Girls can be robots too: Whither the fembots of yesteryear?My son has reached the dread age where the genders start to separate at school, and he’s not happy. While he likes nominally traditional boy things, such as baseball and basketball and watching cartoon explosions, he also enjoys the company of girls. But the girls at his school mostly play sugar-and-spicy games like princess or Holly Hobbie (which, amazingly, still exists), while the boys run around and pretend to be robots. Given a choice, my son, who’s repeatedly declared that princesses are for losers, would always rather be a robot. But given an additional choice, he’d want the girls to be robots and aliens too. Somewhere in the universe, and certainly in his mind, there are tough female robot and alien role models, but they never show up on the playground. Sadly, the era of pre-school egalitarianism seems to be ending fast.

In my vast experience as an alternative-themed parenting guru, I’ve heard from a lot of parents concerned that our culture is feeding gender stereotypes to their children, almost from birth. They worry about the Disney Princess marketing juggernaut and worry more seriously about Bratz culture, with its makeover parties for six-year-olds and dolls who live only to shop, gossip, and show off their flat bellies. They seem less bothered by the culture surrounding their boys, who, as usual, are playing with trucks and beating one another with sticks, but there’s still concern. An ad for Tonka trucks says “Boys: They’re just built different." This goes along beautifully with an ad for a hideous product called “Rose Petal Cottage,” which features a little girl doing the wash and making cookies accompanied by the lyrics "I love when my laundry gets so clean/ Taking care of my home is a dream, dream, dream!" It would be foolish to completely deny gender differences, but is it really smart to propagandize our children into Stanley and Stella Kowalski? Man as brute and woman as precious subservient flower is so last century.

We’ve all encountered the tomboy who can execute a perfect hook slide and the little guy who enjoys wearing mommy’s pantyhose. We also know the girl who wears princess dresses to school or the boy whose only mission in life appears to be pile-driving other children into the ground. But the rest of our kids, the ones whose tastes and behaviors don’t entirely seem bound by their chromosomal makeup, can occupy something I call the “nerd middle.” Therein lies the solution to gender stereotyping.

Spongebob's friend Sandy: One tough squirrel Beyond the Transformers and Hannah Montana is a rich menu of dorky gender-neutral characters that command fan fealty, like all corporate entertainment products must. But they also confound traditional notions of what boys and girls should be, and how they should behave. The major female character on Spongebob Squarepants is an ass-kicking karate squirrel from Texas, while the show’s titular hero breaks out into show tunes unbidden, can’t drive a lick, and cares for his pet snail like a little girl would her kitty.

The Star Wars movies have Princess Leia (if not much else) to balance out the portentous testosterone. The lead children in the Narnia saga and The Golden Compass are smart, capable, brave—and girls. Dora The Explorer doesn’t seem interested in makeup and boys, and her cousin Diego only has eyes for baby animals. The Backyardigans, a show that’s previously received a whuppin’ in this space, also passes the nerd middle test. Crappy music aside, The Backyardigans teaches girls that they can be pirates, spies, Vikings, or cowboys. Just as importantly, they teach boys that girls can be those things.

Even superheroes, the traditional rulers of the fortress of male dorkitude, can and should be presented to girls in the nerd middle. In the Justice League: Unlimited cartoon series, which many of my son’s friends watch, Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Hawkgirl, Black Canary, The Huntress, and several other heroines are presented as the equals, and often the betters, of their male hero counterparts. Kim Possible vaults into action on the Disney Channel, and, while dropping this reference makes me feel old, let us never forget the lessons of The Powerpuff Girls, a show whose central joke revolved around the fact that little girls named Blossom and Buttercup kicked ass.

Golden Compass-Kicker: Lyra Belacqua makes a great role model So the right messages are out there. Why, then, in a world where there’s always a Pink Ranger, has the concept of girl power been so marginalized? Why does it seem radical to suggest that it could be otherwise? For every parent who grumbles about the evils of the Rose Petal Cottage on Feministing, there are a hundred who wouldn’t think twice before taking their girls to the mall to buy Barbie’s Dream Beach House. Even Lisa Simpson, a gender-neutral girl hero if ever one existed, worships her Malibu Stacy dolls. It’s as though we’re willfully ignoring the gender-mixing messages of the media our children consume. Either that, or we never really absorbed the messages in the first place.

From age five on, boys play t-ball while girls take ballet. Coed sleepovers, which really should be acceptable up until age 10, rarely even get off the ground. My wife and I, like good self-righteous urban liberals, try to counteract this as much as possible. Our son plays flag football, but he also takes gymnastics. He likes to peg ants in the backyard with a squirt gun, but he goes to cooking class on Monday evenings. We wrestle in the backyard, and then sometimes on rainy days I take him to kiddie yoga. When he goes over to his girl cousin’s house, they have a gender-free good time: shooting hoops, playing “zoo,” watching Electric Company videos, and staging elaborate High School Musical dance parties. Well, the last activity is pretty girly, but it is her house. Sometimes you must make concessions.

American life, on the surface, has never been more gender-neutral than it is now. Women go to war, and men make dinner. Men win Dancing With The Stars, and there are female American Gladiators. Both genders, apparently, are capable of playing the role of Bob Dylan. The only real gender-exclusive things in the world are the siring of children and childbirth, though recent current events have even called that exclusivity into question. Yet the Bratz persist, and Joe Francis, the pig behind Girls Gone Wild, continues to make millions even as he stews in jail. It’s up to us parents to encourage the gender-neutral side of our culture, and to try and persuade our children that the battle of the sexes need not continue along the same path.

Elijah’s best friend (or second-best, depending on the week) is a cute, smart little girl named Ariel. They’re weird in the exact same way, and it’s obvious that they get each other. Friends like that are rare at any age. Their favorite activity is to play Star Wars, and Ariel always gets to be Luke Skywalker. The fact that a girl is playing a male lead barely even occurs to them.

He will crush you with his manliness: Macho Man Randy SavageDo you need a penis in your pants to speak your mind?

That’s the rhetorical question Amy Alkon, self-proclaimed advice goddess, puts to activist guru Rebecca Solnit in response to Solnit’s Los Angeles Times op-ed suggesting that men—at least some men—are overconfident, overbearing boors who “crush young women into silence”:

Men explain things to me, and to other women, whether or not they know what they're talking about. Some men. Every woman knows what I mean. It's the presumption that makes it hard, at times, for any woman in any field; that keeps women from speaking up and from being heard when they dare... It trains us in self-doubt and self-limitation just as it exercises men's unsupported overconfidence.

To that, Alkon replies that she is a woman (last she looked) and hasn’t had any difficulty speaking up or fending off annoying male conversationalists:

But, wait. Let me check. (Peering down into pants and then panties) Yup, there's a vagina in my pants, which suggests I'm either a woman or there's a matched, escaped set of labia taken up hiding in my underwear. Most mysteriously, I don't seem to suffer the myriad conversational injustices from men that Solnit and so many other women apparently do.

In her blog, Alkon seems to enjoy taking on self-proclaimed feminists and accusing them of a victim-mentality. In this post, she suggests that Solnit is a Rip van Winkle feminist who forgot to wake up. Those days of talking about inequality, analyzing the structure of inequality, protesting against inequality—those are all in the past. In this generation, we don’t talk about how we are victimized and what we need to do to combat our victimization, we just “do it”:

…can you explain how I, who grew up in this culture, and presumably, drink from the same water supply as millions of other women, managed to become a woman who can muster the sheer courage to say, “Hey, ya big lug, lemme talk!”? I had no friends as a child, and became kind of a doormat as a result (desperate to be liked). I fixed that in my 20’s, and now, what I care about is whether I’m being true to what I believe in…which sometimes requires telling some blowhard to put a sock in it so I can be heard.

But wait. Alkon’s comment proves Solnit’s point. Alkon agrees: there are plenty of (male) blowhards out there who try to make women feel like doormats. Women need an awful lot of “sheer courage” to say, “Hey, ya big lug, lemme talk!”

Alkon can fight back against the blowhards because she has learned a shtick that works. It’s the Nanny’s shtick. It’s the bossy, brassy, Bette Midler shtick. It’s a Jewish shtick, agnostic advice goddess.

But does every woman have to be able to call men “big lugs” and elide subject and verb in order to get a word in edgewise? Do we all have to channel Barbra? That’s the question Solnit asks that Alkon doesn’t really answer.

The eccentric and unreadable French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan infamously suggested that all of human society was based on what he called the phallus. The “phallus,” Lacan explained, is not the physical penis, but the symbol of the social order, of the laws that govern relationships. No one can actually ever have the phallus, but those perceived as having it control society and its rules.

Solnit is, in essence, complaining that men don’t just have a penis in their pants—they have the phallus there too. Despite the trappings of an egalitarian society, men still are perceived as having symbolic control over the social order. As long as men feel they have that power, some of them are likely to wield it.

Perhaps Alkon has the right idea after all—women won’t have the freedom to talk until we can change the symbolic social order. It’s time to look in our panties, ladies.

Pay Up: or pull outIsraeli mikvah attendants—the women who supervise dunks into the ritual baths to make sure they’re kosher—haven’t been paid in five months, so Kolech, an Orthodox feminist organization, is working to organize a mikvah boycott until ladies of the bath get paid. Without dunking in the mikvah after her period, a woman isn’t supposed to have sexual relations with her husband, so the boycott would effectively deprive Orthodox couples of intimacy until the issue is worked out.

On the Kolech website (Hebrew) Batia Kahana-Dror writes: "Let's drive them crazy, all those who wait restlessly for the night that their woman goes to the mikvah. All those who make up the majority in the religious councils, the Treasury, the Religious Services Ministry and the Knesset, the rabbis and the leaders. Stop. No more sex."

Kahana-Dror is echoing an ancient theme of women withholding sex for the good of their communities. Here are some examples:

• Lysistrata: First and foremost, we have Aristophanes’ play Lysistrata, in which the women of Athens decide to withhold sex from their husbands until peace is declared—a strategy that proves entirely effective. In that vein, The Lysistrata Project began staging readings of the play in 2002. They sponsor events and encourage activism to seek inventive solutions to violence and economic crises, specifically the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

• The Strike of Crossed Legs: In 2006 in Pereira, Colombia, dozens of women took part in the "Strike of Crossed Legs." When gang members weren't handing in their guns, their wives and girlfriends organized and decided to stage a sex strike. They came up with a strike anthem rap song that included the lyrics: "As women we are worth a lot. We don't want to fall for violent men because with them we lose too much."

• Water for Sex: In Sirt, Turkey, women staged a month long sex strike, protesting the lack of accessible running water in their village. After the existing water supply system broke and the women were forced to walk miles and wait in lines for hours to get water for their homes, they came up with the idea of withholding sex from their husbands until the water supply problem was fixed. After what CNN called "frantic lobbying on the part of Sirt's male population" a governmental official was convinced to pipe water into the town.
  

• Lysistrata with a Twist: Bolivian prostitutes went on a hunger strike when the bars and strip joints where they worked were shut down in 2007. In addition to taking over the local AIDS clinic and refusing to eat, the sex workers threatened to parade around naked. A spokesperson said that if the town of El Alto wanted to do away with prostitution, "then the government should give us a hand and take care of our children, and afterward provide us with jobs."

Jewish Orthodox Feminists: do exist!Orthodoxy is an easy target when we’re criticizing societies where women are treated poorly, given fewer rights, and are relegated to lives in the kitchen and nursery. Walking into an Orthodox synagogue and seeing a mechitza dividing the men and women can seem like a throwback to the days of Jim Crow, and when we hear about ultra-Orthodox women wearing burka-like garments, it’s hard not to jump to conclusions about the kind of society that would endorse such behaviors.

The truth is much more complicated. Though it has taken Orthodoxy a staggeringly long time to come to terms with even the most basic feminist ideals, all kinds of feminism are alive and well in the Orthodox world.

• The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance provides lists of minyans where women participate in various forms, directions for life cycle events, advocates for agunot (women whose husbands won’t grant them Jewish divorces), and access to articles and databases to address a wide range of issues, from whether first-born women should fast the day before Pesach, to alternative readings of traditional texts.

• Education for Orthodox Jewish girls has come a long way: Until fairly recently there were some communities where women were not even allowed to learn Torah directly from a book, but in the past fifty years, education for Jewish girls has taken great strides, and schools like the Drisha Institute and Midreshet Lindenbaum allow women to study Talmud and pursue Torah learning with the same vigor as at the best yeshivot for men.

• Scholars like Tamar Ross and Haviva Ner-David are writing books that break open the stereotypes cast on Orthodoxy and feminism. There’s still plenty of apologist bullshit going on—you can always find some rabbi who wants to explain that women aren’t allowed to do x because they’re already on a higher spiritual plane, so it’s just not necessary—but increasingly, women are breaking out of the shtetl mold and finding new paths and ways to compromise tradition and modernity.
  

Golda Meir: not a champion for women's rights Meanwhile, the secular Israeli world isn’t quite as gender egalitarian as we like to think. We tend to regard kibbutzim as a kind of precursor to feminism, with women out in the fields working alongside men, and we love to brag about things like Israeli women spending time in the army, Golda Meir having been the first women Prime Minister of Israel decades before a female President was considered possible in the US, and Women’s rights always being a cornerstone of Israeli politics. In fact, according to an article at MyJewishLearning, even on socialist kibbutzim, women generally ended up back in stereotypical roles, working in kitchens and childcare because they were seen as too weak for heavy agricultural labor.

• Though Golda Meir was a political lioness, she was not known for working on behalf of women’s rights, and few women have been able to follow in her footsteps to rise to the top of Israeli political parties.

• The number of women in the Knesset is still very low relative to female political representation in other Western countries.

• Israeli cultural capitol still nudges women back into the home and towards traditional child-rearing roles, though slow improvements are being made.

• Women in the Israeli army complain of sexual harassment, and of being given unimportant jobs where they languish for their two years of service.

Despite these sobering facts, there is some good news: The President of the Israeli Supreme Court is a woman, and women are well-represented and protected in Israeli legislation. There’s still plenty of work to be done on both ends of the spectrum, and it’s not always as clear cut as you might think.

Previously: Haman Wore a Three-Cornered Hat?

From: Wendy Shanker

To: Courtney E. Martin; Tedra Osell

An unexpected shift occurred after the last big primary night, when Hillary took Ohio, Texas and one of those little states, too: we got bored. Exhausted. Kind of over it. If we’re this fatigued, I can’t imagine how the campaign workers are holding up. Plus, we’re going to have to ride this roller coaster again in Pennsylvania and Indiana and apparently Puerto Rico. Who knew that Puerto Rico was part of the United States? Certainly not women!

What filled up the space left over from primary fatigue (which is different than fibromyalgia, a made up disease that women complain about) is that some women - but not the guys on MSNBC - ran out of things to say. So we started harshing on each other. Because that’s what women do! We’re nice to your face, but we are so mean behind your back!

Some lady wrote that editorial in The Washington Post saying that women are dumb. For a week, women got upset about it, except Maureen Dowd who kept smirking because that’s been her strategy all along. The response to that story spread like…peanut butter! Oh, I really wanted to think of something funnier than peanut butter, but I’m a woman so that’s pretty hard for me.

It’s hard to remember (especially when you’re a woman, because we’re so forgetful!) that whenever there’s a lull in the conversation, some paper or magazine or site publishes an incendiary, self-hating essay just to stir up sales. A woman will write that other women should just stay home and raise kids like she did. Or a Jewish person will say that the Holocaust was a lie. A black person may write about the upside of slavery. A Hispanic person will editorialize, “We must be more strict about immigration policy in this country!” I think you catch my drift, but I can’t be sure, because I’m a woman and women talk in circles! The author or editor always defends herself by saying that the piece was just a way to get people talking. Personally, I’ve never needed to be bullied into having an intelligent discussion, but then again, I’m a woman.

There was a drama like this last year when a male essayist wrote a piece in Vanity Fair stating that women aren’t funny. Then women got upset about it and said, “Excuse me, but we are so funny!”

I’ve made a list of stuff that proves women are not dumb and women are funny. IWho's the funny one?: (hint: it's not the guy) want to make sure right from the start that you understand this list is ongue-in-cheek. My hope is that anyone reading it would infer its tongue-in-cheekiness, but because women are dumb and not funny, it’s possible that you would get confused.

I’m writing it like that guy who does the “You might be a redneck if…” jokes. I was gonna do it “Yo mama’s so fat…” style, but then I thought, What if your mama is so fat? Most women are sensitive about body image issues. So I didn’t want to offend anyone. Also, just by using the colloquial “yo” rather than “you,” I might sound racist. In this election cycle, yo never can be too safe!

Okay, you might be a woman if…
You’re dumb!

You might be a woman if…
You’re not funny!

You might be a woman if…
You complain a lot!

You might be a woman if…
You’re voting for Obama!

You might be a woman if…
You’re a really bad driver!

You might be a woman if…
You complain about your period!

You might be a woman if…
You’re a mediocre public speaker!

You might be a woman if…
You drive your husband crazy!

You might be woman if…
You need a makeover!

You might be a woman if…
You never get to the point!

You might be a woman if…
You deserved it!

If I missed anything, please post a comment here, because really, isn’t that what the Internet is all about?

We did need a break from the rhetoric. The carnage of the past weeks was a much-needed reality check, reminding us that whoever ends up in the Oval Office will have bigger responsibilities than health care and mortgage rescues. Our next president must initiate and support a global shift away from terrorism and violence and towards peace. It’s been said that men are violent and women are peacemakers, but I hate to resort to stereotypes.

So this marks the end of our Jewcy experiment, with three feminists and three different points of view deconstructing the election so far. I’m not sure if our experiment was successful. In the larger media world, we still seem to be confused that women can be all different kinds of things, with multiple viewpoints, some internally conflicted, all worthy of respect. But you know how we women are…

From: Tedra Osell

To: Courtney E. Martin; Wendy Shanker

I love Wendy's imaginary “bitch” speech for Clinton. (Of course, I would.) And like Courtney, I was appalled—no, make that, seriously pissed off—at Charlotte Allen's simpering blow job to the patriarchy.

Speaking of simpering, Chris Matthews continues to smirk and leer about Clinton at every opportunity. Hirshman, who I too like, tries to talk about the class issues in this primary, but concludes with a cutesy swipe at “the fickleness of the female voter.” Allen's and Hirshman's editor tries to defend his decision to publish blatant misogyny by playing the humorless feminist card.

So yes, I too am getting really, really tired of these primaries. Up until recently, I've enjoyed this political season and been excited about the possibility of a brokered convention. But the unremitting media sexism is really wearing me down, and now racism's starting to show up, too, with the increasing claims that Obama is somehow “unqualified.” You know, the same way that black applicants to competitive colleges and professional programs are “unqualified” to take the places that ought to be somehow guaranteed to white students.

Sadly, the Clinton campaign has helped push this message. First with the “plagiarism” charges, and now with the (incredible) statement that McCain “will bring a lifetime of experience to the White House”--unlike Obama. Then there's Bill's statements in South Carolina, and Clinton's own insistence that Obama “denounce and reject” Farrakhan during the Ohio debate.

Part of me wants to point out that this is politics as usual, and that expecting ClintonCan we just give the dog whistles a rest? to be “above” infighting or negative campaigning is just a version of the canard that women have to be twice as good as men to be considered equal. After all, what male politician in recent memory has refrained from negative ads? Even Obama's had a couple of sexist moments—his saying that “the claws come out” when Clinton was behind pretty bad, and though I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on the “periodically, when she's feeling down” remarks, some feminists aren't. Am I the only one who hears a tone of sexist disdain in arguments that Clinton, the woman candidate, should be more virtuous than that?

Still, part of what's attractive about Obama, obviously, is that he has (mostly) been more virtuous than we're used to. “The claws come out” is mild compared to implicitly endorsing McCain over Obama, or holding Obama responsible for Farrakhan despite not having responded to Andrew Cuomo's “shuck and jive” comments. I'm still hoping that if Obama wins the nomination, his change message and inspirational qualities will help Democrats appeal to America's better nature—and though I'm less sanguine about Clinton's ability to do this, I certainly hope that if she's nominated, she'll do the same.

But in the meantime, all these dog whistles are giving me a headache.

From: Courtney E. Martin

To: Tedra Osell; Wendy Shanker

The smoke has cleared on Junior Super Tuesday (sounds like some kind of Happy Meal combo) and Hillary is standing proud and tall in her bright red suit, while Obama seems to be turning in McCain’s direction, steeling himself for the fight ahead (despite the fact that Hillary really is still in it to win it).

I have mixed emotions. On the one hand, I feel genuinely happy for Hill. It made me sad to think that such an accomplished, powerful woman would get bulldozed out of the race; twelve primary losses in a row had to sting. On the other hand, I’m getting pretty irritated by these primaries and impatient to put our eyes on the prize and make sure McCain and his eerily empty-eyed wife don’t move into the White House next.

Part of my irritation is fueled by the op-ed pages of most major newspapers, where right wing self-hating nuts like Charlotte Allen are manipulating this opportunity to write anti-woman missives. Allen’s piece isn’t even worth disputing, so I’ll just leave it up to the poor reader to check out how surprising it is that Allen apparently hasn’t taken note of any of women’s accomplishments since, well, ever. Interestingly, the Independent Women’s Forum, her buddies, haven’t said a word.

In those same pages was Linda Hirshman’s piece on how women are losing this opportunity to gather together as a voting bloc and swing the election. I like Linda, but I find the idea that all women would somehow cohere in values, opinions, and interests a little second wave essentialism. Linda’s worried that losing this election, and all the fall out among women who have come down on different sides of the primary, will be a fatal blow to feminism. I personally think that feminism is supposed to be about acknowledging the complexity and differences among women, and inspiring them to act on their convictions. Ever notice how no one is asking men why their vote is split among Obama and Clinton?

Like Wendy, I’m fascinated with the intersection of pop culture and politics. TheFeminism will survive if Hillary loses other night NBC’s primary coverage included a long analysis of the influence of Saturday Night Live on Clinton’s successes in Ohio and Texas. I’m glad she took some opportunities—SNL and The Daily Show—to show her playful side. And I think it probably helped her tremendously—far more than another run in with ol’ Tim Russert would have. No doubt part of what has kept some people from voting for Hillary has something to do with that super annoying perception that women aren’t playful or funny (these people just need to meet Wendy Shanker). Using pop culture platforms to change this perception is a strategic move on the part of the otherwise fairly daft Clinton campaign.

And the race and dialogue continues….

From: Wendy Shanker

To: Courtney E. Martin; Tedra Osell

I’m fascinated by Courtney and Tedra’s POVs. How delightful it is to debate and think and posit without being right or wrong! For months now we’ve been watching these presidential debates and just tagging them as win/lose, or playing a highlight reel as if it was a football game. “And a Hail Mary from Obama!” Guess Obama is a Giant in more ways than one right now.

A few Saturday nights ago, I stumbled in from a party. I didn’t stumble because I was inebriated, but because I wore high heels that were killing me all night. (That’s another issue for another day: “The pain we are somehow willing to undertake to fluff up our image of femininity…”)

Okay, so I stumble in, I plant myself on the couch, and turn on the TiVo, which has recorded “Saturday Night Live.” Oh, right! I’d watched it on February 23rd, when it somehow managed to stir up a discussion about how Hillary had been mistreated by the media. Then Huckabee showed up to make some gags, Tina Fey was hilarious as usual, and the show went on. While I was watching, I thought: “Why is HUCKABEE on this show? Shouldn’t it be Hillary making the cameo? This is the perfect opportunity to be funny…” Yet again, a disappointing disconnect.

Cut to the show that aired the following Saturday, with Ellen Page hosting (a totalTina got it right: Time to put a bitch in charge kibosh, but whatever). The show starts with another debate, and the joke again is that the press loves Obama and hates Hillary. The sketch so long and boring that I think it was more fun to wear those high heels. Then a shock – Hillary on screen, looking absolutely radiant, I might add. Whatever her survival secret is, bottle it up and send it my way, because I wore nice shoes for three hours and wanted to give in.

Hillary proceeds to do a long jokeless monologue, and then has an awkward conversation with Amy Poehler who plays her on the show. Giuliani showed up to be self-deprecating, which made the opening sketch seem Pulitzer-worthy. Obama did his due diligence on the show last November. Hillary worked Letterman and she’s parried with Jon Stewart (“You’re right, Jon, this is pathetic.”). This is what politicians do, now. Sketches. Boy, Bill Clinton blows a saxophone on “Arsenio” and the whole campaign system goes nuts.

But there’s Hill on “SNL,” not being funny, and not even making fun of the fact that she’s not funny. That would be funny! And of course, “Saturday Night Live” is so old and dusty that John McCain probably watched it as a kid. Hardly where you go for cutting-edge comedy, but then again, there are very few public venues.

Maybe it was just the endorphins talking, but as I watched the show tick by, I imagined what Hillary might say:

“Hi, everyone, I’m Hillary Clinton. It’s been established that I have no sense of humor, so if you’re looking for laughs you better change the channel.

“I’m not funny. I’m not fresh. I’m not going down in history as a brilliant public speaker. But I will make as history as the first female president of this nation.

“As the great citizen Shania Twain once said, ‘I’m a bitch. I’m a lover, I’m a child, I’m a mother. I’m a sinner, I’m a saint. I do not feel ashamed.’ What I am – and what Obama could never be – is a major, full-time, badass bitch. Congratulations. You’ve found me out. I’ve lost it. Screw all my expensive advisers; we’re officially in Howard Dean territory.

“It is essential to have a bitch in office in 2008. When we’re negotiating with the Iraqis, who do you want in that room: a good guy or an unrelenting, insistent bitch? When the Senate is debating a bill, who do you want signing it – a dreamer or a doer? You may not like me, but you can bet your ass that I’m going to get the job done, even if I have to harangue a mufti to do it.

“I’m not the only one. Condi’s a bitch. Nancy Pelosi? Super bitch. Michelle Obama certainly belongs to the club. Ruth Bader Ginsburg may come off like a lovely lady, but let me tell you, there’s no way a woman can look Clarence Thomas in the eye every day without turning into a hard-core, mega bee-yatch.

“I’m sure that some of you don’t like that word. It’s rude, it’s inappropriate, and its connotations are generally negative. I really don’t give a damn. Because I have nothing left to lose but this election, and frankly, that’s not going to happen.”

As a bitch myself, I endorse that message fully.

The question that people keep asking me is: “If Obama is here, offering hope and idealism, how can you afford to turn it down?” Hillary keeps crushing idealism. She can’t stop. So I understand why Courtney and other peers can’t understand why Obama’s message isn’t motivating to me.

I think he’s offering us a wonderful fantasy. But we’ve been living in a fantasy for the past eight years, about patriotism and the economy and the heckuva-job-Brownie safety for our citizens. I know Obama’s dream is different. But I’m over the fantasy, hope and dreams. What I want in office right now is a realist, and that’s why I still want our First Lady to be our first lady.

From: Tedra Osell

To: Courtney E. Martin; Wendy Shanker

I can't get on board with getting rid of “women's issues.” I know what the problem with that term is—much like “women's studies” or “minority studies” in academia, it effectively ghettoizes the subject matter—but if we get rid of it, then we're back to “universal” issues that exclude us altogether. It's like the argument that “feminism” is a divisive term, and we should all just be humanists. This is why I continue to think that Steinem's remark about “escaping the gender caste system” was so apropos: given that sexism still exists, there's no way for us to escape it, bracket it, transcend it, or put it aside.

That said. I just finished reading a really fascinating book: Erika Falk's Women for President: Media Bias in Eight Campaigns. Briefly, Falk's argument is that since 1872, every time a woman has run for office, the discussion of her candidacy—discussion like we're having here—has focused on her exceptionalism, her femininity, her appeal to women voters, etc. But. Studies show that when women run for office, they raise as much money as men do; they do as well or better than equally qualified men; and they win as often as men do relative to how often they run. According to Falk, the problem isn't the voters. The problem is us, the media—and women themselves, who do not enter races nearly as often as men do. Falk hypothesizes that this may be because media coverage of women is so gendered, and so biased, that it discourages women from running.

This is one reason why, in my initial comments, I tried to focus on Clinton's record. I'm excited that we're about to nominate either the first major-party black candidate or the first major-party woman, but I'm also increasingly frustrated by the way that discussion of the race has focused so heavily on symbolism, style, and rhetoric rather than on concrete differences between the candidates themselves.

Even when the candidates themselves have been given a chance to emphasize actualWomen in Politics: Doing just fine, thanks. policy differences, as in the Texas debate, they seem to have generalized rather than been specific. Since reading Falk's book, I've especially noticed the way the Clinton campaign has itself been emphasizing gender. It seems to me that they've been doing more of this since Obama gained the lead (or maybe I've just become more aware of it); even the recent “red phone” ad, which overtly emphasizes Clinton's experience, covertly emphasizes her femininity by employing the “security mom” meme, focusing on putting the kids to bed and wanting to know that the world is safe while they sleep. Then there was her explicit invocation of Ann Richards, both in an ad and in the Texas debate, when she also mentioned that it was Barbara Jordan's birthday.

Obviously part of this is an attempt to rally what seems to have become Clinton's “base”: older, second-wave generation feminists. I think her emphasis on Obama's purported inexperience is part of this as well. Without the gender emphasis, it would be a pretty conventional “experience” vs. “inexperience” campaign. But with the gender emphasis, it's hard not to perceive it, at least in part, as an older woman correcting the younger generation—which is a major part of both the rhetoric and resentment of the “feminists ought to support Clinton” arguments. And whether because we tend to resent mothers, because America is a youth culture, or because it feeds directly into the Obama “change” message, it definitely seems to be a losing strategy.

But the change message itself isn't unproblematic. Clinton's attempts to spin “change” as mere “speechmaking” didn't seem successful. Still, I do think that underlying the “inexperience” argument—which I think we'll see more of if Obama runs against McCain in the general election—is the implication that “change” is unspecific and vague, more rhetoric than substance. Of course, all presidential elections rely heavily on rhetoric, and McCain's reputation also relies on a certain popular vagueness about his being a “maverick.” (For example, there's a popular perception that he's not an anti-abortion extremist, despite his clear and appalling record on reproductive rights issues.)

Most voters don't dig deep into specific policy platforms, but the implication that Obama's a lightweight may have legs. Certainly Obama's been making a point in recent speeches to mention specific policy goals, which I interpret as a conscious attempt to demonstrate that he's inspirational and solid on the issues. I think, though, that the contention that voting for him because he's inspirational—or voting for Clinton because she is—is somehow different than voting on the “issues” is mistaken. Inspiring young people to active political participation is an issue. Representing an end to the old boy's club (whether as a woman or as a young black man) is an issue.

And after eight years of the Bush Administration, I think giving the people the sense that government is and should be responsive to their concerns is a vital issue. That, I think, is why the “change” message is so inspiring. It's not just “I'll change what Bush is doing” (which Clinton, too, is saying); it's “I'll change the appropriation of executive power, of presidential unaccountability, of crumbling civil liberties.” Clinton's “experience” argument relies in part on a claim of authority, and I think that voters are very nervous about that kind of presidential claim right now.

From: Tedra Osell

To: Courtney E. Martin; Wendy Shanker

Do women have any special obligation to support Clinton's candidacy? The obvious answer is no --- only the most reactionary kind of identity politics would assert that women must support women, men must support men, etc. (And what are black women to do? Vote twice?)

It isn't that simple though. Clinton does have a shot at breaking the glass ceiling of the American presidency, and I for one think that if she wins it will be not only a symbolic victory --- and symbols are important, mind you --- but also a material one for American women.

Clinton really has made an explicit point of putting women's issues front and center in her political career. She spent the early years of her career working for the Children's Defense Fund. She started a parent education program in Arkansas. There's a page on her Senate website devoted to women's issues (no corresponding page on Obama's). She made a point, as first lady, of going to Beijing to speak at the UN's Fourth World Conference on Women, where she emphasized that "women's rights are human rights" --- a fact that gets too little attention from the executive office of the so-called last remaining superpower.

She was the first person in national public life to try to achieve universal health care,*Hillary Clinton: universal health care pioneer one of the things that would make the greatest difference in the lives of poor mothers; now that issue is at the center of the Democratic Party's agenda. When she failed, she pushed for the State Children's Health Insurance Program. In the Senate, she worked with Harry Reid (who is anti-abortion) to introduce the Prevention First Act in Congress. She and Patty Murray held the nomination of a new FDA chair hostage until Congress voted to make Plan B available over the counter. There's also the fact that according to the Huffington Post's research, Clinton's campaign staff is "balanced, but favors women," while Obama's campaign has "few women at the top." If you are a feminist who thinks that having more women in powerful positions is good for women's rights, then you do, in fact, have something of an obligation to support Clinton's candidacy.

Inasmuch as feminists like Robin Morgan, Gloria Steinem, and Erica Jong have endorsed Clinton as feminists, they are right to do so. Steinem is right, too, when she says that "some women, perhaps especially younger ones, hope to deny or escape the sexual caste system" --- when young feminists argue that it's sexist to expect them to support Clinton "just" because she's a woman, or that feminism is "all about choices" (as if all choices were equally valid), they are, in fact, denying the fact of the sexual caste system. She's also right that "women...[grow] more radical with age," precisely because, the older one gets, the more experience one has with the fact of the sexual caste system, and the harder it becomes to ignore it.

As feminists, we should support Clinton. Not "just" because she's a woman; because she is a woman who, as a woman, has spent her life and career working for women's interests. Because we recognize that although not all women are good on women's issues, the more women there are in power, the more likely it is that everyone, men and women, will see women's rights as human rights.

That said, this feminist voted for Obama. Even though I felt bad about doing it. I made my choice primarily in response to another feminist's pro-Obama arguments: As Senator he introduced a nuclear non-proliferation initiative and co-sponsored a bill to secure conventional weapon stockpiles; he was central in new Congressional ethics legislation and open government initiatives; in Illinois, he spearheaded a bill requiring all police interrogations to be videotaped --- and he got it passed, unanimously.

Those issues matter to me too, and given the current state of U.S. war policy and civil liberties, I found them decisive. But they're not feminist issues, and my decision wasn't, in the end, a feminist decision. Not because civil liberties and anti-weapons proliferation are incompatible with feminism (they aren't) but because in this election the candidate who's best on civil liberties is a man.

Feminists who support Obama aren't doing so because he's the best feminist candidateBarack Obama: true civil libertarian (he isn't). They're supporting him because they like his position on the war or on civil liberties, or because they're more impressed with his political style or youth appeal than they are with Clinton's. These are completely valid and good reasons to vote for him, and there's nothing wrong with doing so --- unless you insist that your feminist sisters are somehow oppressing you by pointing out that Clinton is the feminist choice. They're not. They're pointing out that Clinton is the feminist choice and asking you to vote accordingly.

As a feminist who voted for Obama, I'm pointing out that those like me can at least be honest about it. We all have multifaceted political and social identities. I'm a feminist, and I'm a mother, a Catholic, an American, a wife. Sometimes these various identities conflict: Heterosexual marriage, for example, is not a feminist institution. As a straight married woman, I'm making a compromise between my feminist beliefs and the world in which I actually live. As a no-bullshit feminist, I'm woman enough to admit it. As a voter, I faced a choice.

One candidate (possibly because he is black, possibly because he has lived abroad, possibly because his father is Kenyan) seems better on international issues. The other (partly because she is a woman, possibly because she has herself made compromises between her feminism and her other goals, possibly because she is in her sixties) is more experienced and a better feminist. I chose the first. It wasn't a feminist decision. I'm woman enough to admit that, too.

*Correction: the first high profile effort at achieving universal health care was during deliberations on the Social Security Act in 1935--ed.

Now that the Democratic party's nominating contest has narrowed to a choice between demographic firsts, issues of gender and racial tension, perhaps unsurprisingly, are increasingly dominating both the dynamics and public perception of the campaign. In just the past week, Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman ever on a national ticket, was forced to exit the Clinton campaign in ignominy after suggesting that Barack Obama's blackness is what makes him a contender for the presidency. By the week's end, video of Obama's preacher's unsettling demagogy had set off a media firestorm.

We asked three very smart feminist writers --- Courtney E. Martin, Tedra Osell, and Wendy Shanker --- to discuss the increasingly acrimonious gender-, ethnicity-, and generation-driven divisions among American women that this election has exacerbated.

[Most of the dialogue took place before the Texas and Ohio primaries--ed.]

From: Courtney E. Martin

To: Tedra Osell; Wendy Shanker

What is my obligation, as a feminist, in this incredibly thrilling political moment?

It’s a question that has alternately excited and plagued me for over a year now. Back in February of 2007, I wrote an essay exploring my own struggle over whom to support—Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton—in the upcoming primary season. Was I my mother’s daughter when I walked into that voting booth—knowing I was helping unravel the knot of power and masculinity by casting a vote for Hillary? Or did I pull the lever for the candidate who made me feel the most young and alive, the most renewed in my early idealism about this country and the meaning of participatory democracy?

And now, an entire year later, I still feel like I’m wading through a muddy pond. I’m dirty and happy and still not convinced that there is a right answer.

Which is why it has been so disheartening to see the intergenerational hubbub that¡Feminismo es Libertad! has ensued over whether women—youngin’s like myself, in particular—are “bad feminists” if we don’t automatically support Hillary Clinton. Feminist sheroes like Robin Morgan, Gloria Steinem, and others have—I imagine unintentionally—pitted gender against race in recent op-eds, claiming that women who don’t vote for Hillary are like fish who don’t see the water they swim in. Morgan, in particular, painted an absolute caricature of young women: “Goodbye to some young women eager to win male approval by showing they’re not feminists (at least not the kind who actually threaten the status quo), who can’t identify with a woman candidate because she is unafraid of eeueweeeu yucky power, who fear their boyfriends might look at them funny if they say something good about her.”

Setting aside how patronizing Morgan’s tone is for a moment, I’d like to address the idea that feminism is one monolithic movement. These op-eds, and others like them, have essentially advocated a litmus test for feminism—vote for Hillary, or we’re kicking you out of the club.

I’m sorry, but this is not the feminism that I inherited, nor is it the one I am enacting every day—proudly, by the way, Ms. Morgan—of my life. I am a truth pursued feminist, not a truth possessed feminist. I believe in starting with questions, not answers, with exploring the intersections of race, class, gender, not picking one street and stubbornly sticking to it. I believe that progress is a messy, complex undertaking—not a march forward in a straight line. I believe in endearing young women to my movement through joy, analysis, connection, not making them feel ridiculed for not already being a part of it. I believe in giving women the freedom to lead with all of their 10,000 different identities. I believe in making space for women’s blackness and their Christianity and their bisexuality and their poverty and their....

I voted for Barack Obama in the primary. It wasn’t an easy choice, but it was an inspired and honest one; I am inspired by his vision of democracy—one in which all of us are responsible for creating change. I think his charisma could serve us incredibly well on the global stage at this dangerous moment, and I like that he’s so committed to diplomacy. I also think that his face is the face of a new America—his biography reminds me of everything I love about this place.

At the same time, I will be overjoyed if Hillary Clinton is elected. And if and until that time, I will do everything in my power to call out the sexist media that has often resorted to gender stereotypes when covering her campaign. I will encourage people to vote for the candidate they think would serve the country with the most honesty and vision. And if they pull the lever for Clinton, I will embrace them with open arms, toast to our embarrassment of riches, and watch the movement grow and grow.

Feministing points to rumors that male Democrats are split between voting for Obama and McCain. Given the way The Washington Post has handled comparable news about female Democrats and the Obama/Clinton split, they came up with this totally hilarious mock-up for next week's Post:

Everyone loves JDating: But not everyone finds love there Is JDate a feminist issue? The Jewish quarterly journal Lilith certainly thinks so -- their winter issue devotes over eight pages to a package looking at the negative effects of Internet dating on Jewish women.

Trying and failing to find love online, writes Susan Shnur, makes women (especially those in their thirties and older) “feel isolated and at fault.” Male-female ratios are roughly equal on dating sites, but women don’t get nearly as many responses as men. When they do find likely candidates, those guys often turn out to be self-centered, married, or both. And online dating promotes a shopping mentality, wherein it’s easy to click past the pretty-good profiles in search of more perfect acquisitions.

I buy all of these facts, but I’m not sure it helps to blame JDate for the unhappiness of unmarried Jewish women. Love was unfair long before the rise of Internet dating, and while sites like JDate definitely encourage non-empathetic behavior, I don’t believe that breaks down by gender. (Shnur inadvertently backs me up on this -- all of her quotes about dating-as-shopping come from women.)

To me, it seems like that sense of isolation and personal failure felt by older single Jewish women might be less about the beastliness of the Internet and more about our culture’s unhealthy emphasis on making babies. Mainstream American culture is baby-crazy to begin with, but the amount of pressure on Jewish women is drastically increased because we’re not just supposed to be fulfilling our womanly destinies – we’re supposed to be ensuring the survival of our race.

No one ever says it outright, but if intermarriage is 'finishing what Hitler started' (as the trolls like to point out in our comments section) because it produces insufficiently Jewish children, then what about those Jewish women who don’t produce any children at all? Are they, like, Goebbels's little helpers? And isn't that adding insult to injury -- taking women who already feel rejected due to their unsuccessful JDate profiles, and then telling them nothing they accomplish in life matters if they don't have kids? If that's the case, maybe we Jewish feminists should be less worried about the fact that online dating is an impersonal experience, and more worried about how even in this enlightened age -- a time when egalitarianism is utterly the norm in some strains of Judaism, e.g. the female-rabbi–dominated Reform movement -- we’re still haranguing women to work those wombs.

No time to read The New Yorker, The Atlantic Monthly, the Sunday New York Times, Harpers, The Nation, The New Republic, and New York Magazine during your morning commute? Don’t worry – "How To Sound Smart This Week" will provide the Cliff's Notes.

Pre-bris, he was a baby Schwarzenegger: Everyone's favorite wimpDoes counting superdelegates put you to sleep? This week, the big-idea magazines are all obsessing over the presidential campaign, but it won’t be that hard to change the subject while still sounding respectably erudite. Just bring up one of the following eye-opening essays.

In The New York Times Magazine, Annie Murphy Paul looks at the distinct possibility that fetuses can feel pain. This has major implications for the abortion debate, so you shouldn’t be at a loss for discussion questions, but there’s also a Jewish angle. Scientists think that people who are exposed to pain as babies might grow up to be more pain-sensitive:

Anna Taddio, a pain specialist at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, noticed more than a decade ago that the male infants she treated seemed more sensitive to pain than their female counterparts. This discrepancy, she reasoned, could be due to sex hormones, to anatomical differences — or to a painful event experienced by many boys: circumcision. In a study of 87 baby boys, Taddio found that those who had been circumcised soon after birth reacted more strongly and cried for longer than uncircumcised boys when they received a vaccination shot four to six months later.

Is it possible that one of the central tenets of Judaism causes male wimpiness? Does that explain, like, all of American Jewish pop culture? Dazzle your audience with this possibility, and they’ll forget about Obama’s performance in Maine instantly.

Meanwhile, in The Atlantic, Lori Gottleib takes advantage of the Valentine’s Day season to propose a deeply romantic idea: If you’re a woman over the age of 35 and you’re still single, maybe you should lower your standards. “Overlook his halitosis or abysmal sense of aesthetics,” Gottleib advises – otherwise, you’ll never be able to organize a stable family life.

Mention this article in the vicinity of anyone male or female, married or single, and you're bound to provoke a strong reaction. It makes everyone involved look terrible: women are either demanding, men either shallow or, if it’s possible that their wives married them out of desperation, pitiable. Also, halitosis is so much worse than bad taste – isn’t it? Actually, that’s another direction you can take the conversation: Would you rather marry someone with perpetual coffee breath, or a collection of Cosby sweaters?

Last week: Super Tuesday

The Southern WallIn Europe you see 500 year-old shit. In Israel you see 2,000 year-old shit. Today we’re at such a spot: The Western Wall in Jerusalem. Our tour guide Offer calls it the place “closest to God on Earth” and “the holy of holies.” We visit the Southern Wall first, probably because it’s less crowded and allows us to have time to hold hands and sing, which Offer has us do while ascending the steps to the Southern Wall. I don’t sing because I don’t know these prayers, melodies, or any Hebrew. And I don’t even pretend or try to participate because I don’t see the point. So when prayers and singing happen, which are all in Hebrew, I zone out.

After we touch the Southern Wall, we write notes to put in the Western Wall. Offer tells us it should be our greatest wish in life. Now I don’t believe this is going to affect my life but I figure it can’t hurt so I jot something down. It goes something like:

Dear Wall:
My greatest wish is to be as happy as possible. I hope you’re feeling well with all these people feeling you up all day.
Best,
Amy

Yes, it’s business-like, but that’s what comes out without me thinking about it. I don’t believe in God and don’t know the wall personally so a colon seems most appropriate.

I do, finally, have one surreal moment standing at the Southern Wall. (The way people talk about Israel you expect to have surreal moments all day long, but this hasn’t been the case for me.) My surreal moment occurs while hearing the Muslim prayer call, which originates from somewhere right above our heads and echoes over the whole city. I’ve never heard anything like it, and it seems so mystically appropriate to my surroundings. Finally I feel like I’m in a very foreign land, standing on a 2,000 year old fortress (or at least, the reconstructed version of it).

The Western Wall: men on the left, women on the rightOffer explains the story behind the wall so nicely that I don’t even mind that I have to listen to it while standing in the rain all day. I hardly even mind that it’s biblical rather than historical, and am even thinking the pointless exercise of sticking my stupid note in the wall will be kind of fun.

My note is neatly folded in my hand as I approach the Holy of Holies, and suddenly I realize I’m up against a partition. Men are on the other side. Division of the sexes always pisses me off, but noticing how much larger the men’s side is infuriates me. I immediately exit to get a better view of this appalling relic of sexism. With my view of both sides, I easily see that the men enjoy about four times as much wall as the women. They can spread out comfortably. Little boys chase pigeons in big circles and kick shit around on the ground. Meanwhile, the women huddle seven deep against their wall section. They have no room to run. No gleeful children are visible.

All the other women in my group are fine with this. “That’s how it is,” they all agree. Right, that’s how it is. But it’s like that because y’all don’t give a shit, which is really sad and you should feel sorry for yourselves, I think. Religion is no excuse for sexism. This is 2008. Get with it.

When everyone finishes praying, or whatever it is you do at the wall, I ask Offer about the partition. He explains that men have more space because they daven three times a week—way more than women. I ask why. He says that women are supposed to be home doing other things. They don’t need to daven because they are considered to be innately pure. Men need to make themselves pure, so they need to pray more. OK. But why shouldn’t there be equal space? Aren’t most visitors to the wall tourists, anyway? If the men really needed the extra space, wouldn’t the women’s side be comparable in crowdedness rather than looking like a refugee camp?

No, these answers are not satisfying. They are bullshit.

I am more of a feminist than a Jew and refuse to approach the wall.

Previously: Day 2, or Is This Really My Homeland?

Next up: Day 4, Falling in Love with Israel at Masada

There was a time when a Fat Old Jew (FOJ) like Harvey Weinstein marrying a Skinny Young Gentile (SYG) like Georgina Chapman would have caused a perfect storm of cultural anxieties around sex, power, and religion. Today, it's just another small gossip item.

The nuptials of the conniving, overeating, materialistic Hollywood mogul – the flesh-and-blood quintessence of the kind of crudely drawn stereotypical Jewish male who equates acceptance into the broader American culture with the acquisition of a hot shiksa – passed without so much of a media peep. More interestingly, the Jewish chattering class (a wild generalization referring to my friends) barely found it worthy of cocktail prattle.

Beatles Wrong: Money Buys Love: Beauty and the beast Such a high-profile FOJ triumph would once have tweaked all sorts of anxieties. Some Jews would have worried what it meant for the future of the people; others would have been scared at what gentiles thought about it. Jewish and non-Jewish feminists alike would have been horrified at the way a prominent man was so shamelessly using power and wealth to win such a “yummy mummy,” to use a phrase wielded by Maureen Dowd.

Chattering away about this curiosity with my friends, editors at Jewcy, and others, I realized that none of them interpreted the union as a suppressed lust for inclusion, but instead that less psycho-dramatic, nonsectarian lust…for a hot piece of ass.

What’s interesting is how that particular lust is no longer the sole province of the male beast. The enfranchisement of males at the expense of females (particularly Jewish males and Jewish females) is coming to an end. Firmly ensconced in the middle and upper classes, our generation of Jewish women find power, and its application (sexual, or otherwise), far less problematic than their predecessors.

Hot Piece of Ass: She loves this gentleman for his mind

Unlike the New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd -- who came of age in the late 1960s in male-dominated universities and workplaces, and has become known for bemoaning a perceived return to 1950s courtship rituals -- our generation of women are achieving unlike any other. They’re used to female-dominated universities, and, soon, workplaces too. And with that equality, they’re becoming a bit beastly themselves.

Edith Wharton's single woman's ambivalence toward marriage has given way to fearless casual sex (with only a smidgen of ambivalence about getting herpes). Women are marrying later. They’re marrying twice, sometimes three times. And like Harvey, their second and third marriages are occurring from a place of greater social stability and financial prosperity.

That particular place – successful women of an advanced age reveling in their single-dom – has been fertile fodder for pop culture, with TV and film glorifying its wonderful lusty freedoms. There’s Sex and the City, The L Word, Cashmere Mafia, The Real Housewives of Orange Country, and on and on.

Get the Get: If at first you don't succeed... Being a “pig” no longer has a gender, or for that matter an age. It’s hard to condemn Weinstein for being shallow after watching A Shot of Love with Tila Tequila, in which 16 men and 16 women competing for the right to “love” Tequila, who is known mainly for having 2 million “friends” listed on MySpace.

Tila first entertains the men, interviewing some of them and making out with others. Then she does the same with the women. That’s the show. It might not have the novelistic complexity of The Wire, but it does prove you can be young, female, and utterly unaccomplished and still get a place at the trough.

Maybe I’m just a cynic. Maybe Harvey swoons over the way Georgina thinks. Maybe Georgina just loves portly men with prominent noses, liberal attitudes, and discerning taste in films. Maybe it’s not “love” Tila is looking for but love. Or maybe, when it comes to relationships and sex these days -- casual, matrimonial, queer, straight, and everything in between -- we’re all allowed to be pigs.

According to an article over at the Forward, Ms Magazine has refused to run an advertisement (pictured below) that features images of Israel’s top female political leaders, and the American Jewish Congress is pissed off about this.This is Israel: And it makes Ms. Magazine uncomfortable.

The ad was submitted by the American Jewish Congress to Ms. Magazine, and spotlighted photographs of Dorit Beinisch, president of Israel’s Supreme Court; Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, and Dalia Itzik, speaker of the Knesset, over the text, “This is Israel.”

According to the AJCongress, Ms. initially approved the ad but then reversed course, saying that the ad would “set off a firestorm.”

Says AJCongress President Richard Gordon:

“Since there is nothing about the ad itself that is offensive, it is obviously the nationality of the women pictured that the management of Ms. fears their readership would find objectionable. For a publication that holds itself out to be in the forefront of the women’s movement, this is nothing short of disgusting and despicable.”

But according to Ms. Magazine’s executive editor, Kathy Spillar, it's not "the women’s nationality but their party affiliation that was the problem. Two of the featured officials, Itzik and Livni, are both members of the Kadima political party," and thus, Spillar said, "the ad would leave Ms. Magazine open to the charge of political favoritism."

The AJCongress created the ad to highlight the fact that women now occupy leading positions in Israel’s executive, legislative and political branches. In response, a Ms. representative said that “we would love to have an ad from you on women’s empowerment, or reproductive freedom, but not on this,” according to the AJCongress.

But, for me, this is the kicker:

“Not only could the ad be seen as favoring certain political parties within Israel over other parties, but also with its slogan, ‘This is Israel,’ the ad implied that women in Israel hold equal positions of power with men,” she said. “Israel, like every other country, has far to go to reach equality for women.”

Oh, no, god forbid that a feminist magazine recognize the fact that women in Israel have more opportunities than women in surrounding countries. That wouldn't be fair to Saudi Arabia.

Now, I don't think anyone is going to argue that the equality gap between men and women has completely closed in any nation. But it's hard to deny that there are some countries that have done a much better job of narrowing this gap than others. In particular, I can think of many countries in the same region as Israel (i.e., again, Saudi Arabia, where women can't even drive cars) that have done virtually nothing to rectify this situation. In my opinion, the position of women in Israel is one of the best in the world (comparatively), and the fact that women can hold positions of political influence in Israel should be celebrated by a feminist magazine, especially when considered in contrast to other countries in the Middle and Near East.

I don't know that I agree with the political ideologies of all three of these Israeli women, but I do appreciate the fact that they have been given the opportunity, as women, to hold these positions of power, and I think that is something worth celebrating (or, at least, acknowledging). But the only thing worth acknowledging here is the ease with which Ms. Magazine is able to flaunt its own political and ideological biases at the expense of their own cause.

So, I’m leaving for Limmud NY in a few short hours (yay!) and as preparation, I spent some time yesterday leafing through Tamar Ross’s Expanding the Palace of Torah which is one of the densest and most amazing books I’ve ever read. I can’t get through more than about ten pages before having to put the book down and just process for a while, but frankly, I think that’s amazing, and a great statement of endorsement.
Torah Expands: you know, because it's so hot

As far as I know, Tamar Ross won’t be at Limmud NY, but lots of other deep thinkers and strong writers will be there having discussions that will require lots of processing later on.

If you’re looking for something a little less heavy, but still Jewish and feminist and somewhat traditional in outlook, try Biblical Women Unbound by Norma Rosen. Basically, Rosen takes a look at women in the Bible and gives midrashic readings of their lives in a fiction-y kind of way. Will make you think, but feels more like listening to a good story than examining feminist history even though it’s doing that, too.


I’ll post more tonight after I’ve gone to some sessions, but if you’ll be at Limmud definitely come say hi. I’ll be the girl with the purple hair and the bottle of Jameson.

Riddle me this: What do you think would happen if the Center for American Women in Politics attempted to take out an ad in Ms. magazine featuring three female senators? Say they chose photos of Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, and Kay Bailey Hutchison, along with the text: "This is America." Do you think that the magazine's executive editor, Kathy Spillar, would reject the ad on the basis of editorial "favoritism" because two of the three women belong to the same political party? I suppose it's possible, although it is hard to imagine.

Not so hard to imagine is the parallel reality that's unfolding as I type: Ms. magazine has rejected this ad, for that stated reason:

Image from LGF. 

A while back Soccer suggested I write about the Young Israel decision to ban converts and women from being presidents of their congregations. They also prohibited any of the shuls under their umbrella from having women’s tefillah groups, or even women-only megillah readings. And they have new legislation saying that all rabbis hired for Young Israel shuls have to be approved by the National Council, which has been seen as a way to screen for rabbis ordained at Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, who are apparently not frum enough for Young Israel.
Young Israel: totally disconnected
Normally, I wouldn’t pay much attention to any of this. I don’t go to a YI shul, nor does any of their rhetoric carry much weight for me under the best of conditions, so if they want to be sexist, and elitist and frummer-than-thou that’s really none of my business.

But then I read a really great post on another blog about how the National Council of Young Israel has become obsolete and it pretty much convinced me. Here’s the post:

How bad does the National Council of Young Israel suck?

 

This month's YU magazine has a pretty damning article on the NCYI. Basically, NCYI member shuls are fed up with the NCYI for the following reasons:

• NCYI's overall move to the 'right'
• New legislation saying that NCYI must approve shul Rabbis (aimed at YCT)
• Ban against women and converts being shul presidents (repugnant says one pres)
• Ban against women's tefilah groups and even women's megilah lainings
• They offer nothing of value to their members
• They exist to expand their own power and prestige
• They 'lock in' member shuls by threatening to take hold of all their assets if they leave

I belong to a NCYI shul, and I can validate that my shul has most of the above issues with NCYI. In fact, at repeated conversations over multiple Shabbatim, everyone I spoke to agreed we should leave NCYI. Also I read the NCYI Viewpoint magazine every issue, it's always the same junk – endless pictures of Lerner or Moztofsky meetin