Sex and the Supreme Court

June 23, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Members of the Supreme Court: Not the sexiest bunch. I’m not saying their big brains don’t have appeal, but the amount of time I spend visualizing David Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg naked is somewhat small. I don’t know how any of them spend their sexy time, or if they spend it with men, women, pets, stuffed animals, or a cardboard cutout of Han Solo. They’re delineating the limits of Miranda rights while wearing long black robes that display just about as much of Antonin Scalia as anyone needs to see. They’re doing a job, not auditioning for Hot or Not.

So tell me why on earth it is I’m now being asked by the Washington press corps, certain filthy-minded congressional aides, and scores of wingnut morons online whether the next Supreme Court justice is a lesbian?

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Filed Under: New Feminist Icons Tagged With: , ,

She's the Boss

June 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

So 2009 pretty much sucked, economically speaking. While things are admittedly improving, it’s unlikely that most of us are currently willing to chuck our desk jobs to, say, set up that cross-country riot grrrls reunion tour that we’ve always dreamed of.

Then again, why not? In these uncertain times, some girls are shrugging off the shackles of safety to embark on new business ventures.

Michele DeKinder-Smith, author of See Jane Succeed: Five Types of Female Entrepreneurs, says there’s a good reason younger women are turning away from the corporate-ladder career path to take chances on their own. “When you’re young, your living expenses aren’t that high yet,” she says. “Therefore a smaller income is okay because your needs are smaller.”

In addition, the current climate might even be advantageous for ladies looking to start a business. “Many entrepreneurs have found success during the economic downturn because other businesses and industries are hunkering down and becoming very conservative,” she says. “If you’re aggressive, this could be a window of opportunity.”

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Filed Under: Being a Sexy Feminist Tagged With: , ,

One Is Silver and the Other's Gold

June 16, 2010 By Leave a Comment

This excerpt by Jennifer Baumgardner from the new anthology, Click: When We Knew We Were Feminists, shows that a feminist identity takes time to blossom, and the bumps along the way are assets, not roadblocks.

When I was a little girl, I played with Barbies religiously. They weren’t my only pastime—I also loved the Carol Burnett Show in reruns, singing Barbra Streisand songs at the top of my lungs, and roller-skating. But the summer of 1979, Barbie reigned supreme. I played Barbies every day with my next-door neighbor Missy, a green-eyed ten-year-old (I was nine), who was the daughter of the pastor at United Methodist. I had Malibu Barbie (who had straight hair with bangs, a tan, and suggestive lighter lines of paint where her bikini had blocked out the sun) and another Barbie with knee-length wavy hair and an opulent pink evening gown (Vegas Barbie? Barbie Dream girl?). Each day I would drag my Barbies, Barbie furnishings, Barbie car, and Barbie clothing over to Missy’s. We established a narrative: the Barbies were in college and living in dorms and were always getting ready to go out on dates. They were, while possibly not gay, bi-curious—in the sense that I often positioned them to lie on top of each other naked. Missy had a Ken, and that came to no good end. Pretty soon Malibu Barbie was pregnant and needed an abortion. She got pregnant many times and always chose to have an abortion. After all, she was in college, bisexual, and popular, and abortion was legal.

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Filed Under: Being a Sexy Feminist Tagged With: , , ,

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