Barack's 'Baby Mama'

Barack's 'Baby Mama' -- it just speaks for itself.

Actually, I Do Have a Bachelor's Degree.

Breastfeeding moms are under attack across the pond, too.

Mom Terri-Ann Barnes, 23, came into a doctor's office from a storm to nurse her cute little ginger snap of a son, Christian, but was booted out because she's not a patient. She was granted permission from the receptionist to breastfeed in the empty waiting room but when she was finished a nurse told her she shouldn't have fed her son there "for health and safety reasons."

" She said it wasn't a drop-in centre. I was shocked. If you can't breast-feed in a doctor's surgery where can you?' " Barnes told the Daily Mail.

Now if that's not some pathetic bullshit -- a mom comes in from a storm to feed her child inside a doctor's office -- we don't know what is.

Iron Our Shirts, Katie

File under Jokes I Get But Which Grate My Sense of Humor Anyway:

Gawker's post on Katie Couric's commentary regarding sexism towards Hillary Clinton:

Fun game: take this Katie Couric comment on sexism toward Hillary Clinton and replace the Senator's name with the anchor's. Ha ha iron our shirts, Katie! Stop hosting the "news" and get back to humoring the wacky weather guy in the morning! Also it's all tremendously sad.

The post's author, Pareene, agreed with (but gently teased me) when I wrote my blog on Huffington Post about how New York magazine left the ladies off their NYC culture retrospective cover and I think his head's in the right place. I just get twitchy when (regardless of one's personal feelings about Couric or Clinton) an -ism becomes a punchline.

Sexism & the City

Buzzfeed's got a tag for "Sexism & the City":

As the movie approaches its second week in theaters, it continues to make news, as media outlets are making claims of rampant sexism in the film’s critical reception.

Well, that's interesting.

Bad Mommy Bashing: X-tina Edition

Why is it that if a woman not home all day and all night with your rugrats, you're a bad mom? Are you just supposed to shrivel up and die once you become a mommy?

Christina Aguilera Defends Her Late Nights

Kirstie Alley Too Fat! Some Chick Named Cheryl Too Skinny!

Oh, Daily Mail, you make my head spin!

Kirstie Alley is too fat, you say. Then, in the next on the most-read article list, some chick named Cheryl from a girl-band is redundantly "stick-thin" and thinner than ever -- "a shadow of her former self" and "distinctly miserable." And Amy Winehouse may be clean (clean-ish?) but her skin is pockmarked and yucky! And Faye Dunaway has fake-lips and a trout pout!

Actors? Singers? Art? Anyone?

What? She looks like what?

On The New York Times Magazine's Blog Article, Continued

Feministing's got a piece on the New York Times Magazine cover article about former Gawker blogger, Emily Gould. You know, the one where she's lying on her back on rumpled bedsheets? Feministing quotes one of my role models, Rebecca Traitster, who offered her own analysis on Salon.com. Her title, "Another Pretty Face of a Generation," is a pretty apt summation of her point:

"When we are fed -- and gobble up -- stories by or about single urban working women, those exotic and potentially threatening creatures presented to us are often doing things like confessing their self-doubt, discussing their sex lives, lying on rumpled sheets looking pretty...The thing that is wrong -- really wrong -- is when we forget that these kinds of stories are not the only ones that women have to tell. (Emphasis mine.)"

I had chalked Gould's article and cover photo up to a desperate attempt by the Times magazine to be hip. The Times is often months/years late to the party and I can just imagine the editorial meeting when they decided this was a bang-up way to write about those blog kids! It's a likely explanation given the context of my own experience with the media scene in New York City (for the most part I find it to be very white, moneyed, clubby, and not in touch with average people). So when I read Gould's article last Saturday morning, I was, in fact, irritated at how insider-y, how NYC media-scene-y, the article was and how unrepresentative Gould is of actual women bloggers. But because I'm so cynical about this little industry of ours, perhaps my outrage meter fails to give a reading.

But in the back of my mind, I could understand the editor's strategic reasons for running it with the cover photo they did. I'm a conspiracy theorist -- who knows, it may have even been intentionally manufactured / a ploy for easy press. I mean, really, look at the reaction! The Times magazine loves the press they're getting over this.

I still think the same "eh, not a big deal" way about the cover photo as I did when I blogged about it twice last week. But based on my unofficial inquiry of media friends at dinners and barbecues and whatnot, I'm in the minority.

In any case, there's a fabulously succinct comment on the Feministing post:

Wow. Gould is young, conventionally pretty, white, straight, and middle-to upper-middle class. Way to break the mold, NYT.