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Letter of protest to the producers of Law and Order:

I was unable to catch the original broadcast of your episode titled “Dignity” (sic) as I was traveling across the state to attend an abortion clinic escort training session, learning how to defend women seeking basic medical care with some dignity from hordes of pushing, shoving, yelling, threatening, religiously motivated lunatics.  Out here in the real world, abortion clinics are still being besieged by mobs that have only increased in number and in threats since the election of Barack Obama and the assassination of Dr. George Tiller last May.

Not even 5 months have passed since Dr. Tiller was shot in the head while standing in his church on a Sunday morning. When I finally watched “Dignity” I was appalled by the shameful and criminal justification you’ve articulated for the murder of one of the most courageous and heroic doctors in this country (literally: the show mounted a justifiable homicide defense for the “fictional” murderer of the “fictional” Dr. Tiller).

It is truly a sign of the times we are living in that a “liberal” show created and set in New York City, the capital of the empire, should reflect the most reactionary sentiments in this country right now. This has once again proved the point that

“[n]ow that ‘common ground’ has become ‘killing ground,’ they [the anti-abortion movement] need to be stopped, not conciliated with, through mass public condemnation, and a growing movement to protect abortion providers.”

Millions of viewers have seen “Dignity” and are being affected by its message. Any claims of poetic license are beside the point. No one would argue against fantasy or the right to create inventive stories. This is about using an entire show to slander and defame a man who was just murdered and to provide a platform for the most extreme sections of the anti-abortion movement that just murdered him! I won’t repeat all the analyses of this disgusting episode that others have passionately written .

However, a few basic facts:

We've all met a Bro - that alpha male idiot, usually around 16-28 years old, who is generally inarticulate, belligerent, misogynistic, conceited, and thinks he's way funnier than he actually is. Like boogers, Bros come in all shapes and sizes, but a dead giveaway that you have spotted a Bro is if you can smell the AXE body spray wafting through the air.

Bros are both societal flaws and evolutionary anomalies - detrimental to the general public by way of their refusal to progress. Part little boy, part pathetic beast, Bros frequently refer to sexual intercourse as 'getting the kill,' often ignoring the humanity of women in favor of believing vaginas are something to be conquered and dominated. Besides beer, partying, hooking-up with drunk women, and using the word "fag," rating women based on physical attributes is their number one pastime.

Warning: this post is about pornography, so be prepared for a massive feministing-style debate (I hope!).

When Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series appeared in the public consciousness, a lot of feminist commentators rightly took the series to task for its potential to negatively influence teenage girls in regard to the sort of partners they would deem desirable - overly-protective, stalkerish 'bad-boys' in this case. The prevalent view seemed to be that the books were sexist and potentially damaging to young women.

For the most part, I agree with this conclusion, but it strikes me as interesting that in this instance it is taken as a given that a fantasy novel can have a significant impact on a teenage (and older) person's psyche. However, in many other cases feminists seem reluctant to draw similar conclusions about the possible detrimental impacts of repeated pornography use.

To make my stance clear - I consider myself an anti-porn feminist. This does not mean, however, that I am in favour of censorship (I doubt many people really are) or of shaming people for what they find sexually appealing. For me, pornography is in the same camp as lipstick, high-heels and conventional marriage - all are products of a patriarchal society (and throughout this post I will be referring strictly to pornography that is commonly viewed as objectifying and degrading toward women) and I believe we would be happier and more fulfilled human beings without them in our lives.

Dear Feministing Community,

I've been following the dialogue around Halloween costumes in several places, including right here on feministing. The problem of the "Sexy___ (fill in the blank) " costume is well noted, as is the appalling male alternative of penis jokes.

So I thought I would reach out to you to see if we can generate a list of creative, innovative, funny, scary, unique, not "Sexy____" costumes.

Thoughts?

I've never been a fan of all the pink bullshit that surrounds breast cancer in our culture. For one thing, I personally don't really like the color pink, and resent the fact that, as a woman, I'm virtually required to love it, embrace it, wear it, identify with it. I will choose my own color, thanks. Further, I agree with Barbara Ehrenreich that much of the imagery and the products surrounding breast cancer awareness is nothing short of infantilizing. And this is thoroughly infuriating. But of course, it's just the tip of the iceberg, although for me it's come to symbolize my antipathy to the breast cancer industrial complex.

Until recently, my anti-pink stance has been all about the approach of the Susan G Komen Foundations of the world and their ties with big pharma. And this is still the core of my anti-pinkness. Let me be clear about this. The Susan G Komen Foundations of the world, and their corporate beneficiaries, do not want to put an end to breast cancer. That's the very last thing they want. Note that it's not The Race for Prevention or The Race to End Breast Cancer. No. It's The Race for the Cure. Because cures are expensive and ongoing. Cures bring in billions for pharmaceutical companies and their investors - which prominently include Nancy Brinker and her peers. If we discovered the causes of breast cancer, most of which are clearly environmental, and learned how to prevent it, big pharma and its investors would lose out big time. In other words, they don't want women to stop getting breast cancer - they have no interest in reducing the number of cases - they just want to develop better drugs to treat breast cancer. See the difference? And further evidence for the true stance of groups like the Komen Foundation can be found in their resistance to a robust Patient's Bill of Rights, as well as in their resistance to anything like transparency when it comes to their funding and their corporate partnerships.

In addition, the practices that pharmaceutical companies who are active in the breast cancer industrial complex are deeply problematic on their own and, as such, don't deserve a single penny of our money. For instance, companies like Eli Lilly produce and profit from products that are known carcinogens. If they were truly invested in the health and well-being of women, they would no longer be able to manufacture and market a product that causes cancer with one hand, while raking in charitable donations for research on a cure for that cancer with the other hand. And their investors (like, say many prominent breast cancer awareness advocates) would lose one of their most profitable investments. So you see, everyone's interests are at stake here. Everyone except the actual people who have the actual cancer growing in their bodies. They are lost in the shuffle, often treated like mindless automatons who are only of interest because they are hosts to the cancer, and frequently misled about the efficacy and side effects of various treatment options.

Romance fiction is unusual in that it is a genre written largely by women, for women. In their excellent book 'Beyond Heaving Bosoms: The Smart Bitches' Guide to Romance Fiction', Sarah Wendell and Candy Tan create Mavis, a caricature of what is imagined to be a stereotypical romance reader: she's undereducated, oversexed, rather dim, a bit chubby and wears cardigans with appliquéd kittens. However, apparently one in five women read romance fiction in the USA, and in Australia (where I'm from), it's much the same. And there just aren't that many Mavises in the world.

I remember walking past the racks of Mills and Boon category romances in department stores as a child and a teenager and watching people pretend they weren't looking at them. These books were bad and forbidden on account of they contained OMGSEX!!!1!!! and moreover, were books about OMGSEX!!!1!!! by women, for women. There's a reason people think that only Mavis reads romance fiction, and it's because no one admits to it. Female titillation is synonymous with shame. Mavis, the woman who reads romance, is someone to be made fun of.

When I picked up my first romance novel, it was not with the notion of busting stereotypes or proving that Real Women Read Romance or anything like that - or even titillation. It was to laugh at, pure and simple.

About a week ago I accompanied two friends to a bar on a Saturday afternoon with a two-fold goal: indulge in some mid-afternoon happy hour specials, and watch the two of them audition for The Real World.

As a middle schooler, rerun marathons of The Real World:Boston were my first exposure to a lot of contoversial social issues, and in the conservative south was definitely my first exposure to gay/lesbian culture. I thought it was about breaking boundaries in our generation. For anyone who hasn't seen/heard of this show, it's changed slightly in it's almost 20 ensuing seasons since Boston. These days  it's a little less "let's put people from different political/social/religious/economic backgrounds together and see what happens" and a little more "how much of a shitshow can we get away with."

And apparently these days, the edge everyone feels you need to get on this show is to be of an alternative sexuality. When my two friends emerged from their group interview (10 people in room at once), the first comment I got to my question of "how'd it go?"  was "every single girl in there was bisexual."

Every interviewee was asked at the beginning of the interview to state their name and where they were from. My friend said "hey, I'm James, I'm from Boston." The girl next to him said "I'm so-and-so, and I'm bisexual." Which last time I checked, is at best a very loose interpretation of "my location of birth/origin."

Let me first say that yes, it is possible that all six of those girls are bisexual. If so, awesome! I'm glad they all feel comfortable enough to embrace their sexuality so openly. I am not, however, thrilled that they are using it as a diversity gimick to get on a reality show. Look at me! I kiss boys AND girls, and I promise I'll do it on the show for all of America to see!

What I dislike even more is the thought that even one of those girls was lying about being bisexual in order to better fit with what they thought the casting directors of The Real World Season 24 were looking for. As a bisexual women myself, I still struggle with openness and identity. And I struggle with people taking my sexuality seriously. If even one of those girls girls was using bisexuality as an attention-grabbing gimick, it undermines the very real struggles of people all over the world who identify as bisexual.

I am very very in favor of exploring your sexuality, and that includes blurring the lines and cutting your own path. I think sexuality can be flexible, and I can definitely believe that lots more people would enjoy making out or being sexual with both genders if they were more open to it. But that also means we all need to be willing to be who we are, not try to be something we're not just to be accepted or liked. Gay men and women shouldn't have to pretend to be straight; straight men and women shouldn't have to pretend to be bisexual to be considered "cool" and "edgy."

What should be cool and edgy is to be comfortable with yourself, and to embrace whatever form your sexuality takes because it's a part of you, not because it makes you sexy or because it'll get you attention. But apparently that's not very "real."

Hello, I am new to the Feministing community but I would love to get some opinions on this.

Strip clubs!

How do you all feel about them?

I personally am tired of hearing "boys will be boys" or it's "tradition" (when it comes to the bachelor parties). Is it so wrong that I do not want the person I am with to partake in this activity? What is worse is when I am told I am being unreasonable and will never find someone being so "prudish and strict".

In my opinion, I consider it almost like cheating because I find it disrespectful and distasteful. I know others will disagree and I do not mean to offend any others.

Ironically after just clicking out of this website to check out some new gadgets on this other website (yah, I'm a dork), I found something very surprising...

Yes, at first glance I thought it was some cliche' sexist hipster t-shirt for ignorant women to wear thinking they are so clever and just "referencing Pavement's sunny side up" (I don't even know what that is, but it was on the website). But it's a GUY's shirt. Now, the gadget website had a lot of eye rolling in the comments to my joy. But is this t-shirt unknowingly doing something other then humoring the immature?

My opinion, which is not meant to be commented on by the trolls on this site cause I don't care... is that it could be used in some kind of presentation for the male dominiance in the music industry? I have to go, so I was rushed while writing this, but what do you think about it? Just some dumb shirt? Or something that could be turned into something interesting?

via Gizmodo via Cool Hunting (by the way, it was created by a woman cause she loveedddddd the fried eggs Pavement T-shirt and Notorious BIG....yup.)

Yah. I'm talking about the 'New York Times Bestseller' Marilyn Manson's Long Road Out of Hell

Just to give a quick pretext, I am also reading other biographies such as Marie-Therese Bourbon and Marie Antoinette. I found this little piece of work, and was troubled. I HATE, I mean HATE, this guy. But, I wanted to have a real reason other then reading that he cheated on the beautiful (yet still coco) Dita Von Teese. I wanted to know, what is the real guy behind the silly goth kid make-up?

Here's my review.

In all the Kanye West/Taylor Swift kerfuffle, we seem to have let Russell Brand's disgusting jokes slide. In the beginning of the show, Brand addressed the rumors about Lady Gaga's sex. He said that the rumors were sexist, because people assumed that a woman with such a strong and confident expression of sexuality must really be a man. What great insight, right? That all went to crap when he ended that bit with this,

And if I pull her leotard to one side and find something a little extra there, I will just make it stiff and hang my hat on it.

He knows the rumors aren't true and, more importantly, totally sexist. But then he reignites the rumor by implying that maybe the rumors are true after all. Either put the rumors to bed, or don't talk about them at all. Don't send mixed messages like that. If that wasn't enough, he later made another really offensive "joke." This was directed at Megan Fox of Transformers fame: 

"She has admitted she is a little bit cuckoo upstairs and I have trained in psychiatry. So, Megan, if you do have a little dizzy spell, love, I could probably slip you a little pill. You can go and have a lie down in my dressing room. You might get some crazy dreams about being visited by a scarecrow, a perfumed weirdo leaning over you. But let me tell you, that's a common side-effect. Megan, take your medicine."

Uh, did he just say that he was going to slip Megan Fox a roofie and rape her? Yes, he did. This story isn't getting much play at all, which goes to show how accepting people are about rape. 

We really can't let things like this slide. I don't think a lot of feminists even watch the VMAs, because award shows like this are a cesspool of sexist and other highly offensive talk. But that's precisely why we should be watching these shows. We have to be on the lookout for offensive language. Shielding ourselves from it only helps us; it doesn't bring us any closer to exposing it and calling people out on it.

Kanye West, otherwise known as the music industry's biggest douchebag (okay maybe not biggest, but he's gaining momentum), decided to make the VMAs all about himself last night...again. Now, I didn't watch the show, but this morning it's all anyone is talking about. Apparently Mr. West decided that Taylor Swift (who won for Best Female Video) was not worthy of her award. Right in the middle of her acceptance speech her jumped up on stage, grabbed the mic from her hands and said that Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.

Now, this morning I've read a few articles about this because the incident really irritates me. I can just imagine how annoyed and upset I'd feel if I were Ms. Swift. This was the first VMA she'd ever won. It was a big deal. And he just ruined her moment and basically said she didn't deserve it. I mean, it's fine if you have your opinions, but to interrupt your acceptance speech? That's low.

But I came across this one article that gave me pause. The language the writer, Billy Johnson, Jr., used in part of his article was steeped in paternalism that made me uncomfortable:

"Not only was Kanye's approach disrespectful, it was especially disrespectful because it was directed towards a woman--a teenage girl, actually. Taylor won't turn 20 until December. I can only imagine how her father feels. I'm sure he would like to have a talk to Kanye. I'm not related to her, and I'd like to have a talk with him."

Obviously what Mr. West did was disrespectful, but apparently the author finds it more disrespectful because it was done to a woman. Then he goes on to talk about how she's really just a young girl (a "teenage girl," not just a teenager) and "imagine how her father feels." Why just her father? Why not both her parents? I guess her father is the only one that's really supposed to protect her right? I mean, what's her little old mother to do? But why are her parents supposed to protect her anyway? She's 19 years old and a successful artist. When I read about this disrespectful occurrence (and disrespectful NOT because she's a woman) I wasn't thinking "oh, I feel so bad for her family," I was thinking "oh, I feel so bad for her," because she's the one slighted here. I was angry for her.

No matter what you feel about Taylor Swift's music or Beyonce's (or Kanye's for that matter), what Kanye West did was disrespectful and it wasn't because Taylor Swift is a little girl that needs to be protected by her daddy. It was disrespectful because she is an artist who won an award from the industry and deserves respect, especially while in the middle of her acceptance speech.

Baju Banton is being banned in many cities for their homophobic lyrics, but not yet in Columbus, OH.  Banton himself served ten years in prison for beating six gay men.  Banton's lyrics call for gay men to be killed with Uzis and to be burned to death.  

More here and here.

Has anybody else seen the trailer for this new movie, Jennifer's Body, coming out?

It really really annoys me but I wanted to hear what you all thought of it. Here's the plot taken off of imdb.com for those who don't know: A newly possessed cheerleader turns into a killer who specializes in offing her male classmates. Can her best friend put an end to the horror?

It's like they had a checklist of what horror-movie stereotypes they needed to trot out for this trailer:
-Intertwined sex and violence? Check.
-Highly sexualized villainess? Check.
-Semi-lesbian relationship with friend? Check.
-And let's not forget random unnecessary shots of Megan Fox half-naked or removing clothing...Check!
That'll get the straight male movie-goers' butts in the seats! After all, those are the only people that go to movies anymore.

Hi, My name is Debi and this is my first blog post. I am a pretty avid gamer, who gets very frustrated with how women are portrayed in games, as well as the meme that women don't game.

I just saw this video called Do You Want to Date my Avatar? on iTunes and while I thought it was funny, I also thought it very sexist because I wasn't sure whether to take it seriously or not.

Now that I started watching the webisodes of the guild I realize, it is a very funny satire of these misogynistic attitudes.

Emotional/Psychological Abuse is an important matter that is hardly acknowledged, if not normalized. Most people ignore abuse that has no sign of physical wounds. We are going to be doing a presentation about this at my university. We will be discussing the signs of an emotionally abusive relationship and the different types of emotional abuse. Also, we want to show how "normal" it is in our society. I am looking to compose a list of examples of songs, movies, and other things in pop culture that normalize emotional abuse.

Two songs that I immediately think of are: 1. Hot and Cold by Katy Perry (basically every word of the song is about this, and the video is equally disturbing)

Let me know of others! For some reason I am having trouble thinking of some, but I know there are there are WAY TOO MANY songs, movies, TV shows etc that normalize this.

by Georgia Kral

from On The Issues Magazine

Longtime gamer Michael Duff sits at his computer regularly to play "World of Warcraft," the most popular online role-playing game with 11.5 million monthly subscribers. In a Medieval-looking fantasy world of dwarves, gnomes, humans and other assorted characters, players select an online persona to engage in quests for the land with other players who are online at the same time.

In this world, Duff decided to make his character a woman. “I appreciate the idea of a strong, capable female character doing action hero stuff. It’s fun and ironic when the tiny female character is shown tossing around thugs twice her size. And yeah, it’s kind of sexy, too,” Duff said in an email.

How many online gamers pose as a character of the opposite sex isn’t known, but studies suggest that many virtual players freely blur gender lines. At issue is not only gender- identity experimentation, but the gendered exercise of power, engrained visual stereotypes and a male-female divide inside the gaming world.

There are few repercussions for taking on a new role in the gaming environment, said Fran Stewart, a feminist gamer and game-developer. “You’re allowed to experiment with what it’s like to be someone else,” says Stewart.

Did anyone else catch the roast of Joan Rivers? I'm usually prepared for some of the most tasteless jokes out there, but I did NOT prepare enough. In my opinion, the best/smartest comedians don't need to resort to easy/cheap laughs, but every year the roasts get worst and worst. It has almost become the vulgarity Olympics.

The line of jokes I felt most strongly against were the comments made by Gilbert Gottfried, Joan Rivers, and Bob Garrett regarding Howard Stern host Robin Quivers. Garrett came out with a slew of racist jokes, all in poor taste. And apparently, Robin has spoken very openly about being molested by her father as a child. Rivers and Gottfried decided to exploit that situation.

It was vile, but she laughed at them. I'm not sure if she really was ok with the jokes, or if it was a front in order to avoid looking like a poor sport. The entire premise of a roast is to offend and insult. And I know some might just say I need to lighten up, but I can't nor do I think I should have to. Garrett is supposed to be a household name, a familiar face. What a great image to put out there, even if was just in "good fun". I've noticed a lot of "rape jokes" posts lately. If those in the public eye can make them without visible repercussions, then of course they are going to filter their way to more common usage.

And maybe it's just me, but I don't EVER find molestation "jokes" funny in any sense.

At what point can we STOP laughing, and say they've gone too far?

Cross posted at rcnjwc.blogspot.com

The subject of Lady Gaga has come up a few times on this site. I personally enjoy her music for its strong female voice and her sex positive references. But I often struggle with whether or not I really enjoy her as a person at all. The beginning of the interview really had me jiving with of what she was saying, but towards the end Gaga is asked about feminism. She replies by stating that she is not a feminist because she hails men, supports/enjoys male culture... etc

It is really unfortunate that someone who advocates women controlling their sexuality to be so misinformed of the basic definition of feminism. But instead she marinates it in it cultural stereotypes. 

I had been debating back and forth whether or not to watch this show. Yesterday Samhita made a great post that highlighted many of the concerns I was having regarding this show. I do not usually watch "The Bachelor" type of reality shows, but I was interested to see how "More to Love" would portray overweight people, especially women. And also I felt that by giving the show more viewers it would be telling the executives at the networks that America is ready to watch television which star women over a size 4. I sure as hell am. Anyway, last night I sat down to watch the premiere and I thought I'd just share some random thoughts that passed through my head as I did.

- These women were all beautiful and seemed really sweet and nice...but according to the previews of course that changes (I mean, this is a reality tv show people).

- Each time a woman had her one-on-one with the camera it stated her height and weight. Why? We know this show is about overweight people finding love. Do we really need to know their exact weight every time we see them on screen? Is this going to continue throughout the whole season? Not a fan of this.

- Are they showing the bachelor guy's height and weight each time he has a one-on-one? No? But I thought he was overweight too...

- All of the insecurities these women related to the camera I could totally understand. I am not overweight anymore, but I used to be, and it was very easy to relate to the stuff they were saying. And even now when I'm technically thin I can relate to a lot of their feelings about just wanting to find love and thinking they're a great person and why hasn't someone just seen that in them yet? But I guess that's what most women on reality shows say, right? Everyone just wants to know why someone hasn't realized how great they are yet, right? I don't know because I never watch these kinds of shows. But it was touching.

- However, I hope they move away from these women just crying all the time (there was a lot of crying in the premiere) and show them loving themselves for who they are inside and out.

- Umm...I'm sure that most reality dating shows have this same problem but...I didn't see one single black woman on this show! Really?!?!

So those were just some of the thoughts that rolled around in my head while watching. I tried to just post my thoughts relating to the representation of overweight women and not reality dating show clichés and whatnot in general (because I could go on and on about that stuff as well). I'm not sure what I think of the show as a whole yet. I'm going to try and keep watching and figure it out, hoping to see a more nuanced portrait of the women on this show, hoping it doesn't just turn into something horrible like what everyone on IMDb.com is hoping for (the comments there are horrible, don't go!), hoping for fat acceptance.

Did any of you see the premiere? Have any thoughts to share as well?

I was having a drink with a recently separated friend recently.

A few drinks in, he took a couple of minutes out to check his Facebook for new messages.  What appeared on the page made us both recoil.

The offending part of the page was an advert for a 'flirt and date' website.  (I have tried time and again to tell him that he should download Firefox & Adblock Plus, but, until now, it's been like banging my head against a brick wall....).

My friend is now listed as single....so, he gets served these crap dating ads all the time.

It has been covered on Feministing how shite these ads are, but, this time there was one major difference.

The picture that accompanied the advert was the profile picure of the daughter of one of our mutual friends.  (The daughter is in both our friends list - we are both a friend of the family).

I spoke to her as soon as I could - she had no knowledge that her picture was being used in this advertisment.

Doing some digging, it appears that Facebook have allowed advertisers to use it's members profile pictures in adverts.

While the picture is not pornographic by any stretch of the imagination, it does worry me that the fact that it appears in an advert of this nature will, in some, neanderthal (for want of a better word), eyes see her as 'easy' or 'available'.

I am seriously worried that as a result, she may be more prone to sexual assault.

I believe that in general terms, a profile picture in an adert is a gross violation of privacy if without the users knowledge (of course, if someone is ASKED about it and then CONSENTED to it, then that's fine, but, this instance makes it MUCH worse...

If you wish to complain about this, send an email to : abuse@facebook.com

I’m not sure if anyone else has noticed but some surfing magazines are truly appalling.  I found this advertisement, if you would even call it that, in Transworld Surf Magazine. 

It’s for the Reed Surf Sandals Company and their Miss Reef Bikini Contest. (These are the online versions but the magazine featured these on a double sided pull-out poster)  Their motto: “Celebration 25 years of Taking the Focus off our Team Riders.”  Yeah…but only by objectifying women in one the most overtly dehumanizing campaigns I’ve ever seen.  One side features males with their faces showing, their names in each box, or in some amazing surfing stunt. On the other side is a series of faceless women doing, well you know, what they do best, wearing thong bikinis while playing in the sand. The magazine wants its audience to judge women solely on their “bottoms.”  

 It’s not just this ad either.  How often do surf videos feature the surfing parties?  They usually consist of “dudes” catching some waves during the day and then catching some “chicks” later that night.  Very rarely, with the exception of the end of the movie Blue Crush, do you see female surfers being taken seriously. Because women could never hope to rise to the ranks of men, right? So just stand their so those men have something to look at after a long, hard day of surfing. Great message.      

What Can You Do?

Send your thoughts or concerns to the magazine's advertisement manager or contact the Reef Company directly.

Yesterday, a terrible anti-choice letter to the editor was published in our local newspaper. Because I work for Planned Parenthood, we quickly emailed supporters asking them to respond to the letter. We also posted it on our Planned Parenthood Facebook page. After it was posted, I copied the link to my personal profile, hoping that more people would see it and respond to the letter.

I received a message from a friend from college who found my status "offensive." She said that she doesn't put her views on her Facebook profile because she doesn't want to offend anyone, and my doing so offended her.

My initial reaction was to think that we have the choice to read or not read whatever we want, as well as to post or not post whatever we like. But it bothered me, and it kept bothering me all of last night.

There are people I am "friends" with on Facebook who probably do find my pro-choice views offensive - old acquaintances from college, members of my boyfriend's family. The most important people in my life either share my views, or at least try to understand where I come from. Should I care if these people might find what I post offensive? And why is it bothering me so much??

I am torn between feeling like I should be able to use my personal social media sites however I want to, but also realizing that this may cause discomfort for some people (and then ultimately for me at family holidays!). Has anyone else dealt with this? What do you post on your sites? How do you deal with acquaintances who don't share your views?

I know a few male sex workers who see only women, and they have been contacted by media recently to give opinions on the new HBO show, Hung, about a man who decides to become an escort. More and more male escorts are appearing, and there is more and more media attentionbeing paid to this segment of the market.

A friend and I were having a discussion about the implications for the sex workers rights movement, and we both imagined that the movement in general may garner more support the more women take advantages of services on offer for them from men. I am interested to know what this community thinks.

Here is an interesting (very PG) video ad for an agency in LA called Papau:

Orginally posted at http://nyaf.blogspot.com/

Has anyone else been keeping up with The Real World this season?  It's only three episodes in and already it's wearing thin on my feminist nerves.  There is just SO much to pick apart this season, but what I have found the most interesting is the relationship between the men and women of the house.  Just in case you haven't been keeping up, there are four self-identified women and four self-identified men.  Three women have been very close in the house while the fourth,Jonna, has bonded more with the men.  This, by her own definition, is because she is not a crazy bitch like the rest of the girls in the house.  

The men all seem to agree with her analysis of the situation.  One cast member in particular, Joey, is extremely vocal about his dislike for "stupid girls."  After his blow out with the three girls in the second episode, his anti-woman persona rang loud.  

Now there is a very interesting situation going on where two women out of the three are trying to distance themselves from the third, Ayiiia. I find it very interesting how the two women are buying into the "stupid girl" label that the men have given them.  It seems like they are now just trying to prove to the men that they are less "girl-like" than Ayiiia.  

Basically it comes down to the group of men being the "default." The sane and normal ones trying to stay above those "crazy girls."

As I watch the show, I think to myself that none of this happens in real life.  We shouldn't buy into gender stereotypes because personalities are not determined by anatomy or gender identity.  Sometimes personalities clash.  There are bound to be instigators in a new roommate situation, but that doesn't mean it's always going to be a woman. There are 3 types of agitators in the Real World.  The "bitchy" woman, the caddy gay man, or the ultra-aggressive alpha male.  These three archetypes surface in almost every season and it's incredibly irritating. 

Of course I think this, but the majority of Real World watchers probably don't.  Many just buy into the stereotypes...it's sad.

Hey Real World...get real.

Katie Couric has a fan. He is gay. And he has a radio show.

So his co-workers arranged for Couric to call in to speak to him while he was on the air. And that's when she said the following:

I am confused about this statement for two reasons. For one, Katie Couric is FAMOUS. She is a household name. And yet she is desperate for fans? And secondly, this statement seems to imply that she wants fans of the straight and narrow persuasion - in terms of anatomy, sexuality and gender identity - but is willing to take fans that blur those lines, even though they're less desirable, because she's that desperate.

Classy.

I've been commenting on feministing for a while now, but this will be my first post. So, officially, hello out there!

I am a Jon and Kate Plus 8 watcher. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure for me, I have to admit. I get a kick out of seeing how cute the kids are and how amazing their family dynamic really is. Hey, family vacation were hard enough in my family growing up with only me and my brother to worry about, I cant imagine trying that with eight!

Now many of you out there may have realized that the rather media famous couple has been going through very hard times and has very recently filed for a divorce. While divorce is a very common occurrence in marriages in today's society, I couldn't help but notice the media coverage of it all and the way that people have been talking about their marital problems.

It seems to have come down to taking sides. Are you on Jon's side, or Kate's?

While I wouldn't personally be overly bothered by that fact, I have been taking sharp notice to the fact that it is Kate who is being blamed for their marital problems. On blogs and online surveys, Kate is being held at fault and words like 'bitch' and 'whore' are being thrown around.

While Jon has been accused of having an affair with another woman, Kate is being blamed for their problems and divorce because she 'yells alot'.  

So, for anyone who watches the show or has taken any notice to the media bashing of Kate, any opinions of the matter?

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I stumbled upon Andrew Klaven's (from Pajamas Media) review of The Hangover.  His comments on traditional gender roles and how it has changed today got my blood boiling:

A lot of critics get all huffy about this depiction of the sexes - read the silly little fellow who wrote the review in the New York Times by way of example.  The standard line seems to be to blame it all on childish filmmakers pandering to adolescent audiences.  But you know what?  I suspect a lot of it is simple realism.  More and more often I meet young guys just like this:  overgrown kids who are their grim wives’ poodles.  They sheepishly talk about getting a “pink pass,” or a “kitchen pass,” before they can leave the house.  They can’t do this or that because their wives don’t like it.  They “share” household and child-rearing tasks equally - which isn’t really equal at all because they don’t care about a clean house or a well-reared child anywhere near as much as their wives do.  In short, each one seems set to spend his life taking orders from a perpetually dissatisfied Mrs. who sounds to me - forgive me but just speaking in all honesty - like a bloody shrike.  Who can blame these poor shnooks if they go out and get drunk or laid or just plain divorced?

But he doesn't stop there.  He goes on to say that "marriage is a large sacrifice for a man" because he "gives up his right to sleep with a variety of partners, which is as basic an urge in men as having children is in women".

Somehow he thinks that by adding that he has been happily married for 30 years, his comments are excusable. Instead he minimizes a woman's role to basically cleaning, cooking, and child bearing.  How typical.

I came across this thread today over an obviously sexist Burger King ad and was reminded of the depths of anti-feminist sentiment still present today.  The comments ironically deny the existence/importance of sexism while highlighting the attitudes and obstacles feminists struggle against.  Eek.  Photo here

Hello, I’m a relatively new, yet avid reader of Feministing, and a self-proclaimed “baby feminist.”  Over the past few months I’ve learned so much from this website and all the contributors.  I guess it was only a matter of time before I worked up the courage to contribute something myself.  Bear with me because this is a bit lengthy. 

Last week I saw the box-office hit “The Hangover.”  I’d heard nothing but praise for the movie – that it was hilarious and the perfect summer film.  So on a lazy Sunday I finally decided to see the movie that everyone was talking about.  From the beginning, I enjoyed a few laughs here and there with the other movie go-ers.  That is until, the humor evaporated for me in one scene.  But I’m getting a little bit ahead of myself here with this statement.  First I’ll explain the concept of the movie, for those who have not seen it. 

The premise of the “The Hangover” is that a group of four men go to Las Vegas to celebrate a blow out bachelor’s party for one of their friends. They begin their night by toasting on the rooftop of their hotel and downing a shot of Jaeger before setting out on an epic celebration of the single life.  The next scene cuts to the morning after when an intense hangover sets in and three friends realize that the fourth - and groom - is missing.  The hilarity ensues as they progressively try to piece together the activities from the night before with no actual memory of the night’s events.  There are bruises, a missing tooth, a tiger, a chapel marriage, theft and much more, which just adds to the question, “What the hell happened last night?”  That must be some hangover…

But there was a small twist in the story to explain that “the hangover” and the night’s activities were not alcohol-induced, but actually the product of being drugged. 

I wanted to reach out to the forum and ask, is anyone else out there writing/reading about gender and popular music?

I write a blog myself, called Rock and the Single Girl .  I try to discuss issues around women in punk and hardcore, I try to talk up women in good bands (and the guys who support and work with them).

I posted this a little while ago: Feminists We're Calling You, Please Report to the Internets. And there I ask exactly what I'm asking here: what suggestions or recommendations do you all have for good lady and possibly feminist music critics? 

Thanks so much in advance for your help, everyone!

You can file this under mostly irrelevant but maybe amusing.

Seeking to re-brand in order to distance itself from controversy and diversify in a tough economy, notorious private military company Blackwater Worldwide has abandoned all iterations of its butch but amateurish bear paw/cross hair logo in favor of something a little sleeker . 

Spokesperson Tyrrell explains, ""We've taken the company to a place where it is no longer accurately described as Blackwater," and accordingly, been re-named "Xe," pronounced "Zee."

The company formally known as Blackwater did not attatch any particular meaning to Xe, and are probably unaware of it's use as a gender-neutral pronoun.  I imagine it was a happy accident.

More information on Xe (the pronoun)

More inforation on Xe (the company)

Crossposted at citizengirl.org

Ugh, so some of you might be aware of the latest Sarah Palin publicity ploy.  She went to NYC to get a little face time and do some interviews and brought some family with her.  David Letterman catches wind of it and cracks a bunch of jokes about her.  Including a joke about a baseball player and notorious womanizer getting Palin's daughter pregnant.

Oops:  the daughter that came to NYC was the 14 year-old and not the 18 year-old.

So there's been all sorts of outcry from the Palin camp.  Accusations of joking about rape have been repeatedly made and a few snide comments about how Letterman is just trying to ride on Palin's coat tails. Letterman made a serious apology, stressing that if he knew that it was the minor daughter, then he would have never cracked that joke.

Ok, so here's the part that I think we ought to discuss.

Letterman's explanation that he was referring to her 18-year-old daughter, Bristol, instead of her 14-year-old daughter, Willow, who accompanied her recently to New York, was met with derision by the governor. She called the remarks a "very convenient excuse" that took him a couple of days to present. "It was a degrading comment about a young woman. I would hope that people really start rising up and deciding it's not acceptable. No wonder young girls especially have such low self-esteem in America when we think it's funny for a so-called comedian to get away with being able to make such a remark as he did and to think that that's acceptable, " Palin said.

My knee-jerk reflex is to hate on the Palins and support Dave.  Because I think its fairly obvious that the joke was on Bristol.  But when I think about it, she's still right and its a sexist joke.

I'm just a junior feminist, so its still tough for me to pull apart "respecting women" into feminist and anti-feminist components.  And please don't interpret this as condoning or supporting her politics.  But maybe we should acknowledge that we agree sometimes, while pointing out the distinct differences in the source of our agreement...

I don't know.  Anyone want to help me parse this one out?

You may or may not know about the upcoming movie District 9. It's a side note, don't worry if you don't. You may also know of Comic-Con, an annual comic book convention. Again, sort of a side note.

IGN recently opened a contest centering around the movie, and the winner recieves a trip for two to Comic-Con, to meet the cast and crew of the movie. Cool, yes? Well, except for the part where you have to have a penis to win.

That's right. Only males can enter.

WHAT? My mind is blown. Yes, we're talking about a website with a mostly male readership, but SERIOUSLY?

I'm not sure how to take action against this. If anyone has ideas on how to send the message that this is unacceptable, I'm ready to hear them.

So, i work at the gigantic green and white coffee company on every corner and i love it. but sometimes, most days, most hours, people are total total assholes to us. What's shocking is that the things they say are so unbelievably beyond rude. They transcend normal low-level rudeness. These people say things to me that are so rude if i weren't wearing an apron and we were just talking i'd sever the friendship then and there.  Cases in point:

You all know about the Fling Chocolate campaign, the 85 calorie finger of chocolate release by the Mars Company that is currently sold only in California and online. You can check out the television commercial here .

After checking out the website and advertising, I feel like I’ve learned some important things about myself, as a woman. I’ve saved you all time and angst and have listed the top 5 lessons below – beware, I’m fraught with sarcasm.

1. Sex and Chocolate are like the same thing! Women go crazy for chocolate and they go even more crazy for “healthier” versions of chocolate. We love it so much that it’s pretty much a substitution for sex – does it seem like we’re having a sexual escapade with a guy in a dressing room? No! We’re eating chocolate. I think Sarah Haskins has made this point far better than I ever could.

2. Eating regular chocolate should make me feel like I had an affair! When you end up “in bed” with chocolate, you risk gaining weight or getting fat. That should make you feel like you cheated on your partner which means you should be feeling guilty and horrible about it. That’s why a fling is great! It’s less guilt than a typical affair and we can relate to that because we’re flippant and looking for ways to give into our desire without compromising our morals/bodies. After all, we should be naughty but not too naughty. Good thing fling chocolate can help us keep our diet – and values – in check.

3. The only time I can refer to my sexuality openly is when I'm actually talking about something else. Using coded language that is usually considered taboo with regards to women’s sexuality is perfectly acceptable when you’re describing chocolate. That’s how we can feel like we’re going outside of our puritan values without actually disrupting or challenging those values .

4. I love shiny pink things. I don’t know about you ladies, but as soon as I see a shiny pink wrapper, I’m sold ! It’s still in small discreet packaging, just like tampons and “womanly subjects” are supposed to be, so it won’t embarrass you to *gasp* eat it in public!

5. I'm unable to talk about my health and health food alternatives unless they’re delivered through sexual innuendos. With sexual innuendos available to tell me how to live, what could I possibly want safe, honest and accurate information for? I’d rather have my nutritonal information and health conscious alternatives wrapped in a shimmery cloak of guilt-free sexiness.

Hello, Feministing readers! This is my very first post on the community blog, and I'm very excited about it.

What actually inspired me to write this blog was a debate that took place on the comment thread to another post--a post about a married woman taking sexy pictures for a men's magazine. The comments thread quickly turned into a debate about the merits of such provocative photographs--whether it's empowering or degrading.

It might be a somewhat long and confusing train of thought, but this discussion eventually reminded me of an essay that we read in my Women & Folklore class this past semester.

The essay was called "Transgressing the Taboo: A Chicana's Voice in the Mariachi World" by Leonor Xochitl Perez. I'm not exactly sure how recent it is, but it was a great, really interesting essay about Perez's own personal experience performing Mariachi.

Perez talks about the traditional roles for a good Chicana when she was a young woman, which were either to be a mother, a nun, or a prostitute. There were no other options. And she discusses at length how Mariachi music offered her a way to get outside that and carve out her own path.

When Perez first began performing mariachi, it was an almost entirely male-dominated form of expression. It was not appropriate for a woman, especially, a young woman to participate, and so she was not taken seriously.

Now, however, there are all-female mariachi groups that have gained considerable popularity. But Perez points out that these all-female groups are still directed by men, and there are some highly significant differences between female and male mariachis. The all-female groups typically wear pastel-colored outfits, in pale pinks, blues, or yellows, instead of the traditional black suit. They also often perform popular music, like Celine Dion songs and things of that nature, and not strictly traditional mariachi songs. In mixed groups, with both male and female performers, the women usually only play the smaller instruments, like the violin. They typically don't play the larger instruments like the guitarron, because this would cover the player's body, and they usually do not play the trumpet because it distorts the face.

I liked the article because it really made me think. The questions it seems to pose is whether or not these female mariachis are achieving something. Yes, they are still under the direction of men, and still playing to feminine stereotypes, but they are also breaking down some barriers in participating in a form of expression that women were previously barred from.

In my class, we also discussed the similarities between the female mariachis and women in the hip-hop community. We talked about how more and more women are breaking into those traditionall male forms of expression like rapping and breakdancing. We also talked about how, oftentimes, those women play to the same feminine stereotypes that are part of the problem in that community. So is it a good thing that they're gaining access to this mode of expression? Or does the fact that they might be reinforcing stereotypes counterbalance that?

I personally don't really know the answer. Part of why I enjoyed that essay so much is that it's definitely given me a lot to think about. I just wanted to see if anyone else has thoughts on the subject, because I'd love to hear some other opinions!

Chocolate giant Mars, Inc. has recently launched a new chocolate bar specifically marketed to women.  "Fling" bars have less than 85 calories and come in bright pink packaging.  According to the product website, Fling is meant to "celebrate the female spirit."  You may be wondering exactly what the  "female spirit" entails.  Well, according to Mars, they are referring to that "unapologetically feminine playful, naughty, flirtatious, and alluring nature that brings shimmer into the world."  The website goes on to say: "At under 85 calories per finger, it's slim, but not skinny . Indulgent but not greedy. Naughty but nice."  The ad campaign is unabashedly over-sexualized and offensive -- playing to the lowest common denominator of gender stereotypes as well as contributing to harmful body images.  NPR has an interesting piece on the advertising here.

In addition to the upsetting sexist assumptions on which the ad campaign is based, the ads also serve to mask the company's purchasing policies which are indeed quite "greedy" and "naughty."  So who are the people who grow the main ingredient in Fling chocolate and do they get to experience the same pleasure promised to women who consume Mars chocolate here in the US?

For many years, there has been an ongoing problem of trafficked and child labor on cocoa farms in West Africa that supply for major chocolate companies like Mars.  Since 2001, people all around the world have been calling for Mars and other companies like Hershey and Nestle to support Fair Trade and stop exploiting cocoa farmers in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana.  One of the major reasons why labor rights are not protected on cocoa farms is that farmers do not receive a fair price for cocoa beans, forcing them to put kids to work and cut back on labor costs.  Mars and other companies have been funding various programs in West Africa for years without much of an improvement on the ground (check out the International Labor Rights Forum's update report from last year for more).  Part of the problem is that these companies never acknowledge how their purchasing policies specifically result in labor rights abuses and trap cocoa farmers in an ongoing cycle of poverty -- far from the "indulgent" lifestyle embodied by the Fling bar.  Mars recently made some new sustainability commitments, but they are not as strong as they need to be.

Tucker Max came to speak at my university on Monday.

Now, I understand that in America, people have free speech. But is it really appropriate to use the student activity fee - some of MY money, some of my fellow feminists' money, to pay for him to "entertain" us? I daresay that if someone had made remarks about a race similar to Max's comments about gender, the university would have had a problem with that. And not invited that speaker to come to campus. So why is it ok when these comments are about gender? Oh, they don't endorse his views, of course. But how does that help me when someone is paid to come to my campus who has clearly made such misogynistic remarks?

To be fair, I did not attend the speech or protest, due to a work conflict. I heard over and over that Max gave an inspirational speech. If only those silly protesters would've stayed to listen...

Even if he had valid points, how many other celebrities could've come to say the same things with less or no misogyny?

YouTube clips.

by Margot Mifflin

from On The Issues Magazine

How did it happen? One day I was a twentysomething heaping scorn on Tipper Gore and her campaign against explicit lyrics in pop music, and the next, 20 years later, I am Tipper Gore, driving my 12 year old home from school, listening to Lil Wayne singing “Lick it like a lollipop ,” watching my daughter mouth the words “Let me get it juicy for you,” and wondering how it came to this on commercial radio.

The year 2008 launched the era of oral sex—for men at least—in pop music. In You Can Have Whatever You Want , T.I. crows, “Brain so good (good), swore you went to college,” and he isn't talking about smarts; “brain” is slang for head. Saving Abel sings “I'm so addicted to/all the things you do/ when you're going down on me/ in between the sheets" in Addicted . And in Nickelback’s Something in Your Mouth , Chad Kroeger declares, "you're so much cooler when you never pull it out, you look so much cuter with something in your mouth."

But Lollipop, which just won a Grammy, is a little different. If my kid were older, I might thank Lil Wayne. His five minute ode to oral sex offers something you don’t see much in the endless stream of rappers bowing under the weight of their Sisyphean masculinity: a lyric describing a man satisfying a woman, and enjoying it. I quote: “That pussy in my Mouth/had me lost for words.” There’s no poetry to it, but it does deliver a rare gift. At a time when sex is everywhere in pop culture, female pleasure is nowhere, and for a second, he revels in one way it happens: “The middle of the bed (Yeah)/Givin’gettin’ head (Huh).” Somewhere, some woman taught Wayne what most entertainment and media people have yet to learn or don’t care to know: only 30 percent of women can achieve orgasm through penetration alone. How many commercial films, for example, do we have to watch in which women are shown in the throes of rapture without so much as a hand job?

I posted this yesterday on my blog, and the flurry of comments and email responses has been kind of engaging. I'd be interested to hear what others think.
___________________________________

I have to admit I'm feeling a bit confused by all the hubbub surrounding the allegedly racy pics of anti-gay-marriage spokesperson and current Miss California Carrie Prejean. I guess there are a number of issues at play here:

1) It's unclear to me why women like this are expected to parade around in teeny tiny bikinis on stage during pageants, but posing in a bikini bottom with no top is thought to be morally unacceptable. Seriously? What's the real difference between being photographed in a bikini and being photographed topless? That (maybe) 4 square inches of fabric contained in her bikini top is really that important? Like you can't already see every feature of her body when she's strutting around on stage in a bikini? Seems like a distinction without a difference to me.

2) We're told that according to pageant rules, Miss California could lose her crown for being "photographed in a state of partial or total nudity," which is deeply ironic, given the fact that she earned her crown by being photographed in a state of partial or total nudity. Perplexing.

3) And I don't get this whole "I'm a Christian and they're persecuting me because of it" shtick. I guess the story goes like this: Good conservative Christians oppose same-sex marriage on the basis of biblical teachings; I'm a good conservative Christian so I oppose same-sex marriage; My oppressors don't like my view on same-sex marriage, so they're trying to call my Christian credentials into question." The problem with this is that the conservative Christians I know believe it's immoral and "worldly" for a woman to parade around on stage in a bikini. Good Christian girls are demure and modest. They wear simple one-piece suits when swimming, and only when swimming. They are not supposed to flaunt their bodies or their sexuality. They're not supposed to get plastic surgery in order to conform to the beauty standards of the world, as their bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. And in this worldview, we as a culture have a responsibility not to sexualize girls and women, but to value them for the creatures that God made them to be: self-sacrificing helpmeet, mother, cook, maid...

None of this means that publishing the photos, or saying a lot of things that have been said about her, is appropriate either. It's just that this is all really confusing to me. And I don't think it's just me. I think there are deep and pervasive contradictions involved here that tend to be very prevalent in our culture.

Let's talk about this June Vanity Fair issue with Jessica Simpson.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/06/jessica-simpson200906

I generally don't pay attention to Vanity Fair, but there's this excellent blog post on Entertainment Weekly, which gets things right surprisingly often, about it.

http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/05/jessica-simpson.html

I decided to go read the article myself, and everything that's mentioned in the post regarding weight is pretty much spot-on. It's worse than he says, too. Whether subconsciously on purpose, Cohen sure likes to use his junk-food metaphors when describing Simpson - she's like Lucille Ball in the candy factory; she's McDonald's to Britney Spears' Burger King and Christina Aguilera's Hardee's. Hey Rich, I see what you did there. 

As the EW post mentions, the article really isn't about her weight - although Rich Cohen admits himself that he mentally appended that question to everything in his interview. Why? Because she's skinny again! Yay! All is well with the world and now we can talk about her fall from good Christian girl grace to the world of pop and of sex. Or so the narrative goes.

The maddening thing about this article is that it gets so close to getting things right. But instead of this being a metaphor where you're climbing a cliff and you're just so close to reaching the vista at the top, it's one where you're leaping over a pit and you're just so close to landing on the other side - i.e. you still fail.

There's the usual heteronormative stuff - a "normal couple" is "you and your girl," and I really don't think he's writing for lesbians. For instance, there's the whole saga of churchy Joe Simpson and his creeperific antics. Cohen mentions this about Joe:

First, woo hoo I can finally post!

After laughing at the fireman joke from the Miss March Trailer (they can't turn around)and Netflix telling me I should watch the Whitest Kids U'Know. I watched the first Season, and then the second and now the third. I didn't see Miss March so I can't say anything about that. Here is my problem, often the five guys, Trevor, Sam, Zach, Darren, and Timmy, make jokes about rape, domestic violence and how stupid and shallow women are. I think I can take a joke, I work with all men and I went to school with almost all men so I can take and I can dish but there just seems to be a very unapologetic sharp edge to the humor that rubs me the wrong way. I keep watching because there are also some seriously funny parts (moon bears!).

There have been past posts on feminist web-comics and feminst comic books.  I just wanted to add one more comic that I don't remember seeing on this:

DAR: A Super Girly Top Secret Comic Diary is a (NSFW) webcomic about the life of the artist, Erika Moen.  It typically focuses on her identity of herself, gender, and sexuality.  She started it in college in 2004, during which she identified as lesbian.  She writes about her relationships and heartbreak s as well as about her life in general .  Additionally, she writes about her family's feelings about her sexuality.  Then, after she gets out of college she meets a man who she *really really* likes.  This confuses her, and she has a few comics about that too.  It further goes into her relationship with him, and anything more would be a spoiler.

(This and this are two of my favorites. It's really not safe for work. There's a penis in it.)

I am, at this very moment, watching a re-run of "Celebrity Poker Showdown" on Bravo. The celebrity contestants are currently Sarah Silverman, Matthew Perry, and Michael Vartan.

Not only is Sarah Silverman the only self-identified woman on the show (even the hosts, commentators, and dealer are all men!),  but Bravo has displayed another bit of misogyny, sexism, or however you choose to classify it: when Silverman lost, she entered the losers' lounge and said "I hate my thighs, but I love my vagina." The only problem with this statement is that it was edited so that "vagina" was bleeped out (or rather, silenced).

What's the deal, Bravo? Do you have a problem with vaginas?

This is just gross. Somebody decided it would be amusing to point out that celebrities might have yellow teeth, and (gasp!) hair on their bodies!

Even worse is the fact that they zoom into parts of their bodies not normally looked at in order to point out the "problems." I don't even need to go into the reasons why shaming people, especially women, about their friggin' body hair is messed up.

Feel free to leave a comment of disapproval.

While procrastinating at work today I came across this article on People.com about how Kendra Wilkinson of The Girls Next Door fame will no longer be posing nude in Playboy as she is about to get married. She goes on to say that her fiance, Hank Baskett, is very conservative and

"He gets really mad when I do stuff like that."

Now, I'm not a fan of Playboy and I'm not fan of Kendra particularly either but this still left a not too great taste in my mouth. I'll admit that I did watch the first season or so of The Girls Next Door (UnFeminist Guilty Pleasure for sure!) and got to know a bit about Kendra. She loved being nude and loved Playboy. It was basically her dream to pose in that magazine. She started off as a painted model at one of Hef's parties (which if you don't know means you're naked and just covered in body paint). Now this isn't something I understand per se but it was something she loved. And now she's giving it up for her husband because he's uncomfortable with it.

I read romance novels.

I suppose I should feel ashamed of that fact. There is, after all, a stigma about reading romance novels. Further, as a feminist, I am generally opposed to heterosexist or sexist schlock.

Stigma? Yes, I am embarrassed by some of the appalling covers on romance novels . Further, I don't usually advertise the fact that I read romances, mostly due to the fact that there is, as Candy Tan points out, an "assumption that if you read romance, you have to be one dumb broad ." 

So, what about the schlock? Well, I can, in fact, think for myself, and I'll reject the heterosexist/sexist crap in a novel, any novel, as much as I'll reject it in the newspaper, on the television, or coming out of your mouth. That crap is pervasive, but it is not an inherent quality of every romance novel.

Having read romance novels since I was young, I've learned a lot from them. Some of the things I've learned don't fit in to my current feminist, social justice-oriented mindset, and I'm sure you can guess what they are. Yet many, perhaps even most, of them do, and I believe the positive benefits far outweigh the negative consequences. Here are the two of the most influential lessons I've learned at least partially from romance novels:

Well, if you haven't yet, you are surely soon to hear about the comments Jamie Foxx and others made on his radio show regarding Miley Cyrus- rude, misogynyistic, sexist, racist, and rather hateful comments (as can be listened to here ).  Neither star ranks very high on my radar- but the issue was forced into my line of sight thanks to my father's out-of-place reaction to it late last night.

He plopped down onto the couch and immediately began to rail on about it- how incredibly horrible it was, saying these things about the poor young girl.  I couldn't help but wonder why my father was up in arms over the whole thing (although his sounding like a hot regurgitated mess from some conservative talk radio host might have been a good guess).  He's simply not very interested in celebrity culture and certainly not in Disney teen idols.  The outrage was odd, to say the least, and I pointed it out- why, exactly, did he care?

Like so many of us, I've been watching (and re-re-watching) Susan Boyle's moving, ass-kicking, stereotype-defying performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" since it exploded across the net a couple days ago. And like so many of us, I'm genuinely moved to tears every time, and so proud of this woman for having the confidence to overcome the odds (read: judgement) stacked against her.

But something still didn't feel quite right. Finally, I came across a piece by Dennis Palumbo on Huffington Post, titled "What If Susan Boyle Couldn't Sing?", that absolutely nails down what's been bugging me. Palumbo writes:

The unspoken message of this whole episode is that, since Susan Boyle has a wonderful talent, we were wrong to judge her based on her looks and demeanor. Meaning what? That if she couldn't sing so well, we were correct to judge her on that basis? That demeaning someone whose looks don't match our impossible, media-reinforced standards of beauty is perfectly okay, unless some mitigating circumstance makes us re-think our opinion?

Please read the whole piece. It's insightful, and humbling, and a good reminder that "not judging a book by its cover" isn't just about talent: it's about respect for the whole person, secret rockstar or not.

http://www.marvel.com/news/comicstories.7579.DnA_Take_Over_MyCup_o_Joe

Aww, Marvel, thank you for being so inconsiderate of many females who happen to read and enjoy Marvel comics. Only you have decided to INSULT US by making this sexist, objectifying, patronizing issue about female superheros, reducing them to "divas" with big boobs and tight costumes. Oh em gee! I'll be sur e to pick a copy when it's out, because gosh, I just can't live without bimbos and divas!

Yeah, I'm really flattered. Not.

Just recently, a new song came on our local pop (Clear Channel) radio station. It's called "Don't Trust Me" by 3OH!3. I admit I've never listened to the rest of their album. But in all honestly, I really don't want to. Here are the lyrics to "Don't Trust Me"...

Black dress with the tights underneath,
I got the breath of the last cigarette on my teeth,
And shes an actress (actress),
But she ain't got no need.
Shes got money from her parents in a trust fund back east.
T-t-t-tongues always pressed to your cheeks,
While my tongue is on the inside of some other girls teeth,
T-tell your boyfriend if he says hes got beef,
That I'm a vegetarian and I ain't fucking scared of him.

(Cross posted on my blog)

Today as I was surfing the net I stumbled across this site: www.takebacktheday.ca.

The website is about what Mother's Day began as. Somewhat surprisingly it was not invented by Hallmark. It was, in fact, Mothers Day, the realization of a dream of a woman named Anna Jarvis. She and her mother both worked for peace and were social activists.

The inspiration for a national Mother's Day came from a West Virginian woman and mother of eleven who suffered through the loss of eight of her children. In 1858 at only 26, Ann Marie Reeves Jarvis organized women in her area into Mothers Day Work Clubs to improve the health and sanitation conditions in her county. During the American Civil War, she was adamant her clubs stay neutral, and they courageously nursed soldiers from both sides. When the war ended, she arranged the first Mothers Friendship Day in 1868 to reconcile friends and families torn apart by the bitter conflict, and the holiday was celebrated on several occasions after.

One writer, Julie Ward Howe, wrote a Mothers' Day Proclamation in 1870. It called on mothers around the world to work for peace:

Arise then... women of this day!
Arise all women who have hearts!
***
And up from the bosom of a devastated Earth
A voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm! Disarm!"

Mothers' Day was recognized as a national US holiday in 1914. Canada, Mexico and 48 states had been celebrating it since 1909. Shortly after becoming a national holiday the apostrophe was moved and it became Mother's Day, a celebration of individual mothers. Individual mothers who needed flowers, and cards, and jewelry, and as many other gifts as one could think of.

According to the National Retail Federation Mother's Day is a $15 billion industry in the US alone.

Perhaps it is time for us to take back this day. To put that apostrophe back where it belongs and instead of buying something for our mothers make something, or donate to somewhere, or volunteer. 

We can take back this day from Hallmark and work for peace.

Cross posted to Diary of a Nobody

A friend of mine has just been told, in advice that was (supposedly) well meaning and ‘for her own good’, that she should stop being so independent and then she’ll find love. I have also been told that if I changed my ‘look’ to be less ‘individual’ I’d attract more men on a night out. That if I stopped being so ‘geeky’ or ‘weird’ or any thing that would mark me out as an individual as opposed to say a sheet of MDF cut out to resemble a playboy centerfold. Maybe I would, but what gets me is how these assertions are accepted and not greeted with the howls of outcry and derision they deserve. Needless to say me and my friend are proud to be independent, strong and all of those adjectives that are so imbued with a derisory double meaning when applied to women.

It's just been announced that the Pussycat Dolls are slated to perform at the 22nd Annual Kid's Choice Awards. I should admit a bias up front: The Pussycat Dolls make me a little nauseous. Both for their personification of most everything wrong with the way society treats women, as well as their complete lack of musical talent. Don't get me wrong. I'm anti censorship. And parents have a right to buy their kids whatever music or merchandise they want.

I am not anti porn. I think prostitution should be decriminalized and regulated. I also think that Nickelodeon has sunk to a low point. They are marketing, endorsing and showcasing writhing, lingerie clad sex objects to six-twelve year old kids. This is a Burlesque Troupe! How on earth is that a positive example for young kids of either gender?

(descend from my soapbox)

This post is cross-posted at tabootrinity

A good friend of mine sent me these in one of those mass office emails. They are actual advertisement used in bar bathrooms  by an beer company in Israel. Take a look…

I realize I'm late in the news, as my ability to follow tabloids is horrendous.. but, this story struck me: the "octomom" (the mother of the octuplets)was offered 1 mill to star in a porn film. The author of the piece discusses a quote from the rep saying basically that the mom needs income somehow, so why not do a porn? The author concludes the piece by noting that all of her births were artificially inseminated and delivered by c-section (thus leaving her body in more porn-appropriate conditions than if she had birthed the children vaginally-- which makes little sense to me).

The link here between economic oppression and the need to make a living wage (in this case, I realize it's much harder as this mother must support 14 kids on her own) with sexual oppression is mind-boggling. Very rarely have I seen any other pieces that connect the two so well. 

To be clear, my position is certainly not one of an anti-porn stance. However, there's something so spooky about the offer here: it's coersion at its finest. How else is this mother going to support 14 children? The rep from Vivid Productions discusses how many single moms have found the income from porn "very useful," which I'm sure they have, but in this context-- can it really be a free choice, or is it tangled with economic necessity and coersion? The industry, as represented by the comments of the co-founder, seems to prey on vulnerable women in order to further production.

Jokes about getting drunk and raping your daughter are not funny.

In the comic, he says:

"Dear news organizations: Stop giving large numbers without context or proper comparison: The difference between a million and a billion is the difference between a sip of wine and 30 seconds with your daughter, and a bottle of gin and a night with her."

It's just as charming as the others.

I'd think it was a clever commercial if it wasn't so blatently not.

Any thoughts, feminists?

Barbie is turning 50.  Yes, she is an instrument of gender stereotype enforcement; she is almost exclusively marketed toward girls, and for these same girls Barbie is an unrealistic standard of beauty.  Nevertheless, there are a plethora of tributes to Barbie’s fiftieth, most of them revolving around fashion.  In an slightly unique approach, an MSN Lifestyle page takes a “nostalgic look back at some of the many careers Barbie has held — and remember how she helped us dream of the time when we would be ‘all grown up’ and leading exciting lives of our own.”[1]   Apparently, Barbie is a role model for life beyond fashion.

The page takes the viewer through each decade of Barbie’s existence.  It characterizes the eras in a typically nostalgic way and primarily through fashion. For example, Barbie’s 1961 profession is a nurse, not to demonstrate the casualties resulting from the United States’ involvement in Vietnam, but to showcase the “cat-eye glasses and peep-toe pump trends of the year.”  Granted, fashion as a tool for gaining insight into history is not inherently illegitimate, but isolating fashion from the culture in which it was worn renders the perspective alarmingly superficial.

The superficiality in MSN Lifestyle’s history-telling easily slips into misrepresentation.  In 1963, “Career Girl” Barbie is displayed benefiting from the Equal Pay Act; she “can rest assured she’ll remain a top-earning executive.”  This presentation of the Equal Pay Act downplays the unequal pay women have historically received in the workplace and presents the Act as maintenance of the just status quo.  And never mind the fact that, decades later, women's earnings are only $.77 for every $1.00 earned by men.[2]  

Interestingly, there appears to be a slump in Barbie’s resume during the 80s.  In the 70s she is a surgeon, a lawyer-philanthropist Miss America, and an Olympic Gold Medalist.  After a brief stint as a fashion model in ’77, she survives the 1980s as an aerobics instructor, a rock star, and then a UNICEF ambassador.  It won’t be until the 1990s that she fulfills a job that requires education or provides a legitimate salary.  This may (unknowingly, I'm sure) reflect the backlash against the women’s liberation movement and second-wave feminism of the 60s and 70s.

And yet, as a consumer of Barbie in the 1990s, I do not recall any of my shapely, blonde dolls being career-oriented; perhaps they were occasionally a teacher or a babysitter, but for the most part my Barbies were either princesses or participants in leisure activities like surfing, playing guitar, or driving cars.  The arbitrary selection of Barbies for this lifestyle page tells a very incomplete, if not at times misleading, story.  Furthermore, the piece implies, if not extorts, the sweeping judgment that Barbie has historically been a positive role model for young girls.  History is being employed in this lifestyle page, not simply for nostalgic fodder, but to infuse value into a material object of consumption.

[1] MSN Lifestyle, “Barbie's Careers Through the Years,” http://lifestyle.msn.com/your-life/just-dreaming/staticslideshowgh.aspx?cp-documentid=18253285&imageindex=1 (accessed March 9, 2009).

[2] National Organization for Women, “Women Deserve Equal Pay,” http://www.now.org/issues/economic/factsheet.html (accessed March 11, 2009).

From Choice Words

I promised myself I wouldn’t write about the Chris-Brown’s-A-Dick thing, but this had to be shared.

Ghostface Killa has released a song in support of Rihanna - some of it is obviously problematic, and I couldn’t understand all the lyrics, but considering some of the other responses coming from other celebrities, Ghostface Killa (Mr. Killa? Ghostface? How do I do this?) deserves a thumbs up for it.

You can listen to the song here .

Crossposted @ Choice Words

That’s right, one of the most controversial dolls of all time is celebrating her fiftieth birthday. For nearly as long, feminists have been debating Barbie’s merits. You may remember a few years back when the tall blond doll was quoted as saying “math is hard.” Perhaps that is because math reveals some hard truths about Barbie’s body and the probability that it could be found in nature. Anyway, in honor of her golden birthday BBC News decided to determine once and for all whether it is possible for healthy women to have Barbie’s body type.

The findings were surprising, as most agree that Barbie’s proportions are possible to achieve, but certainly not healthy. In fact, only about one in one hundred thousand women look like her naturally (as opposed to one in fifty men who naturally have Ken’s proportions).

The BBC went a little further, though. They took an average-sized woman (five feet and six inches tall, who wears size 10-12) and figured out what she would look like if she had the doll’s proportions. The results were interesting:

If [the woman’s] waist size of 28ins (71.1cm) were to remain unchanged, then applying Barbie’s proportions to her would mean [she] shoots up in height, to an Amazonian at 7ft 6ins (2.28m) tall. That’s just two inches shorter than the world’s tallest woman, Yao Defen. She would also have hips measuring 40ins (101.6cm) and a bust of 37ins (83.9cm).
But what if, instead, [her] height of 5ft 6ins (1.68m) was to remain unchanged. Doing the maths, [she] would have an extraordinarily tight waist of just 20ins (50.8cm), while her bust would be 27ins (68.5cm) and her hips 29ins (73.6cm). Even the famously slight Victoria Beckham reportedly only has a 23ins (58.4cm) waist. But neither are they unheard of - Brigitte Bardot was famous for her 20ins (50.8cm) waist.

Apparently in real life, Barbie would look a lot like Bridget Bardot! Perhaps as Barbie embarks on her next fifty years, Mattel will consider changing her proportions to reflect average women. Not to say that there is a magical “normal” body type that all women should strive to achieve, but I’m pretty sure most of us don’t look like Bridget Bardot.

I don't know how many of you read FAIL Blog , but I like to go there for a laugh sometimes.  It is a collection of user-created submissions of videos and pictures (most with "FAIL" typed over them) of stupidity, lack of common sense, or complete irony.

Sometimes, rather than inscribing "FAIL" over a picture, the submitter will write "WIN" instead, indicating an approval of the image for its wit or comedic value rather (examples here (referring to Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich) and here (referring to part of a Dane Cook bit).

As I usually find humor in these images, I was quite surprised to see this entry this morning, titled "Laundry WIN ."  The image is of a tag that gives washing instructions on the inside of a pair of jeans.  After the instructions, however, it reads: "Or...Give it to your wife. It's her job."

Whether this tag is a real novelty item or just photoshopped is beyond the scope of this post.  What I'm really concerned about is that this picture was labelled as a "WIN" rather than a "FAIL."  I hope I've explained the tone of FAIL blog sufficiently for those unfamiliar with the site to be troubled by this as well.

Not only is the tag directed at husbands (men) and degrading to wives (women), but the submitter decided to address his caption ("WIN") to a solely male audience as well.  If the caption were written from a female perspective, it would surely be a "FAIL."

Additionally, my beef is not only with the submitter but with the site admins who chose to post the image.  They have the discretion to reject any submitted content.

While the comment section of FAIL Blog is usually pretty worthless, I browsed the comments on this particular post to find, to my shock, some commenters that agreed with me.  Supportive comments include: "Sounds like a fail to me. :/"; "That’s FAIL, not a win. JHC, when will misogyny stop being funny?"; and "Sounds like “OLOLOL SEXISM IS TEH FUNNAY” to me. I can do the laundry actually, although I am male. Z0MG!"

Sorry for the rant (this is my first community post).  I just feel a little betrayed and upset that a source of humor that I used to look forward to checking every day has made it clear that I, as a woman, am not part of their intended audience by featuring "humor" that excludes me.

The other day my ipod was on shuffle and the song "I Am Ashamed that Women are So Simple" from the Cole Porter musical Kiss Me, Kate started to play. I really struggle as a feminist with shows like Kiss Me, Kate which follows that same story as Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew. Basically two headstrong people wind of married the woman realizes her faults and submits to her husband when her husband remains the same. (there is another love story as well, but I have never really cared about the younger couple.)

On one hand I am greatly offended about the fact that Kate realizes her faults and her husband does not even if he is just as outrageous. Yet on the other hand I really enjoy the show. If it is done correctly its an amazing piece of musical theatre full of famous songs like "Its Darn Hot" "Always True to You" "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" and other hit Porter songs. But as a feminist who sees the less then stellar qualities of the show, should I renounce it and not watch/listen to the show? Should I just avoid it? Or should I look at it as something to enjoy and take with the knowledge that it is full of faults? Realize the limitations of the show and still take pleasure from it? Either way I feel like I am sacrificing part of who I am- the woman who loves musical theatre, and the feminist. Either way I feel vaguely guilty. I mean even if I understand the anti-woman qualities, words still matter and can affect society.

I feel like this is something that a lot of feminists struggle with- beyond musical theatre. In all aspects of life from make-up, to pop songs, to beauty magazine, to hit television shows, to the Oscars. Trying to walk the line between pleasure and our own moral ground can be difficult and I am still trying to discover where that line lays in society and my own piece of mind.

So, I'm a big Bravo fan. I love Top Chef and have a guilty obsession with Housewives. I think it's a good place to exercise my feminist critiquing skills and serves as a reminder of how f***ed up some people's ideas of privilege and entitlement are.

Despite my love for this channel. I cannnot STAND Millionaire Matchmaker and Patti Stanger, the instigator of it all. Has anyone seen this show? She is dreadful. Both the overall and the subtle messages she sends about gender (in)equality are appalling and contradictory, when you hear her talk about her own independence and success as a self-made woman.

Here's just one little tidbit of Patti's style.

I'd like to know what other people think about this show - if you've seen it, what you think of it, what your thoughts are on her varying messages to women.

If, like me, you enjoy shouting at the television during University Challenge, then this story may interest you. While I consider an achievement to answer just one question during the entire show, The Corpus Christi College in Oxford recently flew to success, smashing their opponents by 275 points to 190. And arguably, the key to their success lay in their team captain, 26 year old Gail Trimble, who answered two-thirds of her team's points over all the shows leading up to the final.

Obviously, though, it is not enough for such a highly intelligent woman to remain... merely intelligent. No, these days you have to be either intelligent and annoying, or intelligent and hot. Ever since Ms Trimble's TV success, "The Cleverest Woman Ever On University Challenge" has apparently received everything from abusive criticism over her appearance and 'smug' attitude, to requests from lad's magazine Nuts, known for it's soft-porn, for her to pose for a 'tasteful' photo session.

Watch the BBC interview with Gail Trimble here, where she discusses some of her various requests and coverage... and apparently, yes, it is worthy of front-page news.

And like she says... would she have received any of this attention if she was male? Unless she University Challenge's answer to Brad Pitt, it's doubtful.

Tonight, I put Big Love on autotune (thank god for this), and channel surfed to find something to put on in the background.  I opted for Wingman on the Fine Living Network, which I watch because it's one of the only places that still plays the Japanese Iron Chef.  The premise of Wingman is that a professional wingman helps out a more socially uncomfortable man get used to the social dating scene.  And I thought, "Great!  I am socially uncomfortable, and although not a man I'm sure the tips will qualify for me to." For the most part, they did.

However, for the commercial breaks they gave little tips for women.  One of them amounted to this:

"Men aren't naturally romantic, so their girlfriends/wives need to bring it out in them."  That's right, all men are defective (because every woman wants romance), so you have to do all the work to fix it.  Not that women should adjust their desires (or find a romantic man oh wait there aren't any of them) or that men should make an attempt to meet their partner's needs without having it almost coerced out.

And then, once you've got him being romantic, "Let him talk.  Men actually like to talk if you just let them."  I'm paraphraising due to memory, but really, that's what they said.  More generalizations, but now your man isn't talking because you talk to much!  Better hope that he doesn't have Bridgestone tires.  And as a person who doesn't like to talk all the time, I love it when my friends can supply most of the conversation because I, *gasp* like listening to them more than talking myself, and I'd be inclined to seek the ability to talk at length in a partner.

They actually had some good tips, why do they have to destroy them by gender stereotyping and putting all the blame and responsibility on the female half of the relationship?

First I'm going to say that this post is a little bit of a rant on  Gaming/Anime communities; racism/homophobia/transphobia/sexism and so on. I'm writing because I was just forced to leave (yet another) community and over the years I've just become increasingly dismayed, not just at the amount of sexism among communities and hobbies where there's a large male following, but also the racism, homophobia, transphobia, etc....(I'm also extremely angry about all this)

I understand that Anime/Gaming communities are generally full of teenage boys...To a degree, sadly enough, I expect the sexism. However, what I don't understand is how these communities can get away with being so bigoted on, literally, every level; racism, homophobia, transphobia, ableist, classist...Like I said, I was just was forced to leave a community after another member, who guessed at my sexual orientation (from my avatar), preceded in stalking me around the community posting homophobic and hateful comments after every post that I made. I made a complaint to the admin, however, there was little chance that the hateful posts would even be deleted since this kind of bigotry and harassing is actually encouraged in many of these communities. In fact, I even learned that the person harassing me was also an administrator! The response that I got from the admins was very telling I thought, I was told that it's just "personal opinion if someone here wants to be homophobic and express homophobia"...indicating to me, that in these communities many people are, to a degree, proud of their bigotry (and also that they could care less about anyone hurt by these hateful spews)...

A 'quickie' for 99 cents? One more genius in marketing hoping half-naked women would do the work for him (yes, I bet it was a him), and sell shoe polish!! And then they say Mad Men is about the 1950s...

(sorry for bad quality of picture, it says 'shoe shine care')

No joke. My jaw dropped when I read this on Guanabee.

Let me know what you think- about her, her clothing line, and the notion that she's a feminist icon.

On the new TLC show "Toddlers & Tiaras," mothers parade their children and even babies around in fake teeth, spray tans, and swimsuits....yes, swimsuits, for pedophiles everywhere to enjoy. Highlights of one episode include a zoom in on one girl's backside as she struts about in a skin tight shiny pink swimsuit, countless dance routines that should make a mother of even a teen lock her child up, and a very small baby covered in more makeup than what you'd find in a Sephora store.

The description on TLC's website reads: On any given weekend in a hotel ballroom somewhere in the US, you may find a group of little girls parading around on stage in heavy makeup, weighed down by heavily sequined dresses. They're there for one of the hundreds of beauty pageants held every year.

While TLC seems to acknowledge that there is something wrong with this, unless of course they are in support of heavy makeup on little girls, they still choose to support this industry with an entire show set to debut January 27th. Pedophiles everywhere are getting their TiVo's ready. One judge suggests that anyone who thinks of this as sexualizing toddlers has problems. Perhaps they are in denial that pedophiles exist and when you put your daughter in makeup, heels, and tight swimsuits and make them shake their hips, then maybe...just maybe the pedophiles out there might like that.

TLC attempts to redeem itself by featuring a lesbian couple and their children. I'll bet lesbian parents everywhere are thrilled to have been invited to the bad parenting convention.

Besides the obvious questions of what are we teaching these girls, are they really happy doing pageants (not really, judging from the breakdowns showcased on the show), and who exactly are they being made up to look like adults and dolls for- we also have to wonder about the effects on little girls who are sure to watch the show and think that there is something wrong with them for not looking like that. No longer is insecurity provoked by the media reserved for teens and adults. The mothers claim that pageants build confidence. By teaching them that they need to do whatever they can to hide who they really are? The only people that I can imagine being excited about this show are pedophiles and the parents that display their children for them.

Part of having a job that isn't 100% engaging is finding things to do when sitting on a conference call with nothing to contribute. Enter: webcomics!

Those are just a couple that I read regularly, and I just realized how pro-feminist  couple of them are; I'd like to share those with everyone:

- xkcd , a great stick-figure-prominent comic about relationships, online culture, and mathematics (Cara at feministe rallied for xkcd in the 2008 Weblog awards. It's winning!!)

- Questionable Content , about a bunch of 20-something hipsters in Northampton, MA. The protagonist is a feminist man, but the cast is mostly prominent female characters, with dynamic personalities and all drawn beautifully. Indie music, sex, and internet jokes prevail.

- Girls with Slingshots , "Two girls, a bar, and a talking cactus, six times a week!" Sex-centric. In a wonderful way.

Your favorites?

So, to start off, I'm of what many of you would probably consider a younger crowd, and I've never heard anyone use the term "sexting." Maybe I'm too out-of-touch with stupid pop culture terms...but anyway. Back to the point.

I know these sorts of stories have been discussed before on here, but this one just reinforces to me how it is none of the school's business what the teenagers are doing in their free time. Essentially, a couple of young women, 14- and 15-years-old, took and voluntarily sent nude photos of themselves and picture-messaged them to a couple of guys, ages 16 and 17, in their high school. And now, the boys are being investigated for owning child porn.

I find that this is just way too slippery of a slope for which to set rules and guidelines. Teenagers are capable of being sexual! I don't understand what the huge deal with this is. It would be one thing if the pictures were taken without the girls knowing. But they weren't. And unlike the story about the cheerleaders and the football players that was on here at one point, it doesn't even say that these boys were sending the pictures around to anyone else.

This has kind of turned into a rant, but I would also like to hear everyone else's opinions. Do you feel the school board should have called the police? And do you think it makes any sense for the girls to be charged with child pornography charges because they possess pictures of themselves ? I find this to be a really interesting topic for discussion.

I apologize if the entry is rather scrambled; it was -40 with windchill today and my brain is still a little frozen.

This just in: Scarlett Johansson doesn't want to get pregnant.  She goes on to say that she wants to play a role in a Western as a brothel owner and that:

"It's only so long before people want to see me in a corset. So I might as well do it now."

Yes.  Do it now before your body gets HUGE turns disgusting, revolting and PREGNANT!!

Blame it on my own pregnancy hormones if you will, but this little gem really pissed me off.  Even with no recent movies, she just got a whole article in People magazine for just uttering the "P" word, yet reiterating that once preggers, one can never go back to sleek, corset-wearing vixen. 

But really, the whole world does look a little different these days.  If being a feminist is hard work, being a pregnant one is like working double-shifts.  Thanks, Scarlett for reminding me that I'm growing larger by the minute. I've never been a skinny girl, (and HAVE worn a corset!) but suddenly I'm taking up A LOT more space.  The feminist part of my brain is really happy about this.  All my life da boyz have taken up much more space: sitting with legs apart, speaking louder, crowds of them in bars, stadiums of them at sports, gobbling all the food at family events and sucking up tons of space on TV.  Now I get to take up space.  And I love it.  Move over, fat lady coming through. 

More on feminist pregnancy later maybe.  The whole "running a brothel" thing requires an entirely different posting, but are there any other preggers femininst/activists out there navigating a whole new world?

So, I know everyone remembers the main post recently about the Davenport Hooters and how they fired a girl after she couldn't work due to excessive injuries from a domestic assault.

Just thought this would be interesting.

I commented on that story saying that I went to high school with a girl who now works at that Hooters, and she always posts their bikini shoots and brags about being a Hooters girl on her Facebook.

I was interested to see on her Facebook in recent days, however, that she has second-degree burns on her upper lips from excessive tanning (which she's done all throughout high school to the point of looking almost black when she is not, and which I'm sure is continued because you can't be pale and still look beautiful! *gag*) which have caused them to blister and scab up while trying to heal.

The big non-surprising result? She isn't allowed to work until her lip is healed.

Classy.

While reading Huffingtonpost.com (which I generally quite enjoy), I came across an article about women hating when their husbands take naps on the weekends.  The short article has sweeping stereotypes about gender behavior and attitudes, as well as defining household roles for both sexes. 

The article begins, "Why do women begrudge men a nap? If you want to infuriate your wife, try taking a nap on a Saturday afternoon just as she's revving up the to-do list. Forget sex, communication, in-laws and the toilet seat wars. If you really want to stir up a hornet's nest inside a marriage, just bring up the subject of naps. Men love them and women despise them"

We can learn from author Lisa Earle McLeod that: "When a woman sees a pile of dirty dishes and laundry strewn about the floor, we don't just see a mess, we literally feel failure...it's the way most of us are wired" and that "women are hardwired to keep things running at peak efficiency."  Men, on the other hand, see their homes as "a long soft comfortable surface -- which if you knock the pizza boxes and old newspapers off -- is the perfect place to lay down." Because men always pile pizza boxes on stuff. It's just how they're wired, right?

Ew! I'm glad that I have been enlightened to know that when I clean my house it is because I am a born lean, mean, and efficient cleaning machine. I don't clean for personal success, I clean to not live in a messy house. And, for the record, I love my Saturday afternoon naps.

I expected more than this from the Huffingtonpost!

According to this article Britney has been seen "binging" on junk food and this will ruin her comeback because she might gain a few pounds (oh the horror).

Her managers have placed her on a strict diet of 1200 calories a day and are calling it a "healthy lifestyle". Last I recalled eating only 1200 calories a day is not healthy.

This is just like the whole Amanda Palmer thing where for women to be successful in this industry they have to be super thin.

The tone of this article was hilarious (to me anyways) the way the article was stating that because Britney had decided to have a burger she was going to ruin her comeback. Are they for real?

I have large breasts, big hips and a small waist.  I tend to dress elegantly, even for casual situations.  I wear a lot of black, a lot of dresses, and I like to play up my curves and look nice.  I wear scoop neck and V neck tops pretty often, and of course there's the cleavage that comes with it.  Even when I wear crew neck tops, bam, my breasts are right there.  I don't like to wear baggy things, and why should I?  Street harassment's been a problem for me since I was 14 or so and I grew my breasts in the first place, and while the catcalls have always bothered me greatly I never really thought about them in terms of my body, personally.  Those guys are assholes, they do that to everybody, just because I'm wearing a dress and walking alone they think they have the right to blah blah blah.  But I never really thought of what my body, specifically, meant to them and means to the culture at large.

An extremely insensitive, tactless, and misinformed comment my dad made to me in the car a few days ago finally brought it home.  We were having one of those big heart-to-hearts, the same one we have every time I come home from school, in which he dissects what he thinks is my mental and emotional state based on I don't know what.  This time he said that, when my breasts are "on display" like they are "all the time," it's an "invitation for rape."  He doesn't know that I've been raped, and that comment of his was extremely hard for me to hear.  Does he want me to wear burlap sacks?  Walk with a hunch?  I don't know how what I'm supposed to do with that comment.  Who decided that breast size is in direct proportion to sheer amount of sexuality?  My breasts are just a body part like any other.  It's not my thick thighs or big nose or size 8 feet that have those sexual connotations, though I have just as much control of those things as I do my breast size; that is to say, none.  They're just traits, and don't mean anything.  Large breasts, however, mean something.  The patriarchy has decided that a person with large breasts is a sexual person for as long as their breasts are "nice" and in the "too big" range.  If I'm rushing to class ten minutes late, the harasser sees my big boobs coming down the street and thinks I'm on my way to see him for a beer.  If I'm showing my parents a piece of artwork I'm proud of they tell me to put on a jacket because I look like a whore.  This happens in crew neck tops.  Even in a high necked, black dress, on a dark night, my chest is the first thing many men comment on.

I didn't put that symbol on my body.  I'm in a sexual mood just as often as everybody else is, not 24 hours a day as the patriarchy would have us believe.  Is there a way to dress and look nice and still be considered a full person when I step outside my door, and not just a breast transporter?  I just want to own my own body and be in control of what it says.  I don't know why that has to be so hard.

On a fairly regular basis I go to pub quizes held by Geeks Who Drink in Denver. It is a fun way to get out of the house and have a beer or two. Every week a bar will hold an eight round quiz with two audio rounds, one visual and other randomly themed rounds. The themes attempt to be clever and relevant; however, as a feminist I have been offended more than once.

Most recently, I was irritated by the round titled "Thats what she said." I was excited to have a female dominated round, which you find few and far between in these weekly quiz games but was left disappointed. I should have known that the sexual connotation to "Thats what she said" would play as a recurring motif in the questions. If the quote was not of a sexual nature, the woman who said it most definately was, with the notable exception of Eleanor Roosevelt's quote on women being like tea bags. The definition of woman was a narrow one, limited to sexualized public figures like Pamela Anderson, Dolly Parton and Madonna. Hillary Clinton was quoted with regards to the Clinton sex scandal. Hilary Clinton has said far more important things than in regards to Bill and the whole blow job thing. I mean she just ran for President, aren't some of those quotes more relevant anyway? While some might say I am taking this too seriously, I have to argue that there have been many rounds focused on men's quotes and most of them have nothing to do with sex.

Furthermore, I have noticed that there are few all-women teams that place during pub quiz. They post pictures of winning teams on the blog and there are several all-male teams that win and a few mixed gender teams. Perhaps that is because there are fewer women playing quiz games than men. Or maybe it is because the questions have a gender bias. Or maybe even it is that being geeky is embraced by more men than women. This is not to simplify the situation and say Geeks Who Drink only caters to men, because they don't. Many of the best quiz masters (the people who lead the pub quiz) are women and there are a lot of women who play. I would just like to see more women involved in writing pub quiz rounds that feature women's voices and salute the cool things women do. I am planning on writing a Feminist round in response. Hopefully I won't get told that my round is too obscure...

Again, a bit of a rant. It's my recent personal experience with some truly bigoted people on the internet .

I recently posted a vlog on youtube . I'll be the first to admit it was a stupid thing to do. Not only was it not very well thought out, but it was twenty minutes long.

I deleted it the day after I posted it.

But there is a bit more to the story than that.

I originally did the thing to post on facebook . I had seen a lot of people who seemed perfectly nice do disgusting things on the site. One of the main ones was a "piece of flair" that went around my high school. I deleted it as soon as I got it, but perhaps I should of saved it to. I can only say it was similar to this:

Yuck

The main difference is it also showed two same sex couples, which were labeled "perversion".

Yuck, right? It was also sent to my out male friend, by a girl who we both knew. She had always seemed nice and polite. I found it shocking that she could turn into such a bigot.

I've also gotten sick and tired being blasted by people I consider my friends for considering myself a feminist. Not to mention all sorts of little things I see every day in the high school environment .

So I ranted to a webcam for twenty minutes. I intended to post it on my facebook , and hopefully get all my friends on there to stop and think before they send people things, say something, etc.

Then I proceeded to make a very stupid decision. I posted it on youtube . This was Monday .

I then went to bed, got up, and went to school. I checked a on my youtube a couple times through out the day. I got one comment, which was quip about my neurotic tendencies . During a period where I had already taken my final and had access to a computer, I posted one here about the comment, and other ways people have tried to get minorities to be quite.

I can hardly believe this.

American Idol producers allowed a known stalker to appear on the show, despite the protests of Paula Abdul, who's dealt with the woman for 18 years and held restraining orders against her. Apparently entertainment is more important than safety. But I guess the safety of women just isn't all that important... besides, stalking is just something silly women get all paranoid about, right?

While reading the HuffingtonPost.com today, I came across this disturbing post about a female robot that had been created to react like a "real female" in interactions with people. The post is titled Aiko the Female Robot: Inventor Le Trung Talks About his Perfect Woman. Not only does this creep and gross me out (really, fem-bots?), the demonstration of this is disturbing. Le Trung, the creator, claims that she can be used as a "receptionist" or to work at an information desk, and that she can open doors and help around the house. However, in the video, the only demonstrated abilities are that of her to defend herself from bodily violations. Trung squeezes her arm to solicit a response from her, which is, "Please let go of my arm, you are hurting me. Why did you do that to me?" Then at 1:07 in the video, he reaches up to squeeze her breast, and in response she "hits" Trung and says "I do not like it when you touch my breasts."

To me, the idea of bionic people is a bit frightening, but bionic women that can be abused and sexually assaulted is even more disconcerting. If this robot can wash dishes and open doors, why isn't this highlighted instead? And, while we're at it, why are her only skills touted as housework and "reception"? Sexist portrayal of female roles in society much? And this is someone's idea of a "perfect woman," which is even more disgusting.

Is anyone else extremely bothered by this?

This post is about the PC game The Witcher , which someone I know has just started playing. But this post is less about the game and more about cultural representations and assumptions about gender and sexuality. He and I had a conversation around it today, which got me thinking a lot about female sexuality, male entitlement, and homophobia in our culture. So please bear through my discussion of the game to get the "big picture" analysis.

In browsing around the internets and reading people's discussions around gender and sexuality in the game, I very often read these reasons for why the game isn't "that bad" vis-a-vis women and (women's) sexuality: the sex scenes are well done (they are in fact pretty tasteful) and the women aren't represented as all dumb bimbos (as if commodifying women's sexuality is only sexist if the women are represented as idiots.) In fact, those were the same reasons given to me by my friend. He also mentioned that in reading reviews, many women said the sex in the game wasn't "that bad." But in this game, it's not really the sex that's the problem.

At first, I thought that gender and sexuality in the game wasn't so bad, but the more I was told the more troubled I became. Originally, I thought the sex in the game was just optional, with no reward attached, and the sex scenes aren't gratuitous or very objectifying. Point one for the game?

Well, that's not exactly it. You do get something for your various sexual encounters: sex trading cards. After a sexual encounter, you obtain pin-up trading cards to represent that sexual conquest--players, collect them all! (mass-printed cards, authentically medieval, right?) The idea of "collecting" women you have sex with (proof of your masculinity?) is really troubling to me. And by having sex with all the women available, you have a complete collection of woman-objects. Having sex with all the women you are able to, thus, becomes a goal for the character, even if the "reward" for doing so is negligible (bragging rights?). As one gamer suggested , "Women are COLLECTIBLE." Commodification at its finest.

Not only do you acquire cards representing each woman you bed in the game, but the sex is at times a reward for your in-game accomplishments. One example I was given is that in a quest to save several prostitutes, after you have rescued them sex is your "reward" from them. I wonder, is their sex a reward because they are prostitutes , and therefore their sex is seen to be "worth" something, because it is seen to have a dollar value? Or is it just that women become sexually available to men with good behavior? Or that sex is the most important reward a woman can give? Any of these options are problematic.

I know that we are all used to cosmetic advertising that tells us we are all filthy dirty swamp-things salvageable only through the use of [insert product here]. This commercial for soap, however, takes the cake in my opinion. Listed on the Dove website as "Soap Scum TV Ad" the ad admonishes women (because Dove is primarily marketed to women) that even though they may think they are clean because they have used soap, they are actually going about their day covered in a layer of disgusting soap scum. Poor deluded fools!

The commercial continues, "if you could see the difference..." & displays it with a side-by-side dramatized comparison which has the women in their towels under a UV light. The light reveals the scum, in tandem with some 'scare' music on the soap-using woman, who looks like she is suffering from an early-stage zombie infection. The Dove-using woman smiles to the tune of some new-age-y music... he skin feels how healthy clean skin is supposed to feel. You know. The feeling you can only get with Dove.

I mean, I'm all for being clean. The implication that women have to be clean under a pretend black-light in order to be socially acceptable is sort of annoying, especially when you contrast it to virtually any man's cosmetic advertisement. Men who preform basic hygiene functions, such as wearing deodorant, are God's Gift... women come after them in droves. Women, on the other hand, even when they bathe with soap, are just barely socially acceptable.
The fact is that I'm the last person who would expect a high level of respect or responsibility from the advertising industry, but Dove is the one brand you would think would know better. I don't think this type of marketing is great for their brand identity, either, and that just makes this that much more annoying.
Check it out:

(Cross-posted at Citizen Girl, with sad zombie picture ;)

Since the 1930's or so, menstrual product manufacturers such as the makers of Kotex have sponsored pamphlets (unintentionally hilarious as they are condescending: see 'Mothers Don't Wait!' http://mum.org/mmay235.htm) and filmstrips (Disney http://www.feministing.com/archives/002524.html).

Clearly this type of education has always been a self-interested service, and the "femcare" industry has been accused of shifting the focus of menarche from a developmental milestone to a hygiene issue, with puberty running as a secondary theme to cleanliness (and secrecy) and fertility running a far third.

During my middle school 'sex-ed' I vaguely remember getting some product samples but I don't remember what they were. Mostly, I remembered feeling gypped that boys got wet dreams (were pleasurable & lets face it, they weren't doing their laundry) and all I got was bleeding and this mess of fallopian tubes. Also it was never suggested that girls could have erotic dreams... but that's a gripe for a different day.

I certainly thought of menstruation as a hygiene issue, and in fact, the first time I got my period I used one of my mom's jumbo tampax and didn't tell her till much later because I didn't want her to make me late to meeting people at the mall.

I didn't stay with tampax forever though. Generally, I used whatever cheaper store brand had a cardboard applicator, since I didn't like the plastic ones (so cold going in!).

Eventually, I switched to the Keeper which I loved primarily because it paid for itself, was more convenient for camping and hiking, and made less waste. After about a year and a half, a cute puppy ate it (tearing through several different containers to do so), and I started using birth control, and lite tampons- usually those tampax compacts because they have in for free where Itake a class and they stay together better in the mess of my bags.

I am working on my women's studies senior capstone as we speak, and I was wondering if any of you remember learning about menstruation with a "femcare industry" curriculum? Also, if you did, was that brand the same that your mother used? Why do you use the brand of menstrual products you use now and have you ever switched brands? Why?

PS: I just had to share this with you all- In the '40s, with the prevalence of tampons and rise of youth culture etc. there was they fear that tampons could destroy the hymen and send girls on a downward spiral of masturbation and premarital sex. In 1940 one gynecologist, Dr. Robert Dickinson, stepped in to say that not only would NOT tampons do this, it was actually pads that were the defiler of innocents because a pad is inserted between the legs into a "cleft so narrow there is not room for it[it] produc[ed] some degree of triple surface rubbing [with] every jounce when sitting producing upward pressing," & "Any external menstrual guard, in addition to applying some degree of heat within a confined space, is responsible for the rhythmic play of pressure against surfaces uniquely alert to erotic feeling."

Just. Wow.

I died a thousand feminist deaths when I read this about Ivana Trump on AOL's PopEater:

"This big cat has an insatiable appetite.

Just days after revealing she and her fourth husband, Rossano Rubicondi, 36, had recently split up over the summer, Ivana Trump, 59, has publicly rebounded with an even younger gent.

The prey, according to the Daily Mail, is 22-year-old French model John-David Dery, who happens to be younger than any of her three children from her marriage to Donald Trump. The college-aged fellow was seen canoodling (that means kissing and hugging) with the Czech former model at an awards event in Paris on Monday."

"Big cat"? "Prey"? As if Ivana is some kind of sexual predator. Or tricked this man, her "prey," into dating her, a financially secure older woman who is very beautiful by cultural standards. These are two adults, both well over the age of consent, who even have something in common: a modeling career. That's much more in common than she ever had with Donald Trump, but you never saw any articles calling him "a big cat" when they were married, did you?

Now, I know that this is a cultural taboo of sorts, and that people have automatic reactions to any couple with a big age gap. My mother, for instance, married a much older man, and when I was young I had endless judgments about it. But I grew up, and realized that people fall in love, despite the age, race, gender, and everything else. Now why can't AOL grow up too?

What should we do? How can we change the way we talk about this? And is there any way to reach AOL and complain to them?

People get so offended when you question heterosexual wedding "traditions" (since none of these things are actually traditions, I'm using quotes because that's what everyone calls them in their defense).

Ever since I was little, I never understood why so many women want their fathers to "give" them to another man, or why women wear engagement rings but men don't, or why men still ask their girlfriend's father for her hand in marriage as some sort of "traditional" formality. I have big problems with all of these things, but to say so is like burning a flag, spitting on the bible, and running over a puppy all at once.

All of these "traditions" seem so obviously and fundamentally BAD, yet smart, educated, otherwise liberal women embrace them and hold onto them as if they are critical elements to the success of their relationships.

I was at an engagement party recently, and it came up in conversation that the boyfriend had asked the girlfriend's father for permission before he proposed. There was no real reason to do it- the couple had already mutually agreed to get married and the father would have no reason to disapprove of the marriage- but the girlfriend had told the boyfriend that her father would like it. Another married couple in the room shared their similar story about how the man had done it because he knew it would make the woman's father happy. I said that it would indeed make my father very happy as well, and everyone smiled and nodded with me until I added "but I would never allow it." At that point I suddenly became a horrible, horrible person, and I received the usual response "but it's just a tradition!"

Dear feministing-community members,
I am currently enrolled in a social science research master, focusing particularly on gender issues. I have to write a paper for my Theorizing Gender course and, out of personal interests, I have chosen to write about post-feminism and the phenomenon of what has been described as female chauvinist pigs. You know the stereotypes: a young, white, urban woman who, in the name of feminism, reclaims her sexuality; who is not afraid of coming over as sexually assertive (aggressive?); who may enjoy pornography, etc. Quintessentially sex and the city-like behaviors and attitudes (anyone who's read Female Chauvinist Pigs will know what I am talking about!). I'd like to use your comments in my term paper if that's ok with you - otherwise I'll gratefully accept your contribution to my researching process :) It is my aim here to get a feel for how the (American?) feminist community feels about these issues.

So, here's the questions!

1. What, in your opinion, does post-feminism (not to be confused with difference-oriented 3rd wave feminism) entail? Do you agree with its assumptions (on female sexuality, on the gender system, etc) and conclusions?
2. What do you think of the emerging ideal of sexually assertive femininity as found in women's magazines, advertisements, popular series on tv)? Do you think this kind of ideals have liberating effects - or do you take a more pessimistic stance?

That's it - I know, not a lot, but to me it would be great if you could give these a thought.

By the way, I hope to put the rise of 'female raunch culture' into a more historical perspective (discuss the anti-feminist backlash) and also contrast the assumptions underpinning this discourse with notions of (female) sexuality as developed by post-sructuralist and/or psychoanalytic theorists. The conclusion will consist of an evaluation of the phenomenon in light of resistance and politics.

Thanks a lot reading this; I hope you find some time to answer my questions.

Kind regards,
Irene (Ziggy)

So today Yahoo news and other news sources have articles proclaiming the "World's Sexiest Woman." Not too long ago, the "World's Sexiest Guy" came out as well. I severely have issues with these types of articles and the fact that the media..in this case E! deems one woman as the sexiest.

Everytime I look at the list, I do not see my neighbor, my friend, me or anyone else I know, I see famous people. Famous people that are always models and actresses. This is where I have a serious problem with the word "World." How could you deem someone as the "World's Sexiest Woman" if you did not look at the world as a whole and take into account every female from every country, city, town etc. Models and actresses only make up a VERY small portion of the world's population. And, I have seen many women out on the street that are ordinary citizens that I would deem "sexy." In case you were wondering, this is the new list that E! came out with as the "World's Sexiest Women..."

1. Karolina Kurkova  (model) 2. Bar Rafaeli (model) 3. Angelina Jolie (actress) 4. Gisele Bundchen (model) 5. Scarlett Johansson (actress) 6. Adriana Lima (model) 7. Heidi Klum (model) 8. Penelope Cruz (actress) 9. Manuela Arcuri (actress)  10. Shakira (singer)

Did anyone else notice that a good portion of the people on this list are Victoria's Secret models? Coincidence? I think not. Everytime I see this type of list, I just want to rip out my hair and yell at these media sources for not being realistic and taking into account every woman out there. They also do not take into account curvy women, except for maybe Scarlett Johannson in this case. But then again, she is not full-figure curvy.

These types of lists and articles I am sure do a lot of damage to women's psyche and self-esteem. All the list shows, is beautiful models and actresses that are all thin, and does not show any "real" women. Men, on the other hand, are probably proclaiming "Hell yea..I'd do her..she's hot." The funny thing is, that most of them do not realize that the images they look at of these models/actresses many times are airbrushed.

I really think that the media has to change it's approach to pointless articles like these. It does no body any good, and everytime I see one of these, I just want to scream. Come on, how many times do we, as a society, have to be reminded that Angelina Jolie is sexy?! We all know who she is, what she looks like and what she does. I would really like to see something more realistic next time, but sadly, I know that is not going to happen.

UGH!!!

Has anyone else seen the new Circuit City commercials? If you haven't here's my synopsis: Joe six-pack is talking on the phone to what would seem to be his mistress who has a very "sexy" voice. But then (oh boy they got us good!) they cut to show who's talking and it's a new flat screen tv who he's really been coveting! Then he goes to pick her up just so we can see her skinny legs that are always posed oh so sexily.

There's another one where he's talking to a tv from another store who was advertised as one price online and then when he goes to pick her up she's asking another price and she so coyly says something like "that's how we all do it" and the whole time they're so cleverly playing on the double entendre of this FLAT SCREEN TV BEING A WOMAN!

I am so disgusted. I wish I could find a video of either of these on the internets. Could anyone else find one? You really need to just hear how disgusting it is.

Personally, I'm so bothered I am not going to shop at Circuit City anymore. What are other's thoughts on this? I mean if moms could ban the Motrin commercial, I think we could do something about this, I'm just not sure how to go about it.

Hey, longtime reader and huge fan of Feministing... first time poster.

Has anybody read this? Or this ? Or this?

Just wondering. I had some thoughts on it myself, but I was wondering what you guys over here felt.

Apologies if this has been addressed already and I missed it.

I did a Youtube search with the word "feminist," and they kindly suggested that I also try the word "sinister."

[Cackling] Youtube has finally figured us out! [commence to petting my cat and shifting my eyes deviously...]

I'm a food historian and my graduate research is on the social history of food-related disorders, so I've amassed quite the collection of vintage advertisements.  I posted these ads on my blog recently, and thought I'd repost them here as well.  Old advertisements are always quirky and ridiculous, but ads from the pre-feminist glory days always make me laugh.  That is, until you realize how some things really haven't changed at all.  Click on each to see a larger-res version. 

1927 Frigidaire Electric Refrigerator vintage advertisement. "Give her a real thrill this Christmas!" Note to husband: Buy me a household appliance for Christmas and I will punch you.

I'd like to make an announcement: it's time to retire the term "fake".

No, I don't mean you have to give up fake to describe things such as the chicken in Kentucky Fried, Pamela Anderson's boobs or the orgasm you had last night. Fake as a retrospective of personality, however, needs to go.

During my ritual browsing this morning, I happened to notice a really cool post on one of my favourite webcomics that made me sigh contentedly. I mean, people don't always need a pat on the back for doing the right thing, but I think it helps:

So I am really pissed about Proposition 8 in California. Until I visited this weekend, I had no idea it was such a close-run issue, and when I started getting emails Monday morning from people alarmed at the pro-Proposition-8 ads appearing on my website, I was genuinely horrified. I am SO ANGRY that these homophobic idiots tried to co-opt my website with their crap. Vote against Proposition 8, people. Gay dudes and ladies should have all the rights straight dudes and ladies have.

Anyway, I have done what I can to make sure those ads don't show up on the site anymore (it is in Google's hands now). I will also be donating all of the money I made off of Google Ads today to GLAAD , because I am intensely uncomfortable with the idea of profiting off homophobia.

I don't normally talk about my political beliefs on this site, as I am pretty sure you all are here for funny comics about cute girls with problems, not me yelling about how awesome I think Barack Obama is. But honestly, I think he's pretty awesome. I think everybody should vote for him!

Anyway I promise no more political stuff after the election. Enjoy the guest strip, regular QC resumes tomorrow. See you then!

okay time to sit back and watch the angry Republican email wash in.

In that spirit, thanks Jeph Jacques of Questionable Content. The man can turn a relatively unknown album into a hipsters top 10 dream with a mere name drop, so it's safe to say he has some interwebz influence. It's cool that he used it to a) call out the BS of google ads and b) firmly place his support behind the LGBTQ community and a great presidental candidate.

And by the way, you can indulge your inner nerd at his website, here .

Just a little observational something on gender and Halloween costumes having to do with actually wearing them on Halloween:

I decided to be a wearer of a bloody lab coat. I wound up buying a large children's costume because the adult lab/doctor coat was enormous, designed for a very tall, very broad-chested man. The children's coat had a little cross on it, so... Doctor, not evil scientist. Close enough. I went nuts with the paint and was ready to go.

It's interesting how some people seemed to not be sure whether or not to call me "Doctor" or "Nurse" or whether I was a killer or the victim. Why would the wearer of the white lab coat be the victim anyway? I suppose bloody handprints to suggest struggle didn't come out as clearly as I'd hoped, but I'd have thought the copious amounts on the sleeves near the hands would have given a hint. I tried to pull a little crazy murderer act ("Costume? What costume?" "I hope you're not.... stealing.") on my store's undercover person and he didn't get it and accused me of racial profiling. A little too deadpan, I guess?

Later, I attended an event where a certain little boy was struggling to figure out what I was (seated at a table, low lighting). "Wait, I see the cross! You're a doctor!"

And then he gave it a second of thought and corrected himself. "Nurse! You're a nurse!"

"'Nurse?'" I said, shamelessly appropriating a movie quote, "I didn't go to Evil Medical School to be a Nurse!"

I did a small comic illustrating how certain online/magazine gaming articles still make the whole experience very 'boys club'

link to comic on deviantart

I do love reading game related articles but there's no question that, despite claims to the contrary, the writers expect their audiance to be horny young males. It sometimes seems as if they have to put in boob-drooling and attractive-man-bashing in one in every three articles or they'll lose their masculinity member card....

Hi Ladies, I wrote this for another online community response but I wanted to share it with the community here as well.

How many of us have been swamped with these rape prevention chain letters?

Born and raised in a rape culture I occasionally get a bit overwhelmed with "Ladies here's what you need to do" lists.

How about we as like minded adults who think rape is not a valid sport like undertaking for the human race firmly and utterly stop allowing our entertainment and advertising industries frame it as such?

How about a chain letter, fuck it, how about live conversations with people we have relationships with talking about why so many tv shows, movies, and even video games enshrine rape as a valid erotic sexual power dynamic?

How many times do I have to walk out of a movie that has a brutal rape of a woman in it to justify the vigilante origin story of someone, usually a guy? Why are movies like Deadgirl even being made? Revenge plot justifies rape of a zombie girl... fuck off and take The General's Daughter with you.

How about some actual teaching devices about why rape is not a powerful sexy thing to do to anyone male or female?

Instead the world gets ads blaming girls for drinking and so getting raped. Don't forget kids, if you drink you will be raped. (via Feministing.com)

So kindly take your list of paranoia off of chain letter circulation and consider what you can do to dismantle the rape culture. You're soaking in it.

While checking out to see the shipment of my kanekalon synthetic hair (for some nice synthetic dreads), Amazon's newest item feature was about Nintendo DS' limited edition pink ribbon edition.

Now, I have mixed feelings. Obviously, the Nintendo DS has been geared towards women (their commercials showing late-teen actresses playing games on decked out DSes, games such as "Cooking Mama", and "Nintendogs", and "Nancy Drew".), it still makes me think of that old post about how Dell is making laptops out to be fashion accessories.

However, my positive inclinations are towards the idea of getting the awareness out about breast cancer. However, why aren't there any games discussing breast self-exams? Maybe a woman's health Brain Acadamy (tm) like game to go alongside it? I am also wondering if any proceeds goes toward a breast cancer foundation or research place.

I hope positive things come out of this DS, but I wonder how long will it take for the Playstation company to catch up?

I really want to laud America’s Next Top Model for including a transgender contestant on its Cycle 11, even if they eliminated her by the end of the fourth episode.  Isis, a 22-year-old former receptionist who self identifies as female, could formulate a coherent sentence, refrained from the ubiquitous cattiness of reality TV, and knew how to mug.  She even recently shared in an interview with US Weekly, “I like to help people.”  This young woman was perfect, right?

And therein lies the problem for me.  Isis’ short-lived success reaffirms an unhealthy and rarely attainable standard of feminine beauty- one that rewards emaciation and malnourishment.  Isis was severely underweight and was never shown eating a thing. She might have self-identified as a woman of color, but because she was branded the “transgender contestant,” her race, class, hobbies, values, and other identity markers were insignificant to the Top Model producers. On episode two, Isis was noticeably absent in a house discussion about racial intolerance.  When Isis performed poorly at both of her last two photo shoots, the judges chastised her for failing to be “herself,” worrying more about her genitalia coming untaped in a swimsuit than “smiling with her eyes.”  How can Top Model purport to be redefining who can be a model while simultaneously ignoring the social, emotional, and physical realities of being a transgender woman?

Hey all! I have never written a community post (though there have been plenty of topics I've wanted to write about), but I thought what they hell? What can asking for help here really hurt?

I am at a fundraiser for my school's women's studies department - and the topic of conversation is locally-grown foods and eating organic. I sat there, befuddled, wondering when they'll get to the part where, you know, they'll talk about how eating organic or buying from local farmers can benefit women.

When traveling to Costa Rica to film our first Galavanting webisode, we had a ton of fun and adventure. While Costa Rica is a very safe destination for women travelers, we also, of course, encountered  the subtle sexism every woman traveler has no doubt experienced.  You know what I'm talking about. For instance, take the guy who when I was just about to rappel off of a jungle waterfall asked, “Do you want one of the men to carry your camera equipment [backpack] down for you?”

“Nah”, I responded, “They’re all scared shitless and I’m about to rock this.” Then I flexed one of my muscles and leapt off the waterfall. He didn’t know I was from Colorado…or a Feministing reader.

I'm an otaku, a die-hard anime fan. If you don't know what anime is, it's cartoons from Japan. I've been an otaku for many years, starting with the Pokémon craze in the late 90s. I've since grown out of Pokémon but it led me to other anime series.

I recently found a book in my library called Eye on Art: Anime by Hal Marcovitz. Chapter four is titled "The Role of Women in Anime." While I have noticed some animes have strong female characters before I just never realized how anime has much more of these types of characters than American cartoons. When Sailor Moon debuted in America, Disney had just released The Little Mermaid. While Sailor Moon outwitted the evil Queen Beryl, Ariel had to be rescued by Prince Eric from Ursula. The creator of Sailor Moon, Naoko Takeuchi, said the reason the girls have sailor costumes is because junior high and high school is a hard time for girls and seeing as sailor style school uniforms are very common in Japan, she felt it helped bridge a connection with the audience.

When Westerners think of Japanese women, they think they are quiet subservient Geishas and thus Japanese art reflects that. But that is a myth; the Shinto religion which shaped Japan's culture has high respect for women. Many ancient Japanese tales are composed of female deities and spirits and Japanese history is dominated by empresses, priestesses, writers and artisans. As a result, anime is chock full of female protagonists and villains.

But there is also a dark side of women in anime. There is a pornographic type of anime called hentai. The word hentai also means "abnormality." Thus the majority of hentai is very strange and it is often violent. Some titles have been pulled due to complaints from women's groups. Even though Japan has a relatively low crime rate, police had said they occasionally report violent crimes being committed by people who claim it was influenced by anime. Personally, I have not watched much hentai, there is some out there that isn't violent but that can be very difficult to find. I prefer to read erotic stories anyway.

I found this chapter so interesting I made a video blog about it. Since YouTube has a 10 minute limit, I had to split it into two parts. Some of the info in this written blog is in the video along with other examples of strong female characters. Also some of the info here isn't in the video.

just read it. it's amazing. and inspiring. :)

last paragraph is my favorite. 

ah. that made my night. :)

The other night I wasted far too much time watching the season premiere of Bones online. It was stupid and badly done, but I was struck by how feminist the show actually is.

Here's the link for a great piece on NPR discussing gender and race in tv shows.  It's a short segment but worth a listen.

I am amazed at how many attractive, well educated successful women still suffer from pangs of anxiety about getting married . I don't mean the natural anxiety that goes with deciding to spend the rest of your life with a person but the old fashioned pangs:"when will i get married, Oh, god, when will i meet someone, oh no , i will be alone forever"pangs. To make matters worse, most women still take their spouse's last name. Since most woemn still see being married as a form of social status, it makes sense that they would emphasize hier name change without even thinking about what it all means. Taking a man's name is part of a patriarchial system of claiming a women as their property and becoming part of his family. She stripped of the identity that she has had all her life because of course historically the man's was more important. To take a man's name is to subscribe to this idea, whether you would like to admit or not. Most people will argue  that it  is only for the purpose of unifying the family once the children are born, but wouldn't the person having the child merit the  honour of having her name heading the family unit? it would only make sense.

My family is in the midst of wedding fever and one thing I am sick of hearing about weddings is women who 'get to be a princess for a day'. I'm sick of the whole princess thing full stop, it drives me mad. From little girls being marketed crap to grown women being marketed crap. Yet it's not the consumerist crap that bothers me so much it's the ideas behind this princess bullshit.

Why oh WHY is being a princess seen as something we should aspire to? Something that every girl and woman wants?

Why would I want to be someone who's elevated to a position of unfair privilege based only upon an accident of birth or marriage?

Why would I want to be judged upon my looks, my social ranking, who I'm married to and have my person achievements overlooked and ignored?

Why would I want to buy into some backwards misogynistic ideal that portrays women as docile, subservient, there to look pretty and shut up while the men do the important stuff?

Bodysnarking in disguise: Sienna Miller and the Great Slut Debate

• by Anne Fitzgerald, Elastic Waist , on Fri Aug 22, 2008 8:59am PDT


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Just Jared

I have to point you over to this post on The Frisky about the Great Slut Debate, and why, exactly, we keep flogging it over, and over, and over again. Amelia sums up the debate brilliantly:

Ok, so I watch Keeping Up With the Kardashians. I admit it. I really like the fashion and the ridiculous, over-the-top antics. I know this is a scripted 'reality' show. To loosely quote Joel McHale from E! show The Soup, Kim Kardashian is 'famous for having a big butt and a sex tape.' She is also the daugther of the late Robert Kardashian (lawyer for O.J. Simpson) and stepdaughter of Olympic champion Bruce Jenner. The DVD cover for the first season for the show looks like this:

Over at The Feminist Underground , we've got a guest-blogger today who reviews Soul Calibur IV for us.  Look, I like his review, but after pointing out the ridiculousness 'fighting dominatrix' Ivy's ever-increasing chest size and ever-decreasing clothing, he then makes the claim that the game isn't sexist - because both genders are objectified.  Riiiight.

Perhaps this is poor form (OK, definitely), since he is a 'real world' friend of mine, but if there are any feminist gamers on the Feministing Community today with some free time on their hands, I'd love it if you'd stop by and give an informed opinion.  And, no, you don't have to agree with me that the game is, in fact, terribly sexist and a sure way to keep a lot of women thinking that games just aren't for them... but you can if you want ;)

I was surfing the net and came across this article from MSNBC and searched for the New York Post article that they refer to, which can be found here .

Both articles describe and critique (to a certain extent) a frightening new trend in hair removal.  First off, I'm not a huge fan of hair removal.  I understand some people prefer it, and I have no problems with them, but for me it seems silly.  People go as far as to call not shaving "unnatural" (I hope people see the irony in that).  Anyways, if it were just another article shaming women into trying a new painful hair removal system, I would've just rolled my eyes and moved on, but it wasn't.

This disturbing new trend is marketing hair removal (particularly waxing) to "tween" and "pre-tween" girls - some as young as 6.  I was absolutely disgusted.  And we're not talking just eyebrow waxes.  Everything from eyebrows to legs to BIKINI WAXES.  Some salons are even offering specials for "virgin hair" removal.  That's right.  Supposedly you can prevent these little girls from ever growing pubic hair (you know a sign of becoming a woman) with 2-6 waxing sessions at an early age.

I'm so horrified and angry I can barely find the words to express my outrage.  Not only are little girls being taught that their bodies are something to be shameful of and things that need to be "fixed."  They are also being stripped of their autonomy (in the future) to make decisions about their bodies!  I am so afraid for the self-esteem and body image issues that the girls of today are going to grow up with.  And who are these parents that they are bringing their daughters in to get waxed at the age of 6!  There is no reason to force children to cosmetically alter their bodies.  This is just disgusting.  Read the articles, because I can't write about this anymore.  It's really upset me.

I am a feminist. I am also a person who wears an engagement ring. And there've been numerous posts and books and commentary on how consumerist, anti-feminist, and generally terrible diamond engagement rings can be. These discourses have been nuanced and thoughtful, and I agree that everything that has been said about the negative aspects of the ring are true. And the commentary has made me think, and respectfully put forth into words why I am at peace with the ring I wear.

Yes, its a diamond. It is not a blood diamond, as warranted by the guy who sold it -but that doesn't mean it is not an oppressing diamond, a racist diamond, a diamond that was found by someone who died of a treatable, preventable disease, someone who died of poverty. I am pretty sure it is a poverty diamond. Show me one that isn't. Show me one piece of jewelry that at some point in its creation was not exploitative.

But it is also a love diamond, one that was researched and found by a tall string bean dork of a guy who got me something old-fashioned and also honored the ban against blood diamonds. It is the piece of compressed carbon that he placed in a small manila envelope and traveled across the Atlantic to meet me, burning in his pocket. It is the token of love that he fished out of that burnt pocket, that crumpled manila envelope and put on my finger on Millennium Bridge, on a rare sunny London afternoon two years ago today.

I found this article from CNN interesting.  It describes the way in which fashion trends have become more "modest."  One part in particular that caught my attention was when the article said, "Last year, an American Psychological Association task force reported that cognitive performance and health can suffer when teens and young women make themselves into sex objects by wearing sexy clothing or styling themselves after sexy celebrities."

First of all, the only person who can turn you into an object is the person objectifying you. Also, it's extremely problematic to say that a women who dresses "modestly" or "demurly" dresses that way for herself whereas a women who dresses provactively dresses that way for male attention.  This only feeds into society's "she was asking for it" attitude towards rape survivors. 

Finally, I find it kind of creepy that mom's are celebrating their daughters dressing like 50's housewives...and don't get me started on the "one-night stand" look.

I get the impression from some of the comments on the site that we have some science fiction fans at Feministing.  What are some of your favorites?

Today is my day off, so I was channel flipping, trying to find something decent to watch. I was surprised to see that Jerry Springer was still on the air, and I paused to see what ridiculous title this show had.

I never expected to be so incredibly offended. The show title is "Trannies and Carnies." The first guests I saw were a man and two transvestite women who duked it out on the show while carnival performers walked around in the background. Later there were actual carnival workers with angry love triangles as well.

I'm completely disgusted. Why are transvestites being linked to "carnies," a term that generally refers to freaks and societal outsiders. I know it's Jerry Springer, but this seems more vile than his typical tripe and I wanted to share my disgust.

It seems Ms. Katy Perry has done it again. She's succeeded in enraging me, and many others, with her lyrics and catchy beats. Her song "I kissed a girl" is analysed thousands times better than I could have done here. The first time I heard the lyrics on the radio, I couldn't quite believe it, this is too much bull shit, even for where music seems to have lead us. But with all the negative things that can and have been said about the song, at the end, the listener can be fairly assured that the message is the same as it often is; true lesbianism is non-existent, but women having sex with women is HOT.

My friends and I went to our local Blockbuster the other night to rent video games. We came across the bottom picture. It was taken on a camera phone, so it's not really clear but that's a "Game For Girls" sign, with a picture of a young girl playing her DS.

There were three games aimed at weight loss, and one cooking mama.

So we changed it to some of our personal favorites.

There was a very interesting article on MSN.com today, in between the "How to vacation at home", "How to make your eyes look younger", and "This summer's hottest fashions".

It was an excerpt from Diane Levin and Jean Kilbourne's new book "So Sexy So Soon," about the effects of an increasingly sexualized culture on younger and younger girls, and boys.

(here is a related video also found on msn today)

The excerpt includes several parents personal accounts of surprising and concerning behavior in their 5, 6, 7, and 8 year old children.

Thoughts?

I can't remember if feministing posted on this, but recently a John McCain ad has come to light in which he compares Obama to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, playing on their reputations as 'frivolous and irresponsible' (his words) and basically airheaded blonde bimbos. Here's the ad:

Paris Hilton has just responded to this with her own spoof ad, right here:

I don't want to post my whole column here, because it's long. (I'm wordy when I'm angry.) Basically it takes on the science fiction author Orson Scott Card's angry screed about how same sex marriage is going to destroy democracy (I am not exaggerating here).

In it he also talks about how abortion rights have gotten so out of control that women are just wantonly aborting viable babies mid-birth... Yeah...

I essentially hit the high points of his arguments and pick them apart. Not so much pick, as bludgeon. He really isn't very bright, if this article is any indication.

Get it? I do?

Little did I know, as I was posting my latest wedding screed , the Post had a big article up on the front page of the business section about the latest wedding trend--frugality! (Apparently, I subscribe to the Sunday Post for nothing, as I can't even manage to read it the day they validate me. I mean my views on weddings)

I know you know I hate weddings (my co-worker came into my office today to tell me my anti-wedding mania was getting a little out of hand) but I really wanted to highlight one quote from the article:

Experts say there are many ways to cut wedding costs. "This is the time to prioritize what you need and realize that there is always something in your budget" to economize, [Richard] Markel [director of the Associaion for Wedding Professionals] said.

That is my problem with weddings. Markel's statement has always been true about weddings, long before a crippling recession hit, but his industry has made a fortune preying off of ugly stereotypes, faux traditions, selfishness, and rampant greed and consumerism. The wedding industry has made billions of dollars convincing families that they need to spend outrageous amounts of money (whether they can afford it or not) for their special day.

And, as a commenter on my AAUW blog pointed out, it has also created a gross sense of entitlement on the part of the couple, but I would argue that extends to the guests. Don't you dare skimp on the alcohol or entertainment, or we're going to be talking about you later.

I love parties, I really do, but the wedding culture coupled with the recent economic boom was an ugly mix, and I'm not sorry to see it go. Consumerism and corporate greed turned weddings--occasions that should be joyous and loving--into something ugly and competitive and cripplingly expensive for most of the population.

So go ahead and get married. I know you're going to. (Though keep dissemination of pictures of yourself kissing your beloved to a minimum, please.) But keep in mind that cheaper weddings are so hot right now, and that every dollar you save can be spent on the quality of your life, not just the quality of one day.

After working in and writing about politics and parenting special needs children, some have asked me, "Isn't it kind of shallow to go into travel the travel writing industry?" My resounding answer is: no.

Seriously, when's the last time you knew a world leader who stayed in their corner of the globe and never traveled? And Obama's much publicized recent diplomatic globetrotting has even done wonders -- it's given us all a glimpse of how to use superpower in ways other than bombing the crap out of other countries.

Few would call his travels shallow. Nor do they scoff at a trek through the Himalayas, the semester a student spends abroad, the surprising self-discovery earned by truly experiencing another culture, or the work done abroad while in the peace corps.

Travel changes people. It widens worldviews and lays a lot of misconceptions and stereotypes to rest.

So why is travel writing, especially so much of the kind marketed to women still perceived as shallow? Probably because it is. Periodicals and (the few) travel shows targeting women travelers have thus far been not only been lackluster, they've sometimes been downright insulting. It's as if they think our feeble lady brains can't handle actual details or substantive information.

Mark Harris, writer of the column "The Final Cut" for Entertainment Weekly, deserves a big feminist pat on the back.

While at work yesterday flipping through the usually vapid magazine, I stopped to read an article which discussed the issue surrounding Katherine Heigl and her Hollywood faux-pas of saying that she didn't feel herself worthy enough of an Emmy nomination this year for her work on the show Grey's Anatomy. Many people responded to this situations by calling Heigl out, claiming she was ungrateful for the work the writers of the show had done for her, while many others speculated that her character will simply be killed off next season for showing so little appreciation for her role. Mark Harris, however, is standing up for her - and all actresses.

In his column, he wrote:

Little has changed, except the coarseness with which celebrities can now be discussed - and the rules actresses must obey. Among them: Have a "positive body image," but also a killer body. Stay within the two-poung weight range that will not reveal you as either anorexic or a pig. Age gracefully, but never get older. Don't have wrinkles, but don't use Botox. Be modest, but when you win an award, weep as if a gold statuette is a personalized gift from heaven. If you get pregnant, be prepared to let a dozen news outlets act as your ob-gyn. Express concern about your carbon footprint, but don't be "political". Talk about how living a normal life is important to you, but smile while every aspect of your life is scrutinized. Criticize no one. Never speak off the cuff. Smile for the cameras. Don't cross the women on The View . And above all, maintain a stance of deep gratitude while expressing opinions about nothing.

Harris found it a relief to see that Heigl was an actual human being with actual opinions - imagine that, a woman that thinks?! But the points he brings up here, especially ones specifically relating to fame in a way most feminists might not consider, need to be more openly discussed in the media. Young women and men the world over look to these stars as their inspiration, but what exactly is our celebrity culture inspiring young people to become? In the same issue that this article ran in, the cover story (an interview with Christina Aguilera) completely disregarded the double standards brought up by Harris and went right into asking Christina important, hard-hitting questions like "How did you get back your pre-pregnancy body so fast?"

Are you rolling your eyes, yet? Because I certainly am.

It's a two way street. Women like Katherine Heigl are starting to speak up. Sure, she's gotten shit for saying what she did, but she actually spoke her mind, a no-no for those possessing vaginas in Hollywood. But until we have both vocal women and publications who want to ask their interviewees questions with actual substance, Hollywood will not know gender equality.

Unless you've been living in a hole for the past two months, you've heard Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl." This song about a sexually curious young woman who kisses another woman is quite the sensation. You can't avoid it on mainstream radio stations, and it's quite common to see large groups of preteen girls jamming out to it.

I've heard several interpretations of the song. Some say it's positive for promoting sexual agency and experimentation among young women. Some dismiss any actual analysis of the song, claiming it's just catchy and that no one listens to the lyrics anyway. However, I'm going to argue that this song represents a troubling trend in the portrayal of female sexuality- particularly queer female sexualities. Perry's lyrics reflect the trivialization of queer female sexuality and the cultural norms which state that female sexuality exists for the pleasure of men.

Hopefully, a simple look at the lyrics will prove my point.

BARBIE’S new S&M look has whipped up a storm – with protesters dubbing it “filth”.

The doll’s image is transformed with kinky fishnets, motorcycle jacket, black gloves and boots.

Makers Mattel say Black Canary Barbie, out in September, is based on a DC comic superhero of the same name.

But religious group Christian Voice said: “Barbie has always been on the tarty side and this is taking it too far.

A children’s doll in sexually suggestive clothing is irresponsible – it’s filth.”

"Filth"?  Isn't that a bit strong? 

Link

Today while parusing another popular blog, PostSecret, I saw this postcard that was sent in and then the comment following it.

-----Email Message-----
Sent: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 12:07 AM
I'm a feminist, and the most liberating thing I've done is flash a crowd of people!

It got me thinking. As a feminist, I feel that being completely comfortable with my own naked, or clothed, body is an important thing, especially in our society. I suppose this could have been one way this (presumed) woman showed her comfort. It would sadden me however, if this were another Girls Gone Wild party "trick" so many women get convinced into finding fun.

So, I guess my question stands: Is flashing feminist? Are there times when it is and times when it's not? Like when the Israeli tourist stripped down to combat New Zealanders' catcalls. Or is it always just playing into the belief that a woman's worth is found solely in her appearance making it dangerous yet exhilarating to show it all off to strangers?

I don't know. I'm interested to hear what others think?

Since I'm as excited as a person can be that the X-Files: I Want to Believe movie is coming out next week, I thought I'd share my thoughts with everyone as to how a television show shaped my feminism.

Essentially, I grew up with The X-Files .  The show started during my freshman year of high school and ended my first year of graduate school.  I do admit to not watching any of the last season, save the last episode or two.  I was in it for Mulder and Scully.

The James Bond collection has always been one of my guilty (and anti-feminist) pleasures. 

Having just finished a research paper for a class on espionage focusing on Fleming's novels, I thought I'd ask what the fuck was Ian Fleming thinking? 

In his novel, Goldfinger, one of the notorious Bond Girls is Pussy Galore.  As if her name wasn't bad enough (which implies women are nothing more and nothing less than their anatomy) Pussy Galore's story is age-old.  She is the leader of all-lesbian gang from New York who is first sent to kill James Bond. 

When James Bond asks Pussy Galore why she's a lesbian, she tells him its because she was raped by her uncle.  It gets worse.

By the end of the novel, Bond seduces Pussy and converts her into a heterosexual.  In what is, in my opinion, the most offensive moment in James Bond history Bond asserts that he can not only turn Pussy straight but he can also rid her of the emotional scars she has over being raped.  She agrees.  He does this simply by having sex with her. 

In the seduction scene, Bond tells Pussy to "lock that door.. take off that sweater and come into bed."  Fleming writes that Pussy "did as she told, like an obedient child."

I know most feminists don't expect much from the James Bond collection but the films tend to garner the most attention for a critical analysis.  The novels are an untapped source of anti-woman bullshit too.

A recent thought I had on entertainment and choosing:

We all like (need?) to be entertained: all genders, sexualities, races, etc.

The sad truth is, we have to choose from what is out there. Sometimes people of progressive sensibilities have to "overlook" things in entertainment that are problematic in order to be able to relax and, well, be entertained.

This is why I am really sick of the following defense/excuse for systematic problematic representations and constructions of "otherness" (non-white/male/middle-class/heterosexual) in entertainment or simply of certain titles in entertainment:

"[insert marginalized group here] watch it/play it/buy it/read it therefore:

• there's no problem with the ideology perpetuated
• it accurately represents what said people want
• said people enjoy it every aspect of the entertainment"

The bottom line is that we can only be entertained from what's out there, and what we like and want is heavily informed by what already exists. If every movie I saw was problem-free, I would rarely go to the movies. Just because people consume entertainment doesn't absolve their -Isms.** I often decline from supporting and entertainment that is even a bit sexist/heterosexist/racist, etc., and I am fine with giving it up but many other people don't make that sacrifice and that is 100% their prerogative. But that cannot be interpreted to mean that all entertainment consumed by marginalized individuals is not in any way offensive or problematic. Not to mention that oftentimes the problematic nature of some entertainment isn't known until after spending the $$; thus, when commercial success=implied condoning, the damage is often already done, which makes public critique our primary way of making our disgust known.

Example: this, for me, especially applies to hetero women and porn, of women having resources for sexualized men. women want erotic imagery but the vast majority of images and films are targeted for heterosexual men, and often involve ideologies that progressive women find objectionable. More and more there are non-sexist, non-racist material available, but they are often hard-to-find and are almost never "free" (whereas men wanting "traditional" material have very easy and free access to material that is quite suitable for them). Therefore, many women (or prog-men), who want to satisfy their desire for erotic material, "settle" for traditional material and try to "look over" the deficiencies. Or many cope by occupying the male observer's standpoint, and sexualize the female involved, thus they may be consuming and enjoying mainstream erotic imagery, but are deprived sexualized male bodies. In other words: when it comes to porn, women who want and enjoy porn as a category have to simply choose between the options they are given, which may or may not actually be 100% what they want. It's just what's easily (or freely) available.

Cross-posted at Uncensored Feminista:

When Dieter Esch began looking at the players on the LPGA Tour, he quickly figured out that something was missing. He sensed they always appeared out of place . . . swinging nine-irons, hitting out of bunkers, putting cross-handed on the green.

So Esch decided it would be a great idea to put the golfers in something different, something the casual public does not see them in, at least up to now.

Like bikinis. Like lingerie. Like evening gowns. 

"This was perfect, to show the world there are sexy, athletic women who can play," said Esch, who is using his company and his clout to turn seven female pro players into model citizens. 

I have such a problem with this because why do women need to prove that they're sexy and can play?  I don't see the same thing happening for men.  It's as if they need to show their sexiness and their femininity in order to be recognized for the players that they are.  This sounds a lot to me like what's happening with the WNBA and how the women are being sent to charm school.  I also wanted to mention that we don't see male athletes in their tighty whities to promote themselves.  Granted Michael Jordon has the Hanes endorsements but have you ever seen an ad of him in underware or half naked?  Have you ever seen him wearing less clothing than what he would wear on the court?  Why do women have to expose themselves in bikinis and lingerie, which is NOT something they should be seen in public in period, not like the article suggests.  

The part that I am happy about is that they will be promoting them and trying to get them better endorsements.

The agency will seek sponsorship and endorsement deals for the women as a group and as individuals.

Wilhelmina has launched a campaign to get them work, and, well, exposure.

Clients interested in one of the group or all of them may make up their mind as they thumb through a bound booklet of color photographs of the players, posing in bikinis, summer dresses, and more slinky dresses.

If it's not just a good read, Esch says he thinks it's certainly worth at least a look, or several.

There is a basic need being met here, he said.

"There was simply not enough pizazz on the LPGA Tour," he said. "The players had no representation to speak of, no advertisements to speak of. It's a crime, so Wilhelmina is taking it upon itself to change that."

Endorsement income for female golfers is far from great, especially when compared to their male counterparts, although there are exceptions. Michelle Wie's estimated $12 million is the highest among LPGA Tour players, according to Forbes' Celebrity 100 list, while No. 1-ranked Lorena Ochoa earns an estimated $6 million from her endorsements.

Those totals pale in comparison to the estimated $90 million to $105 million that Tiger Woods annually brings in from his endorsement deals.

It seems like a double edged sword.  On the one hand they're trying to promote these women and get them the same amount of money in endorsements that their male counterparts get, but on the other hand they're basically forced to become models and parade around in bikinis and slinky dresses in order to get these endorsements.  I don't think that's right.  I think they should be endorsed on their merits as professional athletes, not on how they look in bikinis and lingerie.

When I was thirteen my I went to Barnes and Nobles with my mom and she gave me permission to buy one book. Since there weren't any new Gossip Girl books or any of the other trash I liked when I was thirteen, I picked up a historical romance novel that looked pretty good. I believe it was called "The First Princess of Wales" and it was about Joan of Kent, a real historical figure. The story inside seemed to have nothing to do with Joan's life, though. Joan and her husband Edward, The Black Prince, were a very romantic couple in real life, and he married her despite a lot of opposition and it seemed they were very happy together. No where in the history books does it mention a rape. But in the novel, Edward kidnaps and brutally rapes  the underage Joan (in real life she was older than him but in the book he's implied to be significantly older than her), and she responds by falling head-over-heels in love with him. 

Of course, after that I put down the book, disgusted. It seemed really wrong. I wasn't really a feminist at age thirteen, but everything I'd been told about rape made it seem like it'd be really offensive for women who had gone through that for it to be portrayed in that light. I told my mom what I'd read, and she wasn't the least bit surprised. "You used to see that kind of thing all the time in romance novels when I was your age." She even told me there was a couple like that in a soap opera she used to watch called General Hospital. He raped her, but the ended up married with children and are still together in the show. In fact, they actually have a large fan base online even today. 

For some reason, that plot device seems really degrading to women. Going back to the medieval belief that women are possessions to be "taken" by men. That book gave the impression that Joan had only resisted because she needed to be "broken" and that once that happened she became a docile woman eager to return Edward's affections. The book was set in the thirteen hundreds, but it was written about a supposed "great love story". In real life, if a woman falls in love with a man who rapes her, it's Stockholm Syndrome and the victim would probably need therapy to get over it. If not, it certainly wouldn't develop into a normal or healthy relationship and she wouldn't love him in the same way women normally love men their involved with. It seems like a dangerous message to spread and a mentally unstable young man could even see it as a sign he should rape the object of his affections. Why would anyone think rape is romantic? 

Coming soon to Disneyland: The Innoventions Dream Home, a vaguely futuristic house where the technology is futuristic (sort of)and the gender roles are, well, sadly predictable.

We know Disney has a lot invested in traditional gender stereotyping. These two rooms in particular look very much like the next step in thrusting outdated expectations for boys and girls into the future:

Younger Son's Room Robbie has a room that would be the envy of any adventurous kid. His bed is a pirate ship, complete with onboard cannon. In the manner of all great Disney attractions, the room combines the latest technology with classic storytelling. When a family member takes a seat by the bed and begins to tell the story of Peter Pan, the story jumps off the pages. Everyone in the room is immersed in the story with special effects, including video that appears on the ship's sail and the surrounding walls. Tinker Bell may even breeze past some of the room's fixtures, causing them to shake and tinkle. The bed-cannon can shoot holes through the virtual clouds, just like the cannon on Captain Hook's ship.

and:

Teen Daughter's Room At her desk, the Elias family daughter can connect with friends or her favorite entertainment... But she may be spending much of her time in front of the Magic Mirror, a virtual mirror that projects accessories, hairstyles, and the clothes from her closet onto her reflection, fitting the styles to her body so that she can try out different 'looks' as she prepares for her brother's party. Tip: Watch as she holds the dress up for consideration. The virtual skirt even sways as she twirls around!

Boys, the house dictates, are supposed to be adventurous. They want to be part of an exciting story. They read, and the story comes to life in front of them. The boy's room values imagination, adventure, and reading. The boy's bed has a cannon on it (okay, let's not get too far into that one).

The daughter, on the other hand, at her "original 1940s vanity," (see official site) is not part of a story. She is the story, a character whose only job is to try on clothes at her mirror. Instead of watching a story unfold, the girl is trained to watch herself, to edit herself and give herself an acceptable appearance before she leaves her room. Unlike her brother's, this girl's story is isolating (there are no other characters; she is singled out) and essentialist (she has one story line and set of motivations to conform to). And by focusing on the daughter's appearance, it reinforces the idea that what is important about a woman is her body, not her mind or imagination (even at Disneyland). Teaching girls that they have control over their appearances instead of their lives- not cool, Disney. Definitely not cool.

I won't even get into these charming details: "If Mrs. Elias puts a bag of flour on the counter, the computer voice of 'Lillian' will provide recipes and instructions to prepare the meals." Oh, and "the actors who populate the Dream Home are encouraged to steer all tough technical questions back to "Dad" who knows to direct all interested parties to manufacturer websites." (see resmagonline.com)

Now, I grew up on Disney. And yes, I still watch some of those classic movies with not a little affection. But what I would really love to see, sometime before I have a daughter to raise, is an end to half-hearted nods to gender equality (see: Mulan) and a real move toward something more empowering.