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Welcome to this month’s Feminist Friday, where I round up some of the best thought-provoking links, and we can discuss what’s going on in the zeitgeist. Our motto here: Feminism is for everyone.
Feminist Focus
Lately I’ve been thinking about the disparities of men and women in our everyday experiences.
For instance, why I always have to wait in line at public restrooms while my husband rarely does.
And then I read “The deadly truth about a world built for men,” an article by Caroline Criado Perez highlighting case studies from her larger book about the gender data gap, “Invisible Women: Exposing Data Bias in a World Designed for Men.”
As Perez writes:
“Going back to the theory of Man the Hunter, the lives of men have been taken to represent those of humans overall. When it comes to the other half of humanity, there is often nothing but silence. And these silences are everywhere. Films, news, literature, science, city planning, economics, the stories we tell ourselves about our past, present and future, are all marked – disfigured – by a female-shaped “absent presence”. This is the gender data gap.”
Literally everything was designed with the “average man” in mind, from cabinet height to car crash safety tests to office air temperature standards to police body armor to public bathroom design to voice recognition technology to space suits.
Infuriating, right?
Feminist Links
All the links that are worth clicking on this month. Some are serious, some not so much. All are food for thought.
- The Long Lines for Women’s Bathrooms Could Be Eliminated. Why Haven’t They Been?
- The women running for president are breaking the rules of branding
- 9 Non-Threatening Leadership Strategies for Women
- The Women Who Contributed to Science but Were Buried in Footnotes
- 12 great books that celebrate the power of female friendship
- Rachel True on Racism in Horror and Being Left Out of ‘The Craft’ Reunion: ‘I Will Not Be Erased’
- The racial politics of Disney animals
- The feminist paradox of Cathy Guisewite
- Neurosexism: the myth that men and women have different brains
- United Becomes First Airline to Add Gender Identifications for Non-Binary Flyers
- 8 Daring Female Entrepreneurs from History
- How Broad City Encouraged Women to Be Their Grossest, Truest Selves
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is so badass there’s literally now a comic book about her
- Budweiser Adapted Their Sexist Vintage Ads
- Shrill upends pop culture’s fat narrative
- Teen boys rated their female classmates based on looks. The girls fought back.
- If it’s racist, call it racist: Associated Press Stylebook changes guidelines for journalists
- Disney princesses with careers based on their characters
- Lady Gaga, Cardi B, & More Women Whose Time In The Spotlight Was Unfairly Overshadowed By Men
- 14 independent women’s magazines that should be on your reading list
- The First Female Photographers Brought a New Vision to The New York Times
- 21 Posters Showing All The Things Women Should “Thank A Feminist” For
- How Our Generation Is Changing the Definition of ‘Femme’
Feminist Books
Books by women that I’ve added to my To Be Read list. I read through the blurbs on Amazon to find succinct, one-liner descriptions.
- Grit & Grace: quotes, stories and advice from female trailblazers, designed to inspire modern-day leaders.
- Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli: novel about a family whose road trip across America collides with an immigration crisis at the border
- The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo: coming-of-age novel of a child and a young woman in 1930s Malaysia, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible
- The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls by Anissa Gray: novel about mothers and daughters, identity and family, and how the relationships that sustain you can also be the ones that consume you
- A Woman is No Man by Etaf Rum: novel that follows three generations of Palestinian-American women living in Brooklyn and the ways silence and shame can destroy those we have sworn to protect
- Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams: novel about a young woman looking for meaning that’s been described as Bridget Jones’s Diary meets Americanah
- The Other Americans by Laila Lalami: novel about the suspicious death of a Moroccan immigrant that is at once a family saga, a murder mystery, and a love story
- Girl, Stop Apologizing: A Shame-Free Plan for Embracing and Achieving Your Goals by Rachel Hollis: Hollis identifies the excuses to let go of, the behaviors to adopt, and the skills to acquire on the path to growth, confidence, and believing in yourself
- Gingerbread by Helen Oyeyemi: novel that takes on, among other things, the deeper question behind Hansel and Gretel’s story
Feminist Art You Might Like
Prints, posters, mugs and totes available in the shop.
