Every now and then, it seems like another little “buy local” bubble burbles up. It’s happening again here; I see signs in store windows, and people exhorting me to buy local in various articles, and, as usual, it’s evoking a series of emotions in me. You’d think that I might be all about the Buy […]
Category: Everything
Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are
“Tell all the Truth,” Emily Dickinson wrote, “but tell it slant.” It occurs to me, gentle readers, that I have not told my coming out story. And that is, in part, because my coming out story does not involve a grim talk around the dinner time, “father, I have something to tell you.” That’s because […]
Information and Access
Astrid brought up a great point on “Shaming and Blaming” which I wanted to explore a bit more, because it’s an important point, and it’s one which I want to make sure gets addressed here. To paraphrase a bit (and I hope I am getting this right, Astrid), she expressed discomfort with some of the […]
Shaming and Blaming
Shaming and blaming are, of course, practically American pastimes, and they play right into each other in a tangled morass of “morals” which are wrapped around women’s bodies and minds from a very early age. Indeed, so deeply embedded are these things that even women who think of themselves as progressive buy into them on […]
Riddle Me This
Warning: This post contains sarcasm. A lot of it. Why is it that things need to happen to men before we recognize that they are a problem? Newsweek recently profiled male on male sexual harassment in their article “Abuse of power.” Sexual harassment claims filed by men evidently doubled between 1992 and 2008, and although […]
Feminism and Veronica Mars
I recently re-watched Veronica Mars, and happened to mention that I was doing so to Anna, and she said something along the lines of “all I learned from Veronica Mars was feminists who fake rapes.” Which, to be fair, cuts at a very serious problem I have with the show: The depiction of feminists and […]
Trashing Everest
Mount Everest is perhaps one of the most iconic sites in the world, with good reason. It’s a big and very impressive mountain, after all, and it’s occupied the minds of pretty much everyone who has ever directly interacted with it. Mount Everest is the stuff and stock of legends, perhaps in part because humans […]
On “Family Values”
“Family values” is a big buzzword in American politics. (Right up there with “San Francisco values” for conservatives.) I note that “family values” is generally identified as a prizing of the nuclear family and a rejection of other types of families. The term generally conjures up an image of a mommy, a daddy, some children, […]
Good Slut, Bad Slut
There’s this thing called “sex positive feminism[1. I feel obliged to note that while I am making a generalization about sex positive feminism here, there’s a pretty broad spectrum within this particular branch of feminism, and therefore the generalization does not apply to everyone who identifies with this label. So if you aren’t the kind […]
Yes, Actually, I Can Make An Informed Choice
There’s an interesting trend I’ve been noticing more of late at feminist websites. It’s hardly a new trend at all, I think I am just somewhat more attentive to it, for various reasons. And it’s a trend which bears some exploration, because I think that it says a lot about feminism and the issues within […]