2010 May Archive | Feministing

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Housekeeping

Marilynne Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize winning novelist, and this, her first novel, clearly demonstrates why. It’s simply beautiful, chock full of so many breathtaking turns of phrase, emotional insights, and strange familiarities. It’s the story of Lucille and Ruth, orphaned when their mother commits suicide and forced to live with, first their grandmother, than two great aunts, and finally their mother’s truly strange sister. As Lucille and Ruth become adolescents, they face the struggle of their motherlessness and the beauty of the surrounding small town with deep and cutting contrast.
I found myself repeatedly forced to unearth a pen from the depths of my bag or couch just to underline some unforgettable sentence–something that I rarely do when ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

What We Missed

Angie González Oquendo was killed in Puerto Rico on Monday — making it the second murder of a transgender woman in PR in less than two months.
A crisis pregnancy center in Maryland is suing for the right to lie about their services.
We can’t be too surprised that Rush Limbaugh’s fill-in for his show, Walter Williams, proclaimed yesterday, “I believe in keeping wives under control.” Still gross nonetheless.
A horrible story of a woman raped and beaten to death in Queens this weekend. What’s worse is that all the NY Post commenters seem to care about is whether her murderer is “illegal” or not.
Today, the bra turns 100.

Angie González Oquendo was killed in Puerto Rico on Monday — making it the second murder of a transgender woman in PR in less than two months.
A crisis pregnancy center in Maryland is suing ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

Quick Hit: Virginia teacher slips fetus dolls to third-graders

This is really disturbing. It looks a local paper in Norfolk, VA broke a story this week about a teacher that has been quietly slipping small fetus dolls with anti-choice messaging into the hands of third, fourth and fifth graders at Oakwood Elementary School. Reports NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia:

The Pilot cites a teacher, who wished to remain anonymous, describing the 4-inch-long pink and brown plastic dolls as “life-like” and accompanied by a card with an anti-choice message and information on fetal growth. The Pilot’s investigative reporter found that these dolls and their accompanying literature were given out to dozens of young students, as recently as last month.

This person should be ashamed. The employee and school principal are on administrative ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

More on DADT repeal: It ain’t over yet.

As we posted yesterday, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is now in the works, which we know will be a significant step forward after the horrendous 17 years this policy has been in place. But there’s a reason it was called a compromise. Autumn at Pam’s House Blend explains:

This compromise worked out by the White House, members of Congress, and Gay Inc., doesn’t actually guarantee that lesbian, gay, and bisexual people will ever be able to openly serve in the U.S. Military. Instead, it gives we in the LGBT community a promise of process to repeal of DADT without a guarantee it actually will ever result in LGB servicemembers being able to serve openly. And to ...

As we posted yesterday, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is now in the works, which we know will be a significant step forward after the horrendous 17 years this policy has been in place. ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

FDA deliberates over new “Viagra for women” whose name alone decreases my sex drive

It really does have the most unsexy name ever: Flibanserin. You can’t even shorten it to make it more appealing. (Nothing gets me hotter than some *moan*…flib.)
Anyway, the Food and Drug Administration is in the process of deciding whether to put the new drug on the market. Unlike the actual trial Viagra pill for women, which increases blood flow to our lady parts, flibberflabbin restores women’s libido by changing the chemicals in our brain like anti-depressants do. In fact, it was originally meant to be an anti-depressant:

Scientists found that flibanserin, developed as an antidepressant, was ineffective for treatment of depression. But the drug appeared to produce an unexpected side effect: boosting women’s libido. That prompted the ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

UK airs first-ever TV ad for abortion services

This is a biggie. We find via Broadsheet that on Monday night, Britain ran its very first TV commercial by an abortion provider.

The ad says:

If you’re late for your period, you could be pregnant. If you’re pregnant and not sure what to do, Marie Stopes International can help.

Despite the simple, uncontroversial language and late night airing, anti-choice folks are still up in arms about it:

The antiabortion organization LIFE compared it to car companies hocking their wares and crafted a form letter of protest to the U.K. equivalent of the FCC. The group even requested that the spot carry a kind of black box warning about the “mental health problems following abortion.” Note that proof of ...

This is a biggie. We find via Broadsheet that on Monday night, Britain ran its very first TV commercial by an abortion provider.

The ad says:

If you’re late for your period, you could be pregnant. If ...

By Lori Adelman • 13 years ago

Peruvian Organization Threatened with Violence After Protesting Racist TV Show

In Peru, a debate is raging over whether the two disturbingly racist television characters pictured above should be banned from television. I think it’s time that those who defend the racism and sexism of these characters be forced to do so on the international stage.
As pictured above, the characters “El Negro Mama” and “La Paisana Jacinta” have long been broadcast on the popular television station Frecuencia Latina. As described by my colleague Lucina Di Meco, who works closely with the organization spearheading efforts to ban these characters, the characters represent the worst and most racist stereotypes of Afro-Peruvian and indigenous people:

In Peru, a debate is raging over whether the two disturbingly racist television characters pictured above should be banned from television. I think it’s time that those who ...

By Miriam • 13 years ago

Derrek Lutz wears dress to prom, wins prom king

This story is a bit old, but too good not to share. Amidst all of the queer and gender non-conforming panic around prom season (remember Constance McMillen?), Derrek Lutz’s story was buried.
Derrek is a high school student in New Jersey who self-identifies as a crossdresser. While some folks have used crossdresser as a derrogatory term to refer to trans or gender non-conforming folks, there is a community of people who self-identify as crossdressers. This might mean they sometimes dress in clothes of the gender they weren’t assigned at birth. It doesn’t mean they are gay or queer necessarily. The most vocal part of the crossdressing community is male-assigned folks who dress as women.
Okay, gender ...