body acceptance

Welcome back to Pop Pedestal, where we take time to pay tribute to our favorite characters in pop culture. This week I'm choosing to celebrate the rose-growing, unicorn-loving, sharpshooting only child of the titular clan in King of the Hill, Bobby Hill.

Highlights from this week on the web.

• The Root recognizes 15 years of the WNBA. Here's to tall women!
• Despite the endurance and growth of women's professional sports, Feministing reports on Wimbledon's contest to choose the best looking female player. One ace forward, two unforced errors back.
• xoJane endorses the My Body Gallery. What do you think of this body acceptance project?
• Philadelphia Weekly reports on Broad Street Review editor and Douchebag Decree nominee Dan Rottenberg's recent opinion article blaming CBS correspondent Lara Logan for her sexual assault in Egypt.
• Did you know that Geraldo Rivera called Casey Anthony a slut on Fox News last month? Mediaite asks why did he get away with it?
• Tiger Beatdown's Flavia Dzodan exposes Tumblr as the "White, kyriarchical, status-quo upholding, oppressive medium" that it is. In other news, my addiction to Beyoncé-themed Tumblrs continues to grow unchecked.
• At Jezebel Irin Carmon explores what effect the Wal-Mart case will have on female Costco employees' own class action suit. For some context, check out EvMaroon's Political InQueery from earlier this week.
• SPARK discusses new research on the sexualization of girls. Soon after Jezebel reports on the AMA's new stance on Photoshop in advertising.
• Thirteen's Riff City wonders Where Are the Lady Rappers? at this year's BET Awards.
• The Daily Beast asks whether or not Bristol Palin's account of losing her virginity in her new memoir constitutes date rape. What do you think?
• Calling all writers, Professor Jessie Daniels is looking for essays for "Aint I a Woman: Race, Feminism, and Social Media."
• We're really bummed we're not at the Allied Media Conference in Detroit right now! You can keep up with the goings-on by checking out their LiveStream, following the #AMC2011 hashtag on Twitter, or by browsing their conference guide for more online interaction.

And you? What are your reactions? What have you been reading?

On Saturday night, my partner and I were walking out of a local grocer when he decided to buy one of the newspapers being sold by the homeless couple on the corner. I was holding our grocery bag as Andreas paid for the paper, and as the woman handed it to him, she asked him something, then reached over and patted my stomach before he steered me away. I chuckled as we turned towards home. "Why did she poke me? That was funny," I said, because I hadn't caught what they said and didn't understand what I did hear. He looked at me, stricken, and began to shake his head. Then it hit me. She wanted to know when I'm due.

The Dallas Cheerleaders they're not, but the Queertastics are using radical cheerleading to spread their message of body acceptance and good times both in and out of the queer community. Danny Hayes spoke with Deacon and August in Austin TX (the Queertastics' hometown!) at Gay Bi Gay Gay this spring. Download here

Upon completion of Wetlands by Charlotte Roche, two major questions remain unanswered for me. First, what is it exactly about this book that made it the first German-language book to ever become the number-one Amazon.com bestseller, worldwide? And second: What in the name of Mary Wollestonecraft does a one-joke grossout book have to do with feminism?

Kate Harding over at Shapely Prose (http://kateharding.net/2008/12/09/dear-oprah/) has a fabulous response to Oprah and her latest efforts at losing weight (http://www.omagazine.info/).