YouTube - Advice for Young Girls from The Little Mermaid

YouTube - Advice for Young Girls from The Little Mermaid:

What is this cartoon satire saying about Disney?

Facing Social Pressures, Families Disguise Girls as Boys in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

Facing Social Pressures, Families Disguise Girls as Boys in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com:

My new normal | Jessica Valenti

Here, My new normal | Jessica Valenti, you can read Valenti's story of her daughter's premature birth 8 weeks ago.

Reconsider Columbus Day

Home

A student sent this link because it relates to A Mercy.

You can also watch the video here.

While I don't believe we need an official holiday to celebrate the person who represents an escalation in slave trade and the genocide of Native Americans, Christopher Columbus himself was really not a bad guy. Columbus wasn't trying to colonize or enslave anyone; rather, he wanted to prove the earth was round. People thought he was crazy and his own crew often threatened to throw him overboard.

For 10/11 PAPERMAG: Arts and Style - She's Got Balls: 12 Creative Women Get in Touch With Their Masculine Side

PAPERMAG: Arts and Style - She's Got Balls: 12 Creative Women Get in Touch With Their Masculine Side

Cheerleaders Say Their Uniforms are Too Skimpy | NBC Connecticut

Cheerleaders Say Their Uniforms are Too Skimpy | NBC Connecticut

10/11: Fighting back against the early sexualization of girls

Watch this video:
Fighting back against the early sexualization of girls

What problem does student Yanique Richards have with the Media?

For 10/12: New sex study has good news for youth and people of color but gender gap in sexual satisfaction persists

New sex study has good news for youth and people of color but gender gap in sexual satisfaction persists

Read the post linked above. What is the gender gap in sexual satisfaction?

For 10/12: Sports, sex, and the runner Caster Semenya : The New Yorker

Sports, sex, and the runner Caster Semenya : The New Yorker
Caster Semenya: What is the ultimate difference between a man and a woman?

for 10/11: Notes from a bitch…pondering the ramifications…

Sharkfu, who hails from St. Louis, has a blog that she calls "Angry BlackBitch: Practicing the Fine Art of Bitchitude." Why does she call her self "Angry Black Bitch?"

She also writes for Feministing.com. Her most recent post on Feministing is Notes from a bitch…pondering the ramifications… , which is about some Black Women's mistrust of doctors and WHY they have been raised to not trust doctors.

Consider this quote from Sharkfu in her recent Feministing post: "My beloved maternal Grandmother did not trust doctors, hospitals or The Man. She had good reason – she came of age in pre World War II Mississippi, where black women entered the hospital for medical care and left having been given a Mississippi Appendectomy…a hysterectomy that was neither medically necessary, legal or ethical. " In other words, they were sterilized by force and without consent.

Sharkfu continues: "No one ever came right out and said that we shouldn’t go to a gynecologist for a Pap smear or birth control. But, through stories and tone, the message was clear – don’t trust medical care and you sure as shit shouldn’t trust government medical care," The implication being that the government wanted to sterilize women of color or perform some medical experiment on them.

What Does Meryl Streep have in common with the Tea Party?

Meryl Streep wants to help fund a Women's History museum in D.C. What do you think about that?

Read this link-- What Does Meryl Streep have in common with the Tea Party?
to find out who's opposed to a Women's History Museum.

for 10/4: Teacher Unjustly Punished For Revealing Her Sex-Work Past

If one has been a sex worker, is it possible for her or him to move on to do something else? Will society accept her/him?
Before you answer, read this link:

Teacher Unjustly Punished For Revealing Her Sex-Work Past

Once you've been a sex worker, are you a sex worker for life, or can you have other skills and talents and do other things?

for 10/4: Vital Signs - Obesity Costs Women More, Study Finds - NYTimes.com

Read the following link about the ways obese women are discriminated against more than obese men:

Vital Signs - Obesity Costs Women More, Study Finds - NYTimes.com

Why is obesity more socially accepted in men than in women?

For 9/27: ‘Why are girls who lose their virginity allowed to go to public school?’

‘Why are girls who lose their virginity allowed to go to public school?’: "Yup, that’s a direct quote. Bambang Bayu Suseno, a legislator in Jambi, a province of Indonesia, is floating an idea among his colleagues and constituents that all girls would have to pass a virginity test in order to attend state-funded schools.

"This kind of shaming, of course, goes on all over the world, and in more subtle but still damaging ways, in the U.S., where pregnant teens or those labeled as sluts are often compelled to leave school."

For 9/27: Style rookie

Students wanted to know more about the 14-year old blogger in the feminist sweater. Here's her blog:
style rookie

She says, "My goal for this school year was to wear outfits that confuse the people I'm surrounded by every day, challenge beauty ideals..."

Video - Girl Effect

Video - Girl Effect:

For 9/27: Honors & Awards « Jean Kilbourne

Honors & Awards « Jean Kilbourne

Jean Kilbourne of Killing us Softly is a leader in her field, having received some 2 dozen prestigious awards.

What are the natures of the various organizations who have granted her awards?

for 9/27: Video: Dear Prudence: Cat-Calling Creeps @SpokenWord.org

Video: Dear Prudence: Cat-Calling Creeps @SpokenWord.org:
In the above-linked animated video (it may load slowly, be patient) a young woman asks for advice about how to handle sexual harassment on the job. Prudence has some good suggestions. Do you have others to offer? Also, can you think of other ways to handle cat calls with humor?

For 9/27: Nicki Minaj’s ‘Pink Friday’ Is Due Out in November - NYTimes.com

Nicki Minaj’s ‘Pink Friday’ Is Due Out in November - NYTimes.com

Anyone want to try a feminist commentary of Nicki Minaj's song "Monster?"

Here's what the NYtimes says about her performing and writing in collaboration with her male colleagues:
"That Ms. Minaj’s verse was better than Jay-Z’s and Mr. West’s was an accomplishment. (“Can we just talk about Nicki’s verse???????!!!!!!!!!” Mr. West posted to Twitter. “I toooooooooooooooold yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallll!!!!!!!!!!!!”) That her contribution to the song was weirder than Bon Iver’s is just par for the course.
"Over the last two years no rapper has stretched the boundaries of the form more than Ms. Minaj, who is due to release her first album, “Pink Friday” (Young Money/Cash Money/Universal), on Nov. 23. On “Monster” alone she raps in Jamaican and British accents, with a sneer and with a quaver, while growling, and with Barbie-doll naïveté: just a few bits from her vast toolkit."

For 9/20: Is Christine O'Donnell a spokesperson for what Valenti calls the "virginity movement?"

Christine O’Donnell Marches On, With Baggage - NYTimes.com:
O'Donnell will be running for a US Senate Seat. Does she represent the "Virginity Movement?"

Consider these quotes from the above-linked article:

"Ms. O’Donnell, 41, who grew up in New Jersey and has lived in Delaware for roughly a half-dozen years, spent the 1990s helping run a sexual morality movement aimed at fellow Gen Xers.

Ms. O’Donnell has taken positions against federal financing for stem cell research, is opposed to abortion even in cases of rape.

In the 1990s, Ms. O’Donnell, a Roman Catholic who for a time considered herself an evangelical, founded SALT (the Savior’s Alliance for Lifting the Truth”) and appeared on MTV’s “Sex in the Nineties” to explain the values of chastity.