"You don't get fat by accident. Eating so much requires Olympic-class stamina and athleticism"

And here's where I stopped reading. Honestly if one can't even wrap their mind around the fact that every fat person doesn't spend hours a day shoveling fatty foods into their mouths, I'm not very interested in the rest of their thoughts on the matter. Honestly, if getting fat was that easy, getting thin would be too.

"An 8-year-old Yemeni girl takes her father to court for forcing her to marry a 30-year-old man."

Thanks for the link to this one. Shame on whoever changed the law to let parents waive the minimum marriage age, and kudos to Sana’a West Court for taking Nojoud Muhammed Nasser seriously!

I wish that this blog would stop equating the terms "conservative", "right", "Republican" and "antifeminist". Do all feminists need to be "liberal"? No. Are all antifeminists "conservative"? No. Are all "conservatives" against legal abortion? No.

We shouldn't ask people to fit into these little boxes.

If we don't want "man" and "woman" to be two mutually exclusive and all-encompassing terms that define a person... "conservative" and "liberal" shouldn't be, either. People's political views are more complex than that.

Telling someone that they can't be considered feminist because they, say, disapprove of corporate subsidies, or because they see a need for restrictions on immigration, is destructive and makes no sense.

It is also nonsensical to assume that someone is a feminist because they are a Democrat. Equally so to assume that a person is a feminist simply because they support legalized abortion.

Really? This is all that went down this week? Nothing about Seal Press and WOC Bloggers or the firestorm over the loss of BFP?

Guess it would make bad business sense to call out the hand that feeds some of you.

Hmmm.

The solidarity of silence from the Big Feminist Bloggers: It's like so much white noise.

I couldn't finish that screed against fat people in the guardian, I was gagging so much.

How is it ok for anyone to judge anyone else on how they look? Every time I read something like that, I get whiffs of a very disturbing ideal, a pseudo-fascist "we should all strive to the Aryan Superman"-ideal. It truly is disgusting.

"Really? This is all that went down this week?"

Of course not. The fact that a blog can't cover *everything* on its topic of interest definitely doesn't mean that it shouldn't say *something*.

frijolera - I've noticed too; the silence is deafening. I was hoping that Feministing would at least mention something in the weekly reader, but nope. Another whitewash.

"frijolera - I've noticed too; the silence is deafening."

The silence would be even more deafening if nobody dared mention something without mentioning everything else important.

I bet that even if this blog post *did* mention Seal Press, someone out there would call it first-world privilege and condemn Feministing for not mentioning the news about Zawadi Mongane and discussing how to get peope such as her husband to be humane to rape victims: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7340074.stm

katita- I agree that it is probably not a good thing that feminism is often reduced into just another plank on the liberal platform, instead of something that can exist on its own independent of unrelated issues.

Why are "good" feminists expected to also be against the death penalty, for instance? Don't get me wrong, I'm opposed to it myself, but it's not really related to feminist issues, and I can't see why someone who happens to favor capital punishment can't also be as much of a feminist as Ann.

PLEASE dear feministing ladies, cover the guardian article more closely! such an extreme hatred shouldnt be left uncommented.

It may not be that consequential in the long run; but when one of the feminist blogosphere head honchos is accused of plagiarism, racism and general asshatery, I'd expect the big fem blogs to at least mention something.

It's almost like they're too ashamed to bother. Hmm.

An Australian woman's husband raped her and left her in a burning bedroom, and she told the county court, "I was a real bitch and I know that. It took something as bad as what happened to snap me out of being what I was."

"what happened"--as though it was an act of God or something. Is there any chance that this is a symptom of PTSD-related Stockholm syndrome?

"It may not be that consequential in the long run; but when one of the feminist blogosphere head honchos"

The feminist blogosphere has head honchos?

I'd consider the folks at Pandagon and here to be head honchos, yes.

EG -

No. It's Stockholm Syndrome, pure and simple. A woman trapped in an abusive relationship.

More details. The man plead guilty to a raft of crimes: rape, arson, battery etc. Raping your wife is a crime now. Setting her on fire, of course, always was. The woman (his wife) was testifying on his behalf at his sentencing.

It's a terrible situation. I think in interesting feminist question here is to examine what happens to the woman now. Does she get counseling? Do her attitudes change once hubby's in the clink?

That GQ article about Russian brides made me sick. I spent my childhood in an ex-Soviet country during the depression. It was not pretty and these people were basically lamenting the fact that the old Soviet countries are getting back on their feet, because now there are less impoverished women to exploit and treat as objects. And seriously, what is this stupid misconception of eastern-european women as submissive and "better brides"?

"I'd consider the folks at Pandagon and here to be head honchos, yes."

How can they be heads of the feminist blogosphere instead of just their own blogs? Wouldn't they have to be admins on the other blogs too, or sysadmins in Blogger/Blogspot, LiveJournal, WordPress, etc., in order to do that?

I'm not saying that they're sinister puppet overlords, no.

They're the ones that get the most traffic. They're the ones with bloggers that have recently gotten book deals.

They're probably the most influential and popular fem blogs out there.

In short, head honchos.

Genetic,
She's baiting you. Don't engage.

I'm in favor of the death penalty in principle, but never for rape. Punishing rape with death, or indeed, as severely as murder, whatever that penalty is, creates a perverse incentive for rapists to kill their victims, since it won't make them any worse off if they do get convicted, but having one less eye-witness makes that less likely to happen in the first place.

Genetic,
She's baiting you. Don't engage.

This blog has repeatedly been critiqued for its failure to address the concerns of WOC and its failure to frame things within an intersectional framework.

These latest incidents were not minor ones. They have been covered EXTENSIVELY over dozens and dozens of blogs. Even Salon has had something to say about the Seal Press debacle.

The events of the past week provided an opportunity for this site to step up and address the marginalization of WOC voices in the blogosphere, the systemic appropriation of WOC thought, and the derth of WOC-penned texts. And yet...

nothing.

Silence.

It makes me wonder why

Plus "head honchos" is inherently sexist (note the -os masculine ending).

On the issue of whether feminists have to be liberal or not, I would say that they (we) do. Feminism is a philosophy of equality and equity. Modern conservatism is anything but. You cannot support an imperial foreign policy and say you support equity, you cannot support unregulated capitalism and say you support equality, and you cannot support a concentration of power in one person and say you support either. Feminism is the logical conclusion of liberalism, and a despotic, patriarchal caste system is the logical conclusion of conservatism.

Capital punishment is a somewhat different matter since it is theoretically possible for it to be equal and equitable, though the way it's implemented in this country (with African-Americans being many times more likely to be put to death than whites, among other problems) requires not just feminists, but any person who cares about justice to oppose it.

I read about the Amanda/bfp stuff, but what happened with Seal Press?

Given that they're Jessica's publisher, though, it could well be professional suicide for feministing to slam Seal Press, and I don't know anyone making a living by writing freelance who would willingly take that risk. Just the reality of being a working writer. Nothing to stop anybody in the comments from giving me a link to what's going on, though.

"Genetic,
She's baiting you. Don't engage."

I was just wondering how anyone could be "head honchos of the feminist blogosphere."

In general, blogs are a useful format but "the blogosphere" and "the [insert name of category] blogosphere" sure seem overrated. I mean, "blog" just means a website that displays postings of content in chronological and usually has links to comments on specific postings. Why the big deals about groups of these things with related themes yet run by different people? o_O I mean, I haven't seen anywhere near as much hype about groups of web bulletin-board forums with related themes yet run by different people...

Um, no. Feminism is a philosophy of equality between the sexes, not all people in general. You can, for instance, be feminist and racist without contradicting yourself. Many pioneering feminists were.

Never mind. I found the links myself. I should have checked better before I posted. Sorry.

Wow. That's dumb of them.

"You can, for instance, be feminist and racist without contradicting yourself."

Word. You really said a mouthful there.

You can, for instance, be feminist and racist without contradicting yourself. Many pioneering feminists were.

Many pioneering feminists contradicted themselves. That doesn't mean that a philosophy of feminism and a philosophy of racism are compatible. It means that most people are self-contradictory and inconsistent; we contain multitudes.

I thought this was awesome news. Makes me smile.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7344383.stm

"An 8-year-old Yemeni girl takes her father to court for forcing her to marry a 30-year-old man."

Wow. A divorce at age 8? Children should'nt even have to know what a divorce is, let alone become involved in one personally. Though it's great that the court stepped in to go after the husband and father, this should've never happened in the first place. Without support of her family, it's amazing to see that Nojoud had the courage to say something.

Wouldn't the parents realize that something was wrong if a 30 year old man was willing to marry an eight year old CHILD? I understand that it's a different culture, but they just had to know that something was suspicious.

The article said that this wasn't the first time that something like this had happened in Yemen, so why don't they put a stop to it? They say that a girl can't be intimate with her husband until she is "ready or mature", so why get married when she is neither ready or mature?

"This blog has repeatedly been critiqued for its failure to address the concerns of WOC and its failure to frame things within an intersectional framework."

No one can win in this. :/

For a very abbreviated example:

Cover fatphobia at The Guardian and risk criticism for not covering Seal Press enough. Cover Seal Press more and risk criticism for not covering rape in DR Congo enough. Cover rape in DR Congo more and risk criticism for not covering domestic violence in Palestine enough. Cover domestic violence in Palestine more and risk criticism for not covering Israeli violence in Palestine enough. Cover Israeli violence in Palestine more and risk criticism for not covering fatphobia at The Guardian enough.

(IRL such a chain of risks of criticism could include many many many more topics)

As for the waxing article, this part was especially interesting:

"...But while it’s easy to vilify women who push prepubescent waxing on their children, things get a little fuzzier when it comes to, say, a nail-painting party, or spa facials designed for young, acne-prone skin (especially when you consider that girls are hitting puberty earlier than previous generations did)."

Or arm waxing, if the girl's arm hair is closer to her male classmates' arm hair than to her female classmates' arm hair?

"No mom wants her unibrowed nine-year-old getting teased at school, or a 13-year-old suffering the angst of bad acne when a solution is at hand..."

Actually, I bet some moms out there might just call the kid a sheep for feeling hurt by the teasing and/or tell her to just want better grades instead of wanting to be tolerated at school.

"Helping out your kid whose cosmetic/semi-medical problem is causing low self-esteem is respectable, as is spending time with her in ways other than loading up the shopping cart with mini-me Juicy. But somewhere along the line — well, the line gets crossed."

Exactly.

Frijolera:"The events of the past week provided an opportunity for this site to step up and address the marginalization of WOC voices in the blogosphere, the systemic appropriation of WOC thought, and the derth of WOC-penned texts. And yet...

nothing.

Silence.

It makes me wonder why"

Me, too.

I also kind of expected something in the weekly wrap up that mentioned what is going on with BFP and the issues that WOC face in academics and in the blogosphere. But at the same time, I think a weekly wrap up that gives a sentence or two explanation would not suffice for this huge issue and the comments that it would attract.

I hope the reason it wasn't discussed above is that Feministing is planning an entire post to the issue. It deserves more nuance and thought than a sentence or two summary could provide.

But I will be very disappointed if Feministing continued to stay silent on this issue.

Just a quick note that there's nothing in this post on the BFP/Amanda dustup because we're working on a post from all of us, which takes a bit more time.

Wow, most of the links are brilliant. I'm really anticipating a post on the BFP/Amanda blowup. Because the whole situation is well, shitty.

About the kids getting waxes: yeah, it's creepy most of the time. However, when I was a little older than that (think 10-12 years old), I had bushy eyebrows, and kind of a unibrow, and seeing as I was already an awkward kid, I was teased mercilessly for it. Which is definitely crappy in the first place, don't get me wrong. But waxing is hardly permanent, and not very dangerous, so in situations like mine, I think it might be okay. That being said, it still creeps me out when little girls get the whole nine yards beauty treatment done.

Ha, the district where the little kids were cross-dressing is the one where I'll be working next year (not at that school, though). After my interview for the job, I waited in line for food at the local Subway and listened to three angry hicks bitch about how there was no Walmart in the town because the guvmint is trying to keep them poor.

The school where I'm working right now was going to have a cross-dressing day as part of the pre-prom build-up, but the administration put the kibosh on it pretty quick, saying that that kind of thing goes against the school dress code and is 'diruptive'. Mind you, I think interrupting class for announcements 3 times in two days and sending flyers home to parents is a bit more disruptive, but what can you do. I also really enjoyed that the whole business was couched in the excuse of "we don't want LGBT kids to get their feelings hurt!" Nice try, but I actually have an openly gay student who said to me, "They're telling me my lifestyle is disruptive! What the hell?" :[

"Wouldn't the parents realize that something was wrong if a 30 year old man was willing to marry an eight year old CHILD? I understand that it's a different culture, but they just had to know that something was suspicious."

OTOH, we don't know how old her parents were during *their* wedding...

I totally understand and support wanting to fine tune any posting about appropriation of the work of WOC. Even so, I'm kind of glad it wasn't in the round up.

It's a catch .22. Intellectual honesty, appropriation and white privilege are definitely feminist issues and need more coverage. Considering it's currently all over the feminist and WOC blogospheres, silence looks conspicuous.

However, I've seen it covered on half a dozen blogs and most discussions turn into gossip and flame wars. I felt like I was reading LiveJournal. I think it hurts the legitimacy of feminist blogs to get mired in what looks like middle school drama bullshit. Being angry, aggressive, defensive, and taking things personally are all perfectly understandable responses to the situation. Yet as activists, we need to look at a greater context.

The real kicker is there there are important issues that need to be addressed, and they keep getting buried. To do that, the discussion needs to be handled carefully. Good luck ladies!

Watching the conflict in other has been driving me nuts for the past couple of days. I'm half tempted not to post this, but I've been writing comments and deleting them to avoid potential conflict way too much lately, and I'm trying to break that habit.

Just for the record. I'm a brown woman and an immigrant from a Muslim country and Feministing does a great job covering issues that are important to me.