What the Heck is Feminism

When it comes to relationships, girls don't know what they want. They say they want a nice guy, but time after time they go for the "bad boy." You know what?--I don't think girls ever know what they want. Many of them support "feminism" and gender equality...but they can't even agree on what that is! For example, in our discussion of Merri Lisa Johnson's "Ladies, Love Your Box," we went over the three waves of feminism. Basically, over time, what it means to be a feminist has changed and these changes can be grouped into three main phases on feminism.

When feminism was born in the late 19th-early 20th century, it was about woman's suffrage--voting, equal rights, etc. A lot of things changed due to the movement and by the 1960's there was a second wave. Feminism became part of the civil rights movement, it involved calls for equality including a gender equality amendment, etc. Second wave feminism is probably what most of us think of when people talk about feminism. We picture the radical woman preaching about how society degrades women and how they should all just stop wearing makeup, cooking, having kids, or acting like girls altogether because that's just what we want them to do.

Now we have come into an era of 3rd wave feminism. It blatantly contradicts it's predecessor in my opinion. Where 2nd wave feminism shunned sexuality, 3rd wave embraces it and moreover, seeks empowerment through sexuality. It preaches that a girl can wear a push up bra and have a brain at the same time. 1st or 2nd waves would have seen this as a form of oppression.

Okay, I understand that feminism had to change over time because the circumstances in which it existed changed. You can't go around asking for the right to vote anymore when you already have it. And I also understand that the basic idea of appreciating women lies behind all of these forms of feminism. But my issue with feminism is that I still don't get it. How can I be a feminist or not if the definition isn't even static? I never know how to answer when someone asks if I'm a feminist. Do I believe in treating women well? Of course I do. I believe in human rights across the board. Some people might say to be a true feminist you can't just believe in it, you actually have to do something. Well do I actively engage in the activity of treating women with respect? It just so happens that I do. I hold doors. Then again a second wave feminist might get mad at me for that because she can do it herself. So if I'm still not a feminist after that, does that mean that I have to organize social action to be a feminist? Do I have to have a convention or make a power point or something to be considered a feminist? Is every girl who flaunts her breasts and still gets straight A's a third wave feminist? Do you have to be mean to all men if you're a feminist? Can a guy be a feminist? You see, most of the time there is no way to know if someone is definitely a feminist or not. Its CONFUSING.

Women in Maine demonstrated some kind of feminist movement the other day by walking the streets topless. Maybe I'm just too immature to see it, but...what are you doing that for? To prove that you have boobs? Cool, I guess. It kind of makes me feel like feminism is sometimes used as an excuse to do crazy stuff that really makes no sense and doesn't really help the feminist cause. I mean, guys don't walk around with their pants off, so what are you proving?

The whole thing's weird to me how one feminist wouldn't even recognize a different kind of feminist from another wave. It's to the point now where I'm just like, "What do you ladies want?" I think we should just make it a law that women have to get paid the same wages as men and see if feminism goes away. But it wouldn't. I think feminism is very important in that it has lead to many advances for woman's rights, but even if there was no major social change at stake like voting or equal pay, I get the feeling that they'd find some other weird reason to organize and demonstrate.

The other thing I was thinking is that maybe 3rd wave feminism isn't feminism at all. Maybe it's just proof that the masculine media and the men that run it have won. They've brainwashed women so badly that they've gotten them to want to be objectified and sexualized. They've even got them to call it feminism. What an ingenious plan. It's almost like if we somehow tricked the slaves to fight for slavery back when Abe Lincoln was president and make it seem like we didn't want them to so they thought they won even though they were really doing what we wanted the whole time. Its a crazy thought and probably bogus, but it makes sense if you think about it.

So in conclusion, I just don't get feminism in this day and age. Hell, I don't get women. I don't think I'm supposed to understand them though. But how can we give them what they want if they don't even know what they want, right? I think that the word feminism is actually unhelpful to its own cause. It should just be called Equalityism or something because "feminism" already implies that women aren't as good as men. There's nothing called masculism as far as I know. Because if there was we would be acknowledging that we aren't as good as women. So in closing, good luck girls, with whatever it is that you want feminism to accomplish, because sometimes you just go in too many directions for me to understand what you really want.

That's So Black

I want to jump into this dicussion sparked by Darnell Hunt in "Making Sense of Blackness on Television" for a second. I feel like so much effort is focused on race in the world and as a person who has grown up outside the major civil right movement one thing that I always used to say to myself was, "Why don't people just stop talking about it so much? If we just stopped making a big deal about race it might not be such a problem. People aren't racist like they used to be." And on some level I think there is a bit of truth to that statement. However, there's a lot that I didn't consider up until that point. Racism exists in a different form today than it did in the generations prior. It's much less blatant and a lot more structural. It's kind of like racism in disguise. I read an article by an author named McIntosh entitled "White Priviledge" and another by an author, Crenshaw, called "Intersectionality" and they both deal with the some of the different forms of discrimination that exist in our modern society.

McIntosh talks about the term "passive racism." A lot of us don't see ourselves as racist people. It's a terrible thing to associate yourself with, so which such a negative stigma attached to it, none of us want to be labeled that way. However, we see racism as something more active than it really has to be--we see it as actively expressing hate towards another race by verbally or physically assaulting them. Though many of us are morally above such acts, we fail to consider the fact that we are structurally racist. By owning a house and accepting certain advantages that structurally disadvantage blacks and other minorities, we are feeding into a racist system. But it's hard to consider yourself a racist just because you want a good life for yourself. We think, "It's not my fault that owning a house in a rich white community is somehow indirectly inhibiting someone else from living a similar life style."

Crenshaw simply addresses the idea of intersectionality. The idea that someone can belong to more than one disadvantaged group and get double or tripley screwed over. For example, there are systems in place to help black people get a fair opportunity at jobs. In a way that's great. But what about when you are black and a woman. You go for an interview for a company who is trying to be fair racially and lose the job to a black male. Then you go to an interview to a job that is trying to be fair by gender and you lose to a white woman. You are at the intersection of two or more disadvantaged groups and there is little, if anything at all in place in society to work in the favor of someone at this kind of cross roads.

This shows that there are many forms of racism out there. Which leads to the question what exaclty is racism? Or even more, what is race? Well for one I beleive race is something that is far more socially constructed than a natural thing. Sure some people are clearly darker than others and many black people have signature features like thier tight curly hair, but there is SO much in between ground that it's hard to really create such rigid categories of race. Too often, black and white are seen as binary, mutually exclusive groups. Its like black way over here, and white way over there, and everything else in the middle kind of gets forgotten. Culture is continuously growing and changing, but somewhere along the line white became symbolic for European, civilized, and rational; while black became Africa, slavery, savage. This is anything but a natural interpretation. Humans have created these views through our history. In reality, race is made up by us. We then take it a step further by encoding terms like "good schools" or "bad neighborhoods" with racial implications when in reality it probably has a lot more to do with income level than race. The touble is that income level is not tangible or visible to the naked eye, but the color of your skin is. So a symbol is created. The signifier the color and the signified poverty and all th ehardships and problems that come with it. This is very inaccurate though and leads to poor judgement and stereotype within a society.

And that leads us to another question. If race is socially constructed, where are the messages coming from that are being used to construct it, or at least reinforce the construction already there. The answer is in large part the medium of popular television. I love Hunt's quote: (click)
It acknowledges that TV may not be trying to mold our society, but "for better or worse" it is. A large part of the message we get of what it is to be "black" or "white" comes from television. Just yesterday I watched an episode of Family Guy and Stewie (a talking infant) grabbed a gun and pointed it. Brian (his talking dog) said, "C'mon you don't know how to use that thing." Then Stewie replied, "Oh really? What if I hold it sideways like a black guy!" (as he turns his wrist). We are bombarded with both negative and positive images of race that without media interpretation are neither inherently good or bad. But when most of the criminals shown on TV are black, that has some sort of repercussion on our view of race. Races in popular media are seen as rigid groups you either belong to or don't, but the truth is most of us don't fit specifically into any one single grouping. Media and politics like to lump us together; it makes it a lot easier. How race is depicted on TV plays a big role in how we come to understand its role in society, so it is important that the images we are shown and stories we are told are accurate, althought they often aren't. What we percieve as a "black" way to dress is heavily influenced by media images. Unfortunately, messages on TV tend to stay the same because the people making the final decisions stay the same (usually rich white men). People's jobs depend on the industry that works--not changing it. So you can see why switching to a more comprehensive depiction of race on TV is not an easy task.

Just Creepin'

or a college student, going without facebook for a week is like living under a rock. And now it's not just open to us college kids, it's open to the rest of the world too. It's a virus and everyone's catching it. Let's be real--facebook has revolutionized the way humans socialize. It's crazy when you think about it. It's like interpersonal communication has become secondary. Actually talking to a person is less "official" than posting it online for the world to see. Facebook has changed basic rituals that have been around seemingly forever. It provides so many positives like a ability to socialize with friends and family you don't see very often, keep track of birthdays and events, store all your pictures and memories, promote business, meet new people, and more. But it also comes with so many negatives, so much baggage: possibility of identity theft, invasion of privacy, status conferral, and many others. The question we are left asking ourselves is, "Is facebook worth what it's doing to us?" Does the good outweigh the bad? And at this point, does it even matter? As deep as we are immersed into the world of facebook, could we even abandon it if we wanted to now? It's kind of scary to think about. Regardless of whether it's good or bad, there's no hiding what a huge impact its made.

A friend of mine got fed up with facebook. He didn't like how everyone could just go online to learn everything they needed to about him and judge him negatively based on no real life encounters at all. As Alla Zollers states, it allows us to prematurely "think we know who they are." My friend also didn't like how everyone could publicly see the struggles he was having with his relationship because his relationship status kept changing from "In a Relationship" to "Single" to "It's Complicated." Everyone had to give their 2 cents on his breakup via a facebook comment. For him it was just too personal a matter--something that he needed to deal with privately, and having visible to everyone on the internet was only making the situation worse. So he deleted his account vowing never to use a social networking site again. I found out because the thumbnail picture of him in my top friends box was blank. A week later, however, his profile was back. When I asked him what happened he said he just couldn't leave it. He needed it for networking. He was a very busy man who did a lot of organizing and facebook was his best tool to get the word out to a mass of people quickly when he needed to. So despite the stress it was putting on him with his personal life, he was structurally forced to have a facebook account. Yes, facebook does have some privacy settings and they are constantly trying to fine tune and improve that feature, but you're never going to be able to hide everything you want to if it's online. There's a lot to be said about this story. A lot of people claim to hate facebook but still have one. I think it's important for us to remember that even if it seems like we can't go back anymore, we are the ones who did this to ourselves. After all, as Alla Zoller's article states, facebook itself does "not provide content, but rather a platform" for us to provide our own content. How much can you really complain if you lose your job due to an inappropriate facebook picture if you're the one who put it up?

That's another thing facebook does. It blends our worlds. I act differently with my friends than I do with my parents just like I act differently at work than I do when I'm at home. But what happens when you're facebook friends with your boss, your mom, your ex-girlfriend, and all your drinking buddies? That complicates things. What is safe to do or say online that won't be taken the wrong way by one or multiple parties?

Personally, my biggest problem with facebook is how it has redefined the word "creep" or "stalker." Stalker used to be a very serious term. Something people go to jail for. To me stalkers are associated with rape. However there is a new meaning of stalker now. The "facebook stalker" is someone who spends time on facebook going through other people's photos and information that has been posted for the world to see--essentially the whole point of the site. Now everyone's a stalker. The verb form of this is "creeping." I asked my dorm-mate Sam what she was doing on her computer and she responded with "Oh just creepin'." She didn't even need to mention facebook because it was already implied. So everyone puts up embarrassing pictures of themselves online and says things they probably wouldn't say out loud in a public setting, but if someone asks them about it they are accused of being a creep for facebook stalking to find it. The term "stalker" is thrown around all willy nilly these days and I'm not sure it's having positive repercussions. I will leave names out for privacy's sake (something that doesn't seem to really exist anymore) but in a facebook conversation between two girls I know, girl A calls girl B a "slut" because of a picture she is in. Girl B then responds by saying "I'm flattered you're so obsessed with me that you go through my pictures. Stalker much?" Meanwhile I can see this entire interchange on my mini-feed and so can about a thousand other people. The whole thing just seems kind of ironic to me. I try to live by the idea that if you wouldn't go out onto the town common and do or say something in public, then you shouldn't post it on facebook. It seems like every week someone threatens to sue barstoolsports.com (a blog by the common man for the common man)for making fun of them because of a video that was posted on youtube. But you can't sue someone for making fun of a video you put on youtube where it's public domain. I just think people really need to deeply consider the things they put out there online before it comes back to bite them. People have lost their jobs and marriages because of these types of mistakes. "The identity performed on SNSs sites can be misinterpreted, with incredibly tragic results" (Zollers).

Zollers also states that sites like facebook are a "poor representation of ... 'real' complex and dynamic social network[s]." I couldn't agree more with this statement. In the facebook world relationships are completely binary in that there are "friends" and there are "not friends" with no middle ground. Obviously this doens't reflect relationships in real life. Our bonds to others constantly grow and change. My real circle of friends doesn't resemble my facebook friend list at all. I have over 900 friends on facebook and I probably interact online with about 100 of them. And of those 100 I probably interact in person with about 30 of them on a regular basis. I have friends on facebook who I don't even know. Someone just sent me a friend request one day and I saw that we had some friends in common so I accepted it. Is that what real life is like? I don't think so. The person I don't know is as much of a "friend" to me on facebook as my own brother. There is one way to rate your friends in importance though--with the top friends application. You list, in order your top 10 or 20 friends for everyone to see. I hate this feature because it makes relationships seem so static and it hurts a lot of people's feelings because they are either not on the list or "so and so" is rated higher than them. I think the entire premise of the "top friends" feature is terrible. It makes people's relationships somehow measurable and directly comparable to others.

Lastly, facebook takes so much away from true conversation. Remember the good old days when if you wanted to get to know someone, you actually had to talk to them and ask questions? Crazy right? Now you just check out their profile. I facebook chatted a girl a few weeks ago and she asked me where I went to school and I remember thinking "What a dumb question, my profile information is right in front of her face on the screen, she can see where I go to school." But shouldn't we have to ask about these things? Why even talk to people anymore if all the conversation topics are freely available on anyone's profile. We can just become a society of mutes.

Sometimes I wonder if the world would be better without facebook. But then I find myself on it 12 times a day and think, "If someone like me who is so skeptical about it, is this attached to it, what hope do we have for everyone else?" The problem now is that it's wriggled it's way right into the middle of our society and it's stuck there now. You have to pass through it if you are going to have a modern social experience. I think it's important for everyone to keep in mind that at the end of the day, corporations with financial interests are the ones who are in control of all these networking sites. SNSs can promote individual voices, but they are still trapped within the current structure and thus help to fortify it. I think we should be careful not to let our virtual selves become more important than our actual selves.

Southpark, as always, does a great job with turning facebook into social satire....