me --> writing elsewhere: looking back / looking forward edition

On the shore (Falmouth, Mass.)

Even though I took much of August and September off from regularly-scheduled blogging, I haven't done one of these posts since early summer so there's quite a bit accumulated on the interwebs to direct your attention to.

at the corner of your eye I put up the following reviews:

• Our Arcadia, a favorite novel by Robin Lippincott | 2012-09-25
• Just Before August Round-Up: a collective review of Virgins, The Accidental Feminist, The Gay Metropolis, Making Gay History, and Breeders | 2012-07-31
• America and the Pill, a cultural history of birth control pill | 2012-07-24
• I Do, I Don't, an anthology on gay marriage ca. 2004 | 2012-07-17
• Transitions of the Heart, an anthology by mothers of trans kids | 2012-07-10
• 13 books to read instead of Religious Right: The Greatest Threat to Democracy | 2012-06-12
• Big Sex, Little Death, Susie Bright's memoir | 2012-06-19

guest posts at In Our Words include:

• To Be and To Have: Reflections on Getting Gay Married | 2012-07-10
• Holding the Space: Thoughts on Being Queer Allies to Our Straight Co-Conspirators | 2012-08-01
• We Can Give Them Words: Clearing Space for Our Children to Explore Gender | 2012-08-13

at The Pursuit of Harpyness I contributed:

• The link to a great post from the Guardian on the junk science of sexual attraction.
• I wrote about the conservative study One Parent or Five, asking why the diversity of family forms generates so much anxiety (and in turn such poor scholarship!)
• I posted thoughts from Jay Smooth on rapper Frank Ocean's story about falling in love with a male friend.
• I asked the Harpies where they go for their local coffee fix (and shared my own Boston faves).
• A few things I would have written more about if time and energy had aligned.
• A rant about Boston Sports Club advertising (read: fat-shaming).
• Ten things I like about Hanna (in honor of our fast-approaching marriage).
• And finally, three Tuesday Teasers (links lists):
• #13: 2012-07-24
• #12: 2012-07-10
• #11: 2012-06-26

and a few Tumblr-length thoughts over at the feminist librarian reads:

• NOT back-to-school once again!
• I've been reading all these FEELS about parenting and marriage lately...
• instead of talking about [how] home-based births are "unsafe"...
• reading books about wage-work care-giving and motherhood...

Just today, I put up a farewell post at Harpyness; after nearly two years of blogging at what Hanna refers to as "the orange blog" I've decided it's time to move on. In part, the break I took from blogging in the run-up to our marriage helped me see how over-extended I've become on the interwebs. I'd like to re-dedicate myself to this space (the feminist librarian) in the months to come, as well as focusing more systematically on longer-term writing projects. 

In the immediate future, I'll be sharing more stuff about our wedding and book reviews as I am able; my new responsibilities at work are making for a hectic season and I find that I get home in the evenings with less writing energy than usual. I don't expect this to last, but please bear with me while it does -- I love meeting you in this space, and promise I will be here in the years to come. 

Incidentally, this is my 1000th post at annajcook.blogspot.com (which began life in 2007 as "The Future Feminist Librarian-Activist" in the spring before I embarked to graduate school in Boston. 

me --> writing elsewhere: summertime living edition

view from my pillow, sunday afternoon

It's time for the semi-regular round-up of posts written elsewhere. As a reminder, I'm now linking all blog posts, regardless of host site, at my public twitter account: @feministlib. So for those who use Twitter, it'll get you day-of updates from here and elsewhere. I realize Twitter isn't to everyone's taste, though, so I'll keep providing these link lists intermittently for those who care.

Over at the corner of your eye I reviewed:

• Fair Game by Patricia Briggs
• Joining the Resistance by Carol Gilligan
• The Morning After by Heather Munro Prescott
• Trans/Love edited by Morty Diamond
• Hit List by Laurell K. Hamilton
• Real Live Nude Girl by Carol Queen
• Dear Friend by David Deichter

We're also still posting three fan fic recs per week over at everything is gay and nothing hurts, for those who need a regular injection of slashy goodness.

And at The Pursuit of Harpyness:

• I wrote about the moral panic over children online, most recently in the specific debate over allowing children under the age of thirteen to open Facebook accounts.
• Tuesday Teasers #10 (12 June 2012)
• I shared the video of Jay Smooth reacting to Obama's public support of marriage equality.
• Tuesday Teasers #9 (15 May 2012)
• I shared a music video bringing together Lady Gaga and the history of suffrage.
• I reviewed Margot Canaday's The Straight State.
• Tuesday Teasers #8 (3 May 2012)
• I reviewed Geraldine Pratt's Families Apart.
• I had thoughts about a new study exploring sexual "want" and established relationships.
• I shared the video of Girl Talk 2011, an event which supports dialogue between cis and trans women.
• Tuesday Teasers #7 (17 April 2012)
• Ever been asked if you have a moment for gay rights? I reflect on the assumptions behind the talking points of charity muggers.
• I shared a music video of K.D. Lang singing Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah. 

And as I already highlighted, I participated in The Last Name Project back in May, writing about the way Hanna and I chose to combine our middle names in marriage. In July, I'll be contributing further wedding-themed posts to the "queer salon" In Our Words, which has already cross-posted my outline of our minimalist wedding plans.

I continue to feel that the feminist librarian is my true Internet home -- and I thank you all for stopping by to visit me here! I'm glad you find it an hospitable space.

me --> writing elsewhere: springtime for harpies! edition

Blackthorn Fairy*

Here's what I've been "writing elsewhere" since the 5th of February. Yep. It's really been that long!

At the corner of your eye:

• I wrote a joint review of In Search of Gay America (1989) and Art and Sex in Greenwich Village (2007).
• I reviewed Seanan McGuire's new Discount Armageddon (2012). 
• I shared a list of books read, not yet reviewed (sensing a theme at all?).
• I posted the second episode of Ivor the Engine (1958), a children's television show from England. Oliver Postgate wins the things.
• I reviewed six books at once in a pre-vacation round-up on subjects ranging from last year's best sex writing to the nature of identity in the twenty-first century.
• I shared a list of ten books purchased but not yet read (randomly chosen from the many titles on our shelves!).
• I reviewed The Hound of Conscience (1981), a history of English conscientious objectors of the First World War.
• Also Bachelors and Bunnies (2011), a history of gender relations as articulated in the pages of Playboy through the 1970s.

At The Pursuit of Harpyness (excluding cross-posts):

• I linked to my friend Natalie's interview about Clover Adams at LibraryThing.
• Tuesday Teasers #6 (3 Apr 12).
• I mused about getting angry on behalf of the people we love.
• Following a conversation with author Rachel Hills, I asked what makes sex "good"?
• I shared the digital components to Chicago History Museum's "Out in Chicago" exhibition.
• I bitched about the breathless coverage of the new erotic novel Fifty Shades of Gray. (Seriously? We have to learn all over again for the first time women do enjoy sex/porn/reading?)
• I noted an interesting article in the most recent Bitch magazine about what gay men can gain from feminist thought and activism.
• I investigated sexual flavor strips so you don't have to, and asked what we gain and lose from having such a product marketed to us.
• Tuesday Teasers #5 (14 Feb 12). 
• I reviewed Samhita Mukhopadhyay's Outdated (2012).

Hope y'all are enjoying a long and fruitful spring. Can't believe we're heading back into baseball season already here in Boston ... that time of year when you have to calculate the options for your commute home based on the relative number of Red Sox fans crawling around the neighborhood!

---

*Before you ask, yes. I was completely besotted with Cicely Mary Barker's flower fairies as a wee one. In my defenseI think I assumed they all behaved a bit like Tiki from The Fairy Rebel.

me --> writing elsewhere [harpy fortnight]

via

So, okay, it's been a while since I put one of these together. But here's what I've been up to elsewhere on the internet since the last "harpy fortnight" (back in December).

Hanna and I launched a new blog, the corner of your eye. And I'm not going to take for granted that y'all rushed over to follow it. I realize I'm not the center of the universe. But if you haven't checked it out, and have no interest in adding another blog to your feeds, at least be sure to read Hanna's post about swings. I also have book reviews up there for Britannia's Glory and Inseparable (both about women + sex) and a couple of vintage films.

Over at The Pursuit of Harpyness I've been keeping steady with about two posts per week, the contents of which can be summarized as follows:

• Tuesday Teasers (links lists) gathered stuff I've been reading around the Internets every other week on Tuesday morning. I'm hoping to keep this going as a regular thing, though they're surprisingly time-consuming to put together. See 12/20, 1/03, 1/17 and 1/31.
• Let's Talk Images is a series I started because I had some visual materials to share and analyze. I've done three so far, in which I put up an image, make a few observations, and throw the comment thread open for further analysis. See the conversation on a health insurance ad, Boston Magazine's depiction of single women, and breastfeeding pictures on Tumblr.
• Blog for Choice 2012 (January 22) actually prompted two posts this year, a pre-post discussion and then the actual post.
• Hanna reviewed the new Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (at the corner) while at Harpyness I posed the Bechdel-esque question "how many women can one script sustain?"
• Also, will we ever get over asking "what do women want?" when it comes to sex (and porn)?
• I posted the audio of Terry Gross's interview with Jill Lepore about Margaret Sanger and the history of Planned Parenthood. 
• Also the trailer for Jessica Valenti's new documentary film on the purity myth.
• What are your favorite holiday books and/or traditions?
• and I gave a signal boost to the Boston-area researcher working on dissertation research concerning queer folk and social interactions. If you read this blog regularly, you'll already have been following my participation in Holly's research.

That's about all, folks, bar the re-posts and all the regularly-scheduled signal boosts I give stuff over on Tumblr. Have as much fun as you wish, and leave the rest to me.

harpy fortnight: season of thanks

via

I'm finally getting around to posting a round-up of Harpyness posts for the first time since October 2nd. Sorry folks! But it's actually been kinda a slow season for everyone over at TPoH, so the links haven't been accumulating too fast. Here's what I got for y'all:

• I finished up live-blogging Jessica Yee's Feminism For Real anthology with the following installments:
• My Secret (a poem)
• Mistakes I Didn't Know I Was Making
• My Journey to Indigenous Feminism
• This Shit is Real
• Finding Our Voice in the Mainstream Media Madness
• and On Learning How Not to be an Asshole Academic Feminist
• I wrote about travel yearning and nostalgia for place when hunting around in my photograph files made me unexpectedly miss living in Aberdeen with a vengeance.
• I read and reviewed Tristan Taormino's latest erotica anthology, Take Me There, which features trans* and genderqueer characters. I used the post to muse about the what I look for in my erotic fiction.
• I invited folks to join me for National Novel-Writing Month and asked what other creative endeavors they enjoyed during their leisure time.
• I shared the audio of NPR's Talk of the Nation discussion of sexuality education.
• I posted Jay Smooth's TEDx talk on how to have constructive conversations about race and racism.
• and I had a small rant about why folks who hate on social media as time-wasting activity are letting new technologies blind them to the way that people are continuing to connect with one another over the same everyday things we human beings probably always have.

I think blogging will likely continue to be sedate through the holiday season, as we all balance our personal, professional, and online priorities. As always, you're welcome to hop on over to Harpyness to check out all the conversation in situ there.

harpy fortnight: not-back-to-school edition

steampunk wings by lachwen

Anyone else psyched it's October? Autumn leaves! Apple sauce! Hot cocoa! Acorn squash!

*cough*cough*

In any event, here's what we were up to during September over at The Pursuit of Harpyness.

I continued my series on Jessica Yee's Feminism For Real which several folks have encouragingly told me is thought-provoking and useful to them. This month we covered:

• 2011-09-06: So What if We Didn't Call it "Feminism"?!
• 2011-09-15: Two Poems by D. Cole Ossandon
• 2011-09-20: Fuck the Glass Ceiling!
• 2011-09-27: Feminism and Eating Disorders

I also wrote, as usual, on other related and not-so-related topics:

• 2011-09-08: Help Me Harpies! Alternative Living in the City
• 2011-09-13: Reader's Choice: Ms. Magazine's Best Feminist Nonfiction
• 2011-09-14: Quick Hit: Yes to Gay YA
• 2011-09-22: Quick Hit: Julia Serano Blogging Again!
• 2011-09-29: What's Missing From Sex Education?

Other Harpies have written about the abortion story arc in Grey's Anatomy, the anxieties of self-promotion (or self-advocacy), reflections on the Racialicious roundtables on interracial dating, and an ode to a CEO who understands the delicate balancing act of work and family life.

As always, hop on over to Harpyness to join us in the conversation(s).

"The second vital smirch"

So last night I got a pingback on a book review I wrote earlier in the year at Harpyness of Stephanie Coontz' A Strange Stirring. Out of curiosity (who would be linking to a six-month-old post?) I clicked through. At first glance it appeared to be a book review of Judith Warner's Perfect Madness. At second glance it turned out to be a plagiarized version of my review of Judith Warner's Perfect Madness.

Well, sort of.

"mommy and baby are people of highly importance"
(click image to imbiggen)

As I started skimming the post, I realized that they hadn't quite plagiarized it ... they'd thrown it through a translation filter (or maybe several?) so that the result was complete gobbledygook. The whole site reads like it was put together by a robot with only a thin grasp of English.

It's just not worth going after them for stealing my post, because in actual fact their garbled version is much more colorful and entertaining than my own incisive analysis! I'm not going to link to the post because I'm philosophically opposed to sending traffic their way (though, *cough*cough*, you can find the ping-back on the Coontz review comment thread above ... they were foolish enough to leave the internal links intact from the original post ... bwahahahah!). However, I'm totally not above providing y'all with some Tuesday afternoon laughs.

My review reads:

Suddenly, living in the Washington D.C. metropolitan area, Warner found herself with no critical distance on a culture that rewarded mothers for being entirely absorbed in, perfectionists at, a very particular type of mothering.

The plagiarized review reads:

Suddenly, vital in a Washington D.C. civil area, Warner found herself with no vicious stretch on a enlightenment that rewarded mothers for being wholly engrossed in, perfectionists at, a unequivocally sold form of mothering.

My review reads:

The second major flaw in Perfect Madness was the way Warner allows herself to make pretty harsh judgments about specific parenting choices.

The plagiarized review reads:

The second vital smirch in Perfect Madness was a proceed Warner allows herself to make flattering oppressive judgments about specific parenting choices.

My review reads:

Warner lays the blame for her sorrows at the feet of 'the culture wars' between social conservatives and feminists, whom she believes waste their energies on issues that are not of concern to the majority of Americans.

The plagiarized review reads:

Warner lays a censure for her sorrows at a feet of 'the enlightenment wars' between social conservatives and feminists, whom she believes waste their energies on issues that are not of regard to a infancy of Americans.

My review reads:

As a thirty-year-old woman in a lesbian relationship with no immediate plans to parent, I am not the demographic that Warner is writing about or writing for.  Even if I were to find myself a parent, the legacies of my own childhood in a fairly radical household and my own values system would preclude parenting the way the women in this book are parenting. Their values are, in many ways, decidedly not my values. And because of that, the experience of reading Perfect Madness felt voyeuristic at times. The study of lives and concerns at far remove from my own.

The plagiarized review reads (this might be my very favorite paragraph):

As a thirty-year-old lady in a lesbian attribute with no evident skeleton to parent, we am not a demographic that Warner is essay about or essay for.  Even if we were to find myself a parent, the legacies of my possess childhood in a sincerely radical domicile and my possess values complement would preclude parenting a proceed a women in this book are parenting. Their values are, in many ways, decidedly not my values. And given of that, a knowledge of reading Perfect Madness felt voyeuristic during times. The investigate of lives and concerns during distant mislay from my own.

My friend Lola has suggested that now she should qualify every introduction of me with "a lesbian attribute" as in, "this is Anna, a lesbian attribute." When we find out what I'm an attribute of you'll certainly be the first to know!

harpy fortnight: labor day weekend edition



why yes! I have spent the month of August reading
Dean/Cas slash. it's all about the wing!fic people!

 Can you believe it's September folks? Here's what's been happening over at Harpyness during the month of August.

As has been the case for the last several months, about half of my blogging there is taken up with the live-blogging of Jessica Yee's anthology Feminism For Real. The installments for August were:

• 2011-08-09: Male Feminist and Invisible Activists
• 2011-08-18: Maybe I'm Not Class-Mobile; Maybe I'm Class-Queer
• 2011-08-23: Sex Work and Feminism
• 2011-08-30: No, I Would Follow the Porn Star's Advice

There's been some good discussion in comments (particularly the 8/18 and 8/30 installments) about academic training, marginalization, privilege, ways of knowing, and all sort of things. Be sure to check them out!

I must be thinking a lot about human sexuality and identity right now, because I wrote two posts on the subject:

• 2011-08-11: Acting Queer: Dis-jointed Thoughts on 'Playing Gay'
• 2011-09-01: "I'm Not Straight, I'm Not Gay, I'm With You": What Does Orientation Mean to YOU?

In addition to that, I cross-posted my piece on (not) being a parent and wrote in celebration of siblings. I shared a trailer for the documentary 'Kings of Pastry' which if you haven't already seen should go on the list.

I also facilitated, as promised, guest blogging by Hanna (JediCrow), Minerva, and Lola. Highlights include Hanna's posts on new series and classic Doctor Who, M's thoughts on Star Trek and the gender binary, and Lola's observations about the politics of DADT.

As always, if any of this interests you, please swing on by to join the conversation!

harpy fortnight: yes it's been a month edition



St. Mary of the Angels and Martyrs (Rome)

 As a side note, I love the fact that when you Google "scary angels" now, the preponderance of results are weeping angels from Doctor Who.

And no, I will not be posting pictures of them here. What holds the image of an angel becomes itself an angel, so forth and so on. Best not to take chances.

And yes, that all really is a distraction to keep you from remarking upon the fact that it's been a month since I posted a round-up of Harpy links. Blame the weather, the fact it's our busy season at the MHS, or whatever else you like. Peas!

Anyway. On to the stuff I have managed to write.

• Roughly half my posts in the past month have been installments of my live-blogging series for Jessica Yee's Feminism For Real. I've now blogged about eight chapters, and you can read them all by clicking through to the series tag.
• I shared some posts from around the interwebs that all dealt with the question of social judgement (about weight, sexual activity, the lack of sexual activity, etc.)
• I offered a recipe for olive oil and merlot cookies -- I know it sounds strange, but believe me when I say that I have made forever-friends with people from New Jersey to Maine with this recipe. You will want to try it at least once.
• For Poetry Saturdays I offered one of my favorites by Carl Sandburg.
• I linked to one of Hanna's recent posts about the new bicycle-sharing program that has just started up in Boston, which led to...
• ...a proposal to have Hanna, Lola and Minerva guest-blog at Harpyness during the month of August.
• I reviewed a new book about marriage and family creation customs around the world.
• At the request of Harpy reader MischiefManager I wrote a blog post about routine weigh-ins at the doctor's office and how the practice can be a barrier to health care access.
• And I wrote a letter to Zipcar about their latest marketing campaign which uses our unhealthy obsession with dieting to encourage folks to cut back on their carbon emissions.

July was a bit of a sleepy month for the Harpies, but we did have some great posts on gender identity, polygamy, hair, parenting and children's weight, street harassment, and the four humors.

Click on over to explore -- and check out Minerva's our first guest posts of the month!

harpy fortnight: can't believe it's july! edition

god, this just makes me want to watch Angels in America again

The last few weeks have been a bit rocky over at The Pursuit of Harpyness as we were dealing with some nasty malware that took out no fewer than three of my work computers and several other personal computers of the Harpy team ... not for good, but certain a pain in the ass. Thanks to blogger foureleven's husband we are today virus free and back to our regular blogging schedule. My contributions since June 19 have included the following:

• Three more installments of the Live-Blogging "Feminism For Real" series: A Slam On Feminism in Academia, The Feminist Existential Crisis (Dark Child Remix), and Medicine Bundle of Contradictions.
• For a Thursday Night Trivia post, I wrote about some of my favorite mystery series and threw open the comment thread for readers to share their own suggestions for whodunit reading during the summer months. There might have to be a second installment, since I forgot to mention Dorothy Gilman and Tasha Alexander!
• Following Dominique Strauss-Kahn's release, I put up a quick post linking to some responses around the feminist blogosphere. Can't say I have any more coherent response to this than I did back then; other people have been much more articulate. Now if only Dahlia Lithwick would weigh in!
• I wrote a long and tortured response to reading Wendy Shalit's A Return to Modesty in which I tried to acknowledge her critique of a one-size-fits-all sexual mainstream while also critiquing her one-size-fits-all fix to the problems she identified.

I'm obviously not the only one being harpylike these days: BeckySharper gives some kudos to the NYPD, SarahMC has a few words about the American justice system vis a vis the Casey Anthony verdict (did anyone else miss that this was a thing until last week?), Marie Anelle offers "mental hallucinations" in honor of Canada Day, and Michelle Dean (via BeckySharper) writes about the creep that is Princess Diana fanfic.

Do come join the party!

harpy fortnight: officially summer edition

Titania With Her Fairies
Arthur Rackham

Over at The Pursuit of Harpyness we've been winding up for the summer months (can you believe summer doesn't officially start until Tuesday?). During the passed two weeks, I've posted the following:

• The first two installments of my series live-blogging Jessica Yee's anthology Feminism For Real (2011). I'm blogging a chapter per week for the next 22 weeks -- or nearly six months! I'm hoping I don't run out of things to say ... but so far the variety of the contributions is keeping me going. You can read Part One: Invite & Introduction and Part Two: Resistance to Indigenous Feminism thus far.
• There was a Friday Fun Thread asking folks to name their favorite summer movies. The comment thread's still open if you care to leave suggestions!
• A book review of the anthology Best Sex Writing 2010 appeared last week (I swear I'm not turning into an all-books-all-the-time blogger, but recently I've been doing lots of off-line reading!)
• My first contribution to our Poetry Saturdays series, with a Billy Collins poem brought to my attention by my friend Lola @  Oh no, my sainted aunt!

As a bonus, let me direct you also to a recipe for vegan Chocolate-Almond-Hazlenut Thumbprint Cookies Hanna and I posted over at our friend Lyn's recipe-and-food blog. Trust me. For. The. Win.

As always, check out what the rest of the Harpies have to say by browsing through the archive of The Pursuit of Harpyness.

quick hit: I'm live-blogging 'feminism for real'

This morning over at The Pursuit of Harpyness, I started a series of 22 "live blogging" posts on Jessica Yee's new anthology Feminism For Real: Deconstructing the Academic Industrial Complex of Feminism (2011). I'll be posting my reading notes for each chapter on Tuesday mornings for the next few months.

Please do join us!

harpy fortnight: being out, being home, being wrong

Sandra (Rachel Griffiths) in Blow Dry (2001)

It's been more than a fortnight since I last did a round-up of posts from Harpyness, but I gave myself permission not to post there during our vacation, so there isn't actually that much of a backlog!

Incidentally, if you haven't seen Blow Dry (2001) it's totally time you did. Stop reading this post right now and go order it on Netflix. Then come back and start again.

So, what have I been writing about over at Harpyness?

• Most recently, I published a post in response to sex columnist Jeannie Greeley's admission that she and her family are keeping her same-sex relationships a secret from her grandparents and her siblings' children. In Full Disclosure I talk a little bit about my own decisions vis a vis being open about my relationship with Hanna, and why I think hiding loving relationships from kids (or elders!) for fear that they "won't understand" is belittling for all concerned.
• On Taking My Partner Home is a meditation on what it was like to bring Hanna back to my childhood home for the first time, after being with her for three years -- and living in Boston for going on four. While she and my parents have met previously, it was a whole new level of satisfaction to introduce her to the people and places where I grew up.
• On May 19, I hosted a two-part "virtual tour" for the book  Hey Shorty! A Guide to Combating Sexual Harassment and Violence in Public Schools and On The Streets (New York: Feminist Press, 2010), authored by staff and youth interns from the organization Girls for Gender Equality, based in Brooklyn, New York. Part One was a review of the book. Part Two was an interview with two of the authors.
• I offered a Friday Fun Thread asking "who are your automatic buys?" as in: which authors, musicians, film-makers do you trust so wholly that you will purchase their latest sight-unseen? There were a delightful variety of responses in comments.
• Earlier in May, the MBTA (Boston's local mass transit network) featured ads by FamilyRadio, the religious organization that predicted the Rapture would fall on May 21. Some folks protested the willingness of the MBTA to sell ad space to people who bigoted against queer folks. I wrote a post about why it's important to treat all advertisers equally, even if you disagree with what they are selling. There was a lively debate in comments about what constituted hate speech and protected speech in this context.
• And just in case any of you missed it, I re-posted the wonderful short film Validation. Even if you've already seen it, it's never to early to watch it again!

Obviously I'm not the only one who's been blogging at Harpyness. Other writers have contributed posts on the topic of Mother's Day,  the movie Bridesmaids, Madame Ophelia DeVore-Mitchell, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, on the latest publicized case of parents trying to raise a child without assigning the child's gender, the anniversary of Dr. Tiller's murder, the threat of romance novels, and  we featured a guest post by writer Oh Hells Nah on sex work.

Hop on over to The Pursuit of Harpyness for all this and more!

harpy fortnight: post-thesis edition

A PATINATED METAL FIGURE OF A HARPY,
 LATE 20TH CENTURY

Hi folks! It's time again for the round-up of Harpy links. I'm prepping my colloquium presentation for Monday, organizing my bookshelves (finally!) and the piles of paper on my desk, and cuddling my sick girlfriend while we watch crap science fiction movies (Tremors 2 anyone?) together ... so I'm not going to make the links list all that fancy. Please forgive!

The beginning of this past week saw a flurry of activity from the Harpies, including two posts from me:

• While buying medicine at CVS for aforementioned sick girlfriend, I happened to notice a royal wedding-related headline that seemed a bit ... incomplete. 
• I had the pleasure of reading Jill's now-(in)famous Filling the Gap post on Monday and cross-linked it here and over at Harpyness. While the Harpy link has less than a dozen comments (versus Feministe's 452 and counting), still worth checking it out if you've been following the conversation across the blogosphere to any extent.
• On Monday, I posted a web video from Susie Bright discussing her stint as an editor for On Our Backs, the lesbian erotica magazine. 

And the week before that saw another three posts:

•  A post about teens and sexting that turned into a thread that was half about teens texting and half about Sherlock slash ... and to round things of, the person whose interview I was critiquing stopped by to speak up. If you want to see how all these things came about, do stop on by to check out the comments! 
• I posted the trailer for a new documentary from American Experience about Stonewall. 
• And way back when, in the midst of thesis revising, a web video of a baby penguin being tickled. I made no claims for a substantive feminist critique on that one.

The other Harpies have been busy as well, writing about Canadian politics, the royal wedding, friendship etiquette, reproductive rights, and other tasty and timely topics. Head on over to Harpyness to check them out.

Hope all of you are having a good weekend and best wishes to ya as you head out into the week.

required reading: jill @ feministe on "call-out culture"

Cross-posted @ The Pursuit of Harpyness.

I'm sending y'all on over to Feministe to read a post that Jill published this morning on the dynamics of "calling out" the "big feminist blogs" for being less-than-perfect on the issues you care about.

[In some ways,] online feminism is worse for wear. Part of that is what Florence is talking about above — blogs, and especially the “big blogs,” are perceived as institutions rather than collectives of people writing about something they’re interested in when they have time, in order to facilitate a conversation among like-minded people. With the perception of institutionalization comes expectations — that a blog will not only cover about what you think it should cover, but will also cover it in the way you think is most appropriate, using the words you think are the best. Which isn’t totally unfair, but which segues from potentially productive into poisonous when the method of conveying those expectations is Calling Out.

I’m as guilty as anyone else when it comes to partaking in feminist Call-Out Culture. Calling Out, I think, is part of any activist’s growing pains. We all want to do right. We all feel like we’re doing more right than some other people who we perceive as having more power (or influence or airtime) than we have. We all want to be a good _____: feminist, ally, woman, activist. Part of that, if you love an idea (and I think most of us do love the idea of feminism, even if we don’t always love how it plays out in real life), is saying something when you see someone else Doing It Wrong. There should be space for that. We should keep each other in check; we should all want to be better.

But in the feminist blogosphere, “calling out” has increasingly turned into cannibalism. It’s increasingly turned into a stand-in for actual activism. We have increasingly focused on shutting down voices rather than raising each other up. Pointing at the gap has replaced doing the hard, often thankless work of filling it.

I mean it: go read the whole thing.

harpy fortnight: musing about sex & other things

Angel in Black

Over the past two weeks, I've written a handful of posts over at Harpyness and of course my colleagues haven't been slackers either. To recap:

• Fluidity of Desire: Unfinished Thoughts on How We Measure Libido (2011-04-13). In which I rant about poor science, poor science reporting, and data that makes us feel like crap about our bodies and our sexuality.
• Paying Taxes [Money Matters] (2011-04-13). In which I ask readers to report back from the field concerning what they are glad their taxes are paying for (hint: top nominations include libraries, schools, and public parks).
• Marathon Monday: Remembering 1967's Historic First (2011-04-18). In which I share the story of Kathrine Switzer, first woman to register and run in the Boston Marathon ... five years before women were officially allowed to enter the race.
• Why We Make It Personal: More Thoughts About Talking Sex (2011-04-21). In which I return to the topic of sex and muse on why it's so hard for us to read and reflect on cultural narratives about sex without feeling our personal experience is being invalidated by others who hold differing opinions.

Other Harpies shared thoughts on bidets, Canadian politics, finishing their PhD thesis (congrats PhDork!) and Italian art. Click on through to join the conversation.

harpy week: omnibus edition II

KK isn't technically a harpy
but we're running with it anyway.
FreakAngels (Vol 5)

Another two-week round-up here.

The past two weeks have seen the following posts up at The Pursuit of Harpyness:

• A Friday Fun Thread highlighting Freak Angels and asking folks to post links to their favorite web comics. The comments thread is a goldmine of new reading suggestions! I highly recommend browsing and link-hopping.
• A review of data from the Califonia Health Interview Surveys that highlights the health issues for ageing queer folks. Some thoughtful reflections in comments about how we could provide better support for all elders.
• A response to an advice column letter posted at the Guardian by a mother concerned that her teenage son was viewing internet pornography. There was a long, engaged discussion in the comment thread over the limits of young adult autonomy and the extent to which parents have the right (or ability) to restrict their children's exploration of sexuality in this way.
• For a Thursday Night Trivia I requested readers favorite childhood picture books. (Again, have fun in comments!)
• And I praised the women's health movement for encouraging women to become familiar with their own anatomy and become used to touching themselves in a way that can only help inform more pleasurable sexual experiences.

Other contributors offered blog posts on Canadian politics, wedding rings, shopping for bras, and being newly-single. All this and more over at The Pursuit of Harpyness! Come join us.

harpy week: omnibus edition

Rainbow Harpy

Harpy Week is back, folks, after a hiatus due to being in Maine with zero internet connectivity visiting my in-laws (not strictly legal yet, but what else do you call them, really?).

Over the past two weeks I've written a handful of posts over at The Pursuit of Harpyness and my colleagues have posted a handful as well.

Working backwards this time, just for the sake of novelty

• On Friday, I asked folks to share their favorite signs of spring. My favorite response as of this writing was from Es, who responded: "The big white patches of horsehair in the drying mud in the fields, where my girl has had her winter blankets off and is rolling her fluff out! Like pony-snow-angels."
• On Wednesday I threw up an open thread which developed several interesting conversations in comments about shitty experiences in academia, life changes, and wacky-yet-wonderful experiences in readers' lives.
• Last Monday, following the trip to Maine, I wrote a rant about size-based segregation and stigma in clothing stores. While comments got off to a relatively slow start, by the end of the week we'd accumulated quite a long thread in which folks described their various frustrations in finding clothing that matches their body type and aesthetic preferences.
• During the previous week, I wrote a Harpy Hall of Fame post about Sylvia Pankhurst, the middle daughter of the famous family of British suffrage activists. Click through to find out why she's buried in Addis Abiba, Ethiopia!
• I highlighted a new report on bisexual invisibility published and made available online by the San Francisco Human Rights Commission LGBT Advisory Committee. There was some discussion in comments about what bisexual invisibility actually entailed, and how bisexual folks are (or are not) marginalized within the wider queer community.
• And finally, nearly two weeks ago now I shared one of the wackiest pieces of solicitation junk mail I have ever had the (mis)fortune to receive. Click through for the tale of a Jesus prayer "rug" and the most egregious overuse of underlining in the history of the U.S. postal service.

Others have written posts on Wilma Mankiller, Geraldine Ferarro, and the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (one hundred years ago March 25). We've discussed the ten commandments, prison rape, and stereotypes about mothers-in-law. We've talked about depression and job loss and what it takes some days to keep moving forward. Click on over to read the rest.

Hope you all have a day of rest this Sunday and that the week ahead is a little bit brighter for you than the one we're leaving behind.

harpy week: driving, dorothy day and barruguets

Two posts by yours truly this week, and a few by other Harpies.

• On Monday, I blogged about the pleasures of driving -- and how I miss being behind the wheel now that I live in the city and don't own a car. In the comment thread, readers wrote about their own driving experiences and what they miss (or don't miss) about previous places they have lived and worked.
• Thursday was the inaugural Thursday Night Trivia thread in which I posed the question "work or food?" to our readers (click through to find out why!)
• On Friday, I contributed to the series we Harpies are doing on women in history (in honor of Women's History Month). My first contribution was Dorothy Day (1897-1980), journalist, social justice activists, and co-founder of the Catholic Worker Movement.

Other Harpies wrote posts about Vera Wang ad campaigns, the politics of terrorism, International Women's Day (March 8th if you missed it) and Dolores Huerta.

Next week, I have posts lined up about Sylvia Pankhurst, a new report on bisexual invisibility, and (if you're lucky) a report from the graduate conference on gender, sexuality and urban spaces that my friend Minerva and I attended this weekend at MIT's Stata Center.

harpy week: badass elders, badass beauties, a harpy seminar and more

It was a subdued sort of week over at Harpyness, at least for me. Busy week at work meant lighter, less time-consuming posts to write.

• Monday, 28 February, was my grandmother's birthday and I took the opportunity to muse about things I hope to do during my elder years and asking Harpy readers to do the same.
• On Thursday I posted a Harpy Seminar I coordinated last week on voting as a civic responsibility (or not).
• And on Friday, a fluffy rant (no, the two are not mutually exclusive) about the cover art for Patricia Briggs' Mercy Thompson urban fantasy series -- specifically the way the artist chooses to depict the main character across the seven installments' covers.

Other Harpies wrote about Charlie Sheen, the SCOTUS ruling on Westboro Baptist Church's first amendment rights, and solicited names for a series of posts on historical figures for women's history month. First up in the series was Shirley Chisholm; watch for future installments through the month. Next week, I'll be posting one about radical peace and labor activist Dorothy Day.

Finally, we were most pleased to offer a guest post by a friend of one of the Harpies who has recently gone through a divorce and reflected on his desire to establish a family, have children, and how those plans had been interrupted by the end of his relationship. We were pleased to have him and hope to feature more Harpy readers as guest posters as time goes on.