- After Eugenie Bouchard became the first Canadian to advance to the semi-finals of the Australian Open this week, an interviewer asked the ever-important question, “If you could date anyone in the world of sport, of movies… who would you date?”
- How to interrupt the flow of capital and undercut the exploitation of garment workers: MASS FAINTING. The New York Times (in a somewhat old article) describes an epidemic of “swooning” among female garment workers in Cambodia. These “swooning episodes” are “helping the cause of Cambodia’s largely young, female and rural factory workforce by registering a kind of bodily objection to the harsh daily regimen of industrial capitalism: few days off; a hard bed in a wooden barracks; meager meals of rice and a mystery curry, hastily scarfed down between shifts.”
- The New York Times seems to be on a roll this week. Watch this incredibly powerful Op-Doc, “Running on Fumes,” which features the story of a woman working in the oil and gas industry in North Dakota. (It is only six minutes long.)
- Keavy Martin’s review of Sanaaq by Inuit author Mitiarjuk Nappaaluk is well worth your time. Along with an overview of the new English translation of the book, Martin discusses the thriving Iqaluit-based publishing scene and the ways in which Mitiarjuk’s work challenges traditional, Eurocentric conceptions of the literary “novel.”
- Maissoneuve explores Bro culture and the recent surge in popularity of Bro blogs. It also touches on the repressive, homophobic aspects of male friendship: “Bros are constantly trying to keep clear the lines of homosocial and homosexual relationships, where the former provides a core group with whom to perform the ritual tasks of bro-ness (the aforementioned drinking, fighting and fornicating) and the latter is viewed with an almost obsessive aversion.”
- More Beyonce articles (sorry?). Gradient Lair reflects on Beyonce’s use of the word “bitch” in her songs.
- Bitch Magazine on why Jezebel was wrong to put a bounty on Lena Dunham’s unretouched vogue photos.
- The Toast aggregates responses to Caleb Hannan’s article for Grantland, which outed inventor Essay Anne Vanderbilt as a trans* woman.
- This is a video of Patty Smith singing Rihanna’s “Stay.” You’re welcome!
- A short piece, but nonetheless interesting: a bikini waxer tells us what she is really thinking. “I hate causing pain. I have had women cry, scream and push my hand away in agony. When you think about it, it’s quite barbaric. It would be lovely if women didn’t feel they had to bother.”
- Latoya Peterson at Racialicious asks via Twitter, “Why Isn’t There a Jezebel/Hairpin for WOC?” She pays special attention to the disparity in funding between women’s sites principally oriented towards “white culture” and “[ones that] are black focused.”
- Have you seen Sasheer Zamata’s GIRLS tour? It’s funny! Did you see her on SNL last week? Grio talks about her debut on the sketch show.
- Hazlitt Magazine compares Judd Apatow’s representation of women’s bodies in Freaks and Geeks and GIRLS. “After casting Linda Cardellini and Busy Phillips in Freaks and Geeks, Judd Apatow and Paul Feig are said to have had a conversation with the two of them about not doing the usual actress thing and trying to lose weight for the pilot. … Almost 15 years later, Apatow is once again producing a show that uses its actors’ physicality as a synecdoche for its approach to realism: Girls.”
