Female Supremacy Articles - Page 22
First female speaker of the House in U.S. history
"For our daughters and our granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling”
By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
January 5, 2007
House Democrats unanimously picked Nancy Pelosi yesterday to be their leader and the first female speaker of the House in U.S. history.
"For our daughters and our granddaughters, today we have broken the marble ceiling," Mrs. Pelosi told a cheering House chamber yesterday, moments after accepting the speaker's gavel. "For our daughters and our granddaughters now, the sky is the limit."
Democrats dedicated their votes to famous feminists, children everywhere and even world peace.
"In the name of Jesus," Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. of Illinois said as he cast his vote for Mrs. Pelosi.
Rep. Jose E. Serrano of New York cast his vote for her in Spanish.
Even Rep. Gene Taylor, the conservative Democrat who had cast a protest vote against Mrs. Pelosi in past leadership elections, dutifully voted for her yesterday. With his vote, Mrs. Pelosi -- whose voting record is considerably more liberal than many fellow Democrats -- got her first unanimous leadership election
So, when Mr. Taylor cast his vote for her, Democrats jumped to their feet in thunderous applause, catching the fair-haired Mississippian a little off guard.
Rep. Maxine Waters of California cast her vote in honor of feminist icons Bella Abzug and Gloria Steinem.
Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer, Maryland Democrat, hailed Mrs. Pelosi -- the daughter of former Baltimore Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro -- as "Maryland's favorite daughter, California's pride."
Wearing a burgundy suit, pearls and a broad grin, Mrs. Pelosi sat at her seat waving thanks to those who voted for her. Surrounding her were her young grandchildren in various stages of behavior during the two-hour affair. Sitting in the balcony with the rest of her family was crooner Tony Bennett, who was to serenade her at a celebration concert later in the evening.
After the 233-202 vote was tallied and announced, Minority Leader John A. Boehner of Ohio said it was a "high privilege" to hand the gavel to the first female speaker in more than 200 years.
And though the federal government has expanded far beyond the hopes and expectations of the Founding Fathers, he said, they would view the selection "approvingly."
My fellow Americans, whether you're a Republican, a Democrat or an independent, today is a cause for celebration," Mr. Boehner said.
When Mrs. Pelosi assumed the gavel, she promised "partnership, not partisanship," and paid tribute to the troops and former President Gerald R. Ford, who died the day after Christmas.
She also paid tribute to St. Francis of Assisi, the namesake of her hometown of San Francisco who robbed from his wealthy cloth-merchant father to give to the poor.
Sitting quietly at the back of the chamber was outgoing Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Illinois Republican, who at one point was recognized for his service. He slowly rose, gave a wide wave and dug his hands deep into his pants pockets to wait for the hearty, bipartisan applause to die down.
During the ceremony, Mr. Boehner also lingered for a moment on the 12 years of Republican rule that ended yesterday.
"There were some great achievements during those 12 years that followed," he said. "There were also some profound disappointments."
Then he offered a brief but sober analysis of Republican failures that caused their downfall. Most Americans, he said, don't care who controls Congress.
"What they want is a government that is limited, honest, accountable and responsive to their needs," he said. "And the moment a majority forgets this lesson, it begins writing itself a ticket to minority status."
_______________________________________________________________________________
Women make up quarter of top 100 entrepreneurs for first time
by BECKY BARROW
Daily Mail
12/28/06
Record numbers of women are making multi-million pound fortunes from starting their own businesses, research has revealed.
For the first time, about one in four people who appear in the annual list of Top 100 Entrepreneurs are women.
When the list, published each year by the magazine Management Today, started in 2004, there were 25 per cent fewer women included than today.
If this trend continues women are on their way to beating men to becoming the country's most successful entrepreneurs over the next few decades.
More than one million women in Britain are now running their own companies, according to official figures from the Office for National Statistics.
When records began in 1984, there were just 645,000 women who were self-employed in this country.
Philip Beresford, who compiled the list, said growing numbers of women are "invading traditional macho territory."
The winner is Elena Ambrosiadou who set up one of the first hedge funds in London in 1991 when she was just 33.
Ranked fifth in the Top 100 list, her total fortune is an estimated £140 million.
Mrs Ambrosiadou, who works with her husband, Martin Coward, named her company Ikos, which means 'home' in her native language, Greek. In 2004, she became Britain's best-paid businesswoman after paying herself a staggering £16 million from her hugely successful business.
Ikos was not even her first success. Mrs Ambrosiadou, who has a degree in Chemical Engineering, becamse the youngest-ever senior executive at BP at the age of just 27.
The idea which inspires women entrepreneurs to set up a business regularly comes from personal experience, such as the birth of their first child.
One of the great successes, particularly if you ask the country's curvier women, is Sarah Tremellen, 40, and her company, Bravissimo.
Her company sells bras and swimwear for 'big-boobed women' which range from the larger cup sizes of D to a JJ.
She was inspired to set up the business after becoming 'appalled' by the lack of choice for women who need larger bras.
Mrs Tremellen said she was horrified by the "enormous matronly contraptions, more suitable for landing parachutes."
She now has a booming business with £25 million of annual sales, nearly 300 staff and a fortune estimated at £13 million.
Like Bravissimo, Mamas & Papas, the baby merchandise company, was set up by Luisa Scacchetti, now 55, when she was expecting her first child.
She wanted to surround her child with "beautiful things" but she and her husband, David, the co-founder, searched in vain.
She said: "We looked and we looked and we looked. And when we couldn't find what we were looking for, we created it."
The company is now a huge brand which sells anything from pushchairs, used by celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, to high chairs.
The Scacchetti's fortune is estimated at £57 million and the company employs 776 people, including their daughter, Olivia, who designed the Ziko pushchair.
The other women included in the list include Christian Rucker, who set up her business, The White Company, in 1994.
She was looking for white bed linen, towels and napkins with her boyfriend and fellow entrepreneur, Nick Wheeler, but could not find the right ones.
Mr Wheeler, who set up the shirt retailer Charles Tyrwhitt, inspired her to set up a mail order business, which now has annual sales of £40 million.
_______________________________________________________________________________
Even in Iran, the women outnumber men at the university level.
Iran women chip away at male political supremacy
by Hiedeh Farmani
Thu Jan 4, 3:13 AM ET
QAZVIN, Iran 2007 (AFP) - Banned from becoming president and with just a dozen MPs, women have started making inroads in the male-dominated world of Iranian politics by boosting their numbers on local councils.
Former high school teacher Fatemeh Ashdari, 42, was one of dozens of women who made a strong showing in December's municipal elections by winning a seat on the city council in the city of Qazvin northwest of Tehran.
"Somebody has to take the first steps to pave the way for the next generation," the energetic, chardor-clad Ashdari, a conservative, told AFP.
"Women cannot just have the decorative jobs of an advisor or a consultant. Men have to allow us to make our mistakes and learn," she said.
Ashdari is one of four women who will sit in the new nine-member council in Qazvin after the December 15 elections, where women represented just one-sixth of the 180 candidates in the city.
While Iranian women have yet to make a major breakthrough on a national stage, their success in the municipal polls was startling -- out of 264 seats available on councils in provincial capitals, 44 went to women.
And in a number of cities and towns, it was female candidates who polled the most votes, most notably in the cities of Shiraz and Hamedan where two women who are still in their 20s pocketed the highest number of votes.
Ashdari said she won her second term on Qazvin city council with "the least publicity as people were happy with my work in the council and got me in again simply by the word of mouth."
She attributed her success to "being there for people and following up persistently on their demands" after resolving property disputes, expanding green spaces and promoting cultural centers for women."
"I miss out on a lot of family life but it is a very rewarding job," said Ashdari, who is juggling motherhood and chairing two charities and council membership.
Qazvin resident and civil servant Mohammad Taheri, 31, voted for Ashdari as he said he was "fed up with male candidates with big titles who do not deliver on their promises".
"Women did not let us down in the two previous councils", he said. "And they run households so efficiently, the city is just like a big house."
Fakhrosadat Mohtashamipour, a former deputy interior minister for women's affairs, said it was no surprise that Iranian women, who now outnumber men at universities, had done so well in elections.
"Despite their small role in politics there are large numbers of educated women who are doing all kinds of jobs. There is no surprise they fared well in municipal polls," he said.
"Women are generally more caring and in the council there is room for attention to people's individual needs."
Ashdari spends hours in her office listening to people's complaints about their problems, some of which are not relevant to her municipal duties such as needing an urgent kidney transplant or a legal dispute over an inheritance.
The ambitious councillor's next target is the parliament and she deplores the fact that there are so few female lawmakers in the body -- just 12 out of 290.
Mohtashamipour believes Iranian society is prepared to accept more women in key decision-making roles but partly blames the major political parties for not doing enough to attract and involve woman members.
"In legislative elections, people mainly vote for party candidates," she said, adding her reformist Participation Front party had initially decided to nominate five women in the municipal polls for Tehran, but had to reduce it to three in a coalition with other groups.
"The reformist parties in particular have to invest in women and explore their potential," she said.
_______________________________________________________________________________
'Men should listen to their wives'
(China Daily)
2006-07-21
In Shanghai, the women wear the pants, or so the saying goes.
Not that the city's women are particularly masculine or coarse, it is just that their men have an age-old reputation for being, well, a little on the soft side.
The "little men of Shanghai" have been derided for years in folk tales, novels, theatre and, more recently, in films, television dramas and, most mercilessly on the Internet. Invariably, they are depicted as henpecked husbands who willingly subject themselves to a life of servitude at the beck and call of their wives.
Now, Shanghai men are fighting back. No, they are not seeking to overthrow the rule of the wives. They are, instead, trying to teach their fellow countrymen a thing or two about family harmony. The message: Men should listen to their wives.
Hauling two plastic bags full of fresh vegetables and meat from a neighbourhood market, Shao Zhenhua, a 30-something marketing manager for the Shanghai Film Centre, which runs a downtown multiplex, says he "loves" cooking and washing at home. Doing the housework is part of his "family tradition," the young executive said proudly.
Historical reasons
Of course, doing the chores is also very much symbolic, said Lan Huaien, a prolific writer and public commentator on social issues and gender studies in Shanghai. "It is a way for Shanghai men to show how much they love and cherish their wives," she said. That, she added, is what sets Shanghai men apart from those in the rest of the country.
Lan and other scholars trace the origin of the "little Shanghai men" to the late 19th and early 20th century, when exposure to foreign influence brought dramatic changes to the social and economic fabric of Shanghai while the rest of China remained in the clutches of feudalism. These changes in Shanghai fuelled rapid growth in the service sector, which, in turn, created a strong demand for women workers.
As a result, Shanghai women joined the workforce and gained financial independence long before women in other parts of China. In those early years of development, there were more jobs available in Shanghai for women than for men. In many Shanghai families, the women were the breadwinners.
In one of her books, Lan wrote that women are usually better-suited for jobs in the traditional service industry. The woman's role in the family changed because it was often easier for them to find jobs than the men; a phenomenon that seems to hold true even today.
Ask Paul Pan, a 27-year-old junior executive at a foreign owned company. "My wife is a successful advertising company executive," he said. "She has no time for cooking and other household chores," he added. So, Pan is the one in the family doing all those duties. Besides, "my wife is a terrible cook," he said.
Showline Chang, a psychologist with a PhD from a US university, said Shanghai men learn to show more respect and care for their spouses by observing their parents when they are growing up. To the average Shanghai man, "it is never a matter of right or wrong," she said. "It is just the right thing to do."
Pan said he used to feel rather embarrassed when colleagues from outside Shanghai made fun of his "deference" to his wife. "They think I am a wimp," Pan said. Slamming his fist on the table in a coffee house, Pan declared: "I am not a wimp. I am just not boorish like the rest of them."
A widely read commentary, "Oh! Shanghai Men," published in several newspapers in Shanghai in 1990, further strengthened the stereotype. The article was written by Lung Yintai, who made a name for herself on the Chinese mainland as a strong critic of the Taiwan authority.
Zhang Yu, a renowned local pianist who divides her time between Shanghai and Paris, sighed that "'hen-pecked-ness' is actually politeness to the female."
She believes that in Western countries doing chores has never been equal to being henpecked. "Partly because of the colonial history, Shanghai men have learnt the courtesy of Western gentlemen and show more respect to women."
She jokingly added that men from other parts of China are only rude about Shanghai men because they are jealous of their fortune in having Shanghai women whom they consider to be arguably the "best" women in China as their wives.
Different decisions
James Dai is a Chinese Canadian who emigrated to Toronto, Canada, five years ago. He has returned to China and is now a senior architect with a renowned property developer in Shanghai.
"As far as my knowledge goes, at least 60 per cent of the decision to buy a house is made by the woman in the family."
Dai admitted that he sometimes asks for advice from his wife for his designs. After all, he said, women are the decision makers.
This is a view interior designer Yu Kuai confirms.
Yu, senior designer for the Shanghai Modern Architecture & Design Company, said that at least 70 per cent of the time it is the women in a family who have the final say on how to decorate a new apartment.
"Women are very concrete in their thoughts. They will directly tell you which colour they like, however, their husband will analyze the wife's favourite, and explain it to the designer. Sometimes the husband will offer two similar colours for designers' consideration," he said.
The only things a husband will get to decide on, said Yu, are the electric wires and pipes.
"Women definitely have a dominant impact on the design of the bathroom, for the colour and pattern of the ceramic tiles and the brand of toilet, but the husband will ask how the pipes are laid," Yu said.
Yu concludes that the most frequently asked questions by husbands are "price, the material for floors and electricity safety."
When it comes to the traditionally male topic of cars, the situation is a bit different.
Chen Yixuan, a marketing executive for Shanghai VW Corp, said the final decision on which car to buy will only be made after a thorough discussion between husband and wife.
"Usually, the main priority for both husbands and wives is price. But after that, wives care more about colour, appearance and comfort while husbands are more concerned with horsepower, functions and interior gadgets."
In the VW range, Chen said, women generally prefer the compact Polo, while men go for the larger Passat.
Singaporean co-founder and Web designer of wow-her.com, Lydia Yan, now lives in Shanghai.
Singaporean men are also sometimes branded with the "henpecked" label, she said, something they have learned to shrug off.
"Shanghai men are more savvy, polite and well-mannered than Singaporean men, generally speaking. Shanghai men have their own appeal just as Singaporean men do," she added with a smile.
According to Yan, "hen-pecked-ness" or eagerness to please a woman, is all part of the attraction of Shanghai men.
"For some women, that is the most charming part of a man," she said.
Han Lei, a Shanghai local government official who is engaged by the stereotype, was eager to defend himself.
"The misunderstanding of Shanghai men comes from narrow-minded people. We Shanghai men not only know the importance of supporting the family financially, but we also know the importance of emotional support and always show consideration to our wives."
A viewpoint academic Lan agrees with: "Shanghai men like to show they care for their wives and families. However, they can be embarrassed to admit it because they think they will be ridiculed if they do," she said.
Rumour has it that Lung once admitted her "Shanghai Men" piece was supposed to praise rather than ridicule the thoughtfulness of men in the city.
Unfortunately, instead of helping rehabilitate the reputation of Shanghai's men, the misunderstanding of her compliments as sarcastic mockery added to the weight of prejudice against them.
But Internet impresario Lydia Yan believes times are changing and while Shanghai men may appear in thrall of their wives, they are no wimps when it comes to sorting out their differences with other males.
"Shanghai men have a kind of street-smartness," she said. "They know how to deal with disrespect from so-called real men from elsewhere in China."
_________________________________________________________________
The women are taking over
The Philippine Daily Enquirer
By JOSE MA. MONTELIBANO
Sunday, October 29, 2006
MANILA: Fifteen years ago, a Jesuit confided to me that the Ateneo de Manila University was having great difficulty trying to keep a 50-50 proportion of male and female students. A trend with more females than males passing the entrance exams was already established, and the distortion grew worse every year.
At present, statistics in the public school system show that of the top 10 performers, seven are women. And there are no signs that the distortion will not grow all the worse.
These statistics are not mere academic information; they are very social and behavioural as well.
The effect of females dominating the schools is that women will dominate the areas for which students go to school: the workplace. And those who dominate the workplace will eventually dominate everything else, except those that demand physical strength as the key factor for supremacy.
We are a dysfunctional society that is getting more dysfunctional by the day. When men in Philippine society lag behind in school, they will lag behind in other fields as well.
Poverty aggravates the situation for the men. When circumstances beyond their control deny them the avenue to be protectors and providers for their families, the natural propensity to be dominant or the head of a family finds expression even in destructive ways.
Men who feel less than others because of poverty experience an even more humiliating position as a man who cannot play protector and provider. As a result, many turn to escape, or to themselves in drinking and gambling cliques in their communities.
Among the poor, young females seek to graduate from high school. Their male counterparts seek to become tricycle drivers even at the cost of dropping out of school – and the majority of them do drop out before the fourth year in high school.
Those who do finish high school aspire to be policemen, soldiers or security guards. The rest end up as construction workers or farm labourers.
On the other hand, their female counterparts seek to be teachers, nurses or white collar employees. Even from the point of view of dreams and ambitions, women dominate men in all areas except, again, in work that requires physical strength or readiness for violence.
It does not help any that civil society and government are now getting more massively and deeply involved in micro-finance as their primary intervention for poverty alleviation – even if micro-finance is almost totally exclusively for women.
An already dysfunctional setting is being made more so when women who dominate the workplace and are the main providers of families in poverty-stricken communities receive extra opportunities to become more dominant in what used to be traditionally male roles. The gap is not only wide but also widening.
What nation became strong when the majority of their population was poor? What nation became strong when their men were weak, or weaker than their women?
Despite a trend to be female-dominant, it is hilarious that the Western model of women’s liberation is being aped here – a clear manifestation that our colonial mentality remains stronger and more active than simple common sense.
It is not as though having a female-dominant society will be beneficial for the women; it will simply mean that they take over the role of men as provider, protector and head of the family. It will also mean that most women will have to carry the burden of a less achieving mate.
If there is concern for abused women and children, the solution is not making the victims stronger or more dominant. Rather, it is to make the perpetrators more responsible and productive.
Special intervention, therefore, should be directed towards the men and the restoration of their dignity, their pride, and their rightful place as protectors and providers of their families.
Men must be motivated to aspire beyond being tricycle drivers, soldiers, policemen and security guards. Men must rely less on their physical strength and more on their capability to be good stewards of their families and communities.
It may be true that women are truly the stronger sex. After all, in circumstances where children and family are threatened by the curse of poverty, women have stepped up to the plate and become natural martyrs, or heroines.
Unafraid to live a life of sacrifice, willing to do anything to nurture and nourish her young, and even her mate, the woman afflicted with poverty does not cringe and try to escape. She does not turn to drink and gambling, and abusive behaviour just to prove superiority. She just plods on, unwilling to give up, protective and mothering to the end.
And men must realise this, if only to better prepare for a great shift in dominance in the family, in the community, and in the nation. Women in poor communities are taking over. Pretty soon, they will simply take over.
________________________________________________________________
Having It All
Say goodbye to the "success penalty" -- professional women have the best chance at marriage and children.
Stephanie Coontz
Washington Post
Sunday, November 26, 2006
You can't have it all, women have long been told. The price of female achievement, goes the centuries-old conventional wisdom, is loneliness. And modern commentators have taken up the refrain. "The more successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a husband or bear a child," argued economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett in 2002. Last year, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd claimed that America faces "an epidemic of professional women missing out on husbands and kids" because men remain unwilling to enter equal relationships with educated, high-powered women. And in the first two-thirds of the 20th century, as women gained greater access to higher education and professional work, such was indeed the case. Women who earned bachelor's degrees and PhDs were more likely to miss out on their "MRS" degrees than their less-educated sisters.
But for women born since 1960, there has been a revolutionary reversal of the historic pattern. As late as the 1980s, according to economist Elaina Rose, women with PhDs or the equivalent were less likely to marry than women with a high school degree. But the "marital penalty" for highly educated women has declined steadily since then, and by 2000 it had disappeared. Today, women with a college degree or higher are more likely to marry than women with less education and lower earnings potential.
Highly educated women are also now as likely to have children as their less-educated counterparts -- and much more likely to have children born in wedlock. At the same time, economically successful women are the fastest-growing segment of the minority of women who, if they do not marry, choose to have children anyway. The titles of two new books sum up the opportunities that women now have to mix and match their personal and professional lives: Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women, by Christine B. Whelan, and Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice, by Rosanna Hertz.
Whelan's book is aimed at the demographic group she calls SWANS -- Strong Women Achievers, No Spouse. Whelan commissioned a poll of 1,629 high-achieving men and women ages 25 to 40 and found that almost half the women reported fearing that their success in the world of work was a disadvantage in the world of love. Whelan reassures them that men increasingly do want to marry equals, that most men are not intimidated by educational and career success.
One poll, a series of interviews with a second sample of "high-achievers," and a handful of research studies are a rather flimsy peg on which to hang a book. What could have been a focused, attention-getting article is muddled by considerable padding. Whelan's book does not answer the question posed by her title -- why do smart men now marry smart women? -- nor does she explore the declining marital prospects for poorly educated women and men. Low-income, poorly educated men have the worst prospects of any group in today's marriage market, suggesting that it is a mistake to frame the revolution in marriage as a woman's issue. More men than women describe being married as their ideal state, and men who remain single fare far worse emotionally than do their female counterparts.
Still, this book contributes to the cultural conversation about marriage by countering outdated stereotypes about male-female relations. Whelan's polls confirm what authors Rosalind Barnett and Caryl Rivers showed in more compelling detail in their 2004 book Same Difference-- that in the middle to upper levels of the education and income distribution, men and women are moving closer together, not farther apart, in what they want from relationships.
Whelan offers encouragement to everyone in her demographic. Career women who postpone marriage, she explains, still have a good chance to marry in their 30s or 40s, and she cites a study by three sociologists who find that, unlike in the past, wives' fulltime employment is now associated with a lowered risk of divorce. For women who marry too late to have children, her poll shows that many women believe they can have very satisfying lives anyway. For women who don't marry but want a child, she points out that this is now an option. Half her female respondents said that they'd consider having a child alone if they couldn't find a suitable partner.
Single by Chance, Mothers by Choice deals with women who made that decision. Based on in-depth interviews with 65 middle-class women, Hertz's book traces how women decide first to have children outside marriage and then whether to adopt, choose a known donor or become pregnant through an anonymous sperm donor. She explores how these women answer their children's questions about their biological fathers and how they integrate men into their children's lives.
Most of the heterosexual women Hertz interviews are "reluctant revolutionaries," women who would have preferred a male partner but who reached a point where they were willing to go it alone rather than miss out on motherhood. Her lesbian subjects, by contrast, consciously defied the idea that motherhood depends upon a heterosexual relationship. Neither group made these choices lightly. They enlisted the support of families and friends before embarking on this journey, and they have all had to grapple with their children's desire to picture their father and understand their kin connections. Contrary to some stereotypes, these women try mightily to include men in their children's lives. Hertz describes how they handle these thorny issues and gets the women to speak candidly about their trials, joys and dilemmas.
It's impossible to do justice here to the complexity of the portraits Hertz paints in this well-crafted book, including the different ways that women handle the often unexpected results of their decisions. Indeed, the details and variations in her stories are more compelling than her theoretical overview. Where Whelan fails to ground her data and advice in a coherent analysis, Hertz tries too hard to fit her material into an overarching feminist sociological framework. Concepts such as "compulsory motherhood" fail to capture the complex decision-making process her informants describe. Nor does the term patriarchy seem helpful in describing the messy mix of expanded options and continuing constraints these women confront. Certainly, male privilege still exists, but neither law nor popular opinion still enforces male dominance in most daily interactions. The freedom of single, economically secure women to raise children without the harsh economic penalties and social stigma of the past is a far cry from the patriarchy of yore.
I also question Hertz's claim that the "mother-child dyad" is the revolutionary family form of the future. Interviewed four years later, her subjects almost all reported that the two-person unit had been too intense. Some had added more children; others had added a partner.
Female-centered families are here to stay, and it is important to accept their legitimacy. But the same social changes that give women new options in their personal and professional lives also open new opportunities for paternal involvement in families, on far more egalitarian terms than in the past. That development is just as welcome -- and surely just as revolutionary -- as the new possibilities for lesbians and heterosexual women to rear children successfully without the involvement of fathers.
Stephanie Coontz, the author of "Marriage, A History: How Love Conquered Marriage," teaches at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Wash.
_______________________________________________________
SMART GIRLS IN A SEXY WORLD
By SHEILA MARIKAR
Oct. 25, 2006 — Ariel Levy might argue that the scariest sight this Halloween isn't to be seen in a haunted house or a horror movie.
Rather, it's to be found in costume stores across the country, where normally modest women shop for Halloween outfits with the philosophy "the smaller, the tighter, the better."
Levy's 2005 book, "Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture," explores the social trend exemplified by all those Playboy Bunnies, sexy stewardesses and hot nurses you'll see on Halloween — women who embrace the idea that sex equals power and who thrive in a society that continually encourages them to exploit their sexuality for fun and profit.
"Female Chauvinist Pigs," just out in paperback, is only a year old but it already reads a little like ancient history.
Sure, some girls just want to have fun. But more and more, younger women realize that exposing cleavage and flaunting booty is not mandatory — it's a choice. They're comfortable with not conforming to the cookie-cutter concept of beauty. Women have learned that they can use brains, beauty or a combination of both to thrive in this culture of sex.
Get a Push-Up Bra or Get Out
Levy argues that pornography and plastic surgery have so invaded pop culture that Americans expect women to ramp up their sexuality at all times.
"Because we have determined that all empowered women must be overtly and publicly sexual, and because the only sign of sexuality we seem to be able to recognize is a direct allusion to red-light entertainment, we have laced the sleazy energy and aesthetic of a topless club or a Penthouse shoot throughout our entire culture," she writes.
Flashing for the cameras of "Girls Gone Wild," sleeping with dozens of men, wearing thong underwear, idolizing "Sex and the City," refuting the "girly-girl" stereotype: according to Levy, these are ways in which women have fooled themselves into thinking sex equals empowerment.
In reality, she says, this breed of feminists are just female chauvinist pigs, or FCPs.
Explaining the FCP mind-set, Levy writes, "The FCP asks: Why throw your boyfriend's Playboy in a … trash can when you could be partying at the Mansion? Why worry about disgusting or degrading when you could be giving — or getting — a lap dance yourself? Why try to beat them when you can join them?"
According to Levy, the more women buy into pop culture's objectification of them, the more they morph into living, breathing equivalents of a blow-up doll. Like strippers twirling endlessly around a pole, it's a vicious cycle. And if women refuse to spin, they may as well opt out of sex altogether.
She writes, "The only alternative to enjoying Playboy (or flashing for "Girls Gone Wild" or getting implants or reading [porn star] Jenna Jameson's memoir) is being 'uncomfortable' with and 'embarrassed' about your sexuality."
Focusing on the Extreme
Some critics say that the many depictions of overtly sexual women make "Female Chauvinist Pigs" unbalanced. Take Levy's "expose" of spring break, which stars topless girls and the friends who spank them for the benefit of "Girls Gone Wild" and hoards of onlookers.
The author admits she was shocked by how college coeds spent their time on spring break in Miami. Although she graduated from college not long ago, Levy had never been on a raucous college getaway before she started researching "Female Chauvinist Pigs."
No wonder, then, that Levy was so startled to see the hedonism happening on Florida's beaches that she neglected to look to at the big picture.
It's true that some women on spring break will flash the entire Western world at the drop of a hat — as in the case of "Girls Gone Wild, which gives its amateur stars hats or T-shirts after they've bared all. But it's also true that they're often ridiculed by peers who keep their tops down and their bikini bottoms up.
California native Stephanie Kwai has gone to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and the Bahamas for spring break.
"If your motive is to find girls who'll flash everybody, you can find them," she said.
At the same time, she explains, these women do not represent all coeds.
"I don't believe that everybody is going to go out there and flash people and have sex with the next person they see," she said. "A huge majority of people just go to have fun."
As for wet T-shirt contests and other woman versus woman spectacles, Kwai's not impressed.
"It's kind of amusing, but it's also kind of gross," she said.
Cultural Calamity or Variety?
Levy suggests no alternative to the reign of raunch culture. She leaves readers with the impression that if women don't wake up, put on some real panties and cover up their cleavage, the advances of the feminist movement will go to pieces.
Is the situation really so dire?
Nadine Strossen, president of the American Civil Liberties Union and a prominent feminist advocate, said it's not. According to Strossen, the proliferation of pornography and pornolike images isn't necessarily bad.
"What someone sees as a disgusting, demeaning image, someone else might see as an empowering image," she said. "There's even pornography that's made for women by women, or at least that's the intent."
Strossen points out that numerous attempts by social scientists to find a connection between porn and damaging attitudes toward women have fallen flat. "Using empirical measures, nobody has been able to demonstrate even a correlation between pornography and negative effects," she said.
As for the argument that women who see porn could become more sexually overt themselves, Strossen said, "That kind of 'monkey-see-monkey-do' world view completely denies human autonomy."
Bob Thompson, a professor of television and popular culture at Syracuse University, said overtly sexual depictions of women are only dangerous when nothing exists to counter them.
"These images are only a real problem when they're not diluted by other images. … You've got a whole bunch of different representations of women right now that are all over the board," Thompson said.
While pop culture provides plenty of wet, writhing women with come-hither stares, it also offers alternatives.
"I think Daria was one of the more interesting mainstream television characters to come along in a long time," Thompson said.
"Daria," MTV's 1990s animated series about a smart, sarcastic, drably dressed girl with an aversion to the popular clique, proved that blond cheerleaders weren't the only girls on TV worth watching.
More recently, some women's magazines have shown they're above surgically enhanced cover girls and the how-to-please-your-man-in-100 ways genre of advice.
This past summer, Marie Claire magazine chided recent cover girl Ashlee Simpson for getting a nose job after she told the magazine how much she appreciated the looks God gave her.
And in its October issue, Jane magazine addressed the trend toward skimpy, scanty Halloween costumes.
In "Enough With the Slutty Costumes," Stephanie Trong writes, "Girls love to dress like sluts on Halloween. Whatever their costume, they always find a way to stipperfy it, no matter how ludicrous the concept. Like 'sexy cop,' 'sexy zombie,' 'sexy Army cadet,' or … 'sexy shoe saleswoman.' It's always one big pleather, vinyl and fishnet stockings fest everywhere you turn."
Fed up, Trong decided to defy convention on a recent Halloween. She ditched her sexy French maid get-up, donned a heavy, raggedy, head-to-toe rabbit suit, and went to a costume party where she refused to reveal her identity.
Trong garnered more attention than she ever could have in a skimpy outfit. Who from? Skimpy-outfitted girls who couldn't get enough of the daredevil wearing a rabbit suit.
Girls like Trong, who have the ability to laugh with raunch culture while defying its stereotypes, don't exist in "Female Chauvinist Pigs."
But they do in real life. That's the beauty of living in a world that offers women an array of options, from the costume store to the underwear department, from television programs to feminist philosophies.
A culture of sex doesn't have to be accepted in its entirety or not at all. Women can partake in what they like and ignore what they don't. They can wear a French maid outfit one Halloween and a rabbit suit the next. They can get comfortable in a culture of sex because they can handle it.
ABC's Yvonne Lai contributed to this piece.
_________________________________________________________________
Women have what it takes to be Engineers and Scientists
(Gender gap has to do with discrimination and not intellectual incapability)
BRIELLE SCHAEFFER
STAFF WRITER
September 20, 2006
A panel by the National Academy of Sciences examined a gender gap in the science and engineering. The report, “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering” was released at the Sept. 18 panel. According to the report, women are held back in these areas because of sexual discrimination, and not because of their intellectual incapability. Surprise, surprise.
This has been a hot topic ever since former Harvard President Lawrence H. Summers said last year that the lack of women in upper-division science and math fields was due to an intellectual difference for women, especially in mathematics. The report dismissed this idea by highlighting the fact that cognitive differences were small and irrelevant.
The numbers of women in academia, let alone science and math disciplines, have increased. More than 57 percent of bachelors’ degrees in the U.S. are received by women, and 42.6 percent by men. Women have come a long way in the university setting, and in 1970 these percentages were almost reversed. According to the report, for the past 30 years, women have earned more than 30 percent of doctorates in social and behavioral sciences, and at least 20 percent of the doctorates in life sciences. But in the professor setting, these numbers are nowhere near reflected at about half of those levels. Women professors from minority groups are virtually absent.
But where is the disconnect?
This sharp increase of women in college caused an uproar when people started recommending there be affirmative action for men. In an article from the February 1999 U.S. News & World Report, the implications of female academic dominance were suggested on both sides of the spectrum. On one side, it could strangle pay inequity and move women into more positions of power. On another side, the article said it could begin to devalue education. First lady Laura Bush included male education on her agenda, suggesting the reverse gap was shocking and something needs to be done to encourage boys academically. Some university admissions have gone as far as having easier admissions standards for males.
No one got enraged when the statistics favored men and when college students were two-thirds male. Women should be celebrated for this achievement, not chastised and discouraged. Why can’t women be on top just this once? College admissions are already biased in favor of men with entrance exams such as the SAT, which caters to the male mindset because of its format and material.
Keena Mullen, a freshman animal sciences major, said she likes the challenge of science and math, especially because she is not fond of English and history. The amount of males in her classes never really bothered her, she said.
“In my calculus class, there are five or 10 girls and 15 guys” , she said. “I just compete with them; it’s really fun.”
At the main entrance of Sloan Hall “the engineering building” a glass display case holds a T-shirt like the ones being sold by the WSU chapter of the American Society Of Mechanical Engineers. The T-shirt specifies the Ten reasons to date an engineer with No. 1 being “We will make lots of money” and No. 9 being “We know it’s not the length of the vector that counts but how you apply the force” These reasons, funny as they may be, sum up the male dominance of the engineering field. WSU used to have a club for the wives of mechanical engineers.
Diana Washington, a research assistant in civil engineering, attributed the gender gap to environmental and social influences.
“There is a shortcoming on the part of education promoting the recruitment and retention of women in engineering and sciences”, she said. “You’re a long way still from having 20-percent women in engineering classes.”
The National Academy of Sciences report debunked other outrageous stereotypes that say women are not in these fields because they are less competitive and productive, but because of the outmoded institutional structures and because anyone’s lacking the work and family support traditionally provided by a wife is at a serious disadvantage. How interesting that women have upper-echelon academic difficulties because they don’t have wives, not because they might be wives.
