https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/public/ recent bookmarks from matthewmcvickar 2020-08-09T18:03:06+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/27/style/challenge-accepted-instagram.html matthewmcvickarA representative from Instagram said that the earliest post the company could surface for this current cycle of the challenge was posted a week and a half ago by the Brazilian journalist Ana Paula Padrão. Others have noted that women in Turkey began sharing black-and-white photos recently to raise awareness about femicide. Though the portraits have spread widely, the posts themselves say very little. Like the black square, which became a symbol of solidarity with Black people but asked very little of those who shared it, the black-and-white selfie allows users to feel as if they’re taking a stand while saying almost nothing. Influencers and celebrities love these types of “challenges” because they don’t require actual advocacy, which might alienate certain factions of their fan base.]]> culture feminism activism internet https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:7f26828a7ef4/ 2020-04-15T16:45:31+00:00 https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/03/feminism-womens-rights-coronavirus-covid19/608302/ matthewmcvickarPandemics affect men and women differently. --- A pandemic magnifies all existing inequalities (even as politicians insist this is not the time to talk about anything other than the immediate crisis). Working from home in a white-collar job is easier; employees with salaries and benefits will be better protected; self-isolation is less taxing in a spacious house than a cramped apartment. But one of the most striking effects of the coronavirus will be to send many couples back to the 1950s. Across the world, women’s independence will be a silent victim of the pandemic.]]> feminism gender covid19 https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:cb5b7d88db36/ 2020-03-24T16:36:40+00:00 https://dressaday.com/2006/10/20/you-dont-have-to-be-pretty/ matthewmcvickarI’m not saying that you SHOULDN’T be pretty if you want to. (You don’t owe UN-prettiness to feminism, in other words.) Pretty is pleasant, and fun, and satisfying, and makes people smile, often even at you. But in the hierarchy of importance, pretty stands several rungs down from happy, is way below healthy, and if done as a penance, or an obligation, can be so far away from independent that you may have to squint really hard to see it in the haze. […] I was going to make a handy prettiness decision tree, but pretty much the end of every branch was a bubble that said “tell complainers to go to hell” so it wasn’t much of a tool.]]> feminism beauty fashion https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:5d646977c910/ 2019-12-18T16:13:42+00:00 http://www.maskmagazine.com/not-again/struggle/sick-woman-theory matthewmcvickarJohanna Hedva lives with chronic illness and their Sick Woman Theory is for those who were never meant to survive but did. Her fellow spoonies. --- If we take Hannah Arendt’s definition of the political – which is still one of the most dominant in mainstream discourse – as being any action that is performed in public, we must contend with the implications of what that excludes. If being present in public is what is required to be political, then whole swathes of the population can be deemed a-political – simply because they are not physically able to get their bodies into the street. […] There are two failures here, though. The first is her reliance on a “public” – which requires a private, a binary between visible and invisible space. This meant that whatever takes place in private is not political. So, you can beat your wife in private and it doesn’t matter, for instance. You can send private emails containing racial slurs, but since they weren’t “meant for the public,” you are somehow not racist. Arendt was worried that if everything can be considered political, then nothing will be, which is why she divided the space into one that is political and one that is not. But for the sake of this anxiety, she chose to sacrifice whole groups of people, to continue to banish them to invisibility and political irrelevance. She chose to keep them out of the public sphere. […] Sick Woman Theory is an insistence that most modes of political protest are internalized, lived, embodied, suffering, and no doubt invisible. Sick Woman Theory redefines existence in a body as something that is primarily and always vulnerable, following from Judith Butler’s work on precarity and resistance. Because the premise insists that a body is defined by its vulnerability, not temporarily affected by it, the implication is that it is continuously reliant on infrastructures of support in order to endure, and so we need to re-shape the world around this fact. Sick Woman Theory maintains that the body and mind are sensitive and reactive to regimes of oppression – particularly our current regime of neoliberal, white-supremacist, imperial-capitalist, cis-hetero-patriarchy. It is that all of our bodies and minds carry the historical trauma of this, that it is the world itself that is making and keeping us sick. […] “Sickness” as we speak of it today is a capitalist construct, as is its perceived binary opposite, “wellness.” The “well” person is the person well enough to go to work. The “sick” person is the one who can’t. What is so destructive about conceiving of wellness as the default, as the standard mode of existence, is that it invents illness as temporary. When being sick is an abhorrence to the norm, it allows us to conceive of care and support in the same way. […] The most anti-capitalist protest is to care for another and to care for yourself. To take on the historically feminized and therefore invisible practice of nursing, nurturing, caring. To take seriously each other’s vulnerability and fragility and precarity, and to support it, honor it, empower it. To protect each other, to enact and practice community. A radical kinship, an interdependent sociality, a politics of care.]]> disability feminism health https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:17f894b1ea89/ 2019-12-05T18:01:23+00:00 https://nplusonemag.com/issue-35/fiction-drama/the-feminist/ matthewmcvickarHis friends, mostly female, told him he was refreshingly attentive and trustworthy for a boy. Meanwhile he is grateful for the knowledge that female was best used as an adjective, that sexism harms men too (though not nearly to the extent that it harms women), and that certain men pretend to be feminists just to get laid.]]> feminism fiction horror https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:dd43a053218e/ 2019-07-29T05:12:47+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/the-myth-of-womens-empowerment.html matthewmcvickarDevelopment organizations and Western feminists think that empowering poor women means giving them chickens or sewing machines. It doesn’t. --- [T]he term was introduced into the development lexicon in the mid-1980s by feminists from the Global South. Those women understood “empowerment” as the task of “transforming gender subordination” and the breakdown of “other oppressive structures” and collective “political mobilization.” They got some of what they wanted when the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995 adopted “an agenda for women’s empowerment.” In the 22 years since that conference, though, “empowerment” has become a buzzword among Western development professionals, but the crucial part about “political mobilization” has been excised. In its place is a narrow, constricted definition expressed through technical programming seeking to improve education or health with little heed to wider struggles for gender equality. This depoliticized “empowerment” serves everyone except the women it is supposed to help. [...] [T]here is a skirting of the truth that without political change, the structures that discriminate against women can’t be dismantled and any advances they do make will be unsustainable. Numbers never lie, but they do omit. [...] In this system there is little room for the complexities of the recipients. Non-Western women are reduced to mute, passive subjects awaiting rescue.]]> charity facebook feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:239de81fef55/ 2019-07-29T02:27:44+00:00 https://popula.com/2018/08/28/where-the-word-empowerment-is-there-too-bullshit-you-shall-likely-find/ matthewmcvickarThe conveniently toothless word “empowerment” is easily mocked, but the mockery itself serves a darkly useful purpose: What cannot be taken seriously need never be examined, let alone condemned. This comfortable habit of casual derision prevents Western media watchers from grasping the real import of certain ideas, like this one, “empowerment,” which is now become a fig leaf for questionable claims and even outright fakery, especially where women’s rights are concerned. Beyond this, the kind of rhetoric in which “empowerment” appears is often the kind that is meant to make you stop thinking about something, rather than keep thinking about it. [...] Empowerment is a word you can use to distract, to deflect criticism, and even to raise money. In the context of specific foreign policy influence, putting an empty, pretty concept in the place where a fact or an idea or an action might have been is… well, it’s one way of practicing dismediation.]]> media politics charity feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:79287ec5bdcc/ 2019-07-17T16:44:06+00:00 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/05/opinion/weinstein-kavanaugh-one-year.html matthewmcvickarIn his statements to the committee, Judge Kavanaugh said that the allegations against him had ruined his life even though he may well be confirmed to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court. Mr. Hockenberry and Mr. Ghomeshi also lament how their lives have been ruined. The bar for a man’s ruin is, apparently, quite low. May we all be so lucky as to have our lives so ruined. History is once more repeating itself and will continue to do so until we, as a culture, begin not only to believe women but also to value women enough to consider harming them unacceptable, unthinkable.]]> sexualassault politics feminism misogyny https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:4fdda95282cf/ 2019-07-13T18:10:38+00:00 https://medium.com/@hels/20-things-men-can-do-rtfn-to-support-women-beyond-just-literally-ceasing-to-sexually-harass-us-b06da5ff90f matthewmcvickarIf you’re a man unsure of what you can do right now to support women, instant changes you can make this very second in your daily life that will make life better for women (and, bonus, for men too!), here you go.]]> sexism feminism sexualassault https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:8a6ab3d5e361/ 2019-07-12T23:20:38+00:00 https://themuse.jezebel.com/queer-eye-is-missing-out-on-a-sharper-conversation-abou-1833472725 matthewmcvickarThese men don’t exist in a vacuum, yet the Five frequently treat their subjects, and their ineptitude, as existing in one. The Five seems to believe that simply a lack of self-care is the problem in each of the straight men they makeover, unique to each of them, and not an issue of a systemic lack of accountability in men when it comes to household or traditionally feminine labor. The show continually begs for one of the Five to say, out loud, that straight men don’t often know how to take care of themselves because they rely on the labor of others (even, in this case, the labor of five gay men.) The makeovers at the heart of the show could be a jumping off point for a conversation more substantial than about how feeling good is the end-all, be-all goal. For example, it’s fun to joke about “can’t cook” Antoni, but continually he frames food and cooking not as a necessary skill but merely a fun instrument of entertaining. “Food is love,” he says. A nice meal is “special.” Cooking is a great “gift” you can give. What it rarely is, even for the subjects on the show who do cook, is sustenance for a man and his family that he’s rarely expected to make. It’s telling that in order to get so many men on board with cooking that Antoni needs to wrap up the experience as a special occasion and not a new, daily occurrence. [...] Queer Eye might be so in love with mapping out a heart-pulling arc that it won’t throw the Fab Five a good challenge, because freeing men (as much as you can in a 45-minute television show) entombed in ideas of what a Real Man should be is worth exploring right now. Mainstream America is just getting hip to the idea that women’s work in the home (the cleaning, cooking, date-keeping, childcare, etc.) is often invisible, unpaid, and yet implicitly expected on basis of gender alone; an American time use survey released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2017, on an average day, “19 percent of men did housework—such as cleaning or laundry—compared with 49 percent of women.” At the same time, there’s an ongoing conversation about how to raise boys and what we expect of them in the shadow of their innate privilege and entitlement.]]> queer masculinity feminism tv https://instapaper.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:394120ef653e/ 2019-07-12T18:07:24+00:00 https://codeascraft.com/2016/08/10/recommended-reading-for-allies/ matthewmcvickarOne important strategy for being an effective ally is self-education. Women are frequently expected to teach introductory feminism and entertain discussions on “being a woman in tech” with anyone who asks. It’s a great burden to shoulder and frankly a waste of their time. You wouldn’t ask Rasmus to teach you how to write a Hello World program in PHP, right? No! You would go out and find the articles, tutorials, and forum threads that already exist for beginners. With that, we introduce our list of recommended reading for allies.]]> diversity inclusion feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:9a3fcc073364/ 2019-07-12T17:05:19+00:00 https://codeascraft.com/2016/10/19/being-an-effective-ally-to-women-and-non-binary-people/ matthewmcvickarRelying on members of minority groups to shoulder the burden of diversity issues is just as flawed as expecting one person to do all the work to fix a broken deploy system. You can’t excel at your job when you spend half your time dealing with other stuff. We need ways of spreading the load. We need allies. And we hope that’s why you’re reading this now.]]> diversity inclusion feminism tech https://instapaper.com/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:bfbd2de8b434/ 2019-07-11T19:36:01+00:00 http://www.fatnutritionist.com/index.php/the-denial-of-life/ matthewmcvickarI have discovered, through questioning the lovely people I work with, that at the bottom of every fear of eating too much, or of gaining too much weight, resides the fear of death. In the final analysis, it always comes down to this — the awareness that we have to die, someday, and that anything we do might hasten the inevitable. [...] Responding to your body requires admitting, first of all, that you have a body, that you are a body, that your head does not float on a metaphysical balloon somewhere just north your body, untouchable. This admission requires you to acknowledge that bodies die, and that you will die too. The separation of mind and body, soul and body, spirit and body, is itself a coping mechanism, a sort of immortality project. [...] My proposal is that we live in the way that best reflects how we most want to use our precious time, right here, right now. My proposal is that we live well despite our inescapable fear of death. Our time is valuable in more than one way, both in quantity and quality, and neither one should be sacrificed for the sake of the other. We may instead try, as best we can, to strike a balance between the two, and not go to extremes in an attempt to escape what we all know is coming — but neither to hasten it purposely by squandering what little we do have in a blaze of reckless glory. [...] Do the things you can reasonably do, without unduly burdening yourself, to be a good steward of the gift of life.]]> death feminism health nutrition https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:1d232f3dbb4f/ 2019-02-28T22:04:37+00:00 https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2019/01/07/on-being-a-woman-in-america-while-trying-to-avoid-being-assaulted/ matthewmcvickarI, for instance, elect to walk on certain streets, not others. The elevator doors slide open, and there’s one man inside: I evaluate his size against mine, calculating how well, if I had to, I could fight him off. I check the backseat of my car before getting in, just to make sure no one’s waiting there. I don’t leave my drink unattended.]]> feminism rapeculture assault https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:2d460b09612e/ 2018-06-05T15:36:56+00:00 https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2018/06/the-trumpian-dissonance-of-kanye-wests-violent-crimes/561821/ matthewmcvickarIt is not Nori and Chicago’s essential personhood that prompts West to nurture them, but their relationship to him: one in which he is both role model and custodian, dream giver and disciplinarian. West cherishes the attendant control. Even in his attempt to share a realization that affects how he will now treat a sizable portion of the population, West once again centers himself. [...] West pays particular attention to the contours his daughters’ bodies may develop in the future, referencing his wife’s famously enhanced curves in the process. He threatens hypothetical future boyfriends, then imagines a scenario in which a battered daughter comes racing back to him. The lines are disturbing, reminiscent of how Donald Trump speaks about his eldest daughter, whom he has called “hot” and whose sex life he often alludes to. On an album full of references to a president whom West has received no shortage of criticism for defending, “Violent Crimes” stands out for the perverse intimacy with which it links West to Trump. The two men’s arrogance may be staggering, but the ease with which they discuss—and seek to control—women’s bodies is just as striking. Both men draw from deep reservoirs of entitlement; when trained on girls and women, that potent mixture of shielding and possession can grow much more pernicious.]]> music feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b8afdf89e7b8/ 2018-04-10T19:27:44+00:00 https://broadly.vice.com/en_us/article/bj5ex8/how-to-help-gender-equality-international-womens-day matthewmcvickarMainly, just listen to women. Listen to us and believe us. It’s the only place to start if you actually want all women to have a “Happy International Women’s Day.”]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:8c34cb03262c/ 2016-05-21T23:19:14+00:00 http://juliepagano.com/blog/2014/01/06/on-making-mistakes/ matthewmcvickarA very common initial reaction is to be defensive. You probably didn’t mean to make a mistake or cause harm. Unfortunately, you did whether you meant to or not. It’s ok to feel defensive – it’s an incredibly human response. However, it’s usually one you want to keep to yourself (and maybe a few close friends). Responding defensively is an intentional act that defends your mistake instead of admitting fault. It can do additional harm and is unlikely to improve the situation. Take a little time to sit with any feelings of defensiveness.]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:706054286daf/ 2016-05-21T23:04:38+00:00 http://juliepagano.com/blog/2013/11/02/101-off-limits/ matthewmcvickarI keep saying that impromptu, unwanted feminism 101 discussions are exhausting and not a good use of my resources. Then people ask what I mean by 101, so I’m starting to make a list.]]> feminism race https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:3c8df763ee4b/ 2016-05-21T23:02:19+00:00 http://juliepagano.com/blog/2014/02/26/bad-ally-quiz/ matthewmcvickarBelow is a list of common issues in the ever popular internet quiz style to help you determine if yourself or someone else might be a bad ally.]]> internet culture feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b236a26ba8f2/ 2016-05-01T23:44:56+00:00 http://fusion.net/story/294770/women-body-hackers/ matthewmcvickarI have two cyborg implants. One is in my hand, and it lets me unlock phones and doors by waving at them. The other is in my uterus, and it lets me control my own fertility.]]> feminism technology https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:695eb40ef4ca/ 2015-12-08T17:17:53+00:00 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/magazine/has-diversity-lost-its-meaning.html?_r=0 matthewmcvickarMany Silicon Valley firms are scrambling to hire executives to focus on diversity — there’s an opening at Airbnb right now for a ‘‘Head of Diversity and Belonging.’’ But at the biggest firms, women and minorities still make up an appallingly tiny percentage of the skilled work force. And the few exceptions to this rule are consistently held up as evidence of more widespread change — as if a few individuals could by themselves constitute diversity. … Why is there such a disparity between the progress that people in power claim they want to enact and what they actually end up doing about it? Part of the problem is that it doesn’t seem that anyone has settled on what diversity actually means. Is it a variety of types of people on the stages of awards shows and in the boardrooms of Fortune 500 companies? Is it raw numbers? Is it who is in a position of power to hire and fire and shape external and internal cultures? Is it who isn’t in power, but might be someday? … Over the past few years, numerous editors have reached out to me asking for help in finding writers and editors of color, as if I had special access to the hundreds of talented people writing and thinking on- and offline. I know they mean well, but I am often appalled by the ease with which they shunt the work of cultivating a bigger variety of voices onto others, and I get the sense that for them, diversity is an end — a box to check off — rather than a starting point from which a more inte­grated, textured world is brought into being. I’m not the only one to sense that there’s a feeling of obligation, rather than excitement, behind the idea. DuVernay herself hinted at this when she, too, admitted that she hates the word. ‘‘It feels like medicine,’’ she said in her speech. ‘‘ ‘Diversity’ is like, ‘Ugh, I have to do diversity.’ I recognize and celebrate what it is, but that word, to me, is a disconnect. There’s an emotional disconnect. ‘Inclusion’ feels closer; ‘belonging’ is even closer.’’]]> diversity race feminism labor america https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:992545f4e9f3/ 2015-11-11T16:38:41+00:00 http://www.prindlepost.org/2015/11/womens-resilience-and-post-feminist-sexism/ matthewmcvickarWe expect women to perform a specific kind of resilience: they must loudly and spectacularly demonstrate that they have overcome patriarchal oppression. Noisy feminism is both a new gender norm for women to embody and a tool white supremacy uses to scapegoat non-white men for lingering sexism.]]> feminism politics https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:dfb766550a86/ 2015-10-11T01:59:19+00:00 https://medium.com/@urchkin/leveling-both-sides-of-the-playing-field-3d879cd13164 matthewmcvickarWhat if, instead of teaching women that they have to raise their hands to speak at meetings, we taught men to be more reflective and circumspect; instead of telling women to tamp down their emotions at the office, a man was told that he didn’t appear committed enough to the job because he’s never shed tears over it; instead of pushing women to take public credit for their work, we publicly admonish men who don’t properly acknowledge others’ contributions? I was just invited to a seminar on public speaking skills for women — where’s the class on listening skills for men?]]> feminism tech https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ee6054464760/ 2015-10-01T16:24:04+00:00 http://pitchfork.com/thepitch/905-op-ed-women-dont-need-a-man-to-make-their-mixtapes/ matthewmcvickarThe notion that the best way to introduce a streaming music service to women is to present it as an emotional dildo is confounding.]]> music feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:3f87d66baece/ 2015-09-16T17:42:02+00:00 http://seriouspony.com/trouble-at-the-koolaid-point/ matthewmcvickarI now believe the most dangerous time for a woman with online visibility is the point at which others are seen to be listening, “following”, “liking”, “favoriting”, retweeting. In other words, the point at which her readers have (in the troll’s mind) “drunk the Koolaid”. Apparently, that just can’t be allowed.]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:b22cf7b60a3b/ 2015-09-14T17:36:45+00:00 http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/melancholic-damage/ matthewmcvickarRihanna won’t let us feel better about ourselves through her story, and she won’t even say sorry.]]> feminism music https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:c55482dcead4/ 2015-09-13T00:43:32+00:00 http://the-toast.net/2015/07/13/emotional-labor/view-all/ matthewmcvickarHousework is not work. Sex work is not work. Emotional work is not work. Why? Because they don’t take effort? No, because women are supposed to provide them uncompensated, out of the goodness of our hearts.]]> feminism gender https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:5db947b9b459/ 2015-08-17T15:25:40+00:00 http://ameliagreenhall.com/posts/what-to-do-if-a-woman-is-funny-on-twitter#fn1-2015-06-29 matthewmcvickarHello! You have just been sent this link because you explained a woman's joke to her on Twitter! Or maybe you made her own joke back to her, except not as funny, or derailed her joke by talking about something else, or something similarly well-intentioned but cringeworthy. Whatever the case, we must regretfully inform you that you have almost certainly made her feel insulted, bored, annoyed and/or angry. This is probably not what you wanted.]]> humor internet feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:aebffb1c8ae3/ 2015-08-16T17:27:09+00:00 http://pensieve.verou.me/post/40603145637/on-last-name-politics matthewmcvickarThere are many studies showing that statistically, women tend to avoid negotiating and saying no and that those who do, are perceived more negatively then men doing the same. Equality shouldn’t and doesn’t have to be a burden on women’s shoulders.]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:0992444d41b3/ 2015-08-08T20:49:46+00:00 http://aworkinglibrary.com/writing/vuvalini/ matthewmcvickarMax isn’t emasculated by this exchange: there’s no humor about giving the gun to a woman, nothing self-deprecating about his inferiority, no hint at all that he sees what happened through their gender. In fact at no point in their relationship does gender play any role at all: they are each warriors, each trying to survive, each rescuing each other, together for as long (or short) as that makes sense.]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:28f9ae6d3043/ 2015-08-08T19:05:59+00:00 http://penguinrandomhouse.ca/hazlitt/blog/only-good-man-self-hating-man matthewmcvickarBut it is just that pre-cognitive nature of desire and the unconscious that makes self-hate such a virtue for men. It isn’t actual “self-hatred” either, but rather, a deep skepticism of oneself—a profound mistrust of what it means to be a man. To be a good straight man is to be in a constant state of deprogramming oneself, unlearning, emptying out a vessel that has been filled with toxicity since its creation.]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:6bba51d1d873/ 2015-08-02T01:45:36+00:00 http://geekfeminism.org/2012/05/21/how-i-got-50-women-speakers-at-my-tech-conference/ matthewmcvickarHaving a non-trivial number of women submitting presentations seems to have made it so that a non-trivial number of women are speaking at No Show Conference. Imagine that.]]> feminism tech https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:d829268e5cf5/ 2015-07-16T23:55:49+00:00 http://www.rolereboot.org/culture-and-politics/details/2013-11-how-we-teach-our-kids-that-women-are-liars matthewmcvickarI find it sad and disturbing that children learn so quickly and normatively to distrust women. Any commitment to parity means challenging the stories we tell them. It means critically assessing the comforting institutions we support out of nostalgia, habit, and tradition. It means walking out of places of worship, not buying certain movie tickets, closing some books, refusing to pay for some music, and politely disagreeing with friends and family at the dinner table. It’s not easy. But, really, what’s the alternative?]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a77bada3f28f/ 2015-06-01T15:56:07+00:00 http://www.theawl.com/2015/05/the-startling-humanism-of-mad-max-fury-road matthewmcvickarIn Max, we may read modern men in general, who were taught to fight and die and bleed for everyone else, uncomplainingly and alone, who were taught that women were weak, dependents to be “cherished” and protected—not equals who could fend for ourselves or fight side-by-side with them. But at some point in the late twentieth century, men somehow learned a different way of thinking about all that. What Miller is really doing is teaching men, not only women, how to rise above the patriarchy.]]> feminism movies https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:8e45d289187b/ 2015-05-24T19:42:02+00:00 http://www.technologyreview.com/qa/533096/a-feminist-critique-of-silicon-valley/ matthewmcvickarShanley Kane challenges the assumptions and practices of the tech industry. “We are not getting hired, and we are not getting promoted, and we are being systematically driven out of the industry.”]]> feminism technology https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:a78729c77557/ 2015-05-19T15:46:09+00:00 https://medium.com/message/online-and-offline-violence-towards-women-4c854eb591a5 matthewmcvickarThe misogyny doesn’t come from the internet, it comes from contemporary culture. It won’t be fixed by the internet, and it won’t be fixed by women. It has to be fixed by men.]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:5959b151f46b/ 2014-07-09T17:32:18+00:00 http://leighalexander.net/but-what-can-be-done-dos-and-donts-to-combat-online-sexism/ matthewmcvickarAs you know, sexism is bad, and when bad things happen, you might have feelings about it too. But how can you help? What should be done? Here is a guide.]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ad0229fc8304/ 2014-04-29T17:22:54+00:00 http://time.com/79357/not-all-men-a-brief-history-of-every-dudes-favorite-argument/ matthewmcvickarThe ‘not all men’ defense against feminist arguments is infuriating and unhelpful, but it also represents a weird kind of progress.]]> culture feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:497179910e1a/ 2014-01-13T17:22:15+00:00 http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/women-arent-welcome-internet-72170/ matthewmcvickarIgnore the barrage of violent threats and harassing messages that confront you online every day.” That’s what women are told. But these relentless messages are an assault on women’s careers, their psychological bandwidth, and their freedom to live online. We have been thinking about Internet harassment all wrong.]]> feminism internet sexism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:9db580634f45/ 2013-11-18T19:56:26+00:00 http://danilocampos.com/2013/11/hey-bro-youre-being-insensitive/ matthewmcvickarcommunity feminism technology https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:2817547c8f1b/ 2013-10-03T21:25:48+00:00 http://www.popehat.com/2013/09/10/speech-and-consequences/ matthewmcvickar culture feminism speech law https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:fcca8c386900/ 2013-07-12T23:16:10+00:00 http://nymag.com/thecut/2013/06/when-women-pursue-sex-even-men-dont-get-it.html matthewmcvickarWomen want sex, and in particular, they want sex with people who really want them. But socially, many straight men still find it a turnoff when women are sexual aggressors. Which means that, for women, aggressively pursuing the thing they want actually leads to them not getting it. I suspect this is the source of much sexual dissatisfaction of the modern single lady, who's so horny she's running across the street to Walgreens to buy more batteries twice a week, but is unable to pick up men despite social conventions that men are "easy" to bed and women have to be coaxed into casual sex. The thing women are told they can access any time is, maddeningly, often just out of reach.]]> feminism sex science gender https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:c6167b780a14/ 2013-07-01T19:09:16+00:00 http://myloveinthug.tumblr.com/post/54098378363/on-pickup-artists-consent-and-why-im-actually-mad matthewmcvickarAdvice that encourages such a fundamental misunderstanding of and disregard for consent turns courtship and sex into a zero-sum game, where one partner gets what they want at the expense of the other’s comfort, bodily sovereignty and happiness. The outcry that led to Kickstarter’s change of policy was full of voices speaking from painful experience, saying that the world doesn’t need more advice like that, because it hurts people. In my view, it needs a lot more advice that teaches humans to truly listen to each other honestly and compassionately, including across genders.]]> feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:63bf95939714/ 2013-07-01T19:07:10+00:00 http://www.spin.com/articles/yeezus-kanye-west-sexism-misogyny-rick-ross/ matthewmcvickarRap music clearly has a serious misogyny problem. Admitting that won't lead to the elimination of the music altogether and it doesn't mean that all other social issues have to take a backseat. But once the problem has been acknowledged, let's don't just leave the self-evident truth sitting there. Actually continue to think about this stuff. Too often, rap's misogyny has been treated as a given. And that's just as dangerous.]]> feminism misogyny hiphop music writing criticism culture https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:141a0832cacc/ 2013-04-25T18:02:18+00:00 http://actuallygrimes.tumblr.com/post/48744769552/i-dont-want-to-have-to-compromise-my-morals-in-order matthewmcvickarI’m done with being passive about any kind of status quo that allows anyone to suffer or to be disrespected.]]> feminism music https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:d5f55fa5156c/ 2013-04-25T18:00:09+00:00 http://www.elle.com/pop-culture/celebrities/kim-gordon-sonic-youth-profile matthewmcvickarmusic feminism culture indie https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:25cc677203c0/ 2013-02-25T21:23:16+00:00 http://titsandsass.com/miserable-politics-why-anne-hathaway-should-go-away/ matthewmcvickarCelebrities seeking to provide “a voice for the voiceless” would do well to remember that sex workers aren’t voiceless, just consistently ignored. There may well be women out there who relate to Fantine, but in reducing the experiences of all sex workers to one tale of tragic misery, Hathaway’s comments silence and dehumanize the same women she seeks to ‘help.’]]> sex film celebrity sexwork women feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:bf395b890c00/ 2012-11-26T07:08:21+00:00 http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/10/what-someone-who-wrote-her-dissertation-on-trolls-thinks-of-violentacrez/263631/ matthewmcvickarI would challenge the idea that trolls, and trolls alone, are why we can't have nice things online. There is no doubt that trolls are disruptive, and there is no doubt that trolls can make life very difficult. That said, trolling behaviors signify much more than individual pathology. They are directly reflective of the culture out of which they emerge, immediately complicating knee-jerk condemnations of the entire behavioral category. Until the conversation is directed towards the institutional incubators out of which trolling emerges -- as opposed to just the trolls themselves -- no ground will be gained, and no solutions reached.]]> feminism gender internet psychology racism trolling https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:52c46d6fbfb3/ 2012-11-26T06:32:54+00:00 http://www.salon.com/2012/09/12/louies_women_problem/ matthewmcvickarWe’ve all been on nightmarish dates. The problem is that there is a flatness to “Louie’s” women that suggests their creator is woefully out of touch. Maybe in some roundabout way that is what he wants. When a character played by Chloe Sevigny works herself to orgasm at a coffee shop in a recent episode, Louie looks at the barista and kind of shrugs helplessly as if to say, Poor me, I had no part in this. Which is frustrating, as he’s the one writing the script.]]> tv louisck women feminism misogyny https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:99338404d29a/ 2012-10-04T10:00:08+00:00 http://www.motherjones.com/media/2012/08/problem-men-explaining-things-rebecca-solnit matthewmcvickarMost of my life, I would have doubted myself and backed down. Having public standing as a writer of history helped me stand my ground, but few women get that boost, and billions of women must be out there on this 6-billion-person planet being told that they are not reliable witnesses to their own lives, that the truth is not their property, now or ever. This goes way beyond Men Explaining Things, but it's part of the same archipelago of arrogance.]]> conversation feminism gender men https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:74bf35f6d710/ 2012-10-04T09:59:21+00:00 http://www.amptoons.com/blog/the-male-privilege-checklist/ matthewmcvickar…men also tend to be unaware of their own privileges as men. … I thought I’d compile a list … focusing on the invisible privileges benefiting men.]]> culture feminism gender politics society sexism sex https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ddf31eec32a0/ 2012-07-18T17:17:13+00:00 http://jezebel.com/5925186/how-to-make-a-rape-joke matthewmcvickarThe world *is* full of terrible things, including rape, and it *is* okay to joke about them. But the best comics use their art to call bullshit on those terrible parts of life and make them better, not worse. The key—unless you want to be called a garbage-flavored dick on the internet by me and other humans with souls and brains—is to be a responsible person when you construct your jokes. Since the nuances of personal responsibility seem to escape so many people, let's go through it. Let's figure out rape jokes.]]> comedy culture feminism gender rape https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:723ef276dfa6/ 2012-06-23T20:37:47+00:00 http://www.salon.com/2011/02/25/30_rock_jezebel_feminism/singleton/ matthewmcvickarTina Fey has made huge, feminist strides for women in comedy at the same time that she has made comedy at the expense of women. Such is life when you attempt — as we all should! — to bring gender criticism out of the pure ether of sociopolitical discourse and attempt to deploy it in the real, messy world of commerce, consumption and popular culture.]]> feminism tv https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ec74e57a674b/ 2012-06-10T21:26:10+00:00 http://feministmusicgeek.com/2012/05/28/towering-infernos-ema-yacht/ matthewmcvickar feminism music writing concert https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:f6999c5eecbb/ 2012-06-10T07:59:39+00:00 http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2011/dec/16/singles-girls-rise-female-rock-writing/ matthewmcvickar women girls feminism music writing rock criticism culture https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:17e3f1d57068/ 2012-05-14T07:40:24+00:00 http://pitchfork.com/features/articles/8710-not-every-girl-is-a-riot-grrrl/ matthewmcvickarMany musicians express a complex relationship with the term 'riot grrrl'-- a reverence for the movement's origins but also frustrations about the difficulty of escaping the limits of gendered language.]]> gender music pitchfork sexism feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:e9e9e9b5a57d/ 2011-11-13T11:43:43+00:00 http://geekfeminism.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline_of_incidents matthewmcvickar feminism technology web https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:5c5ea47282de/ 2011-11-11T01:05:50+00:00 https://sindeloke.wordpress.com/2010/01/13/37/ matthewmcvickar culture feminism gender society https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:aa7135afba98/ 2011-04-30T04:55:31+00:00 http://radar.oreilly.com/2011/03/would-i-attend-my-own-conferen.html matthewmcvickar women feminism technology https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:2b4ad30165bf/ 2011-04-28T02:20:31+00:00 http://farukat.es/journal/2011/04/576-translation-general-misogyny-uncomfortable-truth matthewmcvickar feminism technology culture civilrights https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:540349fac790/ 2011-04-01T21:12:40+00:00 http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/4166624859/odd-future-energy-inclusion-and-exclusion matthewmcvickar 2011 music oddfuture hiphop criticism writing feminism https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:1c3a321a148c/ 2011-01-03T16:42:14+00:00 http://agrammar.tumblr.com/post/2582569826/oh-monster-video matthewmcvickar kanyewest nickiminaj feminism video music misogyny https://pinboard.in/ https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:e2825445b2a2/ 2010-12-12T08:01:01+00:00 http://thechicktionary.com/post/2136937727/julian-assange-captured-by-worlds-dating-police matthewmcvickar cablegate assange wikileaks rape sex crime society feminism misogyny https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:ef93cfddeee0/ 2010-06-12T03:14:27+00:00 http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/2010/07/the-end-of-men/8135/ matthewmcvickar culture women men history society economics business education feminism future https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:d0fab623a949/ 2010-05-31T22:37:40+00:00 http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/2010/05/28/lady_gaga_academic_journal matthewmcvickar feminism academia celebrity ladygaga media https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:fd1819b28ad0/ 2010-05-14T05:12:43+00:00 http://www.pitchforkreviewsreviews.com/post/589976307/best-coast-and-sleigh-bells-and-feminism matthewmcvickar bestcoast feminism sleighbells music writing https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:c1baecf921e0/ 2008-09-18T00:08:31+00:00 http://thestranger.com/seattle/Content?oid=675052&mode=print matthewmcvickar women feminism music politics palin https://pinboard.in/u:matthewmcvickar/b:6e57cba960f9/