I don’t think a memoir can be patriarchal. I believe that the act of telling one’s own story is inherently empowering, A person can be a complete racist, misogynist jerk and lie all throughout a memoir, and the book could be used to promote and support patriarchy. But when written with integrity, a memoir is [...]
Filed under: books on April 19th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | 1 Comment »
A pregnant woman in underpants on all fours in a cage on the sidewalk. A woman wrapped in cling film to resemble cuts of meat in a supermarket. Mel B gets her “tits out for trafficking.” Most of us have come to expect the exploitation of women’s bodies to sell everything from cars to cleaning [...]
Filed under: articles on April 15th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | 6 Comments »
This past week, author/speaker/researcher Lyn Mikel Brown came to town to speak about the themes in her book, Packaging Girlhood. In the book, Brown asserts that girlhood is being commercialized and shaped in ways that are unhealthy and damaging to our children, primarily through false notions of empowerment, profit-driven manipulation of the transition from childhood [...]
Filed under: books, events on April 12th, 2008 by Chris | 2 Comments »
What we see on TV becomes normalized. This is troubling when TV is full of violence, sex, violent sex, alcohol (most common beverage seen on TV), etc. Men are seen on TV more than women, and sexualized women are seen more than sexualized men. The Geena Davis Institute on Media held a conference recently that [...]
Filed under: articles, conferences on April 8th, 2008 by Anna Lisa | 3 Comments »
I don’t understand how one article can leave me feeling such delight and such anger simultaneously! Johann Hari’s “Where Have All the Stong Women Gone?” is a searing and straightforward critique of patriarchy’s destructive and completely unfair expectations of women. Hari reminisces about Bette Davis’ bad-ass characters on-screen, and her boldness off-screen. I’ve never seen [...]
Filed under: articles on April 3rd, 2008 by Anna Lisa | No Comments »