feminism

Lynda Carter on Wonder Woman
women

Wonder Woman: Superhero and Feminist Icon

In 1941, DC Comics (then known as All-American Publications) welcomed Wonder Woman to its ranks as a new female character destined to become a heroine in more ways than one.

In 1941, DC Comics (then known as All-American Publications) welcomed Wonder Woman to its ranks as a new female character destined to become a heroine in more ways than one. A new PBS documentary premiering Tuesday at 8 p.m. titled Superheroes, narrated by Sabretooth himself, Liev Schreiber, takes a look at the legacy of Wonder Woman and the many other comic-book characters who played a significant cultural and societal role throughout history.

Two clips from the film, one featuring longtime DC Comics president Jenette Kahn and the other starring Lynda Carter, star of the 1970s show Wonder Woman, discuss the superheroine and what she meant to women.

Wonder Woman, with her evil-defying bulletproof bracelets and Lasso of Truth, had a particularly strong impact on one young lady: women's right activist Gloria Steinem, who was 7 years old when the character made her first appearance.

Many years later, Gloria founded Ms. magazine, a sociopolitical periodical focusing on women's issues at the height of the feminist movement. Her choice for the publication's first feature was an easy one — "Wonder Woman for President." On Oct. 1, 2012, Ms. magazine celebrated its 40th anniversary and honored the milestone by putting Wonder Woman back on its front cover.

In this clip from Superheroes, Kahn explained why Wonder Woman was adored by so many future feminists. "She was a beautiful, compassionate woman who had tremendous strength and an ability to change the world . . . and at the same time was feminine."

Lynda Carter, who played Wonder Woman from 1975 to 1979 in the TV show of the same name, shared her thoughts on who the superheroine was. "She's a woman who will not be a victim . . . and she's a woman's woman. She's not trying to be after your guy. As a matter of fact, if your guy was making the wrong kind of eyes at her, she'd whoop 'im upside the head."

When did you first discover Wonder Woman, and how did she impact your life?

It seems like Wonder Woman is having her moment as of late. A proof-of-concept trailer for a yet-to-be-realized Wonder Woman feature film has hit the web and accumulated nearly three million views in just three days. The studio behind the high-production video is Rainfall Films, and many are applauding the actress's portrayal of strength and raw physicality, while others are criticizing the viral video's sexuality.

Watch the trailer after the break.

Women Critics of Feminism
women

Why Do Women Hate On Feminism?

Feminism is the theory of political, economic, and social equality of the sexes.
Feminism is the theory of political, economic, and social equality of the sexes. At its core, that definition should not be so controversial. But did you ever notice that feminism's biggest critics are often women? Consider just this week that half of those in the Church of England's Synod who voted against allowing women to serve as bishops were women themselves.

Yes, there are some famous women who proudly label themselves feminists, but many others often treat it like the "f-word" when interviewed by glossy magazines. In the new issue of French Vogue, former first lady Carla Bruni-Sarkozy said she had little use for feminism. She said, "There's no need to be feminist in my generation. There were already pioneers who opened doors. I am not a feminist activist. Instead, I am bourgeois." Of course, a woman is not required to make women's rights the cause of her life, but to say there are no more doors to be opened takes for granted the progress we've made and underestimates remaining inequalities. Perhaps it's easier for Carla Bruni-Sarkozy to make such assessments from France, where they don't argue over contraception coverage and abortion rights are assumed.

Speaking of the debate in the US, yesterday, 44-year-old author of The Flipside of Feminism Suzanne Venker captured the attention of the Internet when she wrote about the "war on men" on Fox News. Unlike Carla Buni-Sarkozy, who thinks feminism has done its job, Venker thinks the movement's advancements should be reversed. Venker argued feminism is to blame for perceived lack of "marriageable" men — not the disappearance of manufacturing jobs, the fact that fewer men than women attend college, or other complex economic factors. She said feminism has pissed men off, and many men don't want to get married ever because "women aren't women anymore." She wrote, "Men want to love women, not compete with them. They want to provide for and protect their families — it's in their DNA. But modern women won't let them." Venker also offers a solution for women: "All they have to do is surrender to their nature — their femininity — and let men surrender to theirs."

Venker has since said the piece was misunderstood. Venker told The Daily Beast, "I didn't mean that women can't compete with men in the workforce. I meant that men don't want to compete with their wives in marriage." Venker clarified that when a woman has more career success than her husband, rather than sharing that in the relationship, a woman should keep it separate from her husband. "Otherwise it will make your marriage more of a competition than a complementary relationship." Even Venker's more "moderate" clarification suggests that if a wife has a high-powered job, she shouldn't look to the relationship for support or positive reinforcement. Instead, Venker seems to suggest, she should live a double life, lest she threaten her partner's masculinity. Never mind the benefits feminism brings to men by providing men an equal partnership and the chance to be free from restricting gender roles themselves.

Feminism's image problem isn't new and doesn't seem to be going away. But there's a bright side: even if they don't all label themselves "feminists," many women are supporting feminist issues, like the right to choose, access to contraception, and equal pay. In this year's presidential election, women's rights swayed voters to President Obama, and since unmarried women are a growing and key voting demographic, politicians must pay attention.

Why Feminism Is Good For Men
women

Five Ways Feminism Helps Men

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project.

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project. Today, Justin Cascio names five ways feminism helps men.

Can’t think of a single reason why men should support feminism? Here are five.

  1. Gives us equal partners. For men who have women in their lives as co-parents, lovers, wives, partners, clients, and associates, it means that our partners in these relationships have equal power.

    2. Why Don’t Women Like Nice Guys?

  2. Provides a model for consciously changing gender roles. Women have changed what it means to be a woman. Even women who don’t call themselves feminists have had their ideas of themselves shaped by feminism. Women who imagine themselves pursuing a career, or even imagine themselves having choices of whether and when to become a wife or a mother, owe their freedom to choose to feminist thought. As men, we have had our lives changed just as helplessly as the women have. We have the same power, as men, to consciously shape what we think a man should be, and how to live up to the standards we create. Feminism taught us it can happen.
  3. Provokes us to consider the many identities that yoke us, sometimes in competing directions. Through feminist dialogue and consciousness raising, women began to realize that their identities as wives, mothers, daughters, and sisters were colored by their other identities: as human beings, citizens, workers, artisans, people of color, people with disabilities, queer people . . . the list of identities goes on, and the ways they overlap filter our experiences and to some degree determine who we are. Men are as subject to these double and triple yokes that tell us what we should be doing or caring about.
  4. Encourages us to speak in our own voices. Betty Friedan identified a problem without a name, and began a conversation that hasn’t stopped. There are problems that men have that don’t have names, because we are not encouraged to talk with one another about our lives in the same ways, and because we want our stories to fit into the patterns that already exist: to make sense of them. By having the courage to talk about our experience, even when it doesn’t match our ideas of what a man does or feels, we can begin to learn what our common experiences are, and to name them.
  5. Makes us all more free. Unless all of us are free, none of us are free. As long as women still feel the pulls of gender roles, men are forced by the laws of physics into an equal and opposing position. And as long as anyone in our world is subject to limitations because of an identity like those we construct around sex and gender, race and ethnicity, and our deeply held beliefs and loyalties, then any of us is subject to being limited for who and what we are, or for what we believe in.
Modern Feminism
community

What We Need to Talk About When We Talk About Sex and Feminism

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project.

We're happy to present this story from one of our favorite sites, The Good Men Project. Lisa Solod, who came of age during the sexual revolution, explores what feminism means to this generation.

My mother married my father because, she told me in a rare moment of candor, she wanted to have sex with him. She was 25 and tired of pre-sex fumbling and stolen kisses. My father was, of course, far more experienced, having been in the Pacific Theater during World War II; far less discreet about his former life (and life in general) he told his daughters inappropriate tales of the women he had met on shore leave. One I particularly remember had her front teeth filed into points. Well into their marriage, each of them managed to be unfaithful and they finally separated (but not because of infidelity) after twenty years of marriage. Yet, for another dozen years or so they would hook up here and there, travel together, and, of course have sex. In a further revelation, my mother told me that the sex was the best part of her relationship with my father.

I came of age at the tail end but the real beginning of the sexual revolution (1971-1974). At that point, sexual liberation was inextricably tied to the rise of feminism. Having sex like men, i.e., without attachment, was part of our freedom. But too many of us got hurt. We hadn’t yet factored in the biology of mating and how really hard it was to have that much sex without any real commitment. Most of the women I know who grew up during those years had far more sexual encounters than they were ever willing to reveal to their husbands. Those of us who divorced then dived back into the sexual market with the same abandon. I am not sure we were all the wiser. I hear STDs are on the rise in the over 50 group, which doesn’t surprise me. We all were pretty practiced in birth control but we took it into our own hands, with the pill and the diaphragm. This was pre-AIDS. Barrier methods were not our methods of choice then. They are not, apparently, our method now, either.

Should a Man Stand Up For His Woman?

But those of us who grew up in the trenches of the sexual revolution know that feminism was about far more than women having the kind of meaningless sex with men that men had been having with us for eons. Feminism, which is still being parsed in the media as well as our own homes, still being debated and discussed and accepted and dismissed, was about being able to control (to the extent that anyone can) our work lives, our love lives, our lives as a whole. It was about being able to have a career, being paid equally well for that career, and making our own decisions about marriage and childbirth without having to merely capitulate to what society had set out for us. I, for one, was happy not to have to marry to have sex. I was thrilled to be able to go to college and think about a career without worrying that it might make me unmarriageable. I was ecstatic about the notion that I could make decisions for myself.

All those ideas I passed along to my daughter. But, of course, she had no need to wrestle with those notions as the women in my generation had. She lived in a society where (she thought) feminism was taken for granted. Women her age did not talk about marriage, either as an option or something to reject. They saw it as fact that women could do anything.

Read the rest of the story below.

Documentaries About Powerful Women
Movies

10 Awe-Inspiring Documentaries About Women

Last night at the Oscars Undefeated, a story about a football team at an underprivileged high school, took home the Oscar for Best Documentary.

Last night at the Oscars Undefeated, a story about a football team at an underprivileged high school, took home the Oscar for Best Documentary. If you love learning, chances are you love documentaries. This past Summer we were treated to Gloria in Her Own Words, which chronicled icon Gloria Steinem's eventful life, but there are many more films about the triumphs of women. Some of these films follow women making their way through truly horrific situations, and others are lighter tales of self-made entrepreneurs or proponents of feminist creativity. Each of the women documented is powerful and inspiring in her own right. While I could probably compile a list of a hundred docs about women I admire and love, here are 10 I've recently come across that have made me re-examine the beauty and power of my gender.

A Walk to Beautiful Crazy Sexy Cancer Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work The Beaches of Agnès Public Speaking Beyond Belief Double Dare
View 10 Photos
How to Be a Feminist Boyfriend
Link Time

Link Time — What Makes a Feminist Boyfriend?

Cosmo Magazine Launching in Middle East
News

Middle East Braces For Launch of Cosmo

Not to be confused with al-Qaeda's new women's magazine dubbed the Jihad Cosmo, this is the real deal.
Not to be confused with al-Qaeda's new women's magazine dubbed the Jihad Cosmo, this is the real deal. The publisher of British Cosmopolitan is launching a Middle Eastern edition next month in Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Oman, Lebanon, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia.

Nobody's expecting a warm welcome. Muslim countries view the magazine — an instantly recognizable symbol of sexual freedom — as some kind of cultural colonialism with a mission to sell Western depravity. Meanwhile, Cosmo's publisher Hearst sees a market in the growing middle class, and as a business wants to capitalize on it.

Hearst has a point: a small, but growing number of Middle Eastern women have found a voice, demanding gender equality and fighting sexual discrimination. It's reminiscent of the United States 50 years ago, which was when Helen Gurley Brown took over Cosmo and turned it into a guide to sexual empowerment for the masses.

The magazine may not have evolved with Western women, but it was always at its best when challenging the status quo and encouraging people to talk about taboo topics. And maybe that's exactly what women in the Middle East want — and need — right now.

Pictures of Ukraine Women Protesting Topless
Love and Sex

Picture It: Mixed Messages

Ukrainian feminists protest topless outside the marriage palace in Kiev this week, holding signs that read "Ukraine is not a brothel," "Welcome to hell," and "Bride for wildman."

Ukrainian feminists protest topless outside the marriage palace in Kiev this week, holding signs that read "Ukraine is not a brothel," "Welcome to hell," and "Bride for wildman." The women took off their shirts to call attention to a "win a wife" competition, sponsored by a New Zealand radio station, that gives the winner a free trip to Ukraine and a chance to pick a bride.

Secrets to a Happy Marriage
Marriage

Are Scheming, Sex, and Working Out the Secrets to a Happy Marriage?

The coauthor of February must read Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage and Dirty Dishes is causing a stir on the Internet.
The coauthor of February must read Spousonomics: Using Economics to Master Love, Marriage and Dirty Dishes is causing a stir on the Internet. Much like Tiger Mom Amy Chua, a piece in the Wall Street Journal, this time about maintaining a happy marriage, is to blame. Applying economic principles to spousal relationships, Paula Szuchman identified the "secrets" to a long-lasting marriage. They are:

  1. Talk less. "When it comes to nagging reminders about what your spouse still has to do after a long day working for the man — take out the recycling, walk the dog, write a thank-you letter, defrost the chicken, fix the stereo — keep a lid on it."
  2. Lose weight. "While you're at it, don't wear sweatpants around the house all the time."
  3. Do the dishes. "Do the dishes because you just might be better at them, and faster, and less likely than your spouse is to leave them out overnight."
  4. Put out. "In Spousonomics, we suggest people lower the costs of having sex in order to up demand. Keep it simple, fast and fun."
  5. Scheme. "If your friends invite you for a weekend away, no spouses, and you want to go, you naturally start thinking about how you can make this happen with minimal fuss, what you can offer your spouse in return, how to bring it up, when to bring it up, and what type of flowers to present as graft when you're in the midst of bringing it up."

Szuchman surely saw a backlash coming and followed up the piece by explaining that it's not just directed toward women. And she admits that she knows many more men who have let themselves go, and plenty of women who want to have more sex than their husbands. She says her message is really about staying healthy, pleasant, and willing to compromise. Do you find it refreshing, or offensive?

Would Women Be Better Off Working Less?
Poll

Would Women Be Better Off Working Less?

In the Netherlands only 10 percent of women have full-time jobs, a rate that pales to the 75 percent of working American women employed full time and increasingly filling management roles.
In the Netherlands only 10 percent of women have full-time jobs, a rate that pales to the 75 percent of working American women employed full time and increasingly filling management roles. But as expat Jessica Olien points out in Slate this week, the Netherlands consistently ranks in the top five countries for women. How come?

Instead of fighting for equal wages, Dutch women want the right to cut hours without repercussions from employers. A working female journalist explains: "We look at the world of management — and it is a man's world — and we think, oh I could do that if I wanted. But I'd rather enjoy my life."

The UN looked into the situation, worried that Dutch women did not have the same access as men, and found that in fact, many women did not want to work more. As a result they have more time to exercise, garden, and enjoy time with their kids or friends. In the US, our work influences feelings of independence and self-worth. For many of us, the dialogue of women's liberation is closely linked to the ability to climb the career success ladder; yet Dutch society promotes the freedom to live a balanced life, and studies show that this type of freedom results in greater levels of happiness.

Perhaps Dutch women are OK with not fully participating in the labor market because they've long had freedom to work. Ever since a plague put women to work in the 14th century, Dutch women have been able to work outside the home. Some historians consider that the first feminist revolution. Mix that past with a social safety net, which frees you from concerns over college loans or health insurance, and you can actually choose to not work. Do you wish more women here had that choice?

Source: Flickr User gribbly