independent alternatives to the malestream media
Wow. I'm not sure how to change the animation to make it a little slower, but there the image is. Via Jezebel, and here's the annotated guide. I had noticed the arm resizing and the trimming down of her back, and obviously the removal of wrinkles, but I hadn't noticed some of the other stuff. I need to start reading Jezebel more often.
Edited to add a link to their manifesto.
I'm rather embarrassed to admit that I'm addicted to Hot Chicks with Douchebags, but let me explain. The writing is often clever and hilarious, and there's actually quite a bit of revealing cultural commentary. For example, DB1 offers this explanation of the douchebag phenomenon:
At its essence, if I were to attempt to make a generalized definition, douchebaggery is simply about the affected performative role-playing of the peacocking male in an utterly false and constructed way. It is about the adoption of cultural signifiers of "the stud" as an attempt to woo the female by inverting attraction, by making the male douchebag perform as the object of the female's gaze -- to feminize himself. This attempt at gender inversion, an almost mythic reinvention, allows the male to become the object of attraction through invocation of the tropes of gender masquerade. In this way, the male douchifies himself in the hopes of hiding his true self. Douchitude is the mask, the role being played, which hides the douche from his true reality in hopes of, well, getting jiggy with the hot.
I'd actually love to be in a room where Judith Butler is sitting in front of a computer analyzing these images in a think-aloud protocol way.
Plus, a commenter in this post claims that douchebaggery is about the hyperreal, as DB1 had pointed out that the three guys in the post actually looked more like drawn cartoons than people.
Collecting articles about the John Edwards campaign will have to wait for another day.
A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs, by Brad Stone, New York Times, 9 April 07
Sexual Threats Stifle Some Female Bloggers, by Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post, 30 April 07
Fear of Blogging: Why women shouldn't apologize for being afraid of threats on the Web, by Dahlia Lithwick, Slate, 4 May 07
A couple of projects I've worked on are now live:
1. My article "Attracting Readers: Sex and Audience in the Blogosphere" is now live in the new issue of Scholar & Feminist Online. The issue has a companion blog for discussion of the articles.
While I stand by what I wrote, I am somewhat concerned that Daniel Drezner comes off sounding like a bad guy. That isn't actually true at all; he is very nice and collegial, and I reference a couple of posts on his weblog simply as examples of discourse.
2. A Conversation: From "They Call Me Doctor?" to Tenure is live in the Professional Development section of Computers and Composition Online. Cheryl Ball and Kristin Arola composed the piece, but I am one of the people interviewed. My contributions can be found here and here, but I encourage you to interact with the whole thing.
Not that anyone's been asking, but yes, I have been following the M&M controversy intently. To make a long story short, the John Edwards '08 campaign asked two excellent bloggers, Amanda Marcotte* and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare's Sister, to write for the Edwards campaign blog. They were hailed by lefty bloggers, not only because they demonstrated web savvy by picking established bloggers who had built audiences, but also because these particular bloggers were women, who are, as we know, underrepresented in punditry.
Then the protests began, spearheaded by Michelle Malkin and Bill Donohue. They, along with some other politically conservative bloggers, objected to posts Marcotte and McEwan had written about the Duke lacrosse team rape case and about reproductive freedom. The Catholic League called for their termination from the Edwards campaign. Edwards seems to have decided to keep them, at least for now. You can find more detailed analyses at Noli Irritare Leones, Obsidian Wings, oh, and a couple thousand via Technorati.
Web 2.0 network ecology stories. This, to me, is potentially a very productive methodology for understanding networks and social software.
If you haven't yet read this stunning and courageous narrative by Eric Fair, do so now.
Watch A Girl Like Me, a film by Kiri Davis. Via BlackProf, and read that post too.
Anyone know how to tweak Google Reader to filter out all stories related to sports? I subscribe to Google News and BBC News, and I want to keep those, but I don't give a yotz about sports.
* whom I'd love to hang out with now that she's in Chapel Hill!
Did all of you already know about feministing.org, a rather regrettable parody of the actual feministing? I can't believe I've only just now happened upon it (via Ilyka Damen).
Did all of you already know about feministing.org, a rather regrettable parody of the actual feministing? I can't believe I've only just now happened upon it (via Ilyka Damen).
Thanks to Pi for the title.
Heather Corinna of Scarleteen.com and I are spearheading a young feminist project, the All Girl Army (http://allgirlarmy.org). Right now, we are looking for feminists between the ages of 10 and 23 to get involved, and we are also seeking older women for web design (desperately needed), outreach, editorial, community management, future planning, and other committees. Please spread the word far and wide about this, and if you're interested in joining a committee, email myself (jenny@allgirlarmy.org) and the group at large (enlist@allgirlarmy.org). We believe this project is going to offer an amazing and unprecedented space for young feminist community and organizing, and we would love to have you all involved.
Peace,
JennyAll Girl Army/ The Young Feminists Project is looking for a few good women to create, nurture and enjoy a women's community targeted to young women internationally, who identify as feminist, between the ages of 10 and 23.
We expect to debut the site in May of this year, and it will include:
* 29 featured blogs by young, feminist women and one overarching blog, collectively edited and compiled.
* An active, moderated discussion board primarily serving, and intended to benefit, young women with a limited area for those of all genders, as well as a limited area for women over 23.
* Cooperative ownership and management of the site.
* Collective, dynamic projects driven by young women.
* A myriad of current resources for young feminists: books, magazines, film, music, art, events and symposiums, other websites, scholarship funds and organizations.What's our goal?
* To increase visibility and self-representation of young women: of your lives, your ideas, your goals, your achievements and your struggles: to counteract lookism and the media's representation of young women with your real voices, unscripted words and real lives.
* To help foster a supportive, creative and proactive women's community, and nurture relationships and discussion among women of all ages; to help young women develop their feminism and their autonomy via women's community, and discover that other women are allies, not competition.
* To create and sustain a collective board of feminist women of all ages to manage the site, with a majority vote in decisions given to women under 23; to provide experience for young women in creating, organizing and managing community, advocacy and support for women.
* To provide mentorship for young women to learn skills you're interested in.
* To provide a visible exploration and examination of feminism, of growing up female, by and for young women.
* To show the world the hearts and minds of a whole lot of seriously awesome young women, and to give others, young and old, the chance to be as inspired by all of you as we are.Our board and founders are an evolving and eclectic group of women of all ages, from all walks of life. We are everything from a mother of ten to a sexuality educator; from an IT professional to an advocate for battered women; from a women's studies student to a sculptural jeweler, all of us feminist, all of us dedicated to women.
One woman said that what we're trying to do is "like the radical Girl Scouts!" That sounds pretty good to us. Namely, we want to pass the torch in the best ways we know how, because we feel that all of you are going to redefine feminism as we know it, and have the capacity to make an incredible mark on the world. We feel the internet is an optimal place to do so because it gives us the ability to work internationally and dynamically.
Thanks to Pi for the title.
Heather Corinna of Scarleteen.com and I are spearheading a young feminist project, the All Girl Army (http://allgirlarmy.org). Right now, we are looking for feminists between the ages of 10 and 23 to get involved, and we are also seeking older women for web design (desperately needed), outreach, editorial, community management, future planning, and other committees. Please spread the word far and wide about this, and if you're interested in joining a committee, email myself (jenny@allgirlarmy.org) and the group at large (enlist@allgirlarmy.org). We believe this project is going to offer an amazing and unprecedented space for young feminist community and organizing, and we would love to have you all involved.
Peace,
JennyAll Girl Army/ The Young Feminists Project is looking for a few good women to create, nurture and enjoy a women's community targeted to young women internationally, who identify as feminist, between the ages of 10 and 23.
We expect to debut the site in May of this year, and it will include:
* 29 featured blogs by young, feminist women and one overarching blog, collectively edited and compiled.
* An active, moderated discussion board primarily serving, and intended to benefit, young women with a limited area for those of all genders, as well as a limited area for women over 23.
* Cooperative ownership and management of the site.
* Collective, dynamic projects driven by young women.
* A myriad of current resources for young feminists: books, magazines, film, music, art, events and symposiums, other websites, scholarship funds and organizations.What's our goal?
* To increase visibility and self-representation of young women: of your lives, your ideas, your goals, your achievements and your struggles: to counteract lookism and the media's representation of young women with your real voices, unscripted words and real lives.
* To help foster a supportive, creative and proactive women's community, and nurture relationships and discussion among women of all ages; to help young women develop their feminism and their autonomy via women's community, and discover that other women are allies, not competition.
* To create and sustain a collective board of feminist women of all ages to manage the site, with a majority vote in decisions given to women under 23; to provide experience for young women in creating, organizing and managing community, advocacy and support for women.
* To provide mentorship for young women to learn skills you're interested in.
* To provide a visible exploration and examination of feminism, of growing up female, by and for young women.
* To show the world the hearts and minds of a whole lot of seriously awesome young women, and to give others, young and old, the chance to be as inspired by all of you as we are.Our board and founders are an evolving and eclectic group of women of all ages, from all walks of life. We are everything from a mother of ten to a sexuality educator; from an IT professional to an advocate for battered women; from a women's studies student to a sculptural jeweler, all of us feminist, all of us dedicated to women.
One woman said that what we're trying to do is "like the radical Girl Scouts!" That sounds pretty good to us. Namely, we want to pass the torch in the best ways we know how, because we feel that all of you are going to redefine feminism as we know it, and have the capacity to make an incredible mark on the world. We feel the internet is an optimal place to do so because it gives us the ability to work internationally and dynamically.
As most of you know, I'm writing a dissertation about rhetoric, gender, and blogging using where are the women? as a case study. I should say that I'm not looking at every post on the list I compiled, only the spikes of activity: August 2002, September 2002, March through August of 2004, December 2004, and February 2005. So here are the numbers:
Total number of posts: 102
Total number of comments: 2243 (not counting spam or those accidental duplicate comments)
Total number of trackbacks: 171
Total number of posts by men: 33
Total number of posts by women: 69
Total number of comments by men: 885
Total number of comments by women: 1059
Total number of comments by gender-free: 349
Total number of trackbacks by men: 60
Total number of trackbacks by women: 105
Total number of trackbacks by gender-free: 6
Total number of posts by men that allowed comments: 30
Total number of posts by women that allowed comments: 53
Total number of comments under posts by men: 1374
Total number of comments under posts by women: 869
Average number of comments per post by a man: 46
Average number of comments per post by a woman: 16
Now here's my problem. I think these numbers are kind of interesting -- they help provide a tie-in to findings in previous research in gender and computer-mediated communication, especially that of Susan Herring, that show that men's online postings get more replies than women's, etc. These numbers certainly corroborate that. I'm interested in the implications of the numbers: The fact, for example, that there are more than twice as many posts by women than by men speaks to how important this question is to this particular group of women. These women took the time and expended the effort to write all these posts; despite the fact that some of the posts are flippant and parodic, obviously they care about the issue. And, taking into account the context and patterns of online interaction, the numbers arguably reveal something about how heated these discussions are.
But: In my experience, when I even think about counting something, everyone giving me feedback on the given project gets a little too excited and wants me to go whole-hog to the empirical and quantitative approach. (Why don't you count the number of words per post?! Devise a coding scheme and code everything!) I'm not necessarily talking about my committee, just scholars in general. Although that's very valuable and interesting research, it's not what I'm interested in doing. I'm taking a naturalistic approach, mostly consisting of interpretive close intertextual reading. So far that's okay with my committee -- they seem fine with whatever approach I choose as long as I can define/articulate/defend it -- but I'm thinking about not even putting these numbers in my dissertation anywhere, lest they be held against me. What do the rest of you think? If you can give me some language to use to introduce and explain the numbers and my choice to include them, that would be especially helpful.
Edited to add: By "men" and "women," I mean people presenting online as men and women. For the purposes of my dissertation research, I'm thinking of gender as a rhetorical position (i.e., positioning oneself as...). This is because someone might strategically present hirself as a man or woman because ze knows that the audience will respond to hir in a certain way. In this sense I'm thinking of gender as performative.