Christopher Hitchens, rare funny arguer of the unfunny female

Bored magazine columnists have debated for years as to why women are, or are not, funny.  Inspired by Tiger Beatdown’s post yesterday on another drop in the unfunny girl barrel—a study that found that women do not immediately react to the sight of a unicycle with humor (I fucking wonder why)—I believe it’s time to rephrase the question.

Why are those who argue that women are not funny so unfunny?

Read More “Why Are People Who Argue Women Aren’t Funny Not Funny?” »

Breaking girly news from the Financial Times: FT reports that the “Lipstick Index” has been replaced by the “Foundation Index,” signaling a shift in female consumers’ recession-era makeup of choice.

The “Lipstick Index” was coined by Estee Lauder leader Leonard Lauder in 2001 “to highlight the correlation between economic downturns and upticks in lipstick sales.” Now, another cosmetics company—L’Oréal—is claiming that it’s foundation sales that are skyrocketing as lipstick—and everything else—bottoms out.

Here’s a question: Why are the guys behind fucking Estee Lauder and L’Oréal the ones that financial news outlets are turning to to objectively report on the recession’s impact on female consumers?

Read More “Foundation Index Replaces Lipstick Index As Bullshit Economic Indicator” »

The Times UK has published an excerpt from journalistic power-spawn Quinn Bradlee’s new book, A Different Life. The book is about how Bradlee—son to Sally Quinn and Ben Bradlee—struggled with disability growing up, and also lost his virginity to a prostitute for $35 while on vacation in the Carribean with his parents.

The weird part about this whole thing isn’t that the brothel was called “Heaven’s Gate”; or that he was mysteriously driven there by a taxi driver named “Silky”; or that Bradlee didn’t even figure out what he was paying for until “she started to take off her clothes”; or that he was “glad it happened”; or that he immediately told his mother; or that his mother then dragged him back to the brothel to pick up his prostitute and test her for HIV because Sally Quinn “worries way too much, if you ask me.”

Read More “Quinn Bradlee Loses Virginity to Prostitute, Doesn’t Understand Women” »

Hot, “inner hot” elderly women encouraged to emerge from D.C. woodwork

Attention local cougars and MILFs: The search for “Ms. Senior D.C. 2009″ has begun.

If you are “a woman 60 years of age or older” who “lives in the District of Columbia,” “inspires others with her enthusiasm,” “is poised, charming and articulate,” has a “positive philosophy of life” that “reflects her inner beauty,” and “is an active, vital member of her community” who is “blessed with a special talent” which “defies the myths of aging”—and who isn’t?—you could get a sash, or something.

To get yourself in the running, contact Ms. Senior D.C. Planning Committee Chairperson Gwen Coleman at (202) 289-1510, ext. 1170/1171.

Photo by DerrickT

No, not that kind of women’s group.

According to Chris Cilliza’s The Fix, “President Obama will sign an executive order tomorrow [that's today now, readers] to establish a White House Council on Women and Girls.” Cilliza’s intel may be good, but his analysis of the move leaves something to be desired.

Writes Cilliza: “Obama has both personal—his wife and two daughters—and political reasons to make this sort of high profile move to ensure that women’s needs are being addressed by his administration.”

Well, allow me to retort.

Read More “White House “Women’s Council” In the Works” »

March is Women’s History Month, which I plan to celebrate by ceremoniously deleting the press release the U.S. Census sends out listing boring statistics pertaining to ladies. Welp, here we goooo . . . hey, wait! Something actually interesting!

Read More “Women Earning As Much As Men: Only In Washington!” »

Over the holiday, my family and I watched four-hour rock doc opus/slog “Runnin’ Down A Dream,” the story of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers. I’m a default Petty fan—it happens a few years into listening to “Full Moon Fever” on every family road trip since 1989.

Tom Petty’s got a lot of songs about women. Pretty much all the songs—the ones that aren’t about smoking weed, road trips, rock, or vague generalities—are about girls. So, what women inspired Petty? Runnin’ Down a Dream—while completely awesome—doesn’t offer many clues. These are the only mentions I could find of women in Petty’s life:

- Vague reference to heading out on the road with the band “a couple days” after getting married to a woman, whereupon:

- she is never mentioned again, even when Tom Petty’s house burns down and it’s revealed he has two daughters with her, whereupon:

- Petty delivers a heartfelt testimonial about how much he loved his dear mother, who died too early in his life, whereupon:

- Stevie Nicks keeps asking Petty to let her join the Heartbreakers but he won’t because “there are no girls in the Heartbreakers,” whereupon: Read More “Tom Petty: Heartbreaker” »

The blogger over at Teaching Artist knows it’s tough. It’s all about ladies. It costs ten bucks. It took Teaching Artist a year and a half to make a visit. Still, TA says just suck it up and go to the National Museum of Women in the Arts:

I’m aware that there may be some apprehension among you out there that you’ll buy a (relatively cheap) ticket only to find the museum is a case of gender politics going too far. Maybe you don’t have art in a museum and you’re bitterly delusional about reverse discrimination. I don’t know. In the least you’ve probably seen art exhibitions that fall short because they assemble a bunch of very different art works on the single unifying principle that they were all made by artists who have similar, non-phallic, genitalia.

It took me five years in D.C. to get over there. Yesterday, I finally did. I’ll have a review of one of the NMWA’s current shows, “Role Models: Feminine Identity in Contemporary American Photography,” in next week’s paper.

Photo: Nikki S. Lee, “The Ohio Project,” 1999

Slate’s year-old female blog, the wonderful XX Factor, will come of age this spring when it blossoms into a beautiful full-fledged Web ‘zine. The project shall be known henceforth as Double X, and those who want to offer up ideas, writers, or a managing editor can make their case at doublex.slate@gmail.com. A full description of Slate’s “post-election adventure,” after the jump.

Read More “Female Blogs March Boldly Toward Web Domination” »

Slightly. The Feminist Majority Foundation is reporting that the new Congress will be 2% more female than the last. In January, Congress will see 92 women: 75 women in the House (three of which are non-voting members), and 17 women in the Senate.

The foundation also breaks down the new female house members’ positions on abortion, after the jump.
Read More “Women Gain in Congress” »