Shameless Self-Promotion Sunday June 1, 2008 Jill You know the drill: Post a link to something you’ve written, along with a short description.
We’re launching Galavanting, a new online women’s travel magazine this July! A Call for Submissions has just gone out and all women are welcome to submit an essay or travel tip. Ladies, this is the time to bust out your best advice, latest adventures, or your most embarrassing travel moment. Essays including a feminist perspective and the status of women in any given destination will be given preference. Check out the Call for Submissions here. PS: we’re having serious Internet Explorer viewing issues on our homepage, so those who haven’t yet switched to firefox won’t see it properly (we’re working on it, will be fixed before the launch!).
IN Why Feminism is a Necessity, I respond to a post from a woman that declares that feminism is about taking advantage of men, thus creating special privileges for women. Stuck in The Middle, delves into the unique role black women are in vis a vis racism and sexism Lesbian denied artificial Insemination, explores the case of how religion can be used to justify bigotry
I don’t usually get personal but this week i shared a personal story, more of a journey/process, of how i came to love my body. Feel free to leave your experiences in the comment section 🙂
This isn’t quite “self” as it was written by my co-blogger, but over at Active Voice, Jess posted a review of the YA novel Twilight,examing what she sees as an abusive relationship but the book presents as romantic. This is followed by the question, what responsibilities do writers have when presenting messages to young readers?
I wrote about Rebecca Walker’s article about her family troubles and feminism. I also wrote a brief discussion on Sex and the City. And a little about engagement rings.
the wiscon thing and hatred/fear of disability, as i don’t think the wiscon blowup has been addressed nearly enough in the feminist blogosphere (yet).
I express my feelings over my body and its place in this culture, Express excitement over Beyond Good and Evil 2, a video game with a very strong WOC protaganist, Express dismay over the 4chan party van style of humor and how it relates to serious sites on the internet, and talk about overall sexism in the world of Warhammer 40k, a very popular table top RPG and video game series that is getting a MMORPG made soon.
I’m writing about games/pop culture too – and why graphic violence in videogames can be a positive thing.
Workplace reactions to L. Timmel DuChamp’s excellent WisCon 32 Guest of Honor speech. On being a feminist ally rather than an unconscious cog in the patriarchy’s machine.
I haven’t been writing much of interest lately, but I did think a little about how the idea that what’s unpleasant is good for you and what’s pleasurable is bad for you affects ideas about food and sex.
Been reading for a while but I don’t post often. I love what you guys here do. Anyhoo, I wrote two somethings about “benevolent” or “reverse” racism: what it is, what it isn’t, and why it’s nothing like real racism and sexism. Here, and here. Thanks for this!
In Safe Space and Competition I wrote about the male side of “male privilege” in conversations with women, and how it’s not the whole story (although I accept that to some degree or another, depending on the male in question, it is part of the story). In Learning in the Wings I took a metaphor from American football, to find another way of explaining why men entering feminist spaces might want to keep their mouths shut and their ears open a bit more. Also, because I’m an Aaron Rodgers admirer, so I wanted an excuse to wish him luck in training and the coming season! In “Not for Sale” doesn’t help I looked at an anti-prostitution video, and then drew on some other sources to point out why supporters of sex workers may take different routes to reach the same end-point of ending violence against women. I also compared the concepts of Judgement and Condemnation and how judgement can be a good thing, but condemnation is much less so. I also mention how the distinction is important in kink relationships, and throw in a bit of religion for good measure! Finally, since Renee @ 2 has posted her “Why Feminism is a Necessity”, I’ll point to my response to that article of hers, which was a list of posts I’ve made over the last year that directly prove that feminism has a long way to go yet before women have “equality”.
Hi — What synchronicity to happen onto this today. A couple of weeks ago I launched my own feminist blog, and would love to have some folks come on over and say — well, whatever they want to say. One of my recent posts is: How Misogyny Works – One Glaring Example which is a small discussion about Clinton’s RFK assassination remarks, but do look around at others. See you there Thanks!
Eulogy for a wonderful woman I loved More single-sex public education bullshit being propagated locally Bush gave the commencement speech at Furman University, yesterday.
I write about the homage Tate Modern did for Nan Goldin, presenting a slideshow of The Ballad of Sexual Dependency with live music by Patrick Wolf, and how much I wish I was there. Then, as a challenge against the WisCon gate, and as part of a project suggested by Rachel from the F-Word, pictures of me as a fattie with a head. The reasons why I don’t like any of the contenders for the Presidency of USA, but Hillary doesn’t deserve what the media is doing to her. And the video you posted some days ago.
Paid tribute to Michelle Obama Linked to an essay by Roger Ebert on one of the coolest movies of the 20th century, My Man Godfrey. Tried, possibly in vain, to have some fun with photos of women and captions for same.
PhysioProf posts on not misunderestimating the effectiveness of the right-wing at moving forward their depraved neo-feudal agenda.
I didn’t get a chance to post this last Sunday so here it is a little late: I did a post frustrated about the lack of women’s privacy in public, using several different examples, but was prompted by the recent ruling in Florida preventing convictions based on “Peeping Tom” laws for women in public (ie looking under skirts in a public place), just like the Oklahoma ruling a few months back.
Fired off about Sex and the City and the Teenaged Girl Considering taking on the NYT Magazine piece on Tyra, but still collecting my thoughts on it…
What I learned in Disney World about sexism, racism, and other things. I decided to take part in putting heads back on fatties. I analyzed the Disney Princesses and Heroines. And finally, my Sunday Night Question: what is something you’ve done since becoming a feminist that you regret.
1. I’ve written a bunch of posts about why Jim Webb sucks as a vice presidential candidate for the Democrats. The main reason he’d be an awful choice is that he has a horrible record on gender, but there are also other good reasons why Obama shouldn’t shouldn’t choose him. Here the posts: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/05/ixnay_on_the_ebbway.php http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/more-on-jim-web.html http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/05/veepstakes-redu.html 2. I write about “the book that turned me into a dirty fucking hippie” (i.e., peacenik) here: http://thegspot.typepad.com/blog/2008/06/the-book-that-t.html Said book is Testament of Youth, the searing memoir about World War I by Vera Brittain. Brittain, an English feminist and peace activist, and also one of the first women educated at Oxford, lost her fiance and several other men she was close to in that conflict. She also worked as a volunteer nurse at the front and was an eyewitness to many of the horrors of war, which she documents in her memoir. It’s great literature, a great work about women’s experiences, and the most powerful antiwar document I know. I highly recommend it!
Modern Mitzvot: Social Justice Through a Jewish Lens A new progressive Jewish blog about… well, I guess that’s obvious. This week we’ve covered: antisemitism in the media and Christian comics the oppression of narrow roles Rachel Ray’s not-a-keffiyeh Palestinian nonviolent resistance Rachel Moss The (shudder) Zohan and much more. Also, we’re still looking for co-bloggers.
I just finished writing a post about a band that came up on shuffle on my iPod – Nickelback – and how many of their songs contain lyrics that are rather misogynist and I can’t take their more meaningful songs seriously because of it. Tomorrow is my last day of school so I’ll be back to posting much more regularly.
I wrote about Roller Derby, and the questions about dress and style that it brings up. I also wrote about María Isabel Vásquez Jiménez, a Mexican girl who died while working in the fields of CA while pregnant. Her death, I feel, is a tragedy that points to countless others and has raise a debate between the US and Mexican governments.
i wrote this over a month ago but i keep hearing people i know, love and respect talking about how much they love America’s Next Top Model… America’s Next Top Model Shame is a plea to get people to stop watching the show and contributing to the bad self-esteem of the women who are influenced by it.
I wrote about why Andrea Dworkin is important to my life as a 22-year-old Australian feminist, and why I think she gets an undeserved bad rap. Please read, I’m new to this whole blogosphere, and need a bit of encouragement! 🙂
As long as it’s shameless self-promotion, I’ll add that I just put up a post entitled Your Racism Makes You Anxious? Awww, Poor Baby!, about the one of the world’s stupidest conversations about race… as brought to us by NPR.
I think my comment got lost in the mod queue, so I apologize if this shows up twice: Modern Mitzvot: Social Justice through a Jewish Lens This is a new blog focusing on antisemitism, Palestinian rights, and other social justice issues. So far, we’ve covered: Rachel Moss The limits of Palestinian nonviolent resistance Antisemitism in the media and Christian comics Rachel Ray’s not-a-keffiyeh The oppression of narrow roles and a lot more. We’re still looking for co-bloggers, too.
A first-hand account by a member of the dyke-led rally culminating in the largest ever lesbian/gay riot in history at The White Night Riot, 21 May 1979, and Lesbians Against Police Violence (also promoted by Group News Blog, The Raw Story, and The Edge of the American West) A short essay on looksism and where overcoming it can lead you at Looks A long short story, based on memoir, about girl children bonding together to fight against girl oppression, abuse, classism, and racism in 1964, at Scarlet Ribbons
i blogged about Mexican officials trying to oust gay bars at http://queersunited.blogspot.com/2008/06/guadalajara-officials-want-to-oust-gay.html and intersex people the missing vagina monologue http://queersunited.blogspot.com/2008/05/intersex-people-missing-vagina.html
I FINALLY wrote the post I’ve been meaning to write about gynaecology. And, while I wrote this last week or the week before, since everyone else is talking about making peace with their bodies, I thought I would join in.
I discussed the phenomena of Impatient White Men as well as my troubled relationship with loving Spike from BtVS.
I found an incredibly misogynist site promoting an incredibly misogynist book written by a woman. I took it apart bit by bit, had a good bit of fun with that and sprinkled with plenty of sarcasm.
On the SATC movie and feminism and class and a couple posts about artists and royalties and copyrights in Web 2.0 mediums:
THE CONSENT PROJECT: Call for submissions http://www.flaneuse.de/consent.htm I am planning a book which looks at “grey areas of consent” – sexual situations which are mostly consensual, but in which consent isn’t given as freely as it might be. I’d like people to tell me about a time when they were in a situation of dubious consent, either way around. Follow the link if you’re interested in helping, and do please feel free to spread it around. Thanks very much!
On anti-immigrant sentiment in the gay community and why solidarity between immigrants and queers is crucial. This blog is mostly commentary on race and queer issues, but also contains some humorous and personal content.
GT 2008-05-16: Women and the Invisible Fist, in which I try to offer a close reading and sympathetic reconstruction of Susan Brownmiller’s “Myrmidon theory” of stranger-rape (as presented in Against Our Will, and as against the crude but common misrepresentation of her views as some kind of conspiracy theory rather than the radical analysis of sex-class that they are), consider how the specific case illustrates important nuances that need to be incorporated into libertarian and anarchist theories of spontaneous order, and argue that considering the Myrmidon theory and the (nuanced version of the) concept of spontaneous order in light of each other helps illustrate how key parts of radical feminist and anarchist analysis can benefit from and enrich each other’s understanding of social and political power. GT 2008-05-20: Cops are here to protect you. (#5), in which Officer Christopher Damonte, 250 pound hired thug for the city of San Francisco, keeps public order by screaming at a couple of “suspect” women, who may have been guilty of being drunk in public and perhaps also intent to commit jaywalking in the first degree, and then, when one of them — Kelly Medora, a 118 pound preschool teacher — had the temerity to ask for his name and suggest that his conduct might be out of line, proceeds to call in his posse, arrests her, and wrenches her arm behind her back, breaking one of her bones “with an audible crack.” The city’s lawyer says that “Damonte used an approved method of holding her arm, but she struggled. Then ‘in an effort to escape,’ she squatted down and ‘broke her own arm.'” The city government decided to pay out a settlement of $235,000 to Medora, while Damonte faces, at worst, “potential” administrative discipline from fellow cops — meaning that this violent, domineering control freak of a man will never face any legal consequences for this heinous assault and battery, except possibly a verbal reprimand, a forced vacation from work, or at the very worst losing his job — while a bunch of innocent San Francisco taxpayers, who had nothing to do with it, will get sent the bill for his violent rages. GT 2008-05-14: Voyage of the S. S. St. Louis, in which I consider the ways in which anti-immigrant border laws condemn innocent people to misery, mutilation or death, in the name of segregating world population by nationality or in the name of an illusory need for control. Particularly when the victims of violence are women and when (therefore) the abuse and terror inflicted on them is categorized as a “personal” or “cultural” but not a “political” problem by the malestream opinions of a bureaucracy legally entitled to pick and choose who does and who does not count as Officially Persecuted for the purposes of the United States federal government.
POPLINE Problem Not Entirely Resolved – Why I’m not completely satisfied with the resolution of the previously blocked abortion searches in the POPLINE reproductive health database, with my letter to the relevant database personnel (which has received no response).
If you’re in California, there’s a second primary tomorrow, and it’s a good idea to vote against Proposition 98 if you want rent control to still be legal.
It’s not Sunday, but I still want to shamelessly self-promote. From Open Left, two posts by Paul Rosenberg, Four Facets for your Consideration, and a follow-up. Both feature for discussion comments by me on the issue of Hillary supporters and the rise of sexism in our culture (he also features other women with some very interesting perspectives). I’m posting under the name jeffroby (the hubby) because their site has made it a little tricky for one computer to handle two accounts, but it’s clear that they were written by me. PS. Never tried this link thingy you have here – hope this works.
This isn’t really the right place for it (it’s not something I wrote) but I thought it would be something you’d all be interested in: Leila Hussein has been murdered.
my reaction to Admiral Mike Mullen’s Open Letter to All Hands. and i write letters, too. this one to McCain. and i did a bunch of fun stuff, too.
Something I actually wrote to promote my friend Gary’s newest project, a web ring for authors and readers of fiction to come together. Please visit and take part if you’re a writer of fiction or are interested in seeing new talent.
I posted a review (May 17) of the recently published book,A Church of Her Own: What Happens When A Woman Takes the Pulpit by Sarah Sentilles.