privilege

 

Rise and shine! It's time to check out some of our favorite recent reads and wish a happy birthday to Dolores Huerta!

• Did you see that Miley Cyrus video and her quest to trend #MCTwerkTeam?  Here's a look into how privilege plays into the appropriation of twerking and ratchet. [YouTube, Racialicious]
• After another trans* woman applies to Smith College, she is denied admission as those before her. [Autostraddle]
• When Rosa Clemente and Talib Kweli debated about Rick Ross' rape lyrics, Kweli fell into the age-old habit of some serious mansplaining and masculine agression to assert his own ideas.  He claimed to be an "ally" of women in hip hop, but missed the mark.  Dr. Brittney Cooper lays out how five ways Kweli can become a better ally. [Huffington Post, Crunk Feminist Collective]
• Yesterday was Equal Pay Day.  Now, what's the exact cost that comes with being born female? A new study (and this infographic) say it's approximately $849,000. [Nerdy Feminist]
• Jamia Wilson talks about the "inevitable rite of passage" that is experiencing racism as a Black girl in the U.S. [Rookie]
• After being raped and relentlessly cyberbullied, a teenage girl is dead after tragically commiting suicide at the age of 17. [Gender Focus]
• In light of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that occured this past December, there's been a lot of talk about arming school officials with weapons.  Here's why having guns in school in a bad idea for children.  [Slate]
• When President Obama called California Attorney General Kamala Harris the "best looking attorney general by far," many were upset over the comment and its reduction of Harris to her physical appearance.  These are just three reasons to pay attention to Harris for her politics and not her looks. [Colorlines]

 

 

Ever since The Mary Tyler Moore Show debuted in 1970, young, independent single women on TV have flocked to the cities to pursue their careers. But Mary Tyler Moore made it big in Minneapolis. In more recent single lady sitcoms—Cagney & Lacey, Living Single, Friends, Felicity, Sex and the City, 30 Rock, Ugly Betty, Don't Trust the B----- in Apt. 23, Girls, and The Carrie Diaries— storylines emphasizes that, for young, unattached, career-minded women, New York City is the only place to be. These shows suggest that, if you take your career seriously, you simply must move to Manhattan.

But conflating ambition, glamor, and New York City is has a major drawback: Living in New York is a lot easier for people who come from money. For working class girls like the title character of Ugly Betty, the dream will, more often than not, remain out of reach. If you have no trust fund, it will be hard to pay tuition to earn the "University of New York" diploma seen on Felicity's wall. If you need to support your family, there will be no hanging out at Indochine, like in The Carrie Diaries. If you need to pay off over $25,000 in student debt, Sex in the City's Fifth Avenue professional-outfit shopping sprees will remain a Manhattan myth.

In the comments of Wednesday’s post, Anita pointed out that Queer As Folk is not the only Showtime program that struggles in its depiction of bisexuality. When discussing depictions of biphobia in the gay community, one can’t avoid The L Word. The difference between the shows as I see it, however, is that if Queer As Folk suffers from bi invisibility, The L Word suffers from straight-up bi loathing. Rather than giving you a play-by-play of every epic bi fail (if you’re interested in that, After Ellen has a comprehensive list), I want to focus on one particular episode—one that deals with bisexuality and straight privilege.

Bringing you fine, feminist work from around the web!

• Bitch YA Blogger Jessica Stites follows up on police response to Ms.' petition demanding they apologize for having a woman who reported her rape fined.
• Queerty shares a video and list, "Just In Case You Forgot Why The Family Research Council Is A Hate Group."
• Monica at TransGriot provides a history lesson about the 1921 Tulsa Race Riot. (Trigger warning for discussion of racism and physical violence.)
• Bitch contributor Sady Doyle reports on Friday's protest of last week's shameful "not guilty" verdict at the Raw Story.
• Shakesville's Melissa McEwan comments on the latest fail by the New York Times. (Quotable: "This column smells like barf.")
• Tom at Original Plumbing talks about the Lambda Literary Awards and being an out artist.
• Check out V-Girls' latest project: collecting photo, video and text submissions for the I Am an Emotional Creature workshops they'll be leading with Eve Ensler in South Africa.
• The Guardian reports on author Naipaul's eyeroll-inducing insistence that no woman could write as well as him.
• Feministe's Clarisse gives us the rundown on feminist sci-fi awards!
• Bitch contributor Emily Manuel blurbs about the "fauxtreversy" around baby Storm's biological sex being a secret and the "imposing their ideology" accusation at Tiger Beatdown.
• At AlterNet, Laura Rena Murray explains the wrongheaded practice of police pointing to condom-carrying as evidence of being a sex worker... and the oft-dismissed bill that would prevent it.
• Mother Jones reports on the FIFA soccer scandal.
• WTF? Feministing discusses Cadbury's new ad, which compares Naomi Campbell and a chocolate bar.

Any reactions to the pieces we've shared? What else have you been reading?

"I know what racial oppression feels like... my ancestors were Irish." "Assuming I have male privilege.... is sexist." If you missed out on the short-lived but prolific Tumblr page of Privilege Denying Dude (a series of images that used a stock photo of a white dude sandwiched with all-too-familiar privilege-denying text, like that seen here)—you missed the beginning of a genius appropriation of a popular meme (or internet trend) that shoveled smarm back in the face of the privileged cluelessness that litters YouTube and social-justice blog comment threads alike (not to mention IRL). What started as a simple trend went viral, with thousands of submissions (all with their own unique manifestation of privilege!) coming in . But due to a terms of violation with the image used, Tumblr shut down the site last Friday.

This domination of narratives with one narrative, one story, one set of concerns, is an incredibly destructive dynamic in feminism. And it plays out in discussions about pop culture in a major way.

When people in nondominant groups challenge much-beloved popular culture, they encounter a lot of opposition. They are told that the good messages in the pop culture outweigh the bad, that people can't be expected to get everything perfect, that they are just looking for something to be offended by, that they are dragging in side issues, that they are being buzzkills. Bringing in new perspectives can be a dangerous and loaded act when it comes to discussing things that people hold near and dear.