Don't Ask, Don't Tell is not some passive, meaningless policy, as Megan points out.
The team that built the stimulus package featured no women.
A Texas sheriff is also a rapist.
Feminist Finance has thoughts on preparing for (and surviving) layoffs.
The Times reviews Joss Whedon's new series.
Zadie Smith on Obama and his appeal.
New York domestic workers rally around a bill of rights.
Who will Obama nominate for HHS secretary?
Scott Lemieux on the importance of Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the court -- for liberals in general and women in particular.
On skin-whitening ads in Hong Kong.
Mars is marketing a candy toward women with body-image problems and eating disorders.
Can female workers turn the economy around?
Monica Roberts is just not that into RuPaul.
Glamour calls for more openness about abortion.
PostBourgie asks how and why female rappers lost credibility. And Chuck D. has declared that "this year he will focus on promoting female artists, songwriters, and executives in the hip-hop scene."
Ta-Nehisi links to a friend's blog about her pitched battle against ovarian cancer, black gyrl cancer slayer. Check it out. Also, more on cancer, women, and politics at Echidne's place.
Talk about being a fighter: The Times profiles 18-year-old boxer Cheryl Ziegler, a single mother from the Lower Brule Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.
How the victims in the CIA rape case were portrayed in the media.
There's a new (animated) Wonder Woman movie!
Felix Salmon defends Suze Orman.
The National Review thinks poor people and victims of domestic violence have no affect whatsoever on the economy.
What if the stimulus included the formerly incarcerated?
Kjerstin at Bitch writes about the very young parents in Britain, and what the news coverage says about acceptable parenting.
BeckySharper tells her story of loving her boyfriend's young daughter -- and yet wanting a daughter of her own. (Ok, that's kind of a silly summary, but go read her post.)
Diary of an Anxious Black woman writes about Chris Brown, Rihanna, and stereotypes, looking through the lens of black literature.
Bil at the Bilerico Project spotted some seriously offensive, racist advertising.
A history of menstrual activism, via Our Bodies, Our Blog.
Muhktar Mai is still waiting for justice.
Get Involved
Check out the Tell It WOC Speak blog carnival, posted today.
Get on board with the Prevention First Act!
Support the Uniting American Families Act for immigration equality.
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http://www.nypost.com/seven/02142009/news/regionalnews/buffalo_beheading_155151.htm
scary and sad news.
That is a really sad story. Some of the comments on that page are just simply deplorable. People never cease to amaze me.
I wrote a post on Being an Ally that was partly shaped by the discussion surrounding Courtney's posts
http://mzbitca.wordpress.com/2009/02/13/being-an-ally/
I also wrote about a sexual assault that happened near me
http://mzbitca.wordpress.com/2009/02/14/girls-sexually-assaulted-on-school-bus/
And The Carnival against sexual violence is also up today
http://abyss2hope.blogspot.com/
Here's a really interesting look at the "Obama effect" which contrasts the performance of African American students on the GRE before and after the election...fascinating.
And I started a blog here: The Feminist Agenda.
This week, I hosted a guest post by a friend of mine who lives on a women-only land trust responding to my thoughts on the NYT article about lesbian communities.
And I put together a list of my five favorite feminist books, prompted by the Feminist Review V-day photo contest.
A list of pretty awesome books, I might add!
thanks for the list - I love getting told about interesting books by other feministing readers, we should do this more!
zadie smith's take on obama is fine when she speaks on the personal level, but her take on the civil rights actors and their motivations lacks the sort of understanding that comes from experience
I love Suze Orman! I've learned a lot from her books and I am extremely grateful that I managed to get ahold of them at 22. She is so right that a gender gap exists in financial literacy, and she has completely convinced me that this gender gap is holding women down in a lot of ways, and she has managed to make my own personal finances a feminist issue for me. She has made it a feminist issue for me to preach financial sense to my friends.
I used to volunteer at a domestic violence shelter/hotline, and we used to help women work out a safety plan for leaving a dangerous situation, and that plan always involved money. It involved getting your paperwork together and setting aside the resources you will need to get away and stay away. A lot of the women who called were being kept completely ignorant about their finances and money was one of the biggest things keeping them from leaving.
Knowing this, Suze's chapter on financial independence hit me like a brick. She talks about how it is important in a marriage for both people to have enough money set aside to keep themselves off of the street for at least 3 months. Their own money. In their own bank account. Private. And she talks about how important it is to completely understand your family's finances even if you are not the primary breadwinner, because, let's face it, your husband could divorce you or die. She also talks about how "women's work" is typically undervalued, and she talks about how women who are stay-at-home mothers are often afraid to ask for compensation for their work because they don't feel like they're earning the right to it, but they are and they should be getting a slice of the husband's paycheck for their own money, to put into savings and use to buy things for themselves.
I think that message is extremely important. I could keep going, but I'll just close with this:
Suze Oreman's book "Women & Money" is a great feminist work and should be recognized as such. She is one of my feminist icons.
I couldn't agree with you more! Suze Orman is fabulous. I am in my 20s and learned so much from her. In this economic crisis I am not afraid, and not because I make a ton of money - I don't, but because I've been paying attention to my finances and following her advice for a few years. I highly recommend her books to everyone. And what a great article by Felix Salmon. Suze Orman gets so much crap from everyone, it's refreshing to read something positive!
Another Don't Ask, Don't Tell case, involving a student in NROTC: http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2009/02/12/News/dont-Ask.Hits.Home.For.Nrotc-3626730.shtml
Re: Sheriff. God, thats scary. Thats only two counties over from me!
This week we wrote about three things:
-Bill O'Reilly is a douchebag
-PETA is fucking crazy
-Valentine's day sucks.
(So what else is new?)
I've got a post up on queer role models, as well as a shameless bleg for help with the presentation I'm preparing for Sex::Tech 2009.
Howdy!
Trigger warning: I posted about female genital mutilation and its relationship to male circumcision.
I also posted a reply turned post on forced ultrasound for abortions, based on a thread on this site.
Tomorrow we’ll have a review of Yes Means Yes as a part of our dual review series by feminist bloggers, so keep an eye out for that one.
Also, a piece exploring feminist blogging as a form of digital colonialism will be up on Professor What If.
As promised, here's a little something from Professor What If's blog:What if the feminist blogosphere is a form of digital colonialism?
Behold the God of Rock: Virgin and sexism: A look at sexist ads virgin is runing Ottawa.
Cotton Picking Day: A school celebrates black history month by encouraging students to dress up slaves.
Baby Wipes Terrence Howard Thinks Chris Brown Is A Nice Guy: Looking at the domesticn violence apologism as it relates to Chris and Rihanna
Nadya Suleman The choice we never respect: Looking at criticism on the mother of the octoplets. Do we really support motherhood?
Over at Pink Scare…
I take on Suze Orman and point out that popular finance is just as bad as evolutionary biology as a tool for justifying the status quo.
LN weighs in on the dust-up caused by Courtney's day-in-the-life post. You’re privileged; now what?
T defends Chicago against Forbes Magazine’s recent accusation that it’s the third most miserable city in America.
Also, just say no to public calorie counting!
That Times review left a bad taste in my mouth. It seemed like the writer was trying to make fun of the way society views women, but instead wound up making light of rape. Also, I for one am going to have to at least check out the new series and see if it makes in societal comments that the auther of that review somehow missed. Joss Whedon is a huge feminist, and I really doubt that he would write a show where the main goal is to see a hot chick do whatever guys want her to without making interesting parallels to real life.
I watched the first episode and read some of Joss's comments, and I think people are being way harsh. The show does have some squicky elements but its supposed to! Claiming that this show is pro-rape is like claiming Law and Order SVU is pro-rape just because it is a component of the show.
Joss has said several things that ought to be obvious even without his interviews: The pilot is not the whole show. Echo's mind is wiped now but as the show goes on she will start becoming self aware and progressing as a character. Also, obviously, the Dollhouse people are not cast as the good guys! There is an FBI guy trying to bring them down, if anything, he's the good guy right now. He's trying to rescue the people trapped by the Dollhouse.
Now, Eliza Dushku is hot and that was definitely played up in the episode, but I am sure the objectification of women by the Dollhouse organization is going to come into play in a big way as the series goes on. (Plus, none of them were featured in the pilot but there are male Dolls as well that might get a bigger role as the series goes on).
The parallel to human trafficking was already made, and I thought it was implied during the first scene with the FBI agent that there may even be a human trafficking element to the company, especially as there is some unspecified person actively searching for Echo.
That's great about Chuck D and all, but since he came to speak at our University last year for an event focused on uncovering prejudice, racism and misogyny, and instead went on and on about how ugly Hillary and Nancy are, I'll believe it when I see it.
I'm happy that the issue of abortion is getting major play in such a widely circulated magazine as Glamour, and I confess I wasn't able to read the article yet. I was a little put off, though, by the picture. The heavier woman of color in the background, with two thinner white women in the foreground, reminds me of this post from sociological images. I think it was linked here also at some point.