The Rage Diaries

A semester's worth of semiotic interpretation

Last night, this picture topped the NYT front page, courtesy of Joshua Roberts at Getty Images.

The caption reads, "A supporter of Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed disappointment after Democratic officials chose to give delegates from Florida and Michigan half-votes." It illustrates this article.

My own thoughts on the picture are mixed. On the one hand, it shows the media-generated confusion that broke with the verdict. See the glare of the camera lights behind the woman's left shoulder, the microphones stuck in her face. Her expression appears evaluative, firm, but somehow on guard; this woman knows she's being recorded for posterity and is thinking beyond what she says in the moment. I think it does a good job of capturing this whole primary schmazz from the perspective of the people who are merely interested bystanders.

On the other hand: could a major media organ find a more stereotypical picture to represent the Clinton campaign and its supporters? I feel that showing a tired, harried and not-terribly-glamorous woman  -- one who appears to be vigorously making an argument -- is a way of evoking every shallow slam levied against the candidate and her most ardent base. Were I a women's studies teacher, I'd be bringing it in this week to talk about what the photo was supposed to be illustrating.

I freely admit that my reading of the photo is influenced by my own perceptions of the candidates, of the media coverage of the election, and of what I'd like the narrative to be. So how about you? What do you think when you see this photo?

Not identifying with identity politics

I have always called myself a feminist. However, after reading all of the below, I'm beginning to think someone's going to knock on my door and revoke my feminist cred.

I no longer see the allure of the glossies

I was caught without reading material one night last week, so I picked up a copy of Allure and read it on the ferry and later into the night. It was the first time since Blueprint went under that I've picked up a magazine specifically aimed at the ladies, so I think my system was kind of unprepared for the shock*.

After a few minutes of leafing through, all I could think was, I just paid four bucks for a publication that does nothing but tell me how ugly I am. Good lord, I used to subscribe to these things! And I did. I used to justify it with arguments like, "It's mind candy." Swear to God -- every semester at finals time, I'd load up on Cosmo, Glamour, Mademoiselle, Vogue and Self and binge on the glossies between study sessions. All summer, the other lifeguards and I would bring in fresh issues and flip through them on breaks.

Have these things gotten more negative? Have the standards for women's appearances been stealthily climbing up for the last ten years? Or has my tolerance for this crap dropped because I'm no longer exposing myself to it on a regular basis? I don't know. Evidently, the spring issue of Ms. tackles this question, determines that chick media can lead to women's low political efficacy, and according to Jezebel, concludes:

"My research with college age women indicates that the less women consume media, the less they self-objectify, particularly if they avoid fashion magazines. [Emphasis ours.] By shutting out media, girls and women can create mental and emotional space for true self-exploration."

I haven't had a chance to read the article yet, but I'd like to explore this thesis more in-depth. It seems sort of weird that any article blaming the media for making women less engaged in the world around them would also advocate dropping media consumption. How are women supposed to get involved in the world when they don't know anything about it? Something's missing -- either in the article summary or the article itself.

My most consistent media exposures at this point are NPR, Comedy Central and the WSJ. Given my recent reaction to Allure, I'm clearly out of touch with whatever pervasive media is sending negative messages about women's appearance. But I am wondering: anyone else notice their reactions to ads changing after upping or lowering their chick-media consumption?

Our daughters' daughters will adore us

Today's reading brings not one, but two articles examining how Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy has forced younger women to confront the strains of sexism still evident in American society. Rebecca Traister wrote "Hey, Obama Boys, Back Off Already!" for Salon, and Amanda Fortini wrote "The Fourth Wave" for New York.

The starting premise for both pieces: Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign is the needle that's lanced the suppurating boil of sexism in America. And now women are shocked -- shocked! -- to discover that plenty of people think that the ladyfolk aren't really capable of doing anything more than thinking about childcare and checking their horoscopes online.

Then you can ladle on a few more arguments. Did you know that apparently women in their 20s, 30s and 40s are feeling intense "peer pressure" to vote for Barack Obama?  That's there's an oppressive atmosphere of Obama-fascism? According to Fortini's "anecdotal research" (her words, not mine), it's true. Whatever will these poor beleaguered women do when they get to the voting booth? (Except, you know, go vote in complete confidentiality as is the right of all Americans, then tell everyone that their vote is their own private business. Or is that crazy talk?)

But wait -- there's more.

Shine on, crazy website

Do you gravitate toward online portals targeted to the ladyfolks?

Yahoo launched a portal for women aged 25-55 called Shine (no, it's not an April Fool's joke) with above-the-fold content like "Fancy Lingerie You Can Afford" and a "cheat sheet" of the day's news including

1. Al Gore launches a $300 million climate change campaign
2. Rich men behaving badly: how the super-rich just don't care
3. She's baa-aaaack: Kathie Lee Gifford to join the Today Show as host
4. Reports of March Madness affecting worker productivity are bogus
5. "The View" tackles racism, Whoopi declares " this is a racist country"

Can you spot a theme in these headlines? Other than "Hey, there's nothing there about the Treasury secretary's proposed overhaul of the Fed"?

Brandon Holley -- whom media types will recognize as a longtime ladymag editor -- writes of Shine:

[W]e wanted to avoid all of the buckets that advertisers or marketers tend to put us in. We didn’t want to be a site just for moms or just for single or working women, or any specific demo- or psychographic. We wanted to create a smart, dynamic place for women to gather, get info, and connect with each other and the world around them.

I guess "women" isn't really a bucket then?

This new entry into the women's-portal business is interesting if only because current ladysites like Oxygen and iVillage are still casting about for cultural relevance or dominance:

NBC is hoping that [Bravo head Lauren Zalaznick] will devise some kind of Bravo-style leap for the Oxygen channel, where ratings have grown in the last year but still has a negligible profile among most viewers.

“Oxygen viewers have not settled into adult growth patterns,” Ms. Zalaznick said.

[...]

The iVillage franchise remains a trouble spot. Since NBC Universal paid — most analysts say overpaid — $600 million for the site in 2006, it has struggled to forge an identity within the company, even though iVillage’s online revenue has improved.

-- "Bravo's Chief Reaches Out to the Prosperous Urban Woman," NYT, Mar 31, 08

(This, by the way, swings from a lede that talks about how Bravo has become a magnet for the ladyviewers. I will admit, I do dig some of Bravo's programming, but I was unaware that my enjoyment of Shear Genius was in any way tied to my ovaries. I had thought it was tied to my enjoyment of watching skilled professionals compete in their chosen field. And also, I kept hoping Tabitha would ritualistically kill Tyson and eat his heart. What? Is that reason not gendered enough?)

Anyway -- do you find value in sites that are visibly and aggressively branded for one gender over another? Are men from Deadspin and women from Jezebel? And are you too tired to be outraged that once again, a "work and money" channel for women prominently features an idea to make a note holder from a pretty fork and tips on reducing your grocery bill, instead of a primer on recession-proofing your investing and and "everyday economics" tutorial on what hit your 401(k) will take if you drop out of an employer-matching program for a few years?

I could get behind a speech like this

If we in this country are ever going to move beyond Hooters, beyond date rape, beyond the wage gap and the glass ceiling, beyond Girls Gone Wild, and bulimic 12-year-olds, we need to start working together. We need to work with men on the gender signals called out by the media and with business about the value of women workers. We need to talk to one another respectfully and listen to one another's complaints.

-- "What if Hillary Clinton Gave a Speech about Gender? (And Why She Won't)," Slate, Mar 21, 08

Putting aside the premise of the piece for a moment -- that HRC won't ever give a speech on gender because she's not about transcending old insults so much as she is about profiting from them -- putting that aside, I urge you all to look at the outline of this never-to-be-given speech. I excerpted part of it above. Many of the other ten points had me nodding along, including:

3) But I would ask the women of this country to stop engaging in petty warfare over who has suffered more—women or blacks, women or men—as it is corrosive and fruitless. This country was founded on the promise that you can become the best thing you can dream for yourself; you are not trapped by the worst thing that's ever happened to you.

4) Things have improved for women in America in the last decades. They are not perfect; there is still much to be done. But women have made enormous strides in a few short decades, and to suggest otherwise is to devalue the life's work of too many heroes of the women's movement.

5) It is possible, indeed it is probable, that just as women have faced barriers and obstacles and derision, so have Hispanics, so have blacks, and so have men. No one in America can corner the market on suffering. Who the hell wants to spend their life in a corner, anyhow?

Like I said -- take or leave the analysis of why HRC isn't going to give this speech. But I think some of the points can be discussed anyway.

Isn't that divine? Jungle red!

Last summer, our contractor's assistant broke my bottle of I'm Not Really A Waitress all over our bathroom. I've mentioned that our bathroom has a white tile floor, right? Anyway, he did a great job of cleaning up but I haven't gotten around to replacing the nail polish, reasoning that every salon in America should have it. Right?

Well, every salon except the one I regularly frequent for pedicures. Every time I walk in, I remember, Ah, yes -- I meant to go buy a bottle of nail polish. And then I forget until my next visit.

Anyway, two weeks ago, my friend Erin and I went for pedicures and I was briefly reunited with my one true red nail polish. I was staring happily at my toes and wondering if it was normal to be so emotionally attached to a specific nail polish.

Answer: yes. And I know this because I have now viewed a site that examines nail polish with the exacting ardor of the true aficionado. I give you All Lacquered Up, which is pretty much the only site you will ever need to visit if you are at all interested in nail polish. Michelle does fantastic product reviews and her scope of coverage is positively breathtaking.

I am always interested in people who feel passionately about something and develop expertise in it -- both what they know and how they approach their inamorata. If you love seeing enthusiasts in their element -- comparing 1000 different bottles of nail polish to explain how one line's new releases fit into their world, for example -- you have to visit this site.

Why politics is good for us all

I forget exactly where I read that Silda Wall Spitzer had become the real face of the "opt out revolution," but looking at the picture of her standing behind her husband without a noose or machete in hand has stuck with me. Ariel Levy summed up why pretty well with:

This is a Harvard-educated woman who was once a corporate lawyer who made more money than her husband and was proud of it. But since 1994, the year Silda opted out of the workforce to witness her husband’s first run for attorney general, all her formidable drive has had to be channeled into his career.

-- "Why Stand By?," New York, Mar 16, 07

What would make you angrier -- that your husband paid to have sex with another person, or that he failed to appreciate how his actions were a slap in the face to everything you had contributed to Team Spitzer?

It's striking that we've had the supportive-spouse show in a year when Hillary Rodham Clinton has a serious shot at becoming the Democrats' presidential candidate. It's a vivid illustration of how you just don't know whether any of the decisions you make will work out for you -- and how some of those decisions are still made more frequently by women than by men. Let's face it: how many articles about the Clinton marriage would we see if he hadn't been president -- and ergo in no danger of being eclipsed by his wife professionally? -- and had spent his life supporting his wife's ambitions?

If racism is one of the lingering bonds that constrains America's potential (and I'm on board with the sentiments here that argue it is), sexism is another. I think it's sexism that kept Silda Wall Spitzer up on that stage, and it's sexism that keeps us from freely unpacking all the gendered baggage in this election cycle.

Some of that sexism is coming from feminists. I was sort of appalled by several passages in Robin Morgan's "Goodbye to All That #2," including the one in which the Kennedy record of public service was reduced to "I still recall Marilyn Monroe’s suicide, and a dead girl named  Mary Jo Kopechne in Chappaquiddick." It is dismaying to see the quick-n-easy "Woman as Victim of Men!" trope as a cri de coeur for women. Sexism is more complicated than victim and oppressor.

For a look at how tricky the gender woes are, look at "Sexism in the Workplace," in this month's Portfolio. The article asks why there are so few women in the highest echelons of American corporations ... and concludes that it's all the chicks' fault:

"Women go into top jobs thinking that hierarchy is foolishness: Let's clean this up. And we lose," says [Anne] Jardim. "Circular organizations are great when everybody is doing more or less the same thing and can help each other out. But they are not useful when you get into producing anything of complexity. In a hospital, for example, there is no room for egalitarianism. A doctor would not take time away from his work to help the cashier. But good doctors can be a symbol of both authority and compassion."

Women taking pride in their authority—maybe that's the only thing missing. Once that comes, look out. Poof—no more sexism.

                

The thing that makes this more irritating is that it comes after pointing out that women who are fairly comfortable being in charge -- say, Hillary Rodham Clinton -- are routinely called out in the press. So congratulations, ladies! We've diagnosed the problem! Now go fix it!

I am not sure who will end up with the Democratic nomination. But I will say that one of the good things about this race is that it's begun to force the discussion on how comfortable each and every one of us is with the idea of a chick in charge. Maybe that's the fix. Or maybe it's just a start to a conversation about what equality and partnership means for everyone. Two political wives -- Silda and Hillary -- and two different positions behind a podium, two different forms of authority. Which one are we more comfortable with?

Settling is for sediment and pioneers

I like to contend that I was a child bride. Sure, I was north of the national average in terms of age, but I did get married before I turned thirty. To my internal timeline, that felt really early. I wasn't done turning into a grown-up yet! What business did I have running off to Vegas before the adult me was fully finished?

It was a SOCIAL EXPERIMENT!

When I read "We Scream, We Swoon. How Dumb Can We Get?" in yesterday's WaPo, I was mildly nonplussed that the paper's formerly smart Outlook section had stooped to publishing Charlotte Allen, and then I wondered if it was perhaps an editor's way of making people think kinder thoughts about a Clinton presidency. If we don't elect a woman, this sort of misogyny will pass for public discourse!

Glaring logical flaws in Allen's piece aside, she suffers from being neither witty nor wise. If you'd like a conservative woman to skewer the worst cliches of woman-targeted pop culture -- and believe me, I will never get tired of seeing people chortle at Eat, Pray, Love -- you should go to the pro, Miss Florence King. Surely, someone at the WaPo should have known this.

They should have also known that if you're going to claim the whole piece was "tongue in cheek," you pick your satirists better. Charlotte Allen has a long and well-documented record of making her living arguing that hers is the dumber sex. She lacks both the talent and perspective needed to satirize a position she seriously advocates. And some in the Outlook section are similarly hobbled if they can't grasp what it takes to write decent satire.

Still, I'd like to be a fly on the wall at the next meeting wherein the WaPo brass say, "You know, our goal was to try to increase our female readership. Remind me again how calling women stupid did that?"

(Note: post title alludes to this insultingly dumb Internet troll alibi.)