Jezebel
domestic disturbances
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WWOWD
An anonymous until yesterday blogger, Robyn Okrant, was on NPR's All Things Considered yesterday to discuss her website, Living Oprah. Okrant's mission? To "live as Oprah advises on her television show, on her website and in the pages of her magazines" for one year in order to potentially "find bliss." We were totally prepared to hate this woman and her gimmicky site, but we actually found her charming. Yeah, the site is a gimmick, but it's an entertaining one and a comment on the vaunted place the big O has in our society. What's more, Okrant (formerly known as "LO" before she ditched the anonymity) is always willing to call Oprah out on her smugness and her penchant for shaming people (see: Frey, James). [NPR, Living Oprah]
domestic disturbances
the big bad
What Does Buffy Have To Do With Baghdad? An NPR Reporter Explains
NPR reporter Jamie Tarabay witnessed and experienced awful and frightening things while she was in Baghdad. So she turned to her heroine: Buffy Summers. From Buffy The Vampire Slayer. "Buffy always managed to remind me that in the end, she was just a girl, like me," Tarabay declares. It's been eleven years since The Slayer first hit American televisions, but she remains not only one of the most popular characters, but — unlike so many of the sitcom moms and lovelorn teens on other shows — a young woman that other young women actually relate to. So what does Buffy have to do with Baghdad? More »
transamerica
Parents Of Transgender Boys Take Different, Provocative Paths
There is a fascinating story up on NPR's website about two little boys who wish they were girls, and the different approaches their parents are taking in dealing with their gender confusion. Basically from birth, both Bradley and Jonah favored girl things. Bradley wanted to be Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz for Halloween when he was 2 1/2, and insisted on wearing his Dorothy hair (made out of a tea towel) for months after; Jonah, according to NPR, "was 2 when his father, Joel, first realized that no amount of enthusiasm could persuade his child to play with balls." (Heh, balls.) But seriously, folks. Both these boys wanted to be little girls pretty much from the moment they could express the desire, and while Bradley's parents have tried to force him out of it — by taking away his Polly Pockets and Barbies and encouraging interaction with other boys — Jonah's parents have allowed him to embrace his desires. At this point, Jonah's parents refer to him as "she", and she herself tells people her name is Jona. More »
A lot of work goes into creating a non-white television character! Creating everyone's favorite little Spanish-speaking explorer, Dora, took a year of planning with research, consulting and rounds of screenings with "tough" preschoolers. Not only that, the non-Latino creators have to be careful not to, you know, make any accidentally racist characters. When conceiving of Tico, Dora's friend, the creators were going to make him chronically fatigued until the show's "cultural consultants" told them that a lazy, sleepy-eyed Latino character was probably not best stereotype to be promoting. Also: the marketers were worried that a shorts-wearing, backpack-slinging (ethnic) girl would not appeal to a mass audience. Glad to see they were proven wrong! [NPR]
Horton Hears A Tale Of Gender Inequality
NPR's Peter Sagal took his wife and three "excited and happy" daughters to see Horton Hears A Who and left super pissed. The number one-grossing film of the year so far caused Sagal to be "irritated by something even more annoying than Jim Carrey's tics." See, the filmmakers added a subplot to the Dr. Seuss story. Now the mayor of Whoville has 96 daughters and one son. Says Sagal: "Guess who gets all his attention? Guess who saves the day?" Ugh, yeah, it's the son, of course. Sagal's commentary (as a father with daughters) is only three minutes long but so full of ire and rage it's totally worth listening to. [NPR]
dirty mouths
Isn't It Way Cute When Your Baby Says "Fuck" For The First Time?
On NPR's Morning Edition today, there was a piece about why kids start cussin'. Mostly, reporter Allison Aubrey concludes, they are mimicking phrases heard from their parents and their peers. Aubrey interviewed Julia Gordon, a lawyer and mom of a 4-year-old, who said "He totally screwed me," in front of her daughter when she was cut off in a parking lot. A few minutes later, her daughter repeated, "he totally screwed me," and Gordon laughed at first, because seriously, how cute is it when a four-year-old says shit like that? My parents definitely giggled when I cursed, and that has made me into the regularly profane individual I am today. I had an older brother, so I remember cursing at a pretty young age. When did you start getting your mouth washed out with soap? More »
clips
Samantha Bee On Silda: "Does This Skirt Make My Ass Look Humiliated?
On the Daily Show last night ,correspondent Samantha Bee decided to come clean about her involvement with a prostitution ring. Bee discussed the first rule of political press conference admissions: bring a date. She trotted out her husband, fellow Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones, to accompany her while she exposed her own transgressions. Watching this clip along with this NPR gallery of disgraced politicians and their wives makes us wonder: has a female official ever stood in front of her constituents, flanked by her main man, and admitted to wrongdoing? More »
the open road
Safe Driving Is A Rare Luxury For Many Iraqi Women
When I think of Iraq, I tend to think of the "obvious" tragedies: unwarranted deaths, the fate of children growing up in a violence-torn community, the increasingly tyrannical insurgents. I never ponder the quotidian liberties that have fallen by the wayside, like the freedom to joyride down a sun-dappled street, a mild wind wafting through an open car window. According to this NPR report from today's "Morning Edition" program, driving is not something most Iraqi women have the luxury to do safely anymore, and most of them miss it deeply. College student Samar Nihad, who lives in South Baghdad, tells NPR that insurgents "have stopped women in the streets and warned them not to drive again, because as far as they were concerned, it was forbidden in the Koran. We are afraid." Ahlam al-Wakeel, an Iraqi doctor, says she stopped driving after she was shot at by American servicemen for getting too close to their convoy. More »
Every week, the NPR program Tell Me More features parenting commentary from the women behind Mocha Moms, a national network of stay-at-home mothers of color. This week, the ladies are discussing the Girl Scouts with the first African-American president of the organization, Dr. Gloria Randall Scott. Scott took the helm at the Girl Scouts in 1975, and all the women present keep coming back to a singular theme when discussing the scouts: Leadership. No wonder Hillary Clinton was once a Scout! And don't forget, folks: it's cookie season, but only until March 29th! Get your Samoas while you still can. [NPR]
gender benders
Harriet The Spy: Iconoclastic, American Lezebel Icon
NPR's "Morning Edition" ran a segment this morning on what a groundbreaking work of young adult fiction Harriet the Spy was when it debuted in 1964. According to NPR correspondent Neva Grant, heroine Harriet M. Welsch was considered controversial because "Harriet saw too much, said too much. She even had to see a psychiatrist." Some schools banned the book, explains Grant, and some critics hated it, but readers, especially those who felt that they were outside the mainstream, appreciated that Harriet loved herself, disheveled hair and all. (You can get some more Harriet love in last Friday's Fine Lines column). Readers like Kathleen Horning, now a librarian in Wisconsin, liked the fact that Harriet was a tomboy who, unlike many 50s and 60s heroines, didn't have to go through a girlified redemption by the end of the book. In fact, as Grant reports, like Harriet, Horning was a "tomboy who didn't want to reform." Later on, Horning realized she was a lesbian. More »
"[Tyra Banks] is into crunching numbers and she's so methodical that she even writes down her menstrual cycles." That's what editor Cynthia Good said on the NPR show Tell Me More yesterday, when discussing Pink magazine's Jan/Feb 2008 cover girl. Pink is "the magazine for professional women," and by that, they don't mean hookers. [NPR]
