”For the first time since 1994, the Violence Against Women Act is no more.” -The Maddow Blog

Apparently, only some women are worthy of protection against violence. The Violence Against Women Act had been reauthorized without significant challenge in 2000 and 2005, but because the new version of the bill would extend protection to 30 million more women, House Republican leadership did not reauthorize the bill in 2012.

Essentially, in these politicians’ eyes some women are unworthy of the bill’s protection – specifically Native Americans, immigrants, and LGBT women who would have been included under the new bill.

Native American women are twice as likely as other demographics in the U.S. to be sexually assaulted, according to the Justice Department. One in three Native American women will be raped in their lifetime. About ten percent of hate crimes against gay men and lesbians include sexual assault. The Human Rights Watch found that at least 50% of the agricultural work force is undocumented immigrants, who cannot come forward about sexual assault because of fear of deportation.

In Jessica Valenti’s 2009 book The Purity Myth, she observed that, “The rates of sexualized violence against women of color in the United States are far higher than those regarding white women. In fact, violence against white women is actually declining, while it continues to increase among women of color… [T]he average annual rate of intimate-partner violence from 1993 to 2004 was highest for American Indian and Alaskan Native women – 18.2 victimizations per one thousand women.”

Why are the women who are most in need of support the women House Republicans are least willing to protect?

Valenti argues that “it’s not possible to prove that these increased rates of violence in particular communities are a direct result of society’s positioning women of color as impure. But a society that portrays them as such absolutely contributes to a culture of violence against them – women who transgress purity norms are punished, and women of color transgress simply by not being white.” Similarly, in consideration of which women House Republicans opposed protecting, LGBT women transgress simply by not following the heterosexual purity guidelines.

We have seen other politicians punish women for transgressing these purity norms recently with the constant redefinitions of rape. From Todd Akin’s now infamous “legitimate rape” qualification to Roger Rivard’s “some girls rape easy,” it is clear that these Republicans only believe a certain type of women can be raped – women who meet their preconceived idea of purity. And while these men lost the election, the House Republican leadership is perpetuating the same beliefs that only certain women – chaste, white women – are worthy of protection.

You don’t have to look far to see these beliefs reflected and reinforced by popular media. Native American culture is constantly overtly simplified and sexualized. In the past year alone, Victoria’s Secret featured a Native American headdress in their fashion show (removed from the TV screening), No Doubt pulled their stereotypical cowboys-and-Indians themed “Looking Hot” music video after backlash, and the Navajo Nation sued Urban Outfitters for using the Navajo name to sell products like underwear and a flask.

Native American women suffer from these sexual appropriations of Native American culture, and they’re not the only ones. This sexualization is rampant in the media concerning all minorities – the same minorities, incidentally, that the House doesn’t want to protect from violence. Because such portrayals sexualize these demographics, these women lose the protection of “purity” – they lose the respect of men who believe women’s worth lies in their sexuality. This leads to the high rates of sexual assault of women of color, and to politicians considering these women unworthy of protection, all based on stereotypes perpetuated by the media.

After all, as politicians (of both parties) have expressed time and time again, rape only counts if the woman was pure. It’s this idea that’s reflected in our media, and by both our law makers and law enforcers. SlutWalks, for instance, were created in response to Toronto Police Officer’s statement that “women should avoid dressing like sluts in order not to be victimized.” The problem with this statement – beyond it’s obvious victim blaming – is that no matter how modest one woman’s outfit is, it can’t undo the widespread sexualization of women in the media that is too easy to internalize.

When the media portrays women as objects, or only valuable if they meet a racialized standard of purity, it creates a rape culture in which no woman is safe. A rape culture that the Violence Against Women Act had helped to combat.

It’s important to note that this is not a political issue. This is a human rights issue. Nonetheless, House Republicans refused to support the measures expanding protection to millions more women because they considered them “politically driven.”

Despite this political party divide, only 2 of 25 Republican Women in the House opposed reauthorizing the bill, and even those 2 seemed willing to compromise. The Senate had approved the bill 68 to 31, and the bill was co-written by conservative Mike Crapo from Idaho. This divide isn’t political – it’s ideological. It’s a divide between those who respect women, and those who only respect women who have earned their approval by fitting their standards of purity. The latter isn’t truly respect at all.

This is not the end of the Violence Against Women Act. The 2005 version of the bill will continue until a new version is passed, though its services are threatened by budget crises. Because of these economic difficulties, if a new version of hte bill is not approved, it is estimated that 200,000 victims of violence will lose services.

Senator Patty Murray has promised to reintroduce the bill in 2013. But if we want real change, in both our politics and our personal lives, we have to go further than a temporary fix.

It’s time to end the “purity myth.” We need to challenge these degrading, sexualized portrayals of women and acknowledge that all women are worthy of respect, regardless of their ethnicity or sexuality. This is what MissRepresentation.org has dedicated itself to, and we hope you and the 113th Congress sworn in Thursday will join us.

Rachel Grate is an Editorial Intern at MissRepresentation.org and a student at Scripps College, where she is studying English and Gender & Women’s Studies. Connect with her via LinkedIn or read more of her work on her blog.

by Rachel Grate

Now that we’ve educated ourselves on the problematic aspects of Christmas traditions, the sexist elements in popular Christmas songs, and the gender stereotypes in Christmas advertisements, it’s time to look on the bright side.

We may be surrounded by the Christmas season portrayal of a perfect family, and it can be depressing when that family doesn’t look anything like our own, but it can also be liberating. Christmas is what we make of it – if we even choose to celebrate it. For those of us who do, we can make our own traditions, listen to the music we choose, think critically about commercials, and vote with our wallet. #NotBuyingIt isn’t just a Twitter campaign, it’s a dedication to boycott brands and products that are selling something you don’t agree with.

This Christmas, let’s use our money to support products that support women. With that in mind, we’re wrapping up this critical look at Christmas with a #MediaWeLike Good Gift Guide.

For All Ages:
-Parks and Recreation is a delightful comedy starring Amy Poehler as a determined, smart and hilarious government worker with aspirations of the White House. (You may know Amy Poehler from her YouTube channel “Smart Girls at the Party“.) Get the latest season or some memorabilia.
-Feminist Ryan Gosling (the book).
-A “This is What a Feminist Looks Like” T-Shirt from the Feminist Majority Foundation.
-Miss Representation on DVD, or one of our many T-Shirts, including “Future CEO” and “Future President.”
-A donation! There are many deserving charities and non-profit organizations that need your help. MissRepresentation.org is just one of such organizations. Another personal option includes making a loan to a female entrepreneur through KIVA in honor of your gift recipient. Once the loan is repaid, your gift recipient can either take the money or reinvest in another woman’s future.

For Children:
-Books that portray complex, strong women include Just Ella or Running Out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix and Ella Enchanted or The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine.
-A Mighty Girl has a thorough list of gender-neutral or empowering toys in their 2012 Holiday Guide.
-New Moon is a bi-monthly advertisement-free magazine dedicated to empowering girls.

For Teens:
-Books with powerful, complicated women include The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Matched by Ally Condie and A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray.
-The online magazine Rookie just released a Rookie Yearbook One with some of their best articles, interviews, and illustrations.
-Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a great TV show to introduce to budding feminists.
-A classic feminist film, such as A League of their Own.

For Adults:
-The Handmaid’s Tale is a classic feminist novel that still remains relevant.
-The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a movie (based on a novel) that portrays a complex, powerful female character – not necessarily a good role model, but certainly a refreshing break from the average portrayal of women in the media. (Mature)
-A feminist magazine subscription. Ms. Magazine, Bitch magazine, and BUST magazine are all great options.

These are just some of suggestions that are personal favorites, items which have changed who I am as a person and helped me develop my beliefs. Still don’t see the perfect gift? There are many other great feminist gift guides, including Ultraviolet’s Holiday Gift Guide: A Non-sexist Guide to 21st Century Holiday Shopping, Jezebel’s Gifts for Budding Feminists, and Bitch Magazine’s Bitch in a Box: Holiday Gift Guide.

Rachel Grate is an intern at MissRepresentation.org and a student at Scripps College, where she is studying English and Gender & Women’s Studies. Read more of her work on her blog or connect with her via LinkedIn.

by Rachel Grate

With Christmas shopping underway, commercials are starting to seem like little kids jumping up and down screaming, “Pick me! Pick me!” And unfortunately, some retailers are resorting to tired stereotypes to win our business.

As we learned yesterday, Christmas songs often describe kids choosing gendered toys – Barney and Ben want boots and guns, Janice and Jen want dolls (“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas”). But this phenomenon isn’t limited to songs – the gendering of kids’ toys is inherent in most advertisements. As a business model, it makes sense – after all, if a son and daughter refuse to play with the same toys, parents have to buy twice as much to satisfy their kids’ demands.

Take the above Hallmark advertisement, for instance. While the concept is cute, I can’t help but question why the girl wants “a ballerina tutu, a pink bike” and “a princess doll.” If a little boy were writing to Santa, Hallmark wouldn’t put any of those items on his list – but a boy in real life might.

Advertisements don’t have to be gendered to be successful. Top Toy, a Swedish toy maker, recently released their Christmas toy catalogue for Denmark and Sweden – and in the Swedish version of the catalogue the genders of the kids playing with toys have been switched. In the glossy pages, boys are shown playing with dollhouses and girls with Nerf guns – just as kids play in real life.

This sort of gender-neutral advertising isn’t seen in the United States. Eighth grader McKenna Pope noticed this oversight in the advertisements of Hasbro when brainstorming gifts to get her four-year-old brother. In a video (below), her little brother tells her he wants a dinosaur and an Easy-Bake Oven for Christmas.

“Why don’t they have any boys in the Easy-Bake Oven commercial?” McKenna asks her brother. “You think they should put boys, right? Because boys like to cook too, right?”

In response, McKenna started a change.org petition with over 38,000 to feature boys in the packaging of the Easy-Bake Oven, as a step to achieve gender equality in toy advertising – against the societal norms that McKenna notes reinforce that girls are the only ones in the kitchen.

Christmas commercials aimed toward adults further enforce these harmful societal norms. Asda and Morrisons, both UK companies, have released Christmas ads that do acknowledge how stressful Christmas can be. Unfortunately, they do so by relying on 1950s style gender roles – the women are running around cooking and shopping to exhaustion while their foolish husbands stand back, suffering from what The Frisky diagnosed as “‘Doofus Husband Syndrome,’ where they are unable to make decisions related to the home.”

“It doesn’t just happen by magic. Behind every great Christmas, there’s Mum,” the Asda commercial concludes. The problem is, a Christmas where the mom is burdened with all the work and none of the reward is not a “great” Christmas. In fact, it’s a pretty awful one.

As Bitch magazine noted about the Morrisons ad, “It might be refreshingly honest if it didn’t end by saying she ‘wouldn’t have it any other way.’ If you’re a mom, Christmas SHOULD make you miserable!”

Consumers aren’t siting back and accepting these stereotypes – instead, the Asda ad received over 186 complaints in the first ten days it was on air, in addition to social media action. As a result, Asda apologized for any offense they’ve caused – but the ad continues to air.

In America, this Sears ad shows the other side of this stereotype- the “Doofus Husband” running around trying to find the perfect gift for his wife, and losing his child in the process. In addition, the man is portrayed as an idiot for thinking of getting his wife power tools – because of course her real preference is jewelry.

Jewelry commercials are perhaps the most obvious example of gender stereotypes there are. Nonetheless, the Zales Christmas ad (below) surpasses its peers by suggesting that jewelry can be exchanged for sex.

These messages both reinforce unhealthy relationship dynamics. Sexualized images of girls and women result in boys’ developing unrealistic and unhealthy expectations of their appearance (Girl Scouts) – and in the context of the Zales commercial, also of their behavior.

Girls between 11 and 14 see on average 500 ads a day. Advertisers know that kids constantly begging adults for toys they saw in ads is a more effective tactic than targeting the ads to adults – and kid see the advertisements targeted towards adults as well. Unfortunately, when kids internalize this gendered advertising, it has negative effects on their future.

In my letter to Santa this year, I’m asking for an end to sexist advertising. But just in case Santa is a little to busy to get to me, I’m using Twitter to tell these advertisers that I’m #NotBuyingIt. Will you join me?

Rachel Grate is an intern at MissRepresentation.org and a student at Scripps College, where she is studying English and Gender & Women’s Studies. Read more of her work on her blog or connect with her via LinkedIn.

by Rachel Grate

It’s that time of the year again. The time of year when you can’t walk into a store, flip through radio stations, or generally leave your house without hearing Christmas music. While these songs can be comforting, they can also be downright creepy – and in ways more serious than Santa’s disturbing ability to “see you when you’re sleeping” (from “Santa Claus is Coming to Town”).

The main issue with many Christmas songs is that many of the stereotypes they propagate are as outdated as “a one horse open sleigh” would look speeding down a highway. There’s a plethora of Christmas songs detailing children’s gift lists – lists entirely dependent on gender roles.

“It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas,” reports that “Barney and Ben” want boots and “a pistol that shoots,” while “Dolls that will talk and will go for a walk is the hope of Janice and Jen.” This sort of gendered gifting implies that boys should be violent and adventurous, while girls should care for dolls – not surprising considering that the song was written in 1951.

Christmas songs, however, aren’t recognized as outdated like most popular songs are. “Jolly Old St. Nicholas” was written in the 1860s and remains popular, despite “Johnny” wanting skates while “Suzy” wants a “dolly.” Similarly, “Up on the Housetop” was written in 1864, and describes “Will” getting a “hammer and lots of tacks, also a ball and a whip that cracks” while “Nell” gets – you guessed it – a doll.

The gender roles these songs socialize kids into don’t disappear once the children grow up, either. “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus,” written in 1952, is a lighthearted song that nonetheless reinforces heteronormative family ideals.

1953’s “Santa Baby” is a drastically different interpretation of the Santa Seduction story. This song relies on the gold digger trope, reinforcing a materialistic portrayal of women. Furthermore, the song includes an outdated polarity between good and bad, saying, “Think of all the fun I’ve missed/ Think of all the fellas that I haven’t kissed/ Next year I could be oh so good.” This sort of slut-shaming attitude – that kissing boys she wanted to would have been bad – was, again, expected for the time period it was written, but with all the remakes of the song, why hasn’t the line been changed?

One remake in particular stands out to me: Michael Buble’s version, in which he refers to “Santa buddy” and “Santa pally” rather than baby. The version is incredibly awkward, and changes the desired gifts to tickets to sports games and decorations bought at Mercedes, rather than Tiffany’s. Instead of a ring, “and I don’t mean on the phone,” Buble just wants “one little thing, cha-ching, No I don’t mean as a loan.” Nonetheless, Buble keeps the line about kissing, but he kisses “hotties” instead of “fellas.”

Instead of using the gender switch to reduce the gender roles in the song, Buble’s song highlights them with his discomfort wanting the ‘girly’ items in the original – even switching the “light blue” of the convertible to the more manly “steel blue.” While some argue that this song doesn’t rely on sexuality to get the gift’s, if that were the case Buble wouldn’t make these changes – Santa could be his “baby,” too.

On the top of both Feminist Frequency’s and Chloe Angyal’s lists of problematic Christmas songs is “Baby, It’s Cold Outside,” written in 1944. Angyal describes the song as “a relic of an era when it was accepted that any respectable woman would both refuse a man’s invitation to stay at his house drinking alte into the night, and that when she said ‘no,’ she actually meant ‘yes.’ Why the song is still a beloved classic … when our culture’s views on consent have changed considerably, is beyond me.”

The traditional cat-and-mouse dance portrayed in the song certainly tip-toes on the line of sexual intimidation, with the lady continually protesting “I really can’t stay” and “I’ve got to go away.” Some have even argued that the line “Say, what’s in this drink?” implies date rape.

On the other hand, it is true that societal pressures, rather than the woman’s own desires, seem to be her reasons for leaving. She mentions her mother, father, sister, brother, and even her maiden’s aunt as people who would question her – as well as the neighbors. Thus one could read the man as convincing her to do what she really wanted to all along, when she finally says, “Well, I really shouldn’t, alright.”

But that doesn’t excuse the man’s disregard for her refusal. Additionally, his argument centers around questions like “How can you do this to me?” and “Think of my life long sorrow,” rather than actually questioning the woman’s desires.

Some new songs are flawed as well, such as “All I Want For Christmas is You” which portrays a one-dimensional woman obsessed with love, rather than caring about other things like her career. As Feminist Frequency’s Anita Sarkeesian wrote, this is “not really a huge issue but the larger media pattern is definitely problematic.” Unfortunately, the larger media pattern is defined by 1950s standards for what family and gender means.

But for some reason, even though these old songs are remade year after year by new singers, the lyrics aren’t updated. These songs – like any Christmas traditions that reinforce outdated stereotypes – should be either shelved or rewritten to reflect modern sensibilities. (A Feminist Christmas Carol is one fun example of rewriting songs.)

It would be impossible to shun these songs, even if one wanted to. But keeping these messages in mind is important, especially when around children who may be absorbing these limiting messages without considering their historical context.

So just as one might have to explain that carriage rides aren’t necessarily as romantic as they sound when you’re traveling “home” for Christmas, don’t be afraid to mention that girls don’t need to ask for dolls for Christmas, or boys for tools. (Check back tomorrow for how Christmas advertising adds to these gendered expectations.) The red and green of the Christmas season shouldn’t transform into gendered pink and blue gender roles for the rest of the year.

Rachel is an intern at MissRepresentation.org and a student at Scripps College, where she is studying English and Gender & Women’s Studies. Read more of her work on her blog or connect with her via LinkedIn.

“The depressing thing about the Christmas season – isn’t it? – is that it’s the time when all the institutions are speaking with one voice… They all – religion, state, capital, ideology, domesticity, the discourses of power and legitimacy – line up with each other so neatly once a year.” – Eve Sedgwick, “Queer and Now”

Christmas is a powerful force. As soon as Halloween ends, the commercials conquer TV and the songs invade radio. Come December, newscasters begin to frame each story in what Sedgwick calls “the Christmas question”: will the soldiers be home in time for Christmas? State-run schools and businesses get Christmas off – but no vacation time is dedicated to Hanukkah or other religions.

I’m not trying to be the Grinch–I love Christmas. It can be a comforting holiday, a celebration of one’s religion or family, but both religion and family are defined very narrowly in the holiday season. Unfortunately, Christmas songs, advertisements, and traditions are unavoidable and are often entrenched in stereotypical gender roles.

Take mistletoe, for example. Mistletoe was regarded as a sexual symbol with fertility powers before Christianity, and like the date of Christmas itself, the church adapted preexisting Pagan customs to facilitate conversion.

According to The Holiday Spot, during the eighteenth century “at Christmas time a young lady standing under a ball of mistletoe, brightly trimmed with evergreens, ribbons, and ornaments, cannot refuse to be kissed…If the girl remained unkissed, she cannot expect to marry the following year.”

Thankfully, women nowadays have the option to refuse unwanted advances, but avoiding mistletoe at holiday parties can still be an exhausting experience.

This is not to say that a moment under mistletoe with one’s significant other can’t be romantic. But it can be important to remind ourselves of the historical creation of these traditions, especially for those in non-traditional relationships that are often marginalized during the Christmas season.

After all, the pressure to find the perfect gift from Santa (or to fit the cheery holiday narrative) can be at least partially alleviated by the knowledge that an American cartoonist designed the modern rosy-cheeked, round-bellied Santa in the 19th century. These traditions may be comforting, but the moment they become stressful, it is key to remember that they were created – and they are optional.

The modern day illustration of Santa was first drawn in 1865 by cartoonist Thomas Nast.

Perhaps the best demonstration of Christmas’s somewhat arbitrary influence is its effect on the traditions of other cultures. Hanukkah is held up as the Jewish equivalent of Christmas, but this isn’t historically accurate. In Israel, Hanukkah isn’t celebrated as heavily as in the United States, because it is no more important than other Jewish holidays.

A study published in the Economic Journal in 2011 titled “Is Hanukkah Responsive to Christmas?” reported in its abstract that in America, “Jewish-related expenditures in Hanukkah are higher in countries with lower share of Jews. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that Jews increase religious activity during Hanukkah because of the presence of Christmas … Jewish parents in the U.S. celebrate Hanukkah more intensively so their children do not feel left out.”

This holiday season, don’t be afraid to make your own traditions, or rejuvenate the ones you’re surrounded by. Why not hug under mistletoe, or simply exchange compliments? If expensive holiday gifts are wearing down your budget, suggest a White Elephant gift game with friends.

My favorite part of the holidays are the simplest: Going into the mountains and cutting down my own tree, baking pumpkin pies with my father, going to the empty movie theater on Christmas Eve. These aren’t reliant on a pre-defined idea of family or home, but they are what define the holiday season for me.

Throughout this blog series, I’ll be taking a closer look at the Christmas media that define the holidays from a place of privilege. Now that we’ve covered the historical context, in the next few days I’ll walk you through holiday media: songs and advertisements that reinforce gender roles. And we’ll finish things off on a cheery note, with #MediaWeLike gift guide.

Together, we can make sure this holiday season remains happy.

Rachel Grate is an intern at MissRepresentation.org and a student at Scripps College, where she is studying English and Gender & Women’s Studies. Read more of her work on her blog or connect with her via LinkedIn.

by Leah Debber

Anyone who has seen a packaged Halloween costume in the past few years has probably caught a glimpse of what the holiday has (de)evolved into. Halloween, which for many was once a time for candy and spooky stories, has been overrun by hyper-sexualized imagery. The day has largely become about the body and, more specifically, about the young, white, fit (and busty!) female body.

While there is nothing wrong with this body type in and of itself (or wanting to dress however you please on this day or any other day), the Halloween costume industry has featured it almost exclusively. This not only supports a form of body shaming, but it largely excludes women of color and of different sizes and ages from appearing in Halloween culture.

The over-saturation of the ‘perfect’ body image that is featured on costume package after costume package is selling more than just a revealing outfit. By emphasizing this one ideal, women who look different face forms of body shaming and alienation. Full-figured women, older women, and women of color are discouraged from participating in Halloween culture because they do not fit the image that is advertised as ‘acceptable’ for most costumes. It is implied that the only person who should be wearing a provocative costume is someone who is young, white, slender, and female.

The seemingly conscious decision to exclude most women from costume packages is completely unacceptable (there is, apparently, more body diversity on retailer websites). A lack of visibility and diversity implies that there is something wrong with differing from the created norm, or that it is somehow unappealing. This encourages women to further contemplate the way they look – something the media already encourages us to do the rest of the year – rather than kicking back to enjoy the holiday season.

The adult women’s costume section isn’t the only place that revels in body shaming though, as many even more problematic and offensive costumes can be found in the “funny” section of men’s costumes.

Some say that imitation is the most sincere form of flattery — but when it comes to Halloween costumes that mock the female body, that’s certainly not the case. Take, for example, Spirit Halloween’s “Giant Boob” costume. Nothing says respect for a woman more than a piece of her detached anatomy. And if that amount of objectification alone isn’t funny enough for you, have no fear, the nipple squeaks too!

Or how about Spirit’s “Droopers” costume? The costume comes with attached breasts which “droop” beneath a short crop top. The description asks, “ever wonder what happens to the girls who work at Hooters? There’s no real retirement plan when you’re a waitress”.

These costumes are shaming the bodies of women by turning them into objects meant to be ridiculed by men (note that these only appear in the men’s section). A breast is either ‘hot’ and then accepted within the main sphere of Halloween costumes, or it’s ‘not’ and therefore it becomes funny. Because the Giant Boob is not attached to a real, ‘perfect’ woman’s body, it becomes comedic. In the same way, because the Drooper’s breasts ‘droop’ and differ from the ideal, they become hilarious. This sentiment is not only ageist, but it’s insulting to the different bodies of women. There is already enough conversation that occurs on behalf of women’s bodies around Halloween (and in our culture at large), to which these costumes only add an extra disturbing element.

The point of this piece is not to demonize those who look like the women on the costume covers, or to bully all those who choose to sport these costumes. But rather it is a call-to-action for people to start thinking critically about our limited and gendered options for Halloween, and how they affect how we think about ourselves and each other. There are so many things about Halloween culture that are problematic, and looking at costumes is just scratching the surface. Hyper-sexualization, the prizing of some bodies over others and gender stereotyping has created a climate that actively perpetuates sexism in society.

Maybe it’s time we asked retailers like Spirit Halloween to take a stand and stop contributing to this harmful trend.

Leah is an Intern with MissRepresentation.org

I’ve heard a lot of criticism about Taylor Swift recently. Not only is her new CD “Red” out this week, but I also go to a college in a consortium with Harvey Mudd College, who recently won Swift’s “Taylor Swift on Campus” contest. So last Monday night I was in the fourth row of her concert, for free. And it was incredible. In addition to getting a ridiculous amount of free stuff from her sponsors, the concert itself – Taylor Swift’s performance and oft-critiqued live singing – were great.

Taylor Swift at Harvey Mudd College on October 15.

But the sentiment was not so united in my Gender & Women’s Studies class. One girl expressed her desire that the campus-wide Humans vs. Zombies competition hadn’t ended the week earlier so that zombies could rush the stage. I’ve been a fan of Taylor Swift since “Tim McGraw” first came out while I was in 8th grade, and I knew the words to every single song she sang at the concert, but feminism is integral to my identity. I needed to understand the hate.

So I did my research. And I wasn’t convinced.

The Taylor Swift criticisms I read all seemed to rely on distinguishing “Taylor Swift the product” from “Taylor Swift the person” (Jezebel). Or, as Salon phrased it, “Taylor Swift, lyricist, vs. Taylor Swift, public figure.” According to them, Swift’s business success is the most compelling pro-Swift argument, but her lyrics hold her back.

The thing is, you can’t separate two halves of a person. Taylor Swift the businesswoman is the same Taylor Swift writing and performing love songs. When young girls hang posters of her in the room, they aren’t distinguishing between the two – so neither should we in figuring out what her impact on them is.

Since Swift’s business savvy is generally accepted as a good model, I’ll delve into the criticism of her lyrics – most of which relies on claiming they reinforce a virgin-whore dichotomy.

First of all, since I don’t think you can separate the person from the artist, I feel the need to point out that Swift is one of the few teen stars recently who resisted the purity ring trend. In fact, as public as Swift is about her relationships, she’s kept her sexuality private and never implied any judgment about sexuality. Even her ex, Joe Jonas, followed the purity ring trend. Admittedly, the song she wrote about that breakup is problematic. “Better than Revenge” claims that his new girlfriend is an actress but “she’s better known for the things that she does on the mattress.”

I can’t deny that this song relies on criticizing another woman for her choices, sexual and otherwise. But I also can’t deny that I listened to it on repeat when my boyfriend dumped me for someone else in high school. Was that girl a slut? No. Was she the one I should have been mad at? No. But I was, and so was Swift.

That doesn’t excuse the girl-on-girl rivalry that this song sets up, nor the slut-shaming in it, but just as with all feminist works, it’s important to keep in mind the specific historical context. And the context of being dumped for someone else doesn’t often lead to being level-headed.

I concede the virgin-whore dichotomy in that song, but I haven’t been swayed by any other songs. An oft-criticized song is “Fifteen,” in which Swift’s friend “Abigail gave everything she had to a boy who changed his mind, and we both cried.” A critic on Astrostraddle responds by saying, “I’ll spare you the time of listening to the song and give it to you straight: Abigail had sex with a boy, and later they broke up. That’s right. No marriage. She gave him all she had. That’s right. All Abigail had was her hymen.”

The issue is, without listening to the whole song you’re not getting all the context. The phrase “giving it all up” is common to refer to giving one’s virginity, and while I agree that the diction surrounding a woman’s first time is generally sexist and demeaning (“losing it” implies a loss, rather than a gain), Swift did not create this diction. She’s just using it. Swift doesn’t even specify that “everything she had” is sex – it’s the reader, the critic, imposing our expectations of this sexist diction on the song. Everything she had could have been her heart, or too much of her time.

But, granted that it likely means sex, it must be pointed out that Swift never mentioned marriage. She never said Abigail should have waited til she was older and married, she just said she chose the wrong guy. And Swift doesn’t shun Abigail for her choice, instead they simply cry together and take it as a growing experience. The song is hardly a lecture on abstinence – it’s a story of growing up, which includes mistakes of all sorts.

The other song I’ve seen heavily criticized for a virgin-whore dichotomy is “You Belong with Me,” in which Swift positions herself against a cheerleader who wears “short skirts.” I’m not a fan of the girl-on-girl rivalry created by this song, but as Notes on Pop Culture writes in response to a post by Bitch magazine, “Sady [Doyle] calls the comparison between the two girls ‘girl-on-girl sexism”. What Sady forgets is that this is what people do. That is what girls do, that is what teenage girls do, this is what girls do when another girl has the guy they like. It’s tame, and pretty damn fair.”

There’s also something to be said for the fact that Swift plays herself and her rival in the music video, which provides at least a visual deconstruction of the virgin-whore dichotomy. Notes on Pop Culture concludes that the biggest issue with the Swift criticism is “reading the music from a very adult perspective, completely forgetting that Taylor is singing from a teenage girl’s perspective TO teenage girls.”

As a teenage girl (for one more year, at least!) I agree. Swift’s songs helped give voice to my experiences in love, and otherwise. (Contrary to popular belief, not all of her songs are about romance – check out “The Best Day,” one of my personal favorites, or “Never Grow Up,” “Safe and Sound,” “Ronan,” “Change” and “The Outside.”) It is a privileged experience, to be sure, but that doesn’t call for its dismissal.

This categorization of all of her songs as love songs (which Swift actually made fun of herself for at the concert I saw) is an oversimplification. Astrostraddle wrote that Taylor Swift, “according to her lyrics, has spent her entire life waiting for phone calls and dreaming about horses and sunsets.” While “Love Song” and “Begin Again” and others are about wanting boys, as I’ve pointed out, Swift does write about more. Furthermore, songs of hers like “White Horse” and “Should’ve Said No” aren’t about waiting around for a man, they’re about taking back your life and rejecting the fairy tale ending for your own sake. (In “White Horse”, Swift writes that “I had so many dreams about you and me / Happy endings, now I know / That I’m not a princess, this ain’t a fairytale.”)

That’s what Taylor Swift does. She writes about her dreams in love, but she also writes about moving on and becoming a stronger person for it. A stronger woman. Even Sady Doyle (who wrote the Bitch article “Taylor Swift Wants to Ban Access to Your Lady Bits”) admits, Swift describes “women being suitors, not desired objects.” Women may be set against each other to get the guy, but they’re not passive in the experience – Swift isn’t spending her life “waiting for phone calls and dreaming about horses and sunsets,” as has been argued, but she’s out there making her dreams happen. In her lyrics and in real life.

I’m not arguing that Swift is a feminist. Her songs clearly aren’t written with issues of equality in mind. But calling her “a feminist’s nightmare” seems ridiculous in an age when Lil Wayne posted the picture below on his Facebook with the caption “That dick made them rest in peace, I got a bunch of dead hoes!”

I’m also not saying that this means it’s not worth criticizing Swift’s lyrics. Sexist rap or pop songs haven’t stopped me from taking a closer look at their lyrics in the past, and this look is valuable to raise awareness. But separating Swift into two parts to tear one apart – without having to take responsibility for the fact that in doing so you’re also tearing down a successful woman – isn’t the way to go about constructive criticism.

What is important here is perspective, and reality. I love Swift because as generic as they are, her songs have given voice to my emotions throughout my teenage years. I may not have a guitar, but plenty of tears were shed in high school to “Teardrops on my Guitar.” And, in one aspect, isn’t Swift giving voice to the lived experience of women, a goal of feminism?

I’m not dismissing the criticism that’s been done, or its value. But I do respectfully disagree with the simplification of the emotions and situations Swift describes into a “virgin-whore dichotomy.” I propose in the future we deal with Swift as a complex individual rather than dividing her into parts, which seems to be a disclaimer so that we can criticize another woman without guilt. I for one refuse to believe that a successful woman could ever be “A Feminist’s Worst Nightmare.”

Rachel Grate is an Editorial Intern at MissRepresentation.org and a student at Scripps College, where she is studying English and Gender & Women’s Studies. Connect with her via LinkedIn or read more of her work on her blog.

“What’s the difference between a Woman with PMS and a Pit Bull?
Lipstick.” – Jokes4Us.com

This is for every woman who, whether assertively stating an opinion or adamantly disagreeing with someone or showing the least bit of emotion or…well, really doing anything at all, has been dismissed with a simple, “Looks like someone’s on her period!”

PMS. I’ve been warned of its dangers since childhood, about how each month women turn into dangerous beings whose only capacities are whining, yelling and eating chocolate. (And to be clear, I’m discussing PMS strictly in terms of supposed emotional effects on women, not in terms of the very real physical symptoms of menstruation.)

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love an excuse to eat chocolate – but that excuse isn’t worth the lack of respect my emotions and opinions are given if one even suggests that I’m on my period. (Besides, I like to think that I can eat chocolate at any time of the month, regardless of whether or not I have an “excuse” to enjoy it.)

In reality, claiming women are essentially incapable of rational thought for essentially a quarter of their reproductive lives (assuming one’s period is monthly and lasts a week) is just another underhanded way to rationalize keeping them out of positions of power.
Don’t believe me? Think back to the 2008 elections. (You may remember this quote from Miss Representation the documentary.)When Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly asked guest Marc Rudov what the downside to a woman (Hillary Clinton) in the Oval Office would be, Rudov replied, “You mean besides the PMS and the mood swings?”

Rudov later said he was joking (and that “the main problem I have is if a woman has a female agenda”, whatever that means). But PMS jokes aren’t funny when they discount a woman’s potential and intelligence. And I’ve never heard a PMS joke that doesn’t do just that. And boy, are there a lot of PMS jokes: check out the joke page I linked to above and if that doesn’t satisfy you, there are about 4,270,000 more Google results pages you can take a look at.

There’s a term for when one’s perspective is dismissed: Gaslighting. To quote Wikipedia, gaslighting “is a form of psychological abuse in which false information is presented with the intent of making a victim doubt his or her own memory and perception.” So when a woman points out someone’s wrongdoing and they play the PMS card, they’re trying to make the woman doubt that she is able to properly assess whether or not it was wrongdoing. They are making her doubt the validity of her own perception.

There’s another part of that definition of gaslighting that needs to be addressed: “false information.” Whether or not the medical existence of emotional PMS as distinct from physical discomfort or PMDD is in question, but I personally neither have the medical expertise to make that call nor the desire to dismiss anyone’s personally experience by doing so. Nonetheless, I think we can all agree that even if women do suffer from some emotional symptoms during her period, we don’t completely transform into a lipstick-wearing pit bull.

A menstruating woman doesn’t lose her rationality, just as a man with an annoying paper cut is still capable of making decisions.# So saying one is slightly grumpy because of PMS? That may be valid, though presumably no one besides the woman herself would know her cycle well enough to make that judgment. But dismissing one’s opinions because they’re ‘unstable’? That’s gaslighting, and startlingly reminiscent of the catchall “hysteria” diagnosis of the 19th century.

Disturbingly, it’s not just overtly sexist jokes or oblivious individuals misusing PMS. The June 2012 issue of Cosmopolitan claims that “PMS triggers all those annoying symptoms: bloating, bitchiness, serious junk-food cravings” and a “Brain Haze” that inhibits your ability to make decisions. Their solution? Sex or shopping. Aren’t women capable of more than that – at all times of the month?

This insistence that PMS restricts women’s intelligence is preventing women from being taken seriously. So next time someone dismisses your or another woman’s opinion with the excuse of PMS, call them out on it. Calmly request that in the future, they try to take other’s input seriously without writing it off in a “joke.” (Not to mention, nothing makes me angrier and more intent on proving my point than someone using a PMS line on me, so it’s really an ineffective method to make me shut up.)

I can’t think of any better way to end any piece of writing ever written than with a quote by Gloria Steinem:

“If women are supposed to be less rational and more emotional at the beginning of our menstrual cycle when the female hormone is at its lowest level, then why isn’t it logical to say that, in those few days, women behave the most like the way men behave all month long?”

Rachel Grate is an intern at MissRepresentation.org and a student at Scripps College, where she is studying English and Gender & Women’s Studies. Connect with her via LinkedIn.

by Imran Siddiquee

Supporters of Daniel Tosh and his brand of comedy will often use the defense – as the comedian himself did – that comedy provides a context in which we can joke about “awful things” without worrying about the impact these things might have if said elsewhere (these “things” being, in this case, gang-raping women). The framework provided by a comedian’s stand-up routine, the theory goes, makes any kind of humor permissible because the performer and the audience have a universal understanding that what is said on stage is not truth, but “comedy.”

Or as someone on Facebook put it: “everyone knows there are no sacred cows in comedy.”

Let’s ignore for the moment the possibility that this understanding isn’t actually universal, that all audience members are not equally adept at deciphering between meaning and meaninglessness in jokes, and that a lot of comedy is digested by people who will later quote lines out of “context.” I can accept that stand-up comedians are artists who are not forcing us to consume their material – we are paying to enter – so one can argue they are not responsible for how we use their words later.

Beyond this, though, there’s a fundamental flaw in the “context” argument. Because the fact is, comedy shows are not of an alternate universe – when you walk into a dimly-lit room with a performer on stage mumbling into a microphone, you are not stepping out of time. You are still in a city, in this country. And that’s a real live human being on stage.

Similarly, everyone else in that room is real too. They are, unfortunately for comics, not mindless robots. They are men and women who live in the real world. A world in which 1 out of 6 American women is the survivor of an attempted or completed rape. Meaning if you have 20 women in your audience, there are probably at least three or four women in the room who have first-hand experience with rape. And because of this truth, there are many more women in the room who feel unsafe walking alone at night – the real night that exists on the street outside the comedy club.

We can say comedians exist against a very specific backdrop where crossing societal taboos has the potential to expand minds, but shouldn’t we also consider the specific audience for whom these comedians are performing?

Imagine you’re in a country where people are still consistently assaulted for having dark skin. In this context you suggest that the lighter skinned people in the room whip a brown man into submission after he complains that jokes about darker people being persecuted aren’t funny. Might this make us uncomfortable? Probably, because when the brown man steps out into the real night outside the comedy club, there is a good chance he could actually get beaten and murdered. There’s also a history of this kind of violence actually happening around the world.

Does the “right” to joke about anything trump the realities of the place in which those jokes are being made?

Or imagine you are a heterosexual comedian in present-day Senegal (where being homosexual is illegal and gay men are often killed for being gay), speaking in front of an audience that includes people of various sexual preferences, and you make a joke about how killing gay people is always funny. And then a person in the audience shouts back “I’m gay and I don’t think it’s always funny.” And you proceed to say, hey, what if we beat up that gay guy right now? Wouldn’t that be hilarious?

Here in America, we live in a culture where sexual violence is a real threat. It is a part of the lives of millions of American women (and men) – whether they have been attacked themselves or not – and something that is perpetuated daily by popular culture and the media.

And, as Professor Caroline Heldman explains, “exposure to images of sexually objectified women causes male viewers to be more tolerant of sexual harassment and rape myths.” In a society where they are consistently diminished and sexually objectified, women are “dehumanized by others and seen as less competent and less worthy of empathy.”

We all live in this society that tacitly condones sexual violence through silence and silencing. Daniel Tosh’s joke exists in this same context.

This is not just a woman’s issue, yet it is significant that Tosh is a man who directed his joke at a woman.

When at a stand-up show, the comedian is without-a-doubt the most powerful person in the room. They have the spotlight and the mic in their hand, as well as a receptive audience eager to hear them speak. What he or she says, in that moment, is supremely influential.

Tosh used his power to ask his audience if they thought it would be funny if a specific woman – who was standing in the room – were to be raped at that very moment by 5 other men in the room. He repeated, for emphasis, “right now.”

So what was actually supposed to be funny here? That idea of watching a woman who complained about rape being raped herself?

Put this against the backdrop of a misogynistic society where men are still in power and women are still valued primarily as sexual objects, and the picture gets even darker.

The humor comes from the voicelessness of the woman – the absurdity of her saying “rape jokes are never funny.” Because in the context of the culture in which we live, a woman speaking out against rape jokes to a man is literally absurd. Women challenging rape at a comedy club are probably, the joke implies, more likely to be raped themselves than to be heard and respected by the male comedian. That is what Tosh finds funny. What the audience chuckles at. That is the true context of his joke.

It revels in male power and female powerlessness. Daniel Tosh – feeling threatened after a challenge from an audience member – maintains his authority through the use of violent imagery and barely-veiled threats directed at a woman.

It’s not illegal to make jokes like this (not saying it should be either), but it’s worth thinking about “context” before we go out of our way to defend Tosh’s joke. Because what you are actually defending isn’t just a comic and his right to make rape jokes – you’re indirectly defending a larger culture of inequality, violence and oppression.

Sign the petition asking Tosh to dedicate an episode to rape awareness.

Imran is the Social Media and Communications Manager at MissRepresentation.org. The opinions stated here are his own and are not necessarily those of MissRepresentation.org

Follow Imran on Twitter: @imransiddiquee