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You’ve all heard that saying. “A woman’s work is never done.” It’s true. My own job at a law office as a secretary is constant – thank god because it pays my bills. But that’s not the half of it. I also come home to dirty dishes, trash not taken out, the kitchen floor sticky and a mess, and food left out on the counters. Needless to say, after a long day of school, an internship, and a job, the last thing I want to do is start my “second shift” (I don’t even have children yet!). I’d like to be more specific in my terminology; I have “second roommate shift”. As tiresome as it is, I feel like it prepares me for the life I’m most likely going to have in the future. However, I’ll actually love my kids, rather than resent them like I have my fellow roommates.
Back to the topic of work. The wage gap has recently been in the news. A woman by the name of Christina Hoff Sommers wrote about the “paycheck fairness” bill that was on the Senate’s to-do list. She practically bashes the idea of women having equal pay as men. The 1963 Equal Pay Act has helped us only so much since we still only earn 77 cents to every dollar a man makes (and that’s a high estimate. Minorities receive much less). These reasons include the following that have been pounded into my head after many women’s studies classes: fear of pregnancy/maternity leave, wanting more benefits for the prospective children, and valuing a family-friendly workplace that usually, if not always, pays less than one that doesn’t appreciate that a woman can reproduce children and has a choice to.
Ms. Sommers goes on to say that the wage gap isn’t due to discrimination. In fact it’s because of “women’s choices”. We choose to leave the workforce to take care of older parents or young children. We choose to work somewhere that will respect that we have children to take care of. We choose to have more benefits such as health coverage.
Time for a Nikki-rant: I don’t choose to do any of that stuff right now, but when I get older and am thinking about having my own little rugrats, it won’t be a choice, it will be a deal-breaker. I will need a place that will cover my health care. I will need a place that will understand that sometimes, my kid gets sick and I’m the only one to go get them. I will need to work at an establishment that also understands that due to gender roles and discrimination, women have been raised as care-takers and thus must take care of their elderly parents or young children. I am an only child – I will have to take care of my parents when they get to that stage in life! (Mom, I’m totally willing to do it, no worries. Love ya.) And again, being an only child, whenever I was sick or when I broke a bone my mom was the one who came and picked me up. Why? Probably because she was the one with the flexible job and was “expected” to.
So actually Christina Hoff Sommers, the wage gap is based on sex discrimination because we apply gender roles to these sexes (and don’t even get me started on the fact that there aren’t just two sexes and how our system runs on a binary scheme. I’ll just go off!). We should hold employers responsible for their actions and the pay disparities.
Sex discrimination is so embedded in our culture and society, that not a whole lot of people see it. Including a woman writing about it. I wonder how much she gets paid in comparison to her male-counterparts…
It's Banned Books Week, a celebration of books that have been banned, challenged, restricted, or burned due to controversial themes or topics that are in the book. Of course any mention of sexuality, rape, or homosexuality is immediate cause for the right wing nutjobs to start their witch hunt and challenge books. So, let's beat them at their game by supporting intellectual freedom and free speech. Purchase, beg, borrow, steal, or check out a book from the library that has been labeled as controversial or has been banned or burned!
Over on Wild Women Reviews today we just recently wrote about a few books that have been challenged this year, including Anne Frank's diary as well as books by female writers Maya Angelou and Toni Morrison. Later in the week we will be writing about some of the most controversial books written by female writers that have been challenged, restricted, banned and burned. It's important that we know about these books and read them, because there is a reason that "they" don't want to keep us away from them!
What has been the most delightfully controversial book that you have ever read??
We have been spending a little bit of time over at our newest project, Wild Women Reviews. I mentioned it in one of the previous posts and we sure have been having fun with the project. The goal of it is to have a collective group of women who write reviews, commentary and opinion of books, movies, music and products. I often receive offers to receive advanced reviews of books in order to write a review, however sometimes I don't have the time. So therefore I decided that I would create a collaborative website where we can pass off the books and products to other women who might be interested in writing a review.
This week we've written about:
Mistrix Ms. E wrote about her favorite book by the anarchist Emma Goldman, a book that influenced her subversive thought and flourished her independent nature. Check it out by clicking here.
Yesterday I wrote about one of the books that has been most influential in my life as an independent female, Kate Chopin's The Awakening. I write about why this book is important to me. You can check out the post here.
If you are interested in joining us, please head on over there and leave us a comment. We will get back with you. We also would greatly appreciate if anyone would like to include us on their blogroll-if you do, let us know and we will gladly return the favor!
When most conversations involve birthing choices, people tend to polarize. A brief look at the history of midwifery explains why. Until the early 1800s in the United States of America, midwives were the primary maternal caregivers. Then medical school and trained doctors entered the playing field and the competition for patients spurred the purposeful disrepute of midwives everywhere. This has started a trend of antagonism between midwives and their cohorts and OB-GYNs and their allies. The antagonism has even infiltrated the midwifery community itself, pitting nurse-midwives against direct-entry midwives.
Being gay in the public eye is still a balancing act for many. Some white female performers can get away with acting out overt homosexuality (Britney Spears, Madonna, and Katy Perry to name a few) but, sexual identity aside, they almost always scandalize the act in order to preserve their fan base. For instance, Katy Perry's song "I Kissed A Girl" couldn't have earned her as many fans if she was actually condoning lesbianism. A few lyrics like "it felt so wrong," "you're my experimental game," and "it's not what good girls do" suit her Christian image while giving her some sort of "edge" (a false association with social progression). But I didn't start this post to add to the libraries of critiques on what it is to be a white woman in the pop music industry. I was inspired by a forum debate I stumbled upon a few months ago on a new artist, Nicki Minaj. I found feminist critique upon feminist critique writing off her identification with the Barbie doll as white acculturation and noticed that some vital information wasn't being taken into account--namely her racial identity and her overtly lesbian lyrics/open support of the gay community (and it's in queer critiques that I've found the affirmation of Minaj that I've been looking for!). What started in my mind began to grow into a silent protest to her hasty dismissal by my sisters in the feminist blog community...and as she became more publicly "out," my critique on her wanted to come out too.
One of the proponents of the anti-Minaj movement, she-who-shant-be-named from Gender Across Borders, has faulted Nicki for aligning herself with uber-feminine cultural icons, like Barbie, and uber-masculine cultural icons, like Shaquille O'Neill. They've criticized her for remaking "Around the Way Girl" by LL Cool J, even going so far as to claim that she somehow masculinized the song! Apparently, Nicki is not allowed to refer to herself as "Nick" either, or rap about drugs; again, too male-identified?! But they're allowed to call her a "hood star broad"?!? Holding women to ridiculous gender standards and slut-bashing...whoah! I thought I was reading a feminist critique... I think one commenter put it best by pointing out the author's mistake in confusing an M-80 firecracker with a Yugoslavian vehicle.
I only mention this so you don’t void your credibility – anyone from the ‘hood knows what an M-80 is, and should they read this article, they might dismiss you out of hand for not knowing the local terminology. Unless, of course, they are not your target audience…
Awesome! Target audience is a great thing to keep in mind. And G.A.B. is for "academic" eyes only, as mentioned in the author's response to another enlightened commenter's observation. Nice of them to be so humble! And I guess academics don't like sex, or masculine nicknames?!...or at least that's what G.A.B. would have you think. For participating in conversations on transnational feminism, you'd think they'd be a little more sensitive to taking intersectionalities into account. She's not Paris Hilton claiming the Barbie title, she's a black,queer drama g33k from Queens claiming the Barbie title. Barbie has long been a symbol of white heterocentrism...isn't it about time a popular artist urged her impressionable fans to reimagine femininity?
I think it's important to note that black women in hip hop have had slim chances at success in the first place. Most women in the industry exist as "video hos,"status symbols for male rappers. Female rappers are few and far between and the ones who do reach success, like Trina or Lil Kim for instance, usually ride to the top on an act of overt heterosexuality. Even Salt n' Pepa, probably the most famous and female-positive black female rap group, rose to the top with such heterocentric hits as "Whatta Man" and "Boom! I Got Your Boyfriend." I won't pretend that Nicki hasn't played the game (appealed to straight men in order to ensure success) but she, as a celebrity, is certainly not exempt from the social rules and financial consequences of living in a capitalist patriarchy. She's already black and queer, how would she be received if she was also butch? And if she wasn't super-famous (like Lady Sovereign, for instance, an independent lesbian rapper) how would social norms ever change to incorporate non-straight communities? Celebrity is a tricky thing; on one hand, the existence of celebrities give the public a false sense of progression (the public assumes that the spectacle reflects reality). On the other hand, if the public assumes that reality involves gays and straights hanging out at hip hop shows, gays and straights WILL hang out at hip hop shows.
So this is why I'm interested in Nicki Minaj in the first place. Unlike any successful female rapper before her, Minaj has integrated gay and lesbian themes into most of her rhymes (my faves - "I only stop for pedestrians or a real, real bad lesbian" and "I be on my fly girl shit...and I can only kiss another fly girl lips"). In fact, her first mix tape, Beam Me Up Scotty, featured lesbian lyrics on almost every song. She makes a clear distinction between female celebrities who've relied on men for financial success and her own female-centric act that's taken her to the top ("when you was in New York, you was fuckin' a Yankee/I was fuckin' with bass, I was pitchin' to Frankie"). Her act is silly and playful, not reliant on sex appeal alone. She's also vocal about gender issues within queer communities, something that hasn't been touched on at all within the realm of popular music; in Details, she talks about the stakes for being a gay man in hip hop versus being a lesbian.
Q: As an openly bisexual rapper, do you think hip-hop is getting more gay-friendly? A: I think the world is getting more gay-friendly, so hip-hop is too. But it's harder to imagine an openly gay male rapper being embraced. People view gay men as having no street credibility. But I think we'll see one in my lifetime.
She elaborates on the subject in this interview with Out magazine, “Obviously, the majority of the men in hip-hop don’t want you to think they’re gay. That’s just the reality of it,” Minaj says. “I’m a woman, so I have a lot more flexibility. And I don’t lose credibility in any way if I say I think girls are dope and sexy.”
But saying girls are dope and sexy is a lot different than dropping the L-bomb (and is it so wrong that she's hesitant to embrace the term)? Why do we so often feel entitled to information as personal as someone else's sexual preference? From the bright-colored wigs to the super weird voices and faces Nicki frequently employs, it's as if she's resisting the idea of "coming out" altogether, as in having to define herself to the public or even reaffirm that one's private sexual life is the basis of one's identity. In the same interview with Out, she's quoted speaking on behalf of a school of sexual deviants that have been a lot more visible in the last ten years (of which I also happen to be a part)--the gray area queers. She also touches on the issue of privacy and publicly coming out.
"The point is, everyone is not black and white. There are so many shades in the middle, and you’ve got to let people feel comfortable with saying what they want to say when they want to say it. I don’t want to feel like I’ve got the gun pointed at my head and you’re about to pull the trigger if I don’t say what you want to hear. I just want to be me and do me."
The following video is an example of Nicki's dancing around the issue:
Now I want to shift gears a little bit and address accusations that Nicki's calling herself "Barbie" (along with alteregos Nicki Lewinski and even Roman Zolanski, her gay male persona) is a symbol of white acculturation or self-objectification.
Looking at some of her lesser-known videos, like N.I.G.G.A.S., an Afrocentric tribute to black activists like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, it's clear that Nicki has established her identity as a black woman. She's also said in interviews that she looks up to Lauryn Hill, a name that's loaded with Afrocentric womanist connotations. In no way has she altered her appearance in the way, say, Lil Kim has, to conform to a Eurocentric beauty ideal. And, ahem, this is the "Barbie" we're referring to (I think it helps to actually see Nicki's reimagination of the doll):
Nicki's Barbie philosophy can be summed up in a lyric of hers from Kanye West's "Monster": "you can be the king, but watch the queen conquer." Nicki doesn't want to have to put on a pantsuit to wield power--she wants to change the connotations linking generic femininity to weakness! She is shown time and time again as a Barbie who is through with playing around, and her attitude and symbolism is catching on. In pop diva Mariah Carey's video for "Up Out My Face," Mariah and Nicki sing about ridding themselves from the binds of abusive relationships while actually breaking out of the Barbie doll boxes they're confined to at the beginning of the video. What's more is that one of Nicki's lyrics, "he was sneakin' with the deacon," refers to the first homosexual relationship mentioned in any of Mariah's songs (and she's been in the public eye since the early '90s!). As is the case with most of her lyrics dealing with homosexuality, Nicki doesn't sensationalize the topic. Her nonchalance, totally opposite from Katy Perry's "it felt so wrong," presents gay relationships as normal. If language mediates reality, Nicki's presentation of homosexual issues could have progressive consequences.
Conclusion: Nicki Minaj is not perfect. She has some things to work out. She often speaks in the misogynistic language of mainstream hip-hop (but then again, misogynist language has a way of infiltrating the lesbian community in general), and rides with a rough crew (Lil Wayne, fail). In other words, she's no Erykah Badu! Like every other pop star, she's a posterchild for capitalism; she can illustrate a Cinderella story better than most. But what I like about her sort of depends upon her being that posterchild. She's accessible enough to reach a wide audience but unruly enough to queer a wide audience! The potential I see in her also lies in her responsiveness to criticism. When a gay male fan complained that she used the term "no homo" ironically, she immediately apologized and gave up "no homo" altogether. I like her instincts--with a couple workshops on linguistic sensitivity and feminist theory (and a better producer) she could really get some shit done!
I think Nicki herself made a great summation point in Out:
“It’s interesting that people have more negative things to say about me saying ‘I’m Barbie’ than me saying ‘I’m a bad bitch,’ ” she says, getting a bit heated. “So you can call yourself a female dog because that’s cool in our community. But if you call yourself a Barbie, that’s fake.”
In the same way that she reclaims "bad bitch" (and, hey, white "accredited" feminists do too--Bitch Magazine for instance), she uses the term Barbie, not to promote a white, heterocentric view of women but to reappropriate a symbol of mainstream femininity that finally encompasses blackness and homosexuality (AND "manly" nicknames...AND M-80s)!
My involvement with Law Students for Reproductive Justice (“LSRJ”) last year was my first endeavor into the world of American reproductive justice activism (it was also the first time I was part of an activist community solely focused on reproductive justice issues). I was attracted to LSRJ because its website, language, and paradigm seemed to focus on intersectional forms of oppression and seemed to be rooted in the ideas and values of Sister Song (an organization whose approach I strongly believe in). That said I was a little weary about whether or not the objectives of LSRJ would be reflected in the actions of LSRJ chapters.
I was weary because I was not oblivious to what SOME RJ/pro-choice groups look like on undergrad college campus (Canada or the US): groups that are predominantly made up of white students who still very much espouse the pro-choice/ abortion centric framework. Despite this concern, I took a leap of faith my 1L year and got involved with NUSL LSRJ. I was very happy with the year, with the potential our chapter has, and super excited to attend the National LSRJ Conference at George Washington Law School in D.C.
On the first day of the conference, as me and my colleague/bff were walking to GW sipping on our necessary-to-survive-a-day-of-conferencing grande lattes she said to me “Lara, do you think I’m going to be the only black girl there?” My response: “I’m sure you won’t be, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s majority white girls.” Although it was disappointing that she thought it necessary to ask that question, it was even more disappointing that my response seem to be right.
This is just a mini-post to announce that (starting yesterday) it's bell hooks week at the Ms. Magazine Blog! For the next week, Ms. bloggers will be focusing on different aspects of hooks' teachings.
"Ending Domination" Photo: flickr user Rainer Ebert
Ebony Utley picks up where hooks left off in "All About Love," where Utley asks 20 black women who have experienced infidelity in their marriages to define love. I actually love this essay, although some of the women' responses are pretty heartbreaking.
And last but certainly not least is an essay called "What If You Refuse to Be Seduced by Violence?" by Natalie Wilson. In this essay inspired by hooks' "Seduced by Violence No More," Wilson dives into America's rape culture (Twilight, etc.) and poses some ideas for resistance.
So get over to the Ms. Blog: bell hooks edition and keep up with the essays, join some conversations, or just browse for links to bell hooks books/essays/info. And remember to thank Ms. for honoring such a revolutionary feminist thinker!
Inspired by a little taste of civil disobedience this morning*, and thinking of bright new law students everywhere embarking on this grand adventure, I thought I would include a few thoughts about the law school experience in my inaugural blog. Four earnest observations I have made these past two years, in no particular order. These are truisms for me, though they may not be for you, and I am certainly not the first or last 3L with a top-four claim to the secrets of legal education. Nevertheless, I wish to articulate these tidbits in the hopes that any or all of you can enter the profession as yourself as opposed to a shell-shocked pre-fab known quantity.
Please note that I am not going to tell you how to “succeed” in law school. According to most articles I have read on that topic, I am a failure. So, here’s how I failed at law school.
I'm starting a new blog with a similar theme here that we have on Bad Ass Femmes. I haven't been been updating too frequently here because I have started to prefer the wordpress platform and the functionality that it provides. I plan on continuing to write here, but maybe not so often.
We are creating a writing collective over at Wild Women Reviews, where we are going to review web sites, books, movies and anything and everything else that our wild hearts desire. If you are interested in contributing, please visit us over at Wild Women Reviews and let us know!
If you are a Bad Ass Femmes reader, we also would appreciate your support of including our new site in your blogroll! Thanks for your support!! xoxo
I will be back over here very shortly, as soon as everything is set up over there!
Lady Gaga has proven there's nothing between her ears in her newest decision to pose for the cover of Vogue Hommes Japan wearing what one blogger calls "essentially half a cow"...after she was quoted a few weeks before the photo shoot making some sort of animal rights "statement" (...that somehow has to do with a dress made out of stuffed Kermit the Frogs?!?!).
God forbid an animal die in vain for their fur...but slaughtering and gaudily displaying a cow carcass for a Lady Gaga photo shoot? Why not! And while we're at it, let's creepily hint at a nagging, age-old comparison of women to meat! It's for a men's magazine after all!
Puke.
However, she did recently post a video asking fans to get ahold of their senators and request votes to repeal "Don't Ask Don't Tell," which is a commendable and responsible thing for anyone in her position (with like, a bazillion fans) to do.
So what are you waiting for? Call your senator (and your local animal rights violations officer)!
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