Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Entry for the Feminist Valentine Blog Awards

While it is true that Valentine’s Day tends to enrich card companies and chocolate manufacturers, and to enforce all kinds of apallingly patriarchal, heteronormative views of love and relationships, I celebrate it with some enthusiasm in my own subversive way. Here’s why: My first year of law school was difficult, and by February 14th I was seriously dragging. My first semester grades had been good but not great, I didn’t have a summer job lined up yet, and though I had gotten over the fear of being called on in classes, this allowed me to notice how boring and disjointed some of them were. The long slog through the rest of the semester loomed interminably, and I knew that the only respite from the tedium would be the reoccurring fear of finals. I was too heinously depressed to even buy myself some chocolate. Then I went to my student mailbox, which was really just a hanging folder, and found an unexpected valentine, from a casual law school friend, and by casual I mean completely and unambiguously platonic. It was just a small, extremely inexpensive valentine of the sort children buy in bulk to exchange with classmates, and it featured a smilling cartoon bumble bee with the legend “Bee Mine” or some equally silly pun, but it completely and profoundly brightened my day. Now every year I inflict same on others – cheap valentines, bad puns, and brightened days.
–Ann Bartow

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Journal of Sexualities, Gender + Justice: Call For Papers About “Just Love”

The journal of sexualities, gender + justice is an independently peer-reviewed journal which aims to promote discussion of, and provide a forum for the analysis of, relations between and within sexualities, genders and law from critical and interdisciplinary perspectives.

The theme for the inaugural issue is

just.jpg

– a topic which seems out of place in an academic and political environment that is preoccupied with international security, economic rationalism and new pandemics. And yet a critical glance reveals that these”objective”and”rational”topics are couched in highly emotive language and often draw heavily upon generalisations about gender and sexuality.

The journal of sexualities, gender + justice invites submissions on the topic of just love, and encourages analyses across plural and different sexualities and genders, including but not limited to heterosexual, queer, intersex, transgender, masculinities and femininities and analyses that address the appearance of law in different sites, such as word and image, popular culture, cinema, policy, daily life, judgments and legislation.

In particular, submissions could address one or more of the following:

· the end/s of sexuality
· pain, pleasure and polyamory
· sex, death and terror
· protocols of engagement
· the sexual imagination of law.

Any style of submission up to 8000 words is welcome, including scholarly articles, poetry, prose, scripts and visuals. (Photographs and drawings will be published on-line.) Submissions from any relevant discipline, including law, history, sociology, politics and psychology, as well as from activists and practitioners, are encouraged. A style guide is available on the journal’s website:

Submissions due 30 June 2006

For more information please contact:

Sarah Keenan                           Mark Thomas
Ph: 0412 805 742               Ph: 0408 714 706

editors@jsgj.org

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

heart.gif

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Katha Pollitt on Betty Friedan

She wrote an article in The Nation entitled “Betty Friedan, 1921 – 2006,” and you can read the whole thing here. Below is an excerpt:

… “In a spirited, much discussed polemic in the December American Prospect, retired law professor Linda Hirshman argues that it’s not a media myth that educated young women are going back home in droves; it’s really happening, and it’s feminists’ fault for replacing the language of justice with the language of choice: Whatever you decide is fine, if that’s what you really want! For Hirshman work is everything: She counts as slackers even new mothers who take a few years off or go part-time. And work means a high-paying career with a corner office in your sights: none of your poverty-wage, idealistic, do-good jobs for her, so eat your hearts out, Nation staffers. Hirshman wants feminists to assert that stay-home mothers waste their talents, buy into domestic subordination and perpetuate inequality in the public realm. Even if she’s right in some abstract, theoretical way, and even if there were some central committee of feminism to issue these fatwas, it would be hard to think of a better recipe for political suicide: As if American women don’t already feel attacked by the cartoon feminist in their heads! ….

“The Feminine Mystique didn’t change my life; I was only 13 when it came out and even then I didn’t see myself as a Future Homemaker of America. The book I loved was Kate Millett’s Sexual Politics, which was about literature. Still, whenever I open Friedan’s manifesto I’m carried away by its directness and pungency, its moral seriousness, its Emersonian call to women to use their best energies and be true to their best selves. It is so contrary to the caricature of feminism put forward in the media down to this day–child-hating feminazis in power suits–and it is not really Hirshman’s feminism either. Friedan doesn’t disparage love or motherhood (in fact, for women’s liberationists, she was far too devoted to conventional domestic arrangements); she doesn’t insist you get up from the delivery table and go straight back to your desk; she doesn’t, like Hirshman, belittle majoring in English or art history as a ticket to nowhere. Still less did Friedan–whose major experience of full-time employment was as editor of the left-wing United Electrical Workers union newspaper–advise women to drop their foolish predilection for socially meaningful work and go for that big corporate paycheck. I doubt she would say, with Hirshman, that domesticity is inherently “not interesting” even if she thought it. She would simply say it is not enough for a whole human life. Cooking and cleaning and shopping are not why we are here.

“The Feminine Mystique has a larger and deeper vision: Women, like men, have a duty to their minds and talents and selves that cannot be fulfilled by living vicariously through husbands and children. An equal cannot live a happy subordinate life; an adult cannot thrive in a culture that infantilizes her. If Rousseau had not been a mad misogynist, he would have applauded Friedan.”

Via Heavens To Mergatroyd.

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I Think We All Saw This Coming

South Dakota aiming to overturn Roe v. Wade:

“The South Dakota House has passed a bill that would nearly ban all abortions in the state, ushering the issue to the state Senate.

“Supporters are pushing the measure in hopes of drawing a legal challenge that will cause the US Supreme Court to reverse its 1973 decision legalizing abortion.

“The bill banning all abortions in South Dakota was passed 47-to-22 in the House.

“Amendments aimed at carving out exemptions for rape, incest and the health of women were rejected.

“The bill does contain a loophole that allows abortions if women are in danger of dying. Doctors who do those abortions could not be prosecuted.”

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Feminism and Hunting

Pharyngula and Firedoglake point out one aspect of Cheney’s ill-fated hunting trip that is not getting a lot of attention:

“Monday’s hunting trip to Pennsylvania by Vice President Dick Cheney in which he reportedly shot more than 70 stocked pheasants and an unknown number of mallard ducks at an exclusive private club places a spotlight on an increasingly popular and deplorable form of hunting, in which birds are pen-reared and released to be shot in large numbers by patrons. The ethics of these hunts are called into question by rank-and-file sportsmen, who hunt animals in their native habitat and do not shoot confined or pen-raised animals that cannot escape.

“The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported today that 500 farm-raised pheasants were released yesterday morning at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township for the benefit of Cheney’s 10-person hunting party. The group killed at least 417 of the birds, illustrating the unsporting nature of canned hunts. The party also shot an unknown number of captive mallards in the afternoon.”

The feminist connection in all this is reflected by recent scholarly works related to intersections between animal rights and human rights by Catharine MacKinnon and Martha Nussbaum.

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The University of Wisconsin’s College Library’s Women’s Collection

According to this site:

“…the collection provides books and videos emphasizing current women’s issues of interest to undergraduates, including the students in Women’s Studies courses. The collection includes titles about women’s health concerns and topics such as abortion, women and welfare, body image and women related family issues like childcare. Works by and about women authors, artists and musicians are collected as anthologies or criticism identified as pertaining to women’s or feminist issues. Books by or about individuals in the literary and fine arts are only selected if they are considered seminal works. Critically acclaimed lesbian fiction is included in the collection as well. Books on all these topics, which would be scattered throughout the library collection, are presented here in the Women’s Collection to encourage browsing by undergraduates seeking to expand their appreciation of women’s lives and experiences.”

The Women’s Collection homepage is here. Check out the “featured books” for Winter 2006, which are grouped under the title: “To Be Young & Feminist.”

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An Unexpectedly Good Book: “Smashed: Story of a Drunken Girlhood” by Koren Zailckas

I spent most of today in the Philadelphia airport, trying to get back to Columbia, SC through the blizzard. I started the day at 6 am, where I learned that one can walk underground from Broad and Locust streets in Center City, Philadelphia all the way to Suburban Station through subway tunnels, which was a whole lot better than trudging through whiteout conditions that were unexpectedly supplemented by thunder and lightening, which I at first freakedoutedly mistook for some kind of apocalyptic chain of thermonuclear explosions. There were a lot of homeless people camped in the cold, damp, windy tunnels. One asked me to buy him breakfast at a Dunkin Donuts booth, where I was queued up for a bagel while awaiting a SEPTA train to the airport, and when I agreed, all that he wanted was two jelly doughnuts, declining even coffee as an excessive request, which about made me cry.

I went to the wrong airport gate at first, which I didn’t discover until after I’d cleared security. Admission to the correct gate required a second trip through security, where my knapsack triggered some concern and had to be unpacked and thoroughly checked, despite having cleared security at the other gate ten minutes previously. That’s the kind of security arbitrariness that is both maddening and alarming! Happily it turned out that one of the security folks was a 1989 graduate of the University of South Carolina and we had a nice chat about Gamecock basketball and his home town of Florence SC, and this may have helped me avoid a strip search.

Yes, I am getting to the book referenced in the title of the post, I swear! I wound up spending almost eight hours at the aiport, and I needed something to do. On a quest for crossword puzzles I spotted a “Smashed” display at a bookstore. The cover features a slumped young woman sitting on a bar stool with her head lolling forward, and it struck me that the book was probably some sensationalized tale of some idiotic sodden heiress, either glorifying substance abuse or offering some annoyingly self-righteous trumped up tale of redemption. There is an endorsement on the front of the tome by Entertainment Weekly which states “Gripping…one of the best accounts of addiction, the college experience, or what it means to be an average teenage girl in America.” This actually made me laugh out loud, and not in a particularly nice way, as I tend to be deeply cynical of Entertainment Weekly‘s ability to discern authentic average teenaged girlhood.

I picked up a copy and turned it over to see what other seemingly ridiculous reviews the book might have attracted. The blurb on the back (which is accompanied by a very angry-looking photo of the author) made the book sound like an overtly hectoring cautionary tale, stating it was “a crucial book for any young woman growing up under the allure of booze…” If I hadn’t been completely bored I wouldn’t have thumbed through the book, but I was, and I did, and every random passage I read defied my low expectations, and actually intrigued me. So I bought a copy, and read it cover to cover. It’s a wonderful travel book because the print is large and the 340 pages go quickly.

Many of my students are young twenty-somethings, and this book may have given me a small window into some of their lives. Author Koren Zailckas recounts her high school and college experiences in a compelling and believable way. It also struck me as a feminist book, despite the author’s college Sorority membership and some expressed hostility toward her mother’s feminist leanings when she was a teenager. After I finished it, I noticed with surprise that the dedication is, “For my mother, who first made me mindful of women’s issues.” Below is an excerpt from pages 203-04:

“I don’t think people realize that drunk girls are themselves a fetish object. The phrase itself is as porn sensitive as “schoolgirls” or “lesbian orgies.” Type it into an Internet search and you’ll get more than 450,000 porn sites in less than twenty seconds. And I’m not only talking about sites that feature spring-break footage of “easy drunk girls flashing their tits,” but also ones that highlight “dead-drunk girls passed out,” and publish gritty, overexposed pictures of girls lying unconscious while anonymous male hands pull off their underwear.

“Take, for example, clubdrunk.com, which advertises, “This site is not a joke! We find real drunk girls and fuck them on video. We go out all year round to bars, beaches, colleges, and wherever else drunk girls are and get them to come home with us!” Or consider deaddrunkgirls.com, which boasts 60,000 members who log on because: “We all know the situation when a girl feels shy. If you don’t help her to relax, you will end up wanking off alone… If you get her drunk she’ll do anything for you, she’ll even satisfy all your friends.” These sites show photos of girls slamming back glasses of whiskey, right alongside the nasty close-ups of the sex acts that we’re led to believe came afterwards. Visitors are reminded, “Kelly was dead-drunk and I don’t think she realized what was going on. But one thing is for sure, she certainly enjoyed herself!”

It’s an interesting, articulate, and compelling read, and though it initially struck me as exploitive and offensive, after absorbing the book, I decided that the “drunk girl” on the cover is actually an appropriate symbol. The author’s website is here.
smashed_med.gif

–Ann Bartow

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Anne Lamott: “The Rights Of the Born”

Writer Anne Lamott published an Op-Ed in the LA Times about abortion; the beginning part is posted below.

“EVERYTHING WAS going swimmingly on the panel. The subject was politics and faith, and I was on stage with two clergymen with progressive spiritual leanings, and a moderator who is liberal and Catholic. We were having a discussion with the audience of 1,300 people in Washington about many of the social justice topics on which we agree : the immorality of the federal budget, the wrongness of the president’s war in Iraq. Then an older man came to the mike and raised the issue of abortion, and everyone just lost his or her mind.

“Or, at any rate, I did.

“Maybe it was the way in which the man couched the question, which was about how we should reconcile our progressive stances on peace and justice with the “murder of a million babies every year in America.” The man who asked the question was soft-spoken, neatly and casually dressed.

“First Richard, a Franciscan priest, answered that this is indeed a painful issue but that it is not the only “pro-life” issue that progressives : even Catholics : should concern themselves with during elections. There are also the matters of capital punishment and the war in Iraq, and of HIV. Then Jim, an evangelical, spoke about the need to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies, and the need to diffuse abortion as a political issue, by welcoming pro-choice and pro-life supporters to the discussion, with equal respect for their positions. He spoke gently about how “morally ambiguous” the issue is.

“I sat there simmering, like a samovar; nice Jesusy me. The moderator turned to me and asked quietly if I would like to respond. I did: I wanted to respond by pushing over our table.

“Instead, I shook my head. I love and respect the Franciscan and the evangelical, and agree with them 90-plus percent of the time. So I did not say anything, at first.

“Then, when I was asked to answer the next question, I paused, and returned to the topic of abortion. There was a loud buzzing in my head, the voice of reason that says, “You have the right to remain silent,” but the voice of my conscience was insistent. I wanted to express calmly, eloquently, that pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion : one born (the pregnant woman) and one not (the fetus) : but that the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.

“Also, I wanted to wave a gun around, to show what a real murder looks like. This tipped me off that I should hold my tongue, until further notice. And I tried.

“But then I announced that I needed to speak out on behalf of the many women present in the crowd, including myself, who had had abortions, and the women whose daughters might need one in the not-too-distant future : people who must know that teenage girls will have abortions, whether in clinics or dirty backrooms. Women whose lives had been righted and redeemed by Roe vs. Wade. My answer was met with some applause but mostly a shocked silence.” ….

Read the rest here.

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Feminism and Complacency

At the “Media Girl” blog contributor Matsu writes:

“The recent death of Betty Friedan reminded me how out of touch women are with one another over the issue of Feminism.

“A second generation of women, the grandchildren of the Feminists of the 1960s and 1970s, are growing up in a world shaped by Feminist thinking and Feminist gains. It is only when reality stumbles over the fact a women’s right to choose to bear children, or not, is brought in jeopardy that people get into touch with their “inner Feminist.”

“The word for this is complacency.

“Feminism is the idea that women should have equal rights.

“When Betty Friedan passed away, I read some of the retrospectives about her and what her contributions were – or weren’t – and in them we learned more about the author of the articles than we did about Friedan – and I suppose that that’s how the world works.

“If I were to write about ante-Bellum America, I am sure I would have difficulty picturing people who believed they had the right to own other people.

“I look at pictures of the Holocaust and the mind snaps.

“It is hard to look at the world in which we have no experience – and today’s young women, thankfully, have had to live with less sexism that did the women and girls did in the era I grew up in.

“Along the way we won the right to choose. I can still remember the day that it happened. So many victories and so many battles and so much that we owe to so few – who fought for the rights we take for granted.

“Feminism meant that women not automatically be subservient to men. This angered some people who twisted what Feminism was, and contorted it into some sort of monstrosity, which then could be attacked because it was a Frankenstein -and ugly. The word Feminist was turned into a synonym for lesbian, as if only lesbians wanted to have equal rights, and all real women would spurn the concept. “Feminism was unfeminine.”

“And we still hear it in a different form – how out of touch Friedan was; how she was a forgotten giant of a forgotten era; how today we have a post-Feminist era; that there is a Third Wave … as if there were a Second Waves when all it really is part of the SAME wave.

“Using the word “wave” separates people and helps them forget.

“Words such as “radical,” a cousin of the current “liberal,” is applied to the idea a woman might have ambitions and talent.

“Is the Second Wave Feminist like “Web 2.0?” Are there Feminists that are 3.0? Hard to imagine when the Equal Rights Amendment, ERA, isn’t even on the radar, like it wasn’t for the 1950’s housewives that Friedan’s book targeted.

“I am not out to flame the young women who are making a go of it. More power to them, but when the basics such as ERA languish, it is hardly a time to speak of second and third waves, and how fighting for choice is an issue.

“We can speak to Second and Third Wave Feminism, but until some of the fundamental legislation that goes by to the 1920s is passed, we are at Feminism 1.0 – or even still in “beta.”

“Kos and others are right, but not the way they mean it. They say Reproductive Rights are a narrow issue. True enough, for it is how women get marginalized in a backwater. Until women have full equal rights, we will get side tracked in this area because the argument can be made that women are different and need different laws – just like the slaves of old.

“Until we all are free, no one is free.

“Feminism needs to be celebrated as a living thing and not some curiosity of history – a footnote of a failed cause.”

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Phyllis Horn Epstein: “Women-at-Law: Lessons Learned Along the Pathways to Success”

epstein.jpg

“[A]uthor Phyllis Horn Epstein interviewed over 100 women lawyers of all ages, backgrounds,and lifestyle in a wide variety of practice settings in the nation….Women-at-Law provides women with ideas and suggestions about how to deal with their professional and personal goals and challenges and make the compromises required to “have it all”–recognizing that “having it all” can be different for each individual. You’ll learn that, with some effort, a motivated woman can redirect her career, her home life, and her interests, in the long journey that is a successful life.” More information here (that’s an Amazon.com link).

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The Western Law Professors of Color Conference, “Pale Promises: Confronting the Rights Deficit,” 3/31 thru 4/2 at California Western School of Law

The Western Law Professors of Color Conference, “Pale Promises: Confronting the Rights Deficit,” will take place March 31st through April 2, 2006 at California Western School of Law in San Diego, California. Students, non-law profs & non-academics are welcome!

Full details here.

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“Spot-On” Takes On Caitlin Flanagan’s Teenaged Fellation Article

Chris Nolan’s post begins:

“Oh joy. Yet another issue of The Atlantic Monthly lands in my mailbox and yet again – it’s been a year now that I’ve been keeping track – it contains a minimal contribution from women writers. We’ve come to expect this from “serious” political magazines and newspapers but it’s nevertheless annoying.

“And this month, in a commission that is breathtakingly insulting on a number of levels, The Atlantic had its marquee female and sometimes feminist writer Caitlin Flanagan discuss one of the more pressing social issue of our time: Teenage girls and fellatio. I am not making this up. In a long, rambling and, in the end, confused piece “Are You There God? It’s Me, Monica” Flanagan goes on at great length about what we old folks think teenagers are doing with themselves and each other.

“I so wish I were joking about this. It sounds like a Saturday Night Live skit, doesn’t it? Picture the pipe-smoking Henry Higgins-like editor, scratching his chin: “We’re not stodgy white guys who don’t care about women’s role in society. We denounce the sexual exploitation of women just like the feminists! I know! Let’s write about teenagers and penises! Let’s invoke the name of the nation’s best known shameless hussy we know – that girl who wanted the president to come in her mouth! – to show how hip we are. And let’s have a woman write the, er, piece. No one ever will guess we’re indulging our fantasies and fears about our daughters, step-daughters and their cute, sexy friends just to have a bizarre and one-sided conversation about the sexual habits of hot teenage girls. No one will ever guess!”

Read the whole thing here.

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Will Maureen Dowd Stop Using “Female” as a Pejorative?

NYT columnist Maureen Dowd often disparages male political figures by comparing them to women. For example, in a 11/01/05 column, to show how despicable she though Cheney and his cronies were, she said that they were “catty,” a “Mean Girls cabal” and “hawkish Heathers” who “clawed out Colin Powell’s eyes.” In a 1/18/06 column she wrote that the Democrats “will never succeed as long as they’re perceived as the party in skirts.” Well, yesterday, she castigated “the Republicans” for doing the same thing. The Daily Howler explained:

“DOWD DOES IT AGAIN: Because it’s important, we’ll flag it again. Once again, Maureen Dowd is angry at”the Republicans.”Here’s how she starts today’s column:

DOWD (2/8/06): The Republicans succeed because they keep it simple, ruthless and mythic. In 2000 and 2004, G.O.P. gunslingers played into the Western myth and mined images of manliness, feminizing Al Gore as a Beta Tree-Hugger, John Kerry as a Waffling War Wimp With a Hectoring Wife and John Edwards as his true bride, the Breck Girl.

Now, in the distaff version of Swift-boating, they are casting Hillary Clinton as an Angry Woman, a she-monster melding images of Medea, the Furies, harpies, a knife-wielding Glenn Close in ”Fatal Attraction” and a snarling Scarlett Johansson in ”Match Point.”

“According to Dowd, the Republicans”feminized”all those Big Dems. But who does Dowd forget to mention? Oh yes:she forgets to mention Maureen Dowd! For example, did the Republicans mock Edwards as the Breck Girl:as Kerry’s”true bride?”Did the Republicans cast Teresa Heinz Kerry as the hectoring wife? Here’s the start of Dowd’s typically vacuous column from July 8, 2004:

DOWD (7/8/04): I’m happy for John Kerry. Long-faced guy, as some Bushies refer to him, finally found somebody to stand at the podium and give him an adoring look.

Heaven knows Teresa was never going to do it. Her attention rarely seems to light on her husband when she’s at a microphone with him.

“Yes, it was the feminized Edwards who was giving Kerry that”adoring look.”And by the way:this column bore a typical headline:”Breck Girl Takes on Dr. No!”Omigod:it was Maureen Dowd who was”feminizing Edwards”as Kerry’s true bride:as the Breck Girl:

DOWD: Unfortunately for this White House, it is Mr. Edwards’s great talent to talk about the class warfare of ”two Americas” in a sunny way. The Breck Girl is already getting under the Boy King’s thin skin.

“Dowd went on to say that Edwards had been”nicknamed the Breck Girl by Bush officials.”But as always, the vacuous columnist ran with it hard. She just couldn’t wait to feminize Edwards:just as she’d raced to feminize Gore during Campaign 2000. In December 1999, for example, Dowd savaged Gore and Naomi Wolf in the stupidest possible terms.”[W]hen a man has to pony up a fortune to a woman to teach him how to be a man, that definitely takes the edge off his top-dogginess,”she wrote. Soon, Every Dumb Pundit was out recycling their own top dog’s dumbest-belle quotes. It’s bad enough that this vacuous scribe presents such crap in so major a forum. But now she pretends that someone else has been doing the deed all along! In the past week, career liberals have actually begun to notice that the RNC does this to every Big Dem (more to come on this dawning realization). But until we start to tell the truth about the people who have really done this, we’re unlikely to stem this tide. This morning, Dowd plays her readers for fools again, slamming past conduct which she herself led. And the mewling boys of the self-dealing career left will again be much too careful to say so. These boys will do what they’ve done all along. They’ll keep their careerist traps shut tight:and play you for fools once again.

“One more note on Dowd’s complete fakeness: Today, she complains that the Republicans”feminiz[ed] Gore as a Beta.”But what was the headline of the column from which we took her quote about Wolf? Of course! The headline of that widely-cited piece was”The Alpha-Beta Macarena.”On and on she went in that piece, mocking Gore as a girlie-man Beta (the column was factually inaccurate in several ways, by the by). Dowd”feminized”Gore every step of the way:and”the Republicans”ended up in the White House. But today, again, Slow Mo forgets:and she says the Republicans did it.”

If the New York Times can only manage to have one female Op-Ed columnist, why oh why does it have to be Dowd?

–Ann Bartow

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The Big Fat Carnival – First Edition!

Alas (a blog) has collected a lot of links to blog posts about weight, size, dieting and body image, grouped loosely by subject area, including: “Section Four: Fat, Gender and Feminism.” Another good source of body acceptance posts can be found (every day, not just as part of a “Carnival”) at Big Fat Blog.

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Carrie Yang Costello:”Professional Identity Crisis: Race, Class, Gender, and Success at Professional Schools”

costello.jpg

The Amazon.com summary: “The fact that women and people of color tend to underperform at professional schools is a source of controversy. Conservatives blame affirmative action, while liberals blame intentional discrimination. The extensive research reported in Professional Identity Crisis belies both conspiracy theories. The author spent over 400 hours observing how first-year students are socialized in two very different environments, Boalt School of Law and the School of Social Welfare at UC Berkeley, watching how they adapted to different expectations of how to speak, dress, and behave in the classroom.

“Costello found that students who were female, of color, disabled, or poor were not underqualified compared with their privileged peers. Nor did the research uncover intentional bigotry. Instead, the disproportionate success of white men can be explained by the fact that they are more likely to acquire appropriate professional identities swiftly, with little inner conflict. Students from less privileged backgrounds, however, suffered from “identity dissonance.”

“For example, Jasmine, a Filipino student from Los Angeles, explained, “In the legal culture you have to adopt a different way of being, a different vocabulary and way to carry yourself . . . That’s how I got this far. And when I go home, if I act the way I do here, they won’t get it. My cousins and my friends say, ‘You’re kind of whitewashed.’ And when I come back here I have to get back my law style.”

This Insider Higher Ed article: “Professional Correctness” by Scott McLemee, contains an interview with the author, and describes her book project as follows:

“One of the most durable metaphors used in making sense of the world treats social life as a kind of theatrical performance. Each of us is playing a part : more or less comfortably, more or less convincingly : while burdened, often enough, by the need to improvise”in character.”

“This idea is more than a Shakespearean conceit. It’s implicit in the sociological notion of”role,”for example. And it also helps make sense of what happens when people learn to play that type known as”the professional”: a much-sought social role, usually accompanied by substantial benefits in income, and even more in prestige.

“How people rehearse that character is the topic of Carrie Young Costello’s Professional Identity Crisis: Race, Class, Gender, and Success at Professional Schools (Vanderbilt University Press). Costello, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, takes on the thorny topic of why women and people of non-Caucasian ethnicities who enter professional schools with solid academic records often tend to underperform. She did extensive field research among first-year students enrolled in the law and social-work schools at the University of California at Berkeley.

“Costello finds that there is an undeclared yet unmistakable WASP accent to the professional roles that students are training to acquire. Along with technical expertise, they have to assimilate the necessary demeanor and attitude. For students of some backgrounds, that presents no real difficulties : so they can, as Costello puts it,”focus on the intellectual tasks of professional school with little distraction.”But for those with”a mismatch between the personal identities they possess upon entering their professional programs and the professional roles those schools proffer,”there can be a jarring dissonance.”Seeking to find a way to manage or resolve their identity dissonance distracts students from focusing on their studies,”writes Costello.”

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The Eighth Carnival of the Feminists is Up!

At Gendergeek! The “Carnival of the Feminists” homepage is here.

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Ariela R. Dubler: “Immoral Purposes: Marriage and the Genus of Illicit Sex”

Citation is: 115 Yale L.J. 756 (2006). Does not appear to be available for free downloading anywhere, unfortunately. Here’s the abstract:

“In Lawrence v. Texas, the Supreme Court situates its opinion within the history of laws banning sodomy. Lawrence, however, is also part of another historical narrative: the history of attempts by federal lawmakers and judges to define the relationships among the genus of illicit sex, the genus of licit sex, and marriage. Viewed from this perspective, Lawrence marks the latest intervention in a legal conversation that began when Congress enacted the 1907 Immigration Act and the 1910 Mann Act, each of which prohibited the movement of women across borders:the former, international, the latter, interstate:for”immoral purposes.”In the early twentieth century, through these provisions, lawmakers and judges constructed an isomorphic relationship between marriage/nonmarriage and licit sex/illicit sex. The”marriage cure”transported sex across the illicit/licit divide. But courts and legislators came to view these curative powers as a threat to marriage’s place in the sociolegal order because individuals used marriage as a tool to evade legal penalties. Thus, they checked the powers of the marriage cure and, in so doing, uncoupled both parts of their original isomorphism. Lawrence represents the culmination of this process: the movement of a sexual relationship across the illicit/licit divide at least in part because it made no claim to marriage. This move reflects the persistent status of marriage as simultaneously powerful in its ability to confer legal privileges and to shield people from the dangers of sexual illicitness, and powerless to protect itself from the taint of those same illicit practices.”

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“Feminist Perspectives on Law”

Feminist Perspectives on Law” bills itself as “a resource for UK researchers, teachers and learners” but it’s also pretty handy for Yanks! Click on the links in the “Subject Areas” sidebar for some really useful bibliographies.

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