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

Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

Jill

Post a short description of something you’ve written this week, along with a link. Make it specific; don’t link to your whole blog. Self-promote away!

67 thoughts on Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday

  3. This week, I reviewed The Purity Myth and also had some thoughts about Freud’s Five Lectures in Psycho-analysis, which I read for a graduate course in intellectual history.

    I commented on Courtney Martin’s The End of the Women’s Movement and my housemate Hanna had a smackdown for historian David Starkey, who complained that women historians have ruined history.

    I also gathered a few recent links on women’s bodies and the cultural policing thereof that I feel deserve some attention.

  5. Three recent posts:

    A planned screening of a porn movie on a Maryland campus has moviemakers, state legislators, and student government candidates jockeying for the spotlight.

    Students at a Minnesota college protest a Soulja Boy concert because of sexual violence in his lyrics.

    And a recap of responses to Kyle Payne’s return to blogging after he spent six months in jail for sexually assaulting an intoxicated student under his care when he was an RA.

  11. Milk Skimmed: Dr. Tomás Almaguer Speaks About The Roles Of Men Of Color In The Biopic Milk : Looking at the racist treatment of MOC in the movie Milk

    Michelle Obama Reborn: Why the continual comparison of MO to Lady Di and Jackie O is wrong.

    Dickiest Of The World Unite: Why we need to stop shaming women for having sex.

    Too Hard On The White Folk: Looking at why calling someone a reverse racist is ridiculous and why it is important to challenge racism no matter who does it.

  12. We were away for part of the week attending the WAM! conference and exploring Boston, so we scheduled a couple of posts while we were going through internet withdrawal – a look at what happens when good toys go bad, a Women’s History Month roundup, and a “breaking news” update for April 1st.

    As soon as we got home, we had to share the story of a group of our fellow members of the International Women’s Writing Guild finishing a book for a dying friend.

    And then, of course, the tale of our Boston trip, complete with lots of WAM! shoutouts, links, goofy pictures, bad TV reviews, and random details. And dessert.

  16. I’m in the middle of looking at the representations of disabled bodies in logos for disability organisations, and at which groups are excluded from those representations.

    And Girls Read Comics (not my blog, but I like it!) has noticed that Marvel’s idea of marketing merchandise to “females” consists largely of tee-shirts with “I {heart} BOYS THAT ROCK” on them, lip gloss, and heart-shaped necklaces. The company’s prime consideration?

    ““Since our core customer has always been guys, we need to be very careful when we introduce female product so that we don’t alienate our core,” said Paul Gitter, president of consumer products, North America, for Marvel Entertainment Inc.”

  19. It’s not really a blog post — but I did release an upgrade to my Recipe Sharing Database this week.

    If you’ve already got a copy of it, Here are the upgrade instructions. If you don’t have it already and you like cooking at all, you might consider checking it out. It’s been a project of mine for the last few years. Totally free, no spying/selling your information or anything like that.

    Hm… Preview is a little funky. I hope this posts ok.

  31. I’ve been trying to articulate why I think consent is necessary but not sufficient for equality of power in hetero-templated sexual relationships. It just feels as though by focusing on consent as a result… a response to *someone else’s* request… we take the emphasis, and the agency, away from consent as an *active decision.* There’s also the cultural assumptions that women’s decisions about sex exist only inside the scope of men’s desire for it.

    So far it’s
    – The No-Sex Class and Consent: Whether, Wherefore, Yes, But What About When?
    – More About Decisions and Consent
    – Consent vs. Deciding: Getting vs. Making</a.

    It’s all early days and it’s still a big mess and yes, I’m going to get Yes Means Yes this afternoon and start reading it. But I’m pretty sure there really is a pony in there somewhere so I want to keep digging.

    figleaf

  34. At Yes Means Yes Blog, I was inspired by an Onion piece about reticence with talking about female genitals, that Jill picked up on, and by conversations with other parents, to say something about naming body parts what they are in Wipe Your Shame-Cave, Honey. It got picked up by Stumbleupon, and is now one of our most-read posts. The post links to one of my early posts, about parenting and how to teach responsible sexuality to teens, titled What To Tell The Next Generation.

    Before that, I wrote about the growing and monstrous practice of charging young women with child porn offenses for circulating digital photos of themselves in It Became Necessary To Destroy The Town To Save It. This piece heavily links Harper Jean Tobin’s writing on the same subject at Polymorphous Perversity, and in dialog with her over on the Feministing Community (where I cross-posted), I tapped out an exemption to the federal child porn statute that would go a long way to fixing the problem. She ran it on her blog, so I put it up on mine as well.

  36. “Political correctness” isn’t the new censorship, but is it the new ettiquette?

    Sometimes, the most democratic thing to do is is to exclude people.

    Traditional political theory (specifically, the public/private distinction, and social contract theory) is political theory by the privileged, for the privileged, and of the privileged.

    After the clashes in central london last week, I wrote some posts on different perspectives on police tactics.

  38. I spent half my week moving to WordPress so I could start blocking a really nasty anti-feminist commenter who’d latched onto me. (I guess he didn’t hear that Feministe was giving prizes for the most outstanding troll?) So my blog, Kittywampus, has a new address.

    My favorite post of the week was a meditation on love as an act of inference (to quote novelist Emily Listfield). I also wrote on how it’s antiquated gender attitudes in religion – much more than liberal education – that are alienating young people from the faith of their childhood.

  39. KCA fashion sexism: http://filthygrandeur.blogspot.com/2009/03/kca-fashion-grades-sexism-even-on-red.html
    cats are affected by body image, too: http://filthygrandeur.blogspot.com/2009/04/issues-with-body-image-not-just-human.html
    part two of gender and sexuality in mieville’s Iron Council: http://filthygrandeur.blogspot.com/2009/04/gender-and-sexuality-identity-and.html
    a short story about my grandfather: http://filthygrandeur.blogspot.com/2009/04/poppa-and-sidewinder.html
    and a sonnet i wrote to my fiance’s dick: http://filthygrandeur.blogspot.com/2009/04/there-never-was-member-so-defined.html

  42. On racism and misogyny in So You Think You Can Dance (focussing on the Australian version).

    Say, we haven’t filled our daily quota of dehumanisation! Let’s go do that then. is on a transphobic article about a generally oppressive TV show, Ladette to Lady.

    I posted a round-up of my favourite posts from around the feminist blogosphere in March.

    Lastly, I posted a Call for Submissions for the 12th Down Under Feminists Carnival. It’s in May, covering blog posts from April. If you’re writing or reading anything good from Australian or New Zealand feminists, submit away! Thanks everyone.

  44. Promoting Little Light:

    I used to dangle my feet over a clifftop, rolled-up jacket for a pillow, and make sketches of every growing thing. I knew what time of year the dragonflies would have their highspeed aerial junctioned relations. Sitting up on my parents’ roof in the snow, I’d watch the first melt sigh and plop off the branches. I’d shoo the deer from the summer garden, see if the coyote’d come by, and head down the road to town, singing.

    They hurt me, and I ran, and I can never go back. But I can’t honestly say there’s nothing for me there.

  46. Talked about transwoman Avon Wilson, the first transgender patient at the now closed Johns Hopkins Gender Program

    http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/04/musing-about-avon-wilsons-blended-life.html

    Also have a post going up tomorrow on TransGriot commemorating the 100th anniversary of Matthew Henson being the first man at the North Pole and commented on the 41st Anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s assassination in Memphis

    http://transgriot.blogspot.com/2009/04/dr-king-assassination-41-years-later.html

  49. Gaby of Hopeless Handmade Lingerie specialises in high end lingerie and sleepwear, handcrafted from silk, organic cotton and the softest bamboo jersey, with exquisite detailing and vintage flair. Her mission is to provide garments that empower the wearer and celebrate the female form. http://suchcoolstuff.blogspot.com/2009/04/hopeless-handmade-lingerie.html

    Women’s History: Abigail Powers Fillmore http://suchcoolstuff.blogspot.com/2009/03/womens-history-abigail-powers-fillmore.html

    clever nettle’s estate sale is a curated vintage shop selling mostly clothing, shoes, accessories- all things wearable! Looks inspired by the seasons, fancy runway clothing and classic vintage. http://suchcoolstuff.blogspot.com/2009/03/clever-nettles-estate-sale.html

  50. This week’s posts include:

    Why doesn’t she leave? A response to the recent murder-suicide in Pierce County, and what people really ought to be asking instead.

    Cops Arrest Rape Victim Yet Face No Penalty about yet another story that illustrates why rape is an underreported crime.

    G-20 and Gender: Time Magazine’s Problematic Portrayal of Michelle Obama: sure it’s great that she could pull off that cardigan, but there’s a lot more to her than the US media cares to talk about.

    Dividing Students, Rich from Poor: on the use of ability to pay in college admissions

    and a review of Dollhouse: Needs

  57. I chatted about Green Day’s American Idiot being turned into a musical.

    Posted some great pictures of our favorite Dr. Horrible stars from the Streamys (as well as who won what).

    I spread the word about a recent panel a Professor of mine worked on in San Francisco about the movie “Milk” called Milk Skimmed.

    I also shared a story I read about what I’m calling “Jihad emeralds”, which are basically blood diamonds except their emeralds and they’re funding terrorist organizations.

    And I also shilled for a friend on a project she’s working on to raise awareness about child soldiers.

  61. Feminist Reviews this week…

    Breaking Poems by Suheir Hammad: Hammad embraces life at the border, refusing to translate her identity to fit a bounded-identity construct of what it means to be Palestinian or American…Exploring the theme that wars are fought on women’s bodies, Hammad writes, “in gaza still flesh is ashed/wa smoked wa denied/a women’s chest caves in/smoke escapes legs.” (Wa means “and” in Arabic). In fact, the violence in Gaza is a constant topic in her poetry, summoning us to act and react as she evokes images of exploded bodies, rubble in place of homes, and empty stomachs.

    Slumdog Millionaire (or I Want to Sue the Indian Government: Memories of Gods, Lovers, and Slumdogs): As a little girl growing up in Iran, and like millions of others living in Eastern countries, I loved Bollywood movies. They were all colour and glamour and rosy pictures of India, that heaven on earth; the country of love and flowers…We all wanted to steal the heart of the main actor, Amitabh Bachchan. I would have done anything (and I mean anything) to get his attention if he ever showed up in my neighbourhood in Tehran! In that way, I was just like little Jamal in Slumdog Millionaire.

    Natalie Tran/CommunityChannel: The reigning queen of Australian YouTubers, she is a young, fresh-faced woman with self-deprecating humor who picks on the mundane snags of life that often get under our skin. It’s a Seinfeld approach to humor, except this channel features a smart-mouth Vietnamese woman who begins each video with a quirky wave and smile.

    Supergirls Speak Out: Reading the stories inside is one warning shot after another to parents, teachers, and others in our society who keep telling our kids—girls and boys—that if you don’t do well in elementary school, you can’t get into the top high school and then you might as well start picking out safe schools for college.

  63. Follow-up post re: Steve Harvey’s misogynist rant “Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man” in which we explore the concept of buying the cow vs. getting the milk for free, attempt to decipher confusing cookie/vagina metaphors, I get called a whore in comments and somebody takes a Blingee entirely too seriously:

    The Cow is Not for Sale

    Enjoy!

  64. Wow, I am post 8^2. Sorry, I was busy yesterday!

    This past week has been mostly non-completely-original material, a lot of replies-turned-posts and links and the like. But fun rants and interesting stuff nonetheless.

    I was one of many fans of the Onion’s Hoo-ha doctor article.

    Then, three replies-turned posts. One on these mythical breastfeeding bullies I read so much about in comments sections, one on insurance companies not covering maternity, and one on the BS outrage over contraception coverage in the stimulus plan, revisited.

  65. I quoted a poem about the burdens of gender expectations on both males and females.

    There are millions of possible genders; according to one source, there are 2.8363Ă—10278 or 283 unnovemgintillion possible combinations of gender terms, and that’s only including English words.

    I’ve also been wondering how to get people to rethink their own gender, so they can understand why some of us identify as something more complex than just “man” or “woman.”

    And, on a more personal note, why I can’t be a girl.

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