feminist blogs

They blame the low income women for ruining the country because they are staying home with their children and not going out to work. They blame the middle income women for ruining the country because they go out to work and do not stay home to take care of their children. 

--Ann Richards

If you're looking for reasoned analysis, read no further.

I'm too fucking tired. I think I'm just going to take to my fainting couch and have a case of the vapors. I'm going to gather my lovely children around me, and instruct them in the gentle, moral arts, so that both my daughters grow up to be fine mothers, who recognize that despite their intellects, their ambitions, and their dreams, when push comes to shove, (and a lady never shoves,) their jobs are about putting their children above all.

The fate of Western, elite, white society depends upon it.

All else is pure selfishness.

You can call me paranoid, but I don't think that it's accidental that at the same time that we have a virtual war going on against women in the United States (and that war is spreading throughout the West) --just one example among many--over the right to privacy, at the same time, another assault has been re-launched. It's all part and parcel of the same meme: women are selfish creatures. We cannot be trusted.

Really. I love it when you call us "mommy" and assume that because we were born with a vagina and a uterus that we are more caring and empathetic, that we will clean up corruption because, we are, after all, women and women are natural-born housekeepers, cleaner-uppers.

Fuck me, dead. What goddamned century is this? Are we ever going to get past one-dimensional stereotypes about women? Can we please get over the idea that as a woman, I'm automatically going to vote for a woman? Please. I have nothing in common with the women of South Dakota who pushed through the abortion ban; I have nothing in common with Condie Rice; I most certainly have nothing in common with Margaret Thatcher. So can we please, please, please STOP assuming that running a woman for an office is somehow going to get me to sit down and shut up with my whining about the fucking party already?
The latest entry in this discussion is in today's NYT, which begins its analysis with this sentence:

Really. I love it when you call us "mommy" and assume that because we were born with a vagina and a uterus that we are more caring and empathetic, that we will clean up corruption because, we are, after all, women and women are natural-born housekeepers, cleaner-uppers.

Fuck me, dead. What goddamned century is this? Are we ever going to get past one-dimensional stereotypes about women? Can we please get over the idea that as a woman, I'm automatically going to vote for a woman? Please. I have nothing in common with the women of South Dakota who pushed through the abortion ban; I have nothing in common with Condie Rice; I most certainly have nothing in common with Margaret Thatcher. So can we please, please, please STOP assuming that running a woman for an office is somehow going to get me to sit down and shut up with my whining about the fucking party already?
The latest entry in this discussion is in today's NYT, which begins its analysis with this sentence:

Mushrooms grow in bullshit. Patriarchy grows in bad analysis posing as scholarly analysis in Foreign Policy. Really. Who writes this stuff?

In The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration, Martin Walker offers information about the imbalances between male and female birthrates in Asian countries.

Mother Nature’s usual preference for about 105 males to 100 females has grown to around 120 male births for every 100 female births in China. The imbalance is even higher in some locales—136 males to 100 females on the island of Hainan, an increasingly prosperous tourist resort, and 135 males to 100 females in central China’s Hubei Province. Similar patterns can be found in Taiwan, with 119 boys to 100 girls; Singapore, 118 boys to 100 girls; South Korea, 112 boys to 100 girls; and parts of India, 120 boys to 100 girls.

(This is the kind of information, by the way, that puts the whole notion that women are equal on a par with the report of WMD in Iraq. We're so equal that prospective parents abort us at higher numbers because they don't want to bring up girls. Feel equal yet? )

Mushrooms grow in bullshit. Patriarchy grows in bad analysis posing as scholarly analysis in Foreign Policy. Really. Who writes this stuff?

In The Geopolitics of Sexual Frustration, Martin Walker offers information about the imbalances between male and female birthrates in Asian countries.

Mother Nature’s usual preference for about 105 males to 100 females has grown to around 120 male births for every 100 female births in China. The imbalance is even higher in some locales—136 males to 100 females on the island of Hainan, an increasingly prosperous tourist resort, and 135 males to 100 females in central China’s Hubei Province. Similar patterns can be found in Taiwan, with 119 boys to 100 girls; Singapore, 118 boys to 100 girls; South Korea, 112 boys to 100 girls; and parts of India, 120 boys to 100 girls.

(This is the kind of information, by the way, that puts the whole notion that women are equal on a par with the report of WMD in Iraq. We're so equal that prospective parents abort us at higher numbers because they don't want to bring up girls. Feel equal yet? )

Shackles. Imagine the pain of childbirth. Imagine being chained to your bed, unable to move, your legs shackled together. Imagine. Just fucking imagine.

Shawanna Nelson, a prisoner at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Ark., had been in labor for more than 12 hours when she arrived at Newport Hospital on Sept. 20, 2003. Ms. Nelson, whose legs were shackled together and who had been given nothing stronger than Tylenol all day, begged, according to court papers, to have the shackles removed.

I'm literally speechless.

Shackles. Imagine the pain of childbirth. Imagine being chained to your bed, unable to move, your legs shackled together. Imagine. Just fucking imagine.

Shawanna Nelson, a prisoner at the McPherson Unit in Newport, Ark., had been in labor for more than 12 hours when she arrived at Newport Hospital on Sept. 20, 2003. Ms. Nelson, whose legs were shackled together and who had been given nothing stronger than Tylenol all day, begged, according to court papers, to have the shackles removed.

I'm literally speechless.

I so need to get this off my chest.

Have you seen the new face of female empowerment? Please welcome the newest pop music sensation, The Pussycat Dolls :

[via CNN.com - Getting to know the Pussycat Dolls - Dec 6, 2005]:

"It's a fun, affirmative, female-empowerment tour-de-force of musical styles that embraces pop music and urban music," says A&M Records President Ron Fair, who helped produce the album.

[...]

"We like to say that there's a Pussycat Doll inside every girl," says group member Ashley Roberts. "I think we're just out there inspiring all these young girls, older girls, grandmas, to find that confidence and that Pussycat Doll within them."

And their message? "Just to live life to the fullest," she says.

As for the Dolls themselves, they seem to have stepped out of an adolescent boy's fantasy. They are a collection of women leaving nothing to chance looks-wise -- virtually every race and hair color is represented.

There's sultry Scherzinger, who is of Hawaiian-Russian-Filipino descent; Roberts, a blonde who has appeared in commercials and a Counting Crows video; and Wyatt, a tomboy trained by the Joffrey Ballet.

There's also Carmit Bachar, a redhead who placed fifth in the Olympic rhythmic gymnastics trials in 1992; Melody Thornton, a former backup singer who is of Mexican and African-American descent; and Jessica Sutta, a brunette who was once a Miami Heat dancer.

"We all fit like pieces of a puzzle," says Thornton. "Everybody's input and their journeys and where they've been help put that puzzle together."

As many of you already know, girl likes the gossip blogs ... a lot. There is nothing like reading The Corsair, Go Fug Yourself or Perez Hilton to keep up with the compost of American culture. With these "Pussycat Dolls" though, the words just fail me.

So let's take them for a spin, shall we?

Pussycat : By itself it becomes almost an infringement on copyright and trademark laws. I honestly thought this was the 'live' version of Josie and The Pussycats; but no, PCD (as their marketers like to label them --which, btw, sounds like some illegal drug) is a stripper show burlesque show gone pop.

Riiiiight.

But, if you separate the word into it's components, the images they conjure are less "pop cultish" :

Pussy : Need I say more?
Cat : The "adult" version of the previous diminutive adds to the "ooh-so-taboo" virgin-whore complex.

And then we have the word, Dolls.

Oh Dear.

Have you ever heard of the Real Dolls company? They are more than a seriously fringe use of engineering and design. They've become an cultural phenomenon all to themselves.

Say hi to Britney.