Shameless Magazine, the print edition, (subscribe! subscribe! subscribe!) has a column, written by Melinda Mattos, called The Last Word: “A shameless look at the history, use and power of everyday words.” Today, while browsing the comments section of a feministing.com post, I was faced with the question: is it anti-woman to use the word “douche” as an insult?

Admittedly, I use the word “douche” quite a bit, along with entertaining variations like “douchebag” or my personal favourite, “bag o’ douche.” Ironically I use it most often to describe individuals who are sexist, mysogynistic, anti-woman and anti-feminist. (Which, when used literally, also sums up my feelings on douche of the store-bought variety.) I’d never actually thought of it as a term that was anti-woman; obviously it’s not the classiest of words, and I’m no proponent of namecalling, but is use of the word “douche” sexist? Is it sexist because it seeks to emasculate by labelling someone (generally men) a feminine product, or is it rather a label that describes someone who “exists to both inculcate shame into women and profit off of that shame while harming women’s bodies in the process.”

This blogger defends “douchebag” as a feminist insult, stating “we good feminists know that douche is definitely a Tool of the Patriarchy.”  I’m interested to know what readers think…

(give me a break, it’s friday.)

This Monday I went to my Grandmother’s funeral.* During the visitation I was amazed at the number of people who introduced themselves as Gran’s neighbours during the Leave it to Beaver Days of the 1950’s. To any suburbanites reading, how well have you bonded with your neighbours? Will you show up to their funerals in 60 years and tell their grandchildren heart warming stories of your joint antics?

I’m close to the age where house-buying will be a reality, and I grew up in the suburbs. There is a very real gap between the kind of community I want to belong to and the options that are available to me. This tension, among others, is well explored in the film Radiant City, a Canadian documentary and very funny suburban satire that opened in May (now out on DVD).

The film is juicy from both an environmental perspective and a film perspective (a fresh twist at the end has the power to change how you read the entire film, but since I didn’t put “spoiler alert” at the top of this post, you’ll just have to rent it yourself to see what I mean). However, here I can shamelessly indulge myself by exploring one of the other parts the intrigued me: the depiction of the mother, Anne Moss.

(more inside…)

Or does this print ad for P.Diddy’s new fragrance seem, well, wrong? Unforgivable Woman? Really?

Because I am hopeless at keeping up with music (this is why I am very grateful to Anna and Picks From Planet Venus) several months after everyone else, I’ve just started listening to Leslie Feist’s new album, The Reminder.

I’m particularly taken with the single “I Feel it All”, and since I like multi medias, I decided to see if I could watch the video on youtube. I found a clip of her playing the song on a bus:

This clip is cute and I love the song, but I couldn’t help but notice that all of Feist’s back-up musicians are men. There’s something kinda endearing about adult men whispering “Oooo, I feel it allll” into a mike - but I was still sad to see that there weren’t other ladies present.

Just like Alanis Morissette, Stevie Nicks, Chrissie Hynde, Tori Amos, Gwen Stefani and other lady music heroes before her (ok, Stefani stopped being a hero once she started using East Asians to accessorise, but we’ve talked about that enough - and I’m not positive that Amos’ crew is all men), Feist appears to be the only woman in her crew.

On one extreme end, this could be a case of a member of a “marginalised” group trying to distance herself from the rest of the group so they don’t taint her rise - and maybe it’s just not right that Feist isn’t bringing other ladies up to the stage with her. But on the other end, isn’t feminism about choice, and shouldn’t female musicians be allowed to choose whoever the heck they want to play with them, without having to worry about accusations of gender treachery?

What do you think? Let me leave you with another multimedia experience: Beyonce singing Irreplaceable with her all-girl band (which, by the by, is a conscious move on her part - and yes, I know that I’ve posted this video before and I recognise that I have a problem…)

I bring your attention to this hilarious piece by Liz Jones and her mission to wear “eight of the most cutting-edge, desirable pairs of the new season’s shoes for the duration of New York Fashion Week.”

My feet, which until now were the only part of my body I liked, now resemble two pink hams. They are ruined. I have so many blisters I have stopped counting. I even have blisters on the balls of my feet. I am writing this while I wait for my plane home at Newark Airport, and because I have been hobbling and grasping at members of staff and walls for support, I have just been offered a wheelchair to help me make it to the plane.

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore, a writer/activist/friend whose blog I frequent daily, has written an excellent, enlightening and moving post about the politics of prostitution vs. gentrification. Mattilda writes in reaction to a Bilerco Project Blog post, in which writer Bil Browning learns that residents from his neighborhood association attended a court hearing to ensure that a woman arrested multiple times for prostitution do jail time. Mattilda writes:

These residents were successful, and the woman in question will now spend approximately 218 days in prison. Over seven months in prison. Can people think about that for a moment? What will that mean for this woman’s life?

What is particularily interesting to me about Mattilda’s piece is how she describes the personal (economic) implications of sex work in her life over the past twelve years. Mattilda is a prolific, vital and talented cultural worker, citing sex work as a primary reason why she has been able to find success in an otherwise impoverished chosed profession:

Sex work has enabled me to structure my time and finances in order to move cross-country half a dozen times, live in half a dozen cities (and a dozen apartments), write two novels (both with sex work as a central theme), edit four anthologies (one about sex work), go on five book tours, help to start several activist groups, and become involved in innumerable direct action activist projects.

Our culture has such a prositution=bad/gentrification=good dichotomy going on that I am happy to see someone writing about how sex work has more complex implications than merely “bringing down the neighbourhood.” I also truly believe that this particular demonization of a single woman to make a point is a feminist issue. We often discuss on the blog the gap between the rich and the poor, so I think you’ll agree that there is a much bigger/deeper issue here that is being ignored for “the good of the neighbourhood,” that good as determined by the “haves.” There is no examination of why women utilize sex work as a means to survive. As Nicole wrote in an earlier post, “Women, particularly immigrant women of colour, are increasingly working in part-time, temporary or casual jobs that are low-paid, insecure and come with a high risk of injury.”(more inside…)

“(Barry Manilow) declined to appear on The View when producers denied his request that the interview be conducted by anyone but the anti-choice Elizabeth Hasselbeck.”

-Feministing.com

(And because I also heart Joss Whedon, Angel singing Barry Manilow’s Mandy)

Have you seen the new PETA ad starring Alicia Silverstone?

I don’t know about you, but I find this video just plain weird (especially the part where her nipples are missing). If the video made a connection between Silverstone’s nudity and what she’s saying, I might not find it as strange.

But many others, including Bitch Magazine, have called out PETA on their gratuitous use of female bodies to push vegetarianism, even when there is a connection between boobies and animal rights, as with the “I’d rather go naked than wear fur” campaign.

What do you think - does this video undermine Silverstone’s message by insinuating that her lithsome body is more important than her politics? Or do you think that, since corporations freely use female bodies to sell everything, groups like PETA should feel free to use T & A - especially when it’s with consent of the women involved?

As I get older, I just get more and more confused about the ethical implications of meat-eating. As if it weren’t confusing enough that PETA’s ad strategy (which, in case you were wondering, I don’t really agree with) is sorta at odds with feminism, PETA is now claiming that being a carnivore is at odds with environmentalism. (more inside…)

A piece in the Toronto Star today reports that Catholic school boards across Ontario are facing complaints that the province’s HPV vaccine program promotes promiscuity. (We’ve debated the broader implications of Gardasil being offered to grade 8 girls in Ontario on this very blog, but “promoting promiscuity” wasn’t something that came up in those discussions.) Last night, the Halton Catholic District School Board narrowly rejected a motion to ban the program from area schools. Toronto’s Catholic District School Board votes tonight. From the Toronto Star:

 The board believes the vaccine will give students a signal of support for premarital sex.

And this from Regis O’Connor,  Huron Superior Trustee:

“Giving it means children are going to be promiscuous.” 

Um, really? I respect the argument that maybe it’s a little too soon to be doing a province-wide vaccination without further testing, but this “vaccinated girls will become sluts” school of thought infuriates me for so many reasons. Having said that, it doesn’t surprise me. The “vaccine encourages our girls to go wild” bullshit has already been happening south or the border. Above and beyond the fact that I don’t believe in abstinence-only education, this kind of logic doesn’t make sense: regardless of whether or not women and girls have sex outside of the approved (heterosexual) marriage, they’re still at risk when the have sex inside of marriage, no? So the vaccine will protect her if her husband has HPV, no?

 

Thoughts?