Pop-Culture | Posted by Cherokee S on 01/20/2011
Get Thin or Die Trying
In outrage, my mum showed me an article in UK newspaper The Evening Standard and told me to read it. More or less, after finishing the article, I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what I had just read. What was it about, you ask? Well, if you have been alive on Twitter over the past week, the online universe has blown up over one certain former Big Brother contestant, Kenneth Tong.
Young, impressionable girls already have enough pressure on them as it is when it comes to their bodies and being deemed ‘beautiful’ and ‘attractive’ in the eyes of society, but when Kenneth Tong, with his idea of introducing a ‘Size-Zero Pill,’ fires attack after attack, claiming that girls who aren’t a size-zero are “disgusting,” and, “to be skinny …
More >
Feminism, Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 01/19/2011
Beauty Pageants: What You Should Do Instead
I usually don’t pay attention to beauty pageants anymore. My reasons for hating them are pretty obvious and I’ve written about them here before. They blatantly objectify women. If they’re boosting “self-esteem,” as pageant promoting talking heads often claim they do, then it seems to me that said confidence is mostly based on being held up as a figure of immense beauty in a global society where beauty is valued above all else. And while confidence is great, that’s a pretty shallow and transparent thing to feel confident about. And I get that a woman should be able to do whatever the hell she wants (within reason) and that entering a beauty pageant is a choice, but if we cut the shit the “ugh” factor here is a little …
More >
Feminism | Posted by Katherine C on 01/18/2011
Thoughts on Victimization
In ancient Celtic myth, the goddess Macha was forced by Conor mac Nessa of Ulster and his men to race against his horses while trapped in human form, even though she was pregnant. It made her begin labor prematurely, and as she delivered her twins, she let out a scream that stole the strength from all the grown men in hearing. Then Macha cursed the Ulstermen, saying, “From this day forward, you will be afflicted by the weakness of a woman in childbirth for your cruel treatment of me. At the hour of your greatest need, you will become as powerless as I am now, and so will your sons and your son’s sons, for nine generations.”
Maybe this happened in a concrete, historical way, or maybe it happened (just …
More >
