Tag: women’s rights

Living, Mexico

Women in Politics

Jane Bauer

The editorial from this month’s The Eye magazine.

“For me, a better democracy is a democracy where women do not only have the right to vote and to elect but to be elected.”—Michelle Bachelet, head of UN Women, former president and defense minister of Chile, in The New York Times

Most people are astounded at the giant leap humanity has taken with regard to technology in the past 100 years. Equally astounding are the small steps we have taken on the status of women. 

Yes, women now have the vote (since 1918 in Canada, 1920 in the US and 1953 in Mexico) and can own property, in North America at least. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, an independent US organization, 

When it comes to property ownership, women are not equal in the eyes of the law. According to the World Bank, close to 40 percent of the world’s economies have at least one legal constraint on women’s rights to property, limiting their ability to own, manage, and inherit land. Thirty-nine countries allow sons to inherit a larger proportion of assets than daughters and thirty-six economies do not have the same inheritance rights for widows as they do for widowers.” 

Even though we vote there is still a great disparity of representation of women in political spheres. It just doesn’t make sense. Women represent half the global population and in several studies it has been shown that women have a higher tendency to make decisions that benefit the community rather than just themselves. This is why organizations that give out small business loans favor women. Making decisions that benefit a community, organization and accountability are all qualities that make me think women are ideal politicians.

In 2019, women are still under-represented on the international political stage. We earn less than men and are at a higher risk for physical assaults and human trafficking. I don’t know how if we have come so far in the past 100 years; tv, cars, the internet, mobile phones, MRIs, ultrasound machines, cardiac defibrillation- with all these inventions to improve our quality of life, how have we lagged so far behind in our humanity? Why is it taking so long for women to be equally represented in politics?

It’s also not as simple as electing women. Why are fewer women running for office? Is it lack of opportunity, poor education, cultures that limit women to staying home and having babies? Is it the tolerance of misogyny from world leaders and super stars or the acceptance that our bodies are branding and marketing tools? I don’t know.

This progress is too slow.

Jane

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You’re pretty… now be interesting.

Jane Bauer

“We won the minute they started doing pole dancing for exercise.” Ryan Gosling as Jacob in Crazy, Stupid, Love on the battle of the sexes.

When I was in college, Naomi Wolf’s The Beauty Myth was the mainstream feminist text of the day. It posited that as women gained more power in the world, so did the pressure to adhere to unrealistic social standards of physical beauty and because of commercial influences on the mass media women were more objectified than ever. Personally, these ideas gave me pause to evaluate my own self-image and consider the role the media had played in shaping my standards of beauty.

Flash forward 25 years and not only are women’s bodies still being used to sell everything from deodorant to cars, we now have access to more images than ever before through social media. Each of us is curating a story about what we want the world to know about us; pics of our dogs, our lattes, selfies. There used to be great debate about the dangers of television but we have so evolved beyond that, that television seems benign compared to the image-based world we are living in today. It is impossible to avoid being constantly bombarded by images, day in and day out. No matter where you are, there is a television, an advertisement, a magazine, a logo, computer screen or phone in your hand to deliver ideas and standards of beauty.

Of course we all want to be pretty and admired. However, one scroll through my Instagram feed is enough to make me cringe. Smart women with feeds showcasing their bodies in hyper-sexualized ways that would be worthy of old-school Playboy. Then there is the argument that it is our choice. The idea that we have achieved such freedom and equality that women have the choice to do what they want with their bodies. I get it but I am baffled.

It seems to me that we have turned self-objectification into empowerment and it does not seem to be in an ironic way.  I recently had a frustrating conversation with a man who told me that he thought women wanted men to look at them with lust- he even went so far as to suggest that women who worked in the sex industry were seeking male attention. I tried to make an argument that our society has turned women’s sexuality into a commodity and that for many women it becomes the only currency they have, especially when they have not had access to education and opportunity.

However, what about the educated women? Women who are talking about their boob photos and perfect moist pouty lip selfie as empowerment? Maybe it is empowerment- if they believe it. Or maybe the brainwashing has gone so far that we are our own worst enemies.

Living

A Woman in the Oval- only on T.V.

Jane Bauer

I am a little embarrassed by how excited I was when I turned on my Netflix and saw that Season 6 of House of Cards is available. I had pretty much come to terms that it wasn’t going to have a sixth season after the whole Kevin Spacey scandal. I am only a couple of episodes in but I couldn’t be more impressed. Robin Wright, as Claire Underwood, as president, is a force and the writing is spot on with poignant lines like “Playing incompetent is so exhausting” and “The reign of the white middle-aged men is over.”

I couldn’t help but draw comparisons with Scandal’s final and seventh season which has Mellie Grant fighting to keep her presidency, while also lamenting on how wielding so much power has complicated her sex life. Her vagina monologue is a fine piece of writing and is delivered with humor and truth “I’m not just POTUS. I am a single female POTUS. Do you know what that means? It means I’m a human chastity belt, there is a famine in my lady bits! My vagina is beautiful, she is welcoming, but she is getting treated like a murder house. I can’t get anything in there!”

Is there any country in the world whose Presidency is portrayed in so many fictional accounts? As a Canadian, I am not sure I would tune in to a show based on the drama of Ottawa. As entertaining as it has been to watch Justin Trudeau, I don’t ever think of Canadian politics as glamorous. 

What does it mean when two prominent shows portray a woman running the Oval? Is it a Hollywood backlash against the misogynist who currently holds office? Whatever it is I am loving it and I hope it is a sign of things to come. 
Living, Mexico

International Women’s Day 2018

Jane Bauer

“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”

Margaret Atwood

March 8th we will celebrate another International Women’s Day. It is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women and has been observed since the early 1900s. So just how much have we accomplished in the past 100 years?

In 1920, women were granted the right to vote in the United States. In Canada, most provinces had granted the right to vote by 1922, with the exception of Québec, where women were denied the vote until 1940. First Nations women did not earn the right to vote until the 1960s. Today, despite the ‘right’ to vote, many women globally do not have a voice in the politics that affect their lives.

While we have seen more women in politics, corporate positions and earning potential- although women still earn less than men for the same work. There are still armies of women around the globe who are single mothers, carrying the emotional and financial burden for their families. Lack of access to education, birth control and healthcare often make it impossible for low-income women to change their situation.

While in the public sphere there has been a lot of legislation put in place globally to protect women, most women still live with the awareness of physical risk of being a woman. In Canada on average, every six days a woman is killed by her intimate partner. Internationally, “the primary victims of human trafficking are women and girls, the majority of whom are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation. Traffickers primarily target women because they are disproportionately affected by poverty and discrimination, factors that impede their access to employment, educational opportunities and other resources” http://www.stopvaw.org.

But employment and wealth won’t necessarily protect women from the violent culture we have created, as evidenced by this year’s #metoo campaign.

So, while we are celebrating the past strides we have made, both men and women, to create a better and just world, let’s acknowledge how much still needs to be done and the rough road ahead.

See you next month,

Jane

Living

Tits Up

Jane Bauer

A few days ago I posted a collection of photos on my personal Facebook page titled ‘Houston Food and Art – a perfect weekend getaway!’ A few hours later I received a notification that one of the photos ‘violated the Facebook Community Standards’ which has rules on nudity, sexual and violent content.

The photo is of a sculpture by Australian artist, Ron Mueck, that is on exhibition at the Houston Fine Arts Museum. ‘Mother and Child’ depicts a newborn on its mother’s belly- and yes, there is a breast!

Facebook led me through a series of hoops, chastising me for posting the photo and essentially making me agree to be more careful before allowing me to access the rest of my account. At the end of the process I was asked to rate my experience and I expressed my distaste for this censorship – sadly I have not received a response, nor has the photo been restored.

Since then, I have heard about Facebook removing several photos of women breastfeeding. It’s 2017- breasts are EVERYWHERE and usually portrayed in an unrealistic and sexualized way. How is it we have created a culture in which posed sexualized photos are deemed ok, but photos of real women are considered offensive? I typed ‘boobs’ into my Facebook search and got a plethora of highly-sexualized images of topless women. There are even several pages devoted to the subject and all the photos privacy settings are public.

It is tempting to go into a rant regarding FBs guidelines however the real issue here is that if Facebook is a platform which is based on user content and these images are being removed- what does that say about the values and morality of the users? Plus, Facebook has the feature that if someone is offended by something I post they can opt not to see my stuff in the future- so if you are the person who ‘reported’ this photo, please feel free to unfollow me.

From an art perspective, one could even use Magritte’s argument and say that ‘Ceci n’est pas un sein’ (This is not a breast)- it is the representation of a breast made out of acrylic, fiberglass and silicone.  And while the museum offered a warning of nudity and graphic images at the entrance to the exhibition, I saw several children there with their parents.  I think good art should make you feel  and do you know what I felt as I saw the detailed and raw depictions of the human bodies in this exhibition? I felt inspired and good about my own human body. The sculptures are a far healthier portrayal than the images that come at us everyday from the culture we usually digest; advertising,  porn, movies and television. Personally, I am exhausted by the false-perfection we have been dishing up as a culture.

imageThe Ron Mueck sculpture ‘mother and child’ depicts the most basic of human experiences; the moment of birth. If you’re reading this- you’ve been there! How can something depicting this universal and authentic experience be censored? It’s been over 25 years since Demi Moore bravely graced the cover of Vanity Fair magazine when she was seven months pregnant.  It was a bold move for a Hollywood star considering they weren’t even allowed to use the word ‘pregnant’ in ‘I Love Lucy’ in the 1950s.

How far have we really evolved?

 

Living

Raising a Woman

Jane Bauer

original

Being a woman is difficult. From the moment we become aware of our female-ness we struggle between the desire to be the adored princess and to protect our dignity. The virgin/ whore dichotomy of the female sex is universal and as old as time.  If managing my own womanliness has been difficult, raising a woman is proving to be a constant revision of my own morals, hopes and expectations.

When my daughter was born she all loveliness and beauty which seemed like a blessing. As a woman I was well aware of the dangers and pitfalls of all that loveliness and I straddled wanting her to feel empowered yet cautious without scaring her- I didn’t want her experience in the world to violate the trust and faith about how beautiful life can be.

But the truth is that being a woman is difficult. When she was little I worried about pedophiles… what parent who hasn’t watched Law and Order hasn’t? We live in a world where after the 2004 tsunami in the Indian Ocean one of the biggest concern was all the children at risk for human trafficking. According to the U.S. State Department, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders every year, of which 80% are female and half are children. Trafficking primarily involves exploitation which comes in many forms, including: forcing victims into prostitution, subjecting victims to slavery or involuntary servitude and compelling victims to commit sex acts for the purpose of creating pornography.

I consider myself someone who escaped the treacherous waters of childhood and adolescence somewhat unscathed; there was the man who exposed his penis to me in the park when I was 9, there was the man on the crowded bus when I was 12 who stuck his hand between my legs and gave me my first feeling of shame when I found myself too stunned to move or cry out, there was the ‘friend’ in college who pressed me against the pinball machine in a crowded bar and told me that for his birthday he wanted to rape me ‘Jodie Foster- style’. This is what I consider unscathed. Many of my friends- middle-class, University educated, strong women- have been raped, some by even several men at once, some by men they considered friends. Their stories weren’t made into Lifetime movies of the week- some of them said nothing, feeling that it was easier to forget, to move on. Now that my daughter is growing into womanhood I worry about everyone.

While I was at university, a ‘walksafe’ program was implemented and women were cautioned against walking alone after dark- in Canada after dark in the winter is 4pm! We thought this was normal. I found comfort studying Women Studies and feeling grateful that I wasn’t living in West Africa where female genital mutilation is still practiced (More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia) or Saudi Arabia where women aren’t even allowed to drive. I read Andrea Dworkin and Camille Paglia for guidelines on how to interpret this lurking feeling of persecution.  I listened to a lot of Ani DiFranco…. I still do. I struggled with wanting to feel sexy yet dignified.

People haven’t changed but our culture has. An article on how female athletes in the Olympics get more comments about their appearance than male athletes recently circulated. This is a nice safe subject compared to the one about the 16 year old girl who was raped in Rio by over 30 men (7 have been charged). Female sexuality is more pervasive than ever; Kim Kardashian posts nude selfies and gets called brave, Fifty Shades of Grey made submissiveness mainstream and with a marketing sleight of hand turned it into some kind of distorted version of empowerment.

Growing up in a world with ‘walksafe’ programs at least we were talking about the issues. Raising a daughter in the Kardashian age can make you want to punch someone in the face. Sexuality today is not something to protect, it is something every girl can own and feel empowered by….Really? I have my doubts. Paglia wrote that we can’t count on morality to protect us, while it seemed extreme and bordering on ‘blame the victim’ in the 90s I think it is a must in today’s Kardashian age.

At my daughters school last year there was a petition because a girl was sent home for inappropriate dress; too revealing. ‘We should be able to wear what we want!’ my daughter exclaimed like she was Rosa Parks fighting for a seat on the bus. I didn’t sign the petition. I don’t think it is fair to put the ‘choice’ on fifteen year old girls when we are raising them in a culture that has sexualized them from such a young age. Is it really a choice when societal values are so crass?

My daughter is growing up. She is beautiful, a very good and nice person. Sometimes she wears short shorts and tight tops that accentuate her breasts. I sometimes make her change her clothes. I want her to feel beautiful, loved and powerful. I want her to make good choices, but I know how difficult this must be in the Kardashian age. There is a lot I am sure I don’t hear about, but I hear about enough to know that my daughter cannot make these choices on her own. I have heard about other parents playing beer pong with fifteen-year-olds and letting them go to nightclubs when they are supposed to be having sleepovers.

I don’t care if my daughter is mad at me for being ‘strict’, for the midnight curfew- it was good enough for Cinderella-, for occasionally making her change her clothes, for taking away her phone when she is caught lying. My job as a parent is to protect and educate her so that when she is out in the world she is making choices that afford her dignity and self-respect. Because while she may look like a woman, she is still very much a little girl- we all are.