Posts Tagged feminism
Choice Quote: Chelsea Handler
Posted by Amy Steele in TV, Women/ feminism on December 13, 2012
“No one has ever said to me ‘go home and make a baby.’ I have been told several times to go to Planned Parenthood and make the baby go away. Happy Hannukah.”
–Chelsea Handler, 12/12/12
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Free to Be You and Me Celebrates 40th Anniversary
Posted by Amy Steele in Women/ feminism on December 12, 2012
After she’d divorced my deadbeat dad and we’d relocated from Connecticut to Massachusetts, my mom took me to my first NOW meeting when I was in the 3rd grade. She also bought me the album Free To Be You and Me which embraces independent spirits and gender neutrality. I loved this record in elementary school.
A few days ago I heard the podcast of Marlo Thomas on NPR and all the memories of the songs on this album and the importance of this project streamed right back into my mind. Marlo Thomas and her celebrity friends including Alan Alda, Rosey Grier, Cicely Tyson, Harry Belafonte, Carol Channing, Michael Jackson, and Diana Ross created fantastic songs that still resonate as they’re also still relevant and necessary. There’s still rapant sexism, racism and bullying in the United States.
NPR interview with Marlo Thomas
track listing:
“Free To Be… You And Me” – Music by Stephen J. Lawrence, Lyrics by Bruce Hart, Performed by The New Seekers
“Boy Meets Girl” – Written by Carl Reiner and Peter Stone, Performed by Mel Brooks and Marlo Thomas
“When We Grow Up” – Music by Stephen J. Lawrence, Lyrics by Shelly Miller, Performed by Roberta Flack and Michael Jackson on the special and Diana Ross on the soundtrack CD.
“Don’t Dress Your Cat In An Apron” – Written by Dan Greenburg, Performed by Billy De Wolfe
“Parents Are People” – Music and Lyrics by Carol Hall, Performed by Harry Belafonte and Marlo Thomas
“Housework” – Written by Sheldon Harnick, Performed by Carol Channing
“Helping” – Written by Shel Silverstein, Performed by Tom Smothers
“Ladies First” – Performed by Marlo Thomas (based on a Shel Silverstein poem
“Dudley Pippin And The Principal” – Written by Phil Ressner, Performed by Billy De Wolfe, Bobby Morse, and Marlo Thomas
“It’s All Right To Cry” – Music and Lyrics by Carol Hall, Performed by Rosey Grier
“Sisters And Brothers” – Music by Stephen J. Lawrence, Lyrics by Bruce Hart, Performed by Sisters and Brothers
“William’s Doll” – Music by Mary Rodgers, Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, Performed by Alan Alda and Marlo Thomas (based on the children’s book)
“My Dog Is A Plumber” – Written by Dan Greenburg, Performed by Dick Cavett
“Atalanta” – Written by Betty Miles, Performed by Alan Alda and Marlo Thomas
“Grandma” – Written by Carole Hart, Performed by Diana Sands
“Girl Land” – Music by Mary Rodgers, Lyrics by Bruce Hart, Performed by Jack Cassidy and Shirley Jones
“Dudley Pippin And His No-Friend” – Written by Phil Ressner, Performed by Bobby Morse and Marlo Thomas
“Glad To Have A Friend Like You” – Music and Lyrics by Carol Hall, Performed by Marlo Thomas
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Women’s History Month: quotes on feminism
Posted by Amy Steele in Women/ feminism on March 2, 2012
The result is that we all know what feminists are. They are shrill, overly aggressive, man-hating, ball-busting, selfish, hairy, extremist, deliberately unattractive women with absolutely no sense of humor who see sexism at every turn.
Susan Douglas, Where the Girls Are
I told the women I did not believe in women’s rights or men’s rights but in human rights.
–Mary Harris Jones
Women want the seemingly impossible: that men treat them with the respect and fair-mindedness with which they treat most men.
— Joyce Carol Oates
I define as “feminist” any attempt to improve the lot of any group of women through female solidarity and a female perspective.
–Marilyn French, The War Against Women
Never met a wise man
If so it’s a woman
–Kurt Cobain
I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is; I only know that people cal me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that distinguish me from a doormat.
–Rebecca West
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think: book review
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on June 24, 2011
think , by Lisa Bloom. Publisher: Vanguard Press; 1 edition (May 24, 2011) Non-fiction. Hardcover, 288 pages
As girls started seriously kicking ass at every level of education, our brains became devalued.
Without thinking clearly, without meaningful information, we suffer tragic outcomes.
Author Lisa Bloom wants women to stop focusing on celebrity news and gossip and exercise their brains. This book focuses on the dumbing down of America. Bloom points out that many women place more emphasis on pop culture and reality TV than current events, politics, government, history, reading and education. She wants women to contribute to change in the world, to go places, to learn new things, and to keep growing. She writes think in a conversational tone. It’s fast-paced and I picked up a few nuggets of information even though I feel I am quite informed—I don’t watch much TV, I read a ton and I follow current world events.
Some sobering information:
25% of young American women would rather win America’s Next Top Model than the Nobel Peace Prize.
68% of Republicans don’t’ believe in evolution, a scientific principle widely proven since the nineteenth century and replicated daily in the plant and animal kingdom.
More than two-thirds of Americans don’t know what Roe v. Wade is about, though more than one-third of American women of child-bearing age will have an abortion by age forty-five.
Less than 1% of our federal budget gets spent on foreign aid while 20% of our federal budget is spent on military aid.
According to the World Health Organization, the United States is ranked 37 in health care systems of the world.
The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world.
American children have shorter school years than any other children throughout the world [32 hours a week compared to 53 in Denmark].
According to the National Endowment for the Arts, one third of high-school graduates never read another book for the rest of their lives.
Women receive 58% of the bachelor’s degrees in this country.
Only 34 percent of Americans think climate change is a serious enough problem that drastic measures need to be taken.
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Rape New York: book review
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on May 17, 2011
Rape New York , by Jana Leo. Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY (February 8, 2011). Politics/crime. Paperback, 192 pages.
The sanctity of the home and the body, and the fear of the ultimate invasion of privacy, is perverted by society distancing itself from the victim.
Author Jana Leo describes the harrowing experience of being raped at gunpoint in her own Harlem apartment and its aftermath. The front door never locked. Cheap rent and diversity attracted the Princeton graduate student to the neighborhood. She makes a compelling argument about the concept of home and its connection to everything. If you don’t have one, you feel isolated and failing. If you have one you become a prisoner within its walls as you do all you can to keep it. One in 10 women is raped during her lifetime. She proves she’s not a case number, not a cold case, not merely a statistic. Leo shines a spotlight on this country’s flawed criminal justice system and on people taking shortcuts to make money. Many years after the crime, police identify her rapist through DNA. Through her sharp and evocative feminist perspective, she analyzes the crime, poverty, class structure, gender, race, her corrupt landlord. Leo intersperses startling data with her recollection of this trauma that has changed her forever. Rape New York is at times frightening, maddening, discouraging and ultimately honest, important and useful.
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Tick-Tock: The fabled biological clock
Posted by Amy Steele in Women/ feminism on July 20, 2010
Me: I don’t want children.
Recent date: What if you meet the right guy?
Me: Are you serious? That’s ridiculous. I wanted my tubes tied 10 years ago.
Guess what? Many 40 year-old-women CHOOSE not to marry OR have children. If <e Ripley’s Believe It or Not still aired, I’d certainly be the freaky side show on there.
Another guy told me it was an anomaly [my word choice, not his] to meet a 40-year-old woman who’d never been married and had not children. How ignorant and sexist is that?
A guy on twitter said: “I think is it a shift in the environment and how women are being brought up. This is a good shift IMO, and becoming less rare.”
Stats from the Alternatives to Marriage Project:
• There are nearly 96 million unmarried Americans, representing roughly 43% of the adult population (CPS, 2008).
• 46.6% of the unmarried population aged 18 and older are male, while 53.4% are female (CPS, 2008).
• Women (49.9% of the married population are women, compared to 56.4% of unmarried population) (ACS, 2005-2007).
Published in the July edition of Personality and Individual Differences, are the results of a study on older women and fertility. The study determined women age 27-45 have a heightened sex drive in response to their dwindling fertility. It’s considered to be a sexual peak and not necessarily a desire to have children. I believe it. I want sex more than ever now.
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CELEBS: That f-ing biological clock
Posted by Amy Steele in Film on June 23, 2010
Can we PLEASE leave Renee Zellweger alone?
Here’s US Weekly pitting the two women against each other in their “quest” for Bradley Cooper:
I realize I’m writing about it hear but no publicists will even deal with my site because I don’t get enough readers and apparently I’m not a very good critic/ writer.
Showbiz Spy announces engagement of Renee Zellweger and Bradley Cooper [both have had very brief marriages to Kenny Chesney and Jennifer Esposito respectively].
Showbiz Spy says:
Renee knows her biological clock is ticking and she’s desperate to settle down and have a family. She has told Bradley in no uncertain terms that if he doesn’t agree to raise a child with her, she sees no future for them as a couple. Renee is even prepared to adopt if she isn’t able to get pregnant.
Why does anyone have to be married or get married to have a child [see Halle Berry, Madonna and Sandra Bullock]? I’m SO tired of the biological clock. I’ve NEVER heard it ticking and I’m 37 or so.
Also, Renee is an extremely talented actress and I’m tired of her being portrayed as desperate to marry and also people saying poor Renee– why is she single? why can’t she make any relationship work? People might be jealous of her dating record– Jim Carrey, Jack White, John Krasinski, Paul McCartney [oh and read this 2007 Daily Mail piece about a desperate Renee], MSNBC’s Dan Abrams etc.
Or perhaps, Renee just hasn’t found her match yet.
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Choice Quotes: Men
Posted by Amy Steele in Women/ feminism on April 5, 2010
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
-Sylvia Plath
It seems that men can get out of a relationship without even a goodbye: but apparently women have to either get married or learn something.
–Carrie Bradshaw on “Sex and the City”
If I slept only with men who knew my full name, if I signed up for dance classes, if I ate more fruit—even then there was no guarantee I’d get what I wanted, or if I got it, that it would be what I really wanted after all.
–From A Girl Becomes a Comma Like That by Lisa Glatt
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.
–Dorothy Parker, Not So Deep as a Well (1937), “Comment”
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DVD review: The Road from Coorain
Posted by Amy Steele in DVD on March 2, 2010
Title: The Road from Coorain
Running time: 97 minutes
MPAA: Not Rated
Release date: March 2, 2010
ASIN: B002V3AM8Y
Studio: Acorn Media
Review source: Acorn Media
The Road from Coorain is a moving and emotional biopic about Jill Ker Conway, one of the most celebrated feminists in Australia. Jill’s childhood in the Outback of Australia in the 1940s proves breathlessly beautiful and extremely isolating. Jill is left to her own devices as her two brothers are sent away to boarding school. She works the sheep ranch with her father and learns to read from her strong-willed, outspoken mother. Jill learns to love the unforgiving land and also dreams of the unknown and faraway places by immersing herself in all the books her mom buys her. Jill’s mother, Eve [Juliet Stevenson], is English and seems to resent being stuck out in the Outback. Eve had been in surgical training when she fell in love with her husband and left that career behind for him. There’s definitely much resentment in that. Eve is a powerful, outspoken woman. Like most mothers, she wants her children to have more success than she ever did. Eve lives vicariously through her children. She verbally abuses Jill and tries everything to put her down and keep her from leaving home. Several catastrophes strike the Ker family. Jill [Katherine Slattery] is resilient but her mother falls to pieces and keeps Jill under wraps until Jill cannot take it anymore and finally breaks free. After attending the University of Sydney and graduating with honors she heads to Harvard to study history. Despite the tragedies in her past, Jill reaches out for independence from her mother and breaks from the bonds of Coorain. She’s highly intelligent and motivated and bound for great things. Ker Conway becomes the first female president of Smith College, publishes several memoirs and anthologies about impressive women. The Road from Coorain has lovely cinematography, an extremely talented cast and a riveting screenplay by Sue Smith that chronicles the independence of a brilliant and talented young woman.
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This Day in History: Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique
Posted by Amy Steele in Books on February 17, 2010
On February 17, 1963, Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique.
The writer and women’s rights activist addressed the concept of women finding fulfillment outside traditional roles. She also advanced the women’s rights movement as one of the founders of the National Organization for Women (NOW). Friedan also fought for abortion rights by establishing the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America) in 1969.
Friedan graduated from Smith College in 1942 with a bachelor’s degree. She moved to New York and worked as a reporter, then had several children after getting married. Friedan spoke with alumnae of Smith College and her research formed the basis for The Feminine Mystique.
Betty Friedan died on February 4, 2006.
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About Me
covering mostly music and books. focus on alternative/indie and women in music, literature and the arts. feminist. vegan. mostly alternative, a bit bohemian. Masters in journalism from Boston University. BA from Simmons College.
Entertainment Realm by Amy Steele is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at entertainmentrealm.comCopyright © 2009. All writing, unless otherwise noted, by Amy Steele.
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