In defense of the sanctimonious women's studies set || First feminist blog on the internet

Category: Blogging

Thrifty Food Plan, Thermostats, and Lunchboxes

For anyone who has been following this series, Elizabeth’s family has finished one month of the government’s Thrifty Food Plan. (Post one, the one that started it all.)

This conversation inspired me to get a few books on how to save money and shop savvy. There are some things on my budget that won’t budge, but others are completely flexible. Other than yesterday’s trip to the grocery store because I absolutely had to have fresh fruit, I have saved buckets on grocery bills for the two of us by modifying how we cook and eat. My primary problem (as of right now) is time. I don’t have that much time to stand around the kitchen and play Mother of the Year, and so far I’m spending most of my Sunday cooking for the week.

All I need to do now is figure out how to avoid the convenience of E’s lunchbox food and begin to make our own incarnations, and get used to the low-set thermostat and the house being cold. Because goddamn, it’s cold.

What I’ve Been Reading Since I Haven’t Been Writing

Now featuring fruits and vegetables! And mustard!

Feminism:
• Considerable pissing matches criticizing the “nice” guy/jerk binary between three notable feminist bloggers and an MRA. See Hugo Schwyzer (the instigator of criticism), Amanda, and Kameron Hurley.

• I rediscovered this old post at Rad Geek, Why Libertarians Need Feminism. Great read.

• Also at Rad Geek, who has been blogging for me this week, looks at the pro-choice/pro-life binary.

• The Progressive Protestant discusses abortion and the church from a pro-choice point of view.

• Lynn at Noli Irritate Leones looks at Goldman’s perspective on anarchism and violence. She is also looking for other anarchist views on violence, so if anyone has any suggestions, cruise on over and leave a comment.

Education:
• Erin of Critical Mass highlights a NYTimes article that details the “sad state” of literacy in American high schools. Unfortunately she, and most of her commenters, are removed enough from the pre-service programs to know that we are already working on it.

• Testing Companies Mine for Gold: An article that details how testing companies benefit from NCLB testing initiatives, and students benefit little.

• Madame Zenobia (whose kickass template made my day) has designed a class around hip hop studies. The text for the course sounds good enough to read on my own: That’s The Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader.

Politics:
• Ophelia Payne finds a story at Fair.org detailing what happened to a NYTimes expose on the hump in GWB’s back during the presidential debates. As she says, even if he did have a receiver, he’s still a crappy cheater.

• Dr. Myers writes a great parable comparing plumbing to creationism politics.

• Daddy Alan Keyes kicks his daughter, Maya Keyes, out of the house when she comes out as a lesbian. Well, at least he’s consistent. I hate to say this, but Cheney 1 – Keyes 0.

Entertainment:
• Straight Outta White Suburbia: A look at Nina Gordon’s cover of N.W.A.’s “Straight Outta Compton” and why the author finds it offensive. I listened to it myself and it wasn’t clever or ironic. Not only has it been done too many times before, this version was just lame. Sorry, chica, but Kim Deal has it all over you.

• James Dobson suggests that parents keep track of their daughters’ menstrual cycles. Now that’s entertainment.

• How to Save the World shows how the “free” market ruins entertainment media.

• Dr. B. briefly looks at the Onion A.V,’s recent interview with Will Wright, creator of The Sims, and his decision to make versatile partnering relationships within the game.

• The movie Million Dollar Baby is discussed at Subversive Harmony, and although she is critical of many of the movie’s premises, finds it an enjoyable watch.

Blogging:
• Krista compiles a list of things she wishes someone would have told her when she began blogging.

• Atheist bloggers unite at the Carnival of the Godless. Some very good posts there, and some not so good. Still an awesome idea. (It appears COTG 2 is already out, hosted at Pharyngula.)

Other Anomalies:
• On the Evolution of the Female Orgasm.

• My new favorite blog, The Examining Room of Dr. Charles, features stories based on true experiences starring fictional characters. If this guy weren’t a doctor, I’d strongly suggest he write a novel.

What I’ve Been Doing Since I Haven’t Been Blogging

Wednesday
Substitute as a para for a gaggle of kindergarteners. Reconsider teaching. Reconsider taking Ethan out of Montessori next year and contemplate applying for a scholarship so he may attend kindergarten there. Feel proud that child is so damn smart without a minor push from any of us. Remember birthday is in two weeks and dread the annual birthday malaise. And, oh yeah, Valentine’s Day. Stupid holidays. Sleep on the couch all afternoon and never quite recover from unplanned nap. Bitch about the grit on the floors that is now embedded in my feet. Try to list my goals from this month through the rest of the year.

Thursday
Resolve issues with ASL teacher, who turns out to be a fantastic instructor. Fall asleep on parents’ couch after dinner. Get lecture about incurable insomnia. Grumble. Go home. Begin thinking about the garden, how it will be planted and where in the yard the sunflowers will go, and how obscenely gaudy the ancient neighbors will find them. Feel pleased. Order egregious amount of vegetable and sunflower seeds from Burpee. Wonder where the hell I’m going to get the money for gardening tools. Finish math homework with little sweat or tears. Be glad I am not blogging as the dial-up connection has been painfully slow. Have horrible nightmare that disrupts the first opportunity for uninterrupted sleep in weeks.

Friday
Attend first school observation. Make awesome tortellini concoction that if distributed among the nations would inspire world peace. Buy straight needles to knit both sleeves of Klaralund at the same time. Mend two sweaters, darn a pair of socks, start a wearable everyday knitted hat in green. Lament blogging break because Pablo has been awfully cute and it is the day for cat blogging. Finish everyday green hat. Decide it’s too short, cast on at the bottom and begin knitting a fold-up brim. That night, watch an actual film, one that transcends “movie” status by having good actors, writing, and cinematography, but fall asleep halfway through. Dream about beautiful Cuban actor.

Saturday
Clean the hell out of my house. Cleanest it’s been since I moved. Boxes from moving six months ago are finally all unpacked and it appears a yard sale is needed. Remove a Pablo-sized hairball from under the sofa. Gag. Also recover a transparent red Lego from a dark corner that inspires Ethan to make a wide array of emergency vehicles from Legos all afternoon. Pablo gets in on the Lego action. Thank whomever that both are busy enough for me to rest. Make grocery list for next week. Plan to cook all day Sunday. Pray for the good health of the inventor of my second-hand generic Crockpot.

Sunday
Crap. It’s Superbowl Sunday, isn’t it? Roll out of bed to answer the phone, to hear that an old, fond acquaintance of mine (the scariest-looking teddy bear/I’ll-kill-you-in-a-minute gay man I’ve ever met) is in the hospital in a drug-induced coma because a friend of his thought it was really funny that he was drinking antifreeze during a night of excessive drunkenness and didn’t stop him. Fucking idiot. Go to the hospital and buy him a small token to let him know I’m thinking of him. Wonder about something Dru once said about getting through a time period of friends’ self-destructiveness. Wonder when this time will end. Wish people had some sense and that drug and alcohol addicitions were biologically impossible.

Monday
Lay around. Have sweatpants day. Go to local pet store where I am asked by the badly tattooed clerk if I have a long-haired cat. When I inquire why he asks, he points to the shoulder of my jacket covered in a carpet of cat hair. Curse. Eat homemade stew. Finish watching “City of God.” Love it despite movie malevolence.

Tuesday
Attend full day of classes. Collapse on couch. Take this quiz:


You Are the Very Gay Tinky Winky!




Purple with a gay pride symbol… how could he not be gay?
And that red purse is divalicious!

Read “Speak” (and part II) during lunch at my daily hangout. Briefly excuse myself to bathroom to cry. Go home after final class. Cut my own hair. Collapse on couch. Wander to the basement to gaze at pile of laundry. Go back upstairs to lay on couch. Sigh as E drives Lego emergency vehicles over my reclined body.

Wednesday
Another sweatpants day – the local school corps appear to be okay on subs. Knit a few rows on Klaralund. Pet Pablo. Count nine days until another disappointing birthday rolls around. Relent and begin blogging again.

Feministe at the Koufax Awards

The final list for the 2005 Koufax Awards has been posted and I have been nominated in several categories.

Best Overall Blog by a Non-Professional

Most Deserving of Wider Recognition

Best Writing

Best Single Issue Blog

and
Most Deserving of Wider Recognition

I was also nominated for Most Humorous Post for my recollection of a Thanksgiving conversation among family, but it didn’t make the final cut. I think the comments on that post are just as funny as the post itself, if not better.

Unfortunately I’m up against several of my favorite bloggers, all of whom, in my opinion, are far more articulate and have more consistently good content than I, but hell, it’s my blog and I’ll boast if I want to. Apparently composing sentences like the last gets one nominated for good writing.

If you haven’t voted yet, cruise on over and cast one for me in the comments. You may do so anonymously if comment boxes make you feel squidgy inside. In return for answering my shamelessly self-promotional call to action, you will receive a slice of humble pie and a hearty pat on the back via self-addressed, stamped envelope.

And no, I’m not back from my break.

The Break

As I need to recommit my time to my health, home and schoolwork, I’m taking about a week from blogging to get things in order. I have a few great guestbloggers signed up and ready to go, so stick around and enjoy their work.

Adios.

Another Break

I need to take a brief break from blogging to get my ducks in a row.

If anyone is willing to guest post for approximately one week please email me at web [at] feministe [dot] us.

Journals, K-Logs, Filters, and Hubs

Krista writes:

In Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs, Susan Herring and her group seem to have developed a working schema that classifies blogs as k-logs (knowledge-logs), journals, and filters. Most people seem to work along these lines, and some (like Van Dijck) differentiate between diaries and journals. The thing is, I don’t see my blog in any of those categories. Mine shifts from week to week. This past week, it’s looked more like an k-log than anything else. Last week when I was complaining about my car for days on end, it looked more like a journal. And none of that accounts for the pinups.

The difference between k-logs and journals, the third category that Krista cited, “digital commonplace book,” and other categorizations, are what is at the heart of the WATFB discussion that is due to crop up again any time now.

If a blog researcher came by my site today he or she would find a mish-mash of information filtering and navel-gazing, completely masking the archives of political and theoretical writing exercises I have performed here. Further, I imagine that some time in the future this place will be full of more k-log and political blogging, moving away again from the quiz-taking and picture-posting.

I have always considered blogs to be more like community hubs, information-gathering and -sharing for the like-minded, among whom discussions arise. Though the cateogrizations are needed, they seem awfully confining for such a broad array of topics self-published by complex individuals.

Two Must-Reads

Tired of your musings on parenthood being dismissed as so much fluff? Clancy writes in response to a NYTimes article on parenting blogs for which she was interviewed.

I was interviewed for this story because part of my dissertation research focuses on women’s weblogs, many of whom are mothers. When David Hochman was talking to me about the story, he used the words “narcissistic” and “confessional” to describe parents’ weblogs, albeit in a questioning way (“Aren’t they just kind of narcissistic and confessional?” that kind of thing). As I told him about my dissertation, I tried so hard to explain to and persuade him that “baby blogs” are often — almost always — so much more than “the new baby book,” that they’re a way for parents to express what’s on their minds, but children figure in prominently, obviously.

The Well-Timed Period’s “A Government Guide to Reducing Abortion” dissects the language of President Bush’s recent phone call from Camp David to the anti-abortion protesters gathered at the White House near the anniversary of Roe v. Wade:

according to our most benevolent leaders the way to reduce abortion is to: 1) enact some more laws that don’t work; and 2) lie to women, and offer to increase their intraop risks. [If some of the anesthesiologists out there could blog a little about the difference between administering anesthesia to a pregnant patient vs. a nonpregnant one, the inherent difficulties and risks, drug delivery to the fetus, and what anesthetizing a fetus during an abortion procedure would entail, that would be most instructive.]

To reduce the number of abortions, instead of misguided politics and dreamy religion, how about some science? Emergency contraception (estimated to prevent 800,000 abortions per year). Education [one based on facts, not wishful thinking]. Increasing the availability of existing birth control methods to American women. Encouraging R&D of new methods.

Her look at the president’s speech itself is invaluable. Please read the rest.