All the Non-American Ladies...

I am completely obsessed with this post by Chally and the comments on it over on Feministe.  Entitled “Dear USians on the Internet,” here’s the money shot: USian racial dynamics do not translate anywhere else on the planet. Hence their being called USian racial dynamics. No one else...

Towards a Personal Theory of Change...

Via David Reece @ Flickr on a creative commons license. Last week a thing happened to me that I both wanted and dreaded: I was informed that my current employer wants me to leave my job in the coming months.  I’m just “not going to thrive in this environment.”  Which is fair enough,...

On Weariness and Other Fears for 2010...

You may have noticed I’ve been blogging here a lot less frequently lately.  And by lately, I mean for the last three or four months.  At first this wasn’t a conscious decision – I got caught up in some other projects in my real life: I’ve been applying to graduate school, doing...

Attention, Ladies! A Man is Here to Hel...

Yesterday a man was invited to share his perspective at Jezebel on why women should not complain about women getting hit, for no reason, by men.  The title he chose was, “Why is Snooki More Precious Than I Am?“  You can sort of imagine how it evolved from there. I don’t want to rehash...

Gender Studies for Kindergarteners (and ...

The Guardian recently published a list of feminist books for five-year-olds.  Being one of those feminists who wasn’t exactly trained from the cradle, this sort of thing doesn’t tend to catch my interest; it seems to me that children either will find their way to right-thinking or they won’t,...

I Want You To Stop Asking That Question....

I’ve been neck-deep in non-internet things the last week or so, but I keep catching snippets of information on Maria Shriver’s “Shriver Report:  A Woman’s Nation Changes Everything” as featured on the Sunday morning news roundtable Meet the Press.  (You can read the full...

Friday Fun Thread: First Kiss!...

A french kiss, in more ways than one. Via philippe leroyer @ Flickr. I was not the type of little girl who dreamed about my wedding day, or spent a lot of time writing “Dorklet Jones,”  “Dorklet Smith,” “Dorklet Pierce,” or whatever combination of my first name and...

Our Bodies, Our Neuroses...

Apologies, readers; what I am about to write is as much for me as it is for you. Sometimes I think we could learn as much about being feminists from our failures as we can from our successes. Let me confess one of my major feminist faults here.  I’ve been thinking of calling for a one-month armistice...

Regarding MJ: 1958-2009...

As you have to have been an isolation booth or under extreme sedation not to have heard about Michael Jackson dying today, I shan’t bore you with details.  I can only imagine we are in for a circus of craptacular proportion as every hanger-on involved in his life emerges from the woodwork to make...

Being a Hermit Sounds Kind of Cool, Actu...

This morning, gentle readers, I bring to you, without my usual caterwaul-y commentary, a recent essay by a woman named Rachel Denton entitled “I am a hermit.” Not in the colloquial “I stay in every night and knit” way, but an official Catholic religious woman who lives a life...

Growing Pains...

Some things never change. Via SarahMC As of Sunday, I will no longer be in my “mid-twenties.” At 27, I’ll be living in my “late-twenties” stage, nearing closer to that arbitrary age at which women are supposed to be embarassed to admit when they were born. I approach my...

When Dudes Go Terribly, Terribly, Wrong...

Ben Lee is mostly known to me as “that guy that Claire Danes dumped for Billy Crudup.”  I have this friend who loves his music, but personally, every time I hear it a monster eyeroll threatens to harsh my mellow.  He’s just so… well, put it this way.  The title of one of the...