Women Underrepresented in Management

According to a government report, the number of women in managing positions only increased a lousy one percent (from 39 to 40 percent) between 2000 and 2007. This is especially ridiculous considering that women are now the majority in colleges and universities and comprise 46.8% of the labor force.

Nanette Fondas at the Ms. Magazine blog has a fitting acronym to explain why: W.O.M.E.N.

W- "Work-family spillover"

O-"lack of Open, flexible work options"

M-"Masculine model of the 'ideal' worker"

E-"Evaluations of performance punish use of flexible work policies"

N-"No time for activism"

To learn more about the meaning behind the acronym, read Nanette's full post here.

How do we respond to face-to-face racism/sexism/heterosexism/isms?

While at divinity school, I feel like I've been living in a bubble. An amazing, inclusive, loving, accepting of all genders, races, sexual orientations, abilities, etc bubble. A bubble, however, is fragile. I graduated just last weekend and already, I've come face to face with the realities of life outside acceptance.

My uncle got married this weekend, so I spent a fair amount of time in northern Wisconsin where my extended family lives. One of the guests at his wedding had Nazi tattoos and my cousin confirmed that he was known for being anti-Semitic and racist. This man was the son of the bride's friend, did not say anything offensive to me or any of my family members, and I probably wouldn't have paid as much attention to him if his presence hadn't upset my cousin.

The entire encounter made me question my response to such situations, when we're faced with an unspoken intolerance, an intolerance that need not be brought to life but is understood and implied. How do we reject that? He didn't do anything racist while there (apart from his tattoos and presence), but does that mean we should say something? If there's no action of his and thus no action of ours, are we implicitly condoning his worldview? Also, he's connected to me by random and thin threads; does that tenuous link really make me the right person to question his intolerance?

I'm really don't have answers to any of these questions; most often in situations like this, I begin with questions and end up with even more questions. I don't know how to respond and I'm unsure of the actions I should take to dismantle racism, especially and even more so when it's confronting me face to face.

As I think about the weekend and my failure to live up to my anti-racist ideals, I feel guilty for my lack of action, even in response to his inaction. However, I also think about the ways my own family members exhibited racist and sexist behavior - my grandma calling my childhood doll a "n****r doll," my grandpa talking about "the orientals" and his ideas of how they hunt, my cousin using a slur against one of her teachers, and my grandpa not allowing me to help load the car because once he met woman who packed the trunk differently than he liked. In most of these instances, my sister or I spoke up and pushed back against their comments. When people we loved made statements we disagreed with, we wouldn't let it stand.

While some action is no excuse for inaction, I feel like confronting the people we love is a good start. If we can speak truth to the people around us, we can start to move out of our comfort zones and speak truth to strangers.

Female Impersonators Radio Hour

Female Impersonators Radio Hour
1:20pm Today!


As long as we don't have anymore technical problems, we will be featuring the music of:
Belle and Sebastian
Emily Haines
Sleater-Kinney
Gogol Bordello
...and more!

We'll also be discussing:
Sexist Halloween costumes
Sarah Palin's "feminism"
"Birth Control Free" Pharmacies
...and more!

And, Amelia's family is coming! Yay!
Listen!

Family relations in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight

Note: There are spoilers in this post. If you don't want The Dark Knight ruined for you, don't read this. But you should have seen the movie by now, it's that good. Stop reading and go to the movie theater right now.

In Christopher Nolan's Batman series (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight), family is incredibly important; the death of his parents is a driving motivation for Bruce Wayne to create Batman. However, Nolan constructs the father-son relationships as pinnacle, placing them as paramount to both Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordan.

Thomas Wayne-Bruce Wayne

In Batman Begins, there's a huge emphasis on the relationship between Thomas and Bruce Wayne. It is his father who rescues him from the cave, Thomas' business that Bruce inherits, and his father who he turns to in fear at the opera.


Martha Wayne is practically non-existent in the film; except for the scenes necessary to build up to her death (train to the opera, opera, in the alley), she's absent. I'm not even sure if they say her first name anywhere in the movie, but you can bet Thomas is mentioned by name.

Throughout the film, Bruce collapses "parents" with "father." Sure, Joe Chill killed both his parents, but the movie only establishes a relationship between Bruce and Thomas. Thomas and Bruce have conversations, while Martha's only line in the film is to scream when her husband is shot.


Indicatively, when someone wants to knowingly antagonize Bruce, they bring up his father. When Bruce confronts Carmine Falcone as a young man, Falcone intentionally demeans Thomas Wayne. Falcone says:

"Yeah, you got spirit, kid. I'll give you that. More than your old man, anyway. In the joint, Chill told me about the night he killed your parents. He said your father begged for mercy. Begged. Like a dog."

Ra's al Ghul follows a similiar pattern, using Thomas Wayne as an access point to Bruce Wayne's anger. During a training exercise, Ra's says:

Your parent's deaths were not your fault. It was your father's. (Bruce attacks Ra's) Anger does not change the fact that your father failed to act.

There's more references to Thomas thoughout the film (i.e. Rachel says Thomas would be disappointed in Bruce, or that Wayne Enterprises is going in a different direction than Thomas would have chosen, etc), but it's notable that while the death of both of Bruce's parents are used as character motivation, it is his father who recieves most of the attention in both Bruce's inner angst and external references.

Jim Gordon - James Gordon (son)

Here's another example of a father-son relationship highlighted while other familial relationships go ignored. In The Dark Knight, whenever we have a scene at Gordon's home, it involves him and his son. After Gordon comes out of hiding, his wife welcomes him home, however, he has a more moving scene with James.

The film establishes the father-son relationship as most important in a more explicit manner, though. When Harvey Dent kidnaps Gordon's family, he threatens to kill the person Gordon loves most, right in front of his eyes. As Dent moves his gun from Gordon's wife to daughter to son, Gordon yells out when Dent points the gun at James, causing Dent to assume Gordon loves his son more than his wife or daughter. Although James is eventually saved, his role at the end of the film re-establishes the prominence of father-son relationships to the Batman franchise.

What about mother-son, mother-daugther, or father-daughter relationships? Well frankly, there aren't very many to choose from.

There isn't much interaction between Martha and Bruce Wayne or Barbara and James Gordon. Until Gordon's whole family is held hostage by Harvey Dent, we don't see Gordon's daughter so there's virtually no father-daughter relationships at all. There are a few examples of mother-daughter relationships, however, they're very minimal and not generally as positive as the father-son connection.

In Batman Begins, Rachel's mother works at Wayne Manor and is present when Bruce falls in the bat cave and breaks his arm. As Thomas carries Bruce inside, she apologizes for any role her daughter may have played in the accident.

As for The Dark Knight, the only mother-daughter relationship exists between Det. Anna Ramirez and her hospitalized mother. In order to pay for hospital bills, Ramirez turns over police information to the mob. It's problematic enough to have one of the only WOC characters be corrupt, but it also casts a shadow over mother-daughter relationships in general because there's no evidence or examples of positive mother-daughter relationships.

So what does this mean? Well, it tells us that this Batman franchise is about men's relationships with other men. Not only are most of the characters in both films men, The Dark Knight is entirely about the trinity of Batman, Gordon and Harvey Dent. Rachel Dawes is an important character, but mostly because of the tensions that arise between her and Bruce and her and Dent. She is essential, but only because her death sent Dent on his crazy killing spree. The father-son relationships act to highlight this theme, underscoring the ways the films characterize masculinity. We are told/shown how to be a man, but not how to be a woman.

It'll be interesting to see how man-to-man relationships will be used in future Batman films, but also how woman-to-woman or woman-to-man relationships are missing, lacking, or purely sexualized.