Pam’s Comments (group member since Dec 29, 2016)

Pam’s comments from the Our Shared Shelf group.

Once again... totally off topic here. This thread is about Matt Lauer why are we bringing in immigrants or Hilary?

Please create a thread about American politics or American political concerns.

Jakari could you explain your feminism? I'm not quite sure I understand what you stand for or what you're trying to get out of OSS.

@James. You're right.

Jakari, you may not be seeing the same problems that women are seeing. It is very possible you are seeing something different given your perspective as both a world traveler as well as being a black man as well as probably countless other items we have yet to know about. But I guarantee if you stick around with OSS that you will begin to see things from new perspectives. Best way to do that is by asking questions.

Some things you asked about:
What rights?: I think this is also being covered in "Feminism in Politics" so please feel free to continue asking questions or posing new ideas there

Muslim countries:
- We have a few "Feminism in [Country Here] that you may want to look at. It offers perspectives from people that live in those countries.
- What ways would you like this community on OSS to address feminism in Muslim countries?

History shows us that Iran and Pakistan, that in the 1970's / 1980's their cities and central governments were much different than they are today due to regime changes.

Pakistan, for example, in fact had a female Prime Minister (Benazir Bhutto). (Still waiting on a female President in the States!) Women were able to go to school, drive cars, have jobs, etc- similar to much of the US / UK. But then, as mentioned, regimes changed. These countries were always Muslim. The difference came when religion was used as a means to control and keep certain people in power, IMPO.

- Do we blame religion on this or dictators?
- I'm not an adherent to the Muslim faith. Does my voice count in among 1.5 Billion believers? What are the feminist communities in the faith doing currently? I have a limited knowledge to their faith and their history, how can I - let alone others- contribute?
- By focusing on those countries should we ignore anti-feminism signs in our own? Again, Iran and Pakistan were not always the way they are now. There were signs of that regime change before they became dictatorships: the press was limited if not maligned; scientists were fired, funding for scientific achievement dried up, scientists were kicked out. Are we seeing those same signs in America?

We're getting a wee bit off the topic of Oprah's speech. I welcome you finding or creating a new thread so we can discuss this further.

Laure wrote: "Thanks to the new district's places of my city being given women's names, I discovered the story of Clara Immerwahr.

She was the first woman to be awarded a doctorate in chemistry in Germany, an..."

I recommend A Reunion of Ghosts, then Laure. The book fictionalizes Clara and Fitz's life and their descendants which allows the author to cover some of Clara's frustrations with being regulated to the MRS role instead of that as a scientist.

Hence our frustration Jakari.

We do have the same legal rights in first world nations but we are not seeing the progress that should naturally occur in an equal system. To a lesser degree, this is similar to the Jim Crow laws of the early century in the US.

African Americans were lawfully allowed to vote. BUT, they had to also jump through additional loops to be able to exercise those rights.
- You had to be able to read in order to vote. Whelp... most freed slaves couldn't, so that excluded their voices.
- Poll Taxes. You had to pay one or two dollars to vote. Whelp, yet again, the poor were severely hampered more so than individuals of means, which neatly coincided with race. (again why classicism is so entwined with racism as per our discussion on the current book here

For women, you can see this most clearly with women's health rights.
- Companies refuse to cover birth control despite medical reasons for needing it. Which either leads to women covering it themselves or going without. This again effects poor people far more than those who have the means to cover it
- And so on

Or historically with hiring women
- Historically, in order to have a job you needed the education. Which is a fair point. But then you look around and notice that none of the higher education institutes would take female students. Or they would take a lottery of a handful a women per 100 men. By law, women were allowed to work. But they were hampered by restrictions that did not effect their male counterparts
- Today, companies found that women were not making the executive suite not because of lack of education but due to lack of managerial experience. (Wage Gap conversation) Sure, women could apply for the jobs but there were many factors that would chip away at a woman's credibility for the job. This all leads to the fancy term of gender bias that colors a persons perspective. Which others have beautifully covered. (Thanks Michaela)

Jessica Jones. NETFLIX. Uses the superhero craze to give an amazing review of life after sexual assault. Jessica is angry, confused, coping, and afraid as she goes through her life as a private investigator. Plus, she has an amazing female friendship. Created by Melissa Rosenberg.

And for some comedy:
The B in apartment 23.

Both star Kristen Ritter and both share fantastic female characters that you don't just see and interesting feminist moments.

Jakari wrote: "no, many of them were proven to be paid by outside agitators to undermine the presidency, your unproven allegations are quite dangerous to make, especially if you wish to keep your credibility, pam."

Respectfully, my credibility is just fine. Show me your records instead of writing nice words.

http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-...

- Jane Doe, the 13 yr who accused Trump and his partner of sexual abuse in 1994.
"The lawsuit was dropped in November 2016, just four days before the election, with Jane Doe's attorneys citing "numerous threats" against her."

- Ivana Trump,
"Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and top aide, defended him against Ivana Trump’s claims, saying, "By the very definition, you can't rape your spouse."

- Jill Harth
"In the pre-election interview, Harth maintained her allegations against Trump despite having withdrawn her lawsuit against him after he settled a separate suit her partner filed over a business dispute."

It helps when you have a billion dollars and lawyers on retainer to help keep issues in court to out spend your accusers. It's even more helpful when you can hide behind the presidency.

You state you are an American which means you fully support the president. Well, I am an American, too. I respect the office, I do not respect the man. Nor do I have to as is my right. We don't have a monarchy, we have elections. Furthermore, under our Constitution and the First Amendment I am fully in my right to voice my opinions and to disagree. No one is above the law in our nation, least of all the person who was elected to serve the people.

I would argue that feminism does do those things

- Feminism pushes that custody battles should not favor mothers over fathers because of the outdated stereotype that says all mothers are natural caregivers
- Feminism believes that women can be career focused while having House Husbands take care of the family / home.
- Feminism gives permission to men to express their emotions without fearing being told "Man Up" or "stop being a Crybaby." Feminism insists that men have the same amount of emotional capacity as women, and that holding it back or prohibiting oneself from feeling can be extremely detrimental
- Feminism also says than men can be nurses or social workers or elementary school teachers or administrative assistants without society judging them for being effeminate. They don't need to be called Murse, for example. Professions should be gender neutral.
- Feminism believes that single men who are caregivers should not also be immediately assumed to be pedophiles with the same breath that women who don't want to have children aren't cold hearted or worst
- Feminism believes that clothes shouldn't be gender specific either. If a dude wants to wear a dress - why should that be offensive?

Etc etc.

Like you said, feminism is all about choice. The current cultural climate dictates that we should be in regimented boxes.

Jakari wrote: "Many of the cases against trump have been brushed aside simply because they have been disproven, and the none of them have been proven"

Opps, spelling error there. I believe it's written "paid off"

See Jane Hit: Why Girls Are Growing More Violent and What We Can Do About It

And for a different take: I recommend "See Jane Hit" a review of how culture is changing that no longer prohibits female aggressive tendencies and if anything encourages.

Women are not delicate nice creatures by genetics, but rather due to nurturing and culture. Take those aspects away and the historical playing field changes.

Another idea to think about Jakari: You mentioned earlier that we should be focusing on "So this is not a fight against white men but rather a fight against men and women who abuse, take advantage of, manipulate and belittle young men and women who simply want a chance."

I think we can all agree that rape is an egregious issue, right? One that should be stopped.
- Back in 2015 people started noticing that there was a large pile of rape kits that were not being tested.
- Texas - more than 20,000 kits untested
- In Illinois, 4,000 kits.
- Michigan, 11,000 in Detroit alone.
- In Ohio, 4,000 kits found in Cleveland and then 10,000 kits across the state.
- The White House estimated the number at 400,000 in 2015.
(https://www.npr.org/2016/01/17/463358...
http://thehill.com/opinion/criminal-j... (article from 2017)

If justice was a focus, why weren't these kits tested and the rapists brought in to court?

A few things from this:
1) Victims - male or female - who came forward to get justice were ignored. Leaders in the field roughly estimate that this translates into approximately 2 out of 3 sexual assaults never being reported to authorities.
2) Rape isn't always a one off. Some rapists who aren't caught nor penalized go on to rape again. "In Detroit alone, 11,000 rape kits that were slowly tested over the last few years revealed 817 serial rapists—meaning there are likely close to 29,000 repeat rapists, whose identities are hiding in those crime-scene kits gathering dust around the U.S." http://www.newsweek.com/rape-kit-unte...

Uk: https://informationisbeautiful.net/vi...

How many more people need to be raped before we bring those individuals in for justice? If taking care of the abusers was a priority why did all of these repeat rapes happen?

Now what about the small percentage of those that were convicted?
- RAINN puts the number at of every 1000 rapes, only 6% are actually convicted. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/crim...
- When the DoJ reviewed sentencing for those rapists the average number was around 10 years, though actual time served was half that.

And that doesn't even cover: victim shaming, puritanical views on purity and importance of virginity, lack of proper sexual education in school systems, etc.

So you ask us about why women are protesting and demanding change across the board and ask us why we don't just go after the bad guys: I ask you to look at this and see that even when we follow the rules and work with those who are the upholders of justice - whose job is to believe us and defend us as we are innocent until proven guilty, then tell me why the bad guys aren't being brought in? Why do they get to rape again?

And I ask again, if the people whose job it is to look after our interests aren't doing it, can you really fault us for looking at other instances and questioning if we're actually getting fair treatment? Or are other people/ organizations / institutions giving us lip service, too? We're going to ask, question, and shake a few things up.

Feminism and specifically what we're trying to do here isn't a push against one mustachioed man wearing villain's clothes. This is a push against the institutional and cultural biases that continue to threaten women's safety and livelihoods.

Thanks. I was thinking along the lines of dont-get-involved-in-other-peoples-business mentallity. Where as fire will effect others, rape only affects the person calling out.

Kristie wrote: "I feel I finally am beginning to understand the problem and now I am starting to find the places I can make a difference."

Thank you for adding this. I know I personally like to react immediately - for good or for ill. I feel that your statement reminds me that all of this isn't a sprint. And equally, that as we look further into this issue we can begin to see things that we may have missed if we jumped in head first. It's as if you're giving permission to engage and chew on what we can do for a more meaningful contribution later. Thank you.

Kristie wrote: "The most recent thing I've done is join a group at the community college where I work that one of my colleagues is leading. The group is about supporting minority men in higher education through various initiatives around the college, and through activities aimed at the community, the students, and the faculty/staff."

Has anything changed for you since you joined the community college group to now after reading the book?

It's a solid point Jakari, save that Democrats as a whole never said they were perfect. But they do show that when it comes to these allegations they don't justify or try to hide the abuse. Please see the denouncement of former Senator Al Franken.

Unlike perhaps the GOP's support for Roy Moore's campaign and continued side step for President Trump despite his multiple cases.

You will find abuse doesn't hide behind specific party lines. It hides behind whatever power it can.

Jakari, we are not trying to make a war. But rather we are no longer going to wait for equality to happen. Everything that has been done before regarding basic human rights we have had to fight for and protest and strike and demand. Be it the right to own property, to vote, or even to be able to say who we marry. These things were not given to women out of the goodness of someone's heart. Society at large had to change. What you are seeing and responding to is society changing.

First we will call out the loudest offenders such as those who abuse or manipulate, but we'll start evaluating areas that don't seem to be changing at all. Such as female representation in children's shows. Did you know that girl to boy ratios in children's entertainment (which is 1:3) are the same numbers since WW2. It's been more than 50+ years, why hasn't there been any change?

Although American women hold almost 52 percent of all professional-level jobs, they are only 14.6 percent of executive officer. Here in the states women are 2 years shy a century with having the right to vote. And yet, the number of female representatives in Congress is less than 20%. Why is that?

And you are correct, there were and still are women who support the status quo. Their whole strategy plays into the scarcity myth. If something is scarce it's considered more valuable, right? Diamonds are precious because there are a finite number of them. So to with power. If the whole gender is only given crumbs, then there are going to be those who will covet those crumbs instead of trying to increase the entire share. Because if they hoard those crumbs they will be the ones with the power. But if we increase the share than they are just like everyone else.

So while we thank our male allies of any color, we also know that a whole lot more can be done. And we're no longer going to wait around and be good little girls until we get it. We're going to be squeaky wheels who question, remind, cajole, point out, push, ask, and if need be demand, protest, and fight.

Michaela wrote: "To balance that out, they switched to benevolent sexism.."

Would that be along the line of don't yell "RAPE" if you want to get attention to the crime, but yell "FIRE" instead?

Two nuances in the article that are interesting:

The Role and Responsibility of the Reporters -
"The revelation that Grace didn’t come to Babe, Babe came to Grace raises questions about the website’s eagerness to tell this kind of story and why. Reporting on sexual violence and misconduct is an incredibly delicate undertaking that requires a working understanding about how best to do it."

Instead of questing the reporting and their motives for painting Grace in a somewhat unflattering light, we have been discussing Grace's motives. Pitting it as a He vs She dispute vs he vs she vs Media vs Culture etc.

How much power do our media outlets have in this conversation? Thanks @Michala for adding "The guardian has a good comment about why the whole thing is a missed opportunity and why we should be talking about sex and power" comment 59

I also adore this line on generational feminism. (quote within the quote - sorry for the inception-esqe point.)
Caitlin Flanagan, in her poor Atlantic piece writes ,"In so many ways, compared with today’s young women, we were weak; we were being prepared for being wives and mothers, not occupants of the C-Suite. But as far as getting away from a man who was trying to pressure us into sex we didn’t want, we were strong."

Flanagan repeatedly acknowledges the generation gap between her sexual experiences with men and Grace’s, but fundamentally misunderstands the motivation for the “strength” she cites; the slapping and yelling wasn’t because women were better, stronger, gutsier, or grittier in the old days: this struggle was tied up inextricably in female purity and the stakes a woman faced in her eventual, and all but obligatory married life...."

I adore how as a culture ages the scales that balance cultural taboos can tilt. Purity Measures goes down; but so to does the ideal of a Strong Woman. It's incredible to me how sticky and intertwined these ideals can be.

From what I can tell, Watson does read the books, see a few exerts from her introductions below.

"This is why I’m excited to announce that our first book of 2018 is Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge which talks about the history of racism in Britain, and ways we can see, acknowledge and challenge racism. I am not supposed to have favourites, however this was the most important book for me this year. "

"What struck me the most about the book is Roxane’s searing honesty.... I am also re-reading essays from Gay’s ‘Bad Feminist’."

"November and December’s book will be Mom & Me & Mom, Maya Angelou’s final work, published a year before her death, in 2013, when she was 85 years old. ... This book is one I have read before and is one of my favourites - I can’t wait to hear your thoughts!"

I figure between her life as an actor working insane hours and what little downtime she has being devoted for her role as a UN ambassador and the HeforShe movement, we're pretty lucky she chooses the books AND writes a summery for us AND interviews the authors after.

To all her fans, if she is not quick enough posting than it's likely she is working on a different (ahem, paying) project that will also be amazing.

As to your point on Guidelines or Discussion Points. No need to wait on her, if you see something that you want to dig deeper into or call out feel free to create your own set of guidelines. That's the beauty of this panel, all of us are coming from such unique backgrounds that together we will be able to offer a MORE nuanced and MORE through discussions than any 1 person.

Kaitlyn wrote: "Also, I'm lucky enough to not look like people's bigoted stereotype of what a poor person looks like.... I can't imagine how much harder it is without the ability to trick people's first impressions away from the fact of poverty. "

Yessssss. POC have racism written on their skin. They cannot escape it.

It frustrates me (to put it mildly) when people talk about the Irish and compare their problems to African Americans. It boggles my mind.

For those that are not aware, the Irish in the 1800's US were the white apes, or considered the lowest of the European stock. There were signs in buildings that would specifically call out No Irish Need Apply. Police vehicles were nicknamed Paddy Wagons (Paddy being a derogatory name for an Irishman) as they normally were filled with brawling, drunk Irishmen. The people that dug the canals or died building railroads were Irish on the east, Asian on the west or Black because the job was one of the only ones that would hire. (Again, classism at work that reinforces racism)

BUT the difference between their uptick at that of the black man or the Asian was that the culture assimilation was far easier. In an extreme simplification all the Irish needed to do was to drop the accent, change his clothes, and dye their hair if it was red. Done. Because by looks alone you cannot tell the difference between an Irish person from someone else in Europe.

But you can't change the color of your skin or the shape of your eye.

The Irish were able to blend into society without having to endure outright and continued structural racism.

Logan wrote: "As far as looking for a strong female lead who isn't involved in some sort of romance goes I was very pleasantly surprised by Disney in Moana. She is a strong and independent non-white female lead who doesn't get swept off her feet at the end. "

Please correct me if I'm wrong but this is VERY fascinating to me.

Are these characters being held up by our culture at large as being heroins or as being unusual?

This not having a romantic partner or not being married by the end of the film actually started in the 90's. Pochantas. Mulan. Hunchback of Notre Dame. Emperors New Groove. Brother Bear. Lilo and Stitch.

All of these characters are also people of color (Quazi, though white, is depicted as having Romani parents and disfigured).

The first female who did not have a romantic interest nor marry in her film was Merida in Brave. A Pixar film though, not a classic animated one like Moana. (Frozen... does have TWO female leads. One of which happens to be a in love triangle which pulls the film from this conversation. The other - Elsa - is deemed as "unusual" or monstrous in the movie like Quasi which continues the idea that only "normal" white people get to be romanced)

Moana would be the first animated film which features a female character who did not marry nor have a love interest. But she is POC.

If the Pixar film doesn't count: Than we can see a pattern of POC's being the "deviants" from the feminine white culture.

If the Pixar film does count: Then I also need to remind people that Merida, the heroin of Brave, was attacked by critics on her sexuality. That she didn't have a love interest because she was gay. Not because she was a teenager.

So... does that mean these characters are diverse feminist heroes that don't need a man? Or that the Hollywood zeitgeist still promotes love as a stable force for acceptable females, while poc/gay/or disfigured individuals are the deviants who do not deserve a love interest.