comic

[seabeyond]

[MadrasT]

1. LOL.

That's awesome.

[redqueen]

2. LOL...

Gotta love Sinfest.

[Control-Z]

3. That's funny!! n/t

[seabeyond]

4. i kNOW.... lol. i liked. really, liked. a lot. lol.

[ismnotwasm]

5. This is a great article

The book is awesome too.

A New Brand of Sexism

This, however, is the product of enlightened sexism, a force which has gained considerable momentum since the early and mid-1990s. Enlightened sexism insists that women have made plenty of progress because of feminism -- indeed, full equality has allegedly been achieved -- so now it's OK, even amusing, to resurrect sexist stereotypes of girls and women. After all, these images can't undermine women at this late date, right? More to the point, enlightened sexism sells the line that it is precisely through women's calculated deployment of their faces, bodies, attire and sexuality that they gain and enjoy true power, power that is fun, and power that men not only will not resent, but also will embrace. So in the age of enlightened sexism there has been an explosion in makeover, match-making and modeling shows, a renewed emphasis on women's breasts (and an explosive rise in the promotion of breast augmentation), an obsession with babies and motherhood in celebrity journalism (the rise of the creepy "bump patrol&quot , and a celebration of stay-at-home moms and "opting out" of the workforce.

With women's equality supposedly won, sexist stereotypes are considered amusing
Some, myself included, have referred to this state of affairs and this kind of media mix as "postfeminist." Scholars like Angela McRobbie and Rosalind Gill have written very astutely about "postfeminism." But I am now rejecting this term. It has gotten too gummed up by too many conflicting definitions. And besides, this term suggests that somehow feminism is at the root of this when it isn't --it's good, old-fashioned, grade-A sexism that reinforces good, old-fashioned, grade-A patriarchy. It's just disguised much, much better, in seductive Manolo Blahniks and an Ipex bra.

Feminism thus must remain a dirty word, with feminists (particularly older ones) stereotyped as man-hating, shrill Ninjas from Hades. As this logic goes, feminism is so 1970s -- grim, dowdy, aggrieved and passé -- that it is now an impediment to female happiness and fulfillment. Thus, an amnesia about the women's movement, and the rampant, now illegal, discrimination that produced it, is essential, so we'll forget that politics matters. According to enlightened sexism, women now have a choice between feminism and anti-feminism and they just naturally and happily choose the latter because, well, anti-feminism has become cool, even hip. Indeed, enlightened sexism is meant to make patriarchy pleasurable for women.

Not quite the same topic but in the ballpark.


http://www.ontheissuesmagazine.com/2011winter/2011_winter_Douglas.php

I apparently can't do that grey thing with paragraphs, sorry

[seabeyond]

6. young women should dress like strippers and have the mental capacity of a vole, presented as empower

Last edited Thu Aug 9, 2012, 08:24 PM - Edit history (1)

Since the early 1990s, with all of the surgeons, chiefs of police, law partners, detectives and even female presidents on TV, much of the media have come to over-represent women as having made it --completely -- in the professions, as having gained sexual equality with men, and having achieved a level of financial success and comfort enjoyed by only the more jewel-encrusted doyens of Laguna Beach. At the same time, there has been the resurgence of the retrograde dreck that began clogging our cultural arteries in the late 1990s -- The Man Show, Maxim, Girls Gone Wild, Bridezillas. But even this fare, which insisted that young women should dress like strippers and have the mental capacity of a vole, was presented as empowering: while the scantily clad or bare-breasted women may have seemed to be objectified, they were really on top, the argument went, because now they chose to be sex objects and men were their helpless, ogling, crotch-driven slaves.

*

Targeted to her were entire TV specials based on Victoria's Secret bras, or those MTV or BET "spring break" programs in which young women are routinely expected to flash their breasts for any zit-studded male in baggy shorts who asks. All too many rap videos require thong-clad women to shake their booties while climbing all over the strutting, self-satisfied men. And then, of course, there's The Learning Channel's Toddlers and Tiaras, in which we learn that even girls barely out of diapers have to learn how to enact the conventions of beauty pageant and stripper culture.

*

Because of these powerful cross currents -- between embedded feminism and enlightened sexism, girls and women are pulled in totally opposite directions, and are compelled to strike a bargain. We can play sports, excel at school, go to college, aspire to -- and get -- jobs previously reserved for men, be working mothers and so forth. But in exchange, we must obsess about our faces, weight, breast size, clothing brands, decorating, perfectly calibrated child-rearing, about pleasing men and being envied by other women. The war between embedded feminism and enlightened sexism gives with one hand and takes away with another. It's a powerful choke leash, letting women venture out, offering us fantasies of power, control and love, and then pulling us back in. The only way women today can straddle all of this is to be superwomen.

Thus, despite my own love of escaping into worlds in which women, by turns, solve crimes, are good bosses, live in huge houses, can buy whatever they want, perform life-saving surgeries, and find love, I am here to argue, forcefully, for the importance of Wariness, with a capital W. Women and men should be much more indignant about the resurrection of sexist images that undermine girls and women's self esteem and seek to keep us, and especially our daughters, in their place. And there is still much unfinished business for girls and women in the country, and we should resist -- indeed, challenge -- the seductive message that full equality has been achieved and that feminist politics are passé and no longer necessary.

(like this grey, lol) hit excerpt beginning, paste and hit excerpt end. if you are doing that and it does not work, i am clueless. and computer ignorant.

this article deserves its own thread. thank you. yes. exactly this.

[TheIronyLovesCompany]

7. Good stuff

Ishida's been doing great comics for years. Both well-written and pretty art, which you don't get often. Another daily comic I like with liberal sensibilities is freewillcomic.com.

[seabeyond]

8. The Sexist Jerk Factory

i was looking for another favorite, and found this. still looking for the other i really like

[seabeyond]

9. this is a favorivte. matrix

[ismnotwasm]

10. Funny how comics can take that blend

Of humor, irony and truth and go straight to the heart of truth