• • All About Shameless
  • Bibliothèque

  Yes Means Yes!

  February 16, 2009 • Cate Simpson

  

  Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Power & A World Without Rape is on tour right now. Edited by Jaclyn Friedman and Feministing‘s Jessica Valenti (who Shameless interviewed last year), Yes Means Yes includes an essay by Shameless publisher Stacey May Fowles, as well as some other familiar names from the feminist blogosphere (Feministing’s Samhita Mukhopadhyay, Racialicious‘ Latoya Peterson, and Feministe‘s Jill Filipovic).

  I talked to Jill Filipovic last night about her essay, “Offensive Feminism: the conservative gender norms that perpetuate rape culture, and how feminists can fight back”.

  Check back tomorrow for the Q&A!

• • Media Savvy

  Messin’ With Broke Bankers

  January 28, 2009 • Cate Simpson

  This blog, Dating a Banker Anonymous, sprung up some months ago as a gathering place for women whose Wall Street boyfriends have been laid off or made to work all the hours to hold onto their jobs. I’d swear it was a hoax, only the New York Times seems convinced that it isn’t.

  The NY Times article plays up the aspect of women supporting one another and commiserating about the jerks their men have turned into. The posts on DABA are purportedly the stories of different women, but all are posted to the site by its creators and self-proclaimed “DABA Girls” Megan and Laney. Not all of them are particularly sympathetic (people moan that their boyfriends can no longer buy them $800 pairs of shoes, or take them to their favourite restaurants; a woman involved with a married man complains that she can no longer accompany him on his “business trips” since the man’s wife began checking his bank statements), but these bratty outbursts make pretty entertaining reading (“I ain’t saying I’m a gold digger, but I ain’t messin’ with no broke banker,” finishes one entry.)

  What is most interesting is that the site’s description declares it to be a space “free from the scrutiny of feminists”. The line has got this feminist at a loss to explain why these women would expect us to be anything but broadly on side with them.

  (more inside…)

• • Body Politics

  Snow Bunnies

  January 14, 2009 • Cate Simpson

  Burton Snowboards have just released a line of snowboards by Playboy, featuring bare-assed women with the word “Love” slapped unimaginatively over the top.

  The boards have caused some heated discussion on the slopes of Vermont (where Burton’s headquarters are located). The above post on Creativity Online takes an even-handed approach to the controversy, mentioning the numbers of children who frequent the slopes and then citing boarders strapping their feet to images of nearly-naked women as an instance of excercising free speech.

  Except, it isn’t actually speech at all. These snowboarders aren’t making a point, unless the point is, “It’s not enough to have girly pictures up in my dorm room; they also have to be staring me and everyone around me in the face while I go about my leisure pursuits.”

  My own instinct is that the images on the boards are pretty tame, and definitely no more outrageous than this video of Heidi Klum gyrating to Guitar Hero in her underwear. What do you think: is it all harmless fun, or are these “Eh, whatever” responses to female nakedness a byproduct of being bombarded by images of it all day long?

• • Body Politics

  Time Periods

  November 18, 2008 • Cate Simpson

  gURL.com has this brief history of menstrual products through the ages, which also doubles as a fascinating social history of periods.

  It includes some awesome tidbits, like that when the makers of Midol first started marketing the drug as a painkiller for period pain they shied away from actually, you know, using any of those words - instead promising Midol would “lessen pain and discomfort on certain days.” Amazing.

• • Media Savvy

  Eww: Organ Donation Edition

  November 15, 2008 • Cate Simpson

  Apparently you can use sex to sell anything, even organ donation:

  

  From the Belgian men’s magazine, P-magazine. Ad by <a href=”http://www.reborntobealive.be/”>Reborn to be Alive</a>.

  This is so gross. If this woman was actually in need of someone’s organs, she’d be laid out in a hospital somewhere at death’s door. These are not acceptable circumstances to want to be “inside” someone.

  Also, do people think sex is the only reason men do anything? Why don’t they get more worked up about the fact that most advertising assumes that men are callous and sex-obsessed?

  Hat tip to Feminist Law Profs.

• • Race and Racism

  Are we still at the oppression olympics?

  November 6, 2008 • Cate Simpson

  There are a lot of mixed emotions flying around now that the election’s over, especially from the queer community and their allies. Like many, I’m elated about Obama’s victory, but I’m angry and disappointed that the bluest of blue states, California, voted 55% for Obama and yet 52% in favour of banning gay marriage.

  But some of this anger is both misdirected and dangerous. Like that of sex columnist Dan Savage, who basically places all the blame for Prop 8 with Black voters, who voted 70% in favour of the ban.

  (more inside…)

• • Media Savvy

  Nowhere to hide?

  October 31, 2008 • Cate Simpson

  There’s an interesting article in the Guardian today about social networking and privacy, written by Cory Doctorow who runs Boing Boing.

  He points out that adults wax hysterical on young people’s cavalier attitudes towards privacy, while staying absolutely quiet on the increasingly scary amounts of surveillance our governments are placing us under.
  

  
  “For centuries adults have been deriding young people for their laziness, venality, sexuality, shallowness and lack of moral fibre. Now they’ve added another item to the classic list of youthful failings: a lack of respect for their own privacy.

  For years a procession of paedo scare-stories have warned us that the youth of today fail to grasp the importance of maintaining their privacy online. Kids blithely hand over their personal information to sites like MySpace and Bebo and Facebook, take naughty pictures of themselves, MMS them to their friends’ phones, and engage in saucy chat with mysterious older men.

  But if kids are careless with their personal information, can we blame them? A deadly combination of universal surveillance, a prohibition on protecting your privacy (“No hoodies allowed near the CCTVs!”), and a relentless focus on the consequences of dangers (as opposed to their probability) has placed the world in grave danger. Tomorrow’s leaders will have been raised in an environment where any rational assessment of security has been rendered impossible by a shrill and terrified public discourse.”

  And he’s absolutely right. How can you criticize your kids for telling the world via Facebook or Twitter where they’re going on a Saturday night, if they’re just going to leave a CCTV, debit card, and soon, ID card government papertrail all the way there?
  

• • In My Opinion...

  Eww: Debate Liveblogging Edition

  October 15, 2008 • Cate Simpson

  John McCain just said his running mate Sarah Palin is “a role model for women.” Could this be more condescending? As if we’re just scratching around, desperate for somebody to look up to, and she’s the only available candidate?

  Guess what, girls! You can be Vice President someday too! Gee, thanks John McCain.

• • News Flash

  Feeling Blue?

  October 15, 2008 • Cate Simpson

  So, the eleection results are in, and they aren’t great but they could have been worse. But, before we turn our attention to the final American presidential debate tonight, let’s take a few more minutes to talk about Canada.

  Thanks to Student Vote, there was a second vote yesterday, a mock election that took place in schools across Canada and involved more than 400,000 elementary and high school students.

  The idea is that if you get young people interested in politics when they’re young, they’ll be more likely to vote when they’re older. We held a mock election at my high school one year, with students running as representatives for the parties, and everyone got really into it.

  What’s really interesting is the results, Ontario’s in particular. In Ontario, the Greens and Conservatives tied at 31, Liberals 25, and NDP 19. These results are roughly in line with the actual outcome, except for that overwhelming Green support. Is this a sign that today’s youth (and tomorrow’s voters) are more concerned about environmental issues than older generations?

  It makes sense. Having come of age during the climate change crisis, and the spotlight on green issues that has followed, today’s teenagers don’t need to be convinced about how crucial these things are to our survival (or, at the very least, to the possibility of continuing to live roughly in the manner to which we are accustomed).

  Let’s hope this really is an indication of elections still to come.

• • Media Savvy

  “Women are Weapons-Grade Haters”

  October 11, 2008 • Cate Simpson

  This gem is from an article in Time Magazine, which argues that women hate Sarah Palin because she’s too pretty and too confident.

  Is anyone else really tired of media commentators seeing a couple of girls fall out on the playground and extrapolating this behaviour to our entire gender? Not that men are spared ridiculous stereotyping in this article either:

  “When men disagree, the steps to resolution are reasonably clear and unsophisticated. Acts of physical violence are visited upon one another’s person or property, and the whole thing blows over. Women? Nu-unh. We savor the discord. We draw it out. We share our contempt with our friends, like a useful stock tip, or really good salsa. And then we all go hate together: a mutually encouraging group activity for when the book group gets quiet.”

  This is such bullshit. Men form themselves into packs and troll feminist websites, are far more likely to be violent stalkers than women, and I don’t know about you but when I hear somebody yell “dyke” in the street, it’s usually a dude.

  Obviously, not all men are responsible for these things, but don’t tell me men don’t hate, aren’t capable of rallying around their hatred, or that when acts of violence come out of that hate, there’s anything noble or problem-solving about them.

  This whole campaign has spawned so much junk gender-theorizing, I almost feel bad singling out this one article. The charge is always that when women dislike a female candidate, it’s about her shoes, or her hair, or when women like that candidate, it’s only because she’s female. Meanwhile men are apparently completely immune to these sorts of surface-level criteria.

  And, finally, when women feel any sort of emotion (like the desire not to vote for somebody) it gets described in this incredibly exaggerated language - they swoon for Obama, they frothed at the mouths with rage when Clinton lost the nomination, they hate Sarah Palin.

  What all of these articles are saying? Men vote with their heads, women vote with their crazy irrational emotions, and all women are hysterical. Give me a break.

  Hat tip to Feminist Law Profs for the link.

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