Moving the Blog

I am moving the blog over to my friend’s site, blacklabelblogs.  It will be basically the same set up and everything, but you may have to resubscribe to the blog.  Sorry about any complications, but this should work better for me.  Here’s the link, http://notsoangryfeminist.blacklabelblogs.com/.

About a week from now, this blog is going to be private and the only place Not-So-Angry Feminist and Veggie Slaughterer are going to be available (combined under the one name) will be at the new site.   I have already posted a couple of posts and am working on my next one now and it should be up before tonight.

Hope to see you all there!

Review: Witchcraze by Anne L. Barstow

by Anne L. Barstow

As the name, and the cover of the book clearly indicate, this book is about the witch hunts throughout Europe with some mention of those in America. Barstow discusses the past research done on the witch hunts and how it focuses mostly on class issues but does little analysis of gender. The fact is that there is a pattern of class in the witch hunts across the European cultures who had them, but the pattern of gender is just as strong. Barstow seems to subscribe to the idea of intersectionality* that is popular in post modern feminism. These women are poor but they are also women.

She goes into detail about why women are in the position to be persecuted in such a way. This is doe region by reason, taking into account the changes in religious power, economic situations and political power shifts.

Witchcraze is a very entertaining book. She gives plenty of different cases of different women, with actual quotes from historical documents, to keep the book from getting dry. She also describes her ideas clearly and thoroughly. It is very much an over view of the witch hunts, which is a great introduction, but if you want a lot of detail on a specific area, then look elsewhere. All of the areas she covers can get confusing, as the book is organized by topic/issue, rather than by region. She is very clear about when she is switching regions, but they tended to get jumbled in my head. It was a very interesting book. I was especially pleased to see the gender analysis being so prominent.

*Intersectionality – The idea that people’s race, class, gender, sexuality, etc. cannot be teased apart. They are intersecting parts of their identities that affect each other and create that person’s life as a whole. Certain parts of their identities may be emphasized in different arenas of their life, but no matter where a person is they are going to be, for example, a White, working class, gay male who identifies as a man.

Breaking Dawn and Abortion

I recently saw the first half of the Breaking Dawn movies.  If you do not know the story, the important part for this post is that Bella, the female lead, gets pregnant with a half vampire fetus that grows extremely quickly and causes her to waste away and will/does threaten her life during birth.  Her new husbands family, except for Rosalie, argue for an abortion, but Bella disagrees.

It is likely, if not certain, that this is meant to be more of a pro-life argument.  This is especially likely considering Meyer’s Mormon background and the story’s strong message of abstinence until marriage.

The opposite is possible to argue, though. As I have learned from John Green, the most important part of the story is not what the author puts into it, but what the reader takes from it.  We do not know if all the sword fights in Romeo and Juliet are meant to be homoerotic, but there are some that argue it is.  What individuals see in a work may say more about them than the author, it says the most about the work.

This could be seen as a very pro-choice story.  Bella is well aware of the threat her fetus poses to her.  It is explained in great detail by the most qualified doctor available.  Unless they manage to turn her into a vampire at the right moment the birth will kill her, if the pregnancy itself does not first.  However, she is determined to bring the baby to term and the family does respect it.  They do not like it and make that clear, which is fair enough, but they do their best to help her.

Of course, Edward’s mind was changed when he made telepathic contact with the fetus.  Once he made the connection between fetus and baby he was all for it.  However, in the end, his opinion was never going to be the one to make the decision.  It was always down to Bella and what she was willing to put her body through. Part of being pro-choice is allowing women to keep their babies even when it is a risk to their health.  Allowing women the control over their bodies includes choosing which treatments to undergo after being fully informed.  Sometimes these choices may be to their physical detriment.

Review: Beauty and the Werewolf by Mercedes Lackey

Note: I get a bit wordy here.  This is, I think, my first review for this series and I have a lot to say.  If all you are interested in is the feminist thoughts on this book go to the *Skip Here* part.

Let me start out by saying that this book brings together three of my favorite things: Beauty and the Beast*, werewolves and Mercedes Lackey. I love the 500 Kingdoms series.  It is a fun way to play with any and all myths and fairy tales.  Lackey has brought in mermaids, fairy godmothers, dragons and even gods/goddesses of different pantheons throughout the series.  The basic ides of this series is that the Tradition, this world’s magic, tries to form the world and the kingdoms into the shape of the stories (or traditions) told in the world.  People who know about tradition, especially fairy godmothers, use this to either prevent misfortune or gain power/wealth/etc.

The things I find as positives about these stories as a whole would probably be viewed by many as negatives.  First, it has a sort of humorous feel to it.  It is not quite Piers Anthony’s Xanth, but it is more along that idea sometimes.  So do not go in expecting Valdemar. She pokes a bit of fun at the traditional myths and manages to, in my opinion, spice up the stale ideas with twists that revive them.  For example, to modern Disney fans, Beauty and the Beast is inextricably tied to talking household object that sing, dance and happily serve you delicious grey stuff.  In Lackey’s version, they are invisible servants, some smart and some a little more…vacant.  They are much more interesting than that, but I am morally opposed to spoilers, so I’ll leave it there.

Even though these stories are literally fairy tales and match our modern definition of them, they are still more realistic than other books, which are not meant to be so light hearted.  *cough* Breaking Dawn *cough*  Especially in Beauty and the Werewolf, the rulers and characters know that their love and even their lives do not trump the welfare of an entire country and the thousands of lives there.  The consequences are real.

*Skip Here*  This story is all about (Isa)Bella figuring out how to fix her situation.  She does the research and the legwork.  She uses her skills and interests effectively.  She also does not get absurdly upset.  Some could probably argue she does not get upset enough, but Bella reacts much like I do in stressful and upsetting situations.  Give us something productive and helpful to do and we can let the upset and stress straighten itself out in a little corner we rent out to it.  Lackey creates a strong female character.  Bella does take on a number of “masculine” attributes in the book, learning to fight and wearing pants (in this time period/universe a.k.a. cross dressing) and we can debate whether this makes her a weaker female character** or whether, in conjunction with the “feminine” attributes she strengthens, just makes her a stronger person and therefore a strong woman and good model?

Of course, the male lead cannot be left out!  The Duke/wizard/werewolf is far from the warrior hero type often found in fairy tales.  The Duke (whose name I do not remember and do not feel like looking up right now) is a scholar.  He is quite, unassuming, wears glasses (don’t all of us scholars?!) and respects Bella as a student, partner and even at times a teacher.  He is a good man in a bad situation that remains a completely and totally good man.  Admittedly, his character could be seen as a little flat, but the Gamekeeper (who is basically Gaston) is such a macho and overpowering figure that The Duke’s personality makes a lot of sense.

Overall, the book is fun, cute, a sweet romance with female character that does not sit on her lilly-white bottom and embroider while she moans on about how sucktacular her situation is.  Which, with my tidal wave strong enthusiasm for all thing’s Beauty and the Beast, is enough for me! I recommend it for all you fantasy fans.  Especially any who love a retelling of fairy tales.

I mean, seriously, I love Beauty and the Beast.  I even have my own enchanted rose and fashion Disney Beauty Doll!

I told you!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Later I will hopefully write a post about my conflicting feelings about fairytale stories and my feminist goals, but for now we’ll leave it.  Mostly.

**Does taking on these “masculine” traits mean she has eschewed femininity and her gender?  Is she, instead of fighting for her gender and their associated attributes and work to be valued more highly, just aligning herself with the masculine and benefiting from that?

Review: Guyland by Michael Kimmel

Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men

I read this book for my masculinities class.  It describes Kimmel’s perspective on the extended adolescence in American, specifically young men from ages 16-26 or so.  The measures of adulthood used to be finishing school, getting a job/career, getting married and having kids.  All of these things generally happened at about the same time.  Now, though, they are spread out and young men are staying young men for longer.  Kimmel discusses porn, rape, hooking up, the guy code (don’t cry, bros before hos, etc.), sports and girls in guyland.  He describes these men’s obsession of sex and avoidance of relationships.  He also shares is opinion on how Guyland can be changed ( removing the cultures of silence, entitlement and protection and encouraging men to be whole humans not just manly men).

I really did enjoy this book.  It shares some interesting stories about young college aged men and explains one decent theory that explains some of the men I knew as an undergraduate.  The author has a lot of experience and clearly his insights have some value.

However, his methods are flawed.  First, this book only really explains or interviews white, middle-class students.  He admits this, though, and that this Guyland phenomena only has the space (or money) to occur with these individuals.  That the threat to entitlement is not present for young minority men.  Second, these are observations he has had over the years (I believe about 30 years).  There is no systematic search for subjects.  He meets them seemingly randomly on campuses and sometimes they come to him.  This is not a way to get a representative sample and it is likely a way to guarantee a biased one.  If you meet your sample at random, you are likely to meet the friends of your first subjects and so on, giving you an inherently similar sample.  This does no invalidate the observations about this group, but it does preclude generalizing to a larger population. For example, they did not interview one nerdy guy!  Where were all the magic cards?

Overall, I do recommend this book.  It is a good introduction to a number of ideas, some of which ( especially the cultures of silence, protection and entitlement) have a huge effect on our society. Even the parts of the society that are not college educated white people.  You just have to keep in mind that these findings do not apply to all young men.

What is Equality?

The goal of feminism is generally equality. Equality for women. Equality for racial and sexual minorities. The idea (for just about anyone other than some of the more radical among us) is for a completely equal society. The question becomes not how to go about this, but, first, what does equality mean?

The most obvious answer, in America at least, is to be equal to men. The job opportunities and various privileges accorded to American men (seeing others like themselves on tv at any time, knowing that the person in charge is likely to be like them, etc.) are desirable to obtain or neutralize. However, men’s positions are not 100% enviable.

First of all, not all men have equal standing or opportunity. A White woman is likely to be in a better position than an African American man. Defining equality as “equal to a man” is problematic. This is not only because of race, either. A short, effeminate or fat white man is not going to get the same respect or bump as their more (hegemonic) masculine counterparts.

If this is the only issue, we could just boil it down to being equal to attractive, healthy, educated, straight and well employed white men. But there are problems with being even this type of man. The men are often stuck in jobs they do not want. They are emotionally repressed, because this masculinity is challenged by expressions of emotions, such as crying.  Many more, of course, but you get the idea.

As a woman, do you really want to be in the position these men are in? Maybe the answer is “yes”. But keep in mind that you get all that comes with the package. Men are not without their oppressions, their payoff is just arguably better. You are no longer pressured to be a mother, but if you do not have a high earning job, then you are a failure. You are no longer a sex object, but violence and aggression become an assumed part of your performance.

I am not arguing that men are just as screwed as women. What I am trying to get across is that changes need to be made across the board and it is not as simple as raising women to men’s levels. Being a man is not perfect. Being a man with a vagina is not the ultimate solution. I will be going in to some suggested solutions in following posts when I discuss different feminist theories.

As always, I want to hear your thoughts on the issue (when they are constructed politely). Especially those who disagree with me!

Difficulties within Feminism

There are a number of problems within the feminist movement.  The top two, put simply, are a lack of definitions and essentialism.

We want equality for women.  Makes sense right?  Not once you actually start working for it.  First off, what does equality mean?  Do we want to be equal to men?  Do we want to be like men or are there different things that we need than men do?    Are women the only ones who need to change or should men, too?  Is our culture’s take on men, masculinity and power the problem, rather than women’s place in it?  These are important questions and there are MANY different answers in the feminist community.

Feminism is often thought of as a group, which implies a sort of unity that just is not present.  There are many brands of feminism: liberal, welfare, socialist, marxist, radical and so many others.  They (generally) share the goal of equality, but how they believe we should go at it varies greatly.  This means that feminists are unable to unite their efforts for change and can often hamper each others efforts.  There is little unity and it gets confusing and there can often be oppositions within feminism, which creates even more issues for the name “feminism”.

The second problem is a  bit simpler, but much bigger.  Feminism has been routinely accused, accurately so, of essentialism.  Essentialism is when generalizations about a group (i.e. women) are too broad and end up excluding a segment of them (i.e. minority women).  The original feminist movements mostly affected the lives of white, middle-class women.

For example, the big moves in the work place were not advantageous at the time for the vast majority of minority women.  These women were already in the work force,  often as domestic workers.  The protections that women obtained for themselves at work also did not extend to these work places.  Even now many of the jobs traditionally held by minority women do not qualify for things such as social security, healthcare, etc.

Class goes right along with the racial exclusions in feminism’s history.  Lower-class white women were already working and had been for years before feminism’s big accomplishments.  Of course, workplace issues are not the only differences, but they are the easiest to explain.

These oversights do not negate the accomplishments, but they are the things we need to address.  We cannot ignore that all women do not have the same experiences.  If all we work for is the rights of white middle-class women then our efforts are in vain.  Our race, class, religion, etc. puts the experiences that we do all share in different contexts.  Feminism is working towards fixing these problems, though.  The methods are not always effective, but we are trying to confront and change the biases in sciences and assumptions.