With Joss Whedon, a proud feminist and Equality Now supporter, at the helm directing and screenwriting, I eagerly hoped for a feminist film. I absolutely adore Firefly, only watched a handful of Buffy episodes (I know, I know…I need to watch more), and I couldn’t stand Dollhouse (don’t even get me started on the predication of rape, objectification and misogyny…but I digress). Forever inspired by his radical feminist mother and his love for X-Men character Kitty Pryde, Whedon shows an adept talent for creating and writing strong female characters.

The lone female Avenger is Natasha Romanoff, aka Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), a “highly trained spy,” assassin and martial arts master. Haunted by a dark past, she’s a fearless warrior possessing a razor sharp mind and an impressive knack for interrogation. In one of the best scenes, she goes head to head with the film’s villainous nemesis Loki (and Thor’s brother) in a labyrinthine mind game. While I’m not thrilled that Black Widow uses “feminine wiles” as a method of manipulation, her opponents anticipate vulnerability in her because of her gender. Natasha deftly uses and exploits their stereotypical gender biases to her advantage.

Black Widow could have easily become a one dimensional character. Yet she embodies strength and depth. She’s decisive and forever in control of her emotions. She’s not technically a superhero (nor is her partner archer Hawkeye) as she doesn’t have special powers. Yet she arguably had the best fighting sequences with her nimble and dexterous prowess. There’s one where she’s tied to a chair and kicks ass…it’s seriously amazing! Johansson talked about how she would be delighted to do a Black Widow film in the realm and style of The Bourne Series. That sounds freaking awesome.

In most films and TV series, the media objectifies and commodifies women’s bodies for the male gaze, reducing a woman to her sexuality. While she dons tight costumes, that doesn’t happen here. She’s not merely a sex object. Black Widow is an integral part of the team. She’s the one who thinks they should all work together when petty arguments and inflated egos threaten to divide them.  Black Widow plays with gender stereotypes but doesn’t wield her sexuality as a weapon. She uses her ridiculously impressive martial arts ass-kicking skills for that.

Aside from Black Widow, The Avengers film depicts S.H.I.E.L.D. Agent Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders, my favorite actor on HIMYM) and two brief scenes with Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow). Maria is one of S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson)’s Chief Lieutenants. She’s calm, collected and authoritative, even in dangerous situations. We see Maria run the deck of the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier. But she doesn’t approve of controlling people as we see when she criticizes Fury for manipulating The Avengers’ emotions to finagle a specific response. Pepper is the CEO of Stark Industries (Iron Man/Tony Stark’s company), as well as his girlfriend. She’s intelligent, precise, organized and charming.

When asked about Whedon’s strong female characters, Johansson called him “gender blind:”

“He wants his female characters to be dynamic and competitive and assured and confident. And it has nothing to do with anything but the fact that he just celebrates those kinds of strong female characters.”

AlterNet’s Julianne Escobedo Shepherd thinks The Avengers possesses a “stark feminist perspective” as it differs from so many other superhero films. Even in movies with multiple female characters like X-Men, the women often orbit the male characters. Not so in The Avengers. Escobedo Shepherd goes further asserting Johansson portrays Black Widow’s “talent for manipulation as a boon for the art of spying, rather than any kind of femme fatale cliché.”

Despite three strong female characters and Black Widow’s awesomeness, I didn’t find the movie overtly feminist. I can’t help but wonder if people are looking to find feminism where not a whole lot actually exists because of Whedon’s reputation. The Avengers contains some gender problems.

Loki hurls a misogynistic insult at Black Widow, calling her a “mewling quim.” Translation, a “whining cunt.” Lovely. He reduces her to her vagina. Now, not everyone’s going to get the inference right away. I know I didn’t. Although something about the condescending tone made me suspect a gendered insult. Whedon says he often “abuses” language, depicting different vernaculars, including Shakespearan dialogue, to reveal character traits. It’s interesting that instead of writing an overt insult, Whedon subversively portrayed Loki’s sexism.

Some people apparently accused Whedon of “not being macho enough” to direct the superhero bonanza. So let me get this straight. If a guy is a proud feminist and writes strong female characters, that makes him unmanly to direct an action movie? And what does that say about women…that female directors possess too much estrogen to direct? Ugh.

Even though many critics and bloggers have focused on the Hulk, thanks in large part to Mark Ruffalo’s fantastic talent and the hilarious snarky dialogue, thanks to Robert Downey Jr.’s quick wit as Iron Man. Interestingly, of the 6 Avengers, Black Widow gets the 3^rd most screen time. Yet she still remains the only female Avenger in the film. And that’s a problem.

In the comics, The Avengers had a rotating line-up of superheroes. Couldn’t the movie portray an additional female Avenger, like Wasp or Scarlet Witch or She-Hulk? Maybe they didn’t want two green Hulks. Fair enough. Although She-Hulk, a brilliant attorney, is pretty badass. Whedon even said that when they weren’t sure if they could accommodate Scarlett Johansson’s tight schedule, an early script contained the female superhero (and founding Avenger) Wasp. He “fell in love with the character.”

So here’s my question: why did they have to scrap the role of Wasp the minute they secured Johansson’s Black Widow? Why not have 2 female superheroes in one film?? Sadly, the movie suffers from the Smurfette Principle.

Coined by feminist writer Katha Pollitt in looking at children’s entertainment, the Smurfette Principle is when a male ensemble features one female character. Think the Smurfs (before the introduction of Sassy), the Muppets and Voltron (I’m clearly showing I’m a child of the 80s here). Pollitt asserts that the problem with this trope is that “boys define the group, its story and its code of values. Girls exist only in relation to boys.” As the articulate Anita Sarkeesian at Feminist Frequency points out, it transcends children’s entertainment as we see in films like Star Wars, Star Trek, Watchmen and even Inception as well as TV shows like early seasons of Big Bang Theory and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Films and TV relegate women to “sidekicks or sexy decorations.” Luckily, Black Widow suffers neither of these fates. She holds her own as a fierce and capable character, neither shoved aside nor reduced to a dude’s love interest. But it’s still problematic that Black Widow is the only female team member. The male Avengers contain multiple male personalities: a sarcastic genius playboy, a lonely selfless soldier, a skilled sniper, and a tortured brilliant scientist. But as far as women’s representation, there’s just one female Avenger. Granted, she’s a badass. But it would have been nice to see more diverse personalities…which might have been rectified with another female superhero.

But my biggest problem? No women talked to each other. At all. What the hell is up with that??

Like Film School Rejects’ Gwenn Reyes, I too found the glaring lack of women talking to each other to be The Avengers “greatest flaw.” Maria talks to the other Avengers. As Nick Fury’s right-hand person, it makes sense she would interact with the Avengers. Plus Maria and Natasha have probably crossed paths before since Black Widow already worked for S.H.I.E.L.D. Couldn’t the two women have talked about the upcoming battle? Or strategized, commiserated…anything??

Just because the portrayals of the female characters were positive, doesn’t mean I think the movie smashed the Bechdel Test, a simple test that asks that two named female characters talk to each other about something other than men. With women comprising only 33% of speaking roles on-screen, The Avengers failing the Bechdel Test proves the cavernous gender gap in film and how far we still need to go.

Let me be clear. Most movies — superhero or otherwise — couldn’t care less about portraying complex, intelligent, strong, dimensional women or gender equitable roles. So The Avengers is a step in the right direction. But if you only depict your two female characters (no matter how empowered they are) talking to men, it subtly reinforces the notion that women’s lives revolve around men.

While it’s a really good action movie with strong female roles, I still expected more feminism from you, Joss Whedon.

Megan Kearns is a blogger, freelance writer and activist. A feminist vegan, Megan blogs at The Opinioness of the World, where she writes about gender in pop culture, sexism in the media, reproductive justice and living vegan. She is the first Monthly Guest Contributor featured at Bitch Flicks, reviewing films and TV series from a feminist lens. Megan’s work has also appeared at Arts & Opinion,Feministing’s Community Blog, Italianieuropei, Open Letters Monthly, and A Safe World for Women. She earned her B.A. in Anthropology and Sociology and a Graduate Certificate in Women and Politics and Public Policy. Megan lives in Boston with more books than she will probably ever read in her lifetime.

This post was originally published on Bitch Flicks and is cross-posted with permission.

Photo Credit Marvel 2011 via IMDB.com

Photo Credit Marvel 2011 via IMDB.com

In her book, Bossypants, Tina Fey offers a hilarious, and disturbingly on-point anecdote of when many realize they are, indeed, a woman:

When I was writing the movie Mean Girls—which hopefully is playing on TBS right now!—I went to a workshop taught by Rosalind Wiseman … [who] conducted a lot of self-esteem and bullying workshops with women and girls around the country. She did this particular exercise … with about two hundred grown women, asking them to write down the moment they first “knew they were a woman.” … The group of women was racially and economically diverse, but the answers had a very similar theme. Almost everyone first realized they were becoming a grown woman when some dude did something nasty to them. “I was walking home from ballet and a guy in a car yelled, ‘Lick me!’” “I was babysitting my younger cousins when a guy drove by and yelled, ‘Nice ass.’” There were pretty much zero examples like “I first knew I was a woman when my mother and father took me out to dinner to celebrate my success on the debate team.” It was mostly men yelling shit from cars. Are they a patrol sent out to let girls know they’ve crossed into puberty? If so, it’s working.

I experienced car creepery at thirteen. …I was walking home alone from school and I was wearing a dress. A dude drove by and yelled, “Nice tits.” Embarrassed and enraged, I screamed after him, “Suck my dick.” Sure, it didn’t make any sense, but at least I don’t hold in my anger.

Indeed, pop culture, like so many of our lived experiences, offers little in the way of a clear message — other than “nice tits,” of course. By the time a girl (I’m just going to say girl/woman from here on out, but please know I am not trying to exclude other gender identities or experiences) reaches puberty, you’ve already been introduced to the choose-your-own-adventure nature of the female experience:

• Choose this door: Oh no! You’ve developed breasts before any of your female classmates! Boys (and probably some girls) notice you and the attention causes jealousy (and perhaps fear) amongst your female classmates. Now you’re branded a slut for the rest of your academic experience, regardless of your sexual history or interest! Therapy to fix scars for life, optional.

• Or this door: Get ogled by your chemistry teacher and hit-on in front of the entire class. Spend the rest of the year carrying an over-sized sweatshirt to class and dodging “extra credit.” (True story.)

• Try the fire exit: Spend your adolescence learning the proper way to ridicule your body and self-worth in front of any reflective surface or in any social situation where any authority figure offers you a compliment or praises your efforts. Well, anyone who compliments you really.

• Oops, dead-end: Fail math. On purpose. Because boys don’t like nerds. (See also: Don’t try in gym class to avoid perspiring/getting muscular/looking like a lesbian.)

• There’s always cheerleading: To avoid looking like a lesbian/athlete/nerd/ or other non-conforming person subject to intense ridicule and bullying, practice the art of leading a double-life. Pay special attention to pronouns, which celebrities/musicians you publicly endorse, consuming the “appropriate” pop culture for your strategy to work (i.e. disavow any knowledge of Star Wars and make sure to know everything about, say, American Idol), and be sure to wear as much pink and push your tits out as much as possible. Remember: a girl who’s sexually attractive to boys is a popular girl!

Then there’s always the strange universe of feminine product commercials/ads. Be sure to be hairless (because you must erase all evidence that you are a mammal, except for your tits, of course), odorless (because you smell disgusting, obviously), wash and properly scent every orifice (au natural is NOT on the menu, duh), and above all… wear white and jump around (or off stuff like diving boards) when you’re on your period. I’m not really sure what jumping around has to do with being a woman, but I guess it means that periods make you jump for joy? Also, lately I’ve noticed that a lot of period-related products have put a focus on the cuteness of their packaging.  We’re supposed to care about how cute our tampon is now, too?   This is exhausting!

And it’s gotten me no closer to any kind of universal symbol of womanhood.

Maybe I should delve deeper. Surely, I can unlock the code somewhere in my own experience. (It’s probably somewhere next to the G-spot.) Like the poem says, “Ain’t I a woman?” Well, I was born biologically female and identify as a woman so… oh, right, that’s not a very fun answer. I am a woman, damn it! (Better?)

Well, here’s the thing. When I look back at my own experience and ask myself, “When did you feel like you were a woman, and not a girl?” I don’t really like the answer very much.  And not just because of the car creepery (which for me was more like, guys in bleachers at a football game, but same difference). When I think about when I transitioned from girlhood to womanhood, my answer is all tangled up by my experience as a survivor of sexual abuse.

I experienced sexual abuse, off and on, from the age of five through 14.  So that meant that in the pre-pubescent years, I was introduced to sexual experiences and thoughts and feelings about my body and other people’s bodies way, way before I was developmentally mature enough or prepared to handle them. In essence, I was hyper-sexualized in childhood. So, by the time I went through puberty, those things that might have seemed new or interesting to many were old and, in fact, highly emotionally charged with negative feelings that I had yet to process.  Sex, sexual organs, being objectified by the male gaze, being reduced as a person to simply body parts… these were old news to me.  So, by the time someone yelled “nice tits” to me, it just felt expected and dangerously frightening to me.  It felt like the terrible experiences that had been only in a private space for years were suddenly possible anywhere by any post-pubescent male (creepy Chemistry teachers, included).  It felt like I had grown bullseyes on my chest, rather than breasts.

It felt like there was no safe place in the world anymore.  And for the life of me, I could not understand how all the other girls could be excited by the attention and possibility.   And I did my best to pretend that I liked it when a boy grabbed my ass in the hallway or made some lewd comment.   Because I knew if I said I didn’t, it wouldn’t take long before I was called a dyke.  And every adolescent girl knows that is one of the worst things to be called — even if you don’t know what it means, yet.  (I feel I should clarify here that I am accepting and an ally to lesbians and any other GBTQ person. I’m just trying to highlight the lesbian-baiting in adolescence.)

So, I guess for me, I knew I was a woman when I could successfully pretend that I wanted the male gaze. And even more so when I learned how to deflect it, without looking like a man-hating lesbian, of course.  Although, I’m beginning to see from Tina Fey’s story and others that even non-survivors felt threatened by this kind of creepy male interest.

But rather than leave this on a sour note, because right now it’s shaping up to look like the transition from girlhood to womanhood really sucks, from unwanted objectification to the arrival of menses. I think what we should do is re-frame the question. Because, let’s face it, I don’t think what marks manhood is all that much more glamorous or interesting than what marks womanhood.

I think a better question is: When did you finally feel at home in your skin as a woman? (Or man, or cisgender, or what-have-you.) Because my answer to that is much more positive and affirming as an experience and to who I am today. I finally felt at home in my skin as a woman when I was pregnant. Please don’t misconstrue this statement. It’s not a pitch that pregnancy or having kids makes you a woman or even a happy woman. But for me, as a survivor of sexual abuse, it was a time of deep personal healing.

At first, it was difficult because I felt very publicly on display in terms of my femaleness. But as I lived in that experience longer and longer, it became more and more healing. It was the first time — maybe in my entire life — when being female and having female body parts did not feel threatening or dangerous or sexual in a way that was uncomfortable. The bigger my belly got, the more in command of my own body I felt (which is ironic, because you become less and less in command of your body the bigger you get!). I finally felt like my body was my space. And it felt like as the fetus grew inside me, that it was somehow healing for me that I could choose for that to happen. I could choose to become pregnant. I could choose to share my body with a fetus (we’ll leave reproductive politics out of this for today).

The funny thing about pregnancy was that it was probably the single most “womanly” I have appeared, in terms of outward appearance.  The breasts grow. The belly grows. The hips widen.  And even as I gained weight, it’s all a kind of glowing, fertile roundness that is so symbolic of womanhood. And considering that pregnancy is one of the most obvious signs that a woman has sex, it was a kind of display of my sexuality, too. (Albeit, a society approved way.) Somehow, by the end of my pregnancy, I just felt a peace with all my parts and all my womanhood.  Finally, I am comfortable being a woman.

That is a much more interesting question and process to me. Maybe we don’t get “nice” stories about the introduction to adulthood. But with any luck, we find our way to peace in our bodies and our lived experiences. And that’s worth sharing. (So please feel free to share yours in the comments.)

This piece originally appeared on The Sin-City Siren and is cross-posted withe permission.

Photo credit jtbrennan via Creative Commons License.

My mother, Anne, stayed at home and raised three children. She did all the invisible work that women who have children do. My mom had no nanny, staff or help from family. She sent me and my two brothers off to school, made all our meals, washed all the clothes, did all the grocery shopping and was the glue that held our family together.

My dad worked in construction and often came home exhausted. He typically ate his dinner, watched the news, and went to sleep. He did not raise us. My mom never received any paid time off and we never went on vacations. We couldn’t afford it. We were the shining example of the American nuclear family that lived humbly and within our means. There were no grand birthday parties or presents, but there was no debt either. And we were told that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Sadly, things didn’t turn out for the best. My dad lost his union job in 1988, along with the meager benefits it afforded. He worked construction jobs until he no longer could perform the manual labor. He was never able to find another job with benefits.

Less than a year ago, my mom, who was 58 years old, needed help. She was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Navigating the health care system was a byzantine nightmare because my mom did not have health insurance. Thankfully, with the assistance of my mom’s amazing social worker and hospital staff, she was able to access some needed medical resources that saved her life. After a successful surgery, I started looking at my mom’s social security and supplemental security income (SSI) options and was appalled to learn that because my mom did not “work” enough quarters, she did not qualify for SSI. This is absurd. My mom’s been working off the clock since 1975, when she married and started raising a family.

Though Mrs. Romney and my mom both stayed at home to raise children and share the same first name, that is where their similarities end. It is assumed that women who stay- at -home are solidly middle class and can afford to do so. However, that is not the case. Census figures released in 2009 show that married stay-at-home moms tend to have lower family incomes. Twelve percent of stay-at-home moms live below the poverty line, compared with five percent of other mothers.

For many of these women, low earnings and high child-care costs are part of the decision to stay at home. Stay- at -home mothers are vulnerable and are falling through the cracks. All of their work is invisible; indeed, it’s not even acknowledged as necessary or valuable by their own government!

Not all married moms have the luxury of choice.  Lack of affordable child care means that some moms are forced to take a job—any job– while a family member cares for kids or it can mean that a mom is forced to stay at home because there is no other child care option available.

Work is work.  And work is demanding and constant. Stay-at-home moms have no mandated 15 minute breaks, paid sick days, or long- term disability insurance. The vast majority do not have rich husbands; some have husbands who, like my mother, ended up with little in the way of benefits or support.  When will we as a nation invest our resources and make sure stay-at-home moms have a safety net they can call their own?

The government should start paying into a woman’s social security every quarter she stays at home and raises children. As a society we need to begin addressing the substantive issues surrounding motherhood, work, and support.  How can we create a system that makes sure stay- at- home mom’s get their fair share in their time of need? Americans are leaders and innovators and we owe it our stay- at -home moms to lead and begin discussing this important issue that will not go away.. When will we pay our moms back and show them how much we value, respect and need the labor of stay-at-home moms to make our lives and in turn, our economy, function?

Photo Credit: Sunfox via Creative Commons

On a smaller scale, in our everyday interactions there are bizarre balances that affect mothers and would-be-mothers. In certain circles, these women are praised and held in high esteem, but those circles are small and seemingly growing smaller. We live in an age where our determination to succeed in higher education and bigger and better jobs is greatly interfering in our personal lives. If you’ve read any of the Forbes articles on female CEO’s, you’ll know that women who have it all usually don’t, at least not at home. And those who want to have it all, have many a sacrifice to make.

The stigma is harsh: so you have the job, but you don’t have kids? You’re pushing 35 but you’re not married? How do you define yourself as a woman to your colleagues, friends, family (and to yourself) in the later stages of your life if you don’t have children? How do you balance the will to push yourself further in a career with the demands of a spouse or partner? How do you battle the ageing of your uterus, which, despite weight training, eating well and plastic surgery, does not respond to your efforts to combat the visible ageing of your body? How do you begin a relationship at 30 without thinking of the possibility of children yet without wanting to sound desperate? Hello biological tick tock.

Unfortunately, the problems don’t end there. Once pregnant (if you want to keep your fetus, that is – if not, try not to be here), you may be unlucky enough to end up in one of these states where you’ll undoubtedly pay ridiculous insurance costs, get fired for being pregnant, have no representative in congress and where child care costs are exorbitantly high (even when they’re low, because poverty is so high: Hello Mississippi). T

hen the social problems emerge: are you still having sex with your partner? Do you still go out to eat with your partner? You may think none of this matters, but study after study has shown that relationships deteriorate extensively after couples have children – and their social circle closes even more. If this isn’t enough – then you have the workplace issues that emerge like looming concrete walls: mothers stall in their careers after children, are rehired at temp positions and often never push up the ladder as quickly as before. There’s the workplace backlash against mothers who take time off, cut meetings short, can’t attend business functions and are, generally, mothers.

A study out of the University of Chicago showed how in the few years after graduation, business students of both sexes had similar incomes and similar hours worked. This stability ended, however, when women, who were predominantly more likely to take time off (because of children), paid a high price for such a choice. 15 years after graduation, men were making about 75% more than the women of their class. The subgroup of women whose careers most resembled those of their male counterparts, was the group of women who chose not to have children.

In truth, developed societies encourage this: we promote education for girls, we brandish statistics of educated women with well-deserved pride, we enact legislation to allow for equal pay and equal access to jobs… and we make it increasingly difficult for pregnant women and women with children to re-enter the workplace without taking a massive salary cut and progressively earning less than their male counterparts. In short, we want educated driven women without wombs. We want women to forget their biological clock and forget marriage, all the while sending out strong signals that they should definitely get married if they want to be any kind of contributing member of society. Talk about a double burden.

So thank your mother. Or your friend who’s a mother. Or a mother you might know. Mothers do not have it easy, and never really had. And it doesn’t look like it’s getting that much better. As women we have the ability to bring forth life – and yet it comes at such a price that it is really no surprise that more and more women are either choosing not to have children or ‘falling’ into that category due to the enormity of other social pressures. I don’t blame them. Neither should you.

Happy Mother’s Day.

When I think about what the perfect Mother’s Day gift really is – what I want it to mean – it is one that shows her how much I love her, how much I respect motherhood, and how much I value her caregiving. It is also one that reflects who I think she is and what she stands for and values. So for me, the perfect Mother’s Day gift isn’t a gift in the traditional sense, but a donation in my mother’s name to a charity that helps mothers around the world. I am grateful that she worked so hard to keep me safe, healthy, well-fed, and educated, and I can’t think of a better way to honor her than by helping to ensure that another mother can keep her child safe, healthy, well-fed, and educated.

In case you haven’t already bought your Mother’s Day gift – or even if you have – here are some great charities that work to empower mothers around the world. Many of these charities even have special Mother’s Day “promotions” where they’ll send a Mother’s Day card on your behalf when you donate, letting your mom know about the great gift you gave in her honor.

International Rescue Committee

With gifts ranging from $24 to $192, your donation can buy a safe birthing kit, maternal health care, or a woman’s small business training.

International Planned Parenthood Federation

IPPF doesn’t have any special Mother’s Day donation options, but what better way to thank your mother for giving birth to you than to donate to an organization that ensures women around the world have the ability to choose when they want to start a family of their own.

Heifer International

With gifts ranging from $20 to $120, your donation can buy a flock of chicks, a tree, or a goat.

Women for Women International

Make a donation to help women survivors of war rebuild their lives, and Women for Women International will send a card to your mom.

Oxfam America

With gifts ranging from $12 to $275, your donation can buy anything from soap, art supplies, and mosquito nets to medical training for a midwife.

Global Fund for Women

Our mothers fought for many of the rights we enjoy today. Make sure we don’t lose the current War on Women by donating to an organization that works to support and strengthen women’s groups around the world.

CARE

Honor your mom by helping to save a child’s life or improve access to safe pregnancy and delivery services. You can also build your own carepackage to help women live, learn, and earn.

Shannon Hill is a writer and feminist activist who blogs about women’s rights and contemporary feminism at The Feminist Mystique. Follow her on twitter @shannonhill16.

Photo Credit erika g. via Creative Commons License

What caught my eye, however, were the select few tweets that seemed to confirm the seemingly growing antagonism towards male-on-male relationships while lesbians continue to be spurred on by even the most homophobic of men. According to some men, lesbians are more than welcome to the acceptance-tea-party.

The lesbian fantasy endorses the objectification of the female body and confirms that its ultimate purpose lies in the pleasure of men. As a result, the intolerance of gay males by heterosexual men does not only condemn homosexuality but it is also degrading to women. Nothing screams sexism like showing high levels of enthusiasm for lesbians but at the same time, preaching against the supposedly “unnatural” and “disgusting” judgements on same-sex relationships between men. Unlike men, women are permitted to sexually “degrade” themselves for men’s pleasure, and men’s pleasure only.

For many of these men (who aren’t immediately concerned with the supposed moral or religious aspects of the case against homosexuality), making derogatory comments about other gay men only serves to confirm their own masculinity, which needs to be protected against the threat of deep-held notions of what it means to be a woman.

You think loving another man is degrading because you think being a woman is degrading. You can’t stand gay men who appreciate dresses, lipstick and fancy shoes, or men who will openly cry every time they watch The Notebook, because they insult your vain sense of manhood cheered on by the little alpha male inside your brain. You dislike gay men because they represent the possibility that your sense of masculinity is no more than perception and never more than conformity to your subjective reality. You need gay men (and all other “feminine” men, for that matter) to show you just how much of a “man” you really are.

So to all the male homophobes on twitter and beyond… your sexism is showing. Please admit that.

Photo Credit: Sara Fasullo via Creative Commons License

Napolitano went on to explain how her Blue Campaign has functioned and their goals.  First they focus in on the countries of origin.  They have worked with Central America, South America, Asia, and more.  They do not deport the victims, as victims should not be punished for being trafficked.  Dealing with the visa process for these victims has also been a priority for Napolitano.  It’s also important, she stressed, to work within the modes of traffic.  Working within the modes of traffic, besides doing thorough investigations, means training all personnel to recognize the signs of trafficking.  Her campaign has helped to train flight attendants as well, since many of the cases of human trafficking have been through air travel.  Of course it’s also important that trainings were initiated for law enforcement, but really human trafficking awareness should be universal.  This is why the next phase of the Blue Campaign has been to forge public awareness through PSA’s in the US and abroad.

Napolitano wants to educate more people about the signs of human trafficking through expanding access to trainings, as well as increasing the Blue Campaign’s online presence to become more well known.  Importantly, they will continue to work with the FBI to expand their internet reach and sources.  Many of these crimes do begin with the internet, through websites providing access to slaves.  She also wants to make sure that these incidents of human trafficking are always counted.  Napolitano explained how previously there was a serious lack of data about human trafficking globally.  It just was not counted or documented as it is now.  I found this to be the most shocking information I learned from Napolitano’s speech.

The most important thing to consider with this issue of human trafficking is simply that it is happening.  Clearly we are in 2012, over a hundred years since the Emancipation Proclamation, and it’s absolutely appalling to consider slavery still exists.  But we must be aware that it is a problem that exists, in order to stop it.  One of the most poignant anecdotes of her speech was when Napolitano recalled a local story.  She knew of a couple who recognized that a little girl in their neighborhood was rarely going outside and didn’t go to school.  These seem like easy signs to spot, but it can take guts to speak up.  But they did speak up about it, and Napolitano’s agents were able to prosecute the case as human trafficking and unpaid labor.  If everyone, all over the world, became vigilant to the common signs of human trafficking we could all help to end it.

Photo Credit The National Guard via Creative Commons License

There are few things women feel more ambivalent about than bridal and baby showers. I think it’s in part because in their traditional form, showers are places where gender stereotypes and unattainable expectations live. They are where we go to pretend we are living the fantasy lives we believe we are supposed to be living and hide the lives we are truly living. The specific meaning of showers will change over the course of our lives, but for many women, these gatherings bring about self-doubt and reinforce notions that marriage and babies should be the primary focus in our lives.

Around the time I graduated high school, a cousin of mine became a teen mother. I remember my grandmother repeatedly telling me, “She gave her mother a beautiful baby.” My grandma provided no validation for my ambitious pursuit of higher education and was unimpressed that I was attending a prestigious college. In her mind, all I had given my mother was a pile of debt. She would have preferred a great-grandchild. Showers behave in much the same way, rewarding certain life choices over others. They send the message that babies and marriages are events worthy of all the women in your life gathering together in your honor. We don’t get showers for finishing our dissertations, writing books, improving our mental health, training for marathons, landing the perfect job, being well-read, advocating for oppressed groups, getting promotions, or choosing to live sustainably. Further, traditionally men don’t attend showers, offensively suggesting that marriage and children are more pivotal in the lives of women than men.

Carrie Bradshaw’s character in a classic Sex and the City episode gives voice to many women’s frustrations when, exasperated by attending and buying gifts for so many bridal and baby showers, she insists that as a single, childless woman she deserves a shower too. For many women, showers bring about painful feelings that change throughout the lifespan. When I was single, bridal showers triggered all my fears about ending up alone. When I myself was a bride, they churned up all my ambivalent feelings about traditional marriage rituals and how to negotiate them. More recently, bridal showers evoke a new set of uncomfortable feelings surrounding whether to warn the bride about all the things I wish I had known before making the choice to marry—like how hard marriage is! I have yet to encounter a life stage in which bridal showers take on a truly festive emotional tone.

I can tell you there is nothing more excruciating than a woman who is silently facing infertility having to attend a baby shower. On the very day I received the news that I had a serious fertility problem, a baby shower invitation showed up in the mail—yet another cousin with a “beautiful baby” for my Catholic-Italian relatives to rub in my face before confusedly asking me why I’m still in school after so long. Luckily, my merciful husband snatched up the invitation, quietly ordered a gift online, RSVP’ed that we could not attend, and trashed that thing before I could come anywhere near it. Although I am now a mother as well as a wife, I find myself somewhat less morally tormented at baby showers than bridal showers because the damage is already done. The woman is pregnant, so there’s no point in telling her how hard parenting really is.

Spurred mostly by greed, I myself consented to a traditional bridal shower, an all-female event during which I sat on a throne-like chair pretending to be enthralled by housewares and kitchen gadgets that I had picked out myself, and that I knew my future husband was going to be the one using. I also received advice including such egalitarian gems as “When he gives you the grocery money, put a little aside for yourself each week,” and “Make sure you let him think he’s smarter than you.” But the fact was, we needed those items and couldn’t afford them ourselves. In order to undo the icky feelings from that shower we had another “shower,” a co-ed cocktail party at a local wine bar with no gift opening to be had.

Many of us use the excuse of needing loot when we engage in shower rituals, but I think the truth is there is more to it. I missed out on my baby shower because I was on bed rest the last three months of my pregnancy. As ambivalent as I was about the shower, I feel cheated to this day.

The truth is we do need support and time set aside to process major life transitions. Some female friends and I began the tradition of calling events before weddings and births “transitional gatherings.” My pre-wedding “transitional gathering” was one of the most meaningful, special days of my life. It involved my best female friends and me walking, eating, and drinking our way through my favorite spots in Manhattan. At each destination, one of them presented me with a scrapbook page documenting our relationship, and spoke about what I meant to them. At the last destination, my future husband joined us with his own page. It was a day to celebrate the relationships that had taught me how to love, and to be honest about the loss inherent in transitions, even celebratory ones. The truth was, I needed to celebrate that I had found a life partner, but also to grieve that all the other relationships in my life were going to change forever. I’m guessing my husband could have used a “transitional gathering” as well.

Now that I am a mother, I am all too acquainted with the loss involved in becoming a parent. I think part of what I missed out on at that shower was getting a lot of positive attention and support that might have helped bolster me for those first few sleepless months, and for the emotional turmoil inherent in becoming a mother. Sure, I really did need the gear. It helps defray costs, but it also sends a message. It sends a message that all these women in your life are there, metaphorically giving you what you need to do this thing. I guess for me, I would have liked the process to be more literal. I would have liked to sit down with experienced mothers and have them warn me about how I was going to feel—about the paralyzing ambivalence of loving your children so much it’s terrifying, and managing terrifying feelings of losing oneself. I wish they had given me advice not about products to buy and baby soothing techniques, but about how to believe you are a good mother and still feel like a whole person—especially in a culture that tells us that the best mothers no longer want to be people.

So there is a kind of logic to events that mark life transitions that are fraught with mixed emotions. We may, in fact, need a little extra support and attention prior to marriage and birth because, unlike getting our degrees or progressing at work, they are not only times to celebrate, but times to grieve. However, the way we approach showers tends to gloss over those mixed emotions causing them to stay hidden, and reinforcing stereotypes in the process. If we don’t make showers about the truth of marriage and birth, the joy and the sorrow, then they simply serve to make everyone feel like they are the only ones feeling ambivalent and experiencing loss. As for the all-female attendance, if showers could be about helping women navigate their internal experience as well as the cultural messages around motherhood and marriage, it would make sense for other women to participate. However, I can’t see why men shouldn’t have the same opportunity.

Lyla Cicero has a doctorate in clinical psychology, and focuses on relationships, sexual minorities, and sex therapy. Lyla is a feminist, LGBTQIAPK-affirmative, sex-positive blogger at UnderCoverintheSuburbs.com, where she writes about expanding cultural notions of identity, especially those surrounding gender, sexual orientation, motherhood, and sexuality. Follow her on Twitter @UndrCvrNSuburbs.

This article originally appeared on Role/ Reboot and is cross-posted with permission.

Photo Credit Ana Fuji via Creative Commons License.

How can that be? War evokes images of young men, literally led to slaughter. For most people in our world, exposure to violent conflict comes in the form of occasional newspaper pages filled with pictures of young men and a few women who die as soldiers fighting wars in other countries. We don’t see pictures of women who die as civilians or those who are raped violently and repeatedly in conflict as a war strategy. We tend to think of children and women as collaterally damaged during war, when in truth, all over the world, they are fully, bodily engaged in conflict involving the regular use of men’s bodies as weapons against them.

In the span of one year, between 2006 and 2007, more than 400,000 women were raped in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is 48 women raped every hour. In Columbia, between 2001 and 2009, a period of violent insurgency, 500,000 women reported being raped.

It is exceedingly difficult to obtain accurate data regarding the incidence of rape even in daily, civilian life. Obtaining it during times of war and in cultures where the stigma attached to being a rape victim results in ostracization or death, it is exponentially more difficult. On thing is certain however, rape is when men weaponize themselves and conflict is the time when rape as a mass phenomenon of power and control is most obvious and widespread.

Can rape during conflict be stopped? This is the goal of The International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict, a collaboration between more than 400 Nobel Peace Laureates, international advocacy organizations, and groups working in conflict zones that launched this week.

The campaign, based on the practice of three principles, PREVENT, PROTECT, PROSECUTE, urges political leaders to acknowledge the widespread use of rape as a weapon during conflict and to protect civilians and those already victimized, often repeatedly, by these crimes. It requires that perpetrators of rape be identified, arrested and prosecuted – often by the very regimes engaged in the practice.

The Campaign is currently focused on four countries that need urgent attention: the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Burma, and Colombia. In these countries, rape continues to be used in widespread ways as a systematic method of control and terror.

I am including here a trigger warning for the following four paragraphs.

The Democratic Republic of Congo is hell on earth for women. It is known as the “rape capital of the world.” Despite an almost ten-year-old peace agreement, conflict is pervasive and deadly. Between 2006-2007 at a rate of 48 rapes an hour, the level of sexualized violence was terrifying. During this period, girls and women, assaulted with weapons, including bayonets, made daily make decisions between starving and being raped as they search for food. There were widespread reports of rebel rape camps and regular, frequent gang rapes, often including baby girls. Children conceived in rape, also died in rape. Rape is now a “normal” part of life involving civilians and members of various militias, including state forces and rebels. Men rape to humiliate, control, terrorize. Some believe it provides them with “magical powers” before fighting. The occurrence of rape remains high and common and is notable because it is now happening in women’s homes, where rape is largely accepted and perpetrators entirely unpunished. Several aid organizations have also begun tracking a high incidence of male rape, increasingly recognized worldwide as a frequent occurrence in conflict, even harder to document.

In Burma, a report produced by ShanWomen.org, a grass-roots organization, documents the repeated rapes of more than 625 girls and women and the use of violent sexual assault as a weapon. These girls and women were often raped by commanding officers in front of their troops, as part of an ongoing program of torture, shame and violence including choking, suffocation and various forms of mutilation. Twenty-five percent of rapes ended in death. Out of the total 173 documented cases, only one man was punished. On the other hand, women coming forward to report their rapes, were imprisoned, assaulted and sometimes killed.

In Columbia, a country were low-grade conflict regularly involving civilians has existed since the 1940’s, girls (as young as at least eleven) and women are regularly subjected to rape and assault by members of the military, paramilitary and guerilla forces. A survey on the incidence of sexual violence due to conflict in Columbia found that six girls and or women were raped every hour between 2001 and 2009. “82.15% of the 489,678 women victims of some type of sexual violence (meaning 402,264 women) did not report the abuses. 73.93% of the victims consider that the presence of armed actors…is an obstacle to reporting sexual violence.”

Lastly, Kenya, where, although there is no ongoing war, rape is used as a tool of ethnic subjugation defined as conflict related to 2007 post-election violence. A study conducted by The Centre for Rights Education and Awareness in 2008 found that “The Kenya Police Crime Report data for 2007 indicated that there were 876 cases of rape reported, 1,984 cases of defilement, 181 cases of incest, 198 cases of sodomy, 191 cases of indecent assault and 173 cases of abduction reported in the year.” Post-election rapes in Kenya included incidences of forced genital mutilation and widespread gang rapes. The next Kenyan election is in 2013.

The Sudan, Liberia, Peru, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, Guatemala, Haiti, Nicaragua, Mexico. These are places where mass conflict-driven rape were and sometimes are still common – as a weapon of ethnic cleansing. Women, described as sperm “envelopes” to be passed from man to man, are subject to violent forced impregnation or sterilization, psychological terror, humiliation and bodily mutilation. Gender inequities are at the core of these assaults because even though girls and women are overwhelming victims, men in these communities are often the primary targets. Girls and women are viewed as property and an attack on them is a form of theft and destruction against men. In this way, rape is a strategy and a reward both. Raping females is one of the most effective ways of eviscerating the social fabric of a community at every level.

The four countries above have been identified as those requiring the most immediate and urgent help. But, they are not the only ones in which conflict-related sexual violence is taking place.

Rape used in these ways, first defined as a weapon of war in the 1990 after the atrocities of the Bosnia-Herzegovina and Rwandan wars, is now recognized by the Geneva Conventions torture, a human rights violation and a war crime. Despite this, rape is used widely and systematically in conflict areas worldwide. It is often explicitly ordered by commanders, who participate themselves and penalize those that don’t. In the countries above, a major problem is a consistent pattern of government and political inaction or complicity in the face of obvious and grave injustice and violence. Despite the work undertaken by humanitarian aid groups, grass-roots organizations, activists and human rights advocates, perpetrators remain largely free to do as they like. Rapes like the ones described above continue to be conducted and reported in conflict areas around the world. The highly gender-specific nature of this crime against humanity means that it is more often than not still thought of as sexual and “relatively” harmless. Rape is about power and humiliation and control and degradation. The consequences are devastating. War and conflict, relying as they do on the dehumanization of men to fight, is the perfect environment for an exponential increase in the dehumanization of women, already assumed to be subhuman.

So, what can you do? The organizers are aware that the goal of eliminating conflict-driven rape and sexual assault seems improbably to many, if not most, people. But, there are conflicts where widespread rape does not occur. If that is the case, then there is noting inevitable about it. In which case, it is indeed preventable.

The Campaign, launched this week, is designed to raise awareness and brings supporters together online. www.stoprapeinconflict.org. Events will be taking place throughout the week of May 6-13, in countries around the world. Everyone interested should take the initiative’s Pledge, which involves a series of action steps related to using social media to share information, raising funds and generating political momentum to change the way government perceive and deal with this issue. You can do other things as well – for example, taking a photo of your #IPLEDGE and sharing it on the StopRape in Conflict wall; contacting your local government official and informing them of the Campaign and your pledge; sharing the information on your Facebook wall, and encouraging others to learn more. If you are a Tweeter, use the hashtag #IPLEDGE. Tweet your representatives and make sure you include @stoprapecmpgn in your Tweets.

It’s not impossible.

The International Campaign to Stop Rape & Gender Violence in Conflict is the first ever global collaboration between Nobel Peace Laureates, international advocacy organizations, and groups working at the regional and community levels in conflict.  The Campaign demands urgent and bold political leadership to prevent rape in conflict, to protect civilians and rape survivors, and call for justice for all—including effective prosecution of those responsible. These three pillars of the Campaign—PREVENT, PROTECT, PROSECUTE—signal a comprehensive effort to stop rape in conflict.  Join the campaign by taking the pledge.  Then, tweet about it to @stoprapecmpgn using #IPLEDGE.

What never fails to amaze me in the aftermath of such issues is how verbal and public so many men are with their sexism.  One need only browse the comment threads on a recent CNN article and the Yahoo News report (just to take two examples) to see it in action.  Let’s just take a look:

“Can you just see a cat fight on the rear bumper of the Presidential Limo. Just watch the ladys on Trump’s Apprentice to see how well women work together”

“All it would mean is that the prostitutes would be out of business and the male SS would simply seduce the willing female SS.  Their morals are no different”

“As someone who has been in combat and has seen women drop their weapons and run away, I’d have to say bad idea.”

“Yes, more women in the Secret Service! Then we can have sexual harassment scandals instead of prostitution scandals. Gotta keep it all in the company.”

As I said, the blatant sexism of such people never ceases to amaze me.  And so if you have a minute, please do as I have and reply to their comments or add your own.  Right now, the vast majority of the responses look like the above ones, and we cannot allow the general public to take such statements as a reasonable assessment of the situation.

But the question itself is an important one: would having more women in the Secret Service have prevented this scandal?

The Secret Service isn’t the only place we need to be asking ourselves this question.  In 2000, the United Nations passed Resolution 1325, which recognized the unique role women have to play in the peace and security of their communities.  One reason this resolution had to be considered in the first place is because the numbers themselves are so illustrative about the appalling lack of female representation in the security sector – this includes everything from peacekeeping forces to defense contractors to military to police and yes, protective entities like the U.S. Secret Service.

In the U.S. Secret Service, women make up about 25% of the agency’s workforce, but only about 11% of agents and uniformed officers. When we move beyond the Secret Service and look at other types of security forces, the numbers are no better.  Internationally, women currently comprise 2.35% of all UN peacekeeping troops.  Even in national police forces, defense industries, and other armed forces, the players are overwhelmingly male.  And so the introduction of women into the security apparatus, whether it be local, national, or international, is a relatively recent movement, and its impact is still being assessed.

With regards to sex scandals, I don’t care what political party you’re from or what gender you ascribe to – groups of women are not culturally trained and encouraged to engage in these activities in the same way that groups of men are. If you view engaging with prostitutes as something the Secret Service shouldn’t be involved in while traveling abroad on the taxpayers’ business, then you have to agree that in general, women do not do such things.

Women do not go to brothels together at the end of a long day.  Women do not get offered prostitutes when they check into certain hotels, because the hospitality industry in many parts of the world views having a human being available for your sexual gratification to be part of their business.  Women are not the market for the special sex tours that are sold to tourists around the globe, and with the exception of the rare “Madam,” women do not kidnap, rape, and sexually abuse young boys and girls and then pimp them out to the highest bidder.

In essence, there is not a culture built around the sexual exploitation of men by women.

Am I saying women never do these things?  No, of course not.  But that is very different from equating the rates at which men buy sex to the rates at which women do it.

And so at the very least, we all need to acknowledge that groups of women do not engage in these activities the way groups of men do.  It’s just one reason that sexual violence, prostitution, and sex trafficking seem to follow men with guns.

For example, the arrival of UN forces (almost exclusively male) frequently leads to increased sex trafficking and violence against women.  In Haiti, Kosovo, and Sierra Leone, all of which accepted varying numbers of overwhelmingly male international peacekeeping forces in the aftermath of conflict, sex trafficking and prostitution levels increased accordingly.   Conversely, other countries such as Nepal that have seen similar post-conflict or unstable conditions, but where international peacekeeping troops were not deployed, have not seen statistically significant increases in sex trafficking or prostitution rings.

However, the question of whether having more women present would have prevented, or stopped, such things from happening is far less clear.

There isn’t much evidence to draw upon.  However, one of the challenges we will encounter repeatedly is the indisputable fact that not all women are the same.  Especially when it comes to looking at ways to prevent such sexual escapades from happening in the first place, many women simply do not want to be seen as the “matriarch” of their security force, being pressured into policing the sexual activities of their coworkers.  And why should they have to be?  They didn’t join the Secret Service – or any other security force for that matter – in order to be the sex police or the morality police or whatever else you may want to call it.

Perhaps.

In other security-related forces, the inclusion of more women has had positive results, not just in dealing with issues of sexual violence or sexual misconduct, but also in terms of broader operational effectiveness.  This just goes back to the same argument about diversity that feminists have been making for a long time – it’s not that we’re special.  It’s that we have different skills and abilities and you shouldn’t be dismissing the benefits of diverse viewpoints and experiences.

So there you have the dilemma – as feminists, we are hesitant to claim that all women are one way or another.  That said, we have evidence that women’s behavior as a group is different from men’s, often in ways that would lead to different outcomes.