Journal of Undergraduate Research 2012

J U R
Journal of Undergraduate Research
college of arts and letters university of notre dame

2011 2012

journal of undergraduate research

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The Journal of Undergraduate Research editorial board expresses its especial gratitude for the help and guidance of Joseph Stanfiel, Assistant Dean in the College of Arts and Letters. The Office of the Dean in the College of Arts and Letters continues to guarantee their support of the Journal, which enables our student board to produce a thoroughly professional publication each year. We also thank John McGreevy, Dean of the College, who continues to enliven the thesis culture among Notre Dame’s liberal arts students. His leadership makes us confident for the future of the Journal’s quality content. We thank Service Printers, Inc. of Elkhart, Indiana — particularly Ray Mann and Kelly Luna — who have provided the layout and print production services necessary for a timely publication. Finally, special thanks go to Irene Ostrum of Ave Maria Press who put us in contact with Service Printers, Inc. and provided invaluable transition assistance throughout our production phase. The Journal draws its material exclusively from undergraduate research in the College of Arts and Letters, and we owe our quality content to the students who submitted their work for consideration. The number of papers we reviewed and the quality of submissions we received reflect favorably on Arts and Letters undergraduates and their professors. Perhaps most importantly, it is the Journal’s readership that makes this publication possible and meaningful. Thus, thanks also go to you for picking up our 2011-2012 issue. Please feel free to pass it along.

iii

journal of undergraduate research

EDITORIAL BOARD 2011-2012
EDITORS-IN-CHIEF:

Michael Massman ‘13

Mary Buechler ‘12

English, Philosophy and Literature Political Science, Economics

EDITORIAL BOARD:

Taylor Byrnes ‘14

Aubrey Butts ‘14

Kaitlyn Davis ‘14

Theodora Hannan ‘14

Greg De La Iglesia ‘13

Crystal Lee ‘13

Anne Mccarthy ‘14 Nicole Michels ‘14 Ryan O’laughlin, ‘12 Justin Sena ‘14

Phillip Sitter ‘12 Meghan Thomassen ‘14 Evan Thompson ‘13 Caitlin Sheehan Wilson ‘12

English, American Studies English, Chinese Anthropology, Environmental Science History, Spanish English, History Sociology, English, Latino Studies, Korean Program of Liberal Studies, Irish Studies, Glynn Honors English, Political Science, Journalism History, Arabic, Africana Studies Political Science, Theology, Latino Studies Political Science, Catholic Social Tradition English, Journalism, Philosophy and Literature Philosophy, Political Science, Poverty Studies English, Anthropology

iv

journal of undergraduate research

TABLE OF CONTENTS
From the Desk of the Editors-in-Chief Christopher Rhodenbaugh Promoting Social Enterprise through Public Policy Brigid Mangano Guillaume Bodinier and the Meaning(s) of Italianness in 19th Century France Catherine Scallen Bitch. Contemporary Feminism in American Consumer Culture 1 2

62

120

ONLINE FEATURES
Kaitlin von Hoffman Fiscal Decentralization in Eastern Europe: an Examination of Economic Growth Patterns Steven Alagna Suicide Terrorism in Palestine: Tracing the Development of the Martyrdom Norm Kaitlyn Conway Níaon Tírann Gan Teanga: There Is No Country without a Language Rodolfo Disi Pavlic A Puzzling Agent and its Changing Principal: Analyzing the Organization of American States’ Fluctuating Democracy Promotion in Latin America, 1948-2011

170

172

174

176

v

journal of undergraduate research

FROM DESK OF THE EDITORS-IN-CHIEF This year’s Journal has been a special joy and a special challenge. We have transitioned to a new printing press, met new editing challenges, and tackled the test of long-distance board meetings. Michael, spending the spring semester in London, attended meetings via Skype. We tried to arrange for a larger projector so he could lord over 119 O’Shaughnessy with a more imposing presence, but sadly, such arrangements could not be made. Instead, Mary moved his head from table to table on a laptop like something from a science fiction satire. On a more formal note, our editorial board has done an outstanding job with this year’s Journal. In an effort to involve everyone meaningfully, we deferred to the choices of the board for paper selection. They then took on the task of editing the chosen papers for publication. The papers featured here represent a diverse set of research topics and research methods from the College of Arts and Letters. We believe that they are informative, well-composed, and meaningful contributions to their different academic areas. However, we, the editors-in-chief, admit that we deferred to our own editorial preferences when preparing the papers for publication. From content to layout, we have spent rigorous amounts of time to put together a timely and quality product. We hope that what we have produced this year attests to the range of voices emerging from the undergraduate researchers at Notre Dame. This Journal means to support the Thesis Culture of the College of Arts and Letters, and we invite our readers to lend their continued support as well. Thank you, Mary Buechler and Michael Massman

1

journal of undergraduate research

CHRISTOPHER RHODENBAUGH graduated from Notre Dame in 2011 with honors in political science and a minor in the Hesburgh Program in Public Service. Until his senior year of college, his background was in political organizing, policy, and education. Chris worked for a variety of campaigns, held internships in Washington, D.C., and worked in education and economic development in Nicaragua. Senior year, he enrolled in three business classes, in addition to spending two semesters developing this thesis on social enterprise. For the 2011-2012 and 2012-2013 school years, he is teaching social studies and math in San Antonio, Texas as a Notre Dame graduate student enrolled in the Alliance for Catholic Education’s Service through Teaching Program.
2

PROMOTING SOCIAL ENTERPRISE THROUGH PUBLIC POLICY CHRISTOPHER RHODENBAUGH
Introduction: Better World Books Social enterprise is the next frontier of American capitalism. It is the market’s response to inefficiency in the current economic system of the United States. Companies are financially rewarded for racing toward the bottom, while the government burdens them indiscriminately through a complex tax code. Meanwhile, non-profits spend their time soliciting donations from the wealthiest to patch holes in the social safety net and deficiencies in environmental policy. Social enterprises address social and environmental problems through earned revenue strategies. Solving social problems on every dollar earned has the capacity to revolutionize the way business and society interact, and the role of government in the United States. If companies create a competitive advantage through a social mission, while creating a quality product at a competitive price, all stakeholders win. Social entrepreneurs are chasing the American dream, and in the process are making the world a better place. Imagine a customer with a choice between two websites to buy a book at the same price. The first will donate 8 percent of the profit from the sale to a literacy organization and give you free shipping that is carbon offset.1 The second takes 100 percent of the profit and the customer pays for the shipping. That choice exists today: betterworldbooks.com versus amazon.com. How can a company be competitive when it gives away 8 percent of its profits? Welcome to a new force in American business — for-profit social enterprises. For these businesses, “mission equals margin,”2 and they are breaking into the mainstream.
3

journal of undergraduate research

Better World Books (BWB) receives a large portion of its books through donations from more than 1,800 college campuses and partnerships with over 2,000 libraries nationwide. For every book that Better World Books receives as a donation, with the exception of library donations that often include a financial donation to the library, the company’s only cost is collecting the books and stocking them on the shelves, enabling a much higher margin on used book sales than traditional for-profit competitors. The increased margin on used books allows BWB to take a lower margin on new books, creating an online store that is price competitive with the likes of Amazon. In an economic recession and a time in which booksellers have been struggling, including the bankruptcy of the major chain Borders Books, BWB has grown its workforce by 31% in the last three years. In those years of significant growth, BWB has raised more than $8.6 million for literacy and education. In the process, it has diverted more than 26,000 tons of books from landfills.3 Today, BWB has donated more than $9 million and recycled or reused 51.8 million books.4
Figure 1.1

Mission/Vision

Better World Books is a global bookstore that harnesses the power of capitalism to bring literacy and opportunity to people around the world.5 $45 million (2010) $57 million (Projected 2011) 7 200-250 full time employees (all with full benefits)9 Free international shipping on all products sold by BWB or in the BWB marketplace

Our vision is to be earth’s most customer centric company; to build a place where people can come to find and discover anything they might want to buy online.6 $34.2 billion (2010)8 33,700 (2008)10 3.99 shipping minimum on all products sold, must pay individual shipping cost on items purchased in Amazon marketplace

Sales Employees Shipping Policy

4

promoting social enterprise through public policy
Philanthropy11 -Raised over $9 million for Literacy including -$5.1 million for over 80 literacy and education nonprofits -$3.9 million for libraries nationwide -Directly sent more than 4 million books to Books for Africa, the National Center for Family Literacy, and Feed the Children12 -Re-used or recycled over 60 million pounds of books -Reclaimed more than 720,000 pounds of metal shelving from libraries across the U.S. -19,000 tons of carbon offset on BetterWorldBooks.com shipping16 -No specific contribution data is available online.13 -In 2009, Slate Magazine published an article, “The New Scrooge: Are there lemonade stands that devote more to charity than Amazon. com?”14 -Amazon’s 2009 SEC filings and annual reports contain no mention of corporate philanthropy.15 -Amazon products ship in boxes made of 43 percent recycled cardboard -Four out of 11 buildings at corporate headquarters are LEED certified -Amazon is a world leader in selling used goods17

Environment

Price Comparisons (Total cost with shipping) Top 10 Bestselling Books of the Decade18 NY Times Top 10 Paperback Bestsellers (Fiction) April 2011 NY Times Top 10 Paperback Bestsellers (NonFiction) April 2011 Top 10 Textbooks in Sales Volume, Fall 2010 NY Times Top 10 Children’s’ Bestsellers, April 2011 $52.07 (save $12.07) $64.14

$88.59 (save $8.01)

$96.60

$99.80 (save $6.45)

$106.25

$525.31 Books within $1 of Amazon: 1/10 Textbooks cheaper than Amazon: 3/10 $129.44 Books within $1 of Amazon: 3/10 Books cheaper than Amazon: 4/10

$479.09 (save $46.22)

$120.68 (save $8.66)

Better World Books demonstrates how a mission-oriented business model can change the competitive dynamic in a market. A company that donates eight percent of its profits to literacy programs is able to compete with the prices of the largest online retailer in the world.19

Better World Books is not alone. The company exists because market forces are calling for new business models that infuse
5

journal of undergraduate research

environmental and social missions into products without sacrificing cost or quality. More than 60 million U.S. consumers, 23 percent of the U.S. population, make purchasing decisions based upon social and environmental values.20 The percentage of consumers whose shopping or investing decisions are influenced by corporate behavior grew from 31 percent to 36 percent in the last three years;21 45 percent of consumers rate sustainability as somewhat important or very important;22 and the population most interested in social responsibility, 25-34 year olds, will increase by 11.8 percent over the next five years.23 Additionally, the recession has intensified consumers’ focus on corporate behavior, and they are looking for a brand they can trust. An April 2010 report found that “49 percent of consumers will seek out similar products from a different brand if they hear that a company’s corporate behavior is especially bad.”24 For-profit social enterprises are capitalizing on the changing consumer. However, they recognize that while social and environmental mission is factoring into purchase decisions, what drives consumers’ choices are price, quality, and service. In the age of social media and increasingly creative marketing schemes required to reach consumers, a new marketing phenomenon has emerged called Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is a quantitative assessment of a customer’s willingness to promote a product or a service recently purchased.25 The effectiveness of word-of-mouth marketing is well documented, and is being exacerbated by the ease of communication in a technology age dominated by social networking.26 Better World Books uses NPS to track customer satisfaction and CEO David Murphy believes it is essential to the growth of the company.27 While the assumption might be that a social enterprise can overcome a price premium and slower service because of a mission-oriented product, an analysis of customer priorities through NPS proves that wrong. Out of seven themes tested in customers’ willingness to recommend Better World Books, social mission ranked third, behind “attractive prices and quality service.”28 Xavier Helgesen, co-founder of BWB, wrote in response to the data,
6

promoting social enterprise through public policy

“it seems that many mission-driven businesses try to command too much of a price premium upfront.”29 He indicated that once a social enterprise has become successful, it has the potential to compound its success faster than solely profit-seeking business models, through better customer loyalty and more media attention. However, social entrepreneurs must know that success originates in a quality product at a competitive price, not a social or environmental mission.30 Xavier’s perspective and the information learned from BWB’s NPS make it clear that for-profit social enterprises have the potential to change capitalism in the U.S. Social entrepreneurs must not settle for a niche market willing to pay a premium for a substandard product. Real change comes from scale, and in order to scale, highly successful and sustainable companies must be built. Seventh Generation The highest volume seller of dishwasher detergent at Target stores in North America today is a company whose mission statement reads, “To inspire a more conscious and sustainable world by being an authentic force for positive change.”31 That company is Seventh Generation, one of America’s fastest growing companies of the last ten years. From 2001 to 2008 Seventh Generation grew at a rate of 25 to 30 percent per year, culminating in 50 percent growth in 2009. While the company did not grow in 2010, its growth from 2004 to 2009 far outpaced the rest of the household cleaning products industry, which declined by 16 percent in that time frame.32 Growing 50 percent in the heart of the economic recession indicates the profitability of a competitive price and a brand that is inseparable from its environmental mission. Seventh Generation is in 60 to 70 percent of U.S. grocery stores, every Target store and 1,500 Walmart stores.33 Seventh Generation demonstrates the power of social enterprise to encourage a race to the top.34 This is a paradigm change from the “race to the bottom,” which has consumed companies in the U.S.
7

journal of undergraduate research

for decades.35 Race to the bottom, in a business sense, refers to the aggressive pursuit of improving the bottom line by sacrificing values. Common examples of racing to the bottom include laying off workers, ending or reducing health and retirement benefits, exploiting loopholes in environmental regulations, outsourcing jobs, and lobbying to reduce the responsibility of a company to protect the environment and its workers.36 Seventh Generation is racing to the top because its success is driving mainstream competitors to be more socially and environmentally conscious. Economic theory argues that, in the long-term, competitors will enter the market with a similar product.37 High demand will also result in the reduction of cost when higher volumes are demanded for sustainable products. For example, Seventh Generation sets up a fully sustainable supply chain that requires different raw materials and procedures. As the sales of green products increase, suppliers can reduce their margins. Figure 1.2 depicts how Seventh Generation has begun a race to the top in the household cleaning and personal sanitation industry.

8

promoting social enterprise through public policy

**
 Graphic
 begins
 at
 bottom
 of
 page
 

Figure 1.2

 

Graphic
 begins
 at
 bottom
 of
 page
 **
 

RACE TO THE TOP

• Increased
 compe..on
 drives
 prices
 down
 for
 environmentally
 friendly
  products,
 the
 leading
 reason
 why
 people
 do
 not
 switch
 to
 green
 products.3
 Sales
  of
 eco-­‐conscious
 household
 products
 products
 tripled
 in
 2009,
 reaching
 $1.6
  billion.4
 

• In
 2010,
 Seventh
 Genera.on
 had
 the
 best
 selling
 dish
 cleaning
 liquid
 at
 Target,
  and
 40
 percent
 of
 the
 natural
 dish
 cleaning
 market.2
 Seventh
 Genera.on's
  increased
 market
 share
 heped
 lead
 compe.tors
 from
 the
 major
 cleaning
 brands
  and
 private
 labels
 (store
 brands)
 at
 grocery
 stores
 and
 pharmacies
 to
 enter
 the
  sustainable
 household
 cleaning
 and
 personal
 sanita.on
 market.
 Social
  enterprises
 use
 compe00on
 to
 make
 change.
 

• From
 2001
 to
 2008
 the
 company
 grew
 25-­‐30
 percent
 every
 year,
 before
 growing
  by
 50
 percent
 in
 the
 recession
 year
 of
 2009.
 Today
 Seventh
 Genera.on
  products
 are
 sold
 in
 every
 Target,
 1500
 Wal-­‐Mart
 stores,
 and
 60-­‐70
 percent
 of
  grocery
 stores.1
 

• As
 health
 food
 stores
 like
 Whole
 Foods
 went
 mainstream
 in
 teh
 mid-­‐nine.es,
 do
  did
 Seven
 Genera.on.
 The
 company
 began
 to
 dras.cally
 enhance
 and
 diversify
  its
 product
 line
 as
 it
 grew.1
 

• In
 1988,
 Seventh
 Genera.on
 began
 selling
 household
 cleaning
 supplies
 in
  health
 food
 stores
 with
 the
 company
 mission:
 "To
 inspire
 a
 more
 conscious
 and
  sustainable
 world
 by
 being
 an
 authen.c
 force
 for
 posi.ve
 change."1
 

1:
 Interview
 with
 Dave
 Rapaport,
 Senior
 Director
 of
 Corporate
 Consciousness
 at
 Seventh
 Generation.
 2:
 MINTEL:
 Dishwashing
  1: Interview with Dave Rapaport, Senior Director of Corporate Consciousness at Products
 –
 US
 –
 April
 2011.
 3:
 MINTEL:
 Green
 Living
 –
 US
 –
 February
 2011,
 Reasons
 for
 Buying
 or
 Not
 Buying
 Green.
 4:
 Burkitt,
 Laurie.
  Seventh Generation. 2: MINTEL: Dishwashing Products – US – April 2011. 3: “Seventh
 Generation:
 Protecting
 its
 Green
 Turf.”
 Forbes.com.
 1
 January
 2010.
 Web.
 

MINTEL: Green Living – US – February 2011, Reasons for Buying or Not Buying Green. 4: Burkitt, Laurie. “Seventh Generation: Protecting its Green Turf.” Forbes.com. 1 January 2010. Web.
9

journal of undergraduate research

The benefits to the environment of the growth in eco-conscious household products are substantial. If every household in the U.S. replaced one 12-pack of traditional toilet paper and one roll of traditional paper towels with Seventh Generation’s alternatives, 3,000,000 trees would be saved next year.38 In addition, 1.08 billion gallons of water would be saved, a year’s water supply for 8,500 families of four, and 7.7 million cubic feet of landfill space would be avoided, equal to more than 11,000 full garbage trucks.39 If every household replaced one bottle of dishwashing liquid with Seventh Generation’s plantderived product, it would save 127,000 barrels of oil, enough to heat and cool 7,300 U.S. homes for a year.40 Competitive prices are essential to the continued growth of Seventh Generation, and to the viability of green alternatives becoming the norm. The growth in recent years has been extensive. The market research firm, Packaged Facts, estimates “retail sales of green cleaners grew 229% between 2005 and 2009, more than doubling their footprint in dollar terms and more than tripling their share of the total household cleaner market.”41 One in four Americans reports using green cleaners regularly, even though the products recently entered the market.42 Nevertheless, in 2011, roughly 40 percent have never tried a green cleaning product, largely due to a price premium, with about 21 percent unwilling to pay any price premium and 23 percent willing to pay a dollar or less more for a green cleaning product from the same sample population.43 While the differential in price between Seventh Generation and its competitors varies, Seventh Generation maintains competitive prices. The company’s vision, according to founder Jeffrey Hollender, is to stay within 15 percent of competitors, a figure that is within the price limits for most consumers.44 There are many prices that exceed the 15 percent goal, but the company is clear that they are committed to bringing prices down. For 12 rolls at 352 sheets each, Seventh Generation is 90 cents more expensive at $10.49, than the most basic bathroom tissue of equivalent size. In regard to paper towels, Seventh Generation averages $2.00 per roll, while competitors vary from
10

promoting social enterprise through public policy

$1.75 to $2.25 for the same size rolls. A 45 oz. box of Seventh Generation dish detergent powder is only 50 cents more than the cheapest available powder detergent.45 While environmentally-friendly products usually cost more, gone are the days when consumers have to break the bank in order to make more environmentally-friendly purchasing decisions. Give Something Back Office Supplies Co-founder of the largest and most successful independentlyowned office supply company in California, Mike Hannigan got his idea to start the company when buying Newman’s Own spaghetti sauce at a grocery store.46 He treasured the customer experience of knowing he was getting a high quality product at a competitive price with all the proceeds going to charity. The idea was profound, yet startlingly simple. For 13 years, he developed the skills necessary for starting his own business while working at Xerox.47 In 1991, along with a co-worker from Xerox and a combined investment between the two of $50,000, Sean Marx and Mike Hannigan started an office supply company with a distinctive mission: We promise to make buying office supplies more fun, to provide an unmatched customer experience, to offer competitive, honest pricing, and to give our profits back to the community.48 In the first year they totaled nearly half a million dollars in sales.49 After five years, without investing additional money into the company, they had retained earnings of $2 million, with each year’s sales average in the millions of dollars.50 Today, Give Something Back Office Supplies (GSBOS) is the largest independently-owned office supply company in California, and is expanding nationally.51 Its primary competitors are Office Depot and Staples.52 GSBOS keeps its prices at or below its competitors by selling at lower margins and reducing overhead by not having
11

journal of undergraduate research

retail stores.53 Because the company is managed for its stakeholders, the Bay Area community, instead of for stockholders demanding increasing profits, GSBOS retains management capacity over margins and other business decisions. In 20 years, GSBOS has donated more than $5 million to non-profits concerned with arts and culture, animal welfare, the environment, and human services.54 GSBOS has given 75 percent of net earnings to charity, which is 74 percent higher than the corporate average.55 GSBOS is also creating value for its stakeholders by selling a wide variety of environmentally-friendly office products and integrating “Green Your Office” consulting into its business model. Give Something Back is the largest seller of recycled paper in California.56 Additionally, the company’s headquarters in Oakland, California is powered by solar power on its roof and the company is committed to employing underprivileged populations and paying good wages while providing full health benefits to all of its employees. The first reaction of many free-market fundamentalists to GSBOS’s obsession with sustainability is likely that the company should scale down some of its business practices in order to increase profits. However, GSBOS’s business is inseparable from its social and environmental mission, in addition to its fresh approach to the office supply business. The company believes they can continue to grow nationally because they fundamentally change the office supply customer experience by turning the mundane into a refreshing and feel-good exchange. While GSBOS’s lower margins slow its ability to donate money in the short-term, the company has proven its long-term sustainability, which will ultimately guarantee the most social and environmental value for its stakeholders. By growing slowly over a long period of time, without changing its pricing strategy, the company is now taking off. Inc. Magazine recently rated GSBOS as one of America’s fastest growing, independently-owned companies.58 In 2010 they recorded more than $30 million in sales, and have a goal to reach $1 billion in sales as they grow nationally.59
12

promoting social enterprise through public policy

New Resource Bank New Resource Bank (NRB) is one of less than 10 mission-oriented banks in the country according to Bill Peterson, Chief Credit Officer.60 At NRB Peterson says, “We enhance sustainability with everything we do.”61 The DNA of the bank is to make the world a better place and it functions on four core principles: sustainability, transparency, community, and teamwork.62 All internal and external activities of the company consider sustainability. These include cutting-edge green IT programs, recycling 96 percent of all waste, and subsidizing employee public transit, as well as guaranteeing that every dollar of deposit will be used to reinvest in companies, organizations, or individuals who are committed to sustainability.63 NRB is a commercial bank in its fourth year of operation that does 80 percent of its banking in the Bay Area, primarily lending to businesses and major projects.64 The mission-oriented banking model is increasing in appeal to individual consumers, however, leading NRB to enter into the personal banking market, with the hope of competing against the largest names in the business, including Bank of America and Chase.65 The financial crisis has increased awareness about the behavior of banks, creating a more recognizable space for mission-oriented banks.66 NRB will not make a loan to a company, organization, or individual that has not established itself as interested in sustainability and working to improve the environment.67 CEO Vincent Siciliano explains: “New Resource Bank only makes loans to sustainable businesses. They can be anywhere on the sustainability spectrum, they can be learners or leaders, but what is important is that they are on that playing field.”68 NRB refers to their lending model as, “impact lending.”69 The company foresees a growth strategy by separating itself from major banks that fund mountaintop removal projects, offshore oil drilling and other environmentally destructive behavior.70 NRB is a publicly-traded and for-profit bank with approximately $158 million in assets.71 After a second round of equity financing in 2009 and reshaping its management team, NRB is on track to reach
13

journal of undergraduate research

profitability and continue to expand by differentiating with its commitment to sustainability.72 NRB experienced significant difficulty as a start-up bank through the recession. It has proven its value to investors, however, in part due to its strategic position as a green bank in California with the renewable energy market growing rapidly. NRB seeks to grow through partnerships with green companies and organizations. It recently announced it is teaming up with the seventh largest producer of solar energy in the world, Enfinity Solar of Belgium, to help Enfinity expand aggressively in California and across the U.S.73 NRB’s mission gave it a competitive advantage in establishing the partnership with Enfinity Solar because of their expertise in, and passion for, the business of renewable energy.74 As the U.S. transitions to more renewable energy and a more sustainabilityfocused economy, New Resource Bank will not have to sacrifice profit margins for their mission. Their mission will be essential to their growth and financial success. Fair Trade Sports Fair Trade Sports is a for-profit social enterprise dedicated to reforming the production of athletic equipment. According to its website, “Fair Trade Sports Inc. is the first sports equipment company in the U.S. to launch a full line of eco-certified Fair Trade sports balls, ensuring fair wages and healthy working conditions for our adult workers. We have sports balls for soccer, football, basketball, rugby, volleyball, and more.”75 While Fair Trade Sports demonstrates the exemplary values and business practices of a for-profit social enterprise, its business model is substantially different than the majority of social enterprises. The company has two goals. A preliminary goal is to raise money for children’s charities by donating all after-tax profits to charity.76 The company’s ultimate goal is to push major athletic equipment and apparel manufacturers to be more sustainable.77 Scott James, founder of Fair Trade Sports, aims to demonstrate the consumer demand,
14

promoting social enterprise through public policy

profitability, and process of selling sports equipment made from environmentally-friendly materials with the highest labor standards at all points throughout the supply chain.78 Sports equipment, the rubber in soccer balls in particular, is damaging to the environment. Therefore, Fair Trade Sports has created both a breakthrough product and supply chain process. With a $200,000 budget for philanthropy, James originally debated making a donation to Amnesty International or other non-profits focused on holding businesses accountable for human rights violations.79 He became frustrated, however, with the opportunities available for him to donate. He claims, “everyone was saying don’t do this, don’t do child labor, don’t do environmental damage, no one was saying please do this.”80 In the process of discerning how he could maximize his impact with a $200,000 budget and willingness to commit himself to a new fulltime job, James met with numerous non-profit leaders in the city of Seattle to evaluate his ability to succeed in managing a non-profit. The result for him was a resounding “no.”81 He was advised that his relentless business mindset would clash with the often slower moving and more political atmosphere of non-profits.82 After much thought, James decided to start Fair Trade Sports, and produce the world’s first TransFair USA certified Fair Trade, sustainable soccer ball. His mission is to work himself out of a job by having one of the five major soccer ball manufacturers follow his lead and create a sustainable ball. In fall of 2010, Fair Trade Sports was behind on its ambitious threeyear break-even goal on the initial investment of $200,000, but still on track to reach profitability within a year. The success of Fair Trade Sports thus far has largely been through bulk order sales to school districts and soccer teams, but the company is on the horizon of expansion into retail stores, most notably, a few West Coast Costco stores. Fair Trade Sports embodies the race to the top ideology of social entrepreneurship, utilizing competition for social change. Every product sold by Fair Trade Sports meets certified Fair Trade labor and environmental standards. This includes paying the average worker
15

journal of undergraduate research

50 percent more than non-Fair Trade competitors, as well as reinvesting into the workers’ communities through community clinics, health insurance and micro-credit loans.83 The eco-certification for balls made by Fair Trade Sports comes from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) of the United States. Seventy percent of a soccer ball is rubber, most often from a particular region of Pakistan where 85 percent of all soccer balls originate. The farming of rubber from forests can be extremely damaging, but Fair Trade Sports has taken all the proper steps to ensure the protection of the natural resources in its supply chain in order to earn the FSC’s certification. Fair Trade Sports defies the norm of beating competitors with the lowest price point, which would force it to reduce costs at the expense of the environment and its workers. Instead, the company is growing rapidly because it is proving that when given the option, customers will often choose a sports ball constructed by healthy and wellpaid workers using environmentally-friendly materials. As Fair Trade Sports continues to increase its market share, James is confident one of the major athletic ball manufacturers will purchase the company or move its suppliers to match the sustainability of his supply chain.84 His confidence is rooted in the movement toward sustainability in U.S. businesses, particularly businesses that rely on their brand’s image to sell products.85 If Fair Trade Sports continues to grow, James believes it is only a matter of time before one of the major athletic ball manufacturers adopts some of the supply chain standards of Fair Trade Sports. Unwilling to be tarnished with the reputation of being the anti-environmental sports company, once one company moves in the direction of Fair Trade Sports, the other companies are bound to follow. Better World Books, Seventh Generation, Give Something Back Office Supplies, New Resource Bank, and Fair Trade Sports are forprofit social enterprises that represent a variety of avenues pursued by social enterprise to change business in the U.S. Social enterprise signifies a commitment to alleviating social and environmental problems as a core part of the business model. This new company model
16

Resource Bank, and Fair Trade Sports are for-profit social enterprises that represent a variety of avenues pursued by social enterprise to change business in the U.S. Social enterprise signifies a commitment to alleviating social and environmental problems as a core part of the business model. This new company model is only part of the movement in the U.S. toward more

promoting social enterprise through public policy

is only business the movement in the U.S. toward on the sustainable sustainablepart of practices. Graphic 1.3 diagrams one perspective morespectrum of the new
frontier of business models.86 86

business practices. Figure 1.3 diagrams the spectrum of new frontier business models.
Graphic 1.3 Figure 1.3

Non-Profit Social Enterprise Non-Profit Organization Revenue Generating Non-Profit

For-Profit Social Enterprise For-Profit Company Corporate Social Responsibility

Research and theory on the implementation of business models to solve social and environmental problems is in its infancy. Therefore, problems is in its infancy. Therefore, the socially-beneficial continuum is far from universally the socially-beneficial continuum is far from universally accepted. accepted. in the the social enterprise community believe believe passionately that Many Many in social enterprise community passionately that social enterprise social enterprise should not to make profit unless that profit is used make a should not include companies designedincludea companies designed to to scale the profit unless that profit is used to scale the enterprise, reduce the cost of a socially-beneficial product or service, or increase the benefits for members of the workforce from a disadvantaged population.87 According to the Social Enterprise Alliance (SE Alliance), in order to be a social enterprise the company must fall into one of three categories: employee-focused, created specifically to provide permanent jobs, competitive wages, career tracks, and ownership opportunities to mentally, physically, economically, or educationally disadvantaged people; customer-focused that directly address social needs through a product or service; and hybrids that simultaneously deliver a product or service that directly addresses a social need and employs members of a target population.88 For-profit social enterprises often fall into one of the three categories, but many provide their primary social benefit through indirect means like corporate philanthropy. For example, Give Something Back Office Supplies would not qualify as a social enterprise under the SE Alliance’s definition despite the fact that the company donates 75 percent of its net revenue to charity, prioritizes green office products, and hires disadvantaged populations in Oakland, California.89
17

Research and theory on the implementation of business models to solve social and environmental

journal of undergraduate research

The SE Alliance definition is in line with the European interpretation of social enterprise, as well as the concept of social businesses developed by Nobel laureate, Mohammad Yunus. The UK is far ahead of the United States in national awareness of social enterprise and utilization of the sector to increase the efficacy of government and reduce its role in society. In 2007 the UK Government estimated approximately 62,000 social enterprises were operating in the UK and contributing at least £24 billion to the economy while employing 800,000 people.90 The most widely accepted definition for social enterprise in the UK is a Community Interest Company (CIC). Since 2005 social enterprises have had the opportunity to incorporate as CICs. CICs are companies that must be designed to benefit society and are limited by law to only redistributing profits to scale their business, lower the cost of products or services to a disadvantaged population, or to donate to charitable causes.91 Not all in the UK agree with such a limited view of social enterprise.92 A study commissioned by an economics consultancy from the UK, Delta Economics, widened the definition of social enterprise to include companies that are dedicated to creating social and/or environmental value with unrestricted profits. The Delta Economics study estimated as many as 232,000 social enterprises may be operating in the UK.93 Non-profit or limited profit social enterprises in the United States are making a monumental impact on social problems.94 Preliminary research on the effectiveness of these types of enterprises, particularly enterprises that focus on the employment of disadvantaged populations, shows extraordinary potential.95 Research indicates the value added to the economy of creating a job for a person who would otherwise be reliant on social safety net programs for survival could be as high as $100,000 per person, per year.96 Therefore a group of social enterprises that employ and provide benefits to just 10,000 employees that experience significant barriers to employment like the developmentally disabled, poorly educated, recovering substance abusers or ex-convicts, returns $1 billion in stimulus to the U.S. economy.97
18

promoting social enterprise through public policy

This paper, however, focuses on the accomplishments and potential of for-profit social enterprises. It is vitally important to separate for-profit social enterprises and companies with above average corporate social responsibility practices. Without meaningful separation, the opportunity of for-profit social enterprises designed to benefit society and/or the environment would be diminished by association with corporate sustainability and philanthropy practices as a marketing strategy. The United States is the international symbol of capitalism. The pursuit of profit is woven deeply into the cultural fabric and success of the country. Profit motive is responsible for bringing the best minds in the world to the U.S., who have unleashed their ideas and fundamentally changed the human experience. In just 250 years, the U.S. has become a world superpower with unforeseen levels of economic success. The extraordinary success of business often leads people to question what the role of companies should be in society. The current structure of the U.S. capitalistic system indicates people believe businesses should solely be responsible for maximizing profit, while government and non-profits have the responsibility of ensuring human rights, economic survival for the impoverished, and the preservation of the environment. Yet, at a time when the U.S. is encumbered with economic problems from the recession, it is now exemplary of the need for a new economic direction. No longer should the efficiency and sustainability of the private sector be reserved for companies focused solely on making a profit, and no longer should the ethical standards and environmental stewardship of non-profits be reserved for organizations that rely on donations to survive. For-profit social enterprises reflect the American character, a duality of impassioned desire to do good and care for a neighbor, with a profound belief in the value of the opportunity for financial success through hard work and competition.

19

journal of undergraduate research

Rating System This in an age when advertisements are run for Exxon/Mobil, Chevron, and BP on alternative energy; Pepsi and Coke for helping children, Lay’s Potato Chips for being “all natural”; and Chevrolet for designing a hybrid Suburban. Major corporations have discovered the changing dynamics of the American consumer. Without a welldefined and nationally-established rating and certification system, consumers may not be aware of the distinction between for-profit social enterprises and mere corporate social responsibility. For-profit social enterprises are businesses designed to address a social or environmental problem through revenue-generating business models. Going forward, it must be clear to consumers which companies meet the for-profit social enterprise certification, as well as how and to what extent the company creates social benefit. A nationally accepted rating system is necessary to hold companies accountable for their claims. In Europe, laws limit profit that can be returned to shareholders from social enterprises. That limitation would be unnecessary if a rigorous certification process were instituted providing official recognition to social enterprises. If a company can make significant profits while meeting stringent social and environmental benefit standards, it should be celebrated and empowered, not stifled. The national corporate movement toward sustainability creates new opportunities for consumers to practice their values in all of their purchasing decisions, but too often sustainability marketing outpaces the real benefit of sustainability claims. More than four in ten respondents “feel that it is too difficult to know whether companies are truly behaving ethically to base shopping or investing decisions on this issue.”98 With 36 percent99 of customers admitting to the influence of corporate behavior when making those decisions, and 75 percent willing to pay a price premium for authentic green claims,100 it is clear that there is significant unmet demand for better information about companies’ business practices.
20

promoting social enterprise through public policy

Economic efficiency is reliant upon a near-perfect exchange of information. Right now the marketplace is out of balance because consumers have a desire to reward companies for ethical behavior, but the information is so convoluted and unclear that consumers largely lack the confidence to incorporate social responsibility in their product choices. Research shows that, “less than one percent of consumers trust company advertisements or statements made on product packaging when deciding if a company is or does what it claims.”101 Consumers trust themselves and third parties to determine social consciousness, meaning a third-party rating system that increases transparency would have a substantial impact.102 Ratings for products that have social or environmental benefit desperately need to be standardized and clarified. The obvious need for certification of sustainability claims has spawned a plethora of logos and certifications that may provide some beneficial information, but continue to make the buying process unnecessarily complex.
Figure 1.4

21

journal of undergraduate research

Figure 1.4 presents a different vision of the certification system that exists today. While a wide array of certifications should continue to have a place as marketing tools to inform consumers of different attributes of a product or company, a single standard with a nationally-recognized quantitative value for the social and environmental benefit of a company must exist for social enterprises. The rating is an opportunity for competitive advantage as companies try to earn respect and recognition from customers for having a low price and a high score. A quantitative score is important to increase efficiency in the market for all social enterprise goods sold. The score empowers consumers to make a value assessment on the price they are willing to pay for a higher score on a similar product. Product ratings like “USDA Organic,” “Fair Trade,” or “Wind Made” will continue to be included on packaging because companies with diverse product lines may offer certain products that meet those standards and others that do not. However, a single score available on the products of all social enterprises with a recognizable logo will help consumers navigate through the overload of marketing information. As technology and the social enterprise sector develop, the score should include a way for any consumer with a smart phone to instantly access easy-todigest information about a company’s social and/or environmental benefit. The Quick Response code, the square bar code that can be interpreted by smart phones included in Figure 1.4, is a technology that could be implemented today. In today’s economy, social and environmental benefits are communicated to consumers, investors, and competitors in different languages and a different numerical system. Without any quantitative standards, explanations of benefits are entirely anecdotal and difficult to compare. It will never be possible to capture the entirety of social and environmental value within an equation, but business must move in that direction to unleash the full potential of social enterprise. Imagine the U.S. economy without the legal mandate of specific accounting practices. The inefficiency loss for investors trying to compare a variety of companies that all use totally different
22

promoting social enterprise through public policy

accounting procedures would be enormous. Consumers who want to use their dollars to purchase products from, or invest in, companies that meet a higher standard of social and environmental stewardship do not have a centralized location or specific document to access. A single rating for companies that is recognized and easily converted into a quantitative value akin to the monetary price for the consumer would revolutionize the way people, from retail to heavy industry, purchase products. The only model available today for a standardized rating system inclusive of both for-profit and non-profit social enterprises are certified Benefit Corporations (B Corporations or B Corps) certified by B Lab, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia. As of April 2011 there are 399 B Corporations from 54 industries in the U.S. that account for $1.87 billion in revenue.103 From 2009 to 2010 the number of B Corp certifications grew by more than 75 percent.104 B Lab is in the midst of a campaign to make it possible in all 50 states to incorporate as a benefit corporation. As of April 2011, B Corp law has been enacted in Maryland, Vermont, and signed into law awaiting implementation in New Jersey and Virginia.105 Another incorporation form for social enterprise is the Lowprofit Limited Liability Company or L3C.106 Non-profit and limited profit social enterprises can incorporate as L3Cs in eight states. L3Cs, by definition, must not have the production of profit as a “significant business purpose.”107 Also, L3Cs would leave the verification process of social and/or environmental mission to the states, lacking the certifying third party role required in benefit corporation legislation.108 While excluding most for-profit social enterprises, the L3C law has some distinct advantages. The law can be passed as an amendment because the L3C incorporation form is a modification of the legally established Limited Liability Companies corporation form.109 Also, L3Cs comply with IRS regulations regarding Program Related Investments (PRIs), a qualification that should be pursued by B Lab for B Corps. PRIs are IRS-sanctioned investments made by charitable foundations and endowments that allow foundations to make
23

journal of undergraduate research

investments instead of granting away money.110 L3Cs are very attractive, because foundations can accomplish their charitable purpose, as well as potentially receive their investment back, including a small financial return. While L3Cs have advantages, B Corps are the most formidable way forward for institutionalizing social enterprise because their standards rely on a rigorous evaluation of social and/or environmental benefit by a third party certifier, avoiding the need for limitations on profit. Creating legal status for B Corps will empower policy makers to make targeted reforms and policy proposals to promote social enterprise, which will encourage entrepreneurs to start social enterprises and help existing social enterprises expand in the U.S. B Lab believes in competition, so the legislation to create a legal status for B Corps only requires a third-party certifier, not specifically B Lab. Therefore, the new legal incorporation form created by the B Lab law (passed in four states with a goal of all 50 states) is a benefit corporation.111 B Lab refers to companies it certifies as certified Benefit Corporations, B Corporations or B Corps, enabling other third-party organizations that meet the statutory criteria to certify benefit corporations.112 To be clear, benefit corporations, not capitalized, can be certified by any qualified third party organization, but a B Corp refers to a company that has passed the B Lab Impact Assessment.113 A company can be a B Corp without legally being a benefit corporation in today’s political environment, because it is possible the B Corp is in a state without the legal means to incorporate as a benefit corporation. B Corps can be LLCs or other types of incorporation forms, but can only become legally recognized as benefit corporations in states that have passed legislation to create the new incorporation form.114 While most for-profit social enterprises will not be able to become legally recognized as benefit corporations in 2011, from this point forward in the paper, the term, benefit corporation, will be used interchangeably with for-profit social enterprise, and double- or triple-bottom line business. “Benefit corporation” will
24

promoting social enterprise through public policy

be used because it is likely on track to becoming the legal term to describe for-profit social enterprises. The benefit corporation legislation has no financial cost, focusing solely on the fiduciary responsibility of corporations.115 Under current corporate law, without benefit corporation legislation, executives are legally responsible to their shareholders, public or private, to maximize profit.116 Any decision made to the contrary could end up in court. This legal barrier deters social entrepreneurship, but most importantly, it limits social enterprises from taking on additional investors. Giving away ownership, whether diluting ownership through additional financing or by retiring or selling the business, comes with the risk of losing the social and/or environmental value of the enterprise.117 Two of the three B Lab founds are trying to develop a framework for preserving a company’s social mission and standards, even through an ownership transition.118 A rating system provides an identity for a company that does not fit neatly within the profit-maximizing business model. National recognition of the term “benefit corporation” would save company executives the time of explaining why the companies they manage donate portions of profits or choose more expensive materials because they are certified Fair Trade or environmentally-friendly. Whether companies are seeking access to loans, gaining certification from the FDIC, or soliciting investors, having an identity in the socially-beneficial spectrum provides more credibility. Every company interviewed for this paper mentioned struggling to communicate its identity to investors, banks, government agencies, or customers. Having a rating system that is standardized and universally respected allows companies not only to reduce the hassle of explaining the double- or triplebottom line concept, but to capitalize on the reputation of being an authentic social enterprise. The strength of B Lab as a leader in rating companies is its business identity. B Lab is an organization founded and managed by business people to solve business problems. The company is equipped to take sustainable business to the mainstream through its comprehensive
25

journal of undergraduate research

B Lab Impact Assessment. The Impact Assessment establishes five pillars of social responsibility: accountability, employees, consumers, community, and the environment.119
Figure 1.5
Accountability -Governance -Transparency Employees -Compensation & Benefits -Employee Ownership -Work Environment Consumers -Beneficial Products & Services Community -Suppliers -Local -Diversity -Charity & Service Environment -Facilities -Energy Usage -Supply Chain -Manufacturing

The Impact Assessment was designed to assess a company’s overall effect on its various stakeholders, rather than to rate company based on creating value for shareholders. The system was developed over a two year period and was reviewed by more than 600 entrepreneurs before the first version launched in 2007.120 As of April 2011, an updated “Version 2.0” is being used, with “Version 3.0” likely to be released by the end of 2011.121 Every two years, B Lab updates the rating system and requires all of its companies to renew their certifications.122 Ten percent of B Corps are audited every year, meaning every two years, all B Corps have a one in five chance of being audited.123 It is essential that companies not only demonstrate their social and/or environmental benefit to earn the certification, but also that they be held accountable to those standards for the duration of their B Corporation status. To be a certified B Corporation, a company must reach a score of 80 out of 200 possible points, which is determined by a 181-question assessment. The questions are listed in the order of the categories in Figure 1.5 and each section has questions that range from “less weighted” to “equally weighted” to “more weighted.”124 The breadth of questions, weights and categories was designed to be as efficient as possible for a range of industries. While some industries have a customized addendum, the Impact Assessment provides adequate opportunity for companies to do good in ways that are feasible within their respective industries or business capacities. It is unrealistic that
26

promoting social enterprise through public policy

all companies will be able to excel in each area of the assessment. Therefore, the assessment is designed to reward as much positive behavior as possible while prioritizing core values through a weighted question system. The expansiveness of the Impact Assessment often has a positive externality for businesses undergoing the certification process by stimulating ideas for companies racing to the top.125 The effect of their thorough assessment is that companies often learn additional ways that they can improve their social mission, and thereby, their score. Even companies that are incapable of attaining the score needed to earn the certification have implemented reforms to run a better business where possible.126 Standardization of business practices that benefit stakeholders lead to behavior changes because standardization yields recognition for the right choices. Shareholder versus Stakeholder Capitalism For-profit social enterprises exemplify the evolutionary progression of companies’ priorities in a capitalistic system, from a parochial focus on shareholders to valuing all stakeholders in a company. A shareholder is an individual, group, or organization that owns one or more shares in a company.127 Despite what many believe, stakeholder advocates are not demanding that companies disregard the interests of their shareholders. Stakeholder capitalism seeks to increase the scope of purpose for a company to benefit all stakeholders—people or organizations—that have a direct or indirect stake in a company.128 While many characterize stakeholder capitalism as contrary to shareholder capitalism, focusing on stakeholders is a more reliable long-term profit strategy for companies and in the shareholders’ best interest. John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods, said, “Long-term profits are maximized by not making them the primary goal.”129 His words are not solely descriptive of his experience with Whole Foods, but indicative of a trend established by years of research that connects corporate social performance with corporate financial performance.
27

journal of undergraduate research

Esteemed business researchers Joshua Margolis of Harvard University and James P. Walsh of the University of Michigan, analyzed data from 127 studies on the relationship between social and environmental stewardship and financial returns.130 They concluded, “a clear signal emerges from these 127 studies. A simple compilation of the findings suggests there is a positive association, and certainly very little evidence of a negative association, between a company’s social performance and its financial performance.”131 Another group of researchers compiled and analyzed 52 studies amounting to information on 33,878 companies and reasoned: “Corporate virtue in the form of social responsibility and, to a lesser extent, environmental responsibility is likely to pay off.”132 Stakeholder capitalism implies business with a more human purpose. In a debate with Milton Friedman over stakeholder theory, Mackey explained why companies should go even further beyond customers, employees and investors if they want to build a brand with the best prospects for long-term profit: For that [why give money to the community and spend extra dollars to be green], you should turn to one of the fathers of free-market economics, Adam Smith. The Wealth of Nations was a tremendous achievement, but economists would be well served to read Smith’s other great book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. There he explains that human nature isn’t just about self-interest. It also includes sympathy, empathy, friendship, love, and the desire for social approval. As motives for human behavior, these are at least as important as self-interest.133 For a business to holistically meet the demands of its customers, it must not ignore its impact on its customers, employees, investors, community, and the environment. By focusing beyond maximizing short-term profits, the company is better positioned for long-term profits. While it is unclear if Whole Foods would qualify as a certified
28

promoting social enterprise through public policy

B Corporation, their business model, as depicted in Figure 1.6,134 displays how a stakeholder approach to business becomes profitable.
Figure 1.6

CEO of Better World Books, David Murphy, believes even the most ardent followers of Milton Friedman will be forced to move in the stakeholder direction because there is more opportunity to make money.135 Murphy believes companies based on a stakeholder model have two distinct competitive advantages regardless of the industry or size of the business. The first is the customer experience. Providing a great product at a competitive price is most important, but having a product that creates social and environmental value when purchased results in happy customers. The enhanced customer experience increases loyalty, perhaps a reason green companies like Seventh Generation fared better than their traditional counterparts during the recession.136 Also, happier customers are more likely to spread the word about a company. In the age of social networking, word-ofmouth campaigns can be extraordinarily effective and affordable. The second clear competitive advantage is happier, more productive, and often higher quality employees. The Conference Board, a
29

journal of undergraduate research

business research organization, reported in January 2010 that job satisfaction is at an all-time low in the more than 20 years they have been doing the survey.137 An abysmal 45 percent of respondents were satisfied with their jobs, a 16.1 percent drop from 1987.138 In that time period job satisfaction dropped in all categories including interest in work, job security, employee engagement, job design, organizational health, managerial quality, and extrinsic rewards.139 Research verifies that companies with a purpose beyond making a profit have a stronger appeal to prospective employees and increase employee well-being.140 A researcher articulated the phenomenon in a review of literature on the topic: “Employees are forced to leave parts of their selves at home, while showing up at work with only a focus on profit.”141 Many for-profit social enterprises interviewed for this project cited their ability to attract top-tier talent from corporate America at a fraction of the salary due to the value the manager earned through pride in working for a company that makes money while working to improve its community and the environment. Therefore, social enterprises can reduce overhead compared to their competitors by paying less for human capital in executive and management positions, and likely achieve better productivity from all employees in the process. Stakeholder capitalism redefines the paradigm of corporate America today by pushing companies to race to the top. In a stakeholder system companies become more profitable as they do more for their community and the environment. Clearly there are limits and marginal rates of return on social benefit, but if a company can produce an exceptional product at a competitive price it can differentiate from its competitors by improving its benefit to stakeholders. For-profit social enterprises add value to more than their community, environment, customers, and employees. Traditional companies are eager to partner or develop business relationships with for-profit social enterprises because they can add value to the traditional company as well. The 399 certified Benefit Corporations in the U.S. today save more than one million dollars annually through partnerships with companies that provide business services, which is another way of
30

promoting social enterprise through public policy

lowering overhead to better compete with traditional companies.142 For example, certified B Corps receive significant discounts through B Lab partnerships with Salesforce.com, Intuit QuickBooks, NetSuite, CSRWire, law firms, web design consultancies, and others. Better World Books saves more than $100,000 per year in discounts because of its certified B Corp status. Stakeholder capitalism incentivizes the high road to profitability; improving the bottom line by being a better business is the future of the American company. Stakeholder capitalism advocate, Dr. Rajendra Sisodia of Bentley College writes, “The search for meaning is changing expectations in the marketplace, and in the workplace. Indeed, we believe it is changing the very soul of capitalism.”143 Social Enterprise and Public Policy Many believed the election of President Obama in 2008 was a critical juncture for the United States. His election personified this generation’s response to economic crisis: a desire for a better political discourse, more effective and efficient governance, and a step out of the entrapped arguments of past generations. Unfortunately, the optimism and idealism of the campaign disintegrated into one of the most divided and vitriolic political atmospheres Americans have ever seen. Instead of being the solution to America’s problems, the election of President Obama in a moment of crisis continues to reveal the most ubiquitous fault line dividing politics in the United States: the conflict between free markets to promote individual opportunity and government involvement to ensure a standard of living. Political opponents are entrenched in a fruitless tug of war between regulation and taxes to promote social and environmental programs, and a resolute faith in the capacity of the free market to create the best possible societal outcomes. For-profit social enterprises are a new way forward, built on America’s core values of opportunity through the free market and caring for one another.

31

journal of undergraduate research

Policy has a role to play in catalyzing the growth of social enterprises in the U.S., not by subsidizing products to prop up companies incapable of succeeding in a free market, but by building an infrastructure for social enterprises to validate their place in the U.S. economy. The growth of social enterprises could radically reduce the role of government in the U.S. It will always be more efficient for the private sector to solve, or avoid the creation of, problems. Too often, however, the private sector does not fulfill its responsibility to stakeholders, creating the demand for government to get increasingly involved in society. Policy must start by recognizing that social enterprises present a new type of company that does not fit into business law as it is structured today. For-profit social enterprises must have a means to incorporate under law in a manner that reflects the totality of their social, environmental, and profit-driven mission. In many ways, the legal structure of business defines the culture of business. A for-profit social enterprise in 46 out of 50 states has no path to legal recognition except abandoning its financial returns and becoming a non-profit. Otherwise, it is legally obligated to maximize profit with every business decision as an LLC, C-corp, S-corp, or other type of incorporation status. As stated previously, B Lab is pushing to make benefit corporation legislation the law of all 50 states.144 The legislation creates a legal infrastructure for a double- or triple-bottom line company, protecting the social and/or environmental mission as an integral part of the business despite ownership changes, and empowering managers with the ability to make decisions to benefit all stakeholders. The legal infrastructure opens the door to policy targeted at for-profit social enterprises, providing both state and federal legislators and executives to advocate for laws that apply to benefit corporations. The legislation has been passed with overwhelming bipartisan support in Maryland and Vermont, and with unanimous support in Virginia and New Jersey.145 A summary of the bill from Virginia demonstrates why the legislation has generated levels of bipartisanship unseen in today’s rancorous political environment:
32

promoting social enterprise through public policy

[The bill] authorizes a Virginia stock corporation to elect to be a benefit corporation. A benefit corporation is required to have, as one of its purposes, the purpose of creating a general public benefit, which is defined as a material positive impact on society and the environment taken as a whole, as measured by a third-party standard, from the business and operations of a benefit corporation. In addition, a benefit corporation may have the purpose of creating one or more specific public benefits, which include providing low-income or underserved individuals or communities with beneficial products or services; promoting economic opportunity for individuals or communities beyond the creation of jobs in the normal course of business; preserving the environment; improving human health; promoting the arts, sciences, or advancement of knowledge; increasing the flow of capital to entities with a public benefit purpose; and conferring any other particular benefit on society or the environment. In discharging their duties and considering the best interests of the benefit corporation, the board of directors and individual directors consider the effects of any corporate action on shareholders, employees, customers, and other persons and issues. A benefit corporation shall deliver to shareholders an annual report describing the ways in which the corporation generally pursued its general public benefit and related matters.146 While only four states have passed the legislation, seven more are advancing bills in their state legislatures. The vision of B Lab is to pass legislation in every state that creates the benefit corporation status for companies that meet a third party certification verifying their double- or triple-bottom line claims.147 Because corporate law is most directly handled at the state level, in particular the process of incorporation that goes through the Secretary of State office of each individual state, B Lab is focused on working with state governments. For the purposes of this paper, policy ideas and analyses will assume
33

journal of undergraduate research

a legal environment in which all 50 states have passed laws enabling companies to incorporate as benefit corporations, and that “benefit corporation” is the official legal term to describe for-profit social enterprises. Therefore, the policies proposed in this paper will share the goal of creating the best possible business environment for benefit corporations. Methodology A prominent businessman once said, “The difference between lawyers and businesspeople is: businesspeople create and lawyers take.”148 This mindset may often apply to the business perception of government and policy as well. In many ways the view is justified, but as discussed at length in this paper, the paradigm can be shifted. This project began with interviewing seven business people deeply immersed in the benefit corporation movement, ranging from social entrepreneurs in the start-up phase to CEOs of some of the largest certified B Corporations. Policy for business must start and finish with a business mindset. How can we enable companies to be successful? Regardless of a company’s size, industry, or target market, everyone interviewed was uninterested in government subsidies of their products or services. For-profit social enterprises refuse to accept that government subsidization is required to earn profits. They have a deep pride in their ability to challenge and work with some of corporate America’s most profitable companies without sacrificing their social and environmental values. As a result, there is a barrier to overcome in creating business policy for social enterprise. While benefit corporations recognize the capacity of their business model to reduce the burden on government (justifying government support of their products or services), businesspeople in benefit corporations have a wide variety of opinions on accepting policy ideas designed to promote their organizations. Some offered concrete policy proposals. Others endorsed the idea of a better legal infrastructure for benefit corporations, but little more.
34

promoting social enterprise through public policy

Following interviews with the business community, and performing extensive research on the range and scope of the triple-bottom line movement, the results were compiled and processed into an outline. That outline was used to interview a wide variety of policymakers ranging from congressional staff to conservative and progressive think tanks to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and small business advocacy groups. The round of policy interviews, in tandem with research on economic and business policy, yielded a wide variety of policy proposals for both state and federal governments to adopt, which will increase the recognition and competitiveness of benefit corporations. Businesses demand policy that is transparent, simple, and provides adequate time to make the proper adjustments. Every decision in business is made on a basis of cost and benefit, even in a doubleor triple-bottom line company that has multiple levels of cost-benefit analysis: financial, social and/or environmental. Therefore when policies are undefined, unclear, or do not provide enough time for a business to do cost-benefit analysis, they create unnecessary inefficiency. For example, the implementation of a carbon tax could be done in a variety of ways. Policy proposals in this paper are crafted to meet the standards of business. The proposals are numerous because competition of ideas creates the best possible result. The goal of each idea is to maximize results for all stakeholders by empowering benefit corporations to succeed. The philosophy of each policy is grounded in the words of business lawyer William Clark, speaking of benefit corporations: Personally, I’m pretty conservative. I like this approach because it’s voluntary, not imposed. I think government can’t solve all our problems and the private sector is a much bigger player in the economy anyway. If we can help businesses behave in a different way, we can actually harness the power of the free market to make social changes.149
35

journal of undergraduate research

Policy Proposals Benefit corporations are on track to enter the mainstream, but the right combination of policies will drastically accelerate the process. In order to be clear and straightforward, the following four proposals should be passed individually, but within a small time frame to make the largest impact. These four policies enacted from a federal level, implemented by a combination of federal and state governments, address four elements of business: financial capital, human capital, hiring employees, and a customer base. Access to capital is essential to the success of every business. The Small Business Administration (SBA) plays a crucial role in reducing the cost of capital for small businesses through a variety of mechanisms, most notably through loan guarantees. Therefore, small benefit corporations should be fully integrated into the culture and programming of the SBA. While the SBA differentiates companies based on ownership by underprivileged populations or location in an economically-challenged area, the SBA makes no official acknowledgment of benefit corporations in their programming.150 This leaves benefit corporations in a disadvantaged position when seeking access to the SBA Loan Guarantee Program, known as SBA 7(a) loans. The 7(a) loan program is designed to make capital more accessible to small business and start-ups through a deal that shares the risk of a loan between a lender, the government, and the borrower.151 By sharing the risk, the SBA makes it financially feasible for lending institutions to provide loans to businesses that would not have received a loan without the SBA guarantee. The 7(a) loans have established maximum interest rates depending on loan amounts. The maximum value of an SBA guarantee is $1.5 million, with a guarantee percentage of 90 percent. Therefore, the largest 7(a) loan the SBA can make is $1.67 million.152 Two variations exist for the 7(a) program: prequalification and Certified Development Company (CDC) loans. The prequalification program helps streamline the loan process for low-income borrowers,
36

promoting social enterprise through public policy

business owners with disabilities, new and emerging businesses, veteran-owned businesses, exporters, and rural and specialized industries.153 CDC loans are debt capital provided through Community Development Corporations that are non-profit organizations, specializing in localized economic development.154 These are designed to better target micro ventures and small businesses that may represent a higher risk, but also have a higher added value if successful.155 The SBA uses these organizations to better target borrowers in need, who will have a high impact on their communities. Both variations rely on the assumption that the government has a stake in providing access to capital, based on the potential of business and economic development to overcome the problems that paralyze underprivileged populations and struggling areas. Today, when seeking a loan, benefit corporations are more likely to be encumbered by than benefit from their social and/or environmental missions.156 The SBA is on the front lines of business development and has a responsibility to recognize and empower benefit corporations. Policy should be put in place, vis-à-vis the prequalification program, which streamlines the loan process for benefit corporations. One of the largest benefit corporations today, Better World Books, owes its success to a 7(a) loan, received when the company was in need of expanding its operation but did not want to dilute ownership through equity financing.157 In the loan-seeking process Better World Books had to spend significant time explaining its triple-bottom-line business model. Banks are trained to find areas for expense reduction, making expenditures related to social and environmental missions irrational to many banks because they may appear secondary or tertiary to the financial bottom line. Instead of being punished for adding social and/or environmental value on every dollar earned, benefit corporations should have their own path to 7(a) loans. Benefit corporations that prove their company is on a path to increased profitability should be put on the fast track for receiving a loan guarantee. An institutionally included program variation for benefit corporations would provide a rubric
37

journal of undergraduate research

for banks to process double- and triple-bottom-line business models. This will lead to a more efficient lending process, resulting both in speed for the businesses and the ability to evaluate the viability of the company for banks. While benefit corporations have the ability to attract those who are seeking a more meaningful job experience, they will face the same barriers as other small businesses to hiring the most competent workforce because of their size and limited ability to invest in employee recruitment. The advantage benefit corporations have is a workforce that is more committed and enthusiastic about their jobs. Taking the energy and passion for doing good from the non-profit mentality, combined with a financial incentive, benefit corporations have a strategy for maintaining a highly motivated workforce. Therefore, if the motivation to work hard is not an obstacle for most, then education remains the only barrier to career and productivity advancement for the majority of employees at benefit corporations. The four part policy package should include grants for job training targeted to benefit corporations, modeled on the State of Michigan’s Economic Development Job Training (EDJT) program.158 The program provides grants to job training organizations, including government training facilities, universities and community colleges, and private companies that offer job-training, as well as grants directly to companies to hire job training resources.159 The EDJT program is designed to not only train or re-train low skilled workers for a new trade like green energy, but also to help advance managers and executives to higher levels of productivity and competency.160 Imagine the resources saved for benefit corporations if they could promote within their organization to fill top-level management positions instead of having to spend the time and resources to locate and hire external candidates. Benefit corporations have an enthusiastic employee culture that, if combined with the highest levels of training and academic study, would prove extraordinarily effective. A variety of deficit commissions, non-partisan policy researchers, and a politically diverse array of politicians believe short-term
38

promoting social enterprise through public policy

reductions in payroll taxes are a rapid and efficient means of stimulating the economy.161 Payroll taxes, also known as FICA taxes, are levied on both employees and employers to fund Social Security and Medicare.162 Every legal employee and employer in the U.S., regardless of income, pays the flat rate of 7.65 percent, excluding the self-employed who pay 12.4 percent.163 Employers pay the tax on the value of every wage or salary they provide. The tax is capped at $106,800.164 In March of 2010, Congress passed, and President Obama signed, the HIRE Act (Hiring Incentives to Restore Employment). The HIRE Act created a payroll tax exemption on any new employee until December 31, 2010, as long as the employee hired had been unemployed for more than 40 hours in the preceding 60day period.165 While implemented to create an economy-wide stimulus, the idea can be translated into a targeted strategy to reduce the cost of hiring for benefit corporations. Such a strategy would create more jobs and expand the impact of benefit corporations. This would represent a significant advantage over a tax break on income of benefit corporations. A tax break on net income of benefit corporations would not ensure that the tax break would have the combined value of creating direct incentive for job creation and social and/or environmental benefit. However, the policy for benefit corporations should extend beyond one year. A one-year tax holiday may not have the same effect because of its short duration. A five-year tax break would likely amount to savings significant enough to factor heavily into hiring decisions. Also, a longer duration would provide ample time for the generous tax break for benefit corporations to generate media attention and discussion in the business community, raising the profile of benefit corporations. The cost would depend on the quantity and size of benefit corporations in the U.S. at the time of the enactment, but would likely be a small cost compared to the societal benefit created from the lost revenues. Finally, the fourth and final proposal is for the federal government to give procurement preference to benefit corporations. The
39

journal of undergraduate research

way that the federal government spends its money reflects the values of the nation, and creates an opportunity to empower the type of businesses that make the largest positive impact on their stakeholders. Government contracts are an enormous market for business in the U.S. In 2009, $442.27 billion was paid to private companies in government contracts, with $96.83 billion paid to small businesses.166 Preference is given to disadvantaged business owners because the success of those businesses is a higher added value to the taxpayer than the same contracts or loans provided to businesses that have not had to overcome social disadvantage. Disadvantage is defined by circumstances that have a direct negative impact on entry into, or advancement in, the business world such as an applicant’s economic class, race, ethnic origin, gender, physical handicap, or mental handicap.167 Business owners will not receive preferential status simply by meeting these criteria, nor will a business owner that is not a member of those groups be immediately excluded. Proof of social disadvantage is required to earn the preferred status in receiving government contracts.168 The success of disadvantaged businesses is of higher value because of the higher differential between potential tax revenue if a disadvantaged business is successful and the tax expenditure on government programs if the business is unsuccessful. Therefore the government is willing to pay a slightly higher price to patronize disadvantaged businesses. For example, the General Services Administration (GSA), the federal agency in charge of real estate and purchasing for the federal government, may have a statute that says if a disadvantaged company comes within 5 percent of the lowest bid, they should win the contract. With that same reasoning in mind, benefit corporations should be granted preferential status in government contracts and expenditures because their success will create value beyond direct investors in the companies. Small disadvantaged businesses receive $33.47 billion in revenue from federal government dollars; HUBZone businesses, and companies in economically challenged regions or areas, receive $12.41 billion.169 Combined, the two categories make up more than
40

promoting social enterprise through public policy

10 percent of government expenditures to private companies.170 As of April 2011, total revenue for B Corporations is $1.88 billion dollars.171 Therefore, ensuring preferred access to government contracts for benefit corporations could raise revenues significantly. In 2011 President Obama signed an executive order that required federal agencies to examine means to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, in particular through the procurement process.172 Benefit corporations make the government’s job in selecting high-impact businesses significantly easier because they have already met a third-party certification that guarantees the double- or triple-bottom line values of the company. In addition to providing an additional customer base, procurement policy could prove pivotal in accelerating national acceptance of the benefit corporation standard. In the late nineties, the GSA took leadership on the issue of green buildings, requiring any building built on government property to be LEED Certified.173 LEED Certification is managed by the U.S. Green Building Council, a nonprofit third party that is similar to B Lab’s role with certified B Corporations.174 Today LEED Certification is widely recognized, with more than 35,000 projects currently participating in the LEED system, comprising over 4.5 billion square feet of construction space in all 50 states and 91 countries.175 The insertion of language requiring LEED Certification into the GSA code helped catalyze the rapid movement toward green buildings and the acceptance of LEED Certification as the standard.176 The GSA can play the same role with benefit corporations. As a federal agency, it is under the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch, meaning President Obama’s new Office of Social Innovation could build momentum within the administration to create a procurement preference for benefit corporations. Policies to promote benefit corporations should be both direct, like the previous four proposals, and indirect, which will create a more just business environment, making it easier for benefit corporations to succeed by reforming the national business environment.
41

journal of undergraduate research

Capital Gains Tax Cut It may be easiest to implement investor side policy to aid benefit corporations, once benefit corporations are recognized in all 50 states. Many companies interviewed advocated for policy aimed at investors, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce indicated in an interview that a capital gains tax cut would be the best opportunity for starting the creation of federal policy to promote benefit corporations.177 An incentive to investors, like the reduction or elimination of long-term capital gains taxes on benefit corporation investments, has little risk for the government and is a direct policy to stimulate benefit corporations. If the government eliminates capital gains taxes on benefit corporations, it will not lose significant tax revenue unless benefit corporations are performing in the marketplace.178 Capital gains are not earned in the aggregate if benefit corporations are not becoming increasingly financially valuable. If benefit corporations are succeeding in the marketplace and attracting investment, then social and/or environmental value is being created, offsetting some, if not all of the uncollected capital gains tax revenue. In the tax year of 2011, long-term capital gains (capital assets held for one year or more) are taxed at a 0 percent rate for the two lowest tax brackets and at 15 percent for all other taxpayers.179 Short-term capital gains (capital assets held for less than one year) are taxed as ordinary income.180 In pursuit of promoting social enterprise through public policy, the federal government should eliminate capital gains taxes on benefit corporations for a ten year period, once benefit corporations become established in all 50 states. Taking into account business concepts for policy, it is important the tax cut last for multiple years, preferably a decade, and that the cut is phased out after ten years depending on a governmental cost-benefit analysis. If the tax cut is too temporary, investors will have a disincentive to invest and an incentive to sell quickly, creating the inverse of the desired effect. Phasing out the tax cut is also important, in order to avoid a

42

promoting social enterprise through public policy

shock that could lead to overselling of benefit corporation stock prior to a tax hike. Critics of capital gains tax cuts argue that the cuts adversely benefit the wealthy and do less to stimulate the economy than other types of tax cuts.181 The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service supports those claims. However, a capital gains tax cut for long-term capital assets from benefit corporations would not be designed to stimulate the economy in the short-term. Instead, the purpose of the tax cut is to create sustainable social and/or environmental value by driving investment into benefit corporations and generating investor attention on a new class of companies. The result of increased investment in benefit corporations would be significant growth in companies that create social and/or environmental benefit on every dollar earned. Designed for Business, Revenue Neutral Carbon Tax A carbon tax is the most transparent, feasible, and efficient strategy to make the United States a leader in the international green economy, reduce dependence on foreign oil, and address the crisis of global warming. It also is one of the most important policies to the success of the benefit corporation movement.182 While benefit corporations specialize in many areas beyond the new green energy economy, many of the businesses have a definitively green mission, positioning them to benefit from any legislation that forces companies to absorb the pollution costs associated with greenhouse gases. A carbon tax, if implemented correctly, is an essential tool in harnessing the market to slow global warming and prod U.S. businesses into catching up to international competition in the green revolution, creating a resoundingly positive economic impact. Even the most ardent free-market proponent would be challenged to argue that the problem of global warming will be solved without some government intervention. Pollution is an economic externality, meaning the entity profiting from the polluting activity is not fully
43

journal of undergraduate research

absorbing the external costs of pollution on society in the price of the good or service. Therefore, the key is a policy solution that forces energy suppliers to internalize pollution costs with the smallest possible negative impact, while creating the most effective incentive for innovation or behavior change to reduce pollution. Much of the additional costs on energy suppliers will be pushed onto consumers, both organizations and individuals. Therefore companies that are more energy efficient in the production or providing of goods or services will gain a competitive advantage. Many of the certified B Corporation executives interviewed for this paper enthusiastically support a carbon tax or some mechanism of pricing carbon, believing that benefit corporations would benefit immensely from such a tax. A carbon tax prices carbon in the most business-friendly manner, by levying an exact and quantifiable fee on carbon emissions per metric ton. In contrast to the open-ended pricing mechanism of a capand-trade system, the proposal that failed to pass Congress in 2010, a carbon tax will provide certainty in the market that will best allow all stakeholders to prepare for additional costs.183 Concomitantly, the IRS is equipped to implement the tax, significantly reducing the need for additional bureaucracy to manage a more convoluted federal solution.184 The implementation of a carbon tax would ignite a wave of innovation by making renewable technology and energy-efficient decisions cheaper, or more price competitive, than their environmentally-unfriendly alternatives. Yet, for the tax to be successful in promoting innovation without inducing economic contraction, a carbon tax must include a variety of stipulations to minimize negative impact on U.S. businesses and low-income families. Implementation must occur on a lengthy timeline that includes a two-year grace period for companies and families to increase energy efficiency or transition to renewable power sources in advance of increased costs. Also, the tax should be set to increase at defined intervals over a long period of time to account for increasing feasibility of improving energy efficiency as technology develops.
44

promoting social enterprise through public policy

The passing of a business-friendly carbon tax will lead every small business and major company in the U.S. to evaluate options to lower energy usage or transition to renewable sources of energy that are not taxed. Cost-benefit analysis can be applied to a variety of strategies to ensure the most efficient outcome for the company. This would spur vast growth in the green economy and create countless opportunities for benefit corporations to grow. If the tax passed tomorrow, benefit corporations would race to exploit the opportunity of meeting the needs of businesses across the U.S. to become more efficient. Examples of these companies include: Bright Works (OR): We provide comprehensive sustainability planning and facilitation services, helping our clients increase asset value, reduce operating costs, manage risk and enhance their brand, while helping address pressing global ecological challenges.185 Watershed Capital (TN): Through the two divisions, Sustainable World Capital focusing on Europe and Watershed Capital focused on North America, Watershed Capital Group brings an international capacity to its clients. As the sustainable investment sector matures, this geographical coverage gives Watershed a particularly unique perspective in assisting its clients.186 Miles Post Consulting (WA): Together with your talent we’ll help make phrases like “sustainability” and “green” meaningful to your business, navigate you through the complicated world of climate change and carbon emissions, help you solve your critical business problems, and enable you to communicate with your stakeholders in a way that inspires them to action. And... have fun along the journey.187

45

journal of undergraduate research

Healthy Buildings (VA): Healthy Buildings works with building owners and managers to optimize indoor environments, increase operating efficiencies and lower business risks. The result is a more sustainable building and an improved bottom line for our clients. We do this with handson inspections of building systems, detailed reporting and world-class communications.188 Cascade Engineering (MI): Our world class engineering, technology and manufacturing allows us to provide leadingedge products and services, while maintaining a strong commitment to lean manufacturing and environmental stewardship. We employ a sustainable business model based on diversification, innovation and sustainable development. We are committed to bringing sustainable products to market that contribute to the triple bottom line.189 Mindful Investors (CA): Mindful Investors is the leading private equity fund which invests exclusively in companies providing sustainable and healthy living focused products to consumers. We source scalable investment opportunities in the leading companies within the rapidly expanding $60B natural, organic, and sustainable consumer products market.190 Each example is a company that will directly benefit as businesses across the country assess the options to increase their energy efficiency as a result of the tax burden shift from income to environmental impact. While sustainable consulting companies and financial companies will benefit the most directly and rapidly, many other benefit corporations will see their bottom lines improve. Products and services from benefit corporations will become more price competitive because of their emphasis on a sustainable supply chain and energyefficient operations. Competitors that are more fossil-fuel intensive in their operations or supply chain will face increased fixed costs.
46

promoting social enterprise through public policy

To make a carbon tax politically feasible, the implementation should specify unequivocally that all revenues will go toward reducing the U.S. corporate income tax and providing a payroll tax rebate and equivalent social security rebate to help offset the increasing energy costs that will be faced by businesses, low-income families, and senior citizens. The U.S. has the highest corporate income tax in the world at 35 percent.191 The high tax rate is pushing away investment from the U.S. and is an unreasonable burden on U.S. companies trying to compete in the global economy.192 A carbon tax, coupled with a significant decrease in the corporate tax rate, would not only lead to the expansion of the green economy, but drastically stimulate business growth across every sector. If the tax is implemented, inevitably technology will improve, making renewable energy options increasingly affordable. With lower energy costs, payroll tax and social security rebates will become long-term tax relief for low-income families and senior citizens without affecting the reduction in the corporate income tax. Current legislative proposals for a carbon tax, which vary in the amount charged per metric ton, project between $69 billion and $126 billion in tax revenues in 2015, and between $263 billion and $361 billion revenues in 2030, in 2005 dollars.193 To put that in perspective, the federal government in 2005 earned $771 billion in tax revenue from payroll taxes and $307 billion from corporate income taxes.194 PACE Financial Program There is a large unmet demand for sustainable technology and renewable energy. People are interested in transitioning to a greener lifestyle, but too often cost is the barrier. For example, though the price of solar power has dropped precipitously in recent years, to purchase enough solar panels to power a building or a home requires an investment the equivalent of pre-paying seven to ten years of an electric bill.195 The PACE Financial Program demonstrates that innovative policy can address this market inefficiency. The Property
47

journal of undergraduate research

Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Financial Program allows homeowners to borrow for home energy-efficiency improvements, most notably solar panel installation, and repay the loans over 20 years.196 In addition to solar panel financing, homeowners can receive loans for a variety of projects including, but not limited to: weather sealing, improved insulation, and upgrading heating and cooling systems. Each of these changes alone can reduce energy consumption by as much as 35 percent.197 The PACE program was started in Berkeley, California but spread within two years to a coalition of 24 states, both red and blue.198 In short, government provides “the legal framework, program structure and property tax system to provide loan collateral and a collections mechanism.” Clean Fund, a certified B Corp from California argues, “With this structure (local government PACE financing) in place, clean energy projects make excellent economic sense for private sector financial partners.”199 The lender fronts the cash, the government guarantees the loan by raising property taxes on the homeowner, and the homeowner offsets the increase in property taxes by saving a proportionally larger amount on the power bill. The homeowner saves money in year one and permanently enhances the sustainability of his or her home. Because the financing vehicle is property taxes, the loan stays with the house if it is sold within the 20 year term of the loan.200 The lending partner is an essential element to making the financing project efficient and simple for consumers. Cities partner with renewable energy providers like SolarCity, which then offer the financing option as a key part of their sales pitches to new customers. Co-founder of SolarCity, Peter Rive, said of PACE financing, “This is a way to get solar without putting any money down and to start saving money from day one. That’s a first.”201 Additionally, cities can partner with a fund or lending institution, like certified B Corporation, Clean Fund, designed to connect property owners seeking reduced environmental impact with the best financing options to accomplish the project.202
48

promoting social enterprise through public policy

Figure 1.7

In order to ensure the property owner will benefit from the investment in increasing energy efficiency of a home or commercial property, the first step in the PACE process is an energy audit performed by a certified engineering firm.203 The audit is essential to establish that a property owner will be able to both save money in the first year of the financing agreement and be able to pay off the loan in 20 years.204 Research shows that solar energy systems and other energy-efficient investments are likely to increase the value of a home, providing further incentive for a homeowner to participate in the PACE program.205 PACE loans have received considerable praise from politicians of both parties, clean energy advocates, and green businesses, and were rated as one of Scientific American’s “20 Ideas that Will Change the World in 2009.”206 In what could be a case study of the inefficacy of the federal government, however, PACE programs have been shut down nationally since the summer of 2010 because of a decision made by the private corporations heavily funded with government dollars and responsible for millions of mortgages in the U.S. According to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, PACE financing “could damage the mortgage market.”207 The overseeing agency of the two private
49

journal of undergraduate research

organizations, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), cites two central concerns: “PACE benefits defined by the laws of 24 states do not meet a valid public purpose and PACE programs threaten the safety and soundness of the mortgage industry.”208 A case study of the largest county PACE program, Sonoma County, California, demonstrates the extraordinary potential of the PACE financing concept and the ignorance of the FHFA’s claims. In Sonoma County 1,148 homes and 22 commercial properties have participated in the program. For the duration of the study, not a single PACE property defaulted, in contrast to the seven percent general mortgage default rate in the county.209 The PACE program resulted in 330 new jobs, 1900 tons of carbon reduction, 74 percent increase in retail sales for energy efficiency products per Home Depot, and $30 million disbursed for economic recovery and energy efficiency.210 Congress is working on legislation that would put the power back in the hands of the state and local governments.211 It is in the best interest of the benefit corporation community and the U.S. to reinstate the PACE Financing Program. There are many benefit corporations that would directly profit from the PACE Financing Program, if it returns, from solar energy providers to sustainable banks and capital funds to sustainability consultants. Strategies like PACE display the opportunity of government to make the market work more effectively. By acting as a financier of activities that benefit the public good, local governments can empower citizens to change for the better and save money in the process. PACE Financing is another example of an indirect policy that will create significant opportunity for benefit corporations by using market mechanisms to create more demand for environmentally friendly alternatives. It is a voluntary program that uses finance to better connect the desires of the American people to be greener with the need to stay within a reasonable budget. Finance will be an important area of innovation for the transition to a stakeholder economy, and the growth of benefit corporations. For stakeholder capitalism to be institutionalized like shareholder
50

promoting social enterprise through public policy

capitalism is today, quantifying social and environmental return is a necessity. Global Impact Investment Rating System Expanding the social enterprise movement will require access to capital for companies designed to do more than earn a financial profit. Benefit corporations are a part of an asset class called impact investments that are entering mainstream investment markets, but still are in desperate need of standardization and third-party evaluation of claims. While social and environmental benefit may never be quantifiable in the exact sense of financial return, a standard must be set for quantifying the benefits of goods sold. In today’s business environment, companies and social enterprises of all types communicate their social and environmental benefit anecdotally to potential investors, creating a conundrum for investors trying to decipher where their money can make the biggest impact and financial return. The investor, looking to make a profit and create social and/or environmental value, must navigate claims by companies of their benefit to the world in a way that is entirely unstandardized. Imagine if Fortune 500 companies each put out different types of financial statements at the end of the year that could not be compared in a direct and quantifiable way. That is the reality of impact investing today. Standardization of quantifying social and/or environmental return is a barrier that must be overcome for impact investing to reach its full potential. B Lab, the source of the certified B Corporation, refers to the lack of standardization in communicating impact as “impact investing’s Tower of Babel.”212 The Global Impact Investment Rating System (GIIRS) is B Lab’s attempt to create a universally accepted means of quantifying social and/or environmental return.213 In April of 2011, B Lab released its first-ever comprehensive report of progress for GIIRS. The report details the activity of the 25 GIIRS Pioneer Funds that “represent $1.2 billion in assets in more than 200 high-impact companies in 30 countries.”214 Out of the 201 companies and 25
51

journal of undergraduate research

Pioneer Funds, 71 companies and 12 of the funds are from North America.215 While it will likely take many years to refine the GIIRS process, the goal must be to become the official standard accepted by the Securities and Exchange Commission of the U.S. government. The concept is making progress toward greater national awareness with the financial and intellectual backing of JPMorgan and the Rockefeller Foundation.216 JPMorgan sees significant growth potential with impact investing.217 While the company has not surveyed the size of the entire impact investment market, it commissioned a study to assess the value of five sectors in emerging markets: housing, rural water delivery, maternal health, primary education, and financial services.218 JPMorgan found that in these emerging markets, where the population is earning less than $3,000 a year, over the next ten years there is the potential of $400 billion to $1 trillion in invested capital, and profits ranging from $183 billion to $667 billion.219 The potential of the five sectors in emerging markets is only a fraction of the potential for the market of impact investments. Quantifying social and environmental return is a crucial step toward the new stakeholder economy. Conclusion While policy is a part of the movement to stakeholder capitalism and the proliferation of benefit corporations, the success of doubleand triple-bottom line companies will be limited until people understand the value of every dollar spent. Every dollar is a vote. As options multiply for consumers to exercise their values in purchasing decisions without sacrificing significantly in convenience, quality or price, consumers must take advantage of their newfound opportunities. Consumers are becoming increasingly empowered with choices on how to vote with their dollars. They can choose to endorse the business practices of companies that seek the bottom line through a low-road strategy, prioritizing short-term profit at the expense of their communities and the environment, or companies that seek the
52

promoting social enterprise through public policy

bottom line by racing to the top, focusing on long-term profitability by integrating social and/or environmental benefit into their business models. The role of policy in the social enterprise movement is to increase the amount of choices consumers have, while standardizing and making available information that will enable consumers to make the right choices. This paper set out with the goal of assessing data available on social enterprise in the U.S. and creating a policy case grounded in quantifiable arguments for the reduced role of government that would result from the proliferation of benefit corporations. Unfortunately, research was impeded by a severe lack of quantitative and aggregated data on both for-profit and non-profit social enterprise in the U.S. The combination of case studies, anecdotal evidence, and marketing data reveal the opportunity inherent in benefit corporations. For the movement to enter the mainstream, however, institutions of higher education must become engaged. Business schools, in particular, both for societal good and the success of their business students in a modern economy, must teach social enterprise in the classroom and commission research that will collectivize available anecdotal data. They should follow the lead of the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, which established the Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship,220 and Yale University’s School of Management that provides loan forgiveness for graduates that take jobs with L3C companies or certified B Corporations.221 No business student should leave college without understanding stakeholder theory, benefit corporations, and the spectrum between a solely for-profit company and a non-profit organization. No political science or public policy major should leave college without understanding the value of business models to pursue goals of social and environmental justice. All can unite behind the idea that if business does more to ensure societal well-being, the government does less.

53

journal of undergraduate research

End Notes
1

2 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

15

16 17 18

19 20 21

22

From their website, “The specific terms of most Better World Books partnership agreements are confidential. In the college textbook market, the company’s “social profit” margin currently averages 7 to 8% of net revenue from each used book sold. Library books are transferred to Better World Books under consignment and sold with a fixed percentage of the net revenue paid to both the library and a non-profit literacy partner. Typical arrangements are 15% of the net sale price to a library and 5% to their chosen literacy partner.” <http://www.betterworldbooks.com/info.aspx?f=iaq#q8> CEO of Better World Books, David Murphy, “mission equals margin” in an interview on March 2, 2011 http://www.betterworldbooks.com/info.aspx Betterworldbooks.com, the homepage displays the constantly updating figures of how many books have been reused or recycled and the amount of money donated to literacy organizations. http://www.betterworldbooks.com/info.aspx?f=corevalues http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=97664&p=irol-faq#14296 CEO of Better World Books, David Murphy, interviewed on March 2, 2011. 2011 sales data received in e-mail correspondence at the end of April. Amazon 2010 Annual Report: http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZ W50SUQ9OTA4OTN8Q2hpbGRJRD0tMXxUeXBlPTM=&t=1 http://www.betterworldbooks.com/info.aspx?f=our_impact http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=AMZN Philanthropic comparison does not take into effect the philanthropic benefit of Amazon.com saving customers money. http://www.betterworldbooks.com/info.aspx?f=facts Constant, Paul. “A Midget Among Giants.” The Stranger. 29 Apr. 2008. Web. <http:// www.thestranger.com/seattle/a-midget-among-giants/Content?oid=567816>. Collins, Paul. “The New Scrooge: Are There Lemonade Stands That Devote More to Charity than Amazon.com?” Slate Magazine. 6 Mar. 2009. Web. <http://www.slate. com/id/2213037/>. Collins, Paul. “The New Scrooge: Are There Lemonade Stands That Devote More to Charity than Amazon.com?” Slate Magazine. 6 Mar. 2009. Web. <http://www.slate. com/id/2213037/>. http://www.betterworldbooks.com/info.aspx?f=facts http://www.amazon.com/b?ie=UTF8&node=13786321 Miller, Erin Collazo. “Bestselling Books of the Decade.” About.com. 2010. Web. <http://bestsellers.about.com/od/bestworstoftheyear/tp/best_of_decade_peoples_ choice.htm>. “Amazon.com, the world’s largest online retailer.” http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/ business/companies/amazon_inc/index.html Jay Coen-Gilbert presentation at Mendoza College of Business Notre Dame, January 21, 2011 “Green Marketing — US.” Mintel. April 2010. Web. <http://academic.mintel. com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/search_results/show&/display/ id=482522/display/id=524454> “The Influence of Labels on Consumer Choice - US.” Mintel. May 2010. Web. <http://academic.mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/display/ id=482639/display/id=527637>.

54

promoting social enterprise through public policy
23

24

25 26

27 28

29 30 31 32

33 34

35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42

43

44

45

“Attitudes Toward Social Responsibility — US.” Mintel. September 2010. Web. <http://academic.mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic// display/&id=482939> “Attitudes Toward Social Responsibility — US.” Mintel. September 2010. Web. <http://academic.mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic// display/&id=482939> http://www.netpromoter.com/np/calculate.jsp “Word of Mouth and Viral Marketing — US.” Mintel. April 2009. <http://academic. mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/search_results/show&/ display/id=393514> CEO of Better World Books, David Murphy, interviewed on March 2, 2011 Helgesen, Xavier. “A ‘Socially Responsible’ Halo Won’t Save You.” Forbes, 14 Jan. 2010. Web. <http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/14/social-responsibility-market-research-entrepreneurs-sales-marketing-helgesen.html>. Ibid. Ibid. Seventhgeneration.com “Household Cleaning: The Market — US” Mintel. June 2010. Web. <http://academic.mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/my_reports/display/ id=482666&anchor=atom/display/id=533299?select_section=533283> Interview with Dave Rappaport, Senior Director of Corporate Consciousness at Seventh Generation, November 15, 2010 It is unclear where the idea of “race to the top” originated, but for this paper the idea came from B Lab that regularly features the idea in its content, including: <http:// www.bcorporation.net/resources/bcorp/documents/2011-AR_Race2Top.pdf> http://definitions.uslegal.com/r/race-to-the-bottom/ http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=race-to-the-bottom Long Run Equilibrium Theory. <http://www.economics.utoronto.ca/osborne/2x3/tutorial/LRCE.HTM> http://www.seventhgeneration.com/products/Environmental-Savings-Statements Ibid. Ibid. Packaged Facts. “U.S. Market for Green Household Cleaning Products Enters Forefront of Consumer Consciousness with Shift toward More Eco-Friendly and Sustainable Lifestyles.” May 24, 2010. Web. < http://www.packagedfacts.com/ Green-Household-Cleaning-2554249/> “Household Cleaning Products: The Consumer — US.” Mintel. May 2010. Web. <http://academic.mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/ search_results/show&/display/id=482645/display/id=527146#hit1> “Green Living — US: Willingness to Pay Premiums for Green Products.” Mintel. February 2011. Web. <http://academic.mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/my_reports/display/id=5428&anchor=atom&list=wh_items/display/id=542922/display/ id=564694?select_section=564693> Coster, Helen. “Greener Than Thou.” Forbes.com. 19 June 2009. Web. <http://www. forbes.com/2009/06/19/seventh-generation-marketing-cmo-network-seventhgeneration.html>. Prices were calculated using Seventh Generation’s online store, and surveying competing traditional products on Amazon.com. Price calculations took size and quantity into effect.
55

journal of undergraduate research
46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58

59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72

73

74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82

Interview with Mike Hannigan, Co-founder and President of Give Something Back Office Supplies, November 2010 Ibid. https://www.givesomethingback.com/about Interview with Mike Hannigan, co-founder and President of Give Something Back Office Supplies, November 2010 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. https://www.givesomethingback.com/about Interview with Mike Hannigan, co-founder and President of Give Something Back Office Supplies, November 2010. Corporate philanthropy information can be verified at https://www.givesomethingback.com/about Interview with Mike Hannigan, co-founder and President of Give Something Back Office Supplies, November 2010. Abbott, Eve. “Green Becoming the Color of Business.” San Francisco Business Journal. 6 Apr. 2008. Web. <http://www.bizjournals.com/eastbay/stories/2008/04/07/smallb1. html>. Ibid. Interview with Bill Peterson, Chief Credit Officer, New Resource Bank, Fall 2010 Ibid. Ibid. http://blog.bcorporation.net/2011/04/b-the-change-its-okay-to-love-a-bank/ Interview with Bill Peterson, Chief Credit Officer, New Resource Bank, Fall 2010 Ibid. Ibid. http://blog.bcorporation.net/2011/04/b-the-change-its-okay-to-love-a-bank/ Ibid. Interview with Bill Peterson, Chief Credit Officer, New Resource Bank, Fall 2010 Ibid. http://blog.bcorporation.net/2011/04/b-the-change-its-okay-to-love-a-bank/ Interview with Bill Peterson, Chief Credit Officer, New Resource Bank, Fall 2010. Letter to shareholders from NRB CEO mentions work in 2009 and 2010 to “clean up the balance sheet,” <https://www.newresourcebank.com/sites/default/files/NRB_shareholder_Q12011.pdf> Press Release. New Resource Bank, Enfinity team up on solar projects. April 14, 2011. <https://www.newresourcebank.com/press_release/ new-resource-bank-enfinity-team-solar-projects> https://www.newresourcebank.com/sites/default/files/NRB_shareholder_Q12011.pdf http://fairtradesports.com/aboutus Ibid. Interview with Scott James, Founder of Fair Trade Sports, November 17, 2010 Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.

56

promoting social enterprise through public policy
83 84 85 86

87 88 89 90 91 92

93 94 95 96 97 98

99

100

101 102 103 104 105 106 107

108

109 110

http://fairtradesports.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/treehugger-treat-your-balls-withrespect1.pdf Interview with Scott James, Founder of Fair Trade Sports, November 17, 2010 Ibid. Graphic 1.3 diagrams a new interpretation of an existing idea of a socially beneficial spectrum: <http://www.4lenses.org/Setypology/se_in_context> . The new interpretation removes the concept of hybrid models because social enterprise should not be associated with corporate social responsibility. Social Enterprise Alliance White Paper on Social Enterprise. 7-29-2010. Ibid. Interview with Mike Hannigan, co-founder and President of Give Something Back Office Supplies, November 2010. http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/pages/frequently-asked-questions.html#whatdataist hereonthesemovement http://www.cicregulator.gov.uk/aboutUs.shtml Hampson, Gemma. “Study Increases Number of UK Social Enterprises to 232,000 from 62,000.” Social Enterprise. 12 Mar. 2010. Web. <http://www.socialenterpriselive.com/section/news/people/20100312/ study-increases-number-uk-social-enterprises-232000-62000>. Ibid. Social Enterprise Alliance White Paper on Social Enterprise. 7-29-2010. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. “Green Marketing — US: Executive Summary” Mintel. April 2010. Web. <http:// academic.mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/search_results/ show&/display/id=482522/display/id=524454> “Green Marketing — US.” Mintel. April 2010. Web. <http://academic.mintel. com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/search_results/show&/display/ id=482522/display/id=524454> “Green Living — US: Willingness to Pay Premiums for Green Products.” Mintel. February 2011. Web. <http://academic.mintel.com.proxy.library.nd.edu/sinatra/oxygen_academic/my_reports/display/id=5428&anchor=atom&list=wh_items/display/id=542922/display/ id=564694?select_section=564693> B Corp Annual Report 2011. Page 32. <http://www.bcorporation. net/B-Media/2011-Annual-Report> Ibid. http://bcorporation.net/ B Corp Annual Report 2011. Page 5. < http://www.bcorporation. net/B-Media/2011-Annual-Report> http://www.bcorporation.net/publicpolicy http://www.americansforcommunitydevelopment.org/concept.php Report Regarding Low-profit Limited Liability Companies. International Association of Commercial Administrators. <http://www.iaca.org/downloads/2010Conference/ BOS/6a_Resolve_2009_chapter_97_L3C.pdf> Cohen, Rick. “L3C: Pot of Gold or Space Invader?” Blue Avocado: Practical, Provocative, and Fun Food-for-thought for Nonprofits, 30 Sept. 2009. Web. <http://www. blueavocado.org/node/449>. http://www.americansforcommunitydevelopment.org/concept.php Ibid.
57

journal of undergraduate research
111

112 113 114

115 116

117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125

126 127 128 129

130 131 132 133

134 135 136 137

138 139

“The Who’s Who of the B Corporation Community.” B Lab. January 12, 2011. <http://blog.bcorporation.net/2011/01/ the-who%E2%80%99s-who-of-the-b-corporation-community/> Ibid. Model B Corp legislation: <http://www.bcorporation.net/resources/bcorp/documents/Draft_Pennsylvania-Legislation.pdf> “The Who’s Who of the B Corporation Community.” B Lab. January 12, 2011. <http://blog.bcorporation.net/2011/01/ the-who%E2%80%99s-who-of-the-b-corporation-community/> Interview with Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-founder of B Lab, November 24, 2010 Benefit Corporation — Legal Provisions and FAQs. B Lab.<http://www.bcorporation.net/resources/bcorp/documents/Benefit%20Corporation%20-%20Legal%20Provisions%20and%20FAQ.pdf> Interview with Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-founder of B Lab, November 24, 2010 Telephone interview between Melissa Paulsen and B Lab Co-founder Bart Houlahan August, 2009. B Lab Impact Assessment 2.0 <http://www.bcorporation.net/resources/bcorp/ documents/2010-B-Impact-Assessment%20%281%29.pdf> http://www.bcorporation.net/become/BRS http://b-lab.force.com/GIIRS/BCorpRegistration http://www.bcorporation.net/become/BRS Ibid. B Lab Impact Assessment 2.0 <http://www.bcorporation.net/resources/bcorp/ documents/2010-B-Impact-Assessment%20%281%29.pdf> “Race to the Top: How Benchmarking Performance Leads to Continuous Improvement.” B Lab. <http://www.bcorporation.net/resources/bcorp/documents/2011-AR_Race2Top.pdf> Interview with Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-founder of B Lab, November 24, 2010 http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/shareholder.html http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/stakeholder.html Mackey, John. “Conscious Capitalism: Creating a New Paradigm for Business. November 9, 2006. <http://www2.wholefoodsmarket.com/blogs/jmackey/2006/11/09/ conscious-capitalism-creating-a-new-paradigm-for-business/> Margolis, Joshua D., and James P. Walsh. “Misery Loves Companies: Rethinking Social Initiatives by Business.” (2003). Print. Ibid. Orlitzky, Marc, Frank L. Schmidt, and Sara L. Rynes. “Corporate Social and Financial Performance: A Meta-analysis.” (2003). Print. Friedman, Milton, and John Mackey. “Rethinking the Social Responsibility of Business.” Reason Magazine. Oct. 2005. Web. <http://reason.com/archives/2005/10/01/ rethinking-the-social-responsi/1>. http://www.flowidealism.org/Community/mp-john-mackey.html CEO of Better World Books, David Murphy, interviewed on March 2, 2011 Interview with Dave Rappaport, Senior Director of Corporate Consciousness at Seventh Generation, November 15, 2010 Nirenberg, John. “We Need A Fruit-Seller On Wall Street.” CSRwire. 20 Apr. 2011. Web.<http://csrwiretalkback.tumblr.com/post/4789757820/ we-need-a-fruit-seller-on-wall-street>. Ibid. Ibid.

58

promoting social enterprise through public policy
140

141 142 143 144 145 146

147 148 149

150 151 152 153 154 155 156

157 158 159 160 161

162 163 164 165 166

Turban, Daniel B., and Daniel W. Greening. “Corporate Socal Performance and Organizational Attractiveness to Prospective Employees.” University of Missouri (1997). Print. Glavas, Ante. “Effects of Corporate Citizenship on Employees: Why Does Doing Good Matter?” Case Western Reserve University (2009). Print. http://www.bcorporation.net/ http://www.consciouscapitalism.org/who-we-are.html Model B Corp legislation: <http://www.bcorporation.net/resources/bcorp/documents/Draft_Pennsylvania-Legislation.pdf> http://www.bcorporation.net/publicpolicy Text of the bill available at: <http://lis.virginia.gov/cgi-bin/legp604.exe?ses=111&typ= bil&val=hb2358&Submit2=Go>, more information on the public policy campaign by B Lab available at: http://bcorporation.net/publicpolicy Interview with Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-founder of B Lab, November 24, 2010 Paul Ellingson, President of Bargreen Ellingson, full biography available at: <http:// opt-inmedia.com/about.htm> William Clark, Partner, Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP. Page 18. B Corp 2011 Annual Report. <http://www.bcorporation.net/resources/bcorp/documents/2011AR_2Down48ToGo.pdf> Weiss, Eric. “Small Business Administration Reauthorization: A Primer on Programs.” Congressional Research Service (2010). Print. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Most businesses interviewed expressed a history of difficulty in defining their companies to investors, it is assumed similar challenges would be confronted in seeking debt capital. New Resource Bank struggled significantly with the FDIC to become FDIC insured because of its mission-oriented lending model. Therefore, it is fair to assume corporations with alternative business models that include social and environmental benefit at the expense of short-term bottom line may face increased scrutiny in the loan seeking process. CEO of Better World Books, David Murphy, interviewed on March 2, 2011 http://ref.michigan.org/cm/attach/87BACA21-35F3-4408-A61A-F414CFE8182F/ EDJT.pdf Ibid. Ibid. Sources range from deficit commission endorsement (http://www.govexec. com/dailyfed/1210/120110nj1.htm) to conservative Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana(http://money.cnn.com/2010/10/01/news/economy/payroll_tax_holiday/index.htm), to Congressional Democrats (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/22/ senate-democrats-make-one_n_735436.html) . Nuschler, Dawn. “Social Security: Temporary Payroll Tax Reduction in 2011.” Congressional Research Service. (2011). Print. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Small Business in 2010 Table 1.16

59

journal of undergraduate research
167

168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178

179

180 181 182 183

184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192

193

194 195

Luckey, John R., and Manuel, Katie M. “The “8(a) Program” for Small Business Owned and Controlled by the Socially and Economically Disadvantaged: Legal Requirements and Issues.” Congressional Research Service. October 14, 2010. Print. Ibid. Small Business Administration. “The Small Business Economy: A Report to the President.” 2010. Web. < http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/sb_econ2010.pdf> Ibid. http://bcorporation.net/ Small Business Administration. “The Small Business Economy: A Report to the President.” 2010. Web. < http://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/sb_econ2010.pdf> Interview with Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-founder of B Lab, November 24, 2010 http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=124 Ibid. Interview with Jay Coen Gilbert, Co-founder of B Lab, November 24, 2010 Interviewed high ranking legislative staff member of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, January 6, 2011. Policy idea generated in part by Jay Coen Gilbert of B Lab, who emphasized investor side policy as an opportunity because losses in revenue are only realized when companies are attracting investment. 2008 tax values found in: Hungerford, Thomas L. “The Economic Effects of Capital Gains Taxation.” Congressional Research Service. June 18, 2010. Print. 2011 data was calculated by using: <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/business/ comparing-the-tax-plans> Hungerford, Thomas L. “The Economic Effects of Capital Gains Taxation.” Congressional Research Service. June 18, 2010. Ibid. While multiple business leaders mentioned a carbon tax in the interviews, New Resource Bank was the most enthusiastic supporter. Ramseur, Johnathan L., Parker, Larry. “Carbon Tax and Greenhouse Gas Control: Options and Considerations for Congress.” Congressional Research Service. 2009. Print. Ibid. http://www.brightworks.net/ http://www.watershedcapital.com/Home.html http://www.milepostconsulting.com/ http://www.healthybuildings.com/ http://www.cascadeng.com/about/index.htm http://www.mindfulinvestors.com/ Kocieniewski, David. “U.S. Business Has High Tax Rates but Pays Less.” 2 May 2011. Web. <http://www.newyorktimes.com/2011/05/03/business/economy/03rates.html Chen, Duanjie, and Jack Mintz. “U.S. Effective Corporate Tax Rate on New Investments: Highest in the OECD.” The Wall Street Journal. 14 May 2010. Web. <http:// online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704635204575242241281902852.html>. Ramseur, Johnathan L., Parker, Larry. “Carbon Tax and Greenhouse Gas Control: Options and Considerations for Congress.” Congressional Research Service. 2009. Print. Carbon Tax CRS Report “World Changing Ideas: 20 Ways to Build a Cleaner, Healthier, Smarter World.” Scientific American. Dec. 2009. Web. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article. cfm?id=world-changing-ideas>.

60

promoting social enterprise through public policy
196 197 198 199 200 201

202 203 204 205

206 207

208

209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221

http://www.cleanfund.com/how-PACE-works http://pacenow.org/blog/pace-frequently-asked-questions/ http://pacenow.org/blog/ http://www.cleanfund.com/how-PACE-works http://pacenow.org/blog/ “World Changing Ideas: 20 Ways to Build a Cleaner, Healthier, Smarter World.” Scientific American. Dec. 2009. Web. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article. cfm?id=world-changing-ideas>. http://www.cleanfund.com/how-PACE-works Ibid. http://www.cleanfund.com/how-PACE-works Hoen, Ben, Ryan Wiser, Peter Cappers, and Mark Thayer. “An Analysis of the Effects of Residential Photovoltaic Energy Systems on Home Sales Prices in California.” Berkeley Lab (2011). Print. http://pacenow.org/blog/ “Will PACE Financing Damage the Mortgage Market?” Clean Energy Wonk. 7 July 2010. Web. <http://cleanenergywonk.com/2010/07/07/ will-pace-financing-damage-the-mortgage-market/>. PACE: Program Benefits and Response to Federal Regulatory Infringement of States’ Rights. Pacenow.org. February 2011. Web. < http://pacenow.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/PACE-Overview-and-Regulatory-Response.pdf > Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. GIIRS Q1 2011 Progress Report. B Lab. April 2011. Web. < http://www.giirs.org/ about-giirs/progress-report> Ibid. GIIRS Q1 2011 Progress Report. B Lab. April 2011. Web. < http://www.giirs.org/ about-giirs/progress-report> Ibid. http://www.jpmorgan.com/pages/jpmorgan/investbk/research/impactinvestments Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. http://www.caseatduke.org/about/ http://mba.yale.edu/MBA/admissions/financial_aid/loan_forgiveness.shtml

61

journal of undergraduate research

BRIGID MANGANO, class of 2011, is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Art History at the University of Notre Dame. She plans to begin a doctoral program within the next few years and hopes to eventually work as a curator of European art. This paper was written as her senior honors thesis under the direction of Professor Kathleen Pyne.
62

GUILLAUME BODINIER AND THE MEANING(S) OF “ITALIANNESS” IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY FRANCE BRIGID MANGANO

Introduction A dark-haired, buxom young woman stands in the center of the picture space with her eyes downcast. Clad in an immaculately white gown, she clasps the hand of her mother, who is seated to her right in a chair of upholstered velvet. To the young woman’s left stands an olive-skinned peasant, dressed in a green vest and brown tailcoat, his eyes riveted onto her rosy face and his hand on his chest in a gesture of tender devotion. Both this display of affection and the gold ring that adorns the young woman’s fourth finger make it clear to the viewer that a marriage proposal has taken place and that the couple awaits the mother’s blessing. The scene just described corresponds to an 1825 oil painting entitled The Marriage Proposal: Costumes from Albano, near Rome (Figure 1) by the relatively obscure French painter Guillaume Bodinier.

63

journal of undergraduate research

Figure 1. LaDemande en mariage: costumes d’Albano près de Rome, by Guillaume Bodinier, 1825, oil on canvas, 0.98 m Height x 1.35 m Width, Musée des Beaux-arts, Angers

One of the best-known of his works, it is also one of the finest examples from a series of genre pictures that the artist executed during the over twenty years of his life that he spent in Italy. These pictures are each characterized by a depiction of local Italians engaged in quotidian activities, ranging from the very mundane (such as the drawing of water at a well) to the spiritual (such as the confession of transgressions to a parish priest). Typically, the figures belong to the middle or lower classes and dwell in a rural community: Bodinier’s interest did not lie with urbanites or the social elite. Many of his pictures broach issues having to do with Italian social norms and moral codes, while others portray common leisure pursuits or means of subsistence in the countryside. Another category of pictures within Bodinier’s artistic repertoire is his representations of distinct figure types, encompassing everything from shepherds to peasant girls to fishermen. Like his
64

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

genre pictures, these works are distinguished by a minute attention to regional Italian dress. Unlike the genre pictures, however, their backdrops are much reduced, bereft of almost any topographical or temporal clues. The facial features of the figures are non-idealized, indicating that they were modeled on real individuals. A prime example of this is Bodinier’s 1826 A Pilgrim (Figure 2), which depicts a weary Italian traveler on his return trip from Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain.

Figure 2. Un Pèlerin, by Guillaume Bodinier, 1826, oil on wood, 0.100 m Height x 0.745 m Width, Musée des Beaux-arts, Angers

He carries with him numerous symbols of the Christian faith, including a crucifix, a rosary, a shell of Saint James, and a cross of Lorraine, the latter hung as a pendant around his neck. Implicated in this painting are questions about Italian spirituality and religious practices.
65

journal of undergraduate research

Certain of the pictures that Bodinier produced while in Italy straddle the line between genre scenes and pure landscapes. Although figures are present, they are much less monumental than in The Marriage Proposal and are better integrated into their surroundings. The outdoor setting is rendered realistically, but not in scrupulous detail. In addition, Bodinier records in a quasi-scientific manner his personal observations and impressions of Italians. Two examples of such crossover pictures are Bodinier’s Young Bathers on a Rock at Capri (Figure 3) of 1826 and his Young Boy on the Beach at Terracina (Figure 4) of 1835.

Figure 3. Jeunes baigneurs sur un rocher à Capri, by Guillaume Bodinier, 1826, oil on canvas, 0.285m Height x 0.420m Width, Musée des Beauxarts, Angers

66

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

Figure 4. Jeune garçon sur la plage de Terracina, by Guillaume Bodinier, 1835, oil on paper mounted on cardboard, 0.295 m Height x 0.372 m Width, Musée des Beaux-arts, Angers

In the former, two children pause from their daytime dip in the Bay of Naples, while in the latter, a lone boy stands barefoot in the sand, framed against the open sea. Both bring to the fore the interactions of the subjects with their local environment. In another sequences of pictures, this time using lead pencil as his medium, Bodinier betrays an interest in Italian residential architecture. Certain of his plein air drawings offer close-range views of verandas, wraparound porches, or other notable features of Italian homes, such as his 1824Terrace of a House at Anacapri (Figure 5).

67

journal of undergraduate research

Figure 5. Terrasse d’une maison à Anacapri, by Guillaume Bodinier, July 31, 1824, lead pencil on paper, Musée des Beaux-arts, Angers

This particular drawing is accompanied by an inscription indicating the location of a well and wash house, just off the terrace. Other drawings were sketched from a more distant vantage point, allowing Bodinier to capture several homes within the same frame. Often, as in his 1825 View of Subiaco (Figure 6), diminutive figures delineated by no more than five or six lines are shown walking through doorways, gazing out from balconies, or conversing with neighbors. Viewed as a whole, these two drawings reveal a strong curiosity about Italian domestic life.

68

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

Figure 6. Vue de Subiaco, by Guillaume Bodinier, July 17, 1825, lead pencil on paper, Musée des Beaux-arts, Angers

These six pictures will serve as the focal points of my discussion about Bodinier’s contribution to the French understanding of “Italianness” in the nineteenth century and the springboards for further inquiries into what “Italianness” meant to Bodinier’s artistic and literary contemporaries. Beginning in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, but truly gaining momentum in April 1796, when Napoleon Bonaparte crossed the Alps in order to invade Italy, there was a growing awareness amongst French intellectuals of the inherent
69

journal of undergraduate research

differences between cultures and nations.1 This awareness was due in large measure to the fracturing of Europe into its modern nationstates and the gradual development of national mentalities within these states. French intellectuals began to pose questions such as: Which customs and traditions make Italians distinct from Frenchmen? Are certain cultures better than others and, if so, where does Italian culture rank with respect to French culture? Does a correlation exist between Italy’s climate and the culture of its inhabitants? Bodinier devoted several decades of his life to answering these queries, but his considerable contributions have been largely ignored by scholars of art history, and indeed by the academic community as a whole. This paper will attempt to redress this oversight by situating Bodinier’s representations of the Italian folk within the interdisciplinary dialogue about Italian alterity2 that took place in nineteenthcentury France. Born in Angers on February 9, 1795, Guillaume Bodinier attended two different schools in his hometown before moving to Paris, a boys-only grammar school and, beginning in 1813, the Military School of Saint Cyr.3 One year later, he left the Maine-et-Loire region in order to pursue painting professionally and study law, the latter simply to appease his father.4 In 1816, the politician Louis-Marie de la Révellière introduced Bodinier to his future teacher, the successful neoclassical painter Pierre-Narcisse Guérin, who, however, initially refused to accept him as a student.5 Thanks to Bodinier’s determination, Guérin eventually relented, granting him permission to use his atelier daily around noon, when his other students were elsewhere. This arrangement persisted until a vacancy finally opened up at the School of Fine Arts in February 1817, at which time Bodinier became Guérin’s official pupil. His fellow students included such celebrated names as Théodore Géricault, Eugène Delacroix, and Xavier Sigalon, the last of whom he remained especially close to throughout his career.6 Bodinier’s apprenticeship with Guérin is particularly important because it was Guérin who first afforded Bodinier the opportunity
70

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

to see Italy. In 1822, Guérin was appointed to the directorship of the French Academy in Rome and Bodinier was allowed to accompany him.7 Both artists resided at the Palazzo Albani, located near the iconic Villa Medici on the Quirinal Hill.8 There, Bodinier encountered other French painters who were already grappling with the meaning of “Italianness,” including Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, François-Édouard Bertin, and Léopold Robert.9 Like these artists, Bodinier soon developed an annual routine whereby he spent the winter months in Rome and devoted the remaining three seasons to exploring the Italian countryside.10 Over the next four and a half years, he visited a large number of towns and cities in the regions of Lazio and Campania, including Albano, Capri, Castel Gondolfo, Civitavecchia, Gaeta, Ischia, Marino, Naples, Ostia, Pompeii, the Pontine Marshes, Subiaco, Terracina, and Velletri. He returned to France only in late autumn 1826.11 The following year, Bodinier participated in the Parisian Salon for the first time, exhibiting the aforementioned Marriage Proposal: Costumes from Albano, near Rome and another work entitled A Family in the Environs of Gaeta, which together earned him a first-class medal.12 He returned to Rome in 1830, a year after Horace Vernet had begun his term as the director of the French Academy, and stayed until halfway through painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’ tenure as director.13 When not in Rome, Bodinier was revisiting his favorite sites in Italy, including Ischia, Subiaco, and Terracina, and setting foot in some new places, notably Calabria, Civitella, Frascati, Olevano, and Palestrina. He returned to France in late 1836, but would find himself back “under the magic sky of Italy” within less than a year’s time.14 In early summer 1837, Bodinier and Sigalon embarked for Italy together, along the way sojourning through Nîmes and Uzès, both cities in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of France.15 Their travel plans were interrupted, however, by a sudden outbreak of cholera, which claimed Sigalon’s life within months and convinced Bodinier to postpone his departure until early winter.16 Bodinier remained in
71

journal of undergraduate research

Italy for approximately nine years, residing in the home of his friend and fellow artist, Nicolas-Didier Boguet, from November 1838 onwards.17 Although Bodinier did voyage to Ischia, Subiaco, and Terracina during this period, the large majority of his stay appears to have been spent in Rome and, as a result, he frequently attended evening sessions of the French Academy. Bodinier left Italy permanently in 1846 after having been notified that he had been selected to receive a medal for his Neapolitan Vendetta, exhibited in the Salon earlier that year.18 Bodinier’s interest in Italian alterity did not diminish once he returned to his place of birth. According to the nineteenth-century French historian Célestin Port, Bodinier deliberately arranged his townhouse in the manner of an Italian villa with “a gallery, veranda, flowers, and antique vases” so that “he could dream of lost horizons at his leisure.”19 This suggests not only that Bodinier fondly recalled his time in Italy, but also that he was dedicated to truly understanding Italianness. In addition, Bodinier continued to produce works featuring the Italian peasantry and terrain until his death at the age of 77 while amassing an extraordinary number of similarly themed works by other artists.20 Seven months after his passing, when an auction of his collection was held in Angers, comprising some 42 paintings, 219 drawings, and 905 engravings and lithographs, more than one-fifth of the items pertained to Italian subject matter.21 These numbers make plain that Bodinier’s engagement with the Italian “other” was not confined to the years he lived in Italy, but rather preoccupied him for over half a century. Two years after Guillaume Bodinier’s death in August 1872, his widow Flore donated the contents of his studio, including over 100 paintings and more than 750 drawings, to the Musée des Beauxarts in Angers, where the majority of his works are still housed today.22 This bequest may inadvertently have contributed to the fact that Bodinier’s name is virtually unknown outside the Anjou region. Bodinier’s artistic obscurity is reflected in the small amount of scholarship dedicated to his life or artistic output. In 1878, Port allocated
72

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

two pages to Bodinier in his Dictionnaire Historique, Géographique et Biographique de Maine-et-Loire, which is similar in content to the Who’s Who registries that abound today. Port supplies biographical information about Bodinier and cites seventeen paintings of particular merit, but does not elaborate upon the painter’s eagerness to understand Italianness, though this is perhaps to be expected given the scope of the dictionary and the brevity of each entry. Following this publication, over a century passed without Bodinier having been studied in any detail by a single scholar. It was not until 2003, when a catalogue was conjointly published by the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York and the French Academy in Rome in honor of the exhibition Maestà di Roma: Da Napoleone all’unità d’Italia: D’Ingres à Degas, les artistes français à Rome at the Villa Medici, that Bodinier again received some recognition. This book provides color reproductions and descriptions of sixteen of Bodinier’s paintings and contextualizes his artistic output within the social milieu of nineteenth-century Rome, taking into account his relationships with other French artists. Two years later, the first-ever exhibition catalogue devoted to Bodinier’s drawings was published by Patrick Le Nouëne, the director of the Musée des Beaux-arts in Angers. Though undeniably important, these recent publications fall short of examining Guillaume Bodinier’s artistic production with respect to the cross-disciplinary dialogue about Italian alterity that dominated French artistic and literary circles for at least three-quarters of the nineteenth century. Prior to Napoleon’s invasion of Italy in 1796, the words “Italy” and “Italian nation” had no real meaning in international politics: their usage was confined to literary and geographical contexts because, at the time, Italy was subdivided into ten independently governed principalities.23 Napoleon did away with these principalities, combining them into a smaller number of republics and instituting more centralized modes of governance modeled on the French legal system.24 As a result, Napoleon, and by extension the French people, were directly implicated in the conceptualization and implementation of Italianness. This unique position
73

journal of undergraduate research

held by the French is crucial to remember when considering the paintings and sketches of Italy produced by Bodinier. Also essential is that fact that Napoleon traversed the Alps in 1796 as a conqueror, prepared to subjugate a degenerate people. Historically, the French had not always demonstrated this condescension towards the Italians. In fact, for centuries they sought to emulate Italian culture, perhaps most notably during the Renaissance and Baroque Periods. By the late eighteenth century, however, Italy was regarded as both a provincial nation in decline and a relic of a bygone era. This attitude was made abundantly clear in Napoleon’s speech to the electoral colleges in Milan in December of 1807, in which he “recalled the past glories of Italy and the decay into which it had fallen” and argued that “much remained to be done to recover the country’s former status.”25 This mindset filtered down through all levels of French society, and similar attitudes were likely formed by Bodinier’s colleagues. An important question to bear in mind, and one that I will attempt to answer, is whether Bodinier assimilated this mindset and, if so, whether it manifests itself in his scenes of Italy. The same question might be asked of the other French artists who flocked to Rome in waves. They were drawn to Italy for a variety of reasons, foremost among which was the restoration of the French Academy between 1795 and 1798.26 The Academy not only provided artists with a place of lodging, but also encouraged and sometimes financed their travels in the Italian countryside, which they usually undertook in groups of two or three.27 Other artists were drawn to Italy because they saw themselves as the natural inheritors of the landscape tradition of Claude Lorrain, or because they were enticed by the descriptions in recent Italian travel literature. This paper will situate Guillaume Bodinier within this ongoing conversation about the Italian “other.” An examination of the historical events that preluded Bodinier’s three stays in Italy will be followed by an in-depth analysis of the six pictures already introduced. Bodinier’s productivity will be framed within the concurrent dialogue in
74

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

French society about culture and climate, Zeitgeist, and empirical knowledge. Ultimately, this paper will argue that from the age of 27 onward Guillaume Bodinier dedicated himself to constructing a narrative of Italian alterity based on his encounters with rural Italians and his responses to the narratives of his contemporaries. Chapter One: Historical Context In 1795, the year that Bodinier was born and one year prior to Napoleon’s arrival in the Italian peninsula, the idea of a unified Italy remained a nebulous concept advocated by a small minority of patriots and intellectuals. Italians did not think of themselves as “Italians,” but rather as inhabitants of the Republic of Lucca or the Duchy of Parma. Each principality possessed its own currency, system of weights and measures, administrative and legal system, and dialect(s), and merchants were required to pay customs duties on imports and exports to other principalities.28 No national constitution had ever been declared, and political loyalties were highly regional in nature.29 In addition, ecclesiastic privileges were still firmly in place, and the papacy directly controlled much of modern Lazio, Umbria, Emilia Romagna, and Marche, which together formed the Papal States.30 All this came abruptly to an end with Napoleon’s invasion of the Italian peninsula, beginning with his occupation of Milan in May 1796 and quickly escalating to a prolonged siege of Mantua and a determined campaign in the Papal States. Napoleon’s victories enabled him to dissolve the Italian principalities and to consolidate their territories under three republican governments — the Cisalpine, the Roman and the Neapolitan Republics — which came to be known as the Revolutionary Triennium. These republics were short-lived, lasting only twenty-two, eighteen and five months respectively, but they set in motion changes that permanently affected the structure of Italian society and the attitude of Italians towards nationhood.31
75

journal of undergraduate research

Napoleon left Italy in November 1797 in order to invade Austria, returning roughly three years later, in June 1800. His defeat of the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo in the modern-day region of Piedmont gave him control over much of northern Italy, and within a year and a half he had established the Republic of Italy, with himself as the president.32 In March 1805, three months after having been crowned emperor at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Napoleon transformed the nascent Italian republic into the Kingdom of Italy and relegated its status to that of a French department.33 The Kingdom remained in effect until April 1814, when Napoleon abdicated the thrones of both France and Italy.34 During this fourteen-year period, Napoleon pioneered several sweeping changes that radically affected the way in which Italians interacted with and perceived one another. The two most important of these were the creation of a national army and the introduction of compulsory military enrollment, beginning in August 1802, and the translation of French legislative codes into (Tuscan) Italian in 1806 and their subsequent enforcement in Italy.35 The move towards a common language was expedited by the army, which required its troops “to learn the Tuscan tongue” for the sake of more effective communication and cooperation.36 Both the erosion of language barriers and the experience of fighting alongside men from geographically distant regions of Italy, united under one flag,37 propelled the creation of a national consciousness.38 Even before the creation of the Republic of Italy, signs of this budding nationalism manifested themselves sporadically throughout the peninsula. In September 1796, four months after Napoleon’s conquest of Milan, a Milanese by the name of Matteo Galdi authored a treatise entitled “The Need to set up a Republic in Italy.” However, there were also instances in which Italians showed allegiance to the nominally terminated regional principalities or indifference to talk of unity. Desmond Gregory recounts an episode from 1814 in which a British commander entreated some Sicilians to “hesitate no longer; be Italians, and let Italy in arms be convinced
76

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

that the great cause of the country is in your hands!” This rhetoric elicited a negligible response amongst those who heard it, indicating that many Italians harbored uncertainties about what national unity and “Italianness” might mean in practice and whether this was a desirable outcome.39 Some fifty years later, when Hippolyte Taine was sojourning in Rome, he noticed a similar ambivalence and remarked in his journal: “Do they strongly wish to become Italians? Yes and no.”40 The development of a sense of national pride and belongingness amongst Italians was by no means a swift process, but without the experience of Napoleonic rule it might never have come to pass.41 Given Napoleon’s instrumental role in centralizing the Italian government and providing Italians with the tools necessary to become a unified nation, it is keenly ironic that he regarded Italians as cowardly and their culture as degenerate. In his published correspondence, he describes Italy as “a very flabby and craven nation” and notes incredulously their lack of enthusiasm for liberty and equality, in contrast to the French.42 In the eyes of Napoleon and many of his contemporaries, this lukewarm response was evidence of a fall from former glory. Well prior to Napoleon’s rise, however, the perception of Italian culture as debased was already in circulation. It surfaces in Voltaire’s 1752 Le siècle de Louis XIV, in which Voltaire suggests that Italian culture “has now been surpassed and thus lost its importance” and that “if one supports progress and believes in human reason, it is towards France that one must first look.”43 This discourse of French cultural superiority would likely have affected the way in which French history was taught in school, so that from a young age Guillaume Bodinier and others in his generation would have heard Italy disparaged or even disdained by their instructors. Bearing this in mind, it may seem paradoxical that French artists flocked to Italy in such steady numbers. What about Italy was so enticing as to attract all these creative French minds, despite the general agreement that the importance of Italian culture was waning? The reestablishment of the Academy of France in Rome between
77

journal of undergraduate research

1795 and 1798 was an important magnetic force. This respected institution was It was “conceived as a school,” which meant that the resident artists were subject to strict rules and regulations: “The residents had to live on the premises, take their meals together at fixed times, [and] obtain permission from the director for all absences.”44 In spite of these constraints, however, the Academy was never lacking for artists. For many in Bodinier’s generation, the opportunity to visit Italy and explore its countryside was “a type of initiatory step,” and the Academy provided the means to realize this voyage.45 Directors such as Guérin recognized the importance of traveling and executing studies after nature for an artist’s personal growth and self-discovery.46 Other French artists demonstrated a greater willingness to revise and build upon Claude’s precedent. Like Achille-Etna Michallon,47 many of them had received neoclassical training and were “educated in the vein of Poussin” prior to coming to Italy.48 They had been taught to approach representations of nature as a synthesis of a narrative, usually derived from mythology or from the Bible, and a socalled composed landscape, one that is “recreated in a way that is more or less imaginary.”49 However, they were also influenced by the growing discourse about verism and subjectivity in landscape painting. Artists sought to reconcile two impulses that were seemingly in conflict: on the one hand, the desire to empirically observe and realistically reproduce the Italian landscape and, on the other hand, the desire to convey the “emotions felt in front of the spectacle of nature.”50 In the estimation of many art historians, the artist who went the furthest towards resolving this dichotomy was Michallon’s student, Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot.51 During his three stays in Italy, Corot produced a large quantity of studies that reveal a close attention to the “rocks, trees and buildings that animate a landscape,” while at the same time capturing the often pensive or melancholic sensations that such vistas inspired in him.52 Even artists like Corot who departed considerably from the example of Claude were still indebted to him. They shared his
78

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

conviction that Italy was characterized by a unique combination of spectacular geographical formations, such as the waterfalls at Tivoli and the Alban hills, and vestiges from a golden age. The nineteenth-century writer François René de Chateaubriand offers insight into how French society perceived this relationship. While visiting various villages in the Roman countryside in 1804, Chateaubriand wrote to a friend that “this earth… has remained ancient like the ruins that cover her.”53 As this remark suggests, the French associated nineteenth-century Italy with the distant past, as though she had not yet been touched by modernity. Bodinier and his contemporaries were also influenced by Claude’s numerous paintings of Italian peasants in the countryside, which he produced over the course of five decades in Italy. These representations emboldened many French artists to investigate Italian alterity beyond the city limits of Rome. As the romantic painter Théodore Chassériau asserted in a September 1840 letter to his brother, “It’s not in Rome that we can see real life... I’ve done studies of the countryside, so famous for its beauty... It is a [truly] unique thing in the world.”54 In addition to the reinstatement of the French Academy in Rome and the desire to carry on the landscape tradition of Claude, the steady expansion of Italian travel literature also contributed to the large number of French artists who established temporary residence in Italy during the nineteenth century. This literature can be divided into two categories: official guidebooks printed by companies such as Baedeker and Murray and travel journals kept by French intellectuals. Described by one scholar as “a cross between a dictionary and an encyclopedia,” the guidebooks offered not only practical information pertaining to lodging, food, transport and leisure, but also presented readers with value judgments about villages, monuments and locals.55 A typical comment from Baedeker’s Italie centrale: manuel du voyageur describes the town of Civitavecchia in the following manner: “The city offers little interest; one could devote the available time to a walk along the harbor.”56 Unlike the guidebooks, whose information was culled from multiple sources, travel
79

journal of undergraduate research

journals were based on the experiences of a single individual. Some of the journals were compiled from travelers’ daily notes, while others were written years after the voyage had taken place.57 What they all had in common was the “very significant role” they played in “perpetuating already established images of Italy and also in creating new impressions of the Peninsula.”58 Travel journals reiterated widely-held associations between Italy and antiquity, while also making statements about Italian culture and alterity, which helped popularize a stereotype of Italians as passionate, superstitious, and living in harmony with nature. One of the several questions I will attempt to answer is to what extent Guillaume Bodinier gave credence to this stereotype. As we have seen, Bodinier and his colleagues were drawn to Italy in the early nineteenth century for a variety of reasons that included the reestablishment and relocation of the Academy de France in Rome, the urge to build upon the landscape tradition of Claude Lorrain, and the increasing availability of Italian travel literature. The artists came both during and after Napoleon’s reign as emperor, at a time when Italians were struggling to accept and adjust to the radical political and social changes that had been thrust upon them. Both the French and the Italians themselves were seeking to understand what “Italianness” meant in concrete terms, but I will strictly focus on how “Italianness” resonated with Guillaume Bodinier and how this manifests itself in six of his works; The Marriage Proposal (1825), A Pilgrim (1826), Young Bathers on a Rock at Capri (1826), Young Boy on the Beach at Terracina (1835), Terrace of a House at Anacapri (1824), and View of Subiaco (1825). Chapter Two: Italian Marriage and Spirituality The previous chapter traced historical developments that sparked a dialogue about Italian “otherness” within French intellectual and artistic circles, and located Bodinier temporally within that dialogue. This section will now narrow in focus, concentrating on the French
80

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

discourse about Italian marital and religious practices through an analysis of two paintings that Bodinier executed within a year of one another: his 1825 The Marriage Proposal: Costumes from Albano, near Rome (Figure 1) and his 1826 A Pilgrim (Figure 2). Bodinier had already been living in Italy for three years when he produced The Marriage Proposal. Although the subjects of the painting are attired in the traditional clothing of Albano, a town south of Rome in the Alban Hills, an inscription reveals that it was in fact executed in Rome, and thus in Bodinier’s studio.59 Sébastien Allard theorizes that Bodinier selected Albano as the setting of this work in order to take advantage of the legendary beauty and dark hair of the local women, made famous by the model Vittoria Caldoni. Previous scholars have remarked upon the tight framing of the picture and the close-range view offered to the viewer. This framing allowed Bodinier to concentrate on the facial expressions and body language of his figures, from the young man’s heartfelt love to the young woman’s modesty and deference to her mother.60 The physical proximity of the figures and the apparent continuity between the picture space and the viewer’s space also suggests that the viewer stands on the terrace, just opposite from the young woman, as an involuntary witness to an intimate scene. Like the matron and the fiancé, the viewer’s eyes are drawn to the reserved woman in the center. Most intriguing is the choice of subject matter for this painting, as it suggests that Bodinier sought to convey a message about Italian sexuality and matrimony. Many of his contemporaries perceived Italians as an irrational people who allowed their amorous passions to dictate their behavior. French intellectuals often contrasted this emotionalism with the more reserved manners of the French, who preferred to let rationality and social propriety determine their actions, both in love and in life. Romantic writers such as Germaine de Staël, Stendhal, and George Sand “believed that true, unadulterated desire was possible” in Italy, because “the Italians had genuine emotions that were generated from within.”61 Some Frenchmen went
81

journal of undergraduate research

so far as to characterize Italy as a place of carnal pleasures, perhaps partly due to the adventures with Italian courtesans portrayed in the travel journal of Charles de Brosses.62 The French perception of Italian sexuality and morality was also strongly influenced by the Italian tradition of cicisbeismo, in which a young bachelor was placed in the service of a married woman for the purpose of accompanying her to public events and assisting her at home, “invariably in the absence of her husband.”63 Despite the fact that the relationship between the matron and her attendant was meant to be platonic, and although the woman’s husband often played an active role in selecting the cicisbei,64 both the French and the English were censorious of the custom. In Germaine de Staël’s 1807 novel Corinne, ou l’Italie, one of the main characters — an Englishman by the name of Oswald — assumes sexual intercourse was a frequent occurrence in such an arrangement. This assumption was shared by de Staël and many of her contemporaries, to the extent that “Italian wives… acquired an international reputation for extraordinary liberty.”65 Certain nineteenth-century scholars concluded that Italian women were altogether incapable of so-called “moral love,” a love enduring, intimate, and not exclusively physical.66 French historian Hippolyte Taine recorded his observations about Italian marital norms during an 1864 visit to the coastal city of Naples. Although he does not mention the tradition of cicisbeismo in his travel journal, Taine echoes earlier scholars by drawing attention to the strength of Neapolitan emotions and the propensity of the Italian people to seek pleasure: Among the people, every young girl fifteen years of age has a lover, and every young man seventeen years of age is in love, and passions are very strong and very long-lasting. Both of them think about marriage and wait for it as long as is necessary, that is to say until the man could buy the most important piece of furniture, a large, square bed. Note that he does not live like a Trappist monk during the interval. No
82

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

population has given itself over to pleasure to a greater extent, [nor is another population] more precocious; from the age of thirteen, a boy is [considered] a man.67 Here, Taine asserts that Italians routinely become sexually active before having reached adulthood, while also suggesting that this sexual precocity is an inherited characteristic, something innate to the Italian race. Despite this evidence that the stereotype of the pleasure-seeking Italian was widespread in French society, Bodinier appears to have constructed a different narrative in The Marriage Proposal. There is no intimation that the couple has had sexual intercourse or that their relationship is based upon physicality; in fact, the unblemished whiteness of the young woman’s gown likely indicates a profound purity of character that precludes premarital relations. The small amount of skin left exposed by the woman’s apparel further reinforces this point. If the painting were indeed about succumbing to pleasure, one would expect a greater amount of flesh to be on display. Moreover, the stillness of the figures’ poses and the tranquility of their expressions are incongruous with the uninhibited passion described in Taine’s journal. Rather than depicting Italians as purely hedonistic, Bodinier constructs a narrative about a happy engagement and the prospect of a successful marriage. Sébastien Allard, a curator in the Department of Paintings at the Musée du Louvre, points out that Bodinier has omitted from view anything that might threaten to destabilize the union. Conspicuously absent are the young woman’s father, the young man’s parents, any tangible religious signs, such as a crucifix or a rosary, and bachelors who could serve as future cicisbei.68 These omissions are surely intentional, as Bodinier’s similarly themed The Marriage Contract in Italy (Figure 7) incorporates three additional male figures with the authority to decide the terms of the marriage contract. Their inclusion suggests that the marriage’s success hinges on the settling of this contract, whereas in The Marriage Proposal
83

journal of undergraduate research

nothing — not family, faith, nor formalities — stand to impede the couple’s happiness. In Allard’s analysis of this painting, he alleges that Bodinier’s narrative affirms Stendhal’s conception of the Italian people. A French writer who lived in Italy from roughly 1814 to 1821, Stendhal often portrayed a “happy, sun-soaked Italy” in his novels and other writings.69 According to Allard, “Bodinier wants us to believe in the sacred dimension of the Italian people’s aptitude for happiness, much lauded by Stendhal.”70 To accomplish this, Bodinier simplifies the painting’s composition, compelling the viewer to concentrate on the tender exchange of gestures and looks between the figures. The two most expressive gestures are the mother’s upward-facing palm and the young man’s right hand, positioned just below his heart. The former seems welcoming in nature, as though the mother is inviting the young man into the family,71 while the latter suggests the sincerity and depth of the man’s affections. Prior to the launch of Bodinier’s career, two related ideas concerning the relationship between people and the environment was beginning to circulate in French society. These ideas strongly influenced Bodinier’s understanding of “Italianness.” The eighteenthcentury naturalist and proto-anthropologist Georges-Louis Leclerc asserted in his 1749 Histoire naturelle that “manners and mores… function through the intermediary of climate and food.”72 Leclerc believed that human customs, behaviors, and inclinations could be explained as a function of the environment, understood to encompass the ecological, social, and political aspects of a region. This idea was taken up by the Parisian historian Jules Michelet. He conceived of national alterity as being based on a “common circulation of values” and impacted by diverse factors such as “climate, geography, language, mores, and history, as well as diet.”73 In Michelet’s eyes, the cultivation of national alterity was both natural and desirable. Though Michelet did not publish his ideas until after Bodinier had painted The Marriage Proposal, this paper will use them as representative of those circulating in French society two decades earlier.
84

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

The second idea is particularly well-known today from the writings of historian Hippolyte Taine, though it was originally suggested by Montesquieu.74 Again, despite the fact that Taine’s works were not published until well after Bodinier had completed this painting, they built upon an idea established in the eighteenth century. A rigid determinist and a strong supporter of the scientific method, Taine believed it possible to identify a cause for all human behaviors, personality traits and community traditions. He was highly interested in mental and behavioral characteristics that were typical of a population in a given geographical locale and at a particular moment in history.75 He developed a now famous theory centered on three “primordial factors” — race, milieu and moment, meaning established “ways of feeling and thinking”; climate, political circumstances, and social conditions; and “the sum total of all the actions / experiences previously undergone by humanity and engraved upon the race, at a given moment of its evolution.”76 Taine was convinced that these three factors explained why people from different cultures live the way they do and why customs that are widely accepted in one culture do not take root in another. The Marriage Proposal includes several indications that Bodinier intended it as a response to the ongoing debate about cultural otherness, the first of which is the subject matter of the painting itself. For Taine, marriage as a social institution was explicable as a combined product of race, environment, and epoch. By depicting an engaged couple in a serene setting, Bodinier suggests that the people of Albano value marriage as an arrangement that brings happiness and security. Significantly, behind the three figures is a pane-less window offering the beholder a truncated view of a body of water (presumably Lake Albano) and a hilly horizon. Though this vista may serve to give the scene a site-specific setting and to allow Bodinier to exhibit his talent for landscape painting, it also suggests a relationship between the temperate climate of central and southern Italy and Italian marital practices. Such a relationship is posited explicitly in Taine’s travel journal. During his sojourn in Naples, he remarked
85

journal of undergraduate research

that Italians were infatuated with their marriage prospects due to their surrounding climate: it was “impossible for people from here to think about anything else; it’s the dominant idea, suggested by the climate and the country [itself ].”77 Although infatuation is too strong a term in the case of The Marriage Proposal, Bodinier may well suggest that the Italian cultural esteem for the institution of marriage stems in part from the climate and social environment. The finery worn by the figures, which would have been reserved for feast days and special occasions, further implies this cultural esteem for marriage.78 Bodinier meticulously renders everything from the parallel scalloped edges of the women’s dresses to the exaggerated crimson bow atop the young woman’s head, making apparent his interest in local garments.79 Allard contends that the figures’ fine clothes are meant to exoticize and ennoble them, an observation reaffirmed by Henri Loyrette.80 However, their sumptuous clothing also refutes the accusations of degeneracy that Napoleon directed at the Italian people. If Bodinier concurred with the Emperor’s estimation of Italians, one might expect to see figures in tattered clothing, seated on dilapidated furniture, and set against a backdrop of a prominent ruin.81 Instead, the figures wear their Sunday’s best and are framed by a verdant landscape. Before concluding this discussion of Bodinier’s narrative about Italian sexuality and attitudes towards marriage, it is important to revisit his only other genre scene that specifically treats the subject of matrimony, the 1831Marriage Contract (Figure 7). This picture contains several conspicuous similarities in composition, costume and décor to its precursor. The mother and the bride-to-be wear gowns almost identical to those of the corresponding figures in The Marriage Proposal, and their hands are likewise tightly clasped. Their positions are inverted, however, so that the young woman, rather than her mother, now occupies the chair of upholstered velvet. The scene is set in a more elaborate outdoor terrace, offering viewers an analogous vista to that of the prior painting. Here however, the hilly landscape is magnified, and Bodinier
86

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

Figure 7. Le Contrat de mariage en Italie, by Guillaume Bodinier, 1831, oil on canvas, 1.01 m Height x 1.38 m Width, Musée du Louvre, Paris

has taken greater care to evoke the undulating slopes. The groom’s facial expression is polite rather than tender, and he holds the hand of a plainly dressed, prepubescent girl, perhaps his younger sister. Allard briefly compares the two paintings by describing The Marriage Contract as “a more anecdotal and less vivid interpretation… of a similar theme.”82 Nonetheless, there are also significant differences between the two prenuptial scenes, the most noticeable of which is the varied physiognomy of the subjects’ faces in The Marriage Contract. In The Marriage Proposal, the groom possesses a distinctly classical, aquiline nose shown to its best advantage in a profile view. The bride’s face is oriented frontally, highlighting its flawless symmetry, another characteristic of classical physiognomy. The mother, with her fuller shape and plumper face, is the least idealized of the three figures, but her placid expression and smooth skin display vestiges of classicism. In The Marriage Contract, on the other hand, although many of the figures are characterized by tanned skin, heavy brows, and dark hair,
87

journal of undergraduate research

certain figures are far more idealized than others. The three men in the background appear grizzled and wrinkled, and the mother’s facial expression is almost a caricature. Only the betrothed couple is the least bit classical, though they, like the lovers in The Marriage Proposal, depart from the classical norm due to their black hair. This suggests that Bodinier has reworked the neoclassical paradigm to better suit his engaged Italian couples, while also appropriating a more grotesque physiognomy for the other peasants. In a certain sense, these adaptations are surprising: greater fidelity to Rome’s classical tradition might be expected, given Albano’s geographical proximity to the city. However, these adjustments reflect the marked increase in scholarly publications about physiognomy in the mid-eighteenth century. One of the most influential physiognomists was the Swiss-born Johann Kaspar Lavater, who theorized that “man’s outwards appearance, whether taken in whole or in parts, is a manifestation of his inner self.”83 His research was first published in German in 1775, but within six years a French edition had been printed in Paris, and by 1810 a total of fifteen French editions were in circulation. Many of the French intellectuals who traveled to Italy around the turn of the century received Lavater’s theories with enthusiasm, including de Staël, Sand, and Chateaubriand. As a result, Bodinier’s generation of artists, particularly members of the Davidian school, started to take “a greater physiognomical interest in the faces they depicted.”84 Bodinier’s attention to facial anatomy and his willingness to deviate from classical precedents are significant because both contribute to his narrative of “Italianness.” One possible interpretation of the non-idealized figures in The Marriage Contract is that Bodinier is making a statement about the degradation of the Italian race since ancient times, echoing Napoleon’s comment to the Milanese electoral colleges some twenty years earlier. At the same time, the more classicizing physiognomy of the engaged couples suggests that Bodinier believed in the possibility of a regeneration of Italian culture. He seems to agree with Corinne’s comment to Oswald in Corinne,
88

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

ou l’Italie that Italian character “reveals traces of ancient grandeur: sparse, scarcely visible traces that in happier times could rise to the surface once more.”85 Another evident difference between the two paintings is the presence of a notary public in The Marriage Contract, identifiable by the plume in his right hand and the legal document before him on the table. Bodinier has deliberately constructed the scene so that the viewer’s eyes are inevitably drawn to this figure: not only is the notary centrally placed within the picture space, but he is situated at the tip of an isosceles triangle that he forms with the bride and groom. In addition, the notary’s dark gray hair and somber clothing effectively silhouette him against the lush landscape, which is painted in much lighter tones. To the left of the notary public is a middle-aged man who could be the bride’s father, while to his right is a man whose head covering may indicate that he is a member of the clergy.86 These compositional devices that Bodinier exploited in order to focus attention on the notary raise a question: how does the notary impact Bodinier’s narrative about Italian sexuality and marital practices? One possible interpretation of the notary’s role emerges through a consideration of the cicisbeismo tradition. In The Marriage Proposal, Bodinier presents viewers with an engaged couple whose coming marriage bodes much happiness, corresponding to Stendhal’s perception of Italians. In The Marriage Contract, such happiness seems less assured; the marriage may even be arranged by the couple’s parents. Perhaps the groom holds onto his sister’s hand as a way to muster up courage for a potentially unhappy marriage. Many nineteenthcentury French intellectuals blamed arranged marriages for the existence of the cicisbeismo tradition. In Louis Simond’s 1828 Voyages en Italie et en Sicile, he argues that marriages approved for reasons of “familial and economic interests” were almost always “loveless,” and consequently, Italian women sought love and pleasure outside of their marital relationships.87 Bodinier may have agreed with this logic, deciding to juxtapose an arranged marriage with a marriage
89

journal of undergraduate research

for love so that his viewers might judge for themselves the merits of each Italian social institution. In analyzing this painting, it is also important to consider the ways in which the experience of French occupation altered Italian marital habits and family life. After the Republic of Italy was dissolved and reestablished as the Kingdom of Italy in March 1805, Napoleon passed legislation that required Italians to marry civilly prior to marrying in a church, in addition to legalizing the practice of divorce. Both of these changes were “intensely disliked among all classes,” because they conflicted with the decrees laid out by the sixteenth-century Ecumenical Council of Trent.88 This aversion manifested itself in a homily delivered by a parish priest in 1808, in which he denounced the practice of civil marriage and argued that “it was only the sacrament that made marriage a contract.”89 Clearly, Napoleon’s policies about civil ceremonies and marriage records were highly controversial, such that Bodinier could not have been unaware of the conflict when painting The Marriage Contract. In this context, the work may acknowledge Italian resistance to French social reforms and the resilience of Catholic spirituality in Italy, which made the peninsula distinctly “other” from France. Both Bodinier’s 1825 The Marriage Proposal and his 1831 The Marriage Contract depart from the nineteenth-century French stereotype of the pleasure-seeking Italian. They broach issues ranging from the happiness and security that Italians derived from marriage to the social traditions and reforms that threatened the stability of marriage. Bodinier also responded to contemporary ideas about the development of cultural values and customs, demonstrating a commitment to understanding “Italianness” in an era when Italians themselves were struggling with the same task. Though Bodinier initially investigated questions of national character through the institution of marriage, in subsequent years he did so through another lens: religion. Like many of the other French artists and intellectuals who visited the peninsula in the early nineteenth century, Bodinier was curious about Italian spirituality. Over the course of his career,
90

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

he produced at least six paintings broaching this theme. Together, these works represent an attempt to understand Italian morality and modes of worship, as practiced by both laypeople and clerics. Roughly one year after completing The Marriage Proposal, Bodinier executed another painting of the Italian folk, but this time focused on a solitary figure. In Bodinier’s 1826 A Pilgrim, a fatigued Christian en route from Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain pauses to rest his tired legs. With his head resting on his hand and his elbow leaning on a stone block, he looks out wearily at the viewer, which seems to cost him great effort. The background colors suggest that it is either twilight or early dawn, but the lack of other temporal indicators makes this difficult to ascertain. Around the pilgrim’s neck hangs a large cross of Lorraine, the two-barred cross that was recognized as a symbol of Joan of Arc.90 Other signs of the pilgrim’s devotion include the crucifix propped upon his knee, the rosary dangling near his left hand, and the prominent shell of St. James affixed to his cloak. In terms of the painting’s narrative, the scallop shell is the most important (and most visually striking) of the four objects, informing the viewer of the destination of the man’s pilgrimage. According to The Golden Legend, after Christ’s Resurrection the apostle James began to preach the Good News first in Samaria, the ancient capital of Israel, and later in Spain. The disciple’s remains are thought to be held in Santiago de Compostela and, as a result, pilgrims flocked to this region in great numbers from the tenth century onwards, until the city’s celebrity was equal to that of Jerusalem and Rome. Once the pilgrims had arrived and made an offering at the saint’s shine, they frequently pocketed a scallop shell or a piece of jet, both abundant in the surrounding area. These mementos functioned as “proof that the pilgrimage had been accomplished” and they became treasured items “passed from father to son like heirlooms.” This practice became so common that locals began selling the coveted shells in shops adjacent to the cathedral.91 By proudly displaying his shell,
91

journal of undergraduate research

Bodinier’s aged pilgrim suggests that he successfully reached his destination and is now returning home. One possible interpretation of A Pilgrim is that Bodinier was impressed by the pilgrim’s determination and so constructed a narrative about the religious dedication of Italians. To support this theory, this paper will now review the disparate attitudes toward organized religion in nineteenth-century France and Italy. Prior to the Revolution, the Roman Catholic Church was a powerful institution in France, and the parish church was “a primary source of identity for the villagers.” Church attendance was fairly regular in the countryside. Beginning in the 1760s, however, major church holidays such as Easter were observed by fewer people, and vocations to the priesthood declined dramatically, particularly between 1760 and 1775.92 This slow diminution in French religious devotion was closely related to the availability of Enlightenment texts and the repeated attacks of the philosophes on the Catholic Church. Not all of the Enlightenment thinkers were as openly critical of Christianity as Voltaire, who decried the Christian faith as “the enemy of progress,” but many were willing to question fundamental Christian dogma and to oppose ecclesiastical involvement in secular affairs. This hostility filtered down through French society, causing a general erosion of respect for clergymen in the last decades of the eighteenth century. This decline continued following the declaration of France’s sovereignty in 1789, when the Assembly went to great effort to strip the Church of its political clout. The Church was dispossessed of its property and all monastic orders were disbanded. Clergymen were given the option of swearing their allegiance to the Civil Constitution or being discharged from their priestly duties. All of these measures served to progressively marginalize the Church until 1793, when the French state officially “severed its ties with the historic faith” and began to actively persecute Christians. Churches were forcibly closed, the calendar was reorganized to omit Sundays, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man was trumpeted as the new Apostles’ Creed.93
92

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

Although many of these changes were reversed after the end of the Reign of Terror and the proclamation of religious tolerance in 1795, irreparable damage had been done to the Catholic Church in France. Regular worship and Mass attendance had come to a complete halt, and people were slow to resume their former religious habits. Parish priests, once so central to their communities’ “individual and collective existence,” were now drastically reduced in number. Perhaps most significantly, “half a generation of young people” were deprived of formal religious instruction, making them less likely to establish and maintain a connection with the Catholic Church. Scholars refer to this steady detachment from the Church as a process of “dechristianisation” that began in the mid-eighteenth century, but greatly accelerated during the Revolution and its aftermath.94 The religious situation in contemporary Italy was quite different. In the preface to his 1819 drama The Cenci, which recounts a true story about an Italian family, English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley shrewdly remarked that religion “pervades intensely the whole frame of [Italian] society.”95 Many of Bodinier’s contemporaries who spent time in Italy made note of the manifestations of popular piety that they encountered. When Chateaubriand was visiting Terracina, a city southeast of Rome, he was intrigued by “some laborers driving carts pulled by large oxen, and who carry a small picture of the Virgin… some pilgrims, some beggars, some black and white penitents.”96 His comments draw attention to several key aspects of Italian Catholicism in the nineteenth century, including the prevalence of Marian cults, the frequency of pilgrimages to national and foreign holy sites,97 and the regularity of the sacrament of reconciliation. A large segment of French (and English) society harbored disdain for Italian religious practices, viewing them as evidence of a “religious archaism” untouched by “the forces of modernity.”98 Eighteenth-century writer Oliver Goldsmith was appalled by Italian Catholics’ constant recourse to confession, feeling that penance simply gave them license to sin anew.99 Dedouet d’Auzers, a director of police during Napoleon’s reign as King of Italy, was convinced
93

journal of undergraduate research

that Italian Christians had become “deaf to the public servant” because they only recognized the authority of local clergymen.100 Moreover, the French had difficulty comprehending the Italian enthusiasm for pilgrimages, since in their own society pilgrimages had waned in popularity and importance. This French condescension toward Italian Catholicism is exemplified by Napoleon’s legislation, which sought to chip away at cherished Italian religious customs. He forbade the use of tickets to keep tally of attendance at Easter confession, dissolved all non-overseas missions, modified the wording of the Easter passage that blamed the Jews for Christ’s crucifixion,101 and abolished local saints’ days, among other reforms. The enforcement of these changes was strongly resented by Italians, and communities that normally had antagonistic relationships rallied together in defense of their traditional modes of worship.102 These tensions between French and Italian Catholicism must be taken into account when examining Bodinier’s 1826 A Pilgrim, since any analysis must determine whether Bodinier shared the scorn of many of his contemporaries for Italian religiosity. Did he agree with English writer William Hazlitt, who, in discussing Christian pilgrimages, claimed that “those who signalize their zeal by such long marches obtain not only absolution for the past, but extraordinary indulgence for the future… [to commit] any looseness and mischief ”?103 Little in Bodinier’s painting supports such an interpretation; rather, Bodinier depicts Italian religiosity as a positive attribute. This is apparent in the monumental stature of Bodinier’s pilgrim. The man’s knees protrude outwards into the viewer’s space, creating both physical proximity and intimacy between himself and the beholder. Additionally, although Bodinier treats his subject as a distinct figure type, bedecking him with easily identifiable attributes, he does not wholly objectify his model, since the pilgrim makes direct eye contact with the viewer. This eye contact implies that the pilgrim has consented to share his story with a wider audience. Finally, as discussed previously, Bodinier has included the shell
94

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

of Saint James as one of the pilgrim’s attributes, showing that the pilgrim has succeeded, and is on his return journey. In choosing to depict a successful pilgrim, Bodinier suggests a respectful appreciation of Italian Catholicism. Bodinier’s conception of Italian spirituality was likely impacted by the German scholar Johann Gottfried von Herder. Unlike Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and Hume, who alleged that mankind was more or less the same “in all times and places,” Herder believed in the “irreducible diversity of human societies.” In his philosophical text On the Change of Taste, first published in 1766, Herder argued that people from disparate cultures should be expected to vary immensely in their “concepts, beliefs, (perceptual and affective) sensations, and so forth.”104 Most importantly, he claimed that such variation was both healthy and desirable, and encouraged nations to immerse themselves in their indigenous customs.105 This attitude may have offset the more negative stereotypes about Italian spirituality to which Bodinier was likely exposed, enabling him to judge popular modes of worship with a less critical eye. Moreover, Herder is also credited with coining the term Zeitgeist, which translates roughly as “the spirit of the age.”106 In its original usage, the neologism was meant to denote the collective influence of the most widely-read writers and most well-known artists of a particular period and culture. As the expression was taken up by scholars, however, it was more broadly applied and came to signify the dominant “trends, fashions, attitudes and feelings in a society.”107 This latter understanding of the term is especially pertinent, since Bodinier’s painting is a reflection of his interpretation of the Zeitgeist of nineteenth-century Italy. Herder thus influenced Bodinier’s positive depiction of the prevailing religious sentiment in Italy and sought to uncover its bearing upon “Italianness.” Bodinier’s 1826 A Pilgrim presents viewers with a narrative about a dutiful Italian Christian who has successfully completed a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, despite the physically taxing nature of the journey. This painting is one of six that Bodinier
95

journal of undergraduate research

devoted to the overarching theme of Italian spirituality, making it clear that Bodinier was not fleetingly interested in the religious practices of the peninsula. Bodinier’s attitude towards Italian Catholicism was shaped by scholars such as Herder, who appreciated the uniqueness of national traditions to a greater extent than many of his contemporaries. This chapter brought to the fore several French stereotypes about Italian sexuality and religiosity, including that of the libertine Italian wife and the unenlightened Italian Catholic. Through a close analysis of three of Bodinier’s paintings, the chapter demonstrated several ways in which Bodinier overturned these common preconceptions. The subsequent chapter will now juxtapose two of Bodinier’s crossover paintings, exploring Bodinier’s conception of Italian connectedness to the land and the implications of this conception for his larger narrative of “Italianness.” Chapter Three: Italy as the “Pays du Naturel” Four years prior to undertaking A Pilgrim, Guillaume Bodinier arrived at Capri, an island in the Tyrrhenian Sea on the south side of the Gulf of Naples. This was in fact his second visit to the island, having already spent two months in the vicinity during the summer of 1824.108 Capri was an extremely popular destination amongst the French artists newly arrived in Italy, due to its pleasant weather and moderate temperatures.109 As François-Édouard Bertin remarked, “Winter never makes itself felt here, and the heat of summer is tempered by continual zephyrs.”110 French artists also flocked to Capri because they considered the province of Naples the “most otherworldly and exotic” region in Italy.111 Bodinier and his contemporaries were interested in the aspects of Italian life that decidedly differed from their own experiences, and the Gulf of Naples was perceived as a locus of exoticism. During his stay, Guillaume Bodinier painted one of his crossover paintings, hereafter referred to as “genre landscapes” due to
96

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

their similarity to both genre and landscape paintings. Young Bathers on a Rock at Capri (Figure 3) of 1826 depicts two boys in a cove, one standing and wearing the garb of a Neapolitan fisherman, the other seated with his discarded clothes behind him, apparently having stopped to catch their breath after a swim or preparing to dive into the bay. Dominant in the surrounding landscape are the boulders of varying sizes, which protrude through the surface of the water and give definition to the shoreline. Approximately two-thirds of the composition is allotted to the sky. Nine years later, Bodinier revisited the theme of water in Young Boy on the Beach at Terracina of 1835 (Figure 4). Like the playmates in the previous picture, the child here is stationary, though it is less obvious what he may have been doing prior to the moment depicted. Dressed in oversized overalls and an open-necked shirt, the boy stands unassumingly, with his feet planted close together and his hands folded behind his back. Patrick Le Nouëne maintains that the child may have agreed to pose for Bodinier in exchange for a small remuneration.112 This practice was not uncommon for artists who had been trained in the atelier of a neoclassical painter, habituated as they were to painting from live models.113 Both Young Bathers and Young Boy on the Beach were executed in situ, demonstrating the probable influence of scientism upon Bodinier. Many French intellectuals extolled the virtues of empirical knowledge and were convinced that humanity could be studied in much the same way as the subjects of scientific experiments. The philosopher Auguste Comte endorsed “the extension of the scientific method to the study of societies,” while Ernest Renan proposed in L’Avenir de la Science “a study of man… based on the experimental and descriptive method of all the sciences.”114 For painters, this was an invitation to observe firsthand the customs and social behaviors of other peoples, and to record those observations on canvas. What developed was “the quasi-scientific practice of [painting] en plein air,” in which paintings were begun and completed outdoors, instead of being touched up in the studio.115
97

journal of undergraduate research

Bodinier’s two genre landscapes also testify to his interest in how Italian youths, raised in a rural community, interacted with their native environment, an interest that arguably derives from Claude Lorraine’s implicit association between the Italian people and the countryside. Stylistically, Bodinier’s two paintings manifest a pronounced departure from the tradition of Claude. These differences of style and technique aside, however, Claude’s countless studies of Italian peasants in the Campagna surely influenced Bodinier’s decision to explore “Italianness” outside of the Eternal City. One question this raises is why Claude and his artistic successors, including Bodinier, perceived the countryside as more “Italian” than the metropolis of Rome. Why would Rome, long trumpeted as the pinnacle of civilization, be dismissed in the as peripheral to the question of “Italianness”? One possibility emerges from the discourse of Romantic writers such as Stendhal, de Staël, and Sand, who perceived Italy as the “pays du naturel,” or the country of innocence and naturalness.116 Like other French intellectuals of the period, these authors were disenchanted with the rigid social stratification, “conformism, and sexism” of French society, all of which they considered highly artificial. The Italian countryside was regarded as a “paradisiacal” escape from this codified way of living, a place in which “social distinctions rarely carry much weight” and locals live in an almost naïve communion with the land.117 Given the broad circulation of Romantic literature, Bodinier and his colleagues likely traveled to the Italian Campagna in search of communities where “the social classes mingle freely… without snobbishness or prejudice” and natives maintain a give-and-take, mutually beneficial relationship with their natural surroundings.118 A secondary reason for this emphasis on the Italian countryside comes from the nineteenth-century idea that alterity and environment are interrelated. Montesquieu believed that antithetical character traits could be ascribed to Northern and Southern Europeans as a function of the different weather patterns to which they were
98

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

accustomed. He attributed self-confidence, courage, forgiveness, and “fewer suspicions, political intrigues, and tricks” to Northerners, while ascribing vengefulness, dishonesty, and laziness to Southerners.119 Although certainly not all French intellectuals and artists adopted this sort of dichotomous thinking, the idea that climate could impact temperament outlived Montesquieu and was especially influential upon Bodinier’s generation. Taine’s published writings also predicate a correlation between climate and character traits. He believed that man’s social and climatic environment provided him with “the occasions, joyous and tragic, in terms of which his personality is shaped and his sense of values formed.”120 Like Montesquieu, Taine tends to associate Italians with more negative character attributes, including immaturity, guile, lack of honor, and lack of restraint.121 As justification, Taine cites the dirt, odors, and decay that he encountered while voyaging throughout Italy. Even official guidebooks published by Baedeker and Murray hinted at a relationship between the Italian climate and the social behavior of the villagers. In the ninth edition of Baedeker’s Italie centrale: manuel du voyageur, the city of Siena is portrayed in the following way: “This is one of the most agreeable cities in Tuscany… Its climate is wholesome and not too hot, due to its elevated location; the manners and language of its inhabitants are agreeable and ingratiating.”122 Significantly, the character of the Sienese people is mentioned immediately after a description of Siena’s weather, without even a period to separate the ideas. As a result of this ongoing discourse about climate, Bodinier’s two genre landscapes may be read as attempts to discern Italian personality traits, implied by the children’s activities, or more accurately, by their inactivity. In both Young Bathers and Young Boy on the Beach, the subjects are immobile and an atmosphere of calm pervades the scene. Corinne, one of de Staël’s protagonists, explains this stillness in the following way: “Italy’s mild weather fosters a special kind of indolence, in which… the self gladly loses its sense of time.”123 De Staël would likely point out that Bodinier could have
99

journal of undergraduate research

painted Italian youths splashing water at each other or frolicking in the waves, but instead chose to depict three boys who are not physically exerting themselves in any way. For de Staël and other Romantic writers, Bodinier’s paintings could represent the way in which Italy’s climate affects its denizens, inducing them to forego vigorous exercise.124 Though Bodinier refuted stereotypes of Italian sexuality and marriage, it is challenging to make the case that he countered the familiar stereotype of the indolent Italian. This difficulty stems in part from the few publications of Bodinier’s work. At least four of his paintings belonging to the Musée des Beaux-arts in Angers bear titles or are accompanied by brief descriptions that indicate activity of some sort: Bodinier’s 1823 Lumberjackin the Environs of Tivoli depicts a man felling a tree; his 1836 Women Carrying Pitchers and Listening to an Old Man portrays several peasants en route to a well to collect water; his Young Hunter Brandishing a Hare (undated) shows a spear-carrying hunter who has just snared a rabbit; and his Laborer (undated) represents a farmer wielding some sort of agricultural tool.125 None of these works have been published, however, so it is difficult to say anything definitive about them. In any event, the majority of Bodinier’s genre landscapes resemble Young Bathers and Young Boy on the Beach in that their subjects are sedentary. Nonetheless, Bodinier may not have wholeheartedly agreed with Montesquieu and Taine. He may have intended to emphasize the comfort felt by Italians in their natural environment, and to highlight their slower pace of life. The travel reflections of American writer Henry James during a trip to the Alban Hills in the late nineteenth century are here germane. While visiting a Capuchin convent, James encountered “a cowled brother standing with folded hands profiled against the sky” and found him to be “in admirable harmony with the scene.”126 Akin to the Italian monk in James’ description, the barefoot boy in Bodinier’s Young Boy on the Beach has his hands politely folded and stands silhouetted against the sea and sky. More importantly, he too fits seamlessly into the beach setting,
100

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

with the blue of his overalls nearly merging into the blue of the water.127 Like the French Romantic writers of his period, Bodinier suggests that Italians are more in touch with nature than are the French. Contemporary accounts of the slower pace in Italy support the theory that Bodinier makes such a statement in these paintings. Many French artists and intellectuals, accustomed to the hurried comings and goings of Paris, were astonished by what they perceived to be a dramatically slower lifestyle in the Campagna. Renan compares the attitudes of the French and the Italians in his 1849 travel journal: In Italy, a charming taste for life. Relaxed rhythm of life. Us, no; we must act. We are always hurried, them, no. They enjoy this slow, monotonous course [of life]… We only like action in life; them, they like life [itself ].128 Intriguingly, this juxtaposition emerges because Renan is able to reflect upon his own culture after having been immersed in another. He seems fascinated with the idea of taking life in measured steps, instead of rushing impatiently onward to the next moment in life. Later in his journal, Renan expands upon this idea after a visit to Siena: “The Italian naturally limits his horizon, and makes narrow the domain of life, in order to concentrate more profoundly on [life itself ].”129 Here, Renan suggests that Italians have sufficient perspective on life to disregard more trivial aspects and focus on what they deem truly important. In both of Bodinier’s genre landscapes, the subjects have halted their previous activities, and a sense of quiet calm envelops the scenes. The nude boy in Young Bathers gazes out at the steep shoreline as though pausing to appreciate the natural beauty around him, while the shoeless youth in Young Boy on the Beach stands patiently at attention, untroubled by Bodinier’s request to paint him. For these reasons, Bodinier likely constructed a narrative about the leisurely pace of Italian life, so unfamiliar to the French, while also
101

journal of undergraduate research

hinting at the close relationship between Italians and their natural environment. Although Bodinier was surely cognizant of the stereotype about the lazy Italian, his decision to depict children, as opposed to adults, may indicate that this stereotype did not factor into his narrative.130 This chapter examined two crossover paintings in which Bodinier brings to the fore the interactions of his Italian subjects with their physical milieu. Understanding the nature of these interactions proved central to Bodinier’s conception of “Italianness.” The following chapter will explore Bodinier’s curiosity about a different sort of environment — the Italian home — and situate his ideas about domestic life within his overarching narrative of the Italian alterity. Chapter Four: La Maison and La Maisonnée in Italy Few nineteenth-century French travelers to Italy failed to remark upon the manifold examples of palatial, administrative, and religious architecture, both ancient and modern, that they came across during their excursions, particularly in Italy’s cities and town centers. In an 1803 letter to the French essayist Joseph Joubert, Chateaubriand describes the Piedmontese metropolis of Turin as “a new, clean, regular city [that is] bedecked with palaces” and compared its architecture to “some of the most beautiful neighborhoods in Paris.”131 Sixty years later, Taine made a similar remark in his journal about the profusion of royal residences in Rome, estimating that the Eternal City is home to between one hundred and one hundred and fifty palaces. Like Chateaubriand, Taine judges the imperial buildings against the Parisian architectural structures to which he is accustomed, claiming that “One finds less material grandeur, less space, and fewer rough stones [in Rome] than in the Place de la Concorde and the Arch of Triumph; but this is more original and more interesting.”132 The comments of both Chateaubriand and Taine attest to the admiration of nineteenth-century French intellectuals and artists for Italian monumental architecture.
102

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

In Bodinier’s artistic repertoire, however, these subjects figure infrequently. Out of the two hundred and thirteen paintings attributed to Bodinier by the Base Joconde, only four depict close-range views of monumental architecture.133 His 1824 View of the Coliseum in Rome features the infamous Flavian amphitheater; his View of the Castle of Saumur (undated) represents a fortified castle that is surrounded by a defensive moat; and both his Landscape of Ruins (undated) and his Ancient Ruins: Crossroads in Pompeii (undated) portray the remains of Pompeii.134 Another painting of Bodinier’s absent from the Base Joconde, but published in the 2003 catalogue for the previously cited Maestà di Roma exhibition, is entitled View of the Castle of Ostie and evokes the “vestiges of the powerful medieval fortress constructed at the end of the fifteenth century for the future Pope Julius II.”135 Apart from these five exceptions, Bodinier appears to have been minimally interested in Italian civic or church architecture. Nonetheless, this does not mean that Bodinier eschewed Italian architecture altogether. On the contrary, he took great interest in the private dwellings that he came across during his travels. In Bodinier’s 1825 drawing titled View of Subiaco (Figure 6), he offers the beholder a view of two houses built perpendicularly to one another and sharing a wall.136 They are constructed so as to take advantage of the natural lay of the land; the front entrance of the house on the right, for example, is gained by mounting a staircase that doubles as an archway, under which one may pass, which also enables the homeowners to have a basement floor.137 Round-topped tiles for their roofing characterize both homes, and the dwelling nearest the viewer appears to have a chimney. The façade of the more distant house includes two windows, one of which is paned, and behind this house, a fence demarcates the family’s property from that of their neighbors. A total of four figures are integrated into the scene. Bodinier draws even closer to the Italian home in a drawing sketched a year prior to View of Subiaco, entitled Terrace of a House at Anacapri (Figure 5). The latter is distinguished from the former in
103

journal of undergraduate research

two conspicuous ways, the first being the absence of any residents, and the second being the vantage point from which Bodinier executed the drawing. Here, it appears that Bodinier was invited inside a local’s dwelling, for he presents a privileged interior view of an Italian residence. The terrace is characterized by three columns, two of which hold up some sort of vegetation that is interwoven with the beams above, and Bodinier’s scrawl in the lower right hand corner informs the viewer that a washhouse is located between the columns and the well. Next to the well, it is possible to discern a two-handled vase, and in the left side of the picture space appears a cone-shaped potted plant. Bodinier may have been seated on a bench like the one built into the half-wall when sketching this scene. Both View of Subiaco and Terrace of a House at Anacapri demonstrate an open-minded curiosity about the Italian maison and maisonnée,138 a curiosity that is all the more remarkable in light of the dismissive or condescending attitudes of certain of his contemporaries. Many French intellectuals associated Italian residential architecture and domestic life in the countryside with filth, poverty, cramped quarters, and disease. After a stroll through a neighborhood in Civitavecchia, Taine remarked with disgust: From two sides appear black hovels where filthy children [and] little girls with their hair in disarray… try to sew their rags back together. Never did a sponge pass over the windows, nor a broom over the stairs; they are imbued with human filth… Several windows seem to be crumbling.139 By drawing attention to the unkempt children in tattered garments in the middle of his description of the decrepit house, Taine suggests a connection between the home environment in which Italian peasants are raised and the peasants themselves. Taine also confesses his reluctance to enter a home characterized by such an “acrid, unpleasant odor.”140 This apprehension sets him apart from Bodinier, who appears to have more willingly mingled with Italian peasants
104

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

in their humble abodes. Even official guidebooks could not refrain from patronizing remarks. Under the subheading “Climat de Rome” in Baedeker’s Italie centrale, readers are reassured that local accommodations possess “all the modern conveniences that foreigners have introduced in Italy, above all stoves and carpets.”141 The unsubtle suggestion is that Italy owes its modern amenities to France and its other European neighbors. As these selected examples make plain, the dominant nineteenth-century French discourse about Italian homes centered on their unattractiveness, austerity, and griminess.142 Neither View of Subiaco nor Terrace of a House seem consistent with this discourse. Though certainly modest, the dwellings that Bodinier depicted appear clean, well kept, and full of life, suggesting a different narrative of “Italianness.” This paper addresses Bodinier’s keen interest in modest dwellings and in “studying local housing or the organization of a street,” and considers how this impacts his concept of Italian alterity.143 It may be that Bodinier agreed with Renan that “the truth is in the people,” and as a result, true understanding of another culture requires the outsider to intimately observe the way in which the “other” lives on a daily basis — how he or she interacts with community members, relates to his or her spouse, and raises his or her children.144 The Italian home, as the nucleus of family interactions and the site of neighborly exchanges, was an ideal place to begin this investigation. Sébastian Allard lends support to this idea, maintaining that Bodinier perceived the Italian Campagna as “a humbler and apparently more authentic reality.”145 In Bodinier’s eyes, the home of the Italian peasant signified a place where ordinary Italians lived their lives in an “authentic” manner, far removed from the experience of Italy’s landed elite. Bodinier may also have been influenced by Michelet’s belief that the members of a nation are characterized by “a capacity for communication, and an innate desire for community.”146 In View of Subiaco, the woman standing in the far doorframe appears to be in the midst of a dialogue with the two figures on the archway, while the woman below the arch has paused to listen. Based on the
105

journal of undergraduate research

respective positioning of the four figures, one can plausibly infer that the three with their backs to the viewer belong to one family unit, while the woman farthest from the viewer is a member of a different household. The couple on the archway seems to be in the process of arriving or leaving and this fact draws attention to the close-knit relationships between villagers in which Bodinier was interested. In the words of Le Nouëne, “by capturing the posture of several figures in local costume in front of their door, he shows his interest in the connection that establishes itself between the inhabitants of this village as a function of the particular layout of their housing.”147 As previously mentioned, another scholar whose ideas about “otherness” probably influenced Bodinier’s sketches of Italian peasant dwellings, in addition to Michelet, is Herder. Like other nineteenth-century anthropologists, Herder stressed the importance of “studying people’s minds through their literature, visual art, etc.” in order to “enhance our sympathies for peoples… at all social levels.”148 This seems to be precisely the task that Bodinier set for himself, but instead of grounding his studies in Italian literary and artistic oeuvres, he opted to observe Italian peasants in their home environment in order to understand the mindset of Italians living in traditional, agrarian communities. This approach is reminiscent of Herder’s notion of Einfühlung, which is usually translated as “feeling one’s way in.” Herder advocated “an arduous process of historicalphilosophical inquiry” as the most effective way to “bridge radical difference” between cultures.149 The two decades that Bodinier spent on the Italian peninsula attempting to define “Italianness” constitute just this sort of inquiry, and his drawings of houses in the Campagna can be considered one manifestation of this process. What is intriguing is that Bodinier not only “felt his way in” to Italian culture intellectually, but also physically. As mentioned before, Bodinier needed to have been inside the home at Anacapri in order to capture that particular view of the terrace. It is also worth noting that all of Bodinier’s close-range depictions of Italian homes were sketched instead of painted.150 Although
106

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

sometimes, “after having sketched a landscape fragment… he enlarges and completes it with some figures in his atelier,” this was not the case for View of Subiaco, Terrace of a House, or Bodinier’s other five drawings of Italian houses that are published in Paysages d’Italie.151 Instead, like the two paintings discussed in the previous chapter, each of these sketches was created wholly in situ, and in many instances Bodinier not only recorded the year, but also the day of the month on which they were produced. This offers a distinct advantage in terms of reconstructing Bodinier’s narrative of “Italianness” because it allows us to generate a timeline of the different domestic interactions that he observed and judged to be sufficiently interesting to record. On July 31, 1824, Bodinier encountered a mother and child ambling alongside a garden wall; on August 11, 1824, he witnessed a woman hanging laundry over the ledge of a bifurcated staircase and several locals canoeing next to a two-story home; and on July 17, 1825, Bodinier watched as next-door neighbors conversed.152 These snippets of peasant life in the Campagna offer insights into Bodinier’s empirical method and testify to his efforts to understand the Italian family unit. Bodinier’s interest in familial relationships is also rooted in a larger discourse about the multifarious factors that impact the development of a culture or civilization. In Taine’s Histoire de la littérature anglaise, he outlines a so-called law of proportional influence, which claims that “religion, art, philosophy, the state, the family, the industries” exercise varying degrees of influence upon a culture, depending upon its “elementary moral state.”153 As has been previously suggested, Taine was fiercely committed to determinism, and he believed that human thoughts and actions are “dictated by completely identifiable and extraordinarily stable causes.”154 For this reason, Taine looked to social structures such as the family in order to explain how one culture could value a given behavior or practice, while another culture could abhor it. In addition, the family unit falls under the umbrella of milieu in Taine’s tripartite theory of culture. As
107

journal of undergraduate research

a result, Bodinier’s curiosity about Italian families and households should be treated as a response to this ongoing dialogue. Most nineteenth-century French artists and intellectuals were prone to take greater interest in urban civic and religious buildings than in rural residential architecture. They associated the “impoverished dwellings” of Italian peasants with “foul alleys,” rank odors, and inadequate living space.155 Bodinier distinguished himself from the dominant trend by treating the Italian home as a site for investigating familial relationships and community organization in the Campagna. He repeatedly sketched the exteriors, and occasionally the interiors, of Italian homes, betraying the likely influence of Herder’s concept of Einfühlung. Both View of Subiaco and Terrace of a House at Anacapri attest to Bodinier’s curiosity about peasant life, especially as it manifested itself in the home environment. Conclusion This study aimed to situate Guillaume Bodinier within an interdisciplinary discourse about “otherness” and “Italianness” that preoccupied a large number of French intellectuals and artists in the early nineteenth century. Bodinier arrived in the Italian peninsula in the early 1820s, at a time when nationalism was still in its embryonic stages and Italians were grappling with the extensive political and social changes that had been implemented by Napoleon. Some Frenchmen were doubtful that a truly national Italian identity was even feasible: in his travel journal, Taine opined that Italians were “too ignorant, too attached to the soil, too stuck in their hatreds and in the interests of their village” to abandon their regional loyalties.156 Bodinier and his French contemporaries were drawn to Italy for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was Rome’s status as “the second capital of the Napoleonic empire” until Napoleon’s abdication in 1814.157 Many French artists felt an “irresistible need” to visit the pastoral regions of Italy that so inspired Claude Lorrain and Nicolas Poussin, and each helped articulate, whether consciously or unconsciously, an idea of Italy.158
108

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

This idea was by no means stable, and it centered on a host of stereotypes that germinated in the eighteenth century and were then perpetuated by successive generations of French writers. One of the most oft repeated of these clichés was that Italian culture had declined from its former glory, which was associated with both antiquity and the Renaissance. Chateaubriand “saw Italy as nothing more than a country symbolizing the decadence of social institutions” and Renan remarked upon the “degradation” of Italians after encountering a beggar with an ulcerous skin condition in Corneto.159 Two French stereotypes that went hand in hand in the nineteenth century were those of the passionate and the irrational Italian. Romantic authors such as de Staël, Stendhal, and Sand wrote novels in which the Italian characters “risk their lives, their fortunes, their reputations” in order to “be with the ones they love,” a quintessential example being Corinne and Oswald in Corinne, ou l’Italie.160 This emotionalism was attributed in part to the delayed infiltration of Enlightenment ideas into Italian society, and it was also for this reason that the French positioned Italy outside of modernity. This pre-modernity was additionally thought to be manifested in the Catholic rites and modes of worship characteristic of Italy. The Napoleonic regime displayed “contempt for Italian religious life in all its myriad forms,” and this scorn was imparted to the succeeding generation of academics and artists.161 In the decades leading up to the Revolution, Christianity was slowly but steadily marginalized in French society, and by the mid-1790s the Church lacked “any real idea of how to make its presence felt.”162 It is thus unsurprising that French travelers in the early nineteenth century were suspicious and somewhat disdainful of Italian religious fervor. The French also nurtured stereotypes about Italians as indolent beings. Under the subheading of “La Société” in his travel journals, Taine claims that “[personal] initiative and action are harmful and poorly viewed” in Italy, while “laziness is exalted.”163 Taine explained this Italian disinclination to be active as a function of the benevolent climate in the southern half of the peninsula. At the same time, however, the
109

journal of undergraduate research

French admired the Italians for their ability to live in apparent harmony with their natural surroundings. Bodinier’s contemporaries were much less admiring of Italian residential architecture, particularly in the countryside. They perceived Italian homes as unclean, disease-ridden, and wanting for modern comforts. When Chateaubriand stopped in Portici en route to Mount Vesuvius, he accepted an invitation to have lunch with a local hermit, and in his travel notes he recounted the experience in the following way: “He made me enter his cell; he laid out the place setting, and served me a loaf of bread, some apples and some eggs.”164 The important word in this description is “cell,” which evokes a small, cramped room that is “summarily furnished.”165 Other French historians and philosophers were even more direct in their negative appraisals of Italian homes. Although Bodinier was certainly aware of these stereotypes of “Italianness,” he appears to have been very selective about which to adopt and which to discount. In The Marriage Contract, Bodinier depicts nine Albanese peasants who run the physiognomic gamut from moderately idealized to distinctly non-classical. Although the latter might suggest a degeneration of the Italian race since antiquity, the facial features of the engaged couple could imply just the opposite, namely that nineteenth-century Italians still bear visible traces of their Roman ancestors. Another important aspect of Bodinier’s narrative in both The Marriage Contract and The Marriage Proposal is the theme of Italian matrimony, which is tangentially related to Italian sexuality. Unlike many French historians, philosophers, and artists of the period, Bodinier seems persuaded that Italians have a profound respect for marriage, both as a sacrament and a social institution, and that it affords them much happiness. He contrasts a marriage for love with a marriage for familial and economic convenience in order to underscore the way in which each situation affects the betrothed. Bodinier was also less critical of Italian religious practices and moral codes than many of his contemporaries. In A Pilgrim, he
110

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

commemorates an Italian peasant’s successful pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in northwestern Spain, while in genre scenes such as Forgiveness Granted for the Sin of Frailty, he “promotes the image of a rural Italian lifestyle preserving traditional Christian values.”166 Paintings such as these present Italian Christianity in a more sympathetic manner than was standard for Bodinier’s generation. One cliché about “Italianness” that Bodinier does seem to have absorbed is that of the peasant living tranquilly in his natural environment. In both Young Bathers on a Rock at Capri and Young Boy on the Beach at Terracina, he depicts barefoot boys who blend easily into their aquatic settings and seem to be serenely enjoying the warmth of the sun. Neither the boys nor the water is agitated in either painting, which may be an allusion to the “profound well-being that forms the basis of life for the Italian people.”167 While it might seem reasonable to claim that these two scenes are also meant to affirm the stereotype of the languid Italian given to inactivity, such assertions are rather tenuous. The final aspect of Bodinier’s narrative of Italianness that this paper investigated was his perception of Italian houses and households. Unlike other nineteenth-century French travelers, who were primarily interested in the “characteristic buildings, such as the papal palaces, the dome of Saint Thomas of Villanova by Bernini, or even the Villa Barberini,” Bodinier shifted his attention to the humble dwellings he came across during his peregrinations in the Roman countryside.168 His series of drawings featuring mundane domestic moments and exteriors of homes demonstrate his interest in the Italian family unit and village relationships, and give no intimation of the illness, filth, or penury mentioned by his contemporaries. As this study of Bodinier’s artistic narrative about Italian alterity draws to a close, I would like to suggest several avenues for future research. The scope of my project was necessarily restricted by my limited access to primary sources about the painter’s life and career. During my research, I discovered in a footnote of the Maestà di Roma exhibition catalogue that photocopies of Bodinier’s correspondence
111

journal of undergraduate research

with his siblings, uncles, and cousins are in the possession of Guillaume Regnard’s widow and children.169 I also suspect that further unpublished documentation is to be found in the archives of the Musées d’Angers, to whom Bodinier’s widow donated the contents of his studio in 1872. The publication of these materials could offer crucial insights into how Bodinier’s conception of Italians evolved between 1822, when he first arrived in Rome in the company of Guérin, and 1846, when he departed from the peninsula for the last time. In addition, over the past few months the Base Joconde has uploaded over seventy additional images of paintings by Bodinier that were not available online when I first undertook my study. These images include several remarkable portraits of rural Italians, and in each case the costumes of the figures are meticulously rendered. One question that I touched upon briefly, but that deserves to be treated in greater depth, is how Bodinier’s depictions of local dress contribute to his understanding of “Italianness.” Throughout this study, I have striven to contextualize the artistic production of Bodinier within a nineteenth-century French dialogue about the meaning(s) of “Italianness,” and I hope that future scholars will continue my efforts to give due recognition to a now forgotten artist.

112

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”

Endnotes
1 2 3

4

5

6 7

8

9 10

11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19

20 21

22 23

24 25 26

27

28 29

Alexander Grab, “From the French Revolution to Napoleon,” in Italy in the Nineteenth Century: 1796-1900, ed. by John A. Davis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 27. Alterity is a philosophical and artistic term for “otherness.” Célestin Port, Dictionnaire Historique, Géographique et Biographique de Maine-et-Loire (Paris: J.-B. DuMoulin and Angers: Lachèse Dolbeau, 1878), 382. “Guillaume Bodinier (Angers, 1795-1872),” Musées D’Angers, 01 Nov. 2010, <http:// musees.angers.fr/les-musees/index.html>. Henry Jouin, Musée d’Angers: peintures, sculptures, cartons, miniatures, gouaches et dessins: collection Bodinier, collection Lenepveu, legs Robin (Angers: Imprimerie Lachèse et Dolbeau, 1881), 62. Ibid. Viviane Huchard et al., The Finest Drawings from the Museums of Angers (London: Heim Gallery Ltd, 1977), 10. Patrick Le Nouëne, “Guillaume Bodinier” catalogue entry, in Maestà di Roma: Da Napoleone all’unità d’Italia: D’Ingres à Degas, les artistes français à Rome, ed. by Olivier Bonfait (Académie de France in Rome and the Dahesh Museum of Art in New York, Mondadori Electa S.p.A., 2003), 384. Huchard, 10. Patrick Le Nouëne, Guillaume Bodinier: paysages d’Italie 1823-1836 (Angers: Musée des Beaux-arts, 2005), 5. Ibid. Jouin, 62 and Huchard, 10. Le Nouëne, Paysages d’Italie, 7. Ibid. Quoted in Armand Parrot, Catalogue des tableaux, dessins et gravures de la collection de feu de M. Guillaume Bodinier, (Angers: E. Barassé, 1873), non-paginated. Original French: “Sous le ciel magique d’Italie.” Jouin, 62. Ibid. Le Nouëne, Paysages d’Italie, 7. Jouin, 63. Port, 383. Original French: “Avec galerie, véranda, fleurs et vases à l’antique” so that “il pouvait rêver à l’aise d’autres horizons perdus.” Le Nouëne, “Guillaume Bodinier” catalogue entry, 384. Parrot, non-paginated. According to my count, 12 paintings, 70 drawings, and 163 engravings and lithographs could be definitively classified as depicting scenes of Italy, thanks to their site-specific titles. Huchard, 1 and Le Nouëne, Paysages d’Italie, 5. Desmond Gregory, Napoleon’s Italy (Madison: Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp., 2001), 182. Grab, 38. Gregory, 181. Olivier Bonfait and Antoinette Le Normand-Romain, “L’École de Rome,” in Maestà di Roma, 51. Vincent Pomarède, “Un paysage enchanté: Le paysage à l’Académie de France à Rome,” in Maestà di Roma, 283. Pomarède does not provide an explanation for the artists’ tendency to travel in small groups, but it was probably a function of both practical reasons and a desire for companionship. Gregory, 17-18. Grab, 28.
113

journal of undergraduate research
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

38 39 40

41

42 43

44

45

46 47

48

49 50 51

52

53

54

55

Ibid., 26. Ibid., 27-31. Gregory, 38 and Grab, 34-35. Ibid. and Gregory, 181. Grab, 48. Ibid., 38-39. Gregory, 179-180. The flag of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Italy was characterized by the same tricolor schema as the modern Italian flag, but instead of three vertical bands, a green rectangle containing the eagle from Napoleon’s coat of arms was superimposed upon a white parallelogram, which in turn was superimposed upon a red rectangle. Grab, 39. Gregory, 176-177 and 182-183. Hippolyte Taine, Voyage en Italie (Paris: Hachette, 1884), 328. Original French: “Souhaitent-ils vivement devenir Italiens? Oui et non.” During Napoleon’s rule, however, regional identities continued to predominate over national identity and tensions between northern and southern Italy flared up regularly. Gregory, 43. Ada Giusti, Images of Italy in nineteenth century France (Stanford University, Dissertations & Theses: ProQuest, 1990), 57. Bonfait and Normand-Romain, 51. Original French: “Conçue comme une école...Les pensionnaires devaient habiter sur place, prendre leurs repas ensembles à des heures fixes, obtenir l’autorisation du directeur pour toute absence.” Pomarède, “Un Paysage enchanté,” 280. Original French: “Une sorte de démarche initiatique.” Ibid. Michallon entered the atelier of Henry-François Mulard, a former student of David, in 1808; see Blandine Lesage, “Achille-Etna Michallon” catalog entry, in Maestà di Roma, 520. Pomarède, “Un Paysage enchanté,” 279. Original French: “Formés dans l’esprit de Poussin.” Ibid. Original French: “Recréé de manière plus ou moins imaginaire.” Ibid. Original French: “Émotions ressenties devant le spectacle de la nature.” Henri Loyrette et al, Nineteenth Century French Art: From Romanticism to Impressionism, Post-Impressionism and Art Nouveau (Paris: Flammarion, 2006), 77. Pomarède, “Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot” catalog entry, 420. Original French: “Rochers, arbres et fabriques qui animaient un paysage.” François-René Chateaubriand, Voyage en Italie, ed. by Jean-Marie Gautier (Genève: Librairie Droz S.A., 1968), 126. Original French: “Cette terre…est demeurée antique comme les ruines qui la couvrent.” The letter was addressed to Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes, the editor of Mercure de France. Louis-Antoine Prat, “Théodore Chassériau: un séjour italien (1840-1841),” in Maestà di Roma, 120. Original French: “Ce n’est pas à Rome que nous pouvons voir la vie actuelle… J’ai fait des études de la campagne, si célèbre pour sa beauté… C’est une chose unique au monde.” Anne Bush, “The Roman Guidebook as a Cartographic Space,” in Regarding Romantic Rome, ed. by Richard Wrigley (Germany: Peter Lang AG, International Academic Publishers, 2007), 184 and 189.

114

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”
56

57

58 59

60

61 62

63

64

65 66

67

68 69

70

71

72

73

74

Karl Baedeker, Italie centrale: manuel du voyageur, 9th ed. (Leipzig: 1890), 7. Original French: “La ville offre peu d’intérêt; on pourra consacrer le temps disponible à une promenade sur le port.” Giusti, 2-3. Giusti points out that certain travel journals were constructed as deliberate deceptions because the author wanted to hide the fact that any time had elapsed between his voyage and the creation of his journal. She cites as the quintessential example the Lettres familiales sur l’Italie by Charles de Brosses, which were written fifteen years after the fact; see Giusti, 48. Ibid., 50. Base Joconde, Catalogue des collections des musées de France, Site du ministère de la culture et de la communication, 20 Sept 2010, http://www.culture.gouv.fr/public/ mistral/Joconde_fr>. Sébastien Allard, “Demande en mariage: costumes d’Albano près de Rome,” in Maestà di Roma, 385. Giusti, 100. Ibid., 52. Ada Giusti describes de Brosses’ travel journal as “by far the most widely read of the eighteenth-century travel journals written about Italy,” which suggests that his narratives about Italian courtesans would have reached a broad audience; see Giusti, 50. Robert Casillo, The Empire of Stereotypes: Germaine de Staël and the Idea of Italy, (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 57. Some scholars suggest that the cicisbei were stipulated in Italian marriage contracts; see Ibid., 116. Ibid., 108. The French sculptor Charles Dupaty was one such scholar. In his Lettres sur l’Italie, he accuses Italian women of abandoning “one superficial romance” for another, “treating each as an ‘amusement, an intrigue or caprice,’” but without ever experiencing a deeper, longer-lasting love; see Ibid., 114. Taine, 94. Original French: “Dans le peuple, toute jeune fille de quinze ans a un amoureux; tout jeune homme de dix-sept ans est amoureux, et les passions sont très-fortes et très-durables. Tous deux pensent au mariage, et l’attendent aussi longtemps qu’il faut, c’est-à-dire jusqu’à ce que l’amoureux ait pu acheter la pièce principale du mobilier, un lit immense et carré. Notez qu’il ne vit pas en trappiste pendant l’intervalle. Nulle population n’est plus adonnée au plaisir, plus précoce; des treize ans, un enfant est un homme.” Allard, 385. Ibid. and Irena Grudzinska Gross, Hippolyte Taine’s Polemical Vision of Italy (New York: ProQuest Information and Learning Company, Columbia University, 2002), 205. Allard, 385. Original French: “Bodinier veut nous faire croire à la dimension sacrée de l’aptitude au bonheur du peuple italien, tant louée par Stendhal.” It helps to imagine the mother with a downward-facing palm instead, which would leave the viewer in greater doubt as to whether she approved of the couple’s union or not. Tzvetan Todorov, On Human Diversity: Nationalism, Racism, and Exoticism in French Thought, trans. by Catherine Porter (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993), 103. Vivian Kogan, The “I” of History: Self-Fashioning and National Consciousness in Jules Michelet (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006), 247 and 267. These ideas were articulated in Michelet’s History of the Nineteenth Century. The French Enlightenment thinker Montesquieu elaborated the basic principles of race, environment and epoch in his 1748 The Spirit of the Laws; see Thomas H. Goetz, Taine and the Fine Arts (New York: State University College, 1973), 28. Montesquieu also
115

journal of undergraduate research developed a “theory of climates” that heavily influenced Germaine de Staël, becoming “a mainstay in her perception of Italians” and causing her to conclude that “Italian manners result from the region’s climate”; see Giusti, 131. D.G. Charlton, Positivist Thought in France during the Second Empire, 1852-1870 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959), 127. Paul Nève, La Philosophie de Taine (Louvain: Institut supérieur de Philosophie, 1908), 92-97. Original French: “Façons de sentir et penser...La somme des actions antérieurement subies par la matière humaine et imprimées dans la race, à un moment donné de son évolution.” Taine, 95. Original French: It was “Impossible aux gens d’ici de penser à autre chose; c’est l’idée dominante, elle est suggérée par le climat et le pays.” Auguste Racinet, Le Costume historique (Los Angeles: Taschen, 2006), 494. This interest is also evident in the title of the painting; see Allard, 385. Ibid. and Loyrette, 52. This description is slightly hyperbolic, but it makes clear that Bodinier was not constructing a narrative about a degenerate culture in The Marriage Proposal. Allard, 385. Original French: “Une interprétation plus anecdotique, moins intense… d’un thème similaire.” Graeme Tytler, Physiognomy in the European Novel: Faces and Fortunes, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982), 68. Ibid., 74, 82-83, 99-100, and106. Bodinier was not David’s student, but he received the same neoclassical training as David’s pupils. Casillo, 63. Interview with Professor Pierpaolo Polzonetti, Department of Program of Liberal Studies, University of Notre Dame, 22 Feb 2011. Casillo, 118. Michael Broers, The Politics of Religion in Napoleonic Italy: The War against God, 18011814 (New York: Routledge, 2002), 48. Ibid., 50. Edith Benkov, “Joan of Arc c. 1412-1431,” Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender, ed. by Fedwa Malti-Douglas, Vol. 3 (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), 813. Joan of Arc was born in the modern-day province of Lorraine. Walter Starkie, The Road to Santiago: Pilgrims of St. James (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company Inc., 1957), 14, 61 and 70-71. Nigel Aston, Religion and Revolution in France, 1780-1804 (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2000), 38, 52 and 25. Ibid.,83-93, 129, 133-134, 165-166, 260 and 263-265. Ibid., 38, 259, 276. Casillo, 126. Chateaubriand, 101. Original French: “Des laboureurs conduisant des charrettes qui traînent de grands bœufs, et qui portent une petite image de la Vierge…des pèlerins, des mendiants, des pénitents blancs ou noirs.” One Italian municipality that gained popularity as a pilgrimage destination in the sixteenth century was Cicagna in the Apennine Mountains. Local Jesuit priests began to encourage the recitation of the Rosary of the Madonna and, as s result, a previously “neglected statue of the Virgin began granting miraculous favors”; see Broers, 55. Ibid., 28. Casillo, 125. Broers, 29.

75

76

77

78 79 80 81

82

83

84

85 86

87 88

89 90

91

92

93 94 95 96

97

98 99 100

116

guillaume bodinier and “italianness” Many regions in Italy were fervently anti-Semitic in the early nineteenth century; see Ibid., 33. 102 Ibid., 38-40, 53 and 80. 103 Quoted in Casillo, 126. 104 Michael Forster, “Johann Gottfried von Herder,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. by Edward N. Zalta, <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/herder/>. 105 Kogan, 264. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Italians took this advice to heart when some of their deeply entrenched religious traditions, especially their Marian cults, came under attack, culminating in a sequence of turn-of-the-century rebellions. As Michael Broers put it, “The revolts of 1799 are the most spectacular, politicized expressions of the importance of Mary in the hearts of the Italian masses”; see Broers, 57-58. 106 Herder introduced the word into the German language in 1769 in order to translate the title of C.A. Adolph’s Genius Specula; see A.C. Grayling, Ideas that Matter: The Concepts that Shape the 21st Century (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 387. 107 Ibid. 108 Le Nouëne, Paysages d’Italie, 23. 109 Stephen Bann, “Le peuple, de l’héroïque au pittoresque,” in Maestà di Roma, 248 and Pomarède, “Corot” catalog entry, 420. 110 Pomarède, “Un paysage enchanté,” 283. Original French: “Les hivers ne s’y font jamais ressentir, et les chaleurs de l’été y sont tempérés par de continuels zéphyrs.” 111 Ibid. Original French: “Plus dépaysante et exotique.” 112 Le Nouëne, “Guillaume Bodinier” catalog entry, 391. 113 Bann, “Le Peuple,” 246-247. 114 Charlton, 29 and 97. 115 Pomarède, “Un Paysage enchanté,” 279. Original French: “La pratique quasi-scientifique du plein air.” 116 Giusti, 95. Translation: “Country of innocence / naturalness.” 117 Ibid., iv and 95; Casillo, 53. The second citation is one of the narrator’s lines in Corinne, ou l’Italie. 118 Casillo, 67. 119 Giusti, 130-131. Quoted from Montesquieu’s Œuvres Complètes. Original French: “Moins de soupçons, de politiques, de ruses.” 120 Goetz, 74. Quoted from Professor Gothshalk in 1947. No further information about the quoted scholar is supplied by the author. 121 Gross, 207-208. 122 Baedeker, 22. Original French: “C’est une des villes les plus agréables de la Toscane… son climat est sain et pas trop chaud, par suite de sa situation élevée; les manières et la langue de ses habitants sont agréables et insinuantes.” 123 Casillo, 76. 124 One can speculate as to the activities that the boys may have been engaged in prior to the moment captured by Bodinier’s brush, such as swimming, jumping from rock to rock, playing water games, or running along the sand. However, the point is that Bodinier deliberately chose to depict two moments of inaction. 125 Base Joconde. 126 Henry James, Italian Hours (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1909), 248. 127 The same could be said of the two boys in Young Swimmers. Their bronzed skin is tonally similar to the rocky terrain just above them in the picture space, and the trousers of the standing boy seem to have been painted the same hue as the sun-lit patches of the boulder behind him. In both paintings, Bodinier’s unified palette creates an inherent harmony between the subject(s) and the coastal landscape.
101

117

journal of undergraduate research
128

129

130

131

132

133

134 135

136

137

138

139

140 141

142

143

144

Ernest Renan, Voyages: Italie (1849) – Norvège (1870) (Paris: Editions Montaigne, 1927),54. Original French: “En Italie, un goût charmant pour la vie. Douceur vague de vivre. Nous, non; il faut agir. Nous somme toujours pressés, eux, non. Ils jouissent de ce cours lent et monotone… Nous n’aimons dans la vie que l’action; eux, ils aiment la vie.” Ibid., 97. Original French: “L’Italien naturellement limite son horizon, et fait étroit le champ de la vie, pour l’y concentrer plus vive.” Children are expected to have more unstructured time than adults. If Bodinier wanted to emphasize Italian indolence, a painting of a farmer idling in his fields would be much less ambiguous. Chateaubriand, 71-72. Original French: “Une ville nouvelle, propre, régulière, fort ornée de palais....des plus beaux quartiers de Paris.” Taine, 238 and 252. Original French: “On y trouve moins de grandeur matérielle, moins d’espace, moins de moellons que dans la place de la Concorde et l’Arc de Triomphe; mais cela est plus inventé et plus intéressant.” This number is based on an analysis of the titles and key word descriptions for each painting. However, images are not provided for many of the works, so it is possible that other paintings feature monumental architecture as well, although their titles give no such indication. Base Joconde. Le Nouëne, “Guillaume Bodinier” catalog entry, 386-387. Original French: The “vestiges de la puissante forteresse médiévale construite à la fin du XVe siècle pour le futur pape Jule II.” This calls to mind Taine’s description of some adjoining homes in Civitavecchia: “Les maisons s’appuient les unes sur les autres par de contreforts mis en travers”; see Taine, 9. Translation: “The houses lean on one another by way of buttresses placed in between [them].” Although technically speaking this floor is above ground, its ceiling is roughly level with the hill opposite. Maison and maisonnéeare defined respectively as a “bâtiment destiné à servir d’habitation à l’homme” and an “ensemble des personnes, généralement de la même famille, qui habitent la même maison”; see LeTrésor de la langue française informatisé, accessed March 13, 2011, http://atilf.atilf.fr/. Translations: A “building destined to serve as a human dwelling” and a “group of people, generally from the same family, that live in the same house.” These two terms are useful because they imply an interest in both the exterior and interior of a home, and in both its architectural and human components. Taine, 10. Original French: “De deux côtés apparaissent des bouges noirs où des enfants crasseux, de petites filles ébouriffées… tâchent de rattacher ensemble leurs haillons. Jamais une éponge n’a passé sur les vitres, ni un balais sur les escaliers; la saleté humaine les a imprégnés…Plusieurs fenêtres semblent croulantes.” Ibid. Original French:: An “âcre odeur saumâtre.” Baedeker, xxv. Original French: “Tout le confort que les étrangers ont introduit en Italie, surtout des poêles et des tapis.” This presents a stark contrast with the contemporary French discourse about Italian urban architecture (both civic and sacred), suggesting that the French conceived of Italy in dichotomous terms. On the one hand, they epitomized the Italian city as representative of a culture of grandeur, while on the other, they associated the Italian countryside with a culture of poverty. Le Nouëne, Paysages d’Italie, 5. Original French: “S’intéresse surtout à des bâtiments modestes, étudiant habitat local ou l’organisation d’une rue.” Renan, 74. Original French: “Le vrai est dans le peuple.”

118

guillaume bodinier and “italianness”
145

146

147

148 149

150

151

152 153

154 155

156

157

158

159

160 161 162 163

164

165 166

167

168

169

Allard, 385. Original French: “Une réalité plus humble et apparemment plus authentique.” Kogan, 31. This idea was most clearly articulated in a series of lectures that Michelet gave between 1838 and 1851 at the Collège de France in Paris, but it has antecedents in an earlier discourse. Le Nouëne, Paysages d’Italie, 50. Original French: “En saisissant l’attitude de plusieurs personnages en costume local sur le devant de leur porte, il montre son intérêt pour la relation qui s’établit entre les habitants de ce village en fonction de l’agencement particulier de leur habitat.” Forster, non-paginated. Ibid. This idea features prominently in Herder’s 1774 This Too a Philosophy of History for the Formation of Humanity. None of the paintings attributed to Bodinier by the Base Joconde appear to feature close-range views of Italian homes. Le Nouëne, Paysages d’Italie, 48. Original French: Après avoir croqué un morceau paysage…il l’agrandit, la complète avec des personnages en atelier.” If Bodinier had taken this approach, the drawings would be made up of small pieces of paper glued together, as for his 1825 Paysage d’Italie: Subiaco; see Le Nouëne, 48. Ibid., 23, 30, 32, and 50. Sholom J. Kahn, Science and Aesthetic Judgment: A Study in Taine’s Critical Method (New York: Columbia University Press, 1953), 66. Todorov, 114. Chateaubriand, 108 and Taine, 9. Original French: “Pauvres habitations…ruelles infectes.” Taine, 352. Original French: “Trop ignorants, trop collés au sol, trop enfoncés dans leur haines et dans leurs intérêts de village.” Sandra Pinto, “De Paris à Rome. De Rome à Paris. Les deux rivages de l’École romaine,” in Maestà di Roma, 21. Original French: “La seconde capitale de l’empire napoléonien.” Pomarède, “Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot” catalog entry, 420. Original French: “Un besoin irrésistible.” Christian Bec, “Italie-Italies: Typo/Topologies of French Travel Accounts in the Nineteenth Century,” in The Motif of the Journey in Nineteenth-Century Italian Literature, ed. by Bruno Magliocchetti and Anthony Verna (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1994), 90; and Renan, 83. Giusti, 103. Broers, 36. Aston, 129. Taine, 321. Original French: “L’initiative et l’action sont nuisibles et mal vues…la paresse est en honneur.” Chateaubriand, 109. Original French: “Il m’a fait entrer dans sa cellule; il a dressé le couvert, et m’a servi un pain, des pommes et des œufs.” Le Trésor de la Langue française informatisé. Original French: “Sommairement meublé.” Le Nouëne, “Guillaume Bodinier” catalog entry, 389. Original French: “Valorise l’image d’une vie rurale italienne préservant des traditionnelles valeurs chrétiennes.” Renan, 28. Original French: “Profond bien-être qui fait le fond de la vie du peuple italien.” Le Nouëne, “Guillaume Bodinier” catalog entry, 387. Original French: “Édifices caractéristiques, tels le palais des papes, la coupole de San Tommaso de Villanova du Bernin, ou encore la villa Barberini.” Le Nouëne, “Guillaume Bodinier” catalog entry, 384-385.
119

journal of undergraduate research

CATHERINE SCALLEN graduated from Notre Dame in May 2011 with a degree in American Studies and Spanish. She spent a year in the business school before making the switch to Arts and Letters, and gives thanks to the dear Lord for that, because it led her to The Bitch (as she affectionately calls her thesis). Many an hour spent perusing the Urban Outfitters home décor section and a general appreciation for all things snarky may also have contributed to this thesis. Catherine is currently living the life on a monthly stipend in New York City, learning to love rice and beans and long subway commutes during her year of service at HandCrafting Justice through Good Shepherd Volunteers. Catherine advocates casual tones in all manners of communication, and felt strongly that her thesis be written accordingly — so do excuse her non-traditional approach.
1 20

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

BITCH. CONTEMPORARY FEMINISM IN AMERICAN CONSUMER CULTURE CATHERINE SCALLEN
Introduction: Bitch The perpetrator: a perky blue glass cup with “Bitch” splashed across the front in a swirly, girly, silver script:

Figure 1

Oh, so humorous. Turns out this “Slang Pint Glass” is one of a family: Douchebag, Fucker, Slut, Pimp, and Hot Mess are all neatly packed in right next to each other on the shelves of Urban Outfitters. What a set! Who is buying these? And why? It is here, with one not so average drinking glass, that this Bitch Thesis began. Further research reveals a copious number of other Bitch products running around town. The pervasive Bitch! Lest the glass be lonely, Urban Outfitters accompanies it with almost anything your little Bitchy heart could desire. Glasses, plates, bowls, snow globes, birthday banners, you name it: Urban Outfitters has a version of it with “Bitch” scrawled across the front. Barnes & Noble proudly displays “Bitch a Day” calendars and planners, along with relationship
121

journal of undergraduate research

advice books (Why Men Love Bitches [2000] and Why Men Marry Bitches [2006] by Sherry Argov) and dieting books (Skinny Bitch [2005] by Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin). Australian-based R Winery manufactures a red wine named simply “Bitch,” and also the more upbeat “Bitch Bubbly” champagne. What is going on? These products suggest a sort of highly commercialized, mainstream Bitch Culture. To the uncritical consumer, it may seem that American women are now embracing the term “Bitch” (at least materially), and claiming it as their own self-elected, self-empowering label, rather than letting it be used against them in its traditional derogatory fashion. Is that true? Can “Bitch” ever be an empowering term? If so, what type of women claim empowerment from the word Bitch? Exactly what type of woman is the envisioned consumer of this Bitch Culture? Before we dive in, it is of the utmost importance that the Capital B Bitch be distinguished from the lower case b bitch. In this thesis, I use the term “Capital B Bitch” (or just “Bitch”) to define both the commodified products (referred to as Bitch Products or, collectively, Bitch Culture) and the belief held by some that by capitalizing the derogatory “bitch,” the term becomes immediately redefined as a strong, independent, and empowered female. When referring to the term historically used to put women down, I will use the term “lower case b bitch” (or simply, “bitch”). It would be easy to write off these products as just another mechanism of a repressive patriarchal society: some fat cat white dudes chilling in their corporate headquarters, laughing at the drones of mindless upper-middle class American women with too much money and too much free time, out purchasing these products. It is tempting to simply point fingers and shake heads at the sad state of contemporary American society and modern-day feminism. But doing so would not fully explain why this commercialized Bitch Culture exists today, and why the products themselves are so popular. The fact remains: these products not only exist, but continue to be manufactured and purchased, and have been for at least the past ten
1 22

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

years. What does this tell us about feminism and American women today? Cue academic research into postfeminist consumer culture: All that’s needed is a nice, tidy definition of postfeminism to help contextualize the Bitch Products and to analyze them more thoroughly. Only one minor detail poses a problem: the single consistent characteristic of postfeminism, as it is defined or described by many a heady academic scholar, is its ambiguous and inherently contradictory nature. The whole tiresome “love the feminine/hate the feminine; you can’t be a feminist if you’re this; you can’t be a feminist if you’re that; and put the damn lipstick down, no, wait: pick the high heels up” debate prevents the agreement on any sort of concrete definition of postfeminism. At the same time, it keeps modern feminists arguing among themselves rather than rallying together as a cohesive whole. I began this thesis with Stephanie Genz and Benjamin A. Brabon’s Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories (2009), but quickly reached a boiling point while trying to discern a useful, working definition of postfeminism. I left discouraged and frustrated with the futile infighting among feminists today, both within and outside of academia. Imagine my curiosity, then, upon returning to college and being assigned an article titled “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility” by one Rosalind Gill. The elation did not come until after I had read the article and discovered precisely what I was searching for: a refreshing and honest admission that the attempts to define postfeminism are indeed circular and ineffective. Our best bet is to take a step back and understand it as a sensibility, or a cultural feeling and understanding, rather than a strict definition. As Gill writes: …[P]ostfeminism should be conceived of as a sensibility. From this perspective postfeminist media culture should be our critical object — a phenomenon into which scholars of culture should inquire — rather than an analytic perspective.
123

journal of undergraduate research

This approach does not require a static notion of one single authentic feminism as a comparison point, but instead is informed by postmodernist and constructionist perspectives and seeks to examine what is distinctive about contemporary articulations of gender in the media. This new notion emphasizes the contradictory nature of postfeminist discourses and the entanglement of both feminist and antifeminist themes within them.1 Thus, I discovered that the interesting, noteworthy, and productive part of this thesis lies not in determining whether or not these products are feminist or empowering (indeed, what would a truly feminist or empowering pint glass even look like?), but rather, in reflecting on how the existence of these products generates an understanding of gender and identity in the twenty first century, and how these products both individually and collectively shape an understanding of contemporary feminism both as a lifestyle and as a political movement. Gill also provides what has proven to be an immensely useful framework for contextualizing Capital B Bitch Culture, and specifically, Bitch Products: This new notion… also points to a number of other relatively stable features that comprise or constitute a postfeminist discourse. These include the notion that femininity is a bodily property; the shift from objectification to subjectification; the emphasis upon self-surveillance, monitoring and discipline; a focus upon individualism, choice and empowerment; the dominance of a makeover paradigm; a resurgence in ideas of natural sexual difference; a marked sexualization of culture; and an emphasis upon consumerism and the commodification of difference. These themes coexist with, and are structured by, stark and continuing

1 24

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

inequalities and exclusions that relate to “race” and ethnicity, class, age, sexuality and disability as well as gender.2 For my purpose, analyzing individual Bitch Products and what they tell us about the relationships between American women and feminism today requires particular attention given to several of Gill’s points regarding postfeminism: individualism, choice, and empowerment; naturalized sexual difference; consumerism and the commodification of difference; and a heavy emphasis on self-surveillance/ self-discipline. Later in this same article, Gill touches on what will prove to be an essential concept for fully understanding Capital B Bitch Culture: the notion of irony and knowingness as it fits into the postfeminist discourse. She writes: No discussion of the postfeminist sensibility in the media would be complete without considering irony and knowingness… [I]n postfeminist media culture irony has become a way of “having it both ways,” of expressing sexist, homophobic or otherwise unpalatable sentiments in an ironized form, while claiming this was not actually “meant.”3 By using irony to place an appropriate amount of distance between oneself and what one says, women today are allowed to be Capital B Bitches in a humorous manner. But does this attached irony really allow women to subvert the socially engrained derogatory definition of the term “bitch”? Moving forward with this understanding of a postfeminist context, it is also crucial to understand the various ways in which contemporary pop culture can be used as a tool for a critical analysis of Bitch Culture. Rather than dismiss the realm of popular culture as a source of complete oppression and repression that brings nothing worthy of deeper analysis to the table, it is important to view it instead as a site of identity crafting and negotiation: a space that is both reflective and constructive of American society. Full of
125

journal of undergraduate research

contradictions and ambiguity, much like the notion of postfeminism itself, pop culture both pedagogically and pervasively informs us of both the “proper” and “improper” ways to conduct ourselves as young American women today. No one exists in society today without interacting with pop culture in some way, shape, or form. Whether it is hearing an ad on the radio, watching a television show, or merely hearing people talk about it, pop culture is insidious and unavoidable in contemporary American society. A study of the way mass media transmits messages, and then how those messages are individually interpreted, is essential to understanding how different identities are crafted and negotiated. In his theory of encoding/decoding, sociologist Stuart Hall highlighted the wide variety of ways in which individual people can interpret a mass media commercially-produced message, as described here by Daniel Chandler: Hall proposed a model of mass communication which highlighted the importance of active interpretation within relevant codes… Hall rejected textual determinism, noting that “decodings do not follow inevitably from encodings” (Hall 1980, 136). In contrast to earlier models, Hall thus gave a significant role to the ‘decoder’ as well as to the ‘encoder.’4 Hall states what largely motivated this Bitch Thesis: the assumption that all women (or any part of the world’s population, really) passively consume the original messages encoded in mass-produced products without decoding the potential problems within those messages. This assumption is insulting, and does not allow for adequate space to learn from pop culture. In Bitch Culture, the ‘encoders are those producing the products, and the decoder is each woman exposed to those products. Naturally then, as Hall proposes, it makes sense for each individual woman to have a unique reaction to and interpretation of the products, resulting in the negotiation or renegotiation of her personal identity.
1 26

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

Understanding this process, and the commercialized context in which it occurs, then, is crucial to understanding young women in America today. Stephanie Genz and Benjamin A. Brabon specifically apply this understanding of encoding/decoding to the interaction of pop culture and feminism: We maintain that popular/consumer culture should be reconceived as a site of struggle over the meanings of feminism and the reconceptualisation of a postfeminist political practice that… does not rely on separatism and collectivism… and instead highlights the multiple agency and subject positions of individuals in the new millennium… [W]e define the popular domain not as an autonomous space in which free choice and creativity prevail but as a contradictory site that interlaces complicity and critique, subordination and creation.5 Translation: pop culture should not be written off solely as a source of repression and manipulation of women, but rather should be critically considered as a highly nuanced space in which women live in constant tension. While attempting to negotiate identity, women are pulled back and forth between both feminist and anti-feminist ideals. As Gill noted, the notion of difference becomes highly commoditized within this site of contradiction and ambiguity. A woman who, by purchasing a number of cleverly ironic and hipster Bitch products, supposedly embraces the term Bitch as empowering, certainly claims difference. The final piece of the framework needed to properly analyze Bitch Culture is a solid definition of feminism. bell hooks, in her work Feminist Theory: from margin to center, provides an indisputable definition of feminism (a real rarity in the tricky business of defining feminism): Feminism is a struggle to end sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of
127

journal of undergraduate research

domination that permeates Western culture on various levels as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desires… A commitment to feminism so defined would demand that each individual participant acquire a critical political consciousness based on ideas and beliefs.6 It is this understanding of feminism, as an inherently political project aimed at ending sexist oppression, that I use when discussing feminism throughout this paper. hooks also highlights another important aspect of feminism that is crucial to keep in mind when analyzing Bitch Culture: [Feminism’s] aim is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform in a meaningful way all our lives. Most importantly, feminism is not a lifestyle nor a ready-made identity or role one can step into… Focusing on feminism as political commitment, we resist the emphasis on individual identity and lifestyle. (This should not be confused with the very real need to unite theory and practice.) Such resistance engages us in revolutionary praxis. The ethics of Western society informed by imperialism and capitalism are personal rather than social. They teach us that the individual good is more important than the collective good and consequently that individual change is of greater significance than collective change.7 Bitch Culture exists within this tension of understanding feminism as a way to celebrate the individuality of women (as pointed by Gill in her framework for analyzing postfeminism media culture) and the understanding of feminism put forth by hooks as a political movement to end sexist oppression (regardless of race, class, age, gender).
1 28

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

Being mindful of both understandings helps to illuminate the complexity of Bitch Culture, and what can be learned from it. Chapter One: Things of a Historical Nature To fully appreciate why one woman might identify with and embrace the term Capital B Bitch as an affirming term while another may wholeheartedly reject it, requires a brief jaunt through the powerful and informative history of lower case b bitch. While widely understood today as a put-down for powerful and assertive women, the term “bitch” has its origins in ancient pagan religions, and specifically, in reference to the goddess Artemis-Diana: Barbara Walker (1983, 109) reveals that Bitch was “one of the most sacred titles of the Goddess Artemis-Diana,” who often appeared as a dog herself, or in the company of hounds. Indeed, around the world, the Lady of the Beasts assumed the full or partial form of an animal (e.g., with or carrying horns) or appeared with characteristic animals, such as birds, fish, pigs, snakes (Neumann, 1963, 268). This ancient, powerful Bitch is the sacred archetype behind the contemporary profanity, reflecting fear of the “bitch goddess” (as well as the sexually sovereign, creative, autonomous woman).8 Beginning in Christian Europe, the term “son of a Bitch” began this centuries-old game of derogatory word association with “bitch” and “powerful female,” as this slur against a man may have referenced the pagan goddess Artemis-Diana as his mother, insulting that man’s character as anti-Christian.9 As the goddess Artemis-Diana was the goddess of hunting, and was often surrounded by dogs, bitch then became a reference to both female dogs and powerful human females. The line between the two has blurred over time, allowing the term bitch to operate as a derogatory slur towards women by aligning them with the subhuman category of beasts or dogs. This places us nicely into the
129

journal of undergraduate research

delightful category of “man’s best friend,” ever faithful and loyal to our master. Or, on the flip side, we get “bitch” as a highly accusatory term thrown at women who do not fulfill this role of servitude, as one attempting to break out of her rightful place. With these undertones of subservience, subordinance, and subhumanity, the negative racial implications of lower case b bitch are amplified — particularly in portrayals of black women within pop culture. Focusing primarily on 1970s black fantasy action films, Stephanie Dunn analyzes the historical racial connotations of bitch in her book, “Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films: The “Bad Bitch” suggests a black woman from working-class roots who goes beyond the boundaries of gender in a patriarchal domain and plays the game as successfully as the boys by being in charge of her own sexual representation and manipulating it for celebrity and material gain.10 Within this study, Dunn highlights how black women, through black action fantasy films, were finally able to view themselves in popular culture in a more redeeming light — albeit one that was highly sexualized. For black action heroines such as Foxy Brown and Cleopatra Jones, being a “baad bitch” means gaining personal empowerment and strength through ownership and manipulative use of one’s sexuality. Dunn cites Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Sexual Politics as a source for understanding the racial and class connotations of the term “bitch”: … Patricia Hill Collins observes that it has become a contested term fraught with racial as well as class implications, as her students argued: “All women potentially can be ‘bitches’ with a small ‘b.’ This was the negative evaluation of ‘bitch.’ But the students also identified a positive valuation of ‘bitch’ and argued… that only African American women can be
1 30

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

‘Bitches’ with a capital ‘B.’ Bitches with a capital ‘B’ or in their language, ‘Black Bitches’ are super-tough, super-strong women who are often celebrated.” As Collins outlines, “bitch” links the historical constructions of black female sexual wildness whereas “Bitch” suggests a woman who controls her own sexuality, manipulating it to her advantage.11 Here, Capital B Bitch is a persona to be embodied, an attitude to be embraced by African American women, and then a persona which, if correctly actualized, will create an autonomous space of self, one that will allow them to survive in a racist, patriarchal society. It is this Capital B Bitch that we will see appropriated and commodified by the mainstream media and consumer culture in Bitch Culture — shifting from the powerful and sexualized identity offered to black women in 1970s pop culture, to an assertive, independent, still sexualized (though in a more subtle, implicit manner) identity only offered to white upper-middle class women through the Bitch Products. At about the same time that these “baad bitches” of black action fantasy films entered the realm of pop culture, an important manifesto was produced by prominent feminist activist Jo Freeman. Provocatively titled, The BITCH Manifesto (published in 1970) presents a vision of Capital B Bitch as a reconfigured feminist term for strong, independent, autonomous women, regardless of race, gathered as a collective group in “BITCH [an] organization which does not yet exist.” The entire manifesto outlines what types of qualities or characteristics a real Bitch has, including: A true Bitch is self-determined, but the term “bitch” is usually applied with less discrimination. It is a popular derogation to put down uppity women that was created by man and adopted by women. Like the term “n----r,” “bitch” serves the social function of isolating and discrediting a class of people who do not conform to the socially accepted patterns
131

journal of undergraduate research

of behavior. BITCH does not use this word in the negative sense. A woman should be proud to declare she is a Bitch, because Bitch is Beautiful. It should be an act of affirmation by self and not negation by others.12 The parallel between “n----r” and “bitch” that Freeman draws here is a bold and thought-provoking one. Individually, both “n----r” and “bitch” are loaded terms, each with its own unique racial and gender undertones. In comparing the two, I do not wish to suggest that they are similar in terms of definition or political background, but rather, I wish to emphasize how these two terms, operating as words meant to oppress certain groups of people, are manipulated by the very groups they mean to oppress (particularly by younger generations) in an attempt to reclaim and subvert their meanings in various ways. But can claiming a negative term as a positive term really be empowering? The entries for “Bitch” in two feminist dictionaries seem to agree that regardless of capitalization, a negative term can never be fully redefined. From Cheris Kramarae and Paula A. Treichler’s A Feminist Dictionary (1985): BITCH “In technical use, a bitch is a female dog or other canine capable of estrus and gestation...A dog in heat actively seeks insemination; judged by our cultural standards, the dog is ‘lewd,’ and according to standard dictionaries that is one of the meanings the word bitch is assigned when applied to a woman…” (Casey Miller and Kate Swift, 1976, 118-19) The main term used by a member of the (male) oppressor group to a member of the (female) oppressed group who challenges the oppressor on his use of oppressive tactics… “Has certain phonetic qualities that make it an unlikely candidate for rehabiliation. It can be spat out in such a way that anyone within earshot whose native tongue is English will
1 32

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

recognize it as an epithet of disgust…” (Casey Miller and Kate Swift, 1976, 120) BITCH MANIFESTO A feminist tract which argues that “bitch” is a word used to put down uppity women but that is also a synonym for a special woman: “Bitches are good examples of how women can be strong enough to survive even the rigid, punitive socialization of our society. As young girls it never quite penetrated their consciousness that women were supposed to be inferior to men in any but the mother/helpmate role. They asserted themselves as children and never really internalized the slave style of wheedling and cajolery which is called feminine.” (Joreen c.1970, 3)18 The fact that two of the definitions cited by Kramarae and Treichler came only six years after the publication of Joreen’s The BITCH Manifesto signals the multiple ways in which “bitch” and Bitch were deployed in American society at the same time. From Jane Mills’s WomanWords: BITCH A woman is but an animal, and an animal not of the highest order. Edmund Burke (1729-97) … [T]he 1811 edition of the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue reveals the extent to which the word had actually derogated: “A she dog, or doggess, the most offensive appellation that can be given to an English woman, even more provoking than that of WHORE, as may be gathered from the regular Billin[g]sgate or St. Giles answer — ‘I may be a whore, but can’t be a bitch.’” (Billingsgate and St. Giles were euphemisms for the abusive language of working women, the language of a FISHWIFE)… Today bitch does not seem to have lost its early associations of
133

journal of undergraduate research

lewdness… Bitch conveys the same connotative meanings when used of a woman as it does when used of a female dog, and in using the word a speaker “betrays a preconceived judgment that a woman’s behaviour [sic] is directed by her reproductive function; it also repudiates her for want of docility to the male.”19 Today, Capital B Bitch differentiates itself from the “lewdness” of nineteenth century lower case b bitch by adding in a good dosage of sexual liberation and agency. This is what allowed the “baad bitches” of the 1970s to gain power through the manipulation of their sexuality, an understanding of that sexuality, and a hold over their sexual power. In the commodified version of Bitch, however, this sexualization is much more subtle, even implicit. Particularly in items such as “The Daily Bitch,” which relies heavily on the 1950s housewife retro imagery, sexuality operates as a mix of strong sexual awareness and agency, but because it is presented along-side traditional white, feminine ideals, the derogatory stereotype remains. The Bitch then can represent a woman who is aware of her sexuality, and thus frustrated by her inability to express it accordingly. Chapter Two: The Products Now that we’ve explored the ambiguous postfeminism/pop culture context, and traveled together through the historical journey of degrading lower case b bitch to empowering Capital B Bitch, the contemporary physical products of Bitch Culture are ready to be critically analyzed. What better way to assert oneself as an empowered individual woman than to brazenly go forth with an ironic BITCH attached to a glass, bowl, or bottle of wine? By purchasing this product you’ve alerted the world that you’re bold, badass, strong, assertive, confident, in charge… a Bitch. You’re embodying the famous Madonna quote: “I’m tough, ambitious, and I know exactly what I want. If that makes me a Bitch, ok.”20 The list of cultural
1 34

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

catch phrases to describe the current trendiness of this blatant, in your face backbone is extensive: ‘Sorry I’m not sorry,’ ‘I do what I want,’ ‘I mean, I don’t hate it’ and ‘Sucks to suck,’ are just a few of the more popular ones today. And now, there is an abundance of products available that embody the bold Capital B Bitch sentiment behind these phrases. There are varying degrees of complexity within the material products of Capital B Bitch Culture. I have organized and analyzed the products accordingly, progressing from Product Group A, simple, declarative “I Am” Bitch products, to Product Group B, guides on how to be Bitch, and what one gets once Bitch status is achieved. Finally, I examine Product Group C: more thorough exploration and identification of Bitch’s potential feminist beliefs. Let’s begin! Product Group A: In Your Face Declarative Products that Boldly State that I Am a Capital B Bitch Because this Glass/ Plate/Snowglobe/Calendar Says So. In this category, we begin with that sneaky little instigator: the glass. As part of Urban’s “Slang Pint Glass” series, the Bitch Glass is well at home with its friend humorous irony, but it begs to be analyzed a little more closely than just this veneer would suggest. So, where does one use a glass? Answer: in the home, and specifically, in the kitchen. While every person has a different reason for purchasing either the Bitch Glass or its cousin, the Bitch Plate, the fact remains that these products are dishware and thus irrefutably domestic items.

135

journal of undergraduate research

Figure 2

To be fair, Urban does expand beyond the kitchen nook in its Bitch Product line. One can choose to accessorize any room at all with the Bitch Snowglobe, a friendly, year-round decorative reminder of who you are, and what you stand for: being a proud Bitch.

Figure 3

And for those of us who want to highlight the selfish, all-attentionon-me aspect of the Bitch, Urban provides not only a Birthday Bitch glass (an extra special version of the plain-Jane solo Bitch glass), but also a “My B*tches Party Pack.” This nifty kit comes complete with one “I’m the Bitch” birthday badge and eight “My Bitches” party hats, in addition to the napkins, balloons, and plates.21
1 36

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

Are these domestic items merely an attempt at tricking women into thinking they’re liberated within their cozy kitchens or hipsterchic apartments? Too simple. These specific products aren’t technically about keeping the female domesticated and repressed. They signal something greater: a woman’s desire to negotiate and then assert her individual identity in an easily digestible manner while maintaining good dose of ironic humor. But is this kind of identity negotiation available to all women? The retailer of these Bitch products offers tremendous insight into the demographics of to the expected consumers, to understand the humor behind, and ultimately to purchase these products. Urban Outfitters is the haven of all that is expensively not expensive looking, alternative-hipster-I-care-so-much-about-not-looking-likeI-care-at-all apparel and accessories. Based on internet traffic to the Urban Outfitters’ website, which offers an even more expansive range of hipster-ironic products and clothing than their in-store retail locations, Urban Outfitters’ primary target demographic is white, 1834 year old, upper middle class females, generally college-educated, and with incomes in the $30,000-60,000 range.22 Bitch Culture fits perfectly into this demographic, which is mostly comprised of late teens/mid 20s white upper-middle class females. 23 So now the Bitch Culture marketed by Urban products, as it is presented through these particular commercial products, becomes classed, raced, and aged within the postfeminist pop culture context. As Gill pointed out, the postfeminist themes of irony and knowingness, individual empowerment, and commodification of difference (all present in these Bitch accessories) are accessible only to a very particular person: the middle to upper-middle class, white, educated, and affluent woman. With this demographic in mind, and recalling Gill’s emphasis on the importance of irony and knowingness within postfeminism, a uniquely illuminating Bitch product is Sellers Publishing’s “The Daily Bitch” and “The B Word” calendar line. With these products, a profit is made from commercially producing retro images paired
137

journal of undergraduate research

with ironic, sarcastic witticisms that add an implied wink and nod to the consumer. In both “The B Word” calendar (a 12 month traditional format) and “The Daily Bitch” calendar (a tear-off, daily desk calendar), the humor relies heavily on an implicit understanding: that a retro image of the stereotypical smiling, white, upper-middle class 50s housewife, captioned by a blatantly anti-traditional female domesticity message is ironic and therefore humorous. So popular as to be currently out of stock on Seller Publishing’s website, “The Daily Bitch” boxed calendar is described as follows: Packed with attitude, The Daily Bitch calendar contains a smart remark on every page. Savor alone, or pass along to share — all in good fun, of course! No cute and perky aphorisms here. Even the crabbiest curmudgeon will enjoy these sassy declarations and witty sayings.24 With this calendar, Sellers Publishing is accomplishing two things. First, by inserting the phrase “all in good fun, of course!” they put a safe distance between themselves and the underlying sexism within the captions. As Gill describes, “Irony is used also as a way of establishing a safe distance between oneself and particular sentiments or beliefs…”25 Second, they play to the consumer as a knowledgeable and wise woman, able to see the irony and therefore the humor in the product, also described by Gill as, “[Irony] is used in advertising… by hailing audiences as knowing and sophisticated consumers, flattering them with their awareness of intertextual references and the notion that they can ‘see through’ attempts to manipulate them.”26 The safe distance between the production of a certain product and the message it carries, and the flattery of the consumer through that use of irony, both obtained here through the use of retro imagery, allow consumers to believe they are buying into a clever subversion of what the image of a 50s housewife stands for (the idyllic white woman, beautiful and immaculate, smiling with a

1 38

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

string of pearls as she presides over her domestic kingdom), when in fact that may not be the case. In closely analyzing several weeks’ worth of Daily Bitches, I was able to break down the captions into a number of different categories, all drawing on a different cultural understanding of the word “Bitch.” Daily Bitch Category 1: The Selfish, Self-Centered Bitch Jan 3: “Call me sometime when you don’t need anything.” Jan 12: “ ‘Roughing It’ is a motel without room service.” Jan 24: “Never put off until tomorrow what you can dump in someone else’s lap today.” Jan 28: “She could not shake the nagging feeling that she gave a damn.” Feb 8: “Beauty is in the eye of whoever is looking at me.” Feb 14: “Hard work is for people with bad coffee break skills.” Feb 15: “I always put the blame where it belongs — on someone else.” Feb 19/20: “Does it bother you that the world revolves around me?” Daily Bitch Category 2: The Anti-Man Bitch Jan 1/2: “If I worked like a man, they’d call me a lazy bitch.” Jan 5: “Basic law of estrogen: We’re right, you’re wrong. Shut up!” Jan 13: “I love sensitive men, they’re easier to take advantage of.” Jan 14 (and my personal favorite): “I’m still looking for a man who excites me as much as a baked potato.” Feb 21: “In my next life, I’m coming back as a man. I need the rest.” Febr 24: “Man cannot live on bread alone, so I give mine water too.” Daily Bitch Category 3: The Crazy Bitch Jan 21: “Madness takes it’s toll — exact change please.” Feb 2: “I’m smiling because they’ve finally driven me insane.” Feb 4: “You are lucky I’m so terrified of prison.”
139

journal of undergraduate research

February 23rd: “Leading lady in my own psychodrama.” Daily Bitch Category 4: The Literal Bitcher (Complainer) Jan 4: “Because sometimes it just feels good to BITCH!” Jan 11: “Happily ever after my ass!” Jan 17: “If you need me, I’ll be in my office screaming.” Jan 20: “Language was born from our deep inner need to complain.” Jan 25: “Of all the pleasures in life, I love bitching the best.” Jan 27: “Raising sarcasm to a higher art form.” Jan 31: “A job worth doing is a job worth complaining about.” Feb 9: “Can’t resist. Must bitch and moan about everything!” Feb 16: “Destined to be an old broad with plenty to bitch about!” Feb 25: “Bitching up a storm is just my way of coping with reality.” 27 Within these seemingly harmless ironic phrases, a sense of what today’s young, white, affluent class women view as their burdens is revealed. Women are, according to this product, dissatisfied with their lives (“Bitching up a storm is just my way of dealing with reality”), and in particular, dissatisfied with the men in their lives (“I’m still searching for a man who excites me as much as a baked potato”). They are one step away from a mental breakdown (“I’m smiling because they’ve finally driven me insane”), and at the end of the day, unwilling to deal with or confront it all (“She could not shake the nagging feeling that she gave a damn”). The issue of being ill-at-ease in contemporary society, exemplified by unsatisfying relationships with men, mental illness, and a general sense of apathy towards the ability to fix any of these problems, are all issues prevalent among white, upper-middle class women in modern American society.28 The ability to purchase products that offer a humorous take on all of these very real issues becomes, then, an easy, accessible, and oftentimes enjoyable way of negotiating identity within today’s postfeminist tensions. What is important to remember, however, is that this identity-negotiating within Bitch Culture has so far only been truly accessible and relatable to a very
1 40

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

specific segment of the larger American population: younger, white, upper-middle class women. “The Daily Bitch” also draws from another interpretation of lower case b bitch, that of the Literal Bitch-er, or the Complainer. The company Knock Knock takes this to another level with their allinclusive “The Bitch Kit.” Beautifully crafted in a soothing array of pastel pinks, browns, taupes, and greens, The Bitch Kit proudly proclaims itself as “A toolkit for the bitchy, the bitchier, and the bitchiest!” promising that “Suppressing the inner bitch will be a thing of the past!” “LOOK INSIDE.” It continues: The Bitch Kit Never Pull Bitchy Punches Again! Whether or not we’re willing to admit it, we all harbor a bitch within. With the Bitch Kit, now you can let your own inner bitch roar rather than allow her to fester unexpressed — then stand back and watch all your fellow bitches bitch with admiration! Here’s How 1. Get yourself in the mindset by broadcasting your bitchiness into the universe: wear the pin and post the magnet somewhere prominent. 2. Gain inspiration for your upcoming bitchiness by reading the wise words contained in the Bitch Quote Book. 3. Using your “Such a Bitch” pen, write a letter to your favorite bitch. 4. Tell your least-favorite bitch why he or she is such a bitch. 5. Vent your own bitchiness by writing down your complaints about the bitchy universe. 6. In general, use your BITCH/BEE-YOTCH stickies to spread your fierce bitchiness all over town.29 Bitch. Over. Load. This particular Bitch Product is a primetime example of how Capital B Bitch/lower case b bitch are deployed
141

journal of undergraduate research

within pop culture in multiple fashions simultaneously. All in one kit, we have the empowered/endearing Capital B Bitch, the insulting lower case b bitch, and the literal bitch-er. Ah, the complexities of Bitch Culture. Something essential to point out concerning the literal bitch-er, is how very gendered lower case b bitch as a verb is. When someone is “bitching,” it is now culturally understood that they are either whining unnecessarily, constantly griping about things that aren’t really that bad, or just generally being a wet blanket Debbie Downer. The gendered nature of lower case b bitch as a verb is especially highlighted when it is flung as an insult against men. The phrase “quit bitching and man up” (either together, or separately) illustrates this perfectly. To bitch is irrefutably seen as a feminine form of expressing discontent or disapproval. So when women share their opinions, they’re bitching. Another common, though less consistent theme among “The Daily Bitch” witticisms is that of the Drunk Bitch stereotype. From the boxed calendar set, January nineteenth’s “Turns out I’m a social drinker… I just happen to be really social,” offers insight into alcoholism among white, upper-middle class American women. Lo and behold, there’s a Bitch product that caters to this type of women: Bitch Wine, manufactured by the Australian company R Wines, as well as a separate line of wines manufactured by Sassy Bitch Wine.

Figure 4
1 42

Figure 5

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

The wine market has historically been an area for white uppermiddle class individuals, now especially women, to demonstrate their fine breeding, as wine is widely acknowledged to be a symbol of elegance and class. Expertise is flaunted through extensive knowledge of the appropriate rhetoric used when describing the subtly nuanced tastes of each individual variety. When drinking wine branded with Bitch, then, a woman has instantly identified herself as a mysterious paradox: elegant and cultured, yet also edgy and complex. Returning to Gill’s framework of postfeminist media culture, the ideals of individualism and self-surveillance abound in these products. Owning a plate, cup, or snow globe that screams BITCH automatically identifies one as a unique, not-so-average woman. Not only this, but the individualism so heralded by postfeminist consumer culture is meant to be performed, and displayed prominently to others. The assumption is that a Bitch Cup or Plate is not purchased merely to be stored in a cupboard for secret, personal use, but rather to be put on display at your next Ladies Night or cocktail hour. Bitch and Sassy Bitch Wine also fall into this category of conspicuous consumption, as the catchy and provocative labels suggest: this is wine to be shared publicly, to be laughed over, to be talked about. These domestic houseware products operate in conjunction with the irony at play between the idyllic 50s housewife imagery and modern witticisms found in “The Daily Bitch.” Taken as a whole, this particular group of products demonstrates a way of publicly performing domesticity, but in a way that stresses the utmost importance of maintaining your individuality while doing so. This emphasis on individuality in consumption then leads us into a cycle of continuous self-surveillance and monitoring. When constantly performing individualism for others, it becomes a necessity to closely monitor not only your own choices and consumptions, but also those of others in order to secure your own individualism. Because of this constant focus on individualism, these products are not contributing at all to the creation of that collective whole that
143

journal of undergraduate research

bell hooks stresses in her definition of feminism as a “struggle to end sexist oppression.” Thus far, all the products featured have been of a somewhat simplistic, at least superficially declarative “I Am” Bitch nature. In order to more fully unpack the levels of meaning in Bitch Culture, a deeper analysis of another, more complex set of products is required. Product Group B: Product Guides to Being Bitch that also Help You Realize the Fabulous Life Being Bitch Can Ultimately Allow You to Achieve. If we’ve learned anything in our lives thus far, it should be that there is no better way to craft an assertive and self-empowered identity than to turn to a self-help book. Embarrassingly enough, I was given the book Why Men Love Bitches (2000) by Sherry Argov at the age of sixteen by a former boss. Having just gone through what my angsty teen self was certain was the world’s most horrific heart-wrenching breakup of ALL time, my boss (a 20something white upper-middle class female) took it upon herself to bestow upon my still-forming personality this self-help guide to acting “dumb like a fox.” It should be immediately noted that the “Bitch” in the title is written in red lipstick, a not so subtle signal to what the book will eventually reveal to its readers: one must cultivate and present a beautiful, yet strong personality in order to capture that man. This book is a veritable treasure-trove of humorously hidden traditional sexist messages instructing women how to act in order to win over that guy’s affection. Argov starts out with a good premise: So what’s the message of this book? It’s that a bit of irreverence is necessary to have any self-esteem at all. Not irreverence for people, but rather, for what other people think. The bitch is an empowered woman who derives tremendous strength from the ability to be an independent thinker, particularly in a world that still teaches women how to be self-abnegating. This woman doesn’t live someone else’s
1 44

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

standards, only her own. This is the woman who plays by her own rules, who has a feeling of confidence, freedom, and empowerment. And it’s this feeling that I hope women will glean from reading this book.30 Most unfortunately, Argov proceeds to dispense wisdom and advice to women that not only reinforces traditional gender roles, but also places a good amount of emphasis on slyly manipulating men in order to gain what you (the empowered Bitch) desire. Chapter 4, “Dumb Like A Fox: How to Convince Him He’s in Control While You Run the Show,” most blatantly displays this sly manipulation that places unflattering and insulting assumptions on both men and women. Argov writes: Remember, when he behaves like a man and he treats you well, pay a little “homage” to that ego. He should feel like Conan the Barbarian a couple of times a week. Whenever he does something handy around the house like putting up a shelf, praise him. It doesn’t matter if the shelf hangs at a 45-degree angle and the stuff keeps sliding off the other end. Clap like the happiest seal at the zoo, and then have a handyman come over to fix it when he isn’t around.31 I can’t speak for anyone else, but personally, I would not “clap like the happiest seal at the zoo” if anyone, whether it be a boyfriend, a best friend, a blood-related relative, or even just a person off the street hung a shelf at a 45-degree angle and considered this a job well done. But it doesn’t end there. Argov also offers a helpful list of tips on how to make your man feel “studly,” including, but not limited to: • If he kills a little bug, look away. And don’t turn back around until he lets you know he has “secured the premises.” • Ask him to open a jar that you can’t open (even if you can) or unzip your dress (even if you can reach it). Or, you can ask him to lift a small box for you.
145

journal of undergraduate research

• Let him move a piece of furniture (even one you could move yourself ). When he does this with ease, tell him how heavy it was. “You are so strong! Gee, I don’t know how you moved that.” • Let him parallel park your car or back it out of a tight spot. If you tell him he’s a “much better driver” than you are, he’ll really be eating out of your hand. He’ll probably wash your car or fill your tank with gas.32 And she’s serious. These “helpful” suggestions reinforce age-old stereotypes of women such as physical weakness, fear of insects, and the perennial favorite, bad driving skills. However, because these actions are set forth as knowingly done by the woman, it becomes acceptable, especially when posited in such a humorous tone. Not only that, but these suggestions, and indeed the message of the book as a whole also assumes highly stereotypical gender roles for both men and women. In the postfeminist consumer culture context, these assumed stereotypes translate to the theme of naturalized sexual difference. For women, that of the needy, emotionally over-wrought, weak, passive, and spineless damsel in distress; and for men, that of the brawny, stoic, emotionally inept Neanderthal solely out to prove his physical strength and masculinity. Because of this exhausting tightrope walk of femininity and masculinity that every woman must master if she wants to get (and learn how to keep in the sequel, Why Men Marry Bitches, keep) her man, the humorous tone is absolutely essential to the success of the book. Argov appears to be well aware of this, and in fact addresses this boldly in the very first introductory paragraph to the book: Why Men Love Bitches is a relationship guide for women who are “too nice.” The word bitch in the title does not take itself too seriously — I’m using the word in a tongue-in-cheek way representative of the humorous tone of this book.33
1 46

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

The Bitch, then, safely within the context of “tongue in cheek,” is posited as the figure which allows women to knowingly walk the line between being that traditional flowery feminine figure that appeals to every man’s desire to nurture and protect, and being a strong, independent, and fully in control of her life empowered woman. The key lies in appearing only slightly needy, all the while remaining fully aware you’re not in the slightest bit in need of any man’s help. It’s a fine line, so allow Argov to further enlighten you: Let us conclude this chapter by redefining the word bitch. Think of it as a “term of endearment.” A bitch is not a woman who speaks in a harsh tone of voice. It is not a woman who is abrasive or rude. She is polite but clear. She communicates directly with a man, in much the same way men communicate with one another. In this way, it’s easier for a man to deal with her than with a woman who waffles or appears too emotional, because the emotionally sensitive type of woman confuses him. The bitch knows what she likes and has an easier time expressing it directly. As a result, she usually gets what she wants. Here are the ten characteristics that define her: 1. She maintains her independence. 2. She doesn’t pursue him. 3. She is mysterious. 4. She leaves him wanting. 5. She doesn’t let him see her sweat. 6. She remains in control of her time. 7. She maintains a sense of humor. 8. She places a high value on herself. 9. She is passionate about something other than him. 10. She treats her body like a finely tuned machine.34 And there you have it! Simply follow these guidelines, embody all these characteristics, and boom, you’re the New and Improved Bitch
147

journal of undergraduate research

with happiness and peace secured in any future relationship you choose. Congratulations! While Argov does advocate admirable traits such as financial independence for women, the debilitating downside lies in the fact that, however excellent her message might be, at the end of the day, this is still a ”self-help” guide on how to be a Bitch that men find desirable . All the messages about being strong, independent, intelligent and beautiful, therefore, are solely to be used as a vehicle to getting that man. Right in line with a guide to being an attractive, desirable Bitch comes the ever so clever diet book Skinny Bitch (2005) by unapologetic and “refreshingly” straightforward authors Rory Freedman and Kim Barnouin. The appeal of this book supposedly lies in its humorous and irreverent tone, much along the same lines as Why Men Love Bitches. Both books are pitched as tools for women to use to really help themselves, without manipulating them like beauty magazines and TV ads for makeup and fad diets do. Skinny Bitch presents itself as “A no-nonsense tough-love guide for savvy girls who want to stop eating crap and start looking fabulous!”35 As a #1 New York Times bestseller, women clearly bought into this. And by God, the girl on the cover does look fabulous!

Figure 6
1 48

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

Oh-so-glamorous in her little black dress and silver hoops, sassy with her classic hand on the hip, don’t you mess with me you fat fool posture, and so above it all with her pinky-raised trendy sunglassesholding hand… who wouldn’t want to be this girl? She’s clearly confident, assertive, beautiful, and in control of herself and her body… she’s a Skinny Bitch! Problems lie in several places. One, wait a second, this girl is a drawing. Her torso is barely wider than her upper arm, and I’m pretty sure if that arm was extended, it would be about the length of her entire body. However, her legs have been conveniently cut off, so we’ll never know. Two, what is presented as a guide (or rather, a mandated follow-our-lead or you will be a “fat pig” complete life-style overhaul) for healthy living, is actually a sneaky push for a wholly Vegan lifestyle. Julie Klausner, writing for Salon.com, comments on the incredibly demeaning “self-improvement” tactics of Freedman and Barnouin: Thanks to “Skinny Bitch,” women who hate their bodies no longer need rely on their own self-loathing to stoke the flames of what seems like motivation but is actually self-flagellation — penance for the sin of being too fat… If you go off the “Skinny Bitch” “diet” and eat a scoop of ice cream instead of a Rice Cream frozen dessert, not only are you off-track, you’re morally abhorrent. You’re contributing to cruelty against animals, you fat piece of shit.36 Marketed as something empowering and helpful, this is actually an attempt to manipulate women into Vegan lifestyles. A Vegan lifestyle, elected for political and personal reasons is admirable, but presenting it as the only way to “stop being a fat pig” is not empowering or liberating to anyone. Lest we forget, this is a diet book. Though supposed to be clever and ironic, a lot of the “humor” comes across as simple bullying. And
149

journal of undergraduate research

because this is a diet book, it relies heavily on the all too socially engrained belief that true health and beauty are only found in the skinny. Only then can you achieve true liberation and empowerment: This is not a diet. This is a way of life. A way to enjoy food. A way to feel healthy, clean, energized, and pure. It’s time to reclaim your mind and body. It’s time to strut your skinny ass down the street like you’re in an episode of Charlie’s Angels with some really cool song playing in the background. It’s time to prance around in a thong like you rule the world. It’s time to get skinny.37 The Bitch in this book is worthy of envy, because she (solely based off of her physical appearance), has obtained all that which only liberated and empowered women have: the ability to prance around in a thong, and strut down the street a la one of Charlie’s Angels because she’s a skinny Bitch. Barnouin (a former model), and Freedman (a former agent for Ford Models) make no claims of Bitch being a positive term, alluded to on the back cover, “They may be bitches, but they are skinny bitches. And you’ll be one too — after you get with the program and start eating right.”38 Here, in a step away from Sherry Argov’s personality-based definition of the New and Improved Bitch, Barnouin and Freedman seem to define a Bitch solely based on the notion that because she’s skinny, she must be a Bitch. This definition of Bitch quietly preys on women’s insecurities. It encourages a paranoid and competitive culture of constant self-surveillance, and also of those women surrounding you. Argov also plays off of this culture, though to a lesser extent in the tenth characteristic of the New and Improved Bitch: 10. She treats her body like a finely tuned machine. She maintains her appearance and health. A person’s self respect is reflected in how he or she maintains physical appearance.39
1 50

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

In both self-help guides then, we can see a direct connection made between one’s physical appearance and self-worth, as well as a prime example of the debilitating self-surveillance now a large part of postfeminist consumer culture. Both books are firmly planted in the self-help category, a genre riddled with problems. This genre perpetuates the cycle of self-monitoring (and when it comes to Skinny Bitch, almost self-flagellating) under the guise of celebrating individual empowerment, perpetuates a culture of distrust, suspicion and competition among women. Like Skinny Bitch insinuates, the Capital B Bitch here is the enemy, the competition, the Envied. Issues of classism also come into play with the self-help genre. Both Why Men Love Bitches and Skinny Bitch, as well as their subsequent sequels, operate from a class-biased perspective. On a very superficial level, the assumption that a woman has the type of disposable income that will allow her to purchase a self-help guide clearly demonstrates this bias. These books, narrowly focused on improving relationships or losing weight, retail for fourteen or fifteen each. It is a classed assumption that women who need them would want to spend money on these books. More narrowly, the assumption that the primary focus of a woman’s life is to learn how to achieve greater success in subtely pursuing a man, or in learning how to rigidly discipline herself to lose weight is also classed. These directives are luxuries to which not all women, indeed not even the large majority, have the means to afford. For many, devoting their time, money, and energy to this pursuit is simply not possible. The problem seems to stem from the disconnect between the pop culture absorbed and re-appropriated definition of Capital B Bitch and any sort of legitimate feminist movement — particularly the definition of feminisim as “a struggle to end sexist oppression.” Without the politics of feminism behind it, Bitch enters into a different space, one in which it is far too easy to exploit Bitch as solely a catchy marketing device, without fully understanding the problems surrounding this strategy, as well as the underlying assumptions Capital B Bitch makes. Product Group C encompasses those
151

journal of undergraduate research

products that come closer to addressing the complexities of Bitch as a term for an empowered woman, while at the same time still having some of the same issues as the less complex products of groups A and B. Product Group C: Products that Tie Capital B Bitch More Directly to Feminist Goals and thus Provide a More Thorough Exploration of Bitch as Empowering Getting In Touch With Your Inner Bitch (1994) by Elizabeth Hilts is a tricky read. I was at first disheartened, upon encountering this in the introduction: The Moment of Truth: It had to do with a man. In my case, that phrase can be followed with the addendum, “of course.” This is acutely embarrassing to tell you, but I know I must. Here’s what happened: I got stood up… But I forgave him anyway because he was really cute, and I really liked him. And because no one likes a bitch. How could a nice girl like me stay angry? He asked for another chance and I gave it to him.40 No no no, not another guide on how to be a Capital B Bitch solely to finally find success with men! Thankfully, upon further reading, Getting In Touch With Your Inner Bitch actually proved to back up embracing the term Bitch as empowering, including directly addressing the act of reclaiming the word, which none of the previously discussed products have fully attempted. Hilt writes: Any woman who succeeds at anything is going to be called a bitch. Hillary Clinton? Bitch. Gloria Steinem? Bitch. Barbara Streisand? Bitch. The list goes on and on and… The point is that since we can’t avoid it, why don’t we embrace it? We’ve all had this experience: At some point in time, in front of other people, we say what we really think about some issue
1 52

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

or person or what-have-you. At some later point in time, someone tells us that, “So-and-so really thought you were a bitch.” … Most of us make sure to be particularly nice to old so-and-so next time we see them. We may even go out of our way to prove that perceiving us as a bitch is not only erroneous, but downright unfair…We retreat. What if we responded by sending so-and-so a thank-you bouquet with a little card that said, “I really appreciate your recognition of my Inner Bitch.” What would happen if we stopped being afraid of this one little word?41 Having explicitly posed this question, were they not so afraid of being called a bitch, Hilts goes on to discuss all that being in touch with your Inner Bitch (read: having a backbone) provides, including: more pro-women laws, better (and safe) sex lives, voting with your dollars, more female bosses in the workforce, and more truly equitable romantic relationships. “… And the Men Who Love Her,” is featured as an appendix to the book and is one of the most truly feminist parts of the book. In a move directly against Argov’s reliance on naturalized sexual differences, Hilts describes men who understand and respect women in touch with their Inner Bitch as “Princes.” She elaborates more on this: A Prince is a real man, i.e., a real human being. Here’s how to recognize a Prince: • A Prince really does take full responsibility for his share of raising the kids; • A Prince understands why those ads for beer are offensive (you know the ones I mean); • A Prince never takes it for granted that we’ll do all the cooking; • Conversely, a Prince does not assume that we can’t change a flat tire; • A Prince offers encouragement, rather than advice;
153

journal of undergraduate research

• A Prince knows what he knows. And, at the same time, he knows what he doesn’t know. He doesn’t bluster his way through a situation with ever-deepening b.s. In fact, a Prince has a good grasp on just how attractive it really is to be able to say, “I don’t know.”42 Rather than perpetuating harmful traditional gender role stereotypes for both males and females, as Argov does, Hilts acknowledges that women are not the only ones negatively impacted by societal gender role construction: Just as most women have been trained in the ways of Toxic Niceness, men have been trained in the ways of whatever it is they’re suffering from. There are plenty of names for it; pick one. Chances are, if you’ve done your Inner Bitch homework, you won’t need to be cruel about it. The point is to understand the dynamic at work here: Men have been taught behaviors that probably run counter to their true natures.43 Hilts also challenges the Skinny Bitch mantra that to be truly liberated and empowered as a 21st century woman, one must fit into a certain dress size, at whatever cost to your mental and physical health: You know those diet books and articles that you’ve accumulated over the years? Destroy them. Each day, rip out a few pages to burn in the sink as you say, “I am an adult. I choose what I eat.” If you don’t think you look great, choose to take reasonable action. We all have enough information about how our bodies actually work; use whatever works for you. Most important, just say “I don’t think so” to the unrealistic ideal everyone else sets for us. Women are supposed to look like people, not scarecrows.44

1 54

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

Using the mantra “I don’t think so” as her base, Hilts sets forth genuinely feminist ideas as a support for claiming that getting in touch with your Inner Bitch is empowering and liberating for not only women, but men as well. Hilts’ views on women and politics are headed in the right direction, but not quite as admirable as they could be: Who’s going to right laws that are good for women? We already know the answer. In light of that answer, we really must do more. “More?” you say. Yes, I say. I’m not talking about taking on another activity, or running for Congress (or even the school board), or doing something that will tip us over into the exhaustation that threatens every one of us. I’m talking about using our Inner Bitch to make a better world. The easiest thing to do is to vote with our dollars. That’s right, don’t buy those products whose advertising belittles women, insults us, or raises by another notch or two the already unrealistic standards to which we hold ourselves… The message will be received. Think of it as taking part in a collective “I don’t think so.” Imagine the possibilities.45 While encouraging women to vote with their dollars is definitely one effective strategy to make a political statement, I’m curious as to why Hilts isn’t “talking about taking on another activity, or running for Congress (or even the school board).” Advocating for the “collective ‘I don’t think so’” aligns with bell hooks’ view of feminism, but only if women are encouraged to enter into politics themselves. It is also worth noting the publisher of this guide, Hysteria Publications. Originally an article for the now-defunct women’s humor magazine Hysteria, a radio personality contacted Hilts after seeing the article, and from there her article spun into the book, also published by Hysteria Publications (since purchased by Sourcebooks). Since the concept of the Inner Bitch as an empowering notion originally came to life in a magazine devoted to humorous takes on
155

journal of undergraduate research

women’s issues, it follows logically that Hilts would set forth genuinely feminist ideas behind the Inner Bitch. It is almost as if Hilts knowingly uses the self-help guide format in order to critique the self-help genre itself. Another feminist publication that backs up Capital B Bitch with legitimate feminist beliefs is Bitch: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture. Established in 1996, this magazine is now the most well-known (depending on who you’re talking to) feature of Bitch Media, an independent non-profit feminist media organization. The origins of Bitch are described here: The first issue of Bitch was published in January 1996. The founding editors, Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler, were totally sick of both their day jobs and their love/hate relationship with pop culture. Inspired by publishing ventures from Ms. and Sassy to Pagan’s Head and Beer Frame, they decided to create a public forum in which to air thoughts and theories on what is all wrong (and the few things that are right) with the way women, gender, and feminist politics are treated in the media. The aim was to use feminism as a lens through which to view pop products — and to offer ways for readers to speak up and talk back to the culture at large.46 This aim to “use feminism as a lens through which to view pop products” begs the question of how they define feminism. Later on in the FAQ section of the website, this is expanded upon: Why does Bitch call itself a “feminist response to pop culture?” Bitch looks at the media and its products through a lens that takes into account the historical and cultural representation of gender in pop culture. Movies, television, news magazines, fashion magazines, blogs, comics, advertising, music, computer games — all are media that have traditionally reflected a narrow vision of what women and girls are and
1 56

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

can be, whether it’s the dumb blond, the needy wife, the castrating mother, the “I’m-not-a-feminist-but…” woman, or the heartless man-shunning domestic media mogul (to name but a few). We seek to look at all pop culture through an analytical-yet-witty, sharp-yet-sympathetic lens, as well as to celebrate the feminist culture-makers who are transforming the media with their unique contributions. Bitch aims to put a lucid, balanced face on feminism for all kinds of folks, including people who aren’t really aware that feminism refers to more than women who don’t want to shave their legs, or simply getting more women into positions of power. Similarly, we encourage people to consider feminism as a necessary part of the broader social justice movement. But using “feminist” as a primary descriptor is risky business, which is why people often ask us… Do you hate men? Not in the least. We are always surprised when people — of all genders — ask this very question. We know that most of the people who ask this are responding chiefly to both the term “bitch” and the word “feminist” — each quite prominent on the magazine’s cover — so we tend to take this reaction with a whopping grain of salt (plus some astonished laughter). Feminism, as many of all [sic] are aware, is a tricky concept for a lot of folks, and there are people in the world who assume that anything pro-woman must necessarily be anti-man. But, we say, there’s a huge difference between criticizing the system of patriarchy (wherein men as a class have power over women as a class) and hating on men in general. So though there may be a Bitch article that makes mention of, say, patriarchal approaches to x, y, or z, there is no actual man-hating going on. Promise.
157

journal of undergraduate research

Plus, feminism isn’t all about women — it’s about resisting and creating alternatives to systematic oppression.47 This definition of feminism fits perfectly with bell hooks’ sentiments that feminism is not about putting women above men, or any woman above another, but rather is about working against systematic oppression and towards a more balanced society for all. My analysis is focused primarily on the web version of Bitch, which is admittedly different from the original print version. Still, it has the same purpose: to provide sharp, witty, and critical feminist analysis of pop culture. Organized into different categories of blogs Bitch online provides constant, timely analysis of pop culture through blogs such as Social Commentary (dedicated to political and social issues found within pop culture, including the category Race Card that focuses specifically on issues of race/feminism within pop culture), Mad World (focused on gender, advertising, and identity in media culture), and Science and Politics (which mainly focuses on current political events that directly impact feminism’s goals). Bitch online also allows the organization to include expert guest bloggers, people who will come in with one (or several) posts focusing exclusively on their area of expertise. Through this format, Bitch provides a forum in which its online readers are linked directly to innumerable amounts of other feminist blogs, such as Racialious, Feministing, Deeply Problematic, Crunk Feminist Collective, and Womanist Musings. Online feminist activism is a large part of the feminist movement today, specifically among the younger generations (but not excluding older generations). The blogosphere is a fascinating example of the way alternative modes of media have allowed women to expand their presence and views, since they have historically struggled to insert themselves into the male-dominated publishing and journalism industries. Bitch Culture expands to the blogosphere as well, with blogs such as smartbitchestrashybooks. com, bitchbuzz.com, and bitchphd.blogspot.com.
1 58

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

How does Bitch: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture, or Bitch Media as a whole, with its belief in feminism as a struggle to end sexist oppression, fit into Capital B Bitch Culture? Why, right over at the BitchMart of course. Conveniently available online, one can easily order any number of Capital B Bitch products, including Bitch aprons, coffee mugs, tote bags, hats, hoodies, and T-shirts.

Figure 7

Figure 8

How do these products, that boldly stamp the word Bitch across a variety of physical merchandise, differ from, say, our dear friend the Bitch Glass back at Urban Outfitters? I’m glad you asked! First, and most importantly, Bitch Media is a non-profit organization. This immediately differentiates these Bitch Products from any of those previously discussed , as the proceeds are not headed towards a capitalist corporation, but rather, back into supporting the feminist mission of an independent non-profit feminist media organization. Purchasing these specific Bitch Products has a different meaning than any of the other Capital B Bitch Products. Bitch products come with an attached mission, one with an explicitly stated, inherently political feminist background. Owning a Bitch Magazine mug, or a T-shirt purchased from the online BitchMart that proudly proclaims BITCH across the front makes a deeper statement not just about who you are, but also about what you believe. This is the central difference between Bitch Media Bitch Products, and the other Capital
159

journal of undergraduate research

B Bitch Products studied thus far. Also, please note that the T-shirts/ hoodies are marketed as UniSex, a major step away from the rest of Capital B Bitch Culture marketed solely towards women. But why the name? If so attached to truly feminist beliefs and goals, why feel the need to include Bitch at all? After a conversation with executive director Julice Falk in the Bitch Magazine offices, I emerged with these reasons:48 • Bitch seemed to be chosen as part of the title because it lends itself well to the snarky humor of the magazine, the type that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but at the same time is backed up by legitimate facts and knowledge, hence the ‘Feminist Response to Pop Culture’ that comes after the colon. • Most of the readers of Bitch are exposed to it in college, which poses interesting questions of the demographics of their readership. Unfortunately, that was one piece of information I was not able to glean. • The word ‘Feminist’ on the cover often times seems to be more of a deterrent than the word ‘Bitch.’ From what I gathered, “Bitch” was most likely chosen as part of the title because it is provocative, catchy and makes you want to learn more about the magazine. It sets the reader up for the tone of the publication, and it sends the message that a sharp and critical analysis can be done in a manner that is not so dense and inaccessible like much of feminist theory and analysis. Chapter 3: Wrapping It All up with a Pretty Little Bow From baad bitches black action fantasy heroines to Urban Outfitter dishware, relationship guides, diet books, and critical feminist analyses of contemporary pop culture, lower case b bitch has been turned into Capital B Bitch: co-opted, redefined, reappropriated,
1 60

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

embraced, rejected, discussed, analyzed, and utilized in a seemingly infinite number of ways. At the end of the day, what have we learned? First, the Bitch Products, and Capital B Bitch Culture as a whole, reflect the exhausting process of identity-crafting for contemporary American women. Pushed and pulled in countless ways, women today are bombarded with conflicting messages about how to be feminine yet not too girly, about being strong-willed yet not too masculine, and about being feminist but not too political. Through all my toils, tribulations, and celebrations, I’ve walked away with four potential readings of Bitch Culture. Number One: Screw It All Maybe American women today are just sick of it. Maybe Bitch Culture is a fed-up response to the tenuous, ambiguous, consistently contradictory, contemporary society otherwise known as pop culture. I can’t be this, I can’t be that, so screw it all, I’ll be a little bit of everything, in the easiest way: a commercially-produced Capital B Bitch. Elizabeth Wurtzel explores this in her (potentially druginduced frenzy of a) book, Bitch: In Praise of Difficult Women. As she writes: The bitch as a role model, as icon and idea, has moments of style and occasions of substance — it at times looks like just the latest mask, a game to play, a chance to dress like something out of a Joan Crawford movie, and to act like something out of Mommie Dearest; but quite often it reveals itself to be about genuine anger, disturbance, fear and the kind of female resentment and rage… But no one in her right mind wants to end up doing time, no one wants to be moved to Medea-like acts or gun-crazy jealousy — no one wants to end up a sex kitten in the slammer. What we all want is to cop the cosmetic attitude, we want to be Olivia NewtonJohn in the last scene of Grease, the girl swiveling her foot
161

journal of undergraduate research

like a broken record to put out a cigarette with one of her red Candie’s slides, the girl with ratted hair, in slinky shiny black pegged pants, the girl in the blue eyeshadow that launched a thousand teenage makeup misfires.49 Maybe it’s this fine line between the commercially produced “cosmetic attitude” of a Bitch and the latent anger, resentment, and rage of the media-crafted lower case b bitch that drive women to choose the former. Number Two: Refusal to be Put Down by a Word Or, perhaps American women are sick and tired of being putdown by one little word, and are, in whatever way they see most fit, reclaiming lower case b bitch. By electing to embrace a historically demeaning word, women are redefining lower case b bitch and claiming ownership. Jessica Valenti of Feministing.com writes in Full Frontal Feminism: A Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters: Of course, reclaiming words like … “bitch”… doesn’t necessarily sit well with everyone. There’s the misconception that, somehow, using words that have traditionally been used to disparage women means we’re falling in line with sexism. But what young women are really doing is taking the power out of those words by making them our own.50 In this view, lower case b bitch is but a word, free to be reclaimed and subverted to Capital B Bitch as young women may choose. Reclaiming words on a purely linguistic level, of course, is very different from the appropriated version of Capital B Bitch found in the commercial Bitch Products. Here, as we have seen, it is all too easy for marketers to deploy Bitch as something empowered and strong on its own, detached from any sort of true, political feminist background.
1 62

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

Number Three: Trendy and Attractive Feminism Maybe women are seeking out feminism, but in a way that is far-removed from the media-created butch, non-shaven, man-hatin’, bra-burning, and just plain ugly FemiNazi. Maybe this fear of being associated with lower case b bitch aspects of feminism (angry, ugly, bitter, anti-man, the list goes on and on) helps drive women to the sassy and witty Capital B Bitch conveniently available for pickup at your local bookstore or mall. Bitch Products are an easy way to negotiate an identity in a society that tries to make that negotiation as difficult as possible for women, which leads into Number Four… Number Four: One that Cannot Be Controlled Is at Least in Control of Own Identity-Crafting Within Capital B Bitch Culture, women are encouraged to internalize the feeling that in this crazy messed up world where finding your own identity is so difficult to navigate, the Bitch stands out. She’s a Babe In Total Control of Herself, she is not controlled by anyone, but rather is free to pick and choose among the pre-selected, pre-crafted, mass-produced Bitch Products to create her own, unique identity.51 As noted however, this commercial identity is not attached to any true feminist political movement (with the exception of Getting in Touch with Your Inner Bitch, and even more so with Bitch Magazine), and also, is not an accessible identity to women beyond the white, upper-middle class segment. The many potential interpretations of Bitch Culture testify to the importance of this Bitch Thesis. Parts of Bitch Culture are purely materialist and anti-feminist, while other parts are legitimate subversions and critiques attached to an actual feminist political background. All of it is worthy of our attention, as it signifies both the accomplishments and the areas requiring improvement in feminism today. At the end of it all, one cannot be simply pro or anti-Bitch. It’s too ambiguous for that kind of stance. A whole-hearted dismissal or embrace of Bitch Culture leaves no room for improvement.
163

journal of undergraduate research

Sherryl Kleinman, Matthew B. Ezzell, and A. Corey Frost set forth the idea in “The Social Harms of ‘Bitch’” that reclaiming lower case b bitch is never possible, and always unknowingly reinforces sexism. They write: We now come to the belief, held by many women, that they can “reclaim” bitch, using it among themselves in a positive way. To reclaim implies that one had an original claim, one that was taken away by others. But as we pointed out earlier, a “bitch” is a female dog, and the word has been used to dehumanize women for a long time. What is worth “reclaiming”? Significantly, young women who greet each other in a friendly “What’s up, bitches?” admit that they also say “she’s a bitch” in an unfriendly way. “Reclaiming” has not gone along with women giving up “bitch” to demean other women.52 Fair, but I take great issue with the either/or mentality with which Kleinman, Ezzell, and Corey Frost approach the reclamation of lower case b bitch. As this Bitch Thesis has shown, Bitch Culture is nuanced and complicated, and it does not lend itself well to either/or mentalities. Additionally, let us all remember that lower case b bitch might have been a term originally used (not derogatorily) to refer to the Goddess Artemis-Diana. Only with the institution of Christian Europe did lower case b bitch begin to be used as an insult against women. There are both problems and progress to be found in Bitch Culture, all of which deserve a fair and balanced study. Laurel A. Sutton also researched the use of lower case b bitch in female to female interactions in “Bitches and Skankly Hobags: The Place of Women in Contemporary Slang.” She drew much the same conclusion, that lower case b bitch is used both as a term of endearment among friends as well as a derogatory reference for other women. These examples of lower case b bitch vs. Capital B Bitch, though not commodified, fit in perfectly with the postfeminist
1 64

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

characteristics of constant self-surveillance and monitoring that help to contribute to a culture of mistrust and competition among women. Capital B Bitch fits into amiable discourses among friends, while at the same time lower case b bitch differentiates friends from enemies among women. Sutton concludes: I don’t really know why we can call each other ho… and bitch, as opposed to any other slang terms… [Maybe] when we call each other bitch we acknowledge the realities of this man-made world and affirm our ability to survive in it. Without revolution, resistance to and redefinition of longheld concepts of femininity and masculinity can be a long, hard process. Perhaps being a ho or a bitch is a start.53 Here, Sutton takes into account more of the complexities associated with the reclamation of historically demeaning words, and looks at both the issues and the potential found within this process. My stance on Bitch Culture? It’s a love/hate relationship. In the spirit of full disclosure, I own half of the products I analyzed here. I will say, however, a good amount of the enjoyment they provided me has gone out the window after this year-plus project. I do not think Bitch Culture is all bad, but there is definitely room for improvement, particularly in the commodified Bitch Products. The identity-negotiation presented through these products is only really available to the white, upper-middle class woman and speaks volumes about the continuing race, class, and gender inequalities in American feminism today. As Gill notes: These themes [the framework for analyzing postfeminist products I have used throughout this Bitch Thesis] coexist with, and are structured by, stark and continuing inequalities and exclusions that relate to ‘race’ and ethnicity, class, age, sexuality, and disability as well as gender.54 However, only those Bitch Products of a lower complexity level (Groups A and B) are truly riddled with these race, class, age,
165

journal of undergraduate research

sexuality, and gender issues. Product Group C presents the social possibilities of Bitch Culture, when explicitly attached to a political feminist background. When infused with bell hooks’ “a struggle to end sexist oppression,” Capital B Bitch takes on a whole new meaning. Assert whatever identity you want, reclaim Bitch wholeheartedly, just acknowledge the complexity of doing so, consume actively rather than passively, and absolutely back it all up with true, political advocating for the end of sexist oppression. There I stand. Sorry I’m not sorry.

1 66

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture

List of Figures
Figure 1 Image Credit: “Slang Pint Glass,” Urban Outfitters. <http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail. jsp?id=14842306b&pushed=A_FURN_DINNERWARE&popId=A_DEC ORATE&navCount=1044&navAction=poppushpush&itemCount=80&ite mdescription=true&parentid=A_FURN_DINNERWARE&startValue=1&s ortProperties=+subCategoryPosition,+product.marketingPriority>. Figure 2 Image Credit: “Hidden Meaning Plates Insult Your Dinner Guests.” Nerd Approved – Gadgets and Gizmos. Accessed 28 Feb. 2011. <http://nerdapproved.com/household/ hidden-meaning-plates-insult-your-dinnerguests/>. Figure 3 Image Credit: <http://thelovelylifestyle.wordpress.com/2010/06/18/ christmas-injuly/>. Figure 4 Image Credit: <http://www.runningwithheels.com/index.php/tag/ bitch-wine/>. Figure 5 Image Credit: <http://www.sassybitchwine.net/>. Figure 6 Image Credit: <http://epicself.com/nourish/ veganism-touted-by-a-bunch-of-skinny-bitches/>. Figure 7 Image Credit: <http://bitchmagazine.org/support-feminist-media/ bitch-coffee-mug-shield>. Figure 8 Image Credit: <http://bitchmagazine.org/support-feminist-media/ unisex-logo-tee>.

167

journal of undergraduate research

End Notes
1 2 3 4

5

6

7 8

9

10

11 12 13

14 15 16

17 18

19

20

21

22

23 24

Gill, Rosalind. “Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility.” European Journal of Cultural Studies. 2007, Vol. 10, No. 147. <http://ecs.sagepub.com/cgi/content/ abstract/10/2/147>. 148. Ibid. 149. Ibid. 159. Chandler, Daniel. “Semiotics for Beginners: Encoding/Decoding.” Aberystwyth University Home Page. Web. 3 Mar. 2011. < http://www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/ S4B/sem08c.html>. Genz, Stéphanie, and Benjamin A. Brabon. Postfeminism: Cultural Texts and Theories. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP Press, 2009. 25-26. hooks, bell. Feminist Theory: from Margin to Center. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 1984. 24. Ibid. 26, 28. Caputi, Jane. Goddesses and Monsters: Women, Myth, Power, and Popular Culture. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004. 378. Walker, Barbara G. The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. Edison, NJ: Castle Press. 1983. 109. Dunn, Stephane. “Baad Bitches” and Sassy Supermamas: Black Power Action Films. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2008. 27. Ibid. Jo Freeman, The Bitch Manifesto. Asim, Jabari. The N Word: Who Can Say It, Who Shouldn’t, and Why. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007. 172-173. Ibid. 224. Ibid. 225. “B.I.T.C.H: Babe In Total Control of Herself.” Babe In Total Control of Herself Home. Web. Accessed 12 Feb. 2011. <http://www.babeincontrol.com/babeincontrol.html>. Mills, Sara. Feminist Stylistics. London: Routledge, 1995. 125-126. Kramarae, Cheris, and Paula A. Treichler. A Feminist Dictionary. London: Pandora Press, 1985. 72-73. Mills, Jane. Womanwords: a Dictionary of Words about Women. New York: Free Press, 1989. 27-28. The Guerrilla Girls. Bitches, Bimbos, and Ballbreakers: the Guerrilla Girls’ Illustrated Guide to Female Stereotypes. New York, NY: Penguin, 2003. 25. For “Birthday Bitch” Glass, see: <http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/ productdetail.jsp?id=18008433&itemdescription=true&navAction=jump&search=true &isProduct=true&parentid=SEARCH+RESULTS>. For “My B*tches Party Pack,” see: <See:http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=19383116& itemdescription=true&navAction=jump&search=true&isProduct=true&parentid=SEA RCH+RESULTS>. “Urbanoutfitters.com - Quantcast Audience Profile.” Quantcast Home.Web. May 2010. Accessed 12 Dec. 2011. <http://www.quantcast.com/urbanoutfitters.com>. “Urbanoutfitters.com Site Info.” Alexa the Web Information Company. Web. Accessed 12 Dec. 2011. <http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/urbanoutfitters.com#> “Rsvp.com - Sellers Publishing Inc. - The Daily Bitch 2011.” Ronnie Sellers Productions Inc. Accessed 13 Sept. 2010. <http://rsvp.com/item.php?item=1411>. Gill, 159.

25

1 68

bitch. contemporary feminism in american consumer culture
26 27 28

29 30 31 32 33 34 35

36

37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46

47 48

49 50

51

52

53

54

Ibid. The Daily Bitch 2011. Sellers Publishing Inc. For relationships, see: Hymowitz, Kay S. “Where Have the Good Men Gone?” For mental illness, see: Peele, Stanton. “Ballooning Depression Among Women.” “The Bitch Kit.” Knock Knock Co. Argov, Sherry. Why Men Love Bitches. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2002. xv. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Freedman, Rory, and Kim Barnouin. Skinny Bitch: a No-nonsense, Tough-love Guide for Savvy Girls Who Want to Stop Eating Crap and Start Looking Fabulous! Philadelphia: Running Press, 2005. Klausner, Julie. “Hey, Skinny Bitch!” Salon.com. 11 Feb. 2008. Accessed 12 Feb 2011. <http://www.salon.com/life/feature/2008/02/11/skinny_bitch>. Freedman and Barnouin Ibid. Argov, 23. Hilts, Elizabeth. Getting in Touch with Your Inner Bitch. Bridgeport, CT: Hysteria Publications, 1994. 15. Hilts, 29. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Hilts, 72-73. Bitch Magazine n.d. “About the Magazine, Tell me more about the magazine.” Bitch Magazine: A Feminist Response to Pop Culture. Web. Accessed 10 Dec. 2011. <http:// bitchmagazine.org/frequently-asked-questions>. Ibid. I received an Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program (UROP) grant from Notre Dame, which I used to go to the Bitch Magazine offices. Wurtzel, Elizabeth. Bitch: in Praise of Difficult Women. New York: Doubleday, 1998. 3. Valenti, Jessica. Full Frontal Feminism: a Young Woman’s Guide to Why Feminism Matters. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press, 2007. 173. B.I.T.C.H: Babe In Total Control of Herself. <http://www.babeincontrol.com/ babeincontrol.html>. Kleinman, Sherryl, Matthew B. Ezzell, and Corey A. Frost. “Reclaiming Critical Analysis: Social Harms of ‘Bitch.’” Sociological Analysis 3.1 (2009): 49-68. Sutton, Laurel A. “Bitches and Skankly Hobags: The Place of Women in Contemporary Slang.” Gender Articulated: Language and the Socially Constructed Self. Ed. by Kira Hall and Mary Bucholtz. New York: Routledge, 1995. 290. Gill, 149.

169

journal of undergraduate research

KAITLIN VON HOFFMAN graduated from Notre Dame in 2011 with honors from the Department of Political Science. As part of the now-closed Central and Eastern European Study Abroad Program, she spent her junior year studying at the Universität Franz-Leopold in Innsbruck, Austria. The program director, Gernot Guertler, and his wife Anita organized a trip to Hungary as part of the spring program. The things Kaitlin experienced in the course of that trip inspired her to abandon a previously-chosen topic for her senior thesis in favor of exploring development patterns in Eastern Europe. She would like to thank her advisor, Professor Guisinger, as well as Gernot and Anita Guertler, without whom this never would have been written.
1 70

online edition

FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION IN EASTERN EUROPE: AN EXAMINATION OF ECONOMIC GROWTH PATTERNS
Abstract: There is a saying in Hungary about the country’s recently opened highway systems: “They create hills so they can dig tunnels, and make valleys so they may build bridges.” While the theories for the needless waste varied from corrupt politicians to ignorant policy makers, the populace seemed unified in their opinion of what a successful solution would entail. People as diverse as a Slovakian waitress and a group of Hungarian economists offered the same solution: allow the national, state or local governments to make the decisions currently made by the European Union bureaucrats in Belgium. In Fiscal Decentralization in Eastern Europe: An Examination of Economic Growth Patterns, the author explores the multi-facetted relationships between fiscal decentralization, the level of government where budgetary decisions are made, and the efficiency and equality of economic growth. In the Eastern European countries which ascended to the European Union in 2004 and 2007, when controlling for the rule of law, economic prosperity and human capital, there is a direct causal correlation between decentralization and economic efficiency. Furthermore, higher levels of decentralization led to a more uniform level of development throughout a country. Anecdotal evidence suggests this is due to the ability of those regions to develop according to their comparative advantage.

171

journal of undergraduate research

STEVEN ALAGNA is from Kansas City, Missouri where he attended St. Pius X High School. Graduating from Notre Dame in 2011 with a B.A. in Political Science and a focus on International Relations, he also majored in Spanish and minored in Japanese. Steve is currently teaching middle school social studies in Jacksonville, Florida through the Alliance for Catholic Education.
1 72

online edition

SUICIDE TERRORISM IN PALESTINE: TRACING THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MARTYRDOM NORM
Abstract: Norms have become increasingly important in International Relations literature. Not only are they being recognized for their importance in constituting seemingly irrational behavior, but they also have the ability to change the nature of the anarchic international system. Much has been written about the origins and development of specific norms, ranging from norms against landmines and nuclear weapons to environmental norms against plastic shopping bags. However, although norms are not inherently positive or peacepromoting, the overwhelming majority of literature has focused on these types of norms, leaving conflict-promoting norms out of the discussion. My paper will focus on the “martyrdom” norm in Palestine that has underlined the legitimization of suicide terrorism in that culture. Indeed, in Palestine, suicide bombers (or “martyrs,” depending on whom you ask) are regarded as communal superheroes. Parents are proud of their martyr-children, children playfully reenact famous instances of suicide operations, and posters and graffiti adorn towns with glorified pictures of local martyrs. How did this come to be? I will use process tracing to track the development and trajectory of the martyrdom norm, showing historical evidence that it has followed the same steps of the Norm Life Cycle as the peacepromoting norms that dominate IR literature.

173

journal of undergraduate research

KAITLYN CONWAY studied English and Sociology at Notre Dame. She now works at a medical software company. She would like to thank Lyn Spillman, Tara MacLeod, Brian O’Conchubhair, Kevin Whelan, Dr. Iarfhlaith Watson, and UROP for their help with her paper.
1 74

online edition

NÍAON TÍRANN GAN TEANGA: THERE IS NO COUNTRY WITHOUT A LANGUAGE
Abstract: The Irish language presents a paradox. The revival movement is classified by many scholars as a failure. Though Irish was appointed an official language of the European Union in 2007, only around 42 percent of the Irish people report some competency in speaking it. Around 65% of respondents in this study support the idea of restoring the language throughout the country. How has the dying language survived for such a long time? Do the people support it because they consider it to be part of their national identity, part of what makes them uniquely Irish? Do they continue to support it out of habit? This project answers the question of how the Irish people view the Irish language and its likely future with a survey which includes a Gaeltacht sub-sample. The three districts primarily sampled are Dublin, Dingle, and Galway, with further contrast provided by surveying student and non-student groups.

175

journal of undergraduate research

RODOLFO DISI PAVLIC was born and raised in Santiago, Chile. He attended Saint George’s College of Santiago, a school run by Holy Cross, where he first heard about Notre Dame. While at Notre Dame, he lived in Alumni Hall and majored in Political Science and Italian. He studied in Bologna, Italy for a year. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Texas at Austin specializing in Latin American Politics. His current project deals with student movements in Mexico and Chile.
1 76

online edition

A PUZZLING AGENT AND ITS CHANGING PRINCIPAL: ANALYZING THE ORGANIZATION OF AMERICAN STATES’ FLUCTUATING DEMOCRACY PROMOTION IN LATIN AMERICA, 1948-2011
Abstract: Democracy in Latin America has been historically characterized by its fragility. Even now when most governments are democratic, coups and other threats to democracy have not disappeared from the region. What have actors like international organizations done to promote and protect democracy in Latin America? An analysis of the Organization of American States (OAS) may shed light on this issue. Founded in 1948, the OAS is one of the main forums for multilateral cooperation in the hemisphere. The main obstacle to analyzing the OAS is the little attention it has received from a theoretical standpoint. I tackle this by applying principal/agent theory to OAS democracy promotion. Principal/agent theory is concerned with the relationship between a principal that delegates power to an agent, which acts on its behalf. In my case, states of the Americas are the principal and the OAS is the agent. In my analysis, I reach two conclusions. The first is that principal/agent theory satisfactorily explains OAS policy changes on democracy promotion, as the differences in each period of OAS history show. The second is that the OAS, as an intergovernmental organization, can only do what its member states are able to tell it to do, and that the OAS responds better to blatant threats on democracy than to the more covert ones.

177

journal of undergraduate research

1 78