The Skirt

My obsession with horror films has often conflicted with my feminist sensibilities. No matter how much I love the latest serial killer flick, I am always troubled by the damsel in distress waiting for the hero to rescue her. I go to the theater hoping this time the ditzy scream queen will be more than a pretty blond with a high pitched shriek and a heaving bosom.

Then I saw the movie Teeth. Finally, there is a horror movie for the feminist who loves a good scare. This black comedy horror film is about Dawn O’Keefe, a beautiful young virgin with a secret lurking down below. She has vagina dentata, or a toothed vagina. The myth of vagina dentata has fascinated cultures for centuries, playing upon man’s fear of castration and women’s ability to create life. In Teeth, Dawn is besieged by men looking to take her virginity as a prize – from the sex-starved boyfriend to her sick-minded step-brother. From each of them she is saved not by a hero but herself.

Teeth exposes the fear of empowered female sexuality, terrifying with the idea that a woman’s most intimate parts could be a source of strength rather than weakness.

Most of Hollywood’s scream fests focus on the damsel in distress running from the knife-wielding killer. Jamie Lee Curtis hides in the closet from Mike Myers. Marilyn Burns dodges Leatherface’s chainsaw. Jennifer Love Hewitt runs from a fisherman with a hook. And we cheer when each woman escapes to live another day.

But in recent years, scream queens have become more than pretty women in peril. Now they’re kicking ass and taking names. Personally, my favorite example is the Grindhouse Double Feature. Robert Rodriquez’s Planet Terror features two heroines ready to take on an army of mutated soldiers. With a machine gun leg, Rose McGowan mows down her would-be attackers while Marley Shelton takes on the world and a jerk of a husband with needles in a garter belt holster. Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof featured gear-head girls taking down a serial killer who had confused his car with his cock.

What makes Teeth a unique example of the empowered scream queen is that she gains her strength from the very essence of her womanhood and sexuality. Forget metaphor and innuendo; Dawn’s power is as literal as you can get.

Dawn does not embrace her sexuality in the beginning. She actually is a member of the abstinence movement and goes around to schools speaking about her virginity. We realize she is proud of her decision to wait until marriage, but she is also afraid of her own sexuality. In one scene, she is fantasizing about her wedding day in bed and reaches down to touch herself but quickly pulls her hand away. Dawn is not just preserving her sexuality, she is hiding from it.

But when a chaste outing turns into date rape, her attacker is left a little less masculine. Dawn thinks her condition is a curse but slowly she starts to realize it may be her salvation. All around her are men ready to hurt her and only when she embraces power between her legs is she able to take control of her life.

As the men around Dawn try to take to advantage of her – from a doctor with a wandering hand, to a classmate with an agenda – she realizes the sexuality she’s been hiding from is the key to her salvation. Vagina dentata may be a horror story to men, but watching Teeth, I realized what was really scary about the film was not her condition but all the men out to get her. Dawn is not safe anywhere – not at school or at home. The film taps into men’s deep rooted fear of castration, but it also shows every woman’s terror of rape.

Teeth gives an incredible message to women that we can fight back against our greatest fears, whether it’s the knife-wielding killer or the man hiding in the alley on our way home. Dawn’s power is something we all have – instead of treating our sexuality as a weakness or a dirty secret to hide from we embrace it as the source of our strength and empowerment.

I can only hope that Teeth will lead to more horror films with empowered women who fight back instead of running from what scares us.

A few weeks ago I sat down with Mike Stephan and Andy Hermann of Outside the Loop Radio, Chicago's Almost Above-Ground Audio magazine.

I had a great time chatting with the boys, and it's been a long time since I've been in a studio. What seems like centuries ago -- also known as freshman year -- I hosted a radio show with a friend in a dorm basement. I was much more impressed with them, though. Unlike me, they actually can work their mics.

To listen to me talk about modern day feminism and the other guest Lonie Walker, the owner of the Underground Wonder Bar, check out Episode #87 at:

http://www.outsidetheloopradio.com

The other night I was hanging out and playing pool with some of my friends – a typical Friday night activity. One friend and I were discussing the difficulties we’ve been having with our job hunts. Then she raised an interesting issue. She said she had an easier time finding a job years ago when she had longer hair than she does now. She doesn’t wear a lot of makeup and prefers pants to skirts. Even though she is a qualified and educated candidate for a job, she thinks it is her appearance that is deterring future employers.

I started thinking about the issues women face trying to find work. Is there really an additional expectation of femininity in the workplace?

I started thinking about the changes I have made in recent months as I’m trying to find a job. I grew my hair out from a short crop cut into some longer layers. I started wearing makeup – or at least more than my usual swipe of mascara. I got manicures before every interview. This was not the first time I changed my appearance for a job. Several years ago, I was working in an office when my boss pulled me aside. While I was dressing in appropriate business attire, she wanted me to look more feminine. I needed to get a haircut, wear a little more makeup and buy some trendier dresses. I loved my job and so I did. I never thought twice about it. Now I look back and think, shouldn’t my work performance have been more important than how I wore my hair?

To learn more about hiring practices, I called my friend, Anna, who is a graduate student at Illinois Institute of Technology studying industrial psychology. We talked about how improved businesses have become with treating women but still have far to go. In the seventies, interviewers would ask women questions such as, “How does your family feel about dinner being late when you’re working?” and “How does your husband feel about you working outside the home?” Now such questions are illegal, but there are still some prejudices that go unspoken.

Anna explained that “like hires like.” When employers are interviewing people, they look for someone similar to themselves and other people in the office. They want someone who will fit into their workplace not just in professional ability but also in appearance. If most women in the office are feminine, they will look to hire a woman similarly dressed – whether or not it is ethical. Appearance may not be spoken about openly, but it is still on an interviewer’s mind. “If you have two equally qualified people applying for a job, the attractive person will be the one who gets it,” she said.

I suppose the most disturbing aspect of learning about this is that I haven’t come up with a way to combat it. It is not illegal to hire an attractive person before an unattractive person or to prefer a female candidate in a dress rather than pants. Expectations about how women should look and dress in the workplace seem to be deeply rooted into the professional environment. It is a trend that won’t change without altering the way our culture thinks in general. As long as appearance is prioritized over ability, a skirt in an interview will still be as important as a resume.

I have a confession to make: I have watched "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila." I don't like the show and promise my effort to watch it is purely to contribute to bar conversations with other people. Too many nights were spent nodding blankly as people talked about the internet-sensation/reality-star's love life. So when the new season started, I became determined to watch. I have considered making a list of things wrong with the show - from the misleading portrayals of gender and sexual identity to the very premise that someone is giving a reality show to Tila Tequila. I really think there needs to be a greater standard for syndication than how many friends you have on Myspace. But in the end, there was one scene that offended me the most.

During a particularly rambunctious party, Tila's neighbors called the police for a noise violation. When the cops arrived, Tila attempted to flirt her way out of the ticket. As she pressed herself against the officer, she said, "I need a real man." Luckily, the officer didn't fall for her feminine wiles. He told her to step back and gave her a ticket anyway. Tila demonstrated an old stereotype of women using their sexuality to get what they want. I was filled with righteous indignation, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized how guilty I am of it.

The other night I was out at a bar with some friends. A man came up to me and continued to flirt and compliment me, bringing out every cheesy line in the book from beautiful blue eyes to how my butt looked in my jeans. I was not interested, but I was flattered. I took advantage of the situation to get a free drink or two. And that was my mistake. After a finished the beer, suddenly it became apparent he thought I "owed" him something in return. After the bar closed, he waited on the corner for me. But I had been smart enough to get a friend to walk me safely to my car even if I had been stupid enough to let him think he could charm me in the first place.

Feminine wiles perpetuate a system that women trade their sexuality for favors from men. A man buys a few drinks and in return the woman is expected to provide company, a kiss or more. But by its very nature this system implies women are nothing more than sexual objects. It is a barter system. A man gives us what we want and we give them our bodies. Sounds just a little bit too much like prostitution for me. I was wondering how we as women learn such behavior and when. Specifically, when did we begin to perceive ourselves as sexual objects and use our feminine wiles to what we think is our advantage?

Then the Dairy Queen commercial came on. A little girl goes to Dairy Queen with her mother and they order one sundae. A waiter brings the little girl another sundae from the boy in another booth. The cherubic girl smiles at her mother and says, "It's like shooting fish in a barrel." I don't understand why this is supposed to be funny. If anything, it's an elementary school version of the bar scene. It is disturbing to me that we could be encouraging kindergarteners on the playground to exchange a chaste kiss for chocolate milk.

From a purely ideological standpoint, it is offensive to my feminist sensibilities. Women deserve to be treated as more than sexual objects. But even more so, it can be dangerous. Like the man waiting for me outside, thinking he deserved more than thanks from me. It could be a man taking advantage of the opportunity to add a little something extra to your martini.

I encourage all women out there - buy your own drinks. Tell yourself you cost more than an overpriced light beer. Tell yourself you are more than a sum of your parts to be exchanged for alcohol or a dinner out. Don't use your feminine wiles to get what you want and instead use your feminist wit and wisdom.

Photo Source: CWTV

“You’re taking a burlesque class?” my mother asks me over the phone. “But why?” I’ve been asking myself that same question for a while. I’m clumsy and awkward by nature. Overall, this seems like humiliation waiting to happen. But as I talked to my friends who are Chicago burlesque dancers, all of them have emphasized to me how fun and self-accepting burlesque can be. They have told me how performing the art of tease has given them self-confidence they’ve never had before and taught them to accept their bodies no matter what shape or size. So despite my misgivings, I am going to learn how to flaunt it with the best of them.

On Wednesday, I arrive at Arabesque dance studio in the pouring rain for the 8:30p.m. burlesque class. I give the woman at the counter $15 and nervously walk into the dance space. I feel awkward as the six women around me laugh and chat about their love lives or stretch in silence for class. Also, I seem to be the only one who forgot gym pants and am preparing to learn to shimmy and shake in a pair of jeans. Some of the women are in their twenties like me, but several of the women are in their thirties and forties. Everyone is different shapes and sizes. No one is the rail-thin blonde I expected to find in a seductive dance class.

The class is normally taught by Michelle L’amour, a nationally renowned burlesque dancer, but today she hurt her back while stretching. Instead the class will be lead by Sarah Keating, one of her fellow dancers in the burlesque troupe Lavender Cabaret. Keating is one of the women who told me how “There’s nothing more vulnerable than this,” she says. “You can do anything after this. It’s very empowering especially as a curvy dancer. It’s very good for me.” Well, we’ll see how good it is for me.

Keating steps to the front of the studio by the mirror and the rest of us line up along the back wall ready to begin. The music starts a quick, tawdry beat, and Sarah begins strutting forward, thrusting her hips side to side and slapping her thighs seductively. I am not as coordinated as I try to imitate her. My strut is more of a feeble wobble and every off beat sway of my hips threatens to throw me off balance completely. I look around nervously because I didn’t anticipate having so much difficulty with the first steps. I hope I am not the only student failing at seductive walking. A couple women are moving perfectly in time, their gestures poised, and they are even pouting their lips with playful suggestiveness. But in the corner I see a few other women stumbling and laughing together. Like me, they trip over their own feet as they try to turn in a circle while bouncing their hips at the same time.

After we finish warming up, Michelle brings around a bag of feather boas. We each pull one out. She wraps hers around her neck, and we all obediently follow suit. She demonstrates how to toss the boa, how to wrap it round our arms without accidentally tying it to ourselves (I only did it a few times) and how to swing it over our heads. A little over a half hour into the class, I’m starting to get the hang of it. I’ve figured out how to seductively drop my right shoulder so the boa slides to the floor and how to pull it through my fingers to the beat of the music. Even as I’m struggling to keep my moves up to tempo, I’ve gotten comfortable enough to push my shoulders back and chest out, lifting my chin as we practice walking on our tip toes with the boa draping in our arms. I don’t feel particularly sexy, but I’m able to laugh now at how ridiculous I think I look.

The class ends after an hour, and we all return our feather boas and sit on the floor to do our cool down stretches. As I reach for my toes and arch my back, I feel satisfied. I certainly lack the skill and coordination necessary to be successful, but I can understand why so many women describe it as “empowering.” In flaunting my very self-conscious sexuality for an hour, I stopped worry about how I looked or how poorly I was doing. While I’m not sure I’ll ever take a burlesque class again, I definitely enjoyed my experience. And should I ever need to dance with a feather boa, I’ll know all the right moves.

The Young Women’s Empowerment Project is one of the most unique feminist organizations in Chicago and the country. The group is collectively run by girls and trans-girls in the sex trade and the street trade. YWEP describes its members as women from the ages of 12 to 23 who have been involved with “trading sex or being sexual for money, gifts, drugs, or survival needs including exotic dancing, escorting, phone sex, adult internet sites, survival sex and all the other ways girls can be affected by the sex trade and street economy.”

While many feminist groups portray sex workers as oppressed and abused women, the YWEP does not oppose the sex trade. Instead, they support the choice to be in the sex trade but do not support women being forced into a lifestyle they do not want. I am impressed with the YWEP’s distinction between the two issues. Too often when we discuss the horrible practice of sex trafficking, we victimize women who have made a conscious decision to be sex workers. Rather than trying to portray them as the oppressed and the abused, we should try to listen to their side of the story.

YWEP promotes values of self care, empowerment, harm reduction, social justice and popular education through youth-directed programs such as research projects. While there are numerous research studies on young women in the sex trade, most focus on victimhood. Instead, the girls of YWEP research resilience and resistance to violence. The women are in charge of studying themselves and plan on announcing their findings in December of this year.

YWEP teaches women through leadership development and political education. They practice a unique education process where the girls gain information and learn to take action in the same process. Their program “Girls in Charge” teaches about the “isms” that have created the sex trade and how they can take action. Over 1,100 individuals have been educated in these workshops.

The young women are also focusing on social justice programs. Because the women are technically an illegal population working in the sex trade, they try to find alternatives outside the system to solve their problems. When young women are left homeless, the YWEP is tries to help women find housing to avoid using shelters. They also run the only youth syringe exchange to keep dirty needles off the street. In three months, youth outreach workers collected over 100,000 syringes. These programs demonstrate a failing of the city in dealing with the sex trade. When sex workers are persecuted, they are forced into the shadows of society. YWEP has taken a new and effective approach. The group gives women with a way to provide for themselves and deal with issues that affect their every day lives from homelessness to drug use.

The feminist movement in Chicago recognizes the difference between women in the sex trade who have made a decision to do what they do and the victimized women who are abused by practices such as sex trafficking. By understanding the difference, we can better deal with both groups of women. We can address issues like drug use, homelessness and sexual health. And we can also address the problems of rape and assault. The two populations should not be confused. Instead, we should strive to solve the harms women face in the sex trade without judging or victimizing them.

To learn more about the Young Women’s Empowerment Project, visit http://youarepriceless.org.