This is Jerry. He’s old, unsure on his feet, and generally bad at being a cat–except for when he’s sleeping and keeping you warm.
Jerry is not much of a reader, so he doesn’t have an opinion on “Cat Person”–but he’s the only one. Continue reading
Tag: feminism
Happy Sunday:For the Girls
I missed this commercial during the actual Super Bowl, but my boyfriend started describing it to me, and I started crying. To be fair, I’d been fighting back tears since Lady Gaga got on that roof to sing “This Land Is Your Land,” but if I wasn’t already a devout Subaru owner, Audi would be my next choice.
Nevertheless, She Persisted
Yesterday, Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced by Senator Mitch McConnell during debate over Jeff Sessions nomination as Attorney General. Because Seantor Warren is a badass, she just went on Facebook Live and read the letter from Coretta Scott King she was going to read in the debate. Then McConnell gave women the mantra we’ve been looking for. I had to meme it.
Feel free to steal and share!
No, YOU Smile!
I have a new hobby. I like refinishing furniture. I don’t mean that I take beautiful old antiques and bring them back to life. I find junk at Goodwill or the dump, slap some paint on it, and unload it on Craigslist. This is how I found myself standing in front of a wall of spray paint in my local hardware store. I had a can in my hand and was examining the label when a man in a headset and vest stopped and said, “And how are you doing young lady?”
“I’m good, thanks,” I said and went back to my label.
“You’re not smiling so you can’t be doing that well.”
I looked at him as if to say, “Not smiling while reading the label on a can of spray paint? Dude, if you see someone grinning while reading the label on a can of toxic chemicals, you can be pretty sure she is going to huff it behind your store. Do not sell it to her!” Continue reading
In Praise of School Dress Codes
I have a very vivid memory of sitting in American history class as a senior in high school and looking over at my friend Ali. She was covertly gesturing at the guy next to her who was wearing a tank top. We were in suburban Connecticut, not Florida–which is to say that tank tops were not exactly fashionable attire for males, even in the late-1990s. I didn’t know what all her gesticulating meant until she whipped out the Ani DiFranco lyrics she knew I would recognize. “PALE PURPLE!” I grimaced. She could see this dude’s nipple.
I’ve been thinking about this story a lot lately. There seems to have been a rash of outraged blog posts and news segments about girls getting sent home from school–or being otherwise punished–for failing to meet their school’s dress codes. Some of the stories seem outrageous. Othertimes, some of the shorts actually do seem pretty short and if you knew what the dress code was, why didn’t you abide by it? Parents cry foul when their daughters are reprimanded for wearing short-shorts/skirts, spaghetti strap tank tops, and beyond. They gripe that boys aren’t “shamed” for their wardrobes–and that girls should not have to care whether boys are “distracted” by their bare skin. It would be easy enough to throw up my feminist hands and say, “Right on! Wear whatever you want, grrrrl!” But I feel like something important is being ignored in these discussions. Continue reading
Why Bustle Isn’t Going to Win the Hearts and Minds of Women
A while back Bleacher Report founder Bryan Goldberg found himself in a bit of a PR nightmare when he announced he would be revolutionizing women’s media by creating a site that *gasp* put politics and hard news alongside beauty tips and fashion advice. Mostly people just laughed at him because clearly he hadn’t done any homework before launching Bustle.com, which would have shown the many thriving websites aimed at women. Among his competition is Jezebel. I’d forgotten all about Bustle because, well, I read Jezebel, Rookie, XOJane, Slate’s XX blog, and any number of other lady-focused sites. Today I confirmed that I was right to stay away. Continue reading
Game of Thrones: The Most Feminist Show on TV
I’ve been meaning to write this post for quite a while, but I’ve been a bad, bad blogger. Please thank my busy life and a desire to get away from computers at 5 o’clock sharp! So here it goes…
I got into the Game of Thrones craze a little late. There had already been a couple of seasons by the time I got around to learning about The Starks and the Dyer Wolves, and the Khaleesi. Like most people, I was immediately hooked. Then the Wendy Davis memes started…
It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about just how feminist a show/book Game of Thrones is, but I did start to consider it more seriously. There are a lot of boobs in Game of Thrones, but there are also a lot of bad ass women. Some of them are evil, most of them are awesome… all of them are worth talking about. Continue reading
Required Reading
If I ever have a daughter, I am going to make xoJane required reading because of things like this.
Put Your Fight Face On
Rory puts on her Fight Face.
As I’ve written many times lately, I absolutely love XOJane. In fact, I’m a little obsessed. Today, the story that caught my attention was “The Time I Almost Broke a Bottle Over a Groper’s Head on the Train.” The title should be pretty self-explanatory. But there was one part in particular that got me thinking:
Reading all of these stories about women going dead-possum in the face of harassment, and of women waiting for their attackers to just go away, makes me nearly as angry as when I witness these things in person. They will never just go away if you sit there. Scream. Flail. Act like a fucking lunatic until someone sees you. Go for the eyes, for the balls, for the throat. If you won’t, I will, and one day I will probably get hurt doing it.
I started thinking about this, and wondering which end of the spectrum I fall on. At first I thought I’d never really had an experience that would test my fight or flight response… but the more I “thunk on it” the more I realized I was wrong. I often find myself reading about the creepy/scary/terrifying experiences women have and how they react, and I find myself saying, “This stuff doesn’t happen to me.” And I’m only kind of right about that… Continue reading
No One Should “Have It All”
The internet is on fire with reaction to the Atlantic’s cover story. Rather than try to explain what all the hub-bub is about, I’ll let someone else do it:
The whole how-can-women-work-and-parent-well-at-the-same-time is not exactly a new conundrum, but clearly something about this piece, written by former State Department official and current Princeton professor Anne-Marie Slaughter, and the magazine’s cover (a toddler stuffed in a briefcase), struck a chord with The Internet.
A lot of the negative reaction to the piece is aimed at Slaughter’s contention that feminism sold her a bill of goods. That she was raised to think that she could “have it all,” but that, actually, it’s not so easy.
Oh, you mean having the equivalent of two full-time jobs isn’t easy? Ya don’t say… Continue reading
Don’t Hate Me Because I’m Beautiful
It’s a wonder we managed not to claw each other’s eyes out.
A (beautiful) friend of mine recently posted a link to this pitiful story by Samantha Brick on Facebook that made me simultaneously laugh out loud and want to throttle the writer. The title says it all, “Why Women Hate Me for Being Beautiful.” Here’s the gist:
While I’m no Elle Macpherson, I’m tall, slim, blonde and, so I’m often told, a good-looking woman. I know how lucky I am. But there are downsides to being pretty — the main one being that other women hate me for no other reason than my lovely looks.
This article presents you with an interesting conundrum as a reader, commenter, or critic. It’s clear that the writer will just assume you’re jealous if you dare to criticize her. In fact, that’s exactly what happened. There was a backlash and the writer’s response was basically, “This just proves I’m right.” Continue reading
Writer. Editor. Storyteller. 