feminism

StumbleUpon Sunday (3)

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StumbleUpon is a giant collection of the best pages on the Internet.

StumbleUpon is a great way to lose hours of your life.  Luckily, I braved the Internet vortex so you don’t have to.  This week I found these especially interesting websites:

  1. The Amazing World of Dogs in Photography
  2. Too Beautiful to be Real?  16 Surreal Landscapes Found on Earth
  3. 33 People Who Prove the World Isn’t Such a Broken Place After All
  4. The 5 Most Terrifying Civilizations in the History of the World
  5. 20 Places to See in Your 20s
  6. Writer Creates “Color Thesaurus” to Help You Correctly Name Any Color Imaginable
  7. Confessions of a Feminist Makeup Addict
  8. 23 Couples Who Decided to Get Tattoos and Absolutely Nailed It
  9. 23 Mind-Blowing Animal Pictures
  10. 8 Ways to Get Likes and Followers on Instagram

Recommendation: No Prehensilizing

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I recently stumbled upon the tumblr account No Prehensilizing, a blog run by a 24-year-old graduate of film and philosophy.  She shares many of my obsessions (Marvel, Starkid, Doctor Who, Mad Max), and she writes wonderfully intelligent critiques of popular media.  Here are some of my favorite essays she has written, though I suggest you check out the whole blog!

I’m loving her site, and I hope you find something enjoyable there as well!

Mad Max: Fury Road

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Mad Max: Fury Road was not on my radar until I learned that Men’s Rights Activists were protesting it (sight unseen, mostly) because it was “feminist propaganda.”  There aren’t many other phrases that will draw my attention quite so quickly.  I knew it was an extremely violent movie, so I did a ton of pre-movie research.  I quizzed a friend who had seen it, read dozens of articles about it, and googled “how gross is mad max fury road.”  It wasn’t until a friend texted and said she was interested in seeing it (also because of its ties to feminism) that I decided to bite the bullet and go to the theater.

I needn’t have worried so much.  It is definitely a violent movie, but I was relieved to see that the violence is mostly insinuated rather than shown.  It also helped that, thanks to my research, I knew pretty much everything that was going to happen.  Once I realized that the film wasn’t going to try to gross me out, I got lost in its story.

(So many spoilers ahead.  You’re forewarned.) Continue reading →

4 Guilty Pleasures

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Whenever I feel guilty or ashamed about liking something, my coping strategy goes like this:  casually mention it in a way disassociated from myself.  Bring it up again, with a little humor added.  Talk about it ALL THE TIME ALWAYS until people beg me to shut up.  Write a blog post about it.

Although I have grown in self-confidence and I don’t quite care as much what people think about me or my opinions, my guilty pleasures are still pleasures that make me feel guilty, as though I am too old, too mature, too whatever to like the things that I like.  I will probably always have the spectre of Other People’s Judgments hanging over my head, but today I’m saying “I don’t care!” by fangirling real hard about the dumb things that I love.  Continue reading →

Plan a Galentine’s Day Party

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Galentine’s Day is a holiday created by Leslie Knope from Parks and Recreation.  She formed the girl-centric celebration on February 13th, a day for your best lady friends before spending Valentine’s Day with your boyfriend.  As someone who doesn’t have a boyfriend, I’m tweaking her holiday a little to make it a replacement for Valentine’s Day.  It can be extremely hard to sit alone, refreshing your Facebook feed to see new pictures of happy couples celebrating their love.  Instead of wallowing in self-pity, Galentine’s Day is a chance to party with your friends and remember that no matter the messages culture sends you:  you are not alone!  Continue reading →

One Woman’s Story of Surviving the Sex Trade

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I just read this new article about a 25-year-old English woman telling her story–a horrific one in which she fell in love at age 14 with a man who forced her into sex trafficking.  When you read the article, you might disagree with my choosing to use the word “forced.”  The anonymous woman referred to as Megan admits that she technically could have left, that she in fact helped someone else escape.  So why say “forced”?  Continue reading →

I Guess I’m Not Suitable for Marriage

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My corner of Facebook has been fixated on this article by NYCpastor entitled “10 Women Christian Men Should Not Marry.”  Since I meet more than half of the criteria that supposedly makes me unworthy to catch a Christian man’s eye, I thought I would spend some time interacting with the material.  Feel free to read his article before continuing.  I will list his 10 deal breakers, but the words after are mine.

1)  The Unbeliever.
Alright, so on this one quality, NYCpastor and I agree.  I think people do best to marry someone from their same faith, and even more, to marry someone whose faith is of similar importance to them.  My Christianity informs everything I do and hope for, and is therefore a huge part of my personality, motivation, and time.  Marrying someone who doesn’t understand or share that passion is going to make for an increasingly disconnected relationship.  So sure, marry someone of your same faith (or lack of faith).  I think that’s wise.

2)  The Divorcee.
As a counselor, I have seen female clients who experienced abuse in their marriages.  Two of my friends work at a domestic violence counseling center, and the women they work with have suffered horrifically brutal lives at the hands of their husbands.  This is Texas, so often those husbands claim to be Christians.  I’m not a fan of NYCpastor’s ignoring the very real fact that 1 in 4 women will experience domestic violence during their lifetime.  Writing divorced women off as inherently unappealing when they might be escaped survivors of intense trauma bothers me.  Continue reading →

Glory O’Brien’s History of the Future by A. S. King

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A. S. King is the literature equivalent of a mad scientist.  She puts together plots and themes that should never be mixed, but…VOILA.  A masterpiece!  Did I just mix metaphors and make her an artist?  Whatever!  She is a scientist, artist, author–everything and nothing.  Just like Glory.

It takes a special book to deal with the general doubts and fears of a teenager, plus the specific doubts and fears of a teenager who’s mother committed suicide, within the context of visions brought about by petrified bat-beer.  Yes, you read that correctly.  It’s super weird, but somehow it all works together brilliantly.  It almost doesn’t matter whether the bat-visions are true; the pictures Glory sees of the past and the future give her the courage to live in the present.

Can I say, though, how much I love that Glory’s visions of a hellish future of civil wars and nuclear explosions are the result of anti-feminists?  I might have gleefully clapped my hands when I realized King had written a post-apocalyptic novel to inspire readers to give women equal rights.  The visions were all-around spectacular; I was amazed at the detail and scope of people’s ancestors and descendents.

All this sounds strange, and it is.  But within this bizarre plot are some really poignant messages of grief, of learning to communicate and maybe move on.  There’s a wonderful depiction of a dying friendship, with all the frustrations and promises and confusion such a relationship entails.  And at the heart of it all, there’s Glory, a girl scared she’s doomed to die.  Ironically, it’s by seeing her death that she learns how to live.

Book Jacket 81b37cd4781fd48e525165ce7bd85f6f

Graduation is usually a time of limitless possibilities, but not for Glory.  She’s never stopped wondering whether her mother’s suicide will lead her to end her own life someday, as statistics would predict.  But everything changes after a transformative night when she gains the power to see anyone’s infinite past and future.  And what she sees ahead for humanity is terrifying.

Glory makes it her mission to record everything that’s coming, hoping her notes will somehow make a difference.  She may not see a future for herself, but she’ll do anything to make sure this one doesn’t come to pass.

With astonishing insight and arresting vision, Printz Honor author A. S. King tells the epic story of a girl coping with devastating loss at long last–a girl who has no idea that the future needs her, and that the present needs her even more.

Release Date:  October 2014

Want another opinion?  Check out reviews by The New York Times and The Librarian Who Doesn’t Say Shhh!

Poisoned Apples by Christine Heppermann

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Wow.  I never knew I needed a book that addressed the complexities of growing up female through the lens of poetry based on fairy tale tropes, but this book satisfied a deep part of me.  The topics are sometimes uncomfortably difficult, but then, so are stories of witches eating children.   The best way to advertise this amazing collection is to let it speak for itself–here is one of my favorite poems, “Blow Your House In.”

She used to be a house of bricks,
point guard on the JV team, walling out
defenders who could only huff and puff
and watch as the layups roll in.

She traded for a house of sticks,
kindling in Converse high-tops and a red Adidas tent.
At lunch she swirled a teeny spoon in yogurt
that never touched her lips and said
she’d decided to quit chasing a stupid ball.

Now she’s building herself out of straw
as light as the needle swimming in her bathroom scale.
The smaller the number, the closer to gold,
the tighter her face, afire with the zeal of a wolf
who has one house left to destroy.

Book Jacket poisoned-apples-cover

Once upon a time…you were a princess, or an orphan.  A wicked witch, fairy godmother, prom queen, valedictorian, team captain, Big Bad Wolf, Little Bo Peep.  But you are more than just a hero or a villain, cursed or charmed.  You are everything in between.  You are everything.

In fifty poems, Christine Heppermann places fairy tales side by side with the modern teenage girl.  Powerful and provocative, deadly funny and deadly serious, this collection is one to read, to share, to treasure, and to come back to again and again.

Release Date:  September 2014

Want another opinion?  Check out reviews by Teenreads and Elle.