Review of J Courtney Sullivan’s feminist-themed novel

Written by Laurel M. Long

In J. Cournet Sullivan’s debut novel, Commencement, four Smith college dorm mates friends are reunited several years after their college graduation. Sullivan, a Smith alum and writer for the New York Times editorial department, is plenty equipped to deal with describing the harrowing tales of  friendship and falling out among today’s young women—with a feminist twist.

Indeed, she carefully adds in spurts of feminism by creating one character, April, who is the Big Feminist on Campus—or at least among the four friends. April is opposed to sex trafficking; indeed, Sullivan throws in mention of the feminist organization Equality Now, a group April ends up doing some on-campus work with. Sullivan also mentions names of several well-known feminist Smithies, i.e. Gloria Steniem and Betty Friedman.

There are also good many good insights sprinkled throughout Commencement,at one point, one of the women, Sally, is having an affair with one of her male professors. In the dining hall, she asks her friends to swear to secrecy before telling them, yet she “knows they will tell at least three people each.”

Of the four Smith friends, only one ends up in a relationship with a woman, and she is the one that was originally engaged to her high school boyfriend! I found this realistic, since most lesbians do date men at some point in their lives. Furthermore, high schoolers simply do not know themselves well enough to understand what kind of sexual and romantic relationship in which they will most thrive.

Although the novel’s humor brought a smile to my face at points, at other times I found myself cringing at the feminist sterotypes thrown around in the novel. From all the reading I have done, Catharine MacKinnon does not believe “…the women’s movement [is] run by a bunch of rich, white ladies who cried about being tethered to domestic lives of dinner parties and tennis lessons while most of the world’s women were struggling to make minimum wage and feed their children.” (38). Rather, MacKinnon has stated that all women including white, middle-class, heterosexual women are oppressed as women.

Furthermore, April develops a working relationship with a fictional Smith alum, “Ronnie.” Ronnie does outrageously un-feminist actions, such as video-tape a woman being battered by her husband and not step in before he murders her. While bringing feminism to a “fun” novel is a huge plus, I wished it could have been done without the use of such an outrageous character as Ronnie. Indeed, I found myself wondering, if I wasn’t already as well-read on feminism as I was, would I have been more turned on or off from exploring the subject from this novel? I remain unpersuaded.

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Feminism Summer School

DC Students for a Democratic Society is providing a series of summer courses about feminism!

“DC SDS is providing a student-run, reading and discussion-based radical summer school! The next topic we will be learning about will be feminism.

Over the three week course, we will have 8 classes. Each class’ readings will be provided in links below when they become available.

1. Monday, July 27th: Introduction
2. Wednesday, August 5th: Early Feminism
3. Monday, August 10th: Reproductive Justice
4. Wednesday, August 12th: Sexual Empowerment & Oppression
5. Monday, August 17th: Feminist Art and Media
6. Wednesday, August 19th: Women and the State
7. Monday, August 24th: Sexism within Movements
8. Wednesday, August 26th: Towards a More Inclusive Feminism

On Mondays and Wednesdays, the class will meet at Hillyer Art Space, which can be found at 9 Hillyer Ct. NW in Dupont Circle. The class will meet from 7pm-9pm on Mondays and Wednesdays.”

This sounds like an amazing experience to listen, learn, and talk about feminism. We at oob encourage everyone to go out and attend a few classes.

For more information, go here:

http://www.dc-sds.org/

grace, oob intern

Highly educated women– a threat??

Judith Warner has a controversial article today about educated women in American society and how they are viewed as either elitist or a threat.

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/09/dont-hate-her-because-shes-educated/

The article highlights the manufactured divide between “real women” and “highly educated women.” To me, the piece has some holes (including her central example) but the discussion it has opened up is fascinating. Look at the comments for some good (and bad) criticism of the issue.

 

grace, oob intern

What do you want to see from feminism?

In your area what kind of events do you want to see in regards to feminism?

What kind of issues do you think feminists should be focusing on now?

Where do you see the most effective and successfully feminist activism being done?

Statistics on Stalking

In light of the post on Marion Barry and in response to his supporter who commented that Barry’s harassing and stalkerish voicemails to the victim were simply “silly” here are some stats that give us an idea the state of stalking at this time.

The SVS measured the following stalking behaviors:
• making unwanted phone calls
• sending unsolicited or unwanted letters or e-mails
• following or spying on the victim
• showing up at places without a legitimate reason
• waiting at places for the victim
• leaving unwanted items, presents, or flowers
• posting information or spreading rumors about the victim
on the internet, in a public place, or by word of mouth.

According to the Stalking Resource Center:

• 1,006,970 women and 370,990 men are stalked annually in the United States.
• 1 in 12 women and 1 in 45 men will be stalked in their lifetime.
• 77% of female and 64% of male victims know their stalker.
• 87% of stalkers are men.
• 59% of female victims and 30% of male victims are stalked by an intimate partner.
• 81% of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are also physically assaulted by that partner.
• 31% of women stalked by a current or former intimate partner are also sexually assaulted by that partner.
• The average duration of stalking is 1.8 years.
• If stalking involves intimate partners, the average duration of stalking increases to 2.2 years.
• 61% of stalkers made unwanted phone calls; 33% sent or left unwanted letters or items; 29% vandalized property; and 9% killed or threatened to kill a family pet.
• 28% of female victims and 10% of male victims obtained a protective order. 69% of female victims and 81% of male victims had the protection order violated.

In a study done between 1994 and 1998 in ten U.S. cities (Baltimore, Houston, Texas, Kansas City (KS), Kansas City (MO), Los Angeles, New York, Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, St. Petersburg/Tampa, and Wichita:

• 76% of femicide victims had been stalked by the person who killed them.
• 67% had been physically abused by their intimate partner.
• 89% of femicide victims who had been physically abused had also been stalked in the 12 months before the murder.
• 79% of abused femicide victims reported stalking during the same period that they reported abuse.
• 85% of attempted femicide cases involved at least one episode of stalking within 12 months prior to the attempted femicide.
• 54% of femicide victims reported stalking to police before they were killed by their stalkers.

Stalking on College Campuses:

• 13% of the college women had been stalked since the school year began. If the definition of stalking required that the person were actually threatened with harm–as set forth in many state criminal stalking statutes–the extent of stalking dropped to only 1.96%.
• 80.3% of victims knew or had seen their stalker before
• Stalking incidents lasted on average for 2 months (60 days).
• 3 in 10 women reported being injured emotionally or psychologically from being stalked.
• In 15.3% of incidents, the victim reported that the stalker either threatened or attempted to harm them.
• In 10.3% of incidents, the victim reported that the stalker forced or attempted sexual contact.
• Overall, 83.1% of stalking incidents were NOT reported to police or campus law enforcement.
• 93.4% of victims confided in someone, most often a friend, that they were being stalked.

Actions taken by victim

• 43.2% avoided or tried to avoid stalker
• 21.8% actions taken but not specified
• 16.3% confronted stalker
• 8.8% did not acknowledge messages/e-mail
• 5.6% became less trustful/more cynical
• 4.9% got caller ID
• 4.1% improved security system of residence
• 3.9% traveled with a companion
• 3.9% sought restraining order
• 3.3% filed a grievance with university
• 2.9% sought psychological counseling

The survey found that American Indian/Alaska Native women more likely to be stalked than female victims of other racial or ethnic backgrounds. The survey also showed Asian/Pacific Islander women were significantly less likely to be stalked.

Unwanted phone calls and voicemails are simply “silly”? I think not.

Marion Barry: Bringing stalking to the forefront

So the most recent fiasco Marion Barry has gotten himself into involves a women who he was stalking. Now I don’t care to discuss too much about Marion Barry but more the responses that we printed in the washington City Paper following a 2 page article on the man’s latest crazy and criminal acts. Please feel free to read the article (it is very thorough and interesting) as I will only be focusing on the responses. The link is as follows:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=37514

While there were a great deal of responses admonishing the former mayor of DC there were too many responses such as this:

Ok. I admit. I love Marion Barry! He makes life and politics interesting and I must say, he is what he is! He is a womanizing, old school politician who knows how to get things done in DC. He is a great public servant and an imperfect human being in his personal life. I listened to the recordings and read the text messages. Silly, yes. Stalking – no way!

I am disappointed that a person would take a job, attempt to share a room and take other perks from her relationship with the councilman, former mayor – but scream stalking when he wants more than friendship.

I am confused for multiple reasons…why can’t his continous persuit of the woman be considered stalking again? And why has everyone forgotten that the woman has cancer and apparently no job which most likely mean no healthcare and with Barry throwing huge sums of money at her ($20,000 at one point) why wouldn’t she put up with his stalkerish ways and relent to meeting with him? She trying to save her life people!! Some of these comments amazed me! How can a man who kicked a woman out of a hotel room (because she wouldn’t suck his dick) subjecting her to spend the night in his car be considered a “great public servant” what public service is he doing? How can someone who leaves harrassing messages which turn into stalking be considered a “great public servant”? Marion Barry has a INFALLIBLE RECORD of womanizing amongst other things…why is it so hard to believe that he is a stalker?! Not only has this turned into victim blaming but it also turned into a gay bash:

This is a waste of time. Listened to the tapes and I do not hear anything that would get him fired. I would vote for him again and again becuase he works for the people. I wonder if David Catania is mad at him becuase he was the only one that voted against gay marraige and this is something as a result. I know i heard him call him a bigot becuase he represented the people in his district rather than special interest. These recordings is a strong attempt to get somebody to visit the site and try to sell papers. This aint sh*t…I can not wait to vote for him again! Seems like you can not help anyone anymore. This is a witch hunt and i bet its becuase he was the only one that voted against gay marraige!

Hmm. Now how did this gay marriage issue come up? I thought we were discussing a public servant who was stalking his lover. This is the problem these days. Anti-Gay Proponents will insert their anti-gay rhetoric wherever – despite its relevance in the conversation. I truly appreciate the seemingly intelligent person who answered this post as such:

Forget about stalking for a second! Supporting a man who kicks his girlfriend out off the hotel room and makes her sleep in a car because he couldn’t get a bj? How ethical is that?

Barry has been a gay rights allies for a longtime. David Catania is actually not even liked by gay groups. Especially after David C. cut most of the funds of Elizabeth Taylor clinic. Blaming these tapes on gay marriage show how intelligent Barry’s supporters are!

I couldn’t have said it better.

In Feminist Solidarity,

Bessem Sarah Bate

oob intern

Women and the Supreme Court

The NY Times magazine has a great interview out with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg about the place of women on the Supreme Court.  The article is especially relevant given the recent nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the bench.

The article can be found online here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/magazine/12ginsburg-t.html?pagewanted=1

Justice Ginsburg talks about her support for reproductive equality and other decisively pro-feminist positions. Most importantly, she doesn’t shy away from the word “feminist.”

 

grace, oob intern

Women protesting in Iran

In hopes of getting this blog more updated on current events, here’s a link to an interesting article about the role of Iranian women in the recent protests:

http://www.desertdispatch.com/opinion/demand-6380-equal-iranian.html

Excerpt from the article: 

“The majority of the protesters on the streets have been women because they are fearless in their fight for freedom and equal rights and will not back down even with the threat of prison or death for their actions.”

grace, oob intern

Hospitals that Provide Forensic Examinations

Hi Oob Talk!

A few weeks ago it came to my attention that not all hospitals provide forensic exams (or they do so on specific days) and therefore sometimes victims of sexual assault are expected to go hours from their location to get one. When I realized this I decided that as a side summer project I would begin compiling a list (by state) of hospitals that off forensic examinations (specifying the days and times), their process, and if any cost is involved. I am a Massachusetts girl so I will begin with the New England area and work my way westward. Although we all know that sexual assault cases are hardly brought to court (and even when they are, the punishment is very light if any), forensic examinations that could yield hard evidence could make it easier to prosecute certain cases and send some of these assholes to jail. For this reason, I am committed to this project. Having a centralized list would be helpful for organizations that do work regarding sexual assault (crisis intervention, policy, community building) to direct those in these situations.

If you have any information that will make this project a success or would like to help please feel free to comment here or send me an email at bsh4@unh.edu.

In feminist solidarity,

Bessem Sarah Bate

oob intern