Feminist Fare Friday: The Justice Edition

There is a theme and perhaps a lesson in today's selection of posts from the femisphere. For some reason, this concept depicted above has always made sense to me when it comes to child-rearing. It has been especially driven home this week in regards to feminism and racism and the concept of true social justice versus the constant 'equality for all' rhetoric. So, go grab your afternoon latte and have a read.

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By now you've probably seen the video of Emma Watson's compelling UN speech launching the new #HeforShe campaign. It's pretty good. A young woman, using her voice, her fame, and her privilege, to bring light to the oppression of women all over the world, to bring feminism into more of the mainstream conversation. This is all good. There was something missing though... I did share the video on my social media sites and applaud Ms. Watson's efforts, but it wasn't until I read this article from Mia McKenzie of Black Girl Dangerous that I was finally able to put my finger on what that missing piece was.  Emma invites men of the world to "to take up this mantle. So their daughters, sisters, and mothers can be free from prejudice…", and Mia points out why this is a flawed way of looking at the issues of equality.

The underlying message here is that women deserve equity and equality because of our relationships to men. Continuing to re-enforce the idea that men should respect women and fight for women’s equality because mother/sister/daughter/whatever perpetuates the idea that women don’t already deserve those things based solely on our status as human beings. It encourages men to think of women always and only in relation to themselves, as if our pseudo-humanity is only an after-thought of men’s real humanity. The truth is that women are whole, complete people, regardless of our status in the lives of men. This is what men should hear, over and over again. This is what everyone should hear, every day.

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As a white, cis-gendered, middle-class feminist woman, I have quite a few innate privileges in my world. And I am not going to lie, when I get told that I am doing feminism wrong, when I hear that I am just another white feminist spouting off from her position of privilege, I sometimes get defensive. My instinct is to scream my ally-ship to the four corners of the world, and say the dreaded words, #notallwhitefeminists!

But I don't.

Because of people like Brittney Cooper and her ability to take a complex topic like the future of feminism, break it down, and make me almost spit out my morning tea while reading her words. Words that somewhat mirror what I have said before about changing the game/playing field, but in a much more succinct and eloquent way. There is a reason her Twitter handle is @ProfessorCrunk, this woman is a capital E educator and I am the white girl geek sitting in the front row, mouth shut, ears wide open!

White women’s feminisms still center around equality [...] Black women’s feminisms demand justice. There is a difference.  One kind of feminism focuses on the policies that will help women integrate fully into the existing American system. The other recognizes the fundamental flaws in the system and seeks its complete and total transformation.

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Ever feel like you have the same conversation with people, over and over and over again? OK, I have a 5 and a 7-year old, so this happens daily in my life, and it is less of a conversation, and more of me reminding them of the basics like socks and teeth brushing and please don't put [insert disgusting thing here] in your mouth or on your sister/brother. In all seriousness though, how would you feel if every day you had to be the one to explain to people the basics of human decency? Anne Thériault of The Belle Jar and Lily Tsui of Scantilly Clad, two Canadian feminists (yes, Toronto Star, they do exist!), have come together to bring you a compelling post looking at the parallels between the oftentimes explanatory conversations about feminism and racism.

AT: I am tired of talking about feminism to men.

LT: I am tired of talking about racism to white feminists.

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That is some pretty heavy material for today, so I will leave you with your thoughts. Or you can share them with me in the comments too.

Have a great weekend!

N~

the list

I've been quiet here lately. But not in my head. In my head it is loud and full. The words and thoughts are bouncing back and forth and I am getting to the point where I can write/type them again.

In the mean time, please watch this. Because Jay Smooth is my Youtube boyfriend and because he speaks TRUTH in ways that I just can't get enough of. (You could just go subscribe to his channel too and see more of what I am talking about).

But seriously folks. Watch, Share, Repeat.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/MlNUIIyDA_w[/youtube]

Be back soon...

n~

For future reference.

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you know that I do a weekly round-up of what I like to call "Feminsit Fare" on Fridays. I post interesting and thought provoking articles I have read, videos I have seen, and information I think you will like or that will further our conversations about feminism and motherhood and life. Today, I am collecting posts together in this space for another reason. These pieces are about feminism, misogyny, terrorism, murder, derailing important conversations, and hashtag activism. I have been sharing most of these posts on my Facebook pages and if you haven't figured it out already, they are pieces that have been written or recorded in response to the murderous attack planned and executed by Elliot Rodger in the Isla Vista community in Santa Barbara, California.

And I am saving them all here, because here is the hard truth...

We will need to refer to them again in the future. 

Violence against women is a systematic problem in our world and until and unless a MUCH larger majority of us are willing to DRASTICALLY change that system, this violence will continue. I hate to write this, but there are other Elliot Rodgers out there, just like Elliot Rodger was another George Sodini and George Sodini was another Marc Lepine. Young men growing up in a world of toxic masculinity believing that they are entitled to their prize - a hot woman to have sex with. And denied this prize, they resort to violence to "prove themselves" to the world or to exhort a kind of retribution for being slighted.

Today in a separate Twitter conversation with another young man on the topic of breastfeeding in public, I was called a "relentless feminist". I am 100% sure he meant it as an insult. I did not take it as one.

Because I AM relentless in this. I will never stop trying to change this system. I will never be quiet in the face of oppression and misogyny and violence against women and women's rights. I will amplify the voices of my peers, female and male, who are speaking larger truths that we all need to really listen to and I will keep a chronicle of them all here...

For future reference.

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Jessica Valenti writing for The Guardian about how yes, misogyny does indeed kill.

If we need to talk about this tragic shooting in terms of illness, though, let's start with talking about our cultural sickness – a sickness that refuses to see misogyny as anything other than inevitable

Jenni Chui writing at Mommy Nani Booboo about the #YESALLWOMEN hashtag.

Though Elliot Rodgers is an extreme case, the entitlement he expresses mirrors a large societal ill, and has spurred women by the hundreds of thousands to speak up about how it affects them and yes, all women.

Chuck Wendig writing at terribleminds that while it is of course, not all men, it still if far too many.

Show them by cleaning the dogshit out of your ears and listening to their stories — and recognize that while no, it’s not “all men,” it’s still “way too many men.” Consider actually reading the #YesAllWomen hashtag on Twitter not to look for places to interject and defend your fellow men, but as a place to gain insight and understanding into the experiences women have. 

Harris O'Malley writing at Paging Dr. Nerdlove about the price of toxic masculinity.

This is what happens when we grow up in a culture that teaches men that hypermasculinity is what defines them. It tells them that they’re only as good as the sex that they’re having or the ass that they’re kicking. It teaches them that being rejected isn’t a sign of a lack of compatibility or a need to improve but a referendum on their value as a man. That they’re being robbed of what they’re owed.

Laci Green's video about this culture of angry, entitled men is quite powerful and worth a watch.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPFcspwbrq8&feature=share&list=PLTXiNEUzXWKTfNYKThSk-kmJdf7AJRP5K[/youtube]

Phil Plate writing at Slate discussing how and why derailing this potentially system-changing conversation occurs and how unhelpful it is.

Instead of being defensive and distracting from the topic at hand, try staying quiet for a while and actually listening to what the thousands upon thousands of women discussing this are saying.

Lindsay Beyerstein writing at Duly Noted about why Elliot Rodger is in fact a terrorist fighting a War on Women.

By any meaningful standard, Rodger planned and executed a terrorist attack. He orchestrated the violence for maximum symbolic impact and took steps to disseminate his message through the mass media.

(updated on May 29, 2014)

Jeopardy Champion Arthur Chu writing at The Daily Beast discussing the "script" that most nerdy boys grow up with.

...the overall problem is one of a culture where instead of seeing women as, you know, people, protagonists of their own stories just like we are of ours, men are taught that women are things to “earn,” to “win.” That if we try hard enough and persist long enough, we’ll get the girl in the end. Like life is a video game and women, like money and status, are just part of the reward we get for doing well.

Madeleine Davies at Jezebel writing about being not an angry feminist, but a furious one.

And I'm still angry, still furious. I'm furious that growing up, I wasn't allowed to do the same things that my brother did because it wasn't safe for me. I'm furious that my parents ingrained in me from a very young age that I should never wear heels because I should always be ready to run at a moment's notice. I'm furious that walking alone at night feels more like an act of rebellion than a simple act of transit.

(updated, June 1, 2014)

Melissa McEwan at Shakesville writing about "the geek guys Elliot Rodgers think pieces" and how they are still getting it wrong.

And one of the things I'm seeing over and over in these pieces, despite their ostensibly being about how acknowledging women's humanity and agency is important, is a distinct failure to acknowledge women as anything but the sex class. That is, there is very little discussion about how straight men should and do have other reasons for interacting with women than trying to have sex with them.

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I know more will be written about this in the days to come and I will continue to add to this list. If you have read something that you think needs to be here please post the link in the comments.

Relentlessly,

natasha~

A battle within: the stay at home mom vs the feminist.

Confession time. I am not always 100% on board with this whole "Stay at Home Feminist" thing.

I know, I know....

It's the name of my blog/Twitter/Instagram. I have claimed this moniker as ME. It is, as the marketing world calls it, "my personal brand". And yet, while I embrace this label that I have given myself and all the tongue-in-cheeky-ness that it implies, I have to be honest and admit that sometimes there exists within me a kind of battle of the two seemingly opposite sides of myself. As integrated as I think these two parts of me are, the "in-fighting" and negative self-talk that can happen from these two can be downright nasty at times.

The Stay-at-Home mother and housewife goes on and on about how I should DO more with the kids and around the house. More baking, more reading of books to the kids, more cleaning, more timely folding of the laundry, more crafts, less TV and iPads. She's can be a very demanding bitch and has obviously been spending way too much time on Pinterest, comparing all the way I am doing things to some kind of perfectly photoshopped vintage/retro/modern ideal of motherhood and housewifery.

And then there is the Feminist. She seeing things from a different angle and wants so much for a different world for her children. She gets upset that I am not doing more "active" activist work and wants me to find a way to "lean-in" and make some real changes for women in our world beyond just learning to play the game according to the current status quo. I know that there is a part of her that looks at the Stay-at-Home Mom and sneers at the level of privilege that she has and tells her that she just can't - absolutely CAN NOT - speak for other women who do not have it as good as she does.

Some, or all of these thoughts live together in my head at any given time and on any given day. Depending on the circumstances of the day, it can be an ugly battle that leaves me paralyzed with feelings of complete inadequacy in either role, or there can be an arbitrary truce and a certain level of acceptance that exists between the two.

I know what some of you are thinking, "Whoa there Natasha, how could YOU feel like this? You are supposed to be all, "Rah-rah-women can choose to do whatever they want-that's what Feminism is for!" and now your saying this? You are sending some serious mixed messages here! What is up with that?"

Let me try to explain.

A few weeks ago, I saw the CBC documentary "The Motherload". The film takes an in-depth and new look at the subject of working mothers - the current issues, challenges and triumphs that come from trying or having to do it all and that ever elusive utopian world called "work-life-balance". A lot of the film hinges on Anne-Marie Slaughter's 2012 article in The Atlantic in which she pointed out all the reasons "why women still can't have it all". While there were plenty of people who argued and disagreed with her take on this "motherload" phenomenon, I found most of her arguments compelling and very similar to my own.

"I still strongly believe that women can “have it all” (and that men can too). I believe that we can “have it all at the same time.” But not today, not with the way America’s economy and society are currently structured." 

Except I do not think it is just America's economy and society, it is our whole world. I have written about this before, about how there is no winning (read: having it all) in a game where one group of players has ALWAYS gotten a head start or where the playing field is always tipped in favour of one side.

One of the most strikingly true lines from the film is one from York University Women's Studies professor Andrea O'Reilly, in which she points out that "motherhood is the unfinished business of feminism." This statement is undoubtedly at the very core of a lot of the issues surrounding modern feminism today. And because most theories of feminism were based on the "unencumbered subject", I believe that this is why there exists this general feeling and misconception that feminism is done, that we've "arrived", and that there is no need for a continued movement towards equality for all women.

I need you to know that whether this is the third or fourth wave of feminism or modern feminism or whatever you want to call it, it is decidedly NOT done. And not just because women are not leaning in to more high profile corporate and political positions, but because we've been sold a version of equality that simply can not exist within the framework of our current society.

In the film, Slaughter says that she receives emails from women all the time who have some version of the same story that goes along the lines of "I had a promising career, I got married, I had children and then LIFE happened. I felt like such a failure, like I had betrayed my younger self." These sentiments gave me great pause while watching the film and made me think that we are doing a major disservice to our daughters and young women when we don't actively talk about motherhood as part of their life plans or career paths. Statements like the one above, obviously felt by many women, actually hurt my heart. And while I know that these women are not necessarily saying that becoming a mother was a failure, in our world that values the primacy of work and what we "do" versus who we are, motherhood just doesn't quite fit the bill of valuable work. Not only does it not compare to our paid work, women who are mothers are often penalized for this 'life happening' as well. In Ann Crittenden's 2001 book The Price of Motherhood, she points out that:

"We talk endlessly about the importance of family, yet the work it takes to make a family is utterly disregarded. This contradiction can be found in every corner of our society.

First, inflexible workplaces guarantee that many women will have to cut back on, if not quit, their employment once they have children. The result is a loss of income that produces a bigger wage gap between mothers and childless women than the wage gap between young men and women. This forgone income, the equivalent of a huge "mommy tax," is typically more than $1 million for a college-educated American woman."

and

"The idea that time spent with one's child is time wasted is embedded in traditional economic thinking. People who are not formally employed may create human capital, but they themselves are said to suffer a deterioration of the stuff, as if they were so many pieces of equipment left out to rust. The extraordinary talents required to do the long-term work of building human character and instilling in young children the ability and desire to learn have no place in the economists' calculations. Economic theory has nothing to say about the acquisition of skills by those who work with children; presumably there are none."

Not much has changed since she wrote that more than 12 years ago, except that now, not only is the pressure on for mothers to "lean in" and have it all at work, they are expected to be doing it all and doing it all FABULOUSLY at home too. If you are a women who had decided to stay at home with your children, it can sometimes feel like the pressure to be the "perfect" mother is just as great as the pressure to climb the corporate ladder and break the glass ceiling. From how to feed your baby, to what to put on their bums, what kind of school or 'un'school you choose, to what are considered 'essential' mommy and me classes, to getting a nanny or to sending them daycare, and for all the major and minor decisions made each and every day, motherhood has become a veritable rat-race in and of itself.

And in both the work and the home front women are paying an increasingly high price for being in these races. In Arianna Huffington's new book Thrive, she points out that,

"... women in highly stressful jobs have a nearly 40% increase risk of heart disease and heart attacks compared to thier less-stressed colleagues, and a 60 % greater risk for type 2 diabetes (a link that does not exist for men, by the way). Women who have heart attacks are almost twice as likely as men to die within a year of the attack, and women in high-stress jobs are more likely to become alcoholics than women in low-stress jobs."

The statistics are not that much brighter for mothers either, with upwards of 20% suffering from postpartum mood disorders. Katherine Stone of Post Partum Progress Inc. reports that,

"...more mothers will suffer from postpartum depression and related illnesses this year than the combined number of new cases for both sexes of tuberculosis, leukemia, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy. This is not to minimize these other terrible diseases, of course. I simply want to illustrate just how prevalent postpartum mood & anxiety disorders are."

The pressure these days to have it all, be it all, and do it all are too much for our bodies and our minds to handle and it is a no-win situation for everyone involved. And yet, I can't help but wonder, as my two sides battle it out in my own head, how much of this pressure is coming from ourselves? We live in the era of the "cult of busy-ness" and 24/7 connectivity and 10,000 hours to mastery (Ha! I just calculated and I've been a mother for just over 60,000 hours! I am SO the master of this! -insert sarcastic eye roll here-), and putting our lives on display via social media for all to see (and criticize). And then we wonder why, for some reason, it is never, ever, enough?  We are a time-starved people living in a world of scarcity that is often of our own doing.

My question is: are we in fact the creators of this scarcity and if so, how do we change that?

Do you know what landed me in the hospital 26 weeks pregnant with my first child with a blood pressure hovering around 200/100 (normal is 110/70)? Because one hour before my OB appointment, I had gotten into an argument with a work colleague about a rather important event that we were planning. My life changed in an instant that day. My blood pressure would not go back down without medications and complete bed rest and I had to take an immediate medical leave from work.

That was my first AHA! moment of motherhood and it was a scary-ass wake up call to the reality that would now be my life. One responsible for the safety and well-being of not only myself, but of this other person I was growing inside of me. In essence, motherhood made me look up. Look up from my self-centred, looking-out-for-Number-One, how-do-I-get-ahead, life and see the world in front of me. One that sadly, as Joan Williams, law professor at the University of California Hastings, says in the Motherload film "was never set up for women."

So what is a woman to do in a world that is not set up for her? How does one reconcile the need to be a valuable, contributing member of our economic society and also one who is nurturing the human capital that will one day be valuable, contributing members of said society?

I don't know that anyone has the answers to this just yet. Slaughter thinks that a woman in the White House will affect changes, but I question this as a blanket solution. Other women have held the highest offices of government in other countries before and still the world has not changed significantly for women. Sheryl Sandberg thinks that women need to lean-in and actively seek the higher paying, higher ranking jobs we want, but she forgets how she got to the place she is in now, in part by hiding the fact that she was sneaking home at 5:30 to have dinner with her children.

In THIS world, one has to make compromises. For me, the decision to stop working was made for me due to medical circumstances, but the decision to STAY at home after my children were born was all mine. This is the compromise I made. My former career, for this new version of my life. It's one that I would likely make again and one that in hindsight, made me realize how much I was trying to play the game of "work/career" with a set of rules that were never going to let me win. So, yeah, I forfeited the game and 'opted out'.

And so the two sides of me sometimes get into a bit of a kerfuffle with each other over this. I strive to be an example for my own children of living a wholehearted life and valuing myself and my work, both as a stay at home mother and as a feminist, but the guilt of not being the ideal or "perfect" version for either of these sometimes still gets to me.

Today I came across this post from Karen Walrond, photographer and blogger extraordinaire, and someone I had the pleasure of both meeting and hearing speak at Mom 2.014 last week. Here's what she had to say about comparison.

"I believe that comparison -- that is, comparing yourself or your work or your art with another person('s) -- is ultimately and almost without exception a waste of time. In my opinion, when you compare yourself with someone, you're comparing all of you -- your work, your thoughts about your own work, the effort behind your work, your thoughts about yourself -- with the appearance of someone else or their work at one instance in time, having no knowledge of its context. In other words, comparing yourself or your work with anyone else or their work is inherently an unfair comparison. It should be avoided. Besides, I do believe that it is patently impossible to create effectively in someone else's voice -- the inevitable result is disappointment. Accepting that you will do what you do differently from everyone else is incredibly freeing, and should be lived whole-heartedly."

This made me think... do you know what I do differently from everyone else?

I do this whole Stay at Home Feminist thing differently than anyone else. I know that in however small the ways may be, I AM affecting change. I am giving a voice, my voice, to other mothers and women in the world of feminism and beyond. And I am going to do my darnedest for the rest of my life to make sure that motherhood does not remain "the unfinished business of feminism".

n~

Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #14

"You can't be what you can't see."~Miriam Wright Edelman

Last night I attended my first TEDx event called Landscape-Changing Women. It was organized by two ambitious women in Edmonton and was by all accounts a huge success. The highlight of the night for me was hearing and seeing my friend Joanne Minaker up on the stage talking about the importance of Care in our society-she was (and is) brilliant!. From December 4-6 the TEDWomen2013 conference is taking place in San Francisco and more than 58 countries are also joining in with independent TEDxWomen events of their own.

I said in my last post that the landscape is changing and that our time is coming for a more effective feminist revolution. I don't believe that I am wrong, and I am inspired by all the TEDWomen events happening around the world this week, but as you can see from the examples below, we have A LOT more work to do.

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1. Emilie Graslie is smart. Not a smart girl, not smart for a girl. She is just really, really, smart. And she has a great educational Youtube channel called "The Brain Scoop". On it she talks about all kinds of cool, interesting and amazing topics that she comes across through her work at The Field Museum in Chicago. Emilie also reads all of the comments on her Youtube page and has a few things to say about that too...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRNt7ZLY0Kc&feature=share&list=UUkyfHZ6bY2TjqbJhiH8Y2QQ&index=1[/youtube]

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2. And while we are on the topic of women in media, the people at The Representation Project put together this video showing us where the media got it right and where they got it so, so wrong time and again this past year.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/NswJ4kO9uHc[/youtube]

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3. We all need to use some stock photography now and then (or you should be using and paying for it, stealing other people's photos is not good). I personally like istockphoto. The folks at NY Mag put together this somewhat hilarious slideshow of stock photos all meant to show us "how to be a feminist". Once again this serves to further prove the point about how women are misrepresented in all kinds of media. And clearly, I don't have enough boxing gloves, ladders, folders or X-rays in my feminist get-up!

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4. Take 5 minutes to watch this. And then know that literally 100% of the images of women that you see in advertising and in most magazines are altered. There is absolutely NO possible way for any human woman to "look just like {insert ideal perfect woman here}".

[youtube]http://youtu.be/jWKXit_3rpQ[/youtube]

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5. We are taking our kids and their cousins to see "Frozen" after school gets out for winter break. I am not sure who is more excited about this, me or them?! From what I have read about the movie so far, and from what the majority of my friends have said about it, it is a FANTASTIC movie! According to Amanda Rodriguez at Bitch Flicks, it is also Disney's first foray into feminism! AND, slight spoiler alert, it passes the Bechdel Test in the first five minutes of the film. I'll save my full review for after I actually see the movie, but YAY! for Disney (of all media outlets, really) for finally starting to get with the program!

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Have you read or watched something that you think I should include in an upcoming edition of Feminist Fare Friday?  Send me the link via Twitter or on the Stay at Home Feminist Facebook page.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

natasha~

Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #12

I can't believe it is Friday already! Short weeks confuse me. As do a lot of other rather simple things, but that is a post for another day...  Let's get on with this weeks dose of Feminist Fare!

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1. I am a child of the 80's and 90's. I grew up listening to records of ABBA and Pat Benatar and mix tapes recorded off the radio and then watching the corresponding music videos via Video Hits and Good Rockin' Tonight on our three-channel television after school. I have always been a fan of the music video genre and spent most of a day a few weeks ago introducing my 7 year old to the wonders of Michael Jackson's music and epic 15 minute long videos (Thriller was his favourite).

These days it's more difficult to find music videos that my kids can watch without me having to answer questions like: "Mom, why are they being so inappropriate?" or "Mom, I can totally see her bum in that outfit." or "Mom, why is she licking that hammer?" or "Mom, why does that guy keep grabbing his crotch?" (although to be fair, I got this one with all of MJ's videos too).

Why all the video talk? Because this week, Lily Allen came back to the music scene (after a babies-making hiatus) with her new single "Hard Out Here" and its video release. I first noticed it on Twitter being touted (tweeted) as "a fabulous feminist take-down of all things sexist in pop music these days". So of course I clicked on the link and watched the video. I tweeted that link once and left it at that for the night... I was having mixed feelings about the video and I couldn't quiet get to that place of  "RA-RA FEMINISTS RULE!" that some on the internet were going on and on about.

Something about it just wasn't sitting well with me...

I woke up the next morning and read this post from We Geeked This and then it all solidified in my brain. The video didn't actually take down the racist parts of pop culture and I realized that you can't satirize something like objectification of Women of Colour with simply MORE objectification of said women.

"What if we looked at Lilly Allen’s video and instead of saying,

“it IS ‘Feminism’ because she is fighting ‘The Patriarchy’ and that’s the only thing that matters!”

We said,

“I wish she hadn’t perpetuated the oppression of WoC in her attempts to express her own feminist sentiments”?

I’m not talking about a master feminist plan, I’m not asking Lilly Allen for one, but I am trying to hold her accountable–because I do believe she is a feminist and therefore is interested in fighting women’s oppression in myriad forms–for what she has produced, both good and bad."

Much more has been said and written about Ms. Allen and her new video and I highly recommend you read both Jessica Wakeman's piece from The Frisky and also Black In Asia's in depth analysis of the video as well. MUCH food for thought with this one.

Now... back to finding music videos to show my children. Ones that don't perpetuate these sexist OR racist stereotypes. Wish me luck!

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2. We don't need feminism anymore. Stop it already, ladies, you can vote now, you've won! Feminism is hurting all the menfolk! And now...

"...feminism elevates women at the expense of men"  "... its agenda to validate women emasculates us guys".

This is the first line of a post by Micah J. Murray at redemptionpictures.com. Now GO and read the rest of his post. (And for the first time EVER, I want you to read the comments-at least the first few. They are PRICELESS!)

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3. And because sometimes, the internet is a really, really wonderful place and it is for those moments of pure awesome that I stick around, I give you #BATKID! And all the amazing and awesome people in San Fransisco (AKA Gotham City) who are making his Make-a-Wish dream come true today!

Follow along on the ABC News livestream to feel ALL THE FEELINGS today (and have some tissues handy!)

nananana-nananana BATKID!!! 

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Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Natasha~

Feminist Fare Friday: Edition #10

Halloween is done, my husband came home yesterday to end my solo-parenting stint, birthday presents are bought and wrapped for this weekend's party (there is seriously one a week for us in Oct/Nov/Dec!) and I am finally sitting down today to write the weekly Feminist Fare round up. So while I know it is late on a Friday night, here are the posts and videos that caught my eye this past week.

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1. In case you don't know this already. I am a HUGE Buffy The Vampire Slayer fan. I own the box set of the series and named my dog after Willow. And while I loved the Buffy-Angel relationship, my true love of the show was the darker Buffy-Spike dynamic. It spoke to the bad-boy lover in me. I could go on and on and on here... but, let me actually get to my point... and that is, that I think Joss Whedon is a genius. Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity... this man writes kick-ass stuff people (and a lot of it involves really strong female characters), and it seems that whenever he is on a press junket, reporters have one particular question for him. Here are his replies to this much repeated query...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/cYaczoJMRhs[/youtube]

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2. I am not sure how much more "Listen up girlies, don't get drunk so you don't get raped" bullshit I can read anymore. If a dude got so blitzed that he could hardly walk home and then got mugged would anyone be telling him that he deserved it? That he shouldn't have had that last half-dozen beers? Probably not. Add to this the Men's Rights Group claiming that men are just as much victims of false-accusations as women are of rape (or that rape-culture doesn't even exist!) and it is enough to make a girl want to... oh, I don't know, get REALLY, REALLY drunk and forget that this is the world that she lives in and is raising her children in!

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3. And really, on that note. I have nothing better (or worse?) to leave you with than this amazing, painful, powerful, and haunting spoken word poetry...

[youtube]http://youtu.be/zgQRkHcEyq8[/youtube]

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Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Natasha~

Happy {Feminist} Halloween!

I just couldn't wait until Friday to share this amazing little piece of holiday Halloween brilliance. These four beautiful wordsmiths blow this one right out of the park.

Enjoy!

[youtube]http://youtu.be/jXk3uhlhAVY[/youtube]

Happy Halloween to all of you MotherF****ing Monsters!!

Natasha~