Latest Articles

Microaggressions: Because it IS a Big Deal

by Deb Jannerson
April 14, 2011 at 10:45am

You know the fury that comes over you when you’re affected by other people’s prejudice? The coldness, shock, or devastation when they put you or your loved ones down over race, sexual orientation, age, gender, size, class or ability? Maybe you felt it when your folks wouldn’t let you bring your partner to a family celebration, when a white woman crashed your MLK event to...

Sex and the Fat Girl: I Touch Myself

by Tasha Fierce
April 13, 2011 at 2:55pm

On Facebook today, Marilyn Wann shared an article on CNN.com about the health benefits of touch. She added “If being fat makes a person 'untouchable,' then that's a powerful confounding variable for claims about weight and health.” I definitely agree, and of course media don't present fat people as worthy of physical contact particularly of a sexual nature. However, I think we...

The Wedding March: Uninvited Guests

by Kaite Welsh
April 13, 2011 at 11:51am

On 29 April, the streets around Westminster will be crowded with people eager to get a look at the happy couple and be part of what is being billed as an historic event. The guest list includes celebrities, politicians and six of their former flames, but there’s one group of people who won’t be welcome.

Electro Feminisms: Vocoder and the Female Voice: Laurie Anderson and Imogen Heap

by Emily McAvan
April 13, 2011 at 11:32am

With the extra amount of cultural pressure placed on women to discipline our bodies, it’s unsurprising that some female artists would use the vocal effect to make their art and critically reflect on their relation to technology. Plus, and I can’t stress this enough: Vocoders sound cool.

Read on for more.

Bibliobitch: The Uncoupling

by Lindsay Baltus
April 13, 2011 at 11:15am

Meg Wolitzer’s new novel, The Uncoupling, has an intriguing premise, in a Joanna Russ-meets-Kelly Link kind of way: a spell is cast over the women of Stellar Plains, New Jersey, that makes them stop wanting sex. They all turn away from their male partners for reasons very mysterious and mystical and altogether unclear to everyone (articulated in the novel as “a cold wind”), and...

The Games We Play: The Female Character

by Brandann Hill-Mann
April 13, 2011 at 10:04am

here has been a quiet roster of characters from the annals of video games who have done the woman gamer crowd fairly well. If we are going to be stuck in the gender binary for characterization we might as well be looking for the best ones we can find. For every five or six tropes and hypersexualized characters we have, there are a few that shine for various reasons.

B-Sides: RYAT Girl (and Guy)

by Kjerstin Johnson
April 12, 2011 at 3:01pm

Christina Ryat has been making electronic music as RYAT since 2006 (fans of Electo Feminisms take note!). She recently teamed up with Tim Conley and their debut album Avant Gold came out last month from Obvious Bandits.

The Awesomeness of Bossypants

by Kelsey Wallace
April 12, 2011 at 1:03pm

I rode on a plane over the weekend, and since I love excuses to buy shiny new hardcover books (and I do not love air travel), I got a copy of Tina Fey’s Bossypants to take along. Note to others who might make a similar decision: Bossypants made my trip go by very quickly. It also made me cry tears of laughter, which made the burly dudes on either side of me visibly uncomfortable. You...

Bounce Away: “Sheets or Bar” Ads for Every Stereotype

by Deb Jannerson
April 12, 2011 at 11:32am

Let’s talk about Bounce. Specifically, let’s talk about the “Sheets or Bar” campaign, the only ad series I’ve seen lately that can compete with the obnoxiousness of Virgin Mobile’s stalker humor.

Takin

by Mandy Van Deven
April 12, 2011 at 10:05am

You know, I was gonna start off with a standard intro, but that was mucking up my flow, so I had to switch it up in order to get unstuck. If you’ve spent some time around these parts, you may remember my original Bitch blogging series, a two-parter called On the Map, where I provided a slight peek at feminisms that exist around the globe. It’s been a year since that gig ended, and...

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