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Monthly Archives: February 2012

But, Pinterest Is For Girls! Sexism and Social Media

Pinterest has suddenly exploded in the last few weeks, becoming the new hip social media site everyone’s talking about, now that the shine has worn off Google Plus. Despite the fact that it’s been in existence since 2008, the site was relatively low-traffic until quite recently, when it reached the flashpoint it needed to attract […]

No One Will Protect You: The Suffolk County “Cross-Dressing” Ban

When I was a freshman in high school, some of my friends started a Gay-Straight Alliance, and I was one of the first people to join.  That year, we observed the National Day of Silence by wearing black t-shirts, printing out those little speaker cards, and refusing to talk all day.  (For some of us […]

In Praise of Von Trier-ian Excess, Or: Someday, You Will Ache Like I Ache

This is a guest post from the fabulous Annaham! Please note that the post includes some discussions of graphic violence as depicted in the film.  So here’s my deep, dark, not-quite-feminist secret: I think Lars von Trier has made some great films. Just to be specific from the outset: I’m not here to defend his […]

When anger is all I have and why anger is my feminist stand

I thought I would write about the myth of choice. How when we talk about choice in a feminist context we mean “We want people to have a choice in terms of how and when they get pregnant and if they carry that pregnancy on”. How we want people to have a choice on their […]

Reproductive Parts

I. We Own You I’m taking classroom driver’s education at the high school, a class that is technically open to the public, although no one seems to take advantage of this. I figure, why pay for classes when I can schlep to a high school at seven in the morning for six weeks. I am […]

Even kitchenmaids get the blues: compulsory heterosexuality on Downton Abbey

Downton Abbey is the best show on television at the moment, is it not?  Or at least, it has the best frocks and hats on television at the moment (sorry Mad Men, you’re so whatever year it was that everyone was into you).  There is romance!  Hats!  It has the glorious Professor MacGongall Maggie Smith! […]

Personal Decisions, Global Catastrophes: Capitalism is Not Inherently Friendly to Human Life

For the past few years, I’ve been coming back to this idea about the danger of treating self-replicating, amoral systems as if they were a fit substitute for governance. The people who defend these systems imbue them with non-existant ethical faculties as if ethical choices were a consequence of their design, rather than a conscience […]

I sing Video Games for the fourteen year old girl I once was

“You cannot come in with that ugly cow standing over there”. Said by the bouncer at a posh disco, to my brother, when I was sixteen? maybe seventeen? and trying to enter said disco with a group of friends. I was the “ugly cow” the bouncer referred to. Summer dresses and lipgloss, and a place […]

Talks!

A couple of Tiger Beatdown related talks in the near future: I (Emily) is going to be giving a talk in late March in San Francisco as part of this year’s Girl Talk: A Cis and Trans Woman Dialogue.  This year’s line-up includes Julia Serano, Elena Rose (who blogs as Little Light), Gina de Vries, […]

Getting People With Disabilities Out of Sheltered Workshops and Into the Community

In Oregon, disabled workers have recently filed suit against officials who support sheltered workshops, arguing that they are Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) violations and officials have an obligation to promote supported employment over sheltered workshops. For those not familiar with the intersections between labour and disability, the case is a fascinating glimpse of a […]