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Beasts of the Southern Wild is the only film I’ve seen of this year’s Best Picture Nominees. As someone who was once a little black girl who loved fantasy, I had to see it.

When Quvenzhané Wallis started filming her starring role as Hushpuppy, she was only five years old, just a year older than my daughter is now. About 15 minutes into the movie, I commented to my husband that Hushpuppy reminded me so much of our daughter. Like Hushpuppy, our girl has a fabulous head of curls and a penchant for running around without pants (we keep that indoors, don’t worry). And like Hushpuppy and Quvenzhané herself, she’s independent, determined, and brimming with energy and confidence.

So it broke my heart when I saw The Onion’s “joke” calling Quvenzhané Wallis one of the most hateful words you can call a girl or a woman in the English language. On top of being sad and appalled for Wallis and her family, I also couldn’t help but think of my daughter and the inevitable day that she will hear that word directed at her for the first time.

Baltimore feminist group FORCE took the world by surprise last December when they launched a line of fake Victoria's Secret, dropping underwear emblazoned with phrases like "Consent is Sexy" and "Ask First" at Victoria's Secrets around the US and promoting the fake Pink Loves Consent line on the internet. The spoof came off brilliantly, using a well-coordinated "feminist Facebook army" to hijack Victoria Secret's social media and broadcast the a discussion of consent to millions of mainstream shoppers. Last week, I talked with FORCE organizers Rebecca Nagle and Hannah Brancato about what they learned from the Pink Loves Consent campaign, how Facebook and Twitter have censored their spoof, and the details on their next action, a Valentine's Day protest that will install a temporary monument to rape survivors in Washington DC. 

 

BITCH: What choices did you make while planning Pink Loves Consent that made it so wildly successful? 

HANNAH BRANCATO:  The big decision was that we couldn't sell the underwear. This is a spoof, we're using Victoria's Secret's trademark, so we couldn't legally sell anything. There was all of this intense energy around the project when it first launched but the only thing people could think of doing was buying the underwear. 

REBECCA NAGLE: The first thing they asked was, 'Where can I buy this?" And I think it was powerful to come back and say, "You can't buy it, it's an idea." Instead of sending people to a checkout cart, we're sending people to resources, to saying, "Here's a zine you can make." 

GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's sexism is old news at this point, but hey, it's election season and he has to stay in the news, right? Romney doubled down on the misogyny last Thursday by hiring Richard Grenell as his national security and foreign policy adviser. Grenell, formerly of the Bush administration, kicked off his first week on the job by deleting a bunch of sexist shit from his Twitter account.


Sexist tweeters, raise your hands!

For your tweeting information we've got some brand-new, reader-contributed Twitter Lists for everyone to follow! What's a Twitter List, you ask? Well, it's a list that you can "follow" to see short, timely, feminist updates from Twitterers around the world. You don't even need to sign up for Twitter to see our lists, so no there's no peer pressure to sign up (but you should really, really think about it).

We're going to have to give a special thanks to all of the #BitchTwitList Tweeters. There's no way we could have covered all the great Twitters out there, and we're still accepting submissions. Take a big ol' peek at the lists if you've got the time–we've got one for writers, one for organizations, one for publications and one for Bitch contributors. 

Now remember, these aren't exhaustive, so if you feel like someone should be included, let us know! We only want to keep expanding: a musician list, a comics list, a feminist superhero we really wish was real list–help us make them! Tell us what you think in the comments or by going on Twitter and using the #bitchtwitlist hashtag, and read away.

Bitch's Twitter Lists: Writers, Organizations, Publications, Contributors.

 

Stop. Link time. (It had to be said.)

• For RH Reality Check, Jaime Jenett bravely discusses her experiences as a non-biological lesbian parent of an ill child while enduring the daily hurt of Prop 8 stickers... and makes eloquent efforts to communicate with those who don't believe she deserves rights (reposted at AlterNet).
• Mother Jones offers advice on how to wade through media coverage of Osama bin Laden's death.
• Jane Laplain of Questioning Transphobia talks about trans* identity and the one-word-or-two-words question... and why it matters.
• ColorLines shares the Center for Reproductive Rights video "They're Coming for Roe."
• Shakesville provides an open thread on the results of Canada's election.
• Racialicious reports on the release of the book I Speak for Myself: American Women on Being Muslim, edited by Maria Ebrahimji and Zahra Suratwala, and featuring writing by Muslimah Media Watch editor Fatemeh Fakhraie.
• More feminist than Mulan? At Bitch Flicks, Whitney Mollenhauer takes notes on the film Tangled. Thoughts?
• Bitch contributor EvMaroon writes a letter to his future child about the United States of America's history and the death of bin Laden.
• At the Huffington Post, Stephanie Green praises the new adaptation of Jane Eyre. Have you seen it? What are your feelings?
• Jos from Feministing presents an anti-war poem from Palestinian and US-American poet and activist, Suheir Hammad.
• Monica at TransGriot reminds readers to make their nominations for the 2011 Black Weblog Awards by Saturday!
• Bitch contributor Jarrah Hodge comments on Twitter culture at Gender Focus.
• Ms. has a few suggestions on how to spend your Mother's Day weekend.
• And speaking of mothers, check out the Mama's Day campaign, celebrating immigrant, queer, poor, and single mothers by the Strong Families initiative. Watch their great video here!

Got comments or other pieces? Please share in the comments section!

Feminists of the blogosphere, if you haven't been tweeting the #MooreandMe hashtag, it's time to start.

So many douchebags, so little time. This week, there were a number of worthy contenders, so let's take a look at them, shall we?

The men who debased Kat Stacks defined her as a "ho" who had to be "put in her place" by assaulting her into apologizing for her honesty because, according to how society views and treats women who are forthrightly sexual (even when they’re honest about getting paid for sex), that’s how such women are supposed to be treated. In fact, goes the idea, they deserve such violence. Slut-shaming in extremis.

The US State Department asked Twitter to delay an update that was scheduled for Monday in order to to allow for Iranians to tweet about the elections and facilitate the massive grassroots protests in Iran.