One Red Hot Country Mama!

As a Canadian, I didn’t know who US Democratic candidate John Edwards was until he hired Amanda Marcotte, blogmaster of Pandagon to work for him. I was interested and surprised, since Amanda is an outspoken feminist and her writing is pretty edgy at times. As the story unfolded, I learned more about Edwards and his campaign, and was interested to see that he stood by her even when many people were calling for her resignation because of things that she had written in her personal blog.

Unfortunately, Amanda quit the Edwards campaign within weeks, after being attacked by a "volunteer army" of right-wing bloggers who continued to denigrate her and after being denounced by the Catholic League. In a story on Salon.com, she says:

"The right-wing noise machine’s favorite trick, possibly its only trick, is to select a target and start making a fuss, hoping that by creating the appearance of smoke, just enough people will be fooled into thinking there’s a fire."

Amanda’s writing is satirical, and shocking at times, which is what makes it so interesting. I can imagine how it can spur a passionate response. But her detractors are pathetic – instead of coming back at her with an equally clever and satirical response, she was personally attacked in a very sexist way. She says:

"One question that’s hard to avoid is how much of the venom had to do with the fact that McEwan and I were young women entering into a field (Internet communications) that’s viewed as almost monolithically masculine. From my vantage point, it appeared that sexism was one of the primary motivating energies behind the campaign. Even before Donohue stepped in, various right-wing bloggers were obsessed with my gender and sexuality. As I noted at the time of my resignation, the majority of the hate mail I was receiving was from men, and almost all the e-mails made note of my gender or suggested that I would be a more pleasant woman if I wasn’t so "angry." Bluntly put, I find it hard to believe that many men would end up being denounced on TV for using words like "fuck" or "cunt" on their blog and expect to receive piles of e-mail offering an opportunity to suck the sender’s dick."

I have been in a number of arguments lately about whether or not sexism exists – how can you say it doesn’t exist when things like this still happen?

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A friend at work showed me these cutest-hamburgers in the world – you can find them here – yes, they are real . And you can work them off on the treadmill in about 2 minutes. 

My friend calls Valentines Day "Singles Awareness Day" – since those of us that are single feel like there are neon flashing arrows pointing at us, while everyone else is getting flowers delivered to them and eating romantic dinners. It is funny how the days that celebrate a specific thing (eg. romantic love between a couple) work to highlight those people that don’t have those things.

Take "Families without Fathers Awareness Day" for example. Growing up without a Dad (he died when I was 6) meant a bit of awkwardness when it came to those little crafts (such as puzzles and pencil holders) we made in Elementary Art class for Father’s Day. The teacher would quietly pull me aside and ask me what I wanted to do. Instead, I made my craft for my teenage brother, with cool results that I loved; while other kids decorated their crafts with lawnmowers and ties, I decorated mine with electric guitars and sports cars.

Another day that we celebrate is "Families Living in Separate Provinces to their Mums Awareness Day". Our family is spread thinly across the country, with two of us on each coast, me in the middle in Toronto and another up North. So -on Mother’s day, my Mum was feeling a bit upset because she saw other Mums she knew getting celebrated and going out to special brunches. From the relieved  burst of laughter that I heard when I explained the "Families Living in Separate Provinces…" she seemed happy that there was a different way to think about it.

So… today is "Singles Awareness Day" and I know it is nothing that is too serious. After all, the day is just an excuse for shops to change their displays and for Hallmark to sell more cards. Tonight I am going to a nice restaurant with a good friend and have bought her a great card. So – I guess I am supporting the Valentines Industry machine, but it is still giving me an excuse to spend more time with my friend so we can show how much we care about each other. So – on days like this I guess I can remember both what I don’t have, and what I have.

Lately I’ve found myself explaining Web 2.0 to a number of people outside and inside (believe it or not and dissapointingly) the industry. Look here to find the article on it by Tim O’Reilly, the guy who coined the term. You can also see below for a fun little video on the subject. To give you a quick clue, if you like my blog and my YouTube reference, you like Web 2.0 .

I was looking at my niece’s amazing coloring the other week, saying the genuine oohs and ahhs about her impressive work and remembering how much I used to love the subject matter she was coloring. Beauty and the Beast was always an inspirational story for me (so much so, that the story inspired my adult dating patterns… just kidding… kind of). I liked it because it was a story of compassion and non-conformity. The main female character, Belle, could see beyond the beast’s physical appearance, and love the inside of him.

Now I look at this story, and other similar ones (such as Cyrano de Bergerac) with more doubt. Why is it always the woman who has to see beyond the man’s ugliness, yet she is still pretty? Why is there never a story of a female "beast" attracting the gaze of a handsome man, who sees beyond her physical appearance and loves her from the inside? It is a message we never see – and it is another example of the double-standard between men and women. 

Actress Geena Davis, has started a movement called See Jane, which has a mandate to reduce the gender stereotyping in media made for children 11 and under. Geena says:

"By making it common for our youngest children to see everywhere a balance of active and complex male and female characters, girls and boys will grow up to empathize with and care more about each others’ stories."

You can see her making an interesting and funny speech about it at the National Conference for Media Reform: here (unfortunately the sound quality isn’t the greatest). In the speech, she outlines some key stats found in a report See Jane called Where the Girls Aren’t.

The methodology:

Where the Girls Aren’t is the first of several research briefs drawn from most in-depth content analysis of popular G-rated movies ever conducted. Led by Dr. Stacy L. Smith, researchers from the Annenberg School for Communication (ASC) at the University of Southern California (USC) studied the 101 top-grossing G-rated films released from 1990 through 2004. The research analyzed a total of 4,249 speaking characters in the movies, which included both animated and live-action films.

Key findings show that:

• In the 101 studied films, there are three male characters for every one female character.

• Fewer than one out of three (28 percent) of the speaking characters both real and animated) are female.

• Fewer than one in five (17 percent) of the characters in crowd scenes are female.

• More than four out of five (83 percent) of the films’ narrators are male.

During the time period of the study (1990-2004), there was no gradual increase in female characters featured. Imagine the impression this leaves with young girls watching this? Davis has been speaking to different content producers regarding making changes (ie. moving towards a more 50/50 representation), and their reaction is surprise. They didn’t intentionally produce such imbalanced message, it just somehow happened. Thanks Geena, for making a difference in young girls lives . When we start seeing a male beauty and a female beast, even better.