Which Alice In Wonderland Character Are You?
You are Alice!
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Which Wonderland Character Are You?
You are Alice!
Take this quiz!
Mothers in Fishnets
So, I hear it’s Blog Against Sexism Day. Kind of takes the bloom off the rose of yesterday’s post on Wiccan and Sexism. Now I have to start all over!
When I was a girl
- Women could legally be fired for getting pregnant.
- My stepfather told me that he didn’t like to hire women because they quit when they got married.
- Classified ads were divided by gender.
- Married women couldn’t open their own bank accounts.
So today, we have more rights. And believe you me, I am thrilled. We also have conservatives using the notion of a female Speaker of the House to try to scare voters. And supposed “liberals” like the New York Times spending more time discussing Nancy Pelosi’s fashion sense than has been spent discussing the clothing choices of all male Speakers in the history of the United States, combined.
We’re not done. We’re silenced. We’re objectified. We’re objects of fear and loathing because of our terrifying toothy vaginas. If we have sex, we’re sluts. If we don’t have sex, we’re frigid bitches. If we’re mothers, we should be treated like we don’t have sex although obviously we do, and we must never have sex again, because we’re full of the Pure Virtue of Motherly Goodness.
Once, around 1992, my friend threw a New Year’s Eve party, and I was dressed to the nines. Mini-skirt and fishnets with hot little ankle boots. I brought Arthur and put him to bed in my friend’s daughter’s room. He was always a restless sleeper so I curled up in bed with him (he was two) and sung him lullabies until he fell asleep. And I sort of saw myself from the outside, the skirt, the stockings, the baby, and I thought, This image of motherhood does not exist.
Until that image of motherhood is allowed, we are not done.
Answers to Trivia of 3/6
One remained unanswered, despite the fact that it’s a charming movie, and I thought someone would have seen it.
Anti-feminist Wicca?
I got involved in an interesting discussion* on the relationship between Wicca and feminism. Some people have an experience of Wicca as anti-feminist and I think that’s worth addressing.
First, some people contend that Wicca denies leadership positions to women:
But Wicca as a whole can and does, usually in the form of “But women are so holy, we can’t let them sully themselves doing any thinking!”
Sorry, no. I’m doing this for twenty-five years and I’ve never seen it. I’ve seen sexism, yes, and we’re going to get to that, but I’ve never seen anything called “Wicca” that prevents women from leading. In some traditions, including my own, roles can be assigned based on gender, but that’s almost always favorable to women. In many branches of Gardnerian Wicca (the oldest tradition in the U.S.), women can lead covens alone, or in partnership with men, but men cannot lead alone. In fact, we often struggle with the discomfort and complaints of men who aren’t used to not running things. I don’t think the people I was talking with were lying, but wow. Never seen it. “Priestess” is the default in Wicca. Most of our important writers, poets, and ritualists are women.**
But that doesn’t mean that Wicca can’t be sexist. » Read more..
Tuesday Trivia 3/6
1. Her friends suggest she put a Rilke quote in her personal ad. It works.
Solved by Roberta (comment #1).
2. In order to preserve her chastity, her friend advises her not to shave her legs.
HINT: She’s an Englishwoman playing an American. The date is with an actor better known for a popular television role.
3. “Who did this to you?”/ “Uncle Frank and Aunt Jack.”
Solved by Evn (comment #5).
4. He wants to split the grocery bill three ways; she wants to split 50/50. She wins because “Lady Anne” had an apple.
Solved by Roberta (comment #1).
5. “She tastes like…strawberries.”
HINT: The villain says it to the hero. On a train.
Solved by Evn (comment #10).
6. When he finds the body, he leaves fingerprints on his best friend’s trumpet.
HINT: This black and white movie stars a famous on- and off-screen couple.
Solved by TehipiteTom (comment #13).
7. The Englishman and his American lover have a “partner desk” so they can type facing one another.
Solved by Roberta (comment #1).
Which Super Villain Are You?
Your results:
You are Poison Ivy
|
You would go to almost any length for the protection of the environment including manipulation and elimination. |
Delta Zeta Whitewash
About a week ago, the blogosphere picked up on the story of the Delta Zeta sorority that purged its membership:
The 23 members included every woman who was overweight. They also included the only black, Korean and Vietnamese members.
Allow me an aside. Once a year, I indulge in the purchase of People Magazine. Yep, I buy the post-Oscar double issue. So I was reading said double-issue, and I come across a story on the Delta Zeta fiasco. Which reads that every girl who was overweight or “not glamorous” was kicked out. No mention of race. I re-read it more closely. Not one mention. None. Race, it seems, didn’t factor into the People version.
Is it me, or is it racist to blip over this important fact?
Not me.
Monday Movie Review: Anatomy of a Murder
Anatomy of a Murder (1959) 10/10
Paul Biegler (James Stewart) takes on the defense of a confessed murderer (Ben Gazzara). The plea will be temporary insanity, but the case really hinges on the accused’s wife (Lee Remick). Was she raped by the murder victim, as she says, or was it an affair?
Anatomy of a Murder announces itself as “modern” from the opening credits, with graphics one associates with the 1960s, even though the movie was made in the ’50s, and a jarring, thrilling Duke Ellington score. Within the first scene, the word “rape” has been used in the kind of matter-of-fact way that movies of this era avoided at all costs. (The controversy created by the film’s frank language caused it to be banned in some places, including Chicago.)
As a movie, it’s just about perfect. Crackling good dialogue, excellent pacing, fascinating plotting. Also, sex, death, violence, domestic drama, legal drama, and the spectre of rape. So it definitely keeps you focused.
One thing this movie does is refuse to give you pat answers. Was Gazzara’s character actually insane, as he says? Who is lying, and who is telling the truth? The movie explores the characters and situations without answering.
From a feminist or social context, the movie is equally fascinating, and equally left in the lap of the audience. The trial is built largely around the perception of women. Laura Manion (Remick) is not “nice.” She flirts. She moves her body freely. She likes to go to bars, and drink, and dance. She doesn’t wear a girdle. Maybe she has affairs, maybe not, the movie refuses to say, because really, it doesn’t matter. The community, and the jury, will perceive Laura as a slut regardless.
Now here’s where it gets tricky. If Laura is perceived as a slut, the jury will also perceive that Laura wasn’t really raped—she was “asking for it.” And if she wasn’t really raped, if she wasn’t a pathetic innocent victim, then her husband cannot be excused for murdering the rapist. If she “led a man on,” then that poor, sad man didn’t deserve to die. Even if he did rape her. The culture will perceive it as him “forcing himself” on her because he knew she “really” wanted it. At which point, she deserved what she got and the rapist did not deserve what he got.
In terms of the way women are perceived and imprisoned by that perception, this is some pretty sick shit.
Furthermore, all that Laura is to the judge, to the jury, and to the community is a slut who somehow caused a death. What happened to her is only interesting in terms of how it effects men. There is an extended sequence in which Laura’s panties are discussed. They are pertinent because she says that the rapist ripped her clothes off. The police found the skirt and blouse, but not the panties. The use of the word “panties” in court causes the entire courtroom to break out in giggles. The judge says (paraphrasing), “Ladies and gentlemen, these panties are no laughing matter. Not when they may be connected to a man’s death, and when another man may go to jail for murder.” At no point does he say that they are no laughing matter because a woman has been raped.
James Stewart’s character is terrific; he’s interesting, complex, and very real. What’s very interesting to me is that he absolutely believes Laura. He knows she was raped, and he knows that the way the prosecution is going to play games; with the notion of her decency, with the idea that perhaps she wasn’t raped at all, is reprehensible. Yet he doesn’t reject the “morals” that create these reprehensible behaviors. He urges her to behave in a way that avoids drawing attention. He practically begs her to wear a girdle. And by doing all this, he seems to accept the moral environment as a given; even if he doesn’t like it, he’s not going to say anything about it, because it’s normal. It’s the Way It Is.
So, not exactly a feminist movie. But not anti-feminist either, and in many ways, this is so much more advanced than most movies of its era that I could wriggle in delight. To top it off, great, great movie on the let’s-just-ignore-the-politics scale.
Sunday Meditation: The Cauldron of Change
See before you a huge, black cauldron. Round, deep, iron, seemingly bottomless. It is the Cauldron of Change.
Everything that enters the cauldron is transformed. The old is burned away, the new is uncovered. The catepillar becomes a butterfly in this cauldron. The weak become strong. Children become adults. Warriors become pacifists, and pacifists become warriors. In the cauldron, a new way is discovered. A new self.
Beneath the cauldron is a fire, impossibly hot.
That fire may burn and injure any who dare to enter the cauldron. It may hurt, to become a warrior, to become a butterfly, to become an adult. It my scald.
Imagine now, if you entered the cauldron, what change might come to you?
Imagine now, and ask yourself, Can I enter the Cauldron of Change? Do I have the courage? Do I trust myself enough?
But we LIKE the feeling of a suppurating bullet wound between the toes!
Doesn’t it seem like the Christian Radical Right is passionately interested in shooting themselves in the foot? I mean, isn’t that what Creationism is?
It’s like, they build up an increasing amount of political and social clout over a period of years, through a well-orchestrated grassroots campaign of taking over schoolboards and getting national candidates elected. Then, once they consolidate that power, they make themselves laughingstocks.
The latest example is, of course, Conservapedia.
Oh, sure, the left blogosphere is having a field day with it. It’s like that “You Want it When?” cartoon. But you have to figure that this is the sort of thing offending, not just the far left, but the vast majority of ordinary people who think that Jesus actually didn’t ride on dinosaurs. Aren’t they alienating the constituency they have so painstakingly developed? And isn’t this really nothing but arrogance? The belief that they have so much more power than they actually have, that they can say and do anything and get away with it? And isn’t this, indeed, what got the Republicans booted a mere four months ago?
Yes.
In fact, Pharyngula alludes to this when he titles a post I’m assuming many conservatives are embarrassed by Conservapedia. Because really, you’ve got to be boldly stupid to swallow this shit.
So let’s keep making fun of Conservapedia. It’s so easy! » Read more..
