Lurker request: feminist poetry for teens

I am a secondary English teacher in Queensland and am trying to expose my students to some feminist poetry, particularly if it of the protest kind, but all the poems that I tried to pass by my P&C committee have been shot down as being too ‘adult’. I was wondering if you (or anyone for that matter) were able to give me a few suggestions.

Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated. I want my kids to be aware of feminism and what it means, especially in a place where there is no exposure to it whatsoever.

Anybody got anything?

NB:
Seconday school – in Australia generally primary school is Years K-6, secondary school is years 7-12 (there is some variation between states, but it is minor)
P&C Committee = Parents & Citizens Association committee associated with a particular school

FAQ: if “gender is a social construct”, aren’t feminists saying that gender doesn’t really exist at all?

Updated 21 August 2008

A: NO. Social constructs are human conceptions, invented but not therefore imaginary (unless one thinks that social consequences are imaginary). Social constructs are human systems of social interaction organised around shared ideas. The shared ideas may be true, false or inaccurate, but the socially constructed systems that have developed in response to those shared ideas are very, very real.

Where has this confusion arisen? I suspect because people assume that “construct” means “made up” as in “imagined” or “fantasy”. Constructed merely means artificial, and “artificial” is the opposite of “natural”, not the opposite of “real”. (After all, anyone reading this on a computer is living a very artificial life compared to the natural life of hunter-gatherers on the savannah.) The artificial aspect of social constructs is that we have manufactured these systems of expectations and obligations in response to certain ideas, ideas that are often arbitrary and which can vary between cultures, rather than any particular social construct being an inevitable development based on human nature pure and simple.

N.B. The following is going to be snarkier than usual, because this one is gobsmacking (although my snark is aimed at antagonists proclaiming their superior logic rather than genuine seekers after information). Social constructs can be confusing to wrap one’s head around because social roles and expectations are the elephants in the room that most people are unwilling to ask questions about, so why do some people insist on claiming that they’ve killed the gender elephant when in fact they’ve only just noticed that it’s got large ears?

Often people who claim to have superior logic skills are using this or similar questions about social constructs to frame some allegedly devastating argument against various aspects of progressive thought. For crying out loud, I’m amazed that sentient individuals could have quite such a large dose of EPIC FAIL in the clue-catching department as to claim “AHA!! Gotcha, you gender warriors! Take that!” without a glimmering of understanding that just because social constructs are physical/biological fictions doesn’t stop them being undeniable sociological facts. Dictionaries are your friend, for a start.

List of social constructs off the top of my head:

• Money
• Land as property
• Religion
• Race
• Politics
  • party politics even more so
• Capitalism/Communism/the ism of your choice
• Marriage
• Nations
• Justice systems/legislation
• Social Status
  • i.e. royalty, aristocracy, bourgeoisie, proletariat (upper/middle/lower class)
• Slavery
• Fashion
• Sport

Gender is socially instilled rather than biologically determined, but so is religion. These conceptual systems are still real phenomena that affect people’s lives, even if they have nothing to do with our essential biology. Anyone wish to try asserting ownership of your own home in a place without a social construct of property laws or a justice system? You won’t have anything other than your brawn to back it up.

Social constructs exist because people are acculturated to a shared tradition/belief/convention that such constructs are meaningful systems. It is the multiple intersections of social constructs that institutionalise people’s perceived social roles.

The nature of social constructs that is most important for feminism (and other progressive ‘isms) is that social constructs are malleable rather than inherently fixed, and historians have documented the way that socially constructed systems in the past have regularly modify their shared beliefs (divine right of kings, anyone?) in response to changes in circumstances that challenge old conventions (including new ideas). Therefore by deconstruction and persuasion with respect to the logic of new ideas existing social constructs can be modified now and in the future (although there may be a great deal of social inertia to overcome along the way).

You feminists just want to tell women to do what you want, instead of letting them CHOOSE (and we all know girls *choose* the girly stuff)

Bumped from the Open Suggestion thread, so that we can have a general discussion about the various issues surrounding how choices can be constrained by socialised expectations:

lala, on June 15th, 2008 at 1:53 am Said

I’m an engineer and pretty much always the only woman (or occasionally, one of two women) in any workplace setting. I also frequent communities that revolve around technical subjects both online and off.

Now whenever I, or another woman, or even another man starts talking about encouraging other women to join in technical subjects, people seem to get very hostile.

Some of them will say that women don’t have the brains for it, but then claim that they aren’t being sexist because they love admire women’s natural abilities to nurture and manage social settings so that everyone is happy. I have science to throw at those people, so I can deal with them.

However, many will take the attitude that women aren’t /choosing/ to participate in technical subjects and therefore we should leave that alone. Women don’t want it, so why don’t we leave that alone? What’s the problem?

Friday Links Roundup

Some stories which this week:

Broadsheet: Breaking the mirrored ceiling

A new report by the Fawcett Society, a women’s rights organization, tackles the usual corporate culprits: the glass ceiling, the wage gap and sexual harassment. But it adds a lesser-heard complaint to the list: London’s corporate strip club culture.

In London, lap dances and stripteases have apparently become an “increasingly normal way of entertaining business clients.” Female employees are simply left out of such strip club summits or must do their best to be taken seriously amid a roomful of naked, gyrating women.

The Fawcett Society report referred to above: “Sexism and the City.”

What is this “protection” of which you speak?

“Sexual assaults are frequent, and frequently ignored, in the armed services.” I have this insane urge to email Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA)and say “Duh!” This is old old news, but every few years someone rediscovers the reality that rapists join the military and we get a bunch of op-eds and exhortations for the military to do more to protect women.

Open Thread: can there be feminist porn?

The organisers of Canada’s Third Annual Feminist Porn Awards (Toronto, April 4th and 5th 2008) think so.

In 2006 we decided that it’s not enough to criticize adult films for not adequately representing women’s – and in many cases, men’s – sexuality. So we decided to do something about it. As porn star and performance artist Annie Sprinkle famously said, “The answer to bad porn isn’t no porn…it’s to try and make better porn!” Good For Her couldn’t agree more. We believe the world is inundated with cheesy, cliché, degrading, no-budget, patronizing and stupid porn. But we also believe that erotic fantasy is powerful, and that women and marginalized communities deserve to put their dreams and desires on film, too. As feminists and sex-positive people, we want to showcase and honour those who are creating erotic media with a feminist sensibility.

It doesn’t take long for anyone reading about feminism to realise that there’s a lot of disagreement amongst the feminisms regarding porn, porn vs erotica and the larger picture of the sex industries generally. These tend to get summarised as “anti-pornography” and “sex-positive” stances, both of which terms are overly simplistic. “Sex-positive” especially casts opponents as “sex-negative”, when it is more true to say that they are “sex-industry-negative” or even better “sex-exploitation-negative”.

So, when I received this email about the Feminist Porn Awards I thought it was a good kick-off for an open thread on feminism and porn. Have at it. (ducks and runs)

Update: For a good collection of posts from advocates of the anti-prostitution/pornography feminisms, try the Third Carnival Against Pornography and Prostitution

Women more prone to depression than men: it’s NOT the fault of feminism

There are however many conservative columnists and pundits generally who’d like us all to believe that lie. Amanda at Pandagon debunks the following common claims (how many have you heard, and more importantly, at least partly believed?):

Assertion #1: Women need marriage more than men, and it’s their marriages, not their jobs, that help save them from depression.
Assertion #2: Women’s depression is the result of equality.
Assertion #3: Higher status in career and education makes it harder for women to get married.
Assertion #4: Climbing the education and career ladder makes women unhappy.

By this point, you probably won’t be surprised when I tell you that none of these assertions is supported by actual evidence. Amanda lays out the evidence that women who achieve independent financial &/or career security are actually both happier generally and more likely to be happily partnered than women who are enmeshed in financial & social dependence, and here is the conclusion:

According to the APA, men and women aren’t so different after all. We’re both huge risk factors for depression if we have crappy, underpaid, unappreciated work. We’re both more stable if we have some independently attained stability.

The big difference is that women are still less likely to obtain some independent financial/career stability, and there’s nothing either “natural” or feminist-caused about that gap.

More Feminism Friday posts: two from Melissa at Shakesville

I just left this link in comments to the previous post, but it deserves greater visibility.

Feminism 101: Calling Out Fellow Progressives for “Sexism Prevents Unity on the Left”

Melissa comprehensively debunks this pernicious silencing tactic.

Just one little part:

There are too many progressives who view social change like conservatives view economics: Make everything as splendid as possible for those at the top and the benefits will “trickle down” to everyone below.

Well, it’s bullshit when we’re talking about tax cuts, and it’s bullshit when we’re talking about equality and opportunity.

ADDIT: Melissa also wrote another great Feminism 101 post earlier this week (can you tell that I’m only just catching up with my feed-reader?):

Feminism 101: “Feminists Look for Stuff to Get Mad About”

Of all the condescending, dismissive, and factually incorrect accusations used by concern trolls (or hostile trolls) to attempt to silence, shame, or in some other way discourage feminists from addressing sexism in all its manifestations, perhaps none is quite so stupid as the charge that feminists are “looking” for things about which to be offended—as if feminism is a product that will go out of production if there aren’t enough buyers and sales are waning because sexism is, like, so over, dude.

Two from Melissa as well as two from Jill. We’re very spoilt for Feminism Friday style posts this week. Read any other great posts that display the Feminism Friday sensibility recently?