Danger: Glossy Flyers Ahead
2007-07-22 22:21:00
I'm a graduate student and I also teach. One thing I've noticed about the campus I work at is that it is absolutely littered with flyer advertisements. There's everything including the to-be-expected "looking for a roommate" and "selling my car". However, there is another type of flyer, a much more dangerous one. These flyers are the glossy little cards that usually have a half or fully naked glistening woman in some sort of contorted animal-like position. It's a great attention grabber, obviously. It's also very affective to throw these glossy flyers down stair wells (which already happen to be quite slippery (add to that the scenario of the occasional Florida downpour)) or to lick the back of these tasty advertisements and slap them onto the back of bathroom stall doors or to the inside of elevator doors (something nice to look at in both occasions). It's also especially brilliant when the distributors of these flyers (who are mysteriously never seen in the act) leave one flyer
Read more: Danger
, Glossy
, Flyers
Cougars, Kittens, and Kelly--OH MY!
2007-06-23 00:33:00
I originally posted this commentary on my Facebook and MySpace profiles, so it is not academic, researched, or even partially well-written. However, my lack of time compels me to include a post on this subject of "cougars" and hopefully when I have more time, I'll come back and expand on this post.Ok...I need to take a time out and write something about these new (or are they old) terms for women. Kitten, I've heard before, but Cougar? WTF?This morning [when I originally wrote this it was Tuesday 19 June 2007] while I getting dressed I turned the tv on and started watching Live with Regis and Kelly. I love/hate the show for various reasons that have to do with misogyny and sexism that I just am not going to get into now. Well, Kelly's husband, whatever his name is, he's a pretty-boy, is the host of a new show called The Age of Love (I think). It's another stupidly idiotic show about a bunch of women trying to get a guy. Oh my god, let me give them a freaking award for originality.
Vagina Dentata Materialized!
2007-04-27 14:45:00
It's not just a male fear/fantasy anymore!Here is the New York Times article "Anti-Rape Condom" by Christopher Shea. (See original source here.)The vagina dentata - a vagina with literal or figurative teeth - is a potent trope in South Asian mythology, urban legend, Freudian rumination and speculative fiction (the novel "Snow Crash," by Neal Stephenson, for example). But it took a step toward reality this August with the unveiling of the Rapex, a female "condom" lined with rows of plastic spikes on its inner surface.The Rapex is the brainchild of Sonette Ehlers, a retired blood technician in South Africa who was moved by the country's outlandish rape rate, which is among the highest in the world. The device is designed to be inserted any time a woman feels she is in danger of sexual assault. Its spikes are fashioned to end an assault immediately by affixing the Rapex to the assaulter's penis, but also to cause only superficial damage. The Rapex would create physical evidence of the
Are You Thorney?
2007-04-27 14:27:00
Recently I filled out a survey for the American Family Association (AFA). A friend on MySpace posted the following bulletin:The AFA (American Family Association) is expecting an overwhelming majority of respondents to say that they would be 'less likely' to do business with a company if they knew it supported the "homosexual agenda" - whatever that is. So far, they are getting the results they seek. Of course, they are only sending it where they will get the expected results. Let's change the outcome by completing the 1-question survey and sending it to everyone we know who is tired of this archaic and hateful way of thinking. Follow the link to take action on this important issue.Well, needless to say I did. However, the APA took my e-mail address when I confirmed my vote (which goes against their philosophy) and just sent me a propaganda e-mail telling me to boycott Ford. However, that's not really what interests me... What does interest me is an advertisement (obviously from a c
20 Images for 200 Years: Teacher Jailed for Possessing Child Pornography
2007-02-27 23:49:00
The US Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal by a teacher jailed for 200 years for possessing child porn.read more | digg storyI find it amazing that in our society full of technological advances we still manage to do so many things that seem below our capabilities. Rather than scapegoating, rather than upholding our societal honor, rather than crucifying one we should focus on the root cause of the dilemma: in this case, the websites hosting the child pornography, identifying the children in the images, and finding those who took them, financed them, and distributed them. The media is a dirty lens through which we see our society and ourselves. Big media buries the real issues while news stories like Ana Nicole Smith, which in reality is a private family issue dealing with a handful of people, takes precedence over situations that affect everyone. This man's sentence is absurd, disproportionate to his crime, and a blatant failure of our justice system.If hundreds of people associat
Read more: Images
, Years
, Teacher
, Pornography
, Child Pornography
Dirty, Dark, and Sticky: A Representation of Women's Bodies
2006-11-06 21:53:00
The FX Networks’ new show “Dirt” will premier sometime in January 2007 and is about a female editor of two tabloid magazines. The network advertises this new show with a series of flashy commercials and a catchy song. Obviously, the title of the show “Dirt” correlates to the dirt these magazines compile about the lives of celebrities. However, the advertisements lend themselves to feminist interpretation because this “dirt” occurs only in conjunction with the female body. Any feminist interpretation can easily supplant the notion that the representation of women and dirt in these commercials exist only to illustrate the connection between the female editor and the dirt she dispenses to the masses. Coincidentally the metaphor women are dirt is a very old idea and one embedded in the discourse of popular culture and evident in these commercials. Eleven different commercials for “Dirt” currently air on the FX channel and all, except one, are available on the FX Networ
Read more: Representation
, Women
Feminism Defined
2006-11-06 21:49:00
Jane Caputi discusses the ritual sacrifice of women and uses the example of Marc Lépine who on December 6, 1989, “entered the college of engineering at the University of Montreal, separated out the women from the men, and then fired on the women, killing fourteen of them, because, as he averred, they were ‘all fucking feminists’ (175).[i] Animosity towards women and feminists in general is not new. While many people would argue that things are better today than they were in the past, the truth is that society does not take women and women’s issues, as much as they are popularized and glamorized by media, as seriously as they should be. Authors like Mary Daly, Nancy Tuana, and Gerda Lerner all criticize the male authoritarian role in forming our consciousness of history. History pushes the female out of our collective notion of history and leaves it buried. Daly criticizes contemporary historians of attempting to “re-cover” (24)[ii] the feminine, but instead literal
Read more: Feminism
Starship Troopers vs. The Brain Sucking Vagina
2006-11-06 00:14:00
Starship Troopers
[i] a film by Paul Verhoeven was released in 1997 and was loosely based on Robert A. Heinlein’s science fiction novel of the same title. There are many similarities and dissimilarities between the film and novel, and while many people criticize the modern film adaptation,[ii] the subject of this blog lies in an examination of the film, not the novel.The film is a political satire on our country’s growing militarism and the loss of individual rights, which occur during times of war. Although filmed almost a decade ago many of the issues underlying the film resonate today. The initial criticism of this film did not grasp that it was parodying the fascist philosophy and utopian society depicted in the film, not condoning it. Starship Troopers is a film made in reaction against such a possible world. For this reason, the film depicts its characters as beautiful, yet almost mindless, obsessed with following orders. While early criticism often overlooked these details, l
Read more: Starship
, Brain
, Sucking
Kanye West: Digging Himself into a Hole
2006-11-05 22:31:00
Kanye
West’s hip-hop number one single of 2005 “Gold Digger” features Jamie Foxx singing a cappella, and a sample of Ray Charles singing his original “I Got a Woman.”[i] The opening lyrics sung by Jamie Fox set the tone and subject matter of this song and the accompanying music video. It is about gold diggers, women who are only with a man to take his money. The song’s lyrics and music video perpetuate many long-standing stereotypes of women, especially black women. The most obvious stereotype is that represented in the song’s title and is the overall theme of the song. The idea that women, and in the context of this song, black women, are interested solely in a man’s wealth is one that is discussed in Patricia Hill Collins’ Black Sexual Politics.[ii] She writes that the “theme of the materialistic, sexualized Black woman has become an icon within hip-hop culture” (126). In the second verse of the song the speaker discovers that after eighteen years the child h
Read more: Kanye West
In the beginning...
2006-10-14 16:08:00
This blog is my class project for my women's studies class: Women, Myth, and Reality - Visionary Feminist Thought taught by Jane Caputi at Florida Atlantic University during the Fall 2006 semester.The project is pretty simple: make a scrapbook using cultural texts which are interpreted using concepts from the class reading list and class discussions.Based on the increasing number of video clips available on the internet as well as the huge amount of advertising I thought it would be interesting to create my scrapbook online in blog form. In this way not only will it become interactive but it will outlive the duration of this course and be something that I can continue to work on for a long time to come.
Ugly Smile?
2007-07-30 19:46:00
I'm at a loss for words about this... thankfully, it probably isn't going to catch on.
Read more: Smile
Cameltoes and Moose Knuckles: The Battle Rages
2007-07-30 11:06:00
CameltoeAh, yes. We all know this term. It needs no definition, although the cameltoe article on Wikipedia.com (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cameltoe) does a splendid job at delineating the term's definition and offering various physical causes that may play a part in the creation of a cameltoe. Recently, I came across a YouTube video of an old song I often heard when I was younger, butI've never seen the music video. The song, of course, is FannyPack's single “Cameltoe.” It was interesting to watch the video and listen to the lyrics with a much more critical eye and ear. Female genitalia is not only being made fun of, but it is also categorized as disgusting and revolting. In the music video, people look disgusted and shocked at seeing a cameltoe, one man even throws up. Personally, I don't think that the human body should ever be an object of shame or disgust. But, let's assume for a moment that this wish of mine is too much of an ideology. Then, are men also the subjec
Read more: Knuckles
, Battle
Foot Fetish Anyone?
2007-08-03 11:27:00
The SiFeet Pussy Foot is a silicone foot with a "fully functional and totally fuck-able silicone vagina" on the underside of the foot. While I wonder what the "fully functional" aspects of the vagina are, the fact that it is obviously "fuck-able" isn't the only thing that disturbs me--the feet are disembodied (in a crude manner) and bound together by a rope, hanging like a piece of meat.But why am I surprised? Foot fetishes are behind Chinese Foot Binding. The objectification and fragmentation of female bodies through sexualization is the main reason why women are still seen and treated as disposable and consumable material objects.Stockroom.com describes "[t]his silicone sex toy is also a convenient practice tool for preparing to get hot and kinky with actual feet." Well, maybe their customers should practice with these feet--and get intimate with the destructive history men's foot fetish has had on women throughout the centuries.
Read more: Fetish
, Anyone
Because this world isn't complete without...
2007-08-08 22:38:00
...Boob Pillows. Yup. I subscribe to gizmodo.com so I can read about the new gadgets, but it seems that I more often find things that piss me off.*Sigh* First Pussy Feet, now Boob Pillows... Can some Japanese company make a joystick out of a penis, please? I mean, c'mon!Oh, wait... there is a penis joystick--sort of.
Read more: complete
Fem-text-astic
2007-08-05 23:09:00
This is what gets my feminist taste-buds working!A nice little collection of feminist writing available in full-text on the internet! Yey!Thought I would share.
Disturbing...
2007-08-12 23:48:00
I was at the beach recently with Tony and we were just sitting and relaxing when all of a sudden I heard some loud screams and yells coming from the water. It was accompanied by violent splashing, so I looked up from my reading.There was a group of guys (maybe five) playing with a soccer ball in the water, throwing it back and forth...but the screams were the result of one guy throwing the soccer ball at another guy. The ball hit him hard.This scene repeated a few times about twenty feet in front of us. Then, it ended when one guy missed and the ball rolled far off down the shore coming to rest near a little girl making her way into the ocean. Luckily, the ball didn't hit anyone because he threw it with ferocious forceThese guys were playing around, obviously--but why does their play have to involve violence and pain? How fun can that be? I don't want friends that try to hit me or attack me with soccer balls at the beach.Anyways...this got me thinking...and I just came across a video
Asses to Asses
2007-08-12 22:40:00
Trying on jeans is annoying for women for various reasons. For me it's the fact that sizes come in the all too ambiguous 8, 10, 12 series--which really doesn't mean much. Guys, it seems, have it much easier with their pant, jeans, and even dress-shirt sizes measured in inches. Who whoulda thought?Well, my rant on men's versus women's clothing sizes will have to wait for another day... right now it's nice to know that a store called Hub Clothing in Scottsdale has installed The Butt Cam with the belief that "[a] lot of people dread trying on jeans and so any more entertaining you can make it the better. A lot of people compare it to trying on bathing suits, you know something they just don't like to do, we're trying to make it painless," (Hub Clothing Partner Tom Simon).Oh, yes. That's what I want! I want an unnatural view of my ass that no one will have unless they stick their nose up my crack. I'll be an informed consumer this way! Thanks, Tom Simon! Thanks for reinforcing tha
Read more: Asses
Off Topic Rant
2007-08-20 14:29:00
I just got home. Traffic was horrible. The proposal for my thesis remains a scattered jumble of ideas that don't seem to come together in the sentence I write.Anyways, to get out of the monotony of thinking about Lacan this morning I browsed on over to digg.com and saw an entry for Best Colleges of 2008. I had to check where my school ranks and what chances I have of getting into a good PhD program.Haha. I might as well discard my futile attempts at writing a thesis because there doesn't seem to be much hopes in the way of me getting into a good program and later a good job.Here's some of the verbiage from the U.S. News & World Report website on how they breakdown their ranking system. See what you think about it.Student selectivity (15 percent). A school's academic atmosphere is determined in part by the abilities and ambitions of the student body. We therefore factor in test scores of enrollees on the Critical Reading and Math portions of the SAT or Composite ACT score (50 percen
No title
2008-03-11 23:15:00
I've been busy with so many things lately that I haven't had time to blog. Usually, I try to write an entry with a little bit of substance and that usually requires some time. But something has been driving me crazy and I wanted to post it here and maybe expand on it later when I have time...I cannot fathom or understand the duplicity and utterly obvious contradictions that our culture blatantly screams out in our faces (the kind of screaming that causes spit to splash on your face--this is the kind of obviousness that I am talking about)! Anyways, why (and I really want to know the WHY of this issue), why does our culture scare the crap out of pregnant women (don't do this, don't eat that)? Why is a pregnant woman told, "Gee, you should hold off on that yummy and otherwise pretty healthy
|
Recommend Site To A Friend
