J. Crew, Jenna Lyons, and the Pink Toenail Polish Controversy

J. Crew President and Creative Director Jenna Lyons. Image via Style File Blog

If you’re a fan of all things J. Crew like I am, you’re probably already familiar with the name Jenna Lyons. The J. Crew President and Executive Creative Director is the ever-visible face of the classic American clothing brand. She has been a guest on Oprah, and if you’re on J. Crew's email list, you’ve probably received Jenna’s Picks, a newsletter featuring items hand-picked by the “Commander-In-Chic” herself. Lyons goes the extra mile to put a personal touch on what goes out to the shopping public, and with our endlessly stylish First Lady Michelle Obama a J. Crew devotee, many would say she’s doing a pretty good job. Jenna openly shares her own wardrobe choices for inspiration, so shoppers can get some creative ideas of their own.

Spread from J. Crew's Spring 2011 catalog

A recent J. Crew catalog spread called Saturday With Jenna featured Lyons and her son Beckett engaged in some weekend bonding time. Mother and son gaze adoringly at one another, as she holds Beckett’s tiny feet which are (gasp!) adorned with pink toenail polish. The accompanying text reads, “Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon.”

Let the media firestorm begin.

MAKE CHANGE: Sign the Congo NOW! Petition

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is said to be the most dangerous place to be a woman. Every week over 150 Congolese women are raped as a weapon of war. In fact, hundreds of thousands of Congolese women have been raped for the past 15 years because conflict has enveloped the region. Death tolls range between three to five million people.

In his new book, Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The Collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa, Jason K. Stearns, who once worked for the United Nations in Congo, traces the story of why and how atrocious acts such as mass rape and genocide continue to be ignored. Recently, a New York Times article cited a study within Dancing in the Glory of Monsters that shows how in 2006 the NY Times gave four times as much coverage to Darfur, although Congolese have died in far greater numbers.

The reason? The NY Times says the DRC's conflict is exceptionally stunning in its complexity, which, frankly, it is. In consequence, enter the creation of Congo NOW!, a coalition of NGO’s and grassroots organizations ranging from Oxfam International to Save the Children that are joining together in order to campaign for the safety of Congolese women and children.

The International Rescue Committee, a member of the coalition, recently sent out a field report about the Congo emergency and highlighted "typical" rape victims' experiences.

I was out in the field farming when several soldiers approached me. I was dragged out of the field against my will. I was held captive and raped repeatedly for days. When I was released, I had nowhere to go to get medical care for my injuries. My family and friends shunned me as a disgraced woman.

How many Congolese women and children have to be victimized before there is a solution to stop mass rape?

According to Kate Hughes of Women for Women International, an organization with rehabilitative programs focusing on Congolese women traumatized by rape, "the Congo Now! coalition has agreed on four policy points to halt sexual violence in the DRC."

1. Stop natural resources fueling the conflict.
2. Address the devastating causes and consequences of the conflict and sexual violence particularly for women and children
3. Protect civilians from violence.
4. Promote nonmilitary and regional solutions to the conflict.

"We have launched the campaign," Kate says, "by starting with an action focused on sexual violence. The action is an e-action targeting Lynne Featherstone, International Violence Against Women champion."

Help support the work of Congo Now! and sign the Congo Now! petition. Your signature brings women and children in Congo one step closer to safety.

Photo credit: Fiona and Studio 9 Films

Celebrities Join Forces for "Real Men" Campaign Against Sex Trafficking

The latest Hollywood cause, spearheaded by Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore, is, apparently, child sex trafficking. Although you wouldn't know it from the series of lighthearted videos they hope will turn viral (one of the ads was posted on Funny or Die). Various celebrities such as Justin Timberlake, Sean Penn, and Jamie Foxx star, showing how "real men" behave, with the tag line: "Real men don't buy girls."

Now it's not my wish to disparage an obviously well-intentioned political campaign, especially when it aims to take on a serious issue like human trafficking and sexual slavery. It is estimated that two million children are enslaved in the sex industry globally. According to the U.S. Department of Education, human trafficking occurs in all 50 states.

But what seems obvious to me is that the ads are meant to earn a laugh first and question a male viewer's manhood second. Is this really sending a message to end sex slavery? A man who prefers to "buy a girl" is not any less than a man -- he's a pedophile. And what about the young boys who can equally fall victim to sexual slavery?

Just as discomforting to me is how little the celebrity spokespersons from this foundation seem to understand the complexity of human trafficking. According to the website demiandashton.org (DNA):

DNA hopes to help abolish modern day slavery, deter perpetrators and free the many innocent and exploited victims. We are committed to forcing sex slavery out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

Call me pessimistic, but somehow I don't think creating a hit video on "Funny or Die" is going to achieve such lofty goals. And when I read in the news about severe public funding cuts being made to women's shelters and rehabilitation centers for victims, I wonder just how much of those thousands to millions of dollars spent on ads could have gone toward donations to social programs. But then again I guess donations aren't as sexy as producing an ad featuring Justin Timberlake.

Kutcher recently told CNN: "Sex trafficking is an elastic trade. If you can raise the price for sex you can actually reduce the demand. As you reduce the demand that raises the price.
"[That means] you can, ultimately, put it out of business, and the way to do that is by attacking the demand because the supply is endless."

Actually, Kutcher couldn't be more off point. I'm not sure the former "Punk'd" host is familiar with global sex tourism, but it serves as a major boon to communities worldwide, especially in places like Thailand, proving that those seeking underage sex will seek it out, no matter the cost.

Let's hope this new celebrity endeavor actually donates generously to the victims it seeks to fight for...and that we aren't just being "punk'd."

Gender Coding via Drag in Art History

Last weekend, I spent a night watching some of the most charismatic performances in the great city of San Francisco. It was a drag show at Aunt Charlie's, and the range of personas was an intriguing reminder about everyday performances. Thanks for that insight in grad school, Judith Butler -- the reality of gender as performance arises more often than I had imagined before learning about gender theory!

The first artist that springs to mind is Cindy Sherman, a celebrated American photographer who has maintained herself as both creator and subject in her large body of work. Here's one of the more well-known images, called Untitled (1981).

Image courtesy of Metro Pictures

HPV Stigma in Women of Color

When the English celebrity Jade Goody found out she had cervical cancer at age 27, there was an outcry of sympathy in the UK, as well as a stampede of young women rushing to the clinics. Most didn't know why they were heading to the clinic, but they knew they needed a pap smear, and they hoped that if they got this procedure done, it would mean they wouldn't die of cancer.

Goody, a darling of reality TV, found out about her cancer diagnosis on Bigg Boss, the Indian equivalent of the show Big Brother. She was on the show to try to make amends for previous crass and racist statements she made about the Indian actress Shilpa Shetty. (Goody herself was mixed race--half white and half West Indian.) Once diagnosed with cervical cancer, Goody immediately flew back to London where the general public worried, empathized and supported her in her journey.

The reaction in India was completely different. Members of the public went so far as to burn effigies of Goody. Many thought that she deserved to die for insulting Shetty, and she was being punished karmically by this devastating disease. Those who knew about the link between HPV (a sexually transmitted infection) and cervical cancer suggested that she had brought the disease upon herself.


But the attitudes of Indian men and women toward Goody's disease raises questions about the kind of support available to Indian women who have HPV. Because most forms of cervical cancer are linked to HPV (which is sexually transmitted), there are moral and ethical implications for women diagnosed with cervical cancer, especially in countries or cultures where monogamy and virginity-until-marriage is the norm. A study by Cancer Research UK looked at attitudes of HPV testing among Indian, Pakistani, Afro-Caribbean and White British women, and found that all of the women were confused about whether or not cervical cancer was linked to a sexually transmitted infection (in most cases it is). While all the women surveyed said that if they were diagnosed with HPV they would suspect their husbands of infidelity, only Indian and Pakistani women surveyed expressed fears that they would be blamed for contracting the virus from a man other than their husband.

LEBANON: Memoirs of an Algerian Transsexual

Threatening emails, phone calls, constant surveillance by secret police and eventually prison couldn’t dissuade Randa, an Algerian transsexual and pioneer in the Arab world’s gay and transsexual movement, from going public with her life story.

“I returned home to Algeria from my last trip and that’s when the threats to imprison me started,” says Randa, who received initial threats via email and phone. “As a method of intimidating me, they started sending articles about me to my family, and they would show up at my workplace. Once, while being stopped at a checkpoint, one of the officers grabbed me in the car and told me that he could arrest and rape me and no one would know about it.”

Convinced by influential members of Algerian society, two of Randa’s friends were forced to present her with an ultimatum. Leave the country in ten days or things will get worse.

Ten days is not a long time, but as luck would have it, a feminist organization in Lebanon found out about Randa’s situation and offered to assist.

“I don’t regret speaking out because in the end I realized that the reason they were doing all of this was because they were scared. I managed to shake up their system and this is why they were lashing out at me,” she said in an interview with Her Blueprint. “Of course it was driving me crazy, and I knew that if I didn’t leave the country they would kill me. I decided to continue addressing the situation of LGBT in Algeria outside the country and accepted the offer to go to Lebanon.”

However, Randa’s troubles were far from over.

Karen Seneferu: An Ancient Aesthetic in Contemporary Art

Karen Seneferu is an emerging talent in the San Francisco Bay Area art scene. Her work is generating a lot of excitement, and deservedly so. Although she has humbly referred to herself as a "young artist," there are some artists whose work is prolific and beyond their years. Karen Seneferu's mixed media work brings to mind creative heavyweights like Betye Saar and Aminah Brenda Lynn Robinson. Like Robinson and Saar, Seneferu utilizes found materials and creates objects that are steeped in history, all with with incredible craftsmanship and intricate detail. Her most recent exhibit was Crossroad, an installation at Krowswork Gallery in Oakland, California.

Crossroad installation by Karen Seneferu

Seneferu's installations are always a feast for the spirit and the senses. Upon stepping into the small dark room that housed Crossroad, the viewer was greeted with a series of intricate altars and objects. Much of what was placed in the room was in deep hues of red and ebony, the colors associated with Eleggua, the trickster deity of Nigeria's Yoruba religion. Eleggua is said to preside over the crossroads of life, and acts as a gatekeeper.

His Courageous Dream, 43 Years Later

Today, April 4, is the 43rd anniversary of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1968 assassination.

Two years ago, I came upon the FBI report describing his death while researching the 1968 race riots throughout America and the world. The 113 page document opens with a 1977 memo citing, "no decision has been made yet whether this report will be released to the public." However, what startled me was not that the files could be kept private, but that Dr. King was shot in a moment of regularity when so much of his life was filled with extremely courageous acts. At the time of his death, King was simply standing outside his Memphis hotel room on a balcony discussing the weather with his driver who said to bring a top coat so he would not be cold. That image of Dr. King has stayed with me ever since.

The night before his death, on April 3rd, King delivered his I've Been to the Mountaintop speech at Mason Temple in Memphis, Tennessee. He had returned to Memphis to lend support to the striking sanitation workers and announce a peaceful April 8 march. Earlier that day, King and his aids were served a restraining order by Federal Marshals to halt the massive protest, because in late March similar Memphis protests had erupted into violence. Those protests had deeply distressed King due to his belief in peaceful, nonviolent assembly. In the Mountaintop speech, Dr. King went through history citing great thinkers from Aristotle onward, but King focused on the message those who assemble often share when he said:

"If you allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the twentieth century, I will be happy." Now that's a strange statement to make because the world is all messed up. The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around...But I know, somehow only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars. And I see God working in this period of the twentieth century in a way that men, in some strange way, are responding -- something is happening in our world. The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis Tennessee -- the cry is always the same -- "We want to be free."

How relevant do his words remain?

The next day, Dr. King was killed by one gunshot wound. Today in NPR and Washington Post Op-Eds Benjamin Todd Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP, discusses how deeply King's vision still affects our current lives and why it is so important to honor and continue his legacy.

In the NPR article, Jealous shares how scared he was seventeen years ago while organizing marches in Mississippi, knowing full well of the many threats. Yet, he reminded himself then of something his parents always used to tell him. "We all get scared. The question, son, is how you respond. If you act in response to your fears, you are a coward. If you act in spite of your fears, you are courageous."

Today, Jealous also reminds that many want to believe protestors and marchers throughout the United States and the world do not face death threats and harm on a daily basis, but the fact is political violence, discrimination, and injustice are still very much a part of humanity's story -- here in America and internationally. Jealous shares how on January 17, 2011, just a week after Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot in Arizona, police in Washington state quickly defused a bomb found on a bench in downtown Spokane. It was placed there to explode as NAACP marchers passed by.

In the Washington Post article, Jealous says to look to Wisconsin where public workers, teachers, and nurses recently lost their bargaining rights even as the state stripped them of benefits and wages. So, they protested. In 1963, Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial and delivered his I Have a Dream speech, in which he said,

We refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity in this nation. And so, we've come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.

How relevant do his words remain?

I write often about the perils and strength of women all over the world who are fighting every day for gender equity and justice. For safety. For access to basic health care or public services for themselves and their children. Last week, Amnesty International called for the release of the young Libyan female lawyer who is being detained after she proclaimed el-Qaddafi's forces raped her while Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on the Arab world to include women in government and institutions.

"The spirit and devotion exemplified by women in North Africa and the Middle East -- and the ongoing challenges they continue to face -- is both an inspiration to us all and a reminder that discrimination and gender-based violence endures around the world," Clinton said.

Yet, if Dr. King's legacy -- his dream -- is to end inequality so people all over the world are rich with freedom and justice, is the path of my country, of our world, moving us closer or farther away? The protests in North Africa and the Middle East show many people with collective and individual courage who are advocating for equality through peaceful demonstration. The protests in Wisconsin mirror the same. On this day when Americans honor a man whose vision was extraordinary and egalitarian, my hope is one day we'll all be able to acknowledge we're not just honoring, but living Dr. King's dream.

The NAACP plans 40 peaceful actions today as part of their We Are One campaign.

Wal-Mart “Too Big to Sue” in Gender Discrimination Case?

Yesterday the U.S. Supreme Court considered the legitimacy of Dukes v Wal-Mart, a massive class action lawsuit filed on behalf of 1.5 American million women that accuses Wal-Mart LLC of denying equal pay and equal access to career advancement. The prosecutors are seeking a stop to its alleged discriminatory practices, as well as back pay and punitive damages that could cost Wal-Mart over one billion dollars.

At issue was not whether the plaintiffs, with individual cases dating back to 1998, even have a case. Instances of women earning roughly 77% of what their male peers earned are common; women who qualified for raises but were passed over by their male counterparts with less experience seem to have been the norm for more than a decade. Instead, the “highest court in the land” heard the defense question whether or not millions of women could be included in one single class action suit. Lawyers for Wal-Mart claimed that they could not form an effective defense against the millions of individual cases and that there was no common injury.

The question that Wal-Mart posed, eerily reminiscent of the one made by big banks at the height of the economic meltdown, was: “Aren’t we too big to fail sue?”

It makes sense that Wal-Mart would take this tactic. After all, they’re in good company: several corporations and business groups, threatened by the precedent that Dukes could set for large-scale class action suits, have filed friend-of-the-court briefs siding with Wal-Mart. It seems the largest retailer in the world, whose sales hit $405 billion last year, feels that it, too, is “too big to fail.”

But the six plaintiffs who represent the millions of women are making their claim under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. They argue that “the policies and practices underlying this discriminatory treatment are consistent throughout Wal-Mart.” And each incident of discrimination, if taken to court separately, could pit the largest private employer in the world against one single woman at a time.

Let me repeat that again: one woman against the largest employer in the world.

The question that I would ask the Supreme Court justices, then, who reportedly sided with the corporate behemoth, would be: if corporations have the rights of personhood, as they were recently granted, why can’t individual persons have the same rights as corporations to consolidate their legal claims?

If Wal-Mart LLC, which serves 41 regions, 400 districts, and 3,400 stores housing one million workers in the U.S. alone, is allowed to take each woman to court individually, it will set a precedent not just for the rights of women, but for all individuals. Common law will dictate that corporations and their armies of attorneys will have the same access to justice as individuals with a mere fraction of their money and resources. In a world like that, will there ever be a fair fight?

Al Qa’ida Takes on the Value of Fashion

Image courtesy of BBC

Earlier this month, al Qa’ida released Al-Shamikha, "The Majestic Woman." At first glance, it would look as if al Qa’ida has acquiesced to Western calls to liberalize and expand women’s rights in the Arab world. But this 31-page glossy magazine written exclusively for women isn’t meant to empower them in the Western sense. Rather, the magazine pairs beauty tips right alongside the merits of marrying a martyr. According to the magazine editors, the key to a perfect complexion is achieved only by staying in the home with a covered face.

Is there a real danger in exposing women to such nonsense propaganda disguised as a glamour magazine? The answer, at this point, is that it's hard to tell. This isn’t al Qa’ida’s first attempt to reach the female Muslim population through media. Just last year, they launched a different magazine, The Granddaughters of Khansa, much akin to Al-Shamikha, but that endeavor only made it two issues before collapsing. So while demand may not yet be high for such antagonistic materials, it is quite clear al Qa’ida is continuing their battle to control and proliferate women’s minds and lives.

According to the Al-Shamikha editors, "The nation of Islam needs women who know the truth about their religion and about the battle and its dimensions and know what is expected of them." Thus it is Al-Shamikha’s role to educate them. Scary thoughts, when you consider the headlines from the most recent issue "Marrying a Jihadist," "Sharia Law that Applies to You," and "Your House is Your Kingdom."

Mirror, Mirror: On the Evolution of Women in Art History

This past week, my students explored the early to High Renaissance in class. We observed leaps and bounds in the role of the artist, the importance of humanism, and the innovations in formal techniques. Certain images kept popping up as signs of the times -- The Mona Lisa and the Arnolfini Wedding were most outstanding in terms of their reactions. Mona Lisa's daring eye contact and the presence of the mirror in the Arnolfini Wedding both pointed to a newfound reliance on the eye as a valued tool for understanding the world around us. During this period, man was the measure of all things, thanks to humanism.

Following are the famous images of mystery and enduring commitment:

Arnolfini Wedding via Wikipedia

When students looked at these images, they marveled at the convincing illusionist techniques, and the absence of the artist in compositions. No one asked about the circumstances of the women in the paintings. Some found interesting articles about how da Vinci may have conceived his famous portrait from a self-portrait. Well, it's possible. And, it's not the first example of drag in Art History -- we can go back as far as ancient Egypt, when Queen Hatshepsut became pharoah. She took over the throne after the death of her pharoah husband Thutmose II, and donned the traditional masculine garb in accordance.

Women's Boxing: Increasing Popularity and Assessing Risk

In 2009, women finally joined men in Olympic boxing. It has been a long time coming. Although women have been documented as boxing for over 100 years, professional bodies have only recognized women’s boxing in the last fifteen years. Fights before that time were outside the fence of regulation. But are things really that different now?

Boxing as sport has been around since time began, dating back to the 3rd millennium BC. However, boxing for fitness has really taken off in the past ten to fifteen years. Its integration into gyms and the modification for cardio classes has made it accessible to more people than ever before.

I discovered boxing through a gym coupon. I was 200 lbs in my early 20s, at university, and living with an abusive landlord. My self-esteem was low and at that point in my life I was just trying to make it. I was aware my body was struggling, and I knew something needed to be done because I couldn't run 50 feet without feeling like my heart would explode out of my chest.

When a friend presented me with a coupon to a "bitch boxing" class I took it as a laugh. Once there, I was greeted by Cathy Brown, then a European flyweight champ. Fit, charming, and attractive, by the end of the class she had me in my own puddle of sweat. The class was basic technique and although I felt like the heaviest one there and a bit of a fool, seeing Cathy and her strength as a women boxer made me determined to get fit.

Boxing has become a big hit for inner city girls who deal with the realities of surviving day-to-day life. The level of focus, commitment, discipline, and structured training of boxing provide people with the ability to gain some control over various aspects of their life. As a sport, it builds character as well as strength and fitness, and you feel better about your life as a result.

However, the more time I spent in the sport the more I began to wonder if boxing can be as detrimental as it can be constructive. The very nature and history of boxing shows it as a male-dominated, male-marketed sport with many instances of male aggression toward women in the gym still remaining vastly underreported. The rules of fighting might be clear on paper, but there is often just not enough regulation within daily routine.

Babyface Boxing in Pacifica, California provides training for girls as young as eight years old. I went to one fight and while protective headware was worn I could clearly see their head's flipping back. The young girls were mainly Latina and Black females of poorer socioeconomic groups, and many of the parents thought their daughters had the chance to make it big. Unfortunately, not even five percent of male boxers make it to a professional level where they are earning a decent salery. Female boxers often have to rely on other outlets to help market their sport and most don't have the big name like Laila Ali, daughter of Muhammad Ali, or the model-like looks of Cathy Brown. Finally, placing girls in a combative environment around the age of puberty could be sending them the message that they can fight their way through life's problems rather than teaching girls how effective conflict resolution can be achieved using clear communication.

While I was attending a lecture by the Nobel Prize winner Dr. Stanley Prusiner, I was also struck by the lack of research surrounding female-specific injuries in boxing. Dr. Prusiner showed a direct link between time spent boxing, head injury resulting in brain trauma, and often degenerative disease in the brain. Many boxing advocates claim the damage to women is no different than in men, but I question this. Hardly any research has been conducted on the possible difference in physical damage that women can incur from boxing. Research has shown that repeated physical trauma to the breast can cause excessive cell proliferation preceding cancer. Also, enforcing the no punches below the belt rule remains a challenge, making women's uteruses potentially more at risk. We do know for a fact the internal organs of boxers get damaged in this sport, but without further research how much this affects females is unknown.

Even with potential risks, the reality is that boxing has caught on for women due to the fact it is an incredibly empowering way of getting in excellent shape. All sports come with built-in risks, yet as the rise of professional women's boxers continue along with popularity of the sport within gyms, health professionals need to research the risk of serious and detrimental injury to women boxers. Without more research and with a continued lack of support for tighter regulation in the daily boxing environment, women's boxing will remain a fast-growing sport with speculative, rather than well-documented health risks.