My Little Homophobic, Racist, Smart-Shaming Pony

In case you missed out, it’s My Little Pony week on the Ms. blog! Having been thoroughly indoctrinated as a child to love ponies–and My Little Pony in particular–much of my understandings of femininity and heteronormativity come directly from my childhood interactions with cartoon ponies. (Diary excerpt: “I love wearing heels, it makes me feel [...]

Don’t Ask, We’ll Tell All: Editors’ Picks, 11/28-12/4

The big story this week that held feminists’ rapt attention was the progress of the Senate hearings on the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. The hearings coincided with the Pentagon’s release of its survey on military personnel’s reaction to possibly lifting the 17-year-old ban on gay servicemembers. This weekend, Ms. points you to the best coverage of [...]

No Comment: Opposing Domestic Violence With Homophobia

Someone recently sent me an article at Comment Dit-On? about a new anti-domestic violence ad in Chile that tells men not to hit women by using openly homophobic language—specifically saying that a man who hits a woman is a maricón, the equivalent of “faggot.” Translation of the main text: “A faggot is one who hurts [...]

Global Roundup: Uganda Outs Gays; Mexico’s Bravest Woman; Abortion Railroad

This week: India sends cash to pregnant women, a Ugandan newspaper outs 100 gays and lesbians (and endangers their lives), Congolese women transcend victimhood and march against rape, Polish women travel to Germany for abortions and 20-year-old Marisol Valles Garcia becomes Mexico’s bravest citizen. INDIA: With Millennium Development Goal #5 as its target, India announced [...]

We ALL Need to Come Out for Equality

To say it has been a difficult autumn for the LGBT community is not nearly strong enough. News accounts of young people committing suicide after being bullied and harassed because they are LGBT, or perceived to be so, seemed to be a daily occurence in September. Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old freshman at Greensburg High School in Indiana, [...]

Frat Boys, Misogynist Geeks and Homophobes: Editors’ Picks, 10/3-10/9

From ColorLines: Yesterday Oprah, whose 1987 program “AIDS in America” was groundbreaking, got schooled on HIV and had her own aha! moment. Her interviewee, a woman who sued her ex-husband after contracting HIV from him and won an unprecedented $12 million, corrected the daytime host when she referred to Magic Johnson as the poster child [...]

Bishop Long: Hypocrisy and Its Discontents

By now we’ve all heard that Bishop Eddie L. Long of the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Georgia has been charged with coercing several young men from his congregation into sexual activity. Long stands accused of preying on members of the elite cohort of teenage boys he “handpicked” for his LongFellows Youth Academy (yes, [...]

Feminist Film Analysis 101: A Case Study of “Despicable Me”

Given the ire my reviews of Toy Story 3 and Iron Man 2 generated (especially in their traversal of the non-feminist blogosphere) was largely due to their feminist slant, I feel a little bit of “gendered film analysis” or “feminist media theory 101” is called for. Many of the angry comments my film reviews received were [...]

Could ANYONE Really Support “Traditional” Marriage ?

Proposition 8 may have been struck down for now, but the nationwide fight for gay marriage will undoubtedly continue for years. Though any competition for “Most Baseless Excuse To Oppose Same-Gender Marriage” is a photo-finish, “I’m opposed because I support ‘traditional marriage’ between a man and a woman” wins by a nose. The only possible [...]

Third Time Still Not the Charm for Toy Story’s Female Characters

Toy Story 3 opens on a woman-empowerment high, with Mrs. Potato-Head displaying mad train-robbing skills and cowgirl Jessie skillfully steering her faithful horse Bullseye in the ensuing chase. And that’s the end of that: From there on, the film displays the same careless sexism as its predecessors. Out of seven new toy characters at the [...]

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