"I love feministing.com and always learn from it." Katha Pollitt, The Nation
"Many people need a morning "fix." For some, it's coffee. For others, it's "SportsCenter." For me, it's Feministing.com." Katie Stone, The Denver Post
"Feminism is fun again! Every bit as edifying as your women's studies books from college, but with a biting sense of humor that keeps things punchy, not preachy." Marie Claire, December 2006
Germaine Greer, the feminist and one-time celebrity Big Brother contestant, and anti-globalisation journalist Naomi Klein were among those women to make Prospect magazine's annual list.
The eight other women are Florence Wambugu, a plant virologist from Kenya; Elaine Scarry, an American literary theorist; Martha Nussbaum, a US philosopher; Sunita Narain, an Indian developmental environmentalist; Camille Paglia, an American US critic and feminist; Shirin Ebadi, a human rights activist from Iran; Julia Kristeva, a philosopher and feminist from France, and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a politician from Somalia and the Netherlands.
Commenting on the list, writer David Herman criticises its strong male content, querying the whereabouts of the new generation of female intellectuals.
..."This partly reflects the dominance of the male world of strategic studies and policy institutes."
Unbelievable.
Oh by the way, Paul Wolfowitz and Larry Summers made the list. Nuff said.
A judge in Texas recently ordered a 17 year-old girl charged with using drugs to abstain from sex as a condition of her probation. You know, cause drug use and sex go hand in hand. (I wonder how this judge plans to enforce the ruling...weekly vagina checks?)
Apparently Judge Lauri Blake is known for being quite the hater--she has also banned tattoos, body piercings, earrings and clothing "associated with the drug culture" for those on probation and won’t allow lawyers in her courtroom to wear sleeveless shirts or show cleavage.
Sounds like someone needs a gavel removed from their ass.
Democratic lawmakers and civil rights leaders denounced conservative commentator William J. Bennett yesterday for suggesting on his syndicated radio show that aborting black children would reduce the U.S. crime rate.
The former U.S. education secretary-turned-talk show host said Wednesday that "if you wanted to reduce crime, you could -- if that were your sole purpose -- you could abort every black baby in this country, and your crime rate would go down." Bennett quickly added that such an idea would be "an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do." But, he said, "your crime rate would go down."
Holy. Shit.
Bennett doesn’t exactly have a stellar reputation to begin with--after writing books about traditional values and such he admitted that he lost millions in casinos due to a gambling problem--but this shit is just insane.
Protesters carried banners and placards and heard speeches denouncing Pervez Musharraf's comments, made in the US.
...In Islamabad, human rights activist Hina Jillani told the crowds that the president's remarks were an insult to women, and called for an "unqualified apology" from Mr Musharraf.
The rally, held close to the presidential palace and Pakistan's parliament, was organised by the Joint Action Committee, a grouping of womens' groups and human rights activists.
...Many Pakistani women routinely face abuse and rape in a male-dominated society.
Incidents of violent rape have caused outrage in recent years, with victims like Mukhtaran Mai and Dr Shazia Khalid highlighting the issue.
Ms Mai, an illiterate 33-year-old woman, was gang-raped in 2002, apparently on the orders of a village council.
I’m betting there will no apology. Shit, the guy won’t even admit he said it!
Only 22 senators had the courage to stand up for women's rights when it mattered. NOW applauds those senators who voted to reject this dangerous nominee, and it is unfortunate that the courageous actions of a few are overshadowed by the fall-in-line politics of so many more.
I guess I am finding myself banging my head against a wall as well.
This does not suprise me at all. Not to be anti-marriage girl today or anything (even though I am pretty anti-marriage), I found this study to be interesting.
Married women are more likely to have sexual problems than married men or single women, research suggests.
Researchers from University College London analysed data from a survey of 11,000 adults, giving a snapshot of what is happening in UK bedrooms.
Juggling caring for small children with maintaining a sexual relationship was highlighted as a problem by many.
Married or cohabiting women were more likely to have problems than single members of their gender, as were mothers with young children at home.
Problems cited by married women included not feeling like they were in control of decision-making in their lives, not using a reliable form of contraception, having small children around the house and not being able to talk to their partner.
David Goldmeier and colleagues, of the Jane Wadsworth Sexual Function Clinic at St Mary's Hospital, London, writing in Sexually Transmitted Infections, said: "Despite its prevalence, sexual dysfunction is often endured in silence.
"Studies in both the US and UK suggest that as many as 54% of women and 35% of men have problems, but fewer than 11% of men and 21% of women seek help."
Again, not a study to be generalized outside its sample population, but very sad. What do we think?
Here our "modern brides" starve themselves to fit into their wedding dresses. In this particular instance, women are being forced to overeat to fit into a beauty image that demands a larger woman.
The traditions of the desert are very much alive in Mauritania, an Islamic republic on the western edge of the Sahara whose people were still almost entirely nomadic when the country gained independence from France in 1960.
Having a voluptuous wife and daughters -- well fed to survive the rigors of a desert lifestyle -- was long a visible sign of wealth and power among the country’s light-skinned Moors. It is still seen by many as a canon of beauty.
But with Lebanese satellite television broadcasting images of flat-stomached girls cavorting on beaches, and more Mauritanians traveling abroad, the vogue is starting to change.
More than one in five women in Mauritania, which straddles black and Arab Africa, were force-fed as young girls, according to a government survey from 2001, the latest available.
“Our society has this vision that a woman has to be fat to be beautiful. It is a canon of beauty,” said Marienne Baba Sy, head of a government commission that deals with women’s issues.
Having a differing sense of beauty outside the thin and white matrix would be nice, but why the force feeding? Why are women world-wide still expected to look a certain way for the male gaze?
Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas's new book, "Promises I Can Keep," explains -- in their subjects' own words -- why so many poor women opt for single motherhood.
It's not that they don't believe in marriage, or don't want it for themselves. They "delay" marriage until they think they have a reasonable shot at making it work. What Edin and Kefalas, both Philadelphia sociologists, found in their five-year study of 162 poor black, white and Puerto Rican single mothers is a near total disconnect between marriage and motherhood.
Break it down sisters. This is not to say that the experience of single motherhood is easy or glamorous, but it is complicated. It is also a clear rebellion to norms of hetersexual union/motherhood.
The article doesn't paint this picture so much as get at the notion that the hopes of these women are "magic" in that they are detached from the reality they live. You can't really make an essential statement about this, but most of my single mother friends are quite aware of the condition they are living in. What do you think?
Are young women putting themselves in danger through binge drinking?
A large proportion of young women are at personal risk after getting drunk, a report by the Portman Group says.
The organisation which is funded by the drinks industry, says that over a third of women had been sexually assaulted while drunk and 34% had had unprotected sex after drinking.
It also found that women are more likely to become more aggressive than men while drunk.
Who are these researchers? Do they think about societal factors affecting their subject pool and blatant gender assumptions in their analysis? This article is a little more comprehensive.
And what is so bad about an agro drunk woman? Not ladylike enough?
By the way, Commander in Chief attracted 16.2 million viewers, the largest audience for a drama series debut on Tuesday night in nearly five years. (And the top-rated show of the night.) Sweet.
SuicideGirls quit; say female empowerment reputation false
If you don�t know SuicideGirls (where have you been?) here's the deal--it's porn that features "alternative" women. Lots of tattoos and body piercings and the like. It's enjoyed a high-profile reputation as female-controlled and operated. Apparently, that's not necessarily the case.
A group of angry ex-models is bashing the SuicideGirls alt-porn empire, saying its embrace of the tattoo and nipple-ring set hides a world of exploitation and male domination.
...about 30 models have quit, claiming the site's male owner treated them poorly and didn't pay them well.
The women are spreading their allegations through the blogosphere, raising the hackles of the SuicideGirls company, which has until now enjoyed a reputation as porn even feminists can love. It offers burlesque tours, clothes and DVDs in addition to a sprawling online library of naked punk and goth women.
...the woman-friendly reputation of SuicideGirls is being battered. Since its creation in 2001, media outlets have lauded the company's focus on goth, indie and punk models who aren't necessarily big-busted and bikini-waxed. "It wasn't the first alt-porn site to come along, but it was certainly the most widely promoted and probably the most influential," said John d'Addario, editor of the porn blog Fleshbot.
The message of business-side female empowerment hasn't hurt either. "The perception that women had an important/equal role in the administration of the site probably made it more attractive to some people who might not have visited a porn site otherwise," d'Addario said.
Despite what the reputation of the site is, the models who have quit say that SuicideGirls is actually controlled by a man, cofounder Sean Suhl. They claim Suhl treated women badly and didn�t pay them enough.
The site claims that these are just a few women who are spreading lies. I don�t about you, but it seems to me that 30 women are more than just a couple of disgruntled employees. This is super disappointing.
Remember Martha Burk, the chairwoman of the National Council of Women's Organizations, and the champion of the Let-Women-Into-Augusta campaign? Well it looks like she's got a new bee in her bonnet: a new ad for the NHL's comeback season.
"The spot opens with a quote from Chinese military philosopher Sun Tzu: 'A clever warrior is one who not only wins, but excels at winning with ease.' A bare-chested player sits on a wooden bench in the glow of a candlelit room with a backbeat of drums and rattling sabers. He is approached by a woman in a bra and gauzy robe, who touches his shoulders, asks 'Ready?' and helps him put on his shoulder pads and jersey. She says 'It's time,' and he heads to the ice to the cheers of a man and young boy in the stands. The ad ends with "My NHL, coming 10.05."
Burk claims this ad is sexist and sent "letters of protest to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports & Olympics" before the ad debuted this week. She was quoted as saying, "The woman is a sexual ornament, in my view...It's appealing to adult men while trying to masquerade as something for kids. That's deeply offensive to me. As a mother of two sons, they see enough sex and violence anyway. Why put it in warrior terms? That's offensive, let alone the sexism."
The NHL claims the ad is "very respectful of women [because] the woman is a spiritual and physical trainer for the warrior, and his mentor."
...When Ms. Hughes expressed the hope here that Saudi women would be able to drive and "fully participate in society" much as they do in her country, many challenged her.
"The general image of the Arab woman is that she isn't happy," one audience member said. "Well, we're all pretty happy." The room, full of students, faculty members and some professionals, resounded with applause.
The administration's efforts to publicize American ideals in the Muslim world have often run into such resistance.
...Many in this region say they resent the American assumption that, given the chance, everyone would live like Americans.
"This war is really, really bringing your positive efforts to the level of zero," said Hidayet Sefkatli Tuksal, an activist with the Capital City Women's Forum. She said it was difficult to talk about cooperation between women in the United States and Turkey as long as Iraq was under occupation.
..."War makes the rights of women completely erased and poverty comes after war -- and women pay the price," said Fatma Nevin Vargun, a Kurdish women's rights activist.
...Hughes, looking increasingly pained, defended the decision to invade Iraq as a difficult and wrenching moment for President Bush, but necessary to protect America.
"You're concerned about war, and no one likes war," she said. But, she said, "to preserve the peace sometimes my country believes war is necessary." She also asserted that women are faring much better in Iraq than under the rule of deposed president Saddam Hussein.
"War is not necessary for peace," shot back Feray Salman, a human rights advocate. She said countries should not try to impose democracy through war, adding that "we can never, ever export democracy and freedom from one country to another."
Love it. There’s just this insane arrogance that goes along with the idea that American women know what’s best for women around the world. Whatever happened to letting women tell their own stories and speak for themselves?
Reynolds says that the real problem with diversity on college campuses is the “dwindling” number of male students. Uh huh.
I looked at some possible answers to this question in a column over at TechCentralStation today, but I continue to wonder why nobody is paying much attention to this issue. Perhaps men lack the sort of identity-politics lobby groups that women and minorities do.
You certainly don't see much in the way of "Men's Studies" and "Men's Centers" to match the Women's Studies and Women's Centers that you see on most college campuses these days.
Will we see that change, as men become a minority on university campuses?
My guess is yes, and that's because -- at least according to a recent New York Times report that's gotten a lot of attention (including commentaries by Richard Posner and Gary Becker), college-educated women are increasingly abandoning their careers for full-time motherhood. Many people doubt whether this is happening to the degree suggested by the Times, and "trend" stories like this should always be taken with a grain of salt, but to the extent it's true it puts colleges in a bind: Where are their rich alumni to come from in the future, if men don't attend and women don't go on to become high-earners?
I see. So colleges should be trying to recruit more men because women are just going to be moms anyway and therefore financially useless?
