For more updates on the current CBS/Focus on the Family controversy, visit these great websites:

“Women Weight Best Response to Tebow Anti-Abortion Super Bowl Ad” at Jezebel: “The risk, of course, is associating feminism with the shutting down of a debate or “silencing” of anti-choice positions. Still, CBS is a commercial organization that makes business decisions based on, among other things, the demands of its audience, and not a government entity.”

“This Just In: CBS Co-Wrote Focus on the Family Ad at Change.org: “CBS is remaining shockingly silent on the matter, stating only that this kind of practice “isn’t unusual.” But why choose to personally involve the network in a contentious ad campaign, one destined to raise the ire of pro-choice, pro-equality groups around the globe?”

“The Making of CBS’s Pro-Life Ad” at The Daily Beast: “[Terry] O’Neill disagrees that an advertising war is the best response. “The fact is, if NOW had an extra $2.5 million lying around, I’d spend it on working for women’s equality,” she said. “I wouldn’t give it to CBS.”‘

Image via AfterEllen.com

In other news, water is wet.

Lucas Silveira has been awarded Chart Attack “Throw Your Underwear Award” in the male category in this online reader-selected poll.

Go, Canada!

Cody said that, “the tricky thing is if you’re going to subvert those tropes, they have to be there. We were constantly bobbing and weaving. Karyn and I talk about the film as a kind of Trojan horse. We wanted to package our beliefs in a way that’s appealing to a mainstream audience.”

It will be interesting to see how they plan to achieve this. Will this subversion succeed in turning the tables on horror flicks and the objectification of women, or as Feministing suggests, could it end up more like Bruno where it depended on the audience (i.e. queers laughing at the inside jokes and homophobes laughing at the queers).

While I think it’s undeniable that the trailer for Jennifer’s Body is blatantly sexist and provides such terrible cliches like the glamorization of bisexuality, “dumb dudes mesmerized by evil beauty” and the male gaze.

A comment left by user named “Boodle” made a really good point. “I think it’s important to understand and consider the history of women in horror films before deciding whether [Jennifer's Body] is feminist. If you look at most horror films women are usually (and problematically) victims of male killers. Of course there are exceptions (Teeth, The Descent) and there is a very good theory about final girls in horror (Carol Clover).”

Male/female characters really have nothing to do with the gender of the character, but of the coding that goes along with those characters. Male coding comes in form of aggression, stereotypical masculinity, the killer, and aggressive seuxality. Female coding comes in form of submissiveness, victim and passive sexuality. If Megan Fox’s character is the killer and thus has male coding, does this really count as subverting gender stereotypes? Does that make Jennifer’s Body a feminist film?

What do you think?

Beth Ditto, frontwoman for the The Gossip, and now an up and coming fashion icon has been in the news and in the hearts of fat acceptence feminists because of her ground-breaking work in fashion. Not only is she designing clothes, but she is also having clothes designed for her by the likes of Gareth Pugh and Karl Lagerfeld.

Now, you may be wondering – Wow, Karl Lagerfeld, the one who called Heidi Klum too fat? How does that relationship work?

Beth Ditto spoke with Scotland’s Sunday Mail newspaper and said that, “I never knew what resistance was really like until I entered the mainstream… It is much more dangerous to be a feminist and stand in front of Karl Lagerfeld and look him in the eye. That felt like resistance far more than being at a punk show full of people who already know about politics and feminism.”

She openly admits that she prefers his fashion to his personality. “I wouldn’t say he’s a really cool person but he’s a really cool artist. I appreciate a lot of art by really shitty people. And I’m not so weak to think that this is going to last or they’re going to love me forever.”

I think this is fabulous. This kind of subversive action within the fashion industry is making a big difference I think. Now, I think there is a reason why Beth Ditto is more famous over in the UK and not over here in the States, but hopefully Americans will really start catching on soon!

Check out Gabi’s take on this at Young, Fat & Fabulous!

Source: MSN.com

This book addresses the notion that has effected queer youth for decades, that they must move to a big city in order to live a successful life as a queer person. This is simply no longer the case, and queer youth are able to make their own identities and communities in these rural areas.

In an interview with WireTap Magazine, Gray said:

We need to re-examine our assumption that rural places are endemically hostile to queer folks. The frequency of hate crimes in cities should signal to us that rural and urban spaces are differently [but] not more or less violent to queer people. Without rural communities and their LGBTQ constituents, national and statewide advocacy groups will be unable to advance basic civil rights issues on a national scale.

Assuming LGBTQ life necessarily improves through securing the right to marry without equally valuing, and in rural communities prioritizing, accessible LGBTQ-specific healthcare and job protections will do very little to change the lives of working class and poor rural LGBTQ youth. Anyone who thinks rural queer kids are just a wedding ring away from full citizenship and equality hasn’t spent time looking for healthcare or a living wage in rural Appalachia.

Gray has hit the nail on the head. Marriage equality may be a major issue for queer people in large cities, where they have safe and secure jobs, health care, and a large circle of support, but that couldn’t be farther from the minds of queer youth (or anyone else, for that matter) in rural areas. Why should they care about marriage equality when they are worried about losing their job, health care, and living wages?

Hopefully people will take a hint from this book and start rethinking their ideas of queer lives in rural America.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=POJ8IQFCv6s

Isn’t that great? According to Miss Venezuela, now Miss Universe, women do not have to worry about pesky things like gender discrimination, or sexism in the workplace. In response to a question about sexism in the workplace, Miss Venezuela stated simply that women need to realize that “there are no longer any barriers against us.”

Huzzah! Feminism is dead!

Not only did she receive loud applause, but then she WON!

A role model to young girls and women everywhere… Nothin’ like a good beauty pageant.

Check out the video via Jezebel here.

I’ve been seeing a lot of trailers for Night at the Museum 2 these days and I love the fact that Amy Adams is playing Amelia Earhart, lady-pilot, Kansan native and possible lez.

And, of course, I couldn’t mention Amy Adams without also mentioning Hilary Swank who will be playing her in the upcoming biopic. No word yet on whether or not her possible lesbian tendancies will be mentioned.

Bigots should be called out on their bullshit, but there are ways of doing that without shaming women with nude photographs and scandalous stories about breast implants.

Jessica Valenti at Feministing said,

“It also irks me to no end that sites like the one that released these “scandalous” pictures (and no, I won’t link to them) justify themselves by claiming that they’ve caught Prejean being a hypocrite…

..You know, there are plenty of ways to fight back against discrimination and hypocrisy – sexually shaming women isn’t one of them. Not only is it intellectually lazy (really, there’s no other way to show that Prejean’s comments were terrible?), but fighting homophobia with misogyny pretty much reeks of hypocrisy itself, no?”

Visit Feministing.com to read more with a lot of great links to related articles.

Via Feministing, Radical Doula, and a really cool blog called Birth Activist.