By Jessica • 14 years ago

CA school district bans the dictionary. Seriously.

Uh oh, I see the word ‘vagina’  *faints*

I know we covered this in yesterday’s What We Missed, but I just had to give it a bit more ink.  The Menifee, California school district has pulled all copies of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary because it contains definitions for “oral sex.”

And now, the school district is forming a committee to decide whether dictionaries that contain sexual terms should be permanently banned from classrooms.

The decision was made without consultation with the district’s school board and has raised concerns among First Amendment experts and some parents.

Other parents and Menifee residents, though, have praised the district’s decision, saying a collegiate-level dictionary is inappropriate for younger children.

A memo from the district’s assistant superintendent for curriculum ...

Uh oh, I see the word ‘vagina’  *faints*

I know we covered this in yesterday’s What We Missed, but I just had to give it a bit more ink.  The Menifee, California school district has pulled all ...
By Jessica • 14 years ago

Fun with Feminist Flickr: Yes, more graffiti edition

Every time I feature some sort of graffiti, an argument erupts in comments about whether defacing public property is something that should be lauded – but this is one of my favorites, so I couldn’t help myself. (You may have seen it before, it’s been around a while.) And really, our public spaces are defaced all the time with sexist consumerist nonsense like this ad…so I’m not against taking them back.

Picture via lucindalunacy.

Every time I feature some sort of graffiti, an argument erupts in comments about whether defacing public property is something that should be lauded – but this is one of my favorites, so I couldn’t help myself. ...
By Miriam • 14 years ago

What We Missed

NARAL Virginia made this video called What I learned at a Virginia Crisis Pregnancy Center. Transcript downloadable here.
Last night Lifetime premiered the movie Pregnancy Pact, inspired by the real life story of the Gloucester High students who got pregnant in 2008. It got a lot of discussion on Twitter, and here is one Feministing reader, Leah’s take on the film.
Shakesville has the scoop on a California school district that has banned the Merriam-Webster Dictionary for containing a definition of the phrase “oral sex.” I totally remember looking up words like “sex” in the dictionary at my elementary school library…

The New York Times has an article about how the NYC courts ...

NARAL Virginia made this video called What I learned at a Virginia Crisis Pregnancy Center. Transcript downloadable here.
Last night Lifetime premiered the movie Pregnancy Pact, inspired by the real life story of the

By Sharkfu • 14 years ago

Notes from a bitch…because justice demands it…

The health care reform process has been brutal.
For months I’ve joined activists and volunteers who have been working to make sure women are not left with less reproductive health care coverage after health care reform that we currently have.
For months I’ve watched anti-choice language work its way into the House version of the health care reform bill and then the Nelson compromise insert the likelihood of regional disparities in coverage and funding bans into the Senate version of the bill.
Then there was that Senate election last week in Massachusetts that threw health care reform into chaos.
Yeah, it’s been brutal as hell…but they call this shit a struggle for a reason.
I spent last week fighting a ...

The health care reform process has been brutal.
For months I’ve joined activists and volunteers who have been working to make sure women are not left with less reproductive health care coverage after health care reform that ...
By Miriam • 14 years ago

Reflections on Obama’s first year in office

Last week, a pretty horrific week in progressive politics, also marked the anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration.
I was one of the thousands of people on the Mall on that cold, cold day last year. Despite the economic turmoil, I was also one of those people with a lot of hope for what the new administration might mean for our country and our progressive agenda.
It’s been a tough year.
A lot of folks have been reflecting on how Obama is doing after herhis first year. Many people point out that a year is nothing in political time–it will take years before we can really judge Obama and the success or failure of the changes his Administration is trying to ...

Last week, a pretty horrific week in progressive politics, also marked the anniversary of President Obama’s inauguration.
I was one of the thousands of people on the Mall on that cold, cold day last year. Despite the ...
By Miriam • 14 years ago

Quick Hit: Edwidge Danticat on what she lost in the Haiti earthquake

Read the words of Edwidge Danticat, prominent Haitian writer, on her family’s loss in the recent Haiti earthquake at the New Yorker.

By the time Maxo’s body was uncovered, cell phones were finally working again, bringing a flurry of desperate voices. One cousin had an open gash in her head that was still bleeding. Another had a broken back and had gone to three field hospitals trying to get it X-rayed. Another was sleeping outside her house and was terribly thirsty. One child had been so traumatized that she lost her voice. An in-law had no blood-pressure medicine. Most had not eaten for days. There were friends and family members whose entire towns had been destroyed, and dozens from whom ...

Read the words of Edwidge Danticat, prominent Haitian writer, on her family’s loss in the recent Haiti earthquake at the New Yorker.

By the time Maxo’s body was uncovered, cell phones were finally working again, bringing a ...
By Miriam • 14 years ago

The “myth of independence”

Mia Mingus, a friend and well-respected activist in a number of movements (including reproductive justice and disability justice, among others) recently posted some excerpts from talks she has given around the country.
I’ve heard her talk about this concept of interdependence and it has always struck a chord with me. While I am not disabled, and therefore have a very different relationship to these concepts of dependence and interdependence, I do know that as a feminist and a young person I struggle with these ideas as well. Independence is very much a force-fed American value, one that I find myself questioning all the time. I am appreciative of new ways of thinking and rethinking these concepts and how we ...

Mia Mingus, a friend and well-respected activist in a number of movements (including reproductive justice and disability justice, among others) recently posted some excerpts from talks she has given around the country.
I’ve heard her talk ...
By Miriam • 14 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Farm City


I’m still on my food politics book kick, this time thanks to Heather and her holiday gift. Thanks Heather!
Novella Carpenter’s book, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, is a definite departure from the more political books about food. Rather than focus on the broken system of industrial agriculture, she focuses on her own strange attempts at doing things differently–from keeping bees in her urban backyard, to creating a full-on farm on a plot of abandoned land (replete with old concrete and urban trash) in a neighborhood in West Oakland that she refers to as the “ghetto.”
She goes as far as to raise two pigs in this backyard turned farm plot, feeding them from ...


I’m still on my food politics book kick, this time thanks to Heather and her holiday gift. Thanks Heather!
Novella Carpenter’s book, Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, is a definite departure ...

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