Today in hyperventilation that a mouseclick could have prevented: Easter Sunday and Google
Knowing/caring that Chavez/Chávez is a very common surname in Hispanic cultures might have helped too.
A mouseclick instead of a kneejerk would have saved a lot of egg on a lot of faces.
...read moreIsn’t rape just so romantic?
[TW for sexual assault and racism]
When I started reading this article on the “yellow rose of Texas,” I thought the first line (“Her name was Emily Morgan, and she was the sweetest little rosebud that Texas ever knew”) was intentionally over-wrought to segue into sarcasm and criticism. But nope! Did you know that once upon a time there was a beautiful young indentured servant named Emily Morgan, and her beauty was so overwhelming that Gen. Santa Ana was “smitten” with her and, according to the Texas Monthly, “Whether the attraction was mutual we do not know, but the mulatto girl quickly became one of the spoils of Santa Anna’s campaign”? Did you know that she was a true Texan, and “certainly appears to have done her part in keeping her abductor occupied” so that “While the concupiscent commander and the fetching servant girl occupied themselves within the tent, the Texans charged across the plain and set upon the idle Mexican camp with the force of a crushing wave”? And that while this Yellow Rose saved Texas, “We lose track of Emily Morgan shortly after her services to Texas were rendered. She never surfaced again, except of course in song.” How wonderful that her “services” were so helpful! How lovely that her beauty made her just irresistible to Santa Ana, so that he couldn’t help but rape her.
Oops, did I say “rape” and ruin the romance of this article?
...read moreA Visual History of the Vibrator
Posting has been slow! I am sorry! Enjoy this visual history of the vibrator.
...read moreThe many types of prostitutes in ancient Rome
UPDATE: After posting this guest entry, it was brought to my attention that the blog from which it is cross-posted contains material that is racist, misogynist, fat-shaming and transphobic. Had I known that history, I would not have allowed this post to be published on Feministe. We will not be publishing work from this author again. And going forward, when guest posts are offered, I will do more homework into a blogger’s background and past posts, instead of just generally perusing their blog for anything that immediately stands out. The Feministe team is also discussing ways to prevent this from happening in the future. I apologize that a piece from such a problematic author was posted in this space. -Jill
...read moreAmazing feminist history through the lens of “Ms. Magazine”
In the years leading up to the birth of “Ms. Magazine”, women had trouble getting a credit card without a man’s signature, had few legal rights when it came to divorce or reproduction, and were expected to aspire solely to marriage and motherhood. Job listings were segregated (“Help wanted, male”). There was no Title IX [...]
...read morePro-slavery propaganda from the 1800s USA
Oh. My. God. Thanks to LoriAdorable’s Twitter stream, I learn that in the early 1800s, pro-slavery authors reacted to the anti-slavery classic Uncle Tom’s Cabin by writing their own pro-slavery propaganda. I guess that makes sense. What’s really cool is that you can go ahead and read one of those pro-slavery books, in all its [...]
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Welcome to the Dollhouse: Men and Beauty Products
Back when pretty much the only men wearing makeup were either rock lords or Boy George, I privately came up with the guideline that if any particular piece of grooming was something women generally performed while men generally didn’t, I could safely consider it “beauty work.” Nail polish and leg-shaving? Beauty work. Nail-trimming and hair-combing? [...]
...read moreGrassroots organizing for feminism, S&M, HIV, and everything else
I wrote this for Bitch Magazine’s Feminist Coming-Out Day Blog Carnival; the goal is to talk about feminist “click” moments. Earlier this month, my sex-positive documentary film series screened “Jane: An Abortion Service”. The film tells the extraordinary story of “Jane”, an underground network of women in Chicago who provided thousands of safe abortions in [...]
...read moreWhere are you from? Part 7
That is it, there is no more. Thank you for participating in this project. Writing it certainly helped me to clarify and work through a lot of my thinking and pain around this question, and I feel a lot easier within myself. I hope it was helpful for some of you, too. With all that [...]
...read moreWhere are you from? Part 6
Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5. I wonder what the future looks like. I am thinking about what “where are you from” will mean in my family’s future. I wonder what it means even now, because we’ve all moved around a lot. My family is, by a combination of [...]
...read moreWhere are you from? Part 5
Previously: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. How do you relate to where you are now? Does it feel like home? Who lets it feel like home? I have lived in this city all my life and it still feels transient. I’ve never quite understood the feeling and rhythm of this city, [...]
...read moreGrandmothers
This isn’t the post I was going to write today. I was going to write about the right to fuck up in feminist/progressive/social justice communities. Maybe you’ll get that one later in the week. But this morning I woke up late and the first thing Twitter told me was that Elizabeth Taylor had died. I [...]
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