By Ann • 16 years ago

Weekly Feminist Reader

What’s behind the birth-control price spike?
A hilarious review of “daddy” comedies.
On the serious harassment problems with a high school ROTC instructor in Tennessee: “Flash your breasts at the chief and you could smoke cigarettes on campus, students alleged in statements to investigators. Run topless in the gymnasium during an unauthorized sleepover and the chief turned a blind eye to drinking rum in a West High restroom.”
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez decries the trend in his country of teenagers getting boob jobs.
Everything you ever wanted to know about Concerned Women for America’s Beverly LaHaye.
Iraqi refugee women and girls are being forced into prostitution in Syria.
Ok, ok, I know it’s ...

What’s behind the birth-control price spike?
A hilarious review of “daddy” comedies.
On the serious harassment problems with a high school ROTC instructor in Tennessee: “Flash your breasts at the chief and you ...
By Jessica • 16 years ago

Using feminist quotes for anti-feminist means

Nothing pisses me off more than reporters misquoting sources to make the point that they want to, and not the truth. Such is the case with this article in today’s Times Online which takes on the recent trend piece about men feeling “emasculated” by women making more money than them.
Reporter Tony Allen-Mills uses quotes from this post to try and make the point that I was actually arguing against.

The main question on Valenti’s website last week was whether the male ego can cope with the potentially emasculating strain of being out-performed and out-spent by the new breed of fast-rising female lawyers, doctors and architects.

Really? News to me. But here’s my favorite deliberate misquoting:

It is a ...

Nothing pisses me off more than reporters misquoting sources to make the point that they want to, and not the truth. Such is the case with this article in today’s Times Online which takes on ...
By Ann • 16 years ago

Sexism (with a capital S)

The New York Times actually published a whole article yesterday about Hillary Clinton’s laugh. I’m sorry, not her laugh, her “Cackle.” With a capital C. A totally negative, gendered word:

cack·le (kkl)
v. cack·led, cack·ling, cack·les
v.intr.
1. To make the shrill cry characteristic of a hen after laying an egg.
2. To laugh or talk in a shrill manner.

No, this isn’t Rush Limbaugh or Fox News using a gendered description of her laugh. It’s the nation’s newspaper. Aren’t journalists supposed to be better at finding original and creative ways of describing things? “Cackle” falls back on stereotypes. So does “giggle,” which is another descriptor used in the article.
The article goes on to discuss how ...

The New York Times actually published a whole article yesterday about Hillary Clinton’s laugh. I’m sorry, not her laugh, her “Cackle.” With a capital C. A totally negative, gendered word:

cack·le (kkl)
v. cack·led, cack·ling, ...
By Ann • 16 years ago

Anti-Plan B FDA officials get promoted!

Ok, so I was clearly out of it this week and failed to notice that Steve Galson has been named acting surgeon general. Galson is the FDA official who said it was his personal decision to deny the application to sell Plan B over-the-counter without a prescription. Also, this:

The draft GAO report indicates that Galson voiced concerns in FDA meetings about how easier availability of Plan B would effect sexual behavior by girls.

That’s the kind of talk that gets you promoted to act as “the nation’s doctor” in this administration!

“In my mind the ‘acting’ is off the title. I am going to be the surgeon general and actively engage in policy and education,� he says.

Well, at least the ...

Ok, so I was clearly out of it this week and failed to notice that Steve Galson has been named acting surgeon general. Galson is the FDA official who said it was his personal decision to ...
By celina • 16 years ago

Ren Jender: Creating Art & Community


Ren Jender is a writer/performer who for eight and a half years was the host and founder of The Amazon Slam, a Boston-based all woman poetry slam that won “The Best Poll” of The Boston Phoenix from 1998-2003 and was named “Best of Boston” in Boston Magazine in 1999. Her work has appeared in Bitch Magazine, Bay Windows and Spare Change. She has been profiled in The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, The Boston Metro, The Boston Phoenix, Curve and Teen Voices. She was the co-curator/co-producer of the Lisa King Memorial show in Boston in May of 2006.
She’s currently working on a new creative and community project. Here’s Ren…


Ren Jender is a writer/performer who for eight and a half years was the host and founder of The Amazon Slam, a Boston-based all woman poetry slam that won “The Best Poll” of The ...
By Ann • 16 years ago

Backstory to Verizon rejecting NARAL texts

Via Matt, I see that Verizon’s policy chief is Tom Tauke, an anti-choice congressman from Iowa in the ’80s who lost a Senate bid to Tom Harkin in 1990. From a National Review article about the campaign:

…Tauke wants a constitutional amendment recognizing “the personhood of the unborn.” “When NARAL comes into the state,” Tauke says, “I’m not going to sit back and take it.”

NARAL apparently spent $100,000 to defeat Tauke. So is it really a coincidence that this man is policy chief of the only wireless company that (initially) refused to cooperate with NARAL?
(And this is a little off topic, but upon reading Tom Tauke’s name, my first thought was, “The Indian ...

Via Matt, I see that Verizon’s policy chief is Tom Tauke, an anti-choice congressman from Iowa in the ’80s who lost a Senate bid to Tom Harkin in 1990. From a National Review article ...

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