Yay

Excited face

Perma-bored stone fox Padma Lakshmi, 38, has signed a development deal to star in her own NBC sitcom about a woman in the culinary world.  Single Serving is a possible title, which sucks, but, to be fair, it could be so much worse.  I’m skeptical that this will last long, not just because Emeril was such a spectacular bomb that it lasted approximately one episode, but because shows in this genre that have lasted are generally starred in by comic actors, and Padma can’t even convincingly play herself on Top Chef.

Still, this is a huge important deal to me, as an American desi.  Growing up, there were zero Indians in the media, no Indian models in magazines.  Margaret Cho had just her prostitutes on M*A*S*H, I had nuthin’.  Visibility matters to me in a way that I have trouble explaining to folks who’ve never checked the “other” box under race.  So, for me to read that a crappy sitcom, is being built around an Indian star, feels good.  The un-stereotypical role feels good too.  Reading comments from mouth-breathers on the internet who rip it to shreds on it’s presumed lack of merit and the star’s slurred torpor is something to behold.  It’s like a scene from post-racial America.

What sexism in advertising?

I found this video clip through Sociological Images, from awesome British sketch comedy, That Mitchell and Webb Look.  Check it out:

Sex sells, but who’s buying?

gross, Burger King

This image has been making the rounds, called “the ‘most overtly blow-jobby ad’ I’ve ever seen” by Copyranter.  Burger King’s response to the many complaints they’ve received for the ad, created for the Singapore market?  That it “did not run in the U.S. or any other markets…and generated positive consumer sales.”

Basically “You weren’t supposed to see this, and also, sex sells so fuck you, customers”  Still, Burger King, along with Hardees/ Carl’s Jr., and Jack in the Box have been running overtly sexual ads in the U.S., most featuring women writhing around with meat, plus the oddly sex-organ themed “name our holes” ad from Hardees.  What makes this different from the one where Audrina Patridge licks her fingers, or the one where Padma Lakshmi hitches up her dress so the dribbling sauce doesn’t land on it, is that the objectification here is wholly unambiguous.  The woman is made to look like blow up doll, glassy-eyed and without hunger.  The burger is supposed to represent the virility that’s often associated with meat.

Can p.r. people at least stop saying “sex sells” and say something more accurate like “the sexualized bodies of women are used to sell things to women and men because women are the sex class and centuries of their erasure from intellectual and artistic spheres leads to their bodies embodying the concept of desire, itself. Men could not be shown as being desired in the same way because desire, and subjectivity is a masculine attribute, that would remove their subjectivity and make them objects. Plus it would be totes gay”

“There’s no debate, this is a civil war. The anti-abortion people use bombs and bullets, and they’ve been doing this for 30 years”

Watch the PBS NOW investigation Abortion Providers Under Siege

Dr. George Tiller was killed by one of our homegrown Christian terrorists, a man who, only days before had been reported to the FBI for vandalizing clinic locks.  Perhaps because our government has to balance upholding the law with placating the supporters of terrorism, they did not arrest or detain Scott Roeder, despite his history of fanaticism and threatening speech.  Now, an American hero is dead, one of three clinics in the entire country offering medically necessary third trimester abortions is shut down, and Roeder is being held in jail, where he can spread his message via whiny interviews.

The two sides of the abortion debate are not evenly balanced, and I will always disagree with our president that it’s something on which reasonable people can disagree.  He’s shocked, but really no one who’s paid attention for the past few decades, or who isn’t up the ass of anti-woman bigots like Rick Warren should even be surprised.  This was not the first attempt on Dr. Tiller’s life.  He was the target of a long-term terror campaign by groups including Operation Rescue(they recently removed Tiller Watch from their website)  He was shot in both arms during their “Summer Of Mercy” offensive and called Tiller The Baby Killer” by Bill O’Reilly.  His clinic was firebombed and still, he kept on, still believing in the greater moral obligation to save women’s lives.

Reasonable people can agree that one’s personal discomfort should not dictate what all women need do.  It is reasonable to not want to force women to give birth, to acknowledge that rape is pandemic and not everyone has good contraceptive access.  It is reasonable to understand that across history and across nations, women have abortions.  When they are not legal and accessible, women get them anyway, and they suffer and die from them.  It is reasonable to have compassion for what women, who are alive now, are going through and to trust them to  do what’s right for them.

There is nothing reasonable about deceiving women with fake medical clinics.  It is not reasonable to deceive the public with doctored images of babies posing as aborted fetuses.  It is not reasonable to harass, intimidate bomb, and kill.  It is logically consistent, though.  Many pro-lifers will insist that they value all life, but that’s just not true.  Most individual anti-choicers do support righteous wars and murder of criminals by the state.  Even if they are against both, banning abortion is a death sentence for women, as it was before Roe in America, as it continues to be in other countries.  Ultimately there’s a valuation of the fetus over the woman sustaining it with her own life, the one who’s already sinned.  If you believe that fetuses are akin to infants, and that abortion is a holocaust,

“Don’t tell me it should be rare. That’s like saying on the Holocaust, ‘Well, maybe we could save 20 percent of the Jewish people in Poland and Germany and get them out and we should be satisfied with that,’” Warren said. “I’m not satisfied with that. I want the Holocaust ended.”

then “killing Hitler” really is more moral than doing nothing.  Moreover, there’s a strong Christian tradition of working as the hand of God, including killing to prevent further evil.

Reason Senior Editor Jacob Sullum makes the same appeal to logic in this article, Why is Killing Abortionists Like George Tiller So Wrong?, suggesting that it makes sense to act to stop an injustice when the government is unwilling or complicit:

“When the law blesses the murder of babies, it is hardly worthy of respect, any more than laws blessing the enslavement of Africans or the gassing of Jews were, and violent resistance against such enactments surely is justified in principle.”

He goes on to say, in accordance with Operation Rescue’s Randall Terry’s statement, that the most compelling reason to not murder doctors is that it’s a “tactical mistake”, because it turns people off who don’t have the stomach for it, I guess.

Even the nicest anti-choicers believe that abortion is murder. The movement regularly employs tactics meant to incite hatred and violence towards doctors, including calling them “mass murderers”, publishing wanted lists with crossed off names of those they have already killed, publishing photos of faces, home addresses, and license plates, etc. The man in custody for killing Dr. Tiller has been found on Operation Rescue message boards from years ago discussing bringing him to justice. He is not one lone bad apple.

The movement doesn’t take responsibility for its violent rhetoric or its most violent members and now they really should be afraid, afraid of being exposed.  I really do hope that the so-called moderates, the non-violent ones who insist that they value both mother and child will take another look at what they are supporting with their dollars and their votes.  I hope they will take another look at history before 1973, if they really want to return to the days of wire hangers and poison.

I really hope that our government will begin to take the threat seriously.  Dr. Hern and Dr. Carhart are now under the protection of federal marshals, as they have been at other times during their careers, but all the “pro-life” groups who have advocated violence should be under watch by the FBI.  President Obama should cease playing dumb, and quit admonishing pro-choice advocates to respect the views of anti-choicers.  They have declared war on us.

Wanda Sykes gets her due

Congratulations to Wanda Sykes and wife, Alex!  Alex gave birth to newborn twins Olivia Lou and Lucas Claude on April 27.

Wanda Sykes came out publicly at an anti prop 8 rally after election day, revealing that she recently married,  saying:

“You know, I don’t really talk about my sexual orientation, I didn’t feel like I had to. I was just living my life, not necessarily in the closet, but I was living my life.   Everybody that knows me personally they know I’m gay.   But that’s the way people should be able to live their lives.”

Sykes is also returning to FOX in the fall for her own late night comedy talk show.  She’ll be one of only two female late night hosts, next to Chelsea Handler(the first was Joan Rivers in 1986) and the first black woman, and the first lesbian.  In an overwhelmingly white male market, this is a big deal.  She said:

“I’m married, so this was a great excuse to get out of the house on a Saturday night,” said Sykes. When asked about returning to FOX, she added, “Yes, my relationship with FOX hasn’t been the best, but if Rihanna can go back to Chris Brown, I can go back to FOX. Oprah tried to talk me out of it, but I think FOX has changed.”

Just recently, she hosted the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, as the first gay person, and as the first woman to host since 1993.  I’ve been a huge fan of hers for a long time and am really happy that after years of bit parts and cancelled shows, she’s getting the success she deserves.

R.I.P. Marilyn French

From Written On The Body, a short, personal eulogy for Marilyn French, who recently passed at age 79.

I think French is one of those feminists who have been deemed “unsafe”, aka “man haters”. Like Andrea Dworkin her writing had a strident tone and caused people to wring their hands and worry about hurting men’s feelings. And maybe her writing did, I don’t know. But I do know reading The Woman’s Room in university was like stepping through a looking glass. It was like entering a world that was both familiar and strange.

“I was the first woman to burn my bra – it took the fire department four days to put it out”

The Cardrona Bra Fence in NZ

Is their any other daily garment more cumbersome than the brassiere?  “Women who wear the wrong bra size” stories are a staple of the slow news cycle.  It’s always the same: Massive percentage of women wear ill fitting bras; are dumb.  Why don’t those dummies just go shopping? The full story after the break I’ll tell you why my bras don’t fit.  It’s because quality bras are ridiculously expensive, every fitter gives me a different number, and nearly all stores carry the same, very narrow size range.  Victoria’s Secret doesn’t even carry anything above a 36 D in their stores and they charge more for all the D’s.  Elastic is not made to last anyway, and I’m skeptical that a $70 bra from Wacoal would really last long enough to be worth buying.  Vanity sizing is the last of so many straws.  You have to be refitted for each and every brand.

There have been a couple of bra rants that I’ve seen recently, this one from Shakesville, and this one from SarahMC at Harpyness, more contributions to an emerging genre of feminist bloglandia, the classic, of course being this one from Bitch, PhD.  The comment sections are always huge, full of complaints and testimonials from women who put on, say, a G cup and experienced such a revelatory lack of pain for the first time since adolescence, that they have to evangelize for their solution. “Haha.  I’m a dude” or some such shows up a lot at Bitch, PhD.  Not sure why they felt the need to share that, maybe just because they weren’t being talked about.

Anyway, this is the 21st century and we have a black president!(sarcasm)    I’m not writing this because I want a recommendation for a little boutique in London that will change my posture and my life.  I just want to let it be known that it is massively, spectacularly wrong that women have to deal with this sort of shit when it comes to our underwear:

Selected comments from around the interwebs:

I’m an odd bra size (36DDD) and out of the four bras I regularly wear, some are upwards of $100 a piece. I have to shop at Nordstrom or specialty stores, the one I’m wearing now was $150 with tax at a place called Intimacy while I was visiting family in Houston. That said, one of my really good bras had the underwire pop out of it recently, and that was as I was wearing it. I think I had it for 4 months? I hang dry my bras – I have to put mine in the washer, I don’t have a sink in my dorm room…

Hmmm… I should probably go get measured by someone professional. I think the measurement rules fall apart once you get above a 38. I measure as a 42 C but generally actually wear a 40 B. I’d be happier, I think, in a 42 B, but they seem to exist very rarely. And I have yet to try on a C cup that comes close to fitting. Every time I go bra shopping I remember why it is that I don’t wear one 90% of the time. I hate bra shopping more than I hate shopping for any other article of clothing. And that’s saying a lot since I generally find clothing shopping to be a frustrating and demoralizing experience.

no, you’re not the only one who gets a negative number — I do too. But I’ve found the Holy Grail of itty-bitty bras — Olga Petites. Their sizing is completely wonky — I measure at a 32 AAA (no, those don’t exist, *sigh*) and 99% of 32AAs are too big for me, yet I wear a 34A in Olga Petites — but they’re the smallest well-cut bras out there, and for cheap bras ($28 regular price at Kohls, but they’re on sale pretty frequently) they’re actually pretty comfortable (once you cut the horribly itchy tags out, anyway). And they’re nicely molded and lightly padded in a way that they don’t just squash down the itty-bitty boobage, but actually make one look like a full-grown (although still pretty flat-chested) adult of the species. (I think because the cup actually extends into the armpit instead of being entirely in the front like most itty-bitty bras — not squashing that side-boobage flat under a band seems to help quite a bit.) (As I’m well into my 20s and still get carded for R-rated movies once in a while, I find this whole “full-grown adult boobs” effect a major benefit.  )

Something I heard on NPR last year – the average American white woman, when fitted properly wears a 40D. The average American black woman wears a 42DD.

Back to the bra thing…is it any wonder women wear “the wrong size bra”? Check out bra-size calculators…I entered the same measurements (36 ribcage 41 breast) and came up with these results: 42D, 42AA, 40A, and my personal favorite “42, but if these numbers are accurate, you don’t need a bra”. Why thank you…they are rather perky, aren’t they? So, what size do I usually wear? 36C. I used to go for 38B, but the 36C cups fit better (they’re smaller!). Any size 42 bra I’ve seen is laughably huge for me…though I can’t say I’ve ever seen a 42AA!

My mom was a c cup and had no sympathy for me with my already DDDs by high school. She thought she could buy me the same inexpensive bras she bought herself. I’d wear two or three at a time trying to avoid the sag.
Even now, when I know what to buy, I have permanent “bruises” on my shoulders.

Fortunately, I found a lingerie store owned by a lovely Greek-accented woman who took the time to measure, assess and provide me with a wide selection of bras that didn’t look like my grandmother would wear them or feel like medieval torture devices. I will be forever in her debt.

Amen. If Jesus touches breasts, he did it to me the day that I found a boutique bra store that carries my size… although now, he needs to touch my bank account to make that gift financially accessible to me.

The Chocolate Vagina

I can’t really stand The Girls Next Door, mostly because it’s a boring show about annoying people doing dumb stuff.  I’ll sum it up if you haven’t seen it:  Bridget sweetly chides her little dog and cat to play nice as they attempt to murder each other.  Holly talks about the fairytale wedding she intends to have with Hef as he feigns deafness.  Kendra continually says things that make me wonder if she’s a lesbian, or if she has such an advanced double consciousness, that she can only see herself and other women through the gaze of men watching them.  Hef falls asleep sitting up, and the only reference to their creepy sex life is the economy-size baby oil bottle visible behind Hef on his bed, as he works.

In the rerun I saw last night, the girlfriends all go to get their best body parts molded on chocolate as birthday gifts for their boyfriend, the cryptkeeper.  Holly says her best feature is her VA-GI-NA so she’s going to make Hef a chocolate VA-GI-NA.  She says VA-GI-NA about a trillion times during the episode, enunciated with elan each time.  Later on Chelsea Lately, Chelsea tells her “vagina is outdated” and tells her to choose from a variety of silly euphemisms.   Holly sticks to her guns, since she prefers the more “clinical” VA-GI-NA.

I appreciate Holly’s efforts to use plain and not infantilizing language.    I roll my eyes when I hear grown women use terms like “down there” or “lady bits”.  “Va-jay-jay” sets my teeth on edge.  The problem with Holly’s language, though, is that you can’t make a vagina mold when your legs are together.  She actually made a chocolate vulva, or a chocolate pubic mound.  Somehow Chelsea Handler has the same confusion.  I really think it’s time for adult women to know the names of our own body parts, even if we must have silly nicknames.  The more we all say these words, the more normal they sound to our ears.

Tough Love, again

This is somewhat late coming–another episode aired on Sunday, but after reading Steve Ward’s comments in his post show interview for last week’s episode, I’ve totally lost what interest I had in watching the show.  That episode, BTW, is called Friends Don’t Let Friends Date Bitches.  That’s not some sly reference to a challenge where they have to take care of dogs, the show is actually just calling the women bitches.  In the interview with Rich, Steve puts to rest any doubt about what he meant.  He starts off by calling people who think he is blaming rape victims “naive”, then he declares that he wasn’t blaming anyone, before launching into a full-scale victim blame-a-thon, for women who lead on men who just can’t help themselves.  Alessia has already written a thorough breakdown of that part of the interview here and I’m not going to try to add to that.  Just go read it.

There was something else that sent me over the edge, something that made me realize that Steve Ward isn’t a good matchmaker who’s just absorbed the popular narrative of rape apologism.  He’s a straight up misogynist no matter what he’s on about.  During the interview he’s asked about a challenge where the women were made to play football, to show how they can do some guy stuff:

The football activity emphasized the importance of women integrate themselves in a guy’s world. I wonder if you would have that the other way if you were dealing with a bunch of men, to integrate them in a women’s oriented environment. It seems like society in general would frown on that. They’d want the girl to play football, but they wouldn’t want the guy to go the spa or out shopping.

Here is how the role reversal works:  When women are fitting in among men, they have to be cool. It’s a test: how cool are you? Whereas, when men try to fit in among women it’s: how patient are you? How much can you tolerate? How much can you grin and bear? How much can you put up with? There are only so many bags that you can carry, there is only so many stores that you can walk into to, there are only so many times that you can try on a pair of shoes. For a man, it gets exhausting. So if we were to do the other way, it would simply be a duration test. How long can you hang there? How long can you go shopping with a group of women?

If that’s the case, you don’t think it’s important for a man to be able to “endure” that?

No, I just think he needs to be liked by them. He doesn’t need to go out shopping with them. He doesn’t need to go the baby showers with them. He doesn’t need to be going to Whole Foods and go grocery shopping with them. But if the girls come over for a glass of wine or if they come over to pre-game for an event or whatever, you have got to be likable.

I hadn’t raised an eyebrow while I was watching the show because there’s nothing inherently wrong with encouraging women who are trying to make a match to accommodate their partner’s interests. Of course women should try stepping out of their comfort zone. But why shouldn’t men do the same? Steve thinks it’s because the man stuff is inherently fun, cool, and potentially interesting to anyone who might try it, while women stuff is clearly the opposite. Leaving aside the absurdity of Steve’s conception of what women do for fun(grocery shopping? baby showers?), it’s really because activities are associated with women or men that make them seem uncool or cool, and not the other way around. Again, this ground has been well covered by someone else. 

It seems like there’s always someone who resists a given challenge or activity you present. It’s not always the same person, but it’s always someone.

Right, it’s called women. There is always one of them.

I can’t believe this ectoplasmic by-product passes for a matchmaker.  Neither can this customer of his. While anecdotes from unhappy customers aren’t always a fair representation, it’s striking how much the description of Steve and Joann’s customer service is concurrent with how they’ve portrayed themselves on tv.

Tough Love

see the video “Get me out of here” here

Tough Love is a relationship boot-camp show for women, hosted by a matchmaker named Steve Ward, a guy who takes pride in telling it like it is.  It’s more similar to The Millionaire Matchmaker than the usual 51 Minds produced shows.  My feelings on this one have been too fraught to consider it a guilty pleasure, though I’ve watched every episode and I’ve become hooked on the women’s stories.  I also have an odd fascination with dating dynamics.  I find them eternally interesting, however irrelevant they may be to my situation.

During some kind of faux relaxation time at a bar with men, Arian was extremely sexually forward with the guy she was paired with, talking about favorite sex positions and touching his thigh under the table(according to her account during the group session).  When Steve admonished her later for her brash, unladylike behavior, she announced that she was into the guy, she was totally trying to get in his pants, and he was into it, too.  Steve, who had begun with tact and compassion, told her if she continued on the path she was on, she’d end up raped.  This made Arian storm off, yelling “you don’t tell a woman she’s going to get raped”  Steve took the time that she was on her tirade to muse about how sadly misguided she was and rally the other woman around him.  A couple of them voiced their agreement. Even Jody, who I had given more credit, offered that she feared for her life just walking from her apartment to her car.  What that has to do with Arian opening herself up to be rapeable is not really clear.  It only serves to illustrate that someone who’s conservative in her dress and behavior, to the point of being standoffish, like Jody, isn’t making herself any safer, because it’s not women who are in control of when men decide to rape us.

The comments are mixed, with most people, sadly, agreeing with Steve’s point of view.  Blogger Alessia left links to two excellent essays, here and here.  She’s encouraging everyone to leave comments on the VH1 blog, demanding an apology for propagating this dangerous horseshit.  My comments failed to appear on the site, and I’ve incorporated most of my points into this essay.  I usually look forward to Rich Juzwiak’s recaps and commentary after every episode, but after this one I was also hoping to see some acknowledgment that what Steve said was out of line.  Instead Rich thinks Arian was overreacting, wrapping up the recap with this little aside:

“Oh, and then she freaked out after Steve told her if she kept up her promiscuous behavior, she was going to get raped or an STD. How WTF was that whole thing?”

Since no one else did the same, this is the comment I directed at Rich:

WTF is your whole thing, Rich?  How does any woman get herself raped?  If women were really in charge of men attacking them, rape would not be the pandemic that it is. You should know that this blog is read by women who have been raped and disbelieved, and treated as though it were their fault. This blog is read by would-be allies, who worry more about the rapist’s rep than about the woman he used like a meat sock. This blog is read by men, who don’t take responsibility for their own actions, because everyone says that women get themselves raped. I was floored when Steve made that comment and stood behind it. I’m even more disappointed to read Rich’s blase reaction.

Men rape women for different reasons: as an outlet for their rage, to assert their power, to get themselves off. In the case of acquaintance rape(which occurs most frequently) it’s because they are so steeped in rape culture that they feel entitled to the use of their friends and girlfriend bodies, that obtaining consent or respecting non consent doesn’t enter into their thinking. They’ve heard a million times that women who drink, wear skirts, assert their own sexuality, are asking for it, opening themselves up to whatever might happen.  In Steve’s words to Arian, “you put yourself in harm’s way”

This line of thinking does more than place all responsibility on women for their own rapes. It actively encourages men to rape. It tells them that when they feel a sexual urge, they can blame it on the woman who looked like she wanted it. They keep hearing that when women show some skin, they can’t control themselves. They know they can get away with it since the public and the courts will put their victim on trial, looking for any sign that she was the one who put herself in harms way.

Women like Jody buy into this idea, that men are beasts and they must be the civilizing influence because it’s a comforting idea, in a way.  Covering up, restricting activities, not being alone, give an illusion of control to women.  The problem with this is that it’s just not real, and it’s been shown not to work.  Islamic countries that require women to shroud themselves and always be escorted by a male relative, take it to the extreme, beating women in the streets for inciting lust and imprisoning women for being raped.

As a result, men are off the hook and commit more rape.  Women everywhere curtail our own lives and freedoms, and on top of that we still get attacked while guys like Steve Ward tell us to do still more to keep ourselves safe.

Contact VH1 directly, here.