She's Beautiful When She's Angry

I had the opportunity to watch a special screening of She's Beautiful When She's Angry, a documentary about the Second Wave Feminist Movement (more info about the film HERE). If I could, I would buy it on DVD and screen it whenever possible, because it explains why I self-identify as a feminist. The title seems to reinforce the stereotype that feminists are a bunch of "angry" women, but don't be turned off by it--I think it was a deliberate choice by the producers to use this word, and refers to the fact that the movement united angry, fed up women against an excessively condescending patriarchy.

The film was deftly edited, and allowed movement women to speak for themselves. There wasn't a narrator to tell you how to think or make the connections between scenes, and yet the film came together in one coherent narrative. Kudos to the producers for also giving a balanced portrayal of the strengths and weaknesses of the movement, what it accomplished and what it failed to do. If there was one glaring weakness about the film, it would be that it was silent on the issue of full-time homemakers. This shouldn't be a surprise since much of the movement was about getting women out of the home, and ignored how some women wanted to stay at home (hence the strong backlash by more conservative women and failure to pass the ERA). Perhaps this is one failure of the movement that even feminists today are still not ready to discuss.

Still, the film reminded its audience of how much good came out of it, positive changes that women in America (including me) take for granted today because it seems so commonsense. Yet, if it wasn't for the Feminist Movement...

• Women would be solely defined by their sexuality and relationship to men, e.g. you should only dress/ act to please your man, not yourself; your needs need to revolve around your man. 
• Men would consider it their prerogative to rape women, and doctors would still blame victims for it. (A fight that is still ongoing)
• The medical field would continue to be all-male, and male doctors tell order women how to think and feel about their bodies. 
• Pharmaceutical companies and doctors would not be held accountable for selling harmful birth control pills with insane levels of estrogen.
• No one would highlight how Miss America and beauty pageants objectified women (reminds me of John Oliver's brilliant commentary about the pageant).
• Women wouldn't realize that they can speak out against street harassment 
• It would be totally acceptable, even expected, for job postings to still have "good looks" as a mandatory requirement, while having a brain was optional. 
• Women would be limited to secretarial positions or menial labor jobs. Glass ceiling? What's that? 
• Disgusting male professors won't be charged with sexual harassment for telling his graduate student, "If I don't f*** you, I will f*** you." True story related by one of the interviewees in the film.
• I won't be able to blog. Who cares about my opinion? I'm a woman so I should shut up. 

Why am I a feminist? Because I want to follow in the footsteps of these women who raised awareness about these issues. I'm not saying that I agree with their entire platform, and even feminists fought among themselves (hence the inter-movement divisions as seen in the film), but I can still recognize and applaud their courage to organize and speak out. And because of them, I live in a society that is safer, more accepting of women in powerful positions, and where women have more control over their bodies.

New Year, Same Old Issues

Happy New Year Everyone! Another post to bring your mind back to the awful state of earthly affairs that continues to plague society today on this brand new day and year- sorry! That's what you get when you follow the blog of a feminist who reads the news everyday (:p)

Anyway, today's post doesn't come from the news (although I just read in the New York Times that the 270+ girls kidnapped by the Boko Harem in April are still missing... my guess is they have since been sold to slavery, and my heart aches for them). Rather, it's about how numbed society has become to using women's bodies. Take, for example, last night's television program, New Year's Eve with Carson Daly. I was at a friend's house celebrating the New Year, and we began watching the show around 11:40pm. There, on the host platform, sat Daly, actors Terry Crews and Ken Marino, and (gorgeous) model Chrissy Teigan, hurdled around a fire to discuss what went down in 2014.

Everything's cool, except that poor Teigan wore a short dress that exposed her bare thighs, and an unbuttoned jacket that covered her bare hands and shoulders but did nothing for her bared upper chest area. As for accessories, she had gloves and knee-high boots on (thank goodness!) but no hat--didn't want to mess up her beautifully-styled hair, you know.

In contrast, her fellow hosts, all male, were bundled up to the max! Hats, gloves, scarves, layers of tops... the only skin exposed to the camera were their faces. Terry Crews tore off his shirt after the countdown (ha ha ha), but put it back on soon afterward because, guys, DECEMBER NIGHTS IN NEW YORK CITY ARE FREEZING COLD.

So, why is it that women are expected to freeze their butt off for television, but not men? Double standard yeah?

I don't dress celebrities so I don't know how the process goes, but I'm guessing that it's a negotiation that takes place between the producers/ crew and the celebrities. In all likelihood, the producers asked Teigan to expose a little more skin, and she agreed to it, so it's not as if she was coerced to do so.

I just think that we have become a society that is too used to this double standard of using women's body to "oomph" the sex appeal of a television program in order to increase viewership. I'm not saying that to solve this, 1) we ask the men to strip too, OR 2) women should all start dressing in dowdy, baggy, long-everything clothing. No, no, no. Even I, as a heterosexual woman, can appreciate a little sex appeal from women (emphasis on the word "little").

"Wait, how can you as a Mormon feminist say things like that?" you ask. My reply is long and complicated, and I can elaborate more on another post, but the short answer is: Look, in an ideal society, women wouldn't  need or want to use their bodies to fight for a place at the entertainment table. Unfortunately, we live in a fallen, carnal world where human beings, male and female, are visual creatures. And because I personally am an extreme realist, I understand the power of visual appeal. Even church leaders have commented that we need to take care of our physical bodies and strive to look our very best (see last 3 paragraphs of this article), albeit in a modest manner.

However, there needs to be a balance, and I don't think it is too much to ask that Teigan bundle up a little more for a) practical purposes of health preservation. There is no way she was not freezing her tail off dressed like that; and b) to combat this double standard. Surely she can still remain appealing (and even sexy) without having to resort to skin-baring on that frigid winter night.