Many commentators are rightly horrified that a current Presidential candidate might equate rape with pleasure.  The account of John McCain's 1986 rape "joke" calls into question his attitudes toward women, especially given his long legislative record of voting against women's rights.

But it gets worse.  A world that treats a brutal act of sexual assault as a joke is not simply a land of the humor-impaired or a place of "insensitivity" to women.  These "jokes" are a reflection of rape culture - a set of norms defining the permissible use of sexual violence in ways that enable further acts of abuse.

Tonight, I hope we can think and talk critically about how cultural attitudes, rape myths, and gender and race stereotypes fuel gender-based violence - and why we need to fight that.

  So last night, I saw a commercial on tv that shows a child looking in a closet for something, and then yelling "Mom, where's my ___?", than the husband looking for something elsewhere in the house (can't find it), "Honey, where's the ___?", and on to the next child fruitlessly searching for some elusive item that apparently only Mom has the required observational skills to locate.
  It seems to me that as with so much of the way that moms and dads are commonly portrayed in popular culture,  it somehow manages to be both anti-feminist and semi-misandrist.  Maybe misandrist isn't the right word here; see below.

In the 1970’s the nation struggled with the concept and the reality of women athletes.  As women entered sports in greater numbers, particularly after the enactment of Title IX, they didn’t find open doors and welcoming facilities.  Nowhere was this more evident than in the world of rowing.  This diary, as part of the feminisms series, is dedicated to the first US National Women’s Rowing Team in 1975.  I’ll introduce you to their challenges on and off the water, to the hallmark Yale strip-in protest, and talk a little about the ripple effects still being felt today.

Last fall I wrote a diary about my experiences learning to row.  I fell in love with rowing for three reasons: rowing on the ocean into the sunrise or the sunset is a total feast for the senses; rowing is a total body workout and I learned that I enjoy feeling physically strong; and rowing brings a camaraderie between the women in the boat who are all working together toward the same goal.   This spring I read a book by Daniel Boyne, The Red Rose Crew, about the 1975 National Team.  I became fascinated with their story and with the gifts they bestowed on rowing, women, and the world.

"We've come a long way baby."  This was a slogan used by a cigarette company to sell cigarettes to women.  I do agree with this sentiment.  I think things have changed for the better for women in my lifetime.  Sometimes, though, something comes along to remind how far we still need to go.

The latest travesty is a review in Newsweek for the new documentary on Roman Polanski's legal troubles.  He was pled guilty of unlawful intercourse with a minor (a 13-year-old girl, he was 44 years old at the time).  He fled the country before sentencing, and has been a fugitive ever since 1978.  You can read about Polanski and his legal issues here.

More after the jump...after a word by our sponsors...

Whenever there is a diary that tries to understand the differences in voting behavior as a generational issue I find myself jumping in with a comment: Count Me Out.  I started writing this diary to a young(er) feminist Democrat in the Heart of Texas, who asked me if it wasn't a generational divide that separated women from voting for Obama and Clinton, what was it?

The truth is that I don’t know one woman of my age group who wants to vote for Hillary.  It is not because we never respected her.  In the 1990s when she first emerged on the national scene many of us thought that she would have made the better president.  And it is clear from the intensity of womens response on the NARAL website the other day, some women felt that they owed her their  loyalty.  It was Hillary  who fought for endangered legislation and even helped to protect the lives of doctors who worked in abortion clinics.  

But that was then.  And today is now.

Feminisms is a series of weekly feminist diaries. My fellow feminists and I decided to start our own for several purposes: we wanted a place to chat with each other, we felt it was important to both share our own stories and learn from others’, and we hoped to introduce to the community a better understanding of what feminism is about.

Needless to say, we expect disagreements to arise. We have all had different experiences in life, so while we share the same labels, we don’t necessarily share the same definitions. Hopefully, we can all be patient and civil with each other, and remember that, ultimately, we’re all on the same side.

I’ve been thinking about privilege lately.  The impetus was my own privilege.  I (and several others) had inadvertently supported a racist statement because I didn’t recognize the racism in it.  

In a piece on MSNBC today entitled, Do Women want to see Hillary fail?, Susan Shapiro Barash argues that women who aren't voting for Hillary want to see her fail. Why? A few reasons...

1. Female rivalry / we're jealous: Instead of being expansive toward other women, we believe in a "magical theft," as if somehow Hillary's ascension connotes another woman's lost opportunity.

2. Women who don't support Hillary are confused by the patriarchy: As if the gender card doesn't carry enough weight (only 21 percent of the primary voters in Pennsylvania felt that gender was meaningful in their decision), the female argument against Hillary is that she shouldn't be supported just because she's a woman. This proves that the mixed messages of our society continue to confuse women.

But don't worry! Hillary won 57% of female voters in PA - so there's hope for us women and for unity yet!!

Susan Shapiro Barash wants women to be united - and she thinks she'll accomplish that task by saying that women who support Obama are just jealous of Hillary, and that we're confused by the patriarchy. Our choice has nothing to do with Obama being the better candidate. Nope.

Feminisms is a series of weekly feminist diaries. My fellow feminists and I decided to start our own for several purposes: we wanted a place to chat with each other, we felt it was important to both share our own stories and learn from others’, and we hoped to introduce to the community a better understanding of what feminism is about.

Needless to say, we expect disagreements to arise. We have all had different experiences in life, so while we share the same labels, we don’t necessarily share the same definitions. Hopefully, we can all be patient and civil with each other, and remember that, ultimately, we’re all on the same side.

I was going to do a big diary tonight on this subject drawing on all the things I've been reading and re-reading for my sociology of the family class. But it's been a long day and I'm tired, so this will be more rudimentary than I had hoped.

The gendering of household labor is often taken for granted (albeit in different ways) but is also a common subject of struggle within couples or families. So many household tasks are considered "women's work," even as women have become much more likely to work for pay outside the home. This raises so many issues. How should this work be divided? Should it matter who works more hours outside the home? Should it matter who earns more? If someone is going to reduce their career commitments to take care of things at home, who should it be or what should be the basis for the decision?

Often I hear people discuss women's rights as generally limited to abortion, as if our right of choice was the only right hanging in the balance in our feminist march for equal rights. The assumption is that women's rights were achieved decades ago so today we only face a few minor unresolved "details."  

Tonight, I compiled a partial list of rights still denied to women. What rights would you add to this list?

What an odd honor to be asked to write tonight's Feminisms.  I mean, it's not as odd as Ann Coulter being asked, or Pat Buchanan.  I am a Feminist.  However, I am white.  I am straight.  I am a man.  If we really want to get picky about my "disqualifications," I am a part of a power structure that routinely strips people of their civil rights in the name of psychiatric health.

But I am a Feminist.  Born in the Northeast as part of GenX, I was raised as one and it existed as an assumed background condition to progressive thought.  Both my parents worked in full-time jobs.  Both my parents took an active role in my emotional development.  Thus, I remained a Feminist.  I did the usual Feminist guy things in college, like take part in political actions organized through the women's center and denigrate the boors in the Party of the Right.

What being a Feminist means, though, has changed over time.  I never would have accepted the invitation to write this column 16 years ago, at the other end of the Clinton era.  I never would have thought backing the Democratic candidate other than Hillary Clinton constituted Feminism.  Let's go back in time, to those heady days in the early 1990s, and see how times have changed.

I will continue to write at Dailykos.

I will continue to read diaries at Dailykos.

I will avoid diaries that only want to damage a Democratic candidate for President.  

I don't feel bad about not reading the candidate diaries at Dailykos.  I feel bad that my cousin, rserven, seems to have stopped writing Teacher's Lounge after more than two years of steady posting and I missed it.  I must write her an email.

More below.

I'm sure everyone has seen by now Eliot Spitzer's press conference when he first acknowledged his involvement in a prostitution ring, with his wife by his side.  In an all-too-familiar ritual humiliation, a politician caught in a sex scandal stands before the cameras with his shell-shocked wife by his side.  In what I consider a refreshing change, an AP story today actually asked women what they think.  So, I'm asking you - what do you think?

I've spent years of my life with my nose buried in books. The most recent book I've opened is by Eileen Favorite, The Heroines. This novel is about a young girl - 13 - growing up in Prairie Bluff, Illinois. This isn't that far from where I am right now, but the reality of the story is quite different from our own reality. In this story, Penny deals with the fact that her mom, owner of a Bed & Breakfast, is hostess and friend to the heroines of many famous novels.

They appear at all hours of the day and in all manners of distress. A lovesick Madame Bovary languishes in their hammock after Rodolphe has abandoned her, and Scarlett O'Hara's emotions are not easily tempered by tea and eiderdowns. These visitors long for comfort, consolation, and sometimes for more attention than the adolescent Penny wants her mother to give.

Knowing that to interfere with their stories would cause mayhem in literature, Anne-Marie does her best to make each Heroine feel at home, with a roof over her head and a shoulder to cry on. But when Penny begins to feel overshadowed by her mother's indulgence of each and every Heroine, havoc ensues, and the thirteen year old embarks on her own memorable tale."

Consider this a Feminisms open thread. I haven't had the time lately to actually write a Feminisms - or even think about a Feminisms topic, actually. Too much work - too much traveling.

Anyway, talk about what's on your mind...

I think we would all appreciate it if we could keep the candidate stuff in the candidate diaries, so if you've got comments on the primary, please take them to one of the hundred or so recent diaries on the primary. I assure you the discussion is flourishing there.

Which five letter word?

Tips to Kath25 for accessing the OED and for the photos! I couldn't have done it without her!

There's a new book out about Hillary Clinton, Thirty Ways Of Looking At Hillary: Reflections By Women Writers. Susan Faludi reviews the book here. I had no intention of reading this book, and now that I've read Faludi's review of it, I'm feeling like my instincts were right.

This Faludi quote sums up why I'm avoiding this book:

Reading through these pages, I wished for a companion volume, Thirty Ways of Looking at Women Looking at Hillary, which answered this question: Why do so many of these women writers—who have shown themselves to be graceful essayists and well-reasoned analysts in other contexts—resort to unfactual and illogical thinking and, in many cases, downright 13-year-old cattiness when the topic is Hillary?

When I first saw the title of the book, I thought - "hrm, I'm guessing these are mostly personal opinion pieces, but I wonder what it would actually be like to look at someone 30 different ways."

Feminisms is a series of weekly feminist diaries. My fellow feminists and I decided to start our own for several purposes: we wanted a place to chat with each other, we felt it was important to both share our own stories and learn from others’, and we hoped to introduce to the community a better understanding of what feminism is about.

Needless to say, we expect disagreements to arise. We have all had different experiences in life, so while we share the same labels, we don’t necessarily share the same definitions. Hopefully, we can all be patient and civil with each other, and remember that, ultimately, we’re all on the same side.