F-Word Fall 2008

f w rd a collection of feminist voices

fall 2008

Fword a collection of feminist voices

fall 2008

In Fall 2005, a group of students came together to fill a gap they saw in the community at Penn. In looking to the past, they found inspiration in the form of Pandora’s Box, a magazine founded ten years ago which published works of Penn women for a female audience. Noticing the void left behind when Pandora’s Box went out of print, these students began to discuss how to shape and reform the magazine. They wanted to involve a larger, more diverse group of both contributors and readers, and so they set out to create a space for students to give literary and artistic voice to their ideas on feminism, gender and sexuality. In titling the publication “The Fword: A Collection of Feminist Voices,” not only would the magazine be an outlet for feminists themselves to talk, but it would also aim to increase awareness of feminist issues in the entire community. They chose a bee as a symbol for the magazine due to the fabled leadership role of the queen bee.

This is the fourth issue of the Fword, and the first to be led by a new editorial board whose members were not among the founders. The magazine has grown as well; the second issue incorporated artwork in addition to prose, poetry, and academic writing, and the third made a perhaps unexpected statement with a pink, feminine cover. This time, after receiving an unprecedented number of submissions (over one hundred!), we have the opportunity to incorporate many more voices. These pieces provide some answers but even more questions about the nature of today’s feminism. We acknowledge the tremendous progress feminism has made and yet we know that there is still more to be thought and said, written and photographed, captured and articulated.

As we continue to grow as a publication, we gladly welcome your feedback and suggestions. We also invite you to share your own feminist voice—whatever it may look or sound like—by submitting to our future issues.

It was a Friday night, and we were sitting in a circle, eating a potluck meal, crowded on couches, laughing, enjoying ourselves, and talking about it. You know, the F-word. Feminism. And even as the editorial board of Penn’s feminist literary magazine, we were having a tough time—we couldn’t define it. What does the word mean to us? To Penn women? Is there even a definition?

And that is exactly what this issue of the Fword is about—the inability to define feminism, even among a group of intelligent, strong, and self-proclaimed (or at least, most of the time) feminists. We tried to conjure up some structure around this word that pulled us together. We discussed everything from feminist theory to sex on campus to try to paint a clear picture, but in the end we were still stumped. And that is precisely when it came into view that feminism, as we know it, is just that—it’s laughing at Tina Fey’s sexy feminist comedy and recognizing the name Gloria Steinem. It’s the freedom to choose whether you want to use lipstick, mascara, or birth control, and changing your mind tomorrow. Often it seems to be just a confusing mix of many conflicting opinions, heroines from yesterday and today. But, the truth is that the best way to break the dated image of a feminist is to realize that they are young and old and most likely, what you didn’t expect: they are you.

Every member of the board has her own definition of feminism, but how that looks and feels is up to each individual woman. That is the essence of today’s feminism, and you will see that defined in the following stories, poems, essays, and artwork. Despite its fluidity and sheer elusiveness, feminism lives on as it is tested in our daily lives.

Its definition continues to evolve, just as the voices of the Fword.

This publication would not be possible without the determination of the founding members and the current editorial board. The many hours of reading and reviewing, editing and designing are evident in the final product—something of which we can all be proud.

Rachel Squire

a l e x a n d e r w a t e r c o l o r

o n

j a c o b s o n

t r a c i n g

p a p e r

Academic How Did We Get Here?

Freud’s Misogynistic Treatment of Dora Alice Neel Extra Extra Michelle Bachelet Where Are We Going?           

Poetry The Pond Conservatory The Pomegranate Graceland Rittenhouse Square Thou Shalt Not Covet To the Dreamer These Are My Mother’s Feet Maria Safety in Numbers Owls

rachel squire lindsay eierman brittany siegal rachel squire lindsay eierman rachel squire

     

nellie berkman m man kara daddario daario nkkova valeria tsygankova kara daddario daario ko ova valeria tsygankova chloe castellon lllon rivka fogel fo ogel illliams amelia s. williams emmanuel martinez kara daddario jessica goldstein

Prose emma morgenstern Bittersweet christine capetola Am I Butch or Femme?

Helen ali lapinsky victoria m. lees A Journey of Her Own ali lapinsky Purple Curve anonymous The President of Ohio

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     

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a b r i e f h i st o r y o f t he f e m i n i st mo ve m e nt

A long, long time ago . . .

Many say the women’s suffrage movement in the mid-nineteenth century marked the start of the feminist movement, and rightfully so. Attended by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Susan B. Anthony and other passionate women, the first U.S. women’s rights convention was held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, to fight the patriarchy of this young country. In 1919, tangible progress was made when Congress finally passed the Nineteenth Amendment, extending the right to vote to women. It was ratified soon after in 1920. Not only did this ensure voting rights for all women, but it also placed the issue of equal rights and the politics of gender on the United States’ radar.

Feminists did not stop after this victory. In 1923, Alice Paul, leading a group of militant feminists known as the National Women’s Party, drafted the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). This new document proclaimed: “men and women shall have equal rights throughout the US and every place subject to its jurisdiction.”1 The issue of gender was not specifically written in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, which intended to extend equality to only black men, and not white or black women. Paul and her supporters believed that the terms in the new amendment were clear, necessary and strongly focused on gender equality.2 Despite her efforts, for the next fifty years, the ERA was “buried in Congress.”3 Nevertheless, other progress was made. Betty Freidan’s book The Feminine Mystique (1963) inspired activists to pick up the fight once again, giving birth to what is now referred to as Second Wave Feminism.4 In her book, Friedan “touched a nerve among educated suburban white women,” shedding light on the deep-rooted patriarchy and gender roles in households across the country. Three years later, motivated by Friedan’s words, three hundred members signed on to the National Organization of Women (NOW). The movement was not only made up of white female feminists, but also included black civil rights activists, union leaders and professional women and men.5 In 1963, the Equal Pay Act was passed, followed by the Civil Rights Act in 1964 that banned discrimination based on race, religion, nationality, or sex.6 These acts, along with Friedan’s Second Wave Feminists, revived Paul’s cause. The ERA was voted out of Congress in 1946, 1950, and 1953. Feminist activists boycotted and lobbied to try to 2

get the three-fourths majority they needed for states’ ratification. However, even after the amendment’s supporters were given extensions and delays, the ERA was ultimately defeated in Congress in 1984.7 Women did not give up and Second Wave Feminism continued to develop.

The movement’s slogan was “The Personal is Political,” which blended the previously separated spheres. A woman’s content and character were not made up of just her personal preferences and choices. Instead, they were limited by a political and social setting.8 Whereas the First Wave fought for the vote and later the ERA, the Second Wave made its battle “establish[ing] reproductive freedom, job equality, plus the leftover goal of the ERA,” which all seemed to overflow into women’s personal lives.9 To Second Wave Feminists, individual women were “responsible for living personal lives in ways that would help create the society in which they wished to live.”10 Second Wave Feminism also introduced the distinction between sex (genetics) and gender (social influences). ‘Men’ and ‘women’ were thought to be artificial categories. This would lead to later movements, including Radical, Separatist, and Lesbian Feminism.11 By the 1970s, the Second Wave movement was in trouble. The problem wasn’t that there was a lack of battles to win after suffrage and the acts of the 1960s.

Rather, the united front began to fracture. The original motivation of the movement was to fight discrimination in employment, education, and family life, whereas now more radical, and seemingly dangerous, issues had emerged. Radical feminists formed the Women’s Liberation Movement, creating a “network of predominantly white, women-only organizations.” These radical “women’s lib” groups, as they were called, questioned Second Wave Feminism’s goal of reaching job equality through integrating women into existing patriarchal structures. As Bonnie Kreps explained in 1968, “We in this segment of the movement do not believe that the oppression of women will be ended by giving them a bigger piece of the pie as Betty Friedan would have it. We believe that the pie itself is rotten.”12 The movement wished to reach outward, raising awareness and educating other women and men about what really mattered most to women.13 New Beginnings The feminist agenda continued to evolve through the 1980s. Whereas the 1960s and 1970s were filled with work in regards to gender equality,14 the 1980s brought a “backlash” against feminism, “coming from within its own ranks.”15 Issues of race, class, and identity began to complicate things. While feminism worked to bring gender equality, embedded within the black female identity was a power struggle—one both uniquely aligned with and pushing against the feminist movement. Racist tensions existed within the movement as many black women felt left out of the “white women’s movement.” At the same time, pop-culture created “false images of womanhood.”

Media showed only miserable single women, evil career women, or happy mothers, leaving no room for any combination of the three.16 Third Wave Feminism, the form of the movement that many say exists today, has not entirely changed the movement. Rather, it has “shifted form, permeating society at various levels and in various ways,” instead of participating in activism like Second Wave Feminism. Women are now able to be sexy and feminists, with girl power and a saucy edge. Feminists are not seen as, or do not see themselves as, “anti-sex, gungrabbing man-haters.”17 Instead, they form a more diverse group “less likely and less willing to have a shared code of beliefs.”18 Not everyone likes Third Wave Feminism. Many believe it has taken Second 3

Wave Feminism’s gains for granted.19 Critics say it brings an unwelcome return to gender stereotypes or is too interested in celebration.20 Sexuality in the media distracts Third Wave Feminists from empowerment, steering them towards a sexualized ideal and false sense of power. Although the “girl power” of the Spice Girls is a prosex, powerful image of autonomous female sexuality, the image is still female. The movement is divided once again—do we embrace physical attractiveness or shun it?21 Offspring: Post, Popular, & Power Feminisms The 1990s and turn-of-the-century brought deep divisions within the movement, making it almost impossible to define. Now, more than ever, the “movement” is fraught with complexity. Post-feminists, similar to backlash or antifeminists, are “critical of the classic tenets and goals of feminism.” Instead of focusing on careers, women should shift their priorities to family. According to post-feminists, women are “happier and more fulfilled in the home,” and should therefore “marry and bear children at an early age, stay home to raise their children, and then pursue careers later in life.”22 On a less extreme level, post-feminism can be seen as merely a “changed context of debate on feminist issues.”23 Other feminists see that the movement can “no longer position itself outside and against popular culture, but, instead, [has] to see popular culture as a site ‘where meanings are contested.’” Popular feminists examined portrayals of women in pop culture, defining them as “feminist” or “non-feminist.”

If nothing else, popular feminism brought new forms of self-femininity, where women do not necessarily call themselves feminist but “do not conform to ‘traditional’ forms of feminine subjectivity either.”24 Critics see popular feminists as contradictory—neither supporting nor ignoring the movement. Then again, this is perhaps the beginning of a self-defined feminism—something that many feminists have for themselves today.

Power feminists believe women should be “unapologetically sexual” and have a “girls just want to have fun” attitude. They try to depoliticize the movement in order to “make feminism attractive enough to be easily sold.” According to bell hooks, a well-known black feminist and author, the result is that “this movement can embrace everyone, since it has no overt political tenets. This ‘feminism’ turns the movement away from politics back to a version of individual self-help.” The movement is attractive.

The founder of power feminism and author of Fire With Fire, Naomi Wolf, is a “young, pretty, heterosexual, and hip” woman.25 Libertarian Feminism says that women should be able to choose everything, and are considered free to choose because they are capable of self-determination.26 Sexy or Slut Feminism suggests that “as long as we [have] our orgasms, it [doesn’t] much matter how we [get] them.” Appearance is everything, and “if being ‘sexy’ the way the media moguls said was sexy helped us get off, then we shouldn’t question what ‘sexy’ was, or those who insisted on its restrictive standards.”27 So, now what?

It is clear that the Feminist movement currently faces tenuous circumstances.

Is there anything left to fight for? Has it broken off into so many factions that it can’t even be called a movement anymore? Is feminism dead? You decide.

(Continued on page )

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Endnotes 1

Treanor, Nick., ed. The Feminist Movement. Greenhaven Press: San Diego, 2002. 17.

Freedman, Estelle B. No Turning Back: The History of Feminism and the Future of Women. Ballantine Books: New York, 2002. 82.

3 Treanor, 23.

4 Treanor, 23.

5 Freedman, 85.

6 Treanor, 23.

7 McElroy, Wendy. Liberty For Women: Freedom and Feminism in the Twenty-First Century. The Independent Institute: Chicago, 2002. 16.

8 Treanor, 27.

9 Baumgardner, Jennifer and Amy Richards. ManifestA: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux: New York, 2000. 20.

10 Treanor, 29.

11 Treanor, 28.

12 Freedman, 87.

13 McElroy, 338.

14 Treanor, 31.

15 Dow, Bonnie J. Prime-Time Feminism. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, 1996. 203.

16 Hollows, Joanne. Feminism, Femininity, and Popular Culture. Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2000. 190.

17 McElroy, 335.

18 Treanor, 31-33.

19 Baumgardner, 17.

20 Treanor, 33.

21 Gorman, 2.

22 Hurley, Jennifer A., ed. Feminism: Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press, Inc: San Diego, 2001. 14.

23 Hollows, 192.

24 Hollows, 196.

25 Dow, 212.

26 McElroy, ix.

27 Friebur, Robin. “Shaving is the Pits.” Off Our Backs. May-June 2005. 38.

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The lily pad pond still sits in its green bowl, and ripples silver secrets of water bug boats and jeweled jagged waves throughout the valley, echoing memories of that summer.

Claire and I would climb over the hill behind Interstate 90 every day that summer, our bodies ripping through the tall grasses—determined ants in a world of weeds.

And even before we glimpsed the freckled shore, our clothes would be piled in sloppy mounds on the giant boulder we used to call our throne.

For hours we would climb up the worn rope swing, its tire shred and laundry bag strings burning our hands as we pushed each other up each boy scout knot until our blisters bled and our bangs became sticky with sweat, always addicted to the sweet success of reaching the highest rung and touching the highest branch.

And in eagle-swoops our feet pushed us away from the tree, our naked bodies hurled into the water in loose cannonballs, scrawny elbows and knees popping out in all directions.

Once the water kissed our sun beaten skin we became graceful mermaids, bobbing up and down among the lily pads, swimming in and around their silky legs.

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m o r g e n s t e r n

My maternal grandmother died when I was 15. It was neither tragic nor surprising. It was nothing to inspire pity in me, only the normal expressions of sympathy. People age, people develop breast cancer, people die—and yet there’s that pang, that almost-jealousy that hits whenever I see my dad’s mother with her daughter and her daughter’s daughter—a generational line of three women.

It allows me to picture what it would be like if she were still alive.

I imagine myself in a few years. I have just moved into an apartment, and am living solo at the age of 25. The quiet is bothering me tonight as I prepare for my guests.

I don’t think to put music on to liven my mood. Instead I stand at the kitchen counter, hulling strawberries, mixing batter.

My mother arrives, followed by her mother. A sense of formality separates me from them, even as both of them offer up their nearly identical smiles. They take turns kissing me on the cheek. I find myself, out of habit, on unnecessary tiptoes to kiss my mother, but bending slightly at the waist for my grandmother.

I rush a bit to prepare, revealing my inexperience in the kitchen, revealing that my anticipation has turned into nervousness. My mother asks if she can help, and slipping back to my teenaged self, I whine my classic “No-ah!”—a “no” with two syllables. She presses her lips together, but they are still drawn upwards into a nostalgic smile. She wonders what I will do next and she remembers me struggling to shuck corn when I was six years old. She loves me.

My grandma is looking around the barely-furnished apartment. It reminds me of her four-story townhouse: lots of beige and neutrals at the moment, punctuated by old family photos and books. I pull out the chairs for my mother and my grandmother, and they both sit silently, waiting.

A waffle iron sits in the middle of the table; we are having breakfast for dinner.

But for the purposes of maintaining an air of elegance, I’ve bought a silvery iron that I have yet to use.

I bring out the batter and pour. Within minutes the dimpled Belgian waffles are on our plates. A heap of fresh strawberries, a cloud of homemade whipped cream and a pool of chocolate chips are ready, and we take care to overindulge in each.

We use our hands. In fact, I haven’t set forks on the table. And with the first bite, we all forget the formality of before. My mom springs into conversation with a speck of whipped cream on her lip. My grandma rediscovers her squeaky, older-and8

wiser-woman laugh. We all start laughing and I pour more batter on the iron. Some spills over the side, but I will clean it up later. I burn my fingers as I pluck fresh waffles out of the grooves. Conversation is allowed to turn serious, but solemnity is almost inevitably abandoned as we realize we are eating with our hands.

We are strong women, and we finish our waffles. Suddenly I find myself helping Grandma out of her chair and taking the bowls and plates back to the kitchen.

We are all hushed again and Grandma pokes around the apartment some more.

And once again the door is open. I bend down for Grandma, reach up for Mom. They leave the way they came, even though life won’t ever be the way it was.

When I edge back into reality, the waffles become bittersweet. Sometimes bittersweet makes the most beautiful dreams.

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d a d d a r i o

Climb the cold marble stairs to the room that no one has forgotten.

A terrarium for dancing men in coat tails, and cakes with pink and yellow frosting.

Globe thistles and snowberries grow against white wooden bordered windows.

Ivy pushes up against glass so frail it may crack at snow fall.

Outside there are only rolling sage hills.

Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata sweeps in from the downstairs grand piano, struck by cold small ďŹ ngers too meek to say the words that might save her.

She sits on a mahogany bench, nestled into the corner. There is no hiding in a room of glass.

Her crushed burgundy velvet dress is the only break in a beryl forest. Sweat forms on her brow in the adagio sostenuto.

Reaching towards the paned ceiling she sees the softly spinning fan, mimicking a breeze too natural to be found here.

Sunlight oods the placid interior. A wilting Anthurium hangs silently in the air.

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e i e r m a n

One of Freud’s most famous patients was Ida Bauer (pseudonym: Dora), a hysteric woman who acted out against the female stereotypes of early twentieth-century Vienna. Throughout their sessions, Freud attempted to remold Dora into a ‘normal’ early twentieth-century Viennese woman, bringing her back to her designated gender role. In his work, Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, Freud treats Dora as a mindless, emotional victim in need of a man to ‘cure’ her prescribed illness of hysteria.

Virginia Woolf once observed, “Women have served all these centuries as looking glasses possessing the magic and delicious power of reflecting the figure of a man as twice its natural size.”1 This theory held true with Sigmund Freud, who used Dora as a puppet to boost his own ego and serve his own desires. Freud’s psychoanalytic treatment of Dora depended on the coercion of a female patient by a male analyst; he explored hysteria from a biased male perspective, with preconceived notions about masculine superiority.

In early twentieth-century Vienna, “Women [were] associated both with madness and with silence, whereas men [were] associated with prerogatives of discourse and reason.”2 Men were in control of reason and had the power to create their own truths, just as Sigmund Freud had with his invention of psychoanalysis.

Men declared that mental health was masculine, as opposed to hysteria, which they considered feminine. Freud’s status as a man also gave him access to education, where he was able to obtain a professional degree, making him a respected member of society.

With the title of doctor, Freud could convince women to “adjust to and accept the behavioral norms for her sex even though these kinds of behavior [were] generally regarded as less socially desirable.”3 With Dora, Freud was mainly concerned with normalizing his patients’ sexual behavior.

Dora was brought to Freud in 1900, when she was a mere eighteen years old.

While Dora’s father had an extramarital affair with their neighbor Frau K, Dora was pursued by the neighbor’s husband, Herr K. Dora’s refusal of Herr K’s sexual advances along with her “confusion of inclination toward men and women”4 and her suicide note encouraged her father to bring Dora to Freud for treatment. Freud diagnosed Dora with hysteria, a disease known as the “dumping ground for the unexplained,”5 since it was used as a last resort when the symptoms could not be defined by any other illness.

Dora suffered from only a few symptoms: an occasional cough, disgust of sex, low 12

spirits, and temporary mood swings. Considering Dora’s symptoms were little more than normal teenage anxiety, it is doubtful that Dora actually had hysteria.

When Freud began Dora’s treatment, he asked for “the story of her whole life and illness.”6 Freud was always disappointed that the information given to him was “never enough to let [him] see [his] way about the case.”7 Rather than providing a blank slate for Dora to share her story, Freud halfheartedly listened to Dora’s stories while at the same time trying to find ways to plug his own theories and desires into the case. One way in which he did this was by playing the role of both the author of the story and a fellow character in his stories.8 Often, Freud projected his own sexual desires onto Dora by occasionally mentioning unrelated, unscientific observations in his case studies, such as his discussion of Dora as: “in the first bloom of youth—a girl of intelligent and engaging look.”9 Through psychoanalysis, Freud encouraged Dora to embrace sexual submission. As Freud met with Dora, he pressed his own insights onto her and tried to convince her to go along with his interpretations: “Freud’s tactic was to insinuate a set of self-suspicions until he managed to convince [Dora] that she was too logistical and reasoned too closely for her own good.”10 Although Freud wrote that he “took the greatest pains with [Dora] not to introduce her to any fresh facts in the region of sexual knowledge,”11 he actually pressured this young girl to discuss some fairly intimate topics with him. If Dora would not open up to a discussion right away, Freud would continue pestering her about the subject until she gave Freud the answer he wanted.

For example, Freud pestered Dora so much about Herr K that she eventually caved and “admitted that she might have been in love with [him].”12 Also, Freud was very interested in Dora’s masturbation habits. Dora did not admit any masturbation during her first few therapy sessions; however, either Freud’s incessant prying or Dora’s desire to end the masturbation discussion pushed her to admit “to have been a masturbator for many years, with a considerable leucorrhoeal discharge.”13 Freud and Dora also discussed male responses to her behaviors, introducing Dora to new sexual knowledge.

In Dora, Freud theorizes that, “during [Herr K’s] passionate embrace [Dora] had felt not merely his kiss upon her lips but also the pressure of his erect member against her body,”14 a feeling of which Dora has no recollection. Freud’s interpretation was quite farfetched. He said that Dora “had perceived but had dismissed [this incident] from her consciousness.”15 Freud’s treatment of Dora was also demeaning because it punished her for going against men’s wishes. For example, after hearing Dora’s frequent criticisms of her father, such as, “he was insincere, he had a strain of falseness in his character, he only thought of his own enjoyment, and he had a gift for seeing things in the light which suited him best,”16 Freud tries to convince Dora that she is just jealous of her father’s new love. Dora was also punished for refusing Herr K’s sexual advances. When Herr K denied having made any advances, Dora was made to look like the guilty party.17 Freud reasoned that Dora “used to read Mantegazza’s Physiology of Love;” therefore, she must have been “over-excited . . . and had merely ‘fancied’ the whole scene.”18 Freud’s assumption that Dora was lying and Herr K was telling the truth demonstrates his habit of jumping to conclusions without sufficient evidence.

Despite Freud’s success in manipulating his case history, his attempt to manipulate Dora proved unsuccessful. Dora refused to accept Freud’s interpretations of her dreams and abruptly stopped treatment. In fact, it wasn’t until a few weeks free of Freud’s prying that some of Dora’s symptoms began to disappear. Ultimately, Dora proved that she did not need a man to cure her “illness.” Dora’s hysteria was not caused by a wandering uterus or other biological factors, but rather was a result of the male13

dominated, “socially confining, intellectually stifling, politically and legally constricting conditions faced by women of her class and era.”19 Endnotes 1

Felman, Shoshana. “Women and Madness: The Critical Phallacy.” Diacritics 5.4 (1975): 2-16.

Felman, 13.

3 Felman, 6.

4 Freud, Sigmund. Dora: An Analysis of a Case of Hysteria. New York: Touchstone, 1963. vii.

5 Kinetz, Erika. “Is Hysteria Real? Brain Images Say Yes.” New York Times. 26 September 2006. 3.

6 Marcus, Steven. “Freud and Dora: Story, History, Case History.” Psychoanalysis and Contemporary Science. 5: 389-442. 70.

7 Marcus, 70.

8 Marcus, 64.

9 Freud, 18.

10 Freud, 19.

11 Freud, 24.

12 Freud, 31.

13 Freud, 18.

14 Freud, 23.

15 Freud, 23.

16 Freud, 23.

17 Freud, 27.

18 Freud, 19.

19 Freud, 101.

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I clutch the pomegranate and push it down, cheek against the cuttingboard, its durable maroon hide resilient against my fingers.

If I cut I am complicit.

It is late August and rain slashes down.

I wished we could stay forever on your bed meshed and wrapped together but you said we’d be frozen that way.

You are Other, and such a mystery that you are not myself.

You go into the downpour again.

I go and the rain floods me and I take my ball and scepter and pierce the fruit of autumn.

The seeds burst out and I eat them whole.

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c h r i s t i n e

c a p e t o l a

When I came out to my best friend at Penn, the first person I could bring myself to talk with about being gay, I felt that not much about myself stood to change (well, besides whom I would be romantically pursuing). As we chatted about a girl that I had met at a Sleater-Kinney concert and had had a major crush on for nearly three months, I could not have foreseen the newfound consciousness of my physical appearance, the queered outlook on the world at large, or the completely redefined understandings of masculinity and femininity that were to come within half a year’s time.

That summer I returned home to the greater New York City area. It would be the first time that I would be around the city for more than a few weeks in nearly two years. Even more dramatically, I had just ventured to the Pacific Northwest for two and a half weeks by myself to “get over” the said S-K girl, who I had nearly let destroy my life in the springtime. Somehow I had not been killed (as friends had feared was highly possibly) and somehow I had not whored myself out (as I imagined I would). Through a combination of starting to get over it and having had a lot of new thoughts about what I wanted being gay to mean for me, I decided that I would use the summer to slowly start living openly as a lesbian. It was a wonderfully romantic and idealistic vision, but it would not be without its challenges, most especially within the realm of gender performance.

I happened to be working in Chelsea that summer doing crap work for what would be my last music industry-related job. Every day during lunch I would go out and walk 7th and 8th Avenue trying to learn how “to be a lesbian.” Despite having watched But I’m A Cheerleader at least a half-dozen times, I still believed that there was something to be learned. Butch/femme, or, in less extreme terms, masculine/feminine, scared me the most of all. Here was this dichotomy that I had fought against without a second thought. In high school I had asked boys out, I had kicked ass at sports, I had liked really loud music. On society’s terms, I had been fucking with the dichotomy the whole time. Now all I could think about was where I needed to fit in the butch/femme categories and what I would need to do to adequately play my role and live within the system.

In my newly queered world, I at first felt that I would need to choose to be masculine or feminine. But how to choose? I had never been femme, and on the other 16

side of the spectrum, I had been boyish at best. However, I had a gut feeling that being butch was not in the stars for me. Somehow I derived from all this that I should go with a more “girly” approach, whatever that meant. And so I started to (temporarily) trade the band t-shirts for tank tops and wear my hair down more often. The loud sneakers I refused to give up. I knew I was being successful with my “more girly” look when my parents (then and even now completely oblivious as to what was going on) started to complement me on how I was presenting myself to the world. My mother would look at me like one of those cartoon characters with dollar signs popping out of her eyes, only in her case, the dollar signs were caricatures of rich (white) husbands and itsy bitsy grandchildren.

Clearly, I was letting my naivety get the best of me. On the eve of my 20th birthday, I went to see Team Dresch play a show in Williamsburg. This would be the climax of my gender role anxiety. Donned in the new tank top/jeans/sneakers/hair down look, I felt ready to be pulled into the mosh pit (as I had been the night before) and to dance and scream and have a really good time. When I arrived at the nightclub, all I could feel was the 90% of the audience that were almost definitely queer women … staring at me. Everywhere I turned, I felt a new set of eyes giving me the glare of death.

There were no words, but the looks said it all: “You’re not queer enough to be here.” I was simultaneously infuriated and on the verge of tears. The angry part of me thought to myself, “Who the fuck are these people to tell me how to be queer? I am a fucking gold star; I am just as queer as anyone here.” But the sad part of me, as if playing devil’s advocate, simply replied, “But this isn’t you. Maybe that’s all they’re calling you out on.”

The sad voice eventually won. The next day, on what was my actual 20th birthday and Pride Saturday, I sat in Central Park writing a letter about the night before that I would never send to Donna Dresch. It wasn’t fair that I was feeling not so proud to be gay as a result of faking my way through the butch/femme dichotomy, a dichotomy outside of which I assumed I would be able to comfortably, given how I had previously handled the masculine/feminine one. However, it wasn’t Team Dresch’s problem but rather a problem with the queer community, and it was the community that I really needed to address. While I now understand that many view butch/femme as an effective way of challenging hetero-normative gender norms (credit to Judith Butler), I can’t help feeling that sometimes the queer women community’s embracing of the dichotomy reinforces it more than it turns it on its head, and this in itself can make coming out—already a scary experience—even more terrifying.

I have since gone back to embracing the boyish charm that I have been embracing for most of my life. It would be a stretch to say that I, in my year and a half of being out, feel that I am fighting the masculine/feminine dichotomy in the queer community as much as or as often as when I was out in the “straight world.” Things are definitely a lot better here in terms of freedom for gender expression, but sometimes they are worse in that the butch/femme reality can feel so overbearing. Even now, I find myself slipping back into the constraints of butch/femme sometimes. All it takes is for a girl I’m interested in to be a little more femme than me for me to feel the need to “be the boy” and start overanalyzing my “role.” Am I supposed to call her? Do I need to be the one to move in and kiss her? Is it up to me to be dominating in the bedroom? Though I’ve been more fortunate than usual in the romance department lately, sometimes I wonder if all this overanalyzing ever prevents me from actually getting to know or hook up with the girl.

Because . . . what if I want to dominate and be dominated? Or be boyish and be girly too? Who’s to say that we can’t challenge the dichotomy by straddling the gender divide instead of always fleeing to those points furthest away from it? And I 17

don’t necessarily mean in an androgynous kind of way. I proudly identify as a woman; for me, I just don’t see the necessity to link “femininity” with “woman,” or to even follow society’s definition of femininity in the first place. And I also don’t mean that this potentially radical phenomenon can only happen in the queer community. If we truly believe that power in numbers is the way to achieve change, then we need to challenge these narrow definitions of the masculine and the feminine both in and outside of the queer community. It sounds like a lot, but collectively, we can do it. I have a lot of faith in humanity, the female gender, and queer women; I can’t believe otherwise. But how do we start to challenge this dichotomy that, despite all our best efforts, continuously permeates the world as we know it? Unfortunately, I don’t have all the answers for that one. Instead, all I can do is urge all of us to start questioning our own definitions of the masculine and the feminine and to evaluate whether we’ve come to define these concepts through our own experiences or through the lens that society has imposed on us. If it is the latter, then we (myself included) have a lot of work to do in terms of changing the way we view the masculine and the feminine, and, on a larger scale, gender expression as a whole.

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My friend has cancer so I’m driving to Graceland.

I don’t believe in God anymore just Rock-n-Roll, that skin-pulsing Memphis beat and Driving 85 on asphalt I’m taking up with a band of fanatics dressed like the king But even the all mighty saint of the Jail House died on the pooper.

Immortality doesn’t come to America’s heartland.

Tonight I will park my Chevy at the Heartbreak Hotel and make love to a guy wearing blue suede shoes because I am one mean hunk of burning love.

I’m going to take the platinum tour, greasy burger in hand, and slurp up a cold one from Presley’s fridge.

Inside the white columned house I’ll dance with Priscilla on the dining room table, press my bare feet against mahogany, scream up to the chandelier.

She understands we are women who have lost.

There she is now, whispering in my ear, offering me ten peanut butter and banana sandwiches, asking me why I still smoke and don’t eat green vegetables.

She wants the reasons why I have left.

Suspicious that my conscious has found me, I’ll run out the door into the balmy Tennessee night.

It will chase me like a hound dog I’ll lose at the state border when my legs are dust and my heart is aching. I’ll strip off my clothes and make my home the desert. Here I’ll wait for the rain to come.

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Each time I enter Rittenhouse Nails on Sansom Street, I am met with a flurry of high-pitched greetings from the seven smiling manicurists who work there, “Hie! Hahw ah you?” Everyone is greeted this way. It is part of the efficient regime run by the owner, a forty-year-old Korean woman known as Sunny. With a sharp bob of black hair, Sunny reigns over the mint green walls and brass chandeliers that decorate the business she’s built to be one of the busiest salons in Philadelphia. The phone rings once every three or four minutes on busy afternoons, but only Sunny is allowed to answer it. Using an empty pedicure chair as her throne, she lifts an outstretched hand in the air until one of her younger women hurries to pass her the receiver.

Rittenhouse Nails, like every other manicure salon I have ever visited, is run on a pristine, predictable schedule. Each of Sunny’s employees has an Americanized name—June, Sarah, Amy—tied only to their Asian heritage by a few shared syllables.

And each woman knows it’s her cheery greetings and wide smiles that keep the money coming in. I don’t like this painted-on enthusiasm; it makes me feel uncomfortable in the same way I do when an acquaintance greets me with a hug when I would have opted for a handshake.

Each manicurist, wearing a black apron, knows her scripted role starts the moment a customer walks through the door. As with most salons I’ve been to, the manicurists here talk in an unfamiliar tongue but despite the language barrier, their intentions are often transparent. They remind me of the catty classmates from my all-girls middle school who never bothered to hide who they were talking about. The salon serves all types of women, from the skirt suit with a clearly expensive purse, to a Muslim woman and her toddler, to a salt-and-pepper haired mom visiting her daughter in town. We are all interchangeable, known only by our fingers and toes.

In January of last year, I visited the salon late one evening to get a manicure before an interview the following day. I entered from the dark chilly air to find two manicurists kept company only by fluorescent lights. They did not talk to each other.

There was no smooth jazz on the radio, no women on cell phones, no manicurists carrying purses and jackets from one side of the room to the other to avoid smudged nails. There was no half-shout greeting.

The bell at the top of the door clanked my arrival and slid away into a silence that hung like heavy velvet curtains. There was nothing to do besides talk to my manicurist, an older woman with wavy black hair and gently wrinkled hands. I 21

learned her name was Helen. We spent most of our time in silence until my shyness moved aside out of necessity. I asked her questions and she answered each in a quiet voice and timid sentences. As she clipped my cuticles, Helen told me how she and her husband met back in Vietnam. She wished me luck on my interview between the first and second coats of polish. I wondered if anyone else had ever bothered to talk to her before.

I enter the salon on a grey February afternoon and am met with the usual greeting, though my gaze fixes on Helen, who sits perched on a black office chair at the last of five manicure stations. I have come to the salon many times since my last appointment with Helen, but have always been served by one of the Korean women, whose files hiss against my fingers. After picking my bottle of polish from the neat gridded blocks arranged on the table, I make my way to the chair at Helen’s station.

Next to me sits Sarah, the youngest Korean manicurist. She has dyed reddish hair, pinned on top of her head with a crystal clip, and bright blue eye shadow reminiscent of disco. Sarah speaks her Korean loudly, in sharp consonants that remind me of the sounds people make when they are trying to move something that is too heavy for them. I look for recognition in Sarah’s face, as I had visited her for a manicure only four days before, but find only the well-rehearsed smile.

Helen places a bowl of soapy water on the glass counter so softly that I barely hear the clink of glass on glass. After letting them soak, she folds my hands together as if in prayer and wraps them in a hot white towel, stroking the backs of my hands. Her station has not changed in the year since I last sat here.

“Remine me agen yor name?” Helen smiles, as is her custom every time she speaks or is spoken to.

“Ali,” I say. I smile, too.

Helen bobs her head in agreement and her wavy hair bounces lightly against her black cardigan. I notice she has drawn tiny letter H’s on her manicure tools, which rest in milky pink liquid at the bottom of a Crown Royal glass. Small plastic bottles of various oils and solutions huddle around her right elbow like chess pawns. Business is a bit slower today than a typical Friday afternoon, with the prickly sleet falling outside.

A younger woman bounds up the stairs from the salon’s basement, half-shouting in Korean between laughs. The women to my left respond with giggles and Korean phrases, but Helen only raises her eyes for a moment. She files my nails back and forth in even strokes with the concentration of a violinist. Her mannerisms make me picture a grandmother rearranging dainty figurines on a glass coffee table, each motion deliberate and delicate. Taking my fingers one at a time, she grips them with the fourth finger of her left hand, pressing into the callus she’s built on the third finger of her right hand. Then she moves to the next one.

“What you do afteh skool?” Helen speaks slowly as her mind churns out each word.

“I’m moving to New York.”

“What will Aie do?” Helen’s glasses climb slowly up her nose as she smiles, her voice high-pitched and sweet for a woman of forty.

“I will come back and visit. To see you.”

Helen, the only Vietnamese woman in an otherwise all-Korean salon, speaks little English and even less Korean. “Aie know hah to say ah few tings,” she tells me.

She is a wife, the mother of two boys and one girl, ages thirteen, twelve, and ten, and commutes to Center City from her home in Vietnam-town. She speaks in a quiet voice, barely above a whisper, in an infrequency that tells you she’s actually listening.

22

If you ask her whether it is hard sometimes being the only one who doesn’t speak Korean, she will tell you “Nawh. I spek to them inglish.” But when she thinks I cannot see her reflection in the mirrored wall, Helen’s face turns quiet. The grooves of her crow’s feet disappear as the corners of her smile fall. As I glance to the mirror, I see Helen watching a group of two Korean women talking at the pedicure station and the otherwise peaceful stillness of her face shifts to a moment of longing. It is only a tiny change, silent and easily missed, like the hook of a fastener slowly slipping out of place.

I glance around the salon from the pot of yellow orchids in the front window to the pregnant woman getting a pedicure. This salon is filled with the items of Helen’s everyday life; a universe confined by glass and mirrored walls, bottled in plastic, and decorated with the crown molding Sunny had installed for an extra assertion of class.

Helen exists here surrounded by bottles of “Siberian Nights,” “Big Apple Red,” and “Looking for Love” in a miniature Korean society she does not understand. When a customer comes in, Helen recites the rehearsed greeting, but her eyes whisper that she is happy to see me as she lays down fresh pieces of paper towel. While the other manicurists gossip and shout, or make small talk, I watch Helen’s bow-shaped lips stretch into a smile when I ask about her kids.

As she drips silent cuticle oil onto my fingers, I try to imagine Helen back in Vietnam, strolling on a beach with her husband before the war wrinkled her face. I try to envision her holding her daughter’s hand as she stepped off the plane in America, or hunched over a cutting board folding rice paper into spring rolls. But I can’t. These scenarios require me to think of Helen living a life outside the manicure salon, when I can only envision her sitting on her black chair in her black apron wiping her glasses on the black sleeve of her cardigan. Perhaps it is because I know I will never encounter Helen anywhere besides inside this mirrored cube and I will never mean anything more to her than a sweet girl who remembers her name. At the end of her day, I am still just ten fingers and ten toes.

After painting my nails with top coat, Helen carries my tote bag and jacket to the closest hand dryer, her soft fingers sweep my ponytail over my right shoulder.

Today she gives me a longer backrub than usual as my nails dry. I have already paid for my manicure and given her a tip. After a few minutes, the next customer enters and Sarah cries “Helenh, iss yor tern!” just as I turn to tell Helen goodbye. The scripted routine starts all over again with a new set of fingers to paint. Korean phrases and laughs whiz pass me as I step back into the February chill.

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Portraiture has long been the quintessential tool of visual expression, the medium through which the symbolism of one’s identity shines through vivid brushstrokes, deep shadows, and deliberate patterns of line. The same individual conveyed in two different styles takes on completely distinct meanings in the imagination of the viewer; the woman painted in sunny yellows and oranges seems more welcoming, warm, and content than the same woman composed in blues and grays. It is this flexibility in conveyance—this ability to alter the meaning of an image with just a change in brush direction or color—that has perhaps driven artists across time to utilize self portraiture as the ultimate means of identity exploration. For most artists, this self-exploration largely accompanies the teen years, a time when one’s body and facial features transform in the midst of behavioral rebellion and discovering where one “fits in.” Frida Kahlo, renowned for a lifetime of self portraiture, completed her first self portrait at the age of nineteen,1 while Andy Warhol completed his first identity image at the age of fourteen,2 and Picasso started around the same age at fifteen years.3 Alice Neel, however, did not complete her first self portrait until she was eighty years old.4 Despite a lifetime of portraying other people through watercolors and oil paints, it was not until the last years of her life that Neel decided to explore her own identity through visual means. Although Neel’s decision to wait until old age to complete her only self portrait seems unusual, close visual analysis of Neel’s use of color, content, and composition within her self portrait reinforces the deliberate delay in asserting her identity; without the characteristic of old age, the identity message Neel attempts to deliver would not be apparent.

Alice Neel’s color choices relate directly to her intentionally belated identity message. Upon observing the self portrait, one notices that even though Neel is entirely nude, her flesh is not comprised of typical flesh tones (see Appendix A). Rather, blues, greens, purples, oranges, yellows, and reds combine with subtle tans and creams to incite the concept of flesh, while a bright blue line outlines her form. This is especially unusual compared to the stereotypical browns and grays one associates with the skin of the aged. In the painting The Soyer Brothers, for example, Neel portrays two elderly men whose flesh tones are exactly what one would expect—brown and gray (see Appendix B). While the eyes of Neel’s self portrait are set against a radiant, flushed face, the eyes of the Soyer Brothers are sunk in purplish sockets, tired from the passage 25

of time. The choice to use color in this way sets Neel apart from the trite view of the elderly and distinguishes her from her contemporaries. Neel’s identity was contingent upon setting herself apart in this manner: her nonconformist lifestyle which included Cuban lovers, lost children, and beatnik followers was crucial to her character as a person and celebrity. In addition, Neel emerged as a representational artist during a time when Jackson Pollack and other abstract expressionists were splashing paint onto canvas in nonfigurative masterpieces. Perhaps most important to note is that if Neel had painted her self portrait in her youth, her use of color would convey little about her identity. It is the contrast of her youthful, colorful flesh tones with the social construct of aged flesh that shows the viewer that Neel was not like those of her time.

Neel contributes to this identity message through the content of her portrait, as she shows herself seated in a blue and white striped chair, entirely nude. Even though the female nude has long been depicted through artistic media, Neel’s age sets her nudity apart from the curvaceous, statuesque female standard. Far from curvaceous or statuesque, Neel shows her body very honestly, with breasts sagging, arms flabby and atrophied, ankles swollen, and stomach bloated. This nudity possesses tremendous significance in portraying the Neel persona, as Neel was an active member of the feminist movement, which stood in opposition to constructs like the aesthetically glorified and sexually objectified female figure. Although Neel makes a bold feminist statement simply by appearing nude, her age of eighty years increases this audacity tenfold. Neel demonstrates her comfort with her womanhood, even in her old age as her body sags and transforms from its youthful structure, confirming her dedication to the feminist ideals that shaped a large portion of her life. Had Neel completed this portrait in her teenage years, her figure would simply mimic the glorified image of the female that feminism, and Alice Neel herself, tried so diligently to combat. The role that age plays in developing Neel’s identity further emphasizes Neel’s deliberate delay in completing her only self portrait.

Even the composition and details of the self portrait speak to the mature nature of Neel’s identity concept. The images of the portrait are composed such that Neel sits at the painting’s center, with unfinished blotches of yellow, green, and blue surrounding her in the background. While the background appears to be incomplete, Neel’s figure, especially her face, has a highly finished feel. The contrast between Neel and her barren surroundings comments on the completeness of her life, suggesting that she has fully achieved her identity in old age. Contributing to her identity concept is the fact that she is also holding a paintbrush and possibly a cloth she used while painting. Her life as an artist is what ultimately distinguished her, and the image of Neel still holding the paintbrush nearly four years before her death displays how integral her artistic role was to her persona.

The way in which Neel utilizes details like the paintbrush, purposeful composition, and even more intentional inclusion of nudity and color to her advantage indicates a strong, deliberate nature to the completion of her self-portrait. Whereas most artists use self portraiture to explore their identities as those personalities emerge, the stylistic and visual elements of Neel’s self portrait demonstrate that Neel intended to wait until her eightieth year to show who she had become and where she “fit in.”

Were it not for the drooping flesh, white hair, and swollen ankles, Alice Neel as rebel, feminist, and artist would not show through simple strokes of color on a large, white canvas.

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Appendix A: A Self Portrait by Alice Neel

(http://www.artchive.com/artchive/N/neel/neel_self.jpg.html)

Appendix B: The Soyer Brothers by Alice Neel

(http://www.artchive.com/artchive/N/neel/neel_soyers.jpg.html)

Endnotes 1

The Artchive. 2008. <http://www.artchive.com/artchive/K/kahlo.html>.

Henry Art Gallery: University of Washington. 2008. <http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa699.htm>.

3 Olgaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Gallery. 2008. <http://www.abcgallery.com/P/picasso/picasso.html>.

4 The Artchive. 2008. <http://www.artchive.com/artchive/N/neel.html>.

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“I don’t know what Father was so worried about,” Christina thought as she trekked through the forest. She pushed her long golden braid behind her shoulders and adjusted her Phillies ball cap. Linking her fingers together under the new red backpack her Grandmother had given to her on her 13th birthday, Christina remembered the confrontation she had had with her father.

“You can’t backpack through the woods alone to get to your Grandmother’s house,” Father had shouted.

“It’s a marked trail, Dad,” Christina retorted. “I’ve hiked it before.”

“Not by yourself and not for four days!” He thundered. “You have no idea what beasts lurk in that forest. Bear for one.”

Christina had remembered her father’s many warnings about the natural instincts of wild animals. They can attack without warning. As a veterinarian taking care of the town’s zoo animals, her father knew from experience the damage a wild animal can do to a person. “I can take your tranquilizer gun just in case any wild animals charge at me.”

“She’s a very self-reliant young lady, Dear,” Mom had said, coming into the room to stand between Christina and father. Mom had smiled at her, and then turned to father.

“And she’s a crack shot. You were the one who took her to the firing range last year for lessons. ‘For her own protection,’ you told me.” Mom put her hands on his shoulders.

“We must learn to let go.” She hugged him.

Christina smiled as she pushed up on the bottom of the rack to lift the shoulder straps slightly giving her sore shoulders a break. It was the third day of her journey and she hadn’t seen one black bear yet. She would prove her mom right and show her father that she could take care of herself.

Christina was daydreaming about the delicious pot roast dinner her Grandmother was going to make for her tomorrow, when she came around the bend in the trail and saw him. He was resting his pack on a boulder from a side trail looking at the guide. He looked up when he heard her footsteps on the loose shale. He flashed a dazzling smile at her. Christina’s hiking boots became glued to the trail. She heard her heart pounding.

“Hi,” he said.

Christina just stared. He was at least six foot tall with a full head of dark curly 28

hair. His broad shoulders carried a forest green pack.

“Is this the Appalachian Trail?,” he asked.

Christina nodded.

“Are you heading south?”

Christina nodded again.

“Could we travel the path together?”

Again Christina nodded.

He picked up his hiking stick and moved out onto the trail. Christina fell behind. What is wrong with me? She thought. I could always talk to the boys at school.

What makes this boy different?

“My name is Luke,” he said.

“Christina,” she responded, as she stared at the rocks along the trail.

“Do you know this trail?”

“I’ve hiked this trail many times with my parents,” Christina said, finally finding her voice. “We would go to visit my Grandmother this way. Her yard backs up to the trail.”

The day flew by now that Christina had a companion to talk to. She babbled along about how she was proving to her father that she could hike to her grandmother’s house alone. As dusk was settling in, Christina left the path to find a level area to pitch her pup tent near the stream that ran along the trail, the fresh water source that she and her parents always used when they hiked to her Grandmother’s house.

As she set up her tent near a bank of tall pine trees, she wondered what Luke would do for the night. He didn’t carry a tent, and he couldn’t fit in her little tent.

Christina’s hands were damp; she wiped them on her jeans. As she laid out her sleeping bag, she remembered the conversation she had with Luke this afternoon about hiking the Appalachian Trail. He didn’t know about hanging the food pack and trash from tall trees so as not to attract bears to the campsite. She thought all hikers knew that.

She peeked out of her tent to look more closely at Luke. He was preparing a small fire with branches, a lighter, and newspaper. He had on new Nikes and didn’t have much in his backpack. She turned away from the window and wiped her forehead with a cloth.

Christina ignored the butterflies in her stomach. She knew she shouldn’t invite him into her tent, but there was no harm in sharing dinner with him, she thought. She knew he was hungry as he refused her offer to share her lunch. Sighing, she put on her Phillies hat, grabbed the bread and a can of stew, and left the tent.

Luke had surrounded the small fire with loose rock found on the trail. He sat on a small boulder with another one positioned in front of him. Christina opened the can and set it on a rock just inside the fire.

“Come sit down next to me,” Luke said pointing to the rock by his knees. “I’ll rub your shoulders.”

Christina’s heart pounded in her ears as she sat down in front of Luke. He immediately started kneading her aching shoulders with powerful, confident hands.

Christina found herself relaxing under the warmth of his touch. He massaged up her neck and down her upper arms. She felt the burden of the trail lifting. The sun slipped behind the distant mountains as Christina and Luke shared stew and bread and discussed the Philadelphia Phillies.

As the insects began their nightly song, Christina asked the question that had been troubling her. “Where are you headed, Luke?”

“Oh,” Luke stammered. “The Appalachian Trail crosses through a town where I’m meeting friends.”

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“But you seem unfamiliar with this trail,” she said.

“No,” he said. “I just haven’t seen these guys since high school. I’ve been away at college.”

As the full moon came up to fill the night sky, the forest began to glow. Christina went to the stream to wash utensils and brush her teeth.

“No need for flashlights tonight,” Christina told Luke over her shoulder. While she was washing her face with a cloth, Luke dashed past her and splashed into the crystal clear water.

“Waahoo!” He yelled. “The water’s refreshing after a day’s hike.” He stared at Christina’s startled face, as she realized he was naked. His eyes shone brightly in the moonlight. He flashed a dazzling smile her way. “This is the best way to wash yourself Christina. Take off your clothes and join me.” He splashed her.

Christina’s heart started racing once again, but this time it was from fear.

She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, remembering Luke’s powerful hands massaging her shoulders. His mighty six-foot frame filled her vision, standing in thighdeep water. Christina’s mind went back to the confrontation she had had with her father and his mention of beasts lurking in the forest. She had thought all the wild animals ran on four legs and were hairy on the outside. Not true, Christina, she thought. She took off her Phillies’ hat as she slowly backed up the bank of the stream, remembering how you shouldn’t run from wild animals. They’ll think you want to play and chase you.

“Wait,” she said, thinking that this wild animal may be more cunning than others. “Let me go get my towel first.”

“You don’t need a towel,” Luke called, strutting out of the water. “I’ll keep you warm.” He reached for her.

Turning her face from Luke’s nakedness, Christina stepped out of his grip and said, “I won’t come in unless I have my towel to dry off. It’s right in the tent.” She darted inside the tent.

The cacophony of insects was deafening, yet she could still hear her heart pounding. She reached inside her pack for her father’s tranquilizer gun as Luke pounced on her from behind. Feeling his male hardness jabbing her back, Christina’s hand closed around the gun. Luke ripped at her clothes as she swung around and belted him across the face with the pack. The aluminum rack gashed his cheek and he fell back against the side of the tent.

“Sorry,” Christina found herself saying as Luke dabbed his wound. “My father taught me never to provoke wild animals.” She pointed the gun at his nakedness. “I just never thought about the ones on two legs.” The moonlight filled the tent. She watched Luke’s eyes fix on the gun barrel.

“Hey, Christina,” he said in a jovial voice. “We had a fun day. Let’s not mess it up with murder.”

“Or rape,” she heard herself say. “Leave my tent.”

“Okay,” he said turning to leave.

Christina watched as he grabbed for the sleeping bag she was on. “I wouldn’t,” she said evenly. “I’m a crack shot.” Raising the gun, she said, “Want me to show you?”

Luke immediately tumbled out of the tent. Christina followed. She knew to watch wild animals until they were out of sight. Luke moved to his clothes and pack.

After he was dressed, he turned to look at her still perched on the rock in front of her tent.

“Better?” He said.

“Yes,” she responded. “Now, go to sleep.”

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“Yes, mother,” he retorted. He stretched out on his mat with his head and shoulders against his pack. “What are you going to do,” he asked, “watch me all night?”

“No,” she said. “Goodnight,” and she shot the tranquilizer into his thigh. He let out a yell, but Christina knew he’d be all right. Her father had told her the dosage was for a two-hundred-pound cat. Luke came inside that range. Christina had between three and four hours to rest. It would be dawn by then and Luke should be up. She would break camp and begin the final leg of her journey to her Grandmother’s house right before dawn. It would be bright enough.

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You play with my small worries about big things. How I don’t think I want to be the woman who just flipped on a light in her twelfth floor apartment.

It’s after midnight, an arid burning in her chest to finish law briefs.

I suspect I may be useless like the Little Prince’s flower, some sickness forcing me to search for seeds of buried beauty.

Otherwise, I don’t know what I am doing.

Men walk by like generals who know why they are here.

They are going to the towers.

I don’t think I’ll leave this shadow or this wooden dampness. I will sit and wait for daytime, when ugly dogs jar with the grass and rats curl up in trashcans.

You wait with me for things you somehow trust I see.

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Two exams have stretched my mind d thi thin lik like an elastic l ti ttrash h bag hair tangled and wrangling in protest, there I am hidden, covertly, in a sweatshirt that is devouring me like a whale with three hours of sleep drawing down my plain eyelids face pale from pencils and pens keeping me up at night a glimpse of myself in a store window shows me a stranger I pray no one else sees I quickly tap out the rhythm of everyday traffic the chill of Philadelphia wind really makes me dance and as I rush to cross the street before the light signals a stampede of Chryslers and Hondas to forward march over my weak frame I see her.

Sharp intake of breath. Heart races. Eyes widen.

My lips part slightly to acknowledge my awe flowing or floating freely careless, carefree, not a care in the world.

Legs, the slightest tease, a wayward suggestion of what’s under that oh-so-full skirt slender, creamy, graceful like a porcelain doll hair pulled back, with delicate waves in well constructed strands, intermingling ringlets.

A loosely fitted chignon a smile, but only just the slightest hint, painted on her mouth.

Her eyes smug with beauty but that coat oh, that coat, how I long for it with every bit of my tattered self-image.

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To be in that coat, to feel its folds unfolding around my creamy, graceful, slender, porcelain-doll legs.

To have it hug my waist as it so lovingly embraces hers, cinched in the small of her back with the most beautiful bow I have ever seen.

That bow ties back the long, shiny hair of a Victorian child in her elegant parlor It’s fitted on gowns of extravagance, beneath a cascade of jewels, at a masquerade ball.

It decorates a Nutcracker-sized Christmas tree, lit up with gold and silver light.

Centuries go by and still it remains, on the small of her back, today others may let it slide may not notice.

But I, I who feels not a single thing of beauty on this bleak Wednesday morning I know her secret.

That coat is power, it’s confidence, it’s class, it’s female.

And I know when she puts it on and looks in the mirror not even a stampede of ugly Chryslers and Hondas could trample her delicate frame.

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take it from me, kid summer saw your puppy shot; he was flicker you were jane fell in love with johnny liked jane’s hair one day jane got fat. johnny didn’t like jane any more please sir i want sommmmemore; dick ens nev er got his soup i lost my self. they said it couldn’t be done i’m full of surprises 36

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Picture a magazine stand. What catches your eye? Is it the interesting articles? The latest news? Probably none of the above. Magazines generally attract us through images—flashy, provocative, colorful pictures. If it’s a celebrity on the cover, even better. Given Jessica Simpson’s cleavage or genocide in Sudan, chances are we’ll pick up the magazine with the buxom blonde on the cover.

Women’s magazines run the spectrum—from parenting to gardening, shopping to shagging, and feminist to non-feminist. Some magazines avoid claims to either end in order to attract the widest audience. For example, the magazine Bust does not use the word “feminist” in its title, its slogan, or anywhere on the cover. The headlines have nothing to do with women’s independence, and the cover photo is an attractive, popular celebrity. However, open up the pages and you will find articles about modern women’s rights activists, domestic violence, and political women. It stays true to its slogan: “Bust: For Women with Something to Get Off Their Chests.”

Its readers may call it an “inspiration,” or an “empowering, thought-provoking, and celebratory magazine,” but none of its articles mention the word “feminist.”1 Because Bust has not made any feminist claims, it is able to publish bimonthly, glossy-page, celebrity-endorsed issues.

This is not the case with Bitch, another women’s magazine. The magazine proves that it has nothing to hide or be sneaky about—its title is “bitch”, a generally derogatory term for an outspoken woman, who has opinions and isn’t afraid to express them. Instead of taking offense from the term, Bitch encourages women to be complimented by the word. By taking ownership of the term, Bitch editors claim, “it loses its power to hurt us.” Not only is its title bold, but its slogan is “Feminist Response to Pop Culture.” Even the magazine editors admit that using “feminist” as a primary descriptor is “risky business.” However, one of the magazine’s main goals is to show people that feminists are not man-hating ‘femi-nazis.’ Finding, and even making, more “girl-friendly places in the mass media,” is integral to Bitch’s mission. Most importantly, though, the editors ensure their readers that “We feminists know how to have a fucking good time.”2 Such “risky business” and straightforward feminist claims don’t win Bitch celebrities and glossy pages. The non-profit magazine only has glossy color pages for its front and back covers; the remainder of the magazine’s black-and-white pages is printed on plain white paper. In its ten years of existence, the magazine has never had a 38

photograph of a person, let alone a celebrity, on its cover.

Given these brief profiles of Bitch and Bust, what does their success and makeup mean for women’s magazines? It seems like a women’s magazine cannot be genuinely feminist while also considered “successful,” well known, and glamorous.

However, this is not so. Ms. magazine, the original feminist magazine has effectively incorporated all of these characteristics.

Ms. was founded by Gloria Steinem in 1971. According to Ms.’ s website, it was launched as a one-time insert in New York magazine, with no expectations of becoming such a landmark institution of the women’s rights movement in the US. Of course, it helped that the founders of the magazine were also the women who shaped contemporary feminism. They were former writers and editors of other magazines, so they brought experience to the new publication. According to founding editor Letty Cottin Porgrebin, the authors of Ms. translated “a movement into a magazine.” Its first regular issue flew off the newsstands in July 1972, selling out 300,000 test copies in eight days. Within weeks, Ms. received over 20,000 reader letters, and 26,000 subscription orders.

Ms. was revolutionary. Not only was it the first feminist magazine, but people also liked it. Ms. was the first magazine in the US to “make feminist voices audible, feminist journalism tenable, and a feminist worldview available to the public.”

It touched upon some very sensitive subjects: Ms. explained and supported the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), demanded reproductive rights for all women, put “domestic violence and sexual harassment on the cover of a women’s magazine,” rated presidential candidates according to their stance on women’s issues, and even spoke of advertising’s excessive influence on the magazine world.

For women, Ms. “established a kinship on basis of gender,” reminding its readers that they are women first, before any race, class or other demographic. The magazine sought a diverse female audience, but even more, it reflected the “interest of all its diverse readers in the belief that what was shared was womanhood . . . shared commonalities.”3 Not only does the magazine reflect the activism and passion of its editors, it also attracts active participation of its readers.

Some critics have said that the founding editors were not representative of the women that Ms. saw as its readers, and were out of touch with those they wanted as subscribers.4 Clearly, this has not greatly affected the fiscal success of the magazine, or its general popularity and visibility. Ms. attempted early on to sell feminism through celebrities, and has gained that personality appeal.5 It underwent ownership changes a few times, and is currently published by the Feminist Majority Foundation. Ms. continues to be recognized nationally and internationally as the media source for women’s issues of politics, society, and the feminist movement.

However, Ms. isn’t that popular. The best-selling magazine today is Cosmopolitan. Not only is it the most popular women’s magazine for women, it’s also read by men. Cosmo doesn’t claim to be feminist, but it does it encourage women to be sexually liberated. Celebrities always adorn the cover, and the magazine is filled with pages of provocative advertisements. With its slogan of “Fun, Fearless Female” on the spine of every issue, Cosmo tells women to speak up about their sexuality, especially to their partners.

Unfortunately, Cosmo’s message of embracing one’s passions and sexual drive is often read: “embrace your inner slut.” Critics, such as famed New York Times columnist and author Maureen Dowd, claim that the “man crazy, sex-obsessed image” is “endlessly, tiresomely replicated.”6 This is apparent when comparing the tables of contents from several issues—each issue begins with scandalous tell-all stories from 39

readers about their recent naughty sexual adventures. Next are some fashion and beauty tips, as well as the sex position of the month. But the real “meat” comes in the feature articles: pleasing men with “His Secret Sex Cravings,” all-around sex tips with “Pleasure Maxing Positions,” and of course, the issue wouldn’t be complete without an article about the big “O,” this time titled “Take Your Climax to the Max.” The contents of Cosmo are trite and predictable. Every two or three issues repeat the same pattern, recycling the same sex tips and stories. Of course, there are columns about career, diet, beauty, money . . . but really, who reads those anyway?

Cosmo is about sex, and everyone knows it. Keeping in mind that Cosmo is also the most popular magazine on newsstands, what does this say about American women?

Does this mean that all women really want is a good sex tip every once in a while? Or do readers truly read the entire magazine, “for the articles,” as they say about Playboy?

Does Cosmo go against feminism? Or does it merely offer a more candid and honest examination of sex?

In 1993 Cosmo made a clear, post-feminist claim: “Struggle is out: Sexiness and power are in.”7 Again, this is a very appealing proposition to women—it avoids using the shameful “f-word,” but makes a bold slogan for what many modern members of the movement would like Feminism to be. Perhaps the magazine serves as a “quasifeminist cheerleader,” urging women towards greater achievements, while still wanting to please everyone. The Cosmo brand of feminism is “safe for women who love men and sex . . . want economic success . . . wear makeup and buy clothes . . . [and] want to use resources to better their lives.”8 That combination has clearly proven to be a formula for success.

In all of the magazines mentioned, images prove to be one of the most important factors to each one’s success. Images form a reader’s first impression of a magazine. Women’s feminist magazines have the difficult job of appealing to readers, while still portraying women in an honest light. Humans tend to rely too much on images to dictate how we should look and advertisements only contribute to the problem. Often, women will construct their definitions of femininity by comparing unnatural images and ideals to themselves.9 An obsession with feminine beauty has caused what many see as an American “narcissism” that has “trumped American feminism.”10 Not only do the unrealistically attractive images dictate an ideal beauty, they also dictate female sexuality. Advertisements support the myth that women can have a mind or a body, but not both. Female models are often made to pose as submissive, childlike, and devalued, filling stereotypical sex roles.11 A semiotic analysis of a series of advertisements in Seventeen magazine reveals some startling statistics: 56% of the ads studied featured subordination in physical postures, such as a bashful knee bend; 22% of ads featured independence or self-assurance, in which the model was looking directly at the camera lens; many others had a confident gaze but a submissive position; 22% of ads portrayed sexuality as a symbol of power, featuring a confident gaze and overtly sexual dress or posture; and 37% of models were completely or partially nude.

The advertisements send mixed messages—independent and confident gazes along with subordinate postures.12 Recent trends in popular culture show that beauty and sexuality translate to power and independence to control one’s own life, even if one doesn’t understand one’s sexuality. Teenage girls see these ads and in turn exaggerate their sexuality, perpetuating the idea that they are powerless without relying on their sexuality.13 However, many modern feminists feel similarly. Shedding a positive light on the idea, a reader can interpret the ads to encourage self-confidence in her beauty and sexuality.

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The images remain perfect and unrealistic, which can send the message that unless a woman’s body is perfect like a model’s body, she can never be as confident and powerful as the model.

The author who conducted the advertisement study suggests that the magazine culture has the “potential to evolve if audiences value images of independent and confident models rather than the traditional myths of female subordination and objectification.” If teens become more media-literate, they will not be as vulnerable to the ads’ insecurities. Although ads are not the only influence in consumerism, their “multi-media presence makes them ubiquitous in society.” If we purchase different magazines with less stereotypical ads, the images inside will follow changes with purchasing.14 A handful of companies have already caught on. Dove, a brand of beauty and skincare products by Unilever®, has launched their “Campaign for Real Beauty,” featuring advertisements that show women in sizes 6, 8, and 10. While the campaign is still a way to sell products, its mission statement on the brand’s website is encouraging: For too long, beauty has been defined by narrow, stifling stereotypes. Women have told us it’s time to change all that. Dove agrees. We believe real beauty comes in many shapes, sizes and ages.

That is why Dove is launching the Campaign for Real Beauty. Dove’s global Campaign for Real Beauty aims to change the status quo and offer in its place a broader, healthier, more democratic view of beauty. A view of beauty that all women can own and enjoy everyday. 15 Nike is another brand that has begun to combat the stereotypical, flawless image. Their campaign, titled “Big Butts, Thunder Thighs, and Tomboy Knees,” asserts, “strong, imperfect bodies are both desired and desirable bodies.”16 Critics of the ads call them unoriginal, saying that Nike has essentially copied Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign.

Other criticisms accuse the ads of not being realistic enough; however, at least Nike is doing something. Millions of people will see these ads every day—their efforts, although seen by many as inadequate, are better than doing nothing at all. Dove and Nike are moving in the right direction.

Ads are an important part of magazines, but they are by no means the reason that we read them. There is substance in all magazines, even if it is a predictable article about four “life-changing” sex positions. The images we see do not equal politics and material change—it is “just” pop culture. The media use sophisticated adaptations of feminism for their own purposes; however, these adaptations should be taken as a compliment to the feminist movement. Image is not everything. Although it can, and has, contributed to the feminist political struggle, it is not a substitute.17 Endnotes 1

Stoller, Debbie, pub & ed. Bust. Oct-Nov 2005. 8.

Fudge, Rachel, contributing ed. Bitch. Summer 2005. 4.

3 Bradley, Patricia. Mass Media and the Shaping of American Feminism, 1963-1975. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2005. 176.

4 Bradley, 171.

5 Dow, Bonnie J. Prime-Time Feminism. University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, 1996. 209.

6 Dowd, Maureen. “What’s a Modern Girl to Do?” The New York Times. Oct. 30, 2005. 10.

2

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7

McDonald, Myra. Representing Women: Myths of Femininity and the Popular Media. Edward Arnold: New York, 1995. 172.

8 McDonald, 172.

9 Gorman, Frances E. “Advertising Images of Females in Seventeen: Positions of Power or Powerless Positions?”

Media Report to Women. Silver Springs: Winter 2005. Vol. 33, p. 2 10 Dowd, 11.

11 Gorman, 2.

12 Gorman, 4-5.

13 Gorman, 2.

14 Gorman, 3-6.

15 “Dove Campaign for Real Beauty.” <http://www.campaignforrealbeauty.com supports.asp?section=&id=94> 16 Jervis, Lisa, pub., Bitch. Fall 2005. 16.

17 Dow, 214-215.

42

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w i l l i a m s

I’m going to have ugly feet when I get old.

They will be thick with veins and one or two knuckle joints that grow proportionally out of place.

My nails will shrink down and warp like yellow paper and my pinky toe will become even more like an accident.

A fat slug.

A freakish appendix.

Maybe I will have a daughter then, to look at my feet the way I look at my mother’s, to see the shoes I’ve worn the corners I have stood on.

See generations of arches and heels, the millennia of footprints in her soles.

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Mom grew up the daughter of a business owner on Long Island as he commuted every day into Manhattan. Her mother won all the golf tournaments at the country club, with a collection of engraved silver platters to prove it. She had a mammy named Fanny who served them dinner. She was a cheerleader with perfectly straight hair.

Dad grew up in Brooklyn as the middle child and passed his time taking apart radios and putting them back together. The school board said he was smarter than his classmates, so he skipped the 3rd and 8th grades. He got A’s without trying, but he was two years behind in everything else.

I inherited the straight hair from my mom and the penchant for being late from my dad.

“So, I saw Emmy Frank the other day with her mother.” My mom places the mashed potatoes on the trivet and refolds her napkin. “She looks different, a lot older.

Filled out over the summer. Have you noticed?”

“How could she notice? She’s too short to see over the desk!” My brother’s shoulders bounce up and down in his chair. I look past his face out the bay windows.

“Evan—that’s not nice. We’re at the dinner table.” She pushes her hair behind her ear. She picks up her fork with perfectly manicured fingers.

“Um, I don’t know. Mom, I don’t really want to talk about that right now.” I tap my fork on my plate watching each time the metal meets the china. I re-cross my hairless legs under the table.

“First, the hips widen,” my dad laughs from the head of the table as his hands spread outward in the air above his cauliflower. Uncontrollable laughter erupts from my brother’s chair; a hushed giggle from my mom’s.

“Dad!” I shout across the table. I tighten the muscles in my face attempting to stifle the redness I feel brewing.

“Oh come on, Al, don’t be so serious. It’s just science!”

I press my face close to the stair railing so I can hear my parents’ conversation in the kitchen downstairs.

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“Do you think she needs to see someone?” My mom’s voice floats up through the foyer.

“Vic, she’s just a late bloomer. Just like I was.”

“Peter, it’s more than that. I’m being serious.” There is confidence in her voice, like the time she told the cell phone company that it was their fault my phone broke after I dropped it in a sink full of water. “There is something wrong with her, you weren’t this late.” A clattering of silverware.

“Sure I was. Did you know me when I was fourteen? They’re gonna take some tests, freak her out, and give her some BS growth hormone they’ve approved for little girls who are just little. You’re overreacting. Give her another year or so.”

“I’m taking her to see someone.” My mom stacks the plates from dinner and clicks on the faucet.

I get up slowly, so they don’t know I’m listening and not doing my Algebra homework. The carpet itches my bare feet as I walk down the hall to my room.

My orange Johns Hopkins patient card sits in my lap in the pediatric endocrinology wing. There are two notches on the side, one for each time I’ve been to the hospital. Until I went to get X-rays of my growth plates a month before, I hadn’t returned to the hospital since the day I was born. The walls are painted in a planes, trains, and automobiles theme and the receptionist talks to me like I’m five years old.

“And how are we doing today? Take a sticker, hon.”

Dr. Plotnick calls my mom and me into her office like we’re old friends. Her turtle-shell gray hair doesn’t move when she nods and shakes my hand. The white paper crinkles loudly as I use the step stool to reach the exam table. She has a sugary smile on her face, one that’s supposed to say, ‘I see lots of girls every day here, so you can trust me. We’re just going to talk a little bit, ok?’ My eyes go directly to the Biohazard box on the wall, full of used syringes.

“So, I’ve looked over your growth curves.” She folds out three pages of gray graph paper from my file. I swing my legs out in front of me and watch as my knee joint opens and closes, opens and closes. “Well here’s where you are right now. 30th percentile for height. 20th percentile for weight.” She points to a black dot in the sea of pink curves like I’m supposed to know what that means. My mom opens her mouth to say something, but purses her lips together and shakes her head instead.

“Now, Alexandra, here are the growth curves for girls your age. Have you seen something like this before?”

I fold my lower lip into my mouth and press my teeth into it. The speckled tile floor bobs up and down as I nod my head.

“Now the early curve is in red, the middle curve in black, and the late curve in green.” The tip of her closed pen clicks out as she traces the bell shapes in the air. My mom reaches her hand up to touch my ankle but I move my leg to the left.

“Your bone age scan says your body is twelve even though we know you’re fourteen. You’re following the same pattern as the late curve … just two years later. We could make a new color for yours, maybe purple? Wouldn’t that be nice!” Dr. Plotnick and my mom chuckle as I stare out the window at the dilapidated buildings below.

I redress into my school uniform alone in the white exam room—my oversized gown crumpled on the floor. The skirts I wear are still sized by age like children’s clothing. I notice the tag labeled “size 12” for the first time.

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“How was your day?” My dad reaches down to pop the front trunk of his sportscar.

“Umm … Ok.” I fold myself into the low seat and click on the radio.

“Mom said you went to Hopkins today. How was that?”

I look at him as he shifts into second gear. I want him to tell me he understands, that he’s been there too. I want to tell him Mom doesn’t get it and I feel like I’m a problem she has to fix before her perfect friends find out. I want to tell him I overheard their conversation the other night. I want him to tell me he loves me no matter what.

“It was fine. I’m fine.”

The engine tumbled into rhythm and the grey birches swam by my open window.

When it turned out I didn’t need growth hormone, I pushed back the angry lump in my throat that wanted to scream “I told you so” at my Mom. Instead, she never knew how I thought of the notches on my patient card as an act of daughterly failure.

As if I’d done it just to spite her high school cheerleading uniform. My days were full of school, ballet classes, and spearmint snowballs. And a compulsive punctuality to make up for my body’s desire to stay young. My child’s size skirts itched me when I walked between the cafeteria and the belltower and the vending machines and gym class. And the Laura Ashley floral sheets I slept in matched the Laura Ashley floral wallpaper in my bathroom. Soon, the itch sank away over crossword puzzles and college applications. I never heard from Dr. Plotnick again.

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I. Post 9-11, she’s lost.

Losing her children one by one: John by gun shot, Judas by abortion, and Jesus by suicide.

The world has a tendency to die around her.

II. Round finger tips blistered by rough factory work.

She conveyer-belt assembles computer parts, parting with death and bringing forth artificial life as she works for minimum wage to support the needs of a miniscule life. Purchasing happiness, equality, Democracy.

Demon. Crazy.

Her demons have driven her crazy.

She fears fat, old age, terror, herself. So she paints on a mask and exposes her body to the world.

Because that’s what girls do.

Because that’s what whores do.

Because.

She wanted to be an actress.

High-school-drop-out-homeless-runaway smiles 49

weren’t enough to get her the role of teenage junkie; Producers said she was overunder-qualified.

III. She qualifies for food stamps.

For Medicaid.

For Section 8 housing but the government denies her A name.

And so she fucks street-corner-commissioned boys because there are no men left to whisper and remind her of her name.

IV. Post 9-11, she finds herself lost, Turns to Genesis and reads, “I am Alpha and Omega,” and then proclaims, “I am the beginning and the end.”

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d a d d a r i o

There is a reason why geese fly v-form above wheat fields in Autumn dusk. It is because loneliness is a very unsafe place. Nocuous is the word I think of as I recognize you in a Chelsea coffee shop and mount my defense.

Right now I need a battalion with heavy artillery to burst out of the espresso machine and obliterate our memories so I can order a non-fat, extra foam latte in peace.

My guys are equipped to launch rockets into our weekends at the beach house and plop grenades into all the martinis sipped between your apartment and mine. I want them to hold hostage those windows open, music blasting, eating very bad take-out kind of summer nights.

And everyone would raise arms the day we stopped knowing each other. The day I could pass you on the E train going downtown and only care that I don’t see a rat before I can finish my breakfast.

I’ve built a bunker behind my local Barista.

When your only friends are the one-trillion light bulbs in Times Square you are well acquainted with darkness.

There is only one condiment kiosk in this entire store and we are both advancing forward towards the sugar substitute.

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I propaganda my life into some dazzling party, but who really cares anyway?

A small orphaned child places a bouquet against the relationship Kremlin that holds all our dates. And as I push open the heavy store door, I hope silently that you do not play trumpets in your victory or send a thousand red balloons into the sky.

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Criteria for Examination Considering the multitude of variables opposing Michelle Bachelet, it seems miraculous that she was even nominated for candidacy, let alone actually won a presidential election. However, rather than examining how Bachelet won the Chilean presidency in 2006, I will examine how media reacted to Bachelet’s campaign. I will specifically look for gender neutrality versus gender bias of the words used to describe the candidates and I will examine the impact of Bachelet’s gender on the way she has been treated by the media. In cases where it is difficult to determine whether Bachelet’s gender portrayal is neutral or not, I will pose the question: “Would the journalist say the same thing if Bachelet were a man?”

Media Portrayal: How a feminine portrayal of Bachelet helped her campaign I examined ten articles from a variety of news sources (both international and national) and a variety of journalistic perspectives (both female and male). Though there were some slight variances, all ten articles addressed Michelle Bachelet’s three personalities: the underdog, the caretaker, and the intellectual. The more genderneutral articles focused on Bachelet’s intellect while the more gender-biased articles highlighted Bachelet’s caretaking personality.

Bachelet as an underdog Thanks to her fascinating history and the countless obstacles that she overcame while growing up, Bachelet benefited from increased media attention over her opponents. With headlines like: “Michelle Bachelet: the exile who rose to the top,”1 and “Female, Agnostic and the Next Presidente?”2 the media portrayed Bachelet as an underdog who had conquered the odds and who was empowered with the strength to put up a tough campaign. Bachelet used this media coverage to her advantage; rather than endorsing the heroine image, she would humbly proclaim, “You know that I have 54

not had an easy life, but who has had an easy life?”3 Even Bachelet’s campaign slogan, Estoy Contigo (“I’m with you”) implied that Bachelet wanted to be portrayed as an equal with her constituents and intended to serve the needs of her constituents while in office.4 On the contrary, her opponent, billionaire Sebastián Piñera, embodied an image of superiority that distanced him from the average Chilean citizen.

Bachelet as a caretaker Throughout the campaign, the media often used “warm and fuzzy” vocabulary to describe Bachelet. In fact, Bachelet herself worked hard to maintain and promote a maternal image: “After losing considerable weight in recent years, she famously joked that she should probably stop. If she didn’t, she said, ‘Chileans would have lost the mother they have been seeking.’”5 Along with seeing Bachelet as a mother, Chileans also considered her a friend: “When Chileans talk of their president, they refer to her intimately—she’s always ‘Michelle.’”6 Although ‘Michelle’ is on a first-name basis with her constituency, journalists are smart enough to refer to her professional title: President Bachelet. Unlike coverage in the United States, where journalists refer to “Hillary” and “Laura” and “Elizabeth” on a colloquial basis, international media has made sure to remain politically correct.

Bachelet’s caretaking persona and her “soothing, sensible demeanor,”7 stem from her background as a pediatrician, the Minister of Health, and the Minister of Defense—three positions that involve care and protection. Journalists have noted her “gentle, almost consciously maternal” style “as befits one who worked as a pediatrician.”8 However, like a minister of defense, she strongly stands her ground. Journalists note that Bachelet is “absolutely honest” and an “ardent feminist” who is not afraid to stand up to a “hidebound nation in love with machismo.”9 Bachelet’s ability to speak her mind while still maintaining friendships with her colleagues demonstrates her potential to mend a government with a corrupt past. She is a strong maternal “symbol of healing in a country long divided by ideology, class and competing versions of tumultuous recent history.”10 Even though Bachelet grew up under a military regime and was forced into exile, “her difficult past has given her determination and warmth, not bitterness.”11 Bachelet reflects on the past that has helped her grow strong: “Violence entered my life, destroying what I loved. Because I was a victim of hate, I have dedicated my life to turn that hate into understanding, into tolerance and, why not say it, into love.”12 The media seems hopeful that Bachelet will be able to improve Chile’s foreign relations and ease tensions among Latin American countries. This hope is rooted in her passion to promote change, her “evident ability to connect with people,”13 and her preference for free-flowing conversation over rigid speeches. Some commentators even look to Bachelet as a potential “interlocutor between the feuding Bush and Chávez camps.”14

Bachelet as an intellect Although Bachelet’s personality and heart make her an appealing leader, her personality is not the sole reason for her strength as a candidate. Bachelet’s intellect brought her into government in the first place. A former surgeon, pediatrician, and epidemiologist, a polyglot (she speaks Spanish, English, German, French and Portuguese), a former Minister of Health and the first female Latin American Minister of Defense, Bachelet is a talented, intelligent woman. Although the majority of articles cite Bachelet’s impressive background, they generally indicate that the election was a 55

popularity contest, with the friendly Bachelet beating out arrogant Piñera. Fortunately, former President Lagos proudly affirms, “Bachelet won the election because of her merits, her intelligence.”15 Evaluation: Gender neutral or gender-based media coverage?

In my media investigation, it was hard to determine the media’s degree of gender bias because Bachelet herself emphasized gender-specific qualities to appeal to her constituents. During her campaign, gender had a “powerful undercurrent.” She distributed promotional materials that primarily depicted faces of women and children and was always open to sharing information about her personal life. Media coverage of Bachelet was considerably gender-biased; however, it seemed to be under Bachelet’s control—she knew when to play the gender card and she knew when to focus on the issues. When confronted withquestions about her attire or relationship status, Bachelet would set the journalist straight. Responding to a Chilean reporter who asked whether Bachelet would ever marry again, Bachelet bluntly responded, “you wouldn’t be asking that question if I was a man.”17 As a candidate, Bachelet did not want her constituency to look for her guidance on womanly matters; however, she did want her constituency to view her as an underdog, a “symbol of change” and “a candidate from outside the male political elite.”16 Bachelet understood that her country needed healing and showed that she was prepared to take on the role of caretaker.

Endnotes 1

Alexander, Lesley. “Michelle Bachelet: the Exile Who Rose to the Top.” EuroNews. 16 January 2007. 3 March 2007. <http://michelle-bachelet-news.newslib.com/story/6200-3195723/>.

2 Reel, Monte. “Female, Agnostic and the Next Presidente?” The Washington Post. 10 December 2005. 2 March 2007. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/09/AR2005120902040.html>.

3 Reel, Monte. “Chile Elects First Female President.” The Washington Post. 16 January 2006. 2. March 2007. <http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/chile/bachelet-elected.htm>.

4 Reel, “Female, Agnostic and the Next Presidente?” 2.

5 Valenzuela, Sebastián. “Madam or Mr. President?” University of Texas at Austin. 30 April 2007. <http://lanic.utexas.edu/project/etext/llilas/ilassa/2007/valenzuela.pdf>. 4.

6 Powers, John. “A Woman of the People.” Vogue. May 2006. 1-4. 3 March 2007. 3.

7 Powers, 2.

8 Reel, “Chile Elects First Female President.” 2.

9 Powers, 2.

10 Reel, “Female, Agnostic and the Next Presidente?” 3.

11 Reel, “Female, Agnostic and the Next Presidente?” 2.

12 Reel, “Chile Elects First Female President.” 3.

13 Alexander, 2.

14 Jeffries, Craig. “Welcome Madam Chilean President to Washington.” Council on Hemispheric Affairs. 7 June 2006. 1-4. 30 April 2007. <http://www.coha.org/2006/06/07/welcome-madam-chilean-president-towashington/>. 2.

15 Anderson, Steve. “Bachelet Wins Election to Become First Female President.” Santiago Times. 16 January 2006, 1-3. 2 March 2007. <http://www.santiagotimes.cl/santiagotimes/?nav=story& story_id=10585&topic_ id=1>. 2.

16 Espíndola, Roberto. “Chile’s New Era.” 16 January 2006. 1-4. 2 March 2007.<http://64.233.169.104/ search?q=cache:Ys7jgwXOCw0J:www.opendemocracy.net/democracy-protest/chile_election_3181.

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It wasn’t rape. There’s not enough space in a bathroom stall to rape someone even if you wanted to. And I couldn’t report it, I was drunk at the time and being a freshman, I was definitely underage. But as he unbuttoned his jeans and pushed me down on my knees in that filthy stall, all the alcohol in the world couldn’t numb my unbridled disgust, shame—and overpowering fear.

My first night out clubbing with my dance team and I couldn’t find matching earrings. I even stressed about it at the after-party—what if people noticed it in the pictures that would be on Facebook tomorrow? But my pressing worries vanished when a suave senior I had noticed sauntered up behind me and commented, “Nice earrings.” He may have looked attractive in the dark of the house party. I’m not sure, the liquor won’t let me recall the details. Our conversation remains hazy as well—I think he introduced himself as the President of Ohio.

At the time, I thought he was hilarious.

He offered to walk me home and at some point, I found myself stumbling down Locust, giggling and hiccupping on his arm. My hands couldn’t manage the key to my dorm room so he helped me unlock it. As I turned to go inside, he grabbed my arm and stopped me.

“I walked you all the way home, what will you give me?”

I laughed nervously, “How about a hug?”

“No, I think you know what I should get…”

I couldn’t stop his hands, they were reaching too far. The stubble on his chin was scraping soft skin that had never seen daylight.

“Wait…”

I tried.

“Don’t worry, I won’t hurt you,” he whispered.

My roommate was sleeping and the closest room he could see was the communal bathroom across the hall. I don’t know what level of inebriation allowed me to let myself be dragged in there but there I was, on my knees, crying and afraid he would hurt me.

I woke up with a splitting headache and as I pieced together drunken memories of last night’s event, I could do nothing but slowly peel off my stained clothes 58

and stumble into a shower. Tears mingled with the soap sliding down my face. By the time the water turned cold, I had put up the most classic of defenses: I blocked the night completely from my memory. For all intensive purposes, I had walked home alone. And the President of Ohio? We had never met. Not even at the next party I saw him at, talking to another unsuspecting young girl. Nothing had happened, nothing had changed, I had done nothing wrong.

Except now, months later, I flinch whenever a guy gives me a friendly hug.

If you or someone you know has experienced an episode of sexual assault, please direct them to a place of guidance—Penn Women’s Center. They need help, they need to talk. http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/pwc/main2.html For more information: http://www.vpul.upenn.edu/ohe/library/violence/rape-info.htm

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My sister and I used to think it was possible to talk to the dead via under-the-pillow communication à la the tooth fairy.

We left letters for our grandmother and asked her “What was your favorite ice cream flavor? Did you believe in God? Do you watch us all the time, even when we eat off the floor or go to the bathroom?”

Then we slept with the weight of our world beneath our heads.

Every morning when we woke up, the notes were gone. In their place were small, ceramic owls.

Two weeks later, mom revealed herself.

They were my mother’s, and she would want you to keep them.

So we did.

I was disappointed – I thought we had found a direct dial to her ghost but it turns out there’s no shortcut to Elsewhere.

It was only last year dad told me the one time he and mom got in a real, balls-out, yelling shouting screaming fuck you fight, he didn’t know what she was so mad about until it was over, when she said “There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about my mother.”

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What started in shouting ended in quiet and then he knew.

When I packed for college I left the owls at home.

I already had enough baggage.

On my first visit home I told my mom I missed her—does that mean I’m not independent? I asked, “Do you ever get too old to miss your mother?”

And she said no, I still miss my mother.

I felt too old and too young at the same time.

There was nothing else to say.

I almost told her that there’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about her.

But I felt it wasn’t my place to miss her that much.

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Modern feminists face a very tough task: deciphering the future of the movement and securing its success. The feminist movement has undoubtedly been responsible for several major accomplishments, including voting rights, economic independence, property rights, and equal educational opportunities.1 Its positive effect on marriage and the family is shown through women’s increasing choices: “to become a mother or not; to stay at home with the children or work outside the home; to have an undemanding job or climb the career ladder.”2 In the workplace, large numbers of women are becoming high-powered executives or serving in public office. Through that, they have “succeeded in dismantling laws that once prevented women from obtaining credit, divorce, control over their own bodies, and equal access to jobs and housing.”3 Despite all of these significant accomplishments, many think that the movement has only made negative contributions. Some critics contend that, as a result of the movement, many women must now “sacrifice their personal lives” to survive in today’s competitive workplace, “either by choosing not to have families or by severely restricting the time spent with their families.” Instead of having merely domestic duties, enough of a burden alone, feminism’s indirect addition of a demanding career has doubled women’s workloads.4 Likewise, critics say that the movement’s “attacks” on marriage harm the family. Children traditionally benefit from a two-parent family, and many women want the “emotional intimacy and economic security of marriage.”5 Yet at the apparent expense of marriage and children, feminism has encouraged women to pursue their careers, which in turn has “stifled” their personal lives. This leads them to neglect family, the one aspect of women’s lives that has traditionally been most important.6 Conservatives magnify these “faults” of the movement as they portray feminists as crazed, radical liberals who want to destroy the “sanctity” of marriage and family.

Furthermore, critics blame feminists for being anti-male. They discount wage and other clear gender inequalities that persist and say that people are sexist to men.

Closing in on gender inequalities in school, conservatives claim that men receive less encouragement. Essentially, anti-feminists believe that women are now better off than men, and that there is nothing left to fight for.7 The portrayals and caricatures of feminists as “man-hating femi-nazis” are so 65

derogatory that women feel they must disassociate themselves from the label. Many women claim they support women’s rights and even the women’s movement, but are not feminists. They accept the contents but refuse the identity.8 The reluctance to label oneself as “feminist” can also be attributed to the equation of the term with someone in control of her life, a woman who has the “luxury” that many can’t afford. To many, feminism is a “prerogative of the privileged,” something that only benefits those in particular economic, social, and cultural circumstances.9 Adding to socioeconomic qualms, many feel that feminism is hypocritical. It claims to speak for women, while refusing “ordinary women” as inferior to the feminist. In turn, these “ordinary women” won’t label themselves as feminists, leading to “a refusal of the refusal.”10 The many conflicting images of women and feminism in modern media feed into this hesitation to accept the term. Shows like Sex and the City have produced mixed reactions from feminists and non-feminists alike. Pop culture icons send inconsistent messages as to what a true feminist or an independent woman really is.

Not only does this ambiguity make it difficult for the modern woman to define and fit feminism in her own life, but it also causes many to label the movement, at least politically, dead. It has “devolved into an elite culture of women who are interested in little else than celebrity, sex, and themselves . . . issues of true importance to American women, such as day care, are virtually ignored by feminist icons and organization.”11 Of course, the feminist movement does not consider itself dead. Rather, those claims portray the movement as a “monolithic entity” and disregard the current and ongoing work of so many feminist activists. The media is perhaps the largest factor contributing to its simplistic and stereotypic misrepresentation; therefore, it needs to provide more comprehensive and truthful coverage of the movement, instead of “constructing [the] caricatures” we see in magazine advertisements, television shows, and pop culture icons.12 However, it is not only up to the media to clarify the confusion concerning feminism today. The feminist movement itself must define its own role in popular culture. The feminist revolution unexpectedly led to an intensified confusion about the relationship between men and women. It left women in a “tangle of dependence and independence as they entered the 21st century . . . the triumph of feminism would last a nanosecond while the backlash lasted 40 years.”13 When today’s “representational” feminism sacrifices its politics just to be attractive, it is not effective. We cannot empty the term of political implications; revamping the image will not end patriarchy. Extreme individualism won’t work either: an “every woman for herself ” philosophy “denies feminism’s core” of battling the “collective wrongs that afflict women.”14 Instead, feminism should take a deeper interest in what the movement itself can do about feminist and female images in pop culture. Women and men everywhere need to see that feminism isn’t just for women and liberals. Women’s needs cross all boundaries—feminists should be thanked for co-ed schools, voting rights, jobs for women, and even pants. Yet feminists can choose to be mothers and wear skirts. It’s not necessarily about the choices women make, but that women don’t have to wait for men to make choices for them.15 Feminism is about women realizing that they are the ones who can and should define their own lives.

Endnotes 1

Hurley, Jennifer A., ed. Feminism: Opposing Viewpoints. Greenhaven Press, Inc: San Diego, 2001.

Hurley, 76.

3 Hurley, 77.

2

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4

Hurley, 13.

Hurley, 76.

6 Hurley, 78.

7 Sinai, Iden. “Where Feminism Went Too Far.” Dartmouth: The America’s Intelligence Wire. August 4, 2005. 1.

8 Hurley, 107.

9 Hollows, Joanne. Feminism, Femininity, and Popular Culture. Manchester University Press: Manchester, 2000.

200.

10 Hollows, 203.

11 Hurley, 108.

12 Hurley, 119.

13 Dowd, Maureen. “What’s a Modern Girl to Do?” The New York Times. Oct. 30, 2005. 2.

14 Hurley, 213.

15 Gowans, Ali. “Think Feminism.” UIowa: The America’s Intelligence Wire. September 7, 2005. 18.

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We are looking for editorial pieces, poetry, academic essays, photographs, drawings, creative prose, personal essays, paintings and anything else!

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