Today, activists all over the world are gathering on bridges to show their support for gender equality. It might be too late to attend a bridge gathering near you, but you can see from this map just how many bridge events happened across the globe. Pretty incredible.
There are plenty of other IWD events to attend today/tonight, so find one near you.
Google even dedicated one of its famous doodles to International Women's Day.
Head on over to the IWD website for some cool stuff, including photos of women celebrating all over the world. And if you're a social media junkie like myself, read Mashable's "How To Support International Women's Day Using Social Media." By the way, look to your right to see IWD on Twitter.
Mashable also posted this nifty video from Equals that lists many of the ways women and men are not equal (and it features Daniel Craig in drag!)
Even if you just stay at home today, find a way to celebrate. Enjoy today, enjoy how far we've come, and enjoy the women who did so much to get us here.
Really, Virgin Atlantic? You couldn't have made a commercial without the horrific gender stereotypes? Apparently they want us to live in a world where the men are the pilots and the businessmen, and the (skinny, white) women are flight attendants dressed in short red skirts and stripper heels. Thanks, Virgin, for your big middle finger to the feminist movement.
The acclaimed author of the groundbreaking bestseller Schoolgirls reveals the dark side of pink and pretty in this wake-up call to parents: the rise of the girlie girl is not that innocent.
As a new mother, Peggy Orenstein was blindsided by the persistent ultra-feminine messages being sent to a new generation of little girls—from "princess-mania" to endless permutations of pink. How many times can you say no when your daughter begs for a pint-sized wedding gown, she wondered. How dangerous is pink and pretty anyway? Being a princess is just make-believe, isn't it? Does playing Cinderella shield little girls from early sexualization—or prime them for it?
I LOVE anything that questions the mass distribution of harmful gender role-reinforcing products to young girls that are far too easily accepted by society as "normal." Will be adding this to my reading list.
Huffington Post put up this video recently. It's a clip from a horrific show on TLC called "Toddlers & Tiaras" (which is about exactly what the title implies) that depicts one of the pageant mothers forcing her crying five year-old daughter to get her eyebrows waxed. The girl was traumatized from a previous waxing session during which her skin was ripped off.
Pure child abuse, and a prime example of how gender roles and beauty expectations operate in a vicious cycle. I'm sure this pageant mother's parent(s) forced the same twisted values on her. Even though I don't plan to have kids in my lifetime, sometimes I wish I could raise a daughter, if only to teach her that her self-worth goes beyond having well-shaped eyebrows.
And in the mean time, watch this video. It's a couple months old, but I just saw it and found it incredibly heart-breaking and, at the same time, uplifting. It's from the NoVo Foundation.
Here's me making up for the lack of updates with LOTS of links to lovely feminist news, and with a picture of cute animals XD
A legislation has been introduced to END funding for abstinence-only education. Cue the Hallelujah chorus. In a press release, Congresswoman Lee stated: "The issues of unplanned pregnancies and sexually transmitted infections among our young people have reached a critical level. The best and most responsible way to protect them is through comprehensive sex education." Amen, sistah.
Interesting: "How 19th Century Prostitutes Were Among the Freest, Wealthiest, Most Educated Women of Their Time."
From Jezebel: "In what is perhaps a strange homage to Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Cosmopolitan has come up with '50 Great Things To Do With Your Breasts,' and guess what? Most of them revolve around dudes." Would you expect anything less from Cosmo?
A new poll shows that Latino voters are reluctant to embrace the GOP, despite the GOP's efforts to lure them in.
Lance Bass and my gay husband, Neil Patrick Harris, are speaking out against bullying of queer-identified youth, prompted by the recent suicide of Tyler Clementi. Lance even admits that he used to bully LGBTQ youth himself. But Queerty points out that we also need to hear from celebrities who "built their image on being bullies," e.g. 50 Cent, whose recent anti-gay pro-suicide Tweet got him in some deep shit.
Quite possibly the best submission to PostSecret I've ever seen.
Two (male) senators are halting the construction of the National Women's History Museum: "Their reasoning for blocking the National Women's History Museum, which would showcase the original, signed 19th amendment along tens of thousands of other artifacts central to women's history in the U.S., is that taxpayers might be asked to subsidize the museum in the future and that the museum would focus on abortion rights without 'without featuring any of the many contributions of the pro-life movement in America.'" GAH!
Dolce & Gabanna photoshopped Madonna within inches of her life in her newest spread for them.
A new series from Women's eNews, "Poverty - Tales from the Recession's Front Lines," explores the burdens placed on women during the recession. Also available in Spanish.
Pro tennis player John McEnroe wants to look out for us ladies by ensuring that we don't hurt our dainty little arms picking up those big heavy tennis rackets. Better let the menfolk do it for us. In an interview, he said (among many other things):
"You're asking too much of the women. They shouldn't be playing as many events as men."
and
"They should be required to be in less events, there should be less events for the women. It seems it takes an actual meltdown on the court or women quitting the game altogether before they realize there's a need to change the schedule."
Thanks for looking out for us, John, but seeing as how you don't have a woman's body, I think it's a little tough for you to decide what we are and are not capable of.
Although no one is keeping statistics, researchers who study gender say a small but growing number of people (including some who have had sex-change operations) consider themselves “gender neutral” or “gender variant.” Their stories vary widely. Some find that even after surgery, they simply can’t ignore previous years of experience living as another gender. Others may feel that their gender identity is fluid. Still others are experimenting with where they feel most comfortable on what they see as a continuum of gender.
I'm all for more mainstream and respected media outlets covering this issue because I think right now, far too many people view those who step outside of gender boxes as a small group of freaks whom, if we ignore, will eventually go away. But Newsweek is absolutely right: as more and more people realize that "there is no way that six billion people can be categorized into two groups," the group of people who define gender on their own terms is growing.
But I've said before: I personally don't aim for a genderless future -- instead, I hope for a society that embraces the right of each person to define their own gender. Seriously, can't we get rid of those tired and constricting "male" and "female" check-boxes on every form we have to fill out and replace it with a blank line instead?
Came across a charming article from The Frisky called 19 Ways to Get Her to Go Down. According to this list, dudes can get blowies from their chicks by doing things such as: buying her jewelry, taking her to the opera, sending her flowers, or giving her an engagement ring.
How about: ask us and we'll "go down" if we effin' feel like it? Why all the bass-ackwards ulterior motive bullshit and not, oh I don't know, communicating with your partner? Major fail on the part of The Frisky and on the (female) author for perpetuating stereotypes that men are conniving assholes, and women are shallow gold-diggers.
I've stated before that I'm not the biggest fan of the institution of marriage. To sum it up: I don't need a piece of paper from the government to validate who I'm allowed to love, and I don't feel comfortable being a part of a patriarchal and exclusive institution that I feel wrongfully dominates our society. That being said, I don't judge anyone who chooses to get married, feminists included.
Anywho!
For those who dig the idea of challenging holy matrimony, check out Liz Langley of AlterNet's Eight Reasons Marriage Doesn't Matter. I applaud anyone who's gutsy enough to take on the ginormous institution of marriage.
I'm encouraging everyone to head over to AlterNet to check out a recent article, "My Boyfriend Stole My Birth Control": When Men Force Women to Get Pregnant Against Their Will.
Scary new evidence is showing that a significant number of women experience their partners trying to steal away their bodily control through "reproductive coercion," or the act of forcing a pregnancy onto someone.
In the largest study of this phenomenon to date, “Pregnancy Coercion, Intimate Partner Violence and Unintended Pregnancy,” published in the January issue of the journal Contraception, lead researcher Elizabeth Miller and others surveyed nearly 1,300 16- to 29-year-old women who’d sought a variety of services at five different Northern California reproductive health clinics. Among those who had experienced intercourse, i.e., who could be at risk of unintended pregnancy, not only did 53 percent of respondents say they’d experienced physical or sexual violence from a partner, but one in five said they had experienced pregnancy coercion; 15 percent said they experienced birth control sabotage, including hiding or flushing birth control pills down the toilet, intentional breaking of condoms and removing contraceptive rings or patches. These figures were consistent from clinic to clinic.
Currently, this phenomenon is little-known, and the prevailing stereotype is still "the woman—call her the femme fertile—who conspires to get pregnant, perhaps by 'forgetting' to take her birth control pills, as a way to 'trap a man' and force marriage—or at least keep him in her life." But people need to know that there is another scarily common situation out there: the boyfriend or husband who, disgusted by a woman's ability to have reproductive control, goes to heinous measures to force pregnancies, abortions, or miscarriages onto his partner.
This is some seriously fucked-up stuff. Spread the word, feminists. Please.
After finding out about the wonderful Genderfork.com (via Feministing) I had an urge to post an ode to gender-bending, because I just love it so damn much. First of all, if you haven't been to Genderfork, visit it ASAP! It is a lovely blog with user-submitted photos...
...and quotes from those who find beauty and pleasure in androgyny and ambiguity:
"Some days I wish I could set my gender on Facebook to 'It's complicated.'"
"People think they're being invasive when they ask me questions some might consider 'personal'— questions about my body, my gender, the way I look, think, etc. They don't seem to understand I love being able to tell people there's a different way of existing out there. Not everything is black and white, just 'this' or 'that.' There's a 'Thiat' and a 'Thast' and every combination you can possibly dream up."
"I bound and buttoned up for church; I wore a fancy dress that showed off my hairy armpits for dinner. This Easter is one big pastel-colored drag show."
I want to cry at the sheer beauty of people being able to express who they are, despite being a part of an entire society that tells them to conform. Some days I wonder if I would present myself in a more androgynous manner if I had questioned gender more while growing up, or if I wasn't so intimidated by society's reactions. Still, last year when I attended a drag ball, I had a blast trying a different gender on for size:
Genderfucking just... rules.
I've thought a lot about gender, and I know that some may argue that the world we should strive to live in is a genderless one... but my thoughts are that instead of abolishing gender altogether, let's have more gender! People take pride and pleasure in gender expression and identity, and I think the world might be a bit boring if we take that away. Let's have thousands of genders, millions, billions! Imagine a world where instead of checking "man" or "woman" on any mundane form or online profile, you're given a blank line on which to write whatever you want. My body tingles just thinking about it.
So I raise my glass to genderqueer, genderfuck, genderbend, unisex, androgynous, ambiguous, fluid, transgender, butch, and everything else.
I want to conclude with some worthwhile videos, first one of spoken word artist Kit Yan performing an amazing piece on the fluidity of gender:
And, because someone on Genderfork.com mentioned it, the music video for "I Want to Break Free," by one of my favorite gender-bending bands, Queen. Think of it in terms of breaking free from binary gender roles :D
Well, Caster Semenya has fallen out of the media, but luckily people have yet another public figure to impose gender upon. A Filipino singer, Reggie Ramirez, from "Pilipinas Got Talent" has become known for his ability to sing both "female" and "male" parts of songs, and his tendency to perform in both women's and men's clothing.
And inevitably people MUST KNOW! Is it a tranny? A dragqueen? A hermaphrodite? WHAT IS IT?!? WE CANNOT ACCEPT THIS PERSON UNTIL THEY FIT INTO A GENDER BOX! AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Methinks people should save themselves a whole lot of trouble and just realize it's none of their damn business.
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