Drop a link in the comments to what you’ve been writing this week. Make sure to link to specific posts, not just your whole blog.
{ 48 comments }
Have you ever heard someone wish that they had a remote control for humans? With apparently no regard for what an incredibly disturbing thing that would be, or how they would feel if it was turned on them? Maybe you have been fortunate enough to never have had that conversation. I have not been so fortunate. And I now have the dubious pleasure of presenting to you the following novelty toy: the Control A Woman remote.
Oh hey! It has funny buttons! You can do all sorts of things to your chick like put her on mute, switch off her PMS, get her to calm down or hurry up. You can increase or decrease her breast size. You can get her to forgive, forget, move on, say no, say yes, remove her clothes, cook, clean and leave. You can get her to give you beer, sex or food. You can get her to stop nagging, moaning or whining. [click to continue…]
{ 15 comments }
Argentina has just approved chemical castration for convicted rapists in the Mendoza province. The treatment must be voluntary, and because it’s a medication administered for the duration of their consent to treatment, it’s not permanent.
In the feminist community in particular, the debate over whether or not chemical castration should even be an option is still ongoing, but my initial reaction was: does anybody think this is actually going to work?! According to the CNN piece I linked above, there are 11 convicted rapists who will be undergoing treatment with a reduced sentence. It seems the hope is that if it’s successful in this province, it will be adopted in other provinces as well. But if the jury’s still out of how effective this is, how long do they intend to wait to deem it a success?
{ 37 comments }
Last night, I had a scrumptious meal cooked by a good friend. Along with another friend, we sipped wine, busted out the Abbey Ale, and enjoyed the pleasure of each other’s company. And to make it a picture-perfect evening, we worked on our taxes.
Yes, it’s tax season here in the States and my friends and I turned what’s usually an annoyance into a fun night of food, drinks and good company.
For my friend, it was her first time filing taxes and we thought this would be a good way to promote financial independence. Hooray for sisterhood! We were able to coach her through the process and get her feeling more confident about being able to keep her finances in order. In fact, I think this dinner, drinks, taxes combo is a great one that I’ll be doing often! Any good cooks out there who need tax help? Or any awesome accountants in need of a yummy meal? I urge you all to start this tradition.
At some point in the evening, I started wondering what it is about women and finances… It shouldn’t be the case that we are easily intimidated by our personal finances, and yet I find that – at least in my groups of friends – many women are. My friend, for example, was completely freaking out about her taxes. She had no idea what she was supposed to do, what she needed, or how long it would take and the panic was getting to her.
With the rest of my friends, there are some who take complete control over their finances, making sure to keep their debt down, buying property, investing, etc. The rest are completely lost, in loads of debt, not even thinking about investing or buying anything, etc.
Do you all find that the women you know fall into the “don’t know anything about money” stereotype? Or do they have their finances in order? I’m curious to see how much of this is an actual problem and how much has finally changed.
{ 47 comments }
I was doing my nightly read-through of news sites (a practice I haven’t actually done regularly in the past several months. whoops.), when I found this cool slide show of Women Airforce Service Pilots Through the Years. It’s a slide show so it doesn’t exactly have a wealth of information, but I thought it was cool and figured somebody else might to. In the 1940s, these women learned how to fly for the U.S. Army so they could serve their country. Today they were awarded with a Congressional gold medal for their service – pretty awesome stuff.
I have to say, though, that the picture that made this slide show amazing was this one:
I mean, the look on that man’s face is incredible! HE IS HAPPY, DAMNIT!, TO BE NEXT TO THESE WOMEN ON A PLANE! And the women have great hair styles, so that’s awesome too.
So, does anybody know anything about the Women Airforce Service Pilots? I feel like every time I discover a group of bad-ass women, I learn about a new one shortly after. Is there a book I can read about them, or what? (If not, who wants to write it? They sound incredible.)
{ 27 comments }
Spoilers below the image!
This week’s episode centered on Sawyer who, off the island, he’s a cop trying to find the man he deems responsible for the death of his parents. On the island, Flocke is still recruiting, Claire confronts Kate about Aaron, Sawyer’s on a mission to get off the island, and Sayid’s heart is cold as ice.
Read our discussion on the episode and add your own thoughts, theories, and general reactions in the comments. Remember to avoid spoilers to episodes that have not yet aired.
{ 29 comments }
Sady basically said everything there is to say about the Lady Gaga and Beyonce Telephone video, but I wanted to direct Feministe readers to this interview with Heather Cassils, the Lady’s prison-yard make-out partner. She has some interesting things to say not just about Gaga, but about gender and queerness — and her interpretation of the “does Lady Gaga have a dick?” rumors, and Gaga’s response, seem fairly at odds with what we’ve discussed. Her comments about her own body as a tool of subversion, and her thoughts on how to create social change by inserting yourself into the machine, particularly struck me (even if I don’t necessarily agree that the second one is entirely correct).
Check it out, it’s worth a read.
{ 45 comments }
Just so you know we haven’t forgotten this is not a Latino blog (sorry y’all, but these things are of interest to me), it’s St. Patrick’s Day! WOOHOO! Apparently this day means you are supposed to drink a lot and wear green and celebrate the Irish.
I don’t celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, but I’m sure some of you do, so please feel free to continue your celebration in the comments.
And if you need beer desserts for your partay, look no further! I found this post with yummy ideas for combining beer and dessert. That definitely sounds like my kind of party and I hope I don’t need St. Patty’s Paddy’s Day as an excuse for making any of those recipes. (sorry about that Suzy)
Also, I learned today that you are not to wear orange on St. Patrick’s Day because it’s the color of Protestants or something and our pal Patrick was a Catholic. Personally, I don’t own anything orange, but I figured I’d share that tidbit of info and educate the masses. You’re welcome.
{ 21 comments }
In DR there’s this thing we do that I always find hard to explain to people who don’t do it because their reaction is basically “huhwha?” When you’re saying hi to somebody close to you who is older than you and/or is in some position of power/respect, you ask for their blessing. Like, that’s how you say hello. In Spanish it’s called pedir la bendicion, literally ask for the blessing. It goes something like this:
Me: Hi, please give me my blessing.
Them: Hi, this is me blessing you.
The words are hard to translate out of context, so it’s not quite that awkward, but it’s still kinda… weird.
Anywho, obviously when I was growing up, I thought this was standard, except then I realized nobody else did it except my Latino friends, but most of them were Dominican. Now I’m curious to know, who the heck actually does this?! I know Dominicans do and so do most Puerto Ricans I know, does anybody else? As in, 1) other Latinos and 2) other cultures in general.
I guess the power dynamics of this have always been strange to me. My parents were pretty lax about it, so we’ve never really done it with them, but if any other relative or close friend of my parents’ was there and we didn’t do this, we’d get in serious trouble. It’s basically the equivalent of spitting in their face, apparently. But it’s just odd because most of these people I hardly ever see, and I’m not even a religious person so why on earth am I asking you for a blessing, just to be in your presence?
I also find (and this is completely anecdotal and maybe only applies to my family) that men hardly ever do it with each other. Men will ask the women in the family, and women ask the men, and women ask the women, but very rarely have I seen men ask men. Sure, boys still ask it of their fathers, uncles, grandfathers, etc. but it seems like the older guys get then the less blessing they need from men… or… something…
{ 26 comments }
We haven’t done Feministe Feedback for a while, but a reader writes in with an interesting question for the peanut gallery. As a reminder, if you have a question that you want the Feministe community’s input on, email feministe@gmail.com with the subject “Feministe Feedback.”
Now, the letter:
I met this guy online a while back and we were internet buddies for good amount of time. He only lived a few towns over, but we never met, even though we exchanged numbers and texted each other pretty regularly. It wasn’t a romantic relationship at all, he was just a person I liked chatting with. When we talked, our sex lives would sometimes come up and once, when talking about a girl he was hoping to date, he asked, “is it bad that I hope she’s a virgin?” to which I responded yes, that’s kind of creepy. He got defensive and asked me to explain why I felt that way, but I found I couldn’t really explain myself other than to say it just felt predatory and wrong.
I don’t feel like it was abnormal of me to have this reaction, but I was surprised at how unable I was to articulate the “why” of it. Why does that idea feel so wrong to me? I don’t really expect an absolute answer to this issue, I would just like to hear other opinions on it from people I’m sure have better knowledge of feminism and women’s studies than me.
Needless to say, I’m no longer friends with this person. Dude had serious issues with women and trust and I did not need anymore negativity and baggage in my life.
I hope this wasn’t too indulgent and I’d love to hear your thoughts if you have the time. Thanks!
Send your Feministe Feedback questions to feministe@gmail.com.
{ 75 comments }
I’m sure that by now many of you living in the U.S. have gotten your U.S. Census to fill out. I was really excited to get mine because I get really excited about things like that (voting and jury duty, for example – LOVE!).
I get to #5 which is all about being of Hispanic, Latino or Spanish origin and I’m like “OH SNAP! Latinos get their own section! HOLLER!” And then I get to #6 and it asks for your race and I’m like “OH SNAP! I HAVE NO RACE!”
Because at some point in time it was deemed necessary to separate the issue of race and ethnicity. Gone are the days of forms asking for race/ethnicity. Which is cool. Unless you’re Latino, because then you’re race-less… or, post-racial, for the optimistic folks.
Of course, this isn’t the first time I’ve encountered this. This has become an annoying part of online applications for jobs, schools, etc. The worst is when they don’t let you leave it blank because presumably one must have a race. And then they make you choose between White, Black, American Indian, Asian, or something like “I prefer not to answer.” Which is annoying, because I have no problem answering, but I just don’t feel any of these reflect my race…
See, Latinos are biracial, except not in the way we use the term today. Most Latinos have some combination of Native American, Black, and White in them because that’s just the history of our culture. But then there are Latinos who identify as Latino AND something else, which is more of the image we get when we think of biracial – one race AND another race.
So, um, what the hell? Where does that leave us? I really feel like labeling myself as Native American, Black, and White is a bit misleading. Sure, sometimes they give you Other as an option and then I can just list Latino again… except they’ve already decided that Latino isn’t a race…
Mi gente, what do the rest of you do when you get to this question? And not to leave out my non-USians, with the various race/ethnicity issues in your own cultures, how the heck do you keep it all straight?!
In the meantime, I’ll go ahead and find me a Presidente and jam to Juan Luis Guerra, just because.
{ 75 comments }
Jezebel has a Feminist Play List of five feminism-inspired songs, and they pick some good ones. But I know Feministe readers are primo Insufferable Music Snobs, so add your selections in the comments. And maybe the most fun thing about making this list? There are so many more than five songs to choose from. Feminism win.
My five:
{ 39 comments }
