The Good, the Bad, and the Curious: Catch-Up Edition

I have been woefully neglectful of my ever-growing list of links to share, and I know it's the middle of the week, and I know some of these are now "old" in terms of internet lifespan, but I'm sharing them anyway. Here they are: the things that made me smile, groan, and think for the past (few) week(s).

The Good

EcoSalon had a whole list of kitchen tips, most of which I had never heard of before and many of which I found useful. Yay for easier cooking. 

Get Born is sponsoring a call for honest photos of motherhood. In a time when we feel pressured to get "perfect" shots of our kids being little angels to carry into our future, perhaps we'd be better served cataloging what our lives are actually like. And we all know that some days life is actually like this:

 

The Get Born challenge points out the problem with trying to stage perfect moments of childhood, and it dovetails really nicely with this beautiful piece from Allison Tate on overcoming her insecurities about being photographed in an imperfect state and instead making sure that she gets in the picture with her kids. 

And both of those posts about honest pictures are made even more poignant when read next to this post about the "World's Ugliest Woman" who tells people to stop staring at her and start learning how to accept themselves.

And the message of accepting ourselves was highlighted so amazingly well in this story about a cruel Reddit user who mocks a Sikh woman over her facial hair and then apologizes when she explains her decisions and acceptance of her own body.

Isn't that just a lovely little connected thread full of tolerance, acceptance, love, and honesty? 

The Bad

Reel Girl has a great post about those sexist GQ covers and compares them to Manet's painting featuring dressed men and naked women. Why aren't we making any progress?

At least we now have Photoshop to help make our point through parody.
What if the "Man of the Year" was photographed the way the "Woman of the Year" was?

Todd Akin further demonstrates his utter inability to grasp women's issues by insisting that abortion providers are performing abortions on women who are not pregnant. And some polls have him winning! If that's not "Bad," I don't know what is. 

The Curious

 If you haven't seen it already, Samantha Bee's Daily Show segment about abortion at the RNC is really interesting. 

Sociological Images brings a much-needed reality check amongst all this "end of men" discussion. (Spoiler alert: men aren't ending.)

Reel Girl takes a look at our treatment of post-baby weight gain through the public scrutiny of Jessica Simpson's body and asks why we keep pretending like fat shaming is really about health. 

Frugal Mama has an interesting, heartfelt, and thought-provoking post about how getting wildly successful as a blogger made her really question the way her life was going--and the decisions she's made to fix it.

Here's a great discussion on why inequality is bad for everyone, including the 1%.