Jessica Valenti

A few months ago, I had the privilege of interviewing Jessica Valenti – founder of Feministing, author of Full Frontal Feminism and awesome person all around.

For those not in the know, Jessica is the author of three books: Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters, He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut…and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, and The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity is Hurting Young Women which is being made into a documentary by the Media Education Foundation. Jessica is also the founder of Feministing.com, which Columbia Journalism Review calls “head and shoulders above almost any writing on women’s issues in mainstream media.”

Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian (UK), The American Prospect, Ms. magazine, Salon and Bitch magazine. She has won a Choice USA Generation award, was featured as one of ELLE magazine’s “IntELLEgentsia”, and was named one of the Left’s Top 25 Journalists by The Daily Beast. She has appeared on The Colbert Report and the Today show, among others, and was recently profiled in The New York Times Magazine under the headline “Fourth Wave Feminism.”

She received her Masters degree in Women’s and Gender Studies from Rutgers University, where she was a part-time lecturer. Jessica lives in Boston with her husband, daughter, and their very cute cat and dog.

And without further ado, here’s a Q&A with Jessica Valenti!

What was your feminist click moment? How did you realize you were a feminist?

I think I didn’t really have one specific click moment, it was more of a journey to feminism. I was always a feminist but I didn’t want to use the word because I didn’t want to be associated with the word feminism and also I was afraid that I didn’t know what it meant and that somebody would call me on it and ask me what I thought of something and interrogate me about it, so I was nervous about it. I was always political and interested in women’s rights and always felt like there was something really unfair and unjust going on I just didn’t have the language to put to the feelings that I was having. So I went to a pro-choice march when I was in junior high school with my mom, but I still didn’t identify as a feminist. I think it probably wasn’t until college when I took my first women’s and gender studies class that I was first like, “Oh, okay, I am a feminist.” I think it’s sad that a lot of people come to feminism like that in college and it’s kind of unfortunate because I wish that I would’ve identified as a feminist in high school because I think that it would’ve helped me navigate a whole world of difficulties in a much more effective way.

How do you define feminism?

I totally use the dictionary definition all the time, which is just social, political and economic equality for women. One because it’s the easiest but also because obviously there are a lot of different theoretical schools of feminist thought, but I don’t find it’s useful to talk to people that way or introduce feminism that way, and I think the dictionary definition is also really difficult to argue with. Like, really, you don’t want that? That sounds very simple. So that’s what I like about it, that it’s accessible.

Do you think we need a different word, like humanism? How do you feel about the word “feminism.”

I don’t think we need a different word. I think that we need a different mindset about the existing word. I think any word that we came up with to mean feminism would be considered a bad word just because it has to do with women’s rights. So I think that it’s probably better if we stick with the word but try to debunk all of the ridiculous myths and anti-feminist stereotypes that surround it. And I think that is happening to a certain degree, but what scares me now is that we have the anti-feminist myths and then we also have conservative folks like Sarah Palin calling themselves feminists now, so the word is becoming super watered down in a way that freaks me out and makes me worried that maybe we will need another one because nobody will know what it really means – it’ll just become synonymous with “woman” and that’s not really what it’s about.

Do you worry that word “feminism” alienates men? How do you think we can welcome men to this movement.
They have a lot of words to themselves. I think that’s why you’ve seen so many women’s studies departments become women’s and gender studies departments or gender and sexuality studies departments. I think that if there was a mass movement for a word for gender justice I think that I could get behind it. But I also do think that feminism is certainly for men but a lot of the thoughts about men and masculinity originated with feminism, and we should give feminism credit for that. And what better way to give them credit for it than keeping the name?

I think that the movement has become a lot better in terms of men – there were always male feminists out there, but especially since the advent of the internet we’re hearing a lot more from them and they’re becoming stronger voices. I think we need to make sure that we address men’s issues when we’re talking about feminism and female feminists, too. But I also think it’s really important that female feminists prompt male feminists’ voices up into leadership positions so that we don’t see them as ansillary or that we don’t see them as on the side. For a long time we’ve been really afraid of putting men in leadership positions in the feminist movement because we’ve been afraid that it’ll become all about men or women’s voices will be drowned out which is an understandable fear but I also think that young men are much more likely to listen to other men so I think it’s really important that their voices are made more audible.

How do you think that feminism can overcome it’s past of racism and exclusion? How can we avoid pseudo-diversity?

I think it’s really hard and something that mainstream feminism still hasn’t managed to get away from. I think there’s two things going on. I think there’s a feminist movement that’s totally already diverse and intersectional and happening but it’s not the feminist movement that we tend to see, it’s not the feminist movement that tends to be funded, it’s not the feminist movement that tends to get media attention. I think there’s a kind of institutional feminism that’s happening, like big organizations, big powerful names, and those are still majority very straight, white, middle – upper middle class voices and organizations that play to that sort of demographic. I think it’s important that we look at where the power is in feminism and we shift it. Not that we start de-funding big organizations, but that we start actively funding smaller, grass-roots based organizations or organizations that are led by women of color, by queer women, by younger women and that we’re really cogniscent of what voices are put out there.

What are your main issues with the feminist movement? What do you wish you could change about it?

I wish that we were not so stagnant in our thinking about what issues are important. I think that people think about feminism and they think “violence” or “reproductive rights” and they have this list of issues, but I think that list of issues should be constantly moving and changing as the time does and constantly expanding. I think a lot of feminist organizations have been putting out the same press release about the same issue for the past 30 years and I think that it’s just not working and I think we need to think about things in a more intersectional way, but also to come at those ideas from different angles. Come at it from pop-culture. Come at it from a different point of a view. So I think there’s that – there’s not this monolithic platform of what feminism is, but that it’s a constantly moving platform.

I also think that feminists need to stop eating their own. I think that we have this problem like tearing each other down when we should building each other up. And I think that’s a problem that’s not just a feminist problem but a woman problem — it’s a thing that women tend to do and are even taught to do to each other. I think there’s plenty of room for debate and really vigorous debate but there’s a difference between that and personal criticism or just trying to take people down a peg or two or hating on each other. It’s very strange.

Do you think we’ve entered a fourth wave of feminism?

I do think we’re in a fourth wave of feminism. I think the way feminism operates online is so different than the way feminism operated even 15 years ago that you cannot say that it’s the same. And its not even that I’m super crazy about the wave model either, because it does tend to separate people out by generation when that’s not necessarily the case. So, I wrote a blog post once that it’s more like we’re multiple fourth waves — plural. There are lots of different kinds of feminism going on. That’s again, not one monolithic wave – not one platform, institution, or leader – but that’s what’s really cool about online feminism, that there’s so much going on. But of course that’s what makes it difficult to define and difficult to explain to people because it’s not so easily explained. And also the age thing – people say that we’re third wave feminists. But when I think third wave feminism I think of a generation that was doing work in the 90s, like Amy Richards and Jennifer Baumgardner -who are amazing – but we do very different work. So I consider myself a fourth wave(s) feminist much more than a third wave feminism.

Chloe Angyal

Chloe Angyal is usually the one asking the questions: in addition to being an editor at Feministing, she also writes their popular “Feministing Five” interview feature (of which, believe it or not, I was once the subject). Today, however, the FBomb is turning the tables on one of the most prominent interviewers in the feminist blogosphere, and asking her a few questions.

For those who don’t know, Chloe is originally from Sydney, Australia and is a graduate of Princeton University, where she founded Equal Writes, the University’s first feminist publication. Her writing has been published in The Christian Science Monitor, Skirt! Magazine, Salon, Slate, The Guardian, Foreign Policy Magazine and of course, Feministing. She’s an up and coming leader of the feminist movement, and somebody us teen feminists can certainly look up to.

What was your feminist click moment? How did you realize that you were a feminist?
When I was 14 or 15 I went away on exchange to France. It was very cold, it was Winter in Brittany and I was staying in this tiny town with only a couple thousand people and we went to school at 7:30 in the morning and got back at 5:30 at night and it was dark. The sun rose while we were in the classroom and went down while we were still in there – depressing. So a couple of things happened.

It was a very traditional family in that my host mother did work but she worked in her husband’s company and she came home early to take care of the kids and then he came home later. She would be cooking and he would make a bee-line straight for the couch and sit in front of the T.V. and then returned immediately after the meal was over and she was cleaning up. And this was really foreign to me, because I grew up in a dual-run household. To be fair, my parents had permanent, live-in help so they could both have careers – but they shared household chores and child-rearing. I hadn’t realized how feminist my household was. And it turns out the reason why my household is so feminist is because my mom was a crazy radical second-wave feminist and my Dad is the man who married her. My Dad used to do my hair for ballet – my Dad still does the best ballet buns of any man I know who is not professionally involved in the ballet, which is saying something. So that happened, which made me think differently about my household and why my household was the way it was.

The other thing that happened was that in France it was very cold and French food is very rich, and I gained a shit ton of weight. I came back and I had just turned fifteen and I was two dresses sizes heavier than I was when I left. So it was the first time I was really, really not adhering to accepted beauty standards. And I hated it, and I hated how angry I felt. I hated how inferior it made me feel and it made me really angry that something so trivial could make me feel so inferior. And then I read the Beauty Myth and realized that it’s not trivial – it’s a really big deal – and I got really angry. And after the Beauty Myth I found my Mom’s old copy of the Feminine Mystique and I read that and I read parts of the Second Sex and I became a mini, radicalized, angry fifteen-year-old feminist. And the people in my life struggled with that. I couldn’t hold a conversation without making it about eating disorder statistics or rape statistics – it was really bad. And my boyfriend at the time was like “Oh my God, Chloe.” It was the first time that I really struggled with the personal and the political. Because I was reading all this stuff about how badly women have it in this world, but I was falling in love with this guy and I was like, “How can I be reading about this stuff and hanging out with you and hooking up with you and having a relationship with you?” I guess the mental complexity you develop as an adult is separating the problems from the individuals and from ideas – your 17 year old boyfriend isn’t the one raping people so you need to chill and not feel bad about hanging out with him. So that happened and that’s how I became a feminist.

What was your experience with feminism in school? Did you find other feminists your age?

I didn’t. I found people who agreed with me but not people who would use the word “feminist” to describe themselves. I was unusual enough that I became known as “Chloe the Feminist” in my high school, or “Chloe, the one who talks about rape statistics a lot.” Eleventh grade was interesting. I found other teachers who were really on board. I had a teacher in 11th grade – a sub English teacher – and we were doing fairy tales and she started talking about “virgin and whore” and all that stuff in fairy tales and how Little Red Riding Hood is actually about rape and the wolf was originally a man – it’s the biggest victim blaming story ever. And it just blew my mind and I think a lot of other people had that reaction, but weren’t immediately like “Okay, I’m a feminist. What am I going to do with that?” And to be fair, what I did with that was put it back in the closet when I went to college. I went to Princeton and I didn’t want to be Chloe the feminist. It took me until my junior year to come out of that closet again and say, “I’m going to do this and I’m going to do this publically” and that’s when I started writing.

Why do you think there are people who have feminist beliefs but won’t call themselves feminists?

Because the word has a lot of baggage. And because the same reason there are a lot of, or I would guess, a lot of Christian evangelicals who check all the boxes required to describe themselves as a Christian evangelical but would be, “I’m not like a radical.” They introduce themselves and their beliefs with an asterisk – like, “I’m not one of those crazy radicals.” My point is that the people who are the most radical in any movement are the ones that are the most salient, that people most remember and identify with most. And that’s a problem because there are some radical edges of feminism that I have problems with and don’t want to be identified with. And if you don’t know a lot about the movement and that’s what you think of when you think about feminism, then that’s what you fear other people will think of when they think about feminists.

I think there are women of color and LGBT folk who traditionally have not been welcomed and don’t call themselves feminists for that reason, although I suspect that a lot of young women aren’t necessarily aware of that history. Some of them may very well have been educated on the history of feminism and they may know that and made the conscious choice not to identify that way, but my suspicion is that 15 – 19 year old girls are distancing themselves for feminists are not because of exclusion of women of color or LGBT. It’s possible.

Why else? Because it’s scary. It’s so much more comforting to tell yourself that you didn’t get a job or you didn’t get elected school president or something you wanted didn’t work out for you, because of sexism. But the thing about blaming the sexism is that if you sit down and think about it for a second then you have to acknowledge that you might never be enough, and this whole vista of inequality opens up to you, a whole new world view of just how fucked up our culture is, opens up to you. And that’s really scary. So as comforting as it can be to blame the sexism, it’s only comforting for a second when you start thinking about it and you think “Well, holy shit, am I ever going to be good enough even when I’m good enough?” And that’s really confronting and I think for a lot of women it’s just easier to make it a personal problem rather than a political one because once you acknowledge that sexism exists and it’s powerful and is affecting your life and the lives of everybody around you – I personally find it very hard to sit with that knowledge and do nothing about it. Because once you have that knowledge, unless you’re a deeply lazy and unethical person, you have to be like, “Well now what?” and the answer is that now you have to be a feminist. You  have to call this out when you see it and make a concerted effort not to buy into it or resist it and that takes energy and time and it would be easier to be like “I wasn’t qualified for that job” and that’s the end. And there are a lot of people who get to a half way point and they say “I’m a feminist but it’s not like I’m activist or militant about it.” They acknowledge sexism exists but aren’t going to do anything about it. And to me, that’s just sad.

I also believe in the backlash thesis. I believe that from the moment women decided that they would like to have some rights, please, from the moment that started there has always been a concerted effort – not necessarily a conspiracy – but an effort in various avenues over the last 100 years or so in the media to simultaneously demonize feminism and show women that it’s work is done. It’s a very difficult juggling act. You have to simultaneously demonize the women who are too radical and assure everybody else that because of some radical women 20 or 30 years ago, don’t worry about it it’s ancient history, equality has been implemented. So anybody who keeps talking about this stuff is complaining or over-reacting or irrelevant. It’s a very difficult juggling act to do and the media manages to do it really well.

How do you feel that the internet has benefited feminism?

Well, I came pretty late to the game – I didn’t start blogging until 2008 and by then the feminist blogosphere was pretty well established so I wasn’t there for the beginning and I wasn’t really there for the shaping, but I do know that if I hadn’t discovered feminist blogs when I got to college I probably would’ve just had what I had before that which would be a couple women’s studies courses under my belt and the books that I knew about and had heard of somehow through the ether – I’d heard about the Beauty Myth, and Stiffed and Backlash and things like that – but the internet for me has opened up vast landscapes of feminist thought that I wouldn’t otherwise have had access to. Not even because I’m socio-economically fine – I’m mobile and educated, it’s not those usual barriers to knowledge– it’s that I wouldn’t know about these things if it weren’t for the internet. Things like “Crunk Feminist Collective” – a white girl from Sydney without the internet could not have come into contact with the Crunk Feminist Collective, you know? So, there’s that, and I’m so grateful for it. I can’t remember my life before the internet and I don’t want to.

We talk a lot about the internet bringing knowledge and bringing conversation and community to people who are isolated either geographically or culturally. What I mean to say that is that I didn’t grow up in an Evangelical town in Texas. I grew up in a feminist household, but I still would not have had access to that community and wealth of information were it not for the internet. And it’s extra important for girls who do grow up geographically isolated.

What’s the downside of online feminism?

I recently went back to Sydney and caught up with people that I haven’t seen in a while. They were asking me about what it’s like to be a blogger, and I realized that it was the first time I told people about rape threats and some of the really heinous stuff that gets said about us and to us (as feminist bloggers). And I realized that I had, not normalized it, but had gotten over the initial shock and revulsion and fear that I told them about. But I told them about it and they were like “Wait, what that’s awful?” And I was like “Eh.” I take those things seriously, and they scare and upset me, but they happen enough and my skin has thickened enough that I see my friends now having on my behalf the reaction that I had initially and I’m like “Well…yeah that’s life.” And they’re sort of horrified. And those obviously aren’t your garden-variety online trolls. Garden-variety trolls will call you ugly or say that you’re wrong or stupid or a hack or whatever and then you have your exotic breed of trolls who tell you that you deserve to be raped or that you should’ve been aborted. Which I love: anti-choicers who tell you that you should’ve been aborted. Solid logic. So, yeah, that’s the worst. And it sucks but I see it on the continuum of violence that is directed to people when they speak out against the status quo, and as far as violence goes it’s disturbing and upsetting but it’s not the worst. We’re reasonably lucky as far as that goes. And I anticipate that it’s going to get worse if my career keeps going well, it’s only going to get worse. But I’ll also get better at dealing with it.

Any advice for teenage feminists?

It’s just going to get harder. Feminism’s work is never done. It get’s overwhelming and you grow up and have kids (if you choose to have kids) and it get’s harder. Maybe it’ll get better, but it won’t get easier. It get’s better in that you get to own it (feminism) and feel comfortable with it and make an identity for yourself that includes feminism. And instead of being “Chloe the Feminist” or “Such and such, the Feminist” you get to become yourself and feminism is a huge part of who you are but it doesn’t set you apart from everybody else you know. Becoming a feminist is just the beginning, and declaring yourself and committing yourself to a worldview is just the beginning.

Here’s Beyonce’s song “Run The World” for reference:

And here’s Amber’s response:

Thanks to reader Greta for the tip!

Seal Press

When I was a freshman in high school, I read Jessica Valenti’s book Full Frontal Feminism and it changed my life. It’s what sent me to Feministing, which introduced me to the feminist blogosphere, which in turn inspired me to start a blog for teenage feminists. Because just like Feministing, Full Frontal Feminism can be applicable to the lives of teenagers in many ways, and has been passed around plenty amongst teen feminists, but ultimately Full Frontal is geared towards women in their 20’s and 30’s.

And as absolutely fabulous as Full Frontal is, I think we can all agree that it’s about time that teenage feminists have a book that is really ours – about and relevant to our lives and written from a teenage perspective. We’ve proven we exist through the FBomb; thousands of teenage girls visit this blog every month, writing incredibly brilliant posts and comments every week. We need a book to represent that.

It just so happens that I’m writing that book. In fact, Seal Press- the lovely publisher of Full Frontal Feminism– is publishing it. Which is incredibly mind-blowing and awesome. And I’m having the best time in the world writing this, especially since I get to incorporate all of my experiences with the FBomb and everything this community has taught me into every page.

I’m still in the process of writing this book, but here’s the basic idea: this book will be a handbook for teenage feminism, accessible to teenagers of all levels of feminist identification. It’s as much for teens who are constantly using the phrase, “I’m not a feminist, but… [insert feminist belief here]” as it is for the FBomb warriors who are well versed in their feminist texts and are on this website posting and commenting up a storm. It’s a critical look at feminism and it’s a manifesto for our generation – what we believe and how we’re going to change this movement (and the world). It covers serious topics, but in the vein of the FBomb, I promise it’s going to be fun. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry (you probably won’t cry), you’ll learn. It’ll be great.

But I’m not here to gush about it. I’m not a gusher. No, this is serious business. I might be the only one writing this book (a fact that, when it truly hits me, kind of makes my heart stop) but the FBomb obviously has to be included somehow. I mean, duh, you’re all a huge reason why this book will exist at all.

Here’s the deal. This book doesn’t have a title yet. And I’ve been keeping this fact in the back of my mind for months, trying to think of something, but I keep coming up with “The FBomb” which is a name I happen to have used already, so that’s a no-go. Then I realized that FBomb contributors and commenters are writing brilliant, hilarious, awesome things every day. You’re a freakin amazing group of brilliant young women and you deserve to be a part of this, somehow. So I think you guys should title this book.

But, I mean, thinking of a title just for the hell of it isn’t really fun. So we’re going to make this a contest.

You have two weeks from today (May 23rd – June 6th) to submit an idea (or multiple ideas) for consideration to fbombsubmissions@gmail.com. A technicality: please title the email submission “FBomb Title Contest” and include your name. The prize is a book package from Seal Press, which will include a book bag with 5 free books (to get an idea, here’s a list of the books Seal Press has put out into the world). Some of my Seal Press faves? Full Frontal Feminism (obviously), Click! When We Knew We Were Feminists and Reality Bites Back just to name a few. Pretty cool, right?

Let the games begin!

A few weeks ago, I met Selena Torrado, a teen living in New York who started her own high school feminist club called Femtastic! I was ecstatic to see that someone shared my passion for reaching out to teens about the “important” stuff; the point of this post is to say to you, Teenage Girls of the World, if your school doesn’t already have a club that deals with women’s rights, equality, feminism, etc. – IT NEEDS ONE. And if you think starting a club is too hard, Selena and I will attest that it’s totally doable, and totally worth it. Check out my interview with Selena about her club Femtastic!, and see if it doesn’t inspire you to start a feminist club of your own!
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Danielle: What is your club called, and when/why did you decide to start it?

Selena: My club is called Femtastic. I decided to start it after becoming interested in feminism and exploring it on my own for a couple years. When I started high school I started reading books such as Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti, Female Chauvinist Pigs by Ariel Levy, and Intercourse by Andrea Dworkin. The ideas that these authors presented about gender identity and societal influence made extremely clear sense to me, especially after all of the confusion and mixed messages about gender roles in middle school. Reading these books was really empowering, in that they provided me with a context to view my evolving sexuality and status as a woman. As I found out about feminist blogs and forums such as Feministing and Bitch Magazine, it dawned on me that there is a whole feminist community out there that I really wanted to be involved in. The most accessible way for me to become involved was to create a feminist community in my school, where I spend the most time anyway. I started talking to my friend Zoloo, who is also interested in feminism and gender issues, and the club grew from there.

D: What has your club accomplished so far, and what do you have planned for the future?

S: So far, my club has started our Portrayal of Men and Women in the Media unit. We have discussed messages about gender roles that music videos, tv shows, and advertisements portray. We identified the impact these messages have on our personal lives, and reached the conclusion that the youth needs to be more directly involved in media development, so that the diversity of our thoughts, feelings and experiences are accurately portrayed. We are working on figuring out a concrete way that youth involvement can be implemented by entertainment firms such as MTV, VH1 and Disney Channel.

For the future, we plan to cover many more topics such as, but not limited to, Global Feminism, Teen Sexuality, Reproductive Rights, Prevalence of Pornography in Teen Culture, and the Importance of Comprehensive Sex Education. Our next unit will probably be Global Feminism. Our primary activity during this unit will be to team up with the Girl Up Campaign, a UN organization that works to mobilize American teens to raise money for programs that help combat issues such as Child Prostitution, Early Marraige, and Lack of Education, all of which are issues that girls in developing nations face. We plan to put on a fair which would inform people about the campaign and the issues it tackles. We hope to bring in Cornell professors to speak about some of these issues. All proceeds from this event will go to the Girl Up campaign.

In addition to this, we also plan on developing some kind of middle school outreach. We have all agreed as a club that middle school is the time when many girls question and are bombarded with opinions about how they should act and what they should believe as women. We hope to talk to and support middle school aged girls and boys during this period of huge change and confusion.

D: What is the key to attracting (and retaining) members?

S: I think that the key to attracting members is to advertise throughout your school. I created a bulletin board in a major hallway, passed out fliers, and made announcements on our school TV. Make sure that the student body is aware of the clubs existence. Also, it is important to be prepared to describe exactly what your club is about, what you hope to achieve, and what some of the activities will be, because there is a lot of confusion regarding the word “feminism” that you will need to clear up.

As for retaining members, that is something I am still learning, as my club is relatively new. I try to really involve the club members in discussions and make them feel like their opinion matters. Beyond that, I will learn as I go along.

D: What advice do you have for other high school students who’d like to start a feminism/women’s rights club, but don’t know where to start?

S: My advice to students who want to start a feminist club is to reach out to your community. I have gotten so much support from my local university (Cornell), Planned Parenthood, and school. I was actually shocked by how supportive, helpful, and excited most people were about the club. The majority of opportunities have come from groups and individuals in the community. For example, our local Planned Parenthood invited us to their yearly celebration, where we got to hear Michelle Goldberg, journalist and author of The Means Of Reproduction: Sex, Power and the Future of the World, speak. The Cornell Women’s Resource Center has been really helpful and offered us access to their speakers and events, as well as a way to apply for co-sponsorship for our own events. Basically, seek out people and organizations in your community who you think would support you, and don’t be afraid to ask for favors and advice.

D: Why do you think girls are sometimes reluctant to call themselves feminists? Is there anything we, as teens, can do about this?

S: I think that girls are reluctant to call themselves feminists because there are so many negative connotations surrounding that word. I think that for most people the word “feminist” evokes an angry, man bashing, bitter female who complains about the “patriarchy” but does not have much to back up her complaints. One way to combat this is through education. This image of a feminist is an ignorant one, and the way to combat ignorance is with information. If you identify as a feminist and have knowledge of specific feminist beliefs, ideals, and progress, don’t be afraid to share it with others. Feminist theory and ideology applies to almost every moral, scientific, economic, global, and interpersonal topic there is, so there are plenty of chances to bring up feminist ideas both in class and in personal discussions.

(L to R) me, Morgane Richardson, Jen McCreight, Tracy Clark-Flory

By now, some of you may be aware that I (on behalf of this here ole’ webblog) was recently chosen as one of 12 “new” feminists by More Magazine. Obviously, this is an amazing honor, and the fact that I’m in the same article as some of my all time heros (Jessica Valenti is mentioned in the article and I was freakin in the same room as freakin Shelby Knox!) is kind of mind blowing. And Jane Lynch is on the cover. As a Gleek, and more importantly as a Christopher Guest mockumentary fan (that’s really where it’s at) and just general supporter of Jane Lynch’s mind blowing awesomeness, a better cover girl probably couldn’t have been chosen.

However, the concept of having a “feminist photo shoot” is definitely one worth talking about. Tracy Clark-Flory, staff writer for Salon.com and one of the feminists in the More article, wrote in her post over at Salon that “just as we rail against restrictive beauty standards…(we) then demonstrated just how subject we are to them when it came to doing our feminist photo shoot.” And sure, on a fundamental level there isn’t much that’s feminist about a photo shoot, no matter who it’s featuring. But at the same time, I feel like I should honestly share my experience.

This past August I was flown out to New York City with my Mom, and then a matter of hours later shipped off in a van with nine other awesome feminists – including Karin Agness, Lena Chen, Tracy Clark-Flory, Megan Evans, Allison Kasic, Shelby Knox, Jen McCreight, LaToya Peterson, Morgane Richardson - to a warehouse in Queens where the photo shoot was to take place.

I was excited about this photo shoot, sure, although I was still trying to master the concept of “literally around 1 million people will be reading this article and looking at this picture. holyshitohmygodwhatdoido?” Thus, the next few hours were kind of a blur, but here’s what I recall.

I was one of the first to get my makeup done. Here’s the thing: I’m not really a glam/glitz/loves looking gorgeous always kind of girl. And from looking around at the other feminists getting dolled up, I don’t think I was alone. To the makeup artist’s benefit, she did ask me (and I assume everybody else) how we normally wear our make up and then tried to replicate it. But when I looked in the mirror I almost keeled over at what a clown I looked like (and to think…that was what the make up artist called one of her most subdued looks). Truly a firsthand testament to what a normal or – god forbid – dramatic make up job must look like. I can now assure everybody on this blog from firsthand experience (though I’m sure you’ve heard it before): DON’T TRUST THE IMAGES YOU SEE IN MAGAZINES. Believe me, if we all had professional make up artists at our beck and call any one of us could be easily inserted into a magazine. And that’s before retouching.

Wardrobe was similar, in that they asked me what I normally wear and even let me keep on the jeans and shoes I wore to the shoot. Hair: same deal. Honestly, as far as photo shoots go, it seemed like the most feminist any one shoot could possibly get. They totally listened to us and respected what made us feel comfortable. Our poses were simple and totally respectable (no stripper poles or gyrating for the feminists, it seems).

Which leads me to wonder: if this wasn’t a feminist photo shoot, what is? I think this also applies to the article – I know at least that my blurb represented my conversation with the reporter incredibly well, and everybody else’s seemed to sum up what they believe in and the work they’re doing. Of course, as Courtney at feministing noted, “The women in the picture are not only predominantly white, but seem painstakingly smoothed out, glossed up, and able-bodied, overwhelmingly thin, cis-gendered and every other ‘normal’ that the stylists could possibly muster from this otherwise rowdy and sharp-penned group of writers, thinkers, and activists. That’s not a picture I would connect with my generation of feminists. At all. Too much glamour and gentility, not enough guts and diversity.”

And of course, I agree that the selection could have been more diverse…generally it always can be. But at what point would it be tokenism?  Honestly, I think all of the women featured are doing really great work and really believe in this cause. I was happy that a magazine like More - although it admittedly isn’t Glamour or Marie Claire (that truly would blow me over) – was willing to do a feature on feminists at all!

Obviously, I’m biased, and no, of course we should never “settle.” But at the same time, I’d hate to dwell on what I see as a few negative aspects of an overall great thing: feminism IS in the mainstream media at this moment! And really, the fact that an article on feminism, featuring real, live women, took the place of what easily could have been a fashion spread featuring emaciated models, is something to celebrate.

I found this picture on feministing yesterday. Considering the response to my last post about Disney, I thought you guys might find this pic interesting.

I think the sexism they point out in the picture is legitimate as far as plot lines go, but statements like, “Her only asset, physical beauty…” and “her only asset, sexuality” get to me a little bit. Sure, I think Disney created some pretty sexist characters here. But they weren’t exactly dumb bimbos who acted without any purpose throughout the entirety of the movies.

As I recall, I actually identified with Belle quite a bit because we were both voracious readers. I’d say an appetite for literature is a pretty good asset to have. And Jasmine was totally empowered by demanding to marry only who she wanted.

So, yes, these characters were definitely crafted by a sexist hand and existed in a rather sexist setting (for the most parts). But to imply that these qualities were the only qualities that mattered or the only ones to come through doesn’t ring true to me.

Also, as represented by this picture, there is definitely a race element with Disney princesses. As feministing wondered, where are Pocahontas, Mulan and Disney’s newest princess, Tiana? Sure there’s sexism, but there’s a heck of a lot of racism, too.

What do you guys think?

Almost 2 weeks ago, the NCRW had a conference that featured many terrific panelists. One of the best ones in my opinion was the panel on Popular Culture and Gender Images. The panelists included Latoya Peterson from racialicious (I want to be her best friend),

   

Latoya Peterson

 Dr. Laura Plybon of Girls Inc., Glennda Testone from the Women’s Media Center and Anne Zill of the Women’s Center for Ethics in Action. Topics of conversation ranged from the Rihanna/Chris Brown domestic violence case to the lack of marketing to black women in the video gaming world. Overall really engaging- Courtney Martin (who was in the audience) did a great live blogging of the panel over at feministing…check it out, it’s a great summary.

Also, I recently blogged through the NCRW’s blog about another panel-like event I attended- this time through WomenGirlsLadies – called Dads, Dudes and Doing It, a discussion on men, masculinity and fatherhood in feminism in honor of father’s day.

The panel included Courtney Martin, of fabulous feministing fame; Deborah Siegel from Girl w/ Pen; Kristal Brent Zook, journalist and author; and Gloria Feldt, feminist activist, author and speaker.

The main questions addressed were:
How were your ideas about men and masculinity formed while growing up?
How did men shape your thinking about your own identity as a woman?
What is the role for men in the contemporary and future feminist movement?

I thought the panel was really thought provoking, especially since I think involving men in feminism is really a paramount issue. To read the blogging I did (with another wonderful intern, Shirley Kailas) click here.

So, as you can see, I’ve been pretty freakin busy. I’ll try to get it back on track in the very near future and AS ALWAYS if any of you want to write drop me an e-mail and I’d love to put you up!