The movers were here yesterday to unload the truck. After saying, “That goes in the barn,” I realized how weird that sounds. I mean … I have a barn. I kept calling them “y’all,” but they were really nice about it. And I kept singing Green Acres all day. Dah-ling.
I just finished reading Rumors of our Progress have been Greatly Exaggerated: Why Women’s Lives Aren’t Getting any Easier and How We Can Make Real Progress for Ourselves and Our Daughters by Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney, D-N.Y. I received a review copy from the publisher, Modern Times, an imprint of Rodale, Inc.
As I was getting ready to write something about the book, I ran across Maloney’s July 29, 2008, appearance on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report. At first, I thought I would just include it with other links, but the more I thought about it, the more it bothered me.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Better Know a District – New York’s 14th – Carolyn Maloney | ||||
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Is it really funny that women get fired for lactating?
Here’s a quote from Maloney’s book.
I also heard numerous stories about difficulties in the workplace, including one woman whose male colleagues mooed outside the door as she expressed milk to take home and another woman being banished to do so in her car across the street from her office.
I didn’t laugh once while reading her book, but maybe I missed something. Exactly which issue that she wrote about was funny? Rape? Domestic violence? Burkas? Breast cancer? Or maybe prostitution? That link goes to a 2007 feature in Prism magazine, which Maloney reprinted on page 246 of her book and said it made the strongest case against sex trafficking she had ever seen.
Depictions of prostitution in the media and popular culture (including the movie Pretty Woman) can be grossly misleading, even glamorous. In fact, street prostitutes are typically trafficked, exploited, battered, and often force-fed drugs by slavemaster pimps. This series of mugshots of street prostitutes, which documents their first arrest to their eighth, illustrates the reality of life on the street, which more closely resembles a descent into hell than a Hollywood movie.
Is that funny? If not, I’m confused about why one of the first places she went to discuss her book was Comedy Central.
The blurbs on the back of her book are written by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, Gloria Steinem, Pat Schroeder, Ellie Smeal and Arianna Huffington. (Geraldine Ferraro was also included in the online “praise” section for the book.) Were they slapping their knees and giggling at the sight of Colbert using a breast pump while Maloney smiled and kept her cool? If not, does that mean they just can’t take a joke?
I’ve written about the blurred lines between celebrity and politics. It’s as if something has shifted. Instead of looking back as former government officials (elected or not), they now have to prove they don’t take themselves too seriously while they’re in office, no matter how “serious” the positions they hold. They have to prove that they get the joke. Hey, they’re even in on the joke because so many things that happen in Washington are, well, a joke. Is that it?
Maybe I just don’t get the whole Inside the Beltway atmosphere. Is it really just a non-stop college kegger where everyone has to hit the beer bong and slam shots until they puke their guts out to prove they can keep up?
Sigh.
Maloney’s book is a fairly comprehensive list of women’s issues — what’s been done, what’s been undone and what still needs to be done. For those who regularly keep up on these issues, not much of the information is new, but it’s interesting to read about the issues from Maloney’s perspective as a policymaker.
She put a “take-action guide” at the end of each chapter, providing contact information for some of the groups and organizations working on specific issues. Her goal is to convince readers to do something, anything: “I hope to persuade you that any action in support of your beliefs matters, whether it is large or small, brief or time-consuming, successful or unsuccessful.”
She included women’s personal stories as well as her own story and a wealth of information from other sources.
She draws upon the work of Martha Burk (Cult of Power: Sex Discrimination in Corporate America and What Can Be Done About It
She also included some of her own research and highlighted inconsistencies between cultural myth and everyday reality.
Maloney mentioned Morgan Stanley, which settled a class-action sex-discrimination case for $54 million and then another one for $46 million, yet it consistently appears on Working Mother magazine’s 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers list, a topic I have written about many times.
You might think that Morgan Stanley would work especially hard to eradicate sex discrimination after so costly [$54 million] an episode. But the firm settled another class action sex discrimination suit in 2007 for $46 million — bringing its overall sex discrimination price tag to an even $100 million. That sounds like a lot, but it only amounts to a few good days of trading.
Despite these incidents, Morgan Stanley has been cited numerous times by Working Mother magazine as one of the 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers. That makes me wonder how bad things are at other companies.
While she pointed out the inconsistency of the companies that appear in Working Mother with their employment track record, she listed in the take-action guide the National Association for Female Executives, which might be a perfectly fine organization. But it falls under the umbrella of Working Mother Media, which publishes Working Mother magazine, whose 100 Best list is — well, let’s just say I’m highly skeptical of the whole thing.
She also gave this example.
If you drive your Mitsubishi to the airport after filling its tank at Sunoco, board a Boeing-built plane for a United Airlines flight, use your Verizon cell phone service to call your spouse before you take off, and then bite into a Krispy Kreme doughnut, you’ve just enriched six household-name companies that have settled or lost sex discrimination cases and lawsuits in recent years.
Right. At least one of those companies — Verizon — makes Working Mother magazine’s 100 Best Companies for Working Mothers list year after year.
In the take-action guide at the end of the “Health Care That’s Always There” chapter, she recommended (among others) Dove’s Campain for Real Beauty as a way to “start health education early by teaching our young and teenaged girls about issues that affect them.” If you scratch the surface of Dove, you’ll find a wee bit of image manipulation of its own.
Unilever is the maker of Dove products (and major “research” funder), which are the basis for the Campaign for Real Beauty and its self-esteem education for young girls. Unilever also makes and markets Axe products, which exist in a parallel universe where the V.I.X.E.N.S. (Very Interactive Xtremely Entertaining Naughty Supermodels) and Bom Chicka Wah Wahs don’t have “real beauty” or self-esteem issues.
In “The Pretty Woman Myth” chapter, Maloney wrote about misleading portrayals of prostitution in popular culture and mentioned that the Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2006 went to ‘It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp,'” whose lyrics include:
Wait I got a snow bunny, and a black girl too
You pay the right price and they’ll both do you
That’s the way the game goes, gotta keep it strictly pimpin
Gotta have my hustle tight, makin change off these women, yeah
I remember when that happened, thinking, what?!? There was George Clooney, smugly patting himself on the back for Hollywood being “out of touch” for “giving Hattie McDaniel an Oscar when blacks were still sitting in the backs of theaters.” That was in 1939. Just how long was it, dear George, until the next black person was so honored? That would be 1948, then 1964, then 1982, then 2002. And just how far has Hollywood come, George, by glorifying “the black man” … as a pimp, not to mention portraying women of all colors as simply a venue for making money? Hollywood’s out of touch, George. Ya think?
Which brings me back around to the Comedy Central appearance.
If it’s a matter of reaching a younger audience? C’mon, they deserve more credit than that. It’s not only “the kids” watching Comedy Central, and “the younger audience” is watching much more than just Comedy Central. And there are tons of young, vibrant, intelligent voices on the Internet. Dust off the mouse and start clicking.
Besides, there’s not a damn thing that’s funny about this book. Just like the issues Maloney discusses in the book — the media and popular-culture myths that harm the efforts to improve the lives of real people — Maloney’s Comedy Central appearance did nothing but belittle and mock some very serious societal issues. The people behind the stories about sex discrimination, prostitution and unacceptably high infant-mortality rates (to name just a few) deserve much more than to become the butt of a comedian’s joke.
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Colin Powell goes from class act to class clown
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Categories: Working Mother
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What Working Mother magazine won’t tell you, part 1
Will you let Working Mother magazine speak for you?
What Working Mother magazine won’t tell you: Abbott
Psst! Scientists prove girls prefer pink! Pass it on!
SLBTM: Unilever/Dove’s real beauty***
I am Veronica Mitchell and I usually blog over at Toddled Dredge. Becky and I have never met in real life, but she asked me to guest post for her during her exciting international travels and high living. I expect to be sent a picture of any new tattoos. Or “tats,” as the cool people call them.
I don’t write about politics on my blog, so I was a little tempted to write a political post for Deep Muck Big Rake, especially after so many other guest-posters did. But trying to craft a political post is a bit tricky for me. I waver between philosophical statements about the nature of communal moral responsibility and less cogent arguments like “Bite me, hippie.” So it’s probably best for Becky if I hone my own political expression before I try it out on her blog. For now, I will just continue rubbing my money-stained Republican hands together, laughing maniacally, as I oppress the poor and conspire to re-institute the draft.
Instead, I will tell you about one of my favorite movies, recently released on DVD.
Green for Danger is a murder mystery set in a wartime hospital in England. The characters and the plot are not much different than any of the hospital dramas currently on television, once you take into account the sexism and censorship of the day. There are a handful of gorgeous women (nurses only, of course – this was 1944), the requisite unattractive-but-clever woman, and two male doctors who vie for the affections of the hottest nurse.
What makes this movie worth watching is Alastair Sim, who plays Inspector Cockrill, the detective assigned to solve the mysterious murders at the hospital. Sim’s most famous role, of course, is Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, but if you’ve never seen him in anything else, consider watching Green for Danger.
He mesmerized me. I could watch that man just sit in a chair and be entertained. He has the unnerving comic grace of Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean, but none of Depp’s beauty, which oddly makes me enjoy him more. Sim strikes just the right note, treating murder as deadly serious, while amusing himself thoroughly with its investigation.
From his first entry into the hospital, Sim steals the show. This homely old guy keeps every eye on him. In one of my favorite scenes, the suave doctor is trying to seduce the hot nurse in the garden by quoting Shakespeare to her. He is getting somewhere when the Inspector appears out of nowhere and tops his quotation with later lines from the same play:
In such a night / Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well, / Stealing her soul with many vows of faith, / and ne’er a true one.
Then, having thoroughly doused Dr. Ladies’ Man, the Inspector says good night.
The movie includes one of those highly implausible reenactments of the crime, and this one appears to exist in a world completely free of medical ethics, but despite this flaw, the film is delightful. In the middle of a terrible war, in a plot about terrible crimes, Sim and the writers found humor and poise and laughter.
As Inspector Cockrill said (not that this has any relevance to the appearance of my Republican self in the midst of so many Democrat guest-bloggers), “My presence lay over the hospital like a pall — I found it all tremendously enjoyable.”
Hi. Todd here from The Bullshit Observer with my second guest post to Deep Muck, Big Rake.
If you’re like me, you’ve grown ever tired with the shabby collection of domestic presidential wanna-be’s every four years. It’s year after year of America’s cheesiest, slimiest, glibbest, fakest, most corrupt individuals (with really great hair) saying whatever they feel they need to say to get the largest number of people to say, “Well, I like that. I think I’ll check his box.” I’m tired of it. I’m sure you are too. So I vote we outsource that job to one of our trading partners.
“Wouldn’t this create a conflict of interest?” you ask. Well, yes. That’s true. But the important question is whether the conflict of interest in question would be any greater than the kinds of conflicts of interest that we’re already used to. Conflicts of interest like a former oil man becoming President and refusing to join the Kyoto Accord and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Would it be more of a conflict of interest than appointing former industry big wigs to be in charge of industry watch dog groups? Yeah, I’m thinking what sort of conflict of interest would a chap from Mogudishu have that would be worse than that?
I can’t think of one.
“But what sort of qualifications would they have to run America?” you ask. I don’t know the answer to that. But let’s say we could get someone in with a joint doctorate in Foreign Relations and American History from Harvard who happens to be from Japan. That alone would make him or her more qualified than our current President. No doubt they’d speak better English too. As an added bonus, he/she’d be able to find Japan on the map.
We’d need a constitutional amendment allowing foreign born citizens the right to run for President, of course. I’m not a total idiot. But how hard can that be?
Considering how much time our current president spends in Texas, our off-shore President could probably work remotely and call into meetings with the joint chiefs.
And think how much cheaper that person would be!
Seriously. Think about it. There are a lot of advantages to having an off-shore President.
Hello! I’m Elana Centor from FunnyBusiness and Blogher where I am a contributing editor on business. Like many of the guest bloggers, Becky and I had not formally met before her request came to do a guest blog. As she explained to me she’s a lurker and has been reading my blog for quite some time.
Being a lurker myself, I immediately said YES to Becky’s request. While I am not of Norwegian ancestry, I do live in Minnesota where there are lots of people of Norwegian ancestry. As it were, one Christmas Eve I was invited to a Norwegian Family party.
Now there was one caveat. You had to agree to taste to Lutefisk. At that point I had lived in Minnesota for 10 years and had heard enough stories about this delicacy soaked in lye that I really felt I could go through the rest of my life without the need to taste it.
But I did. Like the Lutefisk that Tanya Huang writes about, my friends smothered it in butter. While it was not horrible– if texture is an important part of your eating experience, Lutefisk, like Gefilte Fish, may be one of those ethnic foods that require some getting used to.
From Tanya Huang’s blog post about lutefisk.
Mom, Norm, and I had never had Lutefisk before. We kept calling it “soap fish”, because it’s made from stockfish and lye. I imagined a somewhat foamy sudsy dish that tasted like Thai curry.
As it turned out, Lutefisk was quite delicious. Probably because of having been soaked in lye, the fish was translucent and jellyfish-like. Butter and white sauce were poured over top.
After dinner, the chefs of the night gathered and sang “O Lutefisk”. I love the spelling of the lyrics :)
“Oh Lutefisk”
Sung to the tune of “O Christmas Tree”Oh Lutefisk, Oh Lutefisk, how fragrant your aroma,
Oh Lutefisk, Oh Lutefisk, you put me in a coma.
You smell so strong, you look like glue,
You taste yust like an overshoe,
But Lutefisk, come Saturday,
I tink I’ll eat you anyway.Oh Lutefisk, Oh Lutefisk, I put you by the doorway
I vanted you to ripen up, yust like dey do in Norway
A dog came by and sprinkled you, I hit him vit an army shoe
Oh Lutefisk, now I suppose
I’ll eat you as I hold my nose.Oh Lutefisk, Oh Lutefisk, how vell I do remember.
On Christmas Eve how we’d receive, our big treat of December
It vasn’t turkey or fried ham, it vasn’t even pickled spam
My mudder knew dere vas no risk,
In serving buttered Lutefisk.Oh Lutefisk, Oh Lutefisk, now everyone discovers
Dat Lutefisk and Lefse makes, Norweigians better lovers.
Now all da vorld can have a ball, you’re better dan dat Yeritol
Oh Lutefisk, vit brennevin
You make me feel like Errol Flynn.
While I may not have adopted the Norwegian tradition of eating Lutefisk, I did fall in love with Norwegian names– so much so that I named my daughter Berit. Turns out she wasn’t the first Berit in my family.
Now in case you didn’t guessed from the Gefilte Fish reference, Christmas is not my holiday. While I knew that my dad had some cousins from Norway –yes there are even Jews in Norway — I didn’t know much about them except their last name was Century.
After my daughter was born, my Aunt Lilly called and asked if I had deliberately picked that name because of our cousin Berit. I didn’t know that there was a Berit Century but I’ve always loved that connection.
Becky, if you are reading your blog today and having some holiday lutefisk may it go down fast and please give a big Merry Christmas wish to all the Berits you see.
Safe Travels!
