If you ask me, reality TV has gotten a little too real these days. First there's the ongoing reality TV "War of the Roses" that is Jon and Kate Gosselin. Then, over the weekend, Ashley "AJ" Jewell, ex-fiance of "Real Housewives of Atlanta" star Kandi Burruss was killed in a fight outside an Atlanta strip club.
Of course neither one of these events could ever be placed under the category of entertainment and yet they are inexorably attached to our modern day entertainment world. Am I the only one who finds that disturbing in more ways than one?
Regarding Jewell's death, local news reports had this police statement: "It appears he was involved in an altercation in the parking lot and he received a severe blow to the head," said Atlanta Police Lt. Keith Meadow. Fredrick Richardson has been charged with voluntary manslaughter in connection with Jewell's death.
Poor Kandi Burruss (pictured far right). When she took this "Housewives" gig, she probably thought, I'll do a season, just enough to put a kick in my career and who knows, it might be fun. Now not only has she lost someone very close to her, but she has to play out that loss in front of reality TV cameras. Who can help but sympathize?
On the Bravo TV website, a statement about the incident included the following:
All of us at Bravotv.com were deeply saddened to learn of the tragic death of Ashley "AJ" Jewell, featured on The Real Housewives of Atlanta.
Kandi is devastated as she is also mourning the death of her uncle, Ralph Leslie, and is attending his funeral today. She has no statement to make at this time and asks for privacy. There are no final details on the death of AJ."
Kandi has also reached out to fans on her Twitter page: "I could never in a million years imagine this happening," she posted. "Please pray for AJ's children. That's who I'm the most concerned for.
Yeah, it's the kids who always get it in the neck, isn't it?
Which brings me to the Jon and Kate Gosselin natural disaster.
As someone who's never watched more than ten minutes of their show, let me see if I have this straight: these two people, Jon and Kate have eight kids, twins and sextuplets. They do this TLC reality TV show, "Jon and Kate Plus 8."
That's when things go terribly wrong: Jon cheats on Kate, Jon and Kate split, TV show keeps going except Jon badmouths Kate. So TLC fires Jon and makes it "Kate Plus 8, Minus Jon."
Then Jon is like, I don't want my kids on that show anymore, it's bad for them. So make it "Kate Minus Jon, Minus 8."
So then "Kate Minus Jon, Minus 8" co-hosts "The View" and says she needs money, that's why she has to be "Kate Plus 8." Then "Kate Minus Jon, Minus 8" goes on "The Today Show" and says she really needs money because, "Jon Minus Kate, Minus 8" took $230,000 out of their joint bank account.
So "Jon Plus Kate" do the TV tango while the "Plus 8," who never had a say about any of this, find themselves in front of those same reality TV show cameras.
Who can help but sympathize?
Related Links:
Lola Adesioye at The Grio thinks reality TV producers should show more reality and less of the phoniness of reality TV.
Black and Married with Kids has excerpts of an interview Kandi Burruss did with Essence Magazine, published last month.
October is Disability Employment Awareness Month. Let's look at blogs out there by women about disability and work! Patricia E. Bauer hits right on target as usual: President urges employers to welcome workers with disabilities. I'm all for that. Here's a quote from President Obama's Proclamation:
In the past half-century, we have made great strides toward providing equal employment opportunities in America, but much work remains to be done. As part of that continuing effort, we must seek to provide opportunities for individuals with disabilities. Only then can Americans with disabilities achieve full participation in the workforce and reach the height of their ambition.
My Administration is committed to promoting positive change for every American, including those with disabilities. The Federal Government and its contractors can lead the way by implementing effective employment policies and practices that increase opportunities and help workers achieve their full potential. Across this country, millions of people with disabilities are working or want to work. We must ensure they have access to the support and services they need to succeed.
Right on. Well, how do we get to that culture of fostering and encouraging employment opportunities? What's blocking people with disabilities right now from having jobs? How about all the disabled people I know who are working incredibly hard. Doing fantastic, great work. Who's paying them? Often, no one. I'm a wheelchair user and have a full time job. Universally, people are surprised to hear that, even people I know as colleagues in social media. As I wrote and deleted drafts of this post -- mostly angry, despairing, bitter , soul-searching rants -- I asked myself, "Who do I know who's disabled, and has a job?" Not a lot. I know few people, mostly online. My friend Haddayr, a advertising copywriter and science fiction author. Denise, for example, from Dreamwidth. Rivka from Respectful of Otters. Katja Stokley from Broken Clay. Mel Chua. They're bloggers and writers who represent as well as doing their day jobs. And people I don't know, but hope to meet someday, like Laura Hershey and Kathleen Martinez and Simi Linton. But who do I know who's doing fantastic work? I can name so many. We can't work, often, because working risks our benefits that are essential to survival. Working denies us health care. We can't own more than $2000 of assets, or we don't get Medicare or Social Security benefits. We are trapped in a cycle of poverty. Programs that promise to help or employ end up tickets to exploitation. So we end up working for free.
I look at this grant to Cornell University and you know what? Great. But I'm not holding my breath. They just got 1.6 million dollars. How much of that is going to actually go into the pockets of people with disabilities? NOTHING ABOUT US, WITHOUT US. I hope they hire some people with disabilities, with that grant, and that, when they interview disabled people about their actual experiences working, that they pay them for their time.
You want to know what would help people with disabilities get jobs? How about asking them what they think would help?
My message back to President Obama is to look for some of the people doing amazing work. Then, ask why they're not being paid. And pay them. Change the policies of health care and benefits so they can be paid without risking their lives or their already precarious ability to live independently.
Hire them. Don't exploit their labor.
If you can't hire them without screwing up their benefits and health care? Get in there and navigate the maze of policy and bureaucracy that blocks them. How about this radical idea. Hire people part time, and give them insurance. Enable all people at your company to live a life in balance that doesn't drive their health into the ground.
Better yet, you as a company, as an employer, can say, "We want everyone in this country to have the health care they need to survive day to day, without it being tied to their employment."
Here are some of the people who are not just working, but who are great writers and thus, advocates who benefits all of us with disabilities. They mean a lot to me and have made a huge difference in my life. The solidarity I've found in their keeps me going in my own daily work.
Wheelie Catholic, advocate, thinker on human rights and social justice, and a fantastic writer.
Nick Dupree who is an advocate for Community Choice.
Barriers, Bridges, and Books talks about some of the complexities behind work, life, and disability. Now for example, if you have a disability , you may need some extra health care. But to get Medicare, you cannot own more then $2000 in assets. This is part of what traps people with disabilities into a cycle of poverty.
In Falling, Terri describes her fears for her teenage daughter's future.
Gayle DeVilbiss 's video of her story of misdiagnosis, chemo, and then being denied Social Security benefits, on Disability Information and Resources blog.
Katharine Ganly on Global Voices Online talks about people with disabilities trying to survive, get an education, and work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Being disabled, physically, may mean being deaf, having mobility impairments, being blind, being exhausted or in pain, having a chronic illness or mental illness, and so on. Those are differences or impairments. Personally I use the word disability as a cultural and political affiliation. But being "disabled" doesn't mean we can't work. It means we might need to work differently. And it means we have a harder time defending our own rights and asking for accommodations.
What can you do as employer?
- Don't make assumptions. Ask what you can do, and mean it. Don't then subject your disabled employee to a backlash.
- Provide deep information. A map of your office complex with elevation changes, level or ramped paths and handrails marked, elevators, bathrooms, and parking. That will be useful, and appreciated, by more people than you would predict. We might have to plan. We might have limited energy. Deep access information gives people what they need to make informed decisions.
- Work out technological solutions. Telecommuting!
- Try to educate yourself. Read some blogs, some books, and so on. I'm a little skeptical of diversity training. I recommend the WisCon feminist science fiction convention's guide to disability access at events. It applies to many physical environments and events.
- Be flexible. You know what helps me most - beside telecommuting half the week - in my work at BlogHer? This:
A couch! Thank you, BlogHer, for the glorious, amazing, couch in my cube. And for not minding too much when I'm lying on the couch on my back, computer on my stomach, my back and my leg experiencing awesome pain relief.
- Be inclusive socially. Plan your office social time with everyone in mind. (I swear, many places, they might as well have had special events underwater. Oh, there's no ramp and you just realized and "wouldn't mind carrying me up the stairs"? Thanks for the pain and loss of human dignity. Now let's party. Or get to work. Or now that I'm completely pissed off and discombobulated, how about I give an hour long public speech.)
- Don't be a jerk. I mean this nicely. Joking about a person's disability is rarely cool. Pressure is on that person to get along, to be a supercrip, to show they can "do it all" and can tolerate whatever gets thrown at them.
- Actually help people with their paperwork situations. Defend your employees. Help them fight their fights just as you might help your employee from outside your country with a visa situation.
Thanks for listening.
What do you think about my suggestions for employers? Do you have thoughts as a person with a disability or impairment? What work do you do? Do you get paid? Are you self-employed?
Or, as a friend, family member, ally, co-worker, or employer of a PWD, what in your opinion could be helpful to remove obstacles, and to decrease the huge unemployment rate for people with disabilities? We have a lot of moms of kids with special needs here on BlogHer and in the network. I would challenge all of you in particular to radicalize politically beyond support groups or cures, to connect with adults with disabilities who are advocating for social change, to look ahead to the future.
Yesterday I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to do something I have wanted to do for years. I got to see my favorite football team, The Tampa Bay Buccaneers, play against the Washington Redskins at Fed Ex Field in Landover, Maryland.
I have probably been to 20 Bucs games but this was the first time I got to see an away game. I've lived in the Washington D.C. Metro area for almost four years and this is the very first time since I have lived here that Tampa Bay played the Redskins up here. I wore my Buccaneers jersey and everything.
I was slightly concerned that I would get some razzing wearing the enemy uniform but none of the Redskins fans said anything to me.
I was happy. It was a beautiful day. For a while the Bucs were even winning. This was when it started.
The Redskins fans started booing their own team.
The first time I thought. Aw, that is sad and I felt bad for the guy who dropped the pass. Then they booed their quarterback, Jason Campbell. He had just thrown an incomplete pass.
Then I started feeling sick.
This was their team. I watched my team (who are now 0-4 by the way) blow a perfectly good lead. The Bucs stunk up the field but I was there cheering them on every single play. I was amid 50,000 Washington fans applauding the enemy and they were booing their own team in their own stadium.
I'm not saying that the 'skins were playing well. I am not saying I agree with the play calling. I am not saying that the fans shouldn't have been disappointed with the level of performance they were seeing.
What I am saying is that booing your own team is mean. It is bad manners.
I know that this isn't going to win me any friends at the bus stop, but I was appalled. I knew it happened at the last Washington home game, but I wasn't there for that. I didn't hear how loud it it was. I didn't hear how mad they sounded. The crowd sounded bitter.
As upset as I was by the event, some people here in DC see it as a positive thing.
Say for example, you are a Caps fan:
It's a storied franchise, filled with championships and great names and history that bleeds into just about everyone around here – until now. People are pissed, and for good reason, with anger the likes of which I've never seen in my 27 years as a Washingtonian.
They're annoyed and confused and frustrated. But most of all they're searching for something, anything, that can give them some enjoyment as the Skins stumble to disappointing losses and equally disappointing wins.
Enter the Caps, the team filled with young superstars and contagious personalities. Enter the team led by the underdog coach, with the Russian phenom who could just as easily be that kid on your block who used to fry ants with a magnifying glass as he could be the Next One. Enter the group of guys who are so quotable they make Clinton Portis look like Sidney Crosby. Enter the team that has more potential than all the teams in DC combined, and that has more fun than all the teams in DC combined.
Okay, I see her point. I also happen to love the Capitals. Maybe she is right. I know for a fact that the fans around here are pissed off. I'm afraid to listen to talk radio on Mondays. I am still just amazed by a fan base that would would pay $80 for a ticket and then boo.
Maybe that is the problem. Maybe these people expect to see a little more effort on the field for their money.
Once the shock of the David Letterman - Robert 'Joe' Halderman blackmail attempt began to wear off --sometime around Friday evening-- the conversation turned to sexual harassment. From commenters on blog posts to cable news shows, people wanted to know if Letterman and CBS could find themselves at the end of a sexual harassment lawsuit because of Letterman's on-air confession that, "Yes I have. I have had sex with women who work on this show."
"Not enough information is available," says Lisa Stratton, associate clinical professor, and director of the University of Minnesota Law School's Workers' Rights Clinic. "If the woman welcomed the relationship, it would not be illegal."
That legal judgment probably comes as a surprise to many who are under the wrong assumption that when a person in power engages in a sexual relationship with a subordinate it automatically falls into the category of sexual harassment.
It does not. In order for a situation to qualify as a sexual harassment case, the relationship has to be "unwelcome."
If the Letterman sex scandal does anything, it reignites a conversation about corporate policies around fraternization- a conversation that seems to have gone silent over the past few years.
"Ten years ago it did seem companies were quite concerned about paramour preference and there was a lot of talk about how smart it would be for companies to have anti-fraternization policies," says Jill Gaulding, an associate of Stratton's, and a visiting associate professor at the University of Minnesota Law School. "In recent years I haven't personally come across any company enforcing that policy. Perhaps it's just gone out of style." Gaulding, ever the attorney, emphasized this was a personal, subjective impression.
In the fall of 2005, I was asked to write the cover story for the February 2006 edition of Women's Business Minnesota. The topic was office romance. Unfortunately, just a week or so after I handed in the story, the magazine folded. I published Smooching On The Clock, the would-be cover story, on my blog on February 14, 2006.
"Lou dates Mary" was episode 167-- the next-to-last episode of the long-running Mary Tyler Moore program ( 1970-1977). In the episode, Mary has yet another disastrous date, and shares with her friend Georgette that she wonders if she'll ever find Mr. Right. Georgette then points out that Mary has known Mr. Right all along. With some encouragement Mary asks Mr. Grant (her boss) for a date. The year was 1977, and while Mary and Lou didn't get beyond a very innocent kiss before realizing that dating each other was not such a good idea, the writers of the show didn't have to deal with the potential ramifications that could arise when employees begin a romance because it was the presexual harassment era. In 1977, when that episode first aired, it would still be another nine years before the U.S. Supreme Court actually recognized the concept of sexual harassment. And, it wouldn't be until 1998 ─ nearly twenty years after Mary and Lou exchanged that awkward kiss ─ that the Supreme Court ruled businesses could be held liable if sexual harassment occurred in their workplace. With that ruling, businesses may have become more concerned about the potential risk of office romances, but the ruling has neither created a flurry of new policies about office romances and it certainly hasn't discouraged them. In fact, the opposite is true—office romances are on the rise, and corporations are dragging their feet when it comes to dictating policy and procedure on dating.
On average, about 50% of all office romances fail. It's in those failed relationships where corporations become vulnerable to sexual harassment lawsuits. To protect corporations from that possibility, the Love Contract was created.
"Think of it in terms of a prenup," said Good Morning America workplace contributor Tory Johnson. "In this particular case, you're saying to the employer, 'We'll prevent you from being held responsible for employment issues in the event of a failed personal relationship.' The employer should not have that burden."
While there are companies that use love contracts, it is certainly not the norm. As part of my research for that Office Romance article I interviewed Teresa Thompson, an employment attorney with the Minneapolis law firm Parsinen Kaplan Rosberg & Gotlieb P.A.
Thompson believes the lack of dating policies is a problem. "Only about 25% of companies have policies regarding fraternization between employees. Others may have an unspoken policy about dating people that you are not directly supervising, but most do not. "While that may surprise many, Thompson says the lack of policies is rooted in a tradition where historically businesses have wanted to stay out of people's private lives.
Stratton and Gaulding agree saying that we don't want a legal system that makes it illegal to fall in love at work.
What about all those other women in the office who didn't have an affair with Letterman? Do they have any legal recourse in the event that he showed "paramour preference"to his lovers? The experts say probably not. While paramour preference may be distasteful for those who have to work around it, our legal system says it's not unlawful.
Because preferring a paramour discriminates against all non-paramours of both sexes (it is discrimination because of an existing romantic relationship, not discrimination because of the sex of the paramour or even the sex of the complaining employee), such romances are not covered by Title VII.
In the coverage of the David Letterman case, CNN reported they had contacted CBS about their sexual harassment policies. According to the CNN report, CBS indicated it did have a policy about sexual harassment and that David Letterman did not violate it. Stratton and Gaulding say it's actually not a great idea for companies to have anti-fraternization policies because then they have to figure out how they are going to enforce that policy. That's not easy. Imagine a blackmail attempt on a station manager in Boise or Richmond for having sex with employees. It wouldn't be surprising to hear the station manager was fired for that conduct. Now, if CBS had an anti-fraternization policy they would be obligated to treat all employees the same way for the same misconduct. Without the fraternization policy, each situation can be handled on an individual basis.
Here are what others are saying about Letterman and the potential of a sexual harassment lawsuit:
Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, written by David Benedictus, is the first new Winnie the Pooh book in eighty years is hitting shelves is hitting shelves today. It's also the first official Pooh story to not be authored by A.A. Milme. In the new installment the loyal gang we all know is gaining a new member - Lottie the Otter. Lottie wears pearls, is a bit feisty and will add another female character to a predominantly male cast.
As the New York Timesarticle on the new Pooh points out, retellings and story extensions are not uncommon and sometimes are quite successful. Now, I'm not entirely a purist. I can handle my Pride and Prejudice with a dash of zombies or even told from the perspective of Mr. Darcy. But there are some retellings, sequels and prequels that make me wary and some of that I refuse to even acknowledge (I'm looking at you Before Green Gables).
Pfeh. I don't actually have any great fondness for Pooh, even though I read him over and over as a child; I didn't single him out to be read to the children. (Neither did I Wind in the Willows, so my taste is clearly flawed.) I'm thinking that the new task of a literary executor, instead of burning indiscreet letters, should be to defend the property from any and all brand extension in perpetuity.
Okay, I'll admit it: I'm not a huge fan of Pooh. I kind of like Piglet, and Eeyore is sort of amusing, but when I tried to read the original Pooh books on my own as a child, there was no connection. Perhaps I've been stunted as a person, but there you have it. All the same, I found myself peeved and protective when I read on the BBC website that a new character, Lottie the Otter, has been created for the first "original" Pooh story since Milne stopped writing them himself.
But we have faith in the book — we see it as a brave and ambitious homage to one of humanity's most iconic children's classics.
Taking on writing a new story for a beloved classic and adding a new character to the mix is brave and very ambitious. No one can deny that. Here's to hoping it works out well for Pooh and his friends, both new and old.
IT is a truth universally acknowledged that whenever you find the perfect shade of lipstick, the company discontinues it. Unfortunately, this is also true of foundation, blush, mascara, eye shadows, skin care, fragrances, and hair products. Here are ten things you can do to heal your broken heart:
1. Check the company website. Prescriptives has a last chance section. So do Estee Lauder, MAC, Nars, Stila, and Chanel. (And a word to the wise--Prescriptives is going out of business soon.)
2. Try going up the corporate ladder. Estee Lauder is the parent company to a huge number of makeup companies, including American Beauty, Aveda, Bobbi Brown, Clinique, La Mer, MAC, and Origins. Estee Lauder offers a "Gone But Not Forgotten" service that sells discontinued items for as long as they have them in stock. Call (800) 216-7173.
3. Check out cosmetics sites that specialize in discontinued products. Here are five to begin with:
CosmeticsandMore.com carries various products from Revlon and Almay. You can't shop at the site, but you can call or fax an order in.
Makeup.com carries products from Elizabeth Arden, Benefit, Ahava, Guerlain, Kerastase--too many to list.
Strawberrynet.com also carries products not available in the United States. You might get lucky with them.
4. Check out discount and outlet stores. Big Lots is a good source for drugstore items. TJ Maxx, Marshall's, and Filene's Basement are great for fragrances. I've blogged elsewhere about the Cosmetic Company outlet stores for Estee Lauder brands.
5. Search eBay. You can enter a search and have the results emailed to you. I did this for my beloved Maybelline Wet Shine lipstick in Drippin' Honey and picked up a lot of three, brand-new, still sealed, for $15. Score!
6. Try a swap. Head over to Makeup Alley--mecca for makeup and skincare geeks--and check to see whether anyone has any to swap. (Not that I'm advocating using used makeup, but it's astonishing how many MUA members have brand-new/still-in-box products available. These women are serious about makeup!)
7. Let the company help you find a replacement. Maybelline and CoverGirl have applications to help you find a replacement product in their line.
8. Ask around on the web to find a replacement. You can also use Makeup Alley or TotalBeauty.com to find a replacement for the discontinued product. Head to the relevant board and post a query. Alternatively, a beauty blog could provide an answer. Do a search for your product name and "review" to find a review for the product, then leave a comment asking whether the blogger has found a replacement.
9. Find a recreated version.The Vermont Country Store and Long Lost Perfumes are licensed to reproduce popular discontinued formulas from the past, like Gee! Your Hair Smells Terrific shampoo and Oh! de London.
10. When all else fails, have the product duplicated. Three Custom Color has an enormous archive of products dating from the 1930s to the present, and may have a formula that matches your shade. I did a search for Maybelline Drippin' Honey lipstick and sure enough, they had it. Of course, at $55 for two lipsticks, I'm not likely to buy from them--but it's something to keep in mind.
Last week, National Geographic Adventure TV published a list of their top adventure travelers on Twitter. I was bummed, the list included ONE woman, @CarolDTravels. The criteria listed at the top of the article -- "our top twitter picks of celebrity travellers, professional nomads and down-right crazy adventurers" -- was sufficiently vague to mean that there's no good reason at all to have such a short supply of women. I started counting folks I know on my hands, easily coming up with ten, before moving on to others who are mostly, but not exclusively, professional nomads, and I just got aggravated.
Interesting, the magazine wing does a MUCH better job of putting together their list, including folks like ocean rower Roz Savage and, huh, I did NOT know Jane Goodall had a Twitter account, did you?
We're out there, seeing the world.There are the founders of GoGalavanting, Kim Mance and Maren Hogan, they're all over Twitter. Beth Whitman, founder of Wanderlust and Lipstick -- she's out there. Audrey and Dan, of the always beautiful Uncornered Market, they're in crazy places and on Twitter. TravelSavvyKayt took her son to Jordan, is that not adventurous enough? I'm not even trying, here. (These are blog links, I encourage you to click through, read they're blogs and see if you'd like to follow them on Twitter.) I'm thinking you can come up with a few names without trying, too.
It's the lack of effort that gets me. I'm scrolling through my Twitter feed, just there to the rignt, and seeing women expats in Morrocco and Shanghai. Women who have reinvented themselves as travelers in their 50s. Women who have always avoided the mainstream and make their living as digital nomads. All kinds of adventures, and oh so many of them are women. And only ONE on the NGA list? ONE? Really?
Are you an adventure traveler? Are you on Twitter? Leave your Twitter name in the comments, please.
Pam blogs about travel and other adventures at Nerd's Eye View.
Last night, I took a break from my homework and read New York Magazine. When I hit page 77, I was surprised to see a stunning black and white photo of a large black women gracing the page. I thought Mo'Nique was looking good. Then I realized that it wasn't Mo'Nique, but Gabourey "Gabby" Sidibe, Mo'Nique's co-star in the movie Precious.
The article by Tim Murphy went on to describe Sidibe's experience on the movie set, which was grueling. (The film is based on Sapphire's graphic book about abuse, Push, of which I have read excerpts, and I cannot imagine what it would be like to watch this film let alone make it, but it is winning accolades at film festivals. (In May, Siditty compared the book and the film trailer, and judged both to have merits, even if they differed slightly.) Sidibe and others also weighed in on her body. I felt the tone of the story was caught between wanting to admire this woman whose confidence almost verges into the obnoxious, and incredulity that a fat woman could be happy, desirable, and successful. Still, Sidibe's awareness of media manipulation and her insistence on taking control is inspiring:
To play Precious, she had to unwork all her confidence, and speak lower, slower, and gutturally. Only in the fantasy sequences"—when Precious dissociates from rape and abuse by thinking about runways and red carpets—"do you see who Sidibe is, bubbly and giggly."
Which, according to Sidibe, is miles from how she's been portrayed in the press so far. "They try to paint the picture that I was this downtrodden, ugly girl who was unpopular in school and in life, and then I got this role and now I'm awesome," says the actress. "But the truth is that I've been awesome, and then I got this role."
I love that she says she was awesome before Hollywood came around. Love, love, love it. I wish more girls and young women had that kind of confidence. What's not so cool is how the director described his impression of her audition tape and how the reporter explains the process:
[Director Lee] Daniels, who saw hundreds of audition tapes from across the country (350-pound actresses don't grow on trees), was blown away by Sidibe. "She is unequivocally comfortable in her body, in a very bizarre way. Either she's in a state of denial or she's so elevated that she's on another level," he says. "I had no doubt in my mind that she had four or five boyfriends, easily."
She's in a state of denial because she likes herself as she is? Fat actresses don't "grow on trees?" I'd love to avoid these types of stereotypes in an article about a fat woman who is confident in herself and her abilities. And perhaps there is a dearth of large actresses because there aren't exactly a lot of roles out there for them, so they pursue other lines of work. (And here I am thinking a little tangentially to Julie and Julia, in which author Julie Powell, who wrote so eloquently about her struggles with PCOS and her weight, was played by Amy Adams, who is stick thin; or the new Bridget Jones movie, in which skinny actress Renee Zellweger will don a fat suit...)
Despite the skepticism about fat actresses, mo pie at big fat deal is excited about both Gabby Sidibe and the film:
I'm giving Gabby Sidibe her own category because I don't want to be caught unawares when she's walking down the red carpet on Oscar night and we need to post about how hot she looks and/or what insane thing she's wearing... I won't lie–I'm kind of nervous to see Precious, because it is clearly not an easy movie to experience. But I'm thrilled to see actresses like Sidibe and Mo'Nique getting recognition for this project, and I have no doubt that it's an outstanding film.
Not only can Sidibe act, she can also sing. Her mother is infamous as an R&B performer in the subway, and the daughter inherited her singing chops. Although Daniels initial reaction to Sidibe was less than stellar in terms of body image, he is eager to cast her in a musical, a la Rizzo from Grease. Until that happens, Sidibe will be appearing in a Sundance Lab film, Yelling to the Sky with Don Cheadle. Rock on!
Still, Sidibe explained that she felt enormous pressure about her weight not only from the media, but from friends and family. An aunt offered to send her on a cruise if she's lost 50 pounds. A friend told her that she should stop eating things that are "disgusting" because designers would not make dresses for fat women. Sidibe's response:
"I learned to love myself, because I sleep with myself every night and I wake up with myself every morning, and if I don't like myself, there's no reason to even live the life. I love the way I look. I'm fine with it. And if my body changes, I'll be fine with that."
At 26 years old, this woman has it figured out better than a lot of people. I hope that as her star rises (and hopefully it will), she can retain the positive feelings she has about who she is, and I also hope that she doesn't fall into the ego trap of so many other famous people. (The article, incidentally, ends with her telling a guy who blew her off that, "I'm not a regular girl. I just got off a plane from France.") Nope - Gabourey Sidibe is not a regular girl, but trips to France have nothing to do with that.
I'm with Colleen from Chasing Ray: A whole lot of crazy has converged on us this week, and it's enough to drive us both insane!
You may be well aware that Roman Polanski was finally arrested this week for raping a child decades ago and subsequently fleeing the country rather than face the sentence his plea bargain would result in. [You can find great recap posts with lots of links to the coverage here and here. Not to mention Kate Harding's searing work on Broadsheet. And Melissa Silverstein's insider view on Women and Hollywood.]
But Colleen also wants you to be aware that today, in 2009, book banning and author censorship is alive and well, particularly when it comes to schools and young adult fiction. And she sees a compelling connection, or perhaps more accurately, a cognitive dissonance, between what we say about protecting young people, and what we do. For her unique and cautionary take on the Polanski crime, we have chosen Chasing Ray's post We've got a whole lot of crazy going on as our BlogHer of the Week.
Nothing could better explain this week's choice, and why it struck us, than these passages:
Roman Polanski raping a child and fleeing the country is reality. Sixteen-year old honor student Derrion Albert beaten to death on the way to the bus stop in Chicago is reality. Soaring suicide rates and depression and teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse and drug abuse and gang violence across the US are all the reality we are living in.
But we seek to save children by telling them not to read about these things? Don't read about teenagers doing the things that teenagers are doing. Make those teenagers - the ones who do those things - someone different, someone far away, someone who - maybe - deserved it.
and
Blame some children for how they acted, how they dressed, where they were - but don't do the hard work of actually trying to reach those children. Don't celebrate, protect and defend the authors who reach out with their words to real living and breathing teenagers. Hold on to some ideals that somehow lets us, as a society, defend Polanski and decry [banned author] Hopkins.
To my own discredit, I was unaware of every story of censorship and book banning in Colleen's post. And it's a crying shame.
To her credit: Colleen's post illuminates this troubling trend, and draws useful, if disturbing, parallels to the Polanski case.
Your period. Cramps, tampons, mood swings and…a spiritual experience? This week we'll explore that connection with Jessica Schafer's review of Anita Diamant's The Red Tent. This review originally appeared at Living Sexuality, the blog of Clinical Sexologist Becky Knight. It was part of the Best Blog Series Ever. Period. – a week's worth of posts on menstruation. (re-posted with permission)
Book Review: Anita Diamant's The Red Tent by Jessica Schafer
When I first read Anita Diamant's novel The Red Tent three years ago, I had never thought about what menstruation was like for women thousands of years ago. If I had thought about it, I probably would have shuddered at the idea. The Red Tent made me think again. Sure, it was probably messy, with no tampons and only homemade rags as pads. It was also probably really unhygienic considering how little people bathed in general. But Diamant weaves a really compelling picture of what menstruation might have meant to women in pre-modern times.
Because The Red Tent is an incredibly rich and complex historical novel, I will just focus on two things that intrigued me about Diamant's description of menstruation:
• It was a communal experience. The title refers to the tent women retired to at the New Moon at the onset of their period. They stayed together in the tent, sitting on straw, resting, relaxing and eating sweets for three days. During those three days they didn't have to do any work and simply enjoyed being together and celebrating their days of rest.
• It was deeply spiritual. Fertility, symbolized by monthly bleeding, was a powerful and mysterious gift. Innana, the great mother was worshipped and thanked for the gift of life. I loved the rituals Diamant constructed around menstruation and the way the rituals deeply honored women and the power they bear.
One of the main characters describes menstruation to her daughter like this:
"The great mother whom we call Innana gave a gift to woman that is not known among men, and this is the secret of blood. The flow at the dark of the moon, the healing blood of the moon's birth—to men, this is flux and distemper, bother and pain. They imagine we suffer and consider themselves lucky. We do not disabuse them.
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In the red tent, the truth is known. In the red tent, where days pass like a gentle stream, as the gift of Innana courses through us, cleansing the body of last month's death, preparing the body to receive the new month's life, women give thanks—for repose and restoration, for the knowledge that life come from between our legs, and that life costs blood."
What would change in your life if you could look forward to three days of withdrawal from the world, in which you could rest and celebrate your body? And what if you could spend those three days with your closest girlfriends, singing together, eating sweets together, massaging each others backs and listening to the stories of your lives? There would still be discomfort, cramps and everything else that comes along with it, but what if we saw it as an honor, something valuable enough to be celebrated?
The Red Tent is about much more than menstruation. It is a historical retelling of the story of Dinah, a character from the Old Testament in the Bible. Find out more about The Red Tent click here.
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Jessica Schafer grew up in Germany as a missionary kid. She now works as a Resident Director at Trinity Western University. She is doing a long distance training program in spiritual direction through the Haden Institute and someday soon wants to start an MFA in poetry. She blogs at Between Words, is on twitter, and is offering you her favorite poems for spiritual sustenance in her guest post this week at Magpie Girl.
But if they were actually born on their due dates, they'd be born in different years. One this year, one in 2010.
It's called "superfetation."
My head hurts.
HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN?
Apparently, it happens all the time to rabbits.
And it wouldn't be so much of a problem if they could pop out one at a time, but I'm guessing once you start expelling objects from your womb, it pretty much empties. Thank goodness in the case of the Grovenburgs, Jillian and Hudson are only about 2.5 weeks apart, so chances are good Jillian could hang out for an extra week or Hudson could be born a little early and everything would be okay.
When I was pregnant I was amazed at how much of it was guesswork on my doctor's part. With all the technology and medical advances, it's very difficult to predict anything about human gestation. Once you're pregnant, all you know is that you're going to give birth somehow, someway.
Apparently, this is called superfetation. 'Super' indeed. Other more common reproductive surprises include:
Multiples – "Yeah, you know how you were getting ready for one baby? Well, you're having eight. Isn't that wonderful?" As a father of twins, I can tell it is wonderful… after three long years of sleeplessness and high stress.
Gender Oops – "You know how you bought all those pink onesies and painted the room pink and bought the entire Barbie collection? Well, it's not a girl after all. Of course, that means it's a boy." Despite advances in ultrasound tech, this continues to happen.
In other surprises, Jeanne Sager writes at Strollerderby about a woman in Indonesia who gave birth to a 19-pound baby boy. OW OW OW OW OW
Which then brings me to the age-old question of whether or not you can get pregnant during your period. According to Carolyn Kubik, a fertility specialist at BabyCenter, um, yes.
Typically, when you have your period, another egg is developing in preparation for release during the current cycle. But not every woman's cycle length is the same. Many women have a cycle that's about 28 days long, but some have cycles as short as 22 days long. If you have a shorter cycle, you could ovulate just a few days after you have your period. And considering that sperm can survive in your reproductive tract for up to three days, it's theoretically possible for the sperm to hang around until you ovulate again.
At a dinner recently with some tech entrepreneurs and media darlings, I was subjected to the usual questions in regard to my writing.
"You write about sex?" someone asked me.
Before I could respond, a friend of mine who blogs about technology events for a local weekly piped up: "AV is going to do great things one day."
There it was: the often-unsaid but very real idea that somehow, writing about sex is not as important as writing about anything else.
CAN'T STOP LOOKING
In 2003, the author Catherynne M. Valente reviewed an old blog of mine:
Reading Anaiis for the first time is rather like the scene in The Graduate when Mrs. Robinson strips her clothes off and stands naked as Eve in front of the camera. We cut back and forth between her body and Dustin Hoffman's horrified and flustered expression while she leans against the wall, totally calm.
And the body isn't perfect, it's heavy-hipped, small-breasted and a little lumpy, as though it's been used way too many times. It's a 70s porn star after she's resorted to flipping pancakes down at the local IHOP. But it is beautiful. And just the shock of seeing that woman expose herself to you is entirely exciting and delicious because it's so wrong. You just can't stop looking.
In a sense, we've come a long way. Sexuality, once locked up and hidden from view, is once again able to flow freely across the blogosphere in a beautiful return to the tradition of storytelling. But it would be inaccurate to say that this indicates that social perceptions of sexuality have changed much—after all, how many people writing about their sexual experiences are doing so under their real names?
The truth is that we are living in a strange duality—an open culture which politically seems to encourage and support sexual self-expression, and a "don't ask, don't tell" society where people do still judge those who share about their bodies, their desires and their sexual choices.
I have been saying that modern science broke down the barriers that separated the heavens from the earth, and that it unified and united the universe. And that is true. But, as I have said, too, it did this by substituting the world of quality and sense perception, the world in which we live, and love, and die, with another world—the world of quantity, or reified geometry, a world in which, though there is a place for everything, there is no place for man... True, these worlds are everyday—and even more and more—connected by praxis. Yet they are divided by an abyss. Two worlds: this means two truths. Or no truth at all.
THE GHETTO
In her book Naked On The Internet, Audacia Ray touches on how repressive social views have largely divorced the sex blog from the rest of the blogosphere:
Sex blogs occupy a very definite Internet ghetto, and despite the fact that women who maintain these blogs put a lot of care into their posts beyond just pictures, goofy quizzes and links without commentary, it's fairly common that they get scoffed at and seen as a lesser form of blog, especially by other bloggers who do not blog about sex.
The ghettoizing of the sex blog is something of a two-pronged problem: writing and thinking about sexuality is seen as an easy way to get attention and not at all a noble pursuit, and most of the people who blog in detail about sexuality and their personal lives are women. These two elements are intertwined in a way that serves to devalue women's writing even if it is not always directly about sex, while creating an instant funnel for negative comments towards any woman who ventures to the dark side of writing about sex.
Sex writing, even when it's about women's personal experiences, is viewed as a cheap trick to get more hits, links and controversy. And while this is a valid trick—or criticism, as the case may be—the suggestion that women blogging about sex are inherently cheap and unworthy of attention beyond gawking is shortsighted and sexist.
The reaction to sex blogging is rooted in a lack of understanding as to why people would want to blog about their sex life. Many people believe sex should be private and analyze why bloggers would bring that out in (sometimes semianonymous) public. It's also related to the commonly held belief that sex is not just that important on a societal level.
But it is important. It's important because sex is a human reality.
SEX ED
The battle of whether abstinence-only education is more effective than sex ed is a fierce one. While it's true that the best way to avoid pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease is to completely abstain from sex, the argument that abstinence-only education can lead to ignorance is also valid.
This summer, researches from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released their analysis of national data spanning five years between 2002 and 2007. Their findings were shocking—birth rates among teens were on the rise following a steady decline between 1991 and 2005, with an estimated 16,000 pregnancies happening among girls between 10 and 14 in 2004. One third of the teens surveyed had never learned about the different available methods of birth control before the age of 18.
Between 2003 and 2004, about one-quarter of girls between 15 and 19, and 45 percent of women between 20 and 24 had a human papillomavirus infection. In 2006, one million young people were reported to have chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis. That same year, most new diagnoses of HIV were among men and women between 20 and 24.
Ignorance is a terrible disease. But I am not here to argue about sexual education in state schools—the main reason I am sexually healthy today has more to do with the open communication I enjoyed with my friends and mentors in regard to sex.
Stories instruct. The difference between an academic text and a story is that a story engages you on another level. Much like the argument that branding strategists are making today about how much more effective it is for the public to hear about a product from a source they trust than it is to bombard them with advertisements, anecdotes about sex have more power than any PSA.
I didn't learn the difference between bacterial vaginosis, chlamydia and a yeast infection in school. I learned it after many conversations with friends, and quite a bit of hand-holding at doctor's offices that these situations involved. Text book facts can be forgotten. A story that touches you, on the other hand, and all its details—details that are not sanitized to make them more palatable—stays with you much longer. Anecdotes are not afraid to be horrifying, heart-breaking, flawed and human.
They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but while picture of an STD in a text book is gruesome, it's removed from you and your reality. It doesn't engage you in the same way that the story of someone who lived or is living its complications does. And that makes all the difference.
Another educational aspect of sharing about sex that is often left out is that it doesn't limit itself to safety. It deals with technique, with pleasure and with the nature of desire, things which are equally important to health and well-being.
An article in The New York Times in January entitled "What Do Women Want?" brought to my attention how far we still have to go in terms of understanding female desire. The title references a question posed by the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud a century ago. In a century, we have made great technological and political leaps.
But we still don't really understand desire—especially female desire.
HUSH LITTLE BABY
My mother has always said that schools should implement pleasure education alongside sexual education. It's a clever quip, but one rooted in her own experience, which was not as liberated as her current views suggest.
She grew up in a time during which the pages of anatomy and physiology textbooks relating to sex were stapled together. Sex was not something to be discussed—in the classroom or among friends. It wasn't until long after many of her friends had been married that the subject was breached. She was horrified when she related the conversation to me: so many of her friends were not sure whether they had ever orgasmed.
Not discussing sex turns us into islands, tasked with learning about safety, prevention, navigating our desires and understanding our bodies alone.
We now live in the age of Google, WebMD, and Twitter, which enable us to do better research and connect with experts in the fields of sexuality. Despite these tools, the flow of our sharing about sex is limited.
OUT AND PROUD
"I do think there's a lot to be said for being 'out.' Put a bold, Nicolas Sarkozy-style public face on your indiscretions," the science fiction author Bruce Sterling told The Austin Chronicle in March. "If you quiver all over, thinking you should privately hide in the back of the bus – 'I'm private and invisible here, no one should know I exist' – that just strengthens the hands of bossy people who want to keep you hidden in the back of the bus. Nobody outs Rosa Parks."
His quote summarized the main argument of a a piece by Marc Savlov, which speculated that, given our affinity for the many available social networks on the web, we as a culture are moving away from a world where the main concern is privacy, and toward one where transparency is the norm.
While I do not necessarily agree that we are currently hurtling toward a reality where openness is not only accepted by encouraged, I feel that writing about my experiences, starting these discussions about sex, participating in the debates of others in regard to sex, and encouraging people to share their own experiences is a step in that direction.
A baby step, yes, but an important step nonetheless.
GREAT THING
Those of us who write about sex are putting ourselves out there—not because we think it's safe to do so, not because we think it's acceptable to do so, but because we know that it isn't safe or acceptable. This isn't about link-baiting or shock value, it's about resistance.
Whether we're discussing last night's romp, delineating how to give a killer blowjob, chronicling the battle we're fighting over our bodies and bedrooms, or ruminating about the nature of our desires, we're taking a stance. We've come this far and we're not going to stop, much less take a step backward.
By telling our stories, we liberate others to do the same. That is the nature of the story. Our voices, in this space, grant permission to others to accept their sexuality, to explore their bodies, to reflect on their own desires and share in their experience. Together, our baby steps carve a direction from isolated ignorance to open discussion, community and learning.
We won't be silenced. We accept what that means—being taken less seriously than other writers, being fodder at dinner parties, being looked at strangely in the workplace, being exposed to a higher incidence of ridicule, scorn, cyber-stalking and its meatspace equivalent, among other things. We accept this because that's what it takes to take a stance.
And this is a great thing.
BLOGGIE TREATS
At Longing's End is the blog of a couple sharing their love, passion, desires, and sex toys with the world: "Real live, submission, dominance and love."
Melissa Gira Grant is the web space of the writer, sultural commentatrix and sex educator Melissa Gira: "Melissa has been writing about sex on the web since 1998, when she launched her first blog, beautifultoxin... Other sex/tech notorieties include having been one of the first webcam girl performance artists, delivering the first podcasted orgasm, and promoting 'prostitution hacks' from Silicon Valley to Scandinavia as part of The Aphrodite Project, which is designed to question moral attitudes and value judgments."
Mistress Tara's Blog are the musings of a professional dominatrix: "Already at a young age, I enjoyed reading books and watching films about power and impotence, pain and love. Although at the time, I was unable to completely identify what it was I was feeling, I began to fantasise about these topics and only later realised that they fell under the heading of BDSM. Toward the end of my teenage years, I began to experiment and discovered that whips, pain and humiliation are my true passion. With the help of my partner and friends, I explored my way in the world of BDSM after which the logical next step was to become a professional Dominatrix."
Let's get one thing straight; I love a good, juicy, flame-grilled burger, preferably with cheese. But I'm not dying for one.
Unfortunately, a story in today's New York Times reveals that after years of industry self-regulation, tens of thousands of people are sickened every year by E. Coli. a bacteria commonly found in animal feces. In a small percentage of those cases, people are sickened to the point of paralysis or death.
The Times story focused on the story of Stephanie Smith, a 22-year-old dancer from Minnesota, who spent weeks in a coma and became paralyzed from the waist down after eating a grilled hamburger in 2007. They traced the patty that Smith ate to a meat processor, Cargill, and three separate suppliers, in Nebraska, Texas and Uruguay. While they were unable to pinpoint the precise source of the contamination, they did find that both Cargill one of its suppliers have been accused of failing to follow proper safety procedures. What's worse, the Times reported, at the time of the 2007 outbreak that injured Smith, USDA officials found "serious problems" 55 out of 224 meat processing plants that were subjected to impromptu inspections.
Xeni Jardin at Boingboing captured what a lot of readers most likely felt:
"Ground beef is not a completely safe product," one food safety expert in the article is quoted. Well, no s***."
Why is that -- and how serious is the problem of meat contamination? A 2002 PBS Frontline docmentary found an array of experts who agreed that despite disturbing incidents such as the E. coli outbreak that paralyzed Stephanie Smith, the meat supply is basically safe. Preliminary 2008 data from the Center for Disease Control indicates that the rate of contamination by E Coli and other food-borne pathogens hasn't changed much in the last three years.
Since 1998, meat suppliers have been required to subject their products to scientific examination in order to detect microbial contaminants. This system of industry self-regulation, known as HACCP, was part of the response to the fatal 1993 E. coli outbreak that killed several children who ate Jack-In-the-Box hamburgers. However, while experts agree that HACCP is an improvement over the old system that depended primarily on the eyes and noses of USDA inspectors, it's basically up to suppliers to decide how closely they want to examine their product.
The Times story quoted the food safety director at Costco as saying that some suppliers won't sell them meat because they insist on inspecting the product. While Costco's vigilance is commendable, a 2008 study by the Food Safety Inspection Service found that it's especially important to inspect for contamination when the animal is slaughtered.
Connecticut Congresswoman Rosa de Laura has been arguing for years that we need to strengthen and streamline federal oversight of the food supply, In a 2007 speech, she argued for passage of her Food Safety Modernization Act:
Today, there are 15 different agencies currently responsible for administering 30 laws related to food safety. It is time to consolidate many of these functions and provide a regulatory structure that takes full advantage of the great work being done by the scientists at the FDA and state laboratories as well.
It is possible, through a streamlined regulatory structure to require regular inspections of all food processing plants, increase oversight of imported foods, provide for outbreak surveillance, require the tracing of foods to point of origin, and ensure effective public communication.
According to Govtrack.us, De Lauro's Food Safety Modernization Act was re-introduced in February, 2009, awaiting consideration by three House committees. Critics have unleashed such vigorous attacks on the bill, Snopes.com put up a page to debunk outlandish claims that if passed, the bill would outlaw organic farming.
In March, Pres. Obama announced the creation of a Food Safety Working Group, led by the Secretaries of the Departments of Agriculture and Health and Human Services. He also sought a $1 billion increase for food safety inspectors. Food safety, Obama argued, "is one of the things government can do." At the time, Huffington Post writer Paula Crossfield warned that instituting meaningful reform won't be easy:
For food policy advocates, the Food Safety Working Group is cause for a huge sigh of relief. It appears that food safety was the way to get the public's attention on the issues facing our food system all along, as its plays right into our inherent ability to respond to fear. Everywhere you look these days the talk is e. coli, salmonella and now MRSA contamination via pigs. As a result, people are reading labels and questioning the food supply more than ever before.
that it said would improve the safety of the food supply, including, "stepping up enforcement in beef facilities." It remains to be seen how effective that stepped up enforcement will be.
For now, though, consumers are worried. Southern Liberal feels safest buying "local ground beef that is grass-fed." JanieC52 is buying local too, and reminding everyone to cook their meat to the proper temperature.
As for me, I'll lay low on the burgers for a while. I need to eat more veggies anyway.
Related:
Is your food safe? 2007 BlogHer post on the difficulty of tracking the source of our produce.
FoodSafety.gov Federal portal with food safety information
My two year old son never ceases to amaze me. On a daily basis I am surprised by the vastness of his vocabulary and the way he grasps concepts that I never imagined he'd comprehend at this age. Although this stage of his development has been frequently referred to as the terrible twos, I honestly am enjoying him more and more on a daily basis. I love having conversations with him and enjoy seeing how he processes the world around him. For the very first time I've truly ached for him when I've been traveling. And I always welcome him with open arms when he wants to shower me with kisses and hugs. The memory of his cuddles sustains me while I am away.
As he grows into his own person, I have started to think about the possibility of sibling for him. A three year gap between children will be perfect, in the event that I successfully conceive my son will likely be out of diapers by the time another child is born. Also, I am quickly approaching 40 and I doubt that I will be having any babies after forty. Although, I admit that I will never say never, in my wildest dreams I didn't imagine being predicted a first time mother in my late thirties. When I analyze my reasons for desiring another child, they vary. On the one hand, as an only child I am all too familiar with the feeling of longing for a playmate when I was growing up. As an adult, I am the sole provider of care for my mother in the even that she gets sick and as she ages this becomes a real concern for me. Since I am an older mother this is a real concern because my son will have parents that are advanced in age and having a sibiling will help remove some of the burden of care from him. I also realize that with an additional child there are additional expenses and given the current state of the economy that is a real concern. I also have to be honest with myself and question if I am up to revisiting the newborn phase when sleepless nights were the norm. Sleep is so valuable and quite fleeting when new babies are involved.
As I contemplate all of these reasons for having another child, I sometimes wish I had done things differently. There are many moments when I am envious of my friends that got the baby making out of the way in their late twenties and early thirties but then I realize that the grass is always greener on the other side. When my close friends were nursing babies I was busy living overseas, exploring the world and building a career. My experiences have freed me at this point to look back and relish in my accomplishments while enjoying this period in my life.
Obviously this is not a decision that I can make alone, my husband has input too. But I can't deny the feelings I have of longing when I see babies and regardless of all of the challenges that come with a baby I really want to have another child. The conversation has started and we will see what the new year brings.
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