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The Female Version:
And then there is male date preparation:
Wearing pants? Don’t smell? Check! Good to go!
Men worry that their date won’t measure up to their aesthetic preferences. Women worry that they’re going wind up dead.
The disparity is RIDICULOUS, and the fact that dudes get offended when women try to protect themselves is hard proof that way too many guys Do Not Understand how dangerous it is to be a woman. (Not to mention it’s fucking insulting. “How dare you not trust your life and safety to a complete stranger whose intentions you have no way of knowing”?)
The point is, “WE HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING A NICE GUY FROM A SERIAL KILLER.”
It’s not like they fucking wear nametags, okay? Moreover, the most awful people with the worst intentions often put on the nicest face or deliberately make themselves seem harmless and likeable, to lull potential victims into a false sense of security. (Read up on Ted Bundy sometime. It’s horrifying shit. Or read any thread on the “Let’s Not Meet” subreddit.)
In order to protect ourselves, we are forced to assume the worst of every man we meet, because statistically speaking, the biggest danger to women…IS MEN. Saying “not all men are out to get you, you’re just being paranoid” is like saying “not every car you ride in is going to crash, so buckling your seatbealt is stupid.”
When dealing with an unknown situation, in the absence of absolute proof of safety, exercising a little extra caution can be the difference between life and death. Shaming women for being what you may view as overly cautious is every bit as horrid as blaming them if something goes wrong later on.
[Source]
This speech, by Sojourner Truth, was delivered at the Akron convention was not officially recorded; it survives because it was written down by Frances Gage –
“A’int I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – when I could get it – and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen them most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?
Then they talk about this thing in the head’; what’s this they call it? [Intellect, someone whispers.] That’s it honey. What’s that got to do with women’s rights or negro’s rights? If my cup won’t hold but a pint, and your holds a quart, wouldn’t you be mean not to let me have my little half-measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can’t have as much rights as men, ’cause Christ wasn’t a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did your Christ come from?? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up again! And now they is asking to do it, the men better let them!”
Sojourner Truth saw how religion and patriarchy fit together, one reinforcing the other. Her reference to the ‘man in black’ demonstrates her keen intellect as she was aware of the part played by organized religion in maintaining the oppressive state of affairs – she addressed the problem of religious interpretation directly in this quote focusing on the power of the female role in the biblical story.
Funny how big an issue translating the bible into common languages has been throughout history, almost like those who did the interpreting had something to lose (or something to hide) in the process. But that is the cynic speaking, I’m sure that the religious authorities had nothing to gain by keeping the masses ignorant and dependent on their self-serving interpretation of the bible…
I’m not sure if talking about patriarchy while discussing a TV show based on conspiracy theories is the best plan, but what the hell. If this sort of shit is happening to Gillian Anderson, it can (and probably does) happen to you, if you happen to be female.
“Anderson and Duchovny’s legendarily potent onscreen pairing—rife with sexual tension yet ambiguous enough that a simple embrace could leave fans swooning for days—has been the object of heated obsession for decades, ever since The X-Files, a show that transformed serialized TV and elevated the potential of genre storytelling, premiered in 1993.
Tales of alien abductions, malicious government conspiracies, shadowy figures, and a plot to take over Earth drove the series’ “mythology” arc, in which Mulder (a believer) and Scully (a skeptic) hunted down the truth about what really happened to Mulder’s missing little sister.
But it was the unexpected magnetism between Anderson and Duchovny that truly gave the show its rabid appeal.
“The chemistry was there from the first day they ever appeared together in [Mulder’s] office,” series creator Chris Carter tells me. “It was not apparent until that first day that these two people were gonna click. The chemistry you can’t manufacture. It was just total luck.”
The success of Fox’s six-episode X-Files event series, which premieres with an episode written and directed by Carter on Sunday, hinges in part on whether that chemistry—and the excitement and anguish of watching the agents, clearly two halves of a whole, engage in the will they/won’t they dance—can be reignited again, nine seasons, two movies, and 25 years of X-Files history later.”
I’m excited to see the new shows, as I was a fan back in the day. Unfortunately, here comes the P…
But while Scully asserted her authority at every turn, Anderson found herself fighting just to stand on (literal) equal ground with her male co-star. The studio initially required Anderson to stand a few feet behind her male partner on camera, careful never to step side-by-side with him. And it took three years before Anderson finally closed the wage gap between her pay and Duchovny’s, having become fed up with accepting less than “equal pay for equal work.”
“I can only imagine that at the beginning, they wanted me to be the sidekick,” Anderson says of Fox’s curious no-equal-footing rule. “Or that, somehow, maybe it was enough of a change just to see a woman having this kind of intellectual repartee with a man on camera, and surely the audience couldn’t deal with actually seeing them walk side by side!”
She laughs again, this time at the absurdity of the notion of Dana Scully as anyone’s mere sidekick. “I have such a knee-jerk reaction to that stuff, a very short tolerance for that shit,” she says acidly. “I don’t know how long it lasted or if it changed because I eventually said, ‘Fuck no! No!’ I don’t remember somebody saying, ‘OK, now you get to walk alongside him.’ But I imagine it had more to do with my intolerance and spunk than it being an allowance that was made.”
The work Anderson put into securing equal pay back in the ’90s seemingly came undone when it came time to negotiate pay for this year’s event series. Once again, Anderson was being offered “half” of what they would pay Duchovny.
“I’m surprised that more [interviewers] haven’t brought that up because it’s the truth,” Anderson says of the pay disparity, first disclosed in the Hollywood Reporter. “Especially in this climate of women talking about the reality of [unequal pay] in this business, I think it’s important that it gets heard and voiced. It was shocking to me, given all the work that I had done in the past to get us to be paid fairly. I worked really hard toward that and finally got somewhere with it.
“Even in interviews in the last few years, people have said to me, ‘I can’t believe that happened, how did you feel about it, that is insane.’ And my response always was, ‘That was then, this is now.’ And then it happened again! I don’t even know what to say about it.”
She stammers for a moment, at a loss for words. “It is… sad,” she finally says. “It is sad.” (Sources told the Hollywood Reporter Anderson and Duchovny ultimately took home equal pay for the event series.)
Yeah, 2015 and sexist bullshit is still flying high in Hollywood. Awesome.
All slides are from the presentation by Dr. Cathy Higgins.
Given that power works best from the shadows (insert creepy *mou-ah-ah-ah, here), it is always beneficial to bring the artifice of power into plain sight so can be properly evaluated and critiqued. If one doesn’t know what Patriarchy is, then how can it ever be brought down? Finding the root of the problem and working toward solving that problem – what radical feminism is – provides the means not only to criticize our patriarchal society, but to change it.
Lofty goals aside, for the critical work to get done, a common base of knowledge must be established, hence the reason for our 14 slide foray into the land of patriarchy.
Slide 1 – Patriarchal Gender Stereotypes
Slide 2 – The Patriarchy – How this system comes about.
Slide 3 – The qualities of Patriarchy.
Slide 4 – The role of the individual in the system of Patriarchy.
Slide 5 – Patriarchy – definitions and consequences.
Slide 6 – Patriarchal Stereotypes
Slide 7 – Patriarchy in ‘Western’ Society – What it looks like.
Slide 8 – The specifics of Patriarchy.
Slide 9 – Patriarchy’s effects on more global scale.
Slide 10 – Historical origins of Patriarchy.
Slide 11 – Patriarchy in society and within ourselves.
Slide 12 – Patriarchy in society and within ourselves, continued.
Slide 13 – Fighting the patriarchal paradigm.
Slide 14 – Conclusions and questions to ponder.
Ahh, you can hear the faint hum of the patriarchal machinery gently whirr in the background as it gently churns out non-provocative titles such as this:
“Sexy outfits for female staff may be discriminatory.”
The unabashed use of the qualifier quickly raised this commentators eyebrow and raised the feminist lobes to a strong yellow alert. Was this a sage nod to journalistic principles or just a slavish introduction to (yet another) slap-happy, patriarchally-reinforcing, equality hug-fest?
Objectification? Nah. Double standards for the sexes?
Thankfully, the code yellow lobe condition turned out to be unnecessary as the article found its way and made some crunchy assertions about the sexism women face in the workplace.
“Should you have to dress sexy to keep your job? Many women working at some of Canada’s popular restaurant chains say they do.
But dress codes for female staff at some restaurants — which can include high heels, tight skirts and heavy makeup — may violate women’s human rights, according to some experts.”
Wow, enforced femininity violating human rights? It’s almost like the material conditions forced on one class of people is destructive and not conducive to healthy existence in society.
“CBC Marketplace investigated the dress codes at some of Canada’s top restaurant chains and heard from dozens of female staff who say they felt pressured to wear revealing outfits or risk losing shifts.
“The dress is so tight that you can see your underwear through it,” says a current employee of Joey Restaurants who asked to remain anonymous for fear of losing her job.
She claims she was told not to wear underwear at all in order to avoid this.”
Because wearing a sexy tight dress is the necessary foundation for serving people food and drink. Hmm, seems like there is a societal standard at work here – rhymes with blofectification….can’t quite put my finger on it. I’m sure my fellow blamers will help me out though…
“It is sex discrimination. I have no doubt about it,” she [University of Ottawa law professor Joanne St. Lewis] says. “The male employees are doing exactly the same task as the female employees … And they do not need to sexualize their clothing. That’s the bottom line.”
Yep. The good prof correctly identifies that problem, there is a set of standards for women, and a set of standards for men. Guess which sex has more harmful rules and stipulations?
“Toronto pastry chef Kate Burnham grabbed headlines in 2015 when she spoke out about her alleged sexual harassment while working in the kitchen of a popular downtown restaurant, Weslodge.
Burnham’s case nabbed the attention of Toronto-based restaurant owner Jen Agg, who took to Twitter to say sexism and sexual harassment are major issues in the industry.
It also provoked Agg to organize a conference on the topic called “Kitchen Bitches: Smashing the Patriarchy One Plate at a Time.” The event, which brought both men and women together to discuss the abuse happening in restaurants, sold out.
Agg says what happens in kitchens is shocking.
“Slapping with tongs, snapping bras, relentless grabbing — women chefs learn quickly to crouch, never bend over, when picking up a pot,” she wrote in an op-ed in the New York Times.
St. Lewis suggests sexualized dress codes can send a signal that tolerating harassment is part of the job.
“That is not something that I think any employer has the entitlement to ask in 2016 of any woman in a Canadian workplace,” she says.”
Yep, because being slapped, having one’s bra snapped and being relentlessly grabbed are all hallmarks of a relentlessly egalitarian society. Women systematically being treated as objects, with little or no respect to their autonomy, it’s almost like there is a prevailing social set of norms, some feminists like to call Patriarchy, at work.
From Science Daily:
“Now neuroscientists at the University of Sussex’s Sackler Centre and Brighton and Sussex Medical School have identified the brain network system that causes us to stumble and stall just when we least want to.
MRI
Dr Michiko Yoshie and her colleagues Professor Hugo Critchley, Dr Neil Harrison, and Dr Yoko Nagai were able to pinpoint the brain area that causes the performance mishaps during an experiment using functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging (fMRI).
Previous research has shown that people tend to exert more force when they know they are being watched. For example, pianists unconsciously press keys harder when they play in front of an audience compared to when playing alone.
In the new study, published in Scientific Reports, participants’ brain activity was monitored while carrying out a task that required them to exert a precise amount of force when gripping an object.”
Now, can we apply this to women in who just happen to exist in society? – The Deep Woods certainly thinks so.
“Given the fact that women are constantly watched in our society, and we are constantly REMINDED that we are being watched by people making fun of fat, “ugly”, or gender-nonconforming women, it makes me wonder how many women have messed up important tasks or projects or just day-to-day activities because A PART OF OUR BRAIN is permanently being deactivated?
[…]
Women are constantly held under the microscope- whether we are attractive or unattractive, the gaze of patriarchy never ends.”
Can a parallel be drawn between having an audience, and the male-gaze that is ever present in our society? Looks like another study is in order, but the connection, if proven wouldn’t be particularly surprising.
When the government really isn’t on your side… Excerpts taken from here.
“Between 1971 and 1991 in Czechoslovakia, now Czech Republic and Slovakia, the “reduction of the Roma population” through surgical sterilization, performed without the knowledge of the women themselves, was a widespread governmental practice. The sterilization would be performed on Romani women without their knowledge during Caesarean sections or abortions. Some of the victims claim that they were made to sign documents without understanding their content. By signing these documents, they involuntarily authorized the hospital to sterilize them. In exchange, they sometimes were offered financial compensation or material benefits like furniture from Social Services – though it was not explicitly stated what this compensation was for. The justification for sterilization practices according to the stakeholders was “high, unhealthy” reproduction.
[…]
While human rights can be violated by individuals or by institutions, they can only be defended by institutions. The European Court of Human Rights does not deal with single individuals who have committed crimes. Rather, it focuses on why the government in question could not take action against what happened. But where are the doctors, politicians and all the people who personally contributed to or carried out such surgeries, and when they are going to take responsibility for their actions? In order to take action against this human rights violation, blaming the Communist regime is not enough. The practice continues today and forcibly sterilized Romani women are still a long way from receiving true justice.”
-Written by: Galya Stoyanova, Romani intern at Romedia Foundation
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