I thought a reading at the Bowery Poetry Club this Saturday would be the perfect way to kill a dreary afternoon that might otherwise have been wasted on perfunctory holiday shopping. I should say that although I love hearing authors speak — one of the best jobs I ever had was at an independent book shop where everyone from George Saunders to Jane Smiley did time at the lectern — I don't often go to poetry readings, because I am not any great lover of poetry. I dislike poetry both academically and personally. A long and tedious college course with a professor who was more interested in testing us on the differences between metonymy and synecdoche (still unmastered by me, alas) left a rift between myself and most of French poetry, pre-Ponge. And I remain fundamentally very suspicious of any class of writer that considers a day when you come up with five lines to be the blistering height of productivity. I like a bit of John Ashbery, but upon reading most poetry, I tend to think, Well, that sure is poetry. And that's about all there is to say about that.

Or at least I thought that would be all there was to say about that, that poetry would go on being poetry and I would go on not especially liking it, until I went to the aforementioned poetry reading, and found myself captivated. A woman named Ariana Reines read a poem called "When I Looked At Your Cock, My Imagination Died." You can listen to the whole thing. It was wonderful and I loved it. But then I was informed that I was loving it all wrong, because I laughed at the funny parts.

I wasn't the only one who found "When I Looked At Your Cock, My Imagination Died" to be occasionally, and intentionally, hilarious. The audience reaction ran from spontaneous, brief giggles to pointed exhalations, and these kinds of responses could be heard at least every few stanzas. "Imagination" is long work with an astounding variety of imagery, and it's narrated with immediacy and conviction; Reines made a point of describing innocent scenes with dirty language ("Then I saw the fists of the trees going deep into the hairy sun"), and she read the really dirty parts with a kind of disarmingly innocent directness. "I think there is a zit on your ass but you have a tan," raised a quick general chuckle. So did "When the Latina takes on the two cocks, she knocks on the door with a hard hat." And "Nobody has any hair," which Reines repeated quizzically, for effect, like a refrain. These parts of the poem were funny because they reminded one just how banal pornography is — its endless fundamental sameness, its dull functionality. Anyone could write a funny piece narrating some standard-issue RedTube: to home in on that emotional flatness, wrap it in other meditations on life and relationships, James Joyce and trips to Duane Reade, and turn it all into something affecting was strange and nice.

So I laughed. And not just at the naughty words: lines like "It was shortly thereafter that I first heard, or at least first noticed, the note of irony in his voice whenever decorum compelled that he greet me" also moved me to laugh, and perhaps wince in identification. I wasn't the only one who occasionally laughed, and I wasn't the loudest — in my opinion, nobody was disrespectfully loud; these were punctuating, laughing-with chuckles, not persistent, laughing-at rumbles, and you can listen to the full recording if you would like to make up your own mind about that or anything else — but I was laughing from time to time because I was engaged, and it felt great.

After we applauded, Reines deadpanned, "So. Does anyone have any questions? Concerns?" She scanned the room, her hand shielding her eyes from the stage lights. "Everything's...cool?"

There was a long pause. Then a woman across the aisle from me shot me and my two friends — also, full disclosure, periodic laughers — a withering look. "So," she said. "I found myself really uncomfortable with the laughter during the part of your, um, you know, the, the sexier sections? Which I found, you know, powerful and formal and — all this other stuff going on. And I understand that laughter is something that naturally emerges in such situations, and it's — but I just wanted to call attention to my discomfort." There was silence, and then the audience went apeshit. (Or at least the most apeshit I have ever seen at a reading.)

"I felt that strongly," joined in a man's voice, from behind us. "I also felt that too!"

"I felt bugged!" someone shouted.

"It happens in the movies all the time," said a voice from the right. Everyone was talking over each other now. I made a video clip of the worst of the scuffle; I think right then, when we became, momentarily, the equivalent of those people with noisy candy wrappers at the art house was my favorite part.

"Let the laughers stand up!" shouted a woman who I think was Eileen Myles. "Let's interrogate the laughers." Eileen fucking "rock star of poetry" Myles was mad at us. (Was she serious? I couldn't tell.) A few people I didn't know stood up, then sat down again. Others raised their hands. I stood, copped to being a laugher, then felt sheepish, like I was taking up the flag of a country I wasn't sure I could defend. We tried to make a case for ourselves — "I laughed, 'cause it was good," I offered, kind of lamely, over the shouts; my girlfriend sat, open mouthed. My guy friend said, "I thought it was an absolutely savage satire of the idiocy of pornography."

"There was laughter as soon as the word 'cock' appeared!" shot back a man who found our defense unconvincing. It was then that I realized, these people weren't questioning our etiquette: they were questioning our politics. This man had appointed himself to the task of stopping me and the other laughers from ganging up on the nice lady poet. To this crowd, we might as well have been frat boys crushing cans on our foreheads. We were making people "uncomfortable" with our "snickering" and it was time to "interrogate" that.

"Why are you mad?" called out Eileen Myles — again, I think — when my friend repeated that it was a savagely funny satire that we were responding to. The first woman, the one with the nasty look and the somewhat aggressive sense of propriety, said she hadn't meant to imply in any way that she thought laughing was wrong. "Of course laughing's not wrong!" I shouted. I couldn't help myself. I wasn't about to have my feminism impugned by these people — or my manners. "Why are you angry?" said Eileen Myles. "First you were laughing, now you're angry."

"Wait, no!" called out Reines. "We're all having a great time here! Come on, it's a party!"

Everyone quieted down and she read Baudelaire — a poet I don't much love, but who I suspect would have at least shared my reaction to that little display of middle-class small-mindedness. Our accuser was reduced to claiming, "Anybody here who knows me's not gonna say I lack a sense of humor." (Never a good position to have to defend.) Mr. "But You Only Laughed At 'Cock'!" started talking to my guy friend; I was shaken, my girlfriend mentioned, for the benefit of the various people now looking at us, having a degree in Women's Studies. I wonder what it is about poetry that motivates people to such displays of passion. What makes us politicize and police each other's reactions to poetry in ways that we don't for prose? Why was such a vocal minority of the audience inclined to think they had a right to hold the rest of us accountable for their subjective feelings of discomfort? The only other time I've seen tempers flare at a literary event was at a Hone Tuwhara reading I attended in high school; a middle-aged woman cut in front of me and my two best friends in line to get a book signed after sneering, "Wisdom before beauty, dearies." I very nearly told her that she, having neither, ought to get out of our way; she tried the move on someone else in line, and it became a shoving match. The way this coterie of audience members on Saturday impeached our reaction to Ariana Reines' work was, I think, pretty ugly. But so was my response. I was so livid I told my girlfriend that if Mr. "But You Only Laughed At 'Cock'!" ever located his, he'd find the line funny, too. Then, feeling proud at my rejoinder — I never think of these things on the spot! — I said it to his face as we walked past him. That was also, I think, pretty ugly. I felt bad about saying that even hours after, when a couple whiskeys and much, much re-hashing of the event had calmed my nerves. Maybe that kind of stupid passion, stemming as it does from the implication of yourself in what you read, is the point of poetry. I don't know.

For what it's worth, I went up to Ariana Reines afterwards, and told her I very much enjoyed her poetry. (It's really good! Not that I know anything about poetry.) And, I said, I hope my laughter didn't offend you.

She took my hand in both of hers, and replied, "I thought your laughter was great."

Ariana Reines at the Segue Reading Series, Dec 5 [U Penn]

Young takes aim at Kathryn Joyce's Double X article about men's rights groups, which we wrote about a couple of weeks ago. Young argues that these groups are not misogynistic, but that they are merely challenging "the conventional feminist view of domestic violence-as almost invariably involving female victims and male batterers." She argues in favor of sociologist Murray Straus's research into female-initiated violence — though she does acknowledge that women are twice as likely as men to get hurt in a domestic dispute, and three times as likely to fear their partners — and argues that feminists exaggerate the impact of abuse. Young writes,

Whatever minor successes men's groups may have achieved, the reality is that public policy on domestic violence in the U.S. is heavily dominated by feminist advocacy groups. For the most part, these groups embrace a rigid orthodoxy that treats domestic violence as male terrorism against women, rooted in patriarchal power and intended to enforce it. They also have a record of making grotesquely exaggerated, thoroughly debunked claims about an epidemic of violence against women-for instance, that battering causes more hospital visits by women every year than car accidents, muggings, and cancer combined.

According to Young, men's groups exist in response to real bias against men — she says, "federal assistance is denied to programs that offer joint counseling to couples in which there is domestic violence, and court-mandated treatment for violent men downplays drug and alcohol abuse (since it's all about the patriarchy)." And she winds up her piece by quoting philosopher Janet Radcliffe Richards: "No feminist whose concern for women stems from a concern for justice in general can ever legitimately allow her only interest to be the advantage of women." Leaving aside domestic violence for a moment, this statement is actually a complicated one. On the one hand, no real feminist wants to be like the straw feminists Young and others set up — hateful harridans who use lies to further their own selfish ends. But on the other, shouldn't feminism be at least mostly about women's rights? Don't men have their own movement — that is, all of Western history?

It's easy to answer yes to these questions, and some of the time, I believe that answer. But I also think that feminism should set out to change all damaging gender stereotypes, including stereotypes about men. The patriarchy — obviously the only thing my simplistic feminist ass cares about — affects everybody, and though it often benefits men, it also fucks them up. And what's more, it fucks them up in ways that are bad for women. It tells them they need to be sexual aggressors, contributing to rape culture. It tells them they suck at child-rearing and emotional connection in general, which damages their relationships and sticks women with disproportionate familial burdens. And it tells them they need to be big and strong and ready to fight, which makes them both more likely to commit domestic violence and less likely to report it if it happens to them.

All these problems are worth fixing, and feminists — who are experienced at fighting gender stereotyping, and who care about many of the ills created by a rigid social view of masculinity — are well-equipped to help fix them. But we're not going to feel like it if people cast us as the enemy. I'm unlikely to reconsider my view of men's rights groups if writers like Young use them as a peg to insult the supposedly sorry "state of feminism" or to posit some powerful anti-male gynocracy that's promulgating lies about abuse. In fact, Young does such a crappy job of negotiating disputes between the sexes that I'd like to go around her and speak to dudes directly: Hi guys. I am a feminist. I am not an evil bitch who wants to beat you up and take your money. I am your sister, your daughter, your neighbor, your co-worker, and your friend. I support your right to have emotions, to be an involved dad, to feel physically and emotionally safe in your relationships, to hold any job you want regardless of whether it's "masculine," and, if you want, to marry another man. I get that life is hard for you too sometimes, and I want to help you. But only if you meet me halfway.

Note: The image above is a group of male college students marching in high heels to protest violence against women — a "men's group" we can get behind.

Men's Rights [Reason]

Related: "Men's Rights" Groups Have Become Frighteningly Effective [Double X]

Earlier: The Misguided Message Of Men's Rights Groups

Levy's main target is Leslie Sanchez's book You've Come a Long Way, Maybe: Sarah, Michelle, Hillary and the Shaping of the New American Woman (note the first names), in which Sanchez comes out against "bra burning" and in favor of "calm concern for how women [are] faring in the world." But how they're faring seems to mean mostly whether or not they have jobs in government and corporations. This isn't, of course, a trivial measure of women's success, but as Levy points out, it isn't the whole story. Sanchez is a Republican political strategist, and her prime example of successful contemporary womanity is Sarah Palin. She writes, "most of us are Sarah Palins to one degree or another," and complains that Gloria Steinem's criticism of Palin sent the message that, "you can run, Sarah Palin, but you won't get my support because you don't believe in all the same things I believe in."

Which, well, duh. The idea that men had the luxury of choosing candidates they actually agree with but women had to vote with their vaginas was one of the most upsetting things about the 2008 election, and the fact that Sanchez doesn't think Steinem's beliefs are an acceptable basis for her political choices says a lot about how women are, in some quarters, expected to behave. The message of Sarah Palin's entire vice presidential bid was that women were supposed to care not about issues, or even about competence, but simply that one of "their own" appeared on the ticket. As Levy says,

If a demand for revolution is tamed into a simple insistence on representation, then one woman is as good as another. You could have, in a sense, feminism without feminists. You could have, for example, Leslie Sanchez or Sarah Palin.

In a way, feminism-without-feminists is a depressing reversal of the optimism of the second wave. Movements for womyn's lands and political lesbianism implied that there was something special and good about being a woman, and that all-female societies and relationships would necessarily be healthier and more feminist than the messed-up mixed-gender world. Womyn's lands themselves may actually have been (and continue to be) feminist havens, but the idea that women leaders are always better for women is all too easy to turn on its head: if women are so great, people like Sanchez can say, what's wrong with Sarah Palin?

The truth is, equal representation for women is important — but as an end, not as a means. Women deserve opportunities to serve in government and the corporate world because it's fair and right, not because they will necessarily act as advocates for feminist causes. Just as feminists need to accept that not all women will share their goals, non-feminists must understand that feminism isn't just "identity politics" — feminists won't sit down and shut up just because there are, as Levy says, a significant "percentage of people with government jobs who wear bras." Levy writes persuasively of the real need for government-subsidized child care that still goes unmet after a near victory in the seventies, and there are many other issues from reproductive rights to equal pay that won't be resolved by electing George W. Bush clones with two X chromosomes. In order to resolve them, women need to claim not just representation, but another right that men have always taken for granted: the right to stand up for what we believe in, even if it means disagreeing with one another.

Image via The New Yorker.

Lift And Separate [New Yorker]
You've Come A Long Way, Maybe: Sarah, Michelle, Hillary, And The Shaping Of The New American Woman [Amazon]

The evening seemed to focus on how we talk about feminism, perhaps because it's what all three panelists (that's not them in the pic) do in their jobs, but also because issues of language and rhetoric are a really important part of being a feminist in the larger world. The conversation touched on blog comments — which all three agreed were like a more public version of 1970s consciousness-raising groups — before zeroing in on the word "feminist" itself. Valenti said she embraced the word, and that there was no point in picking another, less loaded term because "I think any word you use to talk about women's rights is going to become a dirty word." Feldt concurred: "the first thing people do to you when they want to diminish you is they diminish you with language."

Unfortunately, the panelists seemed to feel that a successful diminution had occurred in the linguistic fight between words "pro-choice" and "pro-life." Harris said she had stopped using the term "pro-choice" in writing because "we lost that rhetorical war" — because anti-abortion advocates had successfully cast "life" as representing the moral high ground, and "choice" as somehow frivolous. I get what she was saying — I, in fact, stopped using "pro-life" in writing a while ago, in response to a consciousness-raising comment on this blog, no less. But I still use "pro-choice," because even though the opposition tries to frame the term as superficial — like choosing between different flavors of gum — I think it still stands powerfully for a woman's right to self-determination and autonomy. And I think that any substitute term — Harris mentioned "pro-abortion rights" and "pro-reproductive rights" — will be demonized just as "pro-choice" has been. To paraphrase Valenti, any word you use to talk about a woman's control over her own body is going to become, for some people, a dirty word.

In some ways, the highlight of the evening for me was when a college student asked how she could explain her views to her non-feminist friends without "coming off as a caricature of myself." I'm a lot older than her, and this is something I still struggle with. It's also something I feel a little bit guilty about — now that I'm a professional feminist, maybe I shouldn't be worrying about how I come off. But Valenti took her question seriously, saying it was actually one she was asked all the time. She told the young woman that "pop culture is a great entry point for these conversations," and she's right — as a shared language, movies and TV and even gossip can be a way not only for feminists to start a conversation with not-yet-feminists, but for young people still experimenting with feminism to hone their views. When I first started blogging, I wrote a lot about Kate Moss and the Olsen twins, and although most of what I wrote looks sophomoric now (and sometimes, unfortunately, mean), it was a way for me to get comfortable having opinions and making them public. I still don't like making a harsh distinction between "fluffy" and "serious" subjects, and I think Valenti's right that an ostensibly superficial conversation about some celebrity or movie can actually lead into a real discussion of values.

Harris, too, had a suggestion for the student — "be yourself." She apologized for the cheesiness of her tip, but she had a good point — teaching your friends about feminism can be as much about modeling behavior as it is about explicitly explaining your political views. Just by admitting that you're mad when you're mad, and not saying you agree when you don't, and refusing to body-snark on yourself and other women, and generally standing up for what you know is right, whether it involves women or not, you can show everyone you know that (to quote a T-shirt Valenti name-checks in Full Frontal Feminism) "this is what a feminist looks like" — and you'll make feminism look pretty good. In fact, even though I still have it from time to time, I do think the worry about looking like "a caricature" comes from feminism's enemies, from people who think a woman criticizing anything is cartoonish and shrill. For these people, just as "feminism" and "pro-choice" are dirty words, speaking up may be a dirty act, no matter how you do it. But for, I hope, a larger number of people, women and men, speaking up is just something they aren't familiar with yet, something they haven't quite learned to do. I hope the college student who so handily voiced my worries last night keeps on showing them how.

Planned Parenthood NYC Action Fund [Official Site]

Early in the piece, called "The Mismeasure of Woman," Lipman (that's her in the white, lofting her National Magazine Award) writes,

The truth is, women haven't come nearly as far as we would have predicted 25 years ago. Somewhere along the line, especially in recent years, progress for women has stalled. And attitudes have taken a giant leap backward.

Kinda vague, but a worthwhile topic nonetheless. And Lipman does provide some sobering stats, like the fact that, "according to the American Bar Association, women in 2008 made up almost half of all associates, but only 18.3 percent of partners." After that, her essay pretty quickly goes off the rails. Both the NYTPicker and Gawker's Foster Kamer handily detail the ways Lipman's piece makes no sense. Kamer's right that the connection she draws between 9/11, the purported "end of irony" and boobs on the Internet is just bizarre, and the NYTPicker deserves props for pointing out that at least one of her allegations of sexism actually never happened — nobody called her career "leggy." But I'm not particularly interested in picking apart her arguments that sexism still exists — it does, there's better proof of it than appears in Lipman's piece, and there's no need to go into that here. What does bear some critiquing is her prescription for "chang(ing) the conversation," a vague phrase that appears to mean ending not just discrimination in the workplace but also misogyny in media and pop culture. Let's take Lipman's advice point by point (all bold is mine):

1.

First, we can begin by telling girls to have confidence in themselves, to not always feel the need to be the passive "good girl." In my time as an editor, many, many men have come through my door asking for a raise or demanding a promotion. Guess how many women have ever asked me for a promotion?

I'll tell you. Exactly ... zero.

Yes, women could use workplace assertiveness training. And yes, teachers and parents should be raising girls to be active rather than passive, and not to expect "unrealistic perfection in every sphere, from beauty to housekeeping." But why does the conversation about women and career advancement always have to be framed in terms of women asking for raises and promotions? I get that in today's world this is a necessary career skill, but a common critique of America's educational system is that it values obedience and docility, qualities that supposedly come easier to girls than to boys. Parents and other advocates use this as evidence that the school system needs to be changed to be more male-friendly — but women are still expected to change to be more workplace-friendly. I don't believe that boys are naturally less obedient, or women naturally less assertive. But we are still socialized differently, and the culture of many American workplaces is dominated by values developed and perpetuated by men — including self-promotion and aggressiveness. Again, plenty of women have these qualities in spades. But for those who don't, why can't workplace culture change to, say, reward hard work instead of repeated demands? Why do women always have to be the ones to budge?

2.

[H]ave a sense of humor. Believe me, it's needed.

Case in point: My favorite Christmas card ever came from Martha Stewart - while she was in prison in West Virginia. It was beautiful, on heavy paper stock, and showed a gorgeous wreath. And on the inside, homey as could be, it was engraved with holiday wishes from "Martha Stewart, Alderson, West Virginia."

This one is kind of mystifying. I'm not really sure what the Martha Stewart anecdote is supposed to teach us, especially since it's not even that funny. And anyway, can we stop talking about how women need to get a sense of humor? Umpteen discussions of humorless feminazis have led me to believe that the female sense of humor is like the clit — other people may not know how to find it, but we know where the fuck ours is.

And 3.

One final suggestion: don't be afraid to be a girl.

Women do have a different culture from men. And that can give us some tremendous advantages. Women are built to withstand hardship and pain. (Anyone who has given birth knows what I'm talking about.) That's a big benefit at a time like this, with the unemployment rate at 9.8 percent and rising.

Where to even start with this? How about with the fact that Lipman just got finished telling women that they had to learn to operate like men in male workplace culture — but wait, don't forget hold on to a culture of your own! The idea that women need to work "like men" but think/look/act/dress/talk/fuck "like a girl" continues to be a huge obstacle to women's equality, and is part of the demand for "unrealistic perfection" that Lipman decries earlier in the essay. Even leaving this aside, if women's culture means "withstanding hardship and pain," I'm not sure I want it. I don't buy that women are any better at this than men, and this particular type of exceptionalism crosses over pretty quickly into obligation — when women are perceived as "better" at something (i.e. childrearing), it becomes their exclusive duty to take care of it. And I'd rather men share some of the pain of the recession, thanks very much.

Point 3 segues into the assertion that women are better at weathering economic downturn because they define themselves less by their jobs. This may be true in the aggregate — things are changing, but men are still told to identify with their jobs more closely than women are. Of course, women are told that their worth depends on the love of a man, and it's hard to say which cultural message is more damaging. As the recession has shown, jobs can be as fickle as love, and failure at either doesn't make you a bad person. It's worth remembering that strong relationships with friends and family — and also, I'd argue, a connection to a cause outside yourself — can help you weather crises both in love and at work. But framing this as feminine wisdom just keeps the genders firmly in their little work/life boxes, which is exactly the opposite of what the recession should teach us, if it teaches us anything.

I feel a little dirty taking Lipman to task for all this, given that she is genuinely trying to address the problems women face. But we're not going to solve those problems by falling back on the same old stereotypes that created them in the first place. Lipman deserves credit for drawing attention to a pressing issue in a national forum. Maybe now other people will come up with better ways to address it.

The Mismeasure Of Woman [NYT]
Fallen Portfolio Editor Joanne Lipman's Self-Serving Feminism Screed: 9/11, Sissies, Etc. [Gawker]
Whoops! Leggy Former Portfolio Editor Joanne Lipman Makes Mulitple Mistakes In Today's Op-Ed Whine About Women. [The NYTPicker]

Turner writes that complaints of misogyny can always be "shrug[ged] off with the age-old refrain: the trouble with you birds, is, you can't take a joke." She writes about a recent Spectator column on the fuckability of Labour MP Harriet Harman (pictured), and a run-in where she passed up the chance to express her indignation:

I spotted the Spectator editor at the time, Matthew D'Ancona - who I know a little socially - at a film screening. I sat throughout the movie planning what I would say: how disappointed I was that such a celebratedly clever and cultured man could print such garbage. But in the end I just left. It was easier to say nothing than to risk weary accusations of being a strident old ranty-pants, him laughing behind his hands later. Yet it is such silence that granted him permission to publish.

I know the feeling. It's a lot more fun to be the person uttering snide jabs (i.e. "So - Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober.") than the one getting mad about them, and the allegation of humorlessness is a pretty hard one to defend against. Saying, "I do too have a sense of humor, just not about this" is pretty unfunny, and in my experience tends to prove my opponent's point. Making feminism even harder to sell is the fact that it often attacks things that men are supposed to find hot — the pursuit of ever-younger partners, for instance, or surgically enhanced breasts, or mainstream pornography. I've had more than one depressing conversation with a man in which it's clear that he thinks I'm "against" anything sexy. I turn into the fun police, and whatever I'm supposedly forbidding becomes taboo — and thus even more exciting.

In elementary school, I learned that the best way to deal with someone who's bothering you is to ignore them. And indeed, some feminist-baiters, especially on the vast fringes of the Internet, are best left alone. But as Turner points out, silence is also implicit permission. And since many of the engines of misogyny aren't individual people who depend on reactions for their continued existence, but big corporations with a stake in female insecurity, this is a big problem.

In an earlier column, Turner decries the pressure on young girls to be "skinny, [with] full breasts, long hair, full lips and an utterly hair-free body," a pressure that she says "comes direct from the porn industry." But, she says, "if old-school feminists protest against this pornification, we are accused of being anti-sex, not groovy enough to enter that 24/7 pleasuredome of modern youth culture." The interesting thing about this "pleasuredome," though, is how unsexy it actually is. You don't have to be anti-sex, or even anti-porn, to chafe at a dominant aesthetic that just happens to play right into the pocketbooks of the beauty and anti-aging industries. Our cultural preference for skinny, nubile women is at least as much about money as it is about male desire — and it's about the least taboo thing I can imagine.

Rebelling against a system that actually tells men what to like — as well as, of course, telling women how to be — actually seems kind of sexy. And refusing to do what you're told — in this case, to quietly accept sexism so as not to seem "strident" — can be exciting. So rather than reading Turner's new column — which this week includes some pretty grotesque sexual harassment involving a pen — as the blotter of the fun police, I'm going to think of it as a dispatch from the fun radicals, a textual Molotov tossed into the edifice of institutionalized misogyny. And I'm going to enjoy it.

It's Time To Challenge Casual Sexism [TimesOnline]
When Feminism Went Nuts [TimesOnline]
‘Babe' Watch: Sexism In Daily Life [TimesOnline]
Harriet Harman Is Either Thick Or Criminally Disingenuous [Spectator]

XY Founder Michael Flood writes,

XY is a pro-feminist website. It is guided above all by a commitment to feminism. XY is intended to advance feminist goals of gender equality and gender justice. XY is intended therefore to encourage men to involve themselves in personal and social change towards gender equality. It inspires men to develop respectful, trusting, and egalitarian relations with women, to promote equitable and liberatory ways of living and being, and to join with women in projects of gender equality and social justice.

The website offers a bunch of great resources for men and women, from an essay examining sexism in an anarchist community to a zine about rape culture and radical consent. In an essay excerpted on the site, Jennifer McLune points out that some men admit to and apologize for misogyny as a way of "repackaging of the same old woman-hating," and self-identifying as a feminist can sometimes be a way for men to abdicate responsibility for male privilege. It's always a little creepy when a man says "men are dicks, but I'm different." But XY appears to be the real deal — the writers featured recognize the influence of patriarchy on their own behavior and attitudes, and want to work against this influence both in their lives and in society.

So, can they? Can men be effective advocates for feminism? Given that men are voters, bosses, dads, teachers, friends, and partners, and that they still have more than their share of influence over policy in this country, we better hope the answer is yes. And the writing on XY is certainly a good sign. But can should men call themselves feminists? Julian Real writes,

A man who I consider to be profeminist is Byron Hurt, and I wish far more men were far more like Byron. In a comment he made to Jennifer [McLune] on her Facebook page, he noted how he's been challenged by feminists to also identify himself as a feminist because, for them, the term "profeminist" makes it seem like the man is not really willing to stand up with feminists, but rather will find it sufficient to somewhat passively support feminists, applauding from the sidelines. (I see the argument here, and once upon a time called myself "feminist" for precisely that reason.) Other feminists have challenged him to call himself profeminist, noting that men who call themselves "feminist" are far too often attempting to co-opt the various women's movements and struggles toward Women's Liberation.

He continues, "In my experience there are so few men who call themselves either that we really needn't take much time debating this." It's sad but true. Most men, even if they are progressive in every other way, balk at calling themselves feminist, and plenty of men who support equal pay and reproductive rights still think feminism itself is ugly, "strident," or lame. So what a man calls himself probably doesn't matter too much — as long as he's capable of confronting a problem that he might be a part of.

In his article, "Going to places that scare me: Personal reflections on challenging male supremacy," Chris Crass writes about confronting his own sexism after a woman in his anarchist group pointed it out:

It was tremendously difficult. My politics were shaped by a clearly defined dualistic framework of good and bad. If it was true that I was sexist, then my previous sense of self was in question and my framework needed to shift. Looking back, this was a profoundly important moment in my growth, at the time it felt like shit.

This process of changing a mental framework — and of "feeling like shit" — is something everyone from a privileged group has to deal with in order to work honestly and effectively with a less-privileged group. White people need to do it in order to work for racial equality, straight people need to do it in order to be LGBT allies. It's difficult, and it's probably the reason more progressive men aren't feminists — because becoming a feminist man means giving up the idea that you're one of the good guys, and recognizing that male privilege affects everyone, good guy or not. If men can recognize this — and continue recognizing it, as being aware of one's own privilege is a constant process — then, as far as I'm concerned, they can call themselves anything they want.

Pro-Feminist Men's Website Needs Submissions [The F Word]
XY [Official Site]
Going To Places That Scare Me: Personal Reflections On Challenging Male Supremacy [XY]
Jennifer McLune: On Feminist Men [XY]

The Administration has taken major strides since January. The aforementioned Council on Women and Girls was created back in March, and includes a key provision to improve women's economic security. Hillary Clinton has made women's issues a key component of the State Department's strategy. And, according to USA Today's list of accomplishments, "Obama appointed the first White House senior adviser on violence against women, domestic violence expert Lynn Rosenthal. In her new job, Rosenthal will help develop policies and programs aimed at reducing domestic violence and sexual assault."

However, these moves have been met with their fair share of controversy. Some conservative women are not celebrating these gains.

"Obama's policies reflect the views of hard-core abortion and feminist groups," says Wendy Wright, president of Concerned Women for America. "Considering the diversity of views among American women, it is insulting to assume that there is one 'women's view' and it is represented by liberal feminist activists. … Obama's choices reflect a stereotypical view of women who are abortion advocates who are dependent on government."

Wright's statement is a little difficult to swallow, especially considering the careful treatment of abortion and abortion rights by the administration. While he was lauded as the pro-choice candidate during the primaries, his views on abortion have been muted since taking office. And, considering how political dealings are forcing the administration to explicitly spell out a ban on using federal dollars for abortion services (which was already banned) in the health care bill, we may not be on as stable ground as we thought.

In addition, feminist activists have pointed out that a council position may not go quite far enough in trying to achieve these kinds of goals. A cabinet level position, they argue, would be more permanent and have more political clout.

"This has been the most open White House to women's issues and groups," says Eleanor Smeal of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

And perhaps it is. There are many women in positions of power and in highly visible positions. But I think it's a bit too soon to tell if the administration will continue to be feminist friendly, particularly once the national focus shifts from health care and the economy.

Women's rights a priority for Obama panel [USA Today]
President Obama Announces White House Council on Women and Girls [White House.gov]

Earlier: The More Equality The (Led)Better
Hillary Clinton Tackles Economics, Terrorism, Microlending In NY Times Profile
And The Health Care Band Played On

The Guardian piece, by Homa Khaleeli, Martha Gill and Hazelann Williams, says that Atwood "caused consternation when she admitted, 'I don't know if I am a feminist.'" The authors seem to be referring to a September 4 interview with the Independent, in which Atwood has a lot more to say. She thinks women are hardwired to tidy up things like socks, "because we were the gatherers; [men] were the hunters." Of her most famous novel, The Handmaid's Tale, often read as a polemic in favor of women's reproductive rights, she says,

You could tell The Handmaid's Tale from a male point of view. People have mistakenly felt that the women are oppressed, but power tends to organise itself in a pyramid. I could pick a male narrator from somewhere in that pyramid. It would interesting.

And on feminism specifically, she tells the Independent,

It's not picking up socks that's the issue. Who is the 'we' that we are talking about [in feminism]? Are we talking about the children who are involved in sex trafficking, or the women in Bangladesh? Are we talking about the Eastern European women who are promised a place in the West and end up as sex slaves? Feminism is a big term. If we are asking 'Are women human beings?' we don't need to vote on that. But where do we go from there? Are women better than men? No. Are they different? Yes. How are they different? We're still trying to figure that out.

It's interesting that she brings up the issue of sex differences, because I've come to see that as something of a red herring. Just this weekend, a friend asked me what it meant that I considered myself a feminist. He wanted to know if I thought men and women were "the same." I don't. Sex and gender aren't as binary as we sometimes assume, but most women do have different bodies from most men. Does that matter?

It's not the job of feminism to figure out "how men and women are different" — or to assert that they are not. Feminism should be about making sure men and women have the same opportunities, and combating the institutional sexism that sometimes keeps women from taking advantage of these opportunities. It may be interesting to debate whether women are hardwired to pick up socks (I'm skeptical), but the real task of feminism is to make sure we're not forced to pick them up. The confusion comes because a lot of the rhetoric of sex difference is aimed at convincing us we're meant for sock duty. But the enemy of feminism is that rhetoric — not sex difference itself. That's for science to figure out.

Of course, Atwood's words are far too complicated to constitute the death knell of feminism. But they are an interesting jumping-off point for Khaleeli, Gill, and Williams to ask a variety of women the question, "Are you a feminist?"

Shami Chakrabarti tackles the "humorless feminist" archetype:

I am more than happy to call myself a feminist; I am a woman and I'm not on my knees. I passionately, profoundly believe in gender equality as much as I do race equality. Feminism has come to be seen as uncool and unfunny. But you can laugh at yourself, be a feminist and have broad horizons.

But Deborah Meaden offers what may, unfortunately, be a more common position:

I'm not a feminist. I consider my position in the business world not as a woman but as a person. And don't think, "Did that happen because I'm a woman?" Feminism doesn't have a particularly constructive image, although I think there was time when it was relevant. But I think we are more sophisticated now and we no longer have to batter people over the head with it.

I hear this argument a lot — that there was a time for feminism, and now that time has passed. So after I finished telling my friend that I didn't necessarily think men and women were the same, I told him that to me, being a feminist means believing that women today still face obstacles to total equality. And it means working to remove those obstacles. Both of which I can do regardless of whether my foremothers were gatherers.

Are You A Feminist? [Guardian]
Margaret Atwood: 'People Should Live Joyfully' [Independent]

Hays once wrote that "few activities, I've found, are less fruitful than dialoguing with feminist scholars," and her general disdain for (straw) feminists is on display in her coverage of Gilbert. Of Gilbert's upcoming book, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace With Marriage, Hays writes, "It seems that Ms. Gilbert, a woman capable of roaming the globe with no male protection (beyond an ample publisher's advance), a heroine who had vowed [...] never to wed again, was - wed." But how will her readers react to this new "twist in the Gilbert voyage of feminist selfhood?" Hays asks, "will they be plotting revenge on the supposedly strong, single woman who betrayed them?" The basic thesis of the rest of the piece is: yeah, they will, but how silly of them, because they all just want to get married too.

Hays writes that "Ms. Gilbert was always going to get a guy" and that "such women rarely remain single - even if they profess to be feminists." It's not clear who "such women" are, though Hays quotes several passages in which Gilbert talks to her friends about men and sex. So maybe the type of feminist who "gets a guy" is the kind who, um, wants to? Except, according to Hays, that's all feminists: Gilbert's fans, she says, "are, in the way that feminists always seem to be but hate to admit, boy crazy and sex crazy."

Hays winds up her essay thus:

Ms. Gilbert knows, according to the Times, "that some knives may be out for her." She senses that loyal readers may well feel that their heroine has deserted them for a man. But women have been doing this to their girlfriends since time immemorial. Sisterhood is powerful, but not that powerful.

All of this actually kind of difficult to pick apart, but what Hays to be saying is that feminists equate strength with singlehood, and view anyone who couples up as a traitor. But all feminists really want a man (lesbians don't exist in the Hays universe), and would cheerfully abandon their feminist values should they find one. Of course, this is based on an outdated and wrongheaded notion of feminist values. Only a very few people still demand that feminists eschew men, and most feminists I know accept the notion that whether or not a woman is in a relationship doesn't determine how "strong" she is. It's true that the idea of taking a husband for "male protection" raises my feminist hackles, but the fact that Gilbert didn't need such protection while traveling the world makes me more sanguine about her marriage, not less. She seems to have gotten married because she wanted to, and because she was in love, and "such women" seem pretty happy to me.

It's actually kind of strange that Hays chose Gilbert as her vehicle for insulting sex-crazed, hypocritical feminists. Eat, Pray, Love isn't really a "voyage of feminist selfhood," it's a voyage of plain-old-selfhood — meaning that it feels self-absorbed at times, but also that it's not too useful as a political football. Gilbert doesn't leave her marriage because she's a strong woman who doesn't need a man — she leaves because she's miserable. And she doesn't stay celibate until she meets her lover Felipe because she thinks men are oppressors and sex is evil — rather, she fully acknowledges having been "boy crazy" her whole life, and decides she needs some time alone after her divorce to figure things out. That's not even feminist, that's just smart.

I wasn't a fan of Eat, Pray, Love, and I certainly don't feel betrayed by Gilbert's latest effort — mostly because I don't think Gilbert made me, or feminism, any promises in the first place. But even if she had, even if Eat, Pray, Love were subtitled A Feminist's Feminist Voyage of Self-Reliance and Feminism, she could still have gotten married without renouncing all she stood for. Because sisterhood is, in fact, powerful — so powerful that it can withstand even (shudder) marriage.

A Feminist Icon Gets Her Man [Wall Street Journal]

Lesson #1: Women across the country are hungry for their strength to be acknowledged, without sacrificing their femininity.

Martin writes,

The image of a pit bull with lipstick will go down as one of the most memorable images in American electoral rhetoric thanks to Sarah Palin's first populist performance at the Republican National Convention [...] Feminists across the country were still recovering from the shock of McCain's pick when Palin made that now-infamous quip, so we may have missed the deeper meaning. She was signifying that, though she's tough, she's still feminine.

Uh, yes, we got that. Martin continues,

Sarah Palin appeals to a broad need among contemporary American women who want to be leaders and demonstrate their intellectual strength, but also maintain their allegiance to traditional notions of femininity. Both her RNC address and her resignation speech were filled with this subtle duality and bold permission for women everywhere to flex their muscles while painting their fingernails.

I am typing this post with bright red (albeit badly chipped) fingernails, and I really do not need Sarah Palin's permission to do so. It's hardly news that some women want both equal rights and "a perky ponytail," and the stereotype that all feminists are braless Birkenstock-wearers is a pretty outdated one. Martin rightly says that feminism opens the door for "self- and societal analysis that leads to conscious choices about self-expression — male or female, conservative or progressive, hockey mom or butch dyke." But Sarah Palin is now such a celebrity that her pretty hair and makeup seem less like unbridled self-expression and more like a job requirement, as they are for A-list actresses. And, as evinced by this amusing edit of her resignation address (along with the address itself), she's hardly a role model for any sort of analysis.

Lesson #2: Defending women against sexism means defending all women against sexism.

This is Martin's smartest point. She writes,

As feminists, we must defend the right of every woman — progressive or not — to be judged on the quality of her ideas and the integrity of her experience, not the curve of her figure or the shape of her face. Whether it's a former beauty pageant contestant running for vice president (you know who) or a wise, old woman who has covered the White House since 1961 (Helen Thomas), we must advocate for unbiased treatment in the media.

Even though Palin's "politics are sexist," Martin says, we must "defend her right to nonsexist coverage." This is true — like Carrie Prejean, Palin deserves criticism for her ideas and the lack thereof, not her looks, her gender, or her family life. That said, Palin shouldn't get to hide from substantive criticism by calling it sexist, or lump all her critics together into one big ball of unprincipled, prejudiced Sarah-hate.

Lesson #3: We've succeeded in so many ways!

Martin says,

It may have made feminists squirm to see that the movement's fight produced a moment ripe for a soldier like Sarah Palin, but from another vantage point, her candidacy (and more importantly, Hillary Clinton's) prove we've won certain battles. Women are taken seriously as political candidates. Plain and simple.

It's true that the very idea that it might be politically expedient to have a woman on the McCain ticket speaks to the electoral power of women. But the choice of a woman whose beliefs are, as Martin says, sexist, shows that political operatives, at least on the right, are still pretty cynical about what women want. Luckily, the strategy of "take away their abortion rights, but give them a lady to look at" didn't work, but the fact that the McCain camp tried it — and with a woman who is inexperienced, incurious, and often inarticulate — shows that they valued symbol over substance. Palin's "maverick" reputation may have meant something to the Republican Party, but her vice presidential bid still had a whiff of tokenism. The right's not taking women seriously if it fields candidates who are anti-woman.

Martin closes her piece with the lines, "Ultimately, our discomfort with Sarah Palin is more about us than it is about her. No matter who she claims to be, we need to keep pushing ourselves to clarify who we are." The second statement makes sense, but the first? Sorry, it really is about Sarah.

Lessons For Feminists From Sarah Palin [The American Prospect]
Palin's Resignation: The Edited Version [Vanity Fair]

Broadsheet's Judy Berman calls Crosbie's column "a head-scratcher," and we have to agree. After quoting a bunch of song lyrics and an unfunny line from Two-and-a-Half Men, Crosbie says it's "the plumbing, not the chromosomes, that define and estrange us from the brothers." Ok, but what about women with androgen insensitivity syndrome? Or transgender women? Or women who have had hysterectomies? We get that it's hard to define womanhood, but surely Crosbie can do better than "plumbing."

She goes on to hail the 1990s as a time when "autobiographical sex and erotic writing were popular and manifest, as were women with electric guitars, as was the very image of a woman so fluid in her possibilities, she could never be captured, let alone compared to anyone but herself." At least one woman with an electric guitar was publicly pilloried in the 90s for supposedly derailing her husband's career, but according to Crosbie, these were the glory days of women in the media. Now it's all gone to shit. Her evidence: The Reader ("Kate Winslet plays a haggard pedophile and a bored Hollywood throws statuettes") and The Manny.

Of the latter, she writes, "I bought Holly Peterson's The Manny recently, highly recommended by two of the women who have worked very hard to degrade us all with their insipid, vulgar world views, Sophie Kinsella and Candace Bushnell." Apparently Crosbie purchased a book blurbed by two people she considers awful and anti-feminist, and was surprised to find it awful and anti-feminist. Maybe, just maybe, she's looking for feminism in the wrong places. Broadsheet suggests Tina Fey and Amy Sedaris, Pedro Almodovar, and (thanks!) us. We'd like to emphatically add Battlestar Galactica to that list.

Crosbie's analysis of contemporary pop culture is hampered not only by a weirdly blinkered view of that culture's offerings, but also by an overly generalized idea of what women want. She winds up with a mention of the upcoming film Obsessed. The film, she writes, "promises itchy, illicit sex and lots of it. Ladies, what would you rather do: Consider seducing your hot boss in a bathroom stall or watch Queen Latifah being chased by bees and talking about friendship?" Itchy sex sounds like a yeast infection, not a good time, and since when was sex with the boss in a bathroom stall the ultimate in feminist portrayals of women? Crosbie's piece reads like a plea for more movies and books that interest her, which is fine — but we degrade the word feminist if we only apply it to things we like, and withhold it from things we find boring.

In Pop Culture, Feminism Is Dead [Globe and Mail]
Is Feminism Dead In Pop Culture? [Broadsheet]

Raha says that white men who fit the James Dean/Marlon Brando archetype "don't have to risk as much to be defiant. White male rebellion can be accepted as openly and enthusiastically as it is, precisely because it upholds the current power structure." "Not so for women," explains F Word reviewer Michelle Wright. She says,

Our rebellion is punished and discouraged, made invisible and deemed unnatural. Our protests against The Man are labelled 'shrill,' our independence read as selfishness, as failure to comply with the feminine nurturing norm. We're best off when secondary to the rebel boy – his sex object, the damsel in distress he saves, the stable and self-sacrificing homemaker who gives him refuge when he tires of his wild, wandering ways.

Raha's book uses examples from Angela Davis to Bettie Page to show, in Wright's words, how "rebel women challenge(d) the white patriarchal definition of rebellion." "The main strength of Raha's argument," according to Wright, "lies in her understanding of rebellion as something that doesn't just reside with the individual (as per the male rebel icons), but as something at its most potent and subversive when it involves a collective questioning of, and acting out against, the oppressive and discriminatory attitudes and structures of society in order to drive social change."

It's an interesting assertion, but not an entirely complete one. Later in the review, Wright criticizes Raha for her prescriptive ideal of female behavior, one that requires us to be "loud and rebellious." Wright says, "just because a woman may choose not to shout with abandon, doesn't mean she isn't rebelling. We each have our own voices, and those that aren't the loudest aren't always the least assured."

If women can rebel quietly as well as loudly, can't we rebel individually as well as together? Do we really need to strengthen the stereotype that men are individual while women are collective, that female power has to be group power? We get that it's necessary to challenge the James Dean archetype by promoting different — and less isolating — forms of rebellion, but wouldn't the ultimate victory to make all forms of rebellion available to women as well as men, rather than simply anointing as "most potent" the form that currently seems most female-friendly? But of course, if we made the world truly safe for rebellion, there would be no more rebels.

Hellions: Pop Culture's Rebel Women [The F Word]

Bindel says the 1981 booklet Love Your Enemy? The Debate Between Heterosexual Feminism and Political Lesbianism, which states that "all feminists can and should be lesbians," jibed with her early experiences growing up in England. She writes,

I was surrounded by men - my father and two brothers - and at an early age I had picked up on the stories of domestic violence, child abuse and general unhappiness that seemed to emanate from neighbouring households. I was also struck by the drudgery on display. While men were out drinking, embarking on fishing trips and generally enjoying their freedom, women were stuck cooking for them, cleaning for them, and running around after children. For women, heterosexuality seemed a total con.

For Bindel, "lesbianism is intrinsically bound up with my feminist politics and my campaigning against sexual violence," and she believes the same can be true for other feminists. "Political lesbianism continues to make intrinsic sense because it reinforces the idea that sexuality is a choice," she writes. "I also suspect that it is very difficult to spend your daily life fighting against male violence, only to share a bed with a man come the evening."

It's good to think of homosexuality as something that can be joyful and empowering, rather than some sort of congenital disease. But Bindel's view does a disservice to people who don't feel they chose their sexual orientations, and especially to people who have been fighting for equal rights partially on that basis. It also assumes that men are the enemy, and that women can achieve happiness and political self-actualization only by living apart from them.

A modified version of this principle governs the lesbian communities — known as womyn's lands — profiled in Sunday's Times [the pic above is from the womyn's land of Alapine]. Women came to these communities in the '70s, when lesbianism was much less accepted; for many they were a refuge from discrimination. Now the womyn's lands provide residents with a feeling of safety and a close-knit group of likeminded women, both of which are awesome. But one resident says, "Men are violent." Another adds: "Women, when they're together, tend to be more cooperative. They don't look for one to succeed and all the others to fail."

Men are undoubtedly violent — but so are women. And it's not always true that women "don't look for one to succeed and all the others to fail." An all-female community can be a great choice for some women — and sex with women can be a choice for some too. But to say that it's the only valid choice for every feminist doesn't just demonize men and glorify women. It also tells consenting adults what to do with their bodies, which is something both feminists and gay rights activists have long fought against. There are a lot of wonderful things my generation can take from second-wave feminism — mandatory lesbianism just isn't one of them.

My sexual revolution [Guardian]
My Sister’s Keeper [NYT]

Politically Incorrect, Women/ Feminism-Part 1 [YouTube]
Politically Incorrect, Women/ Feminism-Part 2 [YouTube]