Image via curvygirlguide.com

So my friends over at the Curvy Girl Guide (if you haven’t checked them out, you MUST) brought this movie poster to my attention for the remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  As Hollywood movie posters go you might think this one is par for the course — dark, brooding guy lusting after *ahem* scantily clad woman.  That is, if you didn’t know what the story was about.  My friend Melissa Silverstein at Women & Hollywood wrote about this several months ago, as well, in her great post entitled, “The Pornification of Lisbeth Salander.”

If you know even the littlest bit about the theme of this book-turned-movie, you know that this isn’t a film about sex.  It’s not a movie about a hot chick and her dude.  The book and the main character of Lisbeth Salander are about so much more on some serious topics, including violence against women. But I can only conclude from this poster that Hollywood wants us to think this is a sexy, smoldering story about a man and his woman, rather than one about political intrigue and extreme violence against women, out of fear that they otherwise wouldn’t sell tickets.

I weighed in on what on I thought of Lisbeth Salander last year shortly after reading the book, so as this topic has come again on the eve of the new movie’s release, I thought I’d reprise it here:

Yes, I’ve read The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. And I’ve seen the movie, even though it’s in Swedish with subtitles! I loved the book so much that I took it with us on our trip to China and finished it despite a massive head cold and serious jet lag.

Why? Because Lisbeth Salander rocks.

Of course, author Stieg Larsson is the amazing writer who made her rock. He had to be to combine Swedish political intrigue, alleged Nazi collaborators, and significant violence against women and turn it into an epic-length page-turner that’s become summertime must-reading.

But The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is much more than a summer beach read. It’s an inspiring tale that can help us embrace our inner feminists.

The current buzz surrounding the trilogy of books, the Swedish movie, and (of course) the inevitable rush by copycat Hollywood to make its own version is about whether it’s a stealth feminist tome or just a book that uses gratuitous sexual violence against women to promote sales. That aspect has turned into something of an uproar (and borrowing from the title of the third book, a “hornet’s nest“) from the grave (Larsson tragically died shortly after he turned in all three finished novels to his publisher). The first volume of his trilogy focuses on the details of a gruesome series of women’s murders, as well as sexual violence against Salander herself.

I was personally moved by TGWTDT and wasn’t sure why at first — it certainly was some slow reading to get through the parts about Swedish political intrigue. But as a woman who was the victim of domestic violence in my first brief marriage decades ago, I was taken by the strength of Lisbeth Salander when it came to controlling her own life, as well as by what seemed to be Larsson’s mission as an author to educate his fiction readers about the prevalence of sexual violence against women and how much of the world allows it to go on, seemingly unnoticed and unaddressed in any real way.

I was impressed that Larsson did not turn away or sugarcoat the theme of violence and depravity against women. Other critics don’t agree with me.

So the debate about TGWTDT has become this — is Salander a feminist avenger with a look that’s a cross between the new Wonder Woman and a teen boy punk rocker or just the character that allows Larsson’s publisher to exploit sexual violence for the sake of Amazon rankings? Many reviewers have been critical of the extreme descriptiveness of the acts against women, claiming that it’s unnecessary to write about sexual violence against women in such graphic detail.

I disagree.

I applaud Larsson for not turning away from the sexual violence and making his readers — especially his male readers — face what so many women have had to face in their lifetimes, but doesn’t often get the attention that might make it go away.

I don’t talk much about the period in my life when I had to deal with the fact that there was one person who thought I was deserving of being kicked, punched, pushed down stairs, and abused in a variety of other ways. For the most part, I try to keep that in the back of my memory.

All of that came rushing back as I read the tale of Lisbeth Salander and I felt that she spoke for me in a way I couldn’t when I was the victim of domestic violence. I hope that other readers, whether they consider this a feminist novel or not, don’t turn away from the violence against her and take it as an opportunity to think about why we seldom read about the real life versions of what Larsson’s written about.

So with that backdrop, what do you think of the poster for the new movie?  The producers and promoters have chosen to sexualize Salander in this way for ticket sales, but her character isn’t about being a sexy, hot chick.  And what does a misleading poster of this kind say about Hollywood?

“You can’t be what you can’t see.”

That’s how the award-winning film Miss Representation begins, a movie that takes a critical look at negative portrayals of women in the media and how that undermines the ability of today’s generation of girls to see themselves as future leaders.

As the mother of a daughter, I’ve always been sensitive to the media imagery my husband and I exposed her to, from cartoons to commercials to Disney princesses, and how they would impact her view of the way women are valued in our society. But as parents, we can’t be everywhere or keep all potentially negative images away from our children. And to be honest, I didn’t think I’d have to worry about that in our 21st century world. As someone who came of age at a time when I thought the battle over women being viewed as less competent, smart or capable as men were over, I didn’t think I’d be worrying about whether women leaders were a rarity or would routinely be mocked with sexist criticism.

Miss Representation is the brainchild of Jennifer Seibel Newsom, an actress, mother and the wife of California’s Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom. Through interviews and stories of notable activists, women leaders and high school students, the film explores how the ways women are portrayed in movies, television, and pop culture seriously undermine their ability to achieve power. The film also explores how this phenomenon makes it tougher for young girls to even consider the possibility of being leaders themselves. Even though the teen girls in the movie lived through Hillary Clinton’s historic presidential candidacy, as well as Sarah Palin’s vice presidential nomination and Michele Bachmann’s current run for the White House, they speak openly about their concerns that women are still valued more for their faces, their bodies or their outrageous behavior, rather than their brains, their ideas and their abilities.

I have to admit, even though I was familiar with the statistics discussed in the movie that show women still lag far behind in positions of power across all professions, I was a little depressed that Miss Representation reminded me in such stark fashion that the world is not a friendly place for our daughters. And it doesn’t look like that’s going to change anytime soon – unless women step up to be more pro-active. For the girls interviewed in the movie, the idea of actually managing to break those stereotypes and becoming leaders for their generation seems almost too large a task to imagine in the face of pop culture portrayals of women as sex objects and a serious lack of real leadership options to change that.

Fortunately, the movie is more than a lament that nothing will change for our daughters and granddaughters until more women occupy the full range of leadership roles in media and across the full professional spectrum. “Miss Representation” is also a call to action, to take it upon ourselves to be the change that we want for the future. One simple way parents can start is by focusing on how much time our children are actually being bombarded by these themes and images. Consider yourself strict when it comes to media consumption in your household? Your children might be seeing a lot more than you think. According to the Miss Representation website, each week American teens spend “31 hours watching TV, 17 hours listening to music, 3 hours watching movies, 4 hours reading magazines, [and] 10 hours online. That’s 10 hours and 45 minutes of media consumption a day.”

After viewing an advance copy of the film, I want to watch this movie again with my daughter, even though as a sixth-grader she might be a little on the young side to really absorb the reality that despite the advances women have made, we’re still fighting an uphill battle. And I’ll be making sure that she does “see” the women who have blazed a trail so that her generation has more seats at the power table.

Originally posted at iVillage

The editors at Newsweek outdid themselves with their most recent cover featuring Tea Party favorite and presidential candidate Michele Bachmann with a glazed over, deer-in-the-headlights gaze with the caption calling her “The Queen of Rage.”  No matter what you think of her politics, or whether you’re a Democrat who’s been brave enough to lunch with her, how about if we try something refreshing like, I don’t know, using our words to show why we think she shouldn’t be President instead of using a crazy photo and name calling to get your points across?

Clearly, the choice of photo and headline – which I have to assume came with the blessing of publisher Tina Brown -  was done with superb effect not only to boost magazine sales but also to send the message through political shorthand that Bachmann is an unstable crazy woman.  That’s what much of our “news” has become — find ways to sensationalize to bring in more ad money through tried and true sensationalism.

Bachmann is in good company.  She’s not the first woman, and I am sure she won’t be the last, the media will use this strategy with.  Instead of portraying Hillary Clinton as a highly educated woman with a natural political ability the press turned her into a wrinkly hag who looked weak when watching the assassination of Osama bin Laden.  Instead of focusing on whether former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin was qualified to be vice president, the media resorted to overly familiar shorthand sexist imagery to turn her into nothing more than a babe in short shorts.

Most recently, the New York Times portrayed Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who was elected to head the Democratic National Committee, as a nothing more than mom in a pink sweatsuit packing lunches for the kids, instead of as the powerful political player that she is, as former DNC Chair Tim Kaine was portrayed just two years earlier in a photo of him with the President, not with his kids in his kitchen.

Editors around the country continue to make women leaders the brunt of  not-so-subtle sexist mockery, rather than taking the time to dissect whether it’s fair to portray political women as misguided chicks who are nothing more than outdated stereotypes of womanhood.

I had an even longer post percolating in my head about all this, but then I read David Wescott’s fabulous essay at his place, It’s Not  a Lecture, and realized that if I had a friend who so wonderfully wrote about the big picture problem with the current Newsweek cover of Michele Bachmann and other political women, why reinvent the wheel?  Plus, it’s pretty refreshing to have a guy take on these issues.  But then again, David is a “Father of Intention!”

Image via Huffington Post/Newsweek.

“Flake” and “balloon head” are just the beginning from those who can’t get their own heads around the idea of challenging Bachmann on her political views rather than dusting off the usual sexist political playbook.

Many GOP leaders were huge Bachmann fans as she rallied her Tea Party base on their issues, but as she started making noise about going head-to-head with the “more serious” or “more likely” Republican candidates like Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty, Newt Gingrich and others, her GOP BFFs have gotten a little distant.   They don’t call, they don’t write.  Once upon a time Republican Congressional leadership was happy to bask in whatever conservative spotlight Bachmann provided for their political agenda, but that all changed when the upstart mom of 28 made it clear that she wasn’t afraid of the big boys.

I hope that Bachmann knows it’s going to get a lot worse than that.  Of course she’s going to have to get out her history book and brush up on a few facts as some of her critics have pointed out, but that’s an easy fix.  If Bachmann is  really in this race to win (which I’m not sure she is — I think she wants to position herself for a role in the future  GOP leadership espcially after the current crowd snubbed her in 2010), she needs to steel herself for the full Hillary treatment.  I’m not sure Secretary of State  Clinton would be comfortable commiserating with Bachmann on how to navigate the entrenched sexism against women who seek political power, but in my head I’m imagining that her advice would be something like this:

1. Let other people deal with the whole “balloon head” thing and ignore it. The Hillary Nutcracker got lots of coverage, but I don’t remember her dignifying it with a response.  No matter what you say, those old boy male pundits are going to keep finding ways to suggest that there’s no need to take political women seriously, and they’ll use whatever adjectives or questionable collectibles to do it.

2. Some things will call for a snappy retort, so be ready. Remember ” iron my shirt”? Best not to leave that one hanging out there, so you might want to brainstorm with your staff about keeping a few good soundbite-sized responses at the ready for the hecklers.

3. Don’t believe them when they tell you you’re making excuses for other things if you call out the sexim when it happens.  High-profile media men and women alike scoffed at the suggestion that the never-ending sexist comments had an effect on Hillary Clinton’s candidacy.   Clinton may not have lost as a direct result of the constant drum-beat of anti-woman rhetoric, but she was certainly undermined to an extent that when other things happened, voters were able to use the barbs as another reason to turn away from her.

4. Don’t think you’re safe with your GOP brethren.  Immediately after the recent CNN debate you participated in your fellow candidates were damning you with faint praise.  You pretty much won that debate for preparedness and staying on message,  but when asked what he thought of your performance, one of the guys said in a dismissive tone, “She did alright” — the political equivalent of what husbands say when their wives ask if their pants make their butts look fat.

5. Remember to pay it forward. If and when you call out the media or another politician for their sexist jabs, do it not just for your Tea Party sisters, but for all women who take those hits.  Even if we don’t agree on anything else, we ought to be able to come together on the idea that no woman, especially an elected representative who’s running for president, should have to put up with the same treatment that Hillary (or Sarah Palin or any other woman) got when she was audacious enough to say, “I’m running for President of the United States.”

We know all candidates, men and women alike, should be ready for questions on their experience, policy positions, demeanor and world view to the extent that they impact decisions that would effect the whole country.  But for any woman who dares to think she can channel her inner Geena Davis, she’d buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Image via Minnesota Public Radio

They didn’t say it in those words exactly, but that was the effect of the high court’s decision not to hear an appeal by a Texas teen who was kicked off her cheerleading squad because she refused to show her school spirit for the boy she said had raped her.

Yup.  Her Texas school said that if you’re a cheerleader, you leave your free speech rights at the door, and the court system upheld that decision because, in their view, a cheerleader is just a “mouthpiece” for the school’s message — one who is obligated to spread that message, regardless of the circumstances.

According to the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals:

In her capacity as cheerleader, H.S. served as a mouthpiece through which [the school] could disseminate speech, namely, support for its athletic teams. Insofar as the First Amendment does not require schools to promote particular student speech, [the school] had no duty to promote H.S.’s message by allowing her to cheer or not cheer, as she saw fit. Moreover, this act constituted substantial interference with the work of the school because, as a cheerleader, H.S. was at the basketball game for the purpose of cheering, a position she undertook voluntarily.

So a 16-year-old girl who had been raped by a basketball player was seen by the courts and her school as just a fungible mouthpiece who interfered with the school’s important teen spirit work who should be sent packing for not going along to get along, rather than a twice-victimized teenage girl — once by a basketball player and once by school officials who failed to show the slightest bit of human compassion or understanding for one of their students.

That message sent by both the school and the court system was clear  — boys who attack girls get rewarded by remaining on their sports teams, but if girls stand up for themselves in any way, they’re sent packing with no support.  To add insult to injury, the cheerleader’s family also has to pay the school’s legal fees.

Now, as a recovering attorney, I admit it’s a fair legal question whether or not the plaintiff actually had a court case against the high school for forcing her to cheer for her alleged rapist or for being kicked off the cheerleading squad when she refused.  I’m sure my strict constructionist friends are fuming at the idea that somehow there’s a Constitutionally protected right to bear pom-poms.  But the issue here isn’t about school spirit or cute uniforms.  There’s a larger theme running through the events of this story — if you’re a school girl who’s been raped or sexually assaulted, don’t expect any support.

Apparently, that’s how things are done in Texas.   A recent New York Times story about the alleged gang rape of an elementary school girl in another Texas town suggested that some in the community believed the fifth-grade victim brought the attacks upon herself, expressing sympathy for the alleged perpetrators and their futures, especially the ones who were high school athletes.  The physical and emotional injuries the 11-year-old girl will live with the rest of her life were given little thought until weeks, and much criticism, later, when the Times ran a more thoughtfully researched piece.

The way these stories are reported gives the sense that the important issues to be discussed involved the legal system or internal school rules.  The important nugget of what’s really going on is missing, though — these stories are about power and control, where authority figures push troubling actions under the carpet and put school athletics and the interests of sports boosters ahead of the physical and mental welfare of our daughters.

A similar theme played out in the coverage of  journalist Lara Logan‘s brutal sexual attack while reporting on the recent uprisings in Egypt.  Many people raised the question of whether Logan had brought the rapes on herself by daring to be a woman reporter  — and a very attractive one — in a Muslim country, implicitly suggesting that women who dare to step outside of certain boundaries should be prepared for whatever negative consequences come their way.

You’d think things would be a little better in 2011 for women and girls who try to put their lives back together after they’ve been raped.  Whether you’re a girl who won’t cheer for the boy who raped you or a woman who dares to be a journalist covering an important, but dangerous, story, there’s scant support from institutions of authority.  Of course, as one friend only half-seriously quipped, if that Texas cheerleader had said it was against her religion to cheer for her rapist, she’d be standing victorious on the Supreme Court steps today.

Image via Flickr/Creative Commons, by nyghtowl.

Technically, the only issue to be determined by the Supreme Court is whether a class of plaintiffs can be this big.  That’s some good, wonky procedural stuff for recovering lawyers like me!  But as SCOTUS watchers know, that fact that a relatively narrow question is before them hasn’t always stopped the the highest court in the land from crafting decisions that go beyond the stated issue, so the question of gender discrimination is likely to have an impact on the final outcome.

And that’s where the personal experiences of Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan come in — three women who, undoubtedly, have experienced gender discrimination in their professional lives and can use that lens through which to persuade the testosterone side of the bench to see things differently.

Justice Ginsburg, as the only woman on the bench in 2006, wasn’t able to persuade her male colleagues that Lilly Ledbetter was owed $365,000 in back pay and benefits that were denied her by her longtime employer, Goodyear. But in a later case, Ginsburg was successful in convincing her eight male colleagues that there is a serious difference between being a teen boy dealing with school locker room antics and a teen girl who’s been asked to strip for a drug search in her principal’s office in Safford Unified School District vs. Savana Redding. Following the oral arguments in the case about whether Redding’s constitutional rights had been violated, Ginsburg lamented:

“They have never been a 13-year-old girl . . . It’s a very sensitive age for a girl. I didn’t think that my colleagues, some of them, quite understood.”

When it comes to the upcoming Wal-Mart case, it’s probably safe to say that the men on the Supreme Court can’t quite understand the subtle realities of gender discrimination in the workplace because they’ve never been a target, though I’d be interested in hearing what their wives and daughters have to say about their experiences.  But Ginsburg has been very open about her experiences having to hide her pregnancies for fear losing her job. While Justices Sotomayor and Kagan have been more circumspect about how the legacy of gender discrimination may have impacted their careers, there’s no question that having three women on the Supreme Court for the first time ever will play a significant role in the behind-the-scenes judicial discussions that take place on the Wal-mart case, just as having an outraged Ginsburg did for Savana Redding.

Reports of the oral arguments indicate that even the women justices have concerns about how to manage this case as a class action.  But the menfolk asked questions suggesting that maybe the merits of the case should just be viewed through the lens of a few “bad apples.”  After all, one justice said, even if Wal-mart has policies against gender discrimination in place, that doesn’t mean a handful of supervisors won’t discriminate from time to time.

Except that was the argument that the world of symphony orchestras made when women musicians contended they were being discriminated against in favor of men.  Those doing the hiring said, “NONSENSE! We’re merely applying the same criteria to everyone and you ladies are falling short.”  Then, women were successful in advocating for “blind” auditions – those hiring musicians would not be able to see the performer while they played and would only be able to assess the applicant on the music they heard.  And you know what happened?  Increasing numbers of women were hired and those making the decisions were shocked that they were, whether on purpose or not, favoring the men applicants.  Their purportedly objective standards were tainted by subjective attitudes.

We all know how that goes in the real world.

Since we know that the uber-conservatives on the court have taken liberties in the recent past about broadening the legal questions to be addressed, it would come as no surprise if any opinion issued also tries to slap down existing law on gender discrimination suits.  I’m keeping my fingers crossed that the three women justices can at least keep any decisions focused on the procedural question about whether a class of plaintiffs can be this big — whether they can, in fact, share the common injuries and similar situations that are required to meet the test.  Because then we can move on to the real issue — how to explain away the facts that women, as a general matter, get paid less and promoted less than the men of Wal-mart.

When the likes of Chris Matthews become equal opportunity insulters when they toss around terms like “Balloon head”  and “makeup salesperson” about as many men as women when they question someone’s gravitas, that’s when I’ll stop saying it’s stealth sexism.

As I have said before, nothing is going to change on Wall Street as long as the lawmakers are beholden to the lobbyists.

And I hope that Oprah uses her long lost sister moment to help others understand the issues that adoptees struggle with.  Whilew we’re doing that, don’t forget to join the army of warrior princesses for breast cancer!

Apparently, Virginia Thomas, the wife of  Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has a different take on whether a dish is best served hot or cold.  But someone forgot to tell her that when trying to reach out to Anita Hill — the woman who accused her husband of some pretty extreme workplace sexual harassment during his SCOTUS confirmation hearings — that maybe demanding an apology from her wasn’t the best way to go.

So what is Ginni Thomas up to?  I’m talking more about that over at my weekly column, Speaker of the House.

Krystal Ball (yes that is her real name!), the Democratic candidate in the 1st Congressional District of Virginia, could be the undoing of conservative women who’ve complained for years that they’re the true victims of sexism and that left-leaning women never come to their aid.

There’s a certain group that has taken to attacking us liberal gals pretty regularly because they think we only call out sexist treatment of women when it happens to “one of us.” (Of course, at least one conservative guy thinks it’s not possible for there to be sexist treatment against conservative women, but that’s another story!)

That’s a nice rallying cry, but nothing could be further from the truth. Though I suspect that’s exactly why there has been nary a peep from those same conservative women in calling out whoever released the irrelevant, racy photos (though fully clad) of a 22-year-old Ball taken by her ex-husband. (Her Republican opponent denies he was involved — we’ll see how that one shakes out).

So if these women get so upset when they feel they’re treated in unfair and sexist ways, constantly complaining that the liberal sisterhood refuses to defend them, where are they for Krystal Ball,  not to mention all women and their daughters?

Many of us on the left defended Sarah Palin, even when we didn’t like her politics and had to swallow hard because of her anti-woman positions when the media used its standard sexist language about whether a mother of small children ought to be running for a high political office.  For true feminists, there was no choice — sexism is sexism and if we don’t call it out, even when it happens to women whose political positions we don’t agree with, we’ll never see the end of it.

Given the deafening conservative silence, these normally vocal right-wingers have apparently decided that they don’t really mean it when they claim they’re against sexism.  Interestingly, Fox News seems to be ignoring the story, though Bill O’Reilly found airtime to suggest that Bristol Palin is a patriot on Dancing With the Stars.

Tea Party women are quick to come to the defense of their fellow mama grizzlies, like Nikki Haley, when extramarital affairs are rumored.  They like to take pride in their union of so-called mama grizzlies, yet when liberal mothers are attacked, they’ve got nothin’.

Deafening silence. Crickets chirping. Dead of night kind of quiet.

So I have to ask conservative women — if you’re all that in the world of speaking out for the sisterhood, where are you for Krystal Ball when she’s being portrayed as ?  Because I know you’ll find a way to claim her as a kind of mama grizzly when she takes the oath of office in 2011 as the youngest woman ever to be elected to Congress, as she carries her toddler daughter in her arms up the steps of the Capitol.

UPDATE: The day after I wrote this past, to their credit, Fox News invited Krystal Ball on their network and I have to say I was impressed with how fairly she was treated.

If that’s what Lewsi really thinks, maybe he needs to hang out with the Women’s Campaign Forum.  The WCF is a non-partisan organization committed to helping women get elected in a variety of offices across the country.  This week the WCF, in conjunction with the Women’s Media Center, will officially announce it’s Name It, Change It campaign, to call out all the instances of sexism in politics and media, no matter how subtle or overt:

There’s nothing that says you can’t fight sexism with a little spot-on humor!  As with all good humor, there’s a lot of truth in there, even as we sit here and shake our heads over how many times we’ve seen examples or if of this on our TV screens.