Monday, July 15, 2013

The Good, the Bad, and the Curious (Links for the Week)

Here's what I've been reading this week that made me smile (The Good), cry (The Bad), and think (The Curious).

The Good

The Toast introduces feminist-friendly fitness advice!
But training, or working out, or lifting, or whatever, cannot really be approached as a way in which to look a certain way. Training has finally, after DECADES of typical body-malaise, made me love my body, but not because of how it looks. I like how my body looks, sure, but I love what it can do. It has brought me genuine happiness. I train three days a week, now, like a monster each time, and if I don’t get it, I become irritable and bitchy. And so I’d like to talk a little bit about what my bi-weekly fitness coverage is going to look like, and the philosophy behind these choices.
Fit and Feminist has a great post about the complex relationship to race photos and ultimately learning to love them

The Bad

In Illinois, a petite young black woman who graduated high school early to start college a semester in advance and who has never had any trouble in her record (not even a detention) was thrown to the ground, knocked unconscious, and lost some of her teeth when police broke up a fight in a Denny's in which she was not involved. The police say she attacked them with closed fists and that they have video, but no one has released it. 

Of all the Zimmerman verdict responses that tore at my soul (and there were a lot of them), the ones that stuck with me the most were the reflection of mothers on the fear of having a black son. See this post at My Brown Baby and this one from Melissa Harris Perry for the far-reaching implications of this outcome.  

They stopped, but for a while the Texas Senate was confiscating tampons (but still allowing guns) from people entering the floor for the abortion debate.  

This woman was kicked out of a water park for wearing a bikini.  

 

The Curious

J.K. Rowling published an adult crime novel under a male pseudonym. The way critics and the reading public are responding now that the author's identity is known is very interesting. 

This discussion of modesty culture, empowerment, and body image over at Beauty Redefined is enlightening:
 When we begin believing that, we begin acting like it, and female progress in every imaginable way will move forward. We will spend less money on cosmetic surgery (up 500% in the last decade with 92% of the surgeries performed on women) and every other product we need to “fix” our flaws. We will spend less time minimizing and obsessing over our insecurities beneath our clothes. We will spend less time emphasizing and obsessing over our favorite parts on display in our clothes. We will perform better academically, athletically, and in our careers. We will love other women more because we will not be judging them as bodies. We will feel greater self-love, happiness, and power to live authentically chosen lives. We will pass along all of these powerful truths to the little girls growing up in an increasingly sexualized world.
Another response to the Zimmerman trial is this Sociological Images post that shows the racial bias present in "justifiable homicide" verdicts, particularly when Stand Your Ground is involved.

Is the humanities crisis really just the statistical outcome of women having more career opportunities? It's an interesting theory.

Danielle Vermeer has a great post about modesty guidelines and her own evolving stance on the issue that led her to realize that it wasn't the length of her skirt that would keep men from having "bad" thoughts.

Can you name these Disney movies based on the description?
You grow up in a small town where you have a juiced-up stalker and nothing in common with anyone. One day your father stumbles upon a madhouse and is held hostage by an ugly, angry man. While attempting to save your father, you fall in love with this ugly man. Your stalker kills him in order to finally win your affections, but the ugly man comes back from the dead, and he's beautiful, and you marry him.
Amanda at Two Americans in China has a great post on how class privilege doesn't buffer us from pain, specifically when it comes to China's one-child policy. 

Stephen Marche's article in The Atlantic about feminism, gendered parenting roles, and the work-life balance is fantastic. You should really go read it:
We live in a hollow patriarchy: the edifice is patriarchal, while the majority of its occupants approach egalitarianism. This generates strange paradoxes. Even women with servants and powerful jobs and hundreds of millions of dollars feel that they have an institutional disadvantage. And they’re right. Women in the upper reaches of power are limited in ways that men simply are not. Various men’s movements have emerged, purportedly to provide a counterweight to feminism, but this proposition is inherently absurd. The greatest power still resides in the hands of a few men, even as the majority of men are being outpaced in the knowledge economy. Masculinity grows less and less powerful while remaining iconic of power. And therefore men are silent. After all, there is nothing less manly than talking about waning manliness.
That's what I've been reading this week. What did I miss?
I even passed this perfectionist approach onto the girls I counseled at Christian camp. I instructed them to lean over backwards in the mirror, assessing whether too much leg or even their underwear would show. I shocked them with bluntness in explaining what “men are visual” really meant, assuring them that a bit of cleavage or thigh could tempt the boys at camp to fantasize and even masturbate to these girls’ body parts. - See more at: http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/the-length-of-my-skirt/#sthash.HQy9vEt6.iXCpiXsD.dpuf
I even passed this perfectionist approach onto the girls I counseled at Christian camp. I instructed them to lean over backwards in the mirror, assessing whether too much leg or even their underwear would show. I shocked them with bluntness in explaining what “men are visual” really meant, assuring them that a bit of cleavage or thigh could tempt the boys at camp to fantasize and even masturbate to these girls’ body parts.
“Do you want that?” I shouted one day, exasperated that my girl campers were rolling their Soffee shorts and complaining about how they couldn’t wear two-pieces but the boys could go shirtless at the beach. “Do you want your guy friends to think about you in this way?”
It haunts me now to think of how I reinforced the same message for these teen girls that had been so destructive for me at that age. Rather than a message of freedom and hope, I passed on the fear I felt that nothing I did would ever be good or modest enough; and the shame of being thought of in this objectifying way.
- See more at: http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/the-length-of-my-skirt/#sthash.HQy9vEt6.iXCpiXsD.dpuf
I even passed this perfectionist approach onto the girls I counseled at Christian camp. I instructed them to lean over backwards in the mirror, assessing whether too much leg or even their underwear would show. I shocked them with bluntness in explaining what “men are visual” really meant, assuring them that a bit of cleavage or thigh could tempt the boys at camp to fantasize and even masturbate to these girls’ body parts.
“Do you want that?” I shouted one day, exasperated that my girl campers were rolling their Soffee shorts and complaining about how they couldn’t wear two-pieces but the boys could go shirtless at the beach. “Do you want your guy friends to think about you in this way?”
It haunts me now to think of how I reinforced the same message for these teen girls that had been so destructive for me at that age. Rather than a message of freedom and hope, I passed on the fear I felt that nothing I did would ever be good or modest enough; and the shame of being thought of in this objectifying way.
- See more at: http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/the-length-of-my-skirt/#sthash.HQy9vEt6.iXCpiXsD.dpuf

I even passed this perfectionist approach onto the girls I counseled at Christian camp. I instructed them to lean over backwards in the mirror, assessing whether too much leg or even their underwear would show. I shocked them with bluntness in explaining what “men are visual” really meant, assuring them that a bit of cleavage or thigh could tempt the boys at camp to fantasize and even masturbate to these girls’ body parts.
“Do you want that?” I shouted one day, exasperated that my girl campers were rolling their Soffee shorts and complaining about how they couldn’t wear two-pieces but the boys could go shirtless at the beach. “Do you want your guy friends to think about you in this way?”
It haunts me now to think of how I reinforced the same message for these teen girls that had been so destructive for me at that age. Rather than a message of freedom and hope, I passed on the fear I felt that nothing I did would ever be good or modest enough; and the shame of being thought of in this objectifying way.
- See more at: http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/the-length-of-my-skirt/#sthash.HQy9vEt6.iXCpiXsD.dpuf

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the share! But I'm sad you had only one "good" for the week. It was a tough week!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I noticed that my Goods were lacking as I was writing it. Going to have to watch a lot of cute kitten videos this week!

    ReplyDelete
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