Jezebel 
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New York, 7:57 AM
Wed Dec 2
68 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/17/09
I mean honestly, it doesn't take that long to write and issue a PR statement, so this sort of feels like a false dichotomy. Why assume it's one or the other?
#now
10/17/09
10/17/09
10/16/09
I agree that NOW has been most effective as a liberal feminist political player in Washington. Not all of us can lobby congress, whereas plenty of us can speak out against unrealistic beauty ideals. For what it's worth, here's what I think is going on. The feminist movement in the US has frequently been criticized for focusing on symbolic issues like changing names upon marriage, calling adult women "girls," shaving legs (or waxing labia, as the case may be), pop culture representations of women, etc. It has never been true that advocates for women's rights have focused on these questions to the exclusion of advocating for policy changes, but these are the questions that tend to get debated most often. My theory is that these symbolic issues feel like things that we can change more quickly than structural, systemic sexism. It's much easier to fix our vocabulary than our economic structures, and it's a lot less daunting to take on problems that involve individuals behaving badly than to advocate for overhauling the social infrastructure. I think maybe all of us are feeling a little bit of fatigue right now with all of huge issues that need to be addressed. It's no wonder airbrushing makes NOW's VP want to cry. I mean, we've been fighting that battle forever, and if we can't get the basics down, it can make it feel like we aren't equipped to take on the bigger challenges. #now
10/16/09
Non-NOW-related example: The DUI charges against Mel Gibson were dropped recently and his arrest was mentioned in the news again. Usually, news reports refer to Gibson's "antisemitic rant," but in this one report I happened to catch, they said his rant was against "jews and women," which nearly knocked me on my ass because no one ever mentions the 'and women' part. The fact that somebody finally recognized that sexually degrading a police officer for being female isn't any less of a problem than saying Jews run the media was probably the result of a lot of organizing and phone calls and letter-writing. That's the kind of thing I want NOW to make happen. I want sexism to be taken as seriously in the media as racism and antisemitism and homophobia.
I also want pro-women awards ceremonies, like the NAACP Image Awards. Why don't we have something like that? #now
10/16/09
Non-NOW-related example: The DUI charges against Mel Gibson were dropped recently and his arrest was mentioned in the news again. Usually, news reports refer to Gibson's "antisemitic rant," but in this one report I happened to catch, they said his rant was against "jews and women," which nearly knocked me on my ass because no one ever mentions the 'and women' part. The fact that somebody finally recognized that sexually degrading a police officer for being female isn't any less of a problem than saying Jews run the media was probably the result of a lot of organizing and phone calls and letter-writing. That's the kind of thing I want NOW to make happen. I want sexism to be taken as seriously in the media as racism and antisemitism and homophobia.
I also want pro-women awards ceremonies, like the NAACP Image Awards. Why don't we have something like that? #now
10/16/09
10/16/09
I think this is so true. We all have to deal with men behaving badly in our private & professional lives on a daily basis. I think they are right in addressing these issues. #now
10/16/09
06/21/09
Here is a link to the book with an outline of some of the brouhaha (2nd edition just out a month ago, so there may even be new stuff):
[www.amazon.com]
The whole book is a fascinating, if depressing, read. I don't even know the author, but it blew my socks off in general. Think of it as Jerry Maguire's manifesto without the smarm - "The Things Women Think But Do Not Say".
06/21/09
06/21/09
link?
06/21/09
06/21/09
06/21/09
06/21/09
Is their racial difference really super-important to the story at hand? The most important question, of course, is how Ms. O'Neill will continue to defend the rights of Elisabeth Hasselbeck and ONLY Elisabeth Hasselbeck.
06/21/09
06/21/09
06/21/09
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06/21/09