What white feminists don't get about HIllary and never will....

For facks sakes, you seriously think that Hillary Clinton winning this presidential nomination would have changed ANYTHING? You really do?

Well, I got news for you all - MANY MANY countries, ya you know - those 'lesser coloured countries' of the world? The ones where supposedly women's oppression is SOOOO bad that they can't even piss without everyone making a comment about it? Yeah, those countries have all had political leaders - presidents and prime ministers who were WOMEN! I'm talking about places like India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan. For a more detailed list - you can look here.

And then of course there was the neoliberal dream queen, Margaret Thatcher in the 'developed world'...

Guess what most of these women leaders did? Nadda...

Guess how many years Hillary spent on the board of WALMART, well, i dunno either - but still WALMART? Yeah the same walmart that's like against women.

The point is this, Obama is just another hawk too - but you know what so's Hillary. Forget about it.

The ONLY way women are going to make things happen politically is NOT by being the "LEADER". What does it mean to be a leader anyways? How does one become a leader? You gotta play a pretty vicious game to be one, you gotta step on a lot of people's toes to get there, that's not really feminist is it?

The only way this is going to happen is like Dee Dee Myer's (crappy title btw, and no I haven't read it - and probably will not read a liberal feminist book either) says - you need a critical MASS of women in positions of power, in positions of political power. Having a damn figurehead token like Obama or Hillary - aint gonna change shit. It never has - if there is one thing that 'those other lesser countries' can show you - it's that.

But, what happens when you say 35-40% of women get involved in the political process? what happens then? At your abysmal rate of less than 15% and Canada's rate of 21% of women in power - you thing change is going to happen?

I thought feminism was about 'women' not 'a woman'.

PS - I'm not denying that sexism played a huge part in her loss, check out this great youtube clip.

-AD

Must Read: A Question of APIA Feminism: Domestic Abuse/Intimate Partner Violence

I don't have much to argue with in Jenn's post, A Question of APIA Feminism: Domestic Abuse/Intimate Partner Violence, because I've read the same studies. But I would add that from the studies I've read, the main solution to decreasing the high incidence of intimate partner violence in the APIA community is awareness, or something I talk about frequently, visible APIA feminisms. Meaning the high incidence is due to 1) women not getting the help they need and 2) the lack of discussion about intimate partner violence in the APIA community, and, 1) and 2) go hand in hand. The lack of awareness added to 3) the insensitivity of domestic violence shelters towards Asian languages and cultures and 4) immigrants' ignorance about the U.S. legal system create a crisis.

Here are the (many) highlights of Jenn's post:

Existing studies of domestic abuse have historically neglected to collect racial or ethnic data on victims of domestic violence. In those studies that do collect racial or ethnic data, studies that have focused on Asian American women have varied widely in the reported frequency of domestic violence (summarized in this factsheet from the Asian and Pacific Islander Institute on Domestic Abuse), suggesting that Asian American women might underreport domestic abuse or be less educated on recognizing the warning signs. Regardless, even these rough estimates are alarming: anywhere between 20-80% of APIA women report experiencing some form of domestic abuse or violence. At least one study (conducted by the U.S. Department of Justice) estimates that roughly 52% of Asian American women are victims of rape and/or physical assault (Exhibit 4), but notes that this only represents the incidence of reporting.

Within the Asian American community, studies suggest that reporting of domestic abuse varies along ethnic lines, as well as according to age and generational status. 61% of immigrant Japanese women, for example, reported some form of intimate partner violence, while a different study found 20% of Filipina women reported experiencing some form of domestic violence. A third study reported that 8% of Chinese women experienced “severe physical violence”, but that percentage doubled with “more acculturated” women (although this may represent a higher likelihood of reporting).

One of the most comprehensive studies conducted on domestic violence within the Asian American community was authored by the Asian/Pacific Islander Domestic Violence Resource Project. Project AWARE (Asian Women Advocating Respect and Empowerment) surveyed nearly 200 Asian women in the D.C. area. That study noted that roughly two-thirds of surveyed women at least “occasionally” experienced some form of controlling behaviour or psychological abuse from their intimate partners in the year prior to the study; Project AWARE displays the forms of abuse that were surveyed in the full report.

Several studies (e.g. Understanding Violence Against Women by Cromwell and Burgess) have suggested that the problem of domestic abuse or intimate partner violence within the Asian American community may stem from unique cultural influences that affect a woman’s likelihood to recognize or report abuse by her partner.

Primarily, traditional Confucian principles of familial hierarchy have been traditionally used to define gender roles wherein husbands are superior to wives and sons superior to daughters; this hierarchy is reinforced by a social expectation of obedience and piety, and results in both men and women being socialized into accepting a superior/inferior relationship between intimate partners that can leave women susceptible to intimate partner violence. Indeed, an abusive relationship may be so normalized for a woman that APIA women by not recognize abuse as it occurs. Moreoever, our tacit acceptance of hierarchal intimate partner relationships may unintentionally reward patterns of domestic violence; in “Unheard Voices”, a study on APIA domestic violence, one survey participant said:

“I think its our cultures that allow it to happen. We do not hold somebody accountable for that kind of violence…you see that the batterer gets invited to parties, it’s the woman who gets isolated…”

Secondly, several Asian cultures have emphasized the importance of familial or social harmony, as well as to preserve social “face” over personal interests. Dasgupta and Warrier (1996) reported that within the South Asian community, the predominant motivation for wives were a belief in the rold of a “good wife”, described as including “sacrifice of personal freedom and autonomy… they felt responsible for the reputation of their families in India, were eager not to compromise their families’ honor with a divorce, and operated under the added pressure of preserving traditions and presenting an “unblemished” image of the community to the U.S. mainstream.”

The invisibility of Asian American women in the struggle to end intimate partner violence rests also in the Model Minority Myth, which has long discouraged mainstream America from imagining that the Asian American community might suffer from concerns such as mental disease or domestic violence. This reluctance to perceive the APIA community as flawed not only jeopardizes the idealistic image of the American immigrant, but may also be perpetuated within the community by APIA men and women who are unwilling to “air out our dirty laundry” in the eyes of mainstream America. As Dasgupta and Warrier reported in their 1996 study, men and women of Asian communities may feel a pressure to maintain “face” for their cultural traditions, heritages, or race in America, and as such may perceive a woman reporting intimate partner violence or domestic abuse as an affront upon that image.

The question foremost on my mind is why the Asian American community at-large isn’t angry about domestic abuse/intimate partner violence within our community? APIA feminists must maintain the focus of the debate on the unheard victims of domestic abuse and intimate partner violence. The unique sexism that APIA feminists must combat is the reluctance, both within and outside the APIA community, to address or even understand the concerns of Asian American female victims of physical and psychological assault. The implicit message being sent by our apathy is that abuse against APIA women is acceptable, so long as it is unheard or willfully misunderstood.

Read the whole thing.

**Cross-posted at my place.**

Link Love: Asian American Feminism

I'm deeply stunned and saddened at the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, one of my Asian feminist heroes, and am rendered speechless. Except to say it's George Bush's and his various puppet governments' fault.

Filipina poet Barbara Jane Reyes muses on a theme I've written about lately. That APIA women are their own worst enemy.

Reappropriate: Helen Zia: Be The Change. Zia, a Baby Boomer, was affected by Asian/Confucian sexism (father), I'm a Gen Xer affected by Asian/Confucian sexism (mother), the commenter who I'm assuming is a Gen Yer was affected by both Asian/Confucian and Western sexism (father) and Jenn is a Gen Yer affected by Asian/Confucian sexism (father) and so Zia was right when she said at last year's NAPAWF conference APIAs should get rid of their Confucian thinking.

Asian American Action Fund: Why APAs Should Vote Clinton. AAA does not endorse any candidate but it was interesting to see Clinton is the first choice in California and first choice among the elderly, poor/middle class (<$40,000), APIAs, Latinos and women in California.

Reappropriate: Podcast on Asian American feminism

Reappropriate: A Question of APIA Feminism: Introduction. Jenn is starting a series on Asian American feminism. Huzzah!

Happy New Year.

**Cross-posted at my place.**

Happy Winter Solstice

**Cross-posted at my place.**

It was fun blogging here.

Early on, Pizzadiavola expressed interest in intersectionality and Asian Americans. If you're a woman of color interested in intersectionality and communities of color, I just tagged 40 posts about this on my blog under intersectionality. Most feminists know about intersectionality in feminism, i.e., racism and classism in feminism, but few know about sexism in communities of color. My blog is probably one of the only places on the 'net to find commentary on this right now. I'm also proud of my women of color, violence against women, feminism and sexism tags so I hope people will check out my blog.

Happy Winter Solstice and Holidays!

Be good.

Good news and bad news

**Cross-posted at my place.**

Last week, the U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously, 7-0, to retroactively lighten sentences for crimes related to crack cocaine. 19,500 prisoners could be free within months. There has been a stark disparity between sentencing for crack and powder cocaine for two decades. 85% of federal inmates for crimes related to crack cocaine are black.

The Jena Six case just took an evil turn. Carmen of All About Race received an email that said D.A. Reed will make Mychal Bell prosecution star witness. He will testify against the five others, four of whom will be tried as adults, and this could mean jail time for the other five.

Think what you will of LaSalle Parish District Attorney Reed Walters, he has done a masterful job of pitting Jena 6 defendants against one another and the result will probably mean jail time for each Black teenager.

Of the six Black teens accused of beating Justin Barker, a White schoolmate last year in Jena, La., only Mychal Bell is known to have had a criminal record, which included two battery incidents and two charges of criminal damage to property. By first focusing on Bell, the D.A. has been able to portray Jena 6 as hardened criminals and, equally important, force Bell into a compromising position. Recently, Bell struck a deal with the D.A. that includes testifying against his five co-defendants, if needed. Op-Ed: A Split Among The Jena 6, George Curry - BlackPressUSA -Reclaim our Civil Rights

The fact Reed hasn't been Nifonged yet is astounding.

Prostitution: Where Raciscm and Sexism Intersect

Prostitution: Where Raciscm and Sexism Intersect
Prostitution: Where Racism and Sexism Intersect*
by Vednita Nelson
Michigan Journal of Gender & Law, 1993, Volume 1: 81-89.

Eleven Black women were strangled. Eleven Black women were sexually mutilated. The bodies of eleven Black women were dumped in abandoned buildings under piles of trash in a period of nine months

I had to ask myself. Where was the outrage? Why wasn't the community up in arms? Clearly there was a pattern here. All of the women were poor. All of the women were Black. All of the women were used in prostitution. There was no reason to believe that the killer would not strike again. So, I had to ask myself, where was the outrage? One Black male is beaten up by four white police officers and every Black community activist in the country, including the Reverend Jesse Jackson, is crying out against racist violence and the culture of poverty that precipitated the L.A. riots.(6) Eleven poor, Black women are murdered and mutilated, their bodies are thrown away like so much trash, and the only thing we hear, besides the deafening silence, is a local Baptist minister mourning that these women "were already among the walking dead."(7) Where do racism and sexism meet? If you ask me, they meet in a trash pile, in an abandoned building, in Detroit.

Racism makes Black women and girls especially vulnerable to sexual exploitation and keeps them trapped in the sex industry. It does this by limiting educational and career opportunities for African-Americans in this country.(8) It does this through a welfare system that has divided the poor Black family. If a mother works, or her children's father contributes to their support, her check and food stamps are cut by that amount.(9) Thus, poor Black women are left alone to find for themselves and their children on inadequate Aid to Families with Children(10) grants.

Racist stereotypes in the mainstream media and in pornography, portray Black women as wild animals who are ready for any kind of sex, any time, with anybody.(11) Additionally, strip joints and massage parlors are typically zoned in Black neighborhoods,(12) which gives the message to white men that it is alright to solicit Black women and girls for sex--that we are all prostitutes. On almost any night, you can see them slowly cruising around our neighborhoods, rolling down their windows, calling out to women and girls. And we got the message growing up, just like our daughters are getting it today, that this is how it is, this is who we are, this is what we are for.(13)

.....

How can mainstream feminists claim to care about Black women and racism when they fail to speak out against the white men who pay for the right to sexually abuse our daughters and sisters, or against the police who target these same women for arrest and imprisonment, while their abusers, the johns that prey on our community, go free? It is time for white feminists to stand beside US, to fight racist and sexist oppression, and to take the same risks we do. The mainstream feminist community must actively fight to end both systems. If not, the cry "sisterhood is powerful" will remain an empty slogan for Black women.

Read the rest of the article here.

No comments.

DNA pioneer's lecture cancelled after comments on race

Watson - of the Watson-Crick and the double helix band, is - wah, wah? Not surprisingly yet another ..... RACIST!

Shocked? I'm not - really. Before we jump to the conclusion that I'm anti-science - repeat after me: Race is a construct, it's fluid and there is no scientific proof of the existence of intellectual advantage favouring one 'group' of people over another. Racism masked as science - is still racism - and that's always devoid of fact.

The newspaper quoted the 79-year-old American geneticist as saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours — whereas all the testing says not really."

What does shock me though is that 99% of the world's population fails to see the connect between the current 'third-world' and past colonial expansion/exploitation.

How is it that people don't see - that the so-called 'equality-scale' - started off unbalanced in the first place? How do people not get this? How do people not see that when you steal/rape/exploit/murder/mutilate/severly destroy a society there is no hope in hell that they will ever be able to 'stand up' on their feet in the first place. (Putting aside that the development "MODEL" is flawed itself).

What do people not get about this?

Read full article here.

Me thinks they ought to revoke his nobel...

This man is not funny....

can't say much. I'm out of words. I don't like most people - is that okay sometimes?

Anyways, tell me again why a lot of 'progressives' like this man? Tell me again why? I don't think Russell Peters is funny, I think he's an arse and well - I think he's racist. Why do so-called progressive people think it's okay to laugh at what he says when they'd be appauled if it was someone else saying this kind of stuff? Oh yeah, I forgot - laughing at a brown man making racist jokes makes the jokes funny! Well, not funny - but you know, you don't have to feel guilty about laughing at something you'd be laughing at anyways, but can't due to 'political correctness' if it was a white person saying the same shit.

This is the thing about most comedy, you laugh at it cause it reifies and fortifies your 'common sense' understanding of the world. It makes you feel better, because it's not scary, it's not challenging - and hey someone up there just told you exactly what you already knew about blacks, women, asians, asian women, black women, the disabled and mentally challenged.... Why not pat yourself on the back and laugh?

Truly good comedy is about satire and pushing the status quo. Can for goodness sakes, most so-called brown 'progressive' people PLEASE STOP LAUGHING AT THIS MAN! He's not funny!!!!! Thank you.

Two clips compare and contrast:

I hate the way the word 'culture' is used...

...well by most people anyways.

Anyways, here's Tony Blair on 'black youth culture':

In a speech yesterday, Blair said the violence was not a symptom of a broader social malaise and should not be treated as part of a general crime wave, but as specific to black youth, The Guardian reported.

He said people had to drop their political correctness and recognise that the violence would not be stopped "by pretending it is not young black kids doing it".

"What we are dealing with is not a general social disorder, but specific groups or people who for one reason or another are deciding not to abide" by society's codes of conduct, Blair said. Continue reading here

Hey, but if that's not enough - why not moralize around the issue and essentially blame WMS's favorite lynch-pin, black women, for the problem?

Mr Blair is known to believe the tendency for many black boys to be raised in families without a father leads to a lack of appropriate role models.

He said: "We need to stop thinking of this as a society that has gone wrong - it has not - but of specific groups that for specific reasons have gone outside of the proper lines of respect and good conduct towards others and need by specific measures to be brought back into the fold." Continue reading here
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In other news:

One more reason to girlcott Chapters, that is if you hadn't already!

I've decided to shift my blogging efforts to be more local, as I just haven been doing that at all - oddly enough most feminist bloggers have me listed as an AMERICAN! now, now...

Lake Oswego, Oregon - make yourself known!!! I see you in my site-meter and I'm wondering if we've ever been formally introduced ;)

Progress is unilinear...

I'm not really getting out of e-hiatus, but - I just couldn't resist this discussion here. But the thing is - I should have just taken a hint of advice from the title of the post itself.

I mean this is why the word 'racism' is so problematic IMO, it's such a liberal term solely reserved for 'extreme' situations, so systemic and institutional 'racism' don't get covered... so 'racism' is insufficient really, when it's really about 'white supremacy' (ty to my friend who I had this discussion with the other day!).

Okay - what's my problem right?

The bold parts of this paragraph here, are my problem. Anyone with more eloquence, intelligence, strength and energy want to take it on? Or am I just really going on about nothing (cause at this point, that's how I feel - I don't think I have the energy to talk about anything anymore because I don't even know if I make sense really):

After all, white people have dominated the sciences and arts and humanities in the West for awhile now; they did come up with some useful things in the process, such as computers and penicillin. Unlike some of my more racist brethern, though, I don’t think this means white people are inherently better. I think that if everyone else got access to the education and opportunities white people have hoarded for themselves, they’ll start inventing the next rounds of computers and penicillin. In fact, I suspect that is exactly why white people haven’t shared; we didn’t want to be bested at anything. The downside is that so much squashed potential probably means that many more computers and penicillin that we don’t have.

Some quick notes:

1) Coming from both the 'art's' and 'sciences' - I have to wonder - what are the arts and sciences and what makes them so different from each other? Really, are they THAT different - or are those boundaries artificial? Where do doctors like Paul Farmer fit into this (i.e. someone who's both an anthropologist and a medical doctor)? Or economists like Amartya Sen? Or feminist physicists etc...? Psychologists etc? In places like India - you have doctors who are both students of 'western medical practises' and 'naturopathy/homeopathy'... now - where do those ppl fit?

2) Who created this division between the arts and the sciences? How are the arts and the sciences treated differently, how do they affect different groups of ppl? How do we value certain types of knowledge over others? Why is that a problem? Who produces certain types of 'knowledge' and who's 'type of knowledge' do we value more? Are the producers of knowledge valued more, or are the labourers who work to 'produce' the 'tools' of this knowledge valued more?

3) What is the problem with this idea that progress needs to be measured in terms of how many medicines and technical gadgets you produce? I.e. is your worth as a human being measured in your 'productive' value or your fiscal contribution? Is this the only model of progess that we have? Where do local/indigeneous forms of knowledge or learning fit in here? Or are they just completely useless and therefore must be eradicated?

ugh... back to e-hiatus.

How to win a cock-fight: review of the movie 300...

What the #$%& was I thinking you ask, I wasn't... yes, I just witnessed the biggest load of tripe ever.

Short version or long version? Why bother, you can find a detailed review of the movie elsewhere - spoilers and all, in fact it seems many reviewers have already called out this tripe for what it is on rotten tomatoes and Imdb (honestly writing a review for this is just too easy).

Short Version:

Don't waste any money on this overinflated hard-on (I didn't - I watched it for free). I don't know whether it was the rampant Islamophobia (despite Islam forming as a religion 1000 yrs after this war took place!), anti-black racism, white supremacy, the homophobia, anti-disableism, the obvious war-promoting or the spoils of war (i.e. objectified women) which got to me the most. Of course it could be the moral of the story: The only way to win a cock-fight (or "fighting for justice, freedom and humanity") is to get a bigger "stronger, harder" and "harder, stronger" cock (not my words, the movie's - and yes, they did say it TWICE in case I missed it the first time) while wiping out the bad guys i.e. asians, africans and persians (i.e. ANYONE non-white).

Long Version:

The movie's about some war in Greece set in 480BC, Battle of Thermopylae, based on the Frank Miller graphic novel - it's something I won't pretend I even knew about until today, so let's just ignore the 'history' of it and focus on it's cinematic glory. Really, there's no point in discussing the 'history' of this battle because the $&%*ing movie is an American pro-war propagandist movie not about 'the spartans or the greeks' but American-version of this battle which happened nearly 2500 yrs ago.

Basically, the Spartans, led by King Leonidas, have been asked to surrender Sparta/Greece to the Persian empire. A black male messenger informs Leonidas of this. When Leonidas's wife interrupts their discussion - he says "how dare you let your wife speak on these matters?"

Of course the only thing his wife is good for is bearing babies so she says "because only Spartan women BIRTH REAL MEN"...And yes, the 'pro-empowerful' camp of the audience lets out a little cheer when this line is spake (I'm still scratching my head bout that).

The interesting thing about this brief little discussion is that 1)it's an implicit acknowledgement that women in the messenger's country must be treated like dirt - remember the imperialist dynamic of "evil coloured patriarchal cultures?" vs. liberated western women? 2)liberated western women (read white) in Hollywood are generally empowered via their value to men - whether it's as a sex-object, love-interest, their adoption of masculinity or 'traditional' motherhood.

So the stage for white-hetero-male-patriarchal-supremacy is set from the get-go.

So instead of surrendering, Leonidas kills the BLACK Persian messenger and his black allies because they've 'insulted his wife and Sparta'. A violently glorified chopping a black man's head scene follows, really it's grotesque.

A flashback technique is employed to tell the tale of how Leonidas has been trained to be a fierce warrior from the age of seven, when the barbaric/noble Spartans start training their young to be warriors. The flashback of young, pre-pubescent, Leonidas proving his manlihood by slaying a wolf while only wearing a loin cloth in the freezing darkness of winter is referred to several times throughout the movie to reinforce Leonidas' ferocity.

Homophobia:

The movie doesn't even pretend to be anything but white supremacist, misogynist, islamophobic, ableist, or homophobic, in fact it prides itself on all these accounts. If we missed the homophobia at the beginning of the movie when King Leonidas briefly refers to Athenians as "Boy-loving philosophers", we get it again ten-fold repeatedly throughout the movie.

When Leonidas' army of 300 meets a neighbouring Greek city's army of 1000 men, Leonidas justifies the manly-manliness of his army because the "artists, sculptors, and blacksmiths" of the neighbouring city's army do not real manly-men make. The conclusion is that a few good men, are better than the lives of 1000 (this is enforced later on too).

When battle takes off, we find out that the evil Xerxes (god-like emperor of Persia) is an effeminate, heavily ornated, man-woman-transgender-loving horndog.

The funniest thing about my cinematic experience though, was that my companion, in this case evil incarnate; a gay, occupationally effeminate MOC, was drooling over the washboard abs, chiseled thighs and pecs of the uber-manly-man Spartan Army (yeah, okay so was I :P). So, despite it's obvious homophobia (i.e. it's literal message) this movie's reliance on extreme gender conformity was almost a parody of itself visually - i.e. there is no way you could take the narrow gender roles seriously without thinking dirty thoughts about the Spartan's in their loin cloths. At some point there was a duo of two younger Spartan's whom my companion repeatedly wished would make out - of course until one of them was decapitated.

Now, I don't think this was some clever-pomo-gender-fucking-theory on screen, that would give an otherwise horrible movie too much credit, and besides the lines between good/evil repetitive jabs at gay men in comparison to manly men were stark. I just think it was a series of bad choices made by the movie-makers and ended up reading differently than they expected. But saying this was a 'homoerotic' movie, as many critics have cited it as - would be negligent and would be like saying that football players, basketball players, other 'manly-men' are not really 'violent' but rather enjoy watching each other shower... or some other more clever analogy that I can't think of at the moment.

Sexy Nekkid Chicks, "white" vs. "other":

Yes, this movie has a lot of 'sexy nekkid chicks'. The first scene is where we're entertained by what we find out later to be a "white, nude, drunk, teenage girl". Girls gone wild anyone? Hurrah. And guess what? Said girl is really OWNED by very ugly priests because she is an oracle, and we find out that they get to fuck her too, cause they have "dark manly hearts" and women who are hot "are cursed by their own beauty", talk about victim-blaming...Totally unnecessary scene.

Later on, because manly man, Leonidas is urgin for the plungin, he 'bangs' his wife (Queen Gorgo) every which way to nth-multiple orgasm - to which even the the couple next to me laughed "Okay, we get the point already!" *snarky laugh*.

These former women are both white. One part is revolting, but obviously the way it was shot - it was meant to tantalize the viewer with it's 'mystical' elements, and when we find out this erotic dance is by a drunk, teenage girl, it's well after the scene is over - so what, the main point of it was to objectify...

Both of the white women in the two scenes are 'property' of their rightful owners, the white men in their immediate lives - the priests and husband. Their 'sexuality' is dutiful, non-deviant, conforming and 'moral' whether that is for a group of men who 'facilitate religion' (thus their sexual value is extended for the benefit of the entire community) or whether for their husbands (in this case the KING, and you bet your ass if the King don't get his rocks off... well).

But later, when we are introduced to a whole harem of hot, ornated, tattooed, coloured sexy chicks it's more like we've been thrown into a visual orgy of totally debaucherous sexuality. They are aggressive, forceful, defiant, unaware of their obvious ownership because even though they are owned they are willing participants in their own 'degradation'. We see these women of every single colour, other than white, defiantly throwing themselves at the disfigured/disabled/gollum-like character who is a traitor to Leonidas. They tempt and snare him into being an asshole and betraying his leader while luring him to the 'dark side'.

[ETA, re: ableism: this character is a traitor because Leonidas refuses him entry into his army due to his physical disability. The opening scene of the movie shows the Spartans practising crude eugenics by disposing of their 'disfigured' babies down a cliff. The disabled character would have 'created a gap in their strategic battle formation'. So he is emasculated by Leonidas and seeks revenge by betraying his 'people'.]

So basically the set-up of 'the dutiful/sexually moral white woman' vs. 'amoral Jezebel' [link to interesting article] is in place because of the way the women are sexually portrayed. Their sexuality is DIFFERENT. Their all objectified, but are morally different.

Later, Queen Gorgo (Leonidas' wife) is raped by a janus-faced politician. After which she gives a passionate speech in the male council chambers on behalf of the 'mothers/daughters/sisters/wives/families' of the 300 soldiers that have sacrificed their lives for the betterment of the city-state (again their value in relation to men). It is imperative that they send more troops to help them out. Gorgo's morality and better judgement are implicit in her being a 'liberated white woman'.

The thing is - the women in the harem are all SLAVES, we've heard this comment repeatedly via the open-conjectured-threats of what would happen to the women of sparta if the evil Persians got hold of them. One character goes so far to say "the women would become slaves, or much worse" (i.e. sex slaves). I.e. so if the harem consists of SLAVES, they are obviously 'victims of rape'. Yet, the only sympathetic rape(s) here (potential and realized), are those of the moral white women of Sparta - not the coloured women who are not victims but rather 'sexually deviant' from the get go.

Colourism:

Do you see any significant difference between the skin-colour of Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) or Leonidas (Gerard Butler), in this picture here? not really... Throughout the movie it is obvious that the Americans Spartans are all white and the other's are all deviant coloured people... yet, we're also aware of the obvious use of 'brown-face' throughout the movie. Cause Xerxes definitely does not look like Rodrigo Santoro.

Genetic variation and thus skin-colour are more varied within a 'group' than between 'groups'. So it's rather silly for them to consistently employ such stark colour differences anyways.

The Persian army is also substantially disfigured/ugly. The terrorists Persian Army, also employ 'dishonest tactics' to win the war. I.e. by employing sneak-attack strategies, strange monsters and 'magic'...

American-Propaganda - Conclusion:

The only way to win a war is to send in more troops, otherwise we all lose. The closing shot ends with an army of 30K plus who are all willing to 'sacrifice' their lives for the rest of us. They are "brave heroes" who die "a glorious death".

More on the obvious homophobia of the movie, here.

Cross-posted at Leftist Movie Reviews, comments open everywhere.

Update 1: There is some interesting discussion about this movie at Feral Scholar.

Update 2: There are petitions against this movie too. Check it out (link via No Snow Here at this blog here.

This movie also happens to be the number one movie this week, by a landslide.