feminist blogs

You must check out muse and fury, a new feminist blog with some really thoughtful personal and academic writing as well as images.

Also the latest issue of thirdspace, a special issue on autobiography. First on my reading list from that one is Lucy Bailey's When "The Research" is Me: Women's Experiences as Contingent Instructors in the Contemporary Academy. A paragraph about halfway down is devoted to Invisible Adjunct.

I am addicted to their face soap. Anyway, I thought I'd point readers to this really great and thought-provoking post by Pam Spaulding about racism, ignorance, and people's hang-ups about skin tones. It's worth reading in and of itself, as Pam's writing always is, but also because she links to this jaw-dropping story exposing the shameful practice of peddling skin-whiteners. It's truly upsetting stuff, but the most amazing thing to my naive self was that L'Oreal--yes, boring old L'Oreal--is in the business of selling skin-whitners. It's stomach-churning to read their ad copy--one ad she quotes actually implies the product is a medical treatment for "overproduction of melanin". Anyway, read both the post and the article. Good writing all around.

Well I would have never applied to a university or college in Wisconsin anyway for weather related issues (too_bloody_cold). But this via Egalia of Tennessee Guerilla Women adds on another reason as to why for a whole different issue–definitely for the University of Wisconsin schools. The state's lawmakers have passed a law banning University of Wisconsin campuses from prescribing, dispensing and advertising all forms of birth control, and education and counseling (even post-rape victim counseling) on the subject. Especially since, you know, birth control–certainly emergency contraception such as Plan B–transforms young 'pure-soul' college women into shameless 'Spring-Break Daytona Beach' harlots. And I'm actually surprised that they banned all forms of birth control which would include condoms, because usually these anti-reproductive-rights wingnuts just go after women's contraception and abortion.

[…]"Wisconsin has passed a bill entitled UW Birth Control Ban-AB 343. This bill prohibits University of Wisconsin campuses from prescribing, dispensing and advertising all forms of birth control and emergency contraceptives. Wisconsin State Rep. Dan LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, introduced this bill based on the belief that “dispensing birth control and emergency contraceptives leads to promiscuity.” In reality, full access to all birth control options — including emergency contraceptives — has no effect on the level of women’s promiscuity. Instead, birth control and emergency contraceptives help prevent more than 35,000 unintended births and 800,000 abortions each year.

The bill denies thousands of women essential health-care services and reproductive choices and affects their lives and futures in many ways. With this bill, rape victims will no longer be able to turn to campus health services to obtain emergency contraceptives to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, or receive postrape counseling and education — adding even more stress to a traumatic event. Students who want birth-control prescriptions, emergency contraceptives or even information about preventive birth control are forced to seek out these services at off-campus clinics. " […]

But don't worry, I'm sure all of the unfortunate students of UW's campuses will practice "abstinence-only" until marriage, and all rapes and sexual assaults will cease entirely on their campuses . ::snickers:: I wonder how long some of these lawmakers who passed this bill have been out of college.

It's been too long since I've done a dissertation post (one week and five days, according to the list of categories on my sidebar), and I'd like to remedy that. So, first, a progress report: Several days ago, I sent out interview questions. The questions were, as you might recall, intended to help contextualize the "where are the women" discussions. Response so far has been better than I expected; I was afraid that no one would be around given that it's summer. At least two people that I know of intend to post about my project (as in, post my questions and their responses). I expected that going into it, and I assumed that some people would post their responses without talking to me first, so I'm telling those who do check with me that it's fine. And it really is fine, to be sure. Of course I do worry a little bit that people with very high Google page ranks will rip my research to shreds and their posts will be right there at the top when folks Google me, but it's a necessary risk. It'll be interesting to see how such a public research process will go.

I've been thinking a lot about process lately. Right now my committee members want me to include, along with my chapters, at least three appendices: a weblog primer, one on my project's implications for composition pedagogy (they're not requiring this one, but they said the pedagogical implications could go in an appendix should I choose to write about them), and one that's a kind of reflexive essay about my doing this project as both a woman and a blogger.

It's that last one I keep getting hung up on. I think I have a chapter's worth of stuff to say about that topic. I hope that will be okay with my committee; my guess is it will. I envision it as a chapter that addresses several issues related to method:

1. A review and critique of methods used in previous qualitative internet research (not all of it, mind you, just the work on gender and computer-mediated communication in which I'm situating my research)
2. An explanation of new methodological challenges presented by studying blogging (e.g. expectations of privacy) and common methods scholars have used to study them so far
3. A definition and justification of my methodological choices (this would include defining a "feminist rhetorical approach" and what I mean when I say "rhetorical criticism" (Cf. Warnick*) and explanation of my purpose in doing interviews
4. An autoethnographic narrative about my experience with blogging (as it pertains to this project -- e.g. why I blog, what it's been like doing my research in public, etc. -- it would also entail writing a blurb about autoethnography)
5. A reflexive examination of my roles as feminist woman, blogger, and researcher studying gender and blogging (this would include issues of situatedness, degree of advocacy, and research ethics).

Feedback is, as always, appreciated. Now for something fun, which will definitely be an appendix in my dissertation: all the little artifacts I'm collecting, like the representations I wrote about recently. Here are some more quiz images, which I haven't had time to write about yet but hope to soon:

Many more below the fold: