Affirmative Action vs. Entitled White Kids

Time to step away from feminism for a wee bit and talk about the issue of affirmative action. Because unfortunately white people won't stop whining about it.

I grew up in a white, rich, suburban town, so naturally I was socialized to hate affirmative action from the moment I knew what it was. Racism! Reverse Discrimination! We don't need that stuff, the civil rights movement is over, no one's racist against black people anymore, right? And naturally, most college applicants despise anything that might keep them from getting into their top school, so going into my senior year there was extra adversity towards affirmative action. "You might not get into the school of your dreams because a black kid with a slightly lower GPA might be given your spot." As if we were somehow entitled to college admission.

When I got to college, one of my first classes was Introduction to Law, where everything I thought I knew about affirmative action was turned on its ass. I learned that racial quotas were actually unconstitutional and effectively illegal, and that in order to be considered constitutional an affirmative action admissions system has to consider all pertinent elements of diversity - race being one of them, of course, but also things like overcoming adversity, traveling abroad (something plenty of rich, white kids do), volunteer and work experience - basically, you don't have to be black to benefit from affirmative action. After that course, I had an entirely different perception of affirmative action, and it only evolved from there when I realized the value of cultural diversity in the classroom. Not that my school is extremely diverse, we do have a lot of international students and ethnic minorities but we're still mostly white and middle to upper class (you can't throw a hockey puck without hitting someone wearing a North Face or Ugg boots). Still, during class discussions it's always great to hear from someone with a different cultural perspective in the classroom, especially when they're about social and political issues.

Some may argue that it's racist to even suggest that African American and Hispanics still need a boost to achieve equality in this day and age. While I think the narrative of a white person stepping in and saving the day may be problematic, it's not racist to point out the ways in which we're NOT a post-racial society. It's not racist to point out that de facto segregation still exists, with many low income areas highly populated by ethnic minorities and most wealthy suburbs dominated by white people. It's not racist to point out racial gaps in wage, employment, and education. It's not racist to say that most suburban schools (especially the ones with state-of-the art facilities and some of the best teachers around) are mostly white, while run-down, inner city schools have mostly African American and Hispanic students. It is racist to say that all black people are poor and uneducated and cannot advance themselves, while all white people are wealthy, well educated and capable of succeeding in the professional world, but am I making those kinds of generalizations? No, I don't believe I am. If I did by accident, I apologize, because I swear to god I don't think that way.

So yeah, affirmative action may not be a perfect system, it may mean some really smart, white people don't get into their top schools and have to settle for their second choices (oh no!), but it's also still necessary. I'll be interested to see how the Supreme Court case goes, I'm hoping the ruling will be relatively similar to the last two.

My Experiences with Birth Control

I wanted to go on birth control when I was a teenager. It had very little to do with sex, really. I did want to have sex with my then-boyfriend, but whether I had access to birth control pills or not wasn't really going to impact that decision. I had condoms and, to my under developed teenage brain, that was all we really needed. We never actually had sex, by the way, but that's not really relevant.

I wanted birth control because I had awful cramps. Not cramps that kept me home from school, mind you, but that's mostly because my parents didn't think that was a good enough reason to miss school, so I had to stick a Thermacare heating pad in my underwear and suck it up. But dear god they were awful. Not to mention my other symptoms, and of course my acne, which I didn't have a problem with most of the time in high school, but still, birth control could have helped with that. But my mom was too worried about me having sex to let me get on the pill until I was 18 and about to head off to college.

Honestly, whether someone can get birth control probably won't make or break their decision to have sex. It might for some people, but for most people (I think), if birth control pills are inaccessible they're just going to use condoms. And the only barrier to condoms, other than the fact that they cost money, is that some pharmacies in low income areas keep them under lock and key and you need a sales associate to get them for you, kind of like whitening strips and razor blades. Even if buying them is embarrassing, I have not heard one story of a sales associate saying "sorry, I'm Catholic" and refusing service. I'm sure it's happened somewhere at some point, but clearly it's not all over the internet. The only thing restricting access to birth control does is make sex less safe and unplanned pregnancy more prevalent. I'm not saying that restricting access to birth control isn't a problem, it certainly is, all I'm saying is that restricting it because you think it'll keep people from having sex is flawed logic. So you're limiting reproductive freedom based on flawed logic, not to mention an archaic reason. It's not the government's business, or my employer's business (Catholic or not) whether I have sex.

Okay at this point I'm just covering my bases so no one reads this and says "but you forgot THIS reason why barriers to birth control are bad" or "no no no, that's not THE reason why it's bad," I get that there are several reasons why the government should stay out of my lady business, I just really don't feel like listing all of them here when I really wanted to connect my personal experiences with the larger issue at hand.

Street Harassment as Humor and Entertainment

(DISCLAIMER: I know not all men harass women. I'm not an idiot, nor do I think all men are sketchy douchebags. I'll say it again, I am not accusing the entire male gender of being dicks, I DO NOT mean to insinuate that all men partake in street harassment. I know most don't. So when I say that men do it for X reason, I mean men who DO harass women, not every man alive)

Yesterday it came to me: street harassment serves many functions. Some men who harass women do it to show appreciation for women's bodies, some men do it simply as a means to get a woman's attention, and some guys do it as a joke. It's something I've noticed, mostly among younger men who harass women. They do it simply as a form of entertainment, a way to make their buddies laugh.

Examples: In an earlier post I mentioned an incident where a guy was giving me a hard time on the street- er, sidewalk. I still have no idea what he said but the gestures and facial expressions said it all, it was definitely street harassment. This guy wasn't alone, he was with a friend, who if my memory serves me right, was laughing his ass off at the whole thing. A year ago I was walking across a quad on campus to go to a friend's place, and this group of guys was coming towards me. As they got closer, one decided to get right in my face and make a sudden, loud noise, just to scare and intimidate me. After he did it, he and his friends howled with laughter and ran away. The joke was that they managed to scare a woman. How silly of them.

Now I'm not saying this to excuse street harassment. It's never okay no matter what the reason, and while harassing women for the sheer fun of it may seem less threatening, it's problematic in its own way. It only perpetuates this idea that violence against women is a joke. I don't mean that street harassment is the same thing as rape or beating someone up, but it's a form of verbal abuse, and no matter what its intentions, it makes (most) women feel uncomfortable and often unsafe in the public sphere. It's part of a culture that makes light of gender violence.

I'm really trying to explain this in way that will make everyone happy, trying not to make unintentional generalizations or make it sound like I think talking to a woman is "rape" (I don't know why, but a lot of people assume feminists think that, when we don't, we just think it's a problem when a man acts as though he's entitled to a woman's company for whatever reason). No matter what I say someone's going to say I'm making a big deal of nothing, that I'm humorless and can't take a joke, that I just don't understand some forms of humor, that this is somehow pro-censorship. I'm not trying to ban this way of joking around, I just think it goes against human decency when someone's idea of a "joke" is to make intimidate a woman and make her feel unsafe in public.

Objectification and Girl Hating

The main complaint about the objectification of women is that it leads men to perceive women as objects, causes them to disrespect women, and can encourage rape. We all seem pretty aware that objectification affects the way men view women, but it stands to reason that objectification also harms the way women perceive and relate to each other. It's not just men who objectify women, women objectify other women - just in a different way that's rarely addressed.

Objectification leads women to see other women as objects. As nothing but obstacles to what they want. Admit it, we've all done it at one point or another, see another girl and immediately hate her because we're not just afraid she might get what we want, but that she's after what we want, or what we already have. We assume that that's all she wants, that she was just put on this Earth to get in our way. We're rarely taught to see other women as people with aspirations, interests, intellect, and personal struggles that have nothing to do with us.

It's not our fault! Woman-on-woman misogyny isn't good but it doesn't necessarily make someone an awful person that must be shunned from society, though it does indicate that one may need to examine her attitudes towards other women. It's no secret that the media encourages women to compete like crazy against one another, but the media also often portrays women as either very flat, or exaggerated, stereotypical characters with little depth or personality. There are many advertisements that barely portray women as people at all, but things that exist for men. They exist to pursue men, to please men, to live their lives for men. So while men may internalize this and feel superior to women, or entitled to having women devote insane amounts of time and energy to please them, women may internalize this and not only feel pressure to do this, but may assume that other women do exist for men, and that may feed into the problem of competition, and breed resentment among women.

Is it unhealthy to assume other women are out to get your boyfriend/crush/guy you're dating? Absolutely. It's not good to feel that paranoia, but my fear is more women suffer from it than we know, because no one wants to admit to that.

And obviously, this is not the only source of "girl hate." It's a multi-dimensional problem I could write about for hours, but I can only do so much in any given night. I have homework I need to to get to work on.

DEFENSE Of Sucker Punch

Back in March I wrote about Sucker Punch as being a feminist movie. Apparently I'm one of the very few people who saw it that way - aside from Zach Snyder, Emily Browning, and of course my friend David. Everyone says it was horrible and most feminists deem it actually ANTI-feminist because of the panty shots and attempted rapes in the movie.

Really, people?

First of all, I'll admit it's not a quality film. I do predict it will be nominated for an Oscar in Visual Effects, but it may not win even that. The plot IS simplistic and lacking in any real depth or complexity, but you can't say it's not there. The plot does exist on a very basic level. The characters aren't all that well developed either, the writing isn't top notch, it's not exactly Avatar or The King's Speech or Black Swan. But I like it, I think it's fun to watch.

Now, to address the anti-feminist things in it. Yes, the girls are sexualized. They have names like Baby Doll and Sweet Pea, they're decked out in skimpy clothes (like every other comic book character out there, mind you), there are panty shots and yes, some girls are almost raped. Those parts are bad. But for the love of God, can we look at these elements in context? Maybe the panty shots are fan service, but all in all, did it cross any of these people's minds that the sexualization of the girls is part of what they're trying to escape? They're being oppressed, and in fact their oppression itself is in Baby Doll's mind, as though it's a metaphor for the male domination she's internalized through recent events in her life - it's a dream world created by her involuntary subconscious rather than a actively manifested fantasy as most people assume. She doesn't want to be in a brothel, what she wants is to escape. Notice that when one of the girls does escape, the first thing that happens is she finds a normal, modest dress and puts it on. Though that's not really emphasized in the original cut, unfortunately. But that right there should illustrate the escape from a sexualizing atmosphere, rather than a transition from voluntary self-sexualization, again, as most people assume.

Now, let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture. The girls are fighting against male oppression. It's the men who put them in that situation, it's the men that tell them what to do, who keep them prisoner, who sexually abuse and exploit them, and in the fantasy sequences, all the enemies are male with the exception of the mother dragon. While the way they're treated isn't feminist, the fact that they're fighting back and reclaiming their freedom from oppressive men IS the main feminist theme of the movie.

I should address the fact that the girls are briefed on their missions by a man. Yes, it's a man giving them instructions. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, but my gut says it's not explicitly anti-feminist. I mean, women who have fought for their equality have typically learned what they need to do from men, either sought their advice or literally learned from male teachers and professors, even if they attended women's colleges.

I also noticed recently that with the exception of one, maybe two songs, the entire soundtrack is made up of female artists. They may be doing renditions of songs originally performed by men, but they're the ones singing, and putting their own styles to the songs. And I personally love the covers, especially White Rabbit and Search & Destroy.

Whether it passes the Bechdel Test is sort of up in the air. It depends on whether you can call names like Baby Doll and Sweet Pea "real" names. They're not their real names, but we never learn what the real names are. The only woman with her real name in tact is the Polish therapist. But the women do talk to each other, and about something other than a man, so if their names "count," then yes, it passes. I mean, the movie is about women, so clearly they have a profound presence in the movie, which is what the test is meant to measure. What they're called in the movie doesn't really negate how much the movie revolves around them.

Whether the movie, or any movie, is perceived as feminist relies on a few things. 1) What one considers feminist or empowering; 2) Which theoretical lens(es), if any, one uses to analyze it (I instinctively watched the whole movie through the lens of Marxist Feminism, big surprise there); and 3) whether one sees the big picture or main concept of the movie, and/or whether one looks at the smaller details - ideally, one needs to see both, and look at the smaller details in the context of the bigger picture.

Twilight and the "Girl Improvement" Narrative

This isn't a new narrative really. It's a classic fairy tale formula - a woman, either an average pretty girl or an actual princess - meets a prince who takes her to his castle, dresses her up in fine clothing and either makes her royalty or makes her qualified to rule through marriage. Either way, she is improved merely by being with him.

Now we do see movies where the opposite is true, a woman strives to make her boyfriend or husband shape up, takes him shopping and buys him nicer clothes, and motivates him to get a job. However, the woman who does this is typically framed as a bitch, or a ball-buster, the guy complaining that her efforts to shape him are emasculating. Of course, the woman usually only intervenes in his life if he's in really bad shape and needs her help - unemployed, dirty irresponsible, plays video games all day long and dresses like homeless man. Rarely does the female character intervene when he's doing all right.

The girl improvement narrative, which I am hereby coining on my own, is a little different. Rather than a woman improving her male partner with her femininity, her partner improves her femininity. He takes her in and improves how she dresses, how she talks, how she carries herself, etc., even if she's doing fine on her own This is often seen in Disney movies, but Twilight takes it to a new degree, trading the sparkling tiara for glittering skin.

Bella draws a lot of criticism for being bland, clumsy, lacking in ambition and any real ability to make up her mind. However, had she not found Edward she probably would have grown out of her awkwardness and matured, personally I give the girl a break for being human and only a teenager. But that's just it, she's only human. Edward swoops in and saves her from her human flaws, and in fact, her very humanity itself. Before they marry he gently works to "improve" her, practically making her apply to various schools, helping her with her homework, in the book he put shiny things in her hair for prom. Though I shouldn't be too harsh on him, at least he doesn't criticize her character flaws or teach her how to walk, sit, and speak like in the Princess Diaries.

The Cullens are like royalty, their mansion a castle. They are wealthy, well known in school, accomplished and well spoken. Bella is afforded every luxury when she is with them - a glamorous birthday party (and later a lavish wedding), beautiful dresses to wear, a luxurious bed to sleep on when she has to spend the night. The couple spend their honeymoon on a gorgeous private island. This is all in stark contrast to her human life, where she lives in a small house and takes care of her father - if this is starting to remind you of Beauty and the Beast, you're not alone. It really is like a modern rags-to-riches fairy tale, where her life is drastically improved just by being his girlfriend. This is not always addressed when critics point out how incomplete she is without him.

Finally, after they marry and she dies in childbirth, almost ruined by the result of their partnership and intimacy, he turns her into a vampire, giving her new life. This is also rarely addressed in the common critiques about the abusive relationship she has with Edward. After enduring his controlling nature for over a year, she finally commits to him forever, gives him her virginity and as a result wakes up covered in bruises with a monster growing inside her. The birth, which to her credit she does choose, kills her. This may remind the reader of the way abusive partners destroy the souls and selfhoods of their victims so they can build them anew, making their victims into what they want them to be. In Breaking Dawn, the Bella that Edward creates by turning her into a vampire is beautiful, sparkling, coordinated and strong - just like the rest of the Cullens. Not to mention that in becoming a vampire, she is forced to cut off all contact with her father and her human friends, and she isn't supposed to be friends with Jacob but at least he is in on the secret so eventually it's okay.

But this isn't about the escalating abusive nature of the relationship. This piece is about how by being his, Bella is transformed from a normal girl to a dazzling princess- I mean vampire. This age old narrative has drawn criticism for the messages it sends to girls, but I want to focus on the message it sends to guys and the behavior it normalizes. These stories subtly tell guys that it is their job to improve the women that they're with, rescuing them from their mere mediocrity. I've known young men who have internalized this, one who did feel it was his job to have a paternalistic relationship with all the women in their lives, giving them advice and making them "better" whether they wanted his help or not. When I rejected his unsolicited guidance he vilified me for being ungrateful, saying he wouldn't help me at all ever again. To him it was absurd that I wouldn't want to improve (I did, I just wanted the improvements to be of my own doing), that by being happy with who I was I was merely settling, and that a mature woman would be happy to accept his improvements.

This used to be the rationale for allowing men to hit their wives. In fact, it is still the rationale behind Christian Domestic Discipline marriages. The idea is that women require guidance from their husbands, and that by correcting bad behavior through spanking, he improves her very character.

The "girl improvement" narrative in various fairy tale, rags to riches movies only normalizes the condescending, paternalistic, borderline controlling way too many guys treat their wives and girlfriends, acting as though it is their duty to make them better women. Twilight is by no means the only example of this narrative that women need to be improved by their male partners, it's just a glaring example.

Women and Black Friday

(this started out as a piece on the general sociology of Black Friday, but evolved into most an analysis of women who shop on Black Friday, mostly because the majority of Black Friday shoppers are women. if someone would like to post a comment discussing the male experience of Black Friday, be my guest)

Black Friday has gotten a reputation as being a day where hoards of Americans flock to the stores in the wee hours of the morning to snag some ridiculous deals on merchandise, and get a jump start to their holiday shopping. It has become a day associated with greed, violence, and recently worker exploitation as well. While those important elements should not be forsaken in people’s criticisms of Black Friday, it is important to look at the sociological side of it as well. Black Friday isn’t just a sale day; it is both a bonding experience and a time of great competition for women.

Watch the news on Black Friday; watch the interviews of those crazy people standing in line at 2am, freezing their tails off. Notice how a lot of the people are standing in groups. You’re likely to see a mother and daughter say that they do this every year, or sisters who say that waiting in line on Black Friday is a tradition for them. Think about it: shopping is a female bonding activity, and Thanksgiving is all about spending time with family. It’s a holiday that brings together family members who don’t often get to see each other.

When the day after Thanksgiving rolls around, families are looking for something to do. They want to keep up the momentum of spending time together and having fun. They can either sit around talking – which gets old after a lunch of cold turkey sandwiches – or they can go out and do something fun, perhaps something that family members from out of town want to do while they’re there. Shopping is one way to do this, as is going to a movie or go out to dinner. Family members visiting from out of town may want to take advantage of shopping opportunities unique to the area, visit stores they do not have where they live. It’s true that not everyone stands in line for the “door buster deals” to do this, but for some family members, especially women, even the experience of standing in line together can be fun and a good way to bond and catch up.

By now, American society seems to have split into two groups: those who wait in line for stores to open on Black Friday, and those who don’t. People who haven’t begun to do it probably won’t start this year or anytime soon, unless they just have to buy something they cannot normally afford, and those who have been doing so may not want to stop. It is not as though these people enjoy waking up at 2am after a feast of wine, turkey, and pie just to shop – surely, as the hours of Black Friday become more ridiculous, fewer people may begin to make Black Friday shopping a tradition, but for those who have already made it a tradition in their families, they may not want to give it up just because of the hours. To them, the hours might even make it more fun and exciting.

While Black Friday may be a way for some women to bond, it is also a time of great competitiveness among women. Black Friday advertisements, and in fact advertisements throughout the holiday season, urge women – who are still the main consumers in most households – to hurry to the malls and spend as much money as possible trying to make Christmas perfect for their families. There is an immense amount of pressure on women to buy the perfect gifts, and as many as possible, for everyone they know; purchase the perfect holiday outfits; throw the perfect holiday parties; transform their houses into Christmas wonderlands; and finally, cook the perfect feast. For women, the idea is not to enjoy Christmas but to make sure everyone around them does, giving even more of themselves than usual. It is true that Christmas is the season of giving, but there is more pressure on women to be the ones making the sacrifices, especially since many women still feel pressure to be self-sacrificing year-round.

As seen in recent years, this pressure to be perfect, and especially to buy as many presents as possible, has driven some women to hysterics on Black Friday. News stories show people camping out outside stores, storming the doors at 3am, shoving people out of the way and trampling others, even pepper-spraying their way to the discounted Xboxes. Yes, there are men in these crowds, but most of the “crazy” ones are women, and a lot of the violence is women harming other women. Are some of these women actually mentally unstable? Sure, some may be, but a good portion of them are simply women who have internalized the pressure to give, give, give and are trying desperately to do this in tough economic times. This is not to defend this woman-on-woman crime, but merely to explain that the causes of such behavior.

This is not to say that men do not go shopping on Black Friday, we all know that some do. However, it’s less common and in general, men – especially heterosexual men – do not use shopping as a chance to bond with others (unless the shopping is something sex-related, such as an outing to Victoria’s Secret or an adult toy store). This often creates the comical scenario of a man being dragged through the mall with his girlfriend, who sees it as a date, while he sees it as a chore. There are men who do enjoy shopping, there are men who enjoy shopping with others, but shopping as a bonding experience is still primarily a feminine activity.

While there are men present on Black Friday, Black Friday and much of the holiday season is still traditionally a season of women. Much of the work that goes into Christmas is feminine – shopping, decorating, cooking, baking, hosting, and making the day special for the children. The insane retail hours and shopping hysteria is merely the product of all this pressure women still face to make Christmas perfect for their friends and families. However, it is important to acknowledge that not everyone who shops on Black Friday does it for those above reasons, and many women do it simply because it is a way to bond with other female family members in the wake of a holiday where families get together and kick off the holiday season.