Just Noticing: Observations of a Blogger
Posted by Michelle Moquin on May 4th, 2014
Good morning!
It’s all about the ladies today.
“Just noticing…”
From Think Progress.
This article discusses plot points from the latest episode of Game Of Thrones.
Viewers and TV critics alike agree that Sunday night’s episode of Game of Thronesdepicted Jaime Lannister raping his sister Cersei, in a disturbing scene that Vulture’s Margeret Lyons calls “a new low for the deeply violent series.” The people involved in bringing that scene to the small screen, however, don’t see it that way. The director who shot the scene and the man who acted in it both believe it wasn’t necessarily nonconsensual sex — an attitude that isn’t totally surprising in a society that’s deeply confused about what constitutes consent, and that doesn’t always recognize sexual violence for what it is.
In the scene, Jaime forces himself on Cersei next to their son’s dead body. They had been kissing, but she pulls away from him, apparently still repulsed by the fact that he’s missing a hand — and Jaime becomes enraged with her rejection, hissing, “You’re a hateful woman. Why have the gods made me love a hateful woman?” He pushes her to the ground, holds her down, and thrusts into her despite her continued protests. After she repeatedly begs him to stop and tells him it’s not right, he responds, “I don’t care.”
Several critics have pointed out this is a sharp departure from the way things unfold on the page. The corresponding scene in George R.R Martin’s book describes Cersei as initially objecting to having sex with Jaime in a place where they could be caught, but quickly becoming an enthusiastic participant. That chapter is told from Jaime’s perspective, so it’s possible it’s colored by the character’s interpretation, but the dialogue is clear. Instead of saying “no” repeatedly, Cersei says “yes” three times.
Not everyone sees the scene as a reinterpretation, though. “There is significance in that scene, and it comes straight from the books — it’s George R.R. Martin’s mind at play,” the actor who plays Jaime, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, told the Daily Beast. “It took me awhile to wrap my head around it, because I think that, for some people, it’s just going to look like rape. The intention is that it’s not just that.”
When asked directly whether it’s rape, Coster-Waldau responded, “Yes, and no. There are moments where she gives in, and moments where she pushes him away. But it’s not pretty.” The director, Alex Graves, has expressed a similar perspective. “Well, it becomes consensual by the end, because anything for them ultimately results in a turn-on, especially a power struggle,” Graves told Alan Sepinwall in a recent interview.
Although Game of Thrones fans recoiled at the scene between Jaime and Cersei, it’s unfortunately not hard to see the attitudes that could have contributed to creating it. We’re raised in a society that doesn’t teach people they can withdraw their consent at any moment, doesn’t emphasize that sexual partners need to be seeking explicit consent every step of the way, and doesn’t draw hard lines in the sand when it comes to what’s considered assault. We frequently tell sexual assault survivors that what they experienced didn’t really “count” as rape.
The way we talk about rape, the systems we have in place for investigating and punishing rape, and the way we approach rape victims are all wrapped up in our struggle to recognize when someone’s consent has been violated, and our failure to acknowledge how serious that is. It’s perhaps no wonder we’re confused. Kids don’t grow up learning about consent, and it’s not a concept that’s deeply ingrained in our culture, so they don’t necessarily know when those boundaries have been crossed. Without that knowledge, people like Graves and Coster-Waldau can look at the interaction between Jaime and Cersei — or a college administrator can consider a sexual assault that occurred between two students after they attended a party together — and mislabel it as “consensual.”
This is already happening among our youth. A recent study of young women who have experienced some type of sexual violence found that most of them simply assume that sex is something that’s done to them, in the way that Jaime does what he pleases to Cersei, and not something that they can be an active participant in. Other research has found that rapists don’t necessarily believe they’ve done anything wrong because they simply feel entitled to women’s bodies.
If Graves and Coster-Waldau were attempting to portray something that viewers would perceive as consensual, they obviously didn’t succeed. And the fact that there’s such a gulf between those apparent intentions and the scene’s reception speaks to some fundamental truths about our society’s failure to clarify what constitutes a consensual sexual relationship in the first place. These two men certainly aren’t alone in their assumptions that sexual assault can have blurred lines, that something violent and invasive can become a “turn-on,” that two people who have a previous sexual history aren’t likely to have a purely nonconsensual experience. Those are incredibly common rape myths, and they’re pervasive in influencing our attitudes about sexual assault.
From Change.org and Bravegirlswant.com (click on the heading to support H.R. 4341)
We want to make sure that all consumers, especially children, know when a human body has been altered in an ad. Join us to achieve this historic public health goal!
With bipartisan Congressional sponsorship, the Truth in Advertising Act of 2014 (HR4341) calls on the Federal Trade Commission to develop a legislative framework for any advertising materially altering the human body (i.e. shape, size, proportion, color, etc.). The bill directs the FTC, as the nation’s consumer protection agency, to develop recommendations and remedies for these photoshopped ads that are:
- False and deceptive
- Linked to a series of emotional, psychological and physical health issues, and economic consequences – particularly affecting, but not limited to, girls and women
We are building a campaign of people and organizations who agree that the current status-quo isn’t acceptable any more.
- 69% of elementary school girls say magazine images influence their concept of ideal body shape
- Over 30% of high-school girls and 16% of high-school boys suffering from disordered eating
- 80% of women feel “shame” after reading a beauty magazine
This is the moment that many have been working towards for a long time. We need to make the most of it, and hope you’ll join us.
- Allow us to use your name when we talk about who’s supporting the bill and this campaign
- Let your community know about what’s going on, and ask them to (re)tweet, post, pin, sign the materials we’ll post here so the FTC and our US House (and soon Senate) sponsors know people are paying attention and care
From Think Progress.
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The Clinton Baby Joke That Made Jimmy Fallon’s Audience Boo
Last night, Jimmy Fallon made a joke that totally bombed. This happens to the best of us, even professionally funny humans such as Mr. Fallon, recent inheritor of theTonight Show desk. But it’s especially surprising that it would happen to Fallon, given that he’s quite possibly the most likeable fellow in comedy right now. Fallon is sort of the Prom King of late night: adorable in the tux, all genuine enthusiasm and goofy sketches and slow jams. This is the guy who gets Springsteen to dress like old school Springsteen! Who brings The Roots together with Adele Nazeem to play “Let it Go” on children’s instruments!
And yet: he was booed. During his monologue, Fallon ruminated on the possible gender of Chelsea Clinton’s baby.
“If it’s a girl, it will get some of Chelsea’s old hand-me-downs. And if it’s a boy, it will get some of Hillary’s.”
Ha! Get it? Because Hillary is so manly in those man-clothes she’s always man-wearing, man.
The audience did not find this funny. There were a few tiny giggles. But mostly boos.
Fallon attempted to rescue the joke. “It’s a little pantsuit! It’s a little pantsuit.” He held up his hands, Vanna White-ing in the air, to show how tiny the hypothetical pantsuit would be. “It’s a little cream pantsuit.”
The boos gave way to quiet, and the suddenly very-loud-sounding laughter of Steve Higgins, Fallon’s announcer/right-hand-man was the only laughter to be heard. Until Fallon laughed.
Then he said: “It wasn’t that hard of a joke. What’s the big deal?”
The whole scene reminded me of the way, on this week’s Mad Men, Roger Sterling told a joke that bombed and he had no idea why. The content of Roger’s joke was an anti-Semitic slur and its inappropriateness is just about impossible to argue. (Definitely several notches worse than “sorry I made fun of heteronormative clothing choices circa 1995.”) But when no one laughed at his story, Roger looked totally gobsmacked, much like Fallon mid-monologue. Both men were telling jokes that would have killed approximately ten years earlier. Hillary pantsuit jokes had their heyday, right around when Chelsea Clinton still had braces. Fallon is supposed to be the host who gets young people: their values, their humor, their nostalgia. This felt like a joke he borrowed from someone else. Like, maybe his dad.
For starters, not to keep complaining about how late night is a bunch of guys but: late night IS a bunch of guys. This pantsuit bit strikes me as a joke that a woman would have screened as “obviously not funny.” Diversifying late night isn’t just about diversity for diversity’s sake; it’s about the perspectives we lose when we only hear jokes from one narrow group of people.
As far as the “dresses are for girls, pantsuits are for boys” element of the joke, well, that’s also pretty dated territory. And it would be the greatest if we could stop ragging on Hillary for dressing the way she wants to dress. In fact, let’s stop ragging on all women for dressing the way they want to dress! That would be spectacular. Workplace-wear for women has been a tricky issue as long as there have been women in the workplace. Pick a suit, no matter how immaculately tailored, and you risk being a woman who “dresses like a man.” Pick a dress or a skirt, deal with the inevitable accusations that the hem is too high, or the neckline is too low, or it’s not authoritative enough, and on and on. And the problem starts long before women head to the office. Dress codes all the way down to grade school are designed with “don’t distract the boys” dictums in mind, all but ignoring the needs and wants of the girls and women.
A couple weeks ago, Julia Louis-Dreyfus (currently starring as Vice President Selina Meyer on HBO’s Veep) and Nancy Pelosi were interviewed together in The New York Times. They briefly discussed fashion, and Louis-Dreyfus talked about her character’s form-fitting, classically feminine officewear. “The dresses are constricting, and the heels are high,” she said. “So there’s a pinched-in-ness that’s specific to the character.” Which is to say: an entire wardrobe department decided the best way to translate Selina’s uptight, uncomfortable-with-the-normals nature was through these dresses that limit Selina’s range of motion. Not, say, a pantsuit. Meanwhile, Pelosi, the real-life public servant, wears “clean, immaculate suits,” as the interviewer describes them, and she explains her choice as “clean and easy works for me.”
None of this is to say that fashion shouldn’t be a high priority just because a person holds high office; I share Chimamanda Ngozi Adiche’s belief that sartorial savvy and intellectual horsepower are not mutually exclusive. But it’s fair to say there’s nothing wrong with choosing not to focus all of one’s thoughts on wardrobe choices. Or that, should clothing be important to a person, he or she should be make choices that allow him or her to be comfortable and enjoy unhindered movement.
How else would Nancy Pelosi straddle a chair like A.C. Slater in Saved By The Bell? It is difficult, nay, impossible, to Sally Bowles your seat in a dress.
From Think Progress.
Updated Army regulations banning certain kinds of hairstyles are biased against black women, a new White House petition charges. The newly codified grooming rules, which went into effect on Monday, specifically forbid several hairstyles popular for black women who keep their hair natural, including twists, headbands, dreadlocks, or multiple braids that are larger than a quarter-inch. It also requires that the “bulk of hair” not exceed 2 inches from the scalp.
A PowerPoint presentation of the new rules was leaked last month ahead of publication. While twists and dreadlocks have been banned since 2005, these updated regulations go into more detail about specific hairstyles.
Sgt. Jasmine Jacobs of the Georgia National Guard launched the petition, pointing out that nearly a third of women serving in the military are non-white and many wear their hair natural (not chemically altered or in extensions). “I’ve been in the military six years, I’ve had my hair natural four years, and it’s never been out of regulation. It’s never interfered with my head gear,” Jacobs, who says she wears her hair in two twists, told Army Times.
Over the past few decades, natural hairstyles have expanded from political statement to mainstream fashion. Chemical relaxer sales dropped 26 percentfrom 2008 to 2013, according to consumer trends firm Mintel, and 70 percent of black women say they wear or have worn their hair natural.
One veteran told Al Jazeera America that most black women in the Army wear their hair natural because they usually don’t have the tools to maintain chemically relaxed or straightened hair when they are deployed.
While the Army traditionally dictates stricter appearance standards than most, plenty of civilian companies and schools have also used hair to discriminate against black women and girls. Eight-year-old Tiana Parker and 12-year-old Vanessa Van Dyke are just two students who were threatened with expulsion from their schools if they did not change their hair. Another woman with natural hair, Ashley Davis, was fired from her job for refusing to cut her dreadlocks.
And the last one from Think Progress.
Judge Richard Kopf, a George H.W. Bush appointee to a federal court in Nebraska, offered some strange advice to women litigators in a piece posted to his personal blog on Tuesday: don’t wear clothing that would cause “the female law clerks” to call you “an ignorant slut behind your back.”
Kopf’s comments were a reaction to a Slate piece by Amanda Hess entitled “Female Lawyers Who Dress Too ‘Sexy’ Are Apparently a ‘Huge Problem’ in the Courtroom.” Judge Kopf’s piece has the more provocative title “On being a dirty old man and how young women lawyers dress.”
Among other things, Kopf’s piece reveals that he has “been a dirty old man ever since I was a very young man. Except, that is, when it comes to my daughters (and other young women that I care deeply about).” And it includes a description of a “very pretty female lawyer” who practices in his court. “She is brilliant, she writes well, she speaks eloquently, she is zealous but not overly so, she is always prepared, she treats others, including her opponents, with civility and respect, she wears very short skirts and shows lots of her ample chest. I especially appreciate the last two attributes.”
Kopf’s purpose in describing this attorney was to reveal that several of the women who clerk on his court viewed her as “unprofessional,” and to imply that perhaps a young attorney doesn’t want to incur the ire of a judge’s closest advisers. Whatever the wisdom of this advice, however, he picked a particularly inflammatory way to express it (in fairness, the “ignorant slut” comment is a reference to a famous, if very dated, Saturday Night Live skit).
One day after his original post, Kopf posted an apology, of sorts:
If, on balance, you think the post was harmful to the image of the federal judiciary and truly treated women as objects, I am very, very, very sorry for that, but I would ask you to pause and reread it. I hope you will find upon objective reflection that the mockery I make of myself and the hyperbole and somewhat mordant tone I employed, made a point worth considering.
*****
Readers: There is so much more I could post today, but you get my drift. Everyone needs to be aware of what is going on with women and girls, from the very loud and blatant to the unspoken, hoping to stay hidden, nuances. However, awareness is not enough. Solutions are what is going to create change. Get on board with something that pulls at you and be an advocate for women and girls. Like I know so many of you already are! Thank you.
Blog me.
Janet: One of my faves too.
Ellie: What a story. Your mother Claire is very lucky to have children so supportive.
Denise: I am assuming you are different from the above Denise…Thank you. Yes, there are so many subliminal messages, and blatant ones too.
Rebecca: oohh…I am not familiar with Anne Bonny. Thanks for sharing such an interesting story. I would love to see a movie on her from her point of view.
Ambilikile: Thank you. Wishing you and all the sisters…the club members, my very best.
Keri: Thank you. Yes, and I am so grateful that she is!
Louise: You named another one of my faves. She was a kick ass girl.
It is getting late and I must post. I will address more comments tomorrow. Happy Sunday!
Peace out.
Lastly, greed over a great story is surfacing from my “loyal”(?) readers. With all this back and forth about who owns what, that appears on my blog, let me reiterate that all material posted on my blog becomes the sole property of my blog. If you want to reserve any proprietary rights don’t post it to my blog. I will prominently display this caveat on my blog from now on to remind those who may have forgotten this notice.
Gratefully your blog host,
michelle
Aka BABE: We all know what this means by now :)
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