Perhaps you know about Emily Gould’s cover story, “Exposed,” in the New York Times Magazine last May. Even if you didn’t take in all 8,002 words on the former Gawker editor’s gains and losses from blogging about her personal life, it would be hard to miss the criticism of the piece elsewhere. From the Huffington Post to the Philadelphia Weekly to an untold number of blogs and listservs, the backlash challenged the magazine for peddling narcissistic Dear-Diary diatribes as a worthy journalistic cover story.
From the pages of every mainstream women’s magazine—between the list of 43 things every confident woman knows and the six-week ab-blasting plan—the ads beckon. Conditioners enriched with vitamins vow to make each strand 10 times stronger. Undereye concealers containing white-tea antioxidants claim to combat the cellular damage that deepens those oh-so-unsightly dark circles. Pricey foundations promise to rejuvenate the face at the molecular level with the new Pro-Xylane compound, carefully extracted from Eastern European beech trees.
Shortly before the birth of my first child nine years ago, while browsing the bookstore for mommy wisdom, I discovered Anne Lamott’s Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year and fell in love with the author and the book. More than any parenting truisms the book might have contained, it was Lamott’s writing style—funny, self-deprecating, and brutally honest—that kept me reading. The big mommy insight I gleaned from Operating Instructions was that I wasn’t quite as neurotic as Anne, so my kid and I would probably be all right.
Dora the Explorer, eponymous Latina star of the animated Nickelodeon series, is a bilingual problem solver who confidently traverses unknown territory in every episode. In “City of Lost Toys,” a typical episode, Dora sets out to find her missing teddy bear, Osito, and other toys her friends have lost. She’s helped along the way by her sidekick (a monkey named Boots), her trusty map, and a group of magical stars she and Boots catch. The first landmark Dora reaches on her journey is a Mesoamerican-style pyramid where she must complete basic counting and arithmetic problems.
British scientists have uncovered the truth behind one of modern culture’s greatest mysteries: why little girls play with pink toys. Is it because toy companies flood whole store aisles with the color? Or because well-meaning relatives shower girl babies with pink blankets and clothing? Nope. According to the men in lab coats, it’s purely biological.
The New York Times Book Review has never exactly embraced passionate advocacy—unless it was promoting Pynchon’s and DeLillo’s place in the postmodernist canon. Even worse, it has become the place where serious feminist books come to die— or more accurately, to be dismissed with the flick of a well-manicured postfeminist wrist.
BeckyAll names have been changed. has been active in the fat acceptance movement for a good half-dozen years. She attends and organizes awareness-raising events, takes part in her local fat social scene, and fights to end discrimination against fat people with a powerful combination of weary sadness and righteous anger. She wears her weight like well-adorned armor, betraying no sense of regret or shame in her 480-pound body.
Not long ago, homeschooling was thought of as the domain of hippie earth mothers letting their kids “do their own thing” or creationist Christians shielding their kids from monkey science and premarital sex. As recently as 1980, homeschooling was illegal in 30 states. Despite the fact that such figures as Abraham Lincoln, Margaret Atwood, Sandra Day O’Connor, and, um, Jennifer Love Hewitt were products of a home education, the practice is still often seen as strange and even detrimental.
This week's damali ayo lecture has left my head spinning. Bear with me while I try to sort my thoughts, please?
I'd known of damali's work for a few years, but this was the first time I'd seen her perform. As I expected, she's wickedly funny, extremely articulate, exceptionally bright, and undeniably charismatic. In her talk, "Shut up and change: A life as a social change artist," she walked us through her childhood, her art projects and performance pieces, her heroes, the negative and hostile response to her work, her six-year struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome, and her recent decision to "pass on" her anti-racist projects so that she can focus on yoga teacher training.
Bitch: It's a Noun, It's a Verb, It's a Magazine, Now it's a Cabaret!
Saturday, October 4, 2008, 8:00 p.m.
WARPhaus Gallery, 818 NW 1st Ave., Gainesville, Florida
Come enjoy artwork about feminism, sex, sexuality, sexism, gender...
I'm in Gainesville, Florida for a few days and will be facilitating a Feminism In/Action discussion tomorrow night. Sponsored by the University of Florida's Center for Women's Studies & Gender Research and The Friends of Wild Iris Books
:::
Friday, 3 October, 7:00 pm
The Atrium at Ustler Hall, UF Campus
This very kind person offered to host a benefit this Friday at El Rio in San Francisco (thank you!) back when we were in the middle of our fundraising crisis. We're thrilled and incredibly grateful that the event is going on as planned -- because it's ongoing support that's gonna keep Bitch thriving.
Sounds like it's gonna be a great event. Please attend if you can!
In just 25 days, B-Word is not only bringing Judy Chicago out to Portland for our art auction - we are also planning a pretty kick-ass event that isn't your typical auction. We can have all the fantastic entertainment, stellar goodie bags, great local beer and food, and the best host{ess} around, but in order to raise the dollars we need to support Bitch, we need ART!!!
Since another PETA ad campaign is making the rounds in the blogosphere -- this one persuading Ben and Jerry's to use breast milk instead of cows' milk (Breast is best!) -- I wanted to offer a little bit here and send people over to a post that captures some of what's on my mind. Namely, the all-too-common refusal of non-veg*n feminists to even engage with the legitimate animal cruelty issues raised by organizations like PETA, and, as another example, the recent Skinny Bitch book series.
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