Recently in Masculinity Category

It's safe to say that evangelist John Hagee isn't a fan of stay-at-home dads. Yikes.

Via Shine.

Rev. Steve Emmett and Joe Kelly sent out an email this week announcing that their nonprofit advocacy group, Dads and Daughters, is closing shop after ten years of frustrating and failed fundraising efforts.

Over the last ten years they've committed themselves to spreading the word about the importance of fathers (stepfathers, male influences etc.) in daughters' lives, encouraging a renewed commitment to engaged parenting on the part of men, and particularly targeting the media's often gross misrepresentation of girls and young women.

When I was writing Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, I was really interested in the role that men play in influencing their daughters' body images, and Dads and Daughters was one of the only organizations that was looking at that issue as well.

Steve and Joe recommend these resources if you're looking to investigate the father-daughter dynamic in the future:

* Future of Fatherhood: DADs co-founder Joe Kelly's online & in-person resources for Dads, Daughters, and Professionals working with families.
* Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood: coalition making the world safe and fair for all children by countering harmful effects of marketing to children.
* New Moon Girl Media: girl-run media, plus parenting resources and blog by former DADs executive Nancy Gruver.
* Girl Scout Research Institute: valuable research on the healthy development of girls.

Thanks to both of them--and all their partners--for doing this important work.

Sometimes I google things like "feminism" or "sexism" and this time via a google search for sexism I came across this gem. It is a series of clips from Disney movies depicting masculinity and then deconstructing the ways these characterizations of manhood deploy as standard.

There are some other ones in the 'related' section such as this one on racism in Disney.

Now this is a good way to start the week off!

Thanks to Katie from MI for sending this awesome vid along.

This is the second time Snickers will have to pull a gay-hating commercial. (Remember this nonsense?) But this commercial is just one of many that punishes men for being too "feminine," whether it's growing breasts after having the audacity to cry at the movies or being crushed by a giant beer can after screaming "like a girl." Anxious masculinity, anyone?

Via Consumerist and community blogger shellchin.

UPDATE: Renee has more.

Check out this article from Dave Hill at Comment is free, "Gender stereotypes hurt men too."

I think Hill brings up a lot of important points about the ways in which sexism damages men, but I wish he would identify feminism (at least more concretely) as a movement that's already working to help men as well as women. For example, Hill writes of gender stereotypes affecting men, "Sensible, grown up, non-sectarian feminism recognises all of this and seeks ways for men to combat it." I'm not sure what "grown up" feminism is, but the feminism I know has always talked about the ways in which the movement can benefit men.

Thoughts?

Pic from longlostcousin.

So a reader sent along this article about a Pakistani man in Georgia that strangled his daughter because she didn't want to get married to the man they had arranged for her to marry.

The Clayton County Medical Examiner confirmed that Kanwal died of strangulation. Police recovered an iron by the young woman's bedroom doorway and a necklace on a family room table that may have been used in the killing, according to a Clayton County police report.

Authorities allege that Rashid killed his daughter because he feared that her resistance to a recently arranged marriage would disgrace the Pakistani-American family.

Sounds so simple right? He killed her because his "culture" made him. Not because he might be mentally ill or pathological. There is no denying that in basically every culture there is pressure put on women to act a certain way and especially with regard to marriage or the ownership of her sexuality. But the way that "honor" killing is discussed in the media you would think it is some normal cultural phenomena, when it is not. It is a sign of illness, culture gone awry and patriarchy at its most exaggerated.

In a ground-breaking essay, that I recommend you read if you are into theory, Leti Volpp talks about the notion of the cultural defense. One of the moments that this plays out is through the justification of violence against women as a cultural norm (usually based on racist ideas of culture).

It appears that there are two ways the mainstream US media talk about "honor" killings. The first is in a way the demonizes the horrid, brown, ugly, probably terrorist perpetrator, that is trying to hurt the innocent child like brown female that must be saved. Or making assumptions about the role of women in a given non-American culture as much more misogynist than our own and thereby engages in these forms of blatant abuse of patriarchal power that are cultural.

Neither scenario gives us much hope for how the case will go or allows for an intersectional analysis of the ways gender, culture and power play out. And when it is revolving around a violent murder of a young woman, it is very difficult to understand the nuance.

via.

This one's about Barack, not Michelle. As Susan Faludi described in The New York Times this weekend, Republicans and right-wing media are scrambling to define Barack as womanly because he doesn't hunt or want to bomb the hell out of the rest of the world.

The attacks are already under way, as is evident if one enters the words "Obama" and "effeminate" into a search engine. The effeminacy canard lurks in Mike Huckabee's imaginings of Mr. Obama tripping off a chair and diving for the floor when confronted by a gunman, and in the words of Tucker Bounds, Mr. McCain's campaign spokesman, who depicted Mr. Obama as "hysterical."

News media blatherers and bloggers are taking up the theme. On MSNBC, Tucker Carlson called Mr. Obama "kind of a wuss"; Joe Scarborough, the morning TV talk show host, dubbed Mr. Obama's bowling style "prissy" and declared, "Americans want their president, if it's a man, to be a real man"; and Don Imus, the radio host, never one to be outdone in the sexual slur department, dubbed Mr. Obama a "sissy boy."

We've discussed this phenomenon before. Just as it's not okay to say an assertive woman is actually a man because she desires power and won't put up with your shit, it's not okay to say a man is actually a woman because he won't play dress-up in a flightsuit and codpiece. Get over the gender binary, people. Please.

One of the things I've long admired about Obama is his refusal to play the gender card. And looking at the growing support for Obama among women, it's clear that I'm not the only woman who is comfortable with male politicians who don't hew to gender stereotypes.

Predictably, some Democrats fret that Obama's refusal to play masculinity politics will mean electoral death. Faludi warns that 9/11 is still too fresh in our national psyche for us to feel comfortable electing a non-swaggering president. But I'd argue: Look how well that worked for John Kerry. I'm relieved Obama isn't playing that game again.

(via Dana.)

Also, they pee by themselves.

This new trend of commercials defining what "real men" are and should like (and of course deriding women/femininity) is making me nutso.

RH Reality Check has a great piece up about Jackson Katz, an educator and activist who works on gender violence issues.

Katz says, "As a culture, Americans first must take the step in acknowledging that violence against women is not a women's issue, but a men's issue...The first problem I have with labeling gender issues as women's issues is that it gives men an excuse to not pay attention. This is also the problem with calling them gender issues, because the majority of the people in the status quo see gender issues as women's issues."

I'm especially interested in Katz's ideas about how the messages that women get about rape (don't go out at night, don't drink) are risk-reducing rather than prevention - and how those messages completely take men out of the equation.

"These programs focus on how women can reduce their chances of being sexually assaulted. I agree that women benefit from these education programs, but let us not mistake this for prevention...If a woman has done everything in her power to reduce her risk, then a man who has the proclivity for abuse or need for power will just move on to another woman or target," he says.

I highly recommend reading the whole piece - there's even a section where Katz explains how passive sentence construction in the media coverage of violence against women perpetuates the notion that rape is something that just happens to women, rather than something that's perpetrated by another person.

Robert Jensen, author of Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity, has an interesting article based on an exersise he does in his classes around masculinity.

What do you think?

This is crazy.

The best part is this letter that comes with it, "Why chose chastity?" My favorite line, "Actually, it is not their fault, men constantly have their own biology bombarding them with a physical need for sexual release." See, feminism is for men too.

I am hoping this is a joke.

UPDATE: Having read the fine print this device is intended for fantasy play. So if you want to fantasize being a repressed boy that must be controlled, this is for you. It says at the bottom of the first page, " It must be understood that some acts discussed or depicted on the ExoBelt website on in email correspondence may be medically unsafe or harmful and that the description and discussion of and such act(s) is intended as purely anecdotal or "fantasy" material. You choose to engage in any such act(s), discussed or depicted, entirely at your own risk."

Men get to fantasize about having their sexuality controlled, while everyone tries to control a woman's. Funny, innit.

I think I saw at least three different bloggers (including myself) refer to yesterday's admission by NY Governor Eliot Spitzer's hiring of a sex worker with just the word "wow." Understandable given Spitzer's legal history wherein he has gained recognition for successfully prosecuting prostitution rings. Quite a contradiction it seems, but alas we see time and again, political power-which often manifests as hyper-masculinity-produces powerful men that just can't keep it in their pants. It makes sense to descend into the preconditioned response of chastising a politician for abusing power and trying to (stupidly) get away with paying for sex, not to mention transporting a human for the purpose of paying for sex. I think we can all agree, as Scott mentioned, that if a sex worker is going to get prosecuted, he should as well. No questions.

What I don't want to do is chastise a man for potentially having a sexual kink (I'll let the wing-nuts hypocritically take care of that), not because I am all for protecting Eliot Spitzer's sexual kinky rights (ew, barf, ew), but because I think it tells a bigger story of patriarchy, heterosexuality, legalization of sex work and the ethical treatment of sex workers. As Ann discussed a while back, as progressives, we shouldn't jump to attack politicians when we find out that they committed a sexual "indiscretion." As someone who supports the decriminalization (hello prison nation!), I don't think we need anymore fodder for the right-wing"I hate sex" machine to use in their purity crusades.

The over-reliance in the US political system for our politicians to be heterosexual and vanilla in the bedroom is like a recurring nightmare of puritanical ethics that continually allows for anti-sex, anti-gay, and anti-kink legislation to continue. If anything what these "outing" episodes should teach us is that everyone should be allowed to have the kind of sex they want and have the proper education about it, so we should stop pretending we are all "Republicans" in the bedroom. This story in particular, along with, the DC Madam drama, for me is an opportunity for us to talk about the rights and conditions of sex workers. Spitzer may get a slap on the wrist and be asked to step down, but sex workers nation-wide will continue to be subjected to harsh criminal proceedings, high incarceration rates, drug use, violence, lack of health-care and no protection from violent, retaliatory pimps.

It is obvious that Spitzer hiring a sex-worker is a gross abuse of masculinist political power and completely hypocritical, but let's not lose the bigger story of the horrid treatment of sex workers by the criminal justice system and society at large. And let's be real, $5500 dollars is still not enough for a woman's body.

Time magazine's Mark Halperin recently said, in an interview for a Sirius satellite radio show,

And I can tell you, [John Edwards is] really skeptical of her ability to be the kind of president he wants. But, he kinda thinks Obama is..he thinks Obama is kind of a pussy. He has real questions about Obama's toughness, his readiness for the office.

Halperin has since apologized for his oh-so-creative, junior-high-level insult. He really used "pussy" in the classic derogatory sense: men trying to show they're more masculine by using derogatory feminine terms to describe other men. So it's offensive not only to women (way to use a term for our anatomy as an insult! awesome!) but also to men (mocking them for not conforming to male stereotypes). The fact that he was paraphrasing Edwards when he said this is interesting, as Edwards has taken more than his share of gender-related abuse, mostly from right-wingers.

Unlike bitch or cunt (which feminists have made great strides toward reappropriating), I think "pussy" is pretty rarely used in a subversive sense. If I had to generalize, I'd say it still resides almost exclusively in the vocabularies of misogynists and dudes attempting to assert their masculinity.

On a note related to Hillary Sexism Watch: Wanna bet that many of the people calling Clinton a cunt or a bitch have also referred to Obama and Edwards as pussies?

And speaking of still-taboo vagina euphemisms, has everyone seen the video of Jane Fonda casually saying "cunt" on the Today show?

Meredith Vieira assures Today viewers not familiar with the "reclaimed" meaning of the word: "Jane Fonda inadvertently said a word from the play that you don't say on TV." And indeed, you probably shouldn't be using the C-word on TV if you're Chris Matthews. But if you're Jane Fonda talking about a segment of The Vagina Monologues? I think it's ok. Context is everything.

We've written a lot about steak or burger restaurants that employ exclusively half-naked women, using "meat" to sell meat. But is the flip side also true? Reader Lauren alerted us to the fact that there's apparently a vegan strip club in Portland, Oregon, where owner Johnny Diablo (his real name??) hopes to convert his patrons to veganism:

While it may not be the most orthodox way to win over new vegans, Diablo hopes people bring some green and eat some green at his new club.

“(It’s) vixens, not veal, and sizzle, not steak,� Diablo said. “We put the meat on the pole, not on the plate.�

There's a video segment here. Says the newscaster,

"You won't find any meat inside Casa Diablo, but you will find a whole lot of flesh."

Johnny Diablo has made sure to clarify, on his MySpace blog, "Don't be fooled by the political correctness posers out there. We aren't feminazis. We are femi-libertarians!" He signs the post, "Johnny Diablo, Lord & Master"

Wow. Just... let that all sink in.

This is definitely part of a trend -- starting with PETA ads -- in which women's bodies are used as a way of promoting veganism and vegetarianism. There's also L.A.'s Vegan Vixens, "sexy, trendy and fun loving women whose goal is to inspire men to live a longer and happier life, by making healthier decisions on what they consume." And now the vegan strip club.

One common thread here is that all of these efforts are aimed at making veganism appealing to men. The Maxim-like PETA ads, the Vegan Vixens, the strip club: All are saying it's okay to buck the stereotype of Real Men Eat Red Meat, because here are some naked ladies to reassure you that you're still a superhetero manly man! Almost as if they're saying, you won't even miss eating meat, because you'll get to look at so much of it! Or as Diablo puts it, “We put the meat on the pole, not on the plate.� It's a substitution. This trend seems to confirm much of what Carol Adams observed in the Sexual Politics of Meat -- and then turn it on its head.

I think the Skinny Bitch in the Kitch books are related to this whole thing, too. It, too, is using women's bodies to sell veganism. As Samhita put it,

But similar to what Debbie Rasmussen from BITCH says in the article, I too am all for an assault on the food industry, but I have major issues with demanding that skinny is the end all goal for being a vegan. That is not "girl power" to me. It is tacky and a dated way of selling books.

I'm not saying Skinny Bitch and Vegan Vixens are doing the exact same thing here. But both are using the "ideal" female body type -- something men want and women want to be -- as an incentive to go vegan. This is deeply fucked up, especially because there are dozens of real, compelling reasons to switch to a vegan lifestyle -- none of them based on sexist bullshit.

*Disclaimer: I am a vegetarian, and I am by no means asserting that every vegan or vegetarian supports the use of women's bodies as a way to recruit more people to their diet/lifestyle.

Check out this article from The Dallas Morning News on the state of young dudes. Kay Hymowitz, the author, sums up her argument:

Not so long ago, the average mid-twentysomething had achieved most of adulthood's milestones – high school degree, financial independence, marriage and children. These days, he lingers – happily – in a new hybrid state of semi-hormonal adolescence and responsible self-reliance. Decades in unfolding, this limbo may not seem like news to many, but in fact it is to the early 21st century what adolescence was to the early 20th: a momentous sociological development of profound economic and cultural import.

Hymowitz takes a decidedly negative tone from there on out, arguing that men's playing peter pan are a hindrance to their female partners. It hit a nerve with me in some ways. My take is that most of these young men behaving badly are really just full of fear (fear of their authentic selves, fear of growing up, fear of resisting gender norms, fear of women's power etc.) I've had conversations with my guy friends and boyfriend that echoed a lot of what Hymowitz is laying out here, conversations where I just end up feeling sad because I don't know how to convince my beloved dudes to get out of their own way and let themselves believe in their own right to good, mature love and a sense of peace and fulfillment. A lot of them seem perpetually unsatisfied.

In other ways, the analysis felt too reductive:

With women, you could argue that adulthood is in fact emergent. Single women in their 20s and early 30s are joining an international New Girl Order, hyper-achieving in both school and an increasingly female-friendly workplace, while packing leisure hours with shopping, traveling and dining with friends. Single young males, or SYMs, by contrast, often seem to hang out in a playground of drinking, hooking up, playing Halo 3 and, in many cases, underachieving. With them, adulthood looks as though it's receding.

I also don't like the idea of glorifying how totally ambitious most young women are because I see it, at times, as health-compromising and soul-sucking. I wish the hyper-driven among us ladies could get a little of what these child-men got...a sense of wonder and wander. Likewise, I wish some of these child-men could borrow a bit of our dedication and fearlessness.

Thanks to Girl with Pen for the heads up.

There is a controversy evolving around drag performance at a DC gay nightlife hot-spot in Dupont Circle, Club Chaos. Wednesday nights at Chaos are ladies nights, in addition to an occasional performance space for the DC Kings Drag King troupe alternating with a queer burlesque show.

According to the DC Kings, the Dupont Circle Citizens Association "doesn't want that kind of entertainment" in their neighborhood and have effectively banned drag shows at Chaos. While Citizens Association website does not have any information about this incident, they did have a general meeting on Monday, around the same time as news of the cancelled show began to spread.

Maybe this is too much to ask, but wouldn't you think that in 2008, in one of the gayest neighborhoods in DC, a couple of drag performers at a local gay bar wouldn't bother anyone? Apparently not. Check out the flyer for more information, but tonight's performance is being turned in to a protest.

Upon reading this post at Gizmodo about a new male contraceptive implant, I have to say: cry me a fucking river.

Scientists in Australia are developing a radio-controlled contraceptive implant that would control the flow of a man's sperm at the flick of a switch. The valve would be "push-fit" inside the vas deferens (duct that carries sperm from the testicles to the penis) and could be opened or closed remotely depending on the baby making needs of the user. This is making me a bit nauseous, but I will forge ahead...

Oh man, having an implant in your body so that you don't conceive? That sounds terrible. I can't believe anyone would willingly go through that!

But what if your doctor is an asshole? You know, the kind of guy that will mess with his patient's junk from afar? Or what if the controls were stolen? It would be worrisome to say the least.

Yeah, what would it be like if your doctor or other health care professionals -- or heck, even your partner -- wanted to mess with your reproductive choices?! Or what if they wanted to prevent you from getting such a device, or on the flip side, to force you to get one? That would suck!

That, and the very real possibility that the valve will clog with protein over time and the user will become permanently infertile. Still, this does seem like a viable alternative if it ever becomes a reality.

Gee, must be tough for dudes to have to weigh some health risks and potential long-term side effects with other concerns -- like not wanting kids yet, but also not wanting to opt for permanent sterilization. Can't imagine what that's like.

Further evidence that the real reason we don't have more male contraceptive options is not a lack of science -- it's a lack of will. Yeah, guys, it can be pretty scary to think about all of the problems and ramifications of certain methods of contraception. Welcome to our world.

I received this as a forward yesterday with the message, "This is how a real man uses post-its." It reminds me of oldie-but-goody Lakshmi Chaudry's "Men Growing Up To Be Boys," where she talks about consumer culture literally consuming more traditional concepts of manhood and spitting out a man-child.

So move over, beer commercials and manly meat ads; we've now entered the realm of sexist stationary. Sigh.

NOTE: We have found out that this is, in fact, a joke and not an actual post-it ad. At the same time, the fact that this is being disseminated very widely still perpetuates the same confused notions of American masculinity/man-boyhood we find in our everyday commercials and magazine ads. But we are glad to find that that Post-It has not taken part in it.

All this talk about Hillary's imaginary tears reminded me of an exhibit I saw in Chelsea not so long ago called Crying Men, in which Sam Taylor-Wood photographed famous actors mid-tear. The prints were giant, looming testaments to the idea that society is still only comfortable with men crying in movies (and sometimes, not even then); you could just watch people as they walked through, stunned by the sight of so many emotional dudes all at once. I remember there being an almost church-like hush in the gallery space.

It got me thinking a lot about the social norms we have for "acceptable" ways for men and women to express emotion, and further, the contexts in which certain emotions are considered "acceptable" for display. I asked my Intro to Women's Studies class that semester what they thought, and a sea of predominantly female 20-somethings admitted they were uncomfortable with men crying. There were a few exceptions, a few brave women who said they were fine with men's sadness, frustration, anger and the expression of those emotions in the form of tears, but others (I have to admit, to my shock) echoed the old-school "he's a pussy if he cries" mentality.

Why, after so much progress in the feminist movement and so much Dr. Phil, are we still so uncomfortable with people in power crying (i.e. Hillary and Teargate 2008), and relatedly, men crying? Do crying men remind us that there is, ultimately, no "invincible knight in shining armor," just as a crying politician reminds us that no one can truly protect us from "evil," that life is insecure no matter who's in charge?

I, for one, don't give a shit how you chose to express your emotion as long as its nonviolent and authentic.

Fox News' Your World recently featured "No Nonsense Man" Marc Rudov, who commented that "When Barack Obama speaks, men hear, 'Take off for the future.' And when Hillary Clinton speaks, men hear, 'Take out the garbage.' " The text on-screen during his appearance...well, you can see it for yourself.

Rodov's expertise? Well, he wrote what I'm sure is a page-turner called Under the Clitoral Hood: How to Crank Her Engine Without Cash, Booze, or Jumper Cables, and has been featured here on Feministing for his warning to parents not to send their "actively heterosexual" to "gynoversities." And if that was telling enough, just check out the headline on Rodov's homepage: "YOU Are Tolerating Her Nonsense!"

Who knew that Frank T.J. Mackey actually existed in real life?!

Media Matters has the video.

Reading the relationship advice column on Askmen is like taking a trip down the dark and windy road inside the head of an emasculated and insecure man. It makes one wonder why men that read this type of advice on how to tame and train women bother dating women. It is clear they hate them, because you wouldn't treat your enemy the way that they are suggesting you treat your girlfriend.

When you first start dating a new girlfriend, you want to be on your best behavior. Sure, you want to make a good impression, but what you're really doing is catering to her to get sex.

The problem is, the power base shifts to her right from the outset and she knows it. She's in charge of access to the zipper and she counts on you bending over backward to gain entry. So she's got you.

OK pinch me if I am dreaming here, but who does that? I have, let's see, NO friends that don't have sex with a guy within the first week of dating him. It is a myth that men are more into sex than women in relationships. If anything, from what I have experienced and heard from my friends is it is quite the opposite. But clearly a magazine like this can only function if we believe certain innate things to be true about men and women, so for them, men are horny, control freak, man beasts and women are virginal prudes that must be conquered. I get the colonization metaphors.

But then it just gets nasty. Listed under "common obedience problems."

Aggression She's out of control and constantly acts up. Brainwashed by a steady diet of Oprah and "feminist" propaganda, she's now "empowered," meaning that her thoughts run somewhere along these lines: "Men have been holding me back, I want mine now, and I don't care what pair of testicles I have to step on to get it." Since a girlfriend's brain is unable to distinguish emotion from logic, this kind of fantasy thinking will prompt her to act in self-destructive patterns and will cause you undue stress around the house.

Perhaps this is a joke, but as I have said before--I have no sense of humor for this kind of crap--so I am not LOLz. But even if it is a joke, I am sure this site is heavily trafficked, so why is it OK to say virulently violent, misogynistic things about women and the rights they may have earned or the power they might have? Would this be funny if they were talking about an ethnic minority? And let me say, I don't think this publication would be above that by any means, but it wouldn't be funny at all. It would be fucked up and racist. It is amazing to me how certain men's magazines tap into the paranoia that men feel from women having power and couch it in tired recycled metaphors of slavery and submission. That to me is much more humorous then the same joke laughed at over and over by insecure, pathetic, grown-ass men.

By the way, we all know it is not just men who support these myths but often both genders complicit in the same cycle, so read comments carefully. They are offensive and may trigger you!

Thanks to Julia for the link.

Binge drinking is a nation-wide problem. It is a common problem and one many of us have been guilty of. It has also become par for the course for most young people in college and oftentimes continues into later parts of your life. It can be fun and usually it is, but it can also lead to depression, low self-esteem, anxiety and a handful of other great things that happen when you do too many depressants. I bring this up because CNN had a story today about the culture of drinking in college and a Facebook group that women post pictures of themselves completely trashed and passed out on.

One young woman dances on top of a bar. Another sits on the toilet drinking a beer. Several vomit. One appears with a bruised and bandaged face ("I just got drunk and fell out of a car," she writes.). In another photo, two women urinate into a waterfall.

I mean these days what is the big deal right? People post their entire lives, personal and professional, online without thought for what the consequences will be. But what are the consequences to young women posting pics of themselves drunk online?

According to CNN, a lot.

What you won't find on this page -- called "Thirty Reasons Girls Should Call it a Night" -- is humiliation and embarrassment. For the most part, the women post the photos themselves, seemingly with pride. This makes many adults -- teachers, counselors, parents -- worry that students aren't thinking through the consequences of showing themselves drunk to the world.

Many photos on the site are accompanied by full names and the colleges the women attend, apparently without much concern that parents, or potential employers, will take a look.

I can take the health line of approach that maybe binge drinking isn't good for you, but the young women should know better or should be ashamed doesn't work for me. I am always weary of shaming women for things that men do freely. Guys in college get wasted as a ritual, they don't have to hide it from future employers, in fact they are practicing to drink with future co-workers. But women have to be careful not to ruin their ladylike manners.

The lack of security in Iraq continues to astound as does the subsequent rise of woman hate that has been inspired due to the upsurge of Shiite vigilantes. You know, using Islam as a cover up for generic woman hate.

Via.

Religious vigilantes have killed at least 40 women this year in the southern Iraqi city of Basra because of how they dressed, their mutilated bodies found with notes warning against "violating Islamic teachings," the police chief said Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Jalil Khalaf blamed sectarian groups that he said were trying to impose a strict interpretation of Islam. They dispatch patrols of motorbikes or unlicensed cars with tinted windows to accost women not wearing traditional dress and head scarves, he added.

"The women of Basra are being horrifically murdered and then dumped in the garbage with notes saying they were killed for un-Islamic behavior," Khalaf told The Associated Press. He said men with Western clothes or haircuts are also attacked in Basra, an oil-rich city some 30 miles from the Iranian border and 340 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Our fight against the war in Iraq is a feminist issue, you already know that, but this is why. It is an especially disgusting form of woman hate that unleashes itself under dire circumstances, oppressive conditions and in war torn regions of the world.

Brian McFadden asks, "What do manly men do for fun?"

Click the picture to see. Stooopid. What do you do for manly man fun?

It's time for that semi-regular feature where I complain about Axe advertising campaigns. Reader Juniper alerts us to the fact that, in the latest series of ads for this disgusting cologne for the desperate, Unilever is clearly making light of hilarious issues like rape, sexual harassment, and stalking. The premise: Women are becoming sexual predators when they get a whiff of Axe. This video (sorry, it's in Spanish -- only one I could find) should give you the gist:

Ah, but as with all Axe campaigns, the actual ads aren't the worst of it -- it's the companion websites that are truly wretched. In this case, the site contains lots of cheeky faux headlines urging men to not walk alone at night (ha! get it? the threat of street harassment and sexual assault is hilarious when the genders are reversed! ugh), or making light of police abuse (hysterical!). The whole campaign is hinged on the idea that intimate-partner violence against men is not only a-OK, but completely desirable. Revolting. (Yes, I know they're just stupid ads and that this Unilever's way of appealing to a certain subset of male consumers. It's still not funny.) Plus the site's whole "naughty to nice" feature, which has yet to be launched, promises more clueless exaggerations of the virgin/whore dichotomy than you can possibly handle.

I feel like this would make a far more appropriate Axe ad:

Because there's nothing worse than being "girly," a South Carolina prison has taken to punishing sexually active inmates by dressing them in pink.

Of course, the prison punishment isn't the first to use feminization as a deterrent against "bad" behavior: Thai police officers who act up are forced to wear a pink Hello Kitty armband and let's not forget about our Man Can friends. But this punishment being tied up with sexual behavior strikes me as particularly fucked.

State Corrections Department John Ozmint said the two-year-old punishment deters inmates and protects female officers.

..."We don't believe the United States Constitution protects an inmate's right to publicly gratify himself,'' Ozmint said.

Uh yeah. How exactly is a pink prison jumpsuit going to protect women? But more to the point, feminization as a form of punishment is sexist and foul. Rant over, back to playing with the puppy.

We are still fixated on the girls like pink and boys like blue thing. Seriously?

This joke site from Australia, the Worldwide Organisation For Men Exhibiting Nanciness, is the epitome of anxious masculinity.

Welcome… Maybe you had trouble understanding the difference between a V8 and flat 6. Perhaps you bought just a few too many hair products. Whatever the case, you acted in a distinctly unmanly way. And you grew yourself a nice little pair of Man Cans.

Don’t say we didn't warn you.

If you’re visiting this site, you’ve made the right move. The first step is always the most difficult and acknowledging the problem is crucial. Man Cans or, more importantly, the unacceptably soft behaviour that causes them, is something we all have to prevent.

There's even a little video that follows, showing a guy who dares to cry at a movie suddenly growing a pair of breasts. Because what better way to punish a man than to feminize him? After all, there's nothing worse than being a woman. (I would argue it's better than being crushed by a giant beer can, but that's just me.)

What's equally as baffling is the amount of work put into this site, and it's parody sister sites Man Can Do, Man Tape, and Bra Bro. Seriously. Happy Friday, folks.

For the most part, evolutionary psychology scares me. And studies that try and test what people find more attractive are usually full of variables that can't always be accounted for (cultural preferences, personal preferences, oh I don't know racism). Putting all that to the side, this study found that women are more attracted to "feminine" men.

Many women regard men with masculine facial features -- such as a square jaw, larger nose and smaller eyes -- as unsuitable long-term partners, because they're more likely to be domineering, unfaithful, unaffectionate and poor parents, U.K. researchers have found.

On the other hand, women believe that men with finer facial features -- fuller lips, wide eyes and thinner, more curved eyebrows -- to be more committed, less likely to cheat, and to make better parents, said the study by psychologists at Durham and St. Andrews Universities.

I don't appreciate physical characteristics identified as masculine and feminine as though there is a static way to look manly verses looking feminine. Why is a square jaw masculine? I have a square jaw and I don't think I am masculine. So I suppose this study relies on fixed categories of masculine and feminine to prove its logic, but we already know that is problematic.

Furthermore, I have met tons of men that are super nurturing and don't have what would be considered feminine features.

And what about gay men? Are they just not part of the equation?

But perhaps, I am missing the point. Is there some logic to this I am not getting? Superficial qualities have some role in how we behave?

via US News and World Report.

I noticed an item on Glossed Over last week about an article in Marie Claire called "Fembots: The New Breed of Women." The whole thing is posted on MSN now, and it's a doozy. Writes Theresa O'Rourke,

I came of age in the gut-spilling '90s, a time of Ally McBeal, "female bonding," Lilith Fair, and the explosion of the self-help section at Barnes & Noble. A decade has passed, but women still seem bent on suffocating themselves with an endless supply of self-indulgent hot air. We're due for a backlash, and I think it has arrived in the form of what I like to call the fembot: the cool, together, emotionally unavailable girl one cube over.

Um, didn't that stereotype "arrive" nearly a decade ago, in the form of Samantha, when Sex and the City first aired on HBO in 1998? She continues,

In 2007, fembotism is the next frontier in the great big gender divide. We can narrow the pay gap, outpace men earning degrees, helm a company, run the House of Representatives, choose to raise a child on our own, and match a man’s sexual appetite thrust for thrust. But there’s an unspoken disclaimer: We’d better not forsake our nurturing instinct while doing all of the above. Yeah, well, some of us are saying screw you to the fine print.

Hmmm... what sort woman might want to narrow the pay gap, advance women's educational opportunities, break through the glass ceiling, succeed in politics, raise her own children, and have lots of satisfying sex? I don't think "fembot" is the word we're looking for, here. Theresa, honey, it's "feminist." Say it with me now: "FEMINIST."

Problem is, she has to lump all the stupid "manhating bitch" stereotypes along with it, extending that "cold, disconnected" caricature of the young, modern woman well into strawman territory. I'm surprised she doesn't already have a book deal, because this sort of material makes people like Bill O'Reilly feel vindicated, and allows people like Laura Sessions Stepp to do more hand-wringing.

I know it doesn't make for clear-cut, black-and-white article, but most young women I know who possess a lot of these so-called "fembot" characteristics are in fact not afraid of intimacy, not disgusted by men, not self-absorbed. They fall in love and like to cuddle and sometimes cry at the movies. They just don't like flowers, Norah Jones, or traditional gender roles. And they don't feel a pressing need to get married.

Oh what a sad day when I found this piece of trash in my inbox today courtesy of reader Traci, found via CNN but originally in Oprah's mag. Oh Oprah, how could you do me like that?

More bad frenzy inducing advice on how to get through to your man. Gross.

"You're 100 percent correct"

It doesn't matter what you're arguing about -- he just wants to be right. This is his weakness; you can use it like judo, turning his own momentum against him.

Saying two little words, "You're right," is the verbal equivalent of darting a raging elephant with animal tranquilizers. It gives him what he wants, reducing tensions and leaving the way open for you to get what you want. Try it: "You're right, but I still want to go to the party."

Meet every protest and argument he makes, no matter how ridiculously false, with the observation that he is absolutely correct ... but you still want what you want. In boxing this is called rope-a-dope, and even if you don't know what the rope part means, the dope part sounds pretty applicable. This is called win-win -- except you did and he didn't.

No, wrong. That's right ladies, put to the side that you have a brain and just yes 'em to death. I think this is more insulting to men. Who wants to be some childish buffoon that needs to be right all the time? Grow the hell up. And who wants to date someone that is so insecure they need to feel reassured all the damn time?

The rest is equally amusing. I mean I know we Feministers know better. I am so disappointed with mainstream dating and courtship writing though. It seems to exist in a bubble. As though feminism happened everywhere, except behind closed doors.

Thoughts?

The New York Times has a piece today about how a number of typically male-played video games are now featuring options which allow them to "dress" their characters. And the boys are absolutely loving it.

Of course, this has to be cloaked in what some would call hypermasculine games like World Wrestling Entertainment and even the oh-so-controversial Grand Theft Auto. But nonetheless, it's nice to see men being portrayed in the media as fashion-conscious for a change.

This is pretty sweet. Concerned Women for America lashes out at Code Pink for not being demure and ladylike enough. How dare they wear pink, the color of quiet femininity, while aggressively demanding an end to the war?!

[Crouse] said Code Pink members "talk out of both sides of their mouths."

"They emphasize their femininity but advocate policies that are very aggressive and more often associated with men," she said.

Does CWA really think pro-peace positions have been historically associated with masculinity? Did I miss the part of the recent Republican debates when all the manly-man candidates were clamoring to assert their commitment to peace? I mean, sure, I'd love to see conservatives (and everyone, really) saying the peace is a strong and masculine goal to work towards. Don't see that happening any time soon, though.

"They cloak it all in a soft pink covering, when underneath they are hard as nails," [Crouse] said. "They advocate for the most radical of leftist positions," such as impeachment of the president.

Sounds like an awesome compliment.

via RightWingWatch, which notes that "Back in 1998, of course, Concerned Women for America called for the impeachment of President Clinton." Who's talking out of both sides of their mouth?

D.C.'s alt-weekly, the City Paper has a package of stories this week on street harassment. One, a catcall diary a woman kept for a year. Two, a very poorly-written essay by that same woman about how now she's a racist because of all the harassment she gets from Latino men. And three, a piece by some dude who was apparently totally unaware that your average woman experiences street harassment on a daily basis. It also has a companion video, in which exactly two people (a male harasser and a female harass-ee) are interviewed. Taken as a package, it's a real trainwreck. [Warning, massive post to follow.]

What I found most remarkable about the catcall diary is that she is careful to record what she's wearing when she's harassed on the street. While it's true that short skirts can sometimes bring a different type of harassment, I find that I get unwelcome attention even if I'm wearing dirty jeans and a bulky winter coat. But I suppose it's nice for those who don't regularly experience street harassment (i.e. men) to read and take note that a short skirt and low-cut top do not necessarily correlate with catcalls. (In fact, it seemed like the subtext of the diary was: Hey guys, this is what it's like to walk outside as a woman.) The male writer seems shocked by this. In his piece, he writes,

I am leaving the Chinatown Metro station when I see a blond woman standing well over 6 feet in platform heels. Her tight black dress hangs inches below her ass and drops deep in the front, exposing a good portion of breasts that are surprisingly large