Archive for 'Feminism' category
It’s the 90th anniversary of the 19th Amendment today, where women voting in the US finally became legal. A tweet by the Women’s Media Center asked if anyone else got irritated by the phrase, “Women were given the right to vote.” And then a number of people responded yes, they were irritated, because it wasn’t given to them, women won the right to vote.
Both of these frames are problematic. It’s challenging to articulate exactly why, but I’m going to give it my best shot–because language has evolved within the same power structures we seek to tear down, we don’t always have the words to describe the problem.
Human rights within both frames are treated as a commodity that is traded. This is based on our market understanding of what we do with commodities: we accumulate, we spend, we give, we win, we lose. But if we really believe that certain rights are inalienable to humans, we can’t and shouldn’t commodify them. By doing so we support a power structure where rights are doled out and taken away at the whims of the dominant paradigm.
It also, in a deeper metaphorical sense, suggests that women aren’t necessarily fully human– they must be given the right to vote, or they must fight and win it for themselves. It’s not assumed that women would naturally vote in the grand scheme of things. We think so now (mostly), but if we continue to use this language, we support the antiquated structures that keep women from being recognized fully as humans.
If you’re into this kind of thing, by the way, and have the patience for heavy academic text, I highly recommend Women, Fire & Dangerous Things by George Lakoff. There’s a section called “Anger, Lust & Rape” that is truly disturbingly insightful as to how unraveling language can reveal our darkest cultural secrets. I’ll see if I can get in touch with George and post the piece here.
Some more thoughts on my previous post, and a couple of things to clear up. Two misconceptions arose from my post because I chose not to lay out a lot exposition on some of my own beliefs on how the world works. Let me rectify that now.
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UPDATE, 1/19: Follow-up post is here.
A post from Internet analyst/author/smart-person Clay Shirky titled “A Rant About Women” has got quite the discussion going around the Intertubes. Read (or at least skim) it before continuing; let me also take this introductory opportunity to do the obligatory feminist thing and thank the dude for taking time out of his busy schedule to wrestle with the giant questions of why don’t women do as well as men at X. Here it comes… thank you. OK, so I’m being a wee bit sarcastic, but seriously: it really is nice to see these conversations happen outside of the usual suspected fora of listservs, blogs, etc, all for and by the ladies.
Much of the resulting discussion has been a bit heavy-handed on both sides– “OMG, he’s totally right!” “OMG, he’s totally wrong!” Some great points have already been well covered by others, especially Jezebel blogger Anna’s point that women aren’t allowed culturally to be the aggressive jerks that successful men are. This was also the place where I had the most visceral reaction — the conclusion that we need to teach women to be more like men: more assertive and aggressive, demanding of what they want and need. This approach to solving the “where are teh womenz” problem misses the mark in a way that 70s & 80s power feminism also missed the mark for me. The “we’re just as good as men” statements and subsequent actions set the wrong frame. It assumes:
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As you may have heard, I’ve signed a contract with Berrett-Koehler to write a book about social media this summer. But! I need a tremendous amount of support — monetary, moral and otherwise — to get it done in the super-fast timeframe that I’m working within. Can you help? Here’s the email that I sent out to all my friends and colleagues. Please use the ChipIn to the right, or click here to make a donation.
Update, 7/13/09: Two things. There’s a post on my progress and thoughts here, and also, to reflect the offline donations I’m getting, I’m now gradually lowering the goal of the ChipIn.
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Friends, colleagues, clients! Lend me your ears…
I’m writing you with some exciting news that makes me very happy. I just signed a contract from Berrett-Koehler publishers to write a book I’ve been imagining for a long time. But it’s going to take some very hard work on my part, and I hope you can help me succeed.
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It’s been a hilarious couple of months working on this project, and I’m thrilled to launch the site hosting the genius work of Alice Bradley (aka, Finslippy) and Eden M. Kennedy (aka, Fussy). Tired of all the condescending parenting and pregnancy advice that’s out there, they took it upon themselves to write the funniest non-advice series ever. Have a look!
http://www.lets-panic.com/
Incredibly exciting news came across the transom last night while I was at the Women Who Tech after-party in NYC: I’ve been offered a book deal with the stellar Berrett-Koehler publishing group in San Francisco. I’m absolutely thrilled to be working with Johanna Vondeling, their vice president of editorial and digital, and the rest of the staff there. Their commitment to social change as well as digital innovation for publishing makes them the perfect fit for what I want to do.
What do I want to do, I hear you asking yourself? In short — I do want you to buy the book, after all — I’m going to be describing the social media moment as a huge opportunity for social change and action. If you’ve read some of what I’ve written about Twitter and other services, and my ideas about the giant gene pool and the desperate need for diversity, you have an idea of where the book will go. Plus, it’ll be stunningly entertaining to boot!
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I wanted to share with you an amazing worldwide conference that I’m participating in next week. It’s called “Women Who Tech,” and it brings together hundreds of women who leverage their technology savvy to inspire change and transform the world. And it takes place all online and on the phone!
Women Who Tech
When: May 12, 2009. Panels are 50 min long and run from 11AM EDT to 6PM EDT.
Where: Everywhere via phone and web
http://womenwhotech.com/
A mere $10 for a whole day of goodness
I participated last year, and at first I thought the distance thing was going to be strange– but it’s absolutely incredible, and I highly recommend joining in the fun. What’s great is that this is really not just for women who currently tech– if you’re interested social media, launching a startup, learning about new tools… this is *the* place to be.
I’ll be moderating this panel:
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[For background on what AmazonFAIL is, see my article at the Women's Media Center.]
As the day has worn on, more parts of the story are unfolding, and all these little tidbits at the intersection of tech, culture, media and commerce are more than fascinating. This is the kind of story that sends me down the rabbit hole of musing for days.
Let’s start with the tech side of things
According to Jessica Valenti (and her publisher, Seal Press), Amazon reps are claiming that this is a purely internal issue caused by the mysteriously “glitch” spoken of last night. I don’t think the reps know what they’re talking about, frankly. What I think is going on: there is a severe vulnerability in the Amazon flagging-for-inappropriate system, and it’s been found and exploited by one or more nerds with too much time on their hands. Amazon’s mistake, vis a vis the brave new world of social media, is two-fold:
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I wrote a quick article about what the deal with Amazon is:
Over the holiday weekend, a firestorm let loose on the Internet: For no apparent reason, books on Amazon.com with feminist, LGBT and sexual-empowerment themes were removed from the sales rankings, numbers that show how well a product is performing on the website.
Angry authors and readers responded by launching a full-on social media assault, using blogs, Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness and to collect signatures on a petition.
Rapid response campaigns not affiliated with any one organization are increasingly becoming the norm in the age of free communication tools. The Amazon incident (dubbed "AmazonFAIL," drawing on usage of "fail" as an indicator of strong disapproval in online cultures) is a fascinating example in part because of the cultural motivation behind and the mechanics of the removal and the implications for sales of "banned" books.
Read the full article here.
Last weekend was the last of my three sessions with the Progressive Women’s Voices program… and while I’m excited to run out into the world with the stacks of knowledge that I gained, I’m sad that it was our last class! Here’s our group with the staff of the Women’s Media Center, plus a certain famous lady that helps make it all happen:
Bonus: I also played superfangrrl and got my picture taken with Jane Fonda.
