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Woodland Creature
Why Patriarchal Men Are Utterly Petrified of Birth Control -- And Why We'll Still Be Fighting About It 100 Years From Now
Until the condom, the diaphragm, the Pill, the IUD, and all the subsequent variants of hormonal fertility control came along, anatomy really was destiny — and all of the world’s societies were organized around that central fact. Women were born to bear children; they had no other life options. With a few rebellious or well-born exceptions (and a few outlier cultures that somehow found their way to a more equal footing), the vast majority of women who’ve ever lived on this planet were tied to home, dependent on men, and subject to all kinds of religious and cultural restrictions designed to guarantee that they bore the right kids to the right man at the right time — even if that meant effectively jailing them at home.
Our biology reduced us to a kind of chattel, subject to strictures that owed more to property law than the more rights-based laws that applied to men. Becoming literate or mastering a trade or participating in public life wasn’t unheard-of; but unlike the men, the world’s women have always had to fit those extras in around their primary duty to their children and husband — and have usually paid a very stiff price if it was thought that those duties were being neglected.
Men, in return, thrived. The ego candy they feasted on by virtue of automatically outranking half the world’s population was only the start of it. They got full economic and social control over our bodies, our labor, our affections, and our futures. They got to make the rules, name the gods we would worship, and dictate the terms we would live under. In most cultures, they had the right to sex on demand within the marriage, and also to break their marriage vows with impunity — a luxury that would get women banished or killed. As long as pregnancy remained the defining fact of our lives, they got to run the whole show. The world was their party, and they had a fabulous time.
Interesting (slash frightening) perspective. See also Kate Bolick’s famed Atlantic article “All the Single Ladies” and all of the “decline of men” pieces that have been written lately.
women men feminism birth control
Obama for America: The Lily Ledbetter Act
“An anonymous coworker—to this day, I don’t know who—had left a pencil-written note on a torn piece of paper with some numbers on it. It showed how much more my male coworkers were making, even though they had less education, training and experience.
I’d been at Goodyear almost 20 years, and was still making 20 percent less than the lowest-paid male supervisor in my same position. I’d been praised and promoted by my bosses, but rewarded with much smaller raises than my male coworkers got.
It hit me in the gut like a ton of bricks. I immediately thought of the countless overtime hours that I worked every chance I could, and realized I was paid for them based on an unfair salary. All those good days of work hadn’t earned me the good day’s pay I deserved.
It was about fairness, and it was against the law.”
—Lilly Ledbetter writing in the Charlotte Observer today. Three years ago, President Obama made a fair pay act that bears her name the first bill he signed into law as president.
Ladies, always make sure you know what you’re worth. Ask friends who have left your company what they think you should be making, ask friends who work in your industry at different companies, ask recruiters who reach out to you with job offers (if you want this to happen, make sure you have a detailed LinkedIn profile set up and connect with everyone you know), do research online (Glassdoor is a good resource and here’s a helpful guide I found for the public relations industry).
Then, once you know how much you should be making, state your case to your employer as to why they should give you that much (well, that much plus a few thousand dollars more, in case they bargain you down), based on what you’ve contributed to the company. And if they won’t give it to you, and they don’t offer a good reason why, find a company that will. Sometimes it’s as easy as just working up the courage to ask, which men do all the time.
It’s important to remember that no boss is just going to hand you tons more money. That just doesn’t make business sense. But if you’re great at your job, it’s easier and less expensive for them to give you what you’re worth than to try to replace you. So get it, girl!
jobs careers women feminism obama equal pay work moneySo many mothers say they want their daughters to be independent, but what they really hope is that they’ll find a well-compensated banker or lawyer and settle down between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-eight in Greenwich, Darien, or That Town, U.S.A., to raise babies, do the grocery shopping and work out in relative comfort for the rest of their lives.
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From Katharine Hepburn’s 1981 interview with Barbara Walters:
Hepburn: I have not lived as a woman. I have lived as a man… I’ve just done what I damn well wanted to and I made enough money to support myself. And I ain’t afraid of being alone.
Walters: Is that why also you wear pants?Hepburn: No, I just wore pants because they’re comfortable.
Walters: Do you ever wear a skirt, by the way?
Hepburn: I have one.
Walters: You have one.
Hepburn: I’ll wear it to your funeral.
Such a BAMF.
katharine hepburn quotes barbara walters celebs LOL feminismAll the Single Ladies
Some fascinating facts from this compelling article from The Atlantic:
- Today, 40 percent of children are born to single mothers.
- 2010 was the first time in American history that women made up the majority of the workforce.
- Siberia is suffering such an acute “man shortage” (due in part to massive rates of alcoholism) that both men and women have lobbied the Russian parliament to legalize polygamy.
- In societies where men heavily outnumber women—in what’s known as a “high-sex-ratio society”—women are valued and treated with deference and respect and use their high dyadic power to create loving, committed bonds with their partners and raise families. Rates of illegitimacy and divorce are low….When confronted with a surplus of women, men become promiscuous and unwilling to commit to a monogamous relationship….In societies with too many women, the theory holds, fewer people marry, and those who do marry do so later in life.
- Fifty percent of the adult population is single, compared with 33 percent in 1950.
- When honeymoons first started, in the 19th century, the newlyweds brought friends and family along for the fun.
women gender dating relationships longreads marriage statistics feminism
I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks Whitney looks like the worst, tritest piece of crap ever (wellllll, second-worst). But that’s what Whitney Cummings’s standup routine is like too, so what can we really expect?
After I saw Bridesmaids, I was on a, “See? Women are funny!” high, and spent a couple hours scouring the internet to find some hilarious female standup videos. I watched a good half hour of Whitney’s standup before I had to turn it off due to overwhelming boredom. Her “bitches be crazy” jokes are just lame and hackneyed, not to mention a disservice to the female population.
I’m sure her female detractors will hear the defense, “You just don’t like her because she’s hot.” Which, yes, she is very attractive. But so are plenty of other women who are actually funny. And this is not to say that I think I am so hilarious, either. (I mean, I do think I am hilarious…to me. Probably not anyone else.) At least Adam Frucci and Halle Kiefer’s Splitsider chat about Whitney made me laugh harder than any of the Whitney ads.
whitney comedy comedians TV feminismA Message To Women From A Man: You Are Not “Crazy”
Gaslighting is a term, often used by mental health professionals (I am not one), to describe manipulative behavior used to confuse people into thinking their reactions are so far off base that they’re crazy.
The term comes from the 1944 MGM film, Gaslight, starring Ingrid Bergman. Bergman’s husband in the film, played by Charles Boyer, wants to get his hands on her jewelry. He realizes he can accomplish this by having her certified as insane and hauled off to a mental institution. To pull of this task, he intentionally sets the gaslights in their home to flicker off and on, and every time Bergman’s character reacts to it, he tells her she’s just seeing things. In this setting, a gaslighter is someone who presents false information to alter the victim’s perception of him or herself.
Today, when the term is referenced, it’s usually because the perpetrator says things like, “You’re so stupid” or “No one will ever want you” to the victim. This is an intentional, pre-meditated form of gaslighting, much like the actions of Charles Boyer’s character in Gaslight, where he strategically plots to confuse Ingrid Bergman’s character into believing herself unhinged.
The form of gaslighting I’m addressing is not always pre-mediated or intentional, which makes it worse, because it means all of us, especially women, have dealt with it at one time or another.
Those who engage in gaslighting create a reaction—whether it’s anger, frustration, sadness—in the person they are dealing with. Then, when that person reacts, the gaslighter makes them feel uncomfortable and insecure by behaving as if their feelings aren’t rational or normal.
Fascinating article. Although, I will freely admit that PMS makes me a little irrationally crazy.
women feminism emotions psychology gaslighting PMS
RIP NANCY WAKE (30 August 1912 – 7 August 2011)
Ms Wake, who has died in London just before her 99th birthday, was a New Zealander brought up in Australia. She became a nurse, a journalist who interviewed Adolf Hitler, a wealthy French socialite, a British agent and a French resistance leader. She led 7,000 guerrilla fighters in battles against the Nazis in the northern Auvergne, just before the D-Day landings in 1944. On one occasion, she strangled an SS sentry with her bare hands. On another, she cycled 500 miles to replace lost codes. In June 1944, she led her fighters in an attack on the Gestapo headquarters at Montlucon in central France.
Work began earlier this month on a feature film about Nancy Wake’s life. Ms Wake, one of the models for Sebastian Faulks’ fictional heroine, Charlotte Gray, had mixed feelings about previous cinematic efforts to portray her wartime exploits, including a TV mini-series made in 1987.
“It was well-acted but in parts it was extremely stupid,” she said. “At one stage they had me cooking eggs and bacon to feed the men. For goodness’ sake, did the Allies parachute me into France to fry eggs and bacon for the men? There wasn’t an egg to be had for love nor money. Even if there had been why would I be frying it? I had men to do that sort of thing.”
Ms Wake was also furious the TV series suggested she had had a love affair with one of her fellow fighters. She was too busy killing Nazis for amorous entanglements, she said.
Even before she escaped to Britain, through Spain, in 1943 to train as a guerrilla leader, Nancy had been top of the Gestapo’s French “wanted” list. With her husband, she ran a resistance network which helped to smuggle Jews and allied airmen out of the country.
Nancy recalled later in life that her parachute had snagged in a tree. The French resistance fighter who freed her said he wished all trees bore “such beautiful fruit”. Nancy retorted: “Don’t give me that French shit.”
BAMF of the Year. She also rode a bicycle for 500 miles through several German checkpoints and was quite the looker in her day. Tragically, her husband was tortured to death by the Gestapo in 1943 for refusing to disclose her whereabouts.
(via shloobykitten)
BAMF world war II WWII women feminism war[Sheryl] Sandberg says she eventually realized that women, unlike men, encountered tradeoffs between success and likability. The women had internalized self-doubt as a form of self-defense: people don’t like women who boast about their achievements.women feminism sexism workplace success quotes
A Woman's Place
The new New Yorker profile of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg is a fascinating longread. Some interesting facts from the article:
- 57% of men entering the workforce negotiate their salaries, but only 7% of women do
- On average, women do 2/3 of the housework and 3/4 of the child care
- Of 190 heads of state in the world, nine are women
- In the corporate sector, women at the top — C-level jobs, board seats — tops out at 16%
These facts seem so depressing, especially in light of recent research that found the inclusion of more women makes a group smarter. But it’s also hard for me to advocate that women stay in the workforce after having kids, for the greater feminist good, when I don’t know what I’ll end up doing. My mom fully intended to return to her white-collar job after I was born, but ultimately decided not to return to the workforce until my brother and I were in elementary school. Our generation can be glad we at least have a choice, though.
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