feminist blogs

I am currently visiting my family in Utah. I love my family, but the gender dynamics in their household have really got me down. My stepmom works a full time job, then comes home to cook dinner, water the garden, and clean up after my dad and brother. My dad and brother both work full [...]

Found many-a interesting things while perusing the web on my Sunday afternoon, so here's a nice little round-up for y'all.

• If you need your daily dose of disgust, you can read about the opposition to building mosques near Ground Zero.


• For those of you who haven't heard, an appeal has already been filed against the Prop 8 ruling. No one's particularly surprised.


• From The New Gay: Queers You Should Know: Fred Karger, Our First Gay President?


• In honor of World Breastfeeding Week (which ended yesterday), Kimberly Seals Allers wrote a piece for Women's eNews about the low breastfeeding rates amongst black mothers.


• I found this absolutely horrific but thought it served as a good reminder of the lengths people will go to in order to protect their precious gender roles. A man allegedly beat his girlfriend's 17-month-old son to death because he wasn't acting "manly" enough.


• From AlterNet: In States Where "Gun Ed" Is Prevalent, Comprehensive Sex Ed Is Nowhere to Be Found.


• Another one from AlterNet: The GOP Fights to Make African-Americans Sicker and Poorer.


• Scenes from an anti-choice abortion-kills-black-babies protest.


• Ironically, Lucky magazine airbrushed Jessica Simpson to make her look thinner in her photo for an article about how much she loves her body.


• Jane Lynch. Hosting SNL in October. 'Nuff said.


• Thank goodness for Rachel Maddow and her ability to take on offensive media powerhouses, e.g. Bill O'Reilly.

Feminist Conversations is a weekly column here at Feminists For Choice. We spotlight activists from around the country to find out what feminism means to them. Today we’re talking to Henry Howard, a long-time anti-war and and reproductive rights activist, originally from New York, who is now a writer in Los Angeles. Henry is a [...]

Last night, I attended a screening of the Finnish documentary Miesten vuoro (Steam of Life in English). The film offers a look inside the Finnish sauna, with a primary focus on the men who visit saunas as a way of communing with each other. Without narration or establishing any firm facts or conclusions, Miesten vuoro [...]

To my wonderful dad, and all the other wonderful dads out there. Fatherhood is undeniably a feminist issue because it's up to us to promote positive parenting that transcends gender stereotypes. To demonstrate, I'm re-posting this adorable and heart-warming ad from Fatherhood.gov.



And one more!



We can only hope for more people to be lucky enough to have feminist daddies :)

Came across a charming article from The Frisky called 19 Ways to Get Her to Go Down. According to this list, dudes can get blowies from their chicks by doing things such as: buying her jewelry, taking her to the opera, sending her flowers, or giving her an engagement ring.

How about: ask us and we'll "go down" if we effin' feel like it? Why all the bass-ackwards ulterior motive bullshit and not, oh I don't know, communicating with your partner? Major fail on the part of The Frisky and on the (female) author for perpetuating stereotypes that men are conniving assholes, and women are shallow gold-diggers.

“Men’s bodies are commodified too!” “Men can understand the female experience!” “Men’s genitalia are stigmatized, just like women’s!”

I really think this is  just another way of turning feminist dialogues into being about men and their oppression. Oh noes, it happens to them too!! Which can easily be turned into, “see, they understand what its like!!!”

Nope. Not at all.It happens to the general population, but it specifically and systematically targets women on a large and deeply rooted scale and men can not understand what it means to live that, because they do not live with that reality. Bringing their oppression and experiences into the discussion is another way of the privileged group exerting their privilege.

Example: I’ve been involved in a conversation on Livejournal where the experiences of people with “black” names, like “LaShawn” are treated negatively in job situations due to their names, either by not being called for interviews, but being called when submitting the same resume under Shawn, or by customers while working in telephone positions and giving their name and getting requests for “white” or “nonethnic” personnel. Suddenly, it seemed like a large storm of white people decided they needed to share their experiences with their names barring them from opportunities: a welsh girl in America’s name being spelled a more American way. A white woman named Monica (said Moe-knee-kuh, not mohnikuh) having her named said incorrectly in a waiting room. These events have little to NO significance in the context of discussing the systematic oppression of people of color through name/stereotypes, so it is totally inappropriate for these types of stories to drown out the voices of the people actually living this experience, and it is an example of them using their privilege to continue the oppression, HOWEVER unintentional it is.

That’s what I see whenever I hear “well men’s bodies are stigmatized too!” or “Men don’t feel good about the wage gap!” or “my boyfriend says…” in feminist discussion. It is just another way of shifting the focus off of the people who need to be doing the talking by making the problems less gender specific (“it happens to men too!”), thus marginalizing women even further.

  Radiohead’s Thom Yorke once described their song “Fitter, Happier” as a checklist of slogans for the ’90s. If it was re-written for the modern mom, the checklist might look something like this (you’ll have to imagine the computerized voice on your own):  plenty of folic acid / prenatal vitamins / no negative thoughts or actions / regular exercise / [...]

I saw this posted on The Sexist. It's a video created by Amanda Hess, where she interviewed men on birth control and how it works. Watch!



Wow. Some of the things said by the men (the birth control pill is the same as Plan B? wtf?) are just shocking. Unfortunately, a lot of men who have sex with women don't bother to learn about birth control because they see it as something only women have to deal with. Birth control is as much a man's concern as it is a woman's, and deciding on a method of contraception should be a collaborative process.

But too many men take the birth control pill for granted - there seems to be this idea that it's this simple process involving popping a pill a day with ease, and there's no need to think or talk about it. But men should know how it works, and men should understand that it's certainly not easy for a woman to take birth control. It takes awhile to find the right brand, and with every brand comes a slew of terrifying side effects. Can most men even name one side effect of the birth control pill?

I'm not blaming men for being ignorant. I know the real reason is that somewhere down the line, men got the message from society that birth control is not a man's issue. So men, it's time to unlearn what society taught you and hop on Wikipedia to learn about birth control. It'll be one of the most manly things you'll ever do.

Just got RAINN’s latest email, and had to share.

Thank you Gregg Milligan for sharing your story on Oprah, encouraging 5,000 people over average to contact the RAINN helpline and centers looking for help.

http://www.rainn.org/news-room/news/oprah-show-gregg-milligan

Physically and sexually abused by his mother, Milligan shared his childhood and what it took to become a successful member of the military, as well as a succesful father.

Thank you for sharing your story, Gregg!

(I’m on a military kick lately, which is a bit odd, considering I’m a card carrying conscientious objector, but I think that the military tends to be undercovered in liberal media, due to its decidedly nonliberal tendencies, so I’m gonna go with it!)