Liz Lemon: Ah, yes... the male gaze.

Hazel: Yes, they're all a bunch of gays.

Seriously, though, here's a heartbreaking essay on street harassment and catcalling. Of course, some of you will pout sarcastically, "Oh, poor girl... her life is so hard because she's pretty." No, it's because she is a woman. If she were ugly she wouldn't get whistled at (as much), but she would have other issues... like the terrible, crushing feeling that she's worth nothing because her looks are nothing, a belief constantly reinforced by advertising and entertainment in our society. Beautiful or hideous, a woman just can't win.

What I like most about the above essay, however, is that she rises above simply being a victim. It is easy for us to whine and cower and ask the government or a boyfriend to step in and intervene, but we lose even more power if we allow others to defend our honor without doing combat ourselves. Passive fear just feeds the idea that we are just walking blowup dolls, so fight back. Every time we smack down a lewd comment with a freezing glare, flipping the bird, or snapping "fuck you, asshole," we make the world a better, freer place... because maybe next time he'll think twice about whether the power trip of intimidating and objectifying a woman is worth the embarrassment of being called out on it.

Feminist Men: A Dispatch From an Alternate Universe Where Darrell Anderson is a Feminist Woman Named Delilah Antwerp

Excerpts from an essay written by Delilah Antwerp. (Read the actual essay "Libertarian Women" by Darrell Anderson here.)
. . . .

Men enjoy being challenged but not to the point where it threatens their status as alpha male. That is, most women seem to be better than men at dealing with opposing points of view. Perhaps the reason is men are, by nature, territorial. Territorial animals seek dominance and control. Women, historically the more submissive, have learned to be more aggressive and that aggressiveness often tends to threaten a man’s desire for control. Perhaps therein lies one reason to explain the general lack of feminist men. A man wants control, seeks control, and refrains from environments tending to diminish his sense of control.

. . . .

Many women today still accept the traditional role of housemaid and nanny. Cleaning and cooking is challenging enough without having to engage the political conflicts and illusions of patriarchy. Thus, women tend to recognize male-dominated political systems as legalized slavery under the color of law. Possibly, a man initially does not tend to see patriarchy as oppression because of his territorial nature and focus on controlling his home.

Perhaps a strong desire for sex is another reason why many men tend to shun women with a passion for liberty of action. Because the political powers-that-be rarely have the free movement of women in mind, in one form or another such passion tends to be confrontational. A man’s primary concern is getting laid — whether married, cohabiting, or living alone. He does not want to deal with confrontational human social processes that diminish his possibility of having sex. He is not wired that way.

. . . .

What to do? How can women encourage men to be more thoughtful about the truth of political patriarchy?

The primary thing a woman can do who is committed to a relationship is to assure a man that she always will be physically available to him. This is not a matter of declaring a man’s inability to go find another sexual partner, but an issue of trust. Without that trust no further discussion is likely. That assurance includes any political discussions as well as not engaging in hasty or reactive decisions that will tend to threaten his sense of control. Bob thought that relationships failed when there is no consensus agreement about fundamental issues — sex is one of those issues.

When a woman illustrates the concept of coerced power redistribution, she must explain those differences from the perspective of how women’s rights and free movement are more beneficial and reciprocating toward providing and maintaining a man’s desire for sex. Women must be prepared to show men how patriarchy discourages personal empowerment and inhibits rather than encourages women from displaying a lot of leg and cleavage. Through that educational process a woman always must remember that the moment a man perceives his ego being threatened, he will bail out of any further discussion.

. . . .

Provide him the sex he seeks and he will be more inclined to listen to arguments opposing patriarchy.

'New Wave' Feminism

There are currently two very different blogs that use the unofficial, undefined "New Wave" label. The first is New Wave Feminism, a smart, thoughtful, and visually snazzy Tumblr account by a Nigerian American woman. I LOVE this blog: great commentary, broad range of topics, fascinating video links. Go to there.

The second is the New Wave Feminists, a Dallas-based, Christian, pro-life blog that tries a little too hard to be hip. I linked you through to the about page to spare you the punk music on the intro page (not that there's anything wrong with punk rock, it's just not terribly pleasant to be ambushed with it while web surfing). These women promote abstinence, self-respect in the face of our body-obsessed culture, and self-empowerment over victimhood and they do it with lots of heart, some satire, and quite a bit of snark.

They do totally get that there are a lot of inconsistencies in... ah, shall we say... liberal feminism:

Mainstream feminism constantly contradicts itself by asking women to play the role of the weak, ignorant victim whenever it suits their latest argument.

On the other hand, they suffer from some internal inconsistencies of their own. Here's Kristen Walker on abstinence:

“It’s religion!” some of you are screaming at your monitors, flecks of spittle flying. “It’s an arbitrary misogynistic rule of your stupid backwards dumb antiquated oppressive patriarchal religion!”

First of all: calm down. Second: kind of. I mean, it’s both. Moral law is based on natural law. The reason God gave us all these pesky rules is because they’re good for us. When people follow the basic tenets of Judeo-Christian sexual morality, they lead better lives. 

Elsewhere in the blog post, she tries to give it a veneer of "it's a personal decision" but when it comes down to it, it's about judging the morality of women who do not or cannot choose her lifestyle, such as those in the socioeconomic position of having to trade their bodies for survival (see Charles Johnson's paper for more). And basically, that's my problem with the pro-life movement. I am all about providing pregnant women a stronger support network for keeping their babies or giving them up for adoption. Women are far more likely to keep a baby if they sense they are surrounded by people who are committed to helping them through the pregnancy and the next 18 years of the child's life, but the majority of pro-life groups only offer that support with an explicit or implicit caveat of religious conversion. If a pro-life activists really just care about all those unborn lives, then stop making it about the morality of the mother. Offer support and love unconditionally. If abortion is such a travesty, then promote all types of contraception along with the ideal of being lucky enough to possess enough self-respect to say no.