July 2010
14 posts
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What A Feminist Looks Like
Shelby Knox is the brazen 23 year-old who has been speaking out for comprehensive sex education since she was 15 and living in the ultra-conservative, deeply-religious town of Lubbock, TX. She is the star of the award-winning documentary “The Education of Shelby Knox,” and travels the country promoting sex education, women’s rights, and youth empowerment. In our podcast, Shelby...
“I wonder if the snow wants to be black
If the soil thinks she’s too dark...”
– “Being Human” by Naima of Climbing Poetree
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Parenting: Joy or Horror?
I read the New York Magazine issue with the cover story “I love my children. I hate my life,” accompanied by a photo of a sad looking woman holding a baby, but I didn’t give it too much thought.
The parents were surveyed in the thick of parenting. If you survey anyone in the thick of anything enriching (finals during college, standing in line for security in order to travel, even falling...
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Guyland
Last week, Shelby Knox, the brazen 23 year-old who has been speaking out for comprehensive sex education since she was 15, moderated a Paradigm Shift talk with world renowned Gender Studies scholar Dr. Michael Kimmel. Dr. Kimmel is a feminist consultant for Mad Men and the author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men. Every word of the talk was illuminating. Seriously. It was one...
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“Men are the single beneficiaries of the biggest affirmative action program in...”
– Dr. Michael Kimmel, Author and Sociologist
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Husband Confronts Abortion Clinic Protestors After... →
People that truly care about children know that minutes wasted protesting an abortion clinic are minutes that could be used to help the millions of children in the world that lack healthcare and education. These protestors don’t care about children, or women, or the true responsibilities of their faith.
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WatchThank you, Mattel, for making us all feel so good about ourselves.
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Women Are Taking Over?! Not So Fast...
Photo by uncorneredmarket.com
I don’t read articles about the “progress” women are making and get excited. I read them and feel discouraged that things are not moving faster. I read them and think, if this topic is still newsworthy it’s too early to celebrate. When reading Newsweek’s, “Women Will Rule the World,” I didn’t take it at face value. I read between the lines and did some...
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The Type of Anti-Rape Ad We Need in the States →
In our rape culture it is not on men not to rape, it is on women not to let themselves get raped.
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“I didn’t know this at the time, but you needed to be too cool for school....”
– Adrianne Frost, former Daily Show correspondent, on working in late night comedy
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My Interview with Jay Kallio
I tracked down Jay Kallio, who left the now famous “Go live as a man for one week” comment on Nancy Bauer’s “Lady Power” piece in The New York Times, and spoke to him about being a transgender man in our society. As a former woman who presents as a man, Jay has rare insights into what life is like on the other side.
Listen to my interview with Jay Kallio
June 2010
15 posts
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The Anti-Rape Condom →
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"Go Live as a Man for One Week."
Nancy Bauer wrote a piece for the New York Times Opinionator section this week called “Lady Power,” in which she argues that the state of feminism today is embodied by Lady Gaga.
The comments were more interesting than the piece itself, and touched on artifice, morality and hook up culture. One in particular by a Transgender man (he was born a woman and became a man) really got me...
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Father's Day Tweets from Feminists
Photo by Dead Homer Society
@DCdebbie Happy Father’s Day— especially to all the gay dads who had to fight hard for their children and for acceptance. #lgbt
@KushielsMoon RT @Mama_JuJuBee Hubby just woke up. I said “Happy Father’s day” & handed him the baby. That’s a good gift,right? | LOL perfect gift!
@estystein Interesting how each holiday brings up...
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I knew Amy Poehler was awesome. I didn't realize... →
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Three Ways Women Hurt Other Women and Three Ways...
At 92Y Tribeca the other day, I heard Susan Shapiro Barash, author of Tripping the Prom Queen: The Truth About Women and Rivalry, talk about the ways in which women hold each other down instead of raising each other up. Following are three:
1. The “Not Enough Pie Syndrome”
Women seem to be under the impression that there are a finite amount of good things that can happen to us, so if a good thing...
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Sex Trafficking in South Africa for the World Cup
From Change.org:
World Cup fever is everywhere, bringing hundreds of thousands of people from around the world to South Africa.
But not all of those people are tourists.
As many as 20,000 women have been trafficked into forced prostitution for the 2010 games in preparation for the influx of visitors. Some of these women entered South Africa on the promise of regular jobs, and upon arrival...
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Pro-choice means fighting forced abortions too. →
fuckyeahabortions:
padaviya:
They are stories of women given injections in their seventh, eighth, and ninth months of pregnancy and forced to give birth to dead babies after days of contractions.
They are stories of women snatched by officials in their last month of pregnancy, dragged to clinics, forcibly injected with solution that kills their unborn child, and kicked in the stomach.
They...
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WatchEvery day The Man’s Guide to Love posts a new video on its site with honest advice about love from men of all demographics.
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The Last Remaining Abortion Provider in...
Two weeks ago, an anti-abortion extremist invaded the waiting room of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Jackson, Mississippi - the only abortion provider in the entire state of Mississippi.
The Feminist Majority Foundation’s legal coordinator traveled to Jackson to discuss ways to improve security, to assess legal needs and to devise new ways for the local community to support the...
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Sleazy Model Scouts Prey on Young Brazilian Women →
Photo by Joao Pina for The New York Times
As a friend of mine said, “You can feel the corporate interest. It’s like they are driving around back roads in Brazil looking for a good spot to dig a copper mine.”
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Relatively Pro-Woman Tweets from Men Mentioning...
@FlyMrWhite #MenShouldnt hit women….ever. period….
@MisterPrimetyme #menshouldnt get a female pregnant…if u cant even take care of urself
@MalikilaM #MenShouldnt lead a woman on under any circumstances. It’s a waste of her time, feelings, and energy.
@MR_CROMER #MenShouldnt glorify how much pussy they get and then turn around and call a woman a whore for fucking...
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We LOVE Sweden
Photo by Casper Hedberg for the International Herald Tribune
The International Herald Tribune is running a series called “The Female Factor,” which examines where women stand in the early 21st century. Yesterday’s story focused on Sweden, which may be the most promising model for gender equity in the world.
Currently, 85% of Swedish fathers take paternal leave. This started in 1995 when Sweden...
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Girlcotting Urban Outfitters →
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Women Artists that were Not Included in Rolling...
Lauryn Hill
Aimee Mann
Regina Spektor
Tori Amos
Sheryl Crow
Whitney Houston
Mariah Carey
Fiona Apple
Indigo Girls
Liz Phair
Sarah McLachlan
Blondie
It’s a terrible list (no songs from the above artists were mentioned, but R. Kelly’s “I Believe I Can Fly” is #406), and obviously one intended to cozy up to certain record labels (U2 is mentioned six times). Only...
May 2010
14 posts
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The problem with the Sex and the City 2 poster →
As a friend of mine said, “They don’t look like themselves, younger, they just look like fucking aliens.”
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“Sister Margaret made a difficult judgment in an emergency, saved a life and then...”
– Nicholas D. Kristof, The New York Times
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More on misogyny in the Catholic church →
“Is there really a morally defensible reason for two innocents to die when one can live?”
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Reverend demands that a woman die with her baby... →
Example of a growing anti-woman trend coming out of the pro-life movement.
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A Man's Perspective on Body Image
Photo by myspaceantics.com
William Leith, a well-intentioned male journalist from UK’s Telegraph, wrote an article yesterday entitled, “Women and body image: a man’s perspective.”
He talks about a situation where a guy’s frazzled girlfriend is getting ready to go to a party but can’t find anything to wear. When she finally has a “meltdown” the guy...
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An Open Letter to Tech Conference Organizers →
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Shit My Kids Ruined →
In keeping with the idea that not all women want to have kids, this blog purports to be “the strongest visual birth control on the market today.” For those of us that want kids, this is a reminder that it’s actually a lot of hard work. For those that have kids, this might make you more appreciate of your pets, who seem to deal with the brunt of kids’… creativity.
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“If anybody, prior to my meeting and falling in love with Christine, had asked me...”
–
Photo by theage.com.au
Cynthia Nixon on her partner, Christine Marinoni
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Women Who Aren't Feminists
Photo by lovelyish.com
Everywhere I turn, women are asserting that they aren’t feminists. But for the most part these women are feminists. They believe in a woman’s right to vote. They believe in equal pay for equal work. They believe in combatting gender-based violence. They will tell you that, and then they’ll say this:
“But I like men.”
I’m going to say this once (that’s probably a...
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Mothers Struggle for Respect on Mother's Day and...
Illustration by Heidi Stevens
In her Wall Street Journal opinion piece, Amy Henry discusses the lack of respect mothers get for being mothers. She writes, “if mothering while working outside the home is a guilt-producing juggling act, and working inside it is a job for the nonambitious half-wit, why would any of us want our daughters to have children?”
It was recently pointed out...
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Elizabeth Gilbert on the Importance of Lightening... →
“Take the wrong job. Move to the wrong city. Lose your temper in front of the boss, quit training for that marathon, wolf down a truckload of cupcakes the day after you start your diet.”
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Why Don't All Women Want Kids?
In college when a friend of mine used to say that she didn’t want kids, it sounded outrageous to me. Of course she wanted kids. All women want kids. I figured she was just in her own college headspace and would grow out of it when she got older.
Then then she got older and I got older and I’m the one that grew out of my limited notions about what a woman’s role should be.
Of course all women...
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Is It Possible to Stay Happily Married?
Sandra Tsing Loh wrote a personal essay for The Atlantic about her divorce, in which she essentially throws up her hands trying to figure out how anyone can make marriage work. Her conclusion:
As far as the children are concerned, how about the tribal approach (a natural, according to both primate and human evolution)? Let children between the ages of 1 and 5 be raised in a household of...
April 2010
12 posts
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WatchSouth Korean women struggle to achieve gender equality and come up against familiar obstacles.
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Boobquake
Photo posted to Facebook’s Boobquake event page by Linda Jean Vensel Danforth of Boston, MA
Yesterday was Boobquake, an event Purdue student Jen McCreight organized on Facebook. The goal was for women everywhere to wear their most revealing outfits, thereby embracing their female sexuality.
As of 11:55pm on Monday night, the “event” had 211,570 “guests” and counting. The media went nuts over...
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Why are so few tech startups run by women? →
Of the $17.6 billion that angel investors provided to startups in 2009, 90.6% went to male entrepreneurs. Maybe that’s because so few women even sought angel capital (only 21% of the startups seeking capital were women-owned).
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Five Interesting Takeaways from the 140 Conference
This week I’m focusing on my other passion (besides feminism): new media. I attended the 140 Conference in New York City yesterday and thought I’d share 5 social media takeaways that apply to feminist bloggers as well as brands aiming to reach women.
1. Principles of effective relationships on & offline: You can’t have intimacy without vulnerability. - @AndreaSyrtash 2....
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A Feminist Harry Potter Type Book
My friend Emily recently encouraged me to read The Hunger Games, a science fiction, young adult novel, though I am neither a science fiction nor young adult fan.
It was great. Page turning, suspenseful, and best of all, it featured a strong, relatable female protagonist with nothing distinctly girly about her. It is a type of literary character the world needs more of.
The book is part of a...
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“I still think it’s important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique...”
– Bell Hooks
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Top Ten 1980's Feminist Television Characters
Photo from babble.com
With the passing of Dixie Carter on Saturday, I thought I’d come up with a list of feminist television characters that made an impression on me during my formative years. This list is based on the shows I happened to have watched at the time:
1. Murphy Brown - Murphy Brown is my absolute favorite. She’s so witty and cynical. She’s like a lucid Jack...