Dusty Paperbacks

I swear I've been reading. Just not writing. I got the first chapter done of Female Chauvinist Pigs. I think I'm giving up on Politics of Piety because it's just too dense for me right now. I'll try it again someday.

However, to force me to write, I think I'll do this weekly post entitled: Dusty Paperbacks. I found all these amazing moldy paperbacks in a donation at work. I couldn't add them to the collection because they are too gross, but I kept them in my office!

Here is a random page from The Executive's Wife by Ninki Hart Burger (1968):

Even more important to you than a lipstick is a List. In fact you live by the list. Every day you escalate up and down your list, doing, redoing, undoing. Every night you prepare the next day's list. Only with this basic struture for superefficiency can you free your mind to function at your work (p. 72)

Whoa, if that isn't exactly what Friedan talks about in FM (which was published 5 years prior to this book), then I don't know what is. Was this book a form of backlash? A response to Friedan? A last grasping at the straws of prescribed roles?

Feminine Mystique, Chapter 7: Sex-Directed Educators

I don't have much to say about chapter 7. Maybe that is because I work in higher ed? Or maybe because I split the chapter up over multiple weeks instead of reading it all in one sitting? Maybe its because I already knew everything in it? So what is in it...

I don't mean to criticize Friedan, but the entire chapter can be summed up in these few sentences at the beginning:

A subtle and almost unnoticed change and taken place in the academic culture for American women in the last fifteen years: the new sex-direction of their educators. Under the influence of the feminine mystique, some college presidents and professors charged with the education of women had become more concerned with their students' future capacity for sexual orgasm than with their future use of trained intelligence. In fact, some leading educators of women began to concern themselves, conscientiously, with protecting students from temptation to use their critical, creative intelligence - by the ingenious method of educating it not to be critical or creative. (p. 156)

So basically - think that horrifically shitty movie Mona Lisa Smile. Ladies going to fine Ivy League women's colleges being trained to be stepford wives. I'm not sure what the need for the next 20-some pages were. It was mostly anecdote that these women are being hurt by sex-directed education, not to mention society is losing the "future Einstein's" (and a list of other famous men - no women notably. Bad Friedan!) Wait! She does list "Frosts" in addition to the Roosevelts, Schweitzers, Edisons, Fords of the world. So as long as Eleanor is included as one of the Roosevelts, she has Edith and Eleanor.

The only question I have left from this chapter is: how did sex-directed education impact the lesbians/bisexual/gender-queer? How would a lesbian in one of these courses be further forced into the closet by learning husband-submission?

I'm starting to get a little bored with FM. I guess I feel like I haven't really 'learned' anything new, or feel like I have seen a new viewpoint. I didn't expect to, I knew I was reading a classic text, but after 160+ pages I'm getting tired. We'll see what chapter 8 holds.

I'm not dead!

Sorry for the few weeks of silence. I've been reading, just not what I'm supposed to be reading. Also had some personal crises to deal with. And an internet connection at home that refuses to work. But I'm back! Expect some posts this weekend...assuming my internet sticks around long enough.

Upcoming: Female Chauvinist Pigs

This may be premature considering how behind I am on my current texts, but the book I'll be reading in April is Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the rise of raunch culture by Ariel Levy. I chose this book because I know a few people who have read it and it seems to be pretty popular in current feminist circles. Also, it seemed like it'd be lighter and more 'accessible' for me and others to dig into. Click on the link to find a library near you that has it.

Double Header Sunday: Films

I had a really awful weekend, so Sunday I tried to cheer myself up with a double feature of movies about kick-ass ladies. The first was Girls Rock:



Girls Rock is a documentary about a rock'n'roll camp for girls ages 8 to 18. They spend 5 days learning how to play instruments, write songs, work as a team, and put on a concert. When they aren't doing music they are taking workshops in self-defense, zine making, etc. So basically its like Indie Rock Training Camp. And its absolutely adorable and uplifting. There are girls from all backgrounds there - from juvenile group homes to obviously wealthy Portland suburbs. The one thing they all have in common is that they are most likely outcasts in their schools, struggling to fit in in a culture that doesn't allow for individuality or strength in its women. This camp would have been a dream for me as a child, and to see these girls getting to be themselves and be free and be encouraged to be noisy and goofy and strong was so wonderful. I especially liked the story of the 14 year old Korean girl from Oklahoma City, who clearly doesn't fit in there, who's been in bands with men who have kicked her out, and who has even been flat out told "we don't want girls in our band." To watch her get comfortable in her own skin at camp was awesome.

One interesting dynamic was how the mother of Palace, a precocious 8 year old, reconciles her career in fashion with trying to get Palace to not be completely absorbed in just looks. The movie also spliced in statistics about young girls, mostly about body image or education. I was thankful they cited their sources at the end of the movie (total librarian). I almost could have done without the stats, but that is because I couldn't get enough of watching these girls and I already knew what the stats were going to say.

The movie is only playing in a few cities right now, so please see it while you still can.

The second movie I watched was at home, it was Sukeban Gerira (Girl Boss Guerrilla). The movie is a 1970's Japanese sexploitation film about a girl biker gang who take over the Kyoto crime scene. As a result they have to face the yakuza, the Japanese mobsters (men) who want them to step off their turf. From the start of the film the women are straight up kicking ass, just beating the shit out of men who fuck with them. It's awesome. It's also sexploitation, which raises issues of who the intended audience is of the film, when/if its 'ok' to do satirical exploitation, etc. I can see lots of men getting off on the film with all the boobs and sex and tough biker chicks. Total fetish. However, I really enjoyed watching strong girls working together, bowing to no man, and also still enjoying their sexuality.

Here is the trailer, that is very not safe for work:

The Feminine Mystique: Chapters 5 and 6, aka Freud and Mead

Chapters 5 and 6 of FM provide some psychological and sociological analysis of the 20th century construction of femininity and male/female genderized differences. Friedan starts chapter five with a good baseline for her analysis to come: "The new mystique is much more difficult for the modern women to question than the old prejudices, partly because the mystique is broadcast by the very agents of education and social science that are supposed to be the chief enemies of prejudice..." (p. 103). (Sidenote: Abstinence ed anybody?)

To condense years and many books of interpretation of Freud into a really flimsy paragraph here, essentially Freud roots any "psychological phenomena into sexual terms, and...[sees]... all problems of adult personality as the effect of childhood sexual fixations" (p. 106). This is where you get the famous oral and anal fixations that most of us know and misuse today. Friedan notes that Freud saw women "as childlike dolls, who existed only in terms of man's love, to love man and serve his needs" (p. 108). Sort of figures a pretty well-off dude at the tun of the century would think that.

Freud also coined the term "penis envy," which basically means that the reason women are wacky is because we secretly wish to have a penis and therefore be accorded all the privilege the penis carries with it. This theory was used to scare/threaten women back into the home, or else risk losing their femininity/womanhood/reason for existence/purpose. The media seized upon this and widely circulated Freudian theory as 'proof' that women needed to remain domesticated.

Freud has been very much debunked since the writing of FM, although I'm sure there are a few major followers. While some of his concept of analysis cannot be ignored as groundbreaking, his sexism also cannot be ignored. (Sidenote: I just heard a bunch of women giggling and men cat-calling with that whistle sound outside. Odd?)

I think my favorite quote from Friedan in chapter 5 was at the beginning, but reading 5 and 6 back to back, I'm seeing that this quote may actually tie in better with chapter 6:

It is not a slogan, but a fundamental statement about truth to say that no social scientist can completely free himself from the prison of his own culture; he can only interpret what he observes in the scientific framework of his own time. (p. 105-106)

I feel like this quote should have been used in chapter 6, the Margaret Mead chapter. Mead, an anthropologist, conducted studies of tribal communities of the South Sea islands. Using the framework of functionalism, which looks at "the idea of studying institutions as if they were muscles of bones, in terms of their "structure" and "function" in the social body" (p .127), Mead basically "compounded the error [of Freud] by fitting [her] own anthropological observations into Freudian rubric" (p. 127). Whoopsies Ms. Mead!

Margaret Mead devoted much of her writings to the "feminine protest" that described how dangerous it would be for a woman to be equal to a man, or to take on male activities and responsibilities. To do so would mean you would lose your essence as a woman. Enter my favorite Friedan quote of chapter 6: "Protectiveness has often muffled the sound of doors closing against women." (p. 128). Beautiful and powerful message that I need to remember when I read current stifling crap from the religious right.

Mead seemed to have trouble reconciling her true self with that of what she felt was proper for women. She was a strong, outspoken, educated woman in a field dominated by men. However, she wanted women to embrace that which makes them women (child-bearing and child-rearing). To do otherwise was to risk your femininity. Friedan uses many passages by Mead where you can see her vacillating from one end of the spectrum to the other.

I think what I found most interesting, or learned, from this chapter was that Mead can be credited with the natural childbirth as radical and embraceable by women movement. I felt like I could have read the following in an article published within the past five years:

It was a step forward in the passionate journey - and one made possible by it - for educated women to say "yes" to motherhood as a conscious human purpose and not a burden imposed by the flesh. For, of course, the natural childbirth-breastfeeding movement Margaret Mead helped inspire was not at all a return to primitive earth-mother maternity. It appealed to the independent, educated, spirited American woman [...] because it enabled her to experience childbirth not as a mindless female animal, an object manipulated by the obstetrician, but as a whole person, able to control her own body with her aware mind. (p 147)

I had no idea that women in 1960 saw obstetricians the same way many feminists (and more) see the health-care system today! For some reason that makes me feel good. The only problem is that although Mead was being woman-positive and saying "it is OK to be a woman and does not make you inferior" her "women are different, and therefore we must be sure to maintain that which makes us different, which is only child-birth" theory is tacitly holding women back from achieving more. Also, what if a woman does not want to have children? Did Mead have children?

The media I'm sure loved to hear a female tell other females to embrace that which makes them different (child-birth) and ran wild with it, leaving no options for other lifestyles. Therefore, Margaret Mead helped propel and perpetuate the feminine mystique, although perhaps unintentionally.

One thing I need to research is if in 1960 the concept that sex and gender are not linked, and should not be linked, existed. It seems in Friedan's writings (and therefore the writings of Mead, Freud, et al) that it is assumed that female-feminine, male-masculine is just how it is. What about the women who have no desire to breed and raise a family? What about the men who do have that desire, and want to stay home? Mead would say they are betraying their natural state, so maybe I just answered my own question? I guess I'd like to see more analysis on the origins of the sex-gender knot.

Delayed final parts: Desert Blood

I finished Desert Blood nearly a month ago, and as I mentioned then, I really don't know how to write about fiction books in a critical or evaluative way. I'll have to figure that out with the next one I read for this site. I really enjoyed Desert Blood as a fiction book. I don't read suspense or mystery novels, so it was fun to have a true page-turner. That the book focused on women's issues, specifically women of color and lesbian issues, made it that much better to read. There were no irritating interpretations of what a woman is, written by a male author. I understood the female's feelings and opinions in this novel. If anything, it was the priest that I understood the least or felt was the least developed character.

I enjoyed that I actually learned something from a fiction book, and that it was for the most part woven into the story seamlessly. I've since noticed many more mentions of the Juarez murders, and am appreciative that I understand what they are now. For example, my netflix queue recommended that I watch Seniorita Extraviada, a movie from 2001 about the Juarez murders. Netflix is generally spot on, but the uncanny timing of this one freaked me out a bit.

The one aspect of the book that I'm continuing to struggle with is the violence. On the one hand, the author needs to make the horrors vibrant and real so the reader feels as if they are witnessing it first-hand. However, I have had serious problems with the glorifying of violence, especially against women. There were a few times segments in the book, especially towards the end when Irene was being held captive, that I thought the violence veered toward the obscene. The conflict is, that this happens to these women so I guess I should read about nipples being mutilated and foreign objects being inserted into the girls (and they are girls - teenagers). Maybe I'm too queasy, but some of the parts were very difficult to read. I don't think I'll ever reconcile the 'need' to make violence real for impact and the fact that violence is glorified and misinterpreted in larger society.

Overall, I'd recommend Desert Blood for anybody who wants a juicy suspense/mystery 'historical' fiction. It's a fast read, its educational, and it's a breath of fresh air in a genre overwhelmed by visions of masculinity and men being the heroes.