Blog Roundup

Having trouble getting through your Friday? Take a break and check out what we've been reading web-side this week.

• Meryl Streep was one of millions of disappointed women to hear that two Republican senators are holding up approval of a National Women's History Museum in Washington, D.C. because they think there will be a pro-choice slant to exhibits there. Jezebel is covering the story, and NYT columnist Gail Collins logged her support early this week as well.
• Colorlines has launched a powerful campaign to Drop the I-Word. Join the fight against oppressive, hate-feeding language here.
• The Nation posted several feminist articles on their site this week: An extensive piece on women in the Republican party; one on women in the Democratic party; and a piece by Feministing's Jessica Valenti on the commandeering of the word "feminist" in right-wing politcs lately.
• The United Nations this week sent an official to the Democratic Republic of the Congo to investigate the huge numbers of civilians raped over a period of three days this summer by various armed rebel groups.
• U.S. Census data was released this week, showing, among other things, that the marriage rate is at its lowest point in 150 years of data-gathering. Brangelina-esque protest, perhaps?
• RIP Sally Menke, Oscar-nominated film editor who edited Quentin Tarantino's best-known films.
• And finally, it's Banned Books Week, as Ashley pointed out on Sunday. Check here for events in your area!

What caught your eye this week? Tell us in the comments!

Covert missive from Bitch HQ, bringing you the best and brightest from our travels on the interwebs this week.

We're back again with another edition of On Our Radar—bringing you some of the most interesting things we read this week!

• With the celebration of the 90th anniversary of women's suffrage in the United States in full swing this week, Womanist Musings' Renee Martin reminds us that not all women gained the right and access to vote in 1920.

• Following lesbian cadet Katherine Miller's resignation from West Point due to her sexual orientation, Corey Kilgannon investigates the underground gay culture at the military academy for the New York Times.

• On Jezebel, Dodai Stewart tallied up the number of black models in the September issues of fashion magazines.

• Check out all the great posts in the "This is What a Young Feminist Looks Like" blog carnival!

• All kinds of messed up: Sociological Images' Lisa Wade highlights an NPR report on a scale of evil developed by a forensic psychologist. The graphic used to explain this scale eerily matches the range of human skin color, with the darker the color being the worse the psychopath. WTF.

• After Sally was caught masturbating on Mad Men this week, Feministe Guest Blogger Monica looks at the assumption that she must have been sexually abused.

• On Racialicious, Bitch contributor Andrea Plaid writes on Montana Fishburne, the daughter of famed actor Laurence and a sex worker.

• Carrie Polansky focuses on the popular discoursse surrounding disability and sexuality on Gender Across Borders.

• Via PostBourgie: Loryn Wilson takes a closer look at internet meme Antoine Dodson.

• Minh-Ha T. Pham hashes out the beauty in "eco-disaster chic" on Threadbared.

• ADI makes the case for net neutrality as a feminist issue on Women's Glib.

• Dennis Baron discovers the long history of the use of "ms." on, well, the Ms. Magazine blog!

Find something that piqued your interest this week? Leave it in the comments section!

It's time again! We're rounding up some of the most interesting things we read this week in another edition of On Our Radar!

• Muslimah Media Watch's Ayaan Hassan introduces us to the latest character from the Marvel Comics Universe: Faiza Hussain, a British Muslim super heroine!

• SKM ponders why Google didn't have a doodle to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the 19th Ammendment on Shakesville.

• One for the bookmarks: our fabulous TelevIsm blogger RMJ offers a great primer on cis, cissupremacy, and cissexism on Deeply Problematic.

• The title says it all: Sandip Roy writes on "Why 'Eat, Pray, Love' Makes Me Want to Gag" on Alternet.

• Gwen Sharp uses a karate studio's rejected advertisement featuring the gender policing of a young boy as a springboard to discuss the murky world of "unofficial/unreleased ad campaigns" on Sociological Images.

• Gebe Martinez, Ann Garcia, and Jessica Arons look at the "birthright citizenship debate" as a "thinly veiled attack on immigrant mohers" at the Center for American Progress. Take a look at Michelle Chen's piece on Colorlines for more about the debate.

• Amy Larocca profiles figure skater Johnny Weir for New York Magazine.

• Spoiler Alert: Carrie Polansky reviews the gender politics of the new film Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on Gender Across Borders.

Find something that piqued your interest this week? Leave it in the comments section!

We're back again! We're rounding up some of the most interesting things we read this week on another edition of On Our Radar.

• On Salon, Tracy Clark-Flory highlights the Menstruation Machine, an art project designed by Japanese artist Hiromi Ozaki. The machine is "fitted with a blood dispensing mechanism and lower-abdomen-stimulating electrodes" to mimic the effects of menstruation. Woah.

• Lisa Factora-Borchers responds to Greta Christina's recent Alternet piece, Five Things Society Unfarily Expects of Men on Ecdysis.

• On Transgriot, Monica Roberts compares the fate of flight attendant/folk hero Steven Slater to a flight attendant that made headlines in 2008. Brown, a black woman, "was according to her attorney thrown against a first class lavatory door and elbowed in her breast" by Victoria Osteen, co-paster of Texas-based evangelical megachurch Lakewood Church.

• I, for one, am pretty bummed about Cathy ending. Alan Gardner interviews the creator of the comic strip, Cathy Guisewite, on The Daily Cartoonist.

• Ralph Blumenthal investigates the disturbing rise in untested rape kits for the September issue of Marie Claire. The story is available online here.

• Lesley Kinzel dissects Nikki Blonsky's recent announcement of a scholarship in her name to "'the longest running' fat camp in the US" and obligatory the blow-up on the Huge Facebook page on Fatshionista.

• After years of speculation surrounding her sexual orientation, photographs of Queen Latifah embracing her personal trainer and purported partner surfaced this weekend. On Colorlines, Jamilah King writes on why we shouldn't force her to come out publicly.

• On Threadbared, Minh-Ha T. Pham interviews Thuy Linh N. Tu, the author of The Beautiful Generation: Asian Americans and the Cultural Economy of Fashion.

• Sociological Images' Gwen Sharp looks at the curious history of Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.

• Holly Ord delves into the mixed representations of Jessica Simpson in popular culture on Women's Eye on Media.

Find something that piqued your interest this week? Leave it in the comments section!

What a week! Sara Kantner and I rounded up some of the most interesting things we read in another installment of On Our Radar! Click through for thorough round-up.

The week has come to a close, which only means one thing: it's time for another installment of On Our Radar! We're rounding up some of the most interesting things we read this week.

• Canadian Teen Melodrama Degrassi: The Next Generation is adding a trans character to the cast. Jos Truitt of Feministing is optimistic for the potential of a "good learning opportunity".

• On Colorlines, Julianne Hing writes on the stunningly ignorant makeup collaboration between MAC Cosmetics and high-fashion line Rodarte. The collection, inspired by the "etheral nature" of Juarez, Mexico, the world's deadliest city and a free-trade zone. Hing also includes the apology issued by both MAC and Rodarte, which promises to donate a portion of the proceeds to charity.

• On the Ms. blog, Kim Voss stresses that the women's pages of 1950's and 1960's weren't just about fashion and homemaking- they often included progressive political and social issues that other newspaper sections never touched.

• On Womanist Musings, Renee Martin takes a look at TLC'S child beauty pageant documentary series Toddlers & Tiaras exemplifies the "Euro-Centric standard of beauty" and its effect on girls of color.

• In response to Lorraine Ali's recent New York Times piece "Behind the Veil", Janan Delgado readdresses the myths surrounding why Muslim women choose to wear the veil on Gender Across Borders (crossposted on Racialicious).

• Via Shakesville: Fannie's room takes on the hypocrisy of 'naturally' manly-men as ideal.

• On Jezebel, Noorain Khan offers a "Complete Gudies to Bad Burqa Puns".

• NPR collected over 700 responses from women musicians about their experiences for their project, "Hey Ladies: Being a Woman in Music Today". You can read the "unedited and uncensored" comments here.

• On Wendesday, a federal judge decided that cheerleading isn't a sport. On Broadsheet, Mary Elizabeth Williams ponders why.

• Lisa Wade looks at the reasons behind the relative diversity of commercial fashion models versus the lack of diversity among high fashion models on Sociological Images.

• In the Fall, Fox will release the banned Family Guy "abortion episode" on DVD.

• 13-Year-Old fashion blogger Tavi Gevinson pens an open letter to Seventeen Magazine on its latest issue's headline, "The Party Drug that Can Make You Fat & Ugly."

• Finally, we'd like to express our (belated) gratitude to Jamie Keiles for including Bitch on her list of "teen-friendly media" on the Seventeen Magazine Project!

Find something that piqued your interest this week? Leave it in the comments section!

It's that time again! What time, you ask?! Why time to round up some of the most interesting things we read this week, of course!

• Renee Martin opines on the racist and classist implications of 'foodie' culture on her great new blog with Holly Ord, Women's Eye on the Media.
• Sara Haji of Muslimah Media Watch writes an open letter to Maureen Dowd about her orientalist trope "A Girls Guide to Saudi Arabia," appearing in the August issue of Vanity Fair.
• In other Wow-Those-New-York-Times-Writers-Sure-Are-Douche-Bags news, Lisa Harvey of Questioning Transphobia takes on The Ethicist's Randy Cohen's supposition that trans folks must out themselves on dates.
• Just in case you can't get enough of those New York Times writers' douchebaggery, Melissa McEwan takes down David Brooks and his "fundamental misunderstanding of human dignity" on Shakesville.
• But enough of the New York Times hate: do take the time and read Emily Bazelon's piece on the future of abortion care in the New York Times Magazine—it's long, but it's worth it.
• On Feministe, Aminatou Sow expands on Naomi Wolf's excellent piece on sweatshop labor and the rise of "fast fashion".
• Writing on the series finale of MTV's psuedo-reality TV series The Hills, Chadwick Matlin makes the case that former cast member Lauren Conrad "has quietly become our country’s most famous advocate for media literacy." Conrad's two thinly-veiled novels expose the extent to which the "reality" on the show is actually, well, real.
• Just in case you weren't so sure: on Anna North let's us know that "relentless stalking is not romantic" on Jezebel.
• On Broadsheet, Tracy Clark-Flory writes on the French businessman who has pledged €1 million for the proposed fine against women wearing burkas. The ban is expected to pass in September against the estimated 1,900 in France that wear Burkas.
• Jos Truitt of Feministing reviews last week's Friday Night Lights episode, the first time television has dealt with abortion since the 1970's.
• On Sociological Images, Lisa Wade highlights a series by photographers justine Graham and Ruby Rumié of images of maids and their employers.

Find something that piqued your interest this week? Leave it in the comments section!