It's like feminism never happened...

I (not all of us bloggers, just the one) have a terrible taste in film.  I admit it freely.  Nothing makes me happier than a good made-for-TV film where the guy and the girl get together, preferably around Christmas with Santa Claus and his elves somehow involved.

So, naturally this Saturday night, when I saw that John Tucker Must Die was on I decided to watch.  I’m not going to lie, it’s been on my guilty pleasure ‘to watch’ list for a few years.  It was cute at first, very clearly a teen film, but that was what I had willingly signed up for. Brief premise: one guy has been seeing three girls behind their backs, and when they find out the girls decide to execute revenge.  At first this is through indirect ways (a fake girlfriend eventually becomes involved), one of which is giving him estrogen pills to strip him of his manhood.  I know - remember, it’s a teen film.  

Now I was thinking maybe his muscles would shrink, or he wouldn’t be able to perform sexually.  Do you know what happens (slight spoiler alert)?  He cries on the basketball court during a game.  Someone runs into him and he reacts dramatically.  He worries about how the shorts affect his physical appearance.  He ends up on the ground in shambles because his feelings have been hurt and he can’t find the strength to get up.

According to John Tucker Must Die having a female amount of estrogen in my body does the following: makes me cry for dumb reasons, makes me worry about my weight/appearance, and causes me to be extra sensitive emotionally.  

And thousands of high school girls and boys have seen this and laughed.

The worst part is that John Tucker (aka basketball boy) then had tons of his female classmates hitting on him because he was ‘so in touch with his feelings.’  Great - that is apparently what we mean when we applaud sensitive guys: one who bursts into tears because the referee has made a call he doesn’t like.

Needless to say, I turned off the TV determined not to try for another terrible film until Santa is a guaranteed character.

Picture from HotFlick.net

hellogiggles:

From Our Readers: HOW BUFFY SUMMERS MADE ME A FEMINIST

by From Our Readers

Because anyone can [and should!] be a feminist.

http://www.rachelsimmons.com/2012/01/mom-im-fat-one-mothers-inspired-response-to-her-7-year-old/

During our conversation, a friend of mine brought to my attention a concerning new magazine.  We had been watching America’s Next Top Model so fashion was already on our minds, paving the way for this new ‘high-fashion’ wonder: Treats!.  The Daily Beast states, “The new title has grabbed the attention of influential tastemakers and industry icons around the world for its tasteful displays of female full-frontal nudity, luxe-y aesthetic, and underpinning of fashion-world credibility.”

You read that correctly.  Treats! offers naked women.  Now I am not a prude; nudity is great in its place.  I, for example, have a soft spot for Sex and the City.  And while these women are not actually having sex with anyone, this does appear to be nudity just for nudity’s sake.  In fact a lovely reviewer on Egotastic! a site for men states:

Now, I’m not the guy who’s going to say that he’s a dude who just has a special place in his heart for seeing hot girls nekkid and on all fours, I’m not going to say it, but I sure as hell am going to think it, because why fight millions of years of male evolution in but a single pictorial instance?

I’m sorry - what?

Best of all, Hugh Hefner approves.  In fact, Playboy’s restriction on how much nudity they could display is what partially inspired the creation of this magazine, said founder Steve Shaw in his Daily Beast interview.  He reportedly was also fed-up with photographing aspiring actresses who then refused to “Get [their] boobs out and bend over” when posing for Maxim.  

The magazine, despite being $20 an issue, is receiving subscriptions from all over the world.  Probably not by high-fashion connoisseurs.  

The point of this post is not to ban nudity or bad-mouth fashion magazines, I just think it’s time to call a spade, a spade.  This is soft-core pornography, women being objectified in the name of art.  Hello, 2012.

**No pictures from the actual magazine are shown in an effort to keep our blog breast-free, but feel free to check out these images on the Treats! website: http://treatsmagazine.com/magazine/ 

Dear Coca Cola,            

The implication of rape and assault is not funny.  Not even when the women are puppets (it might make it worse, in fact.  I haven’t decided).   Yes, it’s Jean Paul Gaultier, and they’re talking clothes.  Does that change the subtext, which seems to imply roofies and date-rape here, or the fact that he’s stalking a women and forcing her to undress and re-dress?  No.  Also, to have a therapist ask a women if she wants to press charges, and have her answer, ‘No’ because her assault ‘made a real woman out of her’ is disgusting.  Also, it does not make me want to buy diet coke. 

Love,

Likefeminismneverhappened

In light of all the recent debates about women’s healthcare coverage, this short piece by Jezebel is great.  While not all women may use every single product they mention, it’s an excellent reminder that we can’t just dismiss the costs of essential women’s health services -  pap smears, UTI treatments, and contraception to name a few - as ‘incidental’…

http://jezebel.com/5890058/this-is-how-much-it-costs-to-own-a-vagina-an-itemized-list

A great piece about men and feminism.  

http://starofswords.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/why-i-am-a-feminist/

Hello all

One of us recently started working in children’s publishing, and felt one step closer to changing the world. I coordinate the awards for my publishers and saw that there was one coming up called Teen of Queen. The website was very pink, very sparkly and very, very girly. The last winners were Louise Rennison and Cathy Cassidy, both of whom are fabulous.

On my company’s list, we have a lot of wonderful authors for teenage girls. I think properly girly literature is a good thing - it deals with a lot of issues that are encountered whilst growing up, and makes you feel less alone in facing what might seem insurmountable problems.Are you there God? it’s me Margaretwas pretty life changing for me, andThe Illustrated Mumopened my eyes to a world that as a sheltered girl from a happy home life, I simply hadn’t been aware of.

BUT, and it’s a big but (hence the capitalisation) I feel that that shouldn’t be ALL there is to teen literature for girls. For example, fantasy is fabulous, and can in it’s way deal with a lot of the same issues, as well as sometimes having more scope for allowing very strong, very autonomous heroines. ‘Teen’ should not mean ‘always realistic, always at least in part focused on boys and high school.’ So as well as our lovely teen writers who jumped to mind as fitting the profile of previous winners, I rather determinedly turned round and got in touch with Zoe Marriott, who writes the most beautiful fantasy, to say I really wanted her to go for it. She responded wonderfully, and I feel the need to share the blog post she wrote for me, addressing the difficult balance between accepting pink and sparkly and feminism all together. I’ve copied it in full, but also included the link.

Enjoy, and envy my job. Over to Zoe.

Undercover Reads

Shhhh. *Looks around furtively* I need to tell you a secret, OK?

It’s really embarrassing. You won’t tell anyone, right? This is just between you and me?

Here goes.

I really… kind of… love… pink.

Read more

The question of birth control has all of a sudden become the hot topic of the presidential race.  A question that I find more than silly as women already fought that battle 50 years ago.  Is the American government really fighting the battle of whether it is right or wrong to use contraception?  

Now, you should know that I grew up in an Evangelical household.  I was taught that a baby is a gift from God and that abortion is wrong.  Fifteen years later, I find these positions are not as black and white as they once seemed, but I say this because I want it to be clear that I understand (to an extent) where some of the Republicans are coming from when they argue against ‘the pill.’  I, for one, find contraception in all forms to be ‘morally acceptable,’ but I can see why one might not.

However, I don’t remember signing up to have my sex life in the hands of the government, and, more than that, in the hands of a government not quite certain how birth control works.  I am currently on the pill, not because I am having sex - either in a committed relationship or through random hook-ups at bars - but because it lightens my previously almost crippling periods and will hopefully help clear up the acne that has troubled me for years.  It’s true that I could have sex and not get pregnant, though, and if that makes me a whore, so be it, Conservatives.  Just remember that just as you don’t want President Obama playing God by offering the pill, so you should not play God by refusing it.

From one of our other blogs, there’s a lot of feminist theory regarding young girls’ sexuality in here, and the effect that paranormal romance such as Twilight can have. This masters thesis is now available online

theacornandthimble:

Hello, small band of followers.

Just to let people know, my thesis is now available online: