Bitch Blogs

BitchTapes: Only The Good Die Young Edition

Ashley Brittner — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:53:29 -0400

Happy 4th of July weekend! We know that a large portion of this great country is in tune with pop culture in one way or another. And music is a large part of that culture. We also know that last week, the King of Pop died, which has brought things to somewhat of a halt, so to speak. It is safe to say that almost every person in America has contemplated the death of Michael Jackson over the last week. The reactions have been anywhere from grief to apathy to supposed suicide pacts between some of his hardcore fans. Undoubtedly, Jackson's influence was huge, and speculation about what his life was really like into every nitty gritty sordid detail will surely unfold in the coming months. I heard someone say no one this influential in America, hell worldwide, has died since Elvis. And sure, it was too soon. Historically, there are hundreds of musicians that have died before their time, due to things like murder, eating disorders, suicide. So in paying homage to America and some of its ever honored musicians, I've made a mix of songs from artists who died young. Some whose deaths made just as much of an impact on us as their lives.

Patsy Cline, "Walkin' After Midnight"- Patsy Cline is classic. Most of her songs are about heartbreak, a topic that fits so wonderfully with her sweet-but-bold voice. Patsy has been called the most influential woman in country music, which in incredible since her heyday was the late 1950s to early 1960s. She also successfully crossed over into the pop music arena, which was unheard of for country stars at the time, let alone a female country singer. She died in a plane crash at the height of her career. Loretta Lynn, k.d. lang and Linda Ronstadt mark her as influential on their music.

Janis Joplin, "Me and Bobby McGee"- In this time of fiscal turmoil, a more relevant Joplin song might have been "Mercedes Benz", what with its social commentary on consumerism and status garnered because of how much one has, but "Me and Bobby McGee" is my favorite song of hers, even though it was a Kris Kristofferson cover. Janis is always lumped together with a few other musicians who died at 27; Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Jim Morrison. Her death was likely due to a heroin overdose. She was so unique, in her musicianship and in general, and said, "I'm full of emotion and I want a release". Stevie Nicks, Ann Wilson and Nancy Wilson mark her as influential on their music.

The Carpenters, "Superstar"- Karen Carpenter was the drummer/singer in The Carpenters, a band she formed with her brother Richard in the '70s. Karen thrived as a drummer, but became a singer due to pressures from label execs. As her band got bigger, she developed anorexia, which eventually contributed to her death in 1983. Officially, it was heart failure due to anorexia, and Karen's death undoubtedly brought attention to the gravity of that disease. She was well loved and had a beautiful voice, displayed here on "Superstar", and though she was surely not the first to fall victim to pressures of thinness, at the time she was arguably the most visible. Sheryl Crow, Sonic Youth and The Cranberries mark her as influential on their music.

Billie Holiday, "Them There Eyes"- Billie Holiday's story had its tawdry details, but her unmistakable talent is really all I remember her for. She died of heart and liver failure, perhaps due to drug use. Fiona Apple, Etta James and Robert Smith mark her as influential on their music.

Queen, "Killer Queen"- Queen were versatile, epic and big in sound and persona, and while they were not from America, they were a universally loved band. Their infamous frontman, Freddie Mercury, died in 1991 of bronchial pneumonia due to AIDS. Everyone from Iron Maiden to The Killers mark Queen as influential on their music.

TLC, "What About Your Friends"- TLC were so fly. Their day glo backwards hats and condom eye patches were the jam in the early '90s. They were the first all-girl group to be awarded diamond certification for record sales of their best success, CrazySexyCool. In 2002, amidst inner-group feuding, Lisa "Left-Eye" Lopes died in a car accident in Honduras. In 2005, the remaining members of TLC, Tionne "T-Boz" Watkins and Rozanda "Chilli" Thomas stared in a reality show R U The girl searching for someone to replace Lopes in TLC. It was weird. Kelis and Destiny's Chlid mark TLC as influential on their music.

Ritchie Valens, "La Bamba"- Ritchie Valens has been called "the first Hispanic rock star". He died at age 17 in a plane crash along with Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. I had to include this song because I knew who Ritchie Valens was before I knew about Elvis, because my grandmother, who was from Puerto Rico, listened to him. Also because her sister, my aunt, sings this song at karaoke, and probably would to this day.

Michael Jackson, "Wanna Be Starin' Somethin'"- I can't say anything that hasn't already been said or will be said millions of times. This is one of my favorite MJ songs.

Science Says: "Yay for Vibrators!"

Sarah Mirk — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:24:25 -0400

Well it's about damn time! Though physicians and therapists (not just Dan Savage, we're talking mainstream doctors) have been known for decades that vibrator use be great for sexual health and help women have orgasms, there's never been a scientific study to back up the common knowledge. Until now!

Trojan funded a national research project to determine the extent and impact of vibrator use and la-di-da, look what they found: not only do a majority of American women use vibrators, they're happier for it!

According to the surveys of 2,056 women and 1,047 men ages 18-60, a whopping 53 percent of women (and 45 percent of men) say they use a vibrator - a quarter of those in the last month. Women who use vibrators were more likely to say they were sexually happy and more likely to get gynecological exams.

"Vibrator use is common, it's linked to positive sexual function such as desire and ease of orgasm, and it's rarely associated with any side effects," said Debby Herbenick, associate director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion, on Science Daily. The study was originally printed in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

The New York Times picked up the study for a great, long article about the mainstreaming of vibrators and sex toys in general. Even Fox News wound up reporting vibrators' benefits despite a skeptical headline and laughable lede ("a new survey that sheds light on acts that take place beneath the covers and behind closed doors" ... oooo! ominous mainstream sex acts!). Studies like might help improve media coverage of Americans' sexual activity -- Hell, these days even squeaky clean Barbara Walters is making vibrator jokes.

So on this weekend celebrating independence and freedom of thought, take a few private moments to celebrate a what is now known to be a true American tradition: ye olde friendly vibrator.

Feminism and Caregiving

Veronica I. Arreola — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 13:43:10 -0400

Feminism 2.0 is holding a caregiving blog carnival July 13th:

Fem2.0 Blog Carnival: For Women, the Other Side of Work Is NOT Play… It’s Caregiving

Women take care of children, spouses, parents, family members, friends. We dominate the caregiving professions, like nursing or social work. Ask anyone receiving care of any kind and he or she will most likely tell you that the primary caregiver is a woman.

Caregiving is a job for which women usually don’t get or expect monetary compensation. It is a critical aspect of work/life and healthcare issues. How can caregiving be made easier to make our lives easier?

While feminism has worked hard to break caregiving of being a women-centric job, we still do most of the caregiving in the USA and most likely around the world. Yes, men are doing more, but it's still not at 50/50.

In my opinion, caregiving was women's work a generation ago. It wasn't always compensated to its fullest extent, if at all. Today I think that caregiving is given the shaft partially because it is women's work and partially because I think that women believe we can do better. Yes, I think we are being snobbish to each other - intentionally or not. Think about the last time a young woman told you she was in nursing school. Did you think, "Why you're smart enough to be a doctor!"

How can we reclaim pride in our caregiving work and command the respect it deserves? Is it feminist to be a caregiver? Is caregiving inherently a feminist service? I think it is. I do think that this thing we call sisterhood is all about us trying to care for each other. Whether it is by being there for our girlfriend or getting just as pissed off for the girl next door who isn't allowed to embrace her intellect as we would be for the girl on the other side of the world.

Transformers 2: Offensive Archetypes in Disguise

Kjerstin Johnson — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:22:12 -0400

Internet buzz about Michael Bay's (director of landmark crap-tion films like Armageddon, Pearl Harbor, The Island) latest film Transformers 2 has mostly centered around who has the most scathing review, how hot Megan Fox is, and a few murmurs concerning coded racism in two of the robots.

The rumors are true: twins Mudflap and Skids are Stepin Fetchits. They constantly fight, they talk in ebonics, and exist only for "comedic" effect. Just visually comparing the two, the Twins are complete messes compared to the other "good" robots.

versus...

(That’s Optimus Prime, alpha male of the universe. Autobots want to be him, Deceptacons want to....kill him--stop me if my plot synopsis is getting too dicey. When not in robot form, he's is a hulking, diesel-guzzling eighteen wheeler--no wonder he’s such close buds with the US Army!)

Michael Bay’s response to the criticism is flip, saying,"We're just putting more personality in. I don't know if it's stereotypes — they are robots, by the way." In the same AP article, Allyson Nadia Field of UCLA explains how robots, or crows, or aliens, can actually be stereotypes: "There's a persistent dehumanization of African-Americans throughout Hollywood that displaces issues of race onto non-human entities. It's not about skin color or robot color. It's about how their actions and language are coded racially."

Eh. Says Bay, "Listen, you're going to have your naysayers on anything. It's like is everything going to be melba toast? It takes all forms and shapes and sizes.” Yep. All forms and shapes and sizes and stereotypes.

For just a brief glimpse of these characters, fast forward to :25 of this preview:

And believe it or not, the twins aren't the only racially problematic issues of the movie. The opening scene is a textbook definition of the Native Other. Conflating all brown people, a nameless, mute, half-clothed and body-painted tribe hunts…a tiger….in the desert (and if I followed the idiotic plot throughout the movie--not easy!--I think that desert is supposed to be in Egypt. You know, Egypt! Land of tigers and aborigines). In one shot, a hunter opens his mouth and yells something. It's done in slow motion and emphasizes the baring of his teeth, and it seemed like a very purposeful way of dehumanizing him. Then there's the citizens of Jordan and Egypt who are rendered invisible, speechless, and militarily-impotent (Jordanian soldiers fly in to assist the US against the robots--yes I watched the movie this long--but end up crashing.)

Apparently the sequel has brought in more women than the original movie as well, but not for its strong female roles. Transformers is soaked in the male gaze, from when the dad of Shia LeBoef’s character Sam asks his college-bound son “How long are you gonna be riding that scooter?” which cuts to Megan Fox bent over, ass up on a motorcycle in the shop she works at, to the multiple slow-motion shots of the heroine panting through the desert in a tank top.

The other notable female in the movie, Isabel Lucas, plays a mysterious vixen that Sam meets when he arrives at college (a school so idealized Asher Roth probably has wet dreams over it). At first I was rolling my eyes at another stereotype: Lucas plays the whore to Megan Fox's Madonna, the sex-crazed slut who'll stop at nothing to seduce our hero (doesn’t she know he is in a committed relationship?!), when in the middle of sex scene she totally transforms into this creepy, violent Deceptacon (that’s an evil Transformer, btw) and then she tries to kill him with this spiky chain thing that comes out of her butt! For a second I was going to argue that by using sex as a means to get what you want can be subversive and empowering but then I remembered I was watching Transformers 2 and that Lucas' character (and all the accompanying crotch shots) are not, in the least, revolutionary. (It was still kinda cool when she tried to kill him with the butt chain).

Heartbreaker in disguise!

The third (and final female character to have more than one line) is LeBoeuf’s mother, another atrocious caricature--a hysterical, submissive wife and mother who is subjected to way too many embarrassing lines to address here.

The US military plays a big role in the film—they save the world (by destroying Shanghai, a small Egyptian town, and the Great Pyramids), and are besties with the Autobots (those are the good Transformers!). But despite their strong presence throughout the movie, I counted two women in intelligence or military positions--both shown for a hot second, both white. Two seems to be the magic gender quota in robo-world too, as the only other female robot I spotted besides the sexy co-ed fembot was a motorcycle who briefly appears here and there (I was kinda hoping for a while that the Transformers lived in a gender utopia without sexism). How did I know it was a female Transformer? Well, it's pink, and because it's on the Internet:

Pink + Boobs = Girl

It shouldn’t shock anyone that Michael Bay's latest lacks a feminist perspective of film and society. It’s just troubling that it’s made SO MUCH MONEY.

I don’t have the latest numbers, but it pulled in $390.4 million worldwide in five days, breaking historical film records. From Variety:

Transformers 2 came within shouting distance of the best five-day gross of all time: $203.8 million for WB's The Dark Knight. Overseas, the action tentpole grossed $166.1 million as it opened day and date in virtually every territory (pic opened the weekend before in the U.K. and Japan). Official tally was ahead of the Sunday estimate of $162 million. Either way, Transformers 2 scored the second best international opening of all time, after Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($216.3 million), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($193 million) and Spider-Man 3 ($164.9 million).

There are a TON OF PEOPLE watching this crap! As a friend of mine put it, “Two percent of America saw Transformers this weekend.” And Michael Bay obviously sees money as the only indicator of success. His blog Michael Bay Dot Com is super defensive about critics, and he justifies it all with “it’s what the people want.”

The 400 critics around the globe spoke. Then fans around the world spoke.

Transformers made $60.6 million dollars in the United States for a total of around $100 million from the world on opening day! One of the biggest single days in movie history. Then [sic] never seem to understand that I make movies for people to take a ride and escape.

Michael "No one understands me" Bay

And from IMDB:

There are tons of people who hate me. They hate my movies and whatnot. But you know, hey, my films have made a lot of money around the world. 2-something billion dollars, that's a lot of tickets. They said that I wrecked cinema. They said that my, uh...cutting style. They say I cut too fast. And yet now you see it in movies everywhere. Do I take pride in people knowing my style? I think it's nice people know a director has a style. And you can reinvent yourself too.

Michael "They say I cut too fast" Bay

How will Michael Bay reinvent himself for the third Transformers picture? What coded stereotype will be featured next? Will he introduce a fourth female character or cut it down to two? Maybe 1.5? Which new city will the United States save by bombing to rubble? Has any other reasonable person even SEEN this movie?! Lemme know!

Nicht, Nicht: Bruno Ending Edited for Gay Bashing

Kelsey Wallace — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 18:56:21 -0400

Summertime means blockbuster movies. After all, what's better on a hot day than heading into an air-conditioned megaplex and watching larger-than-life actors live out unrealistic scenarios with even less realistic conclusions? But while summer blockbusters often bring with them cheesy dialogue and special effects, they shouldn't bring gay bashing. And now, thanks to some last minute editing of the ending of Bruno, they won't (we hope).

Bruno, the latest film by Sacha Baron Cohen (Borat, Da Ali G Show), is the story of a very openly gay Autstrian man who works in the fashion world. Though we are more than a week away from the film's July 11 release date, Bruno has already enjoyed quite a bit of media attention (and speculation) as to its portrayal of the gay community. The latest? The film's ending has been edited for gay bashing.

Here is the scoop from Movieline (SPOILER ALERT):

In the current cut of the film, Bruno (Cohen) and his ditched, lovesick assistant Lutz (Gustaf Hammerstan) reunite in the movie’s third act centerpiece: an Arkansas cage match where the two begin to make out inside the cage while an angry audience mob reacts with disbelief and, eventually, makeshift hurled weapons. In the film’s epilogue, the reconnected couple embrace domesticity with their adopted baby, and Bruno sings us into the credits with the help of an star-studded, satirical gay rights anthem.

However, when Baron Cohen and director Larry Charles screened the film back in February for a select industry audience, the result of that cage match wasn’t nearly as rosy.

Writer-director Richard Day (Arrested Development, Ellen) was among the industry figures at the screening. In that version, Day tells Movieline, “The cage-match kiss resulted in a violent attack on the couple. They then cut to a press event where they are announcing their marriage or plans to, I forget which. But the boyfriend is now drooling, seemingly brain-damaged, and in a wheelchair, played for laughs.”

Now, Bruno is a comedy, so it's somewhat understandable that something like a cage-match injury might get played up for laughs in this film. However, especially considering that this film is controversial already because of its (speculated) portrayal of gay life, it's also easy to see how Bruno's boyfriend ending up in a wheelchair because he was making out with a guy could be construed as gay bashing (because it sounds like it is gay bashing). And it's certainly not cool to frame hate crimes as being a laugh riot just because they take place in a comedic film.

The film isn't out yet, and so it's hard to know for sure whether or not the original ending portrayed gay bashing, or just bashing. According to The Hot Blog, the Lutz character is beat up because of his his employer, not his sexuality. However, the only two openly gay people at the screening of the original film interpreted the scene as gay bashing, and then the ending was changed, so it seems worth discussing at least.

To add to the discussion, here is a quote from the Movieline piece on the film's ending by Richard Day:

I don’t know if we’re why they changed it [the ending] but if we are, I regret saying anything. It would have been better to let them expose their true point of view; thanks to us they had a road map of the most egregious offenses and can also claim to have been responsive to our concerns.

Though Day's position is understandable, it seems that he should be glad if he was the one who convinced the film executives to change the ending. Assuming he is the reason for the change (he claims he was one of only two homosexuals at the original screening and that the two of them were the only people who had a problem with the original, wheelchair-bound conclusion) then his pointing out of the film's insensitivity to gay issues prevented an offensive ending from being viewed by millions of people. Hooray! Why would he want the executives to keep the offensive ending and "expose their true point of view" if he was in a position to change that point of view?

At any rate, the ending has been changed, though it's unfortunate that it took an outside audience member to point out that the original ending was inappropriate and upsetting. It doesn't take an uber-PC genius to figure out that gay bashing just isn't that funny. Does it?

Time(s) to Focus on Women in the Developing World

Mandy Van Deven — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:48:45 -0400

So, I'm reading the New York Times online yesterday and come across an op-ed piece by Nicholas D. Kristof about this "special issue" of the Sunday Magazine that will be released in August covering women in the developing world. And I immediately feel conflicted. On the one hand, I think its enormously exciting that the NYT is dedicating an entire issue to global women's issues. On the other, I'm skeptical of what that coverage may be since the Times hasn't been fairing well with feminists these days. Will the issue be more paternalism and neo-liberalism? Or will it feature a more indigenous, grassroots perspective to issues women face? The good news is that you can comment on Kristof's op-ed to tell the NYT what you'd like to see in the issue.

No doubt the art work will be amazing, and Kristof does say that two photographers were bankrolled to run around from country to country snappin' pictures to their hearts' content. (I am soooo green with envy!!) He also discloses that an excerpt from his and his wife Sheryl WuDunn's upcoming book, Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, will be featured, along with a mystery contest. In their book, the Pulitzer Prize winning couple argue "that the dominant moral challenge we face in the 21st century is to address gender inequality in the developing world, and that as a practical matter you can’t address poverty unless you empower women and girls." Not exactly a new idea, but it's one that hasn't entirely taken hold, and so is worth repeating.

I'm hesitantly excited to see what this issue may entail. Um, can a girl get a copy sent to India?

Photo credit: Yours Truly

Sisterhood Is...

Veronica I. Arreola — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:11:52 -0400

Friday night I attended an Indigo Girls concert at Ravina. Ravina is an outdoor concert arena but it is mostly lawn seating. People usually come bearing picnic baskets of cheese, wine and other snackables. It really is an experience. Friday night was pretty packed on the lawn as usual. People scout out their own spots and it's normally pretty hard to get back to the path if you are sitting too far in.

There were quite a good number of little girls attending with their moms. One such little girl was being lead, quickly, out of the lawn towards the path. We overhead the mom say loudly, "Come on, you can hold it. Squeeze! Squeeze!" Uh-oh...the potty run!

The mom was taking her daughter away from the best exit path, so one woman yelled out, "Over here!" A collective "whew" could be heard as the mom turned quickly and they were well on their way to the restrooms. "Sisterhood in action!" cried my friend.

I have no idea if the little girl made it, but I hope that the super long line parted ways for one of the littlest fans. Sisterhood indeed.

No Guts, No Glory? Wakker Dier Makes a Snuff Film in the Name of Animal Rights.

Kelsey Wallace — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:20:46 -0400

Animal rights activists aren't typically thought of as being misogynistic, violent perverts, but maybe they should be. Well, at least the geniuses over at Wakker Dier should be. Wakker Dier (which means "Animal Awake" in Dutch) launched a viral video campaign last week, complete with a countdown to the unveiling of this video (Warning: The following video contains graphic violence):

Q: Was that snuff film starring a fetish model supposed to make viewers sympathetic toward fish? A: Yes. WTF???

This Wakker Dier video is a massive fail on so many levels that it's hard to know where to begin. To simplify, let's break it down into three parts: misogyny, violence, and animal rights (doesn't that sound like the name of an emo band?).

Fail Part I: Misogyny

This viral campaign enlisted the sexiness of famous Dutch playmate and fetish model Ancilla Tilia. Even if we take away the horrific gutting (it would be nice if we could, wouldn't it?), the fact remains that this woman's body was used to get attention in a way that objectifies her. Not only does she perform a strip tease in the video itself, but apparently the campaign leading up to it used her as a kind of teaser, implying that something sexy would happen if people continued to visit the Wakker Dier website. Since Tilia is a fetish model, there is no doubt that the promise of kinkiness was a big draw for certain viewers, which is weird in itself, since we're talking about a campaign to raise awareness of fish-gutting practices, not the opening of a new sex club.

However, fetish models aside, the real shock in this video comes from the out-of-control gutting scene. While we're still talking about misogyny, a "promiscuous" (i.e., sexual) woman being murdered in front of an audience of pervs screams "woman hate" pretty loudly. Which brings us to...

Fail Part II: Violence

A WOMAN IS GUTTED ALIVE IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE IN THIS VIDEO. How much more violent does it get? And how on earth does this raise awareness or sympathy for the fish? Are we supposed to feel so upset by this woman's brutal murder that we somehow transfer those feelings to the local trout farm? It's upsetting, of course, but it doesn't have anything to do with fish. And even if it did have something to do with fish, it's not okay. Making light of violence against women in order to make a point about fishing practices is offensive no matter which way you gut it.

Yet another layer in this multi-tiered cake of offensiveness is that of the lighthearted tone of the video. "Don't strip alive" has a tongue-in-cheek quality to it that is completely inappropriate given the subject matter. And not only does it make the horrific nature of the live-action murder even less acceptable, it also takes away from the intended message of the campaign. If we're making light of the brutal death of a woman (although she is just a stripper, you guys) then we're also making light of the brutal death of a salmon, thus weakening the argument that fish need our sympathy.

This campaign is an extreme example, but it's certainly not the first time that an animal rights group has pushed the envelope when it comes to violence or sex in an attempt to encourage people to equate human suffering with animal suffering. (Mandy wrote a blog post on that topic here a few weeks ago.) Which brings us to...

Fail Part III: Animal Rights

How on earth does this video encourage awareness when it comes to animal rights? Though Wakker Dier counts this campaign as "highly successful" (more at AdRants) they seem to be basing that claim on the number of hits the video has gotten on YouTube. This is somewhat of a false sense of success, then, since the clips on YouTube only contain the striptease/gutting, and not the follow-up video from Wakker Dier's website that explains the connection between the video and the plight of the fish. So basically, people might be tuning in to see a little T & A, or some sensationalistic violence (or both), but they aren't tuning in to learn about animal rights.

So where does that leave us? Sure, this video is an offensive failure on many levels, but there is also the idea that it has sparked some debate about animal rights. Does that make it a success as well, then? Or can a video that makes light of a woman being brutally murdered in order to drum up sympathy for fish just a big piece of fail no matter what? And is it okay for animal rights groups (or other activists) to use sensationalist tactics to raise awareness, even when those tactics are unbelievably offensive and gross? Discuss.

Global Anti-Gun Effort is Disarming

Mandy Van Deven — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:00:55 -0400

I'm currently in Colbert, GA. The house I sit in as I write this post has over ten guns in it—some are hunting rifles and others are handguns—and both my mother and step-father keep a handgun in their possession at all times.... in Colbert, GA. The population here is 488.

I am not a fan of guns, but I've long since given up trying to convince my Southern working class family to part with their weapons. Hunting is simply a part of life around these parts; in fact, the freezer of this house is stuffed with venison that was procured with the aid of a bullet or two. In many ways, I respect hunters. As a vegetarian who is ethically opposed to eating meat largely because I don't support factory farming and the detrimental effects the industry has on the environment, I take some pride in knowing that my family—albeit, in their own way—doesn't support it either. Their five acres of land is a veritable farm with over thirty chickens, seven goats (and a couple more on the way), five dogs, three cats, and a quarter-horse. In the past they've been known to have a hog or two as well, though what is left of those hogs is in the freezer too.

My point is that when it comes to practical usage, though I don't like guns, I understand why some folks find them necessary. And I feel conflicted when I come across a statement like this: Women are three times more likely to die violently if there is a gun in the house. Or this: The greatest risk of gun violence to women around the world is not on the streets, or the battlefield, but in their own homes. Gun violence is a feminist issue.

During this year's Global Week of Action Against Gun Violence, 30 events took place from Argentina to India to Zambia that aim to "develop an international network of advocates for women’s rights, who are committed to producing social change and curbing armed domestic violence," particularly through taking "guns out of the hands of actual or potential abusers." In Kathmandu, Nepal, sixty-one cyclists made the Nepal TV news as they rode through the streets of the capital city delivering a memo to each political party that urged them to take steps to prevent domestic violence committed with guns. A group called Blue Veins in Pakistan also received substantial media attention from over twelve outlets by pasting posters (shown above) around the North West Frontier Province.

These two examples are just the tip of the iceberg. From a vigil in London to a meeting of religious leaders in Kenya to distributing leaflets to fathers in Colombia, we should celebrate the magnitude of this well-coordinated effort by and for women, and find ways to support this global project in our own neighborhoods and cities.

Maybe it's time I renewed my own effort to convince my family that having a handgun perpetually at one's fingertips isn't the same as having a rifle available for hunting deer. Change is a continual process, not a momentous event.

An Open Letter to Jenny Lewis

Malori Maloney — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 16:28:18 -0400

Dear Jenny,

We go way back. Back to the days when you and Blake were more than just band mates. Back to the days before "Portions for Foxes" was used in that episode of The O.C. when Marissa skipped school to drive to L.A. with her soon-to-be girlfriend Alex. Even before you sang with the Postal Service on Give Up. I've been there through it all and now I've just got to let you know that I'm really, really disappointed. You can probably guess why, but just in case you need to have you memory jogged, please watch (and listen) to this:

Ugh. Really Jenny? You thought your fans would be down with an awesome Rilo Kiley song being used in a Carl's Jr. ad? Come on.

Even though you never outright said it, I always thought of you as a feminist. You appear confident, tough and totally in charge of your sexuality. Even if you don't identify as a feminist, I thought you'd at least have the wherewithal to correctly identify Carl's Jr. as a socially unconscious corporation with despicable and offensive commercial advertisements and consequently respond accordingly when asked to license your song to them. Yes, I know you are not the sole decision maker in the band, but I'd be willing to bet you have quite a bit of leverage as the front woman and I'm pretty confident you could have vetoed the use of "Moneymaker" in the ad.

I hate to say it, but I think this event marks a significant turning point in our relationship. I didn't mind too much when you approved your music to be used on Grey's Anatomy, Weeds or even Nip/Tuck, but this time you've gone too far. You just jumped the shark, feministicly speaking.

Your former #1 fan,

Malori