feminist blogs

Because this weekend, my friend Sara Bacon is coming over to install these awesome pieces: An investigation of boy doll accessories and An investigation of girl doll accessories. SO excited.

Sara is probably my oldest friend (we chilled in diapers together), and I'm just amazed by her work and just generally proud to know her. That is all.

Aliza Shvarts writes,

As an intervention into our normative understanding of .the real. and its accompanying politics of convention, this performance piece has numerous conceptual goals. The first is to assert that often, normative understandings of biological function are a mythology imposed on form. It is this mythology that creates the sexist, racist, ableist, nationalist and homophobic perspective, distinguishing what body parts are .meant. to do from their physical capability. The myth that a certain set of functions are .natural. (while all the other potential functions are .unnatural.) undermines that sense of capability, confining lifestyle choices to the bounds of normatively defined narratives.

Just as it is a myth that women are .meant. to be feminine and men masculine, that penises and vaginas are .meant. for penetrative heterosexual sex (or that mouths, anuses, breasts, feet or leather, silicone, vinyl, rubber, or metal implements are not .meant. for sex at all), it is a myth that ovaries and a uterus are .meant. to birth a child.

When considering my own bodily form, I recognize its potential as extending beyond its ability to participate in a normative function. While my organs are capable of engaging with the narrative of reproduction . the time-based linkage of discrete events from conception to birth . the realm of capability extends beyond the bounds of that specific narrative chain. These organs can do other things, can have other purposes, and it is the prerogative of every individual to acknowledge and explore this wide realm of capability.

Thanks to Sarah for the link.

Previous post on the subject is here.

Oh, hells yeah.

Thanks to Gabrielle for the link.

Or so proves this cartoon from xkcd, which is so funny. And so (sadly) true.

Thanks to the (many!) readers who sent this along.

What do you get when you combine the "lazily sensual harem woman reclining on a couch" stereotype with the "cowed housewife bullied by her religion and the men in her life" stereotype? Veil fetish art. Zeynab at Muslimah Media Watch breaks it all down.

And in a follow-up post, Zeynab writes about the art of Makan Emadi, and how it deals with issues of concealment and exposure of Muslim women's bodies. Is it a powerful critique of both Eastern and Western sexism? Or is it just perpetuating the worst Eastern and Western sexist stereotypes? She has some interesting thoughts.

From our gal Mikhaela, who was inspired by a proposed law in Colorado that would give constitutional rights to human eggs.

Check out the latest from our fave cartoonist, Mikhaela Reid: Your Yucky Body: Why You Need a Mommy Job!

Anti-choice comic strip gone wild. Didn't anyone tell this guy that someone is already on the creepy cartoon fetus thing?

I don't know much about this comic, Crankshaft, in general--but I do know this above one is pretty fucking heinous.

Not only does it attempt to make a joke out of rape, it also plays on the gross myth that only young, "attractive" women get sexually assaulted. Which, of course, is a version of "rape is a compliment."

Anyone know how to get in touch with the cartoonists?

Listen to Rhodessa Jones of The Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women on NPR. I read Rena Fraden's chronicle of the collective, "Imagining Medea" in grad school, which was awesome; it's good to see such an amazing project get this exposure.