Sunday, May 20, 2012

The Good, the Bad, and the Curious (Links)

Things I read that made me smile, sigh, and think. Feel free to add things you've read or written, too! (Reading was a little light this week. Finals week means lots of papers to grade, but they're DONE now. File that under "the Good.")

The Good


Jay-Z and the NAACP voice their support for marriage equality.

I just signed up to run the Color Run. How can you watch this video and not smile?


The Bad


Elle decides to use some creative photoshopping to make cover model Coco Rocha appear to be wearing a lot fewer clothes than she actually was. The model is complaining about her portrayal and this whole issue brings up questions about photo editing, reality, and responsibility. We're also having some pretty serious conversations about what level of editing is acceptable when it comes to body image and a teen girl's petition for Seventeen magazine to show just one unaltered spread a month has reached 75,000 signatures (though the company still hasn't agreed). This is an issue that is likely to get more complex as the interests of models, companies, advertisers, and the consuming public merge and diverge.

This report in from the Nation shows how our abysmal maternity leave policies are forcing women into horrible choices that often lead to mountains of debt:

But many workers aren’t even guaranteed that. Less than half of the country’s private-sector workers are covered by FMLA, which may explain why over a quarter of all workers—in situations similar to Underwood’s—either quit or are let go of their jobs when they need to take leave. 
Of course, employers are free to be more generous with paid leave, but a recent report from the National Partnership for Women & Families found that many employers cut back over the past decade. Almost 30 percent of employers offered paid leave for new mothers in 1998; only 16 percent did in 2008.
In New York, the possession of condoms is being used against women. Condoms are being confiscated and brought up as evidence of prostitution, which seriously contradicts the public health goals of condom usage.

The Curious


Reel Girl takes a look at the Lusty Lady, a sex-positive feminist strip club that boasts real bodies and size diversity but that's struggling to make ends meet. She asks if it's worth saving.

EcoSalon has a post about standardized testing and some of the campaigns against it.


A Crunk Feminist Collective post looks at the rhetoric of rights and examines some of the comparisons between the discussions of interracial marriage rights and gay marriage rights.

This post takes a look at why the fashion industry's rigid body standards are harmful for everyone:
If she couldn’t be a size 2, she had to be at least a size 16–which highlights a much bigger problem: Women are damned if they do (lose weight, because it will end in skinny-bashing), or damned if they don’t (hello, fat-shaming); and which is why, even if you’re not a big fashion fan or even media consumer, the natural model movement matters to you.
Sociological Images is running a series of posts on gender portrayals in Lego. It starts here.

What have you been reading/writing?

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