End of the Week Links — 2/22/09
–> Professor What If? had a recent guest post entitled “What if the feminist blogosphere is a form of digital colonialism?” and I think it’s definitely a must-read!
Here’s an excerpt:
Hierarchy is easy to spot when the perpetrators of systems of privilege are obvious ones. The virtual world, more often than not, simply replicates the “real” one, often with the same results of marginalization and exploitation. As is also the case in the real world, those who live on the margins grow quickly tired of cyberspace agendas that seem to dictate the future of the net, particularly when those agendas of privilege are cloaked[2] in the web’s potential for egalitarianism.
–> In these troubled economic times, many of us have had to cut corners. However, the affluent are actually enjoying the “exclusivity” of wealth and luxury.
“What you’re seeing is a shift to real elitism,” says Russ Alan Prince, the president of Prince Assoc. “The rich like it better that everybody can’t be part of the luxury boom anymore.”
Personally I find this kind of elitism to be distasteful. Instead of giving more to charity, it appears that some of the most rich and powerful are more concerned with lording it over the rest of us. Read the full article here.
–> Does the sexual objectification of women make it OK to objectify men? Check out this ad campaign — and read the comments, some of them are really interesting!
–> Lately I’ve been digging this blog: The Bitchitorial. Check it out! :)
Cheers! Dollface
This is a great interview I found today, I thought you might like it. It’s a few months old, but it’s very insightful and a great read.
http://pewforum.org/events/?EventID=200
I love that first article, Dollface, really interesting read.. thank-you! :)
@ Ian — Fascinating interview. While I obviously wouldn’t agree with him on all points I thought these were two very important parts:
“That being said, I think that we all should agree that abortion should be rare. How do we do that? We do that by providing comprehensive sex education in schools and in religious congregations and by ensuring that there is accurate information about contraception and that contraception is available. Unfortunately, the U.S. Congress has not been willing to pass a bill to fund comprehensive sex education, but they are willing to put a lot of money into failed and harmful abstinence-only programs that often rely on scare tactics and inaccurate information.
Former Surgeon General David Satcher has shown that abstinence-only programs do not work and that we should provide young people with the information to protect themselves. Education that stresses abstinence and provides accurate information about contraception will reduce the abortion rate. That is the ground that I stand on. I would say that here is a way we can work together to reduce the need for abortions.”
and
“Depending on the circumstances, it might be selfish to bring a child into the world. You know, a lot of people say, “You must bring this child into the world.” They are 100 percent supportive while the child is in the womb. As soon as the child is born, they abort the child in other ways. They abort a child through lack of health care, lack of education, lack of housing, and through poverty, which can drive a child into drugs or the criminal justice system.
So is it selfish to bring children into the world and not care for them? I think the other side can be very selfish by neglecting the children we have already. For all practical purposes, children whom we are neglecting are being aborted.”
I’m going to keep this interview in mind when I need to debate pro-lifers…
@ Miss Corrine — Thanks for the comment, glad you enjoyed the article!
An Apology from Brittany and Mandy