By Courtney • 12 years ago

The feminine mistake of blogging unsustainably

I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of veteran feminists in Santa Fe while I was visiting my parents. Many of them had heard of Feministing, and had minimal familiarity with the blogosphere in general, but few of them really understood the ways in which our blog and others function to analyze the news-of-the-day through a young feminist lens, make news that has been neglected by mainstream outlets, mobilize readers for various actions (corporate responsibility, legislation, and other kinds of advocacy), and learn about and support grassroots organizations. When I described some of our successes and challenges, there was a palpable sense of relief in the room. Imagine fighting for the feminist movement for decades and truly not ...

I had the pleasure of speaking to a group of veteran feminists in Santa Fe while I was visiting my parents. Many of them had heard of Feministing, and had minimal familiarity with the blogosphere in general, ...
By Samhita • 12 years ago

What we missed

Five ways we can make the economy better by Sarah Jaffe.

On the cost of looking like a woman and under the table silicon implants on trans women. More at Feministe.

Consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., is hit with another gender discrimination lawsuit.

Rick Perry signs Susan B. Anthony pledge. Unsurprising.

On women, war and peace.

Five ways we can make the economy better by Sarah Jaffe.

On the cost of looking like a woman and under the table silicon implants on trans women. More at Feministe.

Consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton ...
By Samhita • 12 years ago

Man crashes into sex toy shop for $900 dollar vagina

I feel like this should be a knock-knock joke–but that’s what actually happened. A dude stole a semi in Lorraine County, Ohio and crashed it into a local store sex shop, Adultmart, to steal a life like size sex toy. The news report is pretty hilarious.

Joking aside, this guy is either so overcome by his serious appetite for fake vagina sex toys that it leads him to engage in destructive behavior to get his desires met–which is more then having a sex kink, but shows a desperation that is not reflective of healthy sexuality. Or he was stealing it to resell, who knows.

But the news story was pretty big on calling him a sex-crazed pervert, a deviant, “crazy,” etc ...

I feel like this should be a knock-knock joke–but that’s what actually happened. A dude stole a semi in Lorraine County, Ohio and crashed it into a local store sex shop, Adultmart, to steal a life like ...
By Samhita • 12 years ago

Wasserman Schultz: “Stop playing politics with women’s lives.”

“I have never felt my right as a woman was more threatened than I do today,” said Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz at a Planned Parenthood rally yesterday who emphasized that she was 6 years old when Roe v. Wade was passed and we will not go back to that time. She also asked that Florida Gov. Rick Scott stop playing politics with women’s lives as he recently signed FOUR bills that would curb women’s access to abortion.

This last year has been some kind of conservative utopian sci-fi nightmare where “back then” is threatening to be “right now,” and rights we grew up taking for granted on a certain level are steadily being denied to ...

“I have never felt my right as a woman was more threatened than I do today,” said Democratic National Committee chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz at a Planned Parenthood rally yesterday who emphasized that she was ...
By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

The Wednesday Weigh-in: Dirty Girl Masturbating Edition

As a long-time masturbation enthusiast and firm believer that respect for autonomous female desire could actually, like, save the world, this article on Dirty Girl Ministries, which aims to cure women of masturbation and porn “addictions,” makes me so sad.

As others have said, a group that believes all “sexual thought” (yes, even that momentary flash of what you’d like to do to Ryan Gosling!) outside of marital intercourse is “dirty” seems to be doing little more than further pathologizing the natural human desires that these women have become convinced are shameful by our sex-negative culture.

Which is the real shame. Masturbation has provided the longest, most consistently-satisfying sexual relationship of my short life. ...

As a long-time masturbation enthusiast and firm believer that respect for autonomous female desire could actually, like, save the world, this article on Dirty Girl Ministries, which aims to cure women of masturbation ...
By Samhita • 12 years ago

Welcome Jos Truitt our newest Feministing editor!

If you have been reading Feministing for the last two years, you are familiar with the work of Jos Truitt. Her voracious appetite for powerful, critical and brave analysis has been clear every time she hits “publish.” She has helped take Feministing’s mission to a new level and has added a much needed critical lens to our collective (here are just a few examples). And she has bravely spoken of her own struggles around trans and gender identity and representation and identifying as a feminist–the very struggle that makes feminism awesome.

Jos is a prominent face in the historic battle to create more space for voices that exist on the margins of a mainstream feminism ...

If you have been reading Feministing for the last two years, you are familiar with the work of Jos Truitt. Her voracious appetite for powerful, critical and brave analysis has been clear every time she ...
By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

Not Oprah’s Book Club: Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection


Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection by developmental psychologist Niobe Way is a must-read for anyone concerned with the so-called “boy crisis,” anyone who is raising a boy in the U.S., and anyone who doubts that feminism can—and should—improve the lives of boys and men.

In this richly-researched book, based on in-depth, one-on-one interviews with teenage boys in the U.S. as they progress through high school, Way debunks the cultural myth that boys don’t have, need, or desire close friendships. By attempting to truly listen—through the distracting noise of our own assumptions and expectations—to what boys themselves are actually saying, she paints a reality that is both more heartbreaking and more hopeful than the myth. ...


Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection by developmental psychologist Niobe Way is a must-read for anyone concerned with the so-called “boy crisis,” anyone who is raising a boy in the U.S., ...
By Maya Dusenbery • 12 years ago

KBR wants Jamie Leigh Jones to pay them $2 million

Today in The Corporations Are Winning…

Jamie Leigh Jones, the woman who was allegedly drugged and raped by a group of co-workers while working for the defense contractor KBR in Iraq, accused the company of negligence and creating a hostile work environment. Last month, after deliberating for 10 hours, a jury rejected her case. Now KBR has sued Jones to recover more than $2 million in legal fees on the grounds that her claims were “fabricated and frivolous.”

This case was a big deal, you’ll probably remember, because Jones had to fight like hell to even get her day in court at all. KBR claimed that the “mandatory arbitration clause” she signed when she went to work for them meant ...

Today in The Corporations Are Winning…

Jamie Leigh Jones, the woman who was allegedly drugged and raped by a group of co-workers while working for the defense contractor KBR in Iraq, accused the company of negligence and creating ...

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