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A friend of mine just directed my attention to the cover of the most recent J. Crew catalog. Is it just me, or does that flower look like something out of a production of Little Shop of Horrors, as designed by a gang of feminist psychoanalysts? (NSFW, if you happen to work in a literature or art history department.)

"What gives us our summer glow," indeed.

Tags: J. Crew, vaginas

Accepting Obama's nomination to replace Justice Souter on the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor said:

I hope that as the Senate and American people learn more about me, they will see that I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences.

Set aside the choice to describe her childhood—growing up with diabetes in a poor, single-family household—as having been "blessed with extraordinary opportunities." What troubles me is the plea from a woman just nominated to fill one of the most powerful, demanding, intellectually challenging positions in the nation to be viewed as "ordinary."

I thought we'd get a break at least until the next election from the attempts of public figures trying their damnedest to seem like plain old Joe-the-Plumbers and hockey moms. (That dance is especially frustrating to watch when performed by people we respect for their extreme intelligence who are, in fact, vying for positions that demand superior brainpower.) Supreme Court justices have the luxury of being appointed rather than elected, which means they should be free from this silly charade-free to let their brilliance shine. And still, Sotomayor asks to be seen as ordinary.

Is this just another example of a woman downplaying her achievements lest she seem too aggressive or egotistical or bitchy or whatever other negative words get thrown at powerful women? Is such self-deprecation harmful to the rest of us, do you think? Sotomayor is already quite the model of success for women, Latinas, and anyone growing up with economic hardship or health problems (she has had diabetes since she was 8). But does calling herself ordinary set a bad example?

Tags: obama's nomination of sotomayor, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court

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Emily, Hanna: To me, Sotomayor's speech is most interesting for its embrace of a way of thinking about identity politics that seems almost mystical in nature: She stresses the experiential over the rational. In beginning the speech with descriptions of the Puerto Rican food she loves, she emphasizes the ways in which we're the products of hundreds of years of culture and genetics; she lavishes attention on a particular "Puerto Rican" way of loving and living to suggest how old and deep our identities are. This is identity politics, yes, but it's bound up with a sensual, visceral sense of the texture of life that I don't usually hear in the language of judges. Beginning the speech that way complicates our idea of judicial thinking as rational and unemotional. Indeed, you might even say Sotomayor does away with the dichotomy of reason vs. emotion; she implies reason is bound up, albeit in some small way, with emotion, or at least with intuition. The current of her argument reflects this complexity; she doesn't mainly argue that women are "different" in how they view the law, she just points out that studies show gender does lead to different outcomes in certain types of cases (about domestic abuse, say). But she takes pains to note that such differences are subtle. The line you single out, Hanna, is indeed cringe-inducing. But as you note, what's on the page is more complex than the sound bytes.

Photograph of Sonia Sotomayor and niece Kylie Sotomayor by White House/Getty Images.

Tags: Sonia Sotomayor; Supreme Court; judges

Emily, you pull out the critical quote from Sotomayor's speech: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life."

This quote does not go down easy. As Stuart Taylor pointed out last week, what if Samuel Alito had said: "I would hope that a white male with the richness of his traditional American values would reach a better conclusion than a Latina woman who hasn't lived that life." We would chuck him over to some Idaho compound, no?

Yes, it's true, Sotomayor is unabashedly embracing affirmative action, in a way you don't even hear much on campuses anymore. In that 2002 speech Sotomayor begins by counting up women and minorities, court by court, and then concluding, "sort of shocking, isn't it?" This is not even the subtle kind of affirmative action that UC-Berkeley (where she was speaking) now practices, but the old-school, bean counting kind.

But beyond that, Taylor was being unfair. Sotomayor was not talking about all cases. She was talking specifically about race and sex discrimination cases. In fact, the presence of female judges does seem to make a difference—not on all cases but on sex discrimination cases. Is this bias? Is it some defiance of logic? It seems perfectly natural to me. It does not apply in all cases, obviously (Clarence Thomas). And Sotomayor was a prosecutor in her past life, not a public defender.

Obama's phrase of today—"common touch"—seems all wrong, too, a little quaint and patronizing. But "empathy" and "curiosity"—two of his other words—seem about right. "Empathy" does not mean you lose your mind in a flood of hormone and tears. "Empathy" is not only available to women and minorities. It just means that sometimes you see things other people might miss, if only because you know what they look like.

Tags: identity politics, Sonia Sotomayor, Supreme Court, women judges

Can this marriage be saved? Yes, it can—through letters. Check out yesterday’s Op Ed in the Times by a military wife facing marital strains, who turned to an old-fashioned remedy. The life of military spouses certainly is anomalous (I also recommend Double X’s own "Threeway," a conversation among three military wives who have written books), but I wonder if there’s something for all of us in Melissa Seligman’s surprising account of “learning to communicate despite technology.”

As a new wife struggling to build a new family with her husband sent off on serial deployments, she found herself dreading the real-time connectivity that can make Afghanistan seem not so far away. When the instant message buzzed, summoning her to the webcam to commune, she had to be on, however she was really feeling. Her toddler, moments earlier clamoring for daddy, would clam up at the sight of his face. Lousy reception, sudden loss of reception ... Marital bonds grew as tenuous as satellite signals.

Synchronicity, instant connectivity, the illusion of non-separation: These days, technology offers a triumph over distance and time, a promise of readier intimacy. Yet those powers can also spell, as it seems to me we do well to be reminded, the opposite: How easy it is to feel trapped by the pressure to be constantly, immediately reactive; chasms can open within and between us; time tyrannizes. "And then we found salvation in letters." Seligman discovered liberation in the chance to be expressive, on her own terms. She began writing her husband letters. Her predicament isn’t anything like most of ours, but as we text, and blog, and tweet, is there a lesson in it?

Tags: communication, Military Wives, technology

Here in XX-ville, we've long been fascinated by American Girl, the upscale doll company—excuse me, "premiere lifestyle brand"—that sells morals and history lessons alongside its hundred-dollar dolls (and their similarly expensive pinafores, trestle tables, chifferobes, and other painstakingly detailed accouterments). The New York Times ran an article this weekend about Rebecca Rubin, the newest American Girl, which (who?) goes on sale this Sunday. The piece describes the years of work and research that went into creating Rebecca—not just so that she'd be historically accurate, but also so that she'd be culturally sensitive. For example: Since "Jewish" is a religious category and not a racial one, what should a Jewish doll look like? (In as much as she'll look any different from the other Historical Characters, with their uniformly cabbage-like heads, button noses, and slight overbites.) What time period should she be from? (Which carries with it the awkward, unspoken question: At what point in America's history did Jews "matter most"?) And just how observant should Rebecca be?

I've always felt a little conflicted about the "ethnic" American Girls. On one hand, awesome! Ethnic dolls! But while every AG historical doll is a kind of cipher or avatar for a huge swath of something—you read about and play with Kirsten to learn something about "pioneer days"; Kit teaches you about "the Depression"—there's something that feels a little more essentialist about the ethnic ones. Maybe it's just because you know that they're probably going to be one-offs—now that we have Kaya, a Nez Perce girl, do we need a Sioux, too?—so each one has to stand for everyone who looks like her. (Isn't that always the trouble facing the model minority?)

It's clear from the article, though, that Rebecca has pre-emptively passed muster with most critics and watchdog groups. Contrast that with Disney's first African-American "princess" film, The Princess and the Frog, which doesn't open until December but has been getting slammed for months whenever new information leaks. (Dayo and I discussed the issue of not-black-enough prince Naveen in March.) The raw, passionate conversations that erupt on Jezebel whenever an editor posts on Princess are truly something to behold—you could write a whole American Studies dissertation on them.

So what does American Girl know about placating an audience that Disney doesn't? Is it simply because Disney is more of a behemoth, already saddled with a reputation for cultural insiduousness, that it's just a walking target? Are the issues involved in creating a Jewish character and an African-American one so different? And would we even be talking about them if Disney's Tiana and American Girl's Rebecca were toys for boys?

Tags: American Girl, Disney, first black disney princess, jewish american girl doll, Rebecca Rubin, the princess and the frog

It's rare for a prominent public official to confront identity politics head on, as Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor did in this 2002 speech at the University of California, Berkeley. She says, "Who am I? I am a "Newyorkrican." For those of you on the West Coast who do not know what that term means: I am a born and bred New Yorker of Puerto Rican-born parents who came to the states during World War II." She talks about what that means in terms of her upbringing—eating "mucho platos de arroz, gandoles y pernir—rice, beans and pork," singing merengue, watching Spanish comedy films, playing with her cousins at her grandmother's house. She mentions that she speaks Spanish while carefully noting that her brother does not, and that this is not a necessary ingredient of Latino identity.

Then Sotomayor grapples with how being a Latina makes a difference in her judging. It's a nuanced take—much more nuanced than the one-liner that's already at the center of attacks on her from the right: "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." What did Sotomayor mean when she said that? She set up the remark by noting the relatively low percentage of women on the federal bench a the time (22 percent) and of Latinos (far lower). She discussed the views of another judge, Miriam Cedarbaum, who cautioned against presuming a gender effect in judging, and who, Sotomayor says, "believes that judges must transcend their personal sympathies and prejudices and aspire to achieve a greater degree of fairness and integrity based on the reason of law."

This of course is the standard view of the fair and wise judge, who hands down rulings from on high. Sotomayor doesn't abandon it, but she's not afraid to complicate it. "Although I agree with and attempt to work toward Judge Cedarbaum's aspiration, I wonder whether achieving that goal is possible in all or even in most cases. And I wonder whether by ignoring our differences as women or men of color we do a disservice both to the law and society." Sotomayor's point isn't that women or Latinos speak with one voice as judges. She goes on at length about how they don't. But she also quotes Harvard law professor Martha Minow, who says that "there is no objective stance but only a series of perspectives—no neutrality, no escape from choice in judging." And Yale law professor Judith Resnik, who says "to judge is an exercise of power." And then Sotomayor cites studies showing that women on the bench have more often "upheld women's claims in sex discrimination cases and criminal defendants' claims in search and seizure cases." She points out that "wise men" like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Benjamin Cardozo voted to keep sex and race discrimination entrenched.

But Sotomayor tacks back, recognizing that on many occasions "nine white men on the Supreme Court" have proved themselves capable "of understanding the values and needs of people from a different group." Her example here is Brown v. Board of Education, decided in 1954, the year she was born. And then she says,

However, to understand takes time and effort, something that not all people are willing to give. For others, their experiences limit their ability to understand the experiences of others. Others simply do not care. Hence, one must accept the proposition that a difference there will be by the presence of women and people of color on the bench. Personal experiences affect that facts that judges choose to see.

 

This is a realist view of judging, filtered through Sotomayor's particular experience. I take from it her sense that in some cases she sees herself as more sympathetic to women and minorities that come before her than most white male judges would be. Not reflexively, not in all cases, and she's not letting the men off the hook of understanding, either. She's talking about tendencies and predelictions, not hard and fast rules of behavior. What she doesn't do is stick to the old line that wise men and wise women on the bench will necessarily reach the same conclusion. That's a saying associated with Justice Sandra Day O'Connor. It's safer and unthreatening than the complexities Sotomayor introduces here. But Sotomayor's stance lets more light into the process of judging. It's also not far from the pitch Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg made last month for why the Supreme Court needs another woman. Ginsburg said:

You know the line that Sandra [Day O'Connor] and I keep repeating … that 'at the end of the day, a wise old man and a wise old woman reach the same judgment'? But there are perceptions that we have because we are women. It's a subtle influence. We can be sensitive to things that are said in draft opinions that (male justices) are not aware can be offensive."

 

The differences between male and female justices, she said, are "seldom in the outcome." But then, she added, "it is sometimes in the outcome."

So Sotomayor has company. From another woman who's been where she's going.

Tags: identity politics, Sonia Sotomayor, women judges

Meghan wasn't the only person who missed Sarah Connor. Terminator Salvation lost the weekend's box office war to another sequel, Night at The Museum. There's surely some "in this economy" fauxrgument to be made explaining this outcome (ITE people want family friendly fare, not dark tales about the world's end), but I think Terminator's problem is more basic, a structural flaw, a storytelling 101 screw-up.

Apocalypse narratives—movies, books, TV about the end of the world—can be divided into two groups: stopping the apocalypse narratives and surviving the apocalypse narratives. In the former, the end of the world is nigh, thanks to nukes, aliens, meteors, robots, a deadly virus, an odious supernatural being, or even angry trees. The worst is on the verge of happening and the whole story centers on the heroes pulling us all back from that brink (Think Lord of The Rings, Harry Potter, Independence Day, Armageddon, Outbreak etc.) In the latter, the apocalypse is a foregone conclusion. The word's been decimated and some small group of survivors rattles around in the wasteland, forgotten or hunted, scrounging for food or banding together to fight an evil overlord. (Think Mad Max, The Road, Oryx and Crake, The Matrix, Battlefield Earth).

Generally speaking, fictions aren't both of these narratives at once—and for obvious reasons. If our heroes stop the apocalypse, there isn't one to survive. If there's an apocalypse to survive, our heroes failed to stop it, which makes them a little less than heroic. But that's exactly what has happened in Terminator Salvation. After watching John and Sarah hustle, plot, and risk death, their mental health and society's approval to stop the machines, the fourth movie unceremoniously supposes that, despite all this effort, they have failed: the apocalypse is here. It's as if Frodo lost the ring to Sauron in The Twin Towers or Voldermort killed Harry in The Goblet of Fire and we were all expected to be interested in the next installments, even though they now have a completely different set of stakes. Of course, all the time travel in the Terminator universe means the future, and the rise of the machines, is always subject to change. Next time, they should consider putting off the apocalypse for a few more years.

Tags: Apocalypse, Terminator Salvation

The eterally awesomely grouchy Copyranter points to a provocative ad campaign from the Rhode Island Coalition Against Domestic Violence. The pair of arresting images features a "woman" as a) a punching bag and b) a slab of meathook-hung carrion. The accompanying copy reads: "IT'S NOT ACCEPTABLE TO TREAT A WOMAN LIKE ONE." Copyranter wonders: "Like what? A woman?"

The ads are akin to PETA's shock-happy petsploitation ads that seem more targeted toward freaking out their viewers than conveying their message. This time around, does positing women as dead meat and punching bags reinforce or counteract the message? Hard to say.

Perhaps this anti-domestic violence campaign learned something from Larry Flynt's infamous Hustler cover featuring a woman being fed into a meat grinder. Not everybody liked it, but who could forget it?

Tags: ads, advertising, domestic violence

"Do Social Networks Bring the End of Privacy?" Scientific American asked in September. The answer provided was pretty much "yes." Over at the New York Times, my friend Tim Lee explains why this question—and the division it implies, of a privacy-rich pre-social networking past, and a voyeuristic dystopic present—is hopelessly muddled. "People are used to dividing the world into broadcast media (television, newspapers) and point-to-point communication (the telephone, face-to-face communication)," he explains. Concerned onlookers tend to put social networking sites in the first category, as if everyone were sharing their status updates via a major television network rather than with a vetted group of confidants. Newspapers and television do not allow you the luxury of selecting your audience, individual by individual; Facebook does.

In Tim's telling, social networking sites represent the advancement of Internet-related privacy rather than its demise. The early Internet was a less nuanced, glaringly public forum where sharing information did largely mean sharing it with anyone who cared to look. I wouldn't have known what it meant, back when I was tooling around Prodigy in 1995, to "untag a photo" or defriend an oversharing acquaintance. We're constantly told that we lack social conventions for a digital age. It's easy to forget how rapidly technology has adapted to pre-existing social conventions, providing users with more and more tools to reproduce the sense of control they have in a traditional conversation.

Tags: privacy, scientific american, social networking