feminist blogs

Back in the day, colors were stereotyped the actual opposite of our current pink/girl and blue/boy bullshit:

In Western culture, the practice of assigning pink to an individual gender began in the 1920s. From then until the 1940s, pink was considered appropriate for boys because it was the more masculine and decided color while blue was considered appropriate for girls because it was the more delicate and dainty color. Since the 1940s, the societal norm apparently inverted so that pink became appropriate for girls and blue appropriate for boys, a practice that has continued into the 21st century. (Emphasis mine)

Too bad that before the switcheroo, the colors were just as stereotypical as the current gendering of blue/pink. And it still sort of shocks me that this still exists; I went to a friend’s baby shower the other day and literally 95% of the gifts were blue. You can guess what the gender is anticipated to be.

Thanks to Lydia for the link.

When I wake up with this song inexplicably stuck in my head, he doesn't know what I'm talking (or singing) about. For shame.

Retro video after the jump.

So my poor laptop is in the shop, and I'm freaking out because it looks like I won't have it for the rest of the week (and will be stuck using my boyfriend's computer, which hates me). But I had the most hilarious moment on the phone with a woman at the AppleCare call center of the store that's fixing my Mac. Turns out, she reads Feministing and told me that the folks over there all read our blog and Pandagon. Nice!

So, a big shout out to Daisy and all the other folks at AppleCare who read Feministing. And I swear I'm not doing this in the hopes my computer will be ready faster. Seriously.

I’m a pretty big fan of Seth Godin. He’s not only really smart about marketing; he’s also a fantastic writer. And it seems to me, an all around good guy. So, I was rather disturbed to see this:

Why do people struggling for an income end up using an expensive check cashing service when the bank right next door will let them have a checking account for free?

The answer?

Just about everyone has noise inside their head. It's a noise that keeps them from being rational, that forces them to avoid the simple truths sometimes, that makes them unable to take a shortcut when a long (more emotional one) is available.

Uh, no, Seth. Maybe you’ve never known anyone in a really tough financial situation, but checking accounts are not handed out for free to anyone who wants one. I don’t know about this from personal experience, thank goodness. But as soon as I read this it struck me as wrong. Five seconds of Googling will show you some of the reasons why people can’t get checking accounts. Bad credit, problems with a previous account and mistaken records can all result in being kicked out of the checking account eligibility club. People spend money they can’t afford to spare because their emotional intelligence is lacking? Stinks like privilege to me. Just because you don’t understand the reason for some behavior doesn’t mean there isn’t a perfectly rational reason for it.

Seth’s blog is all about marketing, and it seems to me that taking a little time to think about people and their decision-making might be useful in that field.

And you thought Happy Furry People was good.

And in "goody," I mean ridiculously offensive. In the midst of a trade discussion in 1973 with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chinese leader Mao Zedong offered sending Chinese women to the United States as as a trade, saying:

"We don't have much. What we have in excess is women. So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands. . . We have too many women. ... They give birth to children and our children are too many."

And the kicker: "It is such a novel proposition," Kissinger replied. "We will have to study it."

Nothing like some vintage sexism to get the blood boiling.

Thanks to Pamela for the link.

So apparently Australian researchers have found more evidence showing that women can be more forgetful during pregnancy. What I want to know is where the hell "baby brain" came from and are you as perturbed by the term as I am?

Just saw this on a couple of email lists and, well, wow.

Esquire is asking the women of America to take part in something huge. How huge? It just might be the largest survey of American women in the history of survey. Our goal is to interview 10,000 women – you read that correctly: 10,000 – and we only have one question: What is something that men don’t know about women?

Building on our popular monthly feature 10 Things You Don’t Know About Women (examples below, or by clicking this link ), we want to educate the American man about women in a way no one ever has: By directly asking 10,000 of them.

Finally, Esquire's readers can understand those wacky creatures called women. By hearing random thoughts from them.

Does it drive anyone else nuts when they see commercials for MaxiPads and they use that goddamn blue liquid as a stand-in for menstrual blood? (I'm talking to you, Always!) I mean, who even thought of that?

Hey folks, I'm in Minneapolis gearing up for the Minnesota Choice Coalition's event commemorating Roe. I'll also be at the University of Minnesota tomorrow, speaking about my book and the blog. In the meantime, I've written kind of a fun article for Babble about Monty. Hope you like it. PS: Minnesota is cold.