2011 April Archive | Feministing

What We Missed

Our own Samhita, at The Guardian, on Kate Middleton’s decision to remove the word “obey” from her wedding vows.

Lara Logan, the CBS reported who was sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square earlier this year, has given an interview about her experience to “60 Minutes.” It will air Sunday.

The Women’s Media Center is now accepting applications for its next class of Progressive Women’s Voices, its prestigious and highly competitive media training program. Apply now!

The Australian Defence Force Academy cadet had sex with a fellow cadet and filmed and distributed it without her consent, has been charged and has appeared in court. His name and the name of the friend who helped him set up the Skype feed have ...

Our own Samhita, at The Guardian, on Kate Middleton’s decision to remove the word “obey” from her wedding vows.

Lara Logan, the CBS reported who was sexually assaulted in Tahrir Square earlier this year, has given ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 13 years ago

Vintage STD prevention posters are the best/worst

Vintage sex ed alert! The San Franciso Department of Public Health (um, coolest local government agency in the country? I think so!) brings us 100 years worth of STD prevention posters. On Twitter, Tracy Clark-Flory described them as “awesome(ly awful).”

Some are just plain awesome though. This one is my favorite.

These days, when some folks in Philadelphia believe giving young people access to condoms is “irresponsible,” Massachusettes lawmakers decry a sex education website as “disgusting,” and a famous man says women who are sexually responsible are “tacky,” it seems like we could use a little more of this kind of frankness.

As my second favorite poster warns, “False shame and fear ...

By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: So Much Pretty

So Much Pretty is about a small, poor town in central New York state that is rocked by the disappearance of a young woman and by another act of gendered violence, both of which turn the town and the women involved into household names.

It’s told from a number of perspectives, many of them belonging to outsiders: the environmental reporter who moved there to find and write a “big picture” story about Ghost Town, USA, or the young idealistic doctors who moved there from Manhattan to “get back to the land.” It is a story about a lot of things – abduction, rape, murder, rural poverty and isolation, corporate greed and corruption – but at its core, it is about violence ...

So Much Pretty is about a small, poor town in central New York state that is rocked by the disappearance of a young woman and by another act of gendered violence, both of which turn the town ...

By Chloe Angyal • 13 years ago

Quick hit: “You look great! Have you lost weight?”

At Shakesville, Amber Leab writes about how being too sick to gain weight – and too sick for life-saving surgery – changed her perspective on that ultimate compliment, “you’re so skinny!” For Leab, being skinny was dangerous, even as the women around her envied her for it. She observes that the culture of thinness is so powerful that it reaches all the way into the operating theater:

On the operating table, I was prepped for the procedure by a female nurse and a male doctor. When the nurse lifted the hospital gown above my abdomen, she exclaimed, “Look at that pretty flat stomach!”

I processed this statement for a moment. A medical professional had complimented me on my thinness, which was ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

The FBI’s “forcible rape” definition

While the GOP tries to redefine rape and exclude survivors in their anti-choice ventures this year, it looks like the FBI has been way ahead of the game on that front.

Yep, the definition of rape used in the bureau’s Uniform Crime Report is pretty damn vintage. And not vintage like 70s vintage — this jammy hasn’t been updated since 1929, Kate Sheppard reports. And oh, is it problematic. Here is the language:

The carnal knowledge of a female forcibly and against her will. Included are rapes by force and attempts or assaults to rape. Statutory offenses (no force used–victim under age of consent) are excluded.

This is not to mention it excludes victims ...

While the GOP tries to redefine rape and exclude survivors in their anti-choice ventures this year, it looks like the FBI has been way ahead of the game on that front.

Yep, the definition of rape ...

By Maya Dusenbery • 13 years ago

Baratunde Thurston on Obama birther controversy: “We have all been debased”

As Lori mentioned yesterday, President Obama has released his long-form birth certificate in an attempt to lay to rest the ridiculous (racist, ignorant, bigoted, baseless) birther claims once and for all. (Donald Trump, we’re still waiting on yours.)

It’s pretty clear that this won’t shut up the true believers who never cared about things like, um, facts to begin with. But, god willing, it will squelch some of the media circus that irresponsibly validated those views. (I’m not holding my breath on Fox News though.)

I’m personally pretty conflicted about whether or not this was a good political move by the President.

Elle at Shakesville argues that this sets a terrible precedent and legitimizes bigotry:

“In ...

By Vanessa • 13 years ago

What We Missed

The mother of the child whose face was used unknowingly in the anti-choice billboard in downtown Manhattan is suing the anti-choice group for making her child the poster girl for a “a racist, controversial advertising campaign” that is “defamatory, unauthorized, and offensive.”

A local politician in upstate New York finds another reason to attack Planned Parenthood — for being about the gays.

Campus Progress and Colorlines are teaming up for the 2011 National Keynote Contest, where a young person who has something to say about racial justice will be given the opportunity to speak to over 1,000 people at the Campus Progress National Conference in DC this summer. So ...

The mother of the child whose face was used unknowingly in the anti-choice billboard in downtown Manhattan is suing the anti-choice group for making her child the poster girl for a “a racist, ...

By Sharkfu • 13 years ago

Notes from a bitch…Trust Black Women.

As many of you know, the racist anti-choice billboard campaign that has been sweeping across America has come to my home state of Missouri. Missouri Right to Life launched a fundraising campaign using a billboard advertising both their organization and that the “most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” So far I’ve only been able to confirm one billboard in North St. Louis city…but there are rumors that these billboards are also up in rural areas throughout the state, areas where accusations that black women are dangerous don’t raise an eyebrow. The billboard in North city is located in a predominately black neighborhood that provides an almost laughable backdrop of black women ...