gender discrimination

King Kong Theory: A Manifesto For Women Who Can’t Or Won’t Obey The Rules

admin — Sat, 08 May 2010 16:01:00 +0000

King Kong Theory is most easily my favourite read so far this year; it packs a punch and voices everything I feel about our oppressive patriarchal society. This work is completely free of any hesitation to say what is really going on in the Western world today. Virginie Despentes blew me away with her fresh and honest analysis of what women (and men) struggle within their half-baked, destructive gender roles. She uses research combined with her own gritty experiences to prove her points (of which there are many): silence rots and speaking heals, men exist and women are the negative to the male positive, and what we (both men and women) really feel and need have been smothered by glossy mainstream duct tape.

Yes, this slim tome covers the King Kong story. Despentes points out that the beast has no sex/gender, and is in fact, asexual. He gets along with the beauty, but in the end, he is killed off (nothing but heterosexual relationships here, so bye-bye King Kong!). Poor beauty, like so many other women out there, she is forced to leave the security of King Kong and go back to the dissatisfying and unsafe patriarchal realm.

Currently stuck in a broken system that benefits nobody (do rich white men count?) is angering. I’d forgotten how angry I am that I’m a sole supporting parent (the result of forced sex) without family support (the male predator is always right, so they, like society, stand by him), but King Kong furiously reminded me of how I’ve buried it over the years as yet another maladaptive coping mechanism. Violence against women and children today remains mainly unspoken.

King Kong Theory is not for those in denial or the fainthearted or the apologists; it’s for real men and women who want to change the landscape of power or who simply want to be included, validated as self-actualising individuals with agency. There are many people out there who have been silenced and have similar stories. Unfortunately, as Despentes notes, feminism represents more than just women; it represents a whole system of injustice that rests on gender differences.

This is a book I believe every woman and man should read, even if it means buying, borrowing, or begging for it. If Despentes' provocative films are anything to go by, a prospective reader can expect a powerful polemic that intends to shake up the female and male consciousness, and forces one to recast a blade-sharp view on the continuum of gendered violence permeating in society.

Written by: Nicolette Westfall, May 8th 2010

Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives

admin — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 00:00:00 +0000

By Rebecca J. Cook, Simone Cusack

University of Pennsylvania Press

Gender stereotypes are often studies in contradiction. They can be insidious or glaringly apparent; they are hostile, and occasionally operate out of “benign” sexism. The customs and mores of the society, the media that is consumed in that society, the predominant religion of a culture, and the family unit can all commingle in order to perpetuate gender stereotypes. Of course, a society's operative legal system can do this as well, which can do the most harm of all since the weight of law enforces entrenched gender stereotypes, often resulting in gender discrimination.

Women are most often burdened by the practice of stereotyping, since stereotyping is used to justify the subordination of women to men. Gender Stereotyping: Transnational Legal Perspectives is an academic book that analyzes the worldwide practice of gender stereotyping and discrimination through the framework of the 1979 United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), with an additional focus on the obligations of the law and state to avoid stereotyping and discrimination with the force of law.

Authors Rebecca J. Cook and Simone Cusack focus on both men and women in their study of stereotyping, and illustrate their points through international court cases in which gender stereotyping affected the verdict. While women are often the injured party, Cook and Cusack point out that harmful stereotypes about men can harm women as well, and vice versa. Stereotypes about men and women in fact are mutually reinforcing and end up as self-fulfilling prophecies. The solution to ridding society, media, law, and culture of stereotyping, the authors note, is by a process of Identification/Naming/Elimination/Remedy. It is necessary to both point to and give a name to the operative stereotype before it can be erased, and before reparations can be made to the injured party.

CEDAW and the protocols issued for the adoption of its ratifying countries are the focus for the book, but scant information is provided about the Convention itself. It is not indicated what countries and governments adopted its platform (presumably member nations of the U.N.), who was on the committee to draft its proposals, and who exactly is enforcing it outside of a nebulous “Women's Committee.” The governments targeted by CEDAW are referred to as “States Parties,” a term which is never clearly defined; from inference, I gathered that it is a combination of government, courts, and human rights treaties bodies. Furthermore, since several countries (Niger, Malaysia, and Israel are noted) have formally expressed reservations about several of CEDAW's articles for religious reasons, one wonders why they agreed to adopt CEDAW at all. CEDAW apparently also does not have the force of law behind it. Offending governments will be issued reports and recommendations, but there appears to be little impetus to follow CEDAW's instruction.

These are critiques of CEDAW, but several critiques may be noted about the book as well. The authors focus on only a handful of international cases that fall under CEDAW's jurisdiction, and no dates are given for any of these cases. Knowing the date might have provided an insight into sex and gender attitudes of the time. Furthermore, numerous commentators and scholars are quoted, but not named or sourced until the bibliography. Certain terms are used, but not defined (the most egregious being the “woman question.”) There are also far too many hypothetical “for examples,” especially for a book that deals in hard legal facts. The tone is dry and academic, but it is free of the subjectivity and injection of hyperbolic personal opinion that can accompany many feminist-related texts.

On the whole, though Gender Stereotyping handles its subject matter fairly well, it is not a terribly interesting read except perhaps to policy wonks and the legally-minded. It's always appreciated when subjects such as these are brought to the forefront for analysis, but I am not sure for what target audience the authors intended it.

Written by: Natalie Ballard, March 30th 2010

Science on the Home Front: American Women Scientists in World War II

admin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 01:00:00 +0000

By Jordynn Jack

University of Illinois Press

Science on the Home Front is an introduction to the lives and tasks of specific women scientists involved in the war effort, from Marie Curie to Margaret Mead. These women come from a variety of backgrounds and pursuits in science. A professor, Jack focuses on the fields of psychology, anthropology, physics and nutrition to elaborate on the women involved who played a specific role in the war. By delineating aspects of these scientists, the author demonstrates the subordination of the women who performed important roles in the war. The range of responsibility spans years and experiences. Jack's main objective in developing this book holds true to be a study of the rhetoric involved regarding feminist rhetoric as well as scientific rhetoric, and she argues that the culture of science is what held women back in their roles played in the war.

To appreciate this book, one must be willing to make time to read it; its academic sense assumes the reader is both interested in science and in the concept of rhetoric as it pertains to both the science field and the feminist field. As a book, Science on the Home Front requires a decent amount of science; however, the author takes the time to elaborate on definition and overall goal of her book. In her introduction, she clarifies each chapter for the reader; each chapter focuses on one or two female scientists in that specific field. To create an overall sense of that specific scientist in several ways, Jack examines studies of that scientist, tracks certain exchanges with superiors, details journal entries, and surmises what that scientist brought to the public through writings and other research. In presenting this information, Jack demonstrates an overall image of each scientist. Taking her research another step further, Jack discusses the rhetoric of each field, and places this into each chapter to prove her point that the regendering of science is clearly necessary for women in all fields of science.

Utterly straightforward, Science on the Home Front explores the rhetorical factors of subordination with a smattering of women who made a difference in the science world, specifically during WWII. Language remains a very large obstacle to women "getting ahead" in the sciences. Ongoing questions exist: How do we reorganize and strategize around the feminism in the sciences as well as the gender of scientific language? By investigating the rhetoric about women in science, we come up with some answers; in conclusion, Jack makes steps toward "'regendering' scientific institutions" to make these scientific institutions more acceptable toward women, and overall, in any scientific field. Including notes on each chapter and over ten pages of bibliography, Jack gives a nice amount of substance to further research. Present and future studies must continue in order to make a concrete step toward the integration of women into the sciences at a more equal pace.

With this book in hand, further research may be done to pursue individual female scientists' work; however, this volume offers a great starting point to introduce the many women who impacted World War II in the scientific field.

Written by: Carolyn Espe, January 28th 2010

Elizabeth Cady Stanton: An American Life

admin — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 01:00:00 +0000

By Lori D. Ginzberg

Hill and Wang

Anyone who has ever been interested in the history of feminism knows of Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton. As author Lori D. Ginzberg notes, much of the focus has shifted towards Anthony, leaving few to know about Stanton. However, it was Stanton who took center stage during their time through her writings and raising controversy.

As a child, Stanton experienced the inequality between men and women, personified in a comment by her father: “If only you were a boy.” Judge Daniel Cady was a traditionalist; however, he recognized his young daughter's affinity to law (thus his disappointment that she was not a man). Stanton was not one to be confined by gender: she studied her father's law books and held intense discussions with law students.

Stanton first became interested in feminism through her husband, Henry Brewster Stanton, an outspoken and prominent abolitionist. During a conference in London, Elizabeth Cady Stanton met other female abolitionists who also believed in the fight for gender equality. However, Stanton and her husband would never see eye to eye on this issue. As she overshadowed him, their relationship became more distant. Even with seven children, Stanton raised hell and shook up society's notion about women's rights.

Ginzberg provides an excellent biography of Stanton, listing both the positive and negative aspects of Stanton's life. In areas where information was sparse (due to Stanton's children “editing” their mother's correspondences), Ginzberg did an excellent job filling in the gaps. As for Stanton and Anthony's famous partnership, Ginzberg covers their highs and lows, as well as many of difficulties the two faced in their journey together. As an additional bonus, photos throughout Stanton's life are put in a special section. Not only is this a comprehensive biography, but it truly captures all of Stanton's little quirks.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, December 27th 2009

Patsy Mink: Ahead of the Majority

admin — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 23:13:00 +0000

Directed by Kimberlee Bassford

Making Waves Films

As the title indicates, Patsy Mink is the story of a woman of the same name, the first Asian American woman and the first woman of color elected to the U.S. Congress. If her story began and ended there, Mink’s life would have been important enough to have made history. Fortunately for every woman who lives in the world she transformed, Patsy Mink’s story and her life were far greater than that.

Born in Maui, Hawaii in 1927, Mink faced a world where opportunities for people who shared her race and gender were all but nonexistent. During World War II, Mink, a third generation Japanese American, witnessed the internment of her fellow Japanese Americans, faced tremendous wartime discrimination, and watched in horror as her father burned his final connections to Japan and his father. While attending the University of Nebraska, Mink was assigned to the international dorm due to the university’s longstanding segregation policy, and Mink’s 1947 protest of that policy led to its abolition the next year. Denied entry to medical school due to her gender, Mink went on to law school only to be unable to find a job post-graduation, once again due to her race and gender.

Denied a job, Mink went into politics, where she would change the rules that had once prevented her and countless other women from entering medical school and finding a job in the legal profession. Amongst a long list of achievements, Mink's co-authorship of Title IX (now renamed as the Patsy T. Mink Equal Opportunity in Education Act) and authorship of the Women's Educational Equity Act made it possible for generations of women to play sports, attend college and graduate school, work in traditionally male professions, and otherwise move beyond the traditional roles assigned our gender.

At a mere fifty-six minutes, the film named after Mink is filled with stories of accomplishments and obstacles, the former greatly outweighing the latter. Comprised of archival footage, interviews with both friends and foes, and the words of Mink herself, Patsy Mink is a fitting tribute to a woman who chose to be a participant in history, not merely a witness to it. It is well organized and interesting and carefully places Mink’s life within its personal and historic context. The only real problem is that it is far too short, and therefore, offers only cursory coverage of issues that surely deserved more detailed examination. But there are worse things to be said about a documentary than that it leaves you wanting more.

Written by: Melinda Barton, August 5th 2009

Shooting Women

admin — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:37:00 +0000

Directed by Alexis Krasilovsky

Women Make Movies

Award-winning Director of Photography Joan Hutton says that when she was starting out in the film industry she received absolutely no help from anyone. Even after she’d built up a substantial résumé of work experience and won prestigious awards she continued to experience discrimination. A directing position that she’d interviewed for was once given to a lesser-experienced young male who’d only been out of film school for three years. But her theory on why she’d been passed over is not tinged with one ounce of bitterness: “You know, sometimes guys are happier working with guys.”

In-your-face hostility and physical harassment are other pitfalls that an earlier generation of female directors had to endure while carving out a path for future generations of women. American cinematographer Stanley Cortez once blocked the entrance of the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers building when a female cinematographer tried to enter. Angrily, he warned: “You don’t belong here!”

Kirsten Glover, who started out as a camera assistant on the Arnold Schwarzenegger documentary Pumping Iron recalls all of the “not funny” sexual harassment she tolerated on the set. She says that sexual harassment was not a major issue at that time even though the continual harassment greatly upset her and interfered with her work.

For women of color in the film industry there was always the dual gender/racial bias to deal with. Yet Black women filmmaking veterans such as Jessie Maple Patton never allowed gender or racial bias to stop them. They simply worked harder. Patton said that both the television stations and the union offered up plenty of excuses to avoid hiring her and when she was hired she knew: “They were gonna test me.”

For many of the women featured in the documentary Shooting Women, opportunities for career advancement was offered by enlightened male producers or pioneering organizations, such as Behind the Lens. The film business is a personal one, and securing important contacts through networking and organizational affiliation can open doors that had previously been closed. It’s interesting to note that many of the women film directors featured in this documentary are married to very emotionally supportive men. It leaves one wondering what may have happened to the women who had not received spousal support while pursuing film careers.

If I were raising a daughter, I’d want her to be as fearless and passionate about her career choice as are the women in this documentary.

Written by: Rachelle Nones, July 23rd 2009

Gender Violence in Russia: The Politics of Feminist Intervention

admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:05:00 +0000

By Janet Elise Johnson

Indiana University Press

In periods of rapid social change, the poets of one ideological system or another rush to find the cogent metaphor or, more recently, the winning soundbite, that will interpret the change to suit their own ends, to control meaning. To find and sell the right descriptive phrase is to raise the flag of possession over a historical event. For example, the collapse of the Soviet Union—or, even more stridently, the U.S. victory in the Cold War—spins the end of the 1980s, the end of history, as some proclaimed it, as a triumph of righteousness, rendered even more morally spectacular by the supposed “coldness” of the conflict, and the ushering in of a new world order. That’s why a book like Janet Johnson’s Gender Violence in Russia is so badly needed.

The book lacks the poetry of impassioned argument, and it is heavy with charts and appendices and social science-y apparatus, but it makes a couple of very painful and crucial observations. One is that the end of the “evil empire” actually made social conditions for Russian women considerably worse. The incidence of violence against women demonstrably worsened as official attitudes, in spite of increasing international pressure, actually resulted in changing criminal codes to the detriment of women’s rights. Trafficking in women, rape, sexual harassment, domestic violence all got worse in the 1990s, and the Russian government relied on age-old sexist lies to justify their apathy.

A different sort of ideological poetry, one also confronted painfully in this book, is the emergence of global feminism in the 1990s. The movement is inscribed in the U.N. Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women (1993) and in the Beijing Declaration on Women (1995) and in a new level of worldwide feminist activism aiming to confront injustice and make the world see that women’s rights are human rights. As if the pronouncement the other day by a Saudi judge justifying “slapping a spendthrift wife” weren’t warning enough, the very mixed picture of the women’s rights movement in Russia should warn us against triumphant rhetoric concerning the record of global feminist intervention. Clearly there has been a powerful “push-back,” not only from the old guardians of patriarchy but from those identifying global human rights movements as forms of neocolonialist western interference that must be resisted.

The conclusion Johnson’s study reaches is a rather dreary one: that what really works, in terms of feminist intervention, are “alliances between global feminists and large donors.” Money talks, apparently; or rather its use in creating organizations for women’s advocacy is the best agent for social change. What Johnson calls “flexible and responsive funding” is the key, targeting funds where they are most needed and can do the most good to protect women and to begin to change cultures of violence which have proven fearfully resistant to change.

Written by: Rick Taylor, July 2nd 2009

No Girls in the Clubhouse: The Exclusion of Women from Baseball

admin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 16:40:00 +0000

By Marilyn Cohen

MacFarland & Company

The premise of No Girls in the Clubhouse is that baseball could be successfully gender-integrated at all levels with no disadvantage to either side, but social expectations—not biological deficiency—exclude women from full participation in the sport. Feminists won't be surprised to learn how, in anthropologist Marilyn Cohen's analysis, the historical achievements of female baseball players have been obscured. Cohen writes that harassment, stereotyping, and social isolation have pressured women to stay out of baseball, while stigmatizing those women who do play. It is an old story, repeated in every designated male realm women have dared to enter.

Yet it is heartening to see this story told by a scholar as sharp as Cohen, and to find that the book's premise—intuitively felt by radical feminists—has the support of history and baseball professionals. No less than Hank Aaron, quoted by Cohen, asserts, "there is no logical reason why [women] shouldn't play baseball," a game that relies on timing and coordination, not pure physical strength.

Part I of the book tackles the history of female professional baseball players. These include Jackie Mitchell, who struck out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game; Toni Stone, Mamie Johnson, and Connie Morgan, who played major league baseball in the Negro American League (NAL); and Julie Croteau, the first woman to coach men's college baseball, who played on a winter league team. Cohen also devotes a chapter to the WWII-era All-American Girls Professional Baseball League (AAGPBL)—popularly known from the film A League of Their Own—as well as a chapter to the barnstorming Bloomer Girl teams of the decades before. These working-class teams, usually all-female except for male pitchers and catchers, played against male teams. Cohen cites male supporters of female baseball, like promoter Bob Hope (not the comedian), who in the '80s and '90s attempted to field an all-female minor league team that would play in the men's leagues.

Rather than chronicling an alternative herstory, the book's goal is to analyze the social world of female players—relationships to teammates, coaches, fans, opponents, and the media—and the construction of gender identity. Cohen is sensitive to race and class as well, factors that allowed some women to play while excluding others. The all-white AAGPBL did draft fair-skinned Latinas, but ignored black prospects like Stone, Johnson, and Morgan. Racial integration temporarily opened doors to these women, as black male players signed with Major League Baseball, and Negro American League teams sought new ticket draws. But both the AAGPBL and the NAL folded in the '50s, effectively closing professional baseball for women—the unfortunate outcome of dividing marginalized groups.

Part II is devoted to amateur baseball, inextricably linked to professional, as Cohen shows. Today, Little League teams are often gender-mixed—legally required by Title IX—but with puberty girls meet social pressure to switch to softball. Differences in field dimensions, ball size, and pitching mean that softball demands different skills. The result is that young women who want professional careers, groomed as softball players in their formative years, are disadvantaged beside young men who have had five to ten more years playing baseball. This deficit in skill-development, Cohen writes, accounts for a lack of qualified professional female baseball players. With the same training, some women surely could play co-ed baseball at every level—a provocative suggestion in a book well-worth reading.

Written by: Charlotte Malerich, June 8th 2009

No Country for Young Girls

admin — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:26:00 +0000

Directed by Nupur Basu

Life on the Edge

No Country for Young Girls is a twenty-five minute question posed to India: "How can this country move forward while there is still profound gender discrimination against females?"

Director Nupur Basu introduces twenty-seven-year-old Vyjanthi, a mother of a three-year-old daughter. When she becomes pregnant with another girl, her husband and in-laws pressure her to an abortion. She flees to her parents’ house to weigh her options. Should she leave her husband and raise her daughters on her own? Or should she go back to her husband and accept that India is not a country fit for a mother to raise daughters?

Vyjanthi begins a journey to explore her country, its cultural and religious history, and what other Indian women who live in different regions of India have to say about her dilemma.

No Country for Young Girls is a startling contemporary view of the oldest prejudice in existence: boys more valued and valuable than girls. While sex-selective abortion is illegal in India, the numbers do not lie. In some regions of the country, there are a far greater number of boys than girls being born. The prevalent practice of selective abortion is leading to an imbalance of boys and girls living in India and, many predict, is heading for an unknown but monumental crisis. Girls’ worth is measured in the form of dowries, and infanticide reinforces that gender discrimination is still very much alive in all parts of India.

Vyjanthi takes her story of in-law harassment and unfairness to strangers in faraway corners of her country and finds she is not alone. She meets women in high executive positions, other mothers, regular citizens in discos and informal meetings. All of them raise different points, but all of them agree that India is still outdated in their thinking about gender. No Country for Young Girls asks many important questions, almost too many for such a brief film, that have no resolution or finality.

While the short film is not as engaging as one would hope and the journey for Vyjanthi seems a bit contrived for the sake of making a short film, the issues raised are still very much worth exploring and the reality of gender oppression in present-day India, and this film lays the issues bare for the world to see and debate.

Written by: Lisa Factora-Borchers, April 11th 2009