Google's feminist ad

Google recently came out with a series of web videos called "search stories," vignettes that tell a sweet little tale about a character based on what they type into the Google search bar. Surprisingly, one story has a bit of a feminist bent. Though we can't see the person behind the keyboard, the search terms make it clear that it's a young girl who's into science (pleo robotic dinosaurs, to be precise) and who worries about fitting in at a new school. She searches for tips on joining the school's girly activities (the cheerleading squad or the volleyball team) and even considers joining the prom committee. But then, hesitantly, her mouse hovers over the search bar as she types in "starting a robotics club." The music swells, and instantly, we know that the girl has found the courage to take on her true calling. Kudos to Google for refusing to play into gender stereotypes! -Naomi

Howard Zinn passes

Feminist and historian Howard Zinn died yesterday at the age of 87 of a heart attack. Zinn was best known for his 1980 work A People's History of the United States. An alternative to school texts that focused on the history of white, privileged men in America, A People's History detailed the stories of women, immigrants, and laborers. In Zinn's chapter on women, entitled "The Intimately Oppressed," he writes that the mainstream recorded history of the feminist movement reflects the activities and goals of wealthy white women, such as Abigail Adams, who implored her husband John to "remember the ladies" as he crafted a national code of laws. Women of color and working class women, many of whom labored in the trenches of the feminist movement, were completely overlooked.

"Working-class women had little means of communicating, and no means of recording whatever sentiments of rebelliousness they may have felt at their subordination," he writes. "Not only were they bearing children in great numbers, under great hardships, but they were working in the home. Around the time of the Declaration of Independence, four thousand women and children in Philadelphia were spinning at home for local plants under the 'putting out' system. Women also were shopkeepers and innkeepers and engaged in many trades. They were bakers, tinworkers, brewers, tanners, ropemakers, lumberjacks, printers, morticians, woodworkers, stay-makers, and more."

You can read the chapter in its entirety here. -Naomi

Changing names

In New York, it has become easier for transgendered individuals to legally change their names to match their gender identity. According to the New York Times, two restrictive rulings have been overturned, and that will pave the way for smoother legal dealings. In one, a judge who refused to grant name changes without a doctor's note was overruled. In another, a judge provided an exception to the requirement that name changes be printed in area newspapers. This requirement, the judge said, put transgendered people at risk of hostility or violence.

"The process of changing a name can be intimidating, said Kit Yan, a 25-year-old poetry slam artist and performer with a hint of facial hair who was born Laura," writes William Glaberson at the Times. "He failed twice when he tried on his own to get the law to recognize the name a friend suggested after seeing a cartoon character named Kit that looked like him, a little boy in a suit.

"With a lawyer in May, Mr. Yan said, he felt relief when he heard 'Laura' to summon him for the last time when his case was called. 'It felt like giving away, say, an ugly Christmas sweater your mom made you,' Mr. Yan said." -Naomi

Au revoir Target Women

Sarah Haskins, creator of the oh-so-sardonic web show about gender and advertising, Target Women, has announced that the series has come to an end. The show dealt with mundane and serious sexism, poking fun at cockamamie yogurt ads aimed at women, and questioning a security company's use of rape scenes in its ads to scare women into buying its product. Haskins' shows were smart and thought-provoking, but above all, they were uproariously funny, proving once and for all that "humorless feminist" is a complete misnomer. Read her goodbye interview with Jezebel here. And check out her end-of-year clip for 2009 below. -Naomi

Aid for women in Haiti

The blogosphere has been abuzz with discontent about aid geared specifically toward women and girls in the aftermath of last week's horribly destructive earthquake. The Feminist Peace Network offers a great round-up of experts on disaster relief targeted toward women and girls, with concerns ranging from basic hygiene supplies, to human traffickers who will likely target homeless women and children. The risks that all survivors face are tremendous, but women do have a unique set of vulnerabilities that needs to be addressed.

A Salon piece that discussed the need for access to hygiene supplies, birth control, and reproductive health services became a lightning rod for sexist attacks. Men's Daily News slams the "women and children first" policy, claiming that relief organizaitons calling for women-specific relief are disinterested in helping men, reducing the well-reasoned argument to "women are special people and they need special help in this crisis. It's a classic case of 'World Ends Tomorrow; Women Most Affected.'"

Even worse is the sexist outcry on The Spearhead, attacking gender-specific aid with this claim: "That these women’s groups are heading to a disaster area with the same anti-male agenda with which we are so familiar should be cause for outrage." The fear that "men are needlessly dying because these women’s groups are hoarding supplies for women only" is absurd and unfounded. To elevate the basic physical needs that women have is not to diminish the needs that men have.

These mischaracterizations of women's organizations are indeed frustrating in the wake of a humanitarian crisis, but point more generally to a reluctance to accept that women's needs are real. Regretfully, I was once in that camp that views feminism as anti-male. My rudimentary understanding of feminism had long been based on a hypothetical anecdote I heard circa age 7 about women firefighters demanding physical tests that were less rigorous than men's to create an "equal" playing field for a physically demanding job. I still think this would be unreasonable. Arguing that women need special attention in Haiti is not to argue that men don't have real needs, or that their needs are insignificant. But we need to apply a "women and children first" framework to Haiti because we live in a world in which predatory traffickers are likely to lure women and girls into prostitution or slavery, and in which women are regularly subjected to violence. Until men and women have overcome the challenges that face women, disasters like this will continue to demand a gender-specific approach. -Sara