Transphobic feminism makes no sense, argues Laurie Penny For decades, the feminist movement has been split over the status of trans people, and of trans women in particular. High-profile feminists such as Germaine Greer, Jan Raymond and Julie Bindel have spoken out against what Greer terms “people who think they are women, have women’s names, and feminine clothes and lots of eyeshadow, who seem to us to be some kind of ghastly parody”. Some prominent radical feminists have publicly declared that trans women are misogynist, “mutilated men”.
posted by parmanparman on Dec 21, 2009 - 277 comments

Vintage Playboy bunny clips offer a fascinating window on women, men, sex, and the swinging 60s
1964 Opening of the Hollywood Playboy Club part 1, part 2
1966: British bunnies being trained
1967: CBC Montreal - interviews with Bunny Sonia and Hugh Hefner
The Bunny Years [more inside]
posted by madamjujujive on Dec 15, 2009 - 28 comments

A female freelance writer assumes a male pseudonym and finds much more work, respect, and pay. She tells the story of her accidental experiment. (via)
posted by fontophilic on Dec 14, 2009 - 107 comments

Remembering the Montreal Massacre. A gunman confronts 60 engineering students during their class at l'École Polytechnique in Montreal on Dec. 6, 1989. He separates the men from the women and tells the men to leave the classroom, threatening them with his .22-calibre rifle. Before opening fire in the engineering class, he calls the women "une gang de féministes" and says "J'haïs les féministes [I hate feminists]." One person pleads that they are not feminists, just students taking engineering. But the gunman doesn't listen. He shoots the women and then kills himself. Parents of the Polytechnique students wait outside the school crying and wonder if their daughters are among the 14 dead.
posted by Hildegarde on Dec 6, 2009 - 134 comments

Amanda Marcotte on why atheism needs feminism. [more inside]
posted by Mngo on Nov 24, 2009 - 154 comments

Point:

At the end of October, National Domestic Violence Awareness Month, members of the men’s movement group RADAR (Respecting Accuracy in Domestic Abuse Reporting [2]) gathered on the steps of Congress to lobby against what they say are the suppressed truths about domestic violence: that false allegations are rampant, that a feminist-run court system fraudulently separates innocent fathers from children, that battered women’s shelters are running a racket that funnels federal dollars to feminists, that domestic-violence laws give cover to cagey mail-order brides seeking Green Cards, and finally, that men are victims of an unrecognized epidemic of violence at the hands of abusive wives."

A women's prayer group was expelled from the area of Jerusalem's Western Wall on Wednesday for wearing tallitot and reading from the Torah, in violation of an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that restricts these activities to men in the area directly in front of the wall. Meanwhile, in the U.S., the majority of non-Orthodox rabbinical students are female, with the Reform movement being the most female-dominated, leaving some communities struggling to revitalize men's participation in the religion.
posted by albrecht on Nov 20, 2009 - 51 comments

Video discussion on being a man with, and The Seven P's of Men's Violence by, Michael Kaufman, International Director of the White Ribbon Campaign. [more inside]
posted by catchingsignals on Nov 9, 2009 - 106 comments

As parents scramble to get one of the 25,000 items in the Disney Princess range, this article, What's Wrong with Cinderella?, gives perspective from a mother and feminist. [more inside]
posted by mippy on Oct 30, 2009 - 124 comments

Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced.
posted by kimdog on Oct 8, 2009 - 845 comments

We're all familiar with the thrilling, pulse-pounding, edge-of-your-seat spectacle that is Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Essay containing spoilers), and we've all run out to buy the new Criterion Collection DVD, and of course, we often spend our time fantasizing about what it would be like to lead the glamorous roller-coaster ride that is Ms. Dielman's life. Well, now you can make those fantasies a reality: "In honor of the release of Jeanne Dielman on DVD, we’re sponsoring the world’s first Jeanne Dielman–Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest. Make a video of yourself (or someone else) cooking 1) meat loaf, 2) cutlets, or 3) potatoes, and upload it as a video response to Jeanne Dielman–Criterion Collection Cooking Video Contest on YouTube."
posted by Greg Nog on Sep 1, 2009 - 27 comments

Jimmy Carter leaves the Southern Baptist Church [M]y decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention's leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be "subservient" to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service. This was in conflict with my belief - confirmed in the holy scriptures - that we are all equal in the eyes of God.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero on Jul 20, 2009 - 157 comments

"If you were to describe me without anyone being able to see me, they would think I am a monster (Guardian video + article), that I am not fuckable. But if they see me, that could perhaps change." While French artist ORLAN's work spans decades and mediums (FR, may be NSFW), she is perhaps best known for her 1990s performance series "The Reincarnation of Saint-ORLAN" wherein ORLAN filmed herself receiving seven different plastic surgeries (NSFW) while entirely conscious. [more inside]
posted by nonmerci on Jul 6, 2009 - 26 comments

“...the Platonic nerd is invariably male. The stereotype is flexible to incorporate women and girls on an individual basis, but few people conjure up the image of a woman when they think about nerds.” Feminist blog Pandagon reviews two books about nerdiness and geekery, Jason Tocci addresses the question of why female involvement in geek culture seems to call for a special explanation, and two feminist geeks set out in search of an egalitarian future.
posted by velvet winter on Jun 26, 2009 - 142 comments

By now, you've probably heard of Etsy (previously), a website that has been called a "crafty cross between Amazon and Ebay." The site is enormously popular, among women in particular, but some are asking is the buy handmade movement a good thing? Does the site peddle a false feminist fantasy?
posted by lunit on Jun 12, 2009 - 108 comments

When President Obama says he's looking for a judge with the "quality of empathy" to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice David Souter, is it code for a female judge? In the two decades since Bertha Wilson famously asked Will Women Judges Really Make A Difference? (mms), the answer has come back as a resounding yes (studies: 1 (pdf), 2) -- and no (studies: 1 (pdf), 2). But either way, is choosing judges based on supposed gender qualities ever a good idea?
posted by hayvac on May 21, 2009 - 64 comments

If you had to pinpoint today's problem that had no name, what would it be? In answer to that question, Linda Hirshman launches an attack on tabloid feminism prompted by last summer's spirited appearance on Lizz Winstead's show, Thinking and Drinking by Jezebel contributors Tracie Egan, a.k.a. Slut Machine (second link possibly NSFW) and Moe Tkacik. Jezebel's Megan Carpentier responds. Is this the future of feminism?
posted by Elizabeth the Thirteenth on May 17, 2009 - 38 comments

Get Your Kid Off Your Facebook Page by Katie Roiphe You click on a friend's name and what comes into focus is not a photograph of her face, but a sleeping blond four-year-old, or a sun-hatted baby running on the beach. Here, harmlessly embedded in one of our favorite methods of procrastination, is a potent symbol for the new century. Where have all of these women gone? What, some future historian may very well ask, do all of these babies on our Facebook pages say about the construction of women’s identity at this particular moment in time?
posted by Locative on May 16, 2009 - 205 comments

Marilyn French, author of The Women's Room, among other works, has died.
posted by Morrigan on May 5, 2009 - 26 comments

"Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at. This determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves." Also: male gaze on the Gender Ads Project. Laura Mulvey's original 1975 essay on Male Gaze in cinema.
posted by Optimus Chyme on Mar 12, 2009 - 248 comments

"... many critics and editors, especially male ones, make a fetish of "ambition," by which they mean the contemporary equivalent of novels about men in boats ("Moby-Dick," "Huckleberry Finn") rather than women in houses ("House of Mirth"), and that as a result big novels by male writers get treated as major events while slender but equally accomplished books by women tend to make a smaller splash." [more inside]
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome on Feb 24, 2009 - 95 comments

Moving beyond no means no. The anthology Yes Means Yes brings together writers, male and female, to explore the power of enthusiastic consent and to promote female desire free of coercion. The book has spawned a series of readings, live chats, and some interesting blog responses. [more inside]
posted by emjaybee on Feb 21, 2009 - 220 comments

“In 20 to 25 years, we could be extinct": lesbian separatist communes grapple with aging, irrelevance to younger lesbians, and survival in the twenty-first century. [more inside]
posted by Forktine on Jan 31, 2009 - 354 comments

Two of the most important women’s-rights-related bill-signings in the past few years.
posted by OverlappingElvis on Jan 30, 2009 - 18 comments

Virginity at age 22. Two approaches: 1. Sell it. "It became apparent to me that idealized virginity is just a tool to keep women in their place. But then I realized something else: if virginity is considered that valuable, what’s to stop me from benefiting from that?" 2. Keep it. "It is puzzling and disturbing to me that regnant feminism has never acknowledged the empowering value of virginity."
posted by Pater Aletheias on Jan 30, 2009 - 114 comments

Is the new feminism lipstick and fashion? “I think the proper reaction to a beauty pageant these days is to be bored by it. I would have thought that old version of feminism, which was violently opposed to lipstick and high heels, had died out by now. It’s an extinct image of feminism — that you can’t be both frivolous and serious or care about clothes and read books at the same time. And, in a way, it’s sort of depressing that these same old-fashioned battles keep on being recycled.”
posted by four panels on Dec 23, 2008 - 141 comments

Inventor Le Trung, creator of Aiko the female robot, awaits investors to give his creation life.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing on Dec 11, 2008 - 42 comments

Men Can Stop Rape is part of a growing movement to stop rape, sexual assault, and sexual violence by focusing on educating men. There are efforts to change the climate on college campuses and curriculum at Haverford, Tulane, Kansas State, Idaho State, University of Wisconsin, University of Texas, University of Minnesota, University of Maine, Portland State, Harvard, University of Rochester, University of Delaware, Franklin and Marshall, and Colorado State, to name a few. Want to start your own? Here's how. Not in college? There's [more inside]
posted by lunit on Nov 11, 2008 - 279 comments

"Roy Den Hollander, a graduate of the Ivy League university’s business school, contends Columbia's Institute for Research on Women and Gender is discriminatory and unconstitutional because there is no equivalent 'men’s studies' programme." So Mr. Hollander is suing Columbia, thereby completing his "trilogy of antifeminist lawsuits." More at Gothamist.
posted by milquetoast on Aug 19, 2008 - 44 comments

Every hour a woman in the Russian Federation dies at the hand of a relative, her partner or former partner. Russian judge rules sexual harassment okay as it ensures humans breed. Domestic violence: Russian women speak out. NPR: Domestic Violence A Silent Crisis In Russia.
posted by agregoli on Aug 11, 2008 - 32 comments

This has not been a good week for woman of color blogging. About two weeks ago, Black Femi Power, a well-read woman of color blogger, resigned her blog in protest to an incident wherein Amanda Marcotte, a notable white feminist blogger, was accused of appropriating BFP's ideas. On the heels of the controversy that had reverberations in the feminist blogosphere which are far from forgotten, Marcotte is releasing and promoting a new book, with a new cover to replace the old one after outcries that it was racist.
posted by lunit on Apr 23, 2008 - 140 comments

The Open Source Boob Project. At Penguicon, we had buttons to give away. There were two small buttons, one for each camp: A green button that said, "YES, you may" and a red button that said "NO, you may not." And anyone who had those buttons on, whether you knew them or not, was someone you could approach and ask: "Excuse me, but may I touch your breasts?" Once taken online, the grand flurry of reactions have been decidedly mixed. [more inside]
posted by Hildegarde on Apr 23, 2008 - 247 comments

"If feminism is about social change, white feminism -- a feminism of assimilation, of gentle reform and/or strengthening of institutions that are instrumental to economic exploitation and white supremacy, of ignorance and/or appropriation of the work of feminists of color -- is an oxymoron. And it is not a thing of some bygone era before everyone read bell hooks in college. It is happening now; you might be part of it."
posted by nasreddin on Apr 6, 2008 - 182 comments

The Michigan Womyn’s Festival (“Michfest”) is an annual “womon-built” and run music festival. “Forty performances, a film festival, an artisan/craft show and a full roster of workshops, parties and dances are all slated for one glorious week in August on 650 lush green acres in Michigan.” The festival is open to WBW (women born women) only. [more inside]
posted by prefpara on Mar 30, 2008 - 188 comments

Brilliant Women: The Blue Stocking Circle was a group of intellectuals with a strong desire to discuss, analyze, and examine the social, political, and educational problems of the day Mostly female intellectuals, but they included many prominent men as well. They assembled in the London homes of literary hostesses such as Elizabeth Montagu, Frances Boscawen and Elizabeth Vesey in the 1750s form the nucleus of the exhibition. .... At first, all the party-goers were nicknamed blues, but from the 1770s, the "bluestocking" tag was applied to the women members in particular. By the time of Montagu's death in 1800, any female intellectual might be labelled a bluestocking, whether or not she could claim a link to the original circle.
posted by caddis on Mar 21, 2008 - 10 comments

Virginia Woolf: A feminist's view on why we go to war.
posted by hadjiboy on Feb 24, 2008 - 25 comments

Some blogs written by strippers (and a strip club DJ), focusing on their work. [more inside]
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim on Dec 30, 2007 - 85 comments

Barbara Pym’s books focused on women who rarely make it into any spotlight, literary or otherwise: quiet, sensible, independent women of a certain age. Like the spinsters who populate her novels, her genius has been too often overlooked, but she does have her devotees. [more inside]
posted by freshwater_pr0n on Dec 27, 2007 - 26 comments

Insightful, sociological, bitter: A scholar reflects back on her entry into the academic 'mommy track.' An interesting blend of meditation-on-resentment and just-plain-resentment, worth a read both intentionally and un-. [via] [more inside]
posted by waxbanks on Dec 2, 2007 - 69 comments

Ladies, submit and enjoy! What does the 21st century biblical model for an adult daughter look like? Have you ever wondered about the damage feminism has visited upon our civilization? Prepare to be enlightened...
posted by zany pita on Nov 28, 2007 - 77 comments

Ni Putes Ni Soumise (Neither Whores Nor Submissives) is a French organization started by Fadéla Amara to combat the growing misogyny in the banlieues, the housing project suburbs that ring the major cities. Her organization began to protest a rash of gang rapes, and now works on human rights issues in and around the experience of Arabs in France. Amara has joined Nicholas Sarkozy's conservative cabinet as the minister of urban policy. For some, she is a hero, for others a hypocrite, but everyone agrees that she's shaking things up. [more inside]
posted by anotherpanacea on Nov 20, 2007 - 12 comments

The Chicago Women's Liberation (embedded video) Rock Band [more inside]
posted by sleepy pete on Nov 14, 2007 - 17 comments

GIRLdrive: "On October 15, we set out on a road trip. We are interviewing and photographing young women across the country, asking them what they think and feel about feminism."
posted by Hypocrite_Lecteur on Nov 8, 2007 - 39 comments

The Brooklyn Museum's Feminist Art Base presents online the work of over 150 artists "whose work reintroduced the articulation of socially relevant issues after an era of aesthetic formalism", including Janine Antoni, Tracy Emin, Ghada Amer, Ida Applebroog, Sue De Beer, Guerrilla Girls, Yasumasa Morimura, Carrie Moyer, Eva Hesse, Pipilotti Rist, Sheila Pepe, Faith Ringgold ... and of course, an online tour of The Dinner Party, and a Feminist Timeline.
posted by R. Mutt on Nov 5, 2007 - 19 comments

There's been a lot of discussion about the Final Girl,and while some champion the moniker, others decry her infantilization.
posted by mikoroshi on Oct 24, 2007 - 38 comments

If European and North American societies are morally responsible (print-friendly) for safeguarding free speech, should we also take financial responsibility for its proponents' safety (pf)? Hitchens seems to think so.

Today's moral dilemma is brought to you, of course, by the West's favourite Voltairian nightmare: prominent Islam critic, former Dutch MP, and scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Oct 9, 2007 - 17 comments

The Philosophy Research Base features thousands of annotated links and text resources for philosophy research on the Internet. Categorized by history, subject and author, this meta-index serves as both a study guide and a platform for a wide variety of community services for students and teachers in philosophy and related subjects.
posted by netbros on Aug 26, 2007 - 5 comments

Okay, it wasn't exactly banned, but the new Dove ad for their anti-aging products-- featuring tastefully nude older women-- was pre-emptively rejected by broadcast networks. Dove's Campaign For Real Beauty shares reactions, lets you meet the cast, and invites you to discuss. Previously on MetaFilter: Dove's short "Evolution" about how image-manipulation distorts beauty standards.
posted by hermitosis on Jul 18, 2007 - 68 comments

When Fangirls Attack is a compilation of articles and essays about women in comics.
posted by FunkyHelix on Jul 4, 2007 - 69 comments

The Brain That Wouldn't Die is the best public domain movie I've seen all week. Abe Baker's spooky original jazz score is a staple in sci-fi B movies. The monster is played by Eddie Carmel, subject of Diane Arbus' A Jewish giant at home with his parents in the Bronx, N.Y. 1970, in his first screen appearance. And I can't overlook the feminist take on this postwar gorefest. See for yourself.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Jun 28, 2007 - 23 comments