My friends laughed when I told them I had to go to a conference regarding women taking action in the media. “Have fun with all the crazy feminist man-haters!” they joked. I didn’t want to attend the conference because I knew my friends were right; who wants to spend the entire day with a bunch of angry women? Halfway between my apartment and the conference center on Saturday morning, I realized I was wearing my pink fleece and carrying a Prada bag. “Shoot! Do feminists wear pink?”

Most people I know wouldn‘t classify me as a feminist. I wear pink. A lot of it. I like designer clothes and accessories. And at the time of the conference, I had the all-American boyfriend. What do you think of when you hear feminist? Many people think of angry women with short hair, hippie attire in earth tones, and unsmiling faces. Many people think of butch lesbians.

But is that really what a feminist is, or does the whole movement simply have a bad name? Read More »

When I first stumbled upon this article, I thought it sounded like a load of crap. Women taking separate busses? Women actually wanting to ride public transportation without men? Really?

Really.

According to the Associated Press and Time, Mexico City recently segregated its busses because of how badly men were treating women on public transportation. Subway platforms were already segregated, but the bus situation continued to bring in complaints.

Mexico’s “ladies-only” buses are characterized by pink signs on the windshield. Now, instead of having to worry about a swift smack on the ass, our sisters can chat, primp, and pay attention to their kids. Before the change, men’s behavior was so bad that one woman reportedly carried a sewing pin to stave off the creeps, and said she has used it twice in one month.

Much to my surprise, women’s only buses are not a new idea. They have been used in several countries, including Brazil, India, and Japan.

So let’s hear it for the women of Mexico City who spoke out to fix this problem. Because honestly, being groped on the way to work is not how anyone should have to start their morning.

Once upon a time, long after the feminist revolution dawned and yet before we could spell the word–let alone understand it–we were little girls. We knew we were equals to boys and no one was going to tell us we weren’t going to play kickball at recess with the toughest of them.

But if little Johnny knocked me over and didn’t stop to smile and help me up, well, then I told all of my friends he was a jerk. And this idea of “I’m as good as you so treat me like a princess” found itself a little home in our confused minds and it took over…without an invitation.

As we awkwardly tiptoed into the land of dating, this entire concept, fraudulent as it seems, was still very real. I’ve always been independent, strong, confident, smart (maybe a little full of myself, too), and was taught to believe that no guy could outdo me in ANYthing. So why did my mom tell me to let Eric pay for dinner on my first date? Why did my friends think it was “sweet” that he opened doors for me? How can we truly be equals if chivalry is still a card in this game? Read More »

I must have been out of town when this memo was passed around, so perhaps someone can clue me in. When did “feminist” become a four letter word?

I noticed this first earlier this summer, while reading “The Feminine Mystique” by Betty Friedan. My book began to cower in fear any time I attempted to take it out of my purse to do some reading public. While people can openly read Harry Potter books and trashy romance novels, my book was met with hostility.

“Why are you reading that trash?” my cousin scowled.

“What are you, becoming some kind of feminist?” a friend of mine asked, while I did some pool-side reading.

I thought to myself, if I had been reading a book about civil rights and the end of slavery, I wouldn’t get a second glance. But a book about feminism, one that applies to over half of our population, apparently offends people. Read More »

The other day, a guy helped me off a city bus.

“Here you go, sweetheart” he said, standing near the last step and holding out his hand, “watch your step.”

I took his hand and said thank you, walking quickly down the sidewalk and willing the carsickness I had acquired from hours on a hot, crowded, jiggling city bus to dissipate before I threw up on 6th avenue. It wasn’t until my dizziness subsided that I had the energy to think back on my chivalrous gentlemen friend.

The guy who had helped me wasn’t much older than myself. Granted, he was bigger, about 200 pounds and seven inches bigger, but the years between us couldn’t have been more than a few. Here you go, sweetheart. I mean, he had helped me. But had I really needed the help in the first place?

One my biggest pet peeves is when men who don’t know me call me something endearing. Sweetheart. Honey. Used completely on purpose, those words—when uttered by a male close to my own age—are designed to make everyone in the conversation aware of who is in charge. Those words are condescension at it’s worst. I may be short and have the tendency to look young, but if you’re not my dad, boyfriend, or 100 year old neighbor, I’m certainly not your Honey. Read More »

There’s no doubt our culture has been stuck in a pit of hypersexuality for some time now. And there’s also no doubt that women are trying to figure out their place in this sex-driven society; do we embrace the attitudes men have long carried with them, use our sexuality to gain power, flaunt what we got? Do we make a sex tape and laugh about it, or pray to God to keep us pure until Prince Charming arrives in his black SUV?

Wendy Shalit, author of the book “Girls Gone Mild”, claims a new revolution is upon us, and that revolution abhors sex tapes, preferring to wait for Mr. Charming instead.

In her book, Shalit claims “the young women [of] today, put off by our hypersexualized culture, are reverting to an earlier idea of femininity. They wear modest clothing and even act with unbrazen kindness. They don’t mind abstinence programs at school, and they prefer a version of feminism based on self-respect rather than sex-performance parity. They also take matters into their own hands when craven adults neglect to object to the objectionable.”

The older generation of mainstream feminists, Shalit says, “are so committed to the idea of casual sex as liberation that they can’t appreciate or even quite understand these younger feminists.” She goes on to say women who advocate casual sex “just don’t understand that pursuing crudeness is the problem, not the solution.” Read More »

Admit it — you’ve used your best baby voice to get what you want. The baby voice is a lethal weapon.

When used on family members, it conjures images of you as a helpless young one that they cannot resist bending to.

For everyone else, it’s creepy and annoying and they comply to whatever your sugar - throated wishes are just so you’ll shut up.

According to some recent reports on jezebel.com, salon.com, and in The Washington Post, the baby voice is presenting some problems for women in an unlikely place — at work.

It’s pretty easy to see where this trend’s force is coming from: the great female role models of our day, Paris, Lindsay, Britney, et al. Read More »

Women get naked on magazine covers for several reasons:

1) To look hot and to get guys to buy them.

2) To send a political message and generate controversy.

3) To show off their pregnant selves.

4) To not look hot, generate controversy, and show off their bigger body - not because of pregnancy, but because it’s simply how a woman is built sometimes. Crazy, huh?!?

Whatever the case may be, naked magazine covers sell, and Beth Ditto of the band The Gossip definitely sells on the cover of NME, a British music and gossip magazine.

It’s been getting tons of attention, from Americans especially, (because for most Americans, this is blasphemy!) and it’s being passed around the blogosphere for obvious reasons. Beth Ditto does not have the stereotypical body you’d necessarily want to see unclothed before your eyes, and she knows this. The cool thing is, and the cool thing about her is, she doesn’t give a flying f*ck! Read More »