Bloggin’ is Awesome!...

Social networking sites like Facebook have provided, along with the chance to get back in touch with people you haven’t seen in 10 or 20 years, an entirely new realm of the baffling, weird, and offensive that in early days would have flown under our radars.  I’m filing this one under...

Why Do People Hate Betty?...

No, not this Betty. But speaking of her... Via cliff1066 @ Flickr.Now that we’ve decided to Talk About Mad Men here on Harpyness, I want to discuss Betty Draper a bit. Namely, how so many people seem to hate Betty more than any other character on the show. Most everyone will admit that...

All Over But The Shouting...

The most e-mailed article on the New York Times website yesterday was “For Some Parents, Shouting is the New Spanking”. Like most trend pieces in the Thursday Style section, it’s heavy on the generalization and aimed squarely at the Times’s readership of affluent white helicopter...

Maternity Leave as a Feminist Flashpoint...

I read Hortense’s piece at Jezebel about this UK survey – in which 74% of women surveyed allegedly said they believed childless women should be entitled to something equivalent to the standard six-months given for maternity leave in the UK – and sort of thought to myself: I smell some...

You keep using that word. I do not think...

When I imagine a selfish person, I picture someone who cheats, or steals, or behaves in some other way that benefits herself at the expense of others. So why, I wonder, is “selfish” so frequently used as a weapon against child-free women? Not procreating doesn’t hurt anyone, especially...

If You’re Asking, the Answer is P...

A lot of the people I regularly spend time with are, like me, without children (whether that was the plan or not), but I have many friends from different chapters of my life who do have kids–as many as four.  I see their photos online, on their blogs or Flickr streams or their Facebook pages or...

On Women, Alcohol, and Anti-Feminism...

For weeks now, I’ve been fuming over the misogynist media pile-on that took place after a horrific car crash on New York’s Taconic Parkway, in which Diane Schuler killed herself, her daughter, her three nieces and three men in another vehicle. An autopsy showed that she had drunk 10 shots...

What I Learned on My Summer Vacation...

Via quacktaculous @ Flickr. I’m home, and since school is about to begin, I thought I’d get out my No. 2 pencil and write that time-honored back-to-school essay.  My next few posts will be related to the concerns that arose during my vacation, away from the feminist /progressive /urban /pointy-headed...

Feminist Food For Thought: Audre Lorde...

This recurring feature, curated by Pilgrim Soul, directs Harpy readers to important feminist thoughts and concepts as spoken by some of her favourite feminists on and off the web. The appraisal of the value of these snippets is, of course, entirely Pilgrim Soul’s, and does not necessarily reflect the...

Warning: Not Having A C-Section Is Child...

Recently I’ve been caterwauling rather loudly about the medical establishment and its seemingly endless need to dictate to women what we should and shouldn’t do with our uteri. Now the judiciary’s teamed up with them, as described in the latest post from from Lisa Belkin’s excellent...

Reproductive Rights Matter At Every Age...

There was much discussion this week of the death of Maria del Carmen Brousada, who three years ago gave birth to twins at the age of 66. News of her death–and the fact that her two children were left without a mother–was carried in nearly every major newspaper and news service. Ms. Brousada’s...

To Know or Not To Know?...

Via Funky Shapes @ Flickr. Sunday night I held a dinner party for some friends and neighbors, two of whom were pregnant, although not far enough along to know the sex of the fetus. Both of them–and their husbands–agreed that they were going to find out as soon as a sonogram could catch a...