Pop-Culture | Posted by Julie Z on 11/11/2010
Not So Gleeful: What’s Wrong With GQ’s Latest Shoot
So, I know this is kind of dated, but please make fun of me, consider my humble excuse of being a senior coming up on college application deadlines, and then attempt to enjoy!
The reaction from feminists to the “Glee” themed photo shoot in the newest issue of GQ – a popular men’s magazine – wasn’t exactly surprising. The shot, which was done by infamous photographer Terry Richardson (no stranger to overtly sexual photo shoots and even sexual harassment claims) features three of the main stars of the Fox TV show in almost pornographic poses. Of course, there has been plenty of uproar concerning the fact that these overtly sexual images are borderline pedophilic – due to the fact that these actors portray teenaged characters and cater to a …
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Feminism | Posted by Alice P on 11/1/2010
Teenagers and Double Standards
I know it’s been said before but, as a teenage girl with friends of both genders, double standards are a massive issue for me. It’s come to a head recently, because of two entirely unrelated events.
Exhibit A – Female Friend, post feminist with spells of Female Chauvinist Pig.
Female Friend recently broke up with Older Boyfriend after a long term relationship (for a 16 year old). She was recently reintroduced to a long lost childhood friend, and she’s In Love. It’s great, she’s happy and the feeling seems to be mutual.
So what’s the problem?
Well, there’s been uproar among the other girls in my year. It’s too soon after her last breakup, she broke Older Boyfriend’s heart – she didn’t, it ended amicably and they’d been on/off for …
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Awareness | Posted by Julie Z on 10/21/2010
The Democratic Republic of Congo: Understanding the Conflict
This year in school, I’m taking a really amazing English elective called Gender, Culture, Power (SURPRISE! It’s taught by the same awesome teacher who handed me Jessica Valenti’s Full Frontal Feminism). Basically, some of the coolest, smartest, classiest girls (and one brave guy) get together almost every day to discuss gender…culture…and power. It’s bliss. And while we’ve had our fun dissecting everything from KFC advertisements to the Handmaid’s Tale thus far, we just embarked on a far more serious, yet completely enthralling, topic: the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
My class researched the conflict, and here’s a rundown of what we found:
History: In 1960, the DRC became independent of Belgium, which had colonized the African country in 1877. Soon after, violence broke out between different factions …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Steph on 10/19/2010
Gender Policing and Justin Bieber
“What is Justin Bieber doing out of the Kitchen?”
“It is an offence that we need to share the same gender as Justin Bieber”
“If Justin Bieber was a woman…oh wait, never mind”
“Leave Justin Bieber alone, stop making fun of HER!”
There’s more like this. Whether or not you like Justin Bieber’s music, you have to agree that there’s something wrong with the above facebook groups. Every single group that I listed at the start of this article has over five hundred members. That’s five hundred people who, if they don’t actively believe that, say, Justin Bieber should ‘stay in the kitchen’, felt that it was at least funny enough to become a fan of it on facebook.
What does it say that these groups are so popular? More …
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Feminism | Posted by Natalia K on 10/7/2010
Pink and Blue
It breaks my heart whenever I hear that women in China and India are having abortions or killing their new born babies just because they turn out to be girls. I’m pro-choice, but having an abortion because your baby is a girl instead of a boy is just beyond disturbing, sexist, and repulsive. The worst part is, the same attitude is prevalent in North America. We may not be killing our new born daughters (not that I know of at least) but a lot of women are definitely devaluing their gender and have become active participants in our good ol’ patriarchy.
Think of all the times you’ve heard women say that they would rather have a boy if they ever became pregnant. Now think of why they say that. …
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Feminism | Posted by Anna M on 09/21/2010
An Unabashed Imitation of An Article by Peggy McIntosh
In 1990, Wellesley College professor Peggy McIntosh wrote an essay called “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack”. McIntosh observes that whites in the U.S. are “taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness, not in invisible systems conferring dominance on my group.” To illustrate these invisible systems, McIntosh wrote a list of 26 invisible privileges whites benefit from.
As McIntosh points out, men also tend to be unaware of their own privileges as men. In the spirit of McIntosh’s essay, I thought I’d compile a list similar to McIntosh’s, focusing on the invisible privileges benefiting men.
Due to my own limitations, this list is unavoidably U.S. centric. I hope that writers from other cultures will create new lists, or modify this one, to reflect their own …
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Feminism | Posted by Hannah K on 09/20/2010
Fudge
I go to a fairly progressive co-ed school in Northeast Ohio. We just implemented this new crazy schedule where no period is less than sixty minutes long, and there is going to be a three week period where we take only one class ALL DAY LONG. Yet, beneath this shiny, new agey exterior there seems to creep some weirdly archaic views of women.
These ideas presented themselves recently in the form of a few delicious and gooey pieces of fudge.
“Fudge” you say. “How can fudge be sexist? Fudge is chocolate. Fudge is goodness. Fudge is right.” Ah yes. How I wish. Yet, this fudge of sexism has a very specific purpose, a specific meaning. It is part of an old school tradition.
Before a football game a boy on …
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Feminism | Posted by Shanmin D on 08/19/2010
Not Two Separate Species
I’m taking a creative writing class this summer at the local community college. One day, a man brought in a story he’d written? I won’t get into what it was about, but when he finished reading it to the class, a girl spoke up and politely disagreed with him. The man was not offended, received the comment graciously, and all was well and good. However, I was distraught when another guy spoke up and suggested that the girl didn’t “get” the story because it was written “for a man, by a man.”
It reminded me of another incident that took place in my English class last year. The teacher asked if any of us had seen How to Train Your Dragon over the weekend. Another girl and I both raised …
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