The War on Women Watch continued in Wisconsin, Texas and Ohio this past week, as oppressive anti-abortion proposals flooded those states’ legislatures. The advancing legislation includes 20-week abortion bans, required pre-abortion ultrasounds and TRAP laws that impose unnecessary and costly regulations on abortion providers.

Wisconsin’s Republican Gov. Scott Walker has pledged to sign anti-abortion legislation which has been approved by both houses of the state legislature. SB 206 mandates ultrasounds prior to abortion procedures (except in the case of rape, sexual assault or incest), including for women in their first trimester. This means they must undergo a transvaginal probe, the medically invasive procedure which some have referred to as “state-sanctioned rape.” Furthermore, according to the Guttmacher Institute, 88 percent of women have abortions within the first 12 weeks of their pregnancy, thus making the unnecessary and costly transvaginal ultrasound the only viable option under this proposed law. The Wisconsin bill also requires that the ultrasound results be provided to the woman, although she can decline them.

In a statement, Jenni Dye, the executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Wisconsin said,

This bill is an obvious attempt to attack not only women’s ability to make their own decisions about this personal issue without government intrusion, but women even having access to abortion services in Wisconsin.

Additionally, if the bill becomes law, all Wisconsin abortion clinic doctors would be required to have admitting privileges at hospitals within a 30-mile radius—potentially closing the Appleton clinic, one of Wisconsin’s four abortion clinics. (Admitting privileges are unnecessary, as women can still be admitted to the hospital in an emergency without an admitting physician. Moreover, hospitals rarely grant out-of-state doctors admitting privileges, and many clinics rely on out-of-state physicians because anti-abortion extremists target local doctors.) Finally, the Wisconsin Assembly has also approved bills that ban sex-selective abortions and prohibit state insurance coverage for abortions, as well as limiting access to birth control by no longer mandating that religiously affiliated organizations cover contraceptives in their employee health insurance plans.

In Texas, meanwhile, Republican Gov. Rick Perry has added an anti-abortion bill to the special legislative session agenda. The proposed bill, SB 5, passed in the state Senate on Tuesday night. It increases unnecessary TRAP regulations for abortion clinics by requiring that all clinics comply with ambulatory surgical center standards, mandates hospital admitting privileges and requires physicians to administer abortion pills in person (cutting off women in rural, remote areas from accessing this early abortion method). This bill previously included a clause banning abortions after 20 weeks, but the provision was eventually dropped from the approved legislation. SB 5 will now advance to the Republican-controlled House for a vote where it is expected to pass. Currently, there are 47 abortion providers in Texas, but if SB 5 becomes law it will potentially shut down all but 5 clinics.

Even worse than the anti-abortion bills in Wisconsin and Texas, however, is Ohio’s HB 200. It would require women to cover the cost of their required ultrasounds and forces doctors to tell a woman about the fetal heartbeat as well as giving her misleading medical information about fetal pain and the debunked claim that there’s a higher risk of breast cancer among women who have had abortions. The legislation also would extend the previous 24-hour mandatory waiting period to 48 hours, with no exceptions in the event of a medically necessary abortion. Doctors who fail to abide by these punitive regulations could be charged with a felony and receive a fine of up to $1 million.

By severely limiting access to abortion and other reproductive health resources, these measures threaten to effectively eliminate a woman’s right to access an abortion. And these Republican law-makers, well, they truly are “Mad Men.”

Photo by Flickr user slw606 under license from Creative Commons 2.0

It all begins with one simple fact. There is a shortage of high-tech workers in the United States. We don’t produce enough computer engineers, analysts, programmers, engineers, and doctors, to meet the country’s needs. The United States tries to solve this problem by allowing U.S. businesses to hire high-tech workers from other countries by granting H1-B non-immigrant visas to individuals from other countries seeking temporary work in  “specialty occupations.”

These visas allow a U.S. company to employ a foreign individual for up to six years with the possibility of permanent residency. To further entice migrant high-skilled workers to leave their homeland and come to the U.S., they offer H4 dependent visas to their spouses and children. In 2010, from India alone, 138,431 high-skilled Indian immigrants and the 55,335 Indian immigrants on H-4 dependent visas.

But the “dependent visa” puts many restrictions on the spouses, usually women, of the skilled workers who have an H1-B visa. The dependent visa holder is not allowed to work for pay until the lead migrant has gained permanent residency in the U.S., a process that can take six years or more. In some states, the dependent visa holders are not even allowed to drive.

When I studied families with an H1-B/H-4 dichotomy I found that most adult recipients of the H-4 dependent visas are highly qualified women. They experienced a loss of dignity and self-deprecation. Some women told me they felt they were thrown back into a model of the “traditional family” where women are not valued at all outside of the home. They talked about being rendered invisible, feeling lost, and for some, suicidal.

One of my study informants described her H-4 visa as a “vegetable visa meant to make you vegetate.” Others called it a “prison” or “bondage” visa. Another woman told me “You lose your individuality and in time all your confidence – and one day suddenly you realize you are just reduced to being a visa number in your head. It is scary – it’s like losing your head.”

Gaining permanent residency in the U.S., which would allow spousal employment, could take many years for H1-B workers. This means these women will be legally unable to work for years on end. Some of the women I spoke to simply could not handle their situation and decided to return to India. One high-tech worker who recently went through divorce told me, “we had absolutely no problem as a couple, it’s this visa situation…she was unhappy and depressed and it was not going to get better. We had to take the very hard and cruel way out – the many pains of being a foreign worker.”

As the U.S. debates Comprehensive Immigration Reform, and considers increasing the number of “high skilled foreign workers”, lawmakers should reconsider the constraints on spouses embedded within dependent visas.

Immigration policies designed to bring high-skilled workers and their dependents to the U.S. fill a need in the high-tech industry, but they fall short in building gender equal, stable, happy, and viable families. The 1950s are long gone. It is time to let wives work. Why force migrant families to live in the past?

Photo courtesy of Work and Travel USA via Creative Commons 2.0.

In one corner you had Myriad Genetics, a Salt Lake City-based biotechnology company that had patented the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes that, if mutated, can warn of a susceptibility to breast or ovarian cancer. In the other you had a team of lawyers from the ACLU along with genetic researchers and patient advocacy groups. The justices ruled unanimously that naturally occurring genes cannot be patented and that though Myriad deserved credit for isolating gene, they could not take credit for the gene itself.

In his decision Justice Clarence Thomas wrote:

Myriad did not create anything. To be sure, it found an important and useful gene, but separating that gene from its surrounding genetic material is not an act of invention.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor agreed, saying that “In isolation, it has no value. It’s just nature sitting there.”

The monumental decision will now allow other labs to provide the same genetic testing for BRCA genes, when before if a patient wanted to know if they had the life-threatening mutation they had to pay (or have their insurance pay) around $3,000 to Myriad. A wider market of labs should lead to lower costs and greater access to patients. Now the price is predicted to be slashed by up to 75 percent, making it more available to those without health insurance. In fact, by late afternoon on the day of the ruling, DNATrait, a Houston-based genetics company, said it would offer the test for $995.

The Supreme Court helped to ensure that in the field of genetics, patient’s health will be put before corporate profits.

Karuna Jaggar, the executive director of Breast Cancer Action, has written for us previously on the danger of allowing human genes to be patented. Her group was instrumental in going after the Myriad monopoly, and after their triumph last week, she spoke with us about what this decision means for the rights of patients.

Ms. Blog: What will this do for breast cancer research and what will it mean for women’s health?

Karuna Jaggar: There’s no question that this was a tremendous win for patients. The court ruled that DNA is a product of nature and that all doctors and researchers have access to the building blocks of life.

We have already immediately seen five new labs offer better tests at lower cost on the same day of the SCOTUS ruling. This is proof that the Myriad patent was a monopoly that allowed them to offer outdated tests at exorbitant prices. Instantaneously, women have access to better and cheaper tests, and for the first time can get a second opinion. Myriad was so protective of their patent that their tests have never been scientifically validated. For women considering removing a healthy organ, they have a right to a second opinion. Women have been placed in impossible situations because second opinions for the BRCA mutation didn’t exist.

This opens the doors to research for all hereditary diseases and strips away major barriers to innovation in medicine and science.

It’s life and death for women with the BRCA mutation, and the Supreme Court decision frees up this genome for medical advancement. Courts have said that DNA cannot owned by a corporation, which is unprecedented. With this court win, we’ve changed history and we’ve changed the conversation.

Myriad has demonstrated that the bottom line is what drives their decisions. They patented these genes and policed them so aggressively—going after research labs and shutting them down, using fear mongering in their marketing tactics—that they’ve earned a uniquely egregious reputation in the breast cancer community. People in this community hate Myriad and what they’ve been doing. They are only about the profit. They offer old tests when there are plenty of labs willing to give better and more affordable testing.

What do you think was most instrumental in securing a SCOTUS win?

ACLU did an exemplary job arguing the case, and in the end we won because we’re right. These patents shouldn’t have been granted in the first place. There has been a lot of evidence of direct harm by Myriad, and they represented the worst-case scenario of what can happen when corporations are allowed to patent DNA. Genes need to be made available for all of humankind for the benefit of all of humankind. Myriad didn’t create anything, therefore they can’t own BRCA.

This is why it’s so important for public health organizations to be free from corporate influence. We have to make sure they have the resources to go toe-to-toe with Big Pharma. We need effective watch dogs that can’t be swayed by the power of corporations.

Photo of Karuna Jaggar courtesy of Breast Cancer Action

Photo of Team Myriad at breast cancer walk courtesy of myriadgenetics via Creative Commons 2.0.

(Clockwise from top left: Astronauts Hammock, McClain, Mann, Meir)

Closely following the 50th anniversary this past Sunday of Russian Valentina Tereshkova becoming the first woman in space and the 30th anniversary of Sally Ride’s famous flight today, NASA has named four women to be among its class of eight new astronauts trainees—the first time that the U.S. space agency has achieved gender parity in a class of new astronauts.

The four women, Christina Hammock, Nicole Aunapu Mann, Anne McClain and Jessica Meir, were chosen from more than 6,000 applicants. McClain trained as a helicopter pilot, Mann served as a major in the U.S. Marine Corps, Hammock worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and Meir worked for Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Said Janet Kavandi, director of Flight Crew Operations at Johnson Space Center,

This year we have selected 8 highly qualified individuals who have demonstrated impressive strengths academically, operationally and physically. They have diverse backgrounds and skill sets that will contribute greatly to the existing astronaut corps. Based on their incredible experiences to date, I have every confidence that they will apply their combined expertise and talents to achieve great things for NASA and this country in the pursuit of human exploration.

These women will be creating new firsts as well. NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that they may help lead the first human mission to Mars, which would not happen until at least 2030. Until then, the astronauts would conduct research on the International Space Station, test new space technologies and work on a NASA project to drag an asteroid into the moon’s orbit. Said Bolden,

These new space explorers asked to join NASA because they know we’re doing big, bold things here—developing missions to go farther into space than ever before.

Twelve of NASA’s 49 current active-duty astronauts are women. In all, 55 women have flown in space (43 of them Americans), making up a little more than 10 percent of all astronauts. While Russia was the first country to have women astronauts, there have only been another 18 in their program since Tereshkova, and of those only three have actually flown in space. The last time a Russian woman flew in space was 1994, and there are currently only two active Russian women astronauts. China’s space program just sent its first woman into space last year.

Photo the astronauts from NASA under license from Creative Commons 2.0

And then remember how it went viral, with the feminist Facebook army confusing the lingerie giant’s social media with clever #hashtags during the annual Victoria’s Secret fashion show?

Well, that was all the work of FORCE, a feminist art-activist group based in Baltimore that fights rape culture and “promotes a counter-culture of consent” with bold campaigns. Earlier this year, they illuminated the Capitol building with the words “Rape Is Rape” and for V-Day One Billion Rising they displayed the words, “I Can’t Forget What Happened, But No One Else Remembers” in the national reflecting pool, sparking conversations about sexual violence (these words were written by an anonymous rape survivor).

These fearless feminist activists are at it again, this time on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

Their newest initiative to bring attention to rape and sexual assault is the Monument Quilt—an array of giant picnic blankets that will cover the Mall and read,

We are heard.

This is not our fault.

We are not alone.

Within each quilted letter will be stitched stories submitted by survivors of sexual violence. The Monument Quilt will be installed in the Summer of 2014, but it will continue to serve as a virtual space for support, healing and hope at themonumentproject.org.

In fighting rape culture, FORCE sees their efforts as two-fold: to provide victims with a place to heal while also re-directing the conversation to promote a culture of consent rather than one that condones and silences the impact of sexual violence. Hannah Brancato, co-founder of FORCE explains,

FORCE wants to live in a culture that supports, honors and uplifts survivors. One way to do this is for communities to create more public forums in which survivors can share their experiences. Survivors carry the silence and shame of rape for our whole community—a burden that was placed on them when they were assaulted. By building a monument, we can create a physical space and a cultural space where the silence is broke and the shame is eliminated.

However, it’s not just the physical monuments themselves that help fight rape culture. Having these public spaces empowers people to join the conversation about consent and gender violence, and they remind us to continue fighting for social and cultural change. Brancato continues,

A monument plants the seed that rape can and must end. As we begin to let the idea of rape ending sink in, we will begin to be more proactive about taking the steps needed to not only help people heal, but to prevent rape and ultimately, to live in a world without rape.

The Monument Quilt, inspired by AIDS activism, is modeled after the NAMES project’s Memorial Quilt that last covered the National Mall in 1996. Through making this memorial for victims of HIV/AIDS, AIDS activists effectively transformed the course of public health discourse. FORCE activists hope that by installing a quilt with personal accounts from victims of rape and sexual assault on the National Mall, they, too, can change perceptions of rape on a political, societal and cultural level.

On its blog, FORCE writes of the AIDS quilt,

Changing public opinion ultimately made way for new policies, better drugs, education and prevention, all of which has resulted in a dramatic decrease in the rate of [AIDS-related] infection and death. While the work of preventing AIDS is not over, the movement is a model for how a cultural shift can affect public health. Just as removing the stigma from AIDS slowed a growing epidemic, removing the stigma from rape could forever change the epidemic of sexual violence in the United States.

The activist group has launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds for the Quilt; you can donate to it here. And you can submit your personal stories at themonumentproject.org or to upsettingrapeculture@gmail.com with “My Story” in the subject line. FORCE asks that each story “speaks to the burden of shame that is placed on survivors of rape and abuse” and to please include a color that will be woven into the design of each quilt square. All stories will be kept anonymous unless otherwise noted.

Photos courtesy of Hannah Brancato and FORCE.

The ads, commissioned by AMMAR and designed by the advertising agency Ogilvy & Mather, are carefully positioned on various street corners, revealing a sexualized woman on one side wall while the other shows her pushing a stroller or holding hands with her young children. The campaign, aptly named, “Corner,” offers distinct images of women as both sex workers and mothers, challenging public perception and calling attention to the marginalization and dehumanization of those in the sex trade. On the side of the ad with the child are the words,

86 percent of sex workers are mothers. We need a law to regulate our work.

In 1994, Elena Reynaga founded AMMAR, an organization for sex workers advocating for their rights as both workers and women. The following year, AMMAR joined CTA, one of Argentina’s main trade unions, but the organization has yet to be officially recognized by the government in their association with CTA.

Prostitution is currently legal in Argentina, although organized sites of prostitution such as brothels remain illegal. However, it is the country’s official abolitionist stance on prostitution that complicates the discussion of how to best offer sex workers legal protection. In theory, abolitionists want to address the factors that lead women to sex work and end the sex trade without criminalizing the sex workers themselves. But in the meantime, the government’s reluctance to recognize sex work as a legitimate profession fails to protect women against the violence and discrimination of an unregulated industry.

At the heart of this controversy is the idea of “voluntary” sex work. Are these women acting of their own volition? Or is their involvement in sex work a means of survival and a way to feed their families?

As an organization, AMMAR makes a clear distinction between voluntary sex work and prostitution by framing the need for government oversight as a human rights issue rather than a political statement. AMMAR writes on its website,

We can talk about ‘sex work’ and not ‘prostitution’ as a result of a long ideological and political battle in the context of human rights and respect for the self-determination of women. And we believe it is necessary to get decent conditions for us to continue working.

But this very distinction is what caused an internal division within AMMAR in 2002. Graciela Collantes, leader of AMMAR-Capital, disagreed with this notion of a “voluntary” sex worker, instead choosing to refer to herself as a “prostitute.” She explains,

The prostitute is a victim of the system, of the absence of public policies that protect and incorporate the rights of women. Sex work, no.

Like the political controversy swirling around the issue of sex work, the battles between policies advocating for abolition versus regulation and the “sex worker” versus the “prostitute” prevent progress. With 93 percent of AMMAR’s members identifying as the sole providers of their families, the consequences of associating individual sex workers with prostitution and sex trafficking leaves these women without their fundamental rights. And failing to recognize the organization as an official trade union is an injustice that endangers these women and further perpetuates stigma and shame.

The street art campaign, “Corner,” is certainly clever. Although, it isn’t uncommon for art to carry some sort of politicized message, this street art imitates life by reminding us just how multidimensional and complicated these issues can be. But it’s time to turn the corner on this debate—to see the ad in its entirety: a sex worker striving to provide for her family in an unregulated and discriminatory environment. The staggering statistic “86 percent of sex workers are mothers” shouldn’t be the only reason to advocate for sex worker rights. It is a reason, but it is not the only reason. Yes, this woman is a sex worker, but she is also a mother, a woman, a human. And regardless of her profession, she deserves the right to work under safe conditions.

Photo of Buenos Aires Street Art courtesy of AMMAR’s Facebook page.

precludes Arizona from requiring a federal form applicant to submit information beyond that required by the form itself.

Arizona is notorious for enforcing stringent anti-immigration laws. These include SB 1070, which forces people to prove their citizenship if there is “reasonable suspicion” that they are in the country illegally. This invites much racial profiling against Latinos, Asian-Americans and anyone presumed to be “foreign”. Proposition 200, which became law in 2004, also was designed to make it harder for minorities and the poor to exercise their rights, because citizenship documents are often hard to obtain.

Although Justice Scalia wants this decision to be seen as merely a legal obligation to uphold federal law, today’s ruling is a victory for groups such as the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which have been lobbying to remove extra requirements from voting registration applications. It also sends a message of inclusiveness and equality, making it easier to vote rather than more difficult.

The ruling will also affect the states of Alabama, Georgia and Kansas—which have laws similar to Proposition 200—but there are worries that states may appeal to include a citizenship provision on or with federal forms in the future. Let’s hope that this is not the case and that, instead, this ruling will preclude other states from trying to follow in Arizona’s footsteps.

Photo of Supreme Court by Flickr user Mark Fischer under license from Creative Commons 2.0

Abercrombie & Fitch

When exclusionary comments made by A&F CEO Mike Jeffries resurfaced in a recent article, many recognized his words as bullying. Jeffries explained that his company aims to attract and cater solely to “cool kids”—defined by A&F as smaller than a size 10 for women, and a slightly larger range of up to XXL for men, but only as an exception for those cool, beefy athletes.

Some “uncool” kids, including Ellen DeGeneres, spoke out against Jeffries’s  elitism in some very cool ways to call A&F on its tactics. After perhaps realizing that a Facebook apology wasn’t going to cut it, A&F decided to make amends by offering college scholarships to students who have been victimized by people like Jeffries and A&F shoppers throughout high school.

It’s nice that A&F recognizes the correlation between its business model and bullying, but a scholarship isn’t exactly what A&F’s critics had in mind when urging the company to make a change. Benjamin O’Keefe, who launched the Change.org petition against A&F, hoped the retailer would do something about its own bullying by making clothes for all sizes. Finding A&F’s new-found activism insincere, O’Keefe said,

It doesn’t make sense that a company that is still bullying itself is now working on an anti-bullying campaign.

Heather Arnet, who boycotted A&F in 2005 for its sexist beauty standards, is pleased that A&F is willing to do something about bullying. However, she feels that A&F’s anti-bullying efforts could be more effective if they promoted inclusive beauty with its image.

A&F’s scholarship shows that it doesn’t really understand bullying. It specifically calls for victimized students who have also been able to find the strength to “persevere” academically in spite of everything, which leaves out a substantial portion of victims. As it turns out, constant harassment really interferes with one’s ability to do well in school.

A&F’s scholarship can only help out select individuals, which does nothing for altering perspectives on bullying in the long-run. Instead, A&F just perpetuates an unrealistic, simplified bullying narrative that casts victims as underdogs who are down on their luck.

However, the retailer has also promised to support a series of anti-bullying conferences for high schoolers, which could be a positive step forward. But we can’t help but feel that campaigning against bullying while you’re still distributing exclusionary, sizeist fashion is just a little bit hypocritical. If the A&F brand eventually reflects that all bodies can be cool—not just thin, white ones—then maybe we’ll see their anti-bullying initiatives as laudable.

The Candie’s Foundation

For National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Month, the Candie’s Foundation released its celebrity-endorsed campaign, #NoTeenPreg. Instead of providing educational resources about contraceptives or how to talk about sex, Candie’s spreads faux-empowering slogans like “You’re supposed to be changing the world, not changing diapers.” The campaign manages to condense many complex issues such as teen pregnancy, poverty, sex education and reproductive health into neatly packaged videos and images that make one thing clear: Motherhood sucks. 

In opposition to the campaign’s reductive portrait of teen moms, many Twitter users protested Candie’s under the tag #NoTeenShame. In conjunction, a young mother named Natasha Vianna launched a petition against the foundation. Vianna’s petition requests to meet with Candie’s founder Neil Cole. She wrote,

We’d like to discuss the impact of the Candie’s shaming campaign on young parents like us, and offer ways the Candie’s Foundation can shift its approaches to include: increasing comprehensive sexual education, putting a halt on shaming tactics and using messaging that supports and empowers all young people to make the best decisions for themselves.

Other than a solitary defensive tweet, Candie’s has remained unresponsive about Vianna’s and others’ criticisms until recently. Last Tuesday, Neil Cole issued a statement with Huffington Post arguing that his company’s campaign doesn’t shame, but rather educates and sparks discussion. Said Cole:

The goal of The Candie’s Foundation is to educate teenagers about the consequences of teen pregnancy. We are calling attention to the facts.

Cole also lists partners of the foundation, some of which do offer information about sexual health and contraceptives. However, the only resource provided by the Candie’s campaign itself is a diary of teen moms, whose words actually reveal the urgent need for comprehensive sex education. From one mother’s entry:

My boyfriend and I did not use protection because we thought the ‘pull out’ method was safe enough. I had stopped birth control because I was told it made you gain weigh … I am not sure why I was so naive.

We’ll give Cole one thing: We definitely need more discussion about teens and sex. The fact that Candie’s has created such a stir holds great potential to develop more progressive methods of talking about sex with young people, but it has to be handled with sensitivity. So far, Candie’s has failed in that arena.

Maybe if Cole and his foundation take Vianna up on her request for productive discussion, we’ll believe that Candie’s cares about teens. But for now, telling us that Candie’s isn’t shaming young moms isn’t enough. If young mothers feel shamed by your campaign, your campaign is shaming young mothers. It’s that simple.

A&F ad from Change.org; Candie’s PSA from The Candie’s Foundation

In general, Man of Steel, the latest film iteration of the Superman story, conveys that women are just as key to the Superman narrative as men. This is true from the opening moment, when the birth scene of baby Kal-El, who will grow up to be Superman/Clark Kent, focuses on his mother Lara. Then, the decision to send their child to earth is equally shared by Lara and Jor-El (the Kryptonian scientist played by Russell Crowe). Once the movie shifts to the young Clark’s life on earth, his human parents, Martha and Jonathan Kent (Lane and Kevin Costner), are again equally featured. Lane is particularly strong as Martha, saving Clark from the monsters in his own head in an early scene, and later supporting him as he struggles with what the revelation of his identity has wrought. Part of the consequence of this revelation is the destruction of her home—but the only thing she worries about salvaging is the photo albums, telling Superman not to worry about the house, that “it’s only stuff.”

All of this may seem relatively minor, but it is rare for superhero movies to feature females in important, non-sexualized, non-damsel-in-distress roles (as recent articles and Twitter buzz has focused on, particularly in relation to the fact there is still no Wonder Woman movie). It is rare to depict women as non-materialistic and wise, not to mention portraying mothers as being alive (especially in Disney films!), let alone being as important as father’s are. As such, I had planned to focus on the females in the film for my review.

Alas, after looking up the cast of the film on IMDB in order to write this review and coming across the image of the young boy who plays 9-year-old Clark Kent (Cooper Timberline) posing with arms bent on hips, a stern look on his face and a cape flowing out behind him—an image that smacks of muscular masculinity—I was consumed by the image of my own son, age three or thereabouts, running around the house endlessly in his Superman costume. This, coupled with two very young boys who sat in front of me at the screening,  astride their mother’s lap, asking questions like “Why isn’t Superman flying?” and “Where is Superman’s cape?” got me thinking: How does the iconic image of Superman shape young boys’ concepts of masculinity? And, given that Superman is generally viewed as the ideal super-hero model for boys (less dark than Batman, less conflicted than Spiderman, more memorable and enduring than Iron Man, Aquaman and so on), what does this new movie deliver in terms of modeling “super masculinity”?

On the one hand, there are many positives. The film questions hyper-masculinity, militarism and other power-over models, or the reliance on brawn over brains. It condemns the sexual objectification of women, macho bravado and the bullying aspects of male culture.

On the other, though it is critical of hyper-masculinity and the violence it engenders, the film’s extended action-and-explosion-packed ending undercuts this critique. At the level of content, the film offers a feminist-friendly version of Superman, but its visuals–especially the extended fight scenes between Superman and Zod (which dominate the last 45 minutes or so)–contradict this narrative. The content says “Women and men are equally important and violence/domination is bad for everyone” but the visuals say “Let’s blow shit up and watch dudes punch each other through buildings!!”

Back to the positives, the film not only condemns sexual objectification and harassment of women, or the ways in which traditional masculinity harms women, but also denounces men’s bullying of and violence towards one another—the ways in which traditional masculinity also harms men. Near the start of the film, when a man slaps a waitress’ butt, Clark, working as a busboy, intervenes, calling out the man for his inappropriate behavior. The man then goads Clark with a “what are you gonna do about it” attitude, dumping a beer over his head. The other men at the bar snigger in approval. Rather than resorting to violence, though, Clark walks away. Similarly, later in the film, in a flashback to when Clark was in middle school, a group of boys attack him, prodding him to fight back, but he refuses. Again, the males act in pack fashion, spurring one another to be violent and criticizing those who do not “live up” to the violent ethos of being a “real” man.

The central male characters who champion violence are also rebuked in the film, but none more so than Zod for his imperialistic, genocidal and militaristic goals. The film deserves props here for showing that women can not only be just as good as men, they can also be just as bad as them—exemplified by Zod’s second in a command, a woman. In so doing, it de-genders violence, showing that it is not inherently male but rather that the power-over mentality is the problem, not the gender of the person who buys into it.  The weapon-happy stance of the military is also reproached, as when Colonel Nathan Hardy (Christopher Meloni) calls for his soldiers to shoot at Superman, or when General Swanwick (Harry Lennix) is rebuked for sic’ing a surveillance drone on Superman (a very timely rebuke indeed!)

In contrast to these power- and weapon-happy males, the film offers various representations of a kinder, gentler, more positive masculinity via Jor-El and Jonathan Kent, Superman’s two fathers. Both of these figures encourage Clark/Superman to act with integrity and empathy. Framing him as “the bridge between two worlds,” these fathers insist that Clark/Superman can “embody the best of both worlds” and bring a message of hope that insists “every person can be a force for good.”

Here, the film circulates around the fear of difference in ways that nod to the narrative that arguably undergrids the original comic—a narrative that has been read as criticizing racism and, in particular, anti-Semitism. The author, much like Clark in various iterations of the story, was bullied as a kid, and the original comics were penned during the years preceding World War II and the rise of the Nazi party in Germany. Thus it’s not a stretch to read Superman as a racialized underdog hero, an “alien” who is despised for his difference. His Kryptonian mother’s comment at the outset of the film underscore this reading. She worries that Kal (Clark’s Kryptonian name) will “be an outcast, a freak” on earth. His human parents share similar fears, encouraging him to hide his difference,  to “pass” as human. But partway through the film, Kal/Clark sheds his closeted identity in order to save earth and its inhabitants.

In a pivotal scene, he confronts the military brass who have handcuffed him upon the discovery of his “alien-ness,” saying, “You’re scared of me because you can’t control me.” Here, a bevy of connotations arise—how violence is about control, how difference is controlled through violence so that those in power can maintain their power, how viewing difference as an alien threat leads to violence. But, as Superman insists, the inability to control him does not make him an enemy. (U.S. government and military leaders please take note: Just because we cannot control what other countries do, this does not make them our enemy.)

Superman and Lois Lane

Here and elsewhere, this version of the Superman story questions the way in which power-over mentality, coupled with hyper-masculine bravado, will lead to planetary ruin. Metaphorically, the film questions the reliance on brawn (embodied by Zod and the military brass) over brains (embodied by Jor-el) and heart (embodied by Superman). Further, the Krypton/Earth binary can be seen as emblemmatic of traditional notions of male and female, with the powerful Krypton threatening to control and/or annihilate Earth. Instead of maintaining these dichotomies,  the film suggests that both Kryptonians and humans, males and females, can be a “bridge” to a better world. The movie also takes pains to depict Lois and Superman as a team, rather than as a savior and his damsel in distress. This is particularly underscored near the end of the film when someone looks on at the pair after the near destruction of earth, and says “THEY saved us” not “He saved us” or “Superman saved us.”

Lois is depicted not only as a fearless, intrepid investigative journalist, but also adept at figuring out Kryptonian ships and carrying out plans of escape/survival. Near the end of the film, she tells Superman, “I know how to stop them” (Zod and company). As such, she is as much superhero as he, though she is human and he is super-human. To make her even more amazing, she is clearly cognizant of hyper-masculine posturing, as when she is  waiting to be shown a Russsian submarine the military thinks they have found and says to the brass, who are verbally trying to out-macho each other, “If we are done measuring dicks…can you show me what you found?”

On the less positive side, Superman, as the personification of “super masculinity,” is—as indicated by the reboot title—a hyper-muscular man of steel. His moniker suggests he is hard, unbreakable, impervious and made of muscle—notions that mesh well with the unattainable ideal of masculinity currently in circulation and which are embodied via his excessively built form. Though he uses his strength for good and resorts to violence only as a last resort, the overly-long excessive fight scene between he and General Zod contradicts the earlier narrative claims the movie makes regarding violence, militarism and power. If these things are bad (as the first three-quarters of the film suggests) why do we need to watch scene after scene of he and Zod punching one another, destroying buildings and displaying their uber-strength? Why was it necessary to destroy multiple buildings, cars, planes, semi-trucks, satellites and so on in a way that makes Spock’s overly-long fight scene with Khan in the recent Star Trek: Into Darkness seem short by comparison?

My sense is that those in charge of filming, editing and special effects were loathe to cut these visually arresting scenes. Which reminds me of some comments I heard walking out of the film: “I feel like I am on sensory overload,” “I feel like my senses have been assaulted,” and “After all those explosions, I think I lost some hearing.” As these comments suggest, these action scenes can in themselves be viewed as form of assault on the audience—one that, admittedly, certain audiences crave—but one that nonetheless suggests that the way to be “super” (as a man or a film) is to be violent, to blow shit up, to be stronger than the other guy/gal.

As the fight scenes dragged on and on, the two young boys in front of me stopped squirming in their seats and stared at the explosive images on the screen—images that screamed the only way to “win” and be “super” is via violence and weaponry, or have a body that is itself a weapon. This is not the image I hold of my son running around in his Superman costume at age 3, nor of his smiling, dimpled face and curly-haired locks in his kindergarten picture (in which he’s wearing a Superman t-shirt). No, that boy liked the idea of flying, not killing. But with so many images that teach boys (and girls) that to be a “super-male” is to be one capable of violence, how can we expect our boys to soar in ways that promotes messages of hope, inclusivity and an insistence “every person can be a force for good”?

I don’t have the answer. But I do know that my now-16-year-old-son, who attended the screening with me, had a key complaint about the film: “The fight scenes were way too excessive.” If a teenager raised in a culture that champions such scenes as “the stuff great blockbuster movies are made of” gets this, why the heck can’t Hollywood?

Top photo from Flickr user scottfeldstein. Photo from Man of Steel by Flickr user HenryCavillandtheCavillry. Both under license from Creative Commons 2.0

(Right) @ItsLoosh: “I just fell down the stairs.” (Left) @Anoufenani: “I wish I could tell her.”

“Treat her like a queen, not a punching bag.”

“He who hits a woman is a coward.”

These are some of the tweets featured in a recent social media campaign from Saudi Arabia.

In an effort to call attention to the country’s alarming rates of domestic violence, young people of Saudi Arabia have been asked to tweet powerful images and words to the perhaps not-so-aptly named Twitter feed #HitHer.

The hashtag is intended to dare young men and women to “hit her” with messages that discourage Saudi men from literally hitting her, but the name has caused some confusion in the Twittersphere. While the Twitter feed does include tweets such as ones above, it also displays a fair number of off-topic tweets from outside of the campaign, which makes the conversation appear somewhat unfocused and hard to track. The name also just sounds more abusive than anti-abusive, notes one Twitter user: #HitHer is “a good cause” with “a very misleading title.”

Others critique the campaign’s focus on men, arguing the ineffectiveness of raising the awareness of abusers rather than providing support for abuse victims. Writes Facebook user Af’af Super-Nobody,

Raising awareness is for the victim, not the aggressor … Raise awareness among women who are victims of violence because they fear reporting incidents. [In Saudi Arabia, victims fear] reporting on offenders because they might arrest her instead.

Regardless, the #HitHer campaign has gained many participants, as well as positive responses, mostly from men.

Organized by a group of young Saudis with sponsorship from the Jeddah-based music management agency, Libra Productions, #HitHer was inspired by the Arab state’s first anti-domestic violence campaign, which made headlines just last month. Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid Foundation ran an ad with the following image in national newspapers:

The Arabic message roughly translates to “the tip of the iceberg.”

The website for that campaign, “No More Abuse,” provides emergency resources for victims and encourages them to report abuse to the authorities. These resources are unusual and greatly needed in Saudi Arabia, a country whose strict treatment of women forbids them from leaving home without a male guardian, participating in social activities or driving alone. Saudi even has a tracking system that alerts a man via text if his wife has left the country.

Domestic abuse reports are also included on the “No More Abuse” site. According to Saudi Arabia’s State Department, 16 to 50 percent of Saudi wives have survived abuse, but the numbers might be even higher because of under-reporting.

While these campaigns challenge the cultural norm of abuse in Saudi Arabia and have certainly sparked important discussion, some question whether they can actually be effective in eradicating the abuse of Saudi women, especially in light of the country’s extreme censorship. As both campaigns were spread largely through the Internet, which is heavily censored in Saudi Arabia, it’s difficult to estimate how many Saudi women have seen these images.

But even if they have, it might not be enough for them to take action. Carmen Rios of PolicyMic argues that there is little to celebrate until the law protects Saudi women who choose to report abuse. Says Rios,

Women face social ostracization for reporting these crimes, and often it can endanger their lives. If there are no pre-existing legal protections [that are put in place] for them, how can these resources impact their lives? If there are no legal structures in place to put offenders into jail or rehabilitation programs, how can these resources change their behavior?

For now, however, these messages have the potential to influence Saudi Arabia’s perspective on violence against women, and may even help save a life. Hopefully these campaigns are among the first of many steps towards the protection and liberation of Saudi women.

#HitHer campaign photo from Al Jazeera; No More Abuse ad from King Khalid Foundation