On (Rest of the) Net.

Rachel Hills’ TEDx Talk on the sex myth, the topic of her upcoming book of the same name. [YouTube]

Defending The Onion‘s Chris-Brown-”I-Always-Thought-Rihanna-Was-the-Woman-I’d-Beat-to-Death” joke. [The Frisky]

Stop calling Amanda Bynes crazy. [TheVine]

What did Tony Abbott mean when he said “women of calibre” should be encouraged to have children and should feminists be speaking out in favour of the Coalition’s superior paid parental leave scheme? [Daily Life]

“Panels Full of Women”: on fetishising female news voices. [News Junkee]

Debunking the prevalence of sex-selective abortions in Australia. [Daily Life]

“See a Woman Reading? Leave Her Alone.” The perils of reading and subsequent street harassment. [Gender Focus]

The Great Gatsby doesn’t do the “newly liberated” flapper justice. [Collectors Weekly]

Manic pixie dream guy? [Nerve]

The sexism of Star‘s Most Annoying Celebrities list. [The Times Magazine]

Denmark’s latest televisual offering: women stripping naked in front of a panel of two men who critique their bodies. Obviously, this is a crazy and sexist idea for a TV show, but is it any crazier or more sexist than, say, Snog Marry Avoid? Both have an underlying message that women aren’t good enough, with one referring to the naked body whilst the other takes aim at how and with what a woman cloaks herself. Your thoughts? [Bust]

On the (Rest of the) Net.

Saying “I’m not like other girls” just buys into the myth that all women have a defined set of attributes and that those who aren’t “feminine”, “girly”, “bitchy” and don’t have many female friends (just to list some of the tropes associated with “other girls”) are somehow better than other women. I’ve been guilty of uttering those words before, but that was before I came to the above understanding. I believe I’m different from other girls, just as I’m different from other humans. We all have different character traits, values and interests; it’s just that some we can relate to more and are closer to the surface than others. [RH Reality Check]

In defence of sex work. [Daily Life]

Further to that, Mia Freedman clarifies her position on sex workers voiced on Q&A last month. [MamaMia]

“Why Would Anyone Have a Late-Term Abortion?” [New Matilda] 

Ahead of its publication in new (and, might I add, awesome!) zine, Filmme Fatales, editor Brodie Lancaster writes in opposition to the Gwyneth Paltrow haters. [TheVine] 

More Gwyneth: she was my thinspo. Beauty and putting women on pedestals. [Mirror, Mirror OFF the Wall]

On the merits and drawbacks of “Hashtag Feminism”, “destroying the joint”, the news sources “to whom [we] choose to listen” and the “personalised newspaper” that is social media, through which we “see only views [we] agree with”. [The Monthly]

Jennifer Aniston, ourselves. [Thought Catalog]

Is Amanda Bynes that different from us? [Clam Bistro]

Are we too old to “get” Girls?  [One Good Thing] 

Why talking about sexism in pop culture is important. [The Age]

How can disabled women “Destroy the Joint” when they can’t even access it? Stella Young on feminism and disability. [ABC Ramp Up] 

Image via RH Reality Check.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

To pay tribute to the emergency and service personnel who helped in Hurricane Sandy, Vogue does a fashion spread inspired by the superstorm. Naturally. [Daily Life]

Apparently young Australians just aren’t into protesting the injustices we face today. Um, hello? Reclaim the Night, the Occupy movement, SlutWalk, the Arab Spring… all activist events started by Gen Y on social media which encouraged Time magazine to name the Protestor as its 2011 Person of the Year. Writer Alecia Simmonds does make a fair point that Aussies are particularly apathetic towards causes, but her assertion that online petitioning, blogging and social media doesn’t compare to on-the-ground activism kind of undercuts fellow Daily Life columnist Kasey Edwards’ argument last week that “Big social changes don’t just happen… Social and cultural change evolves out of a meandering path of small victories. Seeds need to be planted and ground needs to be fertilised.”

The latest trend in labiaplasty: the Barbie, in which the entire labia minora is cut out. [Jezebel]

And, in an attempt to counteract the alarming trend of wanting your vulva to look like a plastic doll’s, check out this (NSFW) Tumblr, Show Your Vagina.

What is it about our twenties that make us who we are? [Slate]

Miss America and race. [NYTimes]

Is freedom of speech overrated? Personally, I think so, as it allows those with abhorrently narrow-minded views to spill hate speech. This article makes the observation that free speech only seems to be defended when people like Alan Jones and Andrew Bolt put their foot in their mouth. [Daily Life]

Lena Dunham thinks that perhaps Rihanna should have been the one to sing “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” to Chris Brown. [TheVine]

American Horror Story: feminist or anti-feminist? [Jezebel]

Jane Roe—of Roe v. Wade fame, which had its 40th anniversary this week—ain’t what she used to be: now she’s an anti-choicer. [Vanity Fair]

Glee‘s Puck is a rapist, allegedly. [TheVine]

Nine of the ugliest feminists. [Return of Kings]

Breast feeding-shaming. [Daily Life]

A photojournalist documents an abusive relationship. Should she have stood by and photographed an incident of domestic violence or does her work portray an important aspect of lower socio-economic partnerships “unflinchingly”? [Fotovisura, Kiwiana (Inked)]

Image via Daily Life.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

Yikes! Sesame Street gets the slutty Halloween costume treatment. [io9]

“Porn in China.” [Daily Life]

Mitt Romney’s history of flip-flopping on abortion. [Jezebel]

Plus-sized women may be getting more roles on TV and in movies and are topping the charts, but the emphasis is still on their weight rather than their talents. [Wall Street Journal]

Erin Handley interviews Clementine Ford on her feminism:

“A lot of people will only tolerate feminism if it doesn’t affect their lives in any way, at all. They will tolerate women’s quest for equality as long as it has no impact on them or their lives. And that is obviously not equality.” [Right Now]

Two Aussie feminists on why Tony Abbott can be one if he labels himself so, and why his anti-choice sentiments prove he most definitely isn’t. I tend to lean towards Monica Dux’s latter assertion: just because you say you are, doesn’t necessarily mean you are. You have to have the values to back it up, and Abbott’s coming out via his wife as a feminist is all about politics. Sarah Palin, anyone? [Crikey, ABC Unleashed]

Kate Waterhouse defends her “full-figured” question to Christina Hendricks. [The Age]

It’s unrealistic for ugly guys to get hot chicks and for hot chicks to have low self-esteem. Please. I know plenty of conventionally attractive women who have self-worth issues because self-esteem doesn’t just hinge on the way you look. Revolutionary, I know! I also know plenty of ordinary-looking guys who are a hit with the ladies. This is because personality trumps ease on the eye. And liking yourself trumps the way you look. [Daily Life]

Further to that (in fact, this article was quoted in the one above), why do conventionally attractive comediennes, like Tina Fey, play the ugly card? [New Inquiry]

Everyone should just get over nudity. After all, everyone has a naked body. [Jezebel]

It’s time to remove the stigma from STIs. [MamaMia]

Image via io9.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

I’m not sure if it is an image of Rihanna’s post-domestic violence face, but here’s what Chris Brown’s neck tattoo says about intimate partner violence and sexual assault. [Pandagon]

The latest in a long line of unfavourable reviews of Naomi Wolf’s new “biography” – Vagina – Germaine Greer had her take on it published in The Age last weekend. I’m going to read Vagina: A New Biography regardless, but the high hopes I had for it have been dashed. [SMH]

In the lead up to the Presidential election, it’d do all Americans good to realise that reproductive health is an economic issue. [Jezebel]

The visceral fear this writer manages to evoke when she reveals her experience of being harassed on public transport is palpable. Hands up who’s ever experienced something similar whilst deigning to be female in public. [unWinona, via Jezebel]

The politics of Anna Wintour. [Daily Beast]

The gender imbalance in the opinion pages. [Daily Life]

Five police-sanctioned reasons why women “deserve” to be raped. Well, I’m guilty of all these things so apparently I “deserve” to be sexually assaulted, too! [Daily Life]

How to talk to kids about gay parents. [The Good Men Project]

This is why religious people shouldn’t work in medicine: one woman’s experience of being refused the morning after pill. [MamaMia]

Why is atheism so excluding of women? [Slate]

Image via Always A-List.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

A diva is a female version of a gymnast, apparently. [Jezebel]

Is a man opening a door for a woman a sexist act? [MamaMia]

Gah! A young, attractive woman and her fanatical pro-life agenda. [Jezebel]

How to be an Olympic White Female. [Jezebel, via Feministing]

Do the Olympics offer an alternative to the female body we see regularly in the media, or is it just another opportunity to body-snark? [Time]

Rejoice! Jennifer Aniston isn’t a pathetic single woman anymore! [The Guardian]

Ricki-Lee is the latest “B-grade artist” to fetishise mental illness. [The Punch]

Stella Young writes about Peter Singers’ views on the killing—not aborting—of disabled babies—not foetuses. While he does raise some interesting points, I’ve written before that this kind of thinking trivialises abortion and the access to it we should have in this day and age. If a woman finds out she’s pregnant with a disabled foetus, she should have the support and means necessary to terminate if she feels that’s what she wants to do. I don’t think Singer would have these views if more women had access to safe, legal and unstigmatised abortion. Furthermore, I don’t think he’d have them if the lives of the disabled were valued more by society and they had more support. To say that parents have the right to kill their own disabled children after a set amount of time of attempting to care for them is to trivialise life itself: I’m all for a humane death over a painful life, but Young raises the point that babies don’t have the autonomy to make that choice. [ABC Ramp Up]

What the Spice Girls’ Olympic reunion means for girl power. [The Vine]

Image via The Daily.

TV: Private Practice — The Organ Donation of a “Brainless” Baby is Murder?

Technically, yes.

A baby who doesn’t have a frontal lobe—like Amelia’s baby—will have no semblance of a life, but because it has a working brainstem, it can’t officially be declared brain-dead in order to harvest its organs. While technically the organ donation of a baby without a frontal lobe is murder, for Sam and Charlotte to be so outraged about “killing a baby” to save the lives of several other babies is lacking in compassion.

This is juxtaposed with Pete’s display of utter empathy for a patient of his whom he assisted in suicide and received a murder charge for his trouble. The shades between right and wrong might be slightly grey in these two scenarios, but when death is a better option than a life not worth living, organ donation (a procedure which I registered for this year) and euthanasia, respectively, couldn’t be more right.

I really like the way Private Practice continues to show the abovementioned light and shade in the medical issues they tackle: reproductive rights, sexuality and assault, death. But I still stand by the notion that you can’t be a doctor and not understand when life begins and that after it has, that it’s not always worth it.

Related: My Week in Pictures 1st March 2012.

Private Practice: Pro-Choice?

Private Practice: “Rape is Rape”.

Top 11 TV Moments of 2011.

Grey’s Anatomy Final Asks “When Does Life Begin?”

Image source unknown.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

WTF?! James Holmes—aka the Batman killer—is hot?! [Jezebel]

How to avoid jail as a pregnant woman. Or really, a woman who could potentially be pregnant at some stage in the future. [HuffPo]

Paul Murray is glad Nick D’Arcy didn’t qualify for the Olympic finals, and I am too. After getting a slap on the wrist for those gun photos—not to mention the infamous assault—he shouldn’t have even been in London. [MamaMia]

Charlie Sheen’s corporate appeal. [Daily Beast]

Was Katie Holmes the innocent bystander in Tom Cruise’s Scientological quest for world domination, as the media makes her out to be, or is there more to her and the divorce?

“I’m convinced that she’s the most fame-hungry person the world has ever seen.” [Vulture]

The psychology of rapists. [Jezebel] 

“Millennial expert” and “voice of a generation” Chelsea Krost isn’t a feminist because she “doesn’t think boys suck” but she can relate to the people whose “feet are in their own feces in Africa”. Nice. [NY Observer]

In the wake of the Herald Sun calling Leisel Jones fat, it seems as a female Olympian you also have to have perfect hair and not be too muscly so as you begin to resemble a man. [MamaMia, Jezebel, ThinkProgress]

Image via Jezebel.

On the (Rest of the) Net.

Check out this fascinating look as to where your unwanted charity clothes actually go. [Slate]

Sloane Crosley on her guest spot on Gossip Girl, playing herself:

“Nuance aside, whether you’re playing yourself or a wink-wink persona, the law of cameo syllogism goes as follows: if you spend a certain amount of time playing yourself, you are no longer yourself but playing a version of yourself—a stereotype of you. Add a bonus layer if you are playing a stereotype of you in a fictional scene in which all the fictional characters are outraged by the possibility that the fictional (or fictional fictional) characters in a fictional book published by a real publishing house might be based on the actual real fictional selves they’re playing.” [The Believer Magazine, via Musings of an Inappropriate Woman]

Lara Croft, version 2.0: rape victim? [MamaMia]

“The Tyranny of ‘She’s Just Jealous’.” But sometimes, she just is. [Jezebel]

With all the hullabaloo surrounding vaginas in the U.S. Senate at the moment, here are 25 Republican-sanctioned alternatives to the anatomically correct name for your lady garden. [Jezebel]

On the (Rest of the) Net.

Checkmate, Pro-Choicers, the latest in anti-abortion internet trolling. Good for a hate-read, not so good for logic. Ahh, pro-lifers, you odd little things.

How your birth control pill is contributing to water pollution and why you should pay for it. [Jezebel]

On plus-sized men, nude photos and male body image. [Jezebel]

The makeover as a patriarchal tool of oppression. [New Inquiry]

Stella Young on Daily Life’s feminist faux-pas embarrassing-crush countdown. [ABC Ramp Up]

Cutting off your misogynistic nose to spite your racist face: Clementine Ford discusses the two issues as they relate to the AFL. [Daily Life]

“Should Parents Be Allowed to Kill People Who Sexually Molest Their Kids?” Um, sure! While we’re at it, let’s kill that guy who cut us off at the intersection, and that woman who pushed in front of us in the lunch line. The article goes:

“Molesting any child is reprehensible, but taking advantage of a 4-year-old who has no awareness of what’s going on and no ability to fight back seems particularly deranged.”

I don’t disagree, but murder is a bit rich. Read the issue discussed further at Jezebel. [TIME]

Hey Christian Girl, for all your Ryan Gosling and associated conventionally-attractive-to-straight-women meme needs, with a religious edge.

What’s the male equivalent to Vagisil? Dick Douche? Dick Dip? Bacon flavoured Penisil? [psiakisterri, via MamaMia]

James Franco’s overly wordy take on Snow White & the Huntsman. [HuffPo]

Check out this mansplanation of what feminism’s really about. [Feminaust]