August 10, 2014
- Autostraddle published some great material this week, including a post celebrating the 60th anniversary of The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook (Tolkas, for those who don’t know, was Gertrude Stein’s partner), as well as an illustrated history of women’s studies.
- The Atlantic on the history of sex dolls. The evolution of this “fetish” is strangely fascinating to read about. “Sailors often used cloth to fashion fornicatory dolls known as dame de voyage in French, or dama de viaje in Spanish. In modern-day Japan, sex dolls are sometimes known as ‘Dutch wives’—a reference to the hand-sewn leather masturbation puppets made by the 17th-century Dutch sailors who traded with the Japanese.”
- “Diary of a Young American Girl in Los Angeles” reflects on Nabokov’s Lolita, the association between America and youth culture, the special quality of summer hit-singles, Lana Del Ray, and the difficulties of making a home in the strange, sprawling California city.
- This week, Theodore Wafer, the man who killed Renisha McBride, was found guilty on all three charge brought against him, including second degree murder. Following the verdict, the Associated Press released a series of tweets that have been heavily criticized for their implied racism and victim-blaming.
- Former WNBA player Becky Hammon has been hired on as an assistant coach for the San Antonio Spurs, “making her the first full time, paid woman to coach in the NBA.” The Nation questions why it has taken so long for a men’s pro-sports team to hire a female coach.
- On what it means to be a wifey: “Similar to a Real Housewife or a Basketball Wife, to claim wifey status, you need not be a wife by ring or by ceremony. Devotion, it seems, is the key element.”
- It Starts With Us – Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women is a new online database that collects and publishes the names and information of missing and murdered indigenous women, trans women and two-spirit people. But as Vice reports, the digital project not only aims to record numbers, “but to fight back by remembering the lives of women who have been lost.”
- Harriet the Spy turns fifty this year. The new anniversary edition includes a blurb on the cover from author Jonathan Franzen that says, “I love the story of Harriet so much I feel as if I lived it.” Is Franzen’s appreciation for the kid-sleuth a game changer? Are we allowed to like him again?
- Policy Mic looks at the ways the beauty industry has exploited male insecurity to sell makeup to an untapped demographic.
Have we missed anything? Share more links in the comments!
