Tag Archives: mother

Feminism, Homemakers, and Stepford Wives

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say the words “wife and homemaker”?

Exactly.

Now as you probably know by now I’m getting married this summer. I’m super stoked about spending the rest of my life with John because he is my best friend and we have awesome adventures, but I’ve been struggling with what it means to become a wife within our cultural context.

Look at us! We’re married! Now we can jump on the bed!

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Fame Day: Kelly Sue DeConnick

Way back in February I dedicated a Fame Day post to Marvel Editor in Chief Alex Alonso. In the very first paragraph of that post I observed that every one of these features thus far had been dedicated to a man or an organization, and that “[a post on a woman [was] in the near future].” Almost two months late is better than never, right?

Art by Jamie McKelvie.

Kelly Sue DeConnick is a writer for Marvel Comics, and a person who is doing all sorts of things for women in comics. For one, she’s part of the creative team that took Carol Danvers, formerly Miss Marvel, and promoted her to Captain Marvel. She even went out of her way to bring in artist extraordinaire Jamie McKelvie to help redesign her new look.

In writing the Danvers’ new title, DeConnick made sure to include a particular moment in history in her first arc. Talking about those first few issues of Captain Marvel, she recounts that:

“…think it started with me talking about something I’d read about the Women Air Service Pilots of World War II over family dinner at our friends’ house one night. I was so angry about this thing that happened 60 years ago that I was shaking. I felt like I needed to do something with that anger, and then I realized that I had an angle on a story I cared about.”

While never shying away from the fact that she was writing a superhero comic, DeConnick used her 20-or-so pages per issue to shine light on the injustices that women pilots faced in years past, and that is worthy of praise, to put it lightly. Continue reading

Shame Day: Masculinists

Let’s be clear right here and now- I’m not talking about “masculinism” in the original “let’s recognize gender discrimination against men too” philosophy. No, I’m talking masculinism in its modern day sense: the general idea that women have somehow hijacked everything it means to be a man, and have either watered down everything manly, or made it socially unacceptable. This is the gripes of countless dads and uncles around the country at every kid on the team getting a medal given an intellectual motor.

That’s not to say that there are certain points which these guys aren’t correct on. In custody battles, the courts are almost certainly going to side with the mother on the basis that her gender somehow makes here a superior parent. That’s stupid. If a man were to make a pass at a female co-worker, the consequences would in all likelihood be more severe than if the positions were reversed. That’s unfair. A man striking a woman gets a visceral reaction out of us, a woman striking generally does not. That’s sexist.

Now promoting gender equality is perfectly fine. After all, when a person hits a person, that’s all that really matters. Gender (or race, creed, religion, etc.) don’t make the act any better or worse. But tragically, that positive element of the movement is mired down by all the psychotic and apologetically misogynistic madness that makes up the other 50%. Stuff like:

  • Equating circumcision with genital mutilation (or even wrongly declaring that women are exempt from any such practice)
  • Declaring the existence of a “war on men”
  • Complaining of the lack of existence of any day celebrating men
  • Complaining the women are somehow exempt from heavy, dangerous, and strenuous labor (again, what planet are these people living on?)
  • And countless other bat**** crazy claims of male victimization and persecution

Again, as stated above, there is a double standard, and while any inequality in the rules is obviously unfair there’s no way on earth we can possibly imagine that these offenses against men in any way stack up to the offenses against women. Is there female domestic abuse of males? There is. Is it as much as male domestic abuse against females? Not even remotely. Does that mean that one side is more right or wrong than the other? Of course not. The same basic logic applies to pretty much each and every one of the nutty gripes the masculinist movement brings against the supposedly woman-dominated world we’re trapped in. Other claims are quite simply false. The idea that women somehow have a “glass floor” protecting them from working physical labor or living in rough, dismal conditions is simply an utter lie. Women are disproportionately the majority in sweatshops around the world. Not two hours ago, I drove past a homeless woman on the street, and I saw another one the day before (although it could’ve been a hipster, I’m not entirely sure). Again, it’s true that men are sometimes treated unfairly on the basis of their gender, or subjected to a double standard. However, the degree to which men are persecuted and the degree to which women are persecuted are leagues apart.

That’s not to say that injustice to a man is any less unjust, but rather, when you’ve got a paper cut and the person in the emergency room with you is missing an arm, you should still apply a band-aid, just maybe without griping about it.