Bitch Media

No Respect Paid: The New York Times' Anti-Trans Coverage (And Why There's Hope for the Future)

Social Commentary post by Kjerstin Johnson, Submitted by Kjerstin Johnson on May 16, 2012 - 1:19pm;

*Trigger Warning*

This week, the New York Times covered the death of a Lorena Escalera, a Brooklyn woman who perished in a suspicious fire. They could have opened with a colorful description of her career in the ballroom scene—Escalera was a member of the House of Xtravaganza. Or they could have focused on the poor electrical circuitry in her apartment—a probable cause of the fire and symptomatic of lower-income housing. Instead, Al Baker and Nate Schweber opened with neighborhood gossip and physical descriptions: "She was 25 and curvaceous, and she often drew admiring glances in the gritty Brooklyn neighborhood where she was known to invite men for visits to her apartment, her neighbors and the authorities said." This turns out to be a set-up for them to mention that Lorena Escalera "was born male." You know, according to neighbors.

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Bibliobitch: Speculating on the Future of Feminism

Books post by Jyoti Roy, Submitted by Jyoti Roy on May 16, 2012 - 12:37pm; tagged BiblioBitch, science fiction.

GeekRadical.org is in its final push in a Kickstarter campaign to publish a Feminist Speculative Fiction anthology through PM Press. The goal is to “emphasize women's speculative fiction from the mid-1970s onward, looking to explore women's rights as well as gender/race/class/etc. from as many perspectives as possible.”

feminist sci fi logo, a woman symbol with a star and orbiting ring in red and black

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Lady Business: Ten Things That Would Have Been Good to Know At and After Graduation

Social Commentary post by J. Victoria Sanders, Submitted by J. Victoria Sanders on May 16, 2012 - 9:59am; tagged B*tches in Bookstores, graduation, speech.

What's the most useful career advice anyone ever gave you? Here's my best shot at dispensing words of wisdom that I wish someone had told me when I entered the workforce but I didn't know until later. Feel free to add some to the comments. I'm sure me and my imaginary boo, Ryan Gosling, are missing something.

Ryan Gosling Prompting You

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B-Sides: First Aid Kit, Folk-Music Sister Act

Music post by Morgan Hecht, Submitted by Morgan Hecht on May 15, 2012 - 2:17pm; tagged First Aid Kit, sisters, Swedish musicians.

First Aid Kit--two young white women standing in a field

First Aid Kit rose to fame after the sisters sent a demo of their song "Tangerine" to a local radio station in Sweden and were promptly signed by Rabid Records. The band's 2008 cover of Fleet Foxes' "Tiger Mountain Peasant Song" went viral on YouTube and even got the attention of the Fleet Foxes themselves, who had First Aid Kit perform the song with them at a concert in the Netherlands. Their album The Big Black & The Blue in 2010 put them on tour and got them more exposure in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, and Australia.

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End of Gender: Argentina Grants Gender Self-Determination

Social Commentary post by Malic White, Submitted by Malic White on May 15, 2012 - 1:48pm; tagged Argentina, government, Identity, law, transgender.

Last week, Argentina gave citizens the freedom to change their legal and physical gender without having to undergo medical, psychiatric, or judicial procedures. Along with eliminating patronizing barriers to swapping an "M" for an "F" on a driver's license, the law gives Argentinians a freedom you won't find anywhere else: gender self-determination.

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Douchebag Decree: Side Boobs and Fat Babies—Five Not-So-Subtle Magazine Covers

Social Commentary post by Kjerstin Johnson, Submitted by Kjerstin Johnson on May 15, 2012 - 1:30pm; tagged Douchebag Decree, Time magazine.

A cover of Time magazine featuring a young thin white woman defiantly staring at the camera as she breastfeeds her three year old. He is standing on a chair, mouth pressed against her one exposed breast, and is also looking at the camera. The headline reads, Are You Mom Enough?

We get it. Selling magazines is tough. As a feminist nonprofit swimming in publishing world, we know how hard it is to keep your head above water. (Completely unrelated: Do you have your Bitch magazine digital subscription yet?) But some magazines feel the need to push their publication with provocative cover photos and headlines in order to compete with the Huffington Post. Here are some recent offenders...

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Fertile Ground: New Ads Say You Don’t Have to Be a Pickle-Eating Hippie to Get Solar Panels

Social Commentary post by Alison Parker, Submitted by Alison Parker on May 15, 2012 - 1:09pm; tagged advertising, hippies, political debate, renewable energy, solar energy.

screen shot from the Sunrun ad campaign. A white man and woman are in their kitchen together

This is why solar panel company Sunrun’s new ad campaign feels like a breath of fresh, sun-warmed air. It makes fun of solar energy’s leftist hippie stigma in a way that's funny and relatable for, say, my dad. Or whoever else! These ads avoid the exhausting political rhetoric and instead treat renewable energy like any other old industry, which can have nothing but positive effects at this point. Turning green energy into a political debate fuzzes the big picture; environmental issues like this one deserve an apolitical, agenda-free discussion. People don’t need to wear hemp and attend drum circles to be part of a movement that secures the future of clean air, clean water, and healthy land. We can all be different and still work together.

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