Continuing the responses in Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, Yael Tamir agrees with Okin’s original essay, and elaborates upon her thesis by asking us to look within the ethnocultural groups that would benefit from the group rights multiculturalism promises. Tamir suggests that these groups are divided amongst themselves regarding the issue of ( Read more... )

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In “Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?,” Susan Okin’s argument is that minority ethnocultural groups that are more patriarchal than the Western societies to which they have emigrated should not be given the special groups rights that multiculturalism offers, if these group rights impede on the individual rights of group members, particularly those ( Read more... )

Who Am I? Write 20 different statements in response to the question "Who Am I?" "I am..."1. a feminist comedian- and no, that's not a contradiction in terms ( Read more... )

Though I had some problems with Nancy J. Hirschmann’s “Difference as an Occasion for Rights: A Feminist Rethinking of Rights, Liberalism, and Difference” (most notably, its being unnecessarily repetitive and convoluted), I appreciated one of its critique of liberalism as it is similar to (one of) my own critique(s) of capitalism ( Read more... )

Last night I opened the Amazing & Disgusting Talent Show at the Amazing & Disgusting Party held at Antioch's Student Union. My lovely assistant Dylan introduced me, and I introduced myself by saying that Jennifer Saunders once called me a "fledgling contortionist", and that this was my public debut.

Photos. (Click for a bigger one.) (In the second ( Read more... )

New York Times Critic Notebook on Belle & Sebastian:
A Quiet Band Worth Fighting Loudly About Makes Some More Noise

As I said to unbridled, I like the way it talks about the Belle & Sebastian that we loved- the Belle & Sebastian of the 90s, basically. It was the stories and the mythology that got me so wrapped up in them. An escape to a world both ( Read more... )

In the Liberal Feminism chapter of Feminist Thought: A More Comprehensive Introduction, Rosemarie Putnam Tong describes Betty Friedan’s progression as one towards humanism and away from feminism. She then quotes Friedan, who says we need a “new [human] politics that must emerge beyond reaction” (31). A critique of this transition by other feminist ( Read more... )

Hit upon both in “A Vindication Of The Rights Of Woman” by Mary Wollstonecraft (1792) and “The Subjection Of Women” by John Stuart Mill (1870) is the idea of the attractiveness of women-how it has, historically, been the aim in life of women and on which their worth is solely measured (which, naturally, perpetuate each other). What I find ( Read more... )

"Every song I ever wrote was written for you."
- -Belle & Sebastian, "Dog On Wheels"

"I've written pages, upon pages, trying to rid you from my bones."
- -The Decemberists, "The Engine Driver"

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Got any?