“Girls” from Sady Doyle’s perspective
4si4:
gauntlet:“ They’re afraid of losing friends, of being laughed at, of being shrugged off or snubbed at the party, of being gossiped about, getting a reputation as a bitch or a prude or a humorless whiner, of receiving social penalties… ”If this image of shrinking triviality qualifies as a feminist view of girls then feminism can mean basically anything any female thinks.
— Sady Doyle
Reblogged from 4si4 2011.4.03.Sun.1200 | Tags: trendy apolojism
In many respects, third-wave politics and postmodern gender studies have shifted from the battleground of doctrinaire seventies women’s liberation toward the intellectual playground of bodily display and pop-culture-friendly theory—a feminism, as Courtney Martin has put it, that is more “about being seen.”American Electra, by Susan Faludi, October 2010 Harper’s Magazine.
The entire essay can be downloaded as a pdf file.
2011.2.08.Tue.1200 | Tags: trendy Susan Faludi
On the last afternoon of the conference, I caught up with Halberstam at the farewell reception. I told her I didn’t understand how Lady Gaga’s Telephone could be the “future of feminism.”American Electra, by Susan Faludi, October 2010 Harper’s Magazine.
“Adapt or die!” she responded cheerfully. “Pop stars are where the inspiration for feminism is going to come from.”
But how was Telephone a feminist inspiration? Halberstam pointed to the way the video dealt with rumors that Gaga was a hermaphrodite. “she didn’t deny them. she played with them. you have that great moment where the prison guards take off her clothes and say, too bad she didn’t have a dick …”
I wandered back into the conference room to get my coat. The hall was nearly empty, except for a lone woman with graying hair…
The entire essay can be downloaded as a pdf file.
2011.1.25.Tue.1203 | Tags: trendy Susan Faludi
sextortion
By Charles Wilson, Associated Press, August 14, 2010
INDIANAPOLIS—The nightmare began with a party: three teenage girls with a webcam, visiting an Internet chatroom and yielding to requests to flash their breasts. A week later, one of the girls, a 17-year-old from Indiana, started getting threatening e-mails.
A stranger said he had captured her image on the webcam and would post the pictures to her MySpace friends unless she posed for more explicit pictures and videos for him. On at least two occasions, the teen did what her blackmailer demanded. Finally, police and federal authorities became involved and indicted a 19-year-old Maryland man in June on charges of sexual exploitation.
Federal prosecutors and child safety advocates say they’re seeing an upswing in such cases of online sexual extortion. They say teens who text nude cell phone photos of themselves or show off their bodies on the Internet are being contacted by pornographers who threaten to expose their behavior to friends and family unless they pose for more explicit porn, creating a vicious cycle of exploitation.
One federal affidavit includes a special term for the crime: “sextortion.”
Reblogged from newstfionline 2010.9.19.Sun.1200 | Tags: trendy law enforcement
"Popular culture is the new Babylon, into which so much art and intellect now flow. It is our imperial sex theater, supreme temple of the western eye…"
— Camille Paglia (via mikejsimons)
Reblogged from mikejsimons 2010.8.10.Tue.1200 | Tags: trendy
"I wear no pants so my grandma can see me on TV."
- Lady Gaga
2010.4.30.Fri.1200 | Tags: trendy music
"Fashion magazines embraced a mode of (un)dressing they dubbed porno-chic. Laced with irony and layers of contradiction (some conscious, others less so) the once shocking porno-chic filtered down — minus, naturally, the irony."
- Lisa Armstrong in the Times Online, March 3rd, 2010.
(h/t gauntlet)
2010.3.11.Thu.1200 | Tags: trendy
"...every other music video has half-naked women dancing around. It’s just like you don’t have any choice - you feel that as you grow up you have to start dressing that way, acting that way - that there is no other way to behave."
From Living Dolls by Natasha Walter.
(h/t gauntlet)
2010.2.07.Sun.1200 | Tags: trendy music
“The wealthy tend to cater to a new trend before the poor do; rich and famous women (including the activists) made the “new decency” fashionable in the first place. The middle and poor class Catholic women wanting to be fashionable (envy and avarice play a part here) ended up following suit.”
2010.2.03.Wed.1200 | Tags: economics trendy
"Miuccia’s not doing pants this season"
- Fashionista (Look Ma, Still No Pants)
2009.11.03.Tue.1200 | Tags: trendy
