By Gaby Dunn for Thought Catalog as a response to THIS.

1. Don’t expect women to dress for your boner. I do not get up in the morning hoping you’ll see my new pants and pop wood.
2. Stop approaching women who are alone on the street. Stop hollering at women “from the passenger side of your best friend’s ride,” as TLC would say. When has this ever turned out well for you?
3. I will send naked pictures to whoever I goddamn please. Or I won’t. That’s my choice. You as a man receiving those pictures should probably not forward them around if they are sent to you — like you are a, you know, decent human being with feelings and compassion and common sense.
4. If you don’t want women to think all men are dicks because of a few knuckleheads, maybe let your friends know they shouldn’t be assholes to women. If you see something (a friend speaking derogatorily about women, etc.), say something. (“Hey, man. Come on. That’s not cool.”)
5. Don’t pretend you’re a guy in a beer or yogurt commercial. You’re not stupid, incapable of emotion and communication or genetically predisposed to be neglectful. Contrary to movies and TV, men are usually well-rounded, functional people!
6. Don’t expect your significant other to feel loved because you’re not going out with the boys on her account. She will not be waiting for you. She will hopefully be busy with her own friends, hobbies and interests outside of you. If you want her to know you really love her, might I suggest saying, “Hey babe. I love you.”
7. Don’t be an asshole to female sports fans. They already feel marginalized and all they want is to sit back, maybe have a beer and watch their favorite teams just like you do. Just because they are female, doesn’t mean they can’t speak intelligently about players or stats. Don’t belittle them. They are already out of their element, sadly.
8. It’s okay not to like sports or video games. It’s okay not to like action movies. It’s also okay to like those things. Turns out none of that stuff has a gender! I know. It’s crazy.
9. We get it, you like cars (and football in several cases). Or not. Maybe you like baking and 90s hip hop. Maybe you like New Pornographers and Converse sneakers. Maybe you like gardening and politics. Maybe you’re a whole person and not a gender stereotype.
10. Treat people as individuals with minds and hearts, and not just like a body to pick apart for things like stretch marks and nipple hair. Every girl in the world, even your mom, has one boob bigger than the other. This is normal.
11. Do not expect that a woman’s actions are always in some deranged effort to “snag a man.” It’s best to not be willfully ignorant and assume women don’t ever do anything that isn’t about men.
12. Try your very hardest to never rape anyone. If you see a girl wearing a short skirt, don’t rape her. If you see a girl walking alone, don’t rape her. If you see a girl at a club put her drink down and turn away from it, don’t rape her.
13. If you base your expectations of women on Marisa Miller, just stop. Or find someone like Marisa Miller. No judgement here.
14. Remember that you are a fully-formed human being with interests and experiences and not a cardboard cut-out doll from the back of GQ Magazine.
15. Take as many photos while out with your friends as you want! Upload them all to Instagram and filter them to make them pretty. You’ll smile scrolling through them one day.
16. Remember that any body type can be attractive. Some women are just naturally thin. It’s actually faux-feminist to say that only curvy women are “real” or “healthy.”
17. Don’t neglect your girlfriend when she needs you. You’re her support and her other half. If she, similarly, is being emotionally distant and is not being supportive of you, either talk to her about it or don’t stick around. You deserve someone who cares and gives you the attention you need (regardless of gender)!
18. STOP pitting women against each other. Stop comparing two women solely because they’re both women. It’ll be a lot easier for female friendships to form and then everyone will be happier!
19. That Die Hard movie you’re about to watch? Yeah, Bruce Willis is going to fight some people, stop a bad guy from destroying the world and probably walk away from some explosions like a tough bad-ass. Look, now I just saved you four movies and the new one, A Good Day To Die Hard, coming out next year. Oh? That’s not why you enjoy watching a movie and I should probably just let you watch what you want like an adult? Okay.

(Source: thegirlwiththedietcoke)

“I didn’t take the article as Judd “defending her face” like the headline suggests. I took it as a heart-fluttery victory that a mainstream actress in a mainstream publication spoke intelligently about the patriarchy and about feminism. Sometimes I forget, because I spend so much time on the Internet and because I frequent feminist blogs and corners of the web where these phrases and thoughts are widely-accepted, that feminism and problems within the patriarchy aren’t commonly discussed, and that there is still a massive majority who are either willfully or sadly ignorant.

Some blogs have called Judd’s article “a conversation starter” for those who might not have had a way to articulate their frustrations before and for people who don’t spend time in the online feminist world. And from the way the article has gone viral, it’s a conversation that needed starting.”

— Ashley Judd Takes On The Patriarchy by Gaby Dunn via Thought Catalog

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Major In Women’s Studies

and

5 Reasons You Should Major In Women’s Studies

What do you guys think?

Part of me thinks it’s too soon to be writing about this because I don’t think I’ve completely processed how I feel, but I also think maybe this has happened to other women and I should talk about it in as raw a way as possible. I’m still really embarrassed and ashamed and garbled up inside, but maybe this can start a helpful discussion in terms of women and comedy.

Last night, I was on a stand up show in the East Village. The show started out with a small crowd and the host did an amazing job interacting with them and riling them up. By the time I got on stage, there were about 20 or so more people in the audience and the place had really filled up. The show was still kind of loose because of the back and forth between the host and the audience, so when I got on stage, I riffed a bit about the stuff that had happened before and then talked to one guy on the side of the audience who the host had dubbed “Banana Republic.” All joke-y. All in good fun.

Then, I start my actual set and do my first two jokes, which go pretty okay. I start another joke that is vaguely sexual - not crude, not crass - mainly silly and that goes well too. The next joke I do is about my boyfriend.

At a comedy show, when you’re on stage, usually you can’t see the audience because of the bright lights. So I’m looking into pitch darkness. As I start the joke, someone yells, “Does your boyfriend know?” referring to the sexuality joke I’d just told. I stop, laugh and say that he does because I think it’s just more of the loose environment that’s been going on at this show. I attribute it to an audience member just having fun.

I start to tell the joke about my boyfriend again, and at the midway point, the same voice yells something else derogatory about my boyfriend, homophobic and misogynistic towards me. I stop, confused. I can’t see who is talking to me so I make a HUGE mistake and say, “Sir, if you’re gonna talk to me, you need to come to the front because I can’t see you.” I think calling him out like this will shut him up.

Consider a world in which the glass ceiling shelters your rabbi’s tisch, and boys clubs are divinely sanctioned in the form of chavrusa, mezuman, and minyan.

Enter Shana Strauch Schick, who later this month will become the first woman to earn a doctorate in Talmud from Yeshiva University, the country’s preeminent Orthodox academic institution. The same voices that champion Schick as a trailblazer question the validity of her accomplishment. From Rabbi Eliezer’s stance against the female study of Gemara to Ovadia Yosef’s multitudinous misogynistic prohibitions, women have long struggled for freedom of education.

An amazing piece on TribeVibe. How has it taken so long for a woman to earn a doctorate at Yeshiva University? Kudos, Ms. Schick.

100interviews:

Eight lines.

That’s how much space the officer at the scene had to take Maria DiBari’s testimony and to describe the injuries that left her temporarily paralyzed.

Eight lines on a police report that Maria would later have to beg to have reversed.

In 2007, Maria was brutally assaulted. Her spinal cord was compressed. There is a metal plate and at least nine screws in her right leg.

Her attacker was her husband.

Maria, a middle-class, educated chemist living in the New York suburbs, found herself someone she’d never thought she’d be: a victim of domestic violence.

Read More

Please read this and know that you can always get help. If you’re in an abusive situation, the time is now.

100interviews:

Roe V. World: Talking To An Abortion Clinic Protester

Jezebel ran an adaptation of one of the earlier 100 Interviews pieces! Very nice surprise!

If you’re just joining us from Jezebel, welcome. You can find Sarina’s original interview here.

Jezebel published something I wrote!

100interviews:

“A man in the back speaks up. ‘We have an informant that has said that you told this woman to come here today, so that you could do an abortion on her.’

‘No, that’s incorrect, ‘[I say,] ‘…She had never had a pregnancy test, or an ultrasound scan. …Because we do not have access to the ultrasound on the weekend, I told her to come back today. …She is pregnant, and the pregnancy is 16 weeks, but because she speaks [another language], I could not tell her. So I brought her to someone in our clinic who speaks [it], and he said he would tell her. I left her there with the ultrasound report, waiting for him. That was the last I saw her.’

The [hospital administrator] spoke up, looking relieved. ‘Now, you see, Doctor has explained. She did an ultrasound. Now we are settled, and we can finish this discussion.’

Everyone speaks at once, but the man in the polo shirt was loudest. ‘No, we cannot finish because she has not shown remorse!’” – ‘No Remorse,’ 5/5/2011

This is an excerpt from the blog of a passionate, young obstetrician named Alice. The blog chronicles the year she spent working at a hospital in an African country where abortion is illegal. She has asked me not to name the exact country and to give her an alias for this interview. She chose “Alice.”

Alice attended medical school and did her residency in New York City, but didn’t have a clear direction until she did three days with each specialty. When she got to “labor and childbirth,” she was so struck that a superior took one look at her beaming face and asked, “You’re going to be an obstetrician, aren’t you?”

Read More

“They’re scared of a woman having power.”