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We Bitches Have To Stick Together

September 16th 2008 18:45
Bitch Magazine
Bitch Magazine, the ultimate feminist magazine today, needs help. Lot's of help. About $40K worth of help.

Many people have been talking about the impending death of the publishing industry. Newspapers are being replaced by online media as ways for people to gain information. Unfortunately with that decline also comes a knock to magazines such as Bitch. Now we bitches need to come together to help save Bitch.


First the bad news: The print publishing industry as a whole is staring into a void. Across the board, newsstand magazine sales are in a slump, subscriber numbers are down, and paper and postal costs continue to rise. But it's not magazines like US Weekly or Vogue that you'll see disappearing from the newsstands—they have the parent companies and the resources to weather industry ill winds. It's the small, independent magazines like Bitch that will disappear, because the odds are already stacked high against us. And simply put: We need to raise $40,000 by October 15th in order to print the next issue of Bitch.

Yes, $40,000 sounds like a lot of money. But with so many of us supporters just a few dollars each can quickly add up to a lot. If you're not already a subscriber why not get a subscription now. And add in another for a friend that you know who would love some honest bitching.



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Two Things You Need To Read Now

August 31st 2008 11:21
women worldwide
Those of us in the West often forget that we're living a life of privilege. We have food, clothing, shelter. WalMarts, internet cafes, bottled water, the things that so many don't have and may never see. So I think it's extremely important that we stop and look at the conditions women in other parts of the world have to face. Not just look at it, think about it, let it soak in, get angry, shake your fist, use your voice to let others know.

Twisty has one post up that you should read. Imagine that you are taken, shot, and buried alive for wanting to marry someone of your choosing. It sounds outrageous here, but in some parts of the world it still happens. The deed was written off as a "tribal custom", a custom instead of a brutal murder of three teenage girls and two adult women for daring to speak their minds about who they want to marry.

The idea that cultural tradition might even fleetingly be construed by supposedly civilized beings as an excuse for ritual murder is the direct result of the same global misogynist paradigm that brings us “harmless” Western-style femininity, Jesus, the nuclear family, street harrassment, pornography, and rape culture. I am not moron enough to suggest that Western Internet-feminists can prevent barbarism through blogging, but we can damn well get the word out.

Once you've wrapped your head around this barbaric act, turn your attention to Womanist Musings. We often talk about poverty here in the Western world, but can you imagine being so poor, so desperate that you would sell your own child into sexual slavery just to be able to feed the rest of your family? Think for a moment about how desperate you have to be, what conditions you must be living in, how the culture around you conditions you to think and feel about your own daughters. Of course, as it's pointed out, we play a part in the poverty that drags families into this kind of desperation.

As western citizens daily we participate in trade that has a negative impact on the rest of the globe. When we grocery shop, or make debt laden trips to Walmart, what we are doing is supporting a global economy that exists through the exploitation of cheap labour in third world countries. When we purchase a bunch of bananas for thirty-nine cents a pound what this means is that the worker that grew and picked those bananas did not get paid. We exist with a sense of entitlement. Through an accident of birth westerners have come to see consuming as an inalienable right despite the fact that our over consumption of the worlds goods relegates the majority of humanity to poverty and suffering.

Go, read both of these posts. Then think about what you can do, what you can say, what small part you can play in not just these instances but the millions of other cases all around the world.
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McCain and Palin

August 29th 2008 21:03
Sara Palin
As most people already know McCain picked an unknown from Alaska to be his VP choice, Governor Sarah Palin. It's pretty clear that this is quite the calculated choice. It is the first time that the Republicans have put a woman on the ticket, and a nice tie in to McCains ad attacking Obama for not picking Clinton. His message is pretty clear. "See, I love women! I picked one for my VP. Just ignore my policies, ideals, and practices. One vagina is as good as another, isn't it?"

Yes John, we're all clearly such silly women that we'll vote for the vagina without looking at the politics. And if you really think that you're a bigger sexist jerk than I previous thought.

Politically I do not support Palin. She's anti-choice, pro-drilling, supports teaching creationism in public schools and opposes same-sex marriage. Those are just not politics I can get behind. And yet, her very presence is still worth celebrating. Palin herself identifies as a feminist and her place on the ticket as a mother of a young child is important. Normally she would be drug through the mud for choosing not to stay home with her children full time. As one blogger Hugo says:

From a feminist standpoint, I’m thrilled that a candidate who is the mother of a very young child has been nominated. One of the standard tropes of social conservatism is that mothers of young children should not work outside the home. If Sarah Palin is the vice-president, one heartbeat (a septuagenarian heartbeat at that) from the presidency and also the mother of a special-needs toddler, that sends a powerful message about the compatibility of motherhood with career. However right-wing Palin’s politics are, the narrative of her life today reflects a deep feminism. She embodies, literally, the notion that women ought not be forced to choose between family and public duty. That’s a deeply progressive message, even if it’s sent by an ostensibly conservative woman.

I'm curious how this plays out with the deeply religious who feel a woman's place is in the home as well as with those who instinctively bare their teeth at the mention of the word "feminist". We will have to see how McCain's choice goes for him. Will he be able to win enough voters who want a woman no matter what to counter the loss of voters who want nothing to do with a woman/mother/feminist in the office?

Lastly I want to direct everyone over to Shakesville where the point is made clearly. You can attack her politics, attack her issues, attack her opinions. But her gender is not on the table. Sexism is still sexism, even if you don't like the woman it's being aimed at.
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Bush Works To Limit Women's Health

August 25th 2008 12:12
health care
In a last effort to hurt women and pull more Republicans to the polls this November Bush has proposed a dangerous and damning bill to limit women's access to abortion and contraceptives. From the AP article:

The regulation is written to apply to a broad swath of the health care work force, not doctors alone. Accordingly, an employee whose task it is to clean the instruments used in a particular procedure would be covered. Also covered would be volunteers and trainees.

[ Click here to read more ]
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Politics Is Hawt!

August 10th 2008 12:03
See You At The Debates Bitches
I've never been a Paris Hilton fan, which probably isn't all the shocking. But her response to the McCain ad featuring her and Britney Spears has certainly won a special place in my heart. Funny, smart, and a nice play on her stereotypical image. If anything it shows that she has a great sense of humor. Stopping to flip through th magazine before getting to her energy plan? I love when people can laugh at themselves rather than get offended at stuff like that.

27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000">
See more funny videos at Funny or Die

[ Click here to read more ]
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Female Political Bloggers

August 8th 2008 16:48
women bloggers
How many political bloggers out there are women? Give it a good guess. 100? 200? 300? Would you believe more than 500 women are blogging politics? The Political Voices of Women is celebrating this week that their list finally topped the 500 mark. Visit the site to catch a glimpse at some of those amazing women who are proving politics is certainly not a men's game. And if you're not added to the list be sure to speak up and get yourself on board.

I can't wait to pass the 1000 mark!
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Still No Male Birth Control

August 7th 2008 10:48
pregnant
Sex has been one of the most effective, long standing weapons against women. Because women bear the brunt of pregnancy and childbirth, and too often the child raising as well, holding sexual activity and the possibility of pregnancy over women makes for a good means of suppression. Even with the liberating effect that hormonal birth control has given women there is still the pressure that the weight of obtaining and using said birth control rests entirely on the woman's shoulders. It's this part that makes "pro-lifers" so giddy at the thought of reducing a woman's ability to obtain and use birth control.

You can almost be certain that sort of mindset was at least partially to blame for the nonexistence of male birth control. TIME has a great article discussing how close we were to having more sexual equality by giving men more options in preventing pregnancies as well


[ Click here to read more ]
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Sellin' The Wife For Votes

August 5th 2008 19:50
Cindy McCain Sturgis
I'm not a biker but even I know about Sturgis and the sort of things that can go on there. If you're not familiar Sturgis is a huge biker rally that happens once a year where bikers from all over the country get together, show off their bikes, socialize, and do a few things that bikers have a bad reputation for doing. Such as the Buffalo Chip "beauty" contest. A contest McCain joked about encouraging his wife to enter.

Because flashing her tits and bouncing around on stage is what the First lady should have on her resume


[ Click here to read more ]
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When I Am Old I Shall Wear Purple

August 5th 2008 14:14
And sing Sex Pistols songs.

That's just what these rockin' Grannies did. Meet Jill McKay, the nearly 80 actress that belted out God Save the Queen to become the next Johnny Rotten. The band, made of four octogenarians, were true punk rockers in that none of them had played instruments before the audition. Or had even heard of the song. Rock on ladies, rock on


[ Click here to read more ]
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RIP Angie Zapata

August 4th 2008 11:14
Trigger warning

Angie Zapata
There has been talk all weekend of the brutal murder of a woman in Colorado. The woman, Angie Zapata, was struck in the head repeatedly with a fire extinguisher by a man she had met online. The two had spent the day together and the man had stayed the night, though they did sleep in separate beds. Zapata's body was found by her sister, bloody and battered on her apartment floor


[ Click here to read more ]
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scared woman
Let's play a game of Blame the Victim. I'll start: a woman goes out, has a few drinks, is feeling drunk, and suddenly a man comes along and rapes her. Who gets the blame? If you said the rapist you would be wrong.

More Rapes Linked To Young Women On Drinking Binges
[ Click here to read more ]
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How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America
With the news getting grimmer and grimmer for women I decided I needed a little friendly reading to lift my moral. Luckily I found just the thing I needed, wrapped in a pretty pink cover, shouting at me from the shelf at my local book store. How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America: Freedom, Politics, and the War On Sex

Do I even need to say how much you should buy this book and read it? Already a couple years old I feel like I have a lot of catching up to do. Why I didn't read a copy as soon as it was out is fuzzy to me. But now that I've gotten my hands on it I'm absorbing every page. Last night I took it with me grocery shopping and poured through the pages while my partner put whatever he wanted in the cart. I was too busy to worry abut food


[ Click here to read more ]
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Equality Now Calls For Help

July 29th 2008 11:30
Equality Now
Several sites have already mentioned this, but I thought it was important enough to deserve repeating for anyone who might have missed it. Equality Now has an Action Alert currently up asking for people to speak up and help an Iranian woman facing death by stoning from the actions forced on her by an abusive husband. It is the type of situation that should make those of us in more liberal areas stop and think, especially those who would rather us go back to being owned by our fathers/husbands.

Equality Now is urgently concerned about Kobra Najjar, an Iranian woman sentenced to death by stoning for adultery who lost her final appeal for amnesty. Iranian women’s rights activists working on her case report that Kobra has exhausted all domestic legal remedies and that her execution by stoning could happen any time.

[ Click here to read more ]
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New York Times Meet The BlogHer

July 27th 2008 07:30
BlogHer

I have read many bloggers this weekend expressing anger and frustration over a certain article the New York Times decided to stick in Fashion & Style. The only rational seems to be that women = fashion, no matter what. That a large conference of female bloggers covering everything from gender to technology to marketing boils down to the sexy heels many were showing off. Because taking the time to dress nice automatically makes whatever a woman has to say pointless, right?

[ Click here to read more ]
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I have no other blogs :(
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