The link list I posted the week before Christmas met with a number of positive reviews, so I thought for the new year (hello 2012!) I’d turn this into a bi-monthly affair. Welcome to Tuesday Teasers #2.
NARAL Pro-Choice America is hosting the seventh annual Blog for Choice action day. The theme this year is “What will you do to help elect pro-choice candidates in 2012?” Sign up here to participate. You can put as much effort into your post as you have time for. The point is to get as many people as possible all writing about reproductive justice on the same day.
Jos @ Feministing | The temp from Chiswick: why I love Donna Noble. I couldn’t resist this tribute to one of my favorite Doctor Who characters. These are only two who might be able to compete with her for spot #1 (aside from 9) in my heart.
Tami Winfrey Harris @ Racialicious | ‘He had the courage to day unpopular things’: No praise for courting controversy. A critique of being controversial for the save of controversy: “Every unaccepted pronouncement isn’t hidden wisdom. And every speaker of provocative things isn’t a genius.”
More below the fold …
Michael Lind @ Hitchens, gossip columnist of genius. (via Historiann). If you’ve found yourself wondering what’s with all the post-mortem Hitchens love, you’ll cheer this rather biting commentary.
Some people objected to my inclusion, in the previous links list, of Clarisse Thorn’s interview with Hugo Schwyzer. You were far from alone. Clarisse Thorn responded to her critics at her personal blog, and Maia @ Alas, a Blog, responded thoughtfully, critically, and at great length to that response.
Rebecca Watson @ Skepchick | Reddit Makes Me Hate Atheists. (via Amanda Marcotte @ Pandagon, also a great read). A fifteen-year-old, Lunam, posts a photograph of herself with a book by Carl Sagan she got from her mom for Christmas; rape “jokes” ensue. Rebecca Watson dissects (with graphic examples, fair warning) the dynamics of this internet harassment. Lunam herself responds much more maturely than her attackers.
Anna Sterling @ Feministing | Feministing Five: Ina May Gaskin. Anna discusses feminism with one of the founding mothers of modern-day midwifery.
Anne Sabo @ New porn for women | smitten kitten: educational porn & tristan taormino’s educational porn. Links to, and thoughts about, smitten kitten’s new instructional porn and what makes it worth checking out.
blue milk @ blue milk | Reclaiming ‘cunt’ with kids. “It fascinates me, as feminist parents, which values we sacrifice along the way in our parenting practices and which we hold on to no matter the resistance. Outside the mainstream, none of this is easy is it?”
Idzie Desmarais @ The Unschooler Experiment | Week of Idzie Series. Self-identified “unschooling vegetarian animistic green-anarchist feminist hippie child” Idzie presents an eight-part series about the lasting influence of growing up outside of school. Bonus: Check out Idzie’s new blog, Sistermatic Response, a feminist perspective on sex, gender, pop-culture, and resistance, which she recently launched with her sister Emilie.
Mar Curran @ In Our Words | The Problem With Passing.
I paused. “If it doesn’t matter, then I don’t have to answer.” “No,” he said, “I guess not. But I was just wondering because I couldn’t tell. Are you a male or a female? Because I’m a male and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I was just wondering what you are.” Buddy, don’t even talk to me about shame.
What have ya’ll been reading in these closing days of 2011, Harpies? Leave your links and thoughts in comments!
I don’t want to be snarky in regards to the blog for choice day because I usually write a little something but the chosen theme this year has irritated me because in response I ask WHAT prochoice candidates?!! I don’t believe there are ANY for national office. You basically have whack-a-do extremist “prolife” candidates on the right and spineless wish-washy candidates on the left, Seriously, our rights are going to continue being slammed unless someone takes a legitimate, strong stand and who isn’t ashamed to do so. I get so sick and tired of allegedly progressive democrats looking at the ground, pulling at their collars, and/or only able to articulate support of those rights in the case their daughter(s) have an “accident” because they don’t want to help raise any spring break bastard babies. I remember being told, repeatedly, prior to the last election that I HAD to support President Obama because a republican in the white house would be a serious theat to our reproductive rights. Well here we are nearly 4 years later and I say a SILENT “ally” is not any better. At least with someone actively trying to strip your rights, you know where they stand and what they’re doing. I have absolutely no idea where the president stands other than he wants the option to exist so his daughters aren’t “punished with a mistake.”. Yeah, that’s going to win you some votes. I am sick and tired of candidates and elected officials who are SUPPOSED to be allies treating my fundamental human rights as though they are some dirty little secret not to be publicly acknowledged or defended and never completely supported. So what am I going to do to ensure prochoice candidates are elected? Nothing because there are NO prochoice candidates.
@Jenn … and there’s your blog post
! Some of my favorite Blog for Choice posts in previous years have called the premise of the theme into question. I even sort of did that with last years’ theme which asked “are you concerned about choice?” I used it as an opportunity to write about the limitations of “choice” as a frame for reproductive justice.