The Spice Girls

I’m reliably informed that the poster (right) grandly named L’Enfant but more commonly known as Man and Baby wasn’t a phenom in the United States like it was in the U.K. Here, it capitalized on the worldwide success of Three Men and a Baby and perfectly captured the sensitive man zeitgeist of the late ‘80s, becoming one of the country’s top-selling posters of all time.

Honestly, I never understood its popularity. Sure, the guy was hunky in that Levi’s ad beefcake way, but what was the baby adding? Even as a kid, I associated having children with stress and domesticity; I didn’t yet understand that a man caring for his child was considered a novelty.

Given all the conflicting messages young women get about their sexuality from all sides—media, church, family, friends, and more—how do we figure out what we want to say "yes" to in the first place?

So begins Jaclyn Friedman's fabulous new workbook. What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl's Shame-Free Guide to Sex and Safety sets out to help readers move toward sex lives that are as personally fulfilling as possible. I sat down with Jaclyn at the 2011 Roots of Change Conference to talk about  her hopes for the book, sexual autonomy, pop culture, surviving haterdom, and whether that title is what you think it is. Care to listen in?

• Have you been reading Ladydrawers' interview comic with Alison Bechdel? Catch up with part two of three over at Truth Out.
• Women's Media Center writes about Ibtihaj Muhammad's journey to become the first women to compete for the U.S. Olympic team wearing a headscarf.
• In the "Something actually good occuring at Penn State this week" category, Angela Davis and Eric Stanley spoke about Stanley's new anthology, Captive Genders: Trans Embodiment and the Prison Industrial Complex. (Thanks Toshio!)
• Ms. Magazine writes on the importance of net neutrality—and how lucky we are that Obama vetoed it.
• Sady Doyle gives the Spice Girls a second chance over at Rookie.
• Dahlia Lithwick writes about and the old-school misogyny and the frightening new-school sexual harassment denial surrounding the Herman Cain scandals.
• Maxwell Zachs weighs the pros and cons of the new BBC series, My Transsexual Summer.
• We're still taking who-to-follow recommendations for Twitter! Leave your suggestions in the comments.

Tell us what you think and what you've been reading in the comments below!

There was a pretty interesting article in yesterday's Houston Chronicle about some of today's female pop stars. The author, Steve Haruch, describes how candy pop acts like The Veronicas, Katy Perry, and Lady GaGa are consistently referred to as "post-feminist" by the media without there being much evidence for the claim (save for perhaps some glitter and a song about faux-lesianism).

I agree with Haruch; though I sometimes jam out to "Pokerface" I do not consider it a feminist anthem in any sense. And post-feminism? I don't buy it. What I do want to know is, are there any pop stars out there right now who are holding it down for feminism? Where have all the riot grrrls gone?