The blues has the blues

Koko Taylor, Queen of the Blues. (September 28, 1928 – June 3, 2009)

Marilyn French (1929-2009)

I'm a little late getting to this but ...

Marilyn French, one of feminism’s leading writers and theorists, died of heart failure last weekend at age 79. French, along with Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer, was a major influence on boomer feminists like me.

It was her 1977 debut novel “The Women’s Room’’ which catapulted her into the public eye.

About fictional feminists in the 1950s and 60s, the 20-million-plus bestseller was best known for one of the characters claiming that “All men are rapists.’’ Needless to say, that phrase ended up being attributed to French herself, mostly by those who fought women’s attempts to gain equality in the U.S.

Here's a great analysis of her work, ironically by a man:

Much has been made in the obituaries of French’s anger, and there’s little doubt that in many respects “The Women’s Room” is an angry novel. But righteous anger in the face of blind privilege, reckless entitlement, and crushing social norms is no vice — and I found French’s work to be a powerful and damning indictment. At 19, I recognized aspects of myself in some of her less sympathetic male characters — and in no small way, the book contributed to the beginning of my intellectual journey to (at least attempt to) become a different sort of man.

Also misinterpreted was her declaration that her "goal in life is to change the entire social and economic  structure of Western civilization, to make it a feminist world.’’

 To those who would eventually refer to feminists as “femi-nazis,’’ that was twisted to mean that French and her cohorts wanted to squash men.

That must sound awfully familiar to regular readers of the comments section in this blog.

In a tribute to French, Carol Jenkins, president of the New York City-based Women’s Media Center, wrote:

She was dedicated to making sure women understood their compromised position, and that men could see their part in the domination — historically and currently. She denied that made her a man-hater, and never altered her position. Marilyn had witnessed, recorded, interpreted, and predicted the condition of women in the world for most of her life. I can’t say that near the end she was overly optimistic about our progress and our future. But once again, Marilyn left the lasting impression. And, the Goddess knows, she tried.

Golden Girl

Maude is gone.

Actress Bea Arthur, who starred in the popular Maude and Golden Girls TV series, has died at age 86, according to her family.

The gravelly-voiced performer won Emmys for her role on both series, which were also critically acclaimed.

Arthur died peacefully at her Los Angeles home with her family at her side, family spokesman Dan Watt said. She had cancer, Watt said, but gave no other details.

"She was a brilliant and witty woman," said Watt, who was Arthur's personal assistant for six years.

<SNIP>

Arthur first appeared on TV in the landmark comedy series All in the Family as Edith Bunker's loudly outspoken, liberal cousin Maude Findlay.

In 1972, Arthur took that character to a spinoff series, Maude. Maude lived in an affluent community with her husband Walter (Bill Macy) and divorced daughter Carol (Adrienne Barbeau) .

I don't normally mark the passing of sitcom stars but Arthur was a true doorkicker for the Maude episodes she did on alcoholism, divorce and, most bravely, abortion back in a time when women were supposed to shut up and stand behind their man. Everything about her Maude Finlay was controversial. She was not afraid to speak her mind, she didn't sit at home vacuuming in pearls and high heels, and denounced Republicans in the Nixon era.

That despite her own political leanings.

In real life, Bea Arthur’s attitude toward feminism was much more ambivalent than that of her alter ego. In the early 1970s, Arthur insisted that she did not understand the women’s movement: “I’ve never felt that being a wife and mother isn’t enough.” Interviews portrayed her as a gentle, unpretentious woman deeply tied to her husband and two adopted sons, and nothing like the threatening Maude. By 1978, however, the series had produced tensions that shattered Arthur’s longtime marriage to Gene Saks, and in later interviews, Arthur actually adopted the language of the women’s movement: “I don’t think I ever truly believed in marriage anyway,” she told an interviewer in 1985. “I guess marriage means that you’re a woman and not a . . . person.”

On the show, Maude was constantly admonishing her adversaries and those who angered her with her stock phrase, ''God will get you for that.''

Bet God, if there is such a thing, has Bea Arthur now.

UPPITY WOMAN DATE: The wonders of YouTube.

Bleeding heart business

Via Salon's Broadsheet, this good news story, and good on so many fronts.

Many girls and women here think they have it bad that time of the month when they're feeling boated, cranky, sleepless, crampy and find themselves checking the backs of their skirts every few minutes. (As for their partners who think they are suffering through this too, my heart bleeds.) 

But give me a break. Aside from the fact that the feds charge GST for tampons and other such products, menstruating is no great hardship. I mean, walk into any drugstore and you'll see entire aisles devoted to mini this and maxi that.

In my time I have even bought black pads made for thong panties.

Nowadays you can even skip the whole deal with certain pills.

What's more, period talk is common. Who hasn't heard a co-working kvetching about her PMS? There's no shame in it. And even commercials are pretty blatant nowadays, going way beyond animated cotton doves with wings floating around a girl's head.

Case in point:

So anyway, in some places, women don't have it so (relatively) easy.

Which is where the good news comes in:

Elizabeth Scharpf (MBA 2007) has been named the first Harvard Business School Social Entrepreneurship Fellow for her work in launching Sustainable Health Enterprises (SHE). SHE is a platform for starting businesses that use innovative, market-based approaches to tackle socio-economic and public health problems in developing countries. Scharpf started SHE in late 2007 based on the belief that charitable efforts alone are not enough to address the breadth and complexity of socio-economic and health problems that exist in developing countries.

The HBS Social Entrepreneurship Fellowship program is designed to support the efforts of recent HBS graduates who are launching social enterprises - nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid organizations - with a central focus on the creation of social value. This pilot program provides seed funding support to one recent graduate each year through a $25,000 fellowship.

The first SHE venture addresses the widespread phenomenon of girls and women missing school or work when they are menstruating because they lack access to affordable sanitary pads. Currently working in Rwanda, SHE is developing a sanitary pad sourced from local materials to be sold for 30 percent less than currently available brands. Local Rwandan women will manufacture and market these pads and gradually become owners of the business through microfinance loans.

"In interviews with more than 500 women and girls in Rwanda, we found that half of the girls interviewed are missing school due to menstruation, primarily because sanitary pads are too expensive," said Scharpf. "Lack of access to pads affects not only the prospects of girls and women, it also has significant macro-economic consequences for countries - in fact, we estimate a $115 million loss in GDP per year in Rwanda alone.

"SHE expects that this rate is comparable in other resource-poor countries and we plan to undertake similar efforts in those countries," Scharpf continued. "It is an honor to be Harvard Business School's first Social Entrepreneurship Fellow. These resources will help SHE succeed during this critical phase of our pilot roll-out." 

So, not only do Rwandan women and girls get cheaper pads, they get jobs, businesses and educations. This means that they're less likely to start having children at young ages, which reduces the stress on the planet.

It's a win-win-win.

As for Scharpf, she makes money in an ethical way, giving back to where she takes from.

And Harvard? Well, as an MBA myself (Concordia 1985), I have to say that, if social entrepreneurship was on the curricula of B-schools long ago, we would not be in the economic and environmental mess we are now in.

Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions

The ever bold and beautiful Gloria Steinem, probably the world's best-known feminist, is turning 75.

To mark her birthday,  The Ms Foundation for Women, which she co-founded, is asking everybody to commit outrageous acts every day to help bring about social justice.

What a splendid idea, obviously drawn from Steinem's collection of essays, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions.

Outrageous Acts reminds each of us of our power to create change. It also helps us imagine what’s possible when we link the power of our own outrageous acts with others’ nationwide. The more we inspire new outrageous acts and connect with other outrageous actors, the more power we‘ll have to bring about the kind of change we want to see in our communities, our country and our world.

<SNIP>

In the spirit of Gloria and in recognition of the outrageous acts Ms. Foundation grantees do every day, we invite you to commit, share and support outrageous acts in the cause of simple justice. Acts that change the world in ways large and small, acts that support change from the ground up, acts that shift our or others’ thinking about issues of equity and justice in our lives.

And we must act now. While we face great challenges—from the economic crisis and barriers to reproductive health care to gender-based violence and war—we also live in a moment of tremendous opportunity. More and more people are poised to create change from the ground up. And on the heels of an historic presidential election, we’re reminded of just how effective grassroots, outrageous acts – from bake sales and buttons to signatures and songs – can be.

I like to think I live by these words, by politely telling able-bodied young people to give up their subway seats for those who look like they need them to patiently and politely answering my hate mail (most of the time) to stopping mid-traffic to allow somebody to cross, park or pull out of an intersection. I mean jeez, there's only a red light ahead anyway. What's your hurry, bub? Qwit yer stupid honking.

I have never understood those who stand on the sidelines, silently seething about life's unfairness or, worse, criticizing those who take action.

I have a poster in my home office, showing Canadian first waver Nellie McClung. It reads:

Never retract, never explain, never apologize; get things done and let them howl.

Do it.

Will you still love me tomorrow?

Because a girl can't go on writing only about pay equity and the right to choose ...

Today's treeware column marked last week's sad passing of Estelle Bennett, one of The Ronettes.

The thing about The Ronettes, and all the other (mostly) African-American girl groups of that early Rock'n'Roll era is,even on oldies shows, I never hear them except on my own iPod. And yet these ladies busted down doors not only for women artists but also for black ones. They were style icons too!

So here's my column, with links and the occasional musical interlude:

Estelle Bennett sank with barely a ripple last week.

The U.K. press gave the ex-Ronette's death at 67 major play but, in her native U.S., where she helped create the rock 'n' roll industry, there was barely a back-up chorus.

But first, a little music herstory for those of you to whom "girl groups" means Spice Girl lip-synching and Pussycat Doll-writhing.

The Ronettes, along with The Marvelettes ("Please Mr. Postman"), The Shirelles ("Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow"), The Chiffons ("He's So Fine"), The Crystals ("Da Doo Ron Ron"), The Exciters ("Doo Wah Diddy"), Martha and the Vandellas ("Love is like a Heat Wave"), The Dixie Cups ("Iko, Iko'') and so many more, owned the pop charts in the early '60s.

What's more, their songs, including those they wrote without credit, were covered by music giants such as The Beatles who had them front and centre as opening acts on their tours.

In fact, The Ronettes' huge hit "Be My Baby," produced by (now accused murderer and certifiable eccentric) Phil Spector who Svengali'd the group, influenced drumming in songs by Green Day, R.E.M., the Beach Boys, ELO and countless others.

If The Ronettes still mean nothing to you, think of the opening scene in Dirty Dancing.

As for Estelle Bennett, whose sister Veronica (Ronnie) fronted the group, and whose cousin Nedra Talley did back-up, she's the one who invented rocker girl fashion, including that big hairdo last seen on Amy Winehouse's ratty head.

Maybe it's because so many older baby boomer journalists have been laid off or taken early retirement that Bennett's death went unmarked.

Maybe it's because in this time of Britney Spears and Pussycat Dolls pop tartism, nobody takes girl acts too seriously. (And really, who can blame them?) More likely, though, the story of rock 'n' roll is written mostly by men, while commercial radio has long been dominated by men.

But let me tell you: You ain't never heard "Hound Dog" until you have heard it belted by Big Mama Thornton, who recorded it before Elvis did.

Motown pioneer Mary Wells ("My Guy'') never made it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

And yet, all these women broke ground – and not just musically.

Almost without exception – The Shangri-Las, notably – the girl group girls were African-American.

They mostly grew up in poor urban areas, and got together in their homes to put their acts together. (Unlike male singers, who could hang out on street corners Jersey Boys-style, girls had curfews.)

And yet, they still managed to break down doors and the barriers, which would pave the way on the charts for their black brothers whose music was often sanitized for white Middle American airplay by the likes of Pat Boone.

Along with the girl groups, came Motown.

However, Motown founder Berry Gordy often neglected or mismanaged them in favour of his obsession, The Supremes.

Not that I am suggesting the music industry comes easier to men.

We've all seen the movies based on their lives: Walk the Line (Johnny Cash), Ray (Ray Charles), La Bamba (Ritchie Valens), The Buddy Holly Story, Great Balls of Fire (Jerry Lee Lewis), etc.

But, aside from fictional froth (Dreamgirls), there are no movies, no plays, no tracking the tears and triumphs of the girl group pioneers. Come on. It's not as if Hollywood doesn't have Beyoncé's and Jennifer Hudson's talent to draw on.

Reviewing the lives and loves of The Ronettes, it's hard to miss the gold in them thar trills.

Not only did Ronnie marry Spector, but the group toured with the Stones. Estelle "dated" Mick Jagger and George Harrison. How can that miss?

But, sadly, the girls get no R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

RIP Estelle.

And with that, this one is dedicated to my niece Stephanie who is getting married tomorrow night:

Storage Shred

As I was saying, one of my New Year's resolutions was to clear out the crap. So last week, I started with my home office where there are large built-in cupboards holding old files, photos, souvenirs, birthday cards, love letters, theatre ticket stubs, matchbooks, newspaper clippings, awards, cocktail napkins, all the flotsam and jetsam of my life and loves.

I began with the more prosaic of this detritus, my tax returns and receipts, envelope after envelope, all dated by year going back to 1978. (In the process I realized that, figuring for inflation, I was probably making and keeping more 20 years ago than today, especially if you count all the City of Toronto tax grabs for garbage bins, parking permits etc.)

As I shredded, filling clear plastic garbage bag after clear plastic garbage bag, I complained on my Facebook status about the chore. Author Rona Maynard, who was editor of Chatelaine for a decade, and I started trading messages about it. That's because I had found my files from Flare magazine, for which I did freelance work from 1979-1981 or so, while she was deputy editor.

She asked me for copies of any correspondence between us because she had nothing of that era. I sent her scans. Today she emailed me the link for her very personal and poignant (to me anyway) result.

There's just one thing I know for sure about that day, two days before I turned 30. In my office at Flare, I dictated the letter that gave a young journalist named Antonia Zerbisias her first magazine assignment. I had high hopes for Antonia, who'd just sent us one of those rare pitch letters that have editors asking, "Why has no one else discovered this writer and how fast can I connect her with my readers?"

High praise indeed. I am honoured.

The wonder is, how strange and beautiful life is. Rona and I began our relationship on typewritten paper sent through Canada Post and now we exchange snappy Facebook comments instantly.

Here's the thing:

One feature she commissioned from me, ''Confessions of a Sex Object,'' about how a hardcore, dyed-in-the-curly-hair women's libber like moi would welcome wolf whistles from construction workers. Hey, just because I am a feminist doesn't mean i can't be feminine, I wrote. (That's me at that time in one of those old photomats.) 

OMG, I remember some pretty nasty mail in the wake of that piece. (I got used to it early, you see?) Women wrote to complain that I was setting the movement back, that I was a traitor to the cause, that yada yada.

But was I?

Even now I don't think so.

I think the attitude that feminists had to stop shaving their legs, start wearing combat boot and tossing their lipsticks ended up hurting the movement. It gave those who try to keep women down something to beat us with, and made girls who wanted to look their best say they weren't feminists, even as they benefited from the hard work of those women who fought to gain our rights.

Had there been a little less rhetoric and a lot more leeway, I think we -- men and women -- would all be a lot better off today.

Jeez, even Gloria Steinem wears mascara.

Bitch-v-Bimbo

Now that Senator Hillary Clinton is said to be slated to join President-elect Barack Obama's cabinet as Secretary of State, the right-wing sexists (including women who denounced liberal women for calling Sarah Palin an airhead) have pulled out all the photoshop stops to paint her as a ugly old monster. That despite her total hawkishness.

As for Palin, well, what can I say? She did turn out to be an airhead, who nearly destroyed her party.

But, I must be honest. I think Palin got a rough ride, although it was different from Clinton's.

Palin's appearance and attention to her family (or lack of it, depending on how you saw it) worked against her in that she was stereotyped in certain ways. Clinton on the other hand was attacked for the same things, even though she is no beauty queen and, although a mother, and a very good one, was not surrounded by an ever-expanding brood.

In this week's New York magazine, Amanda Fortini examines how, despite all the breakthroughs made by women in politics during the 2008 election campaign, women were still confined by the not-so-good old fashioned stereotypes:

In the grand Passion play that was this election, both Clinton and Palin came to represent—and, at times, reinforce—two of the most pernicious stereotypes that are applied to women: the bitch and the ditz. Clinton took the first label, even though she tried valiantly, some would say misguidedly, to run a campaign that ignored gender until the very end. “Now, I’m not running because I’m a woman,” she would say. “I’m running because I think I’m the best-qualified and experienced person to hit the ground running.” She was highly competent, serious, diligent, prepared (sometimes overly so)—a woman who cloaked her femininity in hawkishness and pantsuits. But she had, to use an unfortunate term, likability issues, and she inspired in her detractors an upwelling of sexist animus: She was likened to Tracy Flick for her irritating entitlement, to Lady Macbeth for her boundless ambition. She was a grind, scold, harpy, shrew, priss, teacher’s pet, killjoy—you get the idea. She was repeatedly called a bitch (as in: “How do we beat the … ”) and a buster of balls. Tucker Carlson deemed her “castrating, overbearing, and scary” and said, memorably, “Every time I hear Hillary Clinton speak, I involuntarily cross my legs.”

<SNIP>

Palin was recast as the charmer, the glider, the dim beauty queen, the kind of woman who floats along on a little luck and the favor of men. In a recent issue of The New Yorker, Jane Mayer recounted how a handful of conservative Washington thinkers became besotted with Palin during a trip to Alaska and subsequently began to promote her in Washington: The National Review’s Jay Nordlinger described the governor as “a former beauty-pageant contestant, and a real honey, too,” Bill Kristol called her “my heartthrob,” and Fred Barnes noted she was “exceptionally pretty.” While it’s obviously not Palin’s fault that men find her attractive, it is fair to criticize her for campaigning on a platform of charm rather than substance. In what Michelle Goldberg called a “brazen attempt to flirt [her] way into the good graces of the voting public,” she waved and winked and smiled—even during the debate—and called herself “just your average hockey mom.” (Never mind that it’s impossible to imagine a male candidate mentioning fatherhood as the source of his readiness to be the nation’s second-in-command.) Her running mate called her “a direct counterpoint to the liberal feminist agenda for America,” and her “Joe Six-Pack” fans seemed to appreciate her nonthreatening approach. To quote a former truck driver named Larry Hawkins who was interviewed by the Times at a Palin rally: “They bear us children, they risk their lives to give us birth, so maybe it’s time we let a woman lead us.”

<SNIP>

(A)mong the darker revelations of this election is the fact that the vice-grip of female stereotypes remains suffocatingly tight. On the national political stage and in office buildings across the country, women regularly find themselves divided into dualities that are the modern equivalent of the Madonna-whore complex: the hard-ass or the lightweight, the battle-ax or the bubblehead, the serious, pursed-lipped shrew or the silly, ineffectual girl. It is exceedingly difficult to sidestep this trap.

And it's not going to get any easier because the die has been cast.

Miriam Makeba, 1932 - 2008

Nelson Mandela pays tribute:

"The sudden passing of our beloved Miriam has saddened us … For many decades, starting in the years before we went to prison, MaMiriam featured prominently in our lives and we enjoyed her moving performances. When she went into exile she continued to make us proud as she used her worldwide fame to focus attention on the abomination of apartheid. Her music inspired a powerful sense of hope in all of us. She was a mother to our struggle and to the young nation of ours.

"It was fitting that her last moments were spent on a stage, enriching the hearts and lives of others - and again in support of a good cause."

I chose this clip not because of the music but because it shows what she stood for.

"I never understood why I couldn't come home. I never committed any crime."

Prisoners of war

Via Feministing, a scene is from Ironed Jawed Angels, an 2004 HBO film about the suffrage movement in the U.S.

IRON JAWED ANGELS recounts for a contemporary audience a key chapter in U.S. history: in this case, the struggle of suffragists who fought for the passage of the 19th Amendment. Focusing on the two defiant women, Alice Paul (Hilary Swank) and Lucy Burns (Frances O'Connor), the film shows how these activists broke from the mainstream women's-rights movement and created a more radical wing, daring to push the boundaries of political protest to secure women's voting rights in 1920. Breathing life into the relationships between Paul, Burns and others, the movie makes the women feel like complete characters instead of one-dimensional figures from a distant past.

Although the protagonists have different personalities and backgrounds - Alice is a Quaker and Lucy an Irish Brooklynite - they are united in their fierce devotion to women's suffrage. In a country dominated by chauvinism, this is no easy fight, as the women and their volunteers clash with older, conservative activists, particularly Carrie Chapman Catt (Angelica Huston). They also battle public opinion in a tumultuous time of war, not to mention the most powerful men in the country, including President Woodrow Wilson (Bob Gunton). Along the way, sacrifices are made: Alice gives up a chance for love, and colleague Inez Mulholland (Julia Ormond) gives up her life.

The women are thrown in jail, with an ensuing hunger strike making headline news. The women's resistance to being force-fed earns them the nickname "The Iron Jawed Angels." However, it is truly their wills that are made of iron, and their courage inspires a nation and changes it forever.

The film is on DVD.

More information about their struggle, and that of the other women who fought for the right to vote, is here (PDF).

Women who marched for the right to vote were arrested, starved, force-fed, beaten, tortured.

This is the kind of thing they endured. It comes from an email about the movie:

Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'

They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.

They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cell mate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack.

Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.

Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.

For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their
food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.

When I talk with women who say they can't be bothered to vote, or they don't know enough about the issues, I wish they were more aware that all this happened less than a century ago.

Again: Many battles have been won but the war for equality is not yet over.