Femonomics reads the internet: Thank you Obama, leave Shelley alone, pro-choice heartbreak

Obama spoke out in support of the "Ground Zero Mosque", which as Gawker points out (in a hilarious piece on potential "compromises") could more accurately be called the "The Downtown Manhattan Muslim Community Center," but that doesn't do as much to justify faux outrage and calls to "refudiate."  Seriously, thank goodness.  Now could someone from the right prove their party isn't going over the waterfall of irrelevance by doing the same?  Anyone?

Shelley O (The nickname is from TLo) took a trip to Spain, and now someone is comparing her to a modern day Marie Antoinette.  Snarky columnists will be snarky columnists, but the part that really irks me, is that her approval ratings fell after the whole thing.  Honestly, give me a break.  She took a trip with her daughter and a few friends.  Surely this is not unheard of from someone who earned over $300,000 a year as a vice president at University of Chicago Hospitals? 

I'm about as pro-choice as they come (when it comes to legal restrictions) and yet I found myself tearing up reading this description of abortion (last page) in a piece on selective reduction of twins linked to by Jezebel.  Jezebel's Anna North seems to ask whether we should judge one woman's choice in terms of how this informed our defense of her right to choose.  But to me, the two can be unrelated.  It's possible to feel sadness about abortion, and even to feel anger at the person doing it, without believing in legal restrictions on it.  Going in with this belief, I was still surprised at how much the piece affected me emotionally.  Go read it and let me know if your eyes stay dry.

Femonomics reads the internet: the legal system is actually sortof working to fight bigotry, oh man, is there a lot of bigotry

Congress has passed legislation that will cut the extreme sentencing for crack to be more in line with that for cocaine.  Previously, someone found to be in possession of crack would be sentenced as though they had been found with 100 times as much cocaine.  The new legislation, waiting to be signed by the president, reduces that ratio to 18:1.  The 25-year-old crack sentencing guidelines have been responsible for the imprisonment of thousands of African Americans while white drug users often went free, and is a leading reason many people believe the war on drugs to be a war on black families.  According to the Washington Post, 80% of people arrested for crack possession are black.  This is a huge step in the right direction, but will not have the desired effect unless the ratio of arrests and searches for black and brown versus white individuals is brought more in line as well.

In other "thank freaking God" news, a court in Arizona has blocked the most controversial part of the SB1070 immigration legislation.  The case is now headed to a San Fransisco appeals court.  Supporters of the law rallied in Phoenix, while immigrant rights group Trail of Dreams peacefully spoke out for the other side.  Civil rights, people.  Civil freaking rights.

And now in terrible news, the Anti Defamation League has joined the bigots protesting the "Ground Zero mosque," while confusingly saying they're still against anti-Muslim bigotry.  I put "Ground Zero Mosque" in quotes because the planned Muslim community center would be two blocks away from the site of the World Trade Center.  I am willing to grant the ADL that the funders of the community center should be thoroughly vetted to insure that no money from radical groups is making its way into or out of the project.  But the ADL, amazingly, in their statement say that even if the center is found to be completely legitimately funded and to be promoting a positive, peaceful message, it should not be allowed to built because "this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right."  Give.  Me.  A.  Break.  How on earth is a center that promotes peaceful Islamic community, and educates others about the religion outside of the extremist mold all too often portrayed, not consistent with the goal of memorializing 9/11?  Along with the victims of the terrorist attacks that day, many of whom were in fact Muslim, Islam itself suffered a devastating blow in the attacks on the twin towers, which left Americans and others with a deeply skewed view of the religion, and paved the way for conflicts raging across the globe over Muslim representation.  That deserves a memorial as much as anything else.  At least us Jews still have J-Street to talk sense.

Femonomics reads the internet: Phoebe Prince, sluthood, race and sympathy

Slate ran a piece on "What really happened to Phoebe Prince," which does some decent reporting as far as logging exactly what the attacks on Phoebe consisted of, and whether they deserve jail time, but also advances a rather questionable hypothesis that "Phoebe helped set in motion the conflicts with other students that ended in them turning on her" by "attracting guys away from relationships."  The Women's Rights blog rightly points out that what happened to Phoebe was slut shaming, not just bullying, but I'd go one step farther and say Slate's article buys into that same narrative.  Apparently, you can bring bullying upon yourself by daring to get involved with young men who may or may not be in fickle teenage relationships.  Men who are eighteen, mind you, but clearly the fifteen-year-old Phoebe is to blame.  Gross, Slate.

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Jaclyn Friedman has a great piece on sluthood (hers, specifically) and about how talking about women's sexual experiences outside of committed relationships has the power to help break us free of the virgin/whore dichotomy.  After recounting a story about a casual encounter on Craigslist, she says:

I’m telling you this because sluthood requires support. Because any woman who indulges these urges carries with her a lifetime of censure and threat. That’s a loud chorus to overcome. A slut needs a posse who finds her exploits almost as delicious as she finds them herself, who cares about her safety and her stories and her happiness but not one whit about her virtue. A slut alone is a slut in difficulty, possibly in danger.

And rightly acknowledges that she is in a privileged position to talk about sluthood without jeopardizing her livelihood.  Hetero men can often indulge "sluthood" without fear for their safety.  For women,  non-hetero men, and transgendered individuals, it's rarely so easy.  And by not talking about it, we keep it that way.

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For anyone who thinks we live in a colorblind society, please check out these two videos of news reports on 7-year-old boys who each highjacked a family vehicle for a joyride that ended in a police chase.  You'll never guess: When the white boy does it, it's "funny," and his video games are taken away; When the black boy does it, it's "dangerous," and he needs to be in the "system" so he can get "help."

Femonomics reads the internet: early puberty, racist tea party, whoopi, and an app that lightens your skin

People used to think just Americans were hitting puberty early, due to unhealthy lifestyles, but a new Danish study shows the age of puberty dropping among Danish boys.  A large part of this may be due to better nutrition, but it also may be caused by exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals or other environmental factors.  What do you think--does this trend concern you?  Or is it simply a marker of better health in the developed world?  Importantly, how do we get people to separate in their minds the age of puberty and the age of maturity?  (The linked article worries this will increase sex abuse--but only if people viewed 15 year-olds, who would have mostly gone through puberty, as sexually mature before the change!)

The NAACP issued a mild statement asking the Tea Party to repudiate racists in their ranks.  The Tea Party spokesperson, Mark Williams, responded on CNN by saying the Tea Party is ground up, has no set ideology, and isn't racist.  He then went on to pen a shockingly racist blog post (full text below jump) that contained these words:

We Colored People have taken a vote and decided that we don't cotton to that whole emancipation thing. Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards. That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!
...And the ridiculous idea of "reduce[ing] the size and intrusiveness of government." What kind of massa would ever not want to control my life? As Coloreds we must have somebody care for us otherwise we would be on our own, have to think for ourselves and make decisions!
The racist tea parties also demand that the government "stop the out of control spending." Again, they directly target Colored People. That means we Colored People would have to compete for jobs like everybody else and that is just not right.

The end result, thankfully, was the Tea Party doing exactly what the NAACP resolution requested, by kicking out Williams and repudiating his racist statements.  Seriously, all you have to do is come out with a statement that your group stands for equality and you won't tolerate racism from people under the Tea Party banner, and then follow through on that commitment.  It's not so hard to be not racist, unless you're worried about alienating racists.  Oh, and Joe Biden and Sarah Palin, I hope this provides sufficient proof to you that some people in the Tea Party are in fact racist.

Jezebel has a list of 15 questionable things Whoopi Goldberg has defended.  Between coining the word "rape-rape" and sticking up for Mel Gibson (she says his anti-Semitism was because of drinking, and in her experience he's not racist), I'd say it's time for Whoopi to hang up the towel on opinonating a bit.  Renee Martin has more here and here.

Omigod, Vaseline has a new facebook app that lightens users' skin, to advertise their skin lightening products in India.  "Shadeism" is a huge problem in India and throughout the world, and many people experience permanent skin damage from using lightening creams.  I understand that there is market demand for this, but I can't help feeling like the companies that sell these products are evil.  I don't really know what to do about it, though.  Where will the pressure come from to eliminate shadeism, and the dangerous products it creates a market for? (hat tip Katey-kat)

NPR has a big spread on summer books.  (Hat tip Fug Girls.) What are you reading?  What's on your list?  I'm tackling the Stieg Larsson trilogy next.

Femonomics reads the internet: hot politicians, heart rate, fat camp, LiLo, and cartoon bears

Oh my goodness, there's a male politician who's hot!  Check out his abs!  And his turquoise belt!  Meet Illinois representative Aaron Schock.

Apparently the new show Huge on ABC Family is really amazing!  The main character, played by Nikki Blonsky, is a radical feminist who rails against body propaganda and plasters her walls with "fatspiration" at weight loss camp.



New research says the classic "maximum heartrate" formula, used to determine recommended exercise heartrates (e.g., 65-85% of maximum, calculated by 220 - age), don't work at all for women.  Oh man, how I hate the medical profession's continued jeopardization of women's lives by willy nilly applying research based on male subjects to female care.  Do you remember the renaissance painters who used to draw babies with muscles because all the bodies they could dissect were adult males?  Yeah, it's kinda like that.

To update you on the Wikileaks/Bradley Manning case, Manning has now been charged with mishandling classified information, and is now being held in Kuwait, awaiting an investigation that could lead to a court martial.  Also, there's a nerd war going on over whether Adrian Lamo acted honorably.

So, Lindsay Lohan was sentenced to 90 days in jail, of which she'll probably serve 23.  One writer, watching the feed for amusement, felt sorry for her when she broke down in tears.  I watched, and don't, because the reason she broke down is that it had never occurred to her she might go to jail for violating her probation.  She's totally shocked when it happens, and is sending incredulous tweets today.  Also, she says her F--- U manicure had "nothing to do with court".  Umm, then do you think maybe you should have had it removed before court?   Please go peacefully into obscurity like Paris Hilton.  I beg you.

I thought these two videos about the iPhone vs the HTC Evo were hilarious.  Maybe you are less nerdy than me, and you will not.  Very NSFW language.  Spoken by cartoon bears.

Femonomics reads the internet: Everyone's a little bit racist

Joel Stein wrote a piece for Time lamenting the fact that his hometown has become his "own private India" after a large influx of Indian immigrant.  It's supposed to be funny (sample humor: "I never knew how a bunch of people half a world away chose a random town in New Jersey to populate...Did we accidentally keep numbering our parkway exits all the way to Mumbai?"), but like so many things, is actually just really racist.  Kal Pen, of Harold and Kumar fame, mocked Stein's really uncreative racism for the Huffington Post:

Were it not for the intelligent, fresh sense of humor of individuals like Mr. Stein, the world may never know about Americans who happen to be of Indian descent. Gags about impossibly spicy food? I'd never heard those before! Multiple Gods with multiple arms? Multiple laughs! Recounting racial slurs like "dot-head"? Oh, Mr. Stein, is too good! I don't know how he comes up with such unique bits. (I was worried that he'd missed an opportunity to joke about Dr. King's predecessor, Gandhi, but I see that he got to that hilarity on Twitter. More never-before-heard satire!)
Growing up a few miles from Edison, NJ, I always thought it was hilarious when I'd get the crap kicked out of me by kids like Stein who would yell "go back to India, dothead!" I was always ROTFLMAO when people would assume that I wasn't American. He really captured the brilliant humor in that one too!

Stein apologized on the pages of Time by saying his piece was actually pro-immigration:

 I truly feel stomach-sick that I hurt so many people. I was trying to explain how, as someone who believes that immigration has enriched American life and my hometown in particular, I was shocked that I could feel a tiny bit uncomfortable with my changing town when I went to visit it. If we could understand that reaction, we’d be better equipped to debate people on the other side of the immigration issue.

Right.  Except to do that, you would have had to actually discuss your feelings and critique them instead of just playing your grade school inability to accept change for laughs.  Time magazine fail. [Hat tip Jez]

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DL Hughley guest-hosted the view, and voiced his clearly medically researched (sarcasm) opinion that "brothers on the down low" are responsible for the AIDS epidemic in the African community.  Because any form of unlubricated sex (anal sex or dry sex) has a higher transmission rate than lubricated PIV or oral sex, it is true that, for unprotected sex, transmission rates will be higher on average for gay men receiving anal sex than for straight men having vaginal sex.  But it's not true that the phenomenon of gay black men having girlfriends is responsible for the high rates of HIV among African American women.  Evil Slutopia sets the record straight:

The CDC has studied why the HIV/AIDS rates among African-American women is so extremely high (they make up 61% of all new HIV cases among women). Although 80% of African-American women contract HIV through heterosexual contact, this is mainly from men with high-risk behaviors such as having multiple sex partners (primarily female partners, not secret gay male partners) or IV drug use. There are actually "relatively few" infections coming from male partners who are bisexual.

Slutopia points out how ludicrous it is to continue to consider "gayness" a risk factor, instead of actually risky behaviors:

I was researching the subject, for a potential article for the school newspaper, and questioned a representative of the Blood Bank on why gay men were restricted from donating blood. She informed me that gay men were at a higher risk for contracting HIV/AIDS. I reminded her that not all gay men are at a higher risk, only those who engage in high risk activities like unprotected anal sex with numerous partners. However women who engaged in the same high risk activities could donate. She didn't understand, so I explained further.

Me: The risk factor isn't "being a gay man". Yes, unprotected anal sex is a higher risk activity, but it would be the same level of risk for a woman.

Idiot: Oooh, you're right! She could have had anal sex with a gay man!

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In other racist news, the movie The Last Airbender, which replaced all of its leading Asian characters with white actors, while still having minority characters play villainous and background characters, is apparently terrible.  Ebert's review: "The laws of chance suggest that something should have gone right. Not here."  Oh M. Night, how far you've fallen.  Also check out this history of Yellow Face in the movies.

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If you like the World Cup, this infographic is fun.  Or if you just like hot soccer players magically changing size with their facebook popularity. [Hat tip Fug Girls]

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I thought this piece on why breastfeeding is a feminist issue was interesting.

Femonomics reads the internet: surprise Senate candidate, wedding weight loss, gay blood ban, and hotness discrimination

So, someone unexpected won the South Carolina Democratic Senate primary, and now everyone is upset, because he probably doesn't have a good shot at beating his Republican opponent and doesn't seem very qualified to be a Senator.  Nonetheless, I'm not so on board with the media and political powers that be running around and calling him mentally impaired just because he's not camera-ready.  Instead of taking credit for their major screw up and apparent unfamiliarity with polling and electoral management, the Democratic Party is calling for this man to step down and casting aspersions about his mental fitness.  He won fair and square and their guy didn't.  So why don't they start pulling him aside for media coaching and setting up a real campaign machine?  And why doesn't the media stop their embarrassing attack on him, and start asking the Democratic Party why they had no idea this fellow had a good chance of winning?  I don't whether to call the media's treatment of this man ableist, or racist, or just plain anti-humanist, but it's making me a little sick.  I'm with this Gawker commenter:

This guy, whether willingly or not, has exposed the pathetic joke that our electoral process is. Maybe he is a soft spoken guy, maybe he is shy, maybe he was not expecting to win and get all this media coverage, maybe he is some average guy that cannot get a job and said, "[F***] it, I'll give this a try," or maybe he does have some problem. I do not know. But the interesting thing in all this, is how the media has been asking him crap questions like:

-Do you have any money?
-Do you do things the way we expect you to, in order to win?
-Do you think you will win?
-Do you have a website with red, white, and blue colors for us to stare at?
-Are you cuckoo? Please answer simply and in 5 seconds because America cannot understand. Also, we will be right back after a word from our sponsors.

And not a single question like:

-What are the issues you hope to take on while in the Senate?
-What is it about those issues that motivated you to run?

The way I see it, you ask stupid questions, you'll get stupid answers.

Femonomics reads the internet: racism, salt, and FGM

Quick hits because I have to go to sleep.

Ohmygod, areyouserious:  School asks artists to "lighten" Latino and Black students' faces in mural, in response to racist complaints and drive-by slurs. 

Bill Easterly notes we don't just produce oil spills, we export them, too.

Many people think the ruling on Miranda Rights saying you have to explicitly invoke your right to remain silent removes protections for people accused of crimes.  I understand why they would say that, but it also seems like it provides an important protection, by making it clear statute that if you say you would like to no longer be questioned, and this is not respected, what you say cannot be used against you.  My legal knowledge comes from episodes of Law and Order, so does anyone know if that was always the case before?  It seems to me not.  This allows suspects to halt questioning both when they ask for a lawyer and when they express their wish to no longer be questioned (and it seems the interpretation could be quite broad, such as someone saying "Leave me alone.  I'm not saying anything.")  More info here.

This is NOT ok.  Helen Thomas says Jews in the occupied territories (or possibly all of Israel?) should go back "home" to Poland and Germany.

Did you read this piece on salt?  Like MSG before it, food manufacturers love to put stuff in our food to cover up how very un-food-like a lot of it is.  I think that if the Cheez-Its don't taste good without three different salt components, maybe you need a new recipe?

The American Academy of Pediatrics proposed, and then shortly reversed their decision, that doctors could offer a "clitoral nick" to persuade parents from going through with full-fledged Female Genital Mutilation.  People are making comparisons to circumcision, and saying if that's ok, this should be, too.  Personally, I think doctors should probably stick with that whole "First, do no harm" thing, but I do think there is somewhat of a conflict here between being anti-cultural imperialism and being pro woman, so I am somewhat more torn than some other feminist bloggers on this issue.

Femonomics reads the internet: SATC2, breaking the cycle of snark, adjectives as nouns, and more

Some choice words on SATC2 from Erica at Feminista.  She points out the casual racism of the first film, the weird way Michael Patrick King has constructed these movies as a gay male fantasy of femaleness instead of authentic womanhood, and quotes from all the scathing reviews, including Roger Ebert's which contains this gem:

A sample of Carrie's realistic dialogue in a marital argument: "You knew when I married you I was more Coco Chanel than coq au vin." Carrie also narrates the film, providing useful guidelines for those challenged by its intricacies. Sample: "Later that day, Big and I arrived home."

The series was good.  The first movie was fun, if overly consumerist and, yes, a little racially clumsy.  The second one sounds awful.  Why did you do this to Carrie, Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte?  Why?  Erica's last lament hits home the hardest:

But having said all that, you know why I am FORCED to hope this makes money? Because if it doesn't Hollywood will say female-centric movies -- which never cost nearly as much as action flicks -- don't make economic sense and they'll stop greenlighting them.

I hate that what she says is true.  But still, let's not go see this.  And, after it fails, let's try to communicate to studio execs that it failed because it was insulting, not because it was about women.  Make good movies with female characters and I promise you can have my $12.50!

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What do you think about MIA?  Is she an interesting artist with an interesting political message, or does she make drama and appropriate causes to sell records?  New articles reveal both sides, and personally, I'm intrigued.

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Femonomics reads the internet: HIV treatment, smear campaigns, SWEDOW, and the female body

The NYTimes has a heartbreaking story this week about the number of HIV patients in need of treatment outnumbering the number of dollars available for drugs.  Bill Easterly, a longtime aid critic, has responded by noting he argued early on that HIV treatment was a losing battle, since the number of new patients will naturally exceed the capacity to treat without prevention efforts that work.  HIV treatment is one area where visiting a country at the heart of the HIV/AIDS fight profoundly impacted my viewpoint.  I formerly was more sympathetic to the simple logic that, although AIDS is a death sentence without treatment, there will always be limited funds, and it is much cheaper to save a life through malaria prevention and treatment than through years of ARVs.  However, seeing the profound impact of HIV/AIDS on communities (everyone I met had a family member who had died of AIDS.  Many other people were on treatment, and you would not even know they had the disease) right now, I realized that even though prevention is the long-term solution to the HIV crisis, treatment--expensive as it is--is not something the development community can afford to cut.  Without AIDS treatment, all of the newly infected people will die in 7-10 years.  I believe there can be profound changes in development, disease, and poverty in the next ten years, not the next fifty.  If that is to happen, we cannot afford to have a "lost" generation--the already infected, condemned to die.  Moreover, real prevention requires testing so that people can be aware of their status and protect others from infection; and without the possibility of treatment, there will be no testing (and, for that matter, those who are tested will be profoundly negatively affected, the opposite of the desired result).

Richard Goldstone was appointed to investigate war crimes in the Gaza war.  His report concluded that both Israel and Hamas had committed war crimes.  Now, people who disagree with this ruling are engaging in a smear campaign of Goldstone's past, accusing him of being an apartheid-era hanging judge, and no better than a Nazi.  However, a South African friend explained to me that while Goldstone did accept a judgeship during the Aprtheid era in South Africa, and thus did have to enforce some questionable policies and sentence people for crimes within a broken legal system, he also took every opportunity he could to find loopholes, re-interpret statutes, and set precedents in a way that lessened the burden of Apartheid's oppressive laws.  In particular, Goldstone was responsible for issuing a ruling that people could not be compelled to leave an Apartheid zone if no suitable alternative accommodation was available, thus effectively ending the enforcement of the "Group Areas" provision.

Femonomics reads the internet: playing straight, Hasselbeck's hassle, Madonna, standing up for fat, and more!

Newsweek published an incredibly poorly argued column that basically amounted to the author saying "I can totally tell gay actors are gay when they play straight people."  I guess Newsweek thought this "Yuck, gay" argument was okay because it was written by a gay columnist?  Well, I can totally tell someone's words are homophobic, even when written by a gay writer.  The article singled out Sean Hayes, who plays a lovelorn straight man in Promises, Promises, a role once inhabited by Jerry Orbach.  Luckily, Hayes's costar, Kristin Chenoweth, had something to say about that:

As a longtime fan of Newsweek and as the actress currently starring opposite the incredibly talented (and sexy!) Sean Hayes, ...I was shocked on many levels to see Newsweek publishing Ramin Setoodeh’s horrendously homophobic “Straight Jacket,” which argues that gay actors are simply unfit to play straight.

...Audiences [don't give] a darn about who a person is sleeping with or his personal life. Give me a break! We’re actors first, whether we’re playing prostitutes, baseball players, or the Lion King. Audiences come to theater to go on a journey. It’s a character and it’s called acting, and I’d put Hayes and his brilliance up there with some of the greatest actors period.

Lastly, as someone who’s been proudly advocating for equal rights and supporting GLBT causes for as long as I can remember, I know how much it means to young people struggling with their sexuality to see out & proud actors like Sean Hayes, Jonathan Groff, Neil Patrick Harris and Cynthia Nixon succeeding in their work without having to keep their sexuality a secret. No one needs to see a bigoted, factually inaccurate article that tells people who deviate from heterosexual norms that they can’t be open about who they are and still achieve their dreams.

Three cheers for April Rhodes!

Sooo, last week on The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck went all victim-blame-y and said something to the effect of, Erin Andrews shouldn't be showing all that skin on Dancing with the Stars after getting stalked.  Jennifer Armstrong showed EW's feminist side in a strong response, saying "I don’t want to make showing a little leg or midriff into the greatest of feminist acts, but I will say this: If a woman tones down and reins in any hint of her sexuality just because she was victimized, well, that means such crimes can be used to tame and control women."  Hasselbeck apologized:

Femonomics reads the internet: Environmental Health and New Lows for Victimization of Victims

I've been pretty impressed with a series of articles being published by TIME. One issue I have consistently written about (i.e. here and here and here), are chemicals in plastics and our health. Early April, Bryan Walsh published a solid article called the Perils of Plastic, which hit all of the key points. Just this Thursday, Tiffany O'Callaghan recapped a report from the President's Cancer Panel determining that environmental chemicals are a larger factor in the rising burden of cancer than they previously thought.

In Australia, the successful use of the 'Skinny Jeans Defense' in a rape case has terrifying implications. Recap: A man (Nicholas Gonzales) was acquitted of rape in Australia using the argument that the tight fit of the jeans would make them "difficult... to be taken off by someone else unless the wearer's assisting, collaborating, consenting." But believe it or not, this is not a new defense. In 1992, the same argument was used successfully to overturn a guilty verdict in an Italian rape case. That case served as an inspiration for an annual event called Denim Day that is held in April every year and asks people to "wear jeans as a visible means of protest against misconceptions that surround sexual assault." I'm going to stop there before I start to rant and rave and redirect you to a round-up of posts and articles by Alex Eichler at the AtlanticWire on just how wrong this defense is.

Femonomics reads the internet: Palate cleanse edition

Oh, goodness, there has been a lot of heavy [crap] going on this week.  And I don't know about you, but I need something FUN to keep me going.  So this is a special edition of femonomics reads the internet, without a single heavy thing to be found.

Project Rungay has finished critiquing all the season 7 Project Runway finale collections.  You should check them out.  Also, Tim Gunn critiques superhero costumes.  It is amazing.  [via Fug Girls]

Obama was funny at the White House correspondents' dinner.  Jay Leno, apparently, was not.  Here's what people wore.

Cats love their invisible objects.  I love LOLcats, especially feminist ones.  Did you know that feminists have senses of humor (and that there's a whole site devoted to it)?  There's even a site for happy feminist news.

There.  That's better.

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: Bad research, transgender discrimination, racism, and PowerPoint strategy!

You ask why we're so obsessed with correlation not equaling causation?  Because real researchers whose work impacts real policies are still convinced that it does.  Business Week is reporting that watching R-rated movies causes early drinking.  The researchers surveyed kids on how often they were allowed to watch R-rated movies, and then followed them to see when they (if) they started drinking.  They found that kids who were more frequently allowed to watch R-rated movies were more likely to start drinking early.  Their conclusion?  "We think seeing the adult content actually changes their personality."  Note, that's a quote from the actual researcher, not just a journalist misinterpreting the findings.  Interestingly, they note that R-rated movies have also been tied to "early smoking, sex at a young age, and violent behavior," but it doesn't occur to them that some third factor, such as parental involvement or peer group, could be driving all those relationships.

Elsewhere, some actual decent research, thank god.  Blog Her has a post on new research finding that those who report a "colorblind" ideology are less likely to be bothered by racist images.  The researcher, Brendesha Tynes, showed participants images that depicted racist stereotypes, and asked them to respond as though seeing the images on a friend's facebook page.  Those who considered themselves "colorblind" were less likely to express disapproval of the images and more likely to offer positive or supportive comments.  Additionally, white students were less likely to be bothered by the images.  Tynes believes her research provides evidence that "colorblindness" masks racial differences, and may prevent people from having meaningful conversations about race.

A transgendered veteran who chained herself to the White House fence to protest Don't Ask Don't Tell has reported deplorable treatment at the hands of federal law enforcement.  Autumn Sandeen reports she was called an "impersonator," "shim," and "it," and was accused of lying about her gender, despite being honest the entire time, and imprisoned in a male cell block, putting her safety at risk.  [I am linking to Pandagon because it has the best coverage of this incident. It is a blog run by Amanda Marcotte, who has previously exhibited exceedingly poor judgment.]

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: great cleavage, the obesity bandwagon, and abortion in the Obama age

Apparently Fox and ABC restricted the running of a Lane Bryant ad that showed women in lingerie getting ready for a date. 



Jezebel's been covering the story for a few days, and has the documents to prove it.  The ad itself is certainly not shocking, and the naughty body parts displayed seems on par with the ads of Victoria's Secret, the antics of the Desperate Housewives, and other lingerie-wearing prime-time standbys.  The sexist says it's the size of the boobs holding up that lingerie that has the networks' undies bunched:

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: cool women on the internet edition

Feminist Philosophers has an appalling story of a woman who was told she would be rescinded admission to an academic seminar if she couldn't "demonstrate" that she had full-time childcare arrangements "to the satisfaction of the Institute directors" throughout the duration of her stay.  Says Edge of the American West: "I can’t figure out why there are so few women in this discipline. It must be because logic is hard."  Anyway, the Feminist Philosophers blog looks cool, and worth checking out for us women in academia.

But don't worry, non-feminists, I have something for you, too.  [NSFW alert!] The cheeky blog Feminisnt, written by a woman who describes herself thusly: "I'm a pornographer, sex worker, atheist, and former 'sex-positive feminist' who grew tired of trying to shoehorn my life into a feminist analysis."  In a recent post, she addresses the assertion that men who pay for sex hate women.  It's an interesting blog to scan for sex-positive feminists or sex-positive feminist-skeptics.  Like I said, when you're not at work!

Speaking of sex-positive feminism, Natalia Antonova has a great response to a piece at Femonade claiming it's impossible for "just sex" to be feminist.  I get Femonade's point, that when people say "just sex" they're often talking about the type of sex that most benefits men (PIV), but often they're not.  I know lots of women who have very satisfying "just sex" relationships (And, let's also remember to consider non-hetero and non-cis pairings, where PIV is not necessarily the order of the day).  For some of them, these relationships will become less satisfying over time, and they'll realize they want something more.  But as Antonova says, let's trust women to make that call for themselves. [Edit: it should be noted that Femonade has exhibited rampant transphobia in the past, so be careful on her site]

This interview with Emma Thompson gives me hope.  Excerpt:

Two years ago she went ballistic when she heard it had been suggested that a young actress on the set of Brideshead Revisited lose a stone in weight. Did she really threaten to quit?

'Absolutely! I would have broken my contract and taken the story to the press.
I am a bit of a fundamentalist about all that size zero stuff - I would have made a big, fat fuss. That was no joke. I would have walked off the set.'

Ask what can be done about such attitudes and she doesn't shrug, like most actresses of her calibre would.  'Put on weight and say F*** off,' she retorts. 'Demand bigger sizes. Go into places where you can't get a 38D bra and say, "I want a 38D bra and give me one. If you can't, I am never coming here again."'

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: homophobia, evolving lab rats, and the politics of pretty

Mike Huckabee is homophobic, but you knew that already. (He compared gay marriage to incest and drug use, and said gay couples shouldn't be allowed to adopt because children aren't puppies.) In other terrible person news, Ben Roethlisberger...oh man.  I really hope he is disciplined for his behavior by the NFL, and that his team and his sport support the ongoing criminal investigation.

Olivia Judson reports that laboratory animals are evolving in ways that could jeopardize experimental validity--in as little as ten generations!  You hear that, people who love to speak of how there's no way evolution could come up with an eye?  I love Judson, and her book Sex Advice to All Creation is a great, witty primer on the endless mysteries of evolution.

I Blame the Patriarchy says we can't be pretty and be feminists.  It's an important thing to think about--the way focusing on physical attractiveness buys into norms about feminine-ness and appropriate female behavior, but I must say I respectfully disagree.  I think the key thing is to be conscious of the way we pursue physical attractiveness and our reasons for doing so (i.e., not couching our gym obsession in "health"), and be judicious about how much time and effort to devote to these things.  But to say that doing them is anti-feminist?  That's both judgmental and unrealistic.

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: the iPad, customer service, Kwanzaa cakes, and more!

The iPad is here!  And Huffington Post is apparently now the iPad Post!  Gawker thinks you should buy one or ignore it!   Boing Boing thinks Apple is a creativity-squashing bully!  Some guy who likes being in newspapers was the first in line for it!  Modern Family (on ABC, owned by Disney, whose largest shareholder is Steve Jobs) did a 30-minute infomercial for it that was definitely not product placement!  Oh man, Apple exhausts me.

I just spent 40 minutes on the phone trying to get my money back from boots I returned 3 months ago.  Do you have a really horrific customer service experience?  Please, do share in the comments.  And, to make you feel better, read this hilarious complaint letter to Virgin Airlines. 

Have you seen Sandra Lee's Kwanzaa cake yet?  I just came across it after clicking a link from the Fug Girls, and let me tell you, it's a treat you don't want to miss.  (Sandra Lee hosts a show called "Semi-Homemade," where she takes store-bought food and does unspeakable things to it.)

Jennifer Hudson has a new Weight Watchers commercial that awesomely emphasizes making healthier choices instead of focusing on weight loss.  Moreover, Hudson doesn't express discontentment with her old body, or measure her success in pounds.  I think it's badass, but, I mean, it's still a Weight Watchers commercial.

The NYTimes has an interesting Op-Ed about female Chechen suicide bombers.  There's also a semi-decent column by David Brooks (who you know I could do without) about how one's personal life (he says marriage, but I'm not sure that's right for everyone) is more important than professional success in determining happiness.  I agree to a certain extent, but think it's all about the balance.  For example, it can be hard to have a very happy marriage if one is professionally frustrated.  Also, you have to see this amazing story about people suffering from Parkinson's disease who can nonetheless ride bicycles with perfect ability.

On the topic of marriage, I like this piece by Bitch, PhD on open marriage.  She makes the important point that our concept of normality is defined by what works for us.  (But she phrases it thusly: "If you've slept with n people, anyone who's slept with n+1 people is a slut.")

Also in the NYTimes, some reasonable pieces about confronting America's health problems without fat shaming.  And, some very thoughtful reader letters in response to this piece on women in the sciences.

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: women in politics and the sciences, Passover, AT&T, and more!

This report shows that women are less likely to be recruited by political operatives to run for office, even at equal levels of experience and political connectedness.  This might be a major reason for the under-representation of women in elected office.
 
Elsewhere, women are making strides in representation in the sciences, but are still anemically present at top levels.  Nick Kristof is worrying about the boys for a change, and how to keep them engaged early on in school.  This issue has been brought up many times before, but Kristof handles it well, acknowledging that men still disproportionately dominate most arenas of society, but cogently arguing that we're doing a disservice if we let this fact blind us to the educational difficulties of young boys.
 
The march of bad science continues, with Louann Brizendine offering up some insane theories of how men are "hard-wired" to ogle our breasts in the workplace.
 
Happy Passover!  This year, President Obama will be hosting a seder, as he and his staff have done for the past two years, first on the campaign trail and then in the White House.  It's a sweet story, and I think gets at the nice thing about Passover: the universalism of the message that freedom is worth enough to risk a lot.
 
There's a new iPhone ap that let's you avoid AT&T...except not. It just lets you make calls through WiFi instead of through your AT&T minutes. But you still need that dern AT&T contract.
 
Feminist Review offers up women-penned reviews of things women are interested in watching, listening to, eating, and using. It's a worthy goal, and they're currently in the middle of a major fundraising drive, so I thought I'd draw attention to it here.
 
In this amusing interview, the author of Yes Means Yes!, Jaclyn Friedman, offers up the following handy test to see if the guy you're dating is feminist-compatible:

Right now my basic litmus test is this: Is he interested in feminist issues when I bring them up? And can he talk about them in ways that express curiosity and engagement and respect, instead of defensiveness or dismissiveness or attachment to stereotypes? If we can talk about this stuff in ways that are interesting and productive, I can work with it most of the time.

 [hat tips Larry, Katherine]

Femonomics reads the internet so you don't have to: bad science, working women, and football

Some crazy study has come out that shows that to maintain weight, women need to exercise an hour a day.  Oh wait, no it doesn't!  The study followed 34,000 women, who had a mean age of 54 at the start, over 13 years, and recorded exercise, start weight, and end weight.  1) There it is again: correlation is not causation.  Exercising a lot was correlated with not gaining weight (for women who had a "normal" BMI to begin with), but that could be because people who exercise a lot eat differently, have different genetics, or had different health habits early in life.  2) Did I mention these women started at 54?  Gaining weight in the 13 years between 54 and 67 is completely normal (whereas exercising an hour a day really isn't, especially for people in their 60s who may have health problems, see image).  Your body needs fat to synthesize estrogen, which is protective against osteoporosis and other diseases of aging.  After menopause, estrogen produced by the reproductive system naturally decreases (why hormone replacement therapy used to be the norm), so fat cells may be an important source of ongoing estrogen support.  We have no idea whether weight gain after menopause is good or bad for you.  We have no science that says this.  These studies...oh man.  As Gawker says, science is working overtime to make women feel bad about themselves, but not much else.