Daniel Craig in Drag for International Women's Day

Yesterday was International Women's Day. In honor of that fact, Daniel Craig stood up both in drag and in his James Bond attire while statistics were read by Judi Dench about how the life of men and women in the UK are different. I know that these statistics are UK based, but unfortunately they apply very well to the U.S. as well.



Anyway, I am not a big James Bond fan so I was not on the Daniel Craig bandwagon until my friend showed me this video. Now I totally get it. Those legs! That feminist advocacy! *drool*

Gay Parenting Most Common in South

This article is very interesting and enlightening on a number of levels.

In addition, the data show, child rearing among same-sex couples is more common in the South than in any other region of the country, according to Gary Gates, a demographer at the University of California, Los Angeles. Gay couples in Southern states like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas are more likely to be raising children than their counterparts on the West Coast, in New York and in New England.

The pattern, identified by Mr. Gates, is also notable because the families in this region defy the stereotype of a mainstream gay America that is white, affluent, urban and living in the Northeast or on the West Coast.

“We’re starting to see that the gay community is very diverse,” said Bob Witeck, chief executive of Witeck-Combs Communications, which helped market the census to gay people. “We’re not all rich white guys.”

My first reaction is to hope that the fact that the South is home to the most gay parents will serve as a wake up call to residents of other states that consider themselves progressive but aren't forcing their state legislatures to make a real push for gay rights (I am looking at you, New York). What are your reactions? What stood out to you about these findings?

Children are people, too.

This post was prompted by a line in my post entitled "Toddlers are not grown women" in which I said:

I also believe that parents should play a role in helping their child make decisions and that they should view their child as a partner in this regard.

In the comment section of that post, Anonymous challenged my idea that children could or should ever be viewed as partners with their parents, suggesting that parents' roles in their children's lives should be that of "bosses" who make decisions for children because they are not capable of doing so on their own until adulthood (which I read to mean legal adulthood, suggested by this commenter in another comment that was not posted due to its tangential nature, to mean 18 years of age).

Anonymous said:

Raising kids by being their "friend" results in horrible, maladjusted kids with a lot of selfishness and problems.

First of all, nowhere in that post did I suggest that parents should act as their children's friends. I do not even suggest that children should be viewed as completely equal partners with their parents. All I meant to suggest was that children should be viewed as more than objects to be controlled by their parents. I'll expand on that idea here.

I'd like to clarify that I do not have any children. However, I have experienced a type of parenting that I would not want to replicate if I ever had the desire to raise children of my own. In the middle class, white American culture I grew up in, there is an overarching idea that children have little capacity for personhood. They are treated like objects or pets that should be, in essence, ruled over by parents who always know what was best for their children, without question. Children's opinions and desires do not matter because of their age. In effect, children are lesser people, if they can even be considered people at all.

I have a huge problem with conceptualizing children in the same manner as one might think of a pet. I do not believe this mindset is healthy for the parent or the child. It has the potential to create dependence in children that may make it difficult for them to take on "adult" responsibilities once they reach legal adulthood and it presents a way for parents to place on their children an unfair burden - the responsibility of making their parents feel useful. When the roles of parents and children change as children grow up, it cane be difficult on everyone.

I believe that this idea that children just are not capable of doing certain things is, largely, due to socialization. If parents treat children as if they are incapable of making any decisions at all (as opposed to only life-altering ones), children will not have to rise to the occasion and will fill their parents' low expectations. If parents expected more out of their children and viewed them as capable of doing more, I think a lot of people would be surprised by how much children are capable of.

I also want to stress my belief in parents' roles in helping oversee their children's decisions and helping them navigate the world while teaching and disciplining when necessary. However, allowing children appropriate amounts of control over aspects of their lives is important because no person, small or not, should be ruled by someone else who denies them the opporunity to exercise any amount of power over their lives.

This acknowledgement of a child's personhood throughout life (as opposed to waiting until a child reaches some arbitrary age) could easily create more independent children who are better equipped to handle "adult" situations and responsibilities without doubting themselves. Treating children as smaller people could also easily create within the minds of children reasonable expectations of respect. When they are not used to thinking of themselves of subjects under their parents' rule, it might be easier for them to fight for their rights and perhaps even those of others when they finally leave the nest.

You're a woman. Now make some babies!

This post was inspired by several posts over at Shakesville regarding the idea that women who choose to remain childless are selfish. I agree with the commentary at that blog, so I recommend you check it out.

The idea that deliberately childless women are selfish is a general theme when it comes to policing women in this society and smothering them with ideas of what other, more important people expect them to do with their lives as opposed to allowing them to make their own decisions without comment. When a woman, especially a married woman, chooses not to have children, it opens her up for all sorts of comments ranging from her being selfish to the idea that she must be very unhappy because she doesn't have kids.

And in this piece about men who really really want to be daddies, the wishes of men are added to the mix of reasons why women should feel terrible if they do not reproduce as society (and perhaps their husband) expects them to. (Trigger warning on that link for descriptions of reproductive coercion)

According to this piece, there are a growing number of men who desperately desire to be fathers, but are hitting roadblocks because the women they are with would rather do things like pursue careers, or they just plain aren't interested in being mothers. The disturbing part of it all is that it shows that some men want to be fathers so badly that they will pressure their wives into trying to get pregnant.

Take Neil, whose wife Fiona was made a partner at a PR company and does not feel ready to be a mother. Neil said:

"I'm putting pressure on her to stop taking the Pill and to leave the situation to fate," he admits. "I know it's a decision we've got to make together, but I don't want to be an old dad. A baby would make my world complete."

There is a sad but interesting point here. Evolving gender roles and opportunities have allowed more and more women to progress in careers that they may not be willing to give up right away to start a family. They have also allowed men to express their desire for fatherhood more openly. While that may seem like progress, where women used to be forced to follow husbands pursuing careers, they are still facing opposition to living the lives they want from husbands who are willing to coerce them into having children to fulfill their own desires.

It's great and all that men are coming around to the idea of fatherhood and that they don't have to be alienated from their feelings when it comes to wanting children. But women should also be allowed to be true to themselves, whether or not their visions for their futures include children. They shouldn't be ridiculed or looked down upon for not fitting into other people's expectations. All in all, women still lose.

I guess this whole motherhood/children thing has been on my mind lately because of the unsettling trend among girls I went to high school with of getting pregnant and married before they turn 23.

I'm relatively young, but I have known for most of my life, with much certainty, that I will never be a mother. Children tire me. I have never been able to stomach babysitting for more than a few hours at a stretch. Holding babies makes me anxious, and I have several memories of being a child and family members practically forcing me to hold a baby, a new member of the family, because why shouldn't I want to hold a cute little baby? The thought of being responsible for a human being, emotionally, financially, what have you, terrifies me.

When I've expressed these feelings to various people, generally my family, it has been said that I will change my mind once I grow older. You know, right about the time that this society will start expecting me to pop out some babies and fulfill my womanly duty of self-imposed motherhood.

Not to mention my type 1 Diabetes and the difficulties of managing the disease with another human growing inside me and the potential complications that could arise from that. Not to mention the obvious idea that me parenting a child that I did not want to be a parent to is the ultimate form of unfairness. Not to mention that with those things taken into consideration, I might sound like a good person who has made the right choice when it comes to bearing children.

But that's not what people will see when they look at me in a few years and ask if I have children. Or if I want them. All they'll see is the word "Selfish" stamped across my forehead. Unfortunately, as long as women continue to be necessary for creating babies and as long as we live in a society that believes that arbitrary expectations are more important than the desires of individual women, it's a brand that many of us will not be able to escape.

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to all the mother's out there!

Unfortunately, I can't even take my mom out for brunch! But I want to make sure she knows that I'm thinking of her.

I especially want to thank my mom because she has recently started selling Silpada Jewelry because of the work the company does with the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. I was diagnosed with type I (juvenile) diabetes when I was twelve, and my mom has always been a huge supporter of mine when it comes to me living a normal life despite my disease. Choosing to work with a company that is supporting research for diabetes is a small way to show that my mom really cares, and it means a lot to me.

Thanks, Mom, for one of the many ways you support me and show that you care. I hope you have a great Mother's Day.

Girls: All complicated and whiny and stuff

This piece from CNN was horribly upsetting. Here's a few quotes from it. You really should go read the whole thing, though. The author talks about why she couldn't stand the thought of having a daughter.

Even before I had sons, I worried about having a daughter. I could handle boys, with their cut-and-dried needs, but girls were so much more complicated. Girls have elaborate hairstyling requirements. They whine and mope, manipulate and triangulate. How was I going to deal with that?

and

I know not all girls are like this -- sugar and spice and Hannah Montana. My own niece provides a compelling dirt-under-her-fingernails counter example. Plus, I can choose not to expose my daughter to the pink princess world in the first place.

But having already had two children, I've learned that you can't control their hardwiring. If she wants to be a princess, that's what she'll be. I don't allow toy weapons in the house -- which just means that my boys blithely improvise sippy-cup shootouts and remote-control duels to the death.

via.

From Fortune 500 to the PTA

Yesterday I found this article in the Fashion & Style section of the New York Times website. I thought the placement of the article was a bit odd, so I began reading about men in Pelham Manor, New York, who are dealing with losing their jobs in a recession which is leaving more men unemployed than women.

In this intimate town of 5,500 in Westchester County, with a median household income of almost $137,000, the streets are lined with meticulously landscaped homes with an average value of almost $1 million. These days, though, for-sale signs are popping up all the time.

The article followed several men who had lost their high-paying jobs and are now spending more time with their children and doing more parenting. But throughout the article it was made clear that these men all seemed to have lived experiences of masculinity in which providing was the most important aspect of being a good man/husband/father.

Other research shows that men tend to get more depressed than women when they lose jobs, but in cases where people are laid off in waves, such as when an entire plant closes down, they often experience less angst than those who are laid off individually.

Of course, this particular article concerns men with a kind of monetary security that is not at all common for most families in this country, but what do you think about the recession and the implications of differing gender roles due to unemployment levels?

Little Victories

This post at Shakesville reminded me of a coversation I had with my friend the other day.

She just started working at a UCC church as a Minister for Children and Families. The UCC is one of the more liberal Christian denominations and there are several same-sex couples at her church.

She was telling me how on forms that go out to families, there are just two general blanks for filling in parent and guardian names, but on internal church spreadsheets, the categories were "mother" and "father." She felt awesome changing the headings to "parent 1" and "parent 2", even if she was the only one who saw it.

Little victories!

Family relations in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight

Note: There are spoilers in this post. If you don't want The Dark Knight ruined for you, don't read this. But you should have seen the movie by now, it's that good. Stop reading and go to the movie theater right now.

In Christopher Nolan's Batman series (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), family is incredibly important; the death of his parents is a driving motivation for Bruce Wayne to create Batman. However, Nolan constructs the father-son relationships as pinnacle, placing them as paramount to both Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordan.

Thomas Wayne-Bruce Wayne

In Batman Begins, there's a huge emphasis on the relationship between Thomas and Bruce Wayne. It is his father who rescues him from the cave, Thomas' business that Bruce inherits, and his father who he turns to in fear at the opera.


Martha Wayne is practically non-existent in the film; except for the scenes necessary to build up to her death (train to the opera, opera, in the alley), she's absent. I'm not even sure if they say her first name anywhere in the movie, but you can bet Thomas is mentioned by name.

Throughout the film, Bruce collapses "parents" with "father." Sure, Joe Chill killed both his parents, but the movie only establishes a relationship between Bruce and Thomas. Thomas and Bruce have conversations, while Martha's only line in the film is to scream when her husband is shot.


Indicatively, when someone wants to knowingly antagonize Bruce, they bring up his father. When Bruce confronts Carmine Falcone as a young man, Falcone intentionally demeans Thomas Wayne. Falcone says:

"Yeah, you got spirit, kid. I'll give you that. More than your old man, anyway. In the joint, Chill told me about the night he killed your parents. He said your father begged for mercy. Begged. Like a dog."

Ra's al Ghul follows a similiar pattern, using Thomas Wayne as an access point to Bruce Wayne's anger. During a training exercise, Ra's says:

Your parent's deaths were not your fault. It was your father's. (Bruce attacks Ra's) Anger does not change the fact that your father failed to act.

There's more references to Thomas thoughout the film (i.e. Rachel says Thomas would be disappointed in Bruce, or that Wayne Enterprises is going in a different direction than Thomas would have chosen, etc), but it's notable that while the death of both of Bruce's parents are used as character motivation, it is his father who recieves most of the attention in both Bruce's inner angst and external references.

Jim Gordon - James Gordon (son)

Here's another example of a father-son relationship highlighted while other familial relationships go ignored. In The Dark Knight, whenever we have a scene at Gordon's home, it involves him and his son. After Gordon comes out of hiding, his wife welcomes him home, however, he has a more moving scene with James.

The film establishes the father-son relationship as most important in a more explicit manner, though. When Harvey Dent kidnaps Gordon's family, he threatens to kill the person Gordon loves most, right in front of his eyes. As Dent moves his gun from Gordon's wife to daughter to son, Gordon yells out when Dent points the gun at James, causing Dent to assume Gordon loves his son more than his wife or daughter. Although James is eventually saved, his role at the end of the film re-establishes the prominence of father-son relationships to the Batman franchise.

What about mother-son, mother-daugther, or father-daughter relationships? Well frankly, there aren't very many to choose from.

There isn't much interaction between Martha and Bruce Wayne or Barbara and James Gordon. Until Gordon's whole family is held hostage by Harvey Dent, we don't see Gordon's daughter so there's virtually no father-daughter relationships at all. There are a few examples of mother-daughter relationships, however, they're very minimal and not generally as positive as the father-son connection.

In Batman Begins, Rachel's mother works at Wayne Manor and is present when Bruce falls in the bat cave and breaks his arm. As Thomas carries Bruce inside, she apologizes for any role her daughter may have played in the accident.

As for The Dark Knight, the only mother-daughter relationship exists between Det. Anna Ramirez and her hospitalized mother. In order to pay for hospital bills, Ramirez turns over police information to the mob. It's problematic enough to have one of the only WOC characters be corrupt, but it also casts a shadow over mother-daughter relationships in general because there's no evidence or examples of positive mother-daughter relationships.

So what does this mean? Well, it tells us that this Batman franchise is about men's relationships with other men. Not only are most of the characters in both films men, The Dark Knight is entirely about the trinity of Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent. Rachel Dawes is an important character, but mostly because of the tensions that arise between her and Bruce and her and Dent. She is essential, but only because her death sent Dent on his crazy killing spree. The father-son relationships act to highlight this theme, underscoring the ways the films characterize masculinity. We are told/shown how to be a man, but not how to be a woman.

It'll be interesting to see how man-to-man relationships will be used in future Batman films, but also how woman-to-woman or woman-to-man relationships are missing, lacking, or purely sexualized.

My Cutie-Smartie Kids

My posting has been kind of slow lately, mostly because I'm still getting used to my full time job. I'm a nanny for three kids: a ten year old boy, a nine year old girl, and a five year old girl. The job is both mentally and physically exhausting, but we have a good time together. And I've been taking little feminist mental notes.

One thing I've noticed during the last week was about nicknames. When I'm talking to the two girls, I sometimes address them as "cutie" or "beautiful." I don't call the boy by any name like that, and I've been wondering about the effect on them in the long term. I've decided to call them "smartie" instead of "cutie" or "beautiful."

What do you guys think about this? Do you think that nicknames make a difference in the long run? Do they teach girls to value looks as a defining characteristic? Or are they just sweet, simple names?

The Misogyny of Wage Gaps

Today is the 45th anniversary of the Equal Pay Act, which was passed by the late President Kennedy on June 10, 1963. Since then, we've come a long way, but persistent and blatant wage gaps continue to be an issue. I think that my fellow Impersonators, Lindsay and Amelia, have covered the basics far more eloquently than I am capable of without sounding repetitive.

Regardless, wage gaps are a part of a much larger phenomenon than simple misogyny in the workplace. Female work, even if it is the same work that a male can and does do, is consistently undervalued. If a woman does a man's work, she more likely to be underpaid and less likely to be promoted. If a woman does a woman's job—housekeeping, mothering, teaching—she is more likely to see exponential wage gaps, or no monetary compensation at all.

Take any traditionally female-dominated field and it is easy to see how much more undervalued and underpaid the work is compared to traditionally masculine fields. Even underpaid and overworked masculine careers like police officers and firefighters garner more respect than a maid, a nanny, or an elementary school teacher.

Nowhere is this more apparent than the case of the stay-at-home mother. I have nothing for respect for women, such as my mother, who choose to devote all of their waking hours to their children. Regardless, women in America often have to choose between a career and a family. Women that choose to stay home and raise children, arguably the most important job a person can do, labor unpaid to the tune of $117,000 per year. My parents had an ugly divorce when I was fairly young, and one of my father's complaints was that my mother used him as a "free meal ticket". My mother, under appreciated and overworked, labored day and night to raise me and my brother in the manner in which she felt was appropriate. How many other mothers are demeaned for their work? How many others are under-appreciated? Mothers are the backbone of our society, and yet, much scorn is heaped upon the woman who dares to stay home, raise the children and maintain the household, and occasionally shop or do things for herself.

For those that choose to work and have children, or are forced to as single parents or because of financial difficulties, the stereotypical "women's work", such as housekeeping and childcare, still falls disproportionately on our shoulders. This phenomenon was dubbed the "second shift" by Arlie Russell Hochschild in The Second Shift and The Time Bind, where she used peer-reviewed research to show that in two-career couples, men and women usually work equal hours but women still do a disproportional amount of housework.

Imagine the amount of work woman do to uphold this society that goes unappreciated, unpaid, or underpaid. A single mother chasing after her ex-husband for child support is regarded as greedy and should stay out of his wallet (another gem parroted by my father, even today). A single father that works and raises his children by himself is a saint, a real trooper. The double-standard is pervasive, especially when it couples with racism to form the myth of the welfare-queen: poor southern black women who have children for their own selfish gain.

I know that no amount of legislation such as the Fair Pay Act will ever amount to true fair pay unless the persistent devaluing of "women's work" utterly ceases. Our struggle to get paid the same amount for the same work is part of a larger struggle for women everywhere to do what needs doing—whether that is behind a desk, at the stove or both—and be able to support ourselves and our families.

Remember that when we discuss Fair Pay, we are really addressing the systematic and pervasive devaluation of anything a woman chooses to do for the simple fact that she is not a man.

(Cross-posted)

Let's Talk About Sex

No, seriously, we really need to.
In a great Alternet post last week, Joyce McFadden explored why American mothers refuse to have honest discussions about sex with their daughters and the consequences on their daughters’ lives and relationships.

“I think, as Americans, our fixation with the taboo of sexuality causes us to overlook its poetry and its greater meaning in our lives, and then we pass this limited view of sex onto our children.”

I am not a mother, so I can only speak from the daughter’s perspective, but I know my mother and I have never had a healthy discussion about sex. In fact, we’ve only had one. And I was nine. I grew up in a strictly Catholic household and went to 14 years of Catholic school (I’m eighteen), so, unsurprisingly, before college, I had never had an honest discussion about sex or sexuality (or even a sex ed class). In fourth grade, my mother told me the basics: sex was what made babies. No, it didn’t hurt. Yes, you were naked. And you never had sex until your married. And that’s all the information I ever got from her. The rest I learned from friends, eavesdropping, Cosmopolitan, and Judy Blume books.

There, I learned to focus on male pleasure, not my own. I learned that the purpose of sex was to have babies, not to create intimacy. I learned to hate abortion, but not how to put a condom on. I learned how to make my body look desirable, but not how to channel that desire.

And why not? Why couldn’t my mother have a healthy on-going discussion with me about sex? I don’t know, but like most women, it was probably a combination of embarrassment, lack of understanding about her own sexuality, and discomfort at viewing me as a sexual being.

But, this is wrong. With the lack of comprehensive sex ed in our schools, the media’s constant focus on a specific type of female sexuality, and the mess of messages from the religious right pervading both pulpits and political speeches, the mother-daughter or father-daughter discussion of sex needs to be honest and often. We need to set aside our embarrassment, as both parents and children, and learn to embrace discussion of sex and sexuality with each other. Talking about our embarrassments, misunderstandings, concerns, and confusion can only bring us closer.

Please let’s set aside the birds and the bees, let’s just talk about sex.

Daddy's Little Girl

On her show yesterday, Tyra Banks talked with women who wanted to be legal prostitutes in Nevada. One particular woman is Summer, an 18 year old wannabe porn star, and her father, who also happens to be her manager. Not only is her father her manager, he helps pick out her clothes, does her hair and gives her bikini waxes, all shown for Tyra's cameras.

He tells her, "Always make sure your make-up is right as you have to be every man's fantasy." Doesn't that imply that she has to be his fantasy as well?

The kicker is at the end of the clip, the father is dropping the daughter off at the brothel. She's crying and unsure of if she wants go and he's telling her, "The decision is made, this is what you want to do. I don’t want to sound unsympathetic but go in there and think happy thoughts." It's hard to not see the situation as coercive... I wonder growing up how much he pushed the idea on her growing up. Talk about the sexualization of children.

I'm so appalled at his behavior and I feel bad for the girl. I wonder if she wouldn't want to be a prostitute had he been a better influence in her life. Someone's going to have a lot of therapy bills, that's for sure.

And by the way, Tyra needs to get more upset about the fact that the father is practically forcing her to be a prostitute than that he's giving her bikini waxes (although that, too, is upsetting. Just focusing on what's a bigger violation).

Video at Jezebel and h/t to the F-Word.

Carl's Jr doesn't match up to my mom

Because eating right and exercising more means eating a bacon cheeseburger on a mechanical bull.

I don't really consider Carl's Jr. to be any sort of authority on a healthy lifestyle*. I do, however, listen to my mom about pretty much anything. You really want advice on living a healthy lifestyle? Check out my mom's blog for information on healthy eating habits that don't include mechanical bulls. She's got tips and recipes and all sorts of motherly goodness.




*When I use the phrase "healthy living," I mean eating your fruits and veggies, knowing what a portion of food really is, getting an adequate amount of exercise, washing behind your ears... Not an anorexic, workoutaholic, dirty-ears living.

Paternal Responsiblity

One in forty three infants in the United States were abused or neglected in 2006. Abuse includes beating, kicking, biting, burning, or shaking. Abandonment, maternal drug use, and failure to meet basic necessities, such as clothing, food, and housing, qualify as neglect.

Why is this number so high, especially when, “The findings do demonstrate a clear pattern of early neglect and physical abuse that is largely preventable.” ?

I believe part of the answer lies in the definition of neglect itself: maternal drug use. Why is maternal, and not paternal, drug use considered neglect? The implicit meaning in the exclusion of paternal drug use is that men are not as responsible for their own children, which is wrong. Women are not solely responsible for their children and pressuring them to feel so often leads to feelings of anger or resentment towards these children, the children often neglected or abused.

The abuse is preventable, but not by individual parents. Because parenting is often solely delegated to women and undervalued as actual, difficult work in society, mothers feel isolated. By fostering an atmosphere of equal responsibility between parents and creating a network of community between neighborhood parents, maybe, abuse will be lessened, maybe children will suffer less.