Feminism In The News

A variety of mentions of feminism and feminists have been made in the news over the past while. Here are some excerpts of a few select items.

Toward a Feminist Postcolonial Milk Studies

What critical framework is sufficiently inclusive to describe these uses of milk across nations, genders, races, species, and environments? Because milk is produced by female mammals, a feminist perspective seems to offer a logical foundation for such inquiry. From the start, feminism has been a movement for justice: at its heart is the centrality of praxis, the necessary linkage of intellectual, political, and activist work. Feminist methodology puts the lives of the oppressed at the center of the research question and undertakes studies, gathers data, and interrogates material contexts with the primary aim of improving the lives and the material conditions of the oppressed. Using standard feminist methodology, twentieth-century vegan feminists and animal ecofeminists challenged animal suffering in its many manifestations (in scientific research, and specifically in the feminized beauty and cleaning products industries; in dairy, egg, and animal food production; in “pet” keeping and breeding, zoos, rodeos, hunting, fur, and clothing) by developing a feminist theoretical perspective on the intersections of species, gender, race, class, sexuality, and nature. Motivated by an intellectual and experiential understanding of the mutually reinforcing interconnections among diverse forms of oppression, vegan feminists and ecofeminists positioned their own liberation and well-being as variously raced, classed, gendered, and sexual humans to be fundamentally interconnected to the well-being of other nondominant human and animal species, augmenting Patricia Hill Collins’s definition of intersectionality to include species as well.

[...]

In vernacular English, to “milk” something is to take it for everything you can get—but that is an adult’s slang. For newborn mammals, mother’s milk is a priceless gift: it offers nutrition, hydration, and affection, ecologically packaged at the right temperature. Breast milk helps protect infants against common childhood diseases, including diarrhea, pneumonia, respiratory tract infections, gastrointestinal infections, celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease, obesity, diabetes, childhood leukemia and lymphoma, and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. Adults who were breastfed as children have lower blood pressure and lower cholesterol, lower rates of type 2 diabetes and obesity, and exhibit higher intelligence and stronger filial bonds of friendship and empathy. Benefits for breastfeeding mothers include a quicker return to prepregnancy weight, temporary protection against conception, reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancer, and lower rates of obesity.

[...]

Most Westerners will recall Nestle’s powdered milk campaign in Africa and India that persuaded thousands of young mothers to use powdered milk and infant formulas instead of their own breast milk, and thereby made corporate profits at the expense of widespread infant suffering, causing diarrhea, malnutrition, and death. As documented by the British NGO War on Want, Nestle’s baby food sales representatives dressed like nurses to give an appearance of scientific credibility to their sales in the poorer countries of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, including India. Because of poverty, lack of education, and lack of adequate facilities, many mothers in these countries could not read the instructions on the formula package and did not have access to baby bottle sterilizing equipment or clean water. Instead, they put faith in the ideology of progress and the superiority of technologically advanced nations: in a colonial world, indigenous people are pressured to share the viewpoint of the colonizer, to believe themselves inferior, and to adopt the ways of the colonizer in order to “improve.” In India, multinational corporations like Nestle and Glaxo were criticized by the World Health Organization for selling infant formulas and powdered milk, and an International Code for the Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes was issued in 1981. Under cover of this international rebuke, an Indian national dairy corporation was quietly picking up Nestle’s lost share of infant milk food sales. The story of Amul corporation and its engineering of India’s Operation Flood is a story of Third World elites joining First World corporations in colonial practices, with devastating effects on mothers and children, cows and calves, rural poor and small dairy farmers—a story that both parallels and exponentially magnifies the harms done to dairy farmers in the United States.

[...]

Material Perspectives on Milk and Bovine Agency


Gaard, Greta. "Toward a Feminist Postcolonial Milk Studies." American Quarterly 65.3 (2013): 595-618.


The full paper can be read here: https://www.academia.edu/4357706/Toward_a_Feminist_Postcolonial_Milk_Studies


Some parts of the Gaard paper are (strangely enough?) true in ways their author probably didn't intend, would likely deny, and almost certainly wouldn't recognize (particularly parts of the third paragraph). Overall, the paper was an interesting look at the forefront of feminism.

The second paragraph above was a bit problematic though, in that the studies cited in support of some benefits of breastfeeding made such conclusions without taking genetics fully into account (e.g. the oft-mentioned parental IQ confound). It also seems likely that women who breastfeed their children are predisposed to "stronger filial bonds," and thus their children will be, too. In that particular case, breastfeeding is not the independent variable.


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Yoga pants are not a civil right

This is what feminism has come to: fighting for the right to wear yoga pants and leggings to middle school. This pressing civil rights issue made headlines when girls in Evanston, Ill., protested rules that they said banned the bum-hugging clothing for creating classroom distractions.

A feminist flash mob attacked Haven Middle School for shaming girls and promoting rape culture. Eliana Dockterman wrote in Time that the school's argument "is not that distant from the arguments made by those who accuse rape victims of asking to be assaulted by dressing a certain way."

[...]

Rape is a physical attack and a crime. Pubescent boys noticing girls' bottoms is neither. Still, two parents wrote to the school asserting, "We really hope that you will consider the impact of these policies and how they contribute to rape culture." A feminist writer tweeted, "#RapeCultureIsWhen we tell 13-year-old girls they can't wear leggings because it's 'distracting' to the boys."

Haven's administrators say they never claimed that the form-fitting pants were distracting to boys, though they surely are. An Evanston parent reported that the principal told her the school was merely "trying to figure out a way to tamp down the sexualization of middle-school girls." Isn't that a goal feminists support?

Instead, they react as if the school mandated burqas for all girls. It turns out that there was no "ban." It was actually a policy that leggings must be covered with a shirt that is "fingertip length." Oh, the inhumanity.

[...]

Feminist website Jezebel asked why "the solution is to make girls cover up instead of ... teaching boys to not be gross sexist pigs?"

[...]

Let's remember, we are talking about 13-year-old boys. Adult women have transformed children into monsters merely for finding the contours of a girl's body attractive. The only people being shamed here are the boys. Their crime is being human.


Powers, Kirsten. "Kirsten Powers: Yoga pants are not a civil right." USA Today. 2 April 2014. Web. 24 April 2014.


The full story can be read here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2014/04/01/yoga-pants-evanston-kirsten-powers-rape-culture-column/7177111/


Regarding the line "trying to figure out a way to tamp down the sexualization of middle-school girls": http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/10/19th-century-purity-campaigns.html (something that was once old, and is now new - particularly the move for a higher age of consent on the part of a number of feminists). Some feminists appear to be fighting/arguing for women to wear less-revealing clothes, as well (though the language used belies the desired result).

Also worth noting is the apparent fight against [male] human nature. Come to think of it, it actually resembles a repression of male sexuality... Again, the general gynocentric disposition of mainstream feminism as well as the "Women Are Wonderful" Effect are worth noting here.


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Welcome to ‘Otherhood’

She’s successful, independent, and knows exactly what she wants. And yet: This single, 35+ woman would rather be having pizza with a husband and children of her own on a Friday night than go on a date with another man who probably doesn’t want to settle down. This woman is a member of “The Otherhood” — a “tribe” of women who have built a life for themselves, but want to share it with a husband and child that has so far escaped their grasp, writes Melanie Notkin, the Montreal-born, New York City-based author of Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness. They’re at once invisible and under the microscope — chastised as too picky or selfish by a society obsessed with motherhood, she writes. It’s time they got some respect. “The rise of childless women may be one of the most overlooked and underappreciated social issues of our time,” Ms. Notkin, 45, writes in the book’s introduction. “Never before have so many women lived longer before having their first child, or remained childless toward the end of their fertility.” She spoke with the National Post‘s Sarah Boesveld this week:

Q: Our society reveres motherhood. But what is ‘Otherhood’?

A: Otherhood is a cohort of women, mostly Generation X — the women who were born expecting that they’d have the social, economic and political equality our mothers weren’t born with, but that we’d have the husband and kids that they got. So many of us are among the most well-educated, the most financially independent — some of us are the most fabulous women — and remain single and childless as our fertile years wane. They’re looked at as so other than mother, as if they have career aspirations that overtake their desire for love or whether they’ve somehow delayed this idea, that collectively we all held up our college degrees and said ‘Let’s co-conspire not to have children until the very last minute of our fertile years.’ And of course, that’s not true. Just because love didn’t fit into that window that society expected of us, doesn’t mean that a) it won’t come, or that b) we’re making the wrong choice in waiting for it.

[...]

Q: Early in the book, one of your friends throws up her hands and says “F— feminism!” She’s talking about dating, the expectation that women are in control and men should not be chivalrous because that’s sexist.

A: I think we all have to admit there is confusion, and that we were born into this confusion where little girls were in circles putting their hands on their waists saying “Everything boys can do, girls can do better.” Boys didn’t want to offend us so they would lean back and say “OK you do what you need to do, you open the door yourself, you pick the place.” And the women say, “OK I got it, I’m supposed to be independent. In order to be equal, I need to do the things men did.” But that’s not what feminism is. Yes, baby girls are born equal to baby boys. But we’re different. Women lean in and that’s where the dynamic changes. I get why leaning in is important at work, but there’s power in our femininity and somehow we forgot that. The truth is, men enjoy courting women and women enjoy being courted. I say we’re modern, independent women who enjoy a little old fashioned romance.

[...]

Q: How is ‘Otherhood’ a new phenomena? We’re indeed seeing people marry, or partner long-term, and have children later in life and have been for awhile. Are these women different from the “spinsters” of decades ago?

A: Today, the good news is that the women who remain single longer and have children later are among the most capable women. They take charge of life. It may not be the life that they expected, but it is certainly a life that has extraordinary meaning and significance. I think this is a new phenomenon. I hadn’t seen in recent history anything like this generation of women.


Q: Another difference today is that existential search for personal meaning, for happiness and value and fulfillment in life — the “who am I” search extends into your 30s.

A: Right, and we’re missing someone — we’re missing the man. There aren’t very many men out there in their 20s who are dying to get married and have kids. Even if we are, even if we’re ready, it takes them another decade. Their timing is off.


Q: How did that happen? Fallout from feminism?

A: A lot of movies show the man as a boy that never grows up. So the boys stay boys and women — 28, 29, 30 — are starting to get anxious and want to get married, and men are like 38, 40, 42, all of a sudden now they want to do it. It’s a decade later. But we’re considered ‘desperate’ in our 30s.

[...]

Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex talked about women second to men. Now the childless woman is second to mom. We have this mom-opia, this mom-opic view of the world, even though there are fewer moms now. So if a woman is to measure her life based on what society expects of her, what she expects of herself and she isn’t living her true authentic self, if she doesn’t have that self-actualization she’ll never be happy. So the book turns this on its head and really asks her to take another look at who she is and move forward toward that self-actualization.


Boesveld, Sarah. "Welcome to ‘Otherhood’: Why a growing ‘tribe’ of successful, childless women are redefining happiness." National Post. 25 April 2014. Web. 25 April 2014.


The full article can be read here: http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/04/25/welcome-to-otherhood-why-a-growing-tribe-of-successful-childless-women-are-redefining-happiness/


The whole article is worth reading. It's almost stunning, though, to witness the haste with which the equality that feminism is supposed to be fighting for quickly dispensed in favor of a range of benefits (referred to as "benevolent sexism" in academia) for women (again, the "Women Are Wonderful" effect). Such feminists appear to take ideology as far as it can go, then abandon it when it no longer suits them (which is to say, it's not what they envisioned), and then expect others (e.g. men) to [again] alter their behavior to suit women. What's entertaining is to see the logical contortions made in order to paint non-feminist views as being feminist.

Regarding the mention of "mom-opia" and "mom-opic": the term is "pro-natalistic," and frankly it's necessary for the survival of humanity. Anti-natalistic societies aren't going to last long (cf. Shakers, Cathars).


Other posts relevant to the final article:

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/07/studies-on-childless-women.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/08/career-or-marriage-or-both.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/09/aging-and-sexuality-in-women.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/09/the-uneven-effects-of-sexual-revolution.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/10/visualizing-history-of-love.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2013/10/double-standards-and-changing-standards.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/02/parental-leave-differences-in.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/02/surprise-finding-men-with-more.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/02/gss-number-of-children-by-income.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/02/gss-equality-related-questions.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/02/gss-female-happiness-by-marital-status.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/03/age-at-first-marriage-for-women-united.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/03/trends-in-global-fertility-rates.html

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/04/gss-marital-status-over-time-and-age-at.html

And last, but not least:

http://simulacral-legendarium.blogspot.ca/2014/04/gss-fertility-by-years-of-education.html

(There's a pattern...)


Worth linking is the "Economics of Sex" video from the Austin Institute:


(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cO1ifNaNABY)