writing around hillary rodham clinton: “i wouldn’t call myself a feminist,” feminism and the emotional/cultural/linguistic legacy of the “feminazi”

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a preemptive plea: please do not bombard me with hate because i am trying to find a way to write about someone whose politics you may not agree with and whose personality you may not like.

an anecdote: some months (ie. over one year) ago, i wrote a blog post on how i didn’t think i’d ever get around to writing about hillary clinton directly because writing about hillary clinton directly taps into too much of my own emotional baggage of growing up in the divisive media climate of the early 1990s. you can go read that at the link if you care to or take my word that it was a post about cultural analysis and FEELINGS and how it feels to be a woman and read how women are written about.

my cultural analysis of feelings garnered this comment:

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which was hilarious, but also unnerving. because though this was a mild comment, i’d only written a blog post on my own feelings and could imagine the vitriol if i’d written something more substantial. the post receiving that comment was actually about the lingering effects of seeing the vitriol directed at HRC when i was growing up in the 90s. it is a vitriol i do not want to welcome in my daily life, and it is a vitriol that to this day surrounds HRC. Continue reading

martha, gwynnie, conscious (un)coupling + cat fights

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so’s i was casting about today on the daily mail looking for something to write about and i stumbled upon news of the brewing cat fight between martha stewart and gwyneth paltrow.

and i thought YES. i will write about the brewing “cat fight” between martha stewart and gwyneth paltrow. but the problem with writing about the brewing cat fight between martha stewart and gwyneth paltrow is that you have to practice what you preach. and if i were to write about the brewing “cat fight” between martha stewart and gwyneth paltrow, i wouldn’t be practicing what i preach (feminism! female narratives! LOVE!) so much as just be towing the narrative line of the daily mail.

which ain’t cool.

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jackie’s pink suit (ie. things are getting weird, ya’ll)

this post may not amount to anything more than a prolonged exclamation of LOOKIT THIS IS BIZARRE!!! accompanied by pretty pictures, most of them in glorious technicolor… but around the 50th anniversary of john kennedy’s assassination last fall, i noticed something that struck me as incredibly odd: a new cultural obsession with jackie’s pink suit.

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a smattering of commentary re: valerie trierweiler, françois hollande, and the french first family’s current clusterwhoops

do you know about this? is this being bandied about elsewhere or is it only capturing the interest of those of us who click on the ‘world news’ tab of the new york times?

so, in quick… france’s president in this guy:

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françois hollande. and the woman shown with him there is valerie trierweiler. Continue reading

a deep reading of the daily mail’s article on the love life and engagement of sabrina guinness (emotions via britney spears)

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so sabrina guinness is largely famous in my world for being one of the inappropriate girlfriends of prince charles in the immortal amazing made-for-television classic CHARLES & CAMILLA: WHATEVER LOVE MEANS, which you all should’ve watched because, omg, it is totally the greatest movie our time. (for reals. do not be deterred by the brevity of its wikipedia page.)

she’s also famous outside of this movie for having been one of the inappropriate girlfriends of prince charles, having tried to sit in a chair at balmoral only reserved for the ass of the ghost of victoria, and having dated a rolling stone.  Continue reading