Carolyn Main This week saw the crowning of Miss America, and weirdly, I heard about it. New Yorker Nina Davuluri is the first Indian American to win Miss America. Her crowning induced a racist Twitter backlash postapocolyptic super-storm. Twitter trolls questioned Nina’s Americaness, calling her an Arab and a terrorist. It was racism slathered on […]
Sexual Politics
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Sluts and Slytherins Edition
Illustration by Carolyn Main Yesterday a comedian joked about abusing his girlfriend. It was awful. (How did he get a girlfriend?) It’s surprising how many comedians believe that the way to seem edgy is to portray women as sluts, objects, naggy, Slytherins, some other stereotype. Before you strap on your pitchforks and light your torches […]
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Asian Fetish Edition
Carolyn Main Not to brag, but at least five men have said to me, “You’re the first non-Japanese girl I’ve ever dated.” And I don’t know how to respond to that. “Thank you for slumming it? I’m sorry that the low self-esteem stereotype repository was devoid of your pervy racist fetish. But I’m so glad […]
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Russia
Illustration by Carolyn Main Russia recently incurred criticism for passing a law banning the “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations.” Under the law, anyone supporting gay pride or anyone speaking in defense of gay rights is eligible for a prison sentence. A real prison sentence, not a verbal sentence about prison that we can ignore because […]
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Chelsea Manning Edition
Jailed soldier Chelsea Manning, formerly known as Private Bradley Manning, came out as transgender, requesting that she be referred to as a woman from now on. Subsequently, many media organizations refused to distinguish her with feminine pronouns. Additionally, the military denied her hormone therapy treatment. My least favorite piece of misogyny/gender politic-related issues this week […]
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Mark Millar Edition
Illustration by Carolyn Main This weekend, Kick Ass-2 writer Mark Millar defended his use of rape as a plot device in his fiction. He has employed it in the comics Wanted, The Authority, Nemesis and now Kick-Ass 2. In an interview for The New Republic, Millar responded to the criticism, “The ultimate [act] that would […]
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Tongue-Kiss Edition
Illustration by Carolyn Main In my 7th grade sex ed class we were shown a diagram chart of kisses—not as hot as it sounds—ranging from tongueless to a full-on tonsil sports reference. The teacher said if a girl kissed a boy with her tongue she never got over it, and that the first boy to […]
Posted inSexual Politics
Roxane Gay on Gendered Trend Journalism
I’m a big fan of writer Roxane Gay—she has a knack for coolly distilling complex issues into their simplest, most essential components—and she just published a smart piece on Salon about the way magazine trend pieces handle gender: Every day we are presented with a breathless article about the choices women make as if these […]
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Zooey Deschanel Edition
Illustration by Carolyn Main Recently, I saw comedian Natasha Leggero do a joke about the way that some women project childlike vulnerability in order to gain male attention. I laughed (my high-pitched childlike laugh) and then cringed (vulnerably) worrying that I embodied this quality. I hate the idea that women might infantilize themselves for male […]
Posted inNews
Font of Cogen/Manhas Documents Has Dried, For Now
Since Multnomah County Chair Jeff Cogen admitted to an extramarital affair with a county employee several weeks back, county communications staff have been pretty forthcoming with records (though we’re still eagerly awaiting those text messages). To the county’s additional credit, they’ve hardly been sterile documents. They suggested Manhas had free and ready access to the […]
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Texas Edition
Illustration by Carolyn Main My period has always been irregular—or as I like to call it, “adorkably quirky”—so I’ve had a lot of pregnancy scares. I’ve taken pregnancy tests while hiding in the stairwell at work because I didn’t have time to go home before an open mic. And in those two minute increments, I’ve […]
Posted inSexual Politics
My Least Favorite Piece of Misogyny This Week: Emotional Towel-Cape Edition
Illustration by Carolyn Main As a stand-up comedian, I incessantly spew out my most vulnerable, passionate opinions about gender, anxieties, politics, and the philosophy behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Recently I was ranting about sexual objectification, just to get a workout going, and one of my friends said, “Just calm down, you’re overreacting.” They were […]