Sorry for the sporadic posting this week folks; my life was unexpectedly hectic. Hopefully a return to normal (such as it is) next week! In the meantime, here are a few quick links I had a chance to note.

My hometown (Holland, Mich.) once again made the news (or at least one of my favorite blogs, Pam’s House Blend) in an unflattering way when the Family Research Council decided to publish a full-page anti-gay advert in the town newspaper, the Holland Sentinel. Thankfully, the newspaper has also created a dedicated webpage for the letters it got in response. I haven’t had a chance to read more than the headlines, but if they are anything to go by the response has been overwhelmingly negative.

Emily Nagoski @ ::sex nerd:: mused about the intersection of feminism and sexology and the “nerd voice” as identified and described by Sara Vowell in her essay of the same name.

Thomas @ Yes Means Yes talked about the two ways to disrupt the power of shaming labels (in this case “slut”): attacking the existence of the label and embracing it.

lis @ Sociological Images resposted the “findings” of a researcher who analyzed the messaging habits of those seeking women and men on the dating site OKCupid and … regurgitated some pretty simplistic (and damaging) stereotypes about bisexuality in his analysis. Commenters on this thread were pretty universal in decrying the shoddy research for what it was, so the comment thread is well worth reading.

In other flawed-yet-fascinating research results, Lisa Wade @ Jezebel shares the results of a poll conducted through a Christian website asking men what types of clothing and behaviors were considered “immodest” for women. Basically, to be modest apparently requires 24/7 policing of one’s appearance and physical movements. Finally: the answer to why I became a feminist — being a non-feminist was just too much effort!

Adrienne @ From Austin to A&M on the perils of being a feminist romance reader, and suggestions for where to go as a feminist for your romance fix (hint: paranormal romance features heavily).

Greta Christina has a piece up over at Alternet about five stupid, unfair and sexist things expected of men. File this one in your “the patriarchy hurts men too” (even though, I know, I know, it isn’t the patriarchy but the kyriarchy anyhow).

B @ Feminist Review reports on a new book coming out of the UK called Reclaiming the F-Word: The New Feminist Movement. Sounds like an interesting perspective from across the pond.

Molly @ first the egg asks for suggestions of your favorite feminist young adult books. Hop on over and share!

Cass @ Bonjour, Cass! has suggestions for non-fiction reading on trans issues. Looking for a refresher (or just some geeky summer reading? Check out the post!

Other folks looking to get themselves educated are medical students, who feel woefully ill-equipped to provide sexual health services to their patients, according to a new study. Kate Drummond @ Surge Desk has more.

s.e. smith @ FWD/Forward takes on uninformed advice from a different angle, this time a problematic response to a Miss Conduct etiquette column about touch, boundaries, and social spaces.

Last week, Dan Savage @ the New York Times observed that the new indie film, “The Kids Are All Right,” featuring a lesbian couple with two teenage children might not be the great progressive breakthrough it’s being touted as in many reviews. (Spoilers ahead in both links if you care!)

I realize this is the worst sort of film criticism (“Why did the filmmakers tell the story they told instead of the story they didn’t?”), but I couldn’t help feeling a little let down. There is, I think, just as much dramatic potential — just as many opportunities for crisis and conflict — in a story about two women who successfully incorporate the father of their children into their lives and into their family.

But maybe I have a bias.

Tonight we’re taking our son to the airport to pick up his mom, the woman who chose us, in an open adoption nearly 13 years ago, to raise her child. We didn’t have to slam a door in her face to become a family or to protect our family. We couldn’t have become a family without her.

Miriam @ Feministing also offers her own observations.

And finally, Abie Kopf @ Gay Rights Blog dissects the import of the wily quotation marks of homophobes.

Or should I say “wily” quotation marks?

Welcome! This week in sex and gender …

New Blog: Anarcha-feminism: it’s about as scary as it sounds. Complete with rainbows and happy trees and coloring outside the lines!

Michaela Borg @ Ms. Blogs | Shoulder to Shoulder: UK Suffrage Postcards! The images are definitely worth the click-through if you’re into vintage postcards + feminism … I mean, really, what’s not to like??

Anna North @ Jezebel | Terrifying weight-loss ad will make you lose sleep. Video and commentary. “First of all, it’s obviously not true that fat people can’t tie their own shoes or lead exciting lives. But what kind of exciting life is depicted here anyway? Trench warfare? A firing squad? A bleeding knife? These are the worst reasons to lose weight we’ve ever heard (and we’ve heard some bad ones).”

Jacelyn Friedman @ Feministe & Yes Means Yes | On Sex and Compromise (Feministe) and On Sex and Compromise (Yes Means Yes). Cross-posted discussion about the ethics of sexual negotiation in relationships vis a vis the concept of “enthusiastic consent” as the ethical standard for relational sex. I share both posts because the comment threads on both are crucial to fleshing out the conversation as it evolved.

Minerva @ Hypomnemata | Armed and Alarmed [No Sex as Weapon]. My friend Minerva challenges Jacelyn’s reading of sexual negotiation and compromise from her perspective as someone with an asexual orientation.

Vexing @ Feministing Community | “I wouldn’t fuck a trans person.” On why saying this is transphobic. Full stop.

Richard Florida @ The Daily Beast | America’s Top 20 Gayest Cities (in pictures!). Shared mostly because my brother and his girlfriend (Portland, OR, #8), my sister and her boyfriend (Austin, TX, #7) and Hanna and I (Boston metro, MA, #4) all make the list. Coincidence? Likely not! Also, I find it fascinating that Florida is “surprised” that Columbus, Ohio, made the list (#16). If you’re from the Midwest and in the queer community this really wouldn’t come as a surprise at all!

Thomas @ Yes Means Yes | The Slut-Shaming Kind of Feminist. Really not much of a feminist at all.

Courtney @ From Austin to A&M | ForeverGeek does it again! On (once again) why personal experience — while legitimate — is not a replacement for analysis of larger patterns. “How has this adult geek woman never considered, when she writes for a blog where she is a token lady, that she is in a male-dominated culture? Seriously.”

Tracy Clark-Flory @ Salon | Transgender widow put on trial. Nikki Araguz is being sued by her husband’s family, following is death while on duty as a firefighter in Texas. The husband’s family claim the marriage was invalid due to Nikki’s trans status. Autumn Sandeen @ Pam’s House Blend has more.

Charlie Glickman @ Adult Sexuality Education | Shame as a Public Health Issue. He’s talking specifically about trans/queer youth and safer-sex practices, but I’d say shame itself is a public health concern, given the detrimental effect self-hatred and shame have on quality of life and the ability for someone to feel worthy of sexual pleasure.

And finally, Hanna @ …fly over me, evil angel… | friday fun times. Hanna has a round-up of the photographs from Comic Con of geeks counter-protesting the Westboro Baptist Church haters, who came to rain on the Comic Con parade. When in doubt, fight hatred with laughter. Humor always wins (or at the very least, has a good time!). Just sayin’.

I’m back this week, and I know at least a couple of people missed this list ’cause they wrote and told me so! How cool is that?

Anyways, here’s a bunch of stuff that’s been accumulating since the weekend of the 4th out there on the internets, and which I hope you’ll find yourself hooked by (at least a link or two).

On the family values front

While I was gone on vacation, Bristol Palin and once and future beau Levi Johnston announced their re-engagement on the cover of Us magazine. Amber Benfer @ Salon contemplates the way the celebrity family’s story matches up (or doesn’t) with the narrative conservative America wants to tell about teen sex, marriage, and parenting.

Annette Bening and Julianne Moore co-star in “The Kids Are All Right,” a “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner” for the queer family age, in which Bening and Moore’s two teenage children bring their biological father (played by Mark Ruffalo) home for dinner. David Edelstein @ Fresh Air offers a glowing review and Sarah Seltzer @ RhRealityCheck weighs in on the film’s limitations.

When women are pregnant, they often discover that the normal rules of personal space cease to apply, as Jessica Valenti of Feministing documents on her own personal site. “Stop touching my stomach without my permission. It’s presumptuous and it creeps me out. You wouldn’t touch a non-pregnant person’s belly without asking, so what makes you think it’s okay to just lay hands on mine?”

Sarah @ Feministing Community shares her own personal experience with the fundamentalist Quiverfull movement and challenges feminists to educate themselves on the contours of this rapidly-growing conservative counterculture, rather than just toss off scornful comments.

Dodai Stewart @ Jezebel suggests that a recent story about an interracial couple who have twins with differing skin tones is a useful object lesson in how race is culturally constructed.

Feminism is for everybody (even Hot GirlsTM!)

I’ve been reading a lot of awesome stuff lately about appearance policing and sexism/misogyny. Is it something in the air y’all?

The story about Olivia Munn and sexism and The Daily Show, which I didn’t have the energy to blog about (although I tried several times to write something from scratch and failed), has really brought out a lot of awesome posts about the difference between hating on someone ’cause they’re HotTM and calling out individual (Munn) or collective (TDS) actions that actively or passively support a system that is sexist or using power in other unhealthy ways.

For starters, there’s Amanda Hess @ The Sexist and Sady @ Tiger Beatdown (both such Very Awesome LadiesTM) talking about criticism of comedian Olivia Munn for her participation in sexist culture. And for being HotTM. Amanda: Consent and Manipulation in Olivia Munn’s Playboy Shoot Amanda: Feminism is for Bitches Sady: The Munn Paradox Amanda: Women as Gatekeepers of Sex – and Sexism. I can’t emphasize enough how worthwhile it is to read all of these posts in full, but it comes down to this: as feminists, we should call out sexism as it hurts everyone, even those who we think are enabling it, even those who benefit from it.

Not everyone sees it that way, though, specifically Emily Gould @ Slate who has a history of making controversial statements about feminists, charging feminists with being overcome by jealousy. Shelby Knox @ Feministe observes that Gloud might possibly have been purposefully misconstruing the situation for page views; Amanda Marcotte @ Pandagon writes about the difficulty of blogging on body issues, and why Gould’s attack on feminist media for critiquing harmful cultural norms is so counterproductive.

See, Hot GirlsTM totally can’t win, as this post from @ Jezebel points out. “It’s not that we want or need Angelina [Jolie] to do a romcom. The universe is a much better place with her sneering, running, jumping, doing her own stunts and gunning down fools. But doesn’t calling her ‘too forceful’ imply that love is for the weak? Don’t we all have a little bit of a swooning romantic in us as well as a smidge of ass-kicker? And what the hell does it mean to be ‘too strong’ for romance?”

You don’t even have to be a Hot GirlTM to get be caught in a lose-lose type situation, as Lilly @Jezebel points out in her personal story of sartorial humiliation while serving ice cream. The post struck such a chord that it garnered Jezebel’s comment of the day (COTD) award with this list of instructions for women who find themselves shamed by the appearance police.

Silvana @ Tiger Beatdown leaps into the frey with a post about judging other peoples’ appearance. “When I hear, tights are not pants, or you should wear pantyhose to court, or I wouldn’t wear X cut of a shirt because it doesn’t look good on me, I think, who made these rules? Why are we following them? Why do we passively subscribe to an aesthetic system that requires us to daily fulfill the twin obligations of being ‘respectful’ by not doing anything out of the ordinary and looking as thin and ‘feminine’ as we can muster? I want fashion to be less about making other people comfortable, and more about personal expression and art. There is too much hierarchy. It is too top-down, from a murky top with too many leaders with too many conflicting messages.”

“She asked for it” — Not!

Of course, sexual assault skeptics rely on appearance policing big time as a way to legitimize victim-blaming (if it’s okay to police peoples’ appearance, then it follows on some level that it’s okay to punish them for inappropriate dress and behavior). Alex DiBranco @ Women’s Rights Blog points our attention toward a new PSA campaign in Scotland that points out the absurdity of laying the blame for rape on the behavior of the victim (rather than, you know, on the behavior of the perpetrator).

Amanda Hess @ The Sexist points out the problem with “hoping it’s not true” when it comes to allegations of sexual assault by someone you respect. “When we ‘hope it’s not true’ … We’re not hoping that our criminal justice system works to convict the guilty and acquit the innocent. We’re hoping that the person who reported the sexual assault is a liar. We’re hoping that people who claim to be victims of sexual assault are all lying, that it never really happens. We’re hoping, in the end, that bad things do happen — to good men who are victimized by bad women.” Seriously. Go read the whole thing.

Via Amanda Hess comes this post by Sarah M. @ Change Happens on why “drunk sex” isn’t really that easily confused with rape, and we shouldn’t pretend that it is. “Clearly people are sometimes going to get drunk and have sex. And the presence of alcohol in someone’s bloodstream does not automatically make it rape. But there’s a spectrum of intoxication. If someone is physically impaired by their drinking (or drug use), you can tell. They are getting sick, their body is limp, they’re not able to communicate clearly with you. It’s a common sense situation. If it’s less obvious, you know they have been drinking but you’re not sure how much and they seem OK, that’s where communication is key, and honestly—if it’s unclear how drunk your partner is and you feel conflicted, then maybe just play it safe and don’t do it. Instincts are there for a reason.”

If you’re a child and your parent asks you to do things like pose naked and talk about your sexuality which make you feel uncomfortable but you do them ’cause it’s your Dad and you don’t want to say no, and then those images and words are turned into artwork and made accessible for the whole world to see — do you have a right to say “no”?

Obvious answer: yes (Carolyn @ Carolyn Gage). Answer given by a lot of folks out there in the world (’cause the world is fucked): not if it’s art (Irin Carmon @Jezebel). More to come on this next week, in a still-being-written blog post about archival ethics and issues of consent.

IrrationalPoint @ queergeeks offers a succinct example of how consent and nonconsent works, starting in childhood, when bullies don’t listen to the voices of children who try and stand up for themselves.

Feminism is for everybody!

Courtney @ From Austin to A&M explains why being “apolitical” doesn’t stop you from perpetuating sexism.

A lesson that the folks over at The Daily Show could apparently stand to learn (or remind themselves of). Amanda Hess @ The Sexist explains.

Possibly also Whoopi Goldberg, who recently fell into the Ill Doctrine trap of having the “is he a racist” conversation rather than the “what he said was racist conversation. @ Bitch Blogs explains.

Feminism (in my oh-so-humble opinion) is all about treating every human being like, well, a human being, instead of a ‘bot created to fill a certain social role. zack @ The New Gay calls out straight women for expecting gay men to fill such a social role, rather than treating him as, you know, an individual.

Feminism is even for menfolk! Greta Christina @ The Blowfish Blog lays some feminist hate on the straightjacket expectations of masculinity and then explains why laying on the feminist hate matters, and might actually make the world a better place for all those wonderful menfolk we feminists love so much.

Which isn’t to say that being a feminist and, like, making that change in the world is at all easy. Harriet J @ Fugitivus explains in great, now I hate everybody.

Oh help!

This post has become MAMMOTH! and I still have stuff to share … damn it. Oh, well, I’m going to call it quits there for this week and see if I can’t work a few other things into actual legitimate blog posts.

Meanwhile, I’ll sign off with this story from Richard Knox @ NPR about a psychologist who has been studying marriage proposals on YouTube. Have fun, y’all! And I’ll be back with more.

Because who could possibly resist gaudy patriotism like this on the 4th of July weekend? Not me!

In other, much more serious news (*ahem*), Amanda Hess & Courtney Stoker @ The Sexist talk about the highs and lows of being a feminist geek, and how to make dudely subcultures more inclusive, while Julia (also @ The Sexist) discusses how fanfic can serve as the gateway to kink (third video from the top).

The Youth and Media Policy Working Group Initiative @ Berkman Center for Internet and Society (Harvard University) offer up a paper (available in PDF) on “addresses legal and practical issues related to the practice colloquially known as sexting.” You can read a press release and download the paper at their website. I haven’t had a chance to peruse it, but it looks to be a good resource for folks doing research and/or advocacy in this area.

Thomas @ Yes Means Yes wrote a short post this week reminding us all that physical response to sexual stimulation does not equal consent: our bodies respond with arousal whether we desire the contact or not. What does this mean? Only enthusiastic participation can really equal consent, and that’s the golden standard we all need to be looking for in our partners.

Everyone, it seems, has opinions on whether women should breastfeed their children, for how long, under what circumstances, and the depths of “bad mother”-dome they will sink if they push the envelope on any of these parameters. Rowan Pelling @ The Telegraph (UK) describes the no-win situation

The last time I wrote on the topic, saying in the mildest terms that while I subscribed to the view that breast was best it was counter-productive to bully women on the topic, I received a torrent of abusive mail. Several people suggested that I should not have reproduced if I “couldn’t be bothered” to feed the baby myself, while one New Man denounced my laziness, saying piously that he had “made sure my wife persevered for our child’s good”. I had a vision of his poor spouse weeping with cracked nipples, while he chained her to the nursing chair.

Over @ first the egg, Molly shares her toddler’s expertise on childbirth, as well as he boundless curiousity for how babies are grown and birthed. “In the car later he was annoyed with himself because he knew that the cord provides food through the blood but couldn’t remember about oxygen: ‘What else does it do?,’ he asked urgently. Then he said he’d tell [his teacher] about the oxygen thing the next day. This child takes his duties as childbirth educator seriously, people.”

Endocrinologist Dr. Marian New is experimenting with the use of hormone therapy for pregnant women to reduce incidences of congenital adrenal hyperplasia(CAH) in female fetuses. CAH has been linked by some to a greater incidence of infertility, intersexuality, “masculine” behaviors, bisexuality, and even (gasp!) lesbianism. Kelsey Wallace @ Bitch Blogs feels this warrants the latest proclaimation of a douchebag decree for en utero gender norm enforcement! For those interested the more science-heavy details of New’s experimental treatments see: Alice Dreger, Ellen K. Feder, Anne Tamar-Mattis @ Bioethics Forum, Preventing Homosexuality (and Uppity Women) in the Womb? and an update by the same authors: Prenatal Dex.

In other drug-related news, the FDA recently declined to approve Flibanserin, a drug that is supposed to increase sexual desire in pre-menopausal women. While a number of feminists have vocally opposed the medicalization of sexual desire, Dr. Marty Klein @ Sexual Intelligence asks what is accomplished by denying the drug to women for whom a medical fix might improve their quality of life. “There’s something unseemly about activists — self-described feminists, sexual health advocates, whatever –working so hard to prevent a drug from coming to market because its creators might manipulate and confuse possible consumers.”

We might say we believe in gender equality, but do our values and our actions really reflect such a claim? As SarahMC @ The Pursuit of Harpyness, equality in theory but not in practice seems to be the order of the day according to a recently-released Pew Research survey of twenty-two nations worldwide.

Elena Kagan refused to backpedal her opposition to “don’t ask, don’t tell,” according to Michael Jones @ The Gay Rights Blog, and the always-worth-reading Dahlia Lithwick @ Slate offers her take on Kagan’s nomination process, reporting how senators worried that the Court might impose a Communist regime of forced vegetables for all if Kagan is approved, while Kagan herself woos her audience with her wit and wisdom as all the justices who’ve gone before her haunt the Senate floor. Which, in the end, turned out to be a poor tactic for the opposition, since most Americans are pretty happy with what Thurgood Marshall accomplished for civil rights.

In other Supreme Court-related news, SCOTUS handed down a ruling at the end of the 2009-2010 term supporting schools’ rights to require all school-endorsed student groups to be open to all. The specific case argued involved a law school that refused official recognition to a Christian student group because they required all members to sign a statement of faith upon joining, the articles of which included condemning non-straight sexuality as sinful.

Speaking of sinful behavior, Sinclair @ Sugarbutch Chronicles tackles the question of whether enjoying porn that features sexual orientations other than your own is exploitative. Short answer: No. Slightly longer answer: It’s not the consumption of pornography or erotica that is a measure of your exploitative behavior, it’s how you actually treat actual people whose sexual orientations and predilections differ from yours.

In other words: Let that erotica increase your reserve of lovingkindness toward all beings!

And with that, I’m going to sign off and go enjoy me some fireworks. Or maybe just an episode of two of American Dad!

Happy 4th everyone!

^{image credit: _MG_0880.JPG by DINO212 @ Flickr.com.}

A quiet week in Lake Woebegone, folks … maybe everyone was laid low by the heat? Or busy watching the World Cup? Anyways, here’s a handful of links that jumped out from my feeds these past seven days.

First, a pretty picture (nsfw) which I was unable to use for today’s illustration (damn people protecting their online content!!)

Amanda Marcotte @ Pandagon | How I Stopped Being A Slut, And Learned To Cash Massive Book Advances. “There are some obstacles to overcome. The largest is obviously my boyfriend, who is all about me getting lucrative book deals, but is concerned that the necessary thesis—that my wanton feminist ways have left me loveless and manless—could be construed as insulting to him. I’ve tossed around the idea of kicking him out and only seeing him on the sly, but the cats have raised objections to this, having grown quite fond of him after living with him for most of their lives.”

Aviva Dove-Viebahn @ Ms. Magazine Blog | How to Lose Your Virginity: An Interview with Therese Shechter. “Up until a certain age, you’re not supposed to be sexually active, and then you cross some invisible threshold and suddenly everyone is supposed to be having sex … And I have met so many people that aren’t and feel terrible. Not personally feel terrible—they’re making decisions about their lives—but feel terrible culturally. Like, God forbid anyone should find out about this.”

Miriam @ Feministing | Defining queer virginity. “…But for queer folks, the boundaries are less defined. When two women have sex, when have they ‘done it’? What about two men? What about two genderqueer or trans folks? Is it about penetration, or about orgasms, or nudity, or oral sex? When you expand your ideas of sexuality beyond the confines of straightness, things are more open.”

Amanda Hess @ The Sexist | Talking Sex, With Kink Educators and Anti-Porn Activists. “Since co-founding KinkForAll, Maymay has encountered some complications that don’t figure into his spreadsheets—which is why, even if there’s no live action onstage, he tapes every gathering. ‘I record myself because some people like to say I’m a pedophile, and since I’m not really a pedophile, it helps when they see video of me not being a pedophile,’ he says. ‘I’m like, “Actually, I was just showing a Google doc on the screen.”‘”

Molly @ first the egg | review: The Business of Being Born. “A little over 16 minutes into the film, an adorable doctor explains why doctors tend to prefer the flat-on-the-back-in-bed position and why that’s not okay. This part is just fantastic; I do wish every ‘parent-to-be’ would watch these two minutes.”

Miriam @ Radical Doula | New radical birth magazine: SQUAT.

and, for those looking for comment threads to wile away some time on …

erica @ Feministe | What kind of mirror did your mom make you look at your vagina with? “All this measures up very differently when I hear friends’ stories about how they only really learned about sex in their twenties, or thought that by only having oral, or anal sex they could still remain virgins. So, to expand my horizons a little, I asked everyone I knew to contribute their virginity and/or their how they learned about the birds & the bees stories. They’ll be going up all this week starting later today.”

^{image credit: La Grande Danse macabre des vifs by Martin Van Maele (1863–1926), made available @ Wikimedia Commons.}

Just the links this week, folks. Enjoy!

LaPrincipessa @ sexgenderbody | Why “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” Is So Important.

Ashley Sayeau @ RhRealityCheck | “Sex and the City” Hate: Why Don’t Men Get Slammed for Lavish Spending?

Amanda Hess @ The Sexist | Why Wedding Weight Loss Isn’t About “Health.” Hint: few things are where weddings and People magazine are concerned.

Amanda Hess and Sady Doyle @ The Sexist | Sexist Beatdown: The Chat They Didn’t Want You to Read! Edition. On the discourse surrounding non-consensually publicized sex tapes.

Cara @ The Curvature | Rape, Male Victims, and Why We Need to Care.

irrationalpoint @ Modus dopens | Don’t have answers. On the DSM V and other ways of pathologizing sex and gender nonconforming people and behavior.

Molly @ first the egg | motherbaby, 1981 & 2006. Images of two generations of women and their newborns.

Sinclair @ Sugarbutch Chronicles | On Processing & Analyzing. Ways of communicating, thinking, and writing about relationships.

Courtney @ Feministing | Love across oceans: U.S. government is still a sinking ship. Immigration as a feminist issue.

Ann Friedman @ The American Prospect | It’s Not the End of Men. And I wish to god we’d stop claiming it was.

^{image credit: lovers on the table by .shyam. @ Flickr.com}

First off, an internet pen-friend of mine, Natasha Curson, based in East Anglia, England, has started a new blog, Natasha Curson – a trans history, this week. From the inaugural post: “In 2007, after tussling with my gender identity for so many years, I was on the edge of giving up. I had almost accepted that I could never be happy, that there was no way of reconciling my everyday life with these inner feelings. Over the years I had dabbled with transgender clubs and support groups but even leading a hidden, second life I couldn’t come to terms with things. I couldn’t seem to find the people who felt like me, or so it seemed at the time. I was painfully shy about the things that mattered in both worlds. The real problem was, if I couldn’t admit something to myself, how could I discuss it properly with others?”

C.L. Minou @ Women’s Rights Blog points out that experiences of transgendered profs are a case study in sexism. “Before her transition, people who raised objections to her work never assumed that they were smarter than her, but now that is a common occurrence. Her access to university funds has dried up, and her salary stagnated since transitioning.”

Tracy Clark Flory @ Salon mused about how the feminist war over smut rages on and on…and on. “I dig the in-your-face, screw you attitude [of Violet Blue], and I consider myself a pro-porn feminist. So, if you detect a lack of enthusiasm, it isn’t because I think it’s a boring or unworthy aim. In fact, the intersection of feminism and porn makes for one of my favorite subjects, and it’s one I’ve been thinking, reading and writing about for most of my adult life. I just can’t believe we’re still debating whether porn is a good or a bad thing, feminist or antifeminist — as though it falls clearly into one clear, impermeable category.”

Amanda Hess @ The Sexist offers us an illustrated history of male chastity devices. Oh, yes, they made them. Definitely not for the faint of heart and possibly NSFW depending on your place of employment.

SQT @ Fantasy & SciFi Lovin’ News and Reviews opines oh the misogyny…are women in entertainment just ornamentation? (thanks to Hanna for the link). Short answer: no. SQT challenges the Ms. Magazine’s reading of Iron Man 2 as an expression of sexism in Hollywood, suggesting that it possibly has an edge of Sex and the City 2 when it comes to the portrayal of kick-ass female characters.

Jessica Valenti @ The Washington Post soundly denounces the fake feminism of Sarah Palin. Because she says it better than I can: “But, of course, Palin isn’t a feminist — not in the slightest. What she calls “the emerging conservative feminist identity” isn’t the product of a political movement or a fight for social justice. It isn’t a structural analysis of patriarchal norms, power dynamics or systemic inequities. It’s an empty rallying call to women who are disdainful of or apathetic to women’s rights, who want to make abortion and emergency contraception illegal, who would cut funding to the Violence Against Women Act and who fight same-sex marriage rights.”

Not everyone is so unambivelant about Palin being out of the club, however. Rebecca Traister @ Salon writes about feminisms tumultuous history of insiders and outsiders in Sarah Palin’s grab for feminism, concluding that “I am pretty damn nervous — more nervous than I’d like to be — about Sarah Palin’s grab at ‘feminism.'”

On the subject of being feminist, Amanda Marcotte @ RhReality Podcast had a great interview this week with Courtney Martin, who has recently co-edited a book called Click which is a collection of essays by young women reflecting on their feminist awakenings.

Lore Sjoberg @ Wired offers helpful tips in the nice guys guide to realizing you’re not that nice. “For some reason you think ‘nice’ means ‘completely devoid of sexual energy.’ When you’re attracted to someone, you treat her like you’re her brother. Her brother the priest. Her brother the elderly Victorian priest who is actually a large stuffed animal. Then when some guy comes along and does a little thoughtful flirting and actually gets her attention, you think ‘Man, that guy’s a jerkface.'” (hat tip to Alas, a Blog)

Earlier this week, I wrote a bit of a ranty post about men’s rights activists who miss the whole point about institutional sexism and intersectionality. Jill @ I Blame the Patriarchy tackles the same story in her own special way in MRAs on parade: chumpass motherfucker declares ownership of girlfriend’s uterus.

And I leave you with the always eloquent Aaron Sorkin @ The Huffington Post stepping up to the plate to defend (but not in the way you think!) Ramin Satoodeh as a theatre critic in now that you mention it rock hudson did seem gay.

^{image credit: untitled by Legominose @ Flickr.com.}

Another Lengthy Quotations Edition.

All of these articles are worth reading in their entirety, and often their arguments are too complex to capture in a single quotation. I hope the snippets are enough to hook you into clicking through to at least one or two of them!

Tavi @ The Style Rookie | a few observations. “I know that it was said that Richardson sometimes gets naked and lets the girl take pictures of him before they let him take nude pictures of them. But this isn’t him being fair, it’s a strategy. It’s manipulative, it’s scary, and the last thing someone wants when they feel pressured into doing anything sexual is for the other person to suddenly be wearing nothing but tattoos. It’s supposed to, y’know, relax everyone, but there’s a difference between putting on a smooth jazz album while preparing some nice ginseng teas and, um, being naked, all of a sudden, in an uncomfortable person’s face.” via Jill @ Feministe.

Heather Corinna @ RhRealityCheck | Disability Dharma: What Including & Learning From Disability Can Teach (Everyone) About Sex. “Disability awareness and inclusion can also help abled people get more creative when it comes to sex. Folks with physical disabilities have to be creative about things like sexual positioning or sensitivity, and are used to having to explore positioning and sensitivity ourselves a lot, dumping preconceived notions that we can do what someone else can or will feel what someone else may feel. We tend to take it as a given that rather than starting externally, with what we see elsewhere or someone else suggests, we’ll need to start with ourselves and our own bodies, feeling out what works for us (and doesn’t) uniquely. We’re less inclined to put all our sexual or physical stock in just one body part or area of the body, especially if the kind of disability we have means that sometimes our bodies or a given body part will work in a way one day that on another day won’t work well or at all. When our bodies change over time — as bodies always do and always will, and not just during puberty but through all of life — we’ve more practice at both adapting but also at processing our feelings about physical changes.”

Amanda Hess @ The Sexist | Vintage Victim-Blaming: Feminism Causes Rape, and Other Crime Prevention Tips. “The victim-blaming ‘tips’ I hear in 2010 — all those helpful crime prevention strategies presented as ‘common sense’ for women to follow in order to avoid rape nowadays — don’t explicitly blame equality between the [sexes] for rape. But 33 years later, the solution for reducing sexual assaults against women hasn’t changed: Tell them to stop moving about the world freely, and then blame them when they do.”

Cara @ The Curvature | Boys Aged 10 and 11 Convicted of Attempted Rape as Apologists Deny Assault Was Possible. “Trying these children as adults and ultimately putting them on the sex offender registry list instead of working with them through various means to ensure that they realize that what they did was wrong and lose any desire to ever do it to anyone else ever again, I think, was absolutely the wrong move” (trigger warnings on original post for rape apologism and linked articles with descriptions of sexual assault).

Molly @ first the egg | too fat to mother. “The problem is that ordering children to lose weight and separating them from their parents might be far from the best solution to this problem. If anything, the diet regimens these decisions enforce are likely to produce more misery, not less. First and foremost by making weight loss the goal courts are setting these children up for failure. The vast majority, some studies say 95% (!), of weight loss attempts fail in the long-run and dieters normally regain the weight they lost within few years. The repeated failures and the fact that these kids’ lives become exclusively dedicated to losing weight are only likely to promote eating disordered behavior and depression.”

Silvana @ Tiger Beatdown | On Heavy Girls and Sexy Time. “Fat girls are more likely to get labeled as sluts, because ‘slut’ is a catch-all word for women and girls who do not conform to ladylike and womanly behavior, and being fat is definitely not lady-like or womanly behavior. And look, I can say from experience, if enough people are calling you a slut, you start to believe it. You’re 12! What do you know about what a slut is? And you are hitting puberty, and having all these sexual thoughts about boys, and thinking, okay, people are saying I am a slut so OBVIOUSLY this is not normal and there must be something deeply, deeply wrong with me. Perhaps after a while, you think, hey, if everyone is calling me a slut, I might as well go ahead and be one, because they sure as hell aren’t going to stop, are they?”

In much more awesome news womanistmusings @ Womanist Musings | No, You Mean to be Hateful to Gay People. “Last night we were sitting around waiting for the unhusband to bbq dinner, when our neighbour popped by for a visit. For the purposes of this conversation I am going to call him Michael. We stood chatting when suddenly another neighbour popped out of his house. Michael decided to greet the new addition by yelling, ‘hey faggot’. This was supposedly a friendly greeting, though in my mind it constitutes hate speech. [My son], never being one to allow a slur to go unanswered responded with, ‘would you mind please not using that word, it is not nice’.”

Kate Harding @ Jezebel | 5 Ways of Looking at “Sara Palin Feminism”. “So, can’t I just agree to disagree with Sarah Palin – or at least to ignore her use of the term and continue to go about my business? Well, evidently not, or I wouldn’t be writing this. The problem is, words mean things. I could start calling myself a red meat conservative, or campaign for those of us who are against the death penalty to ‘reclaim’ the term ‘pro-life,’ but at some point, the relationship between your beliefs and your choice of words either passes the sniff test or it doesn’t. And someone who actively seeks to restrict women’s freedom calling herself a feminist is, not to put too fine a point on it, a liar. There’s a difference between a big tent and no boundaries whatsoever; if Palin’s ‘entitled to be accepted’ as a feminist just because she says she’s one, then the word is completely meaningless — as opposed to merely vague and controversial.”

Natascha Kennedy @ The Guardian | Once again the T in LGBT is silenced. “There has rightly been an international outcry in response to the couple’s barbaric treatment, but the protest has been against the perceived homophobia of Malawi’s law courts. The problem is, however, that one half of this couple does not primarily identify as gay. Tiwonge is most probably transgender but possibly intersex (in many parts of Africa people do not actually have clear vocabulary to express this), and considers herself a woman. Indeed she has lived ‘as a woman’ all her life.” (update: over the weekend, Malawi’s president pardoned the couple and they were released from jail.)

Ryan Thoreson @ Huffington Post | The Swing Vote. “Decades after the sexual revolution and lesbian feminism and the advent of queer theory, the is-she-or-isn’t-she debate revolves around a profoundly false dichotomy. With little meaningful information on either side, the media points to Kagan’s interest in men during law school as evidence that she’s straight, just as bloggers use her alleged partnership with a woman as evidence that she’s a lesbian. The idea that she might be bisexual or have relationships with different people without needing to identify as queer has been stunningly absent from the discussion, even by well-meaning LGBT bloggers and LGBT organizations who ought to know better.”

Hadley Freeman @ Alternet | “Sex and the City 2”: Materialistic, Misogynistic, Borderline Racist. “I’m not asking for much. I just don’t want to be sick in my mouth. I don’t want to leave the cinema feeling like I’ve paid £7.50 to be mocked, patronized and kicked in the face. I don’t want to be filled with despair at Hollywood’s increasing inability to conceive of women in comedic films as anything other than self-obsessed babies with breasts. And I don’t, most of all, want to spend two hours watching dreams and memories from my youth being trampled into humiliating self-parody. Is that too much to ask?” (spoilers for the film and TV show if you care).

The Bloggess @ Sexis | Sex and the City 2 – Why Should You Care? “So the new Sex and the City movie is out this week, and if you’re anything like me, everyone you know is talking about it. To themselves, I assume, because no one has actually mentioned it to me. Probably because they know I typically only watch zombie movies. But this is a sex column and not a zombie column so that’s why today we’re going to have a little Sex and the City Q&A.”

Zoe Williams @ The Guardian | Over-40 women, you’ve given birth to a healthy facet of modern life. “The judgmental tone is all rooted in a timeless anxiety that women are too feckless and/or stupid to be left in charge of growing children – an anxiety I have an ever growing awareness of, the more background misogyny I realise there still is. Propagation is the main work of any species, and if you seriously believe women to be inferior, it must be incredibly aggravating to see them in charge of it.”

^{image credit: Oil Painting Romantic Nude Couple by BeyondDream @ Flickr.com}

First up, several posts this week on Sarah Palin’s increased us of the F-word (“feminist,” sadly, not “fuck”)

Tracy Clark-Flory @ Salon tackles the debate ’round the blogosphere about whether Palin deserves to self-identify as such (or whether anyone has the right to judge her worthy or unworthy of it).

Brittany Shoot @ Women’s Rights Blog asks whether “conservative feminist” is an oxymoron, while Michael Tomaskey @ The Guardian describes the use of Susan B. Anthony as a conservative, anti-choice feminist icon.

And via my friend and fellow dual-degree student Colleen comes Janine Giordano @ Religion in American History on the competing collective memories and historical interpretations of Susan B. Anthony’s legacy. “We’re not used to sharing the narrative authority of the history of feminism, or interpretation of the historical record, with ‘conservative feminists.’ But I say we should be happy — in a way — that social history has finally begun to empower social movements outside of the academy.”

It’s not just a question of people arguing over who can or cannot claim the identity “feminist” (my two-second opinion: you get to claim whatever identity you want, but by the same token, I get to say why I do or don’t believe you fit the description). There are, of course, many women (not just Phyllis Schlafly!) who fight tooth and nail to undo the political and cultural work of feminist activists — often in the name of their own enlightened status. Amanda Marcotte @ Pandagon points to the example of columnist Maureen Dowd, who was recently full of faux concern about Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan’s state of singledom.

Her disingenuous final paragraph really puts the cherry on the mean girl sundae:

Why is there this underlying assumption that Kagan has missed the boat?

I don’t know. It probably has something to do with you perpetuating the narrative. If you don’t like the story of how women can conquer mountains but are nothing without a man, then stop telling that story.

Similarly, Andi Zeisler @ Bitch Blogs nominates writer Caitlin Flanagan for the first ever Bitch Douchebag Decree “All-Star” award, writing

If there’s one thing Flanagan can really type some words on, besides how she hates feminism and how her mommy abandoned her, it’s teen girls and blowjobs. She’s heard a lot of stuff about how teens these days are having hookups and orgies and rainbow parties all over the place. But since Flanagan is perpetually arrested in a time of crinolines and sock hops, when all teens were apparently eunuchs, the idea that girls might actually enjoy exploring their sexuality is both logistically inconvenient and philosophically abhorrent to her.

A nun in Arizona was excommunicated from the Catholic church after making a decision at a Catholic-run hospital that a woman could recieve a life-saving abortion. Nuns can be so frickin’ awesome! The Catholic church hierarchy can be so, so not. Jill @ Feministe meditates on the inhumanity of that decision while David J. Nolan @ RhRealityCheck explains why the decision was actually not in accordance with canon law.

Alexa Kolbi-Molinas (Staff Attorney, ACLU) @ Feministing Community highlights the secular legal issues involved in the case, given that hospitals (religiously-affiliated or not) are required by law in the United States to provide life-saving care.

Not that Arizona isn’t already on a right bender, now that everyone who looks foreign in origin (read: not white) is required to carry identification papers and ethnic studies have been banned. Miriam @ Feministing has more, as does Brittnay Shoot @ Women’s Rights Blog who asks, “when they get rid of ethnic studies is women’s studies next?“

Amanda Marcotte @ Pandagon reports, however, that the future might be brighter than it looks at the moment: young white people care less frightened of immigration than their elders.

People are often spend a whole lot of time and energy criticizing other folks’ sex lives. Thomas Rogers @ Salon writes about Czech twins who are lovers and controversial porn stars, asking what about “twincest” pushes peoples’ buttons and why they can’t stop watching anyway. From Greta Christina @ The Blowfish Blog asks “is it possible to critique rough-sex porn without marginalizing kink?” and Charlie @ Charlie Glickman challenges the sex-positive community to think about the difference between shame, arrogance, and pride.

Young people (girls in particular) are certainly not exempt when it comes to the sex-obsessed gaze of society, and Amanda Hess @ The Sexist muses about the recent outcry over a viral internet video featuring young girls dancing in sexually suggestive ways. She discusses a similar theme when it comes to media coverage of Miss USA pagent winner Rima Fakih.

Sarah Menkedick @ Women’s Rights Blog points out how the Miss USA pagent coverage ties sexism and racism together in a neat package consisting of “a little racism, a little islamophobia, a little hating on immigrants, a little hypocritical outrage at beauty pageant participants who’ve gotten a bit too sexy.” In other words, Miss USA, in a nutshell.

Melissa McEwan @ The Guardian calls out the policing of women’s sexual selves in a slightly different vein, writing about the media coverage of recent allegations by Charlotte Lewis that she, too, was sexually assaulted by director Roman Polanski.

Harris’s concentrated effort to undermine Lewis’s credibility by casting doubt on her character, motives, and integrity is a textbook example of the sort of hostile reception any survivor of sexual assault can expect to receive when coming forward about the crime, no less when the accuser must point a finger at a famous man with powerful friends.

There are those who question why Lewis waited to come forward for so long. Reading Harris’s attack on behalf of his friend Polanski, is it really any wonder why?

The UK is debating whether or not to protect the identity of those accused of sexual assault (victims are already protected by anonymity laws in Britain). Cara @ The Curvature argues that this further perpetuates the myth that false accusations of rape are statistically more likely than false accusations in any other type of crime, and Cruella @ Cruella-blog gives one example of how reporting allegations in the media helped uncover at least on serial rapist’s activities when other victims came forward.

Someone who has been disproportionately in the public eye lately has been, of course, Supreme Court nominee Elena Kagan. My legal junkie crush Dahlia Lithwick @ Slate suggests that the anxious questions being asked about Kagan say more about the fears we have for ourselves than they do about her ability to perform the role of Justice. (Bonus points if you can name the movie the quote she uses as a headline is from).

Brittany Shoot @ Women’s Rights Blog (she either had a busy week or we have super-similar taste in news stories!) brings up another issue with the Kagan coverage: Elena Kagan is Childfree. Get Over It.

And finally, for your feel-good story of the week: Jesus Would Have Gone to Gay Weddings. Michael A. Jones @ The Gay Right’s Blog reports on a group of Catholic priests who are making waves by arguing that Jesus wasn’t a screaming homophobe afterall. That in fact, you know, he might have been cool with the whole same-sex marriage thing. As long as he was put in charge of the wine.

^{*image credit: Modern Painting of Kiss by Beyond Dreaming @ Flickr.com}