by Jess W

A Movie All Feminists Should See:

The author of the award-winning 1996 novel that inspired the recent film Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire can no doubt best explain the stoic, hardened look on her protagonist’s face: “I wanted to show that this girl is locked out by literacy.  She’s locked out by her physical appearance.  She’s locked out by her class, and she’s locked out by her color.” Precious is everything that Hollywood isn’t, and the film’s gritty realism constantly reminds us of her place in the food chain.  Pregnant for the second time by her father, who later dies of AIDS, and living with a jealous, chain-smoking, and violent mother, played with unrelenting violence by the comedian Mo’Nique, Precious is constantly being told that she is fat, stupid, and worthless. Without detailing the various abuses she wordlessly endures from peers and adults,  suffices to say that the narrative unfolding under the helm of director Lee Daniels cannot be described as adversity; rather, Precious has been so beaten down that she resignedly endures without surprise; it’s a matter of survival.  The fact that she never asks why, never questions her treatment, is a testament to how profoundly it has been embedded in her sense of self.

Even her name, however, (“I go by Precious,” she insists) reveals that Precious is also a figure of almost impossible longing: not just for a white boyfriend with “nice hair” and a normal life, but for color, flair, beauty of which no one can rob her.  Her fantasy life, to which she (and the film) hastily escapes during particularly scarring moments, both shows us the expanse of Precious’ imagination and how far she falls from it; one particularly devastating moment shows her reflection in the mirror as a thin, blonde white girl.  For the largely white middle class audience, who may walk away from the film feeling a nagging sense of privileged guilt about complaining over parking spaces on their way in, the mirror as a site of fantasy and deep unhappiness will ring true across the class ladder.  Much of Precious’ life is impossible to fathom, but the girl in the mirror seems to remain the universal symbol for American women of what we are not.

With an almost exclusively female cast, the profound ways that women create, love, and destroy one another becomes a central subject of the film. Daniels’ portrayal of the blossoming friendships between the girls in Precious’ G.E.D. class is nuanced and incredibly moving; their support for one another isn’t without judgment and rarely politically correct—sometimes you don’t know whether a comment will spark a laugh or a fistfight—but it is ultimately the redemptive element of the film.  This redemption avoids the exaggerated clichés of inner city black women raised up in most Hollywood films.  At the film’s close, after all, Precious is still HIV-positive, living in a half-way house, and caring for two children.

While I can’t complain about their performances, especially the rousing physical work of Mo’Nique, I was perplexed by Daniels’ choice to reach so high on the Hollywood star ladder.  Mariah Carey, Sherri Sheperd (currently on The View), and Lenny Kravitz co-star in a film that consciously defies Hollywood convention and contrivances.  It seems too appropriate when Precious tells the social worker played by Carey, “I like you, too, but you can’t handle this shit.” The true star here is newcomer Gabourey Sibide, whose impassivity betrays both the element of survival in Precious’ inhibition, and the etchings of desire constantly flashing across her eyes. While I wish this tour-de-force actress the best, I will be interested to see what kind of work she has in film after this; can a plus-size black woman carry a film that is not centered on her story of rising from the abuse and poverty of the ghetto?  Could Sibide become the kind of Hollywood ideal that she idolizes, and, should she miraculously achieve that kind of status, is it ultimately affirmative or constricting?  The film made me wonder about whether the ideal itself or the tendency to idealize (or both) is the problem for female self-image in this country, particularly as far as Hollywood is concerned.

by Morgan T-H.

The wisps of hair on the top of my head are not evidence of an identity crisis. My use of revitalizing conditioner to invigorate and rejuvenate my hair with passion fruit and mango juice from trees in Ghana isn’t meant to make my hair look whiter or my skin look lighter.

I sit with my mirror running the hot plates of my straightening iron over my naturally thick and curly hair to make it thin and tame.  As I run the scorching hot metal around each strand of hair, the remnants of its body fly up into the air in the form of smoke, ashes caught by the ceiling fan and spread around the room. I have become accustomed to the slight smell of fire as I straighten section upon section of hair. This act of straightening causes some to believe that I do not know who I am.  Perhaps at age seventeen I do not know exactly who I am, but I surely know what I am not.  Sometimes I am called an “Oreo” because I am smart and I straighten my hair, further “evidence” against me. The word reduces me to the value of a piece of food.  I know I am worth more than a snack.

I sat in my English class as my teacher stood single-mindedly generalizing about each and every African-American student who didn’t have curls.  She attributed each straightened strand to confusion about race, aspiration to be white, and reminiscence about individual failures.  When I tried to give her my point of view she could not or would not accept it.  She was white and right and presumed to know me better than I know myself.  I have never been ashamed of who I am or what my hair looks like. Her jarring accusation suddenly separated me from the rest of my classmates.  I looked around the room of mostly white faces and felt like they were all staring, expecting a reaction.  Of course they weren’t – most of them were scribbling on papers or having side conversations with friends, oblivious to the tension in my body and in the air.

People know that I am from a white mother and that my absentee father has the darkest shade of brown skin. People know my broken and frazzled hair held back by a myriad of clips.  I love my hair curly and I love my hair straight.  From time to time I change it, but my identity remains intact. I am white.  I am black.  I am straight.  I am curly.  I do not have to choose.

by ma.

While chopping onions in my kitchen this Thanksgiving, my brother asked if he could help. My dad told him not to bother, that when he had asked the “women” wouldn’t allow it. My brother wittily retorted that he was shocked to find himself in a gender-normative household, where women do the cooking, and the men watch football. “Hey mom,” he yelled from the TV room, turning on the game, “Bring me a sandwich!”  He got me thinking, as a feminist should I go watch the football game and let him make the stuffing?

If it was the 1970s, and I was a feminist riding the high of Second-Wave Feminism, having just won the right to choose, watched as many universities became co-ed and passed Title VII and Title IX, I probably would have run up the stairs and told my brother to make me a sandwich.

But it’s not. It’s 2009, and we are in the middle of the Third Wave of feminism, trying to figure out what feminist really means. Why can’t a woman cook all the food for a big meal? Maybe it’s because she feels obliged to cook, but maybe it’s because she enjoys cooking, or because she woke up early enough to help whereas her brother didn’t wake up until 2pm. What’s so wrong about following the gender-normative tradition? As long as no one is forcing her to cook, by preparing the family meal, isn’t she carrying on a tradition that’s been passed down through the generations? In cooking the same meal that her foremothers cooked, isn’t she celebrating their history, knowledge and skill rather than denying it? Feminism is the belief that one should be free to choose who they are and what they do. As long as that choice is maintained, why can’t she choose tradition?

This is the challenge of the third-wave feminists: we have the rights to choose and the legislation to defend our choices, but what are we going to choose?

One of the most feminist women I know wants to be a stay-at-home mom. She told me that when she tells this to people, they often ask “Why?” They are of the opinion that being a stay-at-home mom just simply isn’t good enough; women have fought so hard for equal rights that choosing your family over your work seems backwards.

The same is true in choosing a field to work in or study. When I told my parents that I wanted to be a French major, education minor, instead of a biology major, education minor, my mother said, “Why Millan? I could have studied French and education when I was at Smith. We didn’t fight for equality so that you could keep studying the same subjects.” So we compromised, French major, biology minor. While I know that my education should be my choice, I also know that her father pulled her application from his alma mater, Yale, because of her gender. I wanted to honor how important education is to her. Many of the women I know who want to work as “traditional” female professions such as a teacher, a nurse, or a social worker, find that their dream is often met with a strained smile and a “that’s nice.”

The feminism of the 1970s fought so that every possibility was available to our generation. They entered fields women had never entered before and they became top administrators. They started day-care centers and worked alongside their husbands in the office in lieu of waiting at home with the kids. They made a world in which we can choose where we want to go and when. In this arena of choice, one needs to be able to choose to be a high-powered attorney just as easily as she chooses to be a stay-at-home mom. The view of the latter choice by many Second-Wave and radical feminists as submissive and weak is both hypocritical and unfair. Women should be able to be anything they want to be. The work of our generation of feminists is to support each other in the choices we make and the future we create.

Flaws

Feel free

To focus on my flaws

Forever…

For some reason

Family, friends, and foes

Focus on my flaws

Fanatic framers of my flaw-filled follies

Fanciful features to my five favorite fantasies

Fragile freedom fills my heart for fear of forfeiting

A framework fixed in fiendish foreplay

Foreshadow to famous fallacies

I’ve been finagled!!!

And framed for foolish faults

But now I am free from feeling frustration.

Fierce, fabulous and forceful

Frankly foundational to a fortunate future

Frantically frenzied

Female and fiery

Flashing fixations on firecracker Fridays

Flying, flowing and freakin’ out

Festive feather-weight facilitator

Faithful for all fidelity favors those who forgo

Fumbled with fate, feelings and failure

Furthermore, firmly fixed in my flaws

Find fault, fame and frailty.

Forever fervent

Forever fighting

Forever flawed

By Arielle G.

I am the F word

Its essence is embodied in this skin

I am the F word

And every time I raise my fist and voice

I demand the rights of my F word to be realized

I am the F word

And no matter the curve of my hip, the color of my skin, or the wave of my hair

My faultless style and grace

Remain to be evidence of how F word I am

I am the F word

Because no man, woman, or paper

Can deter me from my fascination with success

I fight

I feel

I fiend

For words unspoken

Emotions not recognized

Touches not tasted

Tastes not experienced

And experiences only yet imagined

I am the F word

And still the F word is only part of who I am

Welcome Readers,

After a brief break from blogging, the F-word has been refreshed. We are excited for our articles this issue which discuss topics from definitions of feminism to social house stereotypes.

We hope that the F-word is a place where people can feel free to write their opinions and thoughts. We hope to encourage dialogue through reader’s comments and responses. So please, read, write, think, and join us in our wandering journey of musings about gender issues.

Our future issues will be focused around Sexual Assault Awareness Week, Gaypril, and summertime, although we hope to have articles on many other topics as well.

Thank you for gracing our page with your browser.

The editors.

Please send questions, comments and future articles to: fwordadmin@gmail.com

Cosmo vs. Sports Illustrated for Women

By Sarah

Ever since I was in eighth grade, I’ve been bitten by a pseudo-activist bug. The assistant coach of my soccer team told me and my teammates about a full day conference for teenage girls at the local university. It featured workshops and speakers dealing with a range of issues, from grassroots activism to eating disorders to self defense workshops. Before the conference, I had never really paused to think about activism as it related to me, but walking out of those workshops, I felt bold and powerful and hungry to act.

I joined the group that organized the conference the next year. Activism, as I had spoken or read about, became a reality. I lead a club at my school dealing with women’s issues; I spoke up in discussions. I even bought a t-shirt proclaiming “feminists are HOT…. and bothered”. But I only wore it to school once. Sometimes I got tired of defending my opinions against the cacophony of dissenters. I knew what was right. I stood up for that. But making change is tiring, and sometimes isolating. I was like most high school and middle school-ers, where fading in rather than standing out was often the goal. Inherent to activism is opposing the norm, so what happens when you don’t always feel like fighting? Can you still be an activist?

I believe that you can be. But these questions continue to be dilemmas that I grapple with. I believe that activism can take many forms, and that activists are many types of people. I think that the strength of publications like this blog is their acceptance and celebration of that fact. Like the F-Word, magazines and publications not only present news, opinion and information, but create a relationship with the readers. And through that forum, the questions and dilemmas like mine begin to be resolved.

Sometimes, it felt like magazines promoted the binary I’ve described. I secretly loved glossy gossip magazines. A friend had subscriptions to Seventeen, Cosmo Girl and others, and I would devour them with a staged nonchalance. But reading them I felt that I was cheating another side of myself because I could identify so many instances of articles, advertising and photos that hurt, rather than helped, young women.

And yet, I’ve also found solace in magazines. When I was younger, I subscribed to New Moon, a magazine featuring poetry and short stories written by young girls and whose goal was to empower young women. Later on, I subscribed to Sports Illustrated for Women. I was only in middle school and for some reason I take pride in the fact that I supported such a worthwhile effort. SI for Women focused exclusively on female athletics. Without many pro athletes to profile, college and alternative sport athletes (women who seemed more accessible to young me) were the central focus of the magazine. In those years, the women of the US women’s national soccer team became my idols and celebrities. Those magazines discussed issues from the lens of engaged, thoughtful women. Those magazines gave me a base to critique news and reminded me that I was surrounded by likeminded women all around the world.

Ultimately, I don’t think that there has to be a division between the two types of magazines I’ve described, or between different parts of a personality. When I was younger and starting to explore what it meant to be an activist, I don’t think that I understood that.

F-Word is even more than these magazines, because its online nature allows it to become more than the initial articles. So I hope that in this virtual community, each reader is empowered to be themselves, as active as they feel comfortable.

I leave you with a favorite poem I’ve recently re-discovered. Blessing the Boats by Lucille Clifton feels an appropriate inclusion because it celebrates the faith that one must place in the intangible; in the communities that support you, in the strength of yourself. And furthermore, like the blessing of a new boat, these new posts represent the re-launch of this wonderful F-Word community.

Blessing the Boats

may the tide

that is entering even now

the lip of our understanding

carry you out

beyond the face of fear

may you kiss

the wind then turn from it

certain that it will

love your back may you

open your eyes to water

water waving forever

and may you in your innocence

sail through this to that

-Lucille Clifton

Millan’s Women’s History Month Playlist

1. Revolution- Tracy Chapman
2. Gratitude- Ani di Franco
3. If I Were a Boy- Beyoncé
4. This is the Life- Amy MacDonald
5. Ma France à Moi – Diam’s
6. Since You’ve Been Gone- Kelly Clarkson
7. Sister Self- Alela Diane
8. You Don’t Own Me- Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton
9. Just a Girl- No Doubt
10. Before He Cheats- Carrie Underwood
11. Twisted- Joni Mitchell
12. Lola- The Kinks
13. Toast to the Girls- Willa Ford
14. Sunshowers- M.I.A.
15. Butterfly Girl- Marie Modiano
16. Red Cape- Priscilla Ahn
17. When I Was a Young Girl- Feist
18. Love Song- Sara Bareilles
19. Hey You- Shakira
20. XXX’s and OOO’s- Trisha Yearwood
21. Belle- Beauty and the Beast
22. To Zion- Lauryn Hill
23. I Hope- Dixie Chicks

Memoir of a girl living at Baxter College House …

By Kristina

So, we all know the stereotypes of the College Houses.  Mac promotes bands, Howell is Chem – Free, etc.  Baxter is the “meat – head,” we are men who play manly sports and throw parties like Man-uary every night …

Now, I must further preface the remainder of this by saying I didn’t apply to live in Baxter.  I was rejected by Reslife from proctor-ship and then was the sole recipient of a rejection letter from Quinby.  During a distraught Kristina meets cool cucumber Kim meeting, Kim gave me, what I thought of as new, identity label: a strong female.  Due to this “fire” or whatever, Kim informed me she wanted to place me in Baxter.

Back to the stereotypes, me vs. the men, okay: I could not have been more wrong.  Baxter House was fabulous, half the guys lived in Hyde (my freshman dorm) and/or it seemed went on my Pre-O.  The parties were great, the sociality was what-one-might-expect, but in no way “hyper” – man dominated.  The guys did a great job integrating entire house in events, never making situations “bro” – ified or exclusive. Inclusiveness, even if it meant simply “chilling,” always occurred.  When the guys did their thing they did not perpetrate typical bro – fest stereotype than any other typical “man” meeting.

Kudos to the men of Baxter (‘07 – ‘08) for being real men, not changing to fit the mold of the set stereotype.

Defining Feminism

By ma.

While studying abroad last semester, I encountered a type of American that I had no previous interactions with: the social conservative. Even though conservatives attend Bowdoin, I never ventured out from my self -imposed Liberal Land and engaged in conversation with them. In a program of seven girls however, it became a necessity to be on friendly terms with everyone.  Moreover, it was election season and politics frequented the topic of discussion.  Over the weeks, we discussed terrorism, family values, gay marriage, education, AIDS, gender equality, abortion, sexual assault, the election, the economy, and other equally charged topics. I began to see that the way I defined and identified with certain words as labels, such as American, female, student, and Obama fan, varied from the others. The definition of feminist varied most profoundly, and was therefore, for me, the most thought provoking.

During our many discussions, one pro-life student utilized classic feminist rhetoric to argue her position on women’s rights issues, from the right to work to the rights of a survivor of sexual assault. I was confused. Was this pro-lifer a feminist? When I asked her if she considered herself one, she said yes. While she recognized that pro-life and feminist are often seen as opposite, she said that feminism is the idea that women were equal to men and deserve the same rights and opportunities. Abortion care, in her view, belonged to a different category of rights. I found myself nodding, wanting to giver her space to define her proper identity, but I was not convinced. Alone, I pondered the topic. Is it possible be both a feminist and pro-life?

While we shared the basic tenants of feminism, I felt that somewhere an inherent opposition between pro-life ideology and the core of feminism existed. I think the foundation of feminism is choice. It’s the choice to work, of whom to marry, what to wear, what to do with your body, whether or not to have a baby etc. If the basis of feminism is choice, then being pro-life, in my mind, negates it. Another aspect of choice is, of course, the choice of what to believe. It is one’s right to choose to believe that abortion is wrong. We all have a right to choose insomuch as it does not limit another’s right to choose. While anyone can believe that abortion care is wrong, the transformation of that belief to law, impinges upon another’s choices. Feminism is the belief that we all deserve the same opportunities, that we deserve a choice. Pro-life sentiments limit other’s choices, and is thus, at heart, in discord with the fundamental principles of feminism.

While our discussions did not change my opinion on abortion care, I no longer regard views on the topic as absolute. After all, pro-lifers deserve the choice to make their own value judgments. While I will never agree with a pro-life stance, I will never again write it off whole-heartedly as an anti-feministic view. While pro-life beliefs contradict the pro-choice necessity of feminism, pro-lifers can still have a role in the feminist movement. If they believe in women’s equality, like this student, a pro-lifer is a worthy ally. Even if I never share the title of feminist with a pro-lifer, I will never again make the mistake of ignoring his/her role and potential contribution in women’s struggle for equality.