The Only Three Female Musicians, According to Many Male Music Critics @2:56 PM
In this February issue of Fictional Indie Music Magazine, we’re celebrating! We’ve finally reached the bottom of our winter promo pile, and oddly enough, all of the remaining promos are by female musicians. This is purely coincidental! And there is no correlation between this and the fact that there is only one female music critic working in this office and we can’t remember whether her name is Heather or Jennifer. READ MORE 28
Women Unable To Marry Men In New York (Except One Woman!) @12:25 PM
What's up, ladies? Where you at? Two stories in today's Observer suggest it's "somewhere tricky." Did you know a mother of four was at the head of doing the Bank of America TARP repayment stock-offer deal? Imagine that, a lady—one with children even. That is so crazy! I'm not even going to be like Jesus Christ no profile of a man ever started like that because, why bother, guys. (The rest of it is interesting though! She is actually of interest!) And here is a report on a gathering of women, who have had it with the commitment-phobia of New York men and have resorted to dating Europeans (but NOT people from like Africa or Asia or anything gross like that). READ MORE 31
All The Best Single Ladies of the Decade @9:03 AM
Woman-interested site Wears the Trousers mag has been counting down their top 100 albums of the decade; they have now published from numbers 100 on down through 26. Tomorrow comes their top 25 and I actually cannot imagine what is going to be on it. Checking in at #99? Yo Majesty! (OMG, remember them from like 2008?) Yes: the "now-defunct lesbian Christian rap duo" that "didn’t quite make the transition from internet phenomenon to unit-shifting hip-hop megaliths." Indeed. In other news, it's truly irking to see Hope Sandoval rank just above Gillian Welch (don't get me started!) but mostly otherwise this is a fascinating list that is an excellent guide for some lazy online shopping, basically. 5
On the Internet, No One Has To Know You're A Lady. Problem Solved! @4:10 PM
Ladies! You are doing it wrong, reports a lady who has been working as a man, on the Internet, for the last three years: "Taking a man's name opened up a new world. It helped me earn double and triple the income of my true name, with the same work and service. No hassles. Higher acceptance. And gratifying respect for my talents and round-the-clock work ethic. Business opportunities fell into my lap. People asked for my advice, and they thanked me for it, too." It's totally true! I get totally different sorts of emails (and email response rates) from people who think my name is a lady-name. Then they find out I'm a man and they give me whatever they want. True fact! (via) 21
Emily Gould reads two books about love so you don't have to—the Christina Nehring brief history of romance and Julie Metz's crazy memoir. WARNING: the Metz book contains the sentence "I creamed the lacy panties I had bought for the occasion." Wow. @1:30 PM 13
Cooking the Books, with Emily Gould: Making Malfatti with Amy Sohn @12:43 PM
Cooking the Books, with Emily Gould, was shot and edited by Val Temple. This week's guest, Amy Sohn, is the author of Prospect Park West, a tale of four married women in baby-friendly Brooklyn. (The recipe for malfatti, should you like to play along at home, is here.) (Previously.) 23
Ladies, how often do you face this dilemma? You're going out on the town and you want to snag a man. But how much of yourself should you put on display? Show too little skin and you risk being ignored; show too much and things are sure to get rapey. Fortunately, Science is here with the solution: The correct answer is 40%. Also: "For the purposes of the study, each arm accounts for 10 per cent, each leg for 15 per cent and the torso for 50 per cent." Now you know. @1:40 PM 31
Letters to the Editors of Women's Magazines, with Edith Zimmerman @1:50 PM
This question is casual and simply off-hand, but where are the people? I want to approach one and talk to he or she. There is nothing unusual about me, though. On the contrary, I am a normal human woman who lives here on America. I keep my typical human thoughts in my brain, which is inside my skull of bone. Just one regular human woman looking for other humans to meet and stand near, for reasons that are the same as your reasons.
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
Frederick Seidel: "Women are Objects, Sexual and Otherwise" @12:10 PM
The new Paris Review has a long interview with poet Frederick Seidel by FSG president Jonathan Galassi; a small excerpt is online. (This is a much better match-up than the hideous choice of Katie Roiphe to interview Gay Talese in the last issue!) I love Seidel, despite that I usually reflexively (and properly) dislike many born-rich artists. And, you know, the Harvard set. Among other great moments of the interview, Seidel reveals the contents of a letter from Ezra Pound, regarding the incoming president of Harvard (that would be Nathan Pusey, in 1953, who was then rather liberal but whose liberal views were outpaced, let's say, by the changing country). This letter from Pound said: "Only you can save Harvard from that kikesucking Pusey," which, wow. But let us turn to the part where Seidel discusses Issues with Ladies. READ MORE 24
Fox News Goes Big On 'Despot Housewives' @1:00 PM
Poor Fox News can barely fill out five slots in its wonderful "DESPOT HOUSEWIVES" charticle, but still it is a splendid and hilarious thing to behold. Unfortunately they run out of steam by number 5: "Parvin Ahmadinejad is very rarely seen even when beheld in public, as her hard-line husband follows a strict form of Islam that requires women to wear a full-body hijab. In fact, almost nothing is known about Mrs. Ahmadinejad — her age, her schooling, her sign of the Zodiac –because she stands quietly by in a conservative Muslim theocracy, where women are raped the night before executions and face up to 80 lashes for refusing to cover their hair." WE KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THIS HORRIBLE WOMAN AND HER HORRIBLE RAPEY COUNTRY! Also, "Jimmy Choo-style"? Was it a knockoff or not? What gives? 6
Letters to the Editor of Women’s Magazines, With Edith Zimmerman @4:40 PM
I just received the latest issue of SELF, and I'm looking forward to enjoying it from cover to cover! The section on how to save someone's life in an emergency, the delicious-looking recipes and the fashion suggestions I can actually afford are among the many standouts. It's the best issue I've gotten in a long time. Style and substance-that's why I subscribe! Keep up the good work.
Kerrie Smothers, St. Louis (Self, August '09)
My most recent copy of SELF fell through the slot in my door with a bang, and I screamed because I thought it was a gunshot. Nope-it was just my magazines in the mail! Anyway, the magazine itself is about a foot long, like usual, and you know what it reminds me of? A square, but a little bit longer. Can't wait to read what's in this long square!
Kendra W., Amarillo, TX READ MORE 32
Happy 19th Amendment Day, or, We Have Always Had Birthers @11:40 AM
The 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified 89 years ago today. I'm not really sure what it says because, you know: too long, didn't read! And besides, you know how those politicians are, always sneaking in little bits of texts to their bills what with the pork and loopholes and death panels, so I'm sure if I actually read it, I'd find something really horrible and Nazi-esque in it. You know what else happened on this date, but in 1958? Nabokov published Lolita. (Also TL;DR.) It is also the birthdate of the other Parker Posey, the child actor. (She is also TL;DR.) Anyway somewhere in those 39 words of the 19th Amendment, amid all the pork and the socialism, women were given the right to vote. Because of all the lies from the government, in 1920 a man named Oscar Leser sued the state of Maryland because the state was giving women voter registrations, and the feds had no right to amend the Constitution in a way that controlled the states so vigorously. Leser somehow had standing because he was a man and was therefore harmed by the votes of women. Yes, somehow this case went all the way to the Supreme Court in 1922, where everyone laughed at him, and now women can vote, much to the consternation of Ann Coulter, because secretly she is a liberal leftist performance artist, much like Lady Gaga, trying to foment a revolution. Point being: America has always had freaks. 3
Susan Orlean Needs A Room Of Her Own! Or A Wife! Or A Bodyguard! @1:23 PM
Ruh roh. I think New Yorker writer Susan Orlean's Twitter just exploded with lady hate-mail. Oh no, soon probably Rebecca Traister is going to be mean to her over at The Cat Box! 22
Jezebel Slaps Back @10:16 AM
Anna Holmes, proprietress of ladysite Jezebel, goes balls out (can we say that?) against the recent spate of self-promoting, fact-averse detractors. Here's a small sample. READ MORE 17
Dirty English Ladies Extremely Casual About Laundering Of Undergarments @12:12 PM
One of the great Australian insults concerns the English, who, it is said, "hide their money under the soap." (It works on two levels!) If the Daily Mail is to be believed—always an iffy proposition—they might just as conveniently stash it under the laundry detergent: It seems that Englishwomen only wash their bras every two months or so, which is a particularly startling figure when you consider how often the filthy island dwellers work themselves into a state of sweat-soaked dishevelment by committing knife crimes. Given her avant-garde taste in lingerie, we can only hope that this is one limey affectation Madonna chose not to adopt during her time across the pond. Because, you know, ewww. 10
Annals Of Promotion: Keeping The Ladies In Line @11:06 AM
Here's a guide from the '50s on how to properly use a woman to pitch your product. Laugh if you must, but do keep in mind that it was early groundwork like this that laid the foundation for today's use of women in advertising. Thanks to the forward-thinking creatives who rebelled against these hidebound strictures, we now live in an age where a woman can embrace her sexuality and express her liberation by blowing her boss in an energy drink spot. Progress! 2
This is why Linda Greenhouse got out of the biz. @9:35 AM
Bad news, journoladies: If you want to remain in the profession it appears that your only two options are writing columns where you deliver deeply personal revelations torn from your sexual and emotional experiences, or you deliver deeply defiant columns about how all anybody wants from women writers anymore are deeply personal revelations torn from their sexual and emotional experiences. There is, however, one way to avoid this and still receive commissions: be famous. 15
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
