feminism

Unwanted Male Attention: Catcalling, and Why I feel Uncomfortable with “Politeness”

By now, we have all seen the Catcalling video that went viral a few months back as a woman walked around New York for 10 hrs with a hidden camera. She received over one hundred instances of unwanted male attention. Yes, I am calling it unwanted male attention and not catcalling because one of the largest criticisms of the video is the idea that most of the men in it, were simply being “nice”. Some were most definitely instances of catcalling as I would define it: pointing out a woman’s features in a sexual or derogatory way “God Bless you mami… Damn!”. Catcalling can also mean an obvious attempt at objectifying: “I just saw a thousand dollars” (as she walks by). Others were simply a form of intimidation and possible minor stalking as one man followed her for more than 5 minutes.

Unwanted male attention is something which many women live with everyday and I do want to acknowledge the inherently cis-gendered and heteronormative aspects of this post and this subject. But what does unwanted male attention mean to me? Not only is it the obvious inappropriate comments, the catcalling out of cars but more commonly and some times more problematic is when these men are “nice” and “polite”. By no means do I believe that you cannot trust the actions of all men as they inherently bad or that all men are just acting polite to get laid. Furthermore, I want to stress that not all men participate and do unwanted male attention and that some women are just as guilty as some men for dis-empowering women and men around them through things like catcalling. What I am saying is, there is a difference between being polite and wishing someone a good morning when entering an elevator or what have you and ending with that, and when a stranger who happens to be a man goes out of their way to call attention to you (read: a woman) or be intrusive. The worst part of this kind of unwanted male attention is the thought that women should be grateful for it and that women ultimately want to be complimented. Our sexist world says it is okay to make a woman feel incredibly uncomfortable because of unwanted male attention then expect her to not only acknowledge your “compliment” but to say thank you. Even in the catcalling video, one man points this out clearly: “What’s up, beautiful. Somebodies acknowledging you for being beautiful, you should say thank you more!”. Thank you for further making a woman feel uncomfortable while just walking down the street? Of course, some critics of the video have voiced the prevailing thought that all women love to be called beautiful. Sure, women like to be called beautiful, also intelligent, independent, funny, charming but don’t men like to be called that too? Ohhh, sorry I mean handsome because guess what? Our gender system means that beautiful and handsome are highly gendered terms which mean very different things. Men do not get catcalled nearly as much as women because men enjoy a certain privilege within systems of patriarchy. Men don’t feel the need to catcall other men and most women don’t feel the need to catcall men. It’s a difference of power, not biological difference.

Catcalling is not the only instance of unwanted male attention that women experience daily. I myself experienced two different kinds of unwanted male attention in one night recently. I write these experiences in this post because I want to illustrate why women feel so uncomfortable with unwanted male attention in multiple ways and why being a “polite” man is simply not appropriate sometimes.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video/6998064/hate-cat-calling-try-blow-up-boyfriend

1) I was at a friend’s housewarming party and the night was going well. I didn’t know a lot of people there but I was making friends and all was well. Eventually, some people were starting to have a little too much to drink (as is their prerogative). I end up with a group of people in my friends bedroom just chatting and hanging out (read: there was nothing sexual at all happening) when a man I had just met that night grabbed my wrists and started to pull me to the bed. He was drunk. Yet, his vise-grip on my wrists and me saying no and resisting being pulled to the bed made him pull harder. There were people there and I was sober enough to be able to out maneuver him. His friend justified the action by simply saying he’s drunk… it happens. This level of unwanted male attention is rare but not as rare as we think and that is something which women are constantly reminded of. The fear of rape is huge because it happens all of the time.

2) At the end of the night I took a taxi home by myself. When the taxi arrived, the man driving took many opportunities to dis-empower me by consistently calling me Girl. Lets be clear, if you are in a friend group and there is an spoken or unspoken agreement that Girl is appropriate to call each other, cool, all the power to you. Between absolute strangers, who’s power imbalance is incredibly different, it’s not appropriate. The constant use of Girl made my vulnerability even more prominent as I was alone with a strange men, taking a taxi (which he was driving) alone at 3 am. Let alone he kept saying things like: “Hey Girl, it’s okay, trust me Girl, I’ll take care of you Girl”. At one point he called me sweetheart while he was asking some pretty invasive questions. I felt so dis-empowered and vulnerable that I was kinda afraid to tell him to stop calling me Girl and I was afraid of not answering his questions. This is an instance of “politeness” which is wrong because whether intentionally or not, this stranger made me feel incredibly powerless. He also forced me to take his number: “if you need anything at all, Girl”.

I bring up these examples to show how unwanted male attention is not about women being ungrateful or not know what they want but its a issue of power imbalance. It’s a way for women to feel more objectified, powerless and vulnerable in a world which already shoves in our faces that we could be raped or murdered any minute by a stranger or someone we know. There is a line between being polite and courteous in public, which does not include physical force, intimidation or unwanted male attention.

Lilith Out!

http://mashable.com/2014/11/15/catcalling-debate/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link

Feminist Futures Lecture Series at Carleton University!

The Pauline Jewett Institute for Women’s and Gender Studies is pleased to announce the inauguration of the Feminist Futures Lecture Series, which launches this 2014/15 academic year. The series offers presentations of current feminist research being carried out by faculty associated with the Institute. Drawing from the rich interdisciplinary, intersectional research environment that marks past work and frames future endeavours, the Feminist Futures Lecture Series continues the development of critical intellectual and political spaces and knowledge-building around gendered issues. In this friendly but critically engaged space, you are invited to connect with a community of scholar-activists.

Come and be part of the excellent scholarship, debates, and conversations emerging out of Women’s and Gender Studies at Carleton!

http://carleton.ca/womensstudies/feminist-futures/

Mondays, 3:30 – 5 PM

November 17, 3:30 – 5:00 PM. DT 2017

“’In the game and I must be a soldier’: Gender, Class, and World War I Canadian Military Nurse Annie Green.”  

Sandy Campbell

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Abstract: Dr. Campbell’s paper examines the life and career of nurse Annie Green (1882-1929), a native of Eastern Ontario who trained as a nurse at Kingston General Hospital in the early years of the century. Green was a type of the new woman, and served as a military nurse in hospitals in England and Wales in the latter stages of World War I, experiencing not only the flood of battlefield casualties invalided to England but also the Kinmel Camp Riots by Canadian soldiers in Wales at the end of the war. Campbell will draw on the rich collection of letters, photos and souvenir albums held at Queen’s University Archives and elsewhere on campus which document Green’s career held at Queen’s University to analyse Green’s life (and death) in the light of autobiographical theory, medical history, art history, class, gender and historical moment.

Bio: Dr Sandra Campbell, who retired last July from PJIWGS, is the author of Both Hands: A Life of Lorne Pierce of Ryerson Press, which was shortlisted for the Creighton Prize (2013) and co-author of a forthcoming collection of essays on Bermuda history entitled Short Bermudas. She has taught at Carleton, McGill, University of Ottawa and Bermuda College and serves as general editor of the Tecumseh Press series, Canada’s Early Canadian Women Writers. She is co-editor of three collections of short fiction by Canadian women covering the period 1800-1920.

NOTE: Photo credit: Queen’s University Archives.

January 12, 3:30 – 5:00 PM. DT 2017

“Sluts Who Deserve Nothing: Unwed Motherhood, Social Stigma, and Social-Cultural Change”

Karen March

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Abstract: Using data gathered from semi-structured interviews with 33 reunited birth mothers, I describe how stereotypical images of female sexuality contributed to the women’s sense of shame over their unwed pregnancy and reinforced their decision to hide their birth mother status from others. By contrast, acceptance of contact from their placed child when he/she reached adulthood and public revelation of self as a birth mother was supported by their recognition of socio-cultural changes in the position of women since the adoption had occurred.

Bio: Karen March is an associate professor in the department of sociology and anthropology at Carleton University. She teaches courses on family, aging and qualitative research methods at both the graduate and undergraduate level. She uses in-depth interviewing, participant observation and focus group methodologies in her own research, participates actively in the Canadian Qualitative Analysis Conference and has been on the executive board of the Canadian Sociology Association. As part of her administrative duties at Carleton, she has held the positions of Associate Dean of Student Affairs for the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Carleton, Associate Dean of Student Affairs for Carleton University, and Interim Associate Dean of Student Affairs for the Faculty of Graduate and Studies.

Dr. March has been working in the field of adoption research for over fifteen years and concentrates on issues of identity. Her book The Stranger Who Bore Me examines the search motivations of adopted adults and their perception of contact outcome. She conducted a Canadian-wide study of community attitudes toward adoption with Dr. Charlene Miall of McMaster University which resulted in publications in journals such as Adoption Quarterly, Journal of Family Relations and the Canadian Review of Sociology.

February 9, 3:30 – 5:00 PM. DT 2017

“Brilliant Freak and Foreigner in Russia: The Life and Art of Marie-Anne Collot”

Debra Graham

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Abstract: Marie-Anne Collot (French, 1748-1821) is one of the least known portrait sculptors in the history of Western art, even while her achievements rival the most seminal figures of the genre. Of humble origins and deprived of her family at an early age, Collot began to earn her living as an artist’s model in Paris, entering the studio of Etienne-Maurice Falconet at the age of fifteen. There she quickly learned to sculpt, earning the admiration and patronage of such connoisseurs as Denis Diderot and the Russian Prince Dmitry Golitsyn. She accompanied Falconet to St. Petersburg in 1766 when he was commissioned by Catherine the Great to create a monument to Peter the Great, now known as the Bronze Horseman. Yet the proud leader’s head crowned with a laurel wreath was not the work of the famed French artist but rather that of the twenty-four year old Collot. Collot, a young woman uniquely working in a “masculine” art, enjoyed a meteoric rise to success during her years in Russia: at the age of eighteen, she was inducted into the Imperial Academy of Arts and she established an impressive clientele including St. Petersburg’s nobility, French intellectual elites, and even Catherine the Great herself. This presentation investigates 1) how Collot navigated the gendered dimensions of eighteenth-century life; 2) the innovative aesthetic qualities of her work; and 3) why she remains invisible in current scholarship.

Bio: Debra Graham earned her Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Missouri-Columbia and is an assistant professor in the department of Women’s and Gender Studies. She teaches courses on feminist theory and cultural production. Her expertise and research program are focused in the areas of identity, power, and representation as applied to portraiture, popular culture, new-media communities and cultural citizenship. Her current research project involves a comprehensive study of the life and work of eighteenth-century sculptor Marie-Anne Collot.

Image Credit Line: Marie-Anne Collot (French, 1748-1821), Portrait of Catherine the Great, 1769, marble, height 24 “ (61 cm), State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

March 9, 3:30 – 5:00 PM. DT 2017

Title TBA

Florence Bird Lecture: Karyn Recollet

Transformative Justice Week is coming up at Carleton!

Transformative Justice Week is coming up at Carleton!

https://www.facebook.com/events/274624556067116/?ref=4

Transformative Justice Week at Carleton exists to support trans folks who are struggling, educate students about trans issues, celebrate trans folks in our community, and commemorate Trans Day of Remembrance.

(TW: violence and murder)

The Trans Day of Remembrance was set aside to memorialize those who were killed due to transmisogynistic hatred or prejudice. The event is held in November to honor Rita Hester, whose murder on November 28th, 1998 kicked off the “Remembering Our Dead” web project and a San Francisco candlelight vigil in 1999. Rita Hester’s murder — like most transfeminine murder cases — has yet to be solved. For more information, please seehttp://www.gender.org/remember/

November 18th:
-Button-making (all-day)
-Trans 101 workshop (5PM)

November 19th:
-Trans Sexualities workshop (and screening) by Tobi Hill-Meyer (6 PM)

Come to talk about bodies, language, behaviors, and desires (and coming!) – all presented with trans, genderqueer, and gender non-conforming people in mind. Our communities have particular concerns as well as special opportunities for fun and frolic, that are often left out of mainstream Sex Ed. We’ll talk about what can be adapted for our bodies and how to do it. Here’s a chance to learn about the care, feeding, and delight of your tingly bits (and/or those of your partner) in a safe and trans-positive environment.

PLUS A BONUS FILM SCREENING! This film that takes a critical look at the trans porn industry through a trans woman’s first and only two mainstream porn shoots.(https://www.facebook.com/events/1558373514395749/?notif_t=plan_user_joined)

November 20th:
-Fighting Transmisogyny Workshop by Tobi-Hill-Meyer (5PM)

Have you ever noticed that trans women tend not to come to an event you help run? Or that the posters never have trans women on them? Did you just make a book or a film only to realize it includes a bunch of trans men but little or no trans women? Did you know there’s a joke that women & trans spaces should be called women *or* trans, but not both? There are a lot of spaces within a certain segment of queer/trans community that is pretty good at having trans men and trans masculine folks represented but not trans women or trans female/feminine spectrum people. Lets get together to discuss the how and why of this dynamic and what we can do to turn things around. (https://www.facebook.com/events/1558373514395749/?notif_t=plan_user_joined)

–Positive Possibilities: a Transfeminine-Spectrum Panel
(6:30 PM)

In honour of Transformative Justice Week, we are hosting five individuals who will come together to speak about their lives, their dreams, and their experiences as transfeminine-spectrum people. By listening to people in our local communities, we gain access to a variety of positive possibility models. Members of the Ottawa community, please join us to listen to these amazing individuals and to support transfeminine story-sharing! (https://www.facebook.com/events/718943411509141/718943414842474/?notif_t=like)

November 21st:
-Debrief crafting (all-day)
-Transfeminine support group facilitated by Mel Pelley (5PM)

On the Films of Catherine Breillat by Ranylt Richildis

Few things are more provocative than a camera in a subaltern’s hand, especially when she turns it on her oppressor. The films of Catherine Breillat do just that, reproving the scolds and taking aim at those who impose rules on women’s bodies, who claim to be their stewards, who make them ugly by calling them ugly, who insist that men know best when a female body is ready for play, who deny us a right to our own sexuality or (something we aren’t always allowed) a right of refusal. It’s discomfiting stuff for viewers of any sex and sexuality, but it’s rewarding if we accept that we still need to be challenged. And we do. Breillat explodes the myth of a post-feminist society by the very fact of her presence; her films could only be inspired in a lopsided culture.

With her rep gaining traction year by year, and with the arrival of Bluebeard on North American shores this summer, the InRO staff decided to crack open Breillat’s body of work and squint inside — no flinching. If her movies are lumped in with the New French Extremity school of cinema, it isn’t just because her frame embraces intimate body fluids and hair — those inescapable phenomena Margaret Atwood described as the marks that distinguish adults from kids. It’s also because her subject matter is hatred — hate as visceral as orgasm. Misogyny (internal or institutional) is Breillat’s target, and she’s noted for being able to capture the loathing that steals across a room between two figures who ought to revel in each other. Detractors argue that Breillat’s position is too ideological for the time, when some societies are relaxing ancient strictures — and yet her films could hardly be made before now. They certainly weren’t tolerated in 1976 when she screened A Real Young Girl, which was subsequently banned in France and elsewhere until a few years ago.

Some of Breillat’s films are oozy and wet-edged, some are allegorical, and some are less shocking than their content might suggest. By literally shining a lamp on the human crotch and by shifting subjectivity away from the lusting male, Breillat demystifies and normalizes female — and indeed all — desire. A novelist and songwriter as well as a filmmaker, Breillat creates rich cinema that communicates mood and message in manifold ways. She combines graphic shots with contemplative voice-overs and jars us with the frankness of being. Her sex stories are anti-romantic comedies that study motivations generated from earthy insides without reducing gender politics to mean essentialism. The war between the sexes is arbitrary, her work argues, and individual sexuality should never be compromised by the desires of others. It doesn’t matter how crazy that girl’s body makes you — it’s hers and hers alone. Her cunt can only disrupt society as much as society insists it does, and her desire is free to appear in increments or all at once. Breillat insists on this not just through story but through her women, who make defiant faces at the lens that declare to each their own.

Breillat isn’t denying that some men grant personhood to women. She’s addressing those who don’t and the women who accommodate them. She’s considering the larger systems that continue to feed these attitudes, which is her artist’s prerogative. Why do some viewers dispute Breillat’s right to critique a common enough predisposition that’s on the wane in only some parts of the world, and only within our own lifetimes? Critics who adopt a not my Nigel! stance obtusely sidestep the discussions these films are designed to provoke. Working outside of academe, Breillat is one of the most important feminists we have; women have reported not hating their sexuality as much after watching her movies, and that’s huge. That’s power — and one that obviously continues to agitate the props of tradition. In this way, Breillat’s nay-sayers validate her argument despite themselves. – Ranylt Richildis

Related: A retrospective of Romance

(Originally published on July 7, 2010 as part of In Review Online’s “directrospective” on the works of Catherine Breillat.

On the Films of Catherine Breillat

Go check out Ranylt Richildis’ website:

http://ranylt.wordpress.com/

Ivan Coyote and Rae Spoon

Two fantastic Canadian Trans artists and activists! Go check out more of what Rae Spoon does musically, they are amazing! Gender Failure is a big part of what got me into transgender politics and activism, that’s why it’s in the My Feminism category!

Joanne Law and Transgender Education and Rights

Recorded October 6th, 2014. Joanne Law joined Lilith in studio to talk about the complexity of transgendered identity and their fight for equal rights in Canada. She explains some of the history behind transgendered activism and how the Canadian legal system today treats trans identified individuals. Joanne also talks about her role as a transgendered educator and the role that education plays in real social change surrounding issues of transphobia and homophobia.

CKCU 93.1 FM

Link to the Show: Here

 

Rocky LaLune Interview

Recorded October 13th, 2014. Rachel “Rocky LaLune” called all the way from Montreal to talk about her work in the Ottawa music scene as a female show organizer and promoter. She talked about some of the sexism that still exists in the music industry but also some of the huge progress made and the women pushing for it.

CKCU 93.1 FM

Clink Here for the Show

Zelda Marshall and the Drag Community Interview

Recorded October 20, 2014. Local Drag mother, grandmother and great grandmother Zelda Marshall joined me in studio to talk about drag identity and her own journey from a new drag baby to the mentor and community spokesperson she is today. We also talked about the support of the drag community and the family ties and language within it. Check out the part when she says that drag queens are often thought to be the ambassadors for the gay community, love this woman!

Swizzles Bar and Grill: Thursday Nights are a Drag!

CKCU 93.1 FM

Click Here to listen to the Show!