This Week in Blogs: August 2 - 8

My has this been an eventful week. On the good news, Judge Sotomayor was finally confirmed to be a justice on the Supreme Court. A definite piece of history. Then there were the misogynistic and racist shooting in Pittsburgh. Horrific. And the loss of one of my favorite 80s icons, John Hughes. Bloggers have been busy this week, reporting and analyzing this news as well as creating fantastic blog posts. Honestly, posts from everywhere this week were fantastic (not that they aren't always). I had a hard time choosing posts to feature here. The list is especially long this week, but these are some really great posts, so make sure to read through them! And leave links to what you have been writing and reading this week!

50 Books for Problematic Times - Deeply Problematic
There has also been some other great things going on at Deeply Problematic this week, so I suggest that you just go on over there and read through her posts. If I had to pick one to display here, I guess I would pick her feminist defense of Megan Fox. But seriously, just go over there

Movie Posters: A Bitch Flicks Verbal Beatdown - Bitch Flicks
Stephanie R looks at how women are represented in movie posters.

Am I a"good woman"? - Choice Campus Blog
Ellen asks what it means to be a "good woman" and why people can't just be "good people."

Girl Politics - Small Strokes
A new series examining why girls (and women) often "turn on" the most successful one of their peers.

The 20 Life-Changing Lessons in September's Cosmopolitan - Glossed Over
What you can learn from reading Cosmo.

Esquire Writer Explains It's Okay To Watch Chick Flicks - Jezebel
While I have objections to the term "chick flicks," do you think that men can enjoy them? Esquire and Jezebel do!

Race and the White Man - Womanist Musings
All about racism

Breastfeeding doll will lead to horny 5 year olds, pregnancy - Feministing
Because about caring for a baby can lead to 5 year olds having sex. Have these people ever played with a doll, that's what they're all about.

EWW! Is That Period Blood? - Jump Off the Bridge
About the creation and beauty that can come from menstrual blood.

Another magazine another photoshopped woman - Feministe
Self magazine photoshopped Kelly Clarkson to make her more skinny.

On Hollywood's Strong, Self-Hating Women - NPR
Strong business women in movies still hate themselves because they are unsuccessful in their love lives. Heaven forbid a woman succeed in business and be happy in her personal life.

Once more with feeling: Media Must Report Gender Motivation for Mass Shootings - WIMN's Voices
Some more on the misogynistic shooting in Pittsburgh.

Who's your favorite John Hughes heroine? - Salon Broadsheet
Pretty self-explanatory and and read through her posts.

Books for the Anti-Princess Girl-Feminist - Bitch Blogs
A list of children's books for the feminist-minded girls.

New Hosts for At the Movies - Another Couple of Guys - Women & Hollywood
Why is that movie critics are generally male? Women know stuff about movies too!

Pregnant Bodies in Away We Go

Today I finally went to see Away We Go. It was a great movie, both funny and touching, and not that predictable. Watch the trailer if you've missed out so far:



The movie is the story of Burt and Verona, who are 33 and about to have a baby. They go on a trip trying to find a "home" near friends or family. They go from Phoenix to Madison to Montreal to Miami, meeting up with hilarious characters along the way. Every place they see as some where they could live but then realize that the people they are visiting are just as messed up as they are.

One of the things that really struck me about the movie was the commentary (I believe it was purposeful) on pregnant women's bodies as public property. There were of course all of the people who felt that they had the right to touch Verona's stomach. And then there was the mother who pointed at Verona and asked her child: "what's that?" The child's response: "a baby!" (Not a woman, not a pregnant woman, just a baby as if her sole purpose in life was the serve as an incubator for this one child.) And the airline workers who stood around debating how far along Verona was. Verona was only six months, but the airline workers thought she was lying and was actually 8 months which means she wouldn't be able to fly. And it was completely appropriate to stand around discussing not only the woman's body, but her size and weight. Plus, the topic of parenting is always open for discussion with no real consideration of how the parents want to raise their children.

For pregnant women (I am NOT speaking from experience here), the world has open access to your body. Women's bodies and personal space are completely eradicated when there is a baby growing in there. In society, the baby/fetus is more important than the woman.

And then there was the hilarious charicature of a feminist women's studies professor played by Maggie Gylenhaal. While I a normally completely opposed to stereotypes of feminists portrayed in movies, this was different. Maggie Gylenhaal played a women's studies professor at U of Wisconsin Madison who breastfed her 3 year old (I'm estimating on the age), used a family bed shared with her husband/partner and their children, and did not believe in strollers ("why would you push your child away from you?"). She was the earth mother type of feminist.

Even though it was kind of a stereotype of a feminist, the way that it was handled was hilarious. Ending with Burt putting her 3-year-old in a stroller and running him around the house.

This movie was the perfect combination of humor, story line, with a smidge of social commentary about pregnancy (at least to me and I really hope that it was purposeful) and finding home in what is meaningful for you. It even kept me occupied enough to forget that I was hungry! If you haven't seen this movie already, I recommend that you see it if it is still playing near you or go out and rent it as soon as it is released on dvd!

The Romanticization of Secret Life

Has anyone else seen Secret Life of the American Teenager on ABC Family? I first got hooked on this show last summer while working at a camp. The teenage girls would sit in the lounge and watch this, so I started watching it with them.

In case you are unfamiliar, here is the basic plot. Amy is a 15 year old girl who gets pregnant at band camp (yes, that one time at band camp). She's surprised she's pregnant because she didn't even know she was having sex until after it happened (abstinence-only at work?). She's not interested in dating the father, Ricky, and instead starts dating good guy Ben (who wants to marry her). Ricky is involved (as in they have sex but aren't really in a relationship) with Adrian, who befriends Grace, the resident Christian virgin, who is dating Jack. Grace and Jack get into many disagreements about having sex. Amy's parents are getting divorced. So, that's a very broad overview. There's obviously a lot more that goes on, but I think this overview should help you understand this post and the problems that I have with the show a little better.

This is by no means a good show. I have a problem of getting weirdly addicted to bad television, which is why I watch this show, as bad as it is. And just because I watch it doesn't mean that I don't have problems with it. When I started watching it with those teenage girls at summer camp, I asked them why they liked it so much. Their response: "It's so realistic!" Whoa there!

Now, into the second season of Secret Life, Amy has had the baby (John), her mom is pregnant (and it's unclear if it's her husband's or her boyfriend's), Grace and Jack have had sex, Grace's dad died and she thinks it's because she had sex (don't even get me started on that one!), Ricky is becoming responsible, and Ben is still dying to have sex.

While I think it is great that ABC Family has a show about teen pregnancy, it is not a realistic representation of this situation for a lot of people. In the most recent episode that aired on Monday, July 20, Amy (who has by now had her baby, John) complains to her mom about not being able to go to Italy with her boyfriend, Ben, for the summer. She claims that she is an adult now solely because she has a baby and can make decisions for herself. Mind you, she is still 15 (almost 16), does not have a passport, wants to go without her baby but doesn't have anyone she trusts (she wants her mom to do it) to watch the baby. A. What 15 year olds parents are going to let them go to Italy for the summer with her boyfriend who is going to stay with family and B. I bet a lot of single, teen parents wish their biggest problem was not being able to go to Italy for the summer.

When the teen girls told me they liked the show because it was so realistic, I asked them how many of their friends or people they knew were pregnant and had boyfriends who they were dating for a month who have pledged their love and desperately wanted to marry them (to the point of trying to get fake ids to elope)? Their answer: none. So, how is this realistic? While I'm sure this is the reality for some people out there, I really think that this show is romanticizing teen pregnancy.

When you look at the differences between Secret Life and something like 16 and Pregnant on MTV, you can plainly see the romanticization that happens in Secret Life. In 16 and Pregnant, the struggles of the teens are very clear (even though I wish they would show a little more of after the baby was born, maybe they'll go back to the same teens in a later episode...). Some of them deal with absent fathers, economic struggles, non-supportive or controlling parents, and social ostracism.

While Secret Life does show some struggles that Amy goes through, recently she just seems to be concerned with her social life and John, her baby, falls through the cracks, at least in her mind. Amy is just coming off, at least to me, as whiny and ungrateful. Her parents, especially her mother, are supporting her immensely through this and trying to help her take responsibility, but she won't have any of it. In the first season she was mad because she didn't want to give the baby up for adoption (which is completely reasonable) but was expecting her mother to provide free day care while she went on with life as normal. In the second season, she is heartbroken that she can't go to Grace's dad's funeral because she can't find a babysitting not because she wants to honor and say goodbye to her father, but because everyone else is going to be there. Seriously?

I don't mean to negate any experiences that teen parents might go through, even those similar to what happens on Secret Life. Maybe I have no place saying any of this because I was not a teen parent. But just because I wasn't a teen parent, doesn't mean I can't at least have an opinion about the show. Has anyone else seen this show? What do you think about it?

When It Comes to Having Children

I am 22 years old. I have a long time before I, personally, will ever think realistically about having a baby. And right now, I don't know if I ever really want one. I know that this gives me a certain amount of privilege and bias. And these are my fears and feelings right now, when I am not mentally, emotionally, financially, etc. able to support a pregnancy and child, who knows what they will be when I get to the point in my life when I would consider having a child.

My aversion to bearing children has many roots. There is the fear of pregnancy itself. While I think it is realistic to say that I have had this fear since high school, it became very prominent in college during my anthropology class. In this class, my professor talked a lot about fetuses as parasites, which, while very extreme, really stuck with me. Of course, she had her own opinions about pregnancy, which were obviously very negative, but what she had to say about it really influenced me and spoke to me.

Then comes my fear of bringing another child into this world when a) the world is so messed up, b) there are so many children that already need loving homes, and c) I just don't know if I want to be a mother. Let's start with c. Right now, I don't know if I want to be responsible for another human being. I know that I might change my mind about being a mother as I get older or enter into a serious relationship, but right now, I can't really picture it.

Now, on to a. There are so many things wrong with the world right now, I don't want to be responsible for bringing a child into that. But one thing that I never really thought about, as the F Bomb pointed out, not having children can have benefits for the environment. Cameron Diaz has declared herself a "non-breeder" for the environment. This post points out, "one U.S. person is equal to 20 tons of CO2 per year and 24 acres of productive land." So not having children can really be considered an environmental act. So, just one more reason for me to be a "non-breeder" as well.

And now, finally to b. I think, when it comes time for me to think about children, that I will seriously consider adoption. There are many children in this country and around the world that need loving and supportive homes. This one is fairly simple. Adoption is a great alternative to bearing children.

And that brings us to society's perception of "non-breeder." As the Huffington Posts' article about Cameron Diaz' non-breeder status points out, while there is progress being made, people still think there is something wrong with people who consciously decide to be non-breeders.

While there was plenty of support for non-breeders, there were the inevitable comments like "isn't [it] natural for women to have children?" and "as women we are or should be born with a natural instinct to have children"...
...It's a shame, for both our planet and reluctant potential parents, that too many people still see having children as something we all should do, or should at least want. When UK journalist Polly Vernon wrote an editorial about not wanting kids, she discovered that "voluntary childlessness is an unacceptable crime to cop to" and she was "denounced as bitter, selfish, un-sisterly, unnatural, evil"...
...Recent research shows that a childless status could even hurt the careers of childless women. Lancaster University professor Dr. Caroline Gatrell found that some employers see female staff who don't want children as lacking "essential humanity".

Throughout the article, there are many examples of the prejudice against non-breeders. Because I am only 22, I have not run into this prejudice too much, but I anticipate it. Even without a lot of this prejudice, I still feel like sometimes I am missing the "mom gene." But I guess I'll just have to get used to that.

*Note: In no way am I diminishing that amazing-ness of mothers. I think mothers take a lot of crap from society and from fellow feminists, which is not cool. Everyone has a mother and wouldn't be where they are now without their mother's influence (or lack of influence). Because I do not have children, it is not my place to talk of what mothers go through, because I do not know. This post is simply about my opinions about my body, my life, and my decision to have or not have children. In no way am I saying how other people should or should not feel about their decisions about child bearing.

This Week in Blogs: July 5 - July 11

This week has been kind of crazy for me, which means that time to work on the blog has been given a lower priority to some of the others things that I have to do. But hopefully this will be a relaxing Sunday and I will have some time to work on blog posts.

Here are some blog posts that I found interesting this week:

• Sarah Seltzer at RH Reality Check compares the racism of the burqa ban to the patriarchal standards of beauty in the United States.

• How do you describe you personal and political attitudes towards abortion? Are you pro-choice? pro-life? anti-choice? pro-abortion? RMJ at Deeply Problematic explores her view being pro-abortion.

• Lizz at Choices Campus Blog looks at how jokes about rape add to a culture where rape is not taken seriously.

• Jill at Feministe qualifies what is necessary in a feminist urban policy.

• There has been a lot of news over Palin resigning. Jordan at Equal Writes examines her resignation a little further.

• Jessica at the Frisky asks: could you date a guy who wasn't a feminist?

• Amy at Pregnant Pause looks at two tv shows that represent teen pregnancy: The Secret Life of the American Teenager and 16 and Pregnant.

• Even though this isn't a feminist blog, I thought I would include this one. Entertainment Weekly examines the role women play in gangster movies.

• Dave Zirin for The Nation further explores the sexism present at Wimbledon.

What were some of your favorite blog posts that you wrote or read this week? Leave some recommendations of blogs and blog posts in the comments.

Maternal Health in the G8

From the Huffington Post comes an article about international women calling on the G8 to "make their mothers proud" and support maternal health. Their strategy to gain awareness the day before the G8: full page advertisements in the G8 countries picturing the G8 leaders and their mothers.

The women involved in this campaign are Naomi Campbell, Claudia Schiffer, Emma Thompson, Gweneth Paltrow, Yoko Ono, Wendi Murdoch, Christiane Amanpour, Annie Lennox, and JK Rowling. The Huffington Post article has some great quotes from these women about why maternal health is such an important cause.

Yoko Ono said:
"Families, communities, and whole societies, are built on the mother-child relationship. There are simple actions that G8 leaders can take to support this most vital human bond, with massive benefit across the world."

Gwyneth Paltrow said:
"It is one of the great scandals facing our generation. While we are worrying about rising taxes, there are women dying in childbirth for the lack of a sutre-stitching kit which costs a couple of pounds. It's simply no longer acceptable that we ignore this disgrace."

Maternal mortality has been ignored for too long by the world's leaders. Many countries and organizations pledge to make strides in decreasing maternal mortality, but little improvement is being seen.

In Japan in 2008 G8 leaders did pledge to fill the gap in funding for 4 million health workers. However mechanisms and funding to support this promise have not yet been developed, which has meant that since the last G8 536,000 mothers who could have lived, have died (according to WHO/UNFPA/UNICEF/World Bank)...
...Millennium Development Goal 5 is the goal to reduce maternal mortality by 75% by 2015. Yet it is the most neglected of all the MDGs, with no reduction in deaths for 20 years.

I think it is wonderful that these women are taking the initiative to urge the G8 to remedy this situation. The sad reality of the world today is that it sometimes takes a push from famous, powerful people for these kinds of issues to be addressed by governments and organizations. With the G8 Summit just around the corner, it is even more important to do whatever we can to show that maternal mortality is a big deal.

Women as Incubators is Their "Sacred Birthright"

Sociological Images has a great post about pregnancy test commercials. The commercial in reference is for First Response pregnancy tests where the pregnant woman's head is chopped out of the screen, demonstrating the belief that women are only as useful as their ability to procreate. This woman does not have an identity. Her only purpose is the serve as an incubator for a fetus/baby. (Sociological Images did not have a video, only screen shots of the commercial)

The voice over of the commercial reads:

The moment we pass from womanhood to motherhood, we cross a threshold. For many of us, that step is filled with wish and worry, hope and how, wonder and when. Fertility is a woman’s most sacred birthright. For over twenty years, First Response has been there, helping women answer the most important questions of their lives. Now we bring you new help: the First Response fertility test for women.

The post on Sociological Images has some great commentary on this commercial. By stating that "fertility is a woman's most sacred birthright," First Response is again showing that a woman's only purpose in life is to be a baby incubator. Ryan on Sociological Images so rightly points out,

Strangely, I never see Viagra commercials arguing that knocking people up is a man’s most sacred birthright.

Also, by separating womanhood from motherhood, First Response places motherhood on a higher plane than womanhood, again promoting valuing a woman solely for her reproductive capabilities.

…”womanhood” and “motherhood” are presented as two separate things, with motherhood trumping womanhood. I’m assuming this is partly because a woman is not allowed to have a sex drive after she becomes a mother, and we all know that a woman without a sex drive is the higher form of woman.

Also, if you notice in the screen shot that the woman has a ring on, placing "normal" sex solely within a marriage. Unmarried women who get pregnant are whores because it is only a "sacred birthright" within a marriage.

Pregnancy tests make their money off of portraying women as incubators, not just in this First Response commercial, but in others as well. They strive to show motherhood as something special, sacred, and unique but just end up showing women that who they are doesn't matter as long as they have children (within marriage).

In addition, women who choose not to or cannot have children are seen as lesser than. Since motherhood is the ultimate goal and women's "sacred birthright", women who do not have children are obviously not real women.

Before reading the post about this commercial on Sociological Images, I had seen it on Hulu. It had bothered me when I had seen it, but this post helped me to better understand what exactly was bothering me. To contact First Response about this ad, go here. To contact Hulu about their airing of the commercial, click here.

The Implications of "16 and Pregnant"

I'm not normally a huge fan of reality shows on MTV, I find them pointless and vapid. So when I was strolling through channels and came across their new show "16 and Pregnant," I just kept going because I expected it to just be another shallow show. But when I saw this blog post, I became more interested in it. Right now I've seen 2 out of the 3 shows that have aired.

The show is actually pretty decent. It doesn't romanticize teen pregnancy too much (like shows like "The Secret Life of the American Teenager"). "16 and Pregnant" shows many of the struggles that teenagers go through when they are pregnant. MTV has even created a partner website for the show called It's Your Sex Life (IYSL). While not complete, this website has some good information on how to talk with your partner about sex, staying protected, and getting tested.

"16 and Pregnant" (at least the 2 episodes I've seen of it) have dealt with the reactions of friends when they found out the girl was pregnant, father's of the baby not pulling their weight, absent fathers, trying to make ends meet, attempting to continue education when they have a newborn baby, and so on. However, in each of these two episodes, the parents of the girl (and the guy in the episode where the guy is involved) are supportive and help the teenagers through. This is great! But definitely not the reality for many teen parents.

The show is about teens who have decided to keep and raise their children. There is barely any discussion of the other options that people facing unwanted pregnancy have: abortion and adoption. Many teenagers who get pregnant struggle with these options and making this decision. While I think that it is fine if the show focuses on girls who have decided to keep and raise their children, it is also important to show how and why they came to this decision. By not showing the discussion of other options, it is sending the message that raising your child yourself is the only socially acceptable option.

I can kind of understand not highlighting teens who choose abortion, just because it is such a political issue and they need to keep their audience and advertisers (I didn't say it was a good reason, I just said I kind of understand it). But adoption can be a very traumatic and emotionally stressful experience. I think the show and its audience would greatly benefit from showing the adoption process and what it puts the parents through. This will show the reality for many teen parents and help people who are in this situation with their decisions about their pregnancy.

While I think this show is a great idea and does a good job at showing the reality of teen pregnancy and parenthood when you decide to raise your child, it is not the reality for many teens you get pregnant. It is important to show all of the realities so as to not discriminate against any decisions concerning teen pregnancy. But I am going to keep watching because it is an interesting show.