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It's Snowing!
Our back garden.
Zelly.
What's the weather like where you are? We've had a few inches already today, and it's still coming down!
Two Observations
[Content Note: Homophobia.]
So, I'm reading this story about a gay couple who were asked to leave a mall in California (GREAT LIBERTINE DEVIL STATE!) after they were kissing and holding hands, because in the year of our lord Jesus Jones two thousand and thirteen, two men showing each other affection in public is still fucking controversial.
Two things:
1. This speaks to the point (which I was not the first and will not be the last to make) that marriage equality is not the end-all, be-all of LGB equality. And I feel obliged to point that out, again, because it's important for allies to be vigilant about and aware of the many manifestations of oppression.
2. In the story, one of the men, Daniel Chesmore, is quoted as saying: "In a perfect world, there would be no difference in treatment between straight couples and gay couples." In a perfect world. He's just using a common turn of phrase there, which I use myself, but it made me think about how basic equalities don't actually necessitate a perfect world; they just require a more decent one. And while perfection is unattainable, decency is not.
Number of the Day
$10.10: The (eventual) proposed US minimum wage, per legislation introduced by Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Representative George Miller (D-CA). The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013 "would gradually raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 an hour from its current $7.25, then provide for automatic annual increases linked to changes in the cost of living. Harkin and Miller's bill would also gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped workers—which currently stands at just $2.13 an hour—for the first time in more than 20 years, to 70 percent of the regular minimum wage."
Right now, someone working 40 hours a week at the minimum wage, without overtime or bonuses, makes $15,080 before taxes. At the maximum increase ($10.10), someone will make $21,008.
The current federal poverty level for a family of four is $23,550.
Women's History Month: See the Sites!
It’s Women’s History Month in the U.S.! Have you visited or wanted to visit any museums, monuments, memorials, or other historic sites related to the history of women? Here are a few I’ve visited or that catch my eye. (It's a limited list, and because of my limitations, includes only English and French language sites.) Most are in the U.S., a few are outside it, and a few are online only. If you want, share your suggestions and favorites in the comments!
In the United States:
The Women’s Rights National Historic Park in Seneca Falls, New York, where you can “[d]iscover how five women changed the world”:
In 1848 Elizabeth Cady Stanton and four other women invited the public to the First Women's Rights Convention to discuss expanding the role of women in America. At the end of the two days, 100 people made a public commitment to work together to improve women’s quality of life. While women have achieved greater equality with the vote, property rights, and education, the revolution continues today.
The National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in Fort Worth Texas, has as its tagline “The Women Who Shape the West…Change the World.” Its exhibits vary, and include a travelling exhibit on Sandra Day O’Connor. The Laney Craft Walker Museum of Black History in Augusta, GA is named for one of Georgia’s most important educators and highlights her life’s work and its contexts:Miss Lucy Craft Laney was born in Macon, Georgia on April 13, 1854, eleven years before slavery ended…With the encouragement of the Christ Presbyterian Church, USA, Miss Laney started the first school in Augusta, Georgia for black boys and girls… In addition to starting her own school, the Haines Normal and Industrial Institute, Miss Laney started the first black kindergarten in Augusta, Georgia and the first black nursing school in the city, the Lamar School of Nursing.
In Chicago, the Jane Addams Hull House Museum provides insight into the life of the social reformer. (And, despite the closing of the Jane Addams Hull-House Association), the museum is still open!
The Jane Addams Hull-House Museum serves as a dynamic memorial to social reformer Jane Addams, the first American woman to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, and her colleagues whose work changed the lives of their immigrant neighbors as well as national and international public policy. The Museum preserves and develops the original Hull-House site for the interpretation and continuation of the historic settlement house vision, linking research, education, and social engagement.
The GLBT History Museum in San Francisco offers a number of exhibits of interest to the history of lesbian women in the United States. The Lesbian Herstory Archives in Brooklyn is a library, museum, and gathering space: ” We especially welcome the “casual browser,” the lesbian who is searching for an image of herself in our past or just wants to find out more about the herstory of our communities. Of course, we also welcome academic researchers, writers, filmmakers, and others who use our materials for specific projects.”
In Boston, you can walk The Women’s Heritage Trail, which includes the Boston Women’s Memorial. It features statues honoring Phyllis Wheatley, Abigail Adams, and Lucy Stone. I love its description:
Unlike conventional statues that are larger than life or set high upon pedestals, the subjects of the Boston Women's Memorial are sculpted in a manner that invites the observer to interact with them. Each woman is shown in a pose that reflects the use of language in her life and instead of standing on her pedestal, she is using it.
The International Women’s Air & Space Museum in Cleveland, Ohio, USA offers a variety of exhibits relating to women in aviation, from the early days of ballooning to spaceflight.
The Ida B. Wells Museum in Holly Springs, MS, includes exhibits related to the life of the great anti-lynching campaigner, women’s rights activist, and journalist. It also includes other items related to African-American history, an art collections and a hands-on room for children to feel and touch.
The Women’s Museum of California hosts and annual suffrage parade every August (cool!) and has some amazing-sounding upcoming exhibits such as Women of the Issei Generation and Viva El Mariachi Feminil!
More Terrible Republican Ideas
[Content Note: Domestic violence; sexuality policing.]
Last year, when writing about Congressional Republicans' objections to the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, I wryly noted that the GOP was keen to protect the sanctity of traditional domestic violence.
Proving that once again the Republican Party is beyond parody, a bill being considered by the Iowa state House would "prohibit [married] parents of minor children from getting a 'no-fault' divorce" and would require married parents of minor children "to show a spouse was guilty of adultery, had been sent to prison on a felony conviction, had physically or sexually abused someone in the family, or had abandoned the family for at least a year."
No-fault divorce is a critical tool for abused spouses, and/or children being abused by one parent, but there is a segment of the population—insert a Venn diagram overlaying homophobic conservatives and MRAs—that routinely mischaracterizes no-fault divorce as a mechanism of egregious selfishness favored by capricious, man-hating, vengeful mothers who don't care about their children. So we get stupid Think of the Children! rationalizations for trying to unwind a key legal victory for abused women and children. (And men, too.)
A three-member subcommittee debated the bill today. Representative Tedd Gassman, a Republican from Scarville, said he's concerned about the negative impact divorce has on children.And naturally, what Gassman means by "look[ing] out for the children" is tasking fathers with policing their daughters' sexuality, so they don't become dirty sluts.
"In my opinion, it's time to look out for the children instead of constantly worrying about the adults," Gassman said.
"This basically is an attempt on my part to keep fathers in the home," Gassman said. "I sincerely believe that the family is the foundation of this nation and this nation will go the direction of our families. If our families break up, so will this nation."I would be so thrilled if I were Gassman's daughter or granddaughter, listening to this blowhard justify a bill that would abet abuse by publicly discussing my marriage and/or sexuality. Which is to say nothing of the horrendo framing that 16-year-old girls "get themselves into" trouble with their "raging hormones."
…Representative Gassman said the issue is "near and dear" to his heart because his daughter and son-in-law recently divorced, putting his granddaughter at risk.
"There's a 16-year-old girl in this whole mix now. Guess what? What are the possibilities of her being more promiscuous?" Gassman said. "What are the possibilities of all these other things surrounding her life that a 16-year-old girl, with hormones raging, can get herself into?"
Anyway. Some people spoke sense in Iowa in response to this absurd proposal:
Rachel Scott of the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence told lawmakers the changes proposed often make homes a more dangerous place.Too bad Republicans have never seen a carefully crafted solution they didn't want to annihilate the fuck out of.
"One of the things that we’ve seen with places where there is fault divorce is it escalates tension and conflict between the two individuals," Scott said.
Representative Marti Anderson, a Democrat from Des Moines who opposes the bill, said the tension in her childhood home lasted eight years, until her parents divorced back when fault had to be proven.
"The stay-together time was very, very damaging to my family," said Anderson — the oldest of four children, "and although we're all adults now, I'm not sure any of us have ever really gotten past that."
Karl Schilling of the Iowa Organization for Victim Assistance said no-fault divorce was a carefully crafted solution to deal with those kind of problems.
In The News
[Content note: Homophobia, gun culture]
Tuesday:
The time is now for a cool Pope. A Pope who likes Skrillex and watches James Bond movies. A Pope with an iPad.
Mitt Romney says he continues to oppose to same-sex marriage. How is irrelevance, Mitt?
Pundits blowing it on sequester debate. Surprise!
Another big surprise: Gun control talks hit a snag.
A new CBS News Poll found that 53% of respondents say they'll be affected by the cuts in the sequester. "In addition, most Americans want to cut spending and raise taxes to reduce the deficit." Whoops!
It turns out rap music is homophobic. Here's proof.
Horse meat cheeseburgers on their way to America!
Daily Dose of Cute
Dudley, the dudliest of all the dogs.
I am a pushover and Dudley is a chancer. I generally don't dislodge any of the animals if they're curled up in my favored space on the couch; I'll just sit somewhere else. But when Dudley sprawls across half the sofa, sometimes I need him to move so I have a place to sit. And because I feel bad about having to dislodge him, I just go to the kitchen and get a treat, which makes him LEAP! off the couch to get his wee treat, and then I can take the seat without feeling guilty. It's not his fault he's so big!
Well. Basically all I've done is teach Dudley that taking my seat every time I get up means he'll get a treat, lol. Last night, I came back into the living room from doing whatever, and as soon we made eye contact, he jumped up and ran for the kitchen. I walked past him to where he'd been sitting and sat down, while he gave me a pitiful look from the kitchen door.
Advantage: Two-Legs.
* * *
As always, please feel welcome and encouraged to share pix of the fuzzy, feathered, or scaled members of your family in comments.
Cool Party You've Got There, Republicans
[Content Note: Privilege.]
Newt Gingrich is still talking:
Salon: The pre-election polls were pretty clear in showing Obama had a decent advantage. Why do you think you and so many Republicans were so confident? What did you get wrong about the campaign?There's a lot to unpack there, but I want to focus on this bit: "And of course they proved that in many ways identity politics beat economic politics, which I think is a considerable achievement."
Newt Gingrich: First, there was a belief in economic determinism, that you couldn't have that level of unemployment and have a president get re-elected. So people just sort of had a bias that as long as the economy stayed bad, he would lose. And of course they proved that in many ways identity politics beat economic politics, which I think is a considerable achievement.
Second, I think we underestimated the degree to which they were winning the argument. There's an old Margaret Thatcher phrase I use over and over: "First you win the argument, then you win the vote." If you look at the attitudes of the country, they ended up blaming George W. Bush, not Obama. They ended up thinking that ObamaCare actually was a net plus by the election. None of that seemed at all obvious to us.
And third, I think conservatives in general got in the habit of talking to themselves. I think that they in a sense got isolated into their own little world. So our pollsters, many of whom were wrong about turnout. No Republican pollster thought you could get 87 percent turnout in Milwaukee. You just sort of have to say that to some extent the degree to which we believed that the other side was kidding themselves, it turned out in fact in the real world – this is a part of what makes politics so fascinating – it turned out in the real world we were kidding ourselves.
This is the same garbage Mitt Romney is selling, in a (barely) different package. And I've already written about this nonsense fully one million times, so I won't do it again, but I do want to point out that when your party is pitching wholly discredited economic policies that disproportionately favor rich, straight, cis, white men, it isn't President Obama who's playing identity politics. It's you.
Race, Feminism and the Academy: I Got Out of Pocket
by Tressie McMillan Cottom, a PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at Emory University interested in organizations, education, labor, and stratification. Her research examines the implications of for-profit colleges being number one granter of bachelor's degrees to African-Americans. She also studies the interaction effects of gender, poverty, and motherhood status in these enrollment patterns. You can find her regularly at The Feminist Wire. Follow her on Twitter @tressiemcphd.
[Content Note: Racism; misogyny. This piece has been cross-posted from The Feminist Wire.]
When The Onion called nine-year-old Oscar phenom Quvenzhané Willis a gendered, sexualized slur, like thousands of others I watched it unfold live on Twitter. In the days following the uproar, apology, and media attention there developed a sense among many of the black feminists I engage with that white feminists either ignored or did not fully engage the incident. In fact, a well-circulated and well-written article at The Clutch argued exactly that. As a sociologist, I thought that the question of whether or not white feminists did not show up for Quvenzhané could be an empirical question. What I did not realize is that as a black woman, I was not allowed to ask that question. I learned from white feminist scholars, and a few non-white ones as well, that there are questions beyond the scope of empirical analysis. Black women like me should just professionally nevermind.
I asked a general question about the feelings expressed by some black women. Then, as I am trained to do, I made decisions about how I would measure and observe available data to provide one specific version of an answer to my question. That is what we call guided inquiry where I study. It was casual but ethical. I was detailed about each decision I made in the process of selecting white mainstream media organizations to examine. I took a look at their blog and online responses to The Onion tweet and then drew some pretty tame conclusions.
In effect, I made the mind-blowing suggestion that race could be salient to the experience of an event with a black girl at its center. I did not even conclude that white feminists ignored Quvenzhané. I made the more nuanced conclusion that some white feminist media covered or responded to the event but few interrogated race and intersectionality. I never use the word "racist" and I certainly did not post an honor roll of all the bad white feminists.
Within 24 hours of posting the commentary to my small blog, I was charged with deliberately publishing research designed to deny a "white male feminist" that wrote "arguably the most influential" article on the Quvenzhané attack his just due. Next, colleagues began forwarding responses from women's studies scholars. The comments ranged from an argument that I am trying to brutally constrain what constitutes a feminist argument to I conflated feminists organizations with individual feminists to intentionally profit from a cottage industry of racist race-baiting as I plot to destroy feminism from the inside-out. I received long, personal emails from white feminists telling me the high price they have paid professionally and personally for being an ally. They said I spit on their sacrifice by asking how white feminist media responded to Quvenzhané.
I know how trolling works. This was not trolling. These were comments, emails and tweets from scholars who mostly signed their own names or acknowledged that they are in the academy. That is more than trolling; it is a debate among colleagues.
Some of my colleagues do not think that I should be asking questions about white feminist organizations.
I find that fascinating because women's studies, not unlike the black studies departments to which they owe an institutional debt, organized themselves in refutation of the idea of some questions being illegitimate. It was a male-centric canon, which made inquiries about women "illegitimate", that galvanized the founding of women's centers and women's studies. Most of the contentious comments I received to my post were aimed at assumptions about what motivated me to ask the question. Those assumptions were mostly grounded in who I am, not what I did. There are frequent references to "people like me" with a racist ax to grind. They argue that I am a part of "the some" that want to divide and destroy women's studies and feminism. In particular, I noted that other articles with almost carbon-copy arguments as my own did not receive the save level of rancor. I concluded that there was something more than the question I asked. I believe that it was that I asked an "illegitimate" question and sought to answer it while being what I am.
I suspect there is a lot of intersectionality at play here. One, I'm a junior junior scholar. I do not get to ask big questions without the institutional patronage of peer review, an adviser, or a senior colleague. More than a few commenters bypassed anonymous commenting to include their titles and institutional affiliations. It was a message about the power differential between us. In the event that I had forgotten my place, they wanted to remind me.
I got out of pocket.
Two, I'm a black woman. I asked a question about race while black so I must have some vast conspiracy to discredit white women and feminism, as one commenter argued. I must, because my interests and curiosity are surely, inextricably grounded in a particular narrative of blackness that bubbles as an undercurrent just below my every thought, action, and intent. I am black feminist Django on a revenge quest. I am either in step or I am launching an attack. Those are my options.
I got out of pocket.
Three, I was angry and I was not angry. This one I would lose no matter which way I went. Other articles examined experiential awareness of the feminist response to The Onion's tweet about Quvenzhané. I respected that experience – shared it even – but I wanted to use a different kind of data. I do not propose a hierarchy that puts numbers ahead of lived reality. Experiential and observable data inform each other. However, I went in another empirical direction.
And that really pissed people off. There are several references to my deliberate focus on white feminist media organizations. According to some, I used that decision to write poor women and Arab women and other non-powerful white women out of feminism. I was clear about why I focused on media organizations. I'm an org theorist. I get into media. I like the two of those together. Angry detractors sent me google search results for "feminism" and "Quvenzhané," saying I did not look for these responses because I have an agenda. In fact, I did not do an analysis of blog hits in a general google search because that would take more time than I dedicate to blog posts. It also wouldn't answer the question as it would only return results of feminist media and bloggers that did respond. It would not capture the extent of response and non-response, which was what I was interested in. Further, for a quick analysis I think that mainstream organizations are a good proxy for the allocation of resources.
Still, it struck many people that my empirical approach must be cynical. The idea was that I do not get to decide that feminist media organizations are important sites of inquiry. I can be angry with amorphous "white feminists" but when I start asking concrete questions about how some actual white feminists did and did not devote observable organizational resources to the coverage of a current event featuring a black girl, I am the wrong kind of angry.
I got out of pocket.
As I posted in a response to the many angry commenters, I do not have the resources to make the argument that race matters. I also wouldn't have the resources to convince you that the sky is blue and not purple. Like blue skies, I thought the idea that race matters is a pretty pedestrian argument at this point. Of course race would matter when the subject is an attack by a white media organization on a little black girl. Of course it would. I thought that went without saying.
And I was right.
It does go without saying when you are not allowed to say it.
I took the comments from scholars to heart as I respect collegial knowledge production and community. You told me I have a secret agenda, a racist ax to grind to pay my bills, and some nerve asking questions I want to answer. Thank you for the feedback. As Eduardo Bonilla-Silva said in the preface to his fourth edition of "Racism without Racists," you let me know that I am on the right track.
It must be the right track because there is a long history of the wrong people asking the wrong questions at the right time.
The critique has been painful. The attack on my ethics and intentions have been particularly so. I won't even talk about how it feels to hear it from black women scholars. But, there are many others who engaged the content as I presented it. They did not all agree with me but they also did not attack my right to interrogate the subject.
In the final analysis I decided that if I am not supposed to talk about race in feminist circles then talking about race in feminist circles must be the exact right thing to do.
I just won't do it in Women's Studies.
Neat!
CNN Breaking News: "The Dow has topped its all-time record high early in the trading day." Cool! So, how is everyone else doing?
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Fat bias; dehumanization.]
"People can't help how they look."—First Lady Michelle Obama, in a Google+ Hangout yesterday, trying to explain that the Let's Move! campaign shouldn't be focused on appearance.
Oof.
Throughout the half-hour chat, the First Lady tried to emphasize that Let's Move! shouldn't be about physical appearance, but the problem is that this campaign has explicitly been an anti-obesity crusade right from its inception. One can't on the one hand assert to be "fighting obesity," and then on the other assert that the campaign isn't about aesthetics. And if one wants people to believe that one doesn't care about aesthetics, then one can't say things like "people can't help how they look," implying that fatness is unattractive and pitiable.
What's frustrating to me about this campaign is that I want to be on board with it. I am in agreement with the First Lady on probably 75% of what she's saying and most of the objectives of the Let's Move!, but that other 25% is super problematic. She's not listening to fat activists, who have been trying to tell her, in every way possible, that the framing and some of the language she's using is extremely harmful for fat people.
The root of the issue is treating obesity itself like a disease. From the start, Let's Move! embraced the fat-hating frame that obesity is an epidemic that needs to be obliterated, which is incompatible with the idea that health is possible at every size. Fat people's bodies have been a central target of the campaign—and now the First Lady is trying to unring that bell with bullshit like "people can't help how they look." Whoops.
At the end of the hangout, one of the invited questioners asked her how to get the family dog involved in healthful living, and the First Lady responded that President Barack Obama always teases their dog Bo for being lazy (great), but that they require their daughters to take him for a walk every day. She then continued: "Dogs are no different. You want to make sure they are eating a balanced diet, and if they are not an active dog, make sure that their food is reflective of an inactive dog and then get them out there and throw that ball and get them running."
Dogs are no different. Now that statement would have a very different flavor if fat people hadn't been the explicit target of this campaign. But we have been. Fat children, specifically. Again, let me return to the original announcement about the campaign:
"Over the past three decades, childhood obesity rates in America have tripled; nearly one third of children in America are now overweight or obese," the East Wing said in a statement. "The First Lady will announce the elements of the nationwide campaign, which will put us on track to solve the problem of childhood obesity in a generation."Dogs are no different, in the context of this campaign, is not dogs and people both need exercise and good food, but fat people are no different than dogs. This is deeply dehumanizing language, because it's happening inside a frame of "solving obesity," as though one can go after "obesity" in an abstract way that's totally divorced from fat people.
The very argument that one can fight "obesity" but not be attacking fat people and our fat bodies is itself dehumanizing. My body is part of me, and, because I am defined by the rest of the world on the basis of my fat—because I am assessed and judged and have presumptions drawn about me and am treated on those conclusions because I am fat; because so many people think they know things about me, just based on my appearance; because I move in a world that constantly comments on my fat; because so many people attach a moral component to my fat; because being fat invites judgment in a way that being brunette or blue-eyed or short does not; because my body is viewed as a problem to be solved—my fat is central to my identity as a human.
Whether I want it to be or whether I don't.
That is the thing from which thin privilege insulates people. That is why "targeting obesity" is a fucking disaster, even beyond the simple fact that not every fat person can be not-fat in a healthy way. Or in any way at all.
After all, people can't help how they look.
Question of the Day
Suggested by Shaker Kyra_Cat_Soul: "Who are fictional characters you'd love to interact with, in your world or in theirs?"
♥ Cats
Nine Videos of Cats Meeting Wildlife. I haven't watched all of them, but of the ones I watched, the very last video on the list is my favorite.
All three of our cats are very interested in other animals. (Except mice, who I regret to say are dispatched immediately upon arrival, unless it is daytime and I can rescue and relocate them.) Matilda will observe visiting creatures distantly from the balcony, making her assessments from afar before venturing a greeting. Sophie will tuck herself away in a corner, watching with interest until she feels ready to make an introduction with a gentle head-butt. Olivia just plows right in. "Hey, whuzzup?!" She flops down beside any new animal visitor, risking life and limb—trusting that they mean her no harm and confident in both her fight and flight capacities, in case they do.
Quote of the Day
[Content Note: Domestic violence; cis- and heterocentrism; white privilege.]
"When you start to make this about other things it becomes an 'against violence act' and not a targeted focus act… I didn't like the way it was expanded to include other different groups."—Republican Representative Marsha Blackburn, on why she voted against the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act, explicitly stating what we already knew—that her garbage party objects to extending protections to people other than white cis female citizens in different-sex relationships.
Blackburn further noted: "What you need is something that is focused specifically to help the shelters and to help out law enforcement, who is trying to work with the crimes that have been committed against women and helping them to stand up." Ha ha is that what anti-violence advocates do? Help victims of violence to "stand up," because the reason we've been victimized is because we're so darn passive?
You know what is passive? The voice used to write perpetrators of violence out of any public discussion, so you end up with verbal diarrhea like "law enforcement...is trying to work with the crimes that have been committed against women."
Love the idea that there's something objectionable about a broad "against violence act," by the way. Who says the Republican Party isn't interested in job growth? They are very clear about not wanting to put workers at domestic violence shelters and cops/DAs on the domestic violence beat out of work!
My contempt is cavernous.
Healthy Living
[Content Note: Fat bias; bullying.]
I just clicked over to CNN, and was greeted with the following image emblazoned across the main page:
Last week, I wrote about the actual nature of this "conversation," which is, in fact, deeply hostile to fat people. Paul Campos has also keenly observed that the Let's Move! campaign is "a particularly invidious form of bullying."
This is how profoundly dysfunctional our national conversation about health and fat is: That a bullying, eliminationist, Othering campaign can be called a conversation about "healthy living," without a trace of irony.
There is a conversation to be had about access to a variety of affordable fresh foods, about safe outdoor spaces, about food insecurity and food subsidies and why a salad costs more than a Big Mac. But that is a conversation that can be—and is, routinely—had within a Health at Every Size paradigm that honors body diversity, and further recognizes how institutional fat hatred is a strong disincentive against public physical activity for many fat people.
It is a conversation that is fundamentally dishonest without acknowledging the interconnectedness of psychological and physical health.
What First Lady Michelle Obama does not, or will not, understand is that a conversation which invites me to hate my body, and tells me that my body can be changed if only I work harder at changing it, is not a conversation about "healthful living." It is a comprehensively unhealthy conversation, and I want absolutely no part of it.
Monday Blogaround
This blogaround brought to you by aluminum.
Recommended Reading:
Trudy: Approaching Messengers Through the Veil of White Privilege
Cat: Hey, I'm Walking Here! [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of fat bias and harassment.]
Renee: Yet Another Magazine Tying to Justify Its Inclusion of Blackface [Content Note: The post at this link includes racist imagery and discussion of racism.]
Jess: What the NFL Should Learn from Don't Ask, Don't Tell [Content Note: The post at this link includes discussion of homophobia.]
Denise: Mike White on Enlightened's Tough Road to a Third Season and Why He Thinks Men Don't Want to Watch Shows About Women
Mike: The Broken Progressive Model
Libby Anne: More Gendered Advertising [Content Note: The post at this link contains gendered imagery and discussion of gender essentialism.]
Leave your links and recommendations in comments...
