Recently in Gender Category

I don't usually go to Psychology Today for feminist content (they're all but obsessed with sexist evolutionary psychology), but I was intrigued by this post on something called "imposter syndrome":

According to [Susan] Pinker, many highly accomplished women suffer from the feeling that they are imposters and they do not belong where they are and they don't deserve what they have accomplished through their own talent and hard work...The stories of professional women Pinker interviews vividly illustrate a widespread phenomenon first documented by Pauline Rose Clance and Suzanne Imes in their 1978 study of 150 highly successful professional women in various fields. "Despite accolades, rank, and salary, these women felt like phonies. They didn't believe in their own accomplishments; they felt they were scamming everyone about their skills."

It turns out this is a widely-known concept, though not an official part of the DSMIV. The blogger mistakenly notes that "imposter syndrome" is only something that afflicts women, when in fact it was also documented widely in working class kids first entering elite colleges in the 40s and 50s, and today among kids who are pipe lined into elite schools from low income neighborhoods (programs like Prep for Prep).

I was sitting across the table from a highly successful friend of mine in the restaurant business the other day and she expressed this exact sentiment--being asked to speak in a capacity she couldn't believe she was qualified for--and I quipped back, "Welcome to my world. I feel that way all the time."

The more I thought about my response, however, the more I realized I had some reflecting to do. It's one thing to be intimidated by new situations, to do the ol' fake it till you make it trick, but it's another to truly not feel like one belongs or deserves certain kinds of opportunities or accolades. Where's the line? How do you know? In what ways is this gendered? In what ways is it "raced" or "classed"?

Yesterday, the World Economic Forum released the Global Gender Gap Report 2009 at the India Economic Summit. The United States is 31st. A quick glance at the rankings:

Regular readers will have noticed that in recent months, Feministing has brought in a number of new contributors: Ariel, Jos, Lori, Rose and myself. No doubt you're getting to know them by reading their posts and engaging with their ideas in the comments section, but I also suspect that you might want to know a little more about these wonderful women (I know I do!). Over the next few weeks, I'll be interviewing my fellow new contributors so that you and I can get to know them a little better. This week I interviewed Jos Truitt.

Jos joined Feministing as a contributor this July, and in the past few months has been blogging up a storm (those of you who love Mad Men Mondays, you can thank Jos for that!). Jos grew up in Boston and graduated from Hampshire College, where she studied philosophy of race, feminist organizing and sequential art, which, she informed me, is the academic term for comics.

Jos now lives in DC, where she is pursuing her passion for reproductive justice. She recently started working part-time at the National Abortion Federation hotline and she serves as a clinic escort with the Washington Area Clinic Defense Task Force. She has also worked and blogged for Choice USA. In her spare time, she likes to bake and spend time in the printmaking studio, and when I asked her which feminist she'd take with her to a desert island, she gave by far the sweetest answer I've heard yet.

And now, without further ado, The Feministing Five, with Jos Truitt.

Last week I linked to a study from OK Cupid about race and dating. OK Cupid released some more data, including who likes to use strap-ons and what slang daters are familiar with, and who thinks they are a genius (guess who thinks they are geniuses more often than not?) The data I found most striking however, was the data on who has considered suicide.

OK Cupid blog notes that the straight identified people are less likely than "other" to consider suicide. But the number that struck out to me was that the most likely group to consider suicide are bisexual identified women.

Thoughts?

Thanks to Dave for the link.

Via Feministe, via Sociological Images. As this commenter notes, where are Mulan, Pocahantas, Giselle and Lauren notes the absence of Tiana, first African American princess who were all also constructed as racist and sexist stereotypes. Disney doesn't discriminate who they create sexist caricatures out of, that is for sure.

Champions of Sexual Literacy Honorees: Richard Garcia, Cecile Richards and Rose Afriyie

Last week, I got the chance to be honored at the National Sexuality Resource Center's (NSRC) Champions of Sexual Literacy Dinner following in the footsteps of my amazing mentor Samhita. This year, the main honoree was powerhouse sexuality-rights advocate Cecile Richards, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PP). From afar, she had this elegance to her that was really alluring. When I first arrived, she was knee deep in a conversation with an ambassador. It seemed that the entire room occasionally glanced at her, the woman at the helm of perhaps the only woman's rights organization left that is a household name no matter one's race, class, or gender.

In her acceptance speech, she recognized the efforts of young women and young educators. She described the award as "a reflection of the thousands of teen sex educators across the country." She identified them as crucial to political gains and referenced the 3,000 young people that advocated through PP in their community for sex education this September. Her closing was the most interesting to me. She spoke about an African American male who was a prominent sexual health educator in Anacostia in Washington, DC. She recognized his courage as he educated in a community with high incidence rates of HIV and chlamydia amidst financial hardships during the Bush years. She ended by mourning the possibility of what this man could have done with just a drop of abstinence-only money. While drawing attention to young people's political action is something that I am gladly starting to see more of in woman's rights circles, it is all too rare. Somehow, this woman's rights organization that centers it's mission on delivering medical services, administering education, and advocating for public policy still finds a way to prioritize women while highlighting the efforts of men of color in reproductive equality.This is progress in a world where many feminist organizations struggle to include young people, men, and people of color in a way that is meaningful.

Later, I had the chance to sit down with Cecile to talk about the health care debate and women's reproductive health care generally. For ten minutes we gabbed about the role of Planned Parenthood in the health care debate, the current status of abortion in negotiations, staying encouraged despite gender discrimination and what's next on the agenda after health care reform. It was as revealing as it was encouraging. So here's the recap:

I spent an hour and a half of my midterm-studying time on Wednesday engaging in a debate on the new dress code at the historically black male college, Morehouse. Read what's included in the "11 expectations" of students and weep:

No caps, do-rags and/or hoods in classrooms, the cafeteria, or other indoor venues

No sun glasses worn in class or at formal programs

No jeans at major programs, as well as no sagging pants on campus

No clothing with derogatory or lewd messages either in words or pictures

No wearing of clothing usually worn by women (dresses, tops, tunics, purses, pumps, etc.) on the Morehouse campus or at college-sponsored events.

While I have never been an attendee, I have spent some time at black colleges and universities as an organizer. And the class stratification that goes on is intense. With respect to the dress code, it's not my wish to get a view of anyone's coin slot on my way to Public Management (re: sagging pants). And there is no doubt that my quality of life goes down when I see men advertising sexist pictures of women that display their sexuality and nothing else (re: derogatory or lewd...).

Michael Kimmel is an author, teacher and activist, and is widely acknowledged as America's most prominent and prolific scholar on masculinity. Kimmel is the author of a staggering number of books, including Men Confront Pornography, The History of Men, The Gendered Society and Manhood in America (noticing a theme?). Most recently, Kimmel's book Guyland examined the lives of young American men. To write it, Kimmel interviewed hundreds of men between the ages of 15 and 25, using their words and his expertise to draw a frightening picture of young American manhood today. Luckily, Kimmel has a one-word solution to the problem: feminism.

Kimmel lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Amy Aronson, with whom he frequently co-writes, and their 10-year-old son Zachary, a budding male feminist. He is a Professor of Sociology at SUNY Stonybrook, where he teaches on gender and masculinity, and has taught and lectured all over the world. He is also a frequent contributor at The Huffington Post. And as if all this wasn't impressive enough, last year he was brought in as a consultant on gender politics during the production of Feministing's favorite TV show, Mad Men.

And now, without further ado, the Feministing Five, with Michael Kimmel.

Via Emily Rutherford at Campus Progress:

It's a pilot program which designates Spelman Hall, an apartment-style housing option for upperclass students (in which, significantly, every student gets their own bedroom), as gender-neutral. Instead of having to draw in groups of four students of the same gender, there will be no gender requirement on groups entering the Spelman draw...Depending on interest, they may choose to expand gender-neutral housing to other upperclass dorms, or to keep it restricted to Spelman.

My alma mater, Swarthmore College, actually drew attention and controversy right before my freshman year (about 6 years ago) for offering gender neutral housing options in one dorm off campus. In our situation you can actually choose to share a room, in Princeton's case it's just an apartment.

This is of course a big step forward for trans and gender non-conforming students, who won't be forced into single gender housing that might conflict with their identities. It's also important for any person who wants more choice in who they live with, regardless of gender. Hopefully they can quickly expand the option to more buildings so it isn't restricted to this one group of upperclass students.

Congrats to the students at Princeton who got this passed.

This weekly Saturday column "Ask Professor Foxy" will regularly contain sexually explicit material. This material is likely not safe for work viewing. The title of the column will include the major topic of the post, so please read the topic when deciding whether or not to read the entire column.

Dear Professor Foxy,

I go to a very socially liberal, small private school where I am heavily involved in queer and feminist activism. Over the summer, I waited tables in a popular tourist area where I also met, and fell in love with, a woman that I am now in a long distance relationship with. Because I was working in a more conservative area, I did not broadcast the fact that I consider myself politically radical as well as queer, though my haircut generally means I'm read as a butch lesbian.

Now that I am back at school, I am working through the emotional and social effects of accepting my identity as trans and genderqueer. Because I am in such a liberal and accepting environment, I have the privilege of having a community of people that are familiar with the types of language used to describe my identity, and are comfortable with the concept of non-binary gender. My partner, though she publicly interacts with the world as a woman (albeit butch), has also told me that she has some trans and gender identity issues. She also is originally from a more conservative area than I am, and her family is much more conservative, so she has never really been able to act upon those impulses.

I have hit a point where I feel that being out as trans, and hopefully initiating some of the steps of physical transition, are critical to my current and future happiness. However, I am completely unsure of how to initiate this conversation with my partner. Because I don't feel that I totally fit the label FTM (a concept that my partner is familiar with), I feel like I may need to launch into some sort of explanation of queer theory, etc. I am afraid of coming off as condescending and overly academic, and possibly offending or hurting my partner. I also think that the idea of being genderqueer, or at least being far more flexible about gender, might be a freeing concept for her. Still, I am afraid that she might judge me or be unhappy about my desire to physically transition. I am also very much in love with her, and feel that I should be able to go to her for support on this issue.

These problems are augmented by the fact that we are in a long distance relationship and will not see each other again for a little more than a month. I would be devastated if she broke up with me because I spoke with her about this, but I also do not want to be dishonest with her and pursue transitioning without telling her. Would it be inappropriate to pursue transitioning without telling my partner? How do I respond if my partner is ok with my intellectually knowing that I'm trans, but isn't ok with taking physical steps toward transition?

A confused transperson

Dear Confused Trans Person -

Thanks for your letter. As I was reading it, I kept thinking this is about you, not about queer theory. By this I mean while queer theory may have helped you along your journey and I am not trying to negate that, but the heart of this issue is you and your happiness. I think you need to speak to your partner from your heart and from the personal. Talk about what you want for yourself and your body and how you think you will go about achieving it. Tell her what this means to you and why it is important to you.

You should be able to go to your partner for support, it is key to having a healthy relationship and you will need support as you transition. Make sure you have other places to turn to as well, especially places where you can work out your feelings about her reaction.

I think you should tell her as you are going through the process of thinking things out for yourself. How do you usually have serious conversations with her? Over the phone, email, gchat? So tell her soon and take time to rehearse it and think it out first. What do you think her hardest questions will be? What is the worst thing she could say? The best? Be ready for all of them. Also be ready to give her some space to think things through for herself. We all have our own ways of dealing with major change and she may need time to deal.

She will also deal based on her own issues, especially since she has some gender identity issues of her own. She may feel happy that she has someone who gets gender issues, she may be jealous, she may be incredibly happy, and she will likely need to figure out who she is in relation to you. Her reactions are hers, not yours and you will need space and other places of reflection to work out who you are for yourself.

You deserve support and she deserves honesty. She may not be able to support you through your transition and that will be incredibly painful. She may also be excited for you and excited about possibilities for herself. She will likely be some place in between. You both need to know if you can count on and be honest with each other; regardless of the issue this is the only way for relationships to stay healthy and strong.

Best,
Professor Foxy

If you have a question for Professor Foxy, send it to ProfessorFoxyATfeministingDOTcom.

Check out this really interesting read on urban planning, bicycling, and, yup, gender in Scientific American. The bottom line:

"If you want to know if an urban environment supports cycling, you can forget about all the detailed 'bikeability indexes'--just measure the proportion of cyclists who are female," says Jan Garrard, a senior lecturer at Deakin University in Melbourne, Australia, and author of several studies on biking and gender differences.

It turns out that if an urban center wants to increase its bicycling, it has to consider recent studies on gender difference in bike lane usage. "Despite our hope that gender roles don't exist, they still do," says Jennifer Dill, a transportation and planning researcher at Portland State University.

Women, generally-speaking, are less likely to utilize bike lanes set in high-traffic areas, but in parks, low-traffic roadways, and the like, they are nearly 50% of riders. The enduring gender role differences also play a role here. Women who need to strap on some kids, groceries, or other precious cargo, need urban infrastructure that makes that easier (who wants to be carting a toddler around in the middle of honking, dangerous traffic?). European cities, many of which are more consciously planned around safe, cargo-laden biking, have much higher raters of women riders.

Of course, I also know some NYC-based badass women bicyclists (Christy Thornton!), who are neither risk-averse, nor lugging babes, so I wonder how they would feel about assumptions like these. Your thoughts?

Thanks to perfectlyskewed for the heads up.

This visual survey of how businesses signal their designated "male" and "female" restrooms is pretty revealing in terms of dominant narratives about gender. 

As much as I find these bathroom-door distinctions to be wholly unnecessary, downright offensive, and a serious safety threat for trans men and women, the examples below (and many more on other blogs) function as a fascinating sort of Rorschach test for how a culture depicts the gender binary.

So, what are these signs telling us?

Gender is about how you have sex! Hetero, P-in-va-G sex! (Or, tops on the right, bottoms on the left?)

It's about your genitalia! (Umm, unless the one on the right is a hairy anus. In which case, yay for gender-neutral restrooms!)

It's about how you pee! (In fairness, the left side could theoretically be for people going No. 2 and the right side for people using P-Mates.)

It's about what you wear! (This could be a good way to go, actually: Choose the door that matches your gender presentation. Though I don't think that's quite how they meant it...)

In some cities (including D.C.), human rights law forbids discrimination against transgender men and women in public accommodations -- which means this sort of restroom segregation should be banned. Really, how hard is it for businesses to just have two restrooms with functional locks, each labeled "restroom"?

(via Alice)

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I had to post a link to the new movie, Precious:

I am halfway through Push, the book by Sapphire that the movie is based on. It is not often that so many issues women face are embodied in one character. From racism, sizism, sexual violence, domestic violence, welfare issues, colorism, ablism, and many, many more -- this is the ultimate feminist primer! I am not quite sure what to make of how Precious' mother's character, played by Mo'Nique, is being framed as the "monstrous matriarch." On one hand, giving her villainous character, it seems fitting. On the other hand, what does it mean that the black single mom has once again gotten this branding? This is especially interesting considering the villainous male characters in the story that seem conspicuously absent from this trailer.

On another note, I posted earlier this week about Tyler Perry. He is serving as an executive producer of this film, alongside Oprah. Again, I think we can log some progress points for Perry on this one. It will be important to see what, if any, the trade offs will be.

But, after all, I'm just a cautious optimist. Preliminary thoughts?

A couple weeks ago The New York Times published a compelling and far too brief article titled Afghan Youths Seek a New Life in Europe. The focus is on "Afghan boys" immigrating to France.

Thousands of lone Afghan boys are making their way across Europe, a trend that has accelerated in the past two years as conditions for Afghan refugees become more difficult in countries like Iran and Pakistan. Although some are as young as 12, most are teenagers seeking an education and a future that is not possible in their own country, which is still struggling with poverty and violence eight years after the end of Taliban rule.

The boys pose a challenge for European countries, many of which have sent troops to fight in Afghanistan but whose publics question the rationale for the war. Though each country has an obligation under national and international law to provide for them, the cost of doing so is yet another problem for a continent already grappling with tens of thousands of migrants.

European nations have a much greater obligation than that created by national and international law. The article frames poverty and violence in Afghanistan as existing despite the war. In reality aggression from countries including the U.S. and European nations is productive of increased instability and refugee populations. The article discusses the experiences of "Afghan boys" now living in France but hardly addresses their reasons for leaving home in the first place.

Age and gender are obvious features of the population discussed in this article so it's strange they are not addressed directly. I am particularly interested in young men immigrating to France as a result of war given the country's history of gendered immigration.

I want to discuss the history of immigration to France from North Africa as I see a lot of potential parallels and think it will provide context. Knowledge of North African immigration should show how important it is to explore the reasons for young male immigration, why it is this particular part of the population that is moving to France and how this might impact individuals, families, and communities. It can give us hints as to how the country may treat this population and the potential for more people from Afghanistan to follow. France's history with immigrants who are understood as Muslim is a history of exploitation and marginalization that has led to extreme social and political exclusion and violence. So this current moment when similar or related patterns could occur deserves a historical perspective.

North Africa and Afghanistan are very different places, but both have populations understood as Muslim. I am interested in how these populations may be understood as similar, not claiming any inherent similarity or spreading the idea of the so-called Muslim World.

The anchor said, "laugh if you want, but the things taking off!" Imagine that, women are tired of dirty toilettes we can't sit on, waiting in long lines, holding it for miles or when in the woods almost falling into a stream. Why would women want a simple solution for that?

Check out Kai Wright's fantastic article over at The Root about Caster Semenya and the absurdity of what she (and other female athletes) have put through by gender identity testing.

The International Association of Athletics Federations has demanded Semenya, who won the 800-meter gold last week, submit to a sex test; bookies are taking bets on the results. But whatever the IAAF's shameless doctors conclude, the verdict about Semenya is already in--she's a monster. What remains is to determine what type of monster we're gawking at. A hermaphrodite? An intersexual? A genetic boy whose parents raised him as a girl? Or just a mannish woman, after all?

If "science" concludes the latter, Semenya can keep her medal. Her humanity, however, has already been sacrificed to Western culture's desperate, frightened effort to maintain the fiction of binary, fixed gender.

Read the rest.

Courtney also weighed in on the case.

Rena Kanokogi with her gold medal - one she should have won in 1959

The New York Daily News has an interesting profile of a Brooklyn woman who was stripped of her first place medal in judo after judges realized she was a woman competing against men. (And beating them - which I suspect was the real issue.)

[Kanokogi] vividly recalls the moment she took on her opponent in the New York State YMCA judo championships.

She was an alternate, and had to step in when a male team member was injured.

Although women were not explicity barred from the YMCA contests, no female had ever tried to take part. Because her hair was as short as a boy's and she had an athletic build and tape around her breasts, Kanokogi's gender wasn't questioned until she won her fight - and her team won the contest.

She was pulled aside and forced to admit she was a woman or else her teammates would have been stripped of the title.

"It was very demeaning, painful," she said.

Now, fifty years later, the medal that was taken from her in 1959 has been restored. The New York State YMCA gave her the medal last week to make amends, and to honor a lifetime of work on behalf of women and sports: After losing the medal Kanokogi went on to fund the first female judo world championships and worked to get women's judo into the 1988 Olympics.

Betty Draper takes aim at stereotypes, thanks to Mad Men's women writers

If you're anything like me, you can barely contain your excitement that season 3 of Mad Men begins on Sunday. It took me awhile to get around to watching the show (I didn't bother to get a converter when TV went digital, and won't shell out for cable), but finally my coworker Dana Goldstein convinced me: "Ann, it's all about sexism and vintage fashion. How can you not watch?"

And indeed, I love how the show paints an unvarnished picture of '50s gender roles and how the female characters are so three-dimensional. They don't easily map onto the sorts of stereotypes prevalent in TV shows and movies set in all decades. The bookish achiever (Peggy) is also kind of a slut. The slut (Joan) is also kind of a bookish achiever. And the devoted wife (Betty) is primed for a feminist awakening. (I've often wondered if the character was named after Betty Friedan.)

So I wasn't surprised to learn that 7 of the show's 9 writers are women, and in this upcoming season, women directed 5 of the 13 episodes. Compare that to elsewhere in Hollywood...

According to the Directors Guild of America, the labor union that represents film and television directors, about 13% of its 8,000 directors are female. Women comprised 23% of television writers during the 2007 to 2008 prime-time season, a 12 percentage point decrease from the same period a year earlier. Nearly 80% of TV programs in the 2007 to 2008 prime-time season had no women writers...

Maybe if all TV shows and movies had a better proportion of women writers, actresses wouldn't be considered past their prime at age 35 and would be given way more substantive leading roles. Turns out women-written movies and shows also tend to be pretty fucking popular.

I did notice that the seven Mad Men writers pictured all appeared to be white. While the show has touched on the issue of race (namely, when lead character Don Draper has an affair with a Jewish woman, and when one of the copywriters dates a black woman), it is a far less common theme than gender. I wonder if that would change, too, if the demographics of the writers did.

Who else is counting the minutes 'til Sunday night?

Related:
Funny ladies of Hollywood discuss getting "old"
An Entourage of Their Own
Unnoticed sexism: Movie Trailer Narrators
Women Make Money at the Movies, But Don't Say Much
On roles for women of color in Hollywood

Also see Amanda's writing about Mad Men, and two posts on Racialicious. (But be forewarned, they're spoiler-ridden!) Plus, watch Jezebel's 15 feminist moments from Mad Men.

I was inspired by Miriam's great Personal Is Political post, Is that a boy or a girl?, to share some of my experiences of getting to watch others deal with gender through my body. I've talked before about my experience of street harassment as a trans person. This happens so often I barely notice anymore - friends I'm walking with will point out something I totally tuned out. But some street gender moments stand out as giving me a revealing glimpse of other people's gender process. In this post I want to talk about two recent experiences that have stuck in my mind.

I'm a clinic escort at the local Planned Parenthood. Sharing a sidewalk with antis who pray at and harass anyone trying to enter or leave the clinic is easily the most surreal experience of my life. My second week escorting was particularly odd for me personally. Dick, our main anti, had tried without success to engage me and another new escort in conversation the week before (a standard tactic to try to find escort's weak points so antis can get us riled up). I was a bit more femme presenting my second time escorting, and I guess Dick didn't recognize me. I was a little bit late and other escorts were already out on the sidewalk wearing big orange A shirts that say "Pro-Choice Clinic Escort." as I walked toward the path to the clinic I could see Dick eyeing me, confused (usually he jumps at the chance to preach at someone as soon as he sees them walking toward the clinic). I could see the internal debate raging as I turned the corner and started heading for the door. Finally, a few steps down the path, Dick jumps into action, running after me and shouting about how I don't have to let them take my baby, how I have other options. I responded with a simple, "I'm an escort Dick," and went inside.

It's a few weeks later and I'm still reeling from what I got to witness there. I got to watch a Catholic fundamentalist ant-choicer (and the most overtly racist person I have ever encountered in real life, but that's another post) have a gender moment! Dick's decision to pursue me as a potential womb-haver was particularly interesting. Male is usually the default assumption when we are confused about someone's gender. Dick's reaction shows a shift of assumptions in a situation where he is targeting women and trying to antagonize as many as possible. Better to be wrong and assume I'm with child than be wrong and assume I'm not.

Story number two:

I was walking toward the Metro (D.C. public transportation) escalators on my way to work, past a guy standing there eating a bag of chips. As I passed him the guy said, "Hey, how you doing." Apparently too tired to recognize an obvious cat call I responded, "Good, how are you?" I guess my morning voice threw him off. "Wait, I thought you were a girl, ma'am." I thought for a second that maybe he'd said "man," but no, definitely "ma'am." As I headed down the escalator he shouted after me: "What are you ma'am? Hey, I'm talking to you ma'am!"

I suppose I could take the guy's words literally. Maybe he was confused and couldn't tell if I was a girl or too much woman for him to handle (<3 Britney). Somehow, though, I don't think that's what was going on.

I was momentarily scared he would follow me. Straight cis men's sexuality is a major source of their self-perceived power. Heterosexuality puts them at the top of the gender hierarchy not just in terms of who they are but also who and how they fuck. Being betrayed by their own desire can throw them off, and those with power know they need to maintain it however possible. In this case I was lucky enough to just be shouted at, to have the blame put on me verbally. Allen Ray Andrade admitted to this same line of thinking and even tried to use it as a defense for the murder of Angie Zapata (trigger warning). For me this one incident can be a funny story. Angie wasn't so lucky.

From Planted Seeds Production, a new documentary about the gender bending performance troupe, All the Kings Men, called Play in the Gray.

I saw them perform when I was in Provincetown earlier this summer, and I was blown away. The group is funny, talented, and really has the art of gender play in performance down. I've seen a lot of drag, but this group takes it to a whole other level.

'Play In The Gray' Trailer from Planted Seeds Productions on Vimeo.

You can learn more about All the Kings Men on their website.

At Broadcasting and Cable, they are reporting that:

The working logline for the potential drama series being used internally at HBO is that it "follows the life of Calliope Stephanides and the epic family history that may hold the answer to her complicated sexual identity."

This one scares me a bit. I read the book a few years ago, and while I love his writing the plot is offensive in a couple of ways. Basically ishis main character is intersex. (Not sure what that terms means? Go here).

We need more attention paid to intersex folks and their lives. The book was an Oprah's Book Club selection. But instead of doing a thoughtful representation of an intersex person, Eugenides uses Calliope's intersex status as a way to add drama to the plot. My main problem (besides some weird language he uses to talk about Calliope) is that he implies that the reason Calliope is intersex is because of incest between Calliope's grandparents (that's the "epic family history") that the quote above references.

Trying to tie being intersex with something like incest is offensive for a few reasons. One, it once again emphasizes the idea that this is some huge abnormality that only happens when something goes really wrong, like a brother and sister having children. Actually, it's a pretty common occurrence and 1 in 2000 babies born could be classified as intersex. It also sensationalizes Calliope's story, and the lives of all intersex people.

I'm not the first to criticize the way Eugenides dealt with this is his book, a number of other activists and authors already have. But I'm pretty sure, from reading that logline, that HBO will fall into the same traps.

Via Isak

As if David Zincenko's USA Today op-ed heralding "The Great He-cession," wasn't enough, now we've got Reihan Salam claiming "The Death of Macho" in Foreign Policy. Salam's argument, thank goodness, is a bit more sophisticated than Zincenko's--essentially he's arguing that the fall of the financial sector, loss of jobs, and psychological frailty of unmarried men (I'm not kidding), is going to lead to the end of macho culture. He uses lots of international examples--from China to Russia to Western Europe to prove his point. Men, he goes on, will have two choices when confronting this new reality--adapt or resist. Resistance could possibly be "very violent." Geez.

Claiming that sexism is over just because we're finally paying attention to these issues is like claiming that racism is over just because Barack Obama is president. Sexism has way deeper roots than Zincenko or Salam realize.

I don't think anyone can herald the "death of macho," or that men are an "endangered species" (Zincenko), until things actually change. Women still aren't making equal pay for equal work and still are disproportionately targeted with subprime mortgages. As Dana Goldstein reports in "Pink Collar Blues," sixty percent of impoverished children are living in female-headed households. The poverty rate is still higher among women than it is among men of any race. One out of six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime.

As I wrote in my column last week, this sort of men vs. women thinking is all a bunch of unproductive nonsense. Why does it have to be a man's world OR a woman's world? Why can't it be both. This either/or thinking doesn't acknowledge our interdependence. It just makes for shocking headlines.

And what about all these frickin' gender essentialisms being thrown around nilly willy? Amanda Fortini of Broadsheet puts it well:

If the recent mistakes of certain men at the highest levels of finance and government have altered our beliefs and opened our minds toward the possibility of more women in power, that's progress. But to conclude that the mistakes of a handful of men say anything conclusive about the entire gender is wrongheaded. And as for Salaam's assumption that women aren't aggressive or daring, well there's only one word for it, isn't there? Macho.

I'm taping a segment of CNN This Morning on the topic today. Will let everyone know when it's going to air...

A feminist couple in Sweden is attempting to raise their child (who is now two and a half years old) without gender norms. They call the child "Pop," do not use gendered pronouns, and have kept Pop's biological sex a secret.

"We want Pop to grow up more freely and avoid being forced into a specific gender mould from the outset," Pop's mother said. "It's cruel to bring a child into the world with a blue or pink stamp on their forehead."

The child's parents said so long as they keep Pop's gender a secret, he or she will be able to avoid preconceived notions of how people should be treated if male or female.

Pop's wardrobe includes everything from dresses to trousers and Pop's hairstyle changes on a regular basis. And Pop usually decides how Pop is going to dress on a given morning.

Although Pop knows that there are physical differences between a boy and a girl, Pop's parents never use personal pronouns when referring to the child - they just say Pop.

"I believe that the self-confidence and personality that Pop has shaped will remain for a lifetime," said Pop's mother.

The article goes on to quote a biological-determinist psychologist who is dead-certain that the child's "real" gender will assert itself sooner rather than later -- and that gender will be aligned with Pop's biological sex. While I obviously don't share the psychologist's strident view that gender and sex are one and the same, I do agree that Pop will probably end up identifying as either male or female shortly after Pop begins school. The gender binary is very, very culturally ingrained. When every other child in Pop's class is a "he" or "she," Pop will face strong social pressure to choose one or the other -- no matter what Pop's parents say about gender. It seems like even they understand this.

Given that the parents expect Pop to choose one side of the binary eventually, what's the point of ensuring that Pop's early years aren't gendered? Is there research showing that those first few years are really central to forming a person's gender identity? I guess I would love to read a more in-depth article about Pop's family and their day-to-day.

UPDATE: Go read Holly's take at Feministe and Helen's post at Bird of Paradox.

Not sure what to think about this one. Zack's story, revealed to be a new ad campaign from Tampax (parent company Proctor and Gamble) is accompanied by a website, blog and Twitterfeed in the voice of 16 year old Zack, who supposedly wakes up with a vagina one day.

Besides doing things like making fun of V-Day (the name of the video above) which is traditionally known as a day to combat violence against women and girls, something about this series does not sit right.

The question of using stealth ad campaigns aside, I can't echo Double XX's sentiment that it's just a fun humorous video series. Maybe it's the employment of every gender related stereotype imaginable.

As Ann pointed out, it is also not a good portrayal of men. It makes them seem like they have no idea what women go through--totally the "men are from mars women are from venus" trope. Not all men are grossed out by female anatomy or as clueless about women as Zack seems to be.

The series also over-emphasizes the differences between men and women--all of sudden because of a vagina he sees the world totally differently. Starts eating yogurt, yells at his friend, changes his sense of humor, can't find anything to wear. All of this ignores the years of gendered socialization that a boy like him would have experienced. It essentially makes an argument that anatomy or biology are what affect these behaviors, not society.

One interesting twist though, is that despite Zack's genital switch, he still seems to identify strongly as male. Is there is a trans friendly message to be found buried here? Possibly the idea that genitalia doesn't determine your gender identity--although all his observations about the changes he experiences are incredibly gendered. Now I can't really argue that this message comes across through all the other super-gendered concepts and messaging, but one could hope.

What do you all think?

You can watch all four of the episodes out so far here.

There's an interesting article in this month's Atlantic by the notoriously pithy and unsentimental Sandra Tsing Loh called "Let's Call the Whole Thing Off." In it, she reveals that she is getting a divorce from her husband of 20 years, over an affair, but even more it seems, because the passion had just petered out of the marriage and Loh didn't feel inspired to work to get it back. She springs off from her own predicament, however, and examines this country's paradoxical relationship with marriage:

Americans hold two values at once: a culture of marriage and a culture of individualism. Or is it an American spirit of optimism wedded, if you will, to Tocquevillian spirit of restlessness that inspires three out of four Americans to say they believe marriage is for life, while only one in four agreed with the notion that even if a marriage is unhappy, one should stay put for the sake of the children. If America is a 'divorce culture,' it may be partly because we are a 'marriage culture,' since we both divorce and marry (a projected 90 percent of us) at some of the highest rates anywhere on the globe.

Setting Loh's TMI style aside, which I find kind of grating, I think that she touches on a lot of really important points in this piece--starting with her analysis of Cherlin's smart book. One of the reasons I've resisted marriage, besides solidarity with friends who can't legally participate in the institution (becoming more and more hazy), is this sense of hypocrisy. We pressure young people--especially women--to get married, then act shocked when they jump into promises they can't keep; the allure of being "princess for a day" and/or having the false security of a marriage certificate pushes so many people into marriages that won't last. Even worse, the disintegration of these marriages is framed as a failure, even when it's the best thing for everyone involved (including kids).

Where Loh and I part ways is in her analysis of changing gender roles and their effect on the longevity of people's marriages. In essence, she argues that husbands who cook and care take end up neglecting their wives' sexual needs, causing even more distance, leading to divorce. Of course this is based on her two best friends, not some sort of sample size, so it comes off as baseless albeit titillating. It also sounds eerily similar to a lot of anti-feminist blather. Part of why I like Loh is she's such a bold writer, unafraid of saying unpopular things. Part of why she annoys me is that she sometimes misses the wider context for her claims. In truth, men who take responsibility for raising their kids and cooking a meal now and again have happier wives and more functional marriages, as so many studies have proven.

We've been mulling over the idea of doing a forum on marriage here at feministing, since so many of us editors have different takes on the issue. Stay tuned for that...

Latoya Peterson (pictured right), our girl from Racialicious.com, is up first.

Pop culture conversations are vital because it reaches so many people across the world. "The U.S.'s biggest export is pop culture; it's about all we export."

Dr. Laura Plybon, a self-identified Apache Indian and Girls Inc., speaks VERY briefly about her desire to see people from her culture represented in the media accurately and complexly.

Glennda Testone, from the Women's Media Center, is up next. I heart her so much. She talks about the Women's Media Center's work:

The Women's Media Center makes women visible and powerful in the media. Led by our president, the Emmy-winning journalist, writer, and producer Carol Jenkins, the WMC works with the media to ensure that women's stories are told and women's voices are heard. We do this in three ways: through our media advocacy campaigns; by creating our own media; and by training women to participate directly in media. We are directly engaged with the media at all levels to ensure that a diverse group of women is present in newsrooms, on air, in print and online, as sources and subjects.

She also mentions Rhianna and the most recent Disney princess as potential flash points to look at during the conversation.

This is amazing. Each panelist is basically passing the mic. How refreshing.

Anne Zill of the Women's Center for Ethics in Action says she's probably going to be a "little heretical" on this panel today because she wants to talk about ways in which pop culture right now is actually positive in certain ways.

She advocates for throwing away the superwoman archetype and embracing a more communitarian approach to raising families and finding fulfilling work. She also talks about the critical need to foster empathy while raising all children.

Glennda (pictured left) talks about how women are the majority of the population and the majority of consumers are women. Women only hold 3% of clout positions in the media. She talks about an initial meeting with all the bookers and producers from mainstream media that the WMC initially had. They were so excited that there were tons of women with decision making power in the room, but when they went around the room, it turned out that every single one of them reported to a male boss. Management positions in media are 15-24% women.

She proposes the idea of a hiring quota of some kind of people of color and women in leadership positions in the media.

Latoya shows a really interesting graph of Huffington Post's traffic vs. Feministing's traffic and reminds us that, though it's great that we're "making our own media," we still don't have nearly the same bandwith as the mainstream media outlets.

Latoya: "what permeates the social consciousness is at the CNN level."

She refers to Women & Hollywood's recent commentary on the ways in which Hollywood just refuses to believe that women go to the movies and want to see more than chick flicks. Melissa Silverstein advocates, from the audience, that women really need to go to women-oriented films on opening weekend. Buying a ticket, she explains, is like voting. You can sign up for her e-newsletter if you want to get weekly information about what films are opening.

A South Carolina school has put a star student on notice - unless she wears a dress, she won't be welcome at her graduation ceremony.

She's the image of a model graduate, this year's recipient of the Heart of Chapin Spirit Award, proud of her school from tassel to class ring, but Chelsea Sarvis' high school won't allow her to participate at graduation without the dress.

"I just don't see why girls have to wear dresses," said Sarvis.

Chapin High School's graduation dress code requires females to wear a dress or skirt. Males must wear dress pants. Chelsea says wearing a dress makes her feel very uncomfortable.

"If girls are uncomfortable with their bodies like I am, I just don't like wearing them," said Sarvis. "Why is it a stereotype that a girl has to wear a dress?"

Indeed. You know, what bothers me is not that the dress code exists - after all, there are a lot of antiquated rules still on the books at schools. What really gets me is that the principal of this school is actually enforcing the dress code, and in turn enforcing traditional gender roles.

Chelsea says she's not trying to be disrespectful. She'll be dressed as formal as other males. "If it looks nice, why can't they wear it?" she said.

Chelsea wore a tuxedo to prom with no problems and she wore blue face paint at more Chapin sporting events than anyone else this year. She feels to be forced out of pants and into a dress, would be a complete contradiction to the proud student she's been these last four years.

"If I had to walk across the stage in a dress, I'd be completely miserable and that's not how I want to leave high school," said Sarvis.

But what's a miserable student compared to ensuring that school administrators feel comfortable with young people's gender presentation?

A similar case in Delaware last month resulted in the school backing off the dress code. The ACLU chapter there got involved, noting that the policy was "based on illegal gender stereotypes."

Related Community posts: "Dress Code" Should Not Equal "Self-Respect", Dress Codes, Authority, and Pre-Teens

Linda Holmes, over at NPR, writes a moving letter about her fervent hope that Pixar can take it's unparalleled talent and use it to create a true female heroine. An excerpt:

Of the ten movies you've released so far, ten of them have central characters who are boys or men, or who are anthropomorphized animals or robots or bugs who are voiced by and imagined as boys or men. These movies feature women and girls to varying degrees -- The Incredibles, in particular -- but the story is never "a girl and the things that happen to her," the way it's "a boy and what happens to him."

I want so much for girls to have a movie like Up that is about someone they can dress up as for Halloween, as Anika Noni Rose said about starring as the voice in The Frog Princess. Not a girl who's a side dish, but a girl who's the big draw.

And I'd really, really like it not to be a princess.

Holmes references Tiana, the first black princess coming out of the Disney shop. There was an article this weekend in the Times about the whispers of controversy surrounding early viewings of her movie. Some believe that various aspects of the film reinforce racial stereotypes. It's hard to know until the rest of us have had a chance to check it out, but it's easy to imagine Disney screwing this up after their past racial missteps.

If you could sit in a story meeting with Pixar or Disney and pitch a feminist heroine for their next blockbuster film, what would you pitch?

Thanks to ang.halsted for the heads up.

Sergio Garcia, an 18 year old student at Fairfax High school in Los Angeles was elected Prom Queen last week.

From the LA Times:

Garcia, 18, spent most of his years at Fairfax openly gay and wanted to be part of the Los Angeles school's prom court -- but not as prom king. He felt that vying for prom queen would better suit his personality, so he decided to seek that crown, running against a handful of female classmates.

While the reporting about Garcia makes it seem that his bid was somewhat of a joke, I take his statement, "I see myself as a boy with a different personality. . . . I don't wish to be a girl; I just wish to be myself," to heart. It's these nuances that really begin to break apart our understandings of the categories male and female as rigid and in opposition to one another.

Also, I never thought I would see this phrase in a mainstream newspaper:

"I think that indicates where our society is right now. That the young people, they are not involved in this whole argument about gay rights. They think this whole fight is silly. They just accept people for who they are," Uribe said. "Gender-bending is just kind of in," she said.

I'm unlocking my bike at the Harris Teeter when a dad pulls up with his daughter on the back of his bike. While he's locking up she runs around the bike rack, singing to herself and pushing bikes over. She is standing probably a foot away from me when she asks her dad, "Is that a boy or a girl?" He replies, "Why don't you ask her?" She never directly addresses me and I stay silent. "Is it a boy or a girl?" she asks again. He repeats his first answer again. Finally, as I'm getting on my bike to ride away (she still hasn't addressed me directly) he says to her "She's a girl."

Kids are usually the most honest, the least afraid to ask questions. But if these interactions don't reveal how entrenched the gender binary is in our world, I'm not sure what does. She was only vocalizing what all of us do internally, each time we encounter someone new. We size them up, and deciding their gender is a big first step.

Being called "it" didn't feel too good, but then again she's six and our language doesn't give her many other options. It was interesting that his daughter's questioning didn't phase the father though--he gendered me right away ("her") even before he answered her question directly.

I chose not to answer, first because she never asked me directly (it'd be hard to ignore a direct question) but also because I didn't know how to respond. It's getting harder and harder these days to respond to that question (which I get mostly on forms and such). These days I identify as genderqueer, if given the opportunity to write in my gender on forms, and kind of enjoy the rare moments when I get called "sir" in public.

Afterwards, while biking home, I contemplated what would I say to this kid if I could actually explain. Would I try and explain the idea of genderqueer to her? Would I give her my life story, complete with my thoughts about my gender identity and presentation as it's morphed over the years? Would I tell her I don't love pronouns, or answering which I prefer? There's no simple answer there for me.

My friend Alex told me about how she reacts in these situations, by asking questions in return. What do you think? Why do you want to know? Are you a boy or a girl?

I'm writing about this because in our recent conversations about gender here at Feministing, the topic of genderqueerness came up and some commenters asked for more discussion on the topic. I'm also working on a new series (title TBD) about gender in everyday life, kind of a way to talk about different examples of how gender difference is reinforced by society. So stay tuned for that to come in the next few weeks.

Looking for a definition of the term genderqueer? Try here and here for some definitions.

Courtney's post last week, and the subsequent comments, stirred up some thoughts that a few community bloggers added their opinions on. Since some of you suggested this in comments a few weeks back, here is a round-up of the community blog posts about male feminists.

First, the link to Courtney's original post where she stated that male feminists are underrated (and some commenters disagreed).

Next, Gular, added some thoughts in the post Can anyone be overrated?

I have been closely following the overrated/underrated post that Courtney put up a couple days ago. I find one of the trends rather confounding, and that's the pile on of "male feminists" as overrated. I think it highlights a problem that should be addressed within this, and the entire, community of feminists. It's this: male feminists are important and, more over, vital.

There are many men here on Feministing, especially as of late. They are a pretty vocal minority and I am admittedly one of them. I think it's first to start there and work into where the rest of this is going.

Moody Girl shared her thoughts in the post, Some More Thoughts on Men and Feminism.

I think the idea of male feminists as "overrated" which was lately expressed in the comments on the overrated/underrated post reflects less a desire for men to abstain from participating either on this site or in women's movements in general and more an acknowledgement of some of the problems of male participation. To say that something is overrated is not to say that it is bad or even that it is not important, but that too much attention is devoted to it. For instance, here we are, discussing the desirability of men's participation in feminism and the terms on which it ought or ought not to take place, rather than engaging in discourse that some of us might find ultimately more productive.

Last, Marc wrote the post, How men can be better feminists/allies/partners.

I am far from perfect. As a male feminist, I've stumbled, picked myself back up, learned and stumbled some more, and I am still stumbling - that is, to say, I've been in feminist movement for quite a while now and believe that part of being a feminist is about growth. I came to the feminist movement five years ago as a freshman and I am still learning and making mistakes.

As such, and in response to recent posts on this site about the involvement of men within feminism and whether they are "overrated," I'd like to make this post about how we, as men, can be better partners and allies to the feminist community.Please feel free to contribute and add your advice. It's the only way we'll learn to be better partners.

If you want to join the discussion, you can comment on any of the above threads. A reminder though: keep the comments clean and refrain from using personal attacks.

It is not just that Miss California spoke her mind about gay marriage that makes this uniquely a feminist issue, but it does make her an asshole. For all the arguments defending her right to speak on this topic, to me, it is so sad that people so quickly fight to defend the rights of bigots to speak. So, I obviously fall too left of that argument to even participate in it. Or rather, I just agree with Jill,

It's not "religious persecution" to say that someone is a bigot for having bigoted views. It's not "religious persecution" to argue that those who want to deny basic civil rights based on sexual orientation are bigots. It would be persecution to, for example, pass a law stating that a consenting Christian adult wasn't allowed to marry another consenting Christian adult because of his or her faith, or to criminalize consensual sex between adult Christians. That's persecution. Not, "I didn't win a beauty pageant and then Perez Hilton called me a bitch."

As Jay Smooth pointed out in his video, the issue of pageantry and their role in our society raises bigger concerns. The reliance on heteronormativity and beauty standards in pageants is indeed a point of inquiry.

As a feminist, I hate when women's breasts make the news, since it is rarely to uncover the sexism embedded within a system. The fact that Carrie Prejean got breast implants is not newsworthy to me. The fact that the California Pageant Association paid for them, well that is. Not because it is scandalous, but because it shows that pageants aren't about highlighting women as they are or for their talents, but for their physical appearance and to make spectacle of a specific type of femininity.

Pageants only make sense because of binary gender roles that cater to mainstream understandings of femininity. They are a fetishized spectacle of femininity to the point where it is even OK if they are artificially constructed as long as they are pushing a normative ideal of what a "real woman" is. As feminists we know already that ideal is socially constructed. Her blatant homophobia just adds to the already established straight, cis-woman and white standard of beauty necessary for pageants to exist and to perpetuate the illusion of binary genders.

I'm happy to be able to share the video from my session at WAM 2009: In/Out of Focus: Gender, Non-conformity and the Media.

I unfortunately don't have a transcript and the live twitter feed from the session (the tag was #wam09gnc) seems to have expired. My apologies to folks who are not able to listen to the video. Here are a few links to a few liveblogs from the session:

Susan Mernit
Kerri Kanelos
Jill at Feministe
Anna J. Cooke
Chicks Rock Blog
Mikhaela Reid drew this cartoon in response to the panel

I was really excited to be part of this conversation with Jack Aponte (of Angry Brown Butch and Feministe), Julia Serano and Kate Bovitch. Our hope was to focus on the issues of gender non-conformity within feminist spaces like WAM, feminist blogs and feminist media. I think we got a really interesting conversation going.

I've been reflecting a lot on this panel lately, since there has been conversation (and criticism) about how discussions about trans issues go down on feminist blogs, in particular ours. I think what it reiterates for me is how important these conversations about gender and gender non-conformity are to feminism and how difficult they are to have, particularly online.

At the WAM panel we never had issues with people asking questions that were offensive, or off-topic, or derailing in the way people talk about our comment threads. Maybe that's because the panel was a self-selecting group of people, or because people with those kinds of comments/questions didn't feel comfortable asking them in such a public way.

I've made some mistakes in how I've begun these conversations at Feministing, particularly on the Focus on the Family post. I appreciate those who called out these mistakes in a constructive way. I'm definitely learning from those moments and I'm committed to continuing this dialogue, both on and offline.

The criticisms about comments at Feministing are well heard, and, as I've said before, we're hoping to revisit and revise our comment policy at our upcoming retreat at the end of May.

For those of you who have time to watch some of the video (the session was an hour and a half) or check out the liveblogging, I recommend it. Again, sorry about the lack of transcript!

UPDATE: Some other videos from the WAM conference are available here as well.

I went to a wild event last night called Mongrel Vaudeville and it included a bunch of different interesting, gender-bending, body-contorting, burlesque-tastic acts--including my brother doing what he calls "persona raps" (essentially he raps in the voice of an unlikely character, like a spaceman). Lo and behold, they have their own blog.

Okay, I know this all sounds pretty bizarre, but it was super fun and creative and made me feel like I was back in some other era where people met in the backrooms of bars and just played around, made each other laugh, experimented with gender and sexuality, and didn't take life so damn seriously. I highly recommend it for those of you feeling a little down in the dumpers with all this economic recession.

I was especially interested in the creator's introduction about the origins and etymology of the title, Mongrel Vaudeville. On "vaudeville":

Vaudeville was a genre of a variety entertainment prevalent on the stage in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, so much so that author and theater historian Trav S.D. dubbed vaudeville "the heart of American show business" during that period.[1] It developed from many sources, including the concert saloon, minstrelsy, freak shows, dime museums, and literary burlesque. Vaudeville became one of the most popular types of entertainment in North America, defining an entertainment era. Each evening's bill of performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts. Types of acts included (among others) musicians (both classical and popular), dancers, comedians, trained animals, magicians, female and male impersonators, acrobats, one-act plays or scenes from plays, athletes, lecturing celebrities, minstrels, and short movies.

The origin of the term is obscure, but is often explained as being derived from the expression voix de ville, or "voice of the city."

And of course she is reclaiming the word "mongrel"--meaning, "1: an individual resulting from the interbreeding of diverse breeds or strains, especially one of unknown ancestry; 2: a cross between types of persons or things." The creator of this show takes it from it's derogatory origins as an epithet to become something wonderful and celebrated.

So what are you waiting for? Reclaim the mongrel-ness of being a creative feminist who breaks gender roles and prioritizes joy over appropriateness and get the voice of your city singing again!

First of all, I want to reiterate why I wasn't able to engage in this conversation earlier. I was attending a board meeting this weekend and did not want to begin a conversation I could not participate in. Comment moderation is a struggle at Feministing and I wanted to be present and able to do that moderation. This conversation, both about commenting and about gender variance and feminism is really important to me and all of us at Feministing. We are commited to continuing these conversations and finding the spaces for positive dialogue.

In the meantime, the discussion has continued on the community blog. I am really appreciative that members of the Feministing community are willing to engage in this conversation, and provide diverse perspectives.

Because of the difficulty of moderating all these conversations simultaneously, we're shutting down comments on the individual posts and redirecting everyone to comment on this thread where we can actively moderate.

I'm going to do a round-up of the community posts here:

Josh T. wrote about cisgender and transfeminists, what we have in common and why we should work together.

Kyriarchy wrote 5 tips on how to talk to trans people.

mindprovender wrote about Entitlement in comment threads.

Rachel Seltzer wrote a post called Play Nice or Get Out about gender, feminism and engagement.

Jessica94 wrote 5 Things I've Learned About Respectful and Productive Commenting with more thoughts on how to be a good commenter.

Zyfron wrote Thoughts on Trans Safe Space and Activism.

Obviously this is a conversation we are all invested in. We at Feministing want to find better ways to keep comment threads under control. We also want to promote dialogue and conversation about issues like gender and race, and other very heated, very personal issues that are central to feminism and feminist dialogue.

We absolutely recognize that our comment section is not always a safe space for a lot of people. We take this really seriously and it's a constant conversation for us. We have some time dedicated during our next Feministing in-person meeting in May to talk more and strategize about how to address this. In the next few weeks we're going to have a forum for feedback from all of you about this as well.

Our comment policy is here, and any comments that are offensive or in violation of that policy will be deleted.

So there has been a heated dialogue this past week, partially in response to the comment thread on my post about Focus on the Family last week. Queen Emily at Questioning Transphobia wrote an initial response to it, voz responded to the larger issue of how trans women's issues are treated at Feministing and Feministe, and Cara responded at Feministe yesterday.

I've been doing a lot of listening, and hearing, and reading. I have a lot of thoughts brewing about all of these threads.

There are two discussions I think need to come from this. One is a discussion about comment moderation and Feministing. It's a discussion we as bloggers often engage in, and one that crops up all of the time, as each of us find strategies for how to manage comment threads.

Moderating comments is probably the part of this work that I feel least adept at. I do agree that moderating is a part of our role as bloggers. It's a conversation that we plan on continuing at Feministing, and writing more about as a group. This is a group blog, and while we each moderate our own threads, we do have a collective comment policy. So more to come on that.

The other conversation is around gender identity related writing and activism. This is a conversation I am highly invested in, which is why I really appreciated reading Queen Emily's thoughts about the comment conversation and my original post. I'm invested in it because I'm a feminist, because I identify as genderqueer, because I have a strong agenda around gender. I have all sorts of thoughts and ideas about how feminism needs to evolve it's beliefs and interaction with the gender binary--including what trans inclusion looks like. At the WAM conference this year, Julia Serano, Jack Aponte, Kate Bovitch and I were on a panel to discuss these issues. I hope to post the video soon, but these are conversations I'm engaging in elsewhere as well.

These two conversations need to continue and I plan on further engaging. Unfortunately because of how life works, particularly my life where I have other responsibilities outside of this blog, I can't engage in that dialogue with all of you tonight, or tomorrow, or in the next few days. To acknowledge the fact that much of the criticims of the original thread revolved the comment moderation, I'm going to turn comments off on this post.

I'm going to be back on Monday, with more thoughts about this. I'll post a new thread then, with comments open.

This, my friends, is the worst nightmare of the always controversial conservative group Focus on the Family.

From the email: Men in Women's Bathrooms, Is Your State Next?

March 26, 2009
Dear Friend,

The reality of "change" has hit full-force in Washington, D.C., and in many respects, it's a nightmare. But as bad as things are in Washington, for many pro-family Americans the greatest political danger lurks much closer to home.

From Albany to Sacramento, state capitols are the flash points for the most aggressive efforts to redefine family and "re-norm" cultural standards--all the while undermining religious freedom. And changes at the state level often cause the biggest impact in our daily lives . . . and the state of Colorado has served as a testing ground for strategy now being exported across the country.

I told you last summer about a new Colorado law that gave special "public accommodation" protections to people who self-identify as homosexual or "transgender." I shared with you how Focus on the Family Action warned lawmakers that this legislation would reap a whirlwind of social problems. We specifically warned them that their vote for this bill would even allow men to use women's restrooms--right alongside women and even young girls.

Moving beyond the humor in this email, it's true that there is something so fundamental about gender roles and norms that the idea of men in a women's bathroom can cause the knees of any conservative to shake immediately. And it's not just conservatives who care about bathrooms, even if they are the only ones fighting against legislation that protects trans people (and using fear tactics to do it).

Bathrooms are always a huge issue of contention in the war about gender. Trans communities fight for the right to use the appropriate ones, conservative groups scream about young girls safety and male predators in them.

Here's the thing that always gets me about the bathroom debate: The idea that laws governing a space which by nature is unpoliced, unregulated and fundamentally just an unlocked door with a sign on it gets so much airtime. Why is it that people feel a picture of a stick figure in a dress on a door keeps them safe? What does that say about our larger beliefs about gender?

According to the LA Times:

The government of the United Arab Emirates, a confederation of kingdoms torn between the conservative Muslim society and Western influences, is dead serious about "protecting" society against the growing number of women said to dress, behave and speak like men.

In fact, the ministry of social affairs a few days ago launched a campaign called "Excuse me, I am a girl," directed against what they described as the "fourth gender," according to media reports. The language is seen as a euphemism for lesbians.

As the global economy faces a grave spiral downwards, with Dubai very much at the center of it, it's shocking that the government has time to devote to making sure that women don't try on some so-called masculine traits on for size (lesbianism, of course, has always been around even if they don't want to admit it). In fact, it reinforces just how threatening gender nonconformity still is.

Thanks to pbaranco for the heads up.

Who would ever have thought I would be reading something from O Magazine, let alone an article that talks about queer women, gender fluidity and coming out?

Those are just a few of the topics covered in this O magazine article.

Lately, a new kind of sisterly love seems to be in the air. In the past few years, Sex and the City's Cynthia Nixon left a boyfriend after a decade and a half and started dating a woman (and talked openly about it). Actress Lindsay Lohan and DJ Samantha Ronson flaunted their relationship from New York to Dubai. Katy Perry's song "I Kissed a Girl" topped the charts. The L Word, Work Out, and Top Chef are featuring gay women on TV, and there's even talk of a lesbian reality show in the works. Certainly nothing is new about women having sex with women, but we've arrived at a moment in the popular culture when it all suddenly seems almost fashionable--or at least, acceptable.

One bone I have to pick, which is apparent in the title, is the idea that all queer women have left a man for a woman. Some queer women never dated men at all. And sisterly love? Come on.

I was really pleasantly surprised to see the piece address gender and queerness, particularly addressing female masculinity. The author, Mary Fischer, draws on a lot on academic thought (and academic couples!) which gives it more theoretical grounding than you usually see in a magazine article.

Ironically--or not, as some might argue--it is certain "masculine" qualities that draw many straight-labeled women to female partners; that, in combination with emotional connection, intimacy, and intensity. This was definitely true for Gomez-Barris, whose partner, Judith Halberstam, 47, (above right, with Gomez-Barris, left) says she has never felt "female." Growing up in England as a tomboy who had short hair and refused to wear dresses, Halberstam says people were often unable to figure out whether she was a boy or a girl: "I was a source of embarrassment for my family." As a teenager, she was an avid soccer player--not that she was allowed on any team. And her 13th birthday request for a punching bag and boxing gloves was met with the demand to pick something more feminine. "Throughout my youth," she says, "I felt rage at the shrinking of my world." Halberstam channeled her anger into a distinguished academic career and authored several provocative books, including, in 1998, Female Masculinity. It was during the past few years that she started calling herself Jack and answering to both "he" and "she."

If you haven't checked out Halberstam's book Female Masculinity, you should.

Feminist theorists were among the first to begin to uncouple sex from gender. In 1949 French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir published her groundbreaking book The Second Sex, with the famous line, "One is not born, but becomes a woman," suggesting that classic female characteristics--passivity, shyness, nurturing--aren't just biological but are embedded by parents and culture. Today, after the women's liberation movement's crusade for equality between the sexes, thinkers like Halberstam are challenging the very definition of gender roles. And as with sexual desire, the idea of fluidity is gaining currency, as evidenced by an ever-expanding vocabulary: transgender, transsexual, transvestite, boi, heteroflexible, intersex. And many who embrace fluidity are adopting the term gender queer with pride. But as passionate as they are, those who live by their newly won gender freedom still find themselves at odds with the prevailing culture.

I never thought I would see words like boi or heteroflexible in a woman's magazine. Maybe times are really changing? I have other issues with the article, but overall it adds some much needed dialogue to the discussion about female sexuality and queer identity.

I recently came across a copy of the H&M Magazine (h/t to Tanya), and on the cover was the title Hype: Unisex. Get the Boyfriend Look! The article is here.

The basic premise is this "the metrosexual man is old news, and now it's the women's turn--the tomboy has come to stay." The feature does a good job of talking about the history of women's fashion and the moments when women (like Coco Chanel) subverted norms by introducing traditionally masculine items of clothing into her designs. But the first subhead for the article tells the whole story: Straight from your boyfriend's closet.

This is about using masculine fashion elements in a normative way--just make sure you look like you borrowed your boyfriend's jeans sweetie! They also mentioned a few queer women (like Samantha Ronson, Lindsay Lohan's infamous girlfriend and DJ) without talking about how these trends might connect to being queer. This is about fashion, after all.

It's not surprising to see a fashion magazine dealing with the gender categories and even fashion gender bending in such a normative way. This also gets at a discussion that occurred in the comments of Professor Foxy's column this weekend about the acceptability of cross dressing in women versus men.

At least when it comes to fashion, it is definitely more acceptable for women to appropriate elements of men's fashion. Pants for example, suits, baseball caps and even ties. But there is a moment when this crosses an unspoken line from acceptable to transgressive. I think it's the moment when any hint of boyfriend leaves the picture. H&M tell us "Don't forget to add your own special feminine touch." What happens when there is no feminine touch?

As someone who wears mostly men's clothing, I can tell when I've crossed the line. It can create some not so safe or pleasant situations. It's a similar situation for men, although I think the line is closer and better policed. Pink may be the new black, but don't even think about wearing a skirt. Even these moments of gender fluidity still fundamentally reinforce heteronormativity and the gender binary.

Hi,
My question is this: I have found it really hard lately to have sex with my boyfriend (5 year relationship). A little over a year ago he told me that he's a cross-dresser and while he doesn't want a sex change, he does think of himself as significantly female. We lived separately due to my work for about 6 months, and it was fine when we visited each other (about twice a month), probably because there was no sign of it, but we've been living back together again for another six months. He still looks mostly the same as ever (except for shaving legs and chest), and he's keeping a cap on the behavior, but I think I see him differently. For the last four months, I think we've had sex three times. It's weird, he doesn't dress much, but it's in my mind a lot. What's weirder is, it's not penetrative sex that's the problem or cuddles, I just don't like kissing him anymore, or him doing anything downstairs. I kindof just want him to get on with it. I've also been pretty down, probably due to stressing about his "hobby".

Is there a way to get around this? I tried to make myself do it a lot because I read somewhere about fake it til you make it, but I just felt sad.
Sorry, this isn't much of a question -
Q

Hi Q -
I've been staring at your question for a few days now and what keeps hitting me over and over is how difficult a situation it is. First, I want to clean up a couple of misconceptions. Most cross dressers are heterosexual men. While for some people, this is a step for transitioning genders (male to female in this case), the majority of cross dressers are not interested in transitioning. Rather, they are turned on or comforted by wearing women's clothing. I think you get this at least intellectually.

You are writing in to a feminist sex column, so I am going to make the assumption that you want to be accepting of his CD.

Here is the heart of it - things have changed. You acted and built on certain assumptions for the past four years and now, after four years of intimacy and relationship, you are discovering a new aspect of him. Are you pissed that it took him four years to tell you? It's ok to be. You can understand how it took him time to be accepting of himself and to work up the courage to tell you, yet you can still be pissed. You give him deserved credit for "keeping a cap on his behavior" while you are trying to work through this, but at the same time his shaved arms and chest are actually a pretty constant and consistent reminder.

Gender matters in relationships. I don't mean gender as in sex. I mean gender as the percentage we want our partners to be masculine and feminine. You found someone whose percentage worked for you - both sexually and in a relationship - now that percentage has changed. What does this mean for your own percentage?

I think fake til you make it works in certain situations, almost all of which are nonsexual. You need to stop faking and start being honest with yourself about how you feel. Do you have friends you can talk to about this? An online support group for women dealing with the same issue? You need a place to vent without worrying about hurting anyone's feelings; you need to talk this out for yourself before you can work it out with him. You are having sex, but I don't think you are having intimacy. You are trying and it is commendable. I just want you to put yourself first right now.

You may have depression, you may just be sad. I think finding a therapist for at least a couple visits would help. Check out the American Associations for Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists for a therapist who is less likely to be judgmental of the CD and more able to focus on the actual issues.

At the end of the day, this relationship may work and it may not. We want to be GGG (Good, Giving and Game - to borrow from Mr. Savage), but there are some things we just can't be ok with. And this may be yours. But you need to give yourself time and space to really flush out what you are feeling. And then you need to talk to him about it. What compromises can be reached? Maybe he can have other partners who he dresses up for? Maybe you can have other partners who are not into CCD? Maybe he does it ever third Thursday? While being caring for him, you also need to be caring for you.

There's a new information-sharing project with a whole lot of potential called Wikigender. The founders explain it:

Wikigender is a project initiated by the OECD Development Centre to facilitate the exchange and improve the knowledge on gender-related issues around the world. In particular, Wikigender tries to gather empirical evidence and identify adequate statistics to measure gender equality. In this respect, Wikigender serves as a pilot project for the OECD Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies. Based on the work of the OECD Gender, Institutions and Development Data Base, Wikigender aims to highlight the importance of social institutions such as norms, traditions and cultural practices that impact on gender equality.

Sociological Images posts on these two stamp sets, and well...just check them out for yourself.

Lorë P, who alerted SI to the product, breaks it down:

One of the first things that struck me was that both of these is that they have stamps that mention dad -- "daddy's girl" and "like father like son" but only the female one mentions mom (I guess it would be considered too emasculating to have "mommy's boy?")

Another interesting part of these stamps is that the "Girl talk" emphasizes the sweetness of girls - their giggles, their silliness, their angelic qualities (not to mention princess..). On the other hand, the male version has more objects - trucks, rockets, robots and "strong" traits - being brave and embracing adventure (and what does "all boy" mean anyway?).

It's the so-called little things, folks. This shit is everywhere. Not to mention, I've been staring at this thing like a 90s era Magic Eye poster and I'm pretty sure I see a 3-D image of "daddy's girls" flipping the bird.

The stamps are made by Sassafras Lass.

BBC News has a story about the effects of pink on young girl's development.

Some commentators now believe pink dominates the upbringing of little girls, and this may be damaging.

Sue Palmer, author of Toxic Childhood, says the "total obsession" with pink stunts girls' personalities. "I am very worried about it. You can't find girls over the age of three who aren't obsessed with the colour. It's under their skin from a very early age and severely limits choices, and decisions.

"We have got to get something done about the effect marketeers are having. We are creating little fluffy pink princess, an image of girliness, that is very specific and which some girls don't want to go along with, but due to overwhelming peer pressure, are having to conform to."

The article goes on to overlook what I think are the important issues underlying this question. What we really need to talk about, which is demonstrated by the pink example, is how our society constantly polices gender roles. This policing starts at a young age and color preferences are just one of many examples we could use. While the article makes the point that exposure to pink itself is not going to seriously change a girl's life, what bigger differences underlie this superficial examples? We treat boys and girls differently in so many ways, many of which we don't even perceive. The cumulative effect of all these slight behavioral and social differences are what really has an impact on both genders, and continues to reinforce ideas about gender difference.

I found this while getting my friend a birthday card at my Rite Aid in Queens the other day and couldn't resist taking record of it. We all know that greetings cards themselves are gendered enough, but the actual card sections? Damn.

This headline certainly made me pause when it popped into my inbox so I had to share, even if it is for a laugh. According to this study of over 2000 adults, 46 percent of women said they would forgo sex for internet access as opposed to 30 percent of men.

The U.S. survey, which queried 2,119 adults last month, found that the gap grew even wider for both men and woman who were 18 to 34 years old. For woman, the percentage of those willing to skip the sheets in favor of the Web rose to 49 percent, while it climbed to 39 percent for men.

And for women 35 to 44 years old, the figure jumped to 52 percent. (Results as of Monday from CNET's related online poll showed that 30.5 percent of respondents would give up sex for one year, while 26.1 percent would do without Internet access for a year. Almost 40 percent of voters didn't want to sacrifice either.)

For many of us the internet is how we work, so it is not really an option for us to "give up" the internet. Also, many women get sex from the internet as do many men, along with the increase in long distance relationships that also lead to sex via internet. So basically, if the options ain't looking good in your "real life" the internet functions as an excellent way to not only meet people but have sex with them.

And what was the sexual activity of the people questioned? Were they in relationships? Were they single? I think all these have to do with how long people are willing to give up sex. Hey, some women would rather have internet than have sex with the people they can possibly have sex with at any given time.

Thoughts?

Thanks for the reminder JCP! For a minute there I thought these gender norms were being broken down. I guess not! There is definitely no WAY a little boy might want a doll to play with, or anything pink. EVER. And damn those confusing gender-neutral names!

Thanks to Stuperb for the link

Reader Julia sent us a link to this posting on Madison, Wisconsin Craigslist. Pretty amazing stuff:

I'm married. Been married for 14 years. I moved away from my family to be with my wife's family, left my career, friends, & family behind. I now work out of my house because my wife got a "better" job else where and now I do ALL of the cooking and cleaning and take care of my 3 kids. She's the typical MALE now...comes homes, I have dinner ready. She works more at home. I play with the kids. She goes to bed, I have to go to bed. My whole life revolves around her now. She's the Sun and I'm Uranus. She leaves dirty clothes on the floor. Trash on tables. HAIR everywhere!! I SIT to pee now cuz I hate to clean up pubic hairs off the toilets....it's disgusting.

Yes, he's experiencing what many women have experienced for decades. But no one deserves to feel this way about their life or relationship. What I dislike about the entire tone of this post, however, is that he's not just pissed off about the unequal nature of his relationship. He's pissed because he's "THE WOMAN" -- as in, women are the ones who should doing all the shit work:

I feel I'm being converted to a female in some sick way. I AM NOT A WOMAN! I love women. But I now know what they put up with. It sucks. No thanks for dinner....not even "dinner was great dear...how 'bout I clean up the dishes"....NNOOOOOO. Just a couple of grunts and it's off to work....kinda like a guy going to the garage for the evening. I have tools. I'd love to go to the garage and work. But I think my kids come first. I'd love to have an affair but don't think I can deal with the guilt. If I start to PMS.......I'll scream. Oh...and don't think she's "MAN" enough to mow the yard or shovel the drive...nope...that's me too. Who gets the groceries....ME. My nipples stick out in the frozen food section too by the way. No one tries to pick me up though. I did get asked by the cashier what was for dinner once!!! I must have something written on my forhead. So women, ladies, how do you put up with it???

I'll admit to laughing at the nipples-in-the-frozen-food-aisle line, but I genuinely feel bad for this guy. In light of our conversation last week about balancing relationships with chores and the ins and outs of living together, does anyone have advice for this man?

Via Kay Steiger, an article in the NYTimes about gender roles at fancy restaurants.

Back in 2003, I spent a summer working at a fancy five star country club restaurant. I worked there because the pay was really good, with an automatic 18% gratuity and my brother was able to get me the job. The restaurant was in North Carolina, so Southern hospitality was the law. Gender rules, whether it was for the servers or for the customers were a non-negotiable. We even had menus without prices for the women (not always used, but available). Women were served first, in order of age. I had to use the southern "ya'll" to refer to the customers, because "you guys" was gender inappropriate and too informal.

I wish I had a picture of me from that summer, the outfit I had to wear was absurd. I looked like a penguin. Everyone had to wear tuxedo pants, white button down shirts and black bow ties. Needless to say I didn't look great in my pleated tuxedo pants (think high high waist).

While I didn't criticize these gendered practices at the time, this article brought it all back for me. In my everyday life I am constantly confronted with gender stereotyping. Every time I walk into elevator or walk through a door, or interact with salespeople, I'm reminded that they are treating me differently because I'm a woman. Men always hold doors for me but will wait an eternity before letting me hold the door for them. I always have to walk out of elevators first, and then of course I get called "sweetie" and "honey" often.

Luckily I don't go to many fancy restaurants these days, where these rules seem to be important, but it's sad to see that it's still enforced for new restaurants. All these things are just reminders that women's liberation be damned, these subtle differences aren't going away anytime soon.

I can't believe it. I actually like something Hillary Duff has done. I need a drink.

It is rare that armed resistance movements are given positive news coverage. And understandably so when groups use brutal force on civilians. However, the dialog of acceptable and unacceptable moments of violence has been dominated by a history of colonization. Basically, war is only acceptable when it is protecting the interests of rich and white people. But for those of us that believe in a more fair and just world where everyone should have access to the means of production and women should not be enslaved by patriarchy it is good to hear in some places people are fighting for their own rights. I don't support their tactics of hurting or killing civilians, but I do see what they are fighting for.

The women of the PKK (Kurdistan Worker's Party) believe that without a dismantling of patriarchy no one is free. They have been branded as a terrorist organization by NATO, Turkey, Iraq and the United States. The PKK wants an independent Kurdish state in Kuridistan. The women's demands are simple,

"We want a natural life, a society that revolves around women -- one where women and men are equal, a society without pressure, without inequality, where all differences between people are eliminated," says Rengin, the head of a female battalion of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

Perhaps this is a leap of imagination for those socialized to think there is only certain types of right and wrong violence. We don't want violence in our communities or anyone else's. But given the context they are working with in, a country ravaged by war and a place where women are subject to inhumane conditions, I can actually empathize with their frustrations.

Revolutionary movements have been around for decades now, both using violent and non-violent tactics to fight for the world they want and generally focused on an anti-colonial stance (one notable example being the Zapatistas, who also believe in gender equity). We may not agree with them, but I think it is important to understand them.

Related:
Kurdish women fighting on the frontlines.

I am really into lists lately. After Courtney's ten things she can do without and my own replica, along with all the responses we got, I figure why not make it a weekly feature. So similar to Amanda's Friday Random Ten, here is my second crack at the Tuesday Ten.

I have been thinking about highlighting men that do feminist work in their blogging (sort of in the vain of Twanna's Manly Monday, but different trajectory). Many of these men, I don't know personally, so I will not say they are feminists, however, in much of their writing I have found they support many of my ideals.

So here goes. This is my list of who I consider feminist friendly male bloggers.

1. Scott Lemiuex from Lawyers, Guns and Money

2. Nezua from the Unapologetic Mexican

3. Kevin from Slant Truth

4. Jay Smooth aka the Illdoctrine

5. Jesse Taylor from Pandagon

6. Baratunde Thurston from Jack and Jill Politics

7. Kai Chang from Zuky.

8. J Brotherlove.

9. Hugo Schwyzer

10. AngryAsianMan

Check out Courtney's critical piece at the American Prospect that captures perfectly why Palin appeals to the patriarchy political machine with her use of conventional gender tropes.

And, in perhaps the most offensive display of her "wimp factor" agenda, she attempted to discredit community organizing by feminizing it. She sarcastically told conventioneering Republicans (along with millions of Americans watching on television), "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities." It was an eerie echo of what oblivious men in positions of traditional power have been saying for centuries: that the work of community building -- whether it be child-rearing, elder-caring, teaching, nursing, social work, or, yes, community organizing -- isn't really work at all. That, despite being the backbone of our economy and the heart of our civic life, it doesn't count because it doesn't involve power suits and bottom lines. What makes this ridicule of community-building even more ironic is that the GOP is simultaneously glorifying Palin's role as caregiver of her own sprawling family.

Just really go read the whole thing right now because it frames the story the right is trying to tell by picking Palin.

I was recently browsing around youtube, and found a link to this Logo episode that is a favorite of mine. There are also some really interesting youtube channels of videos made by trans and genderqueer people sharing their experiences.

From the logo website:

This original documentary explores the shattering of the confines of traditional gender identities by individuals who define themselves not as male or female, but something that incorporates both. Jill, who comfortably identifies as gender-queer, faces the challenge of coming out to family. Kim wants to undergo top surgery but must also address the effect the surgery will have on her relationship with her girlfriend Michelle. Lauren encounters confrontations from the gay community in Lauren's conservative home town regarding Lauren's gender-fluid identity and must decide whether to stay or move to another city.

You can watch all the clips and see more about the series here.