Dear Gloria Steinem,

Happy 75th Birthday this week. You are sort-of held in mixed regard by feminists these days, as a white beautiful woman chosen as the de facto leader of '60s and '70s feminism. I recognize that it's very easy for me to say this, as a white woman, but I'm still grateful that you are as intelligent as you clearly are, and for Choice U.S.A., and The Ms. Foundation, and The Women's Media Center, all of which are places that could one day soon be cutting me a paycheck.



Steinem w/ less famous feminist NYC Agency for Child Development founder Dorothy Pitman Hughes.

The Trashiest Story I Didn't Make Up

Overexcited coked out ShamWow spokesman was arrested for beating up a prostitute he met at a Miami nightclub.

For the record, I almost never stop for someone who accosts me on the street. I will remove myself from tuned-out iPod world for someone who looks genuinely in need of directions, but when it comes to street canvassers, creepy cult guys, and the folks who want to send me (goyim!) to Israel for free, I generally just pretend I don't see them.
But on Sunday, these two women stopped me, and I think the only reason why I gave them the time of day was because one looked kind of like this young Israeli TA of mine who I particularly like. They weren't pushing any literature into my hands or wearing those dorky little vest-ettes they make the Amnesty International people where, so I stopped to let them ask me if I was familiar with the female image of God. I thought maybe I could get an interesting story to tell someone out of it. I didn't really understand what they were asking, but in due time I realized they actually wanted me to know that the world is going to come to a screeching halt in 2012, and I will be Saved only if I open my heart to...well...something or other, it wasn't really made clear. Something about how the kingdom of heaven is going to totally be the shit, since there won't be any wars or fighting, and, presumably, fat little cherubs playing harps will be chilling out with your dead grandparents and elementary school teachers. I don't know if my total inability to get what they were talking about was rooted in my lack of knowledge about modern Christian extremism or their crazy. But by the time I decided it was time to get out of there, they had full-out descended upon me. With one woman on either side of me, my back was almost totally to 19 University Place.
The older, Hispanic woman asked me what I practice. I said, I'm sorry, I don't feel comfortable discussing that with someone I just met on the street.
"But in heaven, we will all be equal," she told me. "Have you ever considered the afterlife?"
Well, sure. I've contemplated what happens after you die about as much as the next living human being, but it's kind of a bummer to talk about, and it's such a beautiful Sunday afternoon. I said, not particularly, realizing immediately after I did that she probably pegged me for a hell-bound heathen for whom there is no Salvation.

irrelevant

Is it just me or is The Office getting better and better? I know there are the nay-sayers who insist it's jumped the shark, but I am literally lol-ing at the new episodes on Hulu. Especially when Creed prefaces his relationship advice to Andy with, "Say no more, this is how I got Squeaky Frome: no small talk."
Also, I love how Kelly's character is so minor and detestable, and Mindy Kaling, who plays Kelly, writes for the show. I hope she writes herself lines like "I think sometimes people are really mean to the really hot, popular girl."

Best thing I've ever seen online

"Top 10 Subtle Ways to Tell Her She's Getting Fat" via AskMen.com
What with the economy in a downward spiral and all, God Forbid our eating habits should sink to fattening, inexpensive lows.
(All you anonymous commenters who are convinced I am a secret fattie, be damned!)
Seriously, WTF? It's all about shaming and humiliating your girlfriend (who probably is already well aware of extra poundage and has most likely spent 97% of her adult waking hours contemplating her size, thx a lot asshole). Complete with pictures of both Hot and Not girlfriends, the list is the perfect way for any sadist jerk to flex those paternalistic muscles to subtly change his girlfriend. Who wouldn't want tips to increase the value of their goods? Some of the suggestions include:
-Serve her smaller portions, because "by making her ask for more food, you might succeed in shaming her into an acknowledgment of her recent weight gain."
-"Playfully grab her love handles"
-"Plan a romantic night out for the two of you and insist that she wears something from when you first got together; particularly something that you know doesn’t fit her anymore." (I can think of no better way to ruin a "romantic night.")
-"Take her to places where she has to wear a swimsuit."
-The absolute best:

"You might not be proud of stooping to this level, but nothing says “better lose some weight” like a broken chair. After you loosen a few screws or remove some important slats of a chair in which you know she’ll sit and subsequently break, sit back and watch the guaranteed dietary transformation that ensues. It will profoundly amaze you."

"News flash: Most girls could benefit from eating more biscuits." -Chris Ellison

And while we're discussing gender on the internet

My dad started a blog about solo father-dom, a topic that, in my opinion, we aren't talking about enough, on the internet or anywhere else. The single mother is a politically charged icon; the solo dad barely exists, except as a shallow, stereotyped device in Disney channel features about spunky girls with dead moms. Plus he's a pretty cool guy, so read: www.fatheringon.com

Online Misogynists FTW!!!1

I'm home for spring break right now, and I want to remark on some stuff that showed up on feministing about online misogyny.

I've always felt-- and I would imagine that a lot of like-minded blog-wielding women feel similarly-- that the internet is sort of two-faced in its tolerance of me. While the internet provides me with such a terrific wealth of awesome (here I am with this blog where I can type whatever I want), using any sort of female-identified voice or identity online is comparable to leaving a freshly dead carcass out for the vultures. The internet's anonymity meets its tendency to attract the slimy excesses of society; the result is an online environment so openly hostile to women, so crassly woman-hating, it's really a testament to the murky newness of online prosecution that we haven't seen more defamation/harassment lawsuits.

The internet gives voice to the closeted misogynists of the world. There are the oft-illiterate, always-enraged Maddox types, the ones who post hundreds of scathing comments on Jessica Valenti's YouTube videos and talk about "hate-fucking" feminist bloggers. There are the CollegeHumor.com boys who ask Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi to return to the kitchen and make them some sandwiches, the guys whose humor is supposed to be so farcical, so witty, but which folds back on itself so many times it becomes something that isn't satiric. Then there are the hateful, scary, fucking crazy stalker woman-haters, like the ones who abused blogger Kathy Sierra.

It might be too early to start debating the fair accessibility of the internet in a world where so few humans earn an annual income greater than the cost of a computer, but an issue is at play here, and I think it's really important. What good is having any kind of internet presence, if female bloggers become totally fair game to be berated, if comments are going to be made about our bodies, if people are going to publicly speculate and remark on everything from how well we give oral sex to how satisfying it would be to kill us. WHY IS THIS OKAY?

Salon: Men who hate women on the web
Guardian: How the web became a sexist's paradise

Spring Break

quotables

What if all domestic abusers had highly paid PR reps
"TMZ reports that a music producer rushed them into the studio because 'the heightened emotions would translate powerfully into the music.' Sources claim the two were 'very, very emotional ... the feeling in the room was pure love.'"
-Jezebel

Why Akon has no regrets about that single he did with O.J.
"I wouldn't take anybody's personal issues or problems- I won't hold them accountable for that when it comes to work. I think it's two separate things."
-Akon, on working with Chris Brown in the future

Glad to hear he's gonna be okay
"It's just life man. Chris is a great guy. He'll be all right. Rihanna knows he loves her. They'll be alright. Everyone has just got to get out of their way."
-Terrance Howard

Kanye West I hate you and your autotuner
"Can't we give Chris a break? I know I make mistakes in life."
-Kanye West, to the audience at VH1 Storytellers

For the record, Jesse McCartney was in the tween pop boy band Dream Street
"From what I've seen and from what I know of [Brown], he's always been a gentleman. I've always known him as just a really nice guy. He's always been supportive of me too. Even in the early years when he was on top and I was just building my way up. He's always been really supportive…I think he'll be okay."
-Jesse McCartney, on Chris Brown

I mean we don't NEED to blame Brown after all
"TMZ knows who triggered the fight that left Rihanna battered and bruised and Chris Brown an accused felon -- it's Brown's manager."
-TMZ


And just for good measure...
"Brown pulled his car over and tried to push Rihanna out, but she was still wearing her seatbelt, Los Angeles police Detective De Shon Andrews wrote. He said Brown pushed Rihanna's head against the window, punched her with his right hand, and then continued driving while hitting her, the affidavit states. He also bit his girlfriend on the ear, the affidavit states....
Andrews described Brown's blows as causing Rihanna's mouth to fill with blood. He also writes that Brown tried to choke Rihanna after she took the keys to his car away. Andrews wrote that Rihanna nearly lost consciousness but also tried to fight back while in the car, at one point trying to gouge at Brown's eyes. "
-The Associate Press

we live in a strange strange world

on NYU's oft-debated gender stance

This caught my attention on the welcome week leader application. I applaud NYU for trying to assume a fluid understanding of gender, and it's definitely important to see this stuff in its context: most schools in this country, even other private left-ey ones like NYU, have not expanded upon the "Male/Female/Unspecified" standard. But while it seems this illustrates an atypical level of interest, on NYU's part, in what the student body actually wants and values, I don't know that this can be called totally satisfactory. Since when is "Transgender" a gender identity? I have yet to meet a transgendered person who would, when asked to specify his or her gender, select the category of "transgender" over that of the gender with which they identify. Transgender might be an identity, but is it really a gender identity?

As a bio-girl, I'd like to hear what someone who's actually transgendered thinks about it. I don't know if it's so implausible that in some huge amount of years, we won't even have gender questions like this

I don't get it

What's with all the parallels drawn between fellatio and women's skin care? Is the whole face-ejaculation fantasy so ingrained as something that's supposed to be sexy (rather than degrading and disgusting) that it has an advertising appeal for even women? First we had this:

from Clinique.

Now there's the even creepier this:

jschool 201

I have the interesting opportunity to be a journalism student right now. This is, if I had to guess, maybe the end of the beginning of the transformation of how journalism is taught and defined. And, yes, at times it is a slow and bumbling process in which I sometimes suspect I am more in the know than the people teaching me. But mostly I am feeling pretty good about it, or at least making peace with the fact that if I try to go into this, I'll probably spend more than half of my career in job-limbo, working freelance, picking up gigs, and just generally making shit up as I go along (but not like that, that's frowned upon).
It's interesting, being a student at a journalism institute that's in the process of totally revamping what it considers journalism to be and how it believes it should be taught. I like it. I don't like when it seems all the apocalypse talk is getting white-washed. Just be real with me.