Ladies: why you should stop shaving - the Guardian, 2 May 2012, Emer O'Toole

Luckily for you, I have conducted an 18-month experiment and can tell you that there is nothing to fear from going hairy

A Radical TransFeminist - Sex Educations: Gendering and Regendering Women - 3 Feb 2012

Radical feminism holds that what is currently known as ‘gender’ is not a condition which naturally arises either from an individual’s sex or from any other innate source, instead being an ideology of ‘sex roles’ which support and are constructed by the patriarchy.

While the way in which gender is produced is often described as “socialisation” or “conditioning”, this article suggests modelling it as a lifelong process of sex role education, covering more than just the sex role an individual is expected to play.

This model allows us to explore in some detail the experience of transsexual people under patriarchy and to question some binaries around the political features of transsexual identities.

With these considerations in mind we revisit the political category of ‘woman’ – as used to understand structured sexism – from the point of view of transsexual women’s inclusion.

FAQ: What is male privilege? - 11 March 2007, tigtog

Before discussing “male privilege” it is first important to define what privilege means in an anti-oppression setting. Privilege, at its core, is the advantages that people benefit from based solely on their social status. It is a status that is conferred by society to certain groups, not seized by individuals, which is why it can be difficult sometimes to see one’s own privilege.

In a nutshell:

Privilege is: About how society accommodates you. It’s about advantages you have that you think are normal. It’s about you being normal, and others being the deviation from normal. It’s about fate dealing from the bottom of the deck on your behalf.

[Betty, A primer on privilege.]

Social Justice League - How Do You Solve A Problem Like Slave Leia? - 16 Oct 2011, Rachael

I am a dyed-in-the-Tauntaun-hide Star Wars fangirl, and I have a confession to make. Slave Leia, by which I mean the geek culture meme that resulted from the original scene, makes me uncomfortable. For a long time, it has made me uncomfortable in a way I couldn’t articulate. But I think I’ve distilled out what is lurking beneath the surface of the Slave Leia cultural phenomenon, and unfortunately I think it’s problematic.

Shrub.com - Think women have achieved equality? Think again - 22 Nov 2005, tekanji

Drawn by the Carnival of Feminists, I visited midlife mama’s article, Second Wave Feminism, Beauvoir, and me, and got into a small conversation about second-wave and third-wave feminism. In her reply, Libby discusses her experiences with the “women are equal already” sentiment that many young people (and some older ones too) hold. I, in my typical fashion, went off on a rant about how much I hate that. And, again in my typical fashion, I want to take the opportunity to elaborate on my point.

unfortunatalie - Gendered Marketing Really Gets on My Tits - 22 April 2012

As we all know, life as a women is spent mostly worrying about being bloated, and shoving endless tubs of yoghurt into our faces in an effort to remove said bloat. Women bloody love yoghurt. Other things women bloody love: salad, ryvita, muesli.  The only things that make our banal existence worthwhile are grabbing a glass of chardonnay with The Girls, and that secret bar of Galaxy chocolate we’ve got stashed away in our secret hiding place.  You know, the one we like to take out & felate from time to time.

io9 - The weirdest mating habits of the animal kingdom, explained using humans

The animal kingdom is brimming with fauna who get their rocks off in surprisingly unorthodox ways, and it adds an extra level of curiosity when you depict these behaviors using anthropomorphic models. Illustrator Humon has done just that. Oh hyenas, giving birth through your positively epic clitorises and whatnot. Let’s all be happy duck sex isn’t on display here.