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

Month: December 2007

Another reminder of those impossible standards

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Via Jezebel through Secondhandsally, I see that cookbook author and cooking-show host Nigella Lawson is being subjected to some of the same scrutiny that befell Jennifer Love Hewitt. And, like Hewitt, she’s saying something about it:

Some people love food writer and TV host Nigella Lawson. She’s bright, successful, forty-something, and loves food, unapologetically. But some people — who have been commenting on the BBC website — think the British star is a “porker” who sends the wrong message, reports The Times of London. “What sort of an example is she setting with her weight and her appetite for high-calorie sweets and cream?” one reader asks. Nigella tells Times writer Shane Watson: “Maybe I have put on weight, or maybe it’s a bad camera angle [or a poorly fitted dress, perhaps? — z.]. But in real life, this is normal size. Everyone is so critical. All must be sacrificed to the great god of skinny. You must say no to everything.” Ms. Watson claims that the “god of skinny” has dethroned the “god of beauty.” She writes, “Beauty without a slim body is now almost pointless.”

Oh, I love that comment about what kind of example she’s setting “with her weight and her appetite for high-calorie sweets and cream.” See, it’s not the high-calorie sweets and cream that are the problem, it’s the fact that she has an appetite for them. And women aren’t supposed to have appetites. Even if they do make their living writing cookbooks and hosting cooking shows.

Actually, I should amend that: it’s acceptable for women to have appetites so long as they stay effortlessly slim. And so long as Lawson stayed slim (though she’s never really been skinny), there was a lot of talk about how refreshing it was to see a hot woman who loves food. But once she put on a couple of pounds, those same appetites suddenly became unacceptable and a bad example.

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Newspeak

Apparently slicing your throat with your own sharpened fingernail is a suicidal “gesture,” and a simple attempt to spread anti-Americanism.

A detainee at the military detention camp here cut his throat with his own fingernail, causing substantial blood loss early last month, but was not at risk of death, military officials said today.

“He did in fact use a sharpened fingernail,” Cmdr. Andrew Haynes, the deputy commander of the guard force here, told reporters during a camp tour.

The neck wound — described by one military official as a “scratch” — required stitches to close.

That’s more than a “gesture.” And when someone is desperate enough to try to slit their throat with their own fingernail, I think their motives may be beyond an attempt to criticize the U.S. government.

It also takes a special kind of clueless asshole to see a person in this situation — stuck in an isolated prison where people are dying and being tortured, having no legal protections or basic human rights, driven to suicide “gestures” — and then think to himself, That guy is trying to cut his own throat because he hates America!

Praise Bast

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The Hello Kitty, uh, “shoulder massager” is back on the market.

I now open the comment section for crass and predictable-but-still-funny quips about happily purring pussy [cats].

Celebrating Resilience

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This sounds like a fantastic event:

Young Women’s Empowerment Project is Proud to Invite you to the First Art Show (In Chicago!!!)
Featuring the Original Works of our Youth Membership and Youth Staff

Join us Friday, December 14th for Wine and Hors d’ouvers at the Mekhanskhen Gallery 5459 S. Drexel from 8pm to 11pm

We will exhibit pottery, wood prints, oil paintings, collage, sculpture, textiles, drawing, graffiti art & embroidery.

Made by 12 different YWEP artists. Art and Prints will be available for Sale.

Our Artist Statement:
We titled this art show “Survival of the Artist…” to show how we are resilient to oppression and how we stand up and fight against it every day. Art is one method of resilience we use to show that we are multi-faceted and that what we do isn’t who we are. We are de-humanized by those that say we are “prostitutes” and “criminals.” YWEP doesn’t believe in these terms. We rebel against them.
We believe all girls are priceless.
We support all girls who do what they have to do to survive.

The group has a wonderful mission, and a great website chock-full of resources:

Our mission as the Young Women’s Empowerment Project is to offer safe, respectful, free-of-judgment spaces for girls and young women impacted by the sex trade and street economies to recognize their goals, dreams and desires. We are run by girls and women with life experience in the sex trade and street economies. We are a youth leadership organization grounded in harm reduction and social justice organizing by and for girls and young women (ages 12-23) impacted by the sex trade and street economies.

As for ticket info:

Tickets $25.00
To purchase tickets go to our website and follow the instructions
or Get them at Women and Children First 5233 N. Clark St.
Want to come to the show for free?
Sell 10 tickets and you can!
Contact Cindy for more info:
cindy@youarepriceless.org

If you can’t make it, consider donating.

And it’s Helen for the win

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I love this woman. Love.

Do watch the video. I’m not sure what my favorite part is, but I do enjoy it when Dana Perino berates Helen Thomas for having the audacity to use her front-row seat in the briefing room to actually ask tough questions — especially since Perino follows it up with the statement that “to suggest that we, at the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive.”

I understand how suggesting that you’ve killed tens of thousands of people may be offensive and, in most cases, absurd. However, one thing I find more offensive than the suggestion that you’ve killed tens of thousands of people is actually killing tens of thousands of people. So perhaps Perino should can the indignation.

Whether you’re pro- or anti-war, it’s pretty difficult to argue with a straight face that we “at the United States” are not killing innocent people in Iraq. Perino even says so herself (sort of) when she laments, “To the extent that any innocent Iraqis have been killed, we have expressed regret for it.”

For now I’ll put aside the fact that that sentence makes little to no sense (“to the extend that any innocent Iraqis have been killed?” The fuck?) and simply emphasize that Dana Perino is both a bloody moron and an outstanding representation of the brain power in the White House. And Helen Thomas is my hero:

Helen Thomas: Do you know how many [Iraqi civilians] we have [killed] since the start of this war?

Dana Perino: How many… We are going after the enemy, Helen. To the extent that any innocent Iraqis have been killed, we have expressed regret for it.

Helen Thomas: Oh, regret. It doesn’t bring back a life.

Loud and Clear

16days.gif “President Bush said Tuesday that Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah ‘knows our position loud and clear‘ on the punishment of the victim of a gang rape.”

Of course he knows our position. Our position is, “Do whatever you want, just keep sending the oil this way.” Loud and clear.

Bush also said that he “can’t remember” whether he brought up the issue in a conversation with the King.

Need.

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The product description* is the best part:

Protect our troops – from the womb to the war. What if the fetus you were going to abort would grow up to be a soldier bringing democracy to a godless dictatorship?

Plastic replica of an 11-12 week old fetus, 3″ long, holding a firearm in its precious little hand, with an assortment of other military paraphernalia, encased in a translucent plastic ornament, with a patriotic yellow ribbon on top. Includes a metal ornament hanger. If only a womb were this safe, attractive and reasonably priced!

Show that you support the “culture of life” by buying and proudly displaying one of these patriotic unborn Americans.

Also available in a “Brown” model

Sent on by Shankar, my favorite curmudgeonly closet oligarchist, who assures me that, “No doubt all your commie readers would get a kick out if it.”

I hope you did.

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*The description is a joke. But the ornament — praise Jesus — is real. And I would totally buy it and hang it on my tree, but I think my mom would yell at me. Then laugh. But then take it down.

Tuesday Travel Blogging – The Amalfi Coast

I don’t know how the weather is where you all are, but in Germany it is damn cold and horribly damp. So this week for TTB, I bring you sunshine from the lovely Italian seaside of Amalfi, where it was hovering somewhere in the high 90s when I took these pictures this past August. They’re mostly of Amalfi (the town) and Positano, but there’s one of Naples and a few of delicious, delicious food. What I wouldn’t give for a little Italian sunshine and gnocchi sorrentina right about now…

As usual, full set is here, and more photos are below the fold.



Amalfi Coast, originally uploaded by JillNic83.

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Kiss my larger-than-usual ass

You may or may not be aware that the size 2 Jennifer Love Hewitt was recently the subject of some fat-shaming by lovely gossip site TMZ and others (to whom I won’t link, but if you follow the links here, you’ll see the photos and the oh-so-trenchant observations like “We know what you ate this summer, Love everything!”). Hewitt had the audacity to appear in public in a bikini while also in possession of a body that hadn’t been dieted and exercised down to nothing or airbrushed to smooth perfection.

Mind you, TMZ has no compunction about running unflattering beach and other photos of celebrities with a heaping helping of mockery; it seems to be popular enough that one of their advertisers, T Mobile, is currently running a feature called “Flabulous!” with a bunch of celebrities at the beach, not in the world’s best shape. How dare they not be picture-perfect at all times, *especially* when they turn 60!

Anyway, back to Hewitt: She decided that she wasn’t going to take this mockery lying down, and so she decided to say a few things.* Things which made me fall in love with her a little bit (even though I’ve only ever seen her in Party of Five, in which she annoyed me):

“I’ve sat by in silence for a long time now about the way women’s bodies are constantly scrutinized,” the 28-year-old actress writes on her Web site.

“To set the record straight, I’m not upset for me, but for all the girls out there that are struggling with their body image.” …

“A size 2 is not fat! Nor will it ever be,” Hewitt responded in a post Thursday. “And being a size 0 doesn’t make you beautiful.”

“What I should be doing is celebrating some of the best days of my life and my engagement to the man of my dreams, instead of having to deal with photographers taking invasive pictures from bad angles,” says the star of TV’s “Ghost Whisperer” and the film “I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

“To all girls with butts, boobs, hips and a waist,” she wrote, “put on a bikini put it on and stay strong.”

I’d probably fall in love a little more if she weren’t so defensive about being seen as fat, but hey. I’m pretty pleased that she’s responded with a bit of a fuck-you to the people who are following her around with a camera and then feel entitled to nitpick her body just because she’s a woman. I’m glad she tied in her treatment to the way that *women in general* are publicly scrutinized, not just the way that *celebrities* are publicly scrutinized. I’m glad she recognizes that the difference between the way that her body is held up for scrutiny and the way that other women’s bodies are held up for scrutiny is simply the presence of papparrazi in her life. IOW, she realizes that all women are public property, and the difference between the way she’s treated as a celebrity and the way she’s treated as a woman is one of degree, not kind.

And I’m *very* pleased that she recognizes that fat-shaming is designed to keep women in line — and not just the woman who’s the target of the shaming. It sends a message to other women that unless they conform, they’re next. And so, unless they’re very secure, they spend a lot of time and energy worrying about how they’re going to avoid being next (which they can never do, because that’s the whole point of shaming, to take up your time and energy on an endless quest to meet a moving target). Time and energy that they then don’t have to devote to anything else, like maybe learning how to love and accept their bodies as they are.

If you’re wondering about the title to this post, it comes from here:

The newly engaged Hewitt was snapped in her black two-piece swimsuit last week as she enjoyed a dip in the sea — but the “Ghost Whisperer” star’s larger-than-usual bottom soon became the subject of ridicule on many celebrity blogs.

“Larger than usual”? Usual for her, or usual in general? What’s the “usual” size of an ass?

Thanks to Julia for the head’s-up.

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* It’d be nice if I could get her site to load so I can see her whole post.