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Friday Favorites

Jill

So many things to favorite this week! You already know I loved Clinton’s DNC speech, but I love it even more after seeing this comparison between his speech as written and his speech as spoken. Dude can speak like a motherfucker. His speech was my favorite of the whole week.

But he wasn’t my favorite convention goer — this lady was. Thanks to Feministe friend @nczeitgeist for tracking down that photo. I can see my future in that woman’s face, and it is glorious.

Favorite dessert: Pie (way better than cake). Almost as good as pie? Pie charts. Specifically Ann Friedman’s pie charts.

Favorite book this week: Jessica Valenti’s new one, Why Have Kids? I’m reading it now and it is awesome. Pick up a copy.

And speaking of feminists, this has been an excellent week for ladyfriends. A women in tech group I’m a part of is doing a fitness challenge between now and election day to keep us all active and taking care of ourselves. I got to hang with some of my favorite feminist writers last night, and also met new amazing women who are doing awesome work. My mom has been sending me hilarious/insightful texts throughout the whole DNC, focusing particularly on Michelle Obama and the other fantastic female speakers. And my group of Core Ladies (not bloggers but long-term real-life friends) just planned a long weekend trip to Napa / SF in October to celebrate two of the ladies’ 30th birthdays. Feeling extra lucky to have so many layers of awesome female friendships and relationships in my life. Lady-friends are always a favorite, but they are particularly favorited this week.

One of my favorite organizations, Brooklyn Animal Action, is having a fundraiser on Monday. I will be going, and I have already publicized it here so please forgive me for doing it again, but I suspect it will be my favorite event of next week. So you should come! Or donate!

I was in DC last weekend and we drove out to Virginia to spend the day at Luckett’s, one of the most amazing antique places I have ever been. I got some neat things. It made me want a whole house just so I could furnish it. It is my favorite place on earth (or at least in Virginia). It is some intense Old Lady Things, and I love it.

You? Favorites this lovely Friday?

41 thoughts on Friday Favorites

  3. I am going to definitely check “Why Have Kids?” out. I think it is exactly what I need now because that I am married and child-free and loving it but I am very intrigued by the “mommy wars.”

    As for Luckett’s – awesome place! We love driving around and antiquing/wine-tasting in that area. I am glad you enjoyed it!

  4. I just read an interview with one of my favorite people, who is discussing the short film she’s making — in which she will be juxtaposing her years in the phone sex industry with blood and gore. Or, as she puts it, exploring “power dynamics in the service industry (specifically, but hardly exclusively the phone sex industry) through horror tropes.” She’s also raising money for her film through Kickstarter, which I’ve donated to. Please check it out! I really want to see this film get made.

    I also loved this interview with a candidate for state representative in rural Arizona. I almost wish I could move to that district so I could vote for him. It’s not often that you see men make personal connections to issues like domestic violence, and I found much of what he had to say to be quite powerful.

    2. Okay, that guide Wins the Internet as far as I’m concerned for taking the ciscentric questions “why are some people trans” and “why are some people genderqueer” and turning them into “why are there so many cis and binary-identified people?”

      This is not just a good exercise for cis- and binary-identified folks in examining our privilege, but an honestly good question in and of itself — how and when in the evolution of sexual dimorphism did gender identity come to be? Is it older than our species, or did it arise as a consequence of our bigass brains?

      (Sadly, I don’t think this is one we’ll see answered any time soon, especially with so many evo psych folks hanging out in MRA-apologia-land.)

    1. I love Melissa Harris Perry. Love her.

      That piece was really good, but watching MHP bring it to that conservative lady was both painful and amazing to watch. Good on her for doing that.

    1. Hooray for baby rats, and the wonderful, affectionate adults they become. 🙂 My two girls are all grown up now, and it’s been so much fun to watch them learn and experience the world.

  13. I think Not Your Mom’s Trans 101 is an awesome 101 article. It clears up a lot of misconceptions concerning trans people.

    I think it does (I don’t really know, and for every trans theorist there is surely another who disagrees) but I have some pretty severe criticisms of it. I kind of want to ask Natalie Reed about it. I have always, for example, been suspicious of the ‘Exception that renders the norm meaningless’ trope, which this article has in spades. However, It is definitely a pretty good article.

    1. I think it does (I don’t really know, and for every trans theorist there is surely another who disagrees) but I have some pretty severe criticisms of it. I kind of want to ask Natalie Reed about it.

      What are those criticisms? As far as I can tell, at the very least, it seems to consist of things many trans people agree on, and it’s certainly not transphobic. So I’m curious about your problems with the article.

      I have always, for example, been suspicious of the ‘Exception that renders the norm meaningless’ trope, which this article has in spades. However, It is definitely a pretty good article.

      I don’t think the author is saying that the norm is meaningless, but rather that sex is a lot more fluid than most people believe. And that’s a scientific fact as far as I know.

    2. I have some pretty severe criticisms of it.

      It’s pointless for you to refer to your “severe criticisms” without explaining what they are.

      Also, please don’t act as if Natalie Reed, as admirable as her writing may be, is some sort of generally-accepted authority on what is and isn’t “OK” on trans issues. There’s no Pope of trans people.

      I certainly have no significant problems with it; it’s a lot better than most Trans 101 summaries. And I’d like to think I know something about the subject myself!

  15. My favourite thing was somethin’ the f collective pulled off in Oz. I’m so proud of us, it’s nice to think “what was my favourite feminist thing this week?” and have the answer be something I was part of. I wrote this piece about it: http://fcollective.wordpress.com/2012/09/03/occupied-the-nsw-right-to-life-conference/

    And it got reported in the news here: http://www.smh.com.au/national/health/feminist-forces-antiabortion-advocate-into-softshoe-shuffle-20120905-25dpd.html

  16. It’s not remotely feminist, but my favorite thing this week is the Poetic License sale. Poetic License is a British co., and they make what have decided are fascinators for the feet. I have my eye on this black and white pair w. a low heel:
    http://www.musthaveshoes.com/mhs/products?q=poetic+licence&pageSize=48&page=2&shoe=dear-diary-black

    And my other eye is on this tiger print flat: http://www.musthaveshoes.com/mhs/products?q=poetic+licence&pageSize=48&page=4&shoe=turkish-delight-beige

    PL has some killer booties, too, but booties are not friends of my feet.

  20. Brad Wardell. Because you think MRAs are bad.

    10 New MRAs are created each time Brad Wardell opens his mouth because God didn’t intend for one person to be that “libertarian.”

    When his female employee told him he needed to stop harassing her he told her that her job existed to serve his interests and desires as CEO and primary shareholder of the company. If she didn’t like the way he behaved she could find a new job.

    So she sued him in court. They asked him if he said that and he said yes. The mediator or w/e didn’t believe he could be serious and they asked him did you really mean exactly that? Basically begging him to take it back. Did he try to spin it, make it seem like that’s not what he meant? No, not Brad Wardell.

    Fuck that sworn testimony crap, he isn’t afraid. He is a proud sexist, assholish libertarian and he will do what he damn well pleases. If the government won’t let him run the company the way he likes he will damn well shut it down and tell them to suck it.

    And god dammit if he wanted to walk around naked at the office during work hours he should be damn well be able to because its his company.

    And the best part is, if he had just settled instead of filing a million dollar lawsuit based on totally made up allegations that she deleted some marketing material for his game which would have been a craptastic failure anyways, no one in the game journal establishment would ever have known what a douchebag he is.

    Now its all over the god damn web and even QTT and Something Awful think he is an idiot. I mean, if you are so terrible that Something awful has a 40 page thread about how much of a misogynist douchebag you are, you really shit on yourself.

    This forum is the origin of Goonswarm.This is where The Mittani was spawned. And even they can’t side with Brad.

    Paul Ryan has NOTHING on Brad Wardell.

    He is going to lose somewhere in the millions in this lawsuit and his company is probably going to close down.

    Seriously, he didn’t deny one little bit of the allegations. He just said that that’s the way he runs his company and the world can just suck it.

  22. I know its Monday, but given the importance of this announcement to the Feministe community, I thought I’d share it anyway…

    There are Cadbury Cream Eggs are available for Halloween!

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