Daschle for HHS Secretary?
Economy Hitting Women Hardest, Say Experts
Kristen Bell's victim vow: The actress says she will consider any type of film offer she is given, but has ruled out ever playing the part of a repressed character.
Writes Like She Talks: Secret to NH State Senate female majority: it doesn't pay
Kay Steiger: Wanted: Geekettes
Muslimah Media Watch:How to Use a Murder Victim: The Exploitation of the Aqsa Parvez Tragedy
Domestic violence: Your coworker's dark secret: The topic is taboo in most of corporate America. But the workplace is often central to the struggle - as sanctuary, source of income, and sometimes crime scene.
Stereohyped: Few Black Mastectomy Patients Opt for Reconstruction
Local Church Starts "Embryo Adoption" Service: "Embryos are not simply human material to be used for medical experimentation, vaccine cultivation, or trash to be discarded."
Counseling on alcohol key to teens' sexual health
Job Segregation as a Cause of the Wage Gap Between Men and Women
Chicks Rock: Musings of a Latina Immigrant
Questioning Transphobia: After Duanna Johnson: What Next?
abyss2hope: Colleges Can No Longer Impose Gag Orders On Rape Victims
Post Bourgie: 'Be Like Barack and Michelle. Get Married.' And on a related note, go read Ta-Nehisi on why he and his partner chose not to marry.
Events
Washington, DC: Chicana art exhibit at the AFL-CIO, Nov. 19, 2008-May 31, 2009
Goshen, MA: ROCKRGRL Day at the Institute for Musical Arts on Saturday, December 6, 2008
Boston, MA: Be the Media! Mini-Conference 2008 on Wednesday, December 3
New York, NY: Eve Ensler Presents Offensive Women: Talk is Dangerous! on December 5 and 6
Missoula, MT: Off the Rack: A Baring and Daring Fashion Show to benefit for Blue Mountain Clinic and UM Students for Choice on February 7, 2009. Deadline to submit wearable art for the show is Friday January 16, 2009.
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So while I have not read or seen Twilight, some friends were talking about it at dinner last night and my understanding is it's written by a very religious Mormon woman and pro-abstinence before marriage is a huge part of its message.
So I'm not sure if I see it as a "victory for women" per se. Seems a little more complicated than that...
Well I would like throw out two more posts. When we talk about sex we always leave out masturbation: An examination of why female masturbation is taboo.
The Role Of the Hymen In French Marriage: The overturning of a wedding annulment that was based in the fact that the bride was not a virgin on her wedding day. An examination of the ways in which the French government is policing female sexuality.
TWILIGHT IS IN NO WAY A VICTORY FOR ANY WOMAN!
I work for Nickelodeon Kids and Family Group and so I felt inclined to be up on the Twilight phenomenon.
Read the books, saw the movie.
Twilight is a completely anti-feminist novel and the three books that follow it are even worse.
I'm surprised Feministing hasn't discussed them yet, to be perfectly honest, because they are so wildly popular with young women.
There are themes of abstinence, yes, but MUCH MORE DISTURBING is the romantic way teen death, suicide, infatuation and obsession are treated.
Edward (the vampire love interest) stalks Bella (the human protagonist) and watches her sleep from outside her window and sometimes in her room. He confesses these things to her when they admit their feelings and it's treated as if this is romantic.
Bella has absolutely no self esteem an the entire novels are wrapped up with how perfect, god like, angelic, beautiful, wonderful and fantastic her vampire love interest is.
She repeatedly says that she is not worthy of any of his time or attention and when he breaks up with her temporarily in the second book she becomes obsessed with dying and lays down in the woods, unable to so much as move because he is gone.
Bella is repeatedly mentioned as the "moon" to his "planet" and in the final book she is pregnant and treated like a farm animal by everyone else around her.
She has disdain for any relationships other than her Edward and the interactions with her and her mother or female "friends" is discouraging at best.
I agree. I was confused and surprised when I saw that link included in the post.
My roommate and I have a sign hanging up in our room that says, "Stephanie Meyer is the Sarah Palin of literature."
Stephanie Meyer is the Sarah Palin of literature.
That is the most astute comparison I have heard for Stephanie Meyer yet.
You effin rock.
Absolutely! I only read the first book and had to stop because I was disgusted. The heroine spends most of the first novel passing out or having to be saved. She gets carried around a lot. Her vampire boyfriend seems like a perfect stand-in for a real-life abusive boyfriend. She is isolated from healthy relationships while with him, he is always on the point of hurting or killing her, but the narration makes it seem as if it would really be her fault if he did. And she really kind of wants him to hurt her, just as a bonus.
There is no other way to read these novels. It isn't subtext. It's text. It's right there on top, with no interpretation necessary. The novel (and probably the whole series) is a treatise on how great it is when teen girls are disempowered. Helpless. Dependent.
while i agree that twilight is far from feminist, and the author's religious views are disgustingly apparent later in the books, a lot of the arguments against it area little ridiculous. yes, bella has little to no personality. but you'd be hard pressed to find a character in the book that does. just because all of the characters are underdeveloped doesn't mean that bella is anti-feminist. she's also got some pretty great thoughts throughout the book and she stands up for herself the best that she can. the only reason she comes across as weaker than everyone else is because she IS. the only other characters dealing with her problems are VAMPIRES.
which brings me to my next point.
yes, in real life, edward would be a stalker and a very abusive boyfriend. however, HE IS A VAMPIRE. it's not as if he's simply jealous and controlling and therefor tells her what to do and keeps her from her friends. she is constantly faced with life-threatening situations involving, usually, vampires intent on her destruction. edward is madly in love with her and has to protect her, seeing as he's a virtually indestructible vampire and she's a fragile human. if you really paid attention to the book, you would see that he's really not abusive so much as trying to keep her from DYING.
and it's definitely doesn't come across as him constantly about to hurt her and it's her fault. first of all, he's a vampire. again. and he has an insane craving for her blood, and could easily kill her in an instant. but he doesn't. because he loves her, and would not be able to live without her. he never hurts her, and even though "for her own protection" sounds patronizing and abusive to our real-world-feminist ears, THERE ARE VAMPIRES TRYING TO KILL HER. so no, he's not abusive.
Here is the thing. The book reads like its the author's personal fantasy. You are very much supposed to BE Bella. The abuse isn't romantic because he is a vampire, it's romantic because he is beautiful (insert 100 more adjectives that mean beautiful here) and she is in love with him.
It's not written as though the vampire storyline is really that influential in his character or their relationship IMO. She obsession and abuse begins before she knows he's a vampire.
It doesn't read like these things happen because of Edward or what he is --- it's because of her.
BTW, I totally loved Alice and the depiction of Charlie in the movie made me want to hug him.
You could really tell that the movie director might have loathed the book or at least thought it was way too sappy because of the nature of the things they changed.
Keep in mind that these books are WILDLY popular with young women who are just getting started finding themselves and their sense of self worth. The reactions that I have seen from these girls in my job and just observing in general have been very worrying.
It's interesting actually, there was an interview recently with Kirsten Stewart and I wish I could find the link now! She basically said that she felt hostility from the female fans, who made it "quite clear" to her that they were there for Edward and she had just better not screw up the movie.
Hopefully someone else can find the link. I think the above attitude is encouraged and romanticized in these books.
Hell, they even have romantic domestic violence with the werewolves. She talks endlessly about beautiful one of their fiancees is but half of her face and body is mutilated from her werewolf boyfriend ... and werewolves happen to morph when they get ANGRY. He got angry, lost his temper, and mutilated his girlfriend. The descriptions of how "over the top loving" he is to her after that explanation make me sick and trigger all kinds of domestic violence imagery in me.
Sorry -- this is why I shouldn't just post headlines/titles. I thought the observation was interesting that this is probably going to be a top-grossing film directed by a woman, which in Hollywood is all too rare.
As far as the actual content of Twilight goes, point taken.
Thank god someone finally mentioned what the actual article was about ^_^.
Twilight itself is obnoxious and has a weak female lead along with other weak characters. Its just badly written.
The fact that the film was directed by a woman and it is going to make ridiculous amounts of money is amazingly awesome.
I'm so glad my daughter hates those books. She says, "Oh. My. God. Bella is so stupid. Why did they make her so stupid? And why are girls fawning over Edward?! He's abusive and an asshole!"
"she can risk losing custody of her children in divorce courts, where abuse allegations can sometimes backfire on a victim."
This quote from the Domestic Violence article was really chilling to me. Look how far we haven't come.
Some other cool posts to see:
Here's a post from the Dreams for Women project, a community art project that asks women and men to write their dreams for women on a postcard. This week's post has postcards from The Shoreline Center Eating Disorder Clinic, who used the project as part of their art therapy.
http://antigonemagazine.wordpress.com/2008/11/16/dreams-for-women-shoreline-center-edition/
Also, if you're interested in the project, check out the 2009 Dreams for Women calendar. It features postcards from the program and is a great feminist Christmas gift at only $20 Canadian!
http://antigonemagazine.wordpress.com/2008/10/26/its-here-the-dreams-for-women-2009-calendar-is-here/
The conclusion for "Year of the Woman" seems backwards. It's more of a comment on how society can't accept women without those stupid labels. Palin and Clinton didn't set women back; they just showed us how far away we are from equality. Clinton especially only reinforced stereotypes because men felt threatened by her--the "involuntary leg-crossing" that some sod felt when he was threatened by her demeanor? Totally not her fault, and damned if she should change her attitude just because men feel emasculated. I may not like her politics or the "buddies club" she symbolizes, but really, enough is enough.
Oh, and since when has "whack-job" been a female-exclusive insult?
Yeah, I thought Fortini's argument was interesting, but ultimately wrong.
Okay, what I'm about to say may be wildly unpopular but I'll say it anyway–I actually enjoyed Twilight.
Deerly, I agree with most of what you said. I did not like Breaking Dawn's depiction of the love scenes between Edward and Bella, and it sort of pissed me off the way Kristen Stewart handled some of her interview questions. However, the two female vampires are depicted as being very capable, and Alice is the one who ends up killing the antagonist.
I know Bella's obsession with Edward is unhealthy, but Edward has also made it clear that he wouldn't be able to cope without Bella. If you ask me, they're both way to dependent on one another. Maybe it's just because I'm an obsessive fan, but I don't want to come down to hard on Twilight.
I won't argue with your taste, but I have a problem listening to someone applaud the female vampire's abilities when one of them basically said she wished she would have had kids because then she would have been fulfilled and not have been gangraped.
We all have our guilty pleasures, but Twilight is very guilty of anti-feminism and romanticizing abuse--and not just in the last book, throughout the series Edward is textbook abusive and manipulative.
she admits that she was very shallow as a human, and she just wishes that she had had the "perfect life" complete with husband and children, rather than being gangraped and left for dead. she doesn't say that children would have prevented that, just that she wished she could have stayed human and been able to have children. i think the majority of the female characters in the book are pretty strong, if unecessarily girly. bella even has her moments.
YMMV, but I read the scene as perfect victim blaming. Good girls don't get raped, so if Rosalie had had kids, the power of the mighty baby would have protected her from rape. If she'd have been a better person, be it not shallow or a mother, she wouldn't have been raped, but since she was a shallow person, she deserved it. Given the rest of the book and it's total emphasis on women getting married and having babies and ONLY getting married and having babies (throughout there is one woman who doesn't want to, and she's derided for it), I don't think it's out of line.
I don't know how other people feel, but my first thought on Kristen Bell's statement about not wanting to play a victim is "Then *why* is she playing Elle on Heroes??"
Elle definitely didn't come into the series as a victim. She's evolved into one, kind of, but I think it's a little more complex than that - she had her reality and then it was totally upended. Seeing her and Claire and their reversal of roles has been interesting, too.
Also, Edward Cullen belongs to a pretty evenly mixed family. Rosalie, Alice and Esme are just as powerful as Edward, Jasper, and Mr. Cullen.
Right, but YOU aren't those characters. YOU are Bella. I enjoyed the books, they are entertaining candy to read and sometimes laugh at :)
The problem I have with Twilight is the impression it gives to the young women and girls reading it. The jr high/high school age is full of self discovery and insecurities and a struggling to find one's own self worth. I really think that the tone and subject matter of these books, since they are so insanely popular, is troubling.
Bella is not good enough for anyone in her life, least of all Edward. It doesn't matter that he's smitten with her either, she is just ugly and grateful that he would fritter away his time with her.
The obsession, death and suicide references and how the abusive relationship is idealized worry me a great deal when it comes to the readership and the obsessive level that the fandom is taken to. :(
I know it can be disturbing to think about all the twelve year old girls who are going to read this and think: "scraping and bruising during sex... that's hot." However, I'm in jr high and I'm was able to draw a line between reality and fiction. Even after seeing the movie I would never let a boy come even close to touching me if I felt uncomfortable. I never fantasized about being Bella, instead I fantasized about being Rosalie or Alice because they can rip oak trees out of the ground with one hand.
I think the girls who will walk away with a troubling message are the ones who lack a good support group of feminist–friendly friends or parents. I completely understand where you're coming from and I even share some of your concerns; however, I'm not exactly ready to through Twilight under the bus.
It's not scraping and bruising during sex -- my partner and I do that on purpose ;)
Its the codependency, the worthlessness, the fact that she describes herself as an orbiting moon to his planet. The fact that death and suicide and unhealthy infatuation and EMOTIONALLY abusive behavior is glamorized and romanticized.
I'm a grown woman and those books made ME feel bad about myself while reading them. The book was written in a way that you can relate to Bella and that is seriously exploited.
Don't even get me started on the religious garbage.
I am thrilled that you can enjoy these books for good campy fun, I liked them in that respect too.
We all have (un)feminist guilty pleasures, it's even a regular posting topic here. However, we shouldn't deny how unfeminist these books are let alone down right offensive and dangerous.
The excuse that their relationship is abusive because it's in Edwards NATURE and he can't help it doesn't send a very good message ;) Not a great explanation imo.
The whole, he can't help it because he's a vampire thing made me uncomfortable too when it pops up occasionally on the Sookie Stackhouse novels (now the Trublood TV series). I mean, I know that vampires in this world are not human, but vampires rights are often juxtaposed and compassion for vampires seems to be encouraged. So, it makes me really uncomfortable when a little line like he can't help it appears, especially like one time when it applied to rape.
Anyway, I've been kinda dealing with that for a while, being a feminist and loving a series (though the last few books have been a little disappointing) that can be un-feminist at times., and wanted to see if others have been feeling the same way.
oops, I meant that civil rights and vampire rights are juxtapose.
Bella's human weakness is not simply because she is a human among vampires. She is particularly weak and pointedly clumsy, even by human standards. This is accentuated and underlined in the novel over and over.
This is a girl who faints at the sight of a pin-prick of blood in her biology classroom. Doesn't she have periods? Fainting at the sight of non-gory blood is not something that normal people do, it is a trope used to signify female weakness and helplessness. It isn't even very ironic in that, "Oh, she hates blood but loves a vampire" kind of way. It is just another non-essential sign of her absolute helplessness and weakness.
The early parts of the novel are terrible: Bella almost gets hit by a car and Edward saves her, Bella passes out and Edward carries her somewhere, Bella almost gets raped by a group of men and... you see where I'm going with this? Bella is so very small and weak and helpless and ooh, isn't she lucky that she has a big, strong, vampire to protect her? Who can gently usher her in to his family's weird set-up (read Mormonism for vampirism here), and let her become his help-meet as all good Mormon... ummm, vampire-bride... women are supposed to do? Hmmm?
oops, I meant "throw". Sorry. :[
Look, I can't say much for Bella's taste in men. However, I really love the super–natural part of this story, as opposed to Edward and Bella's romance.
You should try "Darkangel" by Meredith Ann Pierce. It's the first book of a trilogy about a girl who gets taken by a vampire to be either a servant or a bride, ends up saving him and then works on saving the world too, just as an extra.
That sounds pretty cool. I'll have to check it out sometime.
Oh, if we're doing recommendations:
Undead and Unwed isn't bad either. The later books are more poorly written, but Betsy is a pretty badass main character, and her strength doesn't lie in "making decisions". YMMV, it's very popy, and far from literature.
I also hear Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books (beginning with Dead Until Dark) are very good for feminist fans of the undead, but I'm not reading it for another few hours, after the TV adaption ends.
You really want a feminist heroine and vampires, you should check out the Anita Blake series. She's strong, independent, and won't stand for being used by anyone. My favorite is "Guilty Pleasures" which is out in graphic novel.
I was kind of making a YA recommendation with "Darkangel", but I'll bet teen girls would get more out of a foray into adult semi-erotic fiction (a fair descriptor of the Anita Blake books, yes?) than the flaccid passions of the Twilight series.
I was reading those awful "Flowers in the Attic" books when I was 13. "Guilty Pleasures" would have done me a lot more good.
I gotta disagree with this one; the earlier Anita books are semi-feminist, but once you hit... oh, man. Killing Dance, then the one or two after it, you've hit anti-feminist territory.
There's way too much to cover and I've had a bit too much Smirnoff Ice tonight to do it, but the way other women-- and people of color, for that matter-- are characterized, the magical rape, and the creepy 'Anita is better than other women because she is SO DAMN LIKE A MAN' is not feminist, at all.
Eh. To each her own. She's definitely feminist in "Guilty Pleasures" *shrugs*.
And a horrible, horrible writer.
God, what's with this love for shitty books and shitty writers?
So apparently I'm not allowed to enjoy these books? And so what if I find feminist streaks in Anita Blake? What's it to you? Since when did being a feminist *have* to reflect on literature? Does this mean I'm not allowed to enjoy "Lolita" or "The Great Gatsby"? Or are those okay because society has deemed them so? Here's what I have to say to not only you, but those others. Back off! You don't agree with my literary views, then don't comment on them. Your time could be spent on views that *actually* need challenging. Like sexism, misogyny, and racism. All those can be found in Gatsby, by the way.
I never said anything about feminism. I just said these are shitty books.
Read them. I don't care. You can read whatever you decide.
That doesn't mean I can't say they are shitty, horrible books. Because they are.
If you enjoy shitty books, that's your business, but I am free to say my opinions about them, just as you are free to read them.
And yes, they are shitty books, and I don't understand why people choose to read books that are horribly written, with a horrible storyline, AND, to top it all off, an anti-feminist message ... when there are thousands upon thousands of other amazing books out there -- both YA fiction, and guilty pleasure-type books, that aren't NEARLY as crappy as these are.
So, no, I'm not saying you can't read them, but I can think it's a bit pathetic to do so.
She might seem like it in Guilty Pleasures, yes. About 8-10 books into the series though, I wouldn't recommend using the novels for anything except fire kindling. Just as the tip of the iceberg, she refers to the raped victim of an abusive boyfriend as having "buyer's remorse."
I can't take Anita Blake seriously as a feminist because of the author's personal views. If you spend any amount of time reading her blog, you realize that she holds tight to the gender-binary and repeats over and over that she's more like MEN than WOMEN and therefore is much better than yucky girly women. It's pretty nauseating.
Hell, there was one scene where in one version she was raped, and in the other version they retconned it to consensual, because LKH got attached to the rapist. Except they didn't make it consensual, they just took out the part where she told him to stop, the whole creepy, nonconsensual undertone without the normally outspoken heroine telling him to stop was worse than the original one.
I tried to read Twilight but couldn't get into it. A much better YA series about the supernatural is the Night World series by LJ Smith, I haven't been able to put the series down.
A new YA book that I wish were getting more attention is The Hunger Games. It's set in the future where America, renamed Panem, is divided into 12 districts plus the Capitol in the Rocky Mountains. As punishment for a past rebellion, every district must send two teenagers to the Hunger Games, where they're forced to fight each other to the death. Katniss, the hero, comes from the poorest district. She offers herself to save her sister, Primrose, when she's chosen to go. Katniss is capable and tough and provides for her family after her father dies. There were some irksome deus ex machina moments, but other than that it was good.
...
I'm currently reading Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer to get some perspective on the whole Mormon/Prop 8 thing. it tells the history of the LDS and its schisms interspersed with the story of a double murder by Dan and Ron Lafferty, members of the FLDS.
I'm reading "Under the Banner of Heaven" too. I'm totally fascinated.
The truth is, re: this Twilight thing, I grew up in a religious fundamentalist town and while I always rebelled against that, my kid sister has largely fallen into it. She talks about how God takes care of her, and calls a lot of teenage girls who have sex sluts. And apparently she's into Twilight. I'm afraid there may be some correlation there...
I'm so engrossed in Under the Banner of Heaven but it makes me so angry that I have to put it down sometimes. Hearing about 14 year old girls being married to 30, 40, and 50+ year old men is disturbing, but the fact that no one in the community saw anything wrong with it is worse. That and the fact that the polygamist families were pulling in so much welfare money because the women were considered single mothers, when there are people that genuinely need a leg up and not because they have 7 wives and 21 children.
I hate hearing teenage girls call each other sluts. I was a virgin in high school--not because of religion or morality but out of general disinterest in other humans--but I never thought that girls who chose to have sex were slutty, I mostly hoped that they were safe.
I just can't get into Twilight, it's like one giant pro-abstinence fanfiction. I like my vampires bicurious and bloodthirsty, not 108-year-old virgins waiting for the right mortal. I think it's from reading Anne Rice, but if I were a vampire I'd be as dissolute as possible.
I'm very disturbed at some of these comments. I'm not at ALL a fan of Twilight, for writing style or content.
But can we please stop blaming Bella for being weak? There are plenty of teenage girls out there who DO have low self-esteem, and ARE insecure, and for that matter, DO faint at the sight of blood. They already get enough shit about this from non-feminists. Must we do it too?
No, katemoore, I'll talk about the portrayal of Bella as much as I like. She has been constructed to be as perfectly weak as it is possible to be. She is not a real person, and so the question is, why would an author decide to stack the deck so completely in favor of the helplessness of the female protagonist?
It's a fair question. It should be asked, and the people who need to be asking it most of all are the girls you want to protect from the kind of self-reflection that could change insecurity into empowerment.
Why would you not want insecure girls or girls with low self-esteem to question whether it is absolutely necessary for reality to be constructed in this way?
Nobody is blaming a fictional character for anything. Rather, people are blaming the author for romanticizing unhealthy romantic relationships and marketing it to young girls. Codependence, obsession, archaic gender roles... ugh.
I find it really depressing that girls (and grown women!) are so enthralled with this crap. Meyer is a terrible writer who took some really bizarre liberties with vampire lore, and injected a huge dose of anti-feminism to boot.
Nobody is blaming Bella for her weakness.
We're blaming Stephenie Meyer for telling us that the best solution to weakness is getting a big, strong man to tell you what's best.
If people were truly criticizing the author, they'd bring her up to a greater degree in their posts. I don't see that. I'm reading post after post of "OMG Bella is so weak and helpless!"
Self-esteem isn't something you can switch on or off. For some people it's a process that takes a lifetime. Some people never attain it at all. So the best solution is to ridicule people like them and portrayals of people like them as weak, foolish, helpless, etc.?
Part of this, too, is the notion that in order for a female character to be strong/legitimate/round/insert your adjective, she has to possess traditionally masculine-coded qualities. A lot of times this takes the form of violence (the "kicking ass" thing, for instance.) Other times, it takes the form of extroversion. Either way, it's limiting and, in its own insidious way, sexist.
Honestly, katemoore, I could let go of needing Bella to be strong if she would just stop passing out all the time and having to be carried everywhere. Or is walking independently a masculinely coded behavior for you?
Thank you
GAWD. Twilight is SHIT. It's a shitty book. The writing is deplorable. The subject matter is unoriginal. The vampires fucking sparkle. They are idiotic, poorly written, boring, anti-feminist books that are now being made into a movie. HOORAY! Not.
At least Harry Potter had redeamable qualities, namely a writer who could actually write.
God, I'll never get why people read SHITY BOOKS. There are so many other books out there to read -- both YA Fiction and memories and adult fiction and sci fi and ... WHY ARE PEOPLE READING THESE SHITY FUCKING BOOKS?
Bleh.
I am more worried that kids are being introduced to crappy, poorly written books than I am about the anti-feminism that is blatant in the books, but both are bad.
If you have kids, don't allow them to read shitty books. PLEASE?!
/nerd
While most of the Twilight series' content is indefensible, there is, astonishingly enough, a decent argument for "sparkly vampires": Lilith is said to have borne Adam "shining sons and glittering daughters".
Lots of young people go through a phase of reading trashy books. It's part of the process. But most of them will eventually learn to distinguish between the guilty pleasures and the truly good stuff. The solution isn't to forbid media you find unhealthy -- that'll just make kids crave it even more. Instead, discuss what kids are taking in, and encourage them to question it.
I wouldn't fobide my hypothetical children from reading any book they desired (well, most any book ... I'm sure there would be exceptions), but I'd encourage them to read something more fulfilling and intelligent -- there are so many other YA writers out there, even!
Heck, my mom picked up one of the shitty teen horror books I was reading, was horrified (pun intended), and handed me a book each of Edgar Allen Poe, H.P. Lovecraft, and Stephen King. I was 10. The King book was Misery and it still remains one of my all-time favorite novels. (Obviously my mom was all about allowing me to read "adult" books.)
I just think it's almost dangerous to have such crappy books be SO popular.
AND, such an anti-feminist, pro-religious series at that.
Look, part of the reason why I love my parents is because they don't censor what I read. I have every right to read the Twilight series, and although I agree that they are in no way perfect, I am capable of coming up with my own conclusions.
I understand that the people who have voiced their concern are just looking out for teen girls and I appreciate that. Just because I enjoyed Breaking Dawn, doesn't mean I don't appreciate other literature.
And we have every right to call it anti-feminist, poorly written crap.
You have every right to hate the books. However, I feel as if you are attacking me by branding something I enjoy as "poorly written crap".
"I am more worried that kids are being introduced to crappy, poorly written books than I am about the anti-feminism that is blatant in the books, but both are bad."
I think that by taking books away from your kids, you would be doing them a disservice rather than letting them think for themselves.
I never said I'd take the books away from them. If you read a comment of mine a couple up from the one you replied to, you'd see this.
I would, however, encourage them to read other books. There is some wonderful YA fiction out there, and wonderful adult fiction. Vampire and otherwise. Hell, I've read some wonderful romances and I'm not generally the romance type.
Twilight, however, is not only horribly written (I mean come on); it also has a pretty weak story line, and a lot of blatantly anti-feminist, pro-life messages.
I have some guilty pleasures, and not all of them are perfect, but this shit is pretty blatant. It also feeds off the insecurities of teenage girls. AND it is horribly written, to boot.
Fuck that noise.
There are a million other books out there. I don't have time for shitty, sexist, pseudo-vampire crap.
I know I sound harsh, but I honestly don't understand why grown women who identify as feminists read this shite.
When I was in jr. high, I was really into this series called The Vampire Diaries (or maybe Vampire Chronicles...I can't remember), and the R.L. Stine "Fear Street" series was hugely popular. If my parents were concerned about me reading cheesy "horror" novels, they never let on to me. I think they were just thankful that I was reading *something*.
My mom discovered I was reading horrible, cheesy horror and handed me Stephen King. She said she couldn't allow her daughter to read such crap, lmao. So at 10 years old, I read Misery (and fell in love with King's old school horror).
Ha, funny you should mention...I read "Needful Things" in the 7th or 8th grade - whenever the movie came out - and I was pretty much done with R.L. Stine forever after that. I loves me some King - in fact I'm reading "Danse Macabre" right now.
I was very into The Last Vampire series by Christopher Pike. Sita was so kick-ass. I blame (Happily) Christopher Pike for getting me into Stephen King and Anne Rice.
The Vampire Diaries by LJ Smith! I want to replace every copy of Twilight with LJS's books.
Yikes. In that New York piece on the Clinton and Palin stereotyping, this jumped out to me in just the third graf:
...a woman who cloaked her femininity in hawkishness and pantsuits.
"Cloaked?" God, I hate this license that pundits feel they have to speculate on what traits pols are furtively keeping from view. Particularly when, in the case of Clinton, she has never really displayed a ton of femininity.
Has Fortini considered that perhaps Clinton just isn't that feminine? I'm not saying Clinton isn't -- but to my mind there neither is there reason to believe Clinton's just suppressing some innate femininity, as though there is such a thing.
But oh, I forgot, all women are dresses- and heels-loving pacifists deep down, right? Any woman who doesn't show it is just denying her womanhood, right?
Ugh.
The piece is also bizarre for what seems its vacillation when it comes to the agency of women in politics. Compare this:
But because so few women are present at the highest levels of government, they carry the burden of representing their gender more so than men. In politics as in business, an unqualified woman does more damage than no women at all. She serves to fortify the stereotypes that the next woman will have to surmount.
with this:
Now, as she prepares to move into the White House, she appears poised to recede into a fifties-era role of “mom-in-chief.” It will be heartbreaking if, in an effort to avoid the kind of criticism that followed Hillary Clinton, the First Lady is reduced to a lightweight.
In both of these excerpts, whom exactly is Fortini blaming? In discussing Michelle Obama, she uses a strange passive voice that seems designed to exonerate her from blame for any perceived transformation -- even if Fortini isn't willing to reassign blame elsewhere. I don't quite understand why Fortini even brought up Michelle Obama at the very end of the piece, given that she doesn't delve into any issue but just drops a vague judgment.
But in discussing Palin, Fortini explicitly calls Palin complicit in her stereotyping -- without addressing to what extent, or what can actually be blamed on Palin. Fortini seems on the surface to be coming down on sexism against Palin, but then in the first graf above she seems to be blaming her scant qualifications for any negative perceptions of women in politics.
So it's a shame if Michelle Obama stays out of the public eye, but Palin is doing serious damage to women everywhere by being in the public eye...? What gives?
If Palin has presidential political ambitions -- and I honestly am not sure whether she does currently or was just playing along and bluffing when McCain picked her -- then more power to her. The more women who enter national politics, the better -- even if we think them underqualified. Plenty of underqualified men enter into and succeed in national office, and I think it's kind of ridiculous to suggest a woman not pursue goals because she hasn't been roundly deemed a brilliant feminist with a spotless resume -- or because she happens to rely on charm rather than policy for votes (hello, GWB).
The date-rape ‘doctor’ they could not convict
10 women charged him with drugging and sex attacks, but juries said no
By Sabrina Rubin Erdely
updated 8:15 a.m. ET, Fri., Nov. 21, 2008
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27825997/
Warning: This article was really disturbing to me.
Oh, and also, that Post item about Linda Sanchez is fucking appalling, as are the responses to it. Would that the item had a byline attached, because I really want to know who approved that bullshit.
This is slightly tangential, regarding this movie being influential on young women. I haven't seen it, nor have I read the books, but in conversation with a friend who did (who I often talk about the television show with), we agreed: we miss Buffy the Vampire Slayer!
I'm surprised it hasn't been mentioned. It wasn't a book or a big movie, but it was a popular television show.
True Blood is pretty good! Sookie kicks ass. She's not perfect, but even when she has to be the victim, she kicks and fights here way through and always succeeds. And she doesn't take crap. She stands up for herself ALWAYS.
It's on Showtime. You should check it out. :)
*ahem* HBO.
It'll be out on DVD eventually, for way too much, but at least rentable then.
I ALWAYS get HBO and Showtime screwed up! Dang it!
it's a great show. Trashy, and awesome.
The only problem I have with it is that every death thus far, aside from a couple of vampires, have been woman. But other than that, Sookie kicks ASS! It's like ... she could just be the victim, but she's not; she fights back, each and every time, and she stands up for herself, even when being threatened by vampires. She doesn't take shit from ANYONE and I love that.
SPOILER WARNING
There was a reason it was all women, though. The killer was specifically targeting women. So, while it's eye-roll worthy, it's not like LOST or Heroes, where women get killed just because they're either tangential to the plot and can fill a death slot, or are women in refrigerators.
Oh, no, totes, I got that. But, doesn't it seem that killers in fiction (on tv, in books, in movies) always seem to target women? This is just another example of yet another murderer killing women in fiction.
I love the series, but I think that fact is still worth noting.
And Sookie still kicks ass.
This is a case of art reflecting life. Killers tend to go for the vulnerable (or at least those perceived as being more vulnerable): children, women, transsexuals, gays. And since murder can be a twisted expression of sexuality, especially for serial killers*, and the majority of serial killers are heterosexual males... so.
Granted, there are serial killers whose tastes are "omnivorous", but if they have a "type", it's likely to be one of the above groups.
*I've never seen or read the Sookie Stackhouse series, so I'm guessing.
Also ... who buys tv shows on DVD anymore!? NETFLIX FTW!!!! :)
Just FYI, the new season ends on Sunday, so if you have On Demand, you might want to check it out. As a friend put it: "It is cheesy, it is trashy, and it is awesome."
I've been getting my Buffy fix from the Season 8 comics (Despite the incredible delay between the last issue and the new issue. Where *is* it?) There's also a new Buffy game coming out for Nintendo DS in February. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Sacrifice takes place during season 7 (Ick, my least favorite season but I'll still play it.)
The Ta-Nehisi Coates article is excellent. I've bookmarked it for later reference.
Although I've always taken it as a given that marriage is not for everyone, or even for every couple, it irks me that most of the arguments against getting married are basically accusing everyone who does choose to marry of collusion with the patriarchal, heterosexist enemy. It's refreshing to read one that isn't.