When An International Man's Day Is Necessary Then We Will See The Real Complaining (By Men) @3:15 PM
Happy International Women's Day, everybody! (Especially all you FINE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN out there.) Anyway, just in time for your special day, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development has released a study showing that men in its member countries spend, on average, half an hour more of leisure time each day than do women. The OECD, reports the Daily Mail, "used the comparative laziness of men as evidence to support calls for new action to bring greater equality for women." But there is more! READ MORE 33
New Things: Mothers With Hair @11:25 AM
Since the beginning of time, all mothers have been bald or at least quite nearly hairless. In these heady modern times, notes a new child-haver, mothers may have hair. Writes mother Alex Kuczynski: "The mother with the long, unrestrained locks is something odd, and relatively new." [N.B. The word "nanny" does not appear in this cultural meditation.] 37
The California Cougar Convention and "Carefully Regulated Patriarchal Societies" @4:20 PM
"I was told that if I played this song, I'd get a lot of people on the dance floor," said Jeff the DJ. He had been absentmindedly scrolling through his iTunes. The next words came from Gloria Gaynor, proclaiming that she had been, at first, both afraid and petrified. A handful of women came to the center of the dance floor, ignoring the men. This song was for the women. They'd earned it. And you don't have to be a shrink to understand why I Will Survive had a resonance at the California Cougar Convention at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills. READ MORE 25
Lady to Less-Informed Lady: "Welcome!" @11:40 AM
Here is a hilarious letter to the editor in the Times in response to unemployed former Portfolio editor Joanne Lipman's rather heinous editorial the other day. It starts: "In 'The Mismeasure of Woman' (Op-Ed, Oct. 24), Joanne Lipman belittles organized feminism and its legacy to her generation." That is pretty awesome. 7
"Smut, Please"! The Fabulous Online Universe of 'Twilight' Fan Fiction, in Which Edward and Bella Get It On and On and On @2:50 PM
The exhibition hall in downtown San Diego was divided by sex. By dawn on the second day of Comic Con—this was back in late July—the men figured out they were beat. Hundreds of young girls had spent the night camped out on the sidewalk and so they packed the first 50 rows of the 6000-seat convention room. The unmoving estrogen division—girls in plastic fangs, clingy tops and body glitter—sat patiently through the morning's promotional panels for disaster movies and action hero sagas. But the girls began to screech and jostle as their obsession approached: Twilight.
When the star of the young adult Twilight movie franchise, Robert Pattinson, finally took the stage, he was greeted by a swell of withering sighs.
When that panel's frenzy eventually climaxed and petered out, a smaller squadron of females emerged from the bubbling mass. Together, they rode the escalator to the second floor so that they could have their own conversation about the Twilight world's attendant online fan fiction. I went up the escalator expecting to sit in another room filled with gasping girlies. I was completely wrong. READ MORE 44
The Invention of 'Ms.': 1901!? @1:54 PM
"Every one has been put in an embarrassing position by ignorance of the status of some woman." —the Springfield (Mass.) Sunday Republican of November 10, 1901. 5
This Day In History: June 18, 2009 @9:19 AM
From the Penny Illustrated Paper, deep in the archives of The British Library's newspaper collection, we learn that not much has changed in 100 years: angry suffragettes and ill-tempered husbands! READ MORE 6
Lady Blogger Pissed About Cougars @9:31 AM
Salon's catbox-scratching kitty-cat Rebecca Traister is claws-out about cougar phenom: "Ah, liberation! Sweet, hot congress with dudes you were so glad you never had to deal with again after graduation." 0
