femininity

Well, this has been another week.

• Misogyny is still kickin', but Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency is kickin' right back. With over $100k to fund her project, she is pretty much unstoppable. Kate or Die! and Catiemonster sum it up in some awesome comics. [Feminist Frequency/Geek Feminism]
• More in misogyny and gaming, the creators of the popular videogame, Tomb Raider seem to think that watching Lara Croft experience sexual assault makes the character more "likeable," and that it makes game players want to "protect her." Wait, what? Because clearly, misogynists are having trouble feeling self-righteous or heroic. Or whatever. [Salon]
• Radical, feminist, nuns? Certainly not what I had in high school. These super sisters will be setting off on bus tour to promote and support Obama's Affordable Care Act and its no co-pay contraception mandate. [Ms. Blog]
• ABC Family's Bunheads (because clearly, we need more shows made by white people about white people, right? RIGHT?) received some criticism from Shonda Rhimes for its lack of diversity. What else is new? Here's what's wrong and how/why we could do better. [XO Jane]
• Remember the giant mess around whether or not Caster Semenya should be able to compete in the Olympics or not? Well, the Olympics are still obsessed with policing femininity, masking their obsession by saying this is just about hormone levels, and the "truth" of the binary. Stop that. [Feministing]
• Read up on some super great insight on feminine standards, privileged notions of seeing, and smashing normative ideals of femme. [Femmetech]
• And more on experiencing the world as a femme/femme of color! Militant resistance of weakness and coming to new understandings of femininity! [Elixher]
• Are you in the New York Metropolitan area? End Stop and Frisk, a silent march to protest racial profiling, is happening this Sunday, June 17th, in New York City, and you should go. [Feministing]
• Coverage of the Jerry Sandusky case(s), sugarcoated sexual assault, and rape apologists abound. [Shakesville]
• Professor Maria Cotera has an exciting and very ambitious plan to build an online Chicana feminist archive, Chicana por mi raza. One step closer to filling in the gaps of social movement history. [The Clayman Institute for Gender Research]
• San Francisco's Castro Theatre hosted the Asian Pacific American Vagina Monologues last month. Why didn't anyone tell me about this sooner? Will they do this again?? Because they totally should. Visibility, y'all. Then maybe we'll have less people pretending they're Asian (*cough* Dita Von Teese *cough*). Asians are real, did you know? Check out this awesome conversation with the show's executive producer Julia Rhee! [Hyphen]

What have you been reading, musing, raging, or raving about? Share your thoughts in the comments!

In May, Religion Dispatches published my first interview with former darling of the Christian contemporary music scene, lesbian singer-songwriter Jennifer Knapp. Then over the summer, I got to meet and interview Knapp in person while covering the Wild Goose Festival, an event that celebrated (predominantly Christian) spirituality, justice, and art. We talked a bit about the limitations of Christian music, feminism and sexuality on the same day she filmed the "It Gets Better" video below. I'll be critiquing some evangelical Christian music later in the series, so I'm very excited to share unpublished parts of our interview with you here today: 

Happy All Hallow's Eve Eve! Here is a video from The Onion to get you in the spirit. Warning: It paints a pretty stereotypical portrait of "effeminate" boys, but more than that it parodies parents' fear that their sons aren't (gasp!) manly enough:


How To Find A Masculine Halloween Costume For Your Effeminate Son

Today I'd like to introduce you to one of my favorite feminists in academia: (*drum roll*) Dr. Sandra Ruth Lipsitz Bem.

Bem's wisdom on  the subjects of masculinity, femininity, androgyny and feminist child rearing after the jump.