MetaFilter posts tagged with feminism

Back when a textile factory worker had the right stuff

MartinWisse — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:50:22 -0800

Fifty years ago today, Valentina Tereshkova became the first textile factory worker, first civilian and of course first woman in space. She completed 48 orbits, in the process amassing more space time than any of the American astronauts had logged. It would be almost twenty years before a second female astronaut got into space, slightly more than that for the first American woman. In total, fiftyseven women have flown into space, or roughly ten percent of the total number of astronauts.

The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

EXISTENZ IS PAUSED — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 17:38:44 -0800

As an investigation is launched into men in the Australian Army circulating explicit and derogatory material about their female colleagues, Lieutenant General David Morrison, Chief of Army, delivers a searing rebuke to those who perpetuate or condone the harassment of women in the military.

"I sincerely regret the loss of the life of Ms. Frago"

jaduncan — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 04:29:23 -0800

Jury acquits escort shooter. Texas Penal Code s. 9.42 has been interpreted to possibly allow the shooting of sex workers who accept money at night but do not then perform sexual services, and Ezekiel Gilbert was therefore found to have the legal right to shoot at a sex worker over a $150 dispute. This interpretation of the defence of property has come under some criticism, and although the jury may have reached their decision on a different ground, the possibility of this defence under state law appears to be sound.

Answering Harvard’s question about my personal life, 52 years later

DarlingBri — Sat, 08 Jun 2013 10:35:13 -0800

"In 1961, Phyllis Richman applied to graduate school at Harvard. She received a letter asking how she would balance a career in city planning with her 'responsibilities' to her husband and possible future family. Fifty-two years later, she responds." Background on Richman. Books by Phyllis Richman, including the gastronomic murder mysteries she began writing as she neared retirement from her decades long career in journalism.

Where Looks Don’t Matter and Only the Best Writers Get Laid

Cash4Lead — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 06:11:17 -0800

How the feminist internet utopia failed, and we ended up with speculative realism. Contemporary mass culture equates anonymity with secrecy or downright negative intent, not harmless experimentation. Who lies about who they are online? Pedophiles, scammers, hackers, bullies, Wikileaks. Anonymity has turned from thrilling to terrifying. 1:1 self-to-body ratio is a moral mandate. It’s no wonder that nailing down objective reality seems so attractive.

An Alternative History of 11 American Female Doctors

feelinglistless — Wed, 29 May 2013 11:28:10 -0800

An Alternative History of 11 American Female Doctors: "A new producer, Glen A. Larsons, changed up almost everything fans knew about Doctor Who. Gone was the constant traveling, and in its place Jennifer Jones' Doctor was now a scientist working exclusively for the United States military in exile on Earth. The comedic style that had always been a tremendous part of the show was left behind in order to capitalize on the drama skills of the Academy Award-winning actress." Previously, the men.

Your wife is brutally murdered and you have to rescue your daughter (x5)

Charlemagne In Sweatpants — Tue, 28 May 2013 18:00:17 -0800

Anita Sarkeesian has uploaded the second video in her Tropes vs. Women in Games series. The video was temporarily removed after "her harassers abused YouTube's flag function to get the video removed".

On Misogyny in Industrial Music

cthuljew — Thu, 09 May 2013 01:53:58 -0800

"But something happened. Once industrial music had fully transitioned from avant-garde venues into nightclubs, the stench of Axe body spray began to dominate the subculture as a certain douchey, bro-tastic vibe emerged. Where the goth/industrial scene had once existed as a safe haven for artists, weirdos, outcasts, geeks, dreamers and rebels, a disturbing trend of sexism, racism and anti-intellectualism is driving people out."

Coverflip

roomthreeseventeen — Mon, 06 May 2013 13:34:55 -0800

Coverflip is a one day Twitter project created by author Maureen Johnson. There are only three rules: 1. Take a well-known book. (It’s up to you to define well-known.) 2. Imagine that book was written by an author of the OPPOSITE GENDER. 3. Now, COVERFLIP! Make the new cover and put it online. Tweet or Tumbl it with the tag #coverflip.

"Makes you feel kind of desperate, doesn’t it?" Mblgpf.

Rory Marinich — Sun, 05 May 2013 22:43:26 -0800

"By the time Cathy began, the sexual revolution had ended, so the strip stands as a perfect artifact of a moment when the cultural understanding of coercion changed completely—a moment when, one could argue, second-wave feminism basically died. With its baby-boomer characters, Cathy dramatizes the aftermath: the ’60s ended when it became clear that a revolutionary movement toward a just society wasn’t happening; the ’70s ended up being about trying to navigate the wreckage of the ’60s. The ’80s were largely about looking for strategies to accept injustice and inequality, and to construe that acceptance itself as a positive value.

"Cathy takes its place in this cultural progression by drilling in the notion that it doesn’t matter what the law says: you are being coerced not by the state but by your desire to be valued."

youth does not need friends—it needs only crowds

Charlemagne In Sweatpants — Sun, 05 May 2013 17:12:16 -0800

'The Great Gatsby' Still Gets Flappers Wrong “The Flapper awoke from her lethargy of sub-deb-ism, bobbed her hair, put on her choicest pair of earrings and a great deal of audacity and rouge and went into the battle. She flirted because it was fun to flirt and wore a one-piece bathing suit because she had a good figure, she covered her face with powder and paint because she didn’t need it and she refused to be bored chiefly because she wasn’t boring. She was conscious that the things she did were the things she had always wanted to do. Mothers disapproved of their sons taking the Flapper to dances, to teas, to swim and most of all to heart. She had mostly masculine friends, but youth does not need friends—it needs only crowds.”

How Having a Boyfriend Can Help You Get the Boyfriend of Your Dreams

Charlemagne In Sweatpants — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:02:43 -0800

Reductress is a new site that does to women's magazines what The Onion does to newspapers. There's also an interview with the site's creators

"It doesn’t matter how good you are"

MartinWisse — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 02:47:43 -0800

"Meanwhile, on the LASO setup, Cody and Rob could not defeat a group of two or three grunts. I asked the students to compare each other’s experiences. “What’s the problem?” I asked Cody and Rob, “Caitlin isn’t having any trouble staying alive and she’s fighting even more grunts than you.” This moment taught us that different people approach similar obstacles with certain preexisting advantages and disadvantages that radically alter the probability of their success." -- Samantha Allen teaches intersectionality through the use of Halo's difficulty settings, as inspired by John Scalzi's essay Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is.

Feminism as a scifi nightmare. No really.

Brandon Blatcher — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 06:33:31 -0800

A review of the 1971 novel "The Feminists," which portrayed the nightmarish future of 1992, where women ruled over men.

Why men need to read Hegel before going out on a date.

ennui.bz — Sat, 20 Apr 2013 06:12:30 -0800

Drucilla Cornell On Dating. Drucilla Cornell on Feminism. Drucilla Cornell on Marxism.[obfuscated link to pdf]

I'm all man, baby.

erstwhile ungulate — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 16:42:59 -0800

Corners of the world where women have yet to tread. Visuals of leadership positions and organizations that are currently and historically boys' clubs. Some of it surprising, some of it expected. All of it sad. If you can overlook some of the pixelization and less than ideal design, it's an interesting exhibit of how deep and pervasive the gender gap is in a high level positions.

Weddings as Art

divabat — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 21:12:01 -0800

Weddings are inherently a form of performance art, and various artists have explored weddings as an artistic form. For example, Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens held a wedding every year for 7 years to various parts of the environment and Maria Yoon held weddings in every US state to explore marriage as an Asian-American woman. Second Life also hosted a performance art wedding while Gavin Turk and Deborah Curtis incorporated their House of Fairytales project into their own wedding. Kathryn Cornelius married and divorced seven suitors every hour on the hour while Chen Wei-yih opted to marry herself.

"Sexism is over!"

Andrhia — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 13:12:30 -0800

An Orange Prize nominee speaks out about her experience as a woman in literature: weakened titles, pink covers, snubbed for reviews. In other industries: the developers of Last of Us had to specifically request that women be used in focus group testing, which strongly suggests it's a routine practice in the industry. In TV, Matt Lauer has reportedly nixed hiring female producers because he doesn't want to feel like he's "at Lilith Fair." An attempt to address the gender disparity in the board room may be stalling.

We are in the same place now.

Currer Belfry — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:40:23 -0800

Death of a Revolutionary. Susan Faludi on the life, work, and decline of Shulamith Firestone, with some interesting words on the feminist movements of the last century. SLNY.

U.S. Customs and Patriarchal Protection

jaduncan — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 10:57:54 -0800

Sexism at the border: A personal account. "For me, carrying my own condoms (in purses, wallets, camera bags; everywhere) is a routine act towards safer sex. For someone else with the power to not only deny passage but judge, moralize and intimidate, it has become enough evidence to put a woman through hell. My story has brought a number of women out of the woodwork stating that they have had similar experiences." [h/t Alex Grossman]

Backlash against Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's "Lean In"

melissam — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:30:47 -0800

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's new book Lean In aims at women to address what is holding them back from leadership positions. But it has been the subject of a feminist backlash calling it "Facebook's attempt to hi-jack feminism", distracting from more important issues of institutional change, part of the "war on moms" and irrelevant to all but the 1%. Is the backlash an unfair reaction to unapologetic feminism and an unfair dismissal of an inspiring woman?

I deserve to be naked if I want to.

sweetkid — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 12:25:05 -0800

In a Room Full of Naked Koreans, Margaret Cho’s Body Is an Unwelcome Sight. Margaret Cho discusses the disapproval of her fellow Korean spa visitors upon seeing her naked, heavily tattooed body as she enjoys the facilities. Single link Jezebel.

Her Name was Lucy Meadows

Charlemagne In Sweatpants — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 21:30:43 -0800

Popular transgender Lancashire teacher Lucy Meadows was found dead last Tuesday. Blame has quickly fallen on an inflammatory Daily Mail article by Richard Littlejohn, which has lead to a petition to sack the writer. Is this fair? Jane Fae at the New Statesman says it doesn't matter, while the New Scostsman calls it 'monstering'. The f word blog and the Guardian have longer articles on the case and the issues surrounding it.

In defence of Page 3

MartinWisse — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 03:27:00 -0800

"The snobbishness has struck me as irrational. They want the end of Page 3, but claim to be "sex positive" and pro porn. It's as if pornography for the upper classes - tasteful monochrome Testino images of nudes, Mapplethorpe coffee table books or vintage Tom of Finland* prints are acceptable, yet accessible muck for the working classes is simply de trop. A catwalk show for a milliner featuring chilly looking models completely nude apart from the hat is applauded as high art: Sandra from Dagenham, in a pair of lacy pants, is not."

Feminists aging together.

what's her name — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 08:04:05 -0800

French Feminist Babayaga Thérèse Clerc, is captured by photographer Elisabeth Schneider in a short French documentary. Thérèse Clerc is the founder of Maison des Femmes de Montreuil, a women-only feminist retirement community, in Paris. Over 15 years ago, French feminist and activist Thérèse Clerc created an idea for a women's self-managed retirement community and in October 2012, her dream became a reality. The self-defined Babayaga has radically changed the future for aging feminists. English radio interviews of her success here and here.