Angelina Jolie and her mastectomy. (It was going to come up eventually.)
In February, Angelina Jolie had a prophylactic bilateral mastectomy. This week, she wrote an op-ed about it for the New York Times. And here’s all I’m going to say about it.
...read moreOkay, lay off Beyonce, already.
So we know that Beyonce’s numerous sins include dressing sexy, being married, and saying that girls run the world when that isn’t technically true. But did you also know she’s singlehandedly responsible for luring young girls into sexual exploitation?
...read moreJada & Will Don’t Have an Open Marriage; Does It Matter?
Here’s an interesting development: Jada Pinkett Smith recently addressed the open relationship rumors that have surrounded her marriage with Will Smith for years. During Jada’s HuffPost Live interview with Marc Lamont Hill, he asked if they have an open relationship and she said…
...read moreWelcome to Neverland, Inc.
Losse rightly calls out Sandberg’s vision as a kind of business feminism that doesn’t look much different from regular boys’ business for girls; as she says, Lean In “teaches women more about how to serve their companies than it teaches companies about how to be fairer places for women to work.” Losse seems to be holding out for something closer to a feminist business. But there may be an even bigger problem than this, since Silicon Valley’s tech industry isn’t just Neverland–it’s Neverland, Inc., a place where Peter Pan CEOs carry out corporate-centered policies and politics that are bad for all workers.
...read moreThe 22
The House is voting tomorrow on the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The anti-VAWA Republicans are introducing their own version of the bill, which removes protections for people in same-sex relationships and weakens provisions to allow courts on Native lands to prosecute non-Native Americans who commit violence on tribal lands. If the Republican version fails — and I hope it will — then the House will take up the more comprehensive version of the bill already passed in the Senate. The fact that VAWA remains controversial, and particularly that Republicans would want to make prosecutions more difficult on tribal lands and strip protections from people who suffer intimate partner violence from a member of the same sex, is stunning, though not surprising. There are 22 senators opposing VAWA, including Republican It Boy and Poland Springs spokesman Marco Rubio. The Ms Foundation for Women has brought a little levity (along with some eduction) to the issue with this parody video, which I am helping them disseminate, featuring the queen of the revenge tune, Ms. [fake] Taylor Swift:
...read more
Open Oscars Thread
Have at it.
**UPDATE: Way to drill down way lower than people’s worst expectations of you, Seth McFarlane. Bleagh.**
**UPDATE: WTF? appalling Onion tweet re Quvenzhané Wallis.**
...read moreSuperbowl Open Thread
I only kinda halfway watched it because being out watching the Superbowl is a Thing You Must Do, but I did pay attention to the halftime show. Beyonce! Wow. Beyonce. You are a superstar for a reason and I love you and want to be you and I am so glad you never wear pants because there is absolutely no reason for you to ever wear pants. 2013 is really her year, huh? Inauguration and the Superbowl? Not bad. I did not watch the commercials, although I saw that Audi one this morning and I agree with Amanda that it is gross. No, kissing someone isn’t rape, but walking up to a virtual stranger and planting a kiss on her because she’s hot and you’re “brave” isn’t really treating her like a person who should have some say in who she wants to kiss. It’s treating her like she’s an accoutrement to your sweet life, like that car. But as Amanda points out, it is forever fascinating that there exist “gross dudes who will die on the hill of claiming that creeping on women and forcing yourself on them is a legitimate form of flirting.” What did you all think? About the game or the commercials or Queen B or the lights going out because Beyonce is just too bright or whatever?
...read moreThe Personal Lives of Men
I’m not often a fan of the “if this had been a woman….” line of argument because it’s nearly impossible to prove, but: If this article about Benjamin Millepied being made the new director of dance at the Paris Opera Ballet had been about a female choreographer landing such a role, and that female choreographer was married to an Oscar-winning Hollywood star that she met while choreographing one of his movies, that would have been mentioned in the first two paragraphs. And the fact that they have a kid together would have been mentioned as more than an aside.
...read moreIf you only read one thing about the Kasandra Perkins murder
Make it this at What About Our Daughters. Jovan Belcher killed his girlfriend and then himself; she did not bring that on herself by going to a concert. She was not, as published in Deadspin, a “catalyst” to her own death (also, it’s apparently now totally cool and responsible to publish anonymous, unsubstantiated hit pieces on murder victims penned by the murder’s friends. Because “context,” or something).
...read more
Fangirls, mean girls – and that grand pastime of calling each other “ugly sluts”
“Everyone knows that bitch got knocked up by someone else and TRICKED him into marriage! Ugly slut! I hope they divorce!” It sounds like a comment you would find on a Daily Mail article about some celebrity drama. But the poor man allegedly “TRICKED” into marriage is meant to be my husband. And the “ugly [...]
...read moreNever let it be said that the Kardashians don’t recognize an opportunity
I have been fortunate enough not to have actually seen an episode of one of the many Kardashian-related reality TV shows in existence. Yet I am unfortunate enough to still know who these people are. That said, I have to commend (kommend?) the Kardashian sisters for recognizing that plus-size women need clothes and will spend [...]
...read moreShorter Tucker Max: Wah wah wahhhh.
Ohhh Tucker Max. I don’t even want to respond to this blog post because the writing is bad enough to be nearly incomprehensible (editors!) and Tucker himself appears to have an IQ slightly above that of a medium-sized houseplant. Against my better judgment, though, here we go.
...read more
Recent Comments