jessica critcher

Au Revoir, “Mademoiselle”

Campaign logo for Madame ou Madame

Feminists in the French town of Cesson-Sevigne have abolished the use of the word “Mademoiselle” on official forms. Women will be addressed as Madame from now on, regardless of age or marital status. This is nothing new to American, Canadian and British women, many of whom opt to be called Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs.

The idea is that women do not want to be defined by their marital status, a freedom which men have always enjoyed and sometimes take for granted. While this might seem like a minor change, it is actually an important step toward dismantling institutionalized sexism.

As the Los Angeles Times points out:

Before the French Revolution, the use of “Mademoiselle” had little to do with whether a woman was married; a laywoman or commoner was always called “Mademoiselle” to indicate she was of lowly status. Only women of high birth were addressed as “Madame.” “Damoiseau,” meaning “squire” and serving as the male equivalent of “Mademoiselle,” was dumped in France decades ago.

This speaks volumes to the idea that women are treated as second class citizens. Arbitrary differences such as this, based on nothing but gender, constitute discrimination. Identifying women based on their marital status or age when men are identified by neither is just one piece of the massive gender double standard. Read more

Posted on January 27, 2012 by jarrahpenguin in Feminism Leave a comment

Panel: Changes in Same-Sex Marriage Policy

Bear with us as we try something new here at Gender Focus: a contributors’ panel. Sometimes a story breaks and none of our contributors has the time to write a full post about it that day. Often, it’s also a story that can be better presented if considered from diverse perspectives. So the idea I had was that if something like this happens I can send out the story to the contributors to get multiple takes on it.

For our pilot test, I picked what ended up being one of the biggest stories of this week: the Canadian federal government’s position on same-sex marriages performed in Canada for people from other countries where same-sex marriage is not legal.

The thing is the story developed so fast that I feel like we kind of missed the boat. In case you weren’t following, on Thursday I first saw the story in the Globe and Mail with this headline: “Despite legal about-face, Harper has ‘no intention’ of reopening gay marriage.” From the article:

The Harper government has served notice that thousands of same-sex couples who flocked to Canada from abroad since 2004 to get married are not legally wed.

The reversal of federal policy is revealed in a document filed in a Toronto test case launched recently by a lesbian couple seeking a divorce. Wed in Toronto in 2005, the couple have been told they cannot divorce because they were never really married – a Department of Justice lawyer says their marriage is not legal in Canada since they could not have lawfully wed in Florida or England, where the two partners reside.

This was seen as a dramatic reversal of government policy, but despite the fact that the NDP brought the issue up in the House last fall, Harper and the Conservatives insisted they had no idea there was any change: Read more

Posted on January 14, 2012 by jarrahpenguin in Can-Con, LGBT, Politics Leave a comment

Can’t Turn it Off: Retro-Sexism in TV Sitcoms

This article was originally posted at the WAM! (Women, Action, & the Media) blog. Cross-posted with the permission of WAM! and author Jessica Critcher.

I should start this off by saying that I don’t watch a lot of TV.  But, with a nod to Pulp Fiction, I am aware that there is an invention called television and on this invention they show shows. There is good TV out there, but it doesn’t outweigh the bad. In order to save money and cut down on the number of ridiculous advertisements I am forced to watch, I pulled the plug. Another item on my pros vs. cons list was the sad fact that many popular shows, especially sitcoms, are becoming increasingly saturated with retro-sexism.

One new show starting this month, Work It!, has me particularly concerned about TV tropes currently accepted on our airwaves. The plot centers on two men who lost their jobs in the recent recession and are struggling to provide for their families. Since men and women are equal now, women have all of the jobs (just like the feminists wanted, right?). So in order to earn a living, they are forced to dress as women. No, seriously.  Check out the trailer.

Not only is this show perpetuating dangerous myths about the recession and women’s advancement, but it mocks queer and transgender identities and repeats the same ridiculous stereotypes about men and women we’ve been hearing for decades.

I recently had it pointed out to me that Work It! is similar to a show from the 80’s called Bosom Buddies. I’m not old enough to remember watching it, but this raises two interesting points. One, the plot of Bosom Buddies does not seem to revolve around women taking all of the jobs, so these shows seem to have gotten more sexist (or at least more aggressively anti-feminist) over time. Two, networks apparently do think we’ll laugh at jokes from twenty (or fifty) years ago. Home Improvement was funny… let’s see if we can do it again. This line of thinking isn’t quite what I would call “high-concept comedy.”

People have told me that these shows aren’t that bad. It’s just a joke, and seriously, why can’t you ever take a joke?  But I like to counter with the idea that these shows aren’t very good either. The comedy, and that’s a term I use loosely, relies on viewers accepting various ideas about gender as facts of life. We know that’s not the way life really is. We know all women aren’t really humorless spoil-sports—we know all guys aren’t really thick-headed macho men. It’s just a show, and we’re all supposed to laugh at the irony.

But if they aren’t using those stereotypes to say anything constructive, they’re just repeating them. The fact that we know they’re not true is irrelevant, because we still have to see them everywhere we look. We have to take homophobia, sexism, racism, and the general idea that middle class white people are the only people worth watching as a given, or we don’t have a sense of humor.

While I would love to think that ignoring these shows would make them go away, I know that’s not actually the case. Whether or not I pay attention, shows like this are still being pitched, written, shot and watched. We can hope for specific shows to get cancelled, but the general themes don’t seem to be going anywhere.

For crying out loud, though, it’s 2012 already. I want flying cars, I want a cure for cancer and I want to be able to watch television without seeing tired stereotypes repackaged in shiny new boxes. Why do all of these things feel equally impossible and far away? TV is shutting me out, and I want a more productive solution than shutting it off.

-Jessica

(photo from Wikimedia Commons)

Posted on January 6, 2012 by jarrahpenguin in Feminism, Pop Culture Leave a comment

I’m Sick of Being Sick of Rape Culture

This article, by Jessica Critcher, was originally posted at the WAM! blog. Cross-posted with permission.

I must sound like a broken record. I know people must get sick of hearing it, because I get sick of saying it, but we live in a rape culture. To preface what I’m about to say, I would like to give a brief description of what that means, as defined in Transforming a Rape Culture and quoted in a very powerful piece on Shakesville:

A rape culture is a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.

Emphasis mine.

This latest wave of frustration was set in motion by a post on CampusBasement.com entitled “10 Ways to Fool a Sorority Girl Into Bed.” The post has since been taken down, but lives on forever in screenshots (and our nightmares).

The list includes advice such as:

2. Keep refilling her cup. Soon she will be unable to walk and need a place to “rest.”

4. Once she is sufficiently intoxicated (and only then!) say something that would earn the hashtag #failedpickuplines. She’ll stare at you in admiration.

7. Make the lighting in the room very dim. Once she says, “I’m sleepy,” you know you got that bitch on hold.

10. When the moment is right… move in for the kill. Like a tiger.

Not surprisingly, this “article” was met with some criticism. Shortly before it was taken down, Campus Basement added the following disclaimer:

This article has generated a tremendous amount of interest from readers. Campus Basement would like to clarify that the author meant absolutely no harm when she posted it, and our staff firmly understands that no means no. For more information on how you can help end sexual assault and abuse, visit www.takebackthenight.org.

Also we posted our community guidelines yesterday, please take a look: http://www.campusbasement.com/pages/community-guidelines. This article is from a sole individual and doesn’t reflect the views of Campus Basement.

There’s a lot to unpack here. Firstly, “interest” is a weird way of spelling “rage.” Secondly, there is a difference between not meaning harm and not doing harm. While this could have been intended as some sort of satire, it is unfortunately too close to reality to be taken as a joke. One in four college women report surviving rape or attempted rape. Approximately 2/3 of assaults are committed by someone known to the victim, and 38% of rapists are a friend or acquaintance. Read more

Posted on December 14, 2011 by jarrahpenguin in Feminism Leave a comment

Mo Hair, Mo Problems

This article was originally posted at the WAM! (Women, Action, & the Media) blog. Cross-posted with the permission of WAM! and author Jessica Critcher.

Now that October and breast cancer awareness month are over, gents are stepping up for some cancer awareness as well. Movember, aka No Shave November, is that special time of year when men band together to grow mustaches and beards to raise awareness and funds to stop prostate cancer. According to Movember.com:

[In November,] these selfless and generous men, known as Mo Bros, groom, trim and wax their way into the annals of fine moustachery. Supported by the women in their lives, Mo Sistas, Movember Mo Bros raise funds by seeking out sponsorship for their Mo-growing efforts.

While the overlying theme of cancer awareness is wonderful, there are a few things about this mustache movement I find upsetting.

Firstly, as the Ms. Magazine blog points out, there is not an equal space for women to participate in the movement. According to some of the Twitter feedback, they shouldn’t even think about participating.

twitter1Thanks for the advice.

Maybe it’s because this is a men’s health issue, and they don’t want us femme-ing it up. As childish as that is, it would at least make a small bit of sense.

But no, the unprovoked hostility toward women, from men and women alike, stems from a bizarre repulsion for women’s body hair. Men’s health isn’t even a factor.

What about my nasty?

Their disgust at the thought of women not shaving often supersedes their concerns for spelling and grammar. Ms. Magazine prompts us all to ask the question: Why are women expected to shave while men are not?

This is clearly the work of our longtime foe, the double standard. Several people, catching sight of my underarm or leg hair, have asked me why I don’t shave or, condescendingly, when I’m going to get around to it. Women’s bodies produce hair just like men’s do. It starts with puberty as we begin to enter adulthood. I find it very frustrating that we are accused with allegations of manliness for displaying signs that we are mature, adult women. What (and at this point I am usually told to calm down) is so threatening about my acknowledgement of my own adulthood? Clearly, a great deal.

Apparently women are only allowed to raise awareness for cancer (or advertise the fact that they are adults) in terms of conventional attractiveness. I am referring of course to theconsumer-driven, cancer-sexualizing breast cancer awareness movements, which reduce women and their worth to a pair of breasts. In a weird cross-over between “going pink” and Movember, The Canadian Cancer Society even suggested women get bikini waxes to support cervical cancer awareness.

My grandmother is a breast cancer survivor. I hate cancer.  But I also cannot stand to see women objectified. Why must movements seeking to end cancer do so at the expense of reducing women to sex objects? Cancer is not sexy. Nothing about any type of cancer, regardless of the body part afflicted, should be erotic or risqué. Movember proves this, because the focus is on raising money and growing mustaches instead of any mention of the “male g-spot.”

While I support the spirit at the heart of Movember, I’m pretty miffed at the existence of another bro’s only club. As of now I’m starting my own movement to raise awareness about sexism called No Shaving Ever.

Posted on November 6, 2011 by jarrahpenguin in Feminism, Pop Culture 7 Comments
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