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Chloe Angyal: Badass Activist Friday

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

Today’s Badass is Chloe Angyal. Chloe is a blogger and freelance writer based in New York City. She writes at her own blog, and is an editor of well-known feminist blog Feministing. Her work has also appeareed in various online and print venus, including Slate, Salon, Jezebel, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Christian Science Monitor. In her writing, Chloe has covered a variety of topics, including body image, pop culture, women in politics and reproductive rights.

Here are her answers:

When was your feminist/activist awakening? Did you know you wanted to be doing the kind of work you are now, or did it come as a surprise to you?

Like a lot of people of my generation, I grew up with feminism in the water. My mom was a Second Waver who did feminist public health work her whole life. My dad did my hair for ballet on Saturday mornings and certainly identifies as a feminist. I was really lucky to grow up in that kind of environment. And there was a watered-down, commercialized feminism in the cultural water when I was growing up, too. I came of age in the “girl power” era in pop culture – I think the first Spice Girls album was one of the first CDs I ever bought myself.

But I didn’t explicitly start identifying as a feminist until I was about fifteen. I went on a three-month exchange to France, and I stayed with a traditional family in a tiny town in Brittany. For the first time, it occurred to me that my parents’ arrangement: two careers, two last names, sharing parenting duties (and, it should be noted, hiring a fair bit of outside help to make those two careers possible), was unusual. And, to me, vastly preferable. I remember being really annoyed when my host dad came home, plonked down on the couch and watched TV until dinner was ready, then went back to the TV after dinner as my mom cleaned up after the meal she had just cooked. I recently found my diary from that time and I wrote something like, “I’m so confused, isn’t France the birthplace of Simone de Beauvoir and modern feminism?”

That trip was significant for other reasons. I went from taking four dance classes a week to doing no exercise and eating a lot of rich French winter food. I gained a lot of weight, and I really hated it. I hated going home and being so much bigger than when I left, and feeling like my classmates and my family and friends were all judging me as some kind of failure. I hated how angry and inferior that made me feel – and I hated that something as trivial as two dress sizes could make me feel all those things. But then I read The Beauty Myth and I realized that it wasn’t actually trivial; it was political. And it wasn’t just me, either. Say what you will about what Naomi Wolf has said and written since that book (and believe me, there’s a lot I want to say about that), that book changed my life.

I didn’t know I wanted to do this kind of work. I wanted to be a dancer, actually. I’ve been a performer my whole life, and I really wanted to do that professionally, but my parents very wisely insisted that I finish college before attempting that. They wanted me to have a great education because, you know, ankles break, or in my case, spinal discs herniate, and that can end a dancing career. I think they were secretly hoping that during college I would find something more stable, and lucrative, than dancing. I found feminist writing, which is one-eighteenth of a modicum more stable and lucrative than dancing. Suckaaaahs!

But yes, it comes as a surprise to me, a happy surprise, that I get to do what I do. I have always loved to write, and I feel so grateful that I get to use that talent in a way that, hopefully, helps people and makes the world a better place.

You joined the Feministing team in 2009. Do you remember when you first started reading the blog yourself? What has it been like working with some of the pioneers of feminist blogging?

I started reading the blog in the spring of 2008. I was a junior in college, and I was in the eating disorder awareness and prevention group on my college campus, and we brought Courtney Martin in to speak. I was assigned the task of introducing her before her talk, so I started reading Feministing for a little bit of background. And I was totally hooked. I started reading it daily, and then it was my home page, and then I started reading Shakesville and Shapely Prose and a bunch of other great feminist blogs, and by the end of that semester I had decided that our campus needed its own feminist blog. I started it when I came back to campus that fall.

What has it been like working with some of the pioneers of feminist blogging? It’s been like a goddamn dream. I wish me from the spring of 2008 could see this. Past-me be so excited. Past-me would also wonder when and why future-me finally caved and started wearing skinny jeans, but that’s another story.

You are writing your dissertation on the portrayal of women, gender and sex in Hollywood romantic comedies. What led you to this topic? What is your favorite “good” romcom? What is the most distressing one you have come across?

The thesis grew out of a year-long series I did at Feministing. I’ve had a love-hate relationship with the genre for a while, and in 2010 I decided I wanted to take a closer look at contemporary romantic comedies, so I saw and reviewed every single rom com that came out that year. About half way through I realized that I wanted to keep writing about them, and that I wanted to learn more about their history and their development. I wanted to figure out exactly how we ended up with the spate of particularly sexist rom coms we got in the last few years. And I’m certainly not the first scholar to write about popular culture or even about romantic comedies. There’s a whole body of literature on romance novels, and when I was doing my literature review, some of the most interesting stuff I read was about gender in horror movies.

There’s no such thing as a perfectly feminist rom com. There’s no such thing as perfectly feminist pop culture. But there are elements, glimmers of hope, in a lot of movies. For example, I love Emma Stone’s character in Easy A. I like that she’s smart, and observant, and self-aware, and imperfect. I love her relationship with her parents. I love their relationship with each other. The movie isn’t perfect, but it’s got more glimmers than your average rom com.

The most distressing rom com I’ve come across is Kate and Leopold, which stars Meg Ryan and Hugh Jackman. It pains me to say this, because Hugh Jackman is a gentleman and a scholar and a countryman and a total babe. But that movie is the worst. At the end, the educated, professionally successful independent woman goes back in time, giving up her family, her career – not to mention the right to vote, contraception and indoor plumbing – to be with the man she loves. It’s horrendous.

Earlier this year, you started the Tumblr “Men who Trust Women”, as a response to the increasingly anti-woman discourse around birth control, abortion and sexuality in the US. Can you tell us why you chose that name and what you hoped to achieve with the Tumblr project? How has the reception been so far?

The name is a reference to the late Dr. George Tiller’s motto, “trust women,” and to the original subtitle of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, “men who hate women.”

I was really dismayed by the fact that most of the men who were speaking publicly about reproductive health were anti-choice. There were some exceptions: Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Martin O’Malley, Garry Trudeau. Bless those men, I’m so glad they stepped up.  But they were few and far between. With the exception of those few men, you could be forgiven for thinking that there weren’t any pro-choice men out there. So I wanted to create a space for those men to make themselves known. But, I didn’t want to use the phrase “pro-choice” if I could help it, because while I identify that way, and while I really value that term and that movement, that term is highly politicized, and I didn’t want this to be about red-blue left-right politics. I wanted it to be about what it’s about at its core: women are human and humans have rights. I wanted to make it as simple as I could: do you identify as a man? Do you trust women to make their own choices about their own bodies? Are you a man who trusts women? No labels, no barriers to entry. Trust women.

So far, the reception has been great. We had hundreds of men submit their stories, and now I’m working with a young filmmaker, Alexandra Steinmetz, to turn a couple of the stories into documentary shorts, which is so exciting. Alex doesn’t know this, but I’ve already bought a megaphone and a floppy old-timey director’s hat, like in Singin’ in the Rain. It’s going to be awesome. On a more serious note, I’m excited to put faces and names to some of these remarkable stories. Now we just need to raise the money to make it happen!

Do you have any new or upcoming projects that you would like to share with us? What are you working on and thinking about these days?

I’m really focusing on my dissertation, and my book, right now. At some point I’m going to have to lock myself away in a room like a monk and get them both done. Maybe I’ll buy myself a nice brown hooded robe for that. But that would look pretty weird with the floppy director’s hat.

Thank you for your time, and good luck with your thesis!

Rachel Kramer Bussel: Badass Activist Friday

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

Today’s badass is Rachel Kramer Bussel. Rachel works as an author, editor and blogger and she has been published in a variety of publications, including The Hairpin, The Huffington Post, The Village Voice and Salon. She has also edited numerous publications of sex writing and erotica, and she conducts reading and writing workshops. You can read all about her and her work on her website.

Let’s hear what she has to say!

You have degrees in Political Science and Women’s Studies, and now work as an author, editor and sex educator. Was this path clear for you when you started out, did you always know you wanted to do what you are doing now? How did you get started and what motivated you?

I never would’ve thought I could make a living with words, although back when I was in college I briefly toyed with going to journalism school. At the time I thought law school was the right path, and in a way, it was, because it led me to reading and writing erotica, albeit indirectly. I started writing erotica because I was experiencing a lot of new sexual adventures and wanted to have a way to write about them, and getting published was such a high that I’ve been doing it ever since 2000 when my first story was published. I’ve always written, but it was only during law school, which coincided with my moving to New York City, that I started writing about sex, and that has led me to all sorts of career possibilities I couldn’t have dreamed of. I feel like I got to the point of doing what I do in a way, which is a mixture of editing, blogging, public speaking and writing fiction, essays and journalism, that feels accidental but serendipitous, and continues to evolve as I figure out how to be self-employed and stay as interested in the process of erotic writing and editing as I was when I first started.

Also, just to be clear, I’m not a sex educator and have never claimed to be. I think it’s interesting that if you write about sex in any form, whether erotica or journalism, it’s assumed that you are a sex educator or expert in some way. There are plenty of amazing sex educators out there who I respect and admire, but I never want to claim to be something I’m not.

You write regular columns, publish your own erotica stories and have put together several anthologies as an editor. What ties your work together? What is your common aim in what you do, and what do you hope to achieve?

It’s not something I’ve consciously thought about, but all of my various types of writing and editing have evolved pretty organically over the last twelve years and I think what they have in common is self-expression. That sounds a bit obvious, but touches on my point above; I’m not a sex educator, though I’ve certainly learned a lot about sex in my time writing about it. But the one thing I hope people take away from all my work is the honesty, whether relating things that actually happened or erotic fiction that is based in emotional honesty. I think curiosity—about myself, my lovers, other people, the world around me—is what drives all my writing and draws me to any given piece of writing, from personal essays to interviews to erotica. I love taking a theme and seeing where I can go with it, and how the initial idea for a piece often morphs into something entirely different.

I wouldn’t say I have an aim or agenda other than to continually push myself in new directions and to publish work that speaks to people’s sexual curiosity and hopefully entertains people. I am honored that I get to publish so many authors new to erotica, and for my upcoming book of short short orgasm erotica, I’m saving half the slots for authors who’ve never been published in my books (the deadline is June 1^st, and guidelines are at http://www.rachelkramerbussel.com/submissions.php).

I love the solitary freedom of writing and immersing myself in a story, but I like that at the end of the day, so much of what I do as an editor and what I did with my former reading series In The Flesh is about collaborating with other people and hearing/reading other people’s voices. That inspires me creatively and makes my anthologies well-rounded and certainly teaches me, every day, about how vast and varied sex is. Sortof like my other obsession, cupcakes, there’s always something new to consider and think about.

You reveal some very private details in your articles. What sort of policy do you have when it comes to privacy? Where do you draw the line in terms of what to reveal and what not?

I don’t have a specific line or policy; I consider each topic I’m writing about on a case by case basis. Usually I write about things or people or events that I feel like I can’t not write about. The ideas will haunt me, sometimes in my sleep, until I sort them out on the page, and I’ve found that even the most embarrassing or disturbing or out-there thing I might tackle in my writing, when I write about it, I feel better about myself and, more importantly, I learn about myself.

I don’t want that to sound like I don’t care about other people’s feelings or reactions, because I do, but I think that your own story and your own approach are always yours to tell. You own that and no one can take it away, and anyone who would try to tell someone not to write about something is, I believe, acting selfishly. That’s not to say that I would love to be written about (and I know, because it’s happened a handful of times), but I think potentially winding up in my work is part of being in my life and hopefully most people understand that. Sometimes it’s opened up communication that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. Danielle LaPorte quotes Jack Kerouac as saying “If you tell a true story, you can’t be wrong” in her book The Fire Starter Sessions, and I think that’s a good rule to live by. Someone will always be offended or put off by your ideas and words, true or not, so it’s up to you to make sure you are living up to your own ethical code.

The only real rule I have is to never make anyone identifiable to the general public; obviously if I’m writing about someone I’m dating there are going to be friends who know who that person is, but in all likelihood they’ve already heard the story I’m telling. I’ve also learned that often I can be the most honest in fiction, where I get to fully explore the kinds of truths about sex that might come out stilted or overly serious in nonfiction. I try my best to push myself to analyze my own actions as rigorously as possible and to write about my own dark places, both for catharsis and so that it’s clear I’m not simply trying to work out my personal issues with someone on the page. I make sure I’m not putting words in someone else’s mouth (unless it’s fiction) and when writing about things like age play or sex with a Top Chef contestantI strive to focus on my own personal takeaway, which is the only thing I can be an authority about.

I always keep in mind something Jeannette Walls, author of my favorite memoir, The Glass Castle, told me, which is that memoir should be universal, and I think the more specific you are in your personal details and unearthing of your own drama, the more people, no matter how removed from the particulars of your life, will relate. It’s certainly a tricky balance and always will be, but I can’t imagine how I would make sense of my world without writing about what happens to me.

Your most recently published anthology is Best Sex Writing 2012, a fascinating and inspiring book that brings together various articles and essays on the topic of sex and sexuality. They run the gamut from prostitution to circumcision and come from a variety of mediums and authors. How did you select the texts that appear together in this anthology? What was your criteria? Did you have a favorite article, one that is closest to your heart?

I try to tackle topics that have been prevalent in the news cycle, such as Amanda Marcotte’s “Sluts, Walking,” and Marty Klein’s which is original to the book, as well as include pieces about topics I didn’t necessarily have in mind at the start but that speak to the state of what’s going on with sex. I especially like “Adrian’s Penis: Care and Handling” by Adrian Colesberry from his memoir How to Make Love to Adrian Colesberry, which is told as an instructional manual to future lovers/memoir and, while utterly humorous, is extremely brave. He chronicled every single sexual encounter of his life in his memoir and I don’t think many people are up for that level of rigorous honesty. As a whole, he wowed me with his approach and because he wasn’t apologetic about his sexual quirks. He was basically saying, “This is who I am and what turns me on and how my body works.” I don’t see a lot of male writers expressing themselves so boldly and baring so much of their inner workings, so that piece stood out. I like to mix up styles so it’s got some more literary writers like Kevin Sampsell and Lidia Yuknavitch and the more political pieces. It’s important to me to have both journalism and personal essays, because each speak to how sex is both very public and very personal. I’m proud that the book reprints pieces from an array of publications, ranging from Ms. to Playboy to Reason to Salon to The Village Voice. I’m always on the lookout for sex writing where you wouldn’t expect to find sex writing.

Are you working on anything new right now? What is your current project?

I’m wrapping up my December anthologies, Best Sex Writing 2013 and Best Bondage Erotica 2013, reading for my orgasm erotica book and an anal sex erotica book, and working on my first collection of my erotic short stories and hopefully a longer work of fiction, and brainstorming new ideas for anthologies and articles. I edit the weekly sex diaries for New York magazine’s Daily Intel website , so I get a peek into all sorts of people’s sex lives.

Thank you for your time and your answers!

What can you do to make a difference?

We at the The Line Campaign encourage you to speak up about your sexuality: your desires, your boundaries and your right to pleasure and safety! Speak up without shame, and we will listen to you without judgments.

Bring Nancy to your campus to spark this conversation where it most needs to happen!

Roll Call: The Truth about VAWA

We are re-posting this great Op-Ed from Roll Call from our friend and colleague, Lori Weinstein of Jewish Women International and co-author, Patricia Martin is president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. We think the powers that be listened!

Rates of domestic and sexual violence in the United States have amounted to a crisis that must be urgently addressed. Nearly one in five women has been raped in her lifetime, while one in four women has been the victim of severe physical violence by an intimate partner.

These devastating figures require a strong response — and the immediate reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act is an important first step.

S. 1925 is a strong, bipartisan, filibuster-proof bill that will reauthorize VAWA for another five years and build on effective programs to meet the changing needs of victims. This legislation, introduced by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), has 61 co-sponsors, including eight Republicans. Senate leadership is bringing VAWA to the floor this week, demonstrating Congress’ commitment to ending violence against women and girls.

But many well-intentioned Members of Congress have heard misstatements about VAWA, and opponents are developing an alternative bill that will undercut the spirit of the law. It is imperative that we address these inaccuracies so every Senator understands what VAWA really does in communities across the country and so every Senator can support S. 1925 without harmful amendments.

VAWA saves lives and money — $12.6 billion in its first six years alone. VAWA-funded programs have improved the national response to domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. The lion’s share of VAWA funding, about $400 million annually, ends up in local communities supporting law enforcement, prosecution, courts and victim services. Since its passage in 1994, all states have strengthened rape laws and the number of individuals killed by an intimate partner has decreased by 34 percent for women and 57 percent for men.

Critics allege that VAWA grantees misspent millions of dollars and S. 1925 lacks strict accounting policies. But a letter from Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich explains that concerns about the grants in question have been successfully resolved.

Advocacy groups and victim service providers support the bill’s audit provisions, which are almost word for word the accountability provisions developed by Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) in the Victims of Trafficking Act.

Critics claim the Leahy-Crapo bill gives immigrants a new way to enter the country. However, provisions to protect immigrant victims have been in place since 1994. Any immigrant victim seeking a U visa under VAWA not only must provide evidence of victimization but also must obtain a signed form from a law enforcement officer or prosecutor certifying that the immigrant victim cooperated with officials and assisted in bringing the perpetrator to justice.

Critics claim S. 1925 contains provisions that would force all domestic violence and sexual assault programs to serve lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender victims or be charged with discrimination. In reality, S. 1925 has a provision that tells states they may fund services specifically targeted to LGBT victims. These targeted services are badly needed. Only 1.5 percent of all victim services in this country are LGBT-specific, and a majority of victim service providers working with LGBT clients report that their clients have been denied services because of their sexual orientation and/or gender identity.

The Justice Department reports that one in three Native American women will be raped in her lifetime and that Native American women suffer from violent crime at a rate three and a half times greater than the national average. Yet critics say S. 1925 violates the Constitution by giving tribal courts the authority to punish non-Native Americans for committing domestic violence on tribal lands. In fact, S. 1925 requires that any tribal court exercising jurisdiction over non-Native Americans must show that it offers similar constitutional protections afforded to defendants in state criminal courts.

The passage of S. 1925 sends a strong message to victims throughout the country whose lives have been forever changed: We will never return to the pre-VAWA world where there was no help and no hope. A vote for the Leahy-Crapo reauthorization bill says unequivocally to all victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking, “We will help you wherever you are and whenever you need help.”

Patricia Martin is president of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges. Lori Weinstein is executive director of Jewish Women International.

Therese Shechter: Badass Activist Friday

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

This week’s Badass Activist is Therese Shechter.  Therese is a documentary filmmaker, and her first documentary feature, I was a Teenage Feminist, was released in 2005. She has a degree in Film from Columbia College in Chicago, and prior to going back to school, she was working as a Graphic Designer. She is currently working on a new documentary, How to Lose your Virginity.

So without further ado, here she is!

You started out working in graphic design, and only went back to film school later. What inspired you to this career change? Was it an easy decision to make, or did you struggle with it? How do you feel about what you do today?

That’s such a great question that I rarely get asked. And it’s all about taking this very circuitous and mysterious path to figuring out what you really want.

I had just ended a long relationship and, in an attempt to make lemonade, asked myself what I wanted to do with my life now that I was ‘free.’ I loved my job at the Chicago Tribune, but knew I didn’t want to do it for the rest of my life. I was a big film geek, so I decided to go to film school part-time while I worked full time. The day before my first class was the last day I experienced ‘free time.’

When I look back on it, it seems totally deranged! I quit a high-level high-paying job, moved from Chicago to New York for an unpaid internship at Tribeca Films, and then started working on documentaries without the slightest clue how to make one or even how to use a video camera. Luckily, I had some great supporters like filmmaker Macky Alston and Debbie Zimmerman of Women Make Movies. I think I just felt this moment of bravery and decided to seize it because who knows when I’d feel this way again.

On the minus side of this plan, I really have no free time and I struggle to stay positive when there’s no funding, no support and no end in sight. I think you have to be ridiculously passionate about a subject to stick with it for as long as it takes to make a film. I fantasize about having a day job that ends Friday at 6pm, but then I quickly snap out of it. Because on the plus side, I love the freedom I have now and I love making documentaries and screening with audiences, especially college students. And I’m lucky to have my marketable skill, graphic design, which provides freelance work to pay the bills.

Your most recent movie project was I was a Teenage Feminist, which is an exploration of your own feminism, as well as an exploration into what the term means to young women today. Can you tell us a little about the genesis of that project? What did you want to achieve with the movie, and how have you connected to your audience with it?

My films are very personal and they tend to grow out of something important happening in my life. I was approaching 40 and although I was living an exciting, creative and fun life, I felt like I had failed somehow. I wasn’t married, had no kids and didn’t look like a lingerie model – and I was upset that that was upsetting me. I felt like I had nowhere to turn to validate my own choices, and then I remembered being 13 watching “Free to Be…You and Me” and having my mind blown

I wondered what had happened to the force of feminism in my life and in the world around me and set out to find it again. I wasn’t comfortable calling myself a feminist and I encountered a lot of ‘I’m not a feminist, but…” responses from everyone around me. It led me to really investigate how feminism had been discredited and demonized since the day the movement was born and re-connect with a movement operating under the mass media radar.

There are still so many people who reject feminism as something for ‘hairy-legged lesbians’ or something from the past, so my main goal was to get people talking about the meaning and importance of feminism and how people can add their voice to what is still a huge political struggle. I spend so much of my life in very feminist spaces now, with so many incredibly smart and dedicated women and men, that it’s hard to remember how disconnected I was. But then I step onto any college campus, start talking to students, watch them form their own ‘aha’ moments and it all comes back to me.

You work primarily with first-person story telling. Did you know from the start that you wanted to do that, or has that been a process of trial and error for you? Why did you choose that mode and what are the challenges and rewards of working with it?

It just sort of developed that way. I was doing a lot of writing about film and the strongest pieces were first person, whether I was describing my own film geekery, or two weeks spent volunteering at Sundance. I tend to use my own struggles and questioning and journey as a path through big issues that would otherwise be overwhelming.

I Was A Teenage Feminist and my other doc How I Learned To Speak Turkish are both first person, and both use a lot of humor, some totally at my expense, to tell some challenging stories about female power and identity. I feel like a surrogate for the viewer; I can ask all the stupid questions that you’re not comfortable asking as we go on this journey together. I actually tried to do How to Lose Your Virginity as a third person film, but ultimately I felt like my own somewhat embarrassing, confusing and awkward virginity story was a great catalyst for what happens in the rest of the film.

It’s a really hard form to get right and takes a lot of trial and error. You have to walk a very fine line between expressing your authentic self and being totally self-indulgent. A good editor is a must, because they’ll challenge you whenever they hear something they don’t buy. You have to really work at the honesty and risk looking bad sometimes. I’m a huge fan of filmmakers like Ross McElwee and Judith Helfand, or an author like Marjane Satrapi, who are all so skilled at using intense personal stories to get at much larger issues.

Your current project is a film called How to Lose Your Virginity. What is that film about and what got you to start thinking about these questions? Virginity is a really hot topic for many people and groups, for various reasons. How do you deal with the challenges of addressing such a controversial topic?

The film looks at this concept of virginity, which is so embedded in our culture it affects our behaviors in ways we’re not even aware of. I really want to lift the veil on the myths and misconceptions around female virginity and the value we give it, and challenge how our culture portrays female sexuality.

I do that by telling the stories of several fascinating women across the sexuality spectrum, with some history and anatomy thrown in for good measure. I could talk about hymen myths and Vestal Virgins all day. I actually got engaged while I was making the film, so we shot a scene at a bridal salon.  In it, I ask the manager if the big white dresses I was trying on made my ass look innocent. I was so uncomfortable there. I felt much more at ease hanging out with the actors on the set of a so-called ‘virgin’ porn film. I’m not sure what that says about me.

I do a virginity blog as well, and while I’m very critical of institutions that promote virginity in ways that are sexist and false (Abs-Only I’m looking at you) I have total respect for whatever choice an individual makes about their sex lives. So this project has become a landing spot for very broad constituency. My audience is everyone from religious older virgins to feminists and sexual health folks who want to do away with the concept of virginity altogether.

The goal is to allow everyone space to define it for themselves in a way that reflects their own needs and desires. Unfortunately, that makes it hard to make the really great jokes without stepping into some awful cliché I really should be trying to destroy. Our logo is two cherries. Enough said.

How can we help you with the film? You have a Kickstarter campaign to fund the movie. How can we contribute to that?

Thanks for asking! We’re nearing the end of a big Kickstarter campaign to raise $35,000 so we can finish the film this fall. We’ve already raised almost $19,000, which is mind-boggling to me, but we need to reach our goal by May 9^th or forfeit all of it. It would be great if folks could check out the project today, watch our very entertaining trailer, and then pledge what they can. We have some great rewards like DVDs, signed books, cherry pendants, screenings and goody bags from Good Vibrations!

I’ve been working on this project on and off for 5 years, and it’s taken this long because we’ve had to keep stopping to raise money to continue production. There’s almost no funding for independent media – it’s all going to Reality TV right now. I can’t tell you how badly I want to get this film done and out there. Our whole crew is so incredibly passionate about this topic, and our audience keeps sending us amazing emails. But I won’t lie – I’m really scared we won’t reach our goal, so let me again make the pitch: please pledge what you can and tell two friends to do the same! Thanks to Rush Limbaugh and his cronies, the topic is timelier than ever.

Thank you for your time and your answers! We’ve got our fingers crossed for you that you will reach your Kickstarter goal.

How to Get your Messages Heard and Hold the Media Accountable, with Strategies from Jennifer Pozner

It is still Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and activists are still working especially hard during this month to raise awareness around issues of sexual assault and sexual violence. Joanna Chiu, a guest-blogger for the Battered Women’s Support Services, shared this article with us that she wrote about her experience working in media outreach for SlutWalk NYC.

On the morning of the march, I rushed around Union Square Park frantically trying to figure out what to do with the hordes of journalists and camera crews that were literally falling over themselves in the presence of a few bras and fishnet stockings. Many media organizations had arrived at the scene looking to grab shots of the proportionally few women (mostly young, white and slim) who were wearing what some consider shocking dress, while rendering invisible the vast majority of participants (including men and people of colour) who showed up in the clothing they would normally wear to work or school.

You can read the whole article here. Check it out! It’s well worth the read.

Angela Tucker: Badass Activist Friday

It’s Friday, and we all know what that means! Interviews with your favorite badass feminists and activists. Whether social media queens and kings, creative artists, sex educators, or just kick-ass personalities, these people harness righteous anger, instigate movements and inspire cultural change. We’re here to honor them and their work, but more importantly, to highlight how we can all get up, plug in, and Just Start Doing.

This week’s badass is Angela Tucker! Angela is a writer, director and producer. Her main focus are social issues documentaries, such as the on-going web-series “Black Folk Don’t”. She has a BA from Wesleyan in Theater and African American Studies and an MFA in Film Studies from Columbia.

Let’s hear what she has to say.

How did you get started in activist work? Was this always your goal, or did you get inspired during the course of your studies? What was your first social justice project, and how did you come upon it?

In high school, I was an active member of Amnesty International.  At a meeting, we saw Errol Morris’ film, The Thin Blue Line and I was blown away by it.  The film is the story of Randall Dale Adams who was imprisoned for the murder of a police officer, a crime he clearly did not commit. The film was so artful and moving and it featured an important call to action. Our Amnesty chapter became involved in a letter writing campaign to keep Adams from being executed. Eventually, he was exonerated and it felt incredible to play even a small role in that happening. I literally was able to see how media could make change.  I was immediately hooked.

You have made a lot of documentary movies, both when you were director of production for Big Mouth Films, and on your own. How do you select your topics and the people you focus on? How do you connect with the people you are filming? Do friendships form, or do you try to stay detached?

Each project is different. For (A)sexual, a documentary I directed, I was interested in the subject matter. I had read an article on Salon.com about asexuality and was fascinated by it. We found David Jay, our main character, through his website, Asexuality Visibility and Education Network. One of my producers and I met David Jay. There were no cameras. We just had a slice of pizza and talked about what his life was like.

That meeting was so important because I needed to see if David Jay was someone I would like to spend the next few years following around. I have to like someone in order to have him or her be the main character of a project I am working on. Not all filmmakers are like that but life is too short to be sending years of it with someone you think is a jerk! I consider David Jay a friend beyond the subject of the film and if I didn’t have that relationship with him I think it would’ve been more difficult to make the film. It was hard sometimes because we had to balance creating an accurate portrayal of him while at the same time being true to someone that we all genuinely liked.

The documentary is a profile of David Jay and a few other people who identify as asexual – having no sexual attraction. But it’s also about larger ideas, like how one can be part of this burgeoning community in this really over-sexualized world. I should mention that David’s story is crucial but every character in the film adds to creating a deeper understanding about asexuality.

What interested you in making (A)sexual? Asexuality, as a movement, is still in its early stages and it is hard to find a definition everyone can agree on, and something that is still pretty invisible, and often not taken seriously. What did you hope to achieve with this movie? What kind of reactions have you received at screenings so far?

Identity politics is a strand that links all of the projects I work on so my interest in asexuality came through that lens. I am not asexual myself so there was a learning curve about the subject matter. I was really struck by what a conversation starter asexuality was and how divided people were about it. I thought it was interesting that the idea of a community of people who experience no sexual attraction blew so many people’s minds and how some people who are typically extremely progressive and open were really dismissive of it.

The film has screened at festivals, colleges and universities all over the world. The response has been incredible. Remember that if you are asexual, you literally never see yourself represented in any media at all! When people say to me that asexuals don’t really have a struggle per say I remind them of that. Many asexuals approach me after the film just to thank me for making the film and that is really nice. I wanted asexuals to like the film but I also am excited that people who do not identify as asexual see that the film speaks to them as well. The film is really a look at the role sex plays in all of our lives.

Knowledge about asexuality is increasing and I do think the film has played a big role in that. That is extremely gratifying. We screened at Creating Change, the annual conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, and that was the first time asexuals had a presence at that event. That was a huge and affirming moment. The community as a whole is growing and becoming more active and visible. In ten years, a film about asexuality will be very different than this one and I can’t wait to see it.

An on-going project you are involved with is the series “Black Folk Don’t”. You are currently working on the second series – can you give us a little preview of what’s to come? What will you be dealing with in the show, and where do you get the ideas from?

In 2011, Black Public Media announced a grant for the creation of a web series. I was in the middle of editing (A)sexual and was craving the experience of shooting something quickly so I worked to develop an idea that I could apply with. I knew I wanted to do a doc series that was provocative. I also wanted a series that provided a space for a multiplicity of voices and was an open-ended question that had no right or wrong answer. I hoped to create a complicated race conversation in a fun and dynamic way. From all of that, Black Folk Don’t was born.

Black Folk Don’t is a six episode web series that examines stereotypes. Thousands of people have watched episodes and the series was recently featured in Time Magazine. I chose the topics for last season. This season, viewers voted for the topics on our Facebook page. They are more challenging this season but the conversations are going even deeper. The topics are, “Black folk don’t … swim, camp, have eating disorders, commit suicide, get married, do atheism.” The series will launch in early July 2012.

Are there any current projects you would like to share with us? What news stories have you been following, what are you really excited or frustrated about?

I am a Co-Producer on The New Black, an explosive new documentary that uncovers the complicated and often combative histories of the African-American and LGBT civil rights movements. The film is directed by Yoruba Richen and will premiere sometime in 2013. We are still in production but I think it is going to be an important and moving film.

Like everyone, I was horrified by the Trayvon Martin tragedy. I don’t have anything coherent to add to the dialogue around this but it haunts my thoughts on a daily basis. Anyone who continues to say we live in a post-racial society is crazy!

SAAM, the VAWA and Colleges

This year, the 1994 Violence Against Women Act is up for reauthorization. Appropriately, The bill is scheduled for a vote in the Senate this month (April, as you probably know, is Sexual Assault Awareness Month). VAWA was reauthorized in 2000 and 2005, but some changes, such as “[protecting] individuals in same-sex relationships and extend[ing] temporary residency to violence victims who are illegal immigrants,” have been met with some opposition from conservative politicians and inhibited the bill’s progress, according to an Inside Higher Ed article. There are important changes, as they attempt to address the needs of as many different groups as possible rather than denying aid to women who need it for discriminatory reasons. However, VAWA’s reauthorization is also particularly important for college students. The VAWA includes the Jeanne Clery Act, which Congress passed twenty years ago in dedication to Jeane Clery, who was a 19-year-old freshman at Lehigh University. In 1986, Clery was raped, tortured and strangled by a stranger. After the her death, Clery’s parents put their energy into getting “school to dislose all crime that happens on campus.” They told NPR that their intention was to make the campus safer; they hoped that “faced with scrutiny, college presidents would have no choice but the get serious about crime.”

What happened to Clery is still happening, and it’s happening frequently. It is estimated that a third of women in college are sexually assaulted, about 20 to 25 percent of women will be raped or experience an attempted rape, and about 6 percent of men will experience some kind of sexual abuse. Abusive relationships are also an unfortunately common problem: Nearly half of dating college women (43%) report having experienced violent or abusive dating behaviors.

In response to these alarming statistics, important changes have been made for VAWA’s reauthorization. This year, a part of VAWA called the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act would amend the Clery Act to expand the definition of ‘crime’ to include dating violence and stalking. It would also “give more guidance to college officials about how to deal with sex offenses… including training for personal and community progarams,” according to an Infozine article. These are much needed changes. Juley Fulcher, director of policy programs at Break the Cycle, told Infozine that “campus programs can range from advanced to not having anyone trained specifically to deal with reports of sexual offenses” and that she has heard of schools that discourage victims from reporting sexual assault crimes altogether. In fact, HerVotes.org reported that “more than one-third of college students (38%) say they would not even know how to get help on campus if they found themselves in an abusive relationship.” As with the rest of the nation, then, underreporting of sexual assault crimes is a major problem on college campuses — some studies estimate that up to 90 percent of sexual assaults in college are not reported in any way.

Here are the specific changes that the SaVE Act proposes:

• Increase transparency/safety by mandating that Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) report incidents of domestic violence, dating violence, and stalking, have written policies in place, and inform reported victims of their rights, available services, and available legal/disciplinary processes.
• Improve education by providing programming addressing primary prevention and bystander intervention.
• Increase accountability my mandating minimum standards for campus disciplinary procedures
• Increase collaboration by having schools work together to develop best practices with the input of the Secretary of Education.

The SaVE Act is so important because it tries to address the college-specific ways in which sexual assault occurs and is dealt with. In an article on the issue, NPR also included some startling realities about sexual assault in college: one, that 75-90% of the time, colleges do not expel men responsible for sexual assault; two, that “the U.S. Department of Education has failed to aggressively monitor and regulate campus response to sexual assault;” and three, that because “local prosecutors are reluctant to take the cases…. they often fall to campus judicial systems to sort through clashing claims of whether the sex was consensual or forced,” (as many of these cases involve alcohol).

The college environment provides most students with more freedom than they previously had and then adds alcohol, anonymity and a focus on social interactions and events. This combination of factors contribute to the frequency of sexual assault in these settings, and often the lines of boundaries and consent are blurred. A female student may wake up and simply not be sure what happened, or if she does remember, may not be sure about how willing she was, if it was sexual assault or not. In addition to legislation, we need to encourage colleges to promote a dialogue around communication, consent, boundaries, and assault to try to prevent these crimes from being perpetuated in the first place. Additionally, the specific locations that may foster a rape culture must be examined by school administrations. For example, studies have shown that men who are in fraternities are more likely to commit a rape then those who aren’t.  The nation-wide ban on alcohol at sororities parties (but not at events thrown by fraternities) is an example of an institutionalized flaw that pushes women into spaces where men are in control, specifically in control of the alcohol.  Sometimes the connection between fraternities and sexual assault is even more obvious: “No means yes! Yes means anal!”  was chanted by Delta Kappa Epsilon pledges during their initiation at Yale,  and in a  survey distributed by Sigma Phi Epsilon at the University of Vermont asked, “Who would you like to rape?”

Of course, not every member of a fraternity will sexually assault someone, so the aim is not to make generalizations about their behavior, but rather encourage college students and administration to call attention to any activity or group on campus that may promote rape culture. To have the right resources and support after the fact, but we should also be asking ourselves how we can prevent sexual assault from happening in the first place, and SaVE Act’s amendments to the Clery Act attempt to address the problem from both of these directions.

Circle of 6 App and SAAM

As you may have noticed, we have been making a lot of references to SAAM -Sexual Assault Awareness Month. It’s happening right now, and we are using this opportunity to try and raise more awareness on the topic. You can find out more about SAAM on this site.

Our blogger Ethan also wrote an excellent article for the Huffington Post summing up the intent behind SAAM, and why it is such an important and valuable project. You can check it out here.

On a related note, I am sure you all know by know that we launched the Circle of 6 App on March 20th, an app designed to help prevent sexual violence. We have created an interesting round-up of reactions to the App here. Take a look! And if you want some more information on the App or want to download it, you can go to the Circle of 6 website.

Have a wonderful Easter weekend!

Don McPherson speaks for Sexual Assault Awareness Month

On Tuesday, NCAA football hall of famer and male feminist activist Don McPherson came to speak at my school, American University, as the kickoff event for Sexual Assault Awareness Month. The event was a resounding success, largely due in part to the fact that all members of varsity sports teams, fraternities and sororities were mandated to come to the event. Because many of these students would not usually turn out to an event featuring a male feminist speaker, the mandate allowed so many more students to hear McPherson’s message than usually would. And while not everyone probably came away as inspired as I was, my hope is that those who may have never thought critically about Masculinity may start to.

I want to elaborate upon some important and points McPherson made that I think are important to share with everyone.

The first is the notion that “We have all been raised not to talk about these things”. “These things” being problems such as alcoholism, drug abuse, divorce, domestic abuse, and sexual assault. I agree with McPherson that this is a huge problem. Without talking about and acknowledging these issues as serious problems within our society, how are supposed to solve them?

Second, while talking about the prevalence of alcohol as a date-rape drug, McPherson said, “ladies night should be illegal.” I fully agree with him. Not only do ladies’ nights at bars further reinforce perceived differences between men and women, but providing women with alcohol at a reduced or no cost, such as what happens at many parties, clubs and bars, only happens with one goal: the intoxication of women to the point where they are more vulnerable to sexual assault. However, I want to be clear that this thought in no way seeks to take away blame from the men who perpetrate the majority of sexual assaults. Rather, we need to think critically about the way in which men actively use alcohol as a tool of perpetrating sexual assault.

The focus of McPherson’s presentation was around the use of misogynist language within our society. He asked the males in the audience what the worst insult they could remember from their childhood. The overwhelming majority? “You play/throw/run like a girl”. What does it mean when from such a young age, boys are told that when they do something poorly (usually a physical activity), they are similar to a girl?

McPherson said that “Implicit in the statement is that women and girls are less than [boys and men]”. For him, the fact that you can call a guy any number of epithets involving animals and inanimate objects and it is positive, buy when you call a guy a woman and it becomes insulting is one of the backbones of misogyny. When women are denigrated so much that they become a male can “hit that” or “grab a piece of that”, women become simply objects of sexual attraction, and not people with their own needs, desires, likes, and dislikes. The problem does not start in high school or in college, but from a very young age, according to McPherson.

And the problem does not stop when we remain silent. For McPherson, “silence is saying that its ok”. But we know that it is not ok to refer to women as an object, to strip them of their humanity and reduce them to their physicality. All of us, feminists of every gender, need to stand up to our friends when they use misogynistic language, we need to stand up to strangers who engage in street harassment, and we need to stand up when our society’s pop culture glorifies men who denigrate women and shuns women who stand up for themselves.