“This law closes most abortion facilities in the state, puts extreme stress on the few facilities that remain open, and exponentially increases the obstacles confronting women who seek abortions in the state. And it does all of that on the basis of a medical justification that cannot withstand any meaningful scrutiny that the American Medical Association has told you is groundless and that the district court found will actually operate in practice to increase health risks to women.”
Filed under Rah! Rah! Roundup
It was a cold day in Brooklyn, one of those days that’s so freezing you want to kiss a stranger on the subway just to warm your face. It was Valentine’s Day, after all, so maybe this would have been permissible but I kept my lips to myself as I chugged along on the L train. I went to Love Potion #5, a Black Girl Magik workshop, alone and without knowing a single person in the room. All of us introverts and socially awkward types know about those parties where we feel weird and lonely because we don’t know anyone. And the very thought of trying to start a conversation sounds like a day at the dentist. I strolled into Love Potion teary-eyed from the cold and a half an hour late from getting lost. When I walked in, the first people I saw was a group of young white hipsters who took one quick look at my befuddled face before saying, “It’s over there.” Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Dear Lands’ End,
I am a feminist and a mother and I spend waaaaaay too much money on Lands’ End clothing, backpacks, parkas, boots, and so on every year.
Look, here is a pile of Lands’ End stuff.
Look, the labels are out. It’s from Lands’ End.
I have been a loyal customer. The shit from H&M is cuter but it falls apart and The Gap is too expensive and not that cute nor that well made. You send me those emails saying extra 30% off and sometimes I actually click and buy! But now… I don’t understand what is happening. You issued a formal apology for featuring an interview with feminist icon Gloria Steinem in your spring catalog after backlash from the anti-abortion movement? Continue reading
Filed under Clothes + Fashion, Everything Else
Molly McArdle spoke to fifty people across the industry about diversity in publishing, and the results are in Brooklyn magazine. From Tony Tulathimutte: “You will be tokenized. Even when you get to write about your own experience of being a minority in America—you know, even that can be turned against you. Are you going to be used later on as leverage against an accusation of racism? Will you then be seen as a collaborator? In most cases the answer is yes.”
Filed under Rah! Rah! Roundup
The following post features an interview I had with Angela Hume about her upcoming book of poetry, Middle Time (Omnidawn, 2016). This book breathes intensely between moments of ecology, biology, and temporality. Here’s an excerpt:
Middle Time, p. 77
Filed under Books + Literature, Interviews
“…I’ll admit that many times over the last year when I was feeling too burnt-out from work to produce a really high-quality joke about second-wave feminist ghosts or something, I’d give in to social media’s seductive promise of instant validation, and I’d go for the easy joke about being a sad single lady who likes chocolate and wants a man because: ACK! I told myself I was making these jokes ironically, but the reality was, I was often writing them when I was feeling scared or guilty or angry about things that had nothing to do with being single, but I filtered my emotions through the relationship lens because it was easy. Rather than use those ‘negative’ emotional periods to create raw rough drafts that I would refine when I was feeling more balanced, I acted out in the hopes of getting some sign that my voice mattered.”–Sarah Rainone on what she’s “learned about love after a year alone (and a lot of bad jokes)”
Filed under Rah! Rah! Roundup
New CDC guidelines intended to prevent fetal alcohol spectrum disorders in children have been causing quite the firestorm in feminist circles lately! The confusion probably began when women didn’t understand the CDC’s helpful infographic, which recommends that all women who are thinking about becoming pregnant abstain completely from alcohol, and that all trollops women who do drink alcohol make sure they’re on birth control:
The CDC actually removed the top part of this infographic last week, probably in response to all the confusion and anger. But since much of the information on the image, such as the implication that women who drink alcohol are responsible if someone else assaults or injures them, is still part of the CDC fact sheet on excessive alcohol use by women, many women are still really confused. For one thing, the infographic could do a lot more to help us completely eliminate the risk of accidentally getting drunk and pregnant. In fact, it could do more to help us figure out how prescription medications might completely eliminate the risk of a lot of other problems we might encounter in our lives. Don’t worry, though! WEIRD SISTER is here to help. Just follow these simple steps to figure out which prophylactic prescription drugs you should start taking, just to be safe! And if you finish this article and you’re still confused, make sure you’re taking hormonal birth control. That way, any damage you do to your own health won’t be inflicted on your millions of potential innocent babies! Continue reading
Filed under Uncategorized
Long before the dawn of sexting and frank depictions of women’s sexuality in TV shows like Broad City, the candlelit tea-rooms of 1920s Greenwich Village boomed with women’s sex talk. They didn’t call those years “roaring” for nothing. World War I had just ended, as had the terrible flu epidemic. Both were short, and their casualties enormous. What else for the survivors to do but fuck, or at least talk about it? According to Foucault, poetry at the start of the 17th century was the only sex talk there was until two centuries later, when sex scientists like Havelock Ellis began a murmur that turned into the roar of the sex-positive 1920s. When women writers re-discovered sex in the 1920s, poetry was what the wild girls wrote. Bookstores couldn’t keep women’s work in stock, with poems like Mina Loy’s “Love Songs to Joannes” (“Pig Cupid/His rosy snout/Rooting erotic garbage.”) flying off the shelves.
Filed under All The Feminist Poets, Books + Literature
“The responses reflect a spectrum of experience among the writers,” she explained. “But I did notice that several poems discussed discovery, social justice, and resistance through existence and survival.”–Tabia Alexine, a Los Angeles-based curator on “reaching out to young writers of color she admired” to share their favorite poems
Filed under Rah! Rah! Roundup
When a celebrated Brazilian author goes missing in Idra Novey’s spitfire debut, Ways To Disappear, her American translator Emma takes it upon herself to find a woman who may not want to be found. Joining her children in the search, the translator soon finds herself tangled in the author’s messy, escaped affairs. The resulting novel is, in equal parts, mystery, comedy, social commentary, and maybe another part hilarity. Keep reading to find out more about what makes the novel’s author tick:
Kati Heng: Of course, your novel gets me interested in translators, a hugely important part of the literary world readers often forget about. How did you get started as a translator? Is it something you want to continue to do as you (we hope) write more of your own novels? Continue reading
Filed under Books + Literature, Interviews
