harpy week: 3 posts and 2 colds

from Fiendish

Hi folks. So the last couple of weeks have been a bit exhausting here around the feminist librarian household, as Hanna and I have both been struggling with bad winter colds (hers worse than mine; fingers crossed I don't relapse!). And we have a friend coming in from out of town to visit for the long weekend. So I may or may not get around to posting as usual next week. Just so's you aren't alarmed if nothing comes across your RSS feeds.

Meanwhile, here's the usual round-up from over at Harpyness from the passed seven days.

On Monday, in honor of Valentine's Day, I put up a post critiquing Dan Savage's "stick to your own" advice when it comes to dating and relationships. The post generated some heated discussion in comments concerning whether or not my interpretation of Dan's advice was acccurate, and whether or not said advice was actually prejudiced (as I suggest it is). So whether or not you agree with me, I'd suggest checking out the comment thread to see what folks have to say on the subject.

On Wednesday, I managed to get up a booknote on Judith Warner's 2005 polemic, Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety.  I read the book in tandem with Stephanie Coontz' history of The Feminine Mystique (reviewed two weeks ago) and was struck by how far we haven't come in terms of re-evaluating the demands of motherhood over the past half century. Nonetheless, I also felt frustrated by the author's narrow focus (upper-middle-class, heteronormative parenting) and the way she blamed feminist for the failure of society to change. By coincidence, this post went up in tandem with a guest post by regular reader/commenter Wingstaff, writing about work, family, and life as a military wife.

Marie Anelle wrote a post on Wednesday about sexism in our culture's response to illness, which I followed up on Thursday with a post about ageism and access to over-the-counter cold medications. There was a lively debate in the comment thread on cold medications about the acceptibility of society regulating teen access to over-the-counter drugs, particularly those which have the potential to be used in abusive, self-harming ways.

As always, wander on over to The Pursuit of Harpyness to check out the full range of posts that went up during the passed week.