Our Bodies, Ourselves Campaign

Recently, I have found myself fairly infuriated by all the rhetoric coming from old white men in political power telling me about my own body.  Like they have a clue what it's like to have your rights infringed upon because of your sex.  But what really makes me angry is that they are using bad science and bad theology to do it.  Rape is a deplorable, heinous crime and I listened to a politician today telling me that if I am ever impregnated by a rape that it is a blessing from God.  That is really bad theology, friend and it is a really patronizing way for you to tell me that everything is going to be fine because you are going to make my decisions for me.  Just so all the people out there know, that is not okay.  It is not okay for you as an older white man to tell me with tears in your eyes that you are convinced that should I ever get raped AND pregnant that that is God's intention.  I'm sure that soon I will be hearing that children all over the world dying from preventable diseases while Americans struggle with obesity is also God's divine will and intention.  Give me a break.  Right now I feel like if I hear another politician tell me something horrendously stupid about rape, abortion, sex education, or birth control, I may run for office myself on the most crazy-liberal platform.  Maybe I'll ask Dennis Kucinich if I can be his running mate in the next election.  

Anyways, all that to say that the amazing people at Our Bodies, Ourselves have created a campaign that will send copies of the iconic book Our Bodies, Ourselves to every congressional office so that they no longer have the excuse of being uninformed politicians.  (Did they really have that right anyway, to be uninformed politicians talking about my fallopian tubes and how they will legislate what I can and cannot do and what medication I can and cannot have?  Grrr...) It's a great cause and even if you don't contribute, make sure that you VOTE on November 6th.  

This is a great PSA that you should watch if you can find a few free minutes in your day: "You Don't Own Me" PSA.

I know that this is a little angrier than I usually am, and I know I am coming off pretty crass, but this is a really important issue for me and I think it should be a really important issue for all women and all men.  The equality of women and the legislation crackdown on abortion, birth control, sex education, and rape and the rhetoric surrounding all of them are extremely important for all of us.  If you have any questions as to why feminism is still an issue, please watch this video.

In Defense of Disney Princesses: Snow White

Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs) was, as many of you know, the first full-length animated feature film ever.  Not just from Disney, but ever.  I am going to be really honest with you, I am not sure that this post is going to convince all you non-believers that Snow White has qualities that we as human-beings should possess, but try I will.  

Snow White is a very passive young lady with a very abusive stepmother.  The viewers are not shown any direct violence, but it does not require very much observation power to notice that the young princess scrubbing the castle in rags is probably not living the life she or her father had planned.  It is probably not her choice to be cleaning, indicating that the evil queen has exerted a certain amount of control over her.  She seems docile and congenial, but not really in a good way. It is this part of the movie where the viewer wonders why anyone would put up with that abuse and questions her character and her strength.

I think, though, that where we see the real strength of Snow White is a little later on in the film when she has escaped the huntsman and is sitting in the forest with all her forest animal friends.  She sings a song called “With a Smile and a Song” found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQZ6zzLpoNQ.  This is a woman who has lost both her parents, has an evil, abuse stepmother, but no real friends, and she still has so much joy inside her.  What we see in Snow White is that we are responsible for our own happiness, no one else has the power to take joy away from us, we are the ones who “fill the world with sunshine.”  She is happy being in the forest alone, she is happy cleaning a filthy cottage, and she is happy even knowing that her stepmother is still after her.  This is a woman we could all learn from, how many times a day do we complain about something happening in our lives that is keeping us from joy?  Maybe Snow White is a little unrealistic, but the fact remains that she has learned to find her happiness and joy inside herself, excluding every single external factor.


Snow White is also very adaptable.  Not only does she go from an assumed high social position as the princess of her kingdom to a servant for her evil stepmother, she also is run out of her home after her stepmother attempts to murder her.  She survives each transition and even thrives while she is living with the dwarves; she becomes genuinely happy.  

She also exemplifies altruism, a fine virtue that anyone would be lucky to possess.  After her encounter with the huntsman and the very scary forest, the little animals lead her to the Dwarf Cottage and Snow White immediately begins to think of the “children” even after all that she had just been through!  She cleans the cottage, cooks dinner and, once she learns that the inhabitants of the cottage are dwarves and not children, she even offers to cook and clean for them everyday so that she can stay hidden from the evil queen.  Now I know what you are thinking, “Sure it’s great that she is still happy throughout all these trials and that she is able to keep going, but why on earth does it have to be ‘domestic, womanly’ things that make her happy?”  And I am here to tell you that I wish she had been able to be happy slugging it out in the woods, killing bears and toppling trees instead of cleaning and cooking for seven men, but that is not the narrative Walt Disney gave us.  (This is not to say that there is anything wrong with finding joy in cooking and cleaning, because it is perfectly fine to be happy doing those things.  I am trying to say that I enjoy when women (princesses) are portrayed as active outside the private sphere as well.)  We have to learn how to tease the good things out and keep wrestling with the parts that are difficult.  Whether we like it or not, this is how we have to deal with just about every aspect of life.  I am in Theology School right now and I was quick to learn that there are many parts of the Bible and Christian history that I love, but there are just as many that I do not love and I must keep wrestling with them (just like Jacob wrestled with a stranger at Peniel in Genesis 32: crazy connections between Snow White and Jacob for the win?)

Well, that was a little bit of a tangent, but I do think it was fairly important to say those things so that you know that even as I write about defending Snow White, I still have some struggles with her and her narrative.  To some extent, we have to accept that Snow White was created by white men in the 1930s and was based on a fairy tale that is hundreds of years old.  That does not make it okay that she only portrays “womanly, domestic” interests along with several other feminine stereotypes, but she is a product of the culture(s) that created her and we have to figure out what that means for us.  I personally choose to view her as a strong young woman who must overcome several obstacles throughout the movie and remains strong and true to herself for its entirety.  She is able to hold on to her innocence and her compassion, something many of us lose without going through half of what she does.  I love her and you should too, but if you do not, I still love you!  

**Pocket Princesses by Amy Mebberson.  Her tumblr is here.  

In Defense of Disney Princesses: Introduction

Many people seems to love talking about how terrible the Disney Princess Franchise is for feminism, society, blah, blah.  Believe me, as a Women’s and Gender Studies major, I am constantly subjected to how backwards and submissive the lovely princesses are.  I have an issue with this for a few reasons.  I think that many times we get so angry that we forget the good qualities of whatever it is we are hating on in that particular moment.  I do it all the time.  Somebody says something about certain religious figures or about certain political leaders/ideas and I immediately say all the bad/wrong things about the person or idea just mentioned, without considering the positive aspects of them/it.  

Therefore, I would like to take a little time to do a short series that looks at the princess movies and the princesses themselves from a more positive viewpoint while still acknowledging the less than desirable aspects of them.  I will do them in chronological order from Snow White to Rapunzel, remaining within the Disney Princess canon.  This would include Snow White (Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), Cinderella (Cinderella), Aurora/Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty), Ariel (The Little Mermaid), Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Jasmine (Aladdin), Pocahontas (Pocahontas), Mulan (Mulan), Tiana (The Princess and the Frog), and Rapunzel (Tangled).  Hopefully, I will write about Alice (Alice in Wonderland), Wendy (Peter Pan), Esmeralda (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and Meg (Hercules) at some point, but they don’t really fit into what I’m doing with this series.  

This is not to purposefully anger or enrage anybody, but to illustrate the way we interact with people, culture, and ideas.  No one is going to agree with anyone else 100% of the time, so we really have to be intentional in how we start dialogue.  In my experience, people love disagreeing with each other as long as everyone’s voice is heard and everyone is respected.  I hope that by doing this series, I can show the importance of listening to less than popular or loved opinions in order to create a more harmonious world.

**Pocket Princesses by Amy Mebberson.  Her tumblr is here.