Posted in January 2012 …

Jan 30 2012
1 Comment
Author: Sophia, Gender Bias, Inner Beauty, Opinion, People We Dig, Romance, Society

Ode to Miyazaki

Sophia

I don’t remember a time in my life where Hayao Miyazaki wasn’t present. Being a young adult/children’s writer probably has a lot to do with my nostalgia for films from my childhood, yet Miyazaki’s films stand apart in many ways. In fact, they’re actually kind of perfect.

Not unlike Kurosawa or even Almodovar, Miyazaki’s films have layers upon layers to unravel. And for animated films, that’s pretty remarkable. Not to say that Pixar films, early Disney, or other animated films aren’t at times deep and wonderful, but Miyazaki is special – at least for me.

I had a single ticket to see Spirited Away at The Aero in Santa Monica this weekend, but those plans fell through due to my mother’s unhappy stomach and my daughterly duties to stand by and make soup for her. So as a compromise for missing it, I busted out my own DVD copy. We watched, we laughed, we got a little teary eyed, and then I noticed something… At certain points in the movie, memories of inspiration surged up. For example, when Chihiro enters the train, I realized it was there, in that moment, that a story I wrote in high school had manifested. Something about the quiet of the train and the faceless spirits Chihiro sits with, the somber piano in the background as a watery Japanese countryside passes us by – that shit gets to you.

Spirited Away, 2001

What’s kind of awesome about Miyazaki is many of his films are directed at different age groups – yet at the end of the day, at any age, you can appreciate the mastery of these films. This is because his themes are universal. I remember hearing he was surprised that American audiences were so interested in his films because his main theme usually has to do with the grandeur of nature over machine. They are very Thoreau meets Emerson. Yet in his film (and my personal favorite) Princess Mononoke, Miyazaki deals with nature vs. humans in a way that is compelling to both sides. In that film in particular, he doesn’t hit you over the head with what he feels is the correct answer. In all of him films, greed is the biggest evil – and gluttony (which I think he sees as a kind of greed) is never painted pretty.

These are gorgeous, compelling, and very often bizarre films. Sometimes they are set in fantastical made-up places – sometimes it’s present-day Japan, or several hundred years ago. All of his films have magic, but it usually exists in a way where the characters are already comfortable with it. Kiki’s Delivery Service takes place in the present day and the main character is a witch – and we go with it, no questions asked. Miyazaki’s movies are often coming-of-age stories, which allow the heroine a chance to grow in a way where both she and the audience gain something beyond what was missing before.

“I felt this country only offered such things as crushes and romance to 10-year-old girls… and looking at my young friends, I felt this was not what they held dear in their hearts, not what they wanted. And so I wondered if I could make a movie in which they could be heroines…” – Hayao Miyazaki

The quote above is something to keep in mind. Most of Miyazaki’s heroes are female. He makes movies that allow women to possess roles that move beyond standard love stories – and when there is love involved, it’s deep, and painted in a way more complicated than your average girl meets boy.

I am so grateful to this man for the movies he has made over the years. He is certainly one of my biggest influences when it comes to writing for young people. I mean, I have a soft spot for certain Disney films, but at the end of the day, what did Walt ever give me? Disney pushes romance and man-hunting, but Miyazaki is beyond that. His movies are about love, and especially the love one has for one’s friends – and that’s a beautiful thing for anyone, especially a young girl or boy, to keep in mind.

A great Miyazaki interview : http://www.nausicaa.net/miyazaki/interviews/sen.html

Sophia’s Recommended Miyazaki Films

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Jan 23 2012
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Author: Sacha, Gender Bias, Society, Tips, Working Girl

5 tips from Sacha the car badass

Sacha is our newest Fear Girl’s contributor. Her posts will be a series called ’5 tips’ that will hit on a range of subjects that Sacha’s encountered in her life. I’ve known Sacha since the day I was born, and I’ve grown up thinking of her as a big sister. She’s had a pretty fascinating life that does not exclude working with wild animals for years. Sacha paved her own way and is one of the most influential women in my life. She’s shown me that through hard work and never letting go of compassion, nothing can stop you.  Her articles are transcribed from our phone conversations.  — Sophia

Sacha

Before you get in / turn on your car here are 5 things to think about:

1. Tire pressure. Make a mental note of what the tires looks like. If you have low tire pressure means your odds of getting a flat are high. It could also suggest there may be a nail in one of your wheels. Nails will usually fly out while you’re driving which means you could get a flat on the freeway which is no good. Also, if there is no tread on your tires it’s time for a change.

2. Check for oil spots. You may call it odd, but when I pull in a parking space I always look at the ground before I park. I’m looking out for oil or water spots, that way, when I come back later I can check to see if anything is leaking from my car.

*Note: if you run your air conditioning there will be a puddle of water under your car after you park it – So no worries there.

3. Say ‘no’ to key chains. Never put 8 million rings on your car key chain. The weight will ruin the life of your ignition.

4. Learn how to check your oil and know where your oil dipstick is.

a. Check first thing in the morning when the car is cold – not when it’s been running.

b. It’s always good to have in your trunk a small funnel and rag. When you check the oil your going to need to wipe off the oil with something (enter rag). The Funnel is for if some reason your car becomes super low on oil you’ll need to add oil, you need the funnel otherwise you’ll spill oil all over the engine.

5. Know your car’s diet. Obviously you know what gas does (you do know what gas is for, right?) but what about oil? The oil lubricates everything in your engine. If you have no oil you’ll blow your car’s engine. Other than gas, oil is the most important thing you have in your car. A full amount of oil – but not to the point where it’s leaking – is crucial.

BONUS ROUND:

Q: What do you do if your car is overheating and you can’t safely pull off the road?

Sacha’s Answer: Quickly turn on the heater! The way the heater works is it blows cold air over the engine and pushes the hot air over to you.

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Jan 16 2012
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Author: Caitlin, Education, Extreme Haters, Gender Bias, Opinion, Society

Jezebel Cake Walk

Caitlin

I used to have a lot of respect for feminist blog Jezebel. I started reading Jezebel in 2007, the week I moved into my college dorm. At a time when my life was rapidly changing and my views of the world were quickly expanding, I embraced Jezebel’s community of smart, savvy women.

A highlight of Jezebel has always been the commenter community. While the comments section should usually be avoided on most websites, full of vapid, racist, lunatic, misspelled musings, Jezebel was different. Their articles almost served as springboards, with the real in-depth discussions taking place between the readers. I used to spend hours reading the comments; the comments and opinions on Jezebel played a huge part in helping me form my identity as a feminist.

That community doesn’t exist anymore.

   At some point I got burnt out and drifted away from Jezebel; when I go back, I don’t like what I see. Take for example author Luke Malone’s post “The Awesome Sex Worker Who Loves Disabled Clients.” The article introduces a trailer for a documentary about a sex worker in Australia. She works with disabled clients and sees herself as someone starting conversations about the fact that people who are disabled still have sexual needs. Malone is enthusiastic about the topic, and respectful of his subjects. But the commenters jump him:

“Confined” to a wheelchair? What decade is this?

How is this not another facet of the paradigm of how guys (and somehow it is always guys and only guys) are entitled to sex?

Blades “suffered” from MS? [...] He could have had MS and still been a happy, productive person.

   Seriously? This article provided an opportunity to discuss society’s views of people who are disabled and the problems that creates. Instead, people are happy to nitpick the author’s barely, albeit, ‘language’ (someone with a degenerative disease isn’t suffering? Someone who cannot get out of their wheelchair without aid is not confined to it?) and complain about the fact that the movie features no disabled women using sex workers(women in general using sex workers would make for an entirely different movie, much less disabled women navigating the politics of using sex workers). The commenters just throw out some “you are wrong, woe is me!” complaint and call it a day instead of actually thinking about the topic at hand.

I’m willing to accept that that particular article stepped on some specific toes. Maybe that’s why the comments got so hostile. But there is no explanation for the outburst a few weeks later.
Over bake sale cookies.

Let me repeat that- readers of a popular feminist blog were getting into fights over whether or not it is acceptable to bring store bought goods to a bake sale. This, naturally, lead to women accusing each other of being lazy or not caring enough about their children. They completely ignored the real problem with bake sales- that mothers must demonstrate their love for their children by being able to bake. Regardless of whether or not they have a career. Regardless of whether or not Dad has more free time and can take over the baking for a day.

No, the commenters immediately started judging each other, crowing that “no one is too busy to bake,” “baking is so easy, why can’t you do it?” and “if you won’t bake, don’t participate in the bake sale.”

What happened? Why, in the space that used to house thought-provoking discussions and the respectful opinions of so many women, was there this oddest of backlashes? What changed, and made people feel it was okay to act so petulantly, so humorlessly? Did a time-traveler give computers to 1950’s housewives?

There are plenty of reasons for feminists, for women, to be angry. Tapping into that anger can be a good thing. But to take that energy and turn on each other, and tear down others to make yourself feel superior, on a feminist blog while discussing cookies no less, is just pathetic and sad.

I’m still grateful to early Jezebel. But I’m not sure anyone from early Jezebel would stand this nonsense.

Jezebel articles:

http://jezebel.com/5863635/the-awesome-sex-worker-who-loves-disabled-clients

http://jezebel.com/5868902/store+bought-bake-sale-confections-spark-double+stuf-indignity

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Jan 09 2012
7 Comments
Author: Patricia, Health, Opinion, Sex, Society

Plan B

Patricia

2011 was a hard year for women’s reproductive rights, with one of the biggest struggles being the proposed budget cuts that service pharmaceutical-providing facilities like Planned Parenthood. Many funds for these centers, clinics, prescriptions and doctors are maintained through the use of an existing federal budget program, The Title X National Family Planning Program. For many women, especially those from lower income families, these centers are one of the only ways for them to have access to contraceptives. In the Fiscal Year 2012 budget, Title X funding will drop from $299 million to $291.4 million.

Another hard blow came with the announcement that a recommendation which would remove the need for a pharmaceutical prescription to obtain the Plan B emergency contraceptive pill was overruled by the Obama administration’s Health and Human Services Secretary, Kathleen Sibelius. President Obama issued a badly worded statement, saying it was “common sense” that access to this pill should be limited to persons 18+ without a pharmaceutical prescription. Arguments from various view points have arisen, including outrage at the President and the Health and Human Services department for policing American women’s reproductive rights and maintaining the age restriction on Plan B. Others agree with the President’s statement and support the current limitations set on the pill.

Speaking as someone who has had to take Plan B more than once for different reasons, I cannot support the current limitations on the access of this medication to women of younger ages. I was fortunate enough to not need Plan B before I turned 18 and only had to deal with a mildly judgmental pharmacist, but I can only imagine what younger girls have to go through in order to obtain it.

For myself, while I was growing up, my parents never talked to me about sex; how to have it safely, condoms, or other forms of birth control. All of the information I got was through sex ed from public schools. We had a week of education in the 5th grade, a fractured semester in middle school, and another semester in high school. I grew up in Texas and the entire time the attitude towards teenagers having sex was mainly something along the lines of “DON’T HAVE SEX! IF you have sex you will catch Chlamydia and diieeeeeee.” Most of the emphasis was placed on showing us the terrible things that would happen to us if we had sex and the best thing to do was abstain. I don’t ever remember a teacher or nurse talking about condoms, the pill, IUDs, or abortions.

Many political campaigns and actions support this form of education. For example, funding during the Bush Administration was bolstered by up to $204 million to teach abstinence-only sex ed in America’s public schools. As a result of my poor education on the subject, protecting myself from pregnancy and disease was more of a learn-as-you-go process. I was having sex before most of my friends, and shared a computer with my exceedingly nosy brother. The combination resulted in relying on rigid use of condoms and keeping the amount of sex I was actually having minimal. For me, an unplanned pregnancy is still one of the worst things that could possibly happen.

From talking to friends and family that are younger than myself, I’ve gathered that very little has changed in the way of teaching younger women about ways to protect themselves from unwanted pregnancies. This is one of the main reasons why I do not agree that Plan B should be an entirely over-the-counter medication. I agree with lifting the age restriction because there are millions of young women under 18 that are sexually active. However, many of them do not understand how the medication works and may not have anybody to talk to when choosing to take it.

I first took Plan B after a short course on hormonal birth control. I had spoken to a gynecologist about how medication like Plan B and the birth control pill worked and had my own laptop so I could Google to my heart’s content and feel well informed – none of which I could have done if I had needed to take Plan B when I was younger. My body didn’t handle taking Plan B very well due to side effects and the amount of additional hormones in my
system. The whole process was uncomfortable and scary for me as an adult, even with people to talk to and friends that were supportive. I would hate to imagine how much worse it would have been as a teenager.

I believe that in addition to lifting the age restriction on Plan B, sexual education needs to acknowledge there is more to just abstaining from sex to prevent STDs and pregnancies. We need to teach young women about their options concerning safe sex, as well as giving women that do take Plan B an easily accessible support system for information – beyond the paperwork that is attached to the pill bottle.

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Jan 02 2012
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Author: Sophia, Education, Gender Bias, Sexual Harassment, Society, Working Girl

“Where are my guns?”

Sophia

My mother, Rosemary, has two brothers, a younger and an older one. Toys tended to get passed down, so it seemed fitting to a five-year-old Rosemary that her older brother’s toy guns and raccoon hat now belonged to her. One day, Rosemary was getting ready to watch Davy Crockett and engage in epic cowboy vs. Indian fantasies when she noticed her guns were missing. Placing her trusty raccoon hat atop her head, Rosemary set out looking for them.
“Where are my guns?” she asked her mother. My grandmother, Margarita, was originally from El Salvador and she had made her own way through life and found herself in Huntington Park, near Los Angeles, with three kids. Margarita was one of the strongest female figures in both my life and my mother’s (for better or for worse).
“Guns are for boys,” she said, implying that my mother’s search was unnecessary. My mother tried to process the response, but it was no use. To Rosemary, her mother was being ridiculous.
“Where are my guns?”

I know toy guns are a tricky topic – so allow me to sidestep that issue, because my opinion on that is irrelevant.

My mother and grandmother never really did see eye-to-eye. My grandmother had her ways, and though she pursued a career in nursing for a long time (it’s what got her to the U.S.) she still told my mom to find a nice man and not bother going to college. My mother’s response was similarly dismissive to the story of the toy guns. I think when dealing with Margarita, Rosemary tended to shrug it off and assume her own mother was a little crazy.

Before my mother and father were married, they ran into some relationship issues. My grandmother’s advice to a grief-stricken Rosemary: “Just act really important and the men will come crawling.”  I’m pretty sure that’s not feminism, but it is universally acknowledged that when someone ignores you, you want them all the more.

When my grandmother was my age and studying to be a nurse in El Salvador, she befriended a woman doctor. El Salvador in the 30s was not exactly lady-doctor friendly, and this particular woman doctor was the only one at the hospital they worked at and so they were subject to harassment. And not just any kind of harassment. One afternoon, when my grandmother and her doctor friend were getting on the bus, the doctor reached into her purse to pay, and ended up finding a severed penis in her bag. One of the other people who worked in the hospital had gone into the morgue, taken the time to slice off a dead man’s dick and then place it in this woman’s bag. The things people do to send a message…

I know my grandmother witnessed a lot of female oppression in her time. Not to mention her own mother had Margarita when she was only 14 herself. My great-grandmother wasn’t married, and continued to have children by different fathers. Margarita, the eldest, grew up quickly. Despite this setback, my grandmother ended up becoming very successful as a nurse with dreams of becoming a doctor. But when she got pregnant with my uncle, she left her career behind to raise a family (one thing that never seemed to sit right with her). Maybe it made her bitter to see my mother have those opportunities. Maybe she saw more of my grandfather in my mother than herself. Who knows? I’m pretty sure my mother has stopped trying to figure it out and gone back to her initial “Woman, you crazy” conclusion.

I feel pretty damn lucky to have been born to my parents. They have been purely positive figures in my life. My mother told me once that she made a point not to be like Margarita with me, another point of which I am grateful for. Although, I think some of Margarita’s feistiness has carried on to her descendants – my mother, myself and my two female cousins (fear girl’s writer/editor Siena is one of ‘em).

We don’t get to pick our family, and certainly not our parents. But we do get the rare opportunity to decide how we treat our children. My grandmother was truly blessed in many ways – she escaped El Salvador, married a wonderful man, and got to see her children and grandchildren grow up around her. But on two accounts I feel sorry for her – the first is that she pushed my mother away from her in many respects. And second, that she never fully fulfilled her ambitions beyond motherhood, that somewhere along the line, her society knocked her down hard enough that she just stopped. And I wonder, if Margarita had had a mother like mine, if maybe that would have made the difference.

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