Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta shames fat kids to save them
It was surveys of two towns in Georgia that convinced Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta that the nation’s relentless campaign against childhood obesity wasn’t hitting hard enough: Georgia has the second highest rate of childhood obesity in the U.S., and parents in the towns surveyed seemed unaware of their kids’ obesity. So to promote their Strong4Life campaign, Children’s decided that a painfully blunt approach was necessary, and damn the consequences–even if those consequences involved putting sad, overweight children on billboards and TV ads to shame their parents into action.
...read moreChris Brown won’t let us forget: Domestic violence is okay if you’re hot
Trigger warning for domestic violence
Sasha Pasulka of HelloGiggles said it best: “I’m not okay with Chris Brown performing at the Grammys and I’m not sure why you are.” She points out that the popular response to Chris Brown’s beating of Rihanna was beyond disappointing, with fans and celebrities alike falling back on “No one knows exactly what happened” and “It takes two to tango” and “He’s such a great guy; he never would have done something like that unprovoked.” Jump forward three years, he was invited to perform at the Grammys (because the music industry appears to be okay with it). Because, says Grammys producer Ken Erlich, people deserve a second chance. And he hasn’t performed at the Grammys for two whole years now. And “we were the victim of what happened.”
But that was last night. That was Hollywood’s reaction. This morning, it’s the fans’ reaction, which appears to be: Chris Brown is so hot, it would be okay if he beat me.
It would be awesome if he beat me.
Examples hidden behind the jump, because seriously, triggering. I just can’t.
...read morePete Hoekstra is super racist, doesn’t understand the word “satire”
If you’ve gotten someone’s attention by giving them policies to challenge and facts to debate, you’re doing something right. You’re putting yourself out there as a contender. You’re making yourself part of the conversation. Good for you! If you’ve gotten someone’s attention by putting a young Asian woman on a bicycle to pedal through rice fields in a sedge hat to the tune of a gong and a pentatonic scale, so she can smilingly criticize your opponent in broken English, it’s not because you’re a contender–it’s because you’re a racist asshole.
...read moreThe Annual Post About Sexist Super Bowl Commercials 2012
Last year, safe estimates were that 46 percent of Super Bowl viewers were women. With market research indicating that 1 in 5 watch just for the commercials, that’s more than 10 million women who have your undivided attention (not to mention of millions of men who actually, you know, like and respect women) as, once again, you devote millions of advertising dollars to naked chicks in front of wind machines.
Welcome to 2012′s Insulting, Demeaning, and Frankly Not- Terribly-Creative Super Bowl Ads (Tittys! Edition)
...read moreFacts, myths, and blankety-blank lies about Planned Parenthood and the Susan G. Komen Foundation
As the furor over Komen’s de-funding of Planned Parenthood continues, more and more myths about PP, its mission, and the impact of this cruel and foolish decision are getting thrown around. Frequently, those myths get lost and go uncorrected in the presence of bigger and more ideological arguments.
That’s really not fair.
Alas, this is merely the tip of the bullshit iceberg. As the Komen debacle is nowhere near coming to an end, we can expect new and exciting myths and lies to arise, like the head of a Hydra, as others are debunked. To that end, watch this space, and by all means contribute your own debunkings in comments.
...read moreThe Komen Foundation decides not to stand with Planned Parenthood after all
As Planned Parenthood faces repeated attacks on federal funding from legislators who seem happy to disregard women’s health as some minor fringe issue, it depends more and more on individuals and organizations that see women’s health as an essential and integral part of people’s health in general–because women are people, see–and are willing to open their hearts and wallets. This used to include Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which provided hundreds of thousands of dollars in grants to fund breast cancer screenings and education through Planned Parenthood. Used to. Komen is in the process of breaking off its partnership with Planned Parenthood, pulling back funds in the neighborhood of $600,000 a year.
...read moreSo should we just start calling high heels “body modification”?
Disclaimer: I’m in heels today, as I am most workdays. They’re really cute Oxford booties, black patent with white topstitching. They’re currently sitting on the floor next to my desk. According to new research, that might not actually be helping.
Researchers at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, have been looking at the physiological impact of heel-wearing on women’s feet–not just the back pain and the foot-crunching, but changes on the muscle and tendon level. Those changes? Significant, they found, and negative and long-lasting.
...read moreReminds me of me when I was her age (if I’d been a badass)
I spent a good twenty minutes trying to come up with some kind of commentary here so it would seem like I’ve made a personal contribution to the post, but it turns out when you have a thirteen-year-old girl who speaks more eloquently on subjects like slut-shaming and sexual double standards than a lot of adults I know, it’s best to just leave the talking to her.
Be my friend, Astrorice.
[Transcript, and more of my blathering, after the jump]
...read moreNow with pro-pixel fauxtanical hydro-jargon microbead extract
Do you ever feel like your skin has that unpleasant skin texture? Are you worried that your waist isn’t narrower than your head? Do you look at photos of yourself and think, “Oh, no, I look like myself!”? Have no fear–you stop looking like a human being and start looking like the walking incarnation of an unrealistic, unattainable beauty standard with Fotoshop by Adobe.
“This commercial isn’t real,” says faux-ad creator Jesse Rosten, “and neither are society’s standards of beauty.” (For the record, the whole “eat healthy and exercise” thing ain’t a slam-dunk either, Rosten. But your overall point is sound.)
[Transcript after the jump.]
...read moreIt was bad enough when “jugs” was just a euphemism.
Hey, many breasts make milk, right? It’s a function. And yet for some strange, totally inexplicable reason, this disembodied lactating-breast milk pitcher, complete with about a dozen nipples that “dispense according to stimulus,” makes my skin crawl. Go figure, right?
...read moreShameless Self-Promotion… “Sunday”
Go for it.
...read moreA different take on accountability
We screwed up in allowing the interview with Hugo Schwyzer to be published. This was a mistake not because guest bloggers on Feministe aren’t allowed to have differing opinions or even differing values than the rest of the crowd–hell, that’s part of the value of bringing in new voices. But we don’t see Feministe as an appropriate venue for the rehabilitation of a figure with Schwyzer’s history (and, for that matter, present). His professed reformation notwithstanding, his history of abuses, his treatment of women in general, his treatment of women of color in particular, and numerous other deeply serious offenses that he himself attests to have created an environment around him that many women–Feministe bloggers included–find threatening, triggering, and/or flat-out despicable.
...read more
Recent Comments