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From Stephen Elliott
...more“…her husband was an alcoholic, but so clean cut. I didn’t really put two-and-two together until she came to me and said, ‘I need your help. My husband is going out of town soon, and I’ve got to leave while he’s gone or he’ll kill me.’”
Writer, journalist, activist, and lifelong feminist Eve Ensler talks with Suzanne Koven and explores the body’s relationship to the desecration of the earth, the importance of listening to the “real” in ourselves, and how it feels to be known as “the woman who wrote The Vagina Monologues.”
...moreIn lieu of a “Funny Women” column today, please read all of Reductress, a new satirical women’s web magazine like The Onion that “tells the stories of real women, written by real women, for other real women who like to read about women.” At last, a news magazine that “that empower[s] women with feminine ideas, feminine emotions, and feminine products.”
Reductress “parodies woman-focused marketing and the consumer identity built around it, taking on the perk and patronizing tone that saturates online media today.
...more“If talking back to some random idiot makes me feel better—if it’s fortifying for my mental health—then I don’t care if I give some dumbass with 13 followers the flash-in-the-pan attention he’s been craving.”
At the Nation, Feministing’s Jessica Valenti says, “Fuck the high road” and extols the virtues of (sometimes) feeding the trolls.
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“Women are bitches,” says a young man as he sits down. Apparently a woman at the bar wouldn’t give him her number. He’s talking to the man sitting on his left in spite of the fact that I am sitting two feet to his right and at the same table.
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In an exclusive interview, The Rumpus sits down with the very funny, very feminist Sandra Bernhard to talk about comedy, mothers, life on the road, and, of course, San Francisco, where she’ll be performing this week.
...moreIf you haven’t heard The Knife’s new album Shaking the Habitual, we totally recommend giving it a listen. The album experiments with strange organic sounds, sprawling dark ambiance, and playful Swedish synth pop.
The Knife is known for gender bending (lowering the pitch of Karin’s voice, for example); but Shaking the Habitual is lyrically their most politically charged album exploring issues of gender identity, patriarchy, and ailments of Western culture.
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I was tired of endlessly explaining that sex work could be empowering and could be exploitative, but that most things in life could be either of these things as well.
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“I’m exposing faultlines, dealing especially with rhetoric. Showing that heterosexuality is a disease, or at least its inheritance.” Novelist, theorist, historian and blog-girl, Kate Zambreno gives up a meaty, definitive interview.
...moreAt the Los Angeles Review of Books, Jack Halberston discusses the new wave of feminism crashing down upon the 21st century.
While introducing his new book, Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the End of Normal (and we’re all for an end to Normal!), he critiques other examples such as Caitlin Moran’s How To Be A Woman, and The End of Men by Hanna Rosin.
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“The phrase ‘global citizen’ always gets tossed around with my work, and part of it is that, clearly, talking about being a global citizen is the only way we can talk about participating in globalization without feeling like assholes.”
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Marina Warner’s work often focuses on mythology and the deconstruction of “myths of the feminine,” from Mother Goose, to the Virgin Mary, to Joan of Arc, and more. Here, the cultural historian talks about her latest work, Stranger Magic: Charmed States and the Arabian Nights, and her passion for the art of myth.
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When I see this video of eleven-year-old me, I burn inside. Maybe I should take it easy on myself, but I see a fumbling, painfully awkward girl supporting a politician whose influence still buttresses today’s anti-feminist conservatives
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We are not ashamed of our bodies – we are not afraid of them. We will celebrate their tremendous power. We will dance in honor of them, in churches or on the steps of Capitol Buildings or in front of cameras.
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As we watched the stick, scantily clad models parade onscreen for public consumption, my daughter turned to me, her face tight with disgust, and asked, “Why would women do that?”
...moreAt Bomblog, writer Melissa Febos and musician Kathleen Hanna discuss the creative process, collaboration versus doing it alone, writing about sex work, nasty online commenters, and more.
“Even while I was doing things I knew were provocative, and were meant to be provocative in certain ways, still it was so painful to think, Why don’t they understand?
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Inga Muscio is the highly acclaimed, and equally controversial (and unapologetic) feminist author of Cunt: A Declaration of Independence, Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society, and her latest, Rose: Love in Violent Times.
...more“Just as women don’t hate Samantha Brick for being beautiful, and feminism hasn’t ruined anyone’s chances to be married, and no one thinks mothers don’t work, and there is no argument between working and stay-at-home mothers, there is no contradiction between the sexual imagination of some and sexual politics for all.”
At The Guardian, Hadley Freeman skewers the strategy–at play in both politics and media–that seeks to inspire in-fighting amongst women thereby distracting from actual policies or content.
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There’s an enormous subculture of men who trade tips, tricks, and tactics for seducing women. Within the last half-decade or so, these underground “pickup artists” have burst into the popular consciousness,
Jennifer Lyon Bell makes porn with a humanistic approach, designed to get viewers to identify with the characters, not just watch them. She combines the visual quality of art films with erotica. Her ethos is that the former could be sexier and the latter just plain better.
We don’t usually do lists, but when the Academy’s list of Best Director nominees is 100% dudes, an exception seems necessary. Canonball chronicles five female directors “whose direction deserved more attention this year.”
“I really hope I don’t have to do this every year.
...moreGuernica has an extensive interview with South Korean poet Kim Hyesoon, who elaborates on life as a woman poet and the state of feminism in Korea. Hyesoon discusses the role of the grotesque, the human body, and exposure in her poetry.
...moreAt the BBC, writer Sarah Hall explores “the popular motif in science fiction of an all-women society surviving without men.” In the two-part program, Hall talks with authors, professors, and science fiction historians, looking at how science fiction “has been used to examine relationships between the sexes,” and how the genre “has examined the different ways of continuing the human race.”
(Via Bookslut)
...more“Perhaps the most feminist thing we can do is simply forgive our mothers whatever slights.”
Reviewing The Monster Within: The Hidden Side of Motherhood and Dangerous Ambition: Rebecca West and Dorothy Thompson: New Women in Search of Love and Power, Jessica Crispin reflects on grudges held against mothers and a societal tendency to judge women by how they raise their children.
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Samhita Mukhopadhyay’s new book Outdated: How Dating is Ruining Your Love Life takes a deep look at how the hell do you balance your feminist ideals with the archaic power dynamics that dating forces us to engage in and how skewed gender politics and damaging messaging are getting in the way of men and women finding real love.
Helen Dunmore wrote the beautiful new introduction to Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse, published online by Granta, in conjunction with their latest, feminism-themed issue, The F-Word. The beginning of summer and the new intro are both reasons to revisit this classic.
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In which two female writers from VIDA: Women in Literary Arts crunch the numbers and let us know how The Rumpus is doing in the gender disparity department:
In a very powerful piece in the Guardian, Bidisha writes about how she’s tired of being the token woman in the British arts scene, and about how women are consistently underrepresented in reviews, on panels, and in other venues. Her numbers speak for themselves: “I felt it [nausea] when I saw this week’s edition of the London Review of Books.
...moreNote: I’m adding this late, but it’s important. Our sincerest condolences go out to the friends and family and admirers of Lucille Clifton, who died yesterday at the age of 73. She was a tremendous voice for poetry and she will be missed.
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