Faked

This link, “”Real” Orgasms” at the blog, Some Came Running might be considered slightly NSFW for language. The post is an interesting meander through the depiction of female orgasm on film and what an audience invests in its interpretation:

I sometimes wonder the extent to which the much-celebrated Katz’s Deli “I’ll have what she’s having” scene in Nora Ephron and Rob Reiner’s 1989 When Harry Met Sally affected the sex lives of the Joe and Josephine Popcorns, if you’ll excuse the phrase, who have seen it over the years. The scene is a classic for a reason; Meg Ryan’s Sally hoists Billy Crystal’s Harry by the petard of his own sexist presumption but good. But one reason the movie is as cozy a concoction as it is has to do with the fact that after the punchline, it never returns to the topic of female orgasm; the discomfort Harry feels after initially sleeping with Sally and then fleeing from her prior to the inevitable fateful facing of facts and return to romance has nothing to do with this particular facet of sexual or emotional exchange. Someone might expect, in the depiction of their growing intimacy, a query from the acceptably neurotic Harry along the lines of “how do I know you’re not faking it with me?” But the viewer is left to presume that they’ve worked that all out. Actually, given the way the movie progresses to its conclusion, my feeling is that the filmmakers were/are hoping that you’ve pretty much forgotten about the whole thing. This is When Harry Met Sally, not The Mother And The Whore. The viewer is meant to feel pleasant feelings, not particularly complicated or uncomfortable or unpleasant ones.

This idea as it pertains to comedy, and to romantic comedy, is changing—see Girls on the one hand, and the Hangover movies on the other (what they share in common is the view that pretty much all sexual relations are somehow predicated on hostility)—and it’s also changing as it pertains to drama, and romantic drama. The ideas change, but the issues of representation remain just as fraught. Next to race, the depiction of sexuality on screen is about the most fraught thing ever, and right now it is as fraught as  it ever has been. And critics, depending on their ideological perspective, direct and/or unique experience, or just plain contrarian pissiness (to name just three of what could be dozens of factors) will unpack a given work dealing with this representation in sometimes wildly divergent ways.

 

Thanks to JE for the link.

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“Brush your teeth, brush your hair, shush I’m working”

There are some revealing quotes in these links from a couple of famous writers and a musician about combining motherhood with artistic careers. It makes me think that the combination is still mostly a mess, really. But what refreshing quotes to read, because isn’t it the messiness we long to hear about as women?

This is from Lauren Sandler’s “The secret to being both a successful writer and a mother: Have just one kid” (as an aside, I think they might be right about the ‘one child’ thing) in The Atlantic:

Like many women, Hardwick found motherhood grueling, though rewarding. When writing about Sylvia Plath, who saw new motherhood as her muse, Hardwick coldly dismissed the notion that women somehow become infinitely more productive and creative upon the birth of a child. It surely didn’t help that Lowell himself was wrestling with psychological problems of the most dogged kind, living in and out of institutions as Hardwick attempted to raise young Harriet. When Harriet was three, and Lowell was in no state to parent alone, Hardwick found friends to care for their daughter while she took a two-month trip to Europe. She couldn’t abide the notion of canceling the trip in service of maternity, but she did feel an inner conflict. “I’m very excited about the trip, but very reluctant, nearly ill really to leave Harriet, and very reluctant to be flying about everywhere, risking her orphanage,” Hardwick wrote in a letter. “It is more myself, my own missing her, and wanting to get back safely that bothers me.” Harriet was fine. Hardwick never wrote about herself—overtly—after her doomed marriage to Lowell. Instead, she chose to discuss how other women writers were perplexingly shortchanged by domestic concerns. Its Hardwick’s literary criticism that exposes her frustrations with “the text of the family.”

Quintana once nailed a list of “Mom’s Sayings” to the garage door that read: “Brush your teeth, brush your hair, shush I’m working.” In reviews of Blue Nights, “shush I’m working” became a symbol of Didion’s maternal negligence. What’s wrong with “shush I’m working?”

And this is from an interview with Martha Wainwright by Alan Pedder in Wears the Trousers (thanks to Karen Pickering for the link):

With Arcangelo keeping you on your toes in the last couple of years do you feel like you’ve been forced to focus or write in ways that you maybe hadn’t done before?

What happened right after my mum died and we came home with Arcangelo, whenever I would try and pick up the guitar I would end up in a puddle on the floor because it was just too intense. After several months I knew I needed to get started with writing, because I always wanted to make another record relatively quickly. I didn’t want to be off the scene for too long after having a child. There is always a danger that a pregnancy might stop you from doing a lot of stuff, so I knew that I needed to keep working. I hired a babysitter to come in for three or four hours a day, just so I could go upstairs and make that separation. It was really enjoyable actually. I could just become who I was before, you know. I would light a cigarette and it would be like I was twenty-five again, sitting on the couch with the guitar being myself. And then I would go downstairs, make dinner, and that was that; like, “Now we’re doing home time.”

More from Wainwright:

There are a couple of songs on the album written from the perspective of a woman overcoming problems in her marriage, and knowing how honest you generally are in your songwriting people will no doubt assume you are singing about your relationship with Brad. Has it been hard for you to find a balance between being a mother and a wife and an artist?

As hard as for anybody else, even if I do sometimes say that other people have it easier [laughs]. Brad has always been behind me whatever I wanted to write, sing or talk about. With the first record, and even the second record to an extent, I was writing songs about other men – previous loves and things like that – so he’s sort of used to that level of honesty. I mean, to the extent that an artist will say whatever she thinks or feels. That being said, although he had heard some of the songs before, when I was writing, I don’t think he really played the record that much before we started doing shows for it. Then during one of the first shows we did together – he was playing bass with me on stage –I think he realised just at that moment that he was a little bit sad and a little bit freaked out about some of the lyrics. So I recognised that I had to talk to him and make sure that we’re alright, and that this is alright. I know that he doesn’t want to put any constraints on me, but it’s also very important for me to cherish and nurture the relationship. I think because we’re both children of divorce we’ve always wanted to stay married, but staying married is a challenge for a lot of people – to just stay in a relationship is difficult. So I think that’s what I am singing about. I’m sort of saying, “Yes, this is tough,” and it’s something I need to be able to do in my songs because I think if I were to feel as though I had to edit myself in my songs…well, you know.

And this is from a favourite old post of mine, ‘Though Hawaii sounds like fun’:

I’ve also just read a fantastic essay written by the late Marjorie Williams (she died in her 40′s with relatively young children), called Mommy at Her Desk. Try as I may, I can’t find a link to this essay on-line so if you’re interested you’ll have to buy her book. The essay is about seeing a picture her young daughter has drawn called – “Mommy at Her Desk”. As Williams examines the drawing she concludes that while the drawing could be viewed as an affirmation of her daughter’s awareness of women’s lives, that they are more than simply ‘mothers’, that they also have pursuits entirely of their own.. it is more likely that the picture represents an accusation – that her daughter, in fact, resents the time her mother spends working at her desk and consequently being unavailable to her.

Williams explores an inescapable trade-off for women between career and family goals and her own battle with the guilt that manifests. Her discussion climaxes with the quietly devastating but strangely liberating line -

 ”… I finally realized, my task was not to find out the one answer, but to learn how to live with the knowledge that in pursuing my work, I am in some degree acting selfishly.”

Maybe I never will resolve my guilt about being a working mother, maybe my family and I will grow through this stage of our lives before we ever sort it out. Maybe I have to suck it up, I’m a big girl now.

As Nora Ephron says (quoted also in Mommy at Her Desk) – Children would rather have a suicidal mother in the next room than a happy mother in Hawaii. But this doesn’t mean women shouldn’t ever be selfish either. Fathers are selfish at times and mothers should be able to be, too. Anyone experiencing resentment knows that selfishness, on occasion, can be a very healthy trait.

 

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Speaking as a bitch who has read some macroeconomics

I agree with much of this piece by Helen Razer in The Age – “Destroying the point”. But overall, I wonder where her conclusions lead us.

”If you want to politicise someone, here’s a thought: talk to them about politics,” I wrote a few months ago. ”You need to read some macro-economics, bitches,” I said.

Yes. But speaking as someone whose degrees are in economics I will issue a gentle word of caution on the call for feminism to be more pragmatic and strategic, less emotional and personal. Feminism is an incredibly challenging philosophical movement aimed at achieving economic, political and social rights for women and also, changing the way these same systems of oppression are structured against other disadvantaged identities. As a movement, feminism is calling for the redistribution of power on a global level but in doing so we are being required to question and evolve the most intimate aspects of our lives. Feminist action shouldn’t feel easy, and given the intersections, it probably shouldn’t be easily branded, both are indications that feminism has been captured and diluted.

In this battle for change, which is long and demanding, there is much to be said for any feminist action that manages to ignite passion. For a movement like feminism to succeed, the emotional and personal are just as necessary as the calmly pragmatic. (Indeed, Razer’s own contributions to feminism, which I don’t want to diminish, can be measured more in arousing important debate than in leading practical, targeted, grass-roots campaigns). Destroy the Joint might not be savvy enough to counter the sly opportunism of certain advertisers but telling a movement to curb its outrage sounds suspiciously like taming. In her article, Razer extensively quotes a man in advertising who was drawn to Destroying the Joint only to find himself later sidelined and disillusioned. Much of his criticism is about the branding and tone of feminist action. Some of his frustrations I can relate to, but really, a man in advertising, is that the best measure of whether Destroy the Joint ‘works’?

Because to be frank, it wouldn’t hurt those of us working in economics, finance and advertising to open a book on gender and cultural studies from time to time either. What we will find when we do so is that a good deal of the problems we think are new – like, the branding of feminist action and feeling sidelined as an ally – are actually well-trodden paths with very comprehensive solutions. And if we read some gender studies we might learn that some of these problems are about us, not the movement. What we may also find is that passionate outrage and radical ideas, far from being naive and chaotic, are often very rational forms of thinking. We may even find such thinking useful for furthering our understanding of economics.

Cross-posted at Hoyden About Town.

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The Top 20 Women to follow on Twitter from The Shake

There is a list.. and I’m on it.

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Three quick clicks

I recommend:

Tots in Genderland: a pinterest board run by a few of my friends collecting photos of young children breaking and upholding gender norms.

Feminist graffiti art in Egypt at Muslima.

A fascinating discussion between Wesley Morris and Rembert Browne at Grantland on rolling with racism. The conversation includes everything from being ‘rescued’ by well-meaning white people to Baz Lurhman’s The Great Gatsby.

 

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Isabella Rossellini on maternal instinct

Yeah.

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Electronic parenting

Photo credit: Aboriginal performers on Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s Facebook website.

 

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Opinions I hold that almost no-one agrees with

1.

Opposition Leader, Tony Abbott’s paid parental leave scheme is progressive because it treats maternity leave with the same degree of legitimacy as sick leave for women in the workforce, and his scheme also provides more generous leave entitlements for parents and their newborns. (Hopefully the scheme also helps encourage women with great career potential to stay attached to the workforce long enough to rise to positions of seniority where they can remove institutional barriers that are holding back disadvantaged women). But for goodness sake, I know what Abbott meant when he said ‘women of that calibre’ and it was not a clumsy way of saying ‘I hear you sisters, ‘work life balance’ is crazy difficult and we must do what we can to assist you all’. Abbott’s comment was transparent snobbery. It should alarm us as feminists because the conservative side of politics has a long history of promoting motherhood to patriarchy-approved women – ie. white, married, middle-to-high income – while not only denying support for, but actively undermining, mothers outside that spectrum – eg. single, disabled, non-white, incarcerated, poor. I’m not suggesting that the parental leave scheme is harmful to poor mothers but it isn’t immediately helpful to them, and particularly not if it is sold with the overt message that some mothers are more equal than others.

2.

Angelina Jolie wrote a perfectly sound (and engagingly heartfelt) article about her decision to have a double mastectomy.  Her article will be beneficial for women encountering the choice in similar circumstances, and also for destigmatising mastectomies generally. But it is not a particularly insightful piece. The screening Jolie promotes in her article is unaffordable to many in the US and the preventative surgery she ultimately decided upon has problems of its own that are not explored in the piece. Her article also emphasizes genetic risk at the expense of environmental factors which are far more significant in contributing to cancer rates. This is a concern because genetic factors are corporation-friendly but environmental factors are decidedly not. (For an excellent overview of this criticism of the breast cancer campaign I recommend Barbara Ehrenreich’s essay “Cancerland”). Jolie is not a writer or a medical specialist, she is an actor, so there is nothing offensive to me about her article being relatively narrow and personal in focus, but the response to it almost everywhere has been somewhat.. star-struck. Jolie didn’t write the bravest and most important story for women this year – can’t we just be satisfied with her writing a significant story?

3.

Australia has a problem with anti-intellectualism but this bold article, “Why Australia hates thinkers” doesn’t prove it. Credit to Alecia Simmonds, the author of the piece for getting people talking and also for naming names when she makes her criticisms. Both of those achievements are important but Simmonds’ article reads like having dinner with a scoffing ex-pat. And I should know, I have dinner with such an ex-pat every year when they come back to Australia to visit. (Love you, Dad).

In her article, Simmonds cherry picks a handful of idiot commentators from Australia and then unfavourably compares us to the cultures of France and England. But having been to both those countries I know that these lovely places have their share of over-exposed buffoons, too. Australia’s anti-intellectualism could be demonstrated with less anecdotes and more identifiable measures. I find Simmonds’ swipe at Andrew Bolt for dropping out of a university degree depressing also. His views are repellent but so are those of Dr Steven Kates (ie. “the damaged women” vote), and Kates completed a couple of degrees and teaches in a university. Judgementalism about education levels is a perfect way to prove that anti-intellectualism is justifiable in Australia.

And while we’re madly dividing between us and them, those of us with higher degrees would do well to be careful of defensive statements like those in Simmonds’ article about how poorly paid and noble academic professions are compared to other jobs. I agree that such jobs are paid less than the general public understands but neither description plays too well to the 50 per cent of the Australian workforce who work in full-time jobs for less than $58,000 a year. Some wages truly are embarrassingly humble and so are the working conditions, which can include plenty of unpaid overtime but with none of the autonomy of academic jobs. And who is going to tell a childcare worker her job isn’t a noble one? We’d be better to say that there is a squeeze on workplace conditions that many occupations and industries, including academia have in common.

The article has some very tired old Australian stereotypes, too, that could benefit from re-examination; like, are children here still ashamed of being smart? A huge surge in private tutoring and an obsession with NAPLAN testing among parents suggests otherwise to me. And what of the idea that Twitter is no place for academic thinkers – my feed is teeming with them and links to their work.

But I absolutely agree with Simmonds’ belief that there is a problem with anti-intellectualism in Australia, I just don’t find her article terribly convincing of the fact. Anyway, if you haven’t had enough of this complaint then Jeff Sparrow makes some of these arguments and others in a great response, “Why Andrew Bolt is not an imbecile” at New Matilda.

And to finish up.. a less controversial view of mine? This article is well worth reading. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s “How to make the U.S. a better place for carers” in The Atlantic:

Focusing on infant mortality is not typically on a white feminist agenda in the U.S.; the babies at risk are children of poverty, who are in turn more likely to be rural whites and ethnic minorities. But an infrastructure of care must provide care for everyone, just as roads and bridges provide transport for anyone who can drive or afford a bus ticket. Care is for the vulnerable, the sick, the disabled, and the dependent. All of us, rich or poor, qualify as vulnerable and dependent for at least some period after birth and before death.

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Family values

I went to a gay tea dance this weekend. They finish by midnight, which is so civilised and I love it. Why are they a thing these days? Everyone has kids, they explained.

 

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My new article: The sexualisation of girls

I have a new article in Essential Kid discussing the four biggest problems I see with the conversation around the sexualisation of young girls. And I almost never say this about an article I have written but you can read the comments.

Not so long ago there was controversy over child models being photographed in French Vogue mimicking sultry adult poses and being dressed in women’s clothing and makeup. Everyone agreed that it was little girls looking like adults but some people still wondered what the fuss was about. Even some feminists view the concern about the sexualisation of children as really being a sneaky resurrection of female purity obsessions. To my mind, there’s nothing bad about little girls playing dress-up, or even playing with sexy dress-up ideas, if they’re genuinely choosing this play idea from a range of gender-diverse options. Shaming girls about femininity, even artificial constructs of it, is a big mistake. But the Vogue photos weren’t pictures of little girls playing – they were adults playing dress-up with little girls. That’s an important difference and we should pay attention, particularly when it is for commercial purposes. What was the magazine selling? Notably, little boys are not typically used to represent miniature versions of sexy adult men, why is that? It could be that this collapsing of sexiness and materialism into displays of girlhood is part of a wider trend in sexually objectifying women.

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