What we learn from the media frenzy surrounding Bruce Jenner’s gender transition is not that trans lives matter, but that Jenner himself is a public spectacle whose body and identity are reasonably subject to our collective gaze. I should start with a confession: The endless speculation around the gender identity of Bruce Jenner, Keeping Up with the […]
This originally appeared on Eat The Damn Cake. Republished here with permission. Is it really necessary to advertise everyday products using naked women? I’d like to raise my daughter in a world that didn’t force these images down her throat everywhere we look. My husband, Bear, opened his new headphones. “Check it out!” he said […]
They’re not all lazy and entitled. Today’s young adults are just another generation of people, trying to do the best they can, in a world with really screwed up priorities. According to a recent New York Magazine article entitled “The Collateral Damage of Teenagers,” I am supposed to be unhappier than “regular” parents because my […]
Viewing any variety of crap television is about the confirmation that the day I just untied myself from doesn’t suck nearly as bad as what’s going down on some of these shows. On January 22, The Onion posted a pretty funny spoof article titled “Woman Takes Short Half-Hour Break From Being Feminist To Enjoy TV […]
Plenty of female characters on TV today have made being a “hot mess” popular, but Emilie Aries wants women to stop pretending to be coy and confused, and start acting like they’re in charge. I’ll confess it: I’m a recovering hot mess. In the years after college, I was often self-deprecating and unconfident, minimizing my […]
Is the recent trend of celebrities sharing their deeply personal stories an effort to shine a light on issues everyone faces? Or is it more about lining their own pockets? Emily Heist Moss says it’s both, and that’s OK. Angelina Jolie Had Breast Removal Surgery. Christine Quinn Opens Up About Her Struggles with Bulimia and […]
The talent show is not free of criticism, but this season’s all-female group of finalists is sending a strong message, says Tina Boyer. In all its corny, commercial excess, American Idol isn’t exactly the highest form of culture, but there’s something brewing in the current finalist round of the competition that’s challenging the established formulas […]
Selena Gomez is just the latest in a long line of young women who objectify themselves for success in Hollywood, says Soraya Chemaly. I haven’t seen the new movie Spring Breakers, which opened last Friday, and am pondering whether or not I ever will. Some people think it’s satire or parody, more horror film than […]
What are we telling young boys if the examples of fatherhood they see everyday are parodies of incompetence? Every time I see a promo for the new Scott Baio sitcom, See Dad Run, I gag a little. I can hardly believe that a) Scott Baio is still working, and b) they’re still pushing this “Idiot Dad” […]
Must women transcend their femininity to truly be considered funny? In a recent piece on women and raunch culture, Emily Heist Moss wrote the following: “There’s a danger here that we [will] slide too far past refreshing, humanizing, true-to-life humor, and skid into the arena of that lowest common denominator humor that my mother was […]
Today’s top female characters on television have restored Emily Heist Moss’ faith in being a 21st century woman. Between the crotch-shot sharing ladies of Jersey Shore, the squabbling botox bunch of Real Housewives, the konstantly konniving Kardashians, Big Ang, Honey Boo Boo, dance moms and toddlers twirling in tiaras, you might come to the conclusion […]
Lynn Beisner wonders if Daniel Tosh’s recent rape joke—directed at a female audience member at The Laugh Factory—is simply a product of a generation desensitized to insults about sexual violence. Like most feminists I know, I am appalled by comedian Daniel Tosh’s crude rape joke. And just to be clear, the remarks I am about […]
