Tag Archives: thursday round-up

Thursday Round-Up

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Don’t you just hate when “real life” takes over? Of course, my real real-life is right here… But time is short, so this one is quick and dirty 🙂

Today is all about the ongoing war on women — in advertising, on the street, and in politics. In short, everywhere.

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Media

Shall we start off with some patriarchal misogyny in an advertisement? (Shocking, right?)

Amy Tennery, in The Jane Dough, writes about this one:

That’s so weird. I had no idea Reebok had zero female customers.

At least it would appear that way.

In a move of promotional wizardry, Reebok has released an offensive ad targeted at men, which reads “Cheat on your girlfriend, not on your workout.” It’s the kind of ad you might see on “Mad Men” — if the executives on “Mad Men” were subjected to sensitivity training from Larry The Cable Guy.

It isn’t clear if the ad is in Germany, or has wider distribution. But a big “Boooo!” to whoever approved it at Reebok.

Israel SlutWalk

I am so proud that THREE SlutWalks are scheduled in Israel’s three major cities: The Tel Aviv SlutWalk is today, Haifa tomorrow, and Jerusalem in late April.

Lots of positive reactions: Karin Kloosterman of Green Prophet draws a line between green sustainability and women’s rights. Tinamarie Bernard explains why Slutwalk is good for religious women, too.

Jerusalem Slutwalk Facebook Page

Haifa Slutwalk Facebook Event

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Which doesn’t prevent the media — ostensibly covering the issue of women’s rights and freedoms — from jumping in and objectifying the women. Ansamed, for example, warns that “A horde of half-naked women is about invade the streets of Israel, first in Tel Aviv (on Friday), then Haifa, and finally, even in the holy city of Jerusalem.” Nice, guys. (Nice GuysTM?)

War on Women

It’s impossible to round up all the woman-hating statements, legislation, videos, speeches, etc. coming out of the United States lately, whether laws allowing doctors to hide health information from pregnant women if they think she might terminate her pregnancy, to enabling employers to fire employees who use birth control, rape by ultrasound, to personhood amendments, to anything Mitt Romney has to say. (No need to mention Rush Limbaugh, right?)

Made me glad to find this:

And Doonesbury gets a special mention here, with a week-long series of the comic strip on the rape-by-sonogram and general humiliation the GOP wishes to visit on women and our bodies.

Thursday Round-Up

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Here are some interesting photo galleries, and everything you ever wanted to know about the mythical Obeast.

As always, many thanks to my beautiful and intelligent friends who continually broaden my horizons.

Obeasts

From MOCS, the Museum for Obeast Conservation Studies website:

Obeasts have been an important feature of the North American cultural landscape for tens of thousands of years, and yet little is actually known about these shy and endangered animals today. Artifacts have been uncovered in North Carolina, Arkansas, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and even as far north as New Brunswick Canada, which depict the obeast and its revered status amongst native cultures.

I especially like the Obeast Biology page.

A Squirrel's Guide to Fashion

An album from 1940a Life Magazine

Beauty In Ugliness

Photographer Lee Jeffries finds beauty and humanity in series of black and white photos of the homeless in various cities. Also here.


Flying Baby

Photographer Rachel Hulin took this fabulous series of photos, making it appear that her baby is in flight. Hulin says there was minimal Photoshop use, but won’t reveal the secret of how she set up the shots.

Thursday Round-Up

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Last round-up got a bit long, and I still had so much to share… So here’s more fun! Is Thursday Dysphoria recognized in DSM-5? Are all women mentally ill? Stuff you (maybe) didn’t know about women’s sexuality and health.
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Women's Health

Are menstrual symptoms a sign of mental illness?

The American Psychiatric Association wants to add PMS — or what they’re calling Premenstrual Disphoric Disorder — to the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or DSM-5.

’cause women are not stigmatized nearly enough by PMS….

Admittedly, when they say it, it sounds kinda worse than plain-old PMS. But basically, what they are saying is that if you feel depressed or irritable or anxious or tense, or otherwise have mood swings before your period starts, you have a mental disorder.

Which essentially means that being a woman who menstruates is pretty much equivalent to being mentally ill.

→ Read the proposed DSM addition here.

Could DSM-5 Be Harmful to Your Mental Health?

The DSM, which has never been particularly free of controversy, is coming under increased attack, especially in view of many proposals and modifications that are more and more widely being viewed as detrimental to the health of children, women, and the elderly.

The DSM is a strange kind of double sword: Its largely unscientific definitions can be used as a basis for taking away people’s rights — such as forcing them into institutions, onto medication, stigmatizing them, etc. On the other hand, when they recently redefined what autism is, for example, they ensured that a whole lot of people would now be excluded from being able to receive care.

Among the changes to expect in the next DSM:

  • Gender Identity Disorder will become Gender Dysphoria.The revisions are intended to address concerns of social stigma while still protecting insurance coverage. The proposed update is getting mixed reviews in the transgender community.“We support the change of name,” says Lin Fraser, president-elect of the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (WPATH). “WPATH believes that gender variance is not in and of itself pathological, and that having a cross-gender identity does not constitute a psychiatric ‘disorder.’” Others feel that no matter the name, a diagnosis that casts one’s identity as an illness should not be in the manual to begin with.
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  • Binge Eating Disorder is now a recognized disorder, as is Hoarding Disorder; and Hypersexual Disorder is listed in the appendix.
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  • Mental Retardation will now be renamed Intellectual Developmental Disorder

In this article, Elayne Clift discusses why DSM-5 might be bad for our health, and talks about the calls to boycott it.

The Female Orgasm

And to a topic that is much more fun… This French documentary attempts to explain the intricacies of the female orgasm, which apparently remains a mystery to many (too many… 🙂 )

And I find it particularly cool that the video was made available for viewing by passengers on Qantas flights!

Clitoris Mapping

Until 2009, no one in medicine or science had mapped the human clitoris. (In spite of extensive mapping done of the male sexual organ since the 1970s.) In effect, no one really knew what it looks like, how it functions, or much at all, and that’s the point. Cuz what you can see and probably know as the clitoris is really just the visible tip of quite an amazing organ.

♥ Read all about it ♥

The Weekly Trope

So, this isn’t really a trope. But it’s a cool website in spite of the genderized name: Fametracker’s Hey! It’s That Guy shows you who all those actors are that you recognize on TV but are not famous enough to know their names. Well, it’s an old site, some have become quite famous since…

And many of these actors do represent popular tropes.

Thursday Round-Up

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Slavery in the Georgia school system, and teaching about sexism in the civil rights movement — (almost) just in time for MLK Day; Saudi women take baby steps toward political empowerment; Roe v. Wade celebrates its anniversary; Huxtables — hot or not? Who is your favorite Manic Pixie Dream Girl? And if YOU TOO blame the patriarchy, have I got a blog for you…

It’s a new Thursday Round-Up!

Education

Slavery Examples Used in Georgia Schools

A few weeks ago this hit the interwaves — A Georgia elementary school teacher was using slavery in math questions (really!), and when horrified parents turned to the school district, their concerns were basically dismissed.

♦ See videos and read more about it

“Each tree had 56 oranges. If 8 slaves pick them equally, then how much would each slave pick?”

“If Frederick got two beatings per day, how many beatings did he get in 1 week?”

What the hell is going on in the US, people??

Discussing Sexism in the Civil Rights Movement

In the Internet age, high school kids are no longer limited to the by-the-[text]book material about key figures they learn about. If they look up Martin Luther King, for example, they will likely read about his infidelity, chauvinism, and other not-so-nice stuff in addition to his activism and struggle to promote civil rights and end segregation.

Teaching Tolerance, a project run by the Southern Poverty Law Center, published this guide to dealing with the complexity of multi-dimensional.

What do you think? Good? Bad? Excuses?

Politics

Activist Language

Last time, I wrote about microaggression. Only then did I find this site: http://microaggressions.com/

Saudi Women to Vote Without Male Permission

Recently, Saudi King Abdullah announced that women in his country would be allowed to run for office and vote in municipal elections without male approval. While widely lauded as a step in the right direction, Saudi male-guardian laws remain largely unchanged: women cannot drive, work, travel, marry or even go to hospital without the approval of their male guardian.

Roe v. Wade – What does it mean to you?

January 22 was the anniversary of the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision. Planned Parenthood launched this interactive site where everyone can write what Roe v. Wade means to her.

Gender and Socialization

Mansplaining

Why “Yes But” is an inappropriate response to misogyny

Trust Women week

January 20-27 is Trust Women Week!

Culture and Media

Huxtable Hotness

I have to admit I never really liked the show… But when I came across the Huxtable Hotness blog, it really cracked me up. Some weird form of nostalgia?

The Weekly Trope

From the TV Tropes entry on the Manic Pixie Dream Girl trope:

“Let’s say you’re a soulful, brooding male hero, living a sheltered, emotionless existence. If only someone — someone female — could come along and open your heart to the great, wondrous adventure of life…

It’s Manic Pixie Dream Girl to the rescue!”

Coined by Nathan Rabin in his review of Elizabethtown for the A.V. Club’s My Year In Flops, the manic pixie dream girl is that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that “exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

If she’s hot, “quirky” and exists only as a means-to-an-end plot device, you’ve got yourself a Manic Pixie Dream Girl. (From one guy’s take on MPDG)

Natalie Portman in Garden State Kirsten Dunst in Elizabethtown

Blog of the Week

I Blame the Patriarchy

Not for the timid 🙂

This is from the About section:

You are reading I Blame The Patriarchy, the patriarchy-blaming blog that has been advancing the radical feminist views of Jill Psmith and/or Twisty Faster, a gentleman farmer and/or spinster aunt doing the butt-dance in Cottonmouth County, Texas, since 2004.

I Blame The Patriarchy is intended for advanced patriarchy-blamers. It is not a feminist primer. See Patriarchy-Blaming the Twisty Way for details.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/

Thursday Round-Up

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A genderqueer love story; A 13 year-old girl who knows more about slut-shaming and why it’s wrong than almost any adult I know; Pink tanks;  Transgender Israeli man gives birth; Why you should buy girl scout cookies; Metonymy; Who’s the queerest of the queer?
It’s another Thursday Round-Up!
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From the Queer Blogosphere

Israeli Transgender Man Gives Birth

Yuval Topper-Erez is the first Israeli transgender man to give birth. Congratulations to him, his spouse, and their baby Lyrrie!

Girls Scout Cookie Boycott?

There are plenty of reasons why I’m not a fan of the Girl Scouts or their cookies… But right now, I want to buy a case!

This girl scout wants to boycott the Girl Scouts cookie fundraiser because some divisions allow transgender girls to be members. She attempts to find a basis in girl scout values like honesty — the thesis being that girls and parents are being lied to, and that transgender girls are actually boys who decided they want to be girls… Well, watch for yourself.

Edit: The video seems to have been removed — perhaps because of all the hackles it raised? I hope so! But you can still see who and what is behind it, and get a full nauseating look at their agenda at the Honest Girl Scouts website.


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Some good response videos here and here. And this one by a queer former girl scout →
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(And someone needs to explain to Huffington Post that transgender is NOT gay)

Queerer Than Thou

I love this comedy, which aims to answer the age-old question —
Who’s the queerest of them all? (Which is all eerily familiar…)

(“I’m so queer, I’m beyond identity politics…” 🙂 )

Genderqueer love story

A poem.

Discovery of the Week

Activist Language

I love learning new stuff. Here are two words I was not familiar with before:

Microaggression: The idea that specific interactions between those of different races, cultures, or genders can be interpreted as non-physical aggression.

Type Definition
Microassault An explicit derogation characterized primarily by verbal or nonverbal attack meant to hurt the intended victim through name calling, avoidant behavior, or purposeful discriminatory actions.
Microinsult Characterized by communications that convey rudeness and insensitivity and demean a person’s racial/cultural/gender heritage or identity
Microinvalidation Characterized by communications that exclude, negate, or nullify a person’s psychological thoughts, feelings, or experiential reality.

Metonymy: A figure of speech used in rhetoric in which a thing or concept is not called by its own name, but by the name of something intimately associated with that thing or concept. For instance, “Hollywood” as used to represent the American movie industry. Or, “The pen is mightier than the sword”, whereas “pen” represents the written word, and “sword” represents physical force.

While not necessarily a political/activist term, I learned it in this context. It’s dangerous to send me on Google searches to discover why a feminist-orientalist-activist-academician-Facebook-friend of mine used it in a political argument… I came up with a whole new way to look at how we use words in our political discourse. For example, this academic paper explores how the Bush administration used metaphorical and metonymical references to create solidarity (with “The American People”) and distance (from “The Iraqi People).

But you don’t need to delve into high-level academics to understand this: Just think about the automatic substitutions we do every day. Can you spot the difference in these (made-up) headlines?

  1. Russia Plans War With Japan
  2. Russian Premier, Sergei Doe, Opines That War With Japan Is Inevitable.

Think about how that changes our perception of what we read and hear.

Gender & Socialization

Fotoshop by Adobé

This video by Jesse Rosten has gone mega-viral, but just in case you haven’t seen it — it’s a must!

**This commercial isn’t real, and neither are society’s standards of beauty.**

13 Y.O. Explains Why Slut Shaming Is Wrong

I love this girl — I can’t believe she’s thirteen! Most adults I know cannot reason this well, and don’t know as much.

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MRI Scan of Female Orgasm

You know what it feels like… Do you know what it looks like? Really, science knows so little about it. Have you any idea how many sections of your brain light up?

To me — this is BEAUTIFUL.

 

Random

And just because it’s fun – Art Cars!

Feminist Art Car — Vain Van

Peacenik Art Car — Ping-Pong VW

Make Afghans, Not War

http://artcar.blogspot.com/

http://www.braball.com/MoreArt/artcars.htm

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