The Happy Feminist

THE WICKER MAN: A MISOGYNIST ROMP (WARNING: POST CONTAINS SPOILERS)

Oh the irony -- I am just getting back on track as a feminist blogger (Typepad finally reactivated my account today after I updated my credit card information a week ago) when my husband decides to rent The Wicker Man, starring Nicholas Cage and Ellen Burstyn. This movie was so absurd and poorly done that its rampant misogyny is actually unintentionally funny.  (SPOILER ALERT:  THE REST OF THIS POST GIVES AWAYS THE ENTIRE PLOT)

Cage, a noble self-sacrificing cop, runs to the rescue of Willow, his ex-fiancee, who has gone to live in a pagan matriarchy where the women run things and the men serve only as mute laborers. 

It doesn't take long for the movie to start taking swipes at both feminism and femininity in general.  Cage walks in on an all-girl classroom in time to see the teacher ask the students to identify the male-essence in its purest form.  "Phal-lic Sym-bol! Phal-lic Sym-bol!" chant the girls in unison.  Later, Cage finds himself in the laboratory of the island's woman doctor-- chock full of jars containing highly developed dead fetuses, natch.  And, of course, it turns out that the little girl for whom he is searching is actually his child, a fact that his ex-fiancee, Willow, had concealed from him for years -- because women do that, you know, i.e. use our greater natural control over human reproduction to keep men out of the loop.

What was striking to me was Cage's "masculine" instinct for protecting women-and-children as contrasted with the portrayal of the women-and-children as all, without exception,  ungrateful bitches who use his protective instinct against him -- even the little girls.  In the very first scene, before Cage travels to the matriarchal island, Cage picks up a doll on the highway after it has flown out of a car window.  He pulls the car over and hands the doll to the little girl sitting in the back seat.  But the little bitch just looks at him stonily and hurls the doll back onto the road.  Notwithstanding her ingratitude, Cate risks his life to try to save her moments later when a truck smashes into the car causing it to go up in flames. This incident is utterly irrelevant to the rest of the movie except, I guess, to demonstrate Cage's masculine nobility and the eee-vil inherent in the female half of the species.

Cage's courage and self-sacrifice are more than matched by the cruelty and deviousness of the women he encounters on the island.  The little girls in the schoolroom lie to him outright.  They also confine a bird inside a desk "to see how long he can stand it."  But, despite being met with a universal lack of cooperation in his quest for his daughter, Cage doggedly continues the search, suspecting that his daughter is intended as a human sacrifice for an upcoming harvest festival.

At the denoument, however, it turns out that the ex-fiancee has cruelly tricked Cage yet again.  The daughter is not to be the human sacrifice.  The "missing daughter" was an elaborate ruse to lure Cage to the island so that he can be the human sacrifice.  And he is. He is surrounded by murderous bitches, who break his knees and put a cage of bees over his head, before having his own little girl light him on fire as the women scream, "KILL THE DRONE! KILL THE DRONE!"

Again, despite betraying a pretty foul view of powerful women and women in general, the movie is so campy that it's actually kind of fun to watch if you can make it to the very end (it drags a lot, due to poor pacing and pointless flashbacks to the irrelevant opening car scene).  The commenters at the Internet Movie Database (linked at the beginning of this post) have a fine ol' time mocking Cage whose character, at the climax of the flick, impotently screams, "YOU BITCHES!!! YOU BITCHES!!!!"  They also got a kick out of the fact that Cage couldn't even keep up with the little girl as she runs ahead of him, luring him to the place where he is to be surrounded by a mob and killed.

I vaguely remember some bad TV dramas from the '70s involving evil man-hating matriarchies, in which the noble men always outwit or overpower the evil women.  One consolation of "The Wicker Man," I suppose is that the women, while murderously cruel, are not incompetent. None of Cage's masculine weapons are of any use in the face of the women of the island -- not his police badge, not his bravado, not his fists (he beats up Leelee Sobieski and a couple of other women too), and not his technology. I can see why a number of highly respected actresses, like Ellen Burstyn, were drawn to the opportunity to play women who are both powerful and successful.  Alas, the movie portrays female power as wholly evil, but far from being a successful anti-feminist screed, it is more effective as a window into the worst fears of your typical misogynist. 

Here are some other reviews:

The Village Voice: Old Familiar Misogyny Poisons Neil LaBute's Cult-Thriller Remake

Wicker Man does to Women what William Hung Does to Singing

WHEN GETTING BACK IN TOUCH WITH LONG LOST FRIENDS

One of the things in life that makes me more stressed out and nervous than almost anything else in life is getting back in touch with long lost friends, especially if I am the one who lost touch to begin with.  Ironically, it is one reason I often procrastinate further about getting back in touch if I feel too much time has passed.  As a kid, I discovered one stress alleviator in this situation and thought you would get a kick out of it too.  I found it in an an issue of Cricket Magazine, December 1974. It is a letter from Lewis Carroll** to a child who had failed to write to him promptly:

"Now I want to know what you mean by calling yourself 'naughty' for not having written sooner! Naughty, indeed! Stuff and nonsense! Do you think I'd call myself naughty if I hadn't written to you, say for 50 years? Not a bit! I'd just begin as usual, 'My dear Mary, 50 years ago, you asked me what to do for your kitten, as it had a tooth-ache, and I have just remembered to write about it. Perhaps the tooth-ache has gone off by this time-- if not, wash it carefully in hasty-pudding, and give it 4 puncushions boiled in sealing-wax and just dip the end of its tail in hot coffee.  This remedy has never been known to fail.' There!  That's the proper way to write."

Of course, casually passing off one's errors and failings never sounds quite as bad in an English accent, especially when peppered with delightful old-fashioned phrasing. 

I am a little overwhelmed by the many kind comments to the prior post -- thank you so very, very much!  Lots to say regarding recent events in the blogosphere (which I am catching up on) and elsewhere so I am looking forward to resuming real posting!

** Please, no snarky pedophile comments, tempting though it may be.  Don't wreck this for me!

NOOOOO -- I'M NOT DEAD.

But I am guilty of Blog Abandonment in the First Degree.   I can't tell you how terrible I feel that I have caused people to suffer concern for my well-being and how terrible I feel for welching on my blog obligations.

It wasn't intentional -- nor was it personal. I miss all my blog friends terribly.  I hope I can work on reconnecting and getting this blog back up to snuff. My plan is to go through all my unread emails this weekend as well as the unread comments,  catch up on what I've missed in the blogosphere and then start posting again next week. Hope this place hasn't turned into a major porn spam dumping ground. 

Again my abandonment wasn't intentional -- life just kind of blew up on me last November and December between my boss becoming permanently disabled with a severe brain injury, relatives dying, me being seriously ill and lots of other stuff.  Between one thing and another, I somehow didn't get around to posting for several weeks despite every intention of throwing something up on htis blog.  Then come New Year, I procrastinated about getting back on the blog because I am still crazybusy at work trying to make up for my boss's absence and I am not sure how to fit blogging into my life anymore.  But I know I desperately want to find a way to make it work.

Again, my sincere apologies for disappearing.  I will be back, probably next week.

REFLECTIONS ON PLAYBOY, GIRLS GONE WILD, AND SOFTCORE PORN

A lot of men I have met confuse the feminist critiques of porn with the notion that feminists hate sex, hate pleasure, and hate beauty.  They believe that we want them to feel guilty every time they look at a picture of a beautiful naked woman, or admire a woman's body.  Indeed, there is a strong strain of prudery in our culture that sometimes affects feminist thinking about these issues.  However, critiquing porn is not the same thing as telling men they are bad people for wanting visual sexual stimulation.

I do not believe that sex and nudity are inherently degrading.  I do not even believe that sex and nudity on camera or for money is inherently degrading.  I believe that women who pose nude or who engage in sex work should be viewed as fully-fledged human with hearts and brains and souls worthy of respect.

The problem is that so much of the most popular soft-core and hard-core porn in our culture does seem to be predicated on reducing, degrading, or pulling one over on women.  I am not even going to get into hard-core in this post (mainly because I don't have the stomach or the time to do any, um, research).  But consider two of the most popular, socially acceptable, and allegedly "wholesome" versions of soft porn -- Playboy and Girls Gone Wild.  Playboy, while preaching a philosophy of sexual liberation for both sexes, is all about infantilizing women.  Posing naked is not inherently degrading.  But walking around with a cotton-tail on your ass and bunny ears, while gushing about how doing so is the greatest honor of your life, is a bit degrading.  Having the nude picture of you posted with a little cutesie yearbook entry about your likes and dislikes written in bubbly handwriting is all about portraying you as unthreatening and powerless as possible.  Being one of three girlfriends fawning over 80-year old "Hef" while begging him to put naked pictures of you in his magazine and struggling to abide by the curfew he sets for you -- also degrading. 

Girls Gone Wild, like Playboy, is marketed as good, clean fun for the red-blooded American male.  What young (or older) man wouldn't want to see pretty young women appearing to spontaneously flash the cameras or engage in other sexualized behavior in the heady exuberance of the moment?  But, as noted in one of my recent posts, newspaper accounts establish that Girls Gone Wild founder and his cameramen are routinely engaging in very bad-news predatory behavior on very young women whom they encourage to become intoxicated, and Joe Francis is a first rate misogynist. 

Amanda, in a first-rate post on Francis a couple months ago, perceptively describe how the whole concept behind Girls Gone Wild is inherently both prudish and misogynist:

But more than that, it appears that the pursuit of unwilling women is not just done out of need, but it’s actually the whole point of the enterprise to Francis. This little throwaway part [from Claire Hoffman's piece on Francis] was extremely telling to me.

But the women are changing, Francis tells me, and that makes him sad. In the beginning, when “Girls Gone Wild” cameramen first popped up in clubs, the women who revealed themselves seemed innocent—surprised, even, by their own spontaneity. Now that the brand is so pervasive, the women who participate increasingly appear to be calculating exhibitionists, hoping that an appearance on a video might catapult them to Paris Hilton-like fame.

To rephrase this bluntly, Francis doesn’t like working with women who are getting something out of it . . . The fantasy is not just regular girls getting naked, which is something I have exactly zero problem with. It’s a little more complex than that. The idea is to bend a usually unwilling woman to your will and enjoy the submission. Women who march up to the camera and say they want to be filmed in sexual situations are not bending to anyone’s will and that takes the fun out of it. Very, very telling.

It’s funny to me, how “Girls Gone Wild” is supposed to be hedonistic and yet is, at its core, prudish. Always hovering over the whole enterprise, as is indicated by that quote about how the women have changed, is the notion that the women should be ashamed of wanting to get naked and have a wild night of partying. Their shame is the focal point for Francis and probably a lot of viewers.

The problem isn't nudity or sex.  The problem is that these publications promote and are motivated by a demeaning view of women. 

In the late '80s or early '90s, I bought into the reaction against anti-porn feminism of that era, which seemed to me to be prudish and excessive and authoritarian.  I even bought a subscription to Playboy, making me perhaps the only subscriber to buy the magazine for the articles.  But I slowly came to loathe the magazine and its cheesecake portrayals of women.  And I began to see where the radical feminists had a point that, in a society predicated on views of the sexes as unequal, sex and porn are inevitably going to be demeaning and degrading to women, which certainly seems to be the case.

But I don't necessarily see porn or sexualized images of women in our society as the major problem women face as women.  I see it as a symptom of a larger issue in our culture, the fact that a lot of cultural views and assumptions about women in a variety of contexts have not caught up with our legal equality, and are thus still demeaning.   

I will admit my views on this are very much evolving, which is one reason I have pretty much kept my mouth shut on porn over the year or so I have been blogging. There are a lot of articulate bloggers (and I am thinking of Laurelin in particular although I can't seem to find the particular post of hers that I liked so much) who write beautifully about the effects they perceive that porn and "lad mags" have on the treatment and self-respect of average women.  While I favor full freedom of expression, I think as ethical consumers feminist men and women can work to promote more egalitarian views of women in all areas of expression, including but not limited to pornography.   

I'M BACK

Didja miss me?  Sorry for the lack of posting.  After a week of frantically trying to catch up on work, I hoped to be back to my normal bloggy self this weekend.

But alas-- a work colleague of mine had a major medical emergency.  So I spent the weekend and today visiting the hospital and figuring out what is going on with his caseload.

I have another post mostly written that should go up tomorrow, in case you are waiting on the edge of your seats for the Happy Feminist. 

PROCRASTINATION MEME

I am completely drained and exhausted.  Have been up half the night working.  So it's time for a break of sheer procrastination -- a meme from Clare at Ink and Incapability.  My brain is too fried for anything more substantive but stay tuned this weekend.  Meanwhile, here is some randomness for your pleasure (or primarily mine). 

Explain what ended your last relationship? Me finally realizing that I am not the crazy one. 

When was the last time you shaved? This morning.

What were you doing this morning at 8 a.m.?  Preparing detailed report letter to client regarding status of his case.

What were you doing 15 minutes ago? Gloating over opponent's lame motion to reconsider court ruling dismissing another client from another case.   (Litigators gloat a lot.  That's why people don't like us.)

Are you any good at math? Well, I can add.

Your prom night, what do you remember about it? A lot.  I had a track meet that day at a school two hours a way.  We got a flat tire on the way back so I showed up half an hour late covered head to toe in mud, hair all straggly from being out in the rain all day.  We didn't have cell phones then so I couldn't call to tell my date that I was going to be late and mud-covered. Found him patiently waiting on my front step and looking extremely dapper.  Frantically washed hair and dressed (black, calf-length cocktail dress, nipped in at waist with large '80s bow, and square neckline, extremely figure-flattering and highly illicit as my mother did not believe that teenaged girls should wear black).  Went to Italian restaurant with another couple and then to school wrestling room for dancing.  A little stressed  because my sadistic English teacher scheduled me for an oral exam on The Brothers Karamazov the next morning.  Returned to dorm for 2:30 a.m. boarding school curfew only to spend the rest of the night frantically reading the Brothers Karamazov.  Frustrated because only had managed to kiss date on cheek.

Do you have any famous ancestors? Not really. One of my ancestors was a 17th century Italian historian but you wouldn't know who he is unless maybe if you're Italian.

Have you had to take a loan out for school? Have I ever.  Going to law school is not, repeat not, the best financial move unless your family can afford to send you without taking out a loan. 

Last thing received in the mail? Questionnaires and authorization forms I am supposed to fill out before my appointment with my new dentist next week.

How many different beverages have you had today? It's 10 a.m. and I have already had two French vanilla cappucinnos, and two Diet Cokes.

Do you ever leave messages on people’s answering machine? Yes, of course. What kind of question is that?

Who did you lose your CONCERT virginity to? Not sure what this means -- the first concert I ever went to?  I guess the Del Fuegos, a Boston area band circa 1986.

Do you draw your name in the sand when you go to the beach? I would if I ever went to the beach.

What’s the most painful dental procedure you’ve had? Not really painful, but having my wisdom teeth removed was certainly interesting.  A lot of pressure and blood.  But I was mainly relieved to get the damn things OUT.

What is out your back door? A small deck, a grill, a backyard, and woods.

Any plans for Friday night? SLEEP!

Do you like what the ocean does to your hair? Uh, no.  I like my hair dry and unsalted.

Have you ever received one of those big tins of 3 different popcorns? Don't even know what you're talking about.

Have you ever been to a planetarium? Yes.  I believe there is one at the Smithsonian that I went to on a field trip with my class in grade school.

Do you re-use towels after you shower? Uh, yeah.  I don't spend my life laundering towels.

Some things you are excited about? Building a house in 2007.  We're interviewing contractors now!

What is your favorite flavor of JELL-O? Cherry.

Describe your keychain(s)? It's a kind of cloth hoop with a Native American gold and green pattern on it.

Where do you keep your change? In a little tupperware bowl with a plastic lid on it in our hall closet.

When was the last time you spoke in front of a large group of people? A couple weeks ago, I spoke at a seminar my firm sponsored for a bunch of Police Chiefs.  The topic was recent developments in civil rights litigation.

What kind of winter coat do you own? Black buttoned down overcoat with belt -- and the  best part -- pink lining.  From Petite Sophisticate. 

What was the weather like on your graduation day? Gorgeous and sunny every time.

Do you sleep with the door to your room open or closed? I prefer closed.  My husband thinks it's weird.

MARYLAND COURT'S INTERPRETATION OF RAPE LAW IS PREDICATED ON THE NOTION OF WOMEN AS CHATTEL

Yesterday a mid-level state appellate court in Maryland interpreted Maryland's common law in such a way as to preclude women from withdrawing consent to sex after penetration has occurred.  The court itself admits that this ruling is predicated on ancient views of women as chattel whose value is lost upon penetration, rather than independent human beings whose suffering matters.  The court took the position, however, that under the law of stare decisis (the obligation of a court to follow precedent), only the Maryland Supreme Court or the legislature could alter this outcome.

The case is Baby v. Maryland, __ A.2d ___ (Md.App. 2006).  According to the young woman's testimony, the defendant asked to have sex with her and she consented on the condition that he would stop when she told him to.  She testified that the penetration hurt "so I said stop and that's when he kept pushing it in and I was pushing his knees to get off me."  After she told him to stop, he continued to "keep pushing it in" for about "five or so seconds." 

For reasons that I won't get into in this post, the prosecution's theory in this case was that the whole situation was coerced and that her consent was not freely given in the first place.  The jury, however, asked this question during their deliberations:  "If a female consents to sex initially and during the  course of the sex act to which she consented, for whatever reason, she changes her mind and the man continues until climax, does the result constitute rape?"

The trial court declined to answer the question other than to refer the jury back to the original jury instructions, which did not specifically address this concern.  The jury convicted the defendant and the defendant appealed.  The Court of Special Appeals of Maryland held that the trial court erred by failing to answer the jury's question. The court further held that there is no rape under Maryland law if the woman consents to sex prior to penetration and then withdraws the consent after penetration.  I should note that this interpretation of the law would apply regardless of whether the man kept thrusting for five seconds or ten minutes after the woman said to stop. (Sorry to be graphic, but it's necessary.)

As Jessica at Feministing said:

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

So ladies, once it's in, it's in. Ain't nothing you can do about it. Changed your mind? Suck it up. He's hurting you? Oh, sorry--should have thought of that before. After all, it's not like your body is yours or anything.

The court claims that it has no choice but to enter this ruling based on prior precedent -- a 1980 case called Battle v. State, 287 Md. 675, 683-85 (1980).  The problem is that the portion in Battle regarding withdrawal of consent was dicta -- a portion of the decision that was unrelated to the facts before the court and therefore non-binding.  Furthermore, as the court admits, this ruling is contrary to the weight of authority in other states throughout the country.  Nonetheless, the court insists that since Battle provides the only indication of Maryland law on the issue, that the dicta in Battle must carry the day.

The court further admits that the law as stated in Battle is predicated on utterly antiquated, outdated, and grotesque notions of the status and personhood (or lack thereof) of women.  As the court stated:

The concept, undergirding the Battle holding, rooted in ancient laws and adopted by the English common-law, views the initial "de-flowering" of a woman as the real harm or insult which must be redressed by compensating, in legal contemplation, the injured party -- the father or husband . . .

. . . [I]t was the act of penetration that was the essence of the  crime of rape; after this initial infringement upon the responsible male's interest in a woman's sexual and reproductive functions, any further injury was considered to be less consequential.  The damage was done.  It was this view that the moment of penetration was the point in time, after which a woman could never be "re-flowered," that gave rise to the principle that, if a woman consents prior to penetration and withdraws consent following penetration, there is no rape.  Maryland adheres to this tenet, having adopted the common law, which remains the law of the Land until and unless changed by the State's highest court or by statute . . .

The court elucidates further the reasons for the law in effect TODAY in Maryland in footnote 6 of the opinion:

The cultural mores undergirding the notion that the crime of rape was complete upon penetration may be traced to Biblical and Middle, Assyrian Laws:  Under MAL, the rape of a virgin was presumed to be an illegal trespass upon the father's property with the rapist required to "give the (extra) third in silver to her father as the value of a virgin (and) her ravisher shall marry her (and) not cast her off."  The woman was required to marry her rapist without hope of divorce.  If the rapist was married, the virgin still had to marry her rapist; however, the rapist's property, his wife, was also factored into the compensation.  The rapist's wife was to be given to the father "to be ravished . . .not to return her to her husband (but) to take her." 

This approach to rape developed because a virgin was considered a valuable asset, the value residing in men's ability to gain absolute ownership of the totality of her sexual and reproductive functions.  Any infringement upon this totality through premarital sexual relations rendered the asset less valuable and might even turn it into a liability.

(Emphasis added).

And there ya have it.  This is why feminism is necessary -- because many of our presumptions on all sorts of issues are based on ancient values such as these. This is the kind of thing I mean when I say that women have to be eternally vigilant for their liberty and mindful of the millenia of second-class citizenship that women have faced until very recently in the west (or, more accurately, denial of women's very personhood). 

This ruling is so outrageous that I have to believe that the court outlined all this history to encourage the Maryland Supreme Court to set new precedent and overrule the old common law.  But is amazing to me that the court viewed itself as bound by dicta in Battle, despite recognizing that this non-binding dicta is based on views of women's status that are surely contrary to the laws of Maryland today. 

WATCH SHORT FILM ILLUSTRATING CONSEQUENCES OF SOUTH DAKOTA ABORTION BAN

Check out this short film by Charlie Call, depicting a woman literally begging a male judge to allow her to take a simple step to stop an inevitable biological process that will ruin her life.

This film, of course, depicts the ultimate "good" reason for an abortion.  I support abortion in the early stages of pregnancy for any reason within the discretion of the woman without the necessity for permission from anyone else.  But it is worth remembering that South Dakota would force pregnancy in circumstances in which even many pro-lifers support abortion, even on a woman carrying the product of her rape in her body against her will.  Even in those coercive circumstances, the legislature of South Dakota would privilege the an unconscious, unfeeling, undeveloped zygote over the life, marriage, hopes, and dreams of an adult woman. 

Watch this film. My understanding is that it will only be up on You Tube a short time pre-election.

STAY AWAY FROM GIRLS GONE WILD

Amanda alerted me to this two part series in the Akron Beacon Journal.  Here's an excerpt:

[Carl Moss] says the Girls Gone Wild crew has shown a pattern of behavior that is "predatory'' and "systematic.''

Moss actually helps set up these types of events through his local multimedia company, Moss One Entertainment.

"I've been part of that Girls Gone Wild thing three times (and) every single time the behavior of the (cameramen is) absolutely the same,'' he says.

"As the night progresses, the drunker the girls get, they'll start separating them. They'll say, `Hey, you guys want to come on the bus?' And the girls'll say, `Yeah!' And they'll take three down to the bus.

"But when they get to the bus, they'll say, `Well, we can only take one at a time because you girls have to sign a release, and blah blah blah blah, and we'll come and get the other two.'

"Well, the other girls will just go back into the club and they won't think about anything. And then (the cameraman will) take the single girl back to the bedroom (of the bus).

"I've seen it every time now.''

The series recounts an incident involving a 17 year old girl who was lured to a Girls Gone Wild Event with the promise of $50 and an open bar if she would dance on the bar and get things going.  As the evening progressed, she became extremely drunk on all the free booze.

One of the videographers was paying particularly close attention to her, she says. "At one point he asked my friend to move so he could get closer to me. He was actually up on the bar with us (while taping).

"He was watching me drink all night. It was clear how ridiculously drunk I was.''

As closing time neared, she says, she and several other girls were invited out to the bus. She was the first in line and, after she climbed aboard, she says, the others were barred. While she was partially passed out, the cameraman who had been watching her came up from behind and forced himself on her, she says.

Afterward, she stumbled off the bus, wearing nothing but a tank top and twisted underwear, and staggered around inside the club, looking for her skirt and her car keys. Along the way, she vomited twice in the Mango's restroom and twice more downstairs at Panini's.

This account is consistent with the rampant misogyny of Girls Gone Wild founder, Joe Francis and his crew, as reported by Claire Hoffman in her expose a couple months ago. This article recounts how Francis himself lured an 18 year old girl drunk girl onto his bus for what she assumed would be more flashing for the cameras.  He got her to masturbate on film, she says, and then pushed her onto the bed and started having sex with her.  She says he did not stop even though she kept telling him it hurt. Then, she says, he opened the door and told the cameraman to come back, saying, "She's not a virgin anymore."

I think it is safe to conclude that Joe Francis and his crew and his products should be avoided like the plague.  I wish there were a way to get the word out and to persuade young women to stay the hell away from this guy.  Stop enriching this jerk, who apparently hates women and hates you. Stop giving him control over your image forever in exchange (literally) for a lousy t-shirt.  And ethical people everywhere, stop buying this guy's stuff.  Unfortunately, among a certain crowd of rowdy kids and celebrities, Joe Francis is the coolest.  Unfortunately, that's not likely to change anytime soon.

NOTE:     Joe Franics also pled guilty last month to failing to document the ages of very young women appearing in his videos.

EXCUSE ME WHILE I GO PUT MY HEAD IN AN OVEN

Over at Sidebar, Moi questions the tradition of Jewish mother jokes*:

But what gives with all the sexist stereotypes? Loud obnoxious opinionated women--overbearing mothers full of guilt trips--boastful women. And, where are the corresponding stereotypes about Jewish men?

It wasn't until I was well into adulthood that I first heard anyone opine that Jewish mother jokes are sexist and offensive.  It startled me to hear it because I grew up hearing Jewish mother jokes, generally told with both relish and affection by relatives on the Jewish side of my family.  While I always thought the stereotypical Jewish mother was a loveable although irritating personality, the stereotype might not be so charming if you happen to be the target of the jokes.  The Jewish Mother of jokedom is:

Passive-Agressive

From Haikus for Jews by David M. Bader:

Lovely nose ring --

Excuse me while I put my

head in the oven.

Pushes her children 

Is one Nobel Prize

so much to ask from a child

after all I've done?

Overprotective

Hey! Get back indoors! 

Whatever you were doing    

could put an eye out.

Refuses to Let go

Testing the warm milk

on her wrist, she beams -- nice, but 

her son is forty.

Excessively Proud of her Children

A Jewish mother was seen running along the beach screaming, "Help! Help! My son, the doctor, is drowning!"

Insists on Love and Respect from her Children

"Oedipus schmoedipus!  A boy shouldn't love his mother?"

My mother, who has great comic timing, used to re-tell a lot of Jewish mother jokes.  Although she is not Jewish, the way she told the jokes evinced a great sympathy for the mother's point of view.  I never really saw the Jewish Mother as a ridiculous figure, because my mother always seemed to admire her and empathize with her.  The Jewish Mother may be annoying but she is powerful, at least within her family.  She comes out on top and generally gets what she wants. She dominates, even if in a neurotic way.  (I am thinking of Woody Allen's short film "Oedipus Wrecks" from New York Stories, in which the mother turns into a giant head in the sky looking down over Manhattan and able to observe and comment on her son's every move.)

I always thought of the Jewish Mother as a forceful, ambitious, opinionated, intelligent personality -- all good things, but directed in unhealthy ways due the lack of other available outlets for these qualities.  For example, the Jewish Mother's ambition had to be expressed through her sons because she herself did not have the same opportunities.  The children were the natural objects of the Jewish Mother's forcefulness and dominance because mothers generally did not have other available expressions of power.

Dr. Paula Hyman offers another interpretation:

Eastern European Jewish culture did foster an intense style of mothering, which was reinforced by the physical and psychological insecurity of life in the shtetl [the small-town or village community of Jews in Eastern Europe] and later in the immigrant ghettos. Not only was it a style of mothering appropriate to its surroundings, it also served to equip the children for survival, even for success, in an environment that was often hostile.

Hyman notes that the mother was reverenced in Eastern European Jewish culture before immigration to America and western Europe.  It was only once immigrant children, anxious to assimilate, saw the contrast between this "intense mothering style" and non-Jewish American family life that Jewish comedians began poking fun at the Jewish Mother. 

This makes sense to me. My Jewish grandmother grew up in poverty in turn-of-the century Manhattan and was the daughter of immigrants who had fled Eastern Europe.  By all accounts, she was excessively concerned with my father's health and safety when he was a boy, even going so far as to fret about him crossing the street by himself when he was fourteen and, as he puts it, "already shaving, for God's sake."  But when you and your family have known great insecurity it makes sense to fear the worst for your offspring and to do everything in your power to protect them from hostile outside forces.  This goes down the generations too.  Sometimes, my dad slips out of authoritarian-father mode into what I think of as his "anima," a stereotypical Jewish Mother.  He used to freak out if I showed the slightest sign of getting a cold or if I went swimming too soon after having lunch or if I started looking "too skinny."  But it's not so silly when you recognize the historical roots of where this protectiveness may originate.

As Paula E. Kirman puts it: "As well, in a world where it is only recent that Jews are not paraiahs in society, a person who lived in more dangerous times may feel more protective of her flock . . . The stereotypical Yiddishe Mama is probably a species that will not remain beyond another generation, as the face and makeup of Jewish families change and we are more used to living amongst non-Jews. But her mark upon Jewish literature, popular culture, and our lives, will ensure that the legend of the Jewish mother will remain a part of the Jewish consciousness."

*Bonus -- See the Sidebar post linked above for some Gentile jokes, too!

NOTE: Also see this article about comedian Judy Gold, who interviewed fifty real Jewish mothers, of diverse backgrounds, and turned what she learned into a one-woman comedy show expressed from the women's point of view.