I helped teenagers get secret abortions. By SteelRigged, for I spent my first year as a law student helping teenagers get abortions.
I worked the phones at a small non-profit called Jane’s Due Process, which as far as I know, is the only organization in the country that helps teens navigate the judicial bypass process to get abortions without parental consent or notification. (You should Google it and make a donation right now.) I am now a volunteer attorney for them. It is righteous work. Bill O’Reilly may snarl that the “left wing” is trying to silence him, but he has a TV show. Everybody loves parental consent laws for abortion. Judicial Bypass is supposed to be the safety valve on parental consent/notification laws. The Rise of Enlightened Sexism. Is the ‘F’ word co-opted by conservatives & consumerist media?
Where are real icons & core values? On The Issues Magazine, Winter 2011, considers feminist icons, feminist values and feminist cons. The Rise of Enlightened Sexism by Susan J. Douglas Today, we once again have what Betty Friedan famously called "a problem with no name. " At the same time, these young women get the message loud and clear that the absolute last thing they should embrace is feminism.
After reviewing the media fare geared to girls and women since the early 1990s, I came to see a rather large gap between how the vast majority of girls and women live their lives, the choices they are forced to make, and what we see -- and don't see -- in the media. Homosociality. I've been thinking about homosociality a bit these past few days.
Homosociality (as explained so well in Michael Kimmel's Manhood in America) is the principle that all men, including heterosexual ones, are raised in our culture to be more eager to please other men than women. It doesn't take much in my classes to get heads nodding as the subject comes up! To use one cheap and easy example, homosociality explains the function of catcalls and wolf whistles.
I've often been asked by female students why men whistle and hoot at them from construction sites and passing cars. "Why do they do it? One of the most significant difficulties (and opportunities) about pro-feminist men's work is that it challenges homosocial norms. When I was an undergraduate, I quickly mastered the "talk" of feminism. This kind of double life left me feeling ashamed and fraudulent.
It wasn't until my thirties that I grew comfortable challenging men in single-sex environments. Rape Culture. Examples of behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, sexual objectification, and trivializing rape.
Rape culture has been used to model behavior within social groups, including prison rape and conflict areas where war rape is used as psychological warfare. Entire countries have also been alleged to be rape cultures.[3][4][5][6][7] Although the concept of rape culture is used in feminist academia,[8] there is disagreement over what defines a rape culture and to what degree a given society meets the criteria to be considered a rape culture.[3] Rape culture has been observed to correlate with other social factors and behaviors.
Research identifies correlation between rape myths, victim blaming and trivialization of rape with increased incidence of racism, homophobia, ageism, classism, religious intolerance, and other forms of discrimination.[9][10] Origins and usage[edit] According to the Encyclopedia of Rape: SlutWalk[edit] Theory and manifestations[edit] Men Who Explain Things. April 13, 2008|Rebecca Solnit | Rebecca Solnit is the author of many books including "A Field Guide to Getting Lost," "River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West" and "Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities.
" A longer version of this article appears at Tomdispatch.com. I still don't know why Sallie and I bothered to go to that party in the forest slope above Aspen. The people were all older than us and dull in a distinguished way, old enough that we, at 40-ish, passed as the occasion's young ladies. Third-Wave Feminism. 1.
There must be a widespread understanding that feminism does apply to men. Therefore, men who stand up for feminist issues may, and should, be identified as feminist. It is counterproductive and hypocritical to discuss gender equality while simultaneously creating a double standard towards males who share feminist values. Victim-blaming. “I’ve never really understood feminism,” begins Chelsea Fagan’s Thought Catalog essay about the recent ‘Slutwalk’ protest in Toronto.
“No shit you don’t,” I found myself thinking when I was done reading it. In her essay, Fagan explains why she disapproves of the Slutwalk, a protest against comments made by a Toronto law enforcement officer who said that women who don’t want to be assaulted, raped or otherwise “victimized” should avoid dressing “like sluts.” She also completely misses the point of the protest, engages in some spectacular victim-blaming and demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that no, she does not understand feminism. The basic argument of “The Funny Thing About the ‘Slutwalk,’” is that if a woman is raped while wearing something “slutty,” she should take some responsibility for what happened to her, because she ought to have known better than to dress that way.
Feminism makes boners sad. That’s the argument put forward by Ogi Ogas and Sai Gaddam, writing in Psychology Today (thanks, Ariana, for the link).
They start off here: One sexual enigma perplexes both women and their clinicians: Why do so many American women have difficulties in bed? Helpful Hints for Dudes. Sometimes, and rather frequently in recent weeks, privileged men (here, generally meaning straight cis men) email me asking advice on how to interact with the women in their lives.
I get questions on everything from how to be a feminist husband to how to navigate intimacy with a survivor of sexual assault, and so I'm starting a new series that offers Helpful Hints to privileged men who genuinely want advice about how to be a more feminist-friendly dude. I'm starting with the most basic—and often the most problematic—interaction between men and women: The Conversation. Lots of guys want to learn more about deconstructing their privilege, but are pretty awful about obtaining that information without upsetting the women with whom they're conversing. This, then, is a very rudimentary, but also very straightforward, primer for dudes who want to communicate more effectively with female partners, friends, relatives, and colleagues during good faith conversations about feminist issues: 1.
Defusing feminist anger. This is, I think, an important post.
I’ve been thinking about men in women’s studies classes, and jokes about "male-bashing. " This semester’s women’s studies class is like most: overwhelmingly female. I’ve got 32 women and 6 men in the class. I met individually last Thursday with the women for "all-female day"; I met with my guys on Tuesday for "all-male day. " This morning, we all got back together in the classroom for the first time as a full group in nine days. In Which We Teach You How To Be A Woman In Any Boys's Club.