Items of interest found recently in my RSS feed. Please share what you've been reading (and writing!) in the comments.

• Newsweek bemoans "slutty" brides

– “Shoulder-baring brides with jaunty hats are clearly strumpets.”

• Is the burqa a prison?

– “It’s interesting that Sarkozy’s rhetoric focuses on women’s rights, because these debates are so often concerned with outsiders’ experiences of the burqa — the anxiety caused by an anonymous, faceless stranger passed on the street, the discomfort of having a burqa-clad woman as your child’s teacher, the perceived threat to secularism. Sarkozy isn’t interested in having a discussion about the burqa’s appropriateness at polling places or the DMV, though; this is a debate about its very existence. Forget the practical problems that arise from covering one’s body from head to toe, he’s troubled by the symbolism of doing so.

It’s patently true that the burqa is “a sign of the subjugation, of the submission of women” when a woman is forced by her husband, family or the state to cover up. What if she wears it of her own accord, though? “

• What's the Joke Again?

– “If the character isn’t a central part of the joke, then why is he so easy for homophobes to laugh at? […] Coupled with the demonization of the feminine as the basis for much of the humor, what’s left is quite possibly one of the most dangerous films for gay men, trans men, women, and androgynes—all disproportionately targeted by sexual violence—in recent memory.” – Liss lays out the many ways that the latest Sacha Baron Cohen movie, Brüno, is a clusterfucktastrophe in waiting

• Cruise Culture

– “You can’t claim to care about discouraging rape if your main priority is making sure you don’t lose rapists as repeat customers.”

• Equal pay for equal work (unless you’re creative, in which case “pride” is enough)

– “I find it difficult to imagine any other instance in which you would run a competition asking the general public to create a policy document, build a website, or administer a community service “rather than send the job off to the department’s usual […]”.”

• Doubting Malcolm

– “Who knew that accusing the Prime Minister of misleading parliament on the basis of an email you claimed you’d seen but hadn’t actually checked up on could eventually cause you problems?”

Categories: linkfest

Tags: blogging, Read-ems