Take the Red Pill: 'The End of Men'

The End of Men: And the Rise of Women by Hanna Rosin is a capsule of information on the gender landscape. Like in the trope from The Matrix, we can follow Hanna Rosin down the rabbit hole (by taking the red pill) or opt out (take the blue pill instead) and perhaps go on believing something outdated. The prescription is that women are becoming dominant, there could be an emerging matriarchy both in the US and globally, with men as the new underdog, and men and women both need to adapt.

A quick summary:

There's a single mother at a grocery store who says life without the father makes more sense. Due to his unemployment he would be a drain on resources. 

College women are too busy for serious relationships, marriage is a possibility for some future point. Quick hook-ups and not getting too serious behooves their career-mindedness.

Marriage is coveted by the 30 percent, middle-class educated population, but not by the other 70 percent, who stay single and see it as a liability. 

Marriages are like seesaws, where at different times each partner spends more or less time working or doing housework. There's an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ethel trade places with men, which doesn’t end well. It's contrasted with a case-study of a stay-at-home dad who's getting the hang of it. 

Jobs involving brawn are going away. A service based economy favors the “ability to sit still and focus”–which is said to come to women more naturally. There’s a “mancession.” Men stay unemployed or else have to retrain, while women get jobs. A small town, where a Russell apparel factory closed, has become a matriarchy.

Women have gone from cosmetics girls in magazines to dominating the pharmaceutical industry. 

There's an education gap: men play video games and make excuses. Women enter and graduate colleges at higher rates in the US and globally–to the point where there’s affirmative action for men in some cases. 

Rates of rape and violence towards women have been in decline since the 90s, women have been committing more crimes. Hanna Rosin interviews girls at a juvenile detention center who get satisfaction from physical fights.

Pay gaps and gender disparity in the highest ranks persist. Women don't negotiate, must balance a thin line between too timid and too aggressive. Sheryl Sandberg from Facebook is highlighted as having implemented flexible workplace conditions. Women face “ambition-killing” obstacles.

South Korea is a point of reference for the non-western world. Women there are overwhelmed, filling both roles of traditional care-taker and high-powered careerist. Men are oblivious.

At the end, Rosin revisits the guy from the intro, who is now going back to school. She cites a group of manual laborers who embrace teamwork instead of machismo as hope that men can change. Rosin restates a recurring theme from earlier in the book: plastic woman, who jumps into new challenges, versus cardboard man, slow to change and stuck in old ways.

Critics from The New York Times and Slate opt for the blue pill instead. In her critique, Jennifer Homans asks, “Are Rosin’s Plastic Women genuine victors, or are they–or will they become–unwitting victims?” It's a denial that we've reached a point of post-patriarchy. Stephanie Coontz warns of “overestimating women’s gains.”

Personally, I want to hack into the matrix.

In some cases, though, The End of Men doesn't follow-through on its own bold ideas. Hanna Rosin’s perspective may amount to an update of the I Love Lucy episode that she cites as archaic instead of a rejection of the whole premise of that show. She envisions the potential of the couple from the seesaw chapter. The husband is mostly doing housework while going to school; after graduating he may opt to work more and trade places with the wife. That’s Rosin’s bold vision for the future.

What about a future where people don’t get married, stop having kids, become sexually polyamorous, and do their own laundry? I’m saying that Rosin doesn’t leave the sandbox of the nuclear family model. Female dominance or "the end of men" could just as easily render the whole I Love Lucy context obsolete than simply make Lucy a matriarch. Why would Ricky want to be dominated by a matriarch anyway? Especially since that whole patriarchy thing worked out so well for women–right feminists? It's not as much of a departure from stereotypes and gender essentialism as it could be.

In March, there was an article in Slate XX by Hanna Rosin that was like a follow-up. Another way of reading the book title would be "The End of Feminism." If male dominance is no longer in existence, that removes the basis for female oppression. While The End of Men gave that message in a subtle way–clothed in some 'women's interest' cynicism–this article comes right out and says: "Maybe feminism is a term too freighted with history and it’s time to move on."

Time for Mainstream Non-Gendered Pronouns

Originally posted to Wild Gender 4/26/13

An academic paper called “Gender in Twitter: Styles, Stances, and Social Networks,” about gender in communication was published in 2012. The article reads, “the performance of popular gender norms in language is but one aspect of a coherent gendered persona that shapes an individual’s social interactions.” Articles from New York Magazine and BuzzFeed gave a run-down.

Men tweet how we might expect: more swearing, less emotion, using “nah” and “ain’t.” Then, “female authors were more likely to use emoticons, ellipses (…), expressive lengthening (nooo waaay), repeated exclamation marks, puzzled punctuation (combinations of ? and !), the abbreviation omg…”

The article lines-up with my personal experience involving gender and language, which has been off-putting. I don’t want to send or receive either a girly bubble-letters tone, or the jerkish–“Nah, dude”–voice for maleness. No desire to be a pedophile to someone’s inner-child, or else an extra in the next ‘Expendables’ movie.

The point is, why not promote androgynous communication as a new default, a break away from the binary? Not just as a hypothetical, but here and now–see Maureen Dowd as zie in The New York Times, or hear gender-neutral language in the State of the Union.

Right now, gender-variant words appear on Tumblr or LGBTQ blogs, e.g. Emmi on Wild Gender uses “zhe/zir.”  Even in these spaces, gender-variant terms are not widely used, and referring to others, who don’t self-identify as genderqueer, as non-gendered, it isn’t done or is a faux pas.

On March 15th, Hanna Rosin tweeted an article about high school students using “yo” as a pronoun in a unique way. The author explains, "the kids seem to have spontaneously filled a void in the English language" and "English doesn't have a pronoun for cases where you don't know a singular person's sex."

That this happened organically points to something antiquated about gendered language.

For me, it’s a no-brainer. As someone who’s uncomfortable with binary expectations, I want the ability to set a boundary, so I don’t have to present as either a male or female if I don’t want to. If others prefer to be boxed-in by M or F, that’s very nice, but please leave me out of it.

Here’s a quick example. I had posted an innocuous comment to a thread using a male-looking icon. Right away, someone says what I wrote ”don’t mean shit.” Had my photo been different, I might have gotten “OMG! Noooooo waaaaaaaaay” instead. Gender-variant language would give this kind of flexibility.

Maybe it sounds far-fetched, but why?

There’s a historical parallel, which was the introduction of “Ms”. Prior to Ms., women were locked into either Miss or Mrs. It signified availability, status, “ownership,” or some combination of all three. The Miss or Mrs. binary was oppressive. The New York Times started using “Ms.” in 1986. Widespread use was promoted by Ms. Magazine.

Are we headed toward a post-gendered future?

“We will have version 3.0 human bodies, which we will be able to modify and reinstate into new forms at will… in real reality in the mid 2040s,” writes Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near. Kurzweil’s prediction has to do with exponential progress and nano-technology. So yay, 2040s!!

LGBTQ activist Zinnia Jones, said her ability to choose to transition is “a taste of apotheosis.” I want more than a taste and sooner than 30 years from now. Full-frontal apotheosis: freedom to actualize my gender identity and transcend the binary. Updating the lexicon with “he, she or ze” is an easy first step.

Book Review: Acidexia

This is a $5.99 ebook from Amazon that came to life because of crowd-funding: a published series of Rachel Haywire's Livejournal posts from 2000 to 2004 (about age 16 through 20).

It begins with an account of school bullying, then clashes with family, and struggles with the mental health system.

The most excitement I saw in my own mental health crisis was the time I accidentally flung a golf club into the air on a trip to play miniature golf. On one of those field trips, Rachel escaped from an institution's custody, with the help of her internet friends. Real life action movie stuff happens a lot in Acidexia.

From there, it spans hitch-hiking, a gig as a stripper, dating, goth clubs, drug use, anarchist antics, college frustrations, and philosophizing about life in general. Most posts are like spoken word poetry or a William Gibson novel, with constant references to drugs and hacking computers (probably in the Windows 98 days).

Rachel gives 9/11 commentary. "America has done lots of shit like this to other countries" and "George fucking Bush is in office, and nobody cares."–the way an angsty teenager tells it like it is.

There's feminism, like getting back at men by taking their "dick money." And unapologetic insights: "most women are too busy being safe and domesticated and protecting their vaginas." 

So that's a little bit of an overview.

A lot of the take-away is Rachel's acuity in calling people out on their BS. Lessons learned from Acidexia: Be like Rachel and don't be afraid or capitulate to pressure to be like and think like everyone else. 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008EQR5ZK/

The Singularity Will Not Be Tumblrized

In Transcendent Man Ray Kurzweil says, "The Singularity is the future period in which technological change will be so rapid, its impact so profound, that every aspect of human life will be irreversably changed." A bold future is in the making.

"One of the biggest flaws in the common conception of the future is that the future is something that happens to us, not something we create." –Michael Anissimov, from The Singularity is Near.

We are active agents towards this future.



Prior to the mid-2000s, communicating online involved creating a personal webpage with html code, using AOL, chatrooms, message boards, and email. The Web 1.0 experience involved disconnected pieces, required some technical know-how. Facebook (yes, and Friendster kind of) let the average Jane quickly set up a personal space (no need for a url), post media and text in status updates (no coding needed), and connect to people–and all in one streamlined experience. Maybe that sounds boring and old.

Approaching its ninth anniversary, Facebook announced one billion users last October. Given that there were 2.4 billion global internet users as of June (from Internet World Stats), the phrase "everyone's on Facebook" is literal.

There's discussion of Facebook's limitations. 

In "She Who Dies with the most 'Likes' Wins?" (http://bit.ly/YaEkDf), Jessica Valenti shows that users are in a likability contest. Interaction is artificial. Women are encouraged to be oppressively positive, which runs counter to what the women's liberation movement accomplished.

Lindy West wrote in a piece on Jezebel (http://bit.ly/X5mh0N), "as its necessity wanes and its rigidity and intrusiveness increase, Facebook is starting to creep me the fuck out." It's "totally fucking claustrophobic."

Obviously this isn't psychology data, but you get the idea. Once progressive and empowering, Facebook is now restrictive. Since I stopped using it six months ago, I feel more free in what I'm doing: using new websites, finding new people, posting in different spaces. Before that, I felt boxed-in by the perception of others and rigid etiquette.

Katie Roiphe, in "The Language of Fakebook" (http://nyti.ms/XaKUbi), says Facebook communication devolves into "facades and fronts and personas." Maybe it's like Plato's allegory of people watching shadows in a cave, and the cave is limiting our imaginations and ambitions. Roiphe concludes, "Facebook is the novel we are all writing."

("Will not be Facebooked" just didn't sound right.)

Mansplaining V-Day

On Twitter, I was blocked by and unfollowed after I tweeted a men's rights thing. I felt like the narrator from “Let Me In” (from I Am an Emotional Creature), who was nice to one of the unpopular girls and then ostracized from the uber-popular girlfriends posse. So here I am at the reject lunch table. In Eve Ensler’s high school, I can no longer be one of the “back-up dancers.”

Here’s a quick explanation of Ensler’s message and V-Day.

The Vagina Monologues were written in 1994, a series of short spoken word pieces: women telling the stories of their vaginas. Based on real interviews, they bring to light the shame and taboo surrounding “down-theres” and “coochie-snorkers.” Some monologues are about genital mutilation, some about rape, about not discovering self-stimulation until late in life.

Today in 2013, it's a little dated as evinced by the reception of Naomi Wolf’s latest, Vagina: A New Biography. Katie Roiphe made fun of technicolor orgasms and “yuppie barracuda effervescence” on Slate. Wolf’s idea wasn’t so far off from Eve Ensler’s, but late by 18 years.

In 1998, Ensler started V-Day, which alludes to the vagina and Valentine’s day, the day it takes place. It’s a global movement to raise awareness for violence against women and girls, and does things like provide safe houses in Kenya (from Vday.org).

Where V-Day was first promoted with TVM, it’s now cross-promoted with the newest play, Emotional Creature (showing in New York). Eve Ensler updated her own brand, and doesn’t end up looking awkward. It’s similar to TVM, but with fictional narrators: stories of adolescent girls throughout the world, their whole selves–not just vaginas.

Two videos raising awareness for V-Day are “Break The Chain” and “One Billion Rising." Women dance, while men are shown as harassers and abusers.

V-Day doesn’t really give a space for male victims. Amanda Marcotte argued that men’s movements reinforce gender constructs and gender segregation. Can that also be said about V-Day’s branding?

The Vagina Monologues have "dirty sperm." In Insecure at Last, there's a "dirty dick." In Emotional Creature, men have "dirty hands" and "dirty interpretations of my teenaged body." Men are gross!

EEEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwww!

Emotional Creature is like “the talk about boys” that young girls get. Girls are defined as "human," with a suggestion that men aren't, and as exclusively having emotions. V-Day projects that onto a global campaign, not just a play.

This isn’t to minimize V-Day’s anti-violence message. I’m not posting on my blog to slam the Dalia Lama (V-Day endorser) as an apologist for the gender binary.

As it says on VDay.org, people should dance and celebrate on 2/14 to show support for the “one billion rising” (which refers to the one in three women victims statistic). It’s like a broader message of self-love (as in “love being a girl”) as a response to violence and abuse–something all human rights advocates can be supportive of.

#menrising

Is 'Why Have Kids?' Trickle-Down Feminism?

Last summer Anne-Marie Slaughter penned "Why Women Still Can’t Have It All" about turning down a job from Hillary Clinton to spend more time with her family. In The End of Men, Hanna Rosin focused on Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg as a trailblazer for women's career advancement.

Slaughter's piece actually has a video embed of a conversation with Rosin. It comes across a little detached from material concerns. Knowing 69 percent of abortion patients in the US are economically disadvantaged (from Guttmacher Institute) gives a frame of reference.

So, yeah. First World Problems.

Sarah Jaffe coined the term trickle-down feminism for this top-down way of looking at things. Jaffe's recent piece in Dissent (http://bit.ly/UKOPd1) is loaded with facts about pay disparities and working conditions for those at the bottom of the spectrum, warning trickle-down feminism leaves them behind.

A contemporary of Rosin's and Slaughter's writing is Jessica Valenti's Why Have Kids? from last fall. Work-life balance and myths vs. facts about parenting are covered.

Does Jessica Valenti also practice trickle-down feminism? First, here's a quick run-down (without giving away too much) of the book's 12 chapters.

Valenti sets the tone: her personal experiences alongside others amid the political and cultural landscape for mothers in the US. Straightaway, she lets us know things went awry in her own childbirth. 

The belief that kids bring happiness is scrutinized. A psychology professor is cited as saying children “crowd out” other sources of happiness. 

Attachment parenting trends are taken-down, highlighting Dr. Sears and something called elimination communication, where parents (which end up being mothers) anticipate a baby's time to go potty. 

For many, breastfeeding isn't feasible–yet there's intense pressure to do so. A quote suggests that breastfeeding research reflects lifestyle choices, rather than actual breastfeeding. 

Notions of “it takes a village” have been replaced by American individualism coupled with sexist views of mothers and “patriotic parenting.” 

Women's intuition is debunked. Jenny McCarthy's claim, that her child's autism resulted from a vaccination, led to wider distrust and then viral outbreaks. 

Neglect is “the most common form of child abuse.” Men often don't pay child support. Abandonment–and the shown desire for it–brings to light people's unhappiness as parents. 

Mothers have been excessively punished or put in jail. 

Chapter nine is titled, “Smart Women Don't Have Kids.” A selfishness taboo surrounds the choice to be child-free. A woman tells of her relationship changing from egalitarian to one of gender asymmetry after childbirth. 

The nuclear family model is going away. Same sex parents are just as beneficial for children; critics focus on the merits of the old ideal as a guise for homophobia. 

Benefits of being a stay-at-home mom compared to working are a myth. Women are set back by dropping out of work. Further, most parents “need dual incomes to survive.” 

An appeal is made to let go of obsessiveness and perfection, in the wake of decades of parenting advice culture. 

At times, Valenti could emulate the skeptic blogger, Rebecca Watson, as in debunking women's intuition. At times, comedian Bill Burr in his stand-up bit about mothering not being the hardest job in the world. A very compelling and enjoyable read. That's my review.

The Vagina Monologues revealed women's unspoken pain in the late 90s. Why Have Kids? is revelatory for mothers agonizing with impossible expectations. It's like a call-to-arms against the parenting industrial complex on behalf of the oppressed. As such, it falls squarely into the non-trickle-down category. The book concludes, “when one mother is punished, we're all punished.”

I'm 33, don't have kids, don't want kids. Like some others out there, I may have picked this up hoping to validate my own decision–if that's the right word.

Why Have Kids? speaks to mothers and prospective parents in the same space as entries by Dr. Sears and Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. People who opt out are discussed in terms of careers and awareness of costs and benefits. A deeper look at other drivers behind that choice is absent.

Where I'm coming from is kind of shown in a moment from Natsuo Kirino's novel, Grotesque.

Both the narrator and her classmate, Kazue generally don't fit in. Kazue is especially made fun of, has no friends. A little out of pity, the narrator comes to her house for her birthday, where she unexpectedly makes a phone call.

The narrator quarrels with her sister, Yuriko on the phone about their mom, who had committed suicide the night before. Because of their dysfunctional family background, she has harsh words for Yuriko and others. This and other sordid family details are overheard by Kazue's father.

After hanging up, she's given a shaming lecture by the father about not approving of Kazue's continued friendship. Kazue goes on to become a suicidal prostitute (for affection) at middle-age. 

It's a glimpse into the lives and perspectives of damaged people. A worldview from those to whom relationships and family have been a source of adversity, who might prefer a child-free existence.

For instance, NIMH's website says there's a 26.2 percent prevalence for diagnosable mental disorders in the US adult population in a given year. Mental health problems–and how they relate to parenting, or the decision to forego–aren't well represented by Valenti beyond the question of whether kids really bring happiness.

My acquaintance with this reality has been a reason.

Still Why Have Kids? is more relatable than testimonial from high-power executives or what Anne-Marie Slaughter and her husband have to say to Princeton students.

While I yelled a silent hurrah reading, “one would think that women and men who make the decision not to have children... would be seen as less selfish”–it wasn't precisely what I wanted. 

MRAs and Feminists

For the sake of clarity, let's say I earned my degree in MRA (Men's Rights Activism) studies by reading posts on AVoiceforMen.com and the Men's Rights Reddit. These foster discussion of how men are neglected or unfairly treated in the eyes of the law and in a culture that often favors women.

Male victims of domestic violence don't receive the same support (or any recognition at all). Courts give child custody to mothers by default. Suicide rates are disproportionate.

Attention is given to the cultural precept of men being providers, which enables victimization from predatory women. On TV and in tabloids, men are portrayed as dumber, less moral, and having less value. Men's sexuality is seen as lewd and perverted. The cultural narrative is that men are clownish punching bags, as evidenced by the male lead in any sit-com. Men are the second sex.

It could sound like reverse feminism. 

In The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf said our culture objectifies women, as having no value other than commoditized sexuality.

Men are socialized to be bold overachievers, while women are socialized to be timid. Feminism usually calls to mind slut-shaming (taboos surrounding women's sexuality), rape culture (the lack of recognition of rape) and reproductive rights.

MRAs brand feminists as the enemy, perpetrators of misandry and of men's peril. Blogger, John the Other calls feminism an "amoral murderous ideology."

Feminists are dismissive. MRAs may as well be Todd Aikin talking about "legitimate" rape. Kate Harding says they "want a fucking cookie for not killing anyone."

Are feminism and men's rights really mutually exclusive?

MRAs needn't look further than Germaine Greer for a bedfellow. Some lines from the "Resentment" chapter of the Female Eunuch could have been from a men's rights blog.

• Men do not realize that they are involved in a struggle to the death until they have lost it and are facing the ruinous capitulations of the divorce court, when in chagrin at their foolishness in neglecting their defenses they give vociferous vent to their conviction that the world is run for the benefit of predatory and merciless women. 

"Resentment" follows Greer's overview of systemic female oppression. It's the byproduct, counter-oppression of men, and manifests in things like shaming and manipulation (men's rights issues).

MGTOW ("men going their own way") echoes Germain Greer's views about autonomy. She advocated liberating women from "a world of unfree men." MGTOW means men should drop-out of marriage, stereotyped expectations and do their own thing.

I think both sexes should be free. Like Dr. King–probably wouldn't, but–might have said, stop being men and women and start being human beings. People should uniquely define themselves, shun gender expectations (the binary), and get to a level playing field where anatomy means about as much as hair color or preferring Coke or Pepsi. Maybe that's idealistic.

First: 
The body of men's rights writing is a collection of blog posts from the past five or so years. And there's some guy, Dr. Warren Farrell, who wrote The Myth of Male Power in the 90s. Given the loose definition, some see it as platform for misogyny. The Man Boobz blog recently reported on men's rights hate speech.

As it is, MRAs may be putting up a no girls allowed sign. Targeting "feminists" is like a dog-whistle for misogynists, and overlooks that men occupy the same planet Greer and Wolf wrote about.

Second: 
The men's rights movement does great work to promote human rights, like spreading awareness for circumcision of adult men in Africa and supporting men in abusive relationships (e.g. shrink4men.com). To dismiss them because the last abortion clinic closing in Mississippi seems more pressing is to not see the big picture.

Things aren't black and white.

Botched feminism–othering, victim posturing or a blind application of The Second Sex to 2013–is a black and white worldview. Hanna Rosin and Eve Ensler appear on talk-shows, while some guys who were screwed over by the system find out statistics for male victims, and whether or not Guantanamo Bay is filled only with men. Feminists could recognize something familiar.

#Elevatorgate

Atheism is about undoing superstitious beliefs and thinking, cutting through BS and lifting the fog of religious and religion-inspired mumbo jumbo.

Feminism is about recognizing how women are devalued, and the harmfulness of the old-world gender paradigm. It promotes things like a positive body image, recognition of inequalities and fights for rape awareness and reproductive rights.

Anti-Feminism (in its newer form) calls out feminists who don't actually seek equality, but who selectively embrace traditional views of gender identity (such as chivalry) and only self-serving aspects of equality with men. They differentiate between man-haters and egalitarians.

All three are against shaming and seek empowerment. All three shun taboos, precepts, seek self-identification and sexual liberation.

For that last one, atheists don't want to be inhibited by religion. Feminists don't want to be slut-shamed or have a purity taboo surrounding sex. Anti-feminists don't want to be branded as rapists, dirty old men or exploited by notions of "what a real man" is. All three don't think too highly of traditional marriage. They could form one huge interest group that could together stop Fox News, tackle climate change, and have a huge sex party in the process. Why can't they be friends?

Enter Rebecca Watson.

First and foremost, an atheist. She explains that atheism has been mostly comprised of men. Because of her femaleness, her approach to atheism overlaps with feminism. A video where she deconstructs women's intuition is an example of an atheist lecture that necessarily takes on a feminist meaning. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-X62CBTv44

In 2011, Watson made a Youtube video and mentioned being approached by a guy in an elevator late at night. He invited her to come to his hotel room. In the video, she said that this wasn't good behavior–especially in the athiesm community–and she didn't like it. The video, now with 180K+ views, prompted a huge online controversy, in which Richard Dawkins himself participated (see: http://bit.ly/ruUhhR). The fiasco is called Elevatorgate, Watson has become a polarizing figure.

Critics say her comment shows a doublestardard. Feminists who side with her sound like the type that anti-feminists take issue with, basically saying "Rah Rah! Perverted men in elevators are creepy!"

Rebecca herself is level headed and stands by what she said: asking someone for sex, while she's alone in an elevator, isn't good behavior. (It doesn't have to be gendered.) I don't see this point of view as feminist, pro-atheist or in agreement with anti-feminism. It's just an anecdote, like "look both ways before you cross the street" or "don't punch grandma, even when she's being a total dick."

Unless drama was the desired outcome, Rebecca Watson could perhaps recognize her critics' point of view. Anti-feminists (or men) could realize this isn't a good hill to die on.

more info:
http://www.skepchick.org
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2011/07/richard-dawkins-draws-feminist-wrath-over-sexual-harassment-comments/39637/

elevator video: http://youtu.be/uKHwduG1Frk

left: apparel graphic from http://www.skepchick.org

Page Three's Women

Did you know there's a picture of a topless woman everyday in The Sun, the UK's most widely circulated periodical? Of course, Page 3™ only represents a narrow sexuality to the exclusion of others: straight men in their old boys clubs, who objectify women whilst smoking cigars. Right?

Newsworks.org says 43 percent of readers are women.

Last week, there was a feature about Daniel Radcliffe dumping someone, followed by "Britney Spheres!" about a side-boob. Ariel Levy might call it a "world dreamed up by teenage boys."

Female Chauvinist Pigs examined the embrace of raunch culture. Here we were after decades of women's liberation, and young, educated women were getting into Girls Gone Wild. Ariel Levy defines female chauvinist pigs as "women who make sex objects of other women and of ourselves." To join the ranks of men, they adopt a male perspective and join “the frat party.” The Man Show, predicated on humor from sexualizing women, had a 38 percent female viewership. Levy interviewed a group of college students, who liked magazines like Playboy. One person said it was empowering to be ogled in the same way as strippers.

The paradox is likened to a phrase from before the US Civil War. Uncle Tom was slave who sympathized with slave-owners. From the book, "Tomming, then is conforming to someone else's–someone more powerful's–distorted notion of what you represent. In so doing, you may be getting ahead in some way... but you are simultaneously reifying the system that traps you."

Female Chauvinist Pigs may have foreshadowed a piece from The Sun that tries to say that it helps aspiring models and actresses. Lacy Banghard is highlighted after winning the page three idol competition. She's quoted, "I am body confident but that's only from being on Page 3." 

Lucy Anne Holmes's "No More Page 3" url says a message is sent to young people that "a woman’s worth is all about the way she looks and her sexual availability to men." 

Laurie Penny slammed The Sun in the pages of New Satesman as promoting rape culture under the guise of a joke. "Every time I meet a woman or girl who has been abused, battered, exploited or raped, I remember that some punchlines leave bruises."

I think the testimonial and the side-boob article appeal to repressed sexuality and cynicism more than anything else. An improved Page 3 would show nude British men and women at a median age of 45 in different shapes and sizes. It would reflect back The Sun's actual readers themselves as hot, sexy and desirable instead of something unattainable and detached.

Gloria Steinem's sense of humor revisited

Originally posted to Genderratic 2/15/13

In preparation for rising along with 999,999,999 others for Eve Ensler's V-Day, I gave The Vagina Monologues a fresh reading. In the foreword, Gloria Steinem asks the reader: If men had something like a clitoris, "could you imagine how much we would hear about it–and what it would be used to justify?"

A provocative hypothetical. Being no dummy, I assume it would lead to more male dominance and women would never get a break from men's demands for attention. Is that the right answer?

It turns out Steinem said more about it in a 1978 essay published in Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions titled, "If Men Could Menstruate."

Steinem posited, "Whatever a 'superior' group has will be used to justify its superiority, and whatever an 'inferior' group has will be used to justify its plight." Freud's concept of penis envy is cited. It's a presupposition that society is organized around male sexuality, male empowerment and the penis. What follows then are two and a half pages of ironic satire.

"Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, boast-worthy, masculine event." A series of juxtapositions in culture, politics and entertainment have men-struation as a focal point–basically, furthering men's “power justifications.”

"Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea...some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons... John Wayne Maxi Pads... Richie and Potsie try to convince Fonzie that he is still 'the Fonz,' though he has missed two periods..."

The current blurb on Amazon says this is hilarious.

Fast forward to last year, a piece on The Next Web informed: "Women account for $7 trillion in consumer and business spending... account for 85% of all consumer purchases... control more than 60% of all personal wealth in the U.S." (Evidence of female-centeredness.)

Also in the jokes list, Steinem said "menopause would be celebrated."

Last weekend, the top grossing movie was Identity Thief. It's about a middle-aged (near menopausal) version of Honey Boo Boo on a comedic romp. The advertised trailer shows her punching a guy in the throat. Justin Craig called the performance hilarious on FoxNews.com.

National Retail Foundation projects $18.6 billion in Valentine's spending for 2013, with men spending an average of $175.61 and women spending $88.78. Valentine's Day is a consumer holiday predicated on chivalry, and is arguably centered on women's (hetero) sexual value. Freudian psychology aside, this doesn't quantify men's sexual "superiority."

1978 predates the Oprah Winfrey Network, HBO's Girls, Women's History Month, Luna bars–and Hanna Rosin was eight years old. Lena Dunham is quoted on BuzzFeed saying she hopes Girls "contributes to a continuance of a feminist dialogue." Season one had a majority male audience.

In the essay, Steinem envisioned the opposite sex "agreeing to all these arguments with a staunch and smiling masochism." It may have been more prophecy than parody.

Enter the BLOG

http://www.ifcfilms.com/films/enter-the-void
http://www.enterthevoid-lefilm.com

At the beginning of Sherlock Holmes (2009), the camera takes the viewer around a cobblestoned street and gets onboard a carriage to overlook a conversation, before floating up to the window of an apartment: all in one continuous, fluid motion.

Enter the Void takes on sex, drug use and the Tibetan Buddhist view of death, while aspiring to the same cinematography as in the aforementioned Sherlock Holmes shot, for 160 minutes.

It takes place in the first person perspective of Oscar, as if literally through his eyes. In the beginning it even goes so far as to suggest blinking by fading in and out of black.

After Oscar takes a bullet to the chest, the first person perspective switches to that of his spirit-body, which floats omnipotently through Tokyo. The camera passes through walls and objects, and even warps through the plumbing a la Super Mario.

When the spirit-body goes through walls or travels long distances, transitions between spaces are accomplished via strategic effects, like motion blur and camera lens distortions.

The first forty minutes or so of the film happen in real-time, documentary style, and with no editing cuts.

During flash-backs from Oscar’s life that happen later, it switches to traditional editing with cuts. These flash-backs and the points of transition are used to cheat the real time experience–to skip ahead to maybe a few hours later while the viewer is distracted.

As far as I can tell, the vision and execution of Enter the Void are firsts in filmmaking.

It’s unfortunate that this film uses both 35 and 16 mm footage (presumably because of cost) to bring the story and concept to life. Directors of movies for consumer entertainment, like Sherlock Holmes, don't need to cut corners and can lavish what's probably the whole production cost of Enter the Void just on the opening credits.

Grotesque, Out, Real World

Three novels can be found on Amazon by Natsuo Kirino,

Gender, social class, aging, and relationships of control are woven into the story-telling. Issues some readers could see as hard-hitting social commentary are conveyed matter-of-factly, like incidental backstory. Characters grapple with abuse, exploitation and degradation as part of their everyday lives.

Grotesque is the darkest and most serious. Real World is the most wacky and fun–but still pretty dismal–and Out is kind of in between.

In Grotesque, one chapter opens with an aging prostitute with one breast lost from cancer. Men pass her by, drunkenly mocking her, but she's still trying to win them over as potential customers. It's the set-up for her confrontation with one of the main characters about street turf.

Men are oblivious. Women are strung along in work and relationships. Men don't care about the impacts of their actions as they pursue their own interests. The women are cast aside when they become old or no longer useful.

Out takes place among women in a circle of friends, as they interact with each other and the men in their lives. The story is revealed by following a group of co-workers on a night shift. They engage in a lot of girl talk and stick together like a group of teenaged BFFs. Their bond is tested through the task of cutting up and disposing of a body (of one of their husbands). Like a prisoner's dilemma theme.

Real World is a departure from the feminism in Grotesque and Out, as it centers around a male anti-hero. (SPOILER ALERT!) He kills his mom and then gets help from his classmates, a group of actual teenaged BFFs who help him avoid the police. Taking an opposite approach, it's a depiction of a disempowered man in a world controlled by women.

There's a long list of work by Kirino. In English, only three translated novels, an intro to a photo book and this short story, http://shar.es/CaGSZ.