Feministing.com founder and author Jessica Valenti is known for drawing on personal experiences in her books, articles and blog posts. But the New York City feminist wonders if she’d blog under a fake name if she could start all over again.
A lot of young women are resistant to the word feminism. Was there ever a time you felt the same way?
There was. I was always a feminist and I always had really strong opinions. I wasn’t really anti the word but I was hesitant to call myself a feminist because I felt like I didn’t know enough to call myself (that.) It wasn’t until I took my first women’s and gender studies class that I starting calling myself a feminist.
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Photo by litonali
Are we here because we think pole dancing is sexy, or because men think pole dancing is sexy?
“You are beautiful and sexy,” Mizz Phil says to all of us in a slow, curvy drawl, “and we’re going to have some fun today.” I know it’s part of her job to say something like that, but somehow I instantly believe her. Okay, Mizz Phil. I will follow you wherever you will go.
And she goes out onto a wooden dance floor, out of which spring six 10-foot high silver poles, the reason I am here today: To take a pole dancing class.
Mizz Phil, our instructor, wears shiny, thigh-high patent leather stiletto boots and stands in front of us, speaking with goddess-like authority. A former construction-site manager, she easily shows us she means business.
It might be difficult to “mean business” in a place like this. Everything here is pink. Pink corsets, pink high heels, pink feather boas—and it’s all a very impish hot pink, the colour of a naughty Barbie doll package if it existed. And “naughty” really is the right word because when I first walked into Pittsburgh’s Fitness With a Twist exercise studio, that’s exactly how I felt. Like eating cookies before dinner, the sugary sweetness was worth any consequences that might come of it.
Before we start on the poles, though, we have to choose a pole name. “It can be anything,” Mizz Phil says. “It can be a place you want to visit, a color, a food—anything you think is sexy.” “Sexy”—the word flies around the studio like glitter in a drag queen’s dressing room. After mere seconds I decide I am Scarlet Morocco, a worldly temptress like Mata Hari. I laugh to myself at how easily I can drum up this fictitious persona and even then, at the beginning of class, I begin to wonder—maybe Scarlet was in there all along? Keep reading…
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In 1941, DC Comics unleashed Wonder Woman onto its pages. The Golden Age of comics had never seen anything like her: A chain-breaking, bullet-defying Amazonian with luscious, black, curls and formidable thighs.
“What’s an angel?” she asks the beefcakey, ineffectual Captain Trevor, whose life she’s always saving. “I’d rather be a woman.”
Outside the comic pages, however, Wonder Woman often comes under fire of a different kind. Her trademark corset, miniskirt and lipstick-red boots are often a point of contention with critics, who object to her allegedly oversexed image. And in a cartoon-world of powerful men in tights, some see Wonder Woman’s role as exclusively subservient.
But back up the bus. What should she be wearing? Burlap? A muumuu? Would that make her more of a feminist? In Wonder Woman’s own words,
“I do better with fewer clothes.”
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CTV journalist Galit Solomon started a website to provide support and information for survivors of sexual abuse
There years ago at a gala in Toronto, Galit Solomon stood in front of a large crowd with an untold secret. It was her birthday and she was asked to speak at an event for the York Region Abuse Program. It was the first time she had told strangers she was a survivor.
After experiencing sexual assault as a child in Israel, Solomon, a journalist at CTV News, started Project Butterflies, a website that provides information and support for survivors of sexual abuse.
Why did you start “Project Butterflies?”
It started four years ago when the mayor of Vaughn asked me to host a gala for York Region Abuse Program, an organization that’s located in Newmarket. They serve the entire York Region, ten municipalities, specifically dealing with child sexual abuse and adults who were abused as children.
I’ve done events for all sorts of organizations, but this one really hit close to home.
When people look at you walking down the street, or if they watch you on TV as you’re reporting, it’s not like there’s a sign that can give it away. With certain ailments there are physical scars that are left behind, but with this, there isn’t. She put me in touch with the York Region Abuse Program and I told her I was delighted but I also felt it was important that (the mayor) knew I was a survivor myself.
The thing with child and sexual abuse is that there is a tendency to hold it as a secret. Often as a person going through the experience you are told by the perpetrator you have to keep this a secret, because your parents will not approve.
I went through a healing process and it was very rewarding and at the end of it I thought, “What can I do?” What can I do to also make people who have been through this experience feel like they are not alone? And this was my biggest problem—being isolated. The point of me doing this is telling people they don’t have to be alone.
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Women are a lot like refrigerators and beer. Or, at least, according to Homer Simpson they are. His attempts to explain women to his son Bart somehow easily go astray every time during The Simpsons, which celebrated its 20th anniversary on TV in December.
“A woman is a lot like a refrigerator. They’re about six feet tall, 300 pounds. They make ice, and, oh wait a minute. Actually, a woman is more like a beer,” he says “They smell good, they look good. You’d step over your own mother just to get one. But you can’t stop at one—you want to drink another woman.”
In terms of how the show has portrayed women throughout the series, Homer isn’t far off in his definition. Women are a bit misunderstood by their male counterparts. It usually takes a big mistake for Homer, Bart, Grandpa Simpson, or any of the other guys to realize their wrongs. Homer doesn’t get his daughter Lisa’s saxophone reed in time for the big concert because he spent the night drinking at Moe’s bar. He doesn’t appreciate how important it was to her.
In another episode, Homer sneaks away to go fishing while he and wife Marge are at a marriage retreat—basically choosing to do the opposite of saving his relationship. (D’oh!) While these examples may seem like just bad parenting or husbanding, it shows how Marge and Lisa are often misunderstood by the men in their lives. In part, that’s due to the Al Bundy-like nature of Homer’s character, but also because of the legacy of the Simpson men: stupidity.
In one episode, Lisa’s worried she’s destined to lose her smarts and become like her dimwitted dad. She soon discovers that all of the Simpson women grow up to be doctors and businesspeople, while a stupid gene makes all of the Simpson men, well, stupid. Keep reading…
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