Disney, Penney, and a Girl's "Real Love"

My piece on the Disney movie "Enchanted" is now up over at the Women's Media Center. Here's a little addendum to that piece, to leave with you with this weekend:

Everyone's singing the praises of Amy Adams, who plays the fluttery protagonist, Giselle. I loved her performance in Junebug (where, as Roger Ebert reminds us, she tells her snake of a husband: "God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you too much to let you stay that way.") And while Adams herself is entirely enchanting in Enchanted, truth be told, what enchanted me more was the two-minute JC Penney commercial from Saatchi & Saatchi that ran just before the film.

The Penney spot is called “Aviator.” John Lennon’s “Real Love” plays in the background as a bespectacled, determined little girl gets the ultimate revenge on the neighborhood bullies by transforming herself from local outcast to local hero by using her imagination and ingenuity. As AdWeek aptly describes it, the spot opens with her quietly drawing a picture about traveling to the North Pole on her porch when the boys of the 'hood pelt her with water balloons. She runs inside to dry her picture with a blow dryer and then begins on a construction project. Riding her Big Wheel back and forth from a neighbor who supplies her with materials, she begins to build her "secret" project. The boys are soon intrigued and serve as her bodyguards. When she is finally ready to debut her creation, the entire neighborhood has gathered for the unveiling. She's built a rocket-like "North Pole Voyager." And the boys end up saluting her. The spot ends with the on-screen tagline, "Today's the day to believe." Ok, so it’s a gosh darn Christmas ad from JC Penney. But I'm telling you, it made me teary. See for yourself, above.

Coming Attractions: Bella, Girl's Guide, and Guest Bloggers!

Just wanted to throw out there that I'll be posting an interview with Esther Perel, author of Mating in Captivity, next week sometime. Stay tuned!

And on my pile of books to muse on next is one with the longest and most kick-ass subtitle ever--Suzanne Braun Levine and Mary Thom's Bella Abzug: How One Tough Broad from the Bronx Fought Jim Crow and Joe McCarthy, Pissed Off Jimmy Carter, Battled for the Rights of Women and Workers, Rallied against War and for the Planet and Shook Up Politics Along the Way--and another by a Woodhull alum that sounds like just what I need right about now, On My Own Two Feet: A Modern Girl's Guide to Personal Finance by Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar.

And do keep an eye out for some guest posting in this space from some of the incredibly talented women taking my Making It Pop bloginar...Coming soon!

Writing Wisdom from Mindy Lewis

Those lines I posted from Rebecca Solnit the other day (from her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost) generated additional wisdom from writer friends who have been there too, in the form of emails that lifted my spirits and made me re-commit to keep on going with the proposal writing process, even though I was feeling a bit at sea.

One of my favorite responses came from a dear friend (and a gorgeous memoirist), Mindy Lewis, who teaches nonfiction writing at The Writers Voice and knows a thing or two about process. Mindy and I shared tea and sympathy (and Zabar'srugelah) yesterday, and then she emailed me this, about cultivating the art of being at home in the unknown:

"That's the spirit! So elusive, hard to get there and stay there, but always the right place to be."

YESSS.

(Look for Mindy's next oeuvre, an anthology, in 2009!)

Feminism Ain't About Superwomen

So says my gal and resident Gen Y-er Courtney. Writes C:

The ugly truth about superwomen, my generation has come to realize, is that they tend to be exhausted, self-sacrificing, unsatisfied, and sometimes even self-loathing and sick. Feminism—and the progress it envisions—was never supposed to compromise women’s health. It was supposed to lead to richer, more enlightened, authentic lives characterized by a deep sense of wellness.

Read the rest, and more, over at The New Statesman this week, where Courtney is blogging it up on behalf of feministing, which was asked to elucidate why they care deeply about a particular spiritual or intellectual philosophy. Courtney is writing her take on, as she says, what feminism ain't, what it is, and what it could be.

Here an event, There an event...

Hey, did anyone go to Woodhull dinner seminar with Leslie Morgan Steiner last night while I was out careening at Helaine Olen's book party?! BTW, that book party had the best party food ever--little tea sandwiches with cucumber and yogurt, artichoke crostini, and so forth. Party goers included Jessie Klein (who is writing a fabulous book on gender and school violence), Esther Perel (whose book Mating in Captivity just came out in paper) and my better half, Daphne Uviller (who co-edited Only Child with me). Helaine looked radiant in her little red dress, and it was fun meeting some of the women currently running Mediabistro. I may be teaching an intensive with Mediabistro soon--will blab about it here if I do.

And here's another event some of you might be interested in, here in town:

New York Women in Communications Presents:

An Evening with Wall Street Insider
Maria Bartiromo

Date: Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Location: MSN, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, 6th Floor
Time: 6:00pm-8:00pm

Maria Bartiromo, host and managing editor of "The Wall Street Journal Report with Maria Bartiromo," and anchor of CNBC's "Closing Bell" will be interviewed by Robert Dilenschneider, CEO of The Dilenschneider Group and author of the recently released "Power and Influence: The Rules Have Changed" (McGrawHill) on Tuesday, December 18th, 6:00 PM at MSN.

Bob will speak with Maria about her stellar career as a financial journalist, her skill at getting important people such as Condoleezza Rice, Alan Greenspan and President Bush to sit down and talk to her about issues facing the economy and how publicists and corporate PR people should work with the financial media.

Cost: $35 for members, $50 for nonmembers, $20 for student members.

Seating is limited, register here.

Presidentials on Sex

Alison Bower of Womens eNews has the low down on where the presidential hopefuls stand on the issue of sex education. She reminds us that the U.S. has spent about $1 billion on abstinence-only education in the last decade and the White House seeks $28 million more. Infuriating doesn't begin to describe it. Read more, here.

Princesses v. Irregulars

So I'll be posting in this space as an official part of the Daring Book for Girls blogtour on Sunday, but I've been thinking a lot, as I read the book and saw Enchanted this weekend and subsequently checked out Disney's new site for the movie, about the digital playground available to girls. For an astounding contrast, check this out:

Kikistrike and the Irregulars v. Princess Nation.

The Kiki Strike site is based on a book series created by Kirsten Miller. In the series (according to the LJ review), Ananka Fishbein, a seventh grader at an expensive New York City school, wakes up one Saturday morning and finds that the small park across the street has become a sinkhole, and her decision to explore it transforms her existence. She meets the mysterious Kiki Strike, and subsequently the group of girls (each with a particular talent) who call themselves the Irregulars, and they embark on an adventure that involves exploring the Shadow City, a series of tunnels under Manhattan. The series is filled with international politics and intrigue, and chapter endings are punctuated with selections from Ananka's guidebook on essential skills. Says LJ, "Kiki Strike celebrates the courage and daring of seemingly ordinary girls, and it will thrill those who long for adventure and excitement while they impatiently await the next installment."

And then there's Princess Nation, sponsored by wedding dress designer site Vera Wang. And a sponsor, in turn, of Disney's Enchanted. I'll leave it to you to explore, but I'm sure you can guess what the site's goal is. Sigh.

(Thanks to Marco for the heads up on Kiki.)

Slash Careers Conversation on The Today Show

Drat--I missed it! But if you did too, you can still catch my fave career journalist/guru Marci Alboher on The Today Show. To see the clip, click here. And for those of you who aren't sure what a slash career is, a slash implies multiple professions in a single career.

(Addendum 11/28: Check out what Marci learned from the appearance--and about publicity in general--on her Shifting Careers blog at the NYTimes, here.)

Unbalanced and Exploding

This just in from my friends at Woodhull:

On Wednesday, Nov. 28 here in NYC, Leslie Morgan Steiner, editor of the best selling anthology "Mommy Wars" and the writer of the WashingtonPost.com column "On Balance" opens up about her struggles to manage life as mother with ambitious career goals. At this seminar, she will discuss how she navigates through the hectic world of "having it all" and what she's learned from talking with all types of mothers about how they made their choices to stay at home or go to work.

Completely Unbalanced: Exploding Work/Life Myths
When: Wednesday, November 28, 2007; 6:30 PM -8:30 PM
Where: The Woodhull Office, 32 Broadway, Suite 1801, New York, NY 10004
Cost: $10

For more information about this event, click here. To reserve your spot, contact rsvp@woodhull.org

Truth in Women's Studies

Cheers to Elizabeth Curtis on her retort to recent (yet to my mind, and Elizabeth's, tired) attacks on the discipline of Women's Studies. You tell 'em, E :)

I Heart This Icon

Nice, huh! Courtesy of a Women Political Bloggers , a site that answers the question, "Where Are the Women Political Bloggers?" by posting a list of 250 of 'em. Ha.

Introducing: Dame Magazine

It's new, it's smart, it's Dame! And my gal Courtney has a column in it. That girl just makes me kvell. Check out Courtney's profile of Ladies Who Launch, and keep an eye out for the paper version of the mag soon. The mag's tagline? "For Women Who Know Better." Nice.

The A-Word at the Movies

While waiting for the feature movie, Enchanted, with my family this week in Yonkers (long story, will tell another time), I watched trailer for the movie Juno--another film that centers around an unplanned pregnancy. And it got me thinking....

The latest figures from the Guttmacher Institute find that in America, about one in five pregnancies end in abortion. Yet, as Carrie Rickey, film critic for the Philadelphia Inquirer, just noted, in recent American movies, every unplanned pregnancy is carried to term. What gives? Writes Rickey, turning to my number 1 favorite sociologist for a quote,

From Knocked Up to Waitress to Juno, opening Dec. 14, abortion is The Great Unmentionable, euphemized as "shmashmortion" (Knocked Up), "we don't perform, uh, -" (Waitress), and "nipped it in the bud" (Juno), comedies in which pregnancy is the situation. Abortion is likewise obliquely referenced, if actually considered, in the drama Bella, now in theaters. "It's as if there's an 'every conception deserves delivery' policy being observed," says Virginia Rutter, senior scholar at the Council on Contemporary Families, a Chicago-based organization of academics and public health professionals.

You said it, Rutter. And then, this nice bit from my favorite historian, Stephanie Coontz:

Perhaps when abortion is illegal, it makes a better story for filmmakers, says Stephanie Coontz, a family historian and author of Marriage, a History, in describing the motivating conflict behind Cider House, Vera Drake, and Four Months. "When you don't have powerful stories about women whose lives have been derailed by unplanned pregnancy," Coontz says, "there will be a tendency to sweep the subject of abortion under the rug." Historically, she notes, abortions were common among respectable married women in the 19th century and were easier to obtain in the 1930s than in the 1950s.

How much do I love it when such smartie pants scholars are actually quoted in the press?! I'm looking forward to seeing both Stephanie and Virginia at the May 2008 Council on Contemporary Families conference in Chicago...but I don't think I'll be running to Juno anytime soon.

The Writing Life: Being at Home with Being Lost...

So as I gear back up for the week, a confession: I'm in proposal writing stage--the stage I find most unsettling, as a writer. I hate this stage. It makes me want to do anything else but write, though I know that write is often exactly what I need to do.

Since I know lots of other folks who are in this phase right now too, thought I'd share some wisdom from a writer who is new to me, Rebecca Solnit. A few tidbits from her book A Field Guide to Getting Lost:

"'How will you go about finding that thing the nature of which is totally unknown to you?'...The question...struck me as the basic tactical question in life. The things we want are transformative, and we don't know or only think we know what is on the other side of that transformation."

"[There's an art] of being at home in the unknown, so that being in its midst isn't cause for panic or suffering, of being at home with being lost."

"Certainly for artists of all stripes, the unknown, the idea or the form or the tale that has not yet arrived, is what must be found."

Um, here's to being at home with being lost?! Anyone else got good some good quotes to share?!

Post-Thanksgiving Gratitude Post

I hope ya'll had a fabulous feast!

Five things I'm feeling grateful for right about now:

1. My family and friends, who have embraced Marco and me with incredible warmth and love
2. Stuffing
3. Health
4. Central Park
5. That book you unwittingly come upon that gives you just what you need...!

Tips on Writing for Trade--The 7 Questions

So it's the part of my Making It Pop seminar where participants are starting to really work on their book proposals. Thought I'd post the questions here that I urge folks to answer BEFORE sitting down to write, for those of you working on your props right now, too. Here we go:

1. In one sentence, what is this book about? (If you're an academic or wonkily-inclined writer, be careful to phrase this in a way that will appeal to nonacademic readers)
2. What is your argument? (What is your thesis?) If you don’t yet have an argument, for now, answer this instead: What is the main question driving your book?
3. What’s new about this book? How is it different from existing books?
4. Why are you the person to write it?
5. Why is now the time to publish it?
6. Who is going to read it? Why will they find it appealing?
7. How will your book be organized? What is its structure?

Very likely however, you, like me, are thinking about turkey and stuffing right about now, and, in case I don't get back here much over the next few days, I wish you all a very Happy Thanksgiving!!!

(Image cred.)

Hillary as Feminist John Wayne?

I'm a little late to the table on this one, but interesting post by Susan Faludi over at Women's Voices group blog, on Hillary and the gender card. Says Faludi, tying it all back to her recent book:

Keep in mind: The gender card is always played. It’s even played in presidential campaigns where all the candidates are men....Given the political culture — and for reasons embedded in our history — that card usually involves a morality play in which men are the rescuers and women the victims in need of rescuing....Hillary Clinton’s rescue of women departs from the previous male version. In the old model, helpless women were saved from perilous danger by men. In the new, women are granted authority and agency to rescue themselves. Understanding the distinction is essential to an evaluation of current American politics.

Following the thread of Faludi's new book, then, does that make Hillary, um, the girlfriend's own inner John Wayne?

(Photo cred: The Plate Lady)

Looking Back, Ahead, and Within

Just saw this article in Women's eNews about that National Women's Conference 30th anniversary conference at Hunter that I attended part of the other week. Again, while intentions were good, I found the whole thing kind of depressing, as this account kind of details:

Held at a high point of the women's movement in the United States, Houston '77 marked the only time the federal government ever sponsored a gathering of women for equality. With $5 million in funding from Congress organizers drew more than 20,000, including three first ladies--Rosalynn Carter, Betty Ford and Lady Bird Johnson.

This time only a few politicians made the event.

Presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Clinton sent her regrets from her campaign in Iowa.

Media coverage was thin, with most of the coverage going to comedian, television and film star Rosie O'Donnell. And the attention wasn't on what she had to say on the subject of women. It was more about her losing the deal to host a talk show on MSNBC.

Houston '77 served as a beacon that lit up the organized women's movement of its time, and Freedom on Our Terms was designed to rekindle those sparks and galvanize activists across the generations.

"There has to be a re-energizing, a re-igniting between younger women, older women and women in between," conference leader Liz Abzug said as the two-day event wound up. "I want you to spread the word: Feminism is alive and well and moving into the 21st century."

Yeah, well, you already know how I feel about that. (Are you seeing the young women in this picture? Cuz I'm not. Though they were definitely in the audience. Hmmm.)

On the up side, participants agreed to develop a 10-point "feminist action plan" to present to the presidential candidates, who will be asked to commit to implementing it during their first 100 days in office. According to Women's eNews:

Among the issues that could make the top 10 list: elimination of abstinence-only sex education; paid leave for family care; improved child care; ratification of the international Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; national single-payer health care; reform of the Federal Communications Commission to reverse media consolidation; changes in the tax code to put a value on labor spent for homemaking; and renewal of the fight to pass the Equal Rights Amendment, reintroduced into Congress this year.

All of it sounds pretty good to me, but do young folk know/care about the ERA? Would its passage at this point be a largely symbolic gesture, or would it actually change the quality of young women's lives? I wonder.

Choosing Our Prez: The Beer and Babysitter Tests

So PunditMom asks a great question over at HuffPo today: Does Lifetime's Every Woman Counts poll--which is geared toward increasing the participation of women in the political process by encouraging more women to vote and to increase the national spotlight on issues that are important to women--take women seriously? The poll's questions include:

1. Which candidate would you rather receive a gift from?
2. Which candidate would you be most comfortable leaving your children with?
3. Which candidate would you most like to have dinner with over the holiday season?

PunditMom writes,

What do questions like this add to the "political dialogue" other than making politicians think that we care more about popularity contests than health care or the environment?...If we really want to count and be counted, let's not provide any more ammunition for the politicians to think that we're not serious voters.

And I'm with her. But I also wonder this: Since the pollsters are constantly asking men which candidate they'd rather have a beer with, aren't questions 2 and 3 above really just the equal opportunity equivalent for women? To be sure, I've always thought the beer question was a stupid way to choose a President. I'm not sure the babysitter test is any better.

Research on Hook Ups, Shack Ups, and Marriage

Do more "hook ups" mean less marriage? Well, the December 2007 issue of the Journal of Marriage and Family kind of points that way, but I wouldn't base everything on one study. Still, according to the authors of an article titled "Of Sex and Romance: Late Adolescent Relationships and Young Adult Union Formation," adolescents involved in romantic relationships at the end of high school are more likely to marry and to cohabit in early adulthood, while those involved in "nonromantic sexual relationships" tend to just shack up. But wait--aren't we getting married later and later these days? And so I ask the sociologists out there: a study that ends in early adulthood isn't going to tell us much about the longterm prospects for marriage, oui?

(Image cred)