Recently in Who/What is...? Category

Yesterday I posted a "this is a feminist issue because..." on Police Brutality against UCDavis students . Here's a follow-up about how the students organized and engaged in a powerful collective act of non-violent resistance to the administration's (mainly Chancellor Katehi's) decision to call in the police and use pepper-spray and other violent tactics. Here's a video of their action:

And here's a description/discussion of the action from an anonymous letter (posted here):

And something remarkable happened at Davis tonight.  I've been watching the live streams and following the blogs since late this afternoon.  It was a very important moment.

Chancellor Katehi was preparing to give a news conference to take another crack at spinning this story and controlling the growing, viral character it has acquired.

UC Davis students showed up in large numbers to this conference,  and were kept out of the small building (Surge 2, for those who know the campus) for lack of press passes (ha ha).  They surrounded the building and their numbers grew over several hours to over 1000 student protesters.  Reports came that Chancellor Katehi was afraid to leave and go through the student protesters, or even that she was being kept from leaving, as if it were a hostage situation.  Cops were *not* summoned, however -- or at least they were kept back.  UC Davis appears to have learned at least a tactical  lesson already.

Through patient OWS style organizing, worked out over dozens of mic checks, they arranged to clear a wide path, determined that they would be silent and respectful when she came out, and sent word that they were not keeping her hostage in the building, just there to call for her resignation.  Hours went by as the situation got more and more tense, but the students showed remarkable discipline and organization as their numbers kept growing.   Finally, they negotiated with Chancellor Katehi's people and she left the building to walk to her taxpayer-paid $70,000 Lexus SUV [buick] with one aide.  The students maintained *absolute, total order and silence* -- really, not a word --  and stood aside,  except for the couple of journalists asking her questions on the livestream feed.  It was eerie and powerful and  Chancellor Pepper Spray was clearly feeling the shame of a thousands of eyes on her around the nation (the livestreams were overloaded as they were joined by students across California and then the nation).

What questions does this raise for you about feminist organizing and resistance against/in/with the academy? About the limits and possibilities of feminist education in the University? 

One of the readings for this week is Loretta Ross's "The Color of Choice." It orginally comes from the anthology, The Color of Violence: The Incite Anthology. In the essay she discusses reproductive justice and Sister Song. Check out her biography/bibliography on the Sister Song website. Also, check out this youtube video on reproductive justice:

And here's a very recent video clip in which Loretta Ross discusses the origins of the phrase, "Women of Color":

Betty Friedan, the author of the  feminist classic, The Feminine Mystique, is mentioned in the "Cyborg Mystique" article that you are reading for tomorrow. For more information on her, check out this interview from PBS, or skim The Feminine Mystique via amazon.com, or read this great obituary (she died in 2006) by Katha Pollitt, or watch this early youtube clip from 1964:

While often referred to "the mother of second wave feminism," Betty Friedan's beliefs about who should and shouldn't be included within feminism created a lot of division in the movement.Here's some information about her labeling of lesbians as the lavender menace.

A new book about Betty Friedan and The Feminine Mystique was just published in January. Here's a review of it: Why the Women's Movement Needed The Feminine Mystique

"I'm not contemplating any Maidenform bonfires, but they could certainly use something around here." Joanna, Stepford Wives

Citing this quote from Joanna in Stepford Wives in her article, "Feminism, Miss America, and Media Mythology," Bonnie Dow writes:

As a film, The Stepford Wives both contributed to and drew from popular notions of the purpose and meaning of second-wave feminist ideology and practices, and I invoke it here as a useful example of the ways that certain understandings of the second wave had solidified in public discourse by the mid-1970s. For example, Joanna's casual reference to "Maidenform bonfires" in the epigraph above is, of course, an allusion to the association of bra-burning with second-wave feminism, an association begun by media coverage of the 1968 protest by radical feminists at the Miss America pageant in Atlantic City.

But, did bra burning ever actually happen? Here's what Jo Freeman writes about it on her site jofreeman.com (great resource for second wave feminism) on the page, "No More Miss America (1969-1969)":

The Atlanta City convention center opens onto a vast boardwalk between it and the beach. The large expanse of boards easily seen from the entrance makes it a great place for demonstrations. Women's liberation took advantage of this to stage several guerilla theater actions. A live sheep was crowned Miss America. Objects of female oppression -- high heeled shoes, girdles, bras, curlers, tweezers -- were tossed into a Freedom Trash Can. A proposal to burn the can's contents was scuttled when the police said that a fire would pose a risk to the wooden boardwalk. Women sang songs that parodied the contest and the idea of selling women's bodies: "Ain't she sweet; making profits off her meat." A tall, Miss America puppet was auctioned off. 

Sixteen feminists bought tickets to the evening's entertainment. They smuggled in a banner reading WOMEN'S LIBERATION. Sitting in the front row of the balcony, they unfurled it as the outgoing Miss America made her farewell speech, while shouting "Freedom for Women," and "No More Miss America." The pageant continued as though nothing had happened. This action was quickly followed by the release of two stink bombs on the floor of the hall. All protestors were removed from the hall; five were arrested, but later released. 

The outrageousness of challenging the Miss America icon brought the press out in droves, putting women's liberation on the front pages all over the country. From this, women learned that a new feminist movement was emerging and flocked to join. The 1968 demonstration also saddled women's liberation with the myth of bra burning. Forevermore the press would repeat that women burned their bras. They never remembered where this was supposed to have occurred, let alone that it never happened.

Looks like some of you have Hey Shorty and some of you don't. Here are some resources to check out so that you can learn about the book and Girls for Gender Equity:

Hey, Shorty book
Hey, Shorty blog
Podcast on Hey Shorty with Mandy van Deven
Girls for Gender Equity 

Podcast on Hey, Shorty documentary with Joanne Smith (founder) and Latosha Belton (intern) 

Hey Shorty youtube video:

We are reading parts of bell hooks' Feminism is for Everybody this week. But, who is bell hooks? And no, that isn't a typo--she doesn't capitalize her name. For more on why, read this excerpt from Talking Back. Periodically throughout the semester, I will post these "who is...?" entries about some of the authors that we are reading. I will file them under the category, "who is...?"  bell hooks is an amazingly prolific writer/scholar/activist/cultural critic/teacher. For more information on her, including a bibliography, check out this link from the UofM's Voices from the Gaps. Also, watch this youtube clip, to hear her speak about her own role as a cultural critic: