Keep your laws off my eyeballs

It has come to my attention that the suburb of my birth is trying to outlaw the eye-roll, and although I wasn't the eye-rolling resident who was "ejected" from a city council meeting, I still consider this a personal insult.

I was delivered by a doctor in that very town 27 and a half years ago -- he announced "It's a girl!" and I rolled my eyes and thought to myself, "Yeah that's something to celebrate. Seventy-five cents on the dollar. Cigars all around!" With that kind of a beginning it's no wonder I grew up to become "the eye-rolling queen" (according to my friend who sent me the article).

If I possessed any motivation and a vehicle I'd maybe consider starting a petition and marching it out to Elmhurst to fight for the right to eye-roll. I'm just glad U.S. Cellular hasn't succeeded in outlawing the shrug.

Hillary's Hair, oh and some rape epidemic

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I first saw the story about Hillary Clinton "snapping" at a college student's question in Kinshasa, Congo on the Today Show, and was uber-annoyed with NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell's commentary, at one point saying, "She was exhausted and clearly, some would say, having a had hair day (chuckle)." She then goes on to mention that Clinton was supposed to be dealing with "really serious stuff" in Congo, such as "women who are being used as weapons of war," but had been fielding questions about her husband and his secret mission in North Korea. Thanks, Andrea, for shedding light on the important issues - after, of course, getting a crack in about the secretary of state's hairdo. Sigh.

I became even more annoyed, however, when I found the story on MSNBC's Web site. Here's the lead:

"Hillary Clinton has a message for the world: It's not all about Bill.

The secretary of state bristled Monday when — as she heard it — a Congolese university student asked what her husband thought about an international financial matter."

As she heard it?? Watch the video. Or scroll down - way down - to the 11th paragraph of the article, where the State Department's translation of the student's question is quoted:

"Thank you. Mrs. Clinton, we’ve all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation? Thank you very much."

Later the student told Clinton he had meant to ask what President Obama thought, not President Clinton. So maybe the student misspoke, or maybe the translator screwed up, but one thing should be clear: Hillary may have lost her cool, but she did not misunderstand - she did not, as the MSNBC article implies, twist the question in her mind in some kind of "Marsha Marsha Marsha!" moment.

But of course using this blip as a lead-in to a saucy story about the Clintons' marital problems sells more ads than a story about real issues, like the one the Today Show somewhat alluded to. A (sincere) thanks to Jezebel.com, which lead me to this Washington Post article about how a U.S.-backed Congolese military operation meant to save women from abusive rebels has exacerbated Congo's rape epidemic:

"An already staggering epidemic of rape has become markedly worse since the January deployment of tens of thousands of poorly trained, poorly paid Congolese soldiers, with people in front-line villages such as this one saying the soldiers are not so much hunting rebels as hunting women."

Almost as important to cover as Hillary's ego, and hair. Almost.

Happy Inauguration Day!

Despite waking up relatively early this morning, I was still a few minutes late to work, partly because I couldn’t find anything not hideously unflattering to wear, and partly because I couldn’t tear myself away from the Today Show’s ridiculous coverage of the Obamas. They’re late to church! Michelle’s wearing lemon meringue! I love hard news in the morning.

But when I finally settled into my cube, I read a heartening e-mail from one of my manger-level co-workers. He had sent a link to the Facebook/CNN.com live stream of the day’s events to our whole team. Because we’re “Internet marketers,” it was practically my duty to check it out... (I know I complain a lot, but sometimes I heart my job, especially my team.)

I guess the point of the partnership was for users to sign into their Facebook accounts on CNN.com to interact with friends (through Facebook status updates) who were watching as well. And if you weren’t on Facebook, of course there was a link encouraging you to sign up. I didn’t feel like signing into my account, though, so I just read the feed of comments from random people, which were posted to the right of the video. And boy were they fascinating... someone was jealous of her mom because she was in D.C... someone else was proud to be an American, especially today... someone else was ready for 44... but sadly these insights were cut off for me by perhaps my Internet connection or some other glitch. The video was also rather spotty, although the audio was fab.

I’m guessing I didn’t miss much by not signing into my Facebook account. This Heartless Doll blogger, who I randomly found to be hilarious and also share my affinity for Hello Kitty pajama pants (!), wrote while watching with 526 of her closest friends: “All ‘Roslynne’ can manage is ‘WOW!!!!!’ and ‘Kressel’ is ‘definatly watching history,’ lest there be any question in your mind. And ‘Steve’ is watching the Golden Girls. Thanks for keeping it real, Steve.”

Instead I opened a new window to sign into Gmail, and promptly began three Gchat conversations about a myriad of provocative topics such as: how creepy the new Bachelor is; Saturday deals on shots and cheese curds; and... the historic Inauguration of Barack Obama. All while answering Outlook (work) e-mails. Of course this was during the introductory stuff—I paid attention to the swearing in and Obama’s speech. (I did!)

What an amazing thing to watch, and in such a fitting way... Because I’m in the Internet marketing game, I’ve read and spewed a lot of babble about how the Obama campaign was the first to embrace and successfully leverage social networks to spread his message and make people feel like they have a voice. While today most of those voices were overpunctuated and misspelled, it gave me great joy to see these grammatically incorrect sentiments roll off of a Facebook feed, rather than the tongue of our Commander in Chief.

Interesting that when we felt we had a voice, when we had record turnout, we didn’t vote for someone who reminds us of ourselves, charmed by their folksy talk or good ‘ole boy sense of humor: We voted for someone we can look up to, someone who inspires us to be something better. And isn't that the definition of a leader?

No-Spin Zone

Dear Right Wing Nutjobs,

Please remove the following from your vocabulary when pushing your agenda, defending yourself or whining:

• Change


• Feminism


• Sexism


• Hate Crime

These words were created to combat real problems, and your manipulation of them makes me sad.

Signed,

Someone who values denotation and historical context

Taste of her own medicine?

It's surfaced that Republican running mate Sarah Palin's 17-year-old daughter is five months pregnant... how interesting... so far the reaction from Democrats has been to respect the privacy of Palin's family, and the reaction from Republicans has been to stand behind Palin as a "real person" and someone who "walks her talk." A quote from CNN.com:

"I think, if anything, it shows the Republican Party is a real American party," said Rex Teter, another Texas delegate. "Every family has to deal with children, and sometimes children make decisions that parents wish they would not have been made, and things happen. But I think children are a blessing from God."

Hm... yes, Palin certainly does represent the America pro-life extremists like herself have created. According to the same CNN.com article, Palin supports abstinence-only education. She also opposes abortion even in the case of rape or incest and is a member of "Feminists" for Life. (Needed to add quotation marks because that phrase makes absolutely no sense to me.) The mainstream media is dancing around all of this information due to a sudden respect for privacy, but we all see the irony here, right? "Pro-life," anti-sex education, anti-contraception extremists refuse to see the ineffectiveness of abstinence-only education in schools-- even when the failure of abstinence-only education in their own homes is staring them in the face-- and making headlines.

According to a Today Show segment that aired this morning, teen pregnancy rates are on the rise in the U.S., and three in 10 girls become pregnant by the age of 20. And why is that? They're not using protection! Shocker! If schools aren't going to teach teens about safe, healthy sex, and their parents might not, who will? Virgin/whore role models like Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson? I'm going to guess no... f-ed up, oppressive, unhealthy ideas of sexuality-- now those the media's doing a great job of teaching. Clearly.

So yay for family privacy and all that... but when a public figure's personal life directly exemplifies the failure and hypocrisy of her political platforms, I do believe it's worth pointing out. After all, the personal is political-- Palin should recognize that rhetoric-- she apparently considers herself a feminist.

It has a name, but no one wants to say it

In 1963, Betty Friedan called it "The Problem that Has No Name." Today, many call it solved. But sexism is clearly alive and well: It's just a problem no one feels like talking about anymore.

In her cover story on sexism in the workplace for the April issue of Portfolio, Harriet Rubin writes:

"This has been the hardest assignment I have ever had. For more than a decade, I've covered gender and power in the business world. I've analyzed heroes and villains, sinners and saints, and the rest of us in between. I've never had so much trouble getting people to talk to me. Nobody really wanted to get into it. Not even the people who would seem to have the most to say. In fact, those people especially would rather not mention it at all."

She goes on to illustrate how "From salary to board seats, key indicators suggest that women's advancement in corporate America has been stagnating--or even slipping--over the past few years."

Some statistics:

• Pay Gap: "The gap between men's and women's earnings narrowed steadily in the 1980s, but since then gains seem to have been followed by a drop every couple of years. Progress slipped in 2006, the latest year for which numbers are available."
• Leadership Pipeline: "Positions responsible for profit and loss often feed into top leadership spots. Of female corporate officers, 27.2 percent held those posts in 2007, down from 29 percent in 2006."
• In the Boardroom: "The number of women holding Fortune 500 board seats increased steadily between 1995 and 2005 but has been essentially flat for the past three years. Women still hold only 14.8 percent of all Fortune 500 board seats."
  
• At the Top: "The number of female corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies has dropped in each of the past three years. Last year, the number of firms with more than three female officers fell by 31, while the number of companies with zero female officers increased by 10."

Rubin writes:

"Mark Walsh, a venture capitalist and co-founder of Air America Radio, was surprised by these statistics. 'I'm on two public boards and a ton of private boards, and the mantra is diversity. But as I think about it, when we interview females in the mix, the offer of a board seat usually goes to the nonwhite men--Latinos and African Americans. We think, Great, we've done diversity.' He concludes, 'Women have taken a backseat. They're not being allowed to drive in terms of corporate governance.'"

Parallels in the race for the Democratic nomination can obviously be drawn, but let's not go there. What a shame that "isms" have to fight each other for the spotlight. Are we that easy to divide and conquer? History would say yes: First-wave feminism shifted from abolitionist roots based on abstract principles of equality when more tangible, i.e. popular arguments, which required the exclusion of nonwhite sisters, proved more effective in gaining votes for women's suffrage; and Margaret Sanger found more support for birth control rights when she shifted the argument from a woman's right to control her own body to the government's right to control the fertility of female immigrants. And today I hear that some hard-core Obama and Clinton supporters are saying they will vote for McCain if their favorite loses the nomination. What a shame.

My point, though, is that the feminist backlash has painted sexism a non-issue and feminism so very uncool. And the progress of generations is suffering. Let's not keep stalling the fight to fight over who has more to overcome, and let's focus on overcoming--because there is still work to be done, however unhip it may be these days.

After reading Rubin's article, I read a blurb in Marie Claire about a new book called Save the Males, in which columnist Kathleen Parker "argues that it's time to give back some of the power." She tells the magazine:

"Boys hear how awful they are day in and day out. We seem to understand that girls need high self esteem to perform in school and society, but we pretend that boys don't. Teachers need to dial back their girl-coddling, and society needs to better balance boys' needs with girls."

Just because Parker's argument seems like a breath of fresh air after years of stifling feminist rhetoric, that doesn't make it correct--or revolution-worthy (although I have to admit I haven't read her book). I don't know about boys' self esteem problems in elementary schools today, but I do know the person doing all the talking in my 200-student Women's Studies 101 lecture was the one and only male--extremely confident in his many opinions about women's issues. A complementary statistic to the blurb is that "60 percent of bachelor's degrees awarded in this country in 2012 will go to women." But as Rubin's article indicated, women may be graduating from college, getting jobs, even achieving promotions--but the top earners and decision-makers continue to be predominantly male--and that pesky glass ceiling seems to actually be lowering rather than shattering, contrary to what everyone expected.

I had the luxury of reading Rubin's article in glossy print, but it's also available online--along with 50-plus (when I posted this blog) heated comments, many of which illustrate how much many people wish us "angry feminists" would just shut the hell up (reader quote: "God, will the feminist whining ever stop?"), and some of which insightfully point out how the article should have also blamed women's backslide on corporate America's failure to provide and promote a work-life balance that is attractive to women (and men!) who don't want to put their careers ahead of their families.

Nevertheless, it's a good read, although I enjoyed it more without the bitter and sexist comments attached to the online version, which almost dissuaded me from writing this blog. I have to keep reminding myself that just because an issue or opinion is "uncool," just because people don't want to hear it or attack you for naming it, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist or shouldn't be discussed: In fact its unpopularity is precisely why we must refuse to shut the hell up.

Blog for choice

Today is the 35^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade and Blog for Choice Day! Contrary to the common misconception that pro-choice activists are baby-haters, I do not, in fact, hate babies. Quite the opposite, I just took two days off and two, three-plus-hour bus trips among somewhat creepy strangers to babysit my gorgeous niece. For free. That’s how much I love this particular baby.

I vote pro-choice because I want all babies to be as wanted and well-cared for as she is. I was fortunate enough to grow up in a post-Roe world where I feel I have control over my own body, and want my niece to grow up in that same world — a better one, actually — one in which accurate sex education and safe reproductive health care are accessible to everyone, regardless of geography or socioeconomic status.

Instead of attaching my 18-page senior history seminar paper on the misogyny of the 19^th century anti-abortion movement, which was of course riveting, I'll defer to Erica Jong's fabulous Huffington Post blog.

Hillary's "moment"

When I first read about Hillary Clinton's emotional "moment," I thought it could only have negative consequences. After all, isn't that why women can't be president—because a premenstrual meltdown would most certainly cause the collapse of the free world? Apparently that's what her campaign thought too, according to this New York Times article.

So I was shocked after she came back from Iowa to win the New Hampshire primary, supposedly thanks to that stereotypically female moment, at least in part. People apparently like her softer side! So maybe women won't have to join the boy's club to get into the Oval Office. And maybe we're approaching the day when caring and emotional aren't "female" characteristics, and aggressive and competitive aren't "male" characteristics—they're just human attributes we can all, unapologetically, possess.