I obsess (and blog) a lot about pro-war and anti-civil liberties messages in the media because they are easiest to recognize. As a woman, I am far more concerned about the stereotyped treatment of women in the media. As a child and adolescent psychiatrist I worry particularly about the culture of extreme thinness in our society – which is one hundred percent media driven.
How Feminism Shapes My Views
I confess I am also a feminist. This is an embarrassing confession. Feminists, gays and dark-skinned people are subject to much ridicule and scorn in contemporary society. In my opinion the controversy stems from confusion around the definition, which has somehow been associated with an irrational hatred of men. I use the word feminist in its broadest sense – to describe women who refuse to automatically subordinate their own (or their children’s) needs to men, the male power structure or a male-oriented view of society. I happen to like men. Some of my best friends are men. As a feminist health professional, I am enormously concerned that young girls are continuously bombarded with messages from TV, movies, music videos and youth and fashion oriented books and magazines that leave them with a distorted – and dangerous – view of themselves and their bodies.
Romantic Love is Dangerous to Your Health
Among the most pernicious is the constant emphasis on being young, thin and attractive to men. It relates, in large part, to a carefully crafted myth that romantic love is the highest ideal a woman can achieve in contemporary society. It is so powerful that the majority of women grow up believing in a highly stereotyped version of romantic love, as well as a self-concept that they are utterly worthless without a man to love them. This myth, like Santa Claus and the diamond engagement ring, are creatures of an elaborate and sophisticated marketing industry. It bears little relation to real life. In fact the myth hurts men almost as much as women because it is largely to blame for our high rate of divorce and broken families.
On Being Young, Attractive and Dead
As a health professional I am most distressed by the extremely narrow and stereotyped standard of attractiveness – young, perfectly chiseled and starvation thin – necessary to succeed in the fashion, TV or movie industry. There is no question media marketing deliberately aims these messages at teens and pre-teens who lack the critical thinking necessary to differentiate what they see on the screen from real life.
This strategy is immoral and should be illegal. All women exposed to this stuff learn to hate their own bodies. This universal self-hatred is responsible for an exponential increase in potential fatal eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa.
The U.S. Statistics Speak for Themselves
Eating disorders are a major cause of death for women age 15-24.
4% of American women are afflicted with a life-threatening eating disorder.
Approx. 10% of American women with eating disorders die within 10 years of developing the disorder.
20% of American women with eating disorders die within 20 years of developing the disorder.
Do you remember your first period? Was it embarrassing or were your proud of it?
Well, be thankful you live in a modern civilized part of the world... some regions have some pretty strange Rites of Passage for young women experiencing their first period. Some of these are done for religious reasons, some are mostly harmless traditions.
Genital Mutilation
The Massai tribe of Kenya uses female circumcision to completely remove the outer parts of the female genitalia. This results is complete deprivation of sexual sensation, increased susceptibility to HIV and may cause life-threatening infections. Crude tools and no anesthesia. The Massai tribe is not the only group that does this. Every year 2 millions girls are forced to undergo genital mutilation.
Burning Hands + Biting Ants
The Carib Tribe of Suriname burns the hands of young menstruating girls using a handful of burning cotton to symbolize their future "handiwork" as women. They're also forced to wear a mat/skirt covered with a breed of stinging, biting ants.
Abdomen Slicing
The Tiv Tribe of Nigeria slices young girls across the belly four times (or more) leaving deep scars to signify her womanhood and her fertility.
Fattening Ritual
The Okrika Tribe of Nigeria has their young girls experiencing their first period enter a hut called "fatting rooms" where they feast on rich local foods until they've gained sufficient weight. Its intended to be a spiritual and physical metamorphosis.
Three Months in Isolation
The Ngoni Tribe of Malawi secludes the young girl in a flooded tent for up to three months. Her face and body are daubed with white flour as a sign of spirituality. Inside the tent she must sit in a pool of water until the women of her tribe determine she is finally a woman (which can take up to 3 months).
Swimming to Shore
The Nootka Natives of the Vancouver Islands in Canada used to take young girls who experience their first period for a canoe ride out to sea... and then leave them there to swim back to shore. This is no longer practiced.
Buried Neck Deep in Sand
The Luiseno Tribe of Southern California used to bury girls up to their neck in sand and then have an older woman of the tribe give them a stern talking to about "the birds and the bees" and the proper behavior of a woman and wife. This is no longer practiced.
Four Days of Running & Rituals
The Navajo Tribe of the American Southwest have their girls wear heavy buckskin outfits in a four day ritual involving a foot race, making food for all their relatives and sitting upright on the first night of the ritual. The Apache tribe have a similar ritual shown below.
I have a hunch many mothers these days simply take their daughters out for a day of shopping, food and buying their first tampons / pads. Not quite the status quo, but close enough.
FEMINIST/TECHNOLOGY - Over a year ago Apple's iPhone came out with the slogan ‘There’s an app for that’, essentially the idea of a little program built into the SmartPhone which allowed you to do everything from calculate tips, play the piano, count calories, learn French or looking for the nearest washroom.
Looking for the nearest store that sells dental floss? There's an app for that.
But during that process of designing all these applications they neglected to create one for if you're being stalked, being creeped out by some guy on the subway and you're suddenly wishing you had taken some self-defense classes... See Self Defense Against Rapists.
Well, now there's an app for that. It just took awhile for someone to create it.
No, not an app for learning self-defense, although you could always look into that... the app is the YWCA Safety Siren app. Its free to download from iTunes.
Basically its a combination of functions:
#1. A rape whistle, available with a choice of three ear-splitting wails.
#2. An automatic email function to contact preset emergency numbers/email addresses for the authorities, complete with sending a Google map of your current location.
#3. Tips on how to avoid trouble, smart and safe ways to meet people, how to avoid guys who are potentially dangerous.
#4. A map which shows you the nearest health and rape crisis centres.
There are other apps available too, one for if you're being assaulted, one for finding the nearest safe location, one for telling you what streets are less safe to walk alone, etc.
But frankly all of this is AFTER THE FACT. Its a bit like the Morning-After-Pill. Chances are likely you won't think to use such applications until after you've been raped or assaulted. With luck you might be able to use the Rape Whistle function during the actual attack, but frankly I put more stock in a good solid kick to the balls (which will give you more time to activate the device on your iPhone as you run away).
If you really want to prevent rape you need to do several things:
#1. Walk with confidence. Rapists target shy, mousy women because they're less likely to struggle, shout or put up much of a fight.
#2. Take up jogging, running and go to the gym regularly. Boxing, kick boxing, self defense classes would be good too. Not only will you be more likely to outrun an attacker, but if you're more athletic your ability to fight back and escape will be dramatically improved.
#3. THINK FAST! Keep your head on your shoulders and don't panic. Keep your wits about you as quick thinking may be the difference that saves you. ie. You could rip the condom. Rapists typically use condoms these days because they're worried about leaving DNA evidence behind. Its safe to assume they only brought one and their plan will fall apart if it gets ripped.
#4. Keep your hands free. Carry your purse or bag on your shoulder or on your back.
#5. Avoid uninhabited places. Busy streets are better.
#6. Be prepared, get your keys out early when going to your car or building.
#7. Men have several vital points: Genitals, eyes, nose and neck. Kick the genitals, poke their eyes out, punch their nose or neck. A punch to the nose can stun him. A good solid punch to the neck can actually kill a man.
None of this of course will prevent you from being raped by the Apple company with their bills however.
SEX - 50 years ago tomorrow (it was first approved on May 9th 1960) a miraculous pill appeared on the market that prevented pregnancy 100% of the time if used properly. Sometimes mistakes were made or women forgot to take their pill for the day, but otherwise it was an ingenious little tool for freeing the libidos of women both young and slightly older.
Some people however tend to blame/credit the Pill with the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. Oh how wrong they are.
The truth of the Pill is statistically it did nothing to the abortion rate. Women kept getting pregnant when not on the pill, often due to inexperience and some men not knowing how to do the "pull out at the last minute routine". Thats the routine men were doing prior to the Pill and it apparently was working at least part of the time.
The little compact case and the "magic pills" it contained was somewhat synonmous with the 1960s: Peace, love and rampant sex in the mud at Woodstock.
But what would have happened if there had been no pill?
Peace, love and rampant sex in the mud at Woodstock, that's what. People still would have been having sex, the difference would have been a lot more couples using the pull out technique instead and couples would have been getting less enjoyment out of sex.
So thats the truth right there. The Pill resulted in couples being able to enjoy sex more. It did very little it stemming unwanted pregnancies because all too often people made mistakes with the oral contraceptive and got pregnant anyway.
And the other truth of the matter is that it wasn't all hippie chicks who rushed out to take the Pill. It was mostly married women in their late 20s, 30s and even early 40s. They already had several kids and didn't want any more. Thus this sexual revolution was more in the married bedrooms than the single bedrooms.
“Within the first five years of its release something like a quarter of all married women of reproductive age had used the Pill, so clearly there was a big shift and a concomitant decrease in the proportion of women using diaphragms and condoms,” says Elizabeth Watkins, author of "On the Pill: A Social History of Oral Contraceptives, 1950-1970" and a professor of history at the University of California, San Francisco.
Before the Pill came on the market there was already a sexual revolution going on. Between 1940 and 1960 the number of single mothers had tripled. Women were having sex, getting pregnant, and probably have a good time during the process.
It was after all the 1950s Baby Boom period. Everyone was having sex, women were getting pregnant whether they were married or not and it wasn't until 1960 when the Pill became available that they realized they could have even more sex and didn't have to use the pull out method any more. Married women and men no doubt celebrated with a rousing bout of hide the weasel in the bushes.
Thus the Sexual Revolution was already in full swing when the Pill arrived. It just gave the revolution an extra push.
Its also known that the Pill was rather expensive when it first arrived. A bit like Viagra is today (I'll get back to the Viagra topic later) and thus married/working women were the only ones who could easily afford it.
There are other things that pushed the Sexual Revolution too.
In 1947 Professor Alfred Kinsey founded the Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University. Kinsey's research about human sexuality during the 1940s and 1950s was groundbreaking and the first of its kind. His books "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male" in 1948, followed in 1953 by "Sexual Behavior in the Human Female" reached the top of bestseller lists and turned Kinsey into an instant celebrity.
In 1950 Ernst Grafenberg, a German gynecologist, discovered the G-Spot.
In December 1953 Hugh Hefner’s Playboy Magazine featured Marilyn Monroe as its first cover girl and nude centerfold in the premiere issue.
In 1959 The Immoral Mr. Teas was directed, produced and released by Russ Meyer. Meyer was a pioneer in the porn industry, creating softcore porn (he even created the term) in films like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and Vixen! (1968) and pushing the limits of censorship in America. He continued making films well into the 1970s.
And there are hardly the only things.
What the Pill did really was allow women to more fully enjoy sex, right up to moment of orgasm and even afterwards for round 2 or 3.
“Polls taken at the time indicated that single women who were already sexually active were enthusiastic about the Pill because it allowed them to enjoy sex more fully,” says Elizabeth Tyler May, professor of American studies and history at the University of Minnesota, is the author of the just released 'America + The Pill: A History of Promise, Peril, and Liberation'.
It wasn't until 1967 that Time magazine dubbed the Pill the “miraculous tablet”.
“If the Pill can defuse the population explosion,” the magazine theorized, “it will go far toward eliminating hunger, want and ignorance.”
But that never really happened. The Catholic Church pushed the agenda that the Pill was a sin to use, thus while population growth rates have declined unwanted pregnancies still exist because the percentage of women on the Pill never reached a "breakthrough level" where it became the driving force behind population control. Instead women kept getting pregnant by accident, men kept using the pull-out method and it wasn't really until STDs like AIDS appeared that people started taking condoms more seriously.
The Pill was more of a contraceptive stepping stone in legitimizing the use of other contraceptives like condoms, diaphragms, injections, patches, rings, the Morning After Pill, Lybrel, a continuous low-dose period-free pill with no placebos, etc. It created a Contraceptive Revolution... but it was hardly the cause of the Sexual Revolution which was already in full swing anyway.
And it also kickstarted the sex-pill revolution... Pills like Viagra, Cialis and what will eventually become the Viagra 4 Women pill (or whatever name they choose) are a growing (sometimes disturbing) trend. Just this past week Britain released a new pill called Prilogy which cuts down on Premature Ejaculation and allows PE sufferers to last 3 times longer.
Just wait they'll invent pills that cause instant orgasms, feelings of love, induce abortion without the need for surgery, allow men to orgasm without releasing semen, make women more sensitive so they can orgasm easier, pills to make us younger, more energetic... Disturbed by the possibilities yet?
And frankly it will all become a bit disturbing because it won't be just the younger generation popping pills, it will be the older generation getting it on. There's nothing more disturbing than our parents and grandparents having booty calls.
CANADA/HEALTH - When a country like Canada or the United States contributes money to help legal safe abortion clinics overseas what they are really doing is saving lives.
Unsafe abortions (the kind you do with a coat hanger, etc) in third world countries have a 13% mortality rate, and are usually done by women who already have children thus resulting in their existing children becoming orphans.
Safe clinical abortions however have a 0% mortality rate and is one of the most important ways for planning childhood.
When women don't have the option for a safe abortion, they will inevitably pick an unsafe one.
Even in countries like Canada where abortion is legal... unsafe abortions still happen because sometimes young women like to keep it secret.
I know a woman from northern Ontario who had an unsafe abortion. Lets call her "E". E's parents were very religious and because of her age in order to have an abortion she needed parental permission. She didn't want to upset them so she arranged to have an unsafe abortion using a coathanger in her bathtub while her parents were away. She had kept the pregnancy a secret by wearing baggy clothes and putting on extra weight until the fetus was large enough to be removed using the coathanger technique.
"E" then buried the fetus in the woods.
"E" doesn't regret her decision. She was convinced her very strict religious parents would have killed her if they had known she was having sex and had gotten pregnant. They didn't even know she had a boyfriend, who later beat her up and ditched her.
So here's my point: If these kind of traumatic unsafe abortions are still in Canada, just imagine what its like in a third world country where food is scarce, crime is rampant and local governments allow abortion but can't afford to fund it?
Abortion is a women's right. It is a human right. Women are going to do it whether its legal or illegal, safe or unsafe. Religion isn't even a factor when you're desperate.
So when Stephen Harper, the Prime Minister of Canada, announces that Canada's foreign aid will no longer be used to fund clinics that provide abortions... what is he really doing? What he is doing is cutting off ALL funding to all clinics that provide anything meaningful in terms of condoms, advice, abortion, everything... Its an all or nothing scenario.
The end result is the only groups that would receive funding are ones that promote ABSTINENCE and preach that using condoms is a sin.
Abstinence doesn't work. Its a proven fact. People are going to have sex regardless, either because they want to or because they've been raped. These are third world countries and there isn't a lot else to do for fun and because of low educational standards it means they don't know the dangers of sex, how babies are made and possibly even have some superstitions about it.
Years ago I met a woman from China who thought only married couples have babies. She didn't even know what condoms were for because she thought people just used them for being kinky. She was coming from a reasonably educated country with a one-child-only policy. In theory she should have known what condoms were for but apparently didn't learn that until moving to Canada.
What third world countries need therefore is more sex education. And they also need the tools and funding to perform legal safe abortions in the event that fails to prevent unwanted pregnancies.
Stephen Harper's recent cutting of funding for safe abortions shows his complete ignorance on the topic and a political bias rooted in fundamental Christianity wherein he thinks abstinence can actual work.
Abstinence is a great theory, it just doesn't work in practice.
Magnitude of the Problem
20 million women experience an unsafe abortion worldwide each year; 18.5 million of these occur in developing countries.
67 000 - 70 000 women die from complications of unsafe abortion each year - all in developing countries.
Nearly 60% of all unsafe abortions in Africa are among young women aged 15-24 years.
Have you heard the recent news about Peter Nygard, a fashion guru from Canada?
Let me give you the summary... Peter Nygard is a 67-year-old millionaire fashion designer. He has a net worth of $800 million USD. He owns his own island in the Bahamas, a tropical Fort Knox with swimming pools and shark tanks that would make a James Bond villain jealous.
On Peter Nygard's island his employees aren't allowed to leave and they are docked so much pay they're basically his slaves. If they don't do what he tells them to he physically, emotionally and even SEXUALLY abuses them.
One of his sex abuse victims was a 16-year-old girl from the Dominican Republic and she has since gone missing. Peter Nygard's lawyers claim she is perfectly fine and have even shown members of the media letters claiming she thinks Peter Nygard is nothing but a "perfect gentlemen"...
In reality the poor girl was probably fed to one of Peter Nygard's sharks. Its just a theory, but its entirely possible when you realize how many bodyguards and lawyers work for Peter Nygard and get an insight on his intimidation tactics. Watch the CBC documentary about Peter Nygard.
The only reason Peter Nygard hasn't been caught is because he has an army of bodyguards, lawyers and all his workers have to sign confidentiality agreements. Those ex-employees who go against him (like those in the CBC documentary) are sued for breach of contract and intimidated until they agree to a settlement.
But wait there's more... Since the airing of that documentary 5 days ago its since come out that one Peter Nygard's pants factories in Jordan is using 1,200 slaves workers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and India.
Here's what happens... the company imports the women, 75% of them just teenagers desperate for work, from their home country. They are stripped of their passports and all of their belongings, then forced to work 110 work weeks where they are constantly docked pay for "sloppy work" and help captive to pay off their indentured servitude.
But they never do. Many of the women in these sweatshops simply go missing when they've outlived their usefulness.
Peter Nygard's clothes is sold to a variety of stores including his own Nygard outlets. Other stores that sell his clothes include: Dillard's, J.C. Penney and Wal-Mart
The women are forced to work 16-hour shifts, from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., seven days a week.
"There are also mandatory, all-night 23-hour shifts, from 7 a.m. to 6 a.m. at least once a week," says Charles Kernaghan, director of the U.S.-based National Labor Committee (NLC). "The exhausted workers are at the factory over 110 hours a week, while being cheated of over half the legal wages due them. Instead of earning the 74.5-cent-an-hour minimum wage in Jordan, they are paid just 35 cents an hour."
Because the workers aren't allowed to leave the factory they must buy their food from the people running the factory. The end up in an endless cycle of wage slavery.
"When workers ask for the return of their passports and to be paid correctly, they are slapped and threatened with forcible deportation," said Kernaghan "There are also serious allegations of sexual harassment, even rape, and of workers being overworked to death."
The 1,200 slave workers are housed in filthy primitive dormitories without heat and with only sporadic access to water for two hours, three or four days a week. The dorms are infested with bed bugs and, shown photographs of the insects, entomologist Dr. Susan C. Jones of Ohio State University confirmed the bed bugs were engorged with blood.
"All labour laws in Jordan, not to mention the International Labour Organization's (ILO) internationally-recognized workers' rights standards, are being blatantly violated at the IBG factory," said Kernaghan. "In fact, the Jordanian Ministry of Labour has placed the abusive IBG plant on their "Golden List" of best factories."
In a single week, from January 28 to February 17, 2010, Peter Nygard imported more than 280,000 women's pants made at the IBG factory, worth $2.5 million. Many of the pants retail for $38 USD. The workers were paid approx. 9 cents for each pair of pants they sewed and make only 3.9 pairs of pants per hour.
Peter Nygard is famous for his alcoholism, his temper, his lechery and now he will be known as several more things: A rapist, a murderer and a human trafficker who deals in slavery.
POLITICS - According to the Russian government the women who perpetuated the recent subway bombings in Moscow belong to a Chechen militant women's group called "The Black Widows", women who have had their husbands slain in combat against the Russians.
Videos and photos released by Chechen rebels have confirmed this.
The trick about Chechen rebels is there is a duality about the situation. #1. Not all Chechen rebels are Muslim. There are also Christian and secular Chechen rebels. #2. Their primary focus is their fight to form their own government. They're not worried about creating a "Islamic State", they just want an independent Chechnya free of Russian rule.
The Russian government however is refusing to grand Chechnya independence (which was declared independent in 1991) because of oil pipelines that run through the region and thus instead has chosen to retaliate against Chechen rebels.
For the women involved there isn't a lot of opportunity to do anything else. Russian government programs in the region to promote education for women are almost non-existent, as such women seeking a career really have two choices: Motherhood or Martyrdom.
And when your husband gets killed by the hate Russians the depression sets in. Do you get remarried when no husband will want you since you're "damaged goods"? Or do you go out with a bang?
For un-educated women from Chechnya they're barely even citizens under Russian law. The Chechen people have been relegated to 2nd class citizens and Chechen women? Pfff. They're basically 3rd class citizens. So its really not much of a surprise the people of Chechnya want their independence.
HOWEVER this doesn't excuse their behaviour and attacking innocent people. The recent bombings in Moscow killed 39 people. There are other ways to PROTEST PEACEFULLY, but that is not the way of the Black Widows.
Its not just uneducated women or widows who join the cause of the Black Widows. Its women who just plain loved their country and want an independent Chechnya. Asides from the clothes they still enjoy spending time with friends, partying and doing other things popular with young people.
“It wasn’t an easy decision to go and fight,” says Rosa, cradling a Kalashnikov rifle on her lap and sitting under an apricot tree. “But when my friends told me my nursing skills were needed, I went. Then I found out that everybody had to take up the gun.”
Rosa is a seasoned fighter, battling Russian troops for Chechen independence for over a year now. She says the hardest thing was getting used to the uniform. “At first, when the commander told me to put on fatigues I couldn’t do it. Then I obeyed him, but put a skirt over the trousers.”
Rosa is a member of the Black Widows. Not all of them are suicide bombers, some are simply fighters in a campaign of warfare that dates back before the 1991 declaration of independence. Since then the Black Widows has been responsible for over half the suicide attacks in Russia.
“Chechen women are the most dangerous for national security because they have carried out the most risky operations,” says a study by psychologists Anne Speckhard and Khapta Adhmedova. Women are able to get past Russian troops without being suspected and thus carry bundles of explosives with them for the purposes of eventually staging terrorist attacks.
History is filled with other examples of "Black Widows":
Yael, a nomadic woman, hammered a spike through the head of the sleeping Canaanite commander Sisera after he had fled a battle with the Israelites.
Jewish heroine Judith used her wiles to seduce and behead the drunken Assyrian general Holofernes and save her city of Bethulia.
Celtic Queen Boudicca fought the Romans after the death of her husband, fitting her chariots with knives to slash enemy troops.
Charlotte Corday stabbed Jean-Paul Marat in his bath, thus killing one of the instigators of the Terror during the French Revolution.
Fanni Kaplan, a Russian, shot Vladimir Lenin twice (he survived) because he became corrupt and betrayed her Socialist ideals.
Violet Gibson, the Irish aristocrat, made an unexplained assassination attempt on Benito Mussolini.
Valerie Solanas, 1960s manhater who founded the Society for Cutting Up Men, shot and wounded artist Andy Warhol.
Ulrike Meinhof, German anarchist, was involved in bombings, robberies and gunfights before killing herself in a jail cell.
Women however are still a minority in the history of killers, regardless of their motive. 700 years of homicide data shows male-on-male killings are 40 times more common than female-on-female killings. (Not including wars.)
“There is no known society where the level of lethal violence among women even approaches that of men,” says a study by Canadian psychologists Martin Daly and Margo Wilson. Male murderousness is driven by violent environments, bad childhoods and high testosterone levels that promote aggressive behaviour.
The Sri Lankan Tamil Tigers pioneered female suicide squads in the 1980s. Palestinian, Lebanese and Kurdish women followed suit.
Studies of Palestinian women bombers pointed to two main causes (according to a report from the Israeli-based Center for Special Studies):
#1. The vengeance for deaths of relatives.
#2. Being pushed into the fringes of society where they are made psychologically vulnerable.
Speckhard and Akhmedova’s 2006 study of Chechnya's Black Widows (based on 45 interviews with family members, friends or former hostages of 34 female suicide bombers) has some interesting results: “Nearly all had lost close family members in air raids, bombings, landmines, so-called ‘cleansing’ operations carried out by Russian forces, and in battle.”
When the Russian military is involved in ethnic cleansing its no small surprise the people of Chechnya have resorted to terrorism. Combined with high unemployment rates and low education it doesn't give people a lot of options.
ENTERTAINMENT - On March 17th 2010 singer-songwriter Erykah Badu stripped down to nothing at the site of JFK's 1963 assassination while making a music video entitled "Window Seat", perhaps a reference to the convertible Kennedy was shot in. The video was finally released today.
In the video in Dallas, Texas, Badu walks along the sidewalk shedding clothing until she is nude and then falls down (as if dead) on the actual location JFK was shot. Shot "guerrilla style" with only a single cameraman the R&B singer has drawn both praise and criticism for her courageous and controversial video.
Badu says she was making a statement against "groupthink" which she says is an "unwritten rule" that "i will not express my true opinion if it opposes those i love and fear."
Dallas police are currently contemplating pressing charges against both Badu and the cameraman, for public indecency and not obtaining a permit before filming.
In related news...
Sarah McLachlan her renewed "Lilith Fair" tours featuring music by Sarah McLachlan, Mary J. Blige, Sheryl Crow, Kelly Clarkson, Erykah Badu, Sugarland, Heart, Norah Jones, Ke$ha, Corinne Bailey Rae, Loretta Lynn, Emmylou Harris, and Tegan and Sara.
Lilith Fair promotes women in music and feminist issues. Earlier today the Lilith Fair website crashed due to sheer popularity.
Fans who pre-order Sarah McLachlan's new album "The Laws of Illusion" at sarahmclachlan.com will have the chance to buy tickets to the revived Lilith Fair tour before anyone else. The Lilith Fair tour will be visiting 32 cities in North America.
FEMINISM - Imagine a TV show or cartoon. It doesn't have to be a new one, an older cartoon or TV show will work. Is it balanced in terms of male and female roles?
Lets take Star Trek, The Original Series as an example. How many women are part of the main cast? Two if you count Nurse Chapel (who later leaves but continues doing the voice for the computer) and Lieutenant Commander Uhura (played by actor Nichelle Nichols).
Now its important not to understress the role Nichelle Nichols played at the time (1966-1969). She was one of the first African-American women in a major TV role and also shares the first interracial kiss on television with William Shatner.
Nichols had originally planned to leave Star Trek in 1967 after its first season, but a conversation with Martin Luther King, Jr. persuaded her to stay, stating that she was a role model for the black community.
But what about the female community? We can only assume she played a role for women too... although we must remember Uhura's role was largely that of a secretary.
Dr. Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to become an astronaut and actor Whoopi Goldberg (who later played Guinan on Star Trek: The Next Generation) both pay tribute to Uhura the character. Because Star Trek is such a widespread cultural phenomenon Uhura's token role was actually a major role and a huge positive influence.
Now lets talk about the negative influence of tokenism.
And for this example I am going to use He-Man... or more specifically the only female heroine in the cartoon, Teela. The thing about Teela however is that while she is warrior in the show, she is often depicted as a damsel in distress so He-Man can rescue her (which happens a bit too often). He-Man ran from 1983-1985 and was later relaunched in 2002-2004 for two seasons.
For the purposes of discussion below we will be speaking about the original 1983-85 series.
The storyline also includes the Sorceress (who is essentially a guide / damsel-in-distress) and a twin sister "Evil-Lyn". The duality of Teela and Evil-Lyn cannot be ignored. The two characters are identical with the exception of clothing and personality... the message however is obvious: Teela is good and Evil-Lyn is evil, and their actions are likewise good/evil. Its very black and white and leaves no room for grey. Evil-Lyn isn't just "bad", she can't help being evil. Even if she tried to do a good deed her evilness would cause her to pervert it into something evil... or at least that is what the show suggests.
As token characters Teela and Evil-lyn thus form a metaphor/message for all women. Some women are goodie two shoes and other women are just plain evil. Its a 50/50 split. It also says several other things:
#1. Female warriors are good, female magic-users are evil. #2. There are very few females in the roles of heroines or villainesses. #3. Females are weak, easily captured and need to be rescued by He-Man.
This isn't exactly inspiring young women to enter male-dominated careers. What its saying instead is that women are a rarity in such roles and are essentially a liability.
And its the same for many other TV shows, especially cartoons with a token female character. In the case of He-Man the show was reasonably popular with young girls and ended up with the spin-off series She-Ra... which was essentially a whole world populated by amazon women warriors (both good and evil). Oh and the character "Bow" is basically a male version of Teela, a token male amongst amazons. She-Ra basically uses the same formula as He-Man, but in reverse.
The trick about She-Ra however is that her story starts her off as an evil character with a spell on her and was raised as a baby by the villain Hordak. She-Ra only becomes good after He-Man breaks the spell on her / convinces her that her "father" is evil.
She-Ra also has quite a few female villains like the aptly named Shadow Weaver (whom you never see her face) and also Scorpia, Catra, Octavia, Entrapta, etc... its battle royale of the evil amazons vs the good amazons.
And then there's the metaphor... She-Ra is a leader of the Rebellion, which fights against the mostly-male Horde which dominates her world. Its a crude metaphor for patriarchy vs feminism and I am not so sure it works so well.
The whole She-Ra world (Etheria) is basically an overcompensation to botching the He-Man world (Eternia) and an attempt to appease a mostly female audience with parents who are worried about what their kids are watching... hence why feminism is portrayed as a metaphor and the Rebellion are essentially freedom fighters. (FEMINIST = FREEDOM FIGHTER, I really like that definition.) If they had been overly blatant about the metaphor the more conservative parents might have become upset.
Remember the Hercules: Legendary Journeys TV series starring Kevin Sorbo? It lasted 111 episodes and spawned an even bigger spinoff... Xena: Warrior Princess, starring Lucy Lawless with 134 episodes.
Not surprisingly Xena has some remarkable similarities to She-Ra. She starts off as evil and then Hercules manages to convince her to become good. Sounds familiar right?
However the similarities soon disappear as Xena is obviously a post-feminist with a healthy sexual libido. The show is just as much for men as it is for women, although the plot does become rather complex in later episodes and the show becomes a bit soap-opera-ish... Xena also has a somewhat ambiguous sexuality, judging from one scene where she kisses her sidekick Gabrielle leading to a whole argument that Xena is bisexual or lesbian... Does it really matter? It struck a blow for lesbians/bisexuals, just be happy about it.
Conclusions
Female tokenism in television is essentially a bad idea. While some good can come from tokenism, its far better to have roughly a 50/50 split. Star Trek: The Next Generation is a good example of this, as the first season starts off with Tasha Yar, Deanna Troi and Beverly Crusher... three characters with specific roles as warrior, romantic-love-interest/shrink and doctor. The success of Star Trek: TNG shows a balance between male and female roles is not a detriment.
Furthermore when tokenism becomes too overt, especially in a popular show, you can expect a backlash or female-dominated spinoff show as a result. Smart writers would be wiser to create a balanced show from the beginning and save themselves the trouble of having to create a spinoff show later on.
SEX - I know I might anger some golf fans by writing this, but Tiger Woods isn't all he's cracked up to be.
That much can be easily seen by his press conference today, the first time in months he's been seen in public since the height of his adultery scandal. He was extremely nervous in front of the camera, his eyes shifting across the crowd, fidgeting, stuttering even.
Tiger Woods' fall from grace has been a long time coming. He's been cheating on his wife for years now... but whats funny is how pussy whipped he is now.
There is no other way to describe it. Pussy whipped.
Like a beaten dog, cowering under the couch with its tail between its legs.
Now I want to point out however I don't exactly approve of what his angry wife Elin Nordegren is doing either. She should just dump his ass and leave. Unless they were separated at the time there's really no excuse for sleeping around (with the possible exceptions of swingers or wife/husband swapping, but that is a whole other matter). She has Tiger by the balls now and she's taking the vengeful wife thing to celebrity extremes.
Elin first met Tiger Woods in 2001 at the British Open, where she was the nanny of Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik's children. Tiger had been pursuing her for a year as one of his sexual conquests and eventually asked her to marry him in 2003 and finally married her in a huge $2 million wedding in 2004.
However all that time Tiger had women on the sidelines, and continued to 'knock it in the hole' for many years until his wife found out he was seeing other women, arousing suspicion.
Then the shit hit the fan when a San Diego cocktail waitress came out publicly, announcing she had had a two-and-a-half year affair with Tiger Woods and even produced emails, phone messages and text messages like the following:
"Hey it's Tiger, I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone...You got to do this for me. Huge. Quickly. Bye."
Since then the growing list of women saying "I had an affair with Tiger Woods" has become increasingly long, including naked photos of Tiger Woods having sex with another woman.
Here's the thing however... the only reason Tiger is sticking it out is because he has endorsement contracts with a lot of influential companies. Its not just his wife's lawyer squeezing his balls, its the army of lawyers working for everything from Gillette razors to Titleist golf balls. Their iron grip around his balls must be so tight its hard to speak, let alone in public.
Its amazing he hasn't just called it quits and agreed to a divorce, but instead he's so pussy and lawyer whipped he just keeps at it, not knowing when to throw in the towel. At this point I don't think it can get any better either. At this stage in a relationship the spouse will always be holding that over the offender's head. Whenever they have an argument Elin will automatically win because all she has to do is mention how he cheated and lied to her.
Its all so ironic, funny, sad, pathetic and yet predictable. I frankly wouldn't be that surprised if Tiger Woods committed suicide, except this action is doubtful because for many years now he's had a huge ego, basically thinking he was god's gift to golf (and reportedly having a temper if he didn't win). Still I wouldn't rule out suicide on the basis that he's fallen so far so fast. He's gone from being on top of everything to being the most pathetic person in the celebrity gossip rags.
In many ways you have to feel sorry for him, trapped between the gossip rags and the vicious cutthroat lawyers just itching to sue him. But on the other hand you have to ask...
Doesn't every person who cheats on their spouse deserve to be publicly humiliated?
