Feminists Who Totally Rock, Part 1

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Feminists Who Totally Rock

Welcome to the first post of Feminists Who Totally Rock!

Today I am pleased to present two interviews, one with Rebeca Monzo and one with Terrie Chan. Read on and enjoy!

Rebeca Monzo is one of the head co-ordinators of the Beautiful One Conference as well as an ordained minister!

What was it that inspired you to become a feminist?

To be honest I have never really thought of myself as a feminist.  That being said I have always had a strong desire to work with teen girls.  That desire was inspired by the obvious need to shine a light on the unrealistic standards and expectations that are placed on girls by pop culture. I want to encourage, empower and equip teenage girls to live their life to its potential.

What kind of work do you do?

I work with youth both in the church setting as well as in the community where I mentor teen girls and help coach a Sr. Girl’s volleyball team.  I also work with girls through the Beautiful One Conference which is a faith based yearly event designed to empower, equip and encourage teen girls.

What feminist issue is particularly important to you?

I believe that every girl should be afforded the opportunity to pursue education allowing them to achieve their goals and live out their dreams no matter where they live.

What is your dream for Women?

My dream for women is that they would be confident in who they are and live out that confidence in every area of their life.

Which unknown or young feminist would you like the world to know about?

This is a tough one.  I know a lot of strong women who are actively making a difference in the lives of girls and women.

Terrie Chan is a student at UBC Vancouver. This summer she worked for a non-governmental organization in Hong Kong called The Women’s Foundation.

1) What was it that inspired you to become a feminist?

I was inspired to become a feminist for many reasons. The most prominent reason being that women are not, no matter how many people say that we have, won our equal standing in society- or at least in Canada. There are [still] many [areas] in life that women can[not] participate fully [in], or be treated as an equal. There are also many things to be done in order to protect the safety of girls and women, or simply  to be viewed just as valuable as a male counterpart.

2) What kind of work do you do?

I try to fit in feminism in my life and to reflect this to my friends and family. Whenever I get the chance, I talk about the situation of women and girls around the world, which I think is an issue needing attention. In terms of work with credentials, I spent one month in Hong Kong this summer with an NGO named The Women’s Foundation for an internship. That was my first experience with a NGO with a focus on women and girls.

3) Which feminist issue is particularly important to you?

I am most interested in sex trafficking, domestic violence, and women within law.

4) What is your Dream for Women:

My dream for women is for all women to understand their self-worth and that it is not okay when a man treats you as his possession or simply in a bad way, and for all women to understand they deserve respect. It is my hope that all women will have that self-confidence, and that they will stop blaming themselves when a man does them harm. I also hope that women can finally see that they can be just as successful as any man or woman on the planet. Finally, I think we need to accept a norm wherein women do not feel pressured to be sexy or possess a certain ‘male trait’ to be successful. Hopefully this will allow men who have this attitude to discover something other than their present normative thinking-that women are somehow of lesser value compared to men.

Trump knows beauty when he sees it…. on stage of his corporate owned beauty pageant

Donald Trump has caught entertainment headlines today by claiming that George Clooney is “short” and Angelina Jolie is “no great beauty.” Although I’m sure there are those out there willing to disagree (especially Brad Pitt) this statement was not what caught my feminist eye. What took me aback was not the assertions he made, but the rationale he uses to justify them. Rather than rely on the explanation of subjective opinion (which 99.9% of the population uses) he states the following:

“I do own Miss Universe. I do own Miss USA. I mean I own a lot of different things. I do understand beauty, and she’s [Angelina Jolie’s] not.”

Thanks for explaining that, Mr. Trump. I may have confused ‘understanding’ with previous knowledge, intelligence or careful thought. However, Mr. Trump is quite explicit in equating understanding with ownership. And ownership of one of the most derogatory programs on TV today. Mr. Trump himself is not present at these pageants, he does not judge the ‘beauties’ and he does not set the criteria for qualification into the pageant in the first place. But he (or at least his giant corporation) owns the pageant, and therefore that makes him an expert on beauty.

I understand that this is most likely a drumming of a publicity for the flailing Miss. America and Miss. USA ‘scholarship competitions’. However, at the end of the day, a man like Mr. Trump can stand up and declare beauty to be his realm (and a narrow, white, tall realm it is) due to the money he possesses; the money that entitles him the ‘ownership’ to these women’s bodies and beauty.

Trump knows beauty when he sees it…. on stage of his corporate owned beauty pageant

Donald Trump has caught entertainment headlines today by claiming that George Clooney is “short” and Angelina Jolie is “no great beauty.” Although I’m sure there are those out there willing to disagree (especially Brad Pitt) this statement was not what caught my feminist eye. What took me aback was not the assertions he made, but the rationale he uses to justify them. Rather than rely on the explanation of subjective opinion (which 99.9% of the population uses) he states the following:

“I do own Miss Universe. I do own Miss USA. I mean I own a lot of different things. I do understand beauty, and she’s [Angelina Jolie’s] not.”

Thanks for explaining that, Mr. Trump. I may have confused ‘understanding’ with previous knowledge, intelligence or careful thought. However, Mr. Trump is quite explicit in equating understanding with ownership. And ownership of one of the most derogatory programs on TV today. Mr. Trump himself is not present at these pageants, he does not judge the ‘beauties’ and he does not set the criteria for qualification into the pageant in the first place. But he (or at least his giant corporation) owns the pageant, and therefore that makes him an expert on beauty.

I understand that this is most likely a drumming of a publicity for the flailing Miss. America and Miss. USA ‘scholarship competitions’. However, at the end of the day, a man like Mr. Trump can stand up and declare beauty to be his realm (and a narrow, white, tall realm it is) due to the money he possesses; the money that entitles him the ‘ownership’ to these women’s bodies and beauty.

Damned if We Do, Damned if We Don’t…

Okay… so don’t worry, this blog is not turning into an “All Belinda, All the Time” free-for-all but upon the announcement of her retirement from politics and her return to Magna I would like to look at Belinda as a way through which to analyze an interesting problem that I think a lot of women who are in politics confront.

This is of course tedious questions about appearance! Indeed, it seems that women just can’t do anything right when it comes to how they look. Whether its suggesting that Rona Ambrose worries more about her hair than her portfolio, or endlessly theorizing about aspects of Hillary Clinton’s body, hair or fashion sense, there seems to be a much greater concentration on the way female politicians ‘look’ than on their politics, and definitely a much greater concentration on their appearances than on those of their male counterparts.

But if we criticize women for looking ‘too good’ and therefore being silly bimbos like Stronach or Ambrose who, in concentrating on their appearance so much, supposedly neglect their political roles, we perhaps malign those who do not fit into our aesthetic ideals for women even more.

Sheila Copps, who was so often maligned in newspaper editorial cartoons for being ‘dowdy’ wrote about this for the Toronto Sun:

In my early years I was not too concerned about the wrapping. I believed what I had to say should trump what I was wearing. But I should probably have taken those lessons more to heart. A current editor of this paper covering my run for the provincial Liberal leadership in 1982 described my hairdo as a roman helmet. I, of course, thought he should be covering my ideas and not my head. But, especially for women politicians, appearance counts.

I once had a voter pledge his support because he liked my teeth. I regularly received letters from Parliament watchers commenting on what I wore and suggesting material changes, literally. One fan (and I use the term advisedly) even offered complimentary botox treatments.

Feministing has a great analysis of how the fashion choices of female politicians in Washington are endlessly written about and debated as thought they were relevant news.

Women are often seen as too boring for wearing conservative ‘safe’ suits, or too ‘sexy’ or ‘preoccupied with fashion’ for wearing more stylish garb. The moral of the story… its not fashion or hair that is the problem but ‘women’ themselves. How can you get it right, if essentially, the problem is not your fashion choices or your hair but indeed, your gender.

Stronach’s political mentor, former Ontario premier David Peterson, spoke to the Canadian Press about the attention that Stronach got saying:

“Look, good-looking women get more attention than they probably deserve. But they also get more criticism than they probably deserve. The bad part is everybody’s got an opinion on your hair colour and who you’re going out with.”

But I wonder when is this extra ‘attention’ ever a good thing? When has there been a prominent, attractive female politician whose appearance and corrolary intelligence were not a major source of debate? Or a supposedly ‘dowdy’ female politician who did not get ridiculed for her looks? Likewise, when has there ever been a male politician who had to experience either of those extremes?

And why are female politicians more often fodder for the gossip columns and style pages then they are for the news sections and op-eds. Just take this ‘lovely’ feature in the National Post which compiles the works of a gossip columnist over the course of Belinda’s career in politics.

In my case at least, Stronach was right yesterday when she said that her bad experience in politics has actually been an inspiration for other women:

“While there are many nasty and ugly comments that have been made, it has also in a strange way has inspired younger women to get involved because they want to change that,” she told CTV’s Mike Duffy.

I for one think that it is about time that this is changed for women in politics and women in all walks of life… After all, with popular radio host Imus, calling the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team nothing but a bunch of ‘Nappy Headed Hoes’ how can we deny the ways in which women’s accomplishments in any field are trumped or outshone by their appearance which is considered the ultimate arbiter of their identity and value? Are women only worthwhile if they are attractive and conform to beauty ideals? How silly of me… I thought we’d gotten to the point where we could consider people based on the content of their character.

Just for fun: Feministing subjects male politicians to the same criticism that women have to go through about their appearance… it’s quite funny.

Damned if We Do, Damned if We Don’t…

Okay… so don’t worry, this blog is not turning into an “All Belinda, All the Time” free-for-all but upon the announcement of her retirement from politics and her return to Magna I would like to look at Belinda as a way through which to analyze an interesting problem that I think a lot of women who are in politics confront.

This is of course tedious questions about appearance! Indeed, it seems that women just can’t do anything right when it comes to how they look. Whether its suggesting that Rona Ambrose worries more about her hair than her portfolio, or endlessly theorizing about aspects of Hillary Clinton’s body, hair or fashion sense, there seems to be a much greater concentration on the way female politicians ‘look’ than on their politics, and definitely a much greater concentration on their appearances than on those of their male counterparts.

But if we criticize women for looking ‘too good’ and therefore being silly bimbos like Stronach or Ambrose who, in concentrating on their appearance so much, supposedly neglect their political roles, we perhaps malign those who do not fit into our aesthetic ideals for women even more.

Sheila Copps, who was so often maligned in newspaper editorial cartoons for being ‘dowdy’ wrote about this for the Toronto Sun:

In my early years I was not too concerned about the wrapping. I believed what I had to say should trump what I was wearing. But I should probably have taken those lessons more to heart. A current editor of this paper covering my run for the provincial Liberal leadership in 1982 described my hairdo as a roman helmet. I, of course, thought he should be covering my ideas and not my head. But, especially for women politicians, appearance counts.

I once had a voter pledge his support because he liked my teeth. I regularly received letters from Parliament watchers commenting on what I wore and suggesting material changes, literally. One fan (and I use the term advisedly) even offered complimentary botox treatments.

Feministing has a great analysis of how the fashion choices of female politicians in Washington are endlessly written about and debated as thought they were relevant news.

Women are often seen as too boring for wearing conservative ‘safe’ suits, or too ‘sexy’ or ‘preoccupied with fashion’ for wearing more stylish garb. The moral of the story… its not fashion or hair that is the problem but ‘women’ themselves. How can you get it right, if essentially, the problem is not your fashion choices or your hair but indeed, your gender.

Stronach’s political mentor, former Ontario premier David Peterson, spoke to the Canadian Press about the attention that Stronach got saying:

“Look, good-looking women get more attention than they probably deserve. But they also get more criticism than they probably deserve. The bad part is everybody’s got an opinion on your hair colour and who you’re going out with.”

But I wonder when is this extra ‘attention’ ever a good thing? When has there been a prominent, attractive female politician whose appearance and corrolary intelligence were not a major source of debate? Or a supposedly ‘dowdy’ female politician who did not get ridiculed for her looks? Likewise, when has there ever been a male politician who had to experience either of those extremes?

And why are female politicians more often fodder for the gossip columns and style pages then they are for the news sections and op-eds. Just take this ‘lovely’ feature in the National Post which compiles the works of a gossip columnist over the course of Belinda’s career in politics.

In my case at least, Stronach was right yesterday when she said that her bad experience in politics has actually been an inspiration for other women:

“While there are many nasty and ugly comments that have been made, it has also in a strange way has inspired younger women to get involved because they want to change that,” she told CTV’s Mike Duffy.

I for one think that it is about time that this is changed for women in politics and women in all walks of life… After all, with popular radio host Imus, calling the Rutgers Women’s Basketball team nothing but a bunch of ‘Nappy Headed Hoes’ how can we deny the ways in which women’s accomplishments in any field are trumped or outshone by their appearance which is considered the ultimate arbiter of their identity and value? Are women only worthwhile if they are attractive and conform to beauty ideals? How silly of me… I thought we’d gotten to the point where we could consider people based on the content of their character.

Just for fun: Feministing subjects male politicians to the same criticism that women have to go through about their appearance… it’s quite funny.