The mission of The Broad Side is to gather women who are writing about the most-discussed and important issues of the day from a fresh perspective, not in that stale, wonky, inside-the-Washington, D.C.-beltway kind of narrative.
While The Broad Side will mostly be a place to showcase all the women’s commentary that those talking head shows and op-ed pages are missing, we’ll definitely invite some men to contribute, as well.
Joanne's project is a critical and long overdue addition to the American political discussion. She features intelligent and articulatevoices who haven't been corrupted by the beltway culture - peoplewho care much more about policy options than political brinksmanship. Joanne also refuses to let Washington continue to ignore a simple truth - women's voices simply aren't heard in politics as much as they should. (by the way, you can hear Joanne's voice, talking politics with me here.)
I'm very pleased and proud to be one of Joanne's first contributors and I'm also pleased that my first Broad Side post focuses on another impressive female role model - Darlene Cavalier, the Science Cheerleader. I'm looking forward to watching Joanne's continued success and I'll be heading over to The Broad Side often - I hope you will too.
So Newsweek decides to publish the latest in the "cheap-shot unflattering pictures of political women" saga. And the media now plasters it all over the place because this is somehow a story now, and the Newsweek Daily Beast team gets free advertising for lowering our political discourse just a bit more. And this, of course, sparks another silly partisan sideshow that no one really cares about. Fox News asks aloud "what does Newsweek have against conservative women?" - you know, because that network would never do anything sexist or insulting to Congresswoman Bachmann or publish any less-than-ideal pictures of a political woman. And sadly, we all miss the point. Again.
Weak
Because this is nothing new. If a political woman dares to raise her voice, she can expect stories that cite anonymous snipers whining about her "abrasive personal style," which is the worst euphemism for "bitch" I've ever seen. Put Secretary Clinton in the situation room during the attack on Osama bin Laden's compound and suddenly a picture that includes her hand over her mouth becomes a national story. I put my hand over my mouth all the time. I look at that picture and I still don't get it. But whatever I'm missing is apparently such a big deal that one newspaper in Israel actually photoshopped her out of the picture altogether. You know, because a woman shouldn't be in that room or something. The paper apologized after the fact but shouldn't it make you wonder why someone felt the need to edit the picture in the first place?
Ditsy
Pictures show up all the time that take cheap shots at women who dare to lead. The editors and others who publish them usually won't have the guts to say what they really want to say - something like "Sarah Palin is ditsy" - but they'll print the one picture in the roll of 50 that shows her eyes a bit wider than normal or in the middle of a gesture that takes a fraction of a second. They won't say "Nancy Pelosi is a lunatic," but we all see the pictures with the wide eyes suddenly appear in news publications.
And that's just the mainstream publications. Just do an image search on google for any leading political woman and you almost immediately see the wonders of photoshop. Heads on the bodies of porn stars. Faces planted on the backside of a horse. I've even seen an editorial cartoon of Secretary Rice pregnant with a monkey. The original cartoon came from a Palestinian paper - and then it was quickly republished online by several American news sites.
Of course, what happens if the woman dares to complain? She can't take the heat. She doesn't belong in politics. She's easily distracted. But nobody really thinks much about what happens when that woman's children see the pictures. Some might even blame the woman - "you had to be prepared for that."
Scary
Do we see unflattering pictures of political men? Sure. Newsweek just took a cheap shot at Mitt Romney too. Bloggers have posted photoshopped pics of Presidents and Prime Ministers. But be honest- they don't get the reaction that pictures of women do, and I'm fairly certain the frequency for women is disproportionately large.
And pictures are just one aspect of the larger cultural problem. I remember when John McCain told a joke at a Republican fundraiser - to great laughs - "Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno." Some papers censored the joke, but others, like the Arizona Republic, didn't. McCain apologized (after his press secretary initially denied he ever told the joke), but again - what makes anyone think it's even remotely ok to say things like this? Why weren't there huge consequences to this?
Angry
A couple of weeks ago I recorded a discussion with Joanne Bamberger - the blogger known as PunditMom and the author of the new book Mothers of Intention: How Women and Social Media Are Revolutionizing Politics in America. We talked a bit about this phenomenon and I asked her how she thought women should respond to cheap shots like Congresswoman Bachmann being asked point blank, "Are you a flake?" The conversation should be available on her blog in the near future, and I think she lays out the issues really well and gives some thoughts on how things might change. I hope she posts the interview soon.
There's one approach to addressing this issue that I'd like feedback from women. I remember a while back a running bit on Saturday Night Live called "Janet Reno Dance Party," where the Attorney General was played by Will Ferrell in drag. It ran a few times, and at the end of the Clinton Administration, it had a "final episode" that actually featured Janet Reno. She was essentially saying "I'm in on the joke," but the joke is really "Janet Reno is an ugly man."
Is this how women should handle this? What do you think?
To me, the response to things like this should be to celebrate female role models. I've done this a few times on this blog before - I think it might be time for another installment.
I first learned about Leah Peterson doing research for a social media client a few years ago. I was trying to find women bloggers who would be interested in participating in a conference call with Gloria Steinem. (Yes, THAT Gloria Steinem. It really wasn't that hard.)
If you read Leah's blog you learn very quickly that she's really up front about her mental illness. She shares a lot of details. And I have to admit I was a little nervous about inviting her to the call. We were putting a high-profile client in a public setting, and we would be giving access to someone who wrote frequently about multiple personalities, drug addiction, and worse.
But here's the thing: it was quite clear the other moms knew her well. They all linked to her blog and said very nice things about her. I remember she featured interviews of other bloggers - and that's where I got the idea for the sidebar on the right. She was a full-fledged, credible member of an online community. She wrote a reasonably prominent blog. The only reason we'd be excluding her was her health status, and that's just wrong. So we invited her.
The conference call went well - the women asked great questions, and Gloria Steinem gave great answers. So, happy little PR flack that I am, I went to the blogs to see if the women would write about it. And I saw a post on every woman's personal blog except one - Leah's.
Turns out Leah published her piece on The Huffington Post. You know, that blog with the millions of visitors. So from a PR perspective, she went from being a "risky" choice to being an absolute no-brainer.
I kept in touch with Leah over the years, as any halfway-decent social media flack would - not as much as I keep in touch with some bloggers, but every now and then. I saw her at BlogHer '07 in Chicago and thanked her for the post she wrote. I wrote about a project she was working on called Real Mental. A couple of months ago she sent me a note out of the blue, asking me to contribute some stuff to her new magazine, LP Creative Humans, so I did.
And now I learn she's a consultant for Showtime's Emmy-winning series, The United States of Tara. She's doing it to help educate people about mental illness, get people talking about it, and reduce stigma. Not too shabby, huh?
Everybody loves Facebook. Everybody uses Facebook. And sure, it's useful and fun and spiffy and 400 million people and climbing and all that. But this is an issue I've followed for a while now.
Facebook will tell you that they host thousands of pictures of moms breastfeeding their children, and they're right. And I think it's fair to say they've gotten a little better about this. But apparently someone there still feels that partial nipple exposure in a breastfeeding pic = porn. And that's just stupid.
And again, Facebook continues to host pro-anorexia groups on its network, even though now they try to disguisethemselves or insist they're about something else. Yes, Facebook is doing a better job about this, and yes, there are many more "stop pro-ana on Facebook" groups than there were.
But let's be clear - pro-ana groups are harmful and that violates Facebook's Terms of Service. And taking action to prevent people from encouraging breastfeeding - you know, like banning pictures of breastfeeding because they're "dirty" - is also a very bad idea.
Ah, but what's ok to put on Facebook? How about the Big Boobs application and fan page with over 53,000 active users, where you can talk about your favorite porn stars and such? You know, because I'd love my wife to read my Facebook Status, "David Wescott just became a fan of Big Boobs." Of course, there are countless other groups, and pictures, and all sorts of things like that.
So, to sum up, here's the de facto Facebook TOS:
breastfeeding pic = OK
breastfeeding pic that has 1 pixel of nipple = banned, you know, because that's obscene
pro-ana = sorta not OK, but we still tolerate it sometimes
big boobs = totally OK, as long as the nipples are covered.
So PLEASE, Facebook, and whoever keeps objecting to nipples in bf pics - just remember what my wife also reminded me - breastfeeding was good enough for the baby Jesus.
When insecure guys take gratuitous potshots at ambitious or successful women - potshots you know they'd never take at men - it doesn't just insult that woman. I think there's a subconscious message they send young women and girls - try to succeed and you'll be harassed for it.
Many women shrug it off or use it to motivate them, but some don't. The bottom line to me is they shouldn't have to deal with it, but the reality is they do and they probably will forever.
That's why I thought of the "female role models" posts - I thought maybe it would be a way to show people that there are tons of success stories out there who may not be Senators or Cabinet Secretaries, but are doing amazing things every day.
But I'm not exactly an authority on female role models. So I reached out to some women bloggers I know who are also active on Twitter. They're going to stand up to the sexism and introduce us all to women who deserve our praise, not our mocking.
The next time we see another example of a sexist potshot from an insecure goober, we will send a tweet that says something like "ignore sexism from [insert insecure goober name here], @username is a role model for MY kid." Or something like that. Then we'll add the hashtag #sexistsvsrolemodels at the end.
So anyone who wants a list of female role models on twitter will only have to search that hashtag. I say let's create something good out of this. And maybe this is a start.
