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

Tag: Women We Love

Living In Human Scale

As a resident of a neighborhood chopped up and made far less functional by Robert Moses, I read with great interest the obituary of Jane Jacobs, author of “The Death and Life of Great American Cities,” a 1961 book in which she argued, contrary to the dominant, automobile-centered (thanks, Robert Moses!) ethos of urban planning at the time, that what made cities great were their people, and their people should be encouraged to mix with one another in dense, pedestrian-based urban centers.

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“Sexist, Egotistical, Lying, Hypocritical Bigot Edition”

“9 to 5” is finally coming out on DVD!

Years after being fired for refusing to sleep with her boss, Jane Fonda — empathizing with harassed women everywhere — developed a popular 1980 film called 9 to 5, about sexism in the workplace.

The comedy arrives on DVD Tuesday (Fox, $20) in what is being marketed as the “Sexist, Egotistical, Lying, Hypocritical Bigot Edition,” with commentary from stars Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton.

Calling from her Atlanta home before catching a plane to L.A., thrice-married Fonda, 68, chuckles when asked whether she has experienced sexism since making the film. “You’ve got to be kidding,” she says, aghast. Sexism, she says, is something she has experienced in “my marriages. Maybe that’s why I’m not married anymore.”

And this is why we love La Parton:

Mishearing a question about unwanted sexist encounters, Parton says, “I’ve only had sexual encounters that I’ve wanted. But not as many as I’d like,” then laughs when the question is clarified.

After all, Parton went right from 9 to 5 to shooting The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, “and I made a better whore than I did a secretary.”

Parton, who says she grew up in a family of sexist men, often jokes about her rarely seen real-life husband, Carl Dean, but she turns uncharacteristically sentimental when asked if he is a sexist. “In all seriousness, I have a very fine husband — a true gentleman who respects women,” says Parton.

What pisses me off about this article is that there is way more attention paid to the stars’ relationships and marriages than to their accomplishments. After all, 9 to 5 was a movie about women in the workplace, and you can’t tell me that even these three haven’t experienced sexism since the film came out.

Take That, South Dakota

Via Her Twistiness, the president of the Oglala Sioux on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota throws down the gauntlet:

The President of the Oglala Sioux Tribe on the Pine Ridge Reservation, Cecilia Fire Thunder, was incensed. A former nurse and healthcare giver she was very angry that a state body made up mostly of white males, would make such a stupid law against women.

“To me, it is now a question of sovereignty,” she said to me last week. “I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction.”

Octavia Butler Dies at 58

Truly tragic.

She was one of the first and most prominent African American science fiction writers.

“She is a world-class science fiction writer in her own right,” Jewell said. “She was one of the first and one of the best to discuss gender and race in science fiction.”

Butler described herself as a happy hermit, and never married. Though she could be very private, Bear said, she had taken classes to improve her public speaking and in recent years seemed more outgoing.

“Mostly she just loved sitting down and writing,” he said. “For being a black female growing up in Los Angeles in the ’60s, she was attracted to science fiction for the same reasons I was: It liberated her. She had a far-ranging imagination, and she was a treasure in our community.”

A Very Special Birthday

Today, our dear leader and founder Ms. Lauren celebrates her birthday. I think she hates birthdays, but I’m pretty sure she likes presents. Just sayin’.

Wish her a good one in the comments.

The Rights of the Born

I have nothing more to add to this fantastic editorial. Read the whole thing:

Everything was going swimmingly on the panel. The subject was politics and faith, and I was on stage with two clergymen with progressive spiritual leanings, and a moderator who is liberal and Catholic. We were having a discussion with the audience of 1,300 people in Washington about many of the social justice topics on which we agree — the immorality of the federal budget, the wrongness of the president’s war in Iraq. Then an older man came to the mike and raised the issue of abortion, and everyone just lost his or her mind.

Or, at any rate, I did.

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Remembering Coretta Scott King

How do we remember one of the greatest civil rights activists of our time? By paying lip service to her “dignity” or her “faith”? Or by using her passing as an opportunity to advocate for those same the things she did?

Some conservatives are shamefully attacking liberals for not knowing “how to act at a funeral,” because a select few Democrats actually bothered to address political issues in their speeches about a political figure’s life and legacy. Here’s the deal: People who dedicate their lives to social justice probably want that mentioned, and not in vague terms. Lord knows I will never do as much in my life as Coretta Scott King did in hers — not even close — but if I achieve 1/100th of what she did, it had damn well be talked about at my funeral. And if my funeral is a place where people are actually paying attention to what’s being said, someone had damn well better say what I would have wanted the world to think about. Activists value action. It is not only appropriate but absolutely necessary that King’s funeral served as a platform to get the word out about the goals she spent her entire life working to achieve. In death, her ideals were given a wider audience than they had been offered at just about any single point in her life. Those who knew her, and who understood the legacy she truly did leave, said what they believe she would have. That is how you do someone honor, not by throwing a few laudatory adjectives their way.

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