http://www.popmatters.com/pm/feature/64749/were-coming-to-get-you-barbra/
October 2008 Archives
Have I ever mentioned that Maureen Dowd is one of my favorite people ever? True, I've never met her, but I'm pretty sure she would be a fantastic person to have dinner with. Today's editorial/movie script in the New York Times really reaffirmed that belief for me. And really, what better way to enjoy this election than to laugh at it? Okay. I did some background checking thanks to Jenn. Yeeaaahhh....I hadn't read all her stuff before...Not so good. Kind of...really, profoundly offensive, actually. Especially the Clinton coverage. I only recently got regular reading access to the New York Times, so I've been reading great indicts of McCain/Palin, but missed all the super misogynistic Clinton analysis. Still, the movie script is really amusing, even if it includes some gender stereotyping of its own (though, given the larger body of her work, I find it much less excusable than I did before).
From the New York Times and Maureen Dowd, "The Maverick Wears Prada"!!
Oh yes. All I need to do is finish making my pan-pipes. To spray paint silver or not to spray paint silver? That is this week's question.
Given that my most recent post was a rally and a vow to speak up when harrassed, I feel it is important to share my day. And my woefully inadequate reactions.
My work places a pretty high premium on customer service. So do I. I was raised to be conscientious about tact, charm, politeness, and to be able to take a joke. So when I spend my days working with a lot of "older" men (meaning over 60 and, even more often, over 70 or 80), I roll with their ridiculous jokes, I smile and nod about differing political remarks, and I nervously chuckle when they flirt with me. I've noticed that old men just tend to be flirtatious. My mother has the same experiences in her line of work, which she readily shares with me. They're mostly harmless and inoffensive. Sometimes it's even flattering when a patient comes early and tells me I make great coffee and that they like talking to me. Sometimes it genuinely is funny when they are blatantly non-threatening and make remarks about my being a "pretty young woman". My grandmother says that to me a lot. A compliment is very different from harrassment. Even if compliments have always made me uncomfortable (yay being an American media-saturated woman!).
But at what point does being generally uncomfortable with compliments become something inappropriate or harrassment? One incident today bothers me most. A patient that I really genuinely enjoy talking to came in for his appointment and made me immediately uncomfortable. Very uncomfortable. He came in early, opened the door, came to my desk and said "I came in early so I could admire your beautiful big brown eyes, your red nails, and...other various aspects of your loveliness". He then asked if my nails were real. I said yes, to which he responded "Are other parts of you real?" Luckily, he was then swept into my boss' office for his appointment.
Now, this guy has made dirty jokes before. To me as well as to my boss. He really is very funny. And it's really hard to dislike a guy who sounds like a vocal mixture of Carl Castle and Garrison Keilor. And I'm not even sure how he meant it. He followed up during his appointment (when we put new hearing aid patients on the phone with me to adjust the settings on the aid) by telling me that I needed to be careful with men that I dated and that he and my father both want me to be safe and happy. He went from creepy creepy old man to protective grandfather figure. So, again, at what point am I just being overly sensitive?
Which brings us to another problem: We, as women (though the phenomenon is not limited to this gendered category), are conditioned to believe that we are often over-sensitive. When we get upset, uncomfortable, or downright angry, we are told that we are just too emotional and to calm down about it. I recognize this in myself. Regardless of what someone's intentions are, if you are uncomfortable, it is well within your rights to say something, put a stop to the uncomfortable behavior, do whatever you need to get yourself back into a place where you feel comfortable.
So today I was very very uncomfortable. It doesn't matter what the situation is classified as beyond the fact that I was made to feel very uncomfortable. It was well within my rights to say or do something about how I was feeling. Maybe it's because the job is new and I am afraid of overstepping my boundaries. Maybe I need to be more confident. Maybe I need to learn how to separate the discomfort that comes with an unsafe or threatening situation with the discomfort of simply receiving a compliment.
I am going to say something to my boss. I will not stay completely silent on the issue. But while talking about the importance of speaking out, it is also important to recognize the stigma and fear surrounding that breaking with tradition. It is important to recognize that silence is often more comfortable.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7682951.stm
Finally, a court decision to put a man accused of sexual harrassment in jail. I'm not entirely positive, but to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time someone accused of sexual harrassment has actually been given jail time. I know it is true for Egypt, but I am not positive about the rest of the world. Regardless, this is a landmark event.
Sexual harrassment is something that we are taught to laugh about. Ha. Ha. It's hilarious when some random guy in a bar tries to grab your ass or feel you up. It's the best joke ever when someone you don't know makes lude comments to you from a car. Walking down the street is infinitely more entertaining when you are constantly reminded of your status as sexual object. Isn't it the best?
Our streets, our public transportation systems, the public places we visit shouldn't be places we fear. Walking home after 5:00 in a major metropolitan area, in any area, shouldn't be as frightening as it is. More importantly, the onus shouldn't be on me or you or the object of the harrassment for there to be consequences. I've certainly been harrassed in various public areas and no one seems to care. They just keep walking. Or even worse, as is exemplified by this case in Egypt, you actually have various bystanders telling you not to call the police or that it's your fault.
While it shouldn't be the "victim" who is responsible for calling the police or making sure there are consequences for harrassers, I admit that I have never done anything about it when I have been harrassed. For me, it's always been clear that I could call the cops, I could take a license plate number, but that nothing would ever come of it. Noha Saleh/Ostadh proves that consequences are possible.
We've been talking a lot about silence lately, especially in regards to rape, but it's time for us to take charge of the silence in our own lives instead of just talking about the epidemic of silence. I can only speak for me, but the next time someone harrasses me, I am making a call to the police. I will be more verbal the next time I see someone else being harrassed so they will know someone cares. And so the offender will know it is not acceptable behavior.
http://girl-wonder.org/girlsreadcomics/?p=223
I know that people here aren't necessarily into comics. I'm a special kind of nerd. I get that. A lot of comic critiques are kind of lost on people who don't really read comics, but this one is great. This is one of my favorite bloggers, Karen Healey, a girl-wonder associate. She does a very brief discussion of a new Marvel character, Lady Bullseye, and then launches into a script for an imagined board meeting between the character's author and Marvel execs as to how they came up with her character (who is a "crazy sexy ninja assassin").
While the script is hilarious, I think it also brings up a number of very salient points, namely that rape has somehow become a "subversive" story line in many recent comics (as well as other media). Authors and execs are giving female characters rape histories as a way to make them more interesting and "badass". Everyone seems to think they're doing something really original and creative, but no one actually explores rape itself, as an action, as a problem, as something with cause and effect beyond its ability to be a super motive for a fictional hot chick to become an assassin/badass. These writers and execs are, of course, primarily men (this is where you put on your surprised faces).
How did we skip from rape being an unspoken incident to an edgy, dramatic fad for fictional characters? How did we go from being totally silent on the issue to being fascinated by it only to the extent that it makes a great backstory to flush a flat character out into something more 3-D? And how, with rape suddenly being so "out there", so completely okay to sensationalize, are real (and fictional) women still so effectively silenced?
Okay, so I haven't been writing for a while. More on that to come soon. But for now, I have to talk about Dexter.
I don't know how many of you know about or watch Dexter, the Showtime show about a forensics worker who kills murderers in his spare time. My understanding has been that it has met with fair critical acclaim. I have also heard incredibly positive things about it from friends and coworkers. So here I am borrowing the first season. So far, I find myself intrigued but still on the fence. I have been quite disappointed so far. The story itself is interesting but the presentation falls flat for me. The actors portray characterizations rather than characters. You've got the sociopath, the sexually abused but redemptive, and therefore pure, white woman, the hyper-aggressive and hyper-masculine black man, the stupid hot chick playing at being a cop but still needing to turn to the brilliant white man to solve her cases, the latin lover, and the hypersexual black woman.
It is this last character that I find the most bothersome. While she is not necessarily a major character, my sensitivity to such issues distracts me from the rest of the show. I know the majority of people who read this so I feel I don't need to explain the thing to death. Suffice it to say that the black female sergeant is the modern incarnation of the Hottentot Venus. Despite her position of power, every moment she spends on screen is inundated with sexuality. The story line is that the sergeant is infatuated with Dexter, our main character (who we're supposed to like? not like?). There is never anything subtle or nuanced in her winks and stares at Dexter, nor in her numerous excuses for bodily contact which seem just downright desperate. Her attraction is even described by the narrator (Dexter) as "creepy".
In a show completely entrenched in one-dimensional and often offensive characters, can an interesting story line be at all redemptive? Is there a chance that the writer/director is going for the (at least at one point) highly regarded "satire" of Desperate Housewives (I haven't seen it, so I can't speak to that charge)?
I have no idea. Maybe I just haven't given the show enough of a chance to develop yet.
