July 2011
29 posts
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“You have to wonder if President Obama at some level doesn’t want to lead. Maybe...”
– Maureen Dowd: Tempest in a Tea Party. (NYT)
The great irony. It takes a big ego (yearning for love? reassurance?) to pursue power and influence, yet get enough of it, and there is little so certain as to eventually deflate it.
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The best of the rest of the internet
If you read one thing this weekend, make it Anna Sussman’s essay on the perverse platform eating disorders provide for female bonding. Me, Too! Me, Too! All the girls in NYC once had Body Dysmorphic Disorder:
As warm and fuzzy as it feels to know I’m not alone in being tortured by irrational, unhealthy standards of beauty, I find it highly troubling that body-dysmorphic disorder and its more...
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Scarlett Harris has some smart things to say about... →
Serving as a nice reminder that good readers can bring as much to your work as you brought to the original piece.
A regular occurance in the blogosphere, I know, but somewhat less common in traditional journalism, which tends … not to have so much great dialogue around it. Or great dialogue that I actually get to hear about, at any rate!
Writes Scarlett:
Hills quotes Housos, Pizza and...
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Ask Rachel: On eating disorders and feminism(s)....
Gemma asks: [I]t would be really interesting to hear your personal insight on suffering from an eating disorder in your early 20s. I understand the topic must be hard, and I also sense from your writing that you might not entirely be sure how your experience fits into everything else you write about… but I would love to read more about it.
That’s the funny thing about life,...
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“When I was a student at Cambridge I remember an anthropology professor holding...”
– - Sandi Toksvig
(via clementineford)
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The best of the rest of the internet
If you read one thing this weekend, make it climate activist Anna Rose’s essay on Twitter, Q&A and sexist smear campaigns:
And then, we received a text message from a friend. “Have you seen Twitter?” it said. Immediately, I looked online. It turns out someone had been watching us at the restaurant. Whether it was someone who had just happened upon us by chance, or someone who’d...
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“Youngest siblings encompass a space greater than their own. Their knowledge of...”
– BRITTICISMS: On Siblings:
I’m an eldest, so can’t speak from experience, but I like this. It rings true to me of the siblings I know, especially the close ones. (Teenage cousins, I’m looking at you.)
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Ask Rachel: When should I stop writing for free?
Anonymous writes: I write for several publications, and have editorial responsibilities at a couple of these. I understand it’s the nature of the industry and that it’s important to have this experience, but I’m starting to wonder if too many publications capitalise on the fact that young writers need experience and are willing to undersell themselves as a result.
How do you...
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“The fraudulence paradox was that the more time and effort you put into trying to...”
– David Foster Wallace (via whiporwill)
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You are not your sex drive: the problem with Jong.
I’m a bit late responding to Erica Jong’s rather controversial opinion piece in the New York Times the weekend before last. If you haven’t already read it, Jong basically argues that the younger generation (by which she mostly means women in their thirties) have “given up” on sex, trading in its complexities for the simple pleasures of marriage (simple?...
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Encounters with the British bureaucracy
Woman at post office: What is in this package? Rachel: A book. WAPO: Just a book? Rachel: Yep. Oh, and a birthday card. WAPO: Okay, we’re going to have to charge you more then. That’ll be £12.50. Rachel: Are you serious? WAPO: If there’s a card in there we classify it as a letter rather than a parcel. Rachel: But surely if anyone is sending a present, they’re going to...
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The best of the rest of the internet
I am currently on a jetplane (for a cool, forthcoming story for The Monthly), so Best of the Rest has come early this week.
Lots to read this week: on DSK, beauty politics and climate change, alongside the usual feminism, race, class and popular culture.
Sociological Images on the mental burden of a lower class background. (Sociological Images)
“Normal” sizes, fashion school and...
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WatchMy friend Elena is running a campaign on Kickstarter to help fund her film The Illusionists, a feature-length documentary about the commodification of the body and the marketing of unattainable beauty around the world.
In the style of Inside Job, Food Inc. and The Corporation, The Illusionists takes the pursuit of the body beautiful - a subject often framed in personal terms - and puts it in...
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Guest post: Fake Goods: An Australian born Chinese...
This is a guest post by Monica Tan, one of my all-time favourite people, favourite writers and one of my soon-to-be bridespeople. I hope you enjoy it as much as I - and my writing hero James Fallows - did.
The Chinese taxi driver had a big incredulous smile plastered over his face. “Where are you from?!” he asked, hardly containing his laughter. To any ordinary foreigner this is an ordinary...
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“Try this the next time you meet a little girl. She may be surprised and unsure...”
– Lisa Bloom in the Huffington Post.
Take a look at the article, which models a great example of meeting a little girl, here.
(via petitefeministe)
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Tiger Beatdown: Systems that force us to lie →
More on the Dominique Strauss-Kahn saga from redlightpolitics:
This goes much further than pointing at the collective and trying to wash away the impact of the current development by claiming that “we all lie”. The core of the problem here is slightly different: some people’s survival, their very own sustainability sometimes depend on a lie. We judge these lies based on parameters that never...
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“When you’re setting out on your career, do not think about carving out...”
– Polly Vernon quotes Sian Westerman in ‘Where Have All The Bright Women Gone?’, UK Grazia.
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The best of the rest of the internet
This week’s best reads on feminism, politics, class and popular culture - chopped up, roasted and served to you on a platter.
Jack Kerouac’s 1952 pencil drawn concept idea for the cover of On The Road. (Ned Hepburn)
Molly Lambert’s essay on Blake Lively is a work of art. (Grant Magazine)
“In period dramas like Downton Abbey and Gosford Park, it’s the servants, not the...
