Title IX and Gender Inequity

Katie Thomas' article in yesterday's New York Times addresses the deceptive maneuvers of some colleges and universities in their reporting of male and female athletes on the official rosters of the school's sports teams, and their blatant disregard for the intentions of Title IX. Thomas writes: Ever since Congress passed the federal gender-equity law known as Title IX, universities have opened their gyms and athletic fields to millions of women who previously did not have chances to play. But as women have surged into a majority on campus in recent years, many institutions have resorted to subterfuge to make it look as if they are offering more spots to women.
Title IX, enacted in 1972, states that: "No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance..." Thanks to the passing of Title IX 40 years ago, the numbers of women competing in college-level sports has risen 500%. However, as Thomas reports, these numbers are skewed, as loopholes within the law allow for men who practice on women's teams to be counted as females, and for female athletes to be counted multiple times (the same person can be reported on the rosters of outdoor track, indoor track, and cross-country, and count three separate times). Therefore the numbers may seem high overall, but the actual number of female athletes is lower given the double-and-triple counting of participants.
In my opinion, the biggest issue (besides the shady practices of university officials) is the lack of scholarship opportunities for women who participate in college sports. Football players, whether they play or not, are routinely offered large scholarships, which are often not scholastically deserved nor maintained. With football rosters teetering around 100, much money is diverted to male participants. As the general female population on college campuses nears 57%, there is a growing need to support young women attending college and prevent them from falling into massive debt paying their tuition bills. Scholarships, both athletic and academic, are sorely needed during this time of rising college costs. Financial issues are a major feminist concern, as women have historically been pigeonholed into jobs and profession with low wages...or ones with no pay at all (homemaker). For more on this subject, check out Barbara Ehrenreich's writing, specifically Nickel and Dimed.

Summer Reading List

Now that summer is almost upon us, I'm soliciting suggestions for some good feminist reads...and will share some of my own, starting with Penelope Mortimer's The Pumpkin Eater (1962).

Friday Humor

It's Raining on Men: Balls Deep at the Conference on Male Studies

If you need more of a teaser than that excellent title:

Men, Mr. Gilbert said, will obviously still dominate in "action fields"—"science, technology, the gaming industry and what's left of muscle work"—but the encroachment of women in what we might, crudely, call "women's work" (magazines, teaching, the humanities professoriate) threatens to demolish the whole evolutionary foundation of the species, which is "the eternal pair-bond bargain."

Put in other words, even if women are simply more capable at everything, they must accede to a sort of affirmative action for men lest the latter lash out for wont of things to do. "We know what happens," Mr. Garcia warned wanly, "when men have no hope—they turn to violence." (Women, you'll remember, already get to menstruate.)

Really, it's quite funny.

Louise Bourgeois and the Femme Maison

In the mid-1940s, the amazing Louise Bourgeois created a series of works entitled Femme Maison, or Woman House. There are fascinating connections to be made between the projects, which I will explore further this summer in my own writing and on this blog.
-Marissa Vigneault

The Politics of Language

I've been thinking a lot about language lately, both how we use it, and how it is used to describe us. Why the title Womanhouse? What is the significance of linking together 'woman' and house' into a neologism that linguistically manifests something already abstractly (and stereotypically) understood in our society? What are the differences between 'home' and 'house,' and how may we understand the variables between them as a transgressive maneuver on the part of the FAP artists who developed Womanhouse?
Our language is structured in such a way as to code various terms as gendered, even though we don't always grammatically mark our words, as in say French and German, with an indication of their gendered status. Instead we use suffixes (-ess...as in prince/princess or tiger/tigress) and qualifiers to relay our intended meanings. Artist is one of those words in our language that we don't mark via an -ess ending (artistess is just cumbersome), so instead we quailfy/mark it: artist/woman artist. We don't say or write man artist, as what is implied is that the artist is already male (yep, we do say male artist, which just reaffirms the biological attachment of the male body to the professional status of artist).
Yet I don't mean to suggest that the qualifier 'woman' added to artist is entirely negative. There are strong positives maintained through the adoption of 'woman artist' as a platform on which to come together (The National Museum of Women in the Arts and the Clara Database of Women Artists are two amazing educational resources banded under the label). When we recognize that the term 'woman' is a construction (i.e. socially defined), we gain awareness of the transformative possibilities of the title Womanhouse. The FAP artists denied the biological attachment to the home that the term 'female' suggests, instead using the terms in away that calls attention to their constructed, imposed, and socially regulated meanings. 'Woman' and 'house' are artifical, just like the stereotypical placement of the female within the realm of the domestic, which ultimately brings awareness to the pseudo-naturalization of female/home.
-Marissa Vigneault

Why Womanhouse? Why now?

I used to follow Salon's Broadsheet and I didn't realize how behind I was until I checked in recently to find it dismantled. For several months, as it turned out. I used to work in a cubicle and would sometimes spend my entire shift composing a remark for the always-lively comment section. I would publish it and then wait to see if it got any responses, but more importantly if it got an "editor's choice" star. That, I felt, meant I was a real contributor.

The virtual world of politics and news and infuriating comment sections can be exhilarating that way-- every voice counts. It can also be overwhelming and, judging from the numerous facebook fights I witness, less than productive. The idea behind Womanhouse V4.0* is to gather locally to put our intelligence and abilities together in order to positively influence our own community. And I don't just mean "others" in the community, I mean ourselves as well. I can barely listen to the news currently without shaking in anger and frustration and, personally, I need to go somewhere with these emotions or else I just stew (I'm sure I'm mixing metaphors here, a forte of mine, but I do sometimes feel like a stew... endlessly cooking, sputtering at all the wrong times.) Whether our outlet is discussion, laughter, performance, making, listening, food, protesting, reading, running, doesn't matter-- what matters is we're here, we're engaged, we're ready to begin.

I've invited several authors to initiate discussion any way they see fit. If you would like to be an author, too, please email me. We will also use this blog to list events so consider subscribing to not miss a post.

-Victoria

* I consider this a working title. It can change.