Dear Google Doodle

[gansje]

Saturday was International Women's Day, which Sheryl Sandberg on down acknowledged via Google Doodle, but being busy with work and family things, it took me a few days to write this. Bear with me here and please forgive lack of flow. I actually wrote a much longer post that included a bit about how we inhabit three bodies, but I removed it to spare

Comments

[siro_gravity]

Whoa, Nellie

[emmabovary]

First of all, gansje, thank you for this sane and well-written, reflective piece that merits large exposure.

Secondly:
I sometimes get students who are exotic dancers. They say they are/feel empowered by their job. I get it, and I'm glad we live in a country where we can do what we want. But though dancers feel personally empowered, they really are just reiterating & fueling worn-out cultural stereotypes that ultimately damage us. Meaning, it's hard to be taken seriously as a working woman when men see women as armatures that support tits and ass.

This has always bothered me as well. When I have a student tell me she is a "sex worker" and announce that this is done by choice, free will, finds it empowering (and money making)...I just shake my head. Is my reaction and indication of my age? Despite a student's defense that there is no difference between working as a say, professor's research assistant, vs an exotic dancer, ("It's a job") I cannot agree with the student.

[gansje]

You know, I'm conflicted too; I also really enjoy my own femininity and do think we all need encouragement to enjoy our own sexuality in a more public way, one that embraces the LGBTQ and kink communities as well as cis-gender, straight communities. I almost wrote that into this post, but I wanted to keep it short/tight/readable, and that admission kind of took me off into another aspect of the problem.

I really love my bright red lipstick, sling-back heels and body-con clothing (as does L, which makes me love them all the more) and I'm happy that women can revel in their beauty in a way men can't revel in theirs. I like being a sexual creature, and I'm not quite sure how to resolve the conflict; after all, isn't the way I like to dress (and the fact I love to dress up at all) my own generation's way of doing the same thing younger women do online regarding self-presentation? I guess the main distinction is that I don't think any of us seek to define and represent ourselves solely in the realm of the sexual.

[flw]

Thank YOU!

[gansje]

I was wondering what you'd think about this post!

[flw]

The only thing I ever object to is the bizarre implicit suggestion that somehow conditions are better somewhere else in the world where they most certainly are not, or at some point in the past when they most certainly were not. Also, I have been looking for an excuse to punch someone in a wheelchair for a while now for my own reasons unrelated to this post. So, if you can find that guy...

What is that concept that has to do with lowered expectations?

[gansje]

I'm definitely not implying in any way (or at least I didn't intend to imply) that somehow conditions are better somewhere else in the world. They absolutely are not. Do you mind highlighting or copying in the part of my post that implies that? I want to fix it.

[clevermanka]

OH MY GOD.

OH

MY

GOD

May I reblog this? May I put this on Tumblr? Everybody in the world needs to see this.

[gansje]

Sure! Mind if I clean it up a bit first?

[clevermanka]

Sure, if you wanna! Totally fine if you're not okay with me sharing, it, too. Just let me know.

[gansje]

No, I'm fine sharing! I think the responses will be rather polarized, and there will be much finger pointing about "slut-shaming," unfortunately, because that concept gets applied much too broadly. I think it's lost its original very important point and has become more its own form of McCarthyism.

[hydrozoa]

i'd also like to post this on the book of faces, if it's not there already.

[gansje]

It isn't yet! Let me clean it up a little tonight? I want to change some words -- "never," for example, to "rarely," in order to nod toward women who do stand up, very bravely, for our rights to financial equity rather than for their ability to post my boob pix on the Internet.

BTW, the woman who gets harassed on a near-daily basis? I was thinking about you!

[hydrozoa]

awesome. yeah, just let me know! i really like this. eloquently said.

(i thought you might have been but didn't want to assume. :p)