Naomi Wolf

Maude Lebowski called. She wants her vagina art back.

Lest you think nothing good could come of this essentialist (only women with vaginas who have orgasms that come from sexual partners can be creative or experience feminine joy), privileged (Wolf recounts looking out from her "little cottage upstate," contemplating her vadge next to a "cold iron wood stove," and she is getting paid to write a book about it), prescriptive (ladies, if you want a partner who treats your vagina right that person best be familiar with "the Goddess Array"), cringe-worthy (see: "yoni massage") tome, think again: Ariel Levy has written a smart and hilarious review and you should read it.

Writer and Douchebag Decree-recipient Naomi Wolf debated Jaclyn Friedman (executive director of Women, Action & the Media) about the sexual assault allegations against Julian Assange today on Democracy Now!. It's in two parts. Anna Overseas has provided a transcript of the first part.

TRIGGER WARNING: These conversations deal heavily with rape and consent and may be triggering (it was for Friedman).


There's a lot that goes on in this talk, but I wanted to link to the "Let's Talk About It" campaign Friedman (and some of our Twitter followers) have mentioned, which was started by Swedish women to talk about their own sexual assault experiences. If you're on Twitter, make sure to check out both the #talkaboutit and #Mooreandme campaigns still happening! (What's #Mooreandme? Read here and check Tigerbeatdown for updates). Click through for Part II!

I don’t have to tell you that this week has been a total Wikileaks shitshow. But would anyone have guessed that the honoree for Douchebag Decree: Wikileaks Edition would be famed power feminist Naomi Wolf?

Me neither. After all, plenty of media have taken the low road in theorizing about the convenient timing of Interpol’s arrest warrant for Wikileaks head Julian Assange on two incidents of, as the official charges read, "rape, sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion." From using facetious quotes around the word "rape" to referencing one accuser’s CIA connections to making creepy jokes about the Swedish rape dismissal/descriptor "sex by surprise,"  it’s a veritable douche parade out there in blogland.

But Wolf’s supposedly humorous Huffington Post piece, "Julian Assange Captured By World’s Dating Police," proved that, despite not knowing any more about the series of incidents that led to Assange’s Dec. 7 arrest by Interpol than the rest of us (and perhaps knowing significantly less, seeing as how the sole source she linked to in the piece was Britain’s Daily Mail), she was all ready to assert her feminist cred and use it to trivialize what could indeed be valid, actionable incidents of sexual misconduct.

Sometimes people like to mention Bitch in their newspapers, blogs, and magazines. Be this coverage good, bad, or indifferent, we round it up and put it in a nice little package for you. (Maybe it's just our egos talking, but we like to think you enjoy it.) Check out the Bitch news in this round-up, starting with the exciting announcement that...

Bitch has been nominated for an Utne Reader Independent Press Award! That's right; we were nominated for the "General Excellence" category, and the winner will be announced next weekend. Keep your fingers crossed for us! The folks at Utne also flash copies of Bitch around a few times in this video (do you think they're trying to tell us that we're lowbrow?):



Read on for more round-up!

Although, like always, there is a lot of hard-hitting feminist news coming down the wire today (this New York Times article on women's studies programs comes to mind), sometimes it's nice to just kick back and watch some video clips. After all, it's Wednesday, and we could all use a media-fueled brain break every once in awhile.

In the interest of said brain break, here is a collection of feminist-themed internet videos. So put on your headphones, tilt your computer monitor away from your boss's line of vision, and prepare to be enlightened, entertained, enthralled, and maybe even enraged. (And if you can think of another adjective that begins with "en" you might be that as well.)

Feminism Survey: Men on the Street



More videos and commentary after the jump!