You asked: Part 7

Question: Where the hell have you been?!

Well, thank you all for asking. I’ve missed you too. Here’s what happened: I started a feminist blog in Bulgarian. And all hell broke loose.

I dared to suggest, among other things, that:
- even though men and women might be equal in the face of the law, there are still actual inequalities that take the form of gender stereotypes and prejudices that need to be addressed
- sexist and racist jokes are not funny
- female managers face different sorts of expectations from their employees than male managers and backed that up with a scientific study

Radical and revolutionary, no?

The blog got TONS of attention and for the most part, it’s been a good experience. I find it refreshing to have my core values challenged…like…when I needed to explain why I don’t think a woman can only feel fulfilled when she has a husband and a child. Or when I had to figure out the polite way to say FUCK OFF to people who believe that women are almost inevitably worse managers than men. I feel like I’m back in my Intro to Gender Studies class way back when…only that I am the one doing the explaining.

I find Bulgarian attitudes toward feminism totally fascinating. Back in the 40s, communists declared us all equal and thus considered the “women issue” resolved. Women could work and prosper together with men. They opened state-run childcare centers, paid for extended maternity leave and encouraged women to pursue traditionally male occupations. Somewhere along the way, however, something seems to have not quite clicked. Because, from what I see now, women here don’t think highly of themselves and men…ah men. I would really hope that you guys would help me figure this out…

But…what do you know…I plan to persevere. I emailed my political theory professor from grad school, the virtual equivalent of throwing my hands up in desperation, and she said to me, Yes! Sometimes what seems hopeless (and endless) is what most needs doing!

Thank you all for sticking around.

Openly Feminist

By the way, I started a new blog titled Openly Feminist.

I am doing it in Bulgarian and write about dumb tv shows, articles I read and various things that grab my attention through a feminist perspective. I felt that I needed to do it because, in my humble opinion, many Bulgarians are very much feminist in their world-views and at the same time are TERRIFIED of being perceived as feminist. I figured that if I came out...maybe others would do too. I worry that I will be ridiculed (like I am most of the times when I do speak up against sexist remarks/jokes/practies and so on). But at the same time I am willing to take my chances. Who knows, maybe I will be surprised.

I will try to publish Enlgish versions of my posts here and vice versa. Wish me luck.

Cashmere Mafia...again

I just saw my first Cashmere Mafia episode. And, unlike last time, I will be bashing the show after having actually seen it! For those of you who don't know about it yet, Cashmere Mafia is supposed to be a follow-up to Sex and the City of sorts. The show is about four girlfriends living in New York City and holding very high positions in some major companies.

Now, I know it's a bit too soon to be making overarching generalizations after having seen just one episode, but I will say it anyway: the show is terribly superficial and extremely predictable. If you've seen Sex and the City, Desparate Housewives and/or Gossip Girl, you would not be able to be surprised in any way. The authors seemed to be so influenced by the above-mentioned shows that at some points in the episode you kind of start wondering why Carrie Bradshow's voice sounds different. Also, everyone is like...obsessed with this Gawker-type blog...All I've got to say about that is: XO-XO. Whatever, though. We all like watching movies and tv shows that are pretty much identical copies of other things we've seen before...so no hard feelings there.

What did scare me though was the blatant sexism in the way the main characters are portrayed. OK. So they are all supposed to be these super serious, educated, insanely successful professional women and, still, they are:

1. Immature: One of the women's husbands is cheating on her. Her friends sees him making out with another woman and tells her. What does she do?! She decides that the best thing to do is get even and cheat on HIM. Well...not that I know much about script-writing but I'm thinking...isn't this what the character would do in some other show?! I mean...if she really WAS the character that she is supposed to be, she would not be acting like a snotty high-school student who wants to win over her boyfriend by making him jealous. Or...would she?!

2. Superficial: Throughout most of the episode, one of the women is worrying like crazy about ONE zit that she got on her otherwise flawless face. At some point she even considers leaving the office and going home. WTF?!

3. Pathetic: Mia, played by Lucy Liu, has been left at the alter by her fiance. We are led to believe that he had been feeling threatened by her success. After the split, they stop talking. Mia's reaction: she does not tell her parents about it for two weeks AND dedicates her first column as editor-in-chief of Modern Man magazine to telling him (The Modern Man) that he should not be afraid of the Modern Woman. Jack and I, she says, we will need to begin communicating through the pages of the magazine. I say: Apparently Modern Woman over there is stuck in the Victorian era and her shyness does not allow her to face her problems and look for their adequate solutions.

In other words, the moral of the series is simple: don't worry about it, dudes, even if some women do manage to make if very high up in the corporate hierarchy, they are just as dumb and idiotique as the rest of them. Yes, they are in the BIG office but their existance there is only nominal, because apparently they cannot get over their personal dramas and act like grown-ups.

I am so terribly sad and disappointed.

Stop looking at my vajayjay!

On Grey’s Anatomy, a pregnant woman going through labor yells at a male medical student, Stop looking at my vajayjay!
Oprah, Grey’s Anatomy’s biggest celebrity fan, mentions on her show that she loves the word. Entertainment commentary shows pick that up and now people just can’t stop talking about VAJAYJAY.

OK, so the word IS funny. And I can only imagine how awesome it would be to hear Oprah say “My vajayjay is paining me”. But the better part of me is throwing up in my mouth a little bit. Why do we need cute little euphemisms to describe female body parts?! Why can’t we call it what it is?! Vaginas are not embarrassing, they are not weird, they are not ugly, they are not inappropriate. All women got them. Do we need Eve Ensler to write another play to shake everyone up, yet again?!

What we don’t say becomes a secret, and secrets often create shame and fear and myths. Eve Ensler, The Vagina Monologues

For more, read What Did you Call It? By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM of The New York Times.

Feminists do it better

A couple of researchers at Rutgers have asked if feminism is good for romantic relationships. The conclusion they’ve reached: well yes!

Rudman and Phelan conducted a study of 242 American undergraduates and an online survey of 289 older adults. They looked at the relationship between people’s self-perceived feminism and how healthy their relationships are. Relationship health was measured as “combination of overall relationship quality, agreement about gender equality, relationship stability and sexual satisfaction”. Here’s what they found:

- Having a feminist partner is linked to healthier heterosexual relationships for women.
- Men with feminist partners report both more stable relationships and greater sexual satisfaction.
- Feminism does not predict poor romantic relationships, in fact quite the opposite.

In addition, the authors tested the validity of some all-time favorite stereotypes about feminism. Like, for example, that feminist women are single, lesbian, and sexually unattractive. If these stereotypes are indeed based in some kind of reality, then female survey respondents who self-identified as feminist, would have to be more likely to report themselves as “being single, lesbian, or sexually unattractive, compared to non-feminist women”. Surprisingly enough, the authors found that was not the case.

I know, I know…correlation is not causation…and even though there seems to be a strong statistical correlation between one’s feminism and how happy they are in a relationship, that is by no means a guarantee that it’s their feminism that is leading them into a better relationship. Perhaps, only people of certain psychological dispositions or certain socio-economic backgrounds become feminist and it is those other things that make it more likely for people to end up in better, funner, sexier couple-situations. But still, I am willing to bet that Rudman and Phelan did their stats right. And, confirm what that old t-shirt used to say: FEMINISTS DO IT BETTER.

Still, I feel sad that such a study is still necessary.

Via Feministing