VW Ads Take Aim, Don’t Care If The Seat Gets Wet
‘for boys who were always men’ - i think that says it all…

actually, a further comment. scroll down a little further and you’ll see a playboy left by the potty. now what exactly is the significance of this? let me see if i can figure it out: if when you were a 3yr old child you found it arousing to look at pictures of naked woman WHILE peeing standing up, a VW car is perfect for you!!!

okay, i can take that. the WHY part is where it breaks down a little for me… maybe the new Golf GTi has controls that can be figured out only by wildly advanced puberty-onset heterosexual boys? perhaps there is some kind of waiting list that requires at least 19 years of playboy history knowledge to move up on? there’s an insurance issue where producing an infathomable amount of pee as a small child is highly correlated with safe driving?

i guess i’ll leave this one to the market forces.

Are American Newlyweds Blending Their Last Names?
tracking the “trend”

The name question jumps at me - there are a number of phases of my life where I’ve had mutually exclusive opinions on this issue. I remember being young and wanting to marry someone with a simple last name. In retrospect, it seems like this would have been a deal-breaker for me at the time. Now it doesn’t make any sense to me to take another name, both practically and politically. On the other hand, I am scared that my parents will feel that this decision reflects my disapproval of their own, and that saddens me. What really scares me is this thought: for a long time, I thought things would be perfect if my partner took my last name. Then I realized that the world would just assume that I had taken his if our names were the same. I don’t want that. It makes me wonder if and when my thoughts on this will develop past representation.

Is it Racism, Or Am I Just Paranoid?
what i feel too often.

There are just those days when I wonder - am I even oppressed? A good friend mentioned the Oppression Olympics the other day - the ongoing tensions between communities of color and the underlying dialogue of ‘who’s more oppressed?’. I feel today - as I sit here reciting litanies of racist and sexist incidents that have happened to me - that I’m in the regional qualifying championships, crossing my fingers and hoping my stylistic achievements will compensate for my underwhelming routine. All so I can compete for my team (and who the heck is that?) against others who have been through these grueling years of practice, practice, practice. It shouldn’t have to be like that.

Hair
my most favorite entry on my most favorite blog

I am a 2nd generation South Asian American woman. I cut my hair almost exactly 10 months ago today. I cut it from waist length to pixie cut. Even today I am ashamed that I use my hair to speak for my politics in places where I don’t have the strength to speak. And a little tiny part of me is proudashamedliberatedchained about the assumptions that I think other South Asian American women of my generation make about me.

Hijab Scene #7
a poem you ought to read

More Small Women’s Colleges Opening Doors to Men
a ‘need’, but ‘no market’, for women’s colleges

The Emergency Contraception Website
a comprehensive list of stores to get EC - remember you don’t need a pharmacist anymore now that it’s OTC

Institutions Hinder Female Academics, Panel Says
did we really need to defensively remark that the paper is legit because EVEN THOUGH it was written by a 17-woman, 1-man panel, it was reviewed by ten manly men??

Friday Patriarchy Check
a little window from Google to the world

The Secret Love Lives of Teenage Boys
teenage boys and their hidden emotions