gender norms

Way back when I was but a young feminist in a WGS 101 class, my professor asked the class to describe our Thanksgiving traditions as a way of further explaining the notion of gender norms. As more and more students told tales of men sitting on the couch watching television while women basted turkeys and mashed potatoes, light bulbs turned on around the room. Aha! Gender norms! Men and women are both expected to play certain roles, even during such great American holidays as Thanksgiving!

Holidays can bring out the best and worst in all of us (especially when you've got an uncle that likes to play "bartender" by pouring shots for everyone the way I do). So what are your Thanksgiving traditions? How do you negotiate gender norms when you get together with your friends and families in the kitchen? What about the racism inherent in Thanksgiving? What are you going to cook/eat this year? Oh, and do you remember THIS?



Read on for more Thanksgiving!

Blogger "Whiskey" has an article up on men's culture site The Spearhead" today called "The Feminization of Science Fiction (and Fantasy)". The gist of the piece is that (imagine this being said in a little-boy-pouty-voice) girls are coming in ruining science fiction and fantasy for boys with their stupid emotions and even stupider buying power! No fair!

Artist's rendering of "Whiskey" and a sci-fi friend

Hold on to your hats feminizts, because I Can Has Feminizm? is back! I may have let a few LOLz haters get in the way of my providing animal-and-feminism-based laughs these past few weeks, but no more! LOLz are back by popular demand and the first one this weekend comes to us from a Bitch reader and her, well, bitch. Check it out:



How cute! And it's nice to see that the Consumed Issue is a hit with the canine set.

Our next kitteh is responding to the Grrrl on Film post from earlier this week about Disney's purchase of Marvel comics and what that might mean for girls who are hoping for a woman superhero to make it to the big screen one of these days:



We're right there with you, cat friend! Do you think she's got her paws crossed for a silver screen adaptation of Kitty Pryde or what?

And just in case you forgot that gender norms can affect our animal friends as well as us humans:



Srsly, look at that girl forcing her cat to wear a pink apron! It's like The Feminine Mystique was never even published or something.

Have a good weekend everyone, and enjoy the LOLz! Don't forget that you can make your own feminizt LOLz by visiting the I Can Has Cheezburger? LOLbuilder and sending your creations to us here.

The "Walk A Mile In Her Shoes" campaign urges men to walk a mile in high-heeled shoes in order to end domestic violence against women, but are their efforts doing more harm than good? Weigh in after the jump.