2008 November Archive

Quick Hit: Sexism’s Coming Out Party

Check out Hannah Seligon’s great overview of how the entire world woke up to sexism in the media thanks to the last year of political coverage. There’s a special focus on the Women’s Media Center, definitely an organization to know. In fact, they’re accepting applications now for their next class of the Progressive Women’s Voices project, an experience I thoroughly enjoyed (media training + amazing community of women + publicity support for your organization or your own personal writing/activism). Check it out and send those applications in ASAP!

By Courtney • 15 years ago

Cheerleaders Gone Wild?

A guest post from my awesome friend, Kate Torgovnick!
Earlier this year at Bothell High School in Seattle, two photos made their way across the student body via text message. The first featured one of the school’s cheerleaders topless; the second showed another cheerleader in the buff. When the school’s co-principals found out about the photos, they suspended both cheerleaders from the squad–asking the first to forfeit her pom-poms for 30 days and the second to leave the team for the entire year. Conveniently, the football players who were suspected of circulating the photos weren’t punished at all.
Last week, the parents of the two girls decided to sue the school, calling for them to wipe the incident from the ...

By Courtney • 15 years ago

Food for Thought on Prop 8

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
-James Baldwin

Former New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
-James Baldwin

Former New Life Church ...

By Courtney • 15 years ago

Transgender Children

There’s a really in depth piece in this month’s Atlantic about the growing movement to honor the wishes of transgender children and all the complexities therein. Though I don’t claim to be anything near an expert on this issue, I thought that writer Hanna Rosin did a commendable job of bringing in plenty of diverse opinions and exploring so many different angles (and truth be told, I was shocked that the usually stodgy Atlantic devoted so much precious real estate to the issue).
She looked at the sociological, biological, and psychological implications of transgender children’s rights through the story of one fascinating family living in a very conservative, small town. Tina, the mother of 8-year-old Brandon (who wants to ...

By Courtney • 15 years ago

Slow Blogging

You’re heard of the slow food movement, right? Well now folks are bringing that same sensibility–a mindful, patient, sensual exploration of the full enjoyment of the present moment–to one of the fastest of mediums: the blog.
The New York Times had a fascinating story on this trend on Sunday. It turns out that there is even a Slow Blog Manifesto, written in 2006 by Todd Sieling from (of course) Canada. Sieling writes:

Slow Blogging is a reversal of the disintegration into the one-liners and cutting turns of phrase that are often the early lives of our best ideas. Its a process in which flashes of thought shine and then fade to take their place in the background as part ...

By Sharkfu • 15 years ago

Notes from a bitch…

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Each year I am blessed to spend it with my siblings and chosen family of friends.
Oh, and the non-stop feasting is fantabulous too (wink)!
This year, with the economy in turmoil and communities bracing for layoffs, I’m beyond thankful for all that I have…not the materials things, of which I don’t have many, but the relationships and experiences that make a person whole.
I’m aware that there are many in my community who lack even that. Too often we tend to view poverty as a purely money-based thing and discuss it in terms of what a person can’t afford or has had repossessed. And it is important to remember ...

By Ann • 15 years ago

Weekly Feminist Reader

Just the headlines today, folks…
Proposition 8, The Mormon Coming Out Party: While the LDS Church’s leadership role in the passage of Proposition 8 may have been a surprising new direction for observers here in the United States, the Church has been instrumental in the organization of a world-spanning alliance of right-wing Christians and Muslims.
Overthinking It: Why Twilight Will Be a Great Achievement for Women
Stereohyped: England’s Black Women Overcome Pay Gap
The rise and fall of Rachida Dati: Born to a poor immigrant Muslim family, France’s justice minister has had an astonishing political ascent, appearing in glamorous magazine shoots and holidaying with the Sarkozys. But now pregnant with a child whose father she ...

By Vanessa • 15 years ago

Holy shit.

The American Family Association has a new DVD out, “They’re Coming to Your Town,” so you can learn the “strategies used by gay activists” and avoid gay infiltration in YOUR town!
Yes, really.

I love how they show video shots of activists from afar like it’s fucking National Geographic. Don’t get too close, they’re contagious!! This kind of stuff is proof of just how batshit crazy these people are. I really don’t know whether to laugh or cry.
Full transcript after the jump.

I love how they ...