elle
Saturday, December 27, 2008
I Cannot Go On Vacation!
Friday, September 12, 2008
Sarah Palin. Sigh.
I know, I know, you're mad. You're mad that we start this amazing blog and then we don't update it for a few weeks. It's my own fault! (This is Lindsay, by the way.) I was the one that started this thing, wrote a few posts, and then Elle and Alisha saved me by putting up amazing, funny and too true posts. They're both gone now, and the guilt is starting to set in for not blogging for awhile. I PROMISE things will be different during the school year. I think.
So, let's just jump right in. Since we last posted Mr. John McCain has added a VP running mate and it is none other than that govenor of Alaska none of us know well enough, Sarah Palin.
I don't even know where to start about how frustrating a selection this is, though I can tell you we've had many a discussion about what a backwards step her selection is for women. (Joe Biden can thank us for that soundbite.) I have a guy friend who told me the other day that he thinks the selection of Palin will energize the Republican party, because all of Hillary's former supporters will hop on the GOP bandwagon, throwing aside their beliefs and ideas to vote for someone who has two X chromosomes.
To him I say: watch this.
To everyone else I say: Voting is one of the most important things you can do, and can we please put someone in the White House who won't take back everything we and our feminist sisters who came before us have worked so hard to get?
So, let's just jump right in. Since we last posted Mr. John McCain has added a VP running mate and it is none other than that govenor of Alaska none of us know well enough, Sarah Palin.
I don't even know where to start about how frustrating a selection this is, though I can tell you we've had many a discussion about what a backwards step her selection is for women. (Joe Biden can thank us for that soundbite.) I have a guy friend who told me the other day that he thinks the selection of Palin will energize the Republican party, because all of Hillary's former supporters will hop on the GOP bandwagon, throwing aside their beliefs and ideas to vote for someone who has two X chromosomes.
To him I say: watch this.
To everyone else I say: Voting is one of the most important things you can do, and can we please put someone in the White House who won't take back everything we and our feminist sisters who came before us have worked so hard to get?
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Want attention? Get naked.
If you're like me, you've probably been watching the Olympics every night. What else is on TV besides re-runs, anyway?
Well, as much as I'm enjoying all this sport focus, I get really tired of how sexualized female athletes are. Don't believe me? Take a look at this uniform comparison. How can anyone justify this?
I love the P.S. at the bottom, about not calling women "girls."
You have to wonder if we'll ever get to the point that we celebrate female athletes purely for the fact that they can kick-ass, and not about if they're pretty or not. Will that day ever come? I don't know, but I sure hope so. And if that day doesn't come, I hope that at least that everyone -- men especically -- can recognize how hard it is to get respect as a female athlete.
I think snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler summed it up best when she told ESPN The Magazine, "It never felt right to take my clothes off. It never felt like me. It sucks. When you're a woman in sports, people want you to show some skin."
Well, as much as I'm enjoying all this sport focus, I get really tired of how sexualized female athletes are. Don't believe me? Take a look at this uniform comparison. How can anyone justify this?
I love the P.S. at the bottom, about not calling women "girls."
You have to wonder if we'll ever get to the point that we celebrate female athletes purely for the fact that they can kick-ass, and not about if they're pretty or not. Will that day ever come? I don't know, but I sure hope so. And if that day doesn't come, I hope that at least that everyone -- men especically -- can recognize how hard it is to get respect as a female athlete.
I think snowboarder Gretchen Bleiler summed it up best when she told ESPN The Magazine, "It never felt right to take my clothes off. It never felt like me. It sucks. When you're a woman in sports, people want you to show some skin."
Friday, August 15, 2008
Top10 Fun and Feminist Things to Do When it’s 100 Degrees
10. Read anything by Jennifer Weiner. Fun summer books that address serious issues about body image, motherhood, etc. with lots of laugh out loud characters and dialogue. Informal poll of the staff recommends her first novel Good In Bed.
9. Write feminist personal ads for you and your friends (or revenge personals for your ex). Send them to us and we’ll post ‘em!
8. Take your clothes off. No bitching about your thighs, tummy, whatever.
7. Have an iced tea tasting. Restaurants always have tons of flavored tea and lemonade in the summer and it’s a great way to go out with the girls, get hydrated, and not spend a ton of money.
6. Hang out at your local bookstore. Chances are it’s air conditioned and you can pick up some beach books to make you feel like you’re at the beach.
5. Volunteer at the humane society to wash dogs. Then you can play with the hose and be making a difference. Plus there’s puppies!
4. Go see Melissa Etheridge in Eugene. It may not be 100◦, but I guarantee it will be hot. If you can’t go, blast music into your yard and play in a kiddie pool or sprinkler.
3. Get and eat the prepackaged raw cookie dough. Then eat microwave popcorn for dinner and watch one of our favorite movies. Who wants to cook anyway!
2. Introduce yourself to some feminist magazines—Bitch, Bust, and Lilith are some of our favorites. It’s to hot to read War and Peace, and admit it, you don’t even want to think about how nice and cool it is in Russia, so get some bite sized feminist fun. Plus magazines work great as fans.
1. Come to the OSU Women’s Center—IT’S AIR CONDITIONED!!
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
You Know What I Want...Do You?
elle
I want a deal where a presidential partner--whoever they are--can either have a job or get paid for the one that they do. It's time to change the role of the political wife, and it's usually the wife. Have we ever seen a male Supreme Court Justice step down to care for an ailing partner? Plus, candidate's (generally) wives and daughters are expected to work for the campaign for free--and the schedules they maintain deserve at least some "pin money".
Somehow I imagine we'll have to see a male first lady before we really see any change, because if Michelle Obama's recent makeover is any indication this country STILL has a hard time with a woman with a job, let alone a powerfull highly paid one!
Michelle Obama Quits to Campaign Full Time
I want a deal where a presidential partner--whoever they are--can either have a job or get paid for the one that they do. It's time to change the role of the political wife, and it's usually the wife. Have we ever seen a male Supreme Court Justice step down to care for an ailing partner? Plus, candidate's (generally) wives and daughters are expected to work for the campaign for free--and the schedules they maintain deserve at least some "pin money".
Somehow I imagine we'll have to see a male first lady before we really see any change, because if Michelle Obama's recent makeover is any indication this country STILL has a hard time with a woman with a job, let alone a powerfull highly paid one!
Michelle Obama Quits to Campaign Full Time
Monday, August 11, 2008
Take Back the News
elle
Headlines have been screaming that a “Motherload of Gorillas” has been found in the Republic of the Congo (not the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which isn’t so democratic, but that’s another post someday!). Usually I try to take a regular news story, like the situation between Russia and Georgia, and do a feminist reading of the situation or its implications, but this is good news! Hooray!! Don’t worry though, we can still do some feminism-ing…and then we’ll talk Olympic sex testing next week!
Perhaps as many as 125,000 Western Lowland Gorillas were found in a completely remote and totally swampy area of Northern Congo. Because of the inaccessibility of the area it has been largely ignored by poachers and developers. Unfortunately this is about to change. The government has recently been selling resource rights to several companies to harvest the area’s timber—which would of course necessitate draining the swamps to create access roads etc. It’s easy for us to sit here and say WOA! BAD IDEA, but before we do that there must be an understanding of the situation of a very poor country with few natural resources attempting to become a part of the world market. Additionally, we have to think about where that timber is going...
There is a western arrogance to the environmental movement, that we should always be able to have our plastic bottles, but we’ll recycle them, without an understanding of the social and economic disparities that developing nations struggle with every day. Organic produce even in the US is generally still picked by underpaid migrant farm laborers and shipped the average 1500 miles (lots of gas even in my VW) to our grocery stores, but the pro-active sounding “organic” label allows us “do the right thing” and to further remove ourselves from the social, environmental and economic problems. BUY SEASONAL and LOCAL!
OK, let me get down off my soapbox. There.
One of the hallmarks of ecofeminist theory is the understanding that the subjugation of women and the subjugation of “mother” earth are, in fact, the same thing. That the idea that nature must be conquered and subjugated or studied by the male dominated rationality drives both the social construction of women through their reproductive functions and the concept of trees, fossil fuels, etc. as resources for humans. Some ecofeminists advocate a return to nature, cyclical living, and vegetarian/vegan living, while others, including Vandana Shiva (queen bee of my environmental consciousness) argue that the current model, particularly of agriculture, further subjugates the world’s poor countries to the demands of the wealthy and that by doing so we are losing the invaluable knowledge of the women who maintain traditional subsistence farming methods.
All in all, hooray for the find. It’s incredibly exciting to hear that a population we thought we had practically destroyed is thriving well away from us—and there’s the catch. How do we both protect this amazing find and yet stay well enough away for them to continue to thrive; it’s only because they have been so inaccessible to people that they have done so well. I would totally advocate for roping that space off and forgetting about it, but we can’t do that. We also can’t avoid the economic and social issues in our rush to “do the right thing”. What has to be done is the best thing for everyone involved or the situation will escalate and the gorillas will be the losers. They always have been.
A Few More Things:
Royal Fun on YouTube
Invest in Women, Invest in Countries
You Don't Say--Violence and AIDS in Women are Linked
Take Back the Olympics
Refugees Suffer (still) as Russia and Georgia Stand Off (again)
Headlines have been screaming that a “Motherload of Gorillas” has been found in the Republic of the Congo (not the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which isn’t so democratic, but that’s another post someday!). Usually I try to take a regular news story, like the situation between Russia and Georgia, and do a feminist reading of the situation or its implications, but this is good news! Hooray!! Don’t worry though, we can still do some feminism-ing…and then we’ll talk Olympic sex testing next week!
Perhaps as many as 125,000 Western Lowland Gorillas were found in a completely remote and totally swampy area of Northern Congo. Because of the inaccessibility of the area it has been largely ignored by poachers and developers. Unfortunately this is about to change. The government has recently been selling resource rights to several companies to harvest the area’s timber—which would of course necessitate draining the swamps to create access roads etc. It’s easy for us to sit here and say WOA! BAD IDEA, but before we do that there must be an understanding of the situation of a very poor country with few natural resources attempting to become a part of the world market. Additionally, we have to think about where that timber is going...
There is a western arrogance to the environmental movement, that we should always be able to have our plastic bottles, but we’ll recycle them, without an understanding of the social and economic disparities that developing nations struggle with every day. Organic produce even in the US is generally still picked by underpaid migrant farm laborers and shipped the average 1500 miles (lots of gas even in my VW) to our grocery stores, but the pro-active sounding “organic” label allows us “do the right thing” and to further remove ourselves from the social, environmental and economic problems. BUY SEASONAL and LOCAL!
OK, let me get down off my soapbox. There.
One of the hallmarks of ecofeminist theory is the understanding that the subjugation of women and the subjugation of “mother” earth are, in fact, the same thing. That the idea that nature must be conquered and subjugated or studied by the male dominated rationality drives both the social construction of women through their reproductive functions and the concept of trees, fossil fuels, etc. as resources for humans. Some ecofeminists advocate a return to nature, cyclical living, and vegetarian/vegan living, while others, including Vandana Shiva (queen bee of my environmental consciousness) argue that the current model, particularly of agriculture, further subjugates the world’s poor countries to the demands of the wealthy and that by doing so we are losing the invaluable knowledge of the women who maintain traditional subsistence farming methods.
All in all, hooray for the find. It’s incredibly exciting to hear that a population we thought we had practically destroyed is thriving well away from us—and there’s the catch. How do we both protect this amazing find and yet stay well enough away for them to continue to thrive; it’s only because they have been so inaccessible to people that they have done so well. I would totally advocate for roping that space off and forgetting about it, but we can’t do that. We also can’t avoid the economic and social issues in our rush to “do the right thing”. What has to be done is the best thing for everyone involved or the situation will escalate and the gorillas will be the losers. They always have been.
A Few More Things:
Royal Fun on YouTube
Invest in Women, Invest in Countries
You Don't Say--Violence and AIDS in Women are Linked
Take Back the Olympics
Refugees Suffer (still) as Russia and Georgia Stand Off (again)
Friday, August 8, 2008
Summer Fun!
elle
So, Dirty Dancing is HIGH on our list of movies about summer fun (and a fun movie to watch this summer), AND there's some political commentary, so we started looking around and found this retrospective of teen queens. Which one defines your generation? Let us know...
Elle: between "Adventures in Babysitting" and Clueless"
Alisha: between "Clueless" and "Save the Last Dance"
Lindsay: Somewhere around "Mean Girls" and "Bring it On"
So, Dirty Dancing is HIGH on our list of movies about summer fun (and a fun movie to watch this summer), AND there's some political commentary, so we started looking around and found this retrospective of teen queens. Which one defines your generation? Let us know...
Elle: between "Adventures in Babysitting" and Clueless"
Alisha: between "Clueless" and "Save the Last Dance"
Lindsay: Somewhere around "Mean Girls" and "Bring it On"
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