Feminism

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.

Speaking of zaftig: Beyonce looks good in greenAs someone whose occasional bouts of self-loathing have nothing to do with my relatively normal-shaped body, I didn’t think I’d be susceptible to the pull of the weight-loss-obsessed website Elastic Waist, but watching their video on the derivation of the word “zaftig” really did make me a little bit bulimic.

Zaftig, the host explains, is Yiddish for “juicy,” a phenomenon about which we feel profoundly ambivalent these days—just ask poor Jennifer Love Hewitt, who was roundly trashed in the tabloids this week when shocking photos revealed that her bottom half is as jiggly as her top. Helpfully, the Elastic Waist video goes on to offer a handy guide for how to react when someone calls you zaftig. Apparently it’s a “fat euphemism” (so it’s an insult) which describes the kind of body you’d see on a Greek statue (so it’s attractive); it translates roughly to “pleasantly plump” (so it’s bad) and can be used in sentences such as “Pamela Anderson is quite zaftig after being injected with all that silicone” (so it’s good, or at least it’s considered attractive enough that people pay money to emulate it and also to look at it naked in old issues of Playboy.)

All of this could, I suppose, leave a girl unsure whether she needs to go buy some Snackwells or a push-up bra—or, duh, both—but the video derails these consumer urges with a sharp right turn into total insanity. Meet Frau Zaftigheimer, “the world’s zaftig expert.” She’s a Teutonic dominatrix, she’s built like a brick house, and for her, being zaftig is “a global movement” aimed at combating “the bony-ass models, anorexic celebrities and the media.” Frau Zaftigheimer explains all this while whipping her “2 o’clock” (because fat activism alone doesn’t pay the bills). Then she turns to the camera, and, as the Wagner swells on the soundtrack, says the following: “We shall create a master race of zaftig!”

Targeted by eyepatch–wearing German dominatrixes: Keira KnightlyGot that? If, like Frau Zaftigheimer, you’re a little worried about the way the media—like, oh god I don’t know, random example here, maybe websites about weight-loss?—perpetuates unhealthy body images among women, then maybe, like Frau Zaftigheimer, you are a Nazi. It’s rare for women-aimed publications to prove out Godwin’s Law (the rule that as discussions get longer and crazier, someone will invoke Hitler) but then again, they’re only just starting to take hold on the Internet. I’m sure that as publishers figure out how to make money off of women online, we’ll get used to hearing all sorts of fashion- and body-related stances being conflated with Nazism all the time.

What makes this really mind-blowing, though, is that ostensibly the whole thing is a Hanukkah-themed video, Yiddish being the language of all those Hanukkah-celebrants who were systematically murdered by the same kind of Wagner-loving fat activists who tried to take over the world in order to rid it of Keira Knightly and her ilk. (Typing that sentence made my head throb.) Um, and a chag sameach to you too, guys!

Hey, do you enjoy having sex without having babies? If so, the Bush administration’s new head of family planning for the Department of Health has a bone to pick with you. Susan Orr, who is critical of contraception (like, all of it), was just put in charge of “$283 million in annual grants to provide low-income families and others with contraceptive services, counseling and preventive screenings.” That’s like giving that “God Hates Fags” minister $283 million to spend on Will and Grace episodes.

Bonus money quote, just in case you’re on the fence about whether to start stockpiling condoms:

In a 2001 article in The Washington Post, Orr applauded a Bush proposal to stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees to cover a broad range of birth control. "We're quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease," said Orr, then an official with the Family Research Council.

Remember my rant about a month ago about how the world needs a movement of feminist slackers?  According to the Times, several studies back me up: Women used to be happier than men, but now the numbers have flip-flopped, perhaps -- say researchers -- because women are working more and men less.

Having your steak and eating it too: Would it taste as good if you know it was bought with--gasp--ladymoney?The most heartening part of this weekend’s New York Times Style section article on women who make more money than their boyfriends and the low-earners who love them:

Michael R. Cunningham, a psychologist who teaches in the communication department at the University of Louisville, conducted a survey of college women to see if, upon graduation, they would prefer to settle down with a high school teacher who has short workdays, summers off and spare energy to help raise children, or with a surgeon who earns eight times as much but works brutal hours. Three-quarters of the women said they would choose the teacher.

The point, Professor Cunningham said, was that young professionally oriented women have no problem dating down if the man is secure, motivated in his own field and emotionally supportive.

This is good news! This is the kind of thing that should get headlines! It looks like our nation’s female college students, the ones people like Laura Sessions Stepp are always fretting over, actually have pretty decent priorities when it comes to long-term mates. They’d rather shack up with someone who likes his job and contributes to the household than a frantic, tooth-grinding success-whore. It’s almost as if the same people who want to have drunken hook-ups at the age of 19 realize that in the long run Mr. Budweiser McSixpack will not make a suitable life-partner. Almost as if an entire generation is ultimately looking for a healthy, equitable relationship with someone who likes them more than he likes his bank account.

The Times, however, saw this differently:

At least, that’s what their responses are in surveys. Talk about the subject with women a bit older — those who have been out of college long enough to be more hardened — and what you hear is ambivalence, if not downright hostility, about the income disparity.

Jade Wannell, 25, a producer at a Chicago ad agency who lives in a high-rise apartment building, started dating a 29-year-old administrator at a trucking company last year. “He was really sweet,” she said. But “he didn’t work many hours and ended up hanging out at home a lot. I was bored and didn’t feel challenged. He would finish work at 3 and want to go to the bar. The college way of life is still in them at that age. All they want to do is drink with the boys on Saturday. I was like ‘Let’s go to an art gallery’ and all he wanted to do was go to the bars.”

Nothing about these complaints necessarily indicates the level of Wannell's ex’s income. “All they want to do is drink with the boys on Saturday” certainly describes half of Wall Street, Saturday being the brief sliver of time when bankers don’t have to be at the office. What she’s saying, instead, is that she didn’t like her ex’s lack of ambition and thought he was boring. In fact, based entirely on this quote, one might assume that Wannell would be better off dating a museum assistant who worked 14 hours a day and spent his free time at openings, or (heavens) a painter who spent 14 hours a day perfecting his craft—and you know that guy wouldn’t be able to match her ad agent earnings.

It's a little scary, from my lefty Quaker standpoint, that this article completely refuses to acknowledge that there's a difference between working hard and making money, as if any guy who's passionate about what he does will surely be healthily compensated for, you know, pursuing his dreams (and thereby that any guy who's unsuitably broke is clearly a slacker who just isn't trying hard enough.) It's especially disturbing when you realize that Wannell literally told the writer: “It wasn’t the job, it was the passion.” But ultimately the forced conclusions of this kind of trend piece don’t really matter. Women’s salaries are going to continue increasing relative to men’s, and everyone is going to have to deal with it. Better to accept the horrible misfortune of making a lot of money—or having to let your woman buy you dinner—and be an early adopter as well as a rich—or well-fed—bastard.

 

Good news for Brazilians seeking a sex-change: your national health care system has you covered. The Brazilian government is, in fact, opposed, claiming that it doesn’t have enough money to pay for the operations (the Ministry of Health estimated that about 1 in 10, 000 Brazilians would sign up for the surgery, which costs about $1000 US dollars), but a court ruling is the thing, asserting that a safe (the chief judge said that the ruling would prevent transsexuals from self-mutilation in attempting to perform the surgery themselves) and publicly-subsidized surgery is a constitutional right.

Of course, in order to receive the subsidized surgery patients will have to be approved by a panel of doctors after extensive medical and physical examinations have taken place. Still, this raises all sorts of interesting questions. Is feeling like a woman trapped in a man’s body, or vice-versa, a physical condition (“I am a woman”) or a mental condition (“I feel like a woman”)? Does one type of condition take primacy over the other? Is it unfair that, as it stands in the US and elsewhere, sex-changes (like psychoanalysis) are generally a luxury? Should—can—the government protect you from yourself?

By using public health care to fund sex changes, people—patients?—would be implicitly defining their pre-operation states as an illness*, which I’m pretty sure many of them would be uncomfortable with, if only because it damns those that don’t have the operation. In less ambiguous, more insidious, matters, Brazilians have shown a purely ugly and physical approach to sexuality—trends which have indeed affected American culture. If the US ever achieves national health care, will we cover sex-changes? What about cosmetic surgery? Therapy? Who gets to decide? The experts (often influenced by factors other than their expertise) or the people-patients?

*Personally, I’m with Hamm: “We’re on Earth. There’s no cure for that.”

Ample Grace in EvidenceWe lost a great woman yesterday, Jewcers. One of the most profoundly gifted literary voices of the last century, not to mention a truly wonderful human being. Anyone who was ever in the same room with Ms. Paley can surely attest to her warmth, generosity, and enormity of spirit.

The best way to honor her memory is to read her. So read her, why dont you?