Pop-Culture | Posted by Alexa M on 08/15/2011
Why I’m Glad Daria Didn’t Lose Her Virginity
In 1997, MTV launched a new show called Daria. The show aimed to capture high school through the eyes of a teenage girl, mirroring other popular shows of the decade (My So Called Life, Buffy etc.) which also reflected hormonal, angsty teenage girls as the main protagonists.
The character Daria Morgendorffer, who the show is (obviously) named after, was a character on the popular TV show Beavis and Butthead. Why Beavis and Butthead was popular is beyond me. Every time I’ve tried to watch a segment of this show of gurgling stoners it makes me feel like I’m missing out on the ‘humour.’ Kind of like how I feel watching Two and a Half Men.
Here’s an early appearance of Daria on Beavis and Butthead:
Daria has …
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Feminism | Posted by Kelsie M on 08/5/2011
Thank You, Slutwalk
July 31 marks the one-year anniversary of the night I was raped. On August 6, I will be participating in Slutwalk when it comes to Philly. They could not have picked a better date. I find it ironic that the very word that kept me from getting any help that night a year ago is now the very same word that is saving me.
I know that Slutwalk has many critics, and in a way I think that most of it may stem from simple ignorance. I don’t mean this as an insult, but rather that until someone is in the situation of rape, they simply can never understand.
You will never understand the 3 am feeling of laying on the cool tile of the bathroom floor after puking up …
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Feminism | Posted by Charlotte on 07/26/2011
Dreamboy
In my eyes, he was perfect in every way. Dreamboy was smart, interesting, had beautiful brown eyes, a charming smile. He was genuinely more interested in girls’ personality than their breasts or butts. I thought Dreamboy was a perfect gentleman, and I loved him more than I’d loved anyone.
Dreamboy had, in his words, “exponentially more” experience than I did. He was a ladykiller, but was friends with many of the girls he’d had relations with. I respected that; he didn’t just “bump and dump” but rather actually took the time to get to know the girls and to keep knowing them after they’d hooked up. Dreamboy was different than any of the other guys I’d known in high school.
Then I told him that I’d hooked up (just kissing!) …
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Pop-Culture | Posted by Alec A on 07/18/2011
The Biebs Throws An Abstinence-Scented Curveball
Celebrities frequently make a quick buck on the side through endorsements of high-end scents, or even expand their own brand through eponymous perfume lines. Now Justin Bieber, of all people, is trying his hand at making the world a sweeter-smelling place. Bieber’s recently released perfume, however, is a complete reversal in the brand-development of feminine scents.
So let’s take a look at the usual perfume branding model. One notable example is the treacly, melodramatic endorsement of Chanel No. 5 by Nicole Kidman:
The advertisement opens with a salty, masculine Latino intoning his most solemn paean for the mysterious and beautiful Nicole Kidman, who quickly succumbs to her savior’s rugged good-looks and recklessly abandons her fame (if only for a short while, o cruel fate!) in order to hole up in …
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Feminism | Posted by Bre K on 06/28/2011
When Parents Are Wrong
Lately I’ve been getting into fights with my parents. Well, one main fight. They want me to find a job.
The argument part started when my hair turned out three different colors by mistake this year and I really wanted to dye my hair back to its natural, dark color. They said they will pay to dye my hair, but only dirty blond because I need to have “sex appeal” in order to find a part time job while going to school. Gross.
I want to be all natural and real, not fake like I’m trying to look like workplace Barbie. They told me, “You need to use your femininity to get a job. Half the workers are male workers and you can’t even do those jobs because you are a …
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Feminism | Posted by Alexa S on 05/26/2011
The Girls At The Table
I am not easily affected by other people’s opinions. Maybe I was at some point, but I rarely value my worth by how others perceive me. So I don’t understand how I can still feel so awfully judged by someone else without her saying a word.
If asked if I were ever explicitly bullied I would probably say no. But when I recently sat at a table among eight of my peers, all girls within a year of my age, many of whom I’ve been acquainted with for years, I positively felt like crap. One of the other girls at this table, one of my close friends, visibly hunched over as we sat down.
My friend and I are intellectual. We have truckloads of aspirations and are not afraid to …
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Feminism | Posted by Alexa S on 05/4/2011
In Defense of Comprehensive Sex Education
A very hot-button issue that has brought feminists to the forefront is comprehensive sex education. It is something that Jessica Valenti defends vehemently in the notable Full Frontal Feminism, and that many teens have written passionately about here on the F-Bomb. As someone who believes that ignorance should be avoided at all times and that the current state of education is largely condescending to high school students, I have always been on the defensive side on this issue as well.
In the past month, I have experienced sex ed at my public high school, and my defense of comprehensive sex education has become infinitely more fervid. The majority of my friends, including the three that I spend my health class with, are virgins. Out of the four of us, none …
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Feminism | Posted by Alec A on 04/1/2011
Why Homosexuality Is Perfectly Natural
A miniature Wild West town served as a backdrop to a very interesting thought. There is a scene in Rango where the eponymous character kisses his love interest, the sassy lizard named Beans. The two perform a perfectly heteronormative act in a theater packed with young children, and I thought about how they were all passively learning to recognize this as suitable conduct. I realized that I had been taught the exact same thing. Then I realized:
As a young boy, I was never taught to be attracted to men as a child. And yet now, as a teen, I identify as gay.
This may not seem particularly insightful in its condensed state, but this led me to ruminate further on how attraction could be taught to young children. Within …
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