And the winner goes to....

"A Jury of Her Peers" cover

Recognizing women for excellence in literature and the arts is not exactly popular, to put it mildly.

• No woman has ever won Best Director at the Academy Awards. In fact, not even one was nominated this year. In FACT only THREE have been nominated EVER. Men beat that number in 2008 alone. I'm not making this up.
• The Guerrilla Girls also lamented with a recent poster: "Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? Less than 5% of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85% of the nudes are female."

Laura Miller writes about Elaine Showalter's new book A Jury of Her Peers: Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx in Salon and the prejudices surrounding women in writing:

Every few years, someone counts up the titles covered in the New York Times Book Review and the short fiction published in the New Yorker, as well as the bylines and literary works reviewed in such highbrow journals as Harper's and the New York Review of Books, and observes that the male names outnumber the female by about 2 to 1. This situation is lamentable, as everyone but a handful of embittered cranks seems to agree, but it's not clear that anyone ever does anything about it. The bestseller lists, though less intellectually exalted, tend to break down more evenly along gender lines; between J.K. Rowling & Stephanie Meyer alone, the distaff side is more than holding its own in terms of revenue. But when it comes to respect, are women writers getting short shrift?

Read the whole article:
Why can't a woman write the Great American Novel?

Abortion Law

A few sad developments in the US abortion law:
- Arkansas has made the performance of so-called "partial birth" abortion services a felony. [NYT]
- North Dakota now requires the following sign to be posted at abortion clinics:

Notice: No one can force you to have an abortion. It is against the law for a spouse, a boyfriend, a parent, a friend, a medical care provider, or any other person to in any way force you to have an abortion.[MSNBC]

The Spanish government is expected to legalize abortion soon. [AP, RH Reality Check]

Also, while taking some time out from class to check up on the news, I came across an article that mentioned a bill going before the Massachusetts house that would remove the parental permission requirement for women under 18 who are seeking abortion care in the state, [WickedLocal] and an article about the various "personhood" initiatives gaining momentum in an number of different states. [Denver Daily News]

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW?

Click here to read the story about a group of thirteen Grandmothers who, being compelled by individual revelations, came together in 2004 to work against oppression of women and indigenous people the world over.

Very strange, and beautiful.

Salma Hayek on Breastfeeding

This now viral video from Nightline of Salma Hayek breastfeeding an infant in Sierra Leone is quite touching, as she reaches out in an incredibly intimate way to a child in need while also offering the US a version of motherhood that is stripped of the sterility and artifice so often associated with raising/feeding children in this country.

Of course it's disheartening to read comments that continue to sexualize her and her breasts, even when she is offering such a pure gesture of outreach to a tiny, starving body. so weird!

The Greatest Silence

Wednesday, February 11 at 7pm
International House Philadelphia, 3701 Chestnut Street
$7 admission, $5 students
Introduced by Dr. Arancha Garcia del Soto

Shot in the war zones of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), this extraordinary film sensitively yet unflinchingly shows the plight of women and girls caught in that country’s intractable conflicts. Herself a survivor of rape, Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Lisa Jackson travels through the DRC to understand why this is happening, interviewing activists, peacekeepers, physicians and the indifferent perpetrators. The most remarkable moments of the film come as survivors recount inspiring examples of resilience, resistance, courage and grace. Special Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival 2008.

from International House's website

from Salon

Salon's article is worth the read:

The great girl gross-out

Female writers are getting more graphic than ever about the messy realities of their bodies. Is it too much information, or enlightened honesty?

By Rebecca Traister

Feminism 101

For someone with some time on her hands...

To distract myself from getting too down about my current state of (f)unemployment, I am taking a Contemporary Feminist Thought course at Penn. I thought I might share some of the readings with whoever may be interested in revisiting some classic feminist writings. Later in the semester the readings will be more contemporary, but for now we're starting with the first wave.

My first assignment was to read Chapter II of Mary Wollstonecraft's 1792 A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which argues that while ladies are just as smart and capable as men, they often appear to be stupid because they're uneducated and socialized for a life of vanity and caprice. From what I have read, she appears to address rich people exclusively, and her attitude towards the women that she writes about is overly patronizing, but I have to appreciate her good efforts. Particularly interesting is the conflict between the puritanical ideals she espouses in her writing with the tumult of her personal love life.

We also read the Declaration of Sentiments, drafted and signed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and other prominent feminists in 1848 at the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, NY. The convention was organized after Ms. Stanton and other women were turned away from a big Abolitionist meeting in England, which apparently only admitted men. Frederick Douglass, ever the gentle man, stood up for the ladies, but to no avail- they were not allowed in! The Declaration, miming the Declaration of Independence, asserts the rights of women in participation in the political, religious, civil, and social arenas, and is really gutsy for something called the Declaration of Sentiments...why did they call it that, anyhow?

Also, we read Sojourner Truth's amazing Ain't I a Woman speech. Ms. Truth, a freed slave, just walked unannounced into a church full of white Abolitionists and told 'em what's what, and then gave the speech again at a Women's Convention in 1851.

Enjoy!!