http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/afghan_women_choose_suicide_over_facing_continued_violence

A new report out of Canada finds that over 80 women lit themselves on fire in a province of Afghanistan last year.

When dozens of women consider being burned alive seems preferable to life, you know something's deeply wrong. The action brings to mind the Buddhist monks who used self-immolation to protest the Vietnam War -- and oh look! The United States has messed up both countries. (And will probably fail in both as well, because what would "success" in Afghanistan really look like?)

Last year, a controversial law legalized marital rape. A British reports found that 87% of women in Afghanistan have suffered violence, half of that sexual assault, and there are few places for women fleeing domestic violence. And President Hamid Karzai -- who we set up as our little puppet -- pardoned two men found guilty of gang-raping an Afghan woman. So the desire to escape the brutality of life shouldn't be that shocking.

Fellow Women's Rights blogger Pema pointed out in a post last month that, as long as we're in Afghanistan screwing around with things, we should at least have the decency to do something to protect women's human rights. Obviously that continues to be a vital issue for the new year.

Photo: Capture Queen

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/feministe-blog/~3/rCawTIhxZHk/

http://www.feministe.us/blog/?p=17294

Oh NYU, I love you again:

Bikini Kill lead singer and noted feminist Kathleen Hanna has just made a sizable donation to the NYU library. The library is referring to the donation as The Kathleen Hanna Papers and will make them a part of their newly announced Riot Grrrrl Collection. The “papers” are believed to contain her many zines, much of her correspondences and plenty of material pertaining to her time in Bikini Kill, as well as various other writings. This is cool for a number of obvious reasons.

The fact that we live in a world where “The Kathleen Hanna Papers” exist as part of a “Riot Grrrl Collection” in a major research library makes me happy to be alive. [I'm a little unclear why "papers" is in scare-quotes in the article, but I will overlook it because this brings me great joy that I do not want tarnished].

Time to get my Bobst alumni membership card.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/VivaLaFeminista/~3/kiAHgVhQZ4Y/preckwinkle-is-peppermint-mocha-of.html

Cook County Board President
CANDIDATE FORUM

Focusing on Violence Against Women and Girls

Cosponsored by Chicago Foundation for Women, Center on Halsted, Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women's Network, Loyola University of Chicago and Rape Victim Advocates

Thursday, Jan. 21, 2010
6 p.m. (Doors open at 5:30)
Loyola University of Chicago, Water Tower Campus
111 E. Pearson St.
Beane Hall, 13th floor of Lewis Towers
Chicago

No RSVP necessary. Open to the public.

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/desperation_remains_unattractive/

http://pandagon.net/index.php/site/desperation_remains_unattractive/#When:21:13:00Z

As you no doubt know, I love Kate Harding and usually nod firmly at her blog posts.  But I have to disagree with this one she wrote about a woman named Neenah Pickett, who gave herself a year to find a husband and kept a blog called 52 Weeks 2 Find Him Blog.  I firmly agree with Kate that narratives that tell women they must be passive (or passive aggressive) to “catch” a man are sexist and not as effective as advertised, and that the portrayal of men as being composed of nothing but tender ego and skittishness---where any kind of expectation-setting from a woman is sure to scare them off---is also ridiculous.  But I can’t help but disagree with her about whether or not it’s a good idea to make it a goal to find your spouse and give yourself a time limit to do so, and it’s really not a good idea to advertise it. 

The passage from Kate I have to argue with:

Funny how that dovetails with long-standing gender roles and sexist expectations, although it’s now dressed up as the self-respecting, even vaguely feminist choice—only the most pathetic, unenlightened woman would openly act like she might be happier in a committed relationship, right? Even if she’s pretty sure she would. Saying you want a man because you happen to be straight and lonely is just too dangerously close to saying you need one and single-handedly sending women back to the dark ages! It’s much safer for your own heart and indeed the sisterhood if you squelch your desires and wait patiently for someone to come along and deem you dateworthy. Just as women have always been trained to do, but never mind that. (Perhaps the popularity of “The Rules” can be explained by the simple fact that it gives women something to do while furiously pretending we’re doing nothing.)

Call me an optimist, but I think there’s a way to find a happy medium between pursuing love in a way that’s laid back and pleasurable, and coming across as desperate.  Sure, it’s an art form, striking that perfect balance of showing interest and investment in someone, but not letting your desire to have someone become so overwhelming that they run away because you’re desperate.  And some of the choices you can make to avoid seeming desperate are pretty simple, such as not proposing marriage right away, not starting a website about how you’re going to get married this year dammit, not saying “I love you” in the first week, not talking about how many kids you want on the first date, not finding really obvious ways to broach the subject of marriage on the first couple of dates. 

There’s no doubt that the stereotype of the needy, ring-hungry woman is used by men who, for whatever reason, prefer to date women who have their self-esteem lowered by emotional abuse.  I’ve certainly had a couple of baffling encounters with men who try to flatter themselves by making me seem to be a harpy who is out for one gold thing because I did something that demonstrated self-esteem, such as getting pissed if he didn’t call when he said he would, or “forgot” we had a date.  To a degree, this stuff was effective in my youth, less so when I grew up a little---so I’m sure it works on some women.  But let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater, here.  Both men and women are perfectly capable of getting so obsessed with checking marriage off their life goals or even simply being validated by having a partner that they start to exude desperation, and there’s nothing less sexy than that, for good reasons, as I’ll get into.  God knows I’ve probably met more men that give off the stench of desperation than women, though perhaps my sample size is skewed because I’m a straight woman who therefore will attract these men’s attention.  Some were kind of grabby, and some were just clearly eager to get married so their toilets were cleaned more often, and came across as impatient with this whole dating process (especially since I’m sure they absorbed the cultural message that a woman is flattered by having a perfect stranger want to get you in a white dress quickly).  Not being desperate can and should be a gender neutral standard.

And the reason is quite simple: No one enjoys being objectified.  Call us hopeless romantics, but most of us want to fall in love, and to have someone else adore us for our unique selves.  Most of us find a way to square this desire away with the general understanding that most people we date---or want to date---should be on the market.  We don’t pretend that the ultimate goal is to find someone you’re compatible with and perhaps settle down.  We aren’t so eager to be convinced that we’re personally so amazing and magnetic that we seek out people who are proving this by cheating on spouses with us, or some other transgression of basic norms.  But nor do we want to feel like going on dates is like being interviewed for a job: “Okay, well your resume shows you have the skill set to fill this role.  And you seem to smell okay.  When can you start with fucking me and meeting my parents?” For women, and somewhat for men, there’s also the added concern that a person who is just spouse-shopping might be an abuser, who doesn’t really care about your personality because they plan to change you into a submissive, flinching victim. 

Someone, male or female, who goes too far into the direction of treating dating like you’re hiring someone for a job isn’t necessarily being punished for being too forward or sure of themselves.  It’s that they’re sending signals that they’re disinterested in really getting to know someone and letting love be the exciting ride that makes it all worthwhile.  I think everyone realizes that it’s frustrating feeling like dating is going nowhere, but I do think that there is a zen to it, where it is easier to meet someone when you’re not trying too hard, because that’s when you have the mental space to be charming by enjoying other people for what they are, instead of what you can get out of them.  It’s not that different from friendship; most of mine didn’t really come from being lonely and desperate, but just hanging out with someone and having so much fun I wanted to do it again. 

http://inlawswithmoney.blogspot.com/2010/01/hell.html

http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/slut-shaming_at_the_onion_humor_fail

Yes, I know some consider the Onion and its brand of satirical humor to be off-limits from criticism, complaints of bad taste, and the strictures of political correctness. And yes, I acknowledge that I often love the Onion most when it is at its most offensive -- when I find myself thinking, "Oh no they didn't." Sometimes the Onion is simultaneously hilariously funny and outrageously offensive.

But the Onion shouldn't be able to hide behind its reputation for producing some of the best satire around at those times when it produces some of the worst satire around, and this is one of them. In a video released yesterday, "VH1 Reality Show Bus Crashes in California Causing Major Slut Spill," the Onion went too far and wasn't even funny. There, I said it.

The supposed humor in this video is created using the Onion's usual maneuvers: framing a "funny" situation as an extremely serious one, satirizing the mainstream news' aggrandizement of trivial stories, caricaturing pop culture absurdities, taking far-fetched analogies to their logical or illogical extremes, and creating a sort of ridiculous mad-libs wherein silliness substitutes for real-life events. But this time, the humor just doesn't work, because there's a hateful, cruel edge to it, and one that echoes rather than satirizes our culture's judgement of women's sexuality. In fact, it reminded me of Hustler's infamous cover depicting a woman being turned into ground beef via a meat grinder.

Was I supposed to laugh at lines like this?:

"Officials there are struggling to control the spread of slut, which has already polluted the roadway and is spreading now down a hillside into residential areas."

"There's been speculation, in fact, the accident was actually caused by some slut leaking into the front cab on the vehicle and getting on the driver."

"The local fire department is just not equipped to handle something this toxic."

"Ryan, stay safe out there and don't fuck any of those sluts."

The visuals, I'm afraid, are just as horrid.

The Sexist's Amanda Hess considered whether rape humor -- and, by extension, misogynist humor -- can ever actually be funny, in the follow-up to her recent column on the rape cartoons drawn by Real World D.C. cast member Andrew Woods. She admits that she has found rape jokes funny in the past, but only when they have presented their material in a way that gives them a new context, and not when they simply rely on the shock value of depicting an unfunny reality as somehow hilarious. She places Woods' cartoons squarely in the latter category, and I would place the "slut spill" video right there with it. Not only does it reflect our slut-shaming culture at its worst, but it's also been done a million times before, not least of which by the Onion itself. What's so envelope-pushing or funny about a joke that's completely redundant?

Hess actually uses a previous Onion story as an example of a funny rape joke ("Raped Environment Led Polluters On, Defense Attorneys Argue"). I do find that headline giggle-inducing in spite of my absolute hatred of rape humor, but that's because the headline inherently critiques rape victim-blaming instead of condoning it.

Not so much the case with the "slut spill" video. This one pushes horribly damaging ideas about women as meat, objects, dirty, dangerous, polluting, and yes, sluts, further into our culture's realm of acceptability. If the Onion really wanted to be funny, they would cleverly turn these ideas on their head instead of perpetuating them.

So call me shrill, reactionary, lacking in a sense of humor. I stand behind my assertion: this video is misogynist, and it stinks.

Photo credit: Eurleif's photostream

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2010/01/07/sady-from-feministe-on-mary-dalys-death/

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/?p=9445

Quoted for brilliance:

It wasn’t the end of the problems with Daly. For starters: Daly hated on trans people something fierce. This has been sort of lightly mentioned and hinted at elsewhere, but I have to tell you this in plain language: MARY. DALY. HATED. TRANS. PEOPLE. Particularly trans women. She intimated, at times, that they were part of a plot to eliminate “real” women, and to assign “men” all “authentic” female functions. She also said that they were like whites putting on blackface (yeah: Lorde might have been right, about the whole appropriating-other-people’s-oppression thing?) and implied that they should have bodily violence done to them, or at least should be physically intimidated, by “real” feminists, so that they could not enter the feminist movement or feminist space. Let’s not be coy, here: no matter whether she believed this for her entire life, no matter whether she privately got over it later, she published it, without apparently ever publishing a retraction, as far as I can tell. This is hate. This is privilege. This, right here, is the face of the oppressor.

And I’m not saying this to defile Mary Daly’s grave. I’m not saying it because I get a dirty little thrill out of tarnishing the legacy of a fallen feminist. I’m not saying it because I want to start a fight. I’m saying it because, for much of my young life, Mary Daly was my favorite feminist author, meaning that I believed this shit, too. There are still women who believe this, and these women often call themselves “radical feminists.” Because queer-bashing and misogyny are just so fucking threatening to the Patriarchy, apparently. I believed it, because Mary Daly published it, and I believed in her. And, let me tell you, I have worked like Hell Itself to get over that, and to get over the privilege that allowed me to place such emphasis on my own oppression that I could go around blithely oppressing other folks because clearly I had won the Whose Suffering Is Most Important game, and to be an actual functioning ally. Some encouragement from Mary Daly – some retraction, some statement of accountability – would have helped. It would have slapped me out of this unbelievably gross way of thinking with one blow, rather than making me go through life hurting people and being an asshole and having to receive many, many less powerful slaps until I got my shit straight.

Daly and I were both Catholics, at one point, so I know both of us understand the power of Confession – not the version handed out by the church, where you say it and apologize for it and have all your guilt magically wiped away by the hand of God, but the version that actually works in the real live world, where you admit to being wrong and you take your consequences like a grown woman and you do your acts of contrition and your assigned penance, for the rest of your life, by living with those consequences and not repeating the actions that caused them in the first place. People might forgive you; they might not. The point is to value doing the right thing, for the sake of the right thing, more than you value your own personal comfort.

I’m exerpting this from the rest of the essay because I think this will be an important dialogue for feminists to have, and to continue to have, until the particular forms of transphobia which are fostered by the radical feminist movement die a long-awaited death. Mary Daly’s passing provides fodder for this conversation — a starting point — but it’s not really the core of what needs discussing.

Feminism is, still, used as a tool of oppression against trans people. Those who perpetuate this violence toward fellow human beings should feel ashamed. If they, like Mary Daly, have an investment in the imagery of the church — they should confess and repent. If they, like me, have no such investment, then they should apologize and stop hurting other people immediately.

Also, rest in peace Mary Daly and thank you for the good work you’ve done, but that’s just a footnote to this conversation.

Read Sady’s whole post here.

http://progressontheprairie.com/2010/01/07/kern-watch-2010-hb-2279-would-amend-ok-divorce-law-making-divorce-more-difficult-to-obtain/

http://progressontheprairie.com/?p=1202

hi, everyone. here’s your sally kern update for the new year! now she’s targeting divorce law, trying to save/protect traditional marriage by making divorces harder to obtain. the worst parts are that she’s doing this in the name of children’s rights (eyeroll) and that she is continuing her obsession with oppressing people who live what she’d call “alternative lifestyles,” i.e., anyone who is not heterosexual and married. from OKhouse.gov:

OKLAHOMA CITY (January 7, 2010) – Working to reduce Oklahoma’s high divorce rate, state Rep. Sally Kern has filed legislation to refine state law to encourage married couples with children to work through their problems.

“The destruction of the family is the root cause of many problems in our society,” said Kern, R-Oklahoma City. “If we can lower our divorce rate, our quality of life will improve and we will also reduce the need for many state services in this time of budget shortfall, freeing up money to go to core services such as schools and roads.”

House Bill 2279, by Kern, would amend Oklahoma’s divorce law. The bill would continue to allow divorce for abandonment, adultery, cruelty and similar causes, but would make it more difficult to obtain a divorce on the grounds of “incompatibility” if a couple has been married for 10 years or more, has children, and either the husband or wife objects to the divorce.

Under the bill, couples with children could obtain a divorce when both parties agree to it, just as they can under current law.

“No one wants to force a battered spouse to stay in a marriage, but that situation is seldom the cause of our high divorce rate,” Kern said. “Instead, we often see a husband or wife seek divorce because of so-called ‘incompatibility’ simply because they don’t want to try and address the issues that have caused their marital problems.”

In four of five divorces, one spouse does not want the divorce, according to Mike McManus, president and co-founder of Marriage Savers, a group dedicated to driving down the nation’s divorce rate and preserving families.

Kern said by making it harder for one spouse to unilaterally obtain a divorce (outside of abuse, abandonment or similar circumstances), the state would create an incentive for reconciliation.

“This legislation would not prohibit divorce, but it would slow down the process when children are involved and provide an incentive for couples to sit down and talk about their problems,” Kern said. “That process may not always lead to reconciliation, but it is important that both spouses are involved in the decision. Our current law favors only the spouse seeking divorce.”

Kern noted there is broad support for slowing down the divorce process when children are involved. A TIME/CNN poll found that 61 percent of adults favor making divorce more difficult to obtain when a couple has young children.

“Regrettably, children are the innocent victims of divorce,” Kern said.

She also noted divorce also has financial consequences for state government.

A recent study, “The Taxpayer Costs of Divorce and Unwed Childbearing” conservatively estimates divorce costs state government up to $430 million annually (largely through public assistance programs). Research also indicates children from broken homes are more likely to be incarcerated, live in poverty and are more susceptible to substance abuse and mental health disorders.

“We cannot address our current budget shortfall if we don’t also address the root cause of many state expenditures,” Kern said. “As my House colleague Mark McCullough has argued, if we could reduce divorce in Oklahoma we would also reduce our prison population and welfare rolls while benefiting families and children. That’s a goal worth pursing.”

kern’s bill is an unfunny, lame version of California’s Initiative to ban divorce. please feel free to write her on her comments page or call her at (405) 557-7348 and tell her you disapprove. perhaps you could also recommend other, more pressing issues that she could expend her energies on, such as, oh i don’t know, the economy, infrastructure, teaching wages, healthcare access improvement, the prison system, etc., etc., etc.

peace,
beamish

http://womensrights.change.org/blog/view/why_do_women_have_to_go_to_special_clinics_for_abortions

Natasha Chart at Open Left highlights a commenter's question: "why can't women just get abortions in hospitals or at the regular clinics they go to so the disturbed, whackjob protestors don't have such an easy and obvious target?"

Damn good question.

Chart's answer? To make it easier to shame those sluts -- it's a modern day scarlet letter.

Whether anti-choice protestors are on the milder side, asking women to "consider what the Lord would think," or if they're screaming about Satan drinking their babies blood, they're invading privacy and making assumptions out of disrespect for the female sex. Most (though definitely not all) claim to make exceptions for cases of rape, but never consider that they might be harassing a survivor. Nor do they consider that the pregnancy might pose a danger to the woman's life. Or that maybe the woman they're harassing isn't even going for an abortion -- clinics provide a range of other reproductive health services.

And of course it would be too much to expect them to trust women recognize and recognize that one in three members of the female sex are not murderers.

Then there's the severe danger to the doctors themselves in being isolated in a private, easy-target practice. (And given this, I wouldn't be altogether surprised if the whackjobs out there starting target women who have had an abortion as well.)

Reproductive health is health, and you should be able to access the entire range of reproductive health services at any hospital or clinic. No scarlet letter required.

Photo: Wikimedia Commons

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/archives/2010/01/07/j-street-los-angeles/

http://www.amptoons.com/blog/?p=9443

Because I am a glutton for punishment with no sense of restraint, when the email came in saying that J Street was opening up local chapters, not only did I immediately sign up, but I checked off every single skills/interests box. (Can I help it that I’m so well-rounded?)

Sooo, I’m going to need some help, people! Sign up, please! And maybe we can even get a Long Beach branch going? (I have no idea what these local chapters entail, by the way, but I’m pumped.)

(Cross-posted at Modern Mitzvot.)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Feministing/~3/f_PAesySiVI/019550.html

Breaking news: New Jersey Senate rejects bill legalizing gay marriage. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will be giving a major policy address on global reproductive health tomorrow. It will be live streamed at 2:30 EST here.

A Saudi woman courts controversy by fantasizing about polyandry.

The Toronto Star names Racialicious Special Correspondent Jessica Yee one of 2010's People to Watch.

CA governor pledges to put higher education funding above prison funding in CA budget, purportedly due to student protests.

The Obama administration has inserted language into the federal jobs Web site explicitly banning employment discrimination based on gender identity.

Sign the petition to get transparency in the upcoming Prop 8 trials.

http://myliberaldemocratpoliticalramblings.wordpress.com/2010/01/07/camerons-airbrushing-and-a-lib-dem-real-men-campaign/

http://myliberaldemocratpoliticalramblings.wordpress.com/?p=417

So, was David Cameron airbrushed for the Conservatives’ new poster campaign? I certainly think he was. And you know what, if the Real Women campaign looked at the airbrushing of men too, then I would send it off to the Liberal Democrats as an example of the engrained level of airbrushing in society! So much for Cameron being a ‘real’ person, I think it speaks wonders that whilst the Liberal Democrats are campaigning to highlight the engrained level of airbrushing in the media, Cameron’s promotional team are brushing him up (anything to take attention away from the fact Cameron has no policies).

Whilst this is a light-hearted blog, I think at the same time there is a serious point. I would hope that Nick Clegg would not airbrush himself for a poster campaign, as after all politics is about ideas not how you look. It shows how the Conservatives are more concerned about being the party of show, and have limited focus on actual policy ideas that will help provide a more equal and balanced society.

It seems however, as though the public are not taking to the poster, see for example the image provided by Paul Waugh below, that shows a defaced version of the poster:

It says:

“I’ll cut the deficit, the NHS, the BBC, Ordnance Survey, Anything whatever in fact, We should not be allowed to govern again.”

Well said. This has led to some funny recreations of the poster, such as John Prescott’s:

It is not often I say thanks to Cameron, but I think it is worth thanking him for making me laugh and for also providing the Liberal Democrats with a nice bit of publicity for their airbrushing campaign.

http://feministlawprofessors.com/?p=14377

The New Jersey Senate just voted down a bill that would have extended the right to marry to same-sex couples. The vote was 20 against and 14 in favor of the bill, with several of the forty senators apparently choosing not to vote. This was a last-ditch effort before the new governor, who opposes same-sex marriage, is sworn in on January 19th. Having failed in the legislature and facing a hostile executive, proponents of same-sex marriage in New Jersey have indicated that they will now head back to court to seek the right to marry.

After a rocky 2009 in the battle for same-sex marriage, 2010 is not getting off to an auspicious start.

-Tony Infanti

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/feministe-blog/~3/a2XiMQut3I4/

http://www.feministe.us/blog/?p=17293

I’ve been off Facebook today, but three people have now contacted me about this whole “women posting the color of their bra as their FB status” thing. Because I seem to be everyone’s go to social media maven, they’re all coming to me for answers or at least a reaction.

In case you don’t have Facebook or nobody you know is doing this or maybe you saw it and had no idea, women are changing their status to a color. Some of my friends have listed red, white, etc. Sometimes they say it’s their bra color, sometimes they just list a color with no explanation or anything.

I investigated and found that, indeed, some women were doing this. My friend and I further investigated and found some links stating it’s for breast cancer awareness. Here’s the text from Yahoo Answers:

this is the message all the girls are recieving on facebook:

Some fun is going on…. just write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to ONLY girls no men …. It will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color in their status… Haha.

I found a few other links with similar supposed Facebook messages, but that’s the general idea.

I have to say, this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of on earth. (Alright, that might be an exaggeration, but it’s pretty damn stupid!) For one, I don’t believe it has anything to do with breast cancer. I think it’s just some stupid prank to get people’s attention and have everyone on Facebook being all sexy and provocative and whatnot. And, of course, I’m just waiting for the “these girls are such sluts” comments that are sure to come.

Of course, I have to ask myself how stupid or smart this is if it is, in fact, for breast cancer awareness. And in that case, my answer is… the same. Still stupid. Perhaps even stupider. Because nobody is actually talking about breast cancer, or even mentioning it in their status. A lot of women probably don’t even know why their friends are doing it, they just see it as some Facebook meme and then deciding to taking part. So where on earth is all this awareness? A much better campaign would keep the whole bra color thing, but then instruct women to also leave a link to a breast cancer-related site, or a splash page or similar teaser that will eventually have breast cancer information.

In conclusion, if it’s just a prank: stupid and just having women look like idiots while trying to be all sexy and whatever. If it’s actual breast cancer awareness: a poorly constructed campaign that will have very little, if any, success.

ETA: My friend just got a message and hers says:

Write the color of your bra in your status. Just the color, nothing else. And send this on to only gals no men…it will be neat to see if this will spread the wings of cancer awareness. It will be fun to see how long it takes before the men will wonder why all the girls have a color on their status! LOL!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Feministing/~3/WbceGLbgOQ0/019563.html

The amazing Rachel Simmons (of Curse of the Good Girl and Odd Girl Out fame) is at it again, this time on television! Her awesome documentary, A Girl's Life, debuted lasts week on PBS. In it she "follows the lives of four girls who tell their own deeply personal tales of dealing with issues like cyber-bullying, body image and violence." Here's the trailer:

Stream it live here.

Check out a lesson plan for educators who want to watch the program with girls on Rachel's website.

Transcript fairies, feel free to gift us in comments if you've got time!

http://feministlawprofessors.com/?p=14373

For the socially conscious LGBT shopper, the Human Rights Campaign has now released its “Buy4Equality” app for the iPhone. Before you buy a company’s product, you can now check how the company fares on HRC’s corporate equality index. Companies are color-coded: green (businesses to support), yellow (businesses that could do better), and red (businesses to avoid or who have failed to respond to HRC surveys). You can either search by brand name alphabetically or by category (e.g., household products or insurance). And in case you don’t have an iPhone, you can text HRC (see the link above for details) with the name of the brand and they’ll text you back with its rating. The app is free. I’m not sure whether I’ll use it, but who knows? It may come in handy some time, like that NYC subway map app that I downloaded (I live in Pittsburgh, but I did work in NYC before I started teaching so I downloaded it mainly for the nostalgia value!).

-Tony Infanti

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Feministing/~3/ZURSzDBcI6A/019553.html

Check out this testimony from the Body Image Project about how one woman changed her mind about her body. I like it, in part, because it flies in the face of antiquated ideas that body hatred is only a white girl thing. As Ruth Striegel-Moore of Wesleyan and other great researchers have demonstrated, it simply isn't.

More vids here.

Transcript after the jump.

"We know you're going to make it cause you're pretty, you're thin." That's where it all starts. The better you look, the easier it is for you, plain and simple. "How do you stay so thin?" When people start to look at you as 'how do you stay so thin,' you don't want to gain weight. Once you don't feel good on the outside you start to not feel good on the inside. I used to be real bad. I used to check the scale three or four times a day. Nobody knows that, but I guess they do now. I've come a long way. I used to be so psychotic about it. It's not about changing your body it's about changing your mind. It's not about how your body looks, it's about how you look at your body. It's all about how you look at it and the level of importance you give to it, so I stopped giving it so much importance. I just wanted to be able to accept it more. My body is strong. I think I've put it through a lot. I'm grateful that it's strong enough to take everything--from the mental to the physical. Every day I say, "Okay, this is me."

http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2010_01_01_archive.html#6025527216726131271

http://clarissasbox.blogspot.com/2010/01/we-have-been-snowed-in.html

Since I come from Montreal, this kind of snow is nothing to me. The locals, however, are not used to anything like this. In Montreal this kind of snow is considered business as usual and nobody would cancel classes even for twice as much snow.

Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T