Rihanna’s new song, “Russian Roulette,” was released two days ago, and it’s already been deemed too shocking for the sensitive ears of America’s youth. “What message do think it sends to the millions of girls who admire Rihanna as an artist?” asks Deborah Reber of Rihanna’s barbed-wire cover pic. Anna North of Jezebel wrote that “the song isn’t one I’d want my kids singing in the car, if I had kids or a car.” Despite the pearl-clutching, the main party that’s been offended by Rihanna’s dark relationship ballad is not The Children—the real concern is that Rihanna has somehow slighted the fully-grown feminist movement. How did a 21-year-old pop star get lifted to a place where she could let feminism down in the first place?

Read More “Why Is Rihanna Expected to be a Feminist Icon?” »

AdFreak has discovered these sexualized advertisements for Davidoff cigars. Each ad is accompanied by a photograph of a male model appearing to orgasm upon catching a whiff of some fine Davidoff cigar smoke. The ads read, “Every Man Has a D-Spot.”

Finally, you may be thinking. Men reduced to sex objects in order to sell phallic shit, and not women this time around! [See female "O" faces in advertising: Exhibit A, Exhibit B, and a bonus nonconsensual orgasm ad in Exhibit C]. So is this gender equality? Is it regressive? Or is it just icky?

Read More “When Gender Equality Goes Horribly Wrong” »

Last week, Politico’s Melanie Mason tackled the question of why female politicians are so rarely caught with their pants down. Mason starts out with a pretty good theory—”Men far outnumber women in elected office, and statistical probability dictates that if a random politician is caught in a sex scandal, it is overwhelmingly likely that the politician would be male”—and then offers up a bargain basement of half-baked ideas in order to cover all the basis—and sexist stereotypes against women. Most of these reasons would never, ever actually stop a woman from messing around, but that won’t stop us from buying into it all again.

Read More “Why Female Politicians Don’t Cheat. Hint: Too Busy Being Female Politicians” »

Yesterday, Jezebel pointed to a recent study which argued that Disney films were guilty of “elevating heterosexuality” with their butterfly-laden, musical-accompanied girl-meets-boy match-ups:

“Characters in love are surrounded by music, flowers, candles, magic, fire, balloons, fancy dresses, dim lights, dancing and elaborate dinners,” the researchers observed. “Fireflies, butterflies, sunsets, wind and the beauty and power of nature often provide the setting for-and a link to the naturalness of-hetero-romantic love.”

The hetero-romanticism, Jezebel reasoned, could help teach young viewers that “heterosexuality is normal, and homosexuality is abnormal, unusual and unexpected.” But as any grown-up fan of the Disney canon knows, these heterosexual love stories are often accompanied by an obvious undercurrent of homoeroticism. Disney has written its fair share of gay characters into its animated and live-action history—it just has yet to write them out of the closet.

Read More “Disney’s Closeted Gay Agenda” »

It would be difficult for any advertising campaign to convince me to drink a Bacardi Breezer anywhere—much less in a shopping mall. Unfortunately, Bacardi’s “Get An Ugly Girlfriend” campaign has managed to produce the same feeling of nausea in me, but without the 4 percent alcoholic buzz!

Read More “Bacardi’s Massive Internet Fail” »

Feminism: Oooooooooover it.

In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, Sady of Tiger Beatdown and myself of the Sexist talk of DoubleX, Slate’s new online magazine for women—it’s just like us, except we’re the problem! Also, people who don’t report their own rapes. It is mostly them (and not, saaaay, rapists) who are the problem.

Oh, problems. They create so many pageviews, which, in turn, solve our main problem ($$$). I think it’s about time for Sady and I to CASH IN: What’s the problem with DoubleX, anyway?

SADY: hello! are you ready to speak? or are you too busy KILLING FEMINISM?

AMANDA: i actually just thew up a blog post, which, as you shall see, is what i actually think is “killing” “feminism.” let me start with the Bust quote on DoubleX’s dead feminism obsession, though: “We don’t know about you, but we’re disappointed. (And we also need to figure out the best way to fight off this new undead feminism before it eats our brains.)”

Read More “Sexist Beatdown: DoubleX Is Killing Feminist Blogs Which Are Killing Feminism Edition” »

For that last-minute New Years party trick punch: Megan at Jezebel instructs you how to tie a cherry stem with your tongue (easier blogged than done), and accompanies her tutorial with this vintage David Lynch gem: Aubrey O’Day performing the cherry trick in Twin Peaks.

* Lately, at times, I’ve felt like Jezebel has dipped ever so slightly into safer ladyblog territory, the one largely claimed by magazines featuring Amanda Bynes on the cover. Then came Tracie Egan’s post on how to allay pregnancy symptoms when you’re just going to abort the thing anyway, so fuck-all to fetus-safe medical care (i.e., “Saltines”). And it was amazing and not previously published in Cosmopolitan!

* Hey, weird, someone has collected some of 2008’s top moments in feminism that are actually relevant to the women’s movement. Thanks, “The Frisky”!

* Gawker’s last lady standing signs off after one year of “Internet news-aggregating and the snark-blogging fishbowl,” i.e. the great “Dadaist experiment.”

* Wonkette has unearthed olde-tyme would-be “Junior” Senator from Illinois Roland Burris‘ GRAVE, which he has ALREADY CONSTRUCTED WITH A LIST OF HIS LIFE’S ACCOMPLISHMENTS, plus some space at the end for “unbought Senate appointment” or whatever.

* Ladyblog’s Phoebe Maltz compares abstinence pledges to her own fifth grade school-sponsored anti-smoking pledge. Both are lame!

If we stayed true to our promise (an honor code our witness) we could attend an end-of-the-year school-sponsored pizza party in the spring. . . . The end of the year came, and, although I’d managed against all odds to make it all the way to June inhaling nothing more interesting than polluted NYC air, I refused to go to the pizza party. This was in part because what could be dorkier, and also in part due to an already-present libertarian impulse, albeit one in which the teachers were stand-ins for the State.

Photo via trialsanderrors.

Wee anti-abortion activist Lila Rose, 20, has a fun undercover video project where she pretends to be a 13-year-old girl dating a 31-year-old guy who goes into a Planned Parenthood seeking abortion, set to the tune of a sweet underage abortion jam:

Well I’m a big girl now
Eyyyeeeauuughhhhh

Repeat.

In this video, shot in a Bloomington, Indiana Planned Parenthood, the clinic rep does some not-so-legal stuff to deal with this no-good very-bad situation: she doesn’t report the girl’s age to authorities, even as she acknowledges that it constitutes child abuse and rape; she conspiratorially puts on some after-the-fact earmuffs to pretend she didn’t hear the ages involved; then she directs Rose to go over state lines to Illinois where she can have a real secret abortion without parental consent. Ha, ha, oh, this is all terrible, good thing none of it’s real, right? Right? Watch it, after the jump:

Read More “Planned Parenthood Underage Abortion Video Corner” »

Jezebel has been collecting evidence lately of self-proclaimed “experts” (i.e., random dudes) who claim that women only cut their hair short to avoid sex. Let’s hear it from the dudes:

Dr. Aline Zoldbrod, sex therapist, says, “If you cut your hair you might be making a statement that says, ‘I don’t want to be seen as a sex object.’”

Matt Titus, published author ( . . . of a book titled “Why Hasn’t He Called?”) says, “Men love long hair; the touch and the smell stimulates our senses. . . . The three physical things that attract a man are a great body, beautiful long hair or great lips. So cutting off one third of your beacons of attraction doesn’t increase your chances of having Mr. Right approach you. It’s like sending a nonverbal message that you’re not interested in sex.”

So that’s why he hasn’t called. Short-haired Jezebel Maria respectfully disagrees, and offers up one pro for chopping it off: “One good part of having short hair? It weeds out the slimy creeps,” she writes.

Ha ha, no, unfortunately, there are slimy creeps for every hairstyle. Speaking as a fellow short-haired lady (some characterize it as the “Farrow“; I prefer the term “Napolitano“), shorter hair hasn’t lessened the number of weirdos propositioning me in poorly lit bars. For every Matt Tisus in the world, there is a stranger lurking just outside a short-haired woman’s field of vision, leering at the exposed flesh of her neck.

Also, I once found a boy I was dating searching for “short hair lesbian porn” on his dorm room computer. So, you know, some people are a little too into it.

Photo courtesy U.S. Department of Defense