* Ms. Magazine reporter Kate Noftsinger asks a panel of Lilith Fair artists a question:

“Who here identifies as a feminist?”

I got a long pause, followed by nervous laughter.

Finally [Brandi Carlile] spoke, “I don’t know, it means something different that it used to.”

Before I could ask what it meant now as opposed to then, [Sarah McLachlan] assumed the role of official spokesperson and began building a mystery:

"It’s a tricky question, because it’s been redefined and I think we all define feminism to a certain degree. We all define femininity. I think we’re able to have a little more balance. There’s still fights to be fought. There’s still inequality, absolutely. . . . I think as long as we’re being mindful and honest with ourselves and doing what we feel is right, and that’s a very personal decision for all of us, if we’re going forth with that intention, then we are; we’re being feminists, we’re being humanists, we’re being feminine. We’re being true to ourselves, in every way, in every facet of our personalities."

By conflating feminism with femininity, Sarah McLachlan officially lies squarely in the feminist tradition of Sarah Palin devotees.

* Metro Weekly profiles "the first out transgender Capitol Hill staffer."

* But, also in Metro Weekly, magazine co-publisher Sean Bugg is "terrified to write about transgender issues."

* In 1999, David Segal penned the definitive Buttman profile:

Ladies and gentlemen, hide your daughters: John Stagliano is strolling down a riverside walkway and he's got his mojo working.

Cradling a video camera in his hands, he sidles up to a curvy brunet and fumbles for a pick-up line. Gazing into the lens, the woman seems flustered at first, then amused, then — lo and behold — flattered. She follows him to a hotel room, and within minutes she is standing on a coffee table, peeling off her dress. A man knocks on the door and eventually there is a whole lot of naked writhing on a white couch.

Stagliano shoots. Stagliano scores.

* Sady Doyle channels Simone de Beauvoir-as-dating advice columnist.

Photo via Kashmera, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Jaclyn Friedman is, in short, a feminist rock star. She is the executive director of  WAM!: Women, Action & the Media. She edited the incredible Yes Means Yes!: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape, and continues the work of dismantling rape culture in her weekly pro-sex column. She writes as compellingly about taking off her shirt for fun as she does her college sexual assault. And she has been fucking under these conditions for nearly 20 years.

Fucking while feminist presents a peculiar set of challenges for the pro-sex single. How do you talk rape culture on a first date while still managing to get laid once in a while? How do you find the feminist guy who won't self-flagellate to the point of unfuckability? How do you avoid dying alone, basically? Friedman agreed to talk to me about establishing a feminist fucking litmus test, the art of locating non-douchey sex partners online, and the secret perks of fucking a feminist.

Sexist: So I was eating dinner with my boyfriend the other day and I started talking about my opinions on rape kits and shit, and I realized that I could probably never talk about this stuff on a first date with someone I had never met.

JF: And if you were me, you would go the a first date, and he would ask, "So, what do you do?" My online dating profile says that I’ve written a book and I’m writing another one. So they ask about it. And then literally ten minutes into a first date I’m talking about rape culture.

How does that usually work out?

JF: The way I hope it will work is that they ask these initial questions before we meet in person. So then they can go offline and collect their thoughts and then respond to me. My profile says I’m a feminist. So a lot of people who would be really scared off by me, we don’t get very far. When the whole Polanski thing was going down, I had this big argument with a guy about Polanski. First date. And last one.

JF: I would like for there to be a set of feminist litmus tests that I could reference and use to find the right guy. Right now, I feel like I'm in an endless cycle of asking myself, "Am I willing to let this slide?" I'm mostly dating guys right now, which is fairly new for me. From my early 20s to my mid-30s I dated exclusively women and trans men. I'm not romanticizing that, like "it's so much easier with women"—let me tell you, it's not. But it's a different set of questions you have to ask. I don't feel like I can go in to these dates expecting dudes to know as much about feminism or sexuality studies or rape culture, the stuff that I live my life talking about and thinking about. I feel like I’m going to die alone if I do that.

. . . Here is what’s depressing about dating while feminist. Feminism is what I do with my life, it's how I spend my days, it's my job, it's not just an opinion I have among many other opinions. If I had a hardcore litmus test, the pool of men I could date would be so tiny. And then when you weeded out men who are gay, the men I don't find attractive, the men already in monogamous, committed relationships—really, I would never get laid again. So I do feel that I have to try to be flexible out of necessity. But if I were to end up with someone—and I do want a long-term, stable relationship with someone at some point—they would have to be feminist on some basic level. They would have to be.

JF: That would be lovely, wouldn’t it? If I could turn a man feminist with the power of my vagina? It hasn’t happened yet. . . . When I was younger, I dated mostly women and trans men. Those relationships didn’t work out, obviously, they had their own issues. But the feminist thing wasn’t as much of an issue. And the only cisgender man I’ve been in a longterm relationship was a feminist when I met him. We would have feminism arguments where I was educated by him, and vice versa. And I thought, well, how lucky I am to have found a feminist guy! And he ended up being an ass . . . in somewhat unrelated ways.

JF: I'm e-mailing a guy right now I really want to meet who used the word "heteronormativity" in his profile . . . aside from that, which almost never happens, more what I look for is. . . you know the Bechdel Test for films? It states that any good film has to have two female characters who talk to each other about something other than a guy. Well, this is my test: When I look at personal ads, I look at their lists of favorite books, movies, and music, and they have to list women in all of those categories. They don't have to have a majority of women, but they have to know that women exist in the culture and be fans of some of them. It's a pretty low bar—or it should be. I used to look for guys who don’t list Fight Club in their favorites, but I've had to relax that rule, because all dudes evidently love Fight Club. I do draw the line at Ayn Rand. It's more about avoiding red flags than anything else. . . . I also don’t respond to any guy who says they’re looking for a woman who "doesn’t have drama," not because I have a lot of drama, but because I feel like that is code for women who have opinions.

JF: If you Google me, it’s pretty obvious where I stand on the sex stuff. Whenever I end up talking about my work on rape, I also am immediately communicating that I’m a pro-sex feminist. . . . I have been with some men who are surprised that I am, shall we say, less than vanilla in bed . . . A couple of guys were shocked that I like to play various games in bed, because I'm a feminist. That's always really interesting to me. I'm always like, 'Are you kidding me? The feminists I know are the craziest women in bed you can find!" Those are the moments where I feel like a one-woman feminist PR machine. I'm instructing the world one man at a time that feminists are really fun to sleep with.

JF: Oh God. There is a type of feminist guy who is so eager to fall over himself to be deferential to women and to prove his feminist bona fides and flagellate himself in front of you, to the point that it really turns me off. And it makes me sad, because politically, these are the guys that I should be sleeping with! You know what I'm talking about?

YES.

JF: Everyone knows what I'm talking about. And some of them are even really cute! I want to say to them, "If you could be a person, like a whole, complicated person, who I feel like I could crack jokes around, then I would really like you." But they're so serious about their feminism at every moment that I don’t feel like a person to them. I feel like I'm on a pedestal, almost. I know that they're not going to disagree with anything I say under any circumstances. And I don't feel like I can make a raunchy joke about sex, because they'll be horrified. . . . I hate to be critical of our allies in any way, because we need them, but there's something about that certain kind of hyperfeminist guy that makes them unappealing to date, to me. I suspect it has something to do with our internal conceptions of masculinity, which is terrible on my part.

JF: Yes. They haven't internalized their feminism, so it’s always being externalized. And it places a lot of pressure on the women they're with. There's this very self-conscious performance of feminism. And it does sometimes feel like they want a cookie. . . .  OK, I know this is such a delicate conversation to have, but I want those guys to wake up because those are the guys I want to want to sleep with!

JF: . . . What happens to me that drives me up a tree is this: The guys who respond to me and are like, 'You’re awesome. You’re kind of a hellcat." They think it's cool and kind of bad-ass that I'm outspoken and passionate about things. They think that’s really hot. They’re into it. But then when that outspokenness gets applied back to them, it’s suddenly game-over. You know the idea of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl? She's light, and quirky, and she has no inner life of her own, and just there to serve our hero’s development and erotic interests. I sort of feel that I get cast in these dudes' narratives as the Hellcat Dream Girl, there to prove how bad-ass they are because they’re dating such a bad-ass woman. They think it’s cute or sexy. But when I use that smart, outspoken bad-assery to challenge their own perspectives, it’s suddenly not sexy at all. It happens when they say something that I disagree with, and I act like a person and not someone that is playing out their particular fantasies.

It’s happened to me a million times . . . they want it as a trophy. "Hey, look at my bad-ass girl." They don’t want to deal with me as a person. It follows this pattern where it usually comes from a person who seeks me out. They try to seduce me. They think I would be an accomplishment to conquer or something. They seek me out and try to get me interested in them, and then I am, and then they flee. . . . I feel like the same thing happened with the guy I dated for two years. He liked the idea of being a guy who would be with someone like me, but ultimately it turned out that he wanted someone who wouldn’t challenge him as much, a person who was easier and quicker to sweep away. I got evidence of that when, within three months of breaking up with me, he was dating a 23 year old who lists her political views on Facebook as "moderate."

JF: Oftentimes I wonder what the people who know me professionally would think about the compromises I make when I’m dating. I wish this were a live conversation where other feminists were weighing in. I’d like to know what other women are doing. Am I making the right compromises here? Should dating require these sorts of compromises? Is there any tactic that produces better results? . . .  I feel very unsure about what the best way is to live my politics and have a sex life. I really feel in the weeds about it. But it's something I think about all the time, and I don’t feel like I have the answers.

Photo by Anh Dao Kolbe

Remember James Chartrand, the female blogger behind "Men With Pens" who adopted a male pseudonym in order to earn respect, feed her kids, and pen privileged tirades against the feminist mommy-bloggers who "try to shave the balls of all males who dare to visit the blog"? Well, Chartrand has got some more scandalous revelations for the blogosphere today: Chartrand identifies as a feminist.

The F-word admission came courtesy of Taylor Lindstrom, an employee of Chartrand's who is described on the Web site as "the team’s rogue woman who wowed us until our desire for her talents exceeded our desire for a good ol’ boys club." In a post titled "Taylor's a Feminist—But So Is James," Lindstrom explained Chartrand's many feminist reasons for adopting a male pen name:

(a) The pay gap hits older women harder than it does younger women (Chartrand is 38, Lindstrom is 25).

(b) Unlike "Taylor," Chartrand's given name was obviously feminine, which affected her ability to avoid stereotyping.

(c) Chartrand was a single parent who had to make enough income to feed both herself and her family, which further justifies her decision to use a male pseudonym.

Makes sense. But then we get into the final section of Lindstrom's feminist manifesto: "Why Feminism Is Pissing Me Off." Lindstrom writes:

There have been a few blog posts and articles out there suggesting that James should have taken one for the team. That women have a responsibility to one another to keep fighting, to bust through the glass ceiling, to rip equality out of the hands of the men who are still (jeez, STILL) trying to keep it from us.

James didn’t help women, they say. He just stopped fighting.

Well, they’re right. He did. I can’t say as I see the problem with that.

The whole point of the feminist movement was that women should have the right to choose where their priorities lie. They should be able to choose to have a career, to live independently, to vote and own property and make mistakes and get famous and all the rest of it.

If they want to, though, they should also be able to choose to live exactly the way women had been expected to live for centuries—at home, taking care of the kids. They have the right to choose that life if they want to. And no one gets to tell them that they HAVE to get out there and hold down a job because women still don’t have equal pay in the workplace.

No one gets to tell a woman she has to do ANYTHING just because she’s a woman.

This part makes no sense. Let me clear something up right now: Feminism is about choice for women. The feminist movement is about working to open up all of life's choices to all women.  It's about making sure that women have equal opportunity to pursue any education, career, or higher office, and to earn equal pay and respect when they do so. It's about allowing women to make their own reproductive decisions, whether the decision be to use birth control, to have an abortion, or to have a lot of kids and to raise them as a stay-at-home mom.

That being said, simply being a woman who makes choices for herself does not constitute a feminist act. Lindstrom seems to believe that choosing to do whatever she wants to do— whether it helps other women or not—makes her a feminist, and deflecting all criticism about her choices makes her some sort of double-whammy feminist (sound familiar?).

It doesn't. It just makes her a woman who has benefited from feminism.

Feminism is about working to make these choices available to all women—not just wealthy women, not just white women, not just straight women, not just cisgender women, not just women who adopt an absurd masculine persona in order to access male privilege.

Is adopting a male pseudonym particularly anti-feminist? I don't think so. But James Chartrand's male persona did more than simply not help women. It also hurt them—see her infamous testicle-laden tirade about how she respects women who blog, as long as they don't "wield their feminism like a spiked mace" and "try to shave the balls of all males."

I'm glad that Chartrand has decided to come out as a woman. Here's to hoping she'll eventually reveal herself as a feminist, as well.

"Russian Roulette" has been branded Rihanna's "comeback single" in order to mark her first solo effort since being assaulted by then-boyfriend Chris Brown in February of this year. Following the assault, the feminist blogosphere exploded with criticisms, defenses, and theories relating to the R&B singer's personal tragedy. In the following months, Rihanna became a staple on feminist blogs.  The pop star has been consistently mentioned in discussions of sexual assault—but she's just as often been invoked to fawn over her clothing choices and speculate about her love life. In places like Jezebel, where feminist issues and pop culture obsessions both receive heavy coverage, Rihanna's abuse has only fueled interest in her more traditional pop-star duties, like carving out a unique style and churning out catchy songs. In 2009, Rihanna's public identity has emerged as a conflation of high-wattage pop star and domestic abuse survivor.

Rihanna herself, on the other hand, has felt comfortable only playing the pop star part—and has remained extremely tight-lipped about her abuse experience. She has never publicly identified as a feminist or an advocate for victims of domestic abuse. As I prepared this post, I realized with amazement that I had never actually read any full interview with Rihanna. (And, full disclosure, I really like Rihanna, and tend to follow the domestic abuse coverage alongside potential Justin Timberlake hook-up news). The pop star has managed to maintain an extremely high profile in feminism without saying much of anything at all. Rihanna is certainly no Lady Gaga, who has positioned herself in the center of the gay rights movement, even as she releases decidedly apolitical pop tunes (largely about heterosexual sex). It's not so strange for a pop star to opt out of discussing politics (and her personal life). But it is an odd formula for crafting a feminist idol.

Recent critiques of "Russian Roulette" have made clear that feminists are yearning for Rihanna to step into that role. After hearing the song, Alyssa Rosenberg wrote about her personal wishes for Rihanna's career. "When 'Silly Boy' leaked as a Rihanna track a couple of months ago, I thought it was a perfect career move for her: upbeat, vocally playing to her strengths, and by far most importantly, a rebuke to a guy who would treat his girlfriend badly," she writes. "I do understand that it's extremely difficult to leave an abusive relationship, and I respect that.  But I thought it would have been terrific for someone to overcome such a relationship in public.  Instead, Rihanna is using a song about embracing being terrorized as her comeback single." Jezebel's North was similarly creeped out by the song, writing: "What I'm actually most worried about is her label's thinking on this song . . . if anyone pushed a domestic violence victim to record a comeback song about gunplay, that's something to get angry about."

But the disappointment and anger over the subject matter of Rihanna's new single has also been accompanied by concerns over aesthetics. Rosenberg admits that the song "isn't much good"; North writes that it "kind of sucks." Perez Hilton, writing exclusively on the track's artistic merits, expressed that he was "shocked and saddened" by the lackluster production (though apparently unconcerned with the overtones of domestic violence). Rosenberg and North disclose the song's suckiness as if it's beside the point, but I wonder if the double expectation that Rihanna be both a successful pop star and a model survivor of domestic abuse is responsible for the perceived feminist failure here. The song's aesthetic problems extend to its lyrics, which, while "dark" and "edgy," don't appear to mean anything in particular, and certainly don't qualify as a clear "defense" of domestic abuse. Couplets like "As my life flashes before my eyes / I’m wondering will I ever see another sunrise" and "So many won’t get the chance to say goodbye / But it’s too late too pick up the value of my life" clearly connote violence. But I can't agree with Rosenberg that the song is about "embracing being terrorized"—the main problem with the song is that the lyrics don't convey any specific perspective on the darkness.

"Russian Roulette" may not have succeeded as Rihanna's "comeback single," but it's important to make clear which comeback we're talking about—is it her return to the world of pop, or her recovery from an abusive relationship? Rosenberg "thought it would have been terrific for someone to overcome such a relationship in public." But why does Rihanna's return to music have to come only after she's ready to announce that she's "overcome" domestic abuse? And given Rihanna's obvious reluctance to make her private life public, how could anyone expect her to live up to the feminist obsession that's been brewing over her life and career for the past nine months? Perhaps she isn't ready to play the public role of empowered survivor, and perhaps she never will.

I doubt that Rihanna's critics would be raising the same concerns over her missed feminist opportunity if she had released an infectious club jam like "S.O.S." or "Disturbia" which completely steered clear of an abuse theme. Problematically, both Rosenberg and North argue that the lyrics of "Russian Roulette" do evoke issues of domestic abuse—and go on to suggest that Rihanna is either doing it wrong, or being coerced by her handlers to do it wrong. I don't think we should expect Rihanna to incorporate her new-found feminist fame into her pop songs—like Perez Hilton, I'm more disappointed that the song isn't so hot. But when Rihanna does decide to make a public nod to her experience with domestic abuse, shouldn't we refrain from suggesting that she's not expressing herself correctly as a victim?

Last week, "Semen Facials Are Like Weddings" was the perfect storm of Sexist comments. The facial ejaculation rant drew comments from feminists wanting to blame the patriarchy, feminists wanting to defend sex-positivity, and dudes who like to describe jizzing on their sex partners' faces on the Internet. The really weird part, though? Nobody spoke up in defense of weddings.

Anyway, here are your best facial comments. (I've excerpted most of them, because you all just had too much to say).

Katie says:

It’s not good for feminists to play sexual thought police, or to instill guilt in someone who likes to do someone else might find degrading. Isn’t it more progressive and feminist to say, “This is how *I* want to get off”, than to shame women by saying the things they desire sexually are anti-feminist? Shouldn’t we allow for some diversity? Different strokes, as they say.

DirkJohanson says:

I have better orgasms when I cum on a girl’s face since I know I am free to blow my load to my heart’s content, whereas when a girl asks me to cum on her tits but not on her face, I am always worried that I might not have the best aim and will end up cumming on her face, too. Since this often happens, I hold back when I cum on tits and don’t cum with as much force and often feel like, and still actually have, another load in me waiting to imminently come out. Simply put, when I cum on tits, I don’t feel nearly as finished as when I cum on a face or when a girl wants me to cum in her mouth. And I feel genuinely badly when I cum in a girl’s eye because it stings so badly.

Amanda Marcotte says:

Facials are best compared to spitting in someone’s face. That’s how they function in porn. The woman has been sexually available, and therefore is degraded, and so after getting off with her body, a man should reaffirm the patriarchal loathing of the sexual female by showing his contempt for a woman by spitting in her face. With his cock. In some porn, the facial became too obscure because of eager rationalizations, so instead they literally spit in a woman’s face or fling money at her while kicking her to the curb. The main thing is making sure the message is sent—a woman who fucks is scum and should be treated as such.

Thus it’s not “anti-sex” to criticize the facial. The facial is anti-sex. The facial says that women who have sex deserve to have men spit in their faces. Fuck that.

YB says:

I just wanted to question the validity of your spitting/ejaculation comparison. Granted, both are acts of expelling fluid from the body, but it seems to me that that is where the similarity ends. At least I hope it does – spitting, after all, is a socially constructed concept, which is how it acquires its negative meaning. Who would advocate for ejaculation to have a negative meaning? When a man ejaculates into a woman’s vagina no one considers it “spitting” at her vagina. Or, is it more “ok” to “spit” at/in a woman’s vagina than her face? Because the face is so much more “proper” than a vagina, therefore “spitting” at a face is not ok but spitting at the vile dirty vagina is?

Victor says:

Just to add a little “fact check”, I believe the external shot was originally added to movies more as an indication of the ending of a scene. Think about it, as a viewer, what else is there? a bunch of panting, sweating and grunting. I suspect they started this external shot to prove more that the guy was actually getting off. Granted, now it has been used in a number of different ways.

nic writes:

note to doodz commenting on this post: NO ONE IS INTERESTED IN THE DETAILS OF YOUR SEX LIVES. i know this is hard to understand when all of western culture is devoted to glorifying the masculine sex drive, but seriously, cut it out. your privilege is showing.

Kay writes:

you fucking fail at life. this is so illogical, and you expect us to accept hypocrisy because it’s convenient.

Photo by peasap

Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I were totally prepared to have a Very Serious Discussion Concerning Our Feelings on the Defense Of Marriage Act and Why Obama Was Or Was Not A Dick About It (VSDCOFOTDOMAAWOWOWNADAI) today.

But then we read this awesome piece by Steve Haruch, dude in Texas, about why post-post-feminism in pop music is just pre-feminism in disguise, and we thought, "fuck it, let's talk about Beyonce in a cop outfit."

Can pop music ever be more than just, as Steve says, "Feminist Lite"?

Spoiler: Yes it can, but only under certain delicate conditions involving Beyonce acting like a jerk, tacos, and Britney Spears cutting the crap already and just hiring me as her feminist advisor.

SADY: lady! are you ready to have a discussion about postpostpostpostpostfeminism?

AMANDA: hi! Sorry! first of all, since you seem to have been doing a bit of "research" into modes of feminism lately can you tell me what post-feminism is? and what post-post-feminism might be?

SADY: post-feminism is the one where progress has been accomplished so we can all be SEXY again and also camille paglia can blame us for our date rapes! post-post-feminism is... um... feminism again? or the one where we have to fight each other in Thunderdome. no wait, that's post-APOCALYPTIC-post-

Ooh boy, it's National Offend a Feminist Week!

You know, as a feminist blogger, I spend most weeks out of the year not getting offended by anything. Frankly, I'm sick of raking up obscure sexist bullshit to be offended by! That's why I always look forward to National Offend a Feminist Week, when I finally get to sit back, relax, and let the anti-feminists shower me with free sexist bullshit. Thanks for helping me do my job, fuckers!

But wait—AUUUUUUGH! AUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHH!—I'm ALREADY OFFENDED by this! The very idea of Offend a Feminist Week is offensive enough for me to write a blog post about why it offends me! The anti-feminist bloggers have caught me in an Offended Feminist Mind Meld! I can't stop using explanation points! Nor italics! NOR CAPS LOCK! AUGH!

OFFEND A FEMINIST WEEK MALE PRIVILEGE SHADES OF RAPE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY ALEC BALDWIN SOMETHING SOMETHING ABORTION!!

Whew. That was a close one.

Photo by Rich Anderson.

Earlier this week, I explained, ever-so-respectfully, why I thought sex-positive feminism was boring and dumb. In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, a chatty-thing, Tiger Beatdown's Sady kindly explains how she came to personally identify as a "sex positive feminist" by being the only employee in a sex shop who didn't know her anal nerve endings from the ones in her "cooter," and I realize that a preponderance of rope restraints may be the only thing keeping me from the dark "sex-positive" side. Enjoy!

AMANDA: ok. so. sex sex sex sex feminism sex

SADY: Indeed! I have, at times – many, many, MANY times – identified as a "sex-positive" feminist. Yet your article demonstrated for me some of the reasons why that can be annoying even to my very own ears!

AMANDA: yeah, and the issue is actually a lot more interesting than the form it was presented in my post ("rant")

SADY: Well, I feel like "sex-positive" is kind of a necessary construction, or was, at a certain point, when people were arguing with each other over whether porn, or heterosexual intercourse, was inherently oppressive to the ladies because of The Sexism. I even feel like right now we need to talk about ladies having sex drives and bodies that can enjoy sex and how that is not just necessarily some thing women inexplicably do to gratify man boners!

AMANDA: incidentally, i identify as a man boner gratifying feminist. i definitely agree with you, and i think the history of "sex positivity" and "feminist" is part of the reason it sort of nonsexually rubs me the wrong way. i just think at this point it's so obvious that feminists are not sex-negative. but i am a young female feminist-identifying person, so maybe it's not as obvious to, say, feminist-hating middle aged men.

SADY: RIGHT? They probably think you are out luring the man boners into wood chippers or something. OR marrying dudes so you can then divorce them, which I hear is quite popular. OR, you are a big old slutty slut slut boner slut. ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE TRUE, in the mind of the Middle-Aged-Feminist-Fearing-Dude.

The feminist line comes as a half-serious inward jab—like the lamentation at a halved "monthly Bergdorf’s allowance," it is a joke that reveals a deeper worry. And yet, as I paged through the blog's entries, I had a hard time pinning down a feminist critique of the project. The blog seems to serve two functions for the DABAs stuck in middling relationships with FBF's (Financial-Guy Boyfriends):

a) commiserating with other women about shared relationship problems

b) complaining about the slow erosion of luxury from one's life

The first function—women helping women—won't find a detractor here. The second, while annoying, is less a gender equity issue than a class one. Sure, a spoiled girlfriend who whines that she can no longer dine nightly at Manhattan's finest restauraunts is an obnoxious narrator to guide us through this recession. But don't claim it's the "feminists" who are bringing you down, girlfriend. Instead of a "safe place" that is "free from the scrutiny of feminists," the blog could more correctly situate itself as a priveledged place, free from the scrutiny of the poor.

Let's unpack this very uniter-not-divider decision on Obama's part:

Feminist: Under the provision, "states no longer would be required to obtain federal permission to offer family planning services—including contraceptives—under Medicaid, the health program for the low-income."

Centrist: "The provision has emerged as a point of contention among Republicans, who criticize it as an example of wasteful spending that would neither create jobs nor otherwise improve the economy."

Thanks, Obama, for lobbying against the waste incurred by ensuring that all Americans have equal access to medical care regardless of gender or class, especially in these tough economic times. Just another example of what it looks like to finally have a mainstream feminist President.

Photo by blmurch

My WordPress software, as if in a loyal attempt to protect me from cogent, well-delivered criticism of my work, quarantined Emily's comment in my spam folder until this morning. Here's what she had to say on The Feminist Mystique: How Election 2008 Killed a Notorious Word:

Feminism is not supposed to be controversial. It is commonsensical, so by virtue we would be fighting against the odds to make it naughty. The goals the movement seeks to achieve “voting rights, contraception access, pay equity” are not evermore scandalous, they are rudimentary. It’s pitiful that they must be achieved slowly, one step at time involving arduous processes of convincing those in power that women deserve the same freedoms as men. I would absolutely NOT agree that tagging our president as a feminist hurts the movement. Instead I think it’s a slap in the face to those that mock feminism as something that only hot-tempered, irrational women spout off about because they hate men or love women too much or whatever.

These people (men and women) generally never bother to learn what feminism is actually about. Now, when an educated, thoughtful, truly concerned man dedicated to the cause of spreading justice becomes the most popular person in the country (world?) and he can get on board, it’s as Katherine Spillar explained: It’s a wake-up call (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iesUwiwB2iY). Many of the same issues we have been dealing with for decades remain on the table. Equal pay, for example, is so basic it’s outrageous we still have to rely on a “bad word” to muster up any hope of even getting the general public to recognize why it’s problematic that women don’t make the same amount of money for the same job a man does. The same job. Ay. Feminism isn’t an elite club. There is not a limited supply of “This is what a feminist looks like” t-shirts. Anyone can wear one. Shit, everyone should.

Also, the idea that a man, or a popular person, or both at once cannot be a feminist without dampening the cause is preposterous and totally archaic.

Nice comment from Frisky:

“The only people making a mockery of feminism are the feminists who get their knickers in a bunch over EVERYTHING. It’s shameful and it’s embarrassing. The world is not black and white and it’s certainly not men vs. women. Women can align with (and vote for!!) men without turning their backs on their gender, and a man can stand up for women’s rights without being some superhero who’s rescuing feminism. The man was raised by two strong women, is married to a strong woman, has a strong mother-in-law, and is raising two little girls. Why WOULDN’T he be a feminist?”

http://www.thefrisky.com/post/246-ms-magazine-obama/

Pretty much.

Photo by buddhakiwi

If Sarah Palin and Barack Obama teamed up to kill "feminist" this election cycle, Kathryn Jean Lopez will have it spinning in its grave. In a National Review piece detailing her experience at last week's "March for Life," Lopez calls Pope Benedict XVI the "real face of feminism." She writes:

Ms. Magazine got some attention—and grief—recently for putting Barack Obama on its cover in a Superman pose and announcing “This Is What a Feminist Looks Like.” After these last few days in Washington—and knowing what I know about the beauty of the Catholic view of women—I’m tempted to do the same with, say, Pope Benedict.

Lopez goes on to write that "all you need to do to realize the harm abortion does to women is browse around the net." Let's do a little clickity clicking of our own, shall we? When you click on Lopez' link on "the beauty of the Catholic view of women," you find a piece she wrote in 2003 declaring Mel "Sugartits" Gibson a feminist, too! "Mel Gibson might be my favorite feminist," she writes. "If he's not number one on my list, he's pretty close, in competition with Pope John Paul II." Because "feminist" is now simply secret conservative code for "anti-feminist."

The death of the word "feminist" was broadcast on the evening news. In September 2008, at the height of the presidential campaign, Katie Couric boarded John McCain's airplane, took a seat with vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, and lobbed the first in a series of softballs: Did Palin consider herself a feminist? Palin's response:

I do. A feminist who believes in equal rights, and I believe that women certainly today have every opportunity that a man has to succeed, and to try to do it all, anyway. And I'm very, very thankful that I've been brought up in a family where gender hasn't been an issue. You know, I've been expected to do everything growing up that the boys were doing. We were out chopping wood and we were out hunting and fishing and filling our freezer with good wild Alaskan game to feed our family.

"Feminist" isn't the only English-language word that suffered from Palin's candidacy, of course (see "maverick," "terrorist"). But while other terms employed by the Alaska governor withered from twisted meanings, "feminist" experienced a more symbolic death. Palin killed "feminist" not by altering the meaning of the word—its meaning has never remained consistent in a century of use—but by eliminating its taboo.

Whatever "feminist" meant, it was a strong, scary term, one often prefaced with "man-hating" and followed by "bitch" and/or "Nazi." Its power as insult was matched only by its usefulness as a community-shaping litmus test. If you would self-identify as a feminist, with all its negative connotations, you proved your commitment to the women's movement; if not, you were part of the problem. In some respects, feminism was justified by its vile reputation: If the very name of the movement scared people, it meant that it was still relevant.

"Feminist" was not always the dirtiest term. Self-proclaimed "feminist" author Amy Richards writes that "women's liberationist was actually the preferred term" in the 1960s and '70s. Then, it "started to get a bad name, so it was abandoned for feminism. Now, that has a bad name."

Palin's nonthreatening version of feminism, gender-neutral aerial wolf-hunting aside, is in many ways a product of the feminist's reviled reputation. Take a close look at how Palin phrases her feminist self-identity. She calls herself a "feminist who believes in equal rights." That's spin most feminists are accustomed to unloading on when they're branded "Feminazis" or "man-hating lesbians." "Feminism is just about equal rights with men," they reply. "This is a mainstream position that any reasonable person would support."

In truth, feminists don't want "feminist" to be accepted as a mainstream position supported by any reasonable person—and they certainly don't want it to be accepted by a rogue conservative who does not support abortion rights or contraceptive access for rape victims. Feminists were misguided when they criticized Palin for professing to align with a movement she so clearly did not support. They should have been shaking their heads that the word "feminist" had become so safe that even a Republican vice presidential candidate is comfortable invoking it in a televised interview. The term "feminist" has resisted a lasting definition in order to maintain its radical attitude. That way, when feminist agenda items are accomplished—voting rights, contraception access, pay equity—they can be deposited into the mainstream as feminists move on to newer, more controversial issues. The threatening connotation of "feminist" works to keep the movement relevant and box out the traditionalists.

Now, Palin has made it acceptable for anyone who's simply dipped into the movement's archives to identify as "feminist." Thanks to her, "feminist" may now refer to those who believe the women's movement has already accomplished its goals—or worse, that feminism was stronger in the distant past. Even as Palin's presence has faded from the national scene—and with it, her gosh-darn brand of feminism—a deeper threat to "feminist" remains.

When Michelle Obama refused in 2007 to identify as a "feminist" in an interview with the Washington Post, the dirty-word status was alive and well. "You know, I'm not that into labels," Obama said. "So probably, if you laid out a feminist agenda, I would probably agree with a large portion of it.…I wouldn't identify as a feminist just like I probably wouldn't identify as a liberal or a progressive."

But later in the campaign that would kill "feminist," her husband privately self-identified as feminist to Ms. publisher Eleanor Smeal. This month, Smeal had Obama's feminism illustrated on the cover of her magazine; in a bodice-ripping superhero shot, Obama pulls away his button-down to reveal a T-shirt emblazoned with the phrase, this is what a feminist looks like. The cover set off a firestorm of debate among self-identified feminists—does Obama have true feminist credentials, or doesn't he? Whatever: Once the most popular guy in the world identifies with your movement, you are swimming in the mainstream. Sarah Palin, at least, was scary.

Now, instead of a conservative feminist vice president, we have a moderate liberal feminist president. Could this perhaps be worse—not for feminism, of course, but for "feminist"? It's no longer a bad word, and that's a bad thing for feminism.

Photo by buddhakiwi