Recently in Random Category

Whenever I am staying with my parents back in my hometown, I browse the wedding announcements in the newspaper to look for people I might know.

I find it pretty disturbing and depressing that more than half (maybe even 75%) the announcements are re: the marriage of "Mr. and Mrs. HisFirstName HisLastName."
As I looked through the pages on Sunday I was floored by just how many couples are publicly labeling themselves that way.

I don't read the wedding announcements in any other papers so I have nothing to compare my hometown paper with. Has anyone else noticed this?

Hey everyone,

Does anyone know where online I could find the script to the (I think it's a one act) play "Yo Me Divorcia, Papa" by Malena Sandor? (Translation: I'm Getting Divorced, Papa) I'm looking for it for a possible performance piece in the spring.

If anyone has any links or info on this that would be AMAZING! Thank you!

I attend an all-women's college in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Roanoke, Virginia, and after a Women's Studies Intro course my first year at Hollins University, I knew I couldn't just major in English, but that I had to double major in Gender & Women's Studies.

I have always grown up with a feminist perspective. My grandmother spent her time in the 60s and 70s working towards the women's liberation movement, marching to court houses in Los Angeles and work with consciousness raising groups. My mother, a divorced mom of two, taught me more than any class could about classism, sexism, and the importance of education. I thought with my background and eagerness to explore what Women's Studies classes hold that I could finally find my own voice as a feminist and become a part of the feminist community at Hollins.

But that has been nothing but wishful thinking. I am a junior, and after declaring my Women's Studies major this past year, I thought that I would finally get some actual respect and recognition from the department chairs and the other women in the department. Even after working to help feminism thrive on campus (I brought transgendered author Kate Bornstein, sex-education activisit and star of the documentary The Education of Shelby Knox Shelby Knox, and Feministing founder herself, Jessica Valenti to speak, planned and made arrangements for the Vagina Monologues to go on last February, participated as an active member in the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, and even went on a week-long New York City Feminism Bootcamp), I feel nothing but isolation from my fellow feminists on campus and disregarded by the Professors.

What I have witnessed in the Women's Studies department is that stereotypes of what a feminist or a Women's Studies student should be are what the professors seem to respond best to.

Thanks to everyone who responded to my cry for help lo those many weeks ago. I got so many replies from the different places that I posted that I actually had too much information. So if there's anyone who replied and I didn't use your info, sorry, nothing personal, I had to pick and choose and wound up using a very small portion of what I had.

Anyhoo, I posted the article to my blog. It's way too long to post here.

Just wanted to share.

*Just to warn everyone upfront, this is a rant.  I don't know if this is the kind of stuff people want to read about on Feministing, but I thought there might be someone here who can relate...

You know, I remember the exact day it started. It started when I was researching birth control. I was about to get married, and I knew nothing about it.I didn’t even know that if you were on the pill, you had to take it everyday, and I certainly didn’t know you had to take it at the same time everyday. I didn’t learn about it from my mom, who thought the pill was dangerous and whose preferred birth control method during the 1970s was the diaphragm. (Do people still use those?) And I certainly didn’t learn about it in my abstinence only sex education classes. I had to research it myself, the old fashioned way – on Google. Somewhere in between reading about estrogen, progesterone and cervical mucus, I stumbled across an article about how some pharmacists were refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control and emergency contraception. I was outraged, I couldn’t believe it… someone could actually refuse to fill a prescription that my doctor wrote me based on “moral grounds”?! Yes, I was getting married, but what if I wasn’t? That was the moment, right then and there - there was no turning back. I was a feminist.

Why do people at work automatically think that you're married when the first question they ask you when you start a new job is 'Do you have any children?' Not, 'So are you married?'

When I answer yes I do have children to that question the people I work with start asking me rapid fire questions about where my husband works? Why don't I have a husband? How about a boyfriend? Why don't you have a boyfriend? Are you a lesbian?

Then they start going on and on about how I need to find a man so my life will be complete. Also that I need to have someone to take care of me and my boys so I won't have to work anymore. Don't people, the hispanic men I work with most of all, realize that maybe I like to work? Or maybe I like being single? I understand that their is a big culture difference between me and most of the people I work with but come on.

I think what really gets me mad however is when they start saying that I need to find a man so that I can have more babies. Like I need more babies. My youngest is finally old enough that he can make his own peanut butter sandwich and go to the bathroom without me holding his hand. Why would I want to start all over. Now is where the fun begins. My sons are both old enough that when we go to the park I don't have to push a stroller, I don't have to lug around a huge diaper bag and I don't have to worry to bad about one of them climbing up onto something that they can't get down from on their own. I don't like babies. I like toddlers and pre-schoolers who have a personality, not drooly, floppy, hold me always babies. I'm not saying that I didn't love my boys when they were babies but I like them much better now.

So why do I have to have a man to make my life complete? I already have a wonderful, fulfilling life. I enjoy being a single mother. I like to work and I often choose jobs that are more masculine than feminine in nature. If I want sex I can go to any bar and pick someone up for the night. Hell, I don't know any girl who doesn't have a fuck buddy for just those moments.

I am a woman. I am independent. I am strong. I am a force to be reckoned with. And I don't need a man.

Sorry about the rant, but does anyone else have to deal with this aggravation on a daily basis?

Today two of my friends began playing a game on Facebook where they would try to determine someone's race and social background based on their name. They would say things like "that's a black girls name" or "she sounds like white trash". So, I tried to tell them the obvious: that they're stereotyping and its not cool. But they defended themselves saying that some stereotyping is ok, talking about how its defended in sociology as a way of retaining information or something. My first thought is "you're a undergrad psychology major, what the hell do you know about sociology?" but my second thought is, "can you actually defend stereotyping?". Basically I stood my ground and told them that, no, its not cool to try and determine anything about anyone based on their name. But, I don't know how to defend my position. Beyond saying it's wrong, I don't know how to make my friends realize how what they're doing makes them look and exactly whats wrong with it. What can I say that will make them understand? I mean, they're both smart people and besides this I've never heard them say anything that bothered me. I'm not good at articulating my thoughts, I know what they're doing isn't good, but I don't know how to let them know in a way that isn't confrontational.

[This is my first ever feministing community post.  I have been reading for a long time...but it just felt like the right time to dive in.]

I used to routinely lie when I would put my weight on something official.  Not by much, but I stretched it a bit.

I have recently given consideration to what this does, but more so b/c of the reaction I get when I actually confess my secret shameful truth (read sarcastically as I am trying to get on board w/ loving myself).  When I tell people that I actually weigh 207 pounds, the normal response that I get is "But you don't look that fat!" or "There is no way you weigh that much".

I realize what people are trying to do here.  I can appreciate the thought process that is behind it, b/c I too want to make people feel good about themselves.  For a long time it did make me feel better to think that I was fooling someone, even if it was a polite lie.

But there was a side I had never considered until I read this post by fillyjonk at Shapely Prose.

I can’t imagine a situation in which anyone uses your weight on your license to identify you, and it’s quite possible I look more like people’s idea of 185 than their idea of 215. But this is my identification card. And I identify as a person who weighs 215 pounds, because that is what I weigh.

It’s important to me that my sense of my “real body” matches up with the body I’ve got, and putting my real weight on my license feels like a manifestation of that. Part of it is the importance of owning your weight and thus countering people’s misconceptions of what 200 pounds or 300 pounds looks like.

It's important to note that there is probably a good portion of people who imagine 200 or 300 pounds as a helluva lot bigger that it is.  I should be crystal clear that it really doesn't fucking matter what people think of me, b/c I sit here as someone who has been told repeatedly that I am really beautiful, but still can't find the strength to believe it when I look in the mirror or step on a scale.  What matters the most is my perception of myself.  Plus, using words like "you aren't that fat" feels othering to people who are that fat.  And they are people too, worthy of dignity and respect and love.  There is absolutely nothing wrong w/ being that fat, so I don't feel a need to put a wall there among people who are already shamed and othered.

I am a 17 year old girl in desperate need of role models. I still feel like a kid and I don't want to grow up trying to act like the girls on Gossip Girl or The Hills. I want to know who I can look up to. Jessica has been a role model ever since I read her first book (I had to buy it after seeing her on Colbert) but I want more books like that. I want to admire the people and the work of the media instead of trying to learn from its mistakes. I want to know anyone or anything that inspired the feminist in you.

Thank You!

My father left my family when I was 5 years old. During that time, I clearly remember him physically abusing both my mother and me. What I've never been so clear about however, is the sexual abuse that may or may not have taken place. I'm not sure how to explain it; I've always felt like it did take place but I've just succeeded in convincing myself it didn't happen. You know, either my mother hinted at it enough for me to fabricate some shadowy memories or I fabricated them myself, years later. Or simply out of the denial that my own father would have ever gone that far. So after some serious thinking about how this may further affect my non-existant relationship with my father and my rocky relationship with the rest of my family; I requested that my entire medical history be shipped to my house.

I found out that at age four, there was enough conclusive medical evidence for my doctor to say that I had been sexually abused. I have no idea what the hell to do now. I had imagined that this day would bring immense relief, maybe sorrow but most likely, anger. I feel like I should remember this more plainly and feel some sort of something but I feel nothing. In a way, I like to think I'm lucky that I don't remember it, but that feels hugely insensitive to the millions of women who do remember the abuse that was inflicted upon them. I feel like I should be crying but I can't. Instead, I'm sitting at my desk, calmly typing the words “I was sexually abused by my own father.” Words that I will most likely never, ever utter to another person.

Two of my friends just came into my room, I minimized this window and we all had 30-minute conversation as if nothing was wrong. Well, technically nothing is wrong. I guess I'm looking for someone who has gone through something like this, anyone that can tell me anything...I would really appreciate it. Sorry for being so broad, I’m just confused.

I don't want anyone to feel like I'm demanding stories; because I am definitely not, I just need to get some support from the only people I know who can give it; my sistas at Feministing. If anyone feels comfortable sharing, please do.