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

Month: February 2013

Can fashion fix fashion?

I worked briefly in fashion — briefly, for a couple of years, because in general it’s not a healthy industry to work in. But the fact is, I still enjoy it. Clothes are so pretty, y’all. And Jill is absolutely right that there is no shame in thinking that clothes are pretty, and that fashion is seen as frivolous more because it’s a “woman thing” than for any other reason. But what about all the truly problematic aspects of industry fashion?

Eh…

SOTU Open Thread

So many pastel ties. Michelle’s bangs still look bangin. Universal pre-school access, which is a new one (and great). Everyone wants gun violence to end. Boehner can’t be bothered to stand up for five seconds to applaud a 102-year-old woman who stood in line for six hours to vote. What did you all think?

So the Pope is resigning

That is a thing that happened. I mostly agree with John Patrick Shanley here (and not just because I like his plays): The Church’s concentration of power among an elite group of white men and its wholesale hostility toward women makes its modern success impossible. That said, I actually think it’s great that the Pope is stepping down, and not just because I think he’s a kind of a bad dude. We need more people in positions of power to know when it’s time to throw in the towel. No doubt the Pope’s stepping down is related to the release of 12,000 pages of internal documents related to child sex abuse in the church, and his role in the cover-up. But stepping down when it’s time to go? I wish more leaders would do that.

VAWA held up by Republicans. Again.

This time over their “concern” about the Constitutional issues posed by allowing non-native people to be subject to tribal courts if they commit acts of domestic violence on tribal land. Republicans object to what they say are inadequate protections for criminal defendants — an issue they really only seem to care about when violence against women is involved.

Monday Reads

A few tidbits to start your week off right.

First, self-promotion! My Guardian column this week is about how deriding fashion week (and fashion generally) is a little bit sexist. When it comes to clothes, women can’t win — if you don’t care, you’re slovenly and lack self-esteem and you might face getting fired or not hired in the first place; if you do care, you’re shallow and materialistic. And while critiquing mindless consumption is fair, we don’t seem to moralize quite as much about spending that’s stereotypically male.

More self-promotion: If you feel like reading something entirely shallow and mindless, I wrote about OkCupid’s new blind date app.

This is not so much as thing to read as a thing to snicker at. But this, from one of the women in the photo, is a thing to read.

An oldie but a goodie in honor of the winter weather we’re getting here on the east coast: David Sedaris on snow.

Can’t say I’ve ever read a Jodi Picoult book, but I love this interview with her. She hates Nicholas Sparks! She stands up for female writers! She seems just great.

Frank Ocean? Frank Ocean. (His was hands-down my favorite album of 2012, and I still listen to it constantly. If you don’t have it, buy it. It’s an incredible piece of work).

Can money buy happiness? Kinda-sorta-not-really-but-kinda.

Hey, look at that, the NYPD’s stop and frisk policy is really racist.

New solidarity tumblr for Asian women on internet dating sites: Creepy White Guys.

Ann Friedman on women who fake it.

Essie Washington-Williams and unspoken racial histories.

Simon Rich’s Sell Out series in the New Yorker is maybe the best / funniest thing I have read in 2013. Part 1 is here, click through for the other four.

A great piece on Aaron Swartz, the programmer and internet activist who committed suicide earlier this year.

Centering Sex Worker Voices

Unsurprisingly, the two recent threads on sex work are… active. There’s a lot of push-back (especially to mine) in the comments, so I want to address a few things. First, I stand by what I wrote in the post. But second, I did an inadequate job of focusing on the more important issue: Making life safer, here and now, for sex workers.