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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (July 18, 2014)
5 Street roots July 18, 2014 L i Ü BITCH, from page 4 very toxic ones. S.Z.: There is a “rebranding of feminism” happening. Waves of feminism. What does “fourth-wave feminism” look like? À x À ; May. There was much discussion in the media about her discovery weeks before her dismissal that she was paid less in wages and pension than her male predecessors. The word “pushy” was also used by management at the Times - a characterization that has a gendered aspect to say the least. myths about masculinity and what it means to be a successful, sexual m ale.... My son is five. He is going to start public school next year. It is terrifying to think that the statistics are against him. I feel like they’re against all of us. S.Z.: Advertising and A.Z.: I wrote a piece about this for the beauty culture? How do Bitch site. It was about why her firing we survive it? matters. It speaks to the whole, “lean in” philosophy that people have really A.Z.: Media literacy. Ik e gfcaleaf©s 1® woiaeifs embraced over the past couple of years, this r o iw liw jiistlce and The .more ads and the idea that the COO of Facebook (Sheryl more imperatives that bodüy autonomy is a global Sandberg) wrote this book about women exist and the more issue s It affects education, it “leaning in” and how they shouldn’t pull products exist, the away from work. As though they were. I ’m affects economies, It affects more widely not sure why she felt the need to write this a silHIoa little things that disseminated push; book, but it was basically a guide fot women people don't recognize when back there is - often at work. It spoke specifically to white bÿ the same people women in high paying corporate jobs. So «they see It as simply "her when it came out, a lot of the thinking was who are creating the problem" « "a weaieif s this doesn’t speak to the majority of women. products to begin with. Issue." It is crucial to l a w When Jill Abramson was fired, my first Dove is an incredible not just jwomestf thought was, “This sums up thé problems example of that. Dove with the whole “lean in” philosophy.” la the light for weiiter/s makes beauty Because “lean in” presupposes a kind of reproductive justice, ©a all products. They are trickle down feminism where if women at owned by Unilever levels, T bafs definitely the top have it easier, it will eventually which makes all kinds soaethiag that this case has make it so that women in minimum wage of beauty products jobs or undocumented women. It underscored. worldwide, but they presupposes that all of these things will get also do these better if women at the very top, in elite campaigns that professions, change the culture. demystify tilings like Jill Abramson’s firing really reiterated the photoshopping and the idea that things aren’t changing - even at number of ads that thé top. It is literally the same dynamic. If young girls see in the span of a day, or toxic, the first female executive editor of thé New self inflicted body image issues. They put York Times can’t get equal treatment, what those out, but at the same time, they are hope does anyone else have? She didn’t feel S.Z.: This next generation of feminists, and sort of responsible for. creating them. It’s a comfortable. She spoke up; She was really the whole feminist movement now has really tricky thing that they’re doing. It has punished for it. And not only was she social media... to do with the idea that as a company, their punished, she was punished using the same language that has been used to demean and mandate is not to make more women feel N Z .\ That’s huge. The things that browbeat women all through history. b e tte r ab o u t th em selv es, it’s to m ake feminism has been able to accomplish via money. They are realizing that one way to It’s depressing and I think it really does •social media is incredible. When people point out that “ leaning in” only works 3f you get women to spend mopey is to make them complain that the younger feminists don’t I are already in a pretty golden seat.- - feel good about themselves. care about feminism, all you have to do, Realizing that beauty culture is a really, is póint them to Twitter. And I think S.Z.: And even then... does anyone rèally construction can be helpful. But it s also they might want to recheck their facts, think that any editor 8 nò offense - i s not important to realize that buying into it because (young feminists) really do care and “pushy” regardless of their gender? doesn’t mean buying into it hook, line and they are doing something. sinker. You can enjoy makeup. You can A.Z.: You sort of have to be. enjoy looking how you like to look, but not S.Z.: Have you been following the feel like you’re alone. Everyone is affected #YesAllWomen hashtag?, S.Z.: Right. Like do people think, “That by it and no one is immune to it. man is being really pushy in the way he’s I A.T.: #YesAllWomen came out of the r talking to his employees?” and then, “Well, shooting on campus at Santa Barbara by S.Z.: How has motherhood affected, your he’s a, man, men are like that.” this young,, privileged, disturbed man who politics, ideas or feelings about feminism, if at was essentially blaming women for not all? 5 A.Z.: I was really encouraged to see a giving him the attention and the sex that he couple of male editors on Twitter saying, felt he was owed by being reasonably A.Z.: I’ve always been pro-choice. I am, ,, “Yeah, she’s pushy and that is exactly what handsome and rich. ,. . . ^ seriously, 500 percent more pro-choice she should be.” If that’s a problem for It’s very weird that we live in a political > management, then that’s their problem. | since becoming a mother. Because being a climate where the first reaction to an event parent is so hard. íiké this by a critical mass of men is, “Well, I S.Z.: Last month, Reynolds High Schoolin This sort of right-wing notion that women don’t do that, so therefore it’s not as big a Troutdale became the 74th school shooting go into abortions sort of willy nilly is nuts to deal. This isn’t an endemic issue, this is since the Newtown shootings in December me. I’ve never had one, but I know many, about this one dude.” ® 2012. That is just shy of a shooting a week. many people who have. None of them have Feminists are saying, “No. We’re living What are your thoughts on gun violence, mass taken it lightly. Even if it was an easy this. It’s not just about this one guy. It’s shootings and gender? about a larger culture that really believes decision to make, based on circumstances, that men are entitled to women and their no one took it lightly. A.Z.: I’m really angry. I am so angry that If you want to be a mother, you absolutely bodies and their attention.” It escalates via it has become such a partisan issue that it should have that choice and if you don’t social media, but it is a dynamic that has can’t even be talked about. Certainly there (Want to be a mother), you absolutely been going on forever. is a pattern to these shootings and the pattern has to do with - 1 forget what writer should have that choice. S.Z.: You might not pull out a gun and In other ways I feel strongly about coined this term - aggrieved entitlement shoot me because you are frustrated. Then teaching kids media literacy. It is such a among men. White men mostly feeling like again, you might. Or you might do something crucial time. It’s a cliche that little kids are the world is against them. That the natural else to subdue or demean women... order has somehow been violated by women like sponges, but they are. They absolutely becoming educated and empowered and ’ are- I ’ " . r . . A Z • Yeah. Right It’s one of those things, able to speak up for themselves and be their As young as three they are picking up on things’like this #NotAUMen, #YesAllWomen the idea that things are gendered and their own people. . they’re are simultaneously exhilarating and If you look at the campus shootings over teaching that to each other. My son really frustrating. At the time, they seem really the last 10 years or so, many have been wants to like that movie, “Frozen,” but he vital and needed, but as time goes on, you motivated by a form of sexism. It’s really - feels like he can’t because there are these realize how many people don’t get i t And frustrating that the media, every time it sort of gatekeepers at his school who are how the ignorance ends up taking happens refuses to engage with the idea like, “Princesses are for girls. That’s a girl precedence over the voices of the people that there is sexism going on and that there movie.” They don’t know the extent of what who do get it and who do want a change. is a gendered reason for these shootings. they’re doing, but they’re doing it because The shooter in Isla Vista (Calif.) was the S Z ’ Jill Abramson, the former executive the media is giving them those messages. product of a very sexist society that had ed il^ro flh eii^'io T i'Y ita esa n d th efiK l taught him a lot of untrue, but very common It’s just automatic. „ornan to hold that position, was fired tn A.Z.: I don’t subscribe to the “wave” metaphor. I just don’t like it because the idea of waves sort of ends up looking like one wave ¿rashes down and wipes out the wave before it, and that’s not how it should be. It should be more of a building metaphor, the waves — generationally, chronologically — they should build on one and another. We’re talking about the same issues: equal pay, work-life balancé, about sexuality. All of these things are identical. The only difference is there is a slightly different framework. There is always an urge with feminists to separate yourself from what came before, and so when Bitch first started, third-wave feminism was having Its sort of growing-pain struggle and pop culture had a lot to do with th a t Second-wave feminists thought, “Why do you care about pop culturé, why does that matter?” And third-wave feminists were saying, “Well it matters, and if you can’t see that, we don’t want to have anything to do with you\” My sense is that we are still in this together. Many of thé women who were (involved in the movement then), are still really active. I admire that immensely because this is exhausting work and it can really bum you out.
