An Argument for Menstrual Suppression?

I’m aware that the standard feminist position is to cast a jaded eye on medicine extending its authority over the female body. (In my academic life, I’ve spent hundreds of pages doing just this, with enough footnotes to sink the Queen Mary.) Versions of the birth control pill such as Seasonale (which allows for four [...]

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Should Sarah Palin’s Next Job Be “Housewife”?

According to a Fox News Poll (via Salon’s War Room), a plurality of Americans think housewifery should, in fact, be Sarah Palin’s next job: About a third of Americans think the best job for Palin is homemaker (32 percent), while nearly one in five see her as a television talk show host (17 percent). Vice [...]

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Parenting *Inside* the Box

This has been my kids second-favorite toy this summer, topped only by the decrepit typewriter they unearthed while we were in Berlin. It’s the box from our beloved front-porch furniture. The kids have turned it into a house, of course. Two months later, the porch furniture is still wonderful, but the box has achieved a [...]

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Attacks on Sotomayor – A Case Study in Intersectionality

The other day, I found myself thinking that Sonia Sotomayor had been attacked more along racial than gender lines. I’m not sure where I got that idea, because watching this compilation corrected my impression. Her critics seem to have been admirably evenhanded in their bigotry. (via Sociological Images and Racialicious) I’d forgotten about G. Gordon [...]

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Some Cautious *Good* News on Forced Cesareans

Hysperia sent me a link to this story by Louise Marie Roth at the Huff Post, detailing the latest case where a woman was forced to undergo a cesarean section: In the case, New Jersey Division of Youth and Family Services v. V.M. and B.G., the New Jersey appellate court found that V.M. and B.G. [...]

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Best Political Poet Since Rumsfeld

I know I swore off Palinology, so can we book this post as Shatner blogging? posted with vodpod (via Alas and Mudflats) Or, as Jerry used to sing: “The sky was yellow and the sun was blue.” Also, I don’t think I’m too naive, but if you happen to know what Cheechakos are, would you [...]

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Squirrely about Chocolate

I haven’t seen our bunnies since I returned from Germany. They’re probably pouting about the cage we put over my chard. So I got all excited when I heard a rustling sound while my husband and I were sitting on the front porch. It wasn’t a bunny. It was a squirrel, having a big fight [...]

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Emotional Affairs as Women’s Work

I’ve long been skeptical of the whole concept of an “emotional affair” – the idea that a close, possibly flirtatious friendship constitutes betrayal of one’s marriage vows. But it just recently struck me, as I read this article at Redbook (via Rebecca Woolf at Girl’s Gone Child and figleaf), that emotional affairs are being constructed [...]

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The TSA Is Global

Not literally – but the spirit of the TSA is flourishing abroad, just as paranoid as here but without the friendly smile you sometimes get from TSA employees. Last month I wrote about how airport security in Brussels searched inside the waistband of my older son’s pants. I realize they’ve got to be thorough, but [...]

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I’d Butter Nut Do This Again

Plant butternut squash too close to my tomatoes, that is. During the month I was in Germany, my butternut vines wound their way through several rows of tomato cages and out the other side. Look closely at the jungle below and you’ll see lots of large leaves that are clearly not tomato-esque. The mondo vines [...]

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Ashes to Ashes; Oil to Oil

We’re trying to declutter the storage space in our Berlin apartment. My husband hauled out an old plastic crate where he’d stashed an old bath mat – and discovered the silly thing had liquidified. We just spent the last half hour removing apparent oil drips from the linoleum. I’d provide a picture but I’m still [...]

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Labor Pain from the Lighter Side

Following up on yesterday’s post on the romanticization of labor pain: The other evening, my sons were watching clips on YouTube, and suddenly I heard the sort of moans that made me wonder if they’d stumbled onto YouPorn instead. But no. They’d found a “Maulwurf” video illustrating how birth works. “Der kleine Maulwurf” – or [...]

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Man-Midwifery and the Romanticization of Labor Pain

A few days ago, a friend of mine who’s expecting her first baby emailed me, wondering if she should plan for a “natural” birth or give in to the “temptation” of an epidural. I don’t know what she’ll decide (and honestly, both are reasonable choices, in my view), but I pointed out that she was [...]

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Awarding Bonuses for Grade Inflation

I’ll admit to being a fairly generous grader. If students turn in all their work and don’t massively screw up, they should be able to get a C or better from me. Earning an A is a little trickier, and I very occasionally get complaints about this. All in all, though, I’m sure I give [...]

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My Next Life As a Sand Cat

Yes, I’m that shallow. I’d like to be reincarnated as a sand cat just because they are utterly adorable. I saw this cutie at the Berlin Zoo yesterday. The sand cats in the Columbus Zoo have been out of view for a couple of years while they try to mate, so I hadn’t seen one [...]

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Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy #20

Caroline of Loserdust has just put up the 20th Feminist Carnival of Sexual Freedom and Autonomy. I’m included (yay! thanks, Caroline) with my post, Twisting the Meaning of “Sex Class,” but since you’ve probably read that one, head on over to Caroline’s joint for a collection of feminist writing ranging from sex work to masturbation [...]

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What Intersectionality Is and Isn’t

Hint: One thing intersectionality is not? Silly.** Here’s what intersectionality is good for. It reminds us that the same person can be both an oppressed person and an oppressor, depending on how you turn the prism. I might be oppressed as a woman, but if I refuse to pay my housecleaner a decent wage? I’m [...]

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Some Kind of Computer

Yesterday, while we adults tried to sort out some of the old junk still hanging around the Berlin apartment, the kids intercepted this gem and saved it from the dumpster. It’s a “Reiseschreibmachine” – a portable manual typewriter that I bought in 1991 when I first arrived in Germany and was waiting for the first [...]

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Criminal Neglect versus Stupid Moments in Parenting: Where’s the Line?

Regular commenter Mark Faulkner pointed me to Judith Warner’s latest piece at the New York Times, Dangerous Resentments. Warner argues that our country’s resentment, and even hatred, of well-educated, apparently affluent women, is spiraling out of control. But her evidence for this is mighty thin: one case of a professor-mother, Bridget Kevane, who was charged [...]

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A Feminist Argument for Single-Payer Insurance

Dana Goldstein reports that women are twice as likely as men to depend on their partner for health insurance coverage. (Via figleaf.) That’s a big problem for women when a relationship ends, as she notes. Both widows and divorcees can find themselves suddenly uninsured. From my own experience, I know it’s terrifying enough, worrying whether [...]

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