Jezebel points out that while Perez Hilton is rightly being called out for his homophobic comment, he never gets called out for his constant misogyny.
Michelle Goldberg has a smart piece in The American Prospect about France's Burqa restrictions and the issues brought up by immigration and progressive political movements.
From RH Reality Check, Spain makes emergency contraception accessible to all women over the counter, without a prescription.
A new tool for using Twitter for activism. Act.ly allows you to petition someone via Twitter. It's already been used to ask Wired to include more women and people of color in their panels!
President Obama hosts a town hall on health care reform on ABC News at 10pm EST tonight.
Feministing was mentioned in The Lesbian and Gay Foundation's Top 100 LGBT blogs list. It's nice to be acknowledged for all our queer content!
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Yeah, the Perez Hilton had to be pointed out. It was apparent.
The irony was that, at one point it seemed like "gay rights" were considered "higher priority" than women's rights.
It was ironic, there were supposedly women's groups who were out there bashing women for not supporting gay rights and insulting them (with sexist comments, actual sexist comments coming from women's groups towards women)
While at the same time Hilton could get by on the "gay card".
Yes, gay rights are currently a priority in the sense that... they're a bit behind in their struggle (less rights gotten)...
But the trouble is, when it become ok to be misogynistic if you're gay.
Misogyny is never ok. Nor is misanthropy or mis-anything.
Two stories come to mind today.
1) Teens are being paid $1 each to not get pregnant. The program is paying off for some teens who, after HS, are using the money to help with college. But it makes me wonder: just as porn culture uses money to control women's bodies and sexuality, is this any different?
http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/coonsey/2009/06/1-a-day----to-not-get-pregnant.php?ref=reccafe
2) In tapes that came up this week, Richard Nixon reacted to Roe v. Wade with disdain, but saw abortion as neccesary, especially if interracial couples were to get pregnant. I am just shocked that this was only some 30 years ago.
http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/politics/new-tapes-abortion-necessary-for-interracial-pregnancies-nixon_100208697.html
Am I right in thinking in the US you don't have easy access to free contraception? While possibly not the aim surely a similar scheme could be used to allow teenagers and young people to have access to contraception easily meaning they don't get pregnant due to the financial burden of contraception. While obviously not the aim of this scheme (they don't get the money until they graduate), I can see a similar scheme being potentially useful. Any details about what the meetings they have to attend are about?
I could not watch more than a few seconds of the Hilton video. He is annoying and hurts the LGBT cause by being so outwardly hateful. I saw the Young Turks show talk about the Hilton video. They brought up the point of who updates their Twitter account when he believes his eye is about to fall out. If he did get attacked then that is wrong and he should press charges. I wonder about the sanity of someone whom thinks he's blinded and tweets instead of calling an ambulance.
I caught the NRP report on Nixon's reaction to Roe V. Wade. The new tapes just prove Nixon was a racist. Anyone that argues otherwise is full of shit.
Perez gets a pass on misogyny because he's a gay man and the media doesn't want to seem homophobic in calling out his woman-hating bullshit.
It's stupid and hypocritical. It's also very wrong.
Personally, I think Perez gets a pass because taking him seriously validates his despicable presence in the entertainment industry. I tried to ignore the whole Carrie Prejean debacle because I hated the idea that Perez Hilton's influence rose to that level.
I absolutely agree that if people are going to pay attention to him and speak out about his comment to will.i.am, then they need to speak out on his misogyny, too. But I think the former is getting more attention because his use of the word "faggot" seems really hypocritical given how much he goes after people other homophobic people.
Ugh. I don't even like discussion him here. His whole "Perez Hilton" identity is so disgusting to me.
This is the result of what happens when "men and women are totally different species" and "gay people are totally normal" are added to a base of misogynistic culture and sprinkled with a dash of oppressed group oppressing another oppressed group.
Not to be a spoil-sport, because I do mean BOTH aspects of this statement sincerely:
congratulations on being in the top 100 LGB blogs, but the 'T' bit still has a long way to go...
Perez's misogyny is the reason I stopped reading his site. The straw the broke the camel's back is when he wrote "slut in training" over a picture of Denise Richards' then 3-year-old daughter, Sam. I tried making reasonable comments on his website, but they got lost in a sea of "first!"s and "lol"s and "haha ur funny"s.
I've never read his website because I just never "got" why he was famous or popular in the first place and refused to give him hits based on principal (just like I refuse to give my attention to other people famous for absolutely NOTHING *cough* the other Paris Hilton *cough*) but that is absolutely disgusting!
I agree. It's truly disgusting. And, one of his first entries back after the Will.I.Am kerfuffle was one that trashed Samantha Ronson and Lindsay Lohan, calling Samantha "SaMAN" and making really nasty comments about lesbians. It took him using actual hate speech for people to take a look at him. I know it's wrong, and violence is never the answer...but if it had to happen, I'm not that sorry it happened to him.
Goldberg's piece is amazing. Anyone who hasn't read it needs to. I am glad that she wrote about how the burqa ban fits into international politics and French values. I feel like many of the people who are against the burqa-ban are using US-centric values and recognizing the larger picture of international politics that affects France (and the EU) to a much greater degree than it affect the US. That's not to say that there are no non-US-centric reasons against the ban, but the reasoning needs to take a wholly different focus.
Also, it is worth noting that a prominent French Muslim feminist movement supports the burqa ban. I tend to defer to their assessment of the situation and what would be good for Muslim women in France.
People might be interested in Newsweek's lengthy article (for a magazine's standards) on how rape is not instinctive in men:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/202789
In fact, it contra-evolutionary. Other sexist myths are being debunked in scientific, not just political, ways. Promising.