Category Archives: feminists

Why “Dear Abby” Mattered to Feminism

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The year is 1956 (if you’re of my generation, think Marty McFly showing up in a world where Diet Pepsi doesn’t exist, his puffy ’80s belt brings on life preserver votes, and female high school students get all dressed up to go to school).

A 37-year-old woman named Pauline (Friedman) Phillips convinced the San Francisco Chronicle to give her a chance as an advice columnist as she was underwhelmed with the status quo, and Abigail Van Buren, better known as “Dear Abby” for the past fifty years, was born. Phillips, whose sister Esther wrote as the other queen of advice Ann Landers, died January 16th after a longtime battle with Alzheimer’s Disease.

The fact that neither Dear Abby nor Ann Landers have been a day-to-day part of life for people born after about 1980 or so does not take away their significance … nor their place as feminist icons.

In how many places, after all, can you see the transgression of feminism as seen through the minds and souls and acceptance levels slide ever further along the line? Through reading Dear Abby’s answers to questions about divorce, parenting, abuse, mother-in-laws, and proper etiquette, a reader looking with a feminist lens can actually see the zone of proximal development vis a vis feminism reach dizzying heights.

It’s a history lesson that would never be taught in schools.

Of perhaps even greater value, though, are the conversations that happened as a result of Dear Abby, the willingness to bring forward issues of increasing complexity faced by women and men alike that nobody would talk about.

There was a time when bringing up things like domestic abuse or sexual harassment at the workplace or rape or suspected pedophilia or … well, you get the idea … was just impossible. The shame of telling someone about it, of weathering the pain and grief on your own, of feeling isolated … all of those things just dragged you down. While this secret humiliation, this fear of reprisal continues to keep many people silent for a long time even in 2013, we can thank advice columnists for cracking that door at least a little.

Dear Abby and her ilk gave a degree of recourse. Sometimes just hearing, “You are not wrong, and you are not alone” can make the difference between moving on with life and descending into darkness.

So today, I am honoring Pauline Freidman Phillips for the push she gave to feminism, and the assistance she gave to many over the years.

RIP, Dear Abby … and thank you.



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Zooey Deschanel: My Feminist Icon

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Zooey Deschanel has a new hit show, her own band, is co-owner of a brand-new website for women that focuses on being positive, is an actress who has starred alongside the likes of Jim Carrey (and was able to hold her own when it came to comedy), and is – undeniably – completely adorable. So why is there a bunch of Zooey backlash?

Zooey has been called a “hipster queen” – at least that’s how she’s been packaged – and a lot of folks will scoff and roll their eyes at the mention of her name. Part of this, I believe, has to do with her amazing turn as Summer in the indie flick ’500 Days Of Summer’. This is a common thing that happens to actors and actresses – they are so heavily identified to a character that people believe they are that person. People confuse Zooey with Summer and think Summer was kind of a bitch. To those people I say: you clearly did not understand ’500 Days Of Summer’, and that is all.

The film is about Tom, who falls for Summer, then becomes hurt when she ends their causal relationship. Throughout the whole film, Tom is portrayed as someone who is a hopeless romantic and he believes Summer is the one. Summer clearly states over and over again that she is not a romantic, Tom is not one, and this is just fun. But Tom is wrapped up in their time together and is hurt and blindsided when Summer moves on and marries someone else. The problem in the film is Tom. ’500 Days Of Summer’ turns the romantic comedy formula around and makes Tom the typical swoony girl and Summer the boy who will never be tamed. That’s why people have a problem: Tom is not the sweet guy you want to end up with. He is a whiny, selfish boy who doesn’t listen to what she is saying because he can’t believe he would be wrong about this girl. He feels that there’s no way she wouldn’t fall for him, but it’s meant to be according to him. It’s hard to see women in masculine roles, instead of your non-stereotypical swoony dames. So poor Zooey …

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Au Revoir, Mademoiselle

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photo of france french women brigitte bardot picsThey say the English language is one of the hardest to learn simply because we have so many words for one thing. Miss, Ms., Mrs. – all of these are prefixes for women, each meaning something different. Miss, unmarried; Ms.- could be unmarried, could be married; Mrs.- definitely married. Bottom line, Americans cover our asses when it comes to language. The French, on the other hand, do not, and this has been bothering some feminists of Cesson-Sevigne. Special corespondent for the LA Times, Kim Willsher, brought this issue to the attention of Americans with her wonderful, through article on Sunday.

“Mademoiselle,” which is the Gallic form of “miss,” and is normally used for young, unmarried women, and so, feminists say, openly declaring them either available or unwanted. But that’s not the only issue with the title, before the French Revolution, the use of “mademoiselle” had little to do with whether a woman was married; a laywoman or commoner was always called “mademoiselle” to indicate she was of lowly status. Only women of high birth were addressed as “madame.”

Feminists were fed up with marking “mademoiselle” on forms and so they they started making noise about it, and finally they were heard. “It’s about eliminating all terms that could be discriminatory or indiscreet,” the town hall at Cesson-Sevigne, a suburb of the western town of Rennes, in Brittany, said in a statement explaining that the title “mademoiselle” had been banished from all official forms since the beginning of …

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Is This the Best Way to Immortalize the Mother of British Feminism?

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Picture of Mary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft, a major figure in British feminism, has been lighting up the circuits.

Literally.

In an attempt to raise money to erect a statue of Wollstonecraft, a hologram of her image graced a wall of the Palace of Westminster (a.k.a. “the mother of all parliaments”) as part of a campaign known as “Mary on the Green”.

From The Guardian:

Campaigners are aiming to raise £240,000 to pay for the statuary on Newington Green, in north London, near the site of Wollstonecraft’s former home and the school where the radical 18th-century campaigner taught. They also spent two hours handing out leaflets and promoting the fact that 77 supportive MPs have already signed a petition, including Jeremy Corbyn MP, who masterminded the turning out of the lights overlooking the Thames.

Whether or not a statue is the best way to memorialize the Vindication of the Rights of Women author has become significant as it underscores the lack of women literally captured in stone, evidently a worldwide problem.

Of the 5,193 public outdoor sculptures of famous people in the US, for example, only 394, or less than 8%, are of women, compared with 4,799 of men, according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Art Inventories Catalog.

Earlier this year, Lynette Long, a Washington area psychologist and founder of Eve (Equal Visibility Everywhere) told the Young Feminists network in the US that this imbalance had a negative impact on young girls and their sense of equality. “Humans tend to trust the nonverbal, and the statues send a very clear nonverbal message. Girls can’t be what they can’t see,” she said.

So why go to all the trouble to get Wollstonecraft’s image out to the masses?  It might be as simple as the fact that statues of women, such as they are, tend to be of a generic nature.  While there’s the odd Abigail Adams or Phillis Wheatley commemoration, in general men rule the stone world.

Oh, and as to why this is making headlines?  It might have something to do with this …

The last time an image of a woman made headlines for its projection on the House of Commons it was a naked Gail Porter to promote a poll to find the world’s sexiest women. At least this time it is to publicise a campaign to honour one of our most radical and important writers.

So, what do you think?



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