feminism

Hello, gentle readers. The good people at Bitch have made a terrible and now, I fear, irrevocable mistake, having hired me to write for you for the next eight weeks. There is an upside, however. I’m going to be writing about the greatest thing in the whole world: literature!

So, welcome to this here series called Iconography. We’re going to look at the formation and celebration of feminist literary icons, both characters and creators.

Is Oprah's last season a gift to her viewers, or a gift to herself?

As 2010 draws to a close, it’s the time of year that nonprofits ask for donations. Bitch Media is no different; we need ongoing financial support. Usually, we would ask you to make a gift after telling you why you should support us. However, Bitch Media is lucky. We don’t need to tell you why Bitch is important because we can let our supporters tell their own stories. This week, Allison Sneider, a member of the Bitch Media Board of Directors and author of Suffragists in an Imperial Age: US Expansion and the Woman Question, 1870-1929 explains why she ♥s Bitch.

The first time I came across Bitch, I was looking through magazines in the supermarket. I flipped through it and thought, "This is coming home with me!" As an academic teaching women’s history, I am involved in many conversations about feminism. But outside the academy, these conversations seem to disappear. I love that Bitch Media, through the magazine, library, blogs, podcasts, forums and more, brings this conversation outside the walls of academia and to a diverse and growing community. Bitch is a conversation worth having.

As 2010 draws to a close, it’s the time of year that nonprofits ask for donations. Bitch Media is no different; we need ongoing financial support. Usually, we would ask you to make a gift after telling you why you should support us. However, Bitch Media is lucky. We don’t need to tell you why Bitch is important because we can let our supporters tell their own stories. This week, Bitch supporter/subscriber/active community member TheBadassMuppet explains why she ♥s Bitch.

When my first-year college professor recommended Bitch magazine in 2004, I was skeptical. While the colloquial definition of "bitch" can be vague, it was a word which had been used to deflate me a number of times, by everyone from conservative family members to online creeps whose comments I had left unanswered. Still, the magazine attracted me. After all, I considered myself a feminist – the word reminded me of Dorothy Allison, characters played by Julia Stiles, and my ten-year-old indignation at a tennis instructor assuming I couldn’t play—but I hadn’t known feminist forums still existed, let alone an ongoing feminist publication.

Does it ever.

Creating art is walking through a minefield, especially in a society like this one that doesn't really do much to support said art. And since many of us critics are also creators, we know that we don't want to discourage creation, we want to make it better.

But.

Ari Up is dead.

That just seems wrong to type. She should've been too badass to die. She was, really.

The U.S. presidential election in 2008 generated a turnout of voters not seen since the late 1960s. More than 63 percent of the eligible electorate cast votes for President, amounting to more than 128 million votes. If these 2010 midterm elections follow historical precedent, there will be 10-15 percent fewer voters at the polls than in the presidental election two years ago. That would still bring out more than 100 million people. That there is interest in this election—in which Republicans are looking to take back the Senate and at least make a dent in the Democrats' hold on the House—is an understatement. There are also gubernatorial elections in 37 states up for grabs next month. At the Federal and State levels, the electoral map could look very different on November 3. But let's back up for a moment and ask a simple-sounding question: Does any of this matter?

The time has come, gentle readers, to say farewell, because every good contract must draw to an end, and this is the end of mine. I have really appreciated the opportunity to interact with all of you over the last two months, and I think we've had some excellent, if sometimes contentious, discussions.

It's clear that a lot of readers started thinking in new ways, and I appreciate everyone who took the time to read, comment, email, link, discuss offsite, or do all of the above. My goal with this series was to challenge dominant narratives in pop culture discourse and feminism, and I'd like to think that as each of you settles down in the next few weeks, months, years, to listen to a new album, crack open a freshly released book, watch a television pilot, this series will trickle through to you. You'll think not just about the depiction of women, but other issues, like race, fat, disability, class, sexual orientation, transgender identities.

So I was riding in the car yesterday, fiddling with the radio dial, when I was blindsided by a gigantic bag of douchiness, masquerading itself in radio EP form. Coming through the speakers in my friend's Kia were these words (poorly sung, I might add):

Shush, girl! Shut your lips!/ Do the Helen Keller, and talk with your hips!

I'm sorry, what? Do the HELEN KELLER? Because the ideal woman is unable to hear, see, or speak and can only communicate through hip gyrations? Once I recovered from the severe case of douchelash these lyrics brought upon me, I was able to do a bit of investigative research. The song is called "Don't Trust Me," and the offenders performers are the Colorado-based duo 3oh!3. Apparently, this single and its creators are sweeping the nation this summer, delivering a message of doucherty and douchetice for all. Peep the video for further evidence of this:



More decency-defying douchebaggery after the jump!