So the Washington Post produces and distributes a sort of mini-news paper called the Express, which focuses much more on fluff than on “real” news.  It’s distributed at every metro station every morning — I always grab it* because, hey! free crossword puzzle!

And I’ve been noticing a trend — it seems to take a MUCH more feminist approach than most newspapers.  I don’t know why this is.  I don’t know if, because it’s the fluff paper, it has more woman writers, or if it’s because it’s trying to be “edgy,” or what, but, well, check out the articles below and tell me if I’m wrong here.

The saddest part is how shocking I consider these articles.  That a reviewer — in a real newspaper!  Produced by the WASHINGTON POST!  A REAL NEWSPAPER! — would refer to a movie as “almost misogynistic**”.  Or that a headline would take a sarcastic tone about how Kate’s career got in the way of Jon’s comfort.  Or that a blurb would just flat out say “Chris Brown beat Rihanna,” rather than completely disappearing the crime and/or the perpetrator (see an nigh-infinite series of crime articles from every newspaper about how a victim “was raped,” “was beaten,” or, even better “had sex forced upon her”).

I really wish I could copy and paste from these, but I can’t, so I’m adding the .pdf links:

All About Steve review, page 28
Headline “Being a Working Mother is Now Spousal Abuse,” page 58
Blurb contains the sentence “A judge sentences Chris Brown to serve five years of probation and perform six months of community service for beating Rihanna,” page 30

*The Washington Times produces a similar mini-paper, the Examiner.  I give it a pass because, hey!  It’s the Washington Times!
**If the movie bears any semblance to the review at all, it’s not “almost” misogynistic.”  But zie is headed in the right direction.

Guest Post by MoleWife

So I just finished watching the pilot episode of Glee.  It is a terribly hokey show in the finest traditions of 80’s underdog movies — the only thing it didn’t have is a training montage, and I’m SURE that’s coming.  But it had everything else:

1. Tiny (6-person) underfunded, under-appreciated collection of misfits drawn together by their talent and love of music?  Check.
2. Handsome, popular teacher struggling to keep said glee club alive?  Check.
3. Evil, popular, well-funded football team and cheerleading squad?  With associated evil, territorial, elitist, conformist and ball-busting coaches?  Check.
4. Incredibly talented and well-funded competition doing extreme production numbers to popular songs while we see our misfits rehashing Grease?  Check.
5. Inspiring female friend of glee club teacher who teaches him to follow his passion instead of going for money?  Check.
6. Inspiring journey of hot football player who decides he won’t let conformity and peer pressure keep him away from his love of music?  Check.
7. End on inspiring 80’s song (Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’)?  Check.

And the flip side:

1. “Misfit group” comprises aforementioned football player, beautiful diva pursuing fame at all costs, one disabled boy in a wheelchair, one Asian girl, one African-American Girl (who together make up apparently 66% of the POCs in the entire town) and one gay boy?  Check.
2. Gay kid and disabled kid bullied in completely approved ways?  Check.
3. POC in glee club sassy, fat, and hip?  Check.
4. Gay boy loves his designer clothing and sings soprano?  Check.
5. Inspiring teacher’s wife a lazy, shrill, gold-digging bitch who complains of having to work three 4-hour shifts a week and only wants more THINGS? Check.
6. Other female characters the aforementioned diva (raised by two gay dads, see what happens to you?), emasculating ball-busting cheerleading coach, and pretty young female friend teacher who cries to herself in car over love of hot inspiring male teacher, and hot cheerleader who is head of the celibacy club and bursts into prayer during makeout sessions?  Check.
7. Only other POC in the whole episode an apparently Hispanic worker at a TV “linen’s & things” who is comedically too clumsy and stupid to fold sheets?  Check.

Not to mention that the original glee club teacher is fired for molesting a singing student in an absolutely HYSTERICAL way — see, he was stroking the gay boy’s chest to give him encouragement, and the diva was pissed because he gave the solo to the gay boy SHE should have gotten, so she ratted him out to the principle and AREN’T WOMEN SCHEMING AND UNDERHANDED???

And our sassy fat black chick gets approximately three token lines in the whole episode.  Enough for us to know SHE is BEYONCE, not a BACKGROUND singer.  But she’ll meekly fall back into line for “just this one song.”  But that beats out our Asian chick, who gets one line and a “we’ll figure out what you’re good for” at the very end.** The gay and disabled boys can, quite frankly, sing circles around our hot football player, but they aren’t capable of keeping up vocally with our Diva, for some reason.  And the “next on Glee” preview shows us the shrill bitchy wife lying about being pregnant in order to manipulate her husband to get a job as a CPA instead of a teacher so she can have THREE MAHOGANY TOILET PAPER HOLDERS from Pottery Barn, because Dr. Phil says there’s nothing wrong with wanting THINGS.

And don’t even get me started on the gay ex-teacher as pedophile, or how molesting a student is FUNNY, SEE?

I will probably watch the show.  I’m a sucker for underdog stories and large musical production numbers of any variety.  And this was just a pilot, and there’s a chance the characters will be developed as something other than caricatures.  But some days I honestly have to ask if all TV studios get all their ideas from the Conservative Stereotype Vending Machine(TM).

**Oh, I just read the Asian girl is supposed to be a lesbian.  Clearly, this was indicated by her singing “I kissed a girl” for her audition, since she had no other lines or displayed any evidence of being attracted to women.

Now, I do understand the reality of the comic book industry. But Joe, the cover is the least of the problems here. While I actually do think Marvel Divas could do something interesting, I strongly suspect it will end up being (as has been noted) Carrie Bradshaw bullshit and thinly veiled lesbian subtext.
Read the below and follow the link to Jezebel too.

io9 – Marvel Boss: We’re Not Sexist, Just Loud – Marvel Comics

Shockingly, it would appear that we are now dealing with reality as it is, not as we might want it. 
What the right-wingers don’t want you to know is that these steps actually useful in accomplishing goals they claim are so very important to them, to wit, reducing the number of abortions.
Granted, there are some out there who will say that the the moment sperm hits egg, that’s a person, and so this is an abortion.  But if thats true, then EVERY WOMAN has had abortions given that many fertilized eggs never find purchase in the womb.  Oh, and, of course, all fertility clinics are basically committing felonies by keeping people in frozen tubes.
But have no fear, the nutjobs will gloss over that, try and instill fear and hatred in everyone they can, and will do their best to make it sound as if NOW every 17 year old will be running around having sex, because until this, no kid would dream of having sex.
I know, that was kind of incoherant, but thats what these people do to me.

Bush ban on morning-after pill is reversed – science-in-society – 29 March 2009 – New Scientist

IN A reversal of Bush-era policy, a US federal judge has ordered that the morning-after pill, Plan B, be made available to 17-year-old girls without a prescription.

So, recently, my wife started making a stink about how rape jokes aren’t funny.
She also showed me a few skits and such (by guys I like) that used rape as a gag.
And, the fact is, she’s right. It’s not cool to make rape jokes.
But I honestly couldn’t tell you why. I mean, if it was a joke about a guy getting raped by a guy, we’d laugh without guilt. Or, say, a guy getting an axe to the head.
Funny stuff, I say!
Hell, I’ll laugh at a good Holocaust joke, and I’m Jewish.
Pretty horrible. So why is it different?
I thought about it, letting it stew in the back of my head for a while.
I think I have two reasons.
1. Ultimately, I’m a white male. That means I default to a higher, more privileged power structure than women, as a rule.
The stronger you are, the more you have to be able to laugh at yourself and take criticism. When push comes to shove, most humor is about taking power away from those that have it (which is why its funny to make jokes about assholes getting beaten, but not about children getting beaten, for example, or funny to make jokes about Christians (in the US) and less so about Hindus). I have power, you wanna make a joke about killing me, ok.

2. Rape, and general violence against women, is a real problem. It goes on every day, and the laws aren’t doing much to protect women. And there are people out there who want to relax even those laws. So, unlike an axe to the head, rape is something that women actually have to deal with and be concerned about. It would be like making that Holocaust joke during World War II.

So, when you make a rape joke, you are bullying someone smaller than you and using threats that very well might become reality.
Not as funny as it might be.

Lets summarize first.

1. Rick Warren is anti-gay.
   

   Dr Warren said that homosexuality is not a natural way of life and thus not a human right. “We shall not tolerate this aspect at all,” Dr Warren said.

2. Rick Warren is anti-woman (see #32) I don’t see how you can tell a woman to let a man beat her instead of getting a divorce and be anything but anti-woman
3. Rick Warren is anti-AIDS prevention.  His ‘main man’ in Uganda is named Ssempa:
   

   Ssempa’s stunts have included burning condoms in the name of Jesus and arranging the publication of names of homosexuals in cooperative local newspapers while lobbying for criminal penalties to imprison them.

And this man isn’t run out of town on a rail?  Why?  Because of the most insidious aspect of religion.

It justifies anything and everything.  Once in a blue moon, as in the case of Madeline Kara Neumann, there will be a cry for people to be held accountable for their religions beliefs and the actions that stem from them, but as a rule, anything goes.  If I said the things Rick Warren said, and my only justification was “because”, I’d been called a monster.

This is the twisted result of backwards tolerance.

You see it in some Middle East and African countries where women are treated like property ON A GOOD DAY.  We say to ourselves “Well, thats just their way”.  We can’t question their religion because then, y’know, you might have to apply that to religion here too.  Further, most people don’t fully understand that this isn’t ‘their’ way, its forced upon the women.  The idea that there is ABSOLUTELY NO CHOICE doesn’t fully compute to us, and so we make the assumption that the women want to be treated worse than dogs and that religion can justify this anyhow.

Any other name put on this would make these people devils.

Surprisingly, a religious leader feels OK ignoring the needs of people (and, as usual, its women) in order to satisfy his own bizarre myths.
Film at 11.
Rick Warren: Abuse is no excuse for women to seek divorce : The New Agenda

Having been involved as a pastor in situations of abuse, there’s something in me that wishes there were a Bible verse that says if they abuse you in such kind of way, then you have a right to leave them.
…
It’s not like you can escape the pain… You don’t — you don’t escape the pain. And I’d always rather choose a short term pain and find God’s solution for a long term gain, than try and find a short term solution that’s going to involve a long term pain in life.

(not for nothing, for all those of you who think religion is a good thing, this is how religion almost always goes. Theism is all about submission, regardless as to consequence. Take your beatings now, or God will beat you senseless later.)

Yet another rule allowing doctors to deny treatment
Yes, this is aimed at abortion, and yes, I know there are already rules allowing this bullshit. But it angers me every time it comes up. Doctors can decide what care you do and don’t get, but god forbid they make your little girl get vaccinated against HPV.
I wonder, what if the doctor belonged to a religious group that said surgury was unethical? Or drugs?
The rule allows doctors to NOT EVEN PROVIDE INFORMATION.
So, if I felt that surgury was wrong, I could recommend, y’know, lots of tea to get rid of that tumor.
Or if I thought medicine was sinful, I could prescribe drinking lots of water to manage your diabetes.
Or, maybe, I think your STD is punishment and nothing should be done about it at all. If you end up infertile, you got what you deserved.
Thank god. For a moment there, I thought my well-being might come before the desires of my doctor.
Whew.

Inventor builds his perfect woman – a robot who cleans and won’t nag | The Sun |News

SHE is the perfect wife, with the body of a Page 3 pin-up and housekeeping skills that put TV’s Kim and Aggie to shame.

Her name is Aiko, she can even read a map, and will never, ever, nag.

(ooo…and catch the sexist undertones!)
(I mean…I’m not one to be overly sensitive to that sort of thing, but COME ON)
(then again, it IS the Sun)

Really? This guy is the face the Republicans want to put out there?

Nugent: I was in Chicago last week I said—Hey Obama, you might want to suck on one of these you punk? Obama, he’s a piece of shit and I told him to suck on one of my machine guns…Let’s hear it for them. I was in NY and I said hey Hillary—you might want to ride one of these into the sunset you worthless bitch…Since I’m in California, I’m gonna find– she might wanna suck on my machine gun! Hey, Dianne Feinstein, ride one of these you worthless whore. Any questions? Freeeeedom!

I’m sorry, why, exactly, do women vote Republican?
(yes, I know he doesn’t actually say ‘rape’, but I’m not sure you can get much closer)