There is an article by Linda Hirshman on Slate's women-centric XX Factor today entitled "Crazy Love, Crazy Choices" that deals with domestic violence. In it, Hirshman posits that present-day feminists are too easy on domestic violence victims because "the current love affair with understanding stops feminists from calling victims on taking responsibility for their own well-being."


I have to disagree.

Dear Eminem,

I have been struggling all morning trying to decide if your new video is worth blogging about. While I understand that you consider yourself to be a satirist from whose biting commentary no celebrity is safe, I personally find your methods of cultural critique to be boring, trite, and always misogynistic. For those readers who have not yet seen the video for your new song "We Made You," here it is:


Let's continue our discussion after the jump, shall we?

Why aren't the women doing better on the Sci Fi Network's new video-game competition reality series, WCG Ultimate Gamer? Gaming seems like something where women should be able to compete on fairly equal ground with men -- there's no real physical strength component to it; it's a fairly objective standard (numerical scores); and if a woman's interested in getting into it, there's no real historical barriers to entry. The show also seems to have gone out of its way to be gender-inclusive in the setup and in the editing -- so what's the deal? Is it sexism in the gaming industry, sexism in reality TV shows, or are women just not as comfortable in a purely competitive setting?