feminist blogs

So you think sipping that mint julep today — Southern bourbon, sugar, mint and crushed ice — connects you to tradition? Jeff Burkhart, a bartender and writer, notes that the recipe for the first mint julep was quite different: Professor Jerry Thomas, the original celebrity bartender, took on the subject in his 1862 bartending treatise “The Bon [...]

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And it looks like Americans are finally on the same page. According to the AP, Hallmark Cards Inc., analyzed buying data for the top-sellling Valentines and found surprising results:

Researchers at the Kansas City-based company expected the choices of customers to be as different as the cities they call home. But it turned out V330-5, one of the thousands of options Hallmark offered last Valentine's Day, was the top choice of consumers in New York and Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Miami, and virtually every other city in the country.

"We thought it would be a different card in every city," said spokeswoman Rachel Bolton. "It was just a surprising thing."

Jessica Ong, product manager for the company's Valentine's card line, had an idealistic suggestion for the sales numbers' meaning.

"It speaks to the fact that people are more alike than they are different," she said.

So what attracts card buyers to V330-5?

The card's face is a deep red foil, with "For the One I Love" across the top in black script, a large picture of a red rose in the center, and a thick black ribbon cutting through the middle. Inside, it simply states: "Each time I see you, hold you, think of you, here's what I do ... I fall deeply, madly, happily in love with you. Happy Valentine's Day."

Not quite the stuff of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, who, by the way, is the subject of a new exhibition at the British Library in London. The Guardian notes that the collection on display includes a Valentine card penned by a young Browning and illustrated by her sisters.

“Lovers have been taking inspiration from Elizabeth Barrett Browning since she became one of the 19th century's most celebrated poets, and her most famous sonnet, How Do I Love Thee? has been voted the nation's favourite love poem,” writes Mark Brown.

The exhibit celebrating the bicentenary of Browning’s birth (March 6, 1806), adds Brown, “brings together rarely seen manuscripts, photographs and memorabilia of a woman sometimes seen as the reclusive invalid of Wimpole Street, but who should be seen as an early feminist, a strong and progressive radical.”

Academics are on call every year to provide insight into the history and meaning of Valentine’s Day, but this marks the first I've heard of the heart and butt theory:

The familiar double-lobed heart symbol seen on Valentine's Day cards and candy was inspired by the shape of human female buttocks as seen from the rear, according to a professor of psychology who studied the origin, history and symbolism of the Feb.14 holiday.

Galdino Pranzarone of Roanoke College in Salem, Va., told Discovery News that he analyzed "essential literary and speculative evidence from mythology and secondary sources," which led to his theory. [...]

He admitted that it was possible that the heart symbol represented both male and female glutes (the group that includes the three large muscles of each buttock that control thigh movement), but he said, "I think the Valentine's heart more closely fits the rounded female anatomy rather than the angular, compact and slimmer male butt."

Meanwhile, college campus productions of The Vagina Monologues have become a Valentine’s Day tradition, but the presidents of Catholic colleges like University of Notre Dame and Providence College think the vagina is too sacred to be celebrated on stage.

"I hold women's vaginas sacred and that is why I did this piece," playwright Eve Ensler told Women’s eNews. "I think women should know their bodies and know how to give themselves pleasure. If that isn't spiritual, I don't know what is."

For the record: In 2005, more than 2,500 V-Day benefit productions were performed at 1,116 colleges and community sites around the world, raising approximately $4 million to stop violence against women and girls.

You may have had your fill of pie already, but we've got a few links to share that dig beneath the crust without adding calories. First is NPR's interview with Anne Dimock, author of Humble Pie: Musings on what lies beneath the crust. Dimock talked with Michele Norris this week about the meaning of pie in peoples' lives (as you might have been reminded yesterday, it has to do with family and closeness).

Dimock also discusses "pie as a feminist tool," which is the title of a chapter in her book. An excerpt from the chapter is available on NPR, but I hope that's not all there is -- it's short on feminism and long on how to know if your pie-lovin' man is worth baking for year after year. To wit:

Pie is a window to a man's soul, a lens by which you can see his true nature and know the measure of his worth. You won't be able to take it all in, not in one slice of pie, not in a thousand. Pie is so revealing -- especially rhubarb pie. But to start with, you can choose several traits and look to confirm their presence.

• Is he generous of nature? Look at how he cuts the pie. How large are the bites? Not very? Good.

• Does he bear down on his fork with his index finger? He should.

• Does he take a bit of crust with each bite or leave it to the last? Oh, the last!

• Be mindful of where he begins to eat the slice. While most of us will start at the apex, a particularly curious and lively soul will start elsewhere.

• Watch for pauses. Count them. As the number increases, so does his attention to the details of life.

• Digging out the filling reveals a propensity to lie.

• Nibbling away at the rest of the pie in the pan predicts a man who wants to have things both ways.

• And oddly enough, slow, thoughtful chewing has no relation to introspection, but only to how acute his sense of smell is.

These are the basics. In time you will get to know others. The advantages in courtship are obvious, but don't overlook its applications to the power lunch, the job interview, and the faculty meeting.

What pie reveals is how well a man can identify his hunger. How large and looming is that hunger? Can he name it? How does he meet it? How does he greet it? In the feast of life, will he save room for the pie?

These are very good things to know about men.

I've been learning a lot more about pie lately from Punk Planet Associate Editor Anne Elizabeth Moore, who has a talent for making pie and discussing pie politics. Check out the The 2nd Hand's special pie edition, featuring Anne's pie-related narratives, FAQs and pop quizzes.

Then there's the Biotic Baking Brigade, which sacrifices pie in the name of political protest. Which makes me wonder if this cookbook isn't a little superfluous.