Feminism, Pop-Culture | Posted by Talia on 08/31/2010

Allison Iraheta and the Glamorization of Violence

Alison Iraheta

When Allison Iraheta was on American Idol, I really liked her, and was upset when she got voted off. One of my friends fell totally in love with her. “You gotta hear her single, ‘Friday I’ll Be Over U,’ it rocks,” she kept hocking me. I finally looked it up on YouTube and was unimpressed. When my friend kept insisting that I had to listen to the whole album, I got it from the library.

Since this isn’t an album critique, I won’t go into detail about how Allison sold her soul to the Music Industry Devil by singing teenybopper songs when she has more of a Janis Joplin appeal. What I will go into detail about is the plain old anti-woman offensiveness on the album. The songs “Friday I’ll Be Over…

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Feminism | Posted by Kate S on 08/9/2010

Pads, Phallus, and Gloria: Advocating for Trash Bins and More

Oh, Gloria Steinem

I recently came across Gloria Steinem’s “If Men Could Menstruate” as I was perusing over required reading packet. In this article, Steinem creates an alternate universe where the power of the penis is amplified by not women but men’s ability to menstruate. She hypothesizes that it would be no surprise to find the government taking an active role in making “monthly discomforts” more convenient, boys competing for longest and largest amount of monthly blood loss, and boyfriends encouraging intercourse at “that time of the month.” As I lmfao-ed, I remembered a certain incident at a yacht party in the early summer.

My friend’s parents had organized a yacht party to celebrate his graduation. Families and friends showed up in their cocktail dresses and suave suits. Before boarding, the captain…

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Feminism | Posted by Julie Z on 05/17/2010

National Punch a Slut Day

take note, FB trolls…

The facebook trolls who think they’re hilarious for their misogynistic groups and events are at it again, folks!

Some FBomb readers and a recent Jezebel article alerted me to a series of “slut punching” events – one a week-long event that I believe was removed, and another, which will merely last a day.

The latter event includes some seriously gross comments, such as:

Dongie Lee:
Some of you need to stfu about violence toward women. boohoo. Ever thought about violence toward men? toward elderly? toward kids? And I bet 99.9% of you fuckers bitching and crying aren’t doing a fucking thing to stop any real violence. Let’s also not forget that this group isn’t about punching women but about punching slutts. Do criminals deserve time in prison? Yes. Do slutts deserve to…

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Awareness | Posted by Julie Z on 05/11/2010

Yeardley Love: Why Domestic Violence Is Serious

Yeardley Love

Many of you may have heard by now about the murder of Yeardley Love, a senior lacrosse player at the University of Virginia. Last Monday, Yeardley was found by one of her roommates in bed, face down and unresponsive. Police found blood on her pillow and reported that her face was bruised as a cause of ‘blunt-force trauma.’

George Huguely, also a senior at the University of Virginia, and Yeardley’s on-again-off-again boyfriend, was charged with killing Yeardley, and admitted to acting violently with her the night she died, stating that he “entered Ms. Love’s unlocked apartment early Monday, kicked his foot through her bedroom door and forced his way in. He then ’shook Love, and her head repeatedly hit the wall’” (NY Times)

Of course, this is a tragedy. Yeardley Love…

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Feminism | Posted by Julie Z on 11/10/2009

Do It For The Teens

The Shriver Report

When my peers find out that I am a feminist blogger, I am generally faced with a few questions. “So you’re a lesbian?” is a pretty common one. “What’s a feminist?” is another. I have honed answering these questions into an art form, where I am able to answer both educationally and with a snippet of snark. It’s statements like, “We don’t need feminism anymore,” that truly give me pause.

Of course we still need feminism — but the reasons aren’t so simple anymore. We still don’t have equal pay, it’s true, but there are women who have truly impressive and powerful careers. Women don’t sit at home while men bring home the bacon anymore; in fact they’re 50% of the workforce. Statistically, it would appear that we’ve made…

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