Tiger Woods apologizes: summing up today's news

After several months of silence following his very public falling-out with wife Elin Nordegren, Tiger Woods has issued an apology to his wife, fans, and family, admitting, according to the New York Times, "I had affairs. I was unfaithful. I cheated." Jezebel has an interesting roundup on the good (the fact that he sought to quash rumors that Nordegren was violent toward him), the bad (the fact that he obnoxiously talked up his charity work), and the ugly (the fact that his sex rehab is probably a publicity stunt) in Woods' apology, ultimately concluding that it's hard to "fully believe anything he says."

Nordegren, for her part, was hailed as a feminist hero by New York Magazine for leaving Woods: "There is something to be said for the old-fashioned notion of self-reliance. By walking out the door...Elin could be taking the first steps toward reclaiming it." But now, according to celebrity gossip site TMZ, Nordegren is back home with Woods. Does this mean that she loses her feminist status?

Now, it seems, the only one demanding more from Woods is his former lover, porn star Joslyn James. She says that Woods forced her to quit the porn industry out of jealousy, promised that she was the only lover in his life aside form his wife, and caused her emotional distress after their breakup. In typical slut-shaming fashion, TMZ pokes fun at James, saying "she actually believes he should have publicly apologized to her by name today as well." News flash TMZ! Deception hurts everyone. -TLF

Woman's Last Stand

We recently commented on the inanity of the Dodge Charger "Man's Last Stand" Super Bowl ad, which depicts men as hapless victims to their nagging, obnoxious wives:


Now, MacKenzie Fegan has created a spot-on parody. And it's hilarious:
-Naomi

Women in the Olympics: summing up today's news

During an international celebration of athletic accomplishment, a close look at women competitors in the Olympics is due. Title IX passed in 1972, granting women access to high school and college sports, and was revisited last week in the New York Times. Decades later, we still have not achieved equality in sports.

Awearness enumerates many of the sexist concerns with the Olympics, including the absence of women's ski jumping.The International Olympic Committee maintained that women's jumping has no place in the 2010 games, as reported by NPR. Mother Jones digs deeper into the apparent sexism, noting an archaic protectionist sensibility:

"Two years after the first, male-only Winter Olympics in 1924, one German doctor wrote, 'Because of the unanswered medical question as to whether ski jumping agrees with the female organism, this would be a very daring experiment and should be strongly advised against.' In an interview with NPR in 2005, Gian Franco Kasper echoed the sentiment. 'Don't forget, it's like jumping down from, let's say, about two meters on the ground about a thousand times a year, which seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view,' the International Ski Federation (FIS) president said."

Gold medalist Lindsey Vonn has figured hugely in the news. USA Today wrote that "women's sports have been looking for an heir-apparent to Mia Hamm for some time now: a well-behaved, dominant, eminently likeable, crossover superstar. Vonn is that person, if she wants to be, something Hamm never really wanted." The sentiment to empower is there, perhaps, but the stereotypes persist. Are most women athletes not feminine enough? Not dominant enough? Not likeable? Not pretty? Feministing evaluates coverage of Vonn here. Vonn's victory is worth celebration, but the way we talk about her and select cover photos need attention.

A Canadian curler who is five months pregnant has not been deterred from competing in the 2010 games. Kristie Moore told The Times, "So far, so good. I’m feeling great. No problems." Women are thrilled to watch a pregnant woman compete at this level. Momversation celebrates here.

For the most up to date news on women's sports, check out the Women's Sports Foundation. Women Talk Sports has great coverage of the Olympics, and is keeping tabs on evidence of sexism. -TLF

ChatRoulette and split-second sexism

ChatRoulette is a new video networking service of mysterious origin. By clicking a link, you connect via webcam with a stranger who can chat with you or reject you by hitting "next." Of course, you can do the same. The effect, according to an article in New York Magazine, is familiarly jarring. Not since middle school, author Sam Anderson said, has he been rejected by so many people based on a single glance. But beyond the adolescent deja vu, ChatRoulette offers a seductive dip into the amalgam of humanity. No other venue allows real-time video interaction with so many people from so many different walks of life. Anderson chatted "with Pratt students in Bed-Stuy, with a man inexplicably sitting on his toilet, with a kid waving a gun and a knife, and with a guy who went to my wife’s old high school in California," he wrote. "We saw Chinese kids in computer cafés and English kids drinking beer. We danced with a guy in his bedroom to the entirety of Michael Jackson’s 'Don’t Stop ’Til You Get Enough.' We talked for half an hour with a 28-year-old tech writer from San Francisco."

Sounds fun, right? Well not if you're a woman. Here's what Anderson noticed when his wife tried ChatRoulette: "People are endlessly soliciting nudity, both in person and via signs (“FLASH TITS FOR HAITI,” etc.). Roughly one out of every ten chatters is a naked masturbating man, and even they will usually hang up on you, one-handedly, before you can click away."

ChatRoulette, which is overwhelmingly young and male, has the tenor of an online comment thread, in which individuals use the cloak of anonymity to unleash sexist or menacing commentary. Fast Company's Saabira Chaudhuri elaborated on this problem when several readers commented with vicious screed after an article she penned on women in new media. "The comfortable anonymity offered by the Web allows people, in this case men, to say whatever it is they actually think deep down," she wrote. "And their feelings are incontrovertibly sexist. These are the same people we all run into in real life. But in the offline world, like the Ku Klux Klan when their masks are put away, it's hard to tell who's who. Men offline would never dare claim ownership to the ludicrous statements they so freely spout on the Web."

ChatRoulette, of course, isn't totally anonymous. It is a video service after all. But that doesn't appear to dampen participants' propensity for sexist behavior. It only means that split-second sexism has a face and a body, in addition to words. -Naomi (Thanks, Coby, for the tip.)

The Paterson let-down: summing up today's news

Last week, a New York Observer reporter speculated on his Twitter account about a major upcoming expose in the New York Times regarding New York Governor David Paterson. The soon-to-be-published report, the errant tweeter insinuated, would be damning enough to blow Paterson out of office--likely a major sex scandal. The tweet circulated through the blogosphere, the build-up, well, building and building until the story ran last night and the blogosphere let out a collective "huh?". The big story, it turns out, was not about Paterson at all, but about his closest aid, a former intern from Harlem named David Johnson.

Johnson has a checkered past. As a young man he faced drug charges for selling crack cocaine to an undercover officer. And, more recently, he was involved in several "domestic disputes," as the Times called them. One woman whom he had been seeing alleged that he punched her. In another incident he allegedly menaced a woman in the Bronx on Halloween, tearing off her costume. This behavior is especially questionable, the Times noted, given Paterson's dedication to fighting domestic violence in New York. "Last October, two weeks before the episode involving Mr. Johnson and the Bronx woman, Mr. Paterson opened a campaign to raise awareness about domestic violence, gathering with advocates for a lighting ceremony at the Empire State Building."

Though the dirt on Johnson was salacious enough to merit an article in the Times, the blogosphere aired its disappointment. This, many wrote, was one big let-down of a scandal. "If one really squints, we guess this story could be viewed as somewhat sexy and scandalous. But barely," wrote Business Insider. "Johnson’s a misogynistic tyrant who once tried to sell cocaine to a cop and still, somehow, this information is relatively boring compared with the wife-swapping and drug-sharing that was rumored to be the stuff of the investigation," wrote Vanity Fair, which added that the article weakly painted Paterson as a "hypocrite for simultaneously employing the reportedly abusive Johnson and for maintaing his controversial position of frowning upon domestic abuse." (Allow me one quick aside--how is "frowning upon domestic abuse" possibly controversial?)

The Village Voice was the only publication that didn't put on petulant airs in the wake of the story, noting that the Johnson revelations may not be the makings of a major political scandal, but violence against women is a scandal in and of itself. "If not for the massive foreplay that preceded it, the Times story would be deeply disturbing."

Paterson, for his part, has denied the allegations against his aid, saying that the story could not "substantiate any claims of violence by David Johnson against a woman, a fact underscored by the absence of a single judicial finding that any such incident ever took place." He added, "I would caution others from making a similar rush to judgment." His word, of course, goes against that of Johnson's anonymous ex, who told the Times that the governor's aid had "gotten violent" with her and that she had filed a domestic violence report against him. -TLF

Reid's bill falls short for women and minorities

In Congress' tug-of-war around the economy and jobs, last week Harry Reid, the Senate Majority leader, pulled a move that could make Americans sink deeper into the mud. He rejected weeks worth of bipartisan work on an $85 billion jobs bill from the House supported by Obama by introducing in the Senate an incredibly ineffective, pared-down $15 billion bill that won't work to solve the employment problem, but will cause more problems, especially for women and people of color.

Reid's bill will likely tick off more Americans than it appeases. The best way to understand the bill is to break down January's unemployment numbers. While women's unemployment rate fell short of men's-- about 7.9 percent compared to 10 percent of men, sparking some to call this a "man-cession"--the number of women who are unemployed within this recession is "a number larger than men's increased unemployment in most previous recessions," according to a study released this month by the Institute for Women's Policy Research. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate for black women rose to 13.3 percent, while it fell to 6.8 percent for white women. Black men overall rose to their highest percentage yet, to 17.6 percent.

But politicians have not focused on women's employment. They've invested more energy into creating jobs in traditionally male fields, such as construction and manufacturing, the Institute study concludes. "Job losses that have also occurred among women in such sectors as retail, hospitality, and personal and business services are not discussed." They've also devoted little attention to programs to benefit people of color, who have a tougher time finding employment than whites.

Reid's bill is no different, and in many ways worse. It not only scraps the House's plan for $48.3 billion for infrastructure projects on roads, bridges and clean water, eliminating jobs which would go to men (including men of color), but the bill also scraps desperately-needed aid for state governments, which typically fund sectors that employ and benefit more women. Even more egregiously, it fails to protect those who are currently unemployed. It does not include unemployment benefit extensions or health care coverage for the unemployed. Economically, this makes little sense. With fewer consumers, demand is down, profit is down, thus, companies won't hire. The only way now to set the cycle aright is for the government to spend more on jobs, not less. -Jean

Remembering Lucille Clifton: summing up today's news

Watching this video of celebrated American poet Lucille Clifton reading a poem about celebration is a perfect way of celebrating her life and work:


Clifton, an accomplished poet, died at 73 this week, and the feminist community has been among those to honor her life and work. Feministe wrote that Clifton successfully articulated "what it means to be a black woman in America, to have the legacy of slavery lapping at her ankles, and what it meant to see her elders and icons have to bear the daily slog of being othered in a racist land." Feminist Law Professors noted that "Clifton frequently wrote about women's experiences. Some of her well-known poems addressed experiences with menstruation, aging and infertility."

Stacia L. Brown described Clifton as a poet who "instruct[s] us that there are endless approaches to black womanhood, countless ways to become influential or strong or wise within our culture. There is no linear track. There is no 'proper way' of doing things. There is no truly irredeemable scandal, no truly insular success. We can quietly rebel against centuries-old archetypes. We can be, quite simply, ourselves–even after everyone we know has developed a staid concept of what that might mean."

As the Poetry Foundation says, "One always feels the looming humanness around Lucille Clifton’s poems—it is a moral quality that some poets have and some don’t." Clifton was indeed successful at conveying "humanness," and its accompanying sensuality, physicality, and femininity. Here is "Homage to My Hips":

these hips are big hips.
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved,
they go where they want to go
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top

-TLF

Considering Alexander McQueen: summing up today's news

Trigger Warning:
The recent suicide of famed fashion designer Alexander McQueen has spurred plenty of speculation about the artist's intent in his most controversial works, which included depictions of raped and murdered models. Were these images the designs of a maladjusted misogynist? Or were they a critique of violence against women?

Liz Jones of the Daily Mail provides a great round-up of McQueen's most bizarre fashion shows, which include one in which models were trapped in a giant jar of moths, another in which models were spray-painted by robots, a third in which a disabled model walked on intricate wood prosthetics, and a fourth called "Highland Rape" in which models walked with their nipples exposed and their faces covered. Jones concedes that McQueen was not the "most woman-friendly designer we have ever produced," even as she lauds the designer who had the potential to "change the way we see women, beauty, disability, age."

Joan Smith at The Independent is less sympathetic, writing that "McQueen was a showman and fashion editors emerged from his collections stunned by the extravaganza; when you're basically there to write about clothes, what are you to make of models tottering along the catwalk in ripped dresses, looking like blood-stained rape victims? It's not cool to break ranks and ask what's behind such supposedly 'ludic' misogyny. Even when commentators talked last week about McQueen's fascination with death, religion and violence, they did it in a disturbing way, as though such themes were simply expressions of his theatricality."

Jezebel comes to McQueen's defense, saying that "McQueen's shows were unusually hard to parse, for fashion. They were intended to make people uncomfortable, and to raise questions that are ordinarily far beyond fashion's remit: about our machine-age codependency...our obsession with plastic surgery (models with grotesque red oversized lips), our disposable celebrity culture (models with trash can lid hats walking around a pile of refuse)."

So what do you think? At The Lady Finger, we've critiqued images of weapons in fashion, commenting on the normalization of violence through couture. But we've also propped up fashion as separate than society, a medium that deserves the same reverence as high art. Should McQueen be considered a brave provocateur, someone who shined a mirror on society's most disturbing ills? Or was he another purveyor of violent images, using battered and bloodied female bodies to shock? -TLF

Will you be my Valentine?: summing up today's news

It's Valentine's Day! Though at The Lady Finger we typically write about love as a very gendered thing, today we're shedding the cynicism to focus on love as a "many splendored thing" in the words of Frank Sinatra. To start off, the New York Times has a delightful article about personal ads in the Victorian age culled from old editions of the New York Herald. The sweetest, dated January 19, 1862, reads: "If the young lady wearing the pink dress, spotted fur cape and muff, had light hair, light complexion and blue eyes, who was in company with a lady dressed in black, that I passed about 5 o’clock on Friday evening in South Seventh Street, between First and Second, Williamsburg, L.I., will address a line to Waldo, Williamsburg Post Office, she will make the acquaintance of a fine young man."

Back in 2010, Jezebel asks readers for their ideal Valentine's Day playlist, after lambasting Billboard's list, which is topped by Olivia Newton John's "Let's Get Physical." (By the way, check out the insane accompanying video, in which Olivia beats up a flabby guy at the gym).

The San Francisco Chronicle details a minor win for gender equity on Valentine's Day: the fact that it's the only day of the year that men purchase more chocolate than women. The publication also has a good history of the holiday, noting that the tradition of exchanging hand-written cards started in Europe and followed the English colonists to America.

But, if you're too lazy to write your own card, visit SomeECards.com for spot-on Valentine's Day messages such as this one: "Sorry the only ring you're wearing this Valentine's Day is a contraceptive in your vagina." -TLF