Biurny Gonzalez testified in 2006 that a man named William McCaffrey raped her after taking her for a drive late one night. McCaffrey was convicted and sent to prison for 20 years. The drive happened but the rape didn't. Gonzalez pleaded guilty to perjury Monday. She faces a prison sentence of two to seven years. She could also be deported to the Dominican Republic where she was born, though she is a legal resident in the United States.

What prompted the lie? Gonzalez says that friends she'd gone out with that night got angry with her—a fight among them broke a car window—and that "she wanted the group to feel badly." Then "the lie became too big for her to back out of." But the guilt, apparently, became too big, too. McCaffrey has been incredibly gracious in commending Gonzalez for coming forward to tell the truth. Should Gonzalez have to do every day of prison time that McCaffrey did? Will this story help deter other women who might be tempted to make up a rape story, or will the harsh penalty scare the ones who falsely cry rape (a minority, to be sure) from coming forward?

Tags: biurny gonzalez, false rape charges

Trailers these days have no sense of mystery. In the span of an Iggy Pop song, the Up in the Air trailer reveals that the film is about a man, specifically a Clooney-esque perpetual bachelor type (there was some meta-casting going on), and said man, who had always prided himself on standing alone, is going to learn a valuable lesson about the importance of human companionship. As it turns out, the lesson Up in the Air offers is not so much about the value of love, but rather the importance of settling when you still have the chance. If I hadn’t already read that Lori Gottlieb’s pro-giving-up-the-dream-and-putting-a-ring-on-it essay from the Atlantic had already snagged a film deal, I would have offered Up in the Air as the perfect cinematic embodiment of her point.

The underlying point being, of course, pick somebody, anybody, before it’s too late. Clooney plays Ryan, a professional firer of sad-sack employees. He’s disconnected from everyone—his family, his co-workers, romantic interests—and he prefers it that way. That is, until an overly ambitious younger co-worker, Natalie, shows up on the scene and reforms his company and the way he sees his life. Natalie is the generational foil for Ryan—she single-handedly brings the firing business into the brave new technological age, and Ryan hates it. She has a strict timeline—marriage at 23, corner office a few years later, and babies soon after—that baffles Ryan. They’re such cookie-cutter opposites, it’s impressive there’s even dialogue between them.

Over the course of the film Natalie urges Ryan to take his on-during-layovers romance with a fellow whip-smart businesswoman and frequent traveler, Alex, to the next level. Not because, you know, he likes her a lot (which he does), but because, according to Natalie, she’s the only one “who will put up with you.” Natalie, on the other hand, who’s rather grossly depicted as too ambitious for her own good, is broken up with by her fed-up boyfriend and subsequently consoled by Ryan and Alex, who tell her that by the time she’s in her 30s, her laundry list of criteria for a mate will be whittled down to just a few simple needs. Alex specifically notes that at some point just a “nice smile and hopefully a full head of hair” will do. The settling imperative is subtle because Natalie’s laundry list is rendered as so ridiculously detailed as to make it OK in contrast, but it’s there. Natalie’s takeaway in the film is that in order to succeed she needs to trade in some stuff, most notably the fantasy of an ideal companion for a sufficient one.

The philosophy is more literally acted out when Ryan returns home to Wisconsin to find his sister marrying and forgiving (after he gets momentary cold feet) a good-natured schlub played by Danny McBride. As Stephanie Zacharek writes in Salon: "And he is having all too much fun in his life of emptiness, which means he'll have to face a crisis tied to the impending marriage of his younger sister (played by Melanie Lynskey), a sweet Wisconsin girl who's happy to settle for the little things in life (symbolized by her not-so-little sweater-wearing fiancé)."

If Ryan’s having so much fun in his empty life as Zacharek writes (and he is), why does seeing his sister settle for a chubby simpleton rev up his commitment engine? Because the underlying assumption of the movie is that every person everywhere, no matter how satisfied he or she is, no matter how happily independent, secretly craves a life partner (whether he or she knows it or not). And as evidenced by his sister’s union, anyone’s better than no one. The philosophy is furthered by the camera confessions of the fired interspersed into the narrative of the film. All of the laid-off employees confess that they wouldn’t have gotten through the experience without their spouses—that their marriages were the only thing that saved them from other unthinkable fates. Partnering up isn’t so much a romantic mission in Up In the Air; it’s a necessary means to an end. And that end is survival.

Tags: lori gottlieb, settling, up in the air

I'm 100 percent with you, Jessica—Walters' list is beyond lame, it's shameful. Now, if she'd called it "2009's Most Fascinating People Willing to Appear on My Television Special," it might make more sense, but even so, we're not "fascinated" by Kate Gosselin or Jenny Sanford for reasons that ought to make anyone proud. We can't look away from either of them precisely because they're NOT particularly accomplished or talented, and yet they are famous ANYWAY. Whether you aspire to fame or not, Jenny Sanford suggests that it could somehow descend upon you, and prompts us to wonder how we would appear in her stead. Kate Gosselin stands for the proposition that a gimmick (in her case, fertility treatment and a willingness to take a twist of fate all the way) rather than hard work or talent  could rocket you to stardom. Maybe we should ask ourselves why the women we click on aren't women we aspire to be, but women we imagine we could be (or women we aspire to see fail)? And meanwhile, what women really belong on that list? I'd keep Lady Gaga, absolutely. I'll give Walters Sarah Palin (although, like Rachael, I'd like to say good-bye to all that). But how about: Michelle Obama, Susan Boyle, Hilary Clinton, Barbara Ehrenreich, Stephanie Meyer, Desiree Rodgers, Susan Rice ,Justice Sotomayor ... and I'm just getting started. Of course, Walters' people haven't yet revealed the 10th name on the list. What do you bet they're speed-dialing Elin Nordegren?

Tags: 10 most fascinating people of 2009, Barbara Ehrenreich, barbara walters, Jenny Sanford, Kate Gosselin, Sarah Palin

How does Barbara Walters define "fascinating"? Apparently 20 percent of what makes a woman compelling is having been cheated on. There is no other explanation for why Kate Gosselin and Jenny Sanford are on Walters' list of the 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009. Sure, include one of the tabloid queens, but both of them? I could even understand including Gosselin—America really was obsessed with the fate of her marriage and her eight children. But Sanford? As far as I can see, the most fascinating thing about her was something she did not do: Show up and stand next to her husband as he yammered on about hiking the Appalachian Trail. Being publicly cheated on does not automatically make you an interesting person, much less interesting enough to appear on one of these silly lists.

When Sarah Palin is far and away the most accomplished woman on your list of 10 Most Fascinating People of 2009, you've got problems.

Tags: 10 most fascinating people of 2009, barbara walters, Jenny Sanford, Kate Gosselin

Dana Goldstein's article about the few feminist groups that came out in support of a long-term occupation in Afghanistan sure has tongues wagging, as is inevitable every time a perceived gap between liberal and feminist interests opens up. Eleanor Smeal and a few other feminists object to President Obama's plan to leave Afghanistan in 18 months because they correctly believe that leaving will cause reactionary forces to swoop in and eagerly oppress women to the fullest extent possible. But the few feminists Dana covers hardly represent majority feminist opinion on this front. Many of us believe that we should leave Afghanistan sooner rather than later, even as we sympathize with Smeal's concerns.

How can I, as a good feminist, believe that we should just get out of Afghanistan, knowing full well what will happen to women when we do? It's a good question. On one level, the answer is actually quite simple: I don't buy the idea that you can shove good values such as feminism down people's throats with violence. And that even if you could, it's irrelevant in this case. As Dana notes, the human rights arguments about Afghanistan have never been put forth in good faith but have always functioned as a rationale for the war. Because of this, I fail to believe that we're doing anything but putting off the inevitable by occupying Afghanistan. And by putting off the fall, we are also putting off the potential for legitimate feminist forces within Afghanistan to start working to improve things the only way possible, from the inside.

There's a deep arrogance to the long-standing argument that Westerners can simply visit the lessons we learned the hard way on other countries at the end of a gun. Our society didn't move in the direction of equality because outsiders forced it upon us. As painful as it is to admit it, women don't gain power through violent coercion. They have to build it, step by step. That's why interventions that give women control and power over their own lives, such as microlending, work so much better than trying to create a feminist society by fiat.

To say that war is against everything that feminists stand for is not to make a mere theoretical argument, either. It's pragmatic. Invading and occupying a country causes many of the men of that country to feel disempowered and emasculated. And men in that situation lash out at women, making themselves feel powerful again by dominating women. It operates by the same principle as schoolyard bullying, but on a global scale. If we truly care about women's equality, the last thing we need to be doing is creating incentives for men to oppress women to build themselves up.

Tags: afghanistan, feminism

• 
• |
• 
• |
• |
• 0

Oxfam reporter Emily Gertz talked to Christina Ora, who described the effect a changing climate is already having on the Solomon Islands:

Residents of the low-lying Reef Islands are being forced to move inland to higher ground, she says, because their croplands are being inundated by seawater, their homes battered by fiercer storms and tides, and their supply of fresh water vanishing. Moving is a complicated matter, Christina says, because it puts communities into conflict for scarce and valued resources. “Back home, land is your identity,” she explains. “You are tied to that land, and your ancestors have been on that land for a long time.

Ora is in Copenhagen with a group called Project Survival Pacific, hoping to be heard by President Obama and other Western leaders. The United States is one of the top three emitters of greenhouse gasses; the Solomon Islands, she reminds Gertz, is scarcely an emitter at all. Ora has come a long way in the hope of affecting change, and President Obama isn't the only person she hopes will hear her voice and the voices of other teens who've traveled to Copenhagen. Every activist in Denmark is hoping that the world will listen. And maybe we will, too, as soon as this whole Tiger Woods thing dies down. Hey—wasn't he driving a hybrid SUV?

Tags: climate change, Copenhagen