UPDATE: A Side of Personal Accomplishment

Be sure to glance at a copy of The Chicago Tribune tomorrow. A letter to the editor written by yours truly will be in the "Voice of the People" section! For those of you who might not know me personally, this will be my second editorial.
Admittedly, I deleted the file with my editorial on it, so I can't sneak you a peak and tell you what I said verbatim. I can tell you, however, that my piece was in response to a column which noted the lack of "nice" female political figures. In the editorial, I tell it like it is and share what I think makes a good president.
Tomorrow, the full text will be posted, as well as an analysis of my analysis.

"In "By ignoring slur, McCain said a lot," columnist Leonard Pitts suggests that niceness is an important trait in political candidates, a characteristic of which he claims all female politicians are devoid. Even if I were to ignore the blatant sexism and assume that Pitts is correct in his observation, one question still lingers: So what?

Our next president must be steadfast in opinion and articulate at the podium. America needs someone opinionated, firm and passionate to guide her through this time of international change and conflict. Of traits a leader needs to succeed, "nice" hardly makes the Top 20.

Will American voters elect a leader or a golfing buddy?"

(Click here to read my editorial on The Trib's page, and click here to read Pitts' original post.)

Will "niceness" be an important trait for you to consider when you vote in '08? Do you believe, that Pitts is being sexist, or just giving an honest opinion?

Stripping off Our Rights

You'd better put that sexy Mrs. Claus costume back in the closet because you better dress up in a burqa for your holiday office party unless you want your rights taken away.

I'm not a fan of Fox News, but in a recent interview Marc Rudov (anti-women swine extraordinaire) suggested that "between the EEOC rules and the Violence Against Women Act, the workplace has become a dangerous place for men." His opponent in the debate, Lis Wiehl, made a solid point in that the EEOC rules and Violence Against Women Act are there to ensure fairness in the workplace. Please watch the video before continuing.



The world that Rudov is proposing is one where the rights of women are stripped by the inch of skin that they reveal. It's a world where women are stripped of their rights to protect "Constitutional rights" (read: men). Correct me if I'm wrong, but last time I checked, the Constitution protected both sexes.

Columnist Marrin Hopes It's Reigning Men

Brit publication The Times is noted for it's frequently sexist articles on fashion, dating, and culture, but nothing takes the patriarchal self-serving cake like this little beauty, in which columnist Minette Marrin asks, "Are men really necessary?"

Marrin notes the "onslaught against masculinity," how women are becoming more in control of their financial, social, and emotional lives. Many women, Marrin writes with horror, are becoming, get this: independent! "It is hardly surprising," Marrin says, "that men increasingly feel dispensable."

Marrin goes on to say that single women and lesbians undermine a man's sense of his own masculinity, and produces a nice little rant about why we women need men: "Men have wonderful qualities which women often lack and need. Men are much more likely than women to be of exceptionally high – and exceptionally low – intelligence; they are on average stronger, funnier, and have a better three-dimensional sense and they are usually better at techy things."

The only quality a man has that women lack is a penis, and women only need that for purposes of procreation, which is purely optional and in no way a prerequisite for womanhood. (I ignore heterosexual intercourse, which I would only consider a nice perk, and only for some.)

And just in case our female readers thought their place was outside the kitchen or the bedroom, Marrin reminds us to keep churning out those babies. "Researchers warned that couples should beware of swapping traditional roles." (She does not cite this research.)

Marrin sums up her point by concluding, "What we need is the rehabilitation of real masculinity, because that is something most of us do need and like." She doesn't go on to describe "real masculinity," but if it's anything like her marginalized 50's-style real femininity, Marrin better leave the column-writing to the big boys and get back in the kitchen.

"Ho?" Oh no!

In Sydney, Australia, "Santas" are no longer permitted to say "Ho, ho, ho!" as this may "be offensive to women." Instead, they must replace the classic cry with "Ha, ha, ha!"

As silly as this seems, I'm not laughing.

I doubt any women worked to pass this restriction. This faux resolution claims to looks out for women, yet it's only purpose is to further the patriarchal stereotype of the frivolous women.

Movie Review: Enchanted

The story is that a sweet forest girl named Giselle (Amy Adams) meets her true love, Prince Edward (James Marsden), while he is taking down a giant. Edward's evil mother, in the form of an old hag, pushes Giselle down a well into "a place of no love and no happy endings." Once in New York City, Giselle is greeted by sarcasm and hate until Robert (Dr. McDreamy) allows her to stay in his house for a night. I'll end my summary here, so I don't spoil the predictable plot.

Enchanted is cleverly written and beautifully animated. Obnoxious songs pepper the film, but since the premise is "Disney making fun of Disney," the soundtrack works. Amy Adams plays the role of a ditzy and naive princess-to-be flawlessly and James Marsden executes the part of a dumber than dirt prince without a hitch. Patrick Dempsey...well he's gorgeous as always. It's from the feminist standpoint that this movie begins to fail.

Disney has a long tradition of giving twisted ideals of women. All the Disney Princesses have a waist size of about 4 inches and a cup size of D, D for Disney, and most Princesses were either trapped in some situation and could only be freed by a prince, loved to clean, or sewed in their free time. Their newest movie is no exception since the women are either entirely clueless or evil and ugly, while the men are all hunk-a-licious and brave. While Disney puts in a few clever pro-women twists (like having Giselle attempt to save Robert at the end, or making the heroic Prince Edwards have an IQ of 80), overall, Enchanted fails the feminist test, making Enchanted just another notch in Disney's patronizing belt.


Movie Rating: ♀♀♀
Feminist Rating: ♀

Silly liberals, human rights are for whites!

George Bush likes to pretend he's our friendly neighborhood champion of human rights. "...it is the policy of the United States," he says, "To seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world." And this, arguably like everything else Bush says, is a huge lie.

Recently, a 19-year-old Saudi woman was gang-raped. The seven men who raped her were sentenced to 1-5 years in prison each. For being with men she was not related to, the woman was punished as well, and her sentence was recently increased for speaking out against the injustice. As of now, her sentence is 200 lashes and six months in prison, a complete violation of her basic rights as a woman and as a human.

And yet, the Bush administration flat-out refuses to condemn the Saudi court's ruling. National sovereignty is a nonsense excuse to not intervene in this situation when human health, safety, and freedom are at stake.

When it comes to human rights, the Bush administration is clearly pick-and-chose. Only 423 more days of this madness, kiddies.

Living in a Material World, and I am a Feminist Girl

When we immerse ourselves in a mission, like ending sexism, we often forget that there other causes worth fighting for. Just look at PETA. Their valuable message is clouded by their sex-saturated ads and radical scare-tactics.

Anarchist values and feminism go hand in hand, even if we aren't passing out "Fight the Power!" buttons at Planned Parenthood rallies. Today in particular is the time to remember our roots.

As you probably know, today is Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving that promises mega-savings and mega-crowds at your local shopping mall. In protest, it's Adbuster's Buy Nothing Day, an informal day in which people are urged to shun consumerism and, in essence, buy nothing.

Even if you don't support the Adbuster's cause, and even if you did buy a sandwich today (I was hungry!), it's important to remember that as feminists, we have a certain responsibility. It's not enough to just fight sexism. That's only the first step. It is our duty to speak out against any atrocity, whether that be homophobia, genocide, or racism.

Just do what you feel is right, and protest what you feel is wrong. That's what feminism is all about.

Thanks-to-the-women-giving

Happy Thanksgiving, readers! No big post on a holiday, but I just wanted to make a point of telling you to be sure to thank your moms, grandmothers, sisters, and aunties today, because without them cooking all day... you'd probably be eating at the Cracker Barrel for your Thanksgiving dinner.

Heart of Glass

The glasses of John Lennon and Buddy Holly have become iconic style symbols. Drew Carrey rocks his frames even after receiving correctional eye treatment. But when it’s time for the young Stephanie Tanner to get her glasses, she, like many other little girls, balks at the proposition.

Woody Allen has often joked that his thick-rimmed glasses make him look like an intellectual. "Nerds" (I define the term as the smart and socially-awkward) in TV or film often sport glasses, creating a trademark look consisting of suspenders, braces, and said spectacles.

If glasses are associated with intelligence, then why do many young girls today avoid them? When society tells girls they look ugly in glasses, it also says that they, metaphorically speaking, look ugly in intelligence. When Diana Prince tears off her glasses, she becomes the sexy, strong Wonder Woman. Why can't she be just as hot when she wears the frames?

Girls are shunning necessary eyewear for the sake of beauty. This young generation needs to be reminded that not only is it “OK” to be smart, it’s fantastic, glasses or not.

And yes, I do wear glasses.

Anti-aBoration Nonsense

Comedian Sasha Baron Cohen uses his characters to challenge political and social injustice. You probably know him for his incredibly controversial film, Borat, but his other work is equally hilarious and just as politcally-charged. A recent post on Feministing reminded me of how much this old video cracks me up:



Very nice, Sasha.

Skirt Suits

There is something painfully ironic about a skirt suit being a symbol of power for a working woman. The idea is that it shows how women can be in the workplace, have a position of control, be in charge, yet still showing their femininity.

While at a debate tournament last weekend, a debater from Apple Valley, MN, made a comment on how it is virtually mandatory for all girls on the team to wear a skirt suit. "It's not really mandatory for girls, per se, but it is highly suggested. [The skirt suit] is more presentable, put-together looking, and more acceptable for girls to wear at a tournament," she said. When I asked her male debate friend from the same team about it, he said, "It's not sexist! It's just part of the tradition. Skirt suits are nicer looking! They are powerful!"

The irony is that skirts and dresses were clothing meant to maintain the delicacy of female beauty, while pants were power clothes. Just ask your grandmother! I'm willing to bet that no women wore pants anywhere until halfway through her life. A notion that skirt suits can bring together the best of both worlds is ridiculous. I find it appalling that we are still applying to standards of acceptability where a woman must wear a skirt to be presentable.

It's the 21st century! I think it is time to wake up and pull a pair of slacks on with your 4-inch Prada heels.

Aqua Don'ts and The Culture of Fear®

When I'm not writing amazing blog posts, I do my World History homework! This weekend's assignment was to connect a recent news story to American Culture, and I couldn't help but to inject a little bit of feminism into my analysis of the Aqua Dots scandal:

This article introduces an interesting dynamic into American Culture, the growing, impending, and sometimes terrifying Culture of Fear®. To put it simply, the American Culture of Fear® is the unique lifestyle of preventing bad experiences by avoiding good ones. This seems relatively modern, but it probably dates back to America’s Puritanical Christian founders who praised modesty and chastity while shunning hedonism. The American Culture of Fear® is why we don’t go out late at night, why we avoid hearty foods, why the terror alert level is broadcasted regularly in O’Hare airport, and why we built bomb shelters in the 60s. The American Culture of Fear® is also largely responsibly for the pomp and circumstance surrounding the Aqua Dots scandal (or as I like to call it, Aquagate).


We may call gamma hydroxy butyrate (GHB) the “date rape drug,” and, yes, rapists have used it, but not as much as you might think. Very few rapes involve drugging or any grand display of masculinity (more women will be struck by lighting then kidnapped from a mall parking lot), and the main users of GHB use it recreationally, like marijuana or ecstasy. However, exploiting the few GHB rapes provides the perfect story, that of the sneaky, intelligent, conniving man and the vulnerable, unknowing woman. The better can much better propagate American patriarchal values with this myth. It is also important to point out that the Aqua Dots do not actually have any GHB in them—they merely metabolize into the chemical when ingested.

Another important statistic to note when reviewing Aquagate is the ages of the children sickened. The article stated that the ill American child was two years old. A child of two years should not be playing with a toy that requires a high amount of gross motor skills and a more developed intellect. While it is certainly unfair to blame this accident on the parents of the child, American Culture of Fear® believes with confidence that a parent, as their child’s primary fear-injector, can commit no evils.

This article also exploits a recognizable symbol—toys. If China were accidentally shipping over poison teapots, I doubt anyone would bat an eyelash. But toys are a different matter, as they represent the untarnished innocence of children, the same innocence that the aforementioned Puritans were so gung-ho about in the Mayflower days.

When harmful chemicals are found in toys, it's a problem, but it's not the end-all end-all of the world, like The American Culture of Overreacting® would like you to believe.

Doing laundry is a dream, dream, dream!, says PlaySkool's toy house.

I don't know about you, but my holiday season doesn't being until a major corporation tells me it does! With the annual advent of Starbucks releasing their iconic holiday red cups, I thought I’d share with you the ho-ho-horrible toy that has already hit our shelves: Rose Petal Cottage, where your little girl's imagination can run free as she does the laundry, cooks dinner, shines the floor, and irons clothes.



The subliminal conditioning of children to conform to gender roles is nothing new, just ask Barbie and GI Joe. There's nothing wrong with being a homemaker by one's own chosing. Homemaking is more than cutesy muffins and window-washing. It's a commitment. However, when women become homemakers because they feel it's there duty, because they feel it's their place in the kitchen, because they have no other options, because crappy toys tell them there's something wrong with them when they don't, there's a problem.

And it's not even Thanksgiving yet.

To Clarify an Injustice

The House is debating a critical gay civil rights bill that would prohibit discrimination of any homosexual in the workplace today. But there's something very wrong with the bill. Democrats have removed transgendered people from the protection of the bill because they are afraid the bill will fail if transgendered people are included. How can a gay civil rights bill NOT include the "T" from LGBT and still operate under the ruse of promoting and protecting gay rights? The answer: it can't.

Get this straight and clear up any confusion, because believe me, there's a lot of it, before making any judgements. Keep in mind that sex is the body and gender is the mind. A transvestite is a person of one sex who chooses to dress as the other sex while still upholding heterosexual tendencies, a transgendered person is someone who is of one sex while feels more like the opposite gender. The term "transgendered" also includes "transsexual," a person who changes from one sex to the other because they felt more like the other gender. A lot of people don't know the difference, or forget the difference, and end up being offensive.

This is exactly the kind of mistake that leads to infringements of rights. If we forget who they are, inside and out, how can we properly uphold their rights? In order to ensure fairness and equality, one of the supposedly "main principles" in America, people must know and understand the difference. We are failing to set appropriate standards of acceptance and equality if we neglect parts of our community! End the ignorance and realize that transgendered people aren't people who are pretending to be the other gender, but someone who is really stuck in the wrong sex.

Kick off your heels!

Anyone woman who has ever come home from a formal party with aching, swelling feet knows that high-heels hurt. Patriarchal society may scoff at ancient Chinese foot-binding traditions, saying that high-heels are a different ball game entirely and surely not oppressive to such an extreme degree. Back here in the real world, women are dying from restricting trends like these.

The stereotypical Carrie-Bradshaw-of-a-woman, the young urban professional, appears to be carefree and confident. Behind the closed doors of her apartment, she coats herself in cosmetics, heightens herself in heels, slims herself in Spanx, and douses her hair in dyes. Why does this naturally beautiful and successful woman hide behind a mask? She herself is not even sure.

To attract men? To please herself? To fit in?

She may never even come up with an explanation, but as she thinks, she’ll be mindlessly applying a layer of Chanel lipstick. Why? The answer is habit. She may or may not want to stop, but either way she cannot. The beauty industry is an addictive drug—women need their “fix” of shoes or purses. By the time women decide that it’s no longer “in vogue” to condone these limiting behaviors, it may be too late. The best way to stop being a slave to fashion is to never become one in the first place.

(Writer's Note: Happy Bonfire Day, everyone!)

Quoth the Clinton, "This Means War!"

Most of the time, I really do love Hillary Clinton, but not when she's talking like this:

"I don't think they're piling [critiques] on because I'm a woman, I think they're piling on because I'm winning.. I anticipate it's going to get even hotter. And if you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen and I'm very much at home in the kitchen."

Clinton's remark to reporters interviewing her in New Hampshire, where she visited to place her name officially on the ballet, was in very poor taste. She tries to project a more stereotypically feminine image to appeal to more traditional, conservative voters, and I cannot deny that Clinton's experiences as a mother and wife have shaped her.

However, by making this remark, I feel like Clinton is spitting in the face of female, feminist voters who are voting for her not only because they like her ideas, but because she is a strong woman who doesn't let the bastards grind her down. I wouldn't vote for a "strong" women if she treated gender roles like one big joke. While I do think this was merely a slip-up on Clinton's part, I think she should stop playing the gender card. I like her for her politics, not her pies!

You don't see Barack Obama talking about the slave trade, do you?

Comment Rules

Since comments have been a little iffy lately, I wanted to set up some guidelines. If your comment wasn't posted, now you know why.

1. Please comment about the post, not about the poster or topics irrelevant to the topic presented.

2. Do not attack any person or group of people for reasons unrelated to the post. If the topic of the post is, say, current laws pertaining to reproductive rights, feel free to slam or praise the government. On the other hand, don't comment on that post saying all Americans from a certain area are stupid, and therefore are the problem. A comment like that is unproductive and will not be posted.

3. Also, do not attack something or someone's physical appearance.

4. If you disagree with the opinion presented, express your disagreement in a tactful manner.

5. Please try to use proper spelling and grammar. We try to write our posts eloquently, don't slap in our faces by using internet jargon.

Thanks for reading this, and happy commenting!

Clothes That Don't Make the Man

Hipster clothing store chain Urban Outfitters* is known for stocking provocative tees (The plain-colored controversies that read "Everybody Loves a (insert nationality/religion here) Girl" was all them.). However, their new crop of clothing for guys gets much worse.



Ew. Just ew. If I saw a man wearing this, I would slap him.

*In all honesty, I don't dislike the store, just this item of clothing. I shop at UO all the time, and I don't want anyone to get the wrong idea.

Ann Coulter's Ideas are Uglier than Her Body

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter may not be the beacon for female empowerment. The politically-involved woman who believes woman shouldn't be involved in politics, Coulter is rarely logical and always shocking. Saying Jews need to be perfected and calling Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards a “faggot” is one thing. Using Seinfeld (which, by the way, is by-in-large a Jewish comedy) to support her outlandish views on interracial couples? That’s just ludicrous. Ann Coulter may be an enigma, but we can’t simply ignore her and hope that one day she wakes up and realizes she’s wrong about pretty much everything.

This being said, criticizing Coulter’s physical appearance is not the answer. She may be suspiciously thin, but eating disorders are no joke. She may slightly resemble a man to some, but being transgender should not be a diss. When Ann Coulter says “liberals love America like O.J. loved Nicole”, we merely reply, “You have ugly arms, Ann Coulter!”

As Coulter once said, “I love to engage in repartee with people who are stupider than I am.” Luckily, that is a very small portion of people, so Ann Coulter must not be getting any action. Let’s not stoop to Coulter's level and let's start laughing at her “ideas” and not her clothes.

A picture says a thousand words

The zenith of female empowerment, the age of feminism at its best, fashion in all its glory during the hippie age. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the best photo of womenkind I've ever seen.

Take a minute to study the placement of the models and the poses they are in. It really speaks for itself.

*photo from 1977 JCPenney ad