Caterina Gironda

“I Saw Daddy Kissing Santa Claus,” and Other Classics

December 20, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link] [email_link] For a little seasonal fun this week, I offer you 7 Classic Christmas Songs Greatly Improved by Reversing the Gender Roles from Stylite.com. I appreciate the choice of words for the title, as they are indeed “greatly improved,” but admittedly still playing heavily into gender stereotypes. Don’t bypass the commentary above each video, as that may be the best part. 4. “I Saw Daddy kissing Santa Claus” by The Anti-Queens While I don’t think it […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: art, gender

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"At a loss for words" from blog "life is 2 short"

Searching for the Right Words to Stop Rape

December 13, 2014 by William Eaton

The night started, as so many college nights do, with a red cup pressed into a hand. Ubiquitous at tail gates and parties, those bright plastic cups are a harbinger of carnival, of unleashing. The hand around the cup was mine. So begins New York Times writer Susan Dominus’ chronicle of her own experience with an unwanted sexual interaction at a college party, the sort that is so pervasive in the news of late. Her essay, Getting to ‘No’, describes […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: rape, sexual assault, women

Feminist Hacker Barbie “Fixes” Mattel’s Vision

December 6, 2014 by William Eaton

The holiday season is always a chilling time for me, witnessing the mad rush of consumerism that now blatantly supersedes any pretense of familial bonding. On this topic, I was amused to hear of Mattel’s timely release of a new book entitled Barbie: I can be a Computer Engineer. Sounds great, or as good as we can expect from a toy giant like Mattel that thrives on creating a gendered toy market! But alas, apparently (somehow!) they fell short of the mark on […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: children, technology, women

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For Sale, but Not for Purchase: The Terms of Sex in Sweden

November 29, 2014 by William Eaton

[email_link] [print_link] The prostitute is not, as feminists claim, the victim of men but rather their conqueror, an outlaw who controls the sexual channel between nature and culture. CAMILLE PAGLIA, Vamps and Tramps We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution. VICTOR HUGO, Les Misérables The question I am interested in exploring today, came neither […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: sex, women

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Silenced at Harvard: The Faculty’s Response to Sexual Assault on Campus

November 22, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link] [email_link] Last week I attended a lecture at Duke’s Women’s Center on Sexual Assault on College Campuses. It featured Dr. Kimberly Theidon, a former Harvard professor who was recently denied tenure and is suing the institution under the premise that her department did a complete u-turn on her viability for tenure after she began to speak out on behalf of students claiming they were sexually assaulted on campus. Theidon’s story brought to light the absence of […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: rape, sexual assault, women

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Of Plants and Sex: Elizabeth Gilbert’s Latest Novel

November 8, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link] [email_link] “It puzzles me,” wrote Anonymous, in his introduction, “that we are all bequeathed at birth with the most marvelous bodily pricks and holes, which the youngest child knows are objects of pure delight, but which we must pretend in the name of civilization are abominations–never to be touched, never to be shared, never to be enjoyed! Yet why should we not explore these gifts of the body, both in ourselves and in our fellows? It is only […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: literature, sexuality, women

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What does street harassment look like?

November 1, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link] [email_link] An ever fascinating topic for me is that of feminism and social media. When I wrote the draft for this post earlier this week, I found this video, 10 hours of walking in NYC as a woman, buried at the bottom of the BBC website. Three days later it has been lauded and criticized, commented on and parodied, notably by the comedy site Funny or Die, showing 10 hours of walking in NYC as a man, which entails getting job offers and free […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: Slate, street harassment

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Pinkwashing: Consumerism and Breast Cancer Awareness

October 25, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link] [email_link] Before Pinktober comes to an end, we should all squeeze in a conversation about “Pinkwashing,” the corporate trend of slapping pink ribbons on every variety of product imaginable in the name of breast cancer awareness. It turns out there is no regulation on the pink ribbon (although the Susan G. Komen Foundation has patented the phrase “for the cure”) so companies draping their products in pink are not obliged to donate even a penny of proceeds […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: breast cancer, consumerism

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I Pledge: That These Hands Will Not Hurt

October 18, 2014 by William Eaton

[print_link] [email_link] Domestic Violence Awareness Month (which happens to coincide with Breast Cancer Awareness Month…because there are only so many months to divvy out) has brought minimal discussion in my neck of the woods, so I jumped at the opportunity to volunteer at an event hosted by NC State’s Women’s Center in Raleigh this week. “These Hands Don’t Hurt” is a nation-wide project, often occurring on college campuses, that involves students stamping their painted hand prints on a banner symbolizing their […]

Categories: Caterina Gironda, ZiR • Tags: domestic violence, girls, sexual assault, women

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