CC declines comment, but I didn't.

it's a class marker. non-elite women serve the "whore" function, it's how the elites define non-elites when not defining us "baby oven" or "handmaiden." elites can pay to have the real thing made, and it sets them apart, special. the semi-celebrity associated with the costume itself, and the social capital that creates, is reserved for elites. now, i don't define Con fans who do this as elite, as most of the time they do it themselves and it's almost an art these days, and surely a craft. but speaking simply as a status marker among the elite, it is on purpose that non-elite women rarely have access to the real costume, and frequently offered whore-esque "choices."

I'd like to start by saying i'm a longtime reader of graphic literature and speculative fiction of a wide range of genres.

The Patriarchy is hard at work here, employing a pretty wide range of tools here, tools which are literal pressures upon the shape of a woman, the way she shapes herself and is shaped.

I have to admit, I'd pretty much written NOW off a long time ago as an DC-insider suck-up organization. And Kim Gandy's choice of Obama-worship over substantive advocacy for women last year would have been a turn-off in any case. But the recent election of new NOW president Terry O'Neill has allowed me, well, a bit of hope.

The election shaped up as a female-only replay of much of the divisions in the primaries (hot young things full of hope vs bitter elderly knitters), a point even Salon's Broadsheet noticed. O'Neill's opponent was Latifa Lyles, who had Gandy's endorsement and an Obama-like rhetorical style, which Salon's Berman, oddly, quotes as proof in support of Lyles' substance:

Violet at Reclusive Leftist starts
"pulling together some of our thoughts about the new feminism we’re building, what I think of as the Fourth Wave." Very interesting list -- and great comments/discussion.

This comment especially struck me: "Women need, desperately, cultural permission to be selfish, to put ourselves first without apology and without trying to spin it as good for other, more important people, too. Because even though I do believe feminism is good for the whole Human community, it really wouldn’t matter if it weren’t. Women have a right to demand what’s good for us."

Amongst the Sturm und Drang of high-profile sexism and misogyny, it can easily be lost that many of the younger generation have already moved past bigotry and not just in form but in function. It is the older generations that continue to fight the same battles over and over again while all around us, quietly and without fanfare, the kids are getting it right.

Is Sarah Palin fully qualified as Republican Party candidate for Vice President?

Yes!

Shelly Mandell, pres. of the L.A. Now chapter, introduces Palin at a rally in SoCal:

In rarity for a Republican event, Mandell bragged about her efforts campaigning for the failed Equal Rights Amendment in the 1970s and her support for Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 1984.

"I know Sarah Palin cares about women's rights," Mandell said. "As vice president, she will fight for you. She cares about our children and she cares about women's lives."

Local news station has the rest.

Mostly, I'm very proud that this website has not joined in the woman-bashing trend that is the so-called "progressive" blogosphere's response to news of Palin's various family issues. Like Sean-Paul, I agree that her family's private issues are not worthy of my attention. Her Hypocrisy? Wingerism? Cronyism? Yes, let's talk about that. But leave her kids out of it. Period. SP speaks for me:

It's a private family matter. Leave it be. And leave Palin be. What McCain wants more than anything is to discuss Palin, not McCain.

If McCain wins, I guarantee you that Palin will not be Cheney to McCain's Bush (heh). People here have defended pro-Iraq war Hillary for many legit reasons, including the sexist crap she endured during her run. Let's not all make ourselves fools and hypocrites now. Palin sucks, for many reasons. The behaviors and failures of her family: not among them.

Earlier today, lambert posted a piece about an effort by some women Clinton supporters to form a non-partisan group, called The New Agenda, to advance the interests of women in the wake of the sexism displayed during the primary. I have no idea whether this group, like the PUMAs will turn into anything in the long run. I do believe, however, that such groups are a good thing. Anger is a powerful motivator in terms of political organizing and action (which is why we so often hear politicians telling us to get over it). And there are a lot of angry women right now. To which I say - good.

Two weeks ago, OpenLeft initiated an effort to “diversify its front page” by publishing a series of posts which it described as being on the topic feminist and womanist perspectives on Hillary Clinton's withdrawal from the race -- and why this matters to progressives. After an excellent start with a post by Melissa McEwan, the experiment has failed. While OpenLeft maybe have “diversified” its front page by publishing the works of women (and African American women), it did so at the expense of the “feminist/womanist [FW] perspective.” Rather than FW perspectives, readers were treated to what can be most charitably collectively described as “Obama-ists” perspectives from women who identify as feminists. All three posts subsequent to McEwan’s were either dismissive of, or hostile to, anything that can be described as an “F/W perspective”.

Sorry, I couldn't let it slide. I don't even like Obama. But, the thunderous righteous indignation coupled with hypocritical silence is just too much. Sweetie? Really? You got your panties in a bunch because somebody called you sweetie? *@#&! Nobody said a mumbling word about http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/wo... ">Michelle Obama. For real, hands off.

I often wonder if it is my strict fundamentalist upbringing that allows me more skepticism when someone is trying to sell me swampland in Florida.

I have seen this comment before, I started this campaign pro-Hillary, I loved her since the Clinton era.

I knew that the attacks on her were on her because she was a moderate female. It is a rare thing to have a moderate “equalist” woman anywhere. The top 50 pundits had 7 women only one was a feminist and she was also a moderate.

I am tired of obama supporters, really tired of them.

I will not be blogging as much as I start back to the grind next week.

Jeff Fecke with a thoughtful, timely reminder on the need to stay vigilant to our own blindness.

(caution: rant zone ahead)

Last night I finished up six days in Wonderland.

You see, last week I agreed to allow Part 4 of my “Sexism and Misogyny” series to be serialized at FDL. That was a mistake. Part 4 was really just one big fat footnote to the rest of the series, that explained a nice big chunk in the variance in the levels of evidence of sexism. The only reason it wasn’t a footnote is because it took too long to explain that while the variance was related to the percentage of black voters in the electorate, the cause of the variance was the “shift” in the white vote that occurs in conjunction with the increase in the percentage of the black vote.

Now, even my eyes glazed over while writing that last sentence, so I’m assuming that most of yours did too while reading it.

Awards for blogs are generally silly things, and I don't pay much attention to them. For the same reason as I don't pay attention to online polling. I'm just a little too familiar with who is deeply invested ("you can vote once every 24hrs!") in such things, who constructs them, and how they are used, to think them worthy of serious consideration. Anway, it warms my heart to find some purity left in the blogosphere, and I think the woman has a point. 49 categories, but not one specifically for da wimmin? That's a head-scratcher.

Do you note the glaring omission of feminist blogs or a “Feminist Blogs” category? Pandagon, Feministing, and Shakesville were nominated under “Liberal Blogs” (and the winner was a white male liberal blogger, of course). There is a “GLBT” category which includes Pam’s House Blend (and the winner was Joe My God, a white gay male blogger, natch). Not only is a “feminist” category glaringly omitted, the nominees and winners are overwhelmingly white and male. Surprise.

Feminism, however, does not seem to exist in its own right for these guys. And, I guess, really, that’s about right. If a whole lot of people had their way — including many self-identified feminists– feminism would be subsumed, erased, hidden by these penultimately male categories, i.e., “liberal” and “GLBT”.

So while I didn't exactly keep up with blogs and politics while I was gone, I confess to reading a few sites now and again, as old habits die hard and working in the rain isn't always fun. One site I've come to enjoy a great deal is Twisty's "I Blame the Patriarchy." She's as hard core as they come on feminist issues, and hard core about keeping her blog free from those who don't share her views. This may or may not be a good idea, but it surely has created one of the more rollicking places on the net for women to go and bitch about how Life Sucks for Teh Wimmin. Twisty calls it "advanced blaming" and never seems to have any problem finding topics upon which she and her community can comment.

Anyway, I got into a huge fight with a friend over this post, in which I found myself agreeing with Twisty's perspective and that of most of the commenters.

People are really pissed about Skippy's rhetorically charged post on VT and Kos and misogyny and violence against women. notice that I read the post as about all four of those things, and not just the first two. But there is one angle I'll add: it's a good thing that even when we strenuously disagree about framing, and the relationships between threats and murder and discourse, we are still talking about the basic problem: violence against women. This is the power of the blogosphere, and of blogging as a form of writing. Skippy could've put up a post with lots and lots of statistical details about the endemic of violence against women, and about four people would've read the whole thing. Instead, in one lightning strike, he's continued an important discussion, made more important by Monday's tragic events, and kept it on the front burner.

Kos is a big boy, he can take the critiques made of him, and his friends will come to his support. Discussion will happen, and hopefully, a few people will have their eyes opened to the relevant facts relating to violence against women. Kudos to Skippy for going against the grain, and kudos to the rest of the blogosphere, even his detractors, for keeping the conversation going. This is that rare time when a "blog war" actually serves a good cause. Republicans have made 'feminism' a dirty word, and it's long past time to take it back.

Not safe for work, but very interesting.

My friend, and friend to women, Ian and I have been having an exchange on uberfeminism, the patriarchy, etc. It's late for me, and I've got to run, but I think I have a partial answer to some of his questions. Warning: graphic photos ahead.   Read more…

If you're a woman you need to read this blog. Every time I go there I am filled with emotion, hope and wonder, anger and despair...one of the writers is an ex-Quiverfull mom. The writing is extremely strong, and by that I mean that some men will be deeply offended by it. But instead, I would ask you men to read it like a straight woman would read the blog and comments of a particularly gratuitous porn-for-straight-men site.* Reading Heart and her commenting community is mind-expanding and eye-opening, to say the least. Today's top stories about GLs and LGs put me in the Red Haze.

Please note the second installment is up of MJS's photo essay on Sunday's protest march in Hollywood; don't miss it, or the first, and the comment thread it elicited. Molly would have approved; Molly would have been at one of them.

Technical difficulties of an, as yet, unknown origin kept me from posting, as promised here, our first installment of a new weekend series, featuring our attempt to bring to bear Molly Ivins' words on the week to week reality we now face, tragically, without her actual presence in her midst. So much seemed to be happening the last two days, I decided not to post it. Still a lot going on, (grinning, she rubs her hands), but I decided to throw it into the mix anyway.

My sister has an excellent rule, one that I don't follow and I'm not going to follow here. She doesn't start unfinished series, no matter how good. I think this one is worth it, even as I'm frustrated that the author is too busy with some other series to get back to this one soon. She says on her website that she will, so I hold out some hope, and recall that Jack Vance took 30-odd years to finish one of his series, but he did finish it.

If you like romance, sweeping epic storytelling, gender bending and intrigue, you'll love these books.

There are a lot of regular blogosphere "features" out there already, more than I can easily name. There's the Daily Wanker, or best demonstration of what makes winger "logic" the joke it is. There's the Five O'Clock NewsDump, when some embarrassing detail of Republican malfeasance is swept under the rug by our Famously Free Press. I now propose it's time we bring back and Oldie but Goodie; one that has a special relevance in this new year.

Your Moment in Misogyny, brought to you by the ever relevant HuffPo:

As I watched Nancy Pelosi on Sunday morning, and I was stunned to discover that she and I both seem to have had the same haircut this week. It was a mistake for us both, in my opinion. How Nancy Pelosi had time to get her hair cut I don't know, but I know how I did: I went to have my annual mammogram, and it was (as usual) so painful and horrible that I emerged completely deranged onto Madison Avenue, bought three pairs of shoes and wandered into my hairdresser's, hoping she was free. She was, and as a result, my hair is too short. So is Nancy's.

 Read more…