Tenth Annual Women’s History Month Conference

Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY (20 minutes from midtown Manhattan)

Black Power, Black Feminism: Black Women’s Activism and Development of Womanist/Feminist Consciousness in the Era Black Power.

This Conference is FREE and open to the public.

Register at:http://www.slc.edu/womens-history/conference/index.php

Traditionally scholarship on the Black Power era has characterized this time of renewed cultural and political nationalism and activism as an almost exclusively male domain.

This has begun to change. Not only … READ MORE

Women of Color in Comics and Manga.

This November 12, DigitalFemme will be moderating a fantastic panel attended by three wonderful women cartoonists that you should know about.

Alitha E. Martinez, who has worked on Marvel’s Thor and Iron Man, will be on hand to discuss her time at Marvel and her latest independent project Yume and Ever.

Jenny Gonzalez, indie and ‘zine maven and all-around arbitrator of awesome, will be present to talk about her series Too Negative and … READ MORE

“Your hands are so cute and little! I wish mine were like that. I have big old hands.”

I can’t count how many female friends and acquaintences have told me this over the years. What’s interesting is that having cute little small delicate hands is in my opinion closer to a problem than something to be prized.

• Things meant to fit in your grip (soda cans, drinking glasses, etc.) require more stretching and caution for me than for larger-handed people, or else … READ MORE
  

We’ve heard in recent months about retailers adding models of sizes other than zero to their advertising lineups. This is a pretty neat idea, but I still have some questions. Will they also include women:

• Whose calves are "too big", thanks to natural muscle you’d have to surgically remove to alter?
• Whose legs are "too short", according to some random fantasy standard?
• Who don’t have "white features", regardless of their skin color?
• Who don’t look young enough to get carded at a bar?
• Whose noses … READ MORE
  

British retail shop John Lewis is going to start featuring a variety of body sizes in the models they use to advertise clothes. They will not stop using very slim models entirely, but will simply incorporate other sizes and shapes to offer a better representation of "what British women really look like." They cite Dove’s Real Beauty Campaign as inspiration.

John Lewis spokesman Mark Forsyth said last night that although the chain would not necessarily stop using size 8 models, it … READ MORE

A recent study has found that when men and women were shown sexy pictures, researchers were faced with the opposite of what they’d expected to find:

Men looked female faces first, and then the genitals, while women’s eyes went pretty much straight to the male genitals.

Could this be why "pornface" was invented – you know, those vapid expressionless faces women in dirty pictures and pornography are required to wear for the camera? Because if the men had facial expressions to look … READ MORE

Since YouTube absolutely refuses to let me sign up this blog for posting I’ll just link to this post from Faux Real that contains a video of British talk show hosts Richard and Judy interviewing a woman who’s decided to grow her damn body hair instead of spending thousands of pounds removing it every year.

Salient points:

• Blonde Judy questions how it can cost thousands of pounds to “shave your leg”. Oh, Judy, do please try to think outside your own … READ MORE