Saturday, April 01, 2006

No More Good Girl   I just spent time with my mentor Abigail Trafford, columnist for The Washington Post, at the energizing Women, Action & the Media conference at MIT sponsored by the Center for New Words. The 350 participants heard inspiring but also frustrating presentations about women's voices and portrayal in the media. Caryl Rivers, journalism professor at Boston University, ran through a hilarious set of slides, headlines from the bogus anti-feminist "trend" stories that the media seems so enamoured of these days, the so-called "opt-out" trend that none of us could recall any of our friends taking advantage of, the so-called impaired marriageability of educated women (that one sparked gales of laughter from the crowd), the damaged psyches of daycare-exposed children (tests show they actually have better cognitive and social skills). While we exited laughing, the smiles soon melted. How do we stop the likes of The New Yorker's Caitlin Flanagan, who extols the virtues of the barefoot-and-pregnant-in-the-kitchen model of wifedom while pursuing a very successful and public writing career (this is the Phyllis Schlafly model of hypocrisy). And what of the real female workforce, the 9-to-5ers in blue collars who have no choice at all about opting out. Where are they in this mythical world of home vs. 'career' choice At her session, Abbie talked about the dearth of reliable health information on women -- the contradictory messages from ill-conceived health studies -- and the burden on women to be the 'Good Girl' and follow health advice that until the Women's Health Initiative of the 1980s had largely been based on studies of men. We still have no good information.  And Angel Foster of Ibis Reproductive Health gave some revealing perspective on the political misuse of language around reproductive issues. (eg. why is it called the 'morning after' pill? Are women supposed to feel guilt and regret about the act? do people only have sex at night??) Writers at Salon and elsewhere told of the trolling and threatening of women with any kind of opinion. And we heard about the 'quota of one' in which media outlets believe that one woman serves to diversify an editorial or oped staff. (but what if that ONE is Caitlin Flanagan!) We left vowing to speak up more and louder and support one another's media initiatives. No more Good Girl. -RH 9:37:50 PM    comment []

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