I just watched a video about portrayals of masculinity in Disney movies.

I had a number of problems with the video. Not because I think that it makes inaccurate statements — I agree, at the very least, that Disney movies almost always privilege certain male body types and make statements about what is “masculine” that usually are about physical prowess and violence (I’m not sure I would agree that modern Disney movies encourage young men to think of women as sources of pleasure or servants, which is the video’s third and weakest point).

Unfortunately, the video chooses some exceedingly poor examples to make its point. It largely seems to rest on the character of Gaston, the hyper-masculinized villain of “Beauty and the Beast.” While Gaston is certainly presented as a “manly man,” he is by nature parodic. No one leaves “Beauty and the Beast” thinking that Gaston is the hero. When they sing about Gaston’s physical size, strength, and abundance of chest hair, the song is purposely ridiculous and over-the-top. His pursuit of Beauty is obviously “boorish, brainless!” — as Belle complains in a song. The Beast, who certainly does not come across as “effeminate” or “un-manly,” has a relationship with Beauty that centers around genuinely healthy and friendly activities: feeding birds, reading books. When the Beast turns into the prince, he is nowhere near as barrel-chested and stereotypical as Gaston.

On the other hand, the video has a point. Even if the prince isn’t as barrel-chested as Gaston, he’s still pretty dang barrel-chested. Although Gaston’s belligerence is bad, the Beast still can’t run from battle: he only comes into his own when he finally fights the bad guy for the girl. To skip to another movie, despite the fact that Mulan successfully pretends to be a boy and completes all the tests of physical prowess necessary, the fact remains that boys are being told that in order to be male, you have to have physical power. If Mulan had failed the tests of her strength, they’d know she was a girl. Even if the scenario empowers young women by telling them that they can do anything a man can do, it still labels the quality of physical strength as “masculine.” And as for falling in love? “Beauty and the Beast” is a rarity in that it allows the protagonists time to get to know each other and perhaps actually forge friendships rather than simply going goo-gah at first sight.

And of course, even these caveats are more complex than my initial analysis allows. The story of “Mulan” requires her to pass physical tests: one could argue that strength is a quality of soldiers, not men. This argument would be stronger if Disney more frequently presented admirable men with different physical appearances and interests. As for “Beauty and the Beast,” Belle also has to prove that she isn’t a coward: perhaps she isn’t forced to physically fight Gaston, but she bravely tries to convince the villagers not to attack the Beast’s castle: speaking to a riled-up mob requires its own type of courage. When the villagers reach the castle, the female servants are portrayed as playing just as large a role in the defense of their home as the men. And let’s not forget that the Beast attempts to convince Gaston not to fight. Only when he’s attacked does he resort to physical violence.

Are there problems with the Disney movies? Sure. They’re racist in varying degrees, certainly white-centric, promote certain body types above others, and are unfailingly hetero. But I don’t think that the situation is quite as dire as the video makes it out to be, or at least, not in the particular examples it cites.

On the topic of fairy tales, though, the best fairy tale you’ve never read: the ballad of Tam Lin. Why have you never read it? Because it’s about an unwed mother standing up to her family’s expectations and setting off on an adventure to save her baby-daddy. No, really. And this is a very old, traditional story — but it’s nearly impossible to Bowlderize, so you’ve probably never heard of it.

Hey, look! More depressing news coming out of my home state!

Less than three months after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a ban on a controversial late-term abortion procedure, a Cincinnati Republican has reintroduced legislation to outlaw all abortions in Ohio. Rep. Tom Brinkman Jr. hopes his bill will become the vehicle for overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which legalized abortion.

I didn’t know much about this guy prior to these events, as he’s not my representative– he covers the eastern segments of Cincinnati, such as Hyde Park, Mt. Lookout, and Mt. Washington. However, a quick skim of his campaign website makes a strong case in my mind for him being an asshole.

This is, of course, not the first time he’s tried this; in 2005, another bill banning all abortion in Ohio was introduced by the same legislator. Luckily, it didn’t pass; unfortunately, another anti-abortion bill introduced around the same time did, and was signed into law by the outgoing Republican governor only a few weeks before our current Democratic governor, Ted Strickland, took office. As a result, “it is the public policy of the state of Ohio to prefer childbirth over abortion to the extent that is constitutionally permissible”, and “None of the funds appropriated to administer [health assistance for poor Ohioans] shall be used to counsel or refer for abortion, except in the case of a medical emergency” (HB 239, as sent to the governor and signed into law). In effect, there’s discrimination against allowing poor women in Ohio to have access to a full range of reproductive choices, including abortion, since the procedure is often expensive and can’t be subsidized by any governmental funds below the federal level in Ohio.

Reading the comments on a Cincinnati Enquirer blog post on the subject made me feel vaguely sick. Relatively safe in Oregon, which just passed laws granting domestic partnerships and subsidizes reproductive health care for patients under a certain income level, it’s always a shock when I take a quick glance at what average people in Ohio are saying. There’s so much work to be done in educating people that abortion rights are deeply necessary to offering women free choice in their reproductive health, and with more and more of the people in my generation fleeing the midwest, how are we ever going to manage it?

Time to go write to my state representatives. You should write to yours, too.

I came across this link via Feministing’s Weekly Feminist Reader (a weekly weekend trove of articles and news on feminist [and queer and class and race] issues) and was intrigued:

[Anti-choice protester Joseph Logsdon] will get a chance to prove in court that police violated his rights when they arrested him during a protest outside a Cincinnati abortion clinic.

Ah, the home town. I grew up in Cincinnati, which is considerably more conservative than my current home, Portland (and, as my father likes to say about his own hometown, Dayton OH, “an excellent place to be from“). Still, the article itself didn’t immediately scream “anti-choice bias!” at me. Feministing offered up the link in the following frame:

An anti-choice protester wins his appeal after being arrested outside a clinic. His lawyer said, “It struck a very positive tone for a pro-life protestor [sic]. In most courts around the country, they are treated like they are maniacs.” Gee, wonder why that is?

I don’t disagree with Feministing’s basic point here (at least, not their basic point as I read it)– anti-choice protesters generally support a lunatic platform that is hugely detrimental to women’s health. They linked in their blurb, too, to a recent post on the incredibly creepy memorializing by “pro-life” activists of violence against abortion providers– a connection which is maybe a little alarmist in this guy’s case, but definitely not an unreasonable parallel to draw when discussing the trend in louder and more daring anti-choice protests.

That said, I don’t see the fact that Joseph Logsdon won his appeal as a feminist issue one way or another, except in that we should be celebrating our civil rights.

While his lawyer casts it as a recognition of the sanity of a “pro-life protestor[sic]”, a quick read of the actual article implies instead that the decision just dealt with whether or not Cincinnati police violated the protester’s constitutional rights when they arrested him for trespassing at the clinic. A read-through of the decision itself [PDF download] also inclines me to believe that the court decided rightly in this case, although my opinion is, admittedly, informed by a non-lawyerly understanding of the law.

See, the case isn’t about whether or not anti-choice protesters are nuts. It’s about whether or not the Cincinnati police should have arrested Logsdon for trespassing at the Cincinnati Women’s Services Clinic (side note: this clinic is a scant two miles from where I went to high school), given that they weren’t present when the trespass occurred and (allegedly) ignored the input of witnesses when making the arrest. The case also isn’t a blanket statement of approval for Logsdon, an unqualified “win”: it just says that he should– and will– have the chance to argue his side of the story in court. My resident lawyer not-quite-lawyer says he seems unlikely to win the actual case. Plus, I have to admit here to a certain wariness towards the Cincinnati police when considering whether they might have ignored someone’s civil rights. After all, in 2001 their apparent disregard for a young black man’s rights sparked race riots.

So where does that leave us? In short, I wouldn’t be too quick to say that this decision was a bad thing, let alone a decision that set back women’s rights or supported anti-choice activism. All the decision says is that protesters have civil rights, too, even when they do some stupid things. I can’t disagree with that in good conscience, just as I can’t look too negatively on the ACLU defending the Phelps from a charge of “flag desecration”. The Phelps have an incredibly hateful, vicious, ridiculous message, and we should all wish they’d pick a more decorous way of presenting it, but they still have a constitutional right to say what they do. Likewise, Joseph Logsdon may be protesting in favor of a miserable women’s health policy and a culture of enforced conformity and religious oppression, but he has a right to be treated fairly by the police.

I’m not trying to say Feministing hates the constitution. They don’t. But their presentation of this case is a little misleading, and while I hope Logsdon stops harassing the people at the Cincinnati Women’s Services Clinic, he at least has the right to make his case in court. And that’s the way it should be.