Feminism

Reading through our BUST Myspace page invites can prove a daunting task for us 'terns at the mag; going through club flyer after club flyer...and bday invites from peeps who rented out a club for their party (no kidding, we get a LOT!), until, of course, there's an event that speaks to us enough to tweet , hot date, research and blog about. The Feminist Porn Awards was one such invite. Hosted by Good For Her, the annual Feminist Porn Awards (in their 4th...
Remember our post about bush-trimming ads? Here's Sarah Haskins' take on it. As usual, hilarity ensues. -Liza ...
I'll cover my mouth so I don't get rage all over my computer screen. This makes me so mad I can barely put words together. Fortunately, Kate Harding put plenty of words together on the topic that say everything I am thinking much better than I could. United is instituting a policy that would kick people off a full plane if someone on the staff decides they are too fat. Oh, and after they are kicked off and unnecessarily forced to wait, then they will...

Amazon.com apparently hasn't gotten the memo that the culture wars are dead. They've stripped the sales rankings--and therefore, the search ratings--of books that deal with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, as well as feminist books like Full Frontal Feminism. It affects the search rankings for books. For small authors who depend on Amazon reviews and sales rankings, this is disastrous. Of course, it's also terrible for freedom of expression. When I searched BY TITLE for Full Frontal Feminism it didn't even...
Laurie posted a while back about the US version of this ad for the Schick Quattro, which is currently airing on TV. I don't know whether this British version of the ad is airing in the UK or if it's just intended as a hilllaaarrrious viral video, but I can tell you one thing: while it is more outrageous in it's cutesy double entendres (watch for the 'tulips on a mound' bit), I find it even more irritating than the more docile US version....

I have Frances Blaisdell to thank. It seems a little bizarre to me to think that the flute was ever off-limits to women, because today it's such a female-dominated instrument, but that's how it was. Women weren't really allowed anywhere in orchestral music when she was young, but she managed to play her way in and open a lot of doors. I started playing the flute when I was 9 and continued all the way through college. I haven't really played since I graduated, but it was...
Apparently we're on some sort of reality TV bent here at BUST, because here's one more. An Oxygen TV poll reported that more women age 18 to 34 would rather win America's Next Top Model than a Nobel Prize. I think that, to get through this, I'm going to convince myself that this is the result of shoddy polling methods and a not-so-random sampling of women instead of a true measure of where the world is heading. The same poll says that 75% of women would shave...
Here's a real gem thanks to the Onion : ''Renowned Hoo-Ha Doctor Wins Nobel Prize For Medical Advancements Down There.'' The article is hilarious. It reads just like any conversation with someone who's uncomfortable with the real words for anything in the region of the, um, lady parts. I'll spare the potentially long-winded rant about the idea that womanly bits are dirty and we shouldn't talk about them. I'll also refrain from talking about feminine hygiene commercials and how I like to roll my eyes...

Speaking of horrifying TV shows, on my way out of the subway this morning I passed an ad for The Cougar. The premise? It's a dating show where a middle-aged woman selects her favorite from a group of much younger men. It's being hosted by Vivica A Fox. I hate the whole ''cougar'' label to begin with. Why is it worthy of a title when a woman dates a much younger man but not when the opposite happens? Why is Demi Moore open to more scrutiny...
You know how the media can't stop talking about Michelle Obamas arms? How they think it means she's 'strong-arming' her husband? how she's gonna win the arms race? how she's giving American women the right to bare arms? well, the arms themselves have decided to enter the fray of bad puns and semiotic limb deconstruction with a blog of their own. First Guns is a hilarious look at our cultural preoccupation with the First Lady's guns, in said guns' own words. From shaking a...