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Emma Bee Bernstein, a 23-year-old feminist photographer, died a couple of weeks ago. Jess and I both had the privilege of meeting her through her innovative project GIRLDrive, which we've blogged about previously. Emma and partner-in-crime, Nona Willis Aronowitz, hit the road and interviewed and photographed young women talking about their relationship to feminism. It morphed into a book which will be released on Seal Press in the near future. Read more about both Emma and Nona here.

I met Emma only twice, but her presence left a real impression on me. She had a quality of wild aliveness--animated about philosophy and art, dramatic about the ins and outs of her young, exciting life, literally bursting. She was beautiful, charismatic, dressed like a person who understood the playful capacity inherent in fashion, who liked to subvert people's expectations about appropriateness or trendiness. The last time I saw her and Nona, Emma had just read my book, and showered me with the most generous and seemingly authentic praise. I remember leaving the meeting feeling ten feet tall. Emma, this bright young engaged artist, had called me a philosopher. I felt like my words were important.

I can only imagine that Emma made a lot of people feel this way--like their presence, their take on the world (feminism, art, music), their words, were deeply important. I love her and Nona's project because it defies so many people's expectations about the young and cynical. It asserts that, indeed, young women are still interested in the open road, in communing face-to-face with strangers and friends alike, in intellectual journeys, in this transformative and unfinished movement called feminism.

She wrote the following, when asked to respond to the idea of intergenerational feminism for a panel at the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art:

There is good news: young women artists are revolutionary. They are making works that deal fervently with gender and sexuality, that deconstruct beauty standards, that unveil the veiled. They revel in the grotesque, the cosmetic, celebrity culture. They poke fun at themselves. They show us their obsession with the "feminine", but it is pop essentialism, deadpan gender. They do not care if you think they are vapid sluts, clad in designer trends. They look with a female gaze, they have autonomy, they are not marionettes. They are, indeed, artists who are feminists. Young women thinkers will say they are gender revolutionary before they are feminist-identified, and just as they seek to explode the binaries of sex, they mix-media and ideology, creating a patchwork of consciousness that is as thoroughly contemporary as it is politically feminist.

I like to think of her reading those words. That they were about "young women"--abstractly speaking--but, most specifically, about herself. She was that revolutionary, that joker, that deconstructer, that unapologetic sexual being, that autonomous seer, that binary exploder, that conscious, political feminist theorist and activist. She was that friend. That daughter. That sister. That artist. That innovator.

Emma ended her own life. It's almost impossible for me conceive of someone that alive now being dead. But I have to believe that she needed release in some profound way that even her beautiful family and friends, that even her relationship to art and feminism, couldn't provide. It's not romantic. It's unacceptable. It's also a reminder that life is a fragile, fragile thing, a choice that we each make every single day. When Emma was alive, she made the choice fiercely and with her whole being. I thank her for the lesson.

For New Yorkers, there will be a service on Wednesday, December 31st at 10:30 am, at the Plaza Jewish Community Chapel at 630 Amsterdam Ave (at 91st Street).

More links:
Nona's take
her dad's take
photographs of Emma
Emma's photographs
her whole essay on intergenerational feminism

If you have the post-holiday blues, check this out: Women's Media Center Media Manager Rebekah Spicuglia wrote a Huffington Post piece about Chili's in Georgia firing her sister over a sexual harassment case. An excerpt:

When my sister, Rachel Spicuglia, a five-year employee of Chili's Restaurant (owned by Brinker International), reported to her manager the escalating sexual harassment she was receiving from the cooks, which had culminated in an assault that morning in the walk-in refrigerator, the manager asked Rachel if the offending employee had gotten a "full cup" when he had grabbed her breasts. Shocked that the manager would joke in such way, Rachel protested that it wasn't funny, but he insisted that it was actually information that he needed to know.

Rachel ended up taking a leave of absence, filing EEOC Charge of Discrimination on August 12, but she continued to work with Chili's to arrange transfer to another store. The transfer was approved, but Rachel's calls to the store manager were never returned, and on December 9, Rachel received a letter from her health insurance, saying that her medical benefits were denied, due to the fact that she was terminated from her job. Two weeks before Christmas, without any warning, and still waiting for the EEOC to review her complaint. Apparently, Chili's was unable to fire Rachel during her leave of absence, but under Georgia law, unlike other states, you can suffer sexual harassment and be fired.

Shortly after Rebebkah's piece hit the front page of HuffPo, Brinker International, who owns Chili's, re-hired her sister, offering her the chance to resume her five year tenure with the company at a new location of her choice. Rebekah has recently posted a follow-up, which gives an even bigger picture of women in the workplace, particularly in service jobs:

There are too many people like Breslin who see sexual harassment as a general mass of "gray area" incidents. Regulating behavior in the workplace IS possible and happens every single day, as employers set a code of conduct for their employees to maintain. In addition, the impact of state legislation and regulation supporting Title VII cannot be underestimated, and Georgia residents would be better served by implementing their own laws, taking sexual harassment and employment law seriously.

Sometimes, justice is actually won through the twin tools of a empathic heart and a democratic media. Way to go Rebekah and Rachel! I'm excited to think about more ways in which HuffPo, and blogs in general, can put pressure on employers to treat their workers--women and men--with respect and dignity.

Here are some of the pics that my fella and friend Kimmi took at our awesome feministing holiday party in NYC last Friday. Thanks to everyone that came out. It was so much fun to meet so many readers and reunite with old buddies.

Apparently I really like listening to Vanessa

Yes, balloon animals were involved. And it's a sword you dirty birds.

Don't worry. He knows them.

More after the jump.

5. The Spice Girls-will someone please explain how this could have possibly been misinterpreted as empowerment?

4. Tyra Banks-look, I know she does some awesome stuff, but she also humiliates young women pretty consistently on her show and refrains from any real interventions on ANTM when it comes to mental health issues...oh and there was that dead girl photo shoot

3. Diamond companies who advertise the "me ring"-Wow. So not only do the majority of you have heinous labor practices that affect women and children in mostly third world countries, but now you're trying to sell me the products of that labor through a bullshit idea that a diamond ring on my right hand somehow symbolized empowerment? Wow.

2. Sex and the City-I know I'm going to get some shit for this, but I have to ask how we can consider something truly feminist that has NO CLASS or RACE ANALYSIS. I enjoy it. I'm down to watch it. But do we have to call it feminist?

1. Sarah Palin-I don't think I need to explain. But if I do, just read here.

I know you've got some of your own that you'd like to add in comments...

The Girls Education and Mentoring Service (GEMS) deserves some major props for the work they do day in and day out. GEMS is "the only organization in New York State specifically designed to serve girls and young women who have experienced commercial sexual exploitation and domestic trafficking," according to their website. It was founded in 1999 by Rachel Lloyd, a young woman who had been sexually exploited as a teenager. So amazing.

GEMS helps girls (ages 12-21) get out of the sex industry, heal from exploitation, and find their own voices and define their own dreams. It takes tireless mentoring and mothering, often resulting in girls who were former prostitutes becoming counselors for the next generation.

Check out this trailer of their new film on prostitution (trigger warning):

I'll be reviewing it later this month or next, so look out for that. And if you don't know what nonprofit to support this holiday, GEMS is a really meaningful option!

I was so moved when I heard my friend Jessica Alpert's NPR story on a tragic crime committed against the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament in Waterville, Maine. Basically, the small order or nuns was terrorized by a man who had been part of their community but had a mental breakdown. Two of them were killed and two were severely injured. The nuns saw to it that the perpetrator got put in a mental health facility, but they also did a ceremony in which they washed the feet of his relatives as a symbol of their forgiveness. Listen to the story for all the beautiful details and the moving tenor of the women's voices.

The story is, in part, so powerful because at a time when religion so often gets twisted for alienating and even violent purposes, these ancient nuns in this tiny town are committed to interpreting their Christianity in the spirit of love. They don't forget the wrong that has been done to them, but they forgive on a deep, demonstrative level.

I guess I feel like it's such a prescient story for our times because so much wrong has been done, so many lives shattered by government policy and corporate greed, and it's time to change things and, perhaps, even forgive. Holding hate for George Bush is a colossal waste of time and energy. I say, bring him to justice, as these nuns did, but don't let the hate fester in your own heart.

Reuters reports:

Instead of infiltrating breaks in the skin, HIV appears to attack normal, healthy genital tissue in women, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday in a study that offers new insight into how the AIDS virus spreads.

They said researchers had assumed the human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, sought out breaks in the skin, such as a herpes sore, in order to gain access to immune system cells deeper in the tissue.

Just in case you haven't seen the facts, women of color are disproportionately infected with HIV and AIDS:

• Black women and Latinas account for 79 percent of all reported HIV infections among 13- to 19-year-old women and 75 percent of HIV infections among 20- to 24-year-old women in the United States although, together, they represent only about 26 percent of U.S. women these ages.


• HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for black women (including African American women) aged 25-34 years.


• High-risk heterosexual contact is the source of 80% of newly diagnosed women with HIV infections.

Appalling, right? I got my big wake up call working with Marvelyn Brown on her memoir, The Naked Truth (now in its second printing!). Marvelyn was infected with HIV at 19-years-old through unprotected sex with who she thought was her "prince charming." Her entire life was turned upside down by forgoing the condom that one night.

Wrap it up ladies! Now that we know that HIV can infiltrate healthy tissue, it has become even more critical to negotiate condom use and always carry your own protection.

There are a bunch of books that have been sitting on my shelf for too many months and they look amazing. I don't want you all to miss the opportunity to give awesome books to your nearest and dearest this holiday season, so...

I haven't read these in full, but I've spent some time with each of them, and here are my thoughts.

Homefront by Kristen J. Tsetsi

This beautiful and stark novel by Kristen J. Tsetsi makes real the agonizing waiting that so many Americans must do while their loved ones are at modern war. The protagonist's voice--that of a young, heady woman--is so familiar, so real, so intimate that I can almost imagine it were my own, though I've never had anywhere close to the same experience.

It seems like there have been a real lack of narratives out there about the experiences of those who love those in the military, especially this time around. We get a sense of their struggles at times with the coverage of vets' injuries and rehab processes, but even then, the partners and spouses of military folks are usually treated as accessories, not given their own authentic voice.

Reading Homefront will give you such insight into the daily battles at home caused by this messy war abroad, but even more universal, a deep sense of appreciation for your own loved ones. As I was reading it, I felt blessed to hear the snore beside me in the bed at night.

Third Wave Feminism and Television by Merri Lisa Johnson

If you know a sucker for any of the following--Six Feet Under, the Sopranos, vampires--then you may want to pick up this awesome anthology for them, published over the pond by I.B. Tauris Press. Johnson, the Director for the Center for Women's Studies at the University of South Carolina-Upstate, brings together a range of totally intriguing and theoretically rigorous essays on the intersection between popular television and new feminisms.

She introduces:

As riddled with stereotypes as media culture admittedly is, television can also provide rare insight into alternative ways of living in the world. The small screen paradoxically provides a broader horizon. For rural adolescents, television can be the sole window into big-city subjects like homosexuality, singlehood-by-choice, multiculturalism, and, I'm not kidding, existentialism--my philosophy minor may well have stemmed from a certain episode of Family Ties in which Alex's little sister, Jennifer, reads Kierkegaard at the kitchen table.

Campus Calm University by Maria Pascucci

If you know a college student knee-deep in finals and Xanax, get him or her this book. Maria Pascucci, founder of Campus Calm, has written a guide to reducing stress and creating a happy life that's actually useful (as opposed to googling term papers in a hurry). Pascucci looks at everything from perfectionism (a section I'm quoted in) to creativity to work/life balance to relationships to spirituality in this one little book. She's got exercises if you're into that sort of thing, and lots of input from experts across the nation.

What I love so much about Pascucci's work is that she's obsessively pragmatic. Whereas with my book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, I sometimes feel like the reader gets a whole lotta analysis and only a little bit o' advice, Pascucci is dedicated to suggesting real solutions for real perfectionists and stressballs. She recognizes that being overwhelmed, overworked, and self-hating is not just a crazy college kid problem, but a matter of a life well lived or a life wasted on stress and misplaced priorities. In that way, her text even has a spiritual undertone--making that link between how we spend our precious energy and the quality of our very quickly passing life. I love that she gets deep on the subject while still managing to be very nuts and bolts about it. The girl's got range.

Daughters of India by Stephen P. Huyler

One in every six women living in the world lives in India. Amazing, right?

So is this book. It's a gorgeous collage of richly colorful and unique photographs of the women of India, and inspired writing about art, identity, and gender that is complex enough for this complex country. Author and photographer, Stephen P. Huyler, has spent much of his life documenting India--past and present--and writes in the author's note:

Women's issues and concerns have always been deeply instilled in me. I was raised and have always been guided by strong, self-reliant, and self-aware women. My great-grandmother and great-aunt were both pioneers of women's rights in 19th and 20th century Korea...Beatrice Wood, an American artist and potter who defied social taboos of the last century, befriended me just before I began college. As my mentor, Beatrice had a profound effect on my life, introducing me to India and arranging for me to be sponsored there by two powerful Indian women--both members of India's first parliament...

I went to a School of Seven Bells show Monday night at the Mercury Lounge and then had the absolute pleasure of reading this profile of them in Sadie's latest edition. (Sadie, if you're not hip to it yet, is "where feminism meets art meets grrrls.")

Their sound, if you haven't heard it, is sort of like Enya indie rock. That might sound terrible, but it's actually wonderful. It's all deep, affecting beats and angelic harmonizing by twin sisters Alley and Claudia Deheza. And while I don't know these ladies, I get the sense that they are very much in control of their own creative choices and totally committed to their art (not objectifying themselves like so many newbies who get manipulated in the music biz).

Check em out their sounds and Prefuse 73's graphics:

This week marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a real opportunity for all of us to reflect on Eleanor Roosevelt's legacy and the future of human rights in an international context (Roosevelt took the lead on getting the declaration written and ratified). See Ann's post yesterday for starters.

With Zimbabwe dissolving, Sudan still embroiled in violent chaos, Guantanamo, the trafficking of women and children all over the world, rape still rampantly used as a war crime, and so many other human rights abuses worldwide, we must explore the issues within the declaration more than ever.

Mary Robinson, remarkable leader and humanitarian (formerly Ireland's president), has a piece over at the Women's Media Center on the anniversary. Here's an excerpt where she advocates women-led grassroots initiatives to challenge human rights abuses:

In many conflict areas, gender based violence and the abuse of women's rights are endemic. And the suffering of victims of gender based violence in particular goes well beyond their immediate trauma. Survivors' rights are further abused in the aftermath of rape and other violence due to inadequate medical and psychosocial care; entrenched impunity for perpetrators of gender based violence, incapacitated judicial systems, and often abandonment by husbands, families or communities.

Investing in women and their grassroots initiatives is perhaps the most cost-effective form of conflict prevention.

Anyone have a favorite initiatives they'd like to shout out in comments? Might be instructive for anyone looking to do humanitarian work and/or trying to decide where to give money this year (tithe time and income if you can folks). Let's make Eleanor proud.

And finally, my favorite Eleanor quotation:

No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.

Ever since I heard the anti-abortion protesters screaming in my ear and had their fake signs of dead babies thrown in my face as I sheepishly went into a Planned Parenthood on Colorado Avenue back in 1996, I've been pretty clear that these folks are up for using all sorts of manipulative tactics to limit choice. This new angle, however, surprised me. The argument goes:

We should stop federally funding Planned Parenthood because the economy is so bad and they already have private donations.

FYI, Planned Parenthood receives about $335 million a year from the government, specifically targeted for contraception, sex education and health care for poor women and teenagers. Yup. I'm sure this has everything to do with the failing economy and nothing to do with some strategic (not to mention righteous) thinking on the part of a few anti-abortion organizations that are trying to squeeze lemonade out of some really shitty lemons. Note: the federal funds don't go to abortions. That money comes from the other 2/3 of the budget raised through private sources. But I'm sure that the anti-choice folks see any way that they can hurt Planned Parenthood as a score for the team.

The Wall Street Journal gave this specious argument major column inches covering it in yesterday's paper, reporting that "The Family Research Council is developing a kit to help grass-roots activists dig through financial reports so they can make detailed presentations to elected officials about the assets and revenue of local Planned Parenthood chapters. The council has sent letters to 1,200 state legislators describing Planned Parenthood's strong financial position and urging 'a second look' at public funding."

Already, Planned Parenthood's in Florida and Georgia have been hit.

I ran across a really interesting article in Pink Magazine the other day about the ongoing struggle for pay equity. In it, journalist Christina Boufis makes a case for salary transparency.

She leads the article with a fascinating anecdote. Apparently Gloria Steinem once told a room full of corporate execs that they should pick one woman in the room and make a pact to always be honest with one another about their salaries. Paula Henderson, one of the young women in the room, made just such a pact, and through twenty years of career changes and economic ups and downs, she estimates that having that transparency made she and her pact partner about three million dollars!

Now certainly many of us aren't working in the same kind of lucrative field that Henderson and her partner are, but it really made me think about my own relationship to money when it comes to friends and colleagues. I've always been pretty transparent, partly because of my feminist values, but also because I think I've always hungered for the camaraderie of others who struggle with the freelance lifestyle (it's all feast and famine). But now I think I'm going to be even more transparent.

I urge you to send this post to someone you'd like to create a transparency pact with and ask her if she's down for the long haul. Or, if you're feeling really brave, just make a pact with yourself that you'll tell any and all other women how much you make if it looks like it might help them leverage their own salary negotiations or just make them better informed.

Check out me, feministing friend Gwen Beetham, and plenty of other young women speaking out on the new pres and pres' partner over at the National Council for Research on Women's new blog The Real Deal. What terminology would you replace "the first lady" with if you had the chance? (I said partner to the president.)

Rinku Sen's new book The Accidental American: Immigration and Citizenship in the Age of Globalization is an amazing feat of intersectional analysis. She takes one man's story (her co-author, Fekkak Mamdough) and uses it as the narrative vehicle for an analysis of the ways in which immigration, nationalism, racism, globalization, September 11th, worker's rights, community organizing, gender dynamics are threaded together in an inseparable knot. Overwhelmed already? Don't be. The impressive thing about Sen's writing is that, despite the fact that she is juggling so many story lines, themes, and transnational issues, she manages to keep the language very clear and the structure very simple.

She argues that the current framing of the immigration debate--keep "them" out or let "them" in so they can provide much-needed labor--is limited and, in essence, immoral. Her key thesis is this:

Captive to the rhetorical status quo, both sides have decided, for various tactical reasons, to ignore three important realities. First, globalization is incomplete, creating a situation in which corporations are free to move jobs, operations, and capital anywhere they wish, while workers' mobility is limited by borders and immigration laws. Second, a permanent, unchanging American identity is neither possible nor desirable; the culture of the United States has changed many times over the course of its history, and further transformations are always already in motion. Finally, the current debate posits immigrants and U.S. residents as foes, when in fact our destinies are closely tied together. Without focusing attention on these three blind spots, we cannot gather enough information to make rational, innovative choices.

In large part, this book serves to expand these three realities--looking at each through the real life experiences of Mamdouh, an immigrant from Morocco who once worked in the World Trade Center's restaurant Windows. But even more profoundly, it argues for and serves as a model of humanizing the immigrant in a very deep way. She writes, "The dominant frames of crime and work, which in turn influenced the actual policies being debated, didn't allow immigrants to claim a fuller humanity that would entitle them not just to come to the U.S. and work, but also to come and be."

Sen's contributions with The Accidental American are many. She's given us a primer on the nitty gritty, day-in-day-out of community organizing. She's brought a fresh big picture perspective on the national conversation about immigration, pre and post September 11th. But her biggest gift with this book is the way in which she's brought fragile, real, tender humanity to this hot button political issue. She writes, "Without a frame that emphasized their full humanity, immigrants couldn't effectively counter the argument that their interests were fundamentally opposed to those of Americans." Sen has offered the frame, and in so doing, opened a window into a kinder, more just future for all Americans.

Thanks to Rachel Superstar Simmons for the heads up on this episode of Amy P.'s awesome new show, "Smart Girls at the Party."

Need I say more?
RIP.

I went to dinner last night at a pretty nice place and the waiter kept referring to be in the third person:

"Does the lady want any dessert?" "Does she like her wine?" "Is the soup to her liking?"

He did not refer to my male companion in the third person and it was sort of hard to tell whether he was directing these questions at me or my dinner date.

Can someone please explain this to me? Am I somehow made invisible or mute by having a vagina? Was I zapped back into 1952 without realizing it? Did the waiter expect my friend to order for me? Was he shocked when a lady opened her own mouth and real live words came out describing real independent choices?

Note to waiters: Not cool.

Randy Albelda has an interesting piece over at The Boston Globe questioning if Obama's proposed stimulus package is sexist. Her argument:

Jobs in construction and many of those that come with green investment often pay decent wages with benefits. But they are overwhelmingly held by men. Outside of trickle-around effects, this stimulus package will not create jobs for women in any close proportion to the numbers that will be unemployed....Caring for those who cannot care for themselves, healthcare, and primary education are the very foundation of a civil society. Investing in these outcomes are as vital to our long-term economic health as airports, highways, wind turbines, and energy-retrofitted buildings. On the employment side, women are disproportionately employed in these sectors, so any stimulus package directed toward them would boost the employment prospects of women at all levels of the wage scale.

But we must not lose sight of the fact that caretaking, teaching, and wellness roles have been traditionally both imposed and embraced by women. Sometimes women have authentically been drawn to these fields; I certainly have female friends who love teaching, social work, and other caretaking professions. But some have been pressured into these professions along with traditional gender roles. When my grandmother was growing up, she could be either a teacher or a nurse. When my mom was growing up, she thought she might be a secretary because she heard if you got your work done really fast, you could read all day. Although young women today rarely have the same kind of social conscription when it comes to their career choices, many are still socialized to believe that a caretaking role in the most virtuous and congruent with their gender.

So, yes Albelda, let's pressure Obama to create lots of jobs in the educational and healthcare fields, but let's ask that his team do it, not because traditionally gendered jobs will continue perpetually to fall into "dude jobs" and "lady jobs," but because caretaking is valued as much as construction. And further, let's continue to support efforts like Men Teach and Non Traditional Employment for Women, that encourage both men and women to break out of traditional gender roles and follow their true calling.

Over a few long airline flights this week I finally had a chance to read the latest from Curtis Sittenfeld (of Prep fame): American Wife. It's a fictionalized account of Laura Bush's life based on many of the real biographical details. As it weaves its way from her young discovery of an abiding love for books, a car accident in her adolescence that would influence the trajectory of the rest of her life, and her inevitable connection to rich kid politico "Charlie Blackwell," the reader develops a deep empathy for the woman that would be first lady.

The power of the narrative had me constantly looking at Laura Bush' wikipedia page to get a sense of which pieces came from Sittenfeld's imagination and which were drawn from real life events. It turns out that many of the most interesting parts were straight from real life. As usual, the truth is much stranger than fiction.

The book is long, and I felt it dragged a bit about a third of the way through, but I was otherwise riveted. It turned out to be a perfect time to read it. As the Bush era begins to dim, there is much talk about what his legacy and hers will really be. Having this novelistic insight into their emotional lives, her motives and passions, the complexity of fame and marriage and, well, just trying to live a life right give me a totally different read on the public conversation about the Bush family.

The added bonus? Sittenfeld is a feminist, so there are a lot of fascinating feminist twists. I won't go into them because it will spoil some surprises, but here are some of my fave excerpts:

I would not marry a man unless I could show myself to him truly--I had no interest in tricking anyone--but I couldn't imagine showing myself to most men, revealing myself as someone more complicated than I seemed. If thinking of the exertion and explanations that would require discouraged me, it almost made me calm. I didn't work myself up, as other women I knew did, panicking over finding Mr. Right. I accepted that the years to come would unfold in their way, that I could control only a few aspects of them. To remain alone did not seem to me a terrible fate, no worse than being falsely joined to another person.

If I were to tell the story of my life...and if I were being honest...I would probably feel tempted to say that standing that night just inside my apartment, me in my nightgown and Charlie in jeans and a red shirt, I made a choice: I chose our relationship over my political convictions, love over ideology.

His fixation with his legacy (I even grew to hate the word) I found intolerable. It seemed so indulgent, so silly, so male; I had never heard a woman panic about it. I once, in the most delicate manner possible, expressed this observation about gender to Charlie and he said, 'It's because you're the ones who give birth.' I did not find this answer satisfying.

The YWCA has launched the Own It campaign, in conjunction with their 150th Anniversary, aimed at motivating women between the ages of 18 and 30 to take "purposeful action." The campaign will include a series of reports over the next year, one of them just released on Monday. Check out the video:

I'm torn. On the one hand, I'm always excited when national institutions with long, rich histories of helping women set their sights on the younger generation and commit some resources to reaching out. The YWCA should be applauded for looking forward, not backward, on their 150th anniversary.

On the other hand, I feel like efforts to reach out to younger women often end up feeling pretty patronizing (i.e. the lead in to the video) and/or vague ("own it"? "take action"? What do these things really mean?).

A few questions come up for me:
What younger women did the YWCA engage younger women in creating this campaign? I know they're surveying them over the course of the year, which is fantastic, but what about involving them in the strategic planning of the movement itself? If they did, it would be nice to see that indicated in the website either through some kind of young women board of advisers or just a strong commitment in the literature.

Which women between the ages of 18 and 30 is this campaign aimed at? There are certainly women in that age range who aren't activists, and indeed, I commend an effort to engage those folks. But, and this is a big but, there are also so many young women--in fact far more, according to most studies on youth activism and volunteerism, already engaged in social action (Samhita just posted a video that includes many of them.). Is the campaign a repository for their stories? What will be done with all these stories?

Who are the girls in this video and what is their action? I imagine that this video was modeled after the infamously viral Wyclef video for Obama (as it seems so many others have been lately), but those were known celebrities touting a known entity. These girls are intriguing, but rather than hearing them repeat the same phrases continually, I would have loved to see them tell a story or two. This would have helped substantiate that the campaign recognizes that there are young women doing a lot of important work in the world beyond talktalktalking about how much they hate racism.

Again, very excited to see such venerable institutions devoting dollars and energy to the next generation. Just hungering for some clarity, some stories, and some clear indication that young women are the ones shaping this campaign.

The New York Times reports that eighteen female insurgents turned themselves in to American-led forces in Iraq in accordance with a new amnesty plan. The women, said to have been signed over to Al Qaeda by father and mullahs, are asked to sign their allegiance to the formal political process, disavow violence, and in exchange, they will receive protection. (They will still face criminal charges.)

Wouldn't it have been fascinating to be a fly on the wall as these women discussed and planned their communal surrender?

Don't miss Ann's awesome piece over at TAP where she opines that LGBT rights, including marriage, must be framed, not as cultural issues, but as civil rights. I thought it was spot on, and it's an argument I'm just not hearing anywhere else. An excerpt:

We'll continue to lose until we can successfully relabel LGBT rights a civil-rights issue situated firmly within the context of other civil-rights struggles, not an issue mired in the culture-war swamp of moral controversy. (To a lesser degree, the same goes for abortion rights.) "Culture" implies we are comfortable with different parts of our country and different groups of people seeing this issue differently. It implies that there is no absolute right or wrong -- just two sparring factions -- and that we'll simply have to wait for the rest of the country to come around. Culture changes slowly. This is something I've heard a lot in the wake of the passage of California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage. "History is on our side! Don't worry, the demographic trends are with us!"

I'm sorry, but that's just not good enough.

Pretty amazing, huh?

Note: I get so pumped when I read the headline that I imagine Ann dressed in a huge hoodie shouting "Don't call it a culture war!" like LL:

We're certainly not breaking news here, but I did think it was important to acknowledge how exciting it is that Obama's choices include three women: Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as homeland security secretary, Susan Rice as ambassador to the United Nations, and yes, Senator Hillary Clinton as secretary of state. As I watched the news conference this morning and counted up the ladies on the line, I beamed from ear to ear.

Not only does it indicate that President Elect Obama will use his "first" to create lots of others, but it is really exciting that it's happening specifically with regards to security--an issue so often masculinized in popular and political culture. As we feminists know, national and international security is about more than military might, but also includes poverty alleviation, diplomacy and negotiation, and increasing women's power through out the world.

What do you think?

Not the massacre of native people "Happy Thanksgiving," but the thankful for our lives and communities and feminism and progress "Happy Thanksgiving." We're certainly deeply grateful for all of our readers and community posters--you all make this space truly alive and dynamic.

And, thus, feminism alive and dynamic. I'll drink a glass of wine and eat some mac n' cheese to that lovely thought.

By the way, we're taking the day off and will be back tomorrow with limited posting.

I was glad to see that the New York Times is continuing their important coverage of veteran issues, especially when it comes to violence stateside. Sunday they ran a story about the Army's major domestic violence problem.

This piece continued their commitment to reporting on the ways in which veterans' families have born the brunt of much of their PTSD problems. In February, they gave a deep and broad view of the emotional and physical violence characterizing so many families lives when a loved one returns from war. Prior to the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Pentagon had committed to revamping the military response to domestic violence (there has been a rash of "wife-killings" that prompted response). But as task force members told reporters, the huge surge in violence both overseas and upon returning home, has complicated their efforts.

Complications are inevitable, but there is simply no excuse for not providing veterans' and their families the counseling they need. For example, USA Today reported last week that there are currently one drug counselor for every 3,100 soldiers; this at a time when the soldiers seeking help has skyrocketed by 25% in the last five years.

I think the Pentagon could learn a lot from feminists. When will the government commit to an intersectional analysis of what veterans and their families are experiencing, both in war and after? Violence, addiction, rape and sexual assault, suicide, PTSD etc. are all intimately connected afflictions. We have a moral obligation to bring this kind of sophisticated analysis to veterans' healing.

For more, check out my column from yesterday over at TAP on veteran's affairs and Michelle Obama.

Check out Hannah Seligon's great overview of how the entire world woke up to sexism in the media thanks to the last year of political coverage. There's a special focus on the Women's Media Center, definitely an organization to know. In fact, they're accepting applications now for their next class of the Progressive Women's Voices project, an experience I thoroughly enjoyed (media training + amazing community of women + publicity support for your organization or your own personal writing/activism). Check it out and send those applications in ASAP!

A guest post from my awesome friend, Kate Torgovnick!

Earlier this year at Bothell High School in Seattle, two photos made their way across the student body via text message. The first featured one of the school's cheerleaders topless; the second showed another cheerleader in the buff. When the school's co-principals found out about the photos, they suspended both cheerleaders from the squad--asking the first to forfeit her pom-poms for 30 days and the second to leave the team for the entire year. Conveniently, the football players who were suspected of circulating the photos weren't punished at all.

Last week, the parents of the two girls decided to sue the school, calling for them to wipe the incident from the girl's permanent records, reinstate them to their positions on the squad, and apologize for not punishing anyone else involved in the incident. "My clients fully realize what they did was stupid," said Matthew King, the lawyer for both families. "But there should have been some punishment meted out to those who were in possession of the photos. It seems the girls are getting the brunt of it."

"When you sign up to be a cheerleader--or for any student activity--you agree to certain codes of behavior," fired back school district spokeswoman Susan Stolzfus. "We consider them student leaders, and we want them to be role models."

Stolfus does have a point. But if these photos were of women in the math club or student council, it's hard to imagine that the photos would have had the same appeal or incurred the same punishment. For anyone who follows cheerleaders in the news--and as the author of CHEER!: Inside the Secret World of College Cheerleaders, I do--this incident sounds remarkably familiar. Remember the Fab Five cheerleaders from McKinney, Texas? They terrorized their school for months, but what seemed to set off an investigation (and national media attention) was them taking photos of themselves fellating penis-shaped candles at a sex store. Or what about the Carolina Panthers cheerleaders who in 2006 were making out in a bar bathroom and got in a fight with another patron who was waiting to use the stall? They were both dismissed from the team after newspapers ran with the story.

So why all the interest in cheerleaders gone wild? Cheerleaders are American icons, up there with the bald eagle and the McDonalds arches--they appear in every city, in almost every high school, which is our culture's lowest common denominator. Think through all of the images of cheerleaders in American pop culture. They fit neatly into two categories: the chaste A-student and the miniskirt-wearing slut. For every squeaky-clean Kelly Kapowski on Saved by the Bell, there's an Ali Larter in Varsity Blues, strolling into a room wearing a whipped-cream bikini. For every Claire on Heroes, whose safety is the key to saving the world, there's some anonymous women in Playboy's video special Cheerleaders and College Girls (not the other way around). Cheerleaders straddle the fault line between virgin and whore. They're a group onto which our culture projects its very complicated beliefs about women--that we can only be one extreme or the other.

So should these teens be punished for taking nude pics? In my opinion, no--they've no doubt learned their lesson. Is it a school's place to punish students for sexual activity? I just don't think so. But what I think schools can and should do is recognize that, so-called "sexting" is something their students are no doubt doing. It couldn't hurt to remind teenagers that a photo they think will be kept private can very easily make the rounds with just a click of a send button. And not everyone bounces back like Paris Hilton.

"I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain."
-James Baldwin

Former New Life Church pastor Ted Haggard

There's a really in depth piece in this month's Atlantic about the growing movement to honor the wishes of transgender children and all the complexities therein. Though I don't claim to be anything near an expert on this issue, I thought that writer Hanna Rosin did a commendable job of bringing in plenty of diverse opinions and exploring so many different angles (and truth be told, I was shocked that the usually stodgy Atlantic devoted so much precious real estate to the issue).

She looked at the sociological, biological, and psychological implications of transgender children's rights through the story of one fascinating family living in a very conservative, small town. Tina, the mother of 8-year-old Brandon (who wants to be Bridget), had never even heard the terms "transgender" until Barbara Walter's special on the topic aired.

(I have my own beef with Barbara. While I admire her long and groundbreaking career, I sort of feel like she can't help but simplify most complex feminist issues into shock-and-awe nonsense. See her recent special on "the pregnant man.")

In any case, the article shows the ways in which this 8-year-old's mother and father come to grips with their child's gender nonconformity. They find community at the Trans-Health Conference, consider the pros and cons of hormone blockers, and experiment with letting Brandon be Bridget when they get back to their tiny town. It's not easy, as you might imagine, but I thought it was beautiful portrait of a family's honest struggle.

I leave you with my favorite moment in the story:

Nothing can do more to normalize the face of transgender America than the sight of a 7-year-old (boy or girl?) with pink cheeks and a red balloon puppy in hand saying to Brandon, as one did at the conference:

"Are you transgender?"

"What's that?" Brandon asked.

"A boy who wants to be a girl."

"Yeah. Can I see your balloon?"

You're heard of the slow food movement, right? Well now folks are bringing that same sensibility--a mindful, patient, sensual exploration of the full enjoyment of the present moment--to one of the fastest of mediums: the blog.

The New York Times had a fascinating story on this trend on Sunday. It turns out that there is even a Slow Blog Manifesto, written in 2006 by Todd Sieling from (of course) Canada. Sieling writes:

Slow Blogging is a reversal of the disintegration into the one-liners and cutting turns of phrase that are often the early lives of our best ideas. Its a process in which flashes of thought shine and then fade to take their place in the background as part of something larger. Slow Blogging does not write thoughts onto the ethereal and eternal parchment before they provide an enduring worth in the shape of our ideas over time.

It got me thinking...what are the effects--both short and long term--of our speed as feminist bloggers? Sometimes we will have an activist goal in mind--eg. get Walmart to pull their sexist, violence-promoting t-shirts or make sure that Bush keeps his paws off our bodies in these last legislative days). In these cases, time is of the essence. It is less important that we write well, or get at the deepest recesses of the issue at hand, as it is that we get the content out there, incite outrage, and create collective action.

But other times, we feministing editors do try to insert some slower, more reflective posts. Vanessa thought back to her own experiences working in direct service with girls last week. I tried to introduce some of the ongoing questions in my own head and heart as I continue my feminist journey (interestingly, commenters were quick to speedy answers rather than the slow reflection I had intended.) I think sharkfu's beautiful stuff, more than anything on feministing right now, tends towards the reflective (even when it has decisively time-sensitive content).

So while I certainly don't see feministing as a member of the "slow blogging movement," I do think that we try to balance our quick hits with our slowly-developing consciousness, our action-oriented items with our reflection-encouraging content, and our sass with our search. What do you all think? Do you ever wish we were "slower" or "faster" (haha, sounds like we're doin' it)? For those participating in the community blog (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU), what do you notice about your own literary instincts in this regard?

*For more interesting, and very slow, writing on blogging, check out Andrew Sullivan's piece in this month's Atlantic.

We're going to be taking the day off next week at this time, for one big serious Thank You Thursday (i.e. Thanksgiving), so I wanted to take this time to reflect on my own feminist legacy that I am so deeply grateful for. Feel free to write your own...

Thank you for the centuries of women who have listened to their own deep wisdom, even when society in various sexist forms tried to drown out their innate knowing.

Thank you for my grandmothers, Maryanne (pictured on the right) and Joan. Thank you for giving me the chance to live out some of Maryanne's unlived dreams and for the special time I had with Joan, her opening and softening and joyful nature.

Thank you for my mother, who is a fierce and rare mix of nurturing and fearless, brilliant and emotional, invested in both radical honesty and wise serenity. Thank you for the gifts she's given the world, including The Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival and my feminist brother.

Thank you for Lesline, her certainty and resilience in every situation, her capacity to raise four amazing children with less support than she deserved, her laughter and her accent, and her tender, tender care for my partner.

Thank you for all of my amazing mentors--both older and younger. Thank you for the opportunity to mentor others.

Thank you for the opportunity to write and speak with an authentic voice. Thank you to the women who created institutions and structures (women's studies programs, feminist nonprofits, alternative media) by which I could be a professional feminist and still pay my rent.

Thank you for my amazing friends who help people every day--the social workers, the teachers and tutors, the comedians, the writers, the artists, the doctors, the nurses, the community organizers, the activists.

And last but not least, thank you for feministing, my community of hilarious, real, smart, dedicated feminist friends, the platform it gives all of us to change the world, end suffering, build community, and its indistinguishable capacity to inspire.

1. What is the accurate, once-and-for-all differences between men's and women's brains?
2. How can a woman who's super invested in mothering also protect her own creative/intellectual/professional life?
3. What truly works when it comes to rape and violence prevention?
4. When do I focus on being right and when do I focus on being effective?
5. When do I address sexism directly and when it is best to handle it indirectly?
6. How can society still be so invested in the categories hetero, homo, and bi when sexuality so obviously exists on a spectrum?
7. Why do so many feminists resist being critical about the institution of marriage?
8. How can we have no holds bar honest conversations about race and class disparities within feminist circles?
9. How important is it that women embrace the feminist label?
10. How ethical is it that feminist writers like Judith Butler and even bell hooks are hard for my women's studies 101 students to understand?

What are you still sorting out?

Richard Lingeman, a long time editor of The Nation, has edited a new book for all those lefty wide-eyed, save-the-word types. As the intro describes it:

The National Guide to the Nation is for and about a community of committed, passionate people who have active consciences and a lively sense of social justice. It's a mixture of the Whole Earth Catalog, 1000 Places to See Before You Die, and the Old Farmer's Almanac.

I was immediately sold. (And that was before I even realized that feministing got a mention! Which Nation 2007 intern was responsible for that? Thank you!)

Think of it as a guide to sustainable living--with lots of info about how to eat and drink locally, support small business, stick it to the man--but also a quirky intellectual and historical tour de force.

Feminist/activist landmarks--both metaphorical and literal--are listed in happy abundance. Susan B. Anthony's house in Rochester is listed, as is the Women's Rights National Historical Park in Seneca Falls. The Guerrilla Girls, The Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Beacon Press (whoohoo! my next publisher), Bluestockings, Women & Children First, Appalshop, Urban Bush Women, Vox Feminista, WOW Cafe Theater, Women Make Movies, Righteous Babe Records, the Hip Hop Caucus, Bitch, Ms., off our backs, oh yeah, and did I mention feministing.com (p. 157). They write:

This group blog is overseen by executive editor Jessica Valenti. It is one of the most respected blogs on feminism, gender, reproductive rights, and women's issues. Valenti and her coeditors are all young, and her blog self-consciously reflects their youthful perspective and opinion.

I don't know about the self-conscious part, but I'll take young and opinionated any day.

Keep an eye out for this baby's release in January.

As if we needed more proof that blogs and female friendships are both incredible forces of social change, check this out.

Russian lawyer, Svetlana Bakhmina, 39, has been in prison for over three years for tax evasion and embezzlement. Human rights advocates in and outside of Russia have argued, from the get go, that Bakhmina was basically a scapegoat for the real target of the investigation: crooked bazillionaire Dmitri Gololobov.

In any case, Bakhima became pregnant with her third child (she already has a 7 year old and an 11 year old) on a furlough and now the prison camp in Mordovia is refusing to entertain her plea for early release.

Outraged by this, Bakhima's middle school friend, Olga Kalashnikova, wrote a letter on her blog and later to the president about how outraged she was that her dear friend was forced to stay in prison on false charges while pregnant. An excerpt:

Respected Dmitri Anatolevich. I know that the courts in our country are independent. But I am certain that with your will it is fully possible to return a mother to her children. Whether she is guilty or not -- that's not important now. In any case, she has been punished more than enough. And she has already served as an example. But, it is her children who have been punished first of all. Both the two boys who are living without her for the fourth year, and that child that has yet to be born.

What has your middle school bestie done for you lately?

Some of you may have read Anna Clark's fascinating piece in Bitch's last issue on women writers and ambition: "The Ambition Condition: Women, Writing, and the Problem of Success." In it, she looks at the broad and historical landscape of women writing, right up to our present struggles with blog visibility, the gap in op-ed bylines etc. Clark writes:

There's no simple gender indicator for the weird fusion of insecurity and ambition, of the feigned nonchalance and quiet competitiveness that's common in writers of all sorts. But these traits are complicated by the cultural caricatures of ambitious women and the uneven historical patterns that have dictated whose talent is rewarded and whose isn't.

For all of her young life, What Is This Light has been a secret blog or at least a semi-secret blog. A couple days ago I read Anna Clark's Bitch Magazine article, "The Ambition Condition: Women, Writing, and the Problem of Success" and it proved at once cathartic and terrifying. Clark says things I already know much too well but couldn't quite articulate...And so, I'm going public. I don't expect much to change around here, but I've mustered enough gumption to really take on this mental paradigm shift.

Thanks to Anna for inspiring women to cure their own ambition conditions.

The Women's International Perspective, a young online news site, will be presenting a free event tonight that looks really fascinating. I'm out of town, so I can't go, but I can live vicariously. Details below:

What: Women as Social, Political and Economic Agents of Change

When: November 6th at 7:30pm

Where: Millbank Chapel, 525 W. 120th Street, New York, NY

Who: Monisha Bajaj, Leymah Roberta Gbowee, Gloriana Guillen, Nomi Prins

For more info.

If a speech were a book, then President Elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech Tuesday night would be a Pulitzer Prize winner. Here it is, in its entirety. Notice not just how exquisitely beautiful the language is, but how sprawling and grand the themes. It will be studies for decades to come as just how moving the written and spoken word can be:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible; who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time; who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer.

It's the answer told by lines that stretched around schools and churches in numbers this nation has never seen; by people who waited three hours and four hours, many for the very first time in their lives, because they believed that this time must be different; that their voice could be that difference.

It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled  Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of Red States and Blue States: we are, and always will be, the United States of America.

It's the answer that led those who have been told for so long by so many to be cynical, and fearful, and doubtful of what we can achieve to put their hands on the arc of history and bend it once more toward the hope of a better day.

It's been a long time coming, but tonight, because of what we did on this day, in this election, at this defining moment, change has come to America.

Women's involvement in sports incites "you go girl" enthusiasm from feminists round the globe. I don't blame them--the image of little ladies running around a soccer field, having fun, or high school athletes gaining a sense of community and tenacity by sweating up and down the basketball court is truly inspiring. I was a serious high school athelte (lacrosse and basketball) and some of my best memories of adolescence take place on the court or the field.

BUT, and this is a big BUT, there is an ugly story that often goes untold. Many young women involved in sports end up disordered--whether over-exercising or under-eating. It's not just in appearance-based sports, like ballet or gymnastics. While researching my book, I found that women involved in cross country running were among the most at risk. In one NCAA survey of college women athletes, 70% reported aspiring to lose their periods. That's not a sign of dedication to your sport, ladies, it's a sign of delusion. Menstruating is one of the first signals of a healthy female body at the college age.

The worst part is that so many coaches and trainers don't know a thing about these issues. Some are downright disasters. I was speaking on a college campus recently and had a couple of young women approach me from the volleyball team, complaining that their coach weighs every single member of the team every Monday. She substitutes the words "big" for unhealthy and "thin" for healthy, and chastises girls who gain weight for any reason. Not. O. Kay.

Sports have the potential to empower and energize us, but we must beware of crossing the line between dedication and disease.

I wrote recently about Zimbabwean nonviolent activist Jenni Williams. Well, she was just released from prison, along with other members of her group, after a three week incarceration for "public disorder." I have a feeling that all the international media attention Williams and her crew, WOZA, have recently been getting may be pressuring the High Court in Zim to come clean. Let's keep the pressure on!

There is lots of exciting coverage of how women voters played a huge role in this week's election. We went for the Democratic president-elect by 12 percentage points.

It's exciting for so many reasons. First and foremost, of course, is that we were able to assert ourselves as an indispensable demographic--once again. Young women, and single women, in particular, established their reputation for participation. Future candidates will know they have to appeal to our interests and values if they want to get elected.

But, in my opinion, it's also exciting for a more abstract reason. We were faced with a really difficult primary season--where the feminist community was essentially torn apart--and we emerged unified and mobilized. I'm so grateful to the Hillary Clinton supporters who were able to heal and get behind Barack Obama. And I'm infinitely grateful for the women voters who were able to look at Sarah Palin with the sobriety and critical perspective necessary to see through the "hockey mom" folksiness. She didn't deserve our vote, and for the most part, she didn't get it.

A few of the other gems:

I live in a predominantly black neighborhood in Brooklyn, NY--full of Caribbean food joints, barber shops and hair salons filled with folks late Friday night, and a lot of amazing older women who hobble around with their silver hair and wrinkled faces with all sorts of stories behind their eyes. It's a friendly place, a place where old dudes sit around in chairs on the sidewalk and shoot the shit, people smile at one another or don't (no hard feelings either way), a place where teenagers sometimes get riled up and shout on the streets, leaving candy wrappers and the sound of their ring tones behind like hip hop Hansels and Gretels.

As I walked to my polling place today, I took a look around and had to fight off tears about what this election means--not just to me--but to my neighborhood...the people who have lived her long before I did, the kids who grew up here, the folks who've grown old here. They were lined up 500 strong outside of P.S. 92 at 10:30 am. People drove by in vans and screamed, "OBAAAAAMA!" out the windows. Others called their friends from the line and said, "Get your ass down here man. It's crazy." People brought their kids--little three year olds in miniature Kangols and fat babies in strollers. People brought their grandmothers and grandfathers--sitting in wheelchairs, unmistakable pride on their faces as they rolled into the school to cast their ballots for the guy who might just be the first African American president in U.S. history.

Obama isn't the end of racism, but his potential impact on the way America sees and relates around race is unbelievably exciting. For the fat babies in strollers, he might just be a sign that they truly can aspire towards the highest office in the land. For the old women and men in wheelchairs, he might just signify that their struggle--at least in one small way--was worth it. For the first time voters, this could be the beginning of a commitment to citizen action. For the veteran voters, a renewal of faith.

Times do change.

From Ironed Jaw Angels:

I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when I read Margaret and Helen's best-friends-for-sixty-years blog, not because they're really old, but because I love old ladies and don't get to interact with them very often. My own grandmothers have passed away, and I don't run into too many blue hairs here in Brooklyn.

If, like me, you're hankering for some old lady interaction, do not stop go, do not collect one hundred dollars, but instead go directly to Margaret and Helen's awesome blog.

When 82-year-old Helen was recently called out by her readers for using foul language when talking about respected government officials, she writes:

New rules:

I will stop calling George Bush a jackass when he stops calling me a terrorist: Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

I will stop calling John McCain an ass when he stops calling Barack Obama a socialist at every dog and pony show on the Straight Talk Express tour.

I will stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops calling Obama a terrorist sympathizer. And I will stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops calling the parts of the country where I don't live more Pro-American than the part of the country where I do live. And I will definitely stop calling Sarah Palin a bitch when she stops acting like a bitch.

And don't miss the FAQs. An excerpt:

Are you for real? Why is that so hard to believe? Now I know what Santa Claus must feel like.

Have you really been friends for 60 years?
Some friendships last a lifetime. We just seem to be living a hell of a long time.

Is this a fake blog?
We got a few scary emails when I first wrote about Sarah Palin so my grandson told me to change our last names on the web page blog. Philpot was my grandmother's maiden name and Schmechtman is actually the name of a bird Margaret keeps as a pet. That bird shits on everything, but she loves him.

Thanks to Luckwouldhaveit for the heads up.

Please add other links in the comments to some of your fave elder bloggers!

Check out this ridiculously sexist Christmas letter that Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann wrote in 2003, in which she reinforces gender norms left and right and tries to pimp out all of her children, even going so far as to post a hypothetical singles ad for her son:

Chick magnate (sic) needs wife to put him through med school, clean house, pay bills and run his life. Must be willing to gamble against onslaught of socialized medicine diminishing return on investment.

Happy (batshit crazy) Holidays! Minnesotans, are you seriously going to re-elect this woman?

Thanks to Anna Barberio for the heads up.

A bunch of conscientious readers have sent us the link to a really depressing article in today's New York Times about economic differentials for women and men when it comes to health insurance costs--and, no, not just because we're the ones that bear the babies. It reads, "In general, insurers say, they charge women more than men of the same age because claims experience shows that women use more health care services. They are more likely to visit doctors, to get regular checkups, to take prescription medications and to have certain chronic illnesses."

Seriously? Is our health care system so broken that when women actually use it, it discriminates against them? This is deeply troubling. Health care is a human right. Every woman in this country deserves it, and deserves to be charged the same as her male peer for it. And if we're looking at it from a strictly economic stand point, preventative care of the type that these insurers claim women do more of actually saves them money over the long run!

Marcia D. Greenberger, co-president of the National Women's Law Center, has it right: "The wide variation in premiums could not possibly be justified by actuarial principles. We should not tolerate women having to pay more for health insurance, just as we do not tolerate the practice of using race as a factor in setting rates."

One more reason to vote people. Check out the candidates' differing health insurance plans: Obama and McCain.

Toni Ann Brodber and our bestie Gwendolyn Beetham have a totally fascinating post up over at Girl with Pen about how the candidates fare on international issues, inspired by The Economists' Policy for Women's Issues recent scorecard on national issues. An excerpt:

The Global Gag Rule (also known as the Mexico City Policy) was a Reagan-era policy that made it possible to deny U.S. funding to organizations that that "provide abortion services or counsel, refer, or lobby on abortion". One of George W. Bush's first official acts in office was to reinstate this policy, which had been repealed during the Clinton Administration. This rule led to the scaling back of reproductive health programs in approximately 56 countries around the world, which, according to the Center for Reproductive Rights, "imperils women's health and lives both in countries where abortion is legal, as well as where it is illegal." Reports on the impact of the Gag Rule on women's lives point to a shortage of contraceptives, clinic closings, loss of funds for HIV/AIDS education, and a rise in unsafe abortions in countries where the rule has been implemented.

According to a survey conducted by RH Reality Check in December 2007, Obama plans to overturn the Global Gag Rule and reinstate funding for UNFPA. McCain supports the Global Gag Rule and voted against repealing it in 2005. He has not addressed UNFPA directly, but, when asked in a town hall in Iowa whether he believed that contraceptives stopped the spread of HIV, McCain responded, "You've stumped me."

Also check out the Gallup poll on who folks around the world want to win in the good ol' U.S. of A.

As you all know, I read A LOT of serious nonfiction. Slap a Samantha Power book or an old political philosophy text in my hand, and I can be happy for a few hours. But sometimes my brain is in overdrive and my schedule is in overwhelm and what I really crave is a good, speedy novel--the kind you can devour in one or two sittings.

I was in that mode recently and had the chance to race through Run by Ann Patchett. With the clouds floating outside the airplane window, I immersed myself in a world of family secrets, long held relational patterns, race, class, and politics. The nice thing about Run was that, while it was a really fast, easy read, it also had some major substance to it.

Essentially it is about a family colored by death and adoption. The former mayor of Boston (a white dude) has one biological child and two adopted children (both black) and is forced to raise them alone after his wife dies. His relationship with the three boys, and later on some surprise characters that come (back) into all of their lives, are the center of the book. Throw in some mystical healings, a few ghosts, and a couple of car accidents and you've got yourself a suspenseful, if not always sophisticated, sociological thriller. My one reservation about this book was that sometimes it felt like the race and class elements played out a little too black and white. It sometimes reminded me of a less evolved On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Which is one of my favorite books ever.

Holy rock star! This just in from Radar:

New York Times editorial page editor Andrew Rosenthal sees something special in a certain teensy Gaelic man who refuses to remove his sunglasses. That's right, the Timesman announced last night his first acquisition for the paper's Op-Ed pages for 2009: Bono. Yep, Bono. The activist-creator of Zoo TV will pen between six and ten pieces for the Grey Lady next year, Rosenthal told students Wednesday night at Columbia's School of Journalism.

I'm speaking at a conference on Saturday in Austin about relational aggression and body image (info here), and it's got me reminiscing about "mean girl" middle school and all the sad memories I have of feeling alienated and alienating others. My friends and I used to have something called "truth talks." Essentially we would sit around at slumber parties and tell one another "tough truths" about the events of the week...

Justin told me that he thought your outfit was ugly. I thought you should know.
Your new haircut doesn't look good. I wanted to tell you when you first asked, but I was afraid to.
Daniel doesn't want to go out with you. He wants to go out with me.

I think that Rachel Simmons' Odd Girl Out is the best text we've got on relational aggression and the underlying causes. In it, she shines a glaring light on the previously shadowed ways in which women undercut, criticize, alienate, and disrespect one another (not to mention themselves). She's does amazing work since it's publication through her Leadership Camp for Girls, speaking engagements, and consulting work through out the world. (Rachel has a new book coming out next spring--The Curse of the Good Girl--which I am so excited to read.)

Rachel has brought about a whole shift in consciousness with her groundbreaking first book. It seems that we are finally comfortable publicly admitting that women and girls do have the capacity to be highly aggressive. But it still feels like we are fairly stuck about what to do with this new field of "relational aggression" (covert bullying or psychological abuse). How do we actually make change? Rachel's camp is one model. The Ophelia Project is another.

I wonder what your personal take is. Why do you think adolescent girls, in particular, but women, in general, resort to competition, body snark, and passive aggressive manipulation? And most importantly, how can we stop it?

I was so moved by the New York Times Saturday profile of Jenni Williams, "Zimbabwe's hell-raising practitioner of nonviolent civil disobedience." Williams is 46-year-old high school drop out, mother, and strategic activist who has taken on Zimbabwe's totally corrupt government through organizing women to do nonviolence sit ins, marches, jail time etc. From the piece: "Dozens of times, she has led seamstresses and maids, vegetable sellers and hairdressers onto the streets in Zimbabwe's struggle for democracy. They sing gospel songs, carry brooms to figuratively sweep the government clean and bang on pots empty of food."

She also has a bawdy sense of humor and an unbreakable belief in the power of citizens organizing. I know this wasn't exactly what we meant when we asked, "Can women have it all?" but it sort of seems like the most inspired answer.

An excerpt:

Mrs. Williams, listed as accused No. 1, faces an additional charge of causing disaffection among security forces, punishable by up to 25 years in prison. In a newsletter, the organization she leads -- Women of Zimbabwe Arise!, known as Woza -- said it told soldiers and police officers to refrain from beating people, a statement the police charged was "likely to induce the members to withhold their services or to commit breaches" of discipline.

"Hear us loud and clear -- your leaders may get generous retirement packages, but you will be left to face the justice of the law and the anger of the people," the newsletter warned.

Swoon.

Ana Mendieta (1948-1985) was a groundbreaking, Cuban-American visual artist who tackled issues of body image, identity politics, and gender with unparalleled ingenuity and immediacy. The new book, out on Prestel, of her too short-lived career is totally riveting--from the tracks made by the artist dragging her blood-covered arms down a wall to the pigment-filled void of her silhouette pressed into a sandy beach. The images speak for themselves:

For an "oh scary f-word" review of Mendiata's work, check out this Washington Post piece from awhile back. Despite being generally disappointing, I did think these lines were fascinating:

Mendieta wants to assert the possibility of a female presence in the world, but that means also insisting that the "feminine" can include the kind of macho, ego-boosting gesture that has been the preserve of male artists. If there's no choice but to spell it out in old symbolic archetypes -- and that is just how art has almost always spelled things out -- the vagina has to be allowed to have its phallic side.

Good ol' boy Bill O'Reilly was on The View yesterday and, in addition to being generally offensive and irritating, he also said the following in response to this seemingly innocuous question: "Why won't Sarah Palin come on your program?"

I don't know. I want her to come in. I have outfits she can wear.

See the clip for yourself below:

*Taking a tip out of a 1970s anti-feminist rule book, Bill also recommends that Joy Behar "lighten up" about politics. Yeah, why can't she just see it as one big, melodramatic performance with no consequences like he does? It makes for great ratings.

Can we just talk about how much I'm been crushing on Amy P. lately? First she got a spot on one of the funniest shows on television, The Office. Then she got her own TV show--all the plans still in the works. Meanwhile she's been acting, rapping, and swinging that big ol' pregnant belly all over the stage with wild, unencumbered abandon. She makes being pregnant look like some serious fun.

And as if that wasn't enough, I've just discovered that she's co-producing this show, Smart Girls at the Party, "a fresh and wholly original digital series that celebrates young girls who are changing the world by being themselves. The show - Smart Girls at the Party - aims to help girls find confidence in their own aspirations and talents, and to prove that you don't have to be famous to be interesting."

My new dream dinner party just become Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Rachel Maddow, and a whole gaggle of feministing-ers.

I gotta give my home state a shout out for this awesome theatrical event by Words of Choice. If you're in the area, check it out October 15-22nd.

First I have to admit, I am not all caught up so take my commentary here with a grain of salt. My honey and I just started blazing through this amazing show, first season, on DVD last weekend. But I just had to shout them out because I've been so affected by the gender dynamics that play out on the little screen on this wildly accurate historical drama.

For those who haven't seen it, Mad Men looks at the inner and outer lives of ad executives circa 1960. Sounds like a potential sleeper right? Except the creators and writers do a masterful job of looking at the time as this sociological flash point. Not only does it portray the rise of advertising culture in a way that makes me understand Naomi Klein, Adbusters, and every other brilliant critique of consumer culture more deeply, but it presents the gender dynamics and family lives of folks at that time in a way that is piercing.

I can honestly say that, even with all of my women's studies classes and feminist reading, I've never really understood how fucking limiting and objectifying being both a working girl and/or a housewife were at that time until I watched this show. I was even more stunned when I talked to feminist historian Elaine Tyler May about it, and she said that Mad Men is shockingly accurate in every way.

The secretaries are seen as pretty little slaves, always available for the vanquishing in a hotel room and never valued for their own ideas or identities. The housewives are completely trapped, sexually and intellectually starved, scared as all hell to counter their husbands' whims and ways, really frickin' joyless. I recognize that these are fairly one-sided portrayals. Certainly some women at that time found ways to feel powerful, work their ideas into the board room (even if under a male name), find joy in care taking and housekeeping, but I also believe that we would be fooling ourselves if we thought that these were majority experiences.

So this week, I thank the creators of Mad Men for really making me understand just how incredibly far we've come in so many realms. Speaking my mind has more meaning than ever.

I'm not Jewish, but I'm sure glad so many young people are.

This is a frickin' brilliant idea. If my grandmothers were alive, I'd schlep my way--Buddhist/Feminist/Agnostic style--to Colorado.

I got wind of this new entrepreneurial venture, Ignighter, awhile ago from my friend Hannah and thought I would share it all with you. Two recent college grads (both guys) have started an online dating site that allows groups of friends to mingle and jangle, rather than depending on that one little love connection.

How it works: basically you get together with all your college roommates or your cubicle crew or your James Baldwin book club (look, I know someone who has one), and then you create a profile as a group. Once you've created your group's page, you can then browse the other groups and--if all parties consent--make a time to meet up and see how it all shakes out.

I see some major advantages to this scenario. First and foremost, it's way more natural than the big pressure of meeting a total stranger in a bar or whatever and hoping to hit it off. As we all know, online profiles rarely predict blast off chemistry. With this set up, you get to evaluate the vibe of a bunch of people in the flesh.

I also like that it sort of takes away the emphasis on ROMANTIC relationships. Two crews hanging seems like it would lead to a love connection or two and plenty of friendships, whereas when it doesn't work out one on one, sometimes it's hard to transition into a friendship.

And as the founders argue, it is safer. Though I haven't heard much about sketchy online dating experiences (have you, readers?), I do see the advantage of having your crew of friends around in case some meet up ends up feeling sketchy.

Downsides? The pictures on the site seem pretty white (no love for people of color?). I'm sure if you really get deep into profile browsing you can find yourself love of all kinds, but it would be nice to feature some people of color on the homepage.

So what do you all think? Group pumpkin pickin' date?

I'm proud of her...And I can't tell how proud I am of her and her family.Her husband's a pretty tough guy, by the way, too.

Yup, that's the Republican presidential candidate talking about his running mate, Sarah Palin, last night in the third and final debate. I was pretty horrified that, number one, he seems to feel that it is necessary to articulate how proud he is of Governor Palin, as if she were his niece not his equal. But what was even more shocking was that, in answer to Bob Schieffer's great question, "Why would the country be better off if your running mate became president rather than his running mate?", Senator McCain felt the need to end by invoking Palin's husband.

Did you hear Obama say anything about Senator Biden's wife, as reassurance that Biden will have help in the White House from a big, strong lady? If I were Palin, I'd be pissed.

If we stay together, we will die together," she says quietly, "but if they cannot find us, they cannot kill us." Her voice shakes when she speaks. "You three have to leave and go far away. Geak is four and too young to go. She will stay with me." Her words stab my heart like a thousand daggers. "You three will each go in different directions. Kim, you go to the south; Chou will head to the north; and Loung to the east. Walk until you come to a work camp. Tell them you are orphans and they will let you in.

Loung tells the story of going from being one of seven children in wealthy family in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh to being practically starved to death by Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge army in what has become known as the killing fields. At least 200,000 died there. Including Loung's own father and mother. Loung has survived to tell the tale.

And she tells it so starkly that it punches you in the gut. From her childlike perspective (she was five when the Khmer Rouge first stormed Phnom Penh), she makes the nawing force in her belly that pushed her to steal uncooked rice from her own family, stuffing it into her tiny mouth in the middle of the night, real. She gives a profound psychological sketch of the survivor--someone who must turn her sadness into absolute rage in order to have the energy to survive. She provides the reader--withstanding all of this incredible terror--to see that humans have the most profound capacity for resilience and transformation.

Today Loung Ung continues her activist work, is writing on the balance of masculine and feminine, and running a bar and restaurant with her husband in Ohio. I had the gift of hearing her speak at the Omega's Women & Courage conference, and sharing some meals and chats with her afterwards, and I was profoundly moved by her capacity for both deep sadness and ebullient joy. She is a testament to how one little body can hold so very much honest, conscious life within it.

They said it best over at Echidine of the Snakes, so I'm not even going to try to paraphrase:

Nancy Pelosi deserves a lot more respect than she's given. People on leftist blogs, particularly the boys, constantly slam her for not delivering what we want, seeming to think, somehow, the Democratic Speaker of the House hasn't delivered what a sizable portion of Democrats and others want because she doesn't want to. Well, let's again review her reality.

She is the farthest left of anyone in the direct line of succession of the presidency in the history of the United States, a remarkable achievement for anyone in 2008. I've pointed that out here before. She gained that position at a time when 'liberal' is a dirty word in the wider culture. She gained it by dint of her own hard work and intelligence. No one handed it to her out of the clear blue.

She holds that position by the fact that Democrats hold a slim majority in the House of Representatives, a majority won during her leadership. That is something her male predecessor couldn't seem to achieve. Least anyone forget, Nancy Pelosi is also the only woman who has ever been in direct line of presidential succession, the only one to lead either of the two houses of the legislative branch.

Read the rest here.

And an extra bonus: Cobert giving Nancy Pelosi an award at the Glamour Awards:

Thanks to Cate Friema for the heads up.

There's no question that being an artist in this culture--which does little to support the creative impulse and its contributions to society--just ain't easy. As if it wasn't hard enough just to make art, believe in yourself, and pay your rent, imagine also being a mother.

That's the life that five amazing women lead in Pamela Tanner Boll's new film, Who Does She Think She Is? Pamela, a friend and awesome feminist, also co-produced Born Into Brothels, which won an Academy Award for best documentary in 2005.

This film explores work/family balance, but with a particular lens on mother artists, who struggle to find a balance between what they love and who they love. Full self disclosure: I'm featured as an "expert" in the film. There's even a scene where I'm blogging for feministing! Bonus points for noticing the hilarious title of the post I'm working on if you see the film.

Anyway, check out the blog, watch the trailer below, and, if you're in the New York area, come check out the film at Angelika Film Center starting on Friday, October 17th. On opening night, the 17th, I'll be moderating a post show panel that includes Elizabeth Sackler, Pamela Tanner Boll, and one of the artists from the film.

I had the good luck to meet Liza Donnelly, cartoonist and Vassar professor, at the Omega Institute a few weeks ago and she had the generosity to send me a couple of her books: Funny Ladies: The New Yorker's Greatest Women Cartoonists and Their Cartoons and Sex and Sensibility: Ten Women Examine the Lunacy of Modern Love...in 200 Cartoons.

Funny Ladies is literally an illustrated history. If you're a New Yorker fan, you'll love it. If you think the New Yorker is elitist and stodgy, you might prefer Donnelly's Sex and Sensibility. In any case, I loved what she wrote about women and humor in the introduction:

Some theorists believe that women humorists are more often storytellers than joke tellers, more interested in communication than in presenting cleverness. This has perhaps been true because of the marginal position of women's humor. However, as humor from women has become more acceptable in society, as it is today, such statements of difference no loner ring true. Huguette Martel believes all cartoonists are "moralists," and Alice Harvey sought "to be true."

Nothing says it better than the medium itself. Check out these goodies:

"Just a warning: I'll leave you if you ever take up wearing suspenders."

"I hope my meteoric rise in the company isn't just because I am a man."

New Moon, the magazine for girls by girls and the first place I was ever published (awww, how cute), has just launched a brand new online site for girls ages 8-12. It's totally interactive and completely safe. If you've got a girl in your life that needs a virtual space to express herself, learn from others her age, and generally feel heard, check it out.

Am I going to hate him for watching TV? Is he going to hate me for being so picky about the volume on the stereo? Will I end up doing his laundry by default and then being bitter about it? How do we get alone time? Who's going to clean the toilet?

These are just some of the questions that have been going through my head as of late. After a very, very long indy courtship, my partner and I are moving in. I'm totally excited and more than a little nervous. It seems to me that I'm embarking on a journey that will land me squarely at the center of feminism's unfinished business. How do we share lives and space without losing ourselves? How do we keep things equal, intentional, exciting? How do we take care of each other and ourselves simultaneously?

According to Alternative to Marriage:

• there are 11 million people living with an unmarried partner in the United States, including both same-sex and different-sex couples (2000 Census).


• between 1960 and 2000, the number of unmarried cohabiting couples increased one thousand percent.


• 41% of American women ages 15-44 have cohabited (lived with an unmarried different-sex partner) at some point. This includes 9% of women ages 15-19, 38% of women ages 20-24, 49% of women ages 25-29, 51% of women ages 30-34, 50% of women ages 35-39, and 43% of women ages 40-44.

So some of you out there must be in this lovely/difficult situation. Anyone got tips for how two feminists cohabitate successfully? Are there any great books on the subject?

*Um, please keep in mind that I have a one bedroom apartment, so tips like, "just make sure to have your own yoga room and give him a den with wood paneling and a humidor" won't exactly fly. I mean, not that you would. Just sayin'.

I'm the one youngin' representin' (look at me droppin' my g's like Palin) on a big conversation about the state of feminism for Sirius radio tomorrow. It would be awesome if people tuned in and, even better, called in to let us know your thoughts and help me address the kinds of issues that are critical to young women. Here's all the info:

Renowned broadcast journalist Lynn Sherr will host The New Feminism, a one-time special live SIRIUS radio show airing October 7, 2008 from 6:00 - 7:00 pm ET on SIRIUS Stars channel 102.

Sherr's scheduled guests include:

Christina Hoff Sommers - noted conservative and author of Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women and The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men.

Ellen Goodman - Pulitzer prize winning columnist, author, speaker and commentator

Gail Collins - columnist for The New York Times, the author of several books including America's Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates and Heroines, The Millennium Book and a new book about American women since 1960. Collins joined The New York Times in 1995 as a member of the editorial board and later as an op-ed columnist. In 2001 she became the first woman ever appointed editor of the Times editorial page.

Courtney Martin - columnist on politics and gender for The American Prospect Online and Book Editor of the widely read blog Feministing.

Robin Morgan - a founder/leader of contemporary feminism and a leader in the international women's movement. Morgan is an award-winning poet, novelist, political theorist, feminist activist, journalist, editor and bestselling author

Ronnee Schreiber - a leading expert on women and politics, Schreiber is a professor and author of Righting Feminism: Conservative Women and American Politics.

Check out the following excerpt from Michael Kimmel's new book, Guyland:

Most hookups are not great sex. In our survey, in their most recent hookups, regardless of what actually took place, only 19% of the women reported having an orgasm, as compared to 44% of the men. When women received cunnilingus, only about a quarter experienced an orgasm, though the men who reported they had performed cunnilingus on their partner reported that she had an orgasm almost 60% of the time.

The orgasm gap extends to intercourse as well. Women report an orgasm 34 percent of the time; the men report that the women had an orgasm 58 percent of the time. (The women, not surprisingly, are far better able to tell if the men had orgasms, and the reporting rates are virtually identical).

The data Kimmel is referencing appears to be representative of heterosexual contact only, though it could use some clarification. In any case, HOLY SHIT.

It's not that I'm shocked by these numbers. I've heard enough horrendous hetero hook-up stories to know that they're usually not all that orgasmic, or even all that pleasurable, for the ladies involved. I'm one of those who believes that long term relationships (or at least multiple hook ups with the same partner) are pretty necessary to figure out how your two unique chemistries best match up for good sex (widely defined). This, of course, goes for queer lovin' as well.

What really made my jaw drop was the discrepancy between the way women reported orgasms and the way men reported women's orgasms. As Kimmel put it, "Many women, it turns out, fake orgasm."

Okay, so let's talk about this. Again. (Samhita and Jess have already written great stuff on this in the past.)

First and foremost, you deserve pleasure. You deserve orgasms. You deserve to be honest about the presence or absence of orgasms. And of course, every sexual encounter doesn't have to lead to orgasm. Sometimes it's not happenin' for various reasons. You don't have to explain yourself. You don't have to perform some sort of ego saving climax.

I know, I know, sometimes it seems like it's easier, especially with someone you don't know, to just pretend that the hook up is awesome so that you don't have to explain why it's not, teach some guy about basic female anatomy, or deal with his frowny face grumpy pants routine. But the path of least resistance, my feminist friends, is not cool in this case.

It's not cool for a couple of critical reasons. It's not cool because you deserve better--both physically and in terms of your own integrity. But it's also not cool to the rest of the poor gals who might be next in line with this poor fool who doesn't know where the frickin' clit is. Or whatever. You see where I'm going with this.

It is your feminist duty to 1) seek pleasure and feel entitled to it and 2) to make the world a more orgasmic place for other women.

If the last girl that had taken that dude home had taught him a thing or two about a thing or two, you wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. You hear me?

I'm sort of peeing my pants in excitement about tonight. What makes the anticipation even more intense is knowing that superstar Gwen Ifill will be moderating.

Ifill is not only one of the smartest interviewers and pundits on television, but she's irreverent and self-assured. When asked why she wasn't married, she told reporters, "I don't sweat it." Wow. Why is an unapologetic single gal so revolutionary?

And who couldn't love the moment with Cheney in last election's VP debates when he said he would need more than the alloted 30 seconds and she responded, "Well, that's all you've got." Sorry Dick.

Wow, check out this amazing little girl. Nujood Ali, all of 10 years old, went to court and requested a divorce from a husband (three times her age) who beat and sexually abused her. The LA Times reported:

On Tuesday morning, the divorcee, possibly the world's youngest, once again became a schoolgirl.

"I'm very happy to be going back to school," she said, waiting in her ramshackle home for her younger sister Haifa to get ready. "I'm going to study Arabic, the Koran, mathematics and drawing. I will do that with my classmates and I will definitely make friends there."

Thanks to Ms. EmmaB for the heads up.

You may have seen Robin Morgan's latest political rant over at the Women's Media Center. I feel pretty disappointed. Again. Check out Deborah Siegel and I rapping about it over at Girl with Pen. And by all means, put your two cents in (as long as you can pull yourself away from your boyfriend for a second and be comfortable with "eeueweeeu yucky power.") (No, I'm not really over it.)

The other day I was having a beer with a few guys--one of whom didn't know the other two very well--and they started talking about the Mets. Their newness seemed to fade away in a flurry of familiarity built around sports. And it got me thinking...almost every guy I know--whether they're hip hop heads, indy hipsters, computer science geeks, city kids, farm boys--seems at least mildly interested in sports.

I brought this up, and the three of us tried to come up with a female parallel, but quickly realized that there wasn't one. There are certainly interests that a lot of women share, but there's nothing as generalizable as sports. (Then we proceeded to have a feminist vs. sports trivia competition. Let's just say that I knew that the tie goes to the runner and they had no idea what intersectional feminism was).

While reading Michael Kimmel's new book, Guyland, I couldn't stop thinking about this moment, and so many others that I've shared over the years with my various, amazing, if not sometimes lost guy friends. It's a book that delves deep into the world of boys becoming men (for his purposes, ages 16 to 26, and predominantly white) in an attempt to describe just how limiting and inauthentic it can be. An important note: Kimmel is not talking about all guys. The majority of the dudes he's writing about are the ones that you probably steer clear of whenever possible--the jerky hockey player who posts up in your high school hallway and makes comments about girls' bodies, the guy who lived on your floor and insisted on hanging posters of half naked women outside his door, calling you a bitch when you suggested he keep his porn inside his own room, the ex-boyfriend you can't believe you ever dated. In Kimmels' view, those are the bonafide guys of Guyland, but there are traces to be found on most males.

There were two parts that resonated the most for me. The first was focused on young men's framing of adulthood, this notion that "freedom is equated with a lack of accountability--not having to answer to anyone--and so being irresponsible becomes a way of declaring your freedom and, hence, your adulthood." Though most of my guy friends are too enlightened to hang out in traditional Guyland with a straight face, they do seem pulled by the black hole force of no expectations. Far more than the women I know, the guys seem totally petrified of having others expect things of them--whether it's a phone call the next day, a solid yes or no on a party invite, or an on time arrival. As an extension, they are often fearful of "settling down" with one partner. Suddenly, it's like the girl who has been really fun to hang out with and really interesting to get to know becomes an expectation ogre, even if she doesn't change her tune one little bit.

The other part of Kimmel's analysis that I found riveting was his look at young men's twin emotions--entitlement and anger. He picks up this thread at various moments. When looking at white teenagers' obsession with hip hop music: "In some of their media consumption--rap music or some video games--they do it in blackface, symbolically appropriating the idiomatic expressions of the racialized 'other' to gain access to and express their own emotions." When critiquing rape culture: "...while psychologists and feminists and the entire legal system see male sexual aggression as the initiation of violence, guys describe it in a different way--not as initiation but as retaliation. What are the retaliating against? The power that women have over them." And the only way to counter these cultures of misappropriation and scapegoating: "The only way to transform Guyland is to break the culture of silence that sustains the Guy Code...the majority of guys are bystanders. And so it is the bystanders, the ones who know, and yet do nothing, whom we have to engage."

So why immerse yourself in this world of cowards and posers for 289 pages? Because it's such a huge part of all of our lives. As Kimmel puts it, "Girls have to contend with Guyland just as much as guys do. Just as Guyland is the social world in which boys become men, so too is Guyland the context in which girls become women. How they navigate those troubled waters will do a lot more than raise or lower her self-esteem. It can determine what sort of life she will have."

*Feministing bonus: my super smart friend Chloe Angyal, feministing newsletter editor, is quoted in the book. Check out her new blog here.

Check out these amazing photos from the We Are the Ones Project, a "photographic essay documenting the enthusiasm and diversity of Obama supporters across the country."

Rachel Casparian, 29, is one of the leaders of the project. She grew up in Lawrence, KS, Lexington, KY and Florence Italy, holds a BA in Performance Art from Antioch College, and writes that since moving to New York City in 2001, she has worked as a waitress, a barista, a bartender, an office lackey, a personal assistant, a knitwear designer, a nanny, and an actress. Sounds pretty familiar huh?

It's one of those projects, whatever your politics may be, that remind you how beautiful real, passionate people are:

Where Brooklyn at? Well, hopefully at this panel that I'm MC-ing this weekend. Here's all the deets for those in the vicinity:

The American Hero and the American Dream:
Reflections on Our Contemporary Political Narratives

Date: Sunday, September 28
Time: 2-4 pm

Location: The Forum, Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art, Brooklyn Museum

In this interactive panel, academics, journalists, and comedians discuss the dominant narratives--perpetuated by both the campaigns and the media--during this unprecedented election. As they explore the ways in which these two presidential candidates and their VPs have been framed, they will also be examining the way the American public still thinks about race, class, and gender, and how this election has served to defibrillate so many beating, bleeding political hearts.

Moderator: Courtney E. Martin

Panelists:
Charlton McIlwain, Assistant Professor of Culture and Communication, NYU
Gloria, Feldt, author and blogger at Heartfeldt Politics
Ramin Hedayati, associate producer at The Daily Show

Check out this amusingly bad argument from one of University of Idaho's budding Harvey Mansfield's:

There is a difference between a good thing and the best thing. For example, a meal served with a delicious dessert is a good thing, but a meal in which every course is delicious is the best thing. Getting an A in one class is better than getting no A's but not as good as getting all A's. I think we can all understand this pretty easily. However, whether we understand it or not, sometimes we treat the good things as though they are actually the best things.

Where am I going with this? I'll tell you. When we talk about women's rights, we should consider whether they are good things or whether they are the best things, because many people treat them as the best things. Of course, I will say it is better to have women's rights than not to have women's rights, but the only way to put women's rights first is if we are willing to say -- which I am not -- that women are better and more important than humanity as a whole.

Wow. Pass the dessert and give this dude an A+ for worst logic and most irrelevant metaphors ever.

Thanks to Anne-Marije for the heads up.

Many of you undoubtedly saw Jennifer Baumgardner and Gillian Aldrich's awesome documentary film, Speak Out: I Had an Abortion. I am a huge fan and have written about it in the past.

Well, now Jen has taken her radical work from the screen to the page, with lots of additional analysis and framing. Abortion & Life, written by Jen and containing gorgeous photographs by Tara Todras-Whitehill, just came out on Akashic Books. In it, Jen sets the scene of the contemporary abortion debate, not just between pro-lifers and pro-choicers, but between feminists of different generations and perspectives, women and men, mothers and daughters, and all of the other complex subgroups that struggle with the abortion issue ever day. As she writes, "The majority of Americans don't want abortion to be recriminalized but are uncomfortable talking about and even facing the realities of the procedure."

Jen soothes that discomfort with personal stories--stories that are as diverse as women's abortion experiences, all inciting empathy and a more nuanced understanding of the ways in which reproductive justice policy influences every day lives. But she does even more than that here; she also gives a brand new frame within which we can understand these stories. She authors a thorough history of abortion rights and then she writes honestly and entertainingly about the reoccurring question: "Can you be a feminist and prolife?" She also flips the old scripts, tracing the recent rise of the provoice movement where women's authentic experiences, not just their political ideologies, are brought to bear on the future of the movement.

Add to all of this a vast resource guide and a reprint of Rebecca Hyman's fantastic Bitch Mag article on the topic, and you've got yourself one of the most innovative, contemporary, and inclusive conversations about abortion that exists today, right on the page. I leave you with Jen's own words:

Some of what I write might be seen as turning away from the radical history of abortion rights in search of a compromised "middle ground." But I would argue, however, that the cornerstones of a new feminist theory of abortion rights will be created by those whom unplanned pregnancy most urgently affects--women born post-Roe. Still, as in the past, abortion is a part of life--just as sex and death are.

News to me. In any case, I'm in good frickin' company. Check out a whole bunch of feminists on Palin. I just bite off of Ann, for the most part.

The October issue of Essence magazine features all curvy ladies, including the amazing Mo'Nique, who talks openly about her sexual abuse history. I saw a couple of the editors talking about it on the TODAY Show; their idea was to top off fashion week, where size 3 is considered big these days, with some real looking women.

One thing that I found annoying was how much the hosts of the show (yeah, that's you Kathie Lee) seemed to struggle over terminology. They shifted back and forth between "full figured" and "plus size." Can we all just agree on something that doesn't make women feel like fast food meals (I'll take a plus size fries with that)? Ugh. Throw your suggestions in comments, if you will.

I think for me it was a slow process, starting from when I was in the womb...

We were reading the Great Gatsby in high school English, and I came across this line: 'That's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.' I felt enraged, but none of my classmates even seemed to notice.

It was a rainy Take Back The Night rally my first year of college... I looked around at the women on every side, and thought about how strange it was that I'd ended up here, given my conservative Republican upbringing. I realized that if I don't identify as a feminist, no one really does.

One movie: Girls Town. Amazing.

A generation ago, feminists talked about their "click" moments: those split-second experiences that led them to join the women's movement. Today's young feminists come to the movement--which is looking less like a protest march and more like a blog--in myriad, often piecemeal, ways. It can be as simple as reading a book or attending an event or talking with one person or witnessing a horrendous act of sexism. (You told us about some of your amazing "clicks" here.)

Deciding to identify as a feminist often requires a lot of learning and unlearning these days; so many of us have been exposed to the well-oiled machine of the anti-feminist movement. According to Newsweek, feminism might be dead. Charlotte Allen tells us that we're stupid, via the Washington Post. Some older women within our own movement wonder if we even exist.

J. Courtney Sullivan and I are editing a new anthology for Seal Press on the topic, and we want your ideas. Send us a couple of paragraphs--in the style and voice that you'd use in a full-fledged essay--proposing what you would write, along with your name, email address, phone #, age, and ethnic background (we understand that this might seem a little reductive, but we are committed to including diverse authors). We'll look them all over, then get back to you once we've accounted for a range of moments, perspectives, and cultural backgrounds.

We hope it will be a historic document, a totally entertaining gift, a course adoption text, and, most of all, a collection that makes young women who already identify with the movement feel seen and heard, and welcomes all those just growing into the still unfolding story of feminism.

Send your ideas to: clickmoment@gmail.com
DEADLINE: October 15, 2008

Bonus: We've already got some great feminist writers on board that you may have heard of, including (in no particular order):

Courtney E. Martin and J. Courtney Sullivan (well, obviously)
Jessica Valenti
Miriam Perez
Samhita Mukhopadhyay
Curtis Sittenfield
Rebecca Traister
Anna Holmes
Rachel Simmons
Winter Miller
Deborah Siegel
Alissa Quart
Hannah Seligson
Latoya Petersen
Shelby Knox
Jennifer Baumgardner
Amy Richards

Here's me discussing Sarah Palin, feminism etc. with the awesome Gloria Jacobs of the Feminist Press on Brian Lehrer Live. When it gets past the SNL skit, you get to hear Lehrer say that feministing sounds like "one of those new fangled sports teams." Notice my total lack of capacity to respond and I invite you to play a new drinking game where you take a swig every time I say "wild" during this interview.

The Feminist Press' Gloria Jacobs and Feministing.com's Courtney Martin Discuss Sarah Palin from Brian Lehrer Live on Vimeo.

*By the way, this is what I look like on TV when I haven't had my hair straightened or my makeup done. I like it better and it's really interesting for me because big networks always say, "You'd be horrified by how you looked if we didn't do the professional makeup." Um, not horrified at all, actually.

I'll be talking about my book, perfectionism, body image and the like at the University of Minnesota on Monday if anyone's around and interested. Details here. And thanks to U of M and the awesome Anitra Cottledge for including me in the Discover Exceptional Women Series. I feel sort of, well, exceptionally grateful. (Bonus: Elaine Tyler May will be introducing me.)

The lists yesterday were awesome, but it did make me think that we should practice some gratitude to balance everything out. So here's my list of ten things I can thank feminism for:

1. playing basketball and lacrosse in high school
2. the Planned Parenthood clinic in my hometown, Colorado Springs
3. an authentic language to discuss sex, work, and just about everything in between
4. my feministing crew
5. Hillary Clinton
6. sexual harassment policies
7. my ambition and sense of entitlement (the good kind)
8. the way my brother sees and treats women
9. feminist culture: Bust, Bitch, all the amazing feminist blogs, comedians, writers, actors etc.
10. so many of my intergenerational relationships

In the spirit of naming everyday sexism (internalized and otherwise), here are ten things I could really just do without:

1. "Smile, honey."
2. Being told by makeup artists at television studios that I should have my eyebrows waxed.
3. Paying so much for simple gynecological visits and birth control.
4. Hearing my otherwise enlightened guy friends make gay jokes.
5. Hearing my otherwise enlightened girl friends say they're "bad" because they just ate dessert.
6. Having women who absolutely believe in the equality of the sexes get all freaked out when I use the word feminism.
7. Worrying if articulating my needs in my relationships is "needy."
8. Being asked by everyone and their mother when I'm going to get married.
9. Hearing older women opinion makers disparage blogging when they have no clue it has become a wildly effective vehicle for keeping feminism alive.
10. Two words: "women's issues"

What's on your list?

I've just discovered the Brower Youth Awards, an annual national award recognizing six young people for their outstanding activism and achievements in the fields of environmental advocacy, and hot damn are they a good spirit lift among all this depressing economic news. Check out this video about the amazing Erica Hernandez:

Learn more about the Brower Awards and apply for one in 2008! And thank you from deep, deep in my heart to the Earth Island Institute for not only recognizing, but supporting, young leaders on the cutting edge of environmental justice.

Haha!
A little hot cat on boy action for you. The boy is mine. The cat is Kima. Also mine. They're sleepy. I'm lucky.

Deborah Stone, a professor at Dartmouth and one of the founders of the American Prospect, has a fascinating book out that lays to rest a lot of the anxiety I've carried with me about good works and unintended side effects since I first stepped into a political science classroom as a wide-eyed undergrad. She writes, "I wrote this book to challenge the attack on help and to reunite politics with doing good. I started from the intuition that what real people care about is not what social scientists by and large tell us we care about. We care most about relationships with other people."

She goes on to examine the many theories that privilege self-interest about altruism, that attempt to naturalize meanness and cruelty, that essentially make even the most tender of us become skeptical of people's intentions. The most obvious and universal example, which Stone uses often, is that of the homeless person you walk by on the street. He or she asks you for money, and you feel an initial, natural impulse to help--because you are human and have the capacity for empathy. But then, if you're like me and so many other strategic progressives, you think, "Well, maybe they'll use the money for liquor. I should just donate my money at the end of the year to an organization that does this work systematically." Sure, you may have won on strategy, but you've lost on humanity. You feel like shit. The potentially good and hungry homeless person doesn't get a slice to eat that night.

The book isn't actually focused on these interpersonal exchanges, but rather on the macro picture of government and public morality. Stone masterfully lays out the ways in which the GOP has turned government assistance and social programs into evil over the last few decades, and in so doing, has stripped citizens of one of their most natural and basic instincts--to want a government that helps us all live sustainable, healthy lives, maybe even with a little help. "Mutual dependence," she writes, "is the essence of democracy."

I can't tell you how much I LOVED this book. Reading it was one of those experiences where all of these lurking suspicions that I had trouble articulating were brought to light in the most eloquent, sensical, passionate words. I leave you with some of her best:

We need to untwist our notion of personal freedom by acknowledging that dependence is the human condition. Genuine freedom can't be had by denying our individual limitations. Freedom comes from understanding them and working around them, and from building a community where bonds of loyalty compensate for the things we can't do ourselves.

I was really happy to see this article on white privilege and politics over at Alternet today. It seems that in the hub bub that is Palin and all her faux feminism, the media has all but forgotten the racial dynamics at play in this presidential election. An excerpt from the piece:

White privilege is when you can get pregnant at 17 like Bristol Palin and everyone is quick to insist that your life and that of your family is a personal matter, and that no one has a right to judge you or your parents, because "every family has challenges," even as black and Latino families with similar "challenges" are regularly typified as irresponsible, pathological and arbiters of social decay.

Yeah, because you fail to see white privilege. Unpack the knapsack people.

David Brooks has an interesting column in The New York Times about the ways in which conservatives have switched their notion of what prepares one for a life of politics; it used to be that they were wedded to tradition accolades and formal schooling, but now they're jumping on the populist bandwagon thanks to Palin. Interesting, I admit. But then he threw in this bizarre line:

The feminists declare that she's not a real woman because she doesn't hew to their rigid categories.

If I had a direct line to Mr. Brooks, I would like to ask him what so-called feminist has claimed Sarah Palin is not a "real" woman? Unlike anxiously masculine men, such as Brooks, most women don't insult other women by calling into question whether they are "real." And further, Mr. Brooks, I would say, it is Palin that is reinforcing rigid categories. Not feminists. Thank you. And goodbye. [Hangs up phone.]

Thanks to reader everybodyever for the heads up.

I announced my new book project here last week. If you missed it, feel free to check out all the info at the Do Greaters blog. I just found out that the donation process is a bit different than I originally explained, so...

If you want to support the multimedia platform for Do Greaters: The Kids These Days and How They're Changing the World, please send checks to: Amy Caldwell, Beacon Press, 41 Mt. Vernon Street, Boston, MA 02108.

Thanks a bazillion.

Harvey Mansfield is at it again, but this time he's got Sarah Palin to project all of his confused rhetoric and unexamined generalizations on. In a piece at Forbes today he argues that Sarah Palin is the shero of what feminism should have been all along--a woman cozy in sex role differences, happy to mythologize masculinity, and still ready to serve (notice the language here) in office herself (cause, gosh darn it, women are pretty clever after all). An excerpt:

All Sarah Palin did was to claim her equal opportunity to a job once held exclusively by men. This sort of equality--the opportunity to take on public careers outside the home--is something liberals and conservatives agree on. That conservatives accept it is proven by the rapturous reception she received from Republicans, who greeted her as a political savior.

This she may or may not be, but she seems to have had the effect of enthusing the base, in part because of her sex.

Now, why could the women's movement not have taken advantage of this bipartisan agreement from the beginning? What impelled it to adopt a radical feminism hostile to both liberals and conservatives? Was this feminism necessary to attack male domination and to stir up the status quo?

Harvey, #1, the definition of feminism is political, social, and economic equality. #2, equality confers that no one group of people can lord domination over another. #3, the status quo wasn't equality. WTF is so hard to understand about this equation?

As if his faulty logic and infuriating language weren't enough, he continuously pushes the tired notion that feminists are no fun, unattractive, and asexual to boot, writing that Sarah Palin is "one who knows what it is to be a woman and enjoys it," and "You may be sure that I am not the first one to notice that feminist women are unerotic."

Huh? What? I mean is this old man serious? Someone needs to send Harvey Manfield a big ass care package from Toys in Babeland, Rachel Kramer Bussel, and Jane Campion, or teach him how to use a computer so he can type in a URL: www.feministing.com. His email, just in case you'd like to tell him what you think of his piece is hmansfield@gov.harvard.edu.

Related Posts: Summers' position as #1 Harvard Asshole challenged

Of Assholeness and Assholes

Macho, Macho Mansfield

Quote of the day

Thanks to Dawn for the heads up.

There's a really interesting piece, previewed online but set to appear in this weekend's NYT Play Magazine, about Oregon basketball phenom Jaime Nared. An excerpt:

The story of the kid who's "14 going on LeBron," as Sports Illustrated described the California basketball phenom Demetrius Walker in 2005, is not a new one when the kid in question is a boy. Girl sports prodigies are stock characters, too, though the athletes have tended to be gymnasts, figure skaters or swimmers, kids who excel at what Côté calls "closed sports -- sports in which you learn a very specific skill and competitors don't try to prevent you from performing that skill." Given the post-Title IX explosion in girls' basketball and the emergence of the W.N.B.A., the girl who's 12 going on Candace Parker is just around the corner -- maybe she's already here -- and that's a mixed blessing.

I'm hoping, by the way, that the article's title "Scary, Isn't She?" is poking fun of those who see an athletically gifted teen girl as "scary." Otherwise, I'd like a word or two with the headline writer over at the Times.

This award-winning doc on the painful aftermath of Katrina for New Orleans residents is finally hitting theaters. Check out if it's playing near you and support!

I think "We don't want to get your expectations too high," says it all.

The New York Times has an interesting story today about new studies that allegedly confirm that teen girls co-ruminate (i.e. talk a topic into the ground) to the extent that it contributes to anxiety and depression. By going over and over and over an event or feeling, they keep themselves locked in a negative thinking pattern.

Mmm....brought me back to the old junior high days of a cruel little slumber party tradition in Colorado Springs, Colorado called "truth talk." You don't want to know...

Your thoughts? Do adolescent girls make themselves sick with over-analysis or are they just communicating and processing--something that adolescent boys could benefit from doing a bit more of?

Sherrlyn Borkgren began photographing conflict in 1993 when she awoke in the midst of a military coup in Guatemala. Ever since she has been documenting violence, and more recently love, in an attempt to bring attention to the neglected extremes of our human experience. We were thrilled to learn that Borkgren has won a $10,000 ShootQ Grant to document rape in the Eastern Congo in a clinic that will serve at least 8,000 women and children this year. Read her proposal here.

See a few samples from her incredible portfolio below:

Thanks to Anne for the heads up.

I'm a big fan of Soft Skull press, which is sort of a haven for the kind of creative stuff that the mainstream publishing industry is notoriously scared of--graphic novels, photojournalism, queer lit, youth political analysis. Check them out, if you haven't already.

One of their latest releases is Bad Habits: A Love Story by Cubana artist Christy C. Road. It's a mostly autobiographical graphical novel about her "personal revolution" from bad habit-prone, self-punishing punk wanderer to independently-minded, self-protecting punk philosopher. You can't help but sort of fall in love with the angsty, gritty drama of it all. Like when she writes passages like this:

And, like Brooklyn, the human heart is divided into several humble portals, each with a function, relevance, history, and culture distinct to its region. Every developmental blow cripples the antiquity of its boroughs, and every imperfect experience cripples the wellbeing of every corner of the heart. But the city doesn't stop and the human heart trudges with clandestine motivation.

The book is filled with feminist polemic brought down to the palpable level of everyday reflection. It's most searing when she contrasts traditional power structure's perspective of her versus her own gorgeously drawn, deeply felt reality: "According to the law, I'm just some bipolar junky who happened to have been sexually assaulted once or twice, and later mind-fucked by some crass romantic I shouldn't have trusted anyway...the the conservative many, I was the scum of the earth, and my allies were just numbers. To me, we were the things that went bump, rack, and hump, in the night."

Bump on Road, bump on.

UPDATE: Celina interviewed Road, along with Diane DiMassa, back in June.

It's strange to look back on the events of September 11th from such a distance now, and realize how much it has influenced all of us, both personally and politically. I was a senior at Barnard College in 2001, still possessing a sense of absolute invincibility, still pretty faithful in the innate goodness of politicians (even if I acknowledged some corruption), still pretty unabashedly self-focused.

The eerie vision of women bankers finally making it up to 116th with their high heels in hand, soot on their suits, the deep sense of shock and insecurity, the realization that I was so far from my family, changed everything for me--as I know it did for so many young Americans.

And when I think about the ways in which it changed government--pushing big daddy protector politics to the forefront and diplomacy and domestic welfare to the background--it makes me deeply sad. It prompted a whole new generation of violence, death, injury, mental illness, alienation. But it also led to such a chaotic, lost civic landscape, that it catalyzed the American people to hunger for real, bonafide change. And that's where we are today...a place of guarded hope, an ache for renewal, an earned belief in the need for peace.

The personal and the political in its most grave form. The day so many Americans, especially the young, were forced to reckon with our own power or lack thereof.

(Above pic from The New York Times.)

Multiple readers clued us into the latest incredibly disappointing fact about Republican VP candidate Sarah Palin: under her mayoral leadership in Wasilla, Alaska, rape victims were charged for their own rape kits. Op-Edna explains:

A rape kit is a sexual assault forensic evidence kit, used to collect DNA that can be used in criminal proceedings to assist in the conviction of those who commit sex crimes. The kit is performed as soon as possible after a sexual assault or attack has been committed. It is usually humiliating and uncomfortable for the victim-imagine enduring that and then paying $1200 just so that the criminal who assaulted you might be caught.

Let's put this into perspective. One of the services that almost every American (with the exception of a few hardcore Libertarians, I suppose) agree that our government should provide is policing and investigation into crime, especially of a violent nature. Rape, one of the most difficult to prosecute, disproportionately affects women--young women, in fact. If Palin wants to play fierce mother hen in her stump speeches, I suggest she explain how it is that she wouldn't do everything in her mayoral power to make sure that rapists be caught and prosected.

What adds insult to injury here is her stance on abortion for rape victims. So, not only did she neglect to support women who were raped in getting the evidence they needed to get justice, but she doesn't believe they should have the right to choose what happens with their bodies after they've endured such violation.

What a frickin' feminist.

Note: the Democratic governor changed this heinous policy in 2000.

Anyone watching it? What do you think?

I'm excited by the mix of formats--debate with ol' Uncle Pat, good back and forth with progressive columnist and theologian (a woman and man of color!)--and a little pop culture to end it off.

My friend Jess told me about this amazing organization called The Reproductive Health Access, Information and Services in Emergencies (RAISE), that is trying to establish reproductive rights as an essential part of emergency services. Traditionally, we think of food, water, shelter, and safety from violence as the only essential concerns in times of crisis, like genocide, natural disasters etc., but RAISE believes that:

High quality RH services are among the most basic of human needs. They are also among the most poorly addressed needs of displaced persons. Women are especially vulnerable to RH risks and emergencies, both in crisis and conflict settings and in general.

Access to comprehensive RH services and information is crucial to the wellbeing of populations that have been affected by humanitarian emergencies. When RH care is limited or absent, the toll - in terms of life-threatening medical emergencies; harm to women and their families; and the violation of human rights - is profound.

Check out more about their amazing work here.

Jay Smooth said it pretty damn well, but I still feel a feminist obligation to talk back to the Republicans who made fun of community organizing last night.

Thank you to all the community organizers, past and present, who have recognized the ways in which the personal is the political, hearing--in the individual stories of ordinary people--a common thread of struggle deserving of action and resolution. Thank you to those who jump started whole movements (feminism, civil rights, labor) with their audacity and daily, hourly, minute-by-minute courage to knock on doors, sit down with friends and strangers alike, educate, and most of all, listen. Thank you to the community organizers who have targeted environmental racism--making sure that folks aren't poisoned in their own neighborhoods just because they don't have the resources to fight back. Thank you to the community organizers who have targeted civil rights, educational failures, classism, racism, sexism, ableism etc. etc.

Thank you to my friend Daniel, who has done community organizing from Harlem to LA to Boston. Thank you to Biko Baker of League of Young Voters, who I once interviewed and was immediately impressed by. Thank you to Saul Alinsky, largely considered the father of community organizing (pictured above). Thank you to all of you I don't know, who every day, make the choice to listen to ordinary people's stories and help them link these stories into a template for honest-to-goodness social change.

And, yes, thank you to Barack Obama, for making the choice to be a community organizer so many years ago and for continuing to be proud and loud about the importance of the role of the community organizer for our nation's wellbeing.

Ann and I are headed off to the Journalism & Women's Symposium this weekend. I'm doing a panel on work/life balance issues and Ann will enlighten folks on her election round table. If you're going to be there, come up and introduce yourself for sure!

The past couple of weeks have been big book weeks for yours truly.

First it began with the release of the memoir I co-wrote with the amazing Marvelyn Brown, The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful, and (HIV) Positive. Marvelyn in a 24-year-old HIV activist with the sort of charisma and authenticity that are born from surviving hard times. Here is Marvelyn being interviewed at the recent International AIDS Conference in Mexico:

Being able to play a role in getting Marvelyn's story out in the world has been one of the most profound honors of my life. Thanks M.

And, as if that wasn't enough, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters just came out with a new cover and a new subtitle on September 2nd!

I can't tell you how excited I am that my book is only $15 (as opposed to the 25 big ones it cost in hardback). I always intended this book to reach young women first and foremost. I know I rarely shell out $25 for a book, so I knew teenagers and, well, just about anyone, couldn't afford such a price tag. Thanks to Penguin/Berkeley, my paperback publisher, for all of their faith in the book and gallant effort to give it a renewed life in the literary world!

Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters has been an incredible catalyst for me to meet young women (many of them feministing readers), educate mothers, teachers, and coaches about what's really going on with young women, visit tiny towns across America that I might never have seen otherwise, be interviewed on television, radio, and in print and online publications through out the world, but more than any of that, it has allowed me the rare opportunity to speak a truth, to turn pain into polemic, to experience the personal as the political. It has been one of those rare experiences of feeling like you actually have the capacity to make a difference, just by paying acutely close attention to your genuine feelings and observations of the world around you, researching and reflecting on these feelings and observations, and stringing some words together. Thank you to everyone who I've met along the way. Can't wait to meet many more of you this fall...

My partner Nik is sort of a juggernaut when it comes to contemporary music--he reads lots of music sites, mines the best of bands before they hit it big, and goes to tons of shows. I, on the other hand, can't really stop listening to the mainstays of my high school days--Patty Griffin, Shannon Worrell, Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt's old stuff, Common, Mos Def etc.

A couple of weeks ago, however, Nik said that he'd gotten me a ticket to a show at Bowery Ballroom to see a band he really thought I'd like. I was a bit skeptical, not because he doesn't know my taste, but because a lot of indie rock sounds like white kids whining to me.

Low and behold, I discovered my new favorite band: Thao with the Get Down, Stay Down. Thao is a badass lady who stomped around the stage in her cowgirls boots, strumming on her guitar, and belting out her totally original and awesome lyrics. She and her band members (two dudes, one a guitarist, the other a drummer) played a really riveting, spirited show; none of the blasé apathy characteristic of the band before it. When dudes yelled idiotic things at Thao (who is super cute) from the audience, she just went on doing her thing--a consummate professional and, I can't help but guessing, a feminist superstar.

Check out her music here, and definitely splurge for tickets if she comes your way.

I just returned from my annual weekend in Telluride with my family seeing 15 amazing films. My mom started the Rocky Mountain Women's Film Festival in my hometown, Colorado Springs, after going to the Telluride Film Festival for the first time. Since then it has become a set-in-stone tradition for us, a little jolt of inspiration and art that we experience every Labor Day.

These were the films that I believe have particular feminist resonance from this year's festival, so keep your eyes peeled for them:

American Violet

So often when you see "civil rights" movies, they are set in the time of Jim Crow, Martin and Malcolm. This amazing film--based on a true story--is set in our very own decade. Dee Roberts, a single mom from a tiny town in Texas, is arrested on bogus drug charges--designed to pad the racist district attorney's arrest record. The ACLU gets involved and the rest is history. Dee Roberts and her four kids were actually in Telluride. It always takes your breath away to see a genuine heroine after watching a film like this.

I was especially excited about this film, because an old friend of mine--Malcolm Barrett--stole the show. He and I used to do spoken word poetry together in college and now he's undoubtedly on his way to being a critically-acclaimed actor. Go Malcolm!

On a less encouraging note, this asshole district attorney is still serving in Texas. When the film has its nationwide release, I'll post again about what we can all do to express our absolute outrage that this jerk is still in office.

Everlasting Moments
This Swedish film is a true epic and a frightening look into just how difficult working class women's lives were at the turn of the century. The main character struggles through years of child birthing and rearing, an abusive, alcoholic husband, and poverty with a sort of gritty grace; her salvation is in her discovery of photography.

I was particularly struck by Maria Heiskanen's--the main actor's--capacity to perform the main character as both tough as nails, and frustratingly stuck and permissive to her husband. It beautifully encapsulated women's complex lives and identities at the time.

I had been meaning to read this journalistic classic by Janet Malcolm for years, after having read an excerpt of it in grad school, but, you know, life happens. I finally picked it up and devoured it on a plane a few days ago on my way home to visit my parents.

Essentially, Janet Malcolm revisits the case against Joe McGinniss, a journalist who was sued after publishing a book about convicted murderer Jeffrey MacDonald. MacDonald felt that McGinniss had deliberately lured him into thinking that they were friends, that he believed in his innocence, and then written a scathing indictment. McGinniss denied intentional subterfuge and, also, argued that it is the writer's practice to coax the subject into comfort, however false. It explores the complexity of the writer-subject relationship, truth and justice, and the thorny psychology involved in making the personal public.

This book is a journalistic classic for a reason; it pushes writers to come to terms with the insanity of trying to write about real people's lives with integrity. What you learn in journalism school these days is fairly limited to networking and logistics--new media techniques, the craft and art of writing, journalistic protocol, but rarely are the psychological incongruities of the profession brought to light and discussed openly.

I have struggled with the drive to write the emotional truth of a person's story so as to illustrate my analysis in the most cogent, inspiring way and my deep commitment to honoring that person's humanity and privacy. The two are often at odds in a way that I suspect non-writers wouldn't predict. It's painful and murky and fraught with human frailty.

Through a feminist lens, this is very related to the personal being the political. On the one hand, for example, women's struggles with perfection and their own bodies is entirely personal--right up there with sex and money and religion in terms of unspeakables. On the other hand, I had a conviction that there was a collective story to our individual pain, and I wanted to bring that to light in my book, Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters. So I asked these women--many of them my friends, all of them people I care about--to share their stories with the world. I encouraged/pushed/coaxed (depending on your perspective) them to bare their souls (personal) for the betterment of the public (political). Many experienced unanticipated consequences (angry mothers, a sense of being horribly exposed). Some also experienced a deep sense of freedom, courage, a letting go. I stood, morally, in between these two experiences, feeling a bit helpless and also totally responsible.

I leave you with Malcolm's own words (pronouns admittedly annoying):

Unlike other relationships that have a purpose beyond themselves and are clearly delineated as such (dentist-patient, lawyer-client, teacher-student), the writer-subject relationship seems to depend for its life on a kind of fuzziness and murkiness, if not utter covertness, of purpose. If everybody put his cards on the table, the game would be over. The journalist must do his work in a kind of deliberately induced state of moral anarchy.

This incredible Congressional leader is gone, but her legacy will live on in the fierce stand she took against the war and repressive Bush-era policies, her unflinching support of reproductive justice, and her insistence on speaking out often.

Tubbs Jones chaired the House Ethics Committee. In 2002, she voted against the use of military force in Iraq. And again, when most of our nation's leaders were hoodwinked by faulty testimony about WMDs and fear mongering, she was one of only 11 House members to oppose a resolution supporting U.S. troops in Iraq in March of 2003.

Tubbs Jones also opposed President Bush's tax cuts and the privatization of Social Security and spoke out against election fraud in 2004.

And by all personal accounts, she was a joy to be around. She will be missed, but modeled after for years to come.

As you've probably noticed, the editors at feministing tend to be pretty fascinated and outraged by the state of sex education in this country. Well, so is sociologist Jessica Fields, and she's done an amazing, comprehensive, visionary study of the ways in which our pedagogy on sex shortchanges all of us. Her book, Risky Lessons: Sex Education and Social Inequality, is the best I've read on the subject--excelling on both the nitty gritty level (she's really in classrooms, really observing teachers and students wrestling with poor curriculum) and the big picture level. Where the latter is concerned, she basically lays out a liberation philosophy for sex education. You think I'm kidding?:

...if education is an opportunity for students and teachers to face and reimagine those constraining definitions, then sex education insists upon the importance of young people's desire, pleasure, and power in that reimagining. Young people's desires and pleasures have the potential to remake the world.

Warning: Fields is an academic, so there are times when the prose doesn't exactly sing, but I was actually pretty transfixed the entire time. She doesn't do any insecure academic posturing (big words, over-referencing of Foucault etc.) and she seems to really emotionally engage with this material. There's even some personal narrative sprinkled in.

Thanks Jessica Fields. I hope this book is read far and wide.

Being from this neck of the woods, I had to post on this hogwash. Apparently a Wyoming police officer shamed young women in a high school assembly by analyzing their MySpace profiles as "slutty" and fodder for inmates' masturbation sessions.

The officer, John F. Gay III of the Cheyenne Police Department, picked out six or seven Windsor High School students' MySpace page and began to criticize photos, comments and other content until one student left the room crying

"He told the entire student body that he had shared her info with a sexual predator in prison," said Ty Nordic, whose daughter Shaylah Nordic's MySpace page was put on display.

I imagine Officer Asshole thought he was utilizing one of those scared straight approaches. Instead he demonstrated what an insensitive and sexist person he really is. When the adult who is both in a position of authority and charged with "protecting" teenagers manages to blame them for their own vulnerability, sexually harass them, and, even more, elicit (or at least pretend to) sexual predators...well, it just seems like grounds for firing and a major re-education effort among fellow police officers.

Has anyone seen non-sexist interventions that educate teenagers about online safety? I imagine a lot of the current curriculum on this stuff tends towards the "blame the victim" mentality.

Thanks to Erin for the heads up.

Check out Jess' great piece about Michelle Obama and sexist media in the Guardian. It's nice to know that Jess is the one reppin' American feminism across the pond. An excerpt:

When Clinton was still campaigning I received daily emails from various women's organisations, furious about the way the media was treating their candidate. These days, however, my inbox is fairly empty. And the press releases and action alerts I do get about Michelle Obama seem to lack the outrage and fervour of past Clinton-focused statements.

That's not to say women's organisations aren't up to the task. The National Organisation for Women, for instance, has shifted the focus of their Media Hall of Shame to attacks on Obama. But feminists should be up in arms. Because as shameful as the treatment they're getting is, our silence is even more so.

Remember that new and seriously offensive Oregonian coffee chain that we blogged about last week? Well, a couple of feministing readers sent us the news that the bikini-clad baristas have been repeatedly subjected to a dude exposing himself at their drive up window. One of them even threw a cup of hot water at him, to which he allegedly said, "Ooh yeah."

Gross.

And good on the police, who made it clear that, no matter what a woman is wearing, she doesn't have to put up with this kind of sexual harassment.

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Approximate transcript below the jump.

Rev. Steve Emmett and Joe Kelly sent out an email this week announcing that their nonprofit advocacy group, Dads and Daughters, is closing shop after ten years of frustrating and failed fundraising efforts.

Over the last ten years they've committed themselves to spreading the word about the importance of fathers (stepfathers, male influences etc.) in daughters' lives, encouraging a renewed commitment to engaged parenting on the part of men, and particularly targeting the media's often gross misrepresentation of girls and young women.

When I was writing Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters, I was really interested in the role that men play in influencing their daughters' body images, and Dads and Daughters was one of the only organizations that was looking at that issue as well.

Steve and Joe recommend these resources if you're looking to investigate the father-daughter dynamic in the future:

* Future of Fatherhood: DADs co-founder Joe Kelly's online & in-person resources for Dads, Daughters, and Professionals working with families.
* Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood: coalition making the world safe and fair for all children by countering harmful effects of marketing to children.
* New Moon Girl Media: girl-run media, plus parenting resources and blog by former DADs executive Nancy Gruver.
* Girl Scout Research Institute: valuable research on the healthy development of girls.

Thanks to both of them--and all their partners--for doing this important work.

I read a lot of anthologies, and I'm just embarking on the hard task of editing one, so I understand how varied the quality of them can be. Sometimes I pick one up, and I'm immediately struck by the unevenness of the submissions--the diamonds in the rough sparkling, but too much rough to make the diamonds worth the searching. Sometimes, I am immediately drawn in, struck by the originality and veracity of the words. A good personal essay is one of my favorite things on the planet Earth.

The latter was absolutely the case with The Maternal is Political: Women Writers at the Intersection of Motherhood and Social Change, a new anthology by Shari MacDonald Strong. As the title suggests, it features a range of essays by women contemplating the ways in which their mothering is part and parcel of their activism, how changing diapers is not opposed to developing a political conscience, and is in fact, intertwined with it.

Although there are some big names (Nancy Pelosi, Benazir Bhutto etc.) on the cover, with the exception of Barbara Kingsolver's awesome essay, all the best were by those that are not household names (or at least not outside of the mother's movement). They explore work/life balance, welfare, adoption, caregiving conflicts, relationships between mothers and nannies, race, love, and ten million other interesting threads.

Read the Q&A I did with the editor for Alternet here. And congrats to all the moms who wield both pen and so fiercely.

Check out Girls Inc. new project, Dear World, It's Me, a Girl. They asked girls one question:

If you could send a message to the whole world about what it's like growing up as a girl today, what would you say?

Two hundred and seventy-five girls from Girls Inc. organizations across the United States and Canada wrote Dear World letters about growing up a girl in today's world and read them on videotape.They will slay you.

Apparently Oregon--which I associate with a beautiful coast line, green everything, a killer bookstore, and my high school's boyfriend's football team--is home to way more misogyny than I'd realized.

A new chain of coffee stores called Java Jugs are springing up were baristas wear bikini tops and short shorts while serving their sleepy, horny clientele. According to the Willamette Week, "Brothers Adam Marshall, 29, and Steven Rotan, 35, opened Salem's Bikini Coffee in May 2006 to cater to blue-collar 'average Joes' who they say shun Starbucks." The article, which is almost as offensive as the stores themselves, assures readers that these women are (gasp!) smart, make great money (yeah minimum wage is awesome), and the real kicker, "they're not out to steal your husband."

Where do I begin? This whole thing reeks of homophobia (real men don't drink coffee made by clothed women with health insurance!), sexism obviously, and classism (blue-collar guys obviously need tits in their faces in order to buy anything). I would be way offended if I was the market these dudes was trying to reach.

Thanks for the heads up Adriel.

Check out this piece I co-wrote with the amazing Elaine Tyler May on the Gloucester teens. We felt like two things were really missing from the coverage last month: 1) a race analysis and 2) a historical perspective. We tried to provide both and would love to hear your thoughts. An excerpt:

Americans seem to have collective amnesia about the long history of white, "respectable" girls getting pregnant. Black, brown, immigrant and working class girls have long been the public face of teen pregnancy, thanks in no small part to Ronald Reagan's racist invocation of the "welfare queen." When these young women get pregnant, it is often framed as an economic problem: who will support these babies? When young white women get pregnant, however, it is the moral question -- not the bottom line -- that fuels the debate: Who will marry these girls?

It turns out that the only thing truly unprecedented about the Gloucester girls is the way they are answering -- or more accurately, not answering -- that very question. They don't seem to want to get married.

I published an op-ed in metro yesterday about the anti-sexual harassment ads set to run on the New York City subways. See Vanessa's awesome take on it here.

In any case, I got an email from someone in response and it sent me into a thought spiral. I try to answer mail as often as possible, especially when it's from those that have thoughtfully considered my argument and made me think in a new/different way with theirs. I consider it part of my role, as someone involved in public debate, to handle criticism, different points of view etc. But when I get mail like that below, I usually end up feeling really powerless and pissed off.

Which sucks, especially when it mirrors exactly what I'm trying to write about. When I'm walking down the street, and some dude leans out of his car and screams, "I'd like to tap that ass!", there's nothing I can do about it. Hollaback has provided an awesome method in public space, and I love them for it, but it's not always the easiest power retrieval to pull off during a rush hour day in NYC.

And what about online? These emails often make me feel as if some dude has just busted into my inbox and shouted. And what do I do about it? Erase it? Try to write back and explain how offensive he is? Or...

Use my awesome feminist powers to publicize his ignorance? Now that sounds more like it.

So, dear readers, I share the email (published here just as I received it) with you:

Dear Courtney,

Chance Noble

I wanted you to know his name and his email address--snhca@exit3.com--in case you'd like to chat with him about this idea, and/or avoid ever dating/hiring him.

So I was walking out of the New York Public Library this evening after a couple of hours of non-internet enabled writing (it saves me), when I noticed this long line of teenage and tween girls sitting on the sidewalk. Their line snaked all the way around the library, around Bryant Park, and to the subway station. Finally I leaned over and asked one what was going on. She replied:

We're here waiting for the Jonas Brothers. They're performing tomorrow on Good Morning America.
Me: Tomorrow? So you're going to sit here all night?
Her: Yep. We're all sitting here all night. We're obsessed with the Jonas Brothers.

Let me admit, first off, that I had no idea who the Jonas Brothers were. Let me admit, secondly, that Vanessa got me on to So You Think You Can Dance? and so I'm about to find out (apparently these little guys are playing live in LA on the show and then flying overnight to NYC to play GMA in the a.m....insane.)

But then let me go on to say, this really freaks me out. What is it about those teen years that creates such a capacity for obsessive, religious-like worship of mediocre bands? I mean, even if they were the best musicians/dancers ever and total heartthrobs, would it really constitute sitting out on the NYC sidewalk for fifteen hours on the hottest night ever?

I know what everyone's thinking...the Beatles. But did anyone ever study that shit? What are the sort of psychological, political factors that bring that kind of hysteria on? It can't all be the floppy hair and androgyny. Or can it...

So I've been reading this book called How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas by David Bornstein and I'm finding myself perpetually vacillating between "That's amazing!" and "Wait a minute..." Let me explain.

Bornstein, an extremely thorough journalist, decides that he'll travel around the world and profile "social entrepreneurs" connected to the Ashoka Foundation, starting with the founder of Ashoka himself, Bill Drayton. I first heard about this idea of "social entrepreneurship" a few years ago at an NYU conference, and my interest was immediately piqued. At that time I was feeling especially depressed about the state of the world and my capacity to do anything about it.

Here's the definition, in part, provided on Ashoka's site:

Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society's most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.

Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps.

So on to the confusion. Sometimes I see these entrepreneurial projects as mind-blowingly amazing. They often abandon the old charity model (third world poor need wealthy western help) and instead embrace the idea that those in community know what their community needs and how to get it--they just need help getting the resources in the right places at the right times. For example, I just read a profile of Jeroo Billimoria, the founder of Childline, a 24-hour helpline and emergency response system for children in trouble--completely run by children! Totally frickin' amazing. Jeroo basically had the wisdom to fund and formalize what street children in India were already doing--sharing resources and looking out for one another.

This works for me entirely, but other profiles seem to operate on the idea that poor people just need to be turned into "a market" and then they will uplift themselves. It's a little like the boot strap ideology with a patronizing altruistic twist. We can't just give malaria nets away; we have to sell them so that people will be incentivized to take them seriously.

So the way to "save the world" is to import more capitalism? What about a systemic analysis of our economies and the ways in which they fail so many people? Is this a little like importing democracy? We've seen how wise that turned out to be.

Maybe I'm overreacting. Will someone help me out here?

*Hey, thanks to all of those that confirmed in the reader's survey that they liked this feature!

There's a new $1,000 iPhone application called "I Am Rich" that literally does absolutely nothing except signal to other people that you are shallow enough to pay a G to impress your equally shallow friends. This kind of shit really makes me want to puke.

Three of the millions of other ways in which you could spend $1,000: Heifer International, Planned Parenthood, Global Fund for Women.

via Crucial Minutiae via Wired

We ask you to contribute to our redesign project, and you donate money with generous abandon. We create a community blog and you fill it full of fascinating analysis, personal experiences, and media debunking. We ask you to fill out a reader survey, and you do, in absolute droves.

Not to kiss your asses, but we really do want to thank all of those in our feministing family for being such involved, dedicated readers and writers. You make us smarter everyday. You confirm, for the millionth time, that feminism is obviously not dead. And you have a great sense of personal style. Well, we don't really know, but we can imagine.

I have had the pleasure of being on an intergenerational adventure with Kristal Brent Zook--journalist and professor--over the past year or so. I'm continually amazed by her work; she's written three books: Color By Fox, Black Women's Lives, and most recently, I See Black People: The Rise and Fall of African American Owned Television and Radio. She was the journalist who spent the most time with the woman's family at the center of the Duke rape case and broke many stories surrounding it for Essence. And as if that weren't enough, she's a professor at Hofstra.

She's also kind, thoughtful, humble, obsessed with an intersectional analysis of justice, and an amazing model of dignity and wellness. She sent this essay along, thinking it would interest our feministing community. What do you think?

Power lost and found
Kristal Brent Zook

I was at Los Angeles International Airport recently enjoying a veggie burger and a beer at TGIF while waiting for a flight. The man next to me at the bar was hoping to entice two young women (barely legals) via his expense account.

"Can I buy you girls a drink?" he asked.

I overheard them say they were from a small town in Oklahoma, traveling to Dallas. One of the women had attended college for a semester, I heard her say, before dropping out. "School is just not for me," explained the other flatly. The man reported that he worked in the biotech industry. "What's that?" said the one with false eyelashes.

On the subject of cheap flight tickets, the man suggested going online to look for great deals.

"Oh, I don't know how to do any of that stuff," said eyelashes with a laugh.

They were interested in fashion, and topics such as weight gain, designer brands, drinking, and parties. Oh, and they hated long flights.

Their conversation got me thinking about women and power. Maybe I was being too hard on the girls, but I wondered: with the myriad of options available to them in this day and age of possibility, achievement and access, why were they missing out?

Why hadn't any of the things feminists had been writing and speaking about (and living) actually translated into their lives?

Of course there are pea-brained young men out there too. But there was something about these two women that was especially unsettling: perhaps it was their profound vulnerability, I thought, in a world that will so quickly leave them behind.

Or maybe it was the fact that they seemed so disinterested in their own potential -- their own present, as well as future power.

Or maybe I was just a 40-something old fogy, witnessing that perfectly normal phase that so many young people go through as they struggle to find their way into adulthood. I've been there. Maybe they'll pull it together eventually, I thought, and find their own unique passions.

And when they do, I hope that feminism will be there -- ready to help make the journey beyond fashion and fake eyelashes, into true power.

If you missed the New York Times op-ed this last weekend on the "sex test" at the Olympics game, be sure to read it here. Jennifer Finney Boylan, an English professor at Colby, analyzes the Olympic history of testing whether athletes were "legitimately" female. The Olympic committee's struggle to define female--by chromosome? by secondary sex characteristics? by genitalia?--is a fascinating microcosm of our larger societal struggle. Boylan writes:

Maybe...Olympic officials have to learn to live with ambiguity, and make peace with a world in which things are not always quantifiable and clear.
That, if you ask me, would be a good thing, not just for Olympians, but for us all.

Beautifully, beautifully put.

We showed you McCain stumbling over the question of whether birth control should, indeed, be covered by insurance companies in the same way Viagra is (answer=hell yes). But who asked the question?

Many news outlets have alluded to "the woman from the LA Times," but we wanted to name her and thank her for doing what journalists are supposed to do--ask the hard questions and demand answers from our nation's political power players. Thank you Maeve Reston!

By the way, I love that community blogger JentheFem and others have started to write their own Thank You Thursdays. The best form of flattery!

A new US/UK study argues that younger women are happier than younger men and older men are happier than older women:

later in life...men come closer than women to fulfilling their material goods and family life aspirations, are more satisfied with their financial situation and family life, and are the happier of the two genders.

A lot of the older men I know, on the other hand, seem to really struggle when they retire (if they're so lucky) and have to form an identity that's not work-based. I've watched my own dad struggle with this new stage of life. As much as he is enjoying laying on a hammock, reading, taking classes, learning how to cook, he's also really struggled to make meaning out of his new existence. For those who aren't lucky enough to retire, it seems like the work grind can get really, really boring after 40-odd years. In workplaces with age discrimination, these guys can feel pretty pushed out.

And I'm not sure what to make of the younger women being happier part of the argument. I see my friends as pretty equally happy and unhappy, regardless of the gender.

Your thoughts?

The National Women's Studies Association has created a student blog. Check it out and contribute if you're that kind of shiny age.

I get so many amazing books and I only have so many hours in the day, so I thought I would direct you all to other reviews/posts about some of the great books on my shelf that I'll never get to (at this rate, anyway):

a review of
No Seat at the Table: How Corporate Governance and Law Keep Women Out of the Boardroom by Douglas M. Branson

a blog post on Maria Mitchell and the Sexing of Science: An Astronomer among the American Romantics by Renee Bergland

Righting Feminism: Conservative Women & American Politics by Ronnee Shreiber recommended by the Rutgers Center for American Women and Politics

Firedoglake on The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism of the Heart of American Power by Jeff Sharlet

a review of The Saint of Kathmandu and Other Tales of the Sacred in Distant Lands by Sarah LeVine

some harrowing real life analysis from What About Our Daughters? on Getting Played: African American Girls, Urban Inequality, and Gendered Violence by Jody Miller

Feministing got a request a few days ago to go on a morning show and talk about a new website that offers women a chance to find a "sugar daddy" (I don't want to give the site any traffic, so I won't link to it here). I called the producer back to chat over the logistics and encountered an ugly reminder of just how much most television producers buy into and continually shape sexist narratives.

The producer, a woman, informed me that the first segment would feature a self-proclaimed "gold digger." They were hoping I would come on the second segment and talk about how bad it is that this woman is making this choice and how it is a real step backwards for women's empowerment. Here's the dialogue (roughly) that followed:

Me: I'd actually like to offer a systemic analysis. Women are disproportionately affected by economic downturn, and beyond that, women still make 76 cents to the man's dollar.

Her: Really? Do you have data to back that up? I'd get laughed out of the office if I made that argument.

Me: There's a lot of data to back this up; it's not, like, my little theory. I could send you some very easily. Also, it might be good to bring in some analysis about objectification and the ways in which young women are taught to see their bodies as their most potent source of power. It sort of makes sense for a woman like this to resort to this website when you consider all the societal factors involved.

Her: Okay, well we were hoping for a feisty debate kind of...

Me: Oh, I can be very feisty about these issues.

Her: Okay, I'll call you back at 2pm.

Never called. Never wrote. In my fantasy, this producer lady googled some of my claims, marched into her supervisor's office, and quit because she realized she had been underpaid for years. In my sober life, I realize they probably did a really shitty segment blaming the "gold digger" for her ridiculous behavior.

The second highest paid actress in Hollywood is telling the publicists for her latest movie, The Duchess, to keep their airbrushing hands off her breasts. In previous films she was stunned to find her breasts digitally enhanced, but this time she's insisting it be different. I was asked to comment on this and related issues (body image, media etc.) on Good Morning America, which is supposed to air tomorrow morning for those of you with fancy television recording devices.

I'll probably be on screen for all of two seconds, but what I would like to say is this: Keira isn't telling young women anything they don't already know. We've watched Next Top Model. We've taken media literacy classes. What she is doing--and it's significant--is reminding us to honor what we already know: namely that the images we see every day on television, in magazines, online, are notoriously technologically-altered and unrealistic. It's not willpower that makes these women's bodies perfect--it's money, money, money, and a splash of genetic predisposition.

It's important that someone inside the system, someone that has benefited from the system, has the balls to come out and remind us of our own wisdom. Thanks Keira.

Marvelyn Brown, my brilliant and courageous friend, was on the CNN special, "Black in America," last night. If you didn't catch it, there should be clips available shortly, but meanwhile you can check out the book she and I co-wrote of her life: The Naked Truth: Young, Beautiful and (HIV) Positive. It will be released August 19th, but you can pre-order whenever. In it, she very frankly explores how she was infected with HIV while in a committed relationship with "prince charming" and all that happened after. Don't sleep: AIDS is the number one killer of black women aged 25-34.

And on a far less serious note, Marvelyn got us a blurb from none other than Ludacris for the cover. Just rap it: "Marvelyn Brown takes a bold approach to speak to our youth with enough honesty and frankness, everybody should be listening! She is an inspiration to men and women everywhere!" Word Cris.

Most of the feministing crew met Marvelyn last summer when we all won ChoiceUSA awards.

Besides having the best title ever--You're Amazing! A No-Pressure Guide to Being Your Best Self--this Girls Inc. sponsored, young adult nonfiction book is also the shiznit (come on, this is for the tweens) because it's written by Claire Mysko, feministing fan and awesome young feminist upstart.

In an age when every 13-year-old is made to walk the tightrope of high-pressure adolescence--make out but don't be slutty, worry about your weight but don't become a bore, do well in school but don't become a total nerd--this book is so needed. It's, in some ways, a reaction to the Supergirl Dilemma study that Girls Inc. conducted, which showed that girls today are feeling more empowered, but also way more anxious.

Mysko walks girls through all sorts of different rough patches--rejection, gossip, parents' fighting--with the cool ease of a big sister. She's not patronizing or cheesy about it, just compassionate and real. And what's even better--she quotes real girls through out the entire thing. Their voices are totally honored--like this heart breaker section where she asks, "If you could tell older adults in your life one thing you need to hear from them...what would it be?":

"Even if we make you angry or do something wrong, we always want to be told that we're loved and appreciated. Nobody's perfect." -Emma, 13
"Respect our opinions and help us, don't control us!" -Tabitha, 12
"Tell me I'm important!" -Rose, 11

You're important! You're important! Is that my inner 12-year-old crying? Okay, seriously, this book is amazing. You should get it for your little sister, niece, next door neighbor, bad ass lemonade saleswoman.

*There are also places to journal, quizzes (gotta love the quizzes), and feminist history worked in all sneaky like.

Check out the trailer for this new doc, Seeking Happily Ever After, that a friend of a friend is working on about the 60 million single women over 30 and the ways in which they are remaking the "happily ever after" fairytale.

The filmmakers, Kerry David and Michelle Cove, are throwing a big fundraiser in LA on August 14th, so if you're in the area and all about radical revisioning of love/happiness/partnership, definitely show your support. Details here.

Those sly foxes are at it again, this time doing a highly complex analysis of whether sexism still exists, prompted by Katie Couric's recent comment that sexism is more pervasive than racism (when is the ridiculous oppression olympics ever going to end?!).

An excerpt of the enlightening conversation:

KILMEADE: I don't see it. I look at women and say, "Hey! Hey equal!"

DOOCY: No, what you say is, "Hey, honey! Get me a sandwich!"

KILMEADE: No, I don't say, "Honey, get me a sandwich!"

DOOCY: I do! Sweetie!

CARLSON: This is a slippery slope. So I think we should just end the discussion and move on to something else.

To see the full clip, go to Think Progress.

I don't know what's more irritating, that Kilmeade actually gets air time on national television or that Carlson--the only woman present--doesn't tell him to stop being a patronizing asshole. Or um, maybe it's even more irritating that Fox tries to analyze whether sexism still exists (ah, yeah) while invoking the most sexist cliche in the book. It's like analyzing whether the corporate conglomerate media big wigs are biased by asking Rupert Murdoch. Ah, yeah.

Okay, so it's obvious that the feministing ladies have a bit of a crush on this dude, but don't you also?

I've long felt like calling people "racist" was the most pointless shit ever. It allows those who are doing the labeling to pretend they're not--even though we're all socialized in a racist society, and therefore, a little bit racist (in the words of Avenue Q). And it allows those who are the people being labeled to grow irate and not have a real conversation about race.

Thanks to Racialicious for the heads up.

On a related note, I'd like to personally thank Nicole Anderson, a history professor in Florida, who I met at the National Women's Studies Association conference this year. She and I resolved to do some serious frank dialogue on race and feminism after sitting through a heated session at the conference. I've already learned so much from our back n' forth. Stay tuned for the fruits of our shared labors...

When my friend Jen visited me last week, I decided to take her by Toys in Babeland. She once worked in a not so feminist sex toy shop out west and I wanted her to see how the feminists do it. As she was discussing the elusive G spot with the counter person, I wandered over and the woman, who I would later learn was Amber (the amazing human rights masters student featuring awesome tattoos) said, "Hey, aren't you Courtney from feministing?"

I've been recognized in a few places in my day, but I have to say that this one topped the list. You know you're doing something right when the woman who teaches perfect strangers where their g spots are sees you and smiles in recognition. Thanks Amber. Keep on keepin' on.

When I first strolled by Ghada Amer's huge canvases with acrylic paint and embroidery at the Elizabeth Sackler Center for Feminist Art last weekend, I just took a casual look--the string seemed to hang like so many spider webs chaotically snuggled into a long-abandon cabin wall. But when I moved closer, really focused my eyes--like one of those Magic Eye things I never seem to be able to do--I discovered that I was looking at intricate, erotic images of naked women, repeated over and over in your grandmother's own craft.

That's not all this Egyptian multi-media artist does. She takes photographs, paints, sculpts, even does installations in college cafeterias.

If you're not in the New York area, I suggest you check out links to her work here. If you are, you have no excuse not to make it to the Sackler Center on your next free Saturday and be ridiculously inspired/amazed/impressed. If Judy Chicago's Dinner Party is property of the 70s feminist art movement, I want third wave dibs on Ghada Amer. (She was born in 1963, so it might be pushing the generational envelope?!).

When I visit my mom, I love to cozy up to her More and, I admit it, O Magazine, and read about just-released novels, the latest science on happiness and resilience, and long beautiful personal essays on death, love, aging. I feel a little like my second grade self sitting at the feet of my babysitter, Carly, and listening to her talk on the phone while she flips through a Sassy Magazine (the old school style).

I know I'm not the target audience (and I recognize that some of their content sucks too), but it feels nice to read pieces that actually teach me something or move me in women's magazines. Too often, the magazines targeted at my age group are chock full of anxiety-inducing body features (even when they claim to be giving you a "body image makeover" it tends to feel like they're secretly making you hate yourself), fluff pieces on what kind of sex you're supposed to be having, and shock-and-awe memoir by women who were kidnapped by a cult or discovered that their mother was their sister etc. etc.

The editors at these magazines, I imagine, would argue that they are just supplying the demand, that young women ask them for this kind of content in letters and focus groups.
But where are the women who ache for these anxiety-inducing sex columns and another frickin' article on working out? Why is it that older women seem to want complex personal essay and complex features on cutting-edge science, reviews of literary novels etc., but we youngin's just want fashionfashionfashion?

What would your dream magazine contain? Mine:

Lots of personal essays by really smart, funny women
Reviews of memoir and novels, indy movies and music
Profiles of social entrepreneurs, feminists, great thinkers
Cutting edge science that features legitimate peer-reviewed studies on health, psychology, and the environment
Op-eds where women take different points of view on complicated issues
Photo spreads featuring women with diverse body types wearing gorgeous, original, affordable clothing
Those awesome spreads where a magazine takes an issue--like the wedding industry--and gives all kinds of fascinating facts and figures (my favorite version of this is in Mother Jones)

Activate (of Flavorpill) interviewed me last week about feminism, blogging, politics etc. Check er out.

Saunter over to your women's studies bookshelf and open up that first flap to discover who published your favorite feminist tomes. Chances are it wasn't Random House or Simon & Schuster, or one of the other major biggies (with a few exceptions). Instead you were probably introduced to feminism thanks to the ingenuity of publishers like the Feminist Press, Seal Press, or one of the other many, many small, independent publishers that takes a chance on feminist lit.

I just sold a new book (stay tuned for details), so I've been thinking a lot about ye ole publishing industry and the way it works. It is an industry that started out with a deep commitment to Ideas--to giving people the goods on how to live a great life, to challenging the status quo, to the development of long careers of writing, reading, and editing. But because of market forces hard to explain in one little blog post (Barnes & Noble, Amazon, the rise of less literary forms of entertainment etc.), the publishing industry is not heavily dependent on dollars and cents.

This isn't to say that some books aren't published simply because they contain brilliant ideas, but it is to say that we would naïve if we really bought the idea that publishers aren't primarily interested in the bottom line these days. Did my editor at Simon & Schuster buy Perfect Girls, Starving Daughters because she felt a moral obligation to spread the word about food and fitness obsession? In part. But in truth, she was able to convince her publisher to buy it because they thought it would sell. Point blank.

Feminist presses, on the other hand, still strain to juggle the bottom line with a higher calling. They are committed to spreading the feminist gospel, to challenging traditional notions of gender, to finding new voices who are marginalized and/or left out all together by mainstream publishers. For this--and for Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation, Riverbend's books out of Iraq, and Brown Girl, Brownstone etc.--we thank them from the bottom of our big, feminist hearts.

If there is a book, published by a feminist press, that changed your life, please let us know in the comments.

The Women's Media Center has posted some great little clips from the panel I was on a few weeks ago at The Paley Center: From Soundbites to Solutions: Bias, Punditry, and the Press in the 2008 Election. Patricia Williams is especially amazing. Thanks to my friend Sean for the miso-ginee story.

With all of this talk of potential first ladies in the news these days, it's got me thinking about one of my favorite feminist heroines of all frickin' time, Eleanor Roosevelt.

Not only did she chair the committee that created the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but she can be thought of as one of the catalyzing forces that ushered in the second wave of feminism. Her personal life was also fascinating--from a love-starved childhood to her consistently contentious relationship with her mother-in-law, to her later alleged affairs with women and men alike (Franklin obviously had his lovin' on the side). Reading about her life is like peering into the history of women's transcendent public works alongside their tumultuous private lives.

Thank you Eleanor, for your incredible spirit, visionary leadership, and fiercely unique example.

I'll just come right out and admit it: I'm becoming more and more of a sucker for spiritual exploration. Call me a cliche of my later 20s...letting go of the perfect girl mentality and wanting to understand deeper questions about what it's all about. Call me a girl from Colorado Springs who felt oppressed by the dominant culture of hard line traditional religions, so waited until later to consider the softer side of spirituality. In any case, I'm here and wondering.

I found The Seeker's Guide: Making Your Life a Spiritual Adventure by Elizabeth Lesser in my parents' book shelf while home for a visit and was immediately hooked. This substantial book is split into five books: The American Landscape, The Landscape of the Mind, The Landscape of the Heart, The Landscape of the Body, and The Landscape of the Soul. So you can see, Lesser's pretty much got the whole gamut covered.

She's an incredible guide because she's one of the founders of The Omega Institute and has been planning and participating in workshops there for decades. She's been able to sample all sorts of rich traditions, spiritual philosophies, and experiential self-help (don't worry, she talks about the dangers of "spiritual tourism"). The book is, in essence, her philosophy culled from the bits and pieces of all of those experiences, and some original insights of her very own.

I was moved through out the entire book. Lesser is a great story teller and a beautiful writer. There were times when I wished I could have asked her a question, pushed her on her assumptions about the dynamics of the universe, her leaps of faith that still don't sit well with me, but just the fact that I wanted to ask these questions, that I wrestled with the material, seems like the sign of a good book to me.

I like her idea that spirituality is about both "the biggies"--Is there a God? Where do I go after I die? What is I anyway?--and "the dailies"--What is the most ethical way to live? How is my life reflecting my beliefs? What would Jesus do?. I also love her notion of spiritual and political enlightenment being a process of "transcending and including" (it was originally Ken Wilber's from A Brief History of Everything). We must constantly be asking ourselves how our polity and our personhood represents our highest ideals. Do away with the hypocrisy, injustice, inequality and include new ways of being whole, kind, and fair.

There's so much more, but I'll let you seek out the rest...

One of my childhood best friends, Jen, is in town visiting me and she showed up with a pile of ridiculous notes from our junior high days (quizzes, up-to-the-minute emotional check-ins, and boy crazy posturing included). Stuck in among the pile of spiral notebook history was a letter I wrote to the debutante committee in my hometown, Colorado Springs, rejecting their invitation. A few choice snippets of my hyperdramatic take-down:

I write in order to decline your invitation to be a 1998 debutante...I believe that the Debutante fanfare is a glazed over form of outdated discrimination...The simple fact that there are still organizations, like yours and the Jolly Jills, who spearate black and white young women as they brink on the edge of their adult lives, is a sad, sad message...To uphold tradition and validate family and giving are wonderful values to introduce into society. But, if in the process, you also introduce notions of socio-economic discrimination and racial segregation. What an unnecessary shame.

Wow. I felt things deeply (um, yeah, and still sort of do). In any case, it got me thinking...is this tradition still around? In the haze of purity ball coverage and insane proms with post-proms and post-post prom breakfasts, I've lost track of the ladies in white dresses. Has anyone been a debutante? What was your experience like?

Feministing friend and author of Odd Girl Out, Rachel Simmons, wanted to let ladies know that she's speaking at an Omega conference in September on Women & Courage. There are scholarships available for young women here. Deadline is July 15th, so don't sleep on it. Speakers include Isabelle Allende, Tara Brach, and Queen Afua, among others, and the conference material reads, in part:

The classic myth of the hero traces an arc of death-defying adventure and violent battle. Yet, on our interdependent planet-with no territory left to exploit and no war that can be won-empathy, love, and wisdom have become the most heroic of all adventures.

It is time to change our definition of what it means to be a brave and daring human being.

I can definitely get down with that. Thanks for the heads up Rachel.

Girl w/ Pen has a great post up about how influential Michelle Obama Watch, the blog by Gina McCauley, has already been--90,000 page views in the last 20 days, coverage in The Baltimore Sun etc. I certainly have been trying to talk it up on all my panels and speaking gigs in the last couple of months. Thanks Gina and crew!

So yeah, there's sure a lot of work to do in this damn country if we really want to eradicate institutional sexism, racism, classism etc. Yeah, we've got major media bias and a real problem with corporate conglomerates owning everything and people being consumer-obsessed. We're still involved in a deadly, unjust war and have a "big daddy" for a president.

BUT, I want to take this opportunity--the day before hot dogs and fireworks--to acknowledge that we also live in a country where a lot of shit is done really right, a country where there is a democratic process (though it doesn't always run smoothly) where people can change laws, get help, fight injustice. A country this is constantly striving to be better, that is made up of incredible immigrant stories, that has been transformed by feminist movements in innuberable ways. Here are five things I thank America for. Please feel free to add your own:

1. Title IX
2. Eleanor Roosevelt
3. The freedom of the press
4. Roe vs. Wade
5. Hot apple pie with cold vanilla ice cream on top

A couple of weeks ago, my apartment lock fell out in my hand. A little disconcerting, yes. Unsolvable, no. I looked up some local locksmiths online and gave a couple a call to compare prices. One guy, a bit gruff on the phone, promised me a low price and immediate help, so I invited him to send someone over.

The guy who came was nice, but what happened when he was done was not. First of all, he charged me three times the promised price (because they hadn't understood the extent of the problem blah blah blah) and, what's worse, said that his boss required me to pay in cash in full. Since I stopped dealing drugs a few years ago, I didn't have $300 cash lying around, and ATMs give $200 total, so I asked if I could write some on a personal check. He said I should get in his car with him (PT Cruisher, sketchy friend in the passenger seat bumping bad music) and they would drive me to a bank. Um, yeah. I'm going to get in a car with two strangers and go wherever with my ATM card and absolutely no scruples.

When I refused he made me talk to his boss, who yelled at me on the phone:

Me: Is this your business practice--to make customers get in cars with strangers?

Him: Look bitch, we're not making you do anything! You just have to pay in cash!

Mmm....finally I convinced them to let me pay part in cash, part with personal check. When they left, I have to admit that I closed my door, turned the lock, and cried a little. Not because they got me. I was proud I stood up for myself. But because I was so pissed that if my boyfriend had been home, the whole experience would have been different.

I hate that little things, like needing a new lock, turns into a shitty experience drenched in sexism. Dudes, I just wanted a lock and to be safe. Why does that make me a bitch? It is moments like these when my feminism is reconfirmed. If I didn't have a switch in my head that turned on in moments like those, I think I would take it personally, feel stupid, maybe even let assholes abuse me. But because of feminism, I get mad, file a complaint with the Better Business Bureau, write a bad review online on SuperPages, and tell people about it.

No doubt you've heard more than you ever wanted to hear about how stress is bad for your health. Cortisol floods your system and breaks down your capacity to heal, be happy etc. Many call it the fight or flight system--that physiological reaction to our psychological scares.

But not enough of us are aware that there is also a calm and connection system, as Dr. Kerstin Uvnas Moberg, puts it. Reporters rarely tell us that, yes, stress is bad for you, but joy, pleasure, and passion are actually good for your health--both short and long term. She explains:

This calm and connection system is associated with trust and curiosity instead of fear, and with friendliness instead of anger. The heart and circulatory system slow down as the digestion fires up. When peace and calm prevail, we let our defenses down and instead become sensitive, open, and interested in others around us.

This system is jump started with oxytocin--an amazingly complex hormone that for years was thought to only be associated with childbirth and breastfeeding. In fact, it is released at all kinds of interesting moments, most associated with a sensual experience of pleasure. I like that.

So get out there, get calm and connect. In the long run, your immune system will be boosted, your capacity for memory and learning will be enhanced, and your risk of heart disease--the number one killer of women--will be reduced.

Check out issue two of Sadie Magazine. It includes an interview with Jenny Block, author of the controversial new book Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage, and another with cartoonist Lauren Weinstein. Sweet job Sadie ladies.

I had a really incredible experience a few weeks back and I wanted to write something about it for the feministing community because I hope it inspires others to do the same.

For many years my extended family on my mom’s side, which is mostly located in Colorado—with some outliers on the east and west coasts—has had a hard time getting everyone together. When I was growing up our Thanksgiving celebrations were legendary—kids everywhere playing board games and falling in the snow during touch football, parents laughing and reminiscing about old times, my grandmother pulling out her amazing pumpkin pie and drinking scotch on the rocks. But since we’ve all become adults, it’s gotten harder and harder to make this happen.

And let’s be honest, it’s not just a logistical difficulty. My family is really diverse, not in the ethnic sense, but in the political, cultural sense. We’ve got cousins who still think George Bush has been a great president, that abortion should be illegal, that homosexuality is an abomination. And then we’ve got my mom, for example, who uses words like “goddess” and “patriarchy” with ease, drives a Prius, and talks to animals in the backyard like they are her little friends. When the two meet—especially in these contentious political times—things can get ugly.

The women in my family—however—have a way of working with these differences that has always been more compassionate, more resilient, less fraught with black and white thinking. So, in the spirit of the amazing women who have come before, we decided to try an all lady reunion at my mom’s house in New Mexico.

It was amazing. It was actually more than amazing. I would sit around a table in the backyard and feel stunned by how unalike we all were, yet how wildly similar. It turns out that though we have traveled very different paths, so many of us have been traveling them in the same way.

We are a family of women with indistinguishable empathy and tireless work ethics, what my Christian cousins would call “servant’s hearts.” Among the “momma generation” we’ve got a psychiatric social worker, an emergency room nurse, a missionary nurse, a teacher in a poor, urban school, a business owner with a collaborative, cutting-edge ethic, and a bartender (aka another therapist). I’d never really seen all these women (at least with an adult consciousness) as a quilt of where I come from. I’d never felt my roots so deeply and profoundly as I did over this weekend.

It wasn’t easy to get everyone together. A lot of us, in truth, barely knew one another before showing up for this familial leap of faith. But I cannot tell you how grateful I am that we did it. I encourage you—especially if you come from a family like ours, where political tensions run high—to try to cut out the guys for a weekend (not forever, just for a weekend) and see what transpires. I have a feeling you’ll be as moved as I was…

(And if it’s something you’ve been thinking about doing, but just having gotten around to it, do it. Today. Email everyone or call and say, “Okay, let’s get a date on the books.” That’s what we had to eventually do to make it happen.)

Betsy Perry has a vacuous rant about flirting in the workplace up over at TheStreet.com that will make your feminist head spin. It’s not only misogynistic (apparently all women talk about is “anorexia, the latest under eye concealer, and J. Sisters bikini wax techniques"), but grossly reinforces traditional definitions of beauty (“The overweight young woman whose bra straps always showed, and who had the unfortunate habit of burping out loud, lasted minutes before being moved quickly to another floor”), and basically suggests that “the male gaze”—that great women’s studies term for feeling watched and judged constantly—is women’s only source of pleasure in their own appearance: “What’s the fun in getting dressed up for work if no one’s around to appreciate the gold-flecked body powder you’ve tossed down your cleavage?”

Ugh. Perry delights in alleging that Bill Clinton touched her breast, relives her good ol' sexual harassment days, and wonders why girls today can't own up to the fact that flirting in the workplace is a great way to get ahead.

What makes all of this so sad is that Perry obviously has some really important stories to tell about what it was like to work in the male-dominated journalism business back in the day. There’s no question she’s been sexually harassed and forced to be a chameleon in order to “get the story.” Why couldn’t she have communicated these critical tidbits without devolving into various forms of unexamined hatred (for self and, well, all women)?

Flirting, in the workplace and elsewhere, is certainly fun, but it isn't a career strategy for men or women. I'd personally like to be known for my intelligence and dedication, not my tits. If I enjoy some consensual flirting in work atmospheres, that's cool, but its not going on my CV.

The ending is really the nail in the coffin: “Not unlike a geisha, leave your flip-flops at the door and step into those Jimmy Choos—a sexy gait is worth a little hamstring ache in the long run, don’t you think?”

Wow, where do I start? Maybe Perry should read up on geisha culture before referencing it willy nilly. On the other hand, I guess the parallel makes some sense. Just as many geisha’s were sold as children to geisha houses, and forced to clean up after other people as their first stage of training, Perry is advocating selling out and putting up with men’s shit in the workplace as a way to get ahead.

Perhaps Perry is our best, newest example of internalized oppression. She’s been made to feel like women suck for so long that she actually believes it. I just wish she could spend a couple of hours with the feministing community to see what she’s been missing.

Check out Lisa Chen and Lisa Witter talking about their new book, The She Spot: Why Women Are the Market for Changing the World--And How to Reach Them above.

When I first heard Lisa W. speak this winter at the Women's Media Center I was absolutely smitten with her (she's clear, smart, inventive, and managed to be all that while a GIANT baby (hers) hung out on her hip). But I have to say that I was immediately worried about the thesis of The She Spot, which is that marketing to women (for both nonprofits and political campaigns) requires essentially different principles than marketing to men (i.e. men are from Mars, women are from Venus--the social justice version).

The Lisa's explain their idea about gender different this way:

When it comes to improving the lives of women and girls and creating the society we want to live in, we couldn't agree more that women should be treated on equal footing with men. But we are selling ourselves short if we deny the fact that gender differences exist.

What I like about their view on gender differences, as queasy as it makes me, is that they're not just arguing that there are neurological and hormonal differences, but that there are differences bred by the continued differential socialization of girls and boys in the country. In other words, fight against it for the long term, but in the short term, recognize that some of the ways in which women are socialized (to care deeply about others, to be self-sacrificing) are actually assets for social change.

I'm excited to think about the ways in which The She Spot might influence politicians and nonprofits. In a world of the Lisa's making, there would be no more candy cotton pink websites that are supposed to appeal to women, no more use of the terrible term "women's issues", and lots of appealing to single women--who they note are THE most important constituency for the 2008 election. In their world, the Survival of the Fittest would be evolved into the Survival of the Connected. In their world, fundraisers and communications consultants would understand that though it takes longer for women to decide to give money or get involved in a cause, they are more loyal over the long run and give more of their proportional income. In their world, people would understand that a passionate woman tells everyone about her cause.

They sum it up:

At the dawn of the 21st century, the social and political tides that define where and who we are as a people today make the values that matter most to women--connecting and community--a winning blueprint for social change and transformation.

Can't wait to hear your thoughts...

Lorde's been on my mind as of late, I guess because I'm always thinking about the old master's tools/master's house dilemma (if you don't know, check her essay, "The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House” in Sister/Outsider). I can't help but wonder WWAS (What Would Audre Say)? so often when I am faced with modern day conundrums of politics, identity, power etc.

She was such an extraordinary human being, such an incredible thinker--one of the brave ones who spoke truth to power, who addressed the racial divides within feminism, who insisted that sexual orientation be part of the feminist conversation. Among other things, she was also an amazing educator--teaching at my own old stomping grounds, Hunter College.

We thank you Audre, now gone for over 16 years, for your legacy of truth-telling and, in particular, your profound exploration of power. I leave you all with Audre in her own words:

Love is word, another kind of open.
As the diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am Black because I come from the earth's inside
Now take my word for jewel in the open light.

We don't tend to be all that big business-minded here at feministing, I assume because none of us work in that environment, but we certainly care about how women are faring in the corporate workplace. Jessica Wakeman has a good piece up on Wall Street and the women who struggle there at TheStreet.com. An excerpt:

...the lack of women in the executive suite is still jarring. They may make up 46% of the workforce, but women held only 15.4% of Fortune 500 corporate officer positions in 2007, according to Catalyst, a non-profit that studies women’s advancement in business. That percentage is an increase from 1997, when women only had 10.6% of such positions, but clearly the boardrooms in the U.S. skew mostly male. According to Gail Evans, former executive vice president of CNN (TWC) and author of the book Play Like a Man, Win Like a Woman. 'There’s so few women [that] when one of them gets fired [from an executive position], the percentage drops 10 percent.'

Check the whole thing out here.

Image from Catalyst.

Hey all you women's studies devotees, it's time to gather round the proverbial fire and swap theories. Jessica and I are off to the National Women's Studies Association's annual conference tomorrow. This year the title is "Resisting Hegemonies: Race and Sexual Politics in Nation, Region, Empire" and it is in Cincinnati, Ohio. The keynote is (awesome, awesome, awesome) Patricia Hill Collins.

I'll be part of a roundtable on the election led by Ellen Bravo on Friday afternoon, and then Jess and I are doing a panel, along with my friend Amada from Princeton's Women's Center, called "Swinging Back to Center: Balancing Judgment and Empathy within the Women’s Studies Classroom and in the Feminist World Beyond" on Saturday. We hope to see old friends there and meet plenty o' new ones. Please introduce yourselves to us feministing readers!

Read more if you want a sense of what we're going to be talking about at our panel on Saturday...

Greg Mortenson is an unlikely advocate of girls’ education. A hyper-masculine mountain climber, he spent much of his young twenties figuring out how to get to K2, one of the tallest mountains in the world, and climb it. He failed. But as with so many failures, there was a wild success underneath.

He fell in love with Pakistan and its people, especially the native peoples of Korphe, a tiny village high in the mountains that defeated him. After building a school there (another climb that included many, many obstacles), he found that it was not outdoor sports but education that he was most called to. He wanted to keep building schools, keep interacting with the people of Pakistan, keep—he would later conceptualize—fight terror through the safety of books and open minds.

The 300 page book (exhaustively detailed at times) is a powerful retelling of Mortenson’s journey. As a sucker for these kinds of biographies in altruism, I was riveted the whole time. Mortenson’s resilience and determination inspired me to take a totally new perspective on my own definition of “set back.” He is sometimes frighteningly unafraid.

But what I found missing from this account were the moral complexities. In Korphe, for example, Mortenson helps the village people—historically separated from “civilization”—by an abyss, build a bridge. What seems simple, however, had to have caused all sorts of wild changes in the community. Relin only dwells on the positive, briefly mentioning that there are often unintended side effects of well-intentioned acts. As someone interested in all the gray of international development and civic involvement, I want to read about those side effects, not see them glossed over.

In short, the biography was too sunny for me, to glowing and angelic. Nevertheless, I was incredibly moved by Mortenson’s example and you, no doubt, will be too (if you haven’t already been…it's a bestseller after all).

Next time: The Oxytocin Factor by Kirsten Uvnas Moberg

I've expanded my thoughts over at Alternet about this whole Rebecca/Alice clash. Check it out.

If you missed the documentary, The Education of Shelby Knox, you have to check it out. It is an amazing film about the development of a feminist conscience, the connection between individual courage and community change, and sex education policy.

You can also check out Shelby's current work, traveling the country and speaking her truth about sex, feminism, and America. She's getting on the blog train.

It sort of goes without saying that Hillary deserves our love this week. As you may know, from reading my writing elsewhere, I'm an Obama voter, but a Clinton supporter. I'm deeply touched by her courage, her grit, and her grace here at the end. I thought her concession speech was beautiful. She really led with her feminist identity--referencing Seneca Falls, invoking her grandmother, mother, and daughter, addressing race and social change. I especially loved these lines:

Although we weren't able to shatter that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it's got about 18 million cracks in it, and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.

I wrote a letter in thanks, which you can read here, but