A Radical Pro-feminist Talks with Men's Rights Activist

I strongly urge all of my readers to read through A Radical Pro-Feminist's recent series of conversations with a Men's Rights Activist. The MRA in the posts behaves civilly, so it is readable. I recommended the readings as A Radical Pro Feminist illustrates amazing points, work of women worldwide and a real analysis of the so-called "Men's Rights Movement" 

Part 1 

Part 2 

Part 3

A Radical Pro Feminist has also recently opened up further conversation on the so-called "feminist" work of Katie Roiphe and Chistina Hoff Sommers 

Tea Party Facism in America and WMST Class on Women and Work

Here's a tea party support sign, as you can see, it's blatantly racist.

This post will likely be a bit scattered - I promise a nice one that focuses on something more concrete will come soon! I really want to take this post to discuss some things floating around in the media recently, as well as issues brought up in my women's studies class and other such things.
First and foremost, poor America. I don't really understand the whole American way of elections (the midterm stuff etc) but I know that yesterday the tea party cult got control of the house of representatives. Right after i heard about this, a political analyst was expressing concern for Canada's role after the extreme right takes some control in the US. The analyst was discussing possible repercussions for Canada, such as the issue of the environment being put on the back burner to put all the focus on the economy. As most of you know, Stephen Harper, Canada's PM is a right winger and usually follows the US when they make big decisions. This is bad news for everyone else in the world, too, since the West controls so much. A major problem is obvious here...If America stops caring about the environment , which is an immediate issue, then it is safe to say that we will all be screwed. Royally screwed.

The environment will not reverse itself, it needs dedication by everyone but particularly the government. What good is the economy if the earth is suffering? If we don't cut emissions as planned, the economy isn't going to mean anything. Also, there is the issue of the anti-immigration policies promoted by the tea party - this is a huge problem as it is fascist in nature. These conservative cultists really want to press the rewind button on history and take us back to a time of accepted, government supported bigotry. Something needs to change.

Now that the US is off my chest, I'll move onto what we discussed in WMST today. Our topic of the day was involving women's work, any work that women do, formal or informal. The definition of work is usually on masculine terms, work that women do that isn't being recognized by the government, which is a lot of it, is further perpetuating women's lower status. This is severely problematic because thousands and thousands of hard-working women are being ignored, regardless of the work they do. We also discussed how women typically work harder than men and this work still goes unrecognized as it is not considered "formal" aka "taxable" by the government and other institutions.

To kick off the class, my professor showed us a half hour of the film "North Country", starring Charlize Theron. The part of the film we watched showed the beginning days of the character Josie's job in a coal mine in the 1970s. She was told that since she was a woman she was not welcome in the mine and that no one would respect her. They were right. The women in the film, for those of you who haven't watched it, were harassed verbally and physically...called cunts and bitches, had dildos shoved in their lunch boxes, had their breasts grabbed during work and various other horrendous things. After the film we discussed the type of harassment that women face on the job, particularly jobs where men are the dominant group.

We talked about why women are sexually harassed by men. I brought up the concept of masculinity as a driving force. Clearly, men attempting to exercise dominance in their masculinity will harm other women and treat them as if they are at their disposal. The women in the film were treated with no dignity or respect, they were talked about in an objectifying manner. The film was also very good at dropping subtle hints, for example, there's a scene when Josie (Charlize Theron) goes into the boss's office to complain and he has a pornographic calender on his wall. I caught this right away, as did my new feminist friend...We brought up the importance of that pornography. The pornography, as it always is, was used by the man to show everyone who went into his office that he was indeed a "real man" and his masculinity is affirmed. When a woman walks into a bosses office and sees pornography, do you think she'd feel confident in reporting sexual harassment?

Anyway, the film was great...I hope to watch the entire length of the film soon, when I get time. School is swamping me with stress right now as it is the last half of the semester. I hope to blog more this week!