Pink Panther Magazine Issue 16 is out!

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War On Women Steps Up

 By our own Helen M Bascom 
(posted with her permission)

Feel free to comment.

The Christian Right in America is stepping up its war on women’s reproductive and privacy rights. A proposed constitutional amendment is being pushed forward in Mississippi that would make all contraception illegal. According to PoliticusUSA the ballot measure has a good chance of passing in the state of Mississippi.

The danger to women cannot be overstated because besides eliminating all forms of contraception, it sets a dangerous precedent for Christians to dictate their belief that women must subject themselves to a man’s will. Michele Bachmann has traveled the country telling audiences that she obeys her husband’s every command because it is what god has instructed in the bible. The male-dominated society yearns for the time when women were barefoot, pregnant, and serving their husbands by keeping quiet and blindly obeying his edicts. Under a constitutional amendment that bans contraception, women will have little choice but to abstain from sexual intercourse or face a life of perpetual pregnancy. However, under the bible’s rules, a woman cannot refuse her husband’s sexual advances so they are left with no choice but to remain pregnant; because it is a biblical edict.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. If you think that something like this can never happen in America, think again. Contraception could be criminalized at the state level in the United States until 1965 when the Court decided the case of Griswold v. Connecticut (1965). In Griswold, the Court held that the right to privacy protected the right of a married couple to use contraception. The US Supreme Court held in Griswold v. Connecticut that states may not criminalize or prohibit the use of contraception. They may succeed at the state level, but the Supreme Court would probably invalidate the state law on the same grounds they used to invalidate the law in Connecticut. The Court is not likely to toss aside the Griswold precedent because to do so would open up a massive can of worms and threaten the validity of decades of established precedent regarding the right to privacy.
I have confidence in our Supreme Court to overturn invasive religious laws such as the one discussed above, however this situation is indicative of a much larger problem in American society. The problem is the ever increasing influence of religion in the secular affairs of government and invasion into the privacy of persons who are not religious. It is their First Amendment right to believe as they wish and to impose religious restrictions on each other within the realm of their religion and practices, but when they bring it to the secular realm and attempt to impose their antiquated, religious views on those who do not share their beliefs and on ME, then their actions cease to be protected by the First Amendment and become MY business.

Goody Santa Claus - A light-hearted look at gender roles in thisholiday season.

A light-hearted feminist look at gender roles at this season.

Santa, must I tease in vain, Deer? Let me go and hold the reindeer,
While you clamber down the chimneys. Don’t look savage as a Turk!
Why should you have all the glory of the joyous Christmas story,
And poor little Goody Santa Claus have nothing but the work?

It would be so very cozy, you and I, all round and rosy,
Looking like two loving snowballs in our fuzzy Arctic furs,
Tucked in warm and snug together, whisking through the winter weather
Where the tinkle of the sleigh-bells is the only sound that stirs.

You just sit here and grow chubby off the goodies in my cubby
From December to December, till your white beard sweeps your knees;
For you must allow, my Goodman, that you’re but a lazy woodman
And rely on me to foster all our fruitful Christmas trees.

While your Saintship waxes holy, year by year, and roly-poly,
Blessed by all the lads and lassies in the limits of the land,
While your toes at home you’re toasting, then poor Goody must go posting
Out to plant and prune and garner, where our fir-tree forests stand.

Oh! but when the toil is sorest how I love our fir-tree forest,
Heart of light and heart of beauty in the Northland cold and dim,
All with gifts and candles laden to delight a boy or maiden,
And its dark-green branches ever murmuring the Christmas hymn!

Yet ask young Jack Frost, our neighbor, who but Goody has the labor,
Feeding roots with milk and honey that the bonbons may be sweet!
Who but Goody knows the reason why the playthings bloom in season
And the ripened toys and trinkets rattle gaily to her feet!

From the time the dollies budded, wiry-boned and saw-dust blooded,
With their waxen eyelids winking when the wind the tree-tops plied,
Have I rested for a minute, until now your pack has in it
All the bright, abundant harvest of the merry Christmastide?

Santa, wouldn’t it be pleasant to surprise me with a present?
And this ride behind the reindeer is the boon your Goody begs;
Think how hard my extra work is, tending the Thanksgiving turkeys
And our flocks of rainbow chickens — those that lay the Easter eggs.

Home to womankind is suited? Nonsense, Goodman! Let our fruited
Orchards answer for the value of a woman out-of-doors.
Why then bid me chase the thunder, while the roof you’re safely under,
All to fashion fire-crackers with the lighting in their cores?

See! I’ve fetched my snow-flake bonnet, with the sunrise ribbons on it;
I’ve not worn it since we fled from Fairyland our wedding day;
How we sped through iceberg porches with the Northern Lights for torches!
You were young and slender, Santa, and we had this very sleigh.

Jump in quick then? That’s my bonny. Hey down derry! Nonny nonny!
While I tie your fur cap closer, I will kiss your ruddy chin.
I’m so pleased I fall to singing, just as sleigh-bells take to ringing!
Are the cloud-spun lap-robes ready? Tirra-lirra! Tuck me in.

Off across the starlight Norland, where no plant adorns the moorland
Save the ruby-berried holly and the frolic mistletoe!
Oh, but this is Christmas revel! Off across the frosted level
Where the reindeers’ hoofs strike sparkles from the crispy, crackling snow!

There’s the Man i’ the Moon before us, bound to lead the Christmas chorus
With the music of the sky-waves rippling round his silver shell —
Glimmering boat that leans and tarries with the weight of dreams she carries
To the cots of happy children. Gentle sailor, steer her well!

Now we pass through dusky portals to the drowsy land of mortals;
Snow-enfolded, silent cities stretch about us dim and far.
Oh! how sound the world is sleeping, midnight watch no shepherd keeping,
Though an angel-face shines gladly down from every golden star.

Here’s a roof. I’ll hold the reindeer. I suppose this weather-vane, Dear,
Some one set here just on purpose for our teams to fasten to.
There’s its gilded cock, — the gaby! — wants to crow and tell the baby
We are come. Be careful, Santa! Don’t get smothered in the flue.

Back so soon? No chimney-swallow dives but where his mate can follow.
Bend your cold ear, Sweetheart Santa, down to catch my whisper faint:
Would it be so very shocking if your Goody filled a stocking
Just for once? Oh, dear! Forgive me. Frowns do not become a Saint.

I will peep in at the skylights, where the moon sheds tender twilights
Equally down silken chambers and down attics bare and bleak.
Let me show with hailstone candies these two dreaming boys — the dandies
In their frilled and fluted nighties, rosy cheek to rosy cheek!

What! No gift for this poor garret? Take a sunset sash and wear it
O’er the rags, my pale-faced lassie, till thy father smiles again.
He’s a poet, but — oh, cruel! he has neither light nor fuel.
Here’s a fallen star to write by, and a music-box of rain.

So our sprightly reindeer clamber, with their fairy sleigh of amber,
On from roof to roof , the woven shades of night about us drawn.
On from roof to roof we twinkle, all the silver bells a-tinkle,
Till blooms in yonder blessèd East the rose of Christmas dawn.

Now the pack is fairly rifled, and poor Santa’s well-nigh stifled;
Yet you would not let your Goody fill a single baby-sock;
Yes, I know the task takes brain, Dear. I can only hold the reindeer,
And so see me climb down chimney — it would give your nerves a shock.

Wait! There’s yet a tiny fellow, smiling lips and curls so yellow
You would think a truant sunbeam played in them all night. He spins
Giant tops, a flies kites higher than the gold cathedral spire
In his creams — the orphan bairnie, trustful little Tatterkins.

Santa, don’t pass by the urchin! Shake the pack, and deeply search in
All your pockets. There is always one toy more. I told you so.
Up again? Why, what’s the trouble? On your eyelash winks the bubble
Mortals call a tear, I fancy. Holes in stocking, heel and toe?

Goodman, though your speech is crusty now and then there’s nothing rusty
In your heart. A child’s least sorrow makes your wet eyes glisten, too;
But I’ll mend that sock so nearly it shall hold your gifts completely.
Take the reins and let me show you what a woman’s wit can do.

Puff! I’m up again, my Deary, flushed a bit and somewhat weary,
With my wedding snow-flake bonnet worse for many a sooty knock;
But be glad you let me wheedle, since, an icicle for needle,
Threaded with the last pale moonbeam, I have darned the laddie’s sock.

Then I tucked a paint-box in it (‘twas no easy task to win it
From the Artist of the Autumn Leaves) and frost-fruits white and sweet,
With the toys your pocket misses — oh! and kisses upon kisses
To cherish safe from evil paths the motherless small feet.

Chirrup! chirrup! There’s a patter of soft footsteps and a clatter
Of child voices. Speed it, reindeer, up the sparkling Arctic Hill!
Merry Christmas, little people! Joy-bells ring in every steeple,
And Goody’s gladdest of the glad. I’ve had my own sweet will.

This poem, and four other Christmas poems, were also included in Bates’ Fairy Gold (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1916). See:
Poems of Christmas by Katherine Lee Bates

Feminist Art, What is it?

I found this fascinating article today and wanted to share it with you all.

Source….
Feminism & Feminist Art
The Art History Archive – Feminist Art

Feminist art sometimes poses or confronts such questions as:

1. How is a woman’s gaze different from a man’s? How does that difference influence the ways in which the two genders view the world? And how they view art?

2. What constitutes obscenity and pornography? Where do they come from? What are their results? Are they always transgessive? What place do they have in art?



Especially since the late 1960s, when the feminist art movement can be said to have emerged, women have been particularly interested in what makes them different from males — what makes women artists and their art different from male artists and their art. This has been most prominent in the United States, Britain, and Germany, although there are numerous precursors to the movement, and it has spread to many other cultures since the 1970s.



Feminists point out that throughout most of recorded history males have imposed patriarchal (father-centered) social systems (in which they have dominated females). Although it is not the goal of this article to recount the development of feminist theory in full, the history of feminist art cannot be understood apart from it. Feminist theory must take into account the circumstances of most women’s lives as mothers, household workers, and caregivers, in addition to the pervasive misconception that women are genetically inferior to men. Feminist art notes that significant in the dominant (meaning especially Western) culture’s patriarchal heritage is the preponderance of art made by males, and for male audiences, sometimes transgressing against females. Men have maintained a studio system which has excluded women from training as artists, a gallery system that has kept them from exhibiting and selling their work, as well as from being collected by museums — albeit somewhat less in recent years than before.

Here is a notice posted by the Guerrilla Girls (founded in 1985, a New York based group of otherwise unnamed women “artists, writers, performers and film makers who fight discrimination”) in a list they published in 1989:

The Advantages of Being a Woman Artist:

Working without the pressure of success.
Not having to be in shows with men.
Having an escape from the art world in your 4 free-lance jobs.
Knowing your career might pick up after you’re eighty.
Being reassured that whatever kind of art you make it will be labeled feminine.
Not being stuck in a tenured teaching position.
Seeing your ideas live on in the work of others.
Having the opportunity to choose between career and motherhood.
Not having to choke on those big cigars or paint in Italian suits.
Having more time to work when your mate dumps you for someone younger.
Being included in revised versions of art history.
Not having to undergo the embarrassment of being called a genius.
Getting your picture in the art magazines wearing a gorilla suit.
Feminist art history must be considered as part of this discussion. Its proponents have demanded that women’s arts from all cultures, of all periods, be included in studies and exhibitions of art. In 1971 Linda Nochlin (American, contemporary art critic) wrote a landmark article, Why Have There Been No GREAT Women Artists? giving tremendous momentum to feminist scholarship concerning women in the arts. Numerous histories of women artists were published in the 1970s, and several others have appeared in the years since then.

Before the late 1960s most women artists, struggling to participate in the male-dominated art world, had overwhelming disincentives to put feminist meanings into their work, and sought to de-gender their art. Often, on the basis of appearance alone, their work could not be identified as woman-made. Several countercultural movements arose simultaneously with feminism in the 1960s. At this time the United States experienced social upheaval coming with the Civil Rights Movement, the Vietnam War, economic prosperity, the arrival of oral contraceptives, reforms in the Catholic Church, nostalgia for the presidency of John F. Kennedy, and experimentation with psychotropic drugs. Many other countries experienced social unrest of various kinds during this period. Some gender issues have been of interest to both male and female artists. Although feminist art has arisen more from the concerns of artists of one gender, and some of those concerns are sexual in nature, more often than not feminist issues have been about women’s power in arenas of which sexuality (reproductive acts and roles) is an important part.

Feminist art sometimes poses or confronts such questions as:

1. How is a woman’s gaze different from a man’s? How does that difference influence the ways in which the two genders view the world? And how they view art?

2. What constitutes obscenity and pornography? Where do they come from? What are their results? Are they always transgessive? What place do they have in art?

Although feminist artists have shown great interest in the depiction of nude figures (both male and female), very few feminist artists have shown interest in creating erotic work. Learn more by reading Feminist Art Practices & Political Art.

Link to the original article.

Examples of Feminist Artists:

• Cindy Sherman
• Joyce Wieland
• Frida Kahlo
• Artemisia Gentileschi
• Lilith Adler
• Caroline Folkenroth
• Candice Raquel Lee
• Jennifer Linton
• Martha Rosler
• Rachel Stone
• Victoria Van Dyke
• William Blake

Other Famous Women Artists:

• Emily Carr
• Georgia O’Keeffe
• Berthe Morisot
• Rosa Bonheur
• Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun

Articles about Feminist Art:

• Feminist Art Practices & Political Art
• Women Artists of the 20th & 21st Centuries
• 20th Century Feminist Artists
• Gender in the Visual Arts
• Slavery is a Woman
• Why Have There Been No GREAT Women Artists?
• Estonian Feminist Artists
• Turkish Feminist Artists
• A Feast of Feminist Art