California Feminist Blogs

David Fincher's adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo seems to be getting good reviews all around. I went to see it with as much of an open mind as a student of gender and cultural production can have when it comes to "visual pleasure" in a patriarchy. Meaning, I was of course watching for cues that would suggest either adherences to or breaks from an assumed "male gaze," in which audiences are expected to identify with a male/man protagonist while female/woman characters exist to be looked at/observed (PDF of Laura Mulvey's classic essay, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema").

I found that this film does nothing to challenge the male gaze, nor does it pass the Bechdel test (1. It has to have at least two women in it, 2. Who talk to each other, 3. About something besides a man). In fact, when we are introduced to Rooney Mara as Lisbeth, she is not looking at the men who had hired her/the audience straight-on. Instead, we see her from the side. This scene is perhaps the most literal illustration of the male gaze: here, Lisbeth is to be looked at, and it is the men who are doing the looking.

The film also assumes a hypermasculine, hyperviolent audience. In fact, my friend and I had to close our eyes at several points; were our possible reactions, or the reaction of sexual abuse survivors, not taken into account? Although the issue of rape is central to the book/movie, the main rape scene was unnecessarily long and sensationalized. My friend and I agreed that its inclusion wasn't even necessary since she shows a snippet of it on her personal video camera later.

Also, although Lisbeth is a protagonist, the story begins and ends with and is told from the POV of a rebellious journalist "manly man" who uses a 23 year old, exoticized ("different in every way," never mind the fact that she was white, thin, & good-looking & could therefore pass for a wealthy/powerful woman later in the film) woman & tosses her at the end to pursue another affair with his boss... Besides, (and I know here I'm also being critical of the book) what does Lisbeth's character tell victims and survivors of sexual violence? In the real world, how often does "fighting back" work?

Finally, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo allows for simultaneous interpretations, including overtly misogynistic ones. Polysemic openness, or the strategy of allowing for various meanings at once, can be positively useful in a lot of instances. It allows for a lot of women/LGBT individuals in culture to carve spaces for themselves while remaining appealing enough to be circulated in the mainstream. However, in this case, I'm uncomfortable knowing that a sexist can go to this movie and have their ideas confirmed re: violence as a successful peacekeeping tactic & rape as a personal problem (& the heroine as one who deals with it as such).

So I guess my final question is: does a film's adherence to mainstream, patriarchal guidelines negate its revolutionary potential? Is a film feminist if I, as a feminist, feel personally empowered by a film, even though a misogynist may react similarly?

So I'm catching up on the events leading up to Hugo Schwyzer's resigning from The Good Men Project... Looks like its founder, Tom Matlack, kind of flew off the white-male-privilege handle (read about the Twitter blowout here):

I really thought the MRA guys were crazy until I engaged the wrath of the feminists. Insane. - @TMatlack

*jaw drops* ?!

...just want to be like...

WHOTHEFUCKDOYOUTHINKREADSYOURSHIT?! A lot of feminists did. But now that you've stereotyped us as angry and insane (like every other sexist douchebag out there), let alone SYMPATHIZED WITH MEN'S RIGHTS ACTIVISTS... o.O O.o >:O

I guess The Good Men Project is just a place for men to "empathize with other men" without scrutinizing the reasons men are often discouraged from empathizing in the first place (i.e. that it is an action/attribute associated with WOMEN). God knows we don't have a venue for that kind of male empathy! Wait...we do? Oh yeah, that IS ultimately the aim of men's rights activists.

I'm grateful to Jenn Pozner for saying what we were thinking:

I cannot believe you just implied validation for the (violent+misogynist) MRA guys, @TMatlack. Or typed the phrase "wrath of the feminists." - @jennpozner

However, Tom wouldn't let it go/retract his statement!

@jennpozner @feministfather No. Hugo's piece was not in the spirit of "good" men and the "feedback" was = MRA criticism. Yours included. - @TMatlack

The feedback he's putting in quotes began with the tweet below:

Why can’t women accept men for who they really are? Is a good man more like a woman or more truly masculine? http://t.co/qjkXQH8L - @TMatlack

That's the wrong question, @TMatlack bec it rests on assumption that there's only 1 way to be "truly masculine." Many ways. #letthebinarygo - @jennpozner

@jennpozner not at all. My point is that men need to be allowed to be themselves rather than viewed as wrong by women - @TMatlack

What logic! Let me see if I got this. He sets up a dichotomy between "like a woman" and "more truly masculine," and his point is that men need to be allowed to be "themselves" (sooo not "like a woman"? or...). But wait, there's more!

@sjjphd my privilege? I grew up with nothing. My parents didn't have enough money. You have no idea what you are talking about. - @TMatlack

You go Tom! Take @sjjphd to school! Cause, like, being broke and white and a dude is totally the same thing as being broke and black and a dude. Or broke and white and a woman. Or broke and black and a woman! Oppression is oppression, right?

BTW, Hugo's piece (that was in poor taste or whatever). Tom's response was:

@hugoschwyzer do you assume all black people are felons since they commit more crimes on average than white people? http://t.co/nhVHnbfv - @TMatlack

ABSURD! No, Tom, because black people don't commit more crimes on average than white people (but are disproportionately arrested and tried). !!!

SMH so fast...feel the MF wrath.

Mallory Carlberg, University of Oklahoma College of Law

This month an attorney from the National Advocates for Pregnant Women (NAPW) visited Oklahoma to talk about her work with grassroots activists in Mississippi. Mississippi voters recently rejected Initiative 26, a personhood amendment, which would have defined legal personhood at the moment of fertilization. Shortly after the victory in Mississippi, an Oklahoma group announced they would seek approval to collect the needed signatures to put a personhood amendment on our next ballot. Mississippi activists did a wonderful job with their various campaigns against personhood, but activists here are glad to get earlier notice of a similar campaign and to learn from their experiences.

The NAPW attorney discussed campaign logistics with us. Mostly she stressed that we need to be flexible in our messaging. For example, health care professionals are going to have different concerns than lawyers who are going to have different concerns than people of faith. Throughout her talk, I thought about last summer’s LSRJ Leadership Institute where I heard a presentation on the role of lawyers in the reproductive justice movement. The speaker said that lawyers should be the experts on reproductive rights law and provide activists with information and resources. NAPW is a great example of a national reproductive rights legal organization working with local reproductive justice activists in this way.

If the media dedicated airtime to Initiative 26 at all, most reporters focused on the amendment’s possible effects on birth control and assisted reproductive technology. However, NAPW has been highlighting the equally, if not more, troublesome effect an amendment might have on pregnant women who choose to carry their pregnancies to term. Explaining to the general public that, under a personhood amendment, a woman could lose her status as a constitutional person is a more difficult task, which requires legal experts at least initially. NAPW has framed the message in an accessible way, using legal research and past cases on which they have worked to show how a personhood amendment could create unprecedented state power to control pregnant women. Here is an example of a resource they provided for grassroots groups in Mississippi (http://youtu.be/iU2BZN_GrhI).

Hopefully, Personhood Oklahoma will not collect the signatures they need, but with the support of reproductive rights lawyers, Oklahoma activists are preparing for if they do, and OU LSRJ will be there to foster an in-depth discussion among our classmates on the legal issues surrounding fetal personhood.

Cross-posted from Ms. JD. 

Mariko Miki, LSRJ Director of Academic & Professional Programs

The debate over reproductive rights –especially abortion rights— continues to dominate the political, legal, and social landscape in the U.S.  At the federal level, Congress recently attempted to defund Planned Parenthood, and abortion and contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act remains embattled. At the state level, between January and July 2011 alone, legislatures in 19 states passed 80 laws restricting abortion access; in no other year between 1985 and 2011 have states enacted so many restrictions. With the 2012 presidential election looming, women’s health will once again become a hot-button issue.

Reproductive rights are on everyone’s mind, but how many politicians, policy makers, and judges actually understand the complex interplay of privacy and equality jurisprudence with social issues such as poverty, education, and lack of access to health care? Not many, as the new Course Survey conducted by Law Students for Reproductive Justice (LSRJ) reveals. Although many of the country’s leaders are trained as lawyers, very few have had formal education in reproductive rights law & justice.

Only one in five American Bar Association-approved law schools have offered a course in reproductive rights law & justice during the last eight years. All in all, 39 law schools have offered just 51 classes focused on issues like abortion, reproduction, and sexual rights since 2003.  This means that most law school graduates never have the opportunity to delve deeply into reproductive rights jurisprudence, let alone have the chance to explore how issues of contraception, IVF, family formation, birthing rights, infant and maternal mortality, welfare caps, drug policy, rape, and domestic violence intersect under aReproductive Justice framework.

The causes for the lack of reproductive rights law & justice courses vary: the subject matter is not yet fully accepted as a integral part of legal curricula; no reproductive rights case law text book currently exists for professors to teach with; some scholars believe that seminal cases like Roe v. Wade were erroneously decided; and some law school administrations are hostile to the subject matter or unconvinced of the student demand.

Since 2003, LSRJ has worked to overcome these obstacles to help students organize and campaign for reproductive rights law & justice courses to be taught on their campuses. So far, 31% of all reproductive rights law & justice courses taught in the last eight years have resulted from student advocacy through LSRJ chapter campaigns. Also encouraging, 27 unique courses were offered during the 2010-11 academic year, the highest number of offerings during any academic year to date and almost three times as many as the previous year. Finally, seven of the top ten law schools in the U.S. have offered courses in reproductive rights law & justice.

While the recent upsurge in course offerings marks a growing trend welcomed by scholars, students, and advocates who support these critical learning opportunities, there is still a long way to go before reproductive rights law & justice issues are integrated into mainstream legal curricula.  The vast majority of law schools still lack a reproductive rights law & justice course. LSRJ continues to combat this dearth of opportunities by leading the charge for more courses through the Course Campaign Working Group and by providing supplemental educational materials to students and instructors. To learn about how to get involved in establishing a course at your law school, please contactinfo@LSRJ.org.

For more about the importance of educating and training tomorrow’s lawyers about reproductive rights law & justice, see Defending Your Rights? Study Finds Few Law Schools Offer Training in Reproductive Justice on RH Reality Check.  For a law student’s perspective on successfully campaigning for a reproductive rights law & justice course, read Campaigning for an RJ Course: The Student Perspective on LSRJ’s blog, Repossess Reproductive Rights.

Burke Bindbeutel, University of Missouri School of Law

My recent post discussed a theoretical link between sexual abuse and college sports. I criticized how fans and administrators have shrugged off athletes’ bad behavior because they were so valuable to the school in their capacity as players. The intervening scandals at Penn State and Syracuse partially confirmed my hunch, but they also showed how my analysis was lacking. Sex offenders are obviously subject to the full force of the law. It’s the culture that surrounds their deeds that we could most improve.

The serial abuse at Penn State implicates not just the perpetrator but everyone who kept it quiet. We don’t yet know who knew what and when, but it appears likely that a kind of “institutional liability” should apply to a football program that did not prevent Coach Sandusky’s behavior. Supporters of the university have argued for leniency, insisting that Coach Paterno was instrumental in transforming a backwater agricultural school into a deep-pocketed educational juggernaut.

And this is where those of us hanging around outside the stadium ought to speak up. It seems painfully evident that a university should not consider raped children to be collateral damage to its educational mission. But there remains a pervasive loyaty to football programs that even sordid headlines cannot disrupt.

This should not surprise reproductive justice advocates. College sports are an entertainment industry leviathan. Tales of corruption and unethical behavior don’t seem to bother the fans. Football teams act as a publicity tent-pole for the rest of the university, attracting alumni dollars and prospective students. The University of Missouri was recently criticized for spending a measly $58 million last year on its athletics department: it had better start investing seriously in sports if it wants to succeed in the Southeast Conference.

Institutions like these bounce back from boycotts, and they can easily ignore signs heaping shame on them, not that those efforts are meritless. Certainly events at Penn State deserve condemnation.

But campus RJ advocates should not expend all their rage on retired coaches at someone else’s university. The sensationalism of the Penn State scandal might distract from a problem that exists on every campus. Sexual assault is an all-too-typical part of our environment, often exacerbated by alcohol abuse and made possible by the winking, oblivious-to-consequences culture that Katy Perry has been glorifying.

A hideous scandal can help remind us of how people in high places have a strong incentive to keep their mouths shut. But let’s keep our eyes on the ball (so to speak), and ignore the relentless provocations of the 24-hour news cycle. The Green Dots is a campus program that empowers students to eliminate violence not by bemoaning past incidents, but by taking initiative. The “dots” represent moments of bystander intervention, with a goal of making an environment that’s thoroughly intolerant of violence. When it seems like the wrongdoers are protected by money and irrational sports fandom, it’s important to recall that we all share responsibility for our communities.