Wanted: Allies for the Feminist Cause

In the 1990s girls were presented with television shows, movies and books in which anything was possible.

I was raised in the age of “Girl Power.” There was never any doubt in my mind: I could do or be whatever I wanted when I grew up and my gender would not stand in the way. With female role models like Sally Ride and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, every door was open.

In high school, I learned the proper name for this belief system: feminist. I never bought into the “dirty word” theory, and still don the title when I need to defend the sisterhood. For me, feminism is a point of pride in myself as a woman. But I have to thank our class discussion on blues women and domestic violence for pushing my thinking further. Is this a struggle women can take on by ourselves? Should we?

As we talked about Donna Ferraro’s exhibition Living with the Enemy, Matt pointed out the biological divisions to which it is easy to revert. Certainly, the nuance of Ferraro’s title implies abusive partners in domestic relationships, but it is not a huge mental jump is to cast half the population literally as “bad guys.” Are we scaring away potential allies by making female issues an all-girls club?

While third-wave feminism has been criticized for a lack of unity in cause, maybe that cause was just hiding in plain view. As the next generation of feminists, we must continue to bring female issues into public view, but with the alliance and support of our male counterparts. We need to collectively move beyond gender as a defining characteristic of struggle. Because after all, aren’t we all in this together?

Living with the Enemy: Bringing Domestic Abuse into Public View

Donna Ferrato's documentary photography has recorded instances of domestic abuse previously hidden within the home. Source: abuseaware.com

True or false: Domestic violence is not a problem in my hometown.

While some might believe this to be a true statement, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that each year, 5.3 million women ages 18 and older are victimized by an intimate partner. One in four women faces physical, emotional, or sexual abuse during her lifetime. [1] Domestic abuse is a pervasive problem in this country. Hidden from public view for generations within the privacy of the home, documentation efforts within the last 40 years have cast a spotlight on these crimes.

In 1982, documentary photographer Donna Ferrato caught a glimpse of an abusive relationship on film.

I began to realize how he manipulated her into doing crazy things for his entertainment….Her husband patted her bare skin and told her she could feel confident walking around naked while her daughter’s friends were partying for Halloween….She was the only naked woman at the party in a house of teenagers.[2]

For the next nine years, Ferrato spent over 6,000 hours riding along with police officers as they responded to calls about domestic abuse. After securing permission to photograph, she would document intimate moments of family turmoil. In 1991, her images were compiled into a book, Living with the Enemy.

Shortly thereafter, a New York City women’s shelter approached Ferrato about mounting a benefit exhibition featuring 47 images from the book. With the success of the show, Ferrato was besieged with requests from around the country and the Living with the Enemy exhibition began to travel. From November 1991 to October 2006, art galleries, U.S. embassies, YWCA’s, and college campuses around the world hosted the exhibition. [3]

This documentary photograph by Donna Ferrato records sheds light on domestic violence in the home. Source: http://www.higherpictures.com

Ferrato’s works capture emotionally charged moments in bold, black and white images. Inspired by this project, Ferrato formed Domestic Abuse Awareness, Inc. as an advocacy non-profit. Describing the tension between her work as an advocate and a documentary photographer, Ferrato explained, “If I chose to put down my camera and stop one man from hitting one woman I’ll be helping just one woman. However, if I get the picture I can help countless more. By taking the picture I am defending the truth.”[4]

Public consciousness about domestic abuse has only surfaced within the last hundred years. In the early 1900s, blues music emerged as one of the first public spaces in which female artists began to discuss violence towards women. According to Angela Davis in Blues Legacies and Black Feminism, “The historically omnipresent secrecy and silence regarding male violence is linked to its social construction as a private problem sequestered behind impermeable domestic walls, rather than a social problem deserving political attention.” Blues artists like Bessie Smith and “Ma” Rainey brought such domestic troubles into public light, often through complicated and often satirical lyrics such as the following lines from “Sweet Rough Man:” “He keeps my lips split, my eyes as black as jet/But the way he love me makes me soon forget.” [5]

Despite these blues references to violence within personal relationships and the home, domestic abuse did not surface as a national issue until the 1970s. As second-wave feminists advocated that the personal was the political, women publicly began to share stories of their physical, emotional, and sexual victimization. [6] Through events such as the Take Back the Night protest walk that started in 1975, violence within the home has gained critical, public attention. [7]

Ferrato’s work has provided the intimate, graphic depiction of domestic abuse that early protests lacked. Living with the Enemy is now accessible as a book, traveling exhibition, and section on the Domestic Abuse Awareness, Inc. website. Through Ferrato’s photographic work paired with her first hand account of years documenting domestic abuse, advocates for domestic abuse victims can point to graphic representation of the societal problem hidden within the home. A picture is worth a thousand words, but Ferrato’s work is worth protecting 5.3 million lives.

[1] National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. Atlanta, GA: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2003.

[2] Bachevanova, Svetlana. “INTERVIEW : Donna Ferrato.” FotoEvidence, January 24, 2011. http://www.fotoevidence.com/interview-donna-ferrato.

[3] Ferrato, Donna. “Abuse Aware.” Domestic Abuse Awareness, Inc., n.d. http://www.abuseaware.com/daa_inc.php.

[4] Bachevanova, “INTERVIEW : Donna Ferrato.”

[5] Davis, Angela Y. Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday. New York: Vintage, 1999, 28-32.

[6] Ibid., 25.

[7] “Take Back The Night – History.” Take Back the Night, n.d. http://www.takebackthenight.org/history.html.

The Other Protest

While the 1968 feminist protest of the Miss America Pageant took over the Atlantic City boardwalk, another protest was taking place around the corner.  As the feminists protested against the objectification of women in the Miss America Pageant, the first Black Miss America contest was held to protest the exclusion of women of color from the Miss America Pageant.  That these two events took place at the same time highlights the difficult position of black women at the intersection of the civil rights movement and the feminist movement.

From its start in 1921, the Miss America Pageant had not been kind to women of color.  The first appearance of black women on the Miss America Stage was in 1923 when they appeared as slaves in a musical number.[1]  In 1941, the first woman of color, a Native American named Milfauny Shunatona took part in the contest.  However, it would be another 30 years until another Native American participated.[2]  Through the 1960s pageant contestants were still required to fill out biological data sheets tracing their ancestry.  Miss America, it seemed, had to be white.

In response to this racial discrimination the first Black Miss America Contest was organized to coincide with the 1968 Miss America contest.  Contestants in the Black Miss America Pageant paraded down the boardwalk past the protesting feminists and the official pageant venue and continued to their own meeting place.[3]

Miss Black America Contest 1968 pbs.com

Perhaps due to the pressure from this protest and simultaneous feminist protest, in 1970 the first black woman, Lencola Sullivan, participated in the official Miss America Pageant.  Its hard to say which protest made a bigger impact, but both protests shed light on problems facing women, black and white, in the 1960s.

[1] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/missamerica/peopleevents/e_inclusion.html

[2]ibid.

[3] http://www.missblackamerica.com/beginning.html

The Pill Turns 50

There’s no such thing as the Car or the Shoe or the Laundry Soap. But everyone knows the Pill, whose FDA approval 50 years ago rearranged the furniture of human relations in ways that we’ve argued about ever since.[1]

This weekend, I ran across an article on Time.com memorializing the 50th birthday of the birth control pill. While not talked about in much detail during our readings, giving women authority over their reproductive system had dramatic consequences for heterosexual sex lives and the demographics of the American family. While such a shift in social attitudes did not occur immediately, by the 1970s, couples were marrying later and having fewer children, while women were increasingly interested in pursuing careers outside the home.

As with any major social change, the Pill was not universally accepted. The Vatican strongly rejected the use of any form of artificial birth control with the publication of Pope Paul VI’s encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, and many African-American leaders in the Black Power movement equated the use of birth control to “black genocide.”[2] Despite opposition, however, two-thirds of Catholic women were using birth control by 1970, and many black women fought for access to contraception. As the Time article states, “when contraception was put under a woman’s control, it put many other things under her control as well.”[3] This newfound sense of power might very well have appealed to women without regard to race or religion.

Looking at my own family history, it’s not hard to see the impact of birth control on families. My paternal grandfather was one of eleven children, and my maternal great-grandparents had four children in five years (if my great-grandfather hadn’t been killed while my great-grandmother was pregnant with their fourth, I’m guessing there would have been many more siblings). The trend continued even into my parents’ generation; after my maternal grandfather died, my grandmother remarried a widower with nine children from his first marriage. Granted, coming from a Catholic background, my data might be a little skewed, but families of that size are nowhere near as common as they used to be. Out of all my (step-)aunts and (step-)uncles, no one has more than four children. I’m one of two. While I have no plans to go around asking about birth control usage at the next family get-together, it’s clear that birth control had a major impact on American families, even moderately conservative ones like mine.

I find the quote that begins this post (and the Time article) incredibly interesting. We can simply call the Pill “the Pill,” and everyone knows what pill we’re talking about. I’m hard-pressed to think of another product that has that degree of recognition. Given our fascination with the Gosselins, Duggars, and other so-called “mega-families,” the introduction of series like MTV’s “16 & Pregnant” and “Teen Mom,” and the ever-present debate over the extent and type of sex education in schools, it will be interesting to see if and how use of the Pill changes over the next several decades.

[1] Nancy Gibbs, “The Pill at 50: Sex, Freedom and Paradox,” Time website, 22 April 2010.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid.

A Feminist Standard: Where Are We, NOW?

After reading about the National Organization for Women (NOW) protest of the 1968 Miss America Pageant, I was curious to see how feminists viewed contestants of beauty pageants. Were they the enemy, or were they captives and victims of a society that glorifies the activity? Have those views changed over time?

My initial findings knocked me off course, when I learned about Nancy Redd. The 2004 Miss America, and winner of the swimsuit competition, was a speaker at the 2008 National Now Conference. Redd graduated with honors from Harvard with a degree in Women’s Studies and wrote the New York Times best-seller Body Drama. The book was endorsed by NOW and is aimed at empowering young women to appreciate a healthy body image, ignoring the unrealistic standards set by the media. Clearly, NOW does not have a firm stance against all Miss America entrants, especially not against someone like Redd. But now I wonder if she is the face of the new feminism: the third wave feminism I learned of during class.

Ohh. So THIS is what a feminist looks like? Maybe? Courtesy of NancyRedd.com

A Woman’s Place

What is a woman’s place? The image of the 1950’s housewife that proliferated media during woman’s liberation as an anti woman’s lib sentiment argued that the woman’s place was the home. The argument continues today, even with the advances made in the struggle for woman’s equality, the year 2010 still sees a belief in prescribed gender roles. Reuters published an online article on Sunday March 7th which reported that in as survey of over 24,000 adults over 23 countries, 1 out of every 4 people surveyed believed that the woman’s place was in the home. The survey asked people from each of the 23 countries to agree or disagree with the idea that women should stay home. Overall, a majority of 74% of the people surveyed did not believe that women should all stay home, however the surprise came in the breakdown of who did. The three countries with the smallest number of people agreeing were Mexico, France and Argentina with 9% agreeing and 91% disagreeing. Comparatively, the US had 25% agree and 75% disagree. It was also reported that across the board people aged 18-34 were more likely to admit they believe women should stay at home than in older generations. In countries like India where over half of those surveyed believed women’s place was in the home, gender does not seem to be a factor as men and women answer the question the same way, nearly equally. Growing up in a liberal state, going to a very liberal college and entering into a field where the majority of my colleges will be women, I find this survey a reminder that my experiences are somewhat unique. And as much as I would like to believe that the ‘big battles’ we discussed before have been won, this is a reminder that those wins are not necessarily universally felt.

Liberating or Eyebrow-Raising?

After last weeks class, in which we debated whether or not the artists of the late 20^th and early 21^st century were continuing on a message of empowerment and action found in the Blues, I thought the most recent news involving Erykah Badu were particularly poignant.

For those who aren’t familiar with the situation, Badu recently filmed a music video in her hometown of Dallas. The video, to the song of “Window Seat,” has Badu stripping off her clothes as she walks down a street. When she gets to Dallas’s Dealey Plaza, the location that has become most associated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy, she feigns being shot and lies down naked in front of that infamous grassy knoll.

The songs lyrics are about a woman wanting a “window seat” out of town, but unable to leave because she is desperately in love with someone who she can’t seem to let go. The video tells a different story entirely. Badu walks down the street and strips (with reactions from the public ranging from oblivious to open gawking) before being shot. Blue blood pours out of her head at the end, the blood spelling the words “group think.”

A spoken passage is recited as she is lying on the sidewalk and has, what I believe, to the be true meaning of the song (or at least, the justification of the video):

They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. They feel most comfortable in groups; less guilt to swallow. They are us; this is what we have become, afraid to respect the individual. A single person within our circumstance can move one to change, to love herself, to evolve. [1]

However, I believe the message of the song has been completely overridden by the media publicity and subsequent decency charges brought against Badu. She defended her actions, saying that it was a protest video, that people are afraid to liberate themselves. The choice of location was intention because Badu maintains that it “tied it [the location of the J.F.K. assassination] in a way that compared the assassination to the character assassination one would go through after showing his or her self completely.” [2]

What do you think? Given our recent discussion in class involving the media, production, and subsequent value of the message these artists are willing to portray, do you think that Badu’s video is a publicity stunt? Has Badu, a respected artist, traded in her “message” for a spot on the evening news? Does it matter how an artists gains publicity, as long as we agree with their message? Do you think people are upset because she stripped naked in public or that she did it at the sight of the J.F.K assassination? What were Badu’s true motives in this video? Do you get anything out of this video? Did you get the impression that people are afraid to liberate themselves? Does this video and song become less effective because of the media surrounding it?

[1] Badu, Erykah. “Window Seat.” Lyrics. New Amerykah Part Two (Return of the Ankh). Universal Motown. 2010.

[2] Daily Mail. 2010. American singer Erykah Badu escapes police rap after stripping naked video at spot where JFK was assassinated, April 1.

“Cuz if you liked it then you should have put a ring on it”

In reading Angela Davis’s fascinating account of female empowerment through blues in Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude “Ma” Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Billie Holiday, I had to wonder…what is the current state of African American, female-driven songs? After doing a little research, which by no means is inclusive or in any way scientific (i.e. these are songs I remember), I came to see some stark parallels and divergences between the female Blues powerhouses of the early twentieth century and the female musical artists of the 1990s-2000s.

For instance, the standards in which female African American artists operate are relatively the same as it was for “Ma,” Bessie, and Billy. There is still a “marketability” and “standard” in which is in heavy consideration when these artists, whether they pen the song or not, create their lyrics. There is also an added pressure of image and where these artists fall into an acceptable degree of White conformability, which this post won’t get into but should nevertheless also be taken into consideration. However, what Davis says about women of the Blues breaking down and creating their own form of gender identity—one that was unabashedly sexual and critical of accepted female spheres—still rings true today. I find that it is no less apparent than within a selection of songs by modern artists Lauryn Hill, Alicia Keys, and Beyoncé Knowles.

Wait! But, what about Erykah Badu? Missy Elliott? Mary J. Blige? India.Arie? Girl groups T.L.C. and Destiny’s Child? All worthy, all considered, and all fall within the scope of what I’m trying to do here. However, for the sake of brevity and succinctness I am using Hill, Keys, and Knowles songs to frame and expand upon the new decade of female empowerment songs.

Lauryn Hill’s album, The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, was produced in 1998.  One of the most successful songs off the album, “Doo Wop (That Thing),” directly translates Davis’s observation that many Blues songs were in an advice format for other women. [1]  Here, Hill sings about how females need to better respect themselves because, “Girls you know you better watch out/Some guys, some guys are only about/That thing, that thing, that thing,” alluding to (and explicitly in other parts of the song) the sexuality that men and women choose to portray.  She pleads:

“Girlfriend, let me break it down for you again
You know I only say it ’cause I’m truly genuine
Don’t be a hardrock when you’re really a gem
Babygirl, respect is just a minimum” [2]

The lyrics show a communication style that breeds a familiarity and camaraderie, showing that Hill belongs to this “community of women” and therefore is authoritative in her guidance. [3]  The video is even more interesting as it directly compares a 1968 scene of what Hill sings about with a then contemporary 1998 scene.