Fellow feminists, I'm going to say it again for emphasis: It is not your job to explain feminism.  As a feminist, it is your job to strive for equality between the genders, and to promote the cause of women wherever you see it flagging.  It is your job to keep yourself educated about the issues, and open to new ideas and information.

But it's not your job to explain it.


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Anti-Rape CondomA few months ago, I wrote about date rape prevention HERE, but today, I saw THIS on CNN and was amazed- a South African doctor has invented an anti-rape condom. The latex device can be inserted like a tampon, but turns into a frightening device that clamps around a guy’s penis with TEETH and hooks that have to be surgically removed from the man after penetration.

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3. You think he’s not “really” abusing you.

Many women believe that what is happening to them isn’t abuse because they aren’t being punched in the face. In reality, abuse constitutes as so much more. Jealousy and possessiveness, for example, are one of the most common signs of abuse. Others include controlling behavior, a sense of superiority to you, extreme mood swings, manipulating you, punishing you, not having his actions match his words, abusing past women or animals, and being unwilling to seek help for his own actions.

2. You think he needs you.

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Australia's Black Dog Institute, a non-profit educational and research institute with interest and expertise in the treatment and diagnosis of depression and bipolar disorder, has, via a study of 3,000 people, made a revolutionary discovery. Sort of. Of those in the study (all of whom demonstrated various symptoms associated with depression) 45% craved chocolate. The fact that women all over the world have known about chocolate staving off some of the symptoms of depression since some time in the mid-eighteenth century in no way diminishes the value of the study. Particularly because of that 45% who craved chocolate, 60% found that chocolate improved their mood if they indulged while depressed (that's 27% of the overall study participants, for those eating chocolate at home).

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Ring the bell.

That’s all the Breakthrough Institute is asking people to do to stand up against domestic violence. The Institute’s Bell Bajao! (Ring the Bell!) Campaign was inspired by a real retired bank clerk who overheard a couple fighting and simply rang the doorbell to intervene. At the Institute’s website, you can watch the videos made to highlight the importance of simply stopping domestic violence as it occurs. (Trigger warning—there is violent, disturbing dialogue, though no physical violence is visually portrayed.)

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Look, you can call something anything you want, but that doesn't make it true.  I can call my 1986 Saab 9000 a fixie, a Jeep, or a chocolate doughnut.  That doesn't make it hipster cool, appropriate for off-road driving, or good with sprinkles.

 And yet, some people have the gall to do just that: announce that "X is Y, and devil take the hindmost, it's the gosh-darned truth!  Why?  Because I said so, that's why!"  Sarah Palin is the latest example of this, as she continues to attempt to co-opt the term "feminist" to mean something other than, you know, FEMINIST.


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Whether you love or hate the Twilight series and all of the commercialism, screaming teenagers, and plummeting numbers of people who read classic literature that go with it, you have to admit that Stephanie Meyer is one successful lady. She started out with a single dream she had, fleshing it out into a lengthy novel of questionable quality—yet unquestionable popularity and marketing ability—and launched it into one of the biggest book phenomena ever known. In fact, aside from Tolkien’s books and the Harry Potter series (which is not of unquestionable quality, but simply excellent quality—at least until Harry starts naming his kids), I can’t think of a single series that has careened off into the world of t-shirts and action figures and body pillows like it.

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When I was a teen, I was a huge Geena Davis fan. I don’t know what it was about her—maybe it was how funny she was in Beetlejuice, or maybe it was how awesomely tough yet feminine she was in A League of Their Own. Either way, she was my favorite woman in Hollywood—someone I could really relate to, and perhaps look up to, rather than the other vapid starlets of the week.

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In a nutshell: "Hey Baby!" is a game - maybe more of an art project, really - in which you play a woman who walks down a public street and receives unwelcome attention in the form of catcalls.  (Nothing unusual there, I'm afraid.)  You then retaliate by opening fire, and killing them.  


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I was having lunch with a girlfriend, discussing life, boyfriends, etc, and two different pursespectives came up. I'm not exactly sure how we got to this point in the conversation, but I think her exact question that shocked me was "Isn't your main goal in life to have kids and a family?" I swear I almost threw up.

I'm not saying I don't like kids, I love kids. But almost anyone can have a couple kids and a family. My goal in life is to have a different colored Birkin handbag for everyday of the week. This may sound kind of harsh to you, but it's true! It's truly wonderful and exciting the day you get to have kids, but not until you have Louis Vuitton lined in your Benz, have you made it in life.