While most recaps focus on the entire aspect of a show, this one’s going to be a little bit different.  As this is a feminist blog deconstructing images and portrayals of women in pop culture, why spend an entire post rambling on about the men of Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price.  Instead, these recaps will focus on the women of Mad Men – the main ladies: Peggy, Joan, and Betty, and any new additions or guest stars – hence the title “Mad Women.”

Betty
Despite my frustrations with Betty so far this season – her anger at Don this episode was totally legit.  He’s completely hit rock bottom, and she has no patience for putting up with his shit.  Who can blame her?

Peggy
Peggy was AMAZING this week.  She showed she has no fear and takes no bullshit from the men at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price.  We also saw a total role reversal of Peggy and Don’s relationship – while she has come to his rescue and “fixed things for him in the past, this week, she told him what to do, how to fix it, and how it was his responsibility to clean up the mess he made.  She proved to the new art director that she is far from “repressed” and in fact, one-upped him completely.  She not only challenged him and proved him wrong, but completely shut him down in the process.  I’m pretty sure she won’t have any problems with him going forward.  Peggy’s response to Stan looking at Playboy “Are you going to work or just stare at pictures who can’t stare back” was interestingly profound.

Joan
The flashbacks of a younger Joan and Roger together was great.  I was shocked that Don kissed Joan on the lips when they announced his win at the Cleo’s, but I think there’s a certain part of Joan that feels like these guys are her extended family in some weird kind of way – from seeing her hanging out with Pete, drinking with Roger at the bar, and holding Don and Roger’s hand during the awards under the table.

Dr. Faye Miller, Doris, And The Woman From The Bar
These three women this week showed us Don hitting rock bottom. The Clio’s were on Friday, when he went to a hotel with the woman from the bar, and he woke up the “next morning” (it was actually) Sunday, next to a mysterious woman who called him “Dick.”  He was so drunk from Friday night to Sunday morning, he couldn’t even remember when the woman from the bar left, or who the hell Doris was, much less that he had slept with her.  (I’m guessing from her uniform it looked like she was a diner waitress?)  Which of course leaves the questions of what ended up happening with the woman from the bar, and how he met Doris, and why she knows him as Dick?

Leave your thoughts on Peggy’s liberation, who Doris is, and anything else from this week’s episode in the comments.

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On Friday, G4tv.com posted their review of “Metroid: The Other M” written by Abbie Heppe.  The review called out the game on its troubling sexist storyline, and the destruction of one of the most kick-ass female characters in gaming.  In the latest installment of the franchise, Samus refuses to use her large arsenal of weapons and armor until a former superior, Adam, allows her to.  She’s frequently reduced to a weak, crying, trembling mess, even when fighting enemies she’s beat in former games.  Throughout her review Ms. Heppe expresses her disappointment with these changes to Samus’ character.  Unsurprisingly, the review wasn’t received well by gamers.

People were pissed and it didn’t take long for the review to spread across gaming communities.  The typical arguments appeared: the game isn’t sexist, it’s not as sexist as other games, it’s just a game, who cares, it’s not like Samus is wearing a string bikini, etc.  I think you get the point.

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The Bronte’s pretend to be men by sporting fake “super-disguise mustaches,” use their boomerang book throwing capabilities to take down the “sexist pig” publisher and use their extraordinary feminist vision to break gender barriers.

The commercial ends with “remember kids, use your brain and you could make history!”

Isn’t that a fabulous alternative to the pink think of gender socialization that focuses on the  narcissistic world of the princess?

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Yesterday, we celebrated Women’s Equality Day and the 90th Anniversary of Women’s Suffrage in West Hollywood with Councilemember Lindsey Horvath, Councilmember Abbe Land, veteran activist Zoe Nicholson, Kamala Lopez of Las Lopezistas and Gloria Allred. We honored Allred’s 30 day fast in recognition of the continued need for the unpassed ERA and officially kicked off ERA 2010 Launch! Fellow blogger and president of the SMC FMLA, Rachel O, vice-president of the SMC FMLA and I represented Santa Monica College’s Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, a chapter of the Feminist Majority Foundation’s efforts to bring feminist issues across college campuses.

Related articles and photos:

West Hollywood Patch: Celebrating Women’s Right to Vote

Nightline/ABC News: Gloria Allred

Zoe Nicholson: The Equal Rights Amendment Finds New Wings in 2010

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Lets utilize the power of social media activism. Make the video viral and tell all Americans we need the ERA.

Be sure to read Zoe Nicholson’s speech given today in West Hollywood in honor of Gloria Allred’s fast.

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While most recaps focus on the entire aspect of a show, this one’s going to be a little bit different.  As this is a feminist blog deconstructing images and portrayals of women in pop culture, why spend an entire post rambling on about the men of Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price.  Instead, these recaps will focus on the women of Mad Men – the main ladies: Peggy, Joan, and Betty, and any new additions or guest stars – hence the title “Mad Women.”

Sally
Sally was a really big focus of this episode.  She’s hitting adolescence, and it’s obvious neither of her parents are quite sure of how to deal with it properly or appropriately.  She’s exploring appearance, beauty, and her own body (she cut her hair, tried to look like Phoebe, and masturbated at her friends house.)  I can’t help but wonder if Don and Betty’s reaction is due to what we know about their past.  Both of them had parents who weren’t exactly good at dealing with their children growing up, and the changes that happen during the process.  I think if any of Sally’s behavior is a way of her “acting out”, it’s because of Don and Betty’s divorce, and the death of her grandfather – her picture-perfect-on-the-outisde suburban life is crumbling. 

Betty
After two weeks of almost no Betty screen time, this week’s episode featured her storyline throughout most of the episode.  I found her reaction to Sally cutting her hair disturbing.  While initially I felt that Henry was getting along better with her because he was listening to her after she slapped Sally, I quickly realized that it wasn’t an equal conversation they were having.  Henry’s tone and choice of words showed him treating Betty as everyone describes her: “a little girl.”  Something about the way he was telling her to go upstairs and apologize to Sally, and everything will be fine, was very…paternal?  Not to excuse Don in any way, because he certainly put her through hell, but it’s as if Betty married someone who would treat her in the way she sees herself – as daddy’s little princess.  While I was big fan of Betty for the first three seasons, rooting for her all the way, waiting for her to realize Don’s lying, cheating ways and to kick his ass to the curb, this season I find myself frequently annoyed by her behavior.

The show approached the topic of therapy once again.  Betty’s aversion to it, I think, is more about the betrayal she experienced the first time she opened up to a supposed confidant.  It seems she’ll be opening up and putting trust into the therapist she found for Sally.  I hope she’s finally able to work through her past – with her parents, her former and current husbands, and her kids.  It’s obvious simply divorcing Don didn’t solve “the problem that has no name” for Betty.  Being married to him wasn’t the source of all of her problems, and I think that in her discussion with the therapist, she may be coming to realize it.

I found it incredibly telling that while “trying” to get Sally help for her “problems” – Betty makes it all about her.  Rather than wondering why Sally would be driven to cut her hair or “play with herself  in public” the conclusion she reaches is that Sally is doing it to punish her.  As demonstrated by the picture I chose for this recap, I am fascinated by the possibility that the person who could help her understand herself, and open up is a child psychologist.

Joan
Despite a language barrier, Joan knew immediately that she was being sexually harrassed by the new prospective clients from Honda.  Obviously, sexism has no cultural differences.  While there was some slight flirtation between Roger and Joan in the Christmas episode, Joan has moved on.  Her refusal to listen to Roger complain, and her unwillingness to comfort and console him, was a big step forward for her.

Peggy
Peggy wasn’t featured much in this episode, but her riding around on the motorcycle on the soundstage was pretty incredible.

Nurse Phoebe, Dr. Faye Miller, and Bethany
Despite the fact that Don seems to be coming to some unspoken self-revelations about why Betty divorced him, and why his life will never go back to being the way it was, his reaction to Phoebe when he came home, showed he still acts the same.  Much like the way he laid the entire 24-7 responsibility of the kids and every minute detail of everything they do in Betty’s hands, he immediately blamed Phoebe and fired her for not being able to control what Sally did in the bathroom while she was getting changed.  I hope he sees the error in his judgement on the issue, and we get to see more of Phoebe in Season 4.

I enjoyed the idea that Dr. Faye Miller has found a way to avoid being harassed by men at work – that simply wearing a wedding ring (despite the fact that she doesn’t so much as have a boyfriend) makes her life much easier.  While Joan is actually married, she is still harassed, something that I feel has more to do with her position in the company, than anything with Joan’s appearance and/or personality.  She’s seen as “just a secretary” so the men feel they can get away  with it (and they do, she holds virtually no power at Sterling, Cooper, Draper, Price.)  Faye’s advice to Don regarding Sally was, I think, both good and bad – I believe it’s incredibly important that Sally and Bobby know that their father loves them, but bad in the sense that simply telling them, or buying them expensive Christmas presents doesn’t really express a deep caring.  He’s been such an absent father throughout the first three seasons, choosing to spend time with mistresses in the city, instead of with his kids and wife.  I hope through what Faye told him, he’ll come to realize this.

Don finally went on another date with Bethany, but I’m not sure he’s truly interested in her.  I think he only asks her out when he needs something – someone to go to Benihana’s with to do research on the new prospective client, etc., and I think she’s beginning to see it.

Also, glad to see Miss Blankenship still working as Don’s secretary.

Leave your thoughts on Betty’s interactions with Henry, Sally’s behavior, and anything else about this episode in the comments.

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As a photographer, when some of the raw images of Jennifer Aniston’s 2006 Harper’s Bazaar photo shoot emerged, I was relieved. I ended up in photography by accident when I started shooting local Los Angeles bands for fun two years ago. Since I have no extensive formal photo training and have learned mostly through experience, I feel some insecurity regarding my technical skill. Seeing how Alexi Lubomirski’s outtakes mirrored some of my own was reassurance that I am, in fact, doing everything right. A cursory glance through his portfolio reveals a body of work that is thoughtful, exploratory, and beautiful (Not surprisingly, his conceptual photography is a lot more engaging than his editorial shoots). It appears as though he has worked with Jennifer Aniston before, producing luminously gorgeous if shallow images of the actress. Indeed, sometimes simply creating an indulgently beautiful image is gratifying, a sentiment that often guides my own work.

Whether or not the outtakes are actually doctored seems to be just a petty legal argument designed to protect Hollywood’s middle school egos. When I first encountered the outtakes, they seemed like the logical by-products of any photo shoot – especially a shoot involving unpredictable natural elements such as sunlight and sand, and I could not understand the uproar they generated. I suspect that the sometimes harsh reactions originate from a total misunderstanding of photography in general, so I have attempted to recreate the settings which I imagine contributed to the Harper’s Bazaar outtakes and subsequent published image.

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Recently the website Consumerist.com posted a letter they received from an irritated female gamer.  She had contacted Xbox Live support to downgrade her account, and the reply she received told her they would be happy to help her with her sons account, and they know how disappointing it can be for her son when Xbox isn’t working properly.  And here’s why I’m writing about it – the woman who wrote in?  Never mentioned a son in her correspondence, and in fact she doesn’t even have any kids, much less a son with an Xbox account.  There is an automatic assumption that if you are female, you couldn’t possibly yourself be a gamer.  XBox is flooded with problems for girl gamers like me, but it’s something that is rarely addressed.

A few weeks ago, Gears of War was offering extra experience points for playing online.  Previously, I had always signed in as the +1 to my boyfriend’s account, and nothing would be saved.  Xbox was offering a 30 day trial period, so I figured, what the hell, I’ll sign up, I can always cancel once the trial period is over.  While thinking of a username, I realized that all the combinations of words that I would like to use, that I identified with, were all “feminine” in some way.  So immediately the first three ideas I had were out.  Of course, I could’ve used one of those names – but then I would’ve been subject to pictures of male genitalia, sexual harassment, and misogynistic comments.

When I finally settled on a username, one that is actually specifically male, I was happy.  “No more problems or worrying about any of the above” I thought.  The second day playing under my new account, I was invited to a chat with fellow team members while playing Warzone.  I realized that, even if I wanted to join (which I didn’t – I was already getting the feeling they were pissed because I wasn’t doing well), I couldn’t.  That would reveal me as being a woman, and wasn’t something I wanted to deal with.  (I was right about the annoyance part – they sent me messages telling me to “Get the fuck out!!!!!!!!” once the game was almost over.)  On top of all that, I was frequently put into games with people who had information that tried to circumvent the automatic Xbox offensive word finder – people would put words like “raep” and “b1tch” in their usernames or profiles, or in some cases, both.  I filed complaints each time I came across one, but over the long weekend, it seems I encountered this multiple times on a daily basis.

Currently, there’s no solution for stopping any of it, there’s only doing what I did – hiding.  Hopefully Xbox will get a clue and begin adding the “misspelled” words to their automatic finder.  Maybe institute a zero-tolerance policy on any of the above mentioned behavior?  But until then, it’s all male-sounding usernames and filing complaints one by one.

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Vogue Italia’s recent oil spill shoot and Rachel Zoe‘s “I Die” fashion spread join Lindsay Lohan’s set of “artistic” photos shot (no pun intended) with Tyler Shields earlier this year.

Like a lot of other people, I don’t find violence against women funny, glamorous, inspiring or particularly artistic unless  there’s a critical examination of violence spelled out in the artist’s statement.   As I stated in an earlier post:

Our media landscape is populated with endless streams of images and messages glorifying, eroticizing and diminishing the serious nature of violence against women, an issue that some have called a hidden pandemic and others have labeled an epidemic of global proportions.

As Gwen Sharp at Sociological Images asked in a  post when Lohan’s photos hit the internet:

Lohan and the photographer have angrily responded that the images are just art and people shouldn’t get so upset.  That, of course, isn’t the point. The bigger question is why photographers, artists, fashion editors, and others continue to find images of sexualized violence toward women compelling.

What is important to remember when photographs like these are released is that they are part of a spectrum. They do not stand alone as just one photograph or just one photo shoot. These images are part of a larger trend of images  that feature domination, aggression, violence against women, and “dead”  women (or as Jennifer Pozner dubs them, “beautiful corpses“). Through the use of body language, make-up and clothing victimization is implied and violence becomes commonplace. This gory stream of images, featuring mangled women with mouths agape and eyes glazed, is practically unremarkable in the pop culture landscape, especially in advertising. These 3 sets of  images follow close on the heels of my recent posts critically examining the rampant misogyny and striking resemblance between Marc Jacobs ad campaigns and images of actual crime scenes of murdered women.

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Healing Mind, Body & Spirit.

It was in an afternoon yoga class 10 years ago that I realized my relationship with my body had been profoundly changed.

Gazing up at my legs, glistening with sweat in shoulder-stand, I realized that I wasn’t searching for signs of “imperfection” or scrutinizing my body with the negative self-talk that too many of us have with ourselves on a daily basis—the abusive dialogue I had with myself most of my life.

For the first time I could remember since early childhood, I wasn’t critical of myself.

I wasn’t looking for parts of my body to control and change.

A distorted body image, self-criticism, and the pursuit of “perfection” by any means necessary is a perverse inheritance passed down from the women in my family and influenced by the unrealistic and prolific images manufactured by the larger media culture. Given this environment, I never had a chance to emerge unscathed, self-esteem intact. The women in my family were constantly dieting, tracking calories in food diaries, lamenting weight gain, celebrating weight loss and sizing other women up. An unhealthy pre-occupation with my body and food was set in motion before I hit puberty and manifested in all sorts of dangerous methods to obtain thinness: diet pills, colon hydrotherapy, fasting, legal and illegal stimulants, calorie restriction, self-induced vomiting and excessive exercise.

The routes to freedom presented themselves at about the same time, feminism and then yoga. Feminism offered the ideological tools to examine my tortured relationship with my body systematically and deconstruct mediated images. Yoga provided the practice that rooted the things feminism had taught me. It is one thing to intellectualize self-love and acceptance, it’s another to embody it.

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