The book was on feminism, but it was ironically published by a company called Family of Man. predictably, she promotes the conservative party line. She quotes liberally from publications of Focus on the Family, and though she claims to be a feminist in several places, she freely says that a man should be the head of the family. Most of the arguments she gives about abortion are the standard conservative arguments that everyone has heard many times. she is clearly threatened by feminism and repeatedly speaks out against sex outside of marriage and homosexuality. She seems to believe that any sex outside of marriage is inherently destructive and harmful to the people who engage in it — although of course she cites no studies or statistics to back up this claim. There isn’t much original about this book. The only good and interesting parts were her discussions of the women she dealt with in the crisis pregnancy center that she runs. She talked about a number of women who came in with difficult pregnancies and discusses how she helped them find alternatives to abortion. She also tells a very interesting true story of a woman who was a former abortion clinic worker and left due to the interventions of pro-lifers. The rest of the book was the pretty standard arguments against abortion. I am pro-life, but this book really highlighted the differences between my own beliefs and the traditional pro-life movement. I come at the abortion issue from a Liberal, human rights standpoint — I feel that science teaches that life begins at conception, and that therefore, abortion should only be a tragic last resort. My stand has nothing to do with religion, and I support gay rights, sexual freedom, and feminism. this book summarizes the conservative positions on abortion and sexuality very effectively, and if one wants to understand the mentality of women who oppose feminism, this might be a good book to read.

But that does not mean that all men must be an adult. There are also men who have aged, but still immature, and his behavior was like a guy.

Here the author tries to give some fundamental differences between an adult male with a guy

Men: Do you know five years is clear he wants to be.

Guy: It is not clear in five minutes he would do.

Male: candidate makes her feel calm.

Guy: candidate make a girl feel good.

Men: reading John Grisham, golf toys, its spectacle CNN.

Guy: reading Harry Potter, billiard toy, its spectacle MTV.

Men: Before the age of 30 have a lot of money.

Guy: Before the age of 30 have a multitude of sins.

Men: Balance between revenue and income.

Guy: Balanced between debt and minimum payments.

Men: Support for the emancipation of women, but still paying the bill feeding women.

Guys: Supporting the emancipation of women by allowing her own pay.

Men: Have accountants, tailors and doctors subscriptions.

Guy: Got a salon, cafe and shop subscription.

Men: Ask you mama if chipped chat call.

Guy: Pretend you’re not with him when his mother called.

Men: Breaking up with her partner as he shook hands and acknowledged the difficulty of bridging the differences between the two, accompanied by the words, “We can still be friends forever.”

Boys: Breaking up with her partner while running away from home, smoke-trunked trunks, plus the words “Do not invite me to your wedding!”

Men: Loving women 10% at the initial meeting and continued to increase.

Guy: Loving women 100% at the initial meeting and continues to decline.

Men: Thinking like an adult aged 40 years at the age of 17 years.

Guys: Think like a boyish 17-year-old man at the age of 40 years.

Men: It could win only with the brain in conflict.

Guy: Just to go ballistic, quarrels, fights n the muscle if the conflict.

Men: thinkers “I still lack the knowledge, must learn to rely more for a lot.”

Guy: thinkers “I’m the greatest on earth, I against anyone!”

Men: No. 1 brain, muscle in join if forced

Guys: Muscle No. 1, plus if have a brain.

Guy:
“You are picked up, yes. Ya tired of going around the course. “
Men:
“You just wait there, I picked up. A little tired of baseball problem, really. “

Guy:
Paying separately if invite eat or watch a movie, and hopefully if women want to pay.
Men:
Even if the money attached, would not let her pay.

Guy:
Busy forming the body and taking the supplements, but forgot to learn the techniques of pleasing women.
Men:
The focus is on how to make women feel happy with him.

Guy:
The first night always leave patches of “virgin blood”.
Men:
There was no “virgin blood” on the first night because she was good at making women horny.

Guy:
When women take the initiative in sexual activity, commented, “crazy is a woman! Very aggressive! “
Men:
“This is what I have always been looking for! So balanced and exciting game. “

Guy:
Without further ado, immediately wants to have sex. After that to bed.
Men:
Foreplay is like an appetizer (appetizer), sex as the main menu (main course), and after play for dessert (dessert).

Guy:
If sex has been made to ejaculate, it means it’s finished. He did not know that her partner was crying behind his back due to disappointment.
Men:
Always know when the right time for intercourse. He will stop only when their partner has an orgasm and satisfaction.

Guy:
Yes, yes!
Men:
Already or not?

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Why am I so enthralled with this book/movie phenomenon? Partly because it focuses on a dystopian future. As a fan of Animal Farm and 1984, I’m a fan of literature that predicts a bleak future. The Hunger Games may be criticized because it pits child against child in a fight to the death, but it also is a commentary on modern times.

The games themselves are a punishment and a reminder to the residents of Panem, a country born out of the ruins of North America, that the government has absolute power. The twelve districts that remain seemingly serve to keep the Capitol in plenty, while the providers scrape by. Sound familiar? While our current government doesn’t have a “fight to the death” game that residents are forced to watch, there are people still alive who were drafted to fight in a war they did not create. Unlike the tributes, those drafted either went, or escaped to Canada, or were conscientious objectors. The Hunger Games offer no alternative. You fight. You will probably die. Period.

The tributes, the children who are chosen to fight, are taken to the Capitol and prepped to fight in the games. There, they are fed food the likes of which they’ve never seen. Heaps of it. One could consider this fattening the calf to the slaughter, so to speak. It’s sort of a last hurrah before the inevitable death. While in the Capitol, the tributes are cleaned up, dolled up and paraded before the Capitol’s citizens, before they are interviewed on national television. Their prep teams take the time to present the tributes to the viewing audience. Both the teams and the tributes’ mentors work to present a certain angle, or personality to the viewing audience in order to snag sponsors. The sponsors, who are wealthy, provide valuable gifts to the tributes in the arena in order to keep them alive. It may be medicine to soothe a wound, or food. In a way, it’s similar to politics–you choose a candidate and send campaign donations. Having the games televised smacks of reality television.

What’s different is the fact that a young girl is the protagonist. Katniss Everdeen illegally hunts in a forest near her district. Her skill with a bow and arrow supports her family with squirrel, rabbits and the occasional deer. She also gathers plants, and with the help of a friend, Gale, she learns other skills in order to help her and her family survive. Katniss’s father died in a mine explosion when she was eleven. Knowing that she would be eligible for The Hunger Games the next year, she entered her name extra times in order to get a meager ration of oil and grain for her sister, Prim, and their mother. Of course, with the extra name entries comes extra risk. The first time she entered, her name was put in four times. At thirteen, eight times. And so on. This is a hideous form of welfare that doesn’t even begin to keep all three of them sufficiently fed. Because of this, and the barbarism of the games, Katniss’s friend Gale proposes they run away and live in the woods. It is because of their family members that they don’t do this.

Katniss, in this season of woman-hating, is a stunning example of feminism at its finest hour. She is compassionate, yet strong. She cares deeply about her family. While she is tempted to run away with Gale, instead of leaving her sister and mother to fend for themselves, she stays to support them. While Katniss is in the arena, she befriends a tiny competitor named Rue. They form an alliance until Rue is killed by a competitor, who Katniss kills in retaliation.

To make matters even more unbearable, Katniss has to face her fellow District 12 tribute, Peeta, and presumably kill him as well. He reveals during his on-air interview that he is in love with Katniss. Revealing this fact on national television endears him to the Capitol crowd. It is tragic that he has loved Katniss from afar and that only one of them may emerge a victor. However, partway through the games, a rule change is made. Two tributes from the same district may win. When Katniss hears this, she calls out for Peeta and finds him almost literally under her feet. He is an expert when it comes to camouflage. He picked up this skill because his family runs a bakery, and one of his jobs was to decorate cakes. Katniss feels obligated to him because years ago, right after her father died and she was starving, he threw her some burnt loaves of bread. Katniss speculates that he accidentally dropped the loaves into the fire, ruining them enough so that they were only fit for the family’s pigs to eat. Peeta’s mother yells at him, sending him out on the back porch, presumably to feed the pigs. Peeta instead throws the bread to Katniss. He feels guilty for not handing them to her himself; she feels guilty that she never really thanked him for the food.

There is no way I want to live in this kind of world, yet I have read the book probably three times. I’ve seen the movie twice. I think it’s the theme of struggling against all odds, defying an oppressive government, retaining one’s humanity in an inhuman situation, and emerging victorious and getting what you want after all that make this book and movie so relatable. Who among us has not struggled, been hungry, or had to push through obstacles? Who among us was never a child?

Sure, the violence may turn some people off, but those who are drafted to fight aren’t adults in their thirties. We have sent children to kill for years. It may not have been called The Hunger Games. It was called other names: war, conflict, or hideously enough, “liberation.” Whatever it has been called, the people chosen (or more recently, who volunteered) are young people. They are taken to boot camps, fed, trained, dressed and armed.

The Hunger Games may only be a dystopian fantasy, but the scariest part of it is that it is totally believable. In our modern times of high unemployment, foreclosure, war, oppressive government and reality games, The Hunger Games may be closer than we think. Hopefully, the odds will be ever in the people’s favor.

Contemporary studies of political discourse in twentieth-century Germany commonly focus on the actions of the Nazi Party and the genocide of the Holocaust as a central reference point for analysis. During the 1970s and 1980s, new studies and publications introduced alternative criteria and perspectives for examining the social and political precipitations that created such a viable landscape for a fascist takeover. Following American feminist Claudia Koonz’s publication of Mothers in the Fatherland in 1986, the debate intensified and became centralized around the role that women played in the fall of the Weimar Republic and the Nazis’ rise to power. Koonz examination of female involvement challenged the cultural feminist notions of victimization in the female experience in the far Right. As noted by Koonz among others, a distinct paradox arises when studying German women’s relation to far-Right politics regarding the contradictory nature of feminist ideologies and the decidedly antifeminist ideologies of the parties and organizations which they supported (Harvey, 152). However, Koonz’s findings were quickly challenged by women’s historians, specifically Gisela Bock, based on what they perceived as conceptual shortcomings in Koonz analysis.

            The resulting ideological volley of criticism and counter-criticism has since occupied the debate on feminism in Nazi Germany, and furthermore created new conceptual tools for gender studies at large. However, this complex debate is still unresolved in terms of providing a singular and definitive explanation for the female role in the rise of the National Socialist Party in Germany. Because the debate is layered with a vast and interconnected “ensemble” of Nazi values, conflicting theoretical assumptions, and a uniquely volatile social and political context, an examination of this debate requires a nuanced analysis of all facets of feminism in the National Socialist movement, and most importantly, one that carefully avoids generalizations (Leck, 162). And while this essay is also incapable of providing a singular answer for the role of women in Nazi Germany, it will attempt to rationalize feminist action that is seemingly self-detrimental. In addition, it will illustrate the transformation of gender studies in Nazi Germany away from the victim/ perpetrator dichotomy, and toward an examination of the contributing factors to the patriarchal society, as it is manifest in the Koonz-Bock debate. The question is no longer how to label women’s role in Nazi Germany, but rather as Elizabeth Harvey articulates, “What drew women to radical political ideologies and movements that were chauvinistically nationalist, anti-democratic, anti-socialist, and typically antifeminist” (Harvey, 152).

            The foundation for feminist participation in Nazi Germany, and subsequently the debate therein, began with the early twentieth century movements for women’s suffrage and political activism. Following significant electoral losses in the 1912 election, the Deutsch-Konservative Partei (DKP) allowed the formation of the Union of Conservative Women in April 1913. However, as Harvey points out, “Its purpose was not so much to give conservative women a voice in the party as to spread conservative ideas among women and to mobilize them as a resource” (Harvey, 155). The designation of German women as a “resource” illustrates a notion of self-interested motivation on the part of the patriarchal conservative parties. While the German women embraced motherly roles as “guardians of the German home and German values,” right-wing men simply “tolerated women’s associations that formed as auxiliaries to nationalist pressure groups in order to raise funds and support policies such as naval expansion, colonial policy, or anti-Polish campaigning” (Harvey, 154). And while there was a largely manipulative context to these “auxiliary” relationships, the feminist movement undoubtedly succeeded in increasing participation by women in the political process. By the spring of 1918, German women accounted for one-third of the Fatherland Party’s individual membership, and following the German defeat in November 1918, female participation eclipsed 80% voter turnout in the January 1919 elections (Harvey, 155). At this point, a series of unexpected and somewhat ironic events occurred within the feminist movement, which shifted it in a direction that was fundamentally antifeminist.

            The years following World War I and the fall of the German Empire were a critical, yet uncertain time in German politics, and many right-wing groups capitalized on the many perceived threats by espousing more radicalized policies that took root in the highly revolutionary era. The far-Right became concentrated in the Deutschnationale Volkspartei (DNVP), and rallied around “its hostility to democracy, its ultra-nationalism, and its strong streak of völkish (racist) thinking” (Harvey, 154). During the Weimar Republic, the Bund Deutsche Frauenvereine (BDF) “was overwhelmingly allied with political conservatives and/ or economic liberals,” including the DNVP. And while prior to the collapse they had never overtly claimed radical policies so closely tied to antifeminism, “German women’s organizations did fortify patriarchy through their support for conservative political parties” (Leck, 151). The genesis of German female organizations out of parties such as the DKP and DNVP forged a fundamental connection to the patriarchal system, and as Koonz and women’s historian Ralph Leck would agree, it created a common discourse that would result in “complimentariness” between Nazism and German cultural feminism (Leck, 152). In utter contradiction of traditional feminist ideology, “women flocked to support the conservative or more radical right-wing parties, whose composition and traditions reflected the forces that historically had done less to encourage women in politics” (Harvey, 156). In 1921, German women accounted for 54% of DNVP members in Danzing, and 43% of the DNVP membership in Hamburg (Harvey, 156). In addition, the DNVP received disproportionate support from women in several constituencies where men’s and women’s votes were counted separately (Harvey, 156). This research, paired with similar statistical support for the Nazis, undermines Bock’s assertion that German women were “particularly resistant to National Socialism” (Leck, 149). Therefore, the next logical step is determining which ideologies drew women toward the increasingly illiberal and antifeminist parties and organizations at the far-Right in Germany, and why.

            In the period after the German defeat in 1918, right-wing women became increasingly committed to “feminine” roles in the ultranationalist agenda of the far-Right conservative parties. They embraced their duty to protect the German nation and German biological heritage, which was defined as a Volksgemeinschaft (national community) that was culturally homogenous and uncontaminated by “alien blood” (Harvey, 158). Several feminist organizations, including Guida Diehl’s Neuland movement and the Queen Luise League, adopted this ideology, which more specifically “advocated as an alternative to democracy the racially based ‘national community’ in which membership was based on the ‘quality’ of one’s German heritage rather than liberal notions of equal citizenship” (Harvey, 158). All at once, German women practiced their feminist duties as “guardians of the race” and “carriers of the blood” tasked with “[strengthening] racial boundaries, [curbing] the reproduction of the ‘inferior,’ and [promoting] the breeding of pure ‘Aryans’” (Harvey, 159). These roles and responsibilities specifically combined nationalist and racist ideology with a flair for feminism manifest in the very literal, biological integrity German women were expected to protect. With such limited political influence, it is very likely that women embraced the National Socialist movement because they acknowledged this tangible and ultimately necessary role in procreation, which was paramount to the Nazi campaign for cultural supremacy. Additionally, the domesticated nature of their “womanly” capacities played into the “paranoid style of far-right women, who, like male demagogues, generate an ever-expanding list of enemies” (Blee, 216).

Claudia Koonz identified another common discourse between Nazism and German women’s movements in the campaign for Lebensraum (living space), which also satisfied the criteria of a male/ female binary that identified “mutually reinforcing rather than conflicting spheres of patriarchy” (Leck, 150). The issue of providing adequate living space for the entire population of German peoples had existed long before the twentieth century, however the context of Lebensraum in the years leading up to the Nazi takeover enhanced the depiction of a feminine role in the patriarchy of Nazi society. Women’s display of support for Lebensraum was largely manifest in the policies of the thriving women’s organizations of the time, many of them constituents of the BDF. Groups like the Bund Deutscher Hausfrauen (Union of German Housewives, BDH) praised stay-at-home motherhood and viewed Lebensraum as “a celebration of the political role of the domestic sphere” (Leck, 152). For the male Nazi leadership, however, Lebensraum reinforced their increasingly radicalized ideology, and represented “the conceptual centerpiece of a racist plan for imperialist expansion” (Leck, 152). The key characteristic of Lebensraum for Koonz’s and Leck’s analysis of patriarchy in Nazi Germany concerns the presence of a dynamic male/ female binary, which serves the interests of both men and women alike. Leck suggests that Lebensraum represents Nazi patriarchy as “a common discursive regime with sexually differentiated but mutually reinforcing political meanings” (Leck, 152). Once again, this analysis is incompatible with Bock’s victimization theory, because it addresses the empowerment of women’s organizations inherent in their participation in the ideology of motherhood and its connection to Nazi politics of cultural superiority. Taking these developments into account, it is reasonable to abandon an analysis within the confines of a victim/ perpetrator dichotomy. However, this does not completely remove questions of culpability from the analysis, rather it removes many of the limitations present in the original Koonz-Bock debate. In the place of the victimization theory, a thorough examination of Nazi policy and the constructs of patriarchal society will hopefully refine and focus the contextual definition of antifeminism within Nazi Germany.

            Leck addresses the logical fallacy inherent with German female activism in the far-Right by asserting in non-sequitur fashion that “(1) Nazism is antifeminist, and (2) Nazism is a continuation of the mainstream German women’s movement, a movement most historians identify as feminist” (Leck, 151). Leck stresses the importance of defining German feminism and Nazi antifeminism in order to expand and derive some greater logic from the contradictory nature of the relationship between the two. The first complication arises from the lack of a universally-accepted criterion for identifying antifeminism and antifeminist actions. Leck notes, “Historians often use the term [antifeminism] vaguely to maintain that Nazi patriarchy was injurious to women. The implication is that women could not have benefitted from and did not support Nazism” (Leck, 154). The latter assumptions can be already be dismissed due to the fact that Leck already identified German women as both supporters and beneficiaries of Nazism in various capacities. Leck’s discontentment with such a limited, insufficient, and subjective assessment of German antifeminism reiterates the problems that vague generalizations create in such a complex situation of overlapping movements and ideologies. Leck suggests, “The designation of Nazi social policy as antifeminist is particularly problematic because it equates illiberalism, antimodernism, and patriarchy with antiwoman policies” (Leck, 154). Leck also addresses the implications of an antifeminist label in Nazi culture upon the seemingly feminist German women’s organizations and movements of the early twentieth century. “To apply the term antifeminst to Nazi culture allows one to ignore strong continuities between pre-1933 mainstream German women’s organizations and the sexual politics of the Nazis” (Leck, 154). As Leck points out, the feminist misidentification works both ways. He cites historian Nancy Reagin’s refusal to recognize the BDF (arguably the most significant women’s organization in the Weimar years) as a “feminist” organization because it “rejected political equality for all women” (Leck, 161). To clarify the distinction between antifeminism and the ideologies at the core of the Nazi Party, it is easiest to look toward enacted Nazi policies that directly affected women and were seemingly characterized by gender and sexism.

            The Nazi Party’s rapid radicalization and rise to power in the 1930s brought with it a collection of extremist policies, which violated various human rights. One of the more oppressive and foreboding set of laws was the Nazi antinatal policy, which mandated compulsory sterilization and abortion. Because the nature of this policy targeted women specifically, some historians, including Bock, perceive this as an overt act of sexism. While Bock acknowledged the importance of racist ideology in this policy as well, her focus on gender divisions and misogyny in her analysis reiterates her dedication to the image of female victimization. However, Koonz challenged Bock’s approach with evidence of a sharp increase in the birthrate after 1933. Koonz corrected, “In reality, the official portrayal of racial and genetic ‘Minderwertigen’ [less worthy ones] were, in the propaganda of race politics, gender neutral” (Leck, 150). Once again, this reinforces the polarized opposition of male and female spheres at the forefront of Bock’s analysis in contrast to Koonz’s mutually reinforcing male and female binary. Policies of sexual privilege in the German colonies also illustrated right-wing concepts of cultural superiority through the application of fundamentally illogical and contradictory notions, which elevated the German national community. German colonists disregarded the sacred mandates of racial separation in order to exercise their colonial prerogative of sexual access to African women (Blee, 219). In order to circumvent the laws of racial purity, the various colonies instituted their own amendments to these rules, which would ultimately permit interracial concubinage, casual sex, and prostitution between German men and African women (Blee, 219). These laws are significant because they depict one instance in which misogyny and antifeminism clearly take precedent over the racist ideologies at the core of the German far-Right establishment. Not only did these laws compromise the integrity of the racist ideology, but they also asserted male authority over women in completely different classifications of race, status, and class. Because this policy affected women both inside and outside the racially-pure German population, it carried a more universal brand of female oppression that is undoubtedly identifiable as antifeminist.

            As mentioned, women successfully integrated themselves into active roles in German politics, however they remained hesitant to challenge the patriarchal constructs of Germany society. “[Right-wing] women shared liberal feminists’ desire to accentuate female influence in society, but renounced any more emphatic insistence on women’s rights” (Harvey, 155). Harvey described their actions as “asserting themselves unassertively.” The formation of women’s organizations and their integration into the periphery of the political system of German men was certainly empowering, however these female activists never sought to challenge the obvious inequality between the spheres of men and women. “Right-wing activism in the 1920s gave some women an opportunity to exercise their political muscle without threatening traditional notions of gender roles” (Blee, 217). These self-imposed limitations paired with disputes between feminist groups concerning the pursuit of egalitarian rights created a decentralized and seemingly unmotivated foundation for the feminist movement going forward. During the Weimar years, the feminist movement shifted its focus away from women’s rights and instead adopted the ultranationalist ideologies of the German far-Right. Blee and Leck both discuss the conceptual multiplicity common in the political ideologies of conservative movements, which helps to explain how German women quickly found themselves in support of extremist ideologies in the Nazi movement. Leck describes it as the “Nazi Matrix,” which defines the Nazi ideology as an ensemble of wide-ranging values in hopes of fostering mass appeal. Leck said, “Nazi ideology was not an objective ideology that possessed a universal meaning for all Germans. It was a form that could be filled with various subjective contents” (Leck, 163). Such was the case with German women asserting their roles in the protection of racial purity as well as German and Protestant values. As the conservative landscape became more and more extremist with the rise of the Nazi regime, German women followed and likewise identified with increasingly extremist ideologies. Blee described this shift writing, “In the 1920s, conservative forces targeted various fronts – sexual, gender, economic, political – in their battle to defend traditional society, believing that changing any one structure of society would lead to a transformation of them all” (Blee, 217). This perceived threat of a domino effect closely linked the wide-ranging issues, “[making] it possible for women to slide from anti-women’s suffrage to anti-radicalism” (Blee, 217). Because the first women’s organizations were formed out of the very patriarchal traditions of conservative German groups, German women grew to foster the same ethnocentric beliefs as the Nazi Party, however they were very distinct variants. While German women defined their conservative beliefs in more traditional terms, the Nazis transformed nationalist ideas that historically aimed for unification and stability and applied radical separatist notions of hate and racism. Where the BDF practiced doctrinal ethnocentrism, the Nazis practiced racial ethnocentrism; where the BDF practiced religious Anti-Semitism, the Nazis practiced racial Anti-Semitism (Leck, 156). While these differences provided the female activists in the BDF a unique identity within the far-Right temporarily, they were eventually swept up and marginalized in the Nazi takeover like the rest of the political organizations, becoming the perceived threats to a National Socialist Germany themselves. As Leck articulates, “German women’s affirmation of Nazi patriarchy… was the embrace of ethnocentric cultural identities that empowered women by exalting their social status as mothers, Germans, and Christians” (Leck, 164).

Ideologically, the victim of Nazi tyranny can only be identified as those not meeting the criteria of the Nazi Volksgemeinschaft, which constituted “uncontaminated,” white German Protestants. While certain civil rights were undoubtedly violated based on gender and sexism over the course of Nazi rule, the manipulation and marginalization of women was simply the product of the highly radicalized patriarchal structure. And while labeling the National Socialist movement as antifeminist is far from an absolute falsehood, it is a major oversimplification and generalization that fails to account for the extremely unique political and social landscape, which could be characterized as a perfect storm of overlapping extremist ideologies. Leck articulates this conclusion best saying, “Nazi ideology was a potent mixture of various identities and policies combining, like a chemical reaction, to create a toxic elixir authorizing racial anti-Semitism and the Holocaust” (Leck, 163).

Works Cited

Blee, Kathleen M. “Troubling Women’s History: Women in Right-Wing and Colonial Politics.” Journal of Women’s History 15.2 (2003): 214-21.

Harvey, Elizabeth. “Visions of the Volk : German Women and the Far Right from Kaiserreich to Third Reich.” Journal of Women’s History 16.3 (2004): 152-67.

Leck, Ralph. “Conservative Empowerment and the Gender of Nazism: Paradigms of Power and Complicity in German Women’s History.” Journal of Women’s History 12.2 (2000): 147-69

What are the real differences between the sexes and why do they exist?  You may snigger but once you move past the obvious and give the matter some serious thought non genital differences start to pop up such as how attitudes towards sex and porn differ and why women always seem to want to lose weight while men aspire to have muscles that rival Arnold Schwarzenegger in his heyday.

Women seem to try and occupy as little space as possible, are generally much more timid than men when in public situations, and are I have noticed, much more apologetic.

Men on the other hand, dominate as much space as they can, are not intimidated by others in the way a lot of women are, nor do they show the same consideration or sensitivity to other people that women on the whole tend to display.

Women always wish themselves to be smaller than they are no matter how diminished in size they might already be, whereas men are forever seeking to increase their size, to be bigger, larger than life, perhaps that they might be able to take up even more space than they already inhabit.

The most marked difference, to me at least,  is how the majority of men seem somehow remarkably immune to what other people think of them, whereas women are forever preoccupied with others perceptions so much that at times they are in danger of doing themselves a massive disservice.

Another thing which to my interest I have observed is how preoccupied women are with how they are perceived by others, particularly in a visual sense.

This is of course most likely a natural reaction to the fact that women are judged first and foremost by their appearance, by how they look, and although to some degree every human being regardless of gender is evaluated at least partially based on how they appear, for men nothing like the same importance is levied, so of course they are in the main not so concerned with such matters.

An interesting aberration from this can be observed in gay male culture where the same pre-occupation with visual appearance that women display can be found.

Perhaps this does give some credence to the theory that men are primarily visual creatures when it comes to attraction, hence in a heterosexual culture the predominance of importance of a woman’s visual appearance, and thus in gay male culture where the object of man’s lust is his fellow man the same importance is meted out to visual attractiveness.

Is this though truly and solely due to the innate nature of man or could it at least in part be owing to how society conditions us, brainwashes us, nurturing our infantile minds into being?

Could it be that in a non-patriarchal society the sexes would actually place equal importance on visual attraction?  After all women have an equal capacity to appreciate beauty as men do, an equal propensity for seeking sexual desire, if not quite as much preoccupation or obsession with it.

This naturally brings me on to the subject of pornography.  The traditional view holds that women do not enjoy nor seek out pornographic material and indeed while research has been carried out which shows that men are still the main consumers of porn it’s doesn’t take a genius to work out that straight women don’t have a whole lot to get excited about when it comes to the world of mainstream porn which lets face it is mostly male orientated erotica.

And after all, if you are told constantly that something is for members of the boys club and you are not a member of that club, naturally you are going to feel pretty uncomfortable about pursuing it, even if you are not consciously aware of it.  On a subconscious level the message is clear, “This is not for you” as Pearl Jam attested.

The majority of porn is not geared towards pressing heterosexual women erotic hot buttons but instead concentrates on catering to straight men’s predilections.  The problem is a straight woman is unlikely to be optimally aroused by pornography which primarily eroticises the female body from a male perspective and in a lot of cases blatantly objectifies and degrades that body.

I mean a heterosexual man is not usually going be ideally eroticised by pornography with an erotic focus on the masculine so why should it be assumed that all women are capable of identifying with the feminine when watching pornography?

And why on earth would a straight woman want to watch other women getting screwed from a man’s point of view?  She hasn’t got a dick for a start, she’s going to be coming from a different perspective, and the likelihood is she’s not going to have the same erotic switches.

The general lazy attitude that thinks that if women want to watch porn they should just ask their boyfriend to chuck on a DVD from his stash is based on the fact that women have always been regarded as more sexually fluid than men but is this not just saying that their sexuality and sexual preferences don’t really matter?

Lesbianism is more generally acceptable at least on the surface by our mainstream society not just because of the complete obsession that some heterosexual guys seem to have with it but also because it is thought that if two women rub pussies together they are not harming anyone because anyone without a dick doesn’t really count.   

Leave it to the gay men to carry the can for wasting their seed and potentially threatening the stability and continuity of our society.  It doesn’t matter what women want, at the end of the day if need be they can be turned and they can still be penetrated and impregnated.

It’s truly sad but it really seems a fully sexual woman with her own pecadilloes and sexual predilections fully catered for instead of an objectified, sanitised, idealised, but ultimately voiceless female that is the fantasy creature of most heterosexual male orientated porn, would pose far too much of a threat to the patriarchal status quo.

Russell Campbell’s book is probably the first– certainly the most up-to-date – to offer an overview of New Zealand documentaries, both those that were made as feature films and those that appeared on television.  It comprises a collection of disparate essays that Campbell has written on the subject  over a twenty-five year period.  Curiously he’s chosen in only a couple of instances to update them, with the result that comments made in one essay are often repeated in another.   This irritated me a little, since a small amount of editing would have given the book less of a feeling that Campbell had just gone through his relevant writings and thrown them all together.   The book also seems to lack a critical overview, which is odd since it’s come from Victoria University Press.  The preface only tells us that the book ‘’makes no claim to comprehensiveness and does not constitute a history of New Zealand documentary.’  The summary at the end merely repeats what’s already been written in the bulk of the book.

 Nevertheless, all the essays open our eyes to the riches inherent in the documentary scene, and to the huge and often unsung talents behind the making of these films.   It’s possible to view a number of these films online – something that would greatly benefit an enthusiastic reader.

 After an introductory essay which shows the breadth of documentary subject matter, Campbell lays the book out in three sections: Workers and Stirrers, State of the Nation and Kiwi Culture.  The first includes an essay on Cecil Holmes, an innovative filmmaker from the National Film Unit, someone most of us won’t have heard of.   This is followed by discussions of documentaries on internal strife: Bastion Point, strikes, protests, feminism.    The second section looks at both political and social themes, especially those that try to offer a view of New Zealand’s history.   The essays in these section are well-written, full of detail and mindful of the times in which the films were made.

Lastly, Campbell looks at documentaries focused on Kiwi culture: artists, poets, musicians and kiwiana.   The quality of these essays varies: the one on the poets is excellent in detailing how the poets and their poems are treated visually but the one on musicians centres mostly on popular music, and is more of an overview of that scene from its earliest days rather than an overview of the documentaries about the music themselves. 

It’s obvious that Campbell has spent many hours watching the innumerable documentaries he discusses (there’s an extensive list provided at the back of the book) and as a filmmaker himself he’s very capable in noting not just how the subject matter is treated but the way in which the filmmakers use various techniques to slant the viewers’ understanding.   The book certainly whets the appetite for wanting to actually see some of these movies.   I feel, however, that this is something of a preliminary approach to the topic: Campbell obviously has the knowledge to write a fullscale history of the subject matter.  It’s to be hoped he’ll have the time to turn his attention to such a work.     

  In fact it’s always a sign of our times and culture that fashion is considered frivolity, and perhaps now it often is, but it wasn’t always so. In fact it’s a relatively recent re-institution. The twentieth century was a revolution in how we made up our faces and why.

  Feminists often argue that a women’s attempt to promote or enhance her appearance, make her complicit in her own oppression. But where’s the fun in that? Cancelling Christmas did nothing for Oliver Cromwell’s approval ratings. The argument is that women be taken seriously, but enjoying your paint box and having something to say that should be valued, are not mutually exclusive concepts. My argument is that women should have the right to choose for themselves and this spans the breadth of many questions of prescription for women, be it for a housewife or career woman, or mother or the “child-free”. There are always arguments about oppression, not without great weight and absolute credibility, but my feminism involves no proscription from anyone, which is often the final straw for the relationships between different generations of feminists.

  In 1912, 20,000 American suffragettes marched in aid of a woman’s right to vote. In the Edwardian era, there were still strong echoes of Queen Victoria’s mandate that there was just something immoral about make-up. Lipstick didn’t exist as we know it today because make-up was the property of prostitutes and theatre people, both of these occupations being frowned upon as improper. Still, the women wore bright red lip paint as a symbol of their right to make choices for themselves. A very literal interpretation of “read my lips”, leaders such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Charlotte Perkins Gilman (whose story “The Yellow Wallpaper” still gives me chills) were advocates of lip rouge as a symbol of women’s emancipation.

  By the 1920s, those considered “non-conformists” were the flapper girls with their boyish ways and new use of make-up in general. By this point, the old, established, prim views were on the wane in the face of the juggernaut of a movement by artists such as Elizabeth Arden and Helena Rubenstein. Make-up was for any woman that wanted to wear it.

  I’m so fascinated by the history of fashion and make-up because it is always surprising, given what we take for granted, how complicated it all really is, with arguments both for and against fashion as oppression. I think that as long as a woman is confident in her choices as being her own creative opportunities, where’s the harm in a little war paint?

  For more informed arguments, I recommend the book, “Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism” by Linda M. Scott. Also for practical as well as historical information, there’s Lauren Rennells wonderful book, “Retro Makeup”.

Her aspirations were were considered, “unwomanly”. Sarah’s mother was a leader of the Charleston’s Ladies Benevolent Society. She gave time to women who were incarecrated in prison, and also people who were poor in their community. However nice it sounds of Sarah’s mother, Sarah’s mother would neglect Sarah, because she could  not be considered with “child’s concerned” and paid more attention to Sarah’s brother.

Sarah began to teach Bible classes to the young slaves that were on her father’s plantation, but found the experience to be frustrating. Her parents did not want the slaves to learn how to read because they thought it would make them rebel against them. They also believed if they were worked so hard with studying, they wouldn’t fill physically able to do physical labor later on. In 1740, teaching slaves to read was against the law. This didn’t stop Sarah from teaching her “personal slave” to read, in private. However, her father discovered this happening and was beyond angry. He had almost had the young girl (the slave) whipped, but Sarah decided to never try to teach slaves to read again. Not because she was frustrated with her efforts, but because she didn’t want them to be harmed.

In 1868, Sarah found out about three nephews that her older brother had by his personal slave. She embraced them, welcomly. She even worked to provide money to educate Arhicbald and Francis Grimké. Sarah’s sister, Angelina, and her may have been raised by a plantantion owner, but that didn’t stop them from hating the idea of slavery. They joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and eventually, started doing speeches and such, even about feminism, not just abolitionism. In 1838, Sarah’s sister married Theodore Weld. Theodore Weld basically told Sarah that she was a poor speaker and that he thought she was damaging the cause, not helping it. Though, this may be unlikely, considering Sarah was requested for many public speeches through the years.

As far as pornography goes, women sign up for their career. Nobody forces them into the career or lifestyle. If they wanted to quit, they easily could (and there are plenty that have). Another thing is, men are also in porn. So, is it actually sexist to say that women is only degrading to women? Is it not degrading to men as well? Are women the only people capable of being degraded? If so, as a women, I feel this implies that women are weak.

On the other hand, it has and does contribute to the “picture perfect” idea that a lot of males have of women and vice versa. Women are supposed to be blond bombshells and men are supposed to be beefed up. In reality, women do not look like this without thousands of procedures (that a career in pornography more than likely paid for). So, again, I ask you, is pornography degrading to women? Is it degrading to men? Could it be neither? Could it be that these people simply just wanted this job and lifestyle?

Image by Janelinha via Flickr

     Despite the fact we are living in the twenty-first century, many women still struggle to be valued intrinsically by the opposite sex. Women are not at fault in these circumstances. There is large percentage of men who still find it appropriate to discredit women’s thoughts and opinions, value women solely for their physical appearance, and view women as less than their equal. This is morally deplorable, but cannot be changed overnight. This will continue to be an ongoing fundamental problem with society, but there are a few things you can do to better your situation.

•  Look at men the right way. There is a serious vibe you can put out by using certain facial expressions. Look at men straight in the eye. This doesn’t mean gaze into their eyes (that could give the wrong impression.)  If the man’s gaze travels to inappropriate areas of your body, redirect them by pretending to clear your throat and having a very serious look on your face. They should not be allowed to undress you with their eyes. Try making the expression you would have if you were asked a question about something you definitely know the answer to.
• Maintain good body language. Your posture should be straight. If you agree with something the person you are speaking to is saying, lean in toward them. If you disagree, lean away from them. Leaning should only be slight in distance. You don’t want the person to think you are trying to dance with them. These cues will be picked up subconsciously, and the person will know that you have thoughtful judgment skills.
• Do not become intimidated. If you have strong abilities in an area, let it be known. Answer open ended questions, and use qualifiers to back up your statements. Don’t be afraid to correct a man’s mistake or wrong answer. Your knowledge is just as valuable as theirs.
• Monitor your voice inflections. Speak clearly with steady pitch. When you speak clearly with a reasonable volume, people tend to listen more often. They also are more apt to believe what you are saying because you sound confident. Try to keep your pitch steady. Hav
  ng a voice that is too high-pitched taps into the part of a man’s brain meant for finding a mate. If you change your pitch to be lower than your normal voice, it sounds bizarre.
• Utilize tit for tat. Be assertive when interacting with men. If they listen to what you are saying, listen to them in return. If they ignore you, give them the cold shoulder. Make it clear that you know you are their equal, and they are more likely to believe it as well.
• Realize that not all men are misogynists. Most men are only slightly sexist if at all. They may not even realize that they are sexist because their prejudices lie in their subconscious. These prejudices are often transmitted by culture, the media, and from family members. To combat subconscious prejudices, you must use subconscious cues such as these. If you start to realize that the man you are speaking to is sexist, don’t confront him about it until later. Try to prove how worthy you are first.

Women have equal abilities to men in issues of logic, reasoning, and intelligence. People who say otherwise or who use pseudo-scientific studies to try and prove otherwise are simply wrong. Studies have proven women are equally or in some cases better at these subjects than men. Companies are becoming more interested in women supervisors over their male counterparts because they are usually better at multi-tasking. Be proud of being a woman and be proud of your accomplishments. Good luck and remember to never sell yourself short.