Jezebel 
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New York, 5:17 AM
Sun Nov 8
22 posts in the last 24 hours
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10/27/09
10/27/09
10/27/09
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
10/16/09
Maybe instead NOW should tackle the cult of beauty as the be-all and end-all of what any of us women have to strive for. Maybe that would be worth doing. This? Is publicity. #ralphlauren
10/16/09
My (very anti-fashion) mother and I had a long discussion about my extremely ambivalent feelings on the industry that I have yet to reconcile. On one hand, you have designers like Alexander McQueen creating what I think is some of the world’s greatest contemporary art (in both his clothing designs and his runway shows), but on the other hand, his models are as skinny as anyone else’s. It’s easy to be dismissive of an individual designer if they’re outlandish and you don’t even love their designs anyway (ie: Christian Louboutin saying Barbie’s ankles are too fat), but when you have incredible designers who are tacitly (McQueen) or vocally (Lagerfeld) going on about women over 110 pounds being "fat" it’s difficult to decide what to do as a consumer/artist appreciating art.
This all reminds me of a sketch from "The State" wherein Ben Garant is a fashion designer who accuses a myriad of skinny models of being cows. Finally, Kerri Kenney brings him a "model" who is finally skinny enough: she’s invisible. Eventually, even she becomes too chunky for Garant’s liking. Fucking brilliant sketch. #ralphlauren
10/16/09
I say BOYCOTT!
I don't need some flack at RL to disingenuously tell me I'm beautiful. I know I am. Photoshop that, bish. #ralphlauren