Do Representations Matter? Chapter One

On August 26, 1970, the fiftieth anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment, the notorious feminist author and activist Betty Friedan, out-going president of the four-year-old National Organization of Women, led tens of thousands of women in a march down Fifth Avenue toward Bryant Park, where, packed on the lawns behind the New York Public Library, the crowd heard addresses from Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, and Kate Millett, among others. The Women's Strike for Equality, as it was billed, called on women to withhold their labor for a day as a way to protest unequal pay- -roughly 60 cents to every dollar a man made at the time --though the march itself didn't begin until after 5 pm in case potential marchers elected to stay on the job. Organizers also asked housewives to refuse work: "Don't Cook Dinner--Starve a Rat Tonight," a typical sign read. 50 th Anniversary of the 19 th Amendment August 26, 1970

Gloria Steinem & Dorothy Pitman Hughes circa 1970 Photograph by Dan Wynn. "For the four or five years surrounding the birth of Ms., I was traveling and speaking as a team with a black feminist partner: first Dorothy Pitman Hughes, a child-care pioneer, then lawyer Florence Kennedy, and finally activist Margaret Sloan. By speaking together at hundreds of public meetings, we hoped to widen a public image of the women's movement created largely by its first homegrown media event, The Feminine Mystique.... Despite the many early reformist virtues of The Feminine Mystique, it had managed to appear at the height of the civil rights movement with almost no reference to black women or other women of color. It was most relevant to the problems of the white well-educated suburban homemakers who were standing by their kitchen sinks justifiably wondering if there weren't 'more to life than this.' As a result, white-middle-class movement had become the catch phrase of journalists describing feminism in the United States..., and divisions among women were still deep." Gloria Steinem, Outrageous Acts and Everyday Rebellions (1983), pp. 5-6

Betye Saar http://www.netropolitan.org/saar/saar2.html

“ The sexist, patriarchal ways of thinking and behaving that are glorified in gangsta rap are a reflection of the prevailing values in our society, values created and sustained by white supremacist capitalistic patriarchy. As the crudest and most brutal expression of sexism, misogynistic attitudes tend to be portrayed by the dominant culture as always an expression of male deviance.” bell hooks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xtoanes_L_g Video Vixens, both aspiring and official are dancing and posing as the rappers talk about spinning rims, murder and cash. eminem

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/uncle-jemimas-pure-mash-liquor/229054/ Uncle Jemima –Irony? http://www.oprah.com/index Oprah http://www.modelinia.com/slideshows/style--iman/64 Iman http://nymag.com/daily/fashion/2009/04/michelle_obama_slideshow.html Michelle and Barack Obama http://www.nypost.com/seven/12232008/news/politics/o__my_bod__its_beach_barack_145540.htm

Pleasure Media: Romance Wish to be nurtured? Billionaire Doctor, Ordinary Nurse by Carol Marinelli Dr. Iosef Kolovsky is part of Melbourne's wealthiest and most notorious family. By day he works as one of Australia's top doctors, by night he attends glamorous parties with the world's elite. Nurse Annie Jameson is a plump plain Jane who's having a bad week. Not only must she drop two dress sizes before the weekend, the presence of Dr. Kolovsky has got her flustered and reaching for the cookie jar! She knows she doesn't fit into his glitzy, privileged world, but his searing seduction is impossible to resist….